Pretty much instantly after he had begun to wipe out the Parasitic Flies' hosts, Theodore noticed something that gave him pause, before almost causing him to break out in jubilant laughter on the spot.
Due to how rarely he had encountered the Insect Lord's minions previously, he had never discovered that he had been considered to have eliminated both the host as well as the fly. The sheer number of pop-ups had made it difficult to keep track of this. However, during the past week, whenever he had killed anything but one of the beasts, there had always been two Heavenly Dao notifications appearing in his field of view, showing an unmistakable pattern.
The Parasitic Flies didn't take the lives of their hosts, they merely took over as the 'drivers' of their physical vessels. But once those bit the dust, the insects also followed suit, as they had grown too dependent on them. This realization had lifted a heavy burden from his chest, as it meant that after this one battle against the alliance, he was extremely likely to easily achieve his 400 billion Endurance goal–he might even vastly surpass it!
But only when he actually worked through everything that had piled up did Theodore realize just how ridiculous of an exploit these flies truly represented to him. The amount of Attribute Points that he obtained depended on the cultivation stage and realm of the being which had been killed, as well as on their highest Talent grade.
Even the most outstanding individuals amongst the Imperial Han Family that he had taken care of this time didn't exceed the Epic-grade, with the majority of them being far, far below it at the Rare- or Average-grades. However, every single one of those insects had a Mythical-grade Talent!
Therefore, not only did he get credited with double the kills whenever a Fly Slave fell by his hand–which alone would have already been sufficient to vastly exceed his goal–but each 'extra kill' was also significantly more valuable to him. Both the insect as well as their host were considered to have the same cultivation stage and realm as each other. On average, the Parasitic Flies supplied him with a whole sixteen times more Attribute Points than their host counterparts!
Regardless of how composed his mind had become due to the countless illusory lives which he had experienced, he couldn't help but get increasingly more giddy and overjoyed as his gains accumulated. Never before had he enjoyed the utterly boring activity of working through all of the pop-ups as much as this time, although it took far longer than ever before. He was so deeply engrossed in it that he didn't even notice more than an entire day passing!
Initially, the others had wanted to ask him to eat together multiple times, but considering how focused he was, they chose not to disturb him. When he finally finished, it was already the early afternoon of the next day. Yet, despite having looked at more than ten billion notifications, his mind was not the slightest bit exhausted.
And there was one single reason as to why. The number of Attribute Points which he could either make use of to directly increase his power, or convert into Lifespan or Talent Energy, had reached a staggering 4,816,445,233,688! Or to put it another way, around 4.816 trillion! He had overshot his goal by a little more than an entire order of magnitude.
Originally, he would have still needed to cleanse the rest of this world to barely scrounge together the 400 billion he wanted–after all, without the Parasitic Flies, this slaughter would have 'merely' provided him with approximately 312.7 billion Attribute Points.
The Insect Lord had done his best to gather the vast majority of Imperial Han Family members under his banner, causing most of the Qinglong World to be almost entirely empty of them. Yet, no matter how hard he had worked, one month had still not been enough to 'collect' them all. During the past few weeks, Theodore had often come across cities which had already lost all value to him other than their Energy Veins because the Hans were absent, causing him to have to teleport to another one.
But this unbelievably large number of points at his disposal had made those slight annoyances far more than worth it! Not only had all of this saved him a significant amount of time, but it had also made him somewhat regretful again.
'If I hadn't antagonized the Parasitic Flies' creator, then I could have recruited them, so that they might raise a vast army for me to slaughter. But alas, why did I not research this matter more deeply back then? And why did it have to be insects?!'
Sighing to himself for but a moment, he soon cheered up again. Not all was lost–after all, the Fly Slaves that had been turned into Satoru torturing machines were still left. He could always try to reach out to the Insect Lord and try his luck. In any case, this matter would have to wait for later.
Taking a deep breath, he chose to add enough Attributes Points until all of his Standard Attributes reached exactly 450 billion. His original goal of 400 billion for Endurance had been a conservative estimate–now that he had the means, going further would make his next steps utterly foolproof. The reason as to why the other Standard Attributes hadn't been left out was that a balanced development was simply the most optimal and had always been on his agenda further down the line.
All of a sudden, every single one of Theodore's Subordinates felt an overwhelming power surging forth from their cores, reinforcing them to an unprecedented degree in every physical aspect! Most of them fainted on the spot, unable to endure the mixture of pleasure and pain assaulting their minds as a result, with solely Vigdis, Cheong Suhyeon and Navya withstanding the influx. For them, it was 'only' a two to four times multiplier, which they could shrug off rather quickly.
Theodore's mind also couldn't escape being overwhelmed by the sensations that he was feeling due to the instant strengthening of his body by far too many orders of magnitude. In fact, amongst all of them, he was hit by far the hardest! No matter how resilient he was, he couldn't help but blank out for a few moments, caught somewhere between unfathomable bliss and a violently tearing pain threatening to shatter his very psyche.
By the time that the after-effects had faded, cold sweat had drenched his back. Although most of what he had felt was merely a result of his overwhelmed senses, and he had never truly been in danger, it had undeniably been a considerably terrifying experience.
