The Curator
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Chapter 290: Steps Toward Divinity
🕑 Added 2025-07-25 05:17:53 +0000 UTC"By the way, do you have any idea what affinity I should choose when using the Heartroot Elixir I borrowed from Kael?" Thalion asked after checking on the item in his spatial ring. So far, their conversation had been going well, and he was genuinely curious to hear the thoughts of the Voice of the System—or rather, the imprisoned dragon god.
"Hmm. Interesting question," the dragon god mused aloud, sinking deeper into the soft cushions of his chair.
"In general, it could be any affinity. When adding new affinities to something, there are a few common theories on how to proceed. One approach is to choose an affinity you have massive access to. It doesn’t help much if you pick an affinity that matches well with your form, but then lack the materials to actually grow it.
Another widely accepted theory is to select an affinity that synergizes well with your current one. For example, fire and water usually don’t mix well. Even if you have plenty of materials available, combining those could be counterproductive.
In your case, I’d go with a third option: choose what you feel will be best and ignore the other two theories. Also, there’s no need to rush. The elixir won’t give you an immediate power-up. It would’ve had a massive impact on a Sanguine Thron, but on a Sanguis Impera it will simply add a new affinity without changing how it consumes energy. That means the Sanguis Impera would be able to feed on something other than blood to grow stronger. Pretty cool, actually."
"Thanks for the input," Thalion said. He had already been thinking about affinities and which might pair well with the Sanguis Impera, but it wasn’t an easy decision. He had to consider what affinities would also benefit his other forms. For the Crippled Eclipsari and the Tidecaller Serpent, he had no clear idea which affinities would be best. Ice might work well for the Tidecaller Serpent, but for the Crippled Eclipsari? Maybe earth?
Luckily, those forms were already quite strong, and he was planning to focus on fear effects next for the Eclipsari. The Tidecaller Serpent would also get a major upgrade once he used the massive crystal. So for now, there wasn’t an urgent need to add extra affinities.
On second thought, some mental abilities might pair well with the Tidecaller Serpent. The blue translucent flames already affected the mind, so adding mental-based skills like Ankhet did sounded promising.
For Eagly and his human form, the situation was different. Storm affinity was cool, but not enough in Thalion’s eyes. He wanted to add another affinity that would make that form even more dangerous. Maybe Light? Light was fast and would match well with wind and lightning, but it might interfere with his passive skill that made him harder to detect. If he ended up glowing like a giant lightbulb, that would be counterproductive.
For the Sanguis Impera, the most logical choice would probably be Fire. He already had a fire skill, and if the Sanguis Impera could channel its bloodline flames, it would become far more powerful than with any other affinity. The only problem? If Eagly ever became a dragon, he might also need the fire affinity. After all, how could he use a proper dragon’s breath without it?
All in all, Thalion didn’t really have a concrete plan for which affinities to add. Then again, he had a literal god in front of him, so why not ask?
"What affinity do you think would fit best? I’ve got a few ideas, but I’m not really sure they’re good in the long run."
"It’s hard to say what’s good long-term," the dragon god replied thoughtfully. "But considering your bloodline, I’d say fire is always a solid option. Light or life could also work well. I think those three are your best choices. But you still have time, so don’t rush it. Whether you add a new affinity now or in three months won’t make much of a difference.
What is important is that you have a clear idea of where you want your forms to go in the future. Otherwise, your evolution, or worse, your divine clase, might guide you down a path you won’t like."
By the end, the dragon god looked genuinely serious. Thalion understood the concern, but he wasn’t keen on waiting too long either. He would need every power-up he could get to survive in this new world, where he would be facing powerful, well-trained E-grades.
Still, the affinities the dragon god suggested made sense. Light might be an odd choice for his human form, but maybe it was because plants needed light to grow? Life made sense too. It fit well with both blood and plant-based powers. How he would nurture the life affinity was a question for another time, though.
For now, fire still felt like the strongest and most promising option.
"Do you have any idea how many Chosen will appear on New Earth and what the event quests will be like? Oh, and how big will New Earth be?" Thalion asked. Getting information about the upcoming trials was extremely important, especially since he would have to participate in all of them. The last part, about the planet’s size, was also crucial. Maybe it was so massive that the chances of running into a chosen were relatively slim?
"How many Chosen, hmm… Let’s take a look," the dragon god grumbled before continuing.
"There should be at least ten Chosen on New Earth. The event quests vary, but the first one is usually a kind of treasure hunt mixed with slaughter or survival elements. For example, there might be extra rewards for killing other treasure hunters, in addition to whatever treasure they drop, but it can take many forms. The second and third events often change, and the third one is usually created by the spirits of long-dead gods, which makes it pretty chaotic. In the last two eras, the second event was an arena trial, but that’s not guaranteed. It changes a lot."
