Chapter 45 A Surprising Discovery

This oval scale, over ten kilometers in length and width, was more than 800 meters thick at its thickest point, and that was after being compressed and reduced in size.

Xu Jingming observed some of the scale's minute structures.

He couldn't peer into the most core "source force foundational life structure," only some of the superficial layers.

"Too perfect," Xu Jingming said, looking at it. "Even the most superficial structure of the scale is so perfect."

This most superficial structure was far more perfect than the tenth-order source life's structure that he had been researching.

Its structure was like a vast and disciplined army! Countless parts worked together perfectly! This perfection left Xu Jingming breathless, making him look up in awe. He understood in his heart that this was a slight characteristic of a high-dimensional life.

"Seeing a leopard through a tube, one can see a spot."

Xu Jingming also understood that he was only seeing the tip of the iceberg. From this, one could see how complex the life structure of a high-dimensional life form was. No wonder so few people in the history of the human race had become supreme realm existences.

As time passed, Xu Jingming gleaned more and more information, even peering through the superficial layers to see deeper parts.

"Chi chi chi."

Xu Jingming's eyes turned into vertical pupils, and a layer of black scales began to appear on the surface of his skin.

"Hmm?" Xu Jingming immediately woke up, controlling his self-life structure. The black scales that had condensed on the surface of his skin dissipated, and his eyes returned to normal.

Xu Jingming didn't take it seriously, because the Yuanchu Research Institute's database had long recorded that contact with higher dimensions would also be influenced by them. Xu Jingming's evolution method stemmed from the high-dimensional life, Celestial Python, so it was natural to be easily affected by the Celestial Python's scale.

"I was only affected by immersing myself in observation, yet the Prison race monarchs directly integrate high-dimensional objects into their bodies," Xu Jingming thought to himself with emotion. He wouldn't dare to integrate this Celestial Python scale into his body, no matter how crazy he was.

If he really integrated it, he estimated that he himself would lose control.

"Store." With a wave of his hand, Xu Jingming directly stored the Celestial Python scale into the miniature auxiliary space carried by his No. 9 Yuanchu battle armor. The miniature auxiliary space was a spherical space with a diameter of over 30,000 kilometers. The Celestial Python scale could be stored even without compression.

Of course, very few tenth-order source lives possessed such a vast auxiliary space.

"Stored within the Yuanchu battle armor's auxiliary space, I can observe and comprehend it at any time." Xu Jingming's mind power could easily penetrate it.

"Let's go back."

With a step, Xu Jingming traveled through space-time, returning to the distant Black Iron Star.

Black Iron Star was the garrison base guarded by him, Senior Brother Jian, and Senior Brother Yi Jiu. It needed to be kept secret and wasn't suitable to tell Senior Brother Saka and Mr. Lan Xie.

One of the planets in the vast territory of the Yuanxing Civilization royal family, one of the three major human civilizations in the universe. This planet was also one of the planets granted to Lu Naxing by the royal family.

Lu Naxing lived in seclusion here.

After he became a tenth-order at a young age, he was still in the accumulation stage and hadn't been sent to the front lines.

"Finally got it."

Lu Naxing was in a large laboratory deep underground on the planet. He looked excitedly at the black mask in front of him. There was an embedded groove on the forehead of the mask. "I actually found this mask carrier."

A peculiar crystal slowly emerged from between Lu Naxing's eyebrows. The black mask also flew up, actively welcoming the crystal.

When the crystal flew into the embedded groove, the surface of the entire mask shone with a surge of black light, emitting a rich dark aura.

"Phew."

The black mask was worn on Lu Naxing's face, merging into his skin.

"Master, I have finally found the mask carrier, and the auxiliary ability has been completely restored." A joyful voice sounded in Lu Naxing's mind.

"The Twelve Masks of Darkness… I actually obtained a complete one." Lu Naxing revealed a look of excitement. "Legend has it that in the distant past, a supreme realm existence of the human race, the Mother of Darkness, wanted to cultivate source lives, so she created twelve masks. Each of the twelve masks had magical effects, but the human race has experienced many catastrophes, and history has been interrupted many times. The supreme realm existences of the ancient times died one by one, and only two of the twelve masks are still passed down, one in the Time-Space Islet and one within the Abyss Civilization royal family."

"I never expected that I would coincidentally obtain a complete Dark Mask." Lu Naxing was very excited.

He had talent in his evolutionary path. The reason he could achieve his current achievements was also due to a chance encounter when he was young. He obtained the core of the mask by chance on a native planet, but without the mask carrier, the core could only exert less than 10% of its power.

It could only operate completely with a carrier.

"With a complete Dark Mask, I hope to borrow the power of higher dimensions."

Lu Naxing asked, "Master, I am best at the direction of darkness, and the most compatible with the *Yuanchu Star Conjecture* is naturally the dark chapter in the core. With the master's accumulation to reach the tenth-order level, I believe the master will soon be able to borrow the power of higher dimensions," the Dark Mask responded.

*Yuanchu Star Conjecture* core nine chapters! Xu Jingming obtained the inheritance of the light chapter! Lu Naxing obtained the inheritance of the dark chapter!

The Yuanchu Star, besides the light side, also had a dark side. Xu Jingming had already comprehended this at the eighth-order Starry Sky life stage.

