Chapter 2361: Verification

Lu Yin let out a sigh. He had just rolled the die for the fourth time, but none of his rolls had landed on six pips. One of them had been Enhance, but at this point in time, the only things that Lu Yin had any interest in upgrading were things like the slipper, but how could he Enhance that on the rear battlefield? Doing so would probably trigger some kind of phenomenon that would attract extra attention from Bai Wangyuan and the others with him.

Lu Yin needed to wait for another ten days.

War was something that most cultivators rarely encountered, but that was far from the case on the rear battlefield. Fighting took place at almost every moment on the entire battlefield, and there was a possibility of getting swept up into a battle at any moment.

Not one of the five array bases was ever ignored, and there were seemingly endless waves of corpse kings attacking each one.

In the days since the Fifth Mainland had taken over the fourth array base, they had earned the attention of the entire rear battlefield, mostly due to the fact that they employed unique combat methods and the fact that even their Explorers were able to move through the void and release attacks that should have come from Enlighters.

Very few people had died on the fourth array base during these days, including the astral beasts. There were simply too many Void Wanderers present, and each of the fourth array base’s defenders had one assigned to them. As soon as anyone encountered any real danger, a Void Wanderer would pull them through the void to escape, which meant that the corpse kings’ killing blows accomplished nothing.

The fourth array base had the greatest number of defenders of any of the five array bases, and the average cultivation level of the defenders was also the highest. There were times when the fourth array bases actually succeeded in forcing back the endless waves of corpse kings.

The reason why people of the Perennial World feared the rear battlefield so much was precisely because of the endless fighting. It was extremely rare for any array base to force the corpse kings to retreat. Furthermore, the fourth array base had not had even a single one of their sourcebox arrays activate, which was also highly unusual.

The Perennial World did not deploy any Lockbreakers to assist the fourth array base’s defenders, but there was also no need for the Lockbreakers to offer any support.

The fourth array base’s amazing performance caused many people throughout the Perennial World to discuss whether the Fifth Mainland should be given another array base to defend, though this was not something that any of them could decide.

While it appeared that giving the Fifth Mainland another array base to defend would be a good thing for the Perennial World, Bai Wangyuan and the other Progenitors of the four ruling powers saw things differently.

If the Fifth Mainland protected two array bases on the rear battlefield, that would mean that the Perennial World could not touch the Fifth Mainland, as doing so would instantly affect the situation on the rear battlefield. None of the Progenitors of the four ruling powers wanted to let Lu Yin lead them around by the nose.

Ten more days passed in a blink of an eye. There were only twenty eight days remaining before Mu Shang's birthday celebration. On this day, Lu Yin received word that all of the Perennial World’s Array Grandmasters would be attending the celebration and observing the challenge between Lu Yin and Mu Shang. The celebration was to be held just outside the Higher Realm, between the Higher Realm and the rear battlefield. One step out of the location would see a person either step into the Higher Realm or enter the rear battlefield.

Mu Shang chose this particular location to send a message to Lu Yin. It was possible to leave at any time, but leaving meant acknowledging a loss.

Nothing had been wagered on this challenge, but both men were fully aware that they could not afford to lose.

Lu Yin sat in the fourth array base’s headquarters and tapped his die. It slowed to a stop, finally showing six pips. Lu Yin’s eyes lit up as his consciousness entered the mysterious dark space. He looked around but was rather disappointed to see nothing but dim balls of light.

His greatest desire was to Possess an Array Grandmaster, but there were only four such people in the entire Perennial World, and every last one of them would be represented by an orb far brighter than what Lu Yin could currently see.

He was not quite willing to accept such an outcome, so Lu Yin directed his consciousness through the dark space, searching for a brighter light.

He could not finely control his consciousness within the dark space, so he had no idea if he was moving despite how basic the concept was. Unfortunately, he still could not find any bright orbs of light.

Given the fact that Lu Yin could fight against Semi-Progenitors, a truly bright light would mean a Semi-Progenitor, or at the very least, a five or six-tribulation Envoy. Given how strong the people that were suitable for Lu Yin to Possess were, how many qualified targets were there in both the Perennial World and the Fifth Mainland?

Lu Yin knew that the location of an orb of light in the dark space had practically nothing to do with the person’s actual location.