"The more important thing is this: you must pay with your lifetime to enter. Normally between ten and five hunderd years. The event quests include time manipulation, meaning those who participate will gain a significant power advantage over those who don’t. The higher the cost, the better the rewards, but also the fiercer the competition."
You’re somewhat lucky. These events are only for those in the newly integrated universe. Later events won’t be so kind; you may have to compete against people who’ve been nurtured by their gods from day one," the dragon god explained in a serious tone.
Thalion was shocked. He had to sacrifice years of his life just to enter? The system wasn’t playing around when it came to creating elites. If every event cost five hundred years, he might not even be able to attend. No wonder it was difficult to place high. Who would give up five hundred years just to "chill" in an event?
"Do I even have enough lifetime to attend all the events? And will they be held on New Earth?" Thalion asked. These event quests only raised more questions.
"You’ve gained the remaining lifespans of the Anqueens when they sacraficed themselves and passed their power and dreams to you. I think you have around 1,700 years left. You’ll have to pass a small test on New Earth to get a token. When the event begins, everyone with a token will be teleported to a world created specifically for the system event, very much like this tutorial."
"As for how many will be there? Likely a few millions, but I can’t say how many will come from New Earth. When the entry cost is high, fewer will participate, and the system pulls competitors from more planets. If the cost is low and even weaker individuals dare to enter, it may only involve a few planets. It varies a lot. Still, I’d say the minimum number of competitors is around two million."
"Don’t get your hopes up if the cost is low. The competition will still be brutal. And if the cost is the full five hundred years? Expect complete carnage."
"How much you pay to enter also determines the leaderboard rewards. So, if you need to pay five hundred years, the top reward will be something extremely rare. Something even gods can’t provide for their Chosen."
"Great," Thalion thought after the dragon god finished. This just kept getting better and better. He really hoped he wouldn’t have to pay five hundred years to participate. No wonder it was so hard to place in the top thousand when you were competing with at least two million others.
"On another note. Is there a level cap?" Thalion asked. He doubted he could win against a high E-grade in direct combat if they were an elite.
"No, not directly. It all depends on your progress during the tutorial. There is a level cap for those who enter newly integrated space via incursions and similar events, but how fast they level up afterward is up to them. You don’t need to worry about S-Grades or gods swooping in and fighting over planets. It’ll take a long time before gods can get involved, which is exactly why so many factions are interested in newly integrated areas."
"At least that sounded kind of nice," Thalion thought. But he couldn’t help wondering: had the elite really postponed their evolutions until now? How fast could they level up on New Earth, or in the system events? He would be participating without gaining any levels at all. That felt like he was missing out on a massive advantage.
Then again, he had a bigger goal: to break the seal on his soul. For that, he needed to obtain a divine class. Thalion really didn’t like where this was going. Everything pointed to the first years on New Earth being drenched in blood.
From that point on, not much else happened. They talked about casual things, and Thalion soon sat down to begin repairing his soul. He even put the massage chair back into his spatial ring. It was just too comfy to focus properly.
His soul had healed quite a bit, but many of the spirit veins hadn’t repaired themselves. That was something he had to do manually. Luckily, he was already skilled enough to manage it. It seemed like the soul didn’t have to be perfect to channel full power. Thalion still didn’t fully understand how his soul and body worked together. The energy flowed through his veins, but whenever his soul was damaged, he began to lose control.
For now, he didn’t think too deeply about the details. The lesson was simple: keep your soul and body healthy, or nothing would function properly.
When he was finished, Thalion asked a few more questions about the gods, but the dragon god didn’t want to share anything and only said it would be better for him to find out on his own.
"Thanks for all the help and see you in a week," Thalion said, before exiting the system shop.
Throughout the entire time, he hadn’t even tried to drink the golden liquid once.
<author note>
So that wraps it up for this week.
I think it was suggested that space or time affinity would be great to add to the Sanguis Impera before.
The thing is, time and space in this story are very high concepts, and you’d need very rare treasures or singularities for body tempering, which Thalion won’t have access to for quite a while.
With that knowledge now, what affinity do you think would work best for the Sanguis Impera and his other forms?
Not everything is set in stone yet, so it might actually impact the story if someone has a genius idea.
For next week: Thalion has a new skill to test, and there are still plenty of undead around and a very angry mother elf too.
If you think the pressure eases now that Ankhet is dead, you’re wrong.
Until now, Thalion has been dealing with average enemies by multiversal standards, with the termites being the only exception.
