Super Gene

The clouds pierced the wall of fire. The cold air could freeze the cells of others, and almost immediately, the flaming phoenix was metamorphosed into its own opposite; it was turned into a statue of ice.

Boom!

Phoenix King had become ice, and all of his cells had frozen solid. Then, without notice, the composition of his being exploded into miniscule chips of ice that either pelted the field or submitted to the wind and were blown away.

The golden flames were gone, and Phoenix King had poofed out of existence in a haze of cold-blue dust. He respawned near his spirit statue.

The spirit base fell so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. Phoenix King had been utterly annihilated in the blink of an eye, and for a moment, every spirit thought they had slipped into a bizarre and surreal dream.

The King of Day was frozen, and he could hardly believe his eyes.

Flower Empress’ mouth was wide open, as if in awe that was trying to masquerade as disappointed shock.

Heavenly Empress herself did not expect that The King could defeat Phoenix King so easily, meaning all the phoenix genes would have to be delivered to The King now.

Seeing as she was the one who had convinced Phoenix King to fight The King, she felt tremendously guilty.

"Kingfire Gene +1; First Rank Achieved. First Rank Reward: Self-Spirit Gene + 10"

Han Sen was only a little bit pleased. Receiving ten self-spirit genes for achieving first place seemed like a lowly reward for the feat.

It now seemed to Han Sen that obtaining self-spirit genes in the spirit bases would not be easy, and it also told him there had to be other ways to receive them.

Phoenix King respawned from the spirit stone with anger, and amidst the fire and fury of his temper, he spared no time in launching himself towards Han Sen in the shape of a phoenix.

Boom!

Han Sen cast the skill Water-Thunder, which obliterated the flying phoenix into another cascade of giblets.

"If you lack the courage to commit suicide, I can help you." Han Sen’s body crackled with a surge of electricity. He was a physical manifestation of terrifying lightning, as he approached Phoenix King’s statue.

When the mad phoenix respawned, Han Sen punched him to death again.

As soon as he respawned again, Han Sen killed him. This was repeated over and over, and people were in such shock and awe that they could hardly think straight as they tried to process what their eyes were telling them.

Alternating between ice and thunder, Phoenix King kept dying without even being given the chance to breathe.

All the spirits watched Phoenix King get slaughtered relentlessly, like livestock being led to a grinder.

Ten thousand spirits had come to watch the battle unfold, and not one of them made a sound. They were all in silent fright, as the noise of explosions sounded repeatedly, as if they were on a timer.

"He is the first rank king spirit of this spirit base; The King is far too overpowered!" This thought raced through the mind of every spirit there.

The spirits who had shown disdain to Han Sen before were now frozen.

No one could believe that this was the result of the fight they had come to spectate.

"Does this mean The King wasn’t afraid of Phoenix King, at all? Did he just want to collect more king spirit genes before achieving first place?" Some spirits finally understood Han Sen’s initial reaction to the proposition of fighting Phoenix King, and after realizing this, they shouted to the sky.

"So, The King decided to fight king spirits one-by-one, in sequential order? And the people who wanted to bully him were those king spirits?"

"The King is so powerful, man. He’d never fear an opponent, or even think of fleeing a battle."

"The King is invincible. Who was stupid enough to believe he would be afraid of Phoenix King?"

...

The sudden reversal of opinion represented just how much spirits adored those who were stronger. More than ever, spirits started to admire and show their affection for Han Sen again.

For the fire genes he sought, Han Sen did not slow down in his repeated slaying of Phoenix King. He kept on killing him until he reached the sum of one hundred.

One hundred points was the max he was able to extract, unfortunately. Had he signed a contract, he could have received an infinite amount.

Still, the results satisfied Han Sen a great deal. He was very appreciative of the fire genes he was able to harvest. All he would have to do next was max out his fire royal genes; once he did that, his fire element strengths and resistances would be perfect.

Once this was achieved, he could practice fire hyper geno arts at a considerably quicker pace.

After the fight was over, The King’s name became synonymous with the word invincible.

Many king spirits continued to despise him, but the love given to Han Sen from the lower tier spirits was unending. Many royal spirits were all too happy to provide him with spirit genes.

Despite receiving so many spirit genes, though, a feeling nagged at Han Sen’s mind. He was actually quite unhappy.

Spirit genes only strengthened a person’s talent and proficiencies with elements; they did not increase a person’s fitness level. The greatest effect they would provide was in the opening of a gene lock.

Han Sen’s fire geno points had almost maxed out. If he practiced fire element skills, his speed in opening gene locks would be far quicker than it would be for other humans.

Ordinary humans needed a fitness level of nine hundred to open their third gene lock, but if Han Sen practiced fire element skills, he could open a third gene lock from as low as six hundred.

Whatever fire elemental skill he used could be cast faster and with a greater power, too.

But to Han Sen, such a privilege was useless.

The reason why he was this powerful was all down to his super king spirit body. It put him in a whole different league than other king spirits.

Of course, the title of being a "super" king spirit did not mean that it was stronger than every other king spirit.

Still, king spirits that had only opened their first or second gene lock would still be weaker than a base super king spirit.

A king spirit that had opened their first gene lock possessed a fitness level that was comparable to the Iron Bug King.

King spirits needed to grow, and their fitness increased as they became stronger.

Han Sen noticed that by obtaining more self-spirit points, the power possessed by his super king spirit mode would be much stronger.

Because super king spirit was stronger, he could defeat king spirits with ease. But to keep going in this manner, without increasing his sum of self genes, the advantages he had would soon be made irrelevant. He needed more, and he realized how difficult such a task would be.

And to make matters worse for him, Han Sen was still stuck back in the sanctuary, unable to hunt creatures there. Continuing on this trajectory, without increasing his fitness, could one day prove deadly.

He could only use super king spirit mode in the sanctuary as a trump card—it was relegated to being a last resort. He couldn’t randomly use it anymore, not before improving the strength of his body.

...

"San Mu, we have finally come to the edge of Thorn Forest!" Chu Ming jovially called out to Han Sen.