Lord: Sequence Master

Inside the Void Gallery, Rosen lay on a rocking chair with his eyes closed.

He wasn't actually asleep but fully concentrating on the Ashen Curtain.

The tip of his Divine Pen burned with ember fire, and the scene on the Ashen Curtain was frozen on an image of a building near the center of a city. Although Rosen couldn't recognize the characters on the building's surface, it was clear that it was a bookstore.

The Everlasting Flame ability could reignite the lingering traces of a civilization reflected on the Ashen Curtain.

However, this process required the consumption of divine energy to activate the Everlasting Flame ability.

Rosen, along with his self-portrait clone, could transform spiritual energy into divine energy by becoming Feathered Serpent Gods. Additionally, his Nightmare Slime and Grey Mouse, through shared abilities, could also transform spiritual energy into divine energy. Moreover, golden divinity could similarly convert spiritual energy into divine energy.

This meant that Rosen could currently access 36 x 2 points of divine energy, plus 34 x 4, minus 1 point that must be kept as a reserve. So, he could actually use only 202 points of divine energy.

Unlike spiritual energy, divine energy didn't replenish as easily.

Unless Rosen used his Gluttony Stomach to digest high-quality spiritual crystals or extraordinary materials of Sequence 3 level, recovering divine energy quickly was nearly impossible. As a result, he was forced to keep devouring high-quality spiritual crystals obtained from Grey Mouse.

In the end, he lost track of how many crystals he consumed but managed to recover divine energy over 300 times.

After expending over 60,000 units of divine energy, he finally reignited the bookstore reflected on the Ashen Curtain.

Exhausted from half a month of lying on the rocking chair, Rosen opened his weary, bloodshot eyes and pulled out a leaf from the Golden Apple Tree.

The single leaf was three feet long—large enough to serve as a perfect canvas.

Rosen projected the bookstore illuminated on the Ashen Curtain onto the leaf, as the ember fire silently burned through it. Before long, the leaf depicted a photo-like image of a spherical building.

He hung the golden leaf on the wall and stepped forward into the painting's space, arriving at the base of the spherical building.

Pushing open the glass doors, he found a light elevator leading to the upper floors.

This light elevator resembled a typical elevator, but instead of a moving cabin, the passengers would be transformed into light elements and instantly transported to the upper levels.

Rosen walked around the lobby, unable to recognize any of the symbols or writing.

He tried searching for the language using the Main God Network but found no results.

With no other options, he turned to the Main God Computer for help.

Activating the Godslayer Eye merged into his right eye, he began capturing images of all the text and symbols, uploading them for analysis. After finishing his exploration of the lobby, he took the light elevator to the upper floors of the spherical building.

The second to fourth floors were filled with bookshelves and books, while the fifth floor housed a large object resembling a telescope.

Using his Left Eye's Void Realm Vision, Rosen scanned and copied all the books into the Void Realm, then uploaded them to the Main God Computer. Before long, the computer's advanced information analysis activated, slowly translating the foreign script.

As the Main God Computer deciphered the language, the words on Rosen's retinas began to automatically translate themselves.

He quickly located the history section and pulled out a book titled A Brief History of the Ember God's Kingdom.

Rosen read rapidly, his eyes skimming through two pages at a time.

When he finished, he set the book down, deeply shaken.

The Ember God's Kingdom was the civilization that had created the very concept of civilization embers.

Before the Ember God's Kingdom existed, there was no Spirit Realm, nor was there the concept of civilization embers.

After the Ember God's Kingdom invented civilization embers, it grew increasingly powerful.

At its height, the Ember God's Kingdom had more than ten Sequence 0 gods, including the Ember True God, who had created civilization embers.

However, the kingdom's rapid rise alarmed other races and civilizations, leading them to unite against it, aiming to destroy the Ember God's Kingdom and steal the technology to ignite civilization embers. As a result, the kingdom became the enemy of the entire world.

