Chapter 74: Upgrades
Yun Hua sent blasts of pure resentment with her eyes at Yun Meng’s back as he left the guest room. Her gaze was so ferocious, that one might even think she was from a race of super-powered aliens with super-strength and laser eyes that were particularly allergic to a certain kind of rock!
She gritted her teeth in a fantastic demonstration of the power of a hydraulic press!
Her plans had been instantly thwarted by a sentence from Yun Meng - her granduncle had left her to accompany Xiao Hong and help her settle in. And that, much to her chagrin, interfered with her plans to avoid Xiao Hong for the next lifetime! How was she supposed to face her with the previous embarrassment?!
‘Damned old man! Just you wait, if I don’t…’ Yun Hua cursed her granduncle a few thousand times in under a breath’s time! A ruthless look flashed in her eyes, ‘Perhaps granduncle is not satisfied with my Joint Crackling Massage Technique… I suppose it is time to upgrade to the Bone Cracking version? Or is that too little…?’
Xiao Hong, on the other hand, looked around the well-decorated bedroom furnished with a huge bed, a few bookshelves and a large study table. The walls were elegantly decorated with paintings and various other ornaments.
She nodded inwardly. As a person with zero artistic conception, she understood jackshit, but it was indeed pleasing to the eye!
After scanning the room with her Divine Sense, she tugged at the rather loose Martial Arts costume that she was currently wearing over her Inner Armour. Apparently, Yun Hua had changed her out of her Sect robes for some reason. And managed to do so without being blasted by a full ten percent of Xiao Hong’s power in her face!
This was partially why she had trusted Yun Hua and Yun Meng at the start - because this meant Yun Hua had approached her without malintent.
“By the way, Sister Hua, where are my original clothes?” Xiao Hong asked curiously.
Although she rather disliked the Sect robes for its colour scheme, it was still a low-grade Magic Tool that could make her virtually invulnerable to a Sky Spirit’s attacks and could even block a few blows from an early-stage Divine Sea Cultivator. It was worth quite a lot.
More importantly, her Storage Bag containing all the Supreme Quality and below pills was attached to it.
Yun Hua’s expression turned a little odd. Her face flushed slightly and whispered, “I-It was somewhat inappropriate to wear around granduncle, so I took some liberty and changed you out of it.”
She scratched her head and continued apologetically, “I hope Miss Xiao won’t mind my rudeness.”
“I don’t mind, Sister Hua. But what do you mean when you say ‘inappropriate’? Isn’t it conservative enough?” Xiao Hong was utterly confused. Every inch of her skin besides her face and neck was covered, how was it even possible to make clothes more conservative? Was she supposed to wear a balaclava as well? There were no banks around here that she could rob!
Yun Hua was even more stunned! She blurted out in shock, “T-That can be called conservative?! Then do the less conservative ones go around naked?!”
Xiao Hong: “???”
Question marks floated all around Xiao Hong’s head. She suddenly felt that her brain could not quite keep up with the conversation. ‘What the hell is she talking about? Why does it seem like that despite talking about the same thing, we’re in completely different spatial dimensions??
“I-I don’t quite get what you mean, Sister Hua…” she began tentatively, then she suddenly recalled that horrible nightmare where her limbs were torn away.
She paused.
“Sister Hua, do you still have my old robes?” She stared at Yun Hua who was startled due to the intensity of her gaze before she quickly nodded.
“Please bring them to me.”
After a few minutes, Xiao Hong sat on the bed alone, staring at the remaining tattered half of her Sect robes solemnly.
‘Everything below the hips and the right arm...’ Her brows furrowed in a deep frown. ‘It’s too coincidental, right? Even in that nightmare, it was the same.’
Her heart started to beat frantically. ‘Does that mean everything in that nightmare was true?! But that doesn’t make sense!’
She was standing on her own two feet! And they were perfectly fine! If they were really ripped away from her like, how could she have healed them so fast?! There were indeed miraculous medicines and techniques that could achieve the effect of limb regrowth, but they were all incredibly expensive.
Even in the Sect, such services were expensive. It would take decades of continuously refining pills like a factory if she wanted to save up enough.
As for stumbling across such a miraculous Elixir? She instantly ruled out such a situation. With her luck, it was simply impossible.
So, she turned to the only thing that could give her answers.
‘System: show logs.’ she thought, willing the System to show the event logs of whatever it could record.
A large number of blue and red screens popped into her vision, stunning her.
