Yu Xiang Mountain

The Genius Tournament concluded, and neither the high and mighty Venerable Plain Robe nor the 1,008 powerful immortals lingered for a moment. Even now, Lu Yan'an and the other thousand geniuses still did not know the title of Venerable Plain Robe.

Just as Lu Yan'an and the others were about to log off and leave, the surrounding staff called out, "Please do not leave just yet. We have some matters to discuss regarding your transport to the Virtual Universe Company's all-universe headquarters."

The people present looked at each other, somewhat bewildered, and this confusion persisted until they were led to a conference room on the second floor of the No. 2 restaurant in the central plaza.

The staff asked them to fill in their accurate planetary addresses so that the Virtual Universe Company could arrange for individual spaceships to pick them up and transport them to the company's headquarters.

This was to ensure that geniuses from various universe countries could arrive at the headquarters on the same day, calculating the optimal pickup plan based on their different geographical locations and the Virtual Universe Company's spaceship resources.

Lu Yan'an took the paper and pen and wrote down, "Ganwu Universe Country, Black Dragon Mountain Star Sector, Qiu Long Planet."

Around him, the 1,000 young people from various universe countries were also writing.

The virtual universe system finished collecting the data and determined that the entire journey would take approximately three years.

One must realize that the furthest distance was 1.5 billion light-years; to cover that in just three years was simply terrifying.

This was because the Virtual Universe Company, as the top power of the human race, had arranged F-grade spaceships for all the geniuses! What was the concept of an F-grade spaceship? The best spaceship currently in Lu Yan'an's possession, the "Tianfeng" series heritage spaceship he had used for travel, was still parked at the docking bay on Qiu Long Planet.

The "Tianfeng" series spaceship was merely a D-grade spaceship, with a value of about ten to twenty billion universe coins. One should know that an ordinary E-grade spaceship cost about 1 hunyuan, while the peak E-grade ones used by immortals cost several hundred hunyuan. Like the Yunmo Planet ship belonging to Hu Yanbo in the original story, it was an F-grade spaceship, and the construction cost alone was 3.6 million hunyuan units!

Furthermore, the Virtual Universe Company's F-grade spaceships were special internal models, with technology far exceeding the F-grade spaceships of the various universe countries.

Dispatching 1,000 such F-grade spaceships simultaneously meant nothing else but to show off their immense wealth.

After completing all the data collection, the staff on-site announced that the prize money for the Genius Tournament would be transferred directly into their respective accounts, and they were told to keep an eye out for it. As the first-place winner of the finals, Lu Yan'an not only gained qualification for the Original Secret Realm but also received an additional prize of 10,000 hunyuan units!

With this, Lu Yan'an's status in front of Lord Shen transformed from a poor farmer living on relief to a wealthy landlord! He was the type of nouveau riche who had struck it rich overnight!

One figure after another disappeared from the conference room, logging off one by one. Until the last person left, the entire conference room returned to its previous cold and desolate state.

This was a spaceship shaped like a sharp longsword, about 800 meters long, 200 meters wide, and nearly 120 meters thick. The ship was pitch black, and even standing in front of it, one could faintly feel an aura of antiquity and the passage of years, as if it had existed in the long river of time for a very, very long time.

Amidst the clouds and mist, Lu Yan'an walked up to this ancient and weathered spaceship.

"Void Stone Marrow; this is an F-grade spaceship forged from Void Stone Marrow," Lord Shen's introduction echoed in his sea of consciousness.

Lord Shen had previously learned that Lu Yan'an was going to the Virtual Universe Company headquarters. Because of its immortal strength, its main body could not accompany Lu Yan'an to the Initial Universe! For this reason, it specifically split a wisp of consciousness into an intelligent life form to assist Lu Yan'an in his cultivation in the Initial Universe! Since Lord Shen was originally an intelligent life form, this operation was already second nature to it.

"It just feels quite ancient and weathered; there's nothing else that seems different!" Lu Yan'an curled his lips and responded silently in his heart.

"You really are someone who doesn't know a treasure when you see one. Void Stone Marrow is a special mineral produced in the void; spaceships forged from it possess much higher speeds! Don't look at this ship as being about the same size as the one we have; its speed can be dozens of times faster than ours!"

Lord Shen explained to Lu Yan'an urgently. "Plus the technological cost of this ship—even if you sold me, you couldn't afford such a treasure!" Lord Shen sighed with some emotion.

At this moment, a group of people flew out from the front hatch. Leading them was an old man of the Ape-man race who looked almost exactly like an Earthling, wearing a crimson battle suit. He had short, sharp hair, a smile that made one feel like they were bathed in a spring breeze, and a thunder imprint between his brows. The sense of spatial control he revealed inadvertently made Lu Yan'an realize that this was a World Lord recognized by the laws of the universe's origin.

