Lord: Sequence Master

Rosen followed Devon into the Spirit Realm linked to the Divine Arms Kingdom, where they found a remote, thousand-square-mile area on the mountainside.

Rosen eagerly transformed Wrath of the Dragon King into a sniper configuration, but Devon only shook his head in disapproval. Rosen took the hint and increased the weapon's size.

Originally about a meter and a half in sniper form, Wrath of the Dragon King expanded to a formidable fifty meters, transforming into a sniper cannon with a barrel diameter close to one meter—its absolute limit.

In this form, Rosen couldn't hold it and fire by hand.

Activating Volcanic Dragon Mimicry, he watched as the silencer shifted into the dragon's maw, with its wings extending to form a stabilizing frame while the weapon's body morphed into the dragon's torso.

In an instant, Rosen was drawn inside the weapon, entering a closed tactical chamber. He closed his eyes, merging his spirit with Wrath of the Dragon King, becoming one with it.

Devon appeared a hundred miles away, taking direct hits from a series of one hundred cannon blasts without dodging.

The blasts had no effect on him, but Rosen's kill points accumulated until he finally triggered the Deadly Critical Strike skill.

In the chamber, Wrath of the Dragon King began releasing volcanic flames that compressed repeatedly through the ammo chamber and barrel, forming a massive cannonball nearly one meter in diameter. As the future silencer absorbed all sound, the cannonball fired noiselessly and vanished.

Three seconds later, it struck Devon, detonating like a volcanic eruption. The blast unleashed dragon breath and a resounding dragon roar, echoing across a thousand miles. In less than a millisecond, dragon flames ballooned into a ten-mile-wide fireball.

Temperatures soared to billions of degrees and burned intensely for five minutes before dissipating, leaving a thousand miles around them transformed into a sea of flames that, while not in the billions, reached hundreds of thousands of degrees.

When Rosen saw Devon again, he was visibly battered, his body marked with burns. Even though Devon had defended himself with all his strength, he had failed to escape the range of Dragon King's Roar.

This enormous sniper cannon form of Wrath of the Dragon King's Roar had a cooldown period of a full day. It might not yet have the power to slay a demigod, but it could at least threaten one.

"If you're not planning on killing someone or you're not in an empty area, don't ever fire at full power," Devon warned as he treated his injuries, still shaken.

Rosen nodded, discussing with Devon his experience with Dragon King's Roar. The future silencer allowed the projectile to have no visible trace in flight, making it nearly impossible to dodge once locked on. Additionally, the Roar's Bronze Dragon essence allowed it to seamlessly transition into the Volcanic Dragon's roar and dragon breath. Unless one could escape ten miles in less than a thousandth of a second, they would be engulfed in five minutes of billion-degree dragon flames.

In theory, a thousandth of a second should be enough time to escape ten miles, he thought, but the roar attacks on the spirit level.

Devon had briefly lost focus, costing him precious seconds. With that moment of delay, ten miles became an insurmountable distance.

However, Devon commented that Dragon King's Roar had its weaknesses, saying, "The wide-area damage is terrifying, but it still lacks peak-level single-target lethality."

Rosen outwardly agreed, though inwardly he disagreed entirely.

He hasn't even seen all of it, he thought. I didn't use Ashen Armor-Pierce, Fate Mark, Void Dance, Time Hunter, or Mind Power. With everything, he'd be worse than "slightly injured."

He stowed Wrath of the Dragon King, reshaping it into a handgun that he placed in the Death Belt holster.

Devon guided Rosen out of the Spirit Realm and back to the Divine Arms Kingdom, where he reluctantly parted with Wrath of the Dragon King and returned to his wizard tower to heal.

From the Spirit Realm, Rosen immediately followed his treasure map toward the Mother Tree of Life's remnants.

Half a month later, he arrived at the marked coordinates, though he found no trace of the Mother Tree.

If it were that easy to find on the surface, it would have been discovered long ago, he reasoned.

Rosen took out his Miracle Pouch, activating its treasure-seeking feature for a close-range search. Even when enhanced by equivalent exchange, the pouch failed to narrow down a specific location.

He would have to search alone. The area surrounding the Mother Tree's remains would show some kind of anomaly—possibly dense plant growth or signs of powerful sealing to hide its presence from the environment.

He expanded his range, seeking any unusual spots within a three-thousand-mile radius.

