Tribulation of Myriad Races

Wentan Research Center.

Su Yu returned to an empty building.

It was unknown if Hong Tan had entered seclusion or left on some other business. In any case, Su Yu was left alone in the large building. He calmed himself and went to the second floor. He started reading while tempering his willpower.

It had been a while since he last focused on reading. During the five years he spent at the secondary school, he had spent nearly every day visiting the library to read and learn. But after entering the academy, he had been constantly kept busy by numerous affairs. As the saying went, the trees long for peace but the wind would never cease.

The source of all trouble was the threat multiple character faction posed to multiple parties, such as the myriad races and some factions in the Human Realm. Su Yu decided to forget all that and focus on reading, learning, and growing.

He also aimed to strengthen some of his friends. If he was alone, even if he became an Invincible, he still wouldn’t have enough power to suppress everything. He needed to join hands with a group of people.

Su Yu was confident in his talent. And he also had the assistance of his book. But regardless of his talent, he still wouldn’t be able to reach the Invincible Realm in one day. Were people like Great Xia King powerful? But even people like them couldn’t act freely. They still needed to get some allies to seize some initiative for themselves.

“The biggest benefit I can give everyone is my cultivation methods.”

While reading and tempering his willpower, Su Yu was also busy contemplating on numerous matters. He was basically splitting his attention three ways. But the truly genius ones would not lack cultivation methods.

Just look at someone like Hu Qiusheng. He had read over a thousand cultivation manuals over the years. Would the Hu Family lack cultivation methods? No. They only lacked truly powerful or impactful cultivation methods. For example, cultivation methods such as the Water Origin Art or the Soul Devouring Art.

“If I can combine the five elemental arts into one art with 180 apertures, it will become an amazing art. Even if I can’t teach anyone the complete version, I can teach them the incomplete version with 108 apertures. Even such a version would be much better than the Myriad Text Sutra.”

“This cultivation method is even more valuable due to the fact that it can be cultivated at the Mental Tempering Stage.”

According to Su Yu’s plan, he could create the version with 108 apertures by combining three of the five arts. Even so, that would result in a top-tier earth-grade cultivation method. And it was something that could be cultivated at the Mental Tempering Stage. Something like that was enough to impact all willpower cultivators in the Human Realm.

That was basically a cultivation method they could keep using until the Cloudbreach Realm. It would save a lot of time for people at the Skysoar and Cloudbreach Realms. And that required him to combine three of the five arts.

“Who can I trust enough to teach this cultivation method?”

Su Yu sank into thought. He had yet to combine the five arts. He might have opened 44 apertures, but he hadn’t been able to link up the apertures of the two arts he had cultivated so far.

He needed the assistance of an expert to perform the combination. A few names appeared in his mind. Liu Wenyan and Bai Feng were actually suitable individuals to help him. But Bai Feng’s cultivation level was too low. He might not be as helpful. And Liu Wenyan was not someone he could easily contact at the moment.

There was a better option than those two.

Zhao Li!

That was a teacher who had taught him the Soul Expanding Art. And that teacher had taught him without any intentions. Zhao Li had taught him the Soul Expanding Art merely because he was a suitable person to learn it.

“Maybe…I should pay Teacher Zhao a visit. I can get some help from him.”

Zhao Li was the fourth principal’s son, someone who had lived for 120 years, created his own version of Soul Expanding Art, and was also a grandmaster weaponsmith. He had once attempted to enter the Mountainsea Realm, but he had failed.

Zhao Li was the perfect person for the task. In all honesty, Su Yu still wasn’t that close to Hong Tan and Chen Yong. He had not interacted with them that much.

Sure, he really liked the multiple character faction. And he liked his grandteacher and martial uncle. He also agreed that both of them had been kind to him. But he did not wish to tempt anyone he didn’t know well enough with something too valuable.

As for Zhao Li, if the old man really decided to snatch the cultivation method from him, he would simply consider the cultivation method a payment for the Soul Expanding Art. After making up his mind, he checked the time. It was still early. He decided to go after it was dark. He continued reading the willpower text in his hand.

Not long ago, he had bought a decent amount of willpower texts from Xia Huyou. If he continued ignoring these texts, those texts would probably lose all their willpower before he could read them. That would be a big loss for him.

As he read, he sank into contemplation. He was reading the willpower text of a saber technique. Up to this point, he had read a lot of saber manuals. He found that similar types of techniques would actually have a lot of overlapped acupoints. For example, two saber manuals that respectively required 40 and 30 acupoints would have around 20 overlapped acupoints.

What did that mean? Basically, when one mastered a high-tier technique, one would be able to learn a similar technique of a lower tier much easier.

Some of these lower tier techniques could be easily learned after opening only a few acupoints.

“There is actually a lot of overlap between the various techniques. Following this line of thought, does the fact that the Soul Devouring Art requires only 36 acupoints to alter the nature of one’s source qi means that there are also some other undiscovered acupoints with unknown special effects as well?”

Su Yu continued contemplating while reading. It had been a while since he last entered such a deep contemplation. While he was doing all that, his willpower was growing without stopping.

Cultural researchers…were supposed to be a group of people in charge of preserving and transmitting culture. It was rumored that some cultural researchers did not even need to read willpower texts. They only needed to read an ordinary book to form a complete Divine Character.

According to the legends, that was how ancient cultural researchers form their characters. Su Yu’s 80 percent willpower continued growing as he sat in contemplation. He paid no attention to his willpower as he continued thinking.

…

Night descended.

A new character had taken form.

Su Yu sank into thought.

This was very odd.

This time, the character formation was very smooth. Unlike the previous times, he wasn’t forced to beat the new character into submission. Rather, it almost felt like the new character was rushing in to join the team.

