Battle Frenzy

“You won’t get a chance to confess!”

“You are just plain jealous. You will lose your best friend and teacher like this!” Simba was clearly very upset. “Look, I am a teacher, and she is one as well. How matching is that? Quickly help me think of an idea to get her heart. Nothing is more important than this now!”

“You could consider growing taller before we talk about this… Anyway, stop fooling around. I have to get down to business!” Wang Zhong truly didn’t know how to handle Simba, despite the fact that he also agreed that Lan Daier was charming deep down.

“What kind of bullshit business do you have? Is there anything more important than the Great Simba’s love life? Don’t brush me off! Let me tell you, you won’t get rid of me that easily today with this kind of reply!” Simba was obviously dissatisfied with his reply, but just as he was about to continue pestering Wang Zhong about his love life, Wang Zhong had already grabbed him.

Wang Zhong’s curiosity about his own Soul Sea had long reached an uncontrollable state; therefore, he had no patience to entertain his and Simba’s infatuation. As such, he directly grabbed Simba, placed Simba under his buttocks, and quickly entered the state of establishing inner sight.

Despite having experienced soul flames earlier on, his Soul Sea consciousness had yet to change much, at least in terms of appearance. It was just that his Soul Sea expanded, and his Soul Power had increased. The size of his Soul Sea had increased by around four to five times. As Wang Zhong attempted to sense the strength of his Soul Sea, he also activated his Soul Power. With meticulous control over his Soul Power, he could roughly estimate a value.

It was a little more than 5,000 Grassos.

His power had increased fivefold. Wang Zhong couldn’t help but sigh when he recalled how he had actually put his and Simba’s lives on the line just for 50 Grassos all those years ago. In the blink of an eye, he already had more than 5,000 Grassos of Soul Power. To think there was actually such an item in the Holy City which could instantly boost one’s Soul Power to such a high level.

The most terrifying thing was that this was not a kind of medication; thus, there were no side effects at all. This was the power of gourmets! Thinking about how things were back on Earth, it was truly miserable and lamentable. This was the height of the current landscape.

Cultivation of Soul Power should have been a long and boring process. Under normal circumstances, there were no shortcuts. However, this so-called principle was actually a very narrow view. In the Fifth Dimension, nothing was impossible. After this experience, Wang Zhong’s mindset had also changed.

It turned out that advancing from the Initial Phase of the Heroic Soul Stage to the peak was only worth a few slices of meat. The truth was indeed very cruel.

However, Wang Zhong’s mindset had already deviated from the truth. To be able to achieve such a successful advancement was actually not as simple as it seemed. First of all, Lan Daier was a gourmet master. At the same time, she had a certain level of understanding of his physical condition. In addition to those, the rarity and value of the Palulu Turkey itself also contributed to the achievement of such an effect. It was considered something of the highest quality, and not everyone had an opportunity to eat it.

Despite all these, for a young kid who was an Initial Phase Heroic Soul, the Palulu Turkey could only increase his Soul Power by about eight or nine hundred Grassos, with a thousand Grassos being the maximum. It was truly rare for someone’s Soul Power to increase so crazily like Wang Zhong’s did. Frankly speaking, even Lan Daier could not believe her eyes; this absorption rate was a little too scary.

If one had money and power in the Holy City, it would be an easy task to increase their Soul Power. For those who were accepted as Successor Disciples, if they gained enough recognition from their teachers, it would not be impossible for them to reach Peak Heroic Soul Stage within half a year. However, their process would never be as abnormal as Wang Zhong’s. If ordinary people consumed the Palulu Turkey in order to increase their Soul Power from one thousand Grassos to five thousand Grassos, they would probably need 20 sets of it. Other than the strength of the person eating the dish being able to affect the effects of consumption, the effects would also grow weaker as more were consumed…

Wang Zhong obviously didn’t know this. Being in a good mood, he even considered buying some for Sharmie. What the Wanderlust Team now lacked was a powerful handgunner. Boosting Sharmie’s strength was equivalent to increasing the strength of the entire exploration team. It would definitely be worth the money to spend a few thousand Holy Coins. But then again, looking at Ella’s expression today, Wang Zhong felt that ‘a few thousand Holy Coins’ might not be enough… The role of gourmets here was extremely important; if not, the person eating the dish would have kicked the bucket long ago.

The improvement of Soul Power was only the basic effect. Obviously, the effects of Palulu Turkey cuisine did not stop there. Wang Zhong had to focus on the next step.

