Li's Request-Time Was Still Running Short

Upon hearing this, Lin Yi felt a mix of emotions.

Although Zero Three's message was short, it contained a great deal of information.

They had already retreated from the black fog.

He understood the meaning of those words after a moment's thought.

Clearly, the Cosmic Clam region where they were located should have already been abandoned.

It was for some reason that Lord Li voluntarily turned back to rescue them without receiving any assignment from his superiors.

And now, sacrifices have been made.

Lin Yi mentally went through the whole story from beginning to end, and the more he thought about it, the heavier it became.

I owe this a huge favor.

He remained silent for a moment before raising his head to look at the Light Sphere floating in front of him, and slowly said, "I will, Zero Three."

"That's good."

The Light Sphere flickered once, then slowly disappeared.

Silence returned to the training room.

Lin Yi let out a long breath.

He said something to himself.

Your sacrifices will not have been in vain.

"Not just the Eternal Source Realm. I will climb step by step, reaching the highest point, I will become..."

"Chaos Source Realm!"

This was his most solemn promise to those three blood-armored warriors.

However, the Chaos Source Realm is a bit far off, so he plans to set a smaller goal first.

Constant Source Realm.

The reason is simple: in the Chaos Cosmic Sea, those at the Constant Source Realm can perform resurrection.

Although each resurrection comes at a considerable cost, and can only revive cultivators at or below the True Source Realm, and only those whose soul imprints have not been completely erased by the river of time, it is still a resurrection.

He wanted to resurrect every single soldier who had sacrificed their lives to rescue them.

So he needs to hurry.

The River of Time in the Chaos Cosmic Sea Cosmic Clam. The River of Time here is extremely turbulent. Even True Source Realm expert, once he dies, his Soul Origin can only last for a maximum of ten Universal Epoch in the River of Time before being completely obliterated.

Ten Universal Epoch.

From a certain perspective, for cultivators below the True Source Realm, keeping them in the Cosmic Clam or in the Divine Kingdom of other powerful beings is actually a form of protection.

Although they lost a certain sense of "freedom" and the possibility of becoming stronger, the erosion of River of Time was greatly reduced in that relatively closed environment, and the soul imprint lasted much longer than when exposed to the Chaos Cosmic Sea.

But of course, there are also drawbacks.

The Cosmic Clam has a lifespan limit. Once Cosmic Clam lifespan is exhausted, everything inside will collapse unless a powerful being is willing to pay for a new Cosmic Clam.

However, residing in the Divine Kingdom of another powerful being presents a different risk: being bound by fate.

Once the master of the Divine Kingdom falls, all living beings within the Divine Kingdom will perish with him; one dies and the whole family dies.

It's not easy to generalize about the gains and losses.

As for ten Universal Epoch, that certainly seems quite long.

The problem is that Lin Yi has no accurate concept of how difficult it is to reach the Constant Source Realm. He hasn't even crossed the threshold from the Sovereign Realm to the True Source Realm yet, and there's still the Eternal Source Realm, a huge realm in between, and only the Constant Source Realm is above that.

He had no idea how long each step would take or what conditions were required.

So, I still felt somewhat uncertain.

But as uncertain as it may be, at least by setting up here, we have a clear direction.

After thinking for a moment, Lin Yi decided to tell the others the news.

The death of three Blood Armor Warriors was already a heavy burden, and he didn't want everyone to bear it only psychologically without knowing why.

More importantly, this favor doesn't belong to Lin Yi alone.

Everyone was saved, and everyone should know the weight of this kindness.

At the same time, this can be seen as giving everyone more motivation to strive.

He turned and pushed open the cabin door, striding towards the warehouse area.

The people in the warehouse area were whispering and speculating about the battle that had just taken place when Lin Yi entered, and all their eyes turned to him.

Lin Yi's first words silenced everyone.

"Zero Three told me that three Blood Armor Warriors died in this battle."

The air seemed to freeze for a moment.

Lin Yi repeated Zero Three's words verbatim.

They voluntarily turned back without orders from their superiors; they had already withdrawn from the black fog.

Then he paused, and then shared his analysis as well.

