Chapter 3332: Verdant King

Verdant Sages took on a variety of forms, as they spawned in whatever form was best suited for the universe that they appeared in. Given the interactions of the previous eight kinds of insects, it seemed that the Verdant Sage’s most suitable form was... a human?

As the glow faded, a figure appeared. They were unclothed, had long, flowing gray hair, were male, and was strikingly handsome. He possessed a powerful aura that caused the nearby void to quiver. Every step he took felt like it would shatter stars.

The overwhelming energy left Yan Gang too afraid to approach. Even Forgotten Ruins God and the others were pressured by the oppressive aura.

Blackless God raised an eyebrow. This man was clearly a peak powerhouse, which was certainly not weak, but he still was not anything that could threaten Blackless God. In that case, just where was the suffocating pressure coming from?

Woof, woof!

Skydog barked, clearly wary.

Forgotten Ruins God studied the man.

A Verdant Sage? What a fascinating species!

Suddenly, the man opened his eyes, exposing slitted, scarlet eyes and startling Blackless God and the others. "A corpse king?"

No one had expected the Verdant Sage to take on the form of a corpse king.

Even True God was caught off guard, and he moved closer to the man.

The man also stepped towards True God.

When the two men were separated by just one meter, the golden glow of the Six Paths of Reincarnation Realm divided them. They just stared at each other.

Yan Gang felt bewildered. How could his Verdant Sage be a corpse king? It was supposed to be an insect. The fact that it had a human form was already unbelievable, but then it turned out to be a corpse king!

True God and the Verdant Sage stared at each other for half an hour. The man showed no reaction, which was exactly the same as True God.

"Did you choose the form of a corpse king because of me?"

When the man answered, his voice was dry, yet clear. His tone was smooth in a way that was oddly pleasant to the ear. "The instincts of the other insects told me that you are the most powerful being that they have encountered in this place. You possess the most suitable cultivation method for this form."

True God was impressed. "Just what kind of being could develop a lifeform like you? Creatures which can freely choose their form, breaking all conventions?"

The man did not answer and instead stated, "I want to cultivate the power that best suits this form."

"That is mine. I can also teach you the Corpse King Transformation."

"Thank you."

True God glanced at Yan Gang, and then back at the man. "Is your mind independent, or are you subject to his orders?"

Yan Gang grew anxious. The truth was that he had never had any control over the Nest. He did not even know how it spawned any insects. Everything had been a lie, and he knew that he had no control over the Verdant Sage.

The man looked at Yan Gang, his eyes gentle. "He is the master."

Yan Gang was astonished.

Master?

He looked at the Verdant Sage in confusion, and the man met Yan Gang’s gaze. "Master, what do you require of me?"

Yan Gang turned to look at True God.

True God stared off into the distance. "They’ll be here soon. Let’s go."

With that, he led everyone away.

“You are a Verdant Sage who has taken on the form of a corpse king. From now on, you will be known as Verdant King. Yan Gang, do you have any objections?”

“No, none at all. You’ll be called Verdant King.”

“Thank you, Master, for granting me a name.”

This day was exactly ten years since Ancient God had died. It had been ten years since the truth about Master Qing Cao was revealed.

For cultivators, ten years was but a moment. Lu Yin had no idea when the Spirit Nidus would arrive and begin their invasion. It could be a day, a year, ten years, or even a hundred years in the future.

While the Spirit Nidus was far away from the Tianyuan Megaverse, if Master Qing Cao intervened, distance would not be an obstacle.

Lu Yin was still waiting for the right opportunity to take everyone into the Mirari Realm. He still had one more chance to enter that place.

Just because the Origin Progenitor and Mister Mu had anchored the Mirari Realm to the Tianyuan Megaverse did not mean that they could visit it frequently. The Mirari Realm was intangible, and the only way to find it was by using special stones that came from within the Mirari Realm itself.

Anchoring the Mirari Realm had simply tied it to the Tianyuan Megaverse. The Mirari Realm existed within the megaverse, but it was also detached from it.

