For the first time, Su Mo gained a preliminary understanding of cultivation systems beyond Earth—though only in terms of names.
According to what Lan Hui had said, the Transcendence Realm allows one to manipulate space, equivalent to Earth’s Demigod Realm, which is S-rank. And their Demigod Realm… could it be an existence like Master Yu who can reverse time?
Following this line of thought, Su Mo mapped the two realm systems one-to-one:
The Initial Realm corresponds to E-rank and F-rank.
The Transcendent Realm corresponds to D through A-rank.
The Transcendence Realm corresponds to the space-manipulating Demigod Realm (S-rank), such as the Temple Envoy.
The Demigod Realm then corresponds to someone like Master Yu.
As for the God Realm, the two worlds probably aren’t too different.
These were all his guesses, with nothing concrete to verify. He figured he could ask the Immortal Lord about it when he got the chance—maybe he’d know.
…
One week later.
“Zhuge Zhi, how many points do we have so far?” Su Mo asked casually as he burned the corpse of a two-foot-long mosquito king to ashes.
“216 points. Getting into the top ten shouldn’t be a problem.”
Huo Jingshu spoke up at this point: “I just did some scouting. There’s a group of monkeys living about ten kilometers north of here—Red-Haired Fiends, around three hundred of them.”
“Red-Haired Fiends? Those things are worth five points each. Vice-captain, should we wipe them out?”
“Red-Haired Fiends are vicious and brutal—they’re the bullies of this rainforest. But taking out over 300 of them at once is a bit—”
Before Su Mo could finish, Huo Jingshu continued: “There’s something strange about these Red-Haired Fiends. Their leader is a human. He saw me but didn’t react, and when I left, he didn’t seem interested in pursuing me.”
“Then let’s go take a look.”
The group headed north and arrived at the place Huo Jingshu had mentioned, only to find the Red-Haired Fiends still there, not having moved.
Su Mo looked into the distance. Sure enough, a human stood among the monkeys, wearing a demon mask, with a long sword on his back that gave off a familiar feeling.
The man glanced at Su Mo, then vanished in a flash, and the monkey troop disappeared from sight along with him.
Su Mo frowned in deep thought, momentarily unable to figure out who the other party was and why he had been led here.
“Just to get a look at my peerless beauty?” Su Mo muttered to himself.
Just then, an intense roar came from ahead—exactly where the monkeys had been moments before.
Accompanied by an unending roar, a serpentine creature with four sharp claws rose into the air.
“A dragon!” all six exclaimed at once, thinking their eyes were playing tricks on them.
“Holy crap, dragons actually exist in this world—and in a foreign country, no less?” Zhuge Zhi’s voice went shrill, like an old auntie.
“No, that’s not a dragon. It’s a jiao—or you could call it a jiao dragon,” Su Mo said with certainty.
“Jiao dragon, jiao dragon—isn’t that the same as a dragon?” Zhuge Zhi asked, confused.
Wu Heng smacked him. “A jiao is a jiao, a dragon is a dragon. A jiao can sometimes be loosely considered a dragon, but a dragon can only be a dragon.”
Su Mo continued: “That’s right. Dragons have two horns and fish-like tails. Jiao are different—they have only one horn, or even none, and their tails are no different from a snake’s.”
The others looked over. It was true.
One horn, snake tail.
Other than that, not much different from a dragon’s appearance.
Unfortunately, this White Jiao seemed very hungry. The moment it spotted Su Mo and the others, it charged at them like it had gone mad, as if seeing a delicious meal.
“Everyone scatter and run!”
Su Mo had barely finished speaking when the White Jiao was already beside them, heading straight for him.
Su Mo instantly brought out every defensive card he had, but the White Jiao swatted him away with one claw. His sleeves were shredded, revealing snow-white arms with several clear bloody gashes.
If Ye Qingyi hadn’t acted in time—using the Great Destiny Technique to assist while quickly pulling him away—his injuries would have been even worse.
