Chapter 126: Deity in the Martial World (2) |
Su Chen summoned his Martial Spirit.
It was a man seated cross-legged with both eyes tightly shut. At first glance, there was nothing remarkable about him.
But who was Su Chen? In his previous life, he had reached the Saint King realm. In this world, a single palm from him could erase this entire star system.
"My Martial Spirit… is far from ordinary!"
Before long, the old steward returned with the Martial Spirit crystal.
Su Chen placed one hand on it. Before he could fully release his Martial Spirit, the crystal cracked with a sharp sound and shattered. As the crystal broke apart, the closed-eyed man abruptly opened his eyes. He glanced at Su Chen, then extended a single finger.
A cascade of golden scriptures flooded Su Chen's mind, coalescing into a cultivation method called the Heaven-Covering Art.
Su Chen was mildly startled as the technique took shape in his sea of consciousness.
"Heaven-Covering Art—what an audacious name. This is actually a Quasi-Emperor scripture… Just what is the origin of this man?"
Understanding dawned on Su Chen. The missing ten thousand points in Family Background were here. The missing ten thousand points in Talent were here as well. The man before him had been—at the very least—a starry Great Saint. Otherwise, he could never have casually bestowed a Quasi-Emperor scripture for cultivation.
After beginning to practice the Heaven-Covering Art, Su Chen immediately felt that the technique had been tailor-made for him. A tremendous power within his body gradually awakened in response to the art's circulation… terrifying tides of Origin Energy surged around him on all sides.
One week later, Su Chen opened his eyes. His cultivation had reached the peak of the ninth layer of Spirit Gathering—equivalent to peak second-tier in this world.
Unfortunately, the Origin Energy here was far too thin. The terrifying power inside him had activated less than one percent of its potential. This was undoubtedly a divine physique, yet this world clearly had no concept of divine physiques. Born under such poor conditions, his divine body had remained dormant and malnourished.
Su Chen named his divine physique the Heaven-Covering Divine Body. The compatibility between his constitution and the Heaven-Covering Art was perfect—far surpassing even the Primordial Taotie Body or the Heaven-Devouring Earth-Swallowing Divine Art in synergy!
He quickly set his main objective: Acquire resources! To fully awaken the divine body!
Thanks to his status as a member of the Jiang family, he could requisition some cultivation resources, but given his C-grade rating, drawing too much would surely earn him a severe scolding from his father if word reached him.
Su Chen cultivated for three more days.
The long-silent Martial Spirit opened his eyes once again and extended a hand, writing a single word in the air:
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
'Battle'
In that instant, Su Chen's cultivation broke through from Spirit Gathering to the Spirit Vein realm. Golden runes shimmered in his sea of consciousness. Whenever he invoked the character 'Battle', his strength and speed would instantly double… and he could sense this was far from the limit. If he could fully comprehend the character, he would obtain an unimaginable fortune.
In just ten days Su Chen had gone from an insignificant nobody to a Spirit Vein realm cultivator—third-tier in this world's terms. The third tier was already counted as an elite. Very few reached that level. Even the instructors at his school were only third-tier at best. But to Su Chen, this was nothing at all.
"Third-tier… that should be enough to enter some of the weaker Heavenly Rifts."
The Heavenly Rifts were lairs inhabited by weaker alien races. The strongest creatures inside even the most dangerous ordinary rifts were only at the Spirit Soul realm. Anything beyond Spirit Soul qualified as a Heavenly Rift. When a Heavenly Rift erupted, it unleashed catastrophic disasters and required armies and powerhouses to stand guard at all times.
Su Chen felt that these Heavenly Rifts and Earthly Rifts closely resembled the secret realms formed from the corpses of powerhouses above the Profound Connection realm in his previous life—independent spaces unto themselves. Whether his suspicion was correct or not, he would only know after personally stepping inside one.
Soon he set out, dressed in loose black robes and wearing dark sunglasses, heading toward the location of a nearby Earthly Rift.
This particular rift was controlled by a powerful local syndicate. The race dwelling inside was a minor one known as the Dwarf Tribe—ugly, squat, humanoid in shape yet exceptionally vicious and bloodthirsty.
"Entry to the Dwarf Earthly Rift costs ten thousand spirit coins."
Su Chen paid without hesitation.
Beyond the massive gate forged from profound iron lay a long tunnel. Bloodstains that no amount of cleaning could erase still clung to the walls, along with broken weapons and corpses reduced to white bones.
A brutal battle had once taken place here.
After passing through the gate, however, Su Chen emerged into an unfamiliar jungle. Lush vegetation stretched in every direction, resembling a primeval forest. The world was small, its laws incomplete—not even one-tenth as robust as the outside world.
"So these so-called Earthly Rifts are actually formed from the corpses of powerhouses in the starry void. The Dwarf Earthly Rift is most likely the secret realm born from the body of a Profound Connection realm cultivator after death."
His guess proved correct.
In this world's terms, the Profound Connection realm equated to the sixth-tier—also known as the King- level.
Before long, Su Chen encountered his first dwarf: short and bloated, clutching a mace forged from iron. Its pitch-black skin split into a wide grin full of sharp teeth. Su Chen silently corrected the name in his mind—these should be called Goblin Dwarves.
Even the first one he met possessed fourth-layer Spirit Vein realm strength. Yet in Su Chen's eyes, their cultivation system was crude and backward. At the same fourth-layer Spirit Vein, even the weakest cultivator from the Heavenly Profound Domain could easily handle several of these.
Su Chen shook his head.
In a small inner world like this, reaching the fourth-layer Spirit Vein was already impressive. How could they possibly compare to the accumulated wisdom of trillions of beings across billions of years in the Heavenly Profound Domain?
The dwarf bared its teeth, greed flashing in its eyes as it jabbered incomprehensibly. Su Chen drew a long blade and cleaved its body in half with one stroke, then split open its skull. Inside lay a black stone—an energy core in this world's terminology. It could sell for a thousand spirit coins or so. Companies would then refine these black stones into energy fluids for ability users to cultivate with.
To Su Chen, those energy fluids were far too crude. The side effects were severe—even the highest-grade ones paled in comparison to proper pills. Unfortunately, this world had no alchemy tradition, so Su Chen had no choice but to venture into the rifts himself in search of raw materials for pill refining. After all, everything here was fundamentally different from the Heavenly Profound Domain.
He stored the energy core and pressed deeper.
Five days later, Su Chen located a dwarf settlement. More than a hundred dwarves were gathered beneath an ancient tree, performing some kind of worship.
From a distance, Su Chen already sensed a vast surge of energy.
"This is…"
He narrowed his eyes.
A beam of light suddenly descended from the sky!
Under the radiance of that pillar, the strength of every single one of the hundred-plus dwarves began to rise sharply!
Comments 1