On Muli Star, inside a magnificent, dreamlike palace of Lihua Palace.
Palace Master Lihua had received the news from the Nine Dragon Ranking as well.
"Damn that Galaxy!" Mu Lihua's face was icy. "I never imagined you had such willpower, and that you were skilled in Soul Illusion too. No wonder Mad Demon fell to you... So what if you're a Saint Realm guard? So what if you have Saint Realm willpower? Whatever your background, if I meet you in person, I'll kill you!"
"Keep a close watch on Galaxy," Palace Master Lihua told the two maids below her coldly.
"Yes!" the maids answered at once.
Inside the Ninth Layer of the second Will Dragon Tower.
Luo Feng trembled all over. The powerful Will Impact had drained the color from his face. Without Heart Like a Blade, it would have crushed his will long ago.
"Just a little more." Luo Feng roared inwardly, but the ever-strengthening Will Impact finally overwhelmed his will completely. He fell unconscious.
The Divine Eye in the void closed immediately afterward.
At the same time, an awakening force from the Nine Dragons Tower entered Luo Feng's body and roused him.
"I failed." Luo Feng opened his eyes and shook his head. The Will Impact had vanished, and a force from the Nine Dragons Tower enveloped him and carried him out of the Dragon Tower.
His gaze fell on the name in fourth place on the Azure Dragon Ranking, and a smile finally appeared on his face.
"I thought Kaser had at least reached the Saint Realm Limit in willpower. I didn't expect him to fall short of me." Luo Feng was rather surprised. Among the many Saint Realm experts of the You Mountain Empire, not one apart from the God King possessed God King-level willpower. None had even reached the Saint Realm Limit. Apart from the God King, the highest was Luo Feng himself—an Eternal True God.
"Next comes the test of comprehension." Luo Feng looked toward the last three Dragon Towers.
The Comprehension Dragon Tower had the longest queue, with nearly eight hundred people waiting.
Unlike the others, a Comprehension Dragon Tower opened whenever its queue reached one thousand. Law Venerables, Lords of Laws, True Gods, Void True Gods, and Eternal True Gods all counted toward that total.
It was the only Dragon Tower open to those below True God, so the queue filled quickly.
Not long after Luo Feng joined it, the number reached one thousand.
Under the guidance of a True God at the scene, all one thousand entered the first layer of the first Dragon Tower in orderly fashion.
The rules of the Comprehension Dragon Tower differed from those of the Strength Dragon Tower and Will Dragon Tower.
On each of the first three layers of the first Dragon Tower, a Lord of Laws could stay for at most one epoch; exceeding that limit meant failure. Those below Lord of Laws had ten epochs. True Gods had a thousand years, Void True Gods a hundred years, Eternal True Gods ten years, and Saint Realm experts just one year. Exceeding the allotted time meant failure.
On the next three layers, the time limits were ten times those of the first three.
The first layer of the Comprehension Dragon Tower contained one hundred spaces, each able to accommodate one thousand people. That meant one hundred thousand people could attempt the layer at the same time.
As Luo Feng entered the first layer of the first Dragon Tower, immense pillars came into view. They looked familiar.
It was the Rhinoceros Emperor Puzzle!
The pillars looked slightly different from those on the Tomb Boat, though.
There were one thousand pillars on the left and 10,081 on the right. The basic rule was simple: each of the one thousand challengers chose a pillar, then demonstrated and completed the partially solved puzzles beside it to pass the layer. The more complicated rules concerned the Rhinoceros Emperor Puzzle itself, and Luo Feng already knew how to solve those puzzles.
Each of the 10,081 partial puzzles on the right was nearly complete. A challenger only needed to supply the final arrangement.
Luo Feng chose a nearby pillar and immediately began.
Solving a puzzle from scratch was hardest. These partially solved puzzles were exceedingly simple for him. Almost as soon as he saw one, he traced a few strokes with divine power and completed it perfectly.
Luo Feng finished all 10,081 partial puzzles in just one day.
The second layer took him twenty-six days.
The third took 107 days.
The fourth took 1,483 days.
The ninth took 144,103 days.
Of course, those durations were measured in Inheritance Space time. In the outside world, even the ninth layer took only fourteen days. His speed was terrifying.
The second Dragon Tower was much harder: he had to solve blank puzzles. Yet Luo Feng had only one epoch per layer.
On its first layer, he had to solve the first one thousand blank puzzles so that each matched its corresponding reference puzzle exactly.
Of course, these were not the same first one thousand puzzles as those on the Tomb Boat.
Each Rhinoceros Emperor Puzzle had 10,081 basic units, and the same units could be used repeatedly. Through different arrangements, each puzzle had 10,081 to the power of 10,081 possible solutions—an absurdly vast number. Yet among them, only one was correct and perfect. The difficulty was easy to imagine.
Solving all one thousand puzzles on the first layer of the second tower took Luo Feng a full 3,890 years in Inheritance Space time.
On the second layer, he had to start again from zero and solve through puzzle 1,500. It took him 4,536 years.
On the third, he solved the first two thousand puzzles in 5,892 years.
The fourth layer was far harder. Solving through puzzle three thousand took him 45,632 years.
On the fifth, solving through puzzle four thousand took him 62,130 years.
The sixth took 66,321 years.
On the ninth, solving all 10,081 puzzles took him 787,210 years.
