Hao Gongming was very surprised!

She had been preparing for another world travel, but suddenly received a massive amount of XP out of nowhere.

"It might be from that man," she guessed.

She looked at her free stat points and was delighted. She gained a full 19 points from killing the man she suspected to be in the peak of reality transformation. Now she had a total of 23 free stat points.

Without hesitation, she added 20 points to her physical power, breaking through the 100 threshold.

She felt many times more powerful than before, but this wasn't what she was looking forward to. Her skills were what she counted on, so she examined them with great expectations.

Here are her updated stat points:

* Physical Power: 105

* Magical Power: 25.3

* Soul Power: 33.9

* Free Stat Points: 3

* Level: 70 (539,165,994,631,118,617/295,147,905,179,352,825,856,000)

* Talent: Low-Level Dragon Blood

Physical Power Skills:

* Sage-Thick Skin: Reduces all physical damage received.

* Sage-Blood Strength: Temporarily enhances strength by burning one's own blood.

* Sage-Inexhaustible: Greatly reduces exhaustion from physical activity.

* Sage-Absolute Defense: Allows blocking one attack from an opponent in the 1st layer of detachment once per day.

* Sage-Overwhelming Strength: Temporarily increases strength by 300 for one day, followed by a subsequent 100-point decrease for a day.

* Sage-Breaking the Void: Enables the host to break through the void and enter the endless, with precise control over the landing location.

* Sage-Ultimate Attack: Allows the host to use one attack per day capable of injuring a normal 1st layer detachment realm cultivator.

* Sage-Domain Mastery: Creates a domain surpassing enemies' strength and enhancing allies' power.

* Sage-Near Immortal: As long as any trace of you, including cells, soul pieces, or clothes, remains, even if your main body dies, you will revive in a designated position.

* Sage-Clone: You can create 100 clones of yourself, each with the power of the early stage of the reality transformation realm.

* Sage-Free Body: Host can't be imprisoned and sealed; you have an independent time tributary and can explode yourself with power 100 times stronger than normal at any time.

* Sage-berserker: Host will get stronger the more blood she loses.

Magical Power Skills:

* Medium-Level Spell Improvement: Can improve spell formations through careful consideration easier.

* Medium Spell Strengthening: Enhances the power of every cast spell without additional cost.

* Medium Spell Resistance: Resists spells below the soul transformation realm level.

* Medium Magical Sense: The host can understand spells and how to cast them just by witnessing them.

Soul Power Skills:

* High Spiritual Sense: Enables sensing within a 100-kilometer radius using spiritual sense.

* High Sixth Sense: Allows perception of potential dangers below the ascendant realm level.

* High Soul Out of the Body: Allows the soul to leave the body temporarily.

* High Soul Transplant: Host's soul can possess another body for a short time.

* High Soul Clone: Host can create another soul of herself.

Achievements:

* Glutton: The host's stomach has limitless space and perfect absorption of everything consumed.

* Core Master (Deactivated-Activate Y/N): The host possesses a monster core.

* Monster Killer: Enhances all attacks against monsters.

* Harem Master: As the number of your harem members increases, your physical power improves. As the cultivation of your harem members improves, your cultivation level improves.

She increased her stats using the massive resources she had looted, and the improvements in her magical power and soul powers were a result of that.

As she looked at these improvements, she became so excited that her breath became irregular.

"Is this the third step?" she wondered. She had no idea how strong 400 points of physical strength were, but it should be the third step. "I want to try it!"

Immediately, she created 90 more clones and sent them to various worlds. It was a shame that she couldn't gain any experience when her clones killed people. Then, the clone near her opened a gate, and she quickly entered to test her strength.

...

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

But she could see nothing—it was all darkness. She wandered around for a few days, finding nothing, and then exploded herself and returned.

...

"These weird worlds, what's up with them?" she felt strange. Soon, the clone opened another portal, and she went in.

...

This time, she found herself above a planet. The planet emanated strong power, and she sensed the presence of many powerful beings. The planet was as large as a galaxy.

Hao Gongming smiled and activated her overwhelming strength skill. With that, she punched the planet!

A golden formation appeared and blocked her way.

Her punch connected with the formation, but nothing happened.

She looked astonished! She had expected an unimaginable explosion that would blow away nearby planets and stars. However, this formation simply absorbed everything without any explosion.

