Chapter 2079: Stabilizing

Lu Yin's current status meant that it had been a long time since he had surpassed the Ten Arbiters. Simply put, he was on an entirely different level, regardless of how powerful Xing Kai had become.

Xing Kai crashed into a corner of Zenith Mountain, and Lu Yin appeared. He waited for a bit, and Xing Kai woke up with a groan. He held his right hand on the back of his head as he struggled to his feet. His head was still fuzzy as he warily looked around. Where was he? Suddenly, Xing Kai turned around to see Lu Yin.

Lu Yin had returned to his original appearance.

When Xing Kai saw Lu Yin, his expression changed drastically. "Lu Yin?"

Lu Yin smiled. "It’s been a long time, Xing Kai."

Xing Kai stared at Lu Yin in disbelief. "You- you’re still alive? Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

"Everyone keeps saying that when they see me. This is really bad luck, as I’m not dead, but rather alive and well," Lu Yin replied with a smile.

Xing Kai warily stared at Lu Yin. "Where are we? You captured me?"

He was not surprised to learn that Lu Yin was able to capture him on Sword Mountain. Unless the members of Team Resolution visited, there was no one on Sword Mountain who had the strength to stop Lu Yin. While Xing Kai had no idea just how strong Lu Yin was, a conservative estimate would put Lu Yin at the level of an expert with a power level of at least 700,000 or 800,000.

Lu Yin shrugged. "Sorry, that sneak attack was a bit harsh."

Xing Kai stared at Lu Yin, and then he slowly asked, "Why did you capture me? Even if there’s some sort of disagreement between the Lu Heavenly Gate and the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate, you should be dealing with Gatemaster Hen Xin or Team Resolution, not me."

Lu Yin replied, "I want to cultivate battle force, so I want to learn the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate’s cultivation methods."

Xing Kai stared at Lu Yin for a moment before he realized something. "You’re one of those six applicants."

"Smart.” Lu Yin was impressed.

Xing Kai shook his head. "When Gatemaster Hen Xin first suggested that Team Resolution train the Fifth Mainland’s people in cultivating battle force, the other Heavenly Gates all objected, and they instead suggested a wager, and it’s already been agreed upon. Lu Yin, the fact that you’ve snuck into my Three Fatalities Heavenly Gates means that the Lu Heavenly Gate’s already violated the agreement."

Lu Yin replied, "I’ve only been back for a few days, and that was long after the wager was agreed upon, so I’m not breaking any agreement. I was already within the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate’s territory before even learning anything about the agreement, and I even decided that I wanted to learn how to cultivate my domain and battle force before hearing about it."

"I won't teach you," Xing Kai said bluntly.

Lu Yin frowned. "Are you saying that you’ve really joined the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate and that you’re loyal to Hen Xin?"

Xing Kai somberly answered, "When I first joined the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate, Gatemaster Hen Xin spoke with me himself, and he asked me not to share the cultivation method for battle force with anyone from outside our Heavenly Gate. I agreed, so I won’t tell you anything even if you kill me."

Lu Yin smiled. "Don't worry, I’m not going to kill you. I’m just going to keep you here for a few days."

As he spoke, Lu Yin pulled out a bone full of death energy, and he used the Mask of Death.

Xing Kai was stunned as he saw Lu Yin’s body change shape, and the large man’s mouth fell wide open.

He was not good at expressing himself, so he was genuinely speechless for a bit.

"What do you think? No one below the Semi-Progenitor realm can see through this disguise," Lu Yin said. His voice’s sound, cadence, and aura were perfectly identical to the real Xing Kai. Lu Yin was not actually trying to obtain Hen Xin's personal battle force cultivation art by impersonating Xing Kai, but rather the common cultivation art that the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate gave to all of their people. Naturally, if Lu Yin could get something better, that would be wonderful.

Xing Kai finally spoke up, his voice bitter. "You're ruthless."

He then suddenly lashed out and tried to punch Lu Yin in the head.

Lu Yin simply lifted a hand and casually caught the approaching fist.

