Time-Type Gene

Residential Zone.

Lu Yuan returned to the rental apartment. In the living room, Li Qinghe and the other two were in the middle of a meal.

He walked over and found the table laid with Nightshade cuisine. The Nightshade Race favored grilling fruits and meats together, layered with a blend of their own unique seasonings. The dishes were a little unusual to look at, but the flavors were genuinely good — a mixture of tangy sweetness and numbing heat that was both appetizing and satisfying.

The three of them were eating with obvious enjoyment.

The moment they spotted Lu Yuan, their eyes lit up. All three turned to look at him.

"Yuan-didi, are you alright?" Li Qinghe asked, voice laced with concern. "Did that Gladys do anything to you?"

Lu Yuan smiled. "I helped hold back the Beast Tide and defended Dark Night City. Why would Gladys do anything to me?"

From the side, Shuangyue spoke in a leisurely drawl: "That's not necessarily true. The Nightshade Race is famously known for their social nature. Who's to say the Saint isn't the type to go after younger men?"

Lu Yuan stared at her. *If she ever said that to Gladys's face, she'd be smashed flat.*

Beside him, Li Qinghe and Si Tingyu exchanged a look and turned watchful eyes on Lu Yuan — both wearing the expressions of people bracing to catch someone red-handed.

Lu Yuan cleared his throat. "Shuangyue, you're reading too much into things. Gladys simply wanted to thank me for helping the Nightshade Race hold Dark Night City — so she prepared a gift."

"A gift? What kind?"

Li Qinghe's curiosity was immediate.

"Three hundred thousand Merits."

"Three hundred thousand?!"

All three of them stared at him, visibly taken aback.

Shuangyue curled her lips. "Even for holding back a Beast Tide, three hundred thousand Merits seems a bit much. There's definitely some shady deal you're not telling us about."

Li Qinghe and Si Tingyu's gazes sharpened instantly.

Lu Yuan sighed quietly and shot Shuangyue a sideways glare — she really did love stirring the pot. "Gladys said it's a gesture of goodwill from the Nightshade Race," he said evenly. "I'm this powerful. Is it really so strange that they'd want to invest in me?"

The three women seemed to accept that and nodded. Then Shuangyue looked at him with a gleam of curiosity.

"So which Nightshade talent did they pair you with? Anastasia?"

Lu Yuan blinked twice. *...How did she get there so fast?*

He gave a dry laugh and deliberately looked away — and away from the suddenly very sharp gazes of Li Qinghe and Si Tingyu. Before he did, he sent one more glare toward Shuangyue.

*Does this woman have nothing better to do?*

"...Yes. It was Anastasia."

Li Qinghe raised an eyebrow. The corner of her mouth curved into a knowing grin. "Oh? Isn't she the strongest talent in the current Nightshade generation? So it was her. Looks like the Nightshade Race really does think highly of you."

Under the combined weight of three pairs of eyes, Lu Yuan felt uncharacteristically self-conscious. He cleared his throat and changed the subject.

"So — when are we heading back to Sky-Mending City?"

Li Qinghe gave a small pout but let the topic drop without further comment.

Si Tingyu smiled softly. "We're ready. We can leave whenever you want."

Shuangyue glanced at what remained on the table. "Done eating."

"Then let's go."

Lu Yuan activated his spatial movement and transported all three of them back to Sky-Mending City.

The four arrived at the Merit Hall in the center of Sky-Mending City.

The Merit Hall was a massive structure — a jet-black tower of imposing height that dominated the surrounding plaza.

People flowed in and out of the entrance in an endless stream.

In the Upper Layer of the Land of Origin, Merit exchanges were routine for Gene Warriors. Whether they intended to or not, every warrior ended up hunting Aberration Feral Beasts eventually, since Aberrations appeared in virtually every region. Even those who only went after ordinary Feral Beasts would run into them sooner or later. As a result, every Gene Warrior accumulated at least some Merits to spend.

The four of them entered and were guided by a Construct to one of the many private exchange rooms the Merit Hall had to offer.

"What are you each planning to get?"

Lu Yuan looked at the three women with mild curiosity.

Li Qinghe thought it over. "I want a better longsword, then cultivation resources with whatever's left."

