A Rich Harvest

Inside the Amethyst Guardian, Ningna glared at Lu Yuan with all the defiance he had left.

"I don't believe you can break my defense now!"

Lu Yuan said nothing. He raised his foot and drove it into the shield.

**BOOM!!**

The shield held — but Ningna didn't. He shot straight into the air as a five-foot purple sphere, rocketing upward before crashing back down against the metal floor with a resonant clang.

Lu Yuan watched him land, then let his gaze drift toward the entrance of the hundred-meter tower, where the enormous mechanical warrior stood motionless, its scarlet eyes fixed on him.

*Interesting.* From the very start of the battle, that thing had been staring at him without moving. Not attacking. Just watching. The conclusion seemed obvious: this warrior's programming was entirely defensive — guard the entrance, nothing more. Unless someone actually tried to walk through, it wouldn't engage.

Which meant he had a very useful test subject.

He looked back at Ningna — rattling around inside the sphere, disoriented but furious — and smiled pleasantly. "So this thing's defense really is that strong? Let me see what it can do."

Ningna caught that smile and felt a chill run through him. He forced his expression into something composed.

"What are you thinking? Don't get any ideas — this mechanical warrior isn't going to stop me either."

*So he's already guessed.* Lu Yuan looked at him with a faintly odd expression, then glanced toward the entrance guardian one more time, something clicking in his face. He turned back.

"I want to do exactly what you're already imagining."

Ningna stiffened. "Human! What do you think you're doing?!"

"Wait — wait, wait, wait! I'm warning you, don't be reckless! I will genuinely get angry if you do this! I mean it! Are you listening?! ARE YOU LISTENING?!"

Lu Yuan considered him pleasantly. "Don't worry. Kicking you into the warrior probably won't kill it anyway — so I won't bother."

Ningna breathed out. A cold, triumphant smile crossed his face.

Lu Yuan's foot connected with the shield.

Ningna was already flying before he understood what had happened. He and the Amethyst Guardian were airborne together, a five-foot purple sphere screaming across the plaza — aimed directly at the two mechanical guards flanking the tower entrance.

**BOOM!!**

The sphere crashed into them. Both guards went flying, slamming down across the plaza more than thirty feet away in a shower of sparks, their metal frames buckled beyond function.

The remaining mechanical guards pivoted instantly, redirecting all fire toward the purple target.

**BOOM BOOM BOOM!!**

Energy bolts hammered the Amethyst Guardian from every direction. The shockwaves ripped along the metal streets in rolling waves. The shield held — but every time it touched the ground, Lu Yuan was already there, and his foot sent it flying again.

Up. Into the guards. Off the walls. Down. Into another cluster of guards. Up again.

In the air, Ningna's face had gone completely dark.

*Treated like a ball.*

He had never experienced anything like this. He was a genuine prodigy among the Green Demon people — admired, envied, the object of reverence wherever he went. He had never been helpless. He had never been humiliated.

He tried to get angry. He couldn't. What was the point? There was nothing he could do from inside the sphere. He couldn't attack, couldn't move, couldn't even manage his own trajectory.

He bit down on his fury and endured.

The purple sphere careened around the plaza again and again, destroying mechanical guard after mechanical guard, the shockwaves from each collision rippling outward across the metal ground. Every remaining guard funneled all their fire into the target — and accomplished nothing.

Then Ningna noticed something.

Hairline cracks. Running across the interior surface of the Amethyst Guardian in thin, branching lines.

Ice crept through his chest.

He looked toward the entrance. The mechanical warrior still hadn't left its post — it hadn't reached Second-rank strength, at least. But those cracks—

*If the shield breaks, I'm dead. If I cancel it myself, I die the instant it drops.*

*As long as this human can't break through, I still have a chance.*

When the last mechanical guard fell and the plaza grew silent, Lu Yuan stood amid the floating light clusters and turned his attention to the entrance guardian.

Ningna saw where his gaze had gone. The alarm in his chest sharpened into something urgent.

*Endure. There has to be an opening.*

"Listen," he said, putting everything he had into making his voice sound reasonable. "If you let me go, we work together. Between us, we can take down the mechanical warrior. You keep everything inside — every last bit of it. I ask for nothing. Just let me walk away alive."

Lu Yuan glanced at him. Then he stepped closer, his expression pleasantly unreadable.

