Lu Yin continued to stare coldly at Gerlaine, “I said, help me apply this ointment.”

The girl gritted her teeth and spat out slowly, “Alright, but you better remember this. I’ll settle things with you one day”

She then grabbed some of the ointment and rubbed it into his back, prompting a refreshed sigh. This product from Shamrock Enterprises was quite effective; his wounds were already scabbed over. Gerlaine’s hands were soft and gentle, and with the added cooling effect of the ointment, he experienced true pleasure. His gaze towards her even softened.

However, it quickly came to an end. Wiping clean, Gerlaine spoke up, “Hey, get up. Let’s go find the next target.”

However, Lu Yin tossed her cosmic ring back to her, “I’ve had enough, no more robberies. You can carry on yourself.”

“What? No, we haven’t even found Eddy yet, we have to rob him!”

Lu Yin laughed and ignored her. Those people hadn’t considered him a huge threat before, thinking a few elites could handle him, but now that he’d beaten seven, he would certainly face more such ambushes in the future. Only a fool would keep going at this point. Rifling through the five cosmic rings, he salvaged two more cubes of star crystals before waving her goodbye and flying away.

“You idiot, where’s my armor and bow?” Gerlaine shouted behind me.

“Lend them to me for a while, I’ll return them later!” his voice faded into the distance.

Gerlaine stomped on the ground in annoyance. The bow and armor were gifted by her brother for her to defend herself with, and were the only things that could strike fear into his heart. Now, they’d been robbed by that shameless scoundrel!

……

Within the capital, Zhang Dingtian and the rest saw the results in the network as well. Bai Xue was shocked; each one of these students was from the Realm of Sky, and those that dared to work on the missions were at least top three in their schools. Almost half of them were even school leaders, and she had first-hand experience of their power. Now, Lu Yin had defeated seven of them in one battle. Just how had he gotten so strong after disappearing for only a few days?

As she was left wondering, Zhang Dingtian looked south and flashed a rare smile, “An old friend is back.”

“Zhou Shan?” Bai Xue’s eyes gleamed.

The two quickly flew towards the south, but then stopped mid-way and gazed northwards, “Another old friend. Looks like they want to help the capital in trying times.”

Bai Xue was pleasantly surprised, “Wu Sheng is here too, that’s great.”

Zhang Dingtian sighed deeply, “They shouldn’t have come. Four of the Seven Sages plus Lu Yin is still five against dozens. There’s a huge disparity here.”

A long journey away, Lu Yin found a desolate mountain village and surrounded a building with fire crystal traps. He then took out a star crystal and crushed it, absorbing the surging energy with his Cosmic Art.

West of Beijing, Eddy and his followers appeared as well, “Prepare yourselves, the invasion starts in three days. Remember, the natives defending the capital are nothing, but the second batch is about to appear. The Melders will be restricted to Sentinel strength, but it still is no easy feat to deal with them.”

All the students were solemn. It was rare to have a second batch of trainees in the Great Yu Empire’s planetary trials, and this instance was purely because of Astral-10. A number of freaks that were normally hidden away had decided to participate in this second batch.

More and more students approached the capital from all directions. A dozen weary students descended upon the South China Sea, “We’ve finally reached China, and that fellow Eddy and his team are plotting to steal the criminal’s items. We need to move to stop him from gaining an advantage.”

Students similarly appeared in eastern and northern China, bringing turbulent times with them. Dawn of the third day, Zhang Dingtian was staring out from atop Beijing’s steel walls as a group of silhouettes appeared in the distance. At the same time, a distant Lu Yin finally opened his eyes. Five cubes of star crystals over three days of meditation had cleansed his body of impurities; he was now overflowing with energy and felt a drastic increase in strength. Not only did his body contain much more than before now that he was a peak Sentinel at level 3000, it was more compacted as well.