"The Mother of Darkness is, after all, a high-dimensional life of the first level. She is quite different compared to the Dean," Lu Naxing thought. "The Twelve Masks of Darkness are also one level below the number-ranked Yuanchu battle armor created by the Dean."

"However, a complete Dark Mask, if exchanged for merit, would be worth at least 500 million merits."

"With its help, I have a better chance of ascending the throne."

"After ascending the throne, I will have more resources and have a better chance of impacting the Cosmic Legend." Lu Naxing also had ambitions.

In terms of talent, he seemed to be very high, but he was far inferior to Xu Jingming, Chi Meng, and others. This was still on the premise that he had obtained the Dark Mask core very early. Without this assistance, the time to become a tenth-order source life would probably be several times longer.

Therefore, Lu Naxing was very self-aware and had to rely on external forces to make himself go faster.

On this day, the Eternal Academy Tower sent items one by one to the three strongest forces and to the Cosmic Human Alliance on a regular basis to exchange for merit, distributing some items to make human powerhouses hope to master stronger power and go further on the path of evolution.

However, even with the assistance of many external objects, very few Cosmic Legends were born in the human race year after year.

Xu Jingming focused on all aspects of the path of evolution. Only when tasks arrived did he immediately set off to perform them.

Because of his deterrence, the Prison race only occasionally carried out small-scale looting in some remote and marginal areas. Those places were too remote, and it took Xu Jingming a long time to rush over.

Medium and large-scale looting was the Prison race's main strategy.

"Medium and large-scale looting involves dozens of teams attacking hundreds of locations simultaneously, and I can only intercept one location."

36 years after the Eternal Academy Tower's merit exchange, Xu Jingming was standing in the sky above a life planet that had been turned into ruins. His light enveloped the planet, incinerating a Prison race leader.

The Prison race generally acted alone now, so Xu Jingming could only intercept one person each time. Very rarely could he encounter two or three acting together.

"The Prison race has also become more cunning, shortening the looting time and immediately fleeing after taking away only the most valuable items." Xu Jingming thought, "I can only manage to intercept once in each wave of looting."

After understanding Xu Jingming's methods, the Prison race naturally made some changes.

With hundreds of locations looted simultaneously, Xu Jingming could only kill at one location, so the impact was much smaller.

The Prison race was more cautious! Making the interception efficiency of human tenth-order source lives and ninth-order source life teams very low. Fortunately, there were enough human source lives, scattered in various places, and they could also successfully intercept those who were nearby.

"Phew."

First wave of action, second wave, third wave, fourth wave, fifth wave…

Because of the small losses, the Prison race continued to carry out looting. Teams that suffered certain losses retreated, and teams that suffered no losses continued to loot.

The human side was also intercepting, but they would also encounter the Prison race monarchs, so there would naturally be casualties.

"The 79th wave."

Xu Jingming patiently waited for the next order in a cosmic starry sky.

"This time, it has lasted for 79 waves, which means that some Prison race teams have suffered very little loss in 79 consecutive waves of looting and are still continuing to loot." Xu Jingming had no choice. This was what medium and large-scale looting was like.

"Although looting a thousand life planets is like a drop of water in the ocean for the entire Celestial Python Cosmic Domain, it is a catastrophe for each of those planets." Xu Jingming was still working hard.

He went all out for every mission, rushing to the destination as quickly as possible.

He tried to deter those Prison race, and it had achieved a certain effect. Compared to before Xu Jingming's arrival, the degree of looting in the three Cosmic Domains bordering the Prison race had been reduced by about one-third.

"There's another task." Xu Jingming waited in place for more than an hour before suddenly receiving another task.

The Prison race was carrying out the 80th wave of looting.

Each wave of looting was separated by a period of time. On the one hand, the Prison race had to travel, and on the other hand, it was to allow the spaceship to cool down so that it could escape faster.

After all, Xu Jingming was very skilled after intercepting at the border for more than a hundred years.

First, he used space-time travel to reach a location a few light-years away from the destination, and then he used high-dimensional travel to descend near the target. Xu Jingming used high-dimensional travel every time to prevent the Prison race from ambushing him. In fact, the Prison race had ambushed him many times, wanting to remove Xu Jingming, this nail! But every time they failed. Xu Jingming was very cautious, and he would turn around and leave if he sensed danger with his high-dimensional travel.

"Hmm?"

This time, when Xu Jingming was using high-dimensional travel, his high-dimensional observation showed the cosmic starry sky within a range of 15.2 light-years as a model. Xu Jingming didn't discover the Prison race ambush, but he discovered a peculiar field.

First, he descended, and endless light enveloped and skillfully incinerated a Prison race leader. After collecting the spoils, Xu Jingming immediately used high-dimensional travel again to get rid of the shackles of this cosmic space-time and entered the high-dimensional space.

"What is that?" Xu Jingming stared at a place.

The cosmic starry sky within a light-year range was like a model, but this model was vaguely connected to a space-time. Xu Jingming could only see the connection point from his high-dimensional observation. As for the connected space-time, it was blurry and unclear.

"A normal cosmic space-time is connected to a small space-time?" Xu Jingming was surprised. "High-dimensional observation can only see the connection point?"

"Master, that's an attached universe space!" Little Jiu said in surprise, "And I didn't see a high-dimensional gate. It should be an unowned attached universe space."