Ancient Strengthening Technique (Web Novel)
chapter-1001

AST 1001 – The Almighty Hallow Pellet, The Surge In Power (2)

Initially, Qing Shui wasn’t sure if there would be any changes to the Five-Headed Demonic Spider at all. However, the Five Qi Origin of the spider had grown five times the amount of its overall power. With that thought in mind, he was able to confirm that there was indeed a change that occurred for the Five-Headed Demonic Spider.

The spider seemed to have shrunk down by a size, yet the structure of its body had become more substantial than its previous form. Qing Shui quickly used his Heavenly Vision Technique to confirm his suspicions.

There wasn’t any reaction from the Spirited Snake Turtle yet, so he decided to check on the spider first before he would focus on the turtle to check on its situation.

Qing Shui sighed when he saw the power of the Five-Headed Demonic Spider but he wasn’t exactly disappointed. The spider’s power had reached to about 320 stars but nothing else had changed. Despite that, the spider’s power was also increased to an amount between 1900 stars to 2000 stars from the Five Qi Origin and that was just the raw power of its physical attacks.

The power of both the Diamond Gigantic Elephant and Fire Bird were slightly weaker than that of the Five-Headed Demonic Beast but with their battle skills that could increase their power by several times, they were more or less on par with the spider. Not only could the Fire Bird increase its attack power, it could decrease the damage received from the opponents as well.

When Qing Shui thought about the passive ability of the Diamond Gigantic Elephant, which was the Dragon Elephant Force, he recalled the Dragon Elephant described in the world records was a legendary powerful demonic beast with an elephant’s body and a dragon’s head. He had a feeling that the Diamond Gigantic Elephant could evolve into a Dragon Elephant but not to the extent of a dragon that everyone was familiar with.

Dragons and Phoenix only existed within the legends. However, no one would know if that was the truth or simply a myth or that the Jiao was the only most powerful demonic beast in the world. If there was ever a demonic beast that could surpass the strength of Jiao, somewhat like the dragons in the legends, then their strength must be extremely horrifying.

Qing Shui stopped himself from going further. His Diamond Gigantic Elephant would definitely become stronger and that was enough for him to know. In any case, he was satisfied with the spider’s change. However, he was still puzzled as to why the Spirited Snake Turtle wasn’t showing any kind of reaction whatsoever.

He walked towards the turtle and took a quick glance at it. Then, he noticed that the turtle had already stopped changing but didn’t have any indication that it had changed. Without wasting any more time, he analyzed the turtle’s power immediately.

The Spirited Snake Turtle, a spirit beast of the Heaven and Earth with the ancient bloodline that dominated one side of an area. This ability would reduce the depletion rate of the owner’s spiritual energy by 20%, as well as decreasing 20% of the damage targeting the owner’s spiritual energy.

Initially, the turtle had the strength of 100 stars but now it has the strength of 200 stars. Moreover, the turtle had also gained a battle skill, which caused Qing Shui to laugh with joy.

Spirited Snake Movement: The ability to increase the overall power of the Spirited Snake Turtle by twofold.

Finally, it has appeared. Qing Shui looked at the turtle’s unchanging body despite the changes that occurred to its power. This was a spirit beast of Heaven and Earth, so this was still considered the best time for the buffing skill to appear.

He took out another Hallow Pellet and fed the turtle. This was the second pellet, so he hoped that the Spirited Snake Turtle would become more powerful than it was previously, even if the turtle was still incapable of participating in battle.

This time, an ancient light enveloped the Spirited Snake Turtle’s body, allowing it to grow ten meters larger, reaching to the size of 40 meters in total. After the turtle had calmed down, Qing Shui approached his demonic beast happily and started analyzing its skills.

The Spirited Snake Turtle, a spirit beast of the Heaven and Earth with the ancient bloodline that dominated one side of an area. This ability would reduce the depletion rate of the owner’s spiritual energy by 20%, as well as decreasing 20% of the damage targeting the owner’s spiritual energy.

Spirited Snake Movement: The ability to increase the overall power of the Spirited Snake Turtle by three fold.

When he saw the change of this skill, he let out a satisfied smile. However, he quickly glanced down to the next section as there was still one more skill left.

Area Dominance: First level. Ability to ignore an established coercion of the Heaven and Earth, aura suppression, deterrent force, effects from seals and poison within the area of 100 meters. The effectiveness would depend on the power of the Spirited Snake Turtle’s owner.

Qing Shui was palpitating with excitement. The power of the Spirited Turtle Snake was now the strength of 1200 stars. When it was still at the mark of 600 stars, there wasn’t any sort of skill like this. After it had become a Grade Two Martial Emperor, the invincible skill had finally appeared.

