51: Chapter 51 Breaking the Lightning

Beneath the starry dome, the battle had been raging for a quarter of an hour.

Shen Ye had never fought for this long in a single match.

Every opponent in the City-level Competition, including Lu Chuan, had been dismantled, guided, and finished off by his tactical system.

But Luo Xinghe was different.

Under the starlight, the Star Spirits could reorganize infinitely. When Jin Lin's sword intent shattered one, starlight instantly condensed a new one; when Mu Sheng's vines trapped a group, the Star Spirits turned into streams of light and spilled out through the gaps in the net, reorganizing in another direction.

Elder Quan's water flow guidance was ineffective against the starlight—the Star Spirits had no mass and no inertia, so the soft force of the water had nothing to grip onto.

Shen Ye stood on the east side of the dueling arena, his consciousness simultaneously connected to Jin Lin, Mu Sheng, Elder Quan, and the army of kin behind him.

He did not let his kin charge in full force.

The Star Spirits under the starlight were endless; rushing in would only consume his kin's spiritual power.

He needed to find the inflection point where the stars' consumption rate peaked.

The critical value that Gu Qinghan had deduced.

"Keep draining them."

Shen Ye's command was transmitted to the ears of every kin through the mental link.

Jin Lin's flying sword slashed down from the sky, and his Ring Sword Intent shattered three Star Spirits.

As the Star Spirits shattered, they turned into streams of light, and a star on the dome dimmed slightly—it was very subtle, but Shen Ye caught it.

There were hundreds of stars, and each one had a fixed cycle from being lit to being fully consumed.

Every time Jin Lin shattered a Star Spirit, the corresponding star would dim slightly.

The dimmed star needed time to recover its brightness, and before it recovered, that star could not provide energy for the Star Spirits to reorganize.

Luo Xinghe's stars were indeed being consumed, but compared to the speed at which Jin Lin was shattering the Star Spirits, the consumption rate was still too slow.

Luo Xinghe stood on the west side of the dueling arena, the starry dome slowly rotating above his head.

For the first time in this battle, he spoke: "Your kin are strong. But starlight is immortal."

Shen Ye did not answer.

He was waiting.

Waiting for the stars to be consumed to the critical value.

Waiting for Jin Lin, Mu Sheng, and Elder Quan to hold out until the turning point marked by Gu Qinghan.

Jin Lin's flying sword unsheathed once more.

It was not a single strike, but a continuous eruption of Ring Sword Intent.

The flying sword traced countless golden arcs in the starry sky, each one accurately passing through the densest cluster of Star Spirits.

Mu Sheng's vines no longer tried to trap the Star Spirits, but instead pierced into the ground beneath the law stone slabs, weaving a net underground to sense the convergence points of the starlight.

Where the starlight was densest, the Star Spirits were most concentrated.

Elder Quan's water flow no longer moved to guide, but turned entirely into extremely fine water threads, capturing the spiritual power fluctuations of the starlight laws in the air.

The three of them combined their efforts, raising the consumption speed of the stars in the dome to a level Luo Xinghe had never endured before.

The light of the stars was weakening at a speed visible to the naked eye.

One star after another turned from brilliant to dim.

Then, it arrived.

When the first star completely went out, the entire starry dome trembled.

It was not a physical tremor, but a resonance at the level of laws.

The second star extinguished, then the third, the fourth—the movement speed of the Star Spirits dropped sharply.

Luo Xinghe's expression changed.

He wanted to relight those extinguished stars, but his Starlight talent required time to inject new energy into the dead stars.

He did not have that time.

Shen Ye raised his right hand.

Jin Lin's flying sword slashed down from the sky for the last time.

It was not a single strike, but a three-in-one Dragon Sword.

The Twilight Sword Qi fused with the golden dragon patterns, merging three sword intents into one.

The flying sword pierced through the starry dome, and the starlight in front of the sword tip was permeated by both holy light purification and abyss conversion; the Star Spirits' reorganization laws were dismantled from the root.

Hundreds of stars extinguished simultaneously.

The starry dome collapsed.

Luo Xinghe stood in the dissipating starlight, his hands hanging at his sides.

He did not speak.

Shen Ye did not speak either.

The referee raised a hand.

"Winner—Shen Ye."

Shen Ye withdrew his kin, nodded to Luo Xinghe, and turned to walk off the dueling arena.

The top eight, achieved.

It was nearly late at night when he returned to the dormitory area.

Shen Ye did not go to the cafeteria; he leaned against the dormitory window, his consciousness sinking into the Divine Kingdom.

The Cultivation Divine Kingdom had been very lively lately.

It wasn't the tense bustle of war preparations, but the arrival of several new faces.

It all started after Elder Quan returned from the Provincial Tournament against the Mystic Ice Domain and the Sandstorm, and posted a public research topic in the Scripture Pavilion titled "Research on the Adaptability of Spiral Water Flow Conduction Media."

At the time, Shen Ye thought it was just Elder Quan's personal research interest; he didn't expect it to become the starting point for a bottom-up technological revolution in the Divine Kingdom.

