Chapter 340: Easier Way
Chapter 340: Easier Way
“That brat is too hasty. Why is he in a rush?”
Xu Chu had been standing on top of the Isolation Training Space’s pylon tower, watching how Miaomiao trying to transform a lightning orb into a lightning elemental crystal.
From her point of view, Miaomiao didn’t have enough life essence to support more essence sea. Even if he got the devil’s gift, aka the second dantian, his physical strength, which was the main container, might not be able to contain the 4th primary element’s power.
It would definitely leak! At worst, Miaomiao’s body might self-detonate!
She clicked her tongue. If Miaomiao were to die or become crippled, the dantian space might collapse, and she might disappear along with it.
“Tsk! I guess I have no choice.”
Xu Chu jumped off the tower and flew toward Miaomiao, who had been hovering in front of the black hole in the sky.
…
[Warning, your physique cannot sustain more than 4 primary element Qi. Please refrain from solidifying or creating another essence sea even if its size is small. The conflict between elements will cause your dantian space to collapse!]
“Dammit!”
Miaomiao had thought that the risk was worth it, but he made a mistake again.
He was being too greedy. Instead of concentrating on getting the scent of earth, he tried to upgrade the space first to increase the time to train.
It was a mistake and a waste of time.
Miaomiao stopped trying to form the lightning element crystal and returned the energy into the black hole.
“Hoh? I thought you were about to commit suicide. So, your brain is a bit bigger than a peanut, I see.”
Miaomiao looked back. Xu Chu was hovering behind him.
“Ah, Senior Xu. Actually, I made a mistake just now.”
“Obviously. Not many people can have more than 3 primary elements. You have that dragon boy’s dragon fire element Qi and two other basic Qi. And now, you want to solidify another one? You’re too hasty.”
“Then, what should I do to get all my secondary elements into primary elements?”
“Duh, expand your dantian capacity first! You’re supposed to spend the next few years expanding your dantian size and cultivate your specialties! You have the gift of a massive dantian, but you didn’t even try to cultivate or refine it. Why are you rushing? Something happened in the mortal world?”
Miaomiao scratched his head and sighed. Normally, he wouldn’t answer the question. But since Xu Chu had no influence in the real world, it wouldn’t hurt to consult her.
“You see, I want to upgrade the space and increase its efficiency. Also, there’s an assessment test going on in the real world, and the tiger…”
Miaomiao revealed a bit of his system upgrade requirements and the events outside.
Upon hearing that a white tiger beast had been acting as a mortal clan’s guardian, Xu Chu burst into laughter. But when she heard about the scent of earth and the rabbit dung, she cried laughing.
“You fool! You’ve been tricked!”
“W-What?”
“That scent of earth is like a perfume. If you mingle with wild beasts for a few years, the scent will stick with your soul and your physique no matter if you want it or not. I can even smell a faint odor of monster goose from you! Also, you fucked that tiger wench in this space not long ago. Since this space connects your soul with the souls of your yin slaves, you probably have it already.”
“…”
“You’re being an overachiever,” Xu Chu shook her head. “Just summon that tiger girl and do her for a month in here, and the scent should stick around with your soul for several minutes, if lucky, an hour. That should be enough for you to negate some of that tiger’s array effects. If you’re in a hurry, extract her sweat, saliva, pee, pussy juice, or her fucking blood! Be creative, you idiot!”
Miaomiao should have done that from the beginning. He smacked his forehead for being overly greedy and having tunnel vision.
Xu Chu continued to lecture him, “Cultivation takes time. So far, you’ve already achieved a lot by abusing the time distortion space. Take it easy and solidify your foundation. Once you ascend, you will be a lot stronger than 99% of the immortals out there. Hey, if you can achieve that much in the future, I might change my mind and agree to be your familiar. I don’t mind being a sex slave for a promising young god that can potentially be a lot stronger than Samsara or the devil.”