The thoughts of the world’s regulation of the five continents popped into his mind. The world’s regulation was, in a way, a coercion of the Heaven and Earth. Unfortunately, the Nature Energy of the seventh grade could not break the effect of the world’s regulation even by the slightest.

The Nature Energy was powerful but his current power was still too weak to break the effect of the world’s regulation. He was wondering whether the Spirited Snake Turtle’s Area Dominance would be able to break it, even though he had a feeling that its ability should work against the world’s regulation. Qing Shui felt excited because the area within the 100 meter range would mostly likely imply that he would be the center of that range.

If that was the case, he would be more confident to face the Demon Gate and Lion King’s Ridge in the future. The more he thought about it, the more his hand would shake from the sheer excitement of the possible outcome.

He still had a bit of time left, so he continued to refine the power the Diamond Gigantic Elephant had given to him. He sat on the ground cross-legged and began circulating his Ancient Strengthening Technique, which had improved quite a lot during his cultivation. That was to be expected. Even though the amount of power was little, that was the most organic type of power he could have ever acquired. After all, this was the true Qi of the Ancient Strengthening Technique that was super effective towards the treatment of his vital organs, bones and muscles.

After he had regained his composure, Qing Shui immediately blasted the impressive power mass, which subsequently broke down the boundless energy into sizable amount. If he didn’t have a power impressive enough to withstand the energy, he wouldn’t even dare to refine the power granted from his Diamond Gigantic Elephant. Even at this moment, he continued to focus on refining the external power into his own, which was quite strenuous to do.

Qing Shui prepared his Golden Needles beside him just in case something went awry. The raging energy within the meridians in the dantian were already going ballistic. His meridians were strong enough, however and the Nature Energy and State of Immovable as Mountains were also able to perform its purpose and guide the energy smoothly around his body.

Qing Shui was also able to realize the decisive factor contributed by the Nature Energy of the seventh grade and the State of Immovable as Mountains, as well as the effect of the Area Dominance, which enhanced his refining capability so that he could continue refining the power smoothly like the unhindered flowing water.

Boom!

With two powers combined or to be precise, with his power assimilating the power granted from Diamond Gigantic Elephant, he had received a power that could be considered as his own.

45 stars or more!

Qing Shui could feel the raging power within his body – it was the power of 220 stars after all!

He began circulating his entire power, extending his violent aura instantaneously. That sort of feeling gave him a boost to his confidence. He could now unleash the power of 1160 stars just by circulating his powers with his bare hands. If he were to wield the Big Dipper Sword, his powers would exceed 5000 stars easily.

One the other hand, if he were to use the Violet Star Thunder God, he could unleash the power of 8000 stars under the effect of his Raging Blow. However, because of the world’s regulation, he could only unleash the power of 5,000 stars instead.

But Qing Shui knew that the surge of power was everything, not to mention the amplification power he would receive once he was able to go to the other four continents. Even in these five continents, he was able to attain the power of 5000 stars, which was already considered a remarkable amount for most martial cultivators.

Time was almost up for him to leave the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal, so he packed up his things quickly. As for the Hallow Pellets, Qing Shui decided to keep them for a while and consume them two days later. One day in the realm was about the period of three months and he was afraid that problems would arise if his power was raised too quickly.

When he got out, the sky was already bright. The members of the Qing Clan were all doing their morning practices in the distance. He didn’t see Qing Yu but she could be too young to be awake at this hour. His other two children were able to wake up on their own in the morning. If Qing Yan didn’t want to wake up early, Qing Shui would not force her to. He would use another method to wake her up instead but she could be stubborn at times, just like her mother, Shi Qingzhuang.

After the morning practice ended, Qing Shui gave Luan Luan a bunch of Hallow Pellets he had saved. He allowed the others to leave first and then asked Luan Luan to feed her demonic beasts the pellets immediately.

The powers gained were quite considerable. Most of her demonic beasts were considered spirit beasts – although not the strongest ones, the power gained was still considerable. However, they may be strong physically but their origin power (passive ability) was far weaker. Essentially, their powers were all tripled after consuming the Hallow Pellets twice. Fortunately, their overall power was exceedingly strong, just like the Golden Jiao King and Mystic-Armored Ice Ox that had gained the strength of about a thousand stars. The passive abilities of these demonic beasts initially doubled their amount of power but was changed to tripled instead. This could be considered a huge improvement but he soon realized the importance of the passive abilities towards the power of a demonic beast.

