Ye Chen sat motionless in his chamber, a virtual reality helmet affixed to his head, summoning Kaba to guard his side against any underhanded assaults, while he plunged himself entirely into the digital expanse, dedicated solely to cultivation.

With an abundance of Divine Points, his rate of progress skyrocketed as if riding a rocket. In days past, after each session of contemplation, he would take time to rest and properly assimilate the insights gained, listing out any areas of confusion in his mind. This allowed him to approach the next session as if checking answers on an exam, achieving swift comprehension and saving vast amounts of time.

However, with Divine Points now plentiful, Ye Chen simply continued to meditate after each insight, often completing around ten sessions before pausing for an hour to slowly digest everything.

A flaw in continuous contemplation for ordinary people is that they tend to overlook what they don't immediately grasp, leading to an unstable foundation that hinders overall cultivation later on. Ye Chen, however, chose a method that was immensely wasteful of Divine Points: wherever his understanding faltered, he would stop and scrutinize that very spot until he had seen through it entirely.

As a result, the expenditure of Divine Points multiplied exponentially. If anyone discovered how Ye Chen was deploying his Divine Points, they would surely be so enraged they’d spew blood from their seven orifices and die from self-inflicted fury.

Under this unrestrained consumption of Divine Points, Ye Chen’s state of mind soared. In just two days of contemplation, he broke through the bottleneck of Saint Realm First Tier and advanced to Saint Realm Second Tier, his heart clear as a mirror, still as stagnant water, utterly unruffled.

On the third day, Ye Chen checked the time, withdrew from the virtual world, and summoned a maid. “I ordered something; has it arrived?”

This maid was a beautiful young woman, her features delicate, carrying a hint of timidity. As she approached Ye Chen’s room, her head was bowed so low it seemed about to fall off. She whispered, “Master, I haven't seen it.”

If Ye Chen hadn't possessed astonishing hearing, he never would have caught her voice. Hearing this, he frowned slightly and waved his hand. “You may go.”

The maid seemed to exhale in relief and quickly replied, “Yes, Master.”

After the maid departed, Ye Chen practiced the Blazing Spirit Secret Canon for a while. Not long after, he heard the maid running back outside, knocking lightly on the door, before announcing, “Master, the item you ordered is here.”

Ye Chen’s eyes lit up, and he quickly rose to go outside the villa. Looking up, he saw a magnificent spacecraft hovering in the sky, its entire body a deep violet-cyan. The design was exquisitely intricate, covered in markings resembling gears and mechanical components, instantly betraying its origin from a mechanical civilization.

A middle-aged man floated down from the craft, holding a watch-like scanner in his hand. He stopped before Ye Chen, his expression gentle, and smiled. “You must be Mr. Ye Chen?”

Ye Chen nodded. “That’s me.”

“Allow me to verify your identification details,” the middle-aged man said with a warm smile.

Ye Chen offered no objection, allowing the man to raise the scanner and emit a beam of red light that swept over his entire body. After a moment, the man nodded with satisfaction. “It matches the information recorded in the virtual world perfectly. Please wait a moment; I will retrieve your ordered item.” With that, he moved swiftly, turning back toward the spacecraft.

Ye Chen looked up as the man disappeared into the ship’s cabin. After a short while, he emerged carrying a white metal box resembling aluminum alloy—square, about six centimeters wide and ten centimeters long, covered in esoteric symbols, with a white crystal stone embedded at the central clasp.

The middle-aged man approached Ye Chen, presenting the box with a smile. “This is your item. This casing is forged from S4-grade aluminum alloy; it cannot be forced open. You only need to smear a drop of your blood onto the life-stone at the switch. It will detect your DNA and open automatically for you.”

Ye Chen nodded and took the box. Simultaneously, he flipped his palm, retrieved a small ring from beneath his inner garment, and tossed it to the middle-aged man. “The 6,000 True God Stones are inside.”

The middle-aged man took the ring, glanced at it, and smiled faintly. “A pleasure doing business with you. Welcome back anytime.”

“Mm,” Ye Chen replied with a slight nod.

The man pocketed the ring and returned to his spacecraft, which soon sped away, leaving the airspace above the Hall of Geniuses behind.

Ye Chen did not linger, carrying the box back into the villa. He knew without a doubt that the transaction conducted outside must have been observed by the monitoring center of the Hall of Geniuses. A spacecraft piloted by an outside visitor, even with the backing of corporate reputation as collateral, could not escape surveillance.

Back in his room, Ye Chen locked the door securely, then moved to an open area, setting the white aluminum alloy box down. He examined it closely for a moment, then drew his finger across his thumb, creating a small fissure. A single drop of crimson blood slowly fell onto the white crystal-like life-stone.

Upon contact with the blood, the life-stone pulsed with a faint light, displaying numerous energy characters that absorbed the blood. After a brief period, the light on the stone gradually faded, and centered upon it, electric arcs flickered along the structural lines of the entire white box. With the subtle clicking of small locks, the box opened on its own.