"Lei Xiao pays respects to Your Highness!" The Ape-man elder bowed slightly. Even though he restrained the aura on his body, the faint leakage of thunder power was enough to make one's heart tremble.

"Pay respects to Your Highness!"

Behind Lei Xiao, a group of ordinary World Lords and Domain Lords bowed to Lu Yan'an with extreme respect.

Among the four secret realms of the Virtual Universe Company's core, the Endless Secret Realm belonged to the outermost layer. When core members of the Endless Secret Realm met members of the top three secret realms, if the other party was below the immortal level, they were all to be addressed as "Your Highness"!

As for those who were not core members, when they met core members below the immortal level, they were all to address them as "Your Highness"!

Lu Yan'an nodded slightly and, without wasting time, walked into the spaceship surrounded by the crowd!

The interior space of this spaceship was very large. The "hilt" position of the entire warship served as the main cabin for the power system, and some cabins almost filled the entire lower level of the ship. Although the exterior of the ship looked very ancient, the interior was a different world entirely!

At this moment, Lu Yan'an was ushered into a very spacious and luxurious hall on the upper level of the spaceship, 300 meters long and 60 meters wide. Mellow fine wine and rare spiritual fruits were placed before him, and beautiful maids waited for orders at all times!

Lu Yan'an sat opposite the Ape-man elder.

The Ape-man elder introduced himself first: "Greetings, Your Highness. I am Lei Xiao, a World Lord recognized by the thunder origin laws, responsible for protecting Your Highness on the way to the Virtual Universe Company headquarters."

Lu Yan'an nodded slightly, cupped his hands, and smiled faintly: "I shall rely on your protection for this journey, sir!"

"Your Highness, there is no need for that," Lei Xiao smiled. "This is my duty."

"I believe Your Highness has not yet entered the virtual headquarters of our Virtual Universe Company. Why not join me in the virtual universe to take a look?"

Lu Yan'an's eyes lit up.

He was naturally extremely curious about the virtual headquarters of the Virtual Universe Company from the original story, and it was also where he would spend most of his time in the virtual universe in the future, so he was naturally interested.

The spaceship's speed in the dark universe continued to climb, finally advancing at a constant speed of 40 times the speed of light.

The intelligent life form "Lord Shen" suddenly gained authorization. Once Lu Yan'an entered the virtual universe, he could be directly teleported to a special plane in the virtual universe—the Virtual Headquarters Plane.

This was a suspended mountain peak shrouded in clouds and mist, larger than an ordinary planet in reality. Lu Yan'an's figure suddenly appeared on the street.

Lei Xiao appeared before him quickly: "Your Highness!"

"The mountain peak suspended in the clouds and mist before you is called 'Yu Xiang Mountain'. The diameter of Yu Xiang Mountain is about 89,000 kilometers."

Lei Xiao took him around Yu Xiang Mountain.

Lu Yan'an nodded. This Yu Xiang Mountain was truly not small; one must know that the diameter of Yuan Planet was only a little over 10,000 kilometers.

"The entire Yu Xiang Mountain is divided into five districts," Lei Xiao said with a smile. "They are the 'Original District', 'Tai Chu District', 'Heaven and Earth District', 'Endless District', and the 'Public District'. The areas of these five districts are all about the same."

"Among them, the Original District and Tai Chu District do not have many people. The Original District, including Your Highness, currently has fewer than ten people, and the Tai Chu District, including the number of people from this year's Genius Tournament, has barely exceeded one hundred!"

"Wait, Lei Xiao. Isn't this the first Genius Tournament? Then how did these people in the secret realms get in?" Lu Yan'an asked with a hint of curiosity.

The Ape-man Elder smiled slightly: "Your Highness, our Virtual Universe Company has its own set of assessment standards for geniuses; those who meet the criteria can naturally advance! Besides, the company has always been cultivating talent, it's just that we didn't have a selection format like the Genius Tournament before!"

Hearing this, Lu Yan'an nodded; this explanation made sense. "Please continue with the introduction!" Lu Yan'an said with a smile.

"The Heaven and Earth District has about a thousand people."

"And the Endless District has over a million!" Lei Xiao continued, "As for the Public District, it is for commerce, entertainment, and so on. People from all four districts can enter the 'Public District', but members of each district cannot enter the other districts."

The five districts are roughly the same size, yet the Endless District has over a million people, while the Original District has fewer than 10.

This is the status of the Original Secret Realm! And it is also the status that Lu Yan'an holds today!