Chapter 212: I Think I Can't Stay Low-Profile Anymore (1)
After saying all that, Liu Hong did not wait and left.
A different instructor was in charge of teaching the first class. Like the intermediate class, a foundational subject was being taught here. However, they would delve deeper into the topic in this class, touching on some knowledge involving willpower.
...
Back at the research center.
Su Yu wanted to look for Bai Feng to ask some questions, but Bai Feng had locked himself on the third underground floor for his research so Su Yu decided to not bother his teacher.
He did not intend to visit the prison zone either. He would keep those fellows waiting before working on them. It wasn't a good idea to look too eager. In any case, he didn't need anything from them right now.
He also wasn't too worried about his position as the class monitor. The senior class did not have too many students. Thus, even if he had to do what he did for the intermediate class, he would still have a much easier time.
Since it was still quite early, Su Yu went to the second floor and started his daily cultivation session.
After reaching the third-stage Great Strength Realm, his cultivation of the War God Art had slowed down.
He had the help of the iron-winged bird blood essence, but he found that the Source Swallowing Technique of the iron-winged bird left a lot to be desired after reaching the Great Strength Realm.
It was far slower than his speed when he used the Body Strengthening Art of the mountainbreak bull.
Furthermore, the Source Swallowing Technique did not even have the effect of strengthening his body, unlike the Body Strengthening Art where he could clearly feel his physical body getting stronger from each cultivation session.
Strictly speaking, in the same realm, the Source Swallowing Technique was also weaker than the War God Art. After all, the War God Art was an earth-grade top-tier cultivation method. As for the Source Swallowing Technique, it was only some profound-grade top-tier cultivation method.
The iron-winged bird race was only a weak race that wasn't comparable to the mountainbreak bulls which was a top 100 race.
"I need more mountainbreak bull blood essence. It would be better if the blood essence is in the early Infinite Strength Realm."
Su Yu decided that he would use mountainbreak bull blood essence to cultivate moving forward. With it, he could both strengthen his body and increase his cultivation speed. In fact, his speed would increase by at least 30 percent.
But the academy's price for blood essence was too expensive. He had to look for Xia Huyou. He was fine with the Source Swallowing Technique previously, but after he tried the effects of the mountainbreak bull blood essence, he was no longer happy even with the Infinite Strength Source Swallowing Technique.
"For the Great Strength Realm, the mountainbreak bull blood essence is the better option. Maybe there would also be a different blood essence that is better at the Infinite Strength Realm. In that case, there might be different cultivation methods of different races that would be more suitable for each different cultivation realm. The mountainbreak bull is the best during the Great Strength Realm. What's the best during the Infinite Strength Realm?"
Su Yu started wondering.
If he could cultivate with different cultivation methods at different realms and kept strengthening his physical body, would he grow into the strongest expert in the same cultivation level?
"The Body Strengthening Art requires 126 acupoints. It is a heaven-grade middle-tier cultivation method. I can even sense the locations of its acupoints. Therefore...I can actually cultivate the real Body Strengthening Art. Even without blood essence activation, if I can open all 126 acupoints, I can use this method without blood essence."
Su Yu had been thinking about the issue for several days. The War God Art was a good cultivation method. But too many people cultivated it, so it was no longer anything special. Almost all the geniuses were cultivating the advanced version of that method. Thus, Su Yu didn't have any advantages when compared with the others in terms of cultivation method.
Some large families had their own unique cultivation methods. For example, the Sky Sundering Countless Saber of the Xia Family. As for follow-up cultivation methods, Su Yu wasn't too worried either as he could always activate a higher level of the cultivation method with blood essence.
"Do I change my cultivation method?"
That question popped up in his head, but he quickly gave up on it. If he changed his cultivation method, he would lose a lot. For example, the complementary martial technique and his willpower text that he could no longer use after changing his cultivation method.
"Unless..."
A new thought appeared in his mind. If he opened enough acupoints to the point all the acupoints needed by these cultivation methods were already opened, then he would be able to activate any cultivation method at any time.
Oh you thought I cultivated the War God Art?
Wrong!
I had the Body Strengthening Art!
You thought I cultivated the Body Strengthening Art?
Surprise, surprise! I cultivated the Source Swallowing Technique!
"If I can open even more acupoints to cover even more cultivation methods and martial techniques, it would be incredible..."
In Su Yu's imagination, when his opponent thought that he was cultivating a certain method or technique and moved to target the weakness of the technique, hehehe, he would let his opponent know just how dark the world could be.
"I can even deliberately expose some of my weaknesses, giving them an impression that by damaging certain acupoints, I would be crippled. That would make the fight even more interesting. Wow, this is the best way to set people up in combat."
Any cultivation method would have its own weaknesses. War God Art did not have a lot of weaknesses. That was why it was so widely used. But it still had some. And a lot of people were probably aware of its weaknesses too.
But if Su Yu was the one who had revealed his weakness and lured his opponent in...hehehe...he would teach them how cruel the world was.
"But to do that, I would need to spend a lot of time and resources to open acupoints..."
Su Yu shook his head helplessly. Opening acupoints weren't free. And he needed time too. He was sure that he definitely wasn't the first person to have thought of something like this. But just the 108 acupoints of the War God Art were enough to give one a lot of trouble. Who would still consider opening more acupoints?
Anyone trying that would probably find themselves stuck in the Great Strength Realm even after their peers had reached the Infinite Strength Realm. That would defeat the purpose as one would still be weaker than one's peers.
