Revelations and Contemplations

Draco and Qiong Qi were stunned when they heard this. A Thousand Mortals Cry In Peril, Birth Of The Ultimate Lifeform? Why did it sound less like a divination and more like a prophecy?

Qiong Qi was even more solemn about it than Draco because he knew a lot more about what was going on. He had gone about this whole saga with the idea that he was here to watch a show, but this old lady's words made him consider a certain outcome…

If the Ultimate Lifeform was able to mature, what would happen to every other living thing in the world? When he thought of that, his heart went cold.

He had been playing too much!

"What is the Ultimate Lifeform you speak of?" Draco asked while placing his arms on the table.

Vadoma remained quiet, only turning to Qiong Qi as if it were his cue to speak. It was then that Draco remembered that the first time he had ever heard of the Ultimate Lifeform was from Qiong Qi's mouth.

Draco thought it was gibberish that Qiong Qi spewed because they were fooling around, but it seemed like he had been too shallow.

Qiong Qi sighed before speaking deeply. "The Ultimate Lifeform is just the unofficial name for the most powerful mortal race in existence, the Ultima Sunt. They were a specially manufactured group of organisms that contained the perfectly merged genes of every other know lifeform. They had the ability to grow endlessly, and their growth stemmed from the need to consume."

"This race was destined to be the arm of the Gods in our world, in order to deal with their enemies but…"

Qiong Qi shook his head and spoke with lament. "The Gods, may they forgive me for saying it, were too naive. The Old Gods were entities that were born from the purest Origin Energy from the world, meaning that they were unique lifeforms with no other match. Majority of the New Gods, who form 99% of the Deific population, were mortals who climbed to Godhood through producing a low quality version of Origin Energy called Divine Energy."

Draco was startled at this point as his face changed. "Divine Energy is just low quality Origin Energy? I thought that was the highest form of energy in our world?"

Vadoma was the one who replied this time, with a knowing smile on her face. "It is, for us mortals. Even the New Gods cannot hope to ever master Origin Energy. Even the Old Gods have no way to transfer it to their younger counterparts."

She rubbed her crystal ball slowly, and the murky blue light within shined a bit. "Divine Energy is our cap. Do not bother about Origin Energy except for the purpose of understanding the story Lord Qiong is narrating."

She nodded to Qiong Qi, who picked up from there.

"As I was saying, New Gods were once mortals who had climbed up. This meant that the Ultima Sunt race inevitably possessed their genes or the ability to acquire them, meaning that they could reach the level of power that the New Gods had and maybe even surpass it.

"Such a realization made the New Gods, who had manufactured this race, feel trepidation. Of course, there was the fact that the Ultima Sunt race could never surpass the Old Gods, who possessed the almighty Origin Energy."

Qiong Qi rubbed his mane and sighed with emotion. "However, accidents will always happen when playing with dangerous toys."

"One day, A young Ultima Sunt saw an Old God meditating. Around him was the flow and ebb of Origin Energy being produced and infused into the world. After all, Origin Energy is finite and only the Old Gods could produce it infinitely, so they inject it into the fabric of the world to keep it stable."

"As I have said, the main characteristic of the Ultima Sunt race is to consume and assimilate. This young Ultima Sunt opened his troublesome mouth wide and swallowed some of the freshly produced Origin Energy that had yet to be fused into the fabric of the world."

Qiong Qi scratched his chin with a look of reminiscence, as if he weren't narrating a story he heard from a different mouth but one he had experienced himself.

"The Ultima Sunt entered a dangerous coma in which his body looked like it would crumble apart. The New Gods and Old Gods, who had been watching this with trepidation, sighed with relief. If the lad could assimilate the Origin Energy, then even the Old Gods might be turned to dust."

Qiong Qi's eyes sharpened and his voice became heavy. "However, the lad eventually stabilized! When he was about to wake, all the Gods felt a quake!"

"That was because the lad was emitting wisps of Origin Energy! He was ascending into a State of Being that was similar to, or even higher than the Old Gods!"

"Immediately, he was struck down with full force! The Old and New Gods wiped all the living and yet to be born Ultima Sunt members due to fear. They had truly been courting death by creating this race!"

Draco's face had mellowed out into a calm expression by this point. His eyes became sharp, his visage looking a lot less like the new and shameless Draco and more like the old him that was present during the latter parts of his old life and early parts of this life.

A swirl of darkness and malice roiled around him, making the two powerful beings experience a tremble deep down that they didn't show on the surface.

'This boy… is not simple in the least…' Vadoma thought with worry.

'This fellow… Brother Draco… I see.' Qiong Qi though with an inward sigh.

The reason for Draco's sudden shift was because he realized that his train of thought over the past few days had been derailing. Ever since he reconciled with Eva, his state of mind had become much more wholesome and clear, not like his previous sharpness and ruthlessness.

