Star Gate

Yuan Shuo smiled when he saw Li Hao absorbing a special energy. This disciple of his… was like him, possessing of supreme potential! How fantastic!

He’d come to find Li Hao to tell the young man all this. As it turned out, he didn’t need to teach his student anything before the latter discovered it for himself. The key was that Li Hao was quite brazen and chose to enter the secondary dimension as well!

Yuan Shuo had made the trip because he was fully prepared. The kid had done so without the slightest preparation and barged right in. Currently, Water of Life flowed over and fully enveloped him to repair his feeble body. At the same time, a peculiar part of his body began developing.

Li Hao’s heart!

Not only was his heart recovering, but the ferocious tiger continuously breathed out energy from the secondary dimension into it. It slowly ferried energy back to the young man’s body; the effects were remarkable. Li Hao’s heart began glowing with a faintly golden hue.

Director General Wang had been observing him all this time. The greatest weakness of humans in this era was their physical body. It was a troublesome limitation that almost everyone encountered. Their organs are even more fragile. Although seven element Arcanus was a powerful cultivation level, strictly speaking, they were weaker than some of the more insignificant cultivators of New Martial.

Perhaps New Martial fifth or sixth rank cultivators would have stronger hearts than that of seven element Arcanus. It was remarkable how many drawbacks there were to modern humans. That was why New Martial denizens thought nothing of their bodies. When Li Hao asked the Evenround Martial dean whether any of them would take possession of modern bodies, the latter almost laughed himself silly. Who would be foolish enough to do so?

As strong as Li Hao’s physical body was now, he hadn’t reached the golden body level.

Golden body was of the eighth rank in New Martial, the equivalent of five element Arcanus. Li Hao had continuously strengthened himself, absorbing endless Water of Life and sword energy to forge a body that wasn’t as strong as someone in the golden body cultivation realm.

It was apparent from this that Water of Life wasn’t very effective on his body. If Li Hao had any other resource to compare it to, the differences would be long apparent. Now that the tiger transported a particular energy to his heart, the young man’s heart strengthened at an incredible speed. It was far better than any mysterious power, Water of Life, or sword energy. The ferocious tiger seemed highly excited by the results and roared with joy!

Li Hao created quite a disturbance with his refinement of the mirror; a tiger hovered over him and roared at the four directions. He really did look the part of a tiger king newly emerged from his cage.

Off to the side, a baffled Hong Yitang closely observed the young man. The other Silver Moon martial masters also crowded around and stared fixedly at Li Hao. Yuan Shuo rolled his eyes at the sight. These guys…

The old man nursed the habits of the older generation at times. While he was gratified that his disciple was walking a path that no one else could walk, he didn’t want anyone to peek into his disciple’s ways before he succeeded. Therefore, Yuan Shuo wasn’t too happy to see people crowding the youngster.

“Brother Yuan is the grandmaster of our age, alright,” Hong Yitang offered before Yuan Shuo had a chance to say anything. “Li Hao learned this from you, right? We’re just taking a look to see how strong this method is…”

“……” Yuan Shuo was speechless. Was it useful to curry favor with him?

And yet, he chose to remain silent. This silly disciple of his always liked to share whatever little bit of advantage he obtained. Most recently it was the supernatural characters, now it was cultivating in public. There was… not much he could say.

Yuan Shuo sat down cross-legged to oversee the proceedings. He’d tried something similar before and attempted to bring some energy back to his body. However, his dao was slightly different from Li Hao’s. This was a good opportunity to compare their two approaches.

After a while, Yuan Shuo frowned and wondered why Li Hao only employed the tiger aura. When the young man stopped absorbing energy, he spoke up, “I’ve tried this as well and the effects are best with the Breathing Method of the Five Styles. The speed with which energy is devoured is very fast when it’s operated in the secondary dimension!”

Even Yuan Shuo had been surprised to find that the breathing method could be utilized in the secondary dimension.

“I know.” Li Hao opened his eyes with a smile. “But one aura is less than multiple auras. I feel that any of the secret arts suited for modern humans can accomplish this effect. Perhaps one aura per method is most appropriate! The breathing method is slightly outdated as five auras is too little…”

“……” Yuan Shuo cursed loudly to himself. Five auras, too little?! You’re getting too full of yourself!

“I possess seven auras now,” the young man chuckled. “Teacher, do you think seven auras can be melded together? I think so because when you taught me the Breathing Method of the Five Styles, I remember that you mentioned combining the auras of heaven and earth. There are the five elements, yin and yang, wind and thunder, light and dark—all of which ultimately forms a world!

“Therefore, we only need to find the connection between them to meld them together. There must be a key connection between the Breathing Method of the Five Styles and the incorporation of the five elements… We need to break them apart and reassemble them…”

What he spoke of now entailed knowledge contained in The Accounts of Evenround, so Li Hao was unable to speak further. He had some new insights and closed his eyes to sink back into his mental world.

