Merit.
Although the overall level of this universe in Douluo Continent was relatively low, it was ultimately an extraordinary world. Therefore, Ye Wen had often referenced his previous life's cultivation novels while practicing. He even pirated "Investiture of the Gods" and spread it as entertainment fiction.
Thus, Ye Wen had a deep understanding of merit.
Unfortunately, liberating Douluo Star did not bring him any merit, nor did conquering dozens of galaxies result in heavenly merit descending upon him.
This led Ye Wen to believe that this universe's level was too inferior for its world laws to have developed such a mechanism.
However, from the current situation, Ye Wen realized his assumption was flawed.
Subconsciously, Ye Wen thought doing good deeds or helping humanity develop civilization, as depicted in Honghuang novels, would earn merit.
But this was an incorrect concept.
Such actions at best could be considered virtuous deeds, allowing one to be reborn into a better life in the next reincarnation.
True merit, on the other hand, was a special energy bestowed by heaven and earth when one performed acts beneficial to the entire world.
Now, Ye Wen had eradicated chaos and averted a crisis that could have led to the world's destruction.
This was a great merit benefiting this universe!
Though Ye Wen knew the merit before him was meant for him and wouldn't dissipate, he couldn't resist the impulse and began absorbing the strands of merit into his body, feeling an incredible sense of euphoria.
However, years of cultivated habits quickly brought Ye Wen back to his senses, and he began analyzing the intricacies of this merit.
In Honghuang novels, the greatest use of merit was to help someone achieve sainthood or enhance magical artifacts. More commonly, it signified receiving heaven's recognition, akin to possessing a valuable get-out-of-jail-free card.
Of course, this "get-out-of-jail-free" referred to not offending powerful beings, as they had numerous means at their disposal.
Facing ordinary people, anyone daring to kill someone with merit would be rejected by heaven and earth, plagued by misfortunes, and might even perish. Thus, merit became highly coveted in the Honghuang world.
After thorough analysis, Ye Wen found that the merit he received had similar effects. Unfortunately, eradicating a mere King of God Kings-level chaos wasn't enough to propel Ye Wen to sainthood.
However, the merit Ye Wen estimated he had received could transform one of his super-divine artifacts, the Boundless Ocean Blade, into something surpassing a super-divine artifact.
Through enlightenment, Ye Wen learned that existence beyond super-divine artifacts was referred to as Heavenly Dao Sacred Artifacts in this world—a supreme divine artifact capable of directly mobilizing the highest laws of this universe, capable of instantly annihilating a life-bearing plane, with terrifying power.
But Ye Wen didn't choose to take the lazy route and upgrade the Boundless Ocean Blade using this merit.
As previously mentioned, the function of merit in this universe aligned with that in Honghuang novels, meaning postnatally forged divine artifacts might not be inferior to Heavenly Dao Sacred Artifacts upgraded through merit.
It was just that Ye Wen needed more time to explore further.
But having achieved immortality and being the strongest ruler of the Douluo civilization, Ye Wen lacked neither time nor materials. Wasting some hard-earned merit accumulated over tens of thousands of years for a fleeting boost would be foolish.
Thus, Ye Wen decided to save up his merit for future needs.
However, Ye Wen did spend a bit of merit to slightly enhance his cultivation.
After all, there were precedents to refer to in the God King realm, but Ye Wen's Divine Sovereign realm was unique to him. He needed some samples to reference for his future breakthrough path.
Lv151 → Lv152 ↑
Feeling the effortless increase in his cultivation and the increasingly tight connection with this world, Ye Wen's eyes grew hazy and wistful.
So upgrades could still feel this smooth.
This made Ye Wen, who had been stuck at level 150 (similar to reaching level 99 in the Limit Douluo), feel a long-lost sense of exhilaration.
However, Ye Wen didn't indulge in it because he knew this rapid advancement was temporary. Unless he could obtain more merit, he could rapidly increase his cultivation. But how likely was that?
After all, across dozens of galaxies and thousands of life-bearing planes in this universe, only two peculiar beings like Goodness and Evil had emerged.
