The World Devouring System

About an hour later, Caelum found himself alone with Elara in a room that resembled an office. They were back inside the Duke's mansion of their estate.

Chaotic Rifts were unpredictable. Some types of rifts took a while to finish forming. 'A while' was an understatement – there were some rifts within the Novastead Empire that took multiple years to be ready for entry. On the flip side, there were also many rifts that did not have any incubation period. As the name of the era would suggest, it was all too chaotic.

Apparently, this new rift that was forming close to Wintram was of the former type. It would take some time before it would truly finish forming. With rifts like these, the general rule of the thumb was that – that higher the level of the Chaotic Rift, the higher its formation time would be. It was estimated that it would take multiple years, maybe even more than a decade for this one to be ready.

Just for reference, a decade was nothing to powerful cultivators. Both Elara and Valerius were multiple centuries old. The strongest cultivator of the Goldheart Family, its founder as well as Caelum's great-grandfather was more than a millennium old! Yes, he was still alive, although he spent most of his time secluded in cultivation – leaving the more mundane affairs of the family to Valerius, the Patriarch.

The clouds in the sky had already begun to disperse, allowing afternoon rays of the sun to illuminate Elara's office. The glowing whirlpool of energy was not going anywhere, however. Apparently, it was going to stay for as long as the portal had yet to form completely. It seemed like denizens of Wintram would have to get accustomed to relatively brighter nights for the coming years.

After returning to the estate and dismissing Elias and the reluctant Lyra, Elara told Caelum that she wanted to have a word with him and invited him to her office – leading to the current situation. For now, Elara was simply staring out of her window, observing the bustling estate and the city beyond. Perhaps she was trying to formulate the exact words she wanted to say to Caelum or perhaps she was thinking about other matters, Caelum did not know.

Without interrupting Elara's thoughts, Caelum took the time to observe her more closely. He could confidently say that Elara was the most beautiful woman that he had ever laid his eyes upon. This was not a sentiment that was born out of, or led to, any feelings of infatuation. This was merely Caelum's objective assessment of Elara's physical appearance.

As she stood by the window, she was wearing a midnight blue gown which had wide sleeves. The gown stuck closely to her body around her chest and waist, highlighting her figure. She had raven black hair, black eyes and a beautiful face adorned by her small nose and thin lips. When dealing with her close family, like her husband or her children, her face radiated gentleness. But she was perfectly capable of putting on a stern and authoritative front when handling official matters or dealing with subordinates.

'Her beauty is enhanced by her powerful cultivation, I'm sure of it. She has this… transcendental aura about her that makes her stand out in a crowd. A few other strong cultivators that the Original had met in his younger years also exuded the same kind of feeling.'

Although Caelum himself was an exceptionally handsome individual, eclipsing most other people when it came purely to looks, he did not possess that same immortal bearing that Valerius or Elara seemed to have – at least not yet.

"Sigh. You know, I was planning to spend more time with you over the coming weeks to make up for the last four years, but this Chaotic Rift that suddenly appeared seems to be the Heavens' way of mocking my plans."

"Sorry Caelum dear, but both your father and I are going to be quite busy for the foreseeable future."

'This is what she wanted to talk about?' Caelum thought.

"It's alright, mother. There's no need to worry-", Caelum's response was almost instinctual. His parents paying less attention to him for now was not necessarily a bad thing.

"No, it's not quite alright. You were in coma from the age of 12 up to the present – you're 16 years old now. You do know that this was the time period when you were supposed to attend your Pre-Cultivation school, right?"

Caelum just nodded, letting Elara finish her piece.

"This time period is quite important and goes a long way in ensuring a smooth start to a person's cultivation journey. I was initially hoping to spend some of my personal time with you, guiding you through things that you would've known had you been capable of attending your Pre-Cultivation school like the other kids in the Goldheart family, like Elias and Lyra."

"However, that plan has just come crashing down thanks to this rift. The rift will surely attract attention from all over the Empire and create a slew of logistical troubles for us – troubles which I'm sure I'll have to help Valerius handle. Sigh. I always keep telling him that he should do a better job at delegating responsibilities to the other members of the family… but he's just way too eager to try and do everything on his own. And we are the ones that suffer because of it."

Her last sentence was spoken in a barely audible volume. Caelum made no comments about it.

"Anyways, that is not what we're here to discuss. The point is that you'll have a much bumpier start to your cultivation than some of the other kids. Once you reach 20 years of age, you will be expected to enroll in the Royal Academy, and that would entail passing their entrance test. Failing to do so will be a huge blow to your prestige and it is an outcome we will certainly want to avoid."

Caelum still did not interrupt Elara even though he felt that this whole 'bumpy start to cultivation journey' thing was completely irrelevant to him, cultivation school or not. The milestones that the World Devouring System had set for him were quite harsh by the standards of this world. He was not a Heaven-Chosen - not possessing any innate Heavenly Gifts meant that it was utterly hopeless for him to try and meet those milestones without ever using [Devour]. Even for Heaven-Chosen, those milestones would be a tall order.

