"It's good to be young!"
Feeling his withered, aged body brimming once more with vigorous life, Lu Qingshan's whole state of mind seemed to be infused with vitality as well.
For a Domain Master with a lifespan of a hundred epochs, a man not yet a hundred thousand years old could truly only be counted a child.
He did not hurry to end his seclusion. Instead he calmed his mind and carefully savored the transformations brought by his breakthrough.
With his Foundation repaired, the surging power in his body and his clearer comprehension of the laws left him intoxicated.
Half a month later, in the seclusion cave.
A blade of light wreathed in blinding purple lightning tore through the air and slashed ferociously into the metal wall before him.
Boom!!
In the deafening crash, the wall forged of D5-grade metal let out a shrieking groan. That utterly overbearing strike had actually left on its surface a shocking, deep crack that seemed impossible to close.
"Thunderclap Nine Blades, a World Master's supreme art... the power of the seventh blade has improved this much!"
Keen light flickered in Lu Qingshan's eyes.
D5-grade metal was incomparably sturdy, enough to withstand the full-power strike of a Domain Master Fifth Stage expert without the slightest damage.
He had just now used only the seventh stance of the Thunderclap Nine Blades, and it had left a deep pit in it. That meant that in attack power alone, he was already a match for experts above Domain Master Fifth Stage. Compared to before, when he could only fight Domain Master First and Second Stage experts without being defeated, his strength had risen more than tenfold.
But that was not the crucial point.
Lu Qingshan's gaze was fixed on the depths of the crack.
The attack had long since ended, yet inside that crack a destructive force was still ceaselessly eroding and ravaging; even the special metal, with its self-healing properties, could not repair it in the least.
Within the crack, a wisp of faint yet incomparably condensed purple light, radiating an aura of eternal indestructibility, glimmered quietly.
"The power of law!" Waves surged in Lu Qingshan's heart.
With his Foundation repaired and his long accumulation finally released, he had actually touched and grasped a trace of the Lightning Law in one stroke.
That was standard fare for the top Star Level disciples of the great holy lands and secret realms in the Cosmic Genius War — and Lu Qingshan, a Domain Master expert who had lived ninety thousand years, had only just touched the threshold of law.
Lu Qingshan himself was a genius too, a Galaxy Level genius. But the gap between geniuses is greater than the gap between men and dogs.
Heh.
Lu Qingshan smiled faintly.
After he obtained the cheat, the gap between him and the top geniuses had been wiped away; genius was merely the entry requirement to meet him.
He sensed the changes the law had brought.
To comprehend a law was already to step onto an entirely new level; law is the mark of a World Master expert. A World Master acknowledged by the origin law is the elite of the elite. To grasp law at the Domain Master stage is like comprehending a domain at Cosmic Level — a passport to higher realms.
Of course, breaking through to World Master required many things; the degree of one's law mastery was only one of them.
Just as in his own case back then: even with both his domains at the ninth level, he had still been stuck at Cosmic Level, unable to advance a single step.
Better to quickly digest the remaining Life Fruit energy in his body and keep raising his strength. The nine remaining Life Fruits, too, had to be dealt with soon.
He planned to keep only one for later use — to give to a disciple in the future, or to turn into cash at an auction house — and to use all the other eight. With his current Domain Master strength, keeping a single Life Fruit would not draw excessive covetousness.
As for how to use them, Lu Qingshan already had a plan.
Lu Qingshan rose and walked deeper into the Cultivation Cavern.
After a long corridor, he stopped at an open platform ten kilometers down. Before him rose mountain-like piles of metal ores of every kind, and in the middle of the ore a strange plant over ten meters long was slowly swaying its branches and leaves.
Along the edges of its dark brown, slender leaves were densely packed sawtooth-like sharp notches. Sensing Lu Qingshan's approach, the plant immediately swung its vines in delight.
