Chapter 216: Fourth-Stage Great Strength (3)
Sure enough, the page was updated. Although he had to use a drop of blood essence to do this, he did not regret it. Next, it was time for him to focus on cultivating.
He swallowed yet another drop of blood essence. The Body Strengthening Art was activated and numerous acupoints opened temporarily in his body. When he looked at himself with his willpower, he could see over 100 shining dots all over his body.
The acupoints started pulling in nearby ambient source qi, causing the density of the source qi around him to increase greatly. The gathered source qi started entering his 39th acupoint. With over 100 acupoints working together, he was absorbing source qi at a rapid speed. His acupoints shook and within his body, one previously dark acupoint started shining.
After over 15 minutes, a rumble sounded within his body. A new acupoint had been opened. The power of the drop of blood essence he consumed was fully exhausted. Su Yu was overjoyed. Even though the energy of the blood essence had been exhausted, trading a drop of blood essence for the opening of one acupoint was worth it.
Prior to this, he would need to use two or three drops of iron-winged bird blood essence before he could open an acupoint. Although cultivating with iron-winged bird blood essence was cheaper, he preferred speed. He could save more time cultivating with mountainbreak bull blood essence.
"I still have 58 drops of blood essence. If I can open 58 acupoints with them..."
Su Yu's jaw dropped. Was he going to have 97 out of 108 acupoints opened after this? Of course, he knew that things wouldn't be so simple. But he still couldn't help but to fantasize about it for a bit. Even if he couldn't open 58 acupoints, opening 57 of them would still be acceptable.
"Low-profile. Yes. I need to stay low profile. I can't grow too fast or I would be dissected. If I have no choice, I can open some Great Strength Art acupoints instead to delay my War God Art's growth. Or maybe I can open some Lightning Source Blade acupoints..."
Su Yu decided to not go further than the sixth-stage Great Strength Realm this time. Any more than that and he would look too abnormal. If he still had blood essence left after reaching that level, he would consider opening the acupoints of other methods or techniques.
Or he could always return to the grotto next time and go straight to the ninth-stage. Su Yu had a beautiful imagination. But reality soon proved that he had been too optimistic.
...
An hour later, he had used 6 drops of blood essence to open 4 acupoints. He had opened 42 acupoints in total.
Two hours later, when he had used 13 drops of blood essence in total, he had opened 3 more acupoints, reaching a number of 45 total opened acupoints.
Three hours later, he had used a total of 20 drops of blood essence.
At that point, he was still opening the final acupoint of the War God Art's fourth-stage, his 48th acupoint.
While cultivating, he studied Bai Feng's War God Art. The willpower text shone brightly as Su Yu focused fully on the miniature Bai Feng in the text. He was cultivating both his body and willpower at the same time. As for the waste of willpower, he was willing to overlook that to pursue speed.
As Su Yu studied the willpower text, the text started dimming due to the rate its willpower was being exhausted. At that moment, a character in the willpower text started dimming as well.
"Battle!"
While still opening his acupoint, Su Yu sensed a new Divine Character slowly taking form in his mind. His fourth Divine Character had appeared!
It was a battle character. In his sea of willpower, the kill character flickered and stabbed through the battle character. Su Yu didn't even need to lift a finger for the new character to be subdued. Like a father leading a son away, the kill character brought the pitiful battle character into the little saber.
The saber flickered as the battle character entered like an obedient child and stopped at a certain spot inside the saber.
Su Yu was dumbfounded.
What? Was the new character so weak? No, it wasn't the character. It was the willpower text. It was his teacher! His teacher was too weak! The character from a text written by a Skysoar was akin to a bug before the character from a text written by a Mountainsea.
Su Yu could sense that among his four Divine Characters, the blood character was probably the strongest. It was on the verge of reaching the second tier. Second to that was the kill character, followed by the lightning character. The weak battle character occupied the last place.
The blood character was so strong because it had absorbed a lot of blood. It had also absorbed a lot of leftover willpower from destroyed Divine Characters. As for the kill character, Su Yu guessed that it needed more combat to grow.
While Su Yu was thinking, a rumble sounded within his body. The 48th acupoint had fully opened. A large amount of source qi gathered around him and entered his body. Once again, his body was strengthened as impurities started seeping out of his pores.
It had been over three hours since he entered the grotto.
...
Inside the small room.
The two old men looked at each other and stroked their beard before they shut their eyes again. The ones who had said that Su Yu would only stay in the grotto for an hour earlier were definitely not them. Yeap. That had nothing to do with them.
That brat was not human! This was his second visit yet he was staying over three hours inside again. That was completely abnormal. Was he going to stay five hours again? Clearly, that brat was going to earn a lot from his visit again.
