Chapter 611: The Allure of Power and the Pulse of Miracles

After that round of discussion, everyone’s eyes sparkled with excitement and longing.

The idea of crushing a Dominator-level being with a flip of the hand—just how earth-shattering was that kind of power?

To them, a Tier Seven being was already revered as a god. Deku’en’s words sent shockwaves straight through their hearts.

For as long as they could remember, the Master of the Omniverse Market was just vaguely ‘powerful’ in their minds. No one knew what exactly made this figure so terrifying.

But after Deku’en’s explanation today, they finally had a profound understanding of the Market Master’s strength. Their hearts burned with even greater desire.

Especially when it came to the coveted Market Projection Token.

Who wouldn’t want the kind of trump card that could effortlessly suppress a Sea of Stars Dominator?

Watching their reactions, Song Chi—currently in his Blueblood Clan disguise—couldn’t help but shake his head inwardly.

He wasn’t happy to see more outsiders lining up to exchange for the Market Projection Token.

There were only five tokens left. With the Northern Sea Court and the Night Elves already holding two, just three remained. Considering the long, unpredictable duration of this civilization war, he simply couldn’t afford to hand out another one. If he did, even his own side might run short.

Fortunately, the token’s exchange requirements were steep: multiple Silver Legendary Oddities or a single Golden Sanctum Oddity. Not every outsider could meet that price.

……

Once trading at the market ended, Song Chi carefully counted the batch of titanite crystals Deku’en delivered. The number was good—over seventy thousand pieces. Enough to upgrade several more ship components.

Thinking of upgrades, Song Chi dove back into the Heavenly Ruin.

Or more precisely, the Cultivation Sanctuary aboard the Heavenly Ruin.

“Not bad. Four Tier-Seven Silver Apples ripe all at once.”

At the center of the sanctuary, beneath the mother tree, Song Chi plucked all four Silver Apples one after another.

It had been a century since the Silver Apple Mother Tree reached Tier Seven. Thanks to the Sanctuary Accelerator, eons had passed within the sanctuary. Now, the first batch of Tier-Seven apples had finally ripened.

But why did it take so long? Surely it can’t really take hundreds or even millions of years for a Silver Apple to mature after flowering.

Of course, that’s impossible.

The real reason was tied to the Heavenly Ruin itself.

Even though the Cultivation Sanctuary had been reinforced to Tier Seven, the Heavenly Ruin was, at its core, still just a dreadnought. There was no way it could unleash the full potential of the sanctuary.

So, even though the speedup looked like millions of years, in practice there was a huge discount.

He didn’t linger on this problem. Exiting the sanctuary, Song Chi quickly scanned all the ship’s red-tier components.

Parent-Child Spirit Control Rings (Red) lv60, Black-Gold Ramming Spike (Red) lv60, Behemoth Heart (Red) lv60, Superpower Controller (Red) lv60, Soulcalling Demon Golem (Red) lv60, Oath Contract Module (Red) lv60, Bind-God Chains (Red) lv60, Totem Spirit Pillar (Red) lv60, Long-Range Communication Disk (Red) lv60, Master-Servant Pact (Red) lv60, Skybreaker Drill (Red) lv60, Plasma Guardian (Red) lv60, Taoyi Soul-Suppressing Stele (Red) lv60, Void Shadowslayer Soldier-Tree (Red) lv60, Warship Position-Switcher (Red) lv60, Aurora Jump Drive (Red) lv60, Isometric Shrink Module (Red) lv60, Void Shroud (Red) lv60, Life-System Medical Repair Pod (Red) lv60.

Nineteen red-tier components. Which four should he evolve to silver next? That was a decision worth careful thought.

Two minutes later, he made his choices.

Master-Servant Pact.

Plasma Guardian.

Void Shadowslayer Soldier-Tree.

Void Shroud.

These four components had the broadest impact—and the earlier they reached the next tier, the greater the benefit for him and his ship.

The Master-Servant Pact needed no explanation. Evolving it to silver and upgrading to lv70 raised the number of possible contracts from four to six and greatly strengthened his hold on his followers.

As for Plasma Guardian, that meant Song Chi could now carry a Tier-Seven individual plasma shield with him everywhere. His personal safety would skyrocket.

Why prioritize upgrading the Void Shadowslayer Soldier-Tree, even though he already had the superior Flame Spirit Terracotta Tree at lv80? Simple.

The Flame Spirit Terracotta Tree, for all its quality and the strength of its summoned Tier Eight warriors, only enhanced brute force. The Void Shadowslayer Soldier-Tree was different. As a rare space-type component, its assassins perfectly complemented Song Chi’s mastery of the Law of Space, letting him make the most of their ghostly traversal ability.

And with a little neural link, he could even deepen his own understanding of the fundamental Space Law. That was the true game-changer.

As for the last, Void Shroud, it was obvious. Another rarely-seen permanent stealth component, its importance to the Heavenly Ruin went without saying.

The Mirage Dragon Metamorphosis Pearl was great, but its ‘Mirage’ effect had strict time limits. It couldn’t replace a true permanent stealth upgrade.

Just as he finished upgrading all four components to Tier Seven, Song Chi’s eyes flashed.

A moment later, he shot out of the battleship, straight for the Omniverse Market configuration zone—specifically, the area right in front of the Divine Realm Task Platform.

Activating that gold-special configuration, he quickly entered the player trading hall exclusive to the Divine Realm Task Platform.

He hurried toward a player stall not far off.

With the number of Divine Realm players under this platform having shot up, the marketplace was swarming with stalls, but truly valuable goods were few and far between.

This time was different. With the authority of the Divine Realm Lord, he’d already spotted a certain item on a stall back at the Omniverse Market—something of immense value even to him.