Thinking about this, Ye Wen suddenly raised an eyebrow!
"It seems it's not impossible for another chaos law practitioner to appear. After all, I've already mastered the chaos laws of Goodness and Evil. It shouldn't be difficult to cultivate similar powerful beings following their example. Wouldn't that allow me to repeatedly farm merit points!?"
With these thoughts, Ye Wen's expression filled with joy, as if he had discovered a broad avenue.
However, Ye Wen feared that the heavenly dao of this universe possessed intelligence akin to Douluo's plane consciousness and detected his scheming thoughts.
But after sensing the merit within his body and noticing no abnormalities—no brewing lightning tribulation or warnings from the sky—Ye Wen secretly rejoiced. It seemed this universe, though it had merit, still couldn't match the intelligent heavenly dao of the Honghuang world, which could preemptively punish wrongdoers.
Nevertheless, with Ye Wen's cautious nature, he didn't plan to openly and blatantly cultivate beings like Goodness and Evil, lest this universe suddenly gain insight and expose his tax evasion-like behavior.
Thus, after some thought, Ye Wen sketched out a plan in his mind to subtly guide similar powerful individuals, letting them fall into evil and become his merit experience packs.
Plan approved~
After some busy work and collecting his merit bonus, Ye Wen felt thoroughly refreshed. With a casual wave, he dispersed the condensed Great Array of the Heavens and Stars furnace.
But as the furnace dissipated, Ye Wen immediately noticed something unusual.
"What is this?" Ye Wen exclaimed in surprise.
Where the Great Array of the Heavens and Stars furnace once floated, a black-and-white tortoiseshell now hovered, rippling with intertwined black-and-white chaotic laws, seemingly fused with it.
Ye Wen naturally recognized this shell as belonging to the small turtle, Karasuki. However, the once lively little turtle had been completely refined to death, leaving behind only this empty shell.
Before Ye Wen could examine this mysterious tortoiseshell, the space where the merit appeared earlier suddenly emitted ominous law fluctuations.
Ye Wen looked in astonishment at the gradually rising magnetic storm clouds.
"My goodness, living here for so many years, I've never seen merit or heavenly tribulation, and today both come together."
With the appearance of merit, Ye Wen naturally associated the emerging storm clouds with heavenly tribulation.
Suddenly, Ye Wen had a flash of inspiration. The purpose of heavenly tribulation was not only to test cultivators' fortitude and worthiness to ascend but also often served to test divine artifacts.
"According to the information obtained from Karasuki earlier, its birth wasn't accompanied by a tribulation, but now it has one.
Is it because of the chaos laws on it? Or does it possess the ability to influence the operation of this universe?"
Regardless of which possibility, Ye Wen couldn't allow the new Karasuki to be destroyed under the heavenly tribulation.
With his keen observation, Ye Wen quickly deduced that when the Great Array of the Heavens and Stars covered Karasuki earlier, no tribulation formed around it. This meant that sufficient high-energy reactions masking Karasuki's presence could prevent the tribulation mechanism from activating.
Having confirmed that this universe's heavenly dao lacked high intelligence, Ye Wen felt no psychological burden and directly re-condensed the Great Array of the Heavens and Stars of Douluo's star system into a one-meter-sized furnace, covering Karasuki once again.
As Karasuki was concealed again, the brewing tribulation faltered, appearing somewhat confused. The tribulation rolled around but failed to find its target, gradually dissipating.
However, Ye Wen soon faced another issue.
The Great Array of the Heavens and Stars furnace was ultimately an illusory construct. Without maintaining it through the array, it would eventually dissipate.
But this didn't stump Ye Wen. Carrying the furnace, Ye Wen flew towards his base in the outer heavens of Douluo Star.
Energy might dissipate, but he could simply recharge the furnace periodically with the Great Array of the Heavens and Stars. After all, wasting the solar radiation from these stars would be a loss.
Moreover, Ye Wen contemplated using this opportunity to probe the minimum energy threshold required to mask energy from the heavenly dao.
