Cultivation: But Not a Game-Chapter 300 - 210: On Merit, Testing Treasures

The difficulty of the Celestial Tribulation is lower for those with high virtue, and higher for those with low or negative virtue. If negative virtue is excessively high, or if you’ve done something that angers both gods and men, your evaluation in the Heavenly Dao may be extremely low, potentially leading to direct Celestial Punishment during the Tribulation.

The amount of virtue is clearly visible, straightforward to see.

However, certain actions do not yield virtue but definitely impact the evaluation of one’s merits and demerits.

For example, taking lives.

Perhaps you can lure the enemy to strike first and then counterattack, or find ways to circumvent virtue penalties, but killing is killing. You can alter your outward virtue, but not your hidden score with the Heavenly Dao.

So, it’s not necessarily that high virtue makes someone a good person.

If a villain spends the first half of their life committing heinous deeds, would you call them a good person once they wash their hands clean?

However, all this changes when one possesses the trait of being free from causation.

Possessing this trait is akin to having a royal charter, acting on behalf of Heaven without losing virtue or hidden scores with the Heavenly Dao for killing.

"This virtue must be used."

Upon returning to his courtyard, the first thing Su Yu did was to refine the Immortal Banner, incorporating all 100,000 virtues in one breath, successfully acquiring the feature of being free from causation.

Then, he continued to seclude himself for the refining of guardian deities.

First, he refined the demon souls bestowed by his grandmaster, successfully obtaining one 120-level peerless template guardian deity, ten 120-level terrifying template guardian deities, and one hundred 120-level elite template guardians.

There are two methods for crafting guardian deities: one standard template for Vajra Guardians, regardless of what demon souls or spiritual objects are used, with uniform attributes and capabilities.

The other is to craft deities from special spiritual objects or high-grade essences, often possessing unique abilities.

The batch provided by the grandmaster are all standard Vajra Guardians, uniform in attributes and abilities.

Vajra Guardian (Elite): Level 120, Qi and Blood 2 million, Mana 20,000, Attack 20,000, Speed 1,000 km/h, Magic: Vajra Divine Power, Vajra Move Mountain Technique, Vajra Body Protection Skill, Demon-Subduing Vajra Palm, Vajra Divine Shield Technique, Move Mountain and Shrink Earth Technique, Fearless of Ghosts and Gods, Immovable as a Mountain, Vajra True Form.

Vajra Guardian (Terrifying): Level 120, Qi and Blood 3 million, Mana 30,000, Attack 30,000, Speed 1,500 km/h, Magic: Vajra Divine Power, Vajra Move Mountain Technique, Vajra Body Protection Skill, Demon-Subduing Vajra Palm, Vajra Divine Shield Technique, Move Mountain and Shrink Earth Technique, Fearless of Ghosts and Gods, Immovable as a Mountain, Vajra True Form.

Vajra Guardian (Peerless): Level 120, Qi and Blood 5 million, Mana 50,000, Attack 50,000, Speed 2,000 km/h, Magic: Vajra Divine Power, Vajra Move Mountain Technique, Vajra Body Protection Skill, Demon-Subduing Vajra Palm, Vajra Divine Shield Technique, Move Mountain and Shrink Earth Technique, Fearless of Ghosts and Gods, Immovable as a Mountain, Vajra True Form.

The Vajra Guardian stands one zhang tall, humanoid, as if forged from bronze and iron.

Then Su Yu casually brought out the Blazing Flame Spirit Fires he had collected earlier, refining them into a batch of fire-type guardians.

Flame Guardian (Elite): Level 110, Qi and Blood 1 million, Mana 100,000, Attack 10,000, Speed 2,000 km/h, Magic: Fire Series Arts, Binghuo Divine Thunder, Fire Escape, Earth Pole Flame Ban, Five Fire Divine Shield, Fire God Incarnation.

The refinement focuses on quality, turning 150-level essences into only 120-level guardians; the Blazing Flame Spirit Fire stands at 110-level, but still has room to upgrade.

