White Jade Spirit Body Perfected, A Call for Aid

Inside the Land of Origin, Lu Yuan cultivated diligently within the Gravity Room of the Training Hall.

On the twentieth day, he absorbed approximately 150,000 Fourth-rank Spirit Crystals' worth of Spirit Power—bringing his total expenditure to nearly 400,000—and at last tempered his White Jade Spirit Body to the perfect level.

Once the White Jade Spirit Body gene reached perfection, its amplification had roughly doubled compared to when he first acquired it, and the effect of the White Jade Spirit Body's Combat Techniques had likewise more than doubled since the moment of evolution.

His strength had improved enormously.

Even against a peak Second-rank Lord Grade opponent, Lu Yuan was confident he could achieve a clean kill without relying on Mechanical Load.

After that, he turned his attention to tempering his second Nature's Touch Combat Technique.

As his strength grew, so too did the time he could sustain in the Land of Origin.

Four days later, after absorbing close to 30,000 Fourth-rank Spirit Crystals and tempering Nature's Touch to roughly forty percent, his Light Gate repaired itself. He stepped out of the Land of Origin.

Lu Yuan materialized in his room in the military district barracks. After a quick wash, he left.

The common room was empty—Groat and the others were either in the Land of Origin or working in the camp's cultivation chambers.

By the rules, he had one full day of rest remaining. Their patrol shift wouldn't begin until noon tomorrow. After more than twenty days in the Gravity Room, Lu Yuan figured he'd earned the time to properly unwind. Burning himself out before the rotation even started would be pointless.

*Balance in cultivation is balance in all things.*

He headed out and drifted through the military district first, then wandered over into the civilian quarter.

The Forbidden Zone's defensive camp wasn't purely a military installation—it also served as a resupply hub for independent adventurers. Quite a few Second-rank and even Third-rank Gene Warriors made their base here.

Unlike Lu Yuan, most Gene Warriors faced real risk of dying in the Land of Origin. He had only died once in the three months since his Awakening, and only because he'd stumbled into a Mirage Dragon—a creature of pure legend. Ordinary Gene Warriors might die every few days, some in consecutive runs.

The stronger a warrior, the longer their Light Gate took to recover after death. At First-rank, a single death had cost him a full week. At Second-rank, a death would probably run one to two months.

For ordinary Gene Warriors, hunting Feral Beasts in the real world was just as critical a source of resources. The civilian quarter had plenty of shops dealing in Feral Beast materials and medicinal herbs gathered from the Forbidden Zone—the sight brought back memories of selling Land of Origin materials to Xue Wang.

While strolling through the streets, Lu Yuan spotted Maige in military uniform, on patrol through the civilian quarter with five Guard Corps soldiers.

Maige did a double take, then grinned. "Hey—Lu Yuan. Out for a walk?"

"Yeah." Lu Yuan nodded. "Looks like you joined the camp security detail, Senior Maige?"

Maige shrugged with a rueful smile. "Not much glory in it—fewer combat merits. But at least it's safer. I'm not a freak like you. Joining the Vanguard Scout Unit? You might die without knowing what hit you."

They chatted for a few minutes. Maige's squadmates had been watching from the plaza during the previous day's evaluation fights and recognized Lu Yuan immediately; knowing his reputation, they greeted him warmly. After a round of brief introductions, Lu Yuan said his goodbyes.

He ran into one other Talent Camp student on his circuit, traded a few sentences, then decided the wandering had run its course and headed back to the barracks.

He settled in and pulled up the Battle Net.

The post about him trapping Innate King Grade opponents had only been up for a few days in real time, but it was still gaining traction—it had made the front page of Battle Net news. He gave it barely a glance.

After a quick look at news from the White Cloud Continent, he browsed the marketplace, searching for powerful or rare Transcendent Genes. He was still Second-rank; from here to the War God's Ninth-rank, he'd need seven more Transcendent Genes, and each one deserved careful thought. He couldn't etch them yet, but identifying something exceptional and banking it for later was always sound. Unfortunately, anyone sitting on a truly powerful and rare Transcendent Gene wasn't likely to list it in a general marketplace. The odds were better at the Auction House on the White Cloud Continent. His search turned up nothing.

