Lord: Sequence Master

Under the World Tree, Rosen carefully sensed its transformations.

The World Tree branch he had previously obtained came from a fully grown World Tree. The faint traces of world laws contained within it were essentially the key to mastering spatial laws for his World Tree seedling in the future.

[Ancient God True Realm: Primal Source Realm]

[Level]: Sequence 1

[World Structure]: Sequence 1 World Tree

[Scope]: 15 million miles radius

[Inhabitants]: 30 billion humans, 1,500 otherworldly civilizations, dark creatures, magical beasts, rare beasts...

[Primary Sequence]: Miracle Sequence

[Authority]: World Rules (16–21% mastery)

"It's expected that mastery will reach 21% in at most a few years," Rosen muttered with a frown as he gauged the growth progress of the world rules.

During the growth of the world rules, the entire Ancient God True Realm and the spirit realms hanging from the World Tree would benefit immensely.

However, along with these positive developments came one troubling issue: mastering the Primary Sequence, the Miracle Sequence, had to be completed within this time frame.

The origins of any transcendent sequence, such as the first hunter to ever advance in the Hunter Sequence or the first fisherman to ascend, were referred to as Primary Sequences. The very first hunter or fisherman invariably gained powerful innate skills that later ones lacked.

The Miracle Sequence originated from the World Tree seedling, which had become a miraculous plant, thereby giving birth to this special sequence.

At each level of the Miracle Sequence, one could fully refine a corresponding level miracle and permanently integrate it into their spirituality.

This would not only enhance the power of the miracle but also grant it growth potential that increased with the sequence level.

To begin mastering the Miracle Sequence, one needed at least 10% mastery over the world rules.

Each additional 10% mastery would correspondingly raise the sequence level by one.

When Rosen's world rule mastery first reached 10%, he could have started with Sequence 9 of the Miracle Sequence.

However, he chose not to at that time because he hadn't found a Sequence 9 miracle treasure that satisfied him.

Now, however, he had no choice but to act quickly.

If his mastery of world rules reached 20%, he would permanently lose the opportunity to fuse a Sequence 9 miracle treasure. That left him with only a few years to decide.

Currently, Rosen possessed two Sequence 9 miracle treasures: the Ancient God Holy Bell and the Knight's Bridle.

He had long considered fusing the Ancient God Holy Bell, which would allow him to fully master the Ancient God Divine Sound as a personal ability rather than relying on the bell as an external tool.

However, the Ancient God Holy Bell recorded a mysterious and unusual conversation, and Rosen worried that fusing it might trigger unforeseen consequences.

The Knight's Bridle posed no such risks, but it was ultimately inferior to the Ancient God Holy Bell.

Rosen weighed his options for a long time before finally deciding to fuse with the Ancient God Holy Bell.

If an accident occurred, the worst outcome would merely be losing the recording stored within the bell.

Taking out the Ancient God Holy Bell, Rosen began to invoke the Miracle Sequence derived from the World Tree seedling.

Upon truly mastering the Miracle Sequence, he discovered its unique characteristics.

Ordinary transcendent sequences relied on the condensation of transcendent essence, which served as the foundation for both innate and acquired skills.

The Miracle Sequence was different.

It didn't require crafting transcendent essence afterward. Instead, it directly converted the miracle treasure itself into transcendent essence. Moreover, it didn't have three acquired skills — each sequence level granted only a single innate skill.

As the Ancient God Holy Bell transformed into transcendent essence, Rosen successfully advanced to Sequence 9 of the Miracle Sequence.

[Ancient God Holy Bell: Miracle Sequence]

[Level]: Sequence 9

[Miracle Skill]: The Ancient God Holy Bell can record all special sounds and enhance all sound-based skills.

[Miracle Trait]: Ancient God Divine Sound

It had lost its unique properties of being the world's sole exemplar and indestructibility, but the miracle trait was now enhanced into a fortified version of the miracle skill.

