Chapter 498: Successor of the Great Sage 4 (Requesting Monthly Tickets)

Chapter 498: Successor of the Great Sage 4 (Seeking Monthly Votes)

Early March.

Sky Demon University.

Xiang Shan of the Civil Engineering Department walked through the breeding facility of the Breeding Department.

His massive frame resembled a small mountain; every step he took caused the ground to tremble, sending the surrounding hatchlings into a panicked frenzy.

Yet, upon catching sight of the Breeding Department’s top scholar, Xiang Shan curled his trunk and reined in his imposing aura.

The scholar before him was a pig demon, standing over eight meters tall, his body a veritable mountain of flesh.

A string of prayer beads hung around the pig demon’s neck, and his body surged with immense vitality; beneath his skin, countless faces of demons seemed to be struggling, emitting faint, mournful wails.

The pig demon opened his maw and vomited; a mass of fresh hatchlings, coated in viscous slime, tumbled out and landed in the facility, struggling as they began to feed.

Xiang Shan knew this pig demon as Zhu Mianseng, not only a prodigy of the Breeding Department and a multi-year veteran of the Top Ten Leagues, but also a master of three military-grade powers.

Zhu Mianseng wheezed a few times before speaking slowly: "Xiang Shan, why aren't you preparing for the competition? What brings you to me?"

Had it been an ordinary student or scholar from Civil Engineering, Zhu Mianseng would not have bothered to acknowledge them.

But Xiang Shan was no ordinary scholar; he was a rare prodigy who had mastered two military-grade powers, already possessing the qualifications to compete in the Top Ten Leagues.

Take the upcoming Civil Engineering finals, for instance: Zhu Mianseng knew that if Xiang Shan could single-handedly defeat Zhang Yu and Mo Shangjin—both practitioners of military-grade techniques—he would be granted an exception to join the school team as a Civil Engineering student.

To the demon-kin of Sky Demon University, this was an earth-shattering subversion of order, a breakthrough that defied professional and tribal limitations.

Yet Zhu Mianseng understood that this was a push by the demon elite for tribal reform, an attempt to break the habit of students sticking strictly to their own kind's departments and to further stimulate their potential.

Zhu Mianseng cared little for this, or perhaps his mind was solely on the Top Ten Leagues months away. If Xiang Shan could prove his strength was worthy of a comrade, he would not mind the student joining the team.

Xiang Shan said flatly: "I wish to borrow your Dharma Remains."

Zhu Mianseng’s pig snout twitched. "You intend to defeat Wanfa’s students and breed their bloodline offspring on the spot?"

Xiang Shan replied: "I know our school has secretly established human breeding grounds, where humans are raised like demon-kin for production and research."

"The Breeding Department must have extensive experience with this by now, yes?"

Zhu Mianseng curled his lip. "I can lend you my bionic Dharma Remains, but the techniques of the Qiongjiang God-Monarch are said to involve a complex web of Dharma Remains, bloodlines, reproduction, and cultivation methods."

"It is hard to say how much useful data you can extract from a single Zhang Yu."

Xiang Shan smiled faintly: "At the very least, many are eager to buy the materials. After breeding his offspring, I can process them into living stakes on the spot. It violates no human breeding laws, and I can recycle the materials for profit."

"Besides..."

Xiang Shan’s trunk coiled back, his tusks protruding sharply: "If I do not crush these two, how will the demon tribes know of my might? How will they willingly accept me breaking tradition to step into the school team?"

Leaving the facility with the bionic Dharma Remains, Xiang Shan’s gaze hardened. He had received further news regarding the finals in a few days.

Beyond the logistical arrangements, his eyes locked onto the championship prize.

"Design blueprints for military-grade armor. This armor is... the Azure Water Gold-Crystal Armor?"

...

At the Wanfa University City simulated construction site.

Under the control of formless Earth-Sha gravity, a vast expanse of silt and sand hung tightly suspended in mid-air.

Simultaneously, the three Golden-Thread Jade Discs behind Zhang Yu shone like three suns. After each flashed once, the discs on the left and right fired beams of crimson light into the center disc.

The center disc’s red light surged violently, erupting into a flame-sun ray as thick as an arm, slamming into the sand ahead.

In an instant, the sand crystallized under the intense heat, turning into a glass-like state.

Zhang Yu then tested injecting deep-freeze mana into the discs, releasing a chilling ray to lower the temperature.

He followed this by testing the effect of his Level 2 Deep-Freeze Dharma Vein, attempting to transfer the heat from his own body outward.

Watching the three discs flash in sequence, then blast out chilling rays to cool the sand, Zhang Yu thought: "It works. By coordinating the Deep-Freeze Dharma Vein with the Golden-Thread Jade Discs, I can remotely vent the heat from my body."

"In combat, as long as I maintain the flow of the Dharma Vein and the discs, I can continuously cool myself while simultaneously heating my opponent."

Zhang Yu mused that this was equivalent to applying a constant buff to himself while debuffing the enemy; through this rise and fall, he could slowly widen the gap in combat power.

Beyond increasing his discs to three, Zhang Yu had begun practicing the third technique of the Chain-Dharma Set for forging prodigies.

The technique, titled the Fire-Control Divine Mirror, required the collection of various fire seeds to condense a strand of Fire-Control True Qi, allowing one to command various true fires and improve the efficiency and quality of material refinement.

