Chapter 310: The Unsurpassable Opponent

Li Yang was completely unaware of the events unfolding in the outside world—of Celestial Net's great fortune. He had just arrived at the Blade Slaughter Sect.

"Li Yang, not bad, not bad at all."

The Blade Slaughter Sect Master looked at Li Yang, his face full of smiles. "By passing the ninth step, you've brought me a great deal of glory."

After Li Yang passed the ninth step, many powerful Deities had just come to congratulate him.

Li Yang smiled and said, "It's all thanks to your excellent guidance, Master."

"Haha."

The Blade Slaughter Sect Master laughed heartily. With a wave of his right hand, two items materialized and floated before Li Yang.

Li Yang's eyes lit up when he saw them. They were the very Fire Ant Insect queen egg and Teleportation Stone that Yongli Emperor and Bone Xu Emperor had gifted him.

Watching Li Yang put the two treasures away, the Blade Slaughter Sect Master asked, "Now that you've accomplished your goal of passing the ninth step on the Path of Deities, what's next? The tenth step, I presume? How many years do you plan to take to pass it?"

"My next goal?"

Hearing the Blade Slaughter Sect Master's question, Li Yang replied respectfully, "My next goal is Mixed Void."

He answered honestly.

Now that he had completely surpassed Lan Yu, only one rival remained.

Of course, this was a long-term goal. He had little hope of achieving it anytime soon.

"'Mixed Void?'"

The Blade Slaughter Sect Master chuckled, thinking to himself, 'Li Yang certainly aims high.'

Once a genius like Mixed Void appears, they are considered impossible to surpass.

This was the consensus among the higher-ups of the Human Race.

While Li Yang currently earned the admiration of the Human Race's leadership, Mixed Void was the apple of their eye! In the future, Mixed Void could even become a Dominator-level supreme expert of the Human Race!

In the eyes of all the Human Race's leaders, ten Li Yangs likely couldn't compare to a single Mixed Void.

However, he didn't say anything to discourage his disciple. Instead, he smiled. "Mixed Void is one goal, but I have another goal for you."

"Please tell me, Master," Li Yang said at once.

The Blade Slaughter Sect Master smiled. "I hope that you can pass all twelve steps of the Path of Deities within a hundred years."

Hearing this, a thought stirred in Li Yang's mind. 'All twelve steps of the Path of Deities?'

At this point, with his level of comprehension of the laws, he could actually break through and become a Star Lord.

But Li Yang chose not to break through.

Many other geniuses could have also broken through, but none of them did.

This was because the Human Race's Eternal Saint Hall only invested its full resources into cultivating geniuses while they were in the Longevity Realm. During this time, they could stay in the Lianyun Mountain Range, observe deconstructed laws in the void, and so on...

These were opportunities that were hard to come by in the outside world.

Once they broke through, they could no longer stay in the Lianyun Mountain Range to cultivate in peace, and they would lose access to the various cultivation resources and benefits.

Most critically, they would lose the incredibly precious inheritance opportunities!

During the one-hundred-year period, a genius at the base of the Lianyun Mountain Range would receive five inheritance opportunities. A genius on the mountainside would receive ten, and a genius at the summit would receive twenty!

If they broke through and left early, they would naturally forfeit any remaining inheritance opportunities.

Even if one was in a hurry to reach the Star Lord Realm, the speed of comprehending laws was roughly the same in both the Longevity and Star Lord Realms, so there was no real difference.

Given that, it was better to remain in the Longevity Realm for a while longer.

Moreover, and most critically, these hundred years in the Longevity Realm determined how the Human Race's Eternal Saint Hall would continue to nurture a genius.

The better one's performance and the stronger one became during this hundred-year period, the greater the benefits and resources the Human Race's Eternal Saint Hall would invest in them once they became a Star Lord.

Conversely, if their performance was poor, the resources granted by the Human Race's Eternal Saint Hall after they became a Star Lord would be scarce.

Therefore, every genius did their utmost to become stronger during this hundred-year period. The more they achieved, the greater the benefits they would receive upon reaching the Star Lord Realm!

Almost every genius would stay for the full one hundred years.

However, there was one exception: the twelfth step of the Path of Deities!

Anyone who passed all twelve steps within the hundred-year period would be rewarded with ten extra inheritance opportunities!

Furthermore, if they finished in less than one hundred years, they would receive all the inheritance opportunities for the remaining time in one lump sum!

To be specific, say Mixed Void passed the twelfth step of the Path of Deities in twenty years. He would still have eighty years of his cultivation period remaining. Since a genius at the summit of the Lianyun Mountain Range receives one inheritance opportunity every five years, Mixed Void would have sixteen inheritance opportunities remaining from that period, which he would receive all at once!

Combined with the ten additional opportunities from the reward, Mixed Void would receive a total of twenty-six inheritance opportunities immediately after passing the twelfth step!

At that point, he could choose to break through and become a Star Lord immediately.

Passing the twelfth step signified an incredibly profound foundation in the Longevity Realm. Upon breaking through to the Star Lord Realm, one would be guaranteed top-tier resources and cultivation from the Human Race Saint Hall!

Every genius who passed the twelfth step was held in the highest regard by the Human Race's Eternal Saint Hall.

After passing, the cultivation resources one received in the Star Lord Realm were guaranteed to be far better than what they had in the Longevity Realm. Only a fool wouldn't break through at that point.

"So, what do you think? Are you confident?" the Blade Slaughter Sect Master asked with a smile.

In reality, among Li Yang's current generation of geniuses, only Mixed Void was considered to have any real hope of achieving this.

The chances for Li Yang and Lan Yu were slim. Take Li Yang, for instance: it had taken him fifteen years to reach the ninth step, and there were still three more steps remaining!

The difficulty of these three steps increased with each step!

Even with his multiple avatars, including his Fire Nether Divine Beast avatar that had been constantly training in its clan's Inheritance Tower, it had taken him one year to get from the seventh to the eighth step, but a full five years to get from the eighth to the ninth!

At his current rate of progress, a rough estimate suggested it would take him over a decade to pass the tenth step.

Passing the eleventh step would take more than fifty years.

And to pass the twelfth, it would take at least a hundred years or more.

Therefore, his chances of doing it within a hundred years were not great.

In the entire history of the Human Race, it took tens, or even hundreds, of billions of years for a monstrous genius to appear who could pass the twelfth step while still in the Longevity Realm and thus end their hundred-year training period early.

It was clearly a very difficult goal.

The last such genius had appeared 120 billion years ago!

Of course, for this generation, Mixed Void was a shoo-in. He had already passed the eleventh step, and the only thing the Human Race's experts were debating was exactly how early he would leave the Lianyun Mountain Range and break through to the Star Lord Realm.

Hearing his master's words, Li Yang's expression grew solemn. "I will do my utmost, Master!"

"Good." The Blade Slaughter Sect Master smiled, unafraid of putting pressure on Li Yang.

The rise of a truly peerless expert was always fraught with countless crises. To a genius, a little pressure was nothing more than motivation!

'What would it matter if he failed? A goal is only challenging because it's difficult.'