A delicate, subtle fragrance drifted out, instantly refreshing and soothing to the heart.

A soft golden glimmer emanated from within the box, gently illuminating Ye Chen’s face. Inside lay a small, golden blade of grass, barely two centimeters long. Along the veins of its leaves, a faint dragon motif was subtly outlined, resembling a five-clawed Golden Dragon affixed to the tiny stalk.

Ye Chen felt a wave of intoxication from the grass’s fragrance, but he quickly suppressed it. With a sweeping motion of his hand, he condensed the power of Devouring in his palm, sucked the tiny grass out of the box, and swallowed it whole without even chewing.

Ordinarily, given the precious nature of Dragon Bone Grass, its consumption required numerous preparatory procedures, often needing to be combined with other medicinal ingredients to fully unleash its medicinal power.

However, for Ye Chen, who wielded the power of Devouring, such complex rituals were unnecessary. Direct ingestion allowed him to absorb every last bit of its medicinal essence.

As soon as the Dragon Bone Grass entered his stomach, Ye Chen’s Devouring power coiled around it, forming numerous whirlpools that forcibly tore the grass apart. Without damaging the intrinsic nutritional matter, the absorbed medicinal power was directly channeled into his skin and bones.

The medicinal energy of the Dragon Bone Grass was like countless specks of shining golden sand, beautiful and vibrant. As it integrated into his skin, it immediately began altering the cells and nuclei within his flesh, causing his entire body to undergo rapid metamorphosis.

Ye Chen felt a wave of intense heat, as if a massive furnace was burning throughout his body. Black sweat, foul-smelling and rank, seeped from his pores.

There was a sensation of distension in his abdomen, as if a balloon were being continuously inflated, before this pressure leaked out through minute fissures, flowing into his surrounding meridians and bones.

Ye Chen closed his eyes, immersing himself in the sensation of his physical transformation, feeling as if he were floating on clouds—an indescribable comfort.

After a long, long while, Ye Chen finally felt the bodily changes subside. He opened his eyes and immediately perceived the difference. Although his physical constitution hadn't technically improved, the world before him seemed brighter, and he was flooded with vitality, an inexhaustible stream of power welling up within him.

This was the effect of potent Qi and Blood.

People with weak Qi and Blood, such as the elderly, tire easily and recover slowly, whereas those with vigorous Qi and Blood are vibrant and full of life, requiring only a short period of sleep to fully shake off fatigue.

Ye Chen stood up, clenched his fists, and felt an unending reservoir of strength, his muscles brimming with astonishing vitality. He stood lost in thought for a moment, then his expression turned ecstatic. He quickly donned the virtual helmet and entered the Battle God Tower!

“Please select a tower level!” a system prompt sounded.

Ye Chen’s eyes shone with eagerness. “Level 21!”

Swish!

Ye Chen’s figure vanished instantly, reappearing moments later in a pitch-black space where one could not see one’s own hand—a darkness akin to the most primal void.

“Select your opponent,” a system voice echoed in Ye Chen’s mind.

Ye Chen pondered for a moment, choosing the Starlight Civilization, the final entry in the 3000 Civilizations database, male gender, with the battle taking place on the Sun. Once the selection was complete, his vision blurred, and the scenery instantly shifted to the surface of the Sun.

The scorching heat washed over him like waves of fire. At a climate reaching 5,800 degrees Celsius, Ye Chen felt only a slight warmth. He stood on the scorched earth, quickly adapting to the environment, then looked forward, where a ripple of light, like shimmering water, began to spread, and from within it emerged a magnificent figure.

It was a young man whose appearance and aura resembled that of a mental civilization, distinguished by a purple star point on his forehead, holding a crystal orb like an ancient mage.

Ye Chen narrowed his eyes, clenching his fists, feeling the boiling Qi and Blood within him surge and grow savage as the system’s countdown echoed in his ears.

“Final countdown: 3, 2, 1…”

“Begin!” the system voice declared decisively.

Boom!

Instantly, every strand of Ye Chen’s hair transformed from the roots to a demonic blood-red. His skin pulsed with a savage aura, wrapped in surging murderous intent, as if he were an Asura risen from a sea of blood. His hair whipped wildly in the wind, and his eyes burned with an eerie crimson hue.

As soon as the Blood God Mode activated, Ye Chen sensed the change; his body was filled with a ferocious power, like a balloon about to burst, every inch of his skin containing terrible might.

“Lifespan reached 1.2 million years! In Blood God Mode, strength multiplies by twelve thousand times!” Ye Chen stared at his opponent with feverish, bloodthirsty excitement.

“Nine Palaces Secret Manual!”

He summoned a hand gesture. The scorched earth beneath him trembled faintly and cracked open, from which a colossal palace erupted, soaring upward to pierce the sky, carrying his body along with it.

“Explode!”

Five Nine Palaces Guardians burst forth from the palace structure, and they immediately detonated. The violent shockwaves, before they could dissipate, converged at lightning speed toward Ye Chen’s palm, compressing into a single, blood-red longsword burning with fierce flames!