Tribulation of Myriad Races

Once again, Wu Lan pounced on the nearby bush. After a short moment, she ran out with another chubby cub. Grinning from ear to ear, she said, “Caught you, Fatty Number Two. Su Yu, these cubs are so fun. Why don’t you change your pet from the suanni to one of these? That suanni’s scaly skin is too uncomfortable to touch. But look at this furry ball. How adorable!”

“…”

Nonsense. She should be careful lest the cub’s dad tear her apart.

Su Yu stole a glance at the iron devourer. The iron devourer was ignoring them and focusing on his food again. After a short while, he nonchalantly rubbed the second cub’s face and removed the black spots as well.

There was another cub, but Su Yu was sure that the third cub would be cleansed of the black spots soon as well.

He didn’t care too much about that. He was in a good mood. He had to think of a way to preserve heavenly source qi and purchase a drop of blood essence from the iron devourer. A racial ability that was also a body forging art. This was something he had never seen before. It was probably something good.

His sole worry was…the purity of these cubs’ bloodline. Would it be fine if they were mixed? That Big Ball was clearly not an iron devourer.

But he said nothing. It was pointless to say anything now since he still didn’t have anything to trade for. But since he had reached an agreement with the iron devourer, he would have a goal to work toward.

If needed, he could simply try to purchase some heavenly source fruits. These fruits could still be found among the large human families.

Zhu Hongliang was still sulking to the side. His Dumbo was ignoring him completely. His feelings were hurt. At this time, Wu Lan arrived with the third cub. After playing with the cub for a bit, she lost interest and tossed the cub aside, acting like a playboy who was tired of his girlfriends.

As for her previous suggestion about raising these cubs, she had completely forgotten about it. She said, “Su Yu, are we still going to the Hundred Dao Pagoda?”

“Of course.”

Su Yu replied. After taking a look at the three abandoned cubs, he sighed. This was how she had treated the little furball as well. The little furball had been tossed aside coldly after she got tired of playing with him. How irresponsible.

Hearing about the Hundred Dao Pagoda, Zhu Hongliang completely forgot about his hurt feelings and hurriedly asked, “Su Yu, are you challenging the Hundred Dao Pagoda?”

“I’m taking a look.”

“How many levels are you challenging?” Zhu Hongliang’s eyes lit up as he said, “The limit of a Mental Tempering Stage student is 20 levels. As for a Skysoar, the limit is 40 levels. I once reached level 19 as a Mental Tempering Stage student. Am I amazing?”

“So you failed to reach the limit?”

Zhu Hongliang smiled, “I’m close, but it’s not that far away from me. I walk the path of beast taming. The 20th level is a bit of a hassle. I was forced to face an early Skysoar beast without my beasts. I need to tame that beast to clear the level. But I can only tame that fellow after defeating it.”

“Beast taming?”

Su Yu nodded. That sounded difficult. The 20th level actually required a Mental Tempering Stage beast tamer to fight a raging Skysoar beast without using any tamed beast. Only a freak would be able to clear that level. And that freak had to be a super freak capable of fighting above their class. That was basically the same as killing a Skysoar as a Mental Tempering Stage student.

Su Yu’s interest was finally piqued. He said, “I need to take a look at this pagoda. What about character masters? Are the challenges mainly combat-related?”

“You can say so.” Zhu Hongliang said, “Come on. Let’s go together. Su Yu, your combat strength is probably at the ninth-stage Skysoar Realm. In that case…you can probably reach the 35th level.”

“35th level?” Su Yu smiled, “That’s hard to say. I heard that the difficulty will spike every ten levels. We shall see. I only want to give it a try and see if I can enter a place with thick ambient willpower. Prince, which level has such an environment?”

“Hmm…generally, the willpower will be thick every ten levels. The higher you climb, the thicker it is. The 20th level has a very thick willpower. If I can defeat that beast, I can stay there for two whole hours and absorb as much willpower as I can. That is an excellent place for opening apertures.

“At the 30th level, you’ll be able to stay for three hours. And the willpower there will be thicker as well. It might even be comparable to Great Xia’s Willpower Grotto. After all, the Willpower Grotto was left behind by a peak Sunmoon. Meanwhile, the Hundred Dao Pagoda was forged by my great grandpa and a few other Invincibles back then.”

A smug look was plastered on his face. Great Xia had powerful grottos. That wasn’t the case for them. There was no helping it since their Sunmoon cultural researchers did not have the habit of dying. Were they supposed to kill their own Sunmoons for grottos? Thus, they had no choice but to seek an alternative. It wasn’t like having a lot of grottos was something Great Xia should be proud of. That was proof that they had lost a lot of Sunmoons.

The Hundred Dao Pagoda was the greatest masterpiece of Great Ming.

Su Yu smiled and said nothing. They started heading toward the Hundred Dao Pagoda. That pagoda was quite conspicuous due to its height. It was comparable to Great Xia’s Heart Cultivating Pavilion. Could he clear at least 40 levels?

That was the supposed limit for Skysoars. If he had to rely on willpower alone, that would probably be quite difficult. Thus, the result would depend on the type of challenges he was presented.

He had read about the pagoda before, but each individual would be tested differently. After all, there were too many paths cultural researchers could take, so the tests would change depending on one’s path.

Before long, they arrived. It was a large and towering building. The area around the pagoda was bustling with people. It almost felt like a market. Unlike Great Xia’s House of Hundred where only students could be seen, a lot of teachers could also be seen around the Hundred Dao Pagoda. After all, this was a place that could test even Sunmoons.

A crystal stele stood in front of the pagoda. And a single name could be seen at the top of the stele.

Level 100: Ye Batian

Su Yu turned momentarily absent-minded. That was the fifth principal, his great grandteacher. Even here in Great Ming, the footsteps of his great grandteacher could be seen.

