Chapter 542: The Living Chat Group of the Yaoguang Star Order

Yaoguang Star Order Chat Group

“Jingzhe” (#32): My time resistance still isn’t high enough. This is torture!

“Blood Soul” (#18): ??? Don’t tell me you’re actually squaring off against an Eighth-Tier Time Sovereign? Not even all those time components are enough?

“Jingzhe” (#32): No, I’m just braving a high-level time field.

“Jingzhe” (#32): @Yulong, Sis Yulong, does our Old Ancestor have any other solutions?

“Yulong” (#17): Let’s discuss this in the Star Tower.

……

“As for collateral and payment, will a golden oddity that can’t be converted into a battleship component work? If not, how about a golden supercannon instead?”

After hearing the conditions from Yulong, relayed from the Changsun Family’s Old Ancestor, Song Chi felt a bit stuck.

Collateral wasn’t really the issue. The Heavenly Ruin was loaded with golden components, and he even had some golden oddities from the Market’s trading shop. Any of those would do nicely as collateral.

The real problem was the payment. Borrowing a golden time oddity—he had no idea what would actually count as fitting recompense.

When Cui Yulong nodded, confirming that the Blood Spear could work as collateral, Song Chi pressed on:

“As for payment, I can offer a Tier-Six Silver Apple, a silver energy shield…”

“Anything else?”

Cui Yulong asked quietly.

Song Chi got the hint immediately.

She clearly felt those payments just weren’t tempting enough for the Changsun Family’s Eighth-Tier Old Ancestor.

He hesitated, reluctant to part with his treasures, but considering it was all for a mythic color oddity, Song Chi quickly made his decision.

“Sister Yulong, what about a portion of the sixth-grade Moon Spring?”

At the mention of the sixth-grade Moon Spring, Cui Yulong finally nodded.

“That should work. I’ll wait for my sister’s news.”

……

A few minutes later, as another spatial ripple shimmered across the Star Tower’s login platform, Song Chi thought Cui Yulong had logged in again—only to discover it wasn’t her.

“Whitebrow, here to pick up a task?”

Descending from the login platform, Whitebrow’s expression remained as cold as ever. She shook her head and spoke in her usual calm tone.

“Still need high-grade time components?”

Song Chi’s eyes lit up, and he nodded eagerly.

Even if the Changsun Old Ancestor agreed to lend him the time oddity, that didn’t guarantee the Heavenly Ruin could actually grab the Timepiece Chessboard just by adding one golden time component. The more time resistance, the better.

Under his expectant gaze, a faint glow flashed between Whitebrow’s brows, and soon a black-glowing component floated into Song Chi’s hand.

With that done, Whitebrow didn’t linger—she turned and logged out right away.

Time Altar lv70

Grade: Black

Trait: Time Cultivation Altar

Trait 2: Time Resistance +9800

……

“Whitebrow, wait…”

Watching Whitebrow’s figure slowly fade away, the rest of Song Chi’s words caught in his throat.

Seeing her just leave without a second thought, his eyelids twitched. He couldn’t help but think:

“Sis, I know you’re loaded, but this is a peak black-level component, and a time attribute one at that. You could’ve at least said a word or two. Can we not be so extravagantly generous?”

Of course, his thoughts ran a bit wild, but in his heart, Song Chi felt a warm glow.

Being able to do this much was proof enough of Whitebrow’s trust in him.

While he was mulling things over, Yulong logged in again and brought good news: the Changsun Family’s Old Ancestor had agreed.

The next day, Song Chi once more entered the high-level time field of the Outer Domain. This time, he took even longer to summon both the Heavenly Ruin and the Market’s purple mist projection.

Once both appeared, the battleship’s internal time-slowing effects were greatly reduced—even more so than before.

After that, the Heavenly Ruin stopped drifting forward and had the Sky-Domain AI activate the ‘Angel • Wing Blink’ trait directly.

Three golden time components, one black-grade time component, plus several silver and red ones and the protection of a near Eighth-Tier Market purple mist projection—Song Chi didn’t think the Heavenly Ruin would run into anything that couldn’t be retrieved.

