The vast, crimson surface of Mars stretched beneath the howling winds, which whipped up clouds of sand and dust.
"Here will do."
Lin Yuan looked around at the desolate red landscape and focused his mind.
"VMMMM—!!!"
With a deep, rumbling tremor that seemed capable of crushing even space itself, a colossal figure slammed down out of nowhere onto Mars's hard surface, crushing two enormous craters into the ground.
It was an eighteen-meter-tall, dark-gold mechanical puppet!
The wind swept over it without making the slightest sound.
Just standing there, it exuded such absolute coldness and such overwhelming metallic menace that an ordinary Universe-Level powerhouse would have struggled to breathe.
Lin Yuan tilted his head back and studied his masterpiece, his eyes shining with undisguised delight. "Damn, this looks pretty awesome."
The mechanical puppet didn't even try to imitate human features. Its head was a brutally angular, inverted triangular helmet, with six blade-like metal spikes jutting backward from it.
Its torso was impossibly massive. Eight enormous, diamond-shaped plates of dark-gold armor interlocked across its chest, forming an impenetrable defensive barrier.
Deep within the gaps in the armor, faint blue light pulsed in a steady rhythm. It came from the core power source embedded inside the puppet: a priceless "F-class Mechanical Heart"!
Its upper body was built for maximum killing efficiency, with four arms.
The two main arms were as thick as pillars holding up the sky, ending in claws sharp enough to rend anything apart. The two auxiliary arms, meanwhile, were made solely for destruction. Their grim, shadowy muzzles were none other than the dreaded Miniature Annihilation Cannons!
"Perfect. Absolutely perfect." Lin Yuan circled the killing machine, unable to keep himself from praising it.
But then he sighed helplessly. "It's a shame that, for now, it's just a hunk of metal I can look at but not use."
The system had rewarded him with this top-grade mechanical puppet, but it was so stingy that it hadn't even included a single Universe Crystal to power it up!
No big deal. Lin Yuan wasn't too bothered.
The "Thunder World" he would enter before long was hiding a whole world's worth of Universe Crystals.
That would be more than enough to serve as a stopgap power source.
After roughly planning his next moves, Lin Yuan looked at the motionless dark-gold puppet again, a smile playing on his lips...
RUMBLE, RUMBLE, RUMBLE~~~!!!
After lying dead silent for countless eons, Mars was now rocked by an unprecedented, terrifying commotion!
On the red earth, Lin Yuan moved too fast for the naked eye to follow.
All that could be seen was a blurry afterimage darting madly around the mechanical puppet.
With each sharp boom, loud enough to tear through the Void, dazzling blade lights rained down on the dark-gold armor like a violent storm!
Mars's crust trembled. The shockwaves from the scattered blade lights shaved the surrounding craters flat!
And yet, when Lin Yuan finally stopped, the mechanical puppet still stood motionless in its place, without so much as the faintest white mark.
"Again!"
Fighting spirit surged in Lin Yuan's eyes as his Spiritual Force erupted.
"Sun God Weapon, out!"
The dark-gold staff instantly came apart, transforming into countless streaks of Flowing Light.
Under Lin Yuan's control, the Sun God Weapon became a meteor storm sweeping backward toward the sky.
Explosions lit up the region of Mars as bright as day, while a terrifying shock wave unleashed a massive sandstorm that swept across half the planet!
After a full ten minutes of relentless bombardment, the storm finally subsided.
The mechanical puppet remained completely unscathed!
Even the dark-gold sheen on its surface hadn't dimmed in the slightest.
"Good! Good! Good!" Far from discouraged, Lin Yuan threw his head back and laughed.
The next moment, his main body closed its eyes.
Far out in space above Mars, the enormous shadow of a terrifying beast slowly coiled, vast enough to blot out the stars.
The beast opened its eyes, like two suns hanging in the sky.
A beam of Candlelight poured from its left eye, carrying the heat of annihilation. The golden pillar shot straight down from space and slammed into the mechanical puppet on the surface of Mars!
The moment the light touched the surrounding rocks and soil, they vaporized into nothingness.
The temperature across the entire planet surged!
When the destructive beam finally faded, the dark-gold mechanical puppet still stood quietly in the center of a crater churning with lava. Even its surface had barely warmed.
"Phew..."
Lin Yuan's consciousness returned to his main body. With a flash, he appeared in the center of the crater.
He reached out and gently patted the puppet's cold, hard armor, praising it from the bottom of his heart. "Now that's tough! No wonder it's a monster made entirely of F3-Grade Metal."
F3-Grade Metal was a top-tier material that even Immortal Gods coveted.
Lin Yuan quickly ran the numbers in his head. If he really filled the puppet with energy and powered it up, with its impenetrable defense and F-class power...
Even Hu Yanbo, an Immortal God whose strength barely reached Marquis, might not be able to beat it in person!
"Return!"
Thoroughly satisfied, Lin Yuan waved a hand and stored his future ultimate bodyguard in his Space Ring.
The puppet's tests were done. Now came the real highlight of the day.
Lin Yuan flipped his wrist, and an ancient stone box appeared in his palm.
Its surface was covered in intricate sealing runes, yet a green glow still faintly shone through the gaps.
