Chapter 75

Chapter 75: Extreme Goal

Wang Jie stared at the tender green shoots, his thoughts drifting.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

Why did he have to grow the Silver Radiance Art of all things?

Had the Silver Radiance Force been subconsciously imitating it, making the field respond by producing the real technique?

From the first Heaven-and-Earth Luo Xuan Finger to today’s Silver Radiance Art, there were two similarities. First: a lesser method giving birth to a greater one—natural, expected, almost as if that was how it was supposed to work.

Second: both were lost arts.

Wang Jie glanced at the Sword Steps shoot. If that one turned out to be lost too, things would get interesting. It would mean every method and technique he grew was a buried masterpiece from another age.

He looked at the three shoots again, anticipation tightening in his chest.

No matter what, the Silver Radiance Art was his now.

The infuriating part was the “materials.”

Take one look at the creator.

Cripple three people’s cultivation methods.

Help an old person cross the street.

Those requirements… how was he supposed to put it?

The third was the easiest. He could do it today.

The first two were trouble.

Anyone with a real method was almost always a starforce cultivator. Finding three starforce cultivators just to cripple their cultivation wasn’t easy—and even if he found them, why would he do it? They hadn’t wronged him.

The worst was the first requirement.

Take one look at the creator?

A creator meant the one who founded the method—the founder of the Silver Radiance Art. But that person had been dead for who knew how many years. “Take a look” was easy to say… but how?

Was he supposed to die and go look?

Wang Jie left the Lakeside Residence and wandered into the busiest part of Imperial Capital. It was technically his first time strolling these streets—of all reasons, it was to gather materials.

Then another question hit him.

Where was the road?

Flying craft filled the skies. People still walked, sure, but they stepped onto floating air as if it were solid ground. Nobody needed streets at all.

So… how was he supposed to help an old person cross a street that didn’t exist?

He switched planets.

Not long after, Wang Jie returned to the Lakeside Residence. The third requirement was solved.

He was starting to notice a pattern: the materials always included one or two bizarre tasks that were strangely easy, and one or two that were outright painful.

He opened the light screen and began searching.

Cheng Qian brought him a drink. “My lord, what are you looking up? I can handle it.”

Wang Jie waved him away. He was searching for the Silver Radiance Empire’s royal burial grounds.

If the requirement was to “look at the creator,” then the only thing he could look at was a corpse.

But whether it was bones or a living person, the requirement only said he had to look. It didn’t say the other party had to react.

Seeing was enough.

And Cheng Qian absolutely could not know Wang Jie was searching the empire’s royal graves. If he did, he’d know exactly who had done it.

Before long, Wang Jie found what he needed. They didn’t call it an ancestral grave. They called it the Imperial Mausoleum, located in the mountains outside Imperial Capital.

He was about to leave at once, then paused.

It felt indecent.

If he was going to do it, he should compensate them.

So he decided to solve the second requirement first.

He’d already found a way around it.

He didn’t need to choose innocent victims. He could make people cultivate the Silver Radiance Force—then cripple it.

He boarded a ship for a nearby planet, found three vicious lockforce cultivators, and forced them to cultivate the Silver Radiance Force.

The three thought they’d stumbled onto a miraculous opportunity. They knelt and thanked him again and again as they began practicing.

It took them more than ten days just to barely enter the beginner stage.

The instant Wang Jie saw them step through the threshold, he crippled their methods without hesitation.

Second requirement complete.

Then he returned to Imperial Capital. Under the cover of night, he slipped into the deep mountains outside the city and headed for the Imperial Mausoleum.

There were barely any guards. There didn’t need to be.

The mausoleum sat right beside Imperial Capital—no one dared desecrate it. And there was nothing worth stealing inside. The Silver Radiance Empire didn’t bury extravagant treasures with its dead.

Wang Jie bypassed the sentries and went deeper. With a guilty knot in his stomach, he dug until he uncovered a skeleton.

“Please don’t blame me,” he murmured. “It’s the materials. They’re forcing my hand.

“This junior knows I’m disturbing your rest. I’ll offer the Silver Radiance Art in return, as thanks. Thank you… thank you.”

He bowed with genuine solemnity.

The world around him shifted.

Back at the field, light gathered from the three shoots and poured the Silver Radiance Art into his mind.

A moment later, Wang Jie opened his eyes.

So this was the Silver Radiance Art.

It was far more profound than the Silver Radiance Force.

They weren’t even the same kind of method.

He exhaled, then carved the Silver Radiance Art into the earth beneath the mausoleum as compensation before leaving.

When he returned to the Lakeside Residence, he began cultivating at once.

A method and a technique were entirely different things, but methods grown from the field didn’t need to be “learned.” They were already etched into him. He only needed time to grow familiar with them.

By morning, sunlight slid across the lake like flowing silk.

Wang Jie took out disaster materials and used the Silver Radiance Art to absorb imprint power.

The difference was immediate.

The speed was nearly equal to what he achieved during his exercises.

So that was what the Silver Radiance Art could do.

All this time, he’d relied on those exercises—for strength, for imprint power, for healing injuries, for everything.

This was the first time he’d matched that effect without doing them.

If he exercised on top of this… how terrifying would the speed become?

More importantly, the Silver Radiance Art made the imprint power adhere to his seals like thin sheets pressed tight. Even though it was still silver, the method’s understanding was clear: it would gradually fade, deepening into light black.

This method really could turn all ten seals light black.

The value was enormous.

