Chapter 165 – Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection, Facing a Legendary Beast Head-On! (5k)

Su Xing let out a long breath of relief when he saw this.

He’d gone several years without any progress, and had started to worry that this simulation wouldn’t achieve a breakthrough to Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection.

Yet the goal was accomplished in the final two years after all.

“Still, it seems that one’s mental state has quite a significant impact on cultivation… Having an epiphany in a specific environment can also accelerate breakthroughs?”

Su Xing stroked his chin thoughtfully.

His gaze turned to the simulation panel.

【Surging spiritual energy boiled within your body as you diligently circulated the Thousand Blazing Flame Art, absorbing the spiritual energy from the spirit liquid bit by bit, converting it into your own spiritual power.】

【The entire process went exceptionally smoothly — this breakthrough lasted a full week!】

【A week later, you slowly opened your eyes after keeping them closed for so long, feeling the further advancement of the aura within your body, your mood quite pleased.】

【Congratulations on successfully breaking through to Spirit Transformation Stage, Grand Perfection!】

【After breaking through to Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection, your strength improved considerably once more, the spiritual power within your body surging like a mighty river.】

【You had unprecedented confidence in your own strength, and you decided to gauge just how large the gap between yourself and Legendary-stage truly was.】

【In the twenty-fifth year, the situation at Demon-Sealing Pass was hanging by a thread.】

【The human race’s powerhouses had been killed off one after another, yet the demon beasts remained as rampant as ever, their numbers not diminished in the slightest.】

【One day, the demon beasts launched another all-out assault on Demon-Sealing Pass.】

【The casualties on the human side were devastating — even the number of Heavenly King-stage powerhouses who perished exceeded a hundred!】

【You knew that Demon-Sealing Pass’s destruction was not far off, so you wanted to seize this final opportunity and fight with everything you had.】

【Your target was a Legendary-stage colossal beast.】

【This beast stood three hundred zhang tall, with a fearsome visage and inverted spikes covering its entire body, like a black mountain range.】

【Before it, you were as insignificant as an ant.】

【But you charged at it regardless!】

【You instantly activated your primordial energy, wrapping primordial energy armor around every inch of your skin. The Blackice sword unsheathed in your hand, you slashed straight toward the colossal beast’s head.】

【With a single strike, blood rained down in torrents as a wound several meters deep appeared on the beast’s neck.】

【This sudden pain enraged the colossal beast. Its crimson eyes locked onto you, and a palm as massive as a small hill came howling toward you.】

【BOOM!】

【You were swatted back several thousand meters, slamming hard into the ground and forming a massive crater.】

【A mouthful of fresh blood sprayed out as you slowly climbed up from the ground, yet you paid no attention to your injuries whatsoever, instead staring at the colossal beast with fighting spirit blazing in your eyes!】

【Though the beast’s palm strike carried immense power, you had deflected most of it with your primordial energy. The remaining force had only caused minor injuries to your internal organs.】

【This made you realize that after projecting your primordial energy outward, even against a Legendary-stage colossal beast, you were not without the power to fight!】

【So you gathered your spiritual power once more, flew into the air, and attacked the Legendary colossal beast with your primordial energy fully unleashed.】

【This battle lasted a full two hours!】

【All the surviving soldiers at Demon-Sealing Pass were stunned by you.】

【In the eyes of these soldiers, while your strength was formidable, you should still have been a Martial Emperor-stage powerhouse at most.】

【Yet a Martial Emperor fighting a Legendary! This was an astonishing sight they had never imagined possible!】

【In this battle you were gravely wounded, your body covered in gashes, and even the primordial energy throughout your body had become unstable.】

【The prolonged combat and sustained primordial energy usage had taken an enormous toll on your stamina. You could barely muster the primordial energy to continue fighting.】

【The Legendary colossal beast, on the other hand, had also been slashed with over a hundred wounds by you, its blood dyeing the battlefield red.】

【The most grievous wound was at the beast’s eye — you had pierced through the boulder-sized eyeball, and the pain drove the beast into an even greater fury.】

【In the end, after hundreds of rounds of grueling combat, your primordial energy finally gave out, and you were smashed into a pulp by the beast.】

【Your primordial spirit left your body, preparing to temporarily flee, but a black shadow came hurtling toward your primordial spirit at incredible speed. The next second, your consciousness slowly faded away…】

【You died!】

【Ding — this simulation has ended!】

After the simulation ended, Su Xing couldn’t contain his excitement.

“Divine Power Realm Grand Perfection plus Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection cultivation… As expected, I can already go toe-to-toe with a Legendary colossal beast!”

