Tribulation of Myriad Races

Su Yu looked at Bai Feng who was walking out of the room in astonishment and asked, “Teacher, this thing is also capable of detecting your Divine Characters and soul apertures?”

“It’s a general scan.” Bai Feng smiled, “We mostly use it on our captured creatures to prevent them from hiding their strength. You need to know that some races are very unique. They might look completely normal even at the Mountainsea Realm. Some concealment Divine Characters can also be very difficult to notice.”

Su Yu nodded. He asked eagerly, “Teacher, can I try?”

“Yeah. You’re too weak so the scan will be much more accurate. You only need to unleash your willpower inside the room. If you want it to be more accurate, stir your Divine Characters as well. The weaker someone is, the more accurate this machine would be.”

Su Yu looked excited. This machine seemed fun. He jogged into the small room. Next, his willpower erupted. There seem to be countless talismans on the walls of the room. These talismans started absorbing the willpower he released. Then, he stirred his Divine Characters.

Outside, Bai Feng was paying attention to the data. With one look, he blanked out.

Willpower grade: Peak first grade

Percentage: 68

Number of Divine Characters: 5

Divine Character tier: Two second tier characters

Overall evaluation: Peak Mental Tempering Stage

He looked at Su Yu and roared, “Get out here!”

Su Yu ran out and asked, “What’s wrong, Teacher?”

“When did you form your fifth character? Why am I not aware of that?”

“…”

Su Yu scratched his head. Had he not told his teacher? Yeah, that seemed to be the case. The deceit character was too embarrassing. It did not fit his character so he had intentionally forgotten about the character.

“Uhm…I formed one not long ago.”

Bai Feng rolled his eyes before saying in astonishment, “Your willpower grade is actually peak first grade. That’s odd. Generally, without at least 90 percent willpower, you won’t be able to reach peak first grade.”

“Mostly, those between 0 to 30 percent are considered low first grade, those between 31 to 60 percent are considered middle first grade, those between 61 to 90 percent are considered top first grade, and those above 90 percent can be considered peak first grade.”

He looked at Su Yu and said, “You’re only at 68 percent, so you should be at top first grade. A fresh top first grade. How are you a peak first grade already? I thought you were cultivating the Soul Expanding Art, but that doesn’t seem to be the case or the machine would be able to detect something. You…are an odd kid.”

Su Yu’s willpower grade was higher than it was supposed to be. His score signified that his willpower was actually as powerful as actual peak Mental Tempering Stage cultivators. That was why he had been able to contend against the likes of Zheng Yunhui.

Even the machine gave him the label of peak Mental Tempering Stage even though his willpower was still below 90 percent full.

Su Yu thought about it and said, “I told you before that Teacher Zhao hammered me a few times. Did you forget?”

“I still remember that.” Bai Feng rolled his eyes, “Is that really so effective? He really sent you to the top with a couple hammer strikes? Holy shit. Why had that fogey refused to hammer me a few times as well? No wonder you’re able to fight those peak Mental Tempering Stage fellows. Your willpower is already as strong as theirs.”

A look of surprise covered Bai Feng’s face as he asked, “By the way, how are you growing so fast? Your willpower has already reached 68 percent?”

Bai Feng remembered that his student had only reached the Mental Tempering Stage not long ago.

“Teacher, each time I read the willpower text of the heaven-grade technique, my willpower will undergo a willpower clash training and grow rapidly.”

In truth, his growth was also related to the five elemental blood essence he had consumed. During that time, he had absorbed some external willpower. That had given his willpower cultivation a boost as well.

“Right. I didn’t think of that.”

Bai Feng nodded.

The more he looked at Su Yu, the more astonished he was. He said, “Not bad, kid. Maybe you should get Old Zhao to hammer you a few more times. Maybe he can hammer you straight to the peak Mental Tempering Stage while making your willpower as powerful as a Skysoar’s willpower.”

Su Yu looked awkward. He hurriedly changed the topic and said, “Teacher, according to the machine, you’re at the peak second grade, so your willpower is also stronger than your actual cultivation level.”

Bai Feng rolled his eyes, “What nonsense are you saying. I am a cultivator of the multiple character faction. Of course I am stronger than ordinary eighth-stage Skysoar cultivators. Normal eighth-stage Skysoar cultivators will only receive an evaluation of top second grade from this machine.”

Su Yu nodded. He wasn’t too surprised. If Bai Feng could defeat someone like Hu Wensheng at the seventh stage, he would naturally be even stronger now that he had reached the eighth stage.

Bai Feng continued introducing the other machines to Su Yu. There were way too many things for Su Yu to take in. He couldn’t help but to admit that their faction was very willing to spend money in terms of research.

Every single machine in the room was worth thousands of merit points. Some were even worth tens of thousands of merit points. They could really get rich just by selling this research center. Ignoring all their research results, just these machines would probably be worth between 200,000 to 300,000 merit points.

