Strange Connections in the Land of Origin

The Kaman Arena Guardian took several minutes to materialize — not a quick process.

During those minutes, more people drifted into the plaza and gathered around the arena.

Most were intelligence scouts from various racial factions who had already been stationed there. A smaller number were bystanders who had been nearby and been pulled over by friends.

Everyone watched the arena with quiet anticipation.

Because dying in a qualification challenge meant immediate expulsion from the Land of Origin, few ever attempted one. Without serious confidence, who would throw away their cultivation time here?

After all, if a Battle Venerable died, it meant at least three or four months — sometimes as long as half a year — locked out of the Land of Origin. An absence that long could let rivals of comparable ability pull ahead by a staggering margin.

Witnessing a qualification challenge was a rare occasion.

Several minutes later, the Kaman Arena Guardian's form solidified completely.

The moment it did, a resonant drumbeat rang across the arena.

The guardian's gaze sharpened. Sword cries rose around him as streams of sword shadows began circling his body. Gold-red radiance pulsed from his frame. With a roar, his body blurred into afterimages and he charged straight at Yeye.

Yeye's expression didn't change. Dark mist curled around her, and her body vanished without a sound — smooth and silent as a cat slipping into shadow. An instant later, she reappeared behind the Kaman guardian, emerging from the darkness at his back.

The black longsword in her hand blazed with fierce sword light.

The black radiance swallowed the guardian whole.

His circling sword shadows surged into motion, rushing to intercept.

A rapid chorus of metallic clashes rang out.

Yet slash after slash still opened across the guardian's body, blood welling from each wound. Even a Battle Venerable armed with two King Grade genes couldn't fully hold against Yeye's assault.

The watching crowd couldn't contain their cries.

"That Cat-kin is terrifying — she wounded the guardian that badly in a single exchange!"

"I heard she's a princess of the Tianming Empire, a descendant of the Tianming Saint, and an Innate King Grade."

"Innate King Grade — no wonder. Most Innate King Grades end up on the Prodigy Rankings eventually. The question is just where she places."

"Some of the intelligence agencies are saying that if Princess Yeye fully tempers her genes, she could crack the top ten. Every single one of her genes is exceptional."

"The top ten? That basically guarantees Battle Emperor, with at least some real shot at Battle Saint."

"Who knows? You're all aware that those agency reports are half marketing — they hype promising talents to drum up attention. And she's a Saint's descendant, so flattering her earns goodwill from both the Tianming Empire and the Tianming Saint. Those crafty agencies would never let an opportunity like that pass."

"...Fair enough."

While the crowd debated, Yeye split into five clones.

The next moment, Yeye and all five clones launched a simultaneous assault on the guardian.

A gold-red shield materialized before him — and lasted barely a single breath before it shattered.

With a furious roar, the guardian surged into a beam of sword light and burst free of the encirclement, reappearing on the arena over a hundred meters away.

The moment he landed, Yeye was already there to meet him. Wave after wave of black sword light crashed down and buried him entirely.

Out of options, the guardian let out one last defiant roar — and was cut down.

The defeated guardian dissolved into a column of white light and vanished.

A resonant voice filled the plaza:

"Qualification Challenge — Success."

A flash of golden light swept across Yeye's Gene Battle Mark. The arena dissolved, and Yeye reappeared at her original position.

Lu Yuan looked at her and smiled.

"Yeye, you've gotten so strong."

Yeye shook her head slightly.

"This isn't much. There are plenty of people on the Prodigy Rankings who are stronger than me."

"That's only for now," Lu Yuan said. "Once your tempering reaches completion, you'll be even stronger."

Yeye smiled and nodded. "Mm."

She was quietly confident in herself.

"So what's next?" Lu Yuan asked. "You're going to challenge a ranked talent?"

He was genuinely curious — he wanted to see what kind of strength the fighters on the Prodigy Rankings actually possessed.

Yeye nodded. "I just earned my challenge right, so I can challenge ranks 96 through 100. I'm going for 96."

Lu Yuan glanced at the board. The 96th-ranked fighter was a Karo named Bao Tai.

Yeye held her Gene Battle Mark close to the Prodigy Rankings board. A golden thread appeared, linking it to Bao Tai's position on the board.

The golden thread flickered. Yeye's brow furrowed slightly.

"What is it?" Lu Yuan asked.

"The challenge went through," Yeye said, "but Bao Tai set the time for the day after tomorrow. He says he's occupied right now."

Lu Yuan blinked. "He doesn't have to fight immediately?"

Yeye shook her head. "As the challenged party, he has the right to choose the time. It just can't be more than a month out — by Land of Origin reckoning."

Lu Yuan nodded slowly, then felt a flicker of regret. The day after tomorrow was when he would be leaving the Land of Origin. He'd wanted to watch a real Prodigy Rankings duel, to see just how strong these top-ranked geniuses truly were. A pity.

