Emergency Incident

Rebecca's pretty face curved into a smile. "I can beat you this time!"

Even as she spoke, she leveled her Staff at Mao Guan, and flames surged, coalescing into a massive firebird.

The firebird let out a shriek and hurled itself at him.

Mao Guan was a Guardian Type Gene Warrior. Sensing the overwhelming aura radiating from the firebird, his eyes narrowed — compared to their last fight, this human girl's Combat Technique had more than doubled in power.

He bellowed and charged at Rebecca, a layer of green light spreading across the surface of his body.

Rebecca split her attention between summoning fire-element spirits and evading his attacks. In terms of combat experience, there was a noticeable gap between them — her battlefield instincts were clearly thinner than his.

Even so, the sheer force of her raw power bridged that gap entirely. The strength of her Combat Techniques had surged dramatically compared to before, letting her dominate the fight from the first exchange to the last.

Those among the watching crowd who remembered Rebecca's previous performance were clearly taken aback.

As a Guardian Type warrior, Mao Guan's defense and regeneration were formidable. He held out against her onslaught for a considerable stretch of time, even searching for openings to counterattack in between — but he ultimately could not punch through her pressure, and was scorched black by a burst of flame.

With Mao Guan's defeat, the Prodigy Rankings updated.

Rebecca's name replaced his, appearing at rank 100.

A flash of white light, and both Mao Guan's body and Rebecca vanished from the arena.

Mao Guan returned to where he had originally been standing. Rebecca reappeared at Lu Yuan and Si Tingxue's side.

Her face radiated pure, unguarded delight. "A-Yuan, Xiaoxue, I really made the Rankings~"

Si Tingxue gave a small nod, her lips curving ever so slightly. "Mm."

Lu Yuan smiled and ruffled Rebecca's hair. "Congratulations. Going to keep challenging?"

Rebecca nodded, her eyes gleaming. "I'll apply for rank 98 next."

She reached through her Gene Battle Mark and linked with the Rankings stele.

A moment later, the light faded. She wilted slightly. "I have to wait a few days before the match can begin."

Neither Lu Yuan nor Si Tingxue seemed surprised. The fact that rank 100 had been immediately available was already a stroke of luck on Rebecca's part.

Si Tingxue said softly, "Then I'll apply."

With three Sovereign Grade Gene Armaments to her name, Si Tingxue's confidence was absolute. She applied directly for rank 95.

The light faded just as quickly, and Si Tingxue's brow furrowed slightly. "Two days from now."

Lu Yuan smiled. "Since neither of you can challenge yet, I'll go."

He stepped up to the King Rankings stele and linked his Gene Battle Mark to it.

Perhaps because of the Evolution Cube's metamorphosis, his consciousness didn't drift upward toward the sky above the Land of Origin this time.

Lu Yuan selected the qualification challenge.

When the assembled scouts from the various factions saw Lu Yuan approach the King Rankings stele, they froze for a moment — then stared in stunned disbelief:

"Lu Yuan is challenging the King Rankings?!"

"Wasn't he just here to accompany those two humans?"

"That's incredibly fast — he only just broke through recently, didn't he?"

Everyone watched with uncertain eyes as light pulsed between the Gene Battle Mark and the stele.

Before long, a phantom arena materialized. The moment it became clear that Lu Yuan genuinely intended to begin the King Rankings qualification challenge, a wave of shock and anticipation swept through the crowd.

Lu Yuan's form appeared on the arena. Across from him stood a human Gene Warrior.

The King Rankings qualification challenge required the opponent to be a Battle King Rank warrior with a fully tempered Gene Chain whose highest-quality Transcendent Gene was Emperor Grade.

That condition alone already eliminated more than ninety-nine percent of all Gene Warriors.

A Gene Warrior capable of engraving an Emperor Grade Transcendent Gene while still at Battle King Rank was, without question, a prodigy of the highest tier.

That said, the White Cloud Star Domain had an enormous population of Gene Warriors. Even among Battle Kings alone, the numbers were beyond counting — and geniuses of that caliber still amounted to several thousand in total.

So competition for spots on the King Rankings was fierce.

Of course, for Lu Yuan, a Battle King with nothing more than an Emperor Grade Transcendent Gene posed no threat at all.

His opponent was an Elemental Type Gene Warrior wielding a curved wooden staff, dressed in a white robe traced with pale-green patterns.

During the preparation phase, the Gene Warrior immediately swept his Staff through the air, layering wind shield after wind shield around himself. Faint threads of pale azure light shimmered across his body.

The moment the preparation phase ended, he whipped his Staff forward. A massive wind lance — dense with concentrated gale force, easily fifteen meters long — shot toward Lu Yuan. Wind-based techniques were already swift by nature, and this lance moved even faster.

Against anyone else, that would have been terrifying.

Compared to Lu Yuan, it was thoroughly mediocre.

Before the wind lance could reach him, Lu Yuan simply vanished from where he stood.

In the next instant, a streak of golden sword light slashed at the Gene Warrior.

Every wind shield around him shattered at once. The sword light passed through his body without a moment's resistance, and the Gene Warrior dissolved into white light.

