"What? A pound of Third Rank Thousand Mountain Bull beef costs a hundred thousand?"
"Why don't you just rob me!"
Looking at the price of Thousand Mountain Bull beef on the trading platform, Lu Chuan immediately blew up.
A hundred thousand per pound!
Who could afford to eat that?
As for lower-grade Thousand Mountain Bull beef, there was none on the trading platform.
It was said that any Thousand Mountain Bull capable of entering the Starry Sky Battlefield was at least Third Rank.
"Phew!"
"Calm down!"
"For the Sky Swallowing Art, I have to buy it no matter how expensive it is!"
Lu Chuan still had some money on hand, so buying a few pounds of Thousand Mountain Bull beef was no problem.
But Lu Chuan did not dare buy too much either. Who knew whether this Third Rank Thousand Mountain Bull beef could simplify the Sky Swallowing Art?
He would buy a pound first and test the waters.
Lin City had Thousand Mountain Bull beef in stock, and since it was a luxury product, delivery was exceptionally fast.
In less than half an hour, Lu Chuan received his order.
Looking at the Thousand Mountain Bull beef in his hands, Lu Chuan smacked his lips. "I've never eaten the flesh of the Ten Thousand Races before. I need to savor this properly."
With that said, Lu Chuan hurriedly began cooking.
Thanks to the experience he had accumulated from stewing chicken soup before, once one method led through, all methods led through. Stewing beef was not particularly difficult either.
Before long, the beef was ready.
Drawing in a deep breath of the fragrance wafting from the beef, Lu Chuan impatiently picked up a piece and stuffed it into his mouth.
"Mmm, it tastes pretty good. No wonder this stuff costs so much."
As Lu Chuan savored it carefully, a towering phantom suddenly appeared in his mind.
The phantom stood proudly between heaven and earth, surrounded by hundreds of star clusters that shone with incomparably brilliant light.
Every one of those star clusters represented a galaxy!
Beneath the star clusters, phantoms of colossal beasts that existed only in ancient legends lay prostrate. Every single phantom was as large as half a galaxy.
Before this phantom, let alone humans, even Blue Star seemed so tiny!
Staring at the phantom, Lu Chuan even forgot about the beef before him. His entire mind fell into a daze.
"Th-this... what is that?"
Before Lu Chuan could investigate, the phantom vanished in an instant.
In its place came one realization after another regarding the Sky Swallowing Art.
As he absorbed those insights, Lu Chuan pondered.
"Could that phantom have been the peerless expert who created the Sky Swallowing Art?"
"Or was that phantom an expert who had cultivated the Sky Swallowing Art to its pinnacle?"
Either possibility proclaimed the extraordinary nature of the Sky Swallowing Art.
Taking a deep breath to steady the tremor in his heart, Lu Chuan buried the phantom and his questions deep within himself, then turned his attention back to eating.
No, to devouring beef.
As piece after piece of beef entered his stomach, Lu Chuan's insights into the Sky Swallowing Art steadily increased as well.
When the final piece of beef entered his stomach, the Sky Swallowing Art, whose origins were anything but ordinary, officially reached the Beginner Level!
Host: Lu Chuan Cultivation Art: Evergreen Spirit Art 1024/(Perfect), Sky Swallowing Art 1/100 (Beginner) Realm: Third Rank Martial Artist (1/) Martial Art: Eight Trigrams Swimming Dragon Palm 1067/(Perfect) Alchemy: Spirit Replenishing Potion 1/(Perfect), Spirit Gathering Potion 1/(Perfect) Simplification Points: 12
"One pound of beef only gave me one proficiency point?"
"As expected of the Sky Swallowing Art. It really is formidable!"
"What is this swallowing? Not the heavens—it's swallowing my life!" Lu Chuan gritted his teeth.
One hundred thousand for one proficiency point. If he wanted to grind the Sky Swallowing Art up to the Proficient Level, he would need at least ten million.