The Origin Progenitor’s greatest regret at the moment was that he had not collected more of the special stones when he had anchored the Mirari Realm.

At that time, the Origin Progenitor had not known that such dramatic events would later unfold, so he had thought that he had gathered a sufficient amount of the stones.

For a time, the only ones who were able to locate the Mirari Realm were the Origin Progenitor, others with those stones, and Wei Nu.

Lu Yin wanted to take people into the Mirari Realm, but he only had one stone remaining, which made it incredibly precious. He needed to wait until all the necessary resources were gathered before proceeding, or else only cultivators would be able to benefit from the trip. Researchers working on subjects like microarray technology and the energy converters would be useless in the Mirari Realm if they did not have any resources, which would waste the trip.

Even if cultivators trained in the Mirari Realm where time stood still, how much would they really be able to improve by? The Mirari Realm’s time synchronized with the rest of the megaverse whenever a living being entered, and no one was able to manipulate that synchronization. When they left the Mirari Realm, it was possible that it would be after the Spirit Nidus’s forces arrived.

The only solution was to find a second stone that allowed entry to the Mirari Realm. That would let them choose when people left the Mirari Realm, ensuring that they emerged before the Spirit Nidus arrived. Without such assurances, entering the Mirari Realm might not be the best idea.

The alternative option was to find Wei Nu, but that would also be quite a challenge. Her understanding of time was far beyond what Lu Yin and the others could grasp. The only reason why she had been found at all was because she had been waiting for Lu Yin.

Besides that, because of the ambush that Destiny had set for Wei Nu, Lu Yin was reluctant to get involved with the woman, out of fear that Wei Nu might detect the ambush.

Compared to the Mirari Realm, he was even more hesitant to use his chance at a restart. He did not know if using the opportunity to go to the Mirari Realm would consume the stone permanently, even if he used the restart later. The matter was especially complicated because the restart would take place in the River of Aeons, or more accurately, within the Mirari Realm.

Lu Yin could not even begin to guess just how many more powerhouses the integrated resources of all of humanity could produce. The greatest variable was when the Spirit Nidus would finally arrive.

“Dao Monarch, Silver requests an audience,” the Second Nightking reported.

Silver was soon escorted to Lu Yin, whom he greeted with a bow. “Dao Monarch.”

Lu Yin looked at the man. “Have you mastered Blood Alchemy? Your strength has improved rather significantly.”

Silver bowed low. “Thank you, Dao Monarch, for finding my people’s Blood Fusion Technique. Over a thousand years have been spent purifying my bloodline, and I’ve gotten very close to the level of the original bone grafters.”

Lu Yin’s eyes brightened. The original bone grafters?

Lu Yin had far greater expectations for bone grafters than he did for the black energy converters or mechas. This race might even possess more potential than the 108-array combination microarrays. Once the bone grafter bloodline was perfected, they would become genuine top-tier powerhouses. If they could then create an Ossis Ark, then it would add at least dozens more elite experts to the megaverse’s forces. It could be the power that reversed the balance of the upcoming war.

However, it would not be easy to perfect the bone grafter bloodline. They were originally True God’s creations, and while True God had been able to create the Ossis Ark, Silver was still far too weak, at least compared to True God. The only possibility was for Lu Yin to Enhance Silver’s blood, improving it until it was virtually identical to True God’s, and then merge it with a wandering corpse. Only then would they be able to use bone grafting to produce peak powerhouses.

There was a chance that there was a bit of fate in the matter. Over the years, the blood of the bone grafters had thinned, and Lu Yin alone was capable of Enhancing Silver’s blood properly. Fortunately, Lan Xian had previously found the Blood Alchemy technique.

When Lu Yin had first learned about Blood Alchemy, he had felt that it was a perfect match for bone grafters. The technique had turned out to be precisely that, as it truly was a technique that had been created by bone grafters, and they had called it their Blood Fusion Technique.

