Lu Yin left after he greeted the officials; it was apparent that none of them had any energy to entertain him at this moment. However, just as he was about to leave, a flying vehicle suddenly changed directions and careened towards Lu Yin with no intentions of avoiding him.
Lu Yin found this strange, but he easily dodged the ship before turning around to look at who had tried to run him over. A man exited the vehicle and glanced at Lu Yin with a provoking, cruel smile on his face.
Lu Yin’s eyes flashed coldly once he saw the man, as he recognized his face. This man was from the Outerverse Youth Council and was one of the two Limiteers who followed Bazeer. No wonder he’s here looking for trouble.
“I was just going to say that I had great luck today, but I never expected to run into you! What? Did you get chased out from Astral-10 as well?” the man sneered while glaring at Lu Yin.
Lu Yin disdainfully answered, “Who do you think you are? How dare you speak to me.”
The Limiteer was infuriated by Lu Yin’s contemptuous response; he didn’t expect that Lu Yin would dare to be so rude to a Limiteer as him. “We can start by talking about what you did to Ghostfire. Do you realize that you crippled a genius?”
“Genius? More like an idiot! He was just a pathetic thing that only knew how to avoid attacks with his innate gift. His body was so unbelievably weak that I crippled him with a single attack. Can you really call that a genius?” Lu Yin taunted.
The Limiteer clenched his fists to suppress his boiling anger. “There are competitions within the Youth Council as well, and Ghostfire was a genius that we groomed. Since you crippled him, I’m going to do the same to you right now and teach you why you can’t offend certain people! You’ll regret this for the rest of your life!” The Limiteer then dashed towards Lu Yin and punched out, his surging star energy drawing everyone’s attention.
Lu Yin’s gaze turned cold. This person was a Limiteer as well as a member of the Outerverse Youth Council, and he would be considered very powerful by the Outerverse’s standards. However, to Lu Yin, who was used to battling against Limiteers from the Astral Combat Academy, this man was too weak. He was at most comparable to Craynor.
To be fair, it was already quite impressive that this Limiteer could be considered on par with the second ranked fighter on the Blaze Realm Rankings. Even though he was just a Limiteer, a Limiteer from the Outerverse was usually only comparable to a Melder from the Innerverse. No matter how outstanding this person was, he was still miles away from Lu Yin.
Bang!
Lu Yin easily blocked the Limiteer’s attack, causing the palace guards to stop in shock. They had been running forwards to defend Lu Yin, but apparently, there was no need for them to interfere.
Lu Yin squeezed his hand slightly and the gruesome sound of bones snapping filled the air. The Limiteer cried out in pain as Lu Yin squeezed down harder, crushing the man’s fist. He then twisted his hand downwards to force the man to kneel on the ground. The Limiteer looked up angrily. “How dare you?! Release me! I’m from the Youth Council.”
Lu Yin coldly replied, “I’m teaching you who you cannot afford to offend.” He then used Three Stacks to completely smash the man into the ground, creating a small pit in the earth.
Everyone who saw this scene was dumbfounded. How could a Limiteer powerhouse from the Outerverse Youth Council possibly be completely defeated by Lu Yin? How long has it been since he joined Astral-10? Could the Astral Combat Academy really have caused his power to make such an amazing leap?
Lu Yin looked down at the Limiteer in the pit and apathetically said, “Go and tell Bazeer to remember what he said in the past. I will join the Outerverse Youth Council.”
He then left without waiting for a response while the Limiteer gritted his teeth. He was enraged, but also stunned. This person had improved greatly after such a short trip away from the Great Yu Empire. He had only ever been dealt a crushing defeat this badly from an Explorer, but Lu Yin had handed him one as just a Melder. How was he so strong?
A few of the nearby officials looked at each other in surprise; King Zishan had changed drastically. If, in the past, he had just been an average person who was trying to reap some benefits from his new position, he was now a young talent who had just unveiled his true power. While he was still too weak to have any real impact in the empire, he had displayed his potential, and no one would ever underestimate him again. No wonder millions of youngsters had taken the entrance exam when Astral-10 had arrived at the Frostwave Weave; an elite academy could truly transform a person.
