Chapter 173: Second Page (1)
Su Yu stepped through the door. It felt like he was traveling through time and space. The world before him warped and before he knew it, he was somewhere else. His surroundings were empty and silent. There was nothing whatsoever around him. No, there was something in front of him. It was a signboard so old it looked like it was falling apart. On it, the following words could be seen: Great Strength Zone.
Before him was an empty zone isolated from the rest of the grotto. It was the so-called Great Strength Zone. The ground under his feet was somewhat soft, but it did not feel like regular soil.
The two other students were standing beside Su Yu. The moment they entered, they started getting ready to cultivate.
But when they saw Su Yu looking around blankly, one of them smiled and said, "Su Yu, stop looking around. Time to cultivate. This is how the entire source grotto looks. There is nothing interesting about it. It's just an empty space formed of a Divine Character for you to absorb source qi."
Su Yu could sense the thick source qi around him. Even without actively cultivating, he could feel a large amount of source qi entering his body and barrelling into his acupoints.
He could feel his acupoints slowly getting filled with source qi. It was evident that even if he wasn't actively cultivating, he would still reach his limit after staying here for a period of time. No wonder Bai Feng and the other teachers had used the time one could stay in the grotto as a measurement of how much source qi one could absorb.
"What a simple place..."
Su Yu muttered. What he had expected to see was completely different from what he saw. He had thought that this was a mystical and magical place. Instead, it was simply an empty space. Sure, he had not seen the entire grotto yet, but what little he could so wasn’t too impressive.
When Su Yu saw that the other two were already cultivating, he did not disturb them. He sat down cross-legged, but after thinking about it, he stood up and walked further away. He didn't want to be disturbed or disturb anyone else.
...
After finding a new spot, Su Yu stopped wasting time and sat down cross-legged. He started linking his acupoints together in accordance with the War God Art. Inside his body, a line was drawn through dot after dot, connecting them with each other. In fact, this was the purpose of the various different cultivation methods: connecting the different acupoints.
Su Yu had opened 22 acupoints in total, but 1 of them belonged to the Lightning Source Blade. That acupoint was not part of the War God Art's circuit.
One dot. Two dots. Three dots.
Everything was happening quickly. After about 10 minutes, 21 dots were linked into a circuit. The acupoints rumbled as they resonated with each other. That was a sound coming from deep within his body, a sound only he could hear.
Dense source qi started converging on him. Not far away, the two students opened their eyes and looked at him in envy. How incredible.
They were different from Su Yu. They only cultivated the regular War God Art. While the advanced War God Art was rather widespread in the war academies, it was rather rare in the cultural research academies.
In fact, even some of the high-tier students in the cultural research academies would choose to cultivate the regular version and settle with entering the Great Strength Realm with only eight acupoints.
These two weren't new students. This was their second year in the academy. Both were already in the Mental Tempering Stage, but they had just reached the Great Strength Realm this year. And they were already among the best of the previous year's intake.
But when they saw Su Yu's cultivation speed, they concluded that he must be cultivating the advanced War God Art. They couldn't help but to feel envious of him. Fortunately, cultural researchers focused more on willpower. Thus, they were only slightly envious of him. Physical cultivation wasn't something they placed a lot of importance on for now.
...
After the circuit formed within Su Yu’s body, a large amount of source qi entered his body before being absorbed by his acupoints. He could clearly feel the increase of his source qi capacity. Additionally, his physical body was also growing in strength.
/p>
Source qi was tempering his body. His vitality increased, his meridians were being cleansed by source qi, and his bones were shaking. This was a process of transformation. The Great Strength Realm was a stage where a warrior truly transformed into someone with proper combat strength.
"Teacher said that I should continue opening acupoints after my advancement. When I reach my limit, I can start consuming blood essence. Let's see how many acupoints I can open before that."
Su Yu wasted no time and started circulating his source qi in accordance with the second-stage of the War God Art.? He had a feeling that he could absorb as much source qi as a drop of source qi liquid could provide in about five minutes.
"That means I can earn 12 drops of source qi liquid per hour, which is equal in value to 60 merit points. If I could stay for 3 hours, I would make a profit of 180 merit points. Also, the source qi here is much easier to absorb than the source qi outside. No wonder everyone wants to cultivate in this grotto."
According to what he heard earlier, even without the free entry given by the academy, members of the academy could still enter this grotto. Those in the Great Strength Realm only needed to pay 100 merit points per entry. Of course, they also needed enough total earned merit to do so.
In other words, if one couldn't absorb 20 drops' worth of source qi in the grotto, one would actually be making a loss. It would be better to not enter this place.
"But it's different for me. I'm using a free entry. This opportunity can be used even at the Skysoar Realm. The entry price is higher for Skysoars. I need to absorb at least 50 drops' worth of source qi to make this worthwhile..."
Su Yu continued his calculation. He probably needed to last four hours to absorb that much source qi. He didn't even know if his absorption speed would increase or drop after staying longer in the grotto.
Regardless, he had decided to not leave before absorbing 50 drops' worth of source qi. He did not consume any blood essence to cultivate. As he circulated his source qi according to the second-stage of the War God Art, his acupoints lit up as he used the source qi he absorbed to temper the next acupoint.
Three minutes, five minutes...and finally, ten minutes passed. The first acupoint of the second-stage was opened. With that, Su Yu's source qi absorption became even faster.
"So fast."
Su Yu was shocked. The first acupoint took him no time at all to open. This felt incredible. No wonder everyone wanted to come here.
"Next."
