Pretending to be a genius starts with the civilization advancement assessment.

Chapter 60 Breakthrough! Stardust Level
The settlement in Tsururu City was not completely asleep at night.

Most of the tent area was dark, but you could still faintly hear suppressed coughs, children's murmurs in their sleep, and adults' low conversations.

Lin Yi quietly walked out of the tent.

Making a breakthrough in the tent area could easily disrupt others.

He straightened his clothes and walked towards the old department store.

Along the way, he encountered a group of armed police officers on night patrol. The squad leader at the head of the group clearly recognized him, immediately stopped, and stood at attention respectfully, saluting: "Major Lin, what brings you here?"

"I suddenly had some thoughts about cultivation at night, but I was worried about disturbing others in the tent, so I decided to try it on the rooftop," Lin Yi explained.

The soldiers' faces showed expressions of understanding and even a hint of reverence.

The young major's abilities and contributions had already spread throughout the ranks.

"Understood, please go ahead!"

The squad leader stepped aside to make way.

Upon arriving at the entrance of the old department store, the guards did not stop him at all. After confirming his identity, they immediately saluted and let him pass: "Major Lin!"

"Thank you for your hard work." Lin Yi returned the greeting solemnly.

The building was much quieter than during the day, with only the duty room still lit. He went straight up the stairs to the rooftop.

Pushing open the heavy fire door, the night wind rushed in instantly, carrying a slight chill.

In the center of the rooftop is a simple yet sturdy little shed. The roof can provide some shade from the sun and rain, and inside there is a rather thick-looking cotton mat.

This was mentioned by Director Wang Wenhai, who was in charge of coordination yesterday. He said he heard that Wang often practiced meditation on the rooftop and that they should get him a place that could provide some shelter from the wind and rain.

He didn't pay much attention at the time, but he didn't expect the other party to get it done so quickly.

Lin Yi felt a warmth in his heart. He walked under the shed and sat cross-legged on the mat.

The rooftop offers an excellent view, overlooking a vast expanse of sleeping tents and the dark, desolate city skyline in the distance. During the day, you can also see the slowly rotating, purplish-black abyss beast's lair in the distance.

Lin Yi took a deep breath, calmed his mind, and took out ten source energy crystals from his waist, arranging them in front of him.

These crystals were slightly different from those he usually used; they were darker in color, had a more subdued luster, and contained significantly stronger energy fluctuations.

These are all level 2 source energy crystals that he extracted from higher-level gray crystals dropped by elite abyssal beasts such as the Giant Rock Abyss Bear and the Shadow Abyss Leopard.

Over the past week, he has been rescuing and clearing out monsters everywhere, killing about twenty elite Abyss Beasts, such as the Abyss Bear. Most of the crystals he opened yielded this source energy crystal.

With preparations complete, Lin Yi slowly closed his eyes and focused all his attention on his dantian.

At this moment, Yuanhai resembled a lake completely filled with thick blue mist, almost overflowing, with surging waves that could not find an outlet for release or transformation.

He focused his mind and calmed his spirit, and the precise control he had honed through the "Microcosm Technique" was brought to its fullest potential.

Under his guidance, the blue mist that filled the entire source sea began to churn violently, gradually separating and gathering, eventually forming twenty distinct and independently rotating dense cyclones.

This process is extremely mentally taxing, requiring complete control over every wisp of source energy.

Time passed slowly, and fine beads of sweat appeared on Lin Yi's forehead, but his expression remained extremely focused and calm.

About an hour later, the twenty spheres of gas began to rotate faster and faster, and eventually reached a critical point.

"Congeal!"

With a low shout in his heart, the cores of the twenty cyclones simultaneously collapsed inward.

It's as if the universe was just beginning, and stars were born!
In an instant, the vast blue mist in the source sea vanished, replaced by twenty tiny yet incredibly dazzling prismatic crystals, like the purest sapphires.

They floated scattered in the source sea, which was originally filled with mist, emitting stable and powerful energy fluctuations.

The entire source sea instantly became much emptier, but it also became deeper and more stable.

