After experiencing another death, Lu Yin felt even more dread towards the Lower Realm. There were truly countless terrifying monsters down there. It was no wonder why Root was unable to completely eliminate all of them.
After rolling his die five times, Lu Yin had to rest for another ten days, and he spent his time absorbing more star energy.
Twenty days had passed since he had returned to the Junior Progenitor Planet, and during these twenty days, the middle-aged man had swept through the area three times with his star energy. The third sweep had taken place nearly nine days after the first two. It looked like he was becoming a bit lax.
Given Lu Yin’s current progress, it was expected that he would need some more time to finish his nineteenth cycle as a Hunter, but Lu Yin was in no hurry.
After ten more days, he continued rolling his die.
This time, he failed to roll a single six, or even a four, which he felt was rather unfortunate.
Lu Yin left the underground area with the dark magma to spend some time relaxing. He then dragged a great deal of star essence back to the magma while also secretly putting a great deal into his cosmic ring. He would not always have access to such unlimited resources.
“All of the resources here are marked, so you can’t take them away with you.” Lu Yin had deliberately passed by the middle-aged man in order to gauge the man’s reaction, which was when the man had made this comment.
Lu Yin pursed his lips. “I know.”
With that, the man simply ignored Lu Yin.
Most of the powerhouses who were willing to follow a Junior Progenitor were either approaching the end of their lives or had reached their limits when it came to cultivating. Besides them, there was another group of people that followed a Junior Progenitor, which were those who needed protection from their enemies because they lacked the necessary strength. This last category was clearly the one that the middle-aged man fell into.
Lu Yin threw a great deal of star essence into the dark magma before continuing to absorb it while reciting the Stonewall Scriptures.
The Stonewall Scriptures had always been very mysterious to Lu Yin, and it was something that he did not dare to reveal to the outside world. Still, whenever he encountered something mysterious or strange, he would frequently recite the scriptures.
In truth, Lu Yin had always tried to investigate the identity of the old man whom he had met on Driftcharge Planet, but unfortunately, there was no way to proceed.
Lu Yin feared forgetting the Stonewall Scriptures, so he recited them repeatedly and took comfort in them.
Ten more days passed. During this time, no one approached the Junior Progenitor Planet. Liu Tianmu also spent her time peacefully cultivating.
Lu Yin lifted a hand and brought out his die. He took a deep breath and silently sent up a prayer that he would roll a six, as that was his only way to survive.
His finger tapped the die, and it slowly spun around before finally stopping: six pips.
Lu Yin’s mouth fell open. What was this? Was it the way that he had rolled the die? Had he been doing things wrong this whole time? Was he supposed to pray before rolling the die?
He had almost no time at all to consider the matter before his consciousness appeared in the dark space. Like usual, he quickly found a bright orb and merged with it.
Lu Yin Possessed another body, but he did not immediately open his eyes. The first thing that he noticed was the overwhelming, bone deep pain.
He quickly opened his eyes to see that he was in a dark cell. A short old man stood in front of him with a strange grin on his face as water dripped in the corner with an incredibly regular rhythm.
Lu Yin blinked. What was this? Was he being interrogated?
“Looks like it’s still not enough. We’ll just have to continue.” The short old man had an odd smile. Lu Yin did not know what had just happened, but he was immediately struck by the bone-deep pain once more. This pain was actually a bit worse than when Lu Yin had opened his lower meridian point, and it felt as though his entire body was being crushed and then rebuilt.
“Lu Yin” quickly spoke up. “I’ll talk.”
The little old man was clearly startled, and his eyes flashed. “What?”
The pain disappeared, and Lu Yin and the little old man stared at each other. What was Lu Yin supposed to say? What did this body know?
Finally, memories flooded into Lu Yin’s mind. After two seconds, he understood his current situation. He had Possessed an Envoy named Ren Qing. Additionally, the reason why he had been able to Possess an Envoy was because the man’s stellular energy vortex had been destroyed, greatly weakening him. Given the man’s current situation, any random Enlighter with a power level of just 400,000 would be able to easily defeat the man, and this weakness was also why Lu Yin had been able to Possess an Envoy.