Si Tingyu smiled. "A set of battle armor for me, then cultivation resources."

Shuangyue said, "A Staff, then. I've been using the same one since Battle King Rank — never found anything that suited me better. With this many Merits, I can finally do something about that. The rest I'll put toward cultivation resources."

Lu Yuan listened, then smiled. "Actually, hold off on the Gene Armaments. Put your Merits into cultivation resources instead — I can have some armaments prepared for you."

If he bought Sixth-tier Gene Armaments and evolved them to Sovereign Grade quality himself, the Spirit Crystals required would be far less than the cost of purchasing equivalent equipment outright. Using Merits on armaments here was a pure waste.

"You'll prepare them for us?"

Li Qinghe blinked, clearly surprised.

"That's right," Lu Yuan said. "I have some decent armaments on hand. Put your Merits into cultivation resources and focus on training. When you run out, just say the word — I'll put something together."

Shuangyue reached up to brush a strand of hair back, a faint flush touching her cheeks. "Isn't that too much? Armaments are expensive, Yuan..."

"No Merits needed," he said. "I have other channels."

"No Merits?"

All three of them stared at him.

They exchanged glances — a brief, bewildered silence fell over the room.

Lu Yuan showed no intention of elaborating. Li Qinghe thought it over, then broke into a mischievous grin.

"Well, if Yuan-didi insists..." She reached over and pinched his cheek. "So this is what it feels like to be kept by a younger man."

Lu Yuan matched her grin. "Sure. Consider yourself kept."

Li Qinghe's smile froze. She cleared her throat, pointedly looked away, and fixed her attention on the holographic panel in front of her. "Right, let me see what's worth getting..."

Si Tingyu's quiet smile deepened. Her own panel materialized, and she began browsing in silence.

Lu Yuan focused his thoughts, and a panel appeared before him as well.

The interface resembled the Auction House back in White Cloud City — a vast digital marketplace — but every item here was exclusive to the Land of Origin, purchasable only with Merits.

He had visited the Merit Hall before with the others but had never taken the time to explore it properly. Today he had no reason to rush.

He started with the Transcendent Gene list.

He still had several Sovereign Grade Transcendent Genes in reserve, but none of them were particularly appealing. A catalog sourced from the Land of Origin itself ought to carry rarer and more exceptional options.

His thoughts drifted to something he had been turning over in his mind: a time-type Transcendent Gene.

*Maybe there's one here?*

A flicker of anticipation moved through his eyes as he pulled up the search function and filtered by keyword: time-type.

Results appeared almost immediately.

His expression lit up — there were actually some.

Then he read the listings. The smile stiffened on his face.

**Time Restart** (Time-Type) — Saint Grade Transcendent Gene — 1,000,000,000,000 Merits

**Spear of Time** (Time-Type) — Sovereign Grade Transcendent Gene — 6,000,000,000 Merits

**Time Stasis** (Time-Type) — Lord Grade Transcendent Gene — 20,000,000 Merits

The corner of Lu Yuan's mouth twitched. *That's completely insane.*

Only three results. And even the lowest-ranked one — the Lord Grade Time Stasis — demanded twenty million Merits.

The crown of the list, Time Restart at Saint Grade, was priced at one trillion.

One trillion Merits. What did that even mean?

Sealing a single Aberration Source yielded roughly five hundred thousand Merits. To reach one trillion, he would need to seal two million such Sources. Even a War God would struggle to accomplish that — and at that pace, the time required would be measured in millions upon millions of years. And that was just to buy the gene. Whether even a War God could successfully engrave a Saint Grade time-type Transcendent Gene was a separate question entirely.

He pulled up the description for Time Restart out of curiosity.

The Combat Technique consumed Spirit Power to rewind time within a defined range back to a chosen point.

Lu Yuan stared at that line.

*If the range could be limited to oneself... wouldn't that mean unlimited self-restoration?*

A chill crawled up his spine at the thought.

One trillion Merits was impossibly far beyond his horizon. He shifted his attention to Time Stasis.

Twenty million Merits. With real effort, that felt achievable — eventually.

