Chapter 426: Out of Seclusion, Encounter, Annoying Each Other (1)
Su Yu was still unaware of everything that was happening in the academy.
He received no further message. After receiving the previous message, he had only told Xia Huyou to watch over his senior sister so that she wouldn't fall into someone's ploy.
His acupoints were being opened one after another. This had continued for several days. He had also completed the cultivation of the Body Strengthening Art. It had greatly increased his acupoint opening speed.
One ought to admit that this cultivation method of the mountainbreak bulls was really too suitable for opening acupoints.
Yet the mountainbreak bull race was at the bottom of the top 100 races. What a waste of the amazing cultivation method they had. Then again, opening acupoints faster might be pointless for them since they didn't have enough top experts. That was understandable.
A faster acupoint opening speed would only grant them some advantages at the realms below Mountainsea. Beyond that level, one's advancement would start relying on many other factors.
260 acupoints.
This was the total number of acupoints Su Yu had opened. He had long finished all his blood essence. He had been forcefully opening his acupoints with source qi alone. The five elemental blood essence had also helped him opened four apertures. That put his total opened apertures to 44.
He had yet to finish opening all the acupoints of the Sky Sundering Saber. He remained calm as he studied the Sky Sundering Saber's willpower text repeatedly. He had been reading this text for several days. Slowly, a character appeared in his sea of willpower.
"Break!"
After blood, lightning battle, kill, deceit, and saber, Su Yu welcomed another character: the break character.
Since this willpower text was written by Xia Longwu, this break character was also extremely powerful.
After absorbing the intent of the crushed Eternal characters previously, all six of Su Yu's characters had improved significantly. Among them, the blood character had reached a level where it could withhold its presence. Although it had yet to become a third-tier character, it had still grown much stronger than before.
The lightning character had successfully become a second-tier character.
In total, Su Yu had three second-tier characters and four first-tier characters, including his newest break character, a peak first-tier character.
"Xia Longwu..."
Su Yu exhaled deeply. He was slightly surprised. Xia Longwu was actually a cultural researcher.
That alone wasn't too surprising. A lot of warriors cultivate their willpower as well. That was very common. But since Xia Longwu's willpower text could help him form a peak first-tier character, then that could only mean that Xia Longwu had reached no lower than the Mountainsea Realm in willpower cultivation.
For someone cultivating both paths, that was actually very impressive.
"Seven characters."
Recently, he had not been able to find enough time to study willpower texts. Even so, he had still been able to form seven characters. And a decent number of them were at the second tier. Even the weakest of them was already at the peak first-tier.
From tiers alone, he was already comparable to some regular Skysoars.
His willpower had reached around 80 percent. He was confident that his willpower was stronger than even those with 99 percent willpower. Only those who had also tempered their willpower could compare with him.
260 acupoints and 44 apertures...
Su Yu felt like with his current strength, he could even enter the top 10.
Some of the weaker Skysoars, such as his father who would only be able to enter the Skysoar Realm with 36 acupoints, would not have more than four acupoints fused per stage. Su Yu felt like even if his father was already a Skysoar, he could still defeat his father with his current strength.
"I have only been in the academy for less than three months."
Su Yu himself was alarmed by his growth. Of course, he was aware that he had exhausted a large amount of resources to reach this level. But he was still quite surprised by the fact that he could now challenge the weaker Skysoars. It was no wonder that those super geniuses could easily challenge those above their level.
Powerful cultivation method, powerful martial techniques, powerful physical body, powerful destructive force...
If he couldn't defeat those who had advanced with some weak cultivation methods with all that, he would be truly useless.
"I still need 28 acupoints."
The Body Strengthening Art also had a lot of overlapped acupoints, so he had been able to finish cultivation this art relatively easily. Now, he was only 28 acupoints away from completing the Sky Sundering Saber's cultivation.
That would push his total opened acupoints to 288.
He even wondered if he should open all the acupoints for the second level of the Time technique as well. That would bring his opened acupoints up to 300.
"It's already the 16th today..."
After some thought, Su Yu decided that he still had enough time. The tournament was still a few days away.
This time, some of those old students would also be joining the tournament. And those were the people who were truly at the peak of the Mental Tempering Stage. Without enough strength, he might not be able to defeat them.
There was no way he was going to miss out on the Willpower Grotto. He had opened 44 apertures, but he didn't have much options in willpower absorption. The willpower in the fragment room was too impure. Furthermore, he also didn't want to empty that room of willpower.