The King Zishan Palace looked exactly the same as before. Lu Yin searched through the entire mansion, but he still wasn’t able to find any clues as to where the Zishan Clan’s treasure could be. He sighed reluctantly; it wasn’t his fault if he couldn’t find it. He looked up at the three rings in the sky and his eyes flashed. Is it time to learn the complete Sky Beast Claw? While it might not be necessarily useful anymore, I still have the desire to learn it in its entirety and to challenge the five Hall Masters… It’s time to test their strength.
Although the upheaval in the Great Yu Empire had caused some elites to leave Yu Academy, most of them had remained behind.
One day later, Gerbach was sitting at the top of a tower, gazing at the lake below him with a sad expression. He was wondering whether the empire would be able to successfully weather the oncoming storm.
His gadget started beeping, and a quick glance at it caused Gerbach’s eyes to light up and a smile to spread across his face. “He’s got guts, challenging all five Hall Masters. It looks like he’s learned a lot during his time at Astral-10. Regardless, the five of us earned our positions through our genuine ability. He’s dreaming if he thinks that he can catch up to us within a few months just because he’s improved quickly.” Gerbach then immediately notified the other Hall Masters. It had been a long time since anyone had challenged one of them, and Lu Yin was challenging all of them at once.
Actually, Schutz is also in Astral-10, so the two of them have probably battled before. Since he’s challenging us now, then could he really be that confident in himself? No, we can’t let him do this. At most, we can let him replace Schutz. But we can’t let him defeat us all, Gerbach thought to himself, growing excited.
Huo Zhong, Logan, and Tianming soon received the news and all of them headed to the formcast pool. Lu Yin had been waiting there for some time when Tianming arrived. He was the first of the Hall Masters to reach the pool.
“King Zishan, congratulations on joining Astral-10,” Tianming warmly greeted.
Lu Yin smiled as he responded, “Hall Master Tianming, you’re too polite. I’m here to repay you for teaching me the Three Stacks technique in the past.”
Tianming was puzzled, “Repay me?”
Lu Yin nodded. “We’ll talk about this later. Someone’s coming.”
Tianming was surprised. Someone’s coming? He hadn’t sensed anyone approaching them.
Logan arrived soon after their brief exchange, and Tianming looked at Lu Yin more seriously. This person had changed greatly and was quite terrifying now.
Lu Yin had always been curious about Logan. He had immediately approved of Lu Yin’s request to learn the initial twenty forms of the Skybeast Claw technique and had always been very friendly towards him. He was also the person who had learnt the most styles of the Skybeast Claw technique in Yu Academy, having mastered a total of forty nine forms.
Huo Zhong arrived at the same time. While the Huo family technically wasn’t on the friendliest of terms with Lu Yin, Lu Yin had realized that, regardless of whether it was Huo Qingshan or Huo Zhong, they had always treated him quite well.
As soon as Huo Zhong walked up to them, he said, “King Zishan, Zhang Dingtian has gone missing.”
Lu Yin sighed. “Leave him be. One’s fate is determined by the heavens.” Huo Zhong nodded in response and silently stood to the side.
Logan kept stealing surreptitious glances of Lu Yin; his gaze was complicated and contained tinges of curiosity, confusion, suspicion, and even hope.
Gerbach soon arrived and heartily laughed when he saw Lu Yin. “You’ve become arrogant after spending some time at Astral-10 and now you’re even trying to challenge us? Hasn’t Schutz told you how powerful we are?”
Lu Yin smiled mysteriously. “I can at least try. Besides, I’m bored.”
Gerbach grinned. “Fine, you can try. Alright, let’s cut the nonsense. Do you want to fight us individually or all together?”
Lu Yin beamed as he responded, “I’m fine either way.”
