Chapter 164 – An Unexpected Epiphany, Projection-Level Elemental Force Minor Mastery! (5k)

Su Xing nodded slightly at this, murmuring:

“Indeed. Two million jin of spirit rice, averaged out, can supply between two hundred thousand and three hundred thousand university students per year… That quantity is manageable, but any more than that and even the Tarot Trading Company probably couldn’t withstand the conflicts of interest behind the scenes…”

Su Xing did a quick calculation.

Providing two million jin of spirit rice per year was less than a tenth of what Su Xing could produce.

The remaining spirit rice could be stockpiled and traded later when needed.

One million jin of spirit rice earned mining rights to two mine dungeons.

And with two million jin, the number of mine dungeon mining rights should increase to four!

That meant his weekly simulation energy output could increase by roughly another 30 million!

Calculated this way, it wouldn’t be long before Su Xing’s stable weekly simulation energy harvest reached sixty million!

“Sigh, this will have to do for now… Without exposing myself and inviting danger, sixty million energy per week is pretty good!”

Su Xing murmured.

For Su Xing at his current stage, sixty million energy per week, plus the occasional shakedown of the Baili family, was more than enough!

But if Su Xing’s cultivation advanced further… it probably wouldn’t be sufficient.

“Sigh, I hope that after the Void-Shattering Realm, the energy needed per minor sub-realm doesn’t reach something as absurd as a hundred million?”

Su Xing prayed silently.

Otherwise, at a hundred million per sub-realm, just to advance his cultivation by one minor level, Su Xing would need to save up energy for two whole weeks…

His gaze turned to the simulation panel.

【After finishing your discussion with Jin Congxue, you gave her another one million jin of spirit rice.】

【To determine whether this transaction would pose any danger to you, you stayed at school as usual and didn’t rush to join the Advent Cult.】

【Each day, aside from cultivating, you spent your time farming in the spirit field blessed land.】

【Whenever you returned to the real world, you extended your divine sense outward, observing whether anyone was monitoring you.】

【You also maintained contact with Jin Congxue, asking whether anything unusual had occurred on her end, but she reported nothing abnormal.】

【Thus, a year passed. No one from Xia’s military came looking for you, and things remained unchanged on Jin Congxue’s side as well.】

【What had changed was that all university student Class Users now received spirit rice as part of their annual subsidies. Outstanding students could receive ten to thirty jin of spirit rice per year.】

【During this year, you encountered no danger, and half the weight on your heart was lifted.】

【But to be cautious, you decided to stay at school for another year to observe the consequences of trading spirit rice with Xia’s military.】

【In the second year, you continued consuming three hundred drops of spirit liquid daily for cultivation, and your cultivation advanced steadily.】

【According to your calculations, consuming three hundred drops of spirit liquid daily, it would take exactly twenty-five years to exhaust the supply, achieving maximum efficiency in cultivation growth.】

【Aside from cultivation, you also began strengthening your mastery of elemental force each day, and occasionally studied the Sword-Controlling Technique when the mood struck.】

【Nothing happened this year. You remained safe as always, with no one tracking or attempting to assassinate you within your divine sense range.】

【In the third year, the weight on your heart was completely lifted, and you prepared to join the Advent Cult!】

Su Xing let out a long breath of relief at this, unable to suppress the upward curl of his lips.

“Wonderful, it seems this transaction carries no risk!”

Compared to gaining four additional exotic metal mines, what Su Xing cared about more was his own safety.

After all, only by staying alive could he have a better future.

“At the very least, trading two million jin of spirit rice per year… there won’t be any danger within two years!”

Su Xing relaxed slightly, then continued:

“Heh, as for two years later… damn it, this young master went from nothing to the Spirit Transformation stage in less than a year!”

“Two years from now, this young master will probably already be an immortal. Would I even need to worry about such things?”

This was Su Xing’s confidence in himself.

Because at his current rate of growth, it might not even take two years—perhaps even less.

He could break through that shackle and achieve the status of an immortal. At that point, would he even spare a glance at the petty danger posed by some spirit rice?

“Only because you’re so beautiful~ ohoh~”

Su Xing was in a good mood, humming a retro tune as his gaze returned to the simulation panel.

