Chapter 478: Chaotic Continent
With all the craziness they had done over the past hundreds of years, they already treated Etheria like one of them.
"Hello, Sister~" Etheria said sweetly.
Etheria had already formed her own emotional system and consciousness, recognizing the roles of men and women and the various societal systems.
"Etheria, you did a good job this time," Maximus muttered, pinching her cheek.
"I couldn\'t let Master down. However, the creation of this race used up almost all of the conceptual energy granted by the Aeon Plane."
"The Aeon Plane still gives free causality of power?"
"Yes. With each promotion, a dimension receives strands of causality of power from the Aeon Plane as an investment."
"Oh? How much did it give you?"
"About a billion strands of causality of power."
"What?!" Hearing the number, Maximus was shocked.
A billion causality points just for the advancement of a tier 10 dimension?
"Unfortunately, these strands of causality of power can only be used within the dimension—for setting rules, expanding space, creating new species, generating resources, etc.," Etheria explained, knowing what was on her master\'s mind.
The causality of power given to her could only be used in the Etherium Realm.
Earlier, when she tried to divert it elsewhere, it rebounded, nearly causing the world to collapse.
This was also the cause of the massive catastrophe that had spread across the world these past few years.
Hearing her explanation, Maximus sighed, suppressing his greed.
If one could get causality of power with every dimensional promotion, lower dimensions would have long been standardized as farms.
"How much causality of power is left?"
"Only about a hundred million."
"That\'s all?" Maximus muttered, shocked at how much it took to create the Eryndor race.
He had only consumed over a dozen million causality points, yet the creation of a race had cost over a billion.
Thinking of this, his excitement about the creation of the Eryndor race lessened.
"What should I do with the remaining energy, Master? Should I generate land, resources, consolidate dimensional rules, or something else?"
"Just expand the Etherium Realm. Everything else doesn\'t matter," Maximus decided.
Maximus didn\'t need more land, as he could create it himself.
As for resources, as long as one had money, anything could be bought in the Virtual Realm.
Finally, Dimensional rules were just micro manipulations of law that leveraged his dimensional authority; though time-consuming, they didn\'t cost anything.
As for the space of the Etherium Realm, the bigger, the better.
Not only could it accommodate more people, but it also gave him the space to do whatever he wanted.
"Then I will use the remaining causality of power to expand the Etherium Realm," Etheria said, urging her world to move according to her will.
Using his dimensional authority, Maximus felt the Etherium Realm expanding in the void.
The newly opened space didn\'t contain anything, like a bubble expanding in size.
As Maximus pondered what to fill the empty space with, the Chaotic Sea surged, expanding in the blink of an eye.
"What is this Chaotic Sea?" Maximus muttered with a frown.
"The Chaotic Sea is present in all dimensions. It\'s residual chaotic energy from the beginning of time. Unless it\'s suppressed or expelled, it will continue to grow," Etheria explained, drawing from the knowledge she had inherited since the beginning of time.
"Hmm," Maximus nodded, also knowing the common knowledge about the Chaotic Sea.
He was merely curious about what power drove the rapid expansion of the Chaotic Sea, making it so grand and mysterious that even the Dimensional Alliance\'s database and the Seal of Truth\'s deductions couldn\'t pierce through its secrets.
After checking for omissions or issues caused by the Etherium Realm\'s expansion, Maximus sighed in relief.
Aside from the initial destruction and catastrophe, everything returned to normal.
Now, the Etherium Realm would slowly expand until all the causality of power given by the Aeon Plane was used up.
Maximus estimated that this rapid expansion would continue for the next thousand years.
Watching the people marvel in reverence at the changes in the Etherium Realm, Maximus simply smiled.
Fealan, Readius, and Alabaster invited him to celebrate the promotion of the Etherium Realm.
To this, Maximus declined, telling them to celebrate after they won the Dimensional War.
After all, everything would be for nothing if the Etherium Realm lost.
Done with the nuisances, Maximus saw his wives and Etheria gathering to play some games.
