Tribulation of Myriad Races

“Fine.”

Su Yu felt very helpless. These two seemed incapable of providing him with any useful information.

Probably embarrassed at being unhelpful, Grandstar hurriedly said, “I can see that you are near completion of your body forging. However, your source qi transformation is still somewhat flawed, or incomplete, to be precise. You have only converted part of your acupoints, but the intermediary or material used for the transformation is quite impressive in quality. Did you use the saber qi of Xia Family as the basis of your transformation?”

“Yeah.”

Grandstar said, “The saber qi you used is near the level of an Eternal. Thus, you need someone of similar strength to help transform the rest of your acupoints and complete the first of your nine transformations.”

Su Yu nodded.

Grandstar said, “Since your 144 acupoints have been transformed with a cultivation method as the foundation, I suggest that you do the same for your remaining acupoints. Perhaps you can get a unique power from the divines, devils, immortals, or dragons to serve as the seed for the rest of your acupoints.”

Su Yu nodded again. This time, he was impressed with how keen Grandstar was. He considered the suggestion. To complete his first transformation, he would require the help of powerful experts from seven or eight races. That was because his 360 acupoints had been derived from the cultivation methods of numerous races.

The saber qi of Xia Longwu was only able to transform 144 of his acupoints because those were the acupoints of the Sky Sundering Saber. Seeing that Su Yu was finally impressed, he exhaled in relief. How dare the kid look down on him? Would the kid finally understand how impressive he was?

Grandstar said, “In your current state, source qi transformation will be very difficult and inconvenient since you cultivate too many cultivation methods. It’s like you’re walking in multiple directions at once. Be careful lest the cultivation methods clash with each other. Since you have opened the grand cycle acupoints, you should circulate them with the proper grand cycle cultivation method and harvest the power of the grand cycle.”

“Grand cycle cultivation method?”

Grandstar said, “Yes. Your current cultivation is too messy. You don’t have a proper system to govern all your acupoints. You have no way of fully utilizing the strength of all these acupoints you have opened.

“You are not the only person in history to have opened the grand cycle acupoints. Do you think that the geniuses during the ancient past would do the same and utilize a messy mix of cultivation methods to circulate their grand cycle acupoints?”

In fact, the bigger question was Su Yu’s opening of the grand cycle acupoints. How did he do that? It was not supposed to be possible.

Humanity had lost the knowledge regarding the 360 acupoints. The difficulty of opening the 360 acupoints in this age was far higher than the difficulty during the ancient past. That was because many of these acupoints had been forgotten and there was no proper cultivation method to open them.

Thus, this was the biggest mystery of all. How had one opened these acupoints without the proper cultivation method?

Of course, Grandstar could see that Su Yu had gathered the 360 acupoints from numerous different cultivation methods. But some of these cultivation methods came from some other races. How did Su Yu modify all of them to suit the human body?

Some people had some guesses about how he had accomplished this, but nobody had said anything about it thus far. As for the possibility of him accomplishing that through sheer talent, that was quite impossible.

To effectively convert the cultivation method of one race to another, one would probably need to dissect hundreds of thousands of corpses of each race to gain sufficient knowledge to do that manually. It was clear that he had done the conversion through some unique methods.

Su Yu muttered, “Right! A grand cycle method! Since the grand cycle has been opened in the past, a cultivation method for the grand cycle must exist out there! Is this the case, Lord?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know it?”

“No.”

What a stupid question.

He added, “But I suspect such a cultivation method might exist in the Luminous Domain Mansion. That used to be a place of incomparable glory. Numerous powerful cultivation methods exist there. But there is no guarantee that you will be able to find it. If there is such a cultivation method there, it will only exist in the highest level.”

Su Yu was rendered quite speechless. As far as he was concerned, something that could only be found in the highest level might as well not exist. But he wasn’t too bothered.

He said, “It’s fine. Lord, I believe since those of the ancient past were capable of creating such a cultivation method, I can do the same. Since I know so many cultivation methods and the location of all these acupoints, I can simply keep trying to circulate them.”

“Through trial and error, I can try the numerous combinations and circulation routes. Hmm…” He laughed awkwardly, “It will require a large number of attempts.”

A scarily large number of attempts.

With an awkward laugh, Su Yu decided to forget about it. The number of attempts would be large enough that even if he had each human in existence attempt a potential combination for him, he would not have enough humans to complete the trial.

Of course, there were smarter ways of creating cultivation methods instead of randomly trying all potential combinations.

As Su Yu had tried deriving cultivation methods before, he knew that there was a set of rules that all cultivation methods followed.

Grandstar said, “You will create it yourself? You will probably fail. You are better off looking for the grand cycle method used during the ancient past. It is much better to complete the transformation of your acupoints as a whole instead of transforming them separately. That will split your acupoints into chunks of different power systems, making it far harder for you to fuse all your acupoints into one in the future.”

“At that time, entering the Sunmoon Realm will be almost impossible unless you give up on some of your opened acupoints.”

Su Yu nodded. That was true. In that case, he really had to enter the Luminous Domain Mansion.

He asked, “Lord, are you sure this cultivation method exists in the mansion?”

“Nothing is guaranteed, but the likelihood is quite high.” Grandstar said, “The most likely places for this cultivation method to exist are the Luminous Domain Mansion and the Human Realm. The opening of grand cycle acupoints was a feat almost exclusive to humanity during the ancient past. Of course, those from the divine, devil, and immortal races had also produced such geniuses in the past, but the majority of these absolute geniuses were humans. Of course, I don’t know more than that. The acupoints of each race are different. It is advisable that you find the version used by the ancient humans. The versions of the other races can only be used as reference.”

