Swallowing the Stars: 100x Return for Teaching Apprentices

Chapter 141 Cultivation, Combat, Enlightenment
swoosh~
The silver-white triangular spaceship continued to fly at sub-light speed above the continental island numbered 1428.

Inside the spaceship, in the world that Qi Yuan carried with him, Yu Qing's clone was studying his 'spoils of war' with great interest.

In front of Yuqing's clone, a huge two-headed blue wolf was sitting quietly. Even when it was sitting, the wolf was over forty meters tall.

The two-headed giant wolf was naturally the Wind and Cloud Wolf that they had fought before, but now it had become a soul servant controlled by Qi Yuan through the "Great Dream of a Thousand Autumns".

Qi Yuan's physical genes have reached the limit of a hundredfold, and his soul power is naturally nearly a hundred times stronger than that of an ordinary peak World Lord.

In addition, by unexpectedly activating the talent 'Time Freeze', the opponent's consciousness was momentarily delayed, preventing them from self-destructing. Therefore, the process of soul enslavement proceeded very smoothly.

"The 'Time Freeze' talent is truly powerful. In that instant, even the opponent's consciousness seemed to freeze. This ability, when used in conjunction with 'The Great Dream of a Thousand Autumns,' has an unexpectedly good effect."

The ability to freeze time and slow down consciousness and action, preventing the target from resisting or self-destructing, and then take the opportunity to control them with "The Great Dream of a Thousand Autumns" is a perfect match!
However, there are some limitations. The effectiveness of time stop depends on the difference in soul power between the enemy and ourselves. If the target's soul power is extremely strong and their will is extremely firm, then the effect of time stop will be greatly reduced, and they may even be forcibly broken free.

Against such an enemy, the threat level of this combination would be greatly reduced.

"It seems I'll need to focus more on cultivating and refining my soul and willpower from now on."

Qi Yuan's mind raced, but his gaze gradually returned to the two-headed giant wolf crouching in front of him.

"For a soul-controlled servant, becoming an apprentice is very simple; all it takes is a thought."

He looked at the giant wolf in front of him, and the wolf's attribute panel automatically appeared in his mind.

Name: Throy

[Race: Wind and Cloud Wolf Clan]

[Realm: Ninth Rank of Realm Lord]

[Attributes: Wind, Water]

[School of Practice: Spiritual Mindfulness Master]

[Base return rate: 54x]

This Wind and Cloud Wolf has a base return rate of 54 times, which is almost comparable to the level of the core geniuses of the Virtual Universe Company's Secret Realm.

In addition, given its powerful talent that allows it to integrate with the laws of time and space, it is estimated that it is a genius with some status among the demon race.

"Next, let's see what we can give this alien genius as a reward."

Qi Yuanyuqing's clone pondered for a moment, then suddenly had an idea.

He first temporarily installed a detector he had confiscated from the Wind and Cloud Wolf onto the spaceship, and then gave it back the detector that he had originally customized at a cost of 30 Mixed Yuan Units as a gift.

"Thank you teacher!"

The two enormous wolf heads of the Wind and Cloud Wolf emitted sounds simultaneously.

At the same time, a notification of successful return popped up in Qi Yuan's sea of ​​consciousness—

[Successfully gifted a Pxn-1163 large-scale detector to my disciple!]

[Base return rate 54x, return begins.]

[Reward returned: One SFRET01-1030 large detector, already stored in system space, available for collection at any time.]

"what"

Qi Yuan frowned slightly. "Why isn't there a critical hit reward? Is the gift not valuable enough, or..."

Over the next few months, Qi Yuan conducted several more return tests.

Sometimes it is given as a gift of precious resources, and sometimes it is the direct transmission of cultivation experience.

Before each return, he would sometimes encourage and inspire the newly accepted alien 'disciple' as he would with his other disciples, and at other times he would be extremely perfunctory, simply handing over the gift and considering it done.

However, regardless of the gift or Qi Yuan's attitude, the return multiplier was always fixed at the basic 54x, never decreasing, and there was never a critical hit.

"It seems to be just as I suspected."

Based on the verification results, Qi Yuan quickly deduced the reason.

Disciples who have been completely enslaved by their souls will be unconditionally and fanatically loyal to their masters. However, this fanatical loyalty is strictly speaking under the control of secret techniques, not the original instinctive emotion of a living being. Therefore, this controlled "fanaticism" and "surprise" are naturally not recognized by the system.
"Heh, this system really doesn't have a single loophole to exploit."

Qi Yuan wasn't too disappointed by this; on the contrary, he discovered another aspect of the system that he wasn't sure could be considered a 'loophole'—

While other disciples who are accepted into the sect through normal means can provide substantial critical hit rewards, they also have high standards for the 'gifts' they offer. If the gifts do not meet their expectations, not only will there be no critical hit reward, but even the basic return multiplier will be affected and reduced.

Special disciples like Fengyunlang, who are under soul control, will not receive critical hit rewards, but correspondingly, no matter what items are given, the base return rate will not be reduced!
Isn't this exactly the 'perfect tool' that Qi Yuan has been searching for?

Even though each return only has the most basic return rate, it's not picky about who gets the return.
No matter what the item is, once it passes through here, its value immediately inflates more than 50 times. After just a few transactions, his assets can expand to an exaggerated level!

