Chapter 500 - Sixth Passage Stage

If Long Chen really could defeat an Eighth Passage Stage cultivator, then one million Heavenly Passage Pills and the crystal would be nothing. The Clear Shallows King thought about it for a while. She knew that she had to pay a price in order to keep Long Chen, plus the fact that he had progressed so quickly from the First Passage Stage showed that he would likely succeed. Therefore, she nodded and said, “Alright. One million Heavenly Passage Pills and the crystal. I will give them to you tonight. I hope you fulfill your end of the bargain and succeed.”

“A man must keep his promises,” said Long Chen.

She looked at him approvingly and said, “You’ve got courage. But what do you want the crystal for? The energy in the crystal has a seal belonging to an ancient master. If you absorb too much, you will not experience any benefits.”

Long Chen nodded. “I know that. You just need to give it to me.”

The Clear Shallows King did not ask any more questions. She told him to wait and walked off.

About fifteen minutes later, she returned and handed him a Universe Pouch. “The one million Heavenly Passage Pills and the crystal are inside. You may return. I have temporarily suppressed the news about Zhao Wuji’s death, but I’m sure the Red Ghost King will learn of it very soon, and he will come looking for trouble. Of course, I will cover for you, but you need to be smart about it.”

Long Chen understood that the Red Ghost King favored Zhao Wuji greatly, seeing as how he had given him the Nine Heavens Thunder Talisman. Now that Zhao Wuji had died here, he would definitely come knocking the moment he found out. When that happened, Long Chen would have to be strong enough, or he would not be able to survive!

Of course, the crystal and one million Heavenly Passage Pills would guarantee his success. Long Chen was impatient to get back, because Little Cat could remove the seal in the crystal. With the crystal and the pills, he would at least reach the Seventh Passage Stage.

Only at the Seventh Passage Stage could he possibly defeat an Eighth Passage Stage cultivator.

Of course, there was one thing he had to do before he left, which was to return the pills he had borrowed. Previously, he had borrowed Heavenly Passage Pills from Huangfu Qi only as a backup. Now that he had more than a million, he no longer needed the fifty thousand pills she had lent him. After all, it was very awkward to borrow from a little girl.

When he left, he asked, “I’d like to see Huangfu Qi. Where does she stay?” It was evening, so she would have only just returned.

“Qi Qi? Her father came to get her two hours ago,” said the Clear Shallows King a little sourly. To her, the longer Huangfu Qi stayed, the deeper their bond would become. Since the girl had only stayed for a few days, it would be impossible for her to form a relationship with the powerful figures of the Huangfu clan.

“She left?” Long Chen gasped. It hadn’t been all that long since they saw each other, and her father had already come to pick her up? And poor old Long Chen had even believed that Zhao Wuji had kidnapped her.

Her father must have been very angry, or Huangfu Qi surely would’ve come to bid him farewell. Then this whole ordeal would not have happened tonight.

𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

Oh no! I promised her that I would return the fifty thousand Heavenly Passage Pills to her even if she left! Did I just shoot myself in the foot?

Long Chen privately lamented.

“Qi Qi’s father is on the level of the Demon Emperor,” the Clear Shallows King said with a sigh.

Long Chen had already guessed this too. Since he urgently needed to become strong, he bade her farewell and returned to his quarters. The moment he arrived, he said to Little Cat, “Fat Cat, you said that the crystal has enough power to get me to the Seventh Passage Stage, right?”

“Of course. I said it, so it is true,” Little Cat said haughtily, raising a paw to rub his round belly. He had long grown accustomed to Long Chen’s nickname.

“Alright, then I won’t waste any time. Let’s begin. I want to reach the Seventh Passage Stage directly!” Reaching the Seventh Passage Stage was his most important task before the examination.

“Wait! Do you think I’d help you just because you asked?” Little Cat pretended to be unwilling.

“Don’t waste my time, or I’ll ask Xiaolang to burn your little brother off!” Long Chen said, then he took out the crystal. He knew that Little Cat was afraid of the Nine Devils Ancestral Fire, and it could easily hurt him.

Little Cat was so terrified that he arched his back and retracted something. He recalled the terrible state Zhao Wuji was in when he was turned from a man to a woman; it was a violent tactic.

“Whatever, whatever. Seeing as you are young and ignorant, and quite pitiful, I will go out of my way to help you out.” Little Cat shook his head and helped Long Chen extract the seal power in the crystal, leaving behind pure power for Long Chen to absorb.

