Lord: Sequence Master

Inside the Chaos Shop, there was only one thing resembling a donation box.

It had a coin slot, and all one needed to do was insert Chaos Currency and state their request aloud.

However, there was an important caveat: if the request was too ambitious and the currency offered was insufficient, the box wouldn't issue a refund. The proper way to use this box was to test the waters first by inserting a small amount of currency and asking preliminary questions.

Rosen inserted a Chaos Silver Coin and asked his first question:

"How many people are conspiring against me, and who are they?"

The box remained silent, offering no response.

"How much Chaos Currency do I need for an answer to my previous question?" Rosen asked, inserting another Chaos Silver Coin.

This time, the box responded by spitting out a slip of paper. Written on it was: 96 Chaos Silver Coins.

Rosen immediately deposited the required amount and repeated his first question.

The box again spat out a slip of paper, this time stating: 31 Chaos Gold Coins.

Without hesitation, Rosen fed the coins into the slot. Finally, the box produced several photographs.

The front of each photo revealed the true faces of the demigods who had ambushed him, while the back provided detailed identity information.

Rosen stared at the photos for a long moment, then turned and left the Chaos Shop.

The Chaos Shop wasn't very large—only a few dozen square meters divided into an outer room and an inner room.

If someone was already conducting business in the inner room, others would have to wait outside.

As Rosen pushed open the door to leave, he nearly collided with three people who were eagerly waiting outside.

Rosen immediately sensed something unusual in the way they reacted to seeing him.

It didn't take much to guess—these three were likely underlings sent by the very demigods who had tried to kill him.

Rosen smiled faintly, closed the door behind him, and returned to the inner room. He tossed another Chaos Silver Coin into the box and began asking questions.

"How much Chaos Currency did the three people outside bring with them?"

"What do those three plan to do with their Chaos Currency?"

"If I wanted to permanently stop anyone from using Chaos Currency to kill me, how many Chaos Gold Coins would it cost?"

By the time Rosen was finished, he had spent every last Chaos Coin he had—over 2,000 Chaos Gold Coins—and left the Chaos Shop with a dark expression.

Although he felt a pang of regret, at least he no longer had to worry about someone buying his death with Chaos Gold Coins.

The arrangement wasn't permanent, though—it would only last 1,000 years.

Rosen glanced back at the Chaos Shop, his face grim. It was clear to him that this Sequence 0-level miraculous artifact had calculated the exact amount of currency he had before naming the price. He swore silently that one day, when he was strong enough, he'd smash that damned box to pieces.

Back at the hotel, Rosen retreated into the Mysterious Study Room.

Sitting at his desk, he spread out the photos of the three targets and began preparing to sketch their portraits.

The two Sequence 2 demigods were beyond his reach for now, but the Sequence 3? That one could pay the price for the rest.

However, just as he picked up his brush, Rosen paused.

After years of using his painting skills to curse those who offended him, he had nearly forgotten that he was now operating under his new identity—Suley, the historian.

As a historian, killing should be done using the abilities of a historian, not a painter.

Currently, Rosen lacked two critical tools: an Eternal Chronicle and a proper Historical Museum.

The Eternal Chronicle he had been using was Suley's original copy, as creating a new one from scratch required significant time and effort.

But after spending so much Chaos Currency, Rosen wasn't in a rush to leave Chaotic City just yet.

Although his frequent data transmission heists had disrupted the flow of Chaos Coins in the outer city—causing some of its residents to lose interest in creating chaos—he figured an occasional heist once a month wouldn't push the entire city into abandoning its chaotic tendencies.

With his decision made, Rosen began crafting his own Eternal Chronicle.

Since the Eternal Chronicle was, at its core, a book, he started by creating a blank tome.

The process was similar to crafting his Void Sketchbook, but the materials were slightly different. The paper used for the Eternal Chronicle had to be much tougher and more suitable for writing than the paper used for sketching.

Rosen took out a stack of human skin paper cloned from his Void Gallery, adjusted the manufacturing process to make the pages more durable, and used his own bones as the book's cover. Soon, he had bound a book made entirely of his own skin and bones.

