Year 500 of the Era, Yet Still No Treasure-Digging Ascension to Godhood

Time once again passed swiftly. Year 419 of the era.

Human 18 Civilization spent a large sum to purchase enough materials from the Greedy God Temple and completed construction of the "Central Great Array."

This city wall was entirely rammed from heavy earth-attribute materials. Its surface was rough yet solid, as though it had endured a thousand years of wind and rain while remaining unmoved—an ancient charm deliberately created by the Glyph Masters.

Sunlight spilled down, giving the wall a faint golden sheen and an air of steady, weighty grandeur.

The wall was built around Green Field City's inner ring. It was roughly 120 kilometers long and possessed a certain degree of defensive and load-bearing capability. Trucks could travel across it, laying the foundation for Sky City's expansion.

Standing beneath the wall, one could almost sense a vast force rising from the depths of the earth.

Thus, Pangu Thought Resonance Technology, a Level Four Technology, had basically been realized.

It cost a total of 329 Luck! Far beyond the budget!

The Northern Great Array and the Central Great Array could theoretically raise humanity's Spirit Attribute limit to 20–25 points—a remarkably substantial figure.

Although three more great arrays remained unfinished, they would have to wait until enough materials had been gathered.

"This great array is our first step toward becoming a Level Four Civilization."

"We are currently, and will remain for a long time, in the early stages of a Level Three Civilization. We are now advancing toward the middle stages of a Level Three Civilization..."

A single Level Four Technology was not enough to propel humanity into becoming a Level Four Civilization.

As the backbone of Pangu Continent, a Level Four Civilization needed comprehensive strength in culture, economics, industry, technology, and every other field.

Therefore, more Level Four Technologies were being researched simultaneously...

Lu Yuan often sighed that Old Cat was truly patient. There was clearly a Civilization Ruins at the Northern Limit, where Level Four data could be obtained with ease, yet Old Cat insisted that humanity conduct independent research, even investing immense manpower and resources into it. In this regard, it was quite generous.

Of course, that was also a good thing. There was indeed a world of difference between something researched independently and something picked up for free.

Independent research would encounter countless difficulties and setbacks.

It would advance the entire research system.

It could also cultivate more talent.

Scavenging could certainly bring rapid progress, but building a talent-development system would become very difficult.

In Year 429 of the era, a second Level Four Technology showed the first glimmer of dawn—Super-Material Hyper-Polymerization!

The term was rather strange. Only after Lu Yuan looked into it did he understand that it was actually an idealist science capable of increasing the grade of Extraordinary Materials!

"Material grades can be increased too?"

"Yes. By the Ninth Era, Legendary Level Heavenly Treasures and Earthly Materials had become exceedingly scarce on Pangu Continent."

"Over all these years of Human 18 Civilization's journey, we have only unearthed a few Legendary Level materials. We have not even seen the slightest trace of Epic Level materials... That shows just how rare these precious materials are."

The professor leading the Super-Material Hyper-Polymerization project was named Lu Guangming. He was also a Super-Thinker.

Lu Yuan sat in the front row.

After doing the math, he realized that the Legendary Level materials humanity had unearthed had all come from the volcanic eruption of the Source Fire Civilization. Other than that, there had been nothing else.

"If Legendary materials are encountered once in a century, then Epic Level items are practically nonexistent. Only a small number of anomalies can produce them."

"As for Immortal Level materials, only catastrophe-level anomalies can produce them in tiny quantities."

Not every catastrophe could produce "Immortal" items. Demons had far greater production capacity than ghosts, ghosts were stronger than monsters, and monsters were stronger than devils.

But demons differed from one another as well.

For example, the severely weakened Opium Poppy Tree could now only produce some Outstanding Level items. Its vitality had recovered somewhat only in recent years.

Lu Yuan's Life Tree, on the other hand, could produce Legendary Level wood, and its output was more or less acceptable.

But the Life Tree was still unimaginably far from producing Immortal Level materials.

Only demons that had survived for several eras and expended a colossal amount of life force might be able to produce Immortal Level items.

For Lu Yuan to find two Immortal items in a single day was truly a miracle without equal on all of Pangu Continent!