Miaomiao got hard as the supreme succubus ancestor’s sweet voice tickled his ear. He turned to the ancestor and was about to jump her.
However, Xu Chu pushed Miaomiao away.
“Before you start fucking me, take a minute to think of your priorities. Summon that tiger girl and do her instead of me. You don’t want your soul to be smeared with my scent, do you?”
Again, Xu Chu was right. Miaomiao smiled and kissed her, thanking her for caring for him.
“I’ll become a god and make you my sex slave one day.”
“Hah! I doubt you can achieve that in a hundred years. Good luck.”
“We’ll see.”
…
One hour after Miaomiao had taken a nap, none of the test takers managed to reach the halfway mark, including Zhou Gongjin. Each of them took their time, proceeding one step at a time.
There was no problem with the stairway, but the arrays and the windstorm put their lives at risk. As all of the cultivators were under the 5th-stage, none of them could fly.
Not everyone had a dense volume of essence like Miaomiao. They could enhance their physique to decrease the fall damage, but they didn’t have enough energy to fly.
Furthermore, the gravity array made it difficult to soften the landing. The higher they climbed, the riskier it got. Half of the test takers forfeited after they had reached the 500th step as they couldn’t take the risk.
Not only the risk of death scared the test takers, but various arrays also intimidated them.
The first problem was the gravity array. Anyone who had ascended further than 500 steps would face the true trial. For each stair step they passed, their body weight would be increased by one percent.
As soon as they reached the 600th stair, their body weight would be increased by 100%! This array tested the cultivator’s physical strength, foundation, and willpower.
Aside from the 6-man team and Zhu Qiao’s party, only a hundred youths out of 5,000 managed to cross the 1,000 steps mark.
However, from the 1,001st step onward, a new array put their mind to another test while their body weight continued to increase.
From the 1,001st step to the 1,500th, various hypnosis spells would hit their mind, creating random illusions.
Currently, Zhu Qiao stood at the 1,350th step, and she couldn’t proceed forward. From her point of view, all stair steps had disappeared, and the mountain island had already moved further away!
A similar vision clouded her subordinates’ minds. The other three girls were also stuck as they couldn’t see any path other than the way down. Moreover, the windstorm and the instability hypnosis threatened to throw them to the sky even though their current weight was almost half a ton.
The 6-man team of young masters from rich clans was far worse. Their progress was slowed down after they reached the 1,001st step as they were scared by the illusion, created by their greatest fear.
Their leader’s name was Chen Lan, the young master from the Great Merchant Chen family. As he came here to establish a connection to the Jiangdong White Tiger Sect, he carried a lot of burden on his back.
Yet, he, too, got stuck at the 1,200th step. He faced the same dilemma that Zhu Qiao and others had been facing.
“How the fuck can we proceed!? There is no stair ahead!!”
“The stairs are leading me to the other way, but I clearly remember that it should go forward! This is an illusion to trick our mind,” The other youth yelled, believing that he had been tricked. As such, he reached out to feel the physical stair in front of him.
Unfortunately, his hand found nothing. At the same time, the windstorm and the unstable weight of his body tilted his body balance, and he stumbled forward.
“NOOOO!!”
He fell from the stair.
“YOUNG MASTER!!”
Several guardians of the youth’s clan rushed over and caught him before he hit the ground. The youth was saved.
[The moment you fall or forfeit, you’ve failed. You cannot take this test again!]
The tiger disqualified him on the spot. It also declared.
[All test takers must start climbing the stairway before the sunset! After the sun goes down, the first 1,000 steps will be dispersed, and everyone on it will be disqualified! All stragglers on the ground will be disqualified as well!]
The message was directed to many youths, who took the wait-and-see stance and had been observing the others from the sideline.
Being warned by the tiger, remaining test-takers began climbing the stairs in frantic.
…
The leading person, Zhou Gongjin, was 100 steps ahead of Zhu Qiao. The smell of rabbit poop allowed him to come this far, but he had just discovered notorious traps in front of him.
