Chapter 267: Real Infinite Strength, Fake Infinite Strength (1)
Chen Yong was really finding this hard to accept.
Ninth-stage Great Strength Realm.
However, he did not let his shock affect him for long. He frowned and said, "You consumed too much blood essence. And there are too many types of them, resulting in a chaotic mess of source qi in you. Too many different blood essence energies are gathered in your acupoints. This might not affect you that much in the Great Strength Realm, but you will be in trouble after reaching the Infinite Strength Realm."
Su Yu nodded with the same honest expression and said, "Martial Uncle, I'll slowly purify my source qi."
"That will take some time. I'm afraid it will slow down your progress into the Infinite Strength Realm."
Su Yu nodded in agreement. But he didn't dare to say that he could use the clearbright bird blood essence to purify his source qi.
"Let's go. I'll give you a small lesson."
"Thank you, Martial Uncle!"
The two left the room.
Outside, Wu Jia brushed her hair aside when she saw them and jokingly complained, "Teacher, why are you speaking to Junior Brother in secret? What is the big secret that you can't let me know?"
Chen Yong smiled. He naturally couldn't let her know about it. Otherwise, with her short fuse, she would probably go crazy.
"Stop wasting time. Get ready to focus. I'll be telling your Junior Brother about the Infinite Strength Realm."
"It's still too early for him. And I already learned about the Infinite Strength Realm long ago."
Wu Jia looked at Su Yu and smiled, "Junior Brother, my teacher loves nagging. You will regret this."
Su Yu maintained a simple and honest smile on his face.
This senior sister felt quite friendly. But her face was still rather pale. Seeing that, he felt somewhat unhappy and said, "Martial Uncle, does Senior Sister need that long to recover from her injuries?"
Chen Yong looked at Wu Jia. She didn't seem to mind the question, but she was still angry with Huang Qifeng. With a snort, she said, "That bastard destroyed a few of my Divine Characters, injuring my sea of willpower. I also need to nurture my characters from scratch. That will take a lot of time."
Understanding dawned on Su Yu.
So her Divine Characters were destroyed.
"Senior Sister, so can you reform the destroyed characters?"
"Yeah." Wu Jia smiled and said, "Of course you can. It's basically the same as when you first formed it. The foundation of the characters are still there. You only need to waste your time and energy to grow them again."
"Can Divine Characters be destroyed even before willpower materialization?"
"Yes." Wu Jia said, "For example, when you send your characters into your cultural weapon, those characters are really inside even if they aren't visible. Destroying the weapon might result in the destruction of those characters. But as long as those characters aren't fully destroyed, you can reform them. You only need time."
She added, "Having one or two characters destroyed isn't that big of a deal. But if more of them are destroyed, your sea of willpower will be impacted and you will end up like me. This injury is quite troublesome to recover from. These days, Teacher has been busy helping me calm my chaotic sea of willpower."
Clearly, more than two of her Divine Characters had been destroyed.
When Chen Yong saw Su Yu's change of expression, he cleared his throat and said, "Your senior sister was too stubborn. She wouldn't have sustained such a heavy injury otherwise. In the ring, the fight will end the moment you surrender. And for these public matches, a referee will be provided. But she refused to surrender. This girl..."
Wu Jia protested, "Teacher! How can I surrender? The moment he entered the ring, he provoked me, saying that he would ensure that the Top 100 Ranking is completely devoid of the multiple character faction. He even said that an abolished faction like us are not qualified to get into the ranking. How can I tolerate that?"
"Why bother about what outsiders have to say?" Chen Yong said, "Cultivation is a personal journey..."
"Teacher!" Wu Jia was clearly unhappy with that. She grumbled to herself softly.
Chen Yong's face fell and he glared at her.
Su Yu could hear what she was grumbling about. She was saying something like: "I've yet to become a little turtle. Maybe I'll learn to be patient after finishing my cultivation into a little turtle..."
Su Yu wanted to laugh, but he forced himself to stay calm. He couldn't laugh!
Since Chen Yong walked the path of defense, Wu Jia probably walked the same path as well. Or perhaps she walked the balanced path. Su Yu had never asked about that.
From Wu Jia's words, it was also clear that she had yet to complete her character technique. Thus, even though Chen Yong was an old turtle, she wasn't even a little turtle yet. When Chen Yong saw Su Yu resisting the urge to laugh, he knew that Su Yu had heard Wu Jia's words. He was somewhat speechless.
"Cut the crap. Get over here. Class is starting."
Wu Jia walked over with a wide smile, unbothered by his words. It was obvious the relationship between the two was quite good. She wouldn't have dared to run her mouth off like that otherwise.
Su Yu and Wu Jia sat down side by side.
Chen Yong said, "Su Yu asked me what is the Infinite Strength Realm? How does one cultivate during the Infinite Strength Realm? How does it differ from the Great Strength Realm? Does he still need to open acupoints at the Infinite Strength Realm?"
"Teacher, has Martial Uncle not taught even these to Junior Brother?"
Wu Jia was astonished.
"..."
Su Yu maintained his polite smile while resisting the urge to laugh loudly. He really wanted to tell his teacher that someone was finally questioning his capability as a teacher.
Chen Yong also didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He said, "Your martial uncle has been quite busy with blood essence abilities recently. He has probably been too busy. Or he might have forgotten about his student. This is how he has always been. Stop interrupting the lesson!"
