Chapter 161: Meeting Luo Feng Again (1st update)

Near the ruins of the ancient gods, the color of the clouds shrouding the continent shifted into a bloody red, resembling an endless sea of blood churning across the heavens.

Within these clouds lingered a peculiar, intangible aura that subtly assaulted Jiang Chen’s mind, continually stoking a dark desire for slaughter.

However, this oppressive aura had virtually no effect on Jiang Chen.

Equipped with the specializations [Soul Sublimation] and [Demon God’s Soul]—both of which greatly enhanced his soul, mental defense, and resistance—coupled with the inherently unique soul nature of the Earthlings, Jiang Chen was entirely immune to the corruption of this strange force.

At least in this peripheral zone, Jiang Chen was completely unfazed.

Puncturing through the cloud layer, the land below presented a desolate, apocalyptic landscape.

The upper halves of massive mountain ranges had been entirely sheared off, leaving surfaces as smooth as polished glass. Across the ground lay countless gigantic craters measuring over a hundred, or even a thousand, kilometers in diameter.

Traces of a cataclysmic battle were visible everywhere. A faint red mist drifted across the terrain, occasionally revealing scattered white bones.

While some bones appeared normal, others were of unimaginably colossal proportions. Jiang Chen even spotted a fractured rib bone; the remaining fragment alone spanned dozens of kilometers. It was impossible to fathom the sheer scale of the creature that had left behind such gigantic remains.

"Luo Feng, do you know your precise location within the ruins of the ancient gods?" Jiang Chen contacted Luo Feng via the Virtual Universe, asking for his exact coordinates.

Luo Feng quickly reported his position: "Entering the ruins of the ancient gods from the southern approach, about one hundred billion kilometers in, inside a massive crater. The surrounding environment looks like..."

Without precise coordinates and relying only on vague environmental landmarks, finding someone within the ruins of the ancient gods, which spanned hundreds of billions of kilometers in radius, was extremely difficult.

However, using satellite surveillance, Jiang Chen had completely mapped the terrain of the entire ruins and quickly pinpointed Luo Feng’s exact location.

Even so, the ruins of the ancient gods were simply too vast.

A radius of hundreds of billions of kilometers meant a diameter roughly equivalent to one-twentieth of the entire Blood Rock Continent. It took Jiang Chen nearly a month of continuous flight to finally reach Luo Feng’s destination.

"Why is there a group of natives in this place? And several World Lords, no less?" Scanning the life-form signals inside the crater below via his detector, Jiang Chen could not help but feel a mild sense of speechlessness.

Even though his own emergence had triggered countless "butterfly effects," Luo Feng had still managed to cross paths with the native genius "Baqi" in the Blood Rock World.

"Luo Feng." Contacting Luo Feng through the Virtual Universe, Jiang Chen transmitted: "I have arrived at your location. Shall I kill those natives?"

"So fast?" Luo Feng was slightly startled upon receiving the message.

Without delving into the details, he directly asked, "Are you confident? There are quite a few World Lords among that group of natives. The two leaders, in particular, possess strengths far exceeding ordinary World Lords. That human World Lord has integrated eight Blood Rock Crystals, and that desolate beast World Lord has integrated twelve!"

The two of them had not met in person in the real world for a very long time. Although Luo Feng knew Jiang Chen was powerful, the exact extent of his strength remained unknown to him. From the perspective of the current Luo Feng, World Lords were beings of terrifying might.

"Don't worry, they're just a few World Lords, easily dealt with." Jiang Chen asked directly, "Do you have any other plans for them? If they are of no use to you, I'll just wipe them out."

"If you're confident, go ahead and kill them." Luo Feng trusted Jiang Chen implicitly and didn't press further, immediately preparing for combat. "I can join the fight too; my Mosha Clan clone can at least stall an ordinary World Lord for a while."

"There's no need for you to move, just stay out of the blast radius," Jiang Chen replied.

According to the data fed back by the detector, Luo Feng was located in the middle section of the crater, while the other natives were cultivating at the very bottom. Although the distance between them wasn't large, Jiang Chen's precise control ensured there was zero risk of collateral damage.

With a thought, an undying puppet materialized by his side and plummeted straight toward the bottom of the crater.

A moment later, a wave of violent energy fluctuations erupted from the depths of the pit, only to calm down just as quickly.

"Alright, taken care of." Jiang Chen smiled faintly and flew toward Luo Feng's position.

"You resolved it just like that?" Luo Feng widened his eyes in astonishment, staring at Jiang Chen.

