At that moment, a series of system notifications chimed in Lance’s mind.
In just one minute, every one of his professions had advanced by a sub-realm. Furthermore, another minute of cultivation would push them all to Tier 6 High Grade. This staggering speed left even Lance reeling in shock.
On second thought, it made sense. His The Primordial Sovereign Physique was a Cosmic Grade talent—effectively a terrifying Rank 13 ability.
With such peerless talent, if practicing mere Tier 6 techniques didn't yield such explosive results, then the "Rank 13" label would be a joke.
Sure enough, after another minute passed, all of Lance’s professions reached Tier 6 High Grade.
"Ding! Congratulations, Host. Your ten sub-professions have reached Tier 6 High Grade (Legendary, 800 million/1 billion). Unlocking attribute: Master of All Crafts (Profession Count: 10)."
The notification echoed in his mind. Lance nodded slightly before pulling up his Status Panel.
Status Panel
Name: Lance
Reconstruction Quota: 0/6
Martial Arts Realm: Great Grandmaster (Rank 10)
Soul Realm: Great Grandmaster (Rank 9)
CON: 6 Billion (1 point = 30,000kg strength)
Soul: 4 Billion
Master of All Crafts: Ten Types (Tier 6 High Grade, 800 million/1 billion, Legendary)
Technique: Weapon Grandmaster (Triple Intent, 1900%, 0/500,000)
Talents:
Undying God-Body (Immortal Class, Combat Power 1000%)
The Primordial Sovereign Physique (Universal Grade, 100-Billion-fold boost)
Divine Holy Light (Universal Grade)
Destruction Power (Immortal Class)
Cultivation Methods:
Eternal Soul Protocol (Immortal Grade, Tier 6 Shattered, 128x)
Heavenly Demon Blood Escape (Rank 10)
Frenzied Absorption (Rank 13 High Grade)
The Berserk God Body (Rank 10 Mid Grade, 16x)
The Celestial Canon (3/10, Rank 13 Mid Grade, Proficient)
Martial Skills:
Great Destruction Spear Art (Rank 11 Peak Grade, 2000%)
Holy Light World Extinction (Rank 11 Peak Grade, 2000%)
Nine Heavens Instant Flash (Rank 11 Peak Grade, 2000%)
Great Sun Golden Body (Rank 11 Peak Grade, 2000%)...
Items:
Umbra Armor (Rank 11 Peak Grade)
Umbra Demonic Spear (Rank 11 Peak Grade)
Angelic Wings (Rank 11 Peak Grade)
Beast Pets: None
Normal Combat Power: Stellar Class (Rank 7)
Max Combat Power: Galactic Realm (4th Heaven)
Lance stared at the display, deeply moved.
Say what you will, but The Umbra Sovereign’s hoard was truly staggering. Most Peak-level Domain Lords were considered wealthy if they possessed one or two Rank 11 Peak-grade weapons.
Yet, this man had an entire collection, allowing Lance to cherry-pick the gear that suited him best.
The Umbra Armor, for instance, was a set used by The Umbra Sovereign himself. It wasn't his strongest set—his primary armor was Rank 12 Low Grade, but it had been shattered by The Black Dragon Lord during their final battle.
Had it not been for that armor, The Umbra Sovereign would have died on the spot. He wouldn't have been able to escape, let alone break through to the World Lord realm before finally succumbing to his wounds. It was said he had clung to life for thousands of years, consuming countless herbs, but his fate was sealed.
The Umbra Demonic Spear was another of his former weapons. Because the Sovereign hadn't been particularly skilled with spears, he had kept it sealed away until it eventually became Lance's primary weapon.
As for the final piece—the Angelic Wings—they were extraordinary. As mentioned before, The Umbra Sovereign had slain a powerhouse from The Seraphim and plundered their The Canon of Holy Light.
Beyond that, he had commissioned a powerful Subspace Engineer to refine the victim’s wings into a Rank 11 Peak-grade artifact. The sheer ruthlessness of it left Lance in awe.
Lance had also completely swapped out his martial skills.
The current 20-fold strength multiplier was only because he hadn't mastered them to perfection. Once he did, that 20-fold boost would skyrocket to a terrifying 40-fold, significantly augmenting his combat power.
A two-fold increase might not sound like much to a layman, but at Lance’s current level, it was monumental. Countless geniuses spent years of grueling effort just to increase their power by a fraction, often while intentionally stagnating their realm.
Increasing one's realm usually meant a decrease in "cross-realm" combat efficiency, and regaining that edge required massive amounts of time. Unless there was a specific need, no one suppressed their breakthrough if they could help it.
Back to the point: given Lance’s talent, mastering Rank 11 techniques to perfection wouldn't take that long, but it wouldn't happen in an instant either. He likely wouldn't reach that stage by the end of the day, but he didn't mind.
A day or two meant nothing to a cultivator of his caliber. Previously, he had been obsessed with rapid growth because he needed to survive; at that time, his own strength was his only shield.
Now, things were different. With a Rank 13 starship and Blake guarding him at every moment, safety was no longer his primary concern.
Without the constant threat of death, he didn't need to be quite so reckless. Besides, no matter how hard he trained, he wasn't going to surpass the Rank 13 Blake anytime soon.
"Blake, that powerful cultivation method you mentioned—the one formed by merging The Eight Sacred Canons—is its name The Celestial Canon?"
Lance looked at a specific entry on his Status Panel and addressed the AI beside him.
Following The Grimoire of Darkness, Lance had also mastered The Glacial Canon and The Canon of Holy Light to the Great Success stage.
