Lu Yin had never been one to remain passive and sacrifice himself for others. Still, it was undeniable that he had led the Great Eastern Alliance to take over the defense of the Outerverse for the Sixth Mainland and stop the Astral Beast Domain’s invasion. It was also undeniable that both the Astral Beast Domain and the Great Eastern Alliance had suffered terrible casualties and that there was no way for either of them to recuperate such losses. Lu Yin had only been willing to suffer such losses because of the people living in the eastern reaches of the Outerverse. They had once followed him, admired him, and praised him, and he could not bring himself to abandon them to their deaths.
Still, even though Lu Yin had taken over the war for the Sixth Mainland, there was no denying the casualties that his forces had suffered. However, that did not mean that Lu Yin needed to suffer a loss after paying such a price. No matter how bad a situation in a war might seem to be, there would always be a turning point. Circumstances were never so hopeless that there was no path to victory, and Lu Yin was at the turning point of his war.
The Sixth Mainland had believed that they controlled the Great Eastern Alliance. For months, the Sixth Mainland had watched the show like a joke, and countless people in the Innerverse and Neoverse had mocked and ridiculed Lu Yin for his decision. The Celestial Beast Empire’s hatred for Lu Yin had reached unprecedented levels, and the overall war expenses made Lu Yin’s heart bleed. However, after all this suffering, he currently held control of the board.
This thought put a smile on his face, and he even laughed out loud from the incredible relief that he felt.
Elder Jiu Shen grew suspicious and entered the room to give Lu Yin an odd look. “Boy, have you finally lost your mind?”
Lu Yin faced Elder Jiu Shen and smiled at the old man. “Senior, this junior still doesn’t quite understand the Cosmic Art. Would you be willing to stay here and guide my practice of the Cosmic Art?”
Elder Jiu Shen was instantly infuriated. “I may have to keep an eye on you, but don’t think that you can push things too far, boy!”
Lu Yin quickly continued, “Senior, you’ve misunderstood me. The war is over. I just came to an agreement with Xu Qing, and the war between the Great Eastern Alliance and the Astral Beast Domain is finished.”
Jiu Shen was stunned. “It’s over? Are you sure?”
Lu Yin nodded. “The war is over. It doesn’t matter if you remain here or return to the Cosmic Sect, Senior, so why don’t you stay here and guide my training with the Cosmic Art? This junior promises that my progress will be quick, which I know is that you wish for, Senior. This will help expedite things.” As Lu Yin spoke, he wiggled his foot.
Jiu Shen’s face twitched, and he wanted to get angry, but there was no place for him to vent. In the end, he merely let out a long sigh. “Just go ahead and ask me about anything that you don’t understand.”
Lu Yin’s eyes lit up. “What is the Cosmic Nature Realm?”
Over the following days, Lu Yin continued to ask Jiu Shen about details regarding the Cosmic Art. On top of that, he also asked the elder to help him simulate more of the Overlaying Stacks Path.
While Overlaying Stacks was not a technique that Jiu Shen focused on, such a matter was trivial to a powerhouse who was inferior only to Semi-Progenitors.
However, Jiu Shen did not readily help Lu Yin with his Overlaying Stacks. The old man’s wish was for Lu Yin to focus exclusively on the Cosmic Art so that he would master the cultivation art as soon as possible.
A 1,000 Stacks was the limit of what Jiu Shen could deduce. Simulating more stacks would require not only a powerhouse as strong as Jiu Shen, but one who focused on the Overlaying Stacks Path. They could not just be someone who had just become an Envoy, and even a three or four tribulation Envoy might not have a powerful enough physique to unleash a 1,000 Stacks. It required an unbelievable level of toughness.
Given Lu Yin’s current level of strength, Elder Jiu Shen had assumed that he would only need to help Lu Yin simulate 500 to 600 Stacks, and he had even thought that this was overestimating Lu Yin. He had managed to simulate a full 300 Stacks before his stellular tribulation, and another 100 Stacks would be an impressive increase. After all, each subsequent Stack was more difficult and had harsher requirements on one’s strength than the previous Stacks.
Who would have thought that Lu Yin would prove capable of withstanding every single Stack that Jiu Shen was capable of helping simulate? At the end, the elder was left staring at Lu Yin as though he were looking at a monster.
