Chapter 101: Terrible Demand Quantity

In the quiet cultivation place of the bamboo grove within the Nangong family, Ye Cheng sat cross-legged on a stone bed inside a small hut that looked extremely rustic. This stone bed was forged from refined iron stone, all to prevent the stone bed from collapsing due to accidental energy leakage during cultivation.

"Sir, the blood qi on your body has already been completely compressed into those two star blood crystals. There is no longer any blood qi left for you to compress. So what you need to do now is to increase the blood qi in your body as much as possible. There is no need to worry about the saturation of your body, since the devouring physique is capable of accommodating the blood qi energy of nine star blood crystals."

Before Ye Cheng stood an elderly soul body, it was Mu Lao.

Previously, Mu Lao had already used his divine sense to probe everything around him. After confirming that no one else was present, he felt relieved and emerged from the jade stone.

The devouring physique was an extremely high-end and mysterious physique among special physiques. Its potential was so vast that Ye Cheng could not even imagine it. Only Mu Lao, such a powerful figure, could truly understand the horror of such a physique.

"Um." Ye Cheng nodded. A longing for power gleamed in his pitch-black eyes. Ever since his father had vanished, he had always hoped to become stronger quickly, so that he could protect his sister Ye Ling and recover his father Ye Shan's whereabouts.

For this very purpose, he never stopped thinking about how to become stronger.

"However, the more heaven-defying a physique is, the greater the cultivation cost required. The blood cores you need now are not like before, when just a few or a dozen would have sufficed."

Mu Lao spoke with a teasing tone, carrying a hint of gloating.

"It is fortunate that I obtained these blood cores in the ancient cave not long ago." Ye Cheng patted the mustard seed pouch at his waist, and a pile of blood cores resembling a small mountain suddenly appeared around his body. There were more than five hundred of them in total, accounting for half of the thousand obtained from the ancient cave.

"These should be enough for me to squander for a while, right?" Ye Cheng said softly. The dozens of blood cores from before had allowed him to absorb them for more than half a month. Even with his current greatly increased cultivation, in his own opinion, it still would not be too outrageous.

"A while?" Mu Lao chuckled. "It is not that I am belittling you, but you still do not fully understand the devouring physique you possess. I remember that I once told you this physique has many more spiritual veins than ordinary people. Yet during the blood qi realm, these spiritual veins remained in a dormant phase, cultivating extremely slowly, and could only rely on the Devouring Spirit Art to absorb blood cores for guiding the increase of one's own blood qi."

"Perhaps I forgot to inform you back then that the blood cores needed in the late stage of the blood qi realm far exceeds what was required in the early stage. This quantity might exceed your imagination. Especially when stepping into the stage of condensing star blood crystals, the amount required is probably even greater."

"Teacher, according to your estimation, these five hundred plus blood cores seem insufficient for me to cultivate for several days. So how many days do you think they can support?" Ye Cheng asked with a bitter smile.

Mu Lao did not give a direct answer. His old eyes narrowed into slits, and he raised two fingers.

"Twenty days?" Ye Cheng let out a sigh of relief. "That's good, twenty days is not too short." Mu Lao held up two fingers. In Ye Cheng's view, it should not be two days, since two days would consume over five hundred blood cores. Even he did not believe the devouring physique was that terrifying. So he naturally reflexively assumed it meant twenty days.

"Who said twenty days?" Mu Lao became furious and viciously tapped Ye Cheng on the head, knocking a chestnut. "I held up two fingers; can you not see? You really thought this pile of things could meet your current cultivation needs and even underestimate your physique."

"Two days! Impossible." Ye Cheng stared in disbelief. Five hundred plus blood cores could only sustain him for two days. Thinking about it, he could not help but mutter inwardly, "This devouring physique is really a pitfall."

Including the blood cores already taken out and the five or six hundred remaining in the mustard seed pouch, the total number exceeded one thousand. Yet it seemed they could only sustain four days at most. These were all things Ye Cheng had obtained with great difficulty, but they were being consumed so carelessly.

One ordinary blood core was worth several dozen taels of silver, while those with purer blood qi were worth hundreds of taels. In total, over a thousand blood cores were worth more than twenty thousand taels of silver. Consuming such a sum of money would be unbearable even for the Ye family, no matter how deep their foundation. At the thought of this, Ye Cheng felt a pang of heartache.

"Teacher, to what realm could these blood cores allow me to advance?" Ye Cheng calmed himself and looked at Mu Lao, asking. He wished to know how far these blood cores could push his blood qi, since he still had a considerable distance to reach the Great Completion realm. There were still many blood cores needed, and he wanted to have a clear estimate in his mind.

"If my estimation is correct, it should allow you to condense one more star blood crystal, but it is more likely you will condense two star blood crystals," Mu Lao said after some thought.

"At most two crystals!" Ye Cheng murmured softly, secretly calculating in his mind how many blood cores were needed in total to reach the Great Completion realm. "If it condenses two, then four star blood crystals would already be condensed, and the remaining five would require around three thousand blood cores." Ye Cheng estimated conservatively.

The thought of still needing more than three thousand blood cores brought a bitter curve to the corners of Ye Cheng's mouth. Where would he find so many blood cores? These thousand plus blood cores had been obtained with great difficulty, yet such good fortune could not be expected every day; it might only happen once in a lifetime.

"Ask the family for them? No." Ye Cheng suddenly had this thought, then immediately rejected it. With so many blood cores, it would likely deplete the Ye family's foundation. Although his eldest uncle and third uncle might be willing, Ye Cheng did not wish to do so.

"Forget it, let's cultivate first. We can think about these matters later." Ye Cheng set aside these troublesome thoughts and simply stopped thinking about them. His pitch-black eyes slowly closed as he began circulating according to the meridian route of the dedicated cultivation method of the Devouring Spirit Art, using himself as the center point to attract the blood cores piled up around him.

Now being at the peak of the blood qi realm, he could also leverage the Devouring Spirit Art to exert a trace of the devouring power of the devouring physique. Although this devouring power was very small, it was sufficient to cover a one-meter range around his body, making the absorption of these blood cores no problem.

"Buzz buzz..." Under the devouring power generated by Ye Cheng's body, strands of visible blood qi drilled out from the blood cores like silk threads and entered Ye Cheng's body.

Mu Lao beside Ye Cheng watched as Ye Cheng entered the stage of devouring blood cores. An expression of helplessness appeared on his old face. He had long seen Ye Cheng's initial hesitation, but he was also powerless. Now he was merely a soul body, and everything could only rely on Ye Cheng himself to strive for. He could only allow the former to take fewer detours on the martial dao path.