Star Odyssey

Chapter 3052: Growth

As soon as the Infinity Empire successfully conquered the Sixth Mainland, Shang Cheng’s efforts would be acknowledged as a great accomplishment for the empire. As for Jiang Dongjian, his interest lay in the thirteen ring energy. As the empire’s greatest prodigy, as well as someone very close to mastering eleven ring energy, everyone was certain that the young man would eventually be able to control twelve ring energy, which would allow him to become the empire’s sixth guardian. If the empire successfully developed thirteen ring energy, then Jiang Dongjian was confident that he would eventually be able to use it as well.

Once that happened, there was no doubt in his mind that the ninth princess would become his. A guardian who could wield thirteen ring energy was surely worthy of even a princess.

Fei Yan felt that the empire's decision was a stroke of luck, as it gave him some hope of being able to rescue his son.

Only Shang An'an seemed disturbed, and she stared off into the distance. Would this really be so simple? They lacked a clear understanding of the Fifth Mainland, and that made her nervous. She felt like there were always eyes watching them.

"General Fei Yan, did the Emperor mention who will be sent as our reinforcements?" Shang Cheng asked urgently.

Fei Yan hesitated before replying, "First Prince Shang Tianzong."

Shang Cheng's expression soured, and he looked quite upset. Shang Tianzong's arrival would mean that the credit for all that they accomplished in this universe would be split. It was clear to Shang Cheng that his father did not want him to surpass Shang Tianzong. How infuriating.

"Marshal Bu Wu, Minister of the Armory Hong Nian, former Marshal Ge Shan, and Vice-Chancellor of the Imperial Academy Liu Ling are all on the reinforcement list," Fei Yan said.

Jiang Dongjian was taken aback. "Is even Vice-Chancellor Liu Ling coming?"

Shang Cheng answered in a low voice, "Shang Tianzong must have asked her to help. Someone like the vice-chancellor of the Imperial Academy does not take orders from the empire. Only Shang Tianzong, her most prized student could have asked her to be part of the reinforcements."

Shang An'an sighed with relief. "With two eleven-ring pilots like Ge Shan and Liu Ling, as well as many ten-ring pilots like Shang Tianzong, Hong Nian, and our own General Fei Yan and Jiang Dongjian, things should be manageable, even if we encounter something unexpected."

Fei Yan commented, "Throughout history, it is rare for the empire to allocate so many elites to a single excursion. We typically either encounter opponents whose strength is so overwhelming that we cannot face them, such as God’s Domain, or we send out multiple ten-ring mechas to cleanse a universe. This excursion, my friends, will be recorded down in history. Please, do not take things lightly."

…

When Lu Yin saw that the Infinity Empire was going to send more reinforcements over, he felt relieved. The lure of thirteen ring energy was too great, and the Infinity Empire was now committed to conquering the Origin Universe.

The Sixth Mainland genuinely did not have too many powerhouses, which meant that recapturing it would not be particularly difficult. However, the Infinity Empire would handle it, and Lu Yin was happy to be relieved of that burden. Once Aeternus was cleared out of the Sixth Mainland, he would continue to spring surprises on the Infinity Empire. After all, his cosmic ring still held a cosmic door to the Fourth Scourge.

As for the thirteen ring energy, it would not be easy for the empire to successfully develop that technology. If such a thing were simple, the Infinity Empire would have become invincible long ago.

For the moment, Lu Yin was considering his next breakthrough, which was the Progenitor realm. He possessed enough strength to just barely fight against a sequence powerhouse if he used all of his various methods, but that was far from enough to reach the level of the Seven Skygods. The invasion of the First Scourge and the revelation of Ancient God’s power had left a deep impression on Lu Yin. He wanted to become a Progenitor, or at least get closer to that level.

