Inside the cave, Su Yu focused his mind on the panel.
[Cultivation: Qi Refining Mortal Realm Ninth Layer, Spirit Refining Spirit Realm Third Level, Body Refinement Spirit Realm First Level.]
In a place like Tiannan Commandery City, where dragons and snakes mingled, these assets were still not enough.
After a brief moment of thought, Su Yu decided to raise his spirit refining realm. His divine sense was currently his most concealed and lethal trump card.
"Upgrade the Spirit-Seizing Art."
Su Yu directed his thoughts toward the cultivation art column.
[Consumed 1,000 Slaughter Points. Spirit-Seizing Art (Spirit) Low Grade upgraded to perfection.]
Boom!
A violent, physical humming erupted within his sea of consciousness.
His originally loose, mist-like divine sense began to compress and condense madly.
An intense, stabbing pain ricocheted inside his skull, like a dozen invisible iron hammers pounding his brain at high frequency all at once.
Su Yu dug all five fingers into his thigh muscles, burying his nails completely in his flesh.
He clenched his teeth, beads of sweat gathering on his forehead.
Half an incense stick later, the swelling pain receded, and the capacity of his sea of consciousness had more than doubled.
At the center of the divine sense mist suspended within it, four drops of silvery liquid seemed to have condensed.
The range of his projected mental power had also more than doubled. Within thirty zhang, the paths of insects' beating wings, the wriggling of earthworms beneath the soil, and even the changes in airflow as leaves fell-
At this moment, all of it was imprinted clearly in his mind.
"Spirit Refinement cultivation, Spirit Realm Fourth Level!"
Su Yu opened his eyes.
A faint flash of silver lightning flickered and vanished in the dark cave.
"Keep going. Upgrade Spirit Sense Piercing!"
With a thought, Su Yu began allocating points again!
[Consumed 2,000 Slaughter Points. Spirit Sense Piercing (Spirit) Low Grade upgraded to perfection.]
This time, there was no pain.
Vast, intricate combat experience and killing techniques involving divine sense flooded his mind.
Originally, he could only condense a single invisible spike. Now, he could split his divine sense into twelve invisible short spears in an instant.
The short spears could not only pierce in straight lines, but even change course at sharp angles in midair.
Their precision and destructive power skyrocketed exponentially.
With 3,000 Slaughter Points remaining, Su Yu lowered his gaze and settled on Vajra Demonic Baleful Intent.
Body refinement was the foundation of all close-quarters combat. As long as his body was tough enough, he would have an absolute margin for error.
"Upgrade Vajra Demonic Baleful Intent."
[Consumed 1,000 Slaughter Points. Vajra Demonic Baleful Intent (Spirit) Middle Grade extrapolated and upgraded to perfection.]
The blood and Qi within his body suddenly turned incomparably violent. His muscle fibers restructured, producing fine sounds like fabric tearing.
The black-and-gold patterns covering his bones rapidly deepened and spread.
Blood and Qi raced through him, and his temperature rose sharply. The sweat on his skin instantly evaporated into white mist, while an intense tearing sensation spread throughout his body.
His flesh was undergoing a tangible transformation and sublimation.
After only a dozen breaths, the transformation abruptly slowed.
Su Yu distinctly felt the circulation of his cultivation art collide with an extraordinarily hard barrier.
Not enough Sha Qi.
The segment of Black Baleful Intent Vine he had previously obtained from Lin Xiao had already expended seventy percent of its Sha Qi when he broke through to the Spirit Realm First Level.
Although the system had forcibly extrapolated Vajra Demonic Baleful Intent to the Perfection Realm, there was not enough high-intensity Sha Qi to supply the energy needed on a material level.
The remodeling of his body was forced to halt, and a muffled boom sounded within his chest.
Every joint in his body cracked, and the black-and-gold patterns on his skin sank beneath its surface.
His body refinement cultivation barely broke through to the Spirit Realm Second Level.
"Whew!"
Su Yu exhaled a scorching breath of turbid air.
"What a pity!"