The professor changed the subject. "Then how do those powerful civilizations obtain their advanced materials?

"Super-Material Hyper-Polymerization is one way. It uses the power of Pangu Continent to catalyze and upgrade certain materials."

"The specific process goes like this..."

This project was quite troublesome as well. High temperature and high pressure, low temperature and high pressure, and special instruments all had to be built.

Such instruments were similar to large hadron colliders and consumed a staggering amount of manpower and resources.

"But the process must consume a great deal of Luck, right?" Old Cat could not help asking. "Is there really such a thing as a free upgrade in this world?"

The professor looked somewhat embarrassed and scratched his bald head. "That is indeed the case... The money-saving method requires an enormous amount of time, easily thousands or tens of thousands of years. If you want to save time, you have to spend more Civilization Points."

"At present, its cost-effectiveness is still worse than directly buying materials from the Greedy Temple. We estimate that catalyzing one kilogram of high-purity Epic Level material would cost more than a thousand Civilization Points."

"Catalyzing Immortal Level materials might cost five thousand, or even more than ten thousand."

Everyone fell silent. Who could afford that?

Old Cat nearly cursed, the fur on its head standing on end!

Although Lu Yuan was merely listening from the side, he secretly clicked his tongue and kept calculating humanity's assets.

"If not for the Trading Market's extra income, our original three thousand-plus Civilization Points really would have been stretched thin. A few Level Four Technologies would have spent them all."

Looking at it this way, the development of Advanced Civilizations was truly not easy.

This required Civilization Points, that required Civilization Points—when the family business grew too large, they could no longer bear the costs!

But no matter what, this technology still had to be invested in and developed...

"Let... let's research the cheaper technologies first..." Old Cat felt as though it was about to grow a soul as it said tremblingly. "We still have to rely on scavenging... Our current demand for advanced materials is not high."

In Year 444 of the era, after thirty years of growth, the Greedy Temple finally gained continuous recognition from the various races of the Northern Frontier.

God's Skills truly were hard currency, triggering a wave of booming sales.

Although the prices were somewhat high, the emergence of a God's Skill might alter the course of a civilization's development. It could also effectively compensate for a race's innate shortcomings, making it extremely valuable.

"They may not make us powerful, but we cannot be without them!"

Guided by this mindset, civilizations came to trade every few days.

Over the past few decades, Lu Yuan had also gradually listed several popular God's Skills, including "Glyph Reader," "Whisperer," and "Treasure-Seeking Eye."

The civilization buying the most was actually Human 18 Civilization?!

Well, humanity truly was the wealthiest civilization and also the one with the greatest demand... especially since humanity had indeed made a little money recently.

Knowing the truth, Old Cat could only complain to the old Altered Humans. "When I think about humanity buying in bulk, working so hard to earn money only for it all to benefit Lu Yuan, it feels like eating a pile of shit."

"Hasn't humanity grown stronger? Don't I have to spend money to duplicate God's Skills?!" Lu Yuan shamelessly retorted. "Besides, if I sold them cheaply to humanity, wouldn't people quickly deduce that this was the temple of the Greedy Demon God?"

That was true enough.

For example, combining "Glyph Reading" with "Artisan Talent" could further improve an artisan's forging ability.

Combining "Super-Thinker" and "Whisperer" could also enhance a scientist's research and development capabilities.

Naturally born dual God's Skill users were exceedingly rare. There might not even be one among ten civilizations.

Therefore, equipping top talents with suitable God's Skills was indeed one way to improve their capabilities.

It was just... far too expensive!

Humanity bought more than five hundred God's Skills, spending nearly eighteen hundred Civilization Points!

The expenses flowed away like water, and all the money they earned was invested into talent development.

Most importantly, humanity internally kept saying, "Not a loss," "Not a loss," and "We've been making money all these years anyway."

Old Cat muttered to itself for a while, but in the end could only put aside its pain. "When will your temple be able to transport living beings?"

"Humanity won't leave the Northern Frontier while you're still over there dragging your feet, will they?"

