Chapter 799: Cellular Planet, Maximum Enhancement

Violent shockwaves howled under the night sky, sweeping up clouds of dust into the heavens.

Standing in midair, Chen Chu’s black hair billowed wildly behind him, and he coldly gazed downward like a god. There, a massive rift stretched for dozens of kilometers, plunging into bottomless depths.

At his peak, Chen Chu’s full strength could easily obliterate an area spanning over a hundred kilometers with a single strike, pulverizing the void itself. The explosive shockwaves would ripple out across several hundred, even a thousand kilometers.

This strike could already be considered enough to wipe a nation off the map—though admittedly, a rather small one.

Even now, without drawing upon the power of the principles, his physical might alone could have destroyed Tianxuan City in a single blow, annihilating every mutated monster within.

However, doing so would have also reduced the National Library to ruins, so he opted for a slightly more troublesome method: encircling the city dozens of times at extreme speed and strength, flattening it completely.

Of course, part of the reason was simply that he enjoyed the feeling of explosive destruction—just like, when he flew at high speeds, he disliked dispersing air resistance and preferred to trigger sonic booms instead.

There was something incredibly satisfying about the sensation of blow after blow landing solidly, monsters exploding into clouds of blood mist under his halberd. Unfortunately, the strongest creature here had merely been a peak level 9 beast—not nearly enough to pose a real challenge.

With a trace of regret, Chen Chu put away the Eight Desolations Halberd and returned to the library.

Seeing him descend from the sky, the sisters froze for a moment, and Shi Feirou instinctively blurted out, "Mr. Chen, those monsters...?"

Chen Chu smiled slightly. "They've all been dealt with."

Impressive,

Shi Feirou and Shi Feitong marveled inwardly, though by now, after all they had seen from Chen Chu, they had almost grown accustomed to it.

Bathed in the library's bright light, the three of them then sifted through the tens of thousands of ancient tomes, combing every shelf.

In the end, they gathered over a hundred arts. Most were incomplete arts left behind by advanced cultivators over the past ten thousand years, damaged and fragmented over time. Aside from providing Chen Chu with reference material, they held little true value.

Among them were seventeen body enhancement arts. The strongest of these was a complete art capable of cultivation to the ninth tier—the Great Sun True Body, a complete version of the Red Sun Body Enhancement Art.

Brushing the dust off the manuals, Chen Chu packed them away, then turned to the Shi Sisters, whose faces were smudged with dust, and gave them a warm smile. "Thank you for your hard work."

Today's gains put Chen Chu in an excellent mood. The imperial inheritance he had obtained during the day solved the problem of his time erosion, and he had mastered a powerful divine ability. Now, he had also found a trove of body enhancement arts.

As long as he spent time cultivating and adjusting these arts, there was real hope of success.

Shi Feirou, with her voluptuous figure, firm gaze, and aura of a strong woman, shook her head and softly said, "Compared to the help you’ve given us, this small task is hardly worth mentioning."

The delicate and beautiful Shi Feitong quickly chimed in, "That's right. We actually didn't do much. Mr. Chen, you really don't need to be so polite."

After exchanging a few words of thanks, the three of them leapt back up to the rooftop, only for the sisters to be dumbfounded.

Under the dim night sky, the surroundings were nothing but barren, broken ground. Tianxuan City, and all of the countless mutated monsters hiding within, had vanished completely.

Only now did the sisters truly understand what Chen Chu had meant by "all dealt with."

Indeed, they were all gone, but so was the entire city itself. This terrifying display of power once again convinced them that Chen Chu was undoubtedly a powerhouse from the Ancient Civilization.

Whoosh!

As scorching shockwaves blasted outward, the black-and-red fighter jet slowly lifted into the air, then shattered the sound barrier with a thunderous boom, accelerating to three times the speed of sound within seconds.

Roar!

Just a few hundred kilometers out, a massive black shadow surged up from the forest below.

Boom!

