I Picked Up Talents in the Interstellar Battlefield

After leaving the Oriental Family's ancestral home, Qin Tian returned to his hotel—Qingmu Star's most prestigious “Sky Spirit Residence.”
This hotel was no ordinary building; it was built around a thousand-meter-tall “Sky Spirit Ancient Tree.”
The ancient tree's trunk was over a hundred meters in diameter, appearing dark gold throughout. Spirit patterns naturally formed on its bark flowed like a formation, emitting a soft glow. Its canopy spread out like a magnificent cover, shading the sky and sun, with crystal-clear spirit dew dripping from its branches and leaves, refracting colorful light under the moonlight.
At the top level of the tree canopy, in the cultivation area, there were thirty-six top-tier cultivation rooms.
Each cultivation room resembled an independent tree knot hanging from the main trunk. Its exterior appeared simple and unadorned, but its interior was a world of its own: the floor was paved with “Cold Jade Spirit Sandalwood” that calmed the mind, the four walls were carved with ancient spirit-gathering runes, and spirit-whisker grass hanging from the ceiling automatically adjusted the spiritual energy concentration within the room.
Most precious of all, these cultivation rooms were completely isolated from external interference; even the divine sense probes of an Eighth-Rank powerhouse would be blocked by the ancient tree's inherent spirit-pattern barrier.
The Oriental Family had booked a Supreme VIP room for Qin Tian, allowing him free, unlimited use of the cultivation room until he checked out.
Qin Tian pushed open the ancient wooden door of the cultivation room, and a rich wave of spiritual energy immediately surged towards him like a tide. It was incredibly pure, carrying the unique fresh woody scent of the ancient tree. As soon as it entered his body, it transformed into a warm current that flowed through his limbs and bones.
He took a deep breath, feeling the excitement of the spiritual power within his body. The spiritual energy concentration in this cultivation room was at least ten times that of the outside world.
The Cold Jade Spirit Sandalwood paving the floor emitted a faint coolness, forming a mysterious balance with ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ the warm current in the air, causing one's mind to involuntarily calm down.
However, he wasn't here to cultivate today, but to find a quiet place to consume half a bottle of Void Dragon's essence blood.
He took out the bottle of Ninth-Rank Void Dragon's essence blood. The crystal bottle shimmered with a dreamlike silver light under the illumination of the spiritual energy.
As the stopper was opened, an ancient and vast aura instantly filled the entire cultivation room. The spirit-whisker grass on the ceiling swayed violently, as if paying homage to this power from ancient times.
Qin Tian gazed at the surging dark silver dragon blood in the crystal bottle. The liquid moved along the bottle wall like a living thing, occasionally condensing into miniature dragon shapes. He took a deep breath and tilted his head back, drinking half the bottle.
“Gulp—”
The moment the dragon blood entered his throat, Qin Tian's entire body trembled violently. The blood seemed to be alive, actively drilling into his blood vessels and flowing to his limbs and bones at an astonishing speed. He clearly felt that every drop of dragon blood was furiously releasing ancient and violent energy, and the Night Demon King's physique allowed all the energy in these blood to be absorbed.
“Crack—”
Fine silver dragon scales suddenly appeared on Qin Tian's skin, but strangely, these scales did not maintain their original shape.
Instead, they flowed like mercury, gradually merging with his skin. His muscle fibers continuously tore and reassembled under the effect of the dragon blood.
His bones emitted a grating “crack, crack” sound, and their density increased at a visible rate.
“Ah!”
A low roar erupted from deep within his throat. Qin Tian could feel pure power surging through his body—not through spiritual energy amplification, but the most primitive physical strength.
He casually clenched his hand, and the air was squeezed into a sonic boom. This feeling of pure violence shocked even himself.
The transformation was still ongoing.
The energy in the dragon blood began to penetrate deeper into his tissues; his five internal organs and six viscera were all covered in a layer of silver light. His heart beat like a drum, and each pump of blood caused the dragon patterns around his body to light up. Most astonishingly, his blood was gradually tinged with a hint of silver, and it even made a gurgling sound like a stream when it flowed.
Just as his physical strengthening reached its peak, an anomaly suddenly occurred.
The world before Qin Tian's eyes suddenly “shattered”—not true breakage, but he could suddenly see the countless silver threads that constituted space. These threads of law interwoven into a net, and at certain special intersections, bright points of light flickered.
“Spatial nodes...”
He subconsciously reached out to touch the nearest light point, and his fingertip actually passed directly through reality, extending into a void.
