Chapter 654 — The Road of the Cosmos

"Not yet. Time spirits in the universe are neither many nor few. Catching these little Family QIs is no easy task. To keep them from escaping, His Majesty has to do it personally. I imagine... she will be busy catching them for quite a while."

"If you wish to see her, then cooperate with me obediently and help me finish upgrading the Reincarnation Fruit. When the time comes, I will put you in touch with Her Majesty the Empress."

Shi Zhuowei fell silent for a moment, then said, "Fine. Then we go together."

…………

After that, Shi Cen had no idea how he had somehow ended up teamed up with this secretary named Baihe.

Once this Family QI boarded the Shi Ying, she said with great familiarity, "When we reach the Tree of the Universe, what do you want to ask?"

"That..." said Shi Zhao. I want to ask the Tree of the Universe who you are.

"I want to ask about the method to break through to cosmic tier," Shi Jin said, picking a topic at random to brush her off.

"That is hardly a question that requires the Tree of the Universe to answer. I can tell you myself," Secretary Baihe said merrily.

"Hm?"

"Simply develop your race's most instinctive ability to its utmost limit, and you become cosmic tier. The five cosmic-tier beings in the universe's starry sky today all became cosmic tier in precisely this way."

"The Realm King is a planetary lifeform. Planetary lifeforms are a race uniquely favored by heaven and earth, whether in becoming a supergod or a cosmic tier. They need only absorb the power of the universe directly."

"The Realm King Star ranks among the top five in innate potential among the stars of this cosmic epoch. It is no wonder it could become cosmic tier."

"Then what of the other four?" said Shi Tang.

"The other four stars were, in theory, even better endowed than the Realm King Star. All four of them could originally have hoped to become cosmic tier a step ahead of the Realm King. But alas, precisely because their endowments were so fine, they drew the eye of the Beast King."

"The Beast King—as cosmic behemoths, their race's most instinctive ability is to devour planets. So you understand now, do you not? The other four stars have all become fare upon the Beast King's plate."

"Originally, the Realm King should have been devoured by the Beast King as well. But try as it might, even after devouring the four most gifted planets, the Beast King still could not ascend. So it concluded that only by devouring a cosmic-level planet could it achieve a perfect ascension."

"And so it began assisting the Realm King in breaking through instead of striking. It held back until the Realm King had completed the breakthrough and become a cosmic planet—then the Beast King launched its invasion of the Realm King's world."

"I have to say, this Beast King was formidable. Although the newly ascended cosmic-level Realm King crushed it and left it hanging by a thread, through long, patient scheming it ultimately succeeded in devouring part of the Realm King's power, then reincarnated itself elsewhere. After a long recuperation, it completed its ascension."

"As for the Dark King, that one is even simpler. It is the very incarnation of cosmic pollution. The most instinctive gift of its kind is this: the more lives and territories it contaminates, the stronger it becomes."

"Once it had claimed the vast majority of the universe's territory, once it had spawned countless polluted races, its breakthrough came naturally, of its own accord."

"Mm, and then there is the queen of the Swarm Mother Nest. As a member of the starry Void Swarm, her most instinctive gift is rather similar to that of the cosmic leviathans—except the leviathans devour planets, while she devours ordinary life."

"In the beginning, this universe was home to countless powerful races. The cosmic leviathans were not the strongest race in terms of overall attributes—but today, those races are all extinct. And the reason for their extinction is that the Swarm Queen devoured every last one of them."

"As the strongest mutated individual of the Swarm, the Swarm Queen also gathered the finest genes from across the entire universe and optimized her own genome, and through that broke through to the cosmic level..."

"Of course, the prerequisite for all of this is that one's foundation is laid well enough. Otherwise, even if the chance to break through to the cosmic level comes, you will remain stuck at the bottleneck and regret it for the rest of your life. You should understand what I mean by foundation, yes? For instance... when becoming a supergod, one must fuse with the purest Source of Transcendence, not a Source of Transcendence already imprinted by someone else. The latter means the foundation was never properly laid."

"And the Cosmic Overlord?" Shi Tang asked.

"As the strongest individual in the universe, how did it break through to the cosmic level—and what is its racial ability?"

"The Cosmic Overlord, ah..." Secretary Lily said. "Did I not just tell you that, at the dawn of the universe, there existed many races blessed by nature... stronger even than the cosmic leviathans?"

"Those races are in truth even more fearsome. Like planetary life, they face few restrictions in breaking through to the supergod level or the cosmic level. All they lack is time."

"You could well call them 'cosmic races.' So long as they grow naturally, every one of them has hope of reaching the cosmic level."

"It is only a pity that these powerful races, mighty as they were by birth, did not have smooth paths of growth. As I said just now, the majority of them died in the Swarm Queen's maw, becoming nourishment for another."

"As for the Cosmic Overlord, Sepos—it is perhaps the only one among those mighty cosmic races to survive to this day. Even among them, it was the most gifted of all. Its path to the cosmic level is nothing short of a legend—an invincible legend from first to last, one no other race could ever imitate."

Having said this, Secretary Lily went on: "So if you wish to break through to the cosmic level, naturally you too must develop your racial ability to its utmost limit. Mm, roughly speaking—if you can successfully contract a cosmic-level being across ranks, that ought to do it, no?"

Lily had reached the same conclusion as the Foresight Owls—and had even divulged information many of the Astral race did not know, once again displaying a learning wholly unbecoming her station. Shi Xi fell silent, then asked:

"Miss Lily, just who exactly are you?"

Lily smiled. "I already told you—I am nothing but a miserable little tool. All of this is simply what Her Majesty the Empress told me."

"When Her Majesty first began to awaken and search for her memories, she was a stranger to this stretch of stars. I helped her a great deal—explored many ruins at her side, offered her counsel time and again. It is only thanks to all I did for her before she became what she is now that I am still alive. Otherwise, for one like me who would obstruct her plans—a hundred of me would not be enough to sate her blade..."

"Well then, consider the information just now as payment for the trouble I have put you through all this time. How about it—has it cleared up some of the doubts in your heart?"

Shi Zhao's expression turned grave. Was this truly all there was to breaking through to the cosmic level?

Simpler than he had imagined... and yet difficult.

Then for Shi Yi, Chongchong, and the others to break through to the cosmic level, they too would have to develop their primal racial abilities to the extreme?

Shi Yi is an iron-eating beast... so does that mean it has to become cosmic-level by eating metal?

But what manner of metal could possibly sustain Shi Yi to the cosmic level? After all, the Beast King completed its breakthrough only by devouring the four most gifted planetary lives of this cosmic epoch—and taking a bite out of a cosmic-level planet.

Is there any metal that could rival the mass of those planets?