The first results came from the Fire Spirit Root Artificer side.

An artificer named Tie Chui, whose name fit him well—broad-shouldered and thick-limbed—had been swinging a hammer in front of the furnace for most of his life.

After reading Elder Quan's research topic, he locked himself in the alchemy room and tinkered for several Divine Kingdom years.

When he came out, he was holding a pill in his palm. It wasn't round, but diamond-shaped, covered in fine spiral patterns, silver-white throughout, and when the moonlight hit it, it looked like liquid metal flowing.

Tie Chui said this was a "spiral foundation establishment pill"—he had used Elder Quan's spiral water flow model to improve the spiritual power release curve of the foundation establishment pill, changing the originally smooth release of spiritual power into a spiral progression.

Elder Quan tested the pill by the spiritual spring, and the data showed that the spiritual root absorption efficiency was a notch higher than the standard foundation establishment pill.

Once the news spread, the Five Elements kin went wild.

The foundation establishment pill was the lifeline for every kin to break through bottlenecks; who wouldn't want an extra edge when breaking through?

For a time, a long line formed in front of the Earth Fire Furnace.

That wasn't all.

The breakthrough of the spiral foundation establishment pill inspired a taciturn female Fire Spirit Root Artificer next door, who subsequently developed the "Spiral Fire-Marrow Pill"—based on the spiral structure of the foundation establishment pill, she integrated Fire-Marrow essence, which was especially beneficial for kin with specialties in forging, alchemy, and smelting.

Over half of the artificer team where Tie Chui worked took the Spiral Fire-Marrow Pill, and their Fire-Marrow control precision jumped to a whole new level.

Immediately after, a Wood Spirit Root alchemist named Qing Ye moved her alchemy furnace to the side of the spiritual field.

Qing Ye was originally one of the core array masters under Mu Sheng, and she had been helping out when Mu Sheng derived the guiding vines from Elder Quan's water flow guidance technique.

Now, she discovered that spiritual plants irrigated by the spiral spiritual spring contained trace amounts of spiral spiritual energy in their leaves. Using these leaves in medicine could replace some of the guiding auxiliary materials in the foundation establishment pill. Not only was the cost lower, but it also made the pill more compatible with the user's own spiritual power—she was inspired by Tie Chui's diamond-shaped pill, but her entry point was entirely her own expertise: someone else was managing the temperature in the furnace, so she focused on the raw materials in front of the furnace.

Qing Ye squatted by the spiritual field for several Divine Kingdom years, conducting countless control experiments with moonlight vine petals of different ages and different irrigation concentrations, and finally refined the first batch of "Spirit Plant Guidance Pill".

Although the grade was not as high as the spiral foundation establishment pill itself, it had the advantage that all raw materials came from within the Divine Kingdom, with no need to rely on Su Wanqing's external supply.

With this, the pill system of the Cultivation Divine Kingdom completely moved from the stage where Shen Ye had to spend money to buy raw materials to a positive cycle of self-research, self-production, and self-optimization within the Divine Kingdom.

At almost the same time, among the Earth Spirit Root Miners, there was a father and son, both taciturn, who had been stationed in the deepest part of the mine for years and rarely participated in the occasional kin gatherings by the spiritual field.

The father was named Yan Weng, and the son was named Hou Tu.

After reading Elder Quan's research topic, they discovered a type of natural diamond-shaped ore deep in the mine's branch veins—its cross-section naturally had spiral patterns, which highly matched the spiral water flow conduction medium described by Elder Quan.

The father and son buried themselves in the mine for several Divine Kingdom years, mining the first batch of "spiral mineral crystals".

Yan Weng handed them over to the Fire Spirit Root Artificers for testing, and the results showed that they were not only effective for pill refining but also had miraculous effects on spiritual power conduction and weapon quenching.

When Shen Ye received the test report forwarded by Su Wanqing, he was sitting by the window reading the research logs of his kin.

Su Wanqing wrote in the message: The manager of the provincial capital's spiritual power conduction material market saw the samples and asked if they could supply them regularly.

That wasn't all.

What surprised Shen Ye the most was that these alchemists began to awaken a "self"—not the sharp-edged sword path awakening of Jin Lin, but a quieter transformation happening silently in the alchemy room.

One late night, when Tie Chui was guarding the furnace alone, he stared at the spiral trajectory of the flames in the furnace, lost in thought, and suddenly reached out with his rough fingers to carve a line of text on the wall of the alchemy furnace: "Fire has breath; follow it to succeed in alchemy."

This sentence was later carved on the lintel of the alchemy room and became the mantra that all artificers and alchemists recited before entering the furnace.

Qing Ye had her own experimental field by the spiritual field—Mu Sheng had personally set it aside for her. It was small, but Qing Ye built a thatched cottage by the field, with the name she gave it carved on the door: "Qing Ye Thatched Cottage."

She even specifically drew a spiral spiritual plant pierced through by a vine on the door panel.

