Chapter 67: Domain Lord! Domain Lord!
Afterward, Jiang Zhe received the precise cosmic coordinates and a matching star map from Orianna.
As he compared them on the star map, Jiang Zhe frowned slightly.
"Leaving the Qianwu Universe Nation, passing through the Tianze, Gulu, Qingming, and Sajia Universe Nations... a total of fourteen Universe Nations. That's so far away!"
Orianna calculated the specifics.
"Even taking a mechanical race spaceship and shortening the journey through wormholes that have existed since 14.3 billion years ago, it would still take us roughly two to three years. And…"
Jiang Zhe nodded, understanding her implication.
Would those naturally occurring wormholes recorded over 14.3 billion years ago even still exist? Had the coordinates shifted? That was another matter entirely.
If they couldn't pass through the wormholes and had to rely on Dark Universe travel, the time required would be too long. It would have to wait until he became a Domain Lord or immortal before he could consider it.
Moreover, after 14.3 billion years, whether the wormhole discovered by the Ka Ming Beast's master still existed was also a big question mark.
"Anna, did the master of the Ka Ming Beast ever send anyone through to explore the wormhole?" Jiang Zhe asked.
"Yes. From planetary level up to Domain Lord level, a total of 276 slaves of different strengths and races were sent in. Without exception, they all died the instant they exited the wormhole."
Thinking of the great being whose divine body had disintegrated before them, the Ka Ming Beast's master didn't dare act rashly after that.
Could the other side of that wormhole be some kind of cosmic secret realm? Jiang Zhe wondered, his gaze falling on his silver-clad secondary consciousness.
That would make for the best scout.
Everyone knew that to kill an energy life form, you had to destroy its life crystal. But in the Original Universe, who could destroy a divine crystal? Even in the Universe Sea, who could achieve that?
A Void True God?
An Eternal True God?
A Chaos Overlord?
Besides, items dropped from chopping down the sacred tree had a special connection to the tree itself, including unique ways to summon them back.
Jiang Zhe wasn't worried about losing his divine crystal.
After careful consideration, he decided to let his silver-clad secondary consciousness go out and see the world.
First, it would find the wormhole. Whether to venture inside could be decided later.
He brought the Ka Ming Beast out of the core space and handed it over to his grandfather. From then on, it would serve the Jiang family exclusively as an intelligent lifeform.
Its core programming had been altered by Orianna. Though it still remembered its original master, it could not reveal anything about them.
The virtual realm's Martial Pavilion was also handed over to the Ka Ming Beast for management.
Only certain high-ranking humans on Earth knew about the Martial Pavilion. Only the elite from Earth's various forces could enter it to learn more advanced power-exerting techniques.
Other ordinary martial artists still had access to complete foundational techniques.
Among the Extreme Martial House, Thunder Martial House, and other factions, Jiang Zhe had gifted three sets of basic power-exerting secret methods.
Mastering them allowed practitioners to achieve 2x, 3x, and up to 6x force.
If anyone wanted to learn beyond 6x, they'd have to apply through the Jiang family and enter the Martial Pavilion in the virtual world, training there with Yunmo Planet's facilities.
It was a monopoly, yes—but the Jiang family had never profited from it.
On the contrary, everything they did was free.
His grandfather's original intentions had never changed. During family banquets, he often mentioned that when Earth grew strong enough to stand tall in the universe, there'd be no need for the Martial Pavilion at all.
However...
As the two intelligent beings transitioned responsibilities, Jiang Zhe glanced at the students' progress and shook his head repeatedly.
Sure enough, mindset didn't equate to talent.
Earthlings had natural gifts for cultivating their minds—making them resilient, courageous, and unyielding. But when it came to other cultivation areas, they still stumbled quite a bit.
It would take improved bloodlines in the future to raise their innate talent. Then, combined with their mental strengths, Earth's geniuses would emerge like bamboo shoots after rain.
Even Thunder God and Hong had only reached 16x and 15x force. In the wider universe, that was fairly mediocre.
Most other Earth humans fell far below the average Yunmo Planet apprentice standard of 10x force. Those struggling even at 6x were few and far between.
By comparison, star-level geniuses who made it to the final rounds of the Genius Competition often had 40–50x power or thought amplification.
A normal star-level 5th rank had around 30x thought power. Even Luo Feng, over 200 years later, was only at 78x after receiving the Devil Sound God General's inheritance.
These figures were what the universe considered normal.
Jiang Zhe himself, after years of relentless cultivation, had only reached 37x power amplification and 42x thought amplification.
Aside from acquiring some profound martial texts, Earth hadn't changed much internally. Even the restless sea monsters had grown quieter.
Human development on Earth was now advancing at lightning speed.
For instance, Hania had opened two new major base cities. Seeing hope in reclaiming lost territories, both the government and civilian martial artists worked together with renewed zeal.
Jiang Zhe was very pleased with this atmosphere.
If he had personally wiped out the monsters on Earth... well, knowing human nature, the internal situation would not be nearly so harmonious.
After the Genius Competition, he planned to purchase numerous life planets, encourage foreign immigrants, and give the Jiang family a bigger territory.
After that, he wouldn't pay much attention to Earth's future.