He’ll need to power up big time if he wants to stand a chance and there might be whispers in the air that New Earth will be such a bloody affair that early evolution might be the only way to survive.
Have a great weekend. See you next monday.
Cheers
<author note>
Comments
Daniel Hamilton
Time, void, space, gravity would be fun
Adhoah Cinnidhlaoch-McCoinnich
I don't see how it would really work by a loosely defined "physics" affinity could be interesting, alter innate laws of reality. Magic already does that in a roundabout way tho so.. idk. Or just go all on in gravity affinity, that could be devastating in a lot of ways
Qmen070
Flesh affinity: Heal others - crudely attach arm that proper healer can finish off; turn monsters into temporary buffs (a pill or something) - 10 min of better eyes when crafting, temporary adaptation to hostile environment while training, consume good eye sight pill and magic seeing pill and look at magic stuff to gain unique insights; experiment with flesh monsters to grow useful parts - use million chickens (to extract dragon essence or something) or a mix of unusual monsters to give a flesh blob monster dragon scales that can be extracted and given to bird form; enables to more freely mix and match enemy body parts - now is A or B for eyes but with affinity it can be A and B; stops MC from having to become another eldritch meat ball of monster parts; ability to temporarily modify (side grade) to weaker but more specialized form (takes time to change?, limited uses per day?) - bird for speed in straight line, Eclipsari with one arm - enemy attack because looks like easy pray, use essence to change to weaker Eclipsari with both arms - is weaker but appear stronger - enemy don't attack; gives new last resort - turn oneself into a glass cannon that can damage or destroy itself due to untested or unstable physical form, to find a stable form - need to do experiments with monsters and other materials; create flesh soldiers from monster flesh, blood and seed for heart from Sanguis Impera (army to fight the ants?); create eldritch puppy? - puppy could spy or assassinate flesh defensive turrets, craft living armor; new option to torture people with; more unique monsters advance affinity faster, experiment breakthroughs advance affinity; Other shape shifters can get this affinity later, but only when their path has been set in stone and system hold is stronger;
Caudyr
It's also important to note that not all dragons breathe fire in every story. Some examples include: - Ice Dragons breathing an ice breath that snap freezes whatever it touches. - Black Dragons breathing "cursed" flames of a sort. - Green Dragons breathing either "poison" flames or just poison mist in general. - Storm Dragons breathing a lightning-style breath. - Light/White Dragons breathing what is essentially plasma. - And so on... Thus, he could keep going along this same vein with Eagly's affinities and still go the dragon route...just with a "Storm Breath" instead of a standard Dragon Breath.
Chuck
If there is a life affinity, is there an anti life affinity? or anti something affinity maybe ?, could be fun, that said I feel the whole soul thing is just overplayed, we see it over and over, yeah it makes sense, yeah its OP but we've seen it time and again. I feel fire with a plant maybe the juxtaposition is cool but it just doesn't make much sense, granted the whole magic thing is already suspension of disbelief but maybe some level of congruence might be needed I dunno perhaps memory, that way every kill he gets their knowledge, in this manner he can build his skills to use when he gets out of the system, and also has a smorgasbord myriad to pull out of his ass when he fight people or additionally combining things, learning of secret treasure troves from a god's favorite, etc etc. Also if it absorbs memories, perhaps this can also lead to becoming a full fledged independent intelligent entity, might branch into creating plant material based or blood clones or even conjurations of formerly devoured enemies, the idea of a plant brings to mind the idea of 'seeds', perhaps memory seeds can be implanted leading to not mind control but rewriting entire personalities.. might lead to a cult following him.. or rather than killing enemies a perpetually siphoning seed sends energy to him remotely with no one any wiser. Perhaps through the method of memory absorption he can bypass his current shapeshifting limitations, by absorbing minds he can imitate at least initially small aspects of physiques or appendages not through his skill but through the mind, this could lead to other methods of system escape
TheRaptorOfHermes
Soul affinity
Cmndprmpt
I agree that soul or light are the top 2. Soul for if it's for all forms, plenty of people have solid arguments for why he should take it, but he could also use the affinity for warping people's perception of him. If you consider emotions to be part of ones soul, he could use this affinity for deception and to better control those around him. Hell, he could probably learn some things from the brothel witch in his city. He could also manipulate people's desires slightly and such to make his deals more or less appealing, and so on. Though, I don't really see him using something like this outside of combat, but I would love to see if her could trap someone in their own soul and force them to experience the darkness their, and then he's just Freddy Kruger, chasing them around in their souls pace and such. Additionally, he could also use the soul affinity to potentially try and gain another outsider or even improve his own outsider like he would his sanguine plant. Just with souls. The possibilities are near endless if he chooses soul, and it would allow you to write some interesting and impactful plot points and struggles for Thalion.
