Chapter 112 – Fourth-Grade Nascent Soul, Nascent Soul Stage Grand Perfection Cultivation!

【You directly revealed your purpose to Luo Shuying, stating the secret passphrase and your request.】

【Luo Shuying believed you. She used her own contribution points to help you obtain many spirit medicines.】

【Over the next half year, you completed the alchemy tasks assigned by the Advent Cult’s upper echelon each month, refining three hundred pills per month, while secretly embezzling even more medicinal ingredients on the side.】

【Half a year later, you became an Elder of the Advent Cult. With your newfound freedom of status, aside from daily alchemy work, you devoted more of your energy to your own cultivation.】

【In the second year, you mastered the principles of the Minor Spirit-Gathering Formation, placing Spirit-Gathering Flowers inside it to accelerate your cultivation speed.】

【You carved out a secret chamber near the spirit-gathering formation, cultivating daily within it while consuming Dragon Spirit Pills to increase your spirit energy absorption rate. Your cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds.】

【During this year, Luo Shuying cooperated with you to strip the Advent Cult of the vast majority of their medicinal ingredients. You now possessed ample materials, enough for several years of alchemy.】

【In the third year, you deemed the time ripe and prepared to defect from the Advent Cult with Luo Shuying.】

【You contacted Lu Yuanwu in advance through Jin Congxue, gifting him tens of thousands of Essence Nurturing Pills to earn his trust, and requested that Great Xia’s upper echelon set up an ambush to eliminate the Advent Cult Protectors and Elders who would come in pursuit.】

【Great Xia’s leadership believed you and decided to dispatch three Martial Emperor-stage powerhouses and one Legendary-stage powerhouse to coordinate with your operation.】

【You were brimming with confidence. With the aid of these powerhouses, plus Luo Shuying, you could absolutely wipe out every pursuer in one fell swoop.】

【Of course, none of this was your true objective. Your real goal was to use this opportunity to eliminate Old Dog Zong and inherit his cultivation legacy!】

Su Xing’s heart stirred when he saw this, and he blurted out that this was in the bag.

“One Legendary-stage powerhouse, three Martial Emperors—Old Dog Zong, let’s see where you run this time!”

Su Xing felt a surge of excitement. If he could truly kill Old Dog Zong, he would absolutely be able to inherit all the treasures on Old Dog Zong’s person!

Su Xing clenched both fists and murmured:

“Cultivation techniques, secret manuals, pills, rare treasures—I want them all!”

Su Xing continued the simulation.

【At the agreed-upon time, you rendezvoused with Luo Shuying and secretly leaked word, announcing your defection from the Advent Cult.】

【Sure enough, the Advent Cult dispatched three Protectors and over a dozen Elders to hunt you down.】

【You successfully waited for the Great Xia powerhouses who came to provide support, and launched a counter-encirclement against these Elders.】

【You personally killed several Advent Cult Elders, while the remaining three Protectors were successfully slain by Luo Shuying working in coordination with the Great Xia powerhouses.】

【In an instant, the Advent Cult’s overall strength suffered devastating losses.】

【But what you didn’t expect was that Old Dog Zong had not participated in this operation at all. He successfully escaped the calamity.】

【Though you felt some regret in your heart, there was nothing you could do. You could only proceed with Luo Shuying toward the Capital City of Great Xia.】

Su Xing frowned slightly when he saw this and murmured:

“How is that possible? Last time Old Dog Zong came to pursue and kill me… How come this time, after I set up the ambush in advance, Old Dog Zong didn’t walk into the trap?”

“Could it be that someone in Great Xia’s leadership leaked the information, and Old Dog Zong found out ahead of time?”

Su Xing shook his head slightly. If there had truly been a leak, then not only would Old Dog Zong not have come—even the Protectors wouldn’t have come to pursue them… or the Advent Cult would have simply sent even stronger people and been done with it.

“It probably wasn’t a leak. Then why didn’t Old Dog Zong come? Could that old dog possess the ability to foresee the future? Or could it be… that the steps in this simulation were somewhat different from before?”

Su Xing couldn’t quite figure it out for the moment.

But foreseeing the future was far too outlandish. Perhaps only the legendary immortals could accomplish such a thing—ordinary cultivators couldn’t possibly do it.

So Su Xing was actually more inclined to think that something had gone slightly differently in this simulation.

After all, although the simulation projected future trajectories, Su Xing couldn’t control every single detail. There was still some gap compared to being there in person.

