Cultivation: But Not a Game-Chapter 74 - 36: Jiezhi Concealment Skill, Scam

The five people chatted for a while and then parted ways, each heading home.

Su Yu, meanwhile, returned to the Thousand Feather Pavilion, spending 30 taels of gold in one go to purchase 30 Third-grade Dao Heart Elixirs, and sold the Huisha Dragon Bone obtained from the secret realm for 5 gold.

Returning home, he began refining the Dao Heart Elixir.

However, when he refined up to the seventh Dao Heart Elixir, he was surprised to find that the Dao Practice gained from each elixir started to diminish.

Normally, with the Golden Finger bonus, a single Third-grade Dao Heart Elixir would yield 60 points of Dao Practice; seven elixirs should provide 420 points, but it increased by only 380 points in reality, short by 40 points.

"Has resistance developed so quickly?"

Though Su Yu frowned, he wasn’t puzzled.

He had foreseen this, but he hadn’t expected it to occur so soon.

There’s always talk of drug resistance. On Earth, he’d heard that overuse of antibiotics leads to drug resistance, weakening or nullifying their effects.

In the other side, a similar notion exists, where any elixirs and Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures have resistance, and aren’t for unlimited use.

Even the Millennium Spider Fruit is effective for only the first three, with no further attribute increase on later consumption, and elixirs are naturally the same.

Thus, there’s no question of amassing tens of thousands of Dao Practice points by endlessly consuming Dao Heart Elixirs.

Early on, you can rapidly accumulate Dao Practice using Dao Heart Elixirs. Once resistance develops and its effect wanes to zero, you’ll have to rely on killing BOSSes for Dao Practice.

Of course, the other side has many higher-grade elixirs for acquiring Dao Practice than Dao Heart Elixirs, but they’re expensive and scarce—not something to depend on.

After a brief silence, he messaged Wei Xia:

"Has your Dao Heart Elixir developed resistance?"

Wei Xia was still in Thousand Feather City and quickly replied:

"You’re only now seeing resistance?"

"Yeah."

"Mine has been ineffective for ages."

Su Yu was surprised:

"So soon?"

"My father prepared a batch of top-grade Fifth-grade Dao Heart Elixirs for me early on, accumulating a total of 2550 Dao Practice points, and now the Dao Heart Elixirs have no effect on me."

"Alright then."

Closing the chat, Su Yu glanced at the remaining Dao Heart Elixirs and continued refining them.

It’s merely resistance, not total ineffectiveness. He could still use them and would continue buying until they became entirely ineffective.

But it proved he had overthought it; as he continued refining the remaining Dao Heart Elixirs, the effect steadily declined, dropping to normal 50% upon refining the fifteenth.

In total, Su Yu refined all thirty, accumulating 1323 Dao Practice points.

Adding the prior 56 points, it totaled to 1389 Dao Practice points.

By the time he refined the last one, what once increased Dao Practice by 60 points now increased only by 6 points, just 10% effectiveness.

"From now on, I’ll have to find other ways to accumulate Dao Practice."

Su Yu smacked his lips, deciding not to continue buying.

With just 10% effectiveness, it’s not worth spending that money.

It’s worth mentioning that resistance applies to elixirs like Dao Heart Elixirs, whether they’re First-grade or Third-grade or even top-grade Fifth-grade, because they’re all Dao Heart Elixirs—just of different qualities.

Resistance doesn’t care about quality; once the resistance threshold from Dao Heart Elixirs is reached, they all become ineffective regardless of grade.

Also, resistance differs among individuals; generally, the higher the innate root, the higher the resistance.

Wei Xia’s innate root is higher than Su Yu’s, so Wei Xia accumulated a total of 2550 Dao Practice points from Dao Heart Elixirs, while Su Yu accumulated around 2200 points, about 330 points less than Wei Xia.

Having completed refining, Su Yu opened the panel, his gaze resting on several doctrines of his own, then after a moment’s reflection, focusing on the Jiezhi Concealment Skill.

This is a concealment method which can reduce one’s presence and restrain all auras, reaching the highest level even allowing full stealth within the Jiezhi Sumeru to completely hide one’s tracks, essential for outing adventures and explorations.

Upgrading to the first level requires 10 million cultivation points and 50 Dao Practice points.

With a mental command, his awareness settled on the doctrines, consuming 1000 cultivation points and Dao Practice points, an intangible ripple swept across his body, without any feeling of anomaly.

But a doctrine inexplicably surfaced in his mind.

Raising a hand, he pointed and a water mirror appeared; with a mental command, he tried to activate the doctrine, visibly collecting the glow of self due to cultivation, reducing to naught, the skin turning ashen, seemingly like an ordinary person.

He looked behind, discovering the shadow had vanished.

"This is amazing, just at the first level."

The Jiezhi Concealment Skill has a total of five levels; if he could max it out, it’d surely be formidable.

Next, he looked at the second level of the Jiezhi Concealment Skill, requiring 50 million cultivation points and 200 Dao Practice points.

Dao Practice points are sufficient, but cultivation points are insufficient.

"I’ll upgrade it next time."

Su Yu closed the panel, sat quietly unmoved for a while.

"What should be done next?"

"Better start leveling."

Cultivation points are never enough; besides Qi Refining Heart Skill and Sword Formulas, he’ll need to learn many Secret Skills, Thunder Skills, Restriction Skills, Divine Techniques, etc., all requiring massive cultivation points and Dao Practice points.

But before departing, some preparations are needed, so he opened the Thousand Feather Pavilion to browse around, spending 5 taels of gold on several special spells.

Little All Heaven Cloud Forbidden Skill, a restriction technique for future use in refining Flying Sword Magical Treasures, as well as laying down restrictions sealing certain things.

Upgrading to the first level requires 5 million cultivation points and 30 Dao Practice points, allowing up to second-tier Flying Sword Magical Treasures refining.