Besides refining enemies in the Immortal Banner, upgrading can also be achieved by placing it in areas rich in Spiritual Qi to absorb it.

Thus, after refining all of the Blazing Flame Spirit Fire, he directly placed the Nine Rings Immortal Banner into the core of the Sea-Suppressing Pearl, under the careful watch of the Vast Sea.

With the Nine Rings Immortal Banner refined, Su Yu finally had a Tier Nine Treasure, of rare quality, just a hair away from a Tier Ten Supreme Treasure; in terms of magical wonders, it’s probably even stronger than an average Tier Ten Treasure.

A new treasure in hand, but with limited treasure slots, he deliberated for a long time before ultimately removing the Wind and Fire Fan.

Thus, his equipped treasures, beside the Sea-Suppressing Pearl, included the Nine Rings Immortal Banner of Tier Nine rare quality, the Wind God’s Order of Tier Eight, the Nine Heavens Purple Thunder Hammer of Tier Eight rare quality, and the Cyan Cloud Cover, a Tier Seven treasure, marking a qualitative transformation in quality.

"Awesome!"

Su Yu excitedly rubbed his hands, preparing to head to the southern Demon Cultivator area, using disciples from the Blood Demon Hall or Yin Yang Demon Sect to test the powers of his treasures.

Though being Immune to All Skill spares him from virtue loss or hidden score penalties with the Heavenly Dao, it’s still better to target Demon Cultivators; no psychological hurdles arise from killing as many as possible.

With this in mind, he immediately took his leave from his grandmaster.

However, upon hearing his words, the grandmaster stopped him with a smile and said: 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"Since you have such thoughts, it so happens that within our sect, the true disciple Wan Yu is in conflict with a true disciple from the Yin Yang Demon Sect over an immortal mansion in the Western Sea. Both sides have invited experts and set up an arena in Zhongyuan City to determine the mansion’s ownership. If interested, you could go take a look."

Su Yu smiled, shaking his head:

"I merely wish to test the powers of my treasures."

Master Xuanwei replied with a smile:

"No need to participate, just go and see, it would give you insight into the strengths of top experts from the righteous and demonic sects."

"Then this disciple will go take a look."

"Hmm, do go."

Su Yu bowed in farewell and, after leaving Xuankong Mountain, directly teleported back to Ten Thousand Poison Island.

Having been away for a long time, he planned to make a brief appearance in the guild, coincidentally checking on the guild’s current situation.

In Thousand Stars City, Su Yu hovered in the air for nearly an hour, beneath him a vast city completely occupying the canyon, relying on the over 2,000-meter-high peaks on both sides of the canyon as walls, exceptionally strong in Defense, with a complete Five Elements Rotating Array as the City Defense Array.

Within and outside the city, people flowed like the blaze, with player figures everywhere.

Besides members of the Thousand Star Hall itself, most were ordinary individual players.

Su Yu observed while checking the regional channel, where things were even more lively than outside.

He focused particularly on the local commercial channel, which had surpassed the headquarters of the initial three major guilds and even outshone Jinjiao Island.

"Very impressive!"

Su Yu closed the regional channel, very satisfied, and then opened the guild channel, carefully reviewing the current state of the guild, meticulously checking numerous guild records.

After spending more than three hours reviewing the records, Su Yu sent messages to Gu Zhiqiu, Qe Dongyang, and other subordinates, summoning them back.

Then he leaped into Thousand Stars City and entered the Grotto Heaven within.

After more than half a year’s development, the Grotto Heaven has been largely developed, with most places converted into spirit fields, planting various Spiritual Objects with high demand and quick growth time.

The core of the Grotto Heaven is the Five Elements Sect’s mountain gate, now the absolute core of the guild, especially the Spirit Veins of the five peaks, attracting many guild experts striving to earn guild contributions for the opportunity to use them.

At the Golden Spirit Main Peak, Su Yu sat across from Chu Xinyue, skillfully washing and brewing tea, smiling:

"I haven’t seen you for more than half a year, Sister Xinyue, and your strength has surpassed the past."

