Breaking Through to Battle Venerable, Emperor Grade Gene

Adams, standing nearby, spoke up with a smile:

"I can't pretend I didn't hear that. Our Amy has quite the relationship with A-Yuan too. A-Yuan, my offer still stands — you're always welcome to join Tianrao City."

"Oh?"

Li Xinghai and Si Qi glanced over at Adams.

Si Qi's expression turned serious. She said plainly:

"Lu Yuan belongs to the Red Maple Empire, Adams."

Adams simply smiled and said nothing.

As the tension thickened, Barton beside them let out a dry cough and stepped in to smooth things over:

"All right, you three — stop embarrassing yourselves in front of the juniors."

The three of them withdrew their gazes and let it go.

With everyone watching, Lu Yuan made his way back to his seat. Weili, seated beside him, silently gave him a thumbs-up.

The warcraft returned to the defensive camp.

Meng Jiang passed word of their victory down the line, and the mood across the camp lifted.

Now they could finally move forward with developing the Ice Vein Crystal mines on Ice Vein Star. All the effort spent guarding this region had paid off.

That evening, Meng Jiang had everyone gather for a brief celebration.

The following day, they exchanged farewells.

Adams departed with Wang Lingling and the other geniuses, heading back to Tianrao City. Even as he was leaving, he didn't forget to tell Lu Yuan to visit Tianrao City whenever he got the chance.

As Adams spoke with Lu Yuan, Li Xinghai and Si Qi — who hadn't yet left — kept their eyes fixed on Adams the entire time, as though terrified he might spirit Lu Yuan away on the spot.

Wang Lingling simply smiled as she said goodbye to Lu Yuan, and left it at that.

After Adams and his group departed, the other geniuses from the various military districts and major families took their leave as well. The Talent Camp's geniuses, led by Elder Yu and several Battle Sovereign-rank instructors, departed the defensive camp and headed home.

Aboard the warcraft.

Elder Yu looked over the group of them and smiled warmly.

"Each of you contributed to securing the Ice Vein Crystal mines, and the Talent Camp will not shortchange that. Lu Yuan in particular — not only did he defeat three Battle Venerables single-handedly in the arena duels, he killed four Gnoll geniuses during the team battle, dealing a serious blow to the enemy. His contribution is no less than what he accomplished during the Beast Tide. I notified the Principal yesterday, and he has approved a reward of two million Credits for Lu Yuan."

Lu Yuan blinked. A surge of pleasant surprise moved through him.

He'd expected some kind of reward when he came to participate in the competition — but nothing this generous.

Two million Credits. He just needed to save up a little more and he could buy another Transcendent Gene.

The other geniuses around him watched with undisguised envy.

Elder Yu continued:

"Beyond Lu Yuan, Si Tingxue also performed admirably — defeating four Battle General-rank fighters in the arena duels and contributing strongly to the team battle. The Principal has approved five hundred thousand Credits for her. As for the rest, based on individual performance: Rebecca defeated one Gnoll genius and receives one hundred thousand Credits; Weili defeated one Gnoll genius and receives one hundred thousand Credits..."

Elder Yu worked through all seven of them in short order.

Lu Yuan's share was naturally the highest. After Lu Yuan and Si Tingxue, each person who had defeated a Gnoll genius received one hundred thousand Credits, while those who hadn't received twenty thousand.

Twenty thousand Credits was still nothing to dismiss — equivalent to two months of top-ranked Combat Rankings rewards. It was nowhere near Lu Yuan and Si Tingxue's haul, but smiles spread across every face.

The warcraft didn't return to the Talent Camp until evening.

Lu Yuan and the others disembarked, said their goodbyes, and went their separate ways.

Lu Yuan parted from Si Tingxue and the others and headed back to the dormitory.

Inside, Si Tingfeng and Yang Ping were eating. Maige was nowhere to be seen — probably in the Land of Origin, or training somewhere.

At the sight of Lu Yuan walking in, both of them lit up. Si Tingfeng broke into a grin.

"A-Yuan, you're back? Word is you killed a bunch of Gnoll geniuses during the competition — is that true? There were several Battle Venerable-rank geniuses in there, and you took all of them out?"

Lu Yuan blinked. "Senior Tingfeng, how did you find out so fast?"

Si Tingfeng raised an eyebrow.

"I asked the Imperial Sister specifically. I was a bit worried about you guys. Didn't expect you to pull off something this big."

Lu Yuan nodded in understanding.

"I suppose you could say that."

