Chapter 158 - 155: Meteoric Rise

Chapter 158: Chapter 155: Meteoric Rise

Time slipped away with each practiced movement as the night grew deeper.

The once-sparse stars overhead had grown dense and numerous. The moon’s cool, silvery glow flooded the courtyard, making the blue-gray bricks on the ground look as if they were coated in a thin layer of frost.

Midnight was approaching.

Chen Yue ceased his cultivation, slowly bringing his practice to a close.

A faint warmth lingered on his skin, the residual heat from circulating his Inner Strength. It was slowly dissipating in the night breeze.

A familiar ripple appeared, slowly unfurling before his eyes.

[Daily Settlement]

[Diligent Cultivation, Cultivation +203]

[Diligent Cultivation of Ten Thousand Forms Tiger Roar Golden Bell, Experience +2650]

[Diligent Cultivation of Furious Wave Saber Intent, Experience +523]

...

[Furious Wave Saber Intent (Entry Level 2419/2756)]

[Ten Thousand Forms Tiger Roar Golden Bell (Limit Break 39583/473675)]

[Marrow Refining Realm (361/9221)]

Chen Yue looked at the information on the panel, his eyes brightening slightly.

’Cultivation, 203 points.’

’From 157 points yesterday to 203 today. That’s an increase of nearly 50 points.’

Chen Yue was prepared for this increase. After all, he had taken two extra Nourishing Spirit Pill Yang Pills today.

This method of extreme cultivation, while putting immense pressure on his Heart Spirit and Cultivation Technique, yielded truly staggering results.

At a growth rate of 203 points per day, it would only take about forty-three days to break through to the Refining Organ Realm!

’Less than a month and a half!’

This speed couldn’t just be called incredible; it was utterly unheard of.

A thought even flickered through Chen Yue’s mind: ’Should I find a breath-concealing technique more powerful than the Breath Concealing Technique?’

’To better hide the true pace of my cultivation?’

But he quickly dismissed the thought.

’In front of a true Innate Realm expert, any Concealing Breath Technique is just self-deception.’

’Rather than waste time on a technique that’s bound to be seen through, I should use that time on something more valuable—displaying my Talent!’

The Panshi Sect was a sect, after all.

And a sect needed geniuses—powerful experts who could uphold its prestige.

’It’s time I tried to get on the Inner Sect’s Cyan Cloud Ranking.’

The name "Cyan Cloud Ranking" alluded to a meteoric rise, reflecting the Sect’s hope that the disciples on it would break through their bottlenecks and become Innate Realm experts.

Making it onto this ranking not only signified that one’s strength was recognized by the Sect, but also meant access to more cultivation resources.

In fact, all one hundred people on the Cyan Cloud Ranking were masters of the Refining Organ Realm; there wasn’t a single person from the Marrow Refining Realm.

Even Cheng Fengjun hadn’t managed to get on the Cyan Cloud Ranking while he was in the Marrow Refining Realm.

To encourage disciples to challenge this ranking, starting from 100th place, as long as you could hold your position against challengers, you could receive a decent sum of Contribution Points from the Sect every month.

The higher the rank, the more Contribution Points you could obtain each month, and the disparity between the top and bottom of the list was enormous.

In other words, if you were strong enough to hold your position on the Cyan Cloud Ranking, you could completely forgo doing any sect-assigned tasks.

The monthly stipend of Contribution Points was enough to exchange for all the resources one needed for cultivation—Elixirs, Cultivation Techniques, and even Spirit Soldiers were all within reach.

And this was the very reason the Panshi Sect had established the Cyan Cloud Ranking in the first place.

True geniuses shouldn’t waste their time and energy on trivial miscellaneous tasks.

The value of a genius lay in their Talent and potential, in the heights they could reach in the future.

If a genius had to run around accepting tasks every day just for a few Elixirs, their cultivation efficiency would be severely hampered. This was not just a loss for the individual, but for the entire Sect.

Aside from proving his own talent, Chen Yue had his sights set on this ranking for the Contribution Points, of course.

Seven Nourishing Spirit Pill Yang Pills plus four Bone Marrow Cleansing and Body Refining Pills per day. If he had to exchange for all these elixirs himself at Dan Peak, it would require a total of fifty-four Contribution Points.