"The area we were in should have been abandoned. It was Lord Li who decided to come back and rescue us."

After he said that, everyone fell silent.

Chu Yu's expression changed.

Zhaoyue lowered her eyes slightly.

Heng Shi's face was extremely tense, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Dark Annihilation his arms, a shadow passing over his face.

The other supreme beings and rulers remained silent; some lowered their heads, while others stared intently at the void ahead.

Everyone weighs the weight of this favor in their own way.

This adds another tangible layer to our motivation to strive.

Lin Yi didn't say anything more and turned back to the cultivation room.

The door closed behind them.

He sat down cross-legged again, swallowed a Soul-Burning Marrow, and closed his eyes.

The Spiritual Enlightenment Qi surged and burned once more.

Time flies.

More than three Epoch have passed.

The progress bar of the Golden Origin Law steadily advanced, eventually stopping at 72%.

During this period, the warships experienced several more battles.

The frequency of battles remains roughly once every ten thousand years, sometimes more frequent, sometimes less frequent.

Casualties, after all, still occurred.

Two more Blood Armor Warriors have fallen.

In the most serious incident, according to a brief account following the Battle of Zero Three, Lord Li also suffered considerable injuries.

Now, only ninety-one Blood Armor Warriors remain on this Bloodrage-class Assault Ship.

Lin Yi later learned from his conversation with Zero Three that the ship had never been at full capacity from the beginning.

When Lord Li decided to turn back to provide assistance, he summoned all the Blood Armor Warriors of Moxia and explained the situation very clearly.

This operation was not a mission assigned by superiors. He gave everyone the choice; those who did not want to go could stay in the fleet and wait for their return.

As a result, everyone expressed their desire to follow Lord Li.

Lin Yi remained silent for a long time after hearing this.

He knew very well that for those armored warriors, it probably didn't matter who they were rescuing.

They didn't care who they were saving; they just wanted to follow Lord Li.

However, Lord Li forcibly kept five of the Blood Armor Warriors in the fleet.

The reason is that those five warriors were not only blood-armored warriors, but also leaders of their respective tribes.

Their people had not yet raised enough money to buy new clam shells to house them, so they all resided within the Divine Kingdom within their bodies.

Once they die in battle, the Divine Kingdom collapses, and its inhabitants will be completely wiped out, one death leading to the extinction of an entire clan.

Therefore, Lord Li forcibly kept them there.

Ninety-six people set off.

Ninety-one are still alive.

Lin Yi memorized these numbers.

On this day, Lin Yi was suddenly awakened from his deep reverie.

However, this time it wasn't the warship that shook, but rather Zero Three's Light Sphere that emerged from the void and hovered in front of him.

"I have good news for you." Lin Yi detected a barely perceptible ripple in his voice, "A reporter in the warehouse district, who is at the One-Star Realm, has successfully advanced to the True Source Realm."

Has someone reached the True Source Realm?

Lin Yi was overjoyed and almost instinctively sprang to his feet.

Without a moment's delay, he turned and left the training room, striding towards the warehouse area.

Before he even reached the entrance to the warehouse area, he could already feel a powerful pressure.

This kind of pressure was both familiar and unfamiliar to him. It was familiar because he had felt it many times from the Blood Armor Warrior and Mantaji, but unfamiliar because this was the first time he had felt it from one of his own.

Upon entering the warehouse area, a group of people were gathered in a circle.

At the center of the circle is Zhaoyue.

The pressure of the True Source Realm was emanating from her in waves, putting immense pressure on everyone present. Clearly, she had just broken through and was not yet able to control it freely.

But no one backed down; everyone wore a smile.

When the crowd saw Lin Yi approaching, they made way for him.

"Congratulations."

Lin Yi also stepped forward.

Zhaoyue looked at him, nodded slightly, and a smile appeared on her lips.

As they were talking, the metal door of the warehouse slid open.

Mantaji strode in, followed by two blood-armored warriors.

He walked straight up to Zhaoyue and took out a badge from his waist.

Blood red.

Sergeant's badge for full-fledged members.