Su Yu nodded, “I wonder if any of these geniuses had died in the Luminous Domain Mansion with their corpse left behind. That would help a lot.”

As long as he had the corpse of one such individual, it would help regardless of race. He only needed the blood essence from the corpse.

Perhaps his golden book would help convert the cultivation method into a version suited for the human body. Of course, the corpse also mustn’t belong to too strong an expert or he wouldn’t be able to withstand the pressure of the blood essence harvested from such a corpse. The grand cycle method might not be a foundation cultivation method, which was the method his golden book would usually extract, but things might be different for the blood essence of someone who had opened the grand cycle acupoints, right?

If he had to, he could also extract the memories of the deceased expert from the blood essence for the cultivation method.

Grandstar said, “You shouldn’t be placing your hope in a corpse. A genius with the grand cycle acupoints opened won’t die so easily. When such a person dies, they will most likely be in the Death Realm. The corpse of such a genius is almost impossible to stumble upon.”

Su Yu asked, “Lord, can the living enter the Death Realm?”

“Hmm?”

Su Yu’s eyes lit up as he said, “From your words, many geniuses had actually risen from the dead in the Death Realm. Some of them should still have some of their past memories, right? If I can find a genius who had opened the grand cycle acupoints in the Death Realm…”

Suddenly, Xing Yue said, “Even if there are such individuals in the Death Realm, they are beyond the reach of the likes of you.”

Su Yu flashed a fawning smile and said, “Lord Xing Yue, I am quite curious about the Death Realm. Since it’s only a matter of time before I become your subordinate and do battle in the Death Realm for you, I should learn more about it, right? I’m really curious. Just what kind of a place is the Death Realm? Are there many experts in there? Or are there only death sovereigns in there?”

He had suddenly developed an intense curiosity toward the Death Realm. No corpse of ancient Invincibles had ever been found. Perhaps that was because all of them had transformed into death spirits?

So they were all in the Death Realm? All Invincibles to have ever existed? That would be terrifying. There was a proper Emperor in the ancient past, and that Emperor was dead. Was the Emperor in the Death Realm as well?

Holy shit!

Before this, the Death Realm did not seem too scary for him. But now that he was putting some thoughts into it, the Death Realm was actually an extremely terrifying place.

Xing Yue ignored him.

With a fawning smile, Su Yu urged, “Lord Sovereign, don’t be like that. We’re family! You’re my direct superior! I’m really curious. Is the Death Realm big? Are there many experts in there? Are you the boss down there? But Yanmo does not seem to have any respect for you. How dare he? Yanmo was an ancient devil. How about you, Lord? Maybe you used to be a human! In that case, we’re family!”

Xing Yue ignored him again.

Grandstar laughed in amusement and answered, “The Death Realm is…very big. There are many experts there. Too many. Most of them are in slumber. Or to be precise, they exist in a somewhat sealed state. Time does not exist for them. Space does not exist for them. Some are simply resting in the Celestial River of Death. A death sovereign like Xing Yue has regained part of her memories. That is the origin of her desire to dominate. The weaker death spirits are without any intelligence. They can only roam around aimlessly or simply remain idle without any purpose in their existence. Those far stronger than Xing Yue will also remain without purpose since the memories of such experts are far harder to return.”

Su Yu drew his own conclusion from that explanation.

He exclaimed in surprise, “So you mean that death sovereigns like Xing Yue are only the middle of the pack? They have just enough strength to regain some of their memories, but they are not the best of the best. With the recovery of memories impossible for the weak and too difficult for the truly strong, the mediocre ones are running about believing they own the place?”

That was pretty much it. But why must he be so honest? Being so honest might further provoke Xing Yue. Sure enough, the tunnel started trembling again as Xing Yue roared madly in fury.

This was intolerable! She swore she would kill this little bastard! How dare he?

Grandstar suppressed her and said, “You can see it that way. It is very difficult for the truly strong ones to complete the conversion into death spirits. They might remain in the Celestial River of Death, but they won’t exist as proper death spirits. A death spirit without any intelligence is no better than a corpse. People like Xing Yue are lucky that they are not too weak, yet not too strong, to regain some memories. Such death spirits will instinctively move toward the death tunnels due to their desire to return to the world of the living.”

Understanding dawned on Su Yu.

The overall strength of the Death Realm was unbelievably powerful. A lot of dead experts had been brought to that realm. However, most of them were akin to puppets. No matter how strong a puppet was, it would not be too terrifying.

Su Yu said, “So the lesson from that is if you must die, you shouldn’t die too strong or you won’t even regain your memories after death. Even if you die, you must die a balanced death. Wow. It sure is difficult being a death spirit.”

“That’s right. For example, the death spirits you killed previously were mostly mindless puppets. They only attacked you due to the guidance of some ancient laws. They did not possess any independent thoughts. Only at the ninth-stage Sunmoon and beyond would they start regaining some of their memories.”

Su Yu smiled, “In that case, Lord Xing Yue must have died a balanced death. Congratulations, Lord Xing Yue.”

Damn it! Xing Yue had stopped raging despite her fury. She had discovered that the more she raged, the more provocative Su Yu would become.

Su Yu merely giggled. He greatly enjoyed the feeling of making people so annoyed they wanted to kill him yet couldn’t. This was the best kind of feeling.

Regardless, he had learned a lot from this conversation. He also knew where to focus his efforts moving on. If he had to, he would need to enter the Death Realm and have a nice chat with some death spirits who had opened the grand cycle acupoints.

Of course, he would only do that when he was desperate enough. And he wasn’t that desperate yet. After all, Xing Yue would probably be the first to tear him apart after he entered the Death Realm.