# Chapter 329: A Temporal-Type Divine Grade Gene

Lu Yuan willed it, and the purple orb of light flowed into his body.

As the Transcendent Gene entered him, the Gene Inscription process began. Blank segments of the Gene Chain filled in, and the existing chains underwent subtle shifts.

The process barely registered for Lu Yuan. Powerful as a temporal-type Transcendent Gene might be, its grade was simply too low. A mere Lord Grade Transcendent Gene, no matter how potent, couldn't meaningfully affect someone of his caliber. Even after the inscription was complete, the boost it provided was negligible—barely a whisper of improvement.

Soon, the Gene Inscription finished and Lu Yuan's consciousness entered the space before his Gene Chain. White mist churned and coalesced into a massive crocodile standing two meters at the shoulder, its body sheathed in bronze scales.

The crocodile's eyes blazed crimson as it roared at him.

In the next instant, Lu Yuan realized the bronze crocodile had somehow appeared behind him, its enormous tail sweeping toward him with crushing force. A violent gust howled through the space, stirring the white mist into turbulent waves.

Lu Yuan's eyes narrowed. His body flickered and he dodged clear.

The bronze crocodile possessed Battle Saint-level cultivation, yet its inscribed gene was only Lord Grade—making it weaker than even the feeblest Battle Saint. Its attacks carried real power, but dodging them was child's play for Lu Yuan.

Even so, genuine shock ran through him.

He hadn't reacted at all. He had no idea when the crocodile had appeared behind him—he'd only registered the threat the moment the attack was already in motion.

*So this is Time Stasis?*

The realization staggered him. He wasn't one to boast, but he possessed eight fully tempered Divine Grade genes and had just broken through to Battle Saint. His true strength likely surpassed that of an ordinary War God.

And yet even he had been frozen in time for that split second.

What about anyone else? They'd probably die without ever knowing what hit them. Time itself might still be frozen at the moment of their death.

As these thoughts raced through his mind, the bronze crocodile materialized beside him once more—and again, he hadn't seen it move.

*It must have used Time Stasis a second time.*

This time, Lu Yuan struck back with the Scythe of Death, obliterating the crocodile's residual will in a single blow.

His consciousness returned to his body. Only then was the Transcendent Gene's inscription truly complete.

Lu Yuan absorbed the information the gene imparted.

The Time Stasis Transcendent Gene could bring the flow of time in the surrounding area to a complete halt. If powerful entities existed within that range—be they humans, Feral Beasts, or anything else—the greater their total energy, the more power was required to maintain the stasis.

Understanding dawned on him. That explained why the bronze crocodile could only sustain Time Stasis for a fleeting instant—given the staggering amount of energy Lu Yuan contained, a moment was all it could manage.

Moreover, Time Stasis at Lord Grade had strict limitations. Its effective range was small; no matter how powerful the user, the absolute maximum was roughly a thousand meters. And Spirit Power consumption scaled exponentially with range.

Lu Yuan ran the numbers. If he tried to freeze time across a full thousand-meter radius, even his reserves would be drained dry. After all, Time Stasis halted the motion of every last particle—the energy required was immense.

Range wasn't the only constraint. Duration had limits too. The longer time remained frozen, the greater the backlash from reality's inertia—severe enough to kill the user outright if pushed too far.

But for small-scale, short-duration applications? This was a terrifyingly powerful ability.

He was confident that even against a War God, he could activate Time Stasis for at least a split second. At his level, that fraction of a moment was enough to decide the outcome of a battle.

Of course, sufficiently powerful beings could brute-force their way out of temporal stasis through sheer strength alone. But given Lu Yuan's own power, encountering someone capable of that would be exceedingly rare.

At the end of the day, a Combat Technique was only as strong as its wielder. The same technique in stronger hands produced exponentially greater results. An Elite Grade Combat Technique wielded by a War God versus a common Warrior would yield two entirely different outcomes. Comparing the relative strength of techniques only mattered between opponents of roughly similar power.

Without further deliberation, Lu Yuan activated the Evolution Cube and began evolving the Time Stasis Transcendent Gene.

King Grade — Temporal Congealment. Sovereign Grade — Temporal Interweave. Sovereign Grade — Time Distortion Field. Saint Grade — Temporal Vortex. Divine Grade — Sands of Time.

