After Zhang Lie gave them all a tour of the airship, Sun Xiaowu murmured, "To think that the airship would have so many features..."

Zhang Lie instructed, "Find a room for yourself and start absorbing your disaster-grade cores. Get strong as quickly as possible—I wouldn't want to see you fail the trials."

Sun Xiaowu asked, "Captain, just what are these trials that you keep bringing up?"

Since he was bringing the members of Team Zenith there anyway, Zhang Lie had no intention of withholding any information.

"A special arena meant to weed out the weak and select the strong. There's an initial trial and a series of six trials within, all combat-related."

Sun Mengmeng seemed flummoxed. "To select the strong? What for?"

"You'll see once you enter," Zhang Lie replied.

To be frank, he didn't have a clear answer either, only guesses.

The members of Team Zenith each selected a room of their choice. When he noticed auras surging, Zhang Lie could tell that the members of Team Zenith had begun absorbing their disaster-grade cores, leaving Li Qianlin and Zhang Lie behind.

Zhang Lie told Li Qianlin, "I'll also be absorbing my disaster-grade cores, and I expect some unusual phenomena might happen while I do so..."

Just then, the hunters' rooms began to vibrate. Hot air billowed out of one, stormy winds of another, and the airship began to shake violently. Zhang Lie shook his head as he smiled wryly. "It looks as though I'll have to wait, then."

Red flames gushed out of the various rooms. Sun Mengmeng's room stood out most: the flames coming out of her room were black.

Zhang Lie clenched his fists tightly as blue genetic energy gathered around him, then spread throughout the airship.His genetic energy quelled the heat, preventing it from spreading to the rest of the airship and causing damage.

Considering their experiences from the second and third realms, the members of Team Zenith were quickly able to finish the absorption. They were now sensing their own strength and attempting to stabilize their cultivation.

The excess energy that they had vented from their bodies during the absorption had likely left their rooms in cinders; the airship would need to spend quite some time repairing them.

Zhang Lie turned to Li Qianlin. "The members of Team Zenith are alright now. I'm going to go absorb my disaster-grade cores too, Qianlin, so please watch over me from the command center in case anything unusual happens."

Li Qianlin nodded.

Zhang Lie headed to his room and initiated the absorption process.

Zhang Lie cut his palm with his sword, then dripped blood onto the core. The moment it touched the core, the blood was quickly absorbed into its interior.

It sucked up more and more of Zhang Lie's blood until it turned blood-red.

Zhang Lie opened his wounds again and again until the core became perfectly transparent. Then, he closed his eyes and began pouring concentrated blue genetic energy from his body into the core.

Lava swirled within the orb, so beautiful it looked almost like a work of art. Zhang Lie felt a keen sense of familiarity with it, as though it were already part of his body.

As the core slid down his throat, Zhang Lie felt a fiery, numbing sensation spread throughout his body. Zhang Lie's face took on the color of a boiled prawn.

Zhang Lie's blood boiled. Energy ran rampant throughout his body, causing blood to seep out of his pores and boil in the air. Lava seemed to fill his body, and his skin caught on fire.

The next moment, his body turned fire-red, as though he were molten steel. His blood boiled, his body swelled, and the floor beneath him started to melt. A pillar of flame burst into the air as the disaster gene fragments reformed his body from the inside out.Under Zhang Lie's careful control, the energy from absorbing the disaster-grade core was held in isolation so that it didn't affect the airship proper.

The members of Team Zenith didn't have such precise control, but Zhang Lie could easily do it, venting the energy but simultaneously isolating it from its surroundings.

Genetic energy circulated through his framework, faster and faster. As he assimilated the disaster gene fragments into his body, Zhang Lie gave off stronger and stronger beams of light.

He circulated genetic energy through his body at an incredible pace, his framework fully activated to capture and transform his newfound strength.

His evolution was spurred further and further onward by the energy of the disaster-grade core.

The temperatures reached an apex. The floor had largely been melted away. Flames roared out of Zhang Lie's eyes and mouth, and a vortex of hot wind formed around him—but even so, it was corralled within the room.

Zhang Lie then took out a second disaster-grade core.

To him, absorbing these disaster-grade cores was an ordinary affair, nothing more.

Zhang Lie cut his palm with his sword, then dripped blood onto the core. The moment it touched the core, the blood was quickly absorbed into its interior...

Following the usual routine, while floating in the air, Zhang Lie absorbed the second core.

Blood-colored radiance surrounded him, as though a dragon were coiled around his body.

The energy of lava, of molten rock, exuded from him. It was as though a flaming whirlwind were growing to life within his body. His blood turned molten as it flowed through his body.

He circulated [Ninecarp Transformation], merging the two streams of heat together and giving rise to even more incredible strength. Were Zhang Lie not an emperor-grade lifeform, he would long since have been destroyed.

Zhang Lie: an emperor-grade lifeform

Framework: Foundation, Lv. MAX; Ninecarp Transformation, Sixth Form: River Dragon Techniques: Rippling Walk (pinnacle), Three-Wave Crescendo (pinnacle), Calm Waters (pinnacle), Fists of the Silent Sea (pinnacle), The Boundless Blade (pinnacle), Eclipse (pinnacle), Syzygy (pinnacle), Ninesoul Dragonblade (advanced), Blade of the Heavens (pinnacle)

Genes: Basic, 160; Mutated, 150; Superior, 150; Peak, 150; Disaster, 130; Monarch, 0; Emperor, 0

Soulshards: White Grub (superior), Blood Ant (superior), Potbellied Toad (mutated), Eternalspring Cocoon (superior), Dragonwolf (superior), Moonlight Wyrm (peak), Golden Roc (peak), Dragonwhale (disaster), Mistmeld Clam (disaster), Limitless Universe (monarch)