Setting Out

"Luoluobai Muye, the hundred-year leave you requested will end in ten days. Please be prepared."

Bai Muye looked at the message from the Military System, a faint smile touching his lips. "Has it really been a hundred years? As expected, cultivation makes time fly..."

These hundred years had been the most leisurely period of cultivation in his life. Now that his leave was ending, he was about to step onto the battlefield again. But he didn't feel down. On the contrary, he was fired up, as if he'd been looking forward to this day for a long time.

He logged into the Virtual Universe through his consciousness and entered the Military System. There, he submitted his return-from-leave application and stated that he had reached World Lord Rank and was about to fight alone, as a free man.

The Military System used the Consciousness Sensor to confirm that he had reached World Lord Rank. It soon approved his application and sent him a star map of the Seventh Battlefield.

He hadn't had a complete star map of the Seventh Battlefield before. However, he'd browsed the memories of so many Domain Lords that he already had a general understanding of the battlefield.

The complete star map, though, included the transit points recorded for every battle zone, which was the most useful thing for Bai Muye.

Now that he had the complete star map, he studied it carefully and decided to head first to the relatively low-level battlefield of Dragon Mountain Pool.

He had actually made this decision before obtaining the complete star map. Dragon Mountain Pool was a relatively low-level battlefield within the territory controlled by the 049 Barracks Base. Most of those who ventured there were at World Lord Rank, making it the most suitable battle zone for him at present.

Several decades ago, before Zhu Ang set out, he'd sent Bai Muye a message saying that he and the others planned to venture into Flowing Light Valley. Bai Muye had replied with his best wishes.

Although his leave had now ended, he didn't contact Zhu Ang.

After packing up, he left the island where he'd been cultivating without waiting until the final day.

As he flew above the ocean, he felt moved to try out the Lightning Escape secret technique he'd been cultivating over the past decades. His figure flickered like a ghost, vanishing from where he stood without a sound.

First, he went to the commercial center of the Barracks Base and sold off some things he had no use for. His Internal World held a great many spoils, and he sold them all, including every spaceship.

Some Alien Races had technology inferior to humanity's, but their spaceships still had basic intelligent systems. Bai Muye had no advanced intelligence capable of cracking them, so he couldn't use most of those ships.

After selling everything, he bought dozens of standard spaceships from the Human Clan. He couldn't afford F-Rank Spaceships, but E-Rank Spaceships were well within his means.

However, when he was sorting through the spoils, he'd kept a lounge made entirely of F-Rank Metal. He'd found it in some Domain Lord's storage space, and it was the most valuable item among all his spoils.

He kept it, then ordered that the lounge space be left empty on every spaceship he bought, with the opening sized just right to fit the F-Rank lounge.

Once everything was ready, he went to the departure hall. It was a vast hall tens of thousands of kilometers in diameter, packed with people. Spaceships of all sizes lined up in orderly queues.

He selected an E-Rank Spaceship from his Internal World and brought it out. Then he climbed into the triangular ship, which was nearly a hundred meters across, and went straight to the lounge. He ordered the ship's intelligence to connect to the Barracks Base's control system. Before long, the ship was flying out along the departure passage.

After traveling over a hundred thousand kilometers through the spacious passage, it curved, and the spaceship began to turn.

Before long, the ship emerged from the exit at the end of the curved passage.

"Activate the energy shield," Bai Muye said. "Set the virtual exterior to one hundred percent."

He'd long wanted to see just how magnificent an AAA-Rank Deity Base was from outside the Barracks Base, but he'd never had the chance.

Whoosh!

The walls and floor of the lounge, along with the spaceship around him, disappeared. He seemed to be floating in the starry sky.

The spaceship was now tens of thousands of kilometers away from the Barracks Base. He turned his head, and the Deity Base, millions of kilometers in diameter, spread out before him.

A layer of colorful energy shrouded the enormous base's outer shell. Ancient yet powerful cannons and densely packed, solidified Law Secret Patterns...

"Magnificent!"

After watching for a while, Bai Muye was satisfied and looked away. He ordered the ship to head to the nearest transit point.

Dragon Mountain Pool was more than seventy thousand light-years from the 049 Barracks Base, making it one of the closer battle zones.

It was a stretch of land floating in the void, with mountain ranges running endlessly across it. Seen from far away, the whole land resembled a winding dragon. Countless mysterious deep pools lay in the lowlands between the peaks, which was how it got its name, Dragon Mountain Pool.

"Xiao Si, keep scanning the area while we're on our way to the transit point. We'll only be relatively safe once we enter the Dark Universe..."

On past expeditions, he'd always traveled aboard large spaceships. The Alien Races could tell at a glance that they belonged to a legion and must have an Immortal on board, so large ships were rarely attacked by anyone foolish enough to try.

But the ship Bai Muye was aboard now was less than a hundred meters across. There was no guarantee they wouldn't run into some Alien Race eager to earn merit.

He had already sensed energy fluctuations coming from several places. Clearly, battles were taking place in the distance.

"Don't worry," Xiao Si said with a chuckle. "I've already spotted several battles, and we've only been traveling for a short while..."

Then it added regretfully, "Too bad they're too far away for me to devour anything... Should we go closer?"

"Forget it. By the time we get there, the battles that have already started will probably be over. Besides, we don't know how strong either side is. Let's stick to the plan."

Half a day later, the spaceship reached a transit point and soon entered the Dark Universe.

"It'll take a little over three days to travel through the Dark Universe. After we come out, we'll have to fly for another month or so..." Bai Muye calculated as he studied the star map.

Even in the Dark Universe, Xiao Si continued diligently scanning the area. Bai Muye logged most of his consciousness into the Virtual Universe and continued cultivating Lightning Escape.

Over these past decades, his progress with the laws had been considerable, thanks to his ability to immerse his consciousness in the Origin Land of the Universe. He'd advanced especially far in the Lightning Law, aided by Introduction to Lightning. Although he hadn't yet earned recognition from the law, he was close.

He'd also been cultivating the Lightning Escape secret technique. It could be practiced in the Virtual Universe, whose greatest convenience was that it could simulate all sorts of settings, terrain, and enemies.

Its one drawback was that it was expensive!

Fortunately, although Bai Muye had reached World Lord Rank, he had no one else to support. As long as he could feed himself, that was enough. The money he'd earned from selling his spoils over the years was more than enough to cover even the Virtual Universe's steep fees.

He had watched countless memories, including many scenes of people cultivating movement techniques. Take the World Lord who possessed the Divine Envoy Inheritance Crystal, for instance. Its Venerable teacher had set up countless extraordinarily complex and difficult scenarios in reality to hone its movement technique.

Bai Muye had no teacher, but the useful parts of those memories made up for that. He recreated those scenarios in the Virtual Universe, even combining them with other settings from the memories that he thought would make them more challenging.

The Lightning Escape secret technique mainly explained the Lightning Law and touched on the Time Law only in passing. With his current grasp of the Lightning Law, he was well equipped to cultivate it.

Judging by the World Lord battles he'd witnessed and the countless battles in the memories he'd watched, his movement technique was already among the very best of the World Lords, unmatched by almost anyone.

That was why he had the confidence to act alone. As long as his opponent was below Immortal, he felt sure that even if he couldn't win, he could still escape.

Three days passed quickly. The spaceship emerged from a transit point closest to Dragon Mountain Pool and headed toward it.

The spaceship had been traveling for less than a day when Bai Muye received a warning from Xiao Si.

"Old Bai, five ninth-tier World Lords have come within ten light-seconds of you..."