Attack

Suddenly, while Damon was exploring the house, he heard the snapping of ballistas and the screams of the dying.

Quickly activating his boosters, Damon carefully maneuvered to the top of his manor. Once he cleared the height of the walls, he soon saw a titanic horde of flying monsters attacking his home. Between massive quetzalcoatls and a horde of flying bats, Damon felt like hell had a grudge against him.

'This is a good opportunity to see how effective your defenses are.' James said.

Although his weapons were doing well in keeping the enemies away from the walls, Damon knew that they would not be able to hold up forever. He just didn't have enough firepower in order to hold off a prolonged attack. Those quetzalcoatls could easily block the shots of the defenses for enough time. That would lead to the quick dismantling of his defenses by the horde of flying bats.

Realizing this, Damon quickly duplicated the ballistas and hwachas. This meant that he had a hwacha at each corner and one hwacha in the middle of each side of the roof.

The ballistas were circled around the top of the manor in a group of six.

With this change, the horde was thinning out much faster but Damon felt that he needed something more.

'I need something that can keep the enemies outside of the manor while the defenses tear them apart.' He thought.

Creating the image of a shield generator that would create a circular forcefield, Damon directed 30% of his energy to it. In comparison, the golden shield would have required all of his energy just for a much smaller shield.

With the shield generator forming below the roof, Damon filled it with half of his energy.

'This should be enough to defend and keep me safe while I rest.' He thought as he refilled the rest of the defenses for 20 drops of his energy.

Damon began floating down as he probed his 'divine spark.' It felt like a smaller heart that was filled with golden essence. He also noticed that it seemed like he had much more energy than before. After all, he could make all of these defenses and refill the old defenses and still have a bit of energy. While before, he would have been completely drained.

'Does this mean that my capacity for energy grows with its continued use? Kind of like a muscle.' Damon wondered.

'Correct, Damon. The number of drops in your divine spark can grow up to a certain extent. We can discuss that later though. Just remember to use all of your drops before you go to sleep.'

"How do they regenerate?"

'Your divine spark will draw in universal energy and convert it into divine essence overnight.'

"Can I do regenerate it actively as well?" Damon asked.

'No. Your divine spark exhausts itself by doing all of that energy conversion at night so it can't do it during the day as well.'

"Okay." Damon sighed as he wiped an imaginary tear.

Having planned out some of his daily routine, Damon decided to realize the purpose of his arrival here. He needed to survey and conquer this world in order to become more powerful. Only then could he get revenge for Varian.

Using 20 drops of his energy, Damon created multiple small owls that would fly around and survey the land. Much of this energy went into a connection between him and the owls. This connection would allow him to view what the owls saw during and after they collected the data. he wasn't exactly sure how it worked but had a few theories.

'It's probably just like how I gave those defenses part of my soul. This time, however, I gave it to a more complex artifact.'

Regardless, his next goal was to strengthen himself in order to prepare to rule this world.

'I can think of two major solutions to this issue.' He thought. 'Gathering followers and collecting their faith or just continuously exhausting my divine essence in order to have more of it.' He planned.

Since followers would only be available once he understood this planet and who inhabited it, Damon decided to try and siphon nearby universal energy to do something else.

Before he accidentally crippled himself, though, Damon decided to ask James.

"Is it possible for me to cultivate my body, James?"

'Yes. There are many ways of cultivating your body but you should only focus on a few. Firstly, you can circulate the surrounding universal energy in your body in order to slowly strengthen it. Secondly, you can use the berserk energy within beasts combined with your own divine essence in order to rapidly strengthen your body. Lastly, you can fight in battles and heal the wounds and damages you take. This healing will naturally strengthen the body as it tries to improve the flesh in order to avoid further pain.'

"So I can either manually cultivate, harvest a beast's energy, or fight and heal myself."

Sitting down into a lotus position, he focused on collecting and drawing in the energy around him.

After an hour, Damon felt as if he was holding back a vortex of energy. Carefully controlling it, he slowly pushed it into his chest and towards his divine spark.

WHOOSH

Once it reached his divine spark, he began to circulate it around his body. As it circulated, part of the energy would seep into his flesh and strengthen it.

Once an hour had passed, Damon had already exhausted all of the energy.

He felt much stronger than before. Like the difference between Heaven and Earth.

"Am I supposed to feel this much stronger?" Damon asked with amazement.

'Your progress will slow. There are seven levels to your current realm and you are merely at the first level. Since your body has only just come into contact with universal energy, it will improve a lot in the short term. Unfortunately, you will experience the problem that all cultivators do. Their bodies adapt to that level of energy and they are forced to find higher levels of energy.'

"Like my divine essence?" Damon asked.

'Yes. Your divine essence is simply an aspect of your presence as a divine being. It is many levels above the energy that most cultivators use. Cultivators use a core to store their own version of universal energy called spiritual energy. They will then expand their core until their body can't handle it. At this point, they will be forced to either compress their energy to make it of a higher quality or they will need to strengthen their body. Since you already have a very pure energy, you just need to exhaust your energy, expand your core, and strengthen your body.'

"Well, I'm already out of energy so I guess I'll go to bed and rest." Damon said as he yawned.