A Bountiful Haul

It had been another four or five days without any results since Lucky Day, and Luo Zhiyuan was getting anxious. Half a month had already passed, and he'd only managed to get his hands on one Radiance Stone. At this rate, there was no way he'd finish the task in two months.

Bulieni started making snide remarks. "Luo, it's no big deal. You just have to change your name, right? Besides, I'm the only one who calls you that. What are you afraid of? No rush, hahaha!"

Luo Zhiyuan shouted his defense. "Bulieni, it's not that I haven't been trying! These Radiance Stones are just too crafty!"

"Tell me, have I had a single day of rest? I've been flying nonstop. I've almost forgotten I have legs. If I weren't worried about exposing myself too soon and attracting attention, I'd just strap on the Light Wings. Then I could fly faster, too."

Bulieni gloated. "Heh heh, how does that saying go? You chose this path yourself, and you set the deadline yourself. Want to take it back? No chance! Hahahaha!"

Rubbing his furrowed brow, Luo Zhiyuan genuinely regretted it now. He'd been too arrogant, thinking he was the child of destiny. He'd completely forgotten that the child of destiny in this world was his old man. At most, he was destiny's god-grandson—and even that depended on whether Destiny was willing to acknowledge him.

With no other choice, Luo Zhiyuan resumed his high-speed flight. To cover as much ground as possible, he was now flying at his maximum speed.

In the Suonsai Secret Realm, nobody else flew around at high speed without stopping like Luo Zhiyuan. Adventurers knew that treasure hunting and exploration weren't about who could fly faster or cover more ground. Doing that would only throw them into disarray and rarely yield any results.

An adventurer's profession relied on luck and patience. Seeing Luo Zhiyuan dart around like a headless fly, everyone thought he was a green, inexperienced rookie.

What they didn't realize was that Luo Zhiyuan had thought differently from the very beginning.

Ordinary adventurers relied mostly on their own experience to find things. They would only fight over something if an enormous prize happened to be right in front of them. Otherwise, they wouldn't go looking for trouble.

That was because it could make enemies of all sorts of people. Who knew whether an enemy you made today might become someone you looked up to—or even feared—hundreds or thousands of years later?

But Luo Zhiyuan wasn't like that. He had no intention of relying on luck or patience. This was all about strength. It didn't matter who found something—if I spot it, I'll take it, and then it's mine.

He wanted to explore as many places as possible as quickly as he could. Whether he found the Radiance Stones himself or someone else got their hands on them, he'd take them all!

Hard work paid off. On the twentieth day, Luo Zhiyuan finally came across another Radiance Stone emerging.

As he flew toward the next "rich ore zone," Bulieni told him that the scanner had detected a Radiance Stone's energy signature twenty kilometers to the front right.

Luo Zhiyuan excitedly flew straight over, only to discover he wasn't the first to detect it.

Up ahead, a ninth-level Star Level adventurer wore an expression of delirious joy as he operated a device to dig into a floating stone. Clearly, he was the first to discover the Radiance Stone.

Sensing a disturbance behind him, the adventurer's expression changed at once. He turned around, glaring furiously. When he saw Luo Zhiyuan, he shrieked, "That's my Radiance Stone!" Then he immediately directed a Telekinetic Weapon to attack Luo Zhiyuan.

Bulieni warned him, "Luo, there are three targets rapidly approaching nearby. Here they come!"

An adventurer flew in from each of three directions: in front of the floating stone, from the left rear, and from the right. They all eyed the stone greedily, then attacked Luo Zhiyuan in unison.

Luo Zhiyuan gave a cold snort. They wanted to join forces to take him out first? What a joke.

He controlled the Lightning Shuttle to dodge the Telekinetic Weapon that had attacked him first, then summoned four Light Shuttles and sent them after the four adventurers.

The four Light Shuttles became four brilliant streaks of light, reaching their targets in an instant.

With only one or two ricochets, three of them killed the three newcomers. Only the adventurer who had first discovered the Radiance Stone was still struggling to resist.

He controlled his Telekinetic Weapon to whirl around him, enhanced by his water domain. Together, they formed clusters of energy that resembled whirlpools, making the Lightning Shuttle feel as though it were being hindered by viscous liquid and slowed after each attack.

When Luo Zhiyuan realized the water domain was impeding his Lightning Shuttle and preventing it from striking his opponent cleanly, he redirected the other three Light Shuttles and slightly increased his Mental Power Amplitude.

The four Light Shuttles suddenly shone more brightly. The resistance vanished, and they regained their agility, even darting back and forth faster than before as they attacked.

Just as the Spirit Reader was about to be killed by the Light Shuttles, Luo Zhiyuan used the Soul Fusion Technique again. He pulled the man's soul into his Soul Space and forcibly dissolved and absorbed it.

The previous lucky guy he'd fused with had basically been useless, and Luo Zhiyuan hadn't absorbed any valuable memories from him.

This time was different. Luo Zhiyuan absorbed all of the man's memories of comprehending the water domain. They wouldn't let him grasp the water domain right away, but having a point of reference would make it easier to understand if he decided to study it in the future.