When others became Progenitors, their inner worlds would transform into a Progenitor’s world after they endured a stellular tribulation and the heart tribulation, but Lu Yin’s situation was unique. To begin with, he had a tremendous amount of stellular energy, to the point where he could not even imagine what his stellular tribulation would be. On top of that, Lu Yin had four inner worlds, none of which were simple.

Infinity was normal enough. For Lightstream, which used the power of space to chase after time, Lu Yin had initially been directionless. His exploration of unknown parallel universes had gradually revealed a direction, so that inner world should also be manageable. However, the other two inner worlds, Dust World and the Wordless Heavenly Book, posed significant challenges.

He had absolutely no idea how the two inner worlds could transform into Progenitor’s worlds.

In particular, Dust World was a mystery. Lu Yin did not even know how to use it. He had never used that inner world in combat, and he had no ideas about how it should be used.

Without knowing how to use the inner world, he could forget about transforming it into a Progenitor’s world. Thus, rashly challenging his next breakthrough could even prove deadly.

Lu Yin had a headache, as he was simply unable to figure these things out. Frustrated, he approached the cauldron, and a small twig popped out and cutely brushed against his chin with some leaves. Lu Yin’s mood immediately improved a bit.

Ah, the essence of Searwood.

That liquid had been the nine-headed bird’s most precious treasure, and it had regarded the essence as even more valuable than parallel universes with different flows of time. Unfortunately, the bird’s memories had not revealed how to use the essence of Searwood to Lu Yin.

He took it out and stared at it.

At that moment, Sapling completely emerged from the cauldron, as though it was staring at the essence.

"Do you want it?" Lu Yin asked in surprise.

Sapling’s leaves shimmered with a faint light. It seemed to be answering Lu Yin.

"How would you use it?" Lu Yin wondered.

Sapling's leaves slowly stretched towards the bottle. Lu Yin removed the cap and dropped a small bit of the essence of Searwood onto the leaves. The liquid was instantly absorbed. Sapling appeared to be thrilled, and the green glow of its leaves increased greatly. The light was dazzling, yet somehow remained soft and was not at all hard to look at.

Lu Yin stared at Sapling’s leaves. Their color seemed to have deepened. Could the essence encourage plant growth?

While thinking this over, Lu Yin took Sapling past the barrier that ran through the Starfall Sea. "Come on, let's see how big you've gotten."

Sapling hopped away from Lu Yin and started to stretch.

The people from the Fifth Mainland who passed through the Starfall Sea soon saw a massive tree rise high into outer space. The top seemed to touch the sky, amazing everyone who saw it. What was it?

Lu Yin looked up in admiration. Sapling had grown to a very impressive size, even if it was still nowhere close to the size of the Mother Tree. There was no comparison at all.

Still, it was important to remember just how long the Mother Tree had been growing, compared to Sapling’s few decades of existence.

Sapling eventually stopped growing, which revealed Sapling’s current maximum size to Lu Yin. "Hmm, not bad."

Sapling swayed when it heard that. Its movements shook the earth, terrifying many people, who all quickly fled and reported the matter to the Heavens Sect. A gigantic tree had appeared in the Starfall Sea.

Lu Yin then took out a few more drops of the essence of Searwood for Sapling. Its leaves caught the drops, and as the essence merged with Sapling, the tree started to visibly grow once more.

Clearly, the essence really did help trees grow. However, what did that effect have to do with the nine-headed bird? Why had the bird cared so much about the essence of Searwood?

The nine-headed bird had been born from Searwood. Could the essence of Searwood be connected to the bird’s birth? Or had the bird thought that, if it could create more Searwood with the essence, another nine-headed bird would be born? That might not be impossible. Despite their intelligence, such creatures did not lose their natural instincts, and their way of thinking was fundamentally different from humans.

Just as Lu Yin was about to pour out more essence of Searwood, he slapped his forehead. What a waste to use it in such a manner. He should have Enhanced it with his die before letting Sapling have any of it.

Lu Yin patted Sapling. "Alright, change back."

