Merin's eyes remain firm.
Seeing the thunder ray pierce down, he lifts his right hand.
Energy surges—streams of white and silver swirl around his palm, gathering into a dense beam.
A white ray shoots out, rising to meet the golden thunder.
They collide mid-air.
For a moment—silence.
Then—
Boom.
An explosion tears the clouds apart.
A shockwave blasts outward, flattening trees and blowing buildings into rubble.
The ground splits.
Windows shatter in cities hundreds of kilometres away.
Those nearby scream and clutch their ears, blood dripping from eardrums ruptured by the sound alone.
Anne, standing far behind the barrier dome, claps her hands in awe.
"Father is like a god!"
She turns to Allison, her eyes shining.
"Sister Allison, will Father teach me how to form the shiny white ray?"
She points at the light surging from Merin's hand.
"It's so pretty."
Merin closes his eyes.
Above, his white ray locks with the golden thunder—two forces, equal in strength, refusing to yield.
But this isn't a battle of power now—it's a test.
A calculation.
A riddle posed by the world itself.
Each moment, Merin's will and control answer the thunder's shifting patterns—like solving an endless mathematical equation in real time.
If his answer is correct, the white ray advances.
If he falters, the golden thunder pushes forward.
Back and forth.
Light surges.
Pressure deepens.
Then, the balance tips.
The white ray bends the golden thunder—
And instead of destroying it—
It merges.
The two forces spiral into each other, blending into a white-golden beam.
It falls upon Merin like divine baptism.
His aura erupts—soaring higher and higher.
Rank 11 Initial.
Intermediate.
Late.
Peak.
Complete.
In a single breath, he steps through every minor stage.
His magic and Karst energy twist and mesh until they are indistinguishable.
And then—
Rank 12.
The world convulses.
Mountains tremble.
Oceans ripple unnaturally.
Martial artists across continent collapse to their knees, losing control of their energy.
Demon hunters scream as demon energy within them surges and rebels.
Ordinary people fall into pain as white energy rises from the earth itself, invading their bodies.
The air glows faintly.
Everywhere—something is changing.
A new force enters the world.
And the world does not ask permission.
It imposes.
The weak scream.
The strong adapt.
Some mutate, energy flooding through their veins.
Others collapse, bodies unable to bear the strain.
A new era begins—not through decree, but through judgment.
Magic merges with Karst, unlocking its mutative essence.
A method chosen by the world itself—
Adapt or perish.
And in the sky, glowing like a second sun—
Merin stands at the centre of it all, his body glowing with white-golden light.
Then, without hesitation, he moves.
He appears beside Evelyn and gently places his hand on her back—his energy seeps into her core, imprinting a seal.
He turns to Valerie and does the same.
Anne and Allison stare up at him wide-eyed as he places identical seals on their tiny bodies.
Evelyn's parents and her cousin receive the same blessing.
The seal pulses with his essence, guiding the wild new energy that floods the world, ensuring their success in mutation.
Then, he vanishes.
In the next moment, he's in his childhood home.
He seals his father, his mother, and finally his sister.
A soft smile touches his lips—but he wastes no time.
The next instant, he disappears again.
Far from the chaos, he finds a secluded land of mountains and mist, untouched by civilisation, and sits.
Cross-legged.
Silent.
Focused.
He closes his eyes.
His energy still surges—unstable, limitless.
Merin didn't just break into Rank 12—he climbed the full rank in one step.
The world itself helped him.
It was never intended to kill him.
When Merin absorbed the thunder, he also brought fragments of a foreign law—the law of magic from the dimension he touched.
And the world, curious, absorbed those fragments.
It learned.
When Merin answered the world's challenge, the world also answered his.
Each question mirrored the other.
And when they became the same—
Both grew.
The world evolved.
And so did Merin.
Now he sits—no longer just a man—but the world's most beloved son.
As he stabilises his realm, chaos spreads across the planet.
A great dying begins.
Creatures unable to adapt fall silent—lifeless.
Yet at the same time—resurrection.
Dead bodies twitch.
Corpses rise.
Stones gather and reshape into beasts.
Water flows upward—forming humanoid shapes.
Winds twist into howling spirits.
Flames burn without fuel—walking as fire creatures.
Trees tremble—their roots tear out of the earth as they begin to walk.
Abandoned homes shiver, creak, and start crawling across the land.
Beasts, touched by new energy, shed their forms—bones cracking, limbs reshaping into humanoid frames.
The new energy sweeping across the world carries the volatile, dynamic nature of magic energy and the mutative, irradiating essence of Karst energy.
Together, they spark large-scale mutation.
Across continent, creatures twist and transform—shapes break, reform, evolve, or die.
The Origin World, once devoid of elemental power, now surges with it.
Earth, fire, water, wind, lightning, metal, ice—all elemental forces pour into the plane.
With their arrival, even the weakest beings grow stronger.
Merin, eyes still closed in meditation, senses it clearly.
Every human who survives this trial will awaken an elemental affinity.
Fire in their blood.
Lightning in their bones.
Stone beneath their skin.