How rich. His grandteacher sure was generous. If it was Su Yu, he definitely wouldn’t be willing to spend so much for research.

Eventually, they arrived outside a small room.

Bai Feng exhaled softly and pointed at the room, “This is where I normally conduct my research. Come with me. I’ll show you what I’ve been working on recently.” Su Yu hurriedly followed his teacher inside the room.

The moment he stepped inside, he noticed that the room was filled with willpower. He was surprised.

The willpower within the room wasn’t violent. Rather, it was extremely gentle. Su Yu felt like this willpower would be safe for absorption. But he still didn’t have any opened soul apertures yet so he couldn’t actually do so.

Bai Feng said, “The willpower here has been purified countless times. You are not allowed to absorb it. This place is used to nurture Divine Characters. Characters at the Skysoar Realm can be materialized, but they can’t stay outside a sea of willpower for long. Thus, when a character is stripped from its owner, an environment like this is required to preserve the character for a longer time.

“Kid, even after entering the Skysoar Realm, you’re not allowed to absorb the willpower here. Gathering so much purified willpower in one place is a very expensive process. If you dare to absorb the willpower here, I’ll make you regret it.”

Su Yu laughed dryly, “Teacher, I won’t. I’m not that kind of person.”

“Scram!”

Bai Feng cursed. He was not buying that. If Su Yu was already a Skysoar, he would definitely absorb the willpower in the room.

Bai Feng approached a research station and waved Su Yu over.

Su Yu hurriedly walked over. When he noticed the research station, his eyes flickered. A few Divine Characters were actually hovering atop the station.

“This…”

“Divine Characters of the fire hog race.” Bai Feng explained, “Most of the fire hogs are warriors. Very few of them are cultural researchers. Your grandteacher and I had to hunt down countless fire hogs before finally finding three fire hog cultural researchers. We were able to strip them off their Divine Characters, but these characters can only be kept here. Watch closely, kid.”

As Bai Feng said that, the five Divine Characters floated higher into the air.

Bai Feng had a solemn expression as he operated the five characters. Meanwhile, Su Yu was focusing all his attention on the characters. Slowly, the five characters started fusing together before changing. Eventually, they seemed to have transformed into an actual fire hog.

Su Yu felt like he was looking at a massive fire hog. He had seen actual fire hog corpses before. But this time, the fire hog before him looked very alive.

“Tackle!”

A voice resounded within his mind in the fire hog language.

Su Yu hurriedly retreated as the fire hog formed of the five characters started charging at him. He could feel a heavy aura pressing down on him while he was retreating in panic. Next, his vision blurred and everything vanished.

The fire hog had turned into five characters again. The five characters had dimmed considerably. They were also no longer fused together.

Bai Feng was sweating heavily as he asked, “Did you see that? After trying to fuse these characters through numerous different methods, I finally discovered a certain combination that can create something similar to a racial ability.

“What does that mean? It means that Divine Characters can really be combined to create a racial ability character. Naturally, most fire hogs do not have Divine Characters. In that case, why can every one of them utilize their racial ability?

“My guess is that there is a hidden character within the sea of willpower of every single one of them. I also guess that their racial ability is definitely more powerful in the hands of a cultural researcher than a warrior. This is why I deduced that racial abilities are related to Divine Characters and the sea of willpower.”

Su Yu nodded.

He asked, “Teacher, did you notice that…this…resembles…”

“You noticed it as well?”

“Yeah.” Su Yu nodded and said with an astonished expression, “This fusion is very similar to character techniques. Several characters have to be assembled in a specific manner for it to work.”

“Exactly. I noticed this long ago.” Bai Feng exhaled and said, “If I’m right, then character techniques might be a unique method of utilizing Divine Characters our seniors had discovered. But they had not been able to discover the connection between character techniques and racial abilities.

“Therefore, our character technique is probably already a racial ability. The multiple character faction is already ahead of everyone else. As long as we can find the way to fully convert character techniques into racial abilities, truly fusing all our characters into one like acupoint fusion, we might be able to create a true racial ability character.”

The more Bai Feng spoke, the more excited he seemed, “At that time, we will be able to unleash our true strength. No matter how many Divine Characters you have, you will be able to activate all of them at once. No longer will cultural researchers lack offensive strength despite having numerous Divine Characters.”

A better example would be acupoints. For example, Su Yu had 153 opened acupoints. But would he be able to unleash the strength of all his acupoints in a single attack? He couldn’t. Not even with a heaven-grade technique. The technique only allowed him to utilize the strength of the acupoints it required instead of all his acupoints.

For now, Su Yu wouldn’t be able to utilize more than 100 acupoints at once. Some of the acupoints he had opened with the War God Art were not able to be used alongside his heaven-grade technique.

