Chapter 66: The Strongest Sequence [Future Sight]

"I'm all ears."

Murong Mengli's expression turned serious. "You can only advance to Silver after acquiring three different Bronze Laws. But if those three don't form a coherent system—or worse, if they conflict with each other—you will never be able to advance to Silver.

"Take Mr. Yang, for example. Heart of Steel is a relatively common Bronze Law, and its advancement path has long been mapped out: Great Force Bombardment Punch plus Ceaseless Recovery. The order doesn't matter. Once you gather all three, you have a chance to advance to the Silver Law, Follower of Strength.

"But if Mr. Yang were to ingest a different Transcendent Potion along the way—say, Five-Finger Flame Bullet—he would never be able to reach Silver. The path would be ruined."

A strange look crossed Yang Dongqing's face. Young and hot-blooded, his thoughts easily strayed into the gutter.

Heart of Steel + Great Force Bombardment Punch + Ceaseless Recovery = Follower of Strength.

Wasn't that just the ultimate macho three-piece set? Hard, huge, and long-lasting...

"And how do you advance to Gold after that?" Yang Dongqing asked eagerly.

To his surprise, Murong Mengli shook her head. "Every transcendent path is a closely guarded secret, and the Gold Laws are the greatest secrets of all. I may be a noble, but I am still an ordinary person. I don't know anything about the higher advancements.

"The highest-ranking nobles monopolize most of the transcendent paths. Right now, Follower of Strength is the only publicly known Silver Law. The nobles consider it the most ordinary path, and they need a few transcendents to emerge from the common populace to handle the endless wave of Nightmare Invasions for them."

The confidence Yang Dongqing had just managed to build up instantly deflated. What does she mean by most ordinary? To put it bluntly, doesn't that just mean it's the weakest? Fuck!

At that moment, Murong Mengli stood up, retrieved two paper dossiers from her safe, and handed them to Su Mu and Yang Dongqing.

"There is far too much intel regarding transcendents for me to explain piece by piece. Most of the essentials are in those files. You two can read through them on your own, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask me anytime. It's getting late. I've arranged guest rooms for you here at the company. A staff member will show you the way shortly."

...

...

Inside a guest room at Bronze Coffin Co., Ltd., Su Mu sat alone on the edge of the bed, leafing through the transcendent dossier.

The documents covered the origins of transcendents and the Nightmare World, the hierarchy of transcendent tiers, introductions to Transcendent Potions, and the rankings of the Bronze and Silver Laws.

Since Murong Mengli had already explained the origins and tiers of transcendents, he skimmed those pages and skipped ahead. His real focus was the origin of the Nightmare World.

It was a thrilling, dangerous amusement park—how could he not be interested?

But when he turned to that section, he found only a single page. It listed various time nodes and historical events, along with a jumble of wildly differing theories regarding the Nightmare World's origins. There was no definitive answer.

The only confirmed fact was that the Nightmare World had existed since ancient times, though its exact age was impossible to verify. It had once threatened humanity's very survival, up until Gold-tier powerhouses emerged among humans to turn the tide. The descendants of these Gold-tier powerhouses were now known as nobles.

"The nobles originated from Gold-tier powerhouses? So all the nobles in the current Empire are their descendants?" Su Mu muttered to himself. He didn't find this surprising in the least.

The Gold-tier powerhouses standing at the apex of the transcendent world were still human. Since they had saved the world and seized absolute power and authority, they would obviously privilege their own descendants. Thus, the noble class was born.

Su Mu flipped through a few more pages before his gaze settled on the Law rankings.

They documented the rankings of all Laws currently known to humanity, though they only listed the Bronze and Silver Laws.

The Gold Laws had clearly been hidden away.

He guessed that these rankings were also incomplete. The nobles were only willing to make a single transcendent path public, which spoke volumes about how strictly they guarded transcendent knowledge. Releasing a comprehensive ranking of all Laws would inevitably allow clever individuals to deduce the advancement paths, which would undermine the nobles' rule.

His suspicions proved correct; the provided rankings had many gaps. He scanned the entire list, but couldn't find Myriad Phenomena anywhere. Even Immaculate Heart was missing.

He did, however, spot Yang Dongqing's Heart of Steel at Sequence 9.

Ceaseless Recovery was Sequence 8, and Great Force Bombardment Punch was Sequence 10.

They seemed quite high, all breaking into the top ten, but they were actually at the very bottom. The list was ordered in reverse; the higher the Sequence number, the higher the rank.

This made logical sense. Humanity was discovering more Laws little by little. If they simply ranked the strongest Law as number one, the entire list would have to be restructured the moment an even stronger one was discovered. Ranking them in reverse prevented that issue.

The document noted that the rankings weren't based on ability strength alone, but were a comprehensive ranking factoring in rarity, ability value, and scope of influence.

Su Mu's gaze drifted down the page, skipping straight to the strongest known Bronze Sequence.

Bronze Law Sequence 241 [Future Sight]: Grants the ability to foresee future events strongly tied to oneself to a certain extent. (Theoretically capable of killing Gold-tier transcendents.)

Seeing the parenthetical note, Su Mu smiled faintly. He naturally understood what it meant. Future Sight seemed to lack any direct combat power, but if used properly, its utility could easily surpass any other Bronze Law.

For example, if a prophet with Future Sight foresaw that they would be killed by a Gold-tier powerhouse ten years down the line, and that future powerhouse was currently just an ordinary person, the prophet only had to kill that ordinary person to avert the crisis. In doing so, they would effectively be killing a Gold-tier powerhouse.

His gaze continued down, but he found that everything below it was blank. The next entry wasn't until Sequence 233.

Bronze Law Sequence 233 [Death-Defying Rebirth]: Reverses time within one's immediate vicinity, allowing the user to reverse the timeline of their own death and return to before they died.

Su Mu's eyes flickered. Another time-based ability. Though it still didn't provide any intuitive combat power, its rarity and value far eclipsed any conventional fighting ability. He just didn't know if it could be triggered consecutively. If it could, it would be a true Undying Body in every sense of the word.

Bronze Law Sequence 211 [Boundless Blink]: Grants the ability to perform continuous spatial displacement.

He read through the rest carefully and found that almost all the top-ranking abilities were time- and space-based. They truly were formidable.

After that, he opened the Silver Law rankings.