Volume 2: Setting Out on the Journey Chapter 23: Strength Lacking? Time for an Upgrade!
"Fortunately, our team was already near the exit of the Foggy Forest. Seeing more and more rat beasts, we gritted our teeth and sprinted desperately down a narrow path where there were fewer of them!"
Wan Qianhai said with a lingering fear on his face, "However, we ran right into the rat tide on our way to escape. With no other choice, our squad had to split up and run in different directions to scatter the rat tide!"
"Speaking of which, we were quite lucky. Only a small wave of the rat tide chased us along our escape route. On the way, Luo Peng and I also ran into Zhou Libo, and his situation was pretty much the same as ours."
At this point, Wan Qianhai let out a bitter laugh and said, "I just wonder how the captain and the others are doing right now..."
...
When Wang Jue and the other three arrived at the supply camp, a large crowd of martial artists was already gathered at the entrance.
"Hey, God-Slayer Wang, I knew you wouldn't die so easily."
"Wang Jue, did you see Old Huang and the others on your way back?"
"..."
Walking into the supply camp, many martial artists who knew Wang Jue came over to ask questions and greet him.
After all, the outbreak of a rat tide is an extremely dangerous event. Fortunately, this time it was only a "Level 4 rat tide," so the hazard wasn't too catastrophic.
If it were the legendary Level 1 rat tide, it would spell utter disaster for all the camps surrounding City Number One!
"Brother Zhao, have my captain and the others returned?" Wan Qianhai immediately went to ask someone.
"Haven't seen them."
"Your captain and the others haven't returned, there's no record of them here."
...
Today was destined to be a sorrowful day for the supply camp.
On this day, many martial artists out in the wilderness lost their lives.
In fact, among the three Green Star Mirror martial artists who entered the wilderness area today, one was actually heavily surrounded by the endless rat tide, plunging into a vast ocean of beasts.
Driven by the frantic and reckless attacks of the rat tide, they actually wore a Green Star Mirror powerhouse to death by sheer exhaustion!
One must remember that Wang Jue was currently only at the Spirit-Condensing Mirror, separated from the Green Star Mirror by three major realms: the Red Star Mirror, the Orange Star Mirror, and the Yellow Star Mirror.
If the Body-Forging Mirror and the Spirit-Condensing Mirror belonged to low-level martial artists, then the Red Star Mirror and Orange Star Mirror belonged to mid-level martial artists, while the Yellow Star Mirror and Green Star Mirror belonged to high-level martial artists.
As for the Cyan Star Mirror and Blue Star Mirror, they were super powerhouses!
The ultimate Purple Star Mirror and those surpassing it were peak powerhouses!
High-level martial artists were already considered the upper echelon among humans, and a mere Level 4 rat tide had caused the fall of such a high-level figure. Without a doubt, this was a grievous loss for humanity!
Yes.
Today, a human Green Star Mirror powerhouse had fallen!
Within the rat tide, there were not only Level 1 rat beasts, but also Level 2 and Level 3 existences, while the leaders of the rat tide possessed extremely high intelligence—Level 4 or even Level 5 star beasts.
Once they targeted something, they would pursue it at all costs!
It was said that during the struggle of that human powerhouse, at least forty to fifty miles of forest were completely destroyed, countless towering trees were obliterated, and the dead rat beasts probably numbered three to four million.
Unfortunately, three to four million rat beasts were nothing to a rat tide numbering in the hundreds of millions.
Therefore...
This Green Star Mirror powerhouse was dead!
In this rat tide, humans lost quite a few low and mid-level martial artists, and among the top-tier Green Star Mirror martial artists, one died and two were injured.
No one knew how difficult it was to cultivate a Green Star Mirror powerhouse.
They only knew that when the ancestors of the Human Ancestral Hall learned of this, they immediately launched retaliatory actions!
"Rumble..."
Dark clouds rolled, fierce winds swept across the earth, and occasionally thunder rumbled. With a deafening crash of thunder, a torrential downpour poured from the skies.
