Considering the location of the item that Pelagor told Lex about, he had to change his plan somewhat. He had to settle for grabbing nearby resources instead of the most optimal ones, and the route had to be adjusted to acmodate the search for nearby Dao materials.
Pelagor was already proving to be useful for he was intimately familiar with the terrain of the Hollow, he helped Lex plan a route that avoided obstacles that would consume more time.
He had a few more tips he offered which could help them save time, but they weren’t really applicable to Lex since he would be devouring all nearby resources while they traveled, making it impossible to hide or avoid attention.
With nothing else holding them back, Lex and Pelagor departed immediately. Lex was highly motivated to get whatever that material was that could convert Dao radiation into Primordial aura, and Pelagor was looking forward to getting Lex’s help. To prove his worth, Pelagor volunteered to act as Lex’s mount for the journey, assuring him that he would not slow things down.
Normally, it was not easy to make high level beasts into mounts. The easiest way was if the rider’s cultivation was far greater than the mount itself. In that situation, it would not affect the beast’s ego or pride. Pelagor’s situation, however, was pletely different.
His focus was solely on his cultivation journey, and progressing as far as possible. For the sake of progress, if he had to act as a mount, then he would. His pride was not attached to things like that, because he knew what he was working for.
Of course, before leaving they also sealed their agreement with a Fortune Oath. Lex swore that if the effects of the Dao material Pelagor told him about were actually as he described, then he would help him get whatever resource he was looking for. In exchange, Pelagor would work for Lex for a hundred thousand years.
The terms of service were also discussed. Lex could not make Pelagor perform and suicidal tasks on purpose, nor could he act maliciously and order him to purposefully undertake tasks that would harm his person or reputation and so on.
That wasn’t to say that Lex couldn’t have Pelagor fight difficult battles - he just couldn’t use him as a disposable soldier. That wasn’t an issue, for Lex had no intention of doing such a thing to begin with.
Their journey began without many obstacles, and was somewhat different from his journey with the black dragon. The main difference was that the black dragon liked to chat, so their journey was spent in conversation. Pelagor, on the other hand, had a lot more stern and action oriented, which is why he traveled in silence.
Lex did not mind too much, honestly. Yet in the very first month of their journey, they encountered an unexpected acquaintance.
Lex was the first to notice, and an odd expression appeared on his face when he recognized someone he knew. They made a small detour, and soon stumbled upon a Heaven Immortal snake, wrapping its body around a porcupine beast, crushing its body by squeezing, even if it harmed him in the process as well.
"Mithon? What are you doing outside the stronghold?" Lex asked as he approached, finally attracting his attention.
Mithon looked up at Lex, and suddenly felt a mix of fear, apprehension and embarrassment!
"This... this damn beast got me exiled again! I... I’ll kill her!" she roared and bit the porcupine, ignoring the many spikes sticking into its face as she pumped venom into the beast’s body, slowly killing it.
"How exactly did you get exiled again?" Lex asked, but Mithon appeared too embarrassed to answer. Eventually, though, she answered.
"When I went back to the stronghold, I found that my husband had moved on without me. I can’t really blame him, I was gone for a long time. But when I looked into finding him again, just to see what he’s been up to, I found out that this damn porcupine had tricked my family into joining a demonic cult and cleaned out all my savings!"
The porcupine, clinging onto the faintest bit of hope, looked towards Lex and tried to explain himself.
"It’s not a cult. It’s just an extended dopamine cleanse with a 32 million year subscription payment plan and..."
As if infuriated anew, Mithon bit him again!
"Damn you Hemzy! A dopamine cleanse gives snakes constipation!" she roared and, once and for all, put an end to the accursed porcupine.
Throughout the exchange Lex just stood there, unsure of what to make of the situation. He looked towards Pelagor, and he appeared to be just as confused. It seemed... even the Gilded Hollow was not safe from scammers.
"Alright, well, good luck to you," Lex said as he retreated to give her some privacy to uh... grieve?
Yet Mithon quickly let go of the porcupine and followed them.
"No, wait, senior, can I follow you?" the snake asked, clearly concerned about being alone.
Lex paused, and then told her the direction they were heading in. Upon hearing it, the snake decided that, perhaps, it was best if she went out on her own. She wanted to live, not dive head first into a deathzone.
The two groups left, leaving the corpse of the porcupine behind. A few days later, however, the pieces of the corpse began to move and rebine on its own, and soon Hemzy opened his eyes once more.
That was a small interval in their journey, but for the most part their journey was uneventful. During this time, Lex not only absorbed resources, he also contemplated on the True damage law he memorized, as well as tried to prehend all he saw during the retribution.
As if that was not enough, he started the next step of enhancing the necklace. The necklace itself was turning into a carrier of his Fake realm, but Lex had not limited it to that. The basic template for absorbing energy had been added, and now tested.
That was the foundation of a successful system. Then came the next step. Since Lex wanted to create a realm of his own where only he was a Sovereign, he decided that the purpose of this system would be to facilitate him being a Sovereign within that fake realm of his.
The next step, then, would be to create a way to pletely isolate the interior of the necklace from the outside, at least in terms of law and connectivity. After all, if he didn’t do that and a normal Sovereign, such as his stalker, entered then they would continue to be a Sovereign.
But if it was cut off from the universe, or if the universe did not respond to what was happening inside, that ability of theirs would bee restricted. Once Lex managed to do that, the next step would be to have the system help him regulate and control the laws within the fake realm so that being cut off from the laws of the universe wouldn’t cause it to collapse.
If Lex had to name his system, he would call it...
An incredibly audacious idea came to him, one so insane that Lex thought that it was too much. But then he smirked, and just treated it like a goal to work towards without ever worrying about actually reaching it. After all, this goal was so audacious that not even Dao Lord... heck, not even the beings above the Dao Lord level could make such a thing happen.
Lex decided to tentatively name the system he was creating within the necklace to help him manage it, the Fake Universe System. The point of the system would be to help him create, manage and control the fake realm within the necklace, with the ultimate goal of being able to grow it to the point where it’s basically a fake universe of his own!
The thought was amusing. Even the creator of his own system probably couldn’t achieve such an ambitious goal, so there was no need to take it too seriously. For now, he was just setting the foundation of his revenge.
Creating and managing a fake realm, at the very least, was within his capabilities. Between Taro’s journal, and the Lotus which could create worlds out of pure energy, his own mastery of space, and his insight from the birth of the Midnight Realm, Lex was fairly well suited to the task.
With his immediate goals decided, Lex closed his eyes as he sat atop Pelagor. The universe was in chaos, the future was uncertain, and Lex was now using delusional optimism to set his goals, but at least in that moment he was at peace.
The journey took years, and Lex managed to collect three more Dao materials along the way, each one being fused into the necklace one after another. Although each of them was supposed to be easy to absorb and fuse with, Lex began to feel a certain pressure on his soul that he couldn’t ignore after the fourth one. After all, even though technically he was using them to enhance the necklace, the necklace was, after all, fused with his soul so the burden definitely affected him as well.
Maybe he was reaching his limit. Hopefully, he could still absorb whatever Pelagor was leading him towards.
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