Jiang Chen shrugged dismissively, saying, "Just a few World Lords, how long did you expect it to take?"

As they spoke, the undying puppet returned, carrying several spatial rings.

Jiang Chen took them, swept through their contents, and finding nothing of particular value, tossed them straight to Luo Feng.

Baqi was the foremost genius of the Blood Rock Continent in hundreds of millions of years, highly valued by the Undying Temple. However, the Blood Rock Continent was ultimately just a single continent, lacking the boundless resources found in the wider universe. The treasures carried by Baqi were naturally quite ordinary.

Of course, this "ordinary" label was based entirely on Jiang Chen's standards.

In reality, combined together, Baqi and his subordinates possessed treasures excluding Blood Rock Crystals worth over ten thousand dominion units. When coupled with over a thousand Blood Rock Crystals, the total value was actually quite respectable.

While such a sum was a small fortune to ordinary geniuses, Jiang Chen didn't even bat an eye. His harvest from a single mission world was typically hundreds of millions of dominion units at the very least. A mere ten thousand dominion units and a thousand crystals meant nothing to him.

"A-Chen, this..." Luo Feng had already inspected the treasures inside the spatial ring and immediately wanted to refuse.

"Keep it. That little bit of wealth means nothing to me, don't be so hesitant." Jiang Chen chuckled and said, "Since we've come to the Blood Rock Continent, it's time I let you witness my true strength."

As he spoke, a thought occurred to him: "Are you planning to continue cultivating here?"

"Yes, the blood-qi and malevolent aura here are very helpful for my integration of the 'Blood Rock Crystals'." Luo Feng nodded, then quickly added, "A-Chen, you should try cultivating here too and attempt to integrate the crystals. I can clearly feel that doing so greatly enhances one's strength."

"I know. Once you integrate three crystals and become a 'Blood Warrior,' your gene tier increases twofold. If you integrate ten and become a 'Black Warrior,' your gene tier rises tenfold." Jiang Chen was already well-informed about the uses of the Blood Rock Crystals.

"Gene tier? What is that?" Luo Feng asked, puzzled.

"Ordinary humans may have minor physical differences, but when they cultivate to the peak of a certain stage—say, the peak of the ninth stage of the universe level—their contained origin power and spiritual force are roughly similar. Individual variations exist, but they are negligible."

Jiang Chen explained, "However, certain special life forms are innately immensely powerful. Take your Golden Horned Beast, for instance: ignoring its physical body, under the same realm, its origin power and spiritual force are ten times that of an ordinary human, and its clarity in perceiving laws is also tenfold. This means your Golden Horned Beast possesses a tenfold gene tier."

"The so-called gene tier can essentially be viewed as one's cultivation potential and combat power under the same realm. The higher the gene tier, the faster the cultivation and the stronger the combat power." Jiang Chen summarized, "And integrating 'Blood Rock Crystals' can elevate your gene tier. The more you integrate, the higher it climbs."

"So that's how it is." Luo Feng nodded slightly and hurriedly pulled out a pile of Blood Rock Crystals, handing them to Jiang Chen. "A-Chen, since the crystals are so useful, you should try integrating some too. I still have plenty left, more than enough for your use."

Ever since he received Jiang Chen's reminder to gather as many Blood Rock Crystals as possible, Luo Feng had been consciously hunting for them. The Mosha Clan clone was exceptionally skilled at assassination, and the Blood Rock World was vast enough, populated by many powerful beings carrying the crystals. Over several decades, the quantity of Blood Rock Crystals Luo Feng had hoarded already exceeded ten thousand—far more than enough to supply two people's cultivation needs.

"I won't need that many; just give me a few to study. Integrating Blood Rock Crystals isn't that easy unless you belong to a special race." Jiang Chen took a hundred crystals and pushed the rest back.

Luo Feng didn't press the matter further. Humans indeed found it extremely difficult to integrate Blood Rock Crystals; despite all his efforts, he hadn't even successfully integrated a third one yet.

"Right." Luo Feng suddenly thought of something and asked curiously, "Why did you ask me to help you gather the distribution map of the Blood Rock World's mineral veins? Are you planning to mine here?"

Luo Feng found it hard to understand. Although the Blood Rock World was massive, its primary mineral outputs were still grade-A to grade-C veins. Every world was fundamentally the same—the higher the grade, the rarer the resource. For a genius from the alliances of the five superpowers, what was the financial reward of mining an entire grade-C vein? Spending so much time on it simply wasn't worth the effort.

As for higher-grade veins, utilizing universe-level strength to extract them was terribly inefficient. Calculated in terms of time cost, it remained unprofitable.

