Lance stared at the system’s description, and despite his usual composure, he couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath.

  A hundred-thousand-fold cultivation speed. This meant that a single day of training was now equivalent to three hundred years of grueling effort for any other genius.

  The sheer absurdity of it was mind-boggling. Had he awakened this trait earlier, he could have cultivated from a normal human to the peak of the [Gold Rank] in less than twenty-four hours.

  While his [Undying God-Body] allowed him to farm Constitution (CON) reserves through the [Near-Death Loop] at a speed that eclipsed even this new trait, the [Primeval Law Body] offered something his healing factor didn't: a massive boost to the comprehension of [War Arts] and skills.

  With his elemental affinity and training speed both increased by a factor of 100,000, his efficiency in mastering techniques would be thousands of times higher than before.

  Lance didn't waste a moment. He reached behind his back and drew his long spear in a single, fluid motion.

  SHING!

  The weapon let out a piercing hum as it cut through the superheated air.

  "Meteor Spear Art!!!"

  With a low shout, Lance kicked off the ground and rocketed into the sky. In an instant, the spear in his hand blurred, transforming into a torrential downpour of strikes aimed at the void.

  Clang! Clang! Clang!

  The sound of clashing metal erupted as thousands of spear shadows manifested simultaneously. They fell toward the earth like a rain of falling stars, each one infused with enough destructive power to shatter mountains and evaporate rivers.

  BOOM! RUMBLE!!!

  The spear shadows slammed into the basalt plains and detonated in a synchronized chain reaction. It was as if a carpet of nuclear warheads had been dropped on the landscape. Gargantuan mushroom clouds rose into the atmosphere, veiling a radius of over a thousand kilometers in fire and smoke.

  The shockwave, carrying a wall of thermal energy, swept outward with enough force to liquefy the horizon.

  "Finally, it’s over. God, why are the demons here so strong? I’m an A+ Rank elite, and I nearly got gutted by a demon of the same rank!"

  "Tell me about it. Thank god group hunting wasn't banned. Without you guys, I wouldn't have just failed the exam—I’d be dragon sh*t by now."

  "Exactly. But hey, it's done. I never expected to actually make it into Solaris Academy anyway. Living to tell the tale is good enough for me!"

  "By the way, did you see those girls from the Logia System? Man, they were fine. If I can't get into the Academy, maybe I’ll just head there for a vacation..."

  A group of examinees from the same star system were flying toward the extraction point, their flight suits carrying them over a sea of magma. They were exhausted, battered, and relieved that their ordeal was coming to an end.

  "W-W-Wait! Look over there!!"

  One of the youths suddenly pointed toward the horizon, his voice cracking with pure terror. His friends followed his gaze, and their expressions froze.

  A wall of pure, unadulterated destruction was racing toward them. A shockwave that had reached ten thousand meters into the sky was flattening the landscape, turning everything in its path to ash.

  The earth was being erased.

  "Run! RUN!!!"

  The panic was instantaneous. They slammed their flight suits to maximum power, banking hard to the left in a desperate attempt to outrun the advancing wall of fire.

  But even at a hundred thousand kilometers per hour, they were standing still compared to the shockwave. In seconds, the fire swept over them. These "elite" geniuses, the pride of their respective planets, were vaporized instantly. They died without ever knowing what had hit them, and certainly without knowing that the "attack" was just a casual training exercise from a boy testing his new spear.

  [System Alert: Congratulations! Through deep comprehension of spear techniques, your proficiency has increased by +10,000!]

  Lance hovered in the air, looking at the notification. His eyes sparkled. A jump of ten thousand points in a single use? The effect was world-breaking.

  To advance from Master Mid-stage to Late-stage required 30,000 proficiency points. At this rate, he only needed to perform the [Meteor Spear Art] three more times to hit the next tier.

  "I should save the rest for later," Lance mused. "I can cloak my presence from the ship’s AI, but if The High Speaker himself decides to come down here to investigate this blast, I won't be able to hide. That’s more trouble than I want."