Even more miraculously, he found that he could “perceive” all spatial structures within a radius of several thousand meters, as if a three-dimensional spatial map was automatically generated in his mind.
“Is this the perspective of a Void Dragon...?”
Qin Tian murmured to himself. When he tried to focus his consciousness on a certain node, the surrounding air suddenly twisted, and a miniature spatial passage was forming.
Although he couldn't truly traverse yet, this absolute sense of control over space already far exceeded the comprehension of ordinary Spiritual Energy Users.
Finally, when all the anomalies subsided, Qin Tian stood in the center of the cultivation room, feeling the profound transformation.

His spiritual energy broke through once again, reaching Four-Star Six-Rank.
Surging spiritual power coursed through his meridians, and the newly acquired void perception made the entire world seem different.
He lightly clenched his fist, and a silver glow exploded in his palm—this was the perfect combination of physical strength and spatial talent.
Opening the system panel, as he expected, the colors of both the 【Night Demon King】 and 【Great Wilderness Battle Body】 talent light orbs had deepened significantly. 【Night Demon King】 reached medium orange, close to deep orange, while 【Great Wilderness Battle Body】 had already strengthened to deep orange.
All values in the talents had increased.
However, the biggest change was 【Black Sky Gate】. It had now transformed into a deep purple void-type talent. Qin Tian didn't hesitate and directly invested 2,000,000 evolution points to complete its final evolution.
【Name】 Void Dominator (Orange)
【Type】 Active Talent 【Description】 You are the controller of the void, able to easily discern the mysteries of space. Abilities are as follows:
1. Void Walk: Can freely enter the void and shuttle between reality and the void at will.
2. Void Passage: Open stable spatial passages.
3. Spatial Field: Create a spatial domain. Within its range, not only will all attack trajectories be distorted, but enemies within the domain can also be imprisoned or torn apart.
4. Void Banishment: Banish targets into the void Turbulence.
Qin Tian felt the newly awakened talent, silver light flowing in his eyes. He gently raised his hand, and the air before him rippled like water, revealing a dazzling galaxy—this was not an illusion, but a real void rift.
Even more terrifying, he felt that he could merge into this void at any time, as naturally as returning home.
“Is this... the feeling of truly controlling space?”
With a thought, his figure suddenly vanished from the cultivation room, only to reappear on the terrace a hundred meters away the next second. The entire process caused no spatial fluctuations, as if he was always meant to be there.
Void Dominator, truly living up to its name!
Qin Tian's lips curved. Compared to the purely supportive Black Sky Gate, 【Void Dominator】 combined teleportation, blinking,
attack, and control functions.
Especially the short-distance Void Walk, silent and imperceptible, far more casual and covert than the previous Black Gate, raising his frontal combat and escape abilities to a new height.
With the talent evolution complete, his goal for today was achieved. Next, it was Kha'Zix's turn.
With a flash of white light, Kha'Zix appeared beside him.
Kha'Zix waved its blade arms, emitting a sharp sound from its mouthparts. Every time it appeared, it would complain a bit. There was no helping it; who made it have a master who was constantly on the move?
It was promised ample hunting opportunities, but it spent most of its time cooped up in the beast-taming space, which really frustrated it.
Qin Tian also felt a bit embarrassed, rubbing his nose as he said:
“Kha'Zix, how about I find you a female mantis? When you have nothing to do—”
“Hiss, hiss, hiss~”
Kha'Zix seemed to be angered into shame, its eyes glowing with purple light, and steam erupting from the pores on its back.
“Alright, alright, forget it if you don't want one. I didn't expect you to be such a pure little mantis.”
Qin Tian waved his hand. Sure enough, even insects knew that to become strong, one must stay away from female charm.
Female charm is a bone-scraping blade, the source of all depravity. So—when can I also experience the “pain” of bone-scraping?
“Although I'm still a baby, the Void Dragon's essence blood will be entrusted to you from now on.”
With a thought, Qin Tian first extracted a drop from the remaining half bottle of blood.
Kha'Zix did not possess his formidable physique. If it directly consumed half a bottle, it would explode and die within two seconds.
“Catch!”
The drop of dark silver blood floated in the air. Kha'Zix's compound eyes instantly locked onto it. As a Top Hunter, it instinctively felt the terrifying power contained within this drop of blood.
Kha'Zix eagerly opened its sharp mouthparts and sucked the drop of dark silver dragon blood essence into its body. In an instant, its compound eyes sharply constricted, and its entire body trembled violently as if struck by lightning.