Yang Ping looked up from shoveling food into his mouth.

"No matter what Brother Yuan pulls off, I'm used to it by now. Brother Yuan is a complete freak."

Si Tingfeng gave a reluctant nod of agreement.

Living with Lu Yuan, the two of them knew better than anyone what he was capable of. Whether at the Aier Mechanical Ruins, during the Beast Tide, or now — everything Lu Yuan did seemed to defy all expectation. They'd long since stopped being surprised.

"A-Yuan, you haven't eaten yet, right? Come sit down."

Si Tingfeng smiled and waved him over.

After dinner, Lu Yuan returned to his room.

His phone buzzed. A message from the Academy — two million Credits had been deposited. He checked his balance: 2.91 million Credits. Some of that had trickled in from selling various items after his earlier purchase of Radiant Brilliance. Nearly at three million.

Lu Yuan didn't rush to hunt down a new Transcendent Gene. He wanted to keep saving, then buy something more expensive when the time came.

For now, with the Ice Vein Star competition behind him, there was nothing pressing on the immediate horizon.

He decided to focus on training — push through to Battle Venerable as quickly as possible, and once he reached the peak of that rank, make a run at the Prodigy Rankings. Then he could auction off the troves of treasure from the Aier Mechanical Ruins, build up his resources, and prepare for the breakthroughs ahead.

And so Lu Yuan settled back into his daily routine: twelve hours a day in the Gravity Room, the rest of his time split between the Simulation Room to sharpen his combat instincts and returning to rest.

Red Maple City. Training Hall. Gravity Room.

Lu Yuan sat cross-legged inside, Spirit Power surging continuously through his body.

His Gene Chain glimmered with brilliant white light.

After burning through more than three million Fifth-tier Spirit Crystals, he had finally tempered Space Teleportation to full perfection.

At the crown of his Gene Chain, the white mist dissolved, revealing the gene lock chains beneath.

The Battle Venerable-rank Gene Locks, combined with his three King Grade Transcendent Genes and one Lord Grade Transcendent Gene, had produced a grand total of eighteen lock chains.

Lu Yuan showed no sign of distress.

His haul from the core region of the Aier Mechanical Ruins had been substantial — including Third-rank Gene Evolution Fluid. Its effect was identical to other Gene Evolution Fluids: once consumed, each bottle could shatter ten Third-to-Fourth-rank Gene Locks.

Lu Yuan produced two bottles and drank them one after the other.

Specialized Spirit Power seeped into his Gene Locks, and under the surging flood, the chains cracked and snapped in rapid succession.

When the last lock shattered, the white mist cleared entirely, and a fifth Gene Chain emerged.

An immense surge of power welled up inside him.

Lu Yuan had broken through to Battle Venerable.

He sat with the sensation for a moment, feeling the fresh current flooding through him, and a quiet smile spread across his face.

Breaking through to Battle Venerable meant he could evolve his Transcendent Genes again — and engrave a new one. His strength was about to take another massive leap forward.

Evolving a gene required his body to be at peak condition. After days of training and the strain of shattering his lock chains, however, he felt drained. He decided to rest for the night.

He returned to his rented room and slept soundly. By morning he was on his feet, refreshed and clear-headed.

*Better do this in the bathroom,* he thought, weighing his options. Last time he'd evolved a gene, the sheets had been soaked through with blood, and the attendant had given him the strangest look afterward. He had no intention of repeating that.

He stepped into the bathtub, sat down, and began.

The first gene he chose was White Jade Spirit Body.

Evolving it from Lord Grade to King Grade wasn't particularly taxing given his current physique. A low, spreading ache moved through him, and then the process was over.

**King Grade Transcendent Gene: Purple Crystal Spirit Body**

Similar in character to White Jade Spirit Body, but with significantly stronger defenses, greater improvements across all attributes, and an enhanced capacity for Spirit Power recovery. An advanced form of its predecessor in every sense.

Lu Yuan was satisfied.

*And this is only King Grade — what does Emperor Grade look like?*

Along with the evolution, the gene's inherited knowledge flowed into him. It traced a lineage of rock, metal, and earth — he could now exert fine-grained control over stone and metal in his vicinity. As the gene continued to evolve, that mastery would only deepen.

He evolved it again.

This time, the pain was ferocious. Blood wept from his pores, and it felt as though every cell of flesh in his body was being dismantled and rebuilt from scratch.

