Chapter 1356: Like a God Dominating the Mortal World, No Self After Surpassing the Limits

The Three Er Jue...

"Let's see what effects they have!"

Xu Xiaoshou rubbed his hands together, looking at the red interface in his mind with great anticipation.

The Juexing Ji still had no skill descriptions; only the name sat there alone, waiting for the host to discover it.

"Yishi Duli..."

Xu Xiaoshou's gaze first settled on the name of this "hidden" Er Jue.

Among a bunch of crude names like "Violent Giant" and "Explosive Stance," this one really stood out with its sophistication.

Without much thought, Xu Xiaoshou activated the skill.

"Yishi Duli!"

The world in front of him seemed to fade into something ethereal.

But it wasn't really; through his "Perception," he saw that even his Perception couldn't detect himself anymore!

He stood alone in place, feeling completely cut off from the entire Xing Jie.

Even as the lord of Xing Jie, he couldn't mobilize any power from this world or beyond to target himself in the Yishi Duli state.

"So fast!"

"This Lingyuan is depleting..."

It was depleting so rapidly that "depleting" didn't even do it justice!

Xu Xiaoshou already had the Sheng Di Lv.0 passives like "Endless Vitality," "Full of Yuanqi," and "Transformation."

Right now, the Lingyuan in his Qi Sea, and even the power throughout his entire body, was vanishing at an alarming rate.

In just three breaths, nearly sixty percent of his Jing, Qi, and Shen had been consumed!

Roughly calculating, even with those three sustain passives running at full tilt, his own Lingyuan would be depleted in no more than ten breaths.

On top of that, due to effects from "Endless Vitality" and "Transformation," his physical state, mental state, and everything else would plummet together.

"This Lingyuan is burning way too fast!"

"What exactly does 'Yishi Duli' do? Could it really make even a Sheng Di unable to detect me? If so, the sneaky moves I could pull would be endless..."

Feeling his own state dropping rapidly, Xu Xiaoshou thought this guess was highly plausible.

An idea struck him, and he dashed in front of Long Xing, waving his hands around flamboyantly.

Long Xing was asleep.

Xu Xiaoshou then started taking off his shirt, revealing his smooth, delicate shoulders and putting on a display of alluring flesh.

The spirit of Long Xing didn't appear.

"No reaction?"

Not believing it, Xu Xiaoshou put his clothes back on, flashed over to the treasure pile, grabbed a bucket of dragon blood, and brought it back.

Long Xing still didn't move.

If the ancestral tree trembled even a little, Xu Xiaoshou would know it was faking sleep.

But there was absolutely no response!

"Even dragon blood can't tempt you now?"

"That means 'Yishi Duli' at least hides me from the ancestral tree, and it can't detect some external items I'm carrying..."

"What about other people? Can they be hidden with 'Yishi Duli' too?"

Based on how vanishing techniques worked, people probably couldn't, but inanimate objects or things without intelligence might be.

Ten breaths passed.

Xu Xiaoshou's timing was spot-on; the Yishi Duli state ended on its own.

He felt utterly drained, his eyelids heavy, his eyes dull, and his mind briefly dazed.

"So tired..."

His legs buckled, and he nearly passed out.

But the Sheng Di Lv.0's three sustain passives were incredibly powerful.

With the breathing method still in play, Xu Xiaoshou took a deep breath, and the sense of depletion faded. His Qi Sea had a thin layer of energy holding him up.

"I'm back!"

As his vision refocused, Xu Xiaoshou saw that the spirit of Long Xing had appeared out of nowhere, staring intently at the dragon blood in his hand.

"Human?"

Long Xing's question was clear—it was asking if he wanted to repay it for the earlier blessing.

So it really hadn't noticed me just now... Excited, Xu Xiaoshou held up the dragon blood and said, "Senior, answer me one question honestly, and this bucket of dragon blood is yours for free."

"Speak!"

"Is it possible for a Sheng Di to get within three zhang of you without you noticing?"

"Absolutely not!"

"Really?"

"Yes!"

"I'm talking about a high-level Sheng Di, you know?"