Lu Yuan pulled a miserable face. "After researching for so many years, there are still some technical bottlenecks I haven't been able to overcome."

"I plan to use only low-level Inspiration to achieve this goal. Using high-level Inspiration would still be rather wasteful."

"Do you really have that kind of ability? You just come up with ideas on a whim." Old Cat was speechless.

Humanity's technological development had actually given Lu Yuan a certain degree of inspiration.

Especially regarding communication with the Pangu World Will and the construction of various arrays, it had filled in part of his knowledge gaps.

So he planned to change his technical route.

Lu Yuan explained, "The Immortal Palace's transportation function is limited to objects and cannot transport living beings. This is a flaw at the rule level, and it is difficult to make up for."

"But in the short term, humanity should be the only one willing to buy such expensive temples, so the transportation volume should not be too great."

"Hmm... that's true."

"So I plan to transform the Ancient Worm Horn into a flying shuttle adept at earth escape."

"I will connect the 'flying shuttle' to the World Will and borrow its power to carry out long-distance earth escape."

This approach was equivalent to dividing the business into two parts.

The temple would handle transportation of nonliving objects.

Transportation of living beings would actually be handled by the flying shuttle.

The advantage of this method was that the connection between the Immortal Palace and the World Will would be greatly weakened, almost reduced to zero. The difficulty of forging it would also be greatly reduced.

If he truly needed to flee, he could simply sacrifice the "flying shuttle" to the World Will.

"Creating the flying shuttle will not be too difficult. The Ancient Worm Horn is itself an Immortal Level earth-attribute material. Its shape and size are both suited for earth escape, and its ability is 'Penetration.'"

"Therefore, it will not need much modification... It might not even require Inspiration. We only need to create some carriages to follow behind it."

"This modification will not damage the horn's shape or characteristics. If I need to use it in the future, I can remove it and modify it again."

"What are the drawbacks?"

"The drawback is that earth-escape travel is slower than conventional spatial jumps. Spatial jumps can truly make distant places seem close at hand, while earth-escape travel may require waiting for a while."

"If more civilizations use the temples in the future, one flying shuttle may not be enough."

"If it really comes to that, we'll just have the Ancient Insect grow another horn, and I'll pay to buy it! Then we can modify another flying shuttle!" Lu Yuan patted his chest with the confidence of a wealthy man.

To compensate that old fossil, the Ancient Insect, he had gifted it fifty God's Skills over the past few years. The great beetle was delighted beyond measure and had already begun calling Lu Yuan his brother.

As for how the Ancient Insect distributed them, Lu Yuan did not meddle.

With Prince Jin Bote advising it behind the scenes, there should not be too many problems.

Time passed once again.

In Year 483 of the era.

The Earth Escape Flying Shuttle was finally completed!

It looked like a massive drilling machine. At the front was the eight-hundred-meter-long Ancient Worm Horn, while a string of carriages was connected behind it—Lu Yuan had truly spent an enormous amount of effort tinkering with those carriages.

One had to know that most of the carriages were as large as five-hundred-square-meter houses!

The largest carriage was even as huge as a one-kilometer Floating Fortress!

Lu Yuan alone simply did not have that much production capacity. Even with the armored Altered Human added in, it was not enough.

In the end, he had to borrow the industrial power of the Blue Roc Civilization to produce these things. (The Blue Peng People had fallen into dreams, but they still retained some industrial capability.)

Lu Yuan and the armored Altered Human, Kosi, hammered away and engraved glyphs into the carriages. It took nearly forty years to complete this colossal creation.

Earth Escape Flying Shuttle

The crystallization of the blood and sweat of the Ninth Era's legendary Grandmaster Artisan Lu Yuan and the Seventh Era's Artisan Master Kosi. It did not use much Inspiration, nor did it possess particularly high Artistic Achievement. It merely brought out the Extraordinary Material properties of the materials themselves.

The glyph markings on the carriages contained the curses of these two artisans.

During thirty-nine years of repetitive labor, they gradually lost their patience and occasionally lamented why they had chosen to manufacture such a damned thing through their own individual strength. Fortunately, they still completed this enormous work.

