As the tribulation of advancement truly concluded, Starfire Oasis began its rapid expansion.
The oasis land continuously spread, shattering the gray fog with immense power, even altering the surrounding terrain.
The initial environment of Starfire Oasis was merely a small mountain valley. As the oasis upgraded and expanded, the valley transformed into the oasis's land and mountains, extending all the way to the rock face of the Falling Star Great Domain.
And at this moment, the Great Domain rock face was also pushed open.
This was the rule! When an oasis advanced and expanded in area, everything would conform to the oasis!
Not only the land changed, but infinite vitality erupted from the core of the oasis, and the scale of resource points also grew. More profound divine wonders descended, and even demi-gods within the oasis sensed it.
They couldn't precisely discern this power, only feeling that their entire beings seemed more spirited.
"It is the favor of destiny."
Fang You mused internally.
The strange realm was like decaying wood, but on this decaying wood, some places stubbornly grew new sprouts. Humans were the caretakers of these sprouts, helping them grow strong while also enjoying the gifts of the strange realm.
He guessed so.
As the lord of the oasis, controlling its core, Fang You's perspective also ascended with the oasis's advancement, allowing him to overlook mountains, land, stars, and sun with a single thought.
This experience was not unfamiliar to him; it was a 'pseudo-high-level divine sense posture.'
"Is this the authority of a Level Nine Oasis?"
He wondered.
Before the advancement, Fang You was unaware of the specific authorities of a Level Nine Oasis.
The Everwinter Empire had not made it public, and the Yunhui Seven Kingdoms, Guyue Honglian, and other kingdoms kept it even tighter. Their XinHuo had only vaguely learned that the specific authorities of different Level Nine Oases were not entirely the same.
Fang You opened his panel to check.
After waiting for a while longer, fragments of profound information also flowed into his soul.
He pondered them carefully and made a slight attempt.
"'Pseudo-high-level divine sense posture' is a derivative ability of Authority One: 'World's Protection'."
"As long as the Oasis Lord is within the oasis's boundaries, they can mobilize the world's power condensed by the oasis to temporarily possess combat power comparable to the high-level."
This mode was very familiar to Instructor Fang.
In higher extraterrestrial worlds, as long as one gained the world's recognition, they could wield the world's authority and mobilize its power... It was reasonable for this realm, whose plane surpassed countless others, to possess similar abilities.
But the two were not entirely the same.
The world's power of Blue Star was more freely mobilized, but to exert high-level combat power, one needed to understand how to operate it and meet certain conditions.
This world's power was not limited to cultivation and augmenting combat power.
The 'World's Protection' of a Level Nine Oasis must operate according to predetermined rules.
This was a form of protection that, as long as it was used, could burn world power, allowing the Oasis Lord to temporarily enter a pseudo-high-level state.
The two had their pros and cons.
The latter was easier to use, but its upper and lower limits were fixed, and it couldn't be used to play with world power creatively. It was impossible to burn it as faith firewood and augment a specific skill, as Fang You did.
"And this mode of world power is stronger than ordinary higher worlds, well, approximately equivalent to Blue Star after fusing two World Shard Stones."
"As the Level Nine Oasis continues to expand and accumulate power, 'World's Protection' can be further strengthened."
With this authority, it could be said that the survival capability of major overlord forces had rapidly increased.
No wonder overlords would risk losses to forge a Level Nine Oasis.
Well, Blue Star had currently fused seven World Shard Stones.
'World's Protection' was a shared authority of Level Nine Oases, while the other authority, 'Oasis Divine Artifact,' varied among different oases.
"The Oasis Divine Artifact needs the combined power of the entire oasis to forge, evolving through rules."
It requires time.
It requires three Crimson-grade materials, thirty Legend-grade materials, and a certain amount of world power to stir.
Compared to the true power of an Oasis Divine Artifact, these materials were nothing.
Because, if judged by grade, an Oasis Divine Artifact was half a grade higher than a Crimson-grade strange artifact.
However, similar to the previous authority, the Oasis Divine Artifact relied on the oasis for its existence, could not be taken out of the oasis, and a second one could not be forged.
The specific authorities of the Oasis Divine Artifact were determined the moment the Level Nine Oasis advanced.
"And the divine artifact our Starfire Oasis can forge, well..."
It could roughly be called 'Holy Fire Bright,' and its abilities mainly manifested as aura buffs.
It could greatly boost morale, greatly resist the erosion of filth, increase the 'power of holy fire,' and for a certain duration, grant all warriors almost infinite life energy.
This was worthy of the name 'divine artifact'!
As for more specific effects, they would only be known after it was forged.
"I wonder what abilities the divine artifacts of other Level Nine Oases have. Are they also support-oriented, or are there divine artifacts for direct offense?"
