After Lu Tianyu opened the first five gates of the Eight Gates Formation, the power unleashed by his Martial Soul exceeded 16,000 Dao Force.
With such immense Dao Force, a casual punch possessed an attack power comparable to the sixth Soul Skill of a Power-Attack Soul Emperor. The technique derived from the "Shattered Lotus" Storm Kick was composed of thirty-two Qi Blades.
Just one of these blades was enough to cleave Chadley's body. Currently, Chadley's internal organs and meridians were weakened by the Soft Fist attack, preventing him from fully utilizing his Soul Force, thus his defense was far weaker than at his peak.
"Boom!"
The Qi Blades from the Storm Kick formed a lotus flower and struck Chadley, the immense force instantly tearing his body apart.
The aftershocks left a crater seven or eight meters wide and three or four meters deep. Lu Tianyu's long black hair was scattered by the rising azure Qi waves, floating above his head and swaying like seaweed.
Having landed at the edge of the massive crater, Lu Tianyu, due to his impaired vision, didn't see any blood. He only found a storage soul tool, about the size of an adult's fist, emitting a bluish-green light, at the rim.
At that moment, Lu Tianyu felt his power draining from his body; his martial soul was likely about to succumb to the backlash from using the Eight Gates Formation.
Without time to carefully check and clean up, he hastily used his Tempest Kick a dozen times to widen and fill the conspicuous crater, then quickly ran back to Shrek Academy.
Lu Tianyu endured the waves of weakness washing over him and probed Chadley's soul tool with his consciousness. Inside Chadley
's soul tool were two Crimson Candle Fruits emitting a crimson light. Without thinking, Lu Tianyu took them out and swallowed them whole.
Only with the healing power of the Crimson Candle Fruits was he able to manage to return to his room. After hanging a "Secluded Cultivation, Do Not Disturb" sign on the door, he finally dispelled the martial soul possession.
Without the boost from his martial soul attribute, Lu Tianyu collapsed onto his bed, unconscious, due to the backlash from activating the Eight Gates Formation.
He didn't know how long he slept, but he could clearly feel an intense discomfort throughout his body, inside and out. Images of Richard trying to kill him flashed through his mind repeatedly.
Even with two Crimson Candle Fruits and the passive healing skill of his external soul bone, the discomfort remained.
Lu Tianyu locked himself in his room for seven days of "secluded cultivation," while the turmoil at the Spirit Hall in Soto City continued.
Elder Chadley of the Spirit Hall had disappeared, neither alive nor dead, and no one knew where he had gone.
After a thorough investigation, the Spirit Hall only knew that Chadley's last known location was the north gate of Soto City, after which he vanished without a trace.
After seven days and seven nights of unconsciousness, Lu Tianyu finally awoke, but felt as if his entire body was on fire, and he couldn't even muster the strength to get up and get some water.
After struggling for a long time, he finally thought of summoning his Martial Soul to possess his body and thus gain the ability to move. He staggered to the table, found some boiled water from seven days ago, and drank it.
Now, Lu Tianyu felt more uncomfortable than ever before; his head was heavy, his legs were light, and everything he saw was blurry.
He then went to the bathroom and rinsed himself with cold water for half an hour before he felt a little better, but he felt a fog obstructing his vision.
No matter how much Lu Tianyu rubbed or washed his face, it was the same; everything was blurry and unclear.
Because of his Martial Soul, Lu Tianyu's eyesight was several times better than that of ordinary Soul Masters, but at this moment, he found that his eyesight had decreased to a level worse than that of ordinary Soul Masters or even ordinary people.
Letting the cold water wash over his cheeks, he recalled the scene when he was hit by Chadley's sixth Soul Skill.
Thinking carefully, he realized that his eyesight must have been affected by the strong light, which caused it to become like this. With this thought, Lu Tianyu quickly sat cross-legged and circulated his Soul Power to disperse the blood stasis accumulated around his eyes.
Using soul power to nourish his eyes was merely a desperate measure. After using soul power to disperse the stagnant blood around his eyes,
Lu Tianyu finally felt his vision return to normal. Looking in the mirror, he saw his face was deathly pale and his eyes were bloodshot. His once
chubby cheeks were sunken, and his once jet-black hair looked dry and yellow.