He never intended to lead Earth's branch of humanity. His support for Earth had already been more than generous.
All he cared about was the Jiang family—and their right to live on Earth.
After the mechanical dog Alpha stepped down, it returned to the inner world.
As the core program of the technological weapon Purple Star Realm, it was wasted remaining on Earth.
More importantly, it held the method for constructing additional Purple Star Realms.
As long as Jiang Zhe provided enough resources, Alpha could work with Orianna to complete the remaining three and a half mechanical planets.
Though building the Purple Star Realm was costly, it was hardly a waste.
After all, Orianna could control mechanical puppet legions just like members of the mechanical race—an extremely important combat power.
Jiang Zhe was already planning how, once he entered the outer battlefields, he'd cozy up to mechanical race friends to see what advantages he could gain.
Time flew by.
At the end of 2052, Jiang Zhe had comprehended 20 types of lightning mysteries and perfected his lightning domain to the ninth level.
It was only then he realized:
Why am I even bothering with the earth domain?
His true body and secondary consciousness shared the same insights. It was entirely possible to break through to Domain Lord directly using his lightning domain and lightning law comprehension.
With this thought, his silver-clad secondary consciousness immediately activated the [Source] talent, drawing upon the sea of laws to absorb universe origin energy and elevate its life level.
Moving from Universe Level to Domain Lord required massive energy accumulation, so the breakthrough wasn't instant.
During this time, Jiang Zhe continued to study the lightning and time origin laws, trying to ensure his secondary consciousness wouldn't be so weak after the breakthrough.
The strength of a Domain Lord depended entirely on their understanding of lesser and greater laws.
Also, the size of their internal world mattered.
For example, the powerful Golden Horn Beast Domain Lord, with a 60-million-kilometer world projection, could even resist the domain of immortal gods.
However, his silver-clad secondary consciousness didn't worry about the size of its internal world.
It would likely not open a typical internal world at all—but rather house a complete internal universe.
As a Domain Lord, its world projection wouldn't be a conventional world—but an unformed universe projection, manifesting as a mass of chaotic air.
By the end of 2053, the triennial Qianwu Auction was held once more.
Jiang Zhe made extensive purchases to prepare for his secondary consciousness's cosmic journey.
He secured many treasures, including:
A top-grade 5th-level origin force weapon, the Trapped Void Spear.
Like the Shadow-Crossing Shuttle, it was somewhat niche but fetched a high auction price due to its focus on space laws.
Typically, a normal 5th-level mental or origin force weapon cost about 200 billion universe coins.
Items like the Trapped Void Spear and Shadow-Crossing Shuttle could exceed 1 mixed yuan unit.
He also bought a top-grade 5th-level origin force battle suit.
Like the Black God Set, it wasn't limited by shape, so it would still work when he transformed into giant beasts like the Hill-Crest Beast or Crown-Top Toad.
Additionally, he picked up some special alien biological tissues.
Of course, anything appearing at a low-tier auction wouldn't have a life gene level above 50x. Something like the Mosha Clan's 10x would already make the top 100 auction highlights.
By the lunar month, he returned to Bailan Star to retrieve various materials.
His silver-clad secondary consciousness was still in seclusion.
Jiang Zhe reviewed his harvest for the year and noticed his lightning law comprehension had significantly slowed.
Not from lack of experience or being shut in.
In fact, his inner world housed universe-level beasts.
Whenever he caused a stir inside, tens of thousands of star-level beasts would swarm him. It was far more intense than Luo Feng mining in the Thunder World.
Since opening his inner world, Jiang Zhe entered once a month for a life-or-death training session—often chased into chaos by universe-level beasts.
The slowdown came when he reached the 25th lightning mystery—it became extremely obscure and difficult.
He suspected that among the 72 lesser law mysteries, the difficulty probably ramped up drastically after the first 24.
He didn't know much about lesser laws, but he did understand how it worked with greater laws.
In dissecting the time/space law essence, there were 108 basic mysteries divided into 9, 27, and 72—each level with sharply increasing difficulty.
Looking back at the time law, with only 9 mysteries, it suddenly seemed far more approachable.
Even if hard to chew, Jiang Zhe had already tackled up to the 27th mystery.
For the time law, he still hadn't fully grasped even the first mystery, because he hadn't focused there yet.
Instead, he aimed to gain a broad understanding of all 9 mysteries, each to about 50–60%, before diving deeper.
Better to lay a wide foundation first than charge straight into the hardest path.
By 2054, everything was routine.
Then on November 22, 2055...
At the peak of Olympus Mons on Mars—
Countless deep blue crystals nearly clogged the vast crater. These were all universe crystals—enough to drive a universe-level mercenary mad.
The cause of it all sat calmly atop a giant boulder: the silver-clad man.
His silver-clad secondary consciousness, the Eternal Serpent.
Without warning, his silver figure suddenly disintegrated.
Only a swirling chaotic crystal remained, covered in intricate, obscure dark gold patterns.
The crystal was undergoing some kind of transformation.
It became more ancient, its dark gold patterns more refined, complex, and mysterious.
Then, at a certain point, it suddenly spewed out a vast stream of chaotic energy, coalescing into an immense, sky-shading serpent body.