He checked his messages next. Li Qinghe was in seclusion at home. Si Tingyu was stationed at the front lines—by all reports, the Feral Beasts there had grown considerably stronger.

In the group chat for Dormitory 112, Yang Ping was complaining at length about life in the rear camp. Maige had called it exactly right: they'd been assigned as support to the research types. Some days it was sorting herbs for Alchemists. Others, processing raw materials for Artifact Refiners—or just hauling heavy equipment from one location to another. At least they still got their time in the Land of Origin and weren't falling behind on cultivation. Yang Ping's grievance was more about boredom than hardship.

Si Tingfeng, by contrast, was stationed at Camp 899—less than a hundred kilometers from the front line. The Feral Beasts in that sector were far stronger, and he'd already received a spirited welcome in the form of a mass assault on his camp the moment he arrived. More dangerous than Lu Yuan's posting, but with Si Tingfeng's abilities, nothing he couldn't handle.

When both Si Tingfeng and Yang Ping heard that Lu Yuan had actually joined the Scout Unit carrying the highest annual mortality rate, they were stunned. Both urged him to transfer to something safer. Lu Yuan had no intention of doing so.

Evening came. Groat and the others filed back from the Land of Origin and the training facilities and pulled Lu Yuan along to the mess hall. After dinner, Groat reminded everyone to rest properly and go into tomorrow sharp.

Patrols started the next day. Anyone who stepped outside the camp running on poor sleep was treating their own life like it didn't matter.

Lu Yuan took the reminder to heart. He turned in early and slept soundly.

The following day, midday.

Lu Yuan, Groat, Tang Ji, Ding Wen, Yang Qiu, and Stacie assembled in the common room, all six of them suited up in their Gene Armaments.

Groat cracked his knuckles. "Move out. We report for handoff, then we deploy."

They left the barracks and made their way to the camp's main entrance. After signing out at the guard station, the six of them passed through the gate and left the defensive camp behind.

Camp 257 sat atop a broad, flat-topped mountain. The path down was steep, but to Gene Warriors it might as well have been level ground.

At the base of the mountain stretched a dense forest. The trees were enormous—trunks that would take several people joining hands to encircle—their canopies blotting out most of the sky. The ground beneath was thick with fallen leaves, scattered undergrowth, and trailing vines.

Groat glanced at the screen of the black device in his hand. "Our sector this rotation is Zone 6—roughly a twenty-kilometer radius. Let's go."

The six of them blurred into motion, weaving between the massive trunks at full speed.

They had covered only a few kilometers when the device in Groat's hand flashed red.

Everyone stopped.

Groat's brow furrowed as he looked down. His expression turned grave. "It's Squad 8. Distress signal."

Ding Wen's eyes sharpened. "Location?"

"Southeast. Twelve kilometers."

"Then we move. Two minutes at full sprint—let's not waste any of it."

Their expressions hardened in unison. They turned and ran.

Somewhere in the forest, six Guard Corps scouts in Gene Armaments held a tight defensive formation, watching the treeline.

Not far away, dozens of wolves crept forward—pitch-black from snout to tail, bodies armored in plates of dark scale, shoulder height over two meters. Among them, two stood nearly three meters tall, the pale-blue light in their eyes flat and cold with killing intent.

The scouts felt it pressing against them. Their faces were drawn tight.

"Damn it—how did a Black-Scale Demon Wolf pack get into this sector? What in the hell were the scouts ahead of us doing?!"

"Two Third-rank Bosses, the rest Third-rank Elite. Too many. We can't hold this."

A tall, black-haired warrior gripping a tower shield swept his gaze across the wolves without stopping, sweat tracing lines down his forehead. "Captain—what's the call?"

A middle-aged man holding a Staff had his brow furrowed into deep lines. "Distress signal's already out. We hold until help arrives." He glanced to his side. "Lin—how bad is it?"

