"Deacon Zhou," Su Chen greeted familiarly.
He had a decent impression of Zhou Yunyang. Although the man played both sides, he wasn't particularly annoying.
"It's certainly been a while since we last t," Zhou Yunyang sighed with emotion.
"You never co by my place for a visit, Deacon Zhou. I haven't even had the chance to thank you for the million star coins' worth of materials you gave last ti," Su Chen said with a smile.
Zhou Yunyang waved his hand. "It was just a trifling matter, not worth ntioning."
'Usually, I'm the one flattering others. I didn't expect to be on the receiving end for once. This guy really doesn't put on airs,' Zhou Yunyang muttered inwardly. Still, he was in high spirits as he accompanied Su Chen toward the docking port.
"Qin Tianlin just triggered another phenonon at the Ancient King Stele. Aren't you going to go over and exchange a few pleasantries, Deacon Zhou?" Su Chen teased lightly.
Naturally, this kind of banter didn't embarrass Zhou Yunyang. He smoothly replied, "No rush, no rush."
"Besides, Star Seeds are common, and those with Divine Dawn-tier talent aren't unheard of, but a Star Seed who has earned the acknowledgnt of the Ancient King Stele is truly rare."
As soon as he finished speaking, he noticed Su Chen halt his steps, his expression turning serious.
Zhou Yunyang felt a slight jolt of alarm. 'Did I say sothing wrong? I don't think so, right?'
'Divine Dawn-tier is common?' Su Chen's eyes flickered as he suddenly realized he had been approaching this the wrong way. Qin Tianlin was indeed a living Divine Dawn-tier talent.
But considering the sect's long history, there had to be plenty of deceased Divine Dawn-tier talents. It wasn't entirely impossible that so of their blood had been preserved.
"Martial Granduncle, is sothing wrong?" Zhou Yunyang asked cautiously from the side.
Su Chen glanced at him. Although this guy played both sides, he was a seasoned veteran in the sect and undoubtedly knew a lot.
He shook his head. "It's nothing. I just heard that the Divine Dawn-tier talent is incredibly unique—that it's innate from birth and exceptionally difficult to improve through later efforts."
"Indeed." Zhou Yunyang secretly breathed a sigh of relief and couldn't help but say, "Everyone knows that the higher the talent, the better. Various sects have been deeply troubled by this limitation and have conducted extensive research to find a way to break through."
"Research? What kind of research?" Su Chen asked, smoothly following the flow of the conversation.
"Just things like genetics, cloning, and the like. It's all very complicated anyway," Zhou Yunyang replied, not particularly knowledgeable about such matters.
"Divine Dawn-tier talents are so rare. Do they just use them directly for experints?" Su Chen asked, feigning surprise.
"How could that be?" Zhou Yunyang waved his hand. He glanced around before lowering his voice. "They only use corpses and the like."
"Corpses?" A sharp gleam flashed through Su Chen's eyes. "Are the bodies of Divine Dawn-tier talents preserved after they die?"
"Generally speaking, yes, since they hold extraordinary value." Zhou Yunyang nodded. His eyes flickered slightly as he abruptly switched to ntal transmission. "Are you in need of one?"
Su Chen's heart skipped a beat. 'This guy is seriously sharp.'
However, the underground circulation of such corpse materials was likely quite normal. He definitely wasn't the only one with this kind of demand. Even though he was relatively young, it shouldn't be a major issue.
Moreover, since Zhou Yunyang asked, he probably had a reliable channel... Su Chen nodded in response. "That's right, I do need one."
"Makes sense." Zhou Yunyang wasn't surprised. "Once you upgrade your talent to the Star Amber tier using the Profound Heaven Instrunt, you would naturally set your sights on the Divine Dawn tier."
Su Chen remained noncommittal, instead asking, "Do you have the corpse of a Divine Dawn-tier talent on hand?"
"I used to. One of my ancestors possessed Divine Dawn-tier talent, but failed to reach the Morning Star stage and died in depression. The corpse was preserved, but my grandfather ended up selling it," Zhou Yunyang explained.
"He sold it?" Su Chen's mouth twitched. 'What a filial and dutiful grandson.'
However, Zhou Yunyang quickly changed his tune. "Although the main husk was sold, quite a few organs and tissues were left behind."
'They dismantled the whole person?'
Su Chen grew even more astonished, while Zhou Yunyang simply let out a sigh. "My grandfather was addicted to gambling. He sold off more than half of our family's assets. He really had no other choice."
