Extra's Strategy: Cultivate Protagonists, Become Invincible-Chapter 225: Isn’t This Cultivation Speed A Bit Too Fast?

Chapter 225: Isn’t This Cultivation Speed A Bit Too Fast?

That night, from an unknown direction, a balled up sheet of paper flew into Han Xuhan’s hut, carried over by the wind in a way that clearly wasn’t natural.

Han Xuhan made Zhanxian pick it up with his armored hands, lest it should contain some kind of magical curse or a booby trap.

Fortunately, it proved to be really just a normal sheet of paper, written on which was a simple message.

"When I win, my dues better be there."

"What the hell does this even mean?" Zhanxian wondered aloud after reading the message.

"Is there a code hidden in the message? Maybe see if there’s anything written with invisible ink or whatever magical means cultivators use these days," Tun Shi Tian suggested.

"All that won’t be necessary. I know what it means. I can even tell who threw it in here," Han Xuhan said, smiling smugly.

"Chen Yan is the culprit. The message means, minions, that our cunning opponent has taken the bait and agreed to play the game the way I want it to be played."

"If that’s the case, what’s the point of calling him a cunning opponent, then? This Chen Yan guy seems pretty easy to scam," Tun Shi Tian said disdainfully upon hearing the explanation.

"You didn’t get the real meaning of the message. Chen Yan is warning master not to spend the resources that were supposed to go into his pockets," Zhanxian said.

"He’s certain of the possibility that he can claim victory against us and snatch up those resources according to the terms of the duel I proposed during the lecture."

"How did you figure THAT out from THIS message?" Tun Shi Tian sounded flabbergasted.

Zhanxian understood the plan far more deeply than the owl. He knew that Chen Yan must have taken the bait willingly, knowing its true nature.

But neither he nor Han Xuhan had the patience to spell it out to Tun Shi Tian.

"Just go back to your cultivation marathon, minion," Han Xuhan ordered dryly. "You do want to catch up to Zhanxian’s progress in the Spiritual Bones Art, right?"

The reminder always worked on the owl. He restarted his cultivation session with vigor.

"You shouldn’t waste any time either, Zhanxian. You don’t actually want this cocky brat to catch up to you, do you? He’s already insufferable enough."

Han Xuhan’s words drove the mental fatigue out of Zhanxian. Casting a gloomy look at the hardworking owl, Zhanxian began to prepare for another all-nighter as well.

Han Xuhan himself practiced a bunch of new and old martial moves till the familiar soreness set in. Once he couldn’t continue any longer, he freshened up, had an expensive dinner, and sat beside his minions to work on his other routes of cultivation.

First, a few cycles of the False Remembrance Illusion Art, just enough for his degenerated meridians to groan through the process unharmed. He could sense the breakthrough right away.

"Just another session. Maybe two at most... If the situation of my meridians weren’t so terrible, I would be at the second layer by now. Yet here I am, taking sniffs of the first layer like a starving dog..."

Shaking his head dispiritedly, he switched his focus to law cultivation rather than forcing it.

Now that he had firmly established his foundation as an Alphabet Acolyte, his affinity towards the letters of laws sealed inside his foundation tower had increased by a huge degree.

In the past, these letters used to do whatever they felt like doing, no different from lively, naughty children. He couldn’t even keep track of what went where.

The situation had changed for the better after his breakthrough.

Now, he could mentally command them to perform simple actions. Orders like stand still, line up, enlarge yourself, and move in that direction usually got the meaning across.

After a careful count, he had learned that there were exactly four hundred and sixty nine letters sealed inside his foundation tower.

His current task was to separate them into two categories: letters belonging to the dimension of Cause and Effect, and letters belonging to the dimension of Force based laws.

This was not an easy job. Cultivators who entered the path of law cultivation by ordinary methods didn’t have to face the issue of having unknown letters running around inside their spiritual world.

They were in full control of what went into their foundation towers.

