Chapter 158: The Qualification Battle!
"Teacher, you and the other outsiders don't have demon bloodlines, so the Bloodgold Ore has no value to you."
Jiang Zhe nodded, having already expected this. He asked,
"Then you'll wait for me up there? If nothing unexpected happens, I'll be up very soon."
Chi Ying turned to look at the stone city a hundred kilometers away and asked for permission,
"Teacher, I'd like to go into the city to hunt down some earls and complete the energy accumulation required at the earl stage more quickly. May I?"
Jiang Zhe also glanced in that direction.
He could clearly sense that many marquises and world lords in the city had noticed their earlier battle and were watching from afar like curious onlookers.
"Master, there are still 12 marquises left in the city. Six marquises fled while we were fighting the Golden Horn and Silver Horn demons."
Orianna reported.
This was data recorded by a probe device—technology from the Meteorite Starship that Orianna had replicated.
Even on the Outer Battlefield, this was considered advanced tech. In this Abyssal World, there was naturally no way for anyone to avoid its detection.
"Go ahead, but be careful not to get trapped in the city."
While reminding her, Jiang Zhe handed Chi Ying a slender silver rapier.
"You can use this, right? It belonged to the Silver Horn Demon—consider it a gift."
Chi Ying looked at the thin sword, wanting to say she actually couldn't use it.
This wasn't her innate weapon, so she couldn't activate the secret patterns on it.
But on second thought, it was still fine to use as an ordinary alloy weapon.
Later, she could feed it to her weapon embryo—it would be excellent nourishment.
Taking the sword, Chi Ying looked a bit uneasy.
"Teacher, the marquises in the city... if I fly straight over, they'll definitely target me."
Jiang Zhe waved dismissively,
"Don't worry, head over. Those marquises will soon have bigger problems to worry about."
Trusting that her teacher wouldn't joke about such matters, Chi Ying put away her mechanical race spaceship, held the rapier, and flew toward the stone city in the distance.
Watching his little disciple's back, Jiang Zhe could feel many malicious gazes falling upon her.
So, a tiny bead of blood formed at the tip of his index finger.
With a flick, the blood bead shot off at 100,000 km per second, almost instantly appearing above the stone city.
There, it expanded into a graceful figure made of blood and flesh.
It was a pale woman wearing a crimson crinoline dress—
The Red Lady, Mary!
She was at the peak of the World Lord Ninth Rank, enhanced with a tenfold life gene level and rule comprehension near the 15th floor of the Heaven-Connecting Bridge.
This was the same unlucky one from the Nether Blood Egg, whose power Jiang Zhe and Orianna had taken for themselves.
Now she was one of Orianna's clones and served as Jiang Zhe's second steward.
Her face showed displeasure, but she couldn't disobey Jiang Zhe's orders. Holding a long shattered-mirror blade, she turned into a crimson shadow, launching a hunt on the marquises in the city—ripping out their hearts.
Damn it!
She still had to arrange a trial for the little princess afterward…
Troublesome! Annoying!
Jiang Zhe plunged into the gorge filled with swirling bloody miasma.
After reaching the bottom, he followed the probe's data into a tomb hall. Seeing two skull goblets and blood food on a bloodgold table, he realized the Golden Horn and Silver Horn demons had just been here.
A layer of knee-high blood mist covered the ground, all carrying chaotic will shocks. But while such power could trouble a demon duke, it was far from enough to affect his will, which was at the Lord level.
Jiang Zhe shook his head,
"The chaotic will here isn't even strong enough to help temper my mind."
Praise the Hibernating Dragon Technique!
Walking up to the bloodgold table, Jiang Zhe used world force to lift a half-full wine jar, bringing it to his nose.
The bloody, spicy, and sweet smell made him sneeze.
"Master, this is blood wine brewed mainly from marquis hearts, with a gold void attribute. It might be a little useful for Chi Ying and Luo Feng. It can't improve life gene levels, but it can slightly enhance the clarity of gold law comprehension. Hehe… for you, it's useless."
Orianna could identify the composition just by the scent and deduce the effects.
Jiang Zhe's face darkened.