Had there been enough Sha Qi just now, he could even have broken straight through to the Body Refinement Spirit Realm Third Level.
Although he was only at the Spirit Realm Second Level now, thanks to his perfected body refinement art, his flesh was as hard as the toughest refined steel.
Even a Spirit Realm Fourth Level martial artist wielding a Mortal Realm weapon could forget about cutting through his skin.
Add to that the lethal close-combat combination of the Prohibition Blood Formation and the Vajra Star-Shattering Seal.
Among those at his level, no one could withstand a single move from him.
[Slaughter Points: 2,000]
Spirit Realm cultivation arts and martial techniques were far harder to cultivate than those of the Mortal Realm. Extrapolating them to the minute subtlety stage was extremely difficult.
Especially for an art like Vajra Demonic Baleful Intent, which required supplementary Sha Qi, the effects of the system's extrapolation would be greatly reduced without a supply of Sha Qi.
Su Yu closed the panel, stood, and stretched his limbs. He planned to find a location containing Sha Qi and try allocating points to raise Vajra Demonic Baleful Intent to minute subtlety.
But just then, Su Yu's expression suddenly changed. Thirty zhang away, at the edge of his divine sense's perception-
Three extraordinarily powerful, unfamiliar presences suddenly appeared, heading straight toward the cave at tremendous speed.
The presence in the lead was exceptionally savage and carried a nauseating stench of blood.
"Not demons!"
"Humans!"
Martial artists at the Spirit Realm Fifth Level, or even higher.
Su Yu's eyes flickered, and his left hand precisely gripped the hilt of the black-and-gold saber on his back.
A moment later, three figures stopped outside the boulder blocking the entrance. A heavy, long-handled war hammer slammed into the ten-thousand-jin boulder with a shrill howl of wind.
Boom!
The thousand-jin boulder burst apart from the center. Fragments of stone surged into the cave with the blast, striking the walls with a dense clatter and raising clouds of dust.
Holding the black-and-gold saber in his left hand, Su Yu stepped out through the billowing dust.
Three people stood outside the cave.
Two young disciples in the Mystic Sword Sect's blue Daoist robes stood to either side. Their standard-issue longswords were already drawn, their tips pointing straight ahead, a cold sheen of Spiritual Qi flowing along their blades.
In the middle stood a burly man with bare arms. He was nearly two meters tall, his bulging muscles sharply defined.
In his right hand, he held an eight-flanged heavy hammer head-down, its surface smeared with minced flesh of unknown origin.
Spirit Realm Fifth Level.
The powerful Spiritual Qi emanating from his body stirred the surrounding air, forming ripples visible to the naked eye.
The Spiritual Qi fluctuations radiating from the other two were both unmistakably at the Spirit Realm Fourth Level.
The burly man lowered his gaze, sweeping over Su Yu's black fitted clothes, soaked in beast blood and reeking strongly of it, before finally resting on the sheathed black-and-gold saber in his hand.
"So you're the one who killed the youngest son of the Mystic Sword Sect's grand elder."
"Heh, young man, you certainly have some nerve!"
The burly man raised his heavy hammer with one hand and pointed it at Su Yu.
"Unfortunately, you'll also have to bear the Mystic Sword Sect's wrath. I, Xiang Kui, will gladly accept those five thousand spirit stones!"
Su Yu stood where he was without a word in response, his mind rapidly running battlefield simulations.
One opponent at the Spirit Realm Fifth Level, two at the Spirit Realm Fourth Level.
The quality and reserves of Spiritual Qi at the Spirit Realm Fifth Level far exceeded those at the Third Level. Had he encountered these three a few hours earlier, he would have had to unleash a lethal divine sense attack immediately, and even then, he might not have escaped unscathed.
But now?
Vajra Demonic Baleful Intent had just reached perfection, and his body refinement had broken through to the Spirit Realm Second Level. The defenses of his flesh and skin had reached an entirely new height.
Su Yu had just been fretting over the lack of a sufficiently substantial whetstone.
These three fellows who had delivered themselves to his door were perfect for testing the limits of this new body.