It wasn’t just Ye Qingyi. Everyone else gathered around too—not a single person chose to flee.
“Careful, its strength should be A-rank!” Su Mo warned, then immediately charged back into the fight.
He knew very well that with the White Jiao’s strength, among everyone present, only he and Ye Qingyi could withstand a single hit. Anyone else would probably be done for after one blow.
So when the White Jiao appeared beside Zhuge Zhi and Xia Qingqing, Su Mo charged over without hesitation, pushing them both aside.
At the same time, in his qi sea, the Snow Mountain Sparrow representing “Sorrow” exploded with a thunderous boom. A Mountain-Sea Fist met the White Jiao’s sharp claw.
Since defense was useless, then stop killing with killing!
Under the amplification of the Fury Mantra, his physical qualities were four times normal. Now with the complete version of the Mountain-Sea Fist, logically speaking, it should be extremely powerful.
That’s right—Su Mo could now use the complete version of the Mountain-Sea Fist. The only drawback was that each use would destroy one Snow Mountain. Although it could recover, the speed was extremely slow.
This strongest strike—he was confident it could withstand the White Jiao’s claw.
However, a sudden change occurred!
The White Jiao actually didn’t intend to clash head-on. Instead, it chose to avoid the edge and swiftly retreated at just the right moment.
The Snow Mountain was destroyed, the arrow had already left the bow with no turning back. Su Mo had no choice but to punch at empty air, his body unable to bear the strain—he spat out a mouthful of blood.
At that moment, the White Jiao charged back.
Since it could fly, its speed was extremely fast, and everyone was helpless against it.
Su Mo’s eyes darkened as he said coldly: “Even at this point, there’s still no sign of the head instructors. This looks like a long-planned conspiracy—they’re probably facing similar attacks. Right now, we can only rely on ourselves.”
The White Jiao unexpectedly stopped in midair, not immediately launching a killing spree. Instead, it kept circling, as if considering which one to eat first.
Apart from the fighting spirit burning in Huo Jingshu’s eyes, everyone else’s hearts had sunk to rock bottom.
In this girl’s eyes, as long as she could fight, it seemed death wasn’t so bad—even though she was already injured.
Xia Qingqing instinctively looked at Su Mo: “Qingyi, what do we do now? It’s really so strong…”
Although she and Zhuge Zhi had been pushed aside by Su Mo, they’d still been hurt by the shockwave—both were wounded.
She was relatively okay. Zhuge Zhi had a major blood vessel cut, and Wu Heng was desperately trying to stop the bleeding.
Zhuge Zhi’s face was redder than ever, his eyes like a bloodthirsty beast. He had no awareness of what was happening around him—he only heard a voice in the depths of his heart questioning:
“Trash. All you can do is cling to others’ coattails. You’re useless. Not only do you contribute nothing, you’re forever a burden to the team. You might as well be dead—living only drags others down…”
He had no answer to that.
Although he was exceptionally gifted, due to the peculiar nature of his ability, his strength had never improved. He’d also been forced to owe many debts. If the others in the team hadn’t been so tolerant and never held it against him, they probably would have kicked him out long ago.
He had a premonition that after this trip, he really wouldn’t be able to stay.
Even if the others didn’t say anything, he’d have no face to…
“Alright, the bleeding’s stopped for now.” Wu Heng’s concerned voice sounded in his ear. The darkness before his eyes gradually dispersed, and light returned.
Xia Qingqing, who usually bickered with him constantly, was also looking at him with worry—genuinely happy to see him awake.
Zhuge Zhi suddenly hesitated, though he wasn’t sure what he was hesitating about.
Looking up, the White Jiao was still in the sky. Although it hadn’t attacked, its oppressive presence was still strong.
He took a deep breath and suddenly asked: “Qingyi, if someone could hold off the White Jiao for one minute, do you have a way to take it down?”
Su Mo frowned: “I can try. But you… what are you planning?”
Zhuge Zhi smiled: “Doing what a proper member of the Genius Squad should do.”