This time, after the jump, the Heavenly Ruin teleported directly to the colorful point on the Map Disk indicated by the Destiny Compass, right up ahead.

As the battleship finally burst out of the warp tunnel, through the eyes of his Voidform Avatar, Song Chi spotted the object floating quietly in the starlit void ahead.

It was a perfectly squared jade chessboard, radiating blinding brilliance in every color of the rainbow.

All the time energy saturating the surrounding stars originated from it.

It was truly a timeless clockwork treasure, an inexhaustible wellspring of time, no matter where it drifted.

In the Market Heavens, Song Chi’s eyes burned with excitement. The instant he saw the jade chessboard’s form and the endless rainbow glow it gave off, he knew every prior guess he’d made had been right.

The very heart of this time field wasn’t just centered on the Timepiece Chessboard itself—the chessboard was indeed a mythic color Starsea Oddity.

Wasting no more time, the purple mist projection above the Heavenly Ruin started to tremble violently, purple energy surging and quickly forming a giant hand that reached straight for the jade chessboard.

Swamped by rampant time energy, the mist hand moved slowly, but with the Heavenly Ruin now close enough, the hand managed to seize the Timepiece Chessboard after only a little while.

Guided by Song Chi, the purple misted hand began to slowly pull the chessboard back.

Hiss—

The doors of the Heavenly Ruin slid open, and at last, the glowing jade chessboard was pushed inside the battleship by the purple mist hand.

“That’s it? Did I really just succeed?”

Even after the doors closed again, Song Chi couldn’t shake an overwhelming sense of disbelief from within the Omniverse Market. It almost felt like he’d misread the outcome.

He really hadn’t expected the final retrieval step to go so easily. It was almost too good to be true.

But on second thought, it actually made perfect sense.

The kind of time energy pouring out of the Timepiece Chessboard was simply terrifying.

Just think—if anyone other than someone who wielded the full might of the Omniverse Market and Yaoguang Star Order tried to get through, who could possibly make it here?

Even an Eighth-Tier Time Sovereign who’d mastered the laws of time would probably struggle!

Since he’d already accomplished the hardest, most impossible part, the rest just fell into place naturally.

Now that the Timepiece Chessboard was inside the battleship, the wild external time energy quickly began to recede—clear proof it was now fully in the Heavenly Ruin’s hands.

Song Chi didn’t dare return to the battleship just yet. Instead, he used his Voidform Avatar to observe the jade chessboard from a distance inside the ship.

He worried that even sealed within the battleship, this absurdly powerful time oddity might just keep blasting out its energy.

But clearly, he’d been overthinking it.

Inside the ship, spectral energy started to swirl from the hull, all of it flowing steadily toward the jade chessboard. The ship was automatically converting the Starsea Oddity with its eon energy.

Then, the moment a faint wisp of eon energy merged into the chessboard, the oppressive time force inside the battleship suddenly vanished.

The Voidform Avatar regained its ability to move freely.

Controlling the avatar, Song Chi slowly approached the jade chessboard, channeling eon energy from within himself until it touched the board.

Right then, a new panel of stats popped up in Song Chi’s vision inside the Market.

[Oddity: Timepiece Chessboard]

[Grade: Color/Upper-Tier]

[Convertible: {Timepiece Chessboard}]

[Note: Once a famed temporal treasure in the era of the multiverse, this artifact was tempered through eons after the fall, eventually becoming a mythic color oddity.]

In that instant, Song Chi actually forgot to breathe.

Once he snapped out of it, his eyes blazed with elation.

“An upper-tier mythic color oddity!”

From what he remembered, mythic color oddities were split into three ranks.

Lower-tier, upper-tier, and supreme color grades.

The first mythic color oddity he’d seen was the Civilization Wall at the Yaoguang Star Tower, but if memory served, even that was just the lowest, lower-tier mythic color grade.

Which meant this Timepiece Chessboard was on a whole higher tier.

That alone was enough to get the blood racing.