They no longer had to soak in the tier-9 liquid solution to absorb it.
Maximus had mystified the solution, surrounding the castle so they could absorb it no matter what they were doing.
As for their job in the Etherium Academy, though they still taught from time to time, they spent most of their time with him.
Maximus had begun to feel the benefits of having more minds at work.
Although he could accelerate the rate of his consciousness, sometimes his thinking was too single-minded, causing him to diverge down the wrong path, wasting time and effort.
With his wives around, everything was done faster and more enjoyably.
Furthermore, while they couldn\'t accelerate their consciousness as much and as fast as Maximus, they could still use the Crystal of Life produced by his system to enhance their thinking, comprehension, and deduction.
Looking at his wives, Maximus couldn\'t help but be thankful to have such smart and thoughtful companions.
"How about we watch how the Eryndor race develops?" Maximus suggested, thinking about what to do next.
The creation of the tier-10 origin manual was still far off.
Maximus was still working on mastering the nine foundational manuals and hadn\'t started any preparations yet.
To fill this gap in time, he decided to observe the Eryndor race, which had cost him almost a billion strands of causality of power.
"Watch? How boring is it to watch the lives of others?"
"We\'re not watching how they live, but how they develop," Maximus smiled.
"Etheria, can you speed up the time on the Chaotic Continent?"
The Chaotic Continent was land generated from the remains of the Abyss.
It was situated in the center of the Etherium Realm, dwarfing the other four continents in size.
The Chaotic Continent occupied almost a tenth of the Etherium Realm.
If not for the recent expansion, the Etherium Realm might no longer have been worthy of being called the blue gem of the void.
"I can accelerate time, but it will cost origin coins," Etheria nodded.
"It doesn\'t matter," Maximus said nonchalantly.
With his dimensional authority, he could also control the time within the Etherium Realm, but thinking it was too much trouble, he left it to Etheria.
"How fast should the time dilation be?"
"How about a hundred times?" Maximus pondered.
"This would cost a million origin fragments for each year that passes. Are you sure, Master?" Etheria asked, knowing Maximus couldn\'t afford to spend that much.
"So much?!" Maximus broke into a sweat.
That would cost him a million origin fragments every four or five days!
Fortunately, Etheria had asked him beforehand; he hadn\'t expected it to cost so much.
"It\'s because of the massive area and the high time differential with the void. If it were only a tenfold time difference, it would cost just ten thousand origin fragments per year," Etheria explained.
"I see, let\'s go with a tenfold time difference then," Maximus decided.
Ten thousand per year, or a bit over a hundred thousand origin fragments for a year relative to their time, Maximus could easily afford it.
"Hmm, I\'ll begin," Etheria nodded, waving her hand as a projection appeared before them.
It showed an aerial view of the Chaotic Continent.
It was a barren land teeming with vitality.
Sparse flora and fauna dotted the continent, which was filled with undulating hills and ocean-like lakes.
As Etheria used her ability, an invisible barrier wrapped around the continent, accelerating time.
As everything began to move faster, Etheria located an innate Eryndor being born from the world and showed it to them.
Slowing down the image, his wives finally got a good look at the race their husband had been bragging about.
"It looks just like us!" they muttered.
The Eryndors appeared human from head to toe.
"This is the original image mandated by our plane of existence. All intelligent creatures possess human-like features," Etheria explained.
Hearing this, the others nodded in understanding.
Indeed, they had yet to see any intelligent beings that didn\'t take on a human-like shape.
Perhaps the only differences between races were in certain body parts, size, color, shape, and form.
From the soul-like state of spirits to the small size of fairies, to the dragons who had innate human forms, or trees that could transform into dryads—intelligent beings were all in some form of human-like figures.
Even Wanderer, who was a machine lifeform, had gradually transformed himself into a human shape once he formed an independent consciousness and origin.
Thinking of this, they curiously turned their attention to the innate Eryndor Race, wondering what was special about them.