Old Cai praised Lu Yin, saying, “Not bad, you’re not bad at all to resist this tempting offer. You’ve improved, kiddo. Go on and get some rest. Someone will eventually come over to bring you to the Erudite Flowzone. Once there, you’ll get a better understanding of the Innerverse. It’s completely different from the Outerverse.”
Lu Yin left soon after. He was feeling rather annoyed as he felt like he was missing out on a great opportunity. He really did want to enter the Sword Sect for no other reason than to obtain a better status. However, it wasn’t appropriate for him to go there right now, and it would have to wait until he had the ability to protect himself. Since the Sword Sect was willing to take him in, this wouldn’t be his only opportunity, and he would definitely go once he was stronger.
Right after leaving the treasury, Lu Yin was stopped by Michelle. “When are you going to fulfill your promise to me?”
Lu Yin was put in a rather awkward position. He had asked Michelle to help him snatch a training ground, and in return, he had promised to help her comprehend battle force. However, he still hadn’t done so. “I’m sorry, but I have to go to the warfront tomorrow. Can you wait until I get back?”
Michelle gave him a long stare, obviously annoyed by his response.
Lu Yin sighed helplessly. “I’m really not doing this on purpose. It’s just that I’m leaving tomorrow.”
Michelle turned around and left without saying another word.
Lu Yin had no interest in chatting with the other Astral-10 students. He found a quiet place for himself and began to roll his die. He actually wanted to wait a bit more before doing this, but he was about to leave, and he had no idea if anyone would be observing him once he got on the spacecraft. Thus, he had no choice but to roll the die now.
Quite a bit of time had passed since the last time he had rolled the die. Taking it out now gave him a minor sense of nostalgia. Lu Yin had actually tried to use the die in the trial zones once. Most people were able to use their innate gifts in the trial zone, but for some reason, his hadn’t activated. It was rather odd.
He had 597,500 or so star crystals on hand right now, so it was enough for a few rolls.
He rolled the die and watched it spin. It felt slightly odd to Lu Yin, which was understandable as he hadn’t rolled the die once since leaving Astral-10.
When it stopped rolling, it revealed three pips.
Lu Yin was very excited to see that he had rolled Enhance! It was a very uncommon roll; besides this one, it had only ever appeared twice. It was quite a surprise that he’d roll it on his first try this session.
Wait a second… Lu Yin hesitated. Do the chances of getting the number that I want increase the longer I wait before each roll of the die?
It had been nearly impossible to roll a three last time. He had rolled the die so many times, but he rarely ever obtained the result that he wanted. When he was in the Great Yu Empire’s palace desperately trying to roll a three, he had only succeeded after using Time Stop. Even now, he could still remember the fatigue that he had gone through to succeed. It seemed that the longer he waited between each roll, the better his chances of getting the number he wanted were. This was a clear pattern.
As he looked at the two planes of light, one at the top and one at the bottom, Lu Yin did not think twice. He immediately took out his formcast model and threw it inside the topmost plane. He had already used over ten thousand star crystals to start upgrading it, so the amount needed to fully upgrade it had gone down a bit. This time, Lu Yin tossed 290,000 crystals in right away. The crystals were quickly absorbed as the formcast model fell down until it reached the bottom plane of light. It then released a brilliant, dazzling radiance.
Lu Yin grabbed it with trembling hands as he looked at the transformed formcast model with excitement. This was a five-stage formcast model! He had actually managed to obtain a five-stage formcast model! This model could help him become an Explorer. Formcast models like these were incredibly expensive, and he’d never imagined that he would one day get his hands on one.
Although upgrading the formcast model to this stage had cost him 300,000 crystals, what he had received was actually invaluable. A five-stage formcast model was something that money alone might not be able to buy.
He excitedly stored the formcast model away and looked at the two planes of light as he thought about what he should do next. He didn’t have anything else that he wanted to upgrade at this moment, but he still had 300,000 crystals left. If he rolled the die again, would he be able to get six pips, Possession? The thought of that made Lu Yin grow excited again, and after using a star crystal to refresh the die, he rolled again.
The triangular planes of light vanished, and the die quickly spun before finally stopping on four pips: Time Stop.