Of course, the items returned in this way are basically of the same level as the gifts, which is extremely convenient for quickly accumulating wealth. However, if you want to obtain some higher-level, truly good items, you'll probably have to look for the 'critical hit rewards' provided by the regular disciples.
"It seems I'll never be short of money again. As for strength, the most important thing right now is to improve it as quickly as possible. Once I have the strength, accumulating wealth won't be a problem for me at all."

The silver triangular spaceship continuously flew over the islands and continents of the Thousand Islands Domain.

Thanks to the results of the previous experiment, the detector Qi Yuan is now using is at the standard level of many powerful kings, so the journey ahead will continue to be very smooth.

As they ventured deeper into the core of the Thousand Islands Domain, the levels of powerful individuals visible on the continents below continued to change.

In the beginning, they were mostly lone immortal gods or small teams of two or three ordinary immortal gods. Even peak immortal army lords were relatively rare.

Later on, almost every team we saw was led by a peak-level expert, the Immortal Army Lord.

After nearly two years of flying.

Qi Yuan's silver-white spaceship slowly landed on an island continent numbered 100 in the Thousand Islands Domain.

"Island continent numbered 100 has a maximum diameter of 7400 billion kilometers and a minimum diameter of 7100 billion kilometers. There are currently 16 experts at the initial level of Marquis on the island, and all other teams are led by peak Immortal Military Lord level experts."

Qi Yuan quickly reviewed the detailed intelligence he had obtained at the cost of a considerable amount of military merit, and soon made a decision.

"The level and number of strong individuals here should be suitable for me. I'll choose this place as my training ground for now."

Whoosh!
Qi Yuan put away the spaceship and then quickly flew into a rock cave in the heart of a mountain range below.

After making some arrangements, he began to seriously consider his next training plan.

With the existence of the return system, he basically doesn't have to worry about resources.

His most pressing task now is to continuously and rapidly improve his own strength.

However, the improvement of strength can be achieved in many ways—

"The laws are the foundation. The most important thing right now is to continuously improve my understanding of the laws. Once my understanding of the laws of time and space reaches a level that the laws acknowledge, I can start preparing for the breakthrough to immortality. Once I break through to immortality, my strength will definitely experience a huge explosion!"

"Secondly, the creation and refinement of secret techniques also need to continue. However, it is best to combine the creation of secret techniques with one's own strongest aspects, and my strongest aspects at present are my talents in time and space!"

"Yes, spacetime. It's best to combine spacetime with creation. We can put more effort into the 'Time Array' in this aspect. Oh, and we need to find a few more disciples with talent in array formations and get the 'Void Array' done as soon as possible."

"Besides improving one's own strength, one should also pay more attention to external things, such as the life of those few plants."

"However, a perfect cultivation program for plant life that can reach the King level is not easy to obtain. And even if you do obtain it, the final cultivation investment is estimated to be at least tens of billions of Chaos Yuan."

"Forget it, let's take it one step at a time and accumulate enough resources first."

After careful consideration, Qi Yuan quickly came up with a general plan for the next steps.

Soon after, this plan was immediately put into implementation.

The two avatars, Yuqing and Shangqing, possess unparalleled talents in the areas of time and space.

In addition to the "Array of Time," the Zhuan Kong King's Space Enlightenment Notes, and the experience returns he received each month from disciples like Long Ji and Hu Ge, Qi Yuan maintained an extremely rapid pace of improvement in his cultivation of laws, which did not become an obstacle to his strength.

So he began to devote more energy to understanding and summarizing himself, and thinking about how to create a secret method that was truly suitable for him.

During his previous adventures with the team, the lightning greatsword he wielded and the ancient lightning pool containing the power of time were two combat techniques he created by combining his own insights.

However, this level of secret technique is still at a relatively rudimentary stage, and since it is created by combining the laws of lightning and time, it cannot fully unleash his strongest insights.

What he needs to do now is to create a secret technique that can perfectly unleash his powerful understanding of time and space!

"The creation of secret methods is not something that comes out of nothing; rather, it requires standing on the shoulders of the sages to innovate and develop new methods. It is advisable to purchase more related secret methods for study and comparison."

"We cannot work in isolation; we must learn from experience in each battle and incorporate it into the creation of secret techniques!"

"Could we use the innate abilities of the two clones as a reference?"

Qi Yuan kept experimenting and exploring, and his life on island number 100 gradually became more regular.

Yuqing and Shangqing clones focused most of their energy on cultivating the laws, while the main body and Taiqing clone, far away in the human territory, began to read extensively the numerous secret techniques and classics on space and time that they had purchased. They combined the contents of the classics with their own understanding and tried to create a secret technique that was most suitable for themselves from scratch!
During this process, Qi Yuan would also have Shang Qing's clone disguise itself and leave the lair to find different opponents to fight. In the battles with each opponent, he would seek inspiration and verify some of his ideas.

Then, based on the gains from the battle, further refine your ideas.
Cultivation, combat, and enlightenment.
And so, in this monotonous yet routine life, Qi Yuan's strength improved rapidly, even to the naked eye.
(End of this chapter)