They had complicated emotions. They finally understood Bai Feng's feelings. With a student like that, he had no choice but to bluff. Who would be happy to have their face slapped all the time? Fortunately, Su Yu had not heard them guessing that he would only stay inside for an hour. Otherwise, that would be too embarrassing for them.
"The next time this kid visits, nothing matters. I'll directly guess that he can stay for 24 hours. If he can't, then he's a piece of trash!"
The two old men reached the same decision. Su Yu would slap their faces if they said that he could stay for an hour. They would like to see the brat do that again if they said he could stay for 24 hours.
But at the same time, they also couldn't help acknowledging that this brat was an absolute genius comparable to that monster from the war academy. That person had taken only eight years to reach the Cloudbreach Realm. How many years would Su Yu need? How many years would Bai Feng need?
What if Bai Feng and Su Yu ended up reaching that realm at the same time after a few years? That would be amusing.
By the time five hours had passed and Su Yu was still inside the grotto, nothing could surprise Old Huang anymore. He said, "Should we report this to the higher ups? Su Yu is definitely a genius in physical cultivation. A war academy might be more suitable for him..."
Old Nie said, "Why are you talking like our academy doesn't produce experts in physical cultivation? If you report this, Faculty Head Zhou and the others will find out as well. Would it be proper for us to report this? I'm more worried that they suppress him so much that his talent is wasted."
Old Huang hesitated slightly and nodded, "Then we won't report it. This kid is definitely not as honest and silly as he pretends to be. He had won quite a lot of merit points from Chen Qi and the others. And he even has enough total earned merits to enter this grotto again. This kid is definitely a ruthless one. As they say, a dog that bites won't bark...He has probably killed before as well."
Su Yu had accumulated more than 100 total merit points and about half of that came from his assistance in killing enemies. The two old men did not know the exact circumstances of those kills, but based on a simple calculation, they could see that Su Yu was still in the Source Opening Realm when he earned those merit points.
Someone who could earn over 50 merit points from killing enemies during the Source Opening Realm was most definitely not an honest and silly man. If anyone dared to try to convince Old Huang otherwise, he would slap that person to death.
As for Chen Qi, had he guessed the same after meeting Su Yu here? He probably had. Otherwise, he wouldn't have said those words to Su Yu. After all, Su Yu had already visited this place before. His free entry had been used up. Since he was returning so soon, he had clearly accumulated enough total earned merits.
Old Huang laughed and shook his head. He had discovered that he was even slower than Chen Qi in realizing that fact. He had just made the discovery now.
Meanwhile, Chen Qi had probably thought of all that the moment he saw Su Yu here. After thinking about his own defeat, he came to a realization that he had been set up by Su Yu, so he understood Su Yu's character even more.
Old Huang muttered, "He reminds me of someone..."
"Who?"
"Wan Tiansheng!" Old Huang said, "A dog that bites—cough, cough. Before Principal Wan became the principal, he had been maintaining a low profile as well. He looked honest and kind, but the moment he gained power, everything changed. He acted like a kindly old man but everyone knows that he can be very ruthless and merciless when he acts."
"Principal Wan?" Old Nie smiled, "He's not that bad. If you want to talk about a silent dog that bites, Principal Wan can only take the second place in Great Xia. The person in the first place is...a businessman."
"Him?" Old Huang raised his brow, "I heard some stories before. Are those stories true?"
"Yes, they are. Of course, you should forget all about them. That person...is merciless. Everyone knows he loves scheming for money, but he is even better when it comes to scheming for life."
At that point, fear appeared in Old Nie's eyes as he switched to voice transmission, "Don't say anything after this. That person is quite petty as well. He doesn't care if you call him Fatty Xia. But that's because you won't hurt him calling him that. But if you do end up threatening his interest...you won't like what comes next."
Old Huang hurriedly nodded. He recalled some rumors he had heard before. So those rumors could be true? At that thought, he sighed.
"Maybe we're not strong because we're not ruthless enough..."
Just look at all those people. Every single one of them had a warm and friendly smile at all times, but every last one of them was merciless and cunning. Principal Wan enjoyed smiling. Marquis Xia enjoyed smiling as well. People who smiled a lot were scary.
And that brat in the grotto...seemed to enjoy smiling a lot too.
"Damn it! Only villains smile all the time!" Old Huang cursed. He only came to realize this at such an old age. Suddenly, he recalled something and asked, "Did Liu Wenyan smile a lot back then?"
"Yes."
"Sure enough!"
Old Nie guessed what his friend was thinking and laughed, "There's also Liu Hong. He smiles a lot too."
"Don't smile at me! I'm very scared of smiling faces now!"
"..."
Old Nie was speechless. He was different from those people. He would only smile occasionally. How could Old Huang say that?