The awakening of the Earth and Wood systems was also happening.

At the entrance of the mine branch where he discovered the spiral mineral crystals, Yan Weng used waste ore to pile up a small boundary marker, on which he carved the distribution pattern of the mineral veins and the spiral patterns.

This was not the standard mine map Shen Ye requested; it was because he personally felt that "this vein deserves to be remembered by future generations."

Hou Tu said even less than his father, but through the mental link, Shen Ye saw that when he was excavating new branch veins deep in the mine, he would turn according to the natural texture of the ore—not out of laziness, but because he was mining along the flow of the earth's spiritual energy.

Elder Quan watched these changes by the spiritual spring but didn't say much.

Until one dusk, he hung up a new research announcement next to the spiral water flow topic in the Scripture Pavilion.

The title was only four words: "The Way of the Spiral."

Below was a line of small print: "Anyone who has achieved their own craft through the method of the spiral may enter this path. Regardless of alchemy, mining, forging, or planting."

The signature was not "Elder Quan", but a new name he gave himself—"Daoist Quan."

When Shen Ye saw that announcement, he was holding a cup of water, drinking.

He choked.

Qin Shu made a note on the data board: "Elder Quan has renamed himself Daoist Quan, suspected to be a Daoist advancement. Kin's autonomous civilization is beginning to systematize."

Su Wanqing's remark was more direct: "Daoist Quan? That elder kin of yours? He is already becoming well-known in the academic circles of the provincial capital. That test report last time was submitted by him under the signature 'Cultivation Divine Kingdom · Daoist Quan'."

That wasn't all.

A middle-aged miner named Yan Shan, when he personally mined the first piece of spiral mineral crystal deep in the mine, suddenly held the ore in his hands, staring at the natural spiral pattern on the cross-section without moving, and didn't respond when people next to him called him.

After a long time, he put down the ore and punched the mine wall.

The mine wall shattered, and a layer of very faint Rock Pattern appeared on the skin of his right arm, exactly the same as the rock vein patterns that had been deposited on the mine wall for countless years.

Without a word, Yan Shan turned around and built a small stone house at the entrance of the mine branch. Inside the house was only a stone slab polished as smooth as a mirror, with the mine's layout carved on it.

He didn't go back to being a regular miner either; he sat cross-legged in the stone house every day.

When others asked what he was doing, he said he was "listening to the stones."

He said that beneath this stone slab was buried a deep mineral vein that no one had discovered, and that vein was "breathing."

When inhaling, the patterns on the stone slab would glow slightly, and when exhaling, the patterns would dim.

He had to guard this stone slab and wait for its next exhalation.

This became the first body cultivator of the Cultivation Divine Kingdom.

Immediately after, Awakened with soul talents also appeared.

Under Mu Sheng, there was a young female array master named Xiao Zhi.

During a group vine net simulation, she suddenly spoke out every node her teammates were about to weave—it wasn't a prediction, it was that she "saw" the vine net patterns that had not yet formed in her teammates' consciousness.

Mu Sheng immediately stopped the simulation and took Xiao Zhi to the spiritual spring for individual testing.

The result showed that Xiao Zhi could synchronously perceive the vine net structure that Mu Sheng was conceiving in her consciousness, which had not yet been put into action.

Mu Sheng was silent for a while, then said to Shen Ye: "Heavenly Dao, Xiao Zhi's soul can resonate with the consciousness of others."

This ability was quickly verified in actual combat simulations: the kin whose consciousness had been connected by Xiao Zhi's divine sense had their coordination efficiency improved by more than one level.

Mu Sheng included her in a special training sequence, personally coaching her. The training location was not by the spiritual field, but in a soundproof small compartment in the Scripture Pavilion.

Jin Lin heard about it and rushed over, joining Mu Sheng and Daoist Quan to conduct a full set of limit tests on Xiao Zhi's divine sense synchronization ability.

The test report was issued by Gu Qinghan's Ice Domain, and the result caused even this tactical analyst, who was always overly calm and never easily moved, to fall into a very brief silence.

"Shen Ye," Gu Qinghan's voice at that time had a hint of a very faint breathy sound, "These kin in your Divine Kingdom are spontaneously forming their own sect system. Alchemists, body cultivators, and this soul talent user—if she continues to grow, in the future on the battlefield, your thousands of kin will be able to fight as a whole, like one person."

Shen Ye did not speak.

He stood at the dormitory window, the moonlight dyeing the artificial lake silver-white.

The Divine Kingdom was bustling; the Earth Fire Furnace never went out day or night, and the mining volume of spiral mineral crystals was steadily climbing.

Jin Lin was incorporating the Twilight Sword Qi into the sword array before the sword stele; Mu Sheng was fusing the guiding vines and the divine sense perception net into a new type of three-dimensional defense system; Daoist Quan sat by the spiritual spring, three spiral water flows slowly rotating in his palm, each breath echoing with the spiritual energy of the entire Divine Kingdom.

There was still time before the next Provincial Tournament.

All preparations were proceeding in an orderly manner.