Future Planning

Luo Zhiyuan heard that Bulieni was going to plan out his cultivation path, and he couldn't help but feel excited: "Bulieni, I want to follow the path of a spirit reader illusionist. Are there any combat secret techniques or the like that are suitable for me?"

"You're only at the planetary level right now, so what are you talking about an illusionist path for? Your physical talent is so good that you should develop in a well-rounded way."

"You need to know that if you want to break through to the immortal level, it requires you to have one hundred percent perfect control over your own body. Both the body and spiritual force are indispensable."

"Therefore, you must take care of both the fighter and spirit reader paths simultaneously. This is extremely important for your body, and it's not a problem at all; you just need to spend a little more time on it," Bulieni told Luo Zhiyuan in an indifferent tone.

However, Luo Zhiyuan felt a bit confused. He had already been practicing illusionist combat methods for some time, and he had even tried to create two unique secret techniques himself. Shouldn't he be focusing on the illusionist path?

Could it be that my knowledge is insufficient, and there's some reason I'm unaware of? I need to ask and get this cleared up quickly.

Luo Zhiyuan asked skeptically: "Bulieni, I have already created two unique soul secret techniques myself, and my spiritual force is much higher than my physical cultivation. Wouldn't it be better to play to my strengths and focus on developing that?" He then briefly introduced his Neural Illusion.

With a scoff, Bulieni said disdainfully: "You call this Neural Illusion of yours a secret technique? I don't know why that idiot AI you had before didn't stop you from wasting your time."

"Those two techniques of yours aimed at brain control—fine, let's barely call them combat tricks—are completely meaningless to a life form that has reached the domain lord level."

"At the domain lord level, the brain is no longer a vital point. Even if you lose your head, you won't die. Tell me, what use is that?"

Luo Zhiyuan defended himself, unconvinced: "I didn't create those two secret techniques to kill the enemy directly; they are meant to interfere with the opponent so that I can use other means to finish them off."

"Haha, interference?" Bulieni mocked: "You really are a combat idiot! It seems you have absolutely no practical combat experience against fighters of your own level."

Then, Bulieni switched to a serious tone and said to Luo Zhiyuan: "Come, come, let me explain to you why your methods are useless. Let me ask you, do you know how fast the rhythm of a battle between fighters or spirit readers is?"

Luo Zhiyuan first answered that he knew, then hesitated and said: "Uh, I've sparred with the guards of my family, who are planetary level nine spirit readers, and I didn't feel it was very fast?"

"Your family guards? They're slaves, right? How could they dare to pose an actual threat to you!" Bulieni scoffed and continued: "Let me tell you, when real combat and killing happen, a fighter will find a way to get as close to you as possible and then launch a violent attack."

"And a spirit reader will immediately use a spiritual weapon to launch a long-range attack against you. You must know that spiritual weapons are many times faster than your body's movement speed. Once you seize a suitable opportunity to attack, if you can't kill the opponent immediately, then just wait to be killed by them!"

So, that's how it is? Luo Zhiyuan was stunned. He had originally absorbed quite a bit of combat experience and had even developed his own soul secret techniques, so he had been feeling a bit smug, thinking he was a combat genius.

As a result, a simple analysis from Bulieni brought him back to reality. He was still a combat novice.

It made sense. Aside from fighting some apprentice-level monsters or scum on Earth, he had only sparred with the Luo Family guards. But the guards couldn't possibly spar with him with the intent to kill. That was why he felt he had a huge advantage and hadn't even taken the movement speed of his opponents seriously—after all, they weren't even on the same level.

Feeling a bit dejected, Luo Zhiyuan said in a low voice: "So the secret techniques I thought were so great are completely useless. But I really feel that I like the illusionist school and am well-suited for it."

Bulieni stopped beating him down and comforted him: "Your foundation is still too poor, and your knowledge is too limited; it is too early for you to create your own secret techniques."

