“Elder, could you please tell me exactly what you mean by ‘position?’” Lu Yin asked. He was very curious, since even someone like Elder Lohar who had a power level over 300,000 had said that it was a pity. This proved that it had to be very important.

Elder Lohar shook his head. “Kid, you may go. Remember, unless you are facing a life or death crisis, do not borrow power or use external items. The cycle of the heavens suggests that, in the end, you will be forced to return however much you have borrowed.”

Lu Yin nodded and then helplessly moved away.

“Seventh Bro, this guy’s rather superstitious. What cycle of the heavens? This monkey only believes in science!” the Ghost Monkey stated.

“Then tell me what the deal with Skymender is,” Lu Yin commented indifferently.

The monkey could not come up with a reply, as there was truly no explanation to some matters. It was inexplicable that Skymender was able to predict the future.

Lu Yin exchanged his remaining 10,000 Ironblood Points for star essence, grabbed Huo Qingshan, and then left Brokenblade Fort with him. Lu Yin wasn’t alone, as many other Explorers and those with weaker cultivations had started leaving. Wendy Yushan was also preparing to leave where she had been stationed.

Only the few Enlighters were forced to stay until the defenses of Ironblood Weave were completely reestablished.

To Lu Yin, this was good news, as it meant that the Eastern region of the Outerverse, where his Frostwave Weave was located, would be completely devoid of Enlighters, which would make it his playground. Unfortunately, due to Aden’s extraordinary capabilities, he had been kept back by Elder Lohar. Also, Aden himself had no desire to return to Frostwave Weave.

Lu Yin really wanted to take Aden with him and have the man join the Thirteen Imperial Squadrons, but that was impossible at the moment.

After leaving Brokenblade Fort, the two men immediately entered Eastly Weave. At the border, Lu Yin looked back into the darkness of outer space and was finally able to relax.

He silently recited the Stonewall Scriptures and took a rest.

Eastly Weave lay close to Frostwave Weave, and not even a day passed before Lu Yin and Huo Qingshan returned to Frostwave Weave.

Wendy Yushan had traveled slightly faster than Lu Yin.

They returned to discover that the Great Yu Empire had not undergone that many changes. After all, they had only served in the Ironblood Weave for a few months.

There were visitors on the day that Wendy Yushan arrived at Zenyu Star, and they tried to secretly reveal their desire for her to take back the reins of the empire. However, none of them dared to say this outright, and Wendy Yushan pretended not to notice their hints.

Lu Yin taking control of the empire had adversely affected many people’s benefits, and he had behaved ruthlessly. The establishment of his four ministries had rearranged the Great Yu Empire’s authority, and it was a common prediction that, in the future, the true wielders of authority in the Great Yu Empire would be these four ministries, especially the Lu Ministry of Defense and the Lu Staff, as Lu Yin was the sole decider of who could join either ministry. This meant that he would be able to single-handedly control the Great Yu Empire, which was something that not even Undying Yushan had achieved during his time as emperor.

Unfortunately, Lu Yin had become too assertive, which caused some people to hope that Wendy Yushan would step forward and use her position to wrestle the authority of the Great Yu Empire back to the Yushan family. Unfortunately for them, Wendy Yushan had no interest in any such thing, and she knew that she was not cut out to be in a position of authority.

The first thing that Lu Yin did upon returning to the Great Yu Empire was to hold a court meeting. News of the events in Ironblood Weave had spread, and they had had a tremendous effect on the surrounding weaves. This made the masses feel anxious, and so, Lu Yin now needed to calm them down.

The meeting lasted for a long time before it finally ended. Lu Yin then looked for Hai Qiqi, only to learn that she had gone to visit the Astral River yet again.

Lu Yin sighed, as her first time leaving home had ended up lasting for eternity. This was a harsh reality that not many people would be able to accept. He did not go looking for her, and instead, he decided to leave her be. Looking for a way to cross the Astral River was something that could at least give her a bit of hope.

He left the palace and headed towards the Fifth Princess’s residence.

This was the second time that he had visited Wendy Yushan’s home, as the first time had been when he had been trying to conceal his identity as a Lockbreaker. Back then, he had used the princess’s residence to divert Wendy Yushan’s attention.