Luckily, he currently possessed a vast amount of star essence, and he could use them however he wished.

His consciousness shifted through the dark space once again, only to still find no bright lights. Again.

Lu Yin was absolutely certain that every time he shifted his location, he was also consuming a terrifying amount of star essence. However, if he was not able to Possess a suitable target, then it would be a complete waste of Possession. He had no idea when he would get this die roll again.

After shifting through the darkness five times, Lu Yin finally found a bright light. It was extremely bright, even more so than the orbs representing Grandmaster Qiu Ling or Hen Ye. This light should belong to a Semi-Progenitor.

Lu Yin hesitated for a moment and then chose to merge into the brilliant orb.

The moment Lu Yin’s consciousness entered the ball of light, his mind was overcome by a combination of numbness and pain. He forced his eyes to snap open, but all he saw was pitch black darkness. Where was this?

Memories then started to pour into his mind, and Lu Yin’s expression changed drastically. He was deep, deep underground in the New World. He had not Possessed a human, but rather Marquis Lan, one of the Twelve Marquises of Aeternus.

Possessing one of the Twelve Marquises of Aeternus was completely outside of Lu Yin’s expectations. While Lu Yin was able to fight against a Semi-Progenitor, that was only possible due to various contributing factors. To begin with, if Lu Yin did not have the unique power that he cultivated within his chest, he would be completely and utterly helpless against a Semi-Progenitor’s inner world. Finally, the Aeternals’ Twelve Marquises were all powerhouses with similar levels of strength as the Heavens Sect’s gatemasters of the Twelve Heavenly Gates. Lu Yin would not be able to maintain the Possession for very long.

Just as he had suspected, that bright ball of light really did indicate a Semi-Progenitor.

Lu Yin did not move a muscle, and he instead simply allowed more and more of the memories to pour in. As they did, Lu Yin's expression changed.

Marquis Lan had not left the place that he was currently occupying for nearly a decade. He had spent all of this time healing and recovering deep underground. However, Lu Yin had already learned of where the endless numbers of corpse kings came from: parallel universes.

It was possible to travel to parallel universes, but it was difficult to return. However, the Aeternals had overcome that difficulty by finding coordinates that pinpointed the different universes.

This principle was the same as the foundational seal of Aeternus Nation that Lu Yin had been given. Through Marquis Lan's memories, Lu Yin learned that the foundational seal had come from Aeternus’s True God, and Lu Yin also learned of the symbol for True God: a scarlet eye with a slitted pupil.

Upon learning of that symbol, Lu Yin also discovered the absolute reverence that Marquis Lan held for True God. The marquis was not alone, as even the Progenitor-level corpse kings felt nothing other than complete and total respect for True God.

It was just reverence, as there was also a great deal of fear. From Marquis Lan's memories, there was no frightening or intimidating aura that could be felt from the slitted scarlet eye, but it provoked an endless, powerful fear that Lu Yin could feel it even during his Possession.

In an instant, Lu Yin’s consciousness disappeared. It flitted through the dark space and returned to his own body.

Lu Yin had not spent long Possessing Marquis Lan. It could actually be considered a very short Possession. After all, Lu Yin had just Possessed one of the Twelve Marquises of Aeternus.

There had not been much useful information in Marquis Lan's memories. Aside from learning about the symbol for the Aeternals’ True God, Lu Yin had also seen a memory regarding the person who had injured the marquis. It had been a middle-aged man who wore a thunderbolt emblem. Marquis Lan had not been able to see the man clearly, but just a casual attack from the lightning had left the marquis terribly injured and had forced him to retreat and heal.

That mysterious man had been encountered in a parallel universe, not the Perennial World.

Lu Yin took a deep breath. The Aeternals were able to create endless numbers of corpse kings by utilizing the countless parallel universes. This was the secret to their numbers. As long as humans could acquire the coordinates of a parallel universe, would they be able to invite people from that place to help them with their war against the Aeternals?

Lu Yin had truthfully already suspected that the Aeternals were using parallel universes to bolster their numbers. There were many cultivators who supposedly came from a parallel universe, such as Big Sis Luo Sha. The truth of those people’s origins had never been confirmed, but Lu Yin had just done so.