However, this matter was not important. Rather, Ren Qing was a Redback, and he happened to be the only Redback that Guan Hai had been in contact with.
After Lu Yin had exposed the Guan brothers as Redbacks, Guan Tong and Guan Hai had been taken away by Qing Chen. They had then committed suicide before they could be interrogated and more Redbacks uncovered. Since they had been discovered, there was no way they would be allowed to live. The brothers had been extremely decisive, which was also why they had become the leaders of Huaiyuan’s Humility’s Gate. In the past, Qing Chen had appreciated the brothers’ decisiveness, but after their capture, that same trait infuriated him.
Fortunately, Humility’s Gate had already investigated who the brothers had been in contact with and who they had been grooming to become traitors to humanity. Nothing was initially found, but Qing Chen was quite clever, and he had pretended to discover something and made some false arrests. Out of those who had been targeted in this manner, only Ren Qing had been found to be a Redback. When people had gone to arrest him, he had fought back with too much vigor, eventually resulting in him being specifically targeted by Qing Chen and then brought to this place.
Right after capturing Ren Qing, Qing Chen had immediately destroyed the Envoy’s stellular energy vortex to prevent the Redback from also killing himself. However, Qing Chen had overestimated Ren Qing; he did not have the same determination as the Guan Brothers, and he had quickly broken down during the interrogation.
However, due to how quickly the man had caved in the interrogation, Qing Chen did not believe what Ren Qing Said, and neither had the old interrogator. Thus, the torture had never stopped.
Regardless, Ren Qing had been absolutely miserable and was treated as a tragic reminder for the rest. Lu Yin actually felt some sympathy for the man, as Lu Yin knew that the man’s confessions were all true.
“I know that you’re still trying to keep some important information hidden, but just say it. If you don’t want to suffer, then talk to me. If you don’t, I won’t let you have an easy death, and I’ll use the rest of my life to slowly torture you until you live a hundred lifetimes of suffering. Keeping this up for ten years is nothing.” The little old man had a strange voice, and when that was combined with the gloomy atmosphere of the room, it made for a truly frightening delivery.
Cultivators were greatly superior to ordinary people when it came to both body and will, but the methods used to interrogate cultivators also far exceeded anything that would ever be used on ordinary people. Cultivators needed to be interrogated with special techniques, but with those techniques, cultivators could break just like ordinary people.
Lu Yin had already skimmed through many of Ren Qing’s memories, and Lu Yin was absolutely certain that Ren Qing had nothing to hide, let alone tell the interrogator. The only secrets that Ren Qing had been told were related to the efforts put towards recruiting him, and his recruiter had been a Redback. However, Ren Qing had only ever heard a voice and had never seen anyone, though he had already told the interrogator all of this.
“Why are you still trying to hide things?” The little old man’s eyes grew cold, and his voice took on a terrifying timbre.
‘Lu Yin’ sighed. “I already told you.”
The interrogator’s eyes sharpened as he stared at ‘Lu Yin.’
The body that Lu Yin had Possessed was too weak at this moment, and he could not stop himself from panting and was even coughing up blood. He stammered, “Whe- when I heard that the Guan brothers were Redbacks, I- I purposely called them. To- to pass them- no, to meet- meet them in the hidden place. I saw- I saw-”
Lu Yin deliberately paused, and the little old man shouted, “What did you see?”
Lu Yin weakly continued, “I saw that they had recorded something down. It- it should be about how- how to train Redbacks. The- the characteristics of their target. I- I saw this.”
The little old man stepped forward and eagerly asked, “Where is that recording? We searched their territory and found nothing!”