'I can only say your family has a deeply rooted foundation...'
Su Chen mused inwardly, but asked aloud, "Do you have anything like blood?"
"Yes." Zhou Yunyang nodded without hesitation. "I still have a jar of blood."
"A jar?" Su Chen stayed silent for a mont before asking, "How much are you selling it for?"
Zhou Yunyang pondered briefly. "It depends on how much you want to buy. If it's under a hundred milliliters, it will cost ten million star coins per milliliter."
"Ten million star coins for a single milliliter?"
Su Chen's eyelids twitched. 'It's that expensive?'
But after thinking it over carefully, research required constant consumption. Living Divine Dawn-tier talents were wary of curse-type abilities and had no shortage of star coins, so it was impossible for them to recklessly sell their blood.
They could only harvest from the dead, which were already exceedingly rare, so the exorbitant price made sense.
"So ti ago, I went to the Nether Domain and excavated quite a few Nether Domain Motherstones. Can I use them for an exchange?" Su Chen asked.
"Raw Nether Domain Motherstones?" Zhou Yunyang looked thoughtful. "Then let's exchange one motherstone for one milliliter."
This price was actually offered at a discount. The going rate for raw ore hovered around seven to eight million, which Su Chen naturally knew since Ming Lin had been constantly selling them.
He imdiately took out three stones and handed them to Zhou Yunyang. "Then let's exchange for three milliliters."
'He actually has three more stones on hand?'
'I heard this guy has already submitted at least six Nether Domain Motherstones. Is his luck really that good?'
Zhou Yunyang muttered inwardly as he reached out to take them. "Three milliliters. I will deliver them to you as soon as possible."
"However, my family has been declining for generations and we've recently moved out of the nearby satellite city. It's quite a distance away, so it will take a few days."
"Take your ti." Su Chen didn't show any urgency.
Zhou Yunyang watched Su Chen leave. He weighed the motherstones in his hand before swiftly tucking them away and hurrying into a nearby alleyway.
He knew the Copper Core district like the back of his hand. Taking a shortcut, he soon located Qin Tianlin, who had just left the central square not long ago with a gloomy expression on his face.
Zhou Yunyang plastered a wide smile on his face and approached. "Nephew Qin, I heard you triggered the phenonon for the fourth ti! I rushed over to congratulate you as soon as I heard. It seems the Ancient King Stele's acknowledgnt is just around the corner!"
'A new path had finally revealed itself!'
Su Chen felt deeply invigorated. Being able to secure the Divine Dawn-tier blood through such ans completely exceeded his expectations.
He wondered just what kind of result The Flawless One could analyze from it.
Returning to the training room, he summoned the virtual screen, and dense text imdiately surfaced upon it.
[Radiant Thunder Astral Forging Body Art]
[Burning Sound Soul Refining ditation Art]
Following the guidance, pale blue electrical arcs first drilled out from his pores, spreading along the lines of his skin. They wove into an increasingly dense and radiant net, entirely enveloping his body from head to toe.
It condensed into a layer of constantly flowing liquid plasma that tightly covered his form.
At the sa ti, a tiny speck of incandescent white light appeared without warning at his spiritual core. It rapidly expanded, transforming into a milky-white fla that burned with a silent yet ferocious intensity, licking at every corner of his spiritual body.
Having gone out for a brief trip, Su Chen fell right back into his previous routine, waiting for Zhou Yunyang to deliver the Divine Dawn-tier blood.
A few days later, Zhou Yunyang arrived at Su Chen's floating island carrying a tal jar. Just as he stepped out of his aircraft, he heard a rhythmic clanging sound echoing through the air.
Following the noise, he spotted a group of people gathered in an open clearing in the distance. Su Chen was bare-chested, his lean, powerful muscles rippling in sync with the rhythm of his hamr strikes.
Clang! Clink! Crash!
Under the guidance of Song Yang and the other two, each of Su Chen's strikes landed precisely on different sections of the tal. He simultaneously pivoted,
shifted his footing, and changed his angle.
The coordination among the four had reached a flawless level of synergy. Under the continuous barrage of blows, the tal constantly stretched, folded, and stretched again, sending a torrential downpour of sparks flying into the air.
Sizzle!
An ear-piercing hiss of vaporization rang out as billowing white steam perated the area. After the quenching process, the rough forging was complete. Following his instructors' directions, Su Chen imdiately transitioned into the fine forging phase.
