High-Martial World: System Arrives 30 Years Late-Chapter 179 - 163: True Gold Fears No Fire, A Spark Can Ignite a Prairie

Chapter 179: Chapter 163: True Gold Fears No Fire, A Spark Can Ignite a Prairie

The timeline converges, and the simulation ends.

Su Mu opens his eyes again, finding himself back at the entrance of the stone cave, with the giant’s corpse quietly lying nearby.

His breathing is somewhat rapid.

Cold, helpless, despairing, suffocating—this is the taste of death. Su Mu takes a deep breath to calm himself.

"Future Simulation is very different from Future Sight."

"Future Sight observes everything from a spectator’s perspective, while Future Simulation involves experiencing everything firsthand, more real, more immersive."

"But Future Simulation is even better; it allows you to bring back a gain at a certain price!"

Su Mu immediately looks at the lines of simulation results floating before him.

[Willpower (Near-Death): After experiencing death, you gain some resistance to it. Your willpower becomes more resilient when severely injured or near death, allowing you to regain sanity briefly.]

[Fixed Star Body Refining Technique Experience: An experience of cultivation under desperate circumstances.]

These are the two gains from this simulation. Su Mu continues to look further.

[You can choose to pay the following price to bring back one gain to reality: For the next month, you will enter a near-death state every day at midnight.]

[Please make your choice!]

After seeing the price, Su Mu’s eyes slightly brighten. The taste of death is unpleasant, but if it’s just an experience, he can fully accept this price.

"Experiencing death is actually a form of cultivation!"

As for the rewards, without hesitation, Su Mu chooses the first: Willpower (Near-Death).

With a thought, a cool glow enters his body, seemingly changing nothing.

Returning to the Blood Pool once more, Su Mu counts silently, and after a few moments, Tantai Yan awakens from her cultivation, showing a look of confusion before saying the line.

"The blood is exhausted... It’s my turn to dilute it this time."

Tantai Yan walks to the pile of Blood Cores, everything unfolding exactly as in the Future Simulation.

But this time, Su Mu doesn’t approach the Blood Pool. He begins recalling everything from the simulation, knowing his current flesh strength is far from enough for a blood pool bath.

The Fixed Star Body Refining Technique roughly adds just three more seconds for him in the Blood Pool; the horror of the golden blood is beyond Su Mu’s estimation. His flesh and veins break down first, followed by the Six Viscera, body surface, Five Viscera, Qi Blood Bridge, and bones.

"What can be done in these three seconds?"

"Su Mu... What are you thinking about?"

Tantai Yan asks curiously.

"Nothing, just thinking about what to eat later."

"What to eat?"

With a wave, Su Mu reveals numerous prepared Fierce Beast corpses before him, "The Fierce Beast flesh from the Qi Blood Secret Realm is chewier and is excellent as ingredients. Let’s choose some ingredients first. The feeling of biting into large chunks of meat is quite satisfying."

Tantai Yan’s eyes light up, her appetite aroused. She eventually picks a wolf-shaped Fierce Beast.

Using bones as fuel, flames leap in the air, the aroma of roasting meat filling the air. The golden, oil-dripping roasted meat is mouthwatering at the first glance. Su Mu sprinkles it with salt.

"Here, taste the saltiness first." Su Mu cuts a piece of meat and offers it. At home, the one to taste the saltiness is often Miaomiao, sometimes their daughter Xiaoyue.

"Delicious... so delicious!" Tantai Yan’s small face reveals satisfaction and surprise, clearly not expecting someone whom she viewed as a cultivation maniac to have such a lively presence and be such a great cook.

"Using good ingredients, simple cooking methods suffice."

"It’s tasty; eat more then."

The topic of what to eat was a casual distraction for Su Mu, but now he feels it’s fine. Su Mu takes big bites of the roasted meat, preparing mentally for being stuck in the cave long-term, as eating large pieces of meat can alleviate anxiety.

"Su Mu... you’re so right, eating meat is truly a happiness!"

A day later, a small half of the Blood Core pile quietly disappears.

At midnight, out of nowhere.

Su Mu suddenly feels as if invisible hands grip his heart, and someone locks his neck from behind, forcing him deep into the sea.

The suffocating sensation of drowning overwhelms him, helplessness and solitude fill his heart.

After a long while, Su Mu opens his eyes again, with an unwavering look. Yet, he is soaked in cold sweat without realizing it. Beside him, Tantai Yan continues her peaceful cultivation, oblivious to Su Mu’s near-death struggle.

"The taste is indeed not very pleasant."

Su Mu quietly gets up and steps to the cave’s outer section. With a thought, a giant stopwatch appears at his feet.

"Start simulation."

The countdown ends, and the stopwatch’s hand begins to move.

Tick-tock, tick-tock.

Countless hands of interwoven silver and gold emerge from the stopwatch, pulling Su Mu inside.

[3 days 0 hours 0 minutes 0 seconds...]

