“Just remember this. No matter how hard you people from Astral-10 work, it’s impossible for you to ever match up against the other combat academies from the Innerverse. At best, you might become as powerful as Astral-9. The Astral Combat Tournament isn’t about showy battle techniques or concealing your abilities, but rather demonstrating your true power,” Liu Ju said. She already considered herself as a part of Astral-6.
Her words only made Lu Yin extremely confused; she seemed a little crazy to him.
Soon enough, Mr. Wusheng smiled, walked over to Lu Yin, and extended an emblem to him with a serious expression. “I would like to officially ask you if you are willing to join the Lockbreaker Society and become a Junior Lockbreaker.”
Lu Yin took a deep breath and, with a fervent look in his eyes, replied, “Yes, sir. I’m willing to dedicate the rest of my life to the Lockbreaker Society.”
Ju was rendered speechless by his act. This guy was saying the exact same things as Xia Luo. Had they rehearsed it?!
Mr. Wusheng froze for a brief moment but then chuckled as he handed the emblem over to Lu Yin. He patted Lu Yin on the shoulder and exclaimed, “Great. From now on, you’re officially a registered member of our Lockbreaker Society. However, you currently have zero merit points, which you can only obtain by successfully breaking locks. When others wish to ask Lockbreakers for help, they mostly choose based on how many merit points the Lockbreaker has earned, so please work hard.”
“Yes, sir.” Lu Yin was very excited with his membership. He mainly wanted the Lockbreaker Society’s backing, so he didn’t really care about these merit points.
Mr. Wusheng sighed before saying, “Xia Luo has Elder Tan to teach him, so there won’t be any problems there. You just joined the society, however, so you really don’t know anything, and it’s not like you can suddenly start breaking locks. How about this; I’ll give you a few books. Also, you must promise me that once you start officially breaking locks, you’ll contact me first.”
So Xia Luo also joined the society? It seems that this person came here just to recruit Xia Luo. and Elder Tan must be the Trialmaster! All of these mentors seem to be hiding something. Meanwhile, Lu Yin nodded earnestly and took the books. They were all from the society and were invaluable.
Liu Ju glared at Lu Yin. “Make sure that you take care of them and don’t lose them. Those books are worth more than your life.”
“Don’t spout nonsense, Liu Ju. No matter how valuable these books are, they can only pass their knowledge down to others while people are the ones to create the knowledge that is held within the books. The two can’t be compared,” Mr. Wusheng said sternly.
After being scolded again, Liu Ju pursed her lips and chose to remain silent.
Master Wusheng spent a bit more time talking with Lu Yin before finally leaving with Liu Ju. Lu Yin watched the spacecraft soare through the sky while he sighed ruefully at how fickle fate was. What an amazing coincidence it was for him to run into such a great opportunity right before he left the academy. And this was the Lockbreaker Society, not just any run-of-the-mill organisation! With his new identity, he’d be free to do as he liked in any part of the universe. How liberating!
However, even if he used his newly acquired identity of a Lockbreaker, it would still be difficult to find a backer for the trial zones. No one would acknowledge him, not even if he showed them his emblem. Only power was relevant there. Lu Yin had a feeling that he needed to first successfully break a lock before he would be able to use his Lockbreaker status to find protection in the trial zones.
After boarding his own Aurora spacecraft, Lu Yin prepared to fly over to the Irven Merchants’ meeting point, which was a one day journey from Astral-10. Given the speed of his universal spacecraft, the meeting location was pretty far, but it was still within the Frostwave Weave’s territory.
Before Lu Yin started the spacecraft up, he checked to see if it needed a power source, but he couldn’t find anything. With how advanced modern technology was, this spacecraft worked in a way that he could not understand. Whatever it was, it did not need any additional power source.
This was good news for Lu Yin, as otherwise, this would just be another thing that required large amounts of money. While the Aurora spacecraft was already a money-devouring monster, it was good to save wherever he could.
