Tribulation of Myriad Races

"Interesting."

Su Yu had finally reached the 29th level. The tribulation character had reached the second tier. Apart from the newly formed slow character, his other characters had all reached the second tier.

The slow character had given Su Yu a lot of things to ponder.

At times, seemingly slow things might not be slow. The slow in one's eyes might not be slow in the eyes of others. One didn't need speed to be faster. As long as one could slow one's opponent down, one would be faster.

Su Yu was starting to get more and more familiar with this concept. He had developed a combo of slowing his opponent with the slow character before slamming his hammer down on the opponent. With each strike, the character he hit would be forcefully compressed.

This was the Soul Expanding Hammer. Its main purpose wasn't killing or destroying characters. Rather, it was meant to compress things.

Su Yu had discovered that after compressing the characters he was facing, they would grow stronger. As a result, he would receive more rewards with each victory.

"This is too interesting."

Su Yu was acting like a kid with a new toy. He even started wondering if he could somehow push these characters to the third tier by beating them up. His gaze was not only set on those characters. He was also wondering if he could push the little furball to the next level with the hammer.

The hammer was capable of compressing willpower. When his willpower was compressed enough, he could use it to temper his characters. By doing so, he was able to increase the stability of his foundation and expel some impurities from his sea of willpower.

After swallowing so many characters, had the little furball even fully digested them? Were there any impurities on his body?

"Little Furball, do you have indigestion problems?"

"What?"

Inside the sea of willpower, the little furball replied in confusion, "What's that?"

"Basically when you eat, you can't finish everything and there are some impurities left. Do you understand now?"

"A little..."

"I see. Don't worry. I'll hammer you a few hundred times later. I promise your indigestion problems will be gone."

"Faint."

"Don't be afraid. After fainting, you will feel really good. Didn't you experience it when I hammered you before?"

The little furball sank into thought. After a long while, he agreed, "Ok."

That made sense. After fainting, he would feel great.

Su Yu continued having fun with his new toy. Before he knew it, he reached the 30th level. He had destroyed all the pagoda characters before this after milking as much as he could from the tower.

Even after benefiting that much, he was still dissatisfied. Couldn't the Hundred Dao Pagoda have lasted longer? It should persevere and fight it out with him! There was always hope to outlast him, right? Why did the pagoda give up so easily?

But at this moment, he was starting to understand Teacher Zhao Li's words. Back then, Zhao Li had told him that there were some opponents that he might not be able to beat, but he could definitely outlast them.

Su Yu had an incredibly high endurance in terms of willpower. Thanks to his numerous apertures, his recovery was fast. Thanks to his compressed willpower, he had a solid foundation.

The 30th level could be considered a late Skysoar level. There, he was faced with only one character. But it was a second-tier character.

The sole ability it had was an ability Su Yu found interesting: vibration.

With each strike, Su Yu and all his characters would start shaking. He couldn't even stop shaking if he wanted. This reminded him of the sensation he felt when he hammered himself. During each hammering session, he would also shake like this.

He found this character interesting. If he could form this character, he could cause his enemy, their characters, and even their willpower to shake with one strike. And combined with his hammer, he could amplify the effect and damage even his opponent's physical body with the hammer.

As usual, he dragged the fight out. Originally, he wanted to reset the level. But he found that he wasn't able to do so. This was something he could only do at the end of every realm.Nevertheless, he had still benefited a lot.

He was able to drag the fight out for three hours and enjoy the willpower supplied by the pagoda during the duration. After the destruction of the character, he was also supplied with a large amount of willpower intent.

At this point, the slow character was starting to move toward the second tier. As for his apertures, he had opened 120 of them in total. That was 5 more than what he had before entering the pagoda. This was actually an astonishing gain.

***

A day and a night had passed outside.

The 13th had arrived. It was early in the morning. The bonfire party had ended. And some students had left to handle their affairs.

But some of them remained. Suddenly, someone exclaimed, "Holy shit! He's finally on the 30th level!"

The number of listed names would drop significantly every 10 levels. Thus, Su Yu's name had finally returned to the stele. The stele would only record the highest level one reached.

There were specific circumstances for one's name to be removed. For example, if 100 other people reached the top floor, Ye Batian's name would probably be removed from it. Or if Ye Batian entered the pagoda again as an Invincible, his name would be removed as well. But clearly, his name would probably remain there for a long time to come.

Zhou Polong, whose name was only on the 99th level, would have his name removed if he entered the pagoda again as an Invincible.

The 30th level was basically the dividing line for those at the seventh-stage Skysoar Realm and those who weren't. Su Yu's name was included with the names of those who had stopped after reaching the 30th level.

At this point, the curiosity of the onlookers was once again piqued. Before long, someone opened a bet, "Is anyone willing to bet on Su Yu's result? I'm wagering that he can reach the 38th floor."

"I bet he won't go higher than the 35th floor. He must be very tired by now."

"Definitely. He has been inside for so long."

More and more people joined the bet.

The people of Great Xia enjoyed betting with merit points. But it was different in Great Ming. Some would still bet with merit points, but most would use all sorts of random things as their bets.

For example, naked run, jumping into the river, crossdressing, and so on.

Inside a nearby building.

Instead of waiting at the pagoda entrance, Zhu Tiandao was drinking tea and eating breakfast in the building with a few old men.