"Willpower Grotto. With five slots up for grabs, I need to enter the top five during the tournament. Even the elders who already have a slot will probably still send their stronger students to participate in the tournament.
Even people like Zhan Hai might be in the tournament. With someone as strong as him, the elder would be able to get another slot from the tournament. Nobody would refuse the chance to get more slots.
Zhan Hai was the number one student in the top 100. He was someone who had fought a Skysoar without suffering a defeat. He was a peak Mental Tempering Stage and ninth-stage Infinite Strength cultivator. He was very strong.
And there were other students as strong as him in the academy. Su Yu naturally had to grow as much as he could before the tournament.
Even ignoring all the old students, new students such as Wan Mingze and Xia Huyou were probably near the Skysoar Realm as well. People like Zheng Yunhui were slightly weaker than the likes of them, but you never knew what trump cards they were hiding.
These were all people with strong backers, powerful backgrounds, and ample resources. Su Yu refused to believe that they wouldn't stop improving while he himself was improving.
Thus, he continued opening acupoints.
261...262...
Time passed slowly.
Without blood essence, Su Yu's absorption speed was slower than before even with the Body Strengthening Art. He could only open one acupoint per hour on average. Of course, this was already an incredible speed compared to the other cultivators.
Large amount of source qi continued converging on him as he cultivated. The acupoints within his body constantly worked to absorb and purify the source qi around him.
...
Outside the grotto.
A student walked out sullenly and asked, "Teacher, is there a Skysoar cultivating at the Infinite Strength Zone? That person's absorption speed is way too fast. It almost felt like all the source qi in the zone was rushing over toward that person. This is...too...unfair!"
He wanted to curse at someone. He had paid 200 merit points to enter. But before he could cultivate much, someone started plundering all the source qi in the area. How was he supposed to continue cultivating?
Thus, he was forced to leave not long after entering. The source qi in the area was moving way too fast for him to do any proper cultivation.
Old Nie was also feeling quite helpless. He could only smile and said, "Someone must have entered the wrong zone. I'll issue that person a warning. Since the efficiency of your cultivation this time has dropped by around 50 percent, I'll give you a refund of 100 merit points."
"Thank you, Teacher."
The student was overjoyed to hear that.
This was actually a generous compensation. Although his cultivation had been interupted, he had still lasted several hours in there. Thus, with this refund, one could even say that he had profited.
After the student left, Old Nie frowned.
It would seem like he really needed to send that kid to the Skysoar Zone next time. With hundreds of acupoints, the kid could absorb source qi as fast as those Skysoars. If this continued, the other students in the Great Strength and Infinite Strength Zones would have no way of cultivating.
Even more annoying was the fact that the little bastard had paid only 100 merit points to enter each time. Why? Because the little bastard was still a Great Strength cultivator! A Great Strength cultivator with hundreds of acupoints!
Old Nie didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He had never encountered a person like this before. Apart from the human experts that had lived during the time when humanity had first started cultivating, very few people would waste their time opening hundreds of acupoints. They might as well put that effort into entering the Infinite Strength or even the Skysoar Realm.
"Is the kid really planning to reach a point he can punch above his level and fight a Skysoar?"
Old Nie shook his head. In his opinion, this was pointless. The kid would be better off focusing on his 144 acupoints and enter the Infinite Strength Realm directly. With Su Yu's talent, he would have reached around fifth-stage Infinite Strength Realm by now if he hadn't delayed his advancement.
After six more months, the kid could probably even enter the Skysoar Realm with just his physical cultivation alone. And he wouldn't even be one of those weak Skysoars with terrible foundations. He would be a powerful warrior with 144 acupoints.
While Old Nie was thinking, Old Huang arrived.
The moment Old Huang entered the room, he grumbled, "Life here is so much better. The Discipline Hall has too many trivial affairs to handle. And the first case I encounter after joining is that troublesome scandal. After I announced the changes of the year end review, those elders have been glaring at me everywhere I go. If they could kill with eyes, I would have died a hundred times over by now."
The previous hall master, Old He, was someone who would always smooth things over and not offend anyone. He had been living a rather relaxed life despite his position as the hall master.
He had plenty of time to engage in all sorts of hobbies like raising birds, drinking tea, and walking his dog. He had the reputation of being a friendly old man. Everyone was already used to the easy-going Discipline Hall. But the moment Old Huang took office, he announced a strict audit. Everyone was naturally having trouble adapting to his style.