Chapter 45 – Competition and Spirit Elixir

Once Liu Ming heard this, he became stunned for a second. He then answered as he left the room, entering the small courtyard.

With a glance, Liu Ming saw Shi Chuan and the red haired youth beside him, Yu Cheng, standing outside the courtyard.

When Yu Cheng saw Liu Ming come out, he had a complicated expression on his face.

“Senior Shi, is Teacher Gui looking for me?” Liu Ming asked as he walked across the courtyard.

“Not only is it Teacher Gui, but Martial Uncle Zhi and Martial Aunt Zhong are also waiting for you and Junior Yu at the hall on the mountain peak.” Shi Chuan spoke with a smile, but his complexion changed after he sharply looked at Liu Ming. He then exclaimed “Hm… Junior Bai, you advanced to a Middle Spirit Apostle!”

Since Liu Ming had just become a Middle Spirit Apostle, he was unable to freely control his Fa Li. Thus, by his Fa Li fluctuations, his actual level was seen through immediately by Senior Shi.

“Senior’s perception really is sharp, I have indeed just recently reached Middle Spirit Apostle, just a few days ago.” Liu Ming didn’t intend to hide anything, so he calmly confirmed it.

As soon as Shi Chuan heard this, although he was usually unflustered, he still couldn’t refrain from revealing an expression of surprise.

As for Yu Cheng, who was beside Shi Chuan, he was dumbstruck after hearing Liu Ming’s response.

“So junior is actually a genius at training, reaching the Middle Spirit Apostle in the short time period of a year. This training speed is perhaps on par with Xiao Feng’s training speed.” It took a while before the shocked expression of Shi Chuan disappeared from his face.

With a forced smile Liu Ming calmly replied, “How can I be regarded as a genius at training? I only borrowed and utilized external powers and was lucky enough to improve so quickly and reach the Middle Spirit Apostle level.”

“Junior Bai is too modest, even if junior really did consume some type of Fa Li increasing pills, a Middle Spirit Apostle and a Beginning Spirit Apostle are vastly different. The Beginning Spirit Apostle level only requires you to have enough Fa Li, which anyone can easily have, but there is a bottleneck to becoming a Middle Spirit Apostle. According to what I know, many Three Spiritual Pulse Disciples are caught in the Beginning Spirit Apostle stage for many years without improvement. At the same time, Junior Bai’s reliance on the power of pills to improve Fa Li isn’t a smart idea. Fa Li still requires one to slowly train in order to have good purity, and if you ever reach a bottleneck in the future, the pure Fa Li will make the resistance of the bottleneck much lower.” After listening to what Liu Ming said, Shi Chuan showed an expression of understanding. Afterward, he shook his head and spoke seriously.

Once Yu Cheng heard what Shi Chuan said, he also revealed an expression of understanding.

Shi Chuan obviously attributed Liu Ming’s training speed to pills that could increase one’s Fa Li.

In the Barbarian Ghost Sect, there were indeed several types of pills that could increase one’s Fa Li, but they only had an effect on Spirit Apostle disciples, and the amount of Contribution Points needed to exchange for them was frightening. There were few disciples that were willing to exchange for them.

After all, if there wasn’t a bottleneck during their Spirit Apostle stage for the majority of disciples, as long as they spent a certain amount of time training and cultivating, their Fa Li would slowly increase without fail. However, when they did reach bottlenecks, consuming Fa Li increasing pills would be completely useless. Therefore, with the importance of Sect Contribution Points, their points were naturally saved up for other things.

Of course, relying on pills to increase Fa Li, was indeed like what Shi Chuan said. They were incomparable to the purity of self-cultivated Fa Li.

But when Liu Ming ate the remains of the giant rat and converted the remaining energy in the meat into his own Fa Li, he did not suffer from these consequences.

After all, the Fa Li in the flesh was cultivated by the monster itself, and for it to remain in the body without scattering after the monster had died, the purity of the Fa Li was definitely extremely high.

But to simply rely on monster remains to increase Fa Li was much more unreliable compared to the method of relying on pills.

Since only consuming the remains of a monster with a higher level than oneself would have an effect on increasing Fa Li, but when actually fighting a monster this strong, the matter of who was going to be eating who was not something so easily determined. Also, if one ate a lot of monster remains, there would also be other after effects and consequences.

Even if there someone that was willing to try cultivating by consumption, monsters in the kingdom of Da Xuan were just simply too rare, and High Spirit Master level monsters were extremely rare and few in number.

After looking through several books, Liu Ming naturally knew about this, but after seeing the two misunderstand him he just smiled and didn’t bother to further explain the situation.

Since all of the remains of the Green-haired Giant Rat had already been consumed, there was nothing other sect members could do even if they found out. However, not having them find out was naturally better.

“Many thanks for the advice Senior, I will definitely engrave it in my memory. Anyway, I wonder why Teacher Gui is looking for Junior Yu and me, could senior spare me a bit of detail?” Liu Ming replied vaguely and curiously asked.

“I am actually quite unsure, I just know that it has something to do with Nine Enlightenment Mountain. Other than you two, Junior Xiao Feng was also called to go.” Shi Chuan replied with some hesitation apparent in his voice.

“Nine Enlightenment Mountain?” Liu Ming heard what was said and felt surprised.

The Nine Enlightenment Mountain was one of the five great sects of Da Xuan Kingdom, with its strength ranked above the Barbarian Ghost Sect. Other than knowing that they seemed to be extremely proficient at Puppet Techniques, Liu Ming did not know anything else about that sect.

Still feeling a little surprised, the three of them flew into the sky on clouds and went straight for the mountain peak.