Without too much thought, he checked his cosmic ring. He knew that this Possession had to have consumed a vast amount of resources, as moving through the mysterious dark space multiple times was already expensive in and of itself. Even so, the truth was a bit shocking, as he had just used up nearly 250 billion star essence. That was about 100 billion more than what it had cost to Possess Hen Ye.

Lu Yin had used up 146 billion star essence when Possessing Hen Ye, and at that time, Lu Yin had been in the Perennial World and Hen Ye had been in the Fifth Mainland. It had made sense for such a long-range Possession to be extremely costly, but Marquis Lan was down in the New World while Lu Yin was on the fourth array base. This was not very far. Was the cost entirely because the marquis was a Semi-Progenitor?

The increase in cost between Possessing an Envoy and Possessing a Semi-Progenitor was too steep. No, Lu Yin felt that a great deal of the cost had been spent shifting through the dark space. Each of those five moves had likely cost a staggering amount.

Lu Yin sighed. The greater his cultivation level, the more he needed to spend. As he had always feared, no matter how much money he acquired, it was impossible to compensate for what his die consumed.

He forced himself to stop thinking about it. If he ran out of money, then he would just have to earn more. It was not that Lu Yin had some deep love for money, but rather that money provided him with the means to improve his strength.

He tapped out again, and the die slowly stopped spinning, showing four pips. The scenery changed before his eyes as Lu Yin appeared in the Timestop Space.

Once he was in the Timestop Space, Lu Yin would have as long as he needed to get the roll he wanted with his die. At worst, it would take a bit of time.

He looked at his cosmic ring and started thinking.

He had initially had an opportunity to Enhance the slipper when he had been on the Junior Progenitor Planets, but he had decided not to. To begin with, the slipper would require an obscene amount of star essence to upgrade even once. On top of that, even if Lu Yin could Enhance the slipper to the point where it could instantly kill a Progenitor, he still had no way to approach a Progenitor. No matter how it was improved by, the slipper would always be a melee weapon.

However, things had changed since. To begin with, he could summon E Chi as a champion, command the jiao, and even use Progenitor-level runes. As long as Lu Yin was in the Fifth Mainland, he could also access the power that Progenitor Chen had left behind. It was no longer impossible for him to make proper use of the slipper.

Xia Shenji and the others were already wary of the slipper, but that was not necessarily true for the Aeternals. If Lu Yin further Enhanced it, they might not be able to guard against it any longer.

It was decided; it was time to Enhance the slipper. Lu Yin would keep it as a surprise weapon that he could use to defeat a Progenitor, like the God of Death’s broken scythe.

Once he rolled three pips, Lu Yin took a deep breath as he looked at the two screens of light before him. This was going to be when he really started spending his money.

Back when he had Enhanced the needle-like weapon, it had cost him about 460 billion star essence. As for the slipper…

Lu Yin took another deep breath. He was preparing himself to return to poverty.

The slipper was set on the upper light screen, and then an endless amount of star essence started pouring out.

Lu Yin had no idea how much time he spent providing an endless amount of star essence. He became numb to both the passage of time and to how much star essence he had remaining in his cosmic rings.

It had been impossible to store all of the star essence gathered from the Astral Beast Domain in a single cosmic ring, so Lu Yin had rounded up all of the largest capacity cosmic rings in the Fifth Mainland. It had taken three of those rings to store all of the star essence. Two rings were already completely empty, and the third was being rapidly depleted.

Lu Yin did not want to even start calculating how much he had spent on Enhancing the slipper. He simply watched as it slowly fell through the two screens.

Finally, it fell out and landed beneath the lower screen.

Lu Yin stared at the slipper for a moment. He swallowed, as nothing had changed. Wait, the black mark from the foot on the inside of the slipper had become even darker.

His expression fell. This should be impossible. If nothing had changed about the slipper even after spending so much star essence, the loss would kill him.

He picked the slipper up. He really wanted to find someone to smack to test the slipper out, but there was no one. Wait, there was the jiao.

Lu Yin’s time in the Timestop Space eventually ran out, and he stepped out of the fourth array base’s headquarters with the slipper in his hand. He looked up at the jiao.

At this precise moment, the jiao had a clawed toe lodged deep into a nostril, and Lu Yin did not even want to know what it was trying to dig out. There was nothing about the beast’s behavior that even hinted at its Progenitor-level power, but everyone who spent any time around the jiao had grown numb to its antics.