Swallowing the Stars: Starting with the Battle of Geniuses

Chapter 16 The Choice of the Secret Realm

Having identified your target, you quickly began gathering information on the secret treasure that allows you to sense "fire" and "space".

[Over the past two years, you've achieved a winning streak of over 500 matches while battling in the arena to earn money, and you've also been gathering intelligence. After careful selection, you've narrowed down your choices to three target locations: "Pool of Fire God Worms," ​​"Realm of Inferno," and "Void Star."]

[You didn't start exploring the secret realm; instead, you participated in the Genius Battle first.]

[Knowing your own limitations, although you have stepped into the threshold of the fundamental laws, your domain level is too low, making it impossible to break through the preliminaries. You focused on training and comprehending the laws of fire, and were defeated and killed on the eleventh day of the preliminaries, ending your journey in the battle of geniuses.]

[After the battle of geniuses ended, you chose to break through to the cosmic level. Afterwards, you continued to hone yourself, refining your understanding of the domain and laws. Three years passed in this way.]

[In the sixth year, you exhausted your wealth to break through to the third tier of the cosmic level. You were ready and signed up for the cosmic mercenary assessment. The assessment venue was the "Infernal Hell Realm".]

[You have confirmed that the Realm of Inferno was created by a Realm Lord before his death, a realm recognized by the fundamental laws of fire. Within it, your ability to comprehend the laws of fire has strengthened slightly. However, until the end of the assessment, you have not discovered any special opportunities.]

In the seventh year, you and several other cosmic-level companions formed a mercenary team to explore the Pool of Vulcans in the Lan Yan Star System. Just before reaching your destination, a swarm of rampaging Vulcans attacked your spaceship, causing it to explode and killing you.

[This simulation has ended]

Please select the inheritance direction.

【1. Material Inheritance (Cosmic Level Third Order)】

[2. Soul Inheritance (Breaking through the third level of "Flowing Blade Like Fire", comprehending the essence of fire; the domain reaches the third realm; the strength of consciousness is enhanced to the first level of the universe level)]

3. Forgo the profits from this simulation.

"Choose two."

A flood of insights poured into my pure heart.

Similar to "Ninefold Blazing Wind," "Flowing Blade Like Fire" is a secret sword technique that studies the laws of fire. If one cultivates it to the fifth level, one can cross the threshold of the laws. Conversely, if one has already crossed the threshold of the laws, one can break through to the fifth level at an extremely fast speed.

It took Hunzhen about two months to go from the first level of the Domain to the second level, but this time it only took a month to break through from the second level to the third level.

Hunzhen was not surprised.

He could vaguely sense that the battle half a month ago accelerated his transformation. The breakthrough he achieved at that moment was no less than the breakthrough to the Domain Realm after years of accumulation. It even made the breakthrough to the third level of the Domain Realm, which should have taken longer, seem easier than the breakthrough to the second level.

His breakthrough speed will not increase further, but within two years of real time and over seven thousand years of simulation, he will surely be able to break through to the ninth level of the domain.

Compared to that, he was more concerned about what he gained from exploring the secret realm.

At his current stage, unless there is a special encounter during the simulation, the insights accumulated from a single simulation will not bring about significant changes. Only quantitative change can lead to qualitative change.

The current Hunzhen is clearly more focused on the predictive capabilities brought about by simulation.

This ability allows him to transfer risk, thereby making better choices.

So even though this exploration of the simulated human brought almost no additional benefits, Hunzhen did not experience much emotional fluctuation.

Although the attack by the Vulcan worms was somewhat unexpected, he believed that this experience would be useful in the next simulation.

"Since the Vulcan Pool passed the screening of simulated humans, it proves that there was no risk of harming the surrounding star systems in the first few years of the simulation."

"The simulator has completed the information screening in advance and confirmed the last three options. In the next simulation, by exploring the Pool of Vulcan before the start of the Genius Battle, we can avoid this crisis."

"As for the Realm of Inferno... since it was included in the final selection list, it must have something special about it. Was it because of a lack of information that it missed the opportunity?"

Hunzhen reflected on and summarized the results of the simulation, and listed the Pool of Fire God Worms as the key target for the next simulation.

Time flew by, and another week quickly passed in the immersive and comfortable simulation.

The week's gains can be simply summarized as—a slow and uneventful progress.

In the simulation, the Sims teamed up with various adventurers to explore the Pool of Vulcan.

The most in-depth exploration took place while wandering around the outer perimeter of the Vulcan Pool.

Seemingly sensing some risk, they dared not go too deep and quickly chose to withdraw, only selling a batch of information before stopping.

Each time, it would only linger outside without going in. This repeated several times, which annoyed even Hunzhen, who was watching from a god-like perspective.

Others may not understand, but don't you, the simulator, understand? You've never run into any trouble in the end, so why are you so afraid to even try to get close?!

"wrong!"

Hunzhen was about to push the simulator one more time when he suddenly snapped back to reality.

If he can understand something, how could the Sims not understand it?

The only explanation is that each time the Sims realized at the end that the Pool of Vulcans contained a danger that he absolutely could not resist at his current stage.

However, due to the limitations of simulation recording, it was impossible to record the simulated human's emotions in detail, which led to his misjudgment.

"This is a place I absolutely cannot explore at this stage. Unless the simulated humans can break through to the Domain Lord level in the short term, I can only reject it outright for now."

The latest novel is first published here!

Hunzhen calmed down and made a firm judgment.

But then he frowned.

Eliminating another option means he now only has two choices left.

Of course, another option is to switch to a different star system, gather intelligence again, and explore.

However, before confirming that neither of these two destinations would yield any results, Hunzhen has no immediate plans to relocate.

"The Pool of Fire God Worms is rejected. We've already tried the Realm of Inferno once, so let's make the Void Star our next target."

Although I really wanted to try it right away, I had already used up all the simulation attempts for today, so I had to give up.

"Perfect timing, today is the battle to advance to 'Warrior'."

The auxiliary computer sent a text message. After glancing at the notification, Hunzhen grinned and left the temporarily rented manor, heading straight for the Giant Axe Arena on Sky Blue Star.

Unlike cosmic gladiators who are transported by spaceships to specific uninhabited planets to fight, planetary and constant-level battles are confined to arenas on inhabited planets.

As usual, after Kihara also bet 100 million Morning Star Coins, Konjin entered the preparation room to wait for his turn to appear.

It wasn't that he didn't want to bet more, but gladiatorial combat had betting limits based on the gladiatorial combat level and the gambler's account level. In a constant-level gladiatorial combat, he could only bet a maximum of 100 million Morning Star Coins.

He's not well-known right now, but he gets tens of millions of Morningstar Coins for every win, which is better than nothing.

"Next up, please welcome the blue team's Great Axe Warrior, Sanok, who has already achieved a seventeen-game winning streak! And the red team's Spirit Master, Hunzhen, who has been a gladiator for less than a month and has already achieved a nine-game winning streak!"

Accompanied by the host's introduction and the cheers of the audience, Hunzhen walked out from below the east side of the arena's stands.

He looked towards the west stands and saw a burly man dressed in tiger-striped animal skin looking at him with a bloodthirsty smile.

Hunzhen immediately responded with a faint smile, his eyes shining slightly.

"The reward for this qualifying round is already at the level of the Giant Axe Warrior competition. Winning this round will net me tens of billions of Morning Star Coins, enough for me to exchange for a Tier 3 top-grade psychic weapon!"

(End of this chapter)