A dazzling white beam of energy pierced through the sky, its brilliance lighting up half of the heavens. In an instant, the fighter's main cannon obliterated the level 8 pterosaur’s head.

Roar! Roar! Roar!

The powerful energy disturbance drew the attention of mutated creatures across a hundred kilometers. By then, however, the fighter jet had already disappeared beyond the horizon.

At night, mutated creatures grew even more active. On the return journey, missiles roared from the fighter’s wings, the belly-mounted autocannons thundered, and the twin primary energy cannons fired again and again in relentless bursts.

The fighter had expended nearly all of its stock of standard crystal energy missiles by the time it finally returned to the skies above the research facility. Floodlights snapped on, magnetic levitation fields activated, and howling winds whipped across the ground as the fighter descended.

The monstrous, sci-fi-style war machine immediately put the entire base on high alert.

"Be careful!"

"Everyone stay inside!"

Gao Tianxiang and the others guarded the mountain entrance, faces grim and awestruck as they stared at the massive fighter jet, which crushed a few small trees under its weight. It was their first time seeing such high-tech equipment.

Click!

The rear hatch opened with a mechanical hiss, revealing Shi Feirou, Shi Feitong, and Chen Chu. Everyone froze, then erupted in excitement.

"It’s Captain Shi!"

"And that powerful young man!"

"Young man? That's Mr. Chen Chu!"

As they spoke, Gao Tianxiang and the others hurried forward, while behind them, a dozen or so teenagers cheered and rushed out excitedly.

"Big Sister Rou, you're back! How come you were riding on that thing?"

"Big Sister Tong, what is that? Is it a plane?"

Chen Chu didn’t descend. He simply watched quietly as Shi Feirou and Shi Feitong were surrounded and bombarded with questions. Only after a while did he finally speak up. "I’ll be entering seclusion for a few days. Don't disturb me unless absolutely necessary."

"Seclusion?" Shi Feirou and the others paused for a moment.

Chen Chu continued, "These are two energy crystals. You can hold them while cultivating—the energy within will help accelerate your training."

As he spoke, he handed over two golden crystals, each the size of a fist, to the two sisters. Without giving them time to ask anything, he turned and entered the fighter jet.

Everyone watched the hatch close with a mechanical click, exchanging glances among themselves. This powerful figure named Chen Chu seemed rather aloof.

When cultivating ancient body enhancement arts, a strong blood and qi foundation was just the beginning. Under normal circumstances, one also needed to absorb transcendent energy to progress rapidly.

However, the mutated virus in this world had forced all creatures to evolve, granting them significant endurance and resilience. Thus, it had become possible to cultivate using only blood and qi.

Those who managed to reach high or even advanced levels of a body enhancement art under such harsh, barren conditions were all extraordinary talents. If they were able to reach the mythical world, their strength would skyrocket.

Just like the councilors of the Blue Planet. As members of the first generation of awakeners during the great upheaval, they had already possessed great natural talent. Coupled with inheritances from the Ancient Civilization, they had swiftly ascended to supreme power.

The two energy crystals Chen Chu had given the sisters were a reward—a token of thanks for their small errand.

Inside Yunxiao, Chen Chu made his way to the cultivation area and sat cross-legged. He retrieved the tome he had been interested in: the Dark Star Battle Body. His gaze swept across it like a scanner, memorizing every word and diagram.

After a while, Chen Chu set the tome down in thought.

Just like the Red Sun Body Enhancement Art, the Dark Star Battle Body had been tailored for the physique of ancient humans. To begin cultivation, he would first need to adjust his physique accordingly.

On the other hand, he could simply disregard the prerequisites like innate awakening or metal-compatible abilities.

After all, no so-called Innate Awakener could compare to the strength of his flesh, and the metal-compatible ability was merely to prevent beginning-stage cultivators from losing control when absorbing heavy elements, thereby damaging their bodies.

Crack, crack!

Under his conscious control, Chen Chu’s flesh and blood writhed and shifted. His meridians and acupoints subtly adjusted until he successfully simulated the physique of the ancient human race.