The improvement was indeed significant. When she left, she was at level 112, now she’s at level 125, gaining 13 levels in over half a year. For a Loose Immortal, this is quite a fast pace.

Chu Xinyue waved her hand and said:

"With a Grotto Heaven at hand, practicing day and night, how can the cultivation not improve quickly? But your progress is even faster; you’ve gained significantly on this journey."

"By the way, where did you go this time?"

"The Fallen Star Islands, have you heard of it, Sister Xinyue?"

Chu Xinyue shook her head and said:

"I’ve heard of it, but never been there. What’s it like over there?"

"It’s quite magical over there, completely different from our place. Oh, have you heard of the Great Void Divine Net and the Great Void Divine Mirror? Those things are magical, they can..."

While brewing tea, Su Yu narrated his experiences from the Fallen Star Islands to her.

And Chu Xinyue, having never left Blue Mountain Island, was quite curious about the outside world and listened intently.

Chu Xiaoyu, preparing to report work to Chu Xinyue, arrived to find someone softly and slowly narrating. A delicate hand supported a smooth chin as she listened attentively. The man gently pushed the tea in front of the woman; the two raised their cups, drinking together like a perfect couple.

She stood silently with complex emotions for a while until the conversation paused, then she gently knocked on the door, waking the absorbed couple.

After leaving Chu Xinyue, Su Yu returned to his own Fire Spirit Main Peak, where Qe Dongyang, Gu Zhiqiu, Zhuang Zhuo, and Shi Ning had all arrived.

Su Yu glanced around and was immediately drawn to Qe Dongyang, asking in surprise:

"Are you preparing for the Celestial Tribulation?"

Qe Dongyang nodded and said:

"I was close to facing the tribulation two years ago, but was busy with the former guild’s affairs and couldn’t focus. Now that I’ve switched to practicing the Five Elements Scripture, my strength has progressed further. With sufficient resources prepared for the tribulation, I’ve decided to trigger it."

Su Yu nodded and asked:

"How confident are you? Have you prepared all the tribulation materials?"

"If it’s a third-tier tribulation, I’m fifty to sixty percent confident."

"If unlucky, encountering a second-tier tribulation, less than ten percent confident."

Su Yu, surprised, said:

"So low?"

Qe Dongyang smiled bitterly and said:

"Overcoming the tribulation is defying the heavens; it’s meant to be difficult. Having fifty to sixty percent confidence is considered good."

Su Yu....

"How can you increase the success rate?"

"It’s simple, with better treasures. I’ve assembled five Tier Seven Treasures and over thirty Tier Six as cannon fodder."

Su Yu, surprised, said:

"And that’s not enough?"

"The cannon fodder is enough, but I’m still lacking a strong defense treasure, at least a Tier Seven treasure, or Eighth Tier. Of course, if there’s an item to weaken the tribulation’s power, that would work too."

Su Yu pondered for a moment and said:

"Later, check Feixing Island to see if there are any Eighth Tier Defense Treasures for sale. Ask a few super guilds, and withdraw any shortage of funds from the guild account."

Then he looked at Gu Zhiqiu and asked with a smile:

"You’re not planning for a tribulation soon, right?"

Gu Zhiqiu laughed and said:

"You haven’t faced the tribulation yet; I’m far from it."

Looking at others, Shi Ning, Zhuang Zhuo, and Meng Chen all shook their heads repeatedly:

"We’ve just started practicing the Five Elements Scripture."

Su Yu shrugged; each of his old comrades had obtained the Five Elements Scripture, a profound level of Daoist magic that was the absolute pinnacle for them. Moreover, they are now all squad leaders with guild support, truly having the potential to glimpse the tribulation in the future.

Next, they reported work one by one. Coupling this with the guild’s data he reviewed earlier, within two hours Su Yu fully understood the guild’s developments over the past half a year.

He stayed with the guild for a week, made a few appearances at guild activities, and then quietly left Ten Thousand Poison Island to return to the sect, before heading out to Zhongyuan Island.