Chapter 155: Flight, and Almost Crashing into Sister Xueying's Big Bunny

Zhang Chu carefully counted three times and confirmed there were precisely twenty-two of them.

Reaching out and picking one up at random, he found it to be the size of a fist, heavy with pure, unadulterated energy contained within.

Excitement.
Thrills.
So intense he felt like he might faint!

He even developed a sudden sense of warmth and attachment toward the Demon-Suppressing Tower, almost wishing he could stay and spend the New Year right here.

Provided there were more demon cores, of course.

"Could this be the exact reason why the Divine Luo Alliance went to such desperate lengths to destroy the seal of the Demon-Suppressing Tower?"

Staring at the crate filled with all manner of demon cores, Zhang Chu suddenly understood why the Divine Luo Alliance was so obsessed with breaching the tower.

It almost certainly wasn't to open a pathway to the demon race and court self-destruction.

More likely than not, they were after this very chest of demon cores.

Not long ago, while walking home from work, Zhang Chu had stopped by the academy's library to look for Hu Sanyi and share a drink.

Hu Sanyi was busy organizing books, and while waiting with nothing to do, Zhang Chu had casually picked up a volume and flipped through a few pages.

That book recorded various strange and exotic tales of the continent, including entries on demon cores.

A demon core is the inner essence of a demon race creature, equivalent to the spiritual realm core cultivated by a spiritual realm practitioner within their dantian—a veritable warehouse of power.

In other words.

Every single one of these cores before him was the power core of a spirit-beast-tier demon.

Any random one of them could be used to refine hundreds of high-grade, nine-star elixirs.

"If I were to swallow all of these in one go, wouldn't I fly high with ecstasy?"

The mere thought made Zhang Chu impatient. He quickly summoned the system interface: "System, if I swallow twenty-two demon cores in one breath, will it burst my body?"

"No."

Such heaven-defying energy entering the body would normally cause the meridians to expand, potentially resulting in death by explosion.

With the system's guarantee, Zhang Chu felt much more at ease.

Yet, for the sake of safety, he decided to swallow just one first.

In his hand rested a blue demon core, roughly the size of a fist.

"Passive Devour!"

Wrapping the demon core in his spiritual power, he triggered the passive devour spiritual combat skill.

In an instant, Zhang Chu felt a majestic surge of energy flow up his arm and into his body, automatically splitting into separate streams.

A portion flowed into his sea of consciousness.
A portion flowed into his physical flesh.
And a small fraction flowed into his dantian, presumably devoured by the suppressed parasitic host demon.

"Damn it! This is exhausting!"

By the time the demon core in his hand dissolved into fine powder, Zhang Chu felt his entire body stiffen. He quickly stretched and moved his limbs. "I still underestimated the energy contained within a demon core. Devouring just one took a full half-hour."

"Ding-dong! Detected that the host has devoured one 1-star demon core. Martial power value +100,000, spiritual power value +100,000!"

He sat back down, adjusted into a more comfortable posture, and prepared to swallow the second one.

The system popup flashed directly before Zhang Chu's eyes.

So powerful!

Gazing at his personal information panel, Zhang Chu beamed with excitement, his brows dancing. "A single one increases spiritual power by 100,000. I only need another million to break through to the spiritual realm—doesn't that mean I'll even have a surplus?"

Swallow!
Swallow for all I'm worth!

Breaking through to the spiritual realm would happen today; Zhang Chu had no desire to waste any more time.

Time stood still in the pitch-black depths of the Demon-Suppressing Tower; there was no way to tell day from night.

Half an hour per core.
Twenty-two cores took a full eleven hours.

"Ding-dong!"

When all the demon cores had been completely devoured, the system's voice rang out once more: "Congratulations to the host! Your spiritual power value has reached 7.2 million, and your martial power value has reached 7.2 million. Do you wish to ascend to a spiritual realm practitioner?"

"Yes!"

Zhang Chu stared fixedly at his personal statistics panel.

The very next moment, all the data on the panel swiftly reset to zero, and a different transformation began to take shape:

Name: Zhang Chu.
Rank: 1-Star Spiritual Realm Practitioner.
Spiritual Energy: 120/1000.
Remarks: All martial skills and spiritual combat skills will automatically complete their upgrades within 3 days.

At the same time.

Zhang Chu felt a wave of pleasant warmth blooming in his lower abdomen, as if a sphere of energy were slowly revolving there.

This was the "spiritual realm core," something possessed only by spiritual realm practitioners.

"Newcomer starter pack for spiritual realm practitioners is ready. Do you wish to activate it?"

Before Zhang Chu could examine the changes in his body in detail, a blue popup window appeared before his eyes.

How was there still a newcomer starter pack?
Was the system always this casual?

Since gifts were being handed out, Zhang Chu was certainly not foolish enough to refuse. "Activate the newcomer starter pack!"

"Ding-dong! Congratulations to the host for obtaining the spiritual realm fusion combat skill: Wings of the Spiritual Realm!"

As a torrent of information imprinted itself upon Zhang Chu's sea of consciousness, an introduction to the Wings of the Spiritual Realm followed closely behind.

"Ding-dong! Congratulations to the host for obtaining 'The Complete Collection of Elementary Formations'."

"Ding-dong! Congratulations to the host for obtaining 'Elementary Alchemy'."