Evolving a temporal-type Transcendent Gene demanded far more Spirit Power than even a Spatial Type or fate-type gene. The jump from Saint Grade to Divine Grade alone consumed a staggering thirty-five million Eighth-tier Spirit Crystals—over ten million more than evolving the Wheel of Fate had required.

The cost was borderline absurd.

But the power of the Divine Grade Transcendent Gene, Sands of Time, was equally terrifying. Lu Yuan quickly absorbed everything it had to offer.

First, the gene provided a comprehensive stat boost—nearly double the enhancement the Wheel of Fate had given.

Beyond that, the Sands of Time Combat Technique itself was extraordinarily powerful and strange. It could manifest a Temporal Domain—a region of space where time answered to one master alone.

Within this domain, all aspects of time could be altered at will. He could accelerate its flow, decelerate it, freeze it entirely—and with sufficient power, even reverse it.

Within the Temporal Domain, Lu Yuan could truly be called a master of time.

Of course, the domain's size was proportional to his strength. At his current level, deploying the Shadow Divine Kingdom at full power could blanket an entire star system. But the Temporal Domain? Even at maximum output, he estimated he could only encompass a volume roughly the size of Great Qi Star.

In areas saturated with volatile energy, that range would shrink further.

Still, even with those constraints, it was devastatingly powerful—more than enough to be a decisive factor in combat.

Maintaining the Temporal Domain also consumed far more Spirit Power than the Shadow Divine Kingdom. Fortunately, Spirit Power consumption was the last thing Lu Yuan ever needed to worry about.

Those were the Combat Technique's direct effects. But the Sands of Time gene also contained an endless inheritance of temporal power—a vast repository of knowledge on wielding the force of time itself.

For instance, he could drain the remaining billions of years from a star that should have burned for eons longer, snuffing out its life in an instant. Likewise, stripping the remaining lifespan from someone far weaker than himself was now trivially easy. He could age a person into decrepitude with barely a thought.

Conversely, he could gift time to someone, restoring youth to the elderly. He could even grant time to a dying star, reigniting its light and heat.

These were all applications of temporal power. In Lu Yuan's hands, time had become something tangible—something he could see, touch, and reshape.

Naturally, the scale of these manipulations was limited, their effectiveness ultimately dictated by his own strength.

Lu Yuan could even perceive a River of Time—a vast current flowing with fragments, each one a scene from days gone by. Unfortunately, though he could observe this river, that was all he could do. He could not alter anything within it. And what he could see was only a fraction of the past—he could neither glimpse the future nor access the past in its entirety.

Beyond all of this, there was one more peculiar application of temporal power—one that drew directly from the River of Time.

He could summon temporal projections of people and things he knew well, pulling their echoes from the river's current. He could summon himself from one minute ago, or from the moment he'd first transmigrated to this world—he could even summon Li Qinghe.

Of course, these summoned figures were essentially puppets. They possessed considerable combat strength but no will of their own, and maintaining each one continuously drained Spirit Power—the stronger the projection, the greater the cost.

A strange look crossed Lu Yuan's face. While this ability wasn't as overwhelming as the Temporal Domain, it was extraordinarily powerful in its own right.

After all, how strong was he now? Strong enough to be considered formidable even among War Gods.

What if he used temporal power to summon himself from ten seconds ago, twenty seconds ago, thirty seconds ago... As long as his Spirit Power held, he could summon a limitless number of past selves.

It reminded him of the Shadow Divine Messengers. This was essentially an alternative form of cloning—temporal clones. And these clones would match his full combat power. Aside from lacking independent thought, they were his equals in every way.

Imagine it: with sufficient Spirit Power, summoning a hundred temporal projections of himself—how could he possibly lose?

The moment the possibility struck him, Lu Yuan eagerly reached into the River of Time.

An identical figure materialized beside him. Apart from its vacant, lifeless eyes, its aura was virtually indistinguishable from his own.

His excitement lasted about three seconds before his expression turned bitter.

Perhaps because his strength was so immense, the temporal clone's entire existence had to be sustained by Lu Yuan's own power. That meant double the consumption. No matter how fast his Spirit Power regenerated, it couldn't keep up with more than a few of these.

