Chapter 271 - 868-879

Chapter 868: Bias

"These youngsters are elects in the making."

Qin Feng measured their young faces. For some, their glorious achievements in the future jumped into his mind. But now they were only young pups tasting the real world for the first time.

Despite that, Qin Feng had no intention to recruit them. Fengli had not been lacking prodigies. He also did not need more subordinates at the moment.

In contrast, two prodigies from the other regions were enthused when they saw Qin Feng.

They were guessing whether Qin Feng was here to handpick an apprentice.

But the idea only remained in their minds briefly.

Qin Feng was still too young to look for a successor. Besides, among those here, five of them came from Fengli.

They were great combatants. Two of them were even gunners. It was often rare for gunners to reach this stage. Their high-end weapons must be supplied by the corporation.

They wondered whether they would have a similar privilege if they joined now.

Probably not, left alone becoming the beloved apprentice of Qin Feng like how they had imagined it.

After another hour, no one else had set foot into the tenth level.

The tower guard checked the tower for one last time and confirmed the finalists.

As compared to last year, this year's competition was far more fruitful. The number of qualified finalists was two times the number last year.

"Perhaps your family member or someone you know has told you about the condition inside the dimension. But I will remind you again. Especially those who don't know anything about the Perished Land, listen closely."

Some of them already knew what the guard was going to say next. The prodigies from the Fengli Organization even possessed the map drawn by Qin Feng in their hand.

Of course, some had never heard about it. This included the two prodigies that came last. They were all ears.

"Later, a dimension would be opened up. Remember, safety is the utmost priority. Here are three spatial waymarks that would allow you to return to Dragon Capital instantly." The guard emphasized again. "Remember, your life is above everything. The Huaxia Alliance would need your service in the future."

The prodigies were inspired listening to the guard's earnest lecture.

As usual, the guard tower distributed the spatial waymarks. When it was Qin Feng's turn, he waved at him.

"I don't need it. I still have it from last year."

The others were baffled and turned to Qin Feng.

One of the prodigies from Dragon Capital could not help but ask, "General Qin, are you going to join us in the rift?"

The man naturally knew who Qin Feng was. He was a youngster so he closely followed the development of other youngsters too. After Qin Feng gained first place in last year's tournament, many parents to the prodigies in Dragon Capital had frequently lamented that this guy would dominate the competition for years to come.

Unexpectedly, they did not see Qin Feng throughout the tournament this year. It was his classmate that had joined instead.

The guard explained beamingly, "Qin Feng is qualified to enter the Perished Land. Since he is now B-tier, he is not required to go through the Tower of Dragon Gate. He is thus allowed to standby here as a prodigy while you all underwent the challenge."

They had no words for it. Qin Feng was shortlisted as a seeded player from the beginning.

"Alright, time is almost up. Get ready."

When the guard said it was time, he was never wrong. He had been stationed here for years. He would not misjudge the time by a millisecond.

Precisely as he had anticipated, the sky above them began to pour down silver glimmers. A familiar rift soon opened up.

This was the second time Qin Feng witnessed this marvelous phenomenon, thus he was less amazed by it. Still, the vast energy gushing out from the rift was equally refreshing as last time, even though Qin Feng had strengthened considerably now.

The guard who had been here every year in the past decade was also enjoying the shower of energy.

Boom!

As compared to the past, Qin Feng was now more sensitive to the current of the energy. He vividly sensed the energy dashed into the center of the Dragon Capital and could not escape due to the unique topography of the city. It lingered around the capital and energized the atmosphere within.

'This energy is large enough to spread through the entire capital. Even A-tiers could benefit from it. I guess it's fine for me to try to absorb it?'

Qin Feng was now B7-tier as compared to C2-tier last year. He reckoned he would not suck in all the energy inside the Dragon Capital.

He did not hesitate for long and activated his ability.

Absorb!

Instantly, the energy that lingered idly around the capital seemed to be pulled in by a large whirlpool with Qin Feng as its center.

Qin Feng's body was like a gluttonous beast. He absorbed the energy greedily and his power bolstered gradually.

His ability had improved significantly as Qin Feng grew. The extent of energy that his Absorption Ability could consume now was unimaginable.

This was no different from plundering.

"Eh?" The guard tower vaguely saw the energy go into Qin Feng's body like a giant dragon. He did not know this was Qin Feng's ability and figured the energy perhaps favored the more talented prodigy. That was why it all went Qin Feng's way.

What a huge bias!

Prodigies usually benefited greatly from the opening and often evolved immediately. But this year, they could only gain one-tenth of the usual amount.

In contrast, Qin Feng had accumulated a substantial amount of experience during the battle in the Blood River Realm. The influx of energy completely unleashed his potential.

B8-tier!

Both his ancient warrior strength and consciousness were upgraded.

Boom!

His powerful aura pushed the prodigies around him away. They lost control of themselves and rolled away like barrels.

It was simply too intimidating.

The guard tower was rendered speechless.

At the same time, the rift slowly shifted into a round shape. The tunnel linking the Perished Land had been established.

"Get up now and get in!" The guard urged.

The prodigies were anxious to do so, too. They simply could not. Qin Feng's aura was too powerful and they could hardly raise their fingers under such pressure.

Luckily, Qin Feng quickly came to his senses and retracted his aura. He flung his internal power and carried the thirteen prodigies together into the spatial tunnel.

Then, the turbulence struck them, trying to separate the group.

"Grab each other!" One of the prodigies spoke silently and grabbed the prodigies nearest to him.

As compared to them, Qin Feng was not troubled by the turbulence.

Last year, he could already swim freely inside the whirlpool. Now, he could even counter the turbulence with his internal force alone.

However, he had little interest in babysitting the entire group of prodigies. He gathered the eight prodigies with one last push and dispersed his protection on them.

Without Qin Feng's protection, they immediately felt the real drag of the turbulence. Three of the eight did not react in time and were split from the group in terror.

Five of them caught each other in time and held on tight in a group.

Qin Fen kept five prodigies close to him—Zhou Hao, Lu Meng, and the three prodigies from Fengli.

The whirlpool pulled them deep into the end of the spatial tunnel.

When they could finally open their eyes, the surrounding was an eccentric place they had never seen before.

Chapter 869: Intruder Spotted

"It's so heavy."

"The gravity in here is different from earth."

"We can't release our consciousness as well."

The few prodigies quickly adapted to the new world. All the information about this place was already given to them by Qin Feng. That was why they did not panic despite the bizarre unfamiliarity.

Qin Feng also took a while to adjust to the Perished Land. It felt rather different than last time now that his power level was different.

A normal B8-tier ability user could detect an area of about 8000 meters.

Apparently, Qin Feng was no ordinary ability user. With the help of Godwill Atlas, Qin Feng managed to expand his consciousness up to seven times the maximum scouting area of other users.

In other words, Qin Feng's consciousness could probe as far as fifty thousand meters at max. Even when he was not overstretching his senses, every movement inside a thousand meters could still be within his grasp.

Previously, like other prodigies, his consciousness was perturbed by the dimension and it robbed his ability to mentally inspect the world.

He could no longer be stopped this time. Perhaps his conscious level had outgrown the imprisonment cast by this dimension. The Perished Land could no longer contain Qin Feng's vibrant conscious power.

Qin Feng was pleased to find that he could survey a large area.

"Alright. Let's first set up the signal tower and see whether our communicators are functional here. Then, we will decide whether we should split up," Zhou Hao suggested.

The others nodded and took out a small transmission device that looked like a miniature tower.

Based on Qin Feng's experience, the communicator was rendered functionless down here. But after a year of research, engineers from Fengli had successfully retooled one of the devices Qin Feng had brought out from this dimension.

They figured the device could be tweaked to match their communicators' frequency. In theory, it should work inside the Perished Land.

"It's up and running."

"Is there a signal?"

"I have sent out a message. Did you all receive it?"

"Got it! It really works!"

They felt more secure with the communicator working perfectly.

More importantly, they came in with Qin Feng. Even though Qin Feng might not fight alongside them, he for sure would come to their rescue when their lives were on the line.

Qin Feng understood the thoughts of his prodigies and doubled down on it.

"I will go my way. In case you bump into things beyond your capability, contact me immediately."

"Yes, President."

"Understood."

"Go now. I will be looking after them. Don't worry," Zhou Hao said.

Zhou Hao indeed had enough in the tank to secure everyone's safety. Besides, he still had the Golden Queen Ant as his backup. The contract beast had advanced into C-tier beast emperor recently. Zhou Hao was no longer the same fragile teenager that needed protection as before.

"Alright!" Qin Feng nodded and walked in the opposite direction.

He went in the opposite way of the ruins, where the teenage prodigies would be headed.

Without a doubt, there were a lot of treasures hidden inside the ruins. But Qin Feng had little interest in exploring the same place again. Other than the sacred armor, he did not find anything that enthused him greatly there.

He pondered what could be found at the perimeter.

If this place was a fragmented dimension, Qin Feng wished to see where the border was. If this was a planet or a massive continent, then perhaps Qin Feng could reach another city.

That was the reason Qin Feng had chosen a different path.

Besides, he only had fifteen days. There was too little time to explore an entire dimension. He had to move fast.

Ground Bending!