Xing Kai was incredibly strong, and his body was far stronger than any of his peers’. But unfortunately, he was facing Lu Yin, a man who had once shattered aurelian force with nothing more than physical strength and the visualization method of the Immovable Heavenly King Elephant. There was absolutely no one who could compare to Lu Yin in terms of physical strength.

Xing Kai's fist was held in place by Lu Yin, tight within Lu Yin's palm, Xing Kai gritted his teeth, but he remained silent despite the fact that he felt like his fist was about to be crushed.

Lu Yin released the fist, and Xing Kai retreated a few steps while panting heavily. The difference in their strength was just too much.

"You’re definitely on the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate’s ten-man team for this upcoming wager. I’m sorry, but I can’t let you go," Lu Yin said.

Xing Kai lowered his arms and stared at Lu Yin. "Aside from the ancient cultivation arts, the most important thing to improving battle force is spirit. This was already known in our time, but we just didn’t have any cultivation arts for battle force. Do you really want to improve your battle force? Then the only way to do so is by improving your spirit. There aren’t any shortcuts.”

Lu Yin's expression changed. "I know that. I want to obtain aurelian force, but I never thought about trying to take shortcuts. Just wait here, and if you get bored, there are a bunch of strong people over there, though don’t be afraid of getting your ass kicked.”

Lu Yin pointed to a distant place on Zenith Mountain before leaving.

Back on Sword Mountain, Lu Yin put Zenith Mountain away. While he had adopted Xing Kai’s identity, Lu Yin actually had no idea as to what sort of information he might gain access to. Sword Mountain was as far as Lu Yin was willing to go within the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate; if he learned something from the members of Team Resolution, he would most likely need to escape if he was exposed, and that meant that he would have to escape from Team Resolution itself.

Lu Yin moved onto the house that he had been assigned as Old Hei. He revealed himself openly and covered his body with six lined battle force before smashing the house with a hand. Everything within 100 meters was completely pulverized.

Everyone nearby turned to look at the shattered house.

A middle-aged man emerged from the void, and he looked at Lu Yin in surprise. "Captain Xing Kai, what are you doing?"

Lu Yin indifferently responded, "That person was sent by an enemy, so he had to die."

This middle-aged man was the only person on Sword Mountain who possessed runes at the one-tribulation Envoy level. Once Lu Yin saw him in person, he knew that the man had not reached this level of strength with battle force, domain, and spiritual force. This man was not a member of Team Resolution, but rather an independent cultivator who had cultivated with pure spiritual force.

In addition to the gatemasters of the Twelve Heavenly Gates, many other people had been sealed in the frozen ancient battlefield, and this man had been one of them.

After hearing Xing Kai's explanation, the middle-aged man dismissed the matter. "If he was an enemy and you killed him, then fine. However, don’t act on your own without saying anything again. At least say something. That man was able to pass through the assessment, so he was clearly a bit talented."

Xing Kai said nothing in response, but simply turned around and left.

Lu Yin did not know Xing Kai very well, but he had heard from Wen Sansi and others of the Ten Arbiters that Xing Kai was a simple and straightforward person who was not very good at socializing. He remained silent most of the time, not because he was a cold person, but rather because he genuinely did not know how to talk to people.

In order to not be discovered as a fraud, Lu Yin’s best option was to say as little as possible.

The middle-aged man returned to his own home without even thinking about Lu Yin’s behavior as Xing Kai.

A short ways away from the shattered house, Xi Yue watched as Xing Kai disappeared. Clearly, Lu Yin had changed his appearance again, replacing Xing Kai this time. Xi Yue did not know how to react to this development.

Xing Kai, the former War King of the Ten Arbiters, had just been replaced by Lu Yin without anyone being able to even sense a fight. How was this not a bit absurd?

Further away stood the other four people who had passed the examination. They were horrified to see Old Hei’s house destroyed, and they all went back to their own quarters. All of them became very nervous, as they had not expected this assessment process to actually threaten their lives.

