Chapter 360: More Friends, More Alternatives (1)
Su Yu had brought the news to his teacher. Bai Feng had left after hearing his news. And Chen Yong had been notified. Su Yu felt like he had done all he should do. As for everything else that was happening, he still couldn't get involved in them. His current priority was to form Divine Characters and cultivate.
Currently, he still had 100 drops of late-stage mountainbreak bull blood essence, 500 drops of soul devouring bug blood essence, and 10 drops of five elemental blood essence. Additionally, he also had dozens of willpower texts.
...
On the night of the 8th.
Su Yu met Hu Zongji again. He wasted no time and gave Hu Zongji the token he received from Zhao Li. He softly said, "With this thing, you can enter without enough total earned merit. But you still need to pay the entry fee."
With the token in hand, Hu Zongji was shocked. Was Su Yu...capable of even getting a backdoor to a grotto? Was this Su Yu's connection or was it someone else in the Mutual Aid Club?
These grottos were very important for the academy. The Grotto District was viewed with as much importance as the Heart Cultivating Pavilion. As for the Zhao character on the token, he naturally knew who it referred to.
He had heard some things from his second granduncle before. This token should belong to Zhao Li. But Zhao Li generally wouldn't concern himself with school politics. Why would he give his token to Su Yu?
Even if Su Yu was minoring in weaponsmithing, just how many times had Su Yu even been to the Weaponsmithing Faculty?
"Su Yu, this..."
"Don't ask, don't say anything, and don't let anyone know about it. Otherwise, it will be hard for me to explain this." Su Yu warned, "Grow strong as fast as you can. A storm is coming. I'm afraid the Human Realm will be unpeaceful in the near future. Both you and me are nobodies. This is both a crisis and an opportunity for us. If we don't gain enough strength and miss this opportunity to gain more, we will probably need to wait decades for another opportunity like this to appear."
"I understand."
Hu Zongji did not ask more. But inwardly, he was extremely shocked. Su Yu had really accomplished it! Just what sort of members did the Mutual Aid Club have?
...
After separating with Hu Zongji, Su Yu went to the Grotto District again.
Source Qi Secret Grotto.
The two old men no longer felt like grumbling about Su Yu. Here they go again. The kid was here again. This place was starting to become the kid's second home.
"It's occupied."
Old Huang said, "A few people are growing inside. Do you want to wait a bit?"
He couldn't even be bothered to ask Su Yu how long the kid was going to cultivate this time anymore. And he also couldn't be bothered to ask about the blood essence the kid was bringing this time.
"Occupied?"
Su Yu was surprised. This place was mostly empty during these hours.
"Yeah. They are all new students." Old Huang complained, "The students of this batch are all troublesome individuals. They enjoy visiting the grotto way too much."
"Who's inside?"
"Zheng Yunhui, Wan Mingze, and Xia Chan..." Old Huang shook his head, "These kids have all gained over 100 total earned merit points."
Those people had obtained a decent amount of points from the Divine Character tournament. Coupled with their rewards from the monthly examinations, they had earned enough to enter the grotto.
Su Yu nodded. He wasn't surprised. He wanted to grow strong, but that was also the case for the others.
When Old Huang saw that Su Yu was sitting down instead of entering, he smiled, "Are you not entering to spy on them?"
"Nope." Su Yu assumed a simple and honest expression before saying, "Cultivating is a personal journey. It is pointless to look at others."
"You're really..." Old Huang sighed before asking, "Are you preparing to enter the Infinite Strength Realm this time?"
"Not really. I'll see. I'm planning to test my Soul Devouring Art."
"That's a good idea too." Old Huang nodded, "Don't rush it when you're fusing acupoints. Take your time. This is not too important in a cultural research academy. If you're in a war academy instead, your teachers will probably be telling you to open all the acupoints of your martial techniques before fusing acupoints."
"Hmm?" Su Yu was surprised to hear that.
When Old Huang saw Su Yu's confused expression, he smiled, "Open the acupoints of your martial techniques during the Great Strength Realm. That way, you can also fuse those acupoints at the Infinite Strength Realm. You might even be able to reach a level where you only need one acupoint per technique. If you don't open all your acupoints and continue opening them at the Infinite Strength Realm, the fusion will be much harder. You can still fuse your acupoints, but the difficulty will increase."
Su Yu nodded, "Is it because the acupoints opened at different levels have different levels of strength as well?"
"You can say so. In truth, the strength of the acupoints are similar. But if one is an acupoint tempered by Great Strength source qi while the other is an acupoint tempered by Infinite Strength source qi, there will still be a difference between the two. Of course, even with increased difficulty, you will still be able to fuse it if you take your time slowly grinding it down."
