Chapter 67 – Achieving a Five-Revolution Golden Core; Even Being Handsome Has Its Troubles
by spirapira【Protector Shadow hesitated for a moment, then produced an Organ Tempering Pill and asked if you were familiar with this type of pill.】
【You recognized at a single glance that this Organ Tempering Pill was one you had refined, but since no one else knew this, you shook your head and said the pill was not of your making.】
【You took the pill and examined it carefully for a while, then shamelessly praised the alchemist’s skill as far surpassing your own, claiming you couldn’t even produce this kind of pill.】
【Since for over a decade you had only been supplying the Advent Cult with substandard pills, Protector Shadow could also see that the craftsmanship of this pill far exceeded yours, and so she harbored no suspicions.】
【You feigned confusion and asked about the pill’s origin. Protector Shadow told you it came from a mysterious alchemist within the Great Xia Military, and informed you that some members of the cult suspected this pill was your handiwork.】
【You gave a bitter smile and said you couldn’t possibly refine a pill of such high quality. Protector Shadow nodded and believed you. She told you she would guarantee your safety and silence those doubters.】
【A few more days passed, and Protector Shadow along with several other Protectors came to find you. They asked if you could refine this type of Organ Tempering Pill.】
【You said you didn’t know the required ingredients, so you would need extensive experimentation to reverse-engineer the pill’s composition.】
【The Advent Cult’s leadership believed you and gave you half a year specifically to research this pill.】
【Over the next six months, you pretended to study the Organ Tempering Pill every day, but in reality you were slacking off, using the saved time to improve your Golden Core’s quality.】
【In the fourteenth year, having still failed to produce an Organ Tempering Pill, you deliberately concocted several pills with conflicting medicinal properties, giving many Elders stomachaches and killing quite a few cult members.】
【The Advent Cult gave up on having you refine Organ Tempering Pills and told you to focus on producing Essence Nurturing Pills instead. You nodded in agreement.】
【You spent one day with your eyes closed refining a batch of substandard Essence Nurturing Pills — your quota to submit to the Advent Cult for the next three months. This was how you had been doing things for over a decade.】
【In the fifteenth year, you successfully cultivated a Five-Revolution Golden Core, and your cultivation fell accordingly to the Golden Core stage ninth layer.】
【On April 7th, 2038 of the New Era, sky-blotting monstrous beasts descended upon the real world and swallowed the entirety of Great Xia in a single gulp.】
【You died. The talent Die With Eyes Open activated. All you could see was darkness…】
【Ding! This simulation has ended!】
Su Xing took note of the timing of the apocalypse.
“April 7th, 2038… that’s another year later than before. Sure enough, as long as you contribute to humanity’s overall strength, the time I have to cultivate will definitely be extended.”
“The extension might be short for now — just a few months — but later, as I grow stronger, it could extend by a year or even several years.”
The corners of Su Xing’s mouth curved upward. Two simulations had been enough for him to basically figure out the pattern for delaying the apocalypse.
Next up was the moment to claim his simulation rewards.
Su Xing turned his gaze to the reward options.
【Peerless Adonis】: Blue talent. Price: 100,000 energy points.
【Five-Revolution Golden Core Quality】: Five-Revolution Golden Core. Spiritual energy quality and capacity seventy percent higher than that of a superior-grade Golden Core cultivator. Price: 500,000 energy points.
【Fourteen Years of Alchemy Experience】: Alchemy insights. Price: 140,000 energy points.
There were only three reward options this time, since Su Xing had spent the vast majority of his time cultivating the Nine-Revolution Golden Core and refining pills.
After a moment’s hesitation, Su Xing silently declared:
“I choose Five-Revolution Golden Core Quality and the blue talent, Peerless Adonis!”
There was nothing much to say about the Five-Revolution Golden Core Quality — it was a mandatory pick.
As for Peerless Adonis, Su Xing reasoned: alchemy experience could be claimed once a week, but being handsome was a lifelong matter!!!
