“Dao meridians!” An idea occurred to Li Hao. Although the queen cultivated the path of chaos, but... she was from Silver Moon. Her dao meridians were still present and part of the Silver Moon dao universe.

Her dao was contained within those meridians, ones that she was born with! Silver Moon citizens were blessed with innate dao constitutions.

If the queen’s dao star and meridians are strengthened, then moved into my river so she can convert them herself... she can transfer the chaos energy into the dao meridians!

In that case, I can mobilize the minor worlds to absorb energy from the dao meridians and stars.

But... Li Hao frowned slightly.

That would mean that her dao stars must enter my river of dao. Lin Hongyu’s star of life and death and Zhang An’s book of dao are also in my river. It’s fine if the situation calls for it, but what does the queen herself think? And will I be affected by faith if I strengthen her dao stars and meridians?

Various possibilities surged into his mind, alongside the vast quantity of chaos strength that Li Hao had absorbed. It wasn’t pure chaos energy—it was rather muddled for him. And when it came to minor worlds, their preference was even more so for pure energy.

How could they distill this energy? And they needed to do so quickly, or it’d be hard to digest.

Finally, it was one thing when the queen was a first rank. Once she reached fourth or fifth rank, Li Hao might still only have one thousand minor worlds. There would come a day when they were saturated with energy.

What should they do then?

Questions, answers, and more questions popped into Li Hao’s mind. They could handle the situation for now. Even if he couldn’t, there were the twin dao universes of Silver Moon to consider.

A cultivator also had more than one dao star or dao meridians. If worst came to worst, he would have the queen leave some of hers behind in the dao universes. A fifth rank dao universe could convert some of the energy.

That would be the equivalent of two dao universes and one thousand of his minor worlds sharing the load for the queen. Taking a multi-pronged approach would have some effect in the end.

But I need a mechanism in place to prevent her dao meridians and stars from being filled to exploding. Should I fortify them with faith?

Since they’d encountered a problem, then they should try to fix it. Logically speaking, the queen’s divine nation of faith might be enormously useful and take care of a lot of future problems for them. Since that was the case, then perhaps he didn’t need her to give up chaos dao.

As for what might happen in the future... that could be left for later. What if he needed to form more minor worlds, possibly even ten thousand of them?

Would he really have to devour ten thousand worlds?

So perhaps he and the queen might enter a mutually beneficial arrangement.

That’s so true!

Chaos strength was everywhere in the universe and freely available. But passive absorption was a very slow process that left one with a collection of jumbled energies. It also caused a great disturbance in the surroundings. And yet, the queen didn’t need to exert any effort for chaos strength to come find her itself.

This... wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Now it was a question of whether Li Hao would deplete the energy or if the queen would grow stronger faster. If the young man was so strong that he could instantly coalesce ten thousand worlds, then no matter how the queen took in energy, it wouldn’t measure up to his rate of depletion, would it?

Wouldn’t that be a perfect source of strength for the fake worlds he needed to build?

Li Hao was suddenly excited. That was very true!

“This way, the queen won’t pop. But I’ll have to figure out a way to purify chaos strength since it’s still very disordered. I need to find out how to purify it and make it part of the worlds. If not, I'll be the one who pops!”

An idea came to him and a minor world appeared in front of the young man. It was crystalline and translucent—the dao of ingress!

Or in colloquial terms, the dao of farting. This dao could purify other daos to great effect. What if he directed the flow of chaos strength into this world, purified the energy, then sent it elsewhere? But this minor world might not be able to endure this extra burden.

I need to perfect some more dao of purification...

Wait, the star of time gathers all daos and pulses once every 360 seconds to put another great dao in charge. If I put the star of time as the processor of chaos strength, then not only will I be able to absorb the energy of one particular dao from the chaos, but I’ll also be able to record the star’s sequence of pulses!

That was right!

Li Hao thought of something else and snapped his fingers with excitement. While the daos of these star of time constantly shifted around, he didn’t have the time or mental capacity to painstakingly record their changes.

Instead, he could flood the star of time with chaos strength. If one particular dao appeared in the star, then that would call to the corresponding dao in the chaos.

This way, not only would he be able to easily parse out different daos in chaos strength, but he would also be able to record the changes in the star of time every 360 seconds.

“This is... a great idea! It’s best if I can put the dao meridians and dao star inside the star of time. That way, the chaos strength seeping through will go right into the star of time. The star will be a massive net. Whichever dao fluctuates will be the energy that seeps out. This is a natural distillation machine!”

It was the first time Li Hao connected the dots—he was extraordinarily excited. He’d never thought about this in detail before. Now that he did, he realized that placing the queen’s dao meridians and dao stars inside the star of time would create a perpetual motion machine.