"Keep it safe." Mantaji smiled, clearly pleased with Zhaoyue's breakthrough as well. "After the breakthrough, you'll receive 50,000 advancement military merits, which you can use to exchange for the cultivation manuals you need."

Zhaoyue took the badge and glanced down at it.

The patterns on the badge's surface shone for a moment in her palm before fading away.

"Mantaji, Your Excellency Mantaki."

"Don't thank me yet." Mantaji raised his hand to stop her. "These are special times. I'm giving you only one Epoch. Within one Epoch, familiarize yourself with the newly exchanged cultivation manuals. After one Epoch, join my squad and participate in combat."

Zhaoyue nodded without hesitation.

"Clear."

Mantaji said nothing more, and turned to leave with the two blood-armored warriors.

Zhaoyue's successful breakthrough inspired everyone, but also added an invisible pressure to everyone's hearts.

This is especially true for the remaining supreme beings.

Lin Yi didn't linger and turned back to his cultivation room.

The door closed, and he sat down cross-legged again.

Two Epoch have quietly passed in profound reflection.

Now that he has fully mastered the Origin Law of Gold, he has begun to comprehend the Origin Law of Fire.

On this day, the warship suddenly shuddered.

This tremor came more suddenly than any before.

Lin Yi opened his eyes, and the gravitational field beneath his feet instantly reached a near-limit value. Dense impact sounds came from outside the ship, like a downpour hitting metal.

He frowned slightly, but did not get up.

The battle lasted neither too long nor too short; about half a standard day later, the ship's swaying began to subside and eventually returned to normal.

Lin Yi waited a while, then called out, "Zero Three, how's the battle going?"

Light Sphere appeared.

"This was a tough fight," Zero Three said, "But no one was killed."

Lin Yi's clenched fist loosened.

He got up, pushed open the door, and strode towards the warehouse area.

The people in the warehouse area had gotten used to this rhythm. After each battle, they would pause their training and wait for news.

No one spoke, but everyone glanced toward the hatch from time to time, their eyes filled with something weighing on their minds.

Heng Shi, in particular, has been the first to stand up after every battle ever since Zhaoyue officially joined the war.

The warehouse door slid open, Lin Yi stepped inside.

"No one was killed; everyone is safe."

The air in the warehouse seemed to suddenly release its tension.

Heng Shi sat back down without saying a word, his face showing no change in expression, but Lin Yi could see that his shoulders were more relaxed than before when he sat cross-legged.

The others also breathed a sigh of relief. Some muttered a few words under their breath, while others simply closed their eyes in silence.

Not long after, the warehouse's metal door slid open again.

Three armored warriors walked in silently.

They walked to the pile of spoils and began emptying things from storage containers, creating a messy, scattered mess on the ground.

After doing this, two of them left without looking back.

The third person stayed.

Lin Yi looked at that figure.

She was slightly more slender than the other two.

The armored warrior raised his hand and removed his helmet.

It was Zhaoyue.

"Are you injured?" Chu Yu was the first to speak, his gaze already fixed on Zhaoyue's waist.

There was a ripped gash on the lower side of the armor, with the edges rolled up, clearly from a frontal slash by some kind of claw-like attack.

The puncture wasn't deep and hadn't damaged the lining, but the fact that it could leave such a mark on the armor meant the attack power was definitely not low.

"It's nothing." Zhaoyue glanced down at the gaping hole, her tone casual. "A soldier can fix it; we'll repair it when we get back."

She didn't linger on that matter, instead briefly discussing the battle.

I won't say much; my main goal is to give everyone a more intuitive understanding of the encounter in the Black Mist Sea.

The crowd listened, occasionally asking one or two questions, which she answered.

Her aura was much more stable than when she first broke through; in just over two Epoch, her foundation in the True Source Realm had already become much more solid.

After the conversation, she spoke a few words to Heng Shi and Chu Yu separately.

When she was alone with Chu Yu, she whispered a few words to him. Chu Yu nodded slightly after listening and didn't ask any further questions.

When Lin Yi was alone with Heng Shi, he noticed that Zhaoyue didn't say much, and at the end she patted Heng Shi's arm.

