Chapter 116 Talent Evolution Across Dimensions, Unlocking the Ultimate Decay Domain

Less than half a day after signing the handover agreement with the sect leader of the Taixu Sword Sect, Lin Ye had all the source energy crystals from the three major planes laid out before him.

The shadow crystal, star core steel, and spirit vein crystal were placed on the table in the third-floor conference room of the Unscrupulous Business Center, each emitting a different light.

The purple light of the shadow crystal was deep and viscous, like a mass of liquid night; the cold, deep blue light of the star core steel was as sharp as a blade; and the golden flow of light from the spirit vein crystal moved slowly, as if it were a living creature.

Fatty Wang leaned in to take a look and said that these three things didn't look like they belonged to the same system no matter how he looked at them. Magic, technology, and cultivation—three energy systems that had nothing to do with each other—being forced to fuse... wouldn't it explode?

Ghost was beside them, pulling up three energy spectrum analysis reports corresponding to the shadow crystal, star core steel, and spirit vein crystal, respectively.

He overlaid the waveform charts of the three reports into the same coordinate system. While the three curves were originally independent in their respective frequency bands, when he zoomed the axes out to the cross-dimensional energy level, they showed a nearly perfect resonance overlap within a very narrow frequency range.

The frequency value of that overlapping interval was exactly the same as the inherent resonance frequency of the Chaos Core within Lin Ye.

"They are indeed not from the same system, but they have a common resonance window, and the frequency of this window happens to be the frequency of the Chaos Core. In other words, these three source energies are ultimately just different branch variants of Chaos energy, and the Chaos Core is their common master frequency." Ghost enlarged and marked the resonance peak, his tone uncharacteristically tinged with excitement.

Lin Ye picked up the shadow crystal and held it tightly in his palm. Upon touching the Decay energy in his palm, the crystal began to release energy spontaneously.

He then placed the star core steel and the spirit vein crystal on his left and right sides, respectively, and the Decay Domain enveloped all three materials simultaneously.

The three types of energy touched and probed each other within his domain. The moment they made contact, the lights in the conference room dimmed—not because of a power outage, but because the instantaneous fluctuation of the energy field caused the circuits to malfunction briefly.

The shadow crystal disintegrated first, turning into a mass of deep purple light mist. The star core steel followed, melting into a pool of suspended liquid metal. Finally, the spirit vein crystal dispersed into countless golden light spots, hovering in the air, dense and resembling a small nebula.

The three masses of different colored energy began to converge toward a single center point in mid-air. The speed of convergence went from slow to fast; with every rotation, the volume shrank, and the color faded a layer.

Eventually, the three masses of energy completely fused together, turning into a brand-new color—black and gold.

Pure black and pure gold intertwined according to some peculiar rule. It was not a mixture but a weaving, like two completely different threads being woven into a glowing ribbon by an invisible hand.

The black and gold ribbon of light drifted slowly in the air for a moment, then plunged into Lin Ye's chest, merging into him without a sound.

Lin Ye closed his eyes.

The skill panel popped up automatically in his mind, the interface background color changing from the original dark blue to black and gold.

The prompt text scrolled down like a waterfall—'High-density Chaos branch energy fusion detected. Energy characteristics have achieved resonance matching with the Chaos Core master frequency.'

'Perpetual Energy Level Decay is evolving. All original skill parameters are retained. New cross-dimensional coverage function added: all targets within the domain are automatically inflicted with ten thousand layers of initial Decay. Energy limit increased to three times the previous level. New absorption and conversion function added: energy decayed from targets within the domain will be automatically recovered and converted into attribute bonuses for the user.'

After the evolution was complete, the panel refreshed automatically. The original golden title at the top changed to a few new characters—Cross-Dimensional Perpetual Decay Domain.

Lin Ye opened his eyes; the lights in the conference room had returned to normal.

Fatty Wang stared at him for a long time, saying that his eyes had turned black and gold for about three seconds just now before changing back.

Su Qinghan had already aimed the portable energy detector at him. After the reading jumped a few times, her brows relaxed slightly, and she said, "The energy core value is stable at about three times the original level. Heart rate is normal, blood pressure is normal, and there are no signs of abnormal consumption."

Lin Ye stood up, stretched his wrists, walked to the window, raised his hand, and spread his fingers toward the sky outside.

With a thought, the black and gold domain expanded outward from his palm, covering the entire Unscrupulous Business Center, the entire street, the entire district, and the entire city in an instant, then continued to extend outward beyond the limit of Ghost's monitoring panel.

The radius reading of the domain jumped on the screen for a long time before stabilizing. When Ghost reported the number, his voice was half an octave higher than usual: "The current maximum coverage radius is three hundred kilometers, more than six times what it was before the evolution. The energy consumption rate has actually decreased by about forty percent."

Fatty Wang gasped, saying, "Three hundred kilometers? This radius could cover the two neighboring prefecture-level cities as well."

Su Qinghan calmly added, "It automatically inflicts ten thousand layers of initial Decay within the domain. In the game, inflicting one thousand layers on a World Boss was enough to render all its skills useless. Ten thousand layers—in reality, this means that any target deemed hostile by Lin Ye has no chance to fight back from the moment they enter the domain." She spoke with a calm tone, but her fingers holding the detector tightened involuntarily.

Lin Ye retracted the domain and sat back down.

He opened the cross-plane management panel. The contract status of the BOSSes in the three planes was updating in real-time—the loyalty of the Shadow Demon Dragon had changed from 'Pragmatically Reliable' to 'Absolute Submission,' and a new line of small text in the notes column stated that the target had voluntarily upgraded its contract level after sensing the evolution of the domain.

