Chapter 274: Collective training behind closed doors (II)
In the blink of an eye, three months passed and everyone returned from their secluded training, their spiritual energy reaching a completely new level.
After three months, Cai’er’s internal spiritual energy had risen to 3,850, and Han Yu’s to 3,670. Sima Xian’s reached a number of more than 3,500 by relying on his new internal spiritual energy level of eighty, but Wang Yuanyuan, whose spiritual energy also broke past 3,500, was still a bit ahead of him. Lin Xin was at 3,660, and Chen Ying’er was at 3,320. The whole team had successfully reached the seventh rank of the fifth step.
However, during those three months, Long Haochen didn’t manage to break through to the sixth step, and was still at the bottleneck between the fifth and the sixth step.
This was naturally not because he wasn’t mustering enough effort, but because his attention was constantly being diverted. Every time he entered into a state of meditation, the memories he acquired from the Tower of Eternity would naturally flow into his mind, interrupting him every time. This was something that he couldn’t control even if he wanted to, thus he was unable to focus on his training in such a state.
Of course, Long Haochen wasn’t willing to learn necromancy, but during the first month of seclusion, he was constantly struggling against himself.
In the end, he still had to yield, because if he didn’t accept to learn this necromancy magic, he wouldn’t be able to cultivate at all, and would probably never break through his bottleneck. Breaking through a bottleneck required him to concentrate his attention completely on the matter at hand, but with those memories bursting forth and bothering him intentionally, how could he focus his attention?
Completely helpless, Long Haochen could only accept this reality reluctantly. By chance, the memories that the Tower of Eternity forced into him weren’t painful, and as long as he was willing to learn a skill or study a mystery, they would temporarily stop appearing. From the looks of it, Elux wanted him to master the subject via a comprehensive study of surrounding areas. Long Haochen had never thought that such a severe teacher would one day be entering his consciousness. But what could he do about it? Unable to resist, he could only bear with it.
During the second month, he patiently tried to break past this bottleneck, but the difficulty of reaching the sixth step from the fifth was truly astonishing. Through the Saint Spiritual Stove, he felt that his spiritual cavities had already started to take shape, and that he was just a tiny step away.
Long Haochen continuously went through the cycle of using Storing Power and attacking, using Storing Power and attacking… But he still didn’t succeed in breaking through this bottleneck.
Until the third month, his spiritual cavities had yet to form, but Long Haochen’s Saint Spiritual Stove seemed to be close to evolving. In his body, a little chaotic area had emerged, signaling that the Saint Spiritual Stove was also just a step away from evolving, visibly needing him to break through the sixth step to accomplish that.
These past months could be said to be a total torment to Long Haochen, but they didn’t pass without benefits. His cultivation speed had been very fast, but for this very reason, his roots weren’t steady enough. After finishing those three months of closed-door training, his spiritual energy was now steady, and his mastery of it more profound. Many aspects of his body had adjusted to better match his abilities.
In fact it wasn’t impossible for him to progress after reaching this bottleneck. It was just that as long as one didn’t break through, the spiritual energy one would gain from cultivating would usually vanish. But this wasn’t the case for Long Haochen. The fact that he couldn’t absorb it didn’t mean that the same applied to his Light Elemental Fairy and Blue Rain, Hibiscus of Light that were stored in his body! Thus, this period of three months also came with advantages for him. But obviously, passing the bottleneck and completing the second evolution of his Saint Spiritual Stove wasn’t a matter of a few hours.
While Long Haochen cultivated, Haoyue was fast asleep. He had previously eaten a large amount of magical crystals, and was now focusing his attention on absorbing their energy. Now that he had time to rest, his strength naturally kept growing.
But right at that time, their closed-door training was forcefully interrupted. Urgent news arrived from the side of the Demon Hunt Mission Tower, regarding a compulsory war mission. All the Demon Hunt Squads staying in Holy City had to participate in it. If they wouldn’t, ten thousand contribution points would be taken from each member of a general grade squad as a penalty, and the higher the grade, the greater would this penalty be.
This sort of War Mission was an extremely rare occurrence, only happening at times when the Alliance was facing a big crisis, forcing them to issue a compulsory marching order. The price for those who didn’t want to participate would be considerable.
Although Long Haochen’s team was rich enough to afford this penalty, this would still be a penalty of 60,000 contribution points. Though the retainer knight Han Yu didn’t have to be counted in, this was still something they were unwilling to bear.
After discussing it with his comrades, Long Haochen proceeded towards the Mission Tower to accept this mission, which gave three days to all Demon Hunt Squads to rest and reorganize. Though, the precise details of the mission had yet to be made known to the public.
The seven members of the 21st Demon Hunt Squad gathered in the lounge of the villa.
Sima Xin revealed a malicious smile, “War Missions are also good! My cultivation level has just greatly increased; it’s the perfect time to try it out against those little demons.” As he said this, he showed off his arm’s musculature with a big gesture.
Long Haochen spoke, “Since everyone is present, let us move on. Lin Xin, what is our total amount of contribution points?”