The intelligence scouts from the surrounding factions felt a similar disappointment — but they each made careful note of it: two days from now, Yeye would challenge Bao Tai. They would be sure to return for that.

Then Yeye looked up at Lu Yuan.

"Ah-Yuan, aren't you going to complete your own qualification challenge?"

Lu Yuan paused, thought it over, then nodded with a grin.

"Since I'm already here — might as well get it done."

The onlookers who had been watching all jolted at that, turning properly to study Lu Yuan for the first time.

Until now, their full attention had been on Princess Yeye of the Tianming Empire. They'd assumed Lu Yuan was just her tag-along — they had even wondered, privately, why a Tianming princess would be traveling around with a human attendant.

They hadn't expected this human to be a prodigy in his own right.

And from the sound of the conversation, he actually expected to win the qualification challenge?

Many of the gathered Gene Warriors now studied him with mingled curiosity and disbelief.

By then, guided by Yeye, Lu Yuan had already walked up to the golden stone tablet of the Prodigy Rankings and pressed his Gene Battle Mark against its surface.

He felt golden threads surge from the tablet and connect to his mark.

The instant they made contact —

The Evolution Cube deep inside him lurched into violent, shuddering motion.

His consciousness roared. His mind went blank. When awareness returned, he found himself suspended in a vast, boundless starfield — which shifted in a heartbeat into an immense and sprawling continent.

The continent stretched in every direction without end, its borders invisible. Yet somehow Lu Yuan knew instinctively: this was the Land of Origin.

And in several scattered locations across that immense land, he suddenly felt a series of faint, hazy connections stir into being.

The Evolution Cube shook with an intensity he had never experienced before.

These hazy connections... felt strangely familiar — like something that resonated with the Evolution Cube itself.

His thoughts stalled.

What struck him most sharply was that one of those connections led to a place he recognized: a forest. A forest he knew well.

It was where he had died for the first time. The Mist Forest.

Back then, he and Amy had wandered into it together and encountered that terrifying Mirage Dragon. It had killed them both — crushed them effortlessly beneath a suffocating tide of mist.

And now, deep in the Mist Forest, he could feel that faint, inexplicable connection?

*What is going on?!*

Before he could think further, his consciousness was suddenly yanked downward.

He had hovered above the vast Land of Origin for only a few seconds. Then his awareness snapped back into his body.

The Evolution Cube stilled.

Yeye's voice reached him.

"Ah-Yuan? Are you alright?"

He blinked, looking over at her.

"What happened?"

"You just blanked out," Yeye said. "You were gone for a few seconds."

He understood — his mind had been projected into the Land of Origin, and from the outside, he'd simply stood there vacant and motionless.

"I'm fine," he said with a light smile. "Just had something cross my mind."

Yeye nodded. "Alright. You can initiate the qualification challenge by thinking it inwardly."

Lu Yuan did as she said.

Almost immediately, he felt himself brush against an overwhelming, boundless consciousness. It was profoundly gentle and welcoming — something about it made him want to draw near, made it impossible to summon any hostility toward it.

This was the consciousness of the Land of Origin.

He hadn't expected contact to feel like this. He cast around for the right comparison, and after a moment it came to him: it was like being held inside a womb.

He didn't dwell on it further — because the arena had already reappeared in the plaza.

His body was transferred onto it.

The transfer was instant. Even with Emperor Grade Transcendent Genes, he didn't register a single moment of the process.

Before him, a small, indistinct silhouette began slowly taking shape.

It appeared to be a Green Demon.

While Lu Yuan waited for the guardian to fully materialize, a voice rang out among the onlookers who had been sizing him up.

"I just remembered who this guy is."

"Who is he?" the others asked.

"Remember when the Aier Mechanical Ruins opened not long ago? There were two humans who teamed up with Princess Yeye to kill two Innate King Grades — one from the Green Demon race, one from the White Frost Race."

Several people went still.

"Right — I remember that. So it's him?"

"From what he showed back then, he should be Innate Lord Grade, maybe Innate Chief Grade. Probably no weakling."

"No wonder he travels with Princess Yeye."

"Do you think he'll pass the qualification challenge?"

"If he's willing to try, he should be fine. It's just a question of how long it takes."

"Ten minutes, I'd say — he's a genius running alongside Yeye after all."

"I'm thinking twenty. Even an Innate Chief Grade doesn't waltz through an Arena Guardian. If the matchup is bad — wrong elemental type, bad counters — he might not even pull it off."

"That's a fair point..."

Beyond the general crowd, a small cluster of Blood Bone Gnolls had also gathered nearby. Among them were Heiming and Zhou Er.

They had originally come intending to try the qualification challenge for Battle General Grade rankings themselves. They hadn't expected to walk straight into Lu Yuan's qualification attempt.

