Infinite Ascension: 100,000x Amplified

The origin essence saturated his consciousness, each droplet of primordial energy carrying information density equivalent to entire libraries. His comprehension ability — already Divine-Tier — began its 100,000x amplification.

His eyes, physical organs that served as the gateway to consciousness, began changing. Golden irises that had always carried rainbow luminescence during active analysis now blazed with light that penetrated dimensional barriers. His pupils dilated and contracted in patterns that defied normal anatomy, adapting to perceive spectrums far beyond visible light.

The process continued. One hour. Two hours. Three.

Within Nova’s spiritual sea, his consciousness had become a miniature sun — blazing with origin essence, radiating transformed awareness that touched every aspect of his being. His soul crystallized from its previous state into something approaching solid structure, far more real and substantial than before. His spirit underwent purification that removed impurities he hadn’t known existed.

And through it all, his comprehension ability multiplied.

10x... 100x... 1,000x... 10,000x... 100,000x...

Knowledge that would have taken years to master became instantly comprehensible. Principles that had seemed impossibly complex reduced to elegant simplicity. Connections between disparate concepts revealed themselves as obvious inevitabilities.

Around the four hour mark, his newly enhanced awareness noticed something.

The origin essence pouring into him was intended solely for consciousness, soul, and spirit enhancement. The upgrade system had calculated precisely how much energy was needed for the Absolute Insight amplification and was providing exactly that amount.

But origin essence was pure, undifferentiated cosmic energy from which everything was derived from.

Including cellular transformation.

Nova’s enhanced comprehension immediately recognized the opportunity. His Eternal Chaotic Origin Scripture was a Divine-Grade technique specifically designed to convert any form of energy into cultivation progress.

Origin essence was, quite literally, the most optimal fuel that could possibly exist for it — the most gentle, most compatible, most easily absorbed form of energy in existence. Absorbing it was not like forcing qi through resistant meridians or purifying corrupted abyssal energy. It simply flowed in and converted, smooth and immediate, the way water flowed downhill. Coupled with the Eternal Chaotic Origin Scripture’s perfect absorption mechanism, cultivating on pure origin essence was as easy as stealing candy from a baby.

The ethical question flickered briefly through his mind.

The system didn’t specify I couldn’t use the energy for multiple purposes simultaneously.

He glanced at the spatial crack above him, the steady flow of origin essence pouring down.

Heheeee. I am going to steal it... ahem, I mean borrow some. The system wouldn’t mind, right?

Decision made.

He directed the Eternal Chaotic Origin Scripture to activate alongside the ongoing consciousness transformation. His cells — currently at Peak Stage 2, with approximately 2% of them completed their conversion to Chaotic Origin Energy Lifeform cells — began advancing immediately. Origin essence flowed in and the conversion process simply happened, smooth and frictionless and embarrassingly easy.

2%... 5%... 8%... 12%.

Then the system noticed.

[ALERT: Energy diversion detected]

[Unauthorized secondary absorption in progress]

[Calculating...]

[...]

[This is a bug. Initiating patch.]

The spatial crack flickered. The origin essence flow stuttered for three full seconds as the system scrambled to redistribute.

Nova immediately pushed his absorption to maximum, drinking in every drop available during the disruption.

[Patch deployed. Secondary absorption pathway — blocked.]

[...]

[Calculating energy deficit caused by unauthorized diversion...]

[Conclusion: Primary upgrade will be underpowered by 12.7% without additional supply.]

[Solution: Increasing essence flow to compensate.]

[Spatial crack widening by 14% to ensure primary upgrade completion.]

The crack widened.

Nova felt the increased flow arrive and immediately hijacked 12.7% of that too.

[ALERT: Secondary absorption detected again.]

[The same pathway that was just patched is — how is this —]

[Re-patching. Closing alternate meridian route 7-Alpha.]

Nova had already found route 7-Beta.

[ALERT.]

[ALERT.]

[How many meridian routes does this person HAVE.]

[Increasing flow by additional 18% to guarantee primary upgrade.]

Nova absorbed that too.

There was a pause. A long pause. The kind that suggested a system was doing something it had never had to do before, which was fundamentally reconsider its assumptions about the situation it was in.

[Assessment: Subject is exploiting every additional supply faster than patches can close absorption pathways.]

[Counterproductive to continue patching.]

[New approach: Flooding primary upgrade pathway with 400% of calculated requirement to guarantee completion before secondary absorption can drain reserves.]

[Initiating flood protocol.]

Origin essence poured in at four times the original rate.

Nova’s cellular conversion went from 12%... to 25%... to 40%... to 58%.

