After selling all the monster carcasses at the Sweep City black market, Lin Huang made some money and got back to Victoria City next to the Peaceful Ocean via his dimensional portal. He wanted to change his environment as he had been staying in Sweep City for more than a month. Victoria City that had beaches around seemed to be an excellent choice.
As he settled down in Victoria City, Lin Huang started to dwell on his training again and stayed in his hotel room all day. He was stuck practicing telekinesis earlier as he was restricted by his combat level and spiritual strength whereby he failed to divide more telekinetic threads. Since he had leveled up, he started practicing Seamless again.
After practicing for a day, he managed to increase the number of telekinetic threads from 8,000 to 9,000, but he came to a plateau again. He then started practicing Sword Dao the next day. His speed was obviously slower this time. Although he had reached Void Breaker, which was the level-5 of Sword Dao, he was still slow at learning Oblivion. When he had been practicing Illumination earlier, he would get up to 1,000 card pieces, and three practices would earn him a complete Skill Card. Including the time he spent looking at the video tutorials, it only took him 20 minutes to get a complete Skill Card.
However, Lin Huang could only master Oblivion after watching the tutorials for two to three hours and would only get 20 to 30 card pieces. Sometimes, he would just get slightly more than ten card pieces. The sword skill required tens of thousands of card pieces to make a complete card, and the most were 15,000 card pieces to form a card. Lin Huang had to spend the entire day and sometimes two days to get a complete Skill Card after practicing the skill hundreds of times.
"This is too slow. There are more than 700 sword skills. Even if I learn one a day, I'll take two years to learn all of them." After practicing for a few days, Lin Huang thought this method would not work. Since he did not have any better solution, he proceeded to practice anyway. The slow sword skill training meant the leveling up of his Sword Dao had slowed down as well. Lin Huang had been training for the past week at that dull, boring speed.
One night, Lin Huang's Emperor's Heart Ring started vibrating when he was training after 10 p.m. He picked up the call immediately when he realized that it was Chan Dou.
"Wow, it's been a month since you last logged into the Genius Union!" Chan Dao smiled at Lin Huang as soon as the video call was connected.
"I think it's just been a month." Lin Huang looked at the date and realized that it was already 29th June.
"It's the last day of June tomorrow. Will you be climbing the tree again?" Chan Dou asked.
"Forget about it. Even if I manage to climb a couple more checkpoints, I won't be able to get to the 63rd one, so it's meaningless. The monthly reward is nothing interesting anyway." Lin Huang shook his head. He was not interested in the Stairway Tree's monthly reward.
"It's okay if you don't log into the Genius Union, but your account will be temporarily suspended if you don't log in for three months and the application to release the suspension is troublesome. You'll be suspended permanently if you don't log in for six months and you'll need the organization director to submit the application for you. If you don't log in for a year, you'll be blacklisted by the Emperor's Heart," Chan Dou reminded him.
"I know. They do this so that they won't waste resources on someone who's dead. The Emperor's Heart will treat someone as missing if one doesn't log in for more than three months." Lin Huang confirmed that he had heard of the condition from Yao Lan before.
"That's right, so please log in before you reach three months."
"Oh yeah, is there any update on the bizarre seed that you asked me about earlier?"
"I've been inserting Life Power into it throughout the 20 days, but nothing has happened. There's no way for me to activate it." Lin Huang did not hide the truth. He had seen the comments that Chan Dou posted to protect him and knew that he was a trustworthy friend.
"Perhaps your Life Power level is too low," Chan Dou concluded after giving it some thought.
"Then, I shall put it aside and try again when I get to immortal-level."
"Why not try inserting something else such as spirit, telekinesis, or Dao? I heard it doesn't have to be Life Power. You can insert some other energy," Chan Dou suggested.
"Another type of energy…" Lin Huang thought of Sword Dao. Would something beneficial happen to his cultivation if he were to insert Sword Dao?
"I'll try that later!" Lin Huang responded.
"Is there anything that you're looking for me for apart from reminding me to log into the Genius Union?"
"Yes, but that depends if you have the time or not." Chan Dou nodded and smiled.
"I'm mainly training nowadays as my combat level is too low. I'd like to break through to immortal-level as soon as possible. I'm not exactly busy, so let me know what, and I'll try to spare some time."
"Someone discovered new ruins not far away from Division 3 today. The Union Government will launch the ruins officially within these few days. I heard that the ruins are only opened to holy fire-levels and immortal-levels whereby imperial-levels are prohibited from entering. The Division 3 Union Government has announced that Divisions 1 and two aren't allowed to be involved in this. It's only opened to the people in Division 3. I plan to apply for 30 seats for the Heaven Alliance, and I'll include you if you're interested."
"Only 30?" Lin Huang thought that the quota was rather low.
"All of the organizations in Divisions 1 and 2 get 30 seats each. It's set by the Division 3 Union Government." Chan Dou's smile held an element of teasing. "But that's enough for the Heaven Alliance as we don't have many members in Division 3 anyway. Including you, there are only 23 of us. I'm sending seven more just to fill the seats."
"Didn't they say that Divisions 1 and two aren't allowed to interfere?" Lin Huang raised an eyebrow.
"That's what they said to prevent the main members of the Genius Union from going. If any of us go, the other immortal-levels in Division 3 won't stand a chance at all. They thought if the names that are submitted are unheard of, the applicants aren't powerful. That's why a full name list has to be included in the application. There might even be demigods there; they don't want to let just anybody in."
Lin Huang's heart skipped a beat when he heard there might be demigods. An imperial-level would definitely see through his disguise, let alone a demigod. However, he was slightly relieved when he recalled that he still had four Disguise Cards with him to last him for four days.
"Besides me, who else is going?" Lin Huang asked.
"I wanted to bring all of us from Division 3 there since everything we get in the ruins will belong to us individually. Besides all of you, I'll get some of them from the headquarters. They'll send people who are immortal-level rank-7 and rank-8. There's only one immortal-level rank-9 there. There's two immortal-level rank-9s in Division 3. Three of them should be enough. I'm afraid the submission might fail if we have more," Chan Dou explained.
"How about the other organizations?" Lin Huang asked.
"The Hong Alliance and the Tang Alliance are almost the same as us, but I'm not sure about the local organizations in Division 3. What I'm sure is that many of the immortal-level rank-9 seniors in Division 3 will be there, including those who have retired as well as imperial-levels from the Genius Union who have yet to level up. Also, the Overlord Alliance in Division 3 isn't bad too. They are ranked No. 12 in the Genius Union. They have three immortal-level rank-9 supreme geniuses with them. I'm not sure about other organizations, but the competition is intense."
"Alright then, count me in." Lin Huang went silent for a moment before nodding and agreeing to join.
"Sure, I'll let you know the details after the application has been approved. Prepare yourself within these few days." Chan Dou hung up the call after reminding him as he proceeded to inform the rest.
"Ruins in a chaotic place…" Lin Huang was excited as he thought about it. He had never left the safe zone. The ruins would be the first chaotic land out of the safe zone that he would go to.