He selected his route, set the spacecraft to autopilot, and then took out the books that Master Wusheng had given him. He then began to carefully peruse them.
Back within Astral-10, Xia Luo was leisurely walking around while he played with the starburst orb in his hand. Within the blink of an eye, he removed the thick metal layer covering it. Star energy trembled within it, and a moment later, all of the rampaging star energy was calmed down.
If Master Wusheng had seen this, then he would have definitely been shocked speechless. People with outstanding ability like Liu Ju were already able to neutralize the energy within three seconds, and there were few people among the young generation of the Lockbreaker Society who could do this. Those who could neutralize the energy in less than three seconds were much rarer, and it was nearly impossible to find someone who could do so instantly. Liu Ju had done everything she could in order to shorten her time by even one second, but for Xia Luo, it seemed to be as easy as breathing!
“The test for the Junior Lockbreakers, huh? How childish,” Xia Luo mused as he nonchalantly crushed the orb in his hands. Then, he looked up, his eyes shining with a profound light that nobody could understand.
A day later, Lu Yin’s spacecraft started beeping. He opened his eyes and found that there were quite a few spacecraft surrounding him. He had landed at the space station of a blue planet, with the surrounding spacecraft landing one after another.
Lu Yin had fallen asleep due to sheer exhaustion after studying the books for over ten hours. And surprisingly, by the time he woke up, he had already arrived at his destination.
His time spent studying was not in vain, as his understanding of what a Lockbreaker actually was had expanded greatly. These books had also helped him understand why the universe prized Lockbreakers so much. If the universe was said to contain countless treasures, then Lockbreakers were the guards who held the keys to those treasures. In one of the books, it had listed out a few examples of why Lockbreakers were so important.
The example that had been deeply imprinted into Lu Yin’s memory was the Daynight clan’s ancient inheritance stone. It turned out that the stone had been unlocked by a powerful Lockbreaker from that clan, and that unlocked inheritance stone was the start of the Daynight clan’s history of possessing unparalleled battle techniques.
Another memorable example was the Ross Empire, which was one of the three great powers that had attacked during Astral-10’s exam. The ancient technology that they had inherited had been unlocked by a Lockbreaker.
There was also Shamrock Enterprises, which had inherited treasures that Lockbreakers had unlocked.
There were so, so many examples that exemplified the importance of Lockbreakers. However, while Lockbreakers were able to unlock ancient items that had been sealed away, the society’s actual battle power wasn’t very impressive, mostly because their numbers were so few. Currently, there were only about 630,000 registered Lockbreakers in the society. There were countless people within the universe, but there were merely 630,000 Lockbreakers.
Astral-10’s exam alone had attracted about a million students. 630,000 Lockbreakers was a tiny number when compared to the population of the Frostwave Weave—no, even on Earth, this would be true. Their member count was only comparable to the population of a tiny province. This number was nothing in the scope of the larger universe.
Lu Yin released a pent up breath. He’d only just now realized what kind of organization he had joined. No wonder Master Wusheng had been sceptical of his ability to clear the starburst orb assessment. Finding somebody who could do so was not one in a million, but more like one in ten million.
Of course, Lu Yin didn’t trust the reported membercount. In this universe, what organization didn’t have a few secrets? There had to be more than 630,000 Lockbreakers as there was no way their member count would be inflated. The number of Lockbreakers was determined by the number of people who could comprehend star energy. Lu Yin could be considered a genius in this, but that was only because of his Cosmic Art.
Lu Yin stored the books away and looked outside. His spacecraft was still lining up to land, and while slow, it would take less than half an hour. Before long, Lu Yin had parked the spacecraft and found the Irven Merchants where they’d agreed to meet.
The Irven Merchants traded not only commercial products, but also troops. This journey was because of the war that had broken out in the Frostwave Weave.
