Chapter 318 – Florida Man Takes 'Whale of a Tale' Literally, Cooks Seafood Spectacle to Make Ohio Man Feel Like He's Missing Out on Oceanfront Dining
"By the way, you look nice in that transformation. Is that your second phase?" Leo teased Simba for his gold dragon transformation.
"This ain't soul games. I'm not some boss monster."
"But it's true. We ARE boss monsters in games if we talk about our current situation. We are inside the Metrix, so we are pretty much digital numbers."
"Don't remind me something depressing. I've just reached the transcendent stage. I need to stabilize my mental power."
"Heh. If mental power translates to power, I would have degraded to a muscle-tempering stage mortal. Why so serious?"
Simba had a headache. In the past, Leo wasn't this mental; He was a bright and smart boy who earned his respect and admiration. On the contrary, the present Leo was a loose cannon.
Cheese finally caught up with his creator. When he arrived, he found Leo floating next to Simba.
At first, Cheese was on guard. But when he noticed the pattern of Leo's rainbow aura, he sensed an unexplainable connection between him and Leo.
"Sir, you." Cheese greeted Leo.
"Hmm?" Leo turned around.
"You… You're a good man!"
"Thanks."
Leo wryly smiled. He glanced at the karma string of Cheese, which connected to Simba. Realizing his origins, Leo pointed at the guy and asked his brother.
"Care for the introduction? Is he yours?"
Simba deeply sighed and crossed his arms. He looked at Cheese and was about to introduce him to Leo.
HOOOOOOOOOOM!
Unfortunately, PEN47 was already 1,000 kilometers away. It would take no more than a split second to reach them.
Simba turned around and got into a combat stance. He gathered gold Qi around his arms, preparing to strike or parry the planet eater's incoming attack. Cheese also spread his wings and manifested a karma river into the real world, creating a stream of endless force.
"Eh, you guys are overreacting."
Leo picked his nose. He extracted a small piece of booger and flickered it toward the whale.
However, the booger was made from Leo's skin and a drop of his blood. As soon as Leo triggered it, the small piece of flesh transformed into the core of a magnetar, aka an exotic type of neutron star.
The magnetar's core traveled toward the whale at 1,000 times the speed of light!
PEN47 sensed it and mocked Leo in his mind.
'A magnetar? I have eaten a dozen black holes and dark matter before. This little magnet core can't do anything to me!'
Without hesitation, PEN47 swallowed it.
But as soon as it entered his stomach, its magnetic force erupted. The core's gravity increased and matched that of a black hole. Then, it pushed the inner stomach of PEN47 and dragged him along with its power and speed.
Suddenly getting dragged backward, PEN47 widened his eyes. He bellowed.
"DAMN PUNY STAR CAN'T DO ANYTHING TO ME!"
His stomach tightened and squeezed the newly evolved magnetar. Unfortunately, that was his mistake.
Leo, who had been controlling the magnetar, scratched the tip of his fingers and opened his mouth. He bit empty air and chewed the void. Although nothing was inside his mouth, something else was being crushed.
"Nom-Nom Meow! Get nom-nom taxed, motherhumper!" Leo laughed.
The magnetar in PEN47's stomach sucked the flesh and fluid into its mass like a black hole devouring passing-by asteroids. Moreover, the planet eater's soul was also affected.
"H-HOW?! IMPOSSIBLE!"
PEN47 shrank by 50% within five seconds while the glowing core inside him expanded and matched his size. Eventually, the star got bigger than the planet eater and made him bloated.
POP
Unable to figure out what hit him, the rainbow star broke out of PEN47's stomach and absorbed every drop of flesh and blood into its surface. Even PEN47's soul was not an exception.
"Hmm?"
"W-What?"
Simba and Cheese were perplexed by the development. They gazed at the rainbow magnetar, which consumed the planet eater from the inside.
The star's trajectory and speed gradually changed. It defied the momentum and the laws of physics as it suddenly paused and flew back toward Leo.
"DODGE!" Simba warned Leo and Cheese.
Cheese teleported away without a second thought while Simba reached out to Leo to grab him. However, after exerting his full strength, Simba failed to make Leo budge an inch.
"Relax, Simba. It's not like that thing can do anything to me." Leo snickered and raised his finger.
The gigantic star headed toward Leo and rapidly shrank. It turned into a glowing candy, which got stuck on his fingertip.
Leo put the rainbow candy in his mouth and chewed it in glee. His teeth crushed the former magnetic star into smaller pieces while his saliva instantly melted them.
It tasted like spicy soda.
DING
<You have obtained one entity fate crystal.>
<You have obtained three heavenly fate crystals.>
<You have obtained 30 sky fate crystals.>
<You have obtained 318 earth fate crystals.>
<You have obtained 10 leaves of Void Tree.>
Eating a planet eater's soul had its perks. Leo smirked and admired his gain.
'With this amount of fate crystals, I should be able to make multiple Qi generators or exchange them for some high-tier battleships or colonies. Also… Void Tree again?'
Leo pondered what he should do with the tree leaves. He planned to inspect it when he got home.
Meanwhile, Simba looked at Leo in disbelief. While frowning, he asked his brother, "What did you do?"
Leo shrugged, "Just testing a new skill."
