Chapter 101: Great Strength Cultivation Method (1)
The proctors from the Talent Fostering Bureau and the various academies worked fast. Su Yu finished his conversation with them in the morning and received his rewards in the afternoon.
The merit points were directly transferred to his merit card. He had obtained quite a lot of merit points this time. There were 10 merit points for placing first in each examination and 20 merit points from Huang Sheng.
The original Great Strength cultivation method, and three drops of source qi liquid had been delivered to him as well. As for the rewards from the academy, he would only receive them after entering.
That was not surprising. If Su Yu suddenly changed his mind and decided to join a different academy, the Great Xia Cultural Research Academy wouldn't be stupid enough to still give him his rewards.
Things like merit points couldn't be measured with money. The official value of each point wasn't too high, but they weren't something one could easily buy or obtain. Its price in the black market was also extremely high and one could easily get into trouble buying from the black market.
If the calculation was made in accordance with the price of blood essence, a single point was basically worth around 30,000 dollars. But following the price of source qi liquid, it would be worth around 20,000 dollars instead.
In short, Su Yu had earned rewards worth more than a million in value from the two examinations. Previously, things were very tight for him financially. He was finally relieved of that trouble.
...
He was now decently well-off. Including the 2 merit points he had previously, he now had 42 merit points, 3 drops of source qi liquid, 2 myriad race original texts (one was given by Chen Hao's father), and 2 willpower texts. In truth, the willpower text written by Bai Feng had almost turned into a regular text.
After all, that was only something Bai Feng had written as an afterthought. He didn't even use blood essence as ink when writing. Thus, his willpower would naturally not stay in the text for long. After almost two months, the Source Opening Codex had lost most of its power. Fortunately, Su Yu no longer needed it much after reaching the ninth-stage.
Apart from those, he also had a weapon and several ordinary copies of cultivation methods. In terms of cash, he had less than 30,000 dollars. As for his blood essence, he had used them all for himself and his blood character.
...
"Sigh."
Even with the rewards in hand, Su Yu still felt somewhat regretful. If it wasn't for Zhou Tianqi, he would have 20 more merit points. Also, Bureau Head Sun's decision to not pay him off to cover up the incident involving the bone scroll also made Su Yu feel like he had suffered a disastrous loss.
If they had not refused to pay him up, he would have been able to earn over 100 merit points this time, breaking his personal record and earning the equivalent of what one would get from killing a Skysoar cultivator.
With a sigh, Su Yu decided to stop thinking about the merit points he could have earned. All the newly accepted students would enter the various academies on the 1st of August. There were more than a month left before then. During the remaining time, Su Yu needed to draw out a plan.
He was already a ninth-stage Source Opening cultivator. His willpower had also reached 20 percent full. His next goal was to reach the Great Strength and further increase his willpower.
"To reach the Great Strength Realm, I need to open more acupoints. But prior to that, I need to pick a suitable Great Strength cultivation method for myself."
There were many Great Strength cultivation methods in existence, and each was different from the other. Generally, one could judge the quality of a cultivation method through the number of additional acupoints it could open.
For example, Su Yu had a Divine Skywing Technique: Great Strength Chapter on him. This method would allow him to open 72 acupoints on top of his Source Opening acupoints. It was a top-tier profound-grade cultivation method.
He also knew the Great Strength Art taught in the military. It opened 36 additional acupoints and was a top-tier yellow-grade cultivation method. The cultivation method would determine the acupoints one needed to open during the ninth-stage Source Opening Realm to enter the Great Strength Realm.
The Great Strength acupoints would be opened gradually through the nine stages of the realm. A cultivation method with 36 acupoints was a top-tier yellow-grade method, one with 72 acupoints was a top-tier profound-grade method, and one with 108 acupoints was a top-tier earth-grade method.
Simply put, a lower tier yellow-grade cultivation method might also provide only nine additional acupoints. For this method, one might only need to open one extra acupoint during the Source Opening Realm to step into the Great Strength Realm. But such a Great Strength cultivator was too weak.
