Chapter 41: Hidden Potential, Bottomless Pit

  Su Tianhao spent the entire morning hunting spirit beasts through the outer forest. By midday, he had discovered something troubling.

  "Because of my rapid increase in strength, I'm already invincible among grade one beasts," he murmured, standing before the dried husk of what had once been a powerful bull-type spirit beast. Its shriveled form made it clear that every drop of blood essence had been drained completely.

  "This Ironhide Ox was already a peak grade one beast, and it still went down in a single punch. The benefit from absorbing its blood essence was almost nothing," he said with obvious disappointment.

  'How am I going to grow stronger with kills this easy?'

  Since ancient times, pressure and deadly battles had been the true sources of growth for cultivators. Against grade one beasts, there was no pressure whatsoever—no challenge, no refinement of technique, no real progress. Just easy kills that yielded diminishing returns.

  'Should I hunt grade two beasts instead?' The thought surfaced quickly—and was dismissed just as fast. He might not be so lucky next time. One grade two beast stronger than the first level and he might not be able to escape with his life.

  "The best thing right now is to break through to the 7th level of Martial Apprentice Realm," he said to himself with renewed focus. "Improve my overall strength first. Everything else follows."

  He smiled slightly. "Looks like Lu Ruyi's gift will come in handy after all."

  He turned and swiftly made his way back toward the cave.

  ---

  Su Tianhao moved like a phantom beneath the forest canopy. The cave wasn't far, since he hadn't wandered deep.

  He soon arrived at the cave and settled cross-legged on a small stone platform at the far end of the cave, retrieved the storage pouch from his robe, and turned it over in his hands.

  "Let's see what's really inside," he murmured with curiosity.

  Unlike spatial rings that required manifested spiritual energy to probe their contents, storage pouches only needed the user to mentally visualize the inner space. Su Tianhao focused inward.

  The storage space appeared in his mind—a dim, cube-shaped room no larger than a chessboard. Simple and modest. At one end, five pill bottles sat carefully arranged alongside a small glittering pile of gold coins.

  Su Tianhao examined each bottle in turn.

  Two of them were missing pills—one contained six healing pills, the other seven Qi recovery pills. Both were high-level grade one quality. 'She must have taken some last night to treat her injuries and recover her spiritual energy,' he realized. Even half-depleted, those thirteen pills alone were worth well over a thousand silver coins.

  The third bottle was full—ten Body Tempering Pills, high-level grade one. More expensive than regular medicinal pills by nature. He estimated around fifteen hundred silver coins for the lot.

  He set it aside and reached for the fourth.

  Then the fifth.

  Both contained Essence Refinement Pills. Ten pills each, twenty in total—and high-level grade two quality at that.

  Su Tianhao's eyes widened. A single Essence Refinement Pill was worth fifteen hundred silver coins on the open market. Twenty of them put the value of those two bottles alone at thirty thousand silver coins.

  He sat with that number for a moment.

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  "She was actually willing to give me all of this," he murmured quietly. "And we aren't even that close."

  'I really do owe her a huge favor.'

  Finally, his attention shifted to the pile of gold coins in the corner. He began counting carefully.

  Three hundred and seventy-four gold coins—equivalent to thirty-seven thousand, four hundred silver coins.

  "Hahahaha!"

  Su Tianhao laughed out loud—genuine, undisguised delight. The pills had impressed him, but hadn't truly moved him. Gold coins were different. He was human, after all, and right now he had barely a hundred silver coins to his name. A good weapon was completely out of reach. Half the things he needed for serious training required money he didn't have.

  That problem had just disappeared.

  "When I return to the city, I'm buying a sword," he said with barely contained excitement, already imagining it. Lu Ruyi's technique against the Berserk Bear was still vivid in his mind—every movement, every line of her blade.

  He took a slow breath and steadied himself. "But right now I'm too weak. Strength first. Everything else comes after."

  'Cultivate! Cultivate! Cultivate!'

  He settled into perfect lotus position, retrieved a Body Tempering Pill from the pouch, and swallowed it cleanly.

  The pill dissolved almost immediately, its medicinal energy spreading warmth through his throat before flowing down toward his dantian in a steady current.

  Su Tianhao closed his eyes and began cultivating, following the Supreme Dragon Transformation Technique's patterns with the ease of Great Success mastery. The dormant vortex in his dantian activated the moment the medicinal energy arrived, beginning its work of refinement.

  Then something unexpected caught his attention.

  High-level grade one pills carried roughly seventy to seventy-five percent purity at most—the remainder being impurities that accumulated in the body over time. This was precisely why rapid pill-based cultivation was strongly advised against. Impurity buildup damaged the body's meridians and left a cultivator with an unstable foundation. Only a flawless pill—one completely free of impurities—circumvented this problem entirely. Such pills were extraordinarily rare and practically unheard of outside of legendary accounts.

