Having bought one hundred beast cores, relevant books, and some miscellaneous items, Huang Xiaolong found an inn, directly rented one of the yards and went into closed-door practice.

There was still slightly over a year’s time left until the Black Warrior Institute’s assessment. Huang Xiaolong was in no rush, planning to first advance to peak late-Tenth Order Saint realm.

Sitting cross-legged in the Xumi Temple, Huang Xiaolong chose to refine the normal half-step God Realm beast cores first.

The first, second, third, fourth piece...

Huang Xiaolong refined five beast cores in each batch.

Multiple threads of pure, refined demonic essence energy diffused endlessly from the Dragon Pearl, which was then absorbed and refined by Huang Xiaolong, becoming part of his battle qi.

Every time he was finished with a batch of five beast cores, Huang Xiaolong would stop, then spend some time practicing the Ancient Puppetry Art and Soul Mandate.

According to Dragon Emperor Ao Taiyi’s explanation, the higher one rose through the realms, the more evident the importance of one’s soul force became. Despite the recent improvement in Huang Xiaolong’s soul force, it was sorely lagging behind his battle qi cultivation. Hence, he needed to exert extra effort in bringing up his soul force.

The first day on the Cloudsea Mainland passed peacefully.

In closed-door practice, Huang Xiaolong refined another batch of five beast cores, then proceeded to practice the Ancient Puppetry Art and Soul Mandate. The process was repeated day in day out until the sixteenth day. At the count of his eightieth beast core, Huang Xiaolong finally advanced to peak late-Tenth Order Saint realm.

By the twentieth day, Huang Xiaolong had refined the remaining twenty beast cores, however, after advancing to peak late-Tenth Order Saint realm, he noticed that the remaining half-step God Realm beast cores’ benefits had greatly reduced for him. The last twenty pieces merely consolidated his advance to peak late-Tenth Order Saint realm.

Subsequently, Huang Xiaolong returned to the same Windstorm shop and bought another eighty peak half-step God Realm beast cores.

Walking out from the Windstorm Shop, he looked bitterly at the eighty pieces of peak half-step God Realm beast cores. The Xuanwu coins he had gotten from exchanging the five pieces of saint grade spirit stones had almost bottomed out. At the moment, the amount of Xuanwu coins remaining in his Asura Ring did not exceed thirty thousand.

Thirty thousand, just barely enough for him to settle the inn payment for one month’s stay. For the first time since leaving the Martial Spirit World, Huang Xiaolong felt short of money. It had been many years since last felt this feeling of poverty.

“It seems like we’ll have to resort to doing our old business.” Huang Xiaolong smiled mockingly to himself.

The old business was none other than robbing and killing. In the past, when he killed all those Deities Templar Elders, the gold coins in their spatial rings could drown cities.

With that thought in mind, Huang Xiaolong returned to the inn, resuming his routine practice. This time around, he merely used ten days to refine all eighty beast cores. Yet, after refining these eighty beast cores, it did not produce the results he had imagined. Initially, he thought that refining close to two hundred pieces of half-step God Realm beast cores would help him breakthrough to half-step God Realm. However, now it dawned on him, even if he refined another five hundred pieces of these beast cores, he still wouldn’t be able to advance.

“As your True Dragon Physique gets stronger, your meridians and Qi Sea’s capability to hold battle qi would also grow, thus the amount of energy you need becomes greater.” Dragon Emperor Ao Taiyi added, “Following my estimation, for you to breakthrough to half-step God Realm, another six hundred pieces of half-step God Realm beast cores would be needed.”

Six hundred pieces! Huang Xiaolong’s face was scrunched up in a bitter smile.

If he needed six hundred beast cores to reach half-step God Realm, then how many would he need to arrive at peak half-step God Realm? Two thousand God Realm beast cores? Or perhaps three thousand beast cores? The crucial problem was, even the bigger firms on the Cloudsea Mainland did not sell God Realm beast cores, they only appeared occasionally in some auction houses.

