Since Lucien had reached the peak of Rank 2 in all stats, there weren't many ways to grow stronger if you excluded breaking through to Rank 3 which would take many years.
Lucien considered slaughtering villages, as it would help with gathering a lot of blood he could use to condense his own into a higher grade, thus increasing his overall potential in training his fleshly body. The Existence Points that came with it might even accumulate to a level where he could use them to break through without wasting years.
But even with all the pros, the biggest con was the amount of villages he would have to slaughter. Considering he could get 20 000 - 25 000 from those border villages on average, he needed to destroy more than 40 for the plan to work, and the quality of the blood was trash, he would need to condense it a couple of times before he could use it, it would literally take a sea to be able to enhance his current blood.
There was no way the Empire would stand on the side and watch that happen, even after a few there was a war, not to mention a few dozen.
So the only thing Lucien could do while waiting for his clone to find the way to breakthrough was to complete the Devil State. It was not a sure-fire way of improving himself as he didn't know what lied beyond, and after trying to ask All Existence the amount of points required was astronomical, followed by the reason that this knowledge didn't exist in this world and he couldn't acquire it no matter what he did.
'I guess I'll take the leap, even if the information was that rare, it wouldn't cost that much. There is a secret behind this, so the risk should be worth it. If there is any undesirable aftereffects I can always erase it with All Existence.'
To come up with a plan to complete the Devil State, even Lucien had to spend a couple of sleepless nights, it was mainly because he had to consider the what made the Devil State progress and after thinking about many of the factors that were present at the final battle against the Beasts, Lucien summed it up.
'I have to execute a cruel, evil and extremely negative act, to be able to push the Devil State forward. In the start those kids in the villages pushed it forward a lot, and the 1000 Rank 0 and couple of hundred Rank 0 humans brought it all the way to 90%.'
'But I can feel the progress is slowing down a lot as it gets further, it's like I'm detaching myself from emotions that I didn't even know existed, slowly and progressively, thus the acts that were once cruel now bring less benefits towards the State. It feels like it pushes me to escalate my actions.'
Lucien was sure that even if he went and killed some more children, he wouldn't make much progress, so he hatched a plan to bring the State to completion after 1 more act.
Once he had made the decision and was completely prepared, Lucien set off. He didn't notify anyone, not even Elena. He alibi was in the palace, the less people knew about his next actions, the better.
He was a lot faster than before and reached the borders of the Empire in just a day of travel. What was in front of him currently was a giant passage. This was his first time seeing the channels that connected the Empires and it was stunning.
It looked as if the mountain range that was just there was slashed in a way that a 100 meter passage was completely obliterated, the walls of it were almost shiny like a glass.
There was a constant stream of people going either way, merchants and mercenaries passing through the border. Nobody was paying attention to the passage, as if they have already seen it hundreds of times.
Lucien looked at it for a while, wondering how long would it take for him to be able to achieve the same thing. He didn't stay lost in his thoughts for more than an instant.
'There is no need to be awed and lost, there will be a day I can do it.'
Blending with the crowds, Lucien walked along the passage towards the Holy Empire.
There was no customs or anything of that sort, unless it was a special situation like war, the Empires didn't care about the people or goods passing through the borders. It was the absolute confidence in their power that led them to this situation.
Even if an Empire slowly gathered an army on the lands of the enemy, once they were deployed, no supplies or reinforcements could be sent as the borders would be blocked. Another factor was that it would be impossible to gather enough strength to topple an Empire on its lands without getting noticed.
The passage was pretty long and Lucien kept his speed slower to keep attention off himself, so it took him almost a day to pass and enter the borders of the Holy Empire.
The Holy Empire was a place where everyone was a believer of a God and even through Lucien was not sure how strong a God was, he knew that even the Ancestor of this Empire was a pious believer. The church that everybody attended was not once a week, like how it was on Earth. The people of this Empire attended church every day before going off to work and prayed 5 times a day.
To Lucien this sounded like a scam, until he found that depending on the level of fanaticism, these people would get blessed by their God, it could be a small strength blessing, to a level where even the talent of people could be improved.
The plan he had in mind was actually inspired by his life on Earth, where virtually everybody had seen or heard about devils and gods. How they were completely opposite and always at war and many other myths. This time he wanted to see if there was any connection.
'If I wreak havoc in a land of his blessing, would it help me progress the Devil State further?'