One of them smiled and asked, "Old Niu, how high do you think he can climb?"

"40th level." Niu Baidao confidently said, "Everyone here understands that he must have gained a lot instead of exhausting himself after dragging it out for so long in the pagoda. I believe he's still full of energy."

"My guess is the 39th level. The 40th level is not that easy to clear."

"Do you want to make a bet?" Niu Baidao said, "Old Wang, let's make a bet. If you lose, you need to kill a Sunmoon at the Allheaven Battlefield. You either survive or die and leave your characters to us. I suspect that you have a character that can be made into a willpower grotto as well."

"Piss off." The old man rolled his eyes and said, "I'm not taking that bet. It's boring. If Su Yu manages to reach the 40th level, I'll give him some good stuff instead. He can have my Origin Return Art. Perhaps he can benefit from it."

The Origin Return Art was a unique cultivation method of Faculty Head Wang. It wasn't an aperture fusion art, but it was something that could benefit someone trying to fuse their apertures.

Niu Baidao laughed and said, "You sure know how to pick your gifts. For us, that thing isn't too valuable. But for that kid, it will be very helpful. He might be able to use it as a source of inspiration when creating new arts. I believe that not all the arts he created came from the so-called ruin or inheritance. From his fusion art, I saw traces of the Fusion Sutra. Don't tell me that the ancient people know the Fusion Sutra as well. The kid has definitely added a lot of his own understanding into it. Even without a ruin, he will still go far in the future."

The others nodded. They had noticed the same as well. Some people were saying that Su Yu was only relying on his ruin. Anyone else could have done the same with the ruin. But that was bullshit. The weaklings weren't able to see things clearly, but that wasn't the case for these experts.

They started sipping on their tea silently while waiting for further developments in the pagoda.

Su Yu's name had since vanished from the 30th level. He did not leave the pagoda, but his name had not reappeared on the crystal stele either. He was clearly taking his time climbing the pagoda again.

***

39th level.

The slow character finally completed its advancement into the second tier.

Su Yu had stopped showcasing the might of his characters. Rather, he showed his combat prowess. He wanted to return to facing beasts on the next level so that he could reset the level repeatedly like before.

At that moment, he was faced with a ninth-stage Skysoar beast. The beast seemed to be a member of a top 100 race. It looked so familiar. Mountaindrill Technique! It was a mountainbreak bull!

The opponent was strong, but Su Yu wasn't weak either. He filled his character technique with 11 second-tier characters and attacked the bull. All sorts of abilities activated as the mountainbreak bull's speed was lowered. Then, Su Yu faced the bull with his powerful physical body. After about 10 minutes of combat, he punched the bull's head apart.

Boom!

A large amount of source qi and willpower leaked out. Su Yu used the willpower to open his 122nd aperture.

After he was done, he arrived at the 40th level. He was greeted by a furious gale. His expression turned solemn. A Cloudbreach.

When he looked over, it was yet another familiar beast. "White civet?"

Su Yu was very surprised.

He was naturally familiar with this species. There used to be one in the Wentan Research Center. The civet had subsequently be given to Wu Jia while the fire crow had been given to Chen Yong.

The white civet race was a race of cultural researchers known for their speed. This civet was only a first-stage Cloudbreach, but it was probably as fast as a fourth-stage Cloudbreach. Even a true Cloudbreach would feel troubled by an opponent like this.

But Su Yu was smiling. He had just obtained the slow character. This was the perfect opportunity to test it out. He would be able to know if things would be dangerous in the future when encountering fast enemies like the white civets. After all, his strength wouldn't matter if he couldn't keep up with his opponent's speed.

It was time for him to put some practice into the Time technique. Two figures started flickering all over the room.

Su Yu was slow, but the white civet had been slowed down repeatedly as well. The hammer, the slow character, the blood character, the lightning character, the kill character, the battle character...

The various characters were used to constantly pester the white civet. Su Yu had never looked more like a cultural researcher before. This time, he wasn't even using the Sky Sundering Saber. He was only using the Time technique. He kicked repeatedly, causing space to distort and time to warp, revealing the white civet's concealed body again and again.

After about eight minutes, Su Yu swung his blade with a roar. The blade swept forth and severed the white civet's head. Several bloody scars could be seen on Su Yu's body. These were left by the white civet.

Unsurprisingly, a fragment shot out of the dead civet. Su Yu's hammer was already waiting. With a strike by the hammer, the fragment dropped onto the ground.

Su Yu was overjoyed to see that. It was time for him to reset the level repeatedly again! He could stay here four hours per clear. And the strands of willpower were no longer appearing every five minutes. Rather, they were appearing each minute. And the willpower was actually at the Cloudbreach Realm. Su Yu was greatly pleased.

Holy shit!

This was big. Both the purity and strength of the willpower here exceeded what he could find even in the Willpower Grotto.

Absorb!

He started absorbing madly.

A single strand of Cloudbreach willpower wasn't enough to open an aperture, but five strands were about enough. Thus, Su Yu was basically able to open a new aperture every five minutes here.

This was a terrifying speed.

Unknown to Su Yu, the little furball had sneaked out of his sea of willpower. The furball wanted to eat as well!

So yummy!

Sharing is caring!

He started absorbing madly.