Infinite Slaughter System: I Kill, Therefore I Ascend!-Chapter 178: All Non Daoist Arts Upgraded!

Li Ling’s face shifted from his own to that of a famous actor from his past life, then to his own face as Andrew Han on Earth. However, that wasn’t all; his entire body followed in the transformation along with him, shifting naturally and painlessly, almost like that blue-skinned girl from Magneto’s gang.

He then shifted back and rubbed his chin, once again feeling that this new move would do wonders for Li Fan. As for himself, he was already a fellow who liked to be high profile and cause trouble everywhere; disguising was only for situations like with Zhen Xueren, where it was a life-and-death matter.

This left him with three non-Daoist arts in total and about a month to the tournament date. Mulling it over, Li Ling decided to simply clean up everything, as he was not sure when he would upgrade to the fourth realm, because that would require a hefty amount of contribution points and Slaughter Points, which meant he would either need to join a war front or take a task.

But that was for later. Right now, his Swift Swallow Step was available for upgrade. This was a mortal martial technique of the qigong category that emphasized rapid movement speed over a short distance, allowing one to dance around foes. At its peak, it allowed one to replicate Bankai Ichigo’s feat of dashing around Byakuya.

However, that was the end of it. Mortal martial arts acted like skills in typical RPGs, effecting damage based on your base stats, so the higher your base stats, the higher the damage it dealt. Obviously, just because a skill could somewhat scale with you didn’t mean that it was optimal.

For example, if one skill dealt 70% of your STR stat as direct damage upon being cast, it would be good whether you had 10 points of STR or 100, but if there was another, better skill that dealt 700% of your STR as damage, obviously it would be better to switch out to that skill.

So Li Ling paid 50 Slaughter Points to limit break the Swift Swallow Step and entered a comprehension period of a day, opening his eyes with a hint of complexity.

Bad news: this qigong did not yield an awesome space-type step technique like his Void Step.

Good news: this qigong had been merged and mixed with his Blood Asura Descent, becoming a technique that functioned alongside the main art.

What this meant was that it was now a specialized technique that utilized his physical speed boosts from the Blood Asura Descent, along with his Blood Power, to effect his step technique. The stronger his cultivation in the Blood Asura Descent, the faster and more esoteric he would be, even being somewhat smoother for combat than the Void Step.

What puzzled Li Ling was that he felt this should be a Unique Immortal Art, but no, it was already named and marked as Perfected on the system panel, meaning that it existed in Firmament Heaven already!

Indeed, it was one of the Six Paths Demon Sect’s pillar cultivation methods. How could the countless geniuses that practiced this technique not have created something like this over the course of hundreds of thousands of years?

Li Ling stood up and practiced the Asura Blood Body, which was the name of the qigong technique, and found that it was even more amazing than he thought. At Perfection, he could almost half-elementalize his body into blood, causing him to become akin to a logia fruit user, unable to be harmed unless one could also utilize special attacks to harm his blood or lock him in place.

Well, it would do wonders for the upcoming tournament, that was for sure!

Hmm. Li Ling glanced at the second-to-last option, which was the Sky Rending Palm. Thinking back to this skill’s introduction, it was essentially akin to a taiji palm using soft force, where the attack would pass through the skin and deal damage to the innards.

After perfecting it, it could even ignore the defense of some externally worn armor, much less their skin.

Interested to see what limit breaking would bring, Li Ling advanced the art and spent an entire week in contemplation, far longer than the previous Daoist art and on par with some of his strongest Unique Immortal Arts.

When he came out of contemplation, he was so thrilled he didn’t even bother to analyze its benefits, directly standing up and making a palm attack forward. However, there was no shockwave or forceful wind, just the flare-up of his Blood Power, which soon settled down when the palm hit nothing.

But Li Ling understood the malevolence of his new Daoist art. This technique, which was a true Unique Immortal Art, had also merged with the Blood Asura Descent, but in the path of penetration to the extreme. Now, merging with Blood Power, using this attack would not only ignore all physical and magical defenses, but would directly target the opponent’s blood and bone marrow, extracting their life essence to feed Li Ling.

That’s right—if gamified, it would precisely be that kind of meta-breaking lifesteal skill that ignored 100% of the opponent’s defense and resistance.

This was especially deadly on fellow blood art practitioners like those of the Asura Blood Descent, which was why it hadn’t been developed before. This was an art that required a top-tier blood-related cultivation skill to even function, and it targeted all forms of blood-related cultivation skills, especially one’s own.

However, looking at it, the Unique Immortal Art was marked as un-upgradeable not because it required a higher realm, but because it was like the Nine Heavens Pagoda, requiring something that the Infinite Slaughter System saw no point in generating. While the Nine Heavens Pagoda required genuine memories of events spent in that realm, this art required different types of blood extracted from enemies.

So basically, it had a kill counter beside it, and the higher the kills, the higher its relative power per realm.

Li Ling decided to name it the Limitless Blood Plunder Art.

Finally, at the end of it all was the Hidden Sleeve Art, which was a sleight-of-hand method for stealing, planting evidence, or making subtle assassinations with a hidden blade.

This one was one upgrade shy of mastery, so Li Ling speechlessly paid the 4 Slaughter Point cost, which made him feel nostalgic for the times when most of his arts cost this much to upgrade.

How far he had come in such a short period of time!

As for the perfected Hidden Sleeve Art... hmm.

Maybe only half as good as Prime Ezio?

It was actually quite disappointing.

However, the limit break price of 100 Slaughter Points made his eyebrows raise. Why were the previous two only 50 Slaughter Points while this one was 100 Slaughter Points? Was it because the previous two were upgraded to Perfection at the second realm, where limit breaking cost a flat 50 Slaughter Points, whereas this one reached Perfection at the third realm, where the fee was 100 Slaughter Points?

Hmm.

Anyway, Li Ling paid the price and was shocked because a huge wave of comprehension suddenly struck him, lasting just under a fortnight.

When he opened his eyes, Li Ling raised his hands and turned them to face himself. However, he wasn’t actually looking at his appendages nor his digits, but rather at the dark space within his robe’s sleeve that completely hid the rest of his arm from wrist to shoulder.

Indeed, he had gained a new Unique Immortal Art, and based on what this art could do, Li Ling was more astonished than excited. It actually created a Void Space within his sleeve called the Sleeve Universe, where anything could be stored.

However, the Sleeve Universe was several levels worse than the Void Space. Firstly, the Void Space was ever-expanding with the range of his spirit sense, and its security level was two levels higher than his qi cultivation realm, whereas the Sleeve Universe would be ruined if Li Ling’s robes were ruined.

Secondly, the Void Space had its own mini world that could even sustain and nurture life if the right conditions were met, and things put within could either be time-frozen if Li Ling wanted or could grow with time. The Sleeve Universe, though, was only for non-living or yin-element things, and whatever was put in could not be time-frozen, so if you kept food there, it would still spoil over time.

Li Ling shook his head and was about to check the system when his Dharma Sense detected Bai Ruyi outside his cultivation chamber, urgently trying to come in.

Frowning, because he knew she wouldn’t do this without good reason, Li Ling stood up and exited the cultivation chamber by passing through the void, coming out behind Bai Ruyi, who was anxious.

Initially, he was about to smack her voluptuous backside when she suddenly turned to him, revealing a swaddled babe held in her arms that had somehow avoided Li Ling’s empowered Dharma Sense.

Before he could ask, Bai Ruyi quickly pulled him along, saying, "Husband, you have to hurry up. The tournament has already started, and they are trying to use your absence to eliminate you from the competition!"