Speed Is King

"It doesn't matter when. I just need to know how much stronger I'll become." Khalendros said calmly. "I'll sign any contract if you can give me the power I need to cross into Emperor level. In fact, I believe Khellendra will do that too. However, we will only accept temporary contracts."

"Hawk, can we break Beast Apostle Contracts?" Elliot asked Hawk the AI immediately.

[Affirmative.]

[Beast Apostles will automatically gain freedom once they reach Celestial Level.]

[There are no contracts strong enough to bind Celestial Beings at this moment.]

"Can we break them in a year or two? Or rather, can we make temporary contracts?" Elliot phrased the question in a different way.

[Affirmative. However, breaking an Apostle Contract while it is still in force will cause a major blowback to both parties.]

"What sort of blowback?"

[Depending on how long the contract had been signed and how much benefits had been exchanged between the Beast Apostle and the Beast Master, the blowback could range between 25% to 75% soul damage.]

[All previously gained stats and personal accomplishments, however, would remain untouched.]

[It is highly recommended that both parties adhere to the contract.]

"I understand." Elliot said. The system rarely gave out recommendations without Elliot asking for it. For it to do so must be extremely serious.

"I don't know what sort of strength you need to help you cross into Emperor level, but my previous Apostles gained at least 50% of my power after they signed. If that's not enough, you'll keep gaining a portion of my strength whenever I level up. However, the contract would not be temporary. If you sign it, we'll be linked for life." Elliot said frankly.

Khalendros' eyes clouded lightly when he heard that the contract would be for life.

He had been stuck at the Emperor level bottleneck for many, many years. No matter what he did and how hard he tried to cultivate, he couldn't progress even a single iota of power!

And now, a ridiculously simple method to power up by a huge margin was right in front of him… But at the cost of his freedom!

"That's a really long handshake." Khellendra commented with a laugh from the side. Her laughter tinkled like the voice of an angel, and caused Elliot to wonder if there was even anything about her that wasn't perfect.

However, Khalendros was in no mood to appreciate his wife's awesomeness.

"He is able to grant us strength if we sign a Beast Apostle Contract with him. At least fifty percent of the power he wields right now. " Khalendros told Khellendra without hesitation as he withdrew his hand.

"A Beast Apostle contract? So we're basically signing away our freedom in exchange for power?" Khellendra laughed again as though she had just heard a joke. "That's not something I would even dream of considering."

Khalendros remained silent. His brow furrowed even deeper as he weighed the pros and cons.

"Uhh. I'll give you two some space." Elliot said awkwardly and walked away. He had no wish to bear witness to a couple's fight! Within a few seconds, Elliot was out of the barrier which Khalendros had set up.

"Moles, go and bring me your cousins and friends." Elliot commanded as soon as he was out. "I want at least fifty more!"

"Yes boss!"

"Right away, handsome boss!"

With that, Elliot sat down outside the barrier and began to converse with Gilgamar about the advancement of dragons.

"As I said before, Dragon Energy is much more powerful than normal energy. They are also many times more difficult to advance qualitatively. A qualitative advancement of energy is required in order to begin the process of entering Emperor level." Gilgamar began.

"The energy that beings below Emperor level wield can be considered as the Gaseous State. They are not dense and when formed into runes and spells, the effect that they give out can be considered as weak. However, sometime during King level, most beings will undergo energy advancement.

This is when their Gaseous Energy turn into Liquid Energy. Now this is just an illustration, do not take it too seriously."

"Understood. Go on."

"After advancing gaseous energy into liquid energy, one would be considered to have reached the Peak of King level. This is the level that both Blue Dragons have reached. If they were to fight all out, their liquid state energy would definitely overwhelm your Purgatory Fire Energy.

It would be difficult for them to kill you, but defeating you would be relatively easy."

Elliot nodded. After seeing how easily Khalendros' mini Dragon Form broke his attack, he totally believed Gilgamar.

"Anyway, advancing into the Emperor level is an extremely dangerous process. It entails the formation of what many people call the River of Runes within your body." Gilgamar intoned.

"River of Runes? Please elaborate." Elliot immediately said. He was definitely intrigued by the process he would have to go through in the near future to become an Emperor.

"Very simply, A River of Runes is permanently imprinting a series of Runes into your body's energy pathways. The more Runes you imprint, and the more powerful Runes you pick to imprint, the stronger you will become as an Emperor.

If you want to simply become an Emperor, you can just imprint exactly one thousand runes. Once you finish that, your energy pathway will evolve irreversibly into a River of Runes.

However, if you want a perfect breakthrough, then you will have to imprint as many runes as your body can handle, and in factors of ten. So that means at minimum, you need one thousand runes. Or you can imprint ten thousand, one hundred thousand, one million, and so on. That number is different for everybody.

As you can see, it gets progressively harder. Just for your information, Tyrius imprinted one hundred thousand runes." Gilgamar said rather proudly.

"Ugh. No wonder he's stuck at King level for so many years! Imprinting a thousand runes sounds ridiculously difficult. I can't even draw a single one right!" Elliot sighed.

"It takes time and practice. And if you want to become the strongest Emperor that you can be, then you'll also need to have access to the right runes, the right guidance on the sequence to imprint those runes as well as the supporting medicines and natural treasures to help you live through the ordeal.

You will only have one chance to imprint those runes on your energy pathway. Once you fail, the energy pathway will no longer be responsive, and you will forever lose your chance to advance into the Emperor level."

Elliot blinked and sighed deeply. The path to the pinnacle of power truly is long and difficult!