“I actually held out for a full two hours! Though in the end I still died at the hands of the Legendary beast…”

Su Xing was thrilled. After all, when he had primordial energy available, while he was at a disadvantage in battle, it was still roughly a sixty-forty split.

And his death was only because his primordial energy had been completely exhausted.

If his primordial energy were powerful enough, Su Xing might very well have been able to outlast and kill this Legendary colossal beast!

“But… what was that black shadow at the very end?”

Su Xing was somewhat puzzled.

Ordinary colossal beasts, even Legendary-stage ones, wouldn’t attack a primordial spirit, because their spiritual perception was relatively weak and they could barely detect or hunt down a primordial spirit.

Yet that black shadow seemed to be a monster that specialized in hunting primordial spirits?

Su Xing frowned slightly, unsure of what it was.

His body had been smashed into a pulp, so naturally his eyes were gone too.

If his physical body had been intact, perhaps he could have gotten a clear look at what that black creature actually was.

In any case, Su Xing was quite satisfied with this simulation’s results.

Both his Qi Refinement and Body Tempering cultivation had reached Perfection, and his primordial energy had reached Projection Level, Minor Mastery.

Su Xing had exceeded his targets.

“Now then, let me see what reward options this simulation has to offer.”

His gaze turned to the simulation panel.

【The Cold-Faced Emperor】: Purple talent, priced at 1,000,000 energy points.

【Ten Years of Alchemy Experience】: Alchemy insights, priced at 500,000 energy.

【Spirit Transformation Stage, Grand Perfection】: Qi Refinement cultivation, priced at 30,000,000 energy.

【Primordial Energy Cultivation Insights (Projection Level: Minor Accomplishment)】: Projection Level Minor Accomplishment primordial energy insights, priced at 50,000,000 energy.

【Low-Grade Spirit Liquid, 100,000 Drops】: Priced at 10,000,000 energy.

【100 Million Jin of Spirit Rice】: Priced at 100,000,000,000 energy.

Su Xing’s gaze fell on the last option, and he raised an eyebrow.

“What the hell — one hundred billion energy? Why don’t you just rob me?”

That hundred million jin of spirit rice must have been what his simulation self had accumulated over twenty years.

While the quantity wasn’t small, Su Xing obviously couldn’t keep choosing spirit rice like he had in his earlier simulations.

After all, during the Body Tempering and Bone Forging stages, spirit rice had indeed been highly effective and had caused his strength to skyrocket.

But now, spirit rice was of limited use to him.

More importantly, Su Xing already had the ability to steadily produce spirit rice on his own.

If he spent an hour or two each day farming, producing ten million jin of spirit rice in a year wouldn’t be difficult at all.

“As for The Cold-Faced Emperor talent, I’ll save it for later. No use for it right now… It’d probably just make people think I’m some poker-faced edgelord, right?”

Su Xing glanced at his remaining simulation energy.

Only 64,370,000 points.

His goal was to redeem Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection cultivation and Minor Mastery-level Primordial Energy Cultivation Insights.

That required 80,000,000 simulation energy.

He was still 16,000,000 energy short…

“Sigh, looks like I’ll have to wait a week before redeeming the rewards…”

Su Xing shook his head slightly. Unless absolutely necessary, he really didn’t want to go shake down the Baili Trading Company again — the risk was too high.

With that thought, Su Xing called Jin Congxue.

The gist was to arrange an earlier meeting with Jin Congxue next week, and Su Xing also planned to put into action his plan to cooperate with Xia’s military using spirit rice.

After settling on a time to meet with Jin Congxue next week, Su Xing laid out a detailed plan for his future development path.

“Before I knew it, I’ve already reached Spirit Transformation Perfection plus Divine Power Realm Perfection!”

Su Xing felt a wave of emotion. From the moment he’d obtained the simulation cheat to now, it had been barely ten months, yet he’d achieved such astonishing progress in strength.

Throughout all of history, he was probably the first to ever accomplish this.

But Su Xing felt no arrogance or complacency. Deep within his heart, there was always a profound sense of crisis.

“If I do nothing right now, in fourteen years, Earth will be completely annihilated…”

“And the strength of that terrifying colossal beast — I still can’t fathom its limits. Just how terrifying is it, really?”

Su Xing’s eyes still carried a deeply worried expression.

“But from here on out, I need to find a way to break through to the Void-Shattering and Void Return realms!”

“After all, only by advancing in cultivation realm will my strength truly skyrocket!” Su Xing fell into deep thought.

Su Xing already had some ideas on how to break through to the Void-Shattering Realm.

Projection-level primordial energy, a primordial energy divine ability, plus finding an extreme environment — with all of these, Su Xing could stake his life and seek a breakthrough.