Silver had spent a thousand years in the Five Spirits Alliance’s universes using the Blood Fusion Technique. Not only had his strength transformed, but his blood had also been purified. This offered Lu Yin a glimpse of hope of creating a second Ossis Ark.

At the moment, Lu Yin was the most grateful for the fact that he had not chosen to destroy all of the bones in the first Ossis Ark. Instead, he had taken them away. Without them, he would not have had enough bones to use for bone grafting.

Silver had already extracted a considerable amount of his own blood.

Lu Yin looked at the large bottle of blood in front of him. “You may leave.”

Silver bowed again before slowly leaving.

Lu Yin raised his hand and brought out his die. He tapped it lightly, causing it to spin. It landed on one pip, Pilfer, and something useless fell out. He rolled the die again: Possession. Unfortunately, he had no plans of Possessing anyone for the time being. Again: Gift Copy. Again: Enhance.

Lu Yin’s eyes grew focused as he looked at the two screens of light that had appeared before him. He placed Silver’s blood on the upper screen and started throwing out star essence.

In anticipation of this day, Lu Yin had gathered as much star essence as possible from both the Origin Universe and the Cyclic Universe. Some of the star essence had already been used to upgrade various resources for producing mechas and universal armors. Even then, a significant portion had been set aside specifically to Enhance Silver’s blood, which was why Lu Yin still had so much left over.

There was no denying that both universes had contributed tremendously to this particular effort.

Star essence continued to flow out, and Silver’s blood slowly fell through the screens of light, even if the progress was too slow to see.

Once the blood fell out the bottom, Lu Yin threw out even more star essence and proceeded to repeat the process as soon as it was clear that the blood could be upgraded further.

Silver was still nowhere close to reaching True God’s level of power. Lu Yin could not even guess how many times he would need to Enhance the blood.

Still, he believed that, regardless of how many times it took to improve the blood, there was no way it could cost more than 100 trillion star essence; that had been the rough cost of Enhancing Evernight and Heavenly King.

As a Dukkhan, True God was incredibly powerful, but it would be enough if Silver’s blood could just get close to that level of power. It just needed to be at the Origin realm.

Each time the blood fell out from the bottom of the two screens of light, the cost of the next upgrade rose.

Only when about 80 trillion star essence had been used up was the blood no longer able to be Enhanced. This was the limit of the bone grafters’ blood.

While True God was the originator of the bone grafters, the man himself was not a mere bone grafter. His blood also contained the traits of the corpse kings, and it was far more complex than a simple bone grafter.

Still, with fully Enhanced bone grafter blood, it was likely as pure as the blood that True God had used on the corpse kings on the Ossis Ark.

In Silver’s eyes, the Enhanced blood was a precious treasure. If he used it to replace his own blood, his strength would rise precipitously.

"Your strength will naturally rise with time, but if you dare to mess with this blood, I will show you true despair," Lu Yin coldly threatened.

Silver quickly bowed. "Rest assured, Dao Monarch. I know my priorities."

Lu Yin was unconcerned with Silver’s true thoughts. There was not the time to waste pondering what was going on in Silver’s mind. What Lu Yin wanted was bone grafters and the creation of another Ossis Ark. He wanted a warship equal to the one that had stood against the countless human elites who had defended the Immemorial Citadel over the eons.

Lu Yin took Silver to Burial Garden. There were enough wandering corpses in that place for Silver to experiment on. Simply having the blood and the bodies was not enough to guarantee success. Those were nothing more than the first step, the foundation. True success in bone grafting would require a great deal of time.

Lu Yin ordered Tombkeeper to keep an eye on Silver.

Elsewhere, the captive Verdant Sage had already successfully cultivated the Cloudflow energy. How long had the insect taken? While the Cloudflow was a rather average energy, it had still come from a Progenitor-level cultivator, and it was something capable of altering the universe. The Verdant Sage’s success at cultivating this power was not just the initial stages, but something far more significant.