Tao Jue had been paying more attention to the war recently.
It wasn't because he was worried about the Central Continent falling. Even if the Yao Dynasty collapsed, there were still several other dynasties, countless sects and the Church of Light behind them. The Cyclopes had barely begun to encounter the strongest forces of the continent.
What interested him was how quickly everything had changed.
The fall of the Eastern Continent had sent hundreds of thousands of Beastmen fleeing west. The Yao Dynasty had mobilised over a million soldiers, the Church of Light had begun moving openly, and Tao An had somehow found himself in the middle of all of it.
The Third Prince had even accepted the Church's terms in exchange for military support.
Tao Jue didn't interfere.
Tao An had made his choice. Whether it would save him or eventually destroy him was something he would have to discover himself.
There was something else that had been occupying Tao Jue's attention anyway.
The invaders.
More specifically, the fact that he still didn't completely understand them.
That was unusual.
Tao Jue had spent thousands of years inside his universe. Almost everything around him could ultimately be traced back to something he had created.
Even things he had never personally designed were still derived from his Creation.
The descendants of the primordial races had changed considerably over thousands of years. Entire species had evolved naturally, while others had been altered through Mana, cultivation or the intervention of Gods.
Tao Jue could still understand them.
The Hydras and Cyclopes were different.
He had noticed it when they first entered his universe, but at the time he hadn't thought much about it. They were obviously the creations of another Creator, so it made sense that they felt foreign.
After watching millions of Cyclopes cross into his universe, however, his curiosity had gradually grown.
Tao Jue placed his cup down.
A moment later, the mountain was empty.
The battlefield had been abandoned several days earlier.
Hundreds of corpses covered the ground, most of them belonging to Cyclopes killed during the first clashes near the coastline. Some had been torn apart by cultivator techniques, while others had been burned so badly that it was difficult to recognise what they had once been.
Tao Jue walked between them until he found one that was mostly intact.
The creature was enormous.
Even lying on its back, its chest reached almost to Tao Jue's waist. Its grey skin was covered in wounds, and a large hole had been blasted through the centre of its single eye.
Tao Jue crouched beside it and placed his hand against its chest.
A small amount of Creation Power entered the corpse.
Almost immediately, he felt something resist him.
The Cyclops was dead. Its soul had already dispersed, and there was barely enough energy left inside the corpse to produce any kind of reaction.
He sent more Creation Power into it.
This time he found the source.
There was something unfamiliar spread throughout the creature's body. It was faint enough that Tao Jue probably wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't deliberately searched for it, but now that he had, it was impossible to mistake.
Creation Power.
It wasn't his.
"Zhao Fan?"
Tao Jue closed his eyes and concentrated.
The foreign power was integrated into almost every part of the Cyclops. It existed within its bones, muscles and organs, and even traces of it remained where the creature's soul had once existed.
Tao Jue tried to deconstruct one of its arms.
The flesh disappeared first, followed shortly afterwards by the bone.
He stopped.
The amount of Creation Power he had used was insignificant, but it was still considerably more than it should have been.
He tried again with the other arm and received almost exactly the same result.
He could erase the Cyclops easily. The problem wasn't whether he could do it, but how much Creation Power he would spend in the process.
One Cyclops meant nothing.
Neither did a thousand.
Millions were different.
Tao Jue finally understood another reason the three Venerables were willing to send such enormous armies into his universe.
They weren't simply trying to conquer his mortal world.
They were trying to make him spend Creation Power.
If Tao Jue became impatient and personally erased every foreign creature that entered his universe, he would be exchanging his own Creation Power for theirs.
Considering the difference in age between them, that seemed like an exceptionally poor trade.
"Cunning."
Tao Jue removed his hand.
He had already suspected something similar. It was one of the main reasons he hadn't simply destroyed the invading armies himself.
What he hadn't understood was why removing foreign creations required noticeably more effort than dealing with his own.
Apparently, Zhao Fan's influence didn't disappear when one of his creations entered another universe.
That raised several questions.
Tao Jue looked at the corpse again.
This time, instead of trying to destroy it, he examined how it had been created.
At first, there didn't seem to be anything particularly remarkable about it.
The Cyclops was powerful by mortal standards, but Tao Jue had created beings capable of destroying it with almost no effort. Lucifer could probably kill thousands of them without taking the matter seriously.
That wasn't a fair comparison, though.
Lucifer had taken an enormous amount of Creation Power to produce.
This creature hadn't.
Tao Jue became more focused.
He began examining its skeleton.
The bones were thick, but not uniformly so. Areas that experienced the greatest pressure had been heavily reinforced, while less important sections were considerably lighter.
Its muscles were even stranger.
The creature had sacrificed much of the flexibility a normal humanoid possessed in exchange for raw physical strength. Several muscle groups had been arranged in ways Tao Jue had never considered.
Even its organs were unusually simple.
There was very little redundancy anywhere in the body.
Tao Jue spent nearly half an hour examining the corpse before leaning back.
The Cyclops wasn't impressive because it was powerful.
It was impressive because it was cheap.
Tao Jue raised one hand and created a small bird.