“Crack... crack, crack...”
Chilling sounds of carapace shattering continuously echoed. Numerous fine silver cracks suddenly appeared on Kha'Zix's hard chitinous exoskeleton. These cracks spread like living things, quickly covering its entire body. Even more astonishingly, a profound void light emanated from the cracks, as if a miniature universe was being nurtured within its body.
“Hiss—”
After a painful hiss, Kha'Zix suddenly stiffened in place. Its body twitched unconsciously, the light in its compound eyes rapidly dimmed, and a layer of silver light cocoon oozed from its body, quickly enveloping it completely.
Qin Tian's expression sharpened: “This is... forced evolution?”
Mysterious spatial patterns flowed on the surface of the light cocoon, expanding and contracting as if breathing.
Through the translucent cocoon wall, Kha'Zix's body could vaguely be seen undergoing astonishing changes—its back armor was reorganizing, its blade arms were extending, and even its entire body shape was slowly elongating.
Most bizarrely, the space within the cocoon seemed to be self-contained.
Qin Tian tried to probe, but found that his divine sense was completely blocked. The void laws contained in this drop of dragon blood were comprehensively transforming Kha'Zix.
“It seems it will be dormant for some time...”
Qin Tian carefully placed the light cocoon into the beast-taming space. He could feel that when Kha'Zix broke out of the cocoon, it would be reborn, becoming a true void creature.
Having done all this, Qin Tian looked out the window. At this moment, the sky was tinged with the white of dawn, and the morning light was just appearing.
The highly anticipated Talent War was about to begin.
The Talent War's arena matches were not literally duels on a stage.
For Five-Rank masters, the existence of an arena would limit the performance of many, especially being very disadvantageous for some mages.
And this time's arena battle was held on an island. Both the land of the island and the ocean surrounding it were considered within the venue.
There were no spatial restrictions, only one rule: use all means to defeat the opponent.
At nine in the morning, the drawing ceremony began.
Among the sixteen contestants, five were selected as seeded players and would not meet in the first round. Fu Ning, Yue Shenghe, and Wu Ziyan were prominently among them, but to many people's surprise, the popular Zhuge Yu was not a seeded player.
Of course, there were also professionals online who offered explanations.
Zhuge Yu's role was that of a commander, a master of crowd control, but one-on-one combat was not his strong suit.
Qin Tian sat in the VIP area, from where he could clearly see the contestants' every move through several split screens.
Soon, the results of the first-round draw were out. Coincidentally, Zhuge Yu's first-round opponent was his former teammate, Zhongli Ying.
Upon seeing this result, Zhuge Yu and Zhongli Ying exchanged glances. Zhuge Yu's narrowed eyes showed nothing, while Zhongli Ying first smiled at him, then a look of acceptance appeared on her face.
There was no helping it; as a Four-Star Genius whose strength was not among the top, reaching this point was already extremely difficult.
No matter whom she faced, her chances of winning this battle were very small.
It was better to lose to her own teammate than to someone else.
The first round of elimination matches, sixteen opponents, eight duels, proceeded one after another. Each battle was incredibly exciting, completely exploding the popularity of the Talent War and dominating the top ten headlines in the star system.
Star players Fu Ning, Yue Shenghe, Zhuge Yu, Wu Ziyan, and Shangguan Lei all advanced to the next round. The second round, eight into four, would be held at the same time tomorrow.
The eight-to-four, four-to-two, and final three rounds of matches were completed within a week.
As everyone expected, the final match was indeed Fu Ning vs. Yue Shenghe.
These two were the ultimate in offense and the invincible in defense—the strongest spear against the strongest shield. This match directly broke the Talent War record, becoming the most-watched duel ever.
Many people who didn't follow the Talent War also watched the remainder of the Talent War due to the previous shocking changes and turmoil.
Finally, Fu Ning narrowly won by one move, piercing through Yue Shenghe's Indestructible Rock Dragon with a Sky Sword Slash, thus winning this year's Talent War championship.
Countless flowers, honors, and endorsements flooded towards Fu Ning like a tide. However, this pure sword cultivator did not take these to heart. After accepting the Oriental Family's interview and award ceremony, he never appeared in the public eye again.
Not only Fu Ning, but after experiencing a life-or-death crisis, every genius shed their impetuousness and focused more attention on improving their strength.
Strength was the fundamental essence of a Spiritual Energy User.
A week after the Talent War ended, all official arrangements were concluded, and it was time for everyone to return home.
Qin Tian also had to leave Qingmu Star and return to where he belonged.