Tribulation of Myriad Races

Su Yu gave it some thought and laughed awkwardly. Fortunately, Wu Lan was arrogant enough to refuse to join through connections. Otherwise, there was no way Hong Tan would refuse Wu Yuehua.

Holy shit! How terrifying. How embarrassing would it be if he had a martial aunt like this?

Su Yu said, “I need to thank you for the choice.”

Wu Lan said, “I don’t really care what I learn as long as it’s interesting. In the past, I idolized my elder sister. I thought that strength was everything. But after the release of the Double Wu Acupoint Fusion Art, I realized that being strong alone is not better than letting everyone grow strong.

“No matter how strong you are, even if you’re an Invincible, you’re still one person. But if your creation is capable of creating ten or even a hundred Invincibles, you will be the savior of humanity. Of course, it would be even better if I could do both well.”

At that, she paused and gazed at Su Yu enviously. He was one such person. She wanted to be like that as well. Her mouth might be saying that strength was not important, but inwardly, she was envious of Su Yu’s strength. Back then, she had done a lot better than him in language tests. How annoying! Because Su Yu was too strong, she no longer dared to talk about strength in front of him. It was too embarrassing for her.

Su Yu resisted the urge to laugh.

Before long, they reached a small study in the second floor. A large stele stood in the room. Su Yu gave her a reminder, “When forming your character technique, take note of one thing. Some of them are very misleading. They might look powerful, but these are actually fake character techniques. I nearly fell for one when I was picking mine previously.”

Wu Lan nodded, “So I’ll be following you inside? Can you still enter after forming a character technique?”

“Yeah.”

If one couldn’t enter after forming a character technique, how had the past experts left the templates of their techniques in the stele? Of course, Su Yu could very easily disturb her process of picking her own character technique inside. Thus, people would generally enter this stele alone.

Someone stronger could very easily attract too many character techniques or destroy the techniques inside, ruining things for the person trying to pick a character technique. That might even cause the person picking a character technique to be lost in the stele.

“You don’t need to go with me. I’ll enter first and attract some powerful techniques toward the entrance. You can enter after that and make your choice. I’ll try my best to attract the first principal’s technique.”

After saying that, Su Yu sent his willpower into the Character Technique Stele.

***

It was a familiar experience, yet something felt different. He was greeted by the same boundless cosmos with countless stars. Each star represented a character technique. Some were bright, some were dark.

That was where the similarities ended. This time, Su Yu was able to see further than during his previous visit. Deep in the boundless cosmos, countless twinkling stars could be seen. The number of stars was a lot bigger than what he saw during his first visit.

He could also feel a small sense of rejection from the stele itself. He understood why that was happening. As someone who had formed a character technique, the stele was starting to reject him. Thus, he wouldn’t be able to stay in here for too long.

“So many stars. Does the multiple character faction have so many predecessors?”

Su Yu was very surprised. He did not feel anything when he was first here. This time, he realized something. A multiple character faction cultivator was only able to leave a single template in the stele. Meanwhile, there seemed to be countless stars in this space. Were there so many multiple character faction members in the past?

If his memories served right, only over three hundred years had passed since the first principal’s time. Even at its peak, the multiple character faction would only recruit ten new students per year. And during the recent decades, it had nearly stopped recruiting. Of the few new students it did recruit, some were without character techniques.

Over three hundred years, the multiple character faction couldn’t have recruited more than three thousand students. But…was he looking at three thousand stars? Nope.

There was also the fact that some of their members had died suddenly before they could leave a template behind. This was how many multiple character faction branches lost their legacy. Why were there so many templates here?

“This stele…is a treasure.”

Su Yu tossed the matter to the back of his mind and released his willpower. He sent all his characters out, attracting one template after another.

Supposedly, his character technique should have solidified after he became a Skysoar. But thanks to the disassembly method, he was able to disassemble his character technique, making himself look like someone without a character technique.

His characters resonated with one template after another. And these templates started heading toward him. He did not stay at the same place. He started moving while attracting the distant stars. Before long, a trail of stars followed behind him.

He scanned each one of these templates. Even the worst of them required ten characters. Some required twelve characters, and some required more. But even after a while, he failed to find anything requiring eighteen or more characters.

He noticed that some of the characters deeper in the space were exceptionally bright. But those characters were too far. A cultivator was at the risk of forever losing themselves in this space if they exhausted their willpower before forming a character technique or leaving.

As Su Yu moved, numerous thoughts rose in his mind. He wondered if he could disassemble and reassemble his character technique into all these character techniques he was seeing.

