As Mentor Xi had predicted, once news of the appearance of the Six-Armed Spiritual Ape spread, all Nine Domains sprang into action.
By the next morning, Liu Bai saw the squad from the Liu Domain arrive led personally by none other than his father, Domain Lord Liu Qingtian.
"Greetings, Domain Lord Liu and Elder Liu Zong," Mentor Xi and Mentor Mo stepped forward to greet them within the camp.
As Divine Soul Realm experts themselves, even backed by the Northern Spiritual Academy, the two instructors couldn't afford to slight the Liu Domain, especially with Liu Qingtian personally leading the team.
"Haha, no need to be so polite, mentors. My two foolish sons have benefitted greatly from the academy's guidance. I, Liu Qingtian, am the one who should be thanking you both," Liu Qingtian laughed heartily and spoke in a resonant voice.
At that moment, Liu Bai naturally stepped up to greet his father and second uncle.
But upon seeing Liu Bai now, both Liu Qingtian and Liu Zong were visibly startled.
Of course, it wasn't because their son had grown more handsome and elegant, but rather because of the spiritual energy aura faintly radiating from his body...
Spiritual Wheel Realm!
"You brat, you really keep surprising your old man..." Liu Qingtian patted his son's shoulder and sighed in amazement.
Yet the delight in his eyes was plain for all to see.
Liu Bai smiled lightly. "You might find out soon that you were surprised a little too early…"
Liu Qingtian was momentarily stunned, then burst into loud laughter.
Many students in the camp looked on at this warm scene of fatherly affection, but the emotion in their hearts wasn't nearly so warm.
Looking at the Liu Domain's imposing and well-equipped squad, with even the weakest among them at the Spiritual Wheel Stage, many couldn't help but feel a surge of jealousy toward that refined figure.
Maybe back at the academy, they could comfort themselves with the belief that those of noble birth only advanced through external resources, and that they would surpass them one day through their own efforts…
But when cold reality presented itself so bluntly, those naive and idealistic young hearts had no choice but to awaken under its cruel weight.
"Father, did you come this time because of that Six-Armed Spiritual Ape?" Liu Bai asked curiously.
After all, this whole mess had started because of him, so he felt a little guilty.
"Yes and no…"
Liu Qingtian replied calmly. "The Six-Armed Spiritual Ape is ranked 125th on the Earth Ranking. Naturally, many want to obtain it. But we're all aware that the odds are slim. My real reason for coming this time is actually to find the person who slew the Four-Armed Spiritual Ape…"
Liu Bai immediately understood, but then couldn't help wanting to laugh... If his father knew that the person he was looking for was standing right in front of him, his expression would probably be priceless.
"Oh right, how's Grandpa doing? Is he in seclusion again?" Liu Bai casually asked.
He hadn't expected Liu Qingtian's expression to subtly darken, followed by a heavy and evasive tone. "Your grandfather found a relic map some time ago. He went off alone to explore it. We haven't received any news from him since…"
Liu Bai's smile slowly faded upon hearing that, and seeing the genuine concern on his father's face, it didn't seem to be a lie…
However, according to the original story, Liu Jingshan wasn't supposed to meet any mishaps. He even broke through to the Heavenly Fusion Realm a few years later.
Wait!
Liu Bai suddenly remembered. In the original novel, before Liu Jingshan reappeared, there were indeed rumors that he had gone missing several years prior...
Could that incident be tied to what's happening now?
Liu Bai wasn't entirely sure, but he planned to find an appropriate time to investigate it properly.
"Don't worry. With your grandfather's strength, he'll be fine. He might even bring back something valuable this time."
It must be said that the Liu Domain owed much of its current strength to the silent efforts of the old man, Liu Jingshan. Many of the cultivation techniques forming the Liu Clan's core foundation were obtained through his personal ventures into dangerous territories.
Just look at Mu Feng from the original story after half a lifetime of effort, he only managed to obtain three Spirit-grade techniques... and that was mostly due to good luck and marrying well.
At that moment, Liu Bai couldn't help but think: the true protagonist of the Great Thousand World shouldn't be Mu Chen it should be his own grandpa!
Over the next few days, Liu Bai met nearly every Domain Lord from the Nine Domains. After all, the ones who had previously battled the Six-Armed Spiritual Ape were the two mentors from the Northern Spiritual Academy. Since the Domain Lords had all come personally, they wouldn't miss the chance to extract information from them.
However, despite all the commotion, nothing came of it in the end.
