“Your Highness, are you certain that it’s a poison?” the bespectacled Mistchild asked.

Lu Yin shook his head, as even Ming Zhaoshu himself wasn’t sure of that detail. However, only a poison could deplete one’s life force without causing any sort of injury.

“If it’s a poison, there’s no cure aside from using rare treasures that are able to directly replenish one’s life force,” the bespectacled female Mistchild answered with confidence.

Lu Yin frowned. “So there’s no cure?”

The bespectacled female Mistchild nodded. “Some people fall unconscious after being poisoned, as the poison has attacked their brain. This means that they’d need a medicine that can heal their brain. Some people’s bodies rot after being poisoned, and they would need a medicine that heals their body. Similarly, in the case of a poison that depletes life force, one can only replenish the person’s life force.

“There must be something that’s stealing that life force,” Lu Yin insisted.

The Mistchild adjusted her glasses. “If you can find that, then we would be able to target the root cause. However, Your Highness already said that there were no signs.”

Lu Yin fell silent.

“Your Highness, this poison is very aggressive, and it must be very valuable as well. Even Enlighters wouldn’t be able to remove this kind of poison. Who is it that’s been poisoned?” the female Mistchild asked.

Lu Yin turned off his screen; why had Ming Zhaoshu been poisoned? According to the Limiteer Mistchild, such a valuable poison should not exist on Shenwu Continent. Could it have come from the universe? The Daynight clan? No, the Daynight clan would rather use such a poison on him than on Ming Zhaoshu. To them, Ming Zhaoshu was nothing more than an ant.

But in that case, who else could have done it?

The Neohuman Alliance? Lu Yin suddenly thought of them and realized that such a thing was highly probable. The Shenwu Continent obviously wasn’t as simple as it had first appeared to be, and Lu Yin, Ming Zhaoshu and the Neohuman Alliance were all aware of that fact. Thus, the only realistic possibility was that the Neohuman Alliance had poisoned Ming Zhaoshu in order to incite chaos within Shenwu Continent.

There must have been some people from the Neohuman Alliance who had escaped during the battle that had taken place in Mingdu.

Lu Yin rapped his fingers against the table. Since there were still people from the Neohuman Alliance in Shenwu Continent, that meant that Shenwu Continent wasn’t actually safe. As soon as Ming Zhaoshu died, their next target would be Ming Yan. Thus, Lu Yin couldn’t let Ming Zhaoshu die.

Lu Yin clenched his fists. “Come.”

“Your Highness.” Kayze quickly appeared.

“Spread the news that King Zishan is looking for certain rare ingredients and is willing to offer huge rewards for them.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Kayze was quite efficient. He had joined the First Squadron through Lu Yin’s recommendation, and he used the First Squadron’s resources to spread this news throughout the entire Great Yu Empire in just a few hours. The news even ended up reaching the Grandtop and Lars Weaves.

For the Great Yu Empire, any action of King Zishan’s was a monumental event that everyone had to pay attention to.

That same night, Lu Yin received dozens of rare ingredients, and there was even a purple star amongst them.

Undying Yushan had previously relied on a purple star to preserve his life, and Lu Yin knew that it was a valuable herb that came from the Starfall Sea. The purple star had been provided by Shamrock Enterprises’ Frostwave Weave headquarters.

Lu Yin had almost forgotten about Shamrock Enterprises as he had been focusing on the nearby weaves’ major powers. Actually, the power and influence of a major corporation that conducted business in both the Innerverse and Outerverse such as Shamrock Enterprises was far more powerful than any of the Outerverse’s key forces. The most frightening thing about such powers was that they remained hidden and wouldn’t be noticed unless one specifically focused on them.

Everyone in the universe had heard of Shamrock Enterprises, and even normal people knew about this company. Meanwhile, the Great Yu Empire—no, Frostwave Weave wasn’t even known to most of the people in the Innerverse, and even some of the Outerverse’s western weaves hadn't heard of them. There was a huge gap between the two organizations.

It would be fine if Frostwave Weave only lost in terms of reputation, but the most important aspect was that Shamrock Enterprises was always looking for “seeds” throughout the entire universe. The seeds that they found were talents who could easily join the Astral Combat Academy, and Darkvoid was one such seed of Shamrock Enterprises. Nobody knew how many seeds there were, and after countless years of grooming, the seeds’ combined strength could move the skies.

Lu Yin fell deep into thought as he looked at the purple star in his hand. Shamrock Enterprises needed purple stars as they were a precursor for various medicines, so why would they give one to him? This stalk of purple star might not be very important to the company, but it demonstrated their friendly attitude towards Lu Yin.

Lu Yin paid for the purple star and entered a private room. He quickly screened the monkey off and then raised a hand. His die appeared; it had been twenty days, and it was now time for him to use it.

As the die rotated slowly, it finally settled on four pips: Timestop.

Once he entered the Timestop Space, Lu Yin felt certain that he would roll Enhance.

He extended his time in the space to a hundred days, but he only managed to roll Enhance on his third try.

He placed the purple star on the top screen and recalled that he had used 150,000 star crystals to enhance the purple star halfway when he had been trying to heal Undying Yushan. The previous stalk of purple star had been smaller than the one that Lu Yin currently possessed, and so, he promptly tossed out ten star essence onto the screen, which was equivalent to a million star crystals. The purple star easily dropped through to the next layer, after which its color completely changed. It now was a purplish blue, which indicated that it had become a billowing star, which was the enhanced version of a purple star.

Half of the ten star essence had been used up, which meant that the first upgrade had consumed five star essence. Lu Yin grabbed the billowing star and threw it on the top light screen once again, causing the remaining star essence to be immediately depleted. However, this time, the billowing star did not even manage to descend halfway through. He pulled out another ten star essence, which was enough to allow the billowing star to fall through to the next layer in an instant. This time, the billowing star had turned completely blue.