It appeared in his palm and immediately tried to escape.
He caught it before it could fly away.
"Stay still."
The bird stared at him.
Tao Jue examined the amount of Creation Power he had used to create it.
Then he compared its body to the Cyclops.
After a few seconds, the bird disappeared.
He created another.
This time, Tao Jue simplified several parts of its skeleton and altered the arrangement of its muscles.
The second bird looked almost identical.
It had also required less Creation Power.
Tao Jue stared at it for a moment before making it disappear.
He tried again.
The third attempt was slightly better.
The fourth was considerably better.
By the seventh attempt, Tao Jue had reduced the amount of Creation Power required by almost half without noticeably weakening the bird.
The final bird sat comfortably in his palm.
Tao Jue looked at it.
The bird looked back at him.
"…I've been wasting Creation Power."
It chirped.
Tao Jue released it.
For thousands of years, he had considered himself increasingly skilled at Creation.
He could create planets now without thinking much about it. He had designed supernatural energies, created powerful races and even produced beings like God.
Yet almost all of his improvement had been focused on creating increasingly complicated things.
He had never seriously considered how efficiently he was creating them.
Why would he?
Until recently, Creation Power had never seemed particularly scarce.
If something required more power, Tao Jue simply waited until he had enough.
An older Creator wouldn't think that way.
Zhao Fan had been alive for an absurd amount of time. Tao Jue didn't know exactly how old he was, but even the youngest of the three Venerables had existed far longer than him.
What would happen if someone spent millions of years improving the same creature?
Tao Jue looked at the dead Cyclops.
Then he remembered the Hydras.
A Hydra corpse appeared beside him.
He had stored several after the fighting in the Eastern Continent, although he hadn't studied them particularly carefully at the time.
Now he did.
The difference was immediately obvious.
The Hydra was far more complicated than the Cyclops.
Its multiple heads were capable of acting independently without interfering with one another, while the creature's regenerative ability had been integrated throughout its body. Its hide wasn't simply thick either. Different layers seemed designed to resist different kinds of damage.
Even the arrangement of its internal energy was unusually efficient.
Tao Jue spent considerably longer examining it.
By the time he finished, his opinion of Zhao Fan had changed.
The old Creator hadn't simply imagined a powerful monster and created it.
The Hydras had been designed.
Probably redesigned as well.
Perhaps hundreds or even thousands of times.
Age didn't simply give a Creator more Creation Power.
It gave them time to learn how to use it.
That was considerably more dangerous.
Tao Jue was still examining the Hydra when he felt something change.
The foreign Creation Power inside the corpse moved.
He immediately withdrew his hand, but the reaction had already begun.
A faint pressure descended over the battlefield.
It wasn't particularly powerful, at least not yet, but Tao Jue recognised where it came from.
Someone was looking at him.
A voice suddenly entered his mind.
"Finally."
Tao Jue remained still.
The voice sounded amused.
"I was beginning to wonder how long it would take you."
Tao Jue glanced at the Hydra.
"Zhao Fan."
There was a short silence.
"You know me?"
"I know all three of you."
"Do you?"
The foreign presence strengthened slightly.
Tao Jue could feel it attempting to examine him through the remnants of Creation Power inside the Hydra.
He allowed it to continue.
For now.
Zhao Fan laughed.
"Then perhaps you aren't quite as ignorant as you appear."
Tao Jue's expression remained calm.
"That's an interesting conclusion to reach from a corpse."
"Not from the corpse."
Zhao Fan sounded more amused now.
"From you."
Tao Jue said nothing.
The old Creator continued.
"Your worlds are wasteful. Your creations are even worse. You use enough Creation Power to produce a Major God and somehow end up with something barely worthy of the title."
Tao Jue glanced at the Hydra beneath him.
"How much should it require?"
Zhao Fan was silent for a moment.
"That's your response?"
"You said I'm wasting Creation Power. I'm asking how much."
Zhao Fan laughed.
Tao Jue ignored it. Whether the old Creator was mocking him made no difference. He had already discovered the same problem while examining the Cyclopes. What mattered was that Zhao Fan knew enough to recognise the waste immediately.
"So?" Tao Jue asked.
"You expect me to teach you?"
"No. But you seem to enjoy talking."
Zhao Fan laughed again.
"Perhaps I do."
The pressure around the battlefield shifted slightly.
"What master taught you?"
"None."
"No master?"
"No."
"Then what inheritance did you receive?"
"I didn't."
The foreign presence became quiet.
"Creator lineage?"
Tao Jue didn't recognise the term.
"None that I know of."
Another pause followed.
"Then how did you reach this stage?"
"By creating."
Zhao Fan didn't answer immediately.
"For someone capable of constructing an entire universe, you know remarkably little about what you are."
"That's why I'm asking."
"You don't find that embarrassing?"
"Why would I?"
Tao Jue's answer was immediate.
There had been no one to teach him when he awakened in the void. Discovering that others knew more than him wasn't particularly surprising.
What would have been foolish was discovering that fact and refusing to learn from them.
Zhao Fan seemed to find that response more amusing than the others.
