Chapter 2221: Scouring

Chapter 2221: Scouring

Lu Yin lifted his hand and studied it carefully. He desperately wanted to master the incredible power of time, travel through time and space to visit the Daosource Sect era, personally see the glory of humanity during the Heavens Sect era, and compete against those powerful people from the ancient past. Just the thought of it caused his blood to surge. He would accomplish that one day, and he would stand side-by-side with those famous powerhouses, and he would not fall behind them.

Lu Yin quickly suppressed his dreams of the future. He first needed to consider his current resources.

All of the star essence on the White Dragon Clan’s Junior Progenitor Planet had been used up, so it was time to move on to the next planet.

Progenitor Smoke had already become numb to Lu Yin’s actions. The star essence on the two planets had to add up to at least a trillion. Forget an Envoy—not even a Semi-Progenitor could do anything with such an exorbitant sum. After all, how would they even use star essence? Such powerhouses all relied on stellular energy.

However, Progenitor Smoke did stare at Lu Yin when she emerged. "You’ve changed."

Lu Yin blinked. "No, I just haven't seen you for a few days."

Progenitor Smoke carefully observed Lu Yin. "I always felt like there was something about your aura that felt familiar, but I’ve never been able to pinpoint it. It’s quite odd."

Lu Yin pursed his lips. A familiar aura? Could it be from Progenitor Ku's Withered Bark? Or Progenitor Chen's Inverse Step?

In the past, the Withered Bark that Lu Yin had kept in his cosmic ring was what the Ku family had used as a template to create their own Withered Barks, but all of their attempts were merely poor replicas. Those Withered Barks had only been capable of protecting a person, and they were completely unable to reverse time in any way at all. Of course, it was possible that the Ku family had other true Withered Barks in their possession, but they would never say so to Lu Yin.

As for Inverse Step, Lu Yin had only barely scratched the surface of the movement technique.

However, things had changed, and Lu Yin had gained the true form of both of those things.

Cough. "Senior, Progenitor Chen has nine clones. Do you know what each of the clones’ abilities are?"

Progenitor Smoke instantly answered, "I don't."

"How could you not know? Given your status in the past, how could anything have been kept hidden from you?" Lu Yin was genuinely surprised.

Progenitor Smoke rolled her eyes. "I don’t have any interest in other people’s business. All I know is that one clone was a colossal giant, one created the Cosmic Art, one had an unique innate gift, and one inherited a battle technique from one of the Nine Mountains and Eight Seas. I never fought him."

"You two never fought or sparred?" Lu Yin found this to be quite curious.

Progenitor Smoke started to get a bit grumpy. "How would he ever dare hit a woman like me?"

She then became noticeably irritated. "I usually didn’t even see him, as he just liked to hide in a corner and watch the rain and flowers. It was pathetic."

Lu Yin continued to ask questions, "What about Progenitor Ku? Did the two of you ever fight each other?"

"No, that guy’s boring. Unless someone actually attacks him, he’ll never take the initiative to attack anyone at all." Progenitor Smoke’s eyes snapped back to look at Lu Yin. "I just remembered. That familiar aura on you feels like Ku Jie. Right, that’s Ku Jie’s aura. So, do you have some of his power? What do you have?"

Lu Yin replied, "Extremes Must Be Reversed."

Progenitor Smoke exclaimed, "No wonder! Still, you learned that a long time ago, so why is that familiar aura so strong now? Did you make some progress with it?"

Lu Yin smiled wryly. "A bit, just a little bit."

Progenitor Smoke continued, saying, "While Ku Jie’s a boring person, I do have to admit that his Extremes Must Be Reversed is very powerful. It’s a genuinely invincible technique, and even Xia Shang mentioned how difficult it is to deal with. No one wants to fight against Ku Jie. Keep training in that technique, and if you eventually become a Semi-Progenitor, even Progenitors will struggle to kill you. You’ll keep going further and further down the path of being beaten up."

Lu Yin was speechless. This sounded terrible! Who wanted to be beaten up? Lu Yin enjoyed being the one who beat other people.

"Senior, did Progenitor Chen master the power of time?" Lu Yin asked, abruptly changing the subject.

Progenitor Smoke was startled by the question, and she glanced over at Lu Yin. "Don't ask about other people's abilities."

She then immediately returned to the pocket dimension inside the mirror.

Lu Yin's eyes flickered. What did that reaction mean? He could not understand.