In contrast, Han Xuhan was forced to memorize the appearance of each letter, travel deeper into his spiritual world to access his spawn point in the artificial realm of laws, and carve the letter there for Qian Yun to see it and wait for his guidance.

Once Qian Yun taught the usage of the letter to him, Han Xuhan had to practice drawing it in the spawn point until his comprehension and drawing skill reached an adequate standard, all to gain the recognition of the artificial realm.

The artificial realm sent an automatic feedback into his spiritual world when he passed the benchmark, firmly establishing his authority and mastery over the already sealed letter in a way that made it no different from a letter learned and sealed through conventional means.

To speed up this process, Han Xuhan had decided to memorize several letters in one sitting and continuously dump their drawings inside his spawn point.

Qian Yun could contact him whenever he had enough free time to teach him all about those accumulated letters.

The night passed in a flash. Thanks to the mind-enhancing supplements, Han Xuhan managed to bulldoze his way through numerous rounds of memorization and drawing practice.

"From four hundred and sixty-nine unknown letters to four hundred and eleven unknown letters, thirty letters of the cause and effect dimension, and twenty-eight letters of the force dimension... that’s not bad for a night’s work!"

In fact, there was another hidden manner of progress involved here.

Through his enhanced spiritual connection to the law letters, he was beginning to gain the ability to sense which dimension an unknown letter belonged to!

According to Qian Yun, that was one of the basic skills an Alphabet Acolyte had to master, although most of them didn’t start getting a hang of it right away, like Han Xuhan had.

This could be attributed to his unusual circumstances.

Unknown letters of two dimensions of law were already sealed inside his foundation tower, making it a lot easier for him to sense their spiritual existence in a way that typical Alphabet Acolytes wouldn’t have the opportunity to.

"With a bit of luck and time, I can more or less categorize these letters myself. All that would remain afterwards is learning their meaning and mastering the drawings."

Feeling incredibly pleased with himself, Han Xuhan checked the progress of his minions after the all-nighter.

Tun Shi Tian’s progress was far too great to be even compared with Zhanxian’s. But that was to be expected.

Firstly, Tun Shi Tian’s body was smaller, and his artificial meridians were simple tunnels carved inside his hollow bones. He didn’t have to spend as long as Zhanxian did to complete one cycle of the Spiritual Bones Art.

In the time Zhanxian completed one cycle, Tun Shi Tian could complete two without hurrying, three cycles if he was feeling extra motivated.

Zhanxian’s meridians were complex enough to lead to mistakes here and there. Tun Shi Tian’s meridians had no such pitfalls to slow him down.

So the disparity in their growth speed was natural.

Secondly, Tun Shi Tian was a far more talented cultivator than Zhanxian. Han Xuhan had met only a handful of people in the Crimson Snow Sect whose talent and potential could be placed in a superior position to the owl’s.

Thirdly, Tun Shi Tian was still not a proper cultivator of the Spiritual Bones Art. He had just laid his zeroth layer foundation, which was an external and artificial part added by Han Xuhan.

Naturally, every bit of progress the owl made in racing towards the first layer of the Mystic Art would be easy to discern.

Every extra millimeter of crystalline armor forming over his talons felt like a massive addition.

In comparison, Zhanxian already had two hands covered in armor, from the tips of the fingers to several inches past his wrists.

Even a centimeter of new growth didn’t feel like much of a milestone.

According to the manual, Han Xuhan estimated that once the armor reached up to both of his elbows, the second major breakthrough would come!

At that point, Zhanxian would have reached the third layer of the Mystic Art, standing shoulder to shoulder with Han Xuhan in terms of Mystic cultivation...

Any other summoner would feel pressure just thinking about having a minion that could match their cultivation level. After all, their foundation towers were connected.

What if Zhanxian’s spiritual pressure dominated Han Xuhan and the roles of master and servant were reversed?

Having foreseen this very situation many days ago, Han Xuhan wasn’t so perturbed.

His main weapon to deal with this possibility, the False Remembrance Illusion Art, would be ready!