Chapter 975: Growth (1)

Empyrean Cloud City.

Inside a relatively small ancient building. As this was an outer ring building and it was still daytime, the death qi density was quite low. Su Yu was completely unaffected by the minuscule amount of death qi around him.

After many days of work, Su Yu was finally able to take a short break. He sat cross-legged on the ground and sank into thought. After a short moment, he stopped thinking and started focusing on his cultivation. It was time for him to digest all his gains.

Firstly, he had to properly digest the heavenearth profound light. That was an excellent resource for body forging. And it was a reward he had received for killing Sunmoons. He had twenty strands in total. Every single strand was invaluable.

For a regular cultivator, a single strand was enough to complete one round of body forging. Unfortunately, Su Yu was no regular cultivator. So far, he had completed twenty-two body forgings. Even the twenty-third body forging was near completion.

His twenty-two completed body forgings had granted him much more strength than what a regular cultivator could get from the same number of body forgings. Or to be precise, his twenty-two body forgings were a lot more powerful than even the thirty-six body forgings of a divine or devil warrior. But as a price, he required far more resources to complete his body forgings.

Even though his twenty-third body forging was near completion, he still needed an entire strand of heavenearth profound light to fully complete the process. His entire body shook.

Su Yu started using the breathing technique. He found that this breathing technique was extremely beneficial for body forgings. It felt even better than the Long Life Art of the immortals. How nice would it be if he didn't need the Long Life Art to hasten his absorption of heavenly source qi.

After all, the Long Life Art was quite...awkward to use. His Heaven Connecting Acupoint, the acupoint in his anus, would start working hard whenever he used the Long Life Art. It was fine to use this art privately. But it would be way too embarrassing to use it in front of others.

But the breathing technique was different. It felt like a natural part of life, as natural as breathing itself.

Of the cultivation methods Su Yu knew, two of them stood up from the rest. One was the breathing technique, and the other was the acupoint reversal method. The two methods did not require specific acupoints to work, as they would work for every race in existence.

One ought to know that there were barely any cultivation methods that could be used across races in existence. And Su Yu had actually gained two of them.

All the myriad race methods he cultivated previously had first been converted to a human version before he could cultivate them. Conversion was required before a different race could use them.

Thus, he was very pleased to obtain the two cultivation methods with no racial limitations. While in the process of body forging, Su Yu started wondering if a similar stone statue existed in the city.

If there was such a statue in the city as well, would he gain any benefits forging the statue? He had obtained the benefits from forging Heavendoom City's stone statue. But he had yet to obtain anything from this city.

"Forget it. I need to keep a low profile."

Su Yu reminded himself once again to maintain a low profile. Multiple Invincibles might be looking for him right this moment. He couldn't show off too much. The city would always be here. He could always do it in the future. He returned his focus to his cultivation.

Strand after strand of heavenearth profound light was used. At the same time, a large amount of heavenly source qi was also being used. He had exhausted a large portion of his heavenly source qi during his time in Heavendoom City. After all, he had given some to the injured Sunmoon from the Shadow Guard. He had also used a large amount of heavenly source qi in the inner hall.

In fact, he only had about a hundred portions with him. But he still had a decent amount of blood essence. He could always extract more heavenly source qi from the blood essence if he wanted. He was in no rush. There was no need to worry about a lack of heavenly source qi in the Allheaven Battlefield.

At worst, he only needed to slaughter a random team of divines or devils for some heavenly source qi. If that wasn't an option, he could even look for a random mountainbreak bull encampment. After all, the mountainbreak bull blood essence had a high quality-price ratio in terms of conversion to heavenly source qi.

Su Yu was in no rush. Slowly, he immersed himself in cultivation. With his newly mastered vibration method and breathing technique, he spread tremors across his entire body and tempered it.

About a few hours after completing his twenty-third body forging, he completed his twenty-fourth body forging after exhausting three strands of heavenearth profound light. The exhaustion was massive. His cultivation expenditure far surpassed that of a regular cultivator.

But he was not surprised. This was only natural since his physical body was so strong. He would be very happy if the remaining sixteen strands were enough for him to complete even five body forgings.

***

Time passed slowly.

Night arrived.

According to the Anping Calender of the human race, it was the 17th of July of the year 351. About two months had passed since Su Yu left Great Ming.

When he first left Great Ming, he had only completed eight body forgings. His willpower cultivation was still at the Skysoar Realm. After two months, he had completed twenty-six body forgings and was well on the way to complete the twenty-seventh body forging.

A rumble rang out.

Death qi started seeping into the building as night arrived.

The final strand of the heavenearth profound light was finally exhausted. He was unable to reach his target of twenty-eighth body forging. He only had enough to barely complete the twenty-seventh body forging. Further forging would be much more difficult since he no longer had any heavenearth profound light on him.

Toward the end of his cultivation session, he actually had to use around five strands of heavenearth profound light just to complete a single body forging. He couldn't help but shook his head. The exhaustion was too great.

Five strands. According to Heavenly Hunt Pavilion's price, that was equivalent to five drops of Sunmoon blood essence. In short, the life of a Sunmoon was only enough to pay for two of his body forgings. This was getting ridiculous.

He still had forty-five body forgings to complete. And it would only get more expensive. He would probably need about twenty or thirty Sunmoons dead to complete his forgings. Of course, that number referred to only first-stage Sunmoons. Then again, he had indeed caused the deaths of so many Sunmoons in the latest incident.

