Chapter 480 – Celestial Spirit: Who Says Godchild Mu Lin Isn't a Celestial Spirit?

By subjecting himself to various calamities and desperate situations, Mu Lin sought to force his Celestial Spirit physique to undergo further transformation and evolution.

Although most of Mu Lin’s attempts ended in failure, thanks to the Life Authority, his injured Clone would quickly recover, allowing him to continue his experiments.

Here, Mu Lin remained tirelessly busy.

Meanwhile, the surrounding members of the Celestial Spirit Clan watched his actions with bewildered expressions.

“What is the Godchild doing?”

“Why is he tormenting his own Clone for no apparent reason?”

“Could it be… there’s something wrong with the Godchild’s mind?”

They couldn’t comprehend Mu Lin’s actions, nor did they understand why he was doing this.

Even the Goddess of Life herself did not understand.

—Though she innately wielded the Life Authority, she could not fully comprehend her own Authority. This might seem strange, but in reality, it was not at all.

Just as humans are born with hands, feet, and a head, yet before the development of modern medicine, who knew the specific workings of the human body?

Who understood that the human body is composed of cells?

Even earlier, humans did not know who determined the gender of a child.

All these things are innate to humans, yet for thousands of years, who could fully understand them?

Even now, can humans truly comprehend their own bodies completely?

Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable for a Deity to not fully understand their own Authority.

The Goddess of Life had never paid attention to the biological evolution of mortal beings, and thus, she did not understand the reason behind Mu Lin’s actions.

However, even though she couldn’t comprehend it, Mu Lin’s performance still satisfied her immensely.

The first transformation into a Celestial Spirit physique aside, his body, perfected to the extreme, greatly pleased her—innately possessing five holy marks, such talent, even in the world’s prime, would have made her treat Mu Lin as her own child and nurture him with all her might.

What most satisfied, or rather, astonished the Goddess of Life, was Mu Lin’s seemingly boundless energy.

In just one hour, the energy Mu Lin consumed by manipulating the Genesis Authority was equivalent to that of a Celestial Master.

In other words, a normal Celestial Master in Mu Lin’s position would have been completely drained.

Yet Mu Lin not only showed no signs of energy depletion, but the energy he transmitted grew increasingly abundant.

Such an exaggerated scale of energy left even the True Goddess of Life somewhat unable to comprehend.

“How is he capable of producing so much energy?”

Not only the Goddess of Life was baffled, but the others present also couldn’t figure it out.

“The Authority’s rank is higher than ours. To activate it, we need to exert our full strength and consume vast amounts of energy. How can you keep activating it continuously?”

Mu Lin’s performance left many Alien Realm demons disheartened, feeling they had no hope.

And indeed, as they feared, they truly had no hope.

Mu Lin’s performance had already satisfied the Goddess of Life.

—His various displays even exceeded her expectations.

As a result, she had already secretly designated him as her successor for the Divine Position.

The reason she hadn’t declared it openly was that these Prodigies were, after all, invited by her, and each possessed considerable strength and influence. Not giving them an assessment opportunity would easily offend them—she wasn’t afraid of offending them, but she was about to die and needed to consider her own people.

However, although she intended to continue with the assessment, the Goddess of Life, who favored Mu Lin, was already contemplating how to help him secure victory.

“These people all harbor fear and hostility toward Mu Lin, wanting to gang up on him… That won’t do. In the upcoming battle, only one-on-one challenges will be permitted.”

“Hmm… I mustn’t let Mu Lin be worn down by successive opponents…”

“I recall that Mu Lin can harmonize with the Heavenly Dao. Later, I can open the Life Spirit Garden, allowing him to borrow the power of the Verdant Abundance Tree…”

When the master of a Divine Position shows favoritism toward their successor, others stand no chance whatsoever.

Mu Lin had already sealed the outcome of the competition.

At this moment, the Divine Kingdom where the Goddess of Life resided was gradually drawing closer to the human realm.

This was because she feared that after the Divine Position was transferred, Mu Lin would be besieged. Therefore, she planned to move her Divine Kingdom to the vicinity of the human world in advance, joining forces with the Human Race True Lord. In this way, once Mu Lin obtained the Divine Position, he would receive assistance from the Human Race True Lord.

…

Mu Lin remained completely unaware of the Goddess of Life’s thoughts and inclinations.

At this time, he was still using various calamities and dire situations to force his own body to undergo transformation and evolution.

Given the difficulty and lengthy time required for life to evolve in the natural world, Mu Lin was prepared for the possibility that tens of thousands of experiments might yield not a single success.

However, while he braced himself for the worst, six hours later, Mu Lin delightedly discovered that things were not as dire as he had imagined.

Perhaps he was fortunate, or perhaps the constitution of the Celestial Spirit Clan was particularly suited to mutation… Much like elves, who become moon elves under moonlight, dark elves underground, and also include grassland elves, forest elves, sun elves, blood elves…

The Celestial Spirit Clan bore some resemblance to elves, so it was quite plausible that their constitutions were prone to change.

Of course, aside from these possibilities, the power of the Life Authority was also a contributing factor.

Regardless of the reasons, in any case, Mu Lin’s experiment succeeded.

Endless calamities and extremely active recessive genes truly brought about changes in Mu Lin’s Celestial Spirit Body.

At this point, one of his clones had transformed into a Greater Celestial Spirit.

Amidst the endless calamities, that clone’s survival instinct was activated (a bodily instinct), causing its body to grow enormous—larger size allowed for greater energy storage, bringing more power to withstand more hazards.

Apart from the Greater Celestial Spirit, some of Mu Lin’s other clones became transparent.

Still others transformed into elemental forms.

