But the true strength of the creation ability was that it allowed Lyon to create a smaller Blood Sea Clone based on his own genes.
This smaller Blood Sea Clone would only be one-tenth the genetic level and height of the original.
However, once the Blood Sea was replenished with energy, it could dissolve itself, returning its energy to the Blood Sea and thereby expanding the sea's volume.
At the same time, because creating a smaller Blood Sea Clone came at virtually no cost, Lyon could even use it as a disposable self-destructing tool.
On the endless expanse of land—
"Sea Transformation!"
With a thought from Lyon, the towering Blood Sea Clone's body suddenly dissolved.
All of its flesh and bones flowed downward like rivers and streams along the body.
In the end, the entire form transformed atop the vast land into a Blood Sea with a diameter of one thousand kilometers.
"Creation!" Lyon continued his research.
The Blood Sea began to surge and flow.
A smaller figure, ten kilometers tall and with a genetic level of only thirty times normal, walked out from within the sea.
At the same time, the Blood Sea lost roughly one-tenth of its energy.
"Recover!"
Lyon immediately activated the Space Stone to replenish the portion of energy the Blood Sea had just lost.
"Dissolve!"
Under Lyon's control, the small Blood Sea Clone dissolved, its entire body turning into seawater and merging back into the Blood Sea.
As a result, the Blood Sea's volume increased by another tenth.
With this repetitive cycle, it would only take a few more rounds for the Blood Sea to continuously grow in size.
"Perfect. Once the Blood Sea becomes large enough, I can use it as my mobile armory in battle."
The Blood Sea could also serve as a backup energy source, available anytime to restore Lyon's power.
Though for someone like Lyon, who carried the equivalent of a hundred thousand suns with him, that wasn't exactly urgent.
This bit of backup energy wasn't needed for now.
"For the moment, there's no rush to expand the Blood Sea. The clone is only at Universe Level One. I'll focus on improving its strength first."
Lyon focused on the sensation of his current flowing body.
He had no eyes, yet he could still "see" everything around the Blood Sea.
"Restore the original form!"
He activated his ability, and the vast Blood Sea immediately began to surge and ripple.
The extra one-tenth of energy dispersed into the internal world's space.
The giant figure, one hundred kilometers tall, once again rose from the surface.
And on the ground, where the massive waves of the Blood Sea had just been raging, not a single drop of water remained.
Lyon patted his arm. "Back to solid form again. That liquid state just now was pretty interesting."
"Well then, time to begin cultivation!"
The towering giant sat down on a hill, which looked like a little stool beneath him, and began wildly absorbing the energy pouring from the Space Stone.
Azure-blue energy once again spread throughout the area.
At the same time, the green glow of the Time Stone's power flickered faintly within the folds of space.
Ten thousand days in the inner world equaled ten days in the real world.
The Blood Sea Clone had successfully broken through to the same realm as the main body—Domain Level Nine.
While the clone had been developing, the energy leaked from the Space Stone had also merged into Lyon's inner world and his physical body.
With the support of the hundred thousand suns stored in the World Ring and that additional energy, Lyon's main body had smoothly advanced to Domain Level Nine.
If it weren't for the interference of the realm bottleneck, Lyon could've kept cultivating endlessly.
After all, becoming stronger and advancing in power had always been his ultimate pursuit.
Besides, the feeling during cultivation—the sheer rush of growth—was far more satisfying than solving a complex math problem. It was the kind of pleasure that made one addicted.
"It's time to break through to the realm level."
Lyon's main body, located in the Brooklyn apartment, stood up and suddenly vanished—reappearing in low Earth orbit.
This wasn't teleportation. It was high-speed movement.
Crossing the 300-kilometer distance between the surface and space didn't even take a microsecond for him.
He turned and flew toward the moon, planning to break through to the next realm level there.
In order to wait for the clone to finish developing and break through together, he had been stuck at Domain Level Nine for a "long" time.
However, this period of being stuck had led him to an unexpected discovery.
Although his genetic energy and psychic power couldn't improve due to the bottleneck, the strength of his physical body continued to grow under sunlight.
And the rate of this physical growth was even on par with the speed at which his genetic energy had improved after reaching Domain Level Nine.