And that was only at the Beginner Level.
Once it reached the Proficient Level, increasing proficiency would cost even more.
By then, perhaps one million would only buy a single point of proficiency.
And this was merely a fragment. If it were the complete Sky Swallowing Art...
Lu Chuan did not even dare think about it. Even if he ate the entire Dragon Kingdom dry, it probably would not be enough to grind it to perfection.
"Good grief, I'm about to achieve my goal of being in debt enough to rival a nation."
"The debt kind of rival!"
After grumbling for a while, Lu Chuan shifted his attention to the cultivation art itself. "Enough of that. Let's try the Sky Swallowing Art first."
"Let's see whether this Sky Swallowing Art is really as powerful as the records claim."
As a special cultivation art, the Sky Swallowing Art differed from ordinary cultivation arts.
Ordinary cultivation arts only required one to sit in meditation to increase cultivation, while the Sky Swallowing Art required one to devour every resource containing spiritual energy in order to improve cultivation.
As it happened, Lu Chuan had such a resource in his hands.
"I didn't expect the spirit crystal I obtained some time ago to come in handy so soon."
Holding the spirit crystal, Lu Chuan slowly closed his eyes and began circulating the Sky Swallowing Art.
At once, the spirit crystal in Lu Chuan's hand began to vanish at a speed visible to the naked eye. At the same time, the number representing his realm on the panel rapidly climbed.
About an hour later, Lu Chuan had completely devoured an entire spirit crystal.
His cultivation had increased significantly.
Realm: Third Rank Martial Artist (101/)
"One spirit crystal raised my cultivation by a hundred points! At this rate, I only need a hundred spirit crystals to break through to Fourth Rank?"
"Hiss! That's expensive!"
One spirit crystal was worth one million, while a hundred spirit crystals meant one hundred million!
What did it mean to be a money-devouring monster? This was what it meant!
Of course, painful as it was, Lu Chuan would never miss an opportunity to rapidly increase his cultivation.
What was more, cultivation raised through the Sky Swallowing Art was not the slightest bit unstable. Compared to before, his foundation had become even deeper.
Killing two birds with one stone.
"It seems that if I want to use the Sky Swallowing Art to rapidly raise my cultivation, I can only wait until I reach Azure Dragon Academy."
If Lu Chuan had previously still harbored concerns about joining Azure Dragon Academy,
then now, he could not wait to arrive at Azure Dragon Academy immediately.
Lin City was too small; it simply could not support Lu Chuan's cultivation of the Sky Swallowing Art.
As for Azure Dragon Academy, one of the lofty Four Great Academies, only it had sufficient resources to support Lu Chuan's cultivation.
As for competition?
Before resources, none of that mattered.
"Tomorrow, hurry up and come..."
Lu Chuan rose and stood by the window, his eyes gazing toward the sky, filled with anticipation.
The next day, at dawn.
After briefly saying farewell to his parents, Lu Chuan silently walked through the streets of Lin City.
Not far away, Chu Feng looked at Lu Chuan with a smile.
When Lu Chuan approached, Chu Feng smiled and patted his shoulder. "You look a little sad."
"Sad?"
Lu Chuan shook his head and turned to look once more at the familiar streets. "I'm just a little reluctant to leave."
"There is no need to be reluctant."
Chu Feng continued with a smile, "When you become a Ninth Rank Martial Artist, or even break beyond Ninth Rank and ascend to the throne of a king, you'll discover that this place is merely a fallen leaf in the vast river of your life—too insignificant to mention."
"Azure Dragon Academy, the Starry Sky Battlefield, the struggle among the Ten Thousand Races—those are your stage, the places where you should remain."
The comfort was not particularly ingenious, but after hearing it, much of Lu Chuan's reluctance truly faded.
That was right. With the Simplification System, he could never be confined to a single city.
Lin City, farewell.
Azure Dragon Academy, here I come...
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