Inside a tent at the supply camp, Luo Feng sat on the bed.
"Don't worry, Captain, I'm fine. My luck was good, and I wasn't cornered by the rat tide."
"Brother Yu, yeah, I'm fine."
"Sister Yan, haha, since you can hear my voice, it naturally means I'm alive and well."
"Sister Xin, I'm fine..."
Wang Jue answered several calls in succession. Evidently, the Level 4 rat tide that occurred at the camp was not only known to a large number of martial artists within City Number One, but even those in the safe zones were aware of it.
Mostly because every time a rat tide or the even more terrifying "ant tide" broke out, it was a time of heavy casualties for human martial artists.
This time, the fact that a high-ranking human martial artist had fallen made it all the more devastating a loss for the entire human race.
"Just a Level 4 rat tide, and so many people died."
"What about the legendary Level 1 rat tide?"
"What about the legendary, even more terrifying wars between all races and star beasts?"
The wars between star beasts and various races could be considered wars between different civilizations, a war of numerous races!
Once the war began, countless all-encompassing herds of beast-type star beasts would emerge alongside avian star beasts—some winning through speed, others possessing boundless strength, burrowers, venomous ones, flyers, sonic-attack types...
They would blot out the sky and cover the earth. The skies would be filled with countless avian star beasts, the ground with countless terrestrial star beasts, the underground with burrowing star beasts, and the lakes with aquatic star beasts.
Rat tides and ant nests were merely a fraction of it.
This was the most terrifying war of all!
"Star beasts truly are the greatest mortal enemy of humanity."
"At present, the oceans belong entirely to the star beasts. On land, humans hold a slight advantage, while the sky is dominated by the star beasts!"
"Even with the mutual assistance of various races, humans are still forced to be trapped within individual safe zones, only able to drag the battlefield far away from the safety zones to launch bit-by-bit counterattacks."
In the past, Wang Jue had never truly realized this; he always felt that star beasts were simply slaughtered by martial artists. But today, he finally understood...
It was entirely possible for star beasts to wipe out humanity and all other races from the Azure Planet.
Once humanity perished,
What talk was there of parents and family?
What talk of culture and morality?
"Originally, I was quite satisfied with the rate at which my strength was improving."
Wang Jue's gaze pierced through the tent's doorway, landing on the distant, boundless horizon. "Now it seems that my strength is still not enough, far from enough..."
...
A long while later.
Wang Jue withdrew his gaze, pondered for a moment, and opened the system panel, which he hadn't checked in nearly two months.
[Name: Wang Jue]
[Cultivation: Spirit-Condensing Realm, Fourth Tier]
[Talent: Orange Grade (Medium Quality) 0/5000]
[Technique: Astral Body Soul Art, First Tier (Unknown) 0/1000]
[Secret Skill: Heaven-Slicing Draw Sword Technique (Novice) 0/10000]
[Martial Skill: Basic Swordplay (Grandmaster) 0/10,000,000]
[Martial Skill: Basic Fist Technique (Grandmaster) 0/10,000,000]
[Footwork: Basic Footwork (Grandmaster) 0/10,000,000]
[Black Iron Grade: Clear Wind Nine Swords (Perfection) 0/10,000,000]
[Star Essence: 10,967]
[Experience: 10,968,317]
"Well... before I knew it, in nearly two months, my Star Essence points have actually broken ten thousand!"
Seeing the Star Essence points surpassing ten thousand, Wang Jue couldn't help feeling a shock ripple through his heart. Then, with an excited and thrilled expression, he muttered, "I have enough Star Essence points to upgrade my talent, enough for my technique, and even if I don't upgrade my talent or technique, I could directly upgrade the [Heaven-Slicing Draw Sword Technique]."
"In other words, I have two choices right now. One is to upgrade my talent, which will drive my cultivation forward while also lifting my technique. The other is to elevate the novice-level [Heaven-Slicing Draw Sword Technique] to proficiency."