Qing Shui had finally realized that the Five-Headed Demonic Spider was definitely a powerful demonic beast. The spider must have gone through a mutation process before too. Even so, Luan Luan’s demonic beasts had grown even stronger. The Golden Jiao King had surged from the strength of 1,100 star to 1,300 stars, with the Golden Snake Dance (passive ability) changing from doubling its power to tripling its power, increasing the power of the Golden Jiao King to almost 4,000 stars.

Qing Shui knew powerful strength gained in the early stages was an advantage but it would have to depend on the prowess of its passive ability once the Golden Jiao King had reached adulthood. The great power must have been inherited from its bloodline. After all, the Golden Jiao was an evolution of the Golden Snake……

Then it clicked for him – Diamond Gigantic Elephant has the Dragon Elephant Force, while Fire Bird has the Dark Phoenix of the Nine Heavens. Both of these skills were stronger than the Golden Jiao’s skills at least. There were many snake-type beasts in the world that were more powerful, like the Scarlet Serpent from the Sacred Land of Panacea, Spirited Snake, Black Serpent and of course, the strongest one of all was the legendary Nine-Headed Snake. In other words, the Nine-Headed Scarlet Serpent could be considered a Nine-Headed Snake too.

Among Luan Luan’s demonic beasts, the one Qing Shui was most optimistic about was unexpectedly the Spirit Deer. The others were considered strong too and their level of strength was enough to protect their owner for the rest of their lives.

When Luan Laun fed her demonic beasts the Hallow Pellets, she had also strengthened the level of intimacy between herself and her demonic beasts. The wild Golden Jiao King had become obedient as well. Demonic beasts and humans were vastly different, especially in terms of showing their gratitude. Demonic beasts would never betray their owner once they had established a bond but humans would consider the idea of betrayal when their grudge has been accumulated sufficiently. Perhaps this was one of the reasons why humans would also be smarter than demonic beasts…….

“Daddy, this pellet is so powerful!”

Because of those were Luan Luan’s demonic beasts, she could sense their change of power very clearly. Besides, she could communicate with her demonic beasts telepathically. Even though she hadn’t reached the level of a Martial Emperor, she had enough knowledge about becoming one and the circumstances surrounding the role of a Martial Emperor.

“Haha, keep up your cultivation. As long as you break through to Martial Emperor, you will be able to consume the pellet and increase your power too.” said Qing Shui with a smile.

“Really?!” Luan Luan asked with a surprised tone as she looked at Qing Shui with unsatiated eagerness.

“Yeah. You’re exceptionally talented. Our Luan Luan might look down upon the World of the Nine Continents one day.” Qing Shui looked at his daughter with a smile, who was already hugging her father’s neck with boundless joy.

Some things just happened for a reason. But no matter what, Qing Shui would always treat her like his biological daughter with love and care.

When he was about to depart for his journey, it was already closing in on afternoon. Qing Shui didn’t test out the Area Dominance ability as he decided to save it for another time.

Many people from the Qing Clan envied Luan Luan but for the most part, they felt genuinely happy for her. Luan Luan was a member of Qing Clan, as well as a close family member. She had cultivated her powers discretely, not wanting to drag behind the members of the Qing Clan.

Yiye Jiange smiled as she stared at both Qing Shui and Luan Luan. The girl had grown up so fast. She felt happy for her, yet she couldn’t help but feel unpleasant about the girl’s situation. Even though Luan Luan didn’t mention anything to her, Yiye Jiange had a feeling that Luan Luan already knew about the incident of her parents. Perhaps she had most likely known about everything, she continued to strengthen herself by cultivating her skills diligently as a preparation for what she might have to face next.

No one really knew about Qing Qing’s Four-eared Macaque’s true ability but Qing Shui already knew how strong the demonic beast was. Not even Qing Qing herself was aware of its power. The moderately-sized macaque would never leave Qing Qing’s side besides playing with the children most days, so it never had any experience of battling another demonic beast before.

Only Qing Shui had the knowledge of the Four-eared Macaque’s formidable strength, which could easily best against the likes of his Five-Headed Demonic Spider. Ever since the day Qing Qing brought it home with her, he had fed the beast some medicinal pills and various kinds of food including Spirit Fruits, allowing the macaque to grow into a demonic beast of an early stage Martial Emperor of today. Despite the astounding level of strength, the macaque was still in its childhood stage, so it wasn’t a surprise that everyone had treated it like an adorable pet.

As long as Qing Qing was safe, the macaque would be docile. However, it would always get frightened and hid behind Qing Qing whenever Qing Shui looked at it in the eyes, causing Qing Qing to chide at Qing Shui so that he would stop intimidating her demonic beast into submission.