Emperor Grade Spirit Technique, One Year

"Real business? What kind of real business?"

Lu Yuan looked at Si Tingyu with mild puzzlement.

Si Tingyu smiled and said:

"Your Steel Body cultivation has hit a wall. I want to teach you something different. I've been watching your battles — your Combat Techniques tend toward all-around amplification, with special bonuses to defense and enhancements to both strength and speed. You've also mastered spatial Combat Techniques. Am I right?"

Lu Yuan nodded. "Yes, Mentor."

"If you were an ordinary Guardian Type warrior who specialized in shields, I'd consider pushing you to further specialize in defensive capabilities. But your path is similar to mine — you strengthen your attack abilities while maintaining strong personal defenses, giving your overall combat power a more well-rounded foundation. The one thing your current Combat Techniques lack is a truly powerful offensive ability. I found an Emperor Grade Spirit Technique in the family vault that's suited for greatsword use. It might fill in what you're missing."

Si Tingyu explained.

Lu Yuan was surprised — and then quietly moved.

He hadn't expected Si Tingyu to go out of her way to search her family's vault for a Spirit Technique suited to him specifically.

And Emperor Grade at that.

At its core, a Spirit Technique was simply an application of Spirit Power — a form of Combat Technique, in essence. But while Combat Techniques came built into Gene Armaments and could be used instinctively without any training, Spirit Techniques required patient, day-by-day cultivation over time.

The power of an Emperor Grade Spirit Technique was comparable to the Combat Techniques attached to Emperor Grade genes.

That alone spoke to how precious such a thing was.

"This... an Emperor Grade Spirit Technique is incredibly rare, Mentor. Wouldn't passing it to me cause problems for you?"

Lu Yuan was tempted, but he didn't want this to create any difficulties for Si Tingyu.

After all, she was retrieving it from her own family's vault. What if it wasn't supposed to be taught to outsiders?

Si Tingyu shook her head. "You are my student. Of course I should guide you properly. As long as you don't pass the technique on to others, there won't be any problems. What — don't you want to learn?"

"Of course I do!"

Lu Yuan nodded. Since Si Tingyu had said it would cause no problems, he naturally wouldn't decline.

He said sincerely, "Thank you, Mentor."

Si Tingyu smiled. "Come on, to the underground training room."

They moved to the underground training room, and Si Tingyu produced an Inheritance Crystal, handing it to Lu Yuan.

"The Spirit Technique is in this crystal. I don't use a greatsword myself, so I'm no expert in its application, but I should be able to offer some guidance on how to coordinate Spirit Power and physical strength. Take a look at the technique first. If you have questions, ask me. If I don't know the answer, I'll consult someone and then teach you."

Lu Yuan nodded earnestly and took the Emperor Grade Spirit Technique Si Tingyu had handed him, beginning to examine it.

The technique was called Heaven-Sundering Slash. By compressing Spirit Power and then channeling it into an explosive burst of Body Technique, it unleashed terrifying destructive force. Legend had it that at its deepest mastery, a single sword strike could cleave through space itself.

The power was extraordinary, but so was the difficulty.

The Spirit Power compression had to be completed in the precise instant of the swing — without sufficient mastery, it simply wouldn't activate.

And because it needed to be coordinated with Body Technique, the difficulty climbed yet another tier. Truly mastering it would likely take a considerable amount of time.

Of course, once Heaven-Sundering Slash was fully mastered, it would rival something like Earth Spirit Body's Combat Techniques.

And so, Lu Yuan began cultivating under Si Tingyu's guidance.

He trained for a full day straight.

By evening, he had dinner at Si Tingyu's home and returned to the dormitory — only to be surrounded by curious classmates along the way.

The next day, after his training session at Si Tingyu's home concluded, Si Tingxue emerged from the Land of Origin.

She came to Si Tingyu's home. Upon seeing Lu Yuan, she offered him an awkward congratulation for making it onto the Prodigy Rankings, then challenged him to a sparring match. It was plain she had her own ambitions to push for the Rankings.

Lu Yuan naturally held back — this was just friendly sparring with Si Tingxue, and it gave him a perfect opportunity to drill his newly learned Heaven-Sundering Slash.

Because he had to compress Spirit Power mid-attack, he wasn't accustomed to the motion yet. His Spirit Power even fell into disarray during the fight at times, actually weakening his output overall — which, as it happened, made the back-and-forth with Si Tingxue genuinely even.

In the days that followed, Si Tingxue began seeking him out for sparring regularly. Eventually she pulled Rebecca into the arrangement, and the two of them would take on Lu Yuan together.

