Chapter 1677

The king's words did not surprise Lania, although he did not understand what price gouging or taking advantage of a fire meant, but given the king's habit of extorting everywhere, this kind of mid-move price hike was not surprising at all.

However, Lania had to accept it, because the effect was truly excellent—the king only moved twice, yet genuinely increased his increment by one hundred-thousandth; if he moved another hundred thousand times, he could double his lifespan.

One hundred thousand times sounds like a lot, but even if done once a year, it would only take one hundred thousand years, yet could extend lifespan by hundreds of millions of years—the return on investment is too great.

For this reason, Lania had no choice but to patiently ask: "What kind of entertaining news do you want to hear?"

The king immediately stopped feeling tired, sat up quickly, and asked: "Your chain, and that gravitational adhesion—I haven't seen other god-stars use it. Is this your unique secret technique? Or do other god-stars also use it?"

Lania thought he would ask something else, was stunned for a moment, then said: "This is an ancient inheritance; all ancient god-stars use it."

The king froze for a moment: "Ancient inheritance? What is an ancient god-star?"

Lania stared at him silently, saying nothing.

The king understood his meaning, hurriedly moved again, carried two more trips, then asked: "What is an ancient god-star?"

Lania said: "In ancient times, the entire void was very lively; everyone in the dark void freely radiated their own divine light, which contained vast amounts of information. Everyone studied a supreme truth of the void, or cracked a law of the void, and would gladly share it with the entire void."

"This is when one god-star mastered a law, and the entire void's god-stars shared the same law—an era of brilliant stars, called the ancient era. All god-stars that survived from that era to today are called ancient god-stars."

The king instantly understood, carried two more trips for increment, but secretly discussed the next issue with Anthony and others.

After the discussion, the king said: "I don't know anyone on Lania's path, but I heard a name in Kelania—Number Six God-Star. Are Kelania and this Number Six God-Star ancient god-stars?"

The king mainly wanted to ask about Number Six God-Star; Kelania was merely added to avoid suspicion.

Number Six God-Star never had the concept of ancient, but in fact it already belonged to the ancient god-stars; even he didn't know this concept—so how ancient must ancient be?

Lania said: "Neither."

"Neither? Number Six God-Star is so large, and still an ancient god-star—does it not belong to the category of ancient god-stars?" the king asked doubtfully.

Nania said: "Precisely because he is a giant god-star, he does not belong to the ancient god-stars; giant god-stars have short lifespans, while those of medium size live longer, as their internal pressure is not great, and increment decay is not so severe."

The king froze for a moment: "Does great internal pressure in a god-star also worsen increment decay? Then by this logic, wouldn't smaller god-stars have longer lifespans?"

Lania said: "Of course not—if a god-star is too small, its increment is too little; naturally its lifespan is short, and no matter how frugal, it cannot be extended."

The king nodded, realizing there must be a golden mass point for god-stars—being larger or smaller than this point is not good.

Just like the two skeletons manifested by Seeing Ange now—why choose four thousand meters in height? Because this is the height Seeing Ange strictly compared against.

Exceeding this height, the body cannot withstand intense exertion; a strong swing of the arm might easily dislocate it.

And being below this height, it cannot hold the maximum increment, so after weighing pros and cons, Seeing Ange chose this height.

After clarifying the context, the king asked again: "Your mass is greater than Number Six God-Star's, so your lifespan should be shorter than his—but why has he already declined while you have not?"

Lania asked: "When you arrived, did you notice? The space here is somewhat strange."

The king said: "I noticed—you fell into an energy pit."

Lania said: "Exactly—this is my secret to longevity; the energy pit traps my decaying increment inside, preventing wasteful loss."

Everyone suddenly realized—ah, that's why.

Actually, at first, everyone was curious: why did Lania remain motionless in a spatial 'funnel', not even moving when the ghost procession gathered? It turns out staying here extends lifespan.

This method of longevity via energy pit is similar to how the Migrant Stars encase themselves in hard shells, or how the Azure God-Star wraps itself in dimensional space—all serve to slow the burning of stellar fire.

However, these methods all have limitations, only suitable for small god-stars or dark stars.

For Lania's size and mass, a hard shell would be too thin to contain it, or too thick and cause excessive power loss—not worth it; one couldn't spend increment that could burn for eight hundred thousand years just to gain a million years of lifespan.

This funnel-shaped energy pit, however, suits Lania better—though not sealed, its potential causes all increment decay to fall to the pit's bottom; if someone could come here, they could even gather stellar fire ashes from the ground.

Stellar fire ashes are the residue after stellar fire burns; their quantity is very small—burning several hundred tons of stellar fire yields only a few grams of ash, normally dispersed in the void, undetectable.

Like how smoke ash from a fire disperses in air, but the ash from a forest fire can blanket the ground in a thick layer.

Stellar fire is purer than flame, so its ash is even less; normally it disperses in the void, but now in the energy pit, it can gather at the bottom, forming a thick layer.

This stellar fire ash is the most stable substance in the void—god-stars age, planes are destroyed, the void suffers heat death, yet only stellar fire ash endures eternally.

The energy pit has a major problem: to use it for longevity, one can only stay here, unable to move freely—equivalent to imprisoning oneself. If someone like the king had a method to directly increase core increment, Lania would not need to imprison himself here.

Thus, by moving a few trips and chatting a few words, then moving a few more and chatting again, the king extracted a large amount of information from Lania.

Because time was ample, all questions were carefully designed by Anthony and Ursman; each question could extract several key pieces of information. Combined with silver coin-collected data, they cross-checked to verify authenticity.

After cross-referencing, everyone concluded: "The void has experienced at least two major catastrophes."