Chapter 562: Mission (3)
23rd of December.
Su Yu stopped going outdoors. He was focused on reaching the ninth-stage Infinite Strength Realm, consuming blood essence, and forming a spatial character. He also had a lot of work to do.
He had three Mountainsea beasts with him. Xia Huyou had promised to back him up with two Mountainseas, but he wasn't sure if that would remain the case. But if the help was still coming, he would have five Mountainseas on his side. But that wasn't good enough for him.
"It would be better if I could set the location at the Starfall Mountain. There, Great Ming would be able to interfere. Any other location would be too unfavorable for me. They won't dare to show up with their real identities. They will only disguise themselves as cultists."
The single character faction would not dare to expose their identities when assassinating him. Thus, it was only natural that they would disguise themselves as cultists.
This would be a good opportunity for Su Yu to deal with them. After all, it was everyone's responsibility to exterminate the Myriad Race Cult.
"As far as they know, I'll only have a single Mountainsea on my side. How many Mountainseas would they send?"
It wouldn't be easy to get an answer for that.
With Xia Qing's betrayal, if he really only had one Mountainsea on his side, it would be enough for the single character faction to only send one Mountainsea. If they could send a seventh-stage Mountainsea, they could practically guarantee a victory.
But the single character faction's desire to kill him was too strong. Just how many Mountainseas would they send? More than one, right? But it was really hard to guess. One was probably not enough. Even after Xia Qing's betrayal, she would probably not dare to make any direct move on him. Would they collude with actual cultists to deal with him?
Since the academy was still keeping watch over the single character faction’s Mountainseas, they wouldn't be able to send all their Mountainseas. They would only be able to send one or two Mountainseas out after coming up with a good excuse. More than that and they would catch too much attention.
At that thought, Su Yu took out his voice transmission talisman and said, "Zongji, can you check with me if any elders have departed for missions recently?"
A short while later, Hu Zongji replied, "From early of this month? Or do you have a specific time frame in mind?"
"Starting from the 20th."
"One moment..."
With his second granduncle at the Missions Department, Hu Zongji would be able to find out about the missions of some elders even if those weren't public missions. After all, a record would be kept for all missions unless it was a secret mission directly assigned by the principal.
After a short while, Hu Zongji replied, "Four elders. Elder Xie of the beast taming faction has left for the Allheaven Battlefield. Elder Li of the Character Faculty left for the the naval battlefield. Elder Wang of the Transformation Faculty left for Great Qin to visit a friend. And Elder Yu has also left. She's not going too far away. She's only going to Beifeng to welcome a visiting elder From Great Shang. I heard that the elder had arrived because of you."
Yu Hong and Elder Li! Unknowingly, the single character faction had sent two of their elders away. Of course, both of them had obtained a proper excuse for their departure. One had left for the naval battlefield while the other was welcoming a visiting elder from Great Shang.
Su Yu knew a little bit about that. That elder seemed to have arrived after he killed Di Feng and humiliated the single character faction. So that elder had remained in Great Xia until now?
In that case, there were at least three Mountainsea enemies out there. Su Yu wasn't sure if that visiting elder would make a move against him as well. And there were also the people from the Nine Heavens and Daoseeking academies.
"If even those two academies are sending some people, they are truly putting a lot of importance on me."
Even if those two academies decided to send an elder each, that would grant them a total of five Mountainseas they could send after him. That was crazy. It was like they were trying to kill a Sunmoon instead. Was there a need for that?
Su Yu started grumbling to himself.
But even if they were going to do something, it was unlikely for them to move together in Great Xia. There were too many of them.
"Well, let's see if you guys are ambitious enough."
If those people were really ambitious enough, those people would only make their move after arriving at his "ruin". And that would give him the chance to deal with them. Of course, if those five Mountainseas were lunatics who would attack right after he left the academy, there would be nothing he could do.
This was the best opportunity to test the greed of these people. He would be dancing in the edge of life and death. At that thought, Su Yu smiled as he couldn't help getting excited. This was quite exhilarating.
This was not a bad thing. He needed something like this. Those people might test him repeatedly on his way to the so-called ruin. They would keep trying to force him to reveal his trump cards. They might even take this chance to test Great Xia itself and the multiple character faction. This would be the perfect opportunity for him to temper himself.
While he was thinking, his body suddenly shook. He had successfully fused his acupoints. He had actually been fusing his acupoints for quite some time. From the time he came up with the fusion method until now, about a month had passed. He had finally successfully fused all the acupoints of the Sky Sundering Saber.
All 144 of Sky Sundering Saber's acupoints had been fused. The resulting product was nine fused acupoints. And he had successfully reached the ninth-stage Infinite Strength Realm.
Su Yu's eyes flickered as he sank into thought. He still had a lot of acupoints. It would be better if he could also fuse the acupoints of his martial techniques. But since he was lacking time, he had to slow it down. He could do so after arriving at Great Ming.
"Time for me to start consuming some new blood essence. Let's try a drop of ninth-stage Skysoar blood essence."
He wouldn't try any Cloudbreach just yet. He was afraid of death. He would only have the courage to try if the ninth-stage Skysoar blood essence ended up not giving him much pressure.
A drop of blood essence appeared in his hand. Ahhh, this was an old friend. It was a drop of iron-winged bird blood essence.
He had received his recent batch of blood essence from Xia Huyou. He had spent quite a lot of money, about 20,000 to 30,000 merit points, on this batch. He did not mind. That was nothing for him.
He stopped thinking, clenched his teeth, and swallowed the drop of blood essence.