“Whatever. It’s just that I can’t kill this old dog for now. I’ll let him live a few more days…”

Su Xing shook his head slightly, then turned his gaze back to the simulation panel.

【After returning to the Capital City, you continued refining pills. Thanks to your alchemy talent bonus, your pill-refining skill and efficiency improved steadily.】

【Each day, you spent a fixed eight hours refining pills. The rest of your time, you devoted to diligent cultivation in the underground chamber of the Blessed Spirit Field.】

【In one year, you refined sixty thousand Essence Nurturing Pills and Organ Tempering Pills, adding over ten thousand Grandmaster-stage powerhouses to Great Xia.】

【In the fourth year, you maintained your cultivation schedule, because you discovered that after reaching the late Nascent Soul stage, advancement in realm became increasingly slow.】

【So you decided to focus on alchemy for one year first, refining all the pills that Great Xia and Luo Shuying needed in advance, so that you could devote yourself to secluded cultivation afterward without worry.】

【You spent one year refining over a hundred thousand pills in total, adding tens of thousands of Grandmaster-stage powerhouses to Great Xia. That year, the number of Grandmaster-stage powerhouses in Great Xia surpassed seventy thousand.】

【That same year, you ordered people to search Great Xia’s treasury for spirit medicines. Besides Essence Nurturing Grass and Yellow Immortal Essence, you also had them look for rare medicinal ingredients.】

【Because of the contributions you had made for the human race over these two years, you were hailed as a hero of Great Xia—a hero of the entire human race.】

【And the Tarot Society, thanks to your presence, had become the preeminent trading company in all of Great Xia. You didn’t care about this, but the Tarot Trading Company’s expansion was nothing but beneficial to you. You had the Tarot Trading Company’s people help you collect even more spirit medicines and cultivation-world treasures.】

【In the fifth year, you refined all the medicinal ingredients from Great Xia’s treasury, adding several thousand more Grandmaster-stage powerhouses to the human race.】

【At the same time, you also refined several thousand Dragon Spirit Pills and Primordial Martial Pills. You kept over a thousand Dragon Spirit Pills and several hundred Primordial Martial Pills for your own use, and contributed all the remaining pills to the Great Xia Military.】

【Thanks to your help, Great Xia gained several hundred more Heavenly King-stage Class Users.】

【In the remaining time, you refined a considerable number of Mind-Condensing Pills and gifted them to Luo Shuying, helping her and the Spirit Clan break through to higher levels of strength.】

【In the sixth year, with your help, Luo Shuying successfully advanced to become a Legendary-stage powerhouse.】

【You then spent half a year refining a batch of Healing Pills. After completing all of this, you began cultivating in earnest.】

【In the seventh year, you entered secluded cultivation for half a year, practicing daily in the underground chamber. You could feel yourself drawing ever closer to the eighth level of the Nascent Soul stage.】

【In the eighth year, after continuous secluded cultivation, you finally broke through to the eighth level of the Nascent Soul stage, advancing your cultivation further!】

Su Xing frowned slightly when he saw this.

The speed of cultivation advancement in the late Nascent Soul stage was even more difficult than he had imagined.

Excluding the two and a half years spent on alchemy, he had cultivated for nearly six years just to advance from the seventh level to the eighth level of the Nascent Soul stage.

At this rate, in this simulation he would likely just barely reach Nascent Soul stage Perfection—and that was only if he was lucky.

If he was unlucky, he might only be able to cultivate to the ninth level of the Nascent Soul stage…

“I hope I can successfully break through to Nascent Soul Stage, Grand Perfection…”

Su Xing prayed silently in his heart, then turned his gaze to the simulation panel.

【In the ninth year, you meditated and cultivated daily, frantically absorbing the surrounding spirit energy, while consuming Dragon Spirit Pills to increase your absorption speed.】

【But the path of cultivation is inherently defiance of heaven’s will. In the late Nascent Soul stage, ordinary cultivators require decades to break through a single minor realm. Although you possessed a True Spirit Root with astonishing cultivation speed, breaking through a minor realm within just a few years was still extraordinarily difficult.】

【Moreover, the harder it became to break through, the more anxious your mindset grew, which in turn affected your cultivation speed—a vicious cycle.】

【Left with no choice, you sought alternative methods. You took out the Separation Fire alchemy ancient tome, hoping to find a pill formula that could improve your cultivation speed.】

【After several consecutive days of research, you unexpectedly discovered a clue.】