"Again! What's going on with these formations?" she cursed.

Soon, a woman with an unimaginably powerful aura appeared her.

She turned around and saw a young woman with red eyes and horns. The woman even had a tail, resembling a demon from movies.

she asked, "Who are you? Why are you attacking my Abyss Floor?"

"Abyss Floor? Is this hell?" Hao Gongming looked around but saw no fire burning. It didn’t look like hell!

The woman snorted and said, "You dare not pay attention to me? Let me take you for interrogation. I will find out myself!"

Hao Gongming didn't wait any longer and activated “overwhelming strength”.

Next she swiftly went to punch her with unimaginable speed.

However, the demon woman smiled and cast a spell called "Devouring Rule: Shield."

A pitch-black shield appeared in her hand, seemingly unremarkable. But when Hao Gongming's punch connected with it, all the power in her punch was devoured.

She felt incredibly disappointed. It seemed that 400 points of strength were not enough to match someone in the third step.

She used her other trump cards: "Blood Power" and "berserker."

She nearly depleted all the blood in her body and, with the berserker skill, her strength became unimaginably stronger. Once again, she threw a punch.

The demon woman held the shield and watched with interest. When the punch struck the shield, it cracked, but it still absorbed all the power.

Hao Gongming looked at the demon unwillingly and said, "It's not the third step at all! Even with all that, I can't touch the third step!"

In her anger, she unleashed her ultimate trump card, "Ultimate Attack."

This time, as she punched, the demon's expression became extremely serious, and she immediately counterattacked with a spell called "Devouring Rule: Bite."

Horrifyingly sharp teeth appeared, and Hao Gongming felt as if one touch would tear her apart. So she utilized her "Absolute Defense" skill, and a red shield covered her, completely blocking the teeth. Simultaneously, her punch connected with the shield.

This time, the shield shattered immediately, and the punch landed on the demon's abdomen.

The impact was so severe that the demon was shot far away with a speed surpassing that of light. She landed on a nearby large planet, causing it to disintegrate, being like a paper in front of bullet!

However, the demon quickly reappeared in front of Hao Gongming, with blood at the corner of her mouth.

She looked extremely angry, as that planet was an important resource point for her, but it was not protected by the Abyssal formation.

Hao Gongming smiled bitterly and activated the explosive ability of her "Free Body" skill.

Anticipating the massive explosion, the demon cast a spell called "Devouring Law: Wide Area Explosion Ban." As a result, when Hao Gongming exploded, there was nothing left. She turned into a mist of blood, disappearing entirely.

The demon looked around carefully, filled with anger. "Where did this thing come from? Does she think she can escape from me?"

Immediately, she contacted the Abyss count, her boss, and explained everything to her. They decided to track Hao Gongming and invade her world.

…

Hao Gongming returned and sighed in disappointment. She realized that she was far from reaching the 3rd step and couldn't even break the shield of the demon she fought against, despite using all her strength.

"The 3rd step is all about perfection. I am physically strong but very unbalanced. There also seems to be some secrets involved in the 3rd step,"

she pondered. "But I did crack the shield of a 3rd step. It means that if I continue to improve, I can eventually defeat a 3rd step even if I'm not perfect or if I don't know the secret."

"Then... let's continue going to different worlds! Even if I can't defeat a 3rd step, I can still easily kill peak second steps. That's a lot of xp!" she thought determinedly.

...

Three months later, at the Mage Union headquarters...

Worldunity01, the acting boss of the World Union, oversaw the operations.

The Mage Council and all its bureaucracy were just a facade. The real power lay in the hands of the Pioneer Mages, of which there were currently over 1,000 in B9.

They were exploring other worlds and bringing back resources. While most of the resources were claimed by the rank 12 Limitless Mages, there was still plenty for others.

Worldunity01 was checking the situation of the Mage Universe District B96i.

There had been a recent world invasion in that district, though not a serious one.

However, any type of world invasion was taken extremely seriously, so a rank 11 mage was always stationed there to monitor.

Suddenly, all alarms sounded, startling Worldunity01.

He looked at the various devices in the laboratory, and his face changed. "It's a large-scale world invasion!"

he immediately notified his direct superior, Law of Nature, a Limitless Mage.

At the same time, he activated the emergency universe shield that had been prepared long ago in District B96i.