Starfield Roaming, Sacred Brilliance, Shadow Dominion

With two Sovereign Grade genes already anchoring him, evolving again was noticeably easier.

Even with such a powerful Spatial Type Combat Technique at stake, the evolution carried no danger — and the pain was considerably lighter than it had been before.

Though his bones and flesh still cracked and split throughout the process, under the influence of Life's Aria and the Great Solar Spirit Body, the torn skin sealed at an extraordinary speed.

Time passed, and the evolution concluded swiftly. The moment Space Gate's gene finished evolving, a tremendous surge of power welled up inside him once again.

Like the Mechanical Emperor, it was an all-around enhancement — though the boost it granted was nearly two-thirds stronger than what the Mechanical Emperor had provided.

Three Sovereign Grade genes combined. A terrifying force stirred within Lu Yuan's body.

Fortunately, changes at the genetic level still left him capable of controlling his power normally. Precision and finesse, however, would require dedicated practice in the days ahead.

Lu Yuan checked the information on his new gene.

**Sovereign Grade Gene: Starfield Roaming**

Compared to the Emperor Grade Space Gate, Starfield Roaming was likewise a teleportation-type Combat Technique — but its efficiency was in an entirely different class.

Previously, Space Gate at full tempering and maximum output had let him cover roughly five hundred thousand kilometers in a single jump.

Now, pushing Starfield Roaming to its limit, he felt he could leap directly to another planet.

*I'm Battle King Rank now. I can survive in a vacuum, more or less.*

*Maybe I should take a trip to another planet sometime.*

He turned the idea over. It sounded genuinely interesting. He'd find an opportunity when the time came.

Beyond the dramatic expansion of its raw range, the gene's mastery over spatial force ran far deeper than before.

On a whim, he drew his hand through the air. A spatial rift split open from nowhere. A single thought, and it vanished.

He could now tear through space itself — and anything occupying those coordinates would be torn apart along with it.

Used covertly, even a Battle Sovereign or Battle Emperor might fall victim without warning.

The damage inflicted by spatial tearing was nothing like his other techniques. Its destructive potential was staggering — a direct hit would leave even a Battle Emperor badly hurt.

Beyond spatial tearing, he realized he could now learn the spatial confinement technique he had once seen Aimen use. At Sovereign Grade spatial mastery, it would be sufficient to restrain a same-rank Battle King Warrior who had inscribed King Grade genes.

Whether it could freeze a Battle Sovereign for even an instant was another question. Similar in principle to the Great Solar Spirit Body's gravitational field manipulation, it would serve as a useful trick in the right situation.

Beyond all that, his teleportation was faster still — his entire body seemed to dissolve into the fabric of space itself.

With a Sovereign Grade spatial gene, space was to Lu Yuan what water was to a fish.

He teleported again. Instantaneous. Zero perceptible delay.

All told, Starfield Roaming was an extraordinarily powerful technique, and he was very satisfied.

He rested for a time, and once his energy had recovered, he began evolving Sacred Light.

The familiar process completed quickly.

The Emperor Grade gene Sacred Light evolved and became the Sovereign Grade gene: Sacred Brilliance.

The across-the-board stat increases went without saying. On the Combat Technique front, Sacred Brilliance hit harder than its predecessor — and unlike Sacred Light, which had been a single-use burst, it was a sustained ability.

Once activated, Sacred Brilliance rendered him immune to all toxins and shielded him from curses and debuffs below the Sovereign Grade, while simultaneously boosting his overall power substantially. Its restraining effect against darkness-type Combat Techniques also grew markedly more potent.

The radiant force channeled through his Transcendent Gene was exceptionally powerful as well. He could wield the light to attack, defend, amplify, and cleanse — much like his other Sovereign Grade genes, its output was roughly on par with a Lord Grade Combat Technique.

He exhaled a slow breath and stood up.

At long last, he had brought every one of his genes to Sovereign Grade.

The raw power of Sovereign Grade genes needed no elaboration. The cost in Spirit Crystals, however, had been considerable.

The cheapest had been the Great Solar Spirit Body at just over two million Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals. The most expensive was Starfield Roaming at roughly six million. The total came to approximately twenty million Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals.