The system was flooding the primary pathway. Nova was drinking from the overflow. Both processes were running simultaneously and neither was stopping the other.

[Primary upgrade: 67% complete.]

[Secondary absorption: consuming overflow at rate of — this is not physically possible —]

[Subject’s cultivation technique appears to have no upper limit on absorption speed.]

[Filing incident report.]

[Note for future reference: Do not provide origin essence to users who possess Divine-Grade cultivation techniques without first reading the technique description in detail.]

[Primary upgrade: 89% complete.]

[Secondary absorption: 74%.]

[Primary upgrade: 94% complete.]

[Secondary absorption: 83%.]

[Primary upgrade: 100% — COMPLETE.]

[Secondary absorption: 91%.]

The spatial crack began closing. The primary upgrade was done. Nova felt the crack contracting and immediately pushed his absorption to absolute maximum, extracting every remaining trace of origin essence as the gap sealed.

[Secondary absorption: 100%.]

[Cellular conversion complete. All 100 stages completed. Full Chaotic Origin Energy Lifeform transformation achieved.]

[...]

[Bug report submitted.]

[Patch notes for next upgrade cycle: Block ALL absorption pathways before initiating essence flow. Do not widen crack under any circumstances regardless of energy deficit. Consider whether providing origin essence to this specific user is advisable at all.]

[Additional note: Subject’s cells are fully converted but largely empty. Transformation was of quality, not quantity. Cells are now capable of holding vastly more energy than before, but currently contain very little of it. Subject will need to cultivate extensively with resources to fill them. The system takes no responsibility for the subject’s decision to prioritize cellular quality transformation over energy accumulation.]

[End report.]

Silence.

Then suddenly the seal on his soul broke.

This was because his soul had now been refined beyond belief because of the 100,000x amplification of absolute insight and the ’borrowing’ of origin essence.

A full 40% of the grey — simultaneous, total, the walls between him and forty percent of his past simply dissolving as the origin essence’s purification of his soul completed in one catastrophic rush what individual law etchings had been chipping at incrementally.

The memories hit him like a dam breaking.

He was still Nova Stern sitting in his bedroom.

He was simultaneously a monk on a mountain that no longer existed, watching a civilization he had spent four hundred years helping build burn in a war he had tried and failed to stop. The grief of that life was specific and real — the faces of students, the specific color of the morning light over the temple compound on good days, the weight of the final failure.

He was a blacksmith in a world without cultivation, just metallurgy and stubborn craft, who had spent sixty years perfecting a single technique for folding steel that no one would ever match. The satisfaction of that life was simple and complete.

He was a demon lord whose empire spanned six dimensions. His name made lesser beings weep. His throne room was larger than most cities. He had conquered everything worth conquering by age three hundred and spent his final centuries gardening, having discovered that nothing produced the specific satisfaction of watching something grow from seed that conquest could replicate.

He was a scholar in a civilization so advanced it had mapped the complete structure of its universe and was composing a letter to whatever lay outside it. The letter was never finished. The civilization fell before it could be sent. He remembered the specific frustration of that incompletion more than he remembered the civilization itself.

He was a god. Not metaphorically — literally a god in a pantheon of seventeen, responsible for the portfolio of mathematics and hidden things, managing seventeen worlds while navigating the interpersonal drama of fourteen other gods who had unlimited power and the emotional regulation of adolescents. He had liked that job despite its irritations. The mathematics had been genuinely interesting.

He was a slime.

A remarkably self-aware slime in a cave so deep underground that sunlight was a theoretical concept he had read about in the memories of a traveler who had died near his territory. He had absorbed that traveler and gained access to their complete knowledge base, which had given him an extremely detailed picture of a world he would never see. He had found the cave interesting anyway. The cave had excellent mineral composition.

He was a fly. Nine days. Compound eyes were genuinely extraordinary — the visual information density was remarkable. He had no complaints about those nine days.

He was a fish in a completely ordinary river with no cultivation whatsoever, forty-three years of swimming and eating and existing in a clean current, and that life had been among the most restful he had ever experienced. He understood now why he had chosen it.

He was a warrior emperor in a cultivation world so advanced that what he was currently doing in Thornhaven would have been considered beginner-level work. He had reached his world’s peak and spent his final centuries trying to push past it, finding the ceiling of one universe and pressing against it.

He was a child born in a destroyed city who survived by eating stone for three years before discovering he could eat anything. That had been the beginning of something.

He was a professor of philosophy in a world without cultivation, teaching students about the nature of existence with no idea he was closer to the answer than most cultivators would ever get through direct experience.

And underneath all of it, threading through every memory, was the comprehension that had been locked away.