  But the vortex in Su Tianhao's dantian wasn't simply absorbing the medicinal energy.

  It was stripping the impurities away entirely. Automatically. Without any conscious effort on his part.

  Su Tianhao's eyes snapped open.

  'My devouring ability can refine pills and remove all impurities?'

  His body continued cultivating on its own as his mind raced. 'Doesn't that mean I can consume cultivation pills freely without any of the normal consequences? As long as there are enough pills available, I can grow rapidly without needing to rely solely on blood essence?'

  The implications were staggering. He had thought his devouring ability was powerful before. Now it was beginning to reveal itself as something far more comprehensive than he had imagined.

  'It seems I've only ever scratched the surface of what the Heavenly Devouring Dragon physique can truly do.'

  He exhaled slowly, reined in his scattered thoughts, and closed his eyes again.

  The medicinal energy flowed in pure, uninterrupted waves—completely refined, no trace of impurity remaining. His cultivation base responded immediately, rising steadily and with unusual solidity.

  He decided to push further.

  "Devour."

  The suction force surged outward, drawing spiritual energy from within a fifteen-meter radius. It flooded into his body in massive waves, combining with the purified pill energy to create a cultivation speed that no ordinary cultivator would believe without witnessing it firsthand.

  Even after only a few minutes, Su Tianhao could already feel the 7th level barrier beginning to crack.

  Hours passed like minutes. He remained completely still on the stone platform, sinking deeper and deeper into cultivation as the breakthrough drew steadily closer.

  ---

  As the day reached its peak, the sun stood high in the sky, casting short shadows across the forest floor. The dense canopy above rustled faintly as a gentle breeze stirred the still air, carrying with it the earthy scent of moss and ancient wood.

  Deep within the silent cave, a phantom dragon's roar suddenly echoed—sharp and resonant—cutting through the tranquility like a thunderclap reverberating off stone walls. Su Tianhao's eyes snapped open on the stone platform, golden irises glowing with brilliant inner light. His aura surged outward in waves, filling the cave with newfound strength and vitality that seemed to make the very air tremble.

  "I've broken through," he muttered, fists clenched, voice low with barely contained excitement.

  After hours of intense cultivation, Su Tianhao had finally broken through to the 7th level of Martial Apprentice Realm—officially advancing into the Late Stage.

  But his excitement quickly gave way to a wry smile as he recalled the session. "I actually used three Body Tempering Pills to break through..."

  Normally, given that he had already been close to the 7th level and could actively devour spiritual energy, a single pill should have been more than sufficient. The fact that he had needed three revealed something important.

  'Looks like the Heavenly Devouring Dragon physique isn't omnipotent,' he thought with a rueful expression. 'Although it grants the devouring ability and refines pills to peak purity, it's incredibly greedy.'

  His lips twitched as he recalled his consumption speed during the session. 'My own body is a bottomless pit. I always knew devouring dragons were gluttons—I just never thought it would be this extreme.'

  'That's almost five hundred silver coins gone in a single session,' he noted inwardly, genuinely pained by the expense.

  "But it's absolutely worth it," he said aloud, his voice steadying.

  Clenching his fists, he felt a rush of new power coursing through every fiber of his being. "7th level Martial Apprentice Realm. Base strength up another two hundred pounds—1,600 pounds total. With the thirty percent boost from the Raging Dragon Fist at Small Success mastery, that's over two thousand pounds of force!"

  His eyes gleamed. "None of this would be possible without the Supreme Dragon Transformation Technique, and it's thanks to this greedy dragon bloodline that I can cultivate such a heaven-defying method in the first place."

  He exhaled slowly as the weight of everything settled over him. Two weeks ago, he had been unable to cultivate at all. Now he was sitting in a cave in the treacherous Dragonspire Forest with over two thousand pounds of striking force at his disposal. It felt surreal—like waking from an impossible dream into an even more impossible reality.

  'The only way to repay my parents for everything they've sacrificed is to grow stronger—quickly—and reunite with them in the Immortal Realm.'

  The moment that thought crystallized, the excitement from his breakthrough dissolved entirely, replaced by a quiet, settled pressure on his shoulders. Not the crushing kind. The kind that gave direction.

  "The journey ahead is still very long," he said softly.

  He straightened. "At my current strength, I can face 1st level grade two beasts with confidence. I should even be able to escape from a 2nd level grade two beast if it comes to that."

  His gaze shifted toward the cave entrance, expression turning serious. "My goal before leaving Dragonspire Forest—reach Perfection in the Raging Dragon Fist and break through to the 1st level of Martial Disciple Realm."

  His golden eyes burned with unwavering resolve.

  "Time to test my new strength."

  He rose from the stone platform and walked out of the cave, heading deeper into the forest with purposeful strides.

  His target: 1st level grade two beasts.