This still wasn’t enough for Lu Yin, as he was determined to enhance the plant to the level where it could avoid danger, which was the level that the fruit he had once used to heal Zhuo Daynight had reached. Only a rare ingredient with that level of potency would be able to replenish Ming Zhaoshu’s life force.

The glowing billowing star suddenly started flying about, moving as if it wanted to escape from the isolated space. Lu Yin smiled and grabbed it. He had spent almost one hundred star essence to enhance the plant to this level. He remembered that he had spent almost a hundred star essence when he had enhanced the white fruit as well.

Should he enhance it again? Lu Yin considered it briefly before deciding to continue enhancing it. Since it had already reached such a level, he chose to continue enhancing it to the maximum level possible, as that would guarantee it being able to replenish Ming Zhaoshu’s life force.

However, Lu Yin was too naive. If he wanted to enhance something, the item had to still have some room for improvement. The maximum level of a billowing star was only at the level where it could avoid danger. It was like trying to enhance a normal weapon, which could only be upgraded a few times, as its maximum quality level was restrained by its original materials.

Enhance could merely upgrade a material as it couldn’t create more material out of nothing.

Lu Yin stored the billowing star and took out a few more rare ingredients that were also able to replenish life force. He used some more of his star essence to enhance all of them to the point where they could also instinctively avoid danger. This was the only thing that he could do at this point in time unless he found even more valuable resources.

He thought about Bushtree Planet, which was filled with rare plants. However, he couldn’t take them away from that planet, which meant that he could only use them as long as he remained on the surface of that particular planet.

After upgrading all these rare ingredients, Lu Yin still had seventy days left in the Timestop Space. He then took out a huge amount of star essence and started absorbing the star energy while using the Cosmic Art.

When he left the Timestop Space, he had actually cultivated up to thirty six stars. Thus, compared to when he had merely had nine stars, his star energy absorption speed had increased to fourfold.

When he had first broken through to the Explorer realm, he had needed a hundred years to complete a cycle, but now, he only needed twenty five years.

However, he still hadn’t reached his ultimate goal. The level of his current Cosmic Art could reach up to ninety nine stars, which would make his cultivation speed eleven times faster than his initial cultivation speed as an Explorer. If he reached that stage, he wouldn’t even need ten years to complete a cycle, which would be slightly faster than an average Explorer; only this speed could temporarily satisfy him.

He summoned En Ya and asked her to take the cosmic ring containing the rare ingredients to Shenwu Continent and pass it over to Ming Zhaoshu. He also asked her to check on Ming Zhaoshu’s condition.

After En Ya left, Lu Yin took out the hoe that he had brought back with him from the Daosource Sect. Although the item was very ugly, it was still very useful, and he wanted to see if he could manage to control it.

***

Two days later, in the study of the Reverent King’s Residence on Shenwu Continent, Ming Yan was distractedly looking over a document in her hand.

Ming Zhaoshu glanced at her sharply, which caused Ming Yan to become flustered, and she dropped the document.

“I’m sorry, father,” Ming Yan apologized quietly as she quickly picked it back up.

Ming Zhaoshu gave her a warm look and sighed apologetically. “Yan’er, do you hate handling political matters?”

Ming Yan remained quiet. Although there had been female leaders in the past, it was a rare occurrence. Moreover, girls were typically not interested in dealing with such matters, and Ming Yan didn’t like them either. She had a very gentle temperament, which meant that she wouldn’t be a good ruler even in peaceful times, let alone this period when Shenwu Continent was extremely chaotic.

Ming Zhaoshu passed her the document that he had been holding. “Take a look at this.”

Ming Yan read the document aloud. “The riot in Kangzhou has been suppressed. All the family members of the rebel leader have been detained. Please punish the 320 people in the tribe.”

“This is a document that was submitted by the general of Kangzhou. How should we handle it?” Ming Zhaoshu observed Ming Yan as he gently asked his question.

Ming Yan bit her lip. “The riot stems from the distrust that the civilians hold for the government. Killing them will only lead to more conflicts and will not solve the problem.”

“Tell me your decision,” Ming Zhaoshu prodded in a quiet voice.

Ming Yan thought for a moment. “Punish the rebel leader and detain the others to be released at a later date.”

Ming Zhaoshu slammed his palm on the table with a loud bang. “Detain? Only punish the leader? Do you know the current situation of the empire and what this rebel leader has done? He found someone to impersonate Ming Hao and then tried to have them replace me! He is extremely ambitious and has gathered many resources from his tribe. He is using the entire force of his tribe to rebel against the empire, but you want to punish just one person and release the rest?”

Ming Yan stared at the ground as her eyes turned red. “I don’t know.”

“You have to ask or investigate further whenever you don’t know. Some things cannot be found in a document, and you won’t be able to properly handle things if you are unclear about a given situation,” Ming Zhaoshu said strictly. He then took the document and signed it. This signature had a simple meaning: approval. This simple brush stroke had just decided the fate of the 320 people in the rebel leader’s tribe.

“Take a look at this.” Ming Zhaoshu tossed another document to Ming Yan.

Ming Yan nervously picked it up. “The minister of Liuzhou has colluded with Wuyun Bank to steal funds from the military. The total amount is one thousand martial crystals.”

“What do you think?” Ming Zhaoshu asked.

Ming Yan answered softly, “This minister is stealing from the military. He should be executed.”

Ming Zhaoshu shook his head. “Did you notice the amount?”

Ming Yan nodded. “One thousand martial crystals.”

“Is that a lot?” Ming Zhaoshu asked.

“It’s not much, but stealing from the military is a terrible crime,” Ming Yan answered softly.