He arrived, only to find that there were several people already waiting at the gate, and a few of them were elders. The moment they saw Lu Yin appear, their faces went pale. “Gre-greetings to the Royal Regent, Your Highness.”

Lu Yin did not even spare them a glance. “Inform Princess Wendy that Lu Yin has come for a visit.”

A guard hurriedly entered the residence.

The gate quickly swung open, allowing Lu Yin to step inside.

He understood what the objective of these people gathered outside of Wendy Yushan’s home were. There were some people who would never give up in their attempts to overthrow him. These buffoons.

The residence was not very large, and to show his respect to the owner, Lu Yin did not release his domain or his star energy, but he also made sure not to conceal his presence.

“Why did you come here?” Wendy Yushan stepped out and looked at him.

Lu Yin touched his nose. “There’s something that I want to ask you for advice on.”

“Tell me,” Wendy Yushan said indifferently.

“I’ve already broken through to the Explorer realm, so what’s my next step?” Lu Yin asked. He had consulted Aden and Huo Qingshan in the past, but he also wanted to ask Wendy Yushan. This was because the two men were already Hunters, so their views might be different from Wendy’s.

Wendy Yushan thought about it a moment before responding, “An Explorer has already experienced a change in their physical body, which has transformed to harmonize with the universe. The cycle of star energy sustains life, and every cycle of star energy will alter the physical body, which also increases one’s strength. Essentially, each cycle will increase your power level by 10,000, and the time that it takes to complete one cycle is different for every person. Also, the quality of the star energy that is absorbed is different for everyone as well, so there is a spectrum of superiority.

“Some people absorb star energy multiple times faster than normal, which naturally shortens the time that it takes for them to complete one cycle and allows them to gain strength much faster. Some absorb much more star energy than others, and while a single cycle of theirs might last longer, the increase in their strength will also be much more noticeable. I can’t tell you how you should walk your path, so I can only tell you to let nature take its course.”

Lu Yin nodded. Her words were very similar to what he had heard from Aden. Lu Yin had a ninefold absorption rate granted to him by the Cosmic Art, as well as his die’s four pips: Timestop. As long as he had enough star energy, he would be able to quickly increase his strength.

Time was not a problem for him.

On the surface, he had cultivated for about six years, but in reality, there should be another one or two years added on to account for the time that he had spent in the Timestop Space.

“Do you still have a formcast model?” Wendy Yushan suddenly asked.

Lu Yin did not want to lie to her. “Yes.”

Wendy Yushan was astonished. “You have a six-stage formcast model?”

Lu Yin nodded. “Yes.”

Wendy Yushan was shocked. “Even the top ten in the Top 100 Rankings might not necessarily have a six-stage formcast model, but you have one. With that, once you become a Hunter, you’ll become much more terrifying than the average Hunter.”

Lu Yin looked at Wendy Yushan, puzzled by her comment.

“The greatest difference between an Explorer and a Cruiser is not in their strength, but rather in their potential. An Explorer’s physical body is freshly transformed, whereas a Cruiser’s cells are compressed. It takes the average person four cycles before their bodies are no longer able to absorb any more star energy, and at that point, they have to compress their cells. This raises the amount of energy that their body can consume, and although it increases their physical abilities, it’s nothing much. This stage of compression is what happens in the Cruiser realm, and Hunters are similar in that regard. This change is not as extreme as when you become an Explorer, but the situation is completely different if you still have a formcast model. In that case, you will experience a qualitative change when you break through to the Hunter realm.”

“What about you? Do you still have a formcast model?” Lu Yin asked.

Wendy Yushan shook her head. “The White Knight once said that I’ll get one, but there’s no chance of that happening now that the Outerverse has been cut off from the Innerverse.”

Lu Yin frowned. “You have that good of a relationship with that White Knight?”

Wendy Yushan grunted, but then she looked at Lu Yin with a strange expression. “You really seem to care about the White Knight.”

Lu Yin touched his nose. “Maybe. He is an Arbiter after all.”

Wendy Yushan looked at Lu Yin with a serious expression. “Do you remember what I said before we left for San Dios?”

Lu Yin had forgotten, so he shook his head.