The first step of the Stardust level is to condense source energy stardust, which is now complete.

But this is just the beginning.

These twenty nascent source crystals are still too small, and their forms are not even stable. At this moment, they are in a crystalline structure, but he has forcibly compressed and condensed them with his control force. Once he relaxes, they will immediately disintegrate.

What needs to be done now is to gather secondary source crystals around it to stabilize the structure. Without pausing, Lin Yi reached out with both hands simultaneously, grasping a level 2 source energy crystal in each hand.

The operating path of the Ninefold Origin Method was activated instantly.

Compared to basic induction techniques, its absorption efficiency is several times higher.

Pure and boundless energy surged wildly into the body, flowing along the widened and strengthened meridians and into the empty source sea.

The twenty core blue source crystals seemed to have turned into twenty greedy black holes, frantically absorbing the incoming energy, and around them, like stars attracting dust, new, slightly smaller blue secondary source crystals began to condense.

One, two, three.
And at the same time.

Outer perimeter defense line of the settlement, post number three.

Armed Police officer Zhu Peng rubbed his hands together, briefly handed over his duties to his comrades from the previous shift, and then stepped into the makeshift guard post.

The summer night was sultry and hot, but his first instinct wasn't to grab the palm-leaf fan from the guard post. Instead, he eagerly and carefully put on the portable energy detector that was now considered a treasure by all the night-shift sentries.

The cool metallic touch against his right ear and the pale blue light covering his vision immediately put Zhu Peng at ease.

"This is really good stuff."

He couldn't help but exclaim again that with this thing, the pressure of night duty was reduced by more than half.
Those abyssal beasts that lack heat signatures and are adept at stealth and ambush have nowhere to hide.

He skillfully scanned the detection range first, and only breathed a sigh of relief after confirming that no red dots representing abyssal beasts were approaching the defensive line.

Then, as if performing some kind of ritual, he habitually turned his gaze to the densely packed green dots representing survivors in the tent area, searching for the most eye-catching and unique one among them.

That symbol represents Major Lin Yi's life energy.

Since he started working the night shift, this has become his greatest pleasure and source of emotional support.

Looking at the number behind that symbol, which grew from the initial forty-odd points to 185 points yesterday, Zhu Peng felt a sense of participation and pride in witnessing the growth of the guardian spirit.

"Tonight, we should be able to break 200, right?"

Zhu Peng thought to himself with a smug smile, "Hehe, the Giant Rock Abyss Bear only has 200 energy reaction points. Doesn't that mean we also have a 'humanoid abyss bear' guarding our settlement?"

He chuckled to himself and began to carefully search among the green dots in the tent area.

"what?"

After scanning around, I couldn't find that familiar green dot with the extremely high value.

"He probably went to the rooftop to cultivate."

Zhu Peng quickly realized that Major Lin often went to the rooftop at night.

He turned his gaze toward the rooftop of the old department store.

The next second, he froze, his mouth opened involuntarily, and his eyes were fixed on the data displayed on the screen, as if he had seen a ghost.

That unique life energy marker is indeed located in the direction of the rooftop.

But the subsequent value was not the 200 points or so he had expected!
It's 370 points!
And, in those few seconds of his stunned silence, the number jumped, changing to 371372.
"What...what's going on?!"

Zhu Peng thought he was seeing things, so he rubbed his eyes hard and looked again.

The numbers continue to rise steadily.

380385390
Zhu Peng held his breath, his heart pounding, staring intently at the constantly changing number for a full five minutes.

The value has soared from 370 all the way up to the 500 mark without any hindrance, and there is no sign of it stopping.

"It's already more than doubled! This is definitely not ordinary cultivation!"

Zhu Peng immediately realized that this was no ordinary situation.

Without further hesitation, he immediately pressed the call button on the shoulder radio.

"Command center, command center! This is Zhu Peng at the energy detection outpost. Reporting an anomaly."

"Major Lin Yi's life energy intensity has been detected to be rising abnormally at a rapid pace! Repeat, it is rising abnormally at a rapid pace. It has now exceeded 500 points and is still rising!"

(End of this chapter)