Chapter 354: The Powerful Soul Expanding Art (2)
"Teacher, is the Soul Expanding Art so easy to cultivate?"
"Easy?" Zhao Li rolled his eyes, "You are the second generation cultivator. That's why it feels easy. Because you have me providing you with a seed. As the first generation cultivator, I nearly destroyed my sea of willpower while forming this hammer back then."
Su Yu scratched his head and softly asked, "Teacher, why hadn't you agreed to teach my teacher as well? My grandteacher once visited you about this..."
"Bai Feng?" Zhao Li thought for a long while before answering, "If he was given such a hammer as well, he would probably still be in the Mental Tempering Stage right now. This cultivation method is not for everyone. Also, in the initial stages, the hammering process might be comfortable. But in the later stages of compression, it can get very painful. Can you even withstand the pain?"
Zhao Li personally believed that Su Yu would have no problem withstanding the pain. Since the kid had been able to endure his hammering previously, the kid would probably be fine in the future.
Su Yu nodded confidently. He was certain that he could withstand the pain.
"That's more like it. Very few youngsters can withstand the torture of willpower compression. Most of the youngsters nowadays have never suffered before. I tried hammering a few students before. Every one of them fainted after a few strikes. How am I supposed to teach them anything?"
Old Zhao's voice was laced with disdain. The hell was he supposed to teach those students? If they couldn't even last a few strikes from him, they would only defile his cultivation method.
In fact, the only reason he had placed so much importance on Su Yu was because during their first meeting, the kid had squeezed his willpower dry yet still behaved like everything was normal. The kid had been able to remain standing and even converse even in such a state. In Zhao Li's mind, that was how a cultivator should be like.
He wasted no time and started working on his hammer. It was as though the hammer was giving birth. Su Yu could see that slowly, a small hammer was being squeezed out of the large hammer.
At that point, Zhao Li had turned somewhat pale. Clearly, this was quite a tiring process for him. He explained, "The Soul Expanding Art can not only temper your sea of willpower, but it can temper your Divine Characters and cultural weapon as well. Strictly speaking, this hammer is very powerful as you can even use it as an offensive technique.
"For example, one hammer strike from me had been able to put you in so much pain. If that was a fight, would you still be able to fight back? Even if the hammer could strengthen the willpower of your target, so what? You would be able to kill your opponent during the combat. Your opponent wouldn't even have the chance to enjoy the benefits of willpower tempering."
Su Yu blanked out. Offensive willpower technique! Yes! Wasn't this basically a willpower technique?
Sure, it was strictly speaking, a supportive cultivation method. But when Su Yu recalled how he felt when Zhao Li hammered him previously, he realized that this cultivation method could also serve as a powerful willpower technique. He started to have a feeling that the Soul Expanding Art was actually an incredible cultivation method.
"Teacher, what is the grade of this cultivation method?"
"I don't know." Zhao Li replied indifferently, "I created it. Who knows what its grade is? It's not like it requires apertures or acupoints to be used so it's really hard to assign it a grade. It can be considered a purely supportive cultivation method. Such cultivation methods have always been hard to grade.
"It was merely something I had created because of a spark of inspiration while I was forging weapons. My initial goal was to create something that can help with weapon forging. You know that regular hammers won't cut it when it comes to cultural weapon forging..."
Yes. This cultivation method could even be used to forge weapons! Su Yu was greatly alarmed. The more he learned, the more incredible this cultivation method seemed. One shouldn't underestimate it just because it was merely a hammer.
"Teacher, can my little hammer give birth to an even smaller hammer?"
"..."
Old Zhao stared at Su Yu. What was this choice of words? Give birth? What the hell?
But when Old Zhao looked at his large hammer that was indeed giving birth to a small hammer, he had nothing to say. He decided to just answer the question, "Yes, but you can't do it without my permission. You can only do as you wish after I die."
Zhao Li asked, "Do you know why so many people insist on hiding their cultivation manuals these days? Kid, you never know the true nature of others. It is always a good idea to keep a trump card for yourself. If you share everything you know with everyone, you might end up getting yourself betrayed by someone who knows all your weaknesses. Kindness might not necessarily invite kindness.
"If it is really beneficial to be selfless, those Invincible experts would have taught everyone their secret techniques long ago. Don't think that they are being selfish. Think about it. After kindly teaching your foundational cultivation method, your enemy ends up learning about your weaknesses and comes up with all sorts of ways to counter you in combat. What are you supposed to do next?"
Su Yu nodded. That made sense. His way of thinking had been too simplistic. This was not a society where everyone was living in peace. Humanity was faced with countless enemies internally and externally. While they were talking, a little hammer finally split out of the large hammer. Zhao Li's face turned deathly pale.
"Teacher, you..."
"I'm fine. I'm only slightly tired..." Zhao Li panted, "This is a good example. Without sufficient strength, don't think of giving birth-bah. I mean don't think of splitting the Soul Expanding Hammer. You won't be able to withstand it. You can only consider doing it after reaching the Cloudbreach Realm. Before that, you will only destroy your hammer in your attempt."
Su Yu nodded. He was feeling very grateful.
In the academy, he had witnessed the annoying and disgusting experts of the single character faction. But he had similarly seen some individuals who were truly worthy of being called a teacher in the same academy.