Szoppa
I think soul affinity was be great, feed the plant with the souls trapped in the necklace, having an army of blodthirsty hungry blood spirits will be nice, also this can help to strenghten and regeneration of thalion soul, and this help his all shapes, his soul could gain the ability to be colored by the affinity given by the chosen shape so its strenghten his affinities, even attacks his opponents souls like Ankhet, or making souls mirage to confuse his enemy souls and consequently the senses of enemies, and this can help his snake form. But if no soul affinity, i think a metal will be nice, someone in the comments write this idea and what this can do and i think is awsome to.
Dradin Hebrhal
I believe soul, instinct, and adaptation would have a real interesting effect on his title from the ant queens as well as the outsider. Growth though, that specifically resonates with a part he removed from the outsider. That might be fun to restore.
Dradin Hebrhal
What about a growth, instinct, or adaptation affinity? While I think soul is a great affinity for the long run considering it can be used to not only strengthen his soul thus strengthening all his forms. These affinities help Thalion break the bonds without sacrificing each form’s speciality.
Atorn Gaming
And greed would be a huuuge step on the dragon-path😉😁🤭
Atorn Gaming
It depends a bit on how you think about affinities. And if it gives just one affinity to every form - or separate affinities to choose for each. Going from the point of one for all from now on: If affinities are purely elemental, like dark, fire, light, earth, etc., I might go with light. Just the basic ability to switch between particle and waveform might open up something like ghost or teleportationability. Basically untouchable for a moment. Near instant laser. Or illusions. It might even work like an addition to darkness - control the light, and the darkness has to fight less for domination. 😉 If affinity includes esoteric concepts like rage, cut, fear, etc. I would go with something like greed. What's mine is mine - and what's yours will be mine soon. 🤭 It could be an easier way to incorporate and digest things, give more dominion over elements or area, even leech abilities...
RedWolf17
In the case of Eagly I feel like fire may not work since his own storm affinity would probably weaken the strenght of the flame. Light I feel like would be quite good since not only would it allow him to be much faster but also he can bend light to make himself invisible to the naked eye. Ice could also synergise well with his storm affinity since colliding ice particles help create lightning. I can also imagine a huge hurricane with ice shards swirling in it or a huge blizzard with lightning going around.
Tyrant Villager
If soul is an affinity, then considering Thalion’s previous work and experience with the outsiders (the merging and pillars) and seeing Ankhet’s own skills/abilities using souls then using souls of his enemies or other outsiders would be a solid choice to strengthen his human form/S. Impera. Would help to shore up the either his souls’ defenses or recovery ability.
Nigel Harrison
I still think space would be a good utility one for obvious reasons transportation, storage. With some combat potential in restraint, and reuputures in space. Even possibly being the thing that helps him leave the system. Only issue being how to cultivate it.
Johannes Röhrl
There will be some using pure mana but there is not really a magic affinity. It always turns into a mental struggle when both fighters use the same affinity. For example that blood cultivators take control of the opponents blood. His outsider does have an affinity but at such a high level that he wouldnt be able to acess it right now even if he knew about it.
Johannes Röhrl
Interesting. Havent seen it that way. To be honest i feel eagly is the most difficult form when it comes to affinities.
Forrest Minter
Is there a magic affinity? He could use that to rip the mana from enemy spells to weaken them and steal the mana to get even more mana regen. It would also probably have a lot of utility for magic usage in general. Alternatively, does his outsider have an affinity? Could he attune to that despite it probably not existing in his current universe? Theoretically he could set himself up to use the outsiders constant power generation to fuel his growth
Flynt
Thank You For The Chapter!!!!
Flynt
Soul affinity?
Johannes Röhrl
Oh wow that's a really good one!
Forrest Minter
Actually light affinity might make eaglys stealth better in some ways because he could blanket an area in light to obscure both him and his mana signature. (Since the area would be covered in blinding light and lots of mana)
DruryLane
How about Metal, blood contains iron. Metal could be played as an enhancer/modifier to existing blood powers. Metal and blood combined could allow Thallion to bind the thorn to the Templar equipment and allow them to grow together. Between fire blood and metal you could delve into living forge type abilities and further justify/expand Thallion's ability to improve his gear. You could even work the blood runes from the bow into the abilities. The ability to convert blood to metal and vice versa could turn Thallion into a moving fortress. I know metal would be a cousin to earth but I feel like it's much more thematically accurate and would synergize greatly with blood. I don't know if this would be better than fire but it's an idea for an alternative if you really want to save fire for the dragon form.
