No Shortcuts

Bai Muye closed his eyes, quietly soaking in the familiar Nutrient Pod.

Having survived over nine hundred life-and-death battles, if there was anything that had accompanied him more than his Thunder Staff, it was undoubtedly this Nutrient Pod.

"That was truly dangerous this time. If that Nan Qi's father had insisted on taking revenge for his son, I'm afraid you wouldn't have had the chance to come back and soak in this pod..."

Xiao Si, having enjoyed a hearty meal, lazily rolled over in his Consciousness Sea.

"Tell me, what would you have done if that situation had actually occurred?" Bai Muye asked tentatively.

"Nothing I could do." Xiao Si replied with extreme bluntness, "Battles in reality rely solely on yourself. You have to understand that I am still just a Seed; you can't expect too much from a seed..."

"While my body is being repaired, show me Nan Qi's memories." Bai Muye didn't know if Xiao Si was telling the truth, but he didn't dwell on it.

After all, Xiao Si was right; everything ultimately depended on himself!

Nan Qi's memories were tossed over by Xiao Si. Bai Muye browsed through them; Nan Qi's cultivation talent was indeed impressive, reaching Universe Rank level 5 in just a few hundred years and comprehending a Five-Fold Domain.

"Still, his father was certainly prolific..." Bai Muye sighed.

Nan Qi's father had married seventeen wives and had 138 siblings. However, judging from the memories, all of his siblings had to undergo grueling training, and 32 of them had already died in life-and-death battles.

Only after browsing the memories did Bai Muye realize why Nan Qi's force amplification wasn't very high; it turned out he carried many hidden injuries sustained during his harsh training.

The Nutrient Pod was not omnipotent; some long-accumulated hidden injuries could not be fully repaired even by nutrient fluid.

A few days later, Bastian released Bai Muye from the Nutrient Pod.

"Master, the opponents in each subsequent life-and-death battle will only get stronger. I need more training time in the Virtual Universe..."

Bai Muye stated his request in a low voice.

Bastian looked up at him, weighed the costs of the Virtual Universe against the appearance fees earned after winning, and finally nodded, tossing him a Consciousness Sensor: "I'll give you one month—you'd better not disappoint me!"

Taking the Consciousness Sensor, Bai Muye returned to his Training Room.

"Is the memory purification done?"

"It's been done for a while; it's ready to use whenever you want." Xiao Si said lazily.

"Let's do it."

A stream of pure cultivation memories flooded into his consciousness, and Bai Muye began to integrate them.

Over a month later, Bai Muye opened his eyes, layers of Light Domain unfolding at his sides.

He stood up, picked up the low-grade Thunder Staff nearby, and suddenly thrust it forward. Aside from the lack of a spearhead, the posture was identical to how Nan Qi wielded his spear.

Chi!

A sonic boom rang out in the air.

"There's still quite a difference between a staff and a spear..."

He shook his head slightly. Given his understanding of Bastian, it was absolutely impossible to get him to provide a Tier 3 Origin Force spear.

Although spear techniques and staff techniques were vastly different, a small portion of them overlapped, such as chopping and sweeping moves.

Nan Qi's spear technique was extremely profound. During the integration, Bai Muye incorporated some of the spear's techniques into his own staff style, adding a layer of complexity to his staff work.

Connecting his consciousness to the Virtual Universe, he entered the Giant Axe Arena.

It's a pity I can't look up any data; I still don't know what era I'm in...

A thought drifted through his mind. Unfortunately, this anonymous account had restricted permissions, making it impossible to search for information through the Virtual Universe.

After setting his opponent, he attempted to integrate the Light Domain into his Wind-Thunder Domain, but he encountered difficulties.

Integrating two domains was relatively simple, but trying to incorporate the Light Domain made the difficulty significantly higher.

Even with his opponent constantly demonstrating, by the time he exhausted his allotted time in the Virtual Universe, he had only managed to integrate a sliver of the Light Domain.

Even so, the power after incorporating the Light Domain was much greater than before. Furthermore, an unexpected gain was that he felt inspired during the process, and both his Lightning Domain and Wind Domain advanced, reaching the Five-Fold Domain level.

