A young genius from another world furrowed his brows as his aura flickered. "What is this feeling?" he muttered under his breath.

He could feel the divine essence empowering him, refining his body and soul. Yet beneath that growth, something else coiled through his veins like a faint whisper. It was neither painful nor heavy, but its presence unsettled him.

A silver-haired prodigy from the Ice Lotus Sect gasped softly as frost began to gather on her arms. "This energy… it isn't divine," she whispered. Her ice physique reacted sharply to it, sensing something foreign within her meridians.

Yet no matter how she tried to isolate it, the unknown power blended too seamlessly with the divine essence to be removed. It was as though the two had been fused together from the very start.

Even within Max's dome, some of the Acaris geniuses stirred uncomfortably as they felt the strange energy spreading through them.

Victor opened his eyes briefly, his dragon bloodline sensing the anomaly more clearly than others. His azure pupils shimmered faintly as he scanned the air around him. The divine essence appeared pure and flawless, yet his instincts told him otherwise.

"There's something else here," he thought silently. "Something hiding inside the divine energy itself."

Seraphina also seemed to sense it. Her Phoenix bloodline flared faintly, warning her of an energy it couldn't understand. But when she tried to probe it with her soul, the mysterious force evaded her senses entirely, as if it existed outside the normal boundaries of perception. She frowned but soon closed her eyes again.

Like Max, she chose not to dwell on it. The opportunity before them was too precious to waste.

And so, one by one, the geniuses suppressed their unease and continued to absorb the divine essence.

Yet the presence of that unknown energy was not an illusion. It existed within every thread of divine power flowing down from the Divine Platform.

Whether it was intentional or not, the Divine Platform was channeling more than just divine essence into the bodies of those who sat within its domes. The mysterious energy intertwined with the divine flow perfectly, disguising its true nature.

Some geniuses noticed minor fluctuations in their bodies. A few felt their souls tremble faintly. Others experienced momentary flashes of light or heat within their veins, sensations they couldn't explain. But each time they tried to examine it, the energy slipped away, vanishing beneath the surface of their consciousness.

From afar, the Divine Platform shone even brighter, its nine rings spinning slowly as divine light continued to pour down upon the ten domes. To anyone watching from outside, it was a breathtaking sight—a grand scene of enlightenment and ascension.

But within that brilliance, something else was quietly at work, spreading through every participant like a seed buried in fertile soil.

The geniuses did not notice. They were too focused on cultivation, too intoxicated by the purity of the divine essence.

Only the ancient symbols etched into the platform's structure flickered faintly, as if aware of the duality in the energy it emitted.

Inside his dome, Max continued to absorb divine essence without pause. He could still feel that faint, unfamiliar current within him, but like the others, he pushed the thought aside. To him, it was merely an oddity—something that could be dealt with later.

What none of them knew was that the unknown energy was slowly synchronizing with their bodies, weaving itself into their spiritual foundations as naturally as breathing.

The Divine Platform glowed brighter still, bathing the entire core region in golden light. The air trembled with sacred power, and the geniuses ascended further toward divinity, never realizing that with every breath they took, they were accepting more than just divine essence into their souls.

As time moved forward within the Divine Platform, the atmosphere inside every dome grew increasingly intense. The divine essence that filled the air became denser and brighter, flowing into the bodies of the geniuses like rivers of light.

Each breath they took drew in unimaginable amounts of power, and the changes within them became more pronounced with every passing moment.

At first, it was subtle. Their auras grew heavier, and their spiritual pressure thickened as their cultivation bases surged toward the final threshold of the Mythic Rank. Then, one after another, their bottlenecks shattered.

The faint sound of a divine bell echoed through the platform, and countless pillars of light shot upward from the ten domes as the geniuses broke through to the Divine Rank.

Normally, this moment would have been accompanied by the Wraith of the World, the punishment that descended upon anyone who dared to step beyond the natural boundary of mortal existence. But here, there was no such thing.

The Divine Platform suppressed everything that belonged to the outside world. The heavens did not rage, the earth did not tremble, and no destructive force came crashing down upon them. Instead, they felt only serenity—a calm, almost divine stillness that welcomed their ascension.

One by one, the geniuses reached the first level of the Divine Rank, completing their first life-and-death cycle in mere moments. Their souls transformed as their life force condensed into divine energy. Their eyes glowed faintly with divine light, and their very presence began to distort the air around them.

The moment that breakthrough occurred, the process did not stop. The Divine Platform continued to pour endless streams of divine essence into them. The energy kept flowing, nurturing their newly transformed bodies and pushing them to even greater heights.

The first level of the Divine Rank soon turned into the second. The flow of energy within their bodies quickened again, and their divine veins grew stronger, more intricate. For some, this rate of progress was almost frightening.

They could feel the difference between each level vividly—the expansion of their soul force, the widening of their divine sea, and the deepening of their comprehension of the laws of existence.

In the outside world, advancing even a single level in the Divine Rank required centuries of preparation. Cultivators had to temper their souls through countless meditations, reinforce their bodies with divine materials, and endure the terrifying ordeal of a life-and-death cycle that could kill them half the time.

The pressure of that test was immense. A single mistake meant death, and even success often came with crippling injuries that took decades to recover from.

But here, inside the Divine Platform, none of that existed. The divine energy was pure, flawless, and infinite. The geniuses could absorb it freely, and every surge of energy refined their existence without resistance. The divine essence guided their transformations naturally, making the impossible seem effortless.

Many of them could hardly believe what was happening. A young genius from another world trembled as she felt her cultivation reach the third level of the Divine Rank. Her voice quivered as she whispered, "It's… it's unbelievable. My ancestor told me it took him a thousand years just to reach the second level. But here… I did it in mere hours."

Similar exclamations echoed throughout the domes as other geniuses advanced rapidly. The divine light surrounding them flared brighter with each new level, their bodies glowing with radiance like miniature suns.

Their divine seas expanded beyond imagination, and the purity of their energy reached levels that even ancient beings would envy.

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