The main castle originally had five floors.
Eileen and Winnie's rooms were next to each other. As girls, although they might outperform Tang Yu in enduring hardships, love for beauty and cleanliness was innate to them.
After washing up, the sound of laughter and whispered stories essential to a close friendship emanated from their room.
At that moment, the two girls were startled.
Their room was on the fifth floor, the very top of the castle, and one corner of it had a skylight through which sunlight streamed.
However, when they looked up, the skylight had disappeared.
Eileen seemed to remember something, grabbed Winnie's hand, and both rushed out of the room to the hallway.
The corridor hadn't changed much, but Eileen still keenly noticed a difference.
Where previously there had been stairs just leading to lower floors, now there were new stairs leading upwards. "Indeed, Lord Tang is expanding again."
She remembered the first time she encountered something ; she was somewhat panicked and almost got lost in the castle.
Next to her, Winnie's mouth hung open, and one hand paused in midair, both her mind and body overwhelmed by turmoil.
In the castle garden, witnessing the castle's transformation once again, Lord Tang was exceptionally thrilled. In his mind, the territory was gradually expanding, having fully enveloped the Source Crystal Mine located in the woods.
He could now set up a comprehensive defense system around the Source Crystal Mine, which would further increase the speed of mining.
At that moment, Tang Yu was taken aback.
Every Awakener had Source Power within them, but ordinary Awakeners with too little Source Power often couldn't perceive it at all.
Tang Yu had studied the basics of Source Power and gained a basic understanding; after some exploration, he found a tiny amount of Source Power deep within himself.
This insignificant amount of Source Power, although not usable for combat, could still play a small role, such as opening a Space Ring or executing Advanced Combat Skills. However, ability users were more advantaged; during their evolution, they produced far more Source Power than ordinary Awakeners, although as a trade-off, their physical strength was slightly weaker.
Lord Tang had always been troubled by his lack of Source Power.
He even hoped to effortlessly conjure ice spikes like Eileen, or at least be a stay-at-home dad!
The reality, however, was that he needed to extract additional Source Power from objects even for using Advanced Combat Skills, and every time he used a Return City Scroll, to save that bit of Source Power, he had to tear the scroll instead of just injecting Source Power to teleport back with a "biu."
The tiny glowing dot inside him, representing Source Power, was multiplying exponentially. If initially there were only two or three little dots, now there were at least a hundred.
Tang Yu closed his eyes.
This time, he felt something different about the world around him.
It was colorful and vibrant, representing various attributes of Source Qi. Originally, he only sensed them very vaguely, but now he was much closer to the true nature of Source Qi, and could even, to some extent, harness these energies.
He raised his hand and drew a regular Longsword from his Space Ring.
Five fingers gripping tightly.
Following his instincts, he swung the Longsword smoothly.
A layer of white light enveloped the blade and as he swung, a visibly silver-white Sword Qi burst forth from the blade.
The Sword Qi was like a rainbow, tearing through the air and striking a nearby flowerbed.
This beautiful flowerbed saw petals shattered and soil flying.
A trench five to six meters long was clearly visible.
It looked somewhat tragically beautiful.
Tang Yu nodded in satisfaction, "Although I haven't awakened any special abilities yet, from the perspective of Source Power, I should be on par with other ability users of the same tier."
But the very next moment, he came to his senses and looked at the devastated garden in front of him...
Why did I have to touch it!
"Ding dong! Tier four territory upgrade completed, please check the newly unlocked buildings, Lord."
"Ding dong! Puppet Guard upgrade completed, currently at Half Transcendent tier, having reached the peak upgrade possible. To continue upgrading the Puppet level, please provide necessary materials: Soul Nodule, to complete the Puppet's upgrade."
Tang Yu was startled.
He had already learned earlier that after Awakening, a Transcendent was beyond the mundane, this was something he knew.
What does transcendent mean? It means having transcended the mundane realm. Each layer of Awakening represents an evolution of life, but fundamentally, they are still in the realm of mortals.
Once one enters the transcendent, it's an entirely new level, whether in terms of the level of life or destructive power, there is a huge leap.
It's like the difference between a son and a dad.
He had thought that upgrading the territory would grant him two Transcendent masters, and then he could look down on everyone. Now it seems, dreams are full of such fantasies.
His thoughts were merely a flicker of a moment.
The system notifications continued to come through.
"Ding dong! Lord's castle has unlocked a new defense module, please check it out, Lord."
"Ding dong! Tier four territory can now construct two fortresses (Sub-territory), please explore the specific information, Lord."
"Ding dong! Tier four territory, new feature unlocked, personal domain."
[Personal Domain: Also known as a mobile territory, within a certain range centered around the Lord, possesses some territory functions, can construct some buildings, and can also build temporary structures at a lesser cost.]
"Please explore the specific functions yourself, Lord."
Although he had predicted that upgrading the territory to tier four would bring about significant changes.
So many new functions all at once, and no explanations given.
He wanted to take it slow.
Tang Yu stood beside a ravine, gathering his thoughts.
First off, the upgrade material for the Puppet Guard, there was only one material form, he glanced at it, um, indeed no clues whatsoever.
Tang Yu opened the system panel.
In the original place for upgrading the Lord's castle, an option for castle defense had been added.
When he clicked to see, including the Puppet Guardupgrade, it was also within this option.
Now Tang Yu remembered, these two Puppets, it seems they were given during the castle construction, their main duty being to defend the castle.
However, he recalled the past uses of the Puppet; it seems apart from acting as advanced brawlers, they were used for digging and clearing land, number one is still on the construction site right now.
"So, having advanced to Half-step Transcendent, number one's construction efficiency should have increased significantly, right?"
Thinking about it, um, might as well continue with the digging.
Puppet Guard belongs to the defensive modules he already owns, and apart from this, there are also some additional defense modules that can be added in the castle's defense option.
Tang Yu had long seen through the system, it just wants him to spend more Source Crystals.