…

After a short while, Liu Ming, Yu Cheng, and Xiao Feng all arrived in the hall.

Not too far in front of them, the three Spirit Masters sat in separate chairs.

However, the Gui Scholar unhappily stared at Liu Ming, who had exceeded his expectations and had become a Middle Spirit Apostle. His brows were tightly knit and only after a long time did he shake his head and say.

“You actually utilized pills to reduce your training time, this has made me slightly disappointed. However, for what I am about to tell you, this is actually an unexpected, pleasant surprise. So I will not say any more. Junior Zhu, tell the three about this matter.”

At this time, Martial Aunt Zhong also looked at Liu Ming with disappointment in her eyes.

Within the three Spirit Masters of Nine Infant Mountain, only Martial Aunt Zhong regarded Liu Ming with slight importance. With the misunderstanding that Liu Ming had consumed pills to improve quickly to become a Middle Spirit Apostle, she naturally felt disappointed.

“The reason for calling you three over is because of an agreement between Da Shang and Da Zhi of the Nine Enlightenment Mountain and us back in the day…” After hearing what his senior had said, Zhu Chi slowly started to explain.

Originally, seven or eight years ago, Zhu Chi and the Martial Aunt Zhong were invited by two Spirit Masters of the Nine Enlightenment Mountain to go together to some place of danger to explore the unknown. In the end, they found a fruit tree covered with unknown Spirit Fruits. However, these Spirit Fruits had just formed not long ago and were far from being ripe. Thus, they made an agreement with each other; once the fruits had become ripe, they would split the Spirit Fruits evenly. However, a few days ago, the two of them had received a letter from a Nine Enlightenment Mountain Sect disciple stating that these soon-to-be ripe fruits would be split based on battles between the newly accepted disciples.

And after haggling between Nine Infant and Nine Enlightenment Mountain Spirit Masters, they finally decided to hold three competitions.

The three of them, Liu Ming, Yu Cheng, and Xiao Feng were the disciples that the Nine Infant Spirit Masters had chosen to participate in these competitions.

“Although these competitions are not battles of life or death, since these competitions are connected to the Spirit Fruits, no one will want to easily give them up. Thus, it is life-threatening to a certain degree. If any of you do not want to participate, you can say so now and us three will not force you to participant. Also, since we are having you fight, you will naturally receive benefits too. After carefully investigation through manuscripts, we have discovered that the fruits on the tree are the legendary Sky Jade fruit. The main use for this fruit is to create a type of Spirit Elixir, which is extremely helpful to low level cultivators. Spreading this Spirit Elixir on the body has an astonishing effect of remolding one’s body. If you do compete, as long as we win, you will receive this Spirit Elixir as a reward. Of course, for the disciples that win, your share will be much greater.” Zhu Zhi finally said.

“I am willing to compete in this battle” As soon as Zhu Chi finished talking, Xiao Feng yelled out without the slightest hesitation.

He, who had just become a Middle Spirit Apostle, was already extremely confident about his abilities. His confidence definitely was not inferior to any other Spirit Apostle of the same level.

“I am also willing to fight for our faction!” Yu Cheng also seemed eager.

Liu Ming was not going to give up such a great chance for his cultivation path either. After a slight pause after Yu Cheng, he too expressed his willingness to compete.

“Very well, you three are the most outstanding disciples out of our new disciples. However, the disciples from the Nine Enlightenment Mountain will not be easy to defeat. So for the next month, you three are to temporarily stay at the mountain peak and familiarize yourselves with battle methods effective against people who specialize in Puppet Techniques. We three will personally teach you; this way, your chances of winning will be able to increase by a bit.” After hearing their replies, Gui Ru Quan spoke with satisfaction.

After Liu Ming and the two others heard this, they naturally all nodded continuously in agreement.

As a result, for the following month, Liu Ming and the two other stayed at the mountain peak in some training ground. Each day, they would battle against some low level puppets.

Although Gui Ru Quan and the other two did not have in-depth knowledge about the Puppet Techniques, controlling a few low level puppets and replicating some of the more common attacks used by the Puppet Technique was not a big hassle for them as they were Spirit Masters.

The different types of attacks from different types of low level puppets, as well as, the myriad of attacks Puppet Technique practitioners had, caused Liu Ming and the other two to broaden their scope of possible cultivation attacks.

Of course, in these types of practices, Liu Ming did not use all of his different attacks and tricks. Instead, he performed averagely within the three, not making Gui Ru Quan pay extra attention nor make them feel disappointed.

A month passed in the blink of an eye.

Today, Liu Ming and the other two, as well as Spirit Master scholar and the Spirit Masters all arrived at the square.

Only after Zhu Chi said a few words of farewell to the Spirit Master scholar did he take out a faint yellow glyph while forming a hand sign with one hand. He then threw the glyph in front of himself.

After a puff of white smoke, a seventy to eighty feet long green, wooden boat appeared in front of everyone.

The boat was long and narrow and dark green in color, with a weird, light silver color pattern all over the green paint, giving people a mysterious feeling.

“Haha, with Junior Zhu’s Flying Jade Spirit Boat, traveling won’t take up too much time.” Once Gui Ru Quan saw the green-colored, wooden boat, he immediately mentioned something about it while playing with his beard.

“Yes, if it weren’t for Senior Zhu accidentally discovering a Thousand Year Jade Spirit Wood and spending such huge costs to invite Master Yu to spend three years of his time, how could it be possible for us to obtain a Flying Totem? With this Totem, as long as one doesn’t fight anyone proficient in Escape Techniques, then one will be more than able to escape.” The Martial Aunt Zhong said while smiling sweetly.