Rise Of The Infinite Sovereign-Chapter 437: Shattered Star Pool

’Right’

That brought him back to reality.

’I could finish things here before they arrive’

Touching the minotaur’s corpse, it disassembles into essence.

But unlike he expected...

’Where are the rewards?!’

There was nothing littering the ground where its corpse had faded from.

Looking in all directions, Ezra unintentionally finishes a full spin, yet still, nothing lay before his eye.

’Zydrax. What is happening? Why is there no reward?!’

[I have no idea either. Perhaps the creator forgot to put one in place]

’Are you serious?’ Ezra, clutching his head.

For all that effort to result in nothing...

Just as he would begin sulking, a beam of light shot out from the ground, seizing his attention.

Looking at it, the scorched ground suddenly shakes, bringing Ezra’s gaze to the ground where the light beam came from.

The light beams dies out, followed by the opening of the ground.

A part of the ground parts ways to reveal a miniature pool filled with a glittering liquid filled to the brim with pure nova essence.

So pure Ezra instinctively knew he had stumbled upon something extraordinary.

[I’ll be damned]

Zydrax’s words wake Ezra from his reverie.

"What is it?"

[This is a Starshard pool fashioned from the remnants of a Shattered star pool] Zydrax replies. [Shattered star pools are a phenomenon created when fragments of broken stars gather together and are then imbued with dimensional energy while drifting across the cosmos]

[When a section of those fragments separate from the others, it becomes a starshard pool like what lay in front of you. It contains the best treasure for absorbing nova essence, holding a large amount of nova essence with purity far above that of most treasures] Zydrax continues, the excitement in his voice unmistakable.

[With this much, you’ll be able to advance into the core creation stage easily and maybe even reach the nebula cloud stage while you’re at it, so hurry up and get inside]

"O-Okay" Ezra answers. "But will it be okay to advance twice in one day"

[Don’t worry about it. With starshard essence, you don’t have to worry about any side-effects]

Quickly, Ezra steps into the pool, bare-footed.

With his skin touching liquid essence, Ezra did not need to even cut himself nor take any particular posture before absorbing it and because of how pure it was, he didn’t need to refine it either.

Instead, Ezra simply closes his eyes while standing and concentrates on absorbing the essence through his pores.

Entering his body, the essence fell directly into his bloodstream, which his beating heart circulates to the rest of his body.

With the starshard pool being only five times a small basin in width, the liquid essence within is a small amount spread across the pools width, perhaps just enough to fit in three small cups.

Yet still, Ezra only absorbs all the essence after five minutes as a testament to just how much essence it contained.

Proving this point, the essence began running chaotically within his bloodstream.

[Ezra, you need to stop the essence from rampaging, sit down and start cultivating]

"Y...Yes.." Ezra responds.

But right as he would sit to cultivate, the image of those blue dragons popped into his mind, and on instinct, Ezra activates <Gatekeeper>, appearing on the red surface of the favorite planet Ketta.

Ezra falls on his side, groaning as he forced the rampaging essence under control.

Gritting his teeth, Ezra sits up before plunging all his focus into the inner part of his body.

With no need to refine the essence, he immediately deploys them to their needed section and gets onto the first part of the core creation stage.

Creating the core.

With his entire body filled to the brim with nova essence, Ezra takes control of a large portion of nova essence and gathers it into a large sized clump.

Putting his palms together, Ezra begins to compress this clump of nova essence, and like paper, it gradually shrinks in size.

Here, the fortified veins is brought into action to showcase something it’s essential for.

Beyond being part of a larger framework that is the stellar body, the fortified veins comes first before others because of the process of creating a core.

To explain, the core would basically serve as a focal point for nova essence to prevent death by organ failure which can occur once the body is overwhelmed with nova essence.

Such as the current situations.

The core is to be prioritized because the amount of nova essence as a person progresses across the stages increases exponentially.

Yet in contrast, the body, in the process of refinement, is too inadequate to contain such a large amounts of nova essence.

Hence the creation of a core.

In the past, many, many higher beings died while at this stage which proved vital for them to create a proper structure for the stages.

Thus showcasing why the nascent rank is regarded with extreme importance in determining the heights of a higher beings achievements on the path of cultivation.

But to properly control large amounts of nova essence, they discovered the best method is for the person to have cultivated stellar veins, which made it essential as the first priority of a nascent.

Getting to it, Ezra compresses the energy until it became small enough to fit into a folded palm.