"No matter which one I choose, it can instantly enhance my strength. The former focuses on realm and cultivation speed, while the latter focuses on offensive power."
Thinking of this, Wang Jue couldn't make up his mind for a moment: "My realm definitely needs to be upgraded. After all, my realm hasn't broken through in nearly two months, which is a bit inexcusable no matter how you look at it. But my offensive power cannot lag behind either. As long as my offensive power is sufficient, I can deal with Level 3 star beasts, and I won't have to worry about my attacks failing to pierce a Level 3 star beast's defense."
"If only I had more Star Essence points, then I could upgrade them all together..."
You cannot have both fish and bear paws.
Wang Jue understood this!
However, understanding it did not mean he could easily accept it.
It was only natural that he fell into a state of distress at this moment.
Hesitating for a moment, Wang Jue shifted his gaze to the over ten million experience points.
His experience was now sufficient for any martial skill. The realms of his swordplay, fist technique, and footwork had reached the Grandmaster level, but though his realm had arrived, he had yet to fully comprehend them.
To put it another way, his realm was sufficient, but his actual combat power was lacking!
Even though he had been honing his swordplay and footwork continuously over the past two months, the former had only reached the subtle micro-realm, and the latter had barely reached the half-step transformation realm. It would still take a considerable amount of time to truly step into the transformation realm.
Not to mention that above the transformation realm lay the Grandmaster realm!
If he chose to force an upgrade now, it would be aiming too high and falling short.
Pursuing such unrealistic and excessively high goals at this stage clearly brought Wang Jue more harm than good.
"No, the three basic martial skills haven't been fully comprehended yet; I cannot continue to upgrade them blindly."
Wang Jue shook his head and cast his gaze upon the final martial skill: "Then, the only thing left that can be upgraded is the Black Iron-grade [Clear Wind Nine Swords]?"
Wang Jue actually liked this martial skill quite a bit.
After all, setting aside his trump card—the [Heaven-Slicing Draw Sword Technique]—this could basically be considered his strongest offensive martial skill at present.
It wasn't that he didn't want to buy other martial skills, but he truly lacked the bandwidth to split his focus.
Just mastering his basic swordplay and footwork would consume an unknown amount of time before reaching a true level of mastery. If he added several more martial skills, he might as well stop hunting star beasts altogether.
If he dedicated all 24 hours of every day to improving his martial skills, he would probably still need a few years.
While learning more martial skills meant more means of attack, the amount of time required to truly master them was hard to predict.
At the very least, Wang Jue never considered his comprehension to be particularly strong.
When it came to talent, he could rely on his "golden finger" to boost it.
As for comprehension, however, he was utterly helpless.
In a sense,
Talent could represent comprehension.
Conversely, comprehension could not represent talent!
Strictly speaking, talent was talent, and comprehension was comprehension. While the two were related, the correlation wasn't overwhelmingly strong!
"Forget it, I'd better upgrade my realm and technique first."
After pondering for quite a while, Wang Jue instantly made up his mind: "As for martial skills, I'll first upgrade the [Clear Wind Nine Swords] from perfection to the subtle micro-realm. I believe its power at the micro-realm will definitely be greater than it is now."
Immediately afterward, Wang Jue spent 5,000 Star Essence points to upgrade his talent from Orange Grade Medium Quality to High Quality. Following that, he spent another 1,000 Star Essence points to elevate the [Astral Body Soul Art] from the first tier to the second tier, only to discover that upgrading to the third tier required 30,000, and his remaining Star Essence points were just enough!
So, gritting his teeth, Wang Jue decisively chose to upgrade again!
Having done all this, Wang Jue did not stop. He spent the ten million accumulated experience points of this period, boosting the [Clear Wind Nine Swords] from the perfection level to the micro-realm level.
Before Wang Jue could even check the panel's information, the benefits of the talent upgrade descended upon him.
With the experience flowing through him, Wang Jue crossed his legs and sat down, quickly entering a state of cultivation breakthrough...