However, although these mutations occurred, most were homomorphic variations, merely increasing the diversity of Celestial Spirit forms and not constituting true evolution.

“But having a beginning is good enough.”

Using the genetic blueprint of the Greater Celestial Spirit Body as a foundation, Mu Lin once again employed the Genesis Authority to replicate a batch of clones, subjecting them to secondary cultivation.

“Somehow, I feel like I’m optimizing rice seeds.”

The original rice yields were actually not high; it was through generations of selective breeding that yields exceeding a thousand catties per mu were achieved.

Now, Mu Lin was using his own Celestial Spirit Body as the “rice seed,” optimizing it generation by generation.

Thanks to the convenience of the Life Authority and the unlimited energy provided by nuclear fusion, Mu Lin’s optimization proceeded quite smoothly.

By the sixth hour, Mu Lin had cultivated a Greater Celestial Spirit that satisfied him somewhat. At this point, its normal height reached thirteen meters.

The ninth hour, this Greater Celestial Spirit grew to seventeen meters.

The thirteenth hour, the normal state of the Greater Celestial Spirit became thirty-three meters.

—Don’t think a thirty-three-meter-tall Greater Celestial Spirit isn’t powerful. Keep in mind, this is a Greater Celestial Spirit who hasn’t cultivated any special Cultivation Methods or released any Mystical Arts.

Their foundation is thirty-three meters, meaning that with the same Cultivation Method and the same growth, a Greater Celestial Spirit will always be thirty-three times stronger than an ordinary Celestial Spirit.

This level of power is staggering.

…

The Celestial Spirits in the Life Spirit Garden are all Prodigies, and they have also received careful nurturing from the Deities. Because of this, they understand this point very well.

Watching the Greater Celestial Spirit whose body had grown larger and whose presence was majestic, and sensing the abyssal, ocean-like energy within him, all the Celestial Spirits understood what Mu Lin was doing.

“No Cultivation Methods at all—this is a naturally developed Celestial Spirit… Hiss, the Godchild is optimizing our race!”

“Reaching thirty-three meters tall upon adulthood, with strength approaching the level of a general—how is this possible!”

The newly emerged Greater Celestial Spirit astonished the remaining Celestial Spirits, and the sound of sharp intakes of breath continuously echoed throughout the Life Spirit Garden.

At the same time, some looked toward their own Goddess of Life with deep confusion.

“Can Life Authority even achieve such things?”

“Why didn’t Mother God optimize us before?”

The Goddess of Life felt the gazes of her many clansmen, to which she could only offer an awkward yet polite smile.

Optimizing the race’s genes—this had never occurred to her. It was like boiling water to generate power—humans could even observe this directly with the naked eye, but for thousands of years before the development of the steam engine, no one had ever thought to use it to lighten human labor.

Is that strange? Not at all.

Without a scientific spirit, the efficiency with which Deities of the feudal era utilized their Authority was just that low.

Moreover, in the past, the Goddess of Life had been unable to do this.

Conservative forces exist everywhere, and even as the esteemed God of Life, before the world of the Celestial Spirit Clan fell, she could not arbitrarily alter the genes of her own race.

“The ways of our ancestors must not be changed; we are the most perfect…” Such thinking is common everywhere.

As for why the Celestial Spirits before her now were so easily accepting, a large part of the reason was that they were young and highly receptive.

Another reason was that, with their world fallen, they cared little about changes to their physical forms and did not even mind using Forbidden Power—they only wanted strength.

At that moment, a young Celestial Spirit clenched his fist and slammed it hard against the nearby wall:

“If all our clansmen back then had possessed such strength, perhaps our world would not have fallen!”

“…”

These words left many in silence.

After a long while, a voice finally spoke up.

“It’s not too late now. If the Godchild transforms us, our strength will definitely see a major surge. With our power and the Godchild’s peerless talent, perhaps one day we can fight our way back!”

“…You’re right. We can fight our way back! Under the leadership of Godchild Mu Lin, we will definitely fight our way back!”

Even though the Divine Position had not yet been passed on, the emergence of the Greater Celestial Spirits had already led the survivors to regard Mu Lin as their leader.

Moreover, at this moment, there was not a single Celestial Spirit left who wished to end their own life.

Previously, their thoughts of suicide stemmed from a despair of seeing no future. Proud as they were, they refused to sink into degradation, preferring death instead.

But now, Mu Lin’s emergence had given them hope—the hope of reclaiming their ancestral homeland and restoring their honor.

Thus, these prodigies among the Celestial Spirits were all rolling up their sleeves, eager and ready for action!

Some even clasped their hands together, praying to the heavens: “We thank the Azure Heaven, we thank the Mother God for her protection. In our most difficult times, you have granted us a savior among the Celestial Spirits.”

“He is not one of you Celestial Spirits; he is human…”

Just as Mu Lin was about to win over the hearts of all the Celestial Spirits, some members of the Foreign Races could no longer hold back and once again stirred discord between Mu Lin and the Celestial Spirits, pointing out his identity as a member of the Human Race.

However, before the Foreign Race member could finish speaking, they were left speechless to find that all the Celestial Spirits were glaring at them with fury.

And their words left the Foreign Race member utterly powerless.

“Silence! Lord Mu Lin is a Celestial Spirit. He is the Godchild bestowed upon us by the heavens.”

“Exactly! Anyone who dares say Lord Mu Lin is not a Celestial Spirit is challenging and insulting our Celestial Spirit Clan!”

“Everyone, please choose your words carefully. Our Godchild of the Celestial Spirit Clan must not be insulted!”

“…”

“…”

“…”

The united and resolute words of the Celestial Spirits left many speechless.

Among them, the most speechless was—the Fourth Prince of the Human Race.

“???”

(End of Chapter)