Chương 742: Solar System Development.

After getting the four new skills, Liu Shu had plenty of skill shards left to buy more. So, she asked her whether she had similar skills to Condensed Soul for each of the other attributes. Leafara chuckled and shook her head.

"While we do have them, they are too expensive. They are all at least B Rank, and each of them costs a minimum of 5, 000 B Rank Shards. So, unless you come later to sell something new, you will need to wait for now." Liu Shu nodded, her eyes thoughtful. After all, Passive Skills were basically effortless to gain and maintain. The only drawback was that a person's ability to learn skills was limited, so learning many of them would saturate the soul to a degree. Such cases were extremely rare, though.

Only those who learned an array of useless skills would ever feel that way. That was why most people went for quality over quantity of skills. So, with no other skill she wanted to buy, Liu Shu decided to focus on other matters while silently practicing the new skills. For the <Talents>, the practice method was repetition. In Solaris, Liu Shu spammed the skills as often as she could. Being C Rank, their consumption was utterly negligible for Liu Shu.

"Hm… The total Experience points I need to upgrade from C to A+ Rank is… 5, 012, 615 Experience points without taking into account the reductions I have from titles and such. So, the final price will most likely be around 3, 500, 000 Experience points." She glanced at the experience in her system. Accumulated Experience Points: 173, 975, 382 She also looked at her Level row. Level: 150 [0/9, 338, 430]"Hm… I have enough to Level Up to Level 160… right? I should be left with a few million as well."

The only reason she was not doing it was that many of her skills had reached Level MAX. So, the consumption to upgrade them would not be low.

"The centenary question comes again… should I Level Up or upgrade my skills?" She listed in her mind the skills that had reached Level MAX: TALENTS <Soulseed Projection> (A Rank) <Temple Seed> (A Rank) <Curse Cleansing Aurora> (A Rank) <World Tree Calling> (A Rank) <Accelerate> (A+ Rank) <Slow> (A+ Rank) <Stop> (A+ Rank) PASSIVE SKILLS <Soul Enthralling World Tree> (A Rank) <World Tree Eye> (A Rank) <Cerulean Bloodsap> (A Rank)

"System, without reductions, how much experience would it take to upgrade all these skills once?" [Calculating… The Experience Points needed are: 57, 044, 162.]"Hm…? Not as much as I expected?" It was a terrifying number, but not as terrifying as she thought.

"What about if we apply the reductions?" [Calculating… The Experience Points needed after reductions to upgrade right at this instant are: 32, 349, 509.]"Huh." Liu Shu blinked, looking thoughtful.

"There is no need to hesitate, then. After all… <Slow>, <Accelerate>, and <Stop> will become S Rank." She was honestly quite eager to see how these three skills, which were already overpowered, would change.

"Before this, I really didn't want to forcefully upgrade them due to a lack of need. However, with war imminent, I think I should start strengthening myself again." Remember that the more Liu Shu understood the skills, the less they cost to be upgraded. For example, if she understood perfectly how to evolve <Strike> to the next level, the experience points could be reduced from 100 to just 10.

With the bigger numbers that skills needed as they reached greater heights, Liu Shu naturally didn't rush to upgrade them unless absolutely necessary. Leaving them at Level MAX allowed her to decipher and understand, and to develop the skills, greatly reducing Experience Point consumption.

"Alright, 32, and if we add the C Rank skills that I will forcefully push to A+ Rank, that's a total of 46 to 47 million Experience points. I will even have around 130 or so million left, and perhaps I can even level to 160…" Speaking of Leveling Up, Liu Shu wondered how much her body would grow. She could tell that her height would grow exponentially from now on. Therefore, she was quite… eager. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

She didn't delay, pushing her Experience Points into the skills. Her Level could come later, when she had upgraded the new skills to A+ Rank. As she felt the mysterious energy that Experience Points entailed, Liu Shu felt the changes in all her skills.

'This… will take a while. Interesting.' While her skills took a bit to upgrade, this time the process felt as if it would take longer.

"Is it because there are three A+ Rank skills? It did take quite a bit when I upgraded World Tree Heart to Perfected Living Core." Since they would take a bit to change, Liu Shu stopped paying attention to them. The system would inform her when they were done. This was another drawback of forcefully upgrading a skill with Experience Points without fully understanding its essence. If you understood it, the process was click-and-done.

"Well, I need to check on my pretty little planets! Let's go from closest to furthest~." Her gaze shifted, and soon, she was overlooking little Solkara. The surface, which suffered a recent "table flip" due to Liu Shu's stress when she spotted the Level 325 starship, was a bit unstable.

"Weather, large chunks of magma, parts of the crust, and giant waves of pure molten metal… As expected, our little Solkara is as uninhabitable as ever! Next!" Solkara: QAQ. The next planet was a big ball of stormy clouds. With her intervention, Vorathen had changed greatly. The previous volcanic world was now in a cooling phase, with oceans, mountains, and rivers forming thanks to the constant rain. The biggest ocean was, without a doubt, the previous impact location.

