Void Return Realm Sixth Layer, Re-entering the Slaughter Battlefield! (Third Update, Please Vote!)

Su Xing glanced at his remaining simulation energy.

A whopping 1,133,660,000 points!

For a moment, Su Xing felt somewhat hesitant.

“With this much energy, I probably can’t use it all between simulations, right?”

“Plus next week, there should be another six or seven hundred million simulation energy coming in…”

“How about I try upgrading my gold talent draw probability?”

Su Xing felt tempted.

Everyone had a gambler’s mentality, and Su Xing was no exception.

The moment he had a little surplus of simulation energy in hand, Su Xing started getting ideas.

However, Su Xing couldn’t quite bring himself to convert all his energy into gold talent draw probability.

“How about I take out 400 million energy to test the waters first? A five percent probability, just enough to round it off nicely?”

Su Xing thought it over and decided to spend a portion of energy to test the waters first.

“Sigh, upgrading the probability with energy is something I’ll have to do sooner or later anyway… might as well spend early and enjoy early?”

Su Xing consoled himself this way. With that, the probability of drawing a gold talent would be five percent — effectively quintupling the odds!

“Use 400 million energy to increase gold talent probability!”

Su Xing silently intoned.

【Ding! You have successfully spent 400 million energy. Gold-quality talent probability increased by 4%. Current draw probability is 5%… Your remaining energy is 733,660,000 points!】

Over 700 million energy remaining.

For Su Xing, that was enough for now.

“If it’s not enough later, I’ll figure out whether there are any other high-tier exotic metal dungeons out there.”

Su Xing mused thoughtfully.

However, Su Xing also knew that high-tier exotic metal only existed within forbidden-level dungeons, and most of them were likely already being mined by the military.

Finding one wouldn’t be easy for Su Xing.

“Still, I can try searching in future simulations. If I can locate one or two high-tier exotic metal dungeons, that would be a huge windfall!”

Su Xing murmured.

On the afternoon of September 30th, New Era 2024, Su Xing promptly began a new round of simulation.

“Begin simulation!”

【Ding! This simulation consumes 5,500 energy points. Remaining energy: 733,660,000 points. Remaining simulation attempts: unlimited.】

【Simulation begins!】

【Drawing a purple talent costs 100,000 energy points. Drawing a gold legendary talent costs 1,000,000 energy points. Would you like to draw?】

“Draw a gold-quality talent!”

Su Xing excitedly rubbed his hands together. With a five percent probability, he wondered if he could hit the jackpot!

However, unsurprisingly…

【Ding! Congratulations, you have drawn the purple talent Human GPS. Your probability of drawing a gold-quality talent next time is 15%…】

【Human GPS】: Purple talent. Your sense of direction is extraordinarily strong. Even without relying on tree rings, the North Star, the sun’s position, or other references, you possess an astonishing sense of navigation, comparable to a human GPS. (Note: When traveling during National Day holiday, your friends will never have to worry about getting lost again~)

“Sure enough, didn’t draw a gold talent…”

Su Xing shook his head slightly. He had expected this result.

“But this Human GPS talent… seems rather interesting?”

Su Xing stroked his chin.

Human GPS was clearly a more conceptual talent.

This talent didn’t seem very useful on Earth, but in certain special spaces, it might prove valuable…

“For instance, the Void Realm… or perhaps the Slaughter Battlefield?”

Su Xing’s eyes lit up.

The Void Realm, that special world, would be of great benefit to Su Xing’s power growth.

Su Xing planned to explore the Void Realm once his strength grew a bit more.

And the Slaughter Battlefield was the only path for Su Xing to leave Earth and travel to the Azure Cloud Realm!

“Come to think of it… my cultivation has already reached the Void Return stage, which meets the standard for becoming a disciple of the Azure Cloud Sect…”

Su Xing’s heart stirred, and an ancient, unadorned token appeared in his hand.

Two characters were carved on the token — Azure Cloud!

“Will it be a meteoric rise… or continued struggling?”

Su Xing shook his head slightly. Previously in the Slaughter Battlefield, Legendary-stage monsters had prevented Su Xing from continuing to explore the battlefield’s depths.

But now, Su Xing’s strength was comparable to the Legendary stage. Naturally, it was time to explore.

“In this simulation, besides advancing my cultivation, perhaps toward the end, I should also explore the Slaughter Battlefield…”

“And for refining the Rebirth Pill, I need a higher level of the Separation Fire Technique. My cultivation is now sufficient… it’s time to train the Separation Fire Technique further!”

With that thought, Su Xing’s gaze turned to the simulation panel.

