The Strongest of the Young Generation

"There are so many people watching you."

Si Tingxue had already noticed the many eyes fixed on Lu Yuan and murmured softly.

Lu Yuan smiled. "Well, I did top both the Prodigy Rankings and the King Rankings. That makes me a bonafide super-genius, I'd say."

Si Tingxue rolled her eyes. "...Narcissist."

Talking as they walked, the two of them soon reached the Rankings stele.

Lu Yuan pressed his hand against the Emperor Rankings stele, and a massive arena materialized in the air above them.

This was the Emperor Rankings qualification challenge.

Lu Yuan vanished from where he stood and appeared on the arena. Across from him, a phantom rapidly solidified into the form of an elf in leather armor, a longsword in hand.

The Gene Warriors who had been watching Lu Yuan erupted into excited murmurs the moment he stepped onto the platform.

"Just as expected — he's challenging the Emperor Rankings qualification test."

"More big news incoming."

"How high do you think he'll place this time?"

"..."

While the crowd murmured, the challenge had already begun. White streams of light coiled around the elf, and in an instant he became a white blur, vanishing from his position.

The speed was so blinding that even a Battle King Rank powerhouse might have struggled to track it.

But in front of Lu Yuan, space suddenly tore open. The white blur was swallowed into the rift in an instant — and shattered.

The voice of the Land of Origin announced that Lu Yuan had passed the test.

It had taken only a fraction of a second.

The crowd watching with such curiosity hadn't even processed what had happened.

After a beat of stunned silence, an uproar broke out.

"...Th-that was way too fast?!"

"Exactly — the qualification opponent is a Battle Emperor with at least two Sovereign Grade genes. And it just... died like that?"

"Lu Yuan's power just keeps growing."

Shocked cries washed over one another as Lu Yuan returned to where he'd been standing.

Si Tingxue was still rooted in place, not quite back to her senses.

Lu Yuan reached over and gave her cheek a playful pinch, which finally snapped her out of it.

She looked at him, her expression complicated.

"...You just keep getting stronger. You're incredible now."

She thought back to when they had first met, over three years ago. Back then, she had known she was slightly behind him, but the gap had still felt measurable.

But now... the gap between them felt vaster than the distance between heaven and earth.

"You've inscribed a Sovereign Grade gene now too," Lu Yuan said, smiling. "Aren't you also getting stronger? It'll only go up from here."

Si Tingxue came back to herself and gave a small nod.

She pressed her lips together, a look of quiet resolve settling in her eyes. The gap might be daunting, but that was no reason to stop pushing. With Lu Yuan's support, she had to grow into someone who could actually stand beside him and be of use.

"Are you going to start your challenge now?"

Si Tingxue looked at him, a small smile on her lips.

"Of course."

Lu Yuan placed his hand on the stele and began his challenge.

The Emperor Rankings operated differently from the King Rankings: the highest jump allowed in a single challenge was within the top fifty. Lu Yuan understood the reasoning. For White Cloud Star Domain, Battle Emperors were already top-tier combatants. And among the Battle Emperors of White Cloud Star Domain, those talented enough to defeat the qualification projection were far fewer than in either the Prodigy Rankings or the King Rankings. This had led the will of the Land of Origin to relax the ranking conditions for challenges considerably.

In other words, Lu Yuan could reach first place in just two challenges.

For Lu Yuan, that was excellent news — it would save him a great deal of time.

He went straight for the rank fifty Battle Emperor.

A Barbarian warrior by the name of Jiaju.

In the Upper Layer of the Land of Origin, inside a rented room in Sky-Mending City, the large and heavily muscled Barbarian warrior Jiaju sat cross-legged on his bed in meditation.

Then his eyes drifted open, a flicker of surprise crossing his face.

"Lu Yuan...? Human?"

Something clicked in his mind and the corner of his mouth twitched sharply.

"...Don't tell me it's *that* Lu Yuan — the one who held back nearly half the Beast Tide in the Dark Night Forest by himself?!"

Jiaju had heard the stories from the Dark Night Forest Beast Tide. It had become the talk of every gathering — Gene Warriors everywhere had shared the tale over drinks and meals. Many had come to regard Lu Yuan as one of the strongest among the Human Race's young generation.

That kind of title was usually reserved for the offspring of War Gods. After all, a War God's descendants had access to resources ordinary people could never dream of — their starting point was on an entirely different level. For the average Gene Warrior, a lifetime of grueling effort might still fall short of where those lineages began.

Yet Lu Yuan was simply a human from an ordinary planet — and he had reached those heights anyway. No wonder people were astonished.

