After putting away the four crystal cores, Xu Qing turned and left the alley.
Over the past year, Xu Qing had killed almost all the zombies near the steel fortress.
There were currently four areas in town that Xu Qing had yet to tackle: the shopping district and market, the primary and secondary schools, the hospital, and a garbage dump.
That was right-a garbage dump!
Perhaps you would ask how many people a garbage dump could possibly hold. There was no way a massive horde of zombies could appear there.
In fact, there really were not many zombies there. What it had in abundance were mutated rats!
The last time Xu Qing had passed by, the sight had made his scalp crawl.
They formed a dense, sprawling mass, too numerous to count.
There were simply too many of them. Other mutated creatures could only become their food there.
One of the mutated rats even had a more terrifying presence than the fellow he had encountered at the police station.
Afterward, Xu Qing made another circuit of the surroundings, killing a few wandering zombie dogs along the way before returning to the steel fortress.
Once inside the fortress, Xu Qing took out the thirty-odd grayish-white crystal cores he had saved up, along with the yellow crystal core from the zombie he had killed at the police station, preparing to refine and absorb them all together.
His cultivation had already stabilized at the peak of rank nine. He could clearly feel that he was only one final step away from breaking through to rank ten.
As he began absorbing them, a vast quantity of pure energy poured endlessly into his body, nourishing every limb and bone, while the Soul Power within him rose little by little.
Over this year of refining, Xu Qing had also noticed an obvious problem.
These ordinary grayish-white crystal cores were already far less effective than before. Compared to their miraculous effects when he first absorbed them a year ago, the improvement they brought him was growing increasingly limited, so Xu Qing could only make up in quantity what they lacked in quality.
Xu Qing had deliberately saved that yellow crystal core to use when he broke through to rank ten.
He had compared them: one yellow crystal core was equivalent to over a hundred white crystal cores.
Yet even over a hundred crystal cores could not compare to a single yellow crystal core, because once it reached yellow quality, the purity of its energy was on an entirely different level.
When the final trace of energy was completely devoured and refined, the crystal cores before Xu Qing instantly dissolved into nothingness.
The next moment, a powerful presence suddenly erupted from Xu Qing, and his bottleneck shattered in an instant.
He let out a long breath, a glimmer of delight flashing in his eyes. "I finally broke through to rank ten!"
What Xu Qing did not know was that the vast majority of the energy he had absorbed over the past year had been absorbed by the Five-Clawed Golden Dragon Bloodline within him. After a year of devouring energy, his Five-Clawed Golden Dragon Bloodline had reached nine percent awakening, leaving it not far from ten percent.
After breaking through to rank ten, Xu Qing stretched his body after sitting for so long and slowly stood up. With a thought, he instantly returned from the fortress on Parallel Earth to his own room.
Exhaustion swept through his entire body in an instant. He fell straight onto the soft bed and soon sank into a deep sleep.
The next day.
Early that morning, a series of urgent knocks woke Xu Qing from his sound sleep.
He slowly opened his eyes, rubbed the sleep from them, and gave a long yawn before getting up and shuffling over in his slippers to open the door.
Standing outside was Gu Yuena.
"How did it go? Did you break through?"
Xu Qing nodded, wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes, and spoke.
"Don't worry!"
Seeing this, Gu Yuena nodded.
"All right, then let's go tell the principal today!"
Xu Qing nodded. The principal of Red Mountain Academy and the person in charge of the Spirit Pagoda in Aolai City had previously promised to give him a suitable hundred-year Soul Spirit once he broke through.
Xu Qing quickly changed his clothes, then followed Gu Yuena downstairs for breakfast.
The family sat around the dining table. The food had only just been set out when Xu Qing took the initiative to share the good news that he had broken through to rank ten. "Dad, Mom! My Soul Power has reached rank ten!"
Hearing this, Tang Xue's face instantly filled with delighted surprise, and she looked at Xu Qing with astonishment in her eyes.
Beside her, Xu Yan rose straight out of his chair, disbelief written all over his face.
"You broke through to rank ten? How is that possible!"
Compared with Tang Xue, Xu Yan had more contact with Soul Master circles and understood all too well.
How could someone with a Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul cultivate so quickly!
Looking puzzled, Tang Xue turned to Xu Yan. "What is it? Is something wrong? Isn't it a good thing that our child broke through?"
Xu Yan took a deep breath and explained.
"Nothing... it's just too fast. So fast that it doesn't seem at all like someone with innate rank-three Soul Power."
Xu Qing had already prepared his explanation. "It should be thanks to the patch of Blue Silver Grass in the backyard. There seems to be some sort of strange connection between my Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul and them. I cultivate much faster among the Blue Silver Grass."
Xu Yan nodded slightly at this, then sat back down in his chair and asked curiously, "Xiao Qing, have you decided what Soul Spirit you want to choose?"
Tang Xue and Xu Yan knew that the academy and the Spirit Pagoda were sponsoring a hundred-year Soul Spirit for Xu Qing.
Xu Qing nodded. "Don't worry. I already have a target in mind."
As for Xu Qing's target for his first Soul Spirit, he intended to choose a plant-type Soul Spirit with a parasitic ability.
As for animal Soul Spirits, heh~
Give him a break. Three generations of the Tang family had already shown just how trash it was to choose animal Soul Beasts for plant Martial Souls.
Later on, the power of the Martial Soul was even replaced by the bloodline. Douluo Dalu III: The Legend of the Dragon King and Douluo IV could be said to wear nothing more than the outer skin of a Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul.
Xu Qing intended to follow the path of life, rather than rely entirely on his bloodline power like Tang Wulin.
Moreover, Xu Qing hoped his first few Soul Skills would have specialized functions.
After all, the first few Soul Skills were practically useless in the later stages.
In Xu Qing's view, plants had three great evil-cultivator abilities: parasitism, devouring, and deadly poison.
Perhaps you would say that Tang San had already proven poison was the wrong choice?
Why, then, had Xu Qing still included it?
In truth, there was no major problem with choosing the poison attribute for Blue Silver Grass. The problem was that animal poison and plant poison were completely different kinds of poison.
He had learned in biology class before that most animal toxins were protein-based, while plant toxins were primarily alkaloids. The two were fundamentally different.
If you made Blue Silver Grass, a plant, produce protein-based animal toxins, how potent did you think its poison could be?
In truth, the ability Xu Qing wanted most was devouring. In his view, devouring was not evil; only people were evil.
Unfortunately, in this era dominated by Soul Spirits, Soul Spirits with the devouring attribute were far too rare. Even if one really existed, he would not be able to obtain it, leaving only parasitism.
In the original story, Tang San had obtained the ability Blue Silver Parasite, but had failed to unleash the power it should have possessed.
In Xu Qing's view, parasitism was an extremely terrifying ability, much like the viruses and parasites of his previous life.
Of course, aside from this reason, Xu Qing also intended to use the parasitic ability to spread and plant Blue Silver Grass. If he relied solely on planting Blue Silver Grass himself, its expansion would be far too slow.
But once he mastered parasitism, he could let Blue Silver Grass spread everywhere.
For Xu Qing, parasitism was the best choice.
After breakfast, Xu Qing and Gu Yuena said goodbye to Tang Xue and Xu Yan and went to Red Mountain Academy together. Instead of going to their classroom, they headed straight for the principal's office.
Zhou Yu was sitting at his desk looking through files. Seeing the two enter, he spoke with a hint of a smile in his eyes. "Gu Yuena, Xu Qing, what brings you here?"
Xu Qing nodded. "Principal, I've already reached rank ten."
"What?! You're saying you broke through to rank ten? How is that possible!"