"Bah, I don't even want it! Damn wine—I'll just go harvest abyssal dragon hearts myself to brew something better."
His world force spread out, detecting a wine cellar nearby. Over a hundred more jars of similar blood wine were stored there.
"Looks like Chi Ying is going to benefit the most from this. I'll bring a few jars for Luo Feng as a treat, but he doesn't need much with his talent."
Muttering to himself, Jiang Zhe placed his hand on the table and swept away the blood food with world force. Then, without warning, he slammed his fist down.
When he raised his hand again, there was a clear fist imprint on the table. He frowned slightly.
"Orianna, are you sure this is bloodgold?"
"Yes, Master, it's the same material as those chain fragments we found."
Jiang Zhe spread his hands.
"But it's clearly only E-grade strength. Outside, this would barely qualify as E9 metal."
"Master, cut off a piece for me to taste. Then we'll know."
At her words, Jiang Zhe drew the Blood Transformation Divine Blade from his waist and sliced off a corner of the table, sending it into the thunder prison world in his chest.
"Master, also get a chunk from the ground. That's unmined raw bloodgold."
Jiang Zhe bent down and easily carved out a piece with his knife, sending it in as well.
Orianna used her innate secret technique, Matter Mastery, to analyze it.
She could now easily digest even G-grade treasures, so this suspected E-grade piece was nothing.
Soon, her voice echoed in his mind.
"Master, please hand over control of your body to me. I'll show you what it really is."
Jiang Zhe nodded, switching consciousness with Orianna.
In their symbiotic state, they shared a body—but with different advantages depending on who was in control.
For example, when Orianna was driving it, they lost the 60x soul amplitude, but also became immune to soul attacks.
Under Orianna's control, "Jiang Zhe" pried out another piece of bloodgold from the floor, held it up to eye level, and said,
"Master, watch closely."
A layer of flesh grew over his gauntleted iron hand, looking just like a giant normal hand.
A special type of world force imbued with demon aura flowed from the flesh into the bloodgold.
"Bloodgold, roughly E9 strength, is a unique metal that only beings with demon bloodlines can activate and utilize."
"For outsiders… it basically has no value."
Jiang Zhe immediately understood the function of that flesh hand, eager to see the metal's special properties.
As the demon-infused energy entered it, the bloodgold changed.
It transformed from hard metal into warm, living flesh.
Then it crystalized, releasing surges of energy—it was now an energy block.
Then it turned into fibrous crystal, taking on delicate wood-like patterns.
Jiang Zhe was amazed.
"Metal? Flesh? Energy? Plant… It can shift between forms at will?"
"Exactly. Because of its versatility, it's perfect as a weapon embryo, binding closely with its owner."
Orianna then asked,
"Master, you know about coal on Earth, right?"
Jiang Zhe was so clever, he grasped her point instantly.
"Ah, just like coal—this bloodgold must've originally been a massive corpse pit of ancient demons."
"Right. This bloodgold mine is filled with rich demonic power. That's why it's essential for forging innate weapon embryos, and why staying here can enhance life gene levels."
Then Orianna made a bold hypothesis.
"Master, I suspect the ghost clan's secret technique 'Edge' is flawed.
Maybe if their life gene level is high enough, they wouldn't need external bloodgold at all. They could forcefully condense a weapon embryo purely from their own bloodline power. That would be the perfect form of an innate weapon."
"You've long had your doubts—after all, it doesn't make sense for a so-called innate technique to be reliant on an external material."
The consciousness switched back.
Jiang Zhe took control of the body again.
He waved his hand, releasing ten thousand life puppets, each with power equivalent to a peak World Lord Golden Horn Beast.
They enthusiastically began mining.
Ten days later.
With a space ring stuffed full of bloodgold and news that the mine was now empty, Chi Ying was momentarily dumbfounded.
Utterly extravagant!
Meanwhile, Mary handed over twelve marquis hearts—none of the marquises who stayed in the city to watch had escaped, including the peak World Lord Nex, who had a 32x life gene level.
Chi Ying also harvested over a hundred earl hearts, reaching the eighth rank of earl/domain lord after closing up to refine them.