Lu Tianyu could hardly imagine what would have happened if he hadn't eaten the Crimson Candle Fruit. It was said that just one Crimson Candle Fruit could heal all internal and external injuries, but he had eaten two.
Yet, his body was still so weak. Besides the injuries caused by Chadley's sixth soul skill, the more serious injury was likely the backlash from opening the first five gates of the Eight Gates Formation.
As Lu Tianyu prepared to change his water-soaked clothes, a storage soul tool the size of an adult's fist, emitting a blue spiritual light, fell out from inside his clothes.
Seeing the soul tool, Lu Tianyu realized he had killed someone. Although Chadley had attacked him first, and he had counterattacked by opening the Eight Gates,
Chadley was an elder of the Spirit Hall in Soto City. The Spirit Hall would certainly not let him get away with killing someone from them.
In an instant, Lu Tianyu was overwhelmed with self-reproach and fear, but hunger ultimately overcame all his dread.
Lu Tianyu changed into clean clothes and prepared to go out to find something to eat. If he continued to starve, he would die without the Spirit Hall even needing to come after him.
Stepping out of his room, he realized it was already night. Passing Oscar's room, he saw Oscar reading a pornographic book.
"Oscar, give me some sausages..."
Oscar, hearing Lu Tianyu's words, quickly hid the pornographic book under his pillow and then used his soul skill to summon two sausages.
It was only then that Oscar remembered Lu Tianyu had been in seclusion in his room for seven days. He couldn't help but say, "Little Yu, all you ever do is cultivate!"
"Seven days and seven nights in seclusion! If I could last three days, it would be a miracle."
Lu Tianyu took the sausage Oscar handed him and wanted to swallow it whole. After chewing the sausage, Lu Tianyu suddenly realized that hunger was the real problem; the guilt of killing someone was only unbearable after he was full.
"Really? No wonder I felt so hungry. So it's been seven days."
After eating the recovery sausage Oscar had created, Lu Tianyu felt his hunger lessen.
He looked at Oscar and asked casually, "Has anything happened at the academy these past few days, or in Soto City?"
Oscar sensed something was off about Lu Tianyu, but still answered as usual, "What could happen at the academy? Teacher Zhao has been all smiles while you've been in seclusion."
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"However, a major incident has occurred in Soto City. An elder from the Soto Spirit Hall has gone missing. The Spirit Hall sent two Soul Saint-level bishops to investigate, but they haven't given any results yet."
"The Dean specifically instructed us not to wander around Soto City for the time being, and to wait until the end of the month before taking you to the Soto Grand Arena for practical combat lessons."
Hearing Oscar's words, Lu Tianyu breathed a sigh of relief, then staggered to the Shrek Academy cafeteria to find something to eat.
The Shrek Academy cafeteria was the residence and office of Shao Xin, a Food-type Soul Saint. The moment Shao Xin saw Lu Tianyu, he noticed how weak Lu Tianyu was. He
quickly activated his seventh soul skill, summoning a candy the size of a longan for Lu Tianyu to eat. After eating Shao Xin's candy, Lu Tianyu felt a warm sensation enveloping his body from the inside out.
He then fell asleep on the table, sleeping soundly this time.
When he woke up, he found himself in his dormitory, and not only that, his energy and stamina had returned to their peak.
Looking through the window, he realized it was afternoon. He got up and stretched, immediately hearing a series of crackling sounds like popping beans.
Going to the bathroom, he found his dirty clothes hadn't been washed yet. Seeing them soaking in the wooden tub naturally brought back memories of killing Chadley.
After so many days, Lu Tianyu's feelings about the murder had lessened considerably. After washing and drying the clothes, he took out Chadley's storage soul tool and examined it carefully.
Probing the soul tool with his consciousness, he discovered its storage space was larger than his own room, while the soul tool Flander had given him only had six cubic meters of storage space.
Chadley had stored a vast amount of items in the soul tool; it seemed he had packed everything he owned into it.
What shocked Lu Tianyu most was the mountain of gold soul coins, roughly estimated to be no less than 100,000.
Lu Tianyu exclaimed that he had never seen so much money in either of his two lives. Besides this, there were also many antiques, paintings, and rare treasures.
Unfortunately, Lu Tianyu's knowledge was limited; he had never seen many of these rare treasures before and didn't know what they were.