"As the world tree of Xing Jie, I can detect anything not just within three zhang around me, but even up to thirty thousand zhang in the shattered space flows around this world."

Well, you're quite the watchdog... Xu Xiaoshou chuckled to himself, because "Yishi Duli" was clearly even better than that!

He planned to find an opportunity to try it out in front of Kong Yu Hen, Ba Zun An, and others.

If they couldn't detect him, then dancing a belly dance in front of Dao Qiong Cang would be a dream come true.

"Senior, this is yours."

Xu Xiaoshou handed over the dragon blood.

The spirit of Long Xing didn't drink it right away; it just set it down by the tree, probably planning to savor it slowly later.

Gulping down a whole bucket at once, as it had before, was just too wasteful... It had learned its lesson.

Seeing the spirit of Long Xing acting like a penny-pinching miser, Xu Xiaoshou smiled and turned to leave.

After a few exchanges, his state had already recovered to its peak.

Clearly, even the Lingyuan capacity of the Wangzuo Daojing—where the concept of a Qi Sea was gone and Lingyuan could be stored throughout the body—wasn't enough to sustain one Er Jue passive.

After all, even the first Jue had been Lingyuan-intensive; before breaking through to Wangzuo, Xu Xiaoshou had to limit how often he used Yibu Dengtian.

But the Sheng Di Lv.0's various sustain passives perfectly compensated for that weakness.

Xu Xiaoshou summed it up:

"The Er Jue can be activated, but I have to turn it off within ten breaths, or my state will be completely drained.

"But after about ten breaths off, with my passives, I can recover fully and go again.

"That means the Er Jue is powerful, but it can't be kept on continuously. However..."

However, that problem was easy to solve.

Activate it, rush to the enemy, use Yishi Duli to make them forget and not see you, then deactivate it and land a passive punch.

Heh...

Even someone with Shen Yi's combat awareness would probably get caught off guard.

"Thinking about it this way, am I even more unpredictable than Dao Qiong Cang?"

"Oh, wait, Dao Qiong Cang is more like mysteriously elusive..."

Suppressing his excitement, Xu Xiaoshou told himself to stay calm.

Because he still had two incredibly powerful Er Jue left to test!

"Agility, Yibu Dengtian, Shenmin Shike..."

"This one wouldn't make my reactions briefly break through to the third realm, allowing me to go toe-to-toe with freaks like Shen Yi, would it?"

Xu Xiaoshou focused on the second Er Jue.

This time, he was feeling bold. With a wave of his sleeve, he said coldly:

"Shenmin Shike!"

In an instant, his mental force materialized like a net spreading out, capturing everything and everyone in Xing Jie.

"Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle..."

Xu Xiaoshou heard the sound from the 382nd row, seventh cauldron in the 100,000 Dan Ding.

The medicinal liquid inside, which was being refined from Zheling Flower, Baiai Zi, and Caoshe Blood, was sizzling. Under the cauldron's lid, it was barely holding together, but now it was crystal clear to him. There was a seventy percent chance it would form a pill, and it would be a superior-quality Zhuanghun Dan.

"Huff..."

Not only that, in Shenmin Shike, Xu Xiaoshou also heard Tan Shen breathing, and the heavy pounding of its tiny heart.

It was overwhelmingly loud!

"Sip..."

Elsewhere, the spirit of Long Xing stealthily extended a branch and licked some dragon blood, scooping up enough to quantify as seventy-two drops.

Xu Xiaoshou was stunned by his own abilities.

He felt like he was truly cheating now, with a god-like hack activated.

His thoughts, calculation speed, and reaction consciousness—all of it had been elevated by more than a level.

But the Lingyuan was depleting fast.

Yet his state didn't drop at all.

Xu Xiaoshou knew this was Shenmin Shike forcibly boosting his condition.

If he waited until all the Lingyuan and everything else was exhausted before it ended, he might collapse completely.

He immediately canceled the Er Jue.

The world went quiet in an instant.

The wind, the sound of sand and stones, the wild growth of grass—all of it vanished.

Well, not really vanished; it was just that Xu Xiaoshou was used to it now.

If he listened carefully, even with Sheng Di Lv.0's agility, he could still hear those things.

But Shenmin Shike was on another level! Activating it made him feel like he was the true Sheng Di, and the ancestral tree was nothing.

He went back to Long Xing.

This time without Yishi Duli, the spirit of Long Xing quickly woke up and materialized, looking annoyed.

"Human, what is it?"

"Hit me."

"Hmm?"

"Long Xing Senior, use your fastest speed and whip me with your branches."

"Within ten breaths, if you hit me once, I'll give you a bucket of blood."

The spirit of Long Xing didn't quite understand—maybe this was just a human quirk—but after hearing the last part, its eyes lit up.

The ancestral tree buzzed and shook, manifesting branches like a storm of arrows raining down from the sky.

"Shenmin Shike!"

Without hesitation, Xu Xiaoshou activated the Er Jue.

He didn't even need to move his feet; with a thought, he was instantly ten thousand li away in the newborn wasteland of Xing Jie, far from Shen Nong Medicine Garden.

"Sizzle..."

He felt a burning sensation on his body, along with the smell of scorching.

Xu Xiaoshou realized his speed was approaching that of light, and even his robust Sheng body was getting singed at such velocity.

"I have to elementalize!"

"Just like Yan Wuse, elementalize my body, and my speed could be even faster!"

The reaction force from Shenmin Shike was incredible.

By the time the spirit of Long Xing in Shen Nong Medicine Garden locked onto a fading afterimage and took his challenge seriously, Xu Xiaoshou had already figured all this out.

That kid is testing something?

But he's way too arrogant—does he really think he's faster than the ancestral tree?

The sky filled with dense branches.

Xu Xiaoshou looked up, but to him, they all seemed too slow.

His reaction and calculation abilities let him clearly judge that Long Xing, that old fish, had no third-realm combat awareness—maybe it was only on par with his own before Shenmin Shike.

That meant its branch whips couldn't form a perfect, inescapable net.

To Xu Xiaoshou, those gaps were as obvious as forked paths in a forest.

Dodging? There were way too many options.

"Light!"

With that command, his form elementalized.

Xu Xiaoshou appeared still, but in reality, he was using Shenmin Shike's hyper reactions for ultra-fast movement.

One breath, three breaths, ten breaths...

He deliberately avoided using light abilities for the test.

Even so, after thousands of strikes, Long Xing went from calm to angry, then shocked—and still landed nothing.

Just before the experiment ended, Xu Xiaoshou darted around a slender branch three hundred sixty-five times, then stuck out his foot to let it hit him.

"Hit!"

"I've hit you!"

Long Xing was overjoyed, like Fan Jin passing the imperial exam.

But as soon as it spoke, the human kid's afterimage in the distance vanished.

Back at Shen Nong Medicine Garden, Xu Xiaoshou had already grabbed another bucket of dragon blood, tossed it over, and walked away without looking back.

"Thanks for the lesson, Long Xing Senior. Congrats on hitting me once—the dragon blood is your reward."

The spirit of Long Xing's eyelids twitched wildly.

Watching that defiant figure walk away, it felt like a cat that had been toyed with by its owner for ten breaths using a cat toy—fun for a moment, then gone in a flash.

What just happened...

Back at his spot—really just a random patch of grass—Xu Xiaoshou stared at the sky for three seconds, then sighed with a mix of melancholy and awe:

"I've become invincible again."

With Shenmin Shike, he could even toy with the ancestral tree Long Xing!

He didn't need more proof; comparing it to his own near-third-realm combat awareness, Xu Xiaoshou could tell.

In Shenmin Shike, he had full third-realm combat consciousness.

And that was just the boost to combat awareness—speed, reactions, calculations, everything was elevated to god-like sharpness.

"The only downside now is the short duration, and I have to activate it manually.

"And if I run into a monster like Shen Yi, whether I can even activate it is a question.

"But that's not a big issue. If I train with Shenmin Shike more, once I'm familiar with it, my own combat awareness will naturally break through to the third realm.

"Then, the problem of not being able to activate the Er Jue will be solved."

Xu Xiaoshou clenched his fist and moved on to the last Er Jue.

"Jixian..."

He started to shout it dramatically, but then sensed something off.

This one seemed to need stacking on top of "Violent Giant"?

"This is getting intense..."

"Won't this push me to my absolute limit and kill me?"

Frowning, golden light burst forth, and Xu Xiaoshou first transformed into the Violent Giant.

In the distance, the spirit of Long Xing in Shen Nong Medicine Garden couldn't sleep anymore and was staring intently at the human kid.

It noticed that after those thunderous Sheng Jie sounds earlier, Xu Xiaoshou had undergone a real breakthrough.

Now, he was turning into that golden giant again—who knew what antics he was up to?

"Jixian Giant... Roar!!!"

Before he could finish the thought, a heart-wrenching roar exploded from the golden giant's position.

"Boom, boom, boom!"

Space shattered instantly in that area.

A terrifying shockwave surged forth with a roar, carrying endless destructive energy like a tidal wave!

The spirit of Long Xing's pupils contracted.

It spread its ancestral tree power, and golden light protected Shen Nong Medicine Garden.

But in that short time, that was all it could do; it had no way to cover anywhere else.

So, chaos erupted across Xing Jie.

Tan Shen had been darting among the 100,000 Dan Ding, but with a massive boom, all the cauldrons shattered.

Its tiny body was blasted into the air, and it gasped in shock, swallowing up the exploding medicinal herbs and the destructive energy trying to erase it before looking dazedly toward its master.

"Meow?"

What happened?

The Broken Tower exploded...

The Poison Fish Pond exploded...

The ground was covered in flying, broken poisonous vines...

With its sharp eyes, the spirit of Long Xing even spotted a massive flaming giant, an ice-blue giant, and a dragon corpse being flung out by the shockwave in the far distance.

Wait! A dragon corpse?

The spirit of Long Xing quickly tried to protect this treasure, but in the blink of an eye...

The sky went dark!

Tan Shen jumped in fright and looked up.

The spirit of Long Xing stared up in a daze.

Above the heavens, a massive, blood-red, raging eye was gazing down at the world!

"Awoo..." The spirit of Long Xing was scared.

Expanding its Sheng Nian, it realized the sky wasn't just that eye—it was part of a golden head, and that eye was just one of the eyes on the head.

The golden head connected to a golden giant beyond the black hole...

A giant?

Wasnt' that the human kid?

The spirit of Long Xing was all too familiar with the golden giant—it had been hugged and kissed wildly by it before.

But now, this super-sized golden giant, probably tens of thousands of zhang tall, was completely different from the smaller one.

The golden light on its body wasn't just illusory anymore; it had solidified and compressed into dark-golden, crystal-like armor covering everything.

Even the head, peering down from the sky, looked like it was wearing a massive, hard golden mask!

"Roar—"

The Jixian Giant let out a furious roar.

With a thunderous boom, the great dao rules in Xing Jie shattered and dispersed, turning tens of thousands of li into a vacuum.

A massive golden fist, like one that could destroy the heavens and earth, descended mercilessly.

Xu Xiaoshou had lost his mind!

At this point, the spirit of Long Xing finally realized this terrifying fact.

That human kid had pushed himself into Qi Deviation—he'd finally gone too far!

"Snap out of it!"

"Human!!"

The spirit of Long Xing let out a dragon roar infused with a trace of ancestral source power.

The fist paused in midair for a moment and didn't come down.

But the spirit of Long Xing knew it wasn't because of its roar—the giant had just run out of energy and stopped temporarily.

"Whoosh."

With a sound, the Jixian Giant's jaw dropped open, and an unconscious figure fell out, hitting the distant mountain with a thud.

The golden Jixian Giant "armor" didn't vanish; it stayed hovering in the sky, still in a pose of rage and fist ready to strike.

"Sizzle..."

Waves of heat rolled out, shaking the heavens and earth.

The spirit of Long Xing looked at the devastated Xing Jie in silence.

Just from one transformation, and the fist hadn't even landed—yet this giant had shattered half of Xing Jie?

Was Xu Xiaoshou the reincarnation of a Tianzu?