This gave him three Five-Fold Domains, making his upcoming life-and-death battles slightly easier.

There was no need to report such breakthroughs in strength to the Giant Axe Arena in advance; their information on life-and-death combatants remained at the state of their last battle.

If one could make a breakthrough between two life-and-death battles—this was quite common, as life-and-death duels were the best way to stimulate a cultivator's potential.

Such occurrences were frequent; perhaps their force amplification had increased, or their realm had improved. The most formidable were those who gained insights and stepped into the threshold of the Laws, which was essentially a dimensional strike against opponents of the same rank.

And this was the greatest temptation that drew a constant stream of people to participate in life-and-death battles!

A year and two months later, the next life-and-death battle arrived.

This time, his opponent was a Universe Rank level 5 with a Water Domain at the fourth level, boasting a winning streak of over seven hundred matches and wielding a heavy sword.

The battlefield was on an ordinary planet with an extremely harsh environment, though that meant little to a Universe Rank combatant.

When Bai Muye revealed his Five-Fold Lightning Domain, his opponent knew this battle was grim, abandoning defense to attack desperately, only to be shattered by a single strike of the staff.

As always, the opponent's memories held no "surprises." The only gains were the fourth-level Water Domain and the experience of hundreds of life-and-death battles.

He wasn't injured this time, which pleased Bastian, who granted him another month of Virtual Universe training time.

During this month, he first attempted to integrate the Water Domain into his existing Wind-Thunder Domain, which proved to be even more difficult than the Light Domain had been.

"Xiao Si, is it true that the more domains you fuse, the higher the difficulty?"

Unable to grasp the technique within the Virtual Universe, he simply logged out and asked within his consciousness.

"That's a given," Xiao Si had stopped caring about how he addressed him at some point, "Wind, Lightning, and Light are fine. While fusing them is difficult, they belong to the same Upper Law and share some inherent connections. As for the Five Elements domains, trying to integrate those is naturally extremely difficult..."

"Are there any shortcuts?"

"None." Xiao Si crushed his hopes immediately, "It's all about grinding away at it, bit by bit. You're a Universe Rank, you have a lifespan of 10 epochs, just fuse them slowly. You'll finish one day..."

"You make it sound so easy," Luoluobai Muye rolled his eyes, "It's not like you're the one participating in life-or-death battles. Every single fight is a struggle for survival. I'm just trying to increase my strength; otherwise, if I run into a tough opponent in the next match and die, then everything will be for nothing..."

"..." Xiao Si was speechless for a long moment before saying, "I understand, but this really isn't something that can be achieved overnight. I suggest you set aside the Water Domain for now, fuse the Light Domain first, and then try to comprehend the laws. As long as you can step across the threshold of any law, your strength will naturally increase significantly..."

This advice was quite sound, and Luoluobai Muye took it to heart. In the time that followed, he continued to attempt to fuse the Light Domain.

By the time his allotted time in the Virtual Universe ran out, he had finally managed to fuse a small portion of the Light Domain, making his domain's power a bit stronger.

In the process of constant fusion and collision, he gained some new insights into the Lightning Domain and the Wind Domain, and both domains had faintly advanced a step further.

"It would be great if I could enter the Virtual Universe without restrictions..."

Without opponents in the Virtual Universe to guide him, he continued to explore in reality, gaining increasingly better control over his fused domain.

After his last life-or-death battle concluded, the Giant Axe Arena updated his data.

"Supervisor, Luoluobai Muye has reached 924 wins, he's nearing a thousand," in a spacious hall, an employee wearing a black uniform pointed at the screen, "These are the opponents filtered by the system. We need to select one..."

The supervisor in the silver uniform took a look, his gaze lingering for a moment on a masked woman before he scanned the other screens and ordered: "Choose her. She also has a level five Lightning Domain. Luoluobai Muye is a warrior, while this Xia is a Psychic who has a winning streak of 932 matches. A life-or-death battle between these two should attract even more people... Once the time is set, make this match a priority for promotion..."