Battle King Perfection, Hatching
After entering the Land of Origin, Lu Yuan's life fell back into its familiar rhythm.
Twelve hours of cultivation every day, followed by submitting challenges for the King Rankings.
When arena challenges were available, he fought them; when there were none, he hunted King Grade and Emperor Grade Feral Beasts in the Demon Dragon Mountain Range for resources.
On days off, he'd go eat good food with Yeye, get dragged into extra training sessions by Si Tingxue and Rebecca, or spend time playing with Amy.
Simple days, but fulfilling ones.
With his cultivation level having risen, his maximum stay in the Land of Origin had extended to eighty days. At his current training pace, he could absorb roughly 1.9 million Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals' worth of spiritual power per visit.
The Mechanical Emperor Transcendent Gene required around five million Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals to temper to perfection — though with progress already carried over from before, the actual amount Lu Yuan needed was somewhat lower.
By his second entry into the Land of Origin, he had nearly completed the tempering.
And at almost the same time, he climbed to first place on the King Rankings.
The caliber of competitors on the King Rankings was naturally a cut above the Prodigy Rankings. The top warriors were no pushovers — the top two had even inscribed Emperor Grade Transcendent Genes.
Inscribing Emperor Grade genes while still at King Grade was genuinely impressive.
But against Lu Yuan, whose every gene was Emperor Grade, they were impressive and nothing more.
Holding back slightly, he relied solely on the Great Solar Spirit Body, Starfield Roaming, his Spirit Techniques, Body Techniques, and Gene Armament — enough to defeat both warriors with two Emperor Grade genes each and claim first place on the King Rankings.
Once he reached the top spot, his reputation swelled considerably, drawing the attention of numerous factions in White Cloud City. Those who had previously sent invitations through the Prodigy Rankings grew even more enthusiastic in their appeals.
He declined every single one.
For Lu Yuan, these invitations were beside the point. All he wanted were the ranking rewards.
And the rewards were generous enough to leave him satisfied.
Climbing from 40th to 1st, the treasures he accumulated included one thousand Heavenly King Fruits — Fifth-rank cultivation spirit fruits.
Adding the six hundred he'd had before, he now possessed sixteen hundred in total.
Once evolved to Emperor Grade, the fruits should hold resources equivalent to roughly sixteen million Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals — nearly enough to finish tempering his remaining Transcendent Genes.
The timing worked out perfectly. After completing the Mechanical Emperor tempering, his remaining Spirit Power Gene Fluid and Spirit Crystals were nearly spent. All that remained was roughly two million Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals' worth of power stored inside the Evolution Cube.
He wasn't worried, though. With first place on the King Rankings came commission-free access to the Auction House, meaning he could now sell off the various Transcendent Genes, Gene Armaments, and other treasures he'd accumulated — all of them first evolved by him, naturally.
Beyond the Heavenly King Fruits, the ranking rewards also included two hundred Fifth-rank Origin Stones, which together with his previous stock brought his total to three hundred and twenty. He planned to use some when breaking through from Fifth-rank to Sixth-rank and keep the rest in reserve — either for auction, or to evolve into Sixth-rank Origin Stones later if he ran short.
On top of that, two Fifth-rank Emperor Grade Gene Armaments brought his collection to five. Two Emperor Grade Transcendent Genes brought his total to three.
The three Emperor Grade Transcendent Genes were: a fire-element gene called Flowing Flame Vortex, a frost-element gene called Frost Dragon's Fury, and a metal-element gene called Metal Fortress.
All solid finds — but none of them were what Lu Yuan truly wanted.
What he wanted most was a time-type Transcendent Gene. He still hadn't found one. Second on his list were genes that could cover his remaining weaknesses.
His current Transcendent Genes handled: defense via the Great Solar Spirit Body, recovery via Life's Aria, Mechanical Control via the Mechanical Emperor, spatial movement via Starfield Roaming, burst power and purification via Sacred Brilliance, and domain manipulation with clone abilities via Shadow Dominion.
From his current level to War God, four stages remained — Battle Sovereign, Battle Emperor, Battle Saint, and War God — meaning four more Transcendent Gene slots to fill. Ideally, each new gene would cover a different element or domain.