Shattering, reassembly, just like his physical body. The five elements and five organs. If the five organs represented the five elements in a minor circulation, then what did that mean for the human body? There were more than the five organs in the body, yet these five could form a human body.

Wind, thunder, light, and darkness were also within the body. Perhaps he could use a body part to substitute for each of them and complete the major circulation.

Confidence suddenly flourished from the young man. I think… I may be able to walk faster than teacher! Five auras for the five elements has fallen behind the times. I’m going to have a myriad of auras, methods, and sword auras!

He suddenly wanted nothing more than to enter closed door cultivation on the spot. Ultimately, Li Hao opened his eyes with some regret. Too bad I can’t just stay here. The damned royal family and nine ministries are working to take down the massive mine as we speak. If I stay out of it and let them start the second awakening ahead of time, that will produce a lot of powerful plant spirits. I’ll be in a lot of trouble then.

Those damned bastards are always creating trouble for me!

Li Hao took a deep breath and erupted with all seven auras when he saw that the Mirror of Wind and Cloud still wasn’t answering his commands. Inside the treasure, Stellaris slammed into the mirror as well and sent it shaking!

Master and sword executed a flawlessly coordinated move from within and without!

How dare you eat my sword! Spit out what’s mine!

Rumble!!

The mirror shook violently from the impact. After a while, Li Hao forced out a droplet of golden blood. It came from his heart!

The mirror trembled and absorbed the blood. When its cracks slowly healed, the mirror disappeared in the blink of an eye and entered Li Hao’s body. Stellaris reappeared at the same time and happily darted into Li Hao’s heart.

The young man frowned and couldn’t help hectoring, “You come to me when you see something good. They say people are materialistic, but a sword is even more so! No wonder the character for ‘sword’ is a homophone for ‘base-born’!”

This thing hadn’t been willing to be stored inside his body up till now, but willingly entered his heart today. Li Hao would never believe that Stellaris hadn’t sensed something. Had a weapon soul developed in his sword?

……

The young man’s physical body fully recovered and his heart felt stronger than before. Seven supernatural characters hovered beside him and melded into his body. The ‘exterminate’ character formed by the sword aura dissipated when Li Hao tapped it. That character was simply to encompass the motley array of other energy that he possessed. Now that his wind and thunder characters had formed, he had no need of it for the moment.

He was a true seven element Arcanus now.

As for whether or not he was stronger than before, Li Hao felt that he might be slightly stronger than he was previously. The difference wasn’t great, however, because he’d yet to complete the reassembly of his personal strength.

Indeed, he had certain plans in mind for how he wished to proceed. The secondary dimension may be an area of note in times to come.

A mirror manifested in the air and some methods of how to use it appeared in his mind.

“It takes that much?” He frowned and murmured to himself, “I might as well break it into pieces and feed it to Stellaris since it eats so much…”

The mirror trembled, as if begging for mercy. Stellaris ate anything and everything. It ate more than Panther did! The stronger the treasure, the more Stellaris liked to eat it.

Li Hao received some new information in the exchange. This mirror could indeed probe for life force, but its range was limited. In its current state, it could only scan the central region when activated.

Therefore, Director General Zhao being on the Arcanus Ranking was more likely than not complete bullshit, a fabrication by the Wind and Cloud Pavilion. However, being able to cover the central region was also remarkable.

The treasure consumed an incredible amount of resources for each use. Li Hao sensed that it depleted three million mysterious power stones per instance. Each instance could last for five minutes. Ruins were naturally shielded, so they were difficult to scan.

Hence, the old Skystar King’s strength estimation was also bullshit.

The young man’s frown deepened. There were a lot of restrictions to this treasure and it consumed too many resources.

Of course, the mirror would require fewer stones when more of the world awoke. It would also cover a larger range then. It consumed so much at present due to lack of energy. And yet, it was still too much for Li Hao.

Three million stones per instance? That was enough for one thousand drops of Water of Life! Using it to only probe his target’s strength was such a waste. While the mirror could shrink its radius, the energy consumption was still significant. Each activation expended too much. Even investigating someone standing right in front of him, such as Director General Wang, would cost a minimum of five hundred thousand stones.

Li Hao rolled his eyes. So there was a minimum spend to this thing? Hot damn, his treasures and dog were all gluttons! All of them cost a lot in resources. Even the two puppets spent a lot of money each time they fought.

The vast sum of stones that he’d obtained from the City of Supernaturals was the only reason why he could afford to keep them around. The two puppets had been allotted five million stones each for this battle; they consumed one hundred thousand per minute. Who knew how much was left?

All of them were bottomless pits of money! Panther was such, Stellaris was such, and now the mirror was such. He had to feed the puppets, Battle Heaven, and Silver Moon martial masters…

Li Hao sighed. Life was too hard!