The Interstellar Behemoth had stopped its transport operations at the interstellar mining station, and its sensor arrays had all turned toward Earth. It sent a short status update in the contract channel: 'Energy level transition detected. Contract party strength rating updated to Cross-Dimensional level. Obedience priority elevated to the highest.'

The spiritual power oath of Sword Venerable Qingming had automatically absorbed a portion of the energy from the black and gold domain, and the contract strength was re-evaluated by the system as 'Irrevocable.' The notes column contained only four words—'Convinced and Submissive.'

Lin Ye closed the panel and picked up the data on the Anti-Unscrupulous Alliance that Ghost had just organized to take a look.

After more than five thousand people were counter-encircled by the three BOSSes, the Magic Council, the Interstellar Alliance, and the Taixu Sword Sect all signed agreements to pay monthly protection fees, and the cross-universe Anti-Unscrupulous Alliance disbanded on the spot.

Ghost updated the protection fee revenue data in the master cross-plane business table. The three data curves all showed a nearly vertical upward trend in the same time period after the evolution was completed.

Not only did some guilds that were previously on the sidelines rush to place orders and pay up, but even many new solo accounts that had never appeared before the ambush voluntarily began to pay monthly fees.

In no plane did any plan for active provocation or cross-server sieges appear again. The comment sections of the guild channels in all three planes were flooded with the same sentence—'Even Sword Venerable Qingming of the Immortal Cultivation World has submitted, what are we still fighting for?'

That afternoon, while organizing the studio's financial statements for the week, Su Qinghan discovered an unprecedented change—after converting the protection fee revenue from the three major planes into real-world currency, the total weekly revenue had for the first time exceeded the total weekly revenue of the real-world protection fee business.

She pushed the report in front of Lin Ye and said that the cross-plane business had officially become the studio's primary source of income.

Ghost poked his head out from the corner to add a piece of data. Because star core steel was identified as a rare material that could be used to strengthen studio equipment and enhance the Reality Synchronization effect of Talents, after he included it in the studio's asset list, the estimated net worth of the studio had increased more than fivefold within a week.

He paused and added that the hardness of star core steel was four times that of the hardest alloy known on Earth, yet its density was less than one-third. The server cabinet walls rebuilt with star core steel could theoretically effectively shield against the Abyss Council's energy scans. He had already started drawing the modification blueprints.

Lin Ye flipped through the financial statement and the asset valuation table for the star core steel, then closed them and handed them to Su Qinghan.

He then opened the cross-dimensional energy monitoring program on his phone and pulled up what Sword Venerable Qingming had said before his evolution to re-read it—the fusion of the source energies of the three major planes could facilitate Talent evolution; the three Creator Gods had jointly deduced this conclusion a long time ago.

Now that the evolution was complete, there was a problem with the timeline of when the three Creator Gods deduced this. They had started researching cross-plane energy fusion before the expansion of the Abyss Council; in other words, the three Creator Gods had known of each other's existence from the very beginning, and they knew that Chaos energy could be split into branch variants and kept separately. They were not passive participants; they had long been waiting for someone to come and take it.

He explained this deduction to Su Qinghan and Ghost.

A moment later, Ghost opened the Magic Creator God's astrological prophecy records, the Creator God of Interstellar's secret Interstellar Federation archives, and the message from the Cultivation God of Creation as recounted by Sword Venerable Qingming. After comparing the three documents side by side, he took off his headphones and said that the person the three Creator Gods were waiting for, each having kept a portion of the source energy, had been Lin Ye from the very beginning.

The Chaos Core chose him, and in the same year, the three Creator Gods successively confirmed the activation signal of the Chaos Core and then each set up invitation mechanisms in their own planes.

After the cross-plane channels opened, Lin Ye fought his way from the Magic Era to the Interstellar Warframe and then to the Immortal Cultivation World; in essence, he was completing a cross-plane qualification trial pre-arranged by the three Creator Gods.

Lin Ye leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, running through the whole matter from beginning to end. Then he opened his eyes and picked up his vibrating phone. The caller ID showed Sister Chen.

Sister Chen's voice was more serious than in any previous call, and in the background, there were hurried footsteps and the roar of some kind of heavy equipment starting up.

She said that the Abyss energy monitoring stations of the Guardian Alliance distributed across the country had all recorded a new type of energy fluctuation that had never appeared before at the exact same moment—four minutes after Lin Ye's Talent evolution was complete.

The fluctuation characteristics were neither that of the Abyss Council nor that of the game plane energy, but were highly consistent with the signal frequency of the Chaos Core. The source was some unknown cross-plane coordinate, and the signal strength was still gradually increasing.

She paused for a second and asked Lin Ye if the evolution was successful.

Lin Ye said it was successful.

Sister Chen let out a long breath, then told him with even faster speed that six monitoring stations across the country had simultaneously intercepted a set of extremely clear short-wave communications.

The content of the communication had been preliminarily translated using a certain universal protocol code for the entire universe. The sender called itself the Star Core Alliance, and the first sentence of the message was—'Target Earth, energy transition of the Chaos Core holder has been confirmed.'

Subsequent communications mentioned that the alliance was continuously monitoring the energy data during Lin Ye's Talent evolution and mentioned a document titled 'Cross-Universe Order Proposal Draft 1.' The requested object name, which was repeatedly highlighted in the document, was verified to be Lin Ye's name.

After Sister Chen finished reading the last word of the communication text, the monitoring channel suddenly fell into a long silence.

Then she lowered her voice and said, "Lin Ye, the quantum communication array at the Guardian Alliance headquarters was just reverse-accessed by the same universal protocol."

The other party bypassed all intermediate nodes and locked directly onto the physical coordinates of the Alliance headquarters, automatically printing a message on the communication array's console—'Requesting to establish communication with the Chaos Core holder.'

—"The target of the other party's request is not your studio or the Guardian Alliance; it is you personally."