While historians didn't have a unique "pen" like artists did, Rosen decided to use his Divine Brush as a substitute.

Flipping to the first page, he began writing.

All Eternal Chronicles started with the same process: historians first recorded their own personal history.

From the moment of their birth to the present day, every event had to be documented.

Historians held the belief that time could not be permanently changed, and history could not be permanently altered.

Everything that had ever happened, they argued, could not be undone or permanently rewritten by future generations.

Initially, this belief was met with ridicule from many deities.

After all, countless methods existed to distort time and rewrite the past.

Even Rosen's own Time Sealing Art—a skill from the Painter Sequence—allowed him to extract fragments of the past.

And historians themselves specialized in rewriting history.

If historians were capable of altering the past, why did they cling to the notion that history was immutable?

The reason is simple: the butterfly effect.

Imagine an ancient beggar who died prematurely. If this beggar had not died, he might have become a king, conquered the world, gained the faith of countless people, and ascended to the supernatural. Step by step, he could have become a deity, influencing untold lives in the process. Even the smallest alteration to the past—such as saving this beggar—could cause catastrophic ripples that drastically change the course of history.

Thus, for even a Great True God to revive this beggar, the backlash from the fabric of time itself would be strong enough to kill the god. This is why, theoretically, time cannot be permanently altered.

However, in practice, methods to manipulate or rewrite time do exist—not many, but not rare either. For example, entities at the level of True Gods can distort time to resurrect fallen demigods.

The contradiction lies in the permanence of the change. A True God might appear to resurrect a demigod, but did the demigod truly and permanently return to life?

The answer is no. There is historical precedent: a True God once resurrected a demigod who should have lived another 6,000 years. However, this demigod suddenly died after just over 1,000 years.

There are numerous similar cases. Historians eventually unraveled the mystery:

The past cannot be permanently altered. What a True God seems to accomplish—reviving a demigod—only temporarily distorts the past. The "real death" of the demigod is momentarily warped in the past timeline, allowing the demigod to "temporarily" exist in the present.

But once time and history self-correct, the demigod resurrected in the present will inevitably perish again.

This led historians to establish an ironclad rule:

Supernatural beings may distort, interfere with, or rewrite the past, but time and history possess self-correcting mechanisms. Thus, no one can permanently alter the past—they can only distort it temporarily.

The past cannot be easily changed, the present is open to manipulation, and the future holds infinite possibilities.

For this reason, historians record their personal past in their Eternal Chronicles to solidify their own history, preventing others from tampering with their life's timeline. At the same time, this also allows them to manipulate their own history as needed.

Rosen hesitated before starting his chronicle. Should he record his current life or his past life?

After a long contemplation, he decided to document his past life first.

He wrote about every single day of his 35 years in vivid detail, as if composing a diary. His entries included not only text but also lifelike illustrations, seamlessly blending writing and art to greatly enhance the realism and power of the recorded history.

Once he began, he couldn't stop. To document 35 years of memory, he spent a full five years, painstakingly crafting the text and drawing countless illustrations.

Fortunately, he had the Time Tower's acceleration and Time Simplification Art to enhance his writing and drawing speed.

After finishing his past life's history, Rosen moved on to recording his current life.

He began with the day he was reborn, starting from his return to age 18, his fusion with the younger Rosen, his awakening to the supernatural, and all his experiences since.

The moment he wrote the first word of his current life, the Eternal Chronicle began to undergo a mysterious transformation that even Rosen failed to notice.

Compared to his past life, his current life was far more complex and extended over 200 years. By the time Rosen finished writing it, decades had passed in the real world.

Finally, Rosen even documented the years he spent creating the Eternal Chronicle itself.

When the final stroke of his pen fell, the Eternal Chronicle was complete.

The Eternal Chronicle began to fuse with the time energies inherent in the history recorded within.

Rosen thought the transformation would be quick, but it took an entire year.

