ALL NOVEL Chapter 408: Talent
Mike bought all the resources he needed with the money. Now, he has everything he thought necessary to reach the next martial arts realm. However, even after buying everything he could imagine, he still has a lot of money left. If he needed anything he hadn’t anticipated, he could quickly buy it. In short, he has all the resources he may need. The only issue is finding a way to break through, which he has no idea how to do.
To break through to the next martial arts realm, one must perform specific body and internal meridian movements. These are easy at lower levels but become increasingly complicated in higher realms. The "Pose of the Martial God" is already very difficult, and Mike has no idea what the pose for the next realm would be.
Fortunately, he has resources and an unbelievably talented body. Taking out hundreds of large bottles of pills, elixirs, rare minerals, and other tonics useful in martial arts, he carefully opened them. He took small pieces from each, mixed them in a dish, pressed them into a single, dense pill, and ate it.
He had read thousands of books on this topic and had extensive knowledge about pills. Of course, there was a high risk that the combination of all these pills would have unexpected reactions, form poisons, or produce undesirable effects. However, with the "Big Demon’s Body," he wasn’t worried about any of that.
He felt an intense heat in his stomach, which slowly shifted toward a slight pain. Clearly, the pill he had just taken had some problems. However, the "Big Demon’s Body" forcefully digested it. Whether it was poison, an allergic reaction, or something else, the discomfort quickly passed.
All the impure energy from the dense pill was quickly purified by the "Big Demon’s Body" before entering his circulation.
He then stood up and began performing a pose. He didn’t know the exact pose for the next realm, but he had purchased and read hundreds of research books on the subject. None contained the exact pose, as no one had reached the next realm. Therefore, no one knew whether their theories were true, but even though the books weren’t reliable, they were helpful. At least now, he has a few poses to experiment with instead of starting from scratch.
...
Ten years passed quickly. Mike tried and failed at thousands of poses. The books he had read contained about 600 poses in total, so recently, he began combining poses from different books, relying on his knowledge and luck.
If anyone else had attempted this, they would have died years ago. Doing the poses incorrectly can have severe consequences for the body. Even Martial Gods could be permanently disabled if they experimented unscrupulously with their bodies.
But Mike, with the "Big Demon’s Body," wasn’t worried. No matter how many poses or mistakes he made, his body remained at its peak without the slightest sign of internal injury.
...
A hundred years passed.
Mike hadn’t found the right pose to reach the next realm, but he wasn’t concerned. Even though he hadn’t discovered the correct pose, he could clearly feel his internal energy and domain growing stronger.
At first, he had planned to find the pose for breaking through the realm after Martial God, but as the decades passed, he gave up on that goal. It was simply too difficult. He might need to experiment for tens of thousands of years just to have the faintest chance. Mike had infinite time, but he preferred not to spend it all on that.
Instead, he focused on strengthening his internal energy and domain with poses that were only usable by him.
The poses Mike used were impossible for anyone else to replicate. If anyone else tried them, they would likely die within a decade from the numerous internal injuries. But Mike wasn’t concerned. He comfortably performed these injury-causing poses and used extremely impure, violent, and poisonous pills.
His method worked. He forcefully strengthened himself to the point where he could easily defeat any Martial God. Yet, he felt he was only quasi-next martial arts realm—far from truly breaking through.
"Let’s name the next realm," Mike decided. "It should have a much larger domain, so let’s call it 'Martial Overlord.'" Of course, he didn’t know that Lana had already named the next realm "Martial Sovereign."
...
"The talent of that strange body is unbelievable," Lana thought. "The poses Mike has been performing would be deadly for even rank 10 law bodies, yet that strange body neutralizes everything."
"Those poses should cause a breakdown of the meridians, but that body tolerates them somehow. I really want to crack it open and see what it’s made of!" Lana was curious, even though she wasn’t usually interested in magical science.
"That strange body definitely came straight from Rachel," she concluded. If it weren’t for this fact, she would have already snatched Mike to experiment on him. But when it came to Rachel, even Lana had to be careful, so she didn’t dare touch Mike.
...
A hundred years later.
Mike expanded his domain, which now covered thousands of kilometers. It was simply incomparable to the Martial Arts domain.
"Finally, I’ve stepped into the Martial Overlord realm!" Mike smiled to himself. As agreed, he documented the exact pose and the medicine he used and sent the information to Master Black.
Master Black had granted him the money with the precondition that Mike share the results. Mike had no plans to break the deal because the poses and drugs he used were completely unusable for anyone without the "Big Demon’s Physique." The data he sent was worthless to anyone else.
"My Big Demon physique is really overpowered," Mike thought. Only now did he truly realize how strong his cheat-like body was. The poses he performed were extremely contradictory—sometimes reversing energy flow through meridians, sometimes combining opposing meridians, or even breaking one meridian and merging it with another.
His pills were equally extreme, containing all kinds of poisonous combinations, tonics with so much energy that they would cause explosions in even Martial Gods, and impurities that would ruin any martial artist’s future. Essentially, his pills could be used as deadly poisons for assassinations.
"I cheated my way through to Martial Overlord," he laughed. "As long as I have resources, reaching the peak of rank 9 shouldn’t be difficult at all."
Looking at the remaining resources in his storage ring, Mike’s smile widened. He didn’t plan to leave his closed-door cultivation until all his resources and money ran out.
After a quick trip to convert the rest of his money into useful resources, he re-entered closed-door cultivation. This time, he focused on buying the pills and tonics that had proven most effective in the past. He primarily purchased pills and elixirs, along with a few minerals and rare plants.
He mixed and pressed them into dense pills, which he took one by one while performing his self-invented poses.
...
His self-invented poses worked wonders. The energy from the tonics quickly transformed into his own. In just 300 years, he reached the peak of Martial Overlord.
Even after reaching the peak, he still had many resources left, though not enough to reach the following martial arts realm. Therefore, he reluctantly halted his cultivation.
...
"Master Black! Look!" Mike released his martial domain, displaying his power in front of Master Black.
Master Black’s expression changed. The power was immense, easily comparable to a quasi-rank 8 mage. Master Black himself, as an early-perfection cultivator, was as strong as a peak rank 8 mage. Once he reached mid-perfection, he would cross the boundary into rank 9. While a quasi-rank 9 posed no threat to him, Mike’s growth rate was alarming. Less than 1,000 years ago, Mike had only been a simple Martial God, which meant he had grown from peak rank 6 to quasi-rank 8 in an impossibly short time. Given a few more thousand years, Mike might even surpass him.
If Master Black had the freedom, he would have killed Mike before he grew stronger. Unfortunately, Queen Lana had given him different orders.
"So amazing! Mike, I’m very impressed!" Master Black smiled as he handed Mike a card. "Here you go, one quintillion RM for your research into the next realm after Martial Overlord."
Though unwilling to support his competitor, Master Black had no choice. He knew how terrifying the Queen could be if disobeyed.
Mike accepted the card with little surprise. "As expected, Lana wants me to pave the way for martial arts," he thought. "Maybe there’s a bug in this world preventing ordinary inhabitants from reaching beyond Martial God, and she’s using me to discover and fix it."
Mike had no doubt that the money didn’t come from Master Black. A quintillion was far too much for someone recently promoted. Even if he had that much, Master Black would likely use it to strengthen himself rather than give it to Mike.
"Thank you, Master Black! I’m going back into closed-door cultivation. I’ll definitely send you all my research results!" Mike said firmly. He pretended not to know about the Queen’s involvement.
"Of course. Take care!" Master Black smiled outwardly while cursing inwardly.