He then began to mentally chant the mantra. A strand of blood and qi gathered and surged along dozens of obscure meridians, flowing forward with unstoppable momentum.

Boom!

In just a few dozen seconds, Chen Chu easily broke through to the first stage of the Dark Star Battle Body, as effortlessly as drinking water.

However, he immediately paused. A black stone the size of a washbasin appeared in his hand, its surface gleaming with a metallic luster and intricate patterns.

This stone had come from the storage equipment of a demon king. Chen Chu didn’t know exactly what mineral it was, only that it was incredibly dense and durable, weighing over a hundred tons.

At the same time, a thought echoed within his mind.

Consume 100 attribute points to enhance the Dark Star Battle Body to the second stage.

Once an art had been successfully initiated, further progress could be made directly by consuming attribute points.

The instant the attribute points vanished, a surge of enhancement energy poured into the thread of dark star vitality within him, causing it to erupt violently and circulate at dozens of times its previous speed.

As it coursed through him, strands of delicate vitality split off, weaving through tiny meridians throughout his body until they formed a web that enveloped the black stone.

Hum!

The dense and heavy ore began to tremble faintly beneath the delicate vitality web.

Within Chen Chu’s perception, strands of faint metallic elements were extracted from the stone, wrapped in the vitality web, and drawn into his body through his hands, circulating together with his vitality

The moment these heavy metals entered his body, an intense stimulation burst forth. Wherever it passed, his meridians trembled slightly.

If it had been an ordinary low-level cultivator attempting this, the heavy metals would have torn their meridians apart, requiring painstaking recovery before they could continue cultivation.

In the standard process, after thirty-six such cycles, the second stage would be complete. The meridians, infused with heavy metals, would become tougher and stronger, allowing the cultivator to attempt a breakthrough into the third stage.

Moreover, the Dark Star Battle Body had a layered progression. Initially, it absorbed ordinary metal elements; by the third stage, it required absorbing rarer and stronger metallic ores.

Chen Chu’s current cultivation, however, was essentially cheating.

Boom!

With the enhancement of god-level mineral elements, the vitality coursing through Chen Chu’s body completed over a hundred circulations within just two minutes, directly breaking through to the third stage.

Chen Chu didn’t waste any time.

Consume 400 attribute points to enhance the Dark Star Battle Body to the fourth stage.

An even more violent and robust energy erupted within him. Dark-red vitality surged wildly, forming an intricate and dense web that enveloped his entire body.

At the same time, the black ore in his hand, now slightly shrunken, began to tremble under the tangible dark-red web of vitality, gradually turning gray-white.

In Chen Chu’s perception, more heavy metals were drawn into his body, circulating alongside the vitality and slowly merging into his skin and membranes.

The fusion was strange and unique. The art’s vitality transformed the heavy metals, turning them into something between material and energy.

After they merged with his skin and underlying membranes, the flesh retained its organic properties, but gained a trace of metallic hardness and heaviness.

As more heavy metals were absorbed and integrated, his skin and membranes grew steadily tougher.

While Chen Chu’s current physique meant that the slight increase in skin hardness was almost imperceptible and offered little improvement to his strength, the special nature of the transformation intrigued him greatly.

Consume 600 attribute points to enhance to the fifth stage.

Consume 800 attribute points to enhance to the sixth stage...

Boom! Boom! Boom!

With Chen Chu’s relentless expenditure of attribute points, the dark star vitality within him exploded upward without resistance, breaking through to the sixth stage like a force of nature.

With the continuous absorption of dense heavy metals, even his muscle fibers began to take on a metallic heaviness.

As Chen Chu used his divine soul to observe his body on a microscopic level, he saw that some of his muscle cells were undergoing transformation—madly absorbing, compressing, and storing the heavy metals until they began to emit a faint metallic luster.

When an entire cell transformed into a black-gold entity, resembling a tiny metallic "planet," a faint gravitational field emanated from within.