Detected host is outside Realm Space. Recalibrating…
Detected presence of a high-level Entity. Preparing defences…
(Note: Effect of defence is limited to one Tier higher than the host’s. Current Maximum: Tier 3)
High-level Entity far surpasses Tier 3 classification! Preparing emergency defences…
[Note: Using the host's lifespan will be deducted as cost.]
Detected contact with a high-level Entity. Determined nature of high-level Entity: World’s Will.
Matching against known worlds… Matched.
Determined to the Will of the Great Mystic World.
Entity judged to be benevolent. Rolling back emergency defences… Done. [Consumption: None]
Detected infusion of high-level energy: World Origin. Determined Intent of infusion: Healing. Accept?
The host’s subconscious automatically accepted.
Detected excess World Origin, redirecting... Bolstering Host’s attributes with maintained proportionality…
Infusion of World Origin halted from the source.
Detected changes in host due to direct contact with World’s Will and World Origin.
Xiao Hong’s eyes nearly fell out of her eye sockets.
“What in the Immortal Ancestor’s seven-coloured divine undies happened to me?!” She whispered to herself, staring blankly at the System’s Event Logs. She was utterly stunned! There was so much information that her brain nearly crashed!
She quickly sobered up and started to methodically analyse the information she received.
‘Outside Realm Space? That makes some sense, I suppose…’ Her eyes flickered thoughtfully, ‘Since I was in a different Mystic Realm before, I must have traversed through some form of intermediary space to reach the Main World?’
She wasn’t entirely sure, of course. Her knowledge regarding Realms and Worlds and topics like that was limited to the novels of her previous life. Obviously, she could not rely on them.
‘Better to reserve judgement on this topic until I have a better understanding of what this whole thing is.’
Her eyes moved down to the next blue box.
‘Tier 3 Defence? So, going by the system log, I’m currently a Tier 2 lifeform? How does one differentiate between… fuck!’ Xiao Hong jumped out of her bed when she read the contents of the red screen!
She anxiously read the succeeding screens before patting her chest and breathing out a huge sigh of relief.
Then, she glared at the screen, ‘Dammit! I almost became a grandma! My life is difficult enough as it is, okay?! Don’t go around casually using my lifespan!’
Received Host directive. Change Emergency Defence energy source to Cultivation Base?
“FUCK NO!” She barked out!
For Xiao Hong, her Cultivation Base was far more important than her lifespan! With the help of the system, she could afford to lose some lifespan. She could recover the lost lifespan with the breakthrough in a Major Stage, but she could not do it the other way around.
Taking another deep breath, she let it out slowly.
‘So, I am a Tier 2 Lifeform? It doesn’t quite match since I am at the Fourth Stage of Cultivation.’ She slowly stroked her jaw, lost in thought.
‘Then, how does the system determine Tiers?’ Staring up at the painting of an eagle catching a… shark?
She turned around, ignoring the violation of the food chain, and continued pacing around the room.
‘Logically, each Tier should bring about a very clear change, right? Like the difference between a Body-refining Stage Mortal and Qi Gathering Stage Cultivator - where an Immortal Cultivator transcends the ordinary and becomes Extraordinary?’ She carefully went through what she already knew.
‘Hmm. That makes sense. Even if Qi Gathering Stage Cultivators are rather weak, they truly do transcend the concept of “ordinary”. Then, from Qi Gathering onwards, Immortal Cultivators can be classified as a Tier 1 Lifeform.’ She nodded inwardly.
‘By this logic, the difference between a Sky Spirit Stage Cultivator and a Divine Sea Stage Cultivator corresponds to the difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2?’ She mused. ‘Here the Immortal Cultivator starts the process of shedding mortality, thus gaining a much longer lifespan.’
The ordinary peak Sky Spirit Cultivator only had a lifespan of 250 years - which could be extended up to a maximum of 400 years. While a Divine Sea Stage had a lifespan of four to five centuries. And a Nirvana Stage Cultivator had 600 years of natural lifespan that could be extended via various means and Natural Heavenly Treasures to around 750 years.
Incidentally, Xiao Hong’s Cultivation Methods naturally increased her lifespan to its limit. This was one of the reasons she was so reluctant to change her Cultivation Methods.
‘Anyway, the next Tier should be at the… Fusion Stage?’ Xiao Hong looked down, uncertain of her speculation - she did not have enough information about the Cultivation Stages above the Celestial Bridge Stage.
