Fusion

The return trip took a few days longer than the journey there, mainly because there was no need to rush, so Bastian had the ship travel through the Dark Universe at its most economical speed.

Back in his own Training Room, Bai Muye sat cross-legged and began to review the life-and-death battle once more—a review he had already conducted several times while on the ship.

Only when he could no longer find any shortcomings in his performance during the review did he stop and cast his consciousness into his Consciousness Sea.

"Xiao Si, show me the memories first..."

Having just enjoyed a hearty meal, Xiao Si decided not to bicker with him over the nickname this time, extending its roots to pour the memories of Sweep into the consciousness of Bai Muye.

Sweep was born into a Domain Lord Rank family within a mid-tier civilization of the Wild Peak Universe Kingdom, belonging to a cadet branch.

He began to show remarkable cultivation talent starting at the Star Rank, and by the time he reached the eighth level of the Star Rank, he had stumbled upon a Domain by chance, subsequently breaking through to the Universe Rank smoothly.

However, after entering the Universe Rank, his cultivation began to stagnate, and it took him hundreds of years to reach the third level of the Universe Rank; yet, at that rate, breaking through to the fourth level seemed like a distant, unreachable goal.

Later, Sweep went to pay his respects to the family's Domain Lord Rank ancestor, and when faced with Sweep's confusion regarding his cultivation speed, the ancestor gave him two options directly.

The first was to go to the Outer Battlefield, where, under the pressure of a survival rate of less than five percent, as long as one could survive and retire, their strength would inevitably surge, potentially even surpassing the family ancestor.

The second was to participate in the life-and-death battles of the Giant Axe Arena; after winning a thousand consecutive matches, one could earn the title of "Giant Axe Warrior," and after surviving thousands of life-and-death struggles against peers, the probability of becoming a Domain Lord was quite high.

Sweep ultimately chose the life-and-death battles, and sure enough, after dozens of matches, he successfully broke through to the fourth level of the Universe Rank, and now, he had even reached the peak of the fifth level of the Universe Rank.

His greater gains were in the control of his Domain and Telepathic Weapon; at the fifth level of the Universe Rank with a Fourth-Order Domain, he had won over seven hundred consecutive matches.

The final memory was of a whip made of lightning piercing through his brow, followed by an descent into eternal darkness.

"No surprises here..."

Bai Muye had been hoping to discover some incredible secret from the memories of Sweep, such as the location of hidden treasures or information regarding some kind of inheritance.

In the end, he found nothing.

"Xiao Si, I have a question. If I fuse the cultivation and combat parts of this memory, he practiced the Wind Domain, so will it conflict with the Lightning Domain I practice?" Bai Muye asked with some concern.

"Of course not." Xiao Si said with absolute certainty, "By the end of cultivation, one must master all laws. You are only at the Domain stage, so what kind of conflict could there be? You can cultivate the Wind Domain, and then try to fuse it into your existing Lightning Domain..."

"Domains can be fused?"

"Of course they can. Laws can be fused, let alone Domains... However, this requires extremely precise control over the Domains, and it isn't that easy, mind you..."

"If I fuse them, will I become a Psychic?" Bai Muye had a sudden thought; it wouldn't be bad if he could become a Psychic.

"You're overthinking it," Xiao Si scoffed, "You are only fusing memories. After the fusion, you will be able to easily cultivate the Wind Domain, but that isn't enough to become a Psychic... However, whether you become a Psychic or not is irrelevant. As long as you have a Telepathic Weapon, driving it within your Domain is no different from a Psychic... Once you reach the World Lord level and drive it with World Force, it matters even less whether you are a Psychic or not..."

"Fine." Bai Muye shrugged indifferently, "Start separating the memories..."

"Put some effort into it this time, don't drop the ball again..." he couldn't help but urge.

"Don't worry, don't worry." Xiao Si chuckled, "The last time was an accident... I guarantee there won't be any problems this time."

It extended its roots, taking... one second longer than last time, before retracting them: "Done."

"It only took a second longer than last time?" Bai Muye couldn't help but express his skepticism.

"Hehe, one second is a very short unit of time for the weak, but for the strong, it is enough to accomplish many things..."