The crystal contained the power of a past master. Most of it had dispersed with time, so only less than a thousandth remained in the crystal. Even so, it was enough for Long Chen to reach the Seventh Passage Stage.

He had to level up by two stages.

Little Cat used some unknown, devilish technique to keep the crystal’s energy output under his control. Long Chen’s cultivation progressed with his help; he absorbed the crystal’s power just like before, but he absorbed much, much more this time.

A flood of energy flowed into Long Chen’s body. He absorbed and refined it until the energy became a part of his body!

Under Little Cat’s control, the energy flowed in an orderly manner while Long Chen absorbed it without complications. His body was adequately strong, so there was no danger of death from overexertion. With steady progress, Long Chen soon reached the edge of the Fifth Passage Stage. Little Cat stopped the energy flow, knowing that Long Chen was likely going to attempt his breakthrough to the Sixth Passage Stage.

Out of the nine meridian points, there were six main points to be cleared in the Heavenly Passage Realm. Long Chen had cleared five of them, so there were five energy cores in his body. Only the last one remained, and the meridian points in his body would be completely cleared once he reached the Sixth Passage Stage.

The six energy cores of the body formed a perfect cycle.

With his prior experience of five breakthroughs, he easily reached the Sixth Passage Stage. Even he was shocked at the speed at which his strength was growing. Ever since he absorbed the one-hundredth Inherited Blood Essence, his body was like a black hole that required copious amounts of energy.

It did not matter if he was performing Blood Transmutation or directly absorbing energy from a crystal like this—he did not feel any discomfort and he had a feeling that he could complete the whole Heavenly Passage Realm in this manner. This was the extraordinary effect brought about by the Ancient Bloodsoul Dragon’s Inherited Blood Essence.

The Sixth Passage Stage was far from the heights he would reach.

“Carry on, then. You have the insane powers of the ancestral dragon blood! If other people absorbed energy at your rate, their bodies would have exploded many times by now. Only you can hold on for this long!” Little Cat was very impressed.

He continued the release of energy from the crystal, and Long Chen made steady progress towards the Seventh Passage Stage without another word. Based on his current progress, he would surely reach the Seventh Passage Stage today.

However, he had already used up about a hundred and ten thousand Heavenly Passage Pills to reach the Sixth Passage Stage. He had a feeling that he would need at least three hundred thousand to reach the Seventh Passage Stage. This meant that the one million pills he had received would not be enough for him to reach the Eighth Passage Stage!

Other people required a million pills only when they were clearing the last meridian point, which was the heavenly meridian. However, Long Chen would need a million pills at only the Eighth Passage Stage. While the Dragon Qi he possessed was ten times stronger than regular Qi, it made it ten times more difficult for him to progress because he could not succeed without enough Heavenly Passage Pills.

Based on this, it was obvious that coming to the Ancient Demon Domain was the right choice. If he were out there on his own, where would he have gotten this many Heavenly Passage Pills? If he had not come here, he guessed that he would only be at the Third or Fourth Passage Stage right now. Without the Heavenly Passage Pills, even Blood Transmutation would be useless.

By the time he had absorbed enough Qi, Long Chen had exhausted 350,000 Heavenly Passage Pills. His Qi finally stabilized and it was time to clear the sixth meridian point.

Out of his 1,100,000 pills, only 850,000 remained. It was not enough for him to reach the Eighth Passage Stage, and he knew that it was likely he would not be able to advance any more before the examination. The further along one was on the cultivation path, the harder it would be to level up. The amount of resources required increased, and Long Chen did not have that much.

When he was at the First Passage Stage, he could rely on his super-strong advanced Heaven-tier combat body to defeat a Category Four Heaven-tier beast. However, now some Category Nine beasts had bodies tougher than his, so he no longer held an advantage. This meant that advancing to the next tier would be very difficult.

Unless he received the Emperor Flame Pearl.

That was something that would help him achieve great heights instantly.

If he reached the Seventh Passage Stage, he was certain he would receive the Emperor Flame Pearl. Therefore, he did not dare relax at this stage. He carefully guided all of his Qi towards his head.

The two Earthly meridian points were called the Earth Yin and Earth Yang meridian points respectively. They were in the right and left brains. Clearing them was much more difficult than clearing the previous six main meridian points and required much more focus. A slight mistake could kill Long Chen.