Lu Yin had acted in order to remove the danger of having Old Hei’s identity exposed. After that, he returned to the pond to wait for the Team Resolution members to arrive. However, he was extremely impatient.

Watching Xing Kai maintain six lined battle force over his body for an extended period of time meant that there was a benefit to doing so. Since Lu Yin had nothing better to do, he felt that he might as well copy Xing Kai after rolling his die.

Lu Yin stepped a foot into the pond and quickly reached the bottom. There was no one on Sword Mountain who was capable of observing Lu Yin.

He lifted a hand and brought out his die. It slowly spun in the air as Lu Yin thought for a bit. Finally, he set his cosmic ring aside.

He could not risk rolling Possession at this time. Even though he desperately wanted to do so and get more information about what had happened over the last twenty years, Lu Yin simply did not have enough star essence to do so. His funds had not changed since twenty years ago.

The true universe had been emptied, and the value of the star essence had risen multiple times over. If Lu Yin wanted to get more, the only possibility was to do so in the Perennial World. Until then, he would have to be very stingy with his star essence.

He watched as the die slowly came to a stop on five pips.

Gift Copy was useless, so he tapped the die again and watched as it slowly came to a stop on four pips: Timestop.

Lu Yin grabbed his cosmic ring and entered the Timestop Space.

After entering the isolated space, Lu Yin felt much more at ease, and he immediately started training with his battle force. He started with one lined battle force, and he decided that he would only move on to two lined battle force after becoming confident that he could maintain one lined battle force for a long time.

Even if this method proved useless, it would at least not harm him.

After two days passed, two people emerged from the void and stepped onto Sword Mountain. Their overwhelming auras caused the mountain itself to quiver, and everyone looked up in admiration. The members of Team Resolution had arrived.

Hen Xin had been the gatemaster of the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate during the Heavens Sect era, and during that period, there had been two requirements for someone to join Team Resolution.

As the name indicated, resolution was the very foundation of Team Resolution.

Hen Xin had risen up from being an ordinary person to the gatemaster of the Three Fatalities Heavenly Gate. His resolution was something that ordinary people could not even imagine. When he had been an Enlighter, he had managed to open his three meridian points, and the difficulty in doing so was something that could only be imagined for someone with no background or support.

If it was said that regular cultivators would need to endure five points of suffering, then Hen Xin had endured eight points of suffering. To join Team Resolution, people had to endure at least six points of suffering to qualify.

Every single member of the team was extremely loyal to Hen Xin, and none of them were afraid of death.

On top of that, each member had a combat strength that could suppress an opponent with a power level of over a million.

When the two members of Team Resolution arrived, Lu Yin emerged from the pond. He took a deep breath and then approached the two people. Only two days had passed for the outside world, but Lu Yin had experienced nearly two years.

Initially, Lu Yin had simply wanted to continue until he stabilized his six lined battle force and could maintain it for an extended amount of time. However, as he progressed, he found himself unable to stop. He shrouded his entire body with battle force and maintained it for a long time. In doing so, he found that his battle force condensed more and more, and the color also darkened. Sure enough, this method of training battle force was highly effective.

Also, this was not merely a method for cultivating battle force.

After covering his body with battle force for half a month, Lu Yin discovered that his battle force had become visible to the naked eye. It looked like a tattoo that had slowly spread across his body, seeped down into his body as well, and etched itself into his deepest parts.

This process took half a month. Once the battle force could no longer be seen at all, Lu Yin discovered that his one lined battle force had gained the strength to match an Explorer.

His battle force had not vanished, but had instead been branded inside his body in the same manner that it had previously appeared around his body.

Lu Yin had discovered an entirely new world for battle force, and he became very interested in this training method. The human body was not as simple as he had previously believed, and he realized that in addition to simply raising his physical strength, this method of branding his internal body with battle force was also possible.

In the same manner as star energy, it was possible to force battle force to penetrate the inner depths of one’s body.

Why had there never been any mention of this method in the Fifth Mainland? Was this because the passing down of battle force cultivation methods had been broken?

Regardless, Lu Yin had immersed himself in this new cultivation method, as he found it highly intriguing.