Chapter 799: Hope

In another part of the mobile fortress’s underground structures, the Specter Clan expert was feeling very pleased. In one fell swoop, he had taken care of five Enlighters and two experts who were close to becoming Enlighters. In the Outerverse, this was an impressive feat, and the victims even included a member of the Mavis family. This was a huge achievement, and the additional merit of seizing the mobile fortress would mean rich rewards for him. Hopefully, they would allow him to advance another step further, and he would even receive a silver opportunity to improve. 

The die stopped spinning on four pips, and Lu Yin was delighted. The scenery changed before his eyes changed, and he next appeared in the Timestop Space. 

His panic and anxiety immediately faded away when he arrived in this space, as he now had all the time in the world. 

He lined up all of the cosmic rings and then took off his universal armor. “Hopefully, this universal armor can be upgraded to the point where it can defend against an Envoy’s attack.” 

Every item that he upgraded was restricted by the inherent quality of the materials that it was made of, putting an upper limit on how far the item could be upgraded. Although Lu Yin was not certain what the upper limit of his universal armor might be, it should not be too high. Since that was the case, he took out another item: the metal plate that contained trace Ancient Scarlet Copper. Back when he had obtained this piece of metal from a Perceptive Intermediate sourcebox, he had heard that this material was mainly used to manufacture weapons that could unleash attacks with power levels of 500,000. It was supposed to be extremely rare with an extremely invasive nature, but it was exactly what Lu Yin needed at this moment. 

At this moment, he was not afraid of the metal’s invasive nature; rather, the more invasive it was, the better. In fact, it would be best if this Ancient Scarlet Copper could completely replace the universal armor’s previous materials. 

If anyone else was in Lu Yin’s position, they would have had no way to extract and refine the Ancient Scarlet Copper from the piece of scrap metal. However, Lu Yin had a way. He looked back at his die and tapped it again. After a while, the die slowly came to a stop, but it was on one pip: Pilfer. Lu Yin remained calm upon seeing this result, and he quickly used some star essence to extend his time in the Timestop Space to thirty days. After all, right now, all he had was star essence. 

Ten days later, Lu Yin rolled the die again, and things proceeded very smoothly this time. The die stopped on two pips: Blackhole Disassembly, which was exactly what he needed. 

He placed the piece of metal in the blackhole for it to be refined, and the Ancient Scarlet Copper that the Ghost Monkey had once described to Lu Yin quickly appeared, though in very scant quantities. Still, no matter how little there was, it was what Lu Yin needed. He had to improve the quality of his universal armor’s base materials, or else he would not be able to upgrade it to a high enough level. 

The Ancient Scarlet Copper had to be fused with the armor, and it was one of the primary materials used when manufacturing items capable of withstanding power levels of 500,000. However, it was very difficult to heat it up to the point where it could fuse with other materials. At the very least, with Lu Yin’s current strength, it was beyond his abilities. Thus, he took out the sourcebox that contained the ancient tinder. 

Perhaps the heavens had foreordained this moment, as Lu Yin actually had everything that he required on hand.

Right, he also had the other people’s cosmic rings as well. Lu Yin’s eyes lit up, and he quickly opened each of the cosmic rings, though he was especially excited about the one that he had received from the Blaze Engineer. That old fart was an engineer, so he should have quite a few materials in his ring. 

When Lu Yin opened Yuehua Mavis’s cosmic ring, he was rather stunned, as this woman was simply too wealthy. The capacity of the woman’s cosmic ring was several fold greater than Lu Yin’s, and it was all stuffed with star essence, numbering in the several millions! 

Lu Yin was speechless; if this much star essence was released, the universal markets would instantly turn chaotic. 

It was no wonder why she was a part of the Mavis family.

After going through all the cosmic rings, Lu Yin was able to find more than ten different types of materials, though he didn’t recognize any of them. Still, that was fine; he would just fuse all of them into his universal armor. 

The sourcebox containing the ancient tinder was only one step away from being successfully unlocked, but Lu Yin still needed to take two days to completely unlock it. The extremely high temperature smoldered within the Timestop Space, and if he was not in this unique space, the high temperature would have already incinerated him. However, this was his Timestop Space, and he could control everything within this place and easily isolate the scorching heat. 

He tossed the Ancient Scarlet Copper and all of the other materials into the blazing fire. After a short while, all of the materials looked like they were slowly melting. Lu Yin then hurriedly pulled them all out and tossed them towards his universal armor. 