Everyone knew that with more acupoints, even if one couldn't utilize all the acupoints as a part of a system, one's source qi would still be stronger. But who would waste the time and effort opening so many acupoints? Resources and time were required to open new acupoints!
"But I believe that there are definitely some fellows out there who have opened additional acupoints."
He was sure that someone must have opened more acupoints. If one was facing an opponent with similar cultivation methods, martial techniques, and cultivation level, one's foundations would start playing a greater role.
More acupoints, richer experience, or sharper weapons could all serve as one's foundations. He had not heard of such people in the cultural research academy, but he was sure there were people like that in the war academies. That was similar to how there would be people forming additional Divine Characters in the cultural research academies.
"But the ninth-stage Great Strength geniuses of the cultural research academy might not only have 108 acupoints. They might have more, such as 120 or even 130."
Nobody had told Su Yu that. He had reached that conclusion himself. And he was confident in his conclusion.
"If I have the time and opportunity, I should try opening more acupoints as well. After all, I know quite a lot of cultivation methods already."
And Su Yu had one advantage over everyone else. When he cultivated with his blood essence, the corresponding human acupoints required for those cultivation methods would temporarily open, clearly showing him the locations of those acupoints.
When he activated the cultivation methods through his book, he would be shown the acupoints and circulation routes of these methods. That was basically the same experience as using willpower texts.
Slowly but surely, Su Yu was exploring the uses of his book. A borrowed ability was still a borrowed ability. Only by truly having the ability would it be truly reliable. If he was able to open the required acupoints and master those cultivation methods, there would no longer be a point to using blood essence to activate those methods.
Numerous thoughts appeared in Su Yu's mind. His motivation grew and he cultivated even harder than before. He aimed to reach the ninth-stage Great Strength Realm as fast as possible. He would then open some additional acupoints, allowing him to become unrivaled within the same realm.
Or perhaps he could aim to reach the Infinite Strength Realm earlier before becoming unrivaled within that realm. As for the Skysoar Realm, he still needed more time.
...
On the 5th, Xia Huyou was still nowhere to be seen.
Su Yu only found Xia Huyou when he visited the Mental Tempering Garden on the 6th. After disappearing for a few days, Xia Huyou seemed to have grown even bigger than before.
When Xia Huyou saw Su Yu, he acted like he was meeting his lover as he said, "Su Yu, I can finally see you again! You don't know this, but someone set me up! My gambling operation was raided by the academy and I lost over 10,000 merit points!"
Su Yu rolled his eyes, "Do you think I can't do math? Only 12,000 merit points were seized during the raid. I heard that more than half of the people were betting on Lin Yao winning. You don't need to compensate those people, right? At most, you would lose 5,000 merit points."
Xia Huyou's expression turned awkward. Su Yu sure was very sensitive when it came to merit points. And Su Yu's estimations were mostly correct.
"It was still a great loss." Xia Huyou had a sullen expression. "The academy is too cruel. I'm now deep in debt..."
"Don't act poor in front of me." Su Yu couldn't even be bothered to entertain Xia Huyou's performance. He moved on to the next topic, "In the future, you can have the job of reminding our classmates to attend their classes."
"What?"
"I'm the class monitor of the senior class. I'm now delegating this task to you. Do you object?"
Xia Huyou blinked in confusion, "You became a class monitor again?"
"Yes. That bastard Liu Hong set me up."
Su Yu didn't even feel like saying too much about it. Xia Huyou couldn't help but to laugh, but he wasn't too bothered by it. He said, "Sure, but this is not needed for the senior class. Everyone is free to attend or not attend their classes. These fellows won't be grateful after receiving your reminders. They might even feel offended. As for Assistant Liu, don't worry about him. All the senior class students are like this. Is he supposed to punish you because of that?"
Su Yu nodded.
After taking a few steps, he softly asked, "Can you get a batch of mountainbreak bull blood essence for me?"
"That's not easy..."
"I don't need Great Strength blood essence. I need Infinite Strength blood essence. Early Infinite Strength. As cheap as possible. Give me a fair offer. We have completed quite a few transactions already. I believe the volume of our transactions would only grow in the future. I am only at the Great Strength Realm now. Xia Huyou, give me a fair price and we can do this long-term. Perhaps in the future, we can even do transactions worth thousands or tens of thousands of merit points."
"Infinite Strength mountainbreak bull blood essence..." Xia Huyou furrowed his brow. "To speak the truth, if you want to look for Skysoar blood essence of a top 100 race, it won't be hard. But Great Strength and Infinite Strength blood essence are really quite hard to find. And there is no way these blood essence can be cheap.
"In the Allheaven Battlefield, most of the top 100 races utilize the soldiers of their subordinate races. The soldiers of their own races are very rarely seen. Very few of their Great Strength and Infinite Strength cultivators will appear in the battlefield. But they are a lot more common at the Skysoar and Cloudbreach Realms."
Su Yu raised his brow, "Are you telling me you can get the blood essence of a Skysoar top 100 race?"
"Yes. Do you need some?"
"No."
Su Yu was only asking out of curiosity. If he tried using Skysoar blood essence with his current cultivation, his body might blow apart before his book could even absorb the blood essence.
Yes, there was a slight gap between the time he consumed blood essence and the time the book absorbed it. Thus, he estimated that for now, it was best for him to use early Infinite Strength blood essence.
He could consider middle-stage Infinite Strength blood essence after reaching middle-stage Great Strength Realm. He only needed to keep the blood essence one major realm above him. And to use Skysoar blood essence, he had to reach the Infinite Strength Realm first.