Tribulation of Myriad Races

Su Yu gazed into the distance. The space ahead still seemed boundless. Just how many character techniques were left inside this stele during the ancient times? How many characters had these ancient experts formed?

“This thing…is a treasure of inheritance! Even with the destruction of the multiple character faction, it will return as long as this stele remains.

“As long as humanity still cultivates willpower, the multiple character faction will return the moment someone finds this stele. The first principal must have obtained this stele from an ancient ruin before founding the multiple character faction.”

As of this moment, Su Yu finally knew the origin of the multiple character faction. This stele was the root of the multiple character faction.

At that realization, Su Yu swallowed nervously. His martial uncle had actually given him something that important. Was his martial uncle crazy? If he lost this stele, it would only be a matter of time before the multiple character faction stopped existing.

He smiled helplessly. Just how confident was his martial uncle in him? He wondered if his grandteacher would go crazy after learning that the stele was gone. Without the stele, what manner of faculty was Hong Tan going to start? He could only borrow the Nine Heavens Cultural Research Academy’s stele, but how many templates were there in that stele? There probably weren’t too many left. They would be starved of options.

Su Yu realized something. A lot of people had probably guessed that this stele was with him. And this stele was also the core of the multiple character faction. At the very least, that was the case in terms of legacy.

Without these stele, the multiple character faction would never be able to grow strong. Even in the future when the disassembly method became widely known, these templates would still be important. Sure, one could always create their own character techniques, but the level of difficulty would increase greatly.

“Damn it. Some people out there must know that there are a lot more templates in this stele, right? Martial Uncle had probably stayed in the books depository for so many years to protect this stele. Will anyone try to snatch it from me now that I’m the holder of the stele?”

The more Su Yu thought about it, the more his head ached. Some people might be targeting this stele. That unknown Invincible might be one of them. It could very well bring him more trouble in the future.

At this moment, Su Yu noticed another star. This was a large and bright star. This was probably the fifth or sixth twenty-character template he had seen thus far. So twenty-character templates weren’t that special, after all. It seemed quite common during the ancient times.

“Which of these is the first principal’s template?”

Su Yu was unsure. He had never seen the first principal’s template. Whatever. He decided to let Wu Lan test her luck with one of these. It wasn’t like she was guaranteed to succeed anyway.

Then again, it wasn’t completely hopeless for Wu Lan. She had also cultivated the Source Soul Cultural Art, granting her a reasonably powerful willpower. After a while, Su Yu sensed that the rate of his willpower exhaustion was increasing rapidly. It was time for him to return.

Before long, he reached the entrance. About a thousand templates trailed behind him. Ignoring them, his clump of willpower flickered and vanished from the space.

***

“Go in.” Su Yu said right after leaving, “A lot of character techniques are gathered near the entrance. Don’t let them run off. Go in quickly. Try to catch one of them.”

Wu Lan was finally starting to feel anxious. She said nothing and sent her willpower into the stele. At this point, there was nothing else Su Yu could do. She would have to rely on luck. His sea of willpower roiled as he started disassembling his character technique, separating all eighteen nodes from each other.

With the eighteen nodes, he formed a hammer. Yes. He had encountered an eighteen-character hammer template earlier. After finishing the formation, he sent his Soul Expanding Hammer inside the new character technique.

A brand new hammer appeared in his mind. This was a complete hammer character technique with eighteen nodes.

“Furball, get out.”

At that call, the confused little furball flew out of his sea of willpower.

“I’ll pay you a strand of heavenly source qi to let me hammer you once. Deal?”

The little furball blinked. One hammer? That should be fine.

“How about two?” He haggled. Heavenly source qi was very yummy.

“Sure.” Su Yu decided to be generous. He reckoned the little furball would be able to survive his hammer strike just fine.

The little furball was overjoyed at the prospect of food. But right at that moment, his furs stood on end. The hammer had descended.

Bang!

The little furball was smashed onto the ground, turning into a flat ball. After a few dozen seconds, the little furball finally recovered. When he opened his eyes, he saw Su Yu happily studying his new hammer. As for the little furball, Su Yu wasn’t worried. The little furball wasn’t dead so there was nothing to worry about.

The little furball flew toward the hammer and stared at it while salivating, “Very strong. Yummy. It smells better than before. Good man, can I eat this thing?”

“Piss off.”

Su Yu asked, “How did it feel? Was it stronger than the previous hammer?”

