Deriving the Clone Secret Technique

Beibei piloted the spacecraft, finding a direction in the starry sky where they could safely accelerate before activating the engines. The two ships shot forward like meteors, accelerating in sync.

Before long, the two spacecraft broke through the spatial barrier and entered Dark Universe travel.

"Master, where are we headed this time?" After entering the Dark Universe, Beibei's voice rang in Zhou Yuan's mind.

Seated in the main control chair, Zhou Yuan looked at the three-dimensional star map projected before him. After pondering for a moment, he replied, "Nanyun Star. It's one of the core commercial planets in the southern Purple Chen Universe Nation. The market is large enough that we can easily sell off this small amount of goods without worrying about attracting unnecessary trouble."

He knew that the resources he had gained this time were simply too vast, while his own strength was still insufficient. If he tried to sell them on a small planet, he would very likely draw the attention of interested parties.

As a core commercial planet in the south of the Purple Chen Universe Nation, Nanyun Star was the closest such planet to the Yunyan Secret Realm. Enormous quantities of resources were traded there every day. His little haul would be nothing there and would not attract anyone's attention.

"Understood, Master. Destination: Nanyun Star. Estimated travel time: seventeen months. Departing!" With that, Beibei turned the spacecraft toward Nanyun Star.

Taking advantage of the travel time, Zhou Yuan closed his eyes and sank his consciousness into the Hunyuan Dao Seed deep within his sea of consciousness. The Hunyuan Dao Seed had just absorbed a large number of Universe Crystals, and Zhou Yuan wanted to see exactly how much energy it required to derive secret techniques.

Zhou Yuan immersed his consciousness in the Hunyuan Dao Seed and examined its secret technique derivation function. The function was extremely simple: one only needed to set a target, and it would begin deriving. Energy was consumed during the process, and once the energy ran out, the derivation stopped. Afterward, he could continue supplying source energy to resume it.

Zhou Yuan considered the secret techniques he needed. He already had a technique to raise his genetic level, so the highest priority was a life-preserving secret technique.

According to the memories of his two lifetimes, the best life-preserving technique should be the Clone Secret Technique. The protagonist Luo Feng had relied on the Golden Horned Beast's clone ability to escape danger time and again.

Next came cultivation techniques, mainly techniques for comprehending laws, such as the Blood Drift Canon that Luo Feng had originally exchanged for from the Virtual Universe Company.

As for combat techniques, they needed to be self-created in order to suit him better. Even if the Hunyuan Dao Seed could derive combat techniques tailored to him, creating his own techniques would not only integrate everything he had learned and benefit his cultivation, but also train his thinking and comprehension.

After that came Amplitude Secret Techniques. They were one of the important means of increasing strength in Swallowed Star, and they were relatively rare throughout the entire Human Race.

Those who possessed Amplitude Secret Techniques were generally peak King-level Immortal experts or above. Such techniques allowed cultivators to unleash strength far beyond their own for a short time and were key to battles between experts. At their highest, they could increase combat power by a hundredfold. Most venerables did not possess Amplitude Secret Techniques capable of increasing combat power by a hundredfold.

Thinking of this, Zhou Yuan tentatively had the Hunyuan Dao Seed derive a cloning technique. He set a simple target for a Clone Secret Technique in his mind, but the feedback from the Hunyuan Dao Seed was that it lacked a massive amount of energy. The energy from the Universe Crystals it had previously absorbed was not even one part in a trillion trillion trillion of what was needed.

Zhou Yuan was completely dumbfounded. He had not expected deriving a Clone Secret Technique to require so much energy. Even in Chaos City Lord's eyes, the Golden Horned Beast's clone ability was only a moderately good opportunity. Logically, it should not require this much energy.

"Something's wrong. There must be a problem with my specifications. A Clone Secret Technique like the Golden Horned Beast's shouldn't have such high requirements. There are so many Golden Horned Beasts, so this technique's requirements shouldn't be that high." Zhou Yuan began to reconsider how he had defined the cloning technique.