Had he attracted the character with his sheer talent? To the point the character itself wanted to work with him?

Also, this character was slightly different from the other characters. All his past characters had been mostly combat focused characters. This time, he had formed the fire character.

At first, he thought that it was a combat character as well. It was fire, so it was understandable for it to be offensive in nature. And he had seen multiple people with the same character. All of them were pretty decent.

But his fire character did not share any similarity with all the fire characters he had seen. When Su Yu realized that, his mood fell.

“A fire character that doesn’t burn…what is this?”

Su Yu was completely confused. He already knew what the ability of the new character was. But it was very odd. Instead of offensive, it was supportive in nature.

Suddenly, his willpower ignited.

Yes. The fire character’s function was to ignite his own willpower.

Unlike the Soul Devouring Art, this fire character did not cause him any pain when burning his willpower. Instead, it felt like his willpower was actually being purified. But that wasn’t exactly accurate either.

After a short silence, Su Yu took out a regular book and started reading it. And he found that his mind was exceptionally clear and his ability to take in information had increased sharply. He flipped through page after page. Before he knew it, he had finished reading the whole book.

“Is this…supposed to be a fire of wisdom or something like that?”

Su Yu was dumbfounded.

By burning his willpower, his comprehension ability had increased greatly, allowing his brain to gain new information at a rapid pace. What was this? Was he being forced to become a top student, to the point he was even getting a character for studying?

“Can it increase my comprehension when reading willpower texts?”

Su Yu performed another text. This time, he used a willpower text. Sure enough, he felt completely different from before. He was able to understand what he couldn’t understand previously. Countless ideas appeared in his mind, and comprehending the willpower text felt much easier than before.

But Su Yu had also noticed something else. When reading a willpower text, the fire character was working even harder than before, exhausting a lot of his willpower in the process.

“It’s a supportive character.”

This was his first time encountering a pure supportive character. His blood character was also an odd one out. Logically, the illusion ability had nothing to do with a blood character, yet for some reason, that was the character’s ability.

Perhaps there was a tendency for first characters to mutate. He also had the deceit character that could be considered a supportive character, but he had intentionally forgotten about the existence of that character. Since that fellow was so deceitful, then it could stay deceitful and pretend to not exist. He would gladly forget about it.

“Eight characters.”

The fire character wasn’t too powerful. It wasn’t a second-tier character. It wasn’t even a peak first-tier character. But Su Yu was still very curious about the character. His curiosity came from the ease at which he had formed it and the unique ability of the character.

But he put all that for another time. When he checked the time, he noted that it was time for him to pay Teacher Zhao a visit.

…

Zhao Li’s research center.

Zhao Li was surprised to see Su Yu. He laughed and said, “Not bad at all. Your willpower feels fresh and clear. You must have thought something through. During your previous visit, despite having strong willpower, your willpower had also been covered by a layer of darkness. It hasn’t been long yet you have already adjusted your state of mind.”

Clear.

Su Yu did not have the same feeling, but he could guess that this “clear” effect was probably the work of his new fire character. Of course, he had also thought through a matter that had been bothering his mind and made a decision about it.

What decision had he made? Well, he had decided to maintain a low profile.

It was better to be an old, slimy snake than a dumb knight in shining armor.

Su Yu flashed a pure and earnest smile. When Zhao Li saw that, he laughed as well. Suddenly, he felt like even Su Yu’s smile looked more sincere than before.

“It is normal for one to stumble upon some troubles in the path of cultivation. It is fine as long as you can adjust your mental state accordingly.”

Zhao Li asked, “Do you need any help from me?”

Su Yu nodded, “Teacher, do all cultural researchers cultivate the Myriad Text Sutra nowadays?”

Zhao Li shook his head, “The Myriad Text Sutra is a relatively new cultivation method. Back then, people cultivated a different cultivation method. Or to be precise, they cultivated a weaker version of the Myriad Text Sutra. The current Myriad Text Sutra is actually the strengthened version of what people used to cultivate. It can open 72 apertures. The previous version can only open 54 apertures.”

Su Yu was quite surprised to hear that.

Zhao Li looked at Su Yu and asked, “Why are you asking this? Are you making plans for your new willpower cultivation method in the future?”

He was aware that Su Yu had already opened apertures.

He had already noticed during their previous meeting.

He had a slight guess as to why Su Yu was here. He smiled, “There is no rush. It is good that you are able to open some apertures at the Mental Tempering Stage. Let me give you an example. With those apertures, you will be able to easily open the first aperture of the Myriad Text Sutra after reaching the Skysoar Realm. This is the benefit of having a foundation willpower art.”

“I know that, Teacher.”

Su Yu nodded. He was already aware of that long ago. Zhang Hao was the one who had told him about it.

After thinking about it, Su Yu said, “Teacher, the Myriad Text Sutra is only a public willpower cultivation method. Are there any secret willpower cultivation methods out there that can open even more apertures?”

“I’m not sure.”

Zhao Li answered, “But these cultivation methods most likely exist. Both Great Zhou and Great Ming can actually be considered traditional cultural research powerhouses. Of course, when someone is strong enough to establish a prefecture, the difference between a warrior and a cultural researcher is no longer that big. But it is very possible that these traditional willpower cultivation powerhouses have their own secret legacies.”

“So is it possible that willpower cultivation methods with 144 apertures exist?”

“…”

Zhao Li was speechless. Was this kid here to mess around with him? How was he supposed to know that? 144 apertures? Did the kid think that cultural cultivation methods fall from from the sky or something?

“Just say what’s on your mind.”

Zhao Li was starting to get impatient. This wimpy kid was a very troublesome fellow. He also enjoyed leaving someone hanging by talking in circles without touching the main topic.