Hearing the crowd's speculation, the Gnolls let out quiet, contemptuous laughs.

Innate Lord Grade? Innate Chief Grade? Not weak? Might not even win?

This was a monster who had butchered Battle Venerable geniuses while himself at Battle General rank.

Zhou Er stared up at Lu Yuan on the arena, unease spreading openly across his face.

"My Lord Heiming, let's come back another time. Can we just leave?"

He had seen it with his own eyes — the Small World projection showing Kulu, Shuiji, and the other Gnoll prodigies that Zhou Er had long considered the most fearsome talents of their generation, all cut down by Lu Yuan with casual ease.

He'd been plagued by nightmares about this monster ever since.

Heiming's eyes flickered. An involuntary, bone-deep unease settled behind his gaze.

He thought it over, then said flatly, "We move back. Far enough that he doesn't notice us."

Every single one of them nodded without hesitation.

White Cloud City was a neutral safe zone — anyone who attacked here would be hunted down and killed by the Constructs — but knowing that did nothing to ease the cold dread pooling in their chests.

Several minutes later, Lu Yuan's Arena Guardian fully materialized.

It was a Green Demon draped in a dark-green robe.

The moment it solidified, it turned toward Lu Yuan with an eerily lifelike grin — almost indistinguishable from the real malice of a living creature.

Then it raised the withered wood Staff in its hands.

Tendrils of sickly green mist began seeping from its body, spreading outward in all directions.

Lu Yuan raised an eyebrow.

*Poison Mist. Of all the matchups.*

Before his recent evolutions, that might have been a minor headache. But having evolved Life Tide, the inherited knowledge within that Emperor Grade life-and-nature gene encompassed poison in all its forms — because most toxic elements were simply derivatives of natural-elemental energy. Life Tide itself carried an innate degree of detoxification.

He didn't even need full immunity. Keeping the mist from entering his body was trivial.

A thread of green light flashed through his eyes.

His body vanished.

He reappeared behind the Green Demon.

Sword light flared.

The guardian hadn't even registered his movement before the blade swept through its skull.

The Green Demon's body dissolved into white light and was gone.

The crowd — still debating how many minutes Lu Yuan would need — fell utterly silent.

Everyone stared at the fading white light on the arena.

He had been even faster than Yeye.

It so far exceeded what any of them had anticipated that for a long moment, no one could find words.

Even Yeye blinked, surprise flickering openly in her eyes.

Small White's jaw had dropped. She stared at Lu Yuan with wide eyes, completely dumbstruck.

After the resonant voice announced his victory, Lu Yuan's body returned to its original position.

He noticed Small White's expression and couldn't help but laugh.

"What are you so shocked about?"

Small White snapped back to herself. A faint flush crept up her cheeks, and her head dipped in evident shame.

"As Her Highness's attendant, my performance has brought disgrace upon the Tianming Royal Family. Your Highness — I am willing to accept death as atonement!"

Lu Yuan rolled his eyes. This one always managed to blow the smallest things wildly out of proportion.

Yeye reached over and patted Small White on the head — unhurried and patient, the way one might soothe a child — and said simply, "It's fine. I forgive you."

"Your Highness!"

Small White looked up at Yeye with profound gratitude, her white cat tail swishing so furiously it was practically a blur.

Lu Yuan stared at the display with flat exasperation and cleared his throat.

*Are you sure you're not a dog?*

Small White pulled herself together. She looked at Lu Yuan, genuinely rattled.

"Young Master Lu Yuan, you've grown terrifyingly strong. I never imagined you could reach this level in such a short time. It's truly astonishing."

Yeye nodded as well, looking at him with quiet admiration.

"I knew it, Ah-Yuan. You really are something."

That prompted a memory — back in the Aier Mechanical Ruins, Yeye had said nearly the same thing out of nowhere. He smiled.

"Well, I do put serious effort into my training. It adds up eventually."

Small White's expression went a little odd. She couldn't quite put her finger on what was wrong.

*Hard work leading to this kind of power...* Were there really no Gene Warriors among the trillion souls of the White Cloud Star Domain who worked harder than Young Master Lu Yuan?

Before she could unravel the thought, Yeye spoke.

"Ah-Yuan, do you want to try challenging the rankings?"

Lu Yuan thought for a moment, then grinned. "Since I'm here — why not. Let me see who I'd challenge."

He turned to look at the Prodigy Rankings board.

He'd obviously skip rank 96 — Yeye had already laid claim to it, and if she succeeded, that spot would be hers. Challenging it would mean challenging Yeye. He wasn't about to do that.

Rank 97, then... hmm?

His expression went odd.

*98 — Bai Lin. White Frost Race. Battle Venerable.*

The corner of his mouth curved into a faint, interested smile.

*A familiar face, of all things. Wasn't that the cold, aloof one from the Aier Mechanical Ruins?*