Lu Yin spent the rest of his time during the meeting avoiding the people from the Bloodburn Realm while others mingled with their friends.
Xu San was not able to fit in with Shang Rong’s group, so instead, he clung to He Xiang.
As for Sixteen, he remained determined to stay at Xu San’s side.
Although Ancestor Swifteyes was only a World Imprinter at the moment, it was quite likely that he would become a Cosmic Imprinter some time within the next few years. Since Xu San was Ancestor Swifteyes’ sole disciple, his status would rise even higher despite his lacking personal strength, and at that time, his status would be comparable to a Realmling’s. Thus, Sixteen was determined to suck up to Xu San.
The gathering lasted for half a day before finally ending.
Lu Yin quickly left while Xu San was still pestering He Xiang. His persistence caused her to be anxious to leave.
“There will be tens of millions of cultivators from the Sixth Mainland who will be joining the contest for the poles. The team that we’ll be joining might have even a hundred thousand or even a million people in it. Although this is nothing compared to the scale of the entire Cosmic Sea, it’s still quite a large number of people, and there is the possibility of death no matter how powerful we are,” Ling Que seriously said after they returned to Xu San’s residence.
Starsibyl glanced out the window. She had barely spoken ever since they had first arrived at the meeting.
“Just stay at the back and escape when you get a chance. Nobody will be paying attention to you when there’s that many people around,” Xu San replied.
Ling Que had no desire to answer Xu San. This person had barely fought in any battles during the invasion, and he had never witnessed a large-scale battle before.
Meanwhile, Lu Yin was in his room. He lifted his head and caused his die to appear. Then, he tapped it, and the die slowly spun before finally landing on Timestop.
Since he was now in the Timestop Space, he would definitely be able to roll Enhance eventually. Additionally, Lu Yin was not anxious in the least since he was quite wealthy at the moment. If not for the fact that he was concerned about becoming overwhelmed with loneliness, he would have remained within the Timestop Space forever.
He had technically cultivated for ten years in total, but that time would be much longer if he included all of the time that he had spent in the Timestop space. That would push his cultivation time to around thirteen or fourteen years.
Within the Timestop Space, he was able to roll his die every ten days, and after spending thirty days in the space, Lu Yin finally rolled Enhance.
He placed the semi-Lifesource token on the upper light screen and started with tossing out ten thousand star essence. The semi-Lifesource token immediately fell through to the next layer. The token’s color had deepened, and its texture had somewhat changed as well. It had only cost Lu Yin about a thousand star essence to upgrade it once.
The material had become higher quality, and it was now about the same quality level as the flesh of an Astral Beast.
It was time for Lu Yin to test out the upgraded token, but he didn’t want to waste this Enhance. Unfortunately, he did not have anything else that was worth upgrading. Oh, right, there was the Skyblaze Stone.
Lu Yin threw the stone onto the top light screen, but then he wondered if he could even upgrade this stone. After all, it was originally the source of strength of the Skyblaze Dojo’s fire dragon.
The pile of star essence on the top layer disappeared, which indicated that the Skyblaze Stone could indeed be upgraded. However, the stone did not move very much.
Lu Yin thought about it, and then threw out more and more star essence onto the light screen. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand…
As Lu Yin threw out more and more star essence, the stone gradually dropped through the two light screens. In the end, it was fully upgraded once, and the entire stone seemed to have been qualitatively changed. Lu Yin could even hear vague roars coming from the stone.
Lu Yin smiled bitterly as it had cost him 1.2 million star essence to upgrade the stone.
However, this price was understandable, as that fire dragon had been extremely powerful. Its strength had been comparable to that of an Enlighter with a power level between 300,000 and 400,000. Thus, it was quite reasonable for an upgrade to cost more than one million star essence. In comparison, Lu Yin had spent 900,000 star essence to upgrade his former universal armor to the point where it could protect him from attacks of power levels of 400,000.
However, it was still an exorbitant amount of money, and Lu Yin would not try upgrading the stone again unless he had several million star essence on him.
Next, he took out the Giant Emperor’s third eye and tried to upgrade it, but nothing happened.
After that was the gemspring water. Lu Yin tested it and found that he could indeed upgrade it. Gemspring water was a lockbreaking tool that helped a Lockbreaker to see more clearly, so he continued to toss more star essence out to upgrade it.
After fourteen full upgrades, the gemspring water had completely changed. Now, it looked more like an energy mixture than water. He had spent 560,000 star essence on it to bring it to such a level.
Could he still use it? Lu Yin was not entirely certain, so he decided to try it on someone else sometime in the future.
He still had 714,000 star essence remaining, which was a huge sum compared to what he had previously possessed. However, his heart bled whenever he recalled the mountains of star essence that he had left behind on the floating continent. If he had only had a few more seconds, he would have been able to double his wealth.
As the scenery changed before his eyes, Lu Yin reappeared in his room. Only a second had passed in the real world during his couple of weeks in the Timestop Space.
To Starsibyl and the others, Lu Yin simply came out from his room after staying there for a while, and they did not suspect anything at all.
“Xu San, show me your token,” Lu Yin ordered. He had asked Xu San to bring Sixteen’s token over earlier.
Xu San took out the token.
Lu Yin tried out his newly upgraded token, and some words suddenly appeared on the token in Xu San’s hand. It was a single word: “Hello.”
Starsibyl and the others were stunned when they saw the writing.
Xu San was shocked. “Zhi- Sky Zhi has sent me an order.”