Here, he then places the compressed ball of energy into his heart.

As he did, Ezra then puts his own refined essence into motion, making it so both energies clash.

Being the product of a starshard pool, the absorbed nova essence is easily combined with Ezra’s refined energy, stabilizing this cluster of energy.

As it stabilizes, the ball of energy expands until it covered the heart in its entirety.

Being energy, the core doesn’t affect the inner workings of the body as a physical object would, thus meaning the heart kept working as per usual.

This act of covering the heart with this wall of essence is the ’core’ mentioned in core creation stage.

Because now, nova essence absorbs will be pulled to the core so it wouldn’t rampage.

"Huuuuu...." Ezra exhales, opening his eyes for a good number of seconds before closing it once more.

With this, Ezra officially stepped into the third stage, the core creation stage, advancing from second to a third step nascent within the same day.

Something outrightly impossible for the majority of higher beings in the same rank.

Two stages in one day? It would cause any nascent who heard to doubt their existence.

Closing his eyes, Ezra kicks off the latter part of the core creation stage.

Where vein fortification signifies the advancement to the second stage, the third stage advancements is signified through bone strengthening.

One is required to strengthen the entire skeletal framework till it can support the strain of manipulating nova essence.

Rather the limbs, Ezra starts from the body’s middle section, the ribcage.

With so much essence in his body, Ezra had he leeway to strengthen his bones to the highest limit, and he didn’t hold back.

Strengthening each part of his bones to the utmost limit proved to be much easier than rationing it to spread over the body equally and also faster because he was just ignorantly infusing the essence into his bones.

Not to mention, the newly created core helped a lot in coordinating the essence that would have otherwise been running wild.

This resulted in Ezra not needing to expend much of his mental strength, thus refining his body with much less stress.

Still, he didn’t dare act nonchalant, and stays focus until the last of his bones is completely refined.

Also, this stage saw Ezra feeling very little pain and instead a sort of release every time a section of his bones reached the stage of complete refinement.

Soon enough, Ezra completes the strengthening of most parts of his body, leaving only the skull.

At this juncture, Ezra decides to take a break rather than trying to finish it off all at once as that would be encountered unnecessary risks.

Even with the core in place, strengthening the skull still took prudence else one could end up crazy.

And with the majority of his bones already strengthened, the essence within is body had drastically reduced, no longer causing him any worries.

Lying flat on his back, the exhaustion of the battle and refining his body hit Ezra like a boulder, knocking him asleep before he could start thinking of other things.

-----------

Waking up hours later, Ezra clutches his stomach in a hurry as hunger overwhelms him.

’Hungry!’

Teleporting, Ezra appears in Kingsmere.

Specifically, he appears in front of the shop he had bought pheasant cake from for children during the starting phases of black jaws as that was what popped into his mind.

Obviously, those nearest to him were shook seeing a man suddenly appear from thin air.

Dressed in torched clothes with messy hair though, the majority would most likely explain it as a magic trick.

But Ezra didn’t have the mind to pay attention of anything of the surrounding.

Entering the establishment, Ezra orders a large amount of pheasant cake and drinks to go with it, before wolfing it all down like a complete animal.

To the point that he soon held the attention of everyone present as they wondered just how he could eat so much.

Eventually, Ezra eats to his fill and belches after reaching complete satiation.

As the waiter questions for the bill, Ezra realizes he doesn’t have any coins on him, but rather panic, he simply teleports, leaving everyone stunned.

But just as they would start talking and gossiping, Ezra reappears, much to their shock and hands the waiter a gold coin before rising from his seat and leaving.

Only after entering an alleyway did Ezra teleport once more, arriving back on planet Ketta with a full stomach.

"Ah...." Ezra sighs, rubbing his stomach with a smile on his face.

He then stretches before sitting in a lotus posture, preparing to finish the bone strengthening.

Inhaling and exhaling a couple of times, Ezra begins the final and most crucial part of bone strengthening, strengthening the skull.

Here, Ezra has to be extra careful as a mistake could lead to the nova essence affecting the brain.

Slowly. Much slower than all the other places, Ezra separates the skull into sections and starts the strengthening.

Time passes as the skull is slowly strengthened, each moment nerve wracking for Ezra.

But eventually, he completes the procedure and better yet, he still had small amount of essence to spare.

Here, Ezra takes a deep breath.

Finalizing bone strengthening, his body shines with a red luster, while very few particles leave body.

Now, in the same day, Ezra had reached completion in the third stage as well.