novelraw Chapter 363: A Little More Diligent
Chapter 363: A Little More Diligent
After establishing a clear goal.
Su Zhan began his hunting journey within this Mist World.
Just as he had anticipated.
Mist Creatures above the Special-risk level were not as common as cabbage, even in this land of chaotic laws.
Most of them occupied areas with relatively dense energy, or the cores of certain peculiar terrains, each demarcating their own territory and maintaining a kind of balance with each other.
Su Zhan expanded his perception, scanning the depths of the mist.
He avoided those absolute forbidden zones emitting the subtle fluctuations of Calamity-level beings, focusing his search on Special-risk level auras.
This process was not easy.
Sometimes he needed to traverse vast stretches of barren wasteland.
Other times, he would startle some troublesome High-risk level communal creatures.While they posed no threat to him, they still wasted his time.
Deep within a swamp permeated with a putrid stench.
Su Zhan set his sights on a Fetid Marsh Hydra lurking beneath the mud.
It possessed the strength of Special-risk Ninth Stage, its several ferocious heads capable of spewing highly corrosive venom and chaotic mental assaults. It was the overlord of this swamp.
Su Zhan's figure appeared at the swamp's edge.
The Fetid Marsh Hydra immediately detected him, several heads rising simultaneously to emit threatening hisses as venom shot towards him.
Su Zhan's gaze was indifferent.
Time Abyss Pupil, Slow!
The venom shooting through the air suddenly became sluggish.
Su Zhan accelerated himself, his figure weaving through the slowed rain of venom, instantly crossing several hundred meters to appear atop one of the serpent heads.
His right fist, coated with the Flame of Destruction, came down in a simple, direct punch.
"*Squelch!*"
That ferocious serpent head exploded like a watermelon.
The remaining heads let out terrified, agonized shrieks, wanting to burrow back into the mud to escape.
Su Zhan was faster. His figure flickered continuously between several heads, his fists striking like dragons.
"*Boom! Boom! Boom!*"
In just three seconds, all the serpent heads were blasted apart.
The massive serpent body went limp in the swamp, beginning to sink slowly.
A wisp of pale white mist rose and merged into Su Zhan's body.
...
In an area covered with jagged, strange rocks.
Su Zhan encountered a Stone Golem Puppet.
It was composed of countless hard black stones, possessed immense strength and astonishing defense, with power reaching Special-risk Tenth Stage.
Upon discovering Su Zhan, the Stone Golem Puppet let out a muffled roar, its gigantic stone fist smashing down from above.
Su Zhan gathered the Flame of Destruction into his left fist and met it head-on.
"*Boom!!*"
Fist met fist, shockwaves billowed.
The Stone Golem Puppet's stone fist was utterly shattered before the domineering nature of the Flame of Destruction, and the flames rapidly spread up its arm.
The Stone Golem Puppet roared in pain, its other arm sweeping horizontally.
Silver light swirled in Su Zhan's right eye as Future Vision activated, capturing the precise trajectory.
He lowered his stance, avoiding the sweep.
Appearing at the Stone Golem Puppet's chest position, his finger blade coated with the Flame of Destruction precisely pierced its chest.
"*Crack!*"
The Stone Golem Puppet's massive body instantly stiffened, then collapsed with a crash, turning into a pile of lifeless rubble.
White mist surged in, and his cultivation advanced once more.
...
The hunt continued.
Su Zhan roamed the Mist World.
Special-risk level Mist Creatures were hard to find.
But once found, they had no power to resist before his dual-system abilities.
His aura was visibly climbing towards Peak Special-risk at a speed discernible to the naked eye.
However...
After carefully sensing the magnitude of this advancement.
Su Zhan's brow twitched slightly.
He immediately arrived at a clear conclusion in his heart.
The required Life Essence had doubled.
This wasn't hard to understand.
Before, when hunting Mist Creatures, all the experience points were only supplied to the Aberrant account.
Now, however, he had to simultaneously feed both the Aberrant and the Awakened individual accounts.
The total amount remained unchanged, so the portion allocated to each account naturally halved.
The direct result was: previously, hunting two Mist Creatures of equivalent stage might have been enough to raise his Aberrant realm by a small stage.
Now, he needed to hunt four beings of equivalent strength to raise both system realms by a small stage simultaneously.
This was a good thing.
The ceiling had been raised infinitely.
Dual-system cultivation brought not just a skyrocketing in immediate combat power, but also an all-around enhancement in potential and more.
This was equivalent to raising his future ceiling from a single-story building directly to the height of a skyscraper.
The price to be paid would naturally rise accordingly.
If the resources required for advancement remained the same as during single-system cultivation, that would seem abnormal, suggesting some flaw might exist in this fusion.
This current situation was reasonable.
Although the leveling speed seemed to have slowed by half, each advancement was a genuine, dual qualitative transformation.
At the same level, his strength far surpassed that of a single-system cultivator, and his future growth space was limitless.
Trading double the resource consumption for far more than double the combat power increase and unlimited growth potential...
This deal was too profitable.
"It seems I'll have to be a little more diligent."
A faint arc curled at the corner of Su Zhan's mouth.
Far from feeling discouraged by the need to hunt more Mist Creatures, his motivation grew even more abundant.
...
Now, to speak of another matter.
The border of Daxia.
This was an apocalyptic scene painted with blood and flames.
The northern Steel Great Wall defense line, once hailed as impregnable, was now riddled with holes.
Hundred-meter-tall alloy walls were torn open by unknown tremendous forces, leaving several ferocious gaps, with charred marks spreading.
Beneath the walls, piled up like mountains, were not only the remains of various bizarrely shaped Mist Creatures but also countless garrison soldiers clad in Daxia's standard military uniforms.
There was no time to collect the remains.
The western Yellow Sand Fortress had long since turned into ruins. The once-prosperous border stronghold was completely wiped from the map, leaving only broken walls and rubble.
On the eastern coast, colossal waves surged to the heavens, stirred by massive shadows lurking in the deep sea.
Emergency evacuation sirens pierced the sky over cities.
Panicked human streams.
Military vehicles driving against the flow towards the front lines.
Forming a tragic and heroic picture.
An unprecedented Mist Surge.
This was not a local conflict.
It was a full-scale assault covering Daxia's entire border line.
From the gray-white Mist, the emerging Mist Creatures seemed endless.
Medium-risk, High-risk, Special-risk...
They were like a black tide, wave after wave, fearlessly crashing against Daxia's teetering defense line.
And within this black tide, the most lethal were those figures emitting terrifying Pressure.
Calamity-level.
Some were massive as small hills, each step causing earth-shaking tremors—the Stompers.
Some soared through the sky, their wings blotting out the sun.
Some lurked within shadows, their forms elusive and unpredictable...
These rarely seen Calamity-level existences now appeared one after another on the battlefield like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.
Faced with such a critical situation.
Daxia, this ancient nation, erupted with unprecedented power.