“I already have projection-level primordial energy, but to be safe, I should cultivate it to Grand Perfection before I can be fully confident!”

“As for primordial energy divine abilities, the Protective Hardened Qi that Niu Rilie taught me is sufficient. All I need is diligent cultivation.”

“As for an extreme environment, it’s time to start searching for one…”

Su Xing shook his head slightly.

On Earth, there were no particularly extreme places. Even the deepest ocean trenches, tens of thousands of meters down, posed no real pressure for Su Xing.

If he wanted to find an extreme environment, he would have to search within dungeons.

Moreover, with Su Xing’s pride, he naturally refused to become merely the weakest Void-Shattering Realm cultivator.

Only by finding a sufficiently dangerous extreme environment and combining it with his primordial energy divine ability and his own primordial energy could he become a truly powerful Void-Shattering Realm cultivator!

“Regardless, the breakthrough to the Void-Shattering Realm is already on track… but as for how to reach the Void Return stage, I still don’t have the slightest clue!”

Su Xing let out a soft sigh and murmured:

“I’ll have to visit the Luotian Assembly dungeon again and ask about breaking through to the Void Return stage!”

Su Xing realized that the Luotian Assembly dungeon was truly a treasure trove for him.

Whenever he encountered difficulties or bottlenecks, he could always find the answers he wanted within the Luotian Assembly dungeon.

After forming a clear plan for the future, Su Xing turned his gaze toward the makeshift granary he had built.

“Some of the spirit grain in the spirit fields is nearly ripe. If I accelerate the ripening of another batch… I should barely be able to gather two million jin of spirit rice, right?”

Su Xing wasted no time and immediately began using his wood-attribute spiritual power to accelerate the ripening of the spirit rice.

The Descendant of Shennong talent made his speed at cultivating spirit plants astonishing.

Soon, a week passed.

The amount of spirit rice harvested during that week, combined with the one million-plus jin he had set aside previously, barely reached two million jin — enough to fulfill the first year’s trade agreement with Xia’s military.

Additionally, Su Xing had also found the time to refine three thousand pills.

On this day, with all preparations complete, Su Xing was ready to discuss the spirit rice plan with Jin Congxue.

In a private villa room, Su Xing and Jin Congxue sat across from each other, sharing a meal.

As Su Xing ate, Jin Congxue laid out her plan.

“Based on my estimate of the spirit rice’s value, as long as we stay within one million-something jin, our risk is relatively small…”

“After all, my Jin Commerce Group still carries some weight. But if the quantity traded with Xia’s military gets any larger, it might attract the covetous eyes of certain interested parties!”

Su Xing nodded slightly after hearing this. Recalling the results from his simulations, he asked:

“What if we traded two million jin of spirit rice per year? What do you think? How many mining dungeon contracts could Xia’s military give us?”

Jin Congxue frowned slightly upon hearing this, thinking it over:

“Two million jin of spirit rice — if used frugally, that could be enough for two hundred thousand, or even three hundred thousand Bronze and Silver-stage Class Users to advance to higher levels in a single year.”

“That’s already a significant number, enough to draw the attention of Great Xia…”

Jin Congxue muttered a few words to herself, seemingly weighing the pros and cons.

Finally, she said:

“Trading two million jin of spirit rice per year should be barely doable. The risk index wouldn’t exceed half a percent…”

“Of course, in that case, I’d need to change my cover story. I’d claim that my Tarot Trading Company discovered a hidden dungeon.”

“And within that dungeon, spirit rice can be produced — roughly two million jin per year.”

“This way, Xia’s military becomes our sole partner. As long as we don’t let any spirit rice leak out, they surely wouldn’t refuse!”

Su Xing nodded slightly after hearing this.

Based on the simulation results, trading two million jin of spirit rice per year indeed carried virtually no risk.

Jin Congxue thought for a moment and continued:

“If we provide Xia’s military with two million jin of spirit rice per year…”

“I’m confident we can secure production contracts for four mining dungeons!”

“And these four mining dungeons are all of higher quality than the previous two. They might even have a chance of producing second-order exotic metal!”

Su Xing raised an eyebrow upon hearing this.

His earlier calculations of simulation energy returns had been based on the output of the original two mining dungeons.

But now Jin Congxue was saying the new mining dungeons produced higher-quality exotic metal — didn’t that mean he could obtain even more simulation energy?

Su Xing quickly asked:

“Oh? The newly contracted mining dungeons are of higher quality? Then roughly how much would a week’s output be?”

Jin Congxue considered for a moment and estimated:

“I mentioned to you before that the mining dungeons the trading company obtained through auction bidding are secondary-grade mines. The exotic metal output is low, and extraction is difficult.”