Zhao Li, the two old men watching over the grotto, and some experts who he didn't know. These people did not have complicated thoughts. Their main goal in the academy was to nurture more talent and guide the students of the academy.
In the academy, there was both darkness and light. Perhaps this was a reflection of human society.
"What are you waiting for? Take it into your sea of willpower."
Su Yu did not dare to waste any time and hurriedly released his willpower. In the blink of an eye, the little hammer vanished and entered his sea of willpower. The moment it entered, Su Yu sensed something changing.
Rumble!
Right after entering his sea of willpower, the little hammer started arrogantly charging toward the golden book.
The book completely ignored the little hammer. After a while, the little hammer discovered that it could never reach the golden book. Thus, it switched its target to the nearby character technique frame that had taken the form of a little saber.
The blood, lightning, and other Divine Characters flew out and clashed against the little hammer.
Boom!
The little hammer struck the characters untiringly, forcing them to retreat repeatedly. In fact, they seemed to have shrunk slightly from the repeated strikes. A terrible headache assaulted Su Yu. He felt like his brain was going to split apart. He spat a mouthful of blood out.
His characters kept shrinking and retreating from the beating. The blood character, in particular, looked miserable. It was as though the character was bleeding. As it shrunk, some chaotic substances started separating from its body.
Before long, Su Yu sensed something else. His Divine Characters...seemed to have turned purer and more compact than before.
After beating the characters to submission, the little hammer still seemed unhappy. It flew high into the air and started hammering the empty air instead. At that moment, something greatly shocking to Su Yu happened.
The hammer was actually hammering his aperture. With one strike, some of the willpower in that aperture dissipated in the form of some black smoke that was coming out of Su Yu's head.
A regular person wouldn't be able to see the black smoke, but Zhao Li could. The black smoke was essentially some impure willpower.
When he saw that, he cursed, "Have you been absorbing any willpower you can find? Kid, don't absorb willpower that is too chaotic and impure. You bastard! You are polluting my secret room!"
The black smoke dissipated into thin air. Meanwhile, the little hammer continued its work. It gave all the opened apertures a strike each. Eventually, the little hammer ran out of steam. It descended and flew toward the mythic destruction beast skull before smashing down on it.
Su Yu was trembling in pain when he was suddenly roused awake. He looked at Zhao Li and said, "Teacher, the hammer is hammering my mythic destruction beast skull..."
"Huh? You actually have something like that?" Zhao Li said in astonishment, "That is a treasure. Who gave it to you?"
"Teacher, the hammer is going crazy. It's hammering the skull. What should I do? Why can't I control it?"
"What are you panicking for?" Zhao Li was not worried, "The hammer is a newborn. It still has plenty of energy. After all, it was split from my hammer so it carries some of my strength. It still has a little bit of Cloudbreach strength in it but it won't stay energetic for long."
"This is a rare chance for you. Why are you panicking? The mythic destruction beast skull's function is to stabilize your sea of willpower. It is a unique item with a unique substance in it. Thus, it has successfully caught the attention of the little hammer. The hammer can crush the skull and absorb the substance to stabilize itself. This will save a lot of time as you don't need to stabilize the hammer yourself."
Su Yu felt like crying. The skull was very expensive! What a domineering little hammer! It was actually trying to crush the skull and absorb it to stabilize itself. What an asshome! Sure enough, after a few minutes of hammering, the skull broke apart with a loud rumble.
The hammer hurriedly absorbed the substance coming out of the crushed skull. The remainder of the skull was hammered into black smoke before leaving through the top of Su Yu's head. Just like that, the mythic destruction beast skull was gone.
At that point, the little hammer had gained a sparkling crystal body. Satisfied, it sank into silence. It looked like it was sleeping.
Su Yu opened his eyes and looked at Zhao Li with an expression of heartache. The skull was gone!
When Zhao Li saw Su Yu's expression, he laughed, "This is good. The mythic destruction beast skull functions as a stabilizer of your sea of willpower. In truth, it isn't that useful. With this hammer, you can temper your sea of willpower every single day, ensuring its stability. You won't even need the skull anymore. Alright, let me teach you how to change the frequency of the hammer and control it..."
Su Yu couldn't resist asking, "Teacher, why do I feel like this hammer can even purify apertures?"
"That has always been one of its abilities." Zhao Li said, "It basically treats your sea of willpower as a slab of metal that it needs to temper. And when you are forging ironware, it is perfectly normal to remove the impurities during the forging process."
"..."
Su Yu stared at Zhao Li, wondering if the old man understood the implications of that.
"Teacher, I heard that only Great Ming's Zhu Family has a similar cultivation method. And that is a cultivation method that will never be transmitted to outsiders. Your Soul Expanding Art is actually capable of purifying willpower as well?"
Zhao Li was naturally aware of that. He indifferently said, "Yeah, the Zhu Family has something similar. So what? Can't my Soul Expanding Art do the same? What's so special about purifying willpower? If you have weak willpower, it won't matter how pure your willpower is."
"That's not what I'm talking about. Teacher, your willpower should be very pure..."
"Bullshit!" Zhao Li berated, "Like I said, I can last even 10 hours when forging weapons. Are you dumb? If my willpower isn't pure enough, can I even last that long?"