Su Yu nodded in understanding. In that case, should he open the remaining acupoints required by the Time technique before entering the Infinite Strength Realm? Up until now, he had only opened the acupoints for the first level of the Time technique.
For the second level, 44 acupoints were required. But taking the overlap acupoints into consideration, he only needed to open around 20 additional acupoints. And after that, there was the third level.
If he really opened all of them, he would end up opening over 200 acupoints in total. He wasn't too worried about it. If he really couldn't do it, he would simply continue opening acupoints at the Infinite Strength Realm. It would only result in a slight increase in the difficulty of acupoint fusion.
Since Su Yu wasn't going to enter the grotto immediately, he did not waste his time. After greeting the two teachers, he took out a willpower text and started reading it. Time was very precious for him. He had too many things to do.
On top of his cultivation, he also needed to spare some time to attend the basic lessons and strengthen his mastery over the various languages. After all, each new page activated in his book came with a different language.
If he rashly activated the abilities or cultivation methods of some pages with unknown languages, accidents might happen too easily. Who knew if one of them was a suicidal self-destruct ability.
He was reading a common yellow-grade technique. It wasn't too valuable a technique. It was the Rampaging Tiger Saber, a trash technique requiring only 16 acupoints. Of course, it was actually a decent technique for a Great Strength cultivator when compared against other yellow-grade techniques.
With the willpower text opened, a silhouette appeared before Su Yu's eyes. With a saber in hand, the silhouette demonstrated several moves that were slow yet powerful. This was a technique that was suited for the battlefield.
To form a Divine Character from a text, one needed to first comprehend the technique or method in the text itself. This applied to cultivation methods and techniques like the Source Opening Codex, Lightning Source Blade, and Skybreak Technique.
All the willpower texts Su Yu had gained Divine Characters from were something he had comprehended even if his comprehension was shallow. Only then would he be able to form Divine Characters out of those texts. If he was completely unable to understand what he was reading, forming Divine Characters would basically be impossible.
...
"This kid...is really quite hardworking. But why is he reading some trash technique?"
Old Huang and Old Nie were chatting through voice transmissions. This was a trash technique with only 17 acupoints. It was a middle-tier yellow-grade technique. For a genius like Su Yu, reading a technique like this was pointless. He wouldn't really cultivate it.
"He must be reading it for Divine Characters." Old Nie guessed, "Looks like he's trying to specialize in human characters?"
Old Huang shook his head. He couldn't be bothered to guess. That might be the case. Human characters were weaker yet easier to form. But they were really quite weak. Just what was Su Yu thinking?
The two chatted for a while before both of them suddenly fixed their gaze on Su Yu. What was going on? Had he read this text many times? Was that why he could form a character so easily? In the text, a certain character slowly dimmed. It was the saber character.
Su Yu was completely indifferent. He shut his eyes for a short while before opening it and exhaling. He then put the text away and took out a different willpower text to read.
"..."
The two old men were completely dumbstruck. Kid, you just formed a new Divine Character. Were you aware? And the kid had successfully formed it so shortly after he started reading. Why was the kid not showing any excitement or joy? He threw the matter out of his head just like that? He hadn't even bothered talking about it!
"Su Yu..."
Old Huang called out. Su Yu looked at Old Huang doubtfully. What was it?
"Yes, Teacher?"
"..."
Old Huang started wondering if he had been seeing things. He asked doubtfully, "Did you just form a Divine Character?"
"Yeah, I did."
"..."
Old Huang found himself completely speechless. What should he say here? He wanted to say that the kid was being way too nonchalant about it.
"Have you read the Rampaging Tiger Saber many times?"
This was actually Su Yu's first time reading this technique. But since he was quite familiar with saber techniques, he was able to understand it easily. But he knew what Old Huang was thinking.
Thus, to calm this elderly man, he nodded, "Well, I read a lot..."
He didn't specify what he read. In any case, he was telling the truth when he said that he read a lot. Old Huang exhaled in relief. He had thought that the kid had successfully formed a character after a single read. That would be too shocking.
Then again, this was a kid with a lot of potential. He could stay so calm even after forming a Divine Character.
"Is it the saber character? That's a decent character. You're a saber user, right? That's a good character for you. But too bad it's a human character or you can even use it as your main Divine Character. If you have a matching weapon and main Divine Character, your offensive power will be greatly enhanced."
Old Nie interrupted him, "That might not necessarily be true. The ability of the character might not suit him. Maybe this saber character only has the ability to form a saber for him or something like that."