Exploring Earth

This day was November 23, 2062. A saucer-shaped, silver-gray spacecraft was hovering over a region of the Atlantic Ocean, its presence undetected by any instrument on Earth. Inside the control room of this ship, a team of nine space explorers was surveying the basic conditions of Earth, including its size, gravity, atmospheric composition, surface topography, and more.

At the Luo Family residence, Hong and Thunder God were chatting with Luo Feng, while Luo Zhiyuan floated cross-legged to the side, looking distracted. From time to time, he would look up at the sky, then turn his head to frown at his surroundings, repeating these small, restless actions.

Soon, Luo Feng noticed the abnormality in Luo Zhiyuan and asked with some curiosity, "Strange, Zhiyuan, aren't you usually very lively when your Uncle Hong and Uncle Thunder God come over? Why do you seem so distracted today? Is something the matter?"

Luo Zhiyuan turned his head to look at Luo Feng upon hearing this, hesitating to speak. He clearly remembered that today was the day the alien explorers would first arrive on Earth, though currently, there should be no instruments on Earth capable of detecting that spacecraft.

Therefore, Luo Zhiyuan had no reasonable excuse to warn Luo Feng to prepare early. Was he supposed to play the part of a mystic? Right, he had already revealed his time-attribute secret technique; perhaps he could use that.

"Dad!" Luo Zhiyuan looked at Luo Feng and said very seriously, "Aliens are coming to our house to cause trouble in a little while. I'm just curious about when they'll arrive."

Luo Feng was extremely shocked. He sat up straight and asked with a serious expression, "Zhiyuan, what's going on? How do you know aliens are coming?"

"I was bored listening to you all talk, so I wished for time to pass quickly. Then, I suddenly felt the time around me speed up. I saw that in a little while, aliens would come to our house and say they wanted to capture us. I was so scared that I jumped, and then everything suddenly felt normal again. Dad, you have to be careful."

Luo Feng was just about to tell Luo Zhiyuan that he was dreaming when he heard Babata shouting in his mind: "Luo Feng, this might be true! Remember how Little Zhiyuan's body and cultivation level would increase every so often?

I suspect he might have gained some insight into the origin of time, but he can't control it well yet. This might be another such instance. The Law of Time is a supreme cosmic law, parallel to the Law of Space. Your teacher, as an undying powerhouse, didn't even fully comprehend the Law of Space, let alone the Law of Time.

I've only heard that after mastering the Law of Time, one can control the flow of time. Little Zhiyuan must have a great talent for time. Although I don't know how those people are getting here, you should take his words seriously and prepare!"

Luo Feng lowered his head to think. He looked up, ignoring the curious gazes of Hong and Thunder God, and continued to ask Luo Zhiyuan, "Do you know how many people are coming and what their strength is?"

Luo Zhiyuan pretended to think for a moment and said, "Seven people. I don't know their strength."

Hong and Thunder God looked at Luo Zhiyuan in confusion, not understanding what he and Luo Feng were talking about. Luo Feng explained, "Zhiyuan possesses a talent for time. Although he hasn't mastered it to form his own domain, he might have suddenly glimpsed a future crisis. We need to be prepared..."

Before Luo Feng could finish his sentence, Babata was already shouting: "Luo Feng! A C-grade spacecraft has been detected entering the alert zone!"

"It's already hovering about three thousand meters above us!"

"The hatch is opening, people are coming out!"

Seven figures suddenly appeared in the sky. Some were giant men resembling chimpanzees, some were handsome and beautiful, and others had green skin. These seven adventurers from the universe were clearly different from the humans on Earth. All seven wore arrogant smiles, their eyes filled with the superiority of those who control everything and look down upon the natives.

Luo Feng, Hong, and Thunder God looked at the seven figures in the sky in shock, then glanced at the screens on their arms: one Star-level 6, one Star-level 2, one Star-level 1, and four Planet-level 9s. The aliens had arrived on Earth; Earth was no longer safe!

Luo Zhiyuan stopped floating around to show off. He lowered his legs, stood on the ground, and sized up the seven aliens. After all, this was the first time he had seen alien races different from humans with his own eyes. He could only guess that the leader with pointed ears and red-glowing eyes was a member of the Nolan Mountain clan, and the giant like a chimpanzee was from the Ape-man Race; he didn't know what the others were.

Before these aliens could speak, Luo Feng had already summoned his guard team, including three Star-level 7 guard captains and 900 Planet-level 9 guards. He said coldly in the Universal Common Language, "Capture these guys. If they resist, kill them!"

Facing the powerful Luo Family guard team, these space adventurers no longer had a shred of superiority and surrendered quite sensibly. Even the silver-gray spacecraft nearby was forced to surrender by the Black Dragon Mountain X81 piloted by Babata. These aliens had assumed Earth was a native planet with no Star-level combat power, and as a result, they were all captured due to their own carelessness.

