Chapter 1 The Beginning

When Su Zhou led the team back to the Yuanwang, Lin Chengde, who had been waiting in full battle readiness, immediately flew out from the forest barrier he had set up and hurried to meet them.

The forest barrier, constructed by Lin Chengde connecting the surrounding forest trees and the earth's veins, was an enormous magic array similar to a city wall. It formed a rhomboid protective shell around the Yuanwang, effectively reducing the reflection of spiritual energy bands, disrupting the accuracy of various detection spells, and defending against possible long-range strikes.

Quickly taking root and creating a complete set of living fortifications for self-defense—this was the specialty of the Divine Wood lineage.

"What's going on, Captain? I detected several spiritual energy fluctuations almost like nuclear explosions over there!"

At this moment, Lin Chengde's tone was quite tense. Because Su Zhou had accelerated alone for the last part of the journey, Tang Yuan and Gu Zechuan had not yet arrived. He was now making contact with Su Zhou alone. "What happened?"

"I destroyed that Spirit Suppressing Pagoda City."

Without much embellishment, Su Zhou stated directly, "And I killed all thirty million Tianmo (demonic entities) inside the city. In the process, I did use full power several times to defeat the enemy's resistance."

"I see."

Hearing this, Lin Chengde nodded, then sighed. The two landed together and entered the interior of the forest fortress. "Destroying the enemy's stronghold is a good thing, and killing their active forces is what should be done… Wait, thirty million?!"

As he spoke, his volume suddenly increased for a moment. Lin Chengde turned his head and looked at Su Zhou with a shocked expression. He wasn't surprised that Su Zhou's full-power burst had a nuclear-bomb level of output, but that number…

Faced with Lin Chengde's astonished gaze, Su Zhou simply shook his head slightly. "Maybe a little less, but now is not the time to care about the quantity. You and Liu Wuxin, as long as you both can advance to high-level Commanders, working together, you can kill them by the tens of millions."

"Let's not talk about that. This time I brought back a large amount of Tiangang Disha (Heavenly Astral Earthly Fiend materials). We need to fix the engine quickly. We must leave."

As he spoke, Su Zhou took out that large package of high-quality Tiangang Disha that he had specially compressed from his personal space and handed it directly to Lin Chengde, forcing the latter to extend several wooden tentacles from his back to receive it.

After doing this, the young man raised his head and looked at the still-gloomy sky through the gaps in the trees. His expression held a hint of worry. "The Tianmo's large stronghold has been destroyed by me, eliminating the active forces of an entire local division. They will definitely realize the threat of us earthlings. Next, the Tianmo will not act unless they are sure, and once they do, they will inevitably go all out."

"Well… that's true, but don't worry too much."

At this time, although Lin Chengde was still muttering 'thirty million' and shocked by such a terrifying number—he believed Su Zhou's words, which was why he found it unbelievable.

As everyone knew, even capturing thirty million pigs might not be this fast… Pigs could run too!

But just as Su Zhou had said, now was not the time to talk about this. He said in a deep voice, "We have already made all the preparations for the engine repair. The onboard engineers and related technicians have long been ready, and all that's missing is the material—several cultivators from the Heavenly Craftsman lineage in the Third Division have been trained by several master artisans. Creating a production line out of thin air may be a bit difficult, but manufacturing an engine is no problem."

But after formally receiving the Tiangang Disha from Su Zhou, Lin Chengde sensed the amount inside and was immediately stunned again. "Wait, how is there so much?! This… is at least a thousand units?!"

One unit of Tiangang Disha was enough to forge several flying swords or other high-level magical artifacts. Twenty units were needed for a spiritual energy engine, which was already a huge demand.

But who knew that Su Zhou would bring back nearly a thousand units at once? And each one was of the highest quality!

This was like asking a roommate to go out and buy a KFC family bucket, and the other party buying the entire KFC.

"Actually, this is still considered a small amount. I only selected the more refined part of the Tiangang Disha inside the Spirit Suppressing Pagoda to bring back. If you count the other Tiangang Disha of average quality, it would be at least a hundred times this."

Su Zhou did not lie. He indeed collected all the refined Tiangang Disha inside the Spirit Suppressing Pagoda and gave it to Lin Chengde, but he did not waste the other ordinary-quality spiritual materials by leaving them behind. Instead, he directly threw them to the Wisdom Tree as fertilizer.

After all, the Wisdom Tree's workload of recycling so many souls and suppressing them for a long time was comparable to that of an ordinary human carrying dozens of kilograms of weight and running a hundred kilometers cross-country. It would be too unfair to his obedient tree if he couldn't provide it with sufficient nutrition.

"Not a small amount, definitely not a small amount! More than enough, we can even replace the spare engine together!"

At this time, the two had already arrived inside the Yuanwang, feeling the quality of the Tiangang Disha in his hand. Lin Chengde pushed up his glasses with a delighted expression, wishing he could go to the engine compartment on the spot and start the repair work immediately.