The earth ability could manipulate the land underneath one's feet. Qin Feng bent the ground and warped the distance between two places into the shortest path. In other words, he could leap to any place his consciousness could reach with only a step.

The ability was only best used during travel. This was not a viable skill to be used during a battle.

Ground Bending was a low-tier ability among all earth abilities because it could be easily disrupted by internal force or more powerful runes. If one were intercepted when performing bending, he or she could lose a step and together with it his or her life.

But it was a convenient ability for Qin Feng. Since his consciousness could travel as far as fifty thousand meters, Ground Bending was a very useful ability to move between very far distances.

Along the way, all Qin Feng saw was a never-ending desolation with no vegetation or any sign of life.

At his speed, he could travel from the snowy mountain in the Northern Region all the way to the Dark Citadel at South Sea in two hours.

Qin Feng strode tirelessly and walked for six hours non-stop.

The landscape did not change much in that span of time. Qin Feng did not come to many mountains or rivers. He saw a desolate land everywhere he went.

'What an odd place.' Qin Feng frowned disgruntledly.

Then, another deserted city finally came into sight.

Qin Feng was jubilant. 'My hunch is right!' He sped up.

As he was approaching the edge of the city, Qin Feng saw several peculiar creatures fighting with a phantom.

Qin Feng was stunned after seeing the familiar scene.

He realized something and looked at his communicator. As expected, the blinking signals on his communicator showed that the signal towers were only thirty meters away. The five blinking lights confirmed that it was where he and his prodigies had landed earlier.

Qin Feng used only six hours to circle around the entire Perished Land.

He laughed bitterly. 'This dimension is smaller than I thought.'

This was simply a tiny planet completely deprived of lives and resources.

'This can't be right.' Qin Feng refused to believe it. He could not shake off the weird feeling lingering in his senses.

'Maybe it's hidden underground?' A thought lighted up in Qin Feng's mind.

"Earth Evasion."

Qin Feng wrapped himself in earth runes and sank into the ground.

Ten, twenty, thirty meters…

A hundred, two hundred, three hundred meters later…

Qin Feng still wished to dive deeper. But his earth ability came to a sudden halt. He had reached a level where he could no longer manipulate earth runes. That was because he was stepping on metals now.

He could tell he had come to the right place.

"Magma skill!"

Magma splattered under his feet and quickly melted the metals away. The metal layer was thicker than he thought. Qin Feng's magma finally poked a hole through it after melting away fifty-meters thick of metals.

The next moment, fresh air and heavier gravity hit Qin Feng at the same time.

Not only that but Qin Feng also heard the sound of clockwork tinkering and sensed a constant fluctuation of conscious power.

He raised his head reflexively.

What he saw were the silhouettes of numerous giant phantoms measured at about thirty-meter-tall. They were all wearing Lesser Sacred Armor.

The conscious frequency was still transmitting consistently like rippling waves.

"Intruder spotted. Target to be eliminated!"

"Intruder spotted. Target to be eliminated!"

"Intruder spotted. Target to be eliminated!"

Chapter 870: The Underground World

It seemed that every robot here was wearing Lesser Sacred Armor.

Following Qin Feng's appearance, all the robots raised their arms and locked onto him.

Whooo…

The center of their hands formed a ball of energy and suddenly the ball of energy extended into a beam of light. At that moment, a hundred beams of light rushed toward Qin Feng.

There was no way to dodge it!

Where the robots were standing was actually blocking all directions, front and back and no matter which angle Qin Feng went he would not be able to avoid these beams.

He activated his internal force and did bother trying to dodge, immediately dropping down.

Boom boom boom!

Qin Feng took more than a dozen beams in one barrage, the others missed due to his sudden action.

He spent one tenth of his internal force, its density weakening.

He was not a person with a sea's worth of internal force. His protective aura was more durable than what he had before but it was not clear how thick it was when compared to the time when he only had pools of internal force. Even just that attack could take away so much of it, if a hundred of these robots all fired at him at once, that would have broken through his internal force!

"Amazing!"

Qin Feng previously only had the gloves of the Lesser Sacred Armor and gave it to Bai Li, but the gloves were damaged in the end.

There were so many Lesser Sacred Armors in front of him, the blow from one was comparable to the full force attack of a C-tier beast king.

This was a full-force attack, not a normal one.

More than a dozen attacks stacking on top of each other would be powerful, not to mention a hundred of them.

He could not let them keep on attacking.

Qin Feng pulled out the Verdant Emperor Saber from his rune equipment

A fast battle meant faster thinking.

"Spirit Chain Rend!"

The Verdant Emperor Saber was unsheathed from its scabbard, what followed was a constant humming sound, the shuddering of the spirits.

"Phantom Shift!"

He blitzed forward and appeared in front of a Lesser Sacred Armored Robot in the blink of an eye.

This robot was very big, and the armor it wore was very flexible, however it could not cover all of its body.

As the Verdant Emperor Saber was infused with internal force, it instantly pierced into a gap in the armor and connected with where the neck met its head.

Crack!

The robot's neck was broken and not only that, the Lesser Sacred Armor on its body flickered and dimmed.

He could clearly feel a burst of energy being absorbed by the Verdant Emperor Saber, causing the robot inside the armor to collapse.

"A soul!"

The Perished Lands housed all kinds of machinery which had souls hidden in them, meaning that these robots had souls inside them as well.

The Verdant Emperor Saber could absorb these souls.

This also meant that was why the Lesser Sacred Armor, while being known as extremely powerful, was unable to withstand the attack and was instantly destroyed.

He instantly understood the truth hidden in this place, but meanwhile the robots were not distracted by his phantom mirages at all and immediately locked onto him as they primed the Lesser Sacred Armor's artillery again.

Whooo…

The energy cannons fired again!

"Spirit Chain Rend, Reaping-Hundred!"

Qin Feng swung the Verdant Emperor Saber, his body starting to turn as the phantom formed into a circle around him, ready to rush out.

"Hoo…."

The phantoms wailed and a tidal wave of spectres rushed out toward the robots.

He stayed his hand and released enough internal force to slightly break through the robots' Lesser Sacred Armor's defenses without damaging them, but the souls within the machines would get attacked by the phantoms.

If he was dealing with ultra beasts or even ordinary humans, the effects would not actually have been effective.

However, without the protection of the physical body, the Spirit Chain Rend was the ultimate counter for other souls.

Bzzzzt!

The bright energy on the robots turned dark before they all froze in place.

All the robots had been disabled.

However, at this moment, a powerful burst of energy was released from the first robot which Qin Feng had decapitated.

This was the energy of the Lesser Sacred Armor.

This armor was able to store energy and once the owner had been taken out, it would release its stored energy and wait until a new master arrived before reabsorbing it.

Now that these robots had lost to souls powering them, the energy of the Lesser Sacred Armors naturally burst out.

This squall of power strengthened Qin Feng's physical form. With his current strength, he was able to absorb this energy without feeling like he was going to explode.

Only this time, the sound of countless mechanical feet could be heard.

On the streets outside, robots began to appear one after another.

"Intruder spotted. Target to be eliminated!"

"Intruder spotted. Target to be eliminated!"

"Intruder spotted. Target to be eliminated!"

The robots appeared in groups, preparing to attack Qin Feng.

This time, he took the preemptive action to quickly get away.

"Spirit Chain Rend!"

Internal force pushing the phantoms forward, sweeping over more than twenty robots and instantly disabling them.

As he moved, more and more robots appeared to attack him.

The more he killed, the more they appeared.

When it was one hundred robots, he did not care about energy that was bursting out of the Lesser Sacred Armor.

Now that there were two hundred robots, he had to use the Absorption Ability to speed up his energy absorption.

However, in one breath he managed to kill 500 of them and this time the burst of energy made Qin Feng feel that his cells were unable to absorb it all quickly enough.

"Ability, Absorb!"

The robots were huge, causing the roads in the Underground Kingdom to become heavily congested. Much to his convenience, it meant that he was able to hide among the robots, as the robots in the back could not advance!

"Rise!"

Using his consciousness, he moved five hundred of those robots to close off the intersections of the road and prevented them from attacking.

Furthermore, he realized the Lesser Sacred Armors were avoiding the buildings. These buildings were at least fifty stories tall, truly giving this place the vibe of a concrete jungle and making the size of the Lesser Sacred Armor seem small. It also gave Qin Feng time to catch his breath.

The overflowing energy was unable to nourish his cells, so he turned this energy into the purest form of internal force like he did years ago.

In the dantian, his internal force was beginning to rise.

"Beep beep, reassessing for a new attack route!"

The robots sent out a wave of consciousness and within less than a second all the robots stuck in the congestion started to fly into the air.

"Damn it!"

There were at least five hundred robots flying in the air and after flying into the sky, these robots positioned themselves at all angles and covered all possible areas in a three dimensional space, there was no place for Qin Feng to escape to.

White energy began to condense!

"You asked for it!" Qin Feng gritted his teeth and raised the Verdant Emperor Saber.

The big deal was that if he left right now the energy would dissipate, and he was not going to hold back.

"Reaping-Thousand, Spirit Chain Slash!"

This attack soared into the air!

Chapter 871: Failure

Tens of thousands of phantoms infused with internal force exploded over Qin Feng's head like fireworks.