Luo Feng had one of the Star-level 7 guard captains hypnotize the aliens to force out their background, only to discover that this was just the first wave of explorers. They had entered the solar system through a newly discovered wormhole over two years ago. In three months, a second wave of space adventurers with much greater strength would arrive to invade Earth.

It was a fleet from a family in the universe called the Nolan Mountain family. The ships included over forty Star-level 9s, led by about a thousand Star-level powerhouses and tens of thousands of Planet-level experts. These people were enough to sweep across the current Earth countless times!

The situation was extremely urgent. If Earth couldn't protect itself in three months, it would be enslaved by those aliens. But three months was too short; it wasn't enough time for Earth to gain the power to defend itself. What could be done?

Luo Feng, Hong, and Thunder God urgently summoned the leaders of global nations and base cities. In the end, there were only two options: one, Luo Feng reaches the Star-level within three months, obtains his teacher's inheritance, and then buys the ownership of Earth in the universe.

The other option: if Luo Feng failed to reach the Star-level in three months, they would sell Earth to the Black Dragon Mountain Empire, a mid-level civilization in the universe, in exchange for a reward of 100 billion Black Dragon coins. Ownership of Earth would belong to the Black Dragon Mountain Empire, and the Nolan Mountain family would then not dare to seize it.

However, if the Black Dragon Mountain Empire wanted to control Earth, they could only do so through the wormhole in the solar system, which would require over two years of interstellar travel. During those two years, they could use ships to secretly evacuate the human population of Earth!

At three o'clock that afternoon, Thunder God's daughter, Hong's children, and the relatives of the Luo and Xu families gathered at the castle. Many high-level leaders of Earth also came to see off Luo Feng, Hong, and Thunder God. These three heroes of Earth were going to fight in the universe once again for the hope of their home!

Luo Zhiyuan watched the three of them leave. Although he really wanted to go with them to see the universe, he didn't have a good enough reason to convince Luo Feng, so he had to follow Luo Feng's arrangements.

"Protect your mother well on Earth. Since Zhiyuan is a little man now, if Dad isn't by Mom's side, you have to be the one to protect her."

Luo Zhiyuan thought about it and obediently agreed. After all, Xu Xin would indeed face some danger later, and if he could protect her, he would be more than happy to do so.

However, Luo Zhiyuan still had his own little plans. Before Luo Feng left, he made several preparations. First, he asked for a branch of Hong's Cloud-Touching Vine, using the excuse that he wanted to study the magical plant life of the universe. Then, he asked clearly about the location where they had fought the Golden Horned Behemoth, using the excuse that he wanted to go there to feel the atmosphere of the battle. Of course, these were all preparations for his own clone or incarnation.

Back then, the Golden Horned Behemoth had been severely injured and must have shed many scales or muscle tissues. As a Star-level entity, these scales or tissues shouldn't have decayed yet. If he could find them, he could keep them for incubating a clone or incarnation.

And the fragment of Hong's Cloud-Touching Vine was something he could use right now. Luo Zhiyuan intended to use the Cloud-Touching Vine to incubate a one-time incarnation, as Hong's Cloud-Touching Vine was only at Planet-level 7.

After experimenting for some time, his secret technique had verified an upper limit: as long as he didn't cross a cultivation rank, he could incubate an incarnation even if his energy wasn't as high as the target's. He could incubate an incarnation of a Planet-level 9 guard, but he couldn't incubate one of a Star-level 1 guard captain.

On the night after Luo Feng and the others left Earth, Luo Zhiyuan used his spiritual energy to wrap a small slice of a Cloud-Touching Vine leaf and performed the External Incarnation technique. Inside his soul space, the energy cocoon lasted for about 5 seconds before a Cloud-Touching Vine incarnation appeared beside him.

Feeling this Cloud-Touching Vine incarnation, a sense of resilience and vitality filled it. Luo Zhiyuan controlled the incarnation to wrap around his own body, forming a Cloud-Touching Vine battle suit. Then, he split off another incarnation of himself to stay at home and keep his family company. Luo Zhiyuan's original body then set off with the Cloud-Touching Vine incarnation toward the depths of the ocean, to the place where the Golden Horned Behemoth had been injured.

In the Pacific Ocean, deep on the seabed, in the dark and gloomy underwater world, Luo Zhiyuan sat cross-legged and hovered quietly. The Cloud-Touching Vine incarnation on his body began to extend, stretching out five main vines from his body—forward, backward, left, right, and directly downward. It continued to spread, constantly branching out from the main vines until it covered almost the entire seabed surface in this area. All the monsters in this region were scared away by this earth-shattering movement.

The vines and leaves of the Cloud-Touching Vine constantly turned, stirring up the mud and sand on the seabed. Objects buried in the silt were continuously rolled up, wrapped, and twisted by the leaves. Whenever it discovered a substance that couldn't be destroyed, it would transport it to Luo Zhiyuan's side.