“Yeah! Yeah!” The little furball nodded his entire body repeatedly, “The hammer is very strong. The things that I haven’t been able to digest for a few days are all fully digested after that hammer.”

Strictly speaking, this hammer was supportive in nature. If one could withstand its hit, one would actually benefit from it. And with how durable the little furball was, he wouldn’t die from it so easily.

One ought to know that the little furball was a Cloudbreach specializing in eating characters. Even an existence like that had remained stunned for dozens of seconds. Thus, this hammer would be an ultimate weapon against ordinary cultural researchers. Dozens of seconds were enough to kill a Cloudbreach countless times over.

Su Yu grinned. He had reaped a pleasant harvest from this visit into the stele. His understanding on character techniques had also deepened considerably. Thanks to his new discovery, Bai Feng’s disassembly method seemed a lot more useful than before.

“The disassembly method might be something that doesn’t even exist during ancient times. My teacher might be garbage in strength, but this accidental discovery of his is truly incredible.”

The disassembly method was truly amazing. What a pity that it only worked up to the Cloudbreach Realm for now. Thus, Su Yu would have to finish forming his ninety-nine characters before the Mountainsea Realm.

If he were to enter the Mountainsea Realm with an incomplete character technique, things would be very troublesome for him. He turned to look at Wu Lan. She was frowning deeply, as though she had encountered a big trouble. At that, Su Yu inhaled deeply and tossed some heavenly source qi over. That would be somewhat helpful in willpower recovery.

What a pity that he lacked pure willpower as that would be even more helpful than heavenly source qi.

“If you can’t do it, just settle with a weaker template. It’s not like I have high hopes for you.”

Su Yu muttered to himself. This woman cared too much about face. She was even worse than him in that regard. She was probably stubbornly trying to get one of the twenty-character templates. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been having this much trouble with her willpower strength that was comparable to a regular Skysoar’s.

After giving Wu Lan that little help, Su Yu stared at the stele and sank into thought. It was in his best interests to keep this stele hidden. It would only bring him trouble. Sure, some people were probably suspecting that he had this stele, but nobody could be sure about it. Perhaps it was with his martial uncle instead, right? Even now, his martial uncle was still being hunted by the cult. Who could say that this stele wasn’t the reason for that?

“Character technique disassembly…” Su Yu continued practicing the disassembly and reassembly of his character technique as he mumbled, “With a hammer, I need a shock character. The Soul Expanding Hammer works by delivering a shock to one’s sea of willpower. It would work even better with a shock character. I can change my focus depending on the shape of my character technique.

“In the hammer form, I can focus on the shock character. In the sword or saber form, I can use the kill or break character as the core. In the furnace form, the five elemental characters can be the core. As an armor, a defensive character can be the core. As a…teleporter, I can use a spatial character as the core.”

More and more ideas appeared in Su Yu’s mind. His understanding of the profession of a cultural researcher continued to deepen. This trip to the stele had indeed brought him a massive benefit. As his comprehension deepened, his fire character started burning. It had been stuck at peak second-tier previously, but at this moment, it advanced to the next tier.

At the moment of advancement, a smile appeared on Wu Lan’s face as all of a sudden, the process of capturing a character technique felt much easier. The radiance of the fire enveloped her.

Prior to that, she was on the verge of failure. She had no way of conquering a twenty-character template. But the moment Su Yu’s fire character advanced, the radiance covered her before appearing inside the stele and covering the template that had been struggling violently against her.

Having sensed the radiance, the template turned obedient and allowed the exhausted Wu Lan to drag it into her sea of willpower. The capture was a success. Wu Lan opened her eyes in excitement. She was just about to report her success when she sensed the gentle radiance around her.

This was a familiar sensation.

“Su Yu…”

Turning to look at Su Yu whose eyes were shut, her first thought was that this was quite a handsome and gentle face.

And her second thought was…she caught the culprit!

Every single night, this damn radiance would envelop her body and fill her with energy. Because of that, she had been having difficulty sleeping! So Su Yu was the culprit! This damn bastard!

It had been a few days since she last slept properly. This damn Su Yu was a total bastard! He wasn’t happy with staying awake himself, but he was forcing her to stay awake as well! Wu Lan pouted furiously. But at the same time, she was also feeling very envious. This fire…seemed really impressive. She wanted something like that as well.

What an amazing fire. It could cause one to skip sleep and focus only on work. In the past, she would always doze off when working, but it had stopped happening as of late.