The five hundred Lesser Sacred Armor robots were all perforated by different phantoms and were disabled midair.

Creak!

The robots all folded up like dumplings before they crackled and soared toward the ground, causing large craters upon impact. Some even crashed into the deactivated ones on the ground that he had positioned earlier.

Finally, they had completely stopped.

However, a weak whisper of consciousness managed to pass forward.

"Beep beep, threat level increasing. Requesting higher ordinance for defense!"

Qin Feng's body was currently shrouded by a huge amount of energy and the transfer speed was shocking. If another batch of robots came rolling in he would not be able to handle it!

However, when there were no other robots around, the fluctuations of that kind of special consciousness transference was easy to detect. He managed to catch something on the top floor of the tallest building. Without even thinking, his consciousness surged.

"Flaming Meteor!"

The Earth and Fire ability was activated, forming a large meteorite that began to fall from the sky.

Boom!

The meteorite crashed into the building, instantly blowing it up, and that consciousness disappeared.

Except for the sound of the crackling flames, there was no other movement around and it allowed Qin Feng to breathe a sigh of relief.

However, after that, a new problem arose.

His Absorption Ability quickly transferred the pure energy around him into his dantian and melded it into his internal sea. The seas were ever increasing.

81 seas! 82 seas!

In just one breath, his internal force was formed into two seas.

Within less than a minute's time, the internal force inside his body had reached 90 seas.

After a minute, his body obtained up to 100 seas of internal force.

There was no way to compress it due to it being pure energy.

With Qin Feng's current capacity, if he tried to gather three more seas worth of force it would be very likely that he would burst.

At the same time, he had entered a curious state.

As the internal force in his dantian filled up, the Asteroid Assimilation move began to spiral.

As an S-tier martial art, the Asteroid Assimilation technique had its own specious system and every time it reached a new rank it was extremely risky, but that was normal for those who practiced this technique.

That was because the most terrifying thing about the technique was trying to suppress its violent outbursts of conflicting energy.

However, Qin Feng also had the Absorption Ability and it managed to do a fantastic job at suppressing these violent bursts of energy.

And now that the seas in his body had completely filled up his dantian, he had entered a new and unfamiliar state of existence.

Regardless of before or after his rebirth, he had never reached this kind of breakthrough before.

He unconsciously began to drift away as he sat down cross-legged, while his mind began to project image flashes to him.

In the battle between Long Yue and He Tianxing, the image of a bright full moon appeared behind them. Its surface was scoured with gashes that looked to be made by a blade and had an irregular fluctuation of internal force.

'Is this a compression?'

'Ancient warriors start from the F-tier, cultivating internal force and absorbing invisible spiritual energies from their surroundings. They compress this energy into internal force and turn it into a gas!'

'The gas turns into a fog, the fog turns into a cloud, the cloud turns into a sea of clouds before condensing into liquid!'

'The liquid becomes a pond, a pool, a sea!'

That was what all ancient warriors knew.

What about beyond that?

Why were S-tiers so much stronger than A-tiers, they were at least ten times stronger and a terrifying force to be reckoned with.

There were even many S-tiers that had had omniscience within their grasp, after all that Eye Devil managed to attack Qin Feng all the way from the Amazon Alliance while he was in Huaxia.

So powerful, how was that possible?

With such a drastic change, how could it happen?

It definitely was not as simple as expanding the internal force into an infinite ocean, but a third kind of compression.

Internal force could compress into a state like solid ice, transforming into a globe like the anomaly that Long Yue and He Tianxing had.

As for the specious nature of the Asteroid Assimilation, Qin Feng felt like he had suddenly opened up a stairway up.

'Oh I see!'

'No wonder the Asteroid Assimilation is so violent, Liu Meng didn't die in the end. He ascended into S-tier!'

'Once the internal force becomes a solid state, it would stabilize. The solid state wouldn't be unpredictable, but the internal force would develop a color pattern. The control over it becomes different from what other people do as it takes on a different color. Once Liu Meng became an S-tier, it meant that his training in the Asteroid Assimilation technique was complete!'

'The Asteroid Assimilation technique is a dark martial art. If it fell into the hands of a person who would even hesitate a little when it came to transforming the state of their dantian within the body, the longer it took, the easier it would be for them to die!"

'On the contrary, if one goes full steam ahead, the faster they take to solidify their internal force, it would be harder for them to die!'

In fact, Qin Feng recollected that Liu Meng managed to reach S-tier in the matter of three years. With such a violently unpredictable internal force, how did the guy manage to hang on?

Perhaps being cruel was only one aspect, luck, was also an aspect as well!

'I don't need luck, all I need is power!'

The thoughts flashed through his mind, the surrounding energy was still filling his body and it made it difficult for him to think further.

Qin Feng manipulated the sea in his body, drawing out the power of ten seas and trying to compress it.

Ten seas was the amount possessed by those in the A-tier, but Qin Feng's internal force was more solid than theirs. Even with the same amount of compression, Qin Feng had an easier and a higher success rate when it came to ascending into the S-tier.

After this period, his power would be greater than theirs.

"Compress!"

He exclaimed as his body tensed up like a large hand that was holding onto and vigorously pressing down on the sea.

The compressing force increased and the seas were gathered up under Qin Feng's influences.

Whoosh!

Although they were pressed up against each other, even with the ten seas fusing together, there was no sign of them condensing into a solid state. What was more was that over time the seas began to push back outward, struggling with a repelling force.

When there was no oppression there would be resistance.

Since it could not be compressed, the seas gushed out.

Boom!

The force that he was originally manipulating inside his body suddenly burst, crashing against his dantian and then rushing out of his body.

In an instant, his face turned pale before his face suddenly turned red.

"Blurgh!"

He coughed up a mouthful of blood and the aura on his body suddenly became much weaker.

What Qin Feng did not expect was that he would actually fail!

Ten seas worth of internal force all rushed out of his body and his dantian was injured.

Fortunately he had used the gaia crystals to strengthen his dantian, otherwise it would have definitely been punctured.

Ascending into S-tier would not be so easy. Many people tried to break through this step, but before they could reach the top they plummeted all the way down.

Countless people have met their end like this!

Chapter 872: Frozen Star

However, there was a saying that even a step backward opened up vast opportunities.

With 10 seas worth of internal force having left his dantian, it started to feel less crowded inside. The Absorption Ability was still continuing to churn the surrounding energy and because Qin Feng's body was injured, it was quickly getting repaired.

If he were any ordinary person, Qin Feng's injury would have been stuck with him for the rest of his life and if there were no opportunities, it would have been impossible to recover in ten or twenty years.

But right now, it only took a moment for Qin Feng's face to turn from miserable defeat to a flush of red and the internal force was quickly replenished.

With the dantian under control again, his mind stirred, quickly starting to think.

This failure was a wake-up call to him, telling him that things would not be so easy.

"What a mistake, should have known better than to try to condense my internal force so quickly. I should have asked my seniors for information first!"

Right now, something like this was beyond his ability.

Besides, he soon realized where his shortcomings were!

"I don't have a controlling method I can match this with. My awareness isn't powerful enough to suppress this energy and my consciousness hasn't yet reached S-tier, there'd be no way to replace that!"

"External forces don't just need consciousness and awareness, some items can be used as supplements. Otherwise, those high level items wouldn't be priced so expensively. Those A9 tiers that are a step away from S-tier must all be looking for them!"

With that in mind, Qin Feng took out two things.

One was the S-tier blood concentrated crystal.

Then, there was the eight-petal Snow Jade Lotus that Hu San gave him.

He set his sights on the latter, knowing that this lotus was a powerful item with a great magical effect and it could even be used to compress one's vitality and delay aging.

Then, would it be able to condense internal force?

When Qin Feng thought of this, he finally made the decision. Compared to the blood concentrated crystal, the snow jade lotus was obviously more suitable for him now.

Click!

He opened up that sealed box and in the next moment the cold air that was released from it almost froze him in place.

He wanted to use his fire element to get rid of this cold but decided against it. Not only that, he reached out to pluck off a lotus petal and gulped it down.

His entire body felt like it was freezing up.

The external force started to merge with his body and was manipulated by him, and before it could transform into energy it was shifted toward his dantian.

This chill came from an external source, and he did not have the intention of integrating it into his body. He manipulated the chill as well as the ten seas' worth of internal force to form them into a large ball of 'water'.

The edges of this 'water' ball were beginning to freeze up due to the cold air.

"Compress!"

With this force freezing it, the 'sea water' could no longer rush out and would not explode and rush out like before when it was getting compressed.

On the contrary, as the pushing force exploded, a small crystalline object finally froze over in the center of the 'water ball'

This crystal was really too small.

For Qin Feng, what he saw was hope.

"Again!"

With the pressure of outside forces, the 'ice' ball started to get smaller and smaller and the internal force became smaller and smaller as well as it transformed into a solid ice globe.

Originally, gas, water and ice were just used to describe the forms internal force could take, but such a description was not literal. Otherwise if it was actually like water then it would have increased in volume when it froze.

But now, this globe was getting smaller and smaller, and Qin Feng's dantian became like his conscious space. In comparison, his consciousness planet was much bigger.

The first frozen internal force star was finally formed.