She would endlessly, tirelessly supply chaos strength. Not only would that result in a large reserve of dao strength for Li Hao, but it would also help strengthen the star of time and his worlds...

The young man was very enthusiastic now!

As the saying went, one’s potential was only fully tapped into when they were forced to their limits.

He’d never contemplated this issue before. But now that the queen really did proceed down this path, he had to give it his full consideration. I may have found the shortcut to swift improvement! Otherwise, at my current speed, I may not set foot into seventh rank even after swallowing all of Dragon Region!

......

Li Hao walked out of the river of dao. Although he hadn’t taken long, half a day had passed all the same. Currently, a group of people surrounded the queen, like they were watching an animal at the zoo.

They weren’t too nervous. If worst came to worst, she could shatter her dao to ensure her survival! It wasn’t like they were out of ideas!

The only sticking point was that the queen refused to give up her current path.

Since she wouldn’t die, everyone was very curious about her condition. Even Celestial Pole and his comrades had returned. They, too, looked on with interest. It was like they’d encountered some rare and fascinating species.

This was a cultivator that constantly produced chaos strength at a pace so fast that she might be the death of herself. What an... unusual sight that no one ever thought they’d come across!

The queen completely ignored everyone around her. She remained in moon form and permitted all of these assholes to study her as they would. She wanted to explode—from anger, not energy!

“Your Lordship!” Gan Wuliang called out to the young man when he noticed Li Hao. That prompted everyone to clear the way.

The queen... hesitated before projecting an image. She looked expectantly at the young man. Did he have a plan? If he didn’t, he needed to get to work and collect humans!

The more powerful faith was, the longer she felt that she would be able to hold on. What if... I can hold on until the end?

“I’ll give you two choices.” Li Hao cut straight to the chase. “First, sever this dao!”

“No!” the queen refused flat-out. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

“Second,” the young man frowned. “You can continue cultivating this dao, but you need to listen to me. You do whatever I tell you to! Don’t ask why and don’t doubt me. If you can do that, then I’ll figure out a solution for you. If you can’t, then either sever your dao now or fix it yourself!”

“......” The queen frowned. “You want me to do whatever you say. If you...”

“If I what?” Li Hao asked coolly.

“......” The queen fell silent. “I’m... a woman after all...”

“You. are. a moon!” snorted Li Hao. “You’re neither a human nor a ghost, and you want to sell yourself as a woman? You don’t even know what you are right now! You turn into a moon at the drop of a hat or make yourself a divine spirit, or you become all manner of random things. It’s hard to say if you’re even human anymore!”

“......” The queen was rendered speechless by the retort. She was offended, but also resigned. I’m less than human? You’re less than human! She set her jaw and reconsidered, nodding after a moment. “Very well, I agree! But... you have to actually fix my problem...”

She didn’t trust anyone else. But if Li Hao said he could resolve an issue, then he might actually be able to. She really didn’t want to give up what she had!

She was growing stronger every single second. It was an intoxicating feeling that she couldn’t bear to get rid of. Perhaps this was what was known as desire.

Li Hao looked at Gan Wuliang and Hong Yitang. “Strengthen all of her dao meridians right now. Observe the dao universe and locate her dao stars. Take them all out!

“Teacher!”

Yuan Shuo was happily watching the show off to the side; he jerked guiltily when he heard his disciple call for him. What?

“Teacher, I need you to make another trip!”

“To where?”

“Where do you think I would send the only non-exalted emperor out of this entire group?”

The fuck?! Are you sassing me?!

Yuan Shuo glared at his student, then seemed to understand after a moment. “You’re going inside again?”

Inside the star of time!

That was nearly the death of me the first time, and you want me to try again??

“That’s right, please be ready, teacher. This is a critical mission!”

Yuan Shuo thought it over and looked at the queen. Fine then! Could it be that Li Hao was going to move her dao stars into the star of time?

“Everyone else should be prepared for some tasks to come. Panther will continue to come in contact with the world masters outside. Once most of our people have returned, we can begin to refine the sixth rank world. We can’t keep them waiting, they’ll get impatient!”

After a round of instructions, Li Hao turned back to the queen. “You’re going to divert a portion of the chaos strength to your dao meridians and dao stars. Enhance them with the power of faith so that your dao stars don’t explode!”

“My dao meridians and dao stars...” The queen was doubtful.

“You can only obey my orders!” Li Hao hectored before she could say anything. “Figure out your own problems if you don’t want to listen!”

Fine! The queen shut her mouth. You’re really something, huh! I can’t afford to offend you.