A single cell’s change was minor. However, by the time the black ore in Chen Chu’s hand had completely turned gray-white, millions of muscle fiber cells throughout his body had already undergone this metamorphosis.

"Still not enough." Chen Chu’s eyes snapped open. He immediately pulled out an even larger chunk of black ore and issued another mental command.

Consume 2,200 attribute points to enhance the Dark Star Battle Body to the seventh and eighth stages.

Boom!

Violent enhancement energy erupted. Chen Chu became completely shrouded in dark-golden light, radiating an oppressive aura as heavy as a mountain. The fighter jet beneath him even sank slightly under the pressure.

As the surging vitality circulated throughout him, strands of almost tangible dark-golden brilliance enveloped the black ore. They spun nine internal layers, each movement containing profound mysteries.

With the art's operation, even denser and sharper heavy metals were absorbed into Chen Chu’s body. They penetrated beyond his muscles, and fused into his bones with his vitality’s guidance.

As these god-level heavy metals were integrated, black lines appeared across the originally pure golden surfaces of his bones, somewhat resembling the innate rune patterns found on colossal beast remains.

Throughout the cultivation process, Chen Chu meticulously observed the changes in the art’s operation and compared it against the workings of his own body, continuously adjusting and validating.

This round of cultivation lasted for about half an hour. Only when the massive two-hundred-ton ore completely fractured and fell to the ground as gray-white stone did Chen Chu finally open his eyes.

A flicker of surprise flashed across his gaze. "My physical strength... actually increased."

The advanced eighth-stage Dark Star Battle Body had managed to improve his physical strength—if only slightly.

It seemed like a small gain, but considering that his physique already rivaled that of a beginning-stage titan-level colossal beast, even an increase of a mere one-thousandth was astonishing in terms of sheer power.

In addition, this was only the eighth stage, equivalent to an Eighth Heavenly Realm cultivator. If he could refine it to the ninth stage, or even the mythical tenth stage...

Unfortunately, this cultivation art only had eight stages. With a thought, Chen Chu summoned his attribute panel.

[Art]

Dark Star Battle Body+(Eighth Stage)

As his gaze landed on the plus sign next to the art’s name, a line of transparent text immediately appeared before his eyes

[Would you like to consume 3,000 attribute points to perform maximum enhancement on the Dark Star Battle Body?]

Maximum enhancement was a special function of the attribute panel. By consuming attribute points, one could push a cultivation art to the limits of its potential.

The first arts Chen Chu had cultivated—the low-level Dragon Elephant Art and the Insightful Eye saber art—had both become vastly more powerful after undergoing maximum enhancement, even evolving into innate ability runes.

Unlike high-level arts with a six-stage ceiling, ancient body enhancement arts possessed much higher limits, capable of advancing to eight stages, or even a maximum of nine.

This difference arose from the distinct power systems between the ancient and modern eras. In truth, despite having more stages, ancient cultivation arts were slightly weaker and less comprehensive than the modern true martial arts cultivated on the Blue Planet.

Especially after reaching the Seventh Heavenly Realm; modern top-level secret scriptures enabled cultivators to not only forge indestructible true forms, but also condense True Martial Phantoms, granting them the ability to command the power of heaven and earth and resulting in tremendous leaps in combat strength.

Still, the ancient arts held an advantage for Chen Chu. They could undergo maximum enhancement.

Boom!

Chen Chu retrieved a massive ore from his storage space, several meters tall and shimmering in a platinum-gold hue. The moment it appeared, the entire fighter jet shuddered violently, as if a mountain had descended upon it.

Had the fighter not been forged from the remains of a mythical colossal beast, it would have been crushed instantly under the weight.

Consume 3,000 attribute points to perform maximum enhancement on the Dark Star Battle Body.

Boom!

An overwhelming surge of enhancement energy erupted within Chen Chu. The dark star vitality that had already been cultivated to its limits exploded outward, transforming into a dense mist of dark-golden blood that rapidly enveloped both Chen Chu and the massive ore.