Boom!
His entire body shook as his acupoints opened wide while the powerful blood essence flooded his body with power. Only a short instance had passed but Su Yu could feel his body reaching its limit.
Fortunately, the book in his head was not slow. It immediately absorbed the power of the blood essence. Next, a golden page appeared in his sea of willpower.
It was the iron-winged bird's page. Something seemed to have changed.
Iron-winged bird (Ninth-stage Skysoar)
Racial abilities: Tier-3 Rip (activation with blood essence), Ironwing Slash (activation with blood essence)
Foundation source art: Source Swallowing Art (activate with blood essence)
Basic body forging art: Ironwing Nine Forged Art (activation with blood essence)
An extra row of words had appeared.
Basic body forging art.
Su Yu wasn't surprised. At the Skysoar Realm, a warrior would start forging their body, cleansing their marrows, transforming their blood, and strengthening their physique. This was the time when they would start cultivating some arts to enhance this process and rebuild their body.
These arts did not require acupoint opening. They only needed to utilize their source qi in a certain way. The source qi would work in tandem with one's blood essence and reforge one's body. One could also add some natural treasures to help with the process.
This was quite different than cultural researchers at the same level of cultivation. At this stage, cultural researchers would mainly focus on opening apertures. Su Yu wasn't too concerned about this. He was still too far away from that stage. There was no rush.
Of course, if he managed to find an opportunity to reforge his body, he wouldn't mind doing so as it would only benefit him. Ignoring the contents of the page, he swallowed another drop of iron-winged bird blood essence.
His body started swelling and his hands started transforming. With a roar, Su Yu clawed out. A tearing sound rang out. The training puppet in front of him was instantly ripped apart.
After studying the destroyed puppet for a while, Su Yu cursed, "Garbage."
The iron-winged birds were too useless. The offensive strength of a ninth-stage Skysoar did not even feel much stronger than his actual offensive strength. Truly garbage. This blood essence had also failed to put much pressure on his body.
"Sure enough, all the races beyond the top 100 are weak."
Su Yu grumbled about the expensive price of this blood essence despite how weak it was. It should be stronger since it came from a ninth-stage Skysoar, right? What a waste of money.
"This won't do. I need the blood essence of a stronger race."
At the very least, he needed the blood essence of a race that was as strong as the suanni race.
The iron-winged bird race was truly garbage. Su Yu even felt like each second he spent looking at their page was a waste of his time. He took out another drop of blood essence and swallowed it. He refused to stop before finding a sufficiently powerful race.
It would be even better if he could find a race capable of killing Mountainseas at the Cloudbreach Realm. With that, he could perhaps swallow a drop of first or second-stage Cloudbreach blood essence and kill a Mountainsea with his own hands. Of course, he was also aware that he was probably dreaming. Only a very small number of super elites of a small number of elite races could pull something like this.
And a drop of blood essence was probably not enough to grant him that much strength. Not to mention that he would only be able to use the blood essence of an early-stage Cloudbreach. An early-stage Cloudbreach killing a Mountainsea was something that had never happened before as far as he remembered.
He continued consuming blood essence to open more pages. Occasionally, he would cough a few mouthfuls of blood. The blood essence of some races was quite powerful, capable of forcing him to cough blood even at the ninth-stage Skysoar Realm. The more powerful the blood essence was, the more excited Su Yu became as that represented strength.
The iron-winged bird blood essence was truly worthless. A drop of their blood essence had only caused his body to swell a little. How garbage.
***
At the same time.
Great Xia Cultural Research Academy.
The Missions Department finally received a plea for help from Nanyuan.
"The principal of Nanyuan Secondary School has requested for Su Yu to return and assist with the removal of the beasts that had been wreaking havoc near Nanyuan..."
"Jointly signed by Mayor Wu Wenhai."
The Cloudbreach experts in the meeting room exchanged gazes. Hu Zongji's granduncle, Hu Youhui, said, "This is Nanyuan's plea for help. They are requesting the assistance of Su Yu. What do you think, everyone?"
A different Cloudbreach nonchalantly said, "Inform Su Yu and let him make his own decision. Since Nanyuan is his birthplace, it is only natural that they ask for his help. Since he is a genius capable of killing Skysoars, a few beasts won't trouble him."
"The beasts at Nanyuan aren't too strong. But they are everywhere so extermination is troublesome."
They continued voicing their opinions. One of them smiled and said, "In that case, just let Su Yu accept this mission. He's a genius, right? He needs a chance to temper himself."
Hu Youhui scanned the room. A few of them were members of the single character faction. After some thought, he said, "He has a bounty in the Myriad Race Cult. It's too dangerous to send him back."
"This is a good chance for him to temper himself. It's still within Great Xia's borders. If he's worried, he can get the experts of his faction to protect him in secret. We can let him decide. We only need to inform him about this."
Hu Youhui nodded in agreement.
"Guards, pass on this mission to Su Yu. He can decide for himself if he's accepting it or not."
Before long, someone left with the mission's notice.
Hu Youhui stood up and said nothing else. As he scanned the room, he felt somewhat uneasy. What were these people thinking? This mission could actually be a threat to Su Yu's safety.
The Myriad Race Cult was keeping a close watch on Su Yu. Why was the single character faction getting involved? Would they actually dare to...
He didn't even dare to finish that thought. This mission felt too sudden and suspicious to him. This couldn't be a scheme of the single character faction, right?
He couldn't help but recall the scene of him escorting the youth to the academy a few months ago. The inconspicuous youth from back then had now turned into a renowned individual in Great Xia.