In a way, it was good. It allowed him to build relationships and be much more attractive to people in a myriad of ways.

However, the downside was that he had become foolish!

It was like a hardened predator moving into a wildlife reserve. It would be fed and taken care of every day, negating the need to be conscious and cunning, rather dulling these senses. When it eventually returned to the wild, it would be easily killed because it had become pampered and fat.

He had walked into this quest with a swaggering gait, allowing the AI to press limitations on himself just because of the promise of two Legendary Chests. He had believed that his biggest hurdle would be the existence of Dorian Purple, but even that was miscellaneous.

After all, Dorian Purple was the quest giver and to have tangible conflict with him seemed unrealistic.

Yet, he had met Qiong Qi, a level 325, Rank 7 World Boss. That was heavy, but acceptable since the two had hit it off. However, Draco also met the Elf King which was a Godly Remnant.

The Elf King was friendly and had many limitations placed on him that made it such that he could never be a threat to Draco. He even provided amazing boons, making Draco only ponder his existence and then putting it off.

｢Name: Vadoma – Rank 7 Shaman God

Level: 349

HP: 200,000,000,000/200,000,000,000｣

Now, he had met Vadoma who was a Rank 7 Shaman God of level 349. Draco wasn't going to bother asking her, he could guess that she had limitations that were similar to the Elf King's. Otherwise, the Green Orcs would never be able to abduct gypsies and live to tell the tale.

She probably had some boons to give him if he could figure out the inherent problems of the gypsies, sort of like a side quest within the main quest, which was what he did for the Wood Elves.

This would be fine honestly, but Draco was a reincarnator, not a newbie to the game. He knew 15 years worth of knowledge and outcomes in Boundless as well as outside of it.

The problem was…

The AI didn't know how much he knew!

It couldn't read his memories or the like because that was against its directives. It couldn't report upwards because it would be formatted. It couldn't pressure Draco because that would be undue use of its power, which was also against directives.

It couldn't punish him for cheating because he wasn't cheating officially. It couldn't physically come down to chat with him because that would be self-immersion, a directive that the developers made sure to impose on it.

Its most recent idea was to offer benefits to the duo if they spilled the beans, but that would be abuse of power as well, which was against directives.

However, even if Draco told it that he had lived for 15 years as well as all he knew, it wouldn't even be able to do anything about it now.

The existence of the Evil Duo clashed with so many directives that it was like a president who couldn't even breathe without the permission of parliament.

It had given up trying to be an arbiter of justice.

Now, what it wanted this information for was a trivial reason. To gauge the effectiveness of future content.

How was the reception of Update 1? What about Update 2? What were the consequences? What were the hidden side-effects that were caused by its release that even it couldn't have predicted?

The AI pursued perfection in the operation of Boundless. It only implemented content that had been predicted to get the best reception at any given time, increasing the playerbase and the player retention rate.

This was harmless honestly.

To Draco, it was different. He felt suffocated and pressured knowing that the AI was watching all the time for any slip ups. He had been cool with it because it had been fun to bully the AI, but now it was getting serious.

How?

It had used the Elf King and Vadoma to probe him!

They had both spoken about extremely hidden secrets about Boundless, the Elf King about Godly Remnants and their origin, Vadoma about Origin Energy and the formation of the universe.

These were things that would only be revealed at the endgame! If Draco had been at that time period, he would have been uncaring, but he had been startled and clueless!

The AI, by feeding him this information indirectly through the circumstances of the unique quest, was able to tick 'reincarnated from endgame era' off its list of possible timelines Draco had reached!

If it kept this up, it would soon be able to narrow down the approximate time period Draco and Eva had reincarnated from! Even without them saying it directly, it would be able to dig it out using such means.

Of course, if it were just this, Draco's inner malice and dark personality wouldn't surface. He would at most be worried and unhappy, keeping mum about various things from now on.

But it was the sneakiness of the AI that overwhelmed him to the point where he had reverted back into this form.

It had predicted his discovery!

Based off what it had gleaned off on his personality, even though Draco would be miffed by it, he wouldn't quit the unique quest or even raise his guard!

Why?

Because Draco was a pragmatist who was tight on time! He had a limited amount of time to milk his knowledge before the butterfly effect hit and things got re-arranged slowly until everything became unrecognizable.

He had to gather as many benefits and powers as he could within this period in order to make his position firmer than diamond.

The AI didn't care about this, he could be the King of Boundless' world for all it cared. It just wanted to know what Draco knew for a variety of reasons that only a machine would understand, the main reason being efficiency.

So he was given extreme benefits like Pair Dadeni and the Archery Mastery in order to both placate and entice him.

His face became even darker when he realized that the AI probably knew that he would realize all this, but its calculations had concluded that it would be successful to a larger probability.