He had no way of knowing.
He could only find a way to develop the Burning Fire Oasis to Level Nine and give birth to a second Oasis Divine Artifact.
Fang You entrusted the forging of the divine artifact to Master Wang Chui.
He had only one requirement: speed.
An Oasis Divine Artifact was not a treasure weapon in the conventional sense; after forging, it still needed to be nurtured and could continuously strengthen with the passage of time and the oasis's growth.
—Although, the three Crimson-grade materials that met the conditions, emmm, still hadn't been fully gathered.
It didn't matter; they could collect materials while forging.
He had hundreds of thousands of workers in XinHuo; why worry about finding materials?
The strange evil tide that lasted for three days and three nights had also left behind many precious materials.
The higher the grade of the material, the more resistant it was and the less likely it was to be easily damaged by the aftermath... This made Fang You feel a little less heartbroken.
The soldiers who had fought for a long time had returned home to rest, and their contributions would be distributed after statistics were compiled.
The elite awakened ones who had been rotating and on standby within the city now emerged from the city and stepped onto the terrifying land littered with corpses. However, not many showed fear; they could see terrifying strange evil corpses, or mountains of gold and silver.
Collecting and excavating materials outside the city.
Repairing damaged buildings within the city.
This cleanup work took a full week to complete. Especially the excavation and incineration of strange evil corpses outside the city, Little Huan expressed that it was more troublesome than annihilating a hundred million strange evils.
...
Waterflood Kingdom.
"Pure Water Lord, in another half a year, the capital city can be roughly restored to its original appearance. However, to truly repair all the rituals across the land and restore them to their previous level will take at least another one to two years."
One or two years was not long.
It was just that with disaster looming, time seemed a bit tight.
Demi-God Pure Water nodded slightly.
"Regardless, we have advanced to a Level Nine Oasis; all sacrifices were worth it."
...
"This battle consumed strange crystals, potions, weapons... but it was worth it~"
With Little Huan around, the data statistics were clear and transparent.
This battle consumed countless resources of immense value. However, thanks to the city not suffering much damage, the value of consumed resources was roughly equal to the combat gains—setting aside destiny points and the benefits brought by the oasis upgrade.
And the drops from the strange evils, the highest value among them were three things.
Divine Origin, Divine Origin, and Divine Origin.
Three high-level strange evils contributed the strategic treasures that XinHuo needed most urgently.
Qian Hong immediately absorbed the essence of law from the Divine Origins. The remaining damaged Divine Origins were taken by Fang You to the Pavilion of Time for re-energization.
Instantly,
Qian Hong's combat power increased by a large margin. The use of the Secret Realm of Time could also be less stingy.
He immediately upgraded the benefits for Yiluoxi, Xing Jinglei, and others to the first priority.
"Thanks to the strange evil 'old iron' for the gifts."
During this period, Fang You also had Yin Ling perform a physical examination on Chi Yan.
According to the conclusion of the previous examination: Chi Yan's body and soul were severely damaged, many abilities could not be used, and her memory was fragmented... Her strength could be said to be less than one-tenth of its peak.
For the sake of caution, Fang You did not count Chi Yan as a combatant.
He worried that fighting while injured might leave Chi Yan with some irreparable sequelae, which would be terrible.
But he never expected that in the blink of an eye, Chi Yan would charge forward and tear apart two high-level strange evils.
"Her displayed combat power wasn't as strong as the summoning card, but it was still beyond imagination."
"Most importantly, after 'fighting while injured' for this period, Chi Yan's injuries not only did not worsen but even recovered somewhat."
Let alone Fang You, even Yin Ling couldn't understand the intricacies of this.
Yin Ling shrugged, "After all, I'm just a physician. But Mentor, are you not considering letting Miss Chi Yan stay and cooperate with research for a while... As a researcher, of course, sufficient experimental data is needed to draw conclusions."
Fang You pondered for a moment, then looked at Chi Yan with a questioning gaze.
Chi Yan, wearing a loose white coat that seemed to drag on the ground, had just stepped down from the experimental table... examination equipment. Hearing this, she was startled and looked at the simple white medical room, the various instruments whose purpose was unclear, and the physician Yin Ling whose eyes flickered with an unnerving light...
She scurried behind Fang You, shaking her head repeatedly.
No way!
...
The Level Nine Oasis upgrade, in addition to authorities, also gave birth to two precious resource veins that could continuously produce Legend-grade materials.
The annual output of other resources also significantly increased.
After Instructor Fang gritted his teeth and spent a huge amount of destiny points to upgrade some of these resource points to Lv9, these resource lands had a small chance of producing Crimson-grade materials.
Ah, no wonder other overlord forces tried their best to advance their oases.
