Li Mu paused for a moment, then slowly said, "I heard from Yun Rou that he seems to be doing quite well. Come to think of it, that guy brought back so many resources."

Chen Xingyu had met Lu Ning before and had a very deep impression of her.

He laughed and said, "When Sister Keqing and the others come back and hear about Lu Ning, they'll probably be very excited."

Both Li Mu and Wang Qiwen smiled.

…………

Time flies, and three years have passed in the blink of an eye.

The land of Guixu.

In Yan Bing's room, Lu Ning slowly opened his eyes, a silver glint flashing in them.

He got up, stretched, and exhaled a breath of stale air.

I've finally reached the advanced Saint level.

After reaching the Saint level, the improvement of mental strength becomes increasingly slower.

For three years, Lu Ning refined his mental energy every day, using liquid mental energy as a resource.

Even so, Lu Ning has only just reached the high-level Saint level.

It will probably take several more years before we reach demigod status.

Over the past few years, not only Lu Ning has made progress, but everyone else has also made progress.

Last year, Yann broke through his bottleneck and successfully reached the level of a demigod.

Besides Yaen, there were two other saints whose strength was originally similar to Yaen's, and they had also reached the demigod level.

After their breakthrough, they returned to Earth, bringing back a considerable amount of resources.

As for the other saints, they all improved to varying degrees.

Take Lin Wuyue for example. She had just reached the Saint level, but now she is already a mid-level Saint.

In comparison, Lu Ning found that his progress was quite fast.

It's important to understand that liquid spiritual energy is free from spiritual contamination, so there's no need to consider the negative effects of spiritual contamination as with absorbing soul crystals before.

All awakened beings can continuously refine their spiritual power.

Even so, Lu Ning found that his improvement speed was still far faster than that of other Saints of the same level.

He guessed it might be because the pale spiritual energy within his body was somewhat peculiar, which could greatly enhance the efficiency of his spiritual energy tempering.

This is naturally a good thing for Lu Ning.

It's even a good thing for all of humanity.

If he can reach the level of a demigod, a human demigod, he might have a chance to become a god, without having to worry about being completely corrupted by the mist.

Once humanity has a god-level powerhouse in charge, it will be much safer facing the invasion of the mist.

Humans will also have more time.

During these three years, although Lu Ning spent every day tempering his mental strength, the others did not have it so easy.

Yan Bing frequently travels between Earth and the Ruins of Return, and also brings back news about Earth for Lu Ning.

As they had anticipated, cracks in the barrier were appearing more and more frequently.

It happened once two years ago, with two cracks appearing at once.

Last year, this happened twice, once with four cracks and once with five cracks.

Fortunately, humanity made great progress during this period. Although there were many losses, the rift was preserved, and Yan Bing then closed it.

In addition to the three breakthroughs to demigod status by Yann, two more demigods emerged on Earth, bringing the total number of demigods to five at once.

The number of saints has increased dramatically.

According to the information brought back by Yan Bing, statistics show that the number of human saints has increased by more than 500 in the past three years!

The reason for such a significant improvement is that many Awakened Ones were previously stuck at the bottleneck of the ninth rank.

To break through from the ninth rank to the Saint, one needs to condense and solidify their spiritual power, transforming it into a spiritual crystal.

When one's spiritual power is not pure, the requirements for talent become very high.

Now, with the pure spiritual energy replenishment of liquid spiritual energy, even awakened individuals with relatively low talent can solidify their spiritual energy and transform it into spiritual crystals.

This is why the number of saints among humans has increased dramatically.

With the number of Saints increasing so much, the number of Awakeners at other levels must be even greater.

The Awakening Crystals were naturally distributed to all humans in the first year.

This also resulted in everyone except the very young and the very old becoming awakened.

The emergence of a large number of Awakened Ones has also given the Mist Bureau room to build an Awakened One Legion.

When Yan Bing returned in his first year, he gave Lu Ning a list, which materialized various special mental energy technology items that even low-level awakened individuals could use, including Soul Crystal Cannons and Soul Crystal Armor.

Although these items are not very powerful, they are just right for equipping low-level awakened individuals.

Over the past three years, the concentration of spiritual energy on Earth has increased rapidly, and hordes of calamity beasts have occurred frequently. However, the losses caused by the awakened legion, equipped with various technological items, have not been as great as before.

Overall, although the situation on Earth is getting worse, the losses are not as great as imagined due to the explosive growth of human strength over the past three years.

Besides the improvements on Earth, the Land of Return to Nothingness has also undergone significant changes in the past three years.

After the Exile Civilization cooperated with Lu Ning, they would periodically use a portion of the Pale Crystal to expand the Ruins of Return and absorb the Mist Monsters.

The area of ​​the Ruins of Return is now more than three times larger than before, and the number of monsters within it has also increased significantly.

The direct result of this is that the hunting teams of the Exile civilization are obtaining more and more Pale Crystals.

They traded all these pale crystals to Lu Ning, asking him to help materialize various items.

The majority of these consist of materialized liquid spiritual energy, some low-level soul artifacts, and disposable hazardous materials.

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!