Through it all, Lu Yuan's Heaven-Sundering Slash gradually grew more refined.

Five days later.

Lu Yuan could re-enter the Land of Origin.

He went straight to the Gravity Room to cultivate.

This was his first Land of Origin training session since breaking through to Battle Venerable and evolving his genes.

Third-rank Enhanced Spirit Power Gene Fluid still offered considerably higher cultivation efficiency than Fourth-tier Spirit Crystals even at Battle Venerable rank, so Lu Yuan continued using the gene fluid.

With his breakthrough to Battle Venerable — and Earth Spirit Body's Spirit Power absorption rate now several times higher than White Jade Spirit Body's — his capacity to absorb the gene fluid had naturally improved by a substantial margin.

During his Battle General days, he had absorbed roughly four hundred Fifth-tier Spirit Crystals' worth per hour. Now, as a Battle Venerable, he could absorb the equivalent of four hundred Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals per hour — roughly a tenfold increase.

All of this came from Earth Spirit Body's exceptional Spirit Power absorption efficiency. Without it, the tempering effect of Third-rank Enhanced Spirit Power Gene Fluid at Battle Venerable rank would not naturally outpace what he'd achieved at Battle General rank — a fourfold or fivefold gain would already be impressive.

When tempering his King Grade genes previously, Lu Yuan had consumed roughly ten million Fifth-tier Spirit Crystals.

His original Spirit Power Gene Fluid supply had been equivalent to sixty-some million Fifth-tier Spirit Crystals. After spending around ten million, just over fifty million remained — equivalent to roughly five million Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals.

By his estimation, that supply should be enough to fully temper two or three Emperor Grade genes to completion.

If it fell short, he could always make another trip to the Aier Mechanical Ruins and gather a fresh batch of Third-rank Enhanced Spirit Power Gene Fluid.

Now that he had broken through to Battle Venerable, the time he could spend in the Land of Origin had increased as well.

Fifty-two days later, he finally left.

Over those fifty-two days, Lu Yuan had absorbed approximately 240,000 Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals' worth, all of it poured into tempering Earth Spirit Body. After that investment, Earth Spirit Body's tempering level reached 28%.

Based on his experience tempering so many Transcendent Genes, fully completing Earth Spirit Body would take roughly over a million Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals.

That was within a range he could work with.

If he could maintain this pace, his cultivation at Battle Venerable rank would still move quickly.

Each Emperor Grade gene would take roughly six or seven Land of Origin visits to fully temper. At Battle Venerable rank, each visit cycle took about ten real-world days — so six cycles amounted to roughly two months.

He now had five Emperor Grade genes. At this rate, fully tempering all of them would take about ten months?

Of course, this assumed ideal conditions. Genes like Space Gate and Mechanical King would require far more Spirit Crystals to fully temper, naturally extending the timeline.

In reality, it would probably take over a year to bring all five Emperor Grade genes to completion.

Even so, that was already an extraordinarily fast pace.

After all, completing six academic years in the Talent Camp and breaking through to Battle Venerable was considered a smooth graduation. Reaching Battle King Rank within two years of enrollment would be nothing short of staggering.

By then, he would be around twenty years old.

Reaching Battle King Rank at twenty — that had been Li Qinghe's pace in her day, and his mentor's as well.

Though they had Awakened earlier, at sixteen.

Lu Yuan had Awakened at eighteen.

In truth, he had two fewer years of cultivation time than either of them.

What troubled him now was that as his rank kept rising, every time he evolved a Transcendent Gene, he would need longer and longer to refill the lost tempering progress — and his future breakthrough timelines would stretch accordingly.

This was already Emperor Grade, and it was taking this long. What about Sovereign Grade genes? Saint Grade? Divine Grade?

Lu Yuan's head throbbed just thinking about it.

And this was with his Spirit Power absorption speed being exceptional. What other prodigy could possibly absorb the equivalent of four hundred Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals per hour at Battle Venerable rank?

For most cultivators, four would be remarkable.

Then there was the bigger problem: his Battle Venerable cultivation resources were currently sufficient, but following this trend, consuming the entire Aier Mechanical Ruins world would only barely cover his Battle King Rank cultivation needs.

What would he do when he reached Battle Sovereign rank?

Where would he find cultivation resources then?

Based on his evolution trajectory, when he reached Battle King Rank, all his genes would be Sovereign Grade. When he reached Battle Sovereign rank, they would all be Saint Grade.

Battle Sovereign rank held seven Gene Chain slots. Seven Saint Grade genes' worth of tempering resources — that was probably even more than what a Battle Saint would need, wasn't it?

Ice shot down his spine.

