Tribulation of Myriad Races

“Youngster Su, you’re here!”

The suanni was very excited and energetic.

Thank the heavens the kid was here again. He had just finished his source qi liquid. If the kid waited any longer to come, he would start starving again. The shadow, water elemental, fire crow, white civet, and mountaindrill bull all woke up.

With his shrill voice, the fire crow said, “Su Yu, I have only gotten a drop of source qi liquid since you became the caretaker. Are you really trying to starve me to death?”

The fire crow’s life had been too miserable recently. The other fellows had still obtained a few drops. But he had only been given a single drop after all this time.

Su Yu couldn’t even be bothered to give the fire crow a reply. The crow still had enough energy to speak. That was good enough.

Instead, he looked at the suanni and smiled, “Well done! I already have the book. There is really a technique in it. Very good. Suanni, for your performance, I will give you one extra drop of source qi liquid. I will even bring you some meat during my next visit. As for the others…decide for yourself if you want to be helpful.”

Su Yu joyously said, “Since I have the technique, I only need to open the acupoints for it. Hehe, my enemy is only an eighth-stage Great Strength cultivator. It won’t be long before I can finally destroy him!”

This time, the white civet was no longer trying to be seductive when speaking to Su Yu. In fact, her voice had changed considerably.

She weakly said, “Little Brother Su Yu, can you give me an extra drop of source qi liquid this time? I…I’ll give you a cultivation method of the white civet race for it. I really don’t know any human cultivation methods. But I can write a secret technique of the white civet race for you.”

Su Yu rolled his eyes, “Stop trying to use this trick on me. Do you think I’m dumb? You can easily hide a killing move in the text with your willpower. What if I die when studying your text? You guys are too strong and I’m too weak. I won’t fall for that!”

The white civet felt like crying. She wouldn’t do that! She only wanted more food! A drop of source qi liquid every 10 days or so was really not enough. She was on the verge of starving to death.

Previously, these creatures had been thinking of using Su Yu to escape. But now, they would be happy enough if they weren’t starved to death. This caretaker was truly too unreliable.

Sure, Bai Feng had also been quite unreliable. But at least Bai Feng had a much better memory than Su Yu! He would come at least seven or eight times each month. On average, he would be here once every four or five days.

But Su Yu…would only be here two or three times per month! To be precise, he had only been here three times this month.

Bai Feng had handed the prison zone to his care on the 4th of the previous month. And it was the 1st of October today. Su Yu had only visited them thrice during that period of time. They were afraid that this trend would continue. Wasn’t he supposed to feed them once every three days? But he had clearly changed the schedule to once every ten days. Who could survive that?

The shadow and water elemental revealed their physical bodies and gazed at Su Yu anxiously. Gone were their arrogance from before. Damn it! They were really going to die soon! Even Cloudbreach experts couldn’t withstand such starvation.

The mountaindrill bull gnashed his teeth and said, “Give me 20 drops of source qi liquid. I can give you a drop of my blood essence.”

That was most certainly an unfair exchange for the bull. Producing a drop of blood essence would further weaken the bull. But if he didn’t do so, he would probably starve to death. Without the support of source qi liquid, it would only be a matter of time before he was reduced into a pile of bones. What was the point of keeping his strength if he was going to die?

Su Yu glanced at the bull and gave a noncommittal reply, “I’ll see. I can’t use Skysoar blood essence anyway. You guys are too strong. Can’t you be in the Infinite Strength or Skysoar Realms? Are you trying to kill me with your blood essence? I see what you’re doing!”

“…”

The mountaindrill bull felt very aggrieved. Damn it! Was it his fault for being strong? What could he do if this Su Yu was too weak?

“You can sell my blood essence to buy some blood essence that you can use!” The mountaindrill bull pleaded, “I am a Skysoar. You can get at least 10 drops of blood essence after selling my blood!”

Su Yu felt enlightened.

He looked at the bull in astonishment, “Wow. You actually have a brain?”

“…”

The bull felt like crying. Why was that even surprising? If he was stupid, how could he reach the Skysoar Realm? How was it his fault that Su Yu was too stupid to think of that?

Su Yu said nothing else and tossed two drops of source qi liquid to the suanni. The suanni was so touched to see two drops of source qi liquid that he felt like crying.

Ahhh…this is how life should be!

Compared with the other fellows, he was truly living a good life. Two drops of source qi liquid! Telling Su Yu about that martial technique was truly the correct decision! He had gotten four drops of source qi liquid for that so far!

But when he thought about how he had only gotten four drops of source qi liquid for a middle-tier heaven-grade martial technique…the suanni felt like crying. Since when were…heaven-grade techniques so cheap?

After feeding the creatures, Su Yu smiled, “By the way, I’ll be entering seclusion again.”

That alarmed all the creatures. They all grew anxious. Seclusion! How long would the seclusion be?

The white civet hurriedly said, “Little Brother Su Yu, no, Big Brother Su Yu, I…I am willing to buy some source qi liquid from you with my blood essence. I can also provide you with cultivation methods or martial techniques. Or…I can even give you the secret cultivation method of my race. You can get thousands of merit points if you submit it to your academy…I won’t even add any willpower into the text. It will be a normal text…”

Su Yu rubbed his chin. He was slightly tempted, “Pure text without willpower?”

