Poor Child

The next few days passed without incident.

The Spatial Rift on Ice Vein Star had been closed, and on the human side, people had noticed something was wrong and begun hunting down the gnolls stranded there — though Lu Yuan only knew this from secondhand accounts. It wasn't even being reported in the news.

A few days later, he entered the Land of Origin again to resume his cultivation.

After learning the truth about the Aberration from the Elf elder, the weight on his mind was no small thing.

Never mind any notion of saving the universe and playing the hero — if the Aberration truly eroded the entire universe, Aberration phenomena and aberrated Feral Beasts would appear everywhere, and no one would be spared.

That would be a true apocalypse.

Naturally, Lu Yuan wanted his power to grow as quickly as possible — so that before such an apocalypse arrived, he would have the strength to protect himself and those he cared about.

With Starfield Roaming fully tempered to completion, he decided to proceed through his remaining Transcendent Genes in order.

He'd prioritized Starfield Roaming because of its ability to seal Spatial Rifts. Now that he had no such specific plans pressing on him, there was no particular gene he needed to rush.

He began tempering Great Solar Spirit Body.

Great Solar Spirit Body required far fewer Spirit Crystals to temper compared to Starfield Roaming — roughly two million Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals would bring it to full completion.

Since he'd already partially tempered it beforehand, the remaining work amounted to approximately two million Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals' worth.

At his current tempering speed — absorbing twenty-four thousand Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals' worth per day — over sixty-odd days, he could absorb roughly one and a half million Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals' worth.

After only his second entry into the Land of Origin, Lu Yuan had fully completed the tempering of Great Solar Spirit Body. The real-world time spent was barely half a month.

With it fully tempered, running it at full output now delivered several times the enhancement it had before, giving Lu Yuan another dramatic leap in overall strength.

In truth, for any Gene Warrior, fully tempering a Transcendent Gene from start to finish always meant a major power boost.

With Great Solar Spirit Body complete, Lu Yuan moved on to Life's Aria.

Compared to Great Solar Spirit Body, Life's Aria demanded somewhat more — roughly three million Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals.

Even so, he fully tempered Life's Aria in just two more entries into the Land of Origin, totaling roughly one hundred and twenty days of Land of Origin time.

The real-world time spent was less than a month.

Combined, the time to fully temper both Emperor Grade Transcendent Genes — Great Solar Spirit Body and Life's Aria — came to barely over a month in total. That was even less than the time he'd spent on Starfield Roaming alone.

Throughout that stretch, both the real world and the Land of Origin remained remarkably quiet.

After the Aberration manifested in the Land of Origin for the first time, many had been anxious — but when no further events followed, people gradually set the matter aside.

In the real world, Lu Yuan had quietly worried that the cloaked figure might make a move against the Night Watchman's Underground Containment Room. But still nothing happened.

He did manage to complete one urgent mission during this period. This time it wasn't a Soul-Devouring Orb. It was an aberrated Feral Beast that had reached Battle King Rank and entered a city, devouring humans.

The creature possessed considerable spatial abilities and was a first-rate escape artist — it might have been troublesome for others. For Lu Yuan, who commanded a far more powerful Spatial Type Transcendent Gene, it was trivial. The beast couldn't even run before he struck it down. Clean, effortless.

Land of Origin. Red Maple City. Training Hall, Gravity Room.

Lu Yuan opened his eyes. A faint iron-grey light flickered in his gaze, and the turbulent Spirit Power around him gradually stilled.

He was in the middle of tempering his Mechanical Emperor Transcendent Gene.

Today's session had hit its limit. He exhaled slowly, stood, and stretched.

*About time.*

He was planning to challenge the King Rankings and claim the rewards for ascending the board.

For Gene Warriors of exceptional talent, the prizes for ranking up were quite generous — even Yeye, born into a Battle Saint clan, hadn't been willing to pass them up. For Lu Yuan, the same held true.

Beyond that, the top ten on the King Rankings also qualified for waived auction house fees.

He'd been visiting the Demon Dragon Mountain Range every day during this period, amassing a substantial haul. Plenty of good material to evolve. Fifth-rank Gene Armaments in particular — he'd evolved several hundred Sovereign Grade ones alone.

That was more than enough supply to keep the market occupied for a good while. Selling everything would bring in roughly ten million Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals.

As for his own personal Gene Armaments, his weapon had been evolved to Saint Grade, with the rest at Sovereign Grade.

