Meanwhile, the other races reacted quickly as well.
After all, no one wanted to have no members on the list when the Sky Screen reappeared.
Deep within the Zerg Territory, at the Queen Palace.
The Zerg Queen withdrew her attention from her insights into the Eternal Pearl and reclined on her crystal throne, listening to her subordinate's report.
In just a few seconds, tens of thousands of screening reports poured into her mental network. Each had passed through several rounds of automatic filtering, and in the end, only a few rows of names were presented before her.
"World Lord Ninth Order, and he's actually fused a trace of the Law of Gold with the Law of Space? He's worth prioritizing for cultivation!"
"World Lord Fifth Order, and he's already gained recognition from the Time Law? Prioritize him for cultivation!"
"He's only just entered the World Lord level, yet he's already comprehended all the Space Essences. Prioritize him for cultivation!"
As the Zerg Queen studied the reports in her hands, she selected everyone worth cultivating, marked them for priority, then sent the reports to the various Universe Master-level Zerg Mother Emperors, who would cultivate them in batches and according to different standards.
The goal was to make every resource count and to bring out each genius's potential to the fullest.
"Yes, Your Majesty." A Universe Master-level Mother Emperor, clad in sheer purple robes and so stunning she took one's breath away, bowed and replied.
The Machine Race, Monster Race, Crystal Race, Prison Race, and Demon Beast Alliance, Starry Sky Behemoth Alliance, Snow Border Alliance, and the rest—all of them, whether races, alliances, or lesser factions—
Now focused on little besides defending their territories and vigorously cultivating their own geniuses.
Time passed.
With undercurrents churning through the Primal Universe,
countless geniuses prepared for the Sky Screen a million years in the future.
On the rooftop of a residence in Chaos City,
Luo Feng sat cross-legged, his brows faintly furrowed.
He had been sitting on that rooftop for seven whole years since returning from the inner hall of the City Lord's Mansion, his mind constantly turning over the first layer of the Seven Changes of Yan God—the Scale Armor Chapter.
The Seven Changes of Yan God took the Beast God's true form as its model. The first layer, the Scale Armor Chapter, corresponded to the nearly indestructible natural scales covering the Beast God's body. It wasn't a matter of layering the Law of Space over the Law of Gold like a coating. Instead, within the flow of a single law, space and metal interlocked like the teeth of a comb, inseparable from each other.
But it was incredibly difficult.
Far more difficult than taking the first step on the Way of the Beast God—not by a single level, but by several.
Luo Feng had attempted the deductions over a hundred thousand times. Using the scales of his Golden Horned Beast avatar as a model, he had constructed layer upon layer of networks of laws across their surface with the Law of Space, trying to fuse the Law of Metal and the Law of Space into the form of scales.
But every time he reached the final step, the two laws clashed violently at the microscopic level of the scales' structure. The Law of Metal tended to solidify into a physical shell, while the Law of Space instinctively tried to tear the surface into fragments of empty space. Neither would yield at the critical point. In the end, either the scales disintegrated or his whole body shook violently; several times, the damage even reached the cosmic cycle within him.
"The scales shouldn't be a hard shell. The Beast God's scales are indestructible not because the outer shell is hard, but because every line in them is the natural result of the two laws merging. There's no distinction between inside and outside. Space seeps into the scales, and the scales hold space open. They've always been one whole."
The realization had come late, but just in time.
During his countless deductions, he abandoned his habitual approach of making the Law of Space accommodate the surface of the scales. Instead, while the scales were still half-formed, he reined in his Origin Force and let the thinned-out Law of Space flow back inward, weaving through the original Law of Metal from the beginning.
The fusion of metal and space didn't happen after the scales had taken shape, with one pasted onto the other. It happened while the scales were still only a rough shell.
He raised his right hand. The Force Crystal Ball and Soul Crystal Ball within him trembled together, and the cosmic cycle formed by seventy-two thousand threads slowly resonated with the flow of laws in the vast universe around him.
A faint golden glow appeared on the surface of his palm, with subtle ripples of space flowing through it.
The golden glow gradually solidified, becoming a golden scale the size of his palm. Fine, transparent lines flowed across its surface.
It was the outward manifestation of the fusion between the Law of Space and the Law of Metal.
A single scale.
It looked like nothing more than a palm-sized golden scale, so thin that light shone through it, with only a few faint, delicate ripples of transparency tracing its surface.
But Luo Feng knew that this was the embryonic form of the Scale Armor Chapter.
Once he mastered the Scale Armor Chapter, he would be able to cover his body with a layer of Beast God scales at will. The scales would raise his defense to an entirely new level, but more importantly, they would prove that his Way of the Beast God had progressed beyond being driven by pure artistic conception and taken its first real step toward materialization.
