298: Achieving the Dao Lord

The Karma Rule, having reached the limit of the Foundation Level, brought Lin Chen more than just an increase in combat power; it also bestowed upon him a higher station.

He assumed the station of the Lord of Karma for the current era.

The 'Future' in his nickname 'Future Dao Lord' could now be removed; he had substantially become a Dao Lord-level existence.

For beings practicing the Karma Dao, another high mountain appeared on their path—a Peak they had to look up to.

"In this Void Realm, were there only six Karma Dao Masters before me?"

Standing above Karma, there were only six illusory, nearly shattered figures before Lin Chen. The one closest to him was from nearly ten billion years ago.

The Void Realm has existed for an unknown amount of time, but the Main Universe is only a few tens of billions of years old. It wasn't the first batch of Universes born in the Void Realm, but one born during the Middle Stage.

Before the Main Universe, countless Universes were born, but few remained. Most had perished, becoming nutrients for new Universes.

If the Main Universe were to perish one day, its remains would also become nutrients for new Universes, just like the Xuan Guang Universe that was reduced to fragments.

The birth of a new Dao Lord still has a significant impact on the world.

Lin Chen himself didn't feel much, but he could see the phantoms of Dao Lords upon a rule. Through their phantom states, he could tell if those Dao Lords were still alive.

The phantoms left by the six previous Dao Lords of the Karma Dao were shattered, clearly indicating they had fallen—whether during a Breakthrough to transcendence or erased by some calamity.

The figure of Lin Chen, the new Dao Lord, was very solid and radiant, forming a sharp contrast with the fallen Dao Lords.

Throughout the Void Realm, all living Dao Lord-level existences sensed it, knowing a new Dao Lord had been born.

In the Main Universe, Old Man Anpingshan had just repelled a Peak Foundation Level existence from Tianyuan when he felt it. He looked up, trying to determine which Dao the new Dao Lord presided over and if they were a being from This Universe.

In the Main Universe, besides the nine Half-Step transcendence figures, every super great race has a Peak Foundation Level existence—a Dao Lord—overseeing them.

The Dao Lord of the Human Race was Old Man Anpingshan, the Yin and Yang Dao Lord.

Other Foundation Level experts of the Human Race—even top figures like Lin Wufa, the Moon Lord, and the War God Jiang Wuliang—had not yet reached the 200% Perfection stage of rule comprehension and could not assume the station of a Lord of a Dao.

"A Karma Dao Master!"

"Wait, it's only been two hundred years, and he's already a Karma Dao Master?"

The old man didn't understand; even using cheats shouldn't be this exaggerated.

Clearly, before Lin Chen left the Main Universe, his rule comprehension was only at the early Foundation Level, a hundred and eight thousand miles away from Perfection.

How could he become a Karma Dao Master after being out for less than two hundred years? Does this even make sense?

"Could it be that the Main Universe wasn't suitable for Lin Chen's cultivation? So he went to an outer Universe, soared to the sky, and became a Dao Lord in such a short time."

The old man could only think this way to explain why Lin Chen had quietly become a Dao Lord.

Meanwhile, in the Sea of Origin, Lin Chen looked at the phantoms of Dao Lords above all rules.

Over countless years in the Void Realm, many beings had naturally reached the Dao Lord level. However, there were only a few thousand living Dao Lords, and most of them were gathered in top Universes like the Main Universe.

The number of Universes in the Void Realm could be compared to the number of life planets within a Universe. Universes are born and destroyed every moment, showing that their number is not small, but rather vast.

But with so many Universes, the fact that there are only a few thousand living Dao Lords shows the scarcity of such existences.

Even Dao Lord-level existences don't know much about the Void Realm. Their range of activity generally doesn't extend far from their home Universe, at most radiating to a few nearby universes; cross-Universe actions are rare.

For top rules like Time, Karma, and Fate, the number of Dao Lords ranges from seven or eight to a dozen, and most have already fallen. Only those who became Dao Lords in the last ten billion years are still alive.

On other more common rules, there are many more Dao Lords, and many of them are still alive.

For instance, on a single Five Elements rule, there are thousands of Dao Lords. Many have fallen, but many are still alive, making it quite lively.