"Every Nascent Creator knows these things."
Tao Jue's attention sharpened.
Nascent Creator.
He hadn't heard that term before.
"Then perhaps I'm not a Nascent Creator."
"Of course you're not. Even with that crude control of yours, you've already passed World Creation."
Another unfamiliar term.
Tao Jue stored it away.
"What comes after World Creation?"
This time Zhao Fan's laughter was louder.
"You don't even know the realms?"
"No."
"And you're admitting that to an enemy?"
"You're already invading my universe. Pretending otherwise wouldn't change anything."
The laughter faded.
"Fair enough."
For the first time, Zhao Fan's tone became more measured.
"Nascent Creation is where Creators learn to convert Creation Power into stable matter and life. World Creation begins when a Creator can establish a self-sustaining world and maintain its laws without constant intervention."
Tao Jue listened carefully.
That sounded straightforward enough.
"And after that?"
"Realm Creation."
"What changes?"
"Authority."
Tao Jue waited.
Zhao Fan didn't continue.
"That's not much of an explanation."
"Did you expect me to provide you with an inheritance?"
"No. I expected you to keep talking."
That earned another quiet laugh.
"Realm Creation is when a Creator stops merely making things and begins establishing genuine authority over what belongs to him. A proper Realm Creator doesn't need to personally inspect every foreign influence that enters his universe."
Tao Jue looked at the Hydra.
That immediately caught his attention.
Zhao Fan noticed.
"Now you understand why I called you wasteful."
"How do I establish Authority?"
"You really are shameless."
Tao Jue waited.
Zhao Fan continued after a moment.
"Knowing the answer wouldn't help you much. Authority isn't something you gain because another Creator explains it to you."
The foreign Creation Power inside the Hydra began to withdraw.
Tao Jue could feel the connection weakening.
There were dozens of questions he could ask, but one mattered more than the others.
"Why did all three of you come?"
The withdrawal slowed.
"You know what happens if you die."
"I know what you gain. That doesn't explain why three Venerables are needed."
Zhao Fan was quiet for several seconds.
"Because we didn't know what you were."
Tao Jue's expression remained unchanged.
"I'm a Creator."
"Obviously."
The Hydra's corpse began to crumble beneath his hand.
"But you appeared without any known lineage, without an inheritance and apparently without even understanding the basic realms. You created an unusual source of divine power, filled your universe with several incompatible systems and then deliberately left an opening large enough for us to enter."
Faith.
So they had noticed it.
"At first, I thought you were bait," Zhao Fan continued. "Then I thought you might be hiding something."
"And now?"
"Now I think you truly are self-taught."
There was no amusement in his voice this time.
"That doesn't make you less dangerous. It makes you difficult to judge."
Tao Jue said nothing.
The Hydra continued turning to ash.
Zhao Fan's presence grew weaker.
"Knowing a few names won't change your position. Your Creation Power is limited. Every army we send forces your universe to spend resources defending itself, and sooner or later the difference between us will become too large to overcome."
Tao Jue listened.
"When your defences finally collapse, the three of us will enter personally."
The last traces of the Hydra began disappearing.
"And then?"
Zhao Fan's answer came without hesitation.
"Then you die."
Tao Jue's expression didn't change.
"Then I'll make sure that doesn't happen."
There was no challenge in his tone. Zhao Fan had crossed the Chaos with the intention of killing him; hearing the man say it aloud changed nothing.
The foreign presence withdrew completely.
The battlefield became quiet again.
Tao Jue remained beside the corpse for some time.
The threat was irrelevant. The information wasn't.
Nascent Creation.
World Creation.
Realm Creation.
Authority.
There were recognised stages to a Creator's development, and Tao Jue had apparently crossed at least one of them without knowing they existed.
More importantly, there were inheritances, lineages and entire bodies of knowledge that other Creators considered basic.
Tao Jue had none of that.
He had been progressing without knowing what he was progressing towards.
That wasn't necessarily a weakness.
He had created Mana without anyone teaching him how supernatural systems were supposed to work. He had created Faith because he wanted mortals to contribute to the growth of Gods, and Zhao Fan had just confirmed that even ancient Creators found it unusual.
Still, ignorance had limits.
Tao Jue looked towards the edge of his universe.
Somewhere beyond it were three Creators with vastly more experience than him.
They possessed armies refined over millions of years, understood techniques he didn't know existed and had access to knowledge passed between Creators for periods of time Tao Jue could barely imagine.
Tao Jue had Creation Power.
They had Creation Power and knowledge.
That difference could be corrected.
He looked down at the remaining Cyclops corpse.
For the next several hours, he did nothing except study it.
The bones came first.
Then the muscles.
Then the organs.
Each time Tao Jue created a copy, he altered something small.
Some attempts failed completely.
Others worked but consumed more Creation Power than expected.
A few were improvements.
By the time he stopped, there were dozens of incomplete Cyclops arms scattered around him.
Tao Jue examined the latest one.
It was nearly identical to Zhao Fan's original.
Almost.
He deconstructed it and began again.
Authority could wait.
For now, he had thousands of years of bad habits to correct.