Energy fluctuated, and while the other alien players remained clueless, Song Chi morphed into an ordinary gnoll.

When he arrived at the stall, he didn’t bother with pleasantries. He just pointed and asked,

“Hey man, how much for that orange-tier oddity?”

He had his eyes on an Orange Glory-grade Starsea Oddity. While he normally wouldn’t care much for orange-grade items, there was a specific trait that caught his attention.

Pulsewave Energy Shield lv0

Grade: Orange

Trait: Shield value increased by 40%

Trait 2: Immortal Pulsewave

Consumption Rate: 10/s

Protection: 38

Shield Value: 532/532

Recharge: 30s; Overload cooldown: 1 hour

……

{Immortal Pulsewave: When the shield suffers an overwhelming attack, this nearly unbreakable pulsewave ensures at least 1 point of shield remains, preventing instant shatter. The effect lasts for 1 second and can only be triggered once every ten years.}

What Song Chi wanted was exactly that Immortal Pulsewave trait. To put it plainly, it meant the energy shield wouldn’t break instantly when taking a cataclysmic hit—it would buy the bearer just a heartbeat to react.

Even if it was only one second, for Song Chi that was more than enough.

With his current means, his only real fear was being one-shotted without any warning. In that kind of situation, there’d be no time to use any escape tricks.

Granted, with the Timepiece Chessboard’s ‘Nine Lives Game of Life and Death,’ he could revive himself even if ambushed.

But that special effect only worked nine times in a lifetime—once used, that was one less. Unless it was do-or-die, he didn’t want to waste it.

And a single second could mean the world.

He could retreat to the Omniverse Market, summon his Dominator-ranked servants, bring out the Angel King’s Spirit Apparition, or even activate the Black Hole Domain for complete invulnerability.

After a quick negotiation befitting a tycoon, Song Chi acquired the Pulsewave Energy Shield.

Omniverse Market, Oddity Essence Refinement Platform.

Song Chi headed straight for the standard workstation, ready to extract the Immortal Pulsewave trait then and there.

But after a moment’s thought, his hands paused.

A problem came to mind.

If he extracted the trait now, which component should get it?

Yin-Yang Counter-Phase Annihilation Shield or Plasma Guardian?

Either worked, but Song Chi didn’t want to have to choose.

Before, that would have trapped him in indecision. But things were different now—he’d just acquired the Miracle Clone Pod component.

All he had to do was use the Miracle Clone Pod on the Pulsewave Energy Shield. That would give him two shields to work with, so he could extract two Immortal Pulsewave traits in one go.

Of course, the cloner had to produce a shield the Refinement Platform would recognize.

Song Chi got right to work.

Soon enough, the Miracle Clone Pod transformed into a second Pulsewave Energy Shield. Song Chi immediately tested whether its traits could be extracted—and, sure enough, the Refinement Platform took the clone’s Immortal Pulsewave without a hitch.

Then he cancelled the clone duration, letting the Miracle Clone Pod revert to its normal state.

It couldn’t be cloned again any time soon—a hundred-year cooldown—but Song Chi wasn’t worried. With the Timepiece Chessboard and Pusa Zen Seal, that wait would shrink to just five years.

After that, he extracted the original shield’s Immortal Pulsewave as well, but in the end, he only fused it into the Plasma Guardian component.

Yin-Yang Counter-Phase Annihilation Shield lv80

Grade: Gold

Trait: Two-Modes Damage Reduction

Trait 2: True Shield

Trait 3: Energy shield value +330%

Trait 4: Shield protection value +330%

Trait 5: Yin-Yang Regeneration

……

He couldn’t change any of those five—it was just too precious. So he saved the second Immortal Pulsewave trait for future swaps.

With all that finished, Song Chi’s attention was drawn back to the Miracle Clone Pod.

It was in cooldown mode now, but Song Chi wasn’t thinking about cloning. He wanted to decide whether to keep the cloning template.

The Pulsewave Energy Shield’s Immortal Pulsewave was a superb trait—maybe worth keeping.

He probably wouldn’t need it again himself, but he could always sell the trait to others.

Most people didn’t have access to the Oddity Essence Refinement Platform, so they couldn’t extract traits at will. But with Silver Apple or Golden Apple, you could transfer traits between similar components after an upgrade.

After some thought, Song Chi kept the template in the Miracle Clone Pod.

Even after hitting Tier Eight, the pod still only held three templates. Upgrading wouldn’t add more. He wasn’t even sure if you could remove or replace a chosen template, so he’d waited before deciding.

In the end, the sheer value of Immortal Pulsewave clinched it for him.

Even if he could never swap out the template, it would still provide a steady income.

Once the template was saved, with the Immortal Pulsewave trait still in hand, Song Chi tried seeing if he could erase the pod’s saved template.

With a mental command, the shield template slowly faded away from the Miracle Clone Pod.

Seeing this, Song Chi’s face lit up and he quickly gave up the experiment.

All three templates could be erased at will. That was great news—it made the Miracle Clone Pod even more valuable and raised Song Chi’s future flexibility.

After wrapping up these affairs, Song Chi went back to comprehending various Laws.

Not once did he slack up on deepening his understanding of those three Laws.

Several days later, a summons came from the Family Patriarch. Apparently, the fleet was about to mobilize again.

Urged on by two Empire Supervisors, the various forces of the Tianpan Galaxy’s two great Kingdoms ended their operations in the Serpent’s Fang Galaxy and prepared to push farther north.

But while the official order had been issued, Song Wujian’s summons wasn’t actually about this. A mobilization involving billions of ships took serious prep; it couldn’t be done in a day or two anyway.

This time, the elder called Song Chi for another reason.

Or more accurately, because the entire Tianpan Galaxy fleet had some special guests.