He did not dare to waste any time. Wasting his time in the grotto was the same as wasting money. After about 10 minutes, the second acupoint opened with a rumble. He was greatly shocked. Were acupoints supposed to be opened this fast in here?
Previously, he would probably need around four days to make the same amount of progress. This was not something that could be explained with source qi density alone. This grotto definitely came with other benefits, such as making it easier for one to open acupoints.
"The world of Divine Characters is truly mysterious."
Su Yu continued his cultivation. This time, he took a longer time to open another acupoint. The third acupoint was only opened after about 15 minutes. Including the time he took breaking through, he had taken about 50 minutes to reach this point. He could feel that after opening three acupoints, his source qi absorption speed was starting to drop.
"I need to start consuming blood essence now. I can't allow the speed to drop."
Su Yu took out the bottle and swallowed a drop of mountainbreak bull blood essence. The moment he swallowed it, his heart thumped.
Mountainbreak bull (Ninth-stage Great Strength Realm)
Racial abilities: Mountainbreak (activate with blood essence)
Foundation source art: Body Strengthening Art (activate with blood essence)
"I was killed by this bull before?"
No, that wasn't right. He had been killed by many bulls before. The mountainbreak bull was probably one of them. But he really had no recollection of that. He had actually activated the second page of his book with the mountainbreak bull blood essence. He was surprised, but he regained his calm soon after.
He had been killed by thousands of races since young. It wasn't surprising for this bull to be one of them. He was only surprised that he had no memory of that. Maybe he had been killed by too many bulls.
"Body Strengthening Art? I heard that the mountainbreak bull blood essence is valuable because of its effect on strengthening one's body. Is this Body Strengthening Art the reason for that?"
Su Yu opened his eyes and took a peek at the two other students. Would activating the Body Strengthening Art help him cultivate even better? As for the iron-winged bird's Source Swallowing Technique, that wasn't a cultivation method that focused on strengthening one's body. Thus, it might not be as good as the mountainbreak bull's cultivation method in terms of strengthening his body.
"Forget it. I'll use the blood essence normally for now and try to open the other acupoints first."
He didn't know when the other two students would leave. He did not dare to rashly activate his book abilities before others. It wouldn't be good if others started suspecting him. That thought had barely crossed his mind when the other two students stood up.
"This is my limit." One of them sighed, "I can't last any longer. But I've managed to open two acupoints and stayed for one hour here. That is already quite a good result..."
He shook his head and looked at Su Yu. Their faces were already flushed red, but when they saw that Su Yu still looked completely normal, they could only look at each other helplessly. This fellow had just started consuming his blood essence. He could probably last another hour here.
There was no comparing him and them. Was Su Yu's body stronger than them? Or did he have a higher limit?
"Su Yu, we're leaving."
Su Yu nodded. The two did not stay any longer. They were merely strangers meeting by chance. Su Yu didn't even know their names. They did not seem to have the intention to introduce themselves to him either. They weren't even in the same faculty. This was merely a chance encounter.
There was a ball of light by the old signboard. That was probably the portal to exit the grotto. When they walked over, they vanished into thin air. After the two left, Su Yu swallowed a drop of blood essence. Instead of using it to activate the book ability, he used it normally.
He could feel a unique power working to temper his body. But he kept having a feeling that this blood essence wasn't working as nicely as he had expected.
"Should I try activating the book?"
He was tempted to give it a try. Since the mountainbreak bulls' basic cultivation method could strengthen their bodies, perhaps using their cultivation method would also work better than only using their blood essence?
"I'll try one drop. If it doesn't work well, I'll continue using the blood essence the normal way."
After the previous drop of blood essence ran out of energy, Su Yu swallowed another drop. This time, he activated the Body Strengthening Art with it. The moment he did it, he felt something completely different. Numerous dots of light appeared in his body.
A lot more temporary acupoints had been opened. The Source Swallowing Technique of the iron-winged bird only utilized 36 acupoints. That number only increased slightly at the Infinite Strength Realm.
But the Body Strengthening Art was already utilizing over 100 acupoints at only the Great Strength Realm. Su Yu only took a rough look to judge that this cultivation method's acupoints were no lesser than the War God Art's.
In that case, the Body Strengthening Art was at least a top-tier earth-grade cultivation method. It might even be a heaven-grade method. And the moment he activated it, he found himself in trouble.
The ambient source qi in the grotto was too dense and too many temporary acupoints had opened within his body. In the blink of an eye, the source qi in his body started to liquefy as more and more source qi entered his body.
Boom!
Instantly, the fourth acupoint opened.
This time, Su Yu felt something completely different. The golden book in his sea of willpower pulsed, seemingly surprised at the density of source qi around him. It was forced to utilize more power to absorb source qi and it seemed exhausted.
For the very first time, the book communicated with Su Yu, telling him that it had run out of energy. The energy provided by the drop of blood essence was insufficient. A single drop of blood essence was supposed to last an hour of activation. Due to the source qi density in the grotto, the activation period had ended way earlier than expected.
Su Yu was surprised that the book could tell him this information, but he couldn't afford to wait and hurriedly swallowed another drop of blood essence. The dimming temporary acupoints lit up once again. Large amount of source qi continued entering his body. After a few minutes, the fifth acupoint opened with a rumble.
"This is so fast..."
Su Yu was fully immersed in this comfortable sensation. Although the rapid absorption gave him a slightly bloated sensation, he was still very pleased to see his acupoints opening one after another.
...
After another half an hour, Su Yu had consumed 18 drops of blood essence and opened 6 acupoints. He had spent one and a half hours in the grotto so far.