Jiang Zhe then started guiding her onto the proper cultivation path.
He got a long-term anonymous virtual universe account from her senior sister, Dream Nation Lord.
As a grand-disciple of the Original Ancestor and direct line of the Virtual Universe Controller, it was trivial to get such a special account.
He transferred some points into Chi Ying's account and bought her two basic auxiliary secret techniques for comprehending origin laws—spending 100,000 points total.
For Jiang Zhe, that was a small sum, the best external help he could offer.
Learning from Chi Ying where the Origin Blood Pool was, Jiang Zhe didn't rush over—because it was currently dry.
There were supposed to be 9 drops of source blood, 2 had already been taken, and the remaining 7 had produced 7 pureblood demons.
His plan was to hunt down the other six pureblood demons, then dive into the blood pool and clean it out in one go.
"Chi Ying, can you track down the other pureblood demons?"
Chi Ying combed through her inherited memories.
"Teacher, they're also busy hunting other dukes to raise their gene levels. They almost never stay in one place long."
"Only the weaker ones linger in the first abyss. Those who fancy themselves strong have all gone to the Ninth Abyss."
"That's the dukes' playground. Anyone who wants to grow stronger will go there to be either hunter or prey."
Jiang Zhe was curious.
"Chi Ying, some dukes must self-destruct to deny their killer the benefit. Doesn't that make it hard for demons to get high-level hearts and slowly raise their gene levels?"
"Exactly as you guessed—it's very slow.
Ordinary demon lineages rarely reach the hundredfold extreme, and we purebloods find it even harder to reach 1,260 times."
Then Chi Ying gave a mysterious smile.
"But teacher, that's true only in the first eight abysses. The Ninth Abyss changes everything."
Jiang Zhe was intrigued.
The Virtual Universe Company had little intel on the Ninth Abyss—just that it was an immortal stronghold and anyone under orders to train shouldn't go there or they'd surely die.
"What's so special about the Ninth Abyss?"
"It has a very 'harsh' environment with two fatal rules for all demonkind:
You can't self-destruct, and any injury inevitably destroys part of your body."
Jiang Zhe raised his eyebrows.
"Chi Ying, you know about 'Undying Bodies,' right?"
"Yes, but they still have to obey the Ninth Abyss' rules.
Teacher, it's basically a giant breeding pit, designed for brutal slaughter so demon lineages evolve faster.
If dukes could self-destruct, making sure their killer gained nothing, there'd be no point to the Ninth Abyss."
Jiang Zhe laughed in delight.
He'd finally found an all-you-can-eat buffet.
"Disciple, roughly how many hearts do I need—across different elements at the duke level—to trigger gene amplitude effects?"
Chi Ying tilted her head, thinking hard until she nearly burned out her brain.
"Teacher, that's tough for me. We don't use gene amplitude, so I can only give you a rough guess."
Jiang Zhe smiled gently.
"Go ahead, I just want an estimate."
"Mm… ordinary duke hearts, like the ones you just collected—maybe 10 to 100 each type."
"As for grand dukes—meaning those with gene levels of 100x or more—prepare 1 to 10 each type."
She hesitated, then clarified,
"Teacher, that's per bloodline type, not the total."
Jiang Zhe toyed with the treasure bracelet on his wrist, nodding.
"Understood. You've helped me a lot."
Looks like he'd need to kill nearly a thousand marquis or king-level undyings.
For the next year, master and disciple roamed the First Abyss, hunting down pureblood demons and slaughtering unlucky dukes and marquises.
Until…
June, Year 2262 (Hanxia Calendar).
Jiang Zhe sent Mary and Chi Ying off to train while he stayed aboard the ship in seclusion, logging into the Virtual Universe.
The once-in-a-century cosmic qualification battles had begun.
The more populated secret realms started first: from the Last Days, to Heaven and Earth, then to Primordial.
Jiang Zhe entered just as the Primordial Secret Realm's qualification battle concluded, selecting three challengers for the Original Secret Realm.
No surprises—Krov, Luo Feng, and Yu Feng.
The next day would be the Original Secret Realm's qualification battle.
Jiang Zhe glanced over his list of opponents.
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