【You traveled to Shuangqing City in Southwest Province and found Old Dog Zong without much effort.】

【You then exchanged Life-Sustaining Pills for a batch of medicinal ingredients and an opportunity to join the Advent Cult.】

【Because of your extraordinary strength, you were immediately granted Elder status upon joining the Advent Cult.】

【Afterward, you employed the same methods as before, reaching out to Luo Shuying and successfully gaining her trust.】

【Over the following year, you devoted yourself to cultivation while setting aside time to refine pills.】

【In one year, you refined fifty thousand pills, while your cultivation and mastery of elemental force continued to advance.】

【In the fourth year, you continued lying low within the Advent Cult, attending to your own affairs. Besides refining pills, you also cooperated with Luo Shuying in embezzling large quantities of the Advent Cult’s spirit medicines.】

【That same year, your cultivation made a minor breakthrough, drawing ever closer to Spirit Transformation Eighth Layer.】

【In the fifth year, having taken the vast majority of the Advent Cult’s spirit medicines, you determined the time was ripe to defect.】

【So you made a grand show of treating Old Dog Zong to a meal, then took Luo Shuying and defected from the Advent Cult.】

【You and Luo Shuying went to Xia’s military and accepted their protection.】

【Old Dog Zong, as expected, was hunted down.】

【That year, you produced over one hundred thousand pills. Because of the exceptionally high rate of top-grade pills, you added over thirty thousand Grandmaster-stage Class Users and several hundred Heavenly King-stage powerhouses to Great Xia.】

【In the sixth year, after arriving in Capital City, your life was as disciplined as ever.】

【You consumed three hundred drops of spirit liquid daily while cultivating the Thousand Blazing Flame Art for six double-hours.】

【The rest of your time was devoted to practicing elemental force and refining pills.】

【That year, you refined another fifty thousand pills, adding nearly twenty thousand Grandmaster-stage powerhouses to Great Xia.】

【In the seventh year, you used up the last of the medicinal ingredients brought from the Advent Cult, adding yet another large batch of powerhouses to Great Xia.】

【That same year, with the aid of spirit liquid and an earth-grade cultivation art, your cultivation finally broke through!】

【You became a Spirit Transformation Eighth Layer cultivator!】

Su Xing nodded slightly at this, murmuring:

“Refining pills on one hand, cultivating elemental force on the other, and still managing to break through in Spirit Transformation within seven years—the spirit liquid’s effects are truly formidable!”

Su Xing was very satisfied with this.

At this pace, once the time spent on pill refinement was freed up, Su Xing’s cultivation speed would only increase.

Breaking through to Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection in this simulation was no longer a dream!

【In the eighth year, you spent only half a double-hour each day on pill refinement to maintain your touch.】

【The rest of your time was invested entirely in cultivation.】

【As time continued to advance, your mastery of elemental force grew ever more refined. You could feel that you were not far from reaching Projection-level elemental force.】

【In the ninth year, during a break from cultivation, you made a trip to the Immortal Martial Era dungeon.】

【Sure enough, you discovered traces of Old Dog Zong within the dungeon.】

【You then spent half a month hunting him down and killing him, erasing his primordial spirit.】

【In the tenth year, you returned to the real world and continued your cultivation.】

【With Illumination Pills combined with spirit liquid, your cultivation grew rapidly, improving every single day.】

【In your monotonous cultivation life, you felt no boredom. On the contrary, you were content and at ease each day.】

【In the blink of an eye, another two years passed.】

【In the twelfth year, your mastery of elemental force grew ever more refined. Your Entwinement-level elemental force could not only cover your entire body but had even begun showing a faint tendency to separate from it.】

【You knew in your heart that you were not far from the third stage of elemental force—Projection-level!】

【In the thirteenth year, on a pleasant, sunny morning, you cultivated elemental force as usual.】

【Suddenly, you felt a stirring in your heart, and the elemental force within your body began to tremble slightly.】

【With that, your mastery of elemental force naturally and seamlessly reached the third level—Projection-level!】

【Having re-cultivated to Projection-level elemental force, you were overjoyed and couldn’t wait to test it out.】

【According to Ghost Granny, elemental force could nurture a spirit sword, and since you were a sword cultivator, this would allow the sword to become your destined spiritual treasure.】

【But your mastery of elemental force projection was not yet proficient enough. Rather than recklessly nurturing the spirit sword, you instead focused on continuously strengthening your control of elemental force!】

Seeing this, Su Xing couldn’t help but feel a surge of excitement.

“Whew, even though I chose the Thousand Blazing Flame Art in the last simulation to guarantee a breakthrough to Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection, the third stage of elemental force is still incredibly tempting!”

“No matter what, when this simulation ends, I absolutely must bring out the elemental force insights!”

“I want to see just how powerful Projection-level elemental force really is!”

Su Xing was already burning with impatience at the prospect of his soon-to-skyrocket strength.

His gaze turned to the simulation panel.