【In the spirit field grotto-heaven, you realize you are in a simulation.】

【You begin attempting to train the Separation Fire Technique.】

【Achieving Major Mastery in the Separation Fire Technique requires extremely high levels of both spiritual consciousness and spiritual power. However, you are now a Void Return stage expert, and your spiritual consciousness has reached the realm of subtle perception, thus meeting the requirements for continued training in the Separation Fire Technique.】

【You execute the Separation Fire Technique and increase the infusion of spiritual power. You feel the temperature of the Separation Fire rise slightly.】

【You are delighted and proceed to diligently train the Separation Fire Technique.】

【One week later, you meet Jin Congxue. Jin Congxue hands over the final batch of purified exotic metal and gives you three alchemy furnaces forged from fourth-order exotic metal.】

【The next day, October 8th, you arrive in Shuangqing City.】

【You disguise your appearance, conceal your aura, and extend your spiritual consciousness, successfully luring out Old Dog Zong…】

Seeing this, Su Xing’s heart stirred, and he silently intoned:

“Activate the immersive simulation function, duration one hour!”

【Ding! You have successfully activated immersive simulation. Cost: 100,000 energy points. Remaining energy: 732,560,000 points.】

The next second, the scene before Su Xing’s eyes shifted and transformed, and he appeared in an unfamiliar environment.

Before him stood the deferential Old Dog Zong…

…

When Su Xing returned to the Real World once more, he nodded with satisfaction.

“Not bad. Killed Old Dog Zong again, and Luo Shuying still trusts me!”

Su Xing let out a long breath of relief.

There were still eight days until October 8th, and Su Xing could simulate at most one more time.

To ensure absolutely nothing went wrong, Su Xing needed to experience killing Old Dog Zong and the subsequent steps in real time as many times as possible.

His gaze turned to the simulation panel.

【After killing Old Dog Zong, you encounter Luo Shuying.】

【Under the buff of the Self-Help Guru talent, Luo Shuying completely trusts you.】

【You and Luo Shuying agree to meet again in one month, at which time she will bring the Condensing Wood.】

【You return to the Capital City and continue to advance your cultivation while training the Separation Fire Technique.】

【One month later, you meet Luo Shuying, and through her introduction, you join the Advent Cult.】

【After joining the Advent Cult, you deploy the Self-Help Guru talent and instantly win over a large group of devoted followers.】

【You refine Mind-Condensing Pills for Luo Shuying, helping her break through to the Legendary stage.】

【Afterward, you spend each day within the Advent Cult, secretly lining your own pockets and acquiring many medicinal ingredients.】

【Each day you do only three things: refine pills, cultivate, and practice the Separation Fire Technique…】

【Just like that, two years pass quickly…】

【In the third year, with the aid of spirit liquid and high-grade spirit stones, your cultivation breaks through to the Void Return stage, fourth layer!】

【You have become a mid-stage Void Return cultivator!】

【At the same time, you decide the timing is right and prepare to defect with Luo Shuying, joining Xia’s military.】

【After joining Xia’s military, over twenty thousand Advent Cult followers track you down overnight, demanding an explanation.】

【Using the Self-Help Guru talent, you persuade them into becoming a fearless suicide squad at Demon-Sealing Pass, one that strikes terror into the hearts of the demon race…】

【From then on, you continue refining pills daily, advancing your cultivation, and training the Separation Fire Technique…】

【You find time to visit the Age of Immortals and Martial Arts dungeon, locate the Myriad Wood Sect ruins, and retrieve all the spirit stones and high-grade spiritual medicines within.】

【In the fourth year, the medicinal ingredients in your possession are completely exhausted. In total, you have refined over two hundred thousand pills, adding many powerful cultivators to Xia’s military.】

【You know that this will allow Demon-Sealing Pass to hold out until at least the twenty-fifth year, so you settle down with peace of mind and focus on training the Separation Fire Technique and advancing your cultivation.】

【In the fifth year, your last mid-grade spirit stone is depleted. With no other choice, you begin cultivating with low-grade spirit stones.】

【Cultivating with low-grade spirit stones is significantly slower, but your cultivation continues to grow steadily.】

【That same year, through repeated pill refining and cultivation, your comprehension of the Separation Fire Alchemy Art deepens further.】

【Just like that, two more years slowly pass.】

【In the seventh year, your cultivation remains stalled at the Void Return stage, fourth layer. There is still a long road ahead before breaking through to the fifth layer.】

【The good news is that your mastery of the Separation Fire Technique grows more refined by the day, and you are not far from reaching the Mastery level…】

Seeing this, Su Xing couldn’t help but let out a sigh.

“As expected, cultivating with spirit liquid truly is the proper way!” “But to obtain more spirit liquid, I still need to upgrade the level of my spirit field grotto-heaven… which means planting more Spirit-Gathering Flowers!”

Su Xing furrowed his brows slightly, pondering whether he should spend energy and simulation attempts to obtain more Spirit-Gathering Flowers.

“Right now… I have over three thousand Spirit-Gathering Flowers in my spirit field grotto-heaven.”

