Another several years passed.
Various pieces of feedback were gradually collected.
The gods and demons who created worlds outside of the world, within the chaos, summed up their experience: while creating minor worlds was indeed relatively easy, integrating them into the Eternal World proved problematic. The Eternal World did not incorporate the minor worlds within its world barrier but rather directly devoured them, manifesting them as small islands on its ocean surface, or evolving them in desolate areas at its edges.
The initial conjecture was that the Eternal World disdained these minor worlds.
The entire world origin was transformed into a small island, presented as such.
Of course, there were some benefits, albeit minuscule. Rank and status were out of the question. The only advantage was a slight reduction in the difficulty of comprehending laws, a "slight" so subtle that it was almost imperceptible without careful observation and comparison.
It could only be described as "better than nothing."
Subsequently, some, unwilling to accept this, began attempting to create medium-sized worlds. Some managed to succeed, while others failed, their worlds collapsing, causing them to suffer backlash. One individual, perhaps due to stubbornness or some other reason, refused to give up even when on the brink of exhaustion. Consequently, they perished during the act of world creation, which in turn stabilized the collapsing world.
Not only that, but the world's origin and foundation were significantly enhanced.
The entire world infinitely approached the state of a great world.
Furthermore, the god or demon who perished in the act of creation merely "perished," not utterly died. Their innate immortal true spirit merged with the world, becoming the world consciousness. Although they were henceforth trapped within the world, unable to leave or enter, they were at least alive.
Moreover, within the world, they could be considered invincible.
Concurrently, as the world advanced, they could continue to improve, and perhaps when the world reached a certain level, they might be able to break free again.
However, precisely because of this, they dared not fuse the medium-sized world they had created and become the spirit of, with the Eternal World. They were uncertain of the Eternal World's disposition towards world spirits – whether it would allow them to exist, gradually wear them down, or absorb and devour them. There were no precedents to follow.
They were unwilling to gamble with their own lives.
Therefore, they could only remain suspended outside the Eternal World for the time being, maintaining a certain distance, yet not daring to detach completely. They utilized their consciousness to propel the entire world to absorb external chaotic energy more rapidly.
Simultaneously, they consciously sorted and converted the spiritual energy within the world, continuously reshaping the world's structure to be more conducive to absorbing chaotic energy for improvement.
Through experimentation, the current conclusion was that a conscious world spirit actively promoting the world's absorption and transformation of chaotic energy was about a thousand times more efficient than the world operating autonomously. Furthermore, there seemed to be room for further progress. For instance, after some innate origin energy within the world was transformed into embryonic forms of innate gods and demons, the world's efficiency in absorbing chaotic energy increased manifold. Placing these embryonic forms of innate gods and demons in key locations within the world further boosted efficiency. It was estimated that once these gods and demons were born, there would be additional improvements.
In essence, their endeavors made the medium-sized world, obtained at the cost of their lives, the most likely candidate to become a great world the earliest. However, due to the immense cost, the irreversible process, and the lack of guaranteed success, no one emulated this path.
As for the gods and demons who sought ownerless stars, most of them eventually abandoned the idea of refining them. When they attempted to refine them, they discovered that these ownerless stars strongly resisted being refined. Forcing the refinement would only result in mutual destruction.
Finally, after much effort, they found a method of refinement.
However, this method was unacceptable to them.
The best way to refine these stars without encountering resistance or obstruction was to immerse one's innate immortal true spirit within the star. Then, utilizing the star's origin, a corresponding innate stellar god or demon body with the star's attributes could be nurtured. This direct shared origin with the star meant it would not reject them, and they could even perfectly wield the star's power.
Concurrently, they would gain the rank of the star's lord.
This sounded appealing, but the gods and demons present were all formidable. Destroying these stars was not particularly difficult with a mere gesture. Now, to refine these stars, they had to abandon their own hard-cultivated innate bodies. Wasn't that pure madness?
Furthermore, this was not the ancient era, where nurturing processes were undisturbed and safe. If the war between the three tribes were to erupt in the starry sky, it was unknown how many stars would be destroyed. If they had not successfully nurtured and emerged by then, wouldn't they be directly annihilated?
Such a risky endeavor with minimal returns was something no one was willing to gamble on. At most, they would find some junior disciples, or descendants with exceedingly poor talent, and arrange for them to undertake such tasks. They themselves had no need to do so.
Meanwhile, attempts to communicate with the ancient innate gods and demons slumbering within top-tier stars like Taiyin, Taiyang, and Ziwei, to awaken them and inquire about the situation, or to seek out the gods and demons in the Nine Heavens and the Underworld, all failed.
The Nine Heavens and the Underworld simply could not be found.
They couldn't even find their edges.
It was as if they had inexplicably vanished.
As for the ancient innate gods and demons who had already merged with stars like Taiyin and Taiyang, they had long since fused completely with those stars. Their innate god and demon bodies had dissolved in the process of merging. Their innate immortal true spirits still existed within the core of the stars, but the surrounding law auras were too dense. Taking the innate immortal true spirit of the Solar God within the core of the Sun Star as an example, the divine souls of the gods and demons who had previously attempted to awaken him, even with their strongest defensive measures, were shattered by the terrifying law auras when they were still tens of millions of miles away from the Solar God's innate immortal true spirit.
Even with the protection of a high-grade innate spiritual treasure, they could not get close, let alone awaken the being.
This led them to suspect that even if the Solar God had not yet attained enlightenment, the essence of his innate immortal true spirit was no less than that of an enlightened being, perhaps even stronger.
Otherwise, there wouldn't be such a vast disparity between them.
Of course, these were merely their conjectures. The reality was that they simply couldn't get close and had no understanding of the Solar God's immortal true spirit's condition.
They only knew that the being had not perished and was extremely powerful.
But certainly not conscious.
Most other top-tier stars that had fused with innate gods and demons were similar, though the innate immortal true spirits within those stars were not as terrifying as those within the three stars of Taiyin, Taiyang, and Ziwei.
However, they were all similarly difficult to directly contact.
Let alone the extent of awakening them.
After this series of explorations, the gods and demons found themselves bewildered by even more unanswered questions.