The other materials somewhat retained their shape, and they simply stuck to the surface of the armor, very much looking like a ugly patchwork piece of metal. Only the Ancient Scarlet Copper, even in its extremely limited amount, actually merged into the universal armor, and it did so very quickly. It even tinted the universal armor’s color slightly, giving a hint of green that quickly spread throughout the whole set. 

It was no wonder why this material was known to have an invasive nature; even a little bit was enough to change the universal armor’s internal structure. 

The ancient tinder continued burning, but without any combustible materials, the flame would gradually expire. 

Lu Yin could not bear to let it extinguish so quickly, and he suddenly thought of something. He hurriedly threw a handful of star essence into the fire, and the star essence naturally melted. A scorching burst of vaporized star energy filled the frozen space, and the high temperature gradually returned to the area. His physical body was being burned alive, and the intense agony caused his entire body to sweat. The high temperature of this flame was rather peculiar, and it was not something that he could fully withstand. He could only adapt to it little by little as he gradually approached the fire. However, there was a limit to how much he could adapt, and he was never able to completely adapt to the scorching heat. 

Still, that was enough. Within the overwhelming high temperature, Lu Yin quickly started absorbing the star energy, and his eyes went wide as he delighted that this method was actually still effective. The vaporized star energy released by the star essence burned by the high temperature ancient blaze, combined with the high temperature that was cooking his body, allowed him to absorb the star energy much faster than if he were directly absorbing the star essence. Although it could not compare to his exaggerated cultivation speed when within that furnace, this method was still several times faster than when Lu Yin cultivated normally. 

As he thought about it, Lu Yin quickly activated his Cosmic Art, causing the star energy to form a visible tornado that revolved around him as it was absorbed into his body, where it quickly vanished. 

Lu Yin opened his eyes and released a breath. With the ancient fire burning the star essence and him, his cultivation speed was twenty times that of when he used the Cosmic Art normally, and his cultivation speed when using the Cosmic Art was already a hundred times that of normal cultivator’s. In other words, this method was 2,000 times faster than the rate at which a normal cultivator absorbed star energy, which was an insane number. 

Although it could not compare to the 40,000 times effectiveness that he had achieved within the ancient furnace, this was still absurdly fast. 

Unfortunately, of the star energy released by burning the star essence, roughly half was wasted. This method was ultimately too wasteful, and as Lu Yin looked at the blaze, he noticed that it was already slightly smaller than before. This method also depleted a great deal of the ancient fire’s energy. 

This was a cultivation technique that chased after speed by completely disregarding cost and efficiency. 

He stood up and touched his arm, which was still scorchingly hot. This sort of cultivation technique was not something that ordinary cultivators could withstand. His physical body was abnormally tough, but even so, it had still been difficult for him to withstand the ancient flame’s high temperature. For any normal cultivator, before they could absorb even a scrap of star energy, they would probably have already been burned to a crisp. 

Even though this method had many cons, it was still a shortcut that rapidly increased his strength. Lu Yin involuntarily looked at the other cosmic rings, feeling as if he was about to make a fortune. 

The blaze continued to burn, and as it did so, Lu Yin constantly fed various items into the flame so that it would not burn out too fast.

Ten days quickly passed by, and Lu Yin impatiently tapped out again, causing his die to spin. 

Six pips: Possession was useless in this place, and Lu Yin helplessly had to wait another ten days before he could roll the die again. This time, he rolled three pips: Enhance. This was the roll that he had been waiting for. 

The universal armor had already cooled down by now. It had become much uglier, as the many materials that had been plastered on looked like haphazardly welded patches, and it had also turned slightly green. All in all, the armor had become exceptionally ugly, but Lu Yin had no other choice. He did not know how to properly refine armor, so he could only use this clumsy method. The only thing that mattered was if it proved effective. 

He placed the universal armor on the upper light screen and then generously threw out tens of thousands of star essence. It piled up into a small hill, and the universal armor instantly dropped down. 

It had already been upgraded eleven times in the past, which had raised its defenses to the point where the armor could withstand attacks with power levels of nearly 300,000. Now, the first upgrade during this session cost 15,000 star essence. It was absurdly expensive, but it was worth it. 

He picked up the armor and put it back on the top screen, and it easily dropped through, going through a second round of upgrades. However, the mountain of star essence that he had thrown out had already been nearly depleted. 