After some research, Lyon concluded:
"Hmm.. Even though I switched to cultivating the power system of the Swallowed Star universe, the sun-powered evolution of my Kryptonian bloodline isn't restricted by that system."
"Even if my realm is stuck, my body can still continue getting stronger under sunlight."
"Right now, my strength is already close to Realm Level Two."
"I believe that once I break through to the next level, this accumulated physical strength will quickly be converted into power under the Swallowed Star system."
In a sense, Lyon was now dual-cultivating both the Kryptonian and Swallowed Star systems.
The two systems complemented each other, producing a combined effect greater than the sum of their parts.
The genetic evolution of the Swallowed Star system could drive the transformation of his Kryptonian bloodline.
And the Kryptonian bloodline, in turn, could feed back into and accelerate the growth of his Swallowed Star power.
Lyon sat cross-legged on the moon.
Within his internal world, the massive Blood Sea Clone also sat atop a hill.
Both bodies began to break through simultaneously.
Inside the inner world, the vast landmass started wildly absorbing the energy from the Space Stone.
Brilliant golden light floated through the air like a mystical realm from a dream.
Under what felt like an endless stream of energy from the stone, the world with a diameter of 900,000 kilometers began to expand.
On the land, towering mountain ranges rose into the sky, and vast rivers and oceans began to emerge, flowing across the continents.
The aura of life started to appear here.
The world energy within this realm was becoming more and more refined.
For others, breaking through to the realm level required the opening of an internal world.
But Lyon had long since formed his internal world.
This breakthrough came without any bottlenecks.
All he needed to do was let the internal world that already existed evolve into a real world capable of giving birth to life.
A full day passed slowly.
When Lyon stood up again on the surface of the moon, he had already broken through to Realm Level Two.
At the same time, the Blood Sea Clone within his internal world had also broken through to Realm Level One, its height increasing to ten thousand kilometers.
Lyon used his consciousness to observe the transformed internal world.
He planned to let the Blood Sea Clone transform into an ocean and remain within the inner world, using the power of the two stones to comprehend the laws.
Meanwhile, his main body could stay in the outer world and continue growing stronger by drawing on the energy of the hundred thousand suns.
"Damn.. Right now, the strength of my main body is roughly two thousand times greater than when I first returned from the Swallowed Star world." Lyon clenched his fist.
This was the advantage of the Swallowed Star system in its early stages.
As long as the energy was sufficient and his understanding of the laws reached the required level, he could grow stronger rapidly.
Of course, much of this was thanks to the Time Stone's acceleration and the Space Stone's energy supply.
Otherwise, just the birth of the Blood Sea Clone alone would have taken several decades.
However, progress beyond the realm level wouldn't be as fast.
In the Swallowed Star universe, further advancement required fully comprehending a lower-tier law.
And the same applied in the Marvel universe.
The laws of the two worlds weren't entirely the same, but the conditions for advancing within this system were similar.
Because the essence of the Swallowed Star system was, in truth, understanding the structure of the universe in order to create a world of one's own.
So what Lyon needed to do next was comprehend the foundational laws that made up the Marvel universe.
These laws weren't hard to identify.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe was formed from the explosion of six singularities containing infinite energy.
The essence of those six singularities was later refined into the six Infinity Stones.
They represented the six fundamental power attributes of the Marvel single universe:
—Time, Space, Power, Reality, Mind, and Soul.
Lyon had a feeling.
These six foundational forces—if he could fully comprehend even one of them, he would be able to break through to the level of Law Sovereign.
If he grasped two, he would become a Master of Laws.
If he mastered all six, Lyon believed it would be enough to push him beyond the realm of True God.
As for the path beyond that, it would naturally involve fusing the six foundational forces to create a universe of his own.
Of course, if he didn't want to take that path in the future, that was entirely fine too.
His Kryptonian bloodline already had an incredibly high upper limit. Even without breaking through in realm level, his strength could continue to increase indefinitely.
However, before any of that, he at least needed to break through to Immortal and gain eternal life.
And in order to reach Immortal level, Lyon still had to comprehend one of the minor laws that branched from the six fundamental powers.
For example, the Law of Light he was currently cultivating.
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