Powerful crowd control, overwhelming burst-attack capability, or covert curse-type abilities were all viable candidates. Of course, one slot had to stay reserved for a time-type gene.
During this period, Lu Yuan often browsed the Talent Camp's shop looking for Transcendent Genes that might suit him. He'd identified a few promising options: the Weakness Curse and Corrosion Curse for quietly debilitating enemies, a powerful offensive gene called Ice-Fire Spear, and the Wind Thunder Fury that Yeye had given him previously.
He still hadn't made a final decision on which to inscribe next.
Not that he was in any rush. There was still some distance before his next breakthrough — neither Sacred Brilliance nor Shadow Dominion had been fully tempered yet. He'd cross that bridge once tempering was complete.
The ranking rewards, beyond what was already mentioned, also included various powerful Talismans, gene serums, five King Grade spirit fruits for enhancing physical strength called Blood Spirit Ginseng, and King Grade spirit fruits for enhancing soul strength called Jade Spirit Ginseng.
Like the spirit fruits from the Prodigy Rankings, the first one consumed carried the strongest effect. Lu Yuan kept one for himself and gave the remaining four to Si Tingxue, Rebecca, Amy, and Wang Lingling.
Given Yeye's strength, reaching the King Rankings herself wouldn't be difficult — she'd earn her own in time. Sister Qinghe and his mentor had already used theirs previously, so there was no need to give them any either.
That, more or less, was the full accounting of Lu Yuan's gains.
With first place on the King Rankings secured, he no longer needed to keep fighting arena battles — but he stayed busy regardless, making regular trips to the Auction House to sell off his evolved items.
Cultivation, of course, never stopped.
He began using Heavenly King Fruits for training. After evolving them to Emperor Grade quality, they delivered exactly what he'd expected — each containing spiritual power equivalent to one million Fifth-tier Spirit Crystals.
The energy was remarkably gentle, too, making it more efficient to absorb than the Spirit Power Gene Fluid he'd previously relied on. That made sense. The Spirit Power Gene Fluid had been a Third-rank cultivation resource; the Heavenly King Fruit was Fifth-rank. Even at the same Emperor Grade quality, the gap between Third-rank Emperor Grade and Fifth-rank Emperor Grade was still considerable.
With the Spirit Power Gene Fluid, he'd absorbed roughly two thousand Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals' worth of power per hour. Now, with Heavenly King Fruits, that figure hit five thousand per hour.
His training time hadn't shortened at all — still twelve hours a day. That meant sixty thousand Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals absorbed per day.
An efficiency rate that would make even Battle Emperor-rank powerhouses green with envy. Even a Battle Emperor couldn't realistically absorb sixty thousand Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals in a single day — yet Lu Yuan was merely Battle King Rank, which made his cultivation speed all the more staggering.
It all came down to his raw absorption speed. It was simply absurd.
At sixty thousand per day, tempering Sacred Brilliance to perfection required just over four million Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals' worth of energy in total — and with accumulated progress carried over from before, the actual remainder was even less. Lu Yuan finished tempering Sacred Brilliance to full perfection within a single Land of Origin entry cycle, with time still left to begin on Shadow Dominion, his final remaining gene.
All of this was made possible by what he'd accumulated earlier. Emperor Grade Transcendent Genes and Gene Armaments commanded strong demand, and the steady flow of Spirit Crystal income gave him more than enough to spend freely. Without that stream of revenue, he wouldn't have been able to sustain this pace regardless of how much he wanted to.
Less than a month and a half after the Elf's death, Lu Yuan had tempered every single one of his Transcendent Genes to perfection.
His routine throughout this stretch was simple: cultivate, hunt for treasures, evolve and auction them off, collect Spirit Crystals, repeat.
The moment he finished tempering all his Transcendent Genes to perfection, the Gene Lock materialized.
Over a hundred and fifty Gene Lock chains coiled around and sealed the lock above — enough to make even Lu Yuan's breath catch. Normally, the chains wouldn't number so high. The excess was a direct result of holding six Emperor Grade Transcendent Genes at only Battle King Rank, an extraordinary burden that the Gene Lock reflected accordingly.
Fortunately, the three hundred and twenty Fifth-rank Origin Stones he'd earned from the rankings were more than sufficient to handle the breakings. Otherwise, gathering that many would have taken far longer.