'The next time I recruit Subordinates that are significantly weaker than me, I have to caution them about this in advance. The mentally less resilient amongst them would probably be out cold for days or even weeks after such an ordeal...'
Fortunately, he was certain that this kind of positive augmentation absolutely wasn't deadly, so even a newborn toddler would make it through intact. Physically, that is. Until their mind recovered, their body would have to be cared for by others.
Clenching his fists and feeling a familiar sensation coursing throughout his entire being, Theodore put these thoughts aside. With an optimistic smile playing across his lips, he sensed the current condition of his physical body, finally feeling as if he had recovered from the ridiculously weakened state which he had been in ever since the Heavenly Succession had begun. Finally, he had returned to a point almost indistinguishable from how powerful he had been ever since his birth!
To put things into perspective, only a Named Family member at the pinnacle of the Dawning Numen Stage would be capable of contending with him now. Naturally, this didn't take into account the fact that they would be able to manipulate Energy, giving them a significant edge over him–but he could also rely on more than merely his Standard Attributes.
Glancing at the around 2.566 trillion points which he could still distribute, he chose to refrain from doing so for the time being. He would keep at least a trillion in reserve, while the rest could be utilized to increase the grades of some useful Talents. He had no idea how much Talent Energy was required to upgrade them, so there was a need to find out about these details anyway.
'My next priority will be to gather as many Energy Veins as possible. I highly doubt the Qinglong World alone will suffice in that regard, therefore I'll also have to make plans to travel to other states of this Han Empire. For now, I don't need to change my approach. I'll still have to teleport to locations where Energy Veins are present–and if I encounter some prey there, I'll gratefully accept their Attribute Point donations.'
Having plotted out his plan of action for the next few months, his attention returned to one of the many notifications which he had not yet dealt with. Amongst all of them was a particularly unremarkable one.
[ Existence's Foremost Calamity has activated.
There is one Talent to choose from. ]
[ Improved Threat Perception (Inferior):
• Threat perception sensitivity: +5% ]
[ Will you choose this Talent or a fixed amount of Attribute Points instead? ]
Ever since he had got his Existence's Foremost Calamity, he had been keeping an eye out for a not-yet-obtained Talent at Inferior-grade, and this one had eventually caught his eye. It was simple and straightforward and would have nearly no effect on him at all in its current state–yet, by improving it to far higher grades, it would likely be able to save his life.
He could only ever have one Talent of a particular name or series. Back when he still had his Grim Reaper's Levy, the sole ways to upgrade a Talent would have been to either obtain a higher grade version of it, which would replace it, or to fuse it with one of the same grade.
This didn't mean that Talent effects couldn't overlap, though. If one of them improved his recovery speed and another one did as well, but they didn't have the same name and were from different 'Talent series'–like the Cultivation-series, for example–then there was no issue.
No matter how plain 'Improved Threat Perception' sounded, it was actually extremely rare. After all, he had barely come across it a single time despite having taken many billions of lives. Its Talent effect did somewhat overlap with some other unremarkable Talents that he had accumulated over the years, but those were of a higher grade and therefore not suited to be experimented with.
After finally choosing to accept this Talent, he felt... no difference at all. But that was to be expected. Converting a million Attribute Points into Talent Energy at a ratio of one to one, he chose to upgrade it from the Inferior-grade to the Average-grade, consuming 1,000 Talent Energy in the process.
[ Improved Threat Perception (Average):
• Threat perception sensitivity: +10% ]
'... that's already quite expensive. I hope the costs won't become one thousand times higher with every grade. Because that would be outright terrifying!'
Immediately continuing to improve the Talent, the price of raising it from Average-grade to Rare-grade increased to 100,000, causing him to heave a sigh of relief. A hundredfold increase was still very steep, but it didn't feel too outrageous.
[ Improved Threat Perception (Rare):
• Threat perception sensitivity: +25% ]
From Rare to Outstanding, he had to pay ten million points, and from Outstanding to Superior, another one billion got used up. The last upgrade he could afford was to raise it from Superior-grade to Epic-grade, which cost a staggering one hundred billion! If he wanted to continue from here, he would have to cough up ten trillion points–a price that he simply couldn't afford.
But irrespective of the innumerable world-spanning massacres which he would have to commit in the future if he wanted to further improve his Talents, the result of his expenses still needed to be inspected.
[ Improved Threat Perception (Epic):
• Threat perception sensitivity: +900%
• Moderate chance of experiencing a prophetic vision of a danger one is about to encounter in the foreseeable future. ]
'For now, I still don't feel any different from before–but that is because I'm currently completely safe. Judging solely from the description, it sounds very promising indeed. Not only has the sensitivity increased as much as expected, but an impressive second effect was also unlocked.'
His experiment left Theodore quite satisfied. No matter what Talent it was, he would be able to turn it from utter waste into a marvel. When he had some more Talent Energy at hand, he would slowly begin to eliminate his weaknesses one by one. His vast Talent collection would certainly come in handy at that point.
'Speaking of, there are still some more Talents that I can choose from.'
Once again focusing on the remaining notifications, his smile widened.