The gold soul coins were piled up carelessly in a corner of his storage space like trash, while these other items were displayed on the storage shelves, indicating that each one was a priceless treasure.
At this moment, Lu Tianyu finally understood why the ancients often said that murderers and arsonists wore golden belts. Seeing that pile of gold soul coins earlier, he suddenly felt that Chadley deserved to die.
Ultimately, he had become enemies with Chadley because of the monthly soul master subsidy of one hundred gold soul coins; in other words, Chadley was killed because of those one hundred gold soul coins.
"Knock knock knock."
"Xiaoyu, are you still sleeping?"
Lu Tianyu was still counting the gold soul coins in his soul tool when Li Yusong's voice suddenly came from outside his door.
Coming to his senses, Li Yusong casually shoved Chadley's soul tool into his pocket and said, "Come in, Teacher Li. I've been awake for a while."
Li Yusong pushed open Lu Tianyu's door and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Lu Tianyu's mental state had recovered.
Lu Tianyu stood up and bowed respectfully to Li Yusong, saying, "Hello, Teacher Li. What can I do for you?"
If other students were called in by their teacher, they would definitely be scolded for being lazy, but Li Yusong came to persuade Lu Tianyu not to be so engrossed in cultivation all day and to relax a bit.
Lu Tianyu looked at Li Yusong with utmost seriousness and said, "Don't worry, Teacher Li, I know my limits. Thank you for your concern."
Li Yusong understood immediately from Lu Tianyu's words; Lu Tianyu still cultivated for fourteen hours every day.
In fact, before encountering Chadley's ambush, Lu Tianyu only wanted to strengthen his physique through cultivation so that he could survive even after opening the Eight Gates Formation.
However, after being ambushed, Lu Tianyu realized that his strength was too weak, and he couldn't possibly live freely in the Douluo Continent. To control his own destiny, he shouldn't and couldn't slack off in his cultivation.
Li Yusong hesitated several times, unable to bring himself to tell Lu Tianyu to go wild and play instead of focusing on cultivation.
"Well, just be mindful of your limits,"
Lu Tianyu sighed after seeing Li Yusong off, taking out the notebook his master had given him when he left the Notting Junior Soul Master Academy.
It contained many of the cultivation plans his master had devised for him. Physique, physical strength, soul power, and soul skills were the most important aspects of Lu Tianyu's current cultivation.
However, because his eyesight had only recovered to a normal Soul Master level due to his injury, the effectiveness of his second soul skill, Soft Fist, was greatly limited.
Ordinary people couldn't unleash much power with Soft Fist; only by combining Soft Fist with exceptional eyesight could one accurately target an opponent's weaknesses to attack.
In short, Lu Tianyu felt that his eyesight wouldn't return to its peak, and the Soft Fist wouldn't be able to unleash its full power in his hands.
After a night of contemplation, Lu Tianyu decided to temporarily stop practicing the Soft Fist. With his current eyesight, he couldn't even execute the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, let alone the increasingly precise Returning Heaven Palm.
Forcing himself to practice would only lower his Soft Fist level, which felt like a net loss.
However, the Soft Fist was one of Lu Tianyu's core attack methods, so he couldn't completely abandon it. While he couldn't execute the absolute defense of the Returning Heaven Palm, he could still use the long-range empty palm technique to break through defenses.
Considering his current lack of physical strength, Lu Tianyu adjusted his training plan slightly later.
He changed his morning theoretical studies to learning staff techniques from Li Yusong, and his afternoon training with Zhao Wuji using the gravity field to every other day.
However, on the day Zhao Wuji stopped using his gravity-enhancing soul skill to assist Lu Tianyu's cultivation, he planned to use the Vajra Palm technique to train Lu Tianyu in continuous Bagua Empty Palm strikes. He wouldn't change any other plans regarding Lu Tianyu's physical fitness, soul power, or soul skills .
Both Zhao Wuji and Li Yusong wholeheartedly agreed after hearing Lu Tianyu's plan, with Zhao Wuji so excited he couldn't sleep all night.
He recalled how he had spent the past month recovering his soul power daily and maintaining gravity enhancement to assist Lu Tianyu's cultivation, without doing anything else.
(End of Chapter)