The scenery around him changed, and Lu Yin once again found himself in a familiar space. He took a deep breath and tossed out a sizable sum of star crystals to change the appearance of his surroundings. It immediately turned into a picturesque view of mountains and flowing water. Although none of this was real, it was much more pleasing to the eye.
He then took out another hundred thousand star crystals, crushed them, and began to absorb the energy. He was going to cultivate to the peak Melder realm.
In the past, he had once spent seven days absorbing a hundred thousand star crystals, but that hadn’t been quite enough for him to become a peak Melder. However, that cultivation session had boosted his energy by quite a bit. By his current estimates, it would only take around a hundred thousand more crystals to reach the peak Melder realm.
When his Cosmic Art was at only seven stars, it had taken him about seven days to absorb a hundred thousand crystals. Now, with nine stars, the efficiency was nearly double that of before. He needed less than two hours to finish absorbing all of the energy from the star crystals. With this in mind, he manifested nine stars around his body, forming a perfect galaxy that absorbed the star energy surrounding him at a crazy rate. While absorbing it, he also constantly filtered out the impurities.
Two hours quickly passed by, at the end of which all hundred thousand star crystals had been absorbed. However, it still wasn’t enough for him to reach the peak Melder stage.
Lu Yin took a deep breath. His star energy storage capacity seemed to be much greater than anyone else at the same realm as him. This is still fine, he thought to himself as he crushed another hundred thousand star crystals.
Another two hours passed by, after which Lu Yin’s star energy was surging crazily, almost to the point where it was about to go out of control. He could feel that he had become a peak Melder. Although there wasn’t much of a difference compared to before, when battling against powerhouses, even a tiny advantage could sometimes spiral into a huge difference. If he’d been a peak Melder when he fought against Nightqueen Yanqing, then his Nine Stacks, Seventeen-Fold Shockwave Palm would have been even more destructive. He might have even been able to kill her with a single strike.
But he had only reached the peak Melder realm from an outside perspective; there were still too many impurities within his energy for him to be satisfied. Lu Yin closed his eyes and began refining his energy and ridding himself of the impurities.
The uncontrollable, surging star energy on the surface of his body slowly dissipated over the course of two days. At the end, he opened his eyes, took out another hundred thousand crystals, and crushed them. This time, he was definitely going to become a peak Melder.
One day later, Lu Yin left the Time Stop Space. During the time he had spent cultivating, only a second had passed for the rest of the universe.
He looked at his hands. He had finally become a peak Melder after consuming around 400,000 star crystals. If it weren’t for his Cosmic Art and supply of star crystals, then it would have taken him forever to fill up his energy capacity through just absorbing the stray star energy wandering about in the universe.
Cultivation was something that required both resources and talent. Many people said that having resources was even more important than having talent, and Lu Yin was beginning to understand what they meant by that now.
It generally took around 150,000 or so star crystals to push an ordinary person to the Melder realm in a short period of time. This was a huge amount of money, or at least, that was how it was seen in the Outerverse. Even though the Outerverse consisted of numerous planets that had star crystal mines, it was still difficult for the large organizations to support such a high rate of consumption. It was no wonder why so many soldiers were merely at the Sentinel or even Seeker realm.
150,000 star crystals was the amount required to raise a mere Melder. To raise a Limiteer, that amount was ten times higher, and the resources required to raise an Explorer was even higher beyond that.
There were two main obstacles towards becoming an Explorer. One was the star energy requirement, and the other was actually breaking through. Lu Yin had once asked Uncle You Ling about the difference between an Explorer and a Limiteer. Uncle You Ling had vaguely mentioned that the body of an Explorer was qualitatively different from that of a regular human and that there was also a state of “Exhaustion.” He hadn’t really explained much, but it was enough for Lu Yin to realize that it was not easy to become an Explorer.
Of course, within the scope of the entire universe, there was a large number of Explorers despite the vast amount of resources that it took to raise each one. Even if each Explorer consumed all of the resources of an entire planet, there would still be countless Explorers within the Human Domain.
It was true that there were numerous Explorers throughout the entire Human Domain, but the majority of them were undoubtedly at the warfront.