Although he’d plundered a total of seven cubes of star crystals, he had only used five so far. He now looked at the two remaining cubes in anticipation; the temptation was just too much! Drawing his die, he eagerly rubbed his hands together and crushed one cube’s worth, “Okay, let’s see my luck. Pilfer isn’t worth it, I’ll never get something good, but…”

The surface rapidly returned to its dazzling brightness, and Lu Yin nervously swallowed as he gently flicked out with a finger to start it going. His gaze was frozen on the spinning die, eyes growing wider and wider until it started to dim and the surfaces started to fade away. He’d rolled a two.

This excited him greatly; it was his first time getting this roll. He watches as a black vortex formed beneath the spinning die, its usage popping to mind. Blackhole Disassembly? Disassemble anything? What could that mean? He was rather confused at first, so he threw a random piece of scrap iron into the vortex; it passed through in an instant, but what popped out on the other side was a small piece of pure iron with a smooth, hard surface that had shrunk down significantly from what he’d put in.

He finally realized what Disassembly meant; any material thrown into this vortex would be broken down into its basic components. This seemed reasonably useful, so after considering his options for a bit, Lu Yin threw in a cosmic ring he’d confiscated from one student who’d acted a little too unreasonable. A fingernail-sized piece of dark red metal emerged on the other side that made him quite happy instantly; this was imperial gold, an extremely precious material that was key in the creation of cosmic rings. He immediately threw all of his stolen rings into the vortex to get a thumb-sized ingot, but after a moment’s consideration he threw that back in as well. A twinkling dark-gold metal plopped out on the other side that lit his eyes aglow; this was imperial gold essence, something far more valuable than imperial gold that was used in the crafting of high-quality cosmic rings with massive storage spaces. Carefully stowing it away, he thought to himself, ‘I should probably find some junkyard to harvest materials from.’

The vortex disappeared after five minutes, but Lu Yin already knew that its duration could be extended with star crystals just like the Timestop Room. His head started to ache at the realization that he’d found another crystal sink that would keep him poor in the future regardless of his income, but he muttered to himself that he’d figure something out before standing up to stretch and pop his joints. He looked towards Beijing and blasted into the distant sky, “It’s time to go back.”

……

The capital was already in shambles by the time Lu Yin started rushing back, millions of survivors watching the skies with fear as occasional shockwaves overturned the earth and brought disaster to them all. By the time they’d received news that Eddy’s coalition of dozens of students had started their attack, the battle had already begun. The steel walls were devastated in the very first moments.

An arrogant Hayden was accompanied by two other students as they stared at a panting Bai Xue atop some ruins outside the city. “A mere native wants to block us? You should know your place!” one of them said with contempt, but his gaze was burning just as brightly as those of his peers; she was just far too beautiful. Each one of them was a school leader and could easily handle the Sage of Aqua, but her appearance had prompted them to join hands while many more watched from the distance.

Hayden frowned at Bai Xue, “Woman, I’ll give you an opportunity to follow us. I can bring you away from this shithole planet to truly explore the universe.”

“Hayden, you can’t be thinking of keeping her for yourself, right?” one of the students beside him was immediately upset by his words, but he remained indifferent. There were various alliances and rivalries amongst the academies themselves, and he was stronger than the two beside him. Of all those currently in Beijing, only Eddy and Zhang Dingtian could defeat him in battle.

Bai Xue clenched her fists and released a measured breath as her blue hair drifted into the air. The ground suddenly froze and the temperature of the entire region plunged, but the three students confronting her didn’t mind the change. She could handle one school leader at best; it was impossible to face three at once.

In the distance, Zhou Shan roared as he smashed into the ground with a student. It took all he had to deal with just the one, however, and there were more than a dozen figures still staring down from up in the sky. The students knew there was only one ending to this war; after all, this was nothing more than a city of natives.

“Stop messing around. Let’s go,” one of the students arrogantly said before pressing down toward the capital with one hand. Enormous pressure crushed countless survivors until they vomited blood, but they could do nothing more than stare at the sky in despair.