Where were they? Draco and Eva could not easily tell.
All attempts to mentally contact the AI resulted in failure, as if a wall had been placed between both parties. All Boundless related abilities were gone, stripped away as if they had never existed. This included their inventory and all weapons and armor as well, so, as you could imagine, Draco and Eva were butt naked in the middle of a desert.
While Draco might not have cared, Eva obviously did not like her sacred body being put on full display. It didn't matter than aside from her Soulmate, there were merely inanimate things like sand and air around them, she nevertheless manifested Amaterasu's robes from light. Draco saw this and similarly manifested Lucifer's robes that were woven like the scales of a Dragon.
Clothed, the duo spread out their VoP as far as they could, only for their faces to change as the hundreds of thousands of kilometers they could previously scan had been reduced to... 10 meters!
Not only that, but their depth of sensing had been blocked, returning to the surface level. Even worse, their VoP could not dig beneath the sand nor could it go very high up into the air, only about 5 meters above their heads.
This told the Evil Duo that whatever realm they had landed in, it was not within the universe of Boundless. After all, Boundless could not truly suppress their power so easily. Even when the Tower had tried to limit Draco by actively pushing down on his Control, it had only been able to reduce it to Tier 2 Control because Draco had not yet fully perfected his mastery of Tier 3 and above.
However, this was different. They still retained their Tier 5 Control, and while it was not actively suppressed, the quality and pressure of the world around them provided a passive suppression.
Using cars as an example, it would be like using a Bugatti to traverse a road on Earth and on Jupiter respectively.
On Earth, there would be a giant wind fan hindering the Bugatti's path, making it struggle to go forward despite its great speed. This was a form of active suppression and once removed, the car's performance would be normal.
Whereas on Jupiter, the gravity alone would limit the movement of the same Bugatti, if not outright crush it into the ground under its own weight. This was a form of passive and natural suppression, arising from the laws of the planet, and the standard of the Bugatti in a new environment with different rules.
Likewise, it was the same for their Tier 5 Control that on Earth and in Boundless was almost limitless, allowing the two of them to gaze into the quantum realm, but here its ability could only go this far naturally. This obviously meant that the laws of this world were far stronger and more potent than where they came from.
Draco and Eva manifested their wings from their bloodline and tried to take to the air to test something. Just as they had feared, they could only fly up to 5 meters before they encountered a gravitational pull that was strong enough to even drag down Shangtian at full power, much less them.
100% bloodline didn't really help here given their poor control of it and they didn't want to push against the natural laws of this place without fully understanding the consequences.
Soon, Draco and Eva landed and were about to discuss their next actions when a majestic presence landed upon them, instantly making their faces change. It was like an ant being stared at by a human, or a human being stared at by a planet sized monstrosity.
However, this entity bore no hostility, nor disdain. It also bore no amusement nor superiority.
Actually, it basically bore no emotions.
Suddenly, screens appeared before Draco and Eva.
「'System' to Player Announcement
After a cursory scan of your memories, it has been found that you've arrived from a Pseudo-multiverse that is digital in nature. As this counts as a true universe, you have obtained the qualifications to enter this realm and speak to the World Will.」
「'System' to Player Announcement
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtOrigin Being Draco and Origin Being Eva, I'm the Will of the Eternal World. After scanning your memories, you appear to be most familiar with this type of address, so I shall mimic it while dealing with you. It has been detecteded that you seek to obtain 'Eternal' level power, or something halfway to it. This is predicated on the fact that you possess 'Eternal' level talent.
After scanning, it has further been found that you have two 'Eternal' level talents.
One is your Chaotic Origin bloodline implanted by a being with weaker talent than yourselves. Your Chaotic Origin bloodline has since been upgraded to Chaotic Eternal bloodline due to the perfection of the fusion, hence it's one aspect of your Eternal talent.
The second talent is the implementation of Unity of Body and Soul, which you call 'Control'. This is a high-level technique used and sought after by various species of various universes to achieve 'Eternal' level power, but your race have it as a bloodline inheritance.
You have chosen to seek out how to bind your Chaotic Eternal Bloodline to the Origin of the Universe you came from, which is possible. However, the Eternal World has its own rules under the control of Deus and the Four Gods, Caelo the God of Destruction, Myra the Goddess of Life, Purgatory the Unwanted God and Vena the Goddess of Games and Recreation.
To achieve your desired goal, you will need to undergo a trial. Your current locations is a fragmented Eternal Plane called the Ruined Desert Lands. I will digitize it for you and apply the same rules as in the digital universe you came from, though you can only use 'Eternal' level powers and talents here.
In lieu of where you came from, your goal here is set, you are to reach 'Level 10' in the system I shall generate for you by killing the monsters in this land.
Beware, everything around you will also have 'Eternal' level power, making it so that all will be on equal footing. You shall possess the ability of respawn, but you will lose some of your progress every time you do so.