Perhaps sensing that many experts had gathered to hunt it down, the cunning old ape once again retreated into the depths of the Northern Spiritual Fields and didn't show itself again. It even seemed to have given up on avenging its slain child.
This left many of the powerful cultivators helpless and frustrated. In the end, they could only leave empty-handed.
Liu Qingtian and his squad from the Liu Domain also achieved nothing. Before departing, Liu Qingtian pulled Liu Bai aside and warned him to be careful in the coming days. As for rewards, he told him not to worry too much. Even though the Spirit Nourishing Pill was valuable, the Liu Domain could still acquire it if needed.
"Don't worry, Father. I know what to do..." Liu Bai smiled and reassured his worried father.
Then, he removed the Mustard Seed Bracelet from his wrist and said mysteriously, "Father, I have something good for you…"
Liu Qingtian looked confused.
"What good stuff could you possibly have?"
"You... this is...?!"
He didn't finish the sentence. Instead, he immediately shut his mouth and went completely silent.
He stared at the fist-sized ball of light in Liu Bai's hand, inside which a miniature Four-Armed Spiritual Ape seemed to be roaring toward the sky. He was stunned.
"You little brat… how did you get this? Don't tell me the mysterious person who killed the Four-Armed Spiritual Ape was actually…"
Liu Bai nodded.
He had originally expected his father to be thrilled by his strength. But to his surprise, Liu Qingtian's expression suddenly turned stern, his demeanor becoming serious and imposing.
"You reckless brat! Do you have a death wish? That Four-Armed Spiritual Ape might be classified as a mid-level spiritual beast, but its strength is enough to rival peak Spiritual Wheel Realm or even early Divine Soul Realm cultivators! And you actually went and provoked it?!"
Liu Bai was momentarily dazed, but then he laughed. "You don't need to worry. I knew what I was doing. The key to defeating that Four-Armed Spiritual Ape was the Flame Serpent Spirit-Breaking Array. Once we return, Father, please help me collect more powerful formation diagrams."
"The Flame Serpent Spirit-Breaking Array?"
Liu Qingtian was visibly shocked.
Of course, he knew of that array. It was one of the Liu Clan's treasured techniques.
That was precisely why he was so astonished.
"You brat, didn't you just start learning about Spiritual Arrays? How did you already master an Rank One formation?"
Although he had heard from Wu Yuan that his son's talent in Spiritual Arrays was "extremely rare," he hadn't known just how rare. But now, it seemed that his son's aptitude far exceeded even his wildest expectations.
In truth, what Liu Qingtian didn't know was that after Wu Yuan was scared off by Liu Bai's talent back then, he had been thoroughly humiliated. So when Liu Qingtian questioned him afterward, Wu Yuan simply gave a few vague praises before hastily leaving.
Originally, Liu Qingtian had thought Wu Yuan was just exaggerating to save face. He never expected that not only had he not exaggerated, he had actually understated his son's talent.
"Good, good, no problem. Once we return, I'll personally go search for high-grade formation diagrams for you. I promise you won't be disappointed!"
Liu Qingtian left filled with excitement.
It wasn't because of obtaining the Four-Armed Spiritual Ape's spiritual essence, but rather because he had finally seen his son's true strength and heaven-defying talent. This allowed Liu Qingtian to see the possibility of the Liu Clan one day ascending to the pinnacle of power.
After the grand commotion surrounding the ape-hunting operation ended before it even truly began, the Northern Spiritual Fields once again fell into silence.
In the following days, Liu Bai and the others concluded their training.
Originally, the academy had planned for half a month of cultivation. However, due to the Six-Armed Spiritual Ape incident, a full week had been lost, which effectively cut their training period in half.
Liu Bai felt somewhat unsatisfied by this. After all, watching the experience points on his stat panel steadily increase was a source of great satisfaction for him.
But too much of anything was never good—just like grinding monsters in a game. If you kill too many, sooner or later you'll attract elite monsters or even a boss.
Besides, there wasn't much time left before the selection for the Five Great Academies. It was indeed time to return to the academy and sort through the harvest from this period.
Today, the atmosphere in the camp was particularly lively compared to usual. Every student was filled with anticipation and excitement, for today was the day their cultivation results would be evaluated.
Liu Bai didn't join the crowd at the front. Instead, he quietly waited off to the side.
In his free time, he opened his attribute panel.
