Liberty, Forward Four

The accumulated incense power of countless members of the Blessing Star Human Race, amplified by its many attributes, finally bursts forth through you.

This Red Cardinal, despite his ninth-cycle Pill Transformation cultivation, cannot withstand your full-powered eruption.

His body is brutally suppressed by the golden giant hand, utterly unable to break free throughout the entire fall, his wings nearly breaking from frantic flapping to no avail.

The Red Cardinal is pushed all the way to the ground, slammed deep into the earth.

“Rumble!!”

Your golden avatar stamps a massive handprint into the starport's surface, the surrounding ground shaking violently, shockwaves sweeping outward in rings, kicking up dust that blots out the sun and plunges the area into deeper gloom.

The incense power is not yet depleted.

The colossal golden statue raises its hand and presses down again.

Every movement of the golden avatar sends shockwaves through the air that, to the many alien races on the starport, are no different from a super typhoon.

Before the golden hand even arrives, the sheer pressure and gale-force winds scatter them into chaos.

“Boom!!”

“Boom!!”

“Boom!!”

Palm after palm, your incense golden avatar avenges the slaughtered righteous army in the most straightforward, unadorned manner.

The entire starport and surrounding regions are shattered into rubble, reduced to a lifeless wasteland.

Apart from some winged races that managed to flee, the enemy forces involved in the starport battle are nearly wiped out.

The Winged God Cult slaughtered the righteous army, yet they too were slain by the incense power the righteous army had gathered.

Truly, karma cycles, and retribution is inevitable.

You climb back up the iron chains into the starship.

The starship, accelerating ever faster, has now broken through the atmosphere.

The Blessing Star appears in your view as a giant sphere floating in space.

Unlike Earth, which is blue-white, this planet is seen from space as a brownish-yellow sphere, somewhat bleak and lifeless.

You have finally left this third-rate planet.

Earlier, even though you could defeat the Red Cardinal with your attributes, if he couldn't beat you, he could still attack the starship.

If the starship were destroyed, you would never have another chance to leave.

Thanks to the incense power gathered over all these years, you caught the Red Cardinal completely off guard.

“Those who helped me board the ship were you, and at the final moment, those who helped me repel the enemy were still you...”

You sit inside the starship, surrounded by the pitch-black cosmos, recklessly displaying its boundlessness and profundity.

There is no time for grief.

You know that even now in outer space, the Winged God Cult may still give chase.

You enter the core chamber of the ship, and at the center of this room, a holographic map floats in midair, displaying a star chart centered on the Blessing Star.

This star chart is not to scale with the actual universe.

If it were, no map, no matter how large, could show more than a few stars — the scale of the cosmos is simply too immense.

The chart marks nearby celestial bodies, including stars, planets, comets, asteroids, and planetary moons. Distances between them, however, are not accurate on the chart and may be ignored.

The chart is generated by a small formation, and this formation is inscribed with divine runes.

As a celestial-rank formation master, combined with “Reverse Engineering,” you can understand the formation, but you cannot comprehend the divine runes upon it.

Divine runes cannot be parsed by “Reverse Engineering.”

This is also a discovery: divine runes are not only drawn in battle for combat but can also be etched onto surfaces to take effect over long periods.

How exactly that is accomplished, you have no idea. It certainly isn't simply carving a few strokes.

You zoom out on the star chart and locate Firelight Star in the Saint Sun system, five stellar systems away.

You have already familiarized yourself with the operations of the starship.

Skillfully, you send a stream of true energy onto the star chart, tapping the marker for Firelight Star — thus setting the navigation course.

Then, you channel your true energy again to drive the entire ship into “Forward Four” state.

“Forward” means moving toward the target direction; conversely, if you control the ship into “Reverse” state, it moves in the opposite direction of the target.

And the “Four” in “Forward Four” refers to speed — the higher the number, the faster. Four is the maximum.

However, this speed also depends on the quality and craftsmanship of the ship itself.

The more advantage a ship has in speed, the faster its “Forward Four” velocity will be.

So not all starships have the same speed.

Your starship was originally very low quality — bottom of the barrel — but after “Enhance!”, its quality has been upgraded by at least one tier.

A starship has only two directions of motion; it cannot move arbitrarily through space.

That's because these ships, in essence, cannot perform interstellar navigation on their own. They simply operate along something called a “Lane.”

Lane, full name “Interstellar Traffic Navigation Track.”

It is a special construct built by the Shijie people, continuously constructed from ancient times to the present, never ceasing.

Lanes span nearly every planet — at least every inhabited planet generally has a lane connecting it.

The scale of the universe renders all power and speed utterly insignificant, like ants before giants. Starships can cross planetary distances in a short time not because the ships are fast, but because the lanes are fast.

A lane is like a river, with water flowing within. The faster the current, the faster a boat travels downstream.

The difference is that the “water” in a lane can flow in two directions simultaneously, so a starship can go either “Forward” or “Reverse.”

The “flow speed” of the lanes is astonishing — theoretically surpassing the speed of light.

Yet in such faster-than-light travel, you do not experience time dilation; that is, you won't find that flying on a lane for one year means many years pass for a stationary observer on the ground.

You cannot comprehend this phenomenon that is both scientific and mystical, and can only attribute it to the wondrous power of divine runes.

Because you can clearly see that the lane is covered in glowing golden divine runes.

Year seventeen, age forty-one.

Drawing attributes...

Draw successful!

“Good Drinking Manners” (White Common): You fall asleep instantly after drinking, never causing a scene.

Adjust attribute?

Yes / No

You choose Yes.

You replace “Someone’s Been Copying My Face” with “Martin's Morning.”

The situation of the human race in the Shijie realm is a hundred times worse than Chen Yi had anticipated.

Though the situation on the Blessing Star may be an extreme case, and other planets likely aren't that severe,

it's easy to imagine it's not much better either.

Next, Chen Yi will head to Firelight Star to find the Old Hag — both to reclaim his immortal weapon companion and to cultivate in a place with immortal energy.

That's why Chen Yi thought of the “Martin's Morning” attribute.

Thanks to this ability, he could change his appearance every single day, even switching races entirely. This came in handy when he first arrived in a new place, making it easier for him to move around and get things done. Otherwise, if he walked around looking like a human, some "speciesist" types might try to cause trouble for him, which would get in the way of his cultivation and other important matters.