Even just holding it in his hand, he could feel its immense vitality spreading from the box, so powerful that it made his soul tremble.
This was the renowned cosmic treasure—the Life Fruit!
If he brought it to an auction in the stars, countless World Lords would offer an entire star system in exchange.
"Hiss, hiss—"
As if sensing the exceptionally pure, boundless life energy~
A vine of deep violet, dotted with pinpricks of starlight, slipped from Lin Yuan's wrist like a serpent and swiftly coiled around his arm.
The Star Vine!
The plant life he had placed such high hopes in held the tip of its vine high, sending the stone box waves of emotion so humanlike they practically radiated longing and delight.
"Easy now. This is for you." Lin Yuan gently stroked the Star Vine's cool surface.
"The Thunder World is the World Ring of a powerful World Lord. There's nothing ordinary about it, and its many forces are a tangled mess. To make it through perfectly and claim every benefit, I need to be ready for anything."
Lin Yuan looked at the Star Vine, ambition glinting in his eyes.
The first thing to do was help the Star Vine undergo a qualitative transformation! He needed an absolute trump card, one that could let him dominate the Thunder World: a Universe-Level trump card!
The Star Vine's lineage and potential far surpassed those of the Cloud-Touching Vine commonly sold on the market.
Once it devoured the Life Fruit and successfully reached Universe Level, its astonishingly tough defenses and strangling ability would mean that, as long as no Domain Lord powerhouse intervened...
No one in the Thunder World would be able to pose a fatal threat to Lin Yuan!
"You train for a thousand days to use your strength for a single day. Come on, little guy. It's time for you to evolve!"
Lin Yuan didn't hesitate any longer. Origin Force surged from his fingertip, and he broke the seal on the stone box in an instant.
Click.
The stone box opened.
BOOM!!!
A tangible wave of green life energy surged out like a flood bursting through a dam. In an instant, it formed a visible sea of green mist across the surface of Mars!
"Screeaaah—!!!"
The Star Vine let out an ecstatic shriek. Its vines, which had been only as thick as Lin Yuan's arm, swelled at once!
They spread into a vast, dark-purple web that blotted out the sky, plunged into the sea of green life mist, and began devouring it with incredible greed and frenzy!
The violent energy tides had made conditions on Mars extremely harsh, so Lin Yuan had already retreated inside the Starship.
Time passed, second by second.
Sitting in the comfortable captain's chair, Lin Yuan watched the Star Vine's transformation outside through the ship's main display, entirely focused on what was happening.
"This little guy really knows how to go all out." Lin Yuan looked at the screen's data and couldn't help clicking his tongue.
The greater a plant life-form's potential, the more aggressively it absorbed energy.
The Star Vine had no intention of taking things slowly. It was like a black hole that could never be filled, greedily tearing into and digesting the Life Fruit's vast energy by the most violent means possible.
In just two or three hours, the Star Vine had expanded to an utterly unbelievable size.
From above, the screen showed the once-barren red ground of Mars now covered with a thick, dark-purple "carpet."
The Star Vine's main vines had now split into a full 108 branches!
Each main vine stretched an astonishing five hundred kilometers!
They resembled 108 ancient dragons coiled across the planet's surface. A single casual twist from any one of them could easily destroy a massive mountain range.
That was twice the number of vines possessed by a Cloud-Touching Vine of the same level!
The transformation continued.
Lin Yuan watched with his own eyes as the Star Vine's main branches swelled, burst apart, fell away, and grew anew...
Every second, the Star Vine endured the tearing agony of transformation, while its level of life simultaneously leaped upward at a frenzied pace!
This violent transformation lasted a full five hours.
At last!
"Wooo—!!!"
A cry of joy that struck straight at the soul traveled through the spiritual contract between master and servant, reaching the depths of Lin Yuan's mind in an instant.
It brimmed with endless excitement—and the absolute pride of a high-level plant life-form!
On the screen, the 108 colossal vines, each five hundred kilometers long and spreading as far as the eye could see, all raised their tips toward the stars.
A terrifying pressure unique to Universe-Level powerhouses swept across the entire planet like a storm!
It had officially reached... Universe Level!
"Success!"
Lin Yuan sprang to his feet, wild joy blazing in his eyes. Without hesitation, he turned and strode out through the ship's hatch, stepping onto the surface of Mars once more.
"Come back!" Lin Yuan spread his arms.
"RUMBLE~~~"
The colossal Star Vine stretched across the mountains and plains, reaching nearly to the edge of Mars's atmosphere. At its master's call, it instantly drew back like a receding tide.
Its vast body became streams of dark-purple light that surged toward Lin Yuan.
In the blink of an eye, the plant beast that had covered nearly half the planet disappeared.
In its place appeared a suit of armor that fit Lin Yuan perfectly. It was dark purple from head to toe, with mysterious star patterns flowing across its surface—the Star Armor!
Armor formed from a Universe-Level plant life-form!
Lin Yuan clenched his fists, feeling the Star Vine's feedback—the terrifying power filling every cell in his body, as if it would never run out.
Having absolute power and absolute defense under his control felt simply incredible!
Lin Yuan was thoroughly satisfied.
"With that, everything is ready."
"The Thunder World is in my grasp!"
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