Right after Lu Yin left Astral-10, he had received a notification that war was brewing within the Great Yu Empire; the second prince had been revealed as a traitor and Undying Yushan’s old medical problems had resurfaced. Zhang Dingtian and some others had disappeared as well. While Lu Yin now knew about all this, he was still unable to intervene.
His title, King Zishan, was merely a title. He was still nothing more than a Melder and didn’t even have the right to interfere. The only thing he could do was pray for Zhang Dingtian and the others. Everyone had their own fate; they might die or obtain a huge opportunity, but nobody knew the future for certain. If it was possible, then they would meet again somewhere in the universe!
While Lu Yin was reliving the night he had spent drinking with the second prince on the capital star, an obese man who seemed like a businessman walked over. After Lu Yin stated who he was, the man grew completely disinterested in Lu Yin due to his identity as a student of Astral-10. The man was very calm, namely because Astral-10’s reputation was already ruined.
Two hours later, Lu Yin withdrew 150,000 star energy crystals from the bank cards and returned to his spacecraft before following the Irven Merchants into space.
Lu Yin being a student of Astral-10 had not surprised the obese merchant, but Lu Yin’s Aurora spacecraft did. The man became a lot more enthusiastic when talking to Lu Yin, who then burst into laughter. Being a student at Astral-10 can’t even compare to owning a spacecraft. How hilarious. Lu Yin wondered if this fat man might die from shock if he revealed that he was a Lockbreaker as well.
The Irven Merchants had a total of twelve universal spacecrafts that traveled in a straight line north of the Frostwave Weave. The cargo spacecraft was massive, dwarfing all the others. Only Lu Yin remained in a personal spacecraft, though that drew quite a bit of attention as not many people had an Aurora spacecraft in the Outerverse.
After successfully setting course, traveling through space was pretty dull unless they happened to encounter space pirates. Lu Yin was aware of this, so he continued reading his books.
Before much time passed, his gadget made a sound. Lu Yin was shocked since it was from an unfamiliar ID and in the form of a video call. He did not hesitate at all to tap the screen, causing a familiar face appeared in front of him.
“Long time no see, Seven.” An aged man had appeared on the screen. A strand of white hair hung loosely from his forehead, and he appeared to be around fifty years old. His eyes seemed to penetrate through everyone he looked at.
Upon seeing him, Lu Yin grow ecstatic. “I didn’t expect for you to contact me, Uncle You Ling!”
“Are you doing okay out there?” The man called You Ling looked solemn and did not smile at all. However, he gazed at Lu Yin with a gentle look in his eyes.
Lu Yin nodded. “I’m doing great. How are things at home? Is everyone alright?”
You Ling replied, “You don’t have to worry about us. I’m contacting you to tell you about something important. You probably already know about the war in the Great Yu Empire. You should rush back to the imperial palace and do whatever you can to find the Zishan Family’s treasure before Undying Yushan passes away.”
Lu Yin’s eyes shone brightly. As expected, there was a secret within the Great Yu Empire; otherwise, his family wouldn’t have expended so much effort to set him up as the descendant of King Zishan. “What is this treasure?”
You Ling went quiet before seriously answering, “The Undying Manual.”
“The Undying Manual?” Lu Yin was confused, as he had never heard of it before.
You Ling replied, “It’s an ancient technique that’s been rumored to exist in the Innerverse Fallen Star Waters. It contains the secret to immortality.”
Lu Yin was startled. “How is that even possible? Nobody can become immortal. That goes against all the laws of the universe!”
“I know that. But even if one can’t become immortal, it’s possible for cultivators to extend their lives. Centuries ago, Undying Yushan and Undying Zishan ventured into the Innerverse and joined the Fallen Star Waters. After that, they rose in power and Undying Yushan even reached the top twenty rankings in the Star Battle List. Many guessed that Undying Zishan and Yushan obtained the Undying Manual together. They even changed their names! He wasn’t called Undying Yushan back then,” You Ling explained.