Lu Yin was already standing on the Celestial Frost Sect’s Junior Progenitor Planet. He raised a hand and brought out his die. He had previously wanted to leave after Enhancing the Withered Bark. However, after it was absorbed into the power inside his chest, he had been in an epiphany for ten days, and since the required amount of time had already passed daze, he might as well roll his die again.

Tapping the die caused it to slowly spin around, and it finally came to a stop on one pip. There was a bang as a ball fell out and landed on the ground.

The ball had a diameter of 100 meters, so it was quite large. Lu Yin looked up and saw the image of a very odd creature on the ball. It looked like a snake or something else. He casually shoved the ball away, as it was useless.

However, he instantly noticed that the ball felt wrong. It was hard. Way too hard.

Lu Yin used more and more strength in his hand, but there was absolutely no change in the ball.

His expression changed. He was currently strong enough that his physical strength could almost kill even Envoys with power levels of 800,000 to 900,000. And yet, this ball showed no reaction at all. It was beyond Lu Yin’s means to damage this thing.

Lu Yin finally smashed the ball with a hand, but he only managed to push it a little bit away. There was still no damage to be seen at all.

He stopped hesitating and stored the ball away. Regardless of where it came from or what it was actually for, just the materials used to construct it were extraordinary.

It had been a long time since the die had given Lu Yin anything good from Pilfer, so it was comforting to see something worthwhile appear.

It was time to continue.

The die started spinning as soon as Lu Yin tapped it, and when it finally came to a stop, Lu Yin’s eyes lit up. Three pips again. After thinking through everything he owned, there was only one item that Lu Yin knew that he still wanted to Enhance: the metal that had once brought a disaster upon the Fourth Mainland.

That disaster had been caused by a strange metal that was capable of absorbing the flesh and blood of living creatures to grow and improve itself. The Astral Beast Domain had used the metal to form the Absolute Beast Cage that had been used as a barrier between Ironblood Weave and the Primal Zone to keep the Sixth Mainland from attacking the Astral Beast Domain, but that cage had been shattered many years back.

Lu Yin had already upgraded the metal a bit, spending about four billion star essence. Just that had improved the metal to the point where it had started to try to go after Lu Yin. This metal was almost as strong as an Envoy, and Lu Yin had long since contemplated using the metal as a weapon to surprise the Aeternals, threatening them in the same manner that the metal had previously threatened the Astral Beast Domain. With so much star essence available, it was time to use it all.

Lu Yin took out the bit of metal that he had Enhanced before. It was covered with spikes that continuously tried to stab into Lu Yin's body. It was quite bloodthirsty.

Lu Yin immediately threw it onto the upper light screen and started improving it.

This bit of metal had already been Enhanced five times, and the last upgrade had cost him four billion star essence, which had almost brought the metal to the Envoy level. In total, Lu Yin had spent about eight billion star essence on this bit of metal, and just another upgrade would firmly bring it to the Envoy level.

Lu Yin watched as tens of billions of star essence were consumed to send the metal down through the two screens of light. The metal already had the power of an Envoy, and it had cost 18 billion star essence to bring the metal to this level. Lu Yin also had more than ten pieces of the metal.

Enhancing ten pieces of the metal to this level would cost him 180 billion star essence, which was quite excessive. Lu Yin would have never been willing to spend this much without access to the Junior Progenitor Planets.

After he finished Enhancing ten pieces of the metal, there was only about 300 billion star essence remaining on the Celestial Frost Sect’s Junior Progenitor Planet. Since when did 300 billion star essence become insufficient?

Lu Yin unhesitatingly started to store as much of the star essence as possible in his cosmic ring. Previously, he had had about 200 billion star essence stored up, but had used it all up when he was Enhancing the Withered Bark.

All of the cosmic rings that Lu Yin had on him were just barely enough for him to clean out the star essence on the third Junior Progenitor Planet.

He felt rather disappointed as he looked over at the last Junior Progenitor Planet that belonged to the Wang family. It was impossible for him to take any more star essence, and he also had nothing left to Enhance. In the end, he decided that it was fine. The resources of just one Junior Progenitor Planet could not really give the four ruling powers that many options, and if Lu Yin left the star essence there, then he could always return for it later. Also, since Lu Yin had cleaned out the planets that belonged to the Xia family, the White Dragon Clan, and the Celestial Frost Sect, then how would the Wang family explain the fact that their planet had not been touched?

This would create a beautiful misunderstanding.