If Lu Yin had undergone a normal stellular tribulation and breakthrough, there was no way his body would be able to endure such overwhelming forces, but Lu Yin had absorbed enough stellular energy to form four unique stellular vortices. This unprecedented amount of stellular energy had completely transformed his body. Every Envoy underwent this process when they broke through to the Envoy realm, as this was what allowed one to enter the true universe. Typically, each subsequent tribulation would transform an individual’s body a bit further, which would lead to small, repeated transformations.
This was the rule of the universe: tribulations would be matched with rewards.
However, Lu Yin had absorbed enough stellular energy to form four vortices after his initial breakthrough, which meant that his body had transformed as much as someone who had passed their fourth stellular tribulation. Stealing so much stellular energy at once had induced a retaliation from the true universe, and it had tried to utterly destroy Lu Yin. That had not been a tribulation, but rather a will of utter destruction because he had broken the rules of the universe. In the end, he had only managed to survive because it was possible to use external aides in a stellular tribulation, and Lu Yin had received help.
There had not been anyone around Lu Yin with the strength to help him block the punishment, and this was because people had thought the punishment to be a stellular tribulation, and tribulations did not allow for any outside sources of help. This was why Semi-Progenitors and even Progenitors would have refused to help Lu Yin. However, he had luckily picked up a corpse that had been able to block the punishment, and it was the only reason why he had survived the punishment from the true universe.
All of that combined had led to Lu Yin’s body undergoing an unimaginably thorough transformation.
Jiu Shen was also amazed by the power of Lu Yin’s Hollow Palm, as a single strike was enough to take out an Envoy with a power level of 700,000, and even those with a power level of 800,000 would not dare to face such an attack head on.
Lu Yin had already defied people’s understanding of how strong one could be within a given realm as an Enlighter. But after his first stellular tribulation, he had become even more absurd. Even Jiu Shen looked at the young man as though he was seeing a freak.
Besides the increase in the number of Stacks that his body could endure, Lu Yin also believed that there had been a tremendous change in the amount of death energy that he could absorb. He had no idea if his God of Death Transformation had changed, but he first needed to replenish his reserves of death energy, as there was absolutely no black and white mist remaining in his body.
Suddenly, he felt that it was very unfortunate that Sword King had died without becoming his Champion. It was too much of a pity to have lost the opportunity to obtain such a Champion.
Lu Yin looked to the west. The war would eventually resume, but this time, it would be the Sixth Mainland fighting against the Astral Beast Domain. Many powerhouses would die there, so it might be possible for Lu Yin to sneak onto the battlefield and add a few more Champions to his Champions’ Stage. He needed to show the Fifth Mainland the meaning of the expression, “One person as strong as a nation, one person lording over all.”
Lu Yin went into seclusion, which surprised no one at all. Almost anyone would do the same after becoming an Envoy in order to familiarize themselves with their new strength. Using stellular energy was quite different from using star energy, and one’s fighting style would therefore have to change. The most important change was the fact that the true universe ignored star energy, but would try to steal stellular energy back whenever it appeared. Such a thing was a terrible fate for any Envoy.
Lu Yin raised his hand and brought out his die. There was no better method of going into seclusion than using Timestop. His finger moved forward and tapped the die. Three pips.
He stared at the two screens made of light, and he rubbed at his cosmic ring. He had a few Roots of Intelligence in it, and while he did not know how it would react to being Enhanced, he felt that it should be possible to make them as effective as one of the true Roots of Intelligence that had been left behind by Progenitor Hui. There might be some fundamental differences between the two roots, but it was not impossible for Lu Yin to attempt bridging that gap. After all, Lu Yin had received five roots from Hui Kong. Brother Hui had been quite generous.
Lu Yin did not think about the matter any further and simply threw one of the Roots of Intelligence onto the upper screen along with a million star essence. Such a small amount of money was not even worth considering.
The root instantly dropped out the bottom, and Lu Yin’s heart sank. This root really was nothing more than a fake.
When he had Enhanced a true Root of Intelligence, just the first upgrade had cost him tens of millions of star essence. The less money that something consumed while being Enhanced, the lower its value. When Lu Yin looked, there was actually still some star essence sitting on the upper screen, which meant that the first Enhance had not even cost him a million star essence. The difference in value between this root and the original roots was enough to leave a person speechless.
Lu Yin let out a sigh, and then grabbed the Enhanced root to resume the process.
It fell through a second time, but not the third. It had already reached its limit.
Three upgrades had cost Lu Yin exactly one million star essence, which was a similar cost as Enhancing Vitality Poison: Regression No. 91. However, that had been the cost of merely Enhancing the Vitality Poison a single time.
It cost Lu Yin 5 million star essence to upgrade all five Roots of Intelligence to the limit.