Earlier in the afternoon when Lan Daier did the physical examination for him, Wang Zhong could already feel some subtle changes coming from his Dharma Idol. Compared to Soul Power, which could be improved with time, the Dharma Idol was the most important and fundamental asset of a practitioner. At this time, his consciousness began to settle, and his Dharma Idol began to appear in his soul consciousness.

At first glance, there seemed to be no overall changes in the Heaven and Earth Chessboard. Its black-and-white grid was still alternating. This level of power was obviously not enough to change anything, but there were obvious changes in the Flaming Spirit King, Salamander.

Unlike his previous singular body, the newly summoned Salamander had a black iron chain burning with blazing flames. The head and tail of the chain were round and triangular-shaped respectively. It could be seen that the black iron chain had red, shiny runes engraved on it, and the blazing flames on the entire chain made these runes flash even more brilliantly.

Wang Zhong had seen Salamander’s chain before, but that was just made from flames. This time, the chain had its own true form, and Wang Zhong could feel the powerful energy diffusing from the black iron chain even across the distance of his Soul Sea. At the same time, Salamander’s power level had also increased together with Wang Zhong’s, wielding around 5,000 Grassos as well; this also made Salamander’s body more solid. Wang Zhong even felt that if he himself grew stronger, Salamander might evolve one step further. Wang Zhong’s Dharma Idol bodyguard was different from other people’s. Salamander definitely had powerful origins. With the increase in his power, Salamander was gradually revealing his true form. At present, it could be deduced that he was very fond of chains and had average melee ability. Maybe he specialized in arcane attacks?

There was no doubt that Salamander’s combat effectiveness had been greatly improved. If he had to go up against the Lava Monster Leader now, Wang Zhong felt that he and Salamander may be able to subdue the monster without having to activate his power of domination.

After completing his inner observations, Wang Zhong didn’t remain idle and jumped straight into meditation.

The previous ‘micro-meditation’ session had already hindered his progress for a whole week and made him feel helpless, but now, the surging power in his Soul Sea made Wang Zhong feel that there were solutions to all his problems now.

He began to extend his mind, and, with the help of his new Soul Power, his mind began to spread to every corner of his body, continuously stretching, extending, and getting thinner; it was eventually getting closer and closer to the microworld!

During the process of releasing his Soul Power, his scattered soul would be shielded with an extremely large net, but there were limits to this: the deeper he went into the microscopic world, the larger the net needed to be.

Previously, he encountered his bottleneck here. The more he tried to move toward the microworld, the blurrier his self-consciousness got. At that time, the protection formed by his Soul Power was inadequate, and the feeling of being overwhelmed appeared. Wang Zhong felt like he was biting off more than he could chew, and he grew terrified, as though he would never be able to gather his soul again if he continued to spread it.

But this time, he did not feel any discomfort and easily broke through his previous limit, moving to a deeper level. However, if he depended solely on spreading his soul, it was obviously not enough. The protection net needed would be too large, and even Heavenly Soul Experts might not have the power to do so. His previous failures were not completely useless; at the least, he knew that there was absolutely no problem with the direction of the fundamental theory regarding the establishment of the Soul Core.

He spread it out as much as he could, and until he began to feel like he was about to exceed his limit, then he would suddenly contract all his Soul Power…

At this moment, all the scattered Soul Power condensed into a small dot, and it acted like a spring. The Soul Power was compressed by that tension to an extreme, then began to stretch outward at a fast speed.

He had tried and tested this theory of establishing the Soul Core before. It was just that his Soul Power was too weak at that time, and he could not feel much during the whole process. His aim was just to let his Soul Power record and become familiar with the process just like muscle memory.

However, this time seemed a little different. The massive amount of Soul Power had caused a qualitative change in the process. Although the Soul Core had not been formed yet, it was slowly dissipating after converging to a point. However, the process of scattering Soul Power into a huge soul force network and violently contracting them had produced some peculiar effects. Wang Zhong could clearly feel that a certain regular pattern had manifested during this process. It was like the entire Soul Power network had concealed some kind of cohesion point during the gathering process. At the moment when the Soul Power had compressed to the maximum and began to spread outwards, a loud sound could be heard.

This discovery surprised Wang Zhong. Perhaps the secret of establishing the Soul Core laid in that vague cohesion point.

He immediately started on his second attempt. He got a similar result: one that did not seem to differ much from his first one. However, he could sense that the ‘point’ had become clearer and more profound.

He had finally found a feasible method of cultivation. With Wang Zhong’s powerful comprehension, he instantly calmed his mind. He was clear that this cohesion point was obviously the key to establishing the Soul Core. Clearly, it was difficult to identify it accurately. But as long as he repeated this training again and again, he would eventually be able to fix this point in his consciousness, and it could become the nucleus of an entire established Soul Core.

