Ray started digging.It was simple enough. A few spatial slashes, and he carved out a massive block of soil—five meters long, five meters wide, five meters deep—from the ground. The evolution tree came out clean and intact, without a scratch.He'd rather put in a little extra effort than risk damaging his precious prize.He thought for a moment, then bundled up all the Valenamese guys—including Dakota—and stashed them in his dimensional space.He had an idea. These guys all had abilities, and even though he couldn't absorb them himself, he could still use them for experiments.Time to head home.Ray activated his spatial domain and carried the evolution tree back with him.At nearly Mach 3, he made it home in about an hour—and that was without going all out. He could've shaved off a few more minutes if he'd pushed it.Back on the yacht, Ray had a ton of soil brought in and planted the tree in the outdoor swimming pool. The deep end was eight meters down—more than enough room fo

Over the past thirty-plus days, every one of the women had received an evolution fruit, and their ability levels had all jumped significantly. Any new fruits from now on, Ray would stockpile—saving them for his kids down the road.He'd also gathered quite a bit of golden snowflakes—about 4,000 units' worth."Ray!" Ezra called."Where's it snowing this time?" Ray asked with a chuckle."Pfft, is that all I am to you—some tool for telling you where the snow's falling?" Ezra griped.Ray laughed. "Huh, since when did you get so self-aware?"Ezra was speechless for a moment, then said, "The Gohaven Ability User Power Rankings just came out. You don't care?"Oh?That piqued Ray's interest a little. "Lay it on me."Ezra didn't keep him hanging. "Fresh off the press today. I just got my copy—I'll send you one."A file popped up on Ray's phone.He hung up and opened the file to take a look.Sure enough, it was a list called the "Gohaven Power Ranking," with a total of 100 names.Top

Ray extracted the mysterious substance from the Valenamese ability users, one by one.After three whole hours, he finally finished pulling it all out from the first one. When he absorbed it, he got exactly 198 units—right on the money, matching what he'd sensed earlier.Ray was ecstatic. Not only could he still gain ability units, but he was getting 100% of it—zero waste.Awesome!Even better, absorbing the raw substance directly came with no side effects.He kept going.Another three hours later, he'd fully extracted the substance from the second Valenamese guy.The efficiency wasn't great, but every extraction gave him all of that person's ability units. In a single day, he could easily clear over a thousand units—which was seriously, seriously impressive.The payoff was huge, but man, was it exhausting. Separating the substance was incredibly delicate work—like micro-surgery every single time. After each session, he was completely drained, mostly mentally—like he'd just chur

"Son of a bitch—pulling this on me?"Ray was speechless at first, then cracked a smile.That was so Ezra."With some foreigner literally on our doorstep, how could I not go?" Ray shook his head. If it took this "Captain Caumeria" three whole minutes to kill Moby, then their ability level was probably somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 units—couldn't be much higher.If it'd taken three minutes to take down Moby with a higher level than that, then their combat instincts were utter garbage.Ray was over 250,000 units strong. Fighting a 20,000-unit ability user would be like a grown man thrashing a toddler."Can't let all that ability power go to waste."Ray smiled, teleported out of the yacht in an instant, got his bearings, and—whoosh—shot off toward Empire City.With his ability level surpassing 250,000 units, his spatial domain had expanded to 506 meters in radius—over a kilometer in diameter. And his teleport cooldown was now down to 0.5 seconds. That meant his speed hit 2,02

Whoosh—the beam came hurtling toward him.Ray used Exile without a second's hesitation—but the beam struck and actually pierced through into the Exile dimension!In that moment, time seemed to freeze. No—it slowed down ten thousand, a hundred million times over.Ray could see it clearly: as the beam hit the Exile space, the light oddly refracted—and then it broke through.If that thing hit him... even with his body reinforced by over 250,000 units of ability, there was no way he'd survive.He teleported instantly.Whoosh—he reappeared over 300 meters away.What the hell was that beam—it could even penetrate the Exile dimension!Ray teleported again. He couldn't just keep taking hits—he had to fight back.If he didn't, he was dead.On the flip side, the two aliens who'd descended earlier were only at about 5,000 units each. It was their tech—beyond anything Ray could imagine—that had deflected his spatial cut.But once might work. Twice maybe. Three times? No way their helmet