【There was a pill called the Mirror Pill that could elevate a cultivator’s mental state during cultivation, reaching a state of ethereal clarity, thereby effectively improving cultivation efficiency.】

【The Mirror Pill was a low-grade pill, and its refinement process wasn’t complex. The primary ingredient, Mirror Grass, was relatively common and could even be found in the Advent Cult’s treasury.】

【What surprised you even more was that while browsing through the pills section, you discovered a pill recorded in the tome called the Nascent Soul Tempering Pill, along with several accompanying legends.】

【The Nascent Soul Tempering Pill could enhance the quality of one’s Nascent Soul. After breaking through to the Spirit Transformation stage, it would allow the cultivator’s path to extend much further, while also increasing the spirit energy capacity within one’s dantian.】

【The tome recorded that Nascent Souls were divided into lower, middle, and upper grades—three tiers. Above these three existed the perfect Nascent Soul. The only regret was that the pill formula was missing its most critical main ingredient, making it impossible for you to refine.】

Su Xing frowned slightly. The speed of Nascent Soul cultivation was already much slower than he had imagined. If he had the Mirror Pill, it might help.

But what was this business about four grades of Nascent Soul? Could Nascent Souls really be ranked by quality?

Even so, without the pill formula’s key ingredient, how could he refine the Nascent Soul Tempering Pill? How could he achieve a perfect Nascent Soul?

Su Xing felt vexed. After hesitating for a moment, he could only sigh:

“Whatever. Let me focus on raising my cultivation to Nascent Soul Grand Perfection first. Next time I go to the Luotian Assembly, I’ll ask about these four grades of Nascent Soul…”

Su Xing shook his head slightly and turned his gaze back to the simulation panel.

【Over the next half year, you successfully learned how to refine the Mirror Pill and produced several hundred of them.】

【You began consuming Mirror Pills while maintaining your cultivation. You found the Mirror Pill’s effects to be outstanding—after taking one, your mind became ethereal and clear, your entire being grew increasingly serene, allowing you to cultivate with greater focus. Your overall cultivation speed improved by thirty percent.】

【Over the following months, you took Mirror Pills daily. But eventually, you discovered this pill’s side effect: if taken consecutively too many times, the state of mirror-like clarity and focused cultivation easily devolved into sheer laziness—your entire being would enter a sage-like torpor where you didn’t feel like doing anything at all.】

【Left with no choice, you reduced the frequency of taking Mirror Pills. After consuming a few, you would pause for a day or two, and your overall cultivation speed improved by roughly twenty percent.】

【Even so, you were quite satisfied. For a low-grade pill, boosting cultivation speed by twenty percent was no small feat, and this pace was more than sufficient for you.】

【Year ten. You continued your daily cultivation. Thanks to the Mirror Pills, your mind remained calm and untroubled, and the years slipped by unnoticed as you practiced.】

【Year eleven. News arrived from the front lines of Demon-Sealing Pass that supply lines had been severed. The military fell into panic, but you promptly produced the Fasting Pills and Healing Pills you had prepared in advance, averting the crisis.】

【Year twelve. A year of diligent cultivation. You felt good — the Mirror Pills continued to provide excellent benefits, and you drew ever closer to the ninth level of the Nascent Soul stage.】

【Year thirteen. Your supply of Mirror Pills was completely exhausted, so you refined a fresh batch.】

【Year fourteen. Your cultivation finally broke through. You became a ninth-level Nascent Soul stage cultivator. Just one more step and you would reach the end of the Nascent Soul stage, becoming a Nascent Soul Grand Perfection cultivator!】

【The breakthrough to the ninth level of Nascent Soul came two years earlier than you had expected. After some quick calculations, you concluded that the remaining time would be more than enough for you to break through to Nascent Soul Grand Perfection.】

【And so you set aside an hour or two each day to attempt refining Divine Power Pills, hoping to get lucky and trigger a Spontaneous Epiphany that would allow you to successfully learn the Divine Power Pill formula.】

【Year fifteen. This year, you did not trigger an epiphany. However, because you possessed the Alchemy Prodigy talent, your study of the Divine Power Pill progressed rapidly, and you began to grasp its basics.】

【Year sixteen. You continued cultivating. The spiritual energy within your body grew increasingly dense, and you could feel yourself drawing ever closer to Nascent Soul Grand Perfection.】

【This year, Luo Shuying’s homeland was overrun by foreign races. Several thousand members of the Spirit Clan arrived on Earth in Great Xia, joining the battlefield at Demon-Sealing Pass to resist the invasion together.】