Having been thoroughly shown up by Xiao Si, Bai Muye ignored it and turned to immerse his consciousness into the "purified" memories.

Time flew by, and over a month later, Bai Muye opened his eyes.

He extended his right hand, palm facing upward, and the air in the training room suddenly began to flow, then swirl, as if a tiny tornado had formed with Bai Muye at its center.

The wind gradually subsided, and a faint cyan secret pattern began to emerge beside him. At first, a sliver of silver-white secret pattern followed, but it was forcibly suppressed back down.

The cyan secret pattern gradually deepened, layering upon itself until it finally formed a Wind Domain with a very small coverage area.

Subsequently, a sliver of silver-white secret pattern began to appear within the cyan domain, but as soon as it emerged, the cyan domain shuddered, showing signs of instability.

He retracted the Wind Domain and unfolded his Lightning Domain instead, then tried to unfold the Wind Domain as well, but the result was the same.

"I can't try it here..." Bai Muye looked at the modest training room and shook his head slightly. If he accidentally destroyed it, he wouldn't necessarily be punished, but the twenty days of Virtual Universe time he had just obtained might be deducted by the stingy Bastian.

Connecting a sliver of his consciousness to the Consciousness Sensor, he entered the Virtual Universe Arena once again.

He didn't rush to set an opponent, but instead tried it himself, unfolding his Lightning Domain and then attempting to fuse the Wind Domain into it. After trying over a hundred times, he didn't succeed once.

It wasn't until half a day later that he finally managed to seep the Wind Domain into the Lightning Domain, but the combination was extremely crude. He felt it for a moment and shook his head repeatedly.

"This kind of combination is too rough; the power of the Domain has decreased instead of increased."

After pondering it for a day on his own, he finally submitted a request to the arena to set an opponent.

"Set opponent to Fourth-Order Lightning Domain, Fourth-Order Wind Domain, with the two Domains perfectly combined..."

As soon as the opponent appeared, the Domain they unfolded made Bai Muye's spirit perk up. He carefully examined the pale green Domain secret patterns that covered him and felt them with his heart.

"The pressure and binding force are about fifty percent stronger than a single Fourth-Order Domain..." he assessed, unfolding his own Lightning Domain to clash with the opponent's fused Domain.

"I'm being suppressed quite heavily..."

The opponent attacked. His goal wasn't to defeat the opponent, but to study how they had fused the two Domains together, so he remained on the defensive.

However, under the suppression of the Domain, his focus wavered, and in his distraction, he was quickly killed by the opponent.

"It seems I was being a bit too ambitious..."

He shook his head and honestly reapplied for an opponent.

"Set opponent to Lightning Domain level one, Wind Domain level one, moderate Fusion Domain, strength at Universe Rank level one."

With his own strength at Universe Rank level five, facing a Universe Rank level one opponent, he could emerge victorious even if he were suppressed in terms of domain.

As expected, the combined domain displayed by this opponent was much easier for Bai Muye to observe; the many fusion methods and techniques opened his eyes and provided him with countless inspirations.

"Set opponent to Lightning Domain level one, Wind Domain level one, perfect Fusion Domain..."

"Set opponent to Lightning Domain level two, Wind Domain level two, moderate Fusion Domain..."

Whenever he gained an insight and succeeded in his experiments within the Virtual Universe, he would log out and return to reality to conduct small-scale tests.

There was truly no other way—time in the Virtual Universe was limited, and he had to save more time for his cultivation.

After "studying" in the Virtual Universe for half a month, he was finally able to fuse the wind and lightning domains quite well; although it had not yet reached a perfect level, it still increased the power of his domain by about forty percent.

However, looking at the pale green domain patterns beside him, he frowned slightly. Since everything about him was currently under someone else's control, it would be best to use this only as a trump card, otherwise, it might lead to complications.

Thus, he spent the next few days reducing the Wind Domain portion within his Fusion Domain, integrating only a fraction so that the color of his domain remained true to the original Lightning Domain.

Although the power only increased by half a percent, he could increase the degree of fusion at any time.

Nine months after his last life-or-death battle, the Martial Arena arranged a new opponent once again.

The second battle had arrived.