For Lu Yuan, a Battle King with an Emperor Grade Transcendent Gene was nothing more than a single sword stroke.

He hadn't even needed to call upon the full power of his Great Solar Spirit Body.

Only after the white light faded and Lu Yuan returned to stand before the stele did the watching scouts finally snap out of their daze.

Every person in the plaza exchanged wide-eyed looks with whoever stood nearest, and then a wave of hushed murmuring swept through the crowd.

Every gaze fixed on Lu Yuan carried the same shock. His performance had vastly exceeded what anyone had anticipated.

Sensing the stares from all sides, Rebecca let a quietly smug smile cross her lips.

"Hehe, A-Yuan is amazing! They're all frightened!"

Beside her, Si Tingxue gave a small nod of her own. She said softly:

"As expected of you."

Lu Yuan smiled, unfazed. "Way too easy."

Si Tingxue rolled her eyes.

Rebecca looked up at him with eager anticipation. "A-Yuan, hurry up and apply for a ranked challenge!"

Lu Yuan nodded.

Unlike the Prodigy Rankings, the King Rankings allowed challengers to jump up to ten ranks in a single application.

That made Lu Yuan eligible to challenge as high as rank 90.

He didn't hesitate for a moment, and selected the Gene Warrior at rank 90.

That warrior was a Kaman by the name of Kluru.

Lu Yuan submitted the challenge application without ceremony.

A moment later, he received his reply. He shrugged, looking mildly resigned:

"Five days."

Disappointment crossed Rebecca's face. Even Si Tingxue murmured softly:

"What a shame."

Both of them had been counting on watching Lu Yuan fight a genuine King Rankings powerhouse — or at the very least, hoping to gauge what strength those ranked warriors actually commanded.

The scouts who had been watching from a distance felt the same letdown. Their anticipation had been no less than Rebecca's or Si Tingxue's.

Lu Yuan, for his part, wasn't particularly bothered. "Then let's head back."

"Mm."

Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, the three boarded Black Bear No. 1. The vessel lifted off and departed White Cloud City's Central Plaza.

Only after Black Bear No. 1 had gone did the assembled scouts break into animated discussion.

Lu Yuan — formerly the top-ranked name on the Prodigy Rankings — had already begun challenging the King Rankings in less than half a real-world year after breaking through to Battle King Rank. It was the kind of story virtually every major faction in the White Cloud Star Domain would be watching closely.

The stronger Lu Yuan proved to be, the greater his chances of eventually rising to become one of the White Cloud Star Domain's peak powerhouses — and so the attention he drew would only keep growing.

Lu Yuan was well aware of what the plaza's onlookers were thinking. He knew the scrutiny would only intensify.

But he had no intention of abandoning the King Rankings climb for its resources. And given what Solomon Silver Moon had told him about the Spatial Rifts, he wanted to push his cultivation speed even higher — a pace that would surely astonish more than a few people. He wasn't planning to hide it, either.

As long as no one ever discovered that he could evolve the Transcendent Genes already engraved within his body, everything else could be explained away. There would always be some excuse to offer.

Back in Red Maple City, the three of them had already finished their cultivation for the day, so they strolled through the city for a while.

Afterward, Si Tingxue returned to run Simulation Room combat drills to sharpen her technique. Lu Yuan, meanwhile, activated Starfield Roaming and used the Spatial Anchor Point he had placed earlier in the Demon Dragon Mountain Range to travel there and continue harvesting resources.

In the Demon Dragon Mountain Range, he ran into wave after wave of Battle Kings and Battle Sovereigns from various races, all out hunting powerful Feral Beasts. Some even tried to rob him — though they had badly misjudged what they were dealing with, and ended up delivering resources to him instead.

As for the Blood Bone Gnolls — after Lu Yuan had killed several of their Battle Sovereigns and Battle Kings, he had half-expected them to alert their leadership, and had even steeled himself for the possibility of a Blood Bone Gnoll Battle Emperor coming after him. He'd been ready to vanish at the first sign of trouble.

Yet no Blood Bone Gnoll Battle Emperor ever came. He couldn't entirely say why — maybe his Shadow Dominion had frightened them into thinking some powerful protector stood behind him. Or perhaps the Demon Dragon Mountain Range was simply vast enough that any search parties had failed to find him.

Whatever the reason, freedom from Gnoll harassment was nothing but good news.

The weeks that followed passed in quiet routine. Beyond cultivation, Lu Yuan divided his free time between the Demon Dragon Mountain Range, resting with company, and issuing King Rankings challenges.

Every few days to a few weeks, he would challenge someone new. Each arena match ended quickly. Even so, he was deliberate about not showing his full power.

To Lu Yuan, it felt almost effortless — trivially easy. But to the rest of the world, each match was a momentous event worth talking about for days.

As his King Rankings standing climbed, the attention following him intensified. Every time he appeared at the plaza to file a new challenge application, invitations from various factions would come flooding in. Factions he had already turned down during the Prodigy Rankings era came knocking all over again, hands outstretched.

Lu Yuan's answer remained unchanged: no.