Hong Tan had a sword and a shield as his character technique. That signified that one’s character technique might be able to assume multiple forms. Could he reassemble his character technique into a form he required?

With a different form, a character technique would have different abilities. For example, he could create a Willpower Grotto. Or a Devil Battling Field. Using different characters as the cores of these forms would also result in different abilities.

“I can try it after this. If it works, I can form new characters and reassemble my character technique when required to become an omnipotent cultural researcher.”

He started observing all the templates and memorizing their structure.

Since he had formed eighteen characters, he could find a suitable character technique and imitate its form. Perhaps that way, he would be able to use an actual complete character technique and squeeze more power out of it than his current incomplete character technique.

Just imagine the scene where his opponent thought that he had a saber. He would tell his opponent that he was a shield user. He was a defensive master. Oh, the opponent thought that he was a shield user? Sorry, he was a spear user. He would stab that opponent to death.

This would be similar to his acupoints where he could use all sorts of martial techniques due to having enough acupoints. If he had enough characters, he might be able to replicate this feat with character techniques.

“In that case, I can copy Teacher’s Dragon Slaying Sword, Martial Uncle’s defensive cauldron, and grandteacher’s sword and shield…”

Su Yu grinned in amusement.

If he had the same cultivation level as Hong Tan, he could even go out and kill someone with a sword and shield while wearing a mask. That way, people would think that Hong Tan was the killer, not him.

But Su Yu wasn’t too familiar with the structure of their character techniques. He would only know if they allowed him to study their character techniques. The templates of those techniques were no longer here since they had formed those techniques. That would only change when they return to leave an imprint of their character technique.

As Su Yu moved and memorized the numerous templates, more and more stars trailed behind him. Before long, he was surrounded by hundreds of stars. Right at that moment, a massive star approached him. From afar, he saw that this was a star with eighteen characters.

“This isn’t weak. It’s at the same level as Teacher Liu’s character technique. But this shape…is this a frying pan?”

Su Yu was stunned. This was clearly a frying pan, right? Was this meant to serve as a weapon or a shield? Or perhaps it was meant to refine pills?

“Pill refinement…”

At that thought, Su Yu blanked out slightly. Right. Why couldn’t they form a character technique that could help with other professions?

“Is there anything for weaponsmiths? A furnace would be nice. Or a hammer…”

This single line of thought gave Su Yu numerous new ideas. If he could create a hammer template and include his Soul Expanding Hammer into it, just how powerful would the result be?

In the past, his hammer could only attack by itself without any amplifications. What if he could form a hammer character technique? Combining a hammer character technique and his hammer…something like that could probably smash the head of a Cloudbreach apart with one hit, right?

Damn it!

Why hadn’t he thought of this earlier? His character technique required ninety-nine characters. With the disassembly method, wouldn’t he be able to take the form any other character techniques?

“Hammer…furnace! A lid would help! No, a shield would be better! No, no, no, an armor would be even better!”

“…”

Su Yu felt as though a door to a brand new world had been opened.

Why was his mindset so stiff before this? Why only use the form of a saber? Just because he knew a saber technique and his cultural weapon was a saber, his character technique must be a saber as well? He could totally assume unlimited forms with his character technique. Wouldn’t a hammer be great?

With that new line of thought, he was no longer in any hurry to leave. He continued roaming the space while memorizing all the templates he saw. The deeper he went, the more characters the templates had. Eighteen characters, nineteen characters…the number kept increasing.

Eventually, even Su Yu himself was alarmed. These…were definitely not left by the first principal and those from that generation. The deeper he went, the bigger the stars were. He was even starting to see stars with over twenty characters. Were these…perhaps left by the ancient cultural researchers instead?

“This stele is not made by the first principal. It was most likely something he found in a ruin!”

Su Yu was greatly alarmed by this realization. This stele might be the legacy of an ancient sect or academy of cultural researchers. The first principal was not capable of creating all these templates. It wasn’t that he was too weak. But each person could only imprint a single template in a lifetime.

Abruptly, one of the stars transformed into a sword and shot toward Su Yu. Next, a different star turned into a saber and swung at him. His character technique instantly took the form of a saber and engaged the incoming sword and saber.

Holy shit!

Was this a trial?

Would he be allowed to pick these templates after defeating them?

No, that wasn’t right. He was someone with a character technique. But this would definitely be a trial for any other person. In that case, would Wu Lan be forced to defeat these templates as well?

Could she even win? Perhaps he could defeat these templates and leave them for Wu Lan to inherit? Before long, the sword and saber were defeated. The two transformed into a tiny sword and a tiny saber that obediently orbited him, looking as though they had submitted to him.