The final sections of A Brief History revealed that the Ember God's Kingdom was at a severe disadvantage.

The book also mentioned several ancient races and civilizations that had long since gone extinct.

It became clear that while the Ember God's Kingdom had been annihilated by the combined forces of various gods, the invaders themselves suffered heavy losses. Some of those extinct civilizations may have been wiped out by the Ember God's Kingdom.

The ultimate victors took the kingdom's technology for igniting civilization embers, which likely led to the eventual creation of the Spirit Realm, a place to preserve the remnants of ancient civilizations.

But it was also evident that not all of the kingdom's secrets had been stolen.

The method for reigniting embers from ashes had remained hidden within the Ember True God's shattered divine kingdom, waiting to be rediscovered.

The Howard family had been the ancient guardians of this hope for countless generations.

Rosen then moved to the shelves containing cultivation books and picked up a volume titled Detailed Analysis of Embers.

As he continued reading, he gained valuable insights but also encountered some disappointments.

He realized that humanity's four major civilization sequences were essentially four different paths derived from the power of civilization embers. However, the extraordinary system described in the ancient books paled in comparison to humanity's four civilization sequences.

Ancient didn't always mean stronger—civilizations evolved, and so did ember-based systems.

In its time, the Ember God's Kingdom had mastered the most advanced and powerful civilization ember system, which is why the foreign gods joined forces to destroy it.

However, over the millennia, the civilizations that had stolen the kingdom's ember technology surpassed the original creators.

Shaking his head, Rosen returned to the history section to delve into the more complex aspects of the Ember God's Kingdom's history.

He found a passage concerning the lifespan of civilizations.

It turned out that all civilizations struggled to surpass the ten-thousand-year mark.

Once a civilization crossed ten thousand years, it would face a world-altering calamity.

If the civilization survived, it would continue for another ten thousand years, facing a second calamity at the next threshold. Thus, a civilization's strength was often measured by how many calamities it had endured.

The Ember God's Kingdom had lasted for thirty thousand years, surviving two calamities as a Second-Calamity Civilization before perishing in the third.

By this logic, humanity's World Government was now a Second-Calamity Civilization.

In roughly nine thousand more years, humanity would face another period of great prosperity.

According to the Ember God's Kingdom's records, Second-Calamity Civilizations were already incredibly powerful.

Most civilizations would see the rise of true gods during their First Calamity, and those that developed unique systems like civilization embers would become Second-Calamity Civilizations. Only a handful of civilizations ever reached the Third Calamity.

However, there were legends of three ancient civilizations that had reached the mythical level of a Ninth-Calamity Civilization before being destroyed.

These were the Cosmic Civilization, the Ancient God Civilization, and the Prime God Civilization.

The Cosmic Civilization was the origin of all technological systems, the Ancient God Civilization the source of all extraordinary bloodlines, and the Prime God Civilization the progenitor of all divine systems. Even the Ember God's Kingdom's history books held these three ancient civilizations in high regard.

Upon reading about the Cosmic Civilization, Rosen's first thought was of his past life.

Back then, Blue Star was just a tiny speck in the vast cosmos.

Perhaps, over the next ninety thousand years, the most ancient of the three great civilizations—the Cosmic Civilization—had emerged.

As for the Ancient God Civilization, there were no clues, but the Prime God Civilization made Rosen think of the Main God Computer.

Was it possible that the Main God Computer and the Mysterious Study Room's Main God Hall originated from the Prime God Civilization, one of the Ninth-Calamity Civilizations?

In the Ember God's Kingdom, such ancient history could still be found in a typical library.

Yet, in the present day, the World Government only allowed history after its founding to be widely known.

As for the history before the World Government's establishment, it was almost entirely sealed away.

The reason for this was not hard to understand. During the time of the Ember God's Kingdom, there was no Spirit Realm. In the current era, however, the Spirit Realm could preserve the remnants and embers of history. If such history were

freely spread, it might increase the chances of reviving long-dead civilizations from the depths of the Spirit Realm.