Fortunately, he had pre-loaded a substantial amount into the Evolution Cube, and a good deal remained — likely enough to evolve a few Saint Grade genes eventually.

Not that he could attempt that now. Simply evolving to Sovereign Grade had left his body torn to pieces. Pushing to Saint Grade would probably blow him apart entirely.

With his gene evolutions complete, Lu Yuan's next step was inscribing a new Transcendent Gene.

He produced an orange orb of light, strange threads of energy coiling within it.

Emperor Grade Transcendent Gene: Shadow Legion.

This was his next target.

A thought, and the orange orb dissolved into streaming light that sank into his body. The strange threads filtered into his empty Gene Chain and began weaving new links.

With five Sovereign Grade genes to his name — even without full tempering — his physique and Gene Chain resilience were more than sufficient to inscribe an Emperor Grade gene without effort.

Only a faint, mild soreness accompanied the process. Very quickly, the Shadow Legion Transcendent Gene inscription was complete.

His consciousness appeared in a white mist. Behind him stretched an enormous, towering Gene Chain.

Before him, the mist churned. A massive black cat emerged — its entire body seething with dark miasma, blood-red eyes burning with nothing but savage bloodlust. No intelligence. Only the urge to kill.

Lu Yuan focused, and his Gene Armament materialized around him. Power rolled off him in waves.

The great cat shrieked. The miasma roiled, and from within it, more black cats — all the same inky black — burst free and charged toward him. A dense, swarming flood of them. Hundreds strong.

He stared.

*So this is Shadow Legion's power?*

*Hundreds of clones. That's quite a few.*

If these were his own clones after inscription, each would carry the combat power of a top-thirty Prodigy Rankings fighter. Their combined might would demand real effort from even Lu Yuan himself to overcome.

Of course, these were Shadow Legion's own original clones — the black cats were considerably weaker than what his inscribed version would produce.

Sacred Brilliance ignited. Brilliant golden light blazed from Lu Yuan's entire body — he looked like an enormous incandescent lamp.

As the radiance spread, the clones pressing in on him were bathed in it. Several showed signs of unraveling, wisps of dark miasma bleeding from their forms.

He raised an eyebrow, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his face at just how completely Sacred Brilliance suppressed darkness-based power.

*Then again — Sovereign Grade against Emperor Grade. Of course it does.*

And his own strength far outstripped the black cat's to begin with.

He didn't dwell on it. His body vanished from where it stood and appeared before the original in an instant.

Spatial Teleportation.

The next moment, his greatsword swept in a blazing arc, trailing brilliant golden light, weaving a web of golden slashes that swallowed the black cat whole.

Sacred Brilliance's overwhelming suppression of darkness-type power was devastating. The cat's residual will didn't even manage to rally. It simply scattered with a dying shriek, utterly crushed.

As the Transcendent Gene's lingering will dissolved, Lu Yuan's consciousness returned to his body.

Shadow Legion was fully inscribed.

Shadow Legion primarily boosted Mental Power and speed, with a secondary increase in raw strength — and the smallest gains, relatively speaking, in defense. Lu Yuan understood the logic. The technique was clearly built for an Assassin Type style of combat.

Without pausing, the moment inscription was complete, he began evolving.

The deep indigo light flickered to life once more.

Several million Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals later, the evolution was complete.

**Sovereign Grade Gene: Shadow Dominion.**

The enhancement effects were several times greater than before, and the Combat Technique itself was dramatically more powerful than Shadow Legion.

Shadow Dominion's Combat Technique could condense a domain cloaked in absolute darkness. Within the domain, nothing could be seen — both vision and perception would be suppressed to some degree. It was somewhat reminiscent of Si Tingxue's ice fog, though operating on an entirely different principle.

As the domain's master, Lu Yuan was naturally unaffected.

At the same time, he could materialize Shadow Clones at any position within the darkened domain.

Each clone's combat power would be roughly one-third of his own, and the number he could summon remained governed by his Spirit Power and Mental Power. But Shadow Clones operating within Shadow Dominion were the deadliest of assassins — appearing and disappearing without a trace, nearly impossible to detect. Anyone who stepped inside might die without ever understanding what had taken them.

Lu Yuan read through the technique's details, a quiet thrill of excitement welling in his chest.

