Chapter 156

Chapter 156: Invitation

Du Xian’s final palm slammed into Wang Jie’s chest and sent him flying. He crashed into the ground, hard.

He lay there staring up at the starry sky, his face drained of color.

“All right,” Du Xian said. “You can begin.”

Wang Jie forced himself up and spat out a mouthful of blood. Everything felt numb, like he’d been run over by a ship. Even moving a finger was agony.

Ahead, twenty foam-planets hung in a straight line.

He had one strike.

Only one.

He closed his eyes.

Lockforce surged through flesh and blood. Qi-Qi Convergence. Power poured out of him, forming a near-transparent flame around his body, burning a hand’s breadth into the air.

Du Xian’s eyes narrowed.

Wang Jie’s eyes snapped open. He raised a finger.

Myriad-Stars Finger Art.

Stars revolved. Heaven and earth seemed to tilt.

In Du Xian’s vision, planet after planet spun as if it were real, each one feeding into the next.

Her breath caught.

Chen Art.

No wonder he’d been able to defeat a Full-Star Realm expert like Zong Cheng Ping and dominate Lock Interstice.

A Lockforce cultivator had unleashed Chen Art—and it was strong, strong enough to put cold into her bones.

Finger-shadows erupted among the turning stars, then merged into one.

Wang Jie’s gaze sharpened. Strength, qi, lockforce—every ounce of battle power in his body condensed into a single point.

“Myriad-Stars Finger Art—go.”

The strike descended.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Finger-shadows tore through the void and detonated the first foam-planets instantly.

Du Xian’s pupils shrank, staring as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.

Star-breaking could be judged the moment an attack touched the targets. How many shattered at first impact was often enough to gauge the rest.

The most terrifying star-breaking she’d ever witnessed in person belonged to a guarding star realm expert of Star Vault Vista. She’d been lucky enough to see it once.

Even that person had only shattered three planets at the instant the attack was released.

Wang Jie shattered ten.

Ten at once.

Yes, that guarding star realm expert had broken real planets, but even with conversion the gap shouldn’t have been this wide. Three real planets could roughly compare to five targets on this device—maybe six, at most.

And Wang Jie…

Ten.

Planet after planet exploded. In three breaths, all twenty targets shattered into dust.

Fragments rained down like a meteor shower.

Even the space beneath them seemed to tremble. In the distance, gray ash was swept up by violent winds and surged into the sky, swallowing the light.

Du Xian stared at him, expression frozen.

What in the world was this man?

Wang Jie braced a hand on his knee, panting, then looked up at her. “Do you have a healing pill? Lend me one.”

He’d used up his recovery pills during his breakthrough.

He still had a revival pill, but he couldn’t bring himself to use it.

Du Xian snapped back to herself and tossed him a recovery pill.

Wang Jie swallowed it and sat down immediately, forcing his battered body to recover.

Du Xian watched his back, her thoughts in chaos.

He’d surpassed that guarding star realm expert—an existence Star Vault Vista had already deemed nearly impossible to surpass, a monster spoken of in the same breath as Shu Mu Ye.

How?

Had he somehow resisted her attacks and broken stars while still at full strength?

But his heavily injured state had looked real.

She pushed the question aside, contacted her people, and had them retrieve the equipment.

This matter would remain between her and Wang Jie.

Her subordinates weren’t even allowed to look toward the target-world by rule. They never saw how many foam-planets he’d broken.

Half a day passed. Wang Jie recovered a little, but one recovery pill was far from enough.

He looked around. The equipment had already been dismantled and removed.

Du Xian still waited in the distance.

He stood and walked over. “Thanks again.”

Du Xian studied him like she was searching for cracks. “Who are you, really?”

Wang Jie blinked. “Who could I be?

“Just a Lockforce cultivator.”

Du Xian gave a bitter laugh. “A Lockforce cultivator?

“Unthinkable. I thought you’d be at most close to a guarding star realm expert, but…”

She stopped, as if a thought made her cautious.

Wang Jie asked, “I broke twenty targets. If you convert that to real planets, what does it look like?”

“I don’t know,” Du Xian said. “No one has ever done it. And those who can… break real planets in the first place.”

Wang Jie felt a pang of disappointment. He’d wanted a clean comparison to Shu Mu Ye.

Du Xian drew a slow breath. “Wang Jie. I want to invite you to join Star Vault Vista.”

He froze.

It was the first time she’d called him by name, and the seriousness in her voice left no room for jokes.

Star Vault Vista.

His heart stirred.

Whatever Star Vault Vista was, it dwarfed Black-White Heaven. It felt closer to something like Jia Yi Sect—a true behemoth.

And along the way, Star Vault Vista had helped him more than anyone, whether in the Silver Radiance Empire, Frostglow Sect, or Black-White Heaven.

“I can join?” he asked.

Du Xian smiled. “I’m only extending an invitation. Whether you’re accepted depends on evaluation from above.

“If you agree, I’ll report it immediately.”