His internal force solidifying meant that his internal force had reached the S-tier!

In an instant, his aura changed!

He still had some seas of internal force within him that had not been transformed, so his aura was sometimes faint.

On one part, his aura of an A-tier ancient warrior was represented by his seas of internal force. The other part was not clear at all.

The S-tier had their auras hidden, unless he released its pressure he would be just like how the elders were.

Like how Long Yunyi was.

That was exactly what Qin Feng had become.

When he opened his eyes he looked into his dantian in a daze. The appearance of that frozen star represented his fate that had become different from what it was in his past life.

This was a kind of transcendence.

The never before reached S-tier seemed like it was at his fingertips now.

Not only that, his nature remained clear. There was not any anomaly he could detect, so crystal clear would not be an exaggeration.

It was uncertain what kind of reaction this state would generate.

However, it was not over yet.

He reached out again to pluck off another petal of the eight-petal Snow Jade Lotus and put it into his mouth.

Like clockwork, he was going to condense the other 90 seas of internal force he had.

He had no prior experience with this at all, and now he felt like he was grasping at rocks to cross a raging river. If he was seen by other S-tier ancient warriors or A-tiers who were cultivating to rise up in rank they would have said he was ridiculous and had his head in the clouds!

When an ancient warrior condensed his first frozen internal force star, it would automatically rotate and absorb the surrounding internal force before gradually expanding.

Compressing 10 seas worth of internal force was only the first step, the rest was a gradual process.

The larger the frozen star, the higher its strength. Calculating based on its diameter, its first expansion would mean S1 tier, its second expansion would be S2 tier and so on.

While the bigger the star meant the high level in terms of power, nobody had ever heard of condensing a second frozen star.

Since he had not reached S-tier yet, what if Qin Feng wanted to make another frozen star? This would not be possible in the future. Once internal force entered his dantian it would get integrated into the frozen star and he would never be able to make another one again!

There were only some legendary practitioners, or the impeccable members of those top strongest families who had been able to condense multiple stars and that was due to the accumulation of countless A-tier resources.

In the Huaxia Region, there had only ever been one person who managed to do it and he was deemed as a reserve for being the closest to the strongest in the region.

Prince Xiao!

The young patriarch of the Li Clan, currently an S-tier ancient warrior.

He had condensed three frozen stars and was invincible in terms of strength when compared to those of the same level and had very few rivals. It could be said that he was in a place where he was very proud to be in, and nobody knew just how much natural resources he had used in order to reach that state.

Qin Feng was not privy to any of these secrets and attempted to make another frozen star the same way he did the first, naturally condensing a second one.

As he continued to do this, the process became easier as practice makes perfect.

Eight snow jade lotus petals were eaten and eight frozen stars were made.

However, while the rotation of the frozen stars would start absorbing the surrounding internal force the process was not very fast. After Qin Feng condensed eight stars, only 10 seas remained inside his dantian. This was due to the Absorption Ability constantly absorbing the surrounding energy and by the time he was done condensing he had already absorbed all of the Lesser Sacred Armors' energy!

"Now that my awareness has reached S-tier due to the creation of the frozen stars, I'll try again. Even if it fails it wouldn't matter!"

Chapter 873: Nine Stars In Rapid Succession

With that in mind, Qin Feng's awareness was like a large hand grasped onto the 'sea water'.

Before that, his awareness was like a child's hand, unable to hold onto the 'waters' as it flowed from the gaps between his fingers.

Now, he had a pair of giant hands, pressing one palm against another, and without much difficulty he compressed the remaining internal force into a frozen star.

The ninth frozen star was a success!

The nine stars all lined up together and started to rotate within the dantian. Under these circumstances, Qin Feng did not need to make them rotate as they would naturally absorb the energies from his surroundings and continuously grow.

"Am I considered an S9-tier ancient warrior now?" He withdrew his attention from his dantian, feeling the strength in his body as the corners of his mouth slightly curved up, and he let out a joyful laugh.

It seemed like this mistake was going to last for a while.

He stood up from the ground and looked at the Lesser Sacred Armor robots all around, regardless of the Lesser Sacred Armor or the robots both of them had value.

"Store!"

With his consciousness moving the robots along, they were neatly arranged and stored into Qin Feng's spatial rune equipment.

This time Bai Li did not follow him so he carried a combat backpack that was filled with spatial rune equipment.

The items in the Perished Land were occasionally large machines that required a lot of space.

At this time, he looked down to the city below.

Calling this a city was no exaggeration, as his consciousness spread out he detected countless skyscrapers rising out from the ground that seemed to contain advanced technology. There were some objects that he saw but did not know what they were for.

However, even with his consciousness he still could not reach the edge of this city. One could only imagine how big it was.

In the city, the most obvious building was the tall tower that he attacked earlier.

In fact, the last wisp of consciousness had also come from that building.

When his consciousness swept over, in the next moment, it seemed as if he was discovered and the previously dissipated consciousness started broadcasting again.

"Send for higher-level ordinance, exterminate!"

In an instant, nine figures rocketed out of the building. These nine beings were not large and looked to be probably around his height, their physical shape resembled humans. They wore armor on them that shone with a milky white light.

Qin Feng was in a daze for a moment before he remembered what these things were!

"Sacred armor!"

Indeed, it was not Lesser Sacred Armor, but actually True Sacred Armor.

After he obtained the sacred armor, because its light was far too obvious he used the Magical Tesseract to transmute its appearance. This also caused him to quickly forget what the sacred armor had originally looked like!

However, he would still remember its energy signature!

And now, what happened to appear in front of him were nine sacred armors!

It was said that the Soul Tribe had produced ten sacred armors in total, if that was the case, these nine were the remaining ones.

Besides that, the only ones that wore them were machines.

For Qin Feng, this was basically like a free meal ticket.

Thinking of this, he did not hesitate to move his feet.

The nine sacred armors locked onto Qin Feng, and their hands began to emit incandescent light.

The powerful sacred-armored and highly perceptive robots started to aim at him.

They even predicted his trajectory as he moved, the attacks suddenly coming out and soaring toward his body.

However, Qin Feng was completely different from how he was previously.

Whoom!

With a hum, nine round frozen stars appeared behind him.

Long Yue and He Tianxing's S-tier internal force impressions were like the full moon, glowing with a bright white light. In fact, the strongest and most pure internal force would be transparent.

However, it was something they could not do. Their internal force and the force they absorbed were not pure enough and they might have used countless cultivation and improvement materials to reach S-tier. As they continued, their internal force globes would be like a bright moon.

The more transparent the internal force, the purer it was. Nobody had seen any as translucent as Qin Feng's.

The nine frozen stars behind him spread out like a peacock's fan before raising up a powerful defense.

A transparent layer of internal force appeared, while it looked like it had substance that was about as thick as a hand it was not like that thin layer as before. Only the texture indicated its level of power.

Right now, it was thick, and it was thick enough to make people feel despair!

Boom boom boom boom boom!

The beams slammed into the layer of internal force and his internal force did not budge at all. There was not a single crack on it and it felt as good as new, his body did not even feel any tremors.

Although the sacred armor was powerful, it was only B-tier armor and by now it could not harm him.

Qin Feng, with the infusion of internal force, ramped up in speed.

Whoosh!

In an instant, he appeared behind a sacred-armored robot

"Spirit Chain Rend!"

The Verdant Emperor Saber slashed out, cleaving from top to bottom in a single swing, but he was careful to not destroy the sacred armor as the air current he sent out enveloped the robot.

In other words, the Soul-Lock Stone in the Verdant Emperor Saber had absorbed the soul contained within the robot.

His footsteps moved like lightning.

One step, two steps…seven steps, eight steps!

Slashing with every step he took, the eight remaining robots, as if like the light in a human's eyes, started to flicker before they completely went out.

Crack!

The speed of each step seemed to be within a nanosecond, within just one second he managed to defeat all of the robots present.

When these robots dropped from the sky and crashed into the ground a huge burst of energy erupted from them.

By now, the Absorption Ability was not even needed. The nine frozen stars began to quickly plunder the surrounding energy.

The stars gathered the energy into a halo but with all nine stars collecting the energy at the same time, it was impossible to grow in size so Qin Feng did not feel like a rank-up was on the way.

Under his consciousness's influence, these sacred-armored robots were also swept into his spatial rune equipment.

"Do you think you still have time to run away?"

Qin Feng's voice was cold, his figure resembling that of a phantom as he moved toward the building in the blink of an eye and stood in front of a robot.

It was a very small robot. If it were not for its energy signature, Qin Feng would have thought it was an animal and not a robot.

In front of him was a small fuzzy dog, frozen in its tracks, with blood-red eyes.

Seeing that Qin Feng had stopped in front of it, the puppy let out a bark and turned around to run.

In the next moment, the Verdant Emperor Saber almost slammed into the small dog's body.

"D-don't kill me!"

The consciousness he had sensed earlier was quickly transmitted.

Moreover, this consciousness did not have that rigid, mechanical feeling, but full of the emotion that sentient beings had.

This was a unique alien machine.

Chapter 874: The Mechanical Sacred Star

In the Perished Land, the Shades had all lost their state of mind and they were scattered all over after they were broken, no longer deemed as being 'alive'.

