A Surge in Strength

The carriage returned to White Jade Avenue.

"Brother Liewen, Father, Stepmother, Little Brother, I'm back."

Lena walked into the mansion. In the main hall, besides Liewen and Kuhn, there was also a beautiful young woman and a six-year-old boy.

The young woman was Lily Robell, the daughter of a minor noble in Yulan City. She was the wife Kuhn had married in Yulan City; Lena's biological mother had died in childbirth over twenty years ago, and Lily was Kuhn's second wife.

The six-year-old boy was the child Kuhn and Lily had six years ago. He looked sturdy, with a bright, tiger-like appearance.

His name was Franklin Bo Lei, and he was Lena's half-brother.

"Father, how did it go?" Lena looked toward Kuhn.

Kuhn shook his head helplessly: "So close, what a pity."

Just moments ago, they had been testing Franklin for the Tiger-Striped Warrior bloodline, but the bloodline concentration was still insufficient.

"Natural-born Ultimate Warriors are rare to begin with, so don't be too upset," Liewen comforted them.

He usually spent his time cultivating in his own courtyard and rarely appeared. Today, he had been curious about the Tiger-Striped Warrior bloodline test and had come specifically to watch.

The heavens are fair; the bloodlines of the Four Ultimate Warriors are incredibly powerful, and consequently, their birth rates are low.

In the Coiling Dragon World, because people can cultivate, their physiques are much stronger, and it is not uncommon for ordinary people to have seven or eight children.

Yet Kuhn only had two children, Lena and Franklin, and in the six years since Franklin was born, they had been unable to have any more.

Hogg only had two children, Linley and Wharton.

Only the five Barker brothers were an exception.

With few descendants, even fewer could meet the bloodline requirements.

Before Wharton, the Baruch Clan had not produced a Dragonblood Warrior for over a thousand years.

Furthermore, most Ultimate Warriors have very low comprehension of the Laws and Mysteries; Linley was a rare exception.

"If only our Bo Lei Clan had a method like 'Drink Living Dragon Blood'," Kuhn sighed.

In Chiyan City, he had heard from Linley that the Dragonblood Warrior clans possessed a secret technique to drink living dragon blood, which allowed descendants with insufficient bloodline concentration to become Dragonblood Warriors.

Over five thousand years ago, when the Baruch Clan was at its peak, they relied on this secret technique to possess dozens of Dragonblood Warriors simultaneously, dominating the Yulan Continent with few daring to provoke them.

Liewen thought to himself: "The Tiger-Striped Warriors were once on par with the Dragonblood Warriors; they must have had a similar secret technique. It must have been lost during their long decline."

This was not impossible; for instance, the Undying Warrior clan had declined to the point where even their Undying Secret Manual had been lost.

"If they ever have the chance to go to Hell and receive the Clan Baptism, they might be able to awaken the Tiger-Striped Warrior bloodline," Liewen mused.

The so-called Four Ultimate Warriors actually originated from the Four Divine Beasts Clan in the higher plane of Hell. The Tiger-Striped Warriors were descendants of the wind-type divine beast, the "White Tiger," among the Four Divine Beasts.

The White Tiger clan held a Clan Baptism that could help their descendants awaken the White Tiger bloodline, allowing them to directly become wind-type Lowgods.

However, Hell was vast and incredibly dangerous. Even if one used a planar teleportation array to reach Hell, there was no guarantee of arriving in the region where the Four Divine Beasts Clan resided.

Without sufficient strength, one might die on the journey long before reaching the ancestral lands of the Four Divine Beasts Clan.

"A while ago, Mr. Linley went to the Sunset Mountain Range, seemingly to obtain living dragon blood for his descendants," Lena said.

"Yes, Linley captured three Saint Realm dragon-kin," Liewen nodded.

In the past twelve years, Linley and Delia had two children, and Wharton and Nina had one.