His previous specifications had been too vague and lacked a concrete reference. It had probably tried to derive a Clone Secret Technique that even a Universe Master could use, which was why the Hunyuan Dao Seed required such an enormous amount of energy.

Zhou Yuan decided to simplify things and directly specify the Golden Horned Beast's cloning technique. He transmitted all the details of the Golden Horned Beast Clone Secret Technique from his memories into the Hunyuan Dao Seed, including how its clones were nurtured, their genetic level, the number of clones, and other details.

This time, it finally did not require so much energy. The Hunyuan Dao Seed reported that it already possessed one-thirtieth million of the required energy. Zhou Yuan roughly calculated that, at this rate, deriving the Golden Horned Beast Clone Secret Technique would require around three hundred thousand Hunyuan units' worth of Universe Crystals.

Though this was an inconceivably enormous sum for the current Zhou Yuan, he could still accept it. After all, the assets of a single Immortal expert could grant three clones, while the value of this Clone Secret Technique far exceeded three hundred thousand Hunyuan units.

However, since he could set the clones' attributes himself, Zhou Yuan naturally had to try more possibilities. Based on the Golden Horned Beast Clone Secret Technique, he raised the genetic level that could be nurtured to 10,081 times, then had the Hunyuan Dao Seed report the energy required for derivation again.

To his surprise, the energy required for this derivation increased by ten thousand times at once, reaching three billion Hunyuan units' worth of Universe Crystals.

Yet in Zhou Yuan's view, being able to raise the limit to clones with a 10,081-fold genetic level using only this amount of resources was simply an incredible bargain.

One had to know that a 10,081-fold genetic level was extraordinarily rare even in the entire universe. Possessing such a clone would bring a qualitative leap in combat power, and one could also obtain the universe's strongest secret technique bestowed by the Primal Universe.

With this attempt as a basis, Zhou Yuan tried many more different specifications. For example, increasing the number of clones increased the energy requirement by a hundredfold for each additional clone. Two additional clones meant ten thousand times the energy, and so on. He also tried setting different realms for nurturing clones, and it could even create a technique that allowed Immortals to nurture clones.

In the end, Zhou Yuan decided that three clones would be enough. He planned to cultivate a Blood Sea Clone to specialize in researching genetics and supplying divine power; a World Tree Clone to cultivate the laws of space and time; and a main combat clone responsible for battle and exploration.

Moreover, after cultivating the Nine Revolutions Mysterious Technique, his own body was large enough and strong enough to serve as a main combat clone as well.

Based on the Golden Horned Beast Clone Secret Technique, Zhou Yuan raised the genetic level to the point where it could nurture beings with 10,081-fold genes.

He modified the nurturing realm so that clones could be independently nurtured at any stage before Immortal. The genetic material of creatures from any realm could serve as the foundation for a clone. The nurturing method remained that of the Golden Horned Beast, using the internal world for incubation.

Zhou Yuan also set the technique as an innate secret technique. This setting required an additional amount of energy, but compared to the energy needed to raise the genetic level, it was negligible. The advantage of an innate secret technique was that once the derivation was complete, he would not need to learn it and could use it directly.

After finalizing the specifications, Zhou Yuan saw that the Hunyuan Dao Seed's reported energy requirement was about twenty thousand times that of the original Golden Horned Beast's requirement—roughly six billion Hunyuan units' worth of Universe Crystals, equivalent to the entire fortune of a King-level Immortal. Zhou Yuan believed that with the Nine Revolutions Mysterious Technique and the Hunyuan Dao Seed, he would certainly gather enough during the World Lord stage.

After setting everything up, Zhou Yuan had the Hunyuan Dao Seed begin the derivation. In an instant, the energy from the Universe Crystals it had just absorbed was completely depleted, and the derivation stopped as well. Zhou Yuan had no other choice but to wait until he obtained enough resources in the future before continuing.