This was the unique aspect of the Miracle Sequence — spiritual fusion with a miracle not only converted the treasure's power into a personal ability but also enhanced and granted growth potential to its originally fixed power.

Since Rosen's Miracle Sequence was now Sequence 9, the power of the Ancient God Holy Bell remained at Sequence 9 for the moment.

However, once his Miracle Sequence advanced to Sequence 8, the bell's power would increase accordingly.

Activating the Ancient God Holy Bell, Rosen once again heard the mysterious conversation it had recorded.

This time, however, his consciousness didn't collapse upon hearing it.

In the past, the Ancient God Holy Bell had been an external object, capable of bearing the recording while Rosen's spirituality had been insufficient to carry its weight.

Now that the bell was fused with his divinity, he could naturally endure the conversation without difficulty.

Through the automatic translation of Ancient God Divine Sound, Rosen finally understood the content of the conversation.

It was a discussion between two great true gods, exchanging secrets about the world.

The main world had endured for two Ancient God Eras, spanning endless ages during which countless civilizations had risen and fallen. Although great true gods were exceedingly rare, over the vast expanse of time, their total number was undoubtedly significant.

Even if some had fallen, it was impossible for all of them to have perished.

The conversation hinted at the whereabouts of those great true gods throughout the ages.

Halfway through listening, Rosen felt an ominous sense of impending disaster and abruptly stopped the recording.

Curiosity really did kill the cat — knowing certain secrets without sufficient strength was a reckless endeavor.

In his sea of consciousness, Rosen unfurled his Mind Canvas and carefully extracted the recent portion of his memory.

He fused the memory into the canvas, creating a Memory Seal Painting, which he then projected onto a physical canvas in the real world.

After layering numerous seals on it, he hung the painting on the wall of the Mysterious Study Room.

Only then did Rosen finally feel completely at ease.

In the blink of an eye, several years had passed. During this time, Rosen scoured major networks in search of a Sequence 8 miracle treasure.

He found many clues but none that truly met his standards.

By now, the world rule mastery of the Ancient God True Realm had crossed the 20% threshold.

The moment this threshold was breached, the World Tree underwent a profound transformation.

Although the size of the Ancient God True Realm remained unchanged, the world's strength increased tenfold.

Additionally, every spirit realm hanging from the branches of the World Tree advanced by one sequence level, gaining immense growth.

Finally, at the tip of the World Tree, a tiny budding fruit emerged.

This was no false World Fruit formed by spirit realms' transformations but a genuine fruit grown by the World Tree itself.

In that instant, Rosen understood that the World Tree could produce up to nine true World Fruits.

Each fruit could give birth to a world similar to an abyss, where one rule could be elevated to the level of a law. Ultimately, the nine worlds could each produce a new law.

Creating entirely new laws out of nothing was a feat only great true gods could accomplish.

Even then, a great true god could only create a single law.

The potential of the World Tree, capable of creating nine distinct laws, was staggering.

However, these nine laws had to be ones that did not already exist in the main world.

With a single thought, Rosen entered the world within the fruit.

It was an empty void, containing only a small glass-like tree shimmering with nine-colored divine light.

The moment Rosen saw it, four words arose in his mind: Ancient Law Tree.

This small glass-like tree was the prototype of an Ancient Law Tree, the physical manifestation of intangible laws within a tangible world.

Rosen suddenly froze.

If the Ancient Law Tree was in this nine-colored glass form, then what were the Golden Tree, Silver Tree, and Bronze Tree?

Could it be that the sequence trees mastered by humanity weren't actual law trees after all?

A sudden thought struck him.

Rosen attempted to infuse the painting rules he had mastered into the prototype Ancient Law Tree.

The tree began to grow, and the Painting Law took form.

In an instant, the void world evolved into a real world, as if creation itself had just unfolded.

This entire world now revered the Painting Law, and nothing within it could exist outside its bounds.

