Elias Vance stood amidst the desolation of the Barren Wastes, his perfected form radiating an almost divine aura. Yet, beneath the serene exterior, a profound discomfort gnawed at him. His body, though upgraded beyond recognition by the sublimation of universal laws, was still struggling. It felt like a magnificent, supercharged engine crammed into a chassis designed for a bicycle. The sheer volume of laws he had comprehended, the latent power they represented, was straining his physical vessel to its absolute limits.
He moved, and though the motion was fluid and silent, he felt the subtle tremor within, the silent protest of overtaxed systems. His tokamak core, while a marvel of Qi-to-energy conversion, was struggling to keep up with the passive energy drain of merely existing as an axiom incarnate, let alone powering the immense combinatorial laws he had just comprehended. The most potent cosmic laws remained out of reach, not because he didn't understand them, but because he simply didn't possess the energy reserves to activate them.
"My mini-dantians," Elias murmured, turning his gaze inward. He felt a surge of gratitude for these unique energy reservoirs, a feature of his initial transformation that had inadvertently saved him from an early demise. If not for these distributed, highly efficient Qi storage nodes scattered throughout his body, acting as miniature, independent energy capacitors, his vessel would have ruptured long ago under the strain of holding such vast comprehension. They had acted as a crucial buffer, a network of pressure valves preventing catastrophic overload.
"But it's still not enough," he stated, the words echoing with cold, analytical certainty. His body was indeed straining seriously, limiting his combat effectiveness. He couldn't move with the unbridled freedom he envisioned, couldn't deploy the sheer destructive power he now understood.
The solution, of course, lay within the very laws he had just mastered. Specifically, the Law of Space.
He closed his eyes, his Quantum Divine Sense (QDS) delving deep within his physiological structure, specifically into the largest and most central of his mini-dantians. These mini-dantians were already spatially compressed, miniature pocket dimensions in their own right, but they were limited in scale. He needed something far, far grander.
He began to apply the Law of Space – Spatial Folds, Dimensional Storage with a precision that would make any spatial cultivator weep. Instead of simply creating a pocket dimension around his dantian, he began to expand the internal volume of each mini-dantian from within. This was akin to taking a small room and, without changing its external dimensions, expanding its interior to continental scale.
He focused first on one of his larger mini-dantians, located strategically near his tokamak core. With meticulous control, he warped the spacetime within its existing confines, stretching and folding the internal dimensions. The process was agonizingly slow, demanding absolute focus from his Multithreaded Thought Engine. Every quantum fluctuation had to be accounted for, every spatial ripple precisely contained. He felt the immense pressure, the subtle protest of reality as he bent its very fabric to his will.
Hours blurred into days. The barren landscape remained unchanged, but within Elias, a silent, cosmic feat of engineering was unfolding. He was carving out miniature universes inside his own body. He expanded the internal volume of that single mini-dantian until it encompassed a space the size of a continent. Within this vast, newly created spatial pocket, he began to lay down the foundation for an entirely new energy generation system.
He had decided to ditch the Qi tokamak reactor. While efficient, it was still reliant on conventional Qi processing. For the scale of power he now envisioned, he needed something far more fundamental, something that tapped directly into the fabric of mass-energy conversion. He needed a Qi Matter-Antimatter Annihilation Core.
The design was intricate, born from his deep comprehension of the Law of Energy, Fission, Fusion, and the quantum nature of reality. He envisioned hundreds, perhaps thousands, of perfectly spherical, Qi-stabilized vacuum capsules within this continent-sized dantian. Each capsule would be a miniature, isolated pocket of vacuum, meticulously constructed to ensure absolute purity.
Within these capsules, using the Law of Information and Fission, he would generate equal amounts of spirit matter and antimatter. This wasn't just physical matter; it was matter imbued with spiritual properties, specifically calibrated for efficient annihilation. These particles would be held in suspended animation within perfectly stable electromagnetic fields, preventing premature contact.