-----
Player: Liu Bai
Cultivation: Initial phase of the Spiritual Wheel Realm
Class: Spiritual Array Master (Rank 1 Spiritual Array Master)
Spiritual Pulse: Grade 1 Human Pulse (12/50)
Physique: Spirit-Skin Jade-Bone
Techniques:
Blazing Sun Art (Fifth Layer 0/2700)
Hundred Scrolls of the Dao of Arrays: Volume I (Initiated · Heart Array - Low Tier 0/1200)
Low-level Body-Forging Deity Technique: Frostskin Jadebone Codex (Initiated 0/2000)
Skills:
Common-grade High-level [Wind-Piercing Finger] (Greater Mastery)
Common-grade High-level [Senluo Death Seal] (Greater Mastery)
Spirit-grade Low-level [Starshatter Fist] (Initial 0/100)
Spirit-grade Low-level [Blaze Step] (Greater Mastery, 0/1500)
Spirit-grade High-level [Great Sun Burning Sea Palm] (Minor Mastery 0/1200)
Arrays:
Flame Serpent Spirit-Breaking Array (Greater Mastery)
Experience Points: 5025
Beast Soul Points: 68
--------
After slaying the Four-Armed Spiritual Ape, Liu Bai had gone on to kill nearly forty spiritual beasts of varying levels, four of which were mid-level spiritual beasts, while the rest were all low-level.
It wasn't that Liu Bai didn't want to hunt more powerful prey, but rather that he was still wary of the Six-Armed Spiritual Ape. So he didn't dare venture too deep, resulting in limited encounters with mid-level beasts.
After advancing to the Spiritual Wheel Realm, Liu Bai noticed a significant drop in experience gained from slaying low-level spiritual beasts. Mid-level beasts returned to a normal value, no longer giving the boosted numbers like when he first killed the Scarlet Flame Wolf King. This helped him better understand the system's experience rules and limitations.
In short, killing enemies of higher levels granted bonus experience, often significantly so. But killing monsters of lower levels would drastically reduce the experience sometimes to half, or even a third, a quarter, or just one-fifth.
Even so, Liu Bai had accumulated over 5000 experience points. Combined with the 10% experience discount from consuming the Jade Bone Grass, he now had more than enough to comfortably advance to mid-Phase Spiritual Wheel Realm while still having plenty left over to enhance his combat skills.
The only regret Liu Bai had was that, during this period, no one had come looking to cause him trouble. Without enemies to defeat, he had no opportunity to increase his Spiritual Pulse Points, and so raising the grade of his vein would have to wait a bit longer.
As for simply going on a slaughter spree to farm points, Liu Bai could only say, while he wasn't exactly a good person, he was still human. There had to be a bottom line. Otherwise, if he was reborn just to become some bloodthirsty monster devoid of humanity, what would be the point?
While Liu Bai remained in silent thought, the results assessment was already well underway.
"Team Landong: one mid-stage low-level spiritual beast essence, six early-stage low-level spiritual beast essences…"
"Team Yubi: two mid-stage low-level spiritual beast essences, eight early-stage low-level spiritual beast essences…"
…
Clearly, these were the kinds of results that normal students could achieve.
Even highly regarded students like Zhang Jie and Shi Lin at best obtained a few late-stage Low-level beast essences. As for mid-Level ones, they had none at all.
Compared to the original class featuring Liu Mubai and Mu Chen, this batch was clearly inferior.
After all, that year, there had been several children of the Nine Domain Lords all grouped together. Their strength far exceeded that of ordinary students.
"Liu Bai, you're up," Mentor Xi's voice rang out from afar.
Liu Bai quietly walked over and began taking out small orbs of light from his Mustard Seed Bracelet.
"Twenty late-stage low-level spiritual beast essences…" the record keeper couldn't help pausing mid-sentence, eyes filled with shock.
Most student teams didn't even dare approach late-stage low-level spiritual beasts. They would steer clear if encountered.
Even teams like Zhang Jie's and Shi Lin's, composed of students in the later Phase of the Spiritual Movement Realm, found hunting such beasts difficult and risky. A single misstep could result in injury. As such, few would take the chance.
Yet Liu Bai, all by himself, had slain twenty of them… Even the academy's own record keepers found this nearly inconceivable.
But the shock didn't end there. When Liu Bai took out the spiritual beast essence of the mid-Level Scarlet Flame Wolf King, even the two mentors who were aware of his cultivation level—Mentor Xi and Mentor Mo couldn't help but shift their gaze in astonishment.
Liu Bai hadn't even taken out all the beast essences he had acquired. There was no need. His results already made him the undisputed top scorer. There was no need to further demoralize his peers. Otherwise, some of the younger students might not be able to handle it.
Still, despite how much he had held back, there were already some who couldn't accept the reality. As the record keepers announced the numbers one after another, someone immediately jumped out in protest!
....
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