Ten Thousand Years Later…
After undergoing hundreds of dark beast waves, defending the stronghold, and absorbing merit, most of the talents in the base had mastered their path of law.
"This place is a holy training ground," Maximus sighed, reading the report.
Before the whole Aeon Plane, there might not have been a million masters of the river of law.
Each such master was either a dimensional master or someone with a high background.
Now, in less than a hundred thousand years of defending against the dark beasts, millions upon millions of talents had broken this balance.
Becoming masters of the river of law at a mere tier-10 realm and raising the number of river-level powerhouses to the millions, even Maximus couldn't help but be amazed.
There were also masters of the ocean of law.
At the beginning of the first round, there were only four masters of the ocean of law, including him.
Now, there were already hundreds of them, almost keeping up with the number of powerhouses from the Dimensional Alliance.
If this continued, this Dimensional Competition might create the strongest generation that would suppress everything.
"It's all thanks to your contribution, Father. Without you, this place wouldn't even survive a thousand years," Liam praised.
Much less treating such a place as holy ground, with the influence of the dark energy, it might as well have been a demon breeding ground.
Without the continuous supply of strands of causality keeping those talents sane, this place would have been breached long ago, leaving no life remaining.
As for relying on the absolutes, ultimate treasures, or arrays to purify the dark energy, it wasn't very effective.
First were the absolute powerhouses; without unconditional trust, no one would let anyone touch their core of origin, much less purify it.
Second were ultimate treasures. Although there were many ultimate treasures for purification, they also consumed energy.
Although they consumed much less than directly using strands of causality, with such a large number of individuals, even a hundred ultimate treasures wouldn't be enough.
As for the purification array, until now, it still hasn't been built.
And even if it were, it was doubtful if it would be as effective as using strands of causality.
All in all, without his father, just the influence of the dark energy was enough to ruin these talents.
Don't even get him started on the micro-surveillance bots.
These monitoring devices were short of becoming the strongest auxiliary treasure ever created.
Without these devices keeping an eye on the entire dark void domain, noting every position of the dark beasts, the casualties over the years would have whittled their numbers down to the billions.
"Don't praise me too much. Without you and your mother's help, I couldn't have done so much."
Without his family helping him, how could he have achieved so much?
Just keeping the base peaceful and orderly would have taken up too much of his time, not to mention the help of his wives in building those micro-surveillance bots and handling various miscellaneous tasks.
"Then it's thanks to the Shadowcrest family," Liam reiterated, correcting himself.
"That's the way!" Maximus smiled, thinking it was nicer to hear.
"This time, Father can rest assured and leave the stronghold with confidence."
"Oh?" Since his first trip deep into the void, Maximus and his wives had stayed in the stronghold.
Unable to fight stronger dark beasts, he felt going out was a waste of time.
It was better to work on the family's secret weapon or conduct experiments with Zar.
"With the power the stronghold has, it should have no problem defending the base for thousands of years," Liam said confidently.
"Won't those powers just leave the stronghold to hunt for stronger dark beasts?"
After all, hunting stronger dark beasts was more efficient and cost-effective.
Instead of wasting this precious opportunity hunting in the outer area, Maximus was sure those talents would venture deeper into the dark void domain.
"You underestimate me too much, Father. With the strands of causality you provided, it is simple to control those scattered talents."
"Without my permission, most of those talents wouldn't move an inch out of the stronghold."
As the number one supplier of strands of causality, Liam had their lifelines in his hands.
No matter whether they were masters of the river of law or the ocean of law, they still needed strands of causality.
Coupled with ruling the base for tens of thousands of years, as long as he was reasonable, Liam could command these trillions of talents with just a word.
"Amazing~" Maximus praised.
It seemed that Liam was doing better than he thought.
Maximus thought he would need to wait another tens of thousands of years before they could leave for a long time.
It seemed they could leave now.
He had not forgotten the requirements to end this round early:
Killing a tier-11 primal dark beast, a thousand apex dark beasts, and accumulating a quintillion points.
Maximus didn't have to worry about points.
Being able to pass them around from individual to individual, it was easy to manipulate.
Moreover, with his family killing dark beasts nonstop, accumulating a quintillion points was just a matter of time.
With a plan to kill a primal beast, Maximus's only problem now was the apex dark beasts.
A thousand dark beasts comparable to masters of the ocean of law—although it wasn't too hard, it was time-consuming.
Situated in the deepest part of the dark void domain, traveling back and forth would take considerable time.
Based on the detection of the micro-surveillance bots, the nearest apex dark beast from the stronghold was a hundred years away, with the farthest being thousands of years away.
Now that the stronghold was finally on track, Maximus could finally focus on clearing this requirement.
Collecting ultimate materials was also an issue.
Relying on the stronghold alone was too slow.
Once those talents had exchanged enough strands of causality to purify the dark energy infection, they would turn the rest of their harvest for merit.
Jealous of others' rapidly increasing strength, they became increasingly tight-fisted with their harvest.