Universe Rank 7, with Ninefold Domains in lightning, wind, and light; an Eightfold Domain in metal; and Sevenfold Domains in water, wood, fire, and earth.
These were Bai Muye's gains and progress in the Domains over the past hundred years.
Among these seventy-four opponents, there had been practitioners of all kinds of Law Domains. Of course, the strongest among them had only reached the Sixth Layer, and some had been at the Fifth or even Fourth Layer.
But after assimilating all their cultivation memories, Bai Muye had continued his studies and cultivated every Domain to at least the Seventh Layer.
He had wanted to delve further into Lightning Law and even try to comprehend a trace of Time Law, but his ambitions were grand while reality was harsh.
Without a systematic guide to a top-tier secret art, he felt like a mouse trying to drag a turtle—he had no idea where to start.
He simply couldn't find a way in.
Most importantly, none of these opponents had cultivated a top-tier secret art. They had all practiced basic or ordinary secret arts.
Even Xia, who had crossed the threshold of Law, had cultivated a secret art only slightly better than an ordinary one. It could take her as far as the Ninth Layer of a Domain.
Xia had crossed the threshold of Law mostly through her own talent.
As for weapons, he knew a great many. There were the common ones—swords, blades, spears, and staffs—not to mention more than twenty kinds of Telepathic Weapons and all sorts of unusual weapons.
Now Bai Muye dared to boast that he could use just about any weapon he picked up, and use it with some skill.
Over the past hundred years, Bastian had treated him much better. He had given him a larger Training Room and occasionally provided fine food and wine, allowing him to indulge his appetite.
"Without a top-tier secret art manual, it's really difficult to make progress through cultivation alone." Bai Muye sat cross-legged, thinking silently. "I'm probably close to a bottleneck. Fortunately, there's only one last life-or-death battle left..."
At that thought, even the calm lake of his heart rippled slightly. "As long as I defeat my final opponent, I'll be free!"
He took a deep breath, suppressing the faint stirrings in his heart, and turned his consciousness inward, into his Consciousness Sea.
The pitch-black seed in his Consciousness Sea had grown a little over the past hundred years. The strangest thing was that, although it was clearly black, Bai Muye often felt as if he could see a dazzling array of colors shimmering across its surface.
"Xiao Si, you're always bragging that even the Hunyuan Progenitor can't do anything to you, yet you can't even give me a little guidance with my cultivation..."
Bai Muye knew this seed was no ordinary thing, but he couldn't help complaining.
"You have no idea how great Fourth Master is!" Xiao Si huffed. "I'm not a lifeform from inside the Cage. Isn't it only natural that I don't understand the cultivation methods used inside it?"
"What I need most right now is soul energy. Find me more soul energy, and once I devour some more souls, I'll grow another root. Then one root can devour souls while the other absorbs energy and feeds it back to you. That'll save you the trouble of painstakingly cultivating Origin Energy..."
"It can do that?" Bai Muye was delighted. Wasn't that basically an alternative Pool of Life?
"Of course." Xiao Si chuckled.
"Anything else?" Bai Muye asked expectantly.
"Don't push your luck, Lao Bai," Xiao Si said plaintively. "I'm just a seed. You can't expect so much from a seed... Wait!"
It suddenly caught on. "Lao Bai, haven't you noticed that your comprehension is much better than before? In only a hundred years, you've not only cultivated all eight Domains to the Ninth Layer, you've also nearly fused all eight into your Mixed Domain..."
"If you'd only gained those memories, you'd simply have eight different Domains now. Fusing them isn't easy. Even with the Virtual Universe guiding you, you couldn't do it without enough comprehension..."
Bai Muye thought it over. That was true, and he couldn't help asking, "Is that your doing, too?"
"Of course it is!" Xiao Si said smugly. "Every time I 'purify' a memory, I have to use my own power. So, along with the memories, you also get some things I can't quite explain. Whatever they are, they're good for you. At the very least, they seem to improve your comprehension..."
"Fine, fine. I get it." Bai Muye nodded. "Let me think of somewhere I can find a large amount of souls..."
"Where else could there be?" Xiao Si had said all that just to lead him to this question, and immediately jumped in. "The Outer Battlefield, of course..."
"Xiao Si, if you don't want to die, don't drag me down with you..." Bai Muye couldn't help swearing when he heard those words. "Do you even know what the Outer Battlefield is? It's a meat grinder for entire races! For Universe Rank fighters especially, the death rate is over ninety-five percent..."
"Are you an ordinary Universe Rank fighter?" Xiao Si asked quietly.
"..." Bai Muye was at a loss for words.
"I only learned about the Outer Battlefield from the memories of the people you killed. They were even more terrified of it than you just sounded, but..."
Xiao Si coaxed him patiently. "Lao Bai, are you an ordinary Universe Rank fighter? No! You've crossed the threshold of Law, and you've made even more progress over the past hundred years. Your new Domain, formed by fusing eight Law Domains, is no weak thing, either. Forget the fact that the survival rate for Universe Rank fighters on the Outer Battlefield is four or five percent—even if it were only one percent, you'd definitely be that one!"
"Besides, think about how many souls there must be on the Outer Battlefield. Once I devour them, the memories attached to them will all be resources for your growth. Maybe some of them practiced top-tier secret arts. Then you'd get the secret arts you want with no effort at all..."
"Enough!" Bai Muye remained calm, unmoved by its temptation. "If I were a World Lord and had the ability to survive in front of an Ordinary Immortal, maybe I'd go to the Outer Battlefield. But I'm only Universe Rank, the lowest-level cannon fodder..."
"Universe Rank fighters can only fight alongside a legion. They can't operate independently. Even if my combat strength surpasses that of most Universe Rank soldiers, would even a Domain Lord dare say they could escape unscathed when surrounded by hundreds or thousands of Universe Rank fighters from the Alien Race?"
After pausing to catch his breath, he continued, "Those are secondary concerns. The most important thing is that legion warfare depends more on top-tier fighters. If the Immortal in my legion is defeated by an Immortal from the Alien Race, whether they die or flee, do you think I'd have any chance of surviving the pursuit of an Alien Race Immortal? No—even without an Immortal getting involved, would I have any chance against an Alien Race World Lord?"
Xiao Si fell silent for a while before saying, "I can preserve your soul. As long as your soul survives, you'll have a chance to rise again..."
"But I'd have to wait until I reached Domain Lord Rank and had a Singularity..." Bai Muye clearly remembered what Xiao Si had said before.
"That was true at first, because I hadn't devoured many souls and didn't have enough energy. I couldn't preserve a soul without a Singularity." Xiao Si explained, "But I've devoured the souls of more than seventy Universe Rank fighters now. I'm much stronger than I was at the start. With my current abilities, preserving your soul wouldn't be a problem, even without a Singularity..."
"Of course, that only applies to physical attacks. You can't cultivate a body-tempering secret art right now. If something goes wrong with that kind of art, your body, genes, and soul will all disintegrate completely. Without a Singularity, I can't make any promises..."
"But," Xiao Si continued, as if remembering something, "my roots can do more than devour souls. They can't attack, but they can still scout and keep watch. At least that gives you another means of staying alive on the battlefield..."
"Once I grow into a sapling, you'll see how powerful I am..."
"You're always boasting about how powerful you are, but you can't attack. You even have to wait for me to kill someone before you can devour their soul..."
"I'm still just a see—"
"I know, I know. You're still just a seed, and I can't expect too much from you!"
"I'll think about it." Bai Muye fell silent for a long moment. "The most important thing right now is to defeat my last opponent and then—be free!"
"Once I'm truly free, we can talk about where to go next..."
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