Gerbach had only asked the last part jokingly since it was impossible for anyone to fight against all of the Hall Masters simultaneously, and yet, Lu Yin had readily agreed. This actually infuriated Gerbach. He was a Hall Master of Yu Academy and one of the strongest powerhouses of the Great Yu Empire’s younger generation. Despite his accolades, someone was actually looking down on him! He immediately took out a fruit that was covered with lightning and prepared his battle technique: Lightning Arrow.
Lu Yin’s eyes gleamed and he raised his hand as well, mirroring Gerbach’s actions. “Lightning Arrow.”
Crackle!
Lightning roared and shot into the distance.
Tianming and the rest were stunned by the scene and Gerbach’s eyes almost fell out of his head. Lu Yin had truly used his Lightning Arrow. Although it hadn’t been real lightning, it had been far more powerful since he hadn’t relied on a lightning fruit to unleash the technique.
“How is that possible? Do you have an innate lightning gift?” Gerbach exclaimed as the others stared intently at Lu Yin. The experts guarding the formcast pool were also staring at Lu Yin, even the Explorer among them.
Lu Yin casually answered, “Star energy isn’t as simple as you believe it to be, and one’s control over star energy is of the utmost importance. It’s rare to see any student of the Astral Combat Academy rely on external items to battle. Anything can be simulated with star energy, and although it isn’t actually real, it will be far more powerful than the actual thing.”
Gerbach and the others were stunned by this revelation as Lu Yin’s explanation had enlightened them. Could they use star energy like that as well?
The Outerverse also knew about the different levels of control over star energy, but it wasn’t common knowledge. Lu Yin had only learned about the different levels after joining Astral-10, and that was only because of the reward that the Rainmaster had given him. It was entirely possible that Schutz still didn’t know about it yet. Although this wasn’t a great secret, nobody would be willing to reveal it as no one wanted to be surpassed by their peers. However, Lu Yin didn’t want Gerbach and the others to train blindly since they all had high potential.
However, even with this knowledge, it was difficult to improve one’s control over star energy. Astral-10 had the Rain Observatory and the other academies probably had similar training places. This was probably one of the reasons why Gerbach and the rest didn’t know about this; the Great Yu Empire probably didn’t have any place like the Rain Observatory. Hence, it would be useless for them to know this even if Undying Yushan had taught them this.
“I have lost,” Gerbach said quietly. He was disappointed; he didn’t expect that the gap between them would grow so large after just a few months.
Tianming, Logan, and Huo Zhong didn’t object either. Lu Yin had used star energy to mimic lightning energy and defeated Gerbach. Just this single exchange proved that he now far surpassed them. There was no point in competing any further.
“King Zishan, you can learn the complete Skybeast Claw technique. No one will stop you. Here’s the location,” Tianming said as he passed the coordinates to Lu Yin.
Lu Yin solemnly said, “Thank you.”
Lu Yin had wanted to learn the complete Skybeast Claw technique when he had still been on Earth, but he hadn’t been able to do it after arriving at the Great Yu Empire despite his title as King Zishan. This was because the five Hall Masters had been all too powerful and he hadn’t been able to defeat them when he had first arrived. But after spending a short amount of time at Astral-10, things had changed drastically. This just proved that, sometimes, one’s environment was more important than their talent.
Lu Yin couldn’t console the disappointed Gerbach, and unless he could somehow take them back to Astral-10, there was no way for him to change their training environment.
Gerbach, Logan, and Huo Zhong soon left, leaving only Tianming behind.
“Hall Master Tianming, let’s spar,” Lu Yin said.
Tianming didn’t ask why and just nodded. He was a laid-back individual and hadn’t gotten angry at all back when Lu Yin had learned the Three Stacks technique from observing him. While he considered Lu Yin’s request to be odd, he was fine with it.
He lifted his palm and smashed it down towards Lu Yin. Lu Yin lifted a hand and met Tianming’s palm with his own. There were three soft bangs from the Three Stacks, but Tianming retreated in wide-eyed shock in the next moment, as a Fourth Stack had appeared. But before he could respond, a Fifth Stack also appeared, shattering the ground beneath him.