Rosen deployed every Pit Demon and billions of rats to search, thinking he would soon uncover something. Days later, he had no leads.

He noticed, however, that his Nature Sprite companion had been unusually quiet.

Since contracting with Alicia, the sprite, emboldened by her new backer, had often played pranks. After some discipline, she learned to restrain herself, content to mock him quietly instead.

With little else to do, Rosen often teased her for fun.

He let her play minor tricks as long as they weren't overboard.

But now her silence made him suspicious; he wondered if she had found something and didn't want to tell him.

"Looks like there's nothing here of the Mother Tree. Let's move on," he said, calling back the Pit Demons with an air of disappointment.

Seeing him truly prepare to leave, the sprite grew anxious. She knew this "big bad" was seeking the Mother Tree's remains to create a special Spirit Realm Painting. Whether he painted a War Tree or the Tree of Life, she and Alicia would benefit greatly.

Still, her silent grudge made her want him to search a little harder.

But if he left now, she would lose out. She quickly flew to Alicia, whispering what she'd found over the past few days.

Alicia grabbed the sprite, who tried to squirm free, and gave her a gentle flick on the forehead. "She knows something," she said, handing the sprite over to Rosen.

"Out with it," Rosen said, bringing her close to his mouth and opening wide.

"I'll tell! I'll tell! Just don't eat me!" The sprite shrieked, recalling her nightmares.

Minutes later, Rosen arrived at a secluded valley.

The valley was filled with jagged rocks and no soil, with no sign of plant growth.

It had seemed a little odd before, and he had checked it personally just a few days ago.

But all the stones were ordinary, and the ground showed no irregularities.

Rosen approached a man-sized boulder; there were countless such rocks scattered throughout the valley. Sharing Stormbird's skills, he summoned a vortex to envelop the stone.

Under the vortex's abrasive force, the stone's surface flaked away layer by layer.

At last, a cubic meter of translucent wood emerged.

Instantly, Rosen recognized it as part of the Mother Tree.

And this wasn't just a surface fragment; it appeared to be heartwood, still vibrant with life. Its life essence was deeply hidden to prevent decay or detection.

Eagerly, he stowed it and glanced expectantly at the sprite.

She folded her arms and raised her chin as if to say, You owe me big for this.

But Rosen didn't humor her and brought her to his mouth, prompting her to yield quickly.

With her guidance, he found more fragments of Mother Tree heartwood from several stones.

None matched the first in size. The largest was fist-sized, and the smallest was the size of a grain of rice.

Finally, breaking open a larger boulder, he found a piece of bark hundreds of square meters in size. Unfortunately, its life force had faded, making it worth less than the smaller, fist-sized heartwood piece.

He estimated these fragments to be worth at least two or three trillion Spirit Crystals.

The complete Mother Tree would be almost unimaginably valuable.

With his find secured, Rosen decided to settle down temporarily in the valley.

He combined the bark with some heartwood to create three specialized sheets of canvas.

Using the smallest sheet, he prepared pigments from the heartwood to paint the War Tree he had seen in the Ember's Glow vision of the Elven civilization, but this time he aimed for a Sequence 5 War Tree.

After all, his three Sequence 6 noble skill slots were already filled, the last by Ancient God Ritual.

Even the elves hadn't attained a Sequence 5 War Tree.

Based on the scaling of territorial buildings, a Sequence 5 War Tree would rival a Sequence 3 in value.

With the Ancient God's Life Genome Library, Rosen had access to both the War Tree and even the Mother Tree of Life genomes.

Thanks to Time Painting's 58-fold speed, Rosen finished his first Spirit Realm Painting in just six months.

[War Tree: Spirit Realm Painting]

Level: Sequence 5

Range: One thousand miles

Population: One Sequence 5 War Tree

Specialty Units: War Treants, Dryad Priests, Sprites

When Rosen fed it resources, the War Tree soon produced three specialty units.

The War Treants, about a hundred meters tall, possessed extraordinary regeneration when rooted and could hurl stones several meters in diameter across miles, also using unique skills like War Aura and War Stomp.

A single War Treant was formidable even at Sequence 5, and the more that gathered, the stronger they became.

Next was the Dryad Priests—purely support and healing units skilled at cultivating plants, granting buffs, and healing wounds.

Rosen's gaze finally rested on the Sprites, each about the size of a fist. These creatures could attach themselves to plants to harvest excess vitality, transferring it to the Tree of Life or undergrown plants to accelerate growth.