Although Qingqiu Star's environment was good, as a Divine Wood, he always felt an indescribable sense of discomfort spreading on this land. The surrounding spiritual energy cycle was very strange, and according to spiritual energy detection, the source of the abnormal spiritual energy cycle was those giant cities on the entire planet with 'Spirit Suppressing Pagoda City' as their origin.

Each Spirit Suppressing Pagoda City was essentially a giant magic array wedge embedded deep into the earth's spiritual veins, constantly exerting influence on the entire world. When Su Zhou used thunderous means to destroy the Spirit Suppressing Pagoda City in the southwest, Lin Chengde even felt a long-lost sense of relief.

However, just when Lin Chengde felt that everything was going smoothly, he noticed that Su Zhou, who had been walking along with him, suddenly stopped and stood there in a daze, his eyes staring blankly ahead.

"What's wrong…"

He turned his head in confusion. Lin Chengde subconsciously reached out to pat Su Zhou to bring him back to his senses.

But when his hand approached Su Zhou's body, a surge of invisible energy immediately struck him like lightning, causing him to stagger back three steps.

"Ah, sorry—I was thinking about something just now!"

Realizing this, Su Zhou immediately came back to his senses. He apologetically reached out to heal Lin Chengde.

"It's okay, just a minor injury."

However, the Divine Wood's self-healing power was very strong. Lin Chengde simply waved his hand, and the scorched marks on his hand quickly faded away. If one looked closely, one could see that the wound on his hand was not only caused by lightning strikes, but also had traces of wind cutting and fire burning.

However, after the injury on his hand healed, Lin Chengde couldn't help but frown and look at Su Zhou. "Captain, your condition now…"

"Me? It's a little bad…"

Su Zhou wanted to say that he was probably a little mentally exhausted from suppressing too many Tianmo souls earlier, but to be honest, he didn't feel dizzy or lightheaded. He just felt that the spiritual energy in his body was about to overflow, and both his soul and body felt a little drowsy… not dull, but too sensitive, so he felt very wrong for a moment.

"No."

Lin Chengde's answer was unexpected. He frowned and carefully examined Su Zhou's face. "Your condition is too good."

"Your condition… wait, are you about to ascend to immortality?!"

"What?! Is the Captain about to ascend?!"

At this time, Tang Yuan and Gu Zechuan also arrived at the Yuanwang. Because he didn't have permission, Gu Zechuan was still waiting outside the forest fortress, but Tang Yuan had already entered the spaceship. He happened to hear the conversation between Su Zhou and Lin Chengde and was immediately shocked. "So fast?! It's only, it's only been a little more than three years, right?!"

From the beginning of the official spiritual energy revival in early September 2014 until now, Su Zhou's cultivation time on Earth has only been a mere three years on the surface. Most geniuses who cultivate to the mid-to-high level of Extraordinary are already considered successful in their cultivation. People like Lin Chengde and Liu Wuxin, who are at the peak of the Extraordinary level, although they look young, are actually close to thirty years old and had already cultivated to the peak of Awakening before the spiritual energy revival.

In three years, they had advanced a major realm. This speed was not slow even in the era of immortals and gods. After all, according to the traditional concept of cultivation, if a person could refine Qi and achieve success before the age of twenty, advance to Awakening before the age of thirty, then they could be considered promising, and the Commander level was even more unattainable, because even the forging of just one spiritual energy organ could take an ordinary cultivator most of their life.

After all, not everyone had an immortal body to squander. The cultivation of spiritual energy organs had to be done with utmost care. Without the guidance of elders or the protection of experts, randomly fiddling with one's body and modifying the trajectory of spiritual energy would basically lead to qi deviation as a common occurrence.

But now, in these three years, Su Zhou seemed to be advancing from nothing to the Overlord realm, becoming a contemporary immortal god?!

Even a rocket to Japan isn't as fast as Su Zhou!

"What should we do? The first immortal god level, we should have promoted it widely on Earth—and there should be many people protecting him. Advancing on this strange planet with strong enemies all around is too dangerous!"

Lin Chengde walked around Su Zhou anxiously, and Tang Yuan also joined in, pacing uneasily. "Yes, although it's a good thing for our current situation that Captain you can advance, if the enemies attack when you advance, then wouldn't everything be over…"

Immediately, the two of them walked around Su Zhou worriedly like satellites orbiting a planet, which made the young man helplessly reach out and stop their two-person act. "Alright, don't worry too much. I'm prepared for the matter of advancing to the Overlord realm."

As he said this, he continued to walk towards the engine area of the spaceship, his steps steady and powerful. This confidence infected them, and the worried two looked at each other and gradually calmed down.

That's right, judging from Su Zhou's past experiences, why should they worry about Su Zhou? They should rather think about how they should break through to the Commander level.

Thud, thud, thud.

Inside the Yuanwang, in the spaceship's not-so-wide corridor, Su Zhou advanced alone, his eyes gradually staring blankly ahead as before.

Although this was the first time he was advancing alone without the support of Yala or anyone else, his heart was very calm.

…It could even be said that he was full of confidence.

No Yala, no Sacred Geometry?

