After the familiar writhing of flesh and skin, his realm had not improved.
But changes in his body were still evident, proving that Blood Essence still had an effect on Li Tieniu, who was at Mid Golden Core.
So Mo Yunxuan used another portion of Blood Essence. At last, a familiar current of energy surged through him again.
Li Tieniu completed his breakthrough and officially became a Late Golden Core Body Cultivator.
Mo Yunxuan calculated in his mind. Two portions. Not too many; still manageable. The real question is what comes next.
Once Li Tieniu had recovered from his breakthrough, Mo Yunxuan began using Blood Essence on him again.
One portion... two portions... three!
After he used the third portion of Blood Essence, that familiar current of energy surged through Li Tieniu again.
When Mo Yunxuan looked at him, he had already broken through to the Golden Core peak.
The corners of Mo Yunxuan's mouth lifted, but he said nothing. After Li Tieniu had recovered,
he continued using Blood Essence: one portion, two portions...
It was not until he had used ten portions of Level Three Blood Essence that Li Tieniu's body showed another change.
His muscles and skin no longer writhed as violently as they had during the Golden Core Stage.
Instead, each muscle twitched slightly on its own.
About ten minutes later, Li Tieniu's body gradually returned to normal, but he did not open his eyes.
Mo Yunxuan did not continue using Blood Essence. Instead, he opened Li Tieniu's Data Panel,
and saw that the words "Golden Core peak" in the strength field had changed to "Early Nascent Soul,"
though there was still a note in parentheses after them: "transforming."
There was nothing Mo Yunxuan could do to speed up the transformation, so he found a clean spot, sat down, and waited.
About half an hour later, a sudden cracking sound came from inside Li Tieniu's body.
A flicker of worry crossed Mo Yunxuan's eyes, and he immediately opened Li Tieniu's Data Panel:
[Name: Li Tieniu]
[Cultivation: Early Nascent Soul]
Seeing that the parentheses after his cultivation had disappeared, Mo Yunxuan finally let out the breath he had been holding.
Mo Yunxuan quietly calculated:
It took one portion of Level Three Blood Essence to advance from Early Golden Core to Mid Golden Core.
It took two portions of Level Three Blood Essence to advance from Mid Golden Core to Late Golden Core.
It took three portions of Level Three Blood Essence to advance from Late Golden Core to the Golden Core peak.
It took ten portions of Level Three Blood Essence to advance from the Golden Core peak to Early Nascent Soul.
All in all, advancing from Early Golden Core to Early Nascent Soul took sixteen portions of Level Three Blood Essence.
With two hundred Elite Vanguard Soldiers each year, that meant they needed 3,200 portions of Level Three Blood Essence.
Each portion of Blood Essence required a Fierce Beast of the corresponding level. For now, Golden Core-level beasts were still manageable,
but once they reached Spirit Transformation, the number of high-level Fierce Beasts would dwindle considerably. It would be impossible to meet the needs of every Elite Vanguard Soldier.
So they would still need to organize the troops into units and divide them by rank, focusing on strengthening a select few soldiers to ensure they had a high-level fighting force.
But it was too early to worry about all that. He had fewer than six hundred portions of Blood Essence in total.
That was not even enough to advance everyone to the Nascent Soul Realm. Worrying about it now would just wear him down for no reason.
Mo Yunxuan first advanced the remaining 199 soldiers to Mid Golden Core, using up 199 portions of Level Three Blood Essence.
That left 385 portions of Blood Essence. After that, Mo Yunxuan stopped strengthening the troops as a whole.
Mo Yunxuan knew that, at this stage, the most important thing was to build up their supply of Blood Essence.
Since extracting Blood Essence required the corpses of Fierce Beasts, rather than live ones,
they could slightly relax their requirements when buying them to save money,
and he could also first strengthen a batch of Early Nascent Soul Cultivators, then send them out to hunt large numbers of Level Three Fierce Beasts, or even Level Four Fierce Beasts.
Mo Yunxuan acted as soon as the idea came to him. He used the remaining 385 portions of Blood Essence one by one,
and by the time he reached the final 25 portions, another 24 Elite Vanguard Soldiers had advanced to Early Nascent Soul.
Together with Li Tieniu, that made 25 Early Nascent Soul Cultivators, while the other 175 Elite Vanguard Soldiers were at Mid Golden Core.
Mo Yunxuan nodded in satisfaction. He was brimming with anticipation for the future of the Elite Vanguard!
But now it was his turn. Mo Yunxuan opened the system and chose to use Blood Essence on himself.
Just as Li Tieniu had said, there was no pain at all. Instead, it felt as if a warm spring flowed over his body—though it was a little itchy.
Once the sensation had passed, Mo Yunxuan used ten more portions of Blood Essence.
His strength broke through directly to Early Nascent Soul. In terms of cultivation, he could just about match the generals who commanded ordinary ten-thousand-man armies in Great Gan.
Though he still fell short of what his title as the Duke of Wei demanded, Mo Yunxuan was quite satisfied.
At eighteen, to possess strength like this was enough to call him a genius.
Besides, who was he, Mo Yunxuan? The Duke of Wei!
Did he really need to fight in person?
What a joke!
Now that he had finished strengthening himself, there was no need to stay at the training grounds any longer.
After all, it was an enclosed space with so many people. It was stifling.
As soon as Mo Yunxuan stepped out of the training grounds, Wang Yuan approached from nearby.
"My lord, dinner is ready. Would you like to eat now?"
Hearing Wang Yuan's words, Mo Yunxuan realized he was a little hungry. "Then let's go. Time for dinner."
After taking a couple of steps, Mo Yunxuan suddenly remembered the matter of collecting Fierce Beasts, and turned to Wang Yuan.
"Uncle Wang, change the arrangements for collecting Fierce Beasts. Focus on collecting corpses of Level Three Fierce Beasts and above."
"For each level of Fierce Beast, we only need to collect at most 3,200 a year. There's no need to insist on a certain number for the higher-level ones."
"Also, we can buy the corpses that aren't worth much. That'll save us money, and it'll also keep our people from putting themselves in danger hunting Fierce Beasts."
"Understood, my lord. I'll give the orders right away."
After speaking, Wang Yuan made several gestures in the air. A blood-red spiritual energy tinged with killing intent surged around him.
Once he finished his gestures, the spiritual energy settled again.
"My lord, it's taken care of. Someone will pass on your orders shortly."
Mo Yunxuan nodded in acknowledgment and headed straight for the dining hall.
At dawn the next day, Mo Yunxuan was shaken awake by a group of young maids.
Looking at their pitiful faces, Mo Yunxuan's mouth twitched.
In the end, he still did not take his pent-up morning irritation out on them.
After a quick wash, he ate only until he was half full before Wang Yuan urged him to climb into the carriage early and head for the Imperial Palace.
When he arrived at the entrance to the Imperial Court, he saw that not many people had arrived yet, and his gaze immediately turned aggrieved.
In a low, complaining voice, he said, "Uncle Wang, you're in such a rush today! Look, there's hardly anyone here!"
Wang Yuan's expression did not change in the slightest as he calmly replied, "Everyone will be here in no more than fifteen minutes."
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