Unless one was really untalented in cultivation, most humans would cultivate the Great Strength Art and open 36 acupoints. That signified that with this method, one needed to open four extra acupoints during the ninth-stage Source Opening Realm to reach the first-stage Great Strength Realm.
"What cultivation method should I practice?"
It was time for Su Yu to make his choice. He had basically finished opening his basic nine acupoints. His next choice would affect his cultivation in the Great Strength Realm and beyond.
"I definitely can't practice the Divine Skywing Technique since it's a cult cultivation method. I might get myself killed as a cult member if I learn it. So am I supposed to practice the Great Strength Art?"
As a hot-blooded young man, Su Yu was naturally not reconciled to practicing a weaker method. That method gave him only 36 acupoints. That was too little for him. Sure, it was a well-known fact that a lot of top experts cultivated only yellow or profound-grade methods, but that was because they lived during a different time. The environment back then did not allow them to be picky.
In this era, if he practiced a weak method, he would have a weak combat strength. It was different for the military. They had no choice but to use a yellow-grade method as the military was filled with people from different backgrounds.
A cultivation method that was too complicated might not work for some of them. The Great Strength Art was still a relatively strong method despite its simplicity, so it was natural for them to use it as their main cultivation method.
But if Su Yu practiced the Great Strength Art, he would be very weak during the Great Strength Realm.
Of course, as a trainee cultural researcher, he did not need to care too much about that. He would have a chance to reforge his body during the Skysoar Realm. He could always switch to a better cultivation method during that time.
But he did not wish to fall behind during the Great Strength Realm. His willpower was already weaker than those freaks. If he was also weaker as a warrior, then he would have no way of competing against them.
"I need to decide on a cultivation method. At the very least, I need to get a profound-grade method."
After reaching a decision, he moved on. There was no rush as he had just reached the ninth-stage. He still needed to consolidate his cultivation base. In Nanyuan, Liu Wenyan was probably the only person who could give him proper advice in terms of cultivation methods.
As for Bai Feng, Su Yu had no idea what that person was doing at the moment. Even if he wanted to contact Bai Feng, he couldn't. Sure, he could ask for Liu Wenyan to connect them, but he did not intend to do so. There was no need for him to look too eager to be Bai Feng's student.
...
On the 27th.
Nanyuan Secondary School.
After the two examinations, the school took a month-long holiday. As a result, it was very quiet inside the school. At the end of June, the weather was slowly turning warm. Wearing a button-up shirt, Su Yu walked alone in a path framed by massive trees. It was rare for the school to be this quiet.
The results of the examinations would be released on the 1st of July.
And from the 2nd of July onwards, the students would start registering for the academies they wished to join. The registration would be finished by the 5th of July and the academies would finish accepting students by the 10th of July.
Around the 15th of July, the students would receive their acceptance letters. With these letters in hand, they could start reporting to their respective academies.
The capital needed to work at a high efficiency to complete all that within such a short time frame. After all, there were a lot more students there than a small place like Nanyuan with only thousands of examinees.
Nanyuan was too small. Even their neighboring cities would have tens of thousands of examinees. As for the capital, they had more than 100,000 examinees. There were around 800,000 examinees in the entire Great Xia. There were a lot of students. There were also a lot of academies for these students to join.
Not many students of Nanyuan would be accepted into the war and cultural research academies. Furthermore, most of these accepted students would only be accepted into ordinary war and cultural research academies. Very few could be accepted into the Great Xia War Academy and the Great Xia Cultural Research Academy. As the result had yet to be released, the secondary school was still quite empty today.
Su Yu did not mind. He had already been accepted. He only needed to report to the academy. After a while, he reached Liu Wenyan's house. He knocked on the door and it opened.
Liu Wenyan was preparing a meal in the kitchen. When Su Yu saw that, he walked in and said, "Instructor, let me help you."
"Are you here to get a free meal?" Liu Wenyan laughed. Without looking back, he said, "You've timed your arrival to coincide with my meal time. Looks like you have learned to grab any free benefit you could get."
