I want to speedrun Battle Through the Heavens

All the Dou Qi in Wutan City had been drained in less than a quarter of an hour, leaving the city's cultivators worried sick and panicking inside.

That was not the end of it. Floating Ink City, the nearest city to Wutan City, had also been affected.

Lu Mingfei, the head of the Lu Family, one of Floating Ink City's two great families, went straight to the Xu Family.

"Brother Xu, do you know what caused this strange phenomenon?"

"Has some important figure come to the area recently?"

"If there really is someone like that, please let me know, Brother Xu, so I can tell my clansmen to tread carefully and be sure not to offend them."

Seeing Lu Mingfei's serious expression, Xu Yong shook his head in bewilderment.

He was completely in the dark himself.

All of a sudden, the surrounding Dou Qi had vanished without a trace.

"Brother Lu, I know nothing about this either. It has nothing to do with my Xu Family."

"Nor have I heard of any powerful expert visiting our Floating Ink City recently."

"Could it be somewhere outside the city?"

"The closest place to Floating Ink City is Wutan City," Xu Yong said with a frown.

"That makes sense. Could it be Wutan City? Anyone who could cause such a disturbance must be a top expert. It seems we ought to make contact as soon as possible. There are bound to be benefits down the road!" Lu Mingfei said with a hearty laugh.

"Whatever it is, we should investigate it thoroughly."

"How about this? We'll both send people to investigate, and whoever gets results first will notify the other."

"Agreed."

Lu Mingfei and Xu Yong prepared to investigate why the Dou Qi had vanished.

Elsewhere, Nalan Yanran and her two companions had yet to leave Wutan City.

The moment Wutan City's Dou Qi inexplicably disappeared, they immediately thought of the Xiao Clan's ancestor!

"How terrifying. Elder Ge, just what level has the Xiao Clan ancestor's cultivation reached?"

Nalan Yanran suddenly grew afraid.

If the Xiao Clan's ancestor sought revenge for even the slightest grievance, what would the Nalan Family do?

She was terrified.

"Unfathomable. Impossible to measure."

"We were just about to leave Wutan City when the Dou Qi suddenly vanished..." Ge Ye's expression was grave.

"Elder Ge, I don't understand. Why would he do this? Draining Wutan City's Dou Qi shouldn't benefit the Xiao Clan either, should it? Is he taking all this Dou Qi for the Xiao Clan to cultivate with? Surely that isn't necessary?" Nalan Yanran asked in confusion.

"A warning! This must be his warning to us! And a warning to the Xiao Clan's enemies as well!"

"With such a disturbance in Wutan City, someone is bound to investigate. In the end, they'll learn that the Xiao Clan's ancestor has returned!"

"When that happens, word might spread throughout the entire Jia Ma Empire."

"The Xiao Clan... is building momentum for its rise!"

"By the look of things, before long, the Xiao Clan may wield no less influence in the Jia Ma Empire than the Misty Cloud Sect. Perhaps even..."

"Perhaps even what?"

"They won't even think anything of the Jia Ma Empire!"

Ge Ye's analysis made perfect sense to Nalan Yanran.

That had to be it!

Otherwise, why would someone like Xiao Chen need to cause such a commotion?

"Ah, if only my Nalan Family had an ancestor like him," Nalan Yanran said with some envy.

"Elder Ge, do you think there's still a way to salvage this?" the young man beside them asked.

Nalan Yanran also looked at Ge Ye. "That's right. Is there still a way to salvage this?"

In truth, she had begun to regret it somewhat after leaving the Xiao Clan.

"Things have come to this. We'd best leave the decision to the important figures," Ge Ye sighed.

"Hurry back to your family and discuss what to do now. The two of us will return to the Misty Cloud Sect and ask the sect leader for her opinion."

"All right!" She was still a young girl, after all, and only after Ge Ye said this did Nalan Yanran feel a little reassured.

Her family and her teacher, Yun Yun, were her greatest sources of confidence now.

At the same time.

Wutan City, the Xiao Clan.

"That felt great!"

"So this is what cultivating feels like?"

Though Xiao Chen had not cultivated for long, he had experienced a different flavor of life for the first time.

No wonder everyone wanted to cultivate.

The feeling truly was wonderful.

