[Father…have you decided to attend this ascension trial?]
'Hm? Yes. Why do you sound worried?'
[You're still weak and young, father. Out of all your years of life, it could be said that only about eighteen to seventeen of them have truly ever counted, with the rest being a blurred yet clear dream. This means you haven't been as sharpened and tempered by the world.]
[Maturity, for an Undead, is granted upon one's thousandth birthday. Even that Eliotis fella was in his late hundreds. He only truly lost because of your lineage supremacy. The others though…they'll be stronger, older, and possibly have lineages that rival yours. This may be an assured death.]
'You think someone on this planet has a lineage able to match mine?'
[Now is not the time to become arrogant, father. If the Undead Patriarch was unaffected by your aura and even managed to suppress you, then he definitely has a more powerful lineage. Even that Lich Elder probably has a more powerful lineage than you. I'm sure they have a lot of ways to pass them down to the next generations of pure blood without any loss.]
Hearing this, Amon smiled, his face radiating an enchanting light.
PAH!
A portal opened in the inner surface of the sphere and he exited.
'It is good then. Adversity and challenge temper the self. You said it yourself—the universe is wide and full of mysteries. If I someday want to make a place for myself amongst it all, I must survive the trials and tribulations placed before me, not run away from them.'
'As for dying?'
He laughed out loud.
'As I told you when I first died—I will live and reach the top of it all, just to spite and spit on the face of fate and the world itself.'
'If I am granted death, then I will simply rise from my ashes and continue.'
He smiled, showing a toothy grin, full of arrogance as the soft winds of the outside world carried his beautiful white hair and he made his way down the steps.
'It'll all be fuel to make my flame burn brighter!'
***
Amon sat cross-legged in the middle of his new abode. From the outside, it seemed to be an empty dome of glass and that was exactly what it was—an empty dome of glass that blocked out all light.
Just like Delilah had said, for some reason, the aether within the mansion was chaotic and volatile beyond belief, but to Amon, this didn't really matter.
He raised his hands to his face and his gloves dematerialized, showing him the runic marks he'd gotten, the supposed blessings of a god.
'The Blessing of a God…'
He tried cycling his innate aether through them but for some reason, immediately, it was shredded to pieces. He then tried cycling innate aether but unfortunately, it was the same.
Just as he was about to give up and take a deeper look at his affinities, he had an idea.
'Maybe if I…'
He cycled his life and death innate aether through his arms and suddenly, they glowed like burning stars, his runic tattoos snaking up his arms and onto his chest to then go and cover his entire body.
His left side was entirely covered in tattoos of gold that reeked of life and creation while the right was covered in black and red tattoos that oozed with an aura of oblivion and ruin.
Amon felt overwhelmed by the power that'd flooded his body when suddenly, the snake tattoo on his spine that represented Mordred, began to move.
Around his body, the imposing figure of a snake of purple and green fire appeared, emitting a form of aether pressure that couldn't be described.
Upon his head, a crown of nine stars manifested and to his back, nine overlapped halos bloomed, further heightening his aura.
Amon sat in disbelief, unable to understand where this power was coming from but before he could test it out, it all suddenly turned off.
His tattoos retracted and dimmed, his crown and halos vanished, and Mordred's shadow vanished, returning to his spine.
He fell on his back, his body drenched in sweat as he frantically wheezed and coughed out mouthfuls of boiling black blood.
A headache of divine proportions assaulted his head as he felt his mind split open. The pain that coursed through his body was so intense that he almost felt the need to curl into a fetal position and simply freeze.
He soon managed to calm down though and activate his innate aether. Life aether overflowed through his body, healing him and easing a great amount of the pain he was feeling.
He sat back up and slicked back his sweat-soaked hair. After taking a couple of breaths, he fully calmed down.
'That was intense.' He sighed. 'Still doesn't answer any of the questions I had but I guess I'll have to wait and let time do what it does best.'
He closed his eyes once more and began to meditate, formulating plans for the future.
'Considering the grade of this dungeon is so high, I think I'll need to at least be at the peak of the foundational tiers before I go clear them.'
'So for now, I must purely focus on strength. My cultivation speed is fine so I don't have to worry about that. As for my evolutions, that's also fine. If I play my cards right, I may be able to get another evolution during the Undead ascension trials.'
'Now that leaves me with the basics. I need to solidify my foundations so in the future I don't have any weaknesses. This means I must work on my spearmanship, aether control, affinity control, and I also must start setting the necessary foundation to use spells and martial arts. I can't keep simply swinging my spear and throwing beams of aether.'
'When I eventually get to talents of my level, I'll eventually crash into a wall and crumble. I also need to fully and properly assimilate the legacies I gained plus the years of battle I have accumulated.'
'Though it's a lot, with my growth talent, it shouldn't be hard.'
'For now, I'll start with aether control then move on to spearmanship.'
He stood and began to stretch as he took off his upper robes, revealing his toned physique.
'Alright, let's start with aether strings made using-'
Before he could begin, something suddenly happened.