Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

Uhtred had said he needed to make a statement.

However, that statement did not come immediately. A full month passed after his return from the trials, and during that entire time, Uhtred and his crew remained completely silent. While the rest of the world devolved into chaotic power struggles, Uhtred’s territory stayed isolated, insulated from the outside noise.

He was powerful, but he was not naive. Looking at the new global leaderboards, Uhtred recognized a clear reality. Factions like the United New Eden World Government, La Familia Suprema, and the Free Ascenders’ Guild had aggressively expanded their reach over the past thirty days, securing vast swaths of land and resources across multiple continents.

By comparison, his own 2,000-square-meter territory looked like child’s play.

If he was going to make a statement, Uhtred wanted it to be an undeniable projection of sovereignty. Power alone was not enough, the rest of the planet needed to see that his territory was a fortified, self-sufficient domain that no faction could breach.

So, while the world reshuffled itself, Uhtred spent thirty days transforming his territory from the ground up.

Using his reserve of multiversal tokens, Uhtred expanded his territory borders exponentially. By the end of the month, his domain covered a staggering 450,000 square meters, nearly the size of Vatican City from pre-integration Earth.

The cost of such a territory alone was a whooping 45,000 multiversal tokens, a sum that would bankrupt entire mid-tier factions. And that did not include the internal development. Such a massive expense was nearly even more than Uhtred’s net worth. However, he hadn’t just been spending alone. He had also been making lots of money.

Along with the Embassy Flag he had received from the System back in the early days of the integration — which granted a free 100,000 square meter territory — he had been able to procure such a vast land. Anyone who had seen Uhtred’s territory a month ago would not recognize it now.

Aside from the size of the land alone, the most drastic additions were the high-grade essence-gathering arrays. Having spent an entire month inside the Age of Abundance trial grounds where essence was thick enough to feel like liquid air, returning to Earth’s thin essence density felt stifling to Uhtred. He splurged heavily on top-tier cultivation arrays that actively drew in ambient essence, creating localized pockets of hyper-dense essence for his people to cultivate.

Alongside the arrays came new architecture, defensive formations, housing sectors for the new members, and, for the first time, an official long-distance teleportation circle.

Once the teleportation circle was established, a new sub-panel appeared on Uhtred’s System interface, displaying a list of publicly available landing points across the planet. Those landing points belonged to people who also had teleportation circles, and had made them publicly available for entry. Owners could choose whether to allow entry or not.

Among those listed landing points, Uhtred could even see a node located inside the Vanezzi territory... though it only opened once in a while before being closed off again.

It seemed even the La Familia La Suprema were wary of Uhtred’s response. They had received reports, surely, of the death of one of their lieutenants in Uhtred’s territory, along with the hundred men that were sent there.

They already knew Uhtred was hostile with them. Yet, over the course of the next four weeks, he did absolutely nothing. And that was what unnerved them the most.

Had Uhtred immediately marched on their base seeking out blood, they would’ve at least known where they stood. The deed would have been done, and the fight would have been over. Instead, Uhtred left them dangling in a state of suffocating paranoia, keeping them waiting for a strike that never seemed to come.

And it wasn’t only them either. The United New Eden World Government was equally tense. At this point, their information network was now very extensive. They had brought back lots of government officials and talents that cut across previous world borders.

With their information network, they had gotten the details of everything that occurred on the continent of Australia. They had heard of Uhtred’s feats and reputation. They knew the specifics of what occurred there, and they knew that both he and Zara had single-handedly clawed a victory back for humans against the Ancient variants.

If it wasn’t for them, humanity would’ve lost this first System evaluation instead of the draw the trial ended with.

Beforehand, it wasn’t public knowledge to those on the main continents that Uhtred and Zara were together as a force. So hearing the details of the trials, knowing now that Uhtred and Zara, the two anomalies far above everyone else, belonged to the same team, made Uhtred an even more dangerous threat to the World Government.

They kept careful surveillance on his territory throughout the four weeks of his silence — though from a safe distance.

Meanwhile, during the time Uhtred remained silent, the world on the outside also underwent lots of changes.

The returnees from the trials had come back with hardened mindsets and zero patience for old-world bureaucracy. They refused to submit to the new global laws being passed by the World Government, leading to constant skirmishes across every continent.

Black Sun was one of the key figures in these clashes.

During the Trial of Hunger, Black Sun had established a massive, organized camp that saved thousands from starvation. When the trial ended, thousands of returnees migrated toward his territory in the Black Isles to join his banner. The World Government, desperate to prevent Black Sun from amassing a massive army, sent official enforcers to intercept and block the migrating ascenders, resulting in bloody battles across the coastal regions.

King Alexei’s territory was even worse. When the World Government sent three high-level ascender envoys to demand his compliance, King Alexei did not bother negotiating. He personally stepped out and slaughtered all three on the spot. His open hostility immediately shot him up to the top of active threats on the World Government’s radar..

Meanwhile, La Familia Suprema was fighting a war on a completely different front.

Their primary conflict was not with the top solo rankers, but with the Castiglione family. Back on pre-integration Earth, the Castigliones had been a powerful Italian family that dominated heavy industries, shipping, energy, and the corporate sector. There were even rumors that they ran their country’s government behind the scenes, alongside whispers tying them to the mafia.

Now, though, those didn’t seem like rumors any longer. They were blatantly contesting for power, employing their vast expertise alongside classic mafia tactics.

Their main rivals were the Vanezzi family — La Familia Suprema. Their paths to power were strikingly similar. But unlike the Vanezzis, who had chosen to remain on the continent during the trials to seize territory, the Castiglione family had sent their primary line of heirs and top combat talents directly into the trial grounds.

It was a massive gamble that paid off immensely.

Isolde Castiglione had emerged from the trials as a Level 24 powerhouse, easily outranking every ascender who had stayed behind on the main continents. Supported by her uncles, brothers, and cousins, who had all returned from the trials between Levels 14 and 20, the Castiglione family aggressively moved to reclaim their historical dominance, directly clashing with the Vanezzi family.

As battles, political shuffling, and land grabs raged across the globe, thirty days slipped by.