“But this year, the military district probably has no more secondary-grade mining dungeons to offer. What’s left are the primary-grade mines they’re currently extracting themselves.”

“A secondary-grade mining dungeon, at full extraction capacity, produces roughly three hundred tons of exotic metal per week, and virtually no second-order exotic metal can be extracted.”

“But a primary-grade mining dungeon has far richer mineral resources, and extraction is much easier… weekly output would be around four to five hundred tons, with a chance of extracting second-order exotic metal!”

After a brief pause, Jin Congxue added:

“Overall, a primary-grade mining dungeon is worth roughly fifty percent more than a secondary-grade one — possibly even more!”

Su Xing’s eyes lit up upon hearing this.

His earlier estimate had been that the four mining dungeons would produce over thirty million simulation energy per week.

With a fifty percent increase, plus the probability of second-order exotic metal, wouldn’t these four mining dungeons alone provide fifty million simulation energy?

Adding in the Tarot Society’s other business ventures…

His weekly simulation energy could exceed eighty million!

Round it up, and that was practically a small milestone of one hundred million!

“Goodness, this really is an unexpected surprise!”

Su Xing was in an excellent mood after hearing all this.

But Jin Congxue thoughtfully cautioned him:

“This deal has roughly an eighty percent chance of going through, but there’s a certain risk to you… To prevent any investigation from tracing back to you, shouldn’t we be more discreet about our meetings?”

Su Xing nodded slightly, then had a flash of inspiration.

He pulled a Breath-Concealing Pill and a Disguise Pill from his robes and swallowed them.

Moments later, Su Xing transformed from a young man in his early twenties into a middle-aged uncle in his forties or fifties, sporting a thick, bushy beard.

“How’s this? From now on, I’ll use this identity whenever I meet with you.”

Su Xing deliberately roughened his voice to mimic a gruff, middle-aged tone.

Jin Congxue was stunned by Su Xing’s almost magical disguise technique. She stared blankly for quite a while before saying:

“Hmm~ I still think your original appearance is much more handsome…”

“But for safety’s sake, this is how we’ll have to meet from now on…”

Su Xing nodded in agreement.

The two chatted for a while longer before Su Xing took the new week’s goods and returned to the dormitory, entering the spirit field grotto-heaven.

Once inside the spirit field grotto-heaven, Su Xing eagerly converted this week’s goods into simulation energy.

A total of over thirty million energy points!

Combined with the sixty-odd million he had remaining from before, his simulation energy once again reached ninety-five million points!

“I choose to bring out Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection cultivation, and Minor Mastery-level primordial energy projection!”

Su Xing gazed at the simulator panel and silently declared.

【You have successfully brought out Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection cultivation. Cost: 30,000,000 energy. Remaining energy: 65,040,000 points.】

【You have successfully brought out Stage Three Primordial Energy Mastery (Minor Mastery-level). Cost: 50,000,000 energy. Remaining energy: 15,040,000 points.】

As the simulator’s notification faded, two streams of mysterious power descended upon Su Xing.

In the next instant, the aura emanating from Su Xing’s body began to surge upward, climbing higher and higher.

Feeling the spiritual power exploding within his body, Su Xing hurriedly sat cross-legged and focused his mind inward.

Spirit Transformation, Seventh Layer… Spirit Transformation, Eighth Layer… Spirit Transformation, Ninth Layer!

And finally — Spirit Transformation, Grand Perfection!

In just a few breaths, Su Xing’s cultivation had skyrocketed from Spirit Transformation Seventh Layer to Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection!

Such speed was nothing short of astounding.

One had to understand that in the simulation, it had taken Su Xing an entire week just to break through from Spirit Transformation Ninth Layer to Grand Perfection.

Yet thanks to the simulator’s miraculous power and the feedback of cultivation experience, Su Xing’s advancement in the real world required only a brief moment!

Feeling the surging spiritual power within him, a look of elated surprise flashed across Su Xing’s face as he murmured:

“Spirit Transformation Grand Perfection… The density of spiritual power within my body must have increased by at least sixty to seventy percent compared to before!”

“Compared to when I first entered the Spirit Transformation stage… my spiritual power is roughly more than triple what it was then!”

Su Xing couldn’t help but let the corners of his mouth curl upward.

Abundant spiritual power meant that Su Xing could fight for longer periods of time, and could also study more advanced techniques and divine abilities.

Su Xing worked to control and acclimate himself to his new cultivation level and spiritual power. After a quarter of an hour, he finally managed to rein his aura back in.

But this time, Su Xing’s increase in power was far from over!

At the same time as his Qi Refinement cultivation broke through, the primordial energy within Su Xing’s body also underwent a subtle transformation…