Rosen left the library and exited the painted world, feeling much more at ease.

What had worried him most was the possibility that the power of the civilization embers he had inherited might carry hidden dangers.

But now, it seemed that the Main God Computer's power likely exceeded that of civilization embers. After all, one system belonged to a Ninth-Calamity Civilization, while the other was at its peak only a Second-Calamity Civilization.

With this in mind, Rosen used the Main God Computer to analyze his own status.

The results came back quickly, and they were more detailed than ever, thanks to the wealth of information the Main God Computer had accumulated.

It turned out that the ember within his spirit was also a miracle, a True God Miracle.

Strictly speaking, the fire Rosen possessed should be called Miracle Ember.

Miracle Ember was the source of all civilization embers, capable of igniting remnants to rekindle a fire and of devouring other civilizations' embers. In addition to these core abilities, Miracle Ember, like all miracles, had the traits of being unique in the world and eternally indestructible.

Thus, even if the Miracle Ember had been destroyed, it had spent the last three thousand years slowly regenerating itself.

Moreover, the noble sequence within the Howard family's lineage, which carried the power of human civilization embers, had served as nourishment for the Miracle Ember's rebirth.

Because the Miracle Ember had devoured a portion of the human civilization's ember, it had been able to transform Rosen's Painter Sequence into the Ember Painter Sequence.

With this, Rosen was completely reassured—there were no hidden dangers in the Miracle Ember he had acquired.

The Miracle Ember was merely a legacy, nothing more.

However, the mystery remained as to why both the Ember True God's statue and the figure who had decapitated the statue looked exactly like him. This, for now, was still an unsolved riddle.

Sitting before the Main God Computer, Rosen took two divine shards from a drawer.

He dared not take these items out of the Mysterious Study Room.

If the owners of these shards were still alive, revealing them outside the Study Room would be tantamount to suicide.

The mouse cord wrapped around the divine shard, and the endless rainbow-colored light was immediately extracted by the Main God Computer.

Perhaps because the Demon God's power had been satiated last time, the Main God Computer didn't retain any of the rainbow-colored light this time.

All the light was transferred into the Noble Extraordinary Substance and, from there, into the Human Civilization's Noble Sequence Tree in the Spirit Realm.

Rosen's previously non-hereditary Earl title instantly transformed into a Hereditary Duke before it finally stopped.

In the past, Rosen hadn't noticed much, but now he could clearly feel it.

As his noble title rose, more civilization embers from the Noble Sequence Tree were infused into his Extraordinary Substance. The amount of embers was enough to elevate his Painter Sequence, fused with the Miracle Ember, to Sequence 6.

As for the civilization embers wrapped in the two divine shards, they were sufficient to boost his Ember Painter sequence from Sequence 6 to Sequence 5.

However, to progress further to Sequence 5, Rosen would have to find ways to steal the civilization embers of other civilizations.

"Hereditary Duke... I'm now of the same rank as Archduke Blazing Shadow," Rosen chuckled.

The divine shards might hold even greater value, potentially enough to cause demi-gods to fight over them.

However, there's a saying: "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." The sooner resources and treasures are converted into strength, the greater their value.

Even just the Hereditary Duke title meant that even the Emperor of the Thunder Empire would treat him with respect.

Of course, given his current strength, flaunting his Duke title would bring more trouble than benefit.

After calming down, Rosen found something odd. The value of the divine shards was indeed high, but it didn't seem sufficient to elevate him from a Hereditary Earl to a Hereditary Duke. Unless the World Government had placed an exceptional bounty on the owner of the two divine shards.

Rosen immediately communicated with the Noble Sequence Tree to learn the details of his title promotion.

Sure enough, the World Government had issued a special bounty.

It turned out that the owner of the two divine shards had once been a god of the World Government.