Even with over a hundred mythical 'workers,' he still found these gratuitous Crimson-grade materials appealing.
Well, the next step is to quickly advance the Burning Fire Oasis to Level Eight, then to Level Nine.
Additionally, the remaining two slots for integrating oases could be chosen in the West Strange Realm and the South Strange Realm, settling down in each.
These days, XinHuo had been continuously collecting intelligence from the outside world.
Shortly after their own oasis advanced, the Scarlet Sand Kingdom, with the strength of the entire nation, advanced a Level Nine Oasis. Their advancement was even smoother than that of the Waterflood Kingdom.
As a result, only the Mountain Rock Kingdom and the Wind Roar Kingdom among the Seven Kingdoms had yet to advance to a Level Nine Oasis.
And just in these past few days, a major overlord force in the West Strange Realm, the Great Mi Chaos City in the Shattered Sea of the East Strange Realm, also advanced.
The Mountain Rock Kingdom and the Wind Roar Kingdom had not only become the bottom two among the Seven Kingdoms but also the bottom two among all overlord forces.
The pressure instantly fell upon these two kingdoms.
But what did that have to do with their XinHuo? (︶▽︶)
At the same time,
The Mountain Rock Kingdom was purchasing ten thousand batches of strategic materials from the XinHuo Academy, including discarded strange crystal giant cannons and plant seeds.
A Mountain Rock myth sighed, "This XinHuo Academy not only possesses cutting-edge technology but also has a high output of weapons. It complements our Mountain Rock Kingdom's weakness in strategic weapons. Once this batch of weapons is installed, we can begin our advancement war. We must race ahead of the Wind Roar Kingdom, otherwise, it would be quite embarrassing."
Another Mountain Rock myth stroked his chin, "Speaking of which, XinHuo Academy is now also ranked in the advanced seats and is a major overlord force. Isn't XinHuo Academy behind us Mountain Rock and Wind Roar?"
They were not the bottom two overlords at all.
... At least, they were in the top three.
And they would never be the absolute last.
"But XinHuo Academy doesn't operate oases. Comparing them to us..."
They still couldn't afford to lose face.
Of course, based on general theory, they believed that XinHuo Academy operated some oases. Otherwise, where would the high output of materials and equipment from XinHuo Academy come from? The academy's secret realm couldn't accommodate so many factories.
It was just that XinHuo Academy primarily operated secret realms, and oases were just a secondary concern... like the unimportant outlying territories of their Mountain Rock Kingdom.
The paths were different, how could they compare?
To not be at the bottom, they still had to rely on themselves!
...
XinHuo Academy's secret realm was currently docked in the West Strange Realm, engaging in friendly economic and student exchanges with several overlord forces here.
On this day, Fang You temporarily set aside the myriad affairs of Starfire Oasis and hurried here.
He didn't need to personally manage the oasis. After the war, Liu Feng returned to the academy to take charge.
However, a message just received made him rush here.
Fang You looked at Ruo Shi, the trial officer, "You're saying the Central Trial Ground is about to appear? How do you know this?"
There wasn't any sign of it.
Neither in the world nor among other overlord forces.
"How to say this..." Miss Ruo couldn't explain it clearly for a moment, "It's a feeling, a feeling that you understand, right? I'm also a trial officer, and Trial Ground 404 is a lower-tier version of the Central Trial Ground. It's reasonable for me to have some intuition."
Quite reasonable.
Since Miss Ruo said so, they would begin preparing for battle.
He didn't know the challenges or trial formats of the Central Trial Ground, but it didn't matter; just charge ahead.
Several demi-gods, over a hundred mythical beings, all young geniuses, who could possibly lose?!
It was just that he was more concerned about whether they would be targeted by evil god servants at that time.
He needed to make some safety precautions.
...
In a secret place in the strange realm.
An ancient existence issued a prophecy.
"Soon, the human ruins, the Kandra Trial Ground, will officially appear."
"What's worth paying attention to in human things?"
"No, humans are not, but the perished Kandra Empire is different. They, using human bodies, actually created weapons that can harm evil gods. If we can obtain these weapons, the plan will have a greater chance of success."
"But the Kandra Empire, proud of being the 'Radiant Nation' and the 'Godless Nation,' has always been at odds with us ancient gods."
"Heh, humans!"
"It's not a problem; this deity will act."
"If the Kandra Empire were still around, this deity would be wary, but just a ruin operating according to set rules... substituting an identity to enter it is not difficult."
"Moreover, many old friends who have returned after reincarnation are now in human bodies."
Rumbling sounds echoed within the secret place.
Ancient beings gathered here, and then quickly dispersed, leaving only the profound essence of laws lingering in the heavens and earth.