This was a Star Level Fifth Stage Star-Eating Grass with a damaged origin, which Lu Qingshan had obtained years ago on a desolate, remote mineral planet. Back then the Star-Eating Grass had devoured nearly all the ore on that planet and yet could not break through to Star Level, and had nearly died there, trapped in that barren place. Lu Qingshan had found it and saved it.
He had originally meant to cultivate it himself, but discovered that the resources its growth demanded were too terrifying. He had drained most of his wealth just to barely raise it to Star Level Fifth Stage, and afterwards was utterly unable to keep feeding it.
A Star Level Fifth Stage Star-Eating Grass was of almost no help to Lu Qingshan at the time, and to raise it to Cosmic Level would require resources that even selling the entire Maple Leaf Empire might not cover.
What was more, the thing was far too precious; Lu Qingshan simply did not dare bring it out to fight.
And so this malnourished Star-Eating Grass became the awkward guardian of his seclusion cave — a chicken rib, worthless in battle yet too precious to throw away.
Though only Star Level Fifth Stage, with a mere nine vines, this Star-Eating Grass could devour any intruder below Cosmic Level. If someone broke in while Lu Qingshan was away, they would end up as its rations.
The ore piled around it was of low grade, almost all A-grade and B-grade. Such ore could not let the Star-Eating Grass evolve and grow; it could only sustain its basic vitality so that it did not wither.
"These years, I've done you wrong," Lu Qingshan said with a self-mocking smile. When he had taken it away back then, he had meant to raise it well; who would have guessed it would come to this.
"Luckily, the hard days are over." Ignoring the Star-Eating Grass's affectionate vines twining around him, Lu Qingshan turned his hand over and drew a Life Fruit from his interspatial ring.
The moment the fruit, brimming with immense life essence, appeared, the somewhat scrawny trunk of the Star-Eating Grass began to sway violently, broadcasting its extreme longing. By instinct it sensed that this treasure was terribly important to it.
Several vines cautiously reached out, like a puppy crawling forward on its belly, lightly touching the ground at Lu Qingshan's feet, then creeping upward a little at a time, its bearing humble and yearning.
"All right, don't put on that pitiful act. It was for you in the first place." Lu Qingshan tossed it over casually.
The nine main vines of the Star-Eating Grass instantly spread open like giant pythons, forming an abyssal maw that swallowed the Life Fruit precisely.
Boom!
Immense life energy erupted inside it with a roar, and the Star-Eating Grass's originally withered branches began to swell and shoot upward madly, their substance growing tougher and more solid.
Vines began to split and grow from the trunk — from nine to eighteen, to thirty-six... finally settling at exactly seventy-two. The energy contained in each vine climbed steadily as well, breaking through bottleneck after bottleneck from Star Level Fifth Stage all the way to Cosmic Level First Stage.
"Cosmic Level First Stage, a seventy-two-vine Star-Eating Grass!" Lu Qingshan's eyes burned. "Even I, at Cosmic Level Ninth Stage as I once was, might not be certain of beating it."
With the Life Fruit's aid, the Star-Eating Grass had completed a leap in the level of its life, its strength soaring in a single step.
Two Life Fruits: one repaired his Foundation. One saved the Star-Eating Grass!
"Cosmic Level First Stage... still a little short."
If he had not yet broken through to Domain Master, a Cosmic Level First Stage Star-Eating Grass could already have been a help to him. But now his strength rivaled Domain Master Fifth Stage, and the grass's help to him was limited.
That, however, was easy to solve — what he lacked least right now was Life Fruits.
Lu Qingshan was not stingy. He took out another Life Fruit. "Don't be impatient. Wait until you've fully digested this one before using the second."
He handed the second fruit to the still-transforming Star-Eating Grass.
With the Star-Eating Grass settled, Lu Qingshan returned to his meditation chamber. The grass's next evolution would need time to settle, and he too needed to calmly comprehend the Lightning Law he had just grasped.
Time flowed on, and in a blink three years had passed.
Chapter 6