Though Jiaju hadn't been there for the Dark Night Forest Beast Tide himself, he had heard Lu Yuan's name. He narrowed his eyes slightly, a spark of anticipation lighting up in his gaze, and accepted the challenge without hesitation.

In the next instant, Jiaju was gone.

White Cloud City, Central Plaza.

Lu Yuan and Jiaju appeared on the arena simultaneously.

Jiaju had rough-hewn features, a tall and powerfully built frame, and was clad in gray-white metal combat armor so heavy it made him look like a walking fortress of steel. In his hand, he carried an enormous shield studded with spikes. One glance was all it took for Lu Yuan to recognize the type: a Guardian Type warrior.

As Lu Yuan sized him up, Jiaju was doing the same. He grinned.

"Are you the Lu Yuan who held back the Beast Tide at Dark Night Forest?"

Lu Yuan blinked, glancing at Jiaju with mild surprise — he hadn't expected that question. It wasn't anything he needed to hide, though. There had been plenty of witnesses.

He smiled and nodded. "That's me. I'm surprised you know about it, Senior Jiaju. Were you there?"

Jiaju shook his head. "No, but your name has been making the rounds in Sky-Mending City lately. Couldn't miss it."

Lu Yuan was briefly speechless.

*He was that famous now? His legend had even spread to Sky-Mending City?*

He couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth.

While Lu Yuan was still processing this, Jiaju's gaze sharpened.

"If you're really that Lu Yuan, then I'm probably no match for you. Come on — show me what you've got. Break through my defense, and the win's yours."

With that, Jiaju let out a low growl and raised his massive shield, planting himself like an immovable fortress. Gray-white metallic light swirled around his body, his presence surging — powerful and unwavering.

Lu Yuan's smile deepened. He gripped his greatsword and swung it — casually.

A pale white sword flash crossed a hundred meters in the blink of an eye and passed clean through Jiaju's body.

Jiaju's frame went rigid, shock blooming across his face — and then he dissolved into white light and was gone.

The Gene Warriors watching below were left staring in slack-jawed disbelief, not quite sure what they had just seen.

A hush fell over the Central Plaza. Then the whispering started. Intelligence operatives throughout the crowd murmured urgently to their contacts.

"He didn't even use a Combat Technique?! Just one casual sword swing — and Jiaju's wiped out?!"

"That... Jiaju had every single Transcendent Gene inscribed. He's a Guardian Type. His defenses are something many Battle Emperors can't break in a single hit. What is Lu Yuan's power level?! This is insane!"

"Right? That attack power feels stronger than anyone in the top ten of the Emperor Rankings."

"Then... is Lu Yuan going for first place again?"

Those words sent a ripple through the nearby Gene Warriors, who exchanged bewildered stares. Not even a few months since breaking through to Battle Emperor, and he was already gunning for the top of the Emperor Rankings? What kind of monster was this?

Meanwhile, Lu Yuan had calmly returned to his spot, pocketed the pile of rewards bestowed by the will of the Land of Origin, and was already applying for his next challenge. As rank fifty, he was now eligible to challenge rank one directly.

The current rank one was a Green Demon named Pulan.

Lu Yuan submitted the challenge request.

Shortly after, a notification arrived: the challenge had been deferred — to ten days from now.

Wry helplessness settled across his expression.

Si Tingxue glanced at him. "Deferred?"

"Yeah. Ten days."

She let out a soft laugh. "It's only ten days. With your strength, first place is a given — just a matter of waiting."

Lu Yuan looked at her and smiled. "Since when are you this confident in me, Tingxue?"

Si Tingxue's smile froze. She turned away and walked toward the King Rankings stele. "...I'm going to take my own challenge."

Lu Yuan smiled and followed her over.

Si Tingxue soon began the King Rankings qualification challenge. The arena materialized, and she appeared upon it. Across from her stood a member of the Ink-Wing Race.

The onlookers had gathered by now that Lu Yuan's challenge was deferred, and their attention shifted to Si Tingxue. As intelligence operatives of various races, they had records on her too. She had made it onto the Prodigy Rankings before — her placement hadn't been particularly high, but making the list at all was proof of talent.

What no one expected was for her to be challenging the King Rankings so soon after her breakthrough. Was she not being a little overconfident? She was moving faster than Lu Yuan had — at least he had waited several months before challenging the rankings.

The operatives from Great Qi Star were especially baffled, staring at her with blank incomprehension. They knew Si Tingxue better than most, and they had simply assumed she had come along to accompany Lu Yuan. The idea that she would be challenging the rankings herself had never crossed their minds. Her relationship with Lu Yuan back on Great Qi Star was, after all, fairly well known among them.