The whole process was very brief. After Zhaoyue finished speaking, she put her helmet back on, nodded to Lin Yi and the others, and turned to stride towards the hatch.

"I need to hurry back and practice with my teammates." She paused for a moment at the door, turning her head to the side. "Right now, I can barely keep up with the others, but I'm the weakest in the team, and I can't hold them back."

The hatch closed behind her, and the metallic echo slowly faded away in the warehouse.

Heng Shi stared at the closed door in silence, then turned and walked towards his corner of cultivation.

Lin Yi stepped forward and patted him on the shoulder.

Neither of them spoke.

After returning to the cultivation room, Lin Yi sat down cross-legged and continued his cultivation in seclusion.

More than three Epoch passed in the blink of an eye.

On this day, the Light Sphere from Zero Three silently appeared before him.

"I have good news for you." Zero Three's tone was a few shades brighter than usual.

Lin Yi looked up at it.

"The warships have left the Black Mist Sea area and are now safe."

Lin Yi slowly exhaled.

He was constantly worried about one thing: what if he was unlucky enough to encounter a large-scale horde of Black Silence Beast, or even a second-tier Black Silence Beast?

Looking back, I think I was pretty lucky.

We're safe now.

He was about to say something, but Zero Three didn't give him a chance to speak.

"Lord Li wishes to see you."

Lin Yi was somewhat surprised.

Since being brought aboard this Bloodrage-class Assault Ship, he has never seen Lord Li.

Normally, he liaises with Mantaji, and Zero Three answers his various questions. The taciturn Blood Armor Warriors come and go from the warehouse area, carrying spoils of war, without any extra communication.

The name Lord Li only exists in the few words spoken by Zero Three and Mantaji, like a shadow hanging over the entire warship. You can always feel his presence, but you can never see him in person.

Of course, I couldn't refuse Lord Li's invitation.

"Please lead the way," Lin Yi said to Zero Three.

The Light Sphere of Zero Three changed direction in the void and floated towards the door of the training room.

The cabin door slid open silently, and the cold lights in the corridor automatically illuminated the path ahead, casting a pale blue glow.

Lin Yi followed behind the Light Sphere, passing through one crisscrossing passage after another.

The interior of the Bloodrage-class Assault Ship was far more complex than he had imagined. The corridors branched off from time to time, some leading to the Blood Armor Warriors' encampment, some to the ship's weapon bays, and some doors had no markings at all, only a dark red indicator light flashing silently.

Zero Three led him forward, and after about fifteen minutes, the surrounding armored walls began to change.

The original cold and hard feeling was gradually replaced by a deeper dark color, and faint blood-red patterns flowed slowly on the surface of the armor wall, like some kind of higher-level protective array.

The number of doors on both sides of the corridor decreased, while the ceiling grew higher and higher, and the width of the entire corridor more than doubled without anyone noticing.

Bow.

Lin Yi realized that he was heading towards the very core area of the entire warship.

At the end of the passage was a large, arched door, wider than any hatch he had ever seen. As Zero Three floated to the door, it slid open silently to both sides.

The space behind the door suddenly opened up.

This is a hemispherical bridge, with a blood-red crystal core suspended directly above the dome. The light flowing across its surface flickers and fades in a fixed rhythm, like the beating heart of the entire warship.

Directly below the crystal core stood a person.

Clad in black armor, he looked up at the crimson crystal core in the dome.

Zero Three floated to the person's side, hovering in mid-air without saying a word.

Lin Yi stepped into the bridge, and the arched door behind him slowly closed with a low thud.

The man turned around; it was none other than Lord Li.

"You've arrived." Lord Li's gaze fell on Lin Yi, and he nodded, his tone as casual as if he were greeting someone he had known for a long time.

"Lord Li." Lin Yi bowed slightly, giving a standard military salute of the Imperial Army.

"No need for formalities." Lord Li gestured for him to help himself up. "I called you here for no other reason than to ask you a few questions."

Lin Yi straightened up, waiting for him to continue.

How's your cultivation progress?

Lin Yi didn't hide anything. "I'm about to master the Sixth Origin Law."

After listening, Lord Li nodded slightly, his expression remaining unchanged.