It wasn’t even surprising that it could be converted into a battleship component. The properties of the Timepiece Chess component had hinted at that since the beginning.

Keeping his excitement in check, Song Chi turned his eyes back to the Timepiece Chessboard’s battleship component details.

Timepiece Chessboard lv0

Grade: Color/Upper-Tier

Trait: Reduces all component cooldowns on the battleship by 35%

Trait 2: Time Resistance +1600

Trait 3: Time • Chesspiece

Trait 4: Time • Chessboard

Trait 5: Time • Game

Trait 6: Chrono • Cage

Trait 7: Greatly increases time law comprehension speed on the battleship by 230%

Trait 8: Nine Lives Death Chess

Consumption: 200/s (Eon Energy Points)

No charge-up or buffering required

Effect: Grants the battleship immunity to over 99% of external time energy.

Upgrade Requirements: 200 strands of zero-grade Floating-land Origin, 20,000 Eon Energy Points, 5 Time Fragments

Note: This component uses 20 slot spaces

{Time • Chesspiece: The board comes with 361 chesspieces, each infused with mighty temporal power, granting them incredible effects. If a piece is used up or destroyed, the chessboard will generate one new piece per year (currently, all 361 pieces are scattered but can be recalled at will).}

{Time • Chessboard: Consumes a set number of chesspieces (at least 36) and Eon Energy Points (energy used scales with pieces played) to manifest a time chessboard in space. All non-allied units inside will experience time acceleration or deceleration (exact factor depends on pieces, 36 grants 10x, 72 grants 20x, and so on). Lasts 10 minutes with a cooldown of 720 hours.}

{Time • Game: Costs 300,000 Eon Energy Points and pulls designated lifeforms—up to the component’s enhancement level—plus the battleship itself into a higher-dimensional chess game. Enemy units inside have their strength forcefully reduced by one whole rank. Lasts an hour. Cooldown: 100 years.}

{Chrono • Cage: Consume designated number of chesspieces and Eon Energy Points to seal any unit not beyond the component’s current rank in a cage of absolute time freeze. Duration depends on the number of pieces (36 for 1,000 years, 72 for 2,000 years, and so on). Note: No outside force can harm the sealed being.}

{Nine Lives Death Chess: The 361st chesspiece is a special one, containing immense powers over life and death. It allows absolute resurrection or erasure of a chosen unit (so long as it doesn’t exceed the component’s enhancement level). Each use partially shatters the piece; after nine activations, it breaks for good, and this trait is replaced by a random new one.}

This component had so many abilities, it was plain outrageous.

But once Song Chi finished reading through everything, he was beyond caring.

“So this is what a mythic color oddity is like—completely defying the heavens!”

No question, the Timepiece Chessboard’s attributes were absolutely insane.

Never mind that once slotted in, the battleship would be nearly invulnerable to over 99% of time-based attacks. Each trait was more jaw-dropping than the last.

Starting with that 35% universal cooldown reduction. If he upgraded it to level seven, it’d jump to 70%.

That bonus covers every single component on the ship, and if maxed out, he could cut cooldowns by a ludicrous 90%.

Then there was the Time • Chessboard trait—far outclassing the Samsara Time Domain, and with an even shorter cooldown to boot.

And tricks like Time • Game and Chrono • Cage? Reducing an enemy’s power by a full rank, sealing them away for thousands of years—these were all game-changers.

Song Chi even thought of another use for Chrono • Cage: if a loved one was gravely wounded or dying, he could seal them away until a cure could be found.

Most broken of all was the Nine Lives Death Chess. That’s nine chances to rewrite fate—vanquish any enemy, revive himself or the ship. That’s far superior to the once-per-advancement Timeworld Fruit. Nine legit lives.

It truly beat the Timeworld Fruit by a mile—a real nine-lives cheat.

Whew!

He exhaled deeply, unable to tamp down the joy in his eyes.

With abilities like these, Song Chi didn’t even care that the part required 20 slots.

Next to such heaven-defying traits, what did 20 slots matter?