When he saw the attributes of the finished Eternal Chronicle, he realized those decades of effort were well worth it:

[Eternal Chronicle: Miraculous Artifact]

Level: Sequence 3

Miraculous Attribute: The Eternal Chronicle can contain history, allowing historians to more easily correct or rewrite history.

Miraculous Traits:

Historical Recording

Uniqueness Across Heaven and Earth

Eternal Indestructibility

Rosen pondered deeply: why had his Eternal Chronicle become a Miraculous Artifact?

Focusing on the unique trait, Historical Recording, he began to understand.

The older a piece of history, the harder it is to preserve. The further back in time, the more the recorded history deviates from the truth.

Yet, his 35 years of past life history was not only ancient but also complete. It was the oldest and most intact piece of history in existence today.

This confirmed a fact that Rosen had long suspected:

He had not simply time-traveled or reincarnated. Rather, for reasons unknown, he had been asleep for countless years and awakened in the distant future. The history of his era had been forgotten, and even the remnants discovered through the Spirit Realm were incomplete.

Because his history spanned eons, his Eternal Chronicle became a miracle.

The Historical Recording trait was unique. It automatically recorded anything Rosen saw or knew, forming it into historical fragments. Even if these fragments were incomplete, the miraculous trait would slowly repair and complete the missing pieces.

Rosen infused his divine essence into the Eternal Chronicle and attempted to use the Uniqueness trait to influence other historians' chronicles—much like how Mind Canvas could manipulate other artists' canvases.

He failed.

Unlike Mind Canvas, which was a shared skill learned by all artists and thus had universal similarities, every Eternal Chronicle was unique. Each was born from the personal history recorded by its historian.

Since no two chronicles were the same, Rosen's Uniqueness trait couldn't affect them.

Setting aside this limitation, Rosen began using the Historical Recording trait to document all the history he knew.

He recorded:

The memories of the Ancient Dragon God,

The dragon history revised by Suley,

The history of the Kindling Kingdom,

His knowledge of Ancient God Civilization,

And the human history under the World Government.

Of these, the Ancient Dragon God's memories were the most vivid, as they combined both text and highly detailed illustrations drawn directly from memory.

By flipping through those memories, the accompanying visual records elevated the historical authenticity to an unparalleled level.

Rosen flipped open his Eternal Chronicle, landing on a page that documented the day the Ancient Dragon God's eldest son ascended to become a titled demigod. The left side of the page contained written records, while the right side featured an illustration. As divine essence infused the text and image, the Hellfire Red Dragon in the illustration came to life.

Whenever needed, Rosen could summon historical figures or entities from the past. This ability to summon people and objects from history was one of the historian's greatest strengths. The more detailed and accurate the historical record, the lower the energy cost of summoning.

After decades in the Mysterious Study Room, Rosen finally left the hotel, stepping into the streets of Chaos City. Immediately, he could feel hostility emanating from all around him.

This was unsurprising—over the past several decades, Rosen had relentlessly drained every last bit of wealth from the outer city's chaos, looting all the Chaos Coins he could. By now, he was a public enemy, and countless individuals had pooled their Chaos Coins over the years in an attempt to buy his life.

Now Rosen understood how valuable it had been to purchase a 1,000-year protection period from the mysterious donation box. He figured even that strange artifact must be regretting its decision now!

Rosen strolled into the Chaos Shop, emerging shortly after with a few Soul Gems in hand. Most were Sequence 4, with only one being Sequence 3.

Even the supposedly omnipotent Chaos Shop had its limits, as it couldn't provide everything he sought.

Back at his hotel, Rosen used the Soul Gems to strengthen his various supernatural buildings:

Stage of Fate

Heaven's Gate

Demonic Nest

Ashen Castle

Radiant Lighthouse

Divine Beast Pen

Ashen Beehive

Slime Nest

For the first time, these supernatural buildings reached Sequence 4, aligning with his Noble Sequence.

However, Rosen knew this would likely be the last time they could match his growth, as acquiring more Soul Gems would only become increasingly difficult.

The purchasing power of Chaos Coins was undeniable. For a moment, Rosen was tempted to stay in Chaos City forever.