Time Stasis: within a defined area, all time flow was suspended. Only the user continued at normal speed. Everything else — every Combat Technique caught in mid-flight, every object in motion — froze at zero.

But at Lord Grade, the domain had hard limits. A sufficiently powerful strike could shatter it outright, and even with enormous Spirit Power poured in, the stasis lasted only moments.

As a Combat Technique, it offered something for a high-level Gene Warrior like Lu Yuan — but less than a genuinely high-grade Transcendent Gene would. For Battle Saints and War Gods, engraving Saint or Divine Grade genes that carried real Law Force was always the better investment.

And that was the fundamental limitation: Lord Grade genes didn't channel Law Force. Engraving Time Stasis wouldn't grant him any comprehension of the laws of time. For high-tier cultivators, it was barely worth the slot.

For lower-ranked Gene Warriors, Time Stasis would be overwhelming — a combat edge utterly beyond their tier. But there was the residual will inside the gene to contend with. Could any warrior at Battle Sovereign level or below survive engraving it? That was practically signing one's own death warrant.

And then there was the price. Twenty million Merits was an astronomical figure for a Battle Emperor, let alone a Battle Sovereign or Battle King. No warrior at those levels could realistically afford it.

The gene sat in an awkward position — too powerful for those who could afford to buy it, too expensive for those who could actually use it.

But for Lu Yuan, none of that applied.

The residual will was no obstacle. The cost was merely a matter of time. And once he had it, he could evolve Time Stasis — all the way to Saint Grade, Divine Grade.

Anticipation rose in his eyes. He wanted to engrave it right now.

The only thing in his way was that he didn't yet have twenty million Merits.

*That's fine. No rush.* A few more Aberration Sources and he'd have what he needed.

He continued through the rest of the Transcendent Gene catalog, noting down the rarest and most valuable entries for consideration at his next breakthrough.

By comparison, other exceptional genes — even genuinely rare ones — could be had at Sovereign Grade or even Saint Grade for under ten million Merits. The time-type genes occupied a category entirely their own.

After the Transcendent Genes, he browsed through the Talismans and Gene Armaments, focusing on the lower-grade items — mostly King Grade and below. His own evolution pipeline made it far more economical to buy low and evolve up. He looked through everything and ultimately purchased nothing.

The Auction House nearby handled those purchases anyway, and spending Spirit Crystals there was more efficient than burning Merits. Merits were best reserved for things Spirit Crystals simply couldn't buy.

In the end, Lu Yuan chose to spend his Merits on cultivation resources.

The cultivation resource for Battle Sovereign rank was the Jade Sovereign Flower.

White as fine jade, with violet light drifting through its petals in flowing streams — a striking thing to look at. Each flower contained Spirit Power equivalent to one hundred thousand Sixth-tier Spirit Crystals.

The price: one hundred Merits per flower.

After Gladys's gift of three hundred thousand Merits, Lu Yuan's total now stood at 1,520,000.

He could purchase fifteen thousand Jade Sovereign Flowers.

In raw Spirit Power terms, that was roughly equivalent to fifteen million Eighth-tier Spirit Crystals — enough to fully temper four or five Saint Grade Transcendent Genes.

Of course, he wouldn't use the flowers directly. He would need to evolve them first, which required Spirit Crystals — funds he could raise by selling items at the Auction House.

In the end, he exchanged only two thousand Jade Sovereign Flowers and left the rest of his Merits untouched.

He still had the Emperor Rankings challenge ahead of him, which came with its own cultivation resource rewards. Between those and the evolved flowers, it should be enough for a solid stretch of training. If it fell short before he had fully tempered all his Transcendent Genes, he could always come back for another batch.

He confirmed the exchange. A cascade of Jade Sovereign Flowers materialized in the air in front of him. All three women noticed immediately and glanced over with undisguised surprise.

"Yuan-didi, you only got Jade Sovereign Flowers? Nothing else?"

Lu Yuan smiled. "No rush. This many should keep me busy for quite a while."

Silence.

All three of them went quiet, their mouths twitching in unison.

Between them, they had a grand total of fifty thousand Merits — enough for perhaps five hundred flowers. Compared to the pile floating in front of Lu Yuan, the gap between them was difficult to put into words.