High Martial Arts: Slay enemies to become stronger, forge invincibility from billions of corpses.

The transfer of control of the spaceship was much simpler than Song Chen had anticipated.

As the dawn faded, a fist-sized, prismatic crystal appeared in the center of the hall. It was pale blue, with star-like rays of light slowly moving within it.

Song Chen reached out and touched it, and the crystal immediately transformed into a stream of light that merged into his palm, while a massive flow of information surged into his consciousness.

The spaceship's structural diagram, control system, weapon array, warp drive activation procedure, and a complete star map marked with the coordinates of thousands of civilizations.

He closed his eyes for three seconds to process it, then opened them.

"Let's go."

The floor beneath our feet trembled slightly, and the entire spaceship seemed to awaken from a long slumber. The light on the walls changed from cold white to pale gold, and the simulated starry sky on the dome began to slowly rotate.

With a thought, Song Chen made the outer wall of the spaceship transparent.

They saw the seawater, six thousand meters deep, surging around them, and the faint light of the sky shining down from above.

The psionic vacuum was dissipating, the seawater was flowing again, and schools of fish were tentatively approaching the suddenly appearing, enormous object in the distance.

The spaceship rose from the seabed.

A disc with a diameter of 300 meters broke through the seawater and rose at an incredible speed.

At a depth of six thousand meters, the journey from stillness to breaking through the water takes only a blink of an eye.

The sea exploded, splashing water hundreds of meters high, before the entire spaceship hovered steadily in mid-air.

The Pacific Ocean stretched out beneath my feet, and in the distance, clouds piled up to form continuous white mountain peaks. Further away, where the sea and sky met, the blue was dazzling.

Song Chen stood in the center of the hall, looking up at the sky through the transparent dome.

Li Qingcang stood against the wall, while Zhou Wangyue stood on the other side with his arms crossed.

After emerging from the seabed, the three of them remained silent, each processing the events of the past hour.

Six hundred million years of investment, four cycles of rise and fall of civilizations, a debt of 1.2 million cosmic crystals, a 10,000-year interest-free period, 1% annual interest, and a treaty with an affiliated civilization that must be signed within one month.

These things, piled together, looked like a mountain, pressing down on the shoulders of the three people.

Song Chen spoke first: "Let's go through it one by one. First of all, we owe 1.2 million cosmic crystals."

"One million two hundred thousand." Li Qingcang repeated the number, then gave a wry smile.

"I have served as speaker of the parliament for twenty years, and I have approved trillions of dollars in defense budgets every year. I have never felt so powerless in the face of a number."

"Because the Cosmic Crystal knows nothing."

"Yes," Li Qingcang readily admitted.

"I don't even know what I'm returning, but I already know what the consequences will be if I can't repay it."

Divine retribution: Civilization is wiped out.

The envoy spoke those four words in a very calm tone, but everyone could tell what they meant. The Cangxing Alliance was able to conduct investment business in the universe for billions of years not because it was easy to talk to.

Zhou Wangyue suddenly spoke, his voice deep: "And that treaty on subordinate civilizations might also be troublesome."

Song Chen nodded. Money can be earned slowly, and interest can be negotiated, but once the words "subordinate civilization" are signed, humanity will no longer be an independent civilization.

Everything may be subject to the jurisdiction of the Cangxing Alliance.

When Great Xia was forced to sign unequal treaties by the great powers in the old days, the most fatal thing was not the indemnity, but the consular jurisdiction and concessions. Those were the clauses that truly put a knife to its throat.

Li Qingcang looked at Song Chen: "What specific obligations does the subordinate civilization have? That light and shadow said that the treaty can be negotiated, but it didn't specify the terms."

Song Chen shook his head: "We might have to wait until Flowing Star to see the full text of the treaty, or it might not even know it itself; it's just a procedure."

The three of them remained silent for a while.

Song Chen stood up, raised his hand, and a semi-transparent light screen appeared in the center of the hall. The screen was densely packed with information catalogs, which contained all the data stored in the spaceship's main control core.

"Let's look at the information first."

"Since we're going to Flowing Star to sign the treaty, we should at least figure out what the universe is like before we go."

"If you don't even know what a cosmic crystal is, how big the Cangxing Alliance is, or how cosmic forces are distributed, you won't even have the right to bargain when you sit down at the negotiating table."

"That makes sense." Li Qingcang walked to the light screen.

"Let's look at the cultivation system first. Judging from what that envoy said, the sixth-order division on Blue Star should be consistent with the standard of the universe, but we don't know about the seventh order and above."

Song Chen reached out and swiped on the light screen, opening the "Universal Martial Arts Realm Classification" section.

The light screen unfolded, and a clearly defined tree diagram appeared before the three people.

Planetary evolutionary pathways:

The first to sixth orders are exactly the same as those on Earth, with each order representing a tenfold difference.

Seventh Rank: Star Core Realm, the threshold of a Level 1 civilization.

By condensing miniature stars within the dantian, one is no longer simply cultivating the physical body, but embarking on the path of "life evolution into celestial bodies".

Breaking through to the seventh rank requires compressing all the body's qi and blood and spiritual energy to the extreme, triggering the birth of a miniature star within the dantian.

The seventh stage is the watershed of planetary evolution and also the entry threshold for a first-class civilization in the universe.

Eighth Rank: Star Crown Realm, the threshold of a Level Two Civilization.

A psionic corona began to form around the star's core, resembling the atmosphere and magnetic field of a planet.

The star crown can be actively released to form a psionic field that integrates offense and defense, with a range of hundreds to tens of thousands of kilometers.

The lifespan of eighth-order beings will be greatly extended, and their physical bodies will begin to transform into semi-energy forms.

Ninth Rank: True Star Realm, the threshold of a Level 3 civilization.

The star nucleus fully matured, becoming a stable miniature celestial body.

Living organisms no longer depend on external spiritual energy; they themselves are the source of spiritual energy.

The tree diagram draws a striking dividing line after the ninth level, with planetary evolution pathways marked on one side of the line.

On the other side are five characters: Hengxing Evolution Path.

"After planets come stars."

Song Chen suddenly understood a lot.

He clicked on the section on the Star Evolution Path.

Tier 10: Radiant Transformation Realm, the threshold of a Level 4 civilization.

The first stage of the leap from planetary to eternal star level.

The core of the True Star Realm began to undergo a violent psionic reaction, similar to the nuclear fusion in the early stages of a star's birth.

The spiritual energy output of a being in the Radiant Transformation Realm is more than a thousand times that of a being in the True Star Realm; each strike is equivalent to the release of the entire energy of a planet.

Eleventh level: Ascension Realm, the threshold of Level 5 civilization.

In the middle stage of the Eternal Star system, life forms are completely transformed into an energy state, and can exist in the universe in the form of pure energy.

It was also noted that this was the highest level of combat power for the Cangxing Alliance, meaning that the alliance was a Level 5 civilization in the universe.

Tier 12: Eternal Realm, the threshold of Level 6 civilization.

The ultimate goal of celestial evolution is, in theory, immortality, where the physical body, soul, and energy are completely unified. Unless forcibly destroyed by external forces, it will not age or perish.

The information was marked with a line of small print at the end of this page.

Above the Eternal Realm, there exists a higher realm, but it is beyond the scope of this database.

The tree diagram is blank after the twelfth level.

Song Chen stared at the blank space for two seconds, then looked away.

The twelfth level was too far away for him, so far that he couldn't even begin to imagine it.

He is currently at the seventh-order Star Core Realm, making him the strongest human on Earth. However, when placed in this tree diagram, he is only taking the first step out of the planetary evolution path.