Lu Yin smirked, but he stayed quiet. He had succeeded.
Starsibyl’s eyes snapped towards Lu Yin.
Ling Que also looked at Lu Yin. These two were not dumb.
Only Xu San was still staring at his token in a daze. He felt like the token in his hand had started to heat up; Sky Zhi, Sky Zhi had said hello to him!
She was one of the Daosource Three Skies, and even with Xu San’s new status, it would be impossible for Xu San to meet with any of the Daosource Three Skies. He had never even imagined that one of them would greet him.
Actually, he should have also noticed that something was off, as Lu Yin had randomly asked Xu San to take out the token beforehand. However, Xu San was far too excited with the thought that Sky Zhi might have greeted him, so he was unable to even consider any other possibility.
Starsibyl stared at Lu Yin in surprise. “How did you do it?”
Lu Yin smiled. “I had some source material on hand, and I was able to incorporate it into the token. Don’t forget that I’m a Lockbreaker.”
“You’re that lucky?” Ling Que did not believe Lu Yin.
Lu Yin took out the broken sword that he had received from a sourcebox on Planet Hydrotink. “Source material is actually softer than semi-source material, so it’s really easy to combine with other materials.”
Source material was something unique to the Sixth Mainland’s Daosource Sect, so nobody here could recognize it. Lu Yin could basically say anything that he wanted to about the substance.
Starsibyl’s eyes flickered. She felt that she was more and more unable to understand Lu Yin, and it had even reached the point where she could no longer determine if he was telling the truth or not. This was a very strange feeling for her as she had always been able to easily determine whether or not people were lying just through her experience. However, she was unable to determine anything related to Lu Yin, and she felt like he was obscured by a heavy mist.
However, she was not able to prove that Lu Yin was lying, as it was impossible for him to tamper with an item that had come from the Daosource Three Skies. Still, it was too coincidental for his story to be true.
Ling Que praised Lu Yin, “Bro, you’re great! Come on, say hi to Zhi Yi. Tell her that Brother Que is still missing one person for his cheerleading squad, and ask her if she’s interested! We can negotiate the compensation.”
Lu Yin laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell her before we leave.”
Ling Que was stunned. “I was just joking!”
He did not want to be targeted by any of the Daosource Three Skies.
…
Lightning occasionally crashed down from the sky.
Countless cultivators headed out in a specific direction as they moved across the sea. They were all a part of the team that was led by Sixteen. He was a Cruiser as well as a member of the clan, which meant that his status was quite high. Thus, nobody dared to object to him leading a team.
There were nearly 800,000 people in this team, but most of them were not even Explorers. However, there was also a large number of cultivators above the Explorer realm.
The weather in the Cosmic Sea was very unpredictable, and aside from the occasional lightning storms, spatial cracks would also sporadically open within the thunder region, which always startled the cultivators.
Lu Yin stayed in the middle of the team as they headed to the southeast. This was the location where they would be fighting over a pole.
The lightning in the sky rumbled and grew more intense the closer they drew to the pole, and massive lightning bolts flashed across in the sky every once in a while, though at other times, it would be eerily quiet.
Sixteen’s expression was grim as he led his team.
The cultivators immediately behind him were mostly from the clan, and most of them were either Explorers or Cruisers.
“There’s a reef up ahead that’s peeking above the water. There might be some natives from the Fifth Mainland hiding there, so be careful,” someone called out.
The aforementioned reef suddenly exploded, followed by the other reefs along the beach. Each explosion had a power level that exceeded 100,000, and Fifth Mainland cultivators suddenly appeared from the sea and the sky.
However, they only attacked the outside members of the Sixth Mainland’s team, and nobody dared to target the inside of the crowd. It seemed that the ambushers’ goal was to stall the Sixth Mainland’s assault team.
Since the two sides were going to fight for the poles, some would be tasked with fighting for the pole while others would have to stall the enemy. This was actually the same strategy that the Sixth Mainland had been planning on using.
Zhi Yi had accounted for many different scenarios, and she had naturally assigned some people to act as a shield to block the Fifth Mainland cultivators so that they would not waste any time.
Furthermore, tens of thousands of cultivators had broken away from the team to check nearby areas, ensuring that the tens of thousands of cultivators who remained in the center of the assault team were left undisturbed.
The whole conflict seemed to proceed in a very orderly fashion.
Lu Yin was also impressed. The status of the Daosource Three Skies was truly high for them to control so many cultivators even from a distance.
Ling Que exclaimed, “If only there were so many people who would fight for me.” He then turned to look at Lu Yin. “What do you think?”
Lu Yin ignored Ling Que and continued to observe the surrounding area.
Ling Que then turned towards Starsibyl, but she also ignored him as she remained focused on what was happening around them.
Feeling awkward, Ling Que raised a hand and patted the shoulder of a random cultivator who was in front of him. “Brother, what do you think?”
The cultivator gave Ling Que a strange look, but he nodded. “Yeah, you’re right.”
Ling Que’s eyes lit up. This person’s attitude reminded him of the cultivator from the Sixth Mainland who had died while talking to him. Could that event possibly happen once again? Ling Que’s interest was piqued, and he immediately moved closer to the cultivator and started spouting nonsense about his aspirations, goals, dreams, and more. His continuous chatter left the cultivator in a daze.
Meanwhile, the amount of lightning in the sky gradually increased, and it left the youths of both sides feeling increasingly anxious.