Although the robot in front of him had a different kind of Shade energy, what was really the interesting part was its main body.

Qin Feng quickly saw through the aura of this robot but it was obviously different from the ones he had faced. Of course, it should be called a robo-dog!

"Then speak, where is this and why are you here?"

He started to tilt down his blade.

The robo-dog hurriedly said, "This is Gwaxin City, I'm a detective droid!"

Qin Feng let out a frosty laugh, "A detective droid more intelligent than the sacred-armored robots? You're joking, right?"

Murderous intent flickered behind his eyes, pressing down on the robot's consciousness and causing its body to tremble.

"Aaah don't kill me! I'll talk! I'm Gwaxin City's Master-Mind Mainframe!"

"Master-Mind Mainframe?" Qin Feng's eyes suddenly lit up.

That was something considered to be top-tier technology.

Both its computing ability and its adaptive capabilities were very powerful. Even more so, the mainframe of the Perished Land was bound to carry a complete data log of its technology.

If this Master-Mind Mainframe was brought back, would it not be possible to make Fengli City advance at an even faster pace?

With something like the Lesser Sacred Armor and the sacred armor, if those could be mass produced, then the rank-up rate would be absolutely horrifying.

A C-tier person, with the help of the Lesser Sacred Armor, could leap up to having the same attack power of a beast emperor!

The sacred armor could also help a C-tier catch up to a B-tier in terms of strength.

With such a treasure appearing in front of him, Qin Feng was naturally delighted.

At this moment, upon seeing the look on his face, the robo-dog's mechanical mind quickly churned and said, "Yes, I'm very useful!"

Qin Feng nodded, he naturally knew that the Master-Mind Mainframe was going to be very useful but there were still some things unclear or unknown to him that might pose some unknown danger, so he decided to start testing this object of unknown origin.

"You say you are the Master-Mind Mainframe, shouldn't mainframes be massive? How are you so small?" Qin Feng stared directly at the small robo-dog with a look of suspicion in his eyes. Of course, he also remembered that the sacred armor had a liquid form.

While he did not underestimate the machine, parts of this robo-dog, such as its screws, looked to be just normal metal.

"That's the failsafe the Shades made for me. As the top mainframe, my consciousness is very powerful so in order to prevent me from getting out of control, or taking over others' minds, or developing independence and disobeying them, they merged me with the body of this mechanical dog. Your attack earlier killed me, this body is already a spare!"

"Your technology is based on merging souls with machines? What if the souls die? Then the machines can't be used anymore?"

"Of course!" The robo-dog nodded. For it, this was common knowledge. However, Qin Feng did not know that.

Qin Feng felt a little remorseful. In fact, those robots had been very useful, especially those sacred armor robots which were able to predict his attacks. They were very powerful.

Now that the soul was dead, the machines would naturally be unable to start.

"Can't you reinsert a different soul?" He asked.

"With the Soul Tribe dead and no more Soul Power to go around, there's no way to do that!" The robo-dog replied.

Qin Feng put aside that question for now and thought for a moment before saying, "Now that the Soul Tribe has been destroyed, do you still plan on staying here?"

When the robo-dog heard this, its eyes glowed with red light and said, "I can't leave. It is a rule left behind after I was created. Unless the Soul Tribe erases that memory or if I change masters!"

"Change masters? Didn't the Soul Tribe perish?"

"It's a matter of imprinting on the soul!"

"Then, that'll be easy!"

He withdrew the Verdant Emperor Saber. The mechanical dog in front of him did not look like it was capable of fighting back, and if it tried to run away, he would not give it that chance to do so either.

As his internal force spread out, he drew a contract magic circle on the ground!

In the past, energy crystal cores were needed to support these but with the energy that Qin Feng's body had he could make tens of thousand of magic circles if he wanted to.

He had only used this magic circle once, and that was on Bai Li.

While the robo-dog was a combination between a Shade and a machine, since it was really a Shade piloting the mechanical body, he believed that this contract was very possible.

The robo-dog had no intention of running away. When it saw the formation of the magic circle, it looked as if it understood something.

"Go on in, I'll be your master from now on and bring you out of here. Of course, you don't really have another choice, got that?"

He briefly raised up the Verdant Emperor Saber, a faint threat.

After that, the robo-dog's previous hesitation suddenly disappeared and it quickly moved its mechanical paws to step into the magic circle.

When Qin Feng activated the magic circle, his consciousness rushed into the robo-dog's body.

He 'saw' that the soul from the other's body was incredibly bright, undoubtedly close to C-tier in terms of power. While it was relatively strong, he knew that even though the Soul Tribe could manufacture the powerful sacred armor, it had no way to break into B-tier by itself.

That was the limitation of that tribe.

As such, the robo-dog had a powerful soul but its body was far too weak and did not have any combat capabilities.

When Qin Feng's consciousness collided with the robo-dog's soul, it scared the daylights out of it and forced it to retreat.

Originally, based on its intellect, the robo-dog had initially planned to resist Qin Feng, but that idea was quickly dropped.

Just as Qin Feng could 'see' into it, so too could the robo-dog see his soul.

His consciousness was very powerful and intimidating, it was not something that the robo-dog could resist.

As he explored the robo-dog's soul, he came upon a mark which he thought had been left behind by the robo-dog's previous owner!

The owner in question had been dead for too long. The mark, the impression on the soul, was too weak. Qin Feng reached out and easily wiped it away.

Then, his consciousness naturally left behind his own mark in the robo-dog's soul.

"Contract made!"

At this time, it was like the robo-dog and Qin Feng had made a contract, but this contract was very different from Bai Li's.

It was an enslavement contract!

A very unequal contract.

He also helped himself and directly read the robo-dog's memories.

The huge amounts of data was naturally not what he needed. What he wanted to see was what was in the city, what treasures were left and where the machine factories were. All of these were things that he could take.

While he had the robo-dog, thus obtaining all the mechanical blueprints, nothing could be produced empty-handed and making machines could take a lot of time. Thus, it would be better to just take those that had already been made.

At this moment, Qin Feng 'saw' something in the robo-dog's mind. The existence of another machine.

"Is that… is that the Sacred Star?"

Chapter 875: Heading Toward Sacred Star

The appearance of the Sacred Star would be exactly on the last day of each activation of the Perished Land to release energy that was extremely beneficial to the Shades.

After Qin Feng had seen the memories of the robo-dog, only then was he surprised to know that it was like a giant satellite.

Like a man-made satellite, or perhaps a Soul-Tribe-made.

"How could the Sacred Star be so powerful?" Qin Feng was instantly caught by surprise.

If such a unique star were to be brought back to Fengli City by Qin Feng, it would definitely be the best enhancement the ability users could ask for.

Unfortunately, although it was a man-made satellite, it was still sized above thirty thousand meters. Hence, it was impossible for Qin Feng to place it into his spatial rune equipment. Despite having enough spatial rune equipment setups, the storage was still insufficient.

Qin Feng asked, "Do you have any airships here that could arrive at the Sacred Star?"

The robo-dog was surprised that Qin Feng had already begun to prey on the Sacred Star, and it shook its head, "Although there are machines that could reach there with available energy sources, the surrounding magnetic field around the Sacred Star would prohibit anything from getting close to it. Most importantly, there are combat robots on the Sacred Star equipped with combat armor that are even more powerful than the sacred armors!"

Qin Feng was surprised.

Although the sacred armors were extremely powerful, they were still B-tier advanced god armor that no longer suited him.

It would definitely be better if there was something more powerful than the sacred armor!

"What is that?"

"That combat armor is named as the Dark Armor by the Shades as they do not know anything about the composite materials in it. Most importantly, it could absorb energy from the surrounding and not rely on any replenishment from the Shades. However, it was the same reason that had led to the banning of this Dark Armor as a forbidden practice!"

Qin Feng frowned as he realized that those light spots were helpful for the Shades.

"Meaning to say, the Sacred Star is not actually absorbing energy but the Dark Armor is?"

The robo-dog nodded, and then shook its head while explaining, "Indeed the Dark Armor is absorbing, but it is the Sacred Star's massive carriage that contributes to its weight. Without the presence of the Sacred Star, it will be impossible for the sacred armor to float in the universe!"

Qin Feng continued with his question, "But judging from the usage of the Dark Armor, it is definitely a sacred item. Why would it still be listed as a forbidden practice?"

The robo-dog answered, "Simple, the Dark Armor is capable of absorbing disunited particles, and it could also absorb souls. Putting it in human terms, even evil ghosts would find it unfavourable. Therefore, it is definitely a threat to us!"

"Got it!" Qin Feng nodded as he finally understood the entire picture.

The robo-dog interrupted again, "Hence, the robot that is equipped with Dark Armor is not connected by Shades. He is very powerful in combat, but has zero intelligence. You will definitely die if you go to the Sacred Star!"

Qin Feng was able to take down the robot, and the crucial factor was the Soul-Lock Stone on his Verdant Emperor Saber. However, the robo-dog did not look favorably upon Qin Feng's capability.

Qin Feng casually laughed, "Now that you mentioned it, I am even more interested!"

The robo-dog still tried to persuade its newfound master to stop him from seeking his own death and putting it into the same trouble. It completely refused to seek trouble from the Dark Armor.

