Swallowing the Stars: 100x Return for Teaching Apprentices

Chapter 170 The Cosmic Genius Battle Begins

In the vast universe, the strong prey on the weak.

The human race is one of the most advanced races in the universe!

However, just because we are at our peak now doesn't mean we'll always be at our peak, so... humanity will also strive to cultivate a new generation of elites.

Only by continuously strengthening generation after generation of elites can the human race be guaranteed to thrive and continue its lineage.

However, the human race's territory is so vast. Within the entire human race's 1008 universe kingdoms and endless, boundless territory, countless geniuses will be born.

These geniuses are scattered throughout the various cosmic nations, star fields, and galaxies of the human race. To accurately select these geniuses from trillions of cosmic humans is an incredibly arduous task.

In order to more efficiently discover and absorb the new generation of geniuses constantly emerging within the human race's territory, the entire human race in the universe regularly holds two of the most magnificent selection battles!

The first is the 'Universe Humans - Peak Genius' selection battle, and the second is the 'Universe Humans - Peak Strongman' selection battle.

The Peak Genius Selection Battle is open to all stellar-level humans from numerous cosmic nations across the entire human race. Any stellar-level human can participate!

The Battle of the Peak Warriors is open to all universe-level warriors from all human universe nations; any universe-level human can participate in the selection process!

Just recently, the new round of the 'Peak Genius Selection Battle' has been launched in full swing throughout the entire human territory.
Chaos City, Wonderland Mansion.

In a grand hall where Qi Yuan Taiqing's clone cultivates daily.

"teacher."

The blond-haired, one-horned youth named 'Longji', dressed in a silver robe, bowed respectfully to Qi Yuan.

"Have you decided to leave Chaos City?"

Qi Yuan's Taiqing clone smiled and looked at him.

Even though Longji has made great progress in his cultivation, he still feels as if he has been seen through instantly from the inside out under his teacher's gaze.

Under the teacher's penetrating gaze, he seemed to have no secrets at all.

"Teacher, I have already made up my mind."

Longji replied respectfully, "This disciple has passed the period of rapid improvement in understanding the laws. Next, I need some practical experience to verify and promote it. Moreover, given this disciple's situation, only on the battlefield outside the domain can I find more opportunities for rapid improvement."

He once possessed a rare and unique life form in the universe called the "Time-Scented Insect".

The Time-Scented Insect is not only naturally in harmony with the laws of time, making it extremely easy for it to comprehend the power of the laws of time, but it can also differentiate into countless offspring.

Each offspring can parasitize the consciousness of a cultivator, controlling the cultivator's actions while also drawing upon the cultivator's soul essence to supply the mother body, thus making the mother body grow stronger.

Such an existence would be an extremely terrifying force on a battlefield outside the region.

Moreover, in the outer battlefields, a large number of 'high-quality' parasitic targets can be easily found, which greatly promotes the growth of the Time-Swept Insect itself.

"Since you've made up your mind, then go ahead."

Qi Yuan hesitated for a moment, then continued speaking.

"You have no shortage of weapons and armor, so I'll give you an extra 10 billion points. You can purchase the items you need from the company's treasury as you see fit."

"Yes, thank you, teacher."

Having spent thousands of years with this teacher, Longji was already familiar with his teacher's frequent "generous gestures," so he didn't show any surprise at the "mere" billion points.

"The battlefields beyond our borders are fraught with danger, and countless alien races possess all sorts of strange and powerful methods. Even if you have good survival skills, you still need to be extra careful," Qi Yuan warned.

"Thank you for the reminder, teacher. I will keep it in mind," Long Ji replied respectfully.

"Yes, train hard and try to pass the 16th level of the Bridge to Heaven as soon as possible. When that happens, I will prepare a gift for you that will definitely surprise you."

Qi Yuan first offered a word of encouragement, then gently waved his hand, "Go ahead, go prepare what you need."

"A surprise gift?"

Longji's eyes lit up slightly.

A gift that a teacher would describe as a 'surprise' must be something extraordinary!

"Teacher, rest assured, your disciple will diligently cultivate and strive to meet your requirements as soon as possible!"

He bowed respectfully to Qi Yuan and said, "Teacher, please take care. This disciple will take his leave now."

With that, he strode away quickly.

Watching his figure gradually disappear into the distance, Qi Yuan couldn't help but smile and sigh:

"Time really flies. In the blink of an eye, even the disciples under my tutelage are about to embark on their own adventures across the universe."

More than three thousand years have passed since he arrived in this world. In his previous life on Earth, more than three thousand years would have witnessed countless dynasties rise and fall, but here, it is merely a fleeting moment in the course of cultivation.