Sapling shrank back to its small, cute form and then hopped into Lu Yin's arms, nuzzling against his chin like a child.

Lu Yin laughed. "Let's go home. I'll help you grow soon."

Sapling seemed to become even happier as it cuddled against Lu Yin’s embrace.

Once the two left, Monarch Xing opened her eyes in the Starfall Sea. Are they gone?

After joining the Heavens Sect, the woman had initially stayed in the sect itself, but she had later volunteered to stand guard over the Starfall Sea. She preferred solitude.

When she had agreed to join the Heavens Sect, she had been promised that the people from her home universe would be granted a safe place in the Origin Universe, and she had found the Starfall Sea to be quite suitable.

Lu Yin knew about Monarch Xing’s presence, but he had not gone to the Starfall Sea to see the woman. She was only interested in protecting her own people and was not particularly interested in the interested of the Heavens Sect. Still, that did not really matter.

After returning to the Heavens Sect, Lu Yin started rolling his die. He rolled Pilfer twice, which got nothing useful, but his third roll turned out to be Enhance.

He placed the essence of Searwood on the upper screen and started frantically throwing out star essence.

Lu Yin watched as the essence of Searwood slowly fell down, and then picked it up. Upgrading a single drop had cost him 800 billion star essence. This was unbelievably expensive. Even when he had Enhanced Cheng Kong’s bubble to the sequence powerhouse level, the entire process had only cost 3 trillion star essence.

This essence of Searwood proved itself worthy of being a cherished treasure for a creature like the nine-headed bird. This was indeed a treasure at the sequence powerhouse level.

The bottle still had about twenty drops remaining, and Enhancing all of them would cost him tens of trillions of star essence.

Lu Yin had a total of 740 trillion star essence, but even so, using so much at once was painful. Even so, there was no choice. He was more than willing to do that much for Sapling.

He took a deep breath, and then started improving the essence of Searwood.

After each upgrade, Lu Yin would give the drop to Sapling, who happily absorbed them. Drop by drop, they continued until all the essence of Searwood had been Enhanced and absorbed. In the end, Lu Yin had about 560 trillion star essences remaining.

Lu Yin stared at little Sapling. It was still as little and cute as ever. Wait, had it grown an extra leaf?

Blinking, Lu Yin noticed that there really was an extra leaf, though it was impossible to tell just how large Sapling had grown to at this point.

He reached out to touch the leaves. "Are you happy?"

Sapling leaped up high and nearly ran into Lu Yin, who laughed and grabbed the little tree. "Alright, go play."

Sapling was reluctant to leave Lu Yin, but after they played for a while longer, Sapling returned to the cauldron.

It really liked the cauldron.

Lu Yin felt much better after playing with Sapling. If he was not able to figure out things for himself, he would just ask someone.

His first thought was to ask Progenitor Smoke, whose Mountain and Sea carried the inheritance of thought. This made her particularly well suited to helping others. However, they had just spoken, and the woman was nowhere to be found.

Lu Yin had no choice but to seek out Ancestor Tianyi. That man’s knowledge and experience should help Lu Yin sort out some of his confusion.

Ancestor Tianyi had been injured during the invasion of the First Scourge, but not to the point where he needed to go into seclusion to heal.

Lu Yin went to the man and discussed his four inner worlds.

Ancestor Tianyi commented, "I've been thinking about this matter for some time. You're destined to eventually become a Progenitor, and when you do, your inner worlds will become Progenitor’s worlds. However, transforming your inner worlds won't be easy.

"Our Lu family possesses exceptional strength, and your first inner world, Infinity, perfectly matches our family's power. It would be good for you to combine that inner world with the direct line’s visualization method."

Lu Yin felt puzzled. "The Fifth Mainland visualization method?"

OMA's Thoughts

Translated By: OMA

Edited By: Neshi/Nyxnox

TLC'ed By: OMA