In the past, he had no clue about what he was doing; thus, he rushed into practice recklessly. But now, he had found a clear and feasible method. Unfortunately, his Soul Power was still not strong enough. If he could reach the peak, aka 10,000 Grassos, perhaps the process of finding this point could become easier, but this was obviously not something that could be done within his ability of 5,000 Grassos. Starting from today, he had to focus on increasing his Soul Power. However, if he wanted to complete the initial stage of Cellular Cosmology as soon as possible — even before reaching the peak of the Heroic Soul Stage — he could only use some slightly clumsy methods, such as constantly trying out this process of simple diffusion and regathering of his soul. If he could not clearly find the gathering point in his first try, he could confirm its position via countless vague attempts.

“Stupid people really do come up with stupid ideas!” Simba obviously developed great dissatisfaction due to Wang Zhong’s blatant disregard for his feelings. The fact that he was trapped under Wang Zhong’s ass made it even more uncomfortable for him. However, being the Great Simba, it was a must to have the power to resolve this difficult situation. As such, he decided to hypnotize himself completely. “Oh my God, if this ass belonged to Teacher Lan Daier… How awesome would that be…?”

With Lan Daier’s previous advice in mind, Wang Zhong began to pay much more attention to the Tyrants’ lectures. He began to attend every single lesson in the Tempering Faculty and even occasionally attended some lectures regarding Smelting. Although the Tyrants would assign a specific cultivation faculty to their Holy Disciples, they would not prevent Holy Disciples of each major faculty from ‘crossing’ over with each other. On the contrary, they encouraged such behavior.

‘Draw parallels from inference, hear both sides out, and be enlightened.’ This piece of advice would be heard by all practitioners in the Holy City from the first day they entered the city till the day they faced death. Although different faculties had opposing views when it came to cultivation and the fact that listening to too many ‘sides’ might confuse practitioners, but in fact, the more confused the Holy Disciples got, the more their minds would be stimulated to think as well as explore their own paths.

To put it bluntly, it was a double-edged sword. Sometimes, the cons even outweighed the pros, but the Holy City never cared about wastrels who would lose their own judgment after getting confused by various theories. They only needed elites who could maintain accurate judgment and those who could always make the right and best choices for themselves.

Today, Wang Zhong came here to attend a lecture regarding the main module of the Smelting Faculty. For this module, lectures were more frequent. He had attended a lecture before. The teacher, aka lecturer, Arudiba, was a fairly tall and strong bald man. He was two-and-a-half meters tall and appeared to be a fierce and overbearing person, making it hard to imagine that he was indeed vastly knowledgeable.

“The main goal for newcomers in the Heroic Soul Stage is naturally the accumulation of Soul Power. In theory, you are not advised to focus on too many subsidiary jobs, as excess is just as bad as deficiency. However, as long as you can balance everything on your plate properly, it will be good for individuals to engage in some miscellaneous subjects concurrently.

“Previously, we have already talked about the three major subsidiary professions in the Holy City. They are alchemists, Wards Masters, and gourmets. Of course, there are some subfields derived from these three professions, such as pharmacists, but most of them are often classified into these three major professions…” The main lecturer Arudiba was sonorous and forceful when he spoke and made eye contact with students. Among the most famous teachers in the Tyrants, Arudiba was definitely ranked as one of the best. He had loads of experience as he had been teaching for more than 10 years, and he was rumored to be the top expert among the Tyrants’ teachers. He had once won the title of Dimensional Devourer at the Dimensional Hostel as well. Although his rank had been automatically downgraded for quitting the trade, it did not affect his image of being powerful in the eyes of all his apprentices.

What was even rarer was that Arudiba could be considered a ‘responsible’ teacher, which was relatively rare among all the teachers. Of course, he was also known as a stern teacher. His way of lecturing was not rigid; thus, he obviously did put effort into planning his lessons. He, too, often assigned homework and tasks for the students to check whether they really understood him. This was very different from other ordinary teachers who would come to class and lecture by reading from the books, followed by leaving immediately the moment the bell rang.

The Holy Disciples in the lecture hall paid their fullest attention to him. There were no less than 40 to 50 people, but no one made any noise at all. Obviously, it was not only because of how strict Arudiba was but also because of the respect everyone had for this teacher.

“We all know that subsidiary jobs not only allow practitioners to earn resources for cultivation, but they are also able to provide various help on your path of cultivation. Different cultivation directions have very different needs when it comes to subsidiary professions. At the same time, the requirements for each subsidiary profession are also very different. If you choose the wrong one, it will probably make you labor hard to little avail.”