Chapter 139: Somersault Cloud, Bimawen
For the next three days, Li Mu did not go scouting too far afield again.
Now that he had already confirmed the locations of one Divine Elephant Nation camp and the black ancient tree, he had the soldiers sent out from the camp broaden their search in those two directions.
On the morning of the third day, the light in the Abyss was still dim as ever.
But inside the barracks where Li Mu was staying, a burst of white light suddenly flared.
Quite a few soldiers who were already doing Chase-and-Evade training were drawn by the light and could not help crying out in surprise.
“Is that Tiger Marquis Li? Did he break through again!?”
“He was due for it. I heard Tiger Marquis Li has been stuck at the peak of the Sixth Grade for a whole week already.”
“A week? I’ve been stuck at the peak of the Fifth Grade for two months!”
“You’re comparing yourself to Tiger Marquis Li?”
“My mistake, Brother. Please don’t spread it around. I’ll buy you an ice pop.”
“Get lost. You’re just not working hard enough. Do you know how many soldiers have broken through in the week since we came to Tiger Roar Camp?”
“No.”
“More than three hundred eighty!”
“How is that possible?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? The reward exchange for points from the Chase-and-Evade Game and the Supply Run Game includes two kinds of pills: a Qi-Gathering Pill and a Body-Solidifying Pill.”
“I heard Tiger Marquis Li got them from some mysterious big shot!”
“If you’re stuck at a bottleneck, one Qi-Gathering Pill is enough to break through on the spot!”
“And those idiots in the Supply Run Game who specialize in body strength have gone mad over the Body-Solidifying Pill. I heard a single pill can directly double the toughness of their physiques!”
“Damn, I think my points are almost enough for a pill too. I’ve got to push harder!”
Meanwhile, inside the room, Li Mu was slowly breathing out a long stream of turbid air.
At last, he had broken through the major threshold into the Seventh Grade.
He had already been stuck for several days, and by now some of his resistance to High-Grade Qi-Gathering Pills should have faded as well.
So early that morning, Li Mu had swallowed three Qi-Gathering Pills and two Spirit Blossom Pills in one go, and broke through into the Seventh Grade in a single push.
And the reason the Seventh Grade was called a major threshold, of course, was because of the Heavenly Immortal Art!
Every two grades, it could advance by one tier.
Li Mu opened the system.
Sure enough, a promotion prompt had already appeared behind the internal art, Heavenly Immortal Art.
But when he saw the price for the upgrade, all Li Mu could do was sigh.
It could now be upgraded into the Mid-Grade Heavenly Immortal Art.
But it would require a full one hundred thousand Triumph Points!
Over the past three days, Li Mu had not gone out on patrol at all. He had spent all his time hunting monsters nearby, and even then had only barely saved up 21,880 points.
He was still short by eighty thousand!
There was nothing more to say. He absolutely had to kill monsters as quickly as possible and accumulate Triumph Points.
Out of habit, Li Mu casually flipped further through the system, only to suddenly spot two new Divine Abilities waiting to be activated under the Divine Abilities section!
They were 【Bimawen】 and 【Somersault Cloud】.
Li Mu’s eyes instantly shone!
He had practically worn out the list of Divine Abilities from flipping through it every day. Among all the Divine Abilities the system had shown before, the only ones he had not learned were Water-Avoidance Art and Fire-Avoidance Art, both of which cost 5,000 points each, were too expensive, and were useless for now, so Li Mu had never considered them.
And then there was Heaven-and-Earth Manifestation.
That thing did not even display a price. It was nothing but a long string of question marks, as though it were some kind of “ultimate grand prize” shown in advance to motivate Li Mu to keep fighting and killing enemies.
Aside from those three, Li Mu had already learned every Divine Ability.
He had not expected new Divine Abilities to appear at all.
There was no need to ask. These had definitely appeared along with the Heavenly Immortal Art.
Because both of those Divine Abilities were in a pending activation state, and behind them was a prerequisite, which read exactly: 【Requires Mid-Grade Heavenly Immortal Art】.
Of the two, Bimawen required 3,000 Triumph Points.
And Somersault Cloud required 108,000 Triumph Points!
That was 8,000 more than the Mid-Grade Heavenly Immortal Art.
Which meant that, in total, Li Mu still needed two hundred thousand Triumph Points!
But Li Mu’s eyes gleamed as his fighting spirit soared.
He had never craved Triumph Points as much as he did now.
That was the Somersault Cloud...Right now, whenever he went out, he still had to turn into a bird! Flying to the Divine Elephant Nation camp took a whole day!
But if he had the Somersault Cloud, then even going by the system’s usual stinginess, there was no way it would start off by letting him cover 108,000 li in a single somersault.
But Li Mu was not picky.
One hundred eighty li would be fine!
As long as it was a cloud!
After indulging in the fantasy for a while, Li Mu started looking through the other options in the system again.
Sure enough, the skill trees of the various Divine Abilities all seemed to have expanded with many new options.
Among them, under the skill tree for Alchemy Art, one pill formula caught Li Mu’s attention.
【Jade-Pure Bone-Cleansing Pill】
【Jade-Pure Bone-Cleansing Pill: Can eliminate the toxic side effects produced after consuming natural treasures!】
The pill formula was not expensive, only 1,000 Triumph Points.