"Your top priority now is to quickly cultivate to the world lord level. The most important thing for advancing to immortality is to comprehend the laws of the universe, and the world lord stage is the fastest period for comprehending these laws—it's even better than the immortal god stage for that."

"Therefore, getting distracted by creating secret techniques before then is a very uneconomical behavior. One reason is that it's a waste of time, and the other is that your knowledge is too shallow. Even if you create a secret technique, it will only be of a mediocre level."

"Before reaching the world lord level, your best choice is to focus wholeheartedly on rapid cultivation and then appropriately learn and master some combat secret techniques created by others. This way, you will have both combat and survival methods, and you can also increase your own knowledge."

"Only when you feel that other people's combat secret techniques can no longer bring out your full strength should you go and create your own. At that time, the secret techniques you create will be able to maximize your strength. Of course, there is a prerequisite for this: having enough secret techniques available for you to learn."

"Among the mainstream combat methods in the universe, those for fighters are the most numerous, followed by those for spirit reader controllers, while combat methods for illusionists are relatively rare and difficult to get your hands on."

"In terms of efficiency, the early stage is not suitable for following the illusionist path. Of course, the illusionist path is a very powerful path of cultivation; if you truly grow into it, it is absolutely terrifying."

"I suggest that you follow the standard procedure for your early cultivation. When you truly need to create your own unique techniques, you can then consider what path you are suited for. If you want to lean toward the illusionist school at that time, you will have to work very hard."

"However, even if you choose the illusionist school, you cannot give up on physical cultivation, because an illusionist's strength will be limited when facing life forms that are immune to soul secret techniques or powerhouses with strong willpower."

"As a powerhouse, you cannot have obvious weaknesses, otherwise, it is very easy for others to target you. Therefore, you must either have a sufficiently strong body or supplement it with the methods of a controller. This is also the reason why I want you to develop in a well-rounded way in the early stages."

After listening to Bulieni's detailed explanation, Luo Zhiyuan finally understood that he had been aiming too high. However, Luo Zhiyuan had one advantage from his previous life—he listened to advice.

When he didn't understand something, he listened to those who were experts. Bulieni had already analyzed it very clearly, so he would just follow Bulieni's arrangements. However, he had some special aspects that were different from others, and he needed to consult Bulieni about them.

"Bulieni, you also know that I have some special characteristics, so there are some secrets about me that you don't know yet. I want to tell you and ask you to help me analyze what I should do."

"Oh? No problem, tell me. I spent a long time wandering and hanging around the universe with that old charlatan, so my eye for things is still pretty good."

"Um, okay. This body of mine had some mutations when I was born, so the Primal Universe bestowed upon me three innate secret techniques..."

When Bulieni heard "innate secret techniques," he shouted and interrupted Luo Zhiyuan: "What?! You, a human, have innate secret techniques? Tell me quickly, what are they?"

Luo Zhiyuan felt helpless; Bulieni's temperament seemed very impatient: "Wasn't I just about to say? There are three innate secret techniques. The first is Flowing Time, which can accelerate my own time flow. I usually use it to speed up my cultivation."

"The second is External Incarnation, which can add incarnations and clones for me. I think it's a survival technique."

"The third is the Soul Fusion technique, which can forcibly fuse the souls of enemies to enhance my willpower and combat experience. It is precisely because of this innate secret technique that I lean toward being an illusionist."

"You see how I should arrange things to coordinate with these three innate secret techniques? By the way, my External Incarnation can have five clones. What would be suitable to use? We need to discuss this carefully."

Bulieni was silent for a while, clearly digesting what Luo Zhiyuan had said, and then he spoke: "Kid Luo, you can be considered to have received the favor of the Primal Universe. These three innate secret techniques of yours are all very good. You have a cultivation technique, a survival technique, and a combat technique. I'm starting to get jealous of you now!"

"Your physical talent is already very good, and with these innate secret techniques, as long as you grow up, you will definitely be a figure standing at the very peak of the universe! Hmm, you haven't used the clone technique yet, have you?"

