What happened in the second layer of the Abyss Brink brought people from the mainland to investigate. The conclusion was that although the cracks were expanding at a slow pace, it would take at least five years for the creatures from the other side to enter the Abyss Brink. The mainland even gathered a group of demigods to seal the space. Tens of techniques were used, but none of them worked.
The news soon spread and many transcendent- levels in the community found out about it. Besides the core zones, even the safe zones heard of the story. Under the Union Government's strict orders, the news did not spread to people below transcendent-level. Lin Huang could sense that the crisis was getting more intense. He heard about the catastrophe that had happened 800 years ago from Mr. Fu. If something similar happened, even Virtual Gods might not survive the disaster. He knew very well that the five-year period was not just hearsay.
"Seems like imperial-level isn't enough anymore. I must get to Virtual God or even True God within five years!" Lin Huang gave himself a new target. He did not have the ambition of saving the world, at least not now. All he hoped for was not to die in the coming war. Throughout the coming days, besides sleeping, Lin Huang spent his time training his telekinesis. His usual three meals a day were consolidated into a single breakfast for him. He even used his telekinesis to order take-out food for himself. If the lack of food did not affect his health, he might have even skipped breakfast. Skipping meals for a week would not affect holy fire-level humans, but it would be detrimental if it exceeded more than a week.
On the second day after the news of the Abyss Brink broke, Lin Huang had broken through level-3 of Seamless and managed to divide 3,000 threads. He had arrived at the Devil's Psykid's level. After that, he spent a week achieving the division of 8,000 strands. He could finally slow down at level-4 of Seamless training. Although his Divine Telekinesis was powerful, his spirit was restricted by his low combat level which resulted in greater thread division.
However, after ten days of non-stop training, Lin Huang's telekinetic power was strong enough to kill the immortal-level rank-6 Devil's Psykid that he had encountered earlier. Within that week, Hu Lu had ordered two supreme telekinetic weapons made of 360 flying daggers. By then, he had more than 1,000 telekinetic flying daggers with him. With the three weapons, his combat strength in telekinesis was nothing lower than his Sword Dao's.
After the ten days in Sweep City, Yao Lan finally contacted Lin Huang again. She sent a short message: "8 p.m. tonight, Sweep Gourmet. Room 301. There's something good for you."
He was not surprised that Yao Lan knew he was in Sweep City. After all, the city was the Yao family's territory, and nothing could escape them. Since his training had stagnated these two days, Lin Huang agreed to meet her right away since he was not busy anyway.
At 7.50 p.m., he arrived at the Sweep Gourmet ten minutes before the agreed time. A female staff brought him to Room 301. Just as the staff was serving him tea, Yao Lan walked into the room with a young man who looked like he was in his mid-twenties. The man was a rank higher than Yao Lan on immortal-level rank-4. Lin Huang had his guard up. Just in one glance, Lin Huang could tell that the man was also a supreme genius and his ability might exceed immortal-level rank-9.
"Lin Xie, let me introduce you guys. This is Huangfu Hao from the Huangfu family," Yao Lan introduced the both of them.
"Hao Zi, this is the Lin Xie that I told you about."
The Huangfu family was the second most prominent family in Sweep City whereby their overall ability was level with the Yao family, and they were not too far apart. Lin Huang had heard of Huangfu Hao before. He was a supreme genius among the Huangfu family's younger generation.
"I heard from Xiao Lan that you have a mind-blowing ability. Attack me with all you have," Huangfu Hao challenged directly after checking Lin Huang out.
"Hao Zi, let's eat first…" Yao Lan frowned.
"Xiao Lan, I know you would prefer to take this slow, but you know that I'm impatient. I'm used to finishing business first." Huangfu Hao raised his hand to stop Yao Lan from talking. Then he looked at Lin Huang.
"If you manage to win my trust, I'll apologize for my absurd attitude later."
"So, this is the 'good' stuff you told me about?" Lin Huang raised his eyebrow as he looked at Yao Lan.
"This guy has a low EQ. Please don't take it personally," Yao Lan explained helplessly.
"Don't mind him. Let's eat first. We'll talk about it later."
"We don't have to do that. Let's get straight to business." Lin Huang took a sip of his tea and put the teacup down.
"Alright then." Noticing that the atmosphere was tense and nobody had the appetite to eat, she agreed to what Lin Huang suggested.
"We would like to invite you to join the Sweep Alliance."
"The Sweep Alliance?" Lin Huang had never heard of such an organization.
"The Sweep Alliance is a special organization that was founded by geniuses more than 300 years ago. All of the members of the organization are geniuses. There are supreme geniuses among them including myself and Huangfu Hao," Yao Lan explained.
"A genius organization?" Lin Huang had heard from Mr. Fu that it would be best if he could join such an organization when he arrived at the core zone because some of the rare ruins and special mysterious lands were opened only to genius organizations. However, different genius organizations would have different criteria whereby some of them would thoroughly investigate the person before allowing one to join. That was why Lin Huang did not have high hopes of joining any genius organization from the beginning as his identity was fake. It would mean trouble for him if he got investigated.
"Yes, our Sweep Alliance is more flexible. You can join as long as you have at least two members who recommend you. Although more than a third of the members are locals, we don't have any requirement about the member's origin, so we won't dig into your personal details. It's alright even if you're coming from an underground organization as long as you have impressive abilities and aren't involved in any other genius organizations. However, the reason why the terms are flexible is that our organization is less powerful compared to the other genius organizations," Yao Lan told Lin Huang the reason why she had asked him to join.
"The powerful genius organizations in Division 1 wouldn't need to recruit members as all the powerful geniuses would go to them on their own."
"Are there any restrictions after joining the organization?" Lin Huang asked.
"The management is very flexible as it's not a formal organization, but it still is a beneficial one. Let me send you the offer letter since it's nothing confidential," Yao Lan said and sent the offer letter to Lin Huang. He started reading it as soon as he received the document. There was nothing strict on the member duty list. There were only three requirements. The first one would be to claim the Stairway Tree as often as the member could, while another would be to explore the ruins and mysterious lands while the last one would be to join at least one battle hunt once a year.
"What's the Stairway Tree?" It was Lin Huang's first time hearing about that.
"It's no surprise that you've no idea what that is. The Stairway Tree is a tree in the virtual world that only genius organization members are eligible to climb. The higher you climb, the more points you'll get. Not only will it be added to your total points in the genius organization, but you can also use the points to redeem items. Those who rank on top will enjoy rewards every month. Ancient relics, demigod relics… As long as you have enough points, you can redeem almost everything at the Stairway Mall."
"I supposed it's not as simple as climbing a tree." Lin Huang knew instantly that it would not be that straightforward when he heard Yao Lan's explanation.
"Of course not. Climbing the tree is just the tip of the iceberg. The difficult part is fighting with the rest. The capacity of the tree is limited at different heights, so competition is inevitable. You'll know the exact rules when you get there," Yao Lan explained it vaguely.
"Sounds interesting." Lin Huang thought everything sounded fine after reading the offer letter that Yao Lan had sent him. He then turned around and looked at Huangfu Hao.
"So, you're the second referrer?"
"That's right, but you'll have to win my trust before I can recommend you," Huangfu Hao said directly.
"Sure, let's fight." It was clear that Lin Huang agreed to Yao Lan's invitation.
"Can't you guys fight after dinner? I'm hungry…" Yao Lan whined helplessly.
"No!" Lin Huang and Huangfu Hao exclaimed at the same time.