Zhang Chu had thought there was only a single starter pack, but it turned out to be a buy-one-get-three-free deal.

Breaking through to the spiritual realm brought a qualitative leap in a martial artist's spiritual power.

Not only could one launch spiritual attacks, but one could also set up formations or refine elixirs.

Yet, formation masters and alchemists both required harsh conditions; not every spiritual realm practitioner could achieve such feats.

As for Zhang Chu's cheat-like system—
It directly maxed out his skills.

In other words.

Zhang Chu was now both an elementary alchemist and an elementary formation master.

He understood all the theory; all that remained was practical application to build up proficiency.

After digesting the information in his mind, Zhang Chu found himself most fascinated by the Wings of the Spiritual Realm.

"Damn it, I never thought I'd one day be able to fly up into the sky and shoulder-to-shoulder with the sun!"

According to the system,
spiritual realm practitioners capable of flight could not be found in numbers exceeding a hundred across the entire continent; they were absolute prodigies.

For a spiritual realm practitioner to fly, it typically consumed a massive amount of spiritual willpower.

Zhang Chu, however, was different.

Given his 1-star realm, he could fly for ten minutes daily without consuming any spiritual willpower whatsoever.

As his realm increased incrementally, his flight duration would also experience massive enhancements.

"I have no idea how long I've been here. It's time to head back."

The system had already provided the method of departure.

Though the surrounding space appeared to be a modest room, the ceiling was actually an illusion created by a formation.

One only needed to charge upward to leave the Demon-Suppressing Tower.

Using the Wings of the Spiritual Realm for the very first time, Zhang Chu felt his heart racing with anticipation.

Following the instructions for use,
Zhang Chu gathered a trace of spiritual willpower, and a tingling sensation pulsed across his back.

Bang!

In an instant, a pair of two-meter-long blue energy wings materialized.

With a fierce flap, the wings generated a powerful gale, propelling him straight upward like a rocket, instantly piercing through the illusory rooftop formed by the array.

Swish!

The flight speed of the Wings of the Spiritual Realm was tied to Zhang Chu's cultivation level.

At the level of a 1-star spiritual realm practitioner, his speed could reach fifty kilometers per hour.

Right at the center of the Canglong Mountain High-Tier Forbidden Area, a blue speck of light broke through the void, tracing an arc across the sky.

Meanwhile.

At the nearest designated checkpoint 302, Zhang Xue迎 had just arrived at the patrol team's monitoring station when a warning sound echoed from the large electronic display: "Warning, warning! An energy fluctuation is detected approaching Highland 302 at a speed of fifty kilometers per hour. Shall we activate the anti-air electromagnetic defense cannon system?"

"Teacher Zhang, give us an order! What should we do?"

Twelve hours prior, abnormal energy fluctuations in the high-tier Forbidden Area had caused a sensation throughout Binzhou.

The Martial Administration Bureau, the Armament Department, and the Martial Dao Research Institute had all dispatched personnel to guard the three Vajra Demon-Suppressing Stones.

This time, Zhang Xueying was leading the team from the Martial Dao Research Institute.

"Director Zhang, if the Vajra Demon-Suppressing Stone here is destroyed, we won't be able to answer for it. I suggest we open fire immediately!"

Urged one of the instructors.

"Wait!"

Watching the speck of light growing larger on the electronic screen, Zhang Xueying quickly intervened. "Why does that look like a person to me? Hu Sanyi, come with me to take a look."

Zhang Xueying quickly brought Hu Sanyi along, but they had scarcely walked three kilometers outside when a roaring sound echoed from above.

"Get out of the way! Hurry, get out of the way!"

At that moment, Zhang Chu was panicking to the extreme.

Having no experience with his maiden flight, he had misjudged the time and exceeded the ten-minute limit.

The energy of the Wings of the Spiritual Realm was waning; once it completely dissipated, he would likely become the first spiritual realm practitioner in the Spiritual Qi Continent to fall to his death.

The two figures below looked no larger than ants in Zhang Chu's eyes, and he could not make out their faces.

He could only shout.

If he actually crushed someone to death, it would be terribly difficult to explain!

"Teacher Xueying, get out of the way!"

Hu Sanyi looked up and saw a figure plunging downward at high speed, diving rapidly out of harm's way.

Thud!

Zhang Xueying, failing to react in time, felt a figure slam squarely into her arms, sending the two of them tumbling over a dozen meters before finally coming to a halt.

"Damn it, that hurts like hell!"

Zhang Chu rolled his eyes in agony, feeling as though his internal organs had been shaken to pieces.

As he raised his head, the peerless countenance of Zhang Xueying came into view.

Most absurd of all—

His head happened to be resting right against Zhang Xueying's towering bosom, and the bottomless cleavage almost made him burrow right into it. "Um... Sister Xueying, if I said I didn't mean to do this, would you believe me?"

"Zhang Chu!"

Seeing Zhang Chu suddenly drop from the skies right into her embrace, Zhang Xueying's tears welled up and spilled over, and she emotionally pressed Zhang Chu's head tightly against her chest. "I knew you weren't dead! I knew you couldn't be dead!"

"Sister Xueying, I..."

"Mmph!!"

Damn it!
Soft! Fragrant!
But seriously, I can't breathe!