’Fifty-four Contribution Points!’

The number might not seem large on its own, but it was staggering when compared to the typical income of a Panshi Sect disciple.

Dan Peak only required its disciples to complete thirty Contribution Points’ worth of Alchemy tasks per month.

In other words, the Sect’s expectation for an ordinary Dan Peak disciple was to earn just one Contribution Point per day.

Yet Chen Yue’s daily consumption of elixirs was almost equal to the monthly task requirement of two ordinary Dan Peak disciples combined.

This was the cost of Chen Yue’s cultivation, and it didn’t even account for the more advanced resources he would need to exchange for in the future.

Those items cost hundreds or even thousands of Contribution Points. At his current rate of income and expenditure, he couldn’t even dream of affording them.

Chen Yue was, without a doubt, a money-devouring beast.

And even if Chen Yue were willing to perform Alchemy himself to sustain his cultivation, his current efficiency wasn’t high enough.

Based on his current yield rate for the Nourishing Spirit Pill Yang Pill, he would need to refine six batches a day just to break even.

One batch of Nourishing Spirit Pill Yang Pills, from preparing the ingredients to completing the refinement, took over half an hour. Six batches would take more than three hours.

’And how many hours are there in a day?’

Alchemy and cultivation were inherently at odds when it came to time.

He performed Alchemy to earn Contribution Points to buy elixirs for cultivation, but Alchemy itself took up time that could be spent cultivating. It was a contradiction Chen Yue could not yet bypass.

’I’ll just have to wait until my yield rate for the Nourishing Spirit Pill Yang Pill reaches the next level,’ Chen Yue silently calculated.

Only when he could consistently produce three Nourishing Spirit Pill Yang Pills per batch would he be able to relax a little.

With a Pill Formation of three, after deducting the three Contribution Points for ingredient costs, he would net fifteen points per batch. Four batches would net sixty points, enough to cover his daily fifty-four-point expenditure.

But even then, he would still have to refine four batches every day. Four batches would take a little over two hours.

Various thoughts flickered through Chen Yue’s mind before he turned his attention to another piece of data on the panel.

’The Experience Points gained for the Ten Thousand Forms Tiger Roar Golden Bell... a full two thousand six hundred fifty points.’

Chen Yue was genuinely stunned for a moment when he saw that number.

The Ten Thousand Forms Tiger Roar Golden Bell was the highest-level Cultivation Technique Chen Yue was currently practicing.

And yet, it had somehow gained the most Experience Points of all his techniques—and not by a small margin either.

His Furious Wave Saber Intent had only gained just over five hundred points. The two thousand six hundred fifty points for the Ten Thousand Forms Tiger Roar Golden Bell were almost as much as the experience gained from all his other techniques combined.

Chen Yue quickly figured out the reason: it was because of the Source Point he had added yesterday.

This wasn’t the first time he had witnessed the effects of a Source Point.

Back when he was cultivating the Tiger Roar Golden Bell Shield, applying a Source Point had caused his daily Experience Point gains to double.

Yesterday, he had applied that precious Source Point to the Ten Thousand Forms Tiger Roar Golden Bell. The explosive increase in Experience Points he received today was simply a continuation of that effect.

Looked at this way, although the total number of Experience Points required for the Ten Thousand Forms Tiger Roar Golden Bell was enormous, at his current rate of progress, he could achieve a full Limit Break in less than six months.

This was an Innate Level Cultivation Technique!

For a technique of this caliber, even Innate Realm experts would measure their progress in years.

And yet Chen Yue, a mere Marrow Refining Realm disciple, would need less than six months.

It was simply unimaginable!

It just went to show that while Source Points were difficult to obtain, their value was on full display.

The Experience Points gained for his Furious Wave Saber Intent, on the other hand, were within Chen Yue’s expectations.

Just over five hundred points was neither too high nor too low—a perfectly reasonable amount.

The level of this Cultivation Technique was comparable to his old Tiger Roar Golden Bell Shield. At his current rate of progress, Chen Yue would be able to bring his Furious Wave Saber Intent to the Minor Success Realm by tomorrow.