Lu Yin switched his gadget on and started to browse through it, searching for reports on the Human Domain’s warfront. Besides some general news, there wasn’t much else available, though he did manage to find some recent pictures. Through them, he saw how merciless the situation at the warfront was. Many of the pictures had captions explaining that the dead people in the pictures were all Explorers or even Cruisers.
He then searched for Planet Conan, but there were no results.
Lu Yin set his gadget down and retrieved the harmless sourcebox from his cosmic ring. He activated his Cosmic Art and took out the Emperor Giant’s third eye as well. He then focused intently on the sourcebox, causing his senses to sink into an entirely different world filled with complicated structures.
This was a world composed of star energy with all sorts of other energy mixed in. Lu Yin had Charon’s lockbreaking experience, so he was already qualified to try unlocking this sourcebox, but he didn’t have enough time. It took a long time to unlock every sourcebox, and there were too many uncertainties in the process. Mentor Wusheng had told him that there was no such thing as a harmless sourcebox and that every one of them could potentially kill a Lockbreaker. Lu Yin was planning to take things one step at a time with this sourcebox, so there was no need to be overly ambitious. The most important thing to do right now was to get some rest and wait to leave for the Erudite Flowzone.
Beep beep beep!
His gadget beeped a couple hours later, prompting Lu Yin to open his eyes. It was time.
When Lu Yin arrived at Astral-10’s space station, he saw a large warship docked there. It was massive and covered with fierce-looking weapons that exuded an intimidating aura. The spacecraft had an emblem of a bloodstained book on it, which was the symbol of the Human Domain’s Erudite Flowzone Border Allied Troops and proof that this warship belonged to the Erudite Flowzone’s troops.
Nobody came to welcome him, and Lu Yin entered as soon as the doors opened. The first thing he saw was Silver’s smiling face.
Lu Yin narrowed his eyes. “You’re also going to Erudite Flowzone’s allied army?”
Silver smiled as he replied, “Yes. You’re my captain now.”
Lu Yin loosened up his shoulders. “We’re just foot soldiers in the army. Did you really think that I’ll be a captain?”
“You can be a small captain,” Silver joked with a bright grin, as if he was delighted with their circumstances.
Lu Yin checked out the spacecraft’s interior. The decorations were simple without any excess luxury. The troops who were patrolling around inside had a stern look and emanated a subdued bloodlust. Lu Yin realized that every person here had spilled blood before.
The two of them were led by a soldier to a cabin at the bottommost level. “Before we arrive at the warfront, this will be your room. The two of you will share it.” After saying that, the soldier left.
Lu Yin opened the door and entered the room. Despite both of them being assigned to a single room, it was very small. After looking around a bit, he chose one of the beds and sat down on it. It wasn’t too bad, all things considered.
At this point, the warship jolted as it started to depart, leaving Astral-10 and heading straight into space.
Silver lay on his bed and smiled at Lu Yin. “Are you disappointed, captain?”
“Disappointed about what?” Lu Yin asked curiously.
Silver smiled. “Even though you’re one of the final four fighters in the Astral Combat Tournament and one of the top students in the Astral Combat Academy, you were still assigned to a cabin on the bottom floor and have to squeeze in together with a footsoldier like me. Aren’t you disappointed? Don’t you feel like you’re not getting the treatment you deserve?”
Lu Yin burst into laughter. “We’re just students and not anybody famous. Why should they give us any special treatment? Besides, in the eyes of soldiers, only the strong are worthy of respect.”
“Aren’t you one of the strong? On this spacecraft, I would think that only the Explorers stand a chance of defeating you. And how many Explorers do you think there are on this spacecraft?” Silver asked with a grin.
For some reason, Lu Yin was suddenly reminded of the betrayal that had happened when he had travelled from Earth to the Great Yu Empire’s capital star. He stared intently at Silver. “What are you planning?”
Silver chuckled. “You’re looking nervous, captain.”
Lu Yin suddenly grabbed Silver, causing the grinning youth’s eyes to go wide. Those wide eyes held an endless cold edge, and his butterfly knife suddenly swung towards Lu Yin’s neck. Lu Yin easily dodged the blade as four-lined battle force covered his hand that was holding Silver. Lu Yin then said in an icy tone, “I’m warning you. Don’t try anything funny.”
