Emperor of the Source

Chapter 292: One Hundred Million Mana Units!

Adrian returned to his suite through a portal.

The quiet interior of the room greeted him as the portal closed behind his back. For a brief moment, Adrian stood still, allowing his thoughts to settle as he considered the unexpected turn of events that had occurred during his visit to the UNI-Auction.

The UNI-Credit Card had been an unexpected benefit, and the credit limit of one hundred million UNI-Coins opened possibilities that had previously been out of reach. Adrian immediately decided to use this opportunity to strengthen himself as much as possible during the week before the auction. A subtle sense of urgency pressed upon him. He had no way of predicting how the upcoming auction might unfold or whether unforeseen dangers might arise because of it. If powerful factions became interested in the artifact, unexpected complications could follow. For that reason, Adrian wanted to ensure that he was fully prepared.

At the very least, he needed to raise his mana capacity higher than that of Hestia or Marivelle. Only then could he truly fight against Peak Rule Stage cultivators like Nightshade. His brief trial against Nightshade had demonstrated this weakness clearly.

Adrian began analyzing the most efficient ways to expand his mana capacity within the limited time he had. Through his previous experiences forming divine concepts inside his Source Seed to expand his Mana Sea, he had already learned several crucial limitations. Every action required willforce. Creating divine concepts consumed willforce, and even enduring the pressure those concepts placed on his Mana Sea required tremendous willforce.

At present, Adrian understood his limits clearly. Creating a single Ultimate-tier divine concept expanded his Mana Sea by ten thousand mana units, but the entire process of creating the concept and enduring the pressure afterward completely drained his willforce. If he instead created High-tier divine concepts, which expanded his capacity by five thousand mana units, he could repeat the process twice before reaching complete exhaustion. Mid-tier divine concepts allowed even more repetitions, but the overall gain remained smaller.

From these observations, Adrian had concluded that his maximum expansion rate was roughly ten thousand mana units per day, after which his willforce would be entirely depleted.

However, the Willforce Recovery spell had fundamentally changed that limitation. By maintaining the spell passively, Adrian could create an Ultimate-tier divine concept and expand his Mana Sea without completely exhausting his willforce. The spell continuously replenished a portion of his willforce as he spent it. Even after completing the expansion process, the passive effect shortened the natural recovery time dramatically.

Because of this, Adrian could now safely expand his mana capacity by ten thousand units each day without collapsing from willforce exhaustion.

If he followed this method for the next week, he could increase his mana capacity by at least another seventy thousand units. But now that he had access to significant financial resources, he could improve this situation even further. The one hundred million UNI-Coins represented freedom he had never possessed before.

Adrian briefly considered purchasing mana pills and following the traditional method used by most cultivators. If he spent the entire credit limit on mana pills, he could obtain pills containing a combined total of fifty million mana units. According to the calculations described in the Boundless Mana Body Art, ten mana units could be used to permanently expand one unit within the Mana Sea. That meant fifty million mana units could theoretically expand his Mana Sea by five million units.

On the surface, that seemed far more efficient than his own method. However, reality was not that simple.

Willforce remained the fundamental limiting factor. Even if Adrian had unlimited mana pills, he could not consume them all at once. Overloading the Mana Sea with excessive mana could lead to catastrophic internal damage or even death. Cultivators typically consumed mana pills in small amounts, often pills containing around one hundred thousand mana units.

After consuming such a pill, the cultivator needed to spend significant willforce carefully guiding the immense mana within the mana sea and managing the pressure it created in order to expand its capacity. At the end of that process, the Mana Sea might increase by roughly ten thousand units, but the cultivator's willforce would already be nearly exhausted.

In other words, even if Adrian possessed infinite wealth, the natural limit remained the same: roughly ten thousand mana units per day.

For this reason, his personal method of creating divine concepts remained the most efficient option. It cost nothing and achieved the same result.

So how could the one hundred million UNI-Coins change the situation?

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The answer was simple: time.

Until now, Adrian had not been able to use certain tools he already possessed, particularly his time formations. Now, the credit limit gave Adrian the freedom to utilize tools he had previously avoided.

Adrian retrieved a large box from his spatial ring. Inside were pure mana crystals. Earlier, he had converted five million UNI-Coins into high-tier mana crystals through the UNI-Bank. These crystals contained a total of five million mana units.

What Adrian truly lacked was time. All of his methods allowed him to expand his Mana Sea by ten thousand units per day. But what if he could make each day last longer? Even back in the Milky Way, Adrian had possessed a time formation capable of creating a powerful time dilation effect. Inside the formation, a single day in the outside world equaled four years within the formation.

