Liam didnât hesitate. He bit into his finger sharply until a small bead of blood welled up.
The wound sealed within seconds, but not before he let a single drop fall onto the eggâs shell.
The effect was immediate, as the golden runes blazed to life, flaring across the eggâs surface in brilliant spirals.
Then he felt something ancient brushing against his consciousness. A spark of awareness deep within the egg stirred.
Liam gasped quietly, steadying himself as the sensation deepened. The link was forming â he could feel it, a thin, luminous thread weaving between his soul and the being within the shell.
The light dimmed, leaving only the soft glow of golden runes pulsing faintly on the shell. And Liam found himself standing there, breathing hard but smiling.
He could feel it nowâfaint but undeniableâthe heartbeat of the creature inside, synchronized with his own. A spark of shared vitality.
"Well," he said softly, his grin widening, "welcome to the family."
He turned toward the distant horizon of the Dimensional Space. He knew couldnât keep the egg here near the active machinery. Once hatched, a Golden Crowâs flames could burn hotter than plasma; even a flare of excitement from it could melt steel.
He carried the egg several hundred meters away from the construction zone and found an open plain. Setting the egg gently upon the plain ground â because he has no other choice â he stepped back.
"Thatâs better," he murmured. "When you hatch, I donât want you torching my workshop."
The next moment, he thought about infusing the new physiques immediately but he remembered the advice the system had given him.
He sighed softly. As tempting as it was to dive into cultivation now, logic prevailed. He needed to understand the foundations of all three systems before merging them. If he rushed it, he might create instabilityâor worse, collapse the harmony between his bodies.
"Patience," he murmured, half to himself. "One thing at a time."
The plan was clear now. He would remain on Earth for a while longer to release Lucid. Once the product was in the world and stable, heâd move on to the next universe.
That, he decided, would be after his second weekly sign-in.
Liam gave the crimson egg one last look before he turned away. "Rest well, little sun," he said quietly. "When you wake, the skies wonât be ready for you."
With that, he flew towards the construction site to check on the progress of the mega autonomous industrial plant.
Below him, the mega-industrial plant stretched across the landscape like a living city of steel and light.
Rows of machines worked in perfect synchronization â drones moving like swarms of metallic insects, carrying materials from one assembly dock to another. Automated cranes rotated gracefully, their long mechanical arms welding beams into place with streams of blue-white plasma.
Liam hovered a few meters above it all, arms folded as he watched. This was exactly what he wanted â a closed-loop system.
A world that could build, evolve, and sustain itself without dependence on outside resources.
The Eternal Qi Vein would turned the Dimensional Space from an isolated pocket into something closer to a living ecosystem.
And that thought naturally brought him to his next challenge: the Void Beasts.
"Just beyond Neptune," he muttered under his breath.
If what the system said was true, then those creatures â the so-called cosmic whales â had been drifting right on the edge of humanityâs reach this entire time. He canât imagine that something like that exists in his universe and nothingâs known about them. And no one had ever noticed. No satellite, no probe, no astronomer had detected them.
That fact alone made them terrifying. Something that big, that ancient, able to move between stars unnoticed? The implications were staggering.
He wonder if the cosmic phenomenons the satellites has detected in the last were actually caused by the Void Beasts.
His curiosity flared again. The logical part of him knew this was dangerous â foolish, even. The idea of chasing after something that could swallow planets whole was insanity by any reasonable standard. But the part of him that had lived through the impossible, couldnât resist.
Liam canât imagine just how terrifying it will be to meet one. He wonder what they look like. But what heâs mostly curious about was learning about them.
His mind began racing through the logistics almost immediately.
If the Voidlings â the offspring of the Void Beasts â were indeed within range, then heâd need a vessel fast enough to reach them before they drifted farther out into the dark. A spaceship that could sustain both him and Lucyâs AI systems beyond the solar boundary.
A normal starship wouldnât cut it. He needed something faster than light â or at least close to it.
His gaze dropped to the manufacturing hub again, and ideas began forming in his mind like sparks.
"This will be fun," he murmured, after a brief moment.
"Void Beasts," he murmured. "Cosmic whales that breathe in darkness. The universe really does have a sense of humor."
He wondered what they looked like â whether their bodies were flesh or energy, whether their eyes held galaxies or voids. He imagined their scales gleaming with starlight, their movement slow and solemn, each pulse of their hearts sending tremors across the cosmos.
There was still so much to do; Lucidâs release, the magic universe, the Void Beast expedition, the evolution of the Dimensional Space.
One step at a time, he reminded himself.
He smiled again, this time softer, almost to himself. "So many things waiting. But weâll get there."
Liam gazed toward the horizon, eyes bright with quiet determination.
He could almost see it â the future stretched wide before him. Planets waiting to be explored, stars waiting to be touched and there was the cosmic beasts too.
The path was long, but it was his alone to walk.
He smiled to himself and vanished from the Dimensional Space, reappearing in the calm of his bedroom.
He stood for a moment, gazing out at the distant skyline bathed in morning light.
"From Void Beasts beyond Neptune to divine birds born from the sun," he murmured with a soft, amused laugh. "Looks like things are only going to get crazier from here."