Si Tingxue paid no attention to the murmuring or the stares, standing on the arena with a cool, composed expression.

The moment the challenge began, plumes of icy mist coiled around her and an ice-blue light ignited in her eyes. In the next instant, a ferocious blizzard surged and howled, swallowing the entire arena whole.

Purely in terms of spectacle — setting aside actual destructive power — it was more visually overwhelming than Lu Yuan's understated sword flash.

A roar tore through the storm.

Every swirl of wind and snow converged toward the center — and from that convergence rose a dragon over twenty meters tall, its entire body wrought as though from living ice crystals.

This was Si Tingxue's newly inscribed Transcendent Gene: the Frost Emperor Dragon.

The creature radiated immense power. Since Si Tingxue was currently Battle King Rank, the dragon she summoned was likewise Battle King Rank — but it was a Feral Beast of Sovereign Grade bloodline. Set against ordinary Feral Beasts of the same rank, it was on an entirely different level.

The moment the summon completed, Si Tingxue's face drained of color. Her body swayed.

The Gene Battle Technique was extraordinarily powerful, but it demanded an enormous toll. With the technique only freshly inscribed and not yet tempered, Si Tingxue had burned through virtually all of her Spirit Power in one go.

The results, however, spoke for themselves. The instant the Frost Emperor Dragon appeared, a volley of ice lances materialized in midair and drove straight through the Ink-Wing Race opponent. The test was cleared with ease.

The plaza fell silent again.

Every person in the crowd stood as if turned to stone.

Especially the operatives from Great Qi Star. Among them, a middle-aged man had been dispatched by the Red Maple Empire to gather intelligence. He sat completely numb.

"Th-this... is Her Highness, the Ninth Princess?!"

Beside him, a Lion Empire intelligence operative's mouth twitched sharply. He turned to face the man.

"That beast is no ordinary King Grade creature. To one-shot the King Rankings qualification phantom, it has to carry Sovereign Grade bloodline — which means she inscribed a Sovereign Grade gene! The Red Maple Ninth Princess inscribed a Sovereign Grade gene?! You've been keeping quite the secret from the rest of us, Old Yu!"

"No I haven't — I swear I didn't know!"

Old Yu was completely dumbfounded. *He genuinely hadn't known, all right?* The thought that Si Tingxue could possibly have a Sovereign Grade gene had simply never crossed his mind.

It wasn't only the two of them — voices broke out across the crowd.

"Unlike Lu Yuan's plain and understated sword swing, the sheer presence she projected is overwhelming. That's clearly a high-tier Transcendent Gene — almost certainly Sovereign Grade."

"Inscribing a Sovereign Grade gene at Battle King Rank... that's — that's Battle Saint caliber, isn't it?"

"Great Qi Star is on the rise. First a prodigy like Lu Yuan, and now another monster appears."

"Something doesn't add up. We've assessed Si Tingxue's strength before — there's no way she should be capable of this. How did she inscribe a Sovereign Grade gene?"

"Did she stumble into some extraordinary opportunity?"

Curiosity and disbelief rippled through the crowd in equal measure.

While the commotion continued, the arena dissolved and Si Tingxue returned. Her face was still pale, but there was a thread of bright excitement in her smile now.

She looked at Lu Yuan, the corners of her rosy lips curving upward. "I did it too."

Lu Yuan saw how drained she was and stepped over to steady her, smiling. "That was excellent. Exactly what I'd expect from you."

He paused a moment, then continued. "But you've burned through too much Spirit Power. Don't push further today — let's head back."

Si Tingxue gave a soft nod. "Mm."

She was well aware of her current state. At minimum, she needed time to recover.

Ignoring the stares all around them, Lu Yuan left with Si Tingxue — and in an instant, both were gone.

Even after they vanished, discussion of the two continued to buzz through the crowd.

A while later, a streak of light shot into the Central Plaza and came to rest before the visibly agitated Nightshade Race intelligence operative — it was Anastasia.

The operative spotted her and immediately bowed. "Your Highness."

Anastasia swept her gaze around. The sky was empty. Lu Yuan was nowhere near the stele. She frowned faintly and turned to the operative.

"Where is Lu Yuan?"

"He... just left, not long ago."

The operative blinked, glancing at Anastasia with quiet surprise. He hadn't expected that a princess who carried herself like a queen would show such evident concern over one person.

Then again, given the legends that surrounded Lu Yuan, it made a certain kind of sense.

Anastasia's expression stiffened slightly, and she murmured to herself, "...How could he have left so quickly?"