“What about my current identity?”

Du Xian’s tone turned dry. “Do you think Black-White Heaven acknowledges your identity?”

Wang Jie couldn’t argue. He’d been a Guest Elder of Frostglow Sect, and even there he’d never truly been recognized.

Now Frostglow Sect was gone, and he’d fled into Black-White Heaven. If anything, his status was even less meaningful.

If he had any official identity at all… it was the only one he could name without irony:

The Silver Radiance Empire emperor’s guard.

They’d even assigned him a house. That much, at least, was real.

“All right,” he said. “I agree.”

Du Xian looked pleased. Recruiting talent was part of her job. Helping him supplement star-breaking had never been pure generosity.

And with Wang Jie’s earlier actions and achievements, her investment had already been justified.

The result, though… had exceeded anything she’d imagined.

She handed him a piece of jade, the same kind used to store techniques—except this one was different.

“An identity token,” Du Xian said. “With this, Star Vault Vista’s external observers will find you. We call them Tai Qiong Walker.

“They evaluate you at unpredictable times and without warning. Some people don’t even realize the evaluation has begun before it’s already over.

“What you’re offered inside Star Vault Vista depends on the evaluator’s identity, their mission, and the final results.”

Then she looked him in the eyes. “I should warn you. The acceptance rate for invited outsiders is one in ten thousand.”

Wang Jie’s eyebrows shot up. “One in ten thousand?”

Du Xian nodded. “Star Vault Vista’s standards are strict. Some years, not a single person is invited. And even those invited only have a one-in-ten-thousand chance of passing.

“But if you do pass…”

For the first time, envy showed openly in her expression. “Your life changes. You cross classes.

“And your prospects will be far greater than people like us who were raised by Star Vault Vista from childhood.”

Wang Jie turned the jade token over in his palm. “If I put it in a storage ring, can it still be sensed?”

“Put it wherever you want,” Du Xian said. “Just don’t let it leave a one-meter radius from your body.”

He understood.

Not long after, he took his leave and departed.

Du Xian returned to the ship trading house and contacted her superiors.

“Twenty?” came the shocked reply. “Do you know what you’re saying? Are you sure he did it while in the Ten-Seals Mountain injury state?”

“I’m not sure anymore,” Du Xian admitted.

A long silence followed.

“Understood. This will be reported. His evaluation will become a top priority. I hope the result is real.”

Du Xian ended the call and exhaled slowly.

If there hadn’t been any mistake…

Wang Jie really was beyond reason.

When he returned, he stood in his fields, studying the space behind the first plot.

A third plot had appeared.

After reaching Star-Breaking Realm, it had formed behind the first plot, connected to it, its soil a shade darker.

As with the first two plots, the third plot gave him something immediately.

Nine-Form Diagram.

Its effect was simple and terrifying: it could record nine angles of a target—movements, posture, even the method of circulating power. Nine diagrams in total. Complete them, and you could become indistinguishable from the person you copied. No one could tell the difference by movement, appearance, demeanor, or even the copied techniques.

Wang Jie put it away. He’d test it when he had the chance.

For now, he stared at the third plot, baffled. What was it for?

No idea.

The first two plots had taken him a long time to understand as well.

He studied the third plot for a long time and still found nothing.

But he didn’t waste the time. He gave orders: gather complete skeletons from a hundred different species, collect strength techniques, find “handsome” pets, and bring every Full-Star Realm in Lock Interstice to arm-wrestle him.

Now that he had people under him, collecting materials was easy.

Back then, just having Luo Yan run errands had saved him tremendous effort.

Now it was faster by far.

In less than half a day, the hundred complete skeletons were delivered.

Then came the arm-wrestling.

He’d arm-wrestled Lie Qiu and the others before, but not all of them. Now everyone was present.

And still, he couldn’t complete whatever requirement the arm-wrestling material demanded.

As for “handsome” pets…

There were too many. Messages came in from every direction. He spent days running around, pairing and breeding those “handsome” pets, and still couldn’t meet the requirement.

Was “handsome” not judged from a human perspective?

The strength techniques were the easiest. He learned ten without trouble—ordinary methods, some created by Star-Breaking Realm cultivators themselves. They were less true techniques than crude tricks.

That requirement was complete.

So far, Bone-Motion Art’s five materials were three-fifths done. Only the “handsome” breeding and arm-wrestling remained.

That was when Miao Tai came with news.

“Anomalous planets?” Wang Jie repeated.

“Yes,” Miao Tai said. “Lock Interstice is vast. There are countless planets. From ancient times to now, people have searched for anomalous planets. Find even one, and you can sell it for a sky-high price.

“That’s what the four alliances and Lone Peak Gorge have been doing all along.”

Wang Jie had almost forgotten.

Anomalous planets were a Starforce cultivator’s obsession. Absorb an anomalous planet’s starforce, and a Starforce cultivator could become dramatically stronger.

As for Lockforce cultivators…

They rarely had anything to do with such things at all.