On the Fire Rule, for example, there are over three hundred living Fire Dao Masters. Consequently, the station of the Fire Dao Master is split into more than three hundred portions.

There is a difference between a Dao Lord station held by one person alone and one shared by many.

At the very least, as the Karma Dao Master, the Karma Rule is incredibly submissive when Lin Chen invokes it. No one competes with him for control, and he isn't restrained.

If a Fire Dao Master invokes the Fire Rule, they have the final say in their own small territory, but if they go to the territory of another Fire Dao Master, their authority to invoke the Fire Rule will decrease.

The gap between Dao Lords is quite large.

Top Dao Lords are top-tier existences no matter when or where, with no reduction in combat power.

Ordinary Dao Lords have unstable combat power. Especially when facing a Dao Lord of the same System, their power drops a level, and they are even further suppressed by top Dao Lords.

After becoming a Dao Lord, Lin Chen's strength entered a completely new level.

He went from barely having Foundation Level combat power to having solid Foundation Level power, leaping straight to the Middle Stage of the Foundation Level.

Although he didn't have a Body of Rules or a Divine Soul of Rules, his invocation of power of laws was unaffected. Combined with the heavenly calculation compass, an ordinary Middle Stage Foundation Level opponent would be no match for him.

At most, he hadn't yet mastered a method that could 100% erase rules and kill a Divine Soul and true spirit, so he couldn't completely kill a Foundation Level existence.

He could only grind away their active Body of Rules in the physical world, knocking them into a Nirvana State to enter the Resurrection Phase.

Furthermore, since Lin Chen currently lacks a Body of Rules and a Divine Soul of Rules, it means he has no Resurrection Phase. He only has a few lives, far from the undying state of a true Foundation Level.

"The talent is just too overpowered."

The more he experienced, the more Lin Chen admired his Late Bloomer Talent. This was a true cheat, a pure late-game talent.

Slow cultivation in the early stages isn't a problem as long as it's fast in the later stages. A boost every 10 years increases his power more than ten thousand years of cultivation for others; this is the true value of a late-game talent.

The key was that his early cultivation wasn't slow either. Who could he even complain to? This was just too wonderful.

350 years old, Middle Stage Foundation Level combat power.

At this age and with this power, few could be found in the entire Void Realm. Those few who were stronger than Lin Chen had long since embarked on the Path of Transcendence and no longer lingered in this Void Realm.

Therefore, Lin Chen was the most incredible person in this era of the entire Void Realm, bar none.

Currently, what Lin Chen needed to do was upgrade his hardware levels, quickly condensing his Body of Rules and Divine Soul of Rules to match his off-the-charts power of laws.

Actually, this was a powerful bug. Because the Late Bloomer Talent provided a 10% overall boost, there was a base value used for reference during the increase.

The enhancement speed of his physical body, Soul, and energy could not keep up with his speed of rule comprehension, nor could they match the destructive power of his power of laws.

Lin Chen's current development was far too imbalanced.

The hardware upgrade speed was actually very fast, but the software upgrade speed was even faster. With such a large base, it improved rapidly, and the software's improvement didn't provide much feedback to the hardware.

This was why rule comprehension improved so quickly while the physical body, Soul, and energy improved slowly. The two belonged to different Systems, with little feedback between them.

The physical body, Soul, and energy were physical entities, whereas rule comprehension was relatively abstract—a contrast between the material and the mental.

Material bodies, Souls, and energy must be improved step by step. Mental rule comprehension, with talent bonuses and a percentage-based System, can achieve leapfrog improvements.

Pulling back his thoughts, Lin Chen, standing above Karma, tried to communicate across the distance with the Yin and Yang Dao Lord, the old man.

But he found it impossible. The Dao Lord phantoms were just phantoms—milestones that didn't possess any other abilities.

Standing above Karma only allowed him to see the phantoms of other Dao Lords; it didn't mean he had entered a physical rule interface where he could interact with the phantoms.

This discovery left Lin Chen somewhat disappointed.

He really wanted to see the old man's current expression. After all, he had already caught up with the old man's cultivation progress. Before long, once his hardware caught up, he would be on the same level as the old man.

Being unable to show off in front of the old man made Lin Chen a bit disappointed.