Isn't this a good thing, to integrate himself, to integrate all his strength, and to walk out of his own path that is even better than immortals and gods…

In the end, wasn't this what Yala expected? That he didn't want himself to grow into a dragon-snake existence like him, and had been subtly hinting that Su Zhou should take this step and become a unique and unique individual in the universe.

The other party's sleep this time was probably because he saw that he was about to advance, so he used a gentle method to allow himself to take this step naturally and smoothly.

"In that case…"

Thinking of this, Su Zhou couldn't help but chuckle.

"Then I will give you a surprise."

Earth time, October 19, 2017.

The tenth day the Yuanwang crashed on Qingqiu Star.

Under the continuous emergency repairs of many professional Heavenly Craftsman cultivators and spaceship engineers for seven days and nights, the Yuanwang's spiritual energy engine was completely restored, and even had several additional layers of supporting reinforcement and collapse prevention measures.

Seven days and nights was actually not long—after all, the onboard engineers were not real master craftsmen, nor were they top experts in related fields from various countries in the past. It was impossible for them to create an entire spaceship out of thin air in a few days. In fact, their skills were already quite superb. After all, repairing a new spaceship-level engine in seven days was enough to earn a collective second-class merit.

And during this time, the clansmen who had migrated from the Gu Clan's shelter also arrived around the Yuanwang spaceship one after another under the guidance of Liu Wuxin. When these Qingqiu people saw the towering forest fortress and the silver spaceship that was completely different from their aesthetics, most of them were extremely shocked, and even knelt and worshiped the spaceship and the fortress transformed by Lin Chengde, shouting for the protection of the immortals and gods.

"Venerable Liu, your great kindness is like rebirth!"

It could be heard that such emotional dialogues unfolded in the temporary camp built outside the fortress. "This little woman has no way to repay you, only to be a cow or a horse in the next life to repay this great kindness!"

"Ah, um. Good. But I don't need cows or horses…"

That was a beautiful red-haired Qingqiu woman with a lively temperament. She held the martial artist's twisted right hand tightly, her two ears swaying slightly, and sincerely thanked him for his diligent and selfless assistance these seven days.

Whether it was defeating the scattered patrols of the Tianmo, using force to open roads and build bridges in the mountains, or carrying hundreds of elderly, weak, women, and children across the mountain streams with his own strength, Liu Wuxin's every move undoubtedly showed his sincerity to the Gu Clan. This great kindness was simply comparable to Su Zhou, who saved their entire clan from danger!

It could even be said that although Su Zhou's kindness was theoretically greater, Liu Wuxin, who had accompanied the Gu Clan all the way, had a higher reputation among the Qingqiu people!

At this time, both of them already had folk new words to worship as members of the immortals and gods…

But it didn't affect Su Zhou's appearance being met with bursts of excited cheers, with various large tails swaying up and down, while Liu Wuxin's was met with sincere and moved great kindness that could not be repaid.

A true story.

"Well, it's considered a handshake anyway."

Thinking this way, after bidding farewell to several grateful Gu Clan members, the Spiritual Martial cultivator couldn't help but comfort himself as he turned back to the spaceship. "This is the first step starting from zero…"

However, when Liu Wuxin returned to the inside of the spaceship and entered the captain's cabin, he found that the atmosphere in the entire captain's cabin was very serious.

[The situation is very bad now.]

It could be heard that the Talin captain, Kota Lun, spoke in a serious voice, wearing an ice fox on his head. His tone was solemn: [According to the satellite monitoring images we launched earlier, the entire planet's Tianmo army has already set out from their respective garrisons and is converging towards our location.]

In the center of the captain's cabin, a huge light curtain was unfolding—because they still remembered the last time they used spiritual energy radar in space and were directly locked on and shot down by thousands of orbital spiritual arrows, this time they adopted traditional satellite scanning.

It could be seen that the blurry images flashing on the light curtain were densely packed Tianmo armies attacking like dark clouds.

This time, they were fully armed and formed into formations. They didn't look like a swarm of beasts, but rather a Daoist army armed with wisdom and technology.

Looking from the sky, they were like pieces of black clouds pouring down towards the southwest between the sky and the earth.

"It's okay, much slower than we thought. I was originally thinking that we might have to hold out for a few days under the enemy's attack before the engineering team could repair the spaceship. The current result is already very good."

Watching this scene, everyone's faces were serious, but Su Zhou's brows relaxed slightly. "At least they didn't drive dozens of space battleships to intercept us. This proves that the Qingqiu people and the immortals and gods in the past didn't value this kind of technology very much… Is there any other bad news?"

[Yes.]

Kota Lun, who had been observing the movements in various parts of the planet recently, said in a serious tone, and the voice coming from the translator was solemn: [According to observation, the Tianmo army will destroy all the Qingqiu people's shelters along the way… Although most of the shelters migrated away early after realizing the Tianmo's movements, a considerable number of Qingqiu people's strongholds were completely destroyed.]

"Is that so…"

Murmuring this softly, Su Zhou closed his eyes and pondered for a moment.

Then, he opened his eyes again and seriously asked, "How far is the vanguard from us?"

[Sixteen hours.]

This was an accurate answer.