That was a fact, even if he wasn't the one who had killed all those Sunmoons with his own hands. That seemed rather inefficient.

Su Yu had a self-mocking laugh as this was something that would cause the extinction of Sunmoons among the myriad races if everyone started doing that as well.

After all, dozens of Sunmoons needed to die just for him to complete his body forging. Thus, not even the extinction of all Sunmoons in existence would be enough to fulfill the demand of all the young geniuses in existence.

"Sigh."

Sure, there was a cheaper alternative. He could take his time. He could use heavenly source qi. But he was impatient. He needed strength fast. But he had only completed twenty-seven forgings.

In truth, Su Yu's strength had reached a terrifying level. His physical strength had reached about 23,000 acupoints. He was reaching 23,400 acupoints in strength. Including the half-opened yang acupoint and his strength character, he could reach 30,000 acupoints in strength.

Strictly speaking, he was already similar in strength to some of the weaker third-stage Mountainseas. Even relying only on his physical strength, he was confident in putting up a fight against those Mountainseas. But for geniuses like Su Yu, those weak Mountainseas were never a goal worth pursuing.

Mo Duona was the greatest example of this. His physical strength had definitely surpassed a hundred thousand acupoints. And that was when he was only a seventh-stage Cloudbreach. But what about now?

Also, that was the lowest estimate. He had killed a seventh-stage Mountainsea before. Was that one of the weaker Mountainseas? Was there really such a coincidence? Would a weak seventh-stage Mountainsea pop out of nowhere just for him to kill? It was never wise to judge one's strength based on the lower end of the spectrum.

"The gap between a Mountainsea and a Mountainsea can be as wide as the heaven and earth. The gap between Sunmoons is even bigger."

Su Yu shook his head. Ming He was a good example. She was a seventh-stage Sunmoon. Even after receiving grievous injuries from the detonations of two peak Sunmoon characters, Su Yu was only able to sever one of her arms after unleashing the strength of a sixth-stage Mountainsea.

With her serious injuries, she had probably been weakened by about ninety percent. Yet Su Yu had failed to kill her with all his strength. Just how strong was Ming He? Basically, that was a terrifying opponent.

In the past, Su Yu would think that a physical strength of about thirty thousand acupoints was very impressive. But that was no longer the case.

Without Sunmoon characters, he would no longer be Mo Duona's match even with the activation of sixth-stage Mountainsea blood essence. There was no comparing the two of them. Or to be precise, he was basically weaker than every single individual on the Heaven Index. Including Dao Cheng.

𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Dao Cheng was already strong enough to kill a fifth-stage Mountainsea when he was a Cloudbreach. With his advancement into the third-stage Mountainsea Realm, he would have grown a lot stronger even if his rapid advancement had weakened his foundation.

Of course, Su Yu was still unaware of Dao Cheng's latest status. After all, he did not have a copy index on him. The index copies issued by the Heavenly Hunt Pavilion were very convenient to use, but these copies were also quite annoying as they would act as constant trackers.

Su Yu did not stop after absorbing all the heavenearth profound light. He continued absorbing the heavenly source qi, willpower, and character intent he had accumulated. He was also taking this chance to repair his sea of willpower. It had been damaged heavily from the impact of destroying two Sunmoon characters.

Fortunately, it was sturdy enough after numerous temperings by the Soul Expanding Hammer. Coupled with the golden book acting as insurance, it was able to avoid destruction. After an entire night, Su Yu was finally done digesting all his gains.

He had also stepped into the second-stage Cloudbreach Realm. He could no longer further suppress his willpower cultivation. He didn't even want to break through. He had been busy tempering his sea of willpower when it stubbornly broke through to the second stage. Then again, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

Willpower was still very useful. Disguise, anti-surveillance, and character activation required a powerful willpower as the base. Without powerful willpower, he wouldn't even be able to do something as simple as crushing a character.

In fact, with sufficiently strong willpower, he could have killed Ming He with the two peak Sunmoon characters instead of only dealing her some injuries. With the advancement of his willpower, his characters had also grown.

At the moment, he had a total of twenty-five characters.

Blood, lightning, break, battle, kill, deceit, wind, change, beast, death, tribulation, calm, meld, strength, fight, slow, saber, suppress, vibrate, fire of inheritance, and the five elemental characters.

Apart from the few who were still stuck at the second and third tiers, a majority of them had reached the fourth tier. His willpower and sea of willpower were very near the level of a regular Mountainsea.

Most of his frequently used characters had reached the fourth tier. Some of them had even surpassed some of the older characters. These included the calm character from Great Zhou King, the naturally formed tribulation character, and the eternally silent deceit character. All twenty-five of them were human characters.

Jin Sheng of Great Ming once speculated that the more human characters one gathered, the stronger they would all be. Su Yu could finally experience that with his own characters. He could feel that each of his characters was already comparable to divine and devil characters. Or to be precise, he even felt like his characters had surpassed those characters.

"My character technique is still lacking, though. I still need seventy-four characters. Those 25-character techniques are not as powerful as I imagined..."

Su Yu wondered if this was the weakness of human characters. They wouldn't be powerful enough without sufficient numbers. Would they be stronger if they were actually paired with the characters of other races?

But that would only remain a thought. It wasn't like he could actually form the characters of other races. After this cultivation session, Su Yu had grown much stronger than before.