Chapter 976: Growth (2)

Su Yu moved his attention to his other gains. While he was on the road, he had consumed some blood essence and activated some new pages in the golden book. He was able to verify some of his previous guesses. The golden book was truly an interesting item.

He stopped at the page of the immortal race. It had changed slightly. To be precise, it had been further perfected. He had always felt that the page was rather incomplete previously. But that feeling had vanished completely.

Immortal (Seventh-stage Cloudbreach Realm)

Racial ability: Immortal Possession, Life Trigger (activation with blood essence, applicable below as well)

Foundation source art: Immortal Source Art

Foundation cultural art: Heavenly Immortal Aperture Net Art

Foundation body forging art: Heavenly Immortal Thirty-Six Forge

Foundation nine transformation art: Ancient Immortal Nine Transformations

This was the result of consuming Jiu Xuan's blood essence. It was much better than before. Even the foundation cultural art had appeared, alongside the foundation nine transformation art.

All of those were not present previously.

Sure enough, his previous guess that the blood essence of cultural researchers would activate different things than the blood essence of warriors was correct. The most obvious difference was the addition of the foundation cultural art.

Warriors were different from cultural researchers. A complete page could only be obtained by combining the blood essence of both. And Jiu Xuan was an immortal cultural researcher. She had granted him the Heavenly Immortal Aperture Net Art.

Su Yu held high expectations to this art. He wanted to see if the apertures of this art would overlap with his opened apertures. From the five elemental race, he had obtained 180 apertures. There was no overlap between each of the five sub-races. What about the apertures of the immortals?

He consumed another drop of blood essence. It was still Jiu Xuan's blood essence. Jiu Xuan's blood essence was the sole blood essence of the experts he had killed in the ancient city he was still carrying on him. This was the reason for that.

Before long, the golden book absorbed the power of the blood essence. A short while later, an aperture diagram appeared in his sea of willpower. There were 108 apertures in total.

This art was much stronger than even the mainstream cultural art of humanity. The mainstream human cultural art only provided up to 72 apertures while the immortals were able to open up to 108 apertures.

When Su Yu checked the art, he was overjoyed. There were some overlaps. After some observation, he noted that there were 32 apertures that did not overlap with his apertures.

As for the cultural art of humanity, all of them overlapped with the cultural art of the five elemental race. Su Yu did not think too much about it, but there was a possibility that the five elemental races might have had a close relationship with the human race during the ancient past.

Regardless, the discovery of 32 new apertures verified one of his previous conjectures. There were most likely 360 apertures in total as well. He had only opened half of them, so they were naturally unable to form their natural circulation route. As a result, he was unable to discover the yin aperture and the complete source soul acupoint.

"Indeed. I was right."

The look in Su Yu's eyes changed. In that case, he should probably start focusing on divines, devils, and the cultural researchers of other races. Through their foundation cultural arts, he would discover all the unknown apertures.

After opening all of them, they would rearrange their circulation route automatically and present him with a brand-new cultural art.

"Cultural researcher..."

Cultural researchers were way too rare in the Allheaven Battlefield.

Su Yu sighed with regret. He had been in the Allheaven Battlefield for quite a while, and he had encountered a decent number of young geniuses from various races. But very few of them were cultural researchers. In fact, he only recalled meeting two cultural researchers thus far. Both of them were immortals.

Most of the other geniuses were warriors, with only a small number of them being cultural researchers. But these cultural researchers were rather weak in comparison. He had also consumed the blood essence of one of these weaker cultural researchers. But the cultural art he obtained was extremely weak, and all the apertures overlapped with his opened apertures.

"No, I need to remember that there are several races specializing in willpower. Among the ones I know, the fire crow race, the white civet race, and the shadow race are races with a large number of cultural researchers."

Su Yu started searching his brain for what he knew. He did kill a shadow before, but that fellow was a warrior instead of a cultural researcher.

A majority of the cultivators in this race were cultural researchers. The one he killed previously was probably a weak shadow with no status even among the shadow race. What a pity. He should have extracted a drop of blood essence from the shadow he left in Great Ming back then.

"Well, I'm not in a rush. I can try hunting the random cultural researchers of the other races when I'm only a few apertures away from completion."

All this while, Su Yu had felt that physical cultivation provided more power than willpower cultivation. But he now realized that he was most likely biased because he had opened fewer apertures than acupoints. His physical cultivation was only so powerful due to the 360 acupoints he opened.

He believed that if he relied only on his willpower and characters, he would only be able to put up a fight against eighth or ninth-stage Cloudbreaches. If he included his Soul Expanding Art, he could probably put up some fight against weak Mountainseas. But he wouldn't be able to punch too far above his level. Meanwhile, his physical cultivation allowed him to punch far higher than that.

"For now, my willpower cultivation has been relegated to the support role. My physical cultivation is my main source of power."

He had relied heavily on his physical strength during his recent battles. Then again, his willpower cultivation had also been exceptionally helpful. The various abilities of his characters were all effective trump cards, turning him into an extremely tricky opponent for many.

With all that taken into consideration, Su Yu concluded that his willpower cultivation was comparable to someone between the ninth-stage Cloudbreach and first-stage Mountainsea Realms.

As for his physical cultivation, it was comparable to someone between the second and third-stage Mountainsea Realm. All in all, he wouldn't have much trouble fighting third-stage Mountainseas. He would start struggling against fourth-stage Mountainseas.