At Battle Sovereign rank, he would need the cultivation resources of a Battle Saint — a level of pressure that had no business landing on someone at his current stage.

The more he thought about it, the more certain he became: in the future, he was going to be desperately short on Spirit Crystals.

There was one other option, of course — give up on evolving most of his genes for now and focus purely on advancing his rank. Then, after reaching War God rank, return to evolving the rest.

That approach would speed up his rank advancement, though at the cost of combat power.

If there were no Rankings to push, Lu Yuan wouldn't mind prioritizing rank.

But rank 98 on the Prodigy Rankings alone came with such generous rewards — how much richer would the King Grade board, the Emperor Grade board, the Sovereign Grade board, and even the Saint Grade board be?

He naturally wanted to push through the Rankings and claim those resources.

Lu Yuan let out a long sigh. It was a thorny problem either way.

The days that followed settled into a steady rhythm.

When in the Land of Origin, he trained in the Gravity Room, tempering his genes. If cultivation wore him down too much, he would find someone to go out and unwind.

Si Tingxue was almost always in training mode — convincing her to come out for anything was nearly impossible unless he dangled the promise of extra sparring sessions as bait.

Lu Yuan also kept his mentor's words in mind, making sure Si Tingxue didn't push herself so hard she burned out.

As for Rebecca, she had zero self-motivation — every group training session was the result of Si Tingxue physically dragging her along. The moment Lu Yuan suggested going out for fun, she raised both hands in enthusiastic agreement.

Sometimes he would also go find Amy.

Unfortunately, Amy was under Wang Lingling's watchful eye and was deep in her own cultivation most of the time. Out of every ten attempts to see her, only one or two ever worked out.

On other occasions, Lu Yuan would seek out Yeye for sparring.

Yeye's progress on the Prodigy Rankings was going smoothly — she won match after match, quickly climbing to rank 74.

Through Yeye, Lu Yuan also learned what kinds of rewards the Rankings offered: Origin Stones to break Gene Locks, Emperor Grade Gene Armaments and King Grade Transcendent Genes suited to the challenger, various treasures that boosted cultivation speed — a full spread of valuable prizes.

Each time a challenger reached a higher rank, they received a corresponding resource reward. The generosity scaled proportionally with how many ranks were cleared in a single challenge — climbing just one spot gave a modest haul, climbing three at once gave noticeably more, and so on. The larger the single leap, the richer the reward.

That insight led Lu Yuan to abandon his earlier idea of climbing one rank at a time to farm resources on the way up.

Watching Yeye accumulate prize after prize made him green with envy, but after his initial challenge, he stopped pushing the Rankings.

His plan was to wait until all four of his remaining Emperor Grade genes were fully tempered before challenging the Rankings again. That way, he would be faster.

And he had no intention of wasting too much time on the Prodigy Rankings anyway.

Wasn't focused cultivation the better use of his time?

Things unfolded more or less as he had expected.

Two months later, after consuming over 1.6 million Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals, Lu Yuan finally tempered Earth Spirit Body to completion.

The expense stung.

His remaining cultivation resources amounted to just over three million — he estimated that would cover Life Tide and nothing more.

When he began on Life Tide, he ran the numbers and found it required slightly more Spirit Crystals than Earth Spirit Body had, though not dramatically so — roughly 1.7 to 1.8 million Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals.

But because Life Light had left behind residual tempering progress, he would only need approximately 1.4 to 1.5 million Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals.

Lu Yuan continued his quiet, steady cultivation.

After he tempered Earth Spirit Body to completion, his permitted stay in the Land of Origin extended to fifty-seven days.

His training window had grown once again.

Two months after that, having spent close to 1.5 million Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals, Lu Yuan finally tempered the Life Tide gene to completion.

His remaining cultivation resources now stood at roughly 1.8 million Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals.

He estimated the cost of tempering Mechanical King at approximately 2.3 million Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals. With the residual tempering progress factored in, he would need around 2 million.

His current resources wouldn't stretch that far.

So he made another trip to the Aier Mechanical Ruins. After sweeping through one-tenth of the Central Floating City's core zone, he gathered roughly 6 million Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals' worth of Third-rank Enhanced Spirit Power Gene Fluid.

Then he continued tempering.

Three months later, Lu Yuan finally brought Mechanical King to completion.

Three of his five Emperor Grade genes were now fully tempered. Two remained: Space Gate and Sacred Light. Once those were done, he could break through.

Not long after Mechanical King was finished, the annual Harvest Day arrived, and the academy announced a holiday.

When Lu Yuan heard the news, a strange sense of disorientation washed over him. He had spent so much of his life in cultivation that he hadn't even noticed an entire year slipping by.