…

A paper boat was floating next to a desolate island. Bai Weiwei was sitting at the bow, and she occasionally looked back towards the cabin.

"Prof. Bai, Prof. Hao Yu's injuries didn’t look serious, but it’s already been twenty days," Bai Weiwei commented worriedly.

Prof. Bai replied, "His injuries were certainly not minor. It is extremely difficult to use a sourcebox array to defend against an astral beast that’s more powerful than the Array Master. Still, these few days should have allowed him to recover a great deal."

"It’s too strange. Why haven’t we run into even a single astral beast with the strength of a one-tribulation Envoy after spending so much time searching in this region?" Bai Weiwei muttered to herself.

“Yu Hao” stepped out of the boat’s cabin as the young woman was talking. He had once again traded places with Tong Yu. The woman had spent the last twenty days in seclusion, pretending to be a Hao Yu who was recovering from his injuries. The woman did not exchange any words with Bai Weiwei or Prof. Bai at all.

"Prof. Hao Yu, how are you doing?" Bai Weiwei asked, her eyes lighting up when she saw “Yu Hao” emerge from the cabin.

The man’s face was still a bit pale, but his voice sounded much stronger than before. "Don't worry, I'll be fine."

Prof. Bai felt quite relieved. "We’re very lucky that you came with us, Prof. Hao Yu. Without you, that battle in the Middle Ocean would have been incredibly dangerous."

"You’re being too polite, Prof. Bai. I only acted as I should." Lu Yin then looked over at Bai Weiwei. "Let's keep going. We need to find a beast as strong as a one-tribulation Envoy for you."

Bai Weiwei was still quite worried. "Professor, you’ve recovered a bit, but we should probably return to the academy and let you completely recover before resuming this mission, don’t you think?"

"No, it will be fine, as long as we’re careful."

Bai Weiwei and Prof. Bai glanced at each other. "Alright, but we’ll search as we head back towards Virtue Archives. The best option would be to find our target on our way back. If we don’t find anything, then we can only blame our bad luck and try again later."

Lu Yin nodded in agreement.

The paper boat quickly started making its way back towards the Middle Realm.

Without Lu Yin's interference, it only took a few days for them to encounter an astral beast with the strength of a one-tribulation Envoy. The creature looked like a massive sea turtle, and it was floating on the Middle Ocean with its eyes closed. It was most likely sleeping.

There was a forest growing on the turtle's back, and it looked like an island at first glance.

Bai Weiwei immediately launched an attack, and she opened her assault with a Wind God Slash. It was a terrifyingly powerful battle technique, and with it, Bai Weiwei was able to unleash an attack that nearly matched the power of an Envoy. The Wind God Slash slammed onto the turtle’s back, blowing away the dirt and producing a bang when it slammed into the turtle’s shell.

The turtle woke up, and it slowly turned its head around to look up at the paper boat in confusion.

Lu Yin looked at the beast. There were absolutely no injuries on the sea turtle’s shell, as it was impressively robust. Although it had the power of a one-tribulation Envoy, its shell had the capability to absorb a three-tribulation Envoy’s attack.

The turtle watched in bewilderment as Bai Weiwei continued to rain attacks down upon the shell, but all of her efforts proved useless. Her attacks were close to the same level of destructive power as Bai Shaohong’s when he had possessed the same cultivation level as her. And yet, Bai Weiwei was completely unable to damage the turtle’s shell. In fact, not even Bai Shaohong would have been capable of harming the turtle when he had possessed Bai Weiwei’s level of cultivation.

The turtle never fought back at all, and simply stared at the young woman in confusion.

Bai Weiwei refused to give up, and she started to attack the beast’s head, only for the turtle to quickly pull its head in before Bai Weiwei’s attack could land, leaving nothing visible besides a shell floating on the surface of the Middle Ocean.

Bai Weiwei was left speechless, and she shouted down at the turtle, "I know that you can understand me! Fight back!"

There was no movement from the turtle. It just opened its massive eyes and peered up at Bai Weiwei through the shell. The creature still looked quite confused, as though it could not understand why anyone would attack it.

Bai Weiwei raised a hand. Two dots appeared in the air before her, and the sky opened: Void Rip.

A line tore the void apart, and it even sliced into the true universe. It ruthlessly struck the turtle’s shell, but it only left a faint white mark on it. Void Rip could slice through the void and the true universe, but it was unable to harm the turtle. The only result was a deafening ringing sound from the impact.