  He had the [Holographic Simulation Space] for training, after all. Now that his [Elemental Saint Body] had evolved into the [Primeval Law Body], the fidelity and efficiency of the simulation would be nearly identical to the real world.

  "Time to head back and finish this exam. Once I'm done, I’ll take a trip back to Planet Silvermoon and find a way to bring Lorraine here."

  Lance kicked off the void, transforming into a violet streak of lightning as he headed toward the Tier 6 warship’s coordinates.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Huff!!!

  In the heart of the central sun, Selina’s eyes finally snapped open.

  "I’ve done it! I’ve finally tamed it!"

  She let out a long sigh of relief, feeling the [Ice Spirit Star Flame] nestled within her [Consciousness Hub]. She had initially thought the process would take a few hours; instead, twenty hours had passed in a blur of agony and refinement.

  "Master, the exam ends in thirty minutes! Do we have enough time to get back!?" Selina asked frantically.

  Her rank had jumped to [Gold Rank, Rank 8] during the absorption, and with the SS-Rank Aether Fire at her command, she could now slaughter peak Gold-tier Cinder Demons with ease. But she was currently millions of kilometers away in the core of a star.

  "The clock is ticking, but it’s more than enough," Sovereign Glacia replied, her voice filled with pride. Her soul reserves were significantly restored. "If I can't get my disciple through a simple school exam in thirty minutes, I might as well throw my title as the Sovereign of Frost into the trash."

  Before Selina could respond, a supreme, crushing wave of Soul Power enveloped her entire form.

  BOOM!!!

  Selina felt herself being propelled by a force beyond physical laws. Under the shroud of Glacia’s power, she accelerated to a velocity thousands of times greater than the speed of light.

  Despite the sun being a vast distance from Pyre-7, the journey took exactly one second.

  "I’m getting slow in my old age," Sovereign Glacia grumbled as they broke through the planet's atmosphere. "A whole second for such a tiny hop."

  To Glacia, the speed was a reminder of her diminished state. To anyone else, it was a miracle. They had crossed a distance that would take light several minutes to traverse in a single heartbeat. They had arrived at the Cinder Demon planet.

  At her current level of strength, Sovereign Glacia would need decades to cross the galaxy. In her prime, however, she could have traversed that same distance in a few days without ever entering Dark Space—and inside the Dark Universe, it wouldn't have taken her a single second.

  "Master, what should I do next?"

  Selina checked the timer: twenty-three minutes remained. She turned to her mentor with urgency.

  "Thirty kilometers to your right, there is a Tier 3, 10-Star Cinder Demon commanding at least three hundred Gold-tier subordinates. Slay them all, and your score will comfortably break into the top thousand!"

  Sovereign Glacia’s Divine Sense swept the area, pinpointing a target for Selina in an instant.

  "Understood!"

  Selina didn't hesitate. She kicked off the air, blue flames surging around her. She transformed into a streak of azure light, hurtling toward the coordinates Glacia provided. In mere seconds, she arrived at the site: a magma sea spanning over ten kilometers.

  Selina took a deep breath and activated her combat recorder. She extended both hands toward the molten lake below.

  "Absolute Zero!!"

  Following her icy command, a boundless frost erupted from her palms. The cold didn't just chill the air; it dove straight into the magma.

  In a heartbeat, the terrifying chill sapped the thermal energy from the molten rock, cooling it instantly. The next second, the entire magma sea was flash-frozen into a solid block of obsidian-colored ice.

  "Rise!"

  Selina yanked her hands upward.

  BOOM! CRACK!

  Deafening cracks spider-webbed across the frozen lake. One by one, frozen Cinder Demons of all sizes were yanked from the depths, encased in jagged shards of ice. The smallest were dozens of meters tall, while the largest—a [Gold Tier, Rank 10] commander—towered nearly a hundred meters high.

  The lead demon’s expression was frozen in a mask of utter bewilderment; it hadn't even realized it was being attacked before it was turned into a statue.

  "Shatter!"

  Selina clenched her slender hand into a tight fist.