“I told you that if we survived the crisis, then I’d marry you,” Wendy Yushan spoke quietly.

Lu Yin’s heart skipped a beat and he looked at Wendy Yushan’s tall and slender figure and her beautiful face. He could feel her conqueror’s aura, and he nearly agreed in the heat of the moment.

“However, you already like someone else, and I prefer pure feelings.” With that, Wendy Yushan turned to leave.

Lu Yin stood frozen in place for quite a while. He felt like he had just been played.

“Seventh Bro, you’ve lost your love,” the monkey teased.

Lu Yin pursed his lips. “I never loved, so how could I lose it?”

“Don’t try to brag! Any man would want a woman like her. It’s her who doesn’t want you!” The monkey was very happy with this development.

Then Lu Yin screened his arm off. How annoying.

He returned to King Zishan's palace, where he suddenly thought of something. When his gun had shattered, something had fallen out of it that looked like a piece of a beast’s hide. He checked his cosmic ring for the scrap.

It turned out to not be a piece of beast hide, but rather some material that was similar to paper, and there were a few words on it, though Lu Yin did not recognize any of them. He removed the screen that he had placed on the monkey. “Hey, check this out and tell me if you recognize the language.”

The monkey was surprised. “These should be words from hundreds of thousands of years ago, which was a period when writing was still being developed. Back then, written words were particularly complicated, so the average person can’t make sense of them.”

“Are you familiar with them?” Lu Yin asked.

“I’ve studied it a bit. Right, I recognize several of the characters, and altogether it looks to be a name.”

The Ghost Monkey paused and then pointed out several characters while enunciating, “Wen Zhaocheng, Cang Yi.”

“What does that mean?”

“How should I know? But they should be names.”

Lu Yin put the paper away. Wen Zhaocheng should be someone from the Wen family, but as for Cang Yi, he did not know where a Cang family could be from. But why had there been a piece of paper with these two names hidden inside of the gun?

He did not spend too much time thinking about the issue as there were too many matters in the universe that had no easy explanation. This gun had come from the Astral Wilderness, and perhaps these two people had fought there. He did not care, and besides, it was time to roll his die.

Lu Yin always looked forward to rolling his die the most.

He tapped the die and watched it spin before slowly stopping at four pips. He was delighted, as this was the exact roll that he had wanted to see.

The scenery before his eyes spun, and Lu Yin appeared in the Timestop Space. He casually waved a hand and threw out more than ten star essence to increase his time in the space to 130 days. With this, Lu Yin was prepared to take his time cultivating. After all, running out of time was what he was the least afraid of.

As the star essence were crushed, nine stars began revolving around Lu Yin’s body. It was the visible manifestation of the Cosmic Art, and he began his ninefold rate of absorption.

The rapid absorption rate caused the star essence’s volatile star energy to form into a vortex centered around his body. Lu Yin’s need for star energy after becoming an Explorer was several times greater than what ordinary Explorers needed, and so it would take far more star energy for him to complete a single cycle. The biggest question that he had right now was how his cycle would be affected by using the Cosmic Art’s ninefold absorption rate. If it didn’t speed things up substantially, then each of his cycles would take much, much longer than others.

Absorbing star energy was a matter about as interesting as dust, though Lu Yin could feel how the star energy was filling his cells, even if it was only a little bit. Only once the cells in his body were completely saturated with star energy would he complete a cycle, so it would be a rather long process.

It took the average person about a decade to complete a cycle, and even the faster ones would still take several years. The further one progressed in their cultivation, the more time they would require to complete a cycle. In particular, a Cruiser’s cycle was several times longer than an Explorer’s. If someone had a technique like the Cosmic Art that allowed them to absorb star energy multiple times faster, then some innately gifted geniuses might even be able to finish a cycle in a year.

If the star energy that Lu Yin needed to complete a single cycle was about the same as what was required by normal people, then between his ninefold absorption rate and his natural rate of absorbing star energy, it would take him a bit more than half a year to finish a cycle. However, after cultivating for ten days, when Lu Yin checked his progress, his face fell. According to the amount that he had absorbed so far, each of his cycles required multiple times the star energy of an average person, and it might even require a hundred times more energy.