Chapter 972 Seven Centuries (3) Old Man Seed had gathered thousands of Aechon Stones in his time in the Great Abyss and for the last few Eras, he had spent just twenty of these stones on various transactions. At his level, he could not use Origin Shards, which was the primary method of transaction in most of reality. To him, this currency could be considered useless, he could effortlessly create trillions of Origin Shards using his Essence, their complexity which was a form of protection against counterfeit was simple for him to forge and reproduce, and when trading with equal powers or greater, they would not accept anything but rare treasures. Generally, Will Holders of the sixth dimensional level and higher could effortlessly create Origin Shards and therefore they were discouraged from using this currency to trade among their peers. Of course, this did not stop them from using their shards to purchase lower-tier goods in bulk and enrich their various domains. Origin Shard was still useful for those beneath Will, able to bolster the Essence of those in the Supreme Circle with non-attributeless energy. Rowan was unique in the sense that he had an entire sea of Primordial energy in his body and could regenerate these energy stores, faster than he could even spend them. Everyone else had a much smaller Mental Space and had to refill their energy stores constantly with energy that did not clash with their attributes, and this was where Origin Shards became important. The greatest dividing point for wealth was when a being reached the Sixth-dimensional level and gained the capability to create Origin Shards, except for the rarest and most precious of resources, these beings automatically became infinitely wealthy by conventional standards. No single treasure in the lower dimensions was out of their reach, and they could flood an entire world with Origin Shard to acquire whatever they wanted, yet, for truly high-level treasures that could impact them, except using Labyrinth Coins, the only form of exchange was via trade by barter. An Aechon Stone could not be procured using Origin Shards but by exchange, among them a high-level resource. In less than thirty years, Old Man Seed watched in both fascination and shock as the consumption of the Aechon Stones reached two thousand pieces and was still climbing. He had long realized that it was not the fault of the Tenebris armor that such a large amount of resources was being drawn, but it was because of the occupant of the armor. "Your son," Old Man Seed growled in surprise and exasperation, "Is a freak!" 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞 Elura rolled her eyes, "I don't believe you can not take care of the upkeep for a single mortal, no matter how special he is, or is your talk of being as rich as a Prime nothing but the ramblings of a being who knows he is over his head. It's been barely three decades and you are already complaining, don't forget your training program was planned for a few million years." The old man looked away from the judging eyes of his daughter, "I never said I was as rich as a prime, I only said that I am as rich as the shade of a Prime. You are putting words in my mouth child, I also never said I could not support him, but you have to admit, in three short decades I have used enough wealth that most in reality would never fathom, and I suspect this is just the beginning, admit it daughter, this boy is a freak." If Old Man Seed expected anything from his words, it was not the excitement that was brimming in Elura's eyes, "Will whatever is transpiring inside the armor hamper the operation of Tenebris in delivering an enabling environment for my son to decipher the Supreme Circles? If that is the case I am ready to support you with resources of my own. Nothing would stop his ascension… not even your apparent poverty." Old Man Seed sniffed, "Don't try to goad me daughter, you were never as good at it as you thought. No matter how exceptional he is, there is no feasible way he could affect a single percent of my wealth. I am just calling out how absurd it is that in less than three decades I have used enough resources to power up dozens of universes! Tenebris was created to be efficient, this sort of consumption is ridiculous." He shook his head in thought, "I could detect a faint touch of True Darkness inside of Romion, it was what made me select the Tenebris armor as a source of enlightenment, but from what I can perceive, he has a method to consume the Darkness, and the greedy freak is consuming it. Why would anyone want to consume darkness? He did not appear to be that hungry when we spoke, perhaps I should have given him proper food before I locked him inside the armor." Elura's excitement was tempered by concern, "Consuming darkness? Such a thing… is it not dangerous to his development?" Old Man Seed thought about it for a while before he replied, "Hmm, as far as I can tell, there has been no obvious side effect to the little freak, and I doubt if eating this darkness was harming him, he would continue doing it. The boy is a freak, not a fool." Elura still did not appear convinced, "Are you sure, there is nothing more corrupting than the heinousness of darkness, this armor is filled with a potent source of it. What you are telling me now is that he is not just withstanding that darkness, but consuming it? Should that even be possible for a mortal?" Old Man Seed grinned, "Makes you wonder doesn't it, what other things this freak is capable of? If he wants to consume the Primordial Darkness, let him, although I wonder how he is able to focus on consuming the darkness when he should be comprehending the Supreme Circle while under that unreasonable pressure. Nevertheless, I am sure that he would be filled up in time, and then he would focus on the circle." There were many things that Old Man Seed regretted saying out loud in his life, these words he just spoke would come to haunt him in the coming decades. A hundred years later, his entire stores of Aechon stones were exhausted, he held on to the last stone, his eyes wide open in disbelief. In a century he had fed 23,450 Aechon Stones to Tenebris, and it was still craving more energy. This amount of wealth was difficult for even a God Emperor to wrap their heads around, each Aechon Stone was considered priceless, yet for the past few years, they had been disappearing into the armor like dust. Old Man Seed shook his head in pain, "When I entered the Great Abyss I was accompanied by nothing but my wits and glorious power, I pushed through seventy-five levels of the Abyssal maze created by the Abyssal Prime himself. I created a story of such unparalleled valor and sheer devastation across the multiple dimensions of the Abyss that is still narrated with whispers of dread in the infernal halls of the…" Elura smiled and interrupted him, "If you want more resources, you can just ask me. In the time you have been away, my Dominion has spread over multiple dimensions, my coffers are yours for this task, you need to just ask. Anything for my child."