Chapter 375

"... In short, thank you, Mr. Lin Qing, for providing this intelligence. This piece of intelligence will be credited at the highest standard: one billion military merits."

The Star Refining Marquis sighed and said, "Pity, you cannot make this intelligence public—if you could, I'd grant you even more military merits. We'll award the merits under some other pretext instead."

Military merits aren't only earned by killing enemies; intelligence is equally vital.

In his view, the value of this single piece of intelligence surpassed killing multiple enemy Eternal Beings!

According to military merit standards, killing just one enemy Chaos Being at the Peak level earns at least one hundred million military merits.

And killing an enemy Eternal Being?

There is no such provision in the state-domain war military merit reward regulations!

In a state-domain war, the likelihood of an Eternal Being perishing is virtually zero—even if such a case did occur, it would almost certainly be due to his own actions.

So he never even considered higher rewards.

"It's nothing."

Lin Qing shook his head. "If I suddenly received a massive sum of military merits without a valid explanation in the system, others would surely suspect—especially since I'm a future-rule cultivator. They'd likely assume I gave you future intelligence."

"True…" The Star Refining Marquis nodded slightly. "Under current circumstances, no state in the state-domain war has access to future intelligence. If the enemy doesn't know you've already informed me, they'll continue with their original plan. That makes our response easier. By the time they realize something's wrong, it'll already be after their first plan has failed."

"The upper echelons don't care about the outcome of a single state-domain war," Lin Qing nodded.

Remember, future-rule cultivators are exceedingly rare. In a state with tens of thousands of high-level Chaos Beings, there might be only a handful who cultivate the future rule!

And those who've reached the Minor Mastery of the Future Mystery, qualified to become a 'Great Seer,' are rarer still—by more than tenfold.

Across the entire Ice-Imprisoned Empire's nine hundred and fifty-two states, there are at most a few hundred 'Great Seers.'

The title 'Great Seer' is far rarer than an Eternal Being. Each Great Seer represents one opportunity to update intelligence during a Divine Nation War—how could such an opportunity be wasted on a minor state-domain war?

Even if they wanted to deal with Lin Qing, they'd only expend one such update opportunity after confirming the intelligence was false.

"Aren't you collecting treasures imbued with the mysteries of the future rule?"

The Star Refining Marquis flipped his hand and produced a space crystal. "Over the years, I've gathered some related treasures for you. See if any are useful."

Lin Qing's eyes lit up at once. He took it, sensed its contents, and immediately discovered over sixty treasures imbued with the mysteries of the future rule. A smile of delight appeared on his face: "Indeed useful."

"Good to hear."

The Star Refining Marquis nodded with a smile—he'd been sending people to collect these treasures at great cost for over a million years.

…

After discussing the details of the state-domain war in depth with the Star Refining Marquis, Lin Qing returned to his estate on Starlight Island to resume his seclusion.

"Normally…"

"The enemy deploys three Eternal-level warriors comparable to the Flame-Swallowing Python, plus the Remote Marquis, to deal with me—a mere cultivator yet to break into the Eternal realm. It's more than sufficient…"

Lin Qing mused inwardly, "But His Majesty, the Light King, sent me a Mind Traveler avatar. No one in the Kings' Realm can perceive any future lines involving His Majesty—that's one of my trump cards…"

In the entire Kings' Realm, only His Majesty, the Light King, is the ultimate being who wields the future cosmic rule.

Unless they summon an ultimate being from another civilization, no future-rule cultivator in the Kings' Realm can see any future lines altered by His Majesty.

But…

In a Divine Nation War, summoning outside help is perfectly normal.

So this point isn't entirely reliable.

"My most important trump cards are the Entropy Reverser and the Heart of the Future!"

Lin Qing narrowed his eyes. "Even His Majesty, the Light King, cannot see future lines affected by the Entropy Reverser. The enemy has no idea I can break into the Eternal realm in a short time—or even ascend further by invoking the Future's Descent."

In this war, where future intelligence floods everywhere, who breaks through in battle, who hides treasures, who holds trump cards—it all matters little now.

Do you deliberately suppress your breakthrough?

The future already knows—and has already prepared a plan to counter your breakthrough!

So the true key to breaking the deadlock lies only in unpredictable variables.

And Lin Qing holds three such trump cards!

"Continue cultivating." Lin Qing immediately closed his eyes and resumed studying the treasures the Star Refining Marquis had given him.

…

Time flew by.

In the blink of an eye, the state-domain war had begun.

The Star Refining State dispatched its expeditionary force to attack other states, while the remaining troops guarded the Star Refining State's transit star.

Lin Qing feared the enemy might again use Eternal Divine Blood to neutralize him, so neither his physical body nor his other avatars moved. Instead, he transformed the Mind Traveler avatar's appearance and masked its aura, sending it as commander to guard the transit star.

Eternal Divine Blood could only turn non-Eternal beings into Divine Servants—it had no effect on the Mind Traveler avatar now.

Even the Star Refining Marquis had not detected the Mind Traveler avatar's uniqueness.

After all, this was one of the Mind Traveler avatar's innate secret arts. Unless one possessed a counter-seal or breaking technique, even an Eternal Being couldn't see through it.

After the state-domain war began, the Remote State's expeditionary force occasionally sent forces to attack.

But they were merely high-level Chaos Beings, at most led by a Peak Chaos Being—nothing more than minor skirmishes to the Mind Traveler avatar.

Within just a hundred years, the Mind Traveler avatar, concealing its true strength, mimicked Lin Qing's methods and made a few casual strikes, easily accumulating hundreds of millions of military merits.

"Haha, our commander is too strong!"

"Dian Yan Bo of the Remote State is their strongest warrior—many Peak Chaos Beings can't match him, yet he couldn't survive three strikes against our commander!"

"That's nothing. Back then, even the famed Xiong Ying Bo was effortlessly subdued by our commander."

"Pity. If our commander, with such invincible strength, joined the expeditionary force to plunder, he'd have amassed a fortune!"

"You don't understand. A cultivator this close to the Eternal realm wouldn't care about such minor gains from raiding."

Lin Qing's few strikes had utterly awed and won over his troops.

Even enemy states dared not send expeditionary forces to attack the Star Refining State—after all, all sides accepted mutual retaliation; who would willingly send troops to their deaths?

For a time, the entire Star Refining State remained peaceful and tranquil, as if it hadn't even entered the war phase—leaving the garrison troops stationed at the transit star increasingly idle.

But the soldiers willing to station themselves here to guard the area were originally those unwilling to plunder and kill indiscriminately outside, so naturally they were glad for the leisure now.

Time passed slowly.

On this day.

In the Star Refining Province, at the Transfer Star's Interstellar Plaza, Lin Qing casually inspected the shuttle channels leading to various First-Rank and Second-Rank Stars, as he always did.

The reason the Transfer Star could guard the entire Star Refining Province was mainly these shuttle channels connecting all places, allowing troops to be dispatched at any time to suppress disturbances; they also connected to the Xianlian Shengxing, whose primordial essence protected the entire Transfer Star, ensuring its eternal existence. Even if someone wanted to break through, it would take some time, enough for the Marquis of Star Refining to arrive.

Suddenly—

A lofty, eternal aura spread out. On the empty Interstellar Plaza, a manifestation suddenly condensed.

This manifestation appeared as a bald old man, smiling as he looked at Lin Qing.

"The father of Marquis Jueyuan? Lord Cangliu?" Lin Qing raised his eyebrows slightly.