After thinking for a bit, Su Yu said, “Teacher, you mean that just like our utilization of acupoints, our utilization of willpower is not efficient enough. But the racial ability character might allow us to utilize 100 percent of our strength?”

“Exactly.” Bai Feng smiled, “Even 80 percent would be incredibly impressive. Right now, the actual rate of our utilization is pitifully low.”

Su Yu inhaled deeply and stared at the floating characters. His teacher seemed to be on to something here. What an incredible discovery.

Bai Feng said, “I have only been experimenting on fire hog characters. I have yet to start testing this on actual humans yet. And the multiple character faction is best suited for this experiment. It’s a pity that you’re still not at the Skysoar Realm. Looks like I have to be the lab rat instead.”

“…”

Su Yu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So was the only reason for him to enter the Skysoar Realm was so that he could become Bai Feng’s test subject?

“Teacher, be careful. The moment something goes wrong, you might get in big trouble.”

Su Yu was no longer a clueless new student. He could see the dangers hidden in this experiment.

Bai Feng appeared indifferent, “It’s fine. This is normal in research. But if I can complete my research, you will be able to witness the sight of a Skysoar defeating a Cloudbreach!”

Even Bai Feng himself was getting excited at the thought of that.

“Skysoar fighting Cloudbreach. Throughout history, very few people at the Skysoar Realm and above could accomplish the feat of fighting above their level. Your teacher will become one of this small group of people soon!” Su Yu took the chance to flatter his teacher,

“Teacher, you are really incredible, mighty, domineering…”

“Piss off!” Bai Feng cursed. Then, he turned somewhat dispirited as he said, “But I don’t have a good test subject. Remember to talk to my martial uncle. I need to study him. I have a feeling he already has the initial form of a racial ability character within his head. Without a proper point of reference, I’m afraid I would probably kill myself before I could even come up with a proper character combination.”

Su Yu was left speechless. Teacher Liu…Yes. They might really be able to learn something from studying his Teacher Liu.

Bai Feng said, “My martial uncle has been bothered by that character for a very long time. If it is actually a racial ability character, then his own characters are definitely rejecting that character. Because of that, he had never been able to truly make that character his and truly fuse that character into his existing character technique.

“Martial Uncle might be talented, but in terms of understanding of Divine Characters, he might not know as much as me. He already has a lot of characters originally. With that special character taking the position of main Divine Character within his sea of willpower, he won’t be able to utilize his true strength before properly assimilating that character into his sea of willpower. And he also wouldn’t be able to properly make use of that character.

“According to my theory, fusion is the only solution. Perhaps he can try to fuse his own characters with that external character to fully turn it into his. Only then would he be able to start making use of it.”

Bai Feng shook his head and said, “My martial uncle is too stubborn. And he is not flexible enough. I suspect that he has been forcefully assimilating that character for the past 50 years through brute force. He’s treating that character as a meatball, thinking that forcing them together would be enough.”

He had a look of disdain as he was saying all that.

A good example was mud figurines. Everyone was creating beautiful figurines with their mud while his martial uncle was trying to pass off a clump of mud as a mud figurine as well. How would that work?

He was seriously suspecting that his martial uncle was doing that. A brute! A fake cultural researcher!

Bai Feng continued insulting his martial uncle. He was unafraid since his martial uncle wasn’t around to hear him.

Beside him, Su Yu sighed. Did his teacher think that he wouldn’t snitch to his Teacher Liu about this?

“Teacher Liu…racial ability character…”

Su Yu himself was also getting a lot of ideas in his mind.

Over the years, he had still noticed some things. Liu Wenyan might look indifferent most of the time, but at times, he would still look somewhat bleak. Su Yu had noticed Liu Wenyan staring blankly in a certain direction a few times.

Now that he thought about it, he finally realized that Liu Wenyan had been staring in the academy’s direction all those times. He still couldn’t let go of the academy.

“Racial ability. An inheritance of the fifth principal…”

…

At the same time, Nanyuan.

Liu Wenyan sighed. The sun in the center of his sea of willpower turned even brighter than before. Orbiting the sun were numerous stars, each of them trying to fuse into the sun. Bai Feng was right. Liu Wenyan was forcefully fusing the character.

As for the method of fusion…there was no method to it. Nobody had any idea how to do this since it had never been done before. He only relied on his instincts. He was blindly helping the character left by his teacher grow stronger. Perhaps when he was finally able to stuff all his characters into that character, he would be able to start using it.

Liu Wenyan was in no rush. He could take his time. And if he couldn’t complete this task, perhaps the next generation could continue his work.

Su Yu seemed to be doing quite well in the academy. In that case, he should probably start looking for a new candidate. The candidate must be honest, reliable, and resilient.

If his generation couldn’t complete this grand undertaking, then he would have to let the next generation continue their work.