Ningna pressed on. "I mean it. I'll give up the treasure entirely. Just my life."

Lu Yuan looked at the tense, hopeful face staring up at him, and smiled with great warmth.

"Don't worry," he said. "Kicking you into the warrior probably won't kill it anyway — so I won't."

Ningna let out a long breath. A cold laugh escaped him.

*I win this one.*

Lu Yuan kicked him at the tower guardian.

The Amethyst Guardian sphere screamed across the open plaza and slammed into the mechanical warrior.

The warrior's eyes blazed scarlet. A low mechanical whine rose in its chest, swelling into a roar as blue lightning crawled up its three-meter frame, coiling around the massive battle axe raised high.

**"Beep. Target confirmed. Target is extremely dangerous. Initiating elimination."**

**Combat Technique: Thunder Slash.**

The axe came down.

**BOOM!!**

The sphere was launched like a cannonball, skidding across the metal floor and gouging trails through solid steel. When it finally rolled to a stop, Ningna stared at the surface with shaking eyes.

New cracks. Several of them, deep and branching.

*Still intact. Still holding. As long as—*

He heard the scrape of boots against metal. Lu Yuan's foot hit the ground and the surface fractured in a spider-web pattern. His body vanished.

He reappeared directly in front of the mechanical warrior, using Flicker.

The heavy sword met the battle axe in a collision that rang across the entire plaza.

**CLANG!!**

The mechanical warrior — over three meters tall, built for absolute destruction, radiating force that would crush most opponents outright — stumbled back a full step.

From the sphere, Ningna stared.

*This warrior is at the absolute peak of First-rank Boss Grade. It's practically at Lord Grade's doorstep. How is it still losing to a single human?!*

The warrior's joints blazed with crackling purple current as it forced its power to its limit. The axe swept back in a wide arc.

**BOOM!!**

Lu Yuan twisted and let the blow pass, then immediately reversed into a sweeping horizontal cut. The sword rang off the warrior's torso. The warrior staggered.

Ningna tracked the fight with calculating eyes. *Maybe the human will die. If he dies, I can run.*

The warrior brought its axe down again — this time catching the battered sphere and sending it crashing into the wall, then the floor.

Ningna pressed himself flat inside the shield and braced. When the sphere finally stopped rolling, he looked at the surface.

More cracks. Too many.

He stared at the spider-web of fractures spreading across the Amethyst Guardian and felt his earlier defiance drain out of him entirely.

*Only so many hits left in this thing.*

Meanwhile, the fight continued.

This mechanical warrior was stronger than anything Lu Yuan had encountered since the Earth Fire Armored Dragon — perhaps stronger still. It absorbed every blow, fighting back with the full brutal force of its constructed frame. The old Lu Yuan might have found it troublesome. But that was then. He was a far cry from who he had once been.

He kept moving, kept the pressure relentless. Sword against axe. Heavy blow answered with heavier blow. After another dozen exchanges, his blade found the warrior's waist for the third time — and this time something gave. A vicious fracture split across the midsection with an ugly crack, and blue-purple sparks sizzled at the exposed edges.

The mechanical warrior's body jerked. Its movements slowed by a fraction.

Lu Yuan pressed in immediately, hammering every crack, driving his blade into joint after joint, fracture after fracture, each strike faster than the last.

The cracks spread. The groaning of stressed metal filled the air.

With a final **CRASH**, the enormous frame buckled and fell, striking the metal floor hard enough to shake the plaza. Sparks cascaded from its body in long, dying bursts.

The scarlet light faded from its eyes.

The mechanical roar died to silence.

"That should about do it," Lu Yuan said, exhaling slowly.

Inside the cracked and battered sphere, Ningna had watched the whole thing. The mechanical warrior — the one thing that might have killed this human — was down.

He forced himself upright and began stumbling toward the street.

*Now. While the human is distracted—*

He made it ten feet.

A blur appeared in his path.

Lu Yuan stood there looking down at him with the same unhurried expression he'd worn through the entire fight.

"I was going to deal with you afterward," he said. "But since you're making a run for it — might as well now."

"Wait—! I'm warning—"

Lu Yuan grabbed the battered Amethyst Guardian and hurled it directly toward the mechanical warrior, which was still sparking on the ground.