Of course, that conclusion did not take blood essence consumption into consideration. And only the weaker Cloudbreaches and Mountainseas were used as the units of measurement. After all, the same calculation would not apply to the likes of Mo Duona, Dao Cheng, or the other geniuses.

At the moment, his body was already strong enough to withstand the blood essence consumption of a sixth-stage Mountainsea. It would slightly harm his body, but it would allow him to push his combat strength to the level of a sixth-stage Mountainsea from a middle-tier race.

In such a scenario, he would probably be able to somewhat put up a fight against a seventh-stage Mountainsea, but it was unlikely that he would emerge victorious.

"Without the characters of the fifth principal, killing Sunmoons is basically a dream for me. My true strength only allows me to fight against those at the sixth-stage Mountainsea and below."

As for seventh-stage Mountainseas, fleeing would be the correct course of action. His combat strength had increased significantly after digesting all his recent gains. Compared to his strength when he first left Great Ming, he had grown massively.

He was now truly someone capable of contending against Mountainseas. In the past, he would need to rely on all sorts of tricks and sneak attacks to deal with Mountainseas. That was no longer the case. He inhaled deeply and smiled.

Not bad.

No, this was actually pretty good.

He was doing quite well. Furthermore, he still had ten drops of sunmoon profound yellow liquid in his sea of willpower. This was also an invaluable resource. But it could only be used by Sunmoons. It was something capable of strengthening apertures.

Generally, those below the Sunmoon Realm would avoid using this resource because of the fear that their apertures would grow too strong for them to control. That would make it extremely difficult for them to fuse their apertures to progress their cultivation level. Su Yu was worried about this as well. He would only consider using it below the Sunmoon Realm during emergencies. The price of that was an increased difficulty of his future growth.

"I still have around a hundred portions of heavenly source qi and over three hundred thousand merit points..."

That was pretty much all Su Yu had on him at the moment. All his other items had been buried somewhere else. Oh, he also had some Mountainsea blood essence on him. The cloud tiger race was the majority contributor of his Mountainsea blood essence.

Great Xia had nearly eliminated the entire cloud tiger race. Ultimately, the cloud tiger race had submitted to the flying sky tiger race to avoid complete destruction. Eventually, Su Yu received a large amount of cloud tiger blood essence during his transaction with Great Xia.

Most of the blood essence he received had been converted to heavenly source qi, but the Mountainsea had been preserved. He still had about a hundred drops of them, varying between the first to the ninth stages.

"The blood essence in the first three stages won't be too useful. I guess I should convert it to heavenly source qi later. Only the blood essence above the third-stage is useful. I can keep it around as emergency sources of power..."

He had reached a point where he was starting to look down on early Mountainsea blood essence.

Estimating the value of one's gains, digest all the gains, and grow one's strength. Every single young genius operating in the Allheaven Battlefield was well-versed in these actions. Every battle was for the sake of being stronger during the next battle. A battle that would not help in one's growth was a waste of time.

If it wasn't for the sake of replenishing his heavenly source qi supply, Su Yu would have started ignoring those below the Mountainsea Realm by now. Exceptions would only be given to unique individuals whose blood essence might prove helpful.

This was also why Mo Duona couldn't even be bothered to go after Su Yu. He judged that killing Su Yu wouldn't grant him any benefits. Similarly, Su Yu would not be bothered to waste his time killing a weak divine or devil if doing so wouldn't bring him any benefits.

Unfortunately for them, even the weaker cultivators could still benefit him with their blood essence. Thus, he wouldn't hold back when there was an opportunity to kill. Done with dealing with all his recent gains, Su Yu sent a tremor across his body to remove the stench of blood stuck on him.

Yes. He had gained a way of ridding his body of the bloody stench. In the past, he needed to enter Great Jin to cleanse the stench with the spring there. But that was no longer the case.

𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

He started reversing the flow of his acupoints. Death qi started flooding his body. In the blink of an eye, all his source qi transformed into death qi, cleanly removing the final bits of the bloody stench clinging to him.

Su Yu had discovered that this was an excellent way to protect himself from some tracking methods. Death qi was the most evil of power in existence. The dead would not be tainted by the bloody stench when they killed.

And thus, Su Yu found a brand new usage of death qi: purification. Yes, it sounded impossible. But that was indeed how he was using it. Death qi did not go along well with other types of power. It would repel all powers it encounter. Thus, it was the perfect tool to remove all tracking abilities that might have been placed on one's body.

However, Su Yu did not convert his entire body from the living to the dead. His heart was left untouched. As long as it remained beating, he would remain a living being. He was afraid that a full conversion would truly turn him into one of the dead.

After purifying his entire body, he started hesitating. His heart should be clear of any tracking shenanigans, right? He saw no reason for anyone to actually plant anything into his heart. Someone capable of planting something in his heart could have killed him easily. Why would an enemy bother to track him if one could kill him instead? Thus, he decided to leave his heart untouched by the death qi.

Unknown to him, when the death qi was inches away from his heart as he contemplated the matter, the miniature person hiding in there wiped his forehead as though he was sweating due to nervousness.

But soon, the miniature person returned to slumber. He would only wake up when he sensed danger. Just moments ago, he did sense something dangerous. But it had passed without anything happening.