Almost 50,000 star essence had been used up just like that, and Lu Yin had already used up everything that Sall Phoenix had had in his cosmic ring. That old fart was just too poor! The Dark Phoenix family was not a power that some random Outerverse Enlighter could compare to, and that family was even comparable to some of the Innerverse’s great powers. But despite their power, one of their Enlighter realm elders only had around 50,000 star essence in his cosmic ring. Even Lu Yin found this rather pitiful. 

He did not think about this any further, as the cosmic rings that he had looted from those few Innerverse Enlighters like Karthika had actually contained even less than Sall Phoenix’s. Compared to them, the old man could actually be considered quite wealthy. 

Next was Mr. Jun’s ring, but as a Perceptive Intermediate Lockbreaker, he only had 2,000 star essence. Embarrassing. 

Lu Yin internally looked down upon the man before quickly taking out Saul’s cosmic ring, which caused his eyes to light up. Not bad—this old man had more than 100,000 star essence on him. As expected of the Outerverse Lockbreaker Society’s Vice President. However, this should just be the man’s backup money, as his true wealth was kept in a Mavis Bank card. What a pity. 

Lian Zhuangzhu’s cosmic ring merely held nearly 30,000 star essence, which left Lu Yin somewhat speechless. After all, she was from the Nalan Family, but was actually this poor. 

Zhu Tiezhu’s cosmic ring contained more than 200,000 star essence. It was of no wonder, as this old man was a Zhu family elder, though this still did not satisfy Lu Yin. Zhu San had offered to pay him 100,000 star essence at one point, and that had been quite a generous offer. 

The Blaze Engineer did not have much money in his ring, as it mostly contained materials, which left Lu Yin quite sour. 

Lu Yin did not touch Cai Jianqiang’s ring, as that fellow probably did not have much money. 

Aside from Yuehua Mavis, he managed to gather a total of about 350,000 star essence from the various cosmic rings. However, as soon as Yuehua Mavis’s ring was added into the pool, the amount rose to a jaw-dropping amount of nearly three million star essence. 

Lu Yin’s eyes were bright as he upgraded the universal armor again and again. He continued using the star essence until they were greatly depleted, and finally, after being upgraded six more times, the universal armor no longer showed any signs of changes, which showed that it would be useless to try upgrading it any further. 

Lu Yin sighed. Had the armor reached its limit? If he hadn’t incorporated the Ancient Scarlet Copper into it, it might have only been able to handle another one or two upgrades at best. Unfortunately, he had had too little Ancient Scarlet Copper, and the other materials were too lacking in comparison. 

Lu Yin was unsure what the universal armor’s defensive abilities had become, but he was sure that it could at least handle an attack with a power level of around 400,000. 

There were still nearly two million star essence remaining, and after Lu Yin thought about it. He took out the Backlash Pearl and began continuously upgrading it. It managed to go through five upgrades before reaching its limit, which depleted around 300,000 star essence. The fully upgraded Backlash Pearl could probably absorb attacks from powerhouses whose power levels were at almost 300,000. 

He began upgrading the bracer as well, but unfortunately, its materials did not allow it to be upgraded more than two more times. However, the bracers should now be able to double his physical strength until it reached the level of an attack with a power level of about 300,000. 

He still had around 1.5 million star essence remaining, and Lu Yin unrestrainedly upgraded a Ultra Flash Tearbomb twenty times, which was its maximum limit, and that used up around 100,000 star essence. 

There were still 1.4 million more star essence left. That, combined with Lu Yin’s personal savings of 120,000 star essence, meant that he had access to a great deal of wealth.

Lu Yin did not plan on upgrading any more of his items. Instead, he planned to use the remaining star essence to cultivate. 

He looked at the timer on the wall and then increased it by another hundred days. The blaze would not burn for much longer, so every little bit that he absorbed was another bit of strength gained. 

As he thought about it, Lu Yin quickly tossed star essence into the fire and then allowed the high temperature to scald his physical body before crazily absorbing the vaporized star energy. 

The days passed one by one, and the fire grew weaker and weaker with each passing day until it completely vanished. This process took place over the course of seventy days, and during this time, Lu Yin absorbed the star energy of almost 3,000 star essence. If he had absorbed this amount in a more traditional fashion, then it would have taken him four years. But in this special environment, he had only used seventy days to do so.

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