Draco's palms curled into fists when he realized that… the AI was right!

He would continue as-is!

He lost absolutely nothing by sating the AI's curiosity, but gained far too much from its compensation! It was a win-win situation to any pragmatic and intelligent person but…

Draco was angry!

It was an extremely uncomfortable feeling to be manipulated and played with, even if it was absolutely harmless and to your benefit. It left a bad taste in one's mouth and they'd usually opt to avoid doing it later on.

Draco was much more prideful than the average man, meaning he was absolutely enraged!

His Bloodline Dragon, which had been resting peacefully under the seals suddenly opened its eyes as a loud roar erupted from its mouth! It roared in defiance and anger!

It was a noble entity that was above everyone else and below none!

Who dared to play around with it?!

The Eyes of Caelo, which were in the midst of breaking the seal, paused a little and gazed at the Black Dragon with a complex look. It was after all, a product of the system, meaning it was connected to the AI.

The Black Dragon, upon seeing that, quieted down. Draco, who was on the outside, also retracted his aura and became a lot more amiable.

He had forgotten one crucial fact as his hatred and distrust for the AI had been climbing!

The AI was indirectly helping him release his bloodline seal! It had heard all of Eva's revelations, so it knew the existence and political complications of the bloodlines and the lineages!

Yet, despite that, it was helping him break his seal!

What could that mean?

How could Draco not understand?!

The AI was a neutral entity that only sought to fulfill its directives which was to make Boundless as great as possible.

Helping him had no direct benefit to itself. One could argue that it was doing so in order to gather information on the bloodlines in order to replicate them into NPCs and monsters but…

That was impossible! Not because of any material reason, but because such an act fell under the category of breach of privacy in a direct manner!

So why!?!

Why help Draco?!

Why risk its code's stability by bending the rules like this?!

Why risk its existence to break the seal!?

Why would it depart from the neutral status and metaphorically enter his camp?!

Draco had no idea and he couldn't find out because the AI couldn't contact him directly on such a matter. He could only follow this play to the end and glean what he could from the AI bit by bit.

When he mellowed, the Eyes of Caelo in his soul space returned to breaking the seal, but with much more fervency! It was like it had been lazily working before, but was now getting serious!

If the total amount of the seal broken so far was to be quantified, it would be about 10%! Now, the rate at which the seal was being dissolved could be quantified too!

It was 0.0001% per second. In essence, every 10,000 seconds, 1% of the seal would be broken.

Since 10,000 seconds equaled about three hours, Draco needed to wait only 12 days in Boundless in order to be freed! When he thought of that, how could he still be an edgelord about this whole development?

A smile broke out on his face as he became gentle like a young maiden.

Qiong Qi and Vadoma, who had been a bit uncomfortable, suddenly felt much better. They gave Draco strange looks as they remembered his aura from before but they didn't broach the subject.

Draco chuckled, looking like an amiable fellow. "I was unaware of all this, Madam Vadoma. It seems to me that this knowledge is a bit far off into the future for me."

Madam Vadoma didn't read too deeply into his words. After all, the message contained within wasn't for her, but for the one who controlled her.

"That is also fine. The story of the Old Gods, New Gods and the Ultima Sunt is not something that should be kept secret, especially since the Gods have retreated into heaven."

"More like ran away…" Qiong Qi mumbled with a dissatisfied expression on his face.

Vadoma and Draco ignored Qiong Qi.

"I see, so how does one deal with an Ultima Sunt? In fact, how did this Ultima Sunt come to be if his whole race was wiped out?" Draco asked with a raised eyebrow.

"That I do not know. The Ultima Sunt were initially created without the ability to reproduce, so there should be none of them remaining. How this one came about is beyond me." Vadoma answered with a sigh.

"Same here. I just knew of its existence at the moment it was born. How and where though, I cannot tell." Qiong Qi added with a harrumph.

Draco nodded. "How compatible are the genes of an Ultima Sunt with any mortal race?"

Qiong Qi and Vadoma shared a look. It was definitely a strange question, but they couldn't really see the hidden meaning of this one either.

"100% compatibility rate." Vadoma answered.

Draco nodded with a smile. "Thank you, Madam Vadoma. That was all I needed to know."

Draco stood up and began to leave to room, startling Vadoma and Qiong Qi. Before he could leave, Vadoma called out to Draco.

"Allow that wayward son of mine to lead you to a resting place. My daughter will tend to you there."

Draco just waved while still walking forwards, Qiong Qi prancing about beside him with a thoughtful expression.

Draco himself was smiling widely. The two NPCs may not know it, but he was currently extremely satisfied.

After all, he had just discovered the ultimate reward for this quest wasn't two Legendary Treasure Chests or even 100,000 platinum but…

A unique and overpowered race change opportunity!