"Don't forget what I excel at." Jiang Chen smiled. "This place is too cramped, care to come up and see?"

"Alright!" Hooked by curiosity, Luo Feng dropped his cultivation of malevolent aura for the moment, quickly following Jiang Chen out of the cave and entering the spacecraft hovering just above the entrance.

"If you intend to cultivate in the ruins of the ancient gods, I'll temporarily leave this area untouched. Otherwise, once I'm done mining, it's hard to say whether the malevolent aura here will still remain."

With those words, Jiang Chen activated the spacecraft and flew toward the edge of the ruins.

A month later, the spacecraft cleared the ruins of the ancient gods and came to a halt amidst a towering mountain range.

"This is a region dense with mineral veins. Let me demonstrate right here." Glancing at the vein distribution marked on his map, Jiang Chen directed the spacecraft to land in a valley at the heart of the mountain range.

"Jarvis, get to work!"

At Jiang Chen's command, a series of world rings opened, and dense throngs of mechanical units materialized out of thin air, cascading in a tidal wave toward all directions until they completely filled the valley.

The mechanical legion soared into the sky, hunting down and eliminating the fierce beasts and desolate beasts inhabiting the mountain range.

The remaining engineering machinery split into two groups: a small fraction began leveling the ground in the valley, arranging rows of massive smelting furnaces before initiating them.

The majority of the engineering machinery swiftly penetrated deep into the various mineral zones of the mountain range, launching a frenzied mining operation.

A mountain range stretching over a million kilometers began to vanish from the earth at a visible rate under the excavation of hundreds of millions of engineering machines.

Massive quantities of ore were hauled into refining plants, where complex processing transformed them into standardized metal ingots and other raw materials.

In just a few short days, an entire mountain had completely disappeared, replaced by massive, neatly categorized piles of raw materials.

This entire spectacle left Luo Feng dumbfounded. Even the well-informed Babata fell into silence, calculating the astronomical cost required to build such a "mining team."

After a long while, Luo Feng finally snapped back to reality, staring incredulously at Jiang Chen. "A-Chen, Babata says these engineering machines of yours must have cost millions of dominion units?"

"Hmm?" Jiang Chen glanced at Babata and shook his head. "That's the price for buying them from outside. I built these myself, so the cost isn't that high. Still, a single mining brigade here—excluding the combat mechs and puppets responsible for protecting the mining zone, just counting the engineering machines alone—costs around 800,000 dominion units to manufacture."

Luo Feng: "..."

"Spending nearly a million dominion units just to mine? You're insane!" Luo Feng couldn't help giving a thumbs-up.

"Don't underestimate these things." Jiang Chen pointed at the towering mounds of materials piled across the open ground below and asked, "Do you have any idea how much these materials are worth?"

"Babata calculated it; the total value is roughly over ten thousand dominion units." Luo Feng immediately cited a figure.

Jiang Chen nodded. "This mining team took less than ten days to hollow out this mountain range, netting over ten thousand dominion units. So, tell me, how long will it take for my investment of 800,000 dominion units to break even?"

"Holy shit!" Luo Feng mentally crunched the numbers, letting out a foul word before blurting out, "Does that mean if you have enough mining teams, it's even more terrifying than a printing press?"

Jiang Chen shook his head. "First of all, you need a mining field where resources can be freely extracted. It's only inside mission worlds, where the five superpowers don't care about such trifles, that you can pull this off."

"Out in the wider universe, places rich in resources all have owners. You can't just run into someone else's backyard to mine."

"Secondly, even within a mission world, you need absolute military might to ensure no one comes to disturb you."

"You only see that my mining team is worth 800,000 dominion units, but the truly expensive part is over there."

Jiang Chen pointed toward the mechanical legion patrolling the skies. "A puppet of undying combat power, a thousand E9-grade mechs, plus reconnaissance, detection, and logistics fleets... adding everything up, a combat unit like that costs over ten million dominion units."

"Holy shit!" Luo Feng couldn't help cursing once more.

The figures Jiang Chen casually tossed out were not quite unimaginable astronomical numbers to the current Luo Feng, but they still represented a massive fortune that required monumental luck to accumulate.

"A legion-style approach is powerful, but it's also a bottomless money pit." Looking at Luo Feng, Jiang Chen reminded him, "Whether it's a mechanical legion or a Zerg legion, their greatest value doesn't lie in head-on battlefields; rather, once you possess overwhelming military might, your efficiency in plundering resources skyrockets. Simply treating them purely as weapons is a complete waste."