Wang Jie let out a slow breath. At least he hadn’t done something that indecent for nothing.

At the same time, Imperial Capital erupted.

News spread that the Imperial Mausoleum had been dug open, and Jun Hua’s face darkened as she rushed over.

Who dared to dig into the Imperial Mausoleum?

Who would do something like that?

Her first suspicion fell on Frost Bloom Sect. Aside from Jin Chu and Man Man, more of their people had arrived in secret lately, preparing for the coming war.

Everyone in the Silver Radiance Empire knew the Imperial Mausoleum held nothing. No one here would take that risk. That meant outsiders.

With that thought, she arrived—only for the Imperial Mausoleum to be sealed shortly after. The matter was suppressed with stunning speed until the city fell quiet again.

No one knew what had happened inside.

All they knew was that when Jun Hua came out, her expression had returned to calm.

No grief. No joy.

At the Lakeside Residence, Wang Jie heard the rumors and looked toward the mountains.

He’d done right by the empire.

Compared to the insult of disturbing the mausoleum, the return of the Silver Radiance Art would bring more joy than anger.

Now it was time to keep planting.

He stood in the field and activated the Silver Radiance Art.

Green shoots surged up beneath his feet.

This time there were five, just like the Myriad-Stars Finger.

Five…

Harvesting wouldn’t be easy.

With cautious excitement, Wang Jie reached out and touched them.

The Silver Radiance Art could deepen his ten seals to light black. From what he knew, the deepest color possible in the wider universe was deep black.

If nothing had changed, Shu Mu Ye had reached that level.

Only deep-black ten seals could shatter thirteen stars in a single blow when breaking through to the star-breaking realm.

So after the Silver Radiance Art… could the next method he grew push him all the way to deep black?

He withdrew his hand.

His brow furrowed.

Sorrowwater Art.

That was what the field wanted to give him next.

And the required materials were: gather ten chen artifacts, erect a tombstone for someone, kill five star-breaking realm experts, bring a gift, and reach a point twenty times farther than the total distance he’d traveled so far.

He replayed the list in his head.

Most of it was manageable. The problem was the last two.

Twenty times his traveled distance? He’d already gone from Blue Star to the Silver Radiance Empire’s Imperial Capital, to a Slaughterstone planet, back again, and then hopped between worlds over and over while digging for Mu Ran.

The total was enormous. Twenty times that was absurd.

And killing five star-breaking realm experts…

Star-breaking realm wasn’t cabbage you bought by the bundle.

Wang Jie let out a breath. This was forcing him toward a dead end.

He could give up. And giving up meant giving up the Sorrowwater Art, giving up deep black, giving up Shu Mu Ye.

He walked to the lakeside and sat, watching fish break the surface.

Would he really give up?

Images from Blue Star rose unbidden—the blood-soaked altar, the final desperate slaughter.

He couldn’t accept it.

Why had he left Blue Star behind?

Just because of the bracer’s master?

No. More than anything, he wanted to fight Shu Mu Ye again.

He wanted to defeat him openly, in front of countless civilizations across the universe.

To make him understand that debts didn’t vanish. They were paid.

He couldn’t give up.

Every step had to be pushed to the limit.

The Star Fusion Center of Silver Radiance was the empire’s bank—Blue Star’s equivalent.

Wang Jie went to the largest Star Fusion Center in Imperial Capital to withdraw money: the funds belonging to the group he’d killed on the Slaughterstone planet.

Those people had actually stored their wealth here. Jun Tang must have died too quickly to withdraw it.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been that stupid.

In any case, it benefited Wang Jie now.

But the moment he presented the withdrawal credentials, someone took notice.

A clerk quietly reported it to Imperial Capital’s defense office. Soon, a group of guards watched Wang Jie from afar.

“He finally showed up,” their leader growled, a cigarette between his teeth. “This time we catch him.”

Someone beside him shifted uneasily. “Captain, didn’t they say the warrant was canceled?”

“Canceled my ass. I’ve seen this play before.

“Those idiots up top are faking it for merit. This time I’m dragging the real one out and putting him in front of the Emperor. Then we’ll see who ends up in prison.”

“But I heard that group is hard to mess with. Otherwise the Lakeside Residence wouldn’t have hired them back then.”

The captain snorted. “Whether we can catch them doesn’t matter. Whether the truth matters doesn’t matter.

“What matters is making the higher-ups see this is real, and that the report they filed was fake.”

The subordinate swallowed and nodded. “Understood. Then I wish you an early promotion.”

“Save it. Get the men into position. Don’t screw it up.”

Inside, Wang Jie felt the eyes on him the moment it happened. Ten years of scraping through death had sharpened that instinct.

He glanced outside. One… two…

Then his expression tightened.

So many.

They weren’t even hiding it. They were watching him outright.

What was this?

He didn’t have enemies in the Silver Radiance Empire. If it was about Mu Ran, then as long as he stayed on Imperial Capital’s planet, nothing should happen—and no one needed this many people just to stare.

Still, he didn’t panic.

He withdrew a large sum, then left the Star Fusion Center and headed across the street.

He’d come here because directly opposite was the largest lockforce materials exchange on Imperial Capital’s planet.

He still preferred calling them disaster materials.

For any planet struck by Slaughterstone, it was a catastrophe.

Disaster materials fit.

He’d expected trouble the moment he stepped outside, but the people watching him still only watched.

So he ignored them and entered the exchange.

A sweet-looking girl greeted him immediately, polite and practiced.

“Welcome, honored guest. What would you like to see?”