He stared at the scale, still trembling faintly, for a long time. Only after the last trace of spatial ripple across its surface had stabilized did he slowly lower his right hand.
"This is only the first step of the Scale Armor Chapter. Turning one embryonic scale into a complete suit of armor will take who knows how many more attempts and revisions."
Luo Feng stood up. His joints crackled, but his face showed no trace of discouragement.
In his Internal World, his Golden Horned Beast avatar had also finished condensing its first batch of embryonic scales.
Unlike Luo Feng's Earthling Main Body, the Golden Horned Beast's scales had been there from birth.
For the Golden Horned Beast, the Scale Armor Chapter wasn't about creating something from nothing. It was about transforming its existing scales and bringing about a qualitative change.
It fused the Golden Horned Beast's natural scales with the artistic conception of the Beast God, elevating its defense by an entire level at the genetic level.
With his Mosha Race avatar as a point of comparison, the Golden Horned Beast's combat strength had soared in just over a thousand years to a level that even Luo Feng himself found hard to believe.
With his current overall strength, an ordinary Peak World Lord couldn't withstand even one of his strikes.
An Army Leader-level Immortal? He could defeat one too!
At the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy, on an unnamed planet,
Yang Yu sat atop the mountain peak manifested by Jin King Palace, and the Fire Dao swirling around his fingertips quietly faded away.
Just then, through the faint reaction of the Nine Tribulations Manual, he had happened to sense the entire process of Luo Feng condensing his first scale.
From the formation of the rough scale to the Law of Space flowing back inward and completing the interwoven pattern, the process had lasted only a few seconds. Yet the fluctuations from his deductions had occurred tens of thousands of times.
Luo Feng's patience, comprehension, and split-second decisions about how to weave the laws together and control their flow throughout the process left nothing to criticize.
"Just over a thousand years, and he's already taken the first step in the Scale Armor Chapter. That's much faster than I expected. As time passes, Luo Feng's comprehension really does grow more and more outrageous."
He lifted his wine flask and took a sip. His gaze pierced layer after layer of time and space, seeming to settle on the black-haired young man in Chaos City, still studying the embryonic scale in his palm.
Yang Yu nodded slightly, withdrew his gaze, and sank back into the fissure in his bottleneck, which the Hunyuan Void Fire Spirit Fruit was slowly widening.
The Illusion Sea.
The Human Race's most important trial ground for testing willpower.
Twenty islands floated in an endless sea of illusions, each one corresponding to a trial of will.
The first nine islands tested willpower at the Universe Level. The tenth through fifteenth corresponded to the Domain Lord level, while the sixteenth through nineteenth tested willpower at the Immortal level.
The twentieth, meanwhile, tested one's will against the pressure of a Universe Venerable level.
Throughout countless eras, any genius who reached the tenth island or beyond while still at the Universe Level had been solemnly recorded in the Giant Axe Martial Arts Arena's core archives.
Until today.
Twenty dazzling pillars of light erupted one after another above the Illusion Sea.
Each pillar marked the collapse of one island's illusion.
They shot into the sky, illuminating the gray void as bright as day.
The Immortal guards stationed at the edge of the Illusion Sea initially glanced up without much interest, assuming that some World Lord was attempting the trial.
But then pillars of light rose one after another from the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth islands, at an absurdly fast pace.
The guards began to straighten up.
Then the pillars from the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth islands flared in increasingly blinding succession.
When the seventeenth pillar lit up, the Illusion Sea's monitoring system had already automatically sent the information to the highest management of the Giant Axe Martial Arts Arena.
Several King-level Immortals awoke in their cultivation chambers, connected their consciousnesses to the monitoring feed, and looked toward the Illusion Sea, where pillar after pillar continued to erupt.
The pillars kept rising.
The eighteenth. The nineteenth.
Then, under the stunned gazes of every observer at the Immortal level and above, the twentieth pillar of light roared into the sky!
The entire starry sky was illuminated.
"The Illusion Sea... all twenty levels cleared?"
A King-level Immortal's voice trembled. "Whose trial record is this? A Peak World Lord's, or an Immortal's?"
No one answered.
The monitoring system clearly displayed the trial participant's identity: Hong. Universe Level Ninth Order, Core Member.
The entire Giant Axe Martial Arts Arena was thrown into an uproar.
Within the time it took to burn a stick of incense, the news had swept through every high-ranking official.
Void Gold Master dismissed the screen before him and vanished on the spot.
Lord Lanzang opened his eyes in a sealed palace in the abyss. A hint of astonishment, imperceptible to most, flickered across his normally impassive face.