“To upgrade it to the mid-grade grotto-heaven level, I’d probably need over ten thousand Spirit-Gathering Flowers… Each one costs a hundred thousand simulation energy, which means I’d need seven hundred million energy!”

Su Xing did a rough estimate — seven hundred million energy was indeed something he could afford.

But the question was, were Spirit-Gathering Flowers worth Su Xing spending that much energy on?

Very quickly, Su Xing made his decision.

Worth it!

“At the Void Return stage, if I had more spirit liquid, I could absolutely reach Void Return Great Perfection at incredible speed!”

“And in the later Body Integration stage, Mahayana stage… I’ll probably need even more Spirit-Gathering Flowers!”

“The sooner I get them, the sooner I benefit… Looks like the next simulation, I should try to bring out Spirit-Gathering Flowers…”

With that thought, Su Xing turned his gaze to the simulation panel.

【Year Eight: Your mastery of the Separation Fire Technique grew more refined by the day.】

【You consumed fifty thousand low-grade spirit stones over the course of the year, taking a major step toward the Fifth Layer of Void Return.】

【Year Nine: You withdrew all four hundred thousand-plus drops of spirit liquid you had collected over the past several years, preparing to break through to the Fifth Layer of Void Return in one decisive push!】

【Two months later, on a fine and sunny morning, the aura around your body surged relentlessly.】

【In the end, you successfully broke through to become a Fifth Layer Void Return cultivator!】

【Year Ten: You spent the majority of each day cultivating the Separation Fire Technique.】

【By now, the temperature of your Separation Fire Technique was several times higher than before, and its range had reached an astonishing one thousand zhang!】

【With a mere thought, Separation Fire could appear at any point within a thousand zhang.】

【You could feel that your Separation Fire Technique was approaching the Mastery level!】

【Year Eleven: One day, you were cultivating the Separation Fire Technique as usual.】

【After successive rounds of fire control and temperature elevation, you were surprised to discover that the temperature of your Separation Fire Technique had more than doubled compared to before!】

【And the range of your Separation Fire Technique had reached three thousand zhang!】

【Your mastery of the Separation Fire Technique naturally and effortlessly reached Major Mastery.】

Seeing this, Su Xing felt quite satisfied.

“Not bad. The difficulty of cultivating the Separation Fire Technique lies in requiring sufficient spiritual sense and spiritual power…”

“And I happen to meet both requirements!”

“Though taking ten years to achieve Major Mastery in the Separation Fire Technique isn’t exactly fast either…”

Although this stage of the Separation Fire Technique’s cultivation wasn’t difficult, it was still a reward Su Xing absolutely had to select.

After all, Su Xing still needed the Separation Fire Technique to refine Rebirth Pills!

“Next up, the Legendary-stage Rebirth Pill should be ready to refine on schedule, right?”

Su Xing stroked his chin in thought, his gaze turning to the simulation panel.

【Year Twelve: After achieving Major Mastery in the Separation Fire Technique, you traveled to Demon-Sealing Pass.】

【The situation at Demon-Sealing Pass was still relatively stable at this point. The human race had produced quite a number of powerful fighters in recent years, firmly keeping the demon race blocked outside the pass.】

【Learning of your arrival, the members of the “Suicide Squad” were filled with excitement, and you warmly greeted them in return.】

【Afterward, you wanted to hunt a Legendary-stage demonic beast, but never had the opportunity to encounter one.】

【Year Thirteen: You finally found a Legendary-stage demonic beast, and after several hundred rounds of fierce combat, you cut it down.】

【You extracted the Legendary-stage Demonic Beast Blood Essence and returned to Demon-Sealing Pass to attempt refining Rebirth Pills.】

【Your previous mastery of the Rebirth Pill had already been extremely proficient — the only thing you had lacked was sufficient flame power.】

【And now, your Mastery-level Separation Fire Technique perfectly met that requirement.】

【So over the course of a month, you successfully refined over a dozen batches of Legendary-stage Rebirth Pills.】

【Upon consuming a Legendary-stage Rebirth Pill, you indeed sensed an inexplicable surge of violent and gloomy emotion rising within you.】

【But you had already passed all five trials of Spirit Transformation, giving you extremely strong resistance against such negative emotions, allowing you to suppress them with ease.】

【However, you also discovered that you could only take one Rebirth Pill per day at most. Taking more would give rise to negative emotions.】

【Fortunately, you had no drug resistance to the Rebirth Pill, meaning you could take one daily and ensure a steady increase in physical strength.】

【You tried cultivating with Rebirth Pills for a month, and indeed your strength grew much faster than before.】

【But your goal this time was not to improve your Body Tempering cultivation, so you continued using spirit stones for daily cultivation instead.】

Seeing this, Su Xing nodded slightly and murmured:

“As expected, with the Rebirth Pill, improving Body Tempering strength should be far easier than before!”