Not that he didn't want all of them at Saint Grade — the strain of sustaining a Fifth-rank Saint-tier armament was immense, and even he couldn't handle multiple pieces simultaneously. Once he'd fully tempered all his Transcendent Genes, he estimated he could maintain around three Saint-tier pieces at once.

More than that simply wasn't realistic.

Even so, Lu Yuan was thoroughly satisfied. One Saint-tier weapon paired with several Sovereign Grade armaments brought a roughly threefold enhancement to his overall stats — and that was just the stat boost. His actual combat power had increased by far more.

Because of all this, even though he'd fully tempered only three Transcendent Genes so far, he was fairly confident that at the Battle King Rank level, there were very few who could match him.

He took out his Communication Crystal and contacted Si Tingxue.

White light flashed. A moment later, Si Tingxue's delicate face appeared on the crystal's surface.

"Tingxue," Lu Yuan said with a smile, "are you planning to challenge the rankings?"

Si Tingxue gave a small nod. "Mm. I'll go once I finish today's training."

These past weeks, she and Rebecca had both been working toward ranking challenges — the Prodigy Rankings, specifically. As an Innate Lord Grade and Innate Chief Grade respectively, they certainly met the eligibility requirements. But actually placing on the board was another matter entirely. Even Si Tingxue, with her Innate Lord Grade, was still just barely short of earning a ranking slot.

"Then let's go together," Lu Yuan said.

Last time he'd gone to White Cloud City for rankings with Yeye — but Yeye had only broken through to Battle King Rank a little over a month ago. Her tempering simply wasn't fast enough to be making a run at the King Rankings already.

Since Si Tingxue and Rebecca were heading out for their challenges anyway, he'd just go along.

Si Tingxue's eyes widened slightly, a flicker of surprise crossing her face.

"You want to come watch us challenge the rankings?"

Rebecca pushed her way into frame beside her, an awkward expression pulling at her features.

"Huh? Yuan-ge, you're coming to watch our arena matches? Please don't — it's so embarrassing. We lose every time."

Lu Yuan: "..."

Realizing they'd misunderstood, he felt a flash of his own embarrassment. He cleared his throat and said, "Well... I did want to see your Prodigy challenges, naturally. But I also happen to have something to take care of on the way."

"What is it?" Si Tingxue asked quietly. "Do you need our help?"

He laughed dryly. "I'm planning to challenge a ranking myself."

Silence fell.

Both Si Tingxue and Rebecca froze. Then, shock threading through Si Tingxue's normally cool voice: "You — you're going to challenge a ranking? The King Rankings?"

Lu Yuan nodded. "Mm."

"Seriously?!" Rebecca exclaimed. "But Yuan-ge, you just broke through not that long ago! Are you sure? The people on that board are supposed to be incredibly strong."

"You both know perfectly well how strong I am," he said mildly.

During these past weeks, the three of them had still sparred together occasionally. Whenever Lu Yuan finished his day's cultivation, he was happy to oblige.

On top of that, they also knew about his encounter with a Sovereign Grade aberrated individual in the real world — that incident he'd handled while dealing with the Aberration phenomena. Between all of it, both women had a very clear picture of where his strength stood.

Hearing his words, they went quiet.

Then Si Tingxue gave a slight nod. "All right. Are you coming now? We're at Red Maple Manor."

"Sure," Lu Yuan said with a smile.

He left the Training Hall. His body vanished, reappearing at the entrance of Red Maple Manor in the heart of Red Maple City.

Two Gene Warriors stood guard at the gates. At the sight of Lu Yuan, warm smiles broke across their faces.

"Elder Lu."

He'd become a familiar face here these past weeks. Of course they knew him.

Lu Yuan nodded with a smile and stepped inside, making his way toward Si Tingxue's private courtyard.

Just then, he spotted Si Tingfeng walking toward him from the opposite direction. He looked wan and deflated — nothing like the composed young man he'd seemed at graduation, or at the dinner he'd treated them to before. The energy had drained out of him entirely.

Lu Yuan raised an eyebrow and walked over.

"Senior Tingfeng."

Si Tingfeng seemed to have been far away in his thoughts. At the sound of a voice, he looked up, expression blank for a moment.

Recognizing Lu Yuan, he paused — then managed a smile.

"Lu Yuan? It's you. What brings you to Red Maple Manor?"

"I came to find Tingxue," Lu Yuan said.