"Oh."
Wu Jia answered obediently. She then looked at Su Yu with sympathy. What a pitiful junior brother. Her martial uncle was a very unreliable teacher. How pitiful.
Chen Yong couldn't be bothered to keep talking about Bai Feng. he continued his lesson, "Generally, the Great Strength and Infinite Strength Realms are classified as a single greater realm where the physical body is strengthened. At the Great Strength Realm, you focus on opening acupoints. At the Infinite Strength Realm, you focus on fusing acupoints."
"Fusing acupoints?"
Chen Yong smiled, "Has Bai Feng told you before that the higher your cultivation, the lesser weak points you have?"
Su Yu nodded.
"That's why." Chen Yong said, "At the Infinite Strength Realm, you will be fusing all your opened acupoints until you only have nine acupoints left. As an example, you have opened 108 acupoints. At each stage, you have 12 acupoints. With 108 acupoints, you basically have weak points all over your body, right?"
Su Yu had a pensive look as he nodded, "You can say so. Acupoints are filled with source qi, but because of that, they are also excellent targets during combat. The moment an acupoint is broken, things can get very troublesome. The third move of the Skybreak Technique is meant to achieve this."
Chen Yong said, "Exactly. Thus, at the Infinite Strength Realm, we stop focusing on opening acupoints. Instead, we start fusing our acupoints. For example, in the Great Strength Realm, you have 12 acupoints per stage. And these 12 acupoints are connected to form a unique system within your body. At the Infinite Strength Realm, we will fuse these 12 acupoints into a single acupoint.
"At that time, a single acupoint will have the strength of 12 acupoints. The acupoint will be stronger, has thicker source qi, and easier to control. After the fusion, you will gain strength and reduce your weak points. That, in essence, is what it means to enter the Infinite Strength Realm."
Su Yu was quite surprised to learn all that. Acupoint fusion?
"Martial Uncle, do you mean that those cultivating low-tier yellow-grade cultivation methods with only nine acupoints would not need to fuse any acupoints to reach the ninth-stage Infinite Strength Realm?"
"In theory, yes. In reality, these people basically have no future. Thus, it is generally recommended that one should not cultivate anything lower than the middle-tier yellow-grade. Only then would one have the chance to enter the Infinite Strength Realm. After all, acupoint fusion is the trademark of the Infinite Strength Realm.
"With middle-tier yellow-grade cultivation methods, they can open 18 acupoints during the Great Strength Realm. They can enter the Infinite Strength Realm by fusing only two acupoints. Subsequently, they only need to keep fusing their acupoints. When they only have nine acupoints left, they will reach the peak of the Infinite Strength Realm."
Su Yu asked doubtfully, "Do you gain a lot of strength from fusing acupoints?"
"Yes. A lot." Chen Yong nodded, "After fusion, you can move your source qi faster. You will have less weak points. And each acupoint will have a lot more source qi than Great Strength acupoints. With more source qi, the acupoint will be able to release a lot more strength as well.
"For example, after fusing your 108 acupoints into 9 acupoints, your destructive prowess will be much higher than your current strength. In truth, the gap between different Infinite Strength cultivators can be very big. Terrifyingly big. Do you know why?"
Su Yu nodded, "Because of the difference in the number of acupoints opened during the Great Strength Realm..."
"That's not the only reason. Even those cultivating cultivation methods of the same tier might still have a big gap between each other."
Su Yu was curious. Why was that the case? If everyone was fusing the same number of acupoints, why would their strength differ so much?
Chen Yong continued his explanation, "The gap can be really terrifying. To put things in perspective, the strongest ninth-stage Infinite Strength cultivator is definitely strong enough to kill a Skysoar. Meanwhile, a weak ninth-stage Infinite Strength cultivator can be so weak that they are worth nothing. And cultivation methods or martial techniques are not the reason for such a big gap in power."
Beside Su Yu, Wu Jia was getting bored of the lecture so she said, "Junior Brother, it's simple. For example, you have 12 acupoints per stage. But you can enter the Infinite Strength Realm by only fusing 2 out of your 12 acupoints. But the truly strong Infinite Strength cultivators will choose to fuse all 12 of those acupoints. Wouldn't the difference between the two be big?"
Su Yu blanked out slightly. He looked at Chen Yong and said, "Martial Uncle, so you don't need to fuse all your acupoints?"
Chen Yong did not blame Wu Jia for her interruption. He nodded, "Yes. As long as you fuse your acupoints, you will be able to advance. Thus, some people might not be left with only nine acupoints after reaching the ninth-stage. They might leave some acupoints unfused."
"A good example would be Divine Characters. Divine Characters can be categorized into tiers. The same applies to acupoints. Generally, those advancing by fusing two acupoints are known as Two Strength Realm cultivators. Those fusing three are known as Three Strength Realm cultivators. Those fusing nine are known as Nine Strength Realm cultivators. Only those fusing ten and more acupoints are known as true Infinite Strength Realm cultivators.
"Of course, those aren't official terms. They are only used by some experts as a joke among themselves. Most people still know that realm as the Infinite Strength Realm. But the gap between a real Infinite Strength cultivator and a pseudo Infinite Strength cultivator is really big. A real Infinite Strength cultivator can probably defeat a Two Strength cultivator instantly.
"And only those cultivating cultivation methods at the low-tier earth-grade and above could become true Infinite Strength cultivators."