Chapter 50: The Pinnacle of the Nine-Star Warrior
The Demon Beast Mountain Range stretches for tens of thousands of kilometers, and the inner ring, which occupies less than a third of the area, is obviously impossible for Jiang Hao to traverse completely.
The mercenaries were still killing the first-class magic beasts in the outer circle, and only those with higher strength dared to enter the inner circle to hunt the second-class magic beasts. It was estimated that Jiang Huan, who was just a warrior, had been staying in the inner circle for such a long time, which was also unprecedented.
More than four months have passed since the previous battle, and Jiang Hao has been cultivating his fighting spirit and soul power. The benefits of actual combat are undeniable, although it cannot be said that it directly enhances one's strength, but accumulating and then releasing is the king's way.
After more than four months of continuous fighting, Jiang Heng's actual combat skills have become much more proficient. Second-order magical beasts are strong and weak, such as the second-order magical beast Lei Lang, which belongs to the middle level of second-order magical beasts, while Jinyue can only be considered a relatively weak type.
By the time they reached the second stage, more or less everyone had some life-saving skills.
Jiang Hao relied on his powerful physique and concentrated battle aura, and at full strength, he could even defeat two Lei Wolves. However, if he encountered a strong second-tier demonic beast, Jiang Hao could only sigh in admiration from afar.
Not long ago, the Golden Horned Beast followed its instincts to a pool of water. The pool was bottomless and crystal clear, and around it grew several stalks of Spiritual Grass.
Shenglingcao is the main material for refining Shengling Dan, which is a low-grade ordinary dan. Taking it during cultivation can purify the battle qi, thereby making cultivation twice as effective. It is the dan medicine with the largest demand on the market.
Delighted at the sight, Jiang Hao naturally wanted to gather all the herbs, but unexpectedly a blue electric python suddenly emerged from the water pool, frightening Jiang Hao into abandoning those few stalks of living grass.
The Blue Thunder Snake was a second-tier demon beast, but its strength was almost on par with that of a third-tier demon beast. Jiang Heng was injured by it in just a few rounds when he was at full power and had to retreat in defeat.
Jiang Hao was not reconciled, and after recovering, he went to harass again, but was still beaten badly.
Jiang Hao's temperament has never been one to admit defeat since he was young. Isn't a second-order magical beast just slightly stronger? Just because I can't beat it now doesn't mean I won't be able to in the future.
From then on, Jiang Hao would seek out Lan Dian's Blue Electric Python for a fight whenever he recovered his fighting spirit.
Repeatedly defeated and repeatedly fought, repeatedly fought and repeatedly defeated. For about ten days, Jiang Huan did not gain any advantage. Although the blue electric python's attack could not truly harm Jiang Huan, its ability to merge water and electricity had indeed caused Jiang Huan a great deal of hidden damage.
"Ah!"
The figure sitting on the ground was as stable as a rock, and the occasional burst of momentum was a sound that would only appear when the battle spirit had been condensed to a certain extent.
Boom!
A faint yellow flame suddenly shot up, and the surrounding air was distorted. Jiang Hao's breath at this moment was like a virtual volcano, with an astonishing momentum that was already surging under his skin, like water and dragon.
The figure in the fire remained motionless, letting the flames surge into the sky, the surrounding air was filled with intense heat, and some of the nearby giant trees had already begun to show signs of scorching, their leaves gradually turning yellow and withering.
"Haha, this kid!"
The silhouette of the tyrant slowly emerged, with a relieved expression, looking at Jiang Hao in front of him. What kind of turmoil was brewing in that not-so-mature body? It was an accumulation of momentum, a fermentation of battle energy.
With a wave of his hand, a colorless light shield that was invisible to the naked eye slowly opened up, enveloping Jiang Hao within it and isolating that astonishing aura, lest it attract some ferocious magical beast.
The light shield fell, and the scorching temperature around finally subsided.
Boom!
As the momentum continued to rise, the fiery battle spirit also began to slowly rotate, mixed with pale yellow flames, transforming into a vortex suspended above Jiang Hao's head.
Boom!
The vortex accelerated violently and came on, in just a few breaths of time, it had become a substantial rolling flow down, with an overwhelming momentum.
In the lower abdomen, the war gas that had condensed into a crystal body slowly shattered and opened, and the transformed war gas roared and rotated out of the meridians, instantly filling all major acupoints throughout the body. The bones and cells of the entire body also frantically absorbed the war gas.
Boom!
