In the Dark Haven fortress. Forging chamber.
Solar Clone slowly lifted his hammer and set it down with a heavy clang that echoed through the vast space.
He lifted the item in his hands, fingers trembling slightly.
Finally…
His voice grew louder, filled with triumph.
"I forged it."
Then he quieted, storing the item carefully in a special container. A few tears glimmered in his eyes—tears of exhaustion, relief, and quiet joy.
The item looked like a small pearl, with a delicate lotus blooming at its center. Around the lotus pulsed a perfect miniature web of glowing sapphire-blue crystalline veins, branching like living arteries.
It was the same Essence Artery Grid he had taken from the Astruo continent. But it had changed greatly.
The change wasn't in its appearance. It was in its function. The original grid could only increase the surrounding essence flow—in quantity and quality.
But now, not only was the effect enhanced by 500%, but it could also generate elemental essence.
Discussion had already happened previously: when any element (take fire as an example) integrated with essence flow, it became a special energy—elemental essence (fire-type essence flow).
And such elemental essence could only be found in places where essence flow and the element were in abundant quantity. Like underground lake rich in water essence.
But now, the Essence Artery Grid could generate that elemental essence in its surroundings. Solar Clone had studied the grid for many months. Finally, he understood it. He created a special vyuha and placed it inside the grid—at the exact point where conversion happened. So whenever neutral essence flow was created, it integrated with the vyuha and became elemental essence.
But there was still a problem: this grid was only one. And it could only generate one type at a time—neutral essence flow, or elemental like water, fire, space, soul, etc.
And if he wanted to generate elemental essence, he would need to place the grid in a location where that respective element was in good quantity. Yes, it could work in a normal place too. But the efficiency would be very low.
And there was also a thing: the grid enhanced quality. Understand—this was about quality, not quantity.
Elemental essence was already powerful. But if it got even stronger, it would be truly terrifying.
Solar Clone was thinking about his family. They would need elemental essence sooner or later for Stage 2. So if they used this enhanced, more powerful elemental essence… they would be far stronger than normal.
He planned to use the grid then—place it where water element and Essence flow was abundant, let it slowly convert to water essence, and enhance its quality beyond normal. And it wasn't just the grid capable of that.
Don't forget: water essence quality mostly depended on essence flow quality. So if the essence flow was high quality, it would enhance the water essence.
But how would the essence flow quality be increased?
It wasn't complicated. Essence flow naturally increased in quantity and quality slowly over time in nature. He had already said it: essence flow was always growing. Day by day on Earth, it expanded, almost enveloping the entire planet. Sooner or later, it would leak outside into space.
He was also thinking of experimenting. Like using the Essence Artery Grid to generate soul essence? Or dream essence? Or death essence?
Because he had only seen a few types of elemental essence so far. Now he wanted to experiment and see if there could be surprises with other kinds.
But he would do that later. Currently, there was more work.
But he had a partner to share it with.
He glanced at Heart Clone and smiled a little.
When Heart Clone saw that smile, he suddenly had a bad feeling. His Divine Sage profession senses kicked in—he realized he was about to be worked to death.
Solar Clone then said, "Follow me. We will create a fire elemental world first. It's my specialization anyway."
Heart Clone followed him with an awkward face. He now understood what work Solar Clone was referring to.
The work was to create a special world where only a single element existed.
And he could also guess why Solar Clone was doing it. There were many benefits.
Firstly, when only a single element existed, the resources and items from that world would carry that element's properties. And those resources would be truly exceptional. Currently on Earth, even though they had more than half the origin points of essence flow and massive resources, special resources were still scarce. Solar and Sacral Clone really needed those special resources.
Second benefit: his family and disciples could use those elemental worlds to comprehend that single element. Yes, he had previously created vyuhas that could concentrate a single element in a region (Ch 178), but those vyuhas weren't efficient. They only affected a small area. And even though they concentrated one element, other elements still mixed in.