Chapter 663: No Correlation
It didn’t make sense at all.
There shouldn’t have been any correlation between fate and despair. They were completely opposite concepts in every way imaginable.
Fate was the force that guided existence toward certain outcomes. It represented destiny, potential, and purpose.
Despair, on the other hand, was the absence of hope. It was the crushing weight of hopelessness, something capable of destroying everything it touched.
One created futures while the other tore them apart.
So how could a mountain convert one into the other?
Grey’s mind raced as he tried to understand the mechanism behind the transformation.
However, as he thought about it more carefully, Grey suddenly realized that there was actually a connection between the two forces.
Both fate and despair existed as fundamental forces that transcended physical reality.
In a way, they were mirror reflections of each other, two sides of the same cosmic coin.
Where fate represented the positive potential of existence, despair represented its negative counterpart.
If one stripped away their emotional qualities and focused purely on their raw energy signatures, the two were surprisingly similar in structure.
The mountain wasn’t creating fate from nothing.
It was inverting the polarity of despair.
It was flipping something negative into something positive, transforming hopelessness into destiny.
"Whoever built this thing was a genius," Grey muttered with genuine admiration.
However, to achieve something like this, the mountain was definitely no ordinary artifact.
Just then, Grey thought of Bai Yue.
She had mysteriously vanished after their encounter, and the World Tree had mentioned that she might be related to the Fate Race.
Could this mountain actually be an artifact belonging to the Fate Race?
The more Grey examined it, the more convinced he became.
There was definitely some sort of connection.
Meanwhile, Commander Vaelon flew closer to the floating mountain and carefully examined its surface.
"There is a barrier around the mountain," he announced to the group. "We will try to break it."
Hearing this, the commander and the three guards immediately positioned themselves around the invisible barrier.
They simultaneously unleashed their 13th Rank power, striking the barrier with coordinated force.
Nothing happened.
The barrier didn’t even flicker.
Then, they tried again.
This time, they used even more power, pouring everything they had into the attack.
Still, nothing happened.
Vaelon’s expression gradually grew frustrated as he stared at the completely unharmed barrier.
Seeing this, Grey smiled and casually flew forward.
"Let me try," he offered.
Vaelon turned toward him, obvious skepticism appearing in his silver eyes.
"We tried with four 13th Rank beings, and it didn’t work," he said flatly. "What can you possibly do?"
The other guards also nodded in agreement.
Grey didn’t bother responding to their doubts.
Instead, he simply raised his hand and pressed it against the barrier.
Thanks to the comprehension he had gained earlier, Grey understood exactly how the mountain’s controls worked.
The barrier wasn’t meant to be broken through brute force.
It required the proper command sequence.
Grey immediately sent the deactivation signal through his consciousness.
Abruptly, the barrier dissolved.
Seraphina’s eyes widened, and she clapped her hands together excitedly.
"Amazing!" she exclaimed cheerfully. "How did you do that?"
Vaelon and the other guards stared at Grey with completely dumbfounded expressions.
Grey merely shrugged before flying toward the mountain’s entrance.
"Are you coming or not?" he called back casually.
Hearing this, the group quickly followed him through the now-open barrier.
The moment they set foot on the mountain, something strange happened.
One of the devil guards suddenly stopped walking.
He looked down at his hands with a confused expression.
"Huh, strange," he muttered. "My Inner World is suddenly growing just by being here. What is happening?"
However, it wasn’t just him experiencing the phenomenon.
Eterna’s eyes widened as she felt a massive amount of energy flowing into her algorithmic matrix.
At the same time, Seraphina gasped as her cultivation base began strengthening rapidly.
Even Commander Vaelon looked surprised as a tremendous amount of power flooded into his body without him doing anything.
Realizing what was happening, they immediately sat down cross-legged and began cultivating.
Grey watched them with a slightly annoyed expression.
"The Fate Power here is insane," he muttered in disbelief.
If not for the fact that he hadn’t created his Inner World yet, he would have been sitting there as well, absorbing as much Fate Power as possible.
However, it was actually good that he couldn’t cultivate right now.
It gave him the perfect opportunity to access the main core of the artifact without anyone noticing.
Grey quietly slipped away from the meditating group.
Then, he navigated through the mountain’s interior, following the flow of Fate Power toward its source.
The core room was hidden behind multiple layers of security.
However, thanks to his comprehension, Grey easily bypassed every single one of them.
Within minutes, he reached the deepest layer of the artifact.
The core itself was a massive crystalline structure that continuously pulsed with concentrated Fate Power.