For the first time in a while, Ye Wen felt a surge of excitement. After all, this was defying the ultimate rules of this universe and exploring its deepest mysteries—it was exhilarating, truly exhilarating!
With Ye Wen's complete return, the somewhat stagnant Douluo civilization in recent years experienced a second spring.
After all, Ye Wen's existence symbolized absolute martial power and was the core belief of the Douluo civilization and its numerous life-bearing planes.
The collapse of the Creator God significantly impacted the ruling power of the Douluo civilization.
Now, Ye Wen's resurrection, emulating Jesus, undeniably branded him with an immortal label, bringing the faith concentration of the Douluo civilization to unprecedented heights.
However, Ye Wen remained indifferent.
When he had just achieved the status of a supreme god, he might have rejoiced at receiving so much faith energy. But now, he was no longer the youth he once was. Only exploring higher realms excited Ye Wen.
Thus, Ye Wen once again delegated responsibilities. Apart from indulging with Xue Di and others during his initial return, he fully devoted himself to studying Karasuki and experimenting with shielding the heavenly tribulation.
By accelerating the energy dissipation of the Great Array of the Heavens and Stars furnace, Ye Wen quickly measured the energy value required to shield the tribulation.
Thus, Ye Wen quickly lost interest and turned his full attention to the new Karasuki.
As a spatial divine artifact capable of traversing parallel worlds, Ye Wen had always been interested in Karasuki. He had thoroughly studied it inside and out and, with sufficient materials, could even replicate it.
But after a brief study, Ye Wen realized this version of Karasuki was entirely different from its previous turtle form.
Not only had its color changed, but its functions had changed as well.
After systematic research, Ye Wen looked at the black-and-white glowing shell in his hand with a complex expression.
"I didn't expect your purpose to be this. What a troublesome choice."
Ye Wen sighed, then looked ahead.
A spatial gate opened, surrounded by chaotic laws, revealing a familiar yet strange starry sky.
"It's been a long time, my homeland, Blue Star."
At one point, Ye Wen imagined achieving great cultivation, breaking through dimensional limitations with Ah Yin and others, and returning to his homeland, Blue Star.
But being stuck at the peak of God King for so many years, despite still sensing the distant world's resonance deep within, Ye Wen gradually abandoned this idea.
Mainly, he lacked the method. Otherwise, revisiting his old haunts was something Ye Wen desired.
But when this choice presented itself again, Ye Wen found himself conflicted.
After all, what could he, an orphan, do if he returned?
Moreover, Ye Wen's vision, comparable to a cosmic telescope, revealed that although tens of thousands of years had passed in the Douluo world, at most a hundred years had elapsed on Blue Star.
Though only a century, for that ordinary world, it had undergone tremendous changes, with everything different and no familiar faces left.
More importantly, when Ye Wen sent a clone to investigate, he found his cultivation drastically diminished there.
Though still extraordinary, capable of surviving in space, his barely space-worthy clone, if it landed on Blue Star, would likely be detected by the increasingly interstellar civilization of Blue Star and end up detained and dissected.
One could say the value of those tech giants' claim that Douluo Star was a hydrogen world kept rising.
Although Ye Wen believed that even with his strength reduced to a tenth, he could still trigger a mass extinction on Blue Star.
But knowing the evils of human nature, Ye Wen chose not to test it or stir unnecessary trouble.
"Just watching my homeland from afar is fine. There's no need to integrate into a place where I no longer belong."
Ye Wen sighed softly and recalled his clone.
Upon returning to the Douluo universe, the clone's severely compressed strength restored to its peak.
The dimensional gate closed.
As Ye Wen expected, the highly advanced Blue Star civilization immediately locked onto his clone the moment it appeared in space.
Knowing more bred fear. Blue Star's leaders constantly worried about the sudden emergence of entities monitoring their civilization's development or alien arrivals.
After all, Blue Star was at most a Level 1 civilization, and civilizations capable of interstellar travel were not to be trifled with by Blue Star.
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