The swirling war energy that had been hanging over his head finally descended, pouring into Jiang Hao's Baihui acupoint like a baptism of enlightenment. In an instant, it collided violently with the war energy inside Jiang Hao's body.
"Pffft!"
A mouthful of blood spurted out, and a flush rose to Jiang Hao's face, but his body didn't seem to have moved at all.
Two strands of war energy collided, like cold water poured onto hot oil, suddenly bursting open, Jiang Hao's body instantly became a battlefield.
The battle qi inside Jiang Hao had already possessed the origin of qi, so it could be used by Jiang Hao. Therefore, the sudden surge of such a large amount of mottled battle qi was instantly blocked.
The original war energy had been purified to the extreme through countless tempering by Jiang Hao, and it was naturally not comparable to those external war energies. As soon as they collided, the external war energy would be dissolved, with impurities being dispersed and only the purest war energy being absorbed. However, those mottled war energies continued to pour in endlessly, colliding with the war energy inside Jiang Hao's body in a continuous stream.
Under the effect of "this disappears and that grows", Jiang Hao's battle qi suddenly surged up at a frantic speed, and the amount of battle qi purified in just a few breaths exceeded the total amount of several days.
Boom!
The battle aura vortex on Jiang Hao's head slowly turned into a light yellow color, and some of the impurities were directly filtered out by the flames.
Every time a large cycle of war gas is absorbed, there will be an additional diamond-like war gas crystal bead in the dantian. After three hours have passed, there are already forty-five crystal beads inside the dantian.
Hoo-hoo!
An hour later, the war air vortex finally slowly stopped and dissipated slowly in the air.
Jiang Hao's appearance had not changed at all from before, but upon closer inspection, the dragon scales covering his entire body seemed to have faded a bit, as if they were flowing with a soft, fluorescent light.
Inside the dantian, there are exactly fifty-two battle qi crystals, shining brightly like diamonds, with dragon-like battle qi swirling inside, as if even a slight movement would unleash an earth-shattering aura.
Clang!
A faint golden light flashed in the night, Jiang Hao slowly opened his eyes, and with a look of intoxication on his face, he tightly clenched his fists.
Nine-Star Warrior, finally successfully promoted, feeling the dense battle energy inside his body that had increased by more than a fold, Jiang Huan couldn't help but curl up his lips and smile. There was nothing that could make one happier than an increase in their own strength.
The Zhan Qi crystal beads are only transformed from the peak of a warrior, and the key to breaking through the warrior is to condense the crystal beads into a large crystal bead. In other words, advancing to a warrior requires condensing one's own Zhan Qi by more than an order of magnitude, which is rare for warriors at the peak. Generally, ordinary warriors can only condense about ten crystal beads, while those with exceptional talent can condense twenty or more. However, someone like Jiang Huan who advances to the peak in one go and condenses fifty crystal beads at once is extremely rare throughout history.
"You little brat, you're making such a big fuss over advancing to the 9th star warrior rank. I wonder what it'll be like when you advance to the war general rank in the future!" said Tian Sha.
"Teacher, how did I suddenly reach the peak of a warrior? I already feel the bottleneck of a martial artist, as if it's within arm's length." Jiang Huan scratched his head, feeling embarrassed, and hastily changed the subject.
"Hmm, you know this too? But you're rejoicing too early. With your current state, wanting to advance another rank will be several times harder than others! Such a large number of crystal pearls is indeed astonishing."
Tian paused for a moment, then continued: "Ordinary warriors only need to condense about five large crystal beads to reach the peak of their class, but you need to condense at least twenty-six. That means you'll have to spend more than five times as much time as others. So I really don't know if this is good news or bad news for you."
"Teacher."
"En?" Di Tian glanced at Jiang Hao's stubborn face.
"If I have twenty-six large crystal beads, doesn't that mean I'm five times stronger than the War Master who condensed out only five large crystal beads?" Tianya asked, biting his lip.
"Hehe, that's natural, but not five times, it's ten times. Risk and gain coexist. If you're promoted to a war master, then an ordinary war master is definitely not your opponent."
"Teacher, that's fine. Time is squeezed out, as long as I work five times harder than ordinary people, can't I make up for this time?" Jiang Hao said.
"Haha, good kid, you have spirit! The strong don't follow rules and conventions. It's best if you can understand that!" Arcane Tyrant laughed heartily, clearly in a great mood.
Jiang Hao clenched his fists, gazed into the distance, and a curved arc flashed at the corner of his mouth. "Little Blue Snake, now it's my turn to bully you, hahaha!"