"Three seconds can actually accomplish a lot."

Inspired by eating meat, Su Mu decided to try directly drinking a mouthful of Giant’s Blood this time.

Tantai Yan was still in her cultivation, and if you looked closely, there were still some oil stains at the corners of her mouth, left from devouring large chunks of meat.

Su Mu took a deep breath, walked over to the Blood Pool, and lowered his head towards it. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Sizzle.

The Blood Pool was scorching hot, and just approaching it, his skin felt burning and painful, as if being roasted by fire. This time, Su Mu was prepared and activated the Fixed Star Body Refinement technique beforehand.

A layer of faint gold circulated around his entire body, and Su Mu immediately felt a cooling sensation, isolating the intense heat.

"The Fixed Star Body Refinement technique is indeed powerful, not only a cultivation technique but also a mighty body refining art!"

Without hesitation, he drank a small mouthful of the golden blood.

Boom!

This time, the reaction was even more intense than the last time, because Su Mu drank it directly, inviting the enemy inside, and the golden blood was not just a wolf but a fiercer tiger.

The golden blood rampaged within Su Mu, threatening to destroy everything. In an instant, Su Mu’s cultivation posture was interrupted as his mind went blank from the excruciating pain.

But in a fleeting moment, Su Mu’s eyes cleared again, and the willpower he brought back from the last simulation (near-death) kicked in.

"Just in time."

Su Mu bit the tip of his tongue, fully waking himself up. The next step was to make his flesh the battlefield to subdue the ferocious golden blood!

He posed in the Fixed Star Body Refinement stance, using every inch of his flesh and blood, every cell to devour the golden blood. His heart in his chest resounded fiercely, like the beating of war drums.

Multi-tasking, Su Mu simultaneously frantically operated the Blood Control Secret Technique, pushing the five viscera and the five solidified Qi Blood Bridges to their limits, forming droplets of Condensed Blood instantly.

His heart beat more vigorously, and a Martial Arts Golden Body apparition formed behind Su Mu once more, more solid than before.

"Once it’s inside me, even Giant’s Blood must be subdued."

"Suppress it for me!"

Sizzle sizzle.

The golden blood wreaked havoc within Su Mu, raising monstrous waves. Unrefined meridians perished first, shattering completely. Gritting his teeth, Su Mu immediately downed a Blood Essence Pill.

But the Giant’s Blood was too terrifying; even a small sip dyed his body’s blood sea golden. Despite his multi-tasking, trying to weaken the golden blood was still not enough, far from enough.

In no time, the golden Giant’s Blood surged forward, eradicating meridians, flesh, and the Six Viscera, causing Su Mu to spit out mouthfuls of blood mixed with his internal organs.

He once again fell into a near-death state, helplessly watching as it unfolded.

Tantai Yan awoke suddenly, witnessing Su Mu bleeding from his seven orifices, becoming a man of blood.

"Su Mu... you, you are..."

"Don’t worry about me, I’m fine."

In Su Mu’s eyes flickered madness, keeping himself in introspection, facing looming death. He saw his kidneys collapse, spleen and liver crack, as the golden blood attacked his remaining heart and lungs.

"Am I going to die?"

At this critical moment, Su Mu felt a disturbance in his lungs, and suddenly his eyes sparkled as he saw a faint flicker of flame making its final stand.

[You have died in this simulation, simulation forcibly ended]

[This simulation lasted 2 minutes 55 seconds]

[In this simulation, you gained the following: pain endurance, Fixed Star Body Refinement technique experience, Blood Control Secret Technique experience, Blood Soldier Secret Technique experience]

[You can choose to retain one gain in exchange for losing the ability to taste for the next month.]

[Please make your choice!]

Blood Soldier Secret Technique, Golden Essence Qi!

True gold fears no fire; the last flicker of flame in the lungs was the Golden Essence Qi.

The stopwatch reversed, the world reverted.

Su Mu reopened his eyes, his gaze suddenly bright, "Reaching the profound level of Fixed Star Body Refinement, the flesh can compare to a fixed star, but my skill is still rudimentary, insufficient to protect internally."

"Could Golden Essence Qi be used internally for protection?"

"Fixed Star Body Refinement is for external defense, Golden Essence Qi for internal. However, refining it is extremely blood-consuming, needing Condensed Blood. Could Giant’s Blood replace it directly, also reducing its destructiveness?"

In an instant, Su Mu’s breath quickened; he saw hope.

Giants are born with strength comparable to the Grandmaster Realm, needing no external aids; for them, a Fixed Star Body Refinement may suffice to bathe in the Blood Pool effortlessly.

Yet in his current state, Su Mu cannot; what is a prize to giants is his Ghost Gate.

In that case, make up for it in other ways to close the gap, continually accumulating strength, for the weak will not always be weak if the steps do not stop.

A single spark can start a prairie fire.

"Taste, I can give up!"