His grand plan of summoning hundreds of temporal projections went bankrupt on the spot.

Still, in a burst scenario lasting just a few minutes, he could push himself to summon a handful more—which could prove devastating at the right moment. Lu Yuan filed the idea away for future use.

After fully absorbing the Sands of Time Transcendent Gene's inheritance, Lu Yuan exhaled slowly and rose to his feet.

He stretched with a faint smile.

In truth, this breakthrough hadn't boosted his base attributes as dramatically as his previous one. After all, he'd only inscribed a single Divine Grade gene this time, whereas before he'd evolved nearly every gene he possessed. The gap in raw stat gains was inevitable.

But in terms of actual combat power, inscribing Sands of Time had transformed him beyond recognition. If he layered the Temporal Domain over the Shadow Divine Kingdom simultaneously, he honestly felt he might be approaching invincibility.

Besides, not having evolved his other genes this time wasn't without its advantages. It meant he didn't need to temper all his genes back to perfection—this time, he only needed to temper Sands of Time.

*Wouldn't that make my cultivation speed even faster than when I was at Battle Emperor?*

The thought brought a smile to his face. That was a silver lining worth appreciating.

If he wanted, he could reach War God within half a year.

But before that, he intended to visit those areas in the Land of Origin connected to the Evolution Cube. There should be information there—perhaps even a way to evolve Divine Grade genes beyond their current ceiling.

The prospect filled him with anticipation.

*I just broke through today. I'll rest a bit, then head out tomorrow.*

With that thought, he left the room and headed downstairs to the main hall.

The place was packed. Li Qinghe, Si Tingyu, Si Tingxue, Rebecca, Amy, Wang Lingling, Yeye, Small White, and Shuangyue were all there.

Li Qinghe was absorbed in a mobile game. Si Tingyu was reading a book. Si Tingxue, Rebecca, and Shuangyue were huddled together in conversation, heads bent close as they whispered about who-knew-what. Shuangyue wore a mischievous grin while Si Tingxue and Rebecca's faces burned crimson. Lu Yuan had a strong suspicion Shuangyue was steering the conversation somewhere decidedly inappropriate—and stepping on the gas.

Amy and Yeye were eating cake, while Wang Lingling and Small White were bickering.

Lu Yuan paused, slightly bewildered. "Why aren't any of you out training?"

Given their varying cultivation levels and innate talents, each of them had different daily training capacities. Under normal circumstances, it would be unusual for all of them to be home at the same time.

When they noticed him coming down the stairs, everyone turned to look.

Li Qinghe's eyes lit up and she smiled. "Yuan, did you break through? Shuangyue told us you were breaking through to Battle Saint. We've been waiting here for you."

The others watched him with eager anticipation.

*Ah—they were all waiting for my breakthrough.*

He nodded with a smile. "Yeah, just broke through. Already finished the Gene Inscription too."

Smiles broke out across the room.

A rare warmth softened Si Tingxue's usually cool expression. "Congratulations."

Rebecca bounced over and threw her arms around him with a grin. "I knew it! You're the best, Yuan!"

Amy's expression was conflicted. That big fraud had gotten even stronger. She was happy for him, sure, but Grandfather was no doubt going to push her toward him even harder now. Wang Lingling had been cramming her head full of knowledge lately, and she still felt dizzy and overwhelmed from it all.

*I kind of want to run away.*

Yeye, a smudge of white cream still clinging to the corner of her mouth, spoke in her usual placid tone. "Let's have a nice meal to celebrate."

Si Tingyu smiled. "Then let's have a dinner party tonight. I'll prepare the meal. Shuangyue, give me a hand."

Shuangyue nodded with a smile. "Of course."

Yeye nodded, then continued in the same unhurried voice: "Mm-hmm! Oh, I broke through too, by the way. Can we have another dinner party tomorrow?"

The lively atmosphere died instantly.

Lu Yuan felt Rebecca stiffen against him. Si Tingxue shot Yeye an odd look, a faint blush rising on her cheeks as if some particular thought had crossed her mind.

Li Qinghe and the others stared at Yeye, utterly dumbfounded.

She'd broken through without telling anyone?!

And if she'd broken through... didn't that mean she needed a Gene Inscription?