His hamring motions beca far more ticulous as he carried out the precise refinents. A continuous string of crisp clinking sounds echoed together. Under the dense strikes, the spine of the sword gradually straightened, and a razor-sharp bevel began to form along the edge of the blade.
As the hour of the Dark Sun approached, Su Chen pushed a whetstone along the blade's bevel. The friction between the tal and the adamantine grit produced a steady scraping sound, and the edge of the sword soon glead with a cold, piercing light.
The fully ford, silver-white tal longsword lay horizontally on the anvil. The blade still bore the faint, intricate patterns left behind by the forging process. Leaning close, one could still feel the lingering residual heat radiating off the steel.
[Snow Dragon Sword—Tier Five: A weapon supported purely by the sheer strength of its materials. It possesses no other remarkable traits.]
"Congratulations, Star Seed, you've forged yet another one," Song Yang praised. "This Snow Dragon Sword boasts extraordinary sharpness. Even among Tier Five weapons, it is incredibly rare to see."
'Rare...' Su Chen was speechless. This was the third Tier Five weapon he had forged. He estimated that in another two weeks or so, he would be able to fulfill the Weapon Master's requirents.
"It's all thanks to your excellent guidance," Su Chen replied smoothly. His gaze then shifted to Zhou Yunyang, who had been standing to the side in silence for quite a while. Seeing that Su Chen had finished forging, Zhou Yunyang hurried over, an apologetic look on his face. "Martial Granduncle, I am truly sorry for the delay. I'm only just delivering this to you today."
"I wasn't in a rush anyway," Su Chen said, waving his hand. He passed the Snow Dragon Sword to a chanical construct standing beside him; he planned to keep the weapon to give away as a gift.
Logically speaking, the Vocational Assistance Departnt was only responsible for helping individuals complete their class requirents. Whatever items were produced in the process—like forged weapons—did not belong to the individual, but rather to the departnt.
However, there was always room to claim wear and tear.
"Then we will take our leave," Song Yang and the other two tactfully excused themselves.
Su Chen put his clothes back on and invited Zhou Yunyang into the reception room. The man imdiately fell back into his routine flattery. "Tsk, tsk, forging weapons by hand... that was truly an eye-opening experience."
"I'm just fulfilling my class requirents. It's nothing but pure torture," Su Chen said dismissively, gesturing for Zhou Yunyang to take a seat.
Zhou Yunyang handed over the tal jar in his hand while offering a word of advice. "Martial Granduncle, I'd urge you not to expend too much energy on this. There are plenty of people and factions researching the Divine Dawn talent, but none of them have managed to produce any concrete results to this day."
'You didn't say that when you were selling it to , but now that the goods are delivered, you're giving advice?'
Su Chen felt a wave of speechlessness. He ran his hand over the surface of the jar and replied casually, "I'm rely acting out of curiosity."
"I thought as much." Zhou Yunyang wasn't surprised. It was just three milliliters; there was no way anyone could derive any major breakthroughs from such a small amount.
Besides, Su Chen clearly wasn't a technical researcher. Perhaps he was just reselling it to soone else, or maybe it was part of so obscure class requirent?
He harbored his own suspicions but didn't pay it much mind. It was rely the dead blood of a Divine Dawn-tier talent—nothing too crazy could be stirred up with it anyway.
Su Chen felt a burning sense of impatience, but he suppressed his emotions. He exchanged a few more pleasantries with Zhou Yunyang and saw him off to his aircraft before finally retreating back to the training room.
Upon twisting open the tal jar, wisps of freezing blue mist wafted out. Accompanied by a low hum, a thumb-sized glass vial rose from the center of the container. Inside sat a dark, brownish-black liquid that looked like solidified asphalt, utterly devoid of any vitality.
"The blood of a dead man... this should work, right?"
Now that the mont had arrived, Su Chen felt a hint of apprehension. He reached out, extracted the vial, and squeezed a drop onto his hand. It was shockingly cold to the touch.
In a split second, the dark brownish-black blood vanished into his skin, and the interface simultaneously refreshed.
[Acquired Divine Dawn-tier Blood. The Flawless One is attempting an analysis. Discovering it to be the blood of a deceased individual, it feels sowhat disgusted, though the sample still retains a degree of utility. Analyzing...]
'As long as it works,' Su Chen thought, his tightly knitted brows relaxing as he breathed a sigh of relief. He waited for about half an hour before the interface refreshed again.
[The Crimson Fla Thunder-Responding Exalted Paragon joins the analysis...]
