tournament day 3: snacks

Once again inside his room Alex trying to add his new skill to his various techniques and cultivation methods. Adding to [elemental circuit creation] was easy, he just needed to rearrange the circuits to fit into the cycle, with other circuits such as his blood, flesh and wind circuits would act as sub circuits for each element. Blood under water, flesh under wood, wind under metal and lightning under fire. He just needed something for earth. Once he made his yin and yang circuits, he would make those the centre point, with the five main elements under those and the various other elements under the five elements, all forming one big cycle.

For the [black and white tiger breathing method] he just changed so,e things to add yin and yang circulation to them. Now, they enhanced each other even further. As his body grew stronger, it could create and handle more inner qi, which would then enhance the body even further. The method originally did this already but now it was more pronounced.

He was just having trouble adding it to the [twin phoenix soul scripture]. The yin and yang parts were simple, just adjust the sun and moon. But the five elements were where it got tricky, he already had water thanks to his lake of corpse water, but he was missing the other elements. His next body-forging tribulation should be the hellfire tribulation, so that was covered. But he was still missing wood, earth and metal. He would like a balance of their characteristics, too.

For instance, his corpse water was yin-aligned, and the hellfire would be as well. So, preferably, he would have two yang-aligned elements and a neutral-aligned one. As for the heaven and earth lotus, despite being a plant it was not aligned to any element nor yin or yang. It was entirely neutral. Which was nice considering it was a way too high tier compared to the corpse water and would make the balance lopsided if he did use it for the circulation.

Curently he had plans for the other elements. Seeing as he was going to have a very ghost-centred fire, he planned to create a peach tree. He knew they supposedly surprised ghosts, but he planned to use that property to 'temper' the fire as it fed off the tree. The tree would also be tempered by the corpse water, which would be tempered by whatever he got for metal and so on. Create a self-sustaining cycle under the sun and moon, which would finally be controlled by the heavens and earth lotus.

Seeing as it was such a high rank and completely neutral, it would be perfect as a moderator. And said balance would be enforced by the thunder tribulation cloud. If any element began to feed on the others too much, it would be 'trimmed' by the lighting, feeding the lighting itself while maintaining the balance.

But first, he would need the other four elements. So, for now, the sun and moon simply began to cycle around each other, better refining the spiritual energy Alex absorbed while further refining his mind palace. Speaking of which, it was nearing basic rank 3. It should just be another week. As for bone refining and qi absorbing, his bones had reached 5% marble, and his qi purity was 13,500x. The qi at the top of the mountain was even richer than the city.

As for his exchange points, they had reached 7,200. With those points, he increased his herb garden's growth speed by 7 times and qi levels up to 250%, as it cost 4 exchange points to increase the qi levels by 1%.

Thanks to those changes, his verdant fire seed only needs 8 days until it blooms, instead of two months. While the dragon vein seed still needed 142,857 years.

"Maybe I could try to use [earth's blessing] to speed up the growth? It could also increase its quality. I'll use tomorrow's points to try."

.....

The next day Alex was once again in the stadium for the tournament. Along with him, there were 300 remaining contestants. The stadium had changed from yesterday's day, now with walls surrounding the mountain top, with four doors. One in each cardinal direction. Up above was the same elder as the last two days.

"Today shall be the last test before the tournament. We have seen you have talent, and we have seen you have confidence. But without the capability to back those up, you are just a greenhouse flower. Today we will test your combat skills. From each door, there will be a wave of demonic beats. The first wave will have 500 early bloodline refining beasts, 200 more than there are contestants.

The second wave will have 300 peak bloodline refining beasts. The third will have 100 mid-body forging beasts; the fourth will have 50 late-body forging beasts. And the last wave will have 10 early totem manifestation beasts. Each wave will have a five-minute break in between to catch your breath, and you only need to reach wave three to pass. If you are in danger, the surrounding formation will activate and teleport you out of the arena, disqualifying you immediately. The challenge will begin in 15 minutes."

There was noise throughout the contestants. On one hand, they believed they would be able to fight long enough to reach the third wave; on the other, some realised that this was both a challenge of skill and endurance. Sure, they could beat bloodline refining and body-forging beats, but how many at once? And for how long? How many would be in the second round to fight 200 more beats? How many for the third? Fourth? And could they even reach the fifth?

Meanwhile, Alex was laughing to Nuwa, 'damn, an all-you-can-eat buffet? And for free? How kind of them. A totem manifestation stage beast has got to taste real nice, and will definitely give you a nice boost to your cultivation. And the materials. I'm going to need a bigger inventory. What do you think, nuwa?'

'I am looking forward to finnaly being able to eat some good food. But are you sure you will be able to fight that many beasts?'

'I'm just worried I won't be able to kill enough. I've been thinking about some new artifacts to make, and I'll finally be able to refine those five souls my furnace has been needing for so long.'

While chatting with nuwa, alex was doing some small stretches. It wasen't realy nessasery considering his body forging level, but it got him in the mood for fighting. He also finnaly would be able to use his fighting methods.

He planed to start with [storm ape fist], the close combat skill he got while at the sect, to see how his body held up compared to beasts. And them move on to [River sword], the weapon skill he got from the sect, to see weather or not he should just make his own combat skill. It would also finnaly give him an excuse to use the sword his father gave him ages ago. As for the spear? Eh, maybe another time.