And for many beasts—especially those without spirit—this is extinction.
They cannot adapt.
They cannot mutate.
They die.
All over the globe, species vanish.
The age of ordinary creatures ends.
A new ecosystem begins.
Above his secluded mountain, Merin opens his awareness, and his senses stretch—
Across oceans.
Across forests.
Across cities turned to ash and wilderness.
He feels something deeper stirring in the roots of reality.
The laws of two different worlds—his native Origin World and the Magic Dimension—are merging.
As they combine, gaps open.
Cracks in the law of existence.
And from those cracks—
New laws are born.
Not hidden, not buried.
Open.
Visible.
Waiting.
Merin, whose comprehension ability now borders divinity, begins to understand.
He sees strings of law like flowing rivers, woven threads dancing in the sky, ground, air, and time.
And he studies them.
Learns them.
Understands them.
He is not alone.
Far across the void—beyond this world—he feels it.
Multiple spiritual senses.
Foreign.
Ancient.
Curious.
Probing.
They scan the shifting world, drawn by its sudden evolution.
They want to understand it.
Maybe claim it.
Maybe stop it.
And still, the land changes—
At the edge of the world, new continents rise from the sea.
Mountains emerge like sleeping giants awakening.
Forests unfurl as if time itself speeds up their birth.
The world grows—not just in strength, but in size.
The micro plane ascends.
This transformation is vast and quiet—it will continue for thousands of years.
But what happens now—
This week of chaos—
Is something else.
Rapid Transformation.
The world's core opens for seven days.
Its truth, its future, its law—
Revealed.
For Merin, it is the ultimate chance to comprehend.
For others, it is the same.
He senses them.
All watching.
All learning.
All reaching.
And among those reaching—far away in the void, past crumbling stars and frozen planets—a vast space fleet drifts in silence.
A colossal battleship leads the formation, its hull shimmering with psychic runes and black-gold plating.
Suddenly—within the command deck—alarms ring.
The air distorts.
Screens flash.
Energy readings spike.
A figure steps forward.
Humanoid in shape, but ethereal.
White hair like flowing mist.
Eyes without pupils—just glowing white orbs.
And a small, glowing crystal embedded in the centre of her forehead.
She touches the main control panel.
Symbols flicker across the screen.
Another figure enters.
Identical body, same pale light pulsing beneath translucent skin, but a sharper face—more angular, more battle-worn.
"What happened?" she asks, voice cold and clipped.
The first replies, "My lady, fluctuations. A micro plane is undergoing elevation."
The second figure narrows her eyes. "Promotion?"
"Yes. The signs match. Elemental saturation, spatial expansion, world law unlocking—this is a plane advancement."
The second figure smiles.
"A ripe orchard… waiting to be harvested."
She turns, eyes gleaming.
"Ready the fleet. Set coordinates. This plane will become a resource point for the Rose Dynasty."
She raises her voice, and it booms across the ship through mental channels.
"Prepare for descent. We ride for feast!"
From the battleship, psychic signals ripple outward.
Hundreds of sleek warships—silent and elegant—ignite their cores and shift trajectory.
The fleet moves as one, cutting through the void.
Their name echoes within their own minds, a pride they carry across galaxies—
The Psion.
And they belong to—
The Rose Dynasty.
A galactic empire of beauty, terror, and conquest.
And now, their eyes are fixed—
In Merin's world, he remains unaware of the fleet approaching through the void.
His eyes stay closed.
His mind is immersed.
He comprehends the newly born laws.
He also introduced the law that he comprehended in the Dragon World and the Main World.
Each law he grasps becomes a thread.
He weaves them together.
And through this weaving, the foundation of the Origin World strengthens—its background expands—its fate thickens.
But as the world changes, so must the way to cultivate.
The old system cannot bear the weight of the new energy.
And so, it reforms.
A new cultivation system is born, shaped by the new world's essence and the truths Merin uncovers:
First Realm — Awakening Realm
The start.
Awaken your mental strength—or your physical strength.
Then nourish the dormant one with the awakened.
Blend both to form your chakra.
Ranks 1 to 3.
Second Realm — Refining Realm
Merge your chakra with the world's energy.
Refine it again and again.
Until your chakra matches the world's energy in essence and depth.
Ranks 4 to 5.
Third Realm — Spiritual Realm
Feel the spirit in your body.
Feel the spirit in the world.
Draw them together.
Your spirituality deepens.
Ranks 6 to 8.
Fourth Realm — Virtual Dharma Realm
With deepened spirituality, one comprehends the laws of the world.
Spirituality takes shape—
Becoming the form of law.
The spiritual becomes energy.
The virtual becomes real.
Ranks 9 to 10.
Fifth Realm — Energy Dharma Realm
The Energy Dharma awakens.
It becomes your true form.
It reflects your soul.
Then replicates itself—cell by cell—until every inch of you is reborn.
Ranks 11 to 13.
Merin now stands at the peak of this realm.
Next—
The Sixth Realm awaits.
Where energy becomes flesh.
Where the Energy Dharma becomes Physical Dharma.
A new body.
A new truth.
A new life—one with the world.