Attaching under the 1,401st to the 2,000th step were several orbs, charged with fire element Qi. Zhou Gongjin knew what they were.
They were the infamous booby traps, which the sinister white tiger had prepared for exam takers that he didn’t like.
‘In the previous timeline, Zhu Qiao was the only one who crossed the 2,000th step mark, but she failed because the tiger didn’t like her guts. Ling Tong took the same test next year, but he stepped on the trap and almost got himself killed. In the end, Ling Tianlong was the only one who won the favor of that tiger that year…’
Zhou Gongjin recounted the event timeline that he had experienced in the previous life before he returned to the past.
‘As long as I can steal Ling Tianlong’s luck and fortuitous encounters, I should be able to prevent the destruction of the Jiangdong White Tiger Sect and the death of Sun Bofu. With the tiger’s bloodline, I should be able to convince Mao Xueyan and Ma Moxi’s forces to join our alliance, and we can take care of Liu Xuande and Ling Tianlong together. I also need to kill Yuan Shaoqing and recruit both Zhang He and CJ. There’s also that eccentric Ding Bu, but everything has changed. Xie Tian is already dead, but the Wei Clan is still active…’
Zhou Gongjin had several goals that involved dealing with other otherworlders. However, instead of gathering promising allies or killing future enemies, Zhou Gongjin decided to take it slow and complete his goal, one at a time.
He also paid attention to the variable, which he had no knowledge of.
Zhou Gongjin looked down and checked on Miaomiao’s progress.
Upon seeing that Miaomiao was still taking a nap, Zhou Gongjin was disappointed.
‘I have no knowledge of someone from the Cao Clan. He didn’t even exist in the previous world. The initial intel said that he fled from the Red Sun City because of the mass arson, but Dong Zhongying should have razed that city in the next four years. Haiz, the timeline is so messed up that I can’t rely on them anymore.’
Zhou Gongjin disregarded the existence of Miaomiao as he took a deep breath. From here point on, he would start running through the minefield.
He unsealed his cultivation base, revealing his yang essence. The Qi and Essence in his body surged, and his body felt a lot lighter.
‘Here goes nothing!’
Zhou Gongjin charged ahead. And as he had expected, several booby traps had been triggered.
BOOM
BOOM
…
Two hours after the test had started, Miaomiao opened his eyes and stood up. Then, he gazed at the stairway.
Young cultivators occupied every stair step below the 1,000th step. Beyond that point, it became a battlefield.
Several hot-blood youths began fighting among each other, earning their foothold and plowing through the obstacles.
‘Dafuq?’
Miaomiao found their action stupid since they should have saved their strength to climb the stairs. Moreover, it had been hours after the test had started, and they hadn’t reached the halfway mark yet.
He looked higher, searching for the leading groups.
At the entrance of the sect, the youth that had eaten the rabbit dung had already reached the goal. As for the cloaked women, they got stuck somewhere near the 2,000th step. As for the men who had mocked Miaomiao earlier, they were halfway through.
‘As expected of a protagonist, he got there first. Oh well, since Dion nagged me so much that I didn’t have enough time, I have to start now.’
Miaomiao had dual-cultivated with Mao Dandan for only less than 100 hours. Even though he had no confidence that the scent of the earth would stick, he had another way to fool the tiger.
He took out several vials of transparent fluid and yellow fluid from his system inventory. They were the bodily fluid from Mao Dandan’s lower mouth and her urine, which he had asked her to take from the real world.
Strangely, Miaomiao didn’t want to eat the rabbit poop, but he was okay about drinking pussy juice or soaking himself with the girl’s urine.
After smearing himself with the smell of sex and the tiger girl’s juices, Miaomiao swagged toward the staircase.
“Make way, bitches! Daddy is coming through!”
Without waiting for the people to make a path, Miaomiao jumped on top of their heads and started climbing the stairway.