  CRACK! SHATTER! EXPLODE!

  Every single demon detonated simultaneously, their bodies turning into a cloud of sparkling ice shards and gray ash. The entire sequence was captured by her recorder.

  [System Alert: Congratulations! You have slain one [Gold Tier, Rank 10] Cinder Demon and 300 Gold-tier subordinates of various ranks. Total points awarded: 9,450!!]

  Because the majority of the subordinates were below [Gold Tier, Rank 4], each had only provided an average of thirty points. Nevertheless, the massive haul propelled her rank into the top thousand.

  "Twelve hundred kilometers to the west!!" Sovereign Glacia commanded without wasting a breath.

  Selina rocketed toward the next target. With the [Ice Spirit Star Flame] in her possession, her combat power had increased by dozens of times. Her rank had jumped seven levels, and she was just getting started. Over the coming weeks, she would continue to integrate the flame’s power until she achieved the [Grandmaster] stage.

  There was a catch, however. Because her raw power had skyrocketed so quickly, her technique proficiency had failed to keep pace. Her skill ranks had plummeted from [Proficient] back down to [Novice]. It was a steep price, but compared to the boon of an SS-Rank Aether Fire, it was a minor setback. Skills could be relearned far faster than a legendary flame could be found.

  Over the next twenty minutes, Selina engaged in a systematic slaughter, pushing her total score to over 80,000 points. She had clawed her way into the top ten of the leaderboard.

  "Finally enough," she breathed, seeing her name in the top ten.

  But her eyes soon landed on the third-place spot: Lance.

  "Lance is in the top three too... but why is his score exactly 100,000?" Selina frowned in confusion. Such a perfectly round number was nearly impossible to achieve through normal grinding.

  Then, her pupils contracted. "Did he... did he kill a [Grandmaster (Rank 1)] demon!?"

  The thought left her reeling. If that were true, Lance’s actual combat strength was already at the [Grandmaster] level. Even though she could now slaughter [Gold Tier, Rank 10] demons like they were common poultry, facing a true [Grandmaster] was a different story entirely.

  The ten-fold gap in raw power was not something that could be easily ignored.

  She had the help of a million-year-old sovereign, yet Lance—who was younger than her—had already reached such heights. For a moment, she felt a wave of disorientation. Just how strong was he?

  "You're forgetting he has an Infernal Cerberus-Dragon," Sovereign Glacia’s voice chimed in. "If he wanted to, that beast could snack on a [Grandmaster (Rank 1)] demon like it was a side dish. That boy is far from simple. While his own strength might not be superior to yours yet, he’s definitely not far behind."

  "He likely capped his score at exactly 100,000 to show he could achieve it with his own power. By that metric, I’d say he’s slightly inferior to you right now."

  Because Lance had masked his true aura so thoroughly, even Glacia hadn't sensed the full extent of his power. She assumed he was a "half-step Grandmaster"—at [Gold Tier, Rank 10]. In this small corner of the universe, that was already an incredible level of talent.

  "I see. I still need to work harder then," Selina said, her expression turning somber. "If our race can produce a monster like him, then the geniuses outside the Milky Way must be even more terrifying."

  "Naturally," Sovereign Glacia said, using the opportunity to keep her disciple grounded. "In the wider universe, his talent wouldn't even be worth noticing. There are geniuses among the supreme races who can pinch star systems into dust at the age of fifteen. He—and you—still have a very long way to go."

  Glacia was purposefully exaggerating the gap to prevent Selina from becoming complacent. While her disciple was now arguably the strongest genius of her generation in the Federation, pride before the fall was a dangerous thing in the path of cultivation.

  Selina’s jaw dropped. "Crushing star systems at fifteen? Wouldn't that make them [Galactic Realm] or even [Star Sea Realm] powerhouses?"

  In the entire Milky Way, there wasn't a single [Galactic Realm] expert, let alone a teenager.

  "You’ll meet those monsters eventually. Until then, focus on getting stronger. Your human race doesn't exactly live in a peaceful neighborhood.

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