The warrior's axe — still crackling with residual lightning — came down in one final reflexive arc.

The Amethyst Guardian, riddled with cracks from end to end, shattered.

The axe caught Ningna full on. He was sent spinning through the air in a wide arc.

Blood sprayed across the plaza.

Ningna's body hit the metal floor and was still.

Lu Yuan glanced at him briefly, then turned back to the mechanical warrior still raising itself for another strike. He stepped in and met it head-on.

When it finally collapsed for the last time, the plaza was quiet.

The plaza and surrounding streets were carpeted with the wreckage of mechanical guards, their frames scattered like broken toys across the metal ground. Clusters of light floated above each body, patient and waiting.

Lu Yuan moved through them without hurry, collecting everything.

The mechanical warrior had dropped three light clusters — two cyan, one green.

He opened the first cyan cluster.

A set of armor. He examined it.

> **Mechanical Berserker Armor (First-rank 100%):** Boss Grade armor. Primary boost: Strength. Secondary boost: Constitution. Minor boost: Agility.

First-rank, fully tempered, Boss Grade — a substantial step up from the Elite Grade armor he was currently wearing. He swapped into it immediately. The difference settled through his body like a warm current: strength, solidity, the faint hum of enhanced physicality.

The second cyan cluster held a Boss Grade Transcendent Gene.

He stored it carefully. Whether to use it himself, sell it for credits at the Academy, or put it up for auction — plenty of options.

As for the green cluster: ten vials of Enhanced Spirit Power Gene Fluid.

He uncorked one and drank it on the spot. The spirit energy inside flowed with far less resistance than standard Gene Fluid, flooding his channels clean and fast. And the volume was staggering — easily ten times the density of a regular vial.

*Ten vials. That alone is worth ten thousand First-rank Spirit Crystals.*

He moved on to the Gene Warriors he'd killed across the surrounding streets. Their drops had scattered widely, but there were a lot of them, and none had been weak. He worked methodically, gathering everything.

When he finished tallying, he looked at the total.

Close to a thousand Spirit Power Gene Fluids. Combined with the enhanced vials from the mechanical warrior's drop, the entire haul translated to roughly a hundred thousand First-rank Spirit Crystals in value.

And there was more: an Origin Stone.

His third.

He turned it over once, then put it away. Even by his standards, this was a significant windfall. He was quietly elated.

Then he turned and looked at the hundred-meter tower.

Inside, a single staircase wound upward through bare, silent floors.

Lu Yuan climbed. He checked every level as he went — nothing. He reached the roof. Nothing.

One floor down from the top, he found it: a single door.

He pushed it open and walked in.

The room was lined floor to ceiling with racks of vials, each one glowing with a faint, steady green light. The shelves stretched wall to wall, densely packed, the air thick with the scent of concentrated spirit energy.

Lu Yuan counted.

Five hundred bottles.

He picked one up and checked it.

*Enhanced Spirit Power Gene Fluid.*

He swept his gaze across the room — rack after rack after rack — and stood there for a moment in silence, taking it in.

Even for him, this was staggering.

Five hundred enhanced vials. Equivalent to five hundred thousand First-rank Spirit Crystals.

Just from one building.

He gathered them all without another word, swept the room clean, and left.

Standing outside in the silence of the cleared plaza, Lu Yuan ran the full accounting in his mind.

Between the enhanced vials from the tower room and the standard Spirit Power Gene Fluids from the plaza, his total haul for this single location came out to roughly five hundred thousand First-rank Spirit Crystals in value. Add the Origin Stone, the Boss Grade Transcendent Gene, and the Mechanical Berserker Armor, and the picture was almost embarrassingly good.

His Seed of Nature gene was close — genuinely close to completion, with this much material to feed into it. And once it was complete—

*I can even spend Spirit Crystals to evolve the next gene after that.*

He looked up at the mechanical city skyline. Dozens of hundred-meter towers still stood untouched across the streets. And beyond those, further in—

Five-hundred-meter towers. Buildings that reached a kilometer into the sky.

What would those hold?

And then there was the Floating City.

Lu Yuan smiled to himself and turned toward the next tower. This was the Aier Mechanical Ruins — a site of opportunity that opened only once every fifty years. Every building, every floor, every corridor had something waiting in it.

He intended to take all of it.