But he couldn't use this before due to his financial situation. But now, things are different.

Initially, Adrian had considered purchasing time essence crystals because he did not want to risk using Origin Ink to power the time formation even within his private suite. However, the prices of time essence crystals were absurd. The smallest divine crystal containing time essence held one hundred thousand mana units and cost one million UNI-Coins.

Even though Adrian now had access to a hundred million UNI-Coins, spending such an amount solely on personal cultivation felt wasteful.

Then another thought occurred to him. This was his private suite inside the Crimson Vital Sect. If he secretly used Origin Ink to create the time formation and removed all traces afterward, no one would ever discover it.

Using Origin Ink here contradicted the plan he had made with Lysandra. They had agreed to build a workshop on an unclaimed planet to avoid exposure. But he didn't have weeks to build a base; he had exactly seven days before the galaxy descended on the UNI-Auction.

The sect had also already proven trustworthy enough for Adrian to take such a risk. Adrian retrieved a large barrel containing Origin Ink from his spatial ring. He immediately spent an hour layering his suite in the heaviest spatial and concealment formations he could construct, ensuring not even Hestia's senses could pierce the room.

After that, he began inscribing a compact time formation within his suite. The runic lines flowed smoothly across the floor as the Origin Ink etched intricate patterns.

Once the inscription was complete, he placed the five million mana units worth of crystals at the center of the formations.

He did not know exactly how much mana the formations would consume during a seven-day session, but he was certain it would be far less than five million units. These were high-tier mana crystals containing one mana unit each. Back in the Milky Way, the crystals available to him had been low-tier crystals that did not even contain a full one mana unit.

At that time, Adrian had no way of measuring the mana usage in units like these, and they had used these formations for battle preparations and had a way to keep earning constant money within the galaxy. Even without proper measurement, such as mana units, Adrian still remembered how they had directed most of the mana crystals to maintain the time formation. It could be said he would have used Billions worth of low-tier mana crystals back in the Milky Way to power the formations.

And here, the UNI-Bank conversion, for the entire 3.5 billion mana crystals he had brought from the Milky Way, had given him around 3.5 million high-tier mana crystals. By this calculation, Adrian bought 5 Million High-tier mana crystals to sustain the formation.

This, in fact, could be said to be overkill, since Adrian was running the formations for only a week, and it's not as big as covering a large area, like back in the Milky Way, which cost him billions. But Adrian now possessed the financial freedom to test his methods properly.

Adrian activated the formations. The pure mana flowed into the runic structure engraved on the floor. The Origin Ink converted the mana into the needed conceptual essence, generating a localized domain within his suite.

The air within his suite thickened. Symbols flared across the floor before settling into a steady pulse.

Adrian stepped inside the formation. Instantly, he felt the difference. The concealment was working well, and the time inside the formation moved more slowly compared to the outside world. One day outside would equal four years within. Seven days outside meant twenty-eight years inside. That equaled roughly 10,220 days.

If Adrian expanded his Mana Sea by ten thousand units each day, then by the end of this cultivation session, his mana capacity would surpass one hundred million mana units.

One hundred million.

Adrian understood that, within the grand scale of the universe, even that amount was not extraordinary. Disciples from major sects could easily possess even greater reserves. He had recently learned this through the premium information network, and that knowledge had also been one of the reasons he suddenly felt compelled to push his limits. If the auction attracted an inner or core disciple of a major sect, he had to be prepared to face any danger from them.

And within the Andromeda Galaxy, one hundred million mana units would place him far above any other cultivator. Once he reached that level, mana would no longer be a concern. He could finally begin focusing on other aspects of power, such as authority techniques and combat strategy. After all, mana alone was not the sole factor determining victory in battle. But it certainly formed the foundation for everything else.

With these thoughts in mind, Adrian closed his eyes and directed his consciousness inward toward the Source Seed within his body.

Adrian began forming divine concepts.

Days passed within the formation. Adrian fell into a steady rhythm: form a divine concept, endure the pressure, recover, repeat. Each cycle added another ten thousand units to his reserves.

The monotony of cultivation did not bother him. Adrian had spent years in the Edge Structure enduring far worse conditions. This was merely focused repetition.

Weeks turned into months. Months became years.

…

While Adrian immersed himself in cultivation, the UNI-Auction released an announcement on the public Andromeda forum.

The announcement was simple: A Willforce Recovery Artifact had been registered as the Main Event item of the upcoming auction.

The moment the news appeared, the entire Andromeda Galaxy erupted into chaos.