The sky became a canvas, the earth a palette, and all things in existence were pigments composing a magnificent, multi-dimensional, and breathtaking work of art.

Rosen walked up to an apple tree in the mountains, plucked an apple, and with a mere thought, the apple turned into a painting. Uprooting the apple tree, it too immediately transformed into a painting. Everything that could be harvested was capable of becoming a painting.

He fell into deep contemplation.

He was now certain that the Painter Sequence Tree in Shentu City was a knockoff.

It was definitely not a true Bronze Law Tree formed by the Painting Law. At best, it was a container centered on painting rules, crafted through the Painter Sequence to accelerate the creation of the Painting Law.

In truth, the Painting Law had never been born.

If the main world had already possessed a true Painting Law, the world fruit would not have just generated one.

Why had none of humanity's Four Golden Sequences produced a single true god to this day?

The likely reason was that none of their branches contained laws—only rules.

A terrifying realization dawned on Rosen at that moment: there might be a great true god hidden behind the world government.

As far as he knew, the cores of the Four Golden Sequences were all composed of Creation Laws.

If the Creation Law was likened to a field, then the Golden Sequence Trees and the Bronze Sequence Trees for each profession were merely crops growing within that field, nourished by the vitality of human civilization.

Since they were carefully cultivated crops, someone was bound to harvest them once they matured.

Either a great true god would reap the harvest, or the various true gods under the world government who aspired to ascend would do so.

Main World, Spirit World's Artist Sequence Tree

Suddenly, one of the core branches of the Artist Sequence Tree snapped off without warning.

This branch represented the Painter Sequence.

Silently, it disappeared and reappeared before Rosen, dissolving into countless golden lights that merged into the Painting Law Tree.

From that moment on, the origin of the Painter Sequence shifted from the Artist Sequence Tree to the Painting Law Tree.

All painters in the main world immediately felt changes in their transcendent sequences.

From then on, they would have to rely on the Painting Law Tree to advance their sequence levels.

What's more, the Painter Sequence was no longer exclusive to humans.

All intelligent life forms could now advance to the Painter Sequence.

At the same time, potion formulas for the Painter Sequence emerged from the Painting Law Tree.

This fundamental change in the laws of the main world was instantly sensed by every true god who had mastered laws.

Their first reaction was fear.

The birth of a new law most likely signified the birth of a new great true god.

But on second thought, the main world did not currently meet the conditions for the birth of a great true god.

If it wasn't a great true god, there were only two possibilities for the birth of a law: either an ancient god had awakened and created a new law, or the fabled World Tree had reappeared and birthed a new law.

The former was a catastrophe; the latter was a rare opportunity.

When it became clear that no ancient god had awakened, all the true gods frantically began searching for the World Tree.

Unable to find it, they eventually shifted their focus to the Painter Sequence.

Numerous foreign true gods used the newborn Painting Law to deduce potion formulas suitable for their races, leading to the birth of more and more non-human painters. Under the control of these true gods, they attempted to trace the whereabouts of the Painting Law Tree.

Rosen lived in constant anxiety during this period, sensing prophetic divinations targeting him daily.

Every time a painter advanced in sequence and connected to the Painting Law Tree, true gods tried to lock onto its location.

Had it not been for the World Tree already mastering a sliver of the world law and the concealment provided by the Mysterious Study Room, the World Tree might have already been exposed.

Fortunately, the most dangerous days passed without incident. The true gods who persisted in searching dwindled by the day.

Although the Painting Law had spread across the entire main world and become ubiquitous, it was still a newborn law.

Its growth was inseparable from the support of painters.

The emergence of more and more painters allowed the world fruit that carried the Painting Law to thrive and grow substantially.

What had once been a sapling had now grown into a towering tree.

Countless leaves adorned its branches, each one a painting.

Every spiritual painting created by painters in the main world manifested as a leaf on the Ancient Law Tree.