【Year seventeen. Another monotonous year of cultivation. Your cultivation remained at the ninth level of the Nascent Soul stage.】

【Year eighteen. After several consecutive years of refining, your supply of Divine Power Vine was completely depleted. Even with the Alchemy Prodigy talent boosting you, you had barely managed to produce some substandard Divine Power Pills. Your skill in refining Divine Power Pills had just barely entered the Beginner level.】

【But you chose not to consume the substandard Divine Power Pills, because you were still unsatisfied with your current strength in the Primordial Martial Realm. You believed your power could be further improved and were unwilling to do something that would exhaust your potential prematurely.】

【However, Divine Power Pills were hard to come by, and you were unwilling to let them go to waste. So you handed the several dozen pills you had refined over to the Great Xia Military, hoping to contribute something to humanity’s strength.】

【Year nineteen. You remained at the ninth level of the Nascent Soul stage, but you felt yourself drawing ever closer to Nascent Soul Grand Perfection.】

【Year twenty. To your surprise, the Divine Power Pills proved highly effective for Heavenly King-stage powerhouses. The pills you had gifted were distributed among three Heavenly King-stage powerhouses, and after consuming them, one of them successfully completed their advancement, becoming a Martial Emperor-stage powerhouse.】

Su Xing’s heart leapt with joy when he saw this. He hadn’t expected to discover yet another pill capable of helping Class Users increase their strength.

“Divine Power Pills can enhance the strength of Heavenly King-stage powerhouses. They should be very helpful for strength-type Class Users — after taking them, their power increases further, allowing them to break through to Martial Emperor-stage?”

Su Xing murmured softly to himself.

This was absolutely good news for him, because it meant Su Xing now officially possessed the ability to help humanity create Martial Emperor-stage powerhouses.

Granted, Su Xing hadn’t yet learned to refine Divine Power Pills in reality, and the supply of Divine Power Vine was limited. Whatever pills he refined, he would need to consume himself first.

But once Su Xing no longer needed Divine Power Pills for himself, he could use them entirely to boost Heavenly King-stage powerhouses, thereby creating Martial Emperor-stage powerhouses.

Even if he only created a dozen or so Martial Emperor-stage powerhouses, their impact on the battlefield might rival that of several hundred Heavenly King-stage powerhouses. Humanity’s overall strength would see a considerable boost.

“This really is good news, but for now I should focus on breaking through to the Divine Power Realm…”

Su Xing steadied himself and turned his gaze back to the simulation panel.

【Year twenty-one. You continued cultivating diligently. The spiritual energy within your body grew ever more dense.】

【Year twenty-two. Humanity suffered a setback at Demon-Sealing Pass, and the situation there took a turn for the worse.】

【The urgency in your heart deepened, and you cultivated even harder.】

【Year twenty-three. Your cultivation finally broke through — you became a Nascent Soul Grand Perfection cultivator!】

【After breaking through to Nascent Soul Grand Perfection, you sensed that your strength had reached a bottleneck. You decided to spend your remaining few years properly experiencing life.】

【Year twenty-four. Humanity suffered devastating losses at Demon-Sealing Pass. The fortress teetered on the brink of collapse.】

【Year twenty-five. Demon-Sealing Pass was completely overrun. Hundreds of thousands of Great Xia soldiers perished within its walls.】

【That same year, a monstrous beast descended and swallowed the entirety of Great Xia in a single gulp.】

【In the second before death, you raised your middle finger at the colossal beast.】

【You died!】

【Your talent Die With Eyes Open activates…】

【Ding — this simulation has ended!】

After the simulation concluded, Su Xing let out a long breath of relief.

Regardless of everything else, this simulation had finally achieved its objective — Nascent Soul Grand Perfection cultivation!

Just one more step and he could reach the Spirit Transformation stage!

At this thought, a look of elation spread across Su Xing’s face as he murmured:

“Old Dog Zong, just you wait. Your day of reckoning isn’t far off…”

Cultivating to Nascent Soul Grand Perfection had been considerably harder than Su Xing had imagined. Perhaps because of the Demon Emperor Blood Essence, Su Xing hadn’t found the Primordial Martial Realm nearly this grueling.

Su Xing closed his eyes in contemplation, carefully reviewing and summarizing his experiences from this simulation.

First was the matter of the Divine Power Pill and the Divine Power Realm breakthrough!