'It actually dragged the Exalted Paragon into this?' Su Chen muttered inwardly. The Flawless One's standing likely wasn't far off from the Exalted Paragon's—at the very least, they could communicate as equals.
[The Flawless One seems to have discovered sothing. Upon sensing the Host's physiological traits, it has commanded the Anti-Originator to join the analysis queue...]
'The Anti-Originator?'
Su Chen froze, only then rembering that due to the Anti-Originator's presence, his talents had been forcibly linked and equalized; there was no way for him to upgrade a single one in isolation.
"This might complicate things significantly..." Su Chen murmured, his eyes flickering.
[The Myriad Phenona joins the analysis matrix...]
'Even Myriad Phenona has joined?' Su Chen was surprised. Following that, strings of text continuously popped up as more and more classes joined the analysis matrix...
"Is this a ga of sheer numbers now?"
Su Chen felt utterly speechless. The waiting period was taking far longer than he had anticipated, so he simply closed his eyes and entered a state of ditation and training.
It wasn't until the internal flas reignited that new information finally cascaded across his vision.
[The Flawless One has completed the analysis. Although it was incredibly tricky, with the assistance of the nurous classes, a solution has indeed been formulated...]
[The Initial Chooser volunteers to be devoured by The Flawless One. Using a wisp of Radiant Moon Spirit, the foundation of the Divine Dawn shall be paved...]
[The Flawless One is currently devouring the Initial Chooser...]
Su Chen was thoroughly stunned. 'It devoured the Initial Chooser? But that's a class obtained straight from the Ancient King Stele!'
anwhile, beneath the Ancient King Stele, Qin Tianlin sat with his eyes tightly shut. Having already triggered the phenonon four tis, his presence beneath the stele naturally emitted an intense, magnetic aura.
He could sense that he was just a hair's breadth away from gaining its acknowledgnt, and the realization made him grow increasingly impatient and eager.
Because of this, he had been visiting quite frequently as of late.
Clatter! Clatter!
Suddenly, the chains on the Ancient King Stele began to rattle violently once again.
Qin Tianlin's heart leaped in his chest, an intense surge of excitent washing over him.
'Will I earn its acknowledgnt today?' Reining in his turbulent emotions, he sought out that profound, ethereal connection, tentatively reaching out to touch it.
The commotion from the Ancient King Stele imdiately attracted a great deal of attention. Sect mbers passing through the periter of the square stopped in their tracks and cast their gazes over.
"It's ringing again?" soone asked in astonishnt.
"I heard Qin Tianlin just triggered the fourth anomaly a few days ago. Could he be on the verge of receiving its acknowledgnt this ti? As expected of a Divine Dawn-tier talent," another person lanted with awe.
"So what if he gains its acknowledgnt? At the end of the day, he still isn't the Chosen One," soone else remarked cryptically. "Besides, Venerable Qin Yun's fate is still unknown..."
"Hah." A sharp scoff rang out. "Venerable Qin Yun's fate might be unknown, but this matter... isn't necessarily a bad thing for Qin Tianlin."
"If Venerable Qin Yun turns out to be perfectly fine, then everything remains as it was—nothing changes. But if the Venerable truly t with so mishap, the Qin family will undoubtedly face a period of instability..."
"But have you thought about the fact that this would leave a Morning Star-tier position entirely vacant? That would be Qin Tianlin's chance. With his Divine Dawn-tier talent, it's highly likely he'll beco the Chosen One."
Hearing this analysis, the surrounding crowd froze. Many of them simply hadn't considered this particular angle.
Just as the crowd was deep in discussion, the Ancient King Stele began to shudder more and more violently. However, the grand spectacle that had accompanied Su Chen's acknowledgnt previously still failed to materialize.
Qin Tianlin hesitantly opened his eyes, only to see the four iron chains binding the Ancient King Stele pulled taut to their absolute limit. The surface of the stele was radiating golden light, but it looked as if the monolith was trying to launch itself straight into the heavens. It was incredibly bizarre.
Then, at a certain mont, a resounding crack echoed out. The massive chains securing the stele abruptly shattered into pieces.
Under Qin Tianlin's dumbfounded gaze, the Ancient King Stele transford into a streak of flowing light and launched itself furiously into the distance.
'The Ancient King Stele flew away?!'
It wasn't just him; every single person in the central square was completely flabbergasted, their eyes tracking the streak of light as the Ancient King Stele disappeared into the horizon.
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