He stared at the five roots in his hand. They looked quite impressive, but they were still far from comparable to a real Root of Intelligence. Still, these were much better than the roots that the Hui family had access to.
The Hui family had said that their Roots of Intelligence were merely able to help one concentrate better while in meditation, but Lu Yin hoped that his Enhanced roots would be a bit better than that.
He raised a hand and brought out his stellular energy, simulating water with it. He used it to make some tea and took a sip. His mind cleared, and his heart calmed. He felt as though he was able to see through many things.
Still, this was not anywhere close to the effect of a real Root of Intelligence, as they allowed a person to see through everything. Regardless, Lu Yin still felt pretty good at the moment.
Lu Yin was using a fully Enhanced Root of Intelligence, and yet its effects were barely acceptable to him. It was quite possible that the Hui family’s current Roots of Intelligence would have absolutely no effect on Lu Yin, which was exactly what Hui Kong had told him.
He continued rolling his die.
One pip. A simple looking box fell out, and his eyes lit up. He opened it and found a piece of metal, but it shattered after enduring only a small bit of Lu Yin’s strength.
It was tough enough to withstand an attack from most Enlighters, but Lu Yin was able to crush it with little effort. This item that was a treasure to countless cultivators was useless to him.
The next roll of the die gave him Timestop, and the scenery changed before Lu Yin’s eyes.
The first thing that he did upon entering was to extend his time to nearly a year. That done, stars appeared and began to revolve around his body. He recited the Origin Sutra while also practicing the Cosmic Art.
After becoming an Envoy, Lu Yin was now able to push the Cosmic Art to a new level. This was something that Jiu Shen had spent several days explaining to Lu Yin in great detail, as he hoped that Lu Yin would be able to completely master the cultivation art as soon as possible.
The treatment that Lu Yin received from Jiu Shen would leave all the other Cosmic Sect’s disciples extremely jealous, but Lu Yin alone was able to enjoy such privileges. There was no other option, as his foot bore the Cosmic Sect’s greatest treasure.
When Lu Yin had fought against the peak Enlighter realm Progenitor Chen, Lu Yin had simulated more stars than the manifested Progenitor, but the strength of the two’s Cosmic Arts had been similar. Jiu Shen had explained that this gap stemmed from how Progenitor Chen had created the Cosmic Art, and his comprehension of it had far, far surpassed Lu Yin’s. Progenitor Chen’s mastery had reached what Jiu Shen referred to as the Cosmic Nature Realm, and Lu Yin had personally felt this difference in comprehension during the fight in the way that Progenitor Chen’s simulated stars had moved. After hearing Jiu Shen’s explanation, Lu Yin was confident that he would be able to quickly reach a higher level of mastery over the Cosmic Art.
After the year passed, Lu Yin left the Timestop Space and rested for ten days before continuing to roll his die.
It was not long before Lu Yin returned to his Timestop Space, and after he emerged, he repeated the pattern again.
After a month, he had entered the Timestop Space five times, and he had practiced the Cosmic Art for nearly five years. This had allowed him to simulate a terrifying 90,000 stars.
Previously, even with the Origin Sutra’s support, Lu Yin had only been able to increase his number of simulated stars by 4,000 over the course of a year. But now, he had just increased his mastery by 80,000 stars in just five years. This was quite a bit more than an increase of 10,000 stars each year. The understanding that he had gained from fighting against Progenitor Chen and hearing Jiu Shen’s explanations had been further amplified by the boost that Lu Yin received from the Origin Sutra.
Lu Yin had found that he was also able to recite a bit more of the Origin Sutra after becoming an Envoy, and the effect of the sutra was also a bit more pronounced.
90,000 stars was not far off from the limit of the current level of the Cosmic Art, which was 99,000 for the fifth level. As long as Lu Yin rolled Timestop one more time, he would be able to fully master the fifth level of the Cosmic Art. After that, he would be able to begin training in the sixth level.
He wondered if he would be able to receive the benefit of the pattern on the bottom of his foot at that time.
He would never be able to forget Elder Gong’s words. ‘How can you be certain that the planet you’re standing on was not created by the Cosmic Art?’
These words had completely changed Lu Yin’s perception of the universe. Once the Cosmic Art was raised to the limit and the person cultivating it did the same, they would be able to change the universe itself and make the stars that they manifested become real.
This was the greatest treasure that Progenitor Chen had left for the Cosmic Sect, and it was also the peak of mastery of the Cosmic Art.
