Tribulation of Myriad Races

Zhao Li’s research center.

Su Yu was there again.

Zhao Li wasted no time. The moment he invited Su Yu in, he shut the door and turned on the formation to forbid all spying attempts.

“Speak. Why are you here.”

This kid would never visit him for no reason. And surprisingly, this was what Zhao Li liked most about the kid. Why the hell would he want the kid to visit him for no reason? To fawn on him? What a waste of time. The kid was better off using the time to read a book or cultivate more.

“Teacher, I have a question. What is the level of your physical cultivation?”

“Cloudbreach. Why?” Zhao Li said, “For physical cultivation, one will cleanse their marrows and transform their bones at the Skysoar Realm. At the Cloudbreach Realm, one’s source qi will undergo nine transformations. I have undergone eight transformations, so I can be considered an eighth-stage Cloudbreach in regards to my physical cultivation.”

He had rarely introduced his physical cultivation as cultural researchers did not care too much about their physical cultivator. Thus, for most people, he was known for his willpower cultivation, a seventh-stage Cloudbreach.

“Teacher, won’t you reach the acupoint fusion stage of the Mountainsea Realm soon?”

Su Yu asked in astonishment, “Why don’t you put more work into your physical cultivation and reach the Mountainsea Realm through it?”

Zhao Li rolled his eyes and said, “Who has the time and energy for that? Do you think everyone out there can maintain a similar level of willpower and physical cultivation like me? My physical cultivation is only at this level because my willpower cultivation has been stuck for too many years. Back when I was a ninth-stage Cloudbreach, my body was still at first-stage Cloudbreach.”

“And back then, I hadn’t even put much effort into my physical cultivation. My fused acupoints are too low in number. I entered the Infinite Strength Realm after fusing only eight acupoints. Without proper acupoint cultivation, it is almost impossible for me to enter the Mountainsea Realm and fuse my remaining acupoints into one.”

Su Yu already guessed all that before coming. He had deliberately asked that question. After getting the answer he wanted, he spoke with an unfathomable tone, “Teacher, I have a way to help you reach the Mountainsea Realm through physical cultivation.”

“Hmm?”

Zhao Li stroked his beard and asked, “Have you found the source soul acupoint?”

“No.”

“How am I supposed to do it, then?”

“With an acupoint fusion method.” Su Yu smiled smugly, “A week after its founding, the Source Soul Research Center has released its first result. We have produced an acupoint fusion method.”

Zhao Li appeared uninterested. He said, “I already know something like this. Acupoint fusion methods aren’t that rare at all.”

“Our method is different from those trash methods you can easily find.”

Yes. All those methods were garbage for him.

They only provided a tiny bit of increase in speed. But to do so, one needed to open more acupoints. It might not even be worth it. The time spent opening those new acupoints might even be longer than the time one could save with these methods. That was why most people were uninterested in these common fusion methods.

Zhao Li stared at the kid. What confident words. He had cultivated some of the publicly available methods himself. And he had to admit that although these methods weren’t excellent, they were still slightly useful. And this kid was looking down on all those methods?

Even those so-called common methods were not that common at all. A regular person would not be able to find one even if they wanted to. Even Su Yu had only obtained his copies from Hu Qiusheng. The Hu Family was powerful enough to gain access to these methods.

“I’m telling the truth, Teacher. After going through dozens of fusion methods, I have created my very own method. This is the only fusion method in existence with 36 acupoints. Every single one of these acupoints is useful. There is not a single superfluous acupoint in this method.”

Su Yu looked incomparably smug. That was the first cultivation method he had deduced himself. Although he had honestly only patched several methods together, that was still a showcase of his ability.

Zhao Li was somewhat speechless. He asked, “Are you sure? How’s the effect?”

“I’ve never tried it.”

“…”

Zhao Li was getting tired. This damn kid had never even used that method. Why was the kid bragging about it? What was the fucking point? He had plenty of cultivation methods with 36 acupoints. He could also take out a random cultivation method and claim that it was a fusion method. Who would believe it?

If it wasn’t for the fact that this kid had been rather reliable in the past, he would have kicked the kid out of his research center long ago.

“I’m telling the truth!”

Seeing the look of disbelief on Zhao Li’s face, Su Yu hurriedly said, “This isn’t even the draft version. This is the improved version. I already tried a lot of versions. The best version prior to this is the one with 32 acupoints. With that version, I can suppress at least two thirds of the repelling force.”

“Really?”

Zhao Li was finding that hard to believe. Capable of suppressing to thirds of the repelling force?

“There is no such cultivation method in the human race or the other races. Of course, there are some races out there with naturally low repelling force, such as the celestial dragon race.”

According to Zhao Li’s understanding, that was an innate talent. And that was what the celestial dragon race believed as well. They did not view that as a cultivation method. And they didn’t have the cultivation method.

