Chapter 1: The Cosmic Hegemony Tournament for Intelligent Civilization Lords

"Sir, are you sure you want to participate in the Lord Contest?"

Cuiwei Star. Longhu City. Inside the main hall of the Lord Contest Service Center, at the Lord Contest registration desk.

A pretty female clerk asked the handsome young man before her, her tone serious and her expression slightly surprised.

"Yes, I’m here to register for the Lord Contest."

Seeing that the young man wasn’t joking, the clerk adopted a professional demeanor and said sweetly, "Please present your identification."

The young man quickly produced the ID card, university diploma, and degree certificate he had prepared.

"Hello, Mr. Lin Yu. Since your university major wasn’t a Lord major, you’ll need to provide relevant Lord knowledge proficiency certificates if you want to use the recent graduate discount to waive the registration fee."

Lin Yu took a stack of various certificates from his backpack and handed them to the clerk one by one.

He had earned all these certificates through self-study during college. They were mainly assessments of fundamental knowledge. Passing these exams would allow a person to rapidly advance their technology, starting from a primitive society with nothing. This was the primary strategy for the people of Cuiwei Star in the Lord Contest.

There were also certificates for battlefield and combat knowledge, as well as knowledge of known alien contestants.

The clerk took the certificates and quickly entered his information.

"Mr. Lin Yu, your information has been entered."

"This year’s Lord Contest officially begins in three days, on July 29th. Please be sure to finish your preparations before dawn on the 29th."

"If you have any questions, you can pick up a free list of important notices, as well as a guide on how to prepare for the contest."

"If you’d like more detailed information, you can purchase a detailed information packet from me. It includes..."

"That’s not necessary, thank you!"

Lin Yu took back his ID card, thanked the pretty clerk, and turned to leave the service hall.

It wasn’t until Lin Yu had left that a series of whispers broke out in the service hall.

"I can’t believe it. There are still people with such fanciful ideas, coming here to register without even taking the Lord major in college."

"It’s definitely rare. The young masters and ladies from the great families, the wealthy, and the nobility are almost all Lord majors. They’ve undergone extensive training, have access to all sorts of school-rewarded resources they can bring into the contest, and get funding from their families. Only with all that do they dare treat the Lord Contest like a playground or a chance to burnish their reputation."

"A college student who didn’t even major in Lord studies... Is he just going in there to be entertainment for the heirs? I doubt he’ll even make it past the first stage!"

"Without a prepared High-tier Lord Core and a good Lord talent, it’s impossible for an ordinary person to stand out. Even if they barely scrape by the first stage, they’ll just be cannon fodder in the second."

"Yeah, if he’s lucky and some big shot takes a liking to his territory, he might make it to the third stage, sell off his land, and walk away in one piece, maybe even earning a little money. If he’s unlucky, the mental hospital will have a new patient."

"Can’t be helped. The initial talents humans awaken naturally are just too weak. They say the Human Race has high potential, but isn’t that just because our starting point is so low?"

...

"Another brainwashed fool! He looks so handsome and full of Spiritual Qi, so how can he be so dim-witted? Does he really think the Lord Contest is some kind of cakewalk?"

"Sigh, just look at how hard those advertisements push it. Who wouldn’t get sucked in after seeing them so much?"

"Besides, if they don’t lure more commoners into participating, what happens if the experience gets worse for the young masters and ladies?"

"True. If my old man hadn’t been tricked back in the day and learned how deep the pitfalls are, I might have dived in headfirst myself."

...

"It’s all the fault of those in the higher echelons. If they didn’t monopolize the special Lord Cores and the items for awakening talents, we commoners would also have a chance to make a name for ourselves in the Lord Contest!"

"Shh! Keep your voice down! You can’t say things like that!"

...

"Still, the Lord Contest seems a lot more orderly now. It’s much more harmonious than when I participated back in the day. The Lord majors in the universities are open to commoners now, they’re just a bit expensive."

"No kidding. If it weren’t for the Human Empire’s registration quotas and the Governor’s strict enforcement, back in the old days, that kid would have been grabbed and forced to sign a contract the moment he stepped outside."

...

Lin Yu didn’t hear the gossip, but even if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered. He had heard too many similar comments ever since he decided to participate in the Lord Contest.

Most of his relatives, friends, teachers, and classmates had advised him against participating.

They said that if he was dead set on participating, he should at least get a job and save some money first. He should buy a Lord Core of Excellent grade or higher, or find a way to awaken a Blue-tier talent before trying his luck. He shouldn’t just barge into the Lord Contest completely unprepared.