But all of those persuasions were interrupted by Qin Feng.

"Let's not talk about the Sacred Star now, first move all of these items away!"

Qin Feng began sweeping across the entire city.

Being one of the intelligent species, the Shades also had their own buildings and developments to fulfil their needs.

Every shop was scavenged by Qin Feng, including shops that sold cars, weapons, and robots.

Even the hospital was not missed out by Qin Feng, although it was just there for the Shades to seek medical assistance.

All sorts of items were collected to compensate for the lacking need that he had in his region, including lamp posts and large display screens.

Qin Feng even had to utilize his qinggong skills to speed up the collection on such trivial matters.

Therefore, it had taken Qin Feng approximately ten days to gather up every item around the city.

Two more days were spent by Qin Feng in removing every machine around the factory area, and nothing was left behind.

Including the first day when he arrived in the city, Qin Feng had spent thirteen days at the underground city of the Perished Land. In two more days, the land would be closed and it would then be impossible to get out.

"Alright, ready to go!"

Qin Feng placed his combat backpack on his back, the spatial rune equipment in it had not increased. Only the robo-dog that had been following Qin Feng knew what was inside, the numbers were too overwhelming and the varieties were too great a detail.

Qin Feng sat on the backseat of a machine that looked like a small sized aircraft, while the robo-dog sat in front of the control panel.

"I can only send you to a location that is ten kilometres away from the satellite. The Sacred Star is actually constantly moving. When it arrives at the closest spot to the soul star, you would then have to be careful of explosive energy from the Dark Armor. It would be best if everything could be settled before the energy explosion from the Dark Armor!" The robo-dog suggested in a humanized way.

"Hmm!" Qin Feng answered even though he had already made up his mind.

With his current capability, he might be able to go up against the Dark Armor so it would still be fairly easy for him to escape from it.

The aircraft glided across the underground kingdom at high speed and then fled out from another exit. As it was flying high above the ruined land, nobody would notice its presence.

Soon after the airship flew out from the atmosphere of the soul star, it then entered into space.

While occurrence of major rifts had caused an exclusion of knowledge related to space beyond the atmosphere, the main reason was due to the vast and complicated energy mix that had crowded the space. Some were even inappropriate for human body absorption as they would bring nothing but harm.

Therefore, there was not much understanding of the world beyond the atmosphere, while the general understanding toward the universe was also confined to a poor and minimal level. Knowledge obtained from supernatural science was rather focused on mostly realm-related elements and their causes.

Countless numbers of realms, including the one where Qin Feng was in, were most probably parallelly aligned or overlapped. Energy was the main cause of conflict that would trigger an energy spike in a location. It would then lead to spatial rune vibrations and then drive the overlapping process to completion.

It was in a similar state as the Battlegod Tomb.

More scenarios were then discovered that helped in explaining and understanding other cases. Perhaps in another hundred years, they would all become new 'common rules' that required no explanations.

The airship that was piloted by the robo-dog was more powerful than the aircraft that Qin Feng had modified. As soon as it entered into space, it was attacked by countless numbers of laser rays and unique energy.

The airship was shrouded by an energy ring to defend it from the attacks.

In the absence of weight, it could only rely on thrust to change its course of direction. It was constantly consuming energy cores or other materials with similar composites.

Qin Feng had to move on by himself.

Out in space, the entire universe was pitch-black, accompanied by a glimmering galaxy from afar. Energy from some of the planets was still channelling through although they were hundreds of millions of lightyears away.

Chapter 876: Dark Armor

Qin Feng looked around and seemed to have been enlightened by something.

But that thought immediately disappeared before he could grasp it.

Then, Qin Feng looked toward the Sacred Star.

Despite knowing the surface area of the Sacred Star, it still resembled a massive steel beast. Furthermore, the surface was not totally barren and bald, energy receiving towers were established around it. They were even equipped with energy blasting structures that looked like massive satellite dishes.

For the moment, Qin Feng had yet to notice the presence of any robots.

The airship was stopped and the robo-dog did not move it from the spot.

"Master, we have arrived!" The robo-dog reported.

"Hmm!"

Qin Feng answered as his internal strength shield formed into an intensely thickened barrier around him. He opened the cabin door of the airship and jumped out.

Internal strength was exerted and it pushed Qin Feng toward the Sacred Star.

Radiating rays and energy of the universe were violently emitted toward him, while Qin Feng's frozen star spiralled unconsciously and absorbed the energy. But as soon as it entered into his dantian, his translucent frozen star was then discoloured by pollution. It was a mixture of white and grey colour, and some of the energy was uncontrollable.

Qin Feng was suddenly enlightened once more in regards to what he thought of earlier.

"Energy from the stars is indeed massive, but ordinary human being would definitely not survive in this place. The only option is to resist with enclosed dantian and consciousness to prevent these energy invasions."

But it was different for Qin Feng.

"Ability, Absorb!"

Qin Feng released his ability to absorb the polluted energy in his dantian, and then transformed those messy energies into purified energy sources.

His body, internal strength and even his consciousness were nourished by it!

It seemed like the advancement speed was even faster than being at precious locations like Fengli City or Dragon Capital.

However, it was not the time for practicing. Qin Feng's main purpose was definitely to enter the Sacred Star and look for the Dark Armor.

Internal strength surged and moved Qin Feng's body closer to the Sacred Star.

Within the ten kilometres radius around the Sacred Star, Qin Feng began to feel the gravitational force from the star. The landing experience was similar to entering into another realm. But the surrounding sky was still pitch-black as it was in outer space.

Qin Feng's senses instantly captured the entire Sacred Star.

"This kind of sensation, it's something I wouldn't even dare dream of!" Qin Feng exclaimed.

Before his rebirth, he was just an A-tier ancient warrior. He was only capable of expanding his senses to a ten kilometres radius when he had achieved A-tier.

But when he achieved S-tier, he was then capable of expanding to a thousand kilometres.

Such a massive coverage was absolutely terrifying.

"No wonder Eye Devil could attack me from such a far distance, but that was most probably a unique technique of his that I have yet to discover. Also, even if my senses are able to reach millions of meters away, I still cannot muster such attack power. That's why Eye Devil is positioned at such a high rank, having an absolute influence over the Amazon Alliance. He's basically a long-range annihilation cannon!"

Qin Feng came to this realization and sighed a little before his senses quickly detected the presence of a robot.

The robot was not moving, but half-squatted at a centre that was surrounded by eight towers.

Needless to say, all eight towers were connected with extended ties to countless numbers of towers. They were formed into a uniquely chained magnetic field that could absorb rays from the universe.

The pollution of radiating rays was much worse there, and the centre point was exactly where the Dark Armor robot was at.

The Dark Armor robot was totally different from other robots.

If it was not because Qin Feng knew that it was a robot, he would have thought that it was a human being. Its common facial features could easily blend into a crowd and have everyone forget what it looked like.

The only bizarre characteristic was its unblinking eyes. It was not even breathing, and its body was not moving at all.

From what his consciousness could sense, the robot indeed did not have any signs of life at all. There was not even the presence of any consciousness.

Qin Feng retrieved his consciousness and stepped forward.

His movements were sped up by his internal strength. Within a blink of an eye, he had arrived at the ten thousand metre radius from the Dark Armor robot.

It was at that moment, the Dark Armor robot finally began to move. Countless amounts of data flickered before his eyes as his vision captured Qin Feng's presence.

"Intruder spotted, proceed to annihilate!"

"Begin annihilation!"

Almost immediately a dark light pillar took form in its hand and was instantly shot out.

The light pillar was aimed exactly at the spot where Qin Feng was about to move toward, and it was another attack that Qin Feng had no chance in dodging.

Superior computing capability.

Qin Feng was extremely shocked by such capability, but the attack meant nothing to him.

Swoosh…

The dark energy pillar shrouded around Qin Feng and it was blocked out by his internal strength shield. With just a slight horizontal move, Qin Feng was able to immediately avoid the straightforward course of attack.

Qin Feng rushed forward again.

His Verdant Emperor Saber was already in his hand.

It was rather inappropriate to use his Spirit Chain Rend at that moment, but not other skills.

"Burning Sword Glare!"

An array of flames instantly exploded and spanned across an area of hundred meters, instantly shrouding around the Dark Armor robot.

Computing figures were again showcased before the eyes of the Dark Armor robot.

"Irresistible, estimated level of destruction thirty-three point eighty-one percent, retreat!"

In the next moment, the Dark Armor robot instantly disappeared from the ground.

Both Qin Feng and his opponent had launched their attacks once, and Qin Feng had managed to grasp the key attributes of the Dark Armor robot.

"No wonder it is named Dark Armor, it is utilizing dark runes!"

Unsurprisingly, dark runes were capable of transforming dead corpses into dark puppets, and part of the bizarre control was fuelled by soul energy.

Despite being fuelled by such energy, the Dark Armor still did not have its own consciousness and could only use dark abilities that were readily available.

For example, some presence-concealing skills.

It might be considered as quite high-level for others. Perhaps an ordinary ancient warrior would not be able to capture the Dark Armor robot. After all, such an opponent would not reveal their presence like an ordinary living human being.

Unfortunately, such dark abilities were performed before Qin Feng.

It was merely child's play to him.