That massive crater had created an ocean several tens of kilometers deep. For a planet of Vorathen's size, which was about half of Ceperet, such a deep ocean was quite incredible.

"Besides that, the continents are now clearly outlined, and with a bit of my help, the cities I previously created have not been submerged. Everything is doing quite nicely. The requirements could be lowered from the previous Level 50 to Level 25 to survive here without problems. Let's do so in three more years." She informed the people responsible for the Portal Hubs, and then focused on the next planet. This world was a gorgeous mix of blue, brown, and green.

A world that breathed life with just a look, covered in gentle clouds here and there. The two poles were frozen, and the oceans covered around 50~60% of the surface of the world. It was Liu Shu's birth world, Ceperet!

"Hehehe. Our Ceperet is looking as pretty as ever! Mhm. Nothing to say here! Everything is going great!" So, without adding any other comments, her gaze moved close by, looking at the Moon. The Moon had changed greatly. It went from the grey landscape that could only be described as devoid of life to now a more vibrant one. The greyness of the ground was not taken away. However, there were now many Moon flora and fauna roaming the place.

Truthfully, the "Fauna" were nothing but small critters like insects and other more resilient species. You couldn't see a Moon Tiger roaming the place yet. Still, the progress was undoubtedly there. The atmosphere Liu Shu worked so hard to create was now stable, and thanks to the wind appearing within it, clouds and water cycles started appearing. Looking around, Liu Shu could easily spot some lakes in former craters, and there were traces of rivers and oceans forming.

Moreover, the most impressive part was the cities. The Moon had, at some point, become the preferred environment for the insectkin living within the Golden Sap Empire. So, around 80% of the Moon's population were insectoids. Liu Shu knew that living on the Moon was far from prohibited to other species. Whoever wanted to go could go. There were even moving companies that helped people move to the Moon at quite an affordable price.

It was just not very appealing to most creatures living in other, more flourishing areas. The insectkin, though, felt it was quite novel and interesting. Being creatures who easily adapted to new environments, the initial stay on the Moon had made them quite fond of it. Still, the cities built here were not different from normal architecture back at Ceperet. A city full of giant living trees, and in the very center, there would be a "major tree." In the Moon, these major trees were Liu Shu's <Soulseeds>.

These <Soulseeds> had already caught up to Liu Shu in Level, but Liu Shu had restricted their growth to "only" 50, 000 meters in height. Around a fifth of her own height. Still, Liu Shu knew very well that once she continued to Level Up, these <Soulseeds> would need to be substituted for other World Trees and Life Trees. There were plenty of World Trees interested in moving, so that was not a problem in the slightest.

"Alright, next is Nualis!" Nualis, this "oceanic" world. It was a world covered in marshes, oceans, seas, and rivers. Water covered almost 90% of the surface area, creating a very humid environment. Around 70% of all aquatic and amphibious creatures lived in Nualis. This world had evolved during the last few decades to have a government system similar but not identical to Ceperet's. After all, underwater cities were much more common in Nualis than in Ceperet.

So, the Lignified Trees that Liu Shu grew in Nualis had transformed into coral reef-type buildings. They were not like natural ones, being just a layer on the seabed. Instead, the Lignified Trees had changed their bark to a mix of coral and wood, creating quite an interesting building that acted identically to normal Lignified Trees. In this world, Lakeborn dominated a rather large area, and her specialness had become even more pronounced.

Liu Shu didn't doubt that if left to its own devices, Lakeborn would've easily become a True World Tree in Nualis. Of course, with Liu Shu around, Lakeborn didn't take the path of spreading throughout the world, but kept herself contained to an area, satisfied. Her Level, though, had at some point surpassed Level 100. Her evolution was not that powerful, leaning more toward soul arts and underwater adaptability.

For a World Tree that wanted to expand into space, these qualities were not that useful, but Lakeborn knew that she had Liu Shu, so she chose the option she liked. Speaking of water, we must speak about the silent Origin Water Spirit Liu Shu had been nurturing. The water spirit had been evolving for quite a few years after reaching Level 100, and it had already covered most, if not all, the water sources in Ceperet.

So, Liu Shu knew that when this one woke up, she would most likely take care of most, if not all, the water bodies in her territories. Finally, her gaze stretched past Nualis, landing on the last three worlds. Feltera, the Crystal World, was still recovering from having a large part of its crust removed by Liu Shu a few years ago to supplement the lack of material in the Gas Giant Tiravel.

Tiravel's project was still ongoing, the collapsing moons transforming slowly under Liu Shu's constant work, to later fall into Tiravel and become the floating and cycling islands. Finally, Erynthea, this blue world, was still a bit confusing to Liu Shu. She had some idea of how to develop it, but she had not started to work on it yet. After all, most of her "cosmic" consciousness was focused on Tiravel's project.

"Hehe. So satisfying. Everything is developing steadily and in the direction I've planned! I can't wait to see my Solar System take its final form." Looking further away, Liu Shu noticed that her roots had sunk deeply into the star's true outer layer. Her eyes shone.

'A few more decades and I will officially make it out of my own Solar System.'