Beside him, a black-haired man stood with his leather armor torn open, his entire arm gone below the shoulder. At his side, a man in a blue robe worked his Staff in slow, steady arcs, threading ribbons of water into the wound, knitting flesh together.

The one-armed man showed his teeth in a hard grin. "Don't worry about me. Nothing fatal. I'm not sitting this one out."

Then the lead wolf threw back its head and howled.

Every Black-Scale Demon Wolf lunged at once.

"Here they come—hold the line!"

The captain's voice cracked like a whip. Spirit Power surged through all six scouts as Combat Techniques ignited, and the two sides crashed together in a storm of sound and blood.

Through the forest, Lu Yuan's squad moved in a series of explosive strides, each leap carrying them the better part of a hundred meters. At full output, a Second-rank Boss Grade warrior could approach a hundred meters per second—superhuman by any ordinary measure.

In under two minutes, they closed to the signal's origin.

Distant booming, snarling, and battle cries reached them through the trees, growing louder with every second.

"Stay sharp on all sides!" Groat kept his voice low but firm.

Tang Ji peeled off ahead, flickering between trunks—as an Assassin Type, his role was to range the perimeter, and his speed was built for it.

Lu Yuan pushed to the front. As the Guardian Type, he'd be the first to meet whatever came head-on.

They had already put down a handful of Feral Beasts on the approach, all Second-rank, none of them a real threat. The sounds of battle ahead swelled rapidly.

"Almost there!" Yang Qiu called.

Faces set, they broke between two massive trunks and the scene opened before them.

A mass of Black-Scale Demon Wolves swarmed the remnants of Scout Squad 8 at the center. Six scouts had started the fight; two were down now, motionless in spreading pools of blood—alive or dead, impossible to know. The four still standing were drenched in red, riddled with wounds of every size. Around them, more than a dozen wolf corpses lay strewn across the ground.

One of the three-meter wolves had slipped past the captain's wooden spear and charged straight into the group's center. The captain—barely on his feet—roared and drove his Spirit Power outward. A wooden construct burst from the earth and threw itself in front of the beast, grappling it in place. The effort nearly took him down; his whole body swayed.

Lu Yuan's expression shifted.

"Save them!" Groat bellowed at his side.

Lu Yuan snapped to. Something cold and precise flashed in his eyes. White jade radiance blazed across his body; he planted a foot and launched forward, leaving a crater in the earth behind him. He appeared in front of one of the wolves in an instant.

The wolf had no time to react. A black sword-flash crossed through it in a single motion. The two-meter beast came apart in a spray of blood.

Lu Yuan didn't slow down.

Behind the pack, the one surviving Boss Grade wolf—the three-meter one—had been watching. When Lu Yuan's squad arrived, the pale-blue light in its eyes sharpened into a point.

"Aooo—!"

The Boss wolf charged.

The near-collapsed captain stared, eyes snapping wide. "Watch out—that one's a Third-rank high-level Boss!"

Ice shot down Groat's spine. He tore through the wolves between him and Lu Yuan, shouting as he went. "Lu Yuan—fall back!"

Lu Yuan looked at the charging wolf. The coldness in his eyes didn't shift.

White jade radiance blazed brighter, brighter—for a moment he looked like a figure carved from living jade.

Black Steel Force—surge.

Mechanical Load—on.

He stepped forward. The greatsword came down.

The wolf poured black spirit light across its entire body, concentrating the force into the massive claws of one forelimb. Power condensed into a claw-shadow nearly three meters across and swept down at him.

Sword met shadow.

**BOOM.**

The shockwave tore outward. Wolves caught at the edges tumbled through the air. A cascade of leaves rained from every branch overhead.

A shriek of pain—

The Boss wolf's claw was gone, severed clean at the joint. Blood geysered from the stump.

Every eye in the clearing went wide—Groat's squad, the surviving scouts of Squad 8, every one of them staring.

Lu Yuan followed through without pause. The greatsword swept in a horizontal arc across the wolf's throat.

**Shhk.**

Blood erupted. The three-meter corpse skidded several meters across the ground and crashed into a tree trunk with enough force to shake the whole tree.