This was proof of how terrifying the golden book was. It had actually transformed an innate talent into a cultivation method. That was a feat that required an extremely deep understanding of the celestial dragon race. Perhaps only someone who had dissected tens of thousands of celestial dragons would be able to perform such a feat.

At times, Su Yu couldn’t help but wonder if the previous owner of this golden book was someone who had dissected the myriad races countless times. How would this book know so much about the myriad races otherwise?

When Su Yu saw that Zhao Li was still doubtful, he took out a book and said, “I have yet to organize this into a proper cultivation method. I only have a diagram showcasing the acupoints and the circuit linking the acupoints. The circuit is something I have deduced but never tried before. Can you take a look at it for me?”

“Sure.”

Zhao Li did not say anything unnecessary and went deeper into the research center before taking a puppet out.

Su Yu blanked out.

Zhao Li nonchalantly said, “I destroyed the replica we made previously. In truth, the sea of willpower is very hard to replicate. But it’s much easier when it comes to acupoints. Recently, I have been forging puppets that can emulate the acupoints in a human body…”

While talking, he dripped a few drops of source qi liquid onto the puppet’s head. He said, “Point out the acupoints. All the common acupoints are already present on it. I will try to have the puppet circulate source qi through those acupoints in accordance with your cultivation method.”

Su Yu was very impressed. This was incredible. How did Zhao Li come up with something like this? He did not hesitate and started looking at the acupoints present on the puppet.

“Teacher, how many acupoints have you installed on this puppet?”

“312.” Zhao Li said, “These are all the acupoints I know, including the cultivation methods that I know but have not cultivated. I can say that these are all the acupoints the academy knows about. I have read almost all the cultivation methods in the academy records.”

In fact, the longer one cultivated, the more overlap acupoints one would discover. And out of all the cultivation methods in the academy records, only 312 acupoints had been found. As for Su Yu, he had opened over 300 acupoints.

But since most of Su Yu’s acupoints had been discovered through non-human cultivation methods, he actually had quite a lot of acupoints that did not overlap with the known human acupoints.

He was in no rush to point out the acupoints. Rather, he spent some time studying it. After a while, he appeared impressed as a lot of these acupoints overlapped with what he already opened. But he also noticed that there were at least 20 acupoints on the puppet that he had yet to open.

“Teacher, how many acupoints are there in a human body?”

Zhao Li indifferently answered, “Either 360 or 720. Or maybe 1,080. In the path of cultivation, regardless of whether it is the opening of acupoints, apertures, or the forging of cultural weapons, 36 is the number to indicate the peak of a grade or class.

“This is not a number the human race had randomly decided on. Rather, it was a conclusion derived after countless tests in the past. This is the number that suited the human race the most when it comes to cultivation. A natural law, in a way.”

Zhao Li smiled, “The Great Xia Cultural Research Academy has been in existence for hundreds of years. And Great Xia is one of the strongest human prefectures. Even so, we have only managed to gather the locations of 312 acupoints. From this, the human body likely has 360 acupoints in total. Of course, it is also possible that we’re frogs in the well and there are a lot of undiscovered acupoints out there.”

“Teacher, what do you think about me opening 360 acupoints?”

In truth, there were more acupoints Su Yu could open, such as the acupoints required for the third level of the Time technique. Including the new acupoints he discovered from this puppet and the acupoints he discovered from the Acupoint Flux Art, he can probably open 40 new acupoints. That would push his total opened acupoints to about 350.

Su Yu said, “Teacher, after coming out with this new acupoint fusion method, I have been thinking about something. With 36 acupoints, a cycle can be formed. What about 360 acupoints? Can we form a large cycle with it?”

Su Yu continued muttering, “Based on my guesses, perhaps after opening 360 acupoints, all those acupoints will automatically link up and form a new cycle. That will result in the creation of a brand new cultivation method, one that surpasses everything, one that can utilize all 360 of the acupoints in the human body.”

Zhao Li was left rather speechless. After a while, he said, “If there is really such a cultivation method, I guess you’re the only one that can cultivate it. Remember this. Nobody will be able to help you test this cultivation method out. Why? Because since the beginning of human history, nobody has opened 360 acupoints ever.”

Who would actually bother with opening so many acupoints?

Firstly, discovering those acupoints would be difficult. Without his book, Su Yu would only be able to open 312 acupoints even after learning all the cultivation methods at the Great Xia Cultural Research Academy.

Secondly, even knowing the locations of those acupoints, it was still too difficult to open them all. One would probably die from old age before opening them all.

Thirdly, not even a genius would do something like this. Only a lunatic would attempt it. How was one supposed to fuse all acupoints into one at the Mountainsea Realm after opening so many acupoints? The repelling force of all those acupoints would be crazy. In that situation, how was one supposed to even enter the Mountainsea Realm?

Su Yu did not seem to care. He had already opened so many acupoints. Why would he care about opening a few more?

“Well, I’m going to give it a try. But I still don’t know 360 acupoints. I’ll wait and see, I suppose.”