Function: Earth-escape travel. Capable of rapidly traveling between temples.

Theoretically, it can also travel to other locations on Pangu Continent, but its terrible navigational capability means that the flying shuttle can easily lose its bearings. (Immortal Level · Artificial Wonder--)

When Lu Yuan saw that line of text, he collapsed directly onto the ground.

He had completed this work without using Inspiration.

But because he had not fully grasped the principles of "earth escape," it could currently only travel between temples.

Once it went off course, the flying shuttle could easily lose its way underground, and the cost of travel would increase dramatically.

"It's finished..." The armored Altered Human, who had been working all this time, felt his nose sting. He had never been exploited so badly in his life. His very soul felt hollowed out.

But there was no choice. He was the only artisan among the Altered Humans.

And the evaluation of "Immortal Level · Artificial Wonder--" seemed to be the best of his life?

Well, there was nothing to be proud of. It could not even compare to the material's original grade, giving him the feeling that it was a waste of a priceless treasure. But as long as it had not fallen below Immortal Level, it was more or less acceptable, wasn't it?

Thinking of that, the armored Altered Human felt faintly satisfied again.

"It's finished... As long as we inject Spiritual Rhyme, this flying shuttle can move." Lu Yuan lay on the ground and muttered. "Now, we can sell the temples to other civilizations."

At the same time, he hid the appraisal result.

As the creator, he could conceal a great deal of information. Other people's appraisals would only reveal the flying shuttle's simple name.

The official sale of the temples stirred up another small wave in the Northern Frontier.

This proved that there truly was a mastermind behind the Greedy God Temple, but that hidden master never appeared and had never even released any information.

Naturally, weak civilizations had little reaction to the news.

Each temple sold for 200 Civilization Points!

The price was simply staggering!

But powerful civilizations felt something subtle stir in their hearts.

Distant places seeming close at hand... Just imagine it: what would it mean for a Floating Fortress packed with weapons to suddenly emerge from a temple?

Of course, the most important question was whether it was reliable. Would buying a temple come with hidden dangers? Would strange and bizarre things be transported through it?

In Year 499 of the era, humanity purchased two temples despite the objections of many, with Lu Yuan and Old Cat pushing hard for the decision.

These temples could not enter the Immortal Palace's Heavenly Court Treasure Hall, thus avoiding the risks associated with taboos.

"Comrades, do not begrudge these Civilization Points."

"This is equivalent to an excellent trump card. We have remained in the Northern Frontier for more than two hundred years."

"Life here is peaceful, but it absolutely cannot be the end of our journey! Once we become addicted to comfort, we will lose our drive to move forward."

"Therefore, preparing for future adventures and increasing our trump cards is also one of our strategic goals."

"Now, I announce that the first travel attempt shall begin!"

Lu Yuan, the ultimate beneficiary, shamelessly said things that even he found somewhat against his conscience.

Old Cat listened from the side, his fur bristling as he kept spitting curses.

But there was no helping it. It was not that he deliberately wanted to make money off humans; if the temples were priced too low and every member of other civilizations got one, that would cause trouble too.

After all, this thing had actually been tailor-made for humans.

Lu Yuan did not even want other civilizations to use it!

The two temples, one at each end, were placed near Greenfield Market and the Soaring Leap Clan—that was, near the Northern Limit. The total distance was roughly 32,000 kilometers.

"Don't be nervous. I have spatial abilities. I can take the risk."

He even personally brought some experimental animals into the temple.

What greeted them was a milky-white space. They were actually already inside the "flying shuttle."

Lu Yuan felt a slight sense of excess gravity, but other than that, there was nothing.

The Immortal Level Earth Escape Flying Shuttle was indeed incredibly powerful. In roughly fourteen seconds, it covered 32,000 kilometers and consumed 0.12 Spiritual Resonance—after all, it only had one carriage, so it was relatively economical.

If they wanted to go faster, they could, but it would consume Fortune!

When he arrived in Soaring Leap Clan territory, he was met with countless gasps of amazement and thunderous applause.

This meant humanity's projection capability in the Northern Frontier had reached an entirely new height!

Then came Year 500 of the Epoch!!