For what felt like an eternity, Ronan sat in the endless dark void of death. He pondered his attempt at the hard difficulty tutorial. What he had done right.

Where he had failed.

His stubborn determination to break through every obstacle in his path had served him well, but it was also a hindrance at times. If he had taken a moment to feel out the throne room, perhaps he could have discovered the phylactery earlier.

Then again, maybe he would have died even sooner while trying to solve the puzzle. The past was set in stone. Or at least, the past of each iteration was.

Ronan could change the future, and rewrite his failure into a glorious tale of victory. Tharaxes would die, of that he was certain.

However, the problem remained of his overall approach to things. Not that being tenacious and pushing through pain and suffering to achieve his goals was a quality he wished to remove. No, that stubborn grit was his greatest asset.

What Ronan knew he had to shift was the way he applied it. He could have taken more time to master sorcery, instead of rushing ahead in his impatience the moment he had a workable solution to the darkness.

Ronan had grown complacent.

And he blamed it on a lack of challenge. Tharaxes may have been the one to strike the killing… burn… but it was his own failures that had created that opportunity for the lich-lord.

He would not make the same mistakes again.

With his determination set, Ronan allowed the pull at the back of his consciousness to take him. Before he could even read the analysis of his first hard difficulty tutorial iteration, he received an unexpected surprise.

Unprecedented modifications detected…

Analysing…

Unable to determine harm-benefit of modifications. Deferring to inheritor

Physical body has mutated, resulting in the following:

Magical damage reduction +38%

Physical damage reduction +61%

Mind has mutated, resulting in the following:

Mental resistance +6%

Soul has mutated, resulting in the following:

Soul damage resistance +1.2%

Keep mutations?

The magical and physical damage resistances were welcome. Ronan thought he'd wrung as much as he could out of those two in particular, but it seemed all he needed was to suffer on a deeper level.

It was the soul damage resistance that surprised, and pleased him. That he only received a little over one percent after having his entire soul burned to a crisp left him feeling cheated. However, all the most potent resistances increased incrementally. Mental resistance being a prime example. Thus, he was simply satisfied to know it was something he could build a resistance to at all.

Accepting the mutations, Ronan felt a slight shudder run through his disembodied consciousness. My soul?

That he'd lived through his soul burning was curious. Ronan used to think that his heritage worked by reincarnating his soul somehow, but his latest death threw a spanner in the gears of that theory. Until he felt the mutation in his current state.

It was possible his heritage was recreating his soul, but that didn't feel like the correct answer. Knowing he wouldn't find the solution by simply thinking about it, Ronan entered the endless white void of his clan's ancestral grounds.

Iteration 40 analysis:

Highest level achieved: 57

Highest class achieved: Unrelenting Juggernaut (Epic)

Highest fortune achieved: 83 Bronze Credits, 184 Copper Credits

Stats gained: 875

Cultivation stages achieved: Mind (Quartz ★★★), Body (Stone ★★), Energy (Sparkling ★★), Soul (Red ★★★) [+3]

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Inventory value accumulated: 19 Bronze Credits, 589 Copper Credits

Chrono Enhancement Updates:

Experience gain multiplier has not increased

Achieving an epic class for the first time has rewarded you with 1 Chronos merit

Credit gain multiplier has not increased

Experience gain multiplier has increased from 13.720 to 14.605

Raising all cultivation paths to ★ has rewarded you with 1 Chronos merit

Raising all cultivation paths to ★★ has rewarded you with 1 Chronos merit

Cultivation talent multiplier has increased from 2.0 to 2.3

Cultivation progress has been reset, maximum stages reached have been locked

Mastery progress has been reset, maximum tiers reached have been locked

Class has been reset, class skills purged from status

Chronos merits have been acquired! All four paths of cultivation have reached at least the first realm! Inheritor possesses 35+ skills or traits! Access to chronos clan ancestral grounds granted at the first threshold

He barely finished reading the final word when he felt himself tremble. Unlike the pain of his burning soul, this sensation felt like a breath of fresh air on a spring morning; it was as though Ronan had returned to a home he never knew existed.

