"Crack."
A soft sound, like fruit coming off the vine. The last connection snapped, too. The fleshy ball behind Li Dui, larger than his own body, rolled off to one side.
He let out a long breath. It was finally over. Li Dui felt like he'd been a monster for a whole month.
The fleshy ball slowly writhed. Inside, a curled-up human form seemed to be stretching out.
In less than ten minutes, it had become a human shape lying flat, though it was still covered by a layer of skin.
Gradually, the outer layer seemed to be absorbed. It grew thinner and thinner, then cracked and slowly disappeared.
Before him lay a naked Li Dui.
Unable to wait, he followed the method in the manual, splitting off a wisp of his soul and sending it into the clone's mind.
The clone's eyes snapped open. In a flash, he stood up and faced his original.
"Hahaha!" Li Dui burst out laughing. This felt amazing.
He controlled the clone, making him perform all kinds of movements. He didn't feel the slightest delay. That made sense. The clone had been made from his own body and soul.
That wisp of soul power had only activated the clone, allowing him to control it regardless of distance. The clone was using its own power entirely.
He found clothes for the clone, then picked out the best set of battle gear among his spoils and gave it to him.
He looked the clone over from every angle. Everything was perfect.
It was just... well, that Space Law Mark on his forehead seemed like a problem.
It wouldn't matter in the Xueluo World. But if I went back to the Battle Axe Secret Realm wearing this mark, wouldn't it cause a huge uproar?
Every strong expert Li Dui had seen who'd earned the laws' recognition had a mark.
But the clone hadn't had one just now. It only appeared after he activated him. A spark of insight flashed through Li Dui's mind.
What was the mark for? To prove that you'd earned the origin's recognition. And what did that recognition do? Its greatest benefit was letting you enter the corresponding Sea of Laws with your consciousness at any time to study the laws.
So what if I didn't go? Could I cut off that connection?
Li Dui was thrilled and immediately started trying. If he could really do it, it would also solve another problem for him.
Half a day later, Li Dui succeeded.
But he discovered that once he found the right method, cutting the connection wasn't difficult. The hard part was keeping it cut. The connection was automatic. If he got distracted for even a moment and stopped suppressing it, it reconnected on its own.
What a nuisance.
No wonder none of those people hid their marks. Hiding one meant cutting off your own access to studying the laws and keeping yourself on edge all the time. Wasn't that exhausting? They had no reason to hide them.
Hide it, show it, hide it, show it. Li Dui played with the mark over and over.
Great, I really can hide it. Li Dui grinned from ear to ear. He'd kept the Earth Origin Law suppressed for so long. At last, he could continue studying it. Before, he'd been afraid that earning the laws' recognition and wearing a mark would draw too much attention.
Uh, wait. Now that I think about it, I'm only wearing an Earth Element Mark. I'm not really afraid of that. The thought crossed Li Dui's mind.
He ordered the spaceship into the clouds. First, he sent the clone inside, then came back out to continue studying the Earth Origin Law.
At the eighth cloud layer, Li Dui didn't descend any farther. Instead, he moved sideways. This clone was equivalent to a version of himself with three times the gene multiplier. He was most accustomed to a body of this strength.
Feeling the spatial fluctuations around him, he moved from one place to another. Each movement seemed to happen without any process at all, as strange as could be.
Because he could sense spatial fluctuations across an extremely wide range, he was moving very fast. After traveling at full speed for a while, he estimated that he'd reached about half the speed of light.
And that was in a place where even an E9-Grade Spaceship couldn't fly very fast. He had no idea how fast he could go in ordinary cosmic space.
Once he'd had his fun, Li Dui continued descending. From now on, his original self would stay in the spaceship, while the clone became a machine for earning points. At the very least, he'd first gather the resources needed to advance Xi to World Lord. Xi was only a Domain Lord Ninth Stage now, and honestly, he wasn't much use to his original self.
Inside the spaceship, Li Dui devoted half his attention to studying the Law of Earth and the other half to controlling the clone. It really felt a lot like controlling himself in the Virtual Universe.
He set the spaceship's course and speed, keeping it roughly on the clone's route. He decided to send the spaceship down less often from now on. The clone wouldn't pick him up anymore; he'd fly back on his own.
The clone was the equivalent of his original self a month ago. It was completely effortless to control him, and he was almost indistinguishable from the original.
Except he didn't have the Hula Hoop.
Except his gene multiplier was different.
Except the original had to devote consciousness to controlling him.
Except the original could destroy that wisp of soul with a single thought.
In every other way, Li Dui couldn't find a single difference between the clone and himself.
A "Li Dui" like this could kill a few city lords with ease.
With his original self and the clone each doing their own thing, the feeling was incredible. No, even if it meant sacrificing some study time, he had to recover from the damage of creating his first clone as soon as possible. Then he'd raise his gene multiplier to a hundred and make the other four clones as quickly as he could.
Unfortunately, Xueluo Crystals could only raise it to a hundred times.
Treasures suited to Universe Rank warriors that could raise the gene multiplier beyond a hundred times would probably be hard to find. Li Dui thought it over, but couldn't remember anything like that being mentioned in the original story.
But Luo Feng had the Nine Tribulations Manual, so he had no need for things like that. Naturally, he wouldn't collect information about them. Li Dui could look into it little by little. Maybe he'd come across something.
Everything proceeded according to plan.
Since Li Dui had last left the Virtual Universe, he hadn't taken part in another Qualification Battle.
In the first round, he'd won 1,302 matches and lost 475. He'd ranked 269th.
Originally, Li Dui had planned to fight his way up into the War Axe Secret Realm.
But one thing after another had come up, and he had no interest in fighting a bunch of rookie weaklings. He simply gave up the competition, accepting a record of all losses and a final ranking of 3,000th.
His friends weren't too disappointed for him. As long as he kept his status, his ranking wasn't all that important. Li Dui's strength was there for everyone to see; next time, he'd naturally reach a reasonable rank.
In his first Qualification Battle, Hong had ranked below 700th. He'd taken part in the battle for spots alongside 300 reserve members. In the end, he'd placed 255th out of 600 and kept his Core Member status.
As for Thor, he hadn't even made it in time for the battle for spots.
That day.
In the hall on the first floor of the Heavenly Eclipse Palace above.
On a large screen, Li Dui's E9-Grade Spaceship hung motionless in the void outside the Xueluo World.
The World Lord with two horns who was in charge of that area had only paid the spaceship a little attention.
This Li Dui had been flying around slowly in his spaceship for two or three months. He had no idea what the man was doing.
Suddenly, an incomparably powerful aura of laws enveloped the spaceship, which was barely two hundred meters long.
The Double-Horned Domain Lord shouted out at once, "Holy crap!"
He stared wide-eyed, examining it closely. There was no mistake: that aura, those yellow secret patterns, that glow.
The others looked over in surprise at his shout. Following his gaze, they saw the scene on the screen and exchanged disbelieving looks.
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