His parents also blamed him for not telling them about his decision sooner. If he had, they would have enrolled him in a Lord major.

But the Lord major was far too expensive. The family’s entire assets were only enough for two years of tuition, and the major wasn’t eligible for student loans.

It couldn’t be helped. The price of failure for a Lord was high—death or madness. You can’t collect debts from a dead person or a lunatic, can you?

Therefore, Lin Yu could only hide the matter, enroll in an ordinary major, and then teach himself the relevant knowledge.

As for why Lin Yu was so insistent on participating in the Lord Contest, that had to do with his identity.

Lin Yu was a Transmigrator, or more accurately, a reincarnator.

Ever since he became self-aware, whenever he closed his eyes and focused his consciousness deep within himself, he would see a brilliant golden sphere of light.

At first, he didn’t pay it much mind, fantasizing about dominating the world with the knowledge from his past life.

Later, he learned that the planet he was on was just a rural, fringe agricultural planet within the Human Empire, and he got a glimpse of some of the Empire’s advanced technology.

And so, he abandoned that childish notion. The technology of his past life was utter trash compared to this cosmic empire’s.

After that, when he looked again at the various common appliances in his home, he was shocked to realize that while they looked the same as those from his past life, their internal workings were completely different.

Plus, his parents were pragmatists—as long as something worked, it was good enough.

They also preferred to do things with their own hands and disliked relying on high-tech products, which was why he had thought as a child that this world’s technology wasn’t very advanced.

From then on, he started paying attention to his "golden finger."

After much research, he figured it out: the golden sphere of light was his unawakened talent.

Moreover, a talent that could manifest in his consciousness but had not yet been activated was, at the very least, Legendary Tier.

A Legendary Tier talent was in no way inferior to those of the scions of the great families.

And so, Lin Yu became eager to join the Lord Contest.

Because the Lord Contest was the only known place where one could activate a talent for free.

As a Transmigrator, he had his own pride and was unwilling to become dependent on a powerful, wealthy clan.

Unfortunately, to participate in the Lord Contest, one had to at least wait until after college graduation. And without the relevant certificates, there was a hefty registration fee.

So, after graduating from college last month, Lin Yu spent considerable effort to convince his parents, then rushed over to register.

-----------------

"Dad, Mom, I’ve registered!"

At the Longhu Lakefront, Lin Yu sat alone in a small pavilion and made a call.

"Sigh... son! We’re so useless, we really can’t help you much! You’re so set on participating in that contest... from now on, you can only rely on yourself!"

"It’s okay, Dad, Mom, don’t worry! This is my own choice. Besides, haven’t I told you? I’m confident I can make it to the fourth stage. At that point, I’ll be able to choose whether to continue the contest or not. So relax! Relax!"

"Alright, alright, alright! We’re not worried~"

Listening to the slightly perfunctory words from the other end of the line and sensing his parents’ deliberately concealed worry, Lin Yu understood that they were still not at ease.

Lin Yu’s parents in this life were a pair of ordinary farmers. They owned a decent-sized plot of land in the suburbs, and their income was respectable enough to ensure the family lived without want.

However, the items involved in the Lord Contest were all Extraordinary Items, especially the top-tier ones, which were absurdly expensive.

When he had first mentioned wanting to join the Lord Contest, his parents, after realizing they couldn’t change his mind, had gone against his wishes. They mortgaged the farm to purchase a potion to unlock a Blue-tier talent and a green, Excellent-quality Lord Core for him.

But in the end, Lin Yu had resolutely returned them and reclaimed the mortgaged farm. After all, he possessed a talent that was guaranteed to be at least Purple-tier; he had no need for external help.

To dissuade his father, Lin Yu had to reveal a few of his trump cards, which was how he finally got his family’s reluctant approval to participate on his own.

"Dad, Mom, why don’t you have another child? You’re both still young. Although I can guarantee I’ll return safely from the Lord Contest, there’s always a ’what if’. You should have another one!"

To prevent his parents from worrying excessively during the days he would be incommunicado after the contest began, Lin Yu decided to give them a good idea.

"Ah~~ Son! Um~~~ How did you know your mom and I were just planning on having another one?"

"We were originally planning to tell you on the day you entered the contest, so you could participate without any worries."

"Since you’ve brought it up, I might as well tell you something."

"Well~~ your mom’s already pregnant. So you don’t have to worry about us. Just focus on the contest!"

Hearing this, Lin Yu was dumbstruck for a moment, then burst out laughing...