“It’s just that… I don’t have many spirit stones left. I wonder if they’ll be enough to push me to the Sixth Layer of Void Return?”

Su Xing felt somewhat worried, but decided to give it a try regardless.

His gaze turned to the simulation panel.

【Year Fourteen: Over the course of the year, you consumed fifty thousand spirit stones, and your Qi Refinement cultivation improved.】

【Year Fifteen: You focused on cultivation, consuming another fifty thousand spirit stones, taking yet another major step forward in your Qi Refinement cultivation.】

【Year Sixteen: You had fewer than a hundred thousand spirit stones remaining — at best, only enough for two more years of cultivation.】

【But you decided to press on and see if you could reach the Sixth Layer of Void Return.】

【As you cultivated day and night without rest, two years slowly passed…】

【Year Eighteen: Over these two years, your cultivation had improved significantly, reaching the latter half of the Fifth Layer of Void Return — not far from the Sixth Layer.】

【But at this point, your spirit stones were completely exhausted. You had no choice but to settle for the next best thing, cultivating daily with ambient spiritual energy.】

【Even though the spiritual energy within the spirit field grotto-heaven was rich, its boost to cultivation speed still couldn’t compare to using spirit stones.】

【Your cultivation entered a period of slow growth.】

【Year Nineteen: Luo Shuying’s home world was breached.】

【At your suggestion, and with the human race’s assistance, tens of thousands of Spirit Clan members fled to Earth, joining Demon-Sealing Pass to fight the demon race together.】

【The pressure on the human race at Demon-Sealing Pass was greatly reduced. You consoled Luo Shuying and continued cultivating diligently.】

【Year Twenty: In the third year without spirit stones, you found yourself missing the days of daily cultivation with spirit stones.】

【With your cultivation speed having declined, aside from daily cultivation, you also began searching for undiscovered dungeons that might contain Exotic Metal Ore deposits.】

【Over the course of the year, you explored seven or eight forbidden-level dungeons.】

【You killed five or six Martial Emperor-stage dungeon bosses, and even took down two Legendary-stage monsters!】

【But despite all this, you still failed to find a single exotic metal dungeon that the military hadn’t already discovered.】

【Year Twenty-One: Still unwilling to give up, you explored several more dungeons, but still couldn’t find a mineral deposit dungeon.】

【And so, each day aside from cultivation, you ventured into various dungeons to explore, hoping to find one containing Exotic Metal Ore.】

【Three years slowly passed in this manner…】

【In the end, you still failed to find an exotic metal deposit dungeon.】

Seeing this, Su Xing shook his head in some disappointment.

But this didn’t come as a surprise to him either.

If dungeons containing Exotic Metal Ore were that easy to find, then high-grade exotic metals wouldn’t be so precious.

However, this only served to prove that Su Xing’s luck in previously finding the Red Lotus Demon Cavern dungeon had truly been incredible!

His gaze returned to the simulation panel.

【Year Twenty-Four: You searched a few more dungeons in the end, but still came up empty.】

【Knowing that simulation time was running short, you stopped wasting a single moment and devoted everything to breaking through to the Sixth Layer of Void Return!】

【Over these years of cultivation, your cultivation had reached the Peak of the Fifth Layer of Void Return — not far from the Sixth Layer.】

【Early in Year Twenty-Five: You withdrew all several hundred thousand drops of spirit liquid you had accumulated.】

【You prepared to break through to the Sixth Layer of Void Return in one decisive push!】

【You went into seclusion for two months, consuming every last drop of spirit liquid. In the end… you barely stepped into the Sixth Layer of Void Return!】

Seeing this, Su Xing breathed a sigh of relief and murmured:

“Thank goodness, I made it to the Sixth Layer of Void Return…”

But then a trace of worry crept in. At this pace, reaching Void Return Great Perfection would probably still require two more simulations.

“So, I’d be better off planting another batch of Spirit-Gathering Flowers, finding a way to collect more spirit liquid, and accelerating my Qi Refinement cultivation!”

Su Xing had already made up his mind.

His gaze turned to the simulation panel.

【Year Twenty-Five: The situation at Demon-Sealing Pass took a sharp turn for the worse, and you arrived at Demon-Sealing Pass.】

【This time, you said goodbye to no one, leaving Demon-Sealing Pass alone and stepping onto the Slaughter Battlefield…】

【You walked for a long, long time toward the direction of the blood moon… Time itself seemed to lose all clarity here.】

【All you could feel was that the blood moon above grew ever larger, as if drawing ever closer to you.】

【Beyond that, the red-eyed demonic beasts you encountered along the way progressed from weak Gold rank and Master-stage creatures…】

【To eventually Demon Kings and Demon Emperors…】

【You knew that encountering a lost Legendary-stage demonic beast was not far off.】