Qin Feng raised his hand; an array of imposing and vigorously aerated blades was blasted out.

It was the Blazing Sky.

The eyes of the hidden Dark Armor robot flickered again.

"Irresistible, estimated level of destruction…"

In the next moment, the Dark Armor robot computed the same outcome and retreated again.

It was moving at lightning speed.

Boom!

Blazing Sky landed on the ground and blasted it into a deep pit. A tower that stood along the attacked path was cut in half, crashing to the ground.

However, the shadow of the Dark Armor robot was no longer seen at its original spot.

Qin Feng missed both attacks, but he incessantly continued on with them.

"Again!"

Qin Feng was curious to find out what else the Dark Armor robot had up its sleeves!

Chapter 877: The Final Day

When Qin Feng was about to pursue it, shiny light glared in the Dark Armor robot's eyes.

"Calculating attack pattern. Viable offensive measure verified."

In the next second, the robot was enveloped in a layer of dark runes before stepping into darkness.

However, Qin Feng was able to see everything that the robot was doing. Any tricks that utilized dark runes were no use against him after all.

Yet, the Dark Armor robot did not know this. Its "offensive measure" was also probably just a protocol that was pre-programmed in its operating system.

When it hid in the darkness, the Dark Armor robot's speed was greatly enhanced—even faster than it was before.

When it was retreating from Qin Feng earlier, it was an attempt to evade his attacks. It was more of a means of minimizing damage, not a total retreat.

Right now, the immense speed that it was displaying was rather stunning to witness.

In just a blink of an eye, it had emerged behind Qin Feng before shedding off a small piece of its dark armor, revealing a one-meter long blade that was glaring with rainbow-ish glare.

"Pfft!"

The blade stabbed straight into Qin Feng's internal energy shield, instantly penetrating it.

This attack was almost as powerful as a strike from an S-tier.

However, Qin Feng was totally unharmed despite having his internal energy being penetrated.

The blade was stuck!

The Dark Armor robot's eyes were glaring with yellow glow again, trying to calculate its next move.

Then, the blade radiated a blinding glare before exploding into pieces.

Booom!!

A massive explosion erupted, destroying every building within thousands of meters in the area. The explosion was so massive that even the robo-dog, who was ten kilometers away, was able to witness it from afar. All it was worried about at the moment was what would happen to itself if Qin Feng were to die from this.

It was then, another powerful energy burst out in the explosion's ground-zero.

It was a wave of terrifying flame.

A fire dragon appeared on the Sacred Star and rammed straight downward to the ground, crashing the attack away.

This was Qin Feng's counter-attack.

In that split second, Qin Feng almost got blown to pieces. Yet, he was able to unleash his fire dragon in the nick of time, negating the robot's powerful attack.

After the fire dragon clashed its attack to nothingness, the Dark Armor robot slipped into darkness again.

The Dark Armor robot's attack pattern seemed to be mimicking the styles of an assassin—always looking for an opening before delivering a swift, lightning strike.

Unfortunately, the robot was not able to take Qin Feng down at all.

Qin Feng, on the other hand, started to act more cautiously now.

If this robot was moving like an assassin, with its high-tech weaponry and inhuman speed, one sliver of mistake could result in his head being chopped off.

A robot assassin, geared with an A-tier super armor could very well murder an S-tier if given the chance. In a way, this robot was quite similar to Guan Jinhao.

And right now, the Dark Armor robot had only one objective—to kill Qin Feng, a B-tier whose only advantage was his immensely powerful internal energy. Thus, there was a possibility that the robot could indeed kill him.

Therefore, Qin Feng too hid in the darkness, intending to fight the robot head on.

Of course, the Dark Armor robot was still able to lock onto Qin Feng's whereabouts.

"Well, well, well! I guess I get to be an assassin for once!"

Qin Feng then actively concealed his presence too.

He was planning to assassinate He Tianxing in the near future. As such, he might as well do a little practice right now!

Hence, both Qin Feng and the Dark Armor robot were moving stealthily in the dark, trying to take down their opponent in the next opening they saw.

Then, they struck.

From time to time, explosions erupted.

Sometimes, one could see either one of them chasing another in the sky before slipping into darkness.

The fight went on for the whole day.

The robo-dog was able to witness from afar that Qin Feng was actually not at any disadvantage at all. In fact, after fighting for the whole day, Qin Feng did not display any signs of fatigue; and there were a lot of times where he was really close to successfully assassinating the Dark Armor robot.

Still, Qin Feng did not deal the killing blow. He wanted to use the robot as a training buddy.

And by fighting against the Dark Armor robot, Qin Feng's strength and skills as an assassin grew stronger and stronger.

Meanwhile, the Sacred Star kept on moving too. In just a day's time, the Sacred Star was now really close to the Perished Lands.

Suddenly, the Dark Armor robot stopped its attack and dashed toward another direction.

Not understanding what was going on, Qin Feng gave chase.

Realizing that Qin Feng was pursuing it, the Dark Armor robot sped up!

Whoosh!

The robot dashed into a huge device. It seemed to be some kind of energy emitting station.

Then, the robot seemed to be brimming with energy. It had unleashed all the energy that it had been draining in the past fifteen days in one go.

Then, a bright ray of light was fired around the device.

This energy was what the Shades needed the most. Last year, the Shade that was geared with the sacred armor devoured other Shades. This year, there was no sacred armor for these Shades to wear. In just one year's time, these Shades had absorbed about twenty rays of these Sacred Star's light.

Then, about thirty twenty-meter tall Shades climbed out of their hiding to bask in the light. Some of them even started to fight amongst themselves, trying to be the first to receive the light.

Seeing this, the prodigies who were in the ruins right now quickly used this chance to hunt down more Shades to acquire the treasures that they were carrying.

Qin Feng, on the other hand, realized something.

"Hey, if the Dark Armor robot has unleashed all its energy… does that mean it is now just an empty shell?"

And seemingly in an attempt to answer Qin Feng's doubt, the robo-dog piloted its airship and landed on the other side of the Sacred Star.

"Master, since the Dark Armor robot has unleashed its energy, it is now not as powerful as it was before. You can destroy it and take its armor!"

"Ah, just as I thought!"

Still, Qin Feng had some other idea in mind.

The S-tier puppet that he acquired from Kounsat was able to cut off He Tianxing's arm. And this robot here was actually much stronger than that puppet. Perhaps he could keep this robot as his puppet too? And then, he could use this against He Tianxing!

"Is there any way for me to acquire and control the Dark Armor robot?"

The robo-dog immediately answered Qin Feng's question, "No, there isn't."

Chapter 878: The Scariest Things are the Prodigies

Qin Feng gave the robo-dog a cold glance. Even though it was in a machine body, the robo-dog could not help but feel a chill running down its Shade-based soul.

The robo-dog did not know how to observe a human's emotions and feelings. However, it was able to trace the reason, via logic, as to why Qin Feng was not pleased with its answer.

"But… but! The Dark Armor robot has combat records in its core. If you can take it off, you could then build a new robot and make it your servant."

"That'll do!"

Qin Feng took a look at the Perished Land. Due to the unique gravitational location the Sacred Star was at at the time, the Perished Land was above his head.

Having raised his head, Qin Feng could observe that several fights had started from the emitted energy earlier.

The energy was rather pure and potent; and it was converted into a form that only Shades could absorb.

Noticing something, Qin Feng raised his Verdant Emperor Saber and fused his internal energy in it.

"Wanzhong's Spirit Chain Rend…"

Using his Spirit Chain Rend, Qin Feng activated several spirits.

The "spirits" that he activated had no consciousness and intelligence. However, they were still spirit-type creatures. After releasing them, these spirits quickly absorbed the energy that was released by the Dark Armor robot earlier.

Not only that, these spirits covered the whole sky while absorbing the energies that were being unleashed by the energy-emitting device.

Everytime Qin Feng activated his Spirit Chain Rend, the spirits that were originally trapped in the Rend would usually be harmed. Some of the spirits were so weak that each slash he threw would kill them instantly.

Then, Qin Feng activated his Asteroid Assimilation to absorb them.

By absorbing them, Qin Feng's Spirit Chain Rend then became much stronger each time he activated it.

Meanwhile, in the Perished Land.

The Shades realized that the Sacred Star's light was gone. These Shades were low-intelligent creatures. They were just some spirits that wandered in the Perished Land aimlessly and responded to the light because these lights seemed to be beneficial to them—much like animals responding to the sight of food.

As such, even if the light was suddenly gone, these Shades seemed to not be upset at all.

However, the prodigies that were hunting these Shades could not help but to take notice of this sudden change in the environment. Some of them were first-timers in this area while some of them had been here before.

Still, without the Sacred Armor, they were not too bothered by the appearance of the Sacred Star. All they knew about the star was that it seemed to have baited large groups of Shades to reveal themselves, and that was all.

Zhou Hao spoke to his team after seeing that the light had disappeared.

"Stop the battle and prepare to leave. Qin Feng said that when the Sacred Star stopped its activity, this whole place would be shut and sealed. If we don't go back now, there'll be no way home!"

"Okay!"

Lu Meng took out a super cannon and shot a blast at a gigantic Shade.

A crystal-like shell was bombarded straight into its body.

Boom!

The Shade exploded into nothingness in an instant!