Even Founder Giant Axe, who usually stayed deep in seclusion, halted his study of the patterns on the God-Slaying Axe and turned his attention to the pillar of light shooting into the sky.
"Seal off the information." Void Gold Master spoke, his golden hair falling to his chest. His voice betrayed no emotion. "All guards stationed at the Illusion Sea must sign the highest-level confidentiality agreement. Anyone who leaks anything without authorization will be treated as a traitor to the race!"
Lord Lanzang nodded solemnly, then withdrew.
Elsewhere among the universe's highest leaders, the Zerg Queen, Machine Father God, Beast Ancestor, and the heads of the other top races also received confidential reports from their respective informants in a matter of moments.
Every report bore the same astonishing message: when he cleared the twentieth island, he had been at the Universe Level, yet his willpower had already reached the limit of King Rank!
The Zerg Queen stroked the Eternal Pearl and fell silent for a rare few seconds. "Humanity... humanity again." She murmured softly, a complex, unfathomable light flowing through her beautiful eyes.
Machine Father God entered the new information into its model for evaluating humanity. On Hong's profile, it added a note that was calm to the point of coldness: "Unpredictable growth curve. Recommend raising monitoring priority to the highest tier."
Beast Ancestor said nothing, merely glancing at Lord Juefeng. The meaning in that glance was simple: keep a close eye on this person.
Before making an unexpected decision, Founder Giant Axe spent less than the time it took to burn a stick of incense thinking it over: he would go to Earth himself.
"Two extraordinary youngsters were born on Earth around the same time. Luo Feng was accepted as a nominal disciple by Chaos, and now Hong has displayed such astonishing willpower. This can't be a coincidence. That planet may be special. I need to see it with my own eyes."
He didn't say this to anyone. Void Gold Master only received word that a Divine Power Avatar of Giant Axe was heading toward the Milky Way.
Before long, Giant Axe's avatar had crossed layer after layer of barriers in time and space and was standing with his hands behind his back in a belt of cosmic dust at the edge of the Solar System. From this high vantage point, he could see the water-blue planet wrapped in a barely perceptible pattern of spatial folds. It wasn't a seal or a restriction, but a structure far more ancient and natural, as if the planet had been a palace embryo placed in the universe from the very beginning.
He took a step, crossing the boundary of the Solar System.
But before he could take a second, the space in front of him soundlessly split apart.
It wasn't torn open. Instead, it slid smoothly to either side like flowing water, revealing a towering figure over ninety thousand kilometers tall.
The figure sat cross-legged atop a mountain peak, two transparent horns growing from his forehead. Not the slightest trace of divine power leaked from him, yet the laws throughout the Solar System fell silent for a beat. It was as if even the speed of light had slowed by a fraction.
"Mountain Sitting Guest." Giant Axe stopped, his voice carrying a trace of respect, but more wariness.
"Giant Axe." Yang Yu's tone was casual, as if greeting an old friend he hadn't seen in years. "This planet is mine. Don't interfere."
Giant Axe's brows furrowed almost imperceptibly. Of course he knew Mountain Sitting Guest—the one recognized by the Sky Screen as the strongest being in the Primal Universe, an existence at the God King realm.
He and Original Ancestor had analyzed Mountain Sitting Guest's strength time and again countless eras ago. They had reached only one conclusion: unfathomable. Knowing that was one thing. Standing face-to-face with him was another.
"Is Earth's uniqueness connected to you?"
Yang Yu didn't deny it. "Earth was an experimental site I modified long ago. The life born there is naturally exceptional in temperament and comprehension. That was the result of the effort I put into modifying it, not a coincidence. But you don't need to interfere with their growth. Let them cultivate on their own."
Giant Axe was silent for several breaths.
The God King realm.
Faced with those words, even he—the second-strongest human recognized by the Sky Screen—had no confidence at all.
But it wasn't apprehension that silenced him. It was curiosity.
What kind of experiment required a God King to spend hundreds of millions of years laying the groundwork?
"I understand." He spoke at last. "I won't touch Earth's geniuses. But Hong, Luo Feng, and the others are already Core Members of the Human Race. You can't stop humanity from cultivating its own geniuses."
Yang Yu lifted his flask and took a sip without replying. His figure quietly melted back into the void.
When Giant Axe wanted to turn around and take one last look at the water-blue planet, the faint spatial folds surrounding the Solar System had already closed again, as though they had never opened.
Giant Axe stood in the void for a while, then turned and left.
When he returned to the Giant Axe Martial Arts Arena, he immediately summoned Void Gold Master.
No one knew what the two towering figures discussed in the sealed chamber. All that was clear was that when Void Gold Master emerged, his expression held a measure of solemnity, surprise, and an unmistakable hint of anticipation.
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