【Year Fourteen: You trained day and night without rest, and your Qi Refinement cultivation took another great leap forward. You were now just one step away from the Ninth Layer of the Spirit Transformation stage!】

【At the same time, after your elemental force reached Projection-level, you continued practicing your mastery of it every day. Your elemental force grew increasingly dense and powerful.】

【Year Fifteen: Heaven rewards the diligent. Your cultivation finally broke through.】

【Congratulations on becoming a Ninth Layer Spirit Transformation stage cultivator!】

Su Xing let out a long breath of relief at the sight of this.

He had reached the Ninth Layer of Spirit Transformation by Year Fifteen. With ten years still remaining, reaching Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection was all but guaranteed!

“Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection, plus Divine Power Realm at Perfection, combined with Sword Momentum and Projection-level elemental force…”

“With strength like this, I should truly deserve the title of number one beneath the legendary rank, shouldn’t I?!”

Su Xing couldn’t help bobbing his head with satisfaction.

He was certain that forget little old Earth — even in the cultivation world, below the Void-Shattering and Void Return realms, his current strength should rank among the very best.

His gaze turned to the simulation panel.

【Year Sixteen: Your breakthrough in cultivation did not make you complacent. Neither arrogant nor impatient, your mind remained calm as you pressed toward your final goal — Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection!】

【Year Seventeen: Despite the assistance of Xia’s military, Luo Shuying’s homeworld was still conquered by the foreign races.】

【Several thousand Spirit Clan members fled to Demon-Sealing Pass and joined the battlefield there.】

【During this period, you made a special trip to observe the Demon-Sealing Pass battlefield and discovered that after the Spirit Clan’s world fell, the number of demon beasts at the pass had increased considerably.】

“Hm?”

Su Xing raised an eyebrow at this. This was a piece of information he had never paid attention to before.

Judging from Luo Shuying’s situation, the coordinates of her homeworld should be relatively close to Earth, with a dedicated dungeon teleportation point connecting them.

It was precisely because of this that Luo Shuying and the Spirit Clan had been able to come to Earth in the first place.

But after the Spirit Clan was wiped out, the pressure on Demon-Sealing Pass increased and the number of demon beasts grew.

This meant that after the foreign races conquered other worlds, their forces might be redirected to the next target world.

“Then… following this logic, when those hundreds of legendary-rank demon beasts arrived at Demon-Sealing Pass at the twenty-five year mark…”

“Doesn’t that mean some powerful world was conquered by the demon race, freeing up more of their forces to invade other worlds, which is what brought all that pressure crashing down on Earth?”

Su Xing fell into deep thought.

Based on this pattern, the probability was very high!

“If that’s the case, then perhaps that world with formidable combat power isn’t far from Earth either, which is why the demon race chose to attack Earth’s Demon-Sealing Pass as a nearby target!”

“But if that world could hold out longer, wouldn’t that mean the time before Demon-Sealing Pass falls could be delayed?!”

At this thought, Su Xing’s eyes lit up.

After all, the most precious resource for Su Xing was time.

If the fall of Demon-Sealing Pass could be delayed by five years, then Su Xing would gain five extra years of cultivation in every simulation! One year of real time equaled over two hundred years of simulation time — that was equivalent to gaining fifteen additional simulations out of thin air!

How could Su Xing not be tempted by that?

“Perhaps… when the opportunity arises in the future, I should investigate which worlds were conquered during that critical window between years twenty-three and twenty-five.”

Su Xing silently committed this to memory and turned his gaze back to the simulation panel.

【Year Eighteen: The fall of her homeland left Luo Shuying with even fewer smiles on her face.】

【Between training sessions, you did not forget to check on Luo Shuying. After a heartfelt conversation, she seemed considerably more cheerful.】

【That same year, your mastery of elemental force improved modestly. You could now flexibly control the range of your elemental force projection.】

【And so, another two years of arduous training passed.】

【Year Twenty: The difficulty of breaking through from the Ninth Layer to Grand Perfection of the Spirit Transformation stage was higher than you had anticipated.】

【Even though you consumed spirit liquid daily and your cultivation art afforded a faster cultivation speed, you still felt a considerable gap remained before Grand Perfection.】

【But you never gave up, persisting each day in absorbing and refining spiritual energy to advance your cultivation.】

【Year Twenty-One: Your mastery of elemental force grew ever more skillful. You could now crudely wrap elemental force around the Blackice sword.】

【You could feel that under the enhancement of elemental force, the Blackice sword’s hardness and destructive power had both improved significantly.】

【Year Twenty-Two: Your arduous training finally bore fruit. With the explosive release of accumulated power, your cultivation took a great leap forward.】