"A new skill?"
"Yeah, I kinda copied this skill from Eleanor, actually."
"HAH?!" Simba removed his helmet and stared at Leo's face in shock, "YOU LEARN FROM WHO?!"
"Chill, man. Chill…"
Leo deeply sighed and explained how he learned this skill.
.
.
Several minutes earlier, Leo's consciousness was inside his dantian universe, operating the simulation mode. Taking advantage of the time dilation, he trained his heart out.
As Leo realized that his foundation was shaky and unstable, he fought every cultivator in the list at the max difficulty 10,000 times each. Mortals, immortals, deities, sages, and entities, nobody was an exception.
But when Leo fought clones whose original strength was at the karmic sovereign level or stronger, he started losing. Because of the max difficulty, their clones had a higher cultivation base, had more skills, and possessed superior artifacts, which made the fights almost impossible to win.
The most troublesome foes were his father, Aslan Ariel. In the past, the clones came out as an entity. But after Leo had learned more skills from other weaker cultivators, the clone of his father also received the upgrade bonuses, boosting his strength to the karmic sovereign realm.
That was not all. Even Elearnor's clone, who was supposed to be only a karmic sovereign, received the same buffs. The clones emerged as transcendent beings instead of karmic sovereigns.
As for Sieg's clones, it was out of Leo's reach. At the max difficulty, Sieg's cultivation base was pumped to a stage that Leo had never reached before – The Singularity Realm.
Without a choice, Leo retrained his basics by fighting entities, whose strength was upgraded to the karmic sovereign realm first. He exploited the blood bomb tactic and managed to copy their abilities.
Then, he came across several unique abilities and daos, which focused on stars in their dantian universes. This dao transformed a dark matter, a black hole, a pulsar star, a magnetar, or a neutron star into a weapon. Depending on each star's nature, Qi type, and personality of the star users, their nature varied.
Leo got inspiration from this dao. He tried mixing his flesh and blood into a summoned star and used it as a bomb. The result exceeded his imagination as it erased one of his galaxies in the universe by accident.
After regenerating the stars and resurrecting the population, Leo sealed this ability for safety. However, when he thought of Cat, he was enlightened.
Unfortunately, he didn't have enough time to test this ability. He ended up using it on PEN47 first.
.
.
"That's the gist of it," Leo concluded his explanation after revealing his simulation system abilities.
The sparkling eyes of Simba gazed at Leo in admiration. He praised, "Why couldn't I think of that?! Hold on, doesn't that mean you can freely summon my clones and test my skills?"
Again, Leo shrugged, "Yes. So?"
"Isn't that cheating? I mean, you can gauge anybody's abilities and copy their skills!"
"Yup! That's why you need multiple entity fate crystals to generate more system abilities!"
Simba smacked his forehead. He wished he had known about this 30,000 or 40,000 years ago.
"Now, I understand why Fate Stadium Overlord collects so many fate crystals. That's why." Simba was enlightened.
"Yeah. Come to think of it, how many fate crystals do you have?"
Simba counted his fingers and wryly smiled.
"One true entity fate, one entity fate, and three heavenly fate…"
"That sucks. Here, use this one."
Leo sank his hand into his chest and pulled out an entity fate crystal from his soul. It was a massive neutron star, emitting a bright silver flame.
Looking at the weird entity fate crystal, Leo raised his eyebrows, "Damn, it has already mutated. Never mind, you can have it."
.
Simba witnessed how Leo nonchalantly shoved his physical hand into the dimension inside his body and pulled out a white sun. His expression turned solemn.
'I need to be stronger! I can't be content with my current strength!'
Determined and motivated to be as strong as Leo, Simba looked at the neutron sun. He also asked about his system.
"System, if I consume that, will it grant another system ability?"
DING
<The entity fate crystal in front of you is a mutated one, created by crushing the soul of a karmic sovereign and mixing it together with a regular entity fate crystal. It contains the essences of star cores and the daos of star weaponry.>
<Back to the question. Yes, it has a 70% chance of granting your wish.>
"What about the other 30%?"
<There's a 20% chance of getting another wish granted and a 10% chance of getting a random ability.>
<Please note. No matter what system ability the fate crystal generates, it will be stronger than regular fate crystals. However, its authority will not exceed what a true entity fate crystal has.>
"Alright."
Simba flew toward the white sun and bathed in its flame. As it was a gas planet, Simba quickly entered its core and found a small crystal inside.
Upon touching the crystal, it entered Simba's soul.
Simba immediately prayed.
"I wish I had the same Simulation System that my brother has… I wish I could learn or copy other people's abilities and learn their fight techniques!"
DING
A gold system screen appeared, informing Simba of the result of his wish.
<Assimilating the entity fate crystal with your soul…>
<Assimilation completed. A new system has been generated!>
Simba's consciousness was pulled into his dantian universe. However, instead of being prompted by a clone summoning menu, the system gave him another ability.
<Please set up an opponent for the simulation mode.>
The screen allowed Simba to choose two fighters to fight each other instead of letting him fight a clone.
'Hmm?!'
Immediately, Simba noticed the oddity of this system. He could adjust the fighter's cultivation base, gears, and aptitudes. He could even change a mortal into a transcendent being!