He continued digging with the tools left beside the floating stone. Before long, he unearthed a Radiance Stone—his second.

Leaving the area, he continued toward the next "rich ore zone." Unexpectedly, as soon as he reached its edge, he received another pleasant surprise: the scanner had detected a Radiance Stone.

When Luo Zhiyuan reached its location, he saw two groups of nearly eighty people facing off. Nearby, another twenty-odd adventurers stood scattered about, waiting to reap the benefits.

At the center of the standoff lay a corpse broken in two. Three Radiance Stones had been exposed beside it.

Luo Zhiyuan's arrival didn't attract the attention of either group. They all assumed he was just another lone adventurer hoping to take advantage of the situation.

After surveying the scene, Luo Zhiyuan quickly figured out what had happened.

Someone—lucky or unlucky, depending on how you looked at it—must have discovered the Radiance Stones. While he was digging them up, someone ambushed and killed him. But before the ambusher could claim the prize, people had started arriving one after another, all ready to fight over this unexpected windfall.

The two groups at the center had reached the point of drawn swords. They were about to attack at any moment, and they knew they couldn't afford to wait any longer. More people would keep coming. If a team of over a hundred showed up, they'd have no chance of getting the stones.

Adventurers normally avoided making enemies lightly, but three Radiance Stones were enough to make any team or individual present risk their lives!

The three Radiance Stones stirred Luo Zhiyuan's own urge to charge in and fight. If he grabbed all three, he'd be halfway to his goal!

No more waiting. Luo Zhiyuan decided to strike first.

He suddenly switched the Lightning Shuttle to its third form. A three-meter-long shuttle appeared in his hand, blazing with dazzling light. It became a streak of white and shot toward the person closest to the Radiance Stones.

The adventurers' nerves had already been stretched to the limit. The sudden burst of dazzling light instantly unleashed everyone's desire to attack.

In a flash, the area around the Radiance Stones became a stage where Telekinetic Weapons and Origin Force attacks clashed in a dazzling display.

All kinds of strange Telekinetic Weapons darted through the scene, while Origin Force attacks of every element exploded all around. The deadliest weapon of all was the third form of the Lightning Shuttle, unleashed by Luo Zhiyuan.

The three-meter-long shuttle carried eighteen guard blades around its head. The moment it hit someone, it unleashed eighteen chain attacks that branched out, covering a wide area and throwing everyone in range into disarray. Some unlucky fools who weren't paying attention had their heads slashed open by the blades.

And if an adventurer was targeted by the shuttle's head and lacked an effective defense or movement technique, it would pierce his skull and kill him outright.

Amid the chaos, Luo Zhiyuan was also choosing his targets.

Whenever he saw an adventurer unleash a domain, he sent a Mental Shock at them to stun their awareness, then used the Soul Fusion Technique to pull their soul into his Soul Space and absorb it.

As a result, several adventurers who had made others wary suddenly fell dead without anyone understanding why.

In just ten seconds, fewer than twenty adventurers remained alive at the scene. They had all retreated far from the Radiance Stones, watching Luo Zhiyuan warily. The Lightning Shuttle alone had killed more than fifty people.

Seeing the remaining adventurers keeping their distance, Luo Zhiyuan turned his attention to one of the Martial Artists and used his last Soul Fusion Technique.

That Martial Artist had just used a second-level lightning domain with impressive power, so Luo Zhiyuan couldn't bear to pass up the memories of that insight.

Seeing his friend die inexplicably beside him—apparently from nothing more than a glance from Luo Zhiyuan—the ninth-level Star Level Spirit Reader standing next to him let out a horrified scream. "Illusionist! You're an Illusionist!"

Everyone there except Luo Zhiyuan was terrified. They turned and fled, no longer caring about the Radiance Stones.

Luo Zhiyuan didn't mind watching them run. He turned toward the Radiance Stones, all the more certain of one thing: soul-defense techniques were rare in the universe. It seemed that the vast majority of ordinary people belonged to the unqualified category Bulieni had described.

He took out his excavation equipment and waited for it to dig all three Radiance Stones out of the ground. He separated a Light Shuttle from the Lightning Shuttle and sent it flying around him, looking thoroughly bored.

The Light Shuttle's flight path was like that of a nimble little fish. As it darted through the air, it traced out two indescribable English letters.

Once all three Radiance Stones had been unearthed, Luo Zhiyuan drew them into his hands and happily muttered, "This is quite a haul. I've finally completed half the required amount. It wasn't easy."

Then Luo Zhiyuan turned to face a certain direction and said, "Hey, friend, you've been off by yourself for so long. Don't you feel empty? Don't you feel lonely? Don't you feel cold? Don't you want to come out and chat?"

PS: My brothers, I'm very sorry that there have been fewer updates over the past two days.

Because of work, I have much less time to write now. I'm sorry to let you down on my first-ever recommendation.

But I still want to try to turn things around. Thanks to one brother's reward yesterday, our ranking climbed quite a bit. I'm not asking you to push it much higher; I just hope you won't let our rank drop too far.

Vote, bookmark, and tip if you like. I'm grateful!

Oh, and feel free to share all kinds of opinions in the comments. Let's have a pleasant discussion.