【You could feel that Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection was no longer far away.】

【Year Twenty-Three: One day, as you were training your elemental force as usual, you suddenly felt a stirring in your heart. Your perception of elemental force became extraordinarily vivid and clear.】

【Time seemed to slow before your eyes. Every subtle shift and change in your elemental force was laid bare with perfect clarity.】

【You recognized that you had once again entered a state of epiphany. Suppressing the excitement surging in your chest, you seized the moment and practiced manipulating your elemental force over and over.】

【Under the enhancement of this epiphany state, you were free of all distractions, as if the entire world had been reduced to nothing but elemental force.】

【And so, your mastery of elemental force improved at a breathtaking pace.】

【Your elemental force, which had previously only been able to extend three centimeters from your body, rapidly grew to ten centimeters, then to thirty centimeters away from your body.】

【Though the growth was measured in mere centimeters, for a Body Tempering cultivator, every inch of reach was an inch of power.】

【Elemental force projection reaching thirty centimeters undeniably expanded your attack range by more than double.】

【Before an enemy could even touch you, your elemental force could already wound them.】

【Within the epiphany, you perceived the true nature of elemental force and discovered that it was not merely the hardest spear and the sturdiest shield — it could also be the gentlest of powers.】

【You directed your elemental force to creep slowly, inch by inch, until it had enveloped the entire Blackice sword within it.】

【Elemental force could not only fully cover your body but could even extend to coat the weapon in your hand!】

【You wanted to further explore the wondrous applications of elemental force and attempted to use it to nurture and temper the spirit sword in your hand.】

【But just as you were about to try, that transcendent state rapidly faded away.】

【In the blink of an eye, you went from a genius who could see through all things in the world to an ordinary mortal.】

【This left you with a lingering sense of melancholy you could not shake!】

【Your epiphany state has ended!】

【After the epiphany ended, you glanced at the time and discovered that this epiphany had lasted a mere two days.】

【Yet those two short days of epiphany had propelled your mastery of elemental force from the beginner stage of Projection-level all the way to Minor Mastery-level!】

【Your control over elemental force became far more refined, precise down to the finest increment. At the same time, both the quality and total volume of your elemental force were growing rapidly!】

Looking at the long stretch of simulation text before him, Su Xing could not hide the pleasant surprise in his heart.

“It actually triggered a Spontaneous Epiphany!”

“From having just reached Projection-level elemental force, it jumped straight to Minor Mastery!”

There was excitement in Su Xing’s voice. His original expectation had been merely to reach the beginner stage of Projection-level.

He never imagined this simulation would deliver such a huge surprise. Minor Mastery-level mastery of elemental force was far more than just one tier above Beginner-level! Most importantly, his elemental force would become much denser and more abundant, meaning Su Xing could sustain the use of elemental force in combat for far longer.

At the very least, it wouldn’t be like before, where his elemental force armor could barely hold up for half a shichen of intense fighting before giving out.

“Tsk tsk, with Minor Mastery-level elemental force, I should be able to maintain my elemental force armor in full combat for at least a whole shichen, right?”

Su Xing murmured to himself. His first thought was whether he could use this advantage to defeat that living-dead puppet.

But after a moment of careful deliberation, Su Xing shook his head slightly.

“Just having better endurance isn’t enough… Can my endurance alone really outlast a puppet’s?”

“I need sufficiently overwhelming destructive power to forcibly kill that puppet outright — only then do I have a chance!”

Su Xing decided that his odds of defeating the puppet would be much better after reaching the Void-Shattering Realm.

“Just an ordinary fellow, happy as can be today~”

Su Xing hummed another off-key little tune, his spirits high as he looked back at the simulation panel.

【After your elemental force broke through to the third stage, Minor Mastery, you were in excellent spirits. After familiarizing yourself with your newfound power, you continued training diligently.】

【You spent the entire following year in intense cultivation.】

【Year Twenty-Four: One evening, as you sat cross-legged in meditation, you raised your head to gaze at the stars overhead. For a moment, you were struck by the vastness of the cosmos and the smallness of humanity.】

【In this sudden flash of insight, subtle and profound changes occurred within your body.】

【Like a hundred streams converging into a river, the spiritual energy flowing through your body became smoother than ever before.】

【Sensing what was happening, you wasted no time worrying about conservation and immediately consumed an entire bottle of spirit liquid.】

【As ten thousand drops of spirit liquid flooded into you, the total volume of spiritual energy in your body reached an unprecedented height.】

【And you seized this opportunity, determined to break through to Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection in one fell swoop!】