"Paying respects to Your Highness!"
The thousand elite guards behind the black-haired old man dropped to one knee in unison, their combined aura merging into a single, overwhelming force.
"Paying respects to Your Highness!"
The tens of thousands of servants also prostrated themselves, humble and reverent beyond measure.
These servants had all been personally selected and trained by the Virtual Universe Company to serve its most important figures.
To them, the honor of serving a member of the Primal Secret Realm was the greatest privilege imaginable.
Aitor gestured toward the black-haired old man and introduced him to Luo Fan.
"Your Highness, this is your Guard Captain, Slek. He possesses power approaching that of a Marquis-level Immortal and excels in blade techniques."
Luo Fan raised an eyebrow in mild surprise.
He hadn't expected his captain to be this strong.
"Nice to meet you, Slek. I'll be relying on you for a while."
Slek gave a slight bow.
"I live only to serve Your Highness."
After that, Aitor bid Luo Fan farewell and departed, leaving Slek to take over the tour of the estate.
Slek kept ten of the World Masters behind and dismissed the rest of the servants to their duties.
After introducing the ten subordinates to Luo Fan, he began showing him around the manor.
The estate was enormous, complete with a cultivation chamber, dueling hall, combat techniques room, recovery hall, and recreation hall, all meticulously replicated from reality.
Because the company had learned that Luo Fan was also a pharmacist in the Virtual Universe Company's alchemy division, a laboratory had been prepared for him as well.
Although it wasn't on par with Grando's facilities, it was still comparable to those used by four-star Immortal-level pharmacists.
Next, Slek led Luo Fan to a grand structure that looked more like a castle than a villa.
This castle was to be Luo Fan's personal residence.
After completing the tour of the grounds, Slek accompanied him through the castle interior before finally taking his leave.
Luo Fan entered his master bedroom, a vast space measuring thousands of square meters.
On his shoulder, a small robot waved its hand, and in the next instant, the entire room transformed into an Earth-style interior.
Not only that, the whole castle shifted into the style of a traditional garden.
This robot was Luo Fan's virtual assistant within the Virtual Universe, a subprogram derived from his Mechanical Race clone, fully synchronized with his thoughts.
With a casual wave, a three-dimensional holographic screen appeared before him.
Various functions instantly unfolded: sparring practice, experiments, cleaning, massage, dining, and more.
Luo Fan ignored these and focused his will, selecting the option labeled "Treasure Vault."
Beep!
The vault opened.
Instantly, the screen displayed eight major categories:
Secret Techniques, Weapons, Rare Treasures, Technological Weapons, Materials, Tools, Biological Items, and Other Specials.
Each main category contained numerous subcategories.
Under Biological Items, for example, floated entries like Plant Life, Metal Life, Beast Taming, and others.
The Secret Techniques section was also divided by different schools and systems.
There were literally tens of millions of classifications.
Luo Fan casually opened the Rare Treasures section and began browsing.
Each entry glimmered with alluring descriptions:
Purple Perilla White Willow Leaf, 20,000 points per portion
(30% discount for Primal Secret Realm, 20% for Primeval, 10% for Heaven and Earth, full price for Doomsday).
Nine-Colored Blossom, 1,000,000 points each
(30% discount for Primal, 20% for Primeval, 10% for Heaven and Earth, full price for Doomsday).
Flowlight Five-Core Stone, 900,000 points each
(30% discount for Primal, 20% for Primeval, 10% for Heaven and Earth, full price for Doomsday).
...
These were treasures rarely seen in the outside universe, yet here, they could be purchased directly.
As a member of the Primal Secret Realm, Luo Fan had 100,000 points.
Members of the Primeval Secret Realm had 10,000 points, those in the Heaven and Earth Secret Realm had 1,000 points, and those in the Doomsday Secret Realm had only 100 points.
Luo Fan knew that within the Virtual Universe Company, authorized individuals could exchange one Mixed Yuan unit of universal currency for one point.
Among core members, private trading was also possible, the going rate being one Mixed Yuan unit for 7.8 points.
However, such trades were exceedingly rare.
The difference in rates existed because the better the item, the harder it was to purchase with ordinary currency.
The stronger one's power, the more valuable a single point became.
When weak, a ten-point fruit from the vault might cost only one Mixed Yuan unit on the outside.
But Luo Fan hadn't opened the vault to make purchases.
He wanted his Mechanical Race clone to record all the data on these treasures.
For a mechanical being, this task was simple, and Luo Fan's clone possessed computational capacity several times greater than most mechanical or intelligent lifeforms.
Moreover, he possessed a Computational Power Secret Technique, which, when activated, boosted his processing ability ten thousandfold.
Thus, even though his Mechanical clone was only Universe-level, its computing strength could rival that of World Masters or even Immortals among the Mechanical Race.
For now, these treasures were of little practical use to him.
What he truly needed at this stage was to comprehend the laws.
He planned to wait until he reached Chaos City, then select a Secret Technique aligned with his chosen Law path.
Thinking of this, he quickly used his clone to send a reminder to Luo Feng and the others.
In the original timeline, Luo Feng had spent all his points too early and thus couldn't afford to buy any Secret Techniques.
Fortunately, Luo Feng had only just opened the vault and hadn't started spending yet.
Hong and Thunder God were in the same situation.
Meanwhile, Luo Fan's clone continued recording data within the Virtual Universe, cataloging every treasure and biological specimen available.
His current clearance level was incredibly high, comparable even to that of Marquis-level Immortals.
Hence, he could access an immense amount of restricted data.
The Mechanical clone began its task, processing each item one by one.
Even with its immense computing speed, the sheer quantity of information would take considerable time to record completely.
...
In reality, aboard the spaceship, inside Luo Fan's personal chamber.
Luo Fan's true body and his two clones were all cultivating within the World Ring.
Previously, because he had been spending time accompanying his wife in "training" (ahem, just accompanying her), he still hadn't claimed his Cosmic Genius Battle Champion rewards.
Now, he decided it was time to collect them.
He had originally planned to create a new system task, something like "earn ten thousand Mixed Yuan units" or "gain one hundred thousand points"... but the attempt had failed.
He wasn't particularly disappointed though; he'd expected as much.
Without further delay, he directly claimed his task rewards.
In an instant, his stats surged, he gained ten million Luck Points and three million Comprehension Points!
And within his system space, a new item appeared.
the Enlightenment Crystal.
He tried searching the Virtual Universe database but found nothing regarding its effects.
So, he accepted the information transmitted directly from the system.
A moment later, Luo Fan was completely stunned.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bonus chapters every 200 Power Stone!
10, 20, 30 Advanced chapters in my Patreon!
patreon.com/hollyrisk