"No, I don't know what's suitable to choose. After all, I'm only at the planetary level."

"Very good. The first clone is very important to you. You must choose a clone that will be of the greatest help to you. There's no rush; we can take our time and think it over carefully."

Bulieni paused to organize his thoughts and asked Luo Zhiyuan: "Tell me first what candidates you have."

Luo Zhiyuan thought for a moment and said: "I have some scales of a star-level Golden Horned Behemoth on hand. I can use them once I break through to the star level. I don't have materials for anything else."

Bulieni said with some disappointment: "A Golden Horned Behemoth? It can be considered a choice that will do. It's not easy that you were able to find it."

"Excluding special life forms, it is, after all, one of the top bloodlines in the universe. Its physical talent is similar to yours. Although it is a metal-attribute life form, it also possesses certain space attributes, and its comprehension of space laws is stronger than that of ordinary life forms."

"By the way, let me tell you a secret. I believe not many people know this now: the so-called Starry Sky Behemoth race are the descendants created by the eight great innate beast gods of the past."

"Back then, after that old charlatan foresaw that something was going to happen, he joined forces with those old guys and said that in order not to let future generations forget them, they had to leave behind some descendants to stir up trouble."

Among them, Isis, the Beast God of Wood, was the most interested, as his innate talent was the creation of life, and he had already created countless living races back in the day.

Therefore, by his hand, combining the innate traits and bloodlines of the eight of them with various exotic beasts, they created what would later become the Star-Devouring Beast race, haha.

Of course, at the beginning of creating the Star-Devouring Beasts, the talents of the combined exotic beasts varied, which led to their inconsistent bloodlines.

There were the twelve peak bloodlines that could advance to World Lord upon reaching adulthood, others that could reach Domain Lord, and even the lowest tier that could reach Universe level upon adulthood.

They even joined forces to raise an exotic beast as their leader; if that little guy hasn't fallen yet, he might have become a Universe Supreme Master by now. You didn't know this secret, did you?"

Luo Zhiyuan actually knew a part of it. The original work mentioned that Star-Devouring Beasts were descendants of the Beast Gods, but he hadn't expected the progenitor of the Star-Devouring Beasts to have been raised by the eight innate Beast Gods together. This explained why there were so many Beast God statues in the Beast God World of the Star-Devouring Beast progenitor in the original story.

Seeing that Luo Zhiyuan didn't look very surprised, Bulieni stopped talking about it and instead asked him, "Do you have any other plans regarding your clones?"

So, Luo Zhiyuan told Bulieni about some of his ideas for clones, including the Mosha Clan, the Sea of Jiuyou, the World Tree, and his desire to enter the core of the human race to find more suitable materials after obtaining more information.

Bulieni pondered for a moment and said, "Your ideas are quite good. I haven't heard of the Mosha Clan or the World Tree; they must be new races that appeared later. I do know that little guy from Jiuyou, but I never heard of him having a son?

Back then, we only knew he had the combat power of a Universe Overlord and needed some protection from the Ancestral God Sect. I didn't expect him to be a top-tier Universe Master now. The intelligence in your head is truly incredible!

However, the Sea of Jiuyou is too far from you. You don't have the ability to obtain body tissue from there for the time being, so don't think about it yet. Wait until you reach the World Lord level before finding a way."

Luo Zhiyuan didn't know what to say. Was the Master of Jiuyou also just a "little guy"? It seemed he needed to get used to this ancient style of chatting as soon as possible, or he would be scared to death by the news Bulieni dropped sooner or later.

Bulieni didn't care whether Luo Zhiyuan was used to it or not and continued, "Also, you said you want to enter the core of the human race, right? Then don't be in a hurry to gestate clones. Once you truly enter the human core, you will definitely be able to learn more secrets, and perhaps you will find the most suitable clone materials then.