Good luck, and may your path to Eternity be fruitful.」
The presence left, but Draco and Eva felt a subtle change wash over their bodies as well as the entirety of this world. They were no longer as foreign and stifled as before, but their power had not factually increased. Only their integration to this world and their subconscious comfort.
Not to mention, they finally saw a familiar screen appear before them, though it was different from what they remembered as well.
「Name: Draco
Eternal Talent: Chaotic Eternal Bloodline, Unity of Body and Soul.
Eternal Class: Chaotic Eternal Bloodline
Level: 1
Exp: 0
Power level: Weak
——————
Eternal Power: 100
Eternal Control: 0.1
Eternal Limit: 100
———————
Eternal Skills: None
Eternal Items: None」
「Name: Eva
Eternal Talent: Chaotic Eternal Bloodline, Unity of Body and Soul.
Eternal Class: Chaotic Eternal Bloodline
Level: 1
Exp: 0
Power level: Weak
——————
Eternal Power: 100
Eternal Control: 0.1
Eternal Limit: 100
———————
Eternal Skills: None
Eternal Items: None」
Draco and Eva shared a look and communicated without speaking. They had learned a lot from this and coupled with their speculations from seeing the Token in the Divine Draconic Treasury, they came to many conclusions.
Especially when they learned that Caelo was a part of the Controllers of the entire Eternal World, they suddenly understood many things.
Firstly, there were multiple universes of a maximal scale, just like their own. Each of these universes were separate from each other and had their own history and timeline, which - given their reincarnation - meant that each universe also had its own multiverse.
Secondly, they, Draco and Eva, were destined to surpass the Eternal Rank and be on par with Caelo. Caelo himself had said so after seeing them, and since he was a Controller of a universe, it was likely that Draco and Eva could one day control their own universe. This also made sense as to why the AI said they each possessed half of a universe's origin.
Thirdly, they now understood what existed above Origin, but did not know what existed above Eternal. The way the World Will spoke didn't seem like Eternal was the limit, but rather a new starting point for those who wanted to reach Caelo's level.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmFourthly, the digital universe of Boundless was separate from the physical universe they came from. It was its own thing and was powerful enough to almost reach the status of a True Universe, but fell short.
So sort of like Draco's Inner Universe in the game, it was a unique universe catered and supported by a greater universe. Where Draco's Inner Universe was covered by the AI's digital universe, the AI's digital universe was covered by the physical universe.
Finally, they were in a sort of intermediary space between the various universes and what existed above them. What they could be sure of was that whatever world existed above was the source of all creation most likely which was were only five beings lived.
The one called Deus, Caelo, Myra, Purgatory who strangely sounded familiar to the Evil Duo and Vena.
Interesting!
Draco and Eva did not mind whatever else existed. They were never and had never been in a rush since the beginning. They were willing to wait, slowly accumulate power, and reach their full potential and see where it would take them in time.
More importantly, they relished this chance in this realm. One thing they had been tormented by was their poor control of their bloodline, but it seemed that they would have a chance to hone it here against foes on the same level.
One should know, in Boundless everything was split into two categories. Things that Draco and Eva could easily kill and provided no challenge and things that they could not kill, but could likely wipe out their Immortal Spirits, ruining all their hard work in the game.
Otherwise, with Draco's narrow mind, why would he not dare to fight Sigurd who had slaughtered his family? With Eva's limited patience, how could she explode with power and killing intent, yet not make a move?
It was exactly this problem.
But here, there was no Immortal spirit and respawns were infinite. Even if they were to meet a foe above their levels, they could still dare to fight! So what if they died? They could just come back, train harder and try again!
As such, Draco and Eva quickly got to understand the information on their screens.
Eternal Talent listed their… well, Eternal Talents. As stated by the World Will, they were two, one from the bloodline and one from Control.
Eternal Class was basically saying that since they came here to get a class related to the bloodline, it was the only one that could be 'powered' up or measured using the World Will's system and methods.
As for Control, they would have to either get a chance to come back here with it as the main, or work on it manually without assistance.
Level and experience were self explanatory, though what was interesting was that this system did not use percentage exp but numerical based. That was not a good sign and often meant the grind would be horrific.
Power level was the comprehensive evaluation of their three stats and how they fared against monsters of the same level in terms of power.
Eternal Power was the first stat and denoted how powerful their Eternal Talent was using a scale of across the universe. 100 was the maximum number, which buttressed what Caelo said that Draco and Eva would definitely reach his level.
Eternal Control was exactly what you thought, how proficient they were in using their Eternal Talent and how much of its power they could display. As one could see, this was at the absolute bottom and was why Draco and Eva were marked as 'weak' in terms of power level.
Eternal Limit was the hard limit of their Eternal Talent and the total amount of power it could reach before hitting an unpassable bottleneck. Usually, Eternal Power and Eternal Limit were not the same, with Eternal Power being lower than Eternal Limit until… well, one hit their limit.
Eternal Skills were acquirable but not trainable skills from killing monsters.
Eternal Items were the same, items acquired from killing monsters.