After a few sighs, Qi Yuan turned his attention to something else—

That is the 'Peak Genius Battle' of humankind that has been in full swing recently in the territory of the human race in the universe!
The 'Peak Genius Battle' is held twice every ten thousand years, alternately hosted by 'Virtual Universe Company' and 'Giant Axe Arena'. This year's Genius Battle happens to be hosted by Virtual Universe Company.

For Virtual Universe Company, the Peak Genius Battle, as a once-in-a-millennium grand event held by the company, has attracted a lot of attention.

In addition, the previous Genius Battle, which was hosted by their side, produced several peerless geniuses, such as Bolan, Rong Jun, and Luo Feng, who could be described as once-in-a-millennium geniuses. Naturally, this made many insiders pay special attention to this year's Genius Battle.

For Qi Yuan, the significance of this battle of geniuses was naturally even more extraordinary.

Firstly, due to the timing of his transmigration and the special nature of the return system, he himself did not have the opportunity to participate in this battle of geniuses. Naturally, he was quite interested in this grand event, which was described in great detail in the original work.

Secondly, every batch of genius battles is a time when a large number of geniuses appear, so he naturally wants to take advantage of this opportunity to "make a killing"!
"Hehe, has the selection process already started? Let me see which promising talents have emerged!"

The Battle of the Ultimate Geniuses is divided into the Universe Nation Selection Battle and the Ultimate Final Battle.

First, each of the major cosmic nations conducts its own selection process, choosing its 1000 strongest elites to participate in the ultimate battle of geniuses among the entire human race.

In the final battle, the final ranking will be determined.

The top 1,000 will be recruited as core members by the Virtual Universe Company, and in addition to various rewards, they will also receive 30 years of free initial universe cultivation time.

Generally speaking, even if powerful beings are interested in these young geniuses, they usually observe them during their time in Chaos City before considering taking them as disciples or recruiting them into their ranks.

After all, with the long lifespans of these powerful beings, they have long since experienced countless Genius Battles and seen countless geniuses.

Unless a genius like Berlan from the previous generation appears and shines brightly from the start, it is difficult to attract their attention.

As for those who can't even make it into the top 1,000 in the universe, they are even less likely to be within their scope of attention.

However, Qi Yuan's requirements were not that demanding. The reason why those powerful people who wanted to take on disciples had high requirements was largely because their own resources and energy were limited, and they had to concentrate on more outstanding disciples.

As for resources, are they even a big deal to Qi Yuan?

As for the effort required to teach disciples, it will be returned hundreds or thousands of times in the future.

Therefore, Qi Yuan felt that he could 'show his skills' in this year's Genius Battle.

"Xiao Ai, during the Genius Battle, pay attention to collecting information on challengers with outstanding performances, especially those participants with strong willpower and mental fortitude."

Qi Yuan casually gave his instructions.

The highly anticipated talent selection battle has begun in earnest across the entire human territory.

The human race has 1008 universe kingdoms, each of which governs an average of more than 10,000 star fields and hundreds of millions of star systems.

Even if there are only 10,000 star-level individuals in each star system who are confident enough to sign up for this genius battle, the total number of participants across the entire human race territory would still reach an extremely exaggerated number!

Countless geniuses, from all corners of the human race in the universe.
Some have extraordinary encounters!

Some are extremely talented!
Some people are lucky enough to have a good teacher!

Some possess the heart of a strong person!
Anyway...

They are all different, and each of them considers itself extremely powerful.

The Cosmic Genius Selection Battle gave these geniuses a chance to clash!

The talent selection competition of the Cosmic Kingdom is also divided into several stages—

'World Zone Preliminaries', 'Arena Battles', 'Reincarnation Battles'.

As each stage progressed, and one 'genius' after another collided with each other, a large number of extremely outstanding 'top talents' soon emerged.

Qi Yuan naturally didn't have the energy to pay attention to all the participants, but with the help of the intelligent life form 'Xiao Ai', it was still very easy to focus on those with unique and outstanding performances.

And through this observation, he did indeed discover several promising talents.

As it turns out, his judgment was excellent.

As the second stage of the Genius Battle, the 'Peak Genius Final Battle,' continued, the few outstanding stellar-level geniuses he had his eye on all made their way up and successfully broke into the top 1,000 of the overall rankings of this year's Cosmic Genius Battle.

The entire Genius Battle, from the 'World Championship Preliminaries' in the Cosmic Nation to the final 'Overall Ranking' stage, lasted for nearly six years.

With the final stage of determining the 'Universal Ranking,' this year's 'Peak Genius Battle' of the Human Race, which lasted for nearly six years, finally came to a successful conclusion.

Immediately afterwards, F-class spaceships took off from all directions of the human territory, carrying the top 1,000 geniuses of this year's Genius Battle, and rapidly converged on the headquarters of the Virtual Universe Company.

Here, they will travel through a cosmic passage to the ancient Chaos City to experience the first foundational stage after becoming core members of the Virtual Universe Corporation.

(End of this chapter)