The concept was terrifyingly simple and devastatingly effective: E=mc². Total mass-to-energy conversion. When these spirit matter and antimatter particles came into contact, they would annihilate, releasing devastating bursts of pure energy—energy that was an astonishing 100x more energy-dense than fusion. This was the ultimate energy source, limited only by the rate at which he could generate and contain the exotic particles.
The risk was astronomical. Total system instability if not perfectly contained. A single containment breach, a single uncontrolled annihilation, and he would not just explode; he would become a localized supernova, vaporizing a significant portion of the continent. Every detail of the design, from the multi-layered Qi shielding to the automatic suppression protocols, had to be perfect. His Law of Order and Law of Stability were pushed to their limits to ensure the integrity of the system.
He then began the arduous process of doing the same for his primary Dantian, the largest and most central energy nexus in a cultivator's body. Expanding this one was exponentially more difficult, but the potential reward was equally immense. He pushed the spatial distortions further, expanded the internal volume again, until his primary Dantian housed a pocket space as large as a planet. Within this cosmic-scale reservoir, he would install a larger, more robust version of the Matter-Antimatter Annihilation Core, complete with redundant systems and fail-safes designed to contain the power of literal star-birth.
This entire process took a long time. Weeks flowed into months, perhaps even years in chronological time, though for Elias, immersed in the quantum depths of his own being, it was a hyper-accelerated existence of continuous calculation and construction. The sect, far away, went about its business, oblivious to the cosmic engineering unfolding within one of its 'outer disciples.' His presence, cloaked by his now effortless command of the Chameleon Veil and Spatial Encryption, remained utterly undetectable.
He poured his boundless mental energy into the task, meticulously crafting the vacuum capsules, designing the particle generation arrays, and weaving the containment fields with intricate layers of the Law of Magnetism, Order, and Space. He debugged the systems within his Multithreaded Thought Engine and AI Combat Pattern Generator, running countless simulations of energy generation and containment scenarios.
Finally, the last module clicked into place. The final energy conduits connected. The first stable matter-antimatter reaction shimmered into existence within his continental-sized mini-dantian. Then, the planetary-sized primary dantian.
A silent, internal roar of power erupted within him. The Qi he had previously struggled to contain was now merely a gentle hum in comparison to the boundless energy now being generated. Streams of pure energy, born from the total conversion of mass, flowed through his newly reinforced fiber-optic meridians, saturating every cell, every atom.
When he finally emerged from his meditative state, weeks or months later, the sensation was exhilarating. His body, previously straining, now felt utterly effortless. He could move, breathe, and exist with a newfound lightness, as if unburdened by mass itself.
He scanned his internal systems. The combined energy now available to him was truly astronomical. It was enough for him to be combat effective against any opponent he could conceive of in this cultivation world, capable of unleashing devastating blows and sustaining intricate defenses with ease. He could spam his most powerful combinatorial elemental and abstract laws without concern for exhaustion.
But he also noted the grim truth. It was not enough for the advanced and cosmic laws. The Spacetime Domain, the Code Rewrite Law, the full manipulation of Fate and Causality, or generating true Singularity Flames—these still demanded an energy input that even his Matter-Antimatter Annihilation Cores, for all their terrifying power, could not provide on a sustained basis. They were like nuclear power plants trying to fuel an entire galaxy.
"Still limited by yield," Elias stated, a flicker of ambition in his cosmic eyes. "My current vessel, while upgraded, cannot sustain the most demanding applications of universal law."
He had solved the problem of storage with the spatial expansion of his dantians. He had solved the problem of generation with matter-antimatter annihilation. But the sheer output and throughput required for true cosmic-level law manipulation remained.
The next step was clear. He would begin designing new cultivation realms, entirely from scratch. Realms that would evolve his physical body, his soul, and his dantian systems to truly become vessels capable of wielding the power of the universe itself. This was the true path of cultivation for a scientific god.