All three units held immense value, but their recruitment was slow.

The War Treants could only be recruited once a year, Dryad Priests once every ten years, while Sprites fared better at one per month.

This slow rate of recruitment was a bit disappointing, though Rosen thought it could be remedied.

Physical bodies are easy to replicate; souls are not.

War Treants were rare, but ordinary treants were plentiful in the Holy Continent. By offering ordinary treants to the War Tree, they could be converted to higher-level War Treants.

Rosen moved on to his second painting, this time depicting the Sequence 5 Tree of Life.

Even with Time Painting speeding him up, Rosen still spent two years in the valley on this painting.

As soon as he finished, his Painter Sequence naturally advanced to Sequence 5. His spiritual power increased by two points—one from the sequence upgrade, and another from the feedback of the two Spirit Realm Paintings he'd completed.

[Tree of Life: Spirit Realm Painting]

Level: Sequence 5

Range: One hundred miles

Population: One Sequence 5 Tree of Life, one Miracle Life Form, and Fantasy Sprite

Special Features: Fantasy Sprites, Treants, Life Essence, Life Spring...

Rosen entered the Spirit Realm and approached the hundred-meter-high Tree of Life.

A normal Sequence 5 Tree of Life would be much larger, but this one was bound to the Fantasy Sprite.

Rosen had acquired the Sequence 5 Fantasy Sprite on the ninety-ninth level of the Abyss. The sprite was both a miracle lifeform and a miracle treasure, yet all these years, it remained in a slumber from which it never awakened.

When he was in the Wood Elf Kingdom, Rosen had consulted the Elf Queen and the Tree of Life.

The reason was simple: the Tree of Life to which the Fantasy Sprite was bound had ceased to exist.

Without a Tree of Life, any spirit bound to it would eventually perish.

Taking this chance, Rosen was willing to sacrifice large portions of Mother Tree Heartwood just to paint the Fantasy Sprite's Tree of Life. Only the World Genome Library had the complete Life Genome Blueprint needed to produce a true Tree of Life; without it, even a Sequence 1 painter couldn't have painted this seed.

He opened his Void Sketchbook, which included a few space drawings of Self-Portrait Clones.

Inside were numerous ancient trees, all of which had grown for at least ten thousand years. Without the Nature Sprite, such ancient trees would be hard to find even on the Sacred Continent. He unsealed ten ancient trees, planting them around the Tree of Life.

In a few years, these ancient trees would transform into treants.

Sending these treants to the War Tree would yield a steady supply of War Treants.

He estimated that the War Treant production rate would triple.

Watching as the Fantasy Sprite's life energy gradually strengthened, Rosen set up his easel beneath the tree and began his third painting.

Five years passed, and he hadn't finished.

The subject of this painting was deceptively simple—a seed as large as a mountain.

It was the Mother Tree of Life's Seed. Rosen had poured nearly all his largest pieces of Mother Tree Heartwood into this painting.

In the end, he could only paint the seed. Even with his experience painting the Tree of Life and access to the World Genome Library's complete Mother Tree of Life Genome Blueprint, no painter below Sequence 1 could have painted this seed.

[Mother Tree of Life: Spirit Realm Painting]

Level: Sequence 1 (1%)

Range: One mile

Population: One Seed of the Mother Tree of Life

Special Features: None

Completing this painting not only failed to raise Rosen's spiritual power, but it even dropped a few points.

If it weren't for the Golden Apples, I'd never recover the power I'm losing.

To his surprise, the Spirit Realm Painting was rated at Sequence 1, which was unexpected.

But the 1% at the end made his face darken.

I know my own paintings better than anyone.

This painting was a bottomless pit, constantly requiring life essence to fill it. Only when it reached 10% would the Mother Tree of Life's Seed sprout, revealing the painting's true value.

Rosen hadn't told anyone he'd painted the Mother Tree of Life's Seed.

If word spread, the Elves would stop at nothing to seize it, and even the True Gods of the World Government might come after him. When stakes became high enough, the laws and rules that bound the world could be trampled by those in power.

Rosen stored the painting in the Divine Archive Room, letting out a breath he'd held.

After a few years in the valley, even with Alicia and others around, he felt restless.

Instead of returning to the Wood Elf Kingdom, he decided to visit the Star Empire.