By the way, didn't you mention the Virtual Universe? Tell me how to use it. I'll go there and take a look; there might be unexpected surprises. After all, I've been sealed for countless epochs, so there must be a lot of news I don't know. I'll go check it out.

You go ahead and eat that lousy Azure Fruit of yours to break through to the ninth level of the Planetary level; I'm going to go catch up on my studies."

Luo Zhiyuan gave Bulieni the method and account to log into the Virtual Universe so that Bulieni could log in himself to query information. He also composed himself, put the World Ring on his right thumb, and prepared to return to Earth.

The moment the World Ring was put on, it vanished from sight, becoming untouchable and invisible as if it didn't exist. However, with a movement of Luo Zhiyuan's spiritual energy, he connected to the space within the ring.

In an instant, a space larger than Luo Zhiyuan could imagine appeared, feeling boundless to him. Bulieni chuckled and said, "Little Luo, this is a top-tier World Ring, a space one hundred million kilometers in length, width, and height. Throw away that lousy storage bracer of yours.

Moreover, this is a real world inside; you could even fit people in here. Not bad, right?

However, the old charlatan just threw things in here randomly back then. I'll find them for you when you need them. I'm going to wander around the Virtual Universe now; I find it very interesting. I'm almost hooked, haha!"

Luo Zhiyuan stared intently at this vast world space, not knowing what to say for a moment. Forget it, he would get used to it slowly.

However, he wouldn't throw away the bracer; it was his first storage equipment, after all, and it was worth keeping as a memento.

Luo Zhiyuan stopped checking the ring, thought about how to explain things to Luo Feng and Babata, and had L-1 take him back to Earth.

Returning to Earth this time, Luo Zhiyuan didn't hide L-1 anymore. He flew directly to the Luo Family castle and landed inside. He had communicated with the castle's intelligent program in advance, so he wasn't attacked or noticed by others.

However, the other members of the Luo Family gathered around curiously. After Luo Zhiyuan stepped out of the spaceship, they surrounded him and asked about the situation.

Luo Zhiyuan had already dismissed the avatar he left in the Luo Family's cultivation room before returning to Earth from Venus, so when he came out now, his family only asked about the spaceship. He told them it was a crashed ship he found on the seabed over the past few days, and now that he had repaired it, he flew it back.

After fooling his family and having a good time with them, Luo Zhiyuan returned to his room and connected to the Virtual Universe. He had some things to discuss with Luo Feng.

Luo Zhiyuan logged into the Virtual Universe and set his login location to another part of Black Dragon Island, not near Luo Feng and the others.

At this moment, it wasn't Babata's virtual image appearing beside Luo Zhiyuan, but Bulieni's. It was his first time seeing Bulieni's image, and he couldn't help but look him over.

Bulieni's virtual image was just that of an ordinary, shrunken Earth youth. Except for his eyes being pure white, there was no difference, which was quite unexpected for Luo Zhiyuan.

Bulieni glanced at him and said, "What, is it not good to use an image of the same race as you? Doesn't this seem more intimate? Besides, I won't create any strange images; that's too boring."

What could Luo Zhiyuan say? Fine, whatever made him happy. However, he would need Bulieni's help to communicate with Luo Feng later, so he said, "Bulieni, you destroyed my auxiliary light brain earlier. I need to explain it to my father. Remember to help me cover for it."

"What a small matter, explaining? Fine, I'll definitely cover for you. By the way, Little Luo, it's best not to mention the old charlatan's name in the Virtual Universe. Better safe than sorry; otherwise, you might attract huge trouble," Bulieni said with a solemn face.

Luo Zhiyuan realized this too and quickly nodded to thank Bulieni for the reminder, then began to contact Luo Feng and Babata in the Virtual Universe.

Because Luo Zhiyuan logged into the Virtual Universe with his new identity, Babata automatically replied with a verification request, asking what his favorite fruit was, and he could only communicate if he answered correctly.