Something seemed to click, and Si Tingfeng's smile warmed slightly. "Ah, I see. I think I'd heard — you've been coming around to see Tingxue quite often lately. That's good. Sounds like you two have gotten a lot closer."

"How about you, Senior?" Lu Yuan asked. "I heard about the Tong Menghan situation. How are you holding up?"

He was the one who'd filed the report, after all...

Not that he felt any regret. If Tong Menghan had stayed hidden, the cloaked figure might already have moved against the Underground Containment Room. Wasn't it better that everything had remained this quiet?

At the mention of Tong Menghan, the smile on Si Tingfeng's face went stiff.

He shook his head, voice going bitter. "I never imagined she was that kind of person. I gave her almost everything she wanted — I never wronged her. And she still betrayed me."

Lu Yuan looked at him with genuine sympathy. He reached out and clapped a hand on Si Tingfeng's shoulder.

"Once you're out of the Land of Origin, let's all go for drinks," he said. "Maige and Yang Ping have both been asking about you."

These days, Lu Yuan still visited the Talent Camp from time to time to train under Si Tingyu, so he ran into Maige and Yang Ping regularly.

Si Tingfeng paused, then gave a humorless smile and nodded. "Maybe a little later. I got penalized for leaking Red Maple Guard intelligence — I'm not allowed to leave for now."

"I understand," Lu Yuan said.

Si Tingfeng smiled briefly. "I need to get back to training. Once I break through to Battle King Rank, I'm going to request to join the investigation into Tong Menghan's case."

Lu Yuan studied him for a moment. He could see the knot that hadn't untied itself inside Si Tingfeng.

Understandable, really. Being betrayed by a fiancée — not many people could simply let something like that go.

"Good luck, Senior Tingfeng," he said with a nod.

Si Tingfeng gave Lu Yuan's shoulder a brief pat and walked away.

Lu Yuan arrived at the entrance to Si Tingxue's private courtyard and knocked. After a short wait, a fair-featured maid opened the door. Her eyes lit up immediately, and she bowed.

"Young Master Lu Yuan — the Ninth Princess and Miss Rebecca are in the Gravity Room. The Ninth Princess left word that if you arrived, you should head there directly."

Lu Yuan nodded with a smile, stepped inside, and made his way toward the Gravity Room.

He couldn't help feeling a quiet appreciation for how well-equipped the scions of great houses were. A Gravity Room was a specialized training facility — for ordinary Gene Warriors, the thought of spending extra Spirit Crystals just to train in one was a luxury few could afford. But the children of great houses each had their own at home.

It wasn't just Si Tingxue either. Yeye and Amy both had their own private Gravity Rooms.

They'd all invited Lu Yuan to train with them at some point. He'd always declined, citing that he wasn't the type to freeload off others.

The real reason, of course, was that training alongside them would make it impossible to quietly evolve his Spirit Power Gene Fluid. His absorption speed would startle anyone watching, and absorbing so many Spirit Crystals without ever breaking through would raise questions.

He had to train alone.

Sparring was a different story — that was perfectly fine.

Lu Yuan soon arrived at the Gravity Room door. He pressed the black button beside it and spoke into the intercom.

"Tingxue, Rebecca — I'm here."

A low hum resonated through the room as the gravity field gradually powered down.

The door opened. Rebecca stepped out, her pretty face gleaming with sweat, her orange hair catching the light like sunlight itself.

Her expression was as bright and lively as ever. She grabbed Lu Yuan's hand with a grin.

"Yuan-ge, come in, come in!"

She pulled him inside and shut the door. Si Tingxue, standing by the controls, began dialing the gravity slowly back up.

Lu Yuan glanced over both of them.

Both wore loose martial arts training clothes, but the sweat had the fabric clinging to their frames, outlining their figures.

Rebecca's figure, he noticed, seemed to be getting even more... impressive. *Was she still growing?*

He was mildly startled — though, come to think of it, she was only nineteen. She probably did still have room to fill out.

He glanced over at Si Tingxue beside her and silently offered her a moment of private mourning.

*Poor kid.*

Though they'd sparred together plenty of times by now, always in this kind of setting, a faint flush had crept onto Si Tingxue's cool face. She caught Lu Yuan's gaze and fixed him with an icy stare.

"What is that look supposed to mean?"

"Ahem — nothing at all."

Lu Yuan kept his expression perfectly composed. "I just think you look beautiful, Tingxue. Couldn't help taking a second look."