A single, bassy thrum cut through the silent white. The Temporal Obelisk rose from the void, the pointed tip reaching higher as the base grew wider. When it stopped growing, it was around two-and-a-half times as tall, and twice as wide at the base, as it had been previously.

Ronan thought the changes would end there, but the first threshold brought another reward. To one side of the obelisk, beyond it, deeper into the white void—as far as distance could even be measured here—four twisting spires rose from below.

They were made from the same material as the obelisk. Dark, obsidian purple, seemingly drinking in the whiteness from its surroundings. When the rumbling stopped, and Ronan's soul finished trembling, he observed the new structure with awe.

Each of the twisting spires seemed to defy everything he knew about physics, engineering, and geometry. The structure clearly existed in his clan's ancestral grounds, but reaching out with his awareness returned nothing. Even the spires seemed to move in and out of existence as they curved from the white void to where they all joined into a single, twisting point.

Where they conjoined, an obsidian stalactite pointed back towards the void below. At its base, stretching between the points where the four spires emerged from the white void, an obsidian disc rested.

Ronan wasn't sure what the function of the new structure was. Hopefully, he was about to find out. Feeling a subtle pull from the magnificent creation, he made his way towards it, past the obelisk, and placed a hand against one of the four spires.

You have connected with the [Shrine of Chronos] for the second time!

You have been inflicted with [Minor Blessing of the Chronos Forge] by [Shrine of Chronos]!

Minor Blessing of the Chronos Forge (Unique): The Chronos Forge sets the soul aflame, smelting the descendants of the clan into unparalleled existences. Step into the fire, and be forged anew. The first skill or trait you smelt in the Chronos Forge will have its fuel cost paid, have its rarity be raised by one tier, and will gain one extra random effect.

Reminiscent of the first time he entered the Chronos Clan's ancestral grounds and touched the Temporal Obelisk, Ronan received another blessing from the shrine. The new blessing was similar, but unique to the new structure which had been revealed to him.

The Chronos Forge.

Even the name inspired feelings of being forged anew; stronger and better. That it mentioned skills and traits gave him a huge clue to its function.

For a while Ronan had been feeling that his status was growing cluttered. A few of the skills he had acquired were losing their utility, and that trend was bound to continue the more iterations he completed.

However, it seemed that his clan had a solution to everything. If his suspicions were correct, he would be able to fuse and forge his existing skills and traits into newer, more powerful ones.

Unfortunately the blessing only made his task more difficult. The first skill—or trait—which he forged would receive an extra tier and an extra effect, free of cost. The decision was a complex one that would take time and careful consideration from Ronan.

So first he decided to approach the Temporal Obelisk, to see if new chronos enhancements had been made available. He had merits to spend.

Of course, he was no fool. Before that, he made sure to check if the Chronos Forge required merits to activate. He would curse himself for eternity if he spent all of his merits at the obelisk, only to return to the forge and discover he couldn't create an overpowered skill.

[Chronos Forge]

Fuel: 0%

[Recycle]

[Forge]

[Temper]

[Alloy]

While the initial menu did not mention chronos merits, Ronan investigated all four options, leaving no stone unturned. The names were a little confusing at first, but fairly easy to understand after a short inspection.

Recycle—or skill recycling—allowed him to permanently sacrifice one of his traits or skills in order to provide fuel to the forge. That was a heavy price, but he suspected it would be one worth paying. Everything he'd seen of the Chronos Clan thus far painted a grand picture. Their power appeared limitless.

Forge allowed Ronan to create a wholly new skill, using fuel and his creativity. He felt that was overpowered, but after some prompting, images and feelings of impossibility entered his consciousness. Unlike the system, his clan was generous. Based on the somewhat blurry explanations, he realised that forge allowed him to turn things he could already do into greater skills, or stretch the limits of his experiences to develop powerful skills centred around them.

That was complex and confusing, but as with all things, he would learn through experience. And suffering.

Tempering seemed to be a way of evolving his existing skills, also fueled by the recycling of other skills. Fairly straightforward, but he expected it to be costly.

The final option, alloy, was the one he'd least understood at a glance. When he opened the menu to inspect it, however, a smile appeared on his face. This was what he'd been waiting for.

A way to fuse his skills and create a far deadlier one.

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