Luo Zhiyuan thought for a moment and remembered that in the original work, Babata always seemed to be gnawing on an apple, so he entered "apple," and it turned out he guessed correctly.

Soon, Babata sent a message: "Yo, stranger, how did you know I love eating apples? This kind of fruit shouldn't be common, right?"

That was true; apples were Earth fruits, and they probably weren't common in the universe. It seemed he had no intention of communicating with strangers at all; this was truly a strange hobby.

Luo Zhiyuan quickly said, "Babata, it's me, Zhiyuan. I have something to discuss with you and Dad. Where are you now?"

"What? You're Little Zhiyuan? I was just looking for you. Why did you destroy my auxiliary intelligence earlier? Did something happen?"

"Tell me where you are first, and I'll come over. We'll talk when we meet."

"Fine, we are at XXXX, hurry over."

Luo Zhiyuan followed the coordinates and rushed over. Upon arriving, he found that not only Luo Feng but also Hong and Thunder God were there. It seemed the destruction of the auxiliary intelligence had worried them.

On the way over, Luo Zhiyuan had already told Bulieni the identities of Luo Feng, Hong, Thunder God, and Babata, so after seeing them, Bulieni just nodded and made no other gestures.

But Babata was different. Seeing a strange intelligence sitting on Luo Zhiyuan's shoulder, he immediately started wailing: "Little Zhiyuan, who is that? Why is he following you? Where is my auxiliary intelligence?"

Luo Zhiyuan quickly introduced, "Babata, Uncle Hong, Uncle Thunder God, Dad, this is Bulieni, a companion of an ancient senior, and also an intelligent life.

When I was fighting a King-level monster at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, I exposed a spaceship. I later used the robots at home to repair that ship.

There was a senior in that ship who fell in the ancient era. I obtained the belongings of that senior and gained Bulieni's recognition, which is why I no longer use Babata's auxiliary intelligence. As for that senior's name, it's not convenient to say it here; I'll tell you in reality later."

Bulieni glared at Babata and said slowly, "What's the matter, little guy? That lousy auxiliary intelligence you made was stupid and clumsy. I got angry looking at it, so I destroyed it. Do you have an opinion?"

Babata was glared at by Bulieni and felt as if he were under powerful suppression. The pressure was even more terrifying than the existence that killed Hu Yanbo back then. Babata was so scared that he shook his head repeatedly, trembling and not daring to make a sound.

Luo Feng, Hong, and Thunder God exchanged glances. They all knew that Babata had a fearless personality and loved to stir up trouble, yet one glare from Bulieni had been enough to silence him completely. This fully illustrated the terrifying nature of the other party, and it seemed that Little Zhiyuan had encountered a massive stroke of luck this time.

A thought stirred in Luo Feng's mind: could this perhaps be a turning point for Earth? That senior might possess some powerful means to help Earth survive the crisis of the Nolan Mountain family invasion.

However, would it be inappropriate to make such a request upon their first meeting? But Earth was truly in imminent danger. After pondering it for a while, Luo Feng decided to ask anyway. After all, since Bulieni had already acknowledged Zhiyuan as his master, he surely wouldn't want to see his master's home suffer.

Luo Zhiyuan hadn't expected Bulieni to be able to suppress Babata so effectively, which saved him a lot of explaining. Otherwise, given Babata's relentless and pestering nature, it would have been quite a hassle.

It seems that this ancient intelligent lifeform, Bulieni, is no simple artificial intelligence, even without a physical body!

PS: How is it, brothers, have you been waiting anxiously? Haha, a massive 6,000-word chapter is here; it took me a full 9 hours to write! I've found my mind is particularly chaotic lately, with so many ideas popping up while I write that I have to quickly jot them down in my notebook as material for future content, which is why this chapter took so long. Alright, enough talk, I'm going back to writing. Don't stop with the votes and favorites, and those brothers who threatened to tear up their tickets, hand them over now :)