He was all alone, reigning above everyone else at the top. He was the sole challenger to have cleared the 100th level.

Beside Su Yu, Zhu Hongliang spoke with a tone of admiration, “Ye Batian, the only Sunmoon to have ever entered the 100th level. My great grandpa and the others are Invincibles, so they won’t challenge this pagoda. Apart from Ye Batian, nobody has ever reached the top. My great grandpa once said that if you can reach the 100th level, you’re already the same as an Invincible.”

Su Yu sighed and looked at the second row.

Level 99: Zhou Polong, Xia Chen

Su Yu blanked out slightly. He knew who Zhou Polong was. But…who was Xia Chen? Someone from the Xia Family?

He had no answer.

He looked at Zhu Hongliang enquiringly. Zhu Hongliang asked, “What?”

“The 99th level…”

“Oh, you’re talking about Xia Chen and Zhou Polong? You should know them both, right?”

“I don’t know Xia Chen…” Zhu Hongliang stared at Su Yu with an odd gaze. After a moment, he said, “I guess nobody uses his name anymore. This is a member of the Xia Family. He can be considered an elder brother of Great Xia. But he’s also not Great Xia King’s blood brother. That is not important. More importantly, he is the first principal of the Great Xia Cultural Research Academy. The owner of the Willpower Grotto.”

“…”

Su Yu blanked out. The first principal. No wonder he didn’t know the name. In Great Xia, they did not have the habit of referring to these people with their names. Most of them were referred to by their titles.

This first principal was a member of the multiple character faction. At the same time, he was also a member of the Xia Family.

Su Yu was stunned. Then again, it was understandable. The Xia Family seemed to have a decent number of multiple character faction members. If he recalled correctly, both Xia Longwu and Marquis Xia had once joined the multiple character faction as well. Bai Feng had accidentally mentioned that once, but Su Yu wasn’t sure if that was true.

The first principal had reached the 99th level? The Hundred Dao Pagoda had stood here since the founding of the various prefectures. It wasn’t surprising that the first principal had been here before. But…was Zhou Polong actually comparable with the first principal?

Su Yu did not have a good impression of the Zhou Family. In his mind, the first principal was a far greater person than Zhou Polong. But here, Zhou Polong’s name was actually ranked above the first principal, second to only the fifth principal.

“Is it very impressive to reach the 99th level?”

Su Yu muttered to himself. When Zhu Hongliang heard that, he grimaced and said, “Of course. That represents the limit of a Sunmoon. Can’t you see the names here? The fifth principal was already as strong as an Invincible when he climbed this pagoda. Basically, anyone capable of reaching the 95th level and above is comparable to a ninth-stage Sunmoon. My grandpa had reached the 95th level as well.”

He sounded dispirited when he said that. His grandpa was just strong enough to reach that level instead of exceeding that level. Sure enough, Su Yu saw Zhu Tiandao’s name not long after.

95th level: …Zhu Tiandao…

His name was stuck in the middle. Apart from his name, there were other names there as well.

Su Yu was quite surprised as well. Even Zhu Tiandao was stuck at the 95th level? With that as a comparison, Zhou Polong was really quite impressive. He continued studying the stele. There were a lot of names on it. And the lower the level, the more names there were. But below the 80th level, only 100 names at maximum would be shown.

Zhu Hongliang introduced, “This is basically the Top 100 Ranking of our academy. At the 20th level and below, pick the top 100 names and you will have the top 100 for Mental Tempering Stage students.”

He pointed at the 19th level and said, “Look at that. My name is there as well. There are only 8 names on the 20th level. Those at the Skysoar Realm will not have their names in this section. And those above the 20th level won’t count as well. Because of that, we only have 8 names on the 20th level.”

He was right. Every 10th level, the number of names would drop significantly, especially for the 20th, 40th, and 60th levels. Every single person there was someone who had peaked at their cultivation level.

Su Yu exhaled as he looked at those names in shock.

Ye Batian, Zhou Polong, Xia Chen…He suddenly felt incomparably near these legends. This was a sensation he had never felt in Great Xia.

Once upon a time, these legends were here as well, standing before the pagoda just like him.

This showed just how amazing this Hundred Dao Pagoda was.

Even someone like the fifth principal was once here. Su Yu felt like he had underestimated the Hundred Dao Pagoda previously. It was no wonder everyone in Great Ming would be filled with pride whenever they talked about this place.

Suddenly, Wu Lan exclaimed in astonishment, “When did my sister come here? Her name is on the 49th level. Is this someone else with the same name?”

Wu Qi. 49th level.

She had accomplished that as a fresh Cloudbreach. A super genius of Great Xia would remain a super genius even when they were here. Generally, only those at the seventh-stage Cloudbreach Realm could reach the 50th level. Meanwhile, Wu Qi had reached the 49th level as a first or second-stage Cloudbreach.

Su Yu grew even more excited. If even Wu Qi deigned to challenge this place, then this was definitely a good place. Wu Qi must have challenged the pagoda after escorting Wu Lan over. Wu Lan might be unaware of her secret escort, but that wasn’t the case for Su Yu.

Hearing Wu Lan’s question, Su Yu laughed awkwardly and said, “It’s probably a different person with the same name.”

Since only the name was visible here, there was no need for him to say anything. He didn’t want her to suddenly lose her confidence, right? Her elder sister had reached the 49th level. Could she reach even the 19th level? What a pitiful lass.

Wu Lan nodded, convinced by Su Yu’s words. Her elder sister was a fresh Cloudbreach who was still busy at the Allheaven Battlefield. How could she be here? Even if she decided to challenge the pagoda, she wouldn’t have been able to climb that high.