However, around a decade ago, during the second calamity, this god betrayed humanity and backstabbed the World Government. Before the government could retaliate, the god disappeared. Hence, the World Government had placed an extraordinary bounty on everything related to this god.

The greater the value of the items submitted, the higher the rewarded merits.

Using the divine energy and divine power extracted from the shards as intermediaries, the World Government would be able to track down this god.

Since this involved a Sequence 0 god, only demi-gods were allowed to take on the task.

However, even those below demi-god rank could earn merits if they completed the mission by accident, as long as they held a noble title.

Just as Rosen was about to withdraw his spirit from the Noble Sequence Tree, a leaf suddenly drifted down from the tree.

The leaf didn't merge into his Extraordinary Substance but instead transformed into an insignia in his hand, representing the World Government's Star Emblem.

This emblem was a projection of a Sequence 0 extraordinary item, the Star Emblem.

All hereditary dukes and demi-gods could receive this emblem, which allowed them to access the Deep Web of the Spirit Realm.

Through the Deep Web, one could directly view and take on the bounty missions issued by the World Government, which were exclusively for demi-gods.

Additionally, the Star Emblem could temporarily enhance a noble's spiritual energy to match their noble rank.

As a hereditary duke, Rosen could activate the Star Emblem to briefly unleash Sequence 4-level spiritual energy.

However, since only the spiritual energy cap would be raised temporarily, without a corresponding increase in skills, activating the Star Emblem would, at most, allow a hereditary duke to suppress Sequence 5 beings. There would still be a significant gap between them and a true Sequence 4.

Ordinarily, those who received the Star Emblem wouldn't need this power boost.

But for Rosen, the nine seconds of heightened power from the Star Emblem would serve as an important trump card.

Just as Rosen was about to put the Star Emblem away, he received an official message from the World Government through the emblem.

The message inquired whether his personal freedom and safety were under someone else's control.

Rosen immediately understood why the World Government had sent such a message through the Star Emblem.

Normally, a Sequence 7 individual wouldn't be able to obtain divine shards, let alone know about the World Government's bounty on them.

From the government's perspective, it looked like someone else was using Rosen to submit the shards.

Given that the Howard family had only Rosen left as a living bloodline, why would anyone give him the title of Hereditary Duke unless they were manipulating him?

If Rosen couldn't provide a reasonable explanation, the World Government might send someone to investigate him in person.

After thinking it over, Rosen logged into the Deep Web of the Spirit Realm through the Star Emblem and sent a reply.

He explained that his freedom was not restricted but refused to disclose why someone would give him the title of Hereditary Duke.

Soon, Rosen received a response, consisting of just three questions:

The World Government asked whether he had betrayed human civilization to join a foreign race, whether he had joined any anti-World Government organizations, and whether the person who helped him become a Hereditary Duke was a member of such a race or organization. Each question required a yes or no answer.

After Rosen answered honestly, he quickly received a congratulatory message from the World Government for becoming a Hereditary Duke.

It was clear he had passed the test—he hadn't made a wrong move. The World Government wasn't interested in his small secrets.

The recent inquiries had surely been verified by means unknown to Rosen, allowing the government to confirm whether he had lied.

Having confirmed his truthfulness, his small secrets weren't worth further investigation.

Rosen then tried connecting the Main God Computer's network cable to the Star Emblem. To his surprise, the Main God Computer now had an option to access the Deep Web of the Spirit Realm. Even more exciting was that, through the Main God Computer, Rosen could create a second identity for himself.

Ordinarily, human extraordinaries logging into the Deep Web through the Star Emblem could only have one identity, which the World Government could monitor.

Although access to this data was restricted, with higher authority granted to higher-ranked nobles, some individuals found even minimal oversight unacceptable.

This was why most demi-gods preferred to use Spirit Realm couriers for communication, even though the Deep Web was a more convenient platform. Couriers ensured greater privacy.