Shadow Dominion was more powerful than he had imagined. Its only real shortcoming was the Spirit Power drain of maintaining the domain — the cost was immense.

*Even a Battle Emperor wielding this technique would be counted among the most formidable at their level.*

And he was only Battle King Rank. Possessing something like this at his stage of cultivation needed no further comment.

With his limitless Spirit Power, the steep upkeep cost wasn't a drawback at all.

And within Shadow Dominion, no one would even know who he was. There were things he could now accomplish without ever revealing his identity.

All in all, he was extremely satisfied with Shadow Dominion.

By this point, he had finally evolved all of his previous genes and inscribed a new one.

He now held six Sovereign Grade genes in total. With that many powerful genes, even a Battle Sovereign would struggle to fight him, wouldn't they?

In truth, unless they were born with exceptional innate power, many Battle Emperors might only carry two or three Sovereign Grade genes — some might have inscribed their first Sovereign Grade gene only upon reaching the Battle Emperor stage itself, still far behind what Lu Yuan had amassed.

If anyone learned that a mere Battle King Rank warrior already held six Sovereign Grade genes, they would probably die of envy.

Of course, tempering all six to full completion would demand a serious investment of both time and Spirit Crystals.

Tempering a single Sovereign Grade gene required upward of one million Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals. And he had six of them. The first five had already been tempered to completion before their evolutions, each retaining somewhere between ten and twenty percent of their tempering afterward. Shadow Dominion, however, needed to be tempered from scratch.

His conservative estimate of the total cost made his head swim. Probably upward of ten million Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals.

His current cultivation resources — the Third-rank Enhanced Spirit Power Gene Fluid — were no longer doing much to accelerate his tempering at Battle King Rank. His cultivation speed was about to slow down considerably.

Who knew how long he'd be grinding away at this stage?

The one consolation was that he would eventually gain access to the Upper Layer of the Land of Origin, where resources should be far more abundant. He'd be able to gather substantial supplies there when the time came.

That was a concern for after he'd worked through his current stock of Enhanced Spirit Power Gene Fluid, though.

Beyond that... the matter of advancing the Evolution Cube could finally be put on the agenda.

He was Battle King Rank now, with six Sovereign Grade genes at his disposal. He had enough combat power to explore those regions he had sensed before. In the real world, hunting Aberrations could run in parallel — whenever he had time, he could head to the Night Watchmen and take on some assignments.

He was still sorting through his thoughts when he realized he had only two days left before it was time to leave the Land of Origin.

No more cultivation, then. He spent the remaining two days resting properly.

Two days later, white light flashed. Lu Yuan appeared in his dormitory room.

Outside the window, the sun blazed high.

September had arrived. The weather was still quite hot.

Not that it made any difference to a Gene Warrior.

He went downstairs. Yang Ping and Maige were both out.

Perhaps because Lu Yuan's rate of improvement was genuinely frightening, both of them spent even their real-world time training in the cultivation rooms, not wasting a single moment.

He found that deeply heartening.

He had Beji cook lunch. After eating, he headed to Si Tingyu's dormitory.

He had barely entered the building when he spotted Si Tingyu sitting on the sofa, dressed in a loose, casual set of home clothes that draped over her figure without revealing much.

To his surprise, Li Qinghe was there too.

He blinked, then smiled.

"Qinghe-jie, what are you doing here?"

Li Qinghe shot him a sideways glance. "What? You're unhappy to see me at your lovely mentor's place?"

He was momentarily speechless. He cleared his throat and put on his most dignified face. "Of course not. Shouldn't I be even happier?"

Li Qinghe's eyes went wide. Even Si Tingyu shot him a look. "Stop talking nonsense."

*You both caught that immediately?!*

He tugged at the corner of his mouth and forced a dry laugh. "I was joking. What brought you over, Qinghe-jie?"

Li Qinghe draped herself over Si Tingyu's back like a limp fish. "Not really out of nowhere. I just got back from outside. Aberration frequency has jumped way up across the cities lately — I'm dead tired. Came to find Fearsome Rain here to decompress."

*Decompress. How exactly?*

Lu Yuan stared at the two of them with a vaguely baffled expression.

Then something else from what Li Qinghe had said caught up with him.

"The Aberration frequency has gone up a lot? Why?"