With this, plus the maintenance of other artifacts and his ongoing forging practice, Zhang Yu’s savings plummeted to less than 10 spirit coins.

Fortunately, he used the three discs for his employees' labor, which increased his passive income by about 0.03 to 0.04 spirit coins daily.

"It’s a good thing that more artifacts mean more means of production and higher passive income; otherwise, a multi-artifact strategy is not something a poor man like me could afford." Of course, Zhang Yu’s upgrade of the discs wasn't just for profit, but for tactical synergy in the finals.

"In my Mountain-Moving Warrior state, running the Nine Heavens Cloud-Sky Force to unleash the double-layered Kunlun Mountain-Moving Divine Power... while the power is peerless, it is unsustainable."

"It’s fine against those weaker than me, but in a head-on confrontation with a superior opponent, this approach would be a disadvantage."

At this moment, Mo Shangjin’s words echoed in his mind.

...

It was a reminder from Mo Shangjin shortly after he had recovered from his injuries and returned to training with Zhang Yu.

"Zhang Yu, while the Kunlun Mountain-Moving Divine Power is formidable, its strength lies primarily in reshaping the environment."

"The larger the area of effect, the greater the power the Kunlun Mountain-Moving Divine Power can unleash."

"Conversely, the smaller the area, the harder it is to exert the effects of Earth-Sha gravity."

"So, when dealing with individual units, if your raw strength isn't enough to suppress them, the Kunlun Mountain-Moving Divine Power is best used as a crowd-control skill."

Mo Shangjin sighed: "Xiang Shan, our next opponent, is exactly that kind of fighter. To deal with him... we must both use the Kunlun Mountain-Moving Divine Power to control and restrain him, grinding him down bit by bit."

Zhang Yu was surprised: "Is Xiang Shan that strong? We can't defeat him head-on?"

Mo Shangjin nodded: "Beyond his Civil Engineering military-grade technique, the 'Sumeru Mountain King Sutra,' he likely possesses a military-grade Dharma Remains this year."

Zhang Yu: "Military-grade Dharma Remains?"

Mo Shangjin lamented: "It is said that shortly after he earned his military certification, he won the design blueprints for a military-grade Dharma Remains in a lottery."

Zhang Yu couldn't help but curse: "A lottery? Winning blueprints for military-grade Dharma Remains? Damn it... that’s a back-door deal so shameless it’s unbelievable."

Mo Shangjin said gloomily: "Since obtaining those blueprints, Xiang Shan has been working tirelessly to earn money to hire others to forge them for him."

"When I fought him last year, the Dharma Remains weren't fully complete, yet they were enough to suppress me in a head-on clash."

"He has been desperate to earn money all year; he has likely finished the piece by now."

With that, Mo Shangjin detailed Xiang Shan’s combat characteristics, his techniques, and the performance of his Dharma Remains, even sending over footage of last year’s match so Zhang Yu could study his opponent thoroughly.

The more Zhang Yu learned of Xiang Shan’s strength, the more he understood why someone as formidable as Mo Shangjin had lost to him last year.

"Two military-grade powers—that’s practically cheating in the Civil Engineering Department."

"But this year, with both Mo Shangjin and me fighting him, our chances of winning are not small."

As Zhang Yu pondered this, further news about the finals arrived.

He scanned the time, location, and personnel arrangements, his eyes finally settling on the prize: the military-grade armor design blueprints.

At first, Zhang Yu hadn't paid much attention, but although he had embarked on the path of forging, he was currently focused on artifacts and knew little about armor.

"Azure Water Gold-Crystal Armor?"

But as he clicked into the blueprint for this military-grade armor and perused its description, a line of fine print shimmered into view before his eyes.

"Successor of the Great Sage?"

Zhang Yu froze for a moment, then stared at the text, exiting and re-entering the armor’s profile several times to be sure.

"It really is the Successor of the Great Sage?"

"Why would a blueprint for military-grade armor... trigger a set of linked cultivation techniques?"

Zhang Yu knew that linked technique sets were formed through the specific combination of internal arts.

The Successor of the Great Sage, for instance, comprised the Desolate Ox Soul-Suppressing Mantra, the Crippled Ox Self-Sacrifice Mantra, and the Boundless Inner Dharma Body.

"Could this blueprint for the Azure Water Gold-Crystal Armor... actually contain a cultivation technique?"

Zhang Yu was uncertain, yet a flicker of anticipation stirred within his heart.

After all, for the longest time, he had only managed to collect the Desolate Ox Soul-Suppressing Mantra and the Crippled Ox Self-Sacrifice Mantra from the Great Sage set.

The Boundless Inner Dharma Body had only been acquired much later, as a forbidden technique unearthed from the depths of the Spirit Realm.

Beyond these, what other techniques constituted the Successor of the Great Sage? Zhang Yu had never found a single clue.

He had long suspected that the remaining arts were either lost to time or, like the Boundless Inner Dharma Body, were forbidden techniques absent from the canonical archives of the Ten Great Sects.

Zhang Yu mused to himself, "This blueprint for the Azure Water Gold-Crystal Armor must have been passed down from the ancients; it was likely something even the universities lacked, only resurfacing in the world with the arrival of this Civil Engineering Finals."

July fan title event (final), and the monthly ticket draw for a flying sword both end at midnight tonight.

(End of chapter)