“Now you finally understand why I advised you to keep the innate spiritual embryo until you have advanced to peak half-step God Realm before using it. Based on the frightening amount of energy your True Dragon Physique can absorb, without a treasure equivalent to the innate spiritual embryo, it would be impossible for you to break through to God Realm!” Dragon Emperor Ao Taiyi said. “If you failed to break through on your first attempt, your second attempt would be much, much harder!”

Huang Xiaolong nodded.

Indeed, attempting to break through to God Realm was no laughing matter. If there was one-tenth of a chance the first time, there wouldn’t even be half of that on the second attempt.

Which was why the majority of peak half-step God Realm experts would wait and accumulate. Some had accumulated close to a thousand years and still dared not make the attempt.

Huang Xiaolong spent the next two days in the city.

In these two days, he would spend the day cultivating his battle qi in his yard, and at times when the mood struck him, he would take a stroll around the city, returning at nightfall to read the books he purchased.

Two days later, Huang Xiaolong had finished reading the books he bought, bringing his perspective on the current forces in the Black Tortoise Galaxy as well as some common knowledge about other world surfaces to a higher level.

At this point, the Black Tortoise Galaxy had as much as twenty-three super forces! And over two thousand first rank forces!

At galactic level, a power that had a Highgod Realm master could enter the ranks of super forces. In short, the Black Tortoise Galaxy had a total of twenty-three forces backed by Highgod Realm masters. On the other hand, powers that had Tenth Order God Realm masters and above were qualified to be acknowledged as first rank forces.

At the same time, from these books, Huang Xiaolong came to know the names of the current top ten thousand world surfaces in Black Tortoise Galaxy. This ranking was based on the overall comprehensive force of a world surface.

Inside this list of ten thousand world surfaces, there was no Martial Spirit World. In other words, the strength of everyone in Martial Spirit World combined couldn’t even enter a list ten thousand names long in the eyes of the Black Tortoise Galaxy!

This made Huang Xiaolong a little depressed, was the Martial Spirit World that weak?

However, Huang Xiaolong found Peace Emperor World’s name inside the list, in the group of one thousand one hundred something. Amongst one hundred and twenty-three thousand world surfaces in the Black Tortoise Galaxy, able to be listed at slightly past a thousand, one could imagine how strong the Peace Emperor World actually was!

“Truth be told, around a hundred thousand years ago, our Martial Spirit World was ranked somewhere in the thirties in the entire Black Tortoise Galaxy. But all the Highgod and God Realm masters have fallen during the Great Fiendgod War, causing the Martial Spirit World to fall out from the ten thousand rankings.” Dragon Emperor Ao Taiyi lamented. “Little brat Huang, I hope that when the top ten thousand rankings reshuffle the next time, you can put Martial Spirit World’s name on the list once more!”

Every ten thousand years, the ranking list would be reshuffled.

“Don’t you worry.” Huang Xiaolong nodded assuredly.

There were only two hundred years left to the next ranking reshuffling, but Huang Xiaolong was confident he could bring the Martial Spirit World all the way up to top one hundred!

After staying for another two days in the city, Huang Xiaolong left the city and headed toward the Black Warrior City.

The Black Warrior City was the only city built by the Black Warrior Institute on the Cloudsea Mainland, the place where participants registered for the disciple selection assessment.

Although there was a still a year’s time until the assessment, early registration was allowed.

...

One month later, Huang Xiaolong arrived at the Black Warrior City.

Before arriving, he had prepared himself at the possible enormity of Black Warrior City, yet when he arrived, he still couldn’t help feeling awestruck.

Even he couldn’t tell how high the city walls were, rising all the way into the clouds! The rest of the walls had seemingly no end.

“Awestruck? Heh, I had more or less the same expression when I first saw it myself. This Black Warrior City is slightly bigger than the Martial Spirit World.” Dragon Emperor Ao Taiyi said.

‘Bigger than Martial Spirit World?!’ Huang Xiaolong was deeply astonished.

A city bigger than a world surface!

“Go on, to the registration place. After registering, go sell off a piece of divine grade spirit stone to an auction house and buy some beast cores.” Dragon Emperor Ao Taiyi went on, “Before the assessment day arrives, you can advance to half-step God Realm.”