Lu Yin showed a bitter smile. “The things that we recorded on have booby traps placed inside them. How can they be taken away that easily? The first person who touches it might be able to see the things that were being recorded, but at the same time, because the recordings were seen, they’ll be destroyed…”
The little old man grabbed Lu Yin’s chin and demanded, “What else are you hiding? Say it now!”
Lu Yin screamed, “I’m not hiding anything! This wasn’t anything important, and I just remembered it!”
“This is the most important thing! You-” That was all that Lu Yin heard before his consciousness snapped back to the dark space and returned to his own body.
Lu Yin opened his own eyes, secretly rejoicing that his luck had been good this time. He had Possessed Ren Qing’s body, and he had also cast a line. As for whether or not he managed to catch any fish, that would all depend on luck. Still, he had not dared to say anything more.
He continued rolling his die.
Next, he rolled a four: Timestop, which thrilled him. This was the perfect moment for him to Enhance his items. He believed that he had picked up at least one or two billion star essence, and he did not even know how many items he would be able to Enhance with his current funds.
The first thing on his list to Enhance was his formcast model. His previous formcast model had been consumed when he had become a Hunter, and although he had later Enhanced another one to a six-stage formcast model, he had found that he lacked the funds to upgrade it to a seven-stage one.
He needed to upgrade his six-stage formcast model to a seven-stage model. During his last attempt, he had estimated that he would need hundreds of millions of star essence to complete the upgrade, and although he had not had enough star essence before, he felt that he currently had plenty.
Once again, he rolled his die.
As long as he was in the Timestop Space, he was guaranteed to eventually roll three pips.
Eventually, when Lu Yin rolled his die for the sixth time, he finally got what he wanted.
He grew incredibly excited as he looked at the two light screens.
The fact was that formcast models were a special creation unique to the Fifth Mainland, and it allowed their youths’ cultivation speed to match that of those with much greater resources, like those from the Sixth Mainland or the Perennial World. Lu Yin’s peers in those places did not use formcast models, but rather torrential overflow.
Lu Yin had never heard of anyone having a seven-stage formcast model or experiencing having their body remade seven times, and he had no idea if it would do anything special.
Regardless, he wanted to give it a try. He would only find out after trying, and there would be no downside to improving further.
It was time to go big. Lu Yin’s eyes blazed with excitement as he threw out the star essence that he had gathered from the Junior Progenitor Planet and watched as the formcast model descended through the two light screens until it finally fell out from the bottom.
Lu Yin looked at it, but it seemed no different from before it had been Enhanced. As he held it in his hands, Lu Yin let out a sigh. This upgrade had been incredibly expensive.
The formcast model did not look much different from before, so after a moment’s thought, Lu Yin looked back at the two light screens; could he Enhance the formcast model yet again? Lu Yin was very curious, so he immediately set the formcast model back on the upper screen and threw out a million star essence.
He stared at the formcast model. Had it moved? No, it did not seem to have moved at all.
Lu Yin felt a little disappointed when he saw that apparently the formcast model could apparently no longer be upgraded. Still, he also felt a bit lucky. After all, even if it could be upgraded to eight stages, would he be able to gather enough star essence?
It had cost him more than eight million star essence to upgrade a formcast model to six stages, and it had cost hundreds of millions of star essence to get a seven-stage formcast model. Based on this rate, the next upgrade might take trillions of star essence, or perhaps even more.
Where could he ever get so much money? Even if he stripped the entire White Dragon Clan’s Junior Progenitor Planet bare, it would likely not be enough, though there might be enough if he stripped all four of the Junior Progenitor Planets bare.
While the possibility of Enhancing his formcast model yet again excited him, Lu Yin focused on looking through his cosmic ring while considering which item would be best to Enhance.
Naturally, the next thing he tried to Enhance was the Origin Matter. Lu Yin might not know what it was, but there was no hesitation as he threw the leaf out onto the upper screen of light. However, Lu Yin was disappointed to see that the leaf did not move at all. It could not be Enhanced.
Next, he moved on to the strange power vessel that looked like an aquatic plant.