As such, his way of cultivation would be completely different from that of the 'other kids'. Still, he wanted to see where Elara was going with all this.

"In order to ensure that you don't fail the Royal Academy's test, I was thinking of enlisting the help of someone to tutor you in your early cultivation years. What do you think?"

'Aah, so that's what this is about. Well, having someone constantly monitor my cultivation progress seems exactly like the extra pain in the butt that I don't need at this juncture.'

"I'm touched by how much you care about me, mother, but I don't really think that this arrangement will be necessary."

However, Caelum figured that outright rejecting Elara's kind intentions was not the best move.

"How about this? Give me a month or so to determine what I can achieve on my own. If at any point, I feel like I'm struggling, I'll ask you for help in finding me a tutor."

In a month, he would either be at the Qi Gathering Realm or he would be deader than dead. In both these cases, Elara would realize that Caelum did not need a tutor.

Elara pondered upon Caelum's proposal. Her first thought was that Caelum might be underestimating the difficulties of cultivation a tad bit. She did not want him to get discouraged later on but she did not want to discourage him right now either. She knew fully well that Caelum was not born with any Heavenly Gifts. She was there when he got tested. Unlike his elder sister Seraphina, he was not Heaven-Chosen.

Still, Caelum's proposal was convenient for her. It was going to take some time to find an appropriate tutor anyways, and she would be quite busy for the next few days. She did not mind taking a wait and see approach for now.

"Alright, we'll do as you say. You can relax for a few days before you start cultivating if you want to do that. I will give you one month from the day you start. If after a month, your progress is not satisfactory, then I'll look for a tutor for you."

Caelum nodded in acknowledgement.

"I don't plan on idling for a few days, mother. I will try and start cultivating today itself… tomorrow at the latest."

"Are you sure? Just remember that the last thing I want happening is you not taking good care of your health and falling back into coma again. This is even more important than making it into whatever Royal Academy!"

"Don't you worry, mother. I have a feeling that condition of mine is gone once and for all."

Caelum hypothesized that his coma might have something to do with his transmigration. If that was truly the case, then there was no need to worry about something bad happening to him again, health-wise. Moreover, the World Devouring System said that his health was [OK]. Meaning, there shouldn't be any underlying problems… unless he was giving the system more credit than it was due.

Elara wasn't fully convinced but Caelum sounded confident enough for her to drop the issue for now.

"Okay, I'll believe you for now. In that case, the first thing you need to be doing is tempering your body. Go to the Dao Pavilion and get the family's cultivation technique. It will have information regarding exactly how you can tackle the Body Tempering realm. I will send the necessary materials required for the process via Saya."

"Oh… Saya is your personal maid by the way. You should've gotten acquainted with her when you were twelve years old but you were in deep sleep at that time."

'A personal maid? That's got to be a novel experience…' mused Caelum.

But Caelum's thoughts did not linger on the matter for long. Now, it was time for Caelum to stealthily broach his main agenda.

"Understood, mother. And one last thing! There's a dungeon for prisoners in our estate, isn't there?"

The Goldheart Family Estate was massive. The family itself had hundreds of living members and the estate in its current state was capable of comfortably housing thousands of people. The Duke Mansion where Caelum and Elara currently were, was only a small part of the estate – one reserved for the Duke of the Goldheart Duchy (and also the Patriarch of the family) and his direct family.

The Estate also had a dungeon where family members could keep their enemies or their offenders captive should they choose to do so. After coming to terms with the existence of the World Devouring System, Caelum had made some 'power-levelling' plans and the dungeon occupied a major role in his plans.

Elara was caught slightly off-guard by Caelum's question.

"Yes, there indeed is a dungeon in the estate, but why do you ask?"

"You see, this is what I had in mind…"

For Caelum, this was the crucial moment. His plan was quite simple – he wanted to devour some people in the estate's dungeon so as to improve his strength quickly. He did not intend to go out there and risk his life in a real fight, especially not when he was so weak.

At the same time, he did not want to seem like a murderous maniac right after he had woken up. Elara could not be allowed to suspect that something was wrong with him.

And so, Caelum spun his tale. Instead of directly telling Elara that he wanted to kill some prisoners, he told her that he would like to use them as sparring opponents once he felt he was strong enough. He explained to her that it would be a different experience altogether compared to sparring against other members of the family – since those prisoners could be tricked into trying to attack him with everything they had.

Very quickly into the conversation however, Caelum realized something. He realized that he did not need to expend a lot of effort in convincing Elara at all. He realized that – she was completely apathetic to the fate of the prisoners.

"Sounds good. You can do whatever you want with the prisoners. Their life or death is of no consequence. Some members of the family use them to run their alchemical experiments and what not. Just make sure you don't develop any perverted habits. And especially make sure that you don't get seriously injured by a prisoner while sparring – that would be very silly."