Lu Yuan didn't rush to break the chains immediately. He planned to wait until everything currently listed at the Auction House had sold before making his move. After all, once he broke through to Battle Sovereign, he'd be removed from the King Rankings — and his Auction House sales would fall under the standard ten-percent commission.
Far too costly.
Once this batch of treasures sold through, his remaining assets stood at seven hundred Heavenly King Fruits already evolved to Emperor Grade, and over eighty million Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals.
The haul had come from selling hundreds of Fifth-rank and Sixth-rank Emperor Grade Gene Armaments, large quantities of King Grade Fourth-rank Gene Armaments, and a number of Transcendent Genes. All told, more than enough to sustain his cultivation for a good while.
After that, he intended to head to the Upper Layer of the Land of Origin and hunt Aberration Feral Beasts to trigger the Evolution Cube's metamorphosis. Once the Cube transformed, the ceiling on what external items it could evolve would rise — and his resource generation would become even more efficient.
Meanwhile, deep inside a hidden cave on Great Qi Star, the egg that had been silently pulsing with faint green light suddenly began to shudder violently.
Eerie green radiance blazed outward. A sinister, overwhelming aura surged through the cave, whipping up a localized gale — and then cracks began spiderwebbing across the surface of the great egg.
As the fractures spread, a claw slick with green mucus thrust outward from within.
**Crack. Crack. Crack.**
The green egg shattered, and the creature inside hauled itself free.
It was a dog-like creature, pale green from head to tail, its frame skeletal and gaunt. Crimson markings traced lines across its entire body. The moment it crawled free, it stood upright and opened its pale-green eyes.
Shoulder height barely a meter — it looked almost small. But the aura it radiated was the kind that inspired primal fear.
The creature swept its gaze across the cave around it, those pale eyes glinting with a sharp, cunning intelligence. Then it curled its lips back in something like a grin. Drops of green slime dripped from the corners of its mouth, struck the cave floor, and ate through the stone with a faint sizzle.
A moment later, it opened its jaws and began devouring the shattered eggshells scattered across the ground.
**Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.**
With each fragment swallowed, its body visibly swelled.
By the time the last piece was gone, the creature had grown to roughly two meters at the shoulder. The aura it now projected was something else entirely — deeply, viscerally terrifying.
It extended its tongue — studded with backward-pointing barbs — and licked its lips. Then green light flickered across its body, and it simply vanished.
The next instant, it materialized above a city.
Gazing down at the sprawl below, a gleam of hunger crept into those sharp eyes.
It opened its jaws and let out a piercing shriek.
The shriek spread outward. Every ordinary person, Trainee Warrior, Warrior, and Battle Master within the city below crumpled, blood pouring from every orifice — dead before they hit the ground.
Those above Battle Master Rank staggered, spitting blood. They looked skyward with horror carved across their faces.
Even a middle-aged man radiating the unmistakable aura of Battle Sovereign rank — dignified and imposing in bearing — went pale.
He tilted his head back and looked at the sky.
The moment he spotted that small green silhouette overhead, the terror of its aura hit him like a physical wall. He didn't stop to think. He didn't stop for his family. He was out of his residence in an instant and headed straight for the city's edge.
He kept to the ground — flying upward might draw the creature's eye.
He was fast. Ten-odd seconds and he'd have cleared the city limits.
Just then, his sprint jerked to a halt. An immense suction force seized him and began dragging him backward and upward against his will.
He stared wide-eyed, swept his gaze across his surroundings — and felt ice shoot down his spine.
The entire city, spanning nearly a hundred kilometers, foundations and all — a landmass vast enough to qualify as a small island — was rising into the air.
Corpses, living Gene Warriors, shards of crumbled buildings — everything drifted toward the open maw of the green creature above.
As each thing drew near, whether corpse, warrior, or debris, it dissolved into green slime and flowed into the creature's waiting mouth.
The Battle Sovereign roared in desperation, surging his spirit power, unleashing Combat Techniques, throwing everything he had into fighting the pull — but then his body seized up all at once, and in an instant he dissolved into green slime, merging with the rest as it all poured into the creature's mouth.