‘Huh. Now that I think about it, there doesn’t seem to be a way to get information about the Fusion Stage and above in the Outer Sect. In fact, it seems to be deliberately restricted?’
She paused, staring out of the window.
‘If my speculation about the Tiering System is correct, does that mean the Sect also has information about it?’ Xiao Hong mused. She knew the logic behind keeping the information about higher Stages of Cultivation a secret, so she wasn’t bothered. It was, however, too coincidental that the ceiling of the Outer Sect was at the peak of Celestial Bridge and matched her speculation of the Tiering System perfectly.
‘Oh well. It’s not like I can do anything until I get back to the Sect.’ Xiao Hong shrugged and threw it to the back of her mind and continued to browse her system’s event log.
“The Will of the Great Mystic World?” Xiao Hong muttered, slowly rolling these words over in her mind. ‘Is the same as the Will of the Way of Heaven? Or is it different?’
In about one round of pacing, she decided that she knew jackshit. So, there was no point in dwelling on it.
‘Huh. Here's my answer.’ she thought, staring at a particular blue screen. ‘This World Will thingy is what healed me up, regenerating three whole limbs.’
‘Why would it do so, though? It doesn’t have anything to gain by healing me, right?’ Xiao Hong frowned. ‘Then, does the World’s Will think it is responsible for the Realm’s Collapse somehow? And it is compensating for that?
‘Or is this the compensation afforded to all living beings that were harmed by being thrown outside the Realm Space?’
Yet again, she did not have any information.
“Ugh,” She groaned, slightly frustrated. “More things that I have no answers for.”
Shaking her head, she muttered, “Forget it, there isn’t enough information for me to draw a conclusion. So there is no point in dwelling on it.”
Then she turned to the final blue screen.
Her eyes lit up immediately!
‘Increased Spiritual Energy Affinity?!’ Xiao Hong nearly jumped for joy! ‘Holy shit! Is this the legendary talent upgrade?!
‘Haha! It seems my luck is finally looking up!’
If she wasn’t afraid of disturbing her hosts, she might really have started jumping around in excitement!
Heart beating frantically, she sat down cross-legged on the spot and went into Cultivation Mode. She didn’t even bother to read the rest of the notification.
While excitedly circulating her Cultivation Base she drew the stored Yuan Essence in the System Storage.
Soon, though, her excitement disappeared. Her brows furrowed deeply. Opening her eyes, she cursed, ‘Dammit, there’s no difference at all in cultivation speed at all!
‘Increase in talent, my foot!’
Carefully, she re-read the notification.
‘“Increased Spiritual Energy Affinity”…’ she stared at the blue screen. Then a realisation struck her.
‘Ah, I see.’ She smiled bitterly. ‘So it is basically some useless thing. At least to me.’
Spiritual Energy Affinity was basically the rate at which she drew the Spiritual Energy of Heaven and Earth into her body and converted it into Zhenqi. It now had a multiplier of 1.75x. Which was something her System could do as well - and much better. This, however, did not mean that her Self could acclimate to the raised Cultivation Base 75% faster.
‘Yeah, why did I think my luck was suddenly looking up?’ She rolled her eyes inwardly, ‘That stinky bitch Goddess of Luck is probably jealous of my looks, right?’
After cussing out the deities of Fortune to her heart's content, she sighed in resignation. ‘Whatever, I just need to follow through with my plan to use arrays to speed up Cultivation…
‘Eh, at least my Zhenqi regeneration is much faster now.’ She shrugged.
Still in her cross-legged position, she continued to read the notification.
‘Vastly increased capacity...’ She closed her eyes and sensed her Dantian carefully. ‘It should be just a tad more than double. So, I’ll have almost 25 times the Zhenqi capacity of the highest recorded at the peak stage of Divine Sea?’
A blob of pure red liquid with thin strands of light gold flowed over Xiao Hong’s palm, lazily rippling. It gave off a dim glow. ‘Moreover, the quality, quantity, purity and density of my Zhenqi have all doubled.’
Her mouth twitched upwards slightly, ‘It seems I’m slowly becoming a Mana Monster? Hehe.’
A light giggle escaped her lips. She looked forward to the day she was matched equally with her opponent. Wouldn’t the poor fellow commit suicide of pure frustration dodging the sea of spells she threw at him?
‘More importantly, it seems I can breakthrough at any time and attain the mid-stage of Divine Sea.’ She clenched her fist, reabsorbing the Zhenqi. ‘Even my Physical Cultivation seems to be the same.’