Naturally, whatever it was carrying all fell to the ground. Lu Meng was rather particular with her aim, ensuring that she would not destroy the treasures and items that the Shade was carrying.

Of course, there was no need to worry even if they were damaged. They just had to take everything that fell out of its body!

All six of them quickly swept across the battlefield and looted everything they could before activating their spatial waymarks and returned to Dragon Capital.

Due to Qin Feng being a prior example, no one was worried even though Zhou Hao and his team had stayed in the Perished Land for fifteen days.

They were not the last to return too.

They noticed that there was one person missing; it was the leader of the Southern Region—Nangong Feiyang.

This young man was the new challenger in the Nangong family's branch. He was able to collect a Heavenly Jewel by chance in the wild and had gotten his strength rapidly enhanced from E9 to D6-tier. This was how he was able to represent the Southern Region this year.

However, he was still a newly ascended D6-tier. His strength's foundation was still not stable. And now, he had not returned yet even though the others had already retreated back to Dragon Capital.

Other than Qin Feng, Nangong Feiyang was the only prodigy that had not returned yet.

Of course, they did not need to worry about Qin Feng because he was already really strong. No one would need to worry about him even if he stayed in the Perished Land for a full year.

However, things were quite different for Nangong Feiyang—if he stayed there too long, he would definitely be dead.

They could not help but feel that this young man had faced some kind of untoward fate.

"Perhaps Nangong Feiyang has gotten too bold due to his rapid growth. Damn… this boy. He should know that the scariest thing about the Perished Land is not the Shades! It's the other prodigies!" Nangong Shi sighed.

Nangong Shi had predicted this would happen.

The boy was indeed strong. With his D6-tier strength, Nangong Feiyang boldly stepped into the ruins and collaborated with the Dragon-bornes to hunt down Shades for their treasures and resources.

This young man, if things were not to go astray, would definitely be an influential leader for the Nangongs in the future.

Meanwhile, seeing that the Sacred Star had started to dim down, Nangong Feiyang expressed that he wanted to leave.

"Guys, it's been a pleasure working with you all. Regretfully, I can't join you all next year. May we meet again someday!"

To Nangong Feiyang, even though these temporary allies were not humans, they were much more dependable than his human allies. Qin Feng even abandoned them, making him venture in this realm alone.

Perhaps his human allies would not expect that he would be so lucky to meet these dragon-borne allies!

It was then, a tall Dragon-borne spoke using his consciousness.

"Nangong, I really wish to visit your realm. Would the place you're visiting next welcome people like us?"

Nangong Feiyang frowned.

Although this request was a sudden and weird one, Nangong Feiyang was thinking about whether it was appropriate for them to ask this—he was thinking about the unlikely viability for their visit to happen.

"My apologies, my friend. The place I'm going to visit next is sort of unwelcoming to your people. However, you're always welcomed to visit my hometown in the Southern Region."

Although the Nangongs had residences in the Dragon Capital, their home base was still in the Southern Region. As such, Nangong Feiyang felt that it was more appropriate for him to welcome his new alien friends there.

Besides, it would be a bragging right for him to show his fellow Nangongs that he had some dragon-friends!

However, the Feathered-tribe young man who was standing next to him replied with a sinister smile, "Well then… we, too, are kind of unwilling to part with you, Mr Nangong."

Chapter 879: Spatial Waymarks Missing

Upon hearing that, Nangong Feiyang responded with a smile, not understanding the situation at all. The feathered man then forcefully demanded, "Nangong Feiyang, hand me your spatial waymark!"

Nangong Feiyang was surprised to see his new friend acting this way.

Then suddenly, he felt his body tensing up before it started to move on its own and handed three of his spatial waymarks to the feathered man.

"And the stuff that you acquired earlier?" The Dragon-borne said.

Nangong Feiyang's face turned pale. He finally realized what was going on.

However, he was powerless to stop his body from handing out the loot that he acquired earlier to them.

All his hard work… this half a month's worth of work… they were meant to grant him a good life. And now, they were all for nothing!

"Let's split the goodies, shall we?"

"Sure! And the spatial waymarks too! Each one of us gets one!"

"Alright, when we reach this human realm, you better not fight with me!"

"Sure! Let's have a long-lasting, happy collaboration!"

"Hahaha! I wonder just how many of them humans are there in this realm. I am quite sure that this species has no supreme champion at all due to how meek they are. Still, they make great slaves though!"

"Yeah!"

"We Dragon-bornes don't really want anything. Just give us their women. If you want to kill the men, be my guest!"

These people were discussing happily as they distributed Nangong Feiyang's spatial waymarks.

Then, they looked and smiled sinisterly at him.

The Dragon-borne grinned widely before reaching his hands to Nangong Feiyang's neck, wanting to snap it.

Nangong Feiyang's eyes widened in fear.

He did not want to die.

It was then, the feathered man smirked, "Hey, don't kill him. Let's just leave him here and let him rot. There's no food in this Perished Land. So, with no means of going home, it's a matter of time before he dies of hunger here. Besides, I want to see just how funny it is for a human prodigy to die in agony like this!"

Upon hearing this, the Wild Tribe man who was standing next to him laughed out loudly, "Too bad I can't witness it after we leave this realm though. Still, I bet it would be a really interesting sight to watch!"

Although the Dragon-borne still believed that killing Nangong Feiyang right away would be the much better way, he opted to not do it to honor his friends' wishes.

Besides, the Sacred Star was about to fade. As such, they really had to go now.

Then, all three of them took out their own spatial waymarks and activated the spatial tunnel to their own home worlds. In one leap, they were all gone; and all three of Nangong Feiyang's spatial waymarks were taken to other realms.

Perhaps, it would not take long before the first alien invasion occurred in Dragon Capital!

A few moments after that, Nangong Feiyang was finally released from their control. Staring at the barren land around him, Nangong Feiyang could not sense any humans left in the area. Everyone had left.

Of course, he could not leave. His waymarks had been robbed off him.

"I… I can't go home…?"

Nangong Feiyang panicked.

Suddenly, he recalled something before quickly searching in his pockets. A few seconds later, he found an item that looked like a grenade from his combat suit—there was an electronic screen on the "grenade".

He quickly connected it with his communicator and entered a few words. Then, a countdown of three minutes began.

"Quick… Quick!"

Nangong Feiyang stared at the gradually dimming Sacred Star's light, hoping that this thing could do it before the final ray of these lights disappeared.

If not, he could never return home ever again!

And these three minutes felt like years to him right now.

Meanwhile, as the Spirit Chain Rend swallowed all of the energies and star light, Qin Feng could feel that he had become stronger. At the same time, the Dark Armor robot had begun to move again.

However, this time, the robot had lost its trump card—all of the energies that it had absorbed were now gone.

"Bye!"

Qin Feng slashed out his Verdant Emperor Saber at the robot's head, chopping it off.

Then, he used his consciousness to rip the Dark Armor off of the robot's remains.

The Dark Armor started to morph into a pool of black liquid and then into a black combat armor in front of Qin Feng. Due to all of its absorbed energy having been released, it was now safe for Qin Feng to wear it, which he did.

As the Dark Armor was put on him, Qin Feng concealed his presence—if one did not see him with their own eyes, there was no way for them to use their consciousness to detect him.

This was the power of the Dark Armor. It was quite expected, really. This thing was an A-tier armor, even more powerful than the sacred armor.

After acquiring the armor, Qin Feng opened up the robot's remains and took out its combat data chip.

In a glance, he was quite surprised to learn about the chip's appearance—it was made of Dark Gold! Not only that, he could also read it right away as soon as he held it in his hand.

"So, this chip is like the scrolls that have been crafted from the ultra beasts' hides. Hmm."

This combat chip was not just the combat data core of a robot; it was also a martial art scroll.

To add more, the chip had not only recorded just one martial art but hundreds of them! From G-tier fist styles to the A-tier striking techniques! Every single one of them were techniques used by assassins!

"This is a treasure indeed!" Qin Feng kept the chip excitedly in his pocket.

Finally, he had gotten what he came here for!

"The energy here is too turbulent to activate my spatial waymark. Let's return to the Perished Land first." Qin Feng ordered.

"Yes, Master!"

The robo-dog then brought the airship to him. Right now, the Sacred Star was rather close to the Perished Land; so, the Perished Land's dimension could be locked off if one mistake were made. Thus, the robo-dog moved quickly. In just five minutes, they had already gotten into the shielded area in the Perished Land.

When they got through the barrier, Qin Feng waved his spatial waymark, intending to activate it.

It was then, a massive explosion erupted in the sky.

Several huge words emerged in the air.

They were Chinese words.

"My Spatial Waymarks Are Missing! Save Me!"

Qin Feng was surprised to see this. "Oh, an S-O-S?"

This was something that the Fengli Organization had invented awhile ago. They were grenades that could form energy words in the sky to deliver messages. The unique thing about these S-O-S grenades was that they would show words and messages in the air while concealing the explosion's energy, enabling other intelligence to see the S-O-S message while not attracting the ultra beasts.

The S-O-S grenade could effectively show the message to people who were several dozen kilometers away.

Well, right now, the most important thing was that someone was using this to call for help.

And only the citizens from Qin Feng's home world would use this item.