“With my current physical strength, I’m still far from my limit. Before breaking through to the Divine Power Realm, I should push my strength even higher — only then can I maximize my potential…”

“With enough Demon Emperor Blood Essence, perhaps my strength could reach six million jin, maybe even higher…”

Anticipation stirred in Su Xing’s heart, because the stronger one’s Primordial Martial Realm power was, the greater the amplification received upon reaching the Divine Power Realm.

Every additional million jin of strength, with the twenty-fold amplification at Divine Power Realm Grand Perfection, meant a difference of twenty million jin!

It was no exaggeration to say that a small gap at the start could lead to a vast difference at the end!

“Secondly, now that I’ve reached Nascent Soul Grand Perfection, I absolutely must figure out the matter of the four grades of Nascent Soul. Otherwise, it could affect my future path…”

For Su Xing, time was not an issue. Forget four grades of Nascent Soul — even if there were eight grades or sixteen grades, it would only mean a few more simulations.

And the more solid his foundation, the further Su Xing could travel on his future path. After all, Su Xing’s goal wasn’t the mere Spirit Transformation stage — it was immortality!

Perhaps even realms beyond that.

“The Alchemy Prodigy talent is quite nice too. While the bonus isn’t earth-shattering, it does improve my pill-refining speed and success rate… and it’s extremely helpful for learning new pill formulas. A solid support talent!”

In previous simulations, Su Xing hadn’t even reached the beginner level in Divine Power Pill refinement. But in this simulation, even without triggering an epiphany, he had managed to barely reach the Beginner level — that was a very respectable boost indeed.

Su Xing turned his gaze to the simulation reward choices before him.

【Alchemy Prodigy】: Purple talent. Price: 1,000,000 energy points.

【Nascent Soul Stage, Grand Perfection】: Qi Refinement cultivation. A Nascent Soul patriarch, just one step away from entering the Spirit Transformation stage. Price: 3,000,000 energy points.

【Twenty-Five Years of Alchemy Experience】: Alchemy insights. Slight increase in experience for previously learned pills. Newly learned: Mirror Pill (Minor Mastery), Divine Power Pill (Beginner). Price: 1,500,000 energy points.

【Minor Spirit-Gathering Formation (Principles Mastered)】: Price: 5,000 energy points.

In this simulation, Su Xing’s goal had been very clear — break through to Nascent Soul Grand Perfection. As such, the reward options left to him were somewhat limited.

Looking at the four rewards before him, Su Xing didn’t hesitate and declared directly:

“I choose the Alchemy Prodigy talent and the Nascent Soul Grand Perfection cultivation!”

There was nothing to deliberate about with the Alchemy Prodigy talent. Its bonuses were genuinely excellent. With this talent, Su Xing’s future pill-refining would become much more convenient — it was an absolute must-pick.

Beyond that, the only potential dilemma was between the alchemy experience and the Nascent Soul Grand Perfection cultivation.

In this simulation, Su Xing had successfully reached the beginner level in Divine Power Pill refinement, but he was likely still far from Minor Mastery. By Su Xing’s conservative estimate, at this pace it would take another two or three simulations to advance to Minor Mastery — the level at which it would actually be useful to him.

But Su Xing had no intention of choosing the alchemy experience.

Because it was too slow! What if next time Su Xing got lucky and directly triggered an epiphany? Then he could obtain Minor Mastery-level experience in one go.

Even if he didn’t trigger one, Su Xing could always learn several additional pill formulas — say, a few types of low-grade healing pills — and bring out more alchemy experience in a single run for greater efficiency.

Moreover, advancing cultivation in the later stages of Nascent Soul was no easy feat, and Su Xing was unwilling to spend another twenty-five years breaking through to the Nascent Soul stage.

After Su Xing made his selections, the simulator’s notification tone sounded in his ears.

【You have successfully brought out Nascent Soul Stage, Grand Perfection cultivation. Cost: 3,000,000 energy points. Remaining energy: 15,879,768 points.】

【You have successfully brought out the purple talent Alchemy Prodigy. Cost: 1,000,000 energy points. Remaining energy: 14,871,527 points.】

After Su Xing made his choices, two mysterious forces descended upon him.

First, Su Xing felt his pill-refining thoughts become considerably clearer. Even gazing at the distant pill furnace filled him with a sense of familiarity and warmth.

This was the purple talent Alchemy Prodigy taking effect.

And in the next instant, a surge of powerful breakthrough energy erupted from Su Xing’s body.

(Combined chapter for narrative continuity. Regular three-update schedule resumes tomorrow. This word count is not charged.)