Ancient Human Race

Su Bo

Realm: Physical Body, Sinew-Bone Stage, Fourth Refinement

Vitality: 33 strands

Special: External Vitality Release

Martial Arts: Wind-Treading Step [Perfected (Trait: Windwalking, riding the wind to travel, ethereal and traceless)]

[Bixi Divine Intent: 12%]

The vast essence energy, having lost the guidance of spiritual power, abruptly recoiled and returned to the depths of his organs, lying dormant as it awaited Su Bo's next pull.

The Wind-Treading Step had reached perfection. Su Bo was delighted.

Though it was only a relatively basic movement technique, its importance to him was in no way inferior to the Baxia Coiling Dragon Stance.

There was no other reason. The Wind-Treading Step was damn fast once it reached mastery.

Even demon beasts skilled in speed could not catch him unless they had reached the Seventh Refinement.

Now that the Wind-Treading Step had been perfected, it had spawned its exclusive martial trait: Windwalking. It allowed him to borrow the power of the wind and walk along its paths, leaving tracks as elusive as the wind itself.

Compared to its mastery stage, his speed had increased by at least threefold.

Su Bo felt that unless one was a Gang Realm martial artist, catching him would be somewhat difficult.

Looking inward, he saw the immense vitality dragon within his body roaring endlessly as it thundered into his major tendons and bone marrow, tempering them.

His sinews and bones tingled and went numb as his strength steadily rose.

Strands of essence energy were refined into vitality and merged into the vitality dragon, making it grow stronger without end.

At most, I'll break through to the Fifth Refinement in ten days or so, Su Bo thought.

"Fuck, demon corpse... Sea Suppression!"

"Bang!!"

"Ah... bastard, you dared to hit me?"

Su Bo, who had just stabilized his vitality, opened his eyes to find a large, icy face pressed close to his own. Pale golden eyes stared fixedly at him.

Mistaking him for a Withered-Bone Demon Corpse, Su Bo had not thought twice.

Bixi Divine Intent + spiritual power + Bixi's Sea Suppression punch + Fourth Refinement vitality = the ultimate punch!

The time returned to several minutes earlier...

"Fourth Refinement? How could it be Fourth Refinement?" Yi You was in a daze, even questioning his life.

Regarding the Soul-Spirit Burial Grounds trial in the Withered Bone Demon Forest, he had imagined that the one to activate it might be that dead Three-Eyed bastard, or perhaps that stinking fox.

After all, among the top prodigies near the Withered Bone Demon Forest, there were only the three of them.

The slots had long since been claimed by them.

The Yi Clan, the Three-Eyed Human Race, and the Heart-Fox Human Race were all human races that primarily cultivated spiritual power, and the Divine Intents they cultivated—

mostly relied on their own Divine Intent and consumed enormous amounts of spiritual power.

The soulflames in the Withered Bone Demon Forest trial were treasures most suited for strengthening the source of their souls while still in the Physical Body Realm.

Yet he had never imagined that the one who activated the trial would be someone at the Fourth Refinement... no, he had apparently still been at the Third Refinement just moments ago.

How had he dared?

There were only three slots. This guy had claimed one first, and Yi You had taken another, leaving just one slot.

In other words, one of the Three-Eyed bastard and the stinking fox would be unable to enter.

"Heh..." Yi You suddenly laughed.

He could already imagine it. Once the next person arrived, whether it was the stinking fox or the Three-Eyed bastard, they would discover that no matter what they did, they could not enter the Soul-Spirit Burial Grounds.

Their mindset would probably shatter on the spot, right?

Glancing at the scorched patches left behind after the Withered-Bone Demon Corpses had burned away, Yi You felt somewhat less resentful toward Su Bo for activating the trial.

At the very least, the other party's comprehension of Divine Intent was even more terrifying than his own.

No wonder he had dared to defy... Hm?

Yi You fell silent for a moment, searching through the people and names in his memories. The guy before him did not seem to be a prodigy from his batch.

He had absolutely no memory of anyone named Su Bo.

Then, he moved a little closer...

"So you're not a prodigy of the Martial Alliance?" Su Bo asked thoughtfully.

"The Martial Alliance is the faction of you primitive humans. I'm from the Yi Clan, the Yi Clan..." Yi You said unhappily, gripping his Sun-Shooting Bow.

No one would be happy after taking such a vicious beating.

Yi You felt that his head had definitely swollen by a full circle. Even now, it still buzzed.

"Damn it, how many strands of vitality did you condense before breaking through the First Refinement?"

"It hurts like hell..."

The intense pain made it hard for him to maintain his aloof persona. Clutching his head, he bared his teeth and rubbed the spot that had been brutally struck.

Right now, he only wanted to know exactly how many strands of vitality Su Bo had condensed.

It was fucking terrifying. That single punch had nearly sent him to meet the ancestors of the Yi Clan. His head had nearly exploded.

"Not many. Just nine strands of vitality," Su Bo answered honestly.

"...??? Nine... nine strands?! Cough, cough. Nine strands of vitality for every refinement?" Yi You was stunned, nearly dropping the Sun-Shooting Bow in his hand.

He swallowed instinctively. "And you call that just?"

"Twenty-seven strands of vitality at the Third Refinement, 27,000 kilograms of force. At the Fourth Refinement... more than 30,000 kilograms of force?"

"You... are you sure you're a primitive human?"

"Genuine as they come!" Su Bo said with a shrug.

"How is that possible?" Yi You's face was full of shock.

"With vitality like yours, I'd believe you even if you said you were from the Dragonkin Lineage, a human race of dragonmen. How could the Ancient Human Race possess such a physique?"

He sized Su Bo up from head to toe, trying to find traits belonging to another human race.

The Ancient Human Race was the oldest ancestral race among all Pan-Human races.

It could be said that every Pan-Human race had arisen from intermarriage between Ancient Humans and the myriad races, or from accidental bloodline mutations.

This branch of Ancient Humans did not possess much outstanding talent in martial cultivation.

However, they had one gift envied by every race: they were exceptionally fertile, and their reproductive and growth cycles were extremely short.

Thus, in ancient times, many races had been willing to intermarry with Ancient Humans in order to propagate their own bloodlines.

But since it was reproduction...

Although the bloodlines of the myriad races were indeed powerful, and offspring born from their unions with Ancient Humans were mostly descendants of those races—

there were always exceptions, producing offspring whose human bloodline was dominant.

The Three-Eyed bastards and the Heart-Fox Human Race Yi You had mentioned were among the human races born from unions between Ancient Humans and the Divine Race or the Celestial Fox Clan.

These races with predominantly human bloodlines were not welcomed by the ancient races.

Naturally, since they were all descendants of Ancient Humans, they chose to band together for warmth and eventually established the Pan-Human Federation, one of the strongest forces among all races.

As for the Yi Clan, it had been founded after a bloodline mutation gave their ancestor a pair of golden eyes.

But...

Wasn't it extremely difficult for the Ancient Human Race to produce descendants with powerful martial talent?

They had no bloodline, weak physiques, and only fairly decent comprehension.

So how had he encountered such a monstrous Ancient Human martial prodigy in the Starry Sky Trial, someone who tempered his body with ultimate vitality?

Even as a martial prodigy of the Yi Clan, he had only tempered his body with six strands of vitality.

For martial artists, one strand of vitality was approximately equal to 1,000 kilograms of force.

Even so, within the Pan-Human Federation, he was already considered a top prodigy of the second echelon, someone destined to become a king beneath the stars in the future.