"Given the concentrated resources, this progress is quite good."

Lin Yi's heart skipped a beat.

Clearly, nothing that happened on the warship escaped the captain's notice.

He secretly rejoiced.

fine.

Fortunately, he had set an ironclad rule for himself from the beginning: on the warship, he would never allow his three clones to transfer the Spiritual Enlightenment Qi they had generated to his Main Body.

Few people have come into contact with him because of his Spiritual Enlightenment Qi.

The fact that the Cosmic Clam Return to Stillness twilight state naturally erased all traces of its past.

The senior brother had also made a soul oath. As for those geniuses of the Star Source Society, they would only have the opportunity to leave the Divine Kingdom and come into contact with the Chaos Cosmic Sea if they cultivated to the Sovereign level. He himself knew very well that with those people's aptitude, it would be almost impossible for them to reach the Sovereign level now that resources were scarce and they had not obtained the new Cosmic Clam.

Even if someone did manage to do it, there was the guarantee of a soul seal at the time.

Lin Yi quickly went through these thoughts in his mind, but his face remained expressionless. He simply nodded slightly, which was taken as tacit acceptance of Lord Li's evaluation of "not bad".

Lord Li did not dwell on the topic of cultivation progress.

He paused briefly, then changed the subject.

"I've called you here because there's something else I need to tell you."

Lin Yi looked up at him.

"If you encounter any difficulties during your cultivation, feel free to ask me." Lord Li's tone remained calm, but his next words stirred something in Lin Yi's heart. "I hope you can reach the late stage of the True Source Realm as soon as possible."

How to reach the late stage of the True Source Realm as soon as possible?

Lin Yi's brows furrowed slightly without him noticing.

He's not even at the True Source Realm yet, while Lord Li is already at the late True Source Realm the moment he opens his mouth.

This self-proclaimed standard is an absurd leap for a ruler who is still striving to reach the Sixth Origin Law.

What bothered him even more was the implication in Lord Li's words, which seemed to suggest that he had other plans for him.

"My lord," Lin Yi hesitated for a moment before asking directly, "Is there any special arrangement for reaching the late stage of the True Source Realm as soon as possible?"

Lord Li did not evade the question.

He looked up at the crimson crystal core in the dome and remained silent for a moment.

"My armored warriors have been with me for a long time." His voice echoed in the empty bridge. "They..."

They're all great.

Lin Yi listened quietly.

"I'm nearing the peak of the True Source Realm." Lord Li withdrew his gaze and looked at Lin Yi again. "Once I reach that peak, I plan to attempt to break through to the Eternal Source Realm."

"But I'm worried about my old comrades under my command."

"Therefore, these things need to be planned first." He looked at Lin Yi and said solemnly, "And you, as a holder of a two-star mark, as long as you can reach the late stage of the True Source Realm, I am confident that you can take over my position."

Taking over the position...

Lin Yi's heart skipped a beat.

"Only in this way can I go all out." When Lord Li said this, his tone was lighter than before, but Lin Yi could tell that the heaviness in his voice had not lessened in the slightest. "Furthermore, even if I fail to break through to the Eternal Source Realm, as long as you are here, they will not suffer any unfair treatment."

I see.

Lin Yi suddenly realized.

Lord Li was worried about was never his own cultivation.

Whether he succeeds or fails in his attempt to break through from the True Source Realm to the Eternal Source Realm, it's all his own business.

What he couldn't let go of was the Blood Armor Warriors under his command on this ship, fearing that these old brothers would have no one to rely on in the Imperial Army after he left.

How could one refuse such a request from their savior?

However, there are some things you need to clarify before agreeing, so you can't just agree to something you can't do.

Therefore, Lin Yi only pondered for a moment before looking at Lord Li and slowly asking, "My lord, how long will it take you to reach the peak of the True Source Realm and attempt to break through to the Eternal Source Realm?"

"It won't be long," Lord Li said calmly, "It should be no more than fifteen Universal Epoch. After I step down, I will have the right to recommend a successor, so the time left for you is still very tight."

Fifteen Universal Epoch.

Lin Yi: