Chapter 850: Xu Shao Blushed?

Yunlun Mountains, Day Nine.

The Imperial City Trial was nearly one-third complete. Like gold being sifted from sand, the number of participants had dwindled from over 30,000 at the start to fewer than 10,000.

9645! This was the ranking number of the trial participant at the very bottom of the leaderboard.

Xu Xiaoshou still lingered above the fire essence lava in the inner perimeter. For the past few days, he had been "waiting by the source stone for rabbits," hunting down numerous trial participants who came with high spirits but returned disheartened.

His only regret was... "Why hasn't any big shot shown up yet?" Xu Xiaoshou stared blankly at the sky.

At this moment, over 200 trial participants were held within the spirit formation he had set up. Or perhaps "held" wasn't the right word. After all, these individuals had sworn allegiance to the Little Xu Gang and were willing to pay 10,000 points per person per day to cultivate using the fire-element source stone.

The place looked sparsely populated, but in fact, only fire-element spiritual refiners had remained. Everyone else had gone off to frantically accumulate points for the upcoming appearance of the Dao Source Stones.

"Young Master Xu, still no activity," Xin Gugu commented, looking rather bored. His task was to stake out the trial map daily and locate the coordinates of newly appearing Dao Source Stones. However, after several days, apart from this first fire-element source stone, no one else fortunate enough had found any other elemental Dao Source Stones.

"That's strange," Xin Gugu mumbled, finding the probability somewhat unrealistic. Nearly 10,000 trial participants had almost all reached the inner perimeter of the Yunlun Mountains in these few days. Yet, no one had found any source stones?

Liu Changqing smiled and said from the side, "Dao Source Stones are supreme treasures of heaven and earth. Even if Hall Master Cheng was generous enough to offer some as rewards, it would be impossible to gather source stones of every element. Frankly, I think it's normal that only one fire-element source stone has appeared in a few days."

Xin Gugu clearly disagreed, looking back as he said, "I don't think the source stones are in the inner perimeter. But when the Nine Dragon Veins trial in the core region opens tomorrow, perhaps more will appear there. If there was only one source stone, Hall Master Cheng wouldn't have given it directly to Chong Yuan as a reward."

Liu Changqing didn't object, shrugging his shoulders to indicate he had no insider knowledge, and that further discussion would be pointless.

Listening to the two complain from the side, Xu Xiaoshou realized how boring the trial was for them. It was the same for him. If he didn't encounter enemies of equal standing, he was almost invincible in the Yunlun Mountains. The problem was that after "waiting by the source stone for rabbits" for several days, even Jiang Xian and other semi-saint disciples, forces strong enough to challenge his Little Xu Gang, seemed to have gotten wind of the situation here and hadn't come to contend.

Just as Xu Xiaoshou had predicted, his status as a semi-saint disciple was well-known. Having already secured the fire-element source stone, any other individuals of comparable status who might consider forcibly seizing it would not only have to assess their own qualifications but also ponder whether they could bear the cost of attempting to snatch the source stone. Clearly, no one could afford such a price. After a full-blown confrontation, it was likely that both sides would be left with few remaining forces, and two-thirds of the Imperial City Trial still lay ahead.

Xu Xiaoshou looked down at the more than 200 fire-element spiritual refiners meditating cross-legged below the small hill. They were all masters! This force was not to be underestimated. What's more, the number of spiritual refiners of various elements belonging to the Little Xu Gang scattered elsewhere was even greater! If this place encountered trouble, with support from all directions, even ten semi-saint disciples leading their respective major forces might not be able to match the power here. Besides, there weren't even ten semi-saint disciples in the Yunlun Mountains to begin with.

"What a shame. I want to show off my skills, but there's no one for me to kill. I'll just have to wait another day," Xu Xiaoshou lamented. "After tomorrow, in the Nine Dragon Veins, more battles are surely to be expected!" He didn't want to go out looking for people to kill; it was a pure waste of energy. By the final phase of the trial, all parties would eventually converge at Pixiu Mountain anyway. There was no benefit in overthinking it.

Xu Xiaoshou immersed himself in his passive system. In the past few days, he had accumulated passive points by robbing trial participants who tried to snatch his source stone, combined with the passive points he had intentionally hoarded during the Eastern Heaven Imperial City Alchemist Competition. At this point, he had amassed an incredibly large sum. "Passive Points: 1,872,625." Over 1.8 million! Xu Xiaoshou was somewhat speechless looking at the number.

Approximately 1.5 to 1.6 million of these points were earned during the Alchemist Competition. The remainder he had painstakingly acquired over the past few days from the sporadic source stone snatchers. It was clear that the best places to accumulate points were not areas like the Yunlun Mountains, where opportunities were abundant, but rather densely populated spiritual refiner locations like the Eastern Heaven Imperial City.

Xu Xiaoshou glanced at his passive skill bar. Almost half of his passive skills had already been upgraded to the Sovereign level during the last upgrade. However, there were still a few at the bottom that he hadn't been able to upgrade due to a shortage of passive points at the time. "Breathing Technique, Rebound, Transformation, Resilience." Just these four. One basic passive skill and three extended passive skills.

Xu Xiaoshou now held an inventory of 1.8 million points, and upgrading a Sovereign passive skill only required 100,000 passive points. Without a second thought, he directly exchanged for forty Tier 3 skill points and immediately upgraded them. "Rebound (Sovereign Lv.1)." "Transformation (Sovereign Lv.1)." "Resilience (Sovereign Lv.1)." "Breathing Technique (Sovereign Lv.1)."

When the first three extended passive skills were upgraded, his body only showed a slight, peculiar reaction, as if he were experiencing a genetic mutation. Xu Xiaoshou didn't feel anything significant. He was eager to test the abilities of his new Sovereign passive skills. For example, whether "Rebound" combined with "Resilience" could achieve the void-splitting punch effect he had previously envisioned. Or "Transformation," which was previously limited by size; he wondered if he could now transform into a small pebble, and if so, what an insurmountable escape ability that would be! However, due to the presence of secret observers in the Cloud Realm, Xu Xiaoshou refrained from testing them.

It was the last skill, "Breathing Technique," that Xu Xiaoshou felt a little hesitant about, but thinking he would have to upgrade it eventually, he decided to go for it. With this, the Master Lv.1 "Breathing Technique" underwent a qualitative change, directly transforming into a Sovereign-level skill. It was akin to a Master-level cultivation method suddenly morphing into a top-tier Sovereign-level one, and the commotion it caused was extraordinary.

Almost instantly, Xu Xiaoshou felt all his pores burst open. Then, the pure spiritual energy of heaven and earth from the Yunlun Mountains surged towards him like a mountain flood and a tsunami. His body became like a treasure basin, with a spiritual vortex within it. The surging spiritual energy visibly transformed into dragons of spiritual energy, pouring in madly through his pores, mouth, nose, eyes, and ears!

"Hiss!" Xu Xiaoshou, who had been meditating cross-legged, suddenly felt a chilling sensation throughout his body, as if he had fallen into an ice cellar. The exhilarating sensation almost immediately made him lose consciousness, leaving only his muscles twitching with a feeling of extreme fullness as they frantically absorbed spiritual energy.

"Oh my!" "My heavens!" Xu Xiaoshou's voice was distorted, ethereal and unrecognizable.

Xin Gugu and Liu Changqing, standing nearby, were startled. Young Master Xu had merely closed his eyes; they hadn't even thought he was cultivating, so why had he suddenly... become like this?!

Witnessing Young Master Xu being frantically inundated by the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, his shoulders were now raised high, elbows clamped tightly to his ribs, and his previously crossed knees suddenly shot straight out as if he were reanimated. Then, like a drunken fish, he suddenly flopped, collapsing onto the rock, his body bouncing up and down, making peculiar sounds against the stone.

"What?" Xin Gugu was astonished. Had he cultivated himself into a state of qi deviation? But the question was, what was this sudden spiritual energy storm? Why did it all inexplicably converge on Xu Xiaoshou? Xin Gugu suddenly found the scene somewhat familiar.

Liu Changqing was also dumbfounded. He stared blankly at the scene before him. In the past, whenever he was with Young Master Xu's group, no matter what they encountered, he always seemed to know everything, like a living encyclopedia. But this scene unfolding with Young Master Xu now... Liu Changqing couldn't understand it at all! "Is someone attacking?" "A mental attack?" "But... what's with all this spiritual energy?"

Below the hill, the more than 200 trial participants who were cultivating with the fire-element source stone also opened their eyes simultaneously and looked towards Young Master Xu. But all they saw was the hill suddenly becoming shrouded in mist, its interior obscured, and not a single human figure visible.

"What happened?" "Has someone attacked?" "No, that's not right! Isn't that where Young Master Xu and his two guardians are? Who would dare attack there?"

Everyone was confused and moved in unison, wanting to go and investigate. Xiao Jing also stopped cultivating, staring blankly in that direction. What puzzled him was that there were clearly no combat fluctuations in that area; instead, the spiritual energy gathered there now looked exactly like an excellent cultivation treasure land.

"Everyone, do you feel that all the surrounding spiritual energy of heaven and earth is going towards that place, and we can't absorb any of it?" Xiao Jing asked. The others sensed it for themselves, their faces astonished, and said, "It's true! The spiritual energy of heaven and earth is like it has a master; it doesn't obey my command at all and converges directly towards that hilltop..."

"What did Young Master Xu do?" Those below were shocked and quickly rushed towards the hilltop, fearing an accident. No matter what, others could suffer misfortune in this place, but Young Master Xu could not.

"Gaga ga..." On top of the hill, Xu Xiaoshou was flopping like a drunken fish or a rotten shrimp, rolling his eyes and repeatedly slapping his body against the rock. But with each touch, the icy-cool sensation on his skin made him feel like he was on the verge of ecstasy and death.

"I'm crazy!" "I've gone mad!" "It was already hard enough for me to control the Master-level 'Breathing Technique' to prevent the world-shaking phenomenon of spiritual energy absorption from alarming others." "Now, how could I just recklessly upgrade 'Breathing Technique' to Sovereign level?" "How could I have dared?!"

At the eye of the storm, Xu Xiaoshou's sole remaining sliver of consciousness was filled with endless regret. This qualitative transformation of the "Breathing Technique," with the spiritual energy rapidly absorbed in a short time, directly solidified his cultivation realm to an extreme degree. Furthermore, the overflowing spiritual energy even seemed to be trying to break through the thin bottleneck of the early Heavenly Manifestation Realm.

How could Xu Xiaoshou let this damn spiritual energy have its way? He suddenly squeezed his legs together! "Ugh!"

He broke through... The profound Dao rhythm of a Master could no longer be suppressed. Even with the Sovereign-level "Concealment" skill, when everyone was looking at Young Master Xu, this breakthrough fluctuation was visible to the naked eye.

"It's over!" Xu Xiaoshou was going crazy. He had suppressed his cultivation for so long, making others believe he was only at the Innate stage. More critically, he had made the observers outside the Cloud Realm believe the same. But who would have thought that this sudden accident would break that balance!

Breaking through to the Master Heavenly Manifestation realm, his qi sea surged, and its capacity expanded further. The spiritual energy infused into every cell of his body seemed to find its destination, all being drawn into his qi sea. Xu Xiaoshou finally felt his body control return. He suppressed every pore and stopped breathing. Finally, the frenzied spiritual energy in heaven and earth quieted down...

"Phew." Only then did Xu Xiaoshou let out a complete sigh of relief. He opened his eyes. Before him, two pairs of wide eyes, filled with astonishment, were staring at him—those of Xin Gugu and Liu Changqing. And behind them, hundreds of people had all climbed onto the hilltop, their faces peculiar, staring at him with strange looks in their eyes.

"Suspicion received, Passive Points: 224." Xu Xiaoshou was speechless. His face instantly flushed. "My lifelong reputation is ruined!!!"

Despite his inner shame, Xu Xiaoshou wouldn't show it. He calmly waved his hand and said, "What are you doing here? I merely had a small breakthrough. Why are you all so nervous? Are you worried I'd be ambushed?"

Everyone was speechless. "Is this a small breakthrough? You call this a small breakthrough? The spiritual energy of heaven and earth filling the sky was suddenly drained by you alone, and others couldn't even sense it. You call that a small breakthrough?" And most importantly, you, esteemed leader of the Xu Gang and Little Xu Gang... So this is what a breakthrough looks like? Everyone recalled Young Master Xu's leg-clamping moment and that moan, and they chuckled, their expressions utterly lewd. How long had Young Master Xu been holding back? Had a semi-saint disciple become so repressed after only nine days in the Yunlun Mountains? How decadent and extravagant must his daily life usually be!

"Boss, I have an idea..." A bold fellow from the Little Xu Gang began to speak.

"Shut up!" Xu Xiaoshou's cold gaze swept over him, and he said sternly, "Regarding your idea, I have a complete set of ways for you to die."

"Uh." The man was instantly dumbfounded and zipped his mouth shut.

"Hahahaha..." The trial participants on the side burst into hearty laughter, even Xiao Jing. They used to think Young Master Xu was a celestial being, skilled in everything from alchemy to swordsmanship. But today, they finally saw the human side of this lofty semi-saint disciple. It turned out he was also an ordinary person who had been suppressed for a long time, and whose "breakthrough" would appear very "abnormal"!

In recent days, thanks to the fire-element source stone, everyone's goodwill towards Young Master Xu had grown, and they occasionally dared to joke, but the distance between them remained vast, like a chasm. It was akin to meeting an elder or sect master in their clan. The members of the Little Xu Gang, apart from suitable moments for a few jokes, were generally cautious and submissive. After all, Young Master Xu's sword was like that of a celestial immortal. But only what they witnessed today made the members of the Little Xu Gang feel that Young Master Xu was, in fact, just a peer, burdened with the same worries as his peers.

"A breakthrough?" "Heheheh..." Everyone descended the hill with lewd smiles, continuing their cultivation.

Only Xu Xiaoshou remained, staring blankly at the information bar and the "Breathing Technique" passive skill for a long time. "Damn it, this rotten skill!"