But the inner city was too safe, and the moment he stepped out, no fewer than multiple Sequence 1s would come for his head. While it wasn't the ideal place for growth, it might make a fine retirement spot someday.

Returning to his room, Rosen carefully stored the Sequence 3 Soul Gem.

He then retrieved the History Museum, which he had exchanged for using Chaos Coins.

This museum was the customized creation he had commissioned from Luke Cruz decades ago. While Rosen's main body had been busy penning the Eternal Chronicle, his Self-Portrait Clone had handled the payment. However, Luke Cruz had attempted to swindle him by keeping the museum for himself.

Because both resided in the inner city, Rosen couldn't kill Luke Cruz or even forcefully reclaim his property. He also had no interest in ruining Cruz's reputation.

Instead, Rosen had simply used Chaos Coins to directly exchange for the stolen History Museum, simultaneously teleporting Luke Cruz to the Chaos Sea.

At this moment, Luke Cruz was likely running for his life, pursued by the directors of the three major companies.

Rosen had long controlled Paradise Pharmaceuticals, Glory Foundation had fallen under Daisy's grasp, and Titan Heavy Industries was increasingly dominated by the Hill Dwarf King. The king was on the brink of becoming Titan's chairman, leaving Rosen poised to gain control over all three companies.

With the History Museum in hand, Rosen infused it with divine essence and Bronze Dragon blood, initiating the process of ownership and refinement.

While supernatural buildings were ideally cultivated from the beginning, no building was indestructible. Cultivated structures could also grow in incorrect directions, so it wasn't uncommon to replace them with new acquisitions.

[History Museum: Divine Structure]

Level: Sequence 3

Functional Sections: Exhibit Hall, Storage Vault, Restoration Area, Relic Sealing Chamber

Supernatural Traits:

Time-Space Conversion

Historical Sealing

Perfect Artistry

As Rosen examined the History Museum, he immediately felt his efforts in Chaos City had been worthwhile.

The Relic Sealing Chamber, combined with the Historical Sealing trait, allowed Rosen to harness a portion of the Archaeologist Sequence's power. It also laid a solid foundation for his eventual plan to integrate Chinon's Archaeological Museum into his own.

The Time-Space Conversion trait was particularly remarkable. Not only could it passively align with time-space authorities, but it could also actively transform the museum between physical and intangible forms. This allowed the museum to exist on past timelines, enhancing its compatibility with time-space domains.

The last trait, Perfect Artistry, was not something Rosen had specifically requested. It was an unexpected outcome of Luke Cruz's exceptional craftsmanship during the museum's creation.

This trait made the History Museum a perfect work of art from any angle, and all exhibits within would automatically be displayed in the most aesthetically pleasing and artistic manner, with ideal lighting and arrangements.

The active effects of this trait were even more astonishing: the museum could absorb artistic faith to achieve self-growth and evolution.

This ability to self-evolve made the History Museum far more valuable than a typical Sequence 3 supernatural building.

If Luke Cruz had simply asked for more payment, Rosen would have gladly paid a premium for such an incredible feature.

But attempting to swindle him? That sealed Luke Cruz's fate.

The History Museum and Eternal Chronicle complemented each other perfectly.

The Chronicle recorded historical events, while the museum could house artifacts and relics from corresponding eras. These artifacts could amplify the power contained within historical records, making the historian's abilities even more formidable.

Of course, this meant that historians were notoriously expensive to maintain.

Rosen had anticipated this. He immediately began filling the empty History Museum with exhibits.

Over the years, as he had written the Eternal Chronicle, he had also been collecting artifacts.

His Self-Portrait Clone spent one day each month harvesting Chaos Coins from the outer city. The rest of the time, the clone used data transmission to steal dragon relics and treasures from various historical periods.

Over the decades, Rosen had amassed a considerable collection of dragon artifacts and treasures.

He had been extremely cautious, ensuring he never looted one target too heavily.

After all, there are no secrets under the sun. If the dragons of the Dragon Realm realized their relics were being systematically plundered, the news would spread to other races. Eventually, no one would dare leave their treasures unguarded.

(End of Chapter)

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