However, by using the Main God Computer to access the Deep Web, Rosen could create a ghost identity untraceable by the World Government.

This venture into the Howard family's secret realm had gone unexpectedly smoothly, with no dangers encountered.

Thus, the three life-saving treasures he had prepared weren't needed. The Sequence 4 extraordinary item purchased with Main God Coins was fine, but he had also acquired two Sequence 3 extraordinary items in exchange for Golden Apples. He planned to keep one for himself and use the other to exchange for a Spirit Realm courier.

Rosen posted a bounty for a Spirit Realm courier both in the Main God Hall and on the Deep Web of the Spirit Realm.

He was preparing ahead of time so that, once his Hunter Sequence reached Sequence 6, he could immediately tame one as his pet.

Although he had become an Ember Painter, Rosen had no interest in reviving the Ashen God's Kingdom civilization.

Instead, he spent his days searching the internet for knowledge on trap-making and trap-setting. He then converted this knowledge into skill proficiency for his Elemental Trap Crafting. In less than half a month, he had reached the skill's LV3 limit.

Rosen immediately consumed the Sequence 6 Nine-headed Monster trapped in his Gluttony Stomach, raising his Elemental Trap Crafting to LV4.

[Elemental Trap Crafting LV4 (1/400)]

Attributes: Able to imprint almost any elemental skill below Sequence 5 into trap runes.

Enhanced Traits:

Multiple Trap Fusion: Capable of combining trap runes with other types of traps for synergistic effects.Elemental Stacking: Able to stack different elemental skills, creating fusion elemental skills.

The Elemental Stacking trait was the harvest Rosen most valued from hunting the Nine-headed Monster.

Moreover, this trait could only be obtained at LV4 by incorporating the power of a mutated Nine-headed Monster into the skill. This was a highly coveted trait among Thunder Empire's trap hunters, as it effectively doubled the power of elemental traps.

In just half a month, Rosen had raised Elemental Trap Crafting from LV3 to LV4.

The key to this rapid progress was the Glory Sage, a unique skill of the Noble Sequence.

With Glory Sage, any knowledge related to a skill could be converted into proficiency for that skill.

Thanks to the help of Glory Sage, Rosen was confident that his Time Trap Crafting skill would soon reach LV4 as well.

Enhancing this skill required time-attributed materials, which were available on the Spirit Realm Network but too far from the Thunder Empire for direct delivery. The Main God Hall also had such materials, but the prices were exorbitant.

Rosen logged out of the Deep Web and switched to the Thunder Empire's virtual network.

If he couldn't find suitable time-attributed materials there, he'd have no choice but to overpay at the Main God Hall.

After searching for several hours, Rosen found the materials he was looking for.

The Thunder Empire was rich in Photographers, and the footage captured by these photographers could be transformed into spiritual realms.

However, transforming the footage required a large amount of time-attributed spiritual essence crystals. These extraordinary materials came from three sources: spiritual realms that produced time-attributed materials, mines of time-attributed spiritual essence crystals, and artificially bred time-attributed extraordinary creatures.

The Thunder Empire had all three sources, but they were considered strategic resources.

Rosen's eyes were set on one of the spiritual realms controlled by the Thunder Empire, but access to it was strictly prohibited.

Still, nothing was absolute—Rosen would need to visit the Time Rift Valley.

According to the information he gathered online, Time Rift Valley was the site where one of the Thunder God's apostles had fallen.

All apostles of gods were Sequence 1 beings, and the death of this particular apostle had torn open the land, creating a massive rift spanning hundreds of thousands of miles.

A Sequence 1 spiritual realm had formed around the fallen apostle, with the apostle serving as the core.

Although humans could not fully control this spiritual realm, they had been extracting its resources for 20,000 years, weakening it over time. Today, the spiritual realm had been reduced to a Sequence 5 level, making it less critical to the Thunder Empire.

With some effort, Rosen believed he could gain access to this realm.