As Gudu Leng, Wang Biaoyuan, and the others’ silhouettes disappeared from the transmission array location, Huang Xiaolong too made his move.

Huang Xiaolong was actually nonchalant about taking first place on this new disciples’ task. For him, the most important now was advancing to peak half-step God Realm. With the innate spiritual embryo, as long as he could reach peak half-step God Realm, breaking through to God Realm was an easy matter.

Three days later, Huang Xiaolong hovered in the air above a valley, a deep frown etched on his forehead.

In the last three days, the majority of the ghost creatures he came across were either half-step God Realm or peak half-step God Realm. The number of God Realm ghost creatures were too low to meet Huang Xiaolong’s expectations. In three days, he only managed to kill no more than twenty-something.

The average wasn’t even ten a day, which depressed Huang Xiaolong.

If things continued to move at this rate, he’d be wasting ten days before he could advance to peak half-step God Realm.

“Ten days.” Huang Xiaolong muttered.

The duration of the new disciples’ task was one month, minus the ten days needed to achieve peak half-step God Realm, only twenty days remained.

‘It seems I can only break through to God Realm when I return.’ Refining the innate spiritual embryo to break through to God Realm was not something that could be done in ten days or half a month. Hence, he had no other choice but to wait upon returning to the institute before refining the innate spiritual embryo.

Ten days passed by in the blink of an eye.

Hands bent like claws, Huang Xiaolong crushed the God Realm ghost creature attacking him. His mouth opened and inhaled, swallowing the ghost creature’s soul into his body, and ran the Blood Deed Pact to refine its soul.

Just as Huang Xiaolong finished refining the soul of his latest kill, his body suddenly shuddered. A low crisp noise sounded inside his body, followed by a surging current of energy exploding in his body.

Joy flooded his heart—peak half-step God Realm! Finally, he was at peak half-step God Realm!

A while later, Huang Xiaolong suppressed the joy in his heart, taking out the new disciple task token. In the last ten days, he did not pay any attention to the points recorded, therefore he had no idea what was his current ranking was.

“Seventh place, 683.21 million points.” When a ray of his consciousness submerged into the little token, a message appeared in his mind.

‘Seventh place, still not too bad.’ Huang Xiaolong thought.

He had been focusing on hunting God Realm ghost creatures, making moves occasionally when he came across half-step and peak half-step God Realms. Even so, being able to rank seventh place was better than he had expected. His worst assumption was that someone might have kicked him out of the top ten.

Currently, Gudu Leng reigned first place, however, this time Wang Biaoyuan was holding firm at the second place, whereas Jiang Shaoze was third.

Now that he had achieved his main objective of peak half-step God Realm, it was time to go all out.

Huang Xiaolong leaped out, the true essence energy in his dantian spun, creating a layer of true essence fire on the surface of his skin that continued to expand, spreading out. The true essence fire transformed his immediate surroundings into a sea of fire, incinerating every ghost creature caught in its vivid flames.

Against these ghost creatures, the most effective method was his true essence fire, causing Huang Xiaolong to put away his Asura Sword Skill or other battle skills for that matter.

The passage of time flowed by, and half a month passed.

Huang Xiaolong, who was initially at the seventh place began to catch up at rapid speed, like a déjà vu of the disciple selection assessment, taking over the first place. Gudu Leng fell to second place. Ten days prior, Gudu Leng, Wang Biaoyuan, Jiang Shaoze, and the others were secretly gleeful at Huang Xiaolong’s less than ideal ranking, no one expected that within half a month, this person would pull the same trick he did during the assessment, overtaking them one by one until he stood at the top spot.

In the subsequent days, there was no suspense. Regardless of how Gudu Leng tried to narrow the difference in points, it only grew wider and further away until the allocated time of one month passed and they were required to assemble at the transmission array.

As expected, the first place once again went to Huang Xiaolong.

When Zhang Tianchuan led the disciples back to the Black Tortoise World through the transmission array, Wang Biaoyuan and Jiang Shaoze didn’t look too good.

Wang Biaoyuan especially. He had followed the treasure map and found the pure metal essence and had been in closed-door practice for two months before this in order to refine the pure metal essence and he greatly benefitted, seeing a huge increase in his strength. Wang Biaoyuan’s sole motivation in participating in the new disciples’ task was to suppress Huang Xiaolong’s limelight a little, but who knew that the points difference this time was even larger than the last!

Zhang Tianchuan brought everyone back to the Supreme Harmony Hall where he gave out the rewards for the top three places.

Wang Biaoyuan watched with a gloomy expression as Huang Xiaolong went up to receive the first place reward. ‘Punk, enjoy this while it lasts! Wait till the next new disciple’s assessment, let’s see if you can still act this arrogant!’

While passing the rewards to Huang Xiaolong, Zhang Tianchuan spoke some courteous and amiable words. Barely half an hour later, Zhang Tianchuan dispersed the disciples from the square.

Leaving the Supreme Harmony Hall, Huang Xiaolong made a beeline back to his Master’s manor and dove inside the Xumi Temple.

Inside the Xumi Temple, Huang Xiaolong was flushed with excitement gazing at the innate spiritual embryo at the center of the Ten Buddha Formation, his heart raced.

Finally, the time had come to refine this innate spiritual embryo. Every day, he could only look but couldn’t eat, his heart had been itching, long waiting for this day to arrive.

“Little rascal, don’t forget, this innate spiritual embryo has formed its own intelligence, you must be very careful when you refine it later.” Dragon Emperor Ao Taiyi’s voice reminded Huang Xiaolong, “If you fail, its consciousness will seize your body instead.”

Dragon Emperor Ao Taiyi was unable to help Huang Xiaolong during refining, everything depended on Huang Xiaolong himself. Hence, Dragon Emperor Ao Taiyi spoke to remind him of the risk.

Huang Xiaolong nodded, calming his excitement and looking dignified. Taking a deep breath to calm his emotions, he approached the innate spiritual embryo, sitting cross-legged across from it.

When his emotions were like the surface of a still lake, Huang Xiaolong began to run the Asura Tactics, unsealing the embryo’s energy bit by bit.

A brief moment passed and Huang Xiaolong opened his mouth, inhaling deeply. In that immediate instant, the terrifying amount of spiritual energy contained inside the embryo rushed out like a tsunami into his body.

Even his True Dragon Physique trembled with the sudden rush of energy from the innate spiritual embryo, causing prickling pain all over, which shocked Huang Xiaolong.

Since he started to cultivate the Treasure Dragon Protective Shield Art, forming that diagram formation within his body, regardless of how many divine pellets or beast cores he refined at one time, pain was the furthest thing.

Yet, this innate spiritual embryo’s spiritual energy was actually pushing his True Dragon Physique close to the limit?!

Huang Xiaolong quickly focused, running the Asura Tactics cycle after cycle as throbbing pain shot through him while he continued to absorb the horrifying amount of spiritual energy.

Again and again.

It was only several hours later that the pain eased. Despite that, Huang Xiaolong dared not relax one second, nor make any mistakes, for he keenly felt that the embryo’s awareness resistance had been growing stronger, fiercer. If it weren’t for Dragon Emperor Ao Taiyi’s powerful seal, it would have probably flown out from the jade stone.

One day later, not only did the embryo’s struggles not lessen, it was even more violent. The fiercer it struggled, the faster the violent spiritual energy flowed into Huang Xiaolong, surpassing the Treasure Dragon Protective Shield Art’s current absorbing capacity.

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Cracks started to appear on Huang Xiaolong’s True Dragon Physique.