All three children had reached the age for bloodline awakening. Since they were not natural-born Dragonblood Warriors, Linley had taken them to the Sunset Mountain Range, captured three Saint Realm dragon-kin, and used the method of drinking living dragon blood to turn them into Dragonblood Warriors.

When Linley departed from the Land of Chaos and passed through Yulan City, he had specifically stayed with Liewen for a few days.

Over these years, besides closed-door cultivation, Liewen would occasionally visit the Land of Chaos to spar and exchange pointers with Linley and Desri.

Desri was currently the person with the highest achievement in the Laws of Light on the Yulan Continent. Exchanging ideas with him had given Liewen a much better understanding of the "Soul Deterrence" mystery, and three years ago, he had successfully mastered the basics of this mystery.

The "Soul Deterrence" mystery was a mystery of the Laws of Light that Desri cultivated; it belonged to the soul-type mysteries. Since Desri had named it himself, Liewen simply used that name.

Now, Liewen had mastered the basics of three of the six mysteries of the Laws of Light: the "Purification" mystery, the "Light Element" mystery, and the "Soul Deterrence" mystery.

The fusion of the "Purification" mystery and the "Light Element" mystery was also progressing smoothly, reaching 9%. Liewen estimated that in another year or two, he would be able to become a Lowgod.

Back then, he had thought it would take twenty or thirty years to become a god, but after his potential increased to the level of a "Highgod who fuses three mysteries," his cultivation speed had also improved, allowing him to reach the threshold of godhood in just over a decade.

While deducing the fusion of the two mysteries, his understanding of them had deepened; the "Purification" mystery had already been fused into 32 rays of light.

The "Light Element" mystery had improved even more and had reached the final bottleneck.

Of course, this was related to the fact that the "Light Element" mystery was a low-level mystery; it was the simplest of the six mysteries of the Laws of Light.

Once he crossed this final bottleneck, Liewen would also be able to become a Lowgod.

There are two major bottlenecks in the Laws and Mysteries: one is mastering the basics, and the other is reaching perfection.

Going from 0% to 1% is mastering the basics, and going from 99% to 100% is reaching perfection.

This bottleneck is simple to describe but difficult to overcome; it requires that flash of inspiration.

If one grasps it, Liewen might break through in the next second; if not, he could be trapped at this stage for thousands or even tens of thousands of years.

Like those Saint Realm peak experts such as Desri, all of them had been trapped at this final step for thousands of years.

Cesare had also been trapped at the final step for thousands of years before breaking through.

However, given Liewen's current potential, he did not believe he would be stuck on this simplest of profound mysteries for thousands of years.

Aside from the Laws of Light, the cultivation of the Fate Law also gave Liewen quite a few surprises.

He was now a Fate Saint Magus.

As his spiritual energy reached the Saint Magus level, the soul within his mind underwent a transformation, turning into a translucent sphere glowing with white-gold light, with the ocean of spiritual energy resting beneath this sphere.

A soul does not have a specific physical form; depending on the path of cultivation, a soul will take on different shapes.

For instance, Linley's soul was sword-shaped, while Liewen's was spherical.

Liewen currently belonged to the most ordinary type of Saint Magus, having basically no comprehension of the laws or rules, merely reciting magic incantations by the book to cast the Fate-type forbidden spell, the Fate Law.

Regarding the Rules of Fate, Liewen had not yet even entered the threshold.

The four rules are different from the seven elemental laws; the four rules are a single whole without any division into profound mysteries. Whether one becomes a god depends on whether one has comprehended enough of this whole, and if one comprehends enough, the heavens and earth will have a resonance.

"Brother Liewen, I heard that the Land of Chaos is not peaceful right now; Mr. Linley's Baruch Kingdom is at war with the Radiant Church and the Dark Church," Lena said.

Liewen had heard this too; in fact, he had been keeping a close eye on news from the Land of Chaos all along.

Not long ago, a magic crystal mine was discovered within the territory of Linley's Baruch Kingdom.