There were no reference puzzles on the first layer of the third Dragon Tower, only a blank pillar. The rule was simple: use the 10,081 basic units to create a perfect puzzle on his own. Completing it within the time limit meant he passed.
As an Eternal True God, Luo Feng had one thousand epochs.
"Create one myself?" Luo Feng was stunned. So after all 10,081 puzzles had been solved, this was the 10,081st "puzzleless puzzle" displayed on the Tomb Boat.
In the Dragon Tower, the third tower onward was devoted to solving puzzleless puzzles.
The first layer required him to create just one puzzle, making it relatively easier.
Even so, Luo Feng had no idea where to begin.
Put simply, this puzzleless puzzle required him to draw on his experience from the previous eighteen layers to create 10,081 basic units of his own, then assemble them into a complete energy cycle.
"How am I supposed to build it?" Luo Feng frowned. He rapidly recalled the perfect puzzles he had seen. Each seemed to be an energy model forming a closed cycle. Energy neither increased nor diminished, yet the cycle could run forever.
Luo Feng tried to build one.
He failed almost immediately.
After countless attempts, Luo Feng stopped for the time being. Blindly trying without a direction offered no hope.
"An energy model... I should start with the models I've seen and find what they have in common."
"Some resemble divine-power structures, some resemble formations, and some resemble Supreme Treasure embryos..."
"A few even resemble universe architectures."
"Universe architectures...? Right, they're like universe architectures." Luo Feng suddenly realized that one energy model in his memory was almost perfect and bore a resemblance to a universe architecture.
Every universe architecture was the crystallization of a True God's ideas. The more perfect the architecture, the more stable the Miniature Universe and the greater its contribution to future strength. Universe architectures might be far less complex than the energy models of the Rhinoceros Emperor Puzzle, but they were harder to put into practice. The closer an architecture came to perfection, the higher its demands on energy and other factors. Forcing one into being could ultimately cause a universe to collapse.
Luo Feng thought of his own "One Origin Beginning, One Hundred Thousand Heavens." It seemed to be a perfect universe architecture, with similarities to that of the Primal Universe.
Yet "One Origin Beginning, One Hundred Thousand Heavens" seemed somewhat more perfect than the Primal Universe. Luo Feng had gradually discovered this after taking over the Primal Universe Origin Will. The Primal Universe Architecture was not perfect; flaws had deliberately been left in it so it could undergo cycles of destruction and rebirth.
"I'll try the Primal Universe Architecture first." Luo Feng acted on the thought.
After tracing the 10,081 basic units he needed with divine power, Luo Feng began constructing an energy model above the stone pillar according to the Primal Universe Architecture.
The basic units remained stable one by one, and Luo Feng breathed a little easier.
Whoosh!
The further he got, the more tense Luo Feng became.
Hiss!
As Luo Feng traced the final line of divine power, a complete Primal Universe Architecture Model appeared above the stone pillar and held steady. The entire pillar lit up with a golden glow.
"It worked!" Luo Feng was delighted. He had succeeded on his first try.
A familiar prompt sounded in Luo Feng's mind: "Beep! Puzzle solved. Congratulations, you have passed. Please proceed to the next layer to continue."
"That was fast. It only took twelve months. All those earlier attempts were no match for the Primal Universe Architecture." Smiling, Luo Feng shook his head and stepped into the passage leading upward.
By the time Luo Feng entered the second layer, the Nine Dragon Ranking outside had already caused an uproar.
On the Hidden Dragon Rankings, Galaxy of the Nine Regions Palace had taken first place!
Both the Mountain Alliance and the Nine Regions Palace noticed the change in the Hidden Dragon Rankings.
First place belonged to Galaxy of the Nine Regions Palace.
Palace Master Lihua had fallen to second, followed by Kaser in third.
"Galaxy!" Saint Lord Wuchen's eyes shone, and he could barely contain his excitement. "To think the Nine Regions Palace has found such a genius."
"Chief, Galaxy is a treasure!" Heng Tieshan and the other Saint Realm experts realized it too.
Recently, the name "Galaxy of the Nine Regions Palace" had climbed rapidly through the Hidden Dragon Rankings, drawing the attention of nearly every faction in You Mountain City. Galaxy was the one they all kept talking about.
Now, just as everyone wondered whether Galaxy of the Nine Regions Palace would remain in second place, he had leaped straight to first in less than an hour.
That final leap was what they found unbelievable.
They suspected Galaxy had an avatar under Time Acceleration, but even at ten thousand times normal speed, less than a year would have passed!
He had gone from second to first in a year, far faster than the hundred years Palace Master Lihua had taken under Time Acceleration. Back then, she too had reached the first layer of the third Dragon Tower, but she had spent nearly four days getting there—a far cry from one hour.
The many factions within the Mountain Alliance took notice.
At the same time, Kaser, Li Gui, and a host of other ancient, powerful Saint Realm experts were watching as well.
After investigating for some time, they had learned the truth: Galaxy of the Nine Regions Palace was only an Eternal True God.
An Eternal True God with Saint Realm strength. His willpower ranked first beneath the God King. More frightening still was his comprehension: in less than two hundred years, he had reached the top of the Hidden Dragon Rankings. An Eternal True God like him was certain to receive an imperial title. According to the You Mountain Empire's records, it had been a very, very long time since an Eternal True God had last received one.