Evolving from King Grade to Emperor Grade was a transformation at the most fundamental level. He had only just broken through to Battle Venerable — an ordinary Battle Venerable attempting to engrave an Emperor Grade gene would be courting death. Lu Yuan could manage it because evolution imposed a lighter burden on him, but even so, the agony was extreme.

Time lost all meaning. After what felt like an eternity, he opened his eyes. Light flickered through them in brief, sharp pulses.

Across the surface of his body, dried blood crumbled away, revealing skin as pale and smooth as jade. Across that skin ran faint golden traceries — strange markings that seemed to carry some deep, inscrutable power, extraordinary to behold.

He focused his mind, and the golden markings faded from sight.

**Emperor Grade Gene: Earth Spirit Body**

A profoundly powerful Transcendent Gene. Whenever his feet touched solid ground, it drew on the power of the earth to continuously restore both Spirit Power and physical stamina, while providing a meaningful boost to his defenses.

When fully activated, Earth Spirit Body dramatically amplified his defensive capabilities, while also delivering significant gains to strength and agility — and even a portion of his Mental Power.

Far beyond what Purple Crystal Spirit Body had offered.

At the same time, his command over rock and metal had improved considerably. He could now construct rudimentary Combat Techniques through that mastery alone — though at this stage their output was roughly equivalent to Common or Elite Grade. Even reaching Boss Grade would be a stretch.

More startlingly, he found that he could exert a subtle influence on gravity across a localized area. A derivative application of earth force.

*If I push this gene all the way to Divine Grade someday,* the thought struck him with sudden intensity, *could I actually generate a black hole? Even if not — a neutron star should be within reach, right?*

That was genuinely terrifying potential.

Beyond the combat applications, the base enhancement from Earth Spirit Body alone already exceeded what a fully-tempered, fully-activated White Jade Spirit Body had provided. And if he activated the Earth Spirit Body technique directly, the gap became almost absurd.

Experiencing it firsthand was the only way to truly understand it — Emperor Grade techniques and King Grade techniques really were in entirely different leagues. The gulf between them was staggering.

Lu Yuan breathed out slowly, washed the dried blood from his skin, and stepped out of the tub. He felt strangely light, as though the ascent his life force had just undergone had left the whole of him less tethered to the earth than before.

He rested briefly, then resumed.

Next, Life Light underwent its evolution. The excruciating pain returned — cells shedding their old forms, his life essence ascending once more. When it finally passed, Life Light had reached Emperor Grade.

**Emperor Grade Gene: Life Tide**

Life Tide was also a healing-type technique, significantly more powerful than Life Light, and capable of targeting large groups simultaneously. A group-healing ability, in essence.

But more than the healing potential, it was the inherited knowledge that came with the Emperor Grade gene that excited Lu Yuan most. His understanding and mastery of life and natural forces had deepened again.

Now, without even activating the healing technique itself, he could draw on life and natural force through Spirit Power alone for a meaningful curative effect. More than that — he could, to a limited extent, erode an opponent's vitality. That particular capability was still constrained by his current grasp of these forces; it would have no real effect on someone at his own level, amounting to little more than an advantage against weaker targets. Even so, Lu Yuan was satisfied.

The enhancement effects brought by Life Tide were powerful across the board. Mental Power remained the most dramatically boosted attribute, as before, but the gains to his other attributes had grown substantially compared to Life Light. It seemed that as a Transcendent Gene advanced to higher grades, its improvements gradually trended toward balance across all areas.

That was pleasing to observe. He intended to eventually push a number of genes all the way to Divine Grade, after all.

He rested briefly, then moved straight into the next evolution.

The same process, the third gene. Mechanical Dominance evolved swiftly to its Emperor Grade form.

**Emperor Grade Gene: Mechanical King**

His dominion over mechanical lifeforms had advanced further still, and the inherited knowledge it carried reached into mechanical theory far deeper than anything he'd accessed before.

*I could probably construct Fourth-rank or even Fifth-rank mechanical armaments without any life component,* he realized.

If he eventually depleted all the resources in the Aier Mechanical Ruins and found himself short on Spirit Crystals, manufacturing and selling mechanical armaments might actually be a solid income stream.

The enhancement effects were, naturally, excellent as well.

Last, Lu Yuan began evolving Space Teleportation.

This evolution was the most agonizing by far. The cost was the highest as well — nearly six million Fifth-tier Spirit Crystals before it was done.

His reserves were deep enough to weather it, but the drain still stung.

When he finally opened his eyes and looked at the new spatial Transcendent Gene that had emerged, however, the ache over the Spirit Crystals dissolved entirely. An excited smile spread across his face.