Su Yu awkwardly said, "That's not the case, Instructor. I was only afraid that you would wake up late during the holiday."
"Nonsense." Liu Wenyan laughed again. He said, "Come help me clean the vegetables. After your father left, you have probably been eating crude meals. As a single man, you need some cooking skills if you want to live a quality life."
Su Yu scratched his head and laughed without saying anything else.
He entered the kitchen and started helping Liu Wenyan clean the vegetables. While Liu Wenyan cooked, he asked, "Why are you here? Do you have any questions?"
"Not really. I'm thinking of picking a Great Strength cultivation method so I'm looking for a suggestion."
"Great Strength cultivation method..." Liu Wenyan blanked out slightly before saying, "I almost forgot you're at the ninth-stage already. That was fast."
He had nearly forgotten that. Su Yu's progress as a warrior was too fast. His physical cultivation had advanced way faster than even his willpower cultivation. If it wasn't for his Divine Characters, Liu Wenyan would have suspected that Su Yu had more talent as a warrior than a cultural researcher.
Liu Wenyan sighed and said, "I told you to not cultivate with blood essence, but you were stubborn. Have you hidden some other special abilities of that blood character from me? For example, it could give you some source qi after absorbing blood essence?"
Su Yu hesitated and sank into silence. Liu Wenyan was definitely aware that he had purchased a lot of blood essence. He had grown rapidly while he always carried the aura of blood essence on him. An ordinary person would not be able to sense that aura, but Liu Wenyan could.
Evidently, Liu Wenyan was wondering if his fast growth was related to the blood character. Before forming the blood character, Su Yu had purchased some blood essence as well. But he hadn't purchased as much back then.
He had also been using research as an excuse for those purchases. Only after forming his Divine Character did he start purchasing blood essence in bulk. In fact, he had spent nearly all his merit points on those purchases. It wasn't surprising that Liu Wenyan would find out about his purchases.
"There exists Divine Characters capable of assisting with physical cultivation. That is not a big secret..."
Liu Wenyan did not mind the silence. He said, "But you can't rely too much on your Divine Character. This is the best time for you to get to know your body. If you rely on your Divine Character too much, you will be in trouble during the Skysoar Realm. Without a good understanding and control over your body, you won't even be able to forge your body."
Su Yu hurriedly asked, "Instructor, will I ruin my future relying on my Divine Character?"
"It's not that serious," said Liu Wenyan. "But if you don't know your own body well enough, your progress at the Skysoar Realm will be very slow due to the lack of the comprehension that you should have gained in the earlier stages."
Su Yu breathed out in relief. Fortunately, that would not apply to him. He wasn't even relying on his Divine Character. He was only using the book in his mind to absorb source qi way earlier than he was supposed to.
He was still confident in his control over his body. He wouldn't have been able to grasp the Lightning Source Blade otherwise. Liu Wenyan said nothing else. He tried to imagine himself in a similar position. Would he be able to resist using such a Divine Character to help with his physical cultivation?
Absorbing blood essence to gain source qi. That was probably a dream ability for many people. That was especially true for cultural researchers who mainly focused on willpower cultivation. Doing physical cultivation on top of that would waste a lot of their time. If a Divine Character could help with their physical cultivation, many of them wouldn't hesitate to do so.
Since Su Yu's main path was going to be willpower cultivation, Liu Wenyan did not need to worry about him too much.
Having reached that conclusion, Liu Wenyan returned to the previous topic, "There are many Great Strength cultivation methods in existence. Any random store can recommend over a hundred methods to you. But the Great Strength Art is the most commonly practiced method. It has moderate difficulty and is very suitable for the masses.
"That is actually a cultivation method created by a bunch of old fellows. Thus, you will have a clear path of advancement in future realms as well. For example, the Infinite Strength Art and the Skysoar Art for the subsequent realms. This is the advantage of selecting this method."
Su Yu asked, "So should I practice the Great Strength Art?"