That seemed to be a decent idea. Even if he couldn’t make use of the cultivation method, he could still be rewarded for submitting it to the academy, right? But did the academy already have that cultivation method in their collection?

After thinking about it, he said, “Sure. You guys can write down the cultivation methods and techniques of some powerful races. I’ll try submitting them to the academy. If I get rewarded…”

Su Yu paused slightly before saying, “For every 100 merit points I get, I will give you one extra drop of source qi liquid. If not…my apologies. Source qi liquid doesn’t exactly fall from the sky.”

The creatures were feeling both helplessness and despair. This bastard. Was he even feeding them with his own source qi liquid? But there was no denying that this was a good idea. He would ask for methods and techniques to be submitted to the academy.

Since those texts would have no willpower in them, so long as Su Yu didn’t cultivate them himself, they would pose no danger to him.

The shadow said, “The human race has been fighting us for so many years. You guys have most of our methods and techniques. So you might not get rewarded for what we know. We understand what 100 merit points signify. The academy won’t give you that much for these things.”

Su Yu smiled, “Is that so? In that case, you guys will simply have to write more, right? Even if the academy already has a copy of those methods and techniques, you can add your own understanding into the text. You guys should know more about your techniques and methods than humans, right? You are free to scheme against others. I don’t care as long as you don’t mess with me. There are plenty of Mountainsea experts in the academy. If you can, feel free to scheme against those people.”

The creatures sank into further despair. Bullshit. Were Mountainsea experts so easy to scheme against?

Su Yu smiled, “So do you agree? If you agree, start writing. I’ll trade them for rewards from the academy. I’ve been in need of money recently. I can buy some food for you guys after I make money.”

The creatures looked at each other. After a while, the white civet sullenly said, “Fine. I’ll write. Big Brother Su Yu, remember to give me a few drops of source qi liquid after you get the rewards. I’m really on the verge of death. I’m not as strong as these guys…”

Su Yu smiled, “Sure. Don’t worry. I never lie. I merely have a bad memory. Apart from that, I am basically a perfect person.”

The creatures nodded. Yes. They could agree that this kid had a bad memory. So bad was his memory that he would frequently forget to feed them. One of these days, some of them would probably starve to death.

At that time, Su Yu recalled something and looked at the water elemental before saying, “Number 1, does the five elemental race start cultivating willpower at a young age?”

The water elemental sank into silence.

“What is this response? Is that a secret?”

The water elemental gently said, “You can say that. But we are different from humans. We don’t really have any acupoints. Our cultivation method is completely different from humans. Even with our cultivation method, you won’t be able to do anything with it.”

“No acupoints?”

The water elemental said, “Yeah. We are spirits born of the five elements. To be precise, our bodies are formed of acupoints. When cultivating, we have no idea which acupoints we were opening. Thus, the human race won’t be able to alter our cultivation method for human use no matter how long you spend studying it.”

Su Yu was tempted. Others couldn’t, but his book could. He was confident in his book.

Prior to the Skysoar Realm, humans could only cultivate their willpower passively, similar to physical cultivation at the Source Opening Realm. But back then, Su Yu had been able to cultivate actively with the help of his book. In that case, why couldn’t he do the same with willpower?

At that thought, he said, “Number 1, write down your cultivation method as well. I want to take a look. Even if I can’t use it, it is still worth something. I can give you a drop of source qi liquid for it.”

The water elemental was rendered speechless. Was the cultivation method of the five elemental race only worth a drop of source qi liquid? Was this kid looking down on the five elemental race?

Su Yu knew what the water elemental was thinking about. He said, “I can’t cultivate it anyway. Look at the suanni. He gave me something I can actually use. The value between the two is naturally different.”

The water elemental helplessly said, “Give me some time to think about it.”

He then turned into a puddle of water again.

Su Yu did not try to push it. He would be able to activate the method after getting some five elemental blood essence anyway. He only wanted to get a copy from this water elemental to study and see how he could write a proper cultivation method in the future.

Strictly speaking, the Pure Source Art he had given Hu Zongji wasn’t an actual cultivation method. It was too simple and the contents had not been organized into a proper system. The book only told Hu Zongji which acupoints to open, how to open them, where those acupoints were, and how to link those acupoints.

Of course, those were essentially what all cultivation methods were about.

The version he provided simply lacked some padding to make it look more profound and mysterious. With one look, one would be able to see that the method was written by an unlearned person. And a random person who didn’t know Su Yu might not necessarily dare to cultivate something like that.

Hu Zongji did not doubt it because Su Yu had proved the effectiveness of the method with himself. His acupoints were incredibly pure, serving as a shining example for Hu Zongji. And Hu Zongji did not believe that there was a need for Su Yu to scheme against him in such a manner.

But in the future, Su Yu had to stop giving out such unrefined cultivation methods. If he only gave out one or two of these, it was fine. But if he gave more, one would be able to see that these methods were not modified from a proper cultivation method. Instead, it was written out by someone who had actually activated those acupoints and used the method.

In that case, people would start wondering about the identity of the person who had used all these methods. Who was that person?

Hong Tan?

Bai Feng?

Or Su Yu?

That might leak some of Su Yu’s secrets.