With the current strength of the Cloud-Touching Vine incarnation, any substance it couldn't crush or destroy was very likely to be the scales or body tissues shed by the Golden Horned Behemoth when it was injured. Therefore, Luo Zhiyuan carefully examined the objects transported by the vine.

With Luo Zhiyuan's body as the center, some hard items he discarded began to appear around him—all of them were discarded and damaged alloy fragments. These metal fragments were likely the remains of spacecraft that had fallen to Earth in the past, as Earth was a planet ruled by other cosmic nations hundreds of thousands of years ago.

It was only after the master of Yunmo Planet, Hu Yanbo, forcibly occupied it that he used a space secret technique to erase its interstellar coordinates, turning it into a void region of the Milky Way. Therefore, there were still many relics of past cosmic civilizations on Earth.

Luo Zhiyuan looked at those metal remains and thought of a way he might make a small fortune. After finding the scales or body tissues of the Golden Horned Behemoth, he should secretly conduct a comprehensive excavation of Earth. Beneath the various mountains, deep valleys, oceans, and even plains of Earth, many relics of past cosmic civilizations might be buried.

If he found them, it would count as a harvest. After all, the original story mentioned that during the later transformation of Earth, some relic items were discovered, including the most important item that made Luo Feng the child of the plane—the Nine Calamity Manual!

The Nine Calamity Manual was the cornerstone of Luo Feng's strength. Luo Zhiyuan didn't intend to steal this opportunity from Luo Feng. Besides, practicing the Nine Calamity Manual meant having to endure the trials of the Star Tower, which made him nervous.

Luo Zhiyuan didn't dare to guarantee that he had Luo Feng's protagonist halo to survive such perverted trials, so he would leave that thing to Luo Feng. He only intended to take the other relics on Earth that hadn't been discovered by humans. Although the gains wouldn't be huge, the risks were almost non-existent.

Perhaps he could even explore the other planets in the solar system. Luo Feng should have only explored Mars; Luo Zhiyuan decided to take a look at the other planets as well. Who knew what he might find?

Half an hour later, the Cloud-Touching Vine incarnation sent over a flat, black object. At first glance, this thing felt incredibly tough, and there were faint golden lines hidden beneath the surface. Once Luo Zhiyuan held it, his intuition told him it was the scale of some creature, and the only scales in this nearby sea that couldn't be damaged by the Cloud-Touching Vine were those of the Golden Horned Behemoth.

Luo Zhiyuan tentatively tried to use the External Incarnation technique once, but soon, a feedback came from the depths of his soul: Insufficient strength, unable to incubate an incarnation!

It was confirmed beyond doubt; these were indeed the scales of a Golden Horned Behemoth. He had verified this previously while experimenting with his External Incarnation, as objects without life signs—such as metal or rock—would always trigger the system message: "Invalid target!"

It took nearly three hours in total to collect over forty scales from the surrounding area. As for other bodily tissues, none were found; they had likely been completely annihilated during the battle. This was still a decent haul, and once Luo Zhiyuan reached the Star level, he would be able to use these scales to gestate an incarnation or clone.

Following this, the Cloud-Touching Vine incarnation fully retracted to Luo Zhiyuan's side. He decided to take this opportunity to conduct a thorough sweep of Earth, so he manifested eleven more Cloud-Touching Vine incarnations and eleven of his own incarnations, pairing them up one by one to begin a carpet-style excavation of the planet.

Luo Zhiyuan had now broken through to a sixth-rank Planetary level spirit reader with a telepathic amplitude of 25. His spiritual power could spread out 10 kilometers across Earth, and a main vine of his Cloud-Touching Vine incarnation could extend 5 kilometers. Thus, his paired incarnations could survey the general conditions within a 30-kilometer radius.

While he couldn't achieve the meticulous precision of a scanning instrument, it was barely sufficient for unearthing ruins buried within the Earth. After all, the Earth's crust was only 33 kilometers deep; as for the deeper mantle and core layers, he would have to wait until he possessed a cosmic civilization's scanner to conduct a detailed investigation.

Luo Zhiyuan began his search from the floor of the Pacific Ocean. His main body paired with one Cloud-Touching Vine incarnation, while his eleven incarnations each took a Cloud-Touching Vine incarnation. With twelve points forming a straight line, he could survey an area 360 kilometers long and 15 kilometers wide in a single pass.

Any undiscovered ruins buried within the crust across an area of 5,400 square kilometers would soon be detected by Luo Zhiyuan's spiritual power.

A day passed quickly, and Luo Zhiyuan had nearly finished surveying the Pacific Ocean floor. Aside from discovering some spaceship wreckage, he found no other ruins. He knew this was a mentally taxing endeavor, but he hadn't expected it to leave him feeling so exhausted. However, this intense consumption of spiritual power was actually accelerating the improvement of his cultivation, so it didn't hinder his progress after all.

After resting for half a day, Luo Zhiyuan continued his carpet-style search, treating the entire process as a form of cultivation.