Grey slowly approached it before placing his hand on its surface.
The core operated through consciousness control, responding to mental commands rather than physical manipulation.
Grey immediately pushed through the final security protocols and established a direct connection with it.
Then, he linked the core with his mental interface, forming a permanent bridge through the Information Layer.
From this point onward, he could remotely access the mountain from anywhere.
Grey also made the controls visible through several tangible windows that he could manipulate through his mind interface.
The display showed various statistics regarding the artifact’s current operation.
The conversion efficiency was currently at 73%.
It could definitely be improved later.
The stored Fate Power reserves, meanwhile, were enormous.
They had been accumulated over millions of years.
Grey could also directly control the flow of Fate Power throughout the entire mountain.
Just then, a mischievous smile appeared on his face as an idea suddenly came to mind.
He adjusted the settings and immediately cut off the flow of Fate Power to everyone except Eterna and Seraphina.
Commander Vaelon and the three guards would no longer receive any benefits from the mountain.
Back at the entrance, Vaelon abruptly opened his eyes with a confused expression.
"Strange," he muttered. "The energy flow stopped."
The guards also quickly noticed that their cultivation boost had ended.
Then, one of them looked toward Eterna and Seraphina.
"Looks like those two are still going," one of the guards observed.
Hearing this, Vaelon nodded thoughtfully.
"Must be because they are lower ranked, so they can absorb more," he concluded. "We higher-ranked beings probably reached our limit much faster."
The guards immediately accepted his explanation without question.
Meanwhile, Grey quietly chuckled from within the core room.
These people had already absorbed far too much Fate Power.
He couldn’t allow them to continue absorbing it.
After all, Grey himself needed this energy to reach the 10th Rank.
And after that, the 11th.
Then the 12th.
Perhaps even the 13th Rank.
Starting from the 10th Rank, the Inner World would become an increasingly important part of an evolver’s cultivation.
From the 10th Rank to the 13th Rank, the focus of the entire cultivation path gradually shifted toward the transformation and development of the Inner World.
Each breakthrough would bring the Inner World closer to perfection.
The world would become larger, more stable, and more complete.
Its laws would gradually develop, its inhabitants would continue to grow, and the power generated from the world would become increasingly immense.
From that point onward, an evolver was no longer simply strengthening their own body or increasing their power.
They were cultivating an entire world.
And as their Inner World continued to transform, they themselves would gradually become something closer to a creator.
Grey would naturally need an enormous amount of Fate Power for that process.
This wasn’t just energy for his 10th Rank breakthrough.
It was an investment into his future path.
From the 10th Rank all the way to the 13th Rank, the Inner World would remain one of the most important aspects of his cultivation.
So why would Grey allow others to continuously absorb such a valuable resource?
The Fate Power within the Sacred Mountain of Fate belonged to his future Inner World now.
As for Seraphina and Eterna, the amount of Fate Power they were absorbing was negligible compared to the mountain’s total reserves.
With that handled, Grey began examining the mountain’s current state more carefully.
The artifact was actively suppressing the Sea of Despair through constant energy conversion.
If he removed the artifact from this place, there was no telling what kind of catastrophe might follow.
The Sea of Despair could overflow and flood into other realms, spreading corruption everywhere.
The Fate Power extracted from the sea was also being used to maintain the suppression seal.
Furthermore, the special function of the core was, without a doubt, related to the technology of the Fate Race.
For now, Grey extracted enough Fate Power for his future 10th Rank breakthrough and stored it safely.
If he needed more later, he could always return.
Once that was done, Grey left the core room and sealed the entrance behind him.
Immediately after, the entrance became completely invisible to anyone else.
Grey then returned to the group with a casual expression on his face.
"There’s nothing useful here," he announced. "Let’s go back."
Hearing his words, Vaelon stood up and stared at Grey with suspicion.
"I will check for myself before leaving," the commander said firmly.
Grey simply shrugged without any concern.
"Suit yourself."
Vaelon immediately flew toward the mountain’s interior and began searching for anything valuable.
He searched everywhere.
However, no matter where he looked, he couldn’t find the core room that Grey had hidden.
After thirty minutes of fruitless searching, Vaelon finally returned with a frustrated expression.
"Fine, there’s nothing here," he admitted reluctantly.
Grey simply smiled.
Then, the group departed from the Sacred Mountain of Fate and began flying back across the Sea of Despair.
Grey quietly smiled to himself as he looked ahead.
He had finally obtained what he came here for.
The only thing left was to create his Inner World.
It was finally time to reach the 10th Rank.