Unfortunately, Xiao Chen had not originally intended to stop cultivating.

The real reason he stopped was that his body could no longer absorb Dou Qi again.

He could now sense the Dou Qi energy between heaven and earth, and he could absorb more after consuming the Dou Qi inside him.

But the energy his body could hold seemed to have reached a limit.

He could not absorb any more.

After finishing his cultivation, Xiao Chen pushed open the door and took a deep breath.

The entire world suddenly looked different to him.

"Little Gold, let me tell you, I really am a cultivation genius!"

"It's only been this long, and I've already broken through to One-Star Dou Shi. Impressive, right?" Xiao Chen looked at Little Gold with a smug grin.

"Perfectly normal. With thirty thousand years of accumulation, breaking through to..."

"Wait, your cultivation only reached One-Star Dou Shi?" Little Gold froze.

After arriving on the Dou Qi Continent, he had also learned a little about its cultivation system.

Ninth Stage Dou Qi, Dou Zhe, Dou Shi.

Only the third realm?

Little Gold knitted his brows tightly.

He stared at Xiao Chen and examined him carefully.

He really was only a One-Star Dou Shi?

How was that possible?

That made no sense!

Xiao Chen had absorbed an enormous quantity of Dou Qi. With thirty thousand years of accumulation on top of that, how could he be a mere One-Star Dou Shi?

"Did you deliberately suppress your cultivation?" Little Gold asked in confusion.

"Of course not. The Dou Qi I absorbed was only enough for me to break through to One-Star Dou Shi."

"And something seems to have gone wrong with my body again. It's already reached its limit."

"Am I going to be stuck as a One-Star Dou Shi for the rest of my life?"

Xiao Chen shook his head helplessly.

Little Gold looked at Xiao Chen and fell silent for a long while.

This brat was the strangest living being he had ever seen, bar none.

"Attack me. Let me see how strong you are in a fight."

"Oh? Then you can't hit back."

"Get on with it. What the hell are you scared of? Even your teacher can't kill you. Do you think I can?" Little Gold said impatiently.

"All right!"

Without another word, Xiao Chen summoned his Dou Qi cloak and hurled a punch at Little Gold's head.

It was fast, and its power was considerable too.

Although, to Little Gold, the punch was no more than a tickle.

But the look Little Gold gave Xiao Chen grew even stranger.

"Freak!"

"Your cultivation is only at One-Star Dou Shi, but even an ordinary Dou Ling wouldn't dare take that punch head-on!"

"Your combat strength is wildly out of step with your cultivation!"

"Granted, these are only the minor realms of the Dou Qi Continent, but if you can keep this up, then once you enter the Wuliang Realm in the future, I'm afraid only those two under all heaven will be a match for you."

"Even your teacher will very likely be no match for you."

At Little Gold's words, Xiao Chen's eyes instantly lit up.

Even my teacher would be no match for me?

Wouldn't that mean I could make my teacher do whatever I wanted?

"What nonsense are you thinking about, brat?"

"Aren't you afraid your teacher will punish you severely?"

One look at Xiao Chen's eyes told Little Gold that the bastard was up to no good.

"Ah, what a shame. Now I'm stuck at One-Star Dou Shi. I'm not even qualified to go to the Great Thousand World," Xiao Chen sighed helplessly.

"The way I see it, your problem might lie with those two beads, the black one and the white one," Little Gold reasoned.

"Right. Once I find them, every problem will unravel like bamboo splitting under a blade!" Xiao Chen clenched his fist to encourage himself.

Then he sighed again. "When I realized I could cultivate just now, I was hoping to speedrun Battle Through the Heavens. Now it looks like I'll have to focus on development and nurturing first."

"Speedrun Battle Through the Heavens? What does that mean?" Little Gold felt that the brat was talking nonsense again.

Faced with Little Gold's confusion, Xiao Chen did not want to explain too much.

Battle Through the Heavens was the first webnovel he had ever read, and also the last webnovel he had encountered before dying. It was steeped in nostalgia and obsession for him.

At the very beginning, Gu Xun'er had been his favorite.

Later, he had found Queen Medusa very appealing too.

Toward the end, he had fallen for Xiao Yi Xian as well.

Of course, there were also Zi Yan and Qing Lin...