【Ding! You have chosen to extract the blue talent Peerless Adonis. Cost: 100,000 energy points. Remaining energy: 692,296 points.】
【Ding! You have chosen to extract the Five-Revolution Golden Core. Cost: 500,000 energy points. Remaining energy: 192,296 points.】
A notification chimed in Su Xing’s mind, and at the same time, a wondrous transformation began to occur within his body. Su Xing sat cross-legged and turned his inner vision toward the Golden Core in his dantian.
He watched as mysterious patterns gradually appeared on the surface of his originally flawless Golden Core. These markings materialized out of thin air, exuding an ancient and enigmatic aura.
One… two… five!
When all five core markings had fully manifested, Su Xing’s Golden Core once again radiated a dazzling brilliance.
At the same time, the spiritual energy within his body began to surge explosively. In mere dozens of seconds, both the quality and quantity of his spiritual energy had increased by over seventy percent.
What delighted Su Xing even more was that his cultivation had not dropped by a single realm — he was still at Golden Core Stage, Grand Perfection!
“What I extracted from the simulator was only the Golden Core’s quality, not the cultivation level itself… That works out well too. This way, I can save a year of cultivation time in my next simulation.”
A smile spread across Su Xing’s face. This was a pleasant little surprise.
After achieving the Five-Revolution Golden Core, Su Xing could clearly feel that the spiritual energy within his body was far more abundant, and his ability to mobilize it was also significantly greater than before.
After carefully sensing the changes in his cultivation for a while, Su Xing took out a mirror and gazed at his handsome face.
After studying his reflection, Su Xing murmured:
“No changes at all… Has my appearance truly already reached the pinnacle of what a mortal can achieve?”
Su Xing thought shamelessly.
But in truth, Peerless Adonis was not a talent that altered one’s physical appearance — it was a conceptual talent that altered perception!
For example, if someone originally had a looks score of sixty out of a hundred, after awakening this talent, their appearance wouldn’t change at all, but in other people’s eyes, they’d already be a ninety-nine-out-of-a-hundred peerless heartthrob!
As for Su Xing, his looks were already at ninety to begin with. Add to that the ethereal bearing of a cultivator and the Peerless Adonis talent stacking on top — to call him the most handsome man in all of history, to say he could debut as an idol on the spot, no one would doubt it.
After claiming his rewards, Su Xing didn’t slack off. He continued grinding pills just as he did every day.
Four days flew by in the blink of an eye.
Su Xing had ground away for four days and successfully refined the three hundred Beauty-Preserving Pills and five hundred Healing Pills that needed to be ready for the following week.
On this day, a woman reached out to Su Xing — not Jin Congxue, but his junior schoolmate, Wang Qingxuan.
Wang Qingxuan sent Su Xing a message, then asked to meet him in the small grove on campus.
“Could it be… the Advent Cult is about to make its move?”
Su Xing wondered to himself, but it should still be at least another half a year before the Advent Cult approached Wang Qingxuan. It shouldn’t be this early.
To be safe, Su Xing went to the grove to meet Wang Qingxuan anyway.
Wang Qingxuan, usually plain and unadorned, had broken from her usual style. She wore delicate makeup, her lustrous long hair draped over her shoulders, and she looked both innocent and captivating.
Su Xing walked up to Wang Qingxuan, handed her a steaming cup of milk tea, and flashed a sunny smile.
“What’s up, junior? What’d you need me for?”
Wang Qingxuan had been keeping her head down the whole time. She’d finally mustered the courage to say something, but the moment she looked up and saw Su Xing’s face, she became even more flustered.
“How has he gotten even more handsome after just a few days apart… Ugh, I’m completely out of his league! An ordinary girl like me should feel lucky just to be at his side…”
Wang Qingxuan thought to herself, swallowing the words she had worked so hard to muster the courage to say.
Su Xing didn’t pick up on Wang Qingxuan’s little secret thoughts. He asked, puzzled:
“If there’s something you need, just say it straight. If it’s something I can help with, I absolutely won’t hold back!”