If the Divine Arms Kingdom was a paradise for scientists and mages, then the Star Empire was a haven for artists on the Sacred Continent.

Nearly all Sequence 5 artists eventually traveled to the Star Empire to pursue further opportunities.

Now that Rosen had advanced to Sequence 5 as a painter, he gained a new innate skill.

But finding a compatible secondary skill that met his standards would be difficult.

Especially given the uniqueness of his innate skill, finding a complementary secondary skill would be even harder.

[Enigmatic Painting: Meet specific conditions to elevate a Sequence 9 Spirit Painting through upgrades, gaining enigmatic properties.]

When he first read about this skill, Rosen was baffled.

He tried painting some Sequence 9 Spirit Realm Paintings, but none seemed to change. After scouring the Spirit Web for answers, he couldn't find a single instance of another painter having this skill.

Could it be linked to my Blazing Painter specialization? he wondered.

After extensive trials, he finally began to uncover Enigmatic Painting's secrets.

In the Transcendent World, strength was paramount. Without strength, you were nothing.

For painters, the essential method of gaining strength was materializing characters from their works, using Death Judgement-like curse techniques, or dragging enemies into paintings to imprison them within the artwork.

One particular style of painting was highly favored by painters.

Horror Paintings, which readily instilled fear, could draw abundant terror from audiences during exhibitions, greatly enhancing their power.

The enigmatic property in Enigmatic Painting worked similarly to a refined Horror Painting.

However, unlike Horror Paintings that allowed creative freedom, Enigmatic Paintings required their subject matter to truly exist.

For instance, to paint a Vampire Castle with enigmatic properties, an exact match must exist somewhere in the world. Only then could he capture it accurately to grant it the enigmatic property.

A real, terrifying location—that was the special condition for the enigmatic property to emerge.

People had spiritual needs beyond basic survival. In Rosen's Divine Domain, all residents could freely access a virtual world, a Virtual World that he had constructed with its own vast amusement park.

This park was a beloved attraction, with many enjoying and dreading the Haunted Zone.

Thanks to its virtual construction, the haunted attraction essentially functioned as a real place.

Over the years, it had absorbed terror from millions of citizens.

While traveling to the Star Empire, Rosen planned to recreate the Haunted Zone in a painting.

I'm curious to see what the enigmatic property can really do.

Since Alicia piloted the Feathered Serpent Fighter as his mechanical mount, Rosen had time to paint on the journey. Five days later, using Time Painting to speed himself up, he completed the Spirit Realm Painting of the Haunted Zone.

The painting exuded an eerie, sinister atmosphere, packed with ghost-house-like attractions.

Though it began as a simple Sequence 9 Spirit Realm Painting, upon completion, it connected directly with the Virtual Haunted Zone, absorbing fear and other negative emotions experienced by visitors.

As more emotions poured in, the painting advanced to Sequence 8.

But there it stalled, as the Haunted Zone could only produce so much negative emotion.

Rosen then thought of the Main God Game. With countless horror films forming its virtual Spirit Realm, it had drawn billions from the Hunter World, at least a third of whom had entered the Main God Game.

Thus, the accumulated negativity within it far surpassed that of the Haunted Zone.

Testing his idea, he found that his painting could indeed absorb the negative energy stored within the Main God Game.

But it only upgraded to Sequence 7. The progression requirements seemed to multiply with each level.

After a moment's thought, Rosen came up with another potential source of negativity.

He took out The Embers of Firelight, and the painting began absorbing overwhelming negativity. These emotions seemed to be remnants of civilizations burned to extinction, the despair and grief of all beings that had perished.

Rosen felt the painting continue to evolve and realized this was the true purpose of Enigmatic Painting.

The origin of this innate skill clearly stemmed from his Blazing Painter path.

By painting real, frightening places, then feeding from the intense negativity within The Embers of Firelight, the painting could endlessly upgrade, finally acquiring the enigmatic property.

Soon, the only Firelight Remnants he hadn't used up were the Firelight of the Divine Realm and the Elven Life Firelight.

Without the deeply hidden negative energy within, The Embers of Firelight seemed to change subtly.

Fearing it might disrupt the historical traces within, Rosen collected ashes scattered across the Sacred Continent using the Miracle Treasure Bonfire of Firewood during his journey. Just before reaching the Star Empire, he finally upgraded the painting to Sequence 6.