Through these leaves, Rosen could strengthen, weaken, or destroy any spiritual painting at will.

Rosen finally understood why true gods could effortlessly crush all other transcendent beings of the same sequence.

Mastering a law meant being able to inherently suppress every transcendent being born from that law.

If one possessed the Ancient Law Tree itself, all transcendent beings derived from that law would be entirely at their mercy.

Rosen also realized something else—true gods likely could only control laws, not the Ancient Law Tree from which laws originated.

The plant-based true god he had slain showed no trace of containing an Ancient Law Tree.

It seemed that only great true gods could truly control such trees.

By mastering the Painting Law Tree, Rosen might have gained access to a sliver of power reserved solely for great true gods.

Sitting beneath the towering tree, Rosen attempted to advance his Painter Sequence without using potions.

Other painters relied on potions to ascend because they needed them to bear the power of the Painting Law Tree.

This undoubtedly increased the difficulty of advancing the Painter Sequence but also enhanced the strength of its abilities.

Since Rosen directly controlled the Painting Law Tree, he was likely the only painter who didn't require potions to ascend.

Two leaves silently fell from the Painting Law Tree.

These weren't leaves formed from spiritual paintings but naturally grown leaves—perfect as potions.

As the leaves fused into his body, enhancing his painter transcendent essence, Rosen's Painter Sequence began to advance.

The transformation of his transcendent essence was most noticeable in its spiritual attachment.

[Divinity Attachment: Law Skill]

[Effect]: Freely imbue divine power onto the spirituality of any entity or object.[Law Trait]: Law Sovereign — All Painter Sequence skills are enhanced tenfold.

This was a law skill Rosen had never even heard of, possessing terrifyingly powerful traits.

He opened his Void Sketchbook and casually created a spiritual painting.

As expected, its strength instantly increased tenfold.

"I guess I'll have to tone down my paintings if I ever want to sell them," Rosen mused.

Otherwise, selling them as-is would be equivalent to openly advertising his secrets.

He continued observing the changes to his transcendent essence and sensed the birth of his Sequence 3 innate skill.

[Immortal Paintings: Your spiritual paintings will become eternal due to the Painting Law Tree.]

It took Rosen several paintings to fully grasp the significance of this skill.

All spiritual paintings gradually lose their spirituality over time.

Even a Sequence 0 painting might endure for ten thousand years, but after a hundred thousand or a million years, no matter how carefully preserved, it would inevitably decay and be destroyed.

However, with Immortal Paintings, the spirituality within his paintings would never diminish.

Instead, they would form self-sustaining cycles within the paintings, remaining eternal unless destroyed by external forces.

This was only the surface-level effect of Immortal Paintings, seemingly just turning time-limited spiritual paintings into ones without an expiration date.

In truth, it had a hidden effect—all Painter Sequence skills could combine with Immortal Paintings, producing qualitative changes.

Take Living Mannequin as an example: previously, painting a demigod's portrait and activating Living Mannequin would at best imprison that demigod for a short time.

However, with Immortal Paintings, Rosen could now imprison that demigod forever.

Unless external forces interrupted it, the effect of Living Mannequin would change from temporary to eternal.

Combined with the tenfold skill enhancement from Divinity Attachment, Rosen could now force a Sequence 1 transcendent to stand in place until death before his very eyes.

"Looks like I'll have to be more careful in the future."

Rosen couldn't help but laugh gleefully.

While other demigods worried about not being strong enough, Rosen's concern was that his Painter Sequence had become too powerful.

If he wasn't cautious, its overwhelming strength would inevitably arouse suspicion.

If anyone discovered that the World Tree was in his hands, it would undoubtedly trigger a godly apocalypse centered around it.

And he would be the first to be torn apart by the gods.

Thus, anyone who witnessed the true power of his Painter Sequence could not be allowed to live.

(End of Chapter)