And the required herbs were not particularly rare either.
Li Mu roughly calculated that without using Sweet Dew, they would probably still mature in about five days.
He unlocked it on the spot.
The reason the pill formula had caught his eye was because it had reminded him of the Corpse Dissolution Flower liquid!
The seniors at the Research Institute had said that the strengthening effect of the Corpse Dissolution Flower liquid was extremely obvious, but the side effects were too severe.
He did not know whether Corpse Dissolution Flower liquid counted as a “natural treasure” or not.
After unlocking that, Li Mu gritted his teeth and immediately unlocked four entries for External Incarnation in succession.
【Incarnation duration increased to 10 minutes!】
【Number of incarnations increased to 3!】
【Number of incarnations increased to 5!】
【Cooldown time of External Incarnation reduced to 5 minutes.】
Those four entries alone cost Li Mu 11,000 Triumph Points.
He now had 10,880 left.
But that was fine. Sharpening the blade did not delay the chopping of firewood. Increasing his strength was the only way to earn even more Triumph Points even faster.
The only thing to blame was that his pockets were empty right now.
Once he got rich someday, he would keep pouring points into something like External Incarnation and see just how high the maximum number could go.
If he could have hundreds of incarnations, he would be a battalion all by himself.
With thousands of incarnations, he would be a whole camp.
With tens of thousands of incarnations, he would be an entire military district.
And with hun—Li Mu cut off his fantasy, wiped the drool from his mouth, and came back to reality. Without Triumph Points, he was not getting anywhere.
He made up his mind then and there: from today on, he was going to grind out at least ten thousand points every single day!
First he would unlock the Mid-Grade Heavenly Immortal Art and the Somersault Cloud.
Then, after learning every Divine Ability,his next step would be to push one Divine Ability to the absolute limit.
Whether it was Mountain-Bearing Art, Heavenly Might, External Incarnation, or Wine-Borrowed Might, once any one of them was raised to the extreme, it would become terrifying beyond imagination!
Just as Li Mu was daydreaming about it all,someone knocked at the door.
Li Mu went to open it. He had assumed someone had come to congratulate him on breaking into the Seventh Grade.
But when he opened the door, Song Chuhe was standing outside.
Song Chuhe said directly,“A message just came from the Forward Outpost. They spotted signs of the Divine Elephant Nation, but there was only one elephant with seven or eight people riding it.”
“Here to scout?” Li Mu asked with a frown.
“Doesn’t look like it. They’re not trying to hide themselves at all. They’re coming straight toward the camp. I think they’re here to negotiate.”
“Negotiate?”
Li Mu let out a cold laugh, turned back to grab a coat, and headed with Song Chuhe toward the command post.
It was still early, only a little past seven in the morning.
In the world above, the sun had only just risen. Down in the Abyss, everything was even more gray and dim.
Tiger Roar Camp had gates in all four surrounding walls, and above each gate was a broad terrace.
At that moment, Li Mu, together with Zhang, Lu, Song, and the Three Profounds, stood on the terrace looking into the distance.
Sure enough, far away, a dark elephant-shaped figure was slowly approaching.
Song Chuhe had the lowest cultivation among them. Even after taking two Qi-Gathering Pills from Li Mu, he had only barely reached the early stage of the Fifth Grade.
That was fairly good among ordinary soldiers, but here he was completely fragile.
So he stood behind the Three Profounds.
“Judging by the look of it, they really do seem to be here to negotiate.” Duan Yuwen watched the other side’s leisurely pace. It did not look like an attack or a scouting mission.
“I’m guessing they’re here to ask for their missing things back,” Li Mu said with a faint smile.
“I think they’re here to beg for peace. Otherwise, how would they dare come with so few people? If they came to fight, this handful wouldn’t even be enough to die properly,” Lu Chenfeng said as he clenched his huge fists.
While they were still talking, the elephant had already reached them.
Perhaps afraid that Li Mu’s side might attack, one of the people on the elephant shouted first in clumsy Huaxia speech, “Huaxia border army, I am Kurozawa Ranzi of the Little Sakura Nation.”
The man had originally been seated on the elephant.
He stood up only to shout those words.
Once he had finished, he confidently sat back down.
The elephant did not even stop.
It was as though he firmly believed that after hearing his name, these people would naturally panic, throw open the gates, rush to inform their commander, and then come pouring out in alarm to receive him.
The smile on Li Mu’s face slowly vanished.
After Kurozawa Ranzi sat back down,
the elephant quickly walked all the way to the gate.
But the gate did not move at all, and Li Mu and the others standing on the terrace showed no reaction whatsoever.
Kurozawa Ranzi immediately frowned and stood up again.
“I am Kurozawa Ranzi of the Little Sakura Nation! Open the gate!!”
This time, there was already a trace of displeasure in his tone.
Then Li Mu suddenly bellowed from above, “You dogs of the Little Sakura Nation and the Divine Elephant Nation actually dare to combine forces and attack the camp of Huaxia’s Abyss-Suppressing Army!”
“You are courting death!!”
Kurozawa Ranzi was dumbfounded.
One elephant. Seven or eight people. How in the world did that become a combined attack by the forces of two nations??
Are you mentally ill, brother??
But reality gave him no time to explain. Two figures had already flown out from the terrace above, their auras surging as they dove straight toward them!