After close to two months of Land of Origin time, he departed the Land of Origin with his ranking at 40th on the King Rankings.

Climbing that high came with substantial rewards.

Among them were Heavenly King Fruits — Fifth-rank cultivation spirit fruits — six hundred of them in total. Each one contained the equivalent of a hundred thousand Fifth-tier Spirit Crystals, making them more potent than Purple Heart Fruits. Lu Yuan planned to evolve them to Emperor Grade and use them as supplementary cultivation resources down the line.

Beyond that were one hundred and twenty Fifth-rank Origin Stones — the kind needed for breaking Gene Locks at Battle King Rank — along with three Emperor Grade Gene Armaments and one Emperor Grade Transcendent Gene, among other prizes.

The most precious item was, without question, the Emperor Grade Transcendent Gene. Such genes could only drop from Feral Beasts possessing Emperor Grade bloodline — and even then, the drop rate was vanishingly low. Even with the Evolution Cube, Lu Yuan couldn't conjure one from nothing; unless a Transcendent Gene had already been engraved, there was nothing to evolve further. Put this one up for auction, and it would probably fetch somewhere in the hundreds of millions of Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals — enough to secure a substantial haul of resources.

Everything else in the rewards was exceptional as well, the kind of treasure any Battle King would consider priceless.

Red Maple Empire, White Willow District villa.

In Lu Yuan's room, a flash of white light announced his return.

He stretched, let out a slow breath, then remembered something and took out his phone.

The screen was full of missed calls and messages.

Just like when he had made the Prodigy Rankings, they were all from friends and acquaintances — classmates, people he knew. Except this time there were far more of them.

This time he had made the King Rankings, in less than half a real-world year after breaking through to Battle King Rank.

He exhaled in quiet relief. *Good thing I had the foresight to block calls from unknown numbers — otherwise my phone might have actually imploded.*

He started working through the backlog, replying to the people he actually knew.

While he was in the middle of responding, a knock came at his door, followed by Li Qinghe's slightly breathless voice:

"Yuan-didi? Are you in there?"

Lu Yuan blinked, glanced at the door, and smiled. "I'm here."

He crossed the room and pulled the door open. Li Qinghe was standing outside. The moment she saw him, her eyes went wide — then she reached out and poked his cheek, grinning:

"Yuan-didi, you're incredible! I had just gotten out of the Land of Origin when I heard you'd already made the King Rankings — and you're already at rank 40! How do you even do that? You've completely left your big sister in the dust."

Lu Yuan caught her poking hand and smiled. "Just regular cultivation."

Li Qinghe grinned. "They're saying you looked completely relaxed during the fights. Come on, be honest with your big sister — how strong are you actually right now?"

Lu Yuan considered it, then smiled. "An average Battle Sovereign probably isn't a match for me."

That was actually him being modest.

With three Emperor Grade Transcendent Genes fully tempered, there was almost certainly no Battle Sovereign who could best him now — unless they held more than one Emperor Grade Transcendent Gene themselves.

Li Qinghe's eyes went wide with amazement.

Then she smiled and said, "So when are you coming to the Upper Layer of the Land of Origin? We can work together once you get there."

Lu Yuan thought of what Solomon Silver Moon had told him, considered for a moment, then smiled. "I still have quite a few resources to work through first. But it won't be long."

Lu Yuan burned through cultivation resources at triple the normal rate. Tempering his three Emperor Grade Transcendent Genes had cost roughly ten million Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals' worth of materials — which, with his multiplier, translated to around thirty million actually consumed. He currently had fewer than twenty million Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals left.

That said, he hadn't yet put the spoils from his recent endeavors up for auction.

That was also one of the main reasons he had been climbing the King Rankings — the top ten enjoyed commission-free auction privileges, letting him sell off his accumulated gains without any cut being taken. Nor had he factored in this latest run's rewards yet.

Even accounting for all of that, his burn rate still outpaced his income by a margin.

Li Qinghe nodded. "I see... Both Shuangyue and Tingyu have been wondering when you'll show up. Once you're there, we can take on the Aberration nodes together."

Lu Yuan smiled. "Got it. I'll get there as soon as I can."

"Oh — and one more thing." Li Qinghe's gaze drifted sideways, as if the thought had just occurred to her. "My grandfather called. He wants me to bring you to the Li family for a visit."

Lu Yuan stilled.

He caught the faint flush coloring Li Qinghe's cheeks, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

The last time he had made the Prodigy Rankings, Li Xinghai and the other family elders had seemed to be sizing him up as a potential recruit.

Now Li Xinghai was asking him to visit in person.

Honestly... Lu Yuan was kind of looking forward to it.

He nodded. "Alright."

At that precise moment, both their phones buzzed simultaneously.

They exchanged a startled look, then glanced down at their screens.

"A message from Night Watchman headquarters? An emergency? What's happened?"

Li Qinghe's brow furrowed.

Lu Yuan's mind immediately went to the Cloaked Figure. *Did he actually make a move on the Underground Containment Room?*

*Surely not.*

"Let's go see what it is," he said quickly.

Li Qinghe nodded. "Right."

The two left the villa and took to the air, flying toward Night Watchman headquarters.