Lin Xin didn’t need to check and directly gave an answer, “We have still 245,823 contribution points left. I sold the magical crystals and demon corpses we brought back that weren’t of use to us, which increased our amount of contribution points again.”
Long Haochen nodded, “All good. Then, it is the time to proceed for the Transaction Center. We will have to head out for this War Mission soon, and this time, I’m afraid its level of difficulty and danger should be no lower than that of the Desolate Hissing Cavern. We shouldn’t insist on saving money as we will only need a hundred thousand contribution points to promote our Demon Hunt Squad’s grade. We should try to use up the leftover 150,000 contribution points today. After arriving at the center, look for the equipment you’ll need for yourself, everyone. We will limit ourselves to the Glorious Tier and above. If there is something you want, inform Lin Xin immediately. There’s no need to inform me, just directly buy it. Lin Xin, you are in charge of checking on what they picked: everyone should at least find one piece Glorious Equipment fitting himself. We cannot be stingy with our money at such a time! Don’t forget to buy stuff fitting for yourselves, understood everyone?”
“Yes, Captain!” Everyone except from Cai’er replied in a loud voice. Who would be unwilling to buy powerful equipment!? Even at the Glorious Tier, 160,000 contribution points would be enough to buy over a dozen quality goods. This was one of the benefits of their many contribution points.
After accepting the mission, Long Haochen’s immediate decision to look for equipment to buy was the best choice. Their Demon Hunt Squad would obviously not be the only one in need of equipment, and the other teams were definitely about to do the same to increase their strength. Being a step ahead would offer them a larger choice.
Walking into the Transaction Center, Long Haochen asked Lin Xin, “How is our storage of pills?”
Lin Xin replied with a smile, “Plentiful!
We have forty-two Great Recovery Pills, twenty five Bloodthirsty and Spiritual Bursting Pills. Also we have the two types of pills I have created recently, the Energetical Pill大力丹, and the other is called Pill of Ferocity. I used the Grand Fiends’ magical crystals and their materials to make Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pills, which can connect the users’ spiritual energies for a certain time. When the spiritual energy pours into each other, it will change into the attribute of the specific user. It’s just like the Great Fiend Cavalries’ conjoined attacks, but the duration will be limited to three minutes. And this thing was really costly to do, so I have only been able to make two batches of seven of it, enabling us to use it twice. Considering our current strength, when the seven of us enter in a conjoined mode, our spiritual energy should surpass 20,000, enabling us to be a match to some extent for a powerhouse of the eighth step.”
Long Haochen asked with doubts, “But what if, after using these Conjoined Spiritual Pills, the one who gathers everyone else’s spiritual energy cannot bear this massive pressure?”
Lin Xin complacently replied, “I’ve already thought of this. Through these pills, I managed to solve this problem that even the Fiends themselves didn’t manage to solve. It touches upon how to take the conjoined pills. When the one who gathers the spiritual energy takes his Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pill, he should at the same time take an Energetical Pill, strengthening his body to a great extent, which will naturally increase his capability to launch stronger attacks. Furthermore, these Conjoined Spiritual Boosting Pills won’t put the whole burden on a single person out of the seven of us. And the one in charge of gathering it will only receive power according to his own body’s limits. For instance, considering your ability Boss, there should be no problem for you to reach a total of 10,000 units of spiritual energy after taking one of my Energetic Pills. Though battling against an opponent at the eighth step was mere drivel, there should be no problem to put up a fight against one at the seventh step.”
Seeing his proud face, Long Haochen couldn’t help but reveal a smile, “It looks that your narcissism has its basis. Though I don’t really like to praise you, I really have no choice but to say that you are a real genius!”
“Hahaha, that’s a matter of course!” Just as expected, after being praised, someone immediately became so pleased as to lose his sense of measure.
Sima Xian interrupted him, “Has-drug-bro, take attention, Li Xin is coming.”
“Eh? Where is she, where?” Lin Xin suddenly exercised restraint, quitting his previous arrogant state to look more reasonable and appealing. Scrutinizing the surroundings, he looked for Li Xin’s figure.
To summarize it, over the past months, Lin Xin and Li Xin’s relationship had advanced pretty well. Although the two of them didn’t meet a lot because of their respective closed-door training, through his shameless and formidable harassment Lin Xin forced Li Xin to admit the status of their relationship. However, this led to the appearance of a new symptom on Lin Xin, making him an intensely henpecked male! Upon seeing Li Xin, he was just like a mouse seeing a cat. Maybe this was a residual effect of the time Li Xin forced a kiss on him, but the sure thing was that he treated her very well, secretly pressing her to accept quite a lot of his pills, though Li Xin, who was unwilling to take advantage of him, gave him the corresponding amount of contribution points every time.
“Dammit! This bald male! You dared fool me, be careful that I don’t give you false drugs next time!” Unable to find Li Xin, Lin Xin immediately shouted furiously at Sima Xian.
Sima Xian laughed joyfully, “Believe what you want, but hey, I once heard Li Xin say that she loathes narrow-minded people the most, and that she likes the most kind-hearted and innocent guys like our captain, well-disposed and promising youths.”