This meant he had directly awakened Extreme Cold Holy Power and Sacred Light Holy Power.
The latter was familiar; his current Divine Holy Light was a reconstructed version of that very power. Now, he had comprehended it once more.
Lance didn't plan on reconstructing it again. Even a "perfected" version wouldn't offer much benefit; the two instances of Divine Holy Light were identical and would likely just merge into one.
However, because he had mastered two of the techniques to Great Success, a new attribute had appeared on the back end of his panel: The Celestial Canon.
Even though it only incorporated three of the eight techniques so far, there was no doubt—this was a Rank 15 cultivation method.
He had already ascended to the 13th Rank Mid-Grade with only three volumes in his possession. Should he secure and master the remaining five, his ultimate power would rival any Immortal Class cultivation manual in existence. Unfortunately, the exact nature of its full potential remained a mystery to Lance.
"I cannot say, Master," Blake replied, his voice heavy with helplessness. "These are the arts of legend. Even my former master barely understood them. Besides, rumors are often just that—rumors."
Blake's admission wasn't surprising. Back then, he had only been at the 11th Rank. He lacked the standing and the strength to be privy to such profound secrets.
"Forget it. Maybe someone in The Virtual Universe knows," Lance said, dismissing the thought. "Tell me, do you know where The Black Dragon Lord resides?"
"Yes, Master. He rules the Black Dragon Star Realm. Unless there is a dire emergency, he never leaves the Imperial Hub. It’s seven hundred billion light-years from here, but at our current speed, we can reach the realm within an hour."
Blake’s pulse hammered with excitement. He finally had the power to crush his old enemy. A 13th Rank was a terrifying God-King Class powerhouse. Eradicating a mere World Lord Class like the Black Dragon Lord would be as easy as swatting a fly.
However, his life belonged to Lance now. Without an explicit order, he would never move to seek his revenge. But hearing Lance mention the name, he knew the time had finally come.
"Excellent. Then we pay him a visit. It’s time to settle the debts owed to your old master and Sovereign Glacia," Lance’s lips curled into a faint smirk. "While we're at it, we’ll seize whatever manuals he’s hoarding. I wonder if he has more than just The Canon of Gale."
"By your command, Master! We can depart immediately!" Blake said, his voice trembling with anticipation.
"Wait a moment. I need to bring Sovereign Glacia along."
Lance paused, reaching out with his mind to connect with his secret realm. Now that the realm had reached the 13th Rank, he could access it from anywhere. In theory, it was a perfect escape tool, provided he had the split second required to tear open a space-time rift.
The space in front of him twisted and buckled until a jagged rift tore open. Lance stepped through.
Inside the secret realm, Selina was on the verge of a breakdown. They had been soaring through the sky for an eternity, yet the horizon remained as distant as ever. They were hundreds of billions of kilometers up, which meant they should be able to see for light-years.
According to the rules of an 11th Rank secret realm, the entire continent shouldn't have been more than one light-year across.
"That old bastard Blake lied to us," Sovereign Glacia muttered, her expression grim. "This has to be at least ten light-years across. Maybe even a hundred? Are we going to be stuck here forever?"
She was genuinely stunned. She hadn't seen a single sign of the realm's edge, nor the shimmering membrane that usually enclosed such dimensions. Something was wrong. Before she had arrived, the realm had never been this vast. If it had been this large from the start, it would take human geniuses centuries just to fly from the sky down to the surface.
"Wait... could that brat Lance be behind this?" Sovereign Glacia’s eyes sharpened. Only the master of the realm could manipulate space like this. She refused to believe the realm was naturally this enormous.
"I doubt it. Lance doesn't seem like that kind of person," Selina instinctively countered.
"Girl, what do you know? You only see his good side. You have no idea how devious he is! He locked me up! I nearly died!" Glacia vented. The memory of her humiliation—being bested and imprisoned by a fifteen-year-old—was a stain on her reputation that would make her the laughingstock of the universe.
"What? Lance really did that? That’s too much!" Selina gasped, her brow furrowing with a hint of anger. She couldn't believe Lance would treat her mentor so harshly.
"If your mentor hadn't tried to rob me of my manuals, I wouldn't have had to lock her up," a dry voice echoed from the void. "Anyone else would have had their soul refined for such an attempt."
Both women whipped around. Lance stepped out of thin air, looking at them with an unimpressed expression.
"Hey! Be reasonable!" Glacia snapped, her face flushing. "I just wanted to 'borrow' a look. I wasn't stealing!"
Selina’s anger vanished, replaced by embarrassment. She had assumed it was Lance's fault, only to find out her mentor had been the aggressor.
"Lance, I’m so sorry. Please, forgive her," Selina said, bowing her head. She knew that if Lance had the power to imprison Sovereign Glacia, he likely had the power to kill her.
"You aren't the one who tried to rob me, so you don't need to apologize for her," Lance said, his expression softening into a small smile. He marveled at how different the two were; with Selina’s personality, Sovereign Glacia could probably sell her off, and the girl would still feel grateful.
"Are you saying I have to apologize? Never! Not in a million years!" Glacia barked.
"Apologize or don't, I don't really care. You're free to keep flying if you like," Lance said nonchalantly. "Just so you know, the diameter of this place is one trillion light-years. Faster-than-light travel is disabled here. Even if you manage to reach the edge, you'll just end up in the spatial turbulence of the void. At your current strength, you'd be shredded instantly."
He paused, his gaze hardening slightly. "Anyway, I’m heading out to kill The Black Dragon Lord now. If you want to witness it, I think you know what you need to do."
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