Translator: Transn Editor: Transn
On a level open area at the south court trading marketplace.
This trading marketplace came about when the disciples of the Shenwu Academy began to gather at this spot on a regular basis thousands of years ago.
There were few people in the marketplace, comprised of only a few hundred disciples from the south court who set up their stalls to trade treasures.
There weren’t many disciples of Shenwu Academy. There were only a few tens of thousands in the fourth court of the outer mansion. Besides, they were outstanding and talented individuals. Only when they had too many items that were not very useful to them would they come to the market to sell them.
Su Mo strolled through the stalls but did not find anyone selling Beast Souls, not to mention anyone selling Martial Souls or Fighting Souls.
Su Mo felt perturbed. It would be impossible for him to advance to the next level of Devouring Martial Soul without Beast Souls, Martial Souls, and Fighting Souls. His Fighting Soul would not be able to evolve further.
“Looks like the only way is to kill!” Su Mo contemplated in his heart. He would have to personally go out to kill for Beast Souls and Martial Souls.
However, this was going to be an inefficient method, and he was not sure if he could make it in time!
He had to give it a shot despite the small chance of success. He would not back off since he had already agreed to Leng Jiang’s challenge.
Since he had accepted the challenge, he had to win!
Su Mo did not waste any time. He left Shenwu Academy immediately, soared into the air, and headed toward Tushan Town.
When he first came to Shenwu Academy, he had traversed many high mountain peaks covered with dense forests and had met numerous savage beasts. He had hunted and killed savage beasts there.
Savage beasts differed from demonic beasts in that demonic beasts could assume human form once they reached a certain level, and they could thus form the various tribes of Demons.
The Demons had the most massive tribes in the universe. The Ancientspirit Galaxy alone had tens of thousands of tribes of Demons, some of which were much more powerful than the Human tribes.
The savage beasts were said to be unevolved demonic beasts. They were unable to evolve further regardless of how strong they were. They would remain brutal beasts with low spiritual wisdom.
Such savage beasts were hunted by martial artists. They tended to attack viciously whenever they came across humans.
Su Mo left Falling Skies where Shenwu Academy was located. After hurriedly journeying for an hour, he finally exited the wilderness of Falling Skies.
He continued flying for a few more hours before he arrived at a densely vegetated mountain range.
This particular mountain range was not vast, occupying an area of a few tens of thousands of square miles. Su Mo hovered over the mountain range and released his spiritual consciousness over a radius of a few thousand miles.
After all, an Lv 5 Beast Soul was equivalent to a demonic beast’s soul at the True Darkness Realm, while an Lv 6 Beast Soul was equivalent to a demonic beast’s soul at the Martial King Realm. This was far beyond the level of his Devouring Martial Soul.
Without any hesitation, Su Moimmediately began devouring martial souls.
His forceful devouring power instantly spread out over a radius of three thousand miles.
Roar! Roar! Roar!
In a flash, deafening roars sounded one after another, and heaven and earth shook.
Explosions came from the mountain range one after another, and the cries of agony of savage beasts accompanied the explosions.
Numerous savage beasts were killed by the devouring power. The Beast Souls, blood, and energy of the savage beasts began gathering toward Su Mo.
Su Mo simply devoured the Beast Souls and discarded the rest. There was no point for him to devour the other things seeing as his cultivation had reached a bottleneck.
Roar!
At this point, an enormous savage beast in the form of a lion dashed out from the mountain range in the distance, trying to escape as quickly as possible.
This was an Eighth Level savage beast comparable to an Imperial martial artist. Although it was rather low in its spiritual wisdom, it could still sense the danger of Su Mo’s devouring power. Fearing for its life, it made a dash for safety.
“Die!”
Pointing his finger forward, Su Mo shot the Natal Spiritual Sword forward, piercing through the void. It struck the head of the savage beast instantly.
Boom!
The head of the savage beast was penetrated, and it was struck dead instantly. Its massive Beast Soul, under the influence of the devouring power, was unable to escape and was absorbed immediately.
Su Mo aggressively devoured the Beast Souls. As he flew across the mountain range, all of the savage beasts were slaughtered in cold blood—not even one was spared.
He devoured the beasts with such speed because this mountain range was relatively smaller, and there were not many powerful savage beasts in it. Within an hour, there were no living creatures left in the entire mountain range.
“Continue!”
Su Mo departed from the mountain range as he moved to his next target.
He did not choose to go to the more massive mountain ranges lest he meet more ferocious savage beasts and risk being overpowered by them.
He chose to go to the medium to small mountain ranges and savagely devoured the beasts’ souls.
With the help of Devouring Ultimacy, his Devouring Martial Soul had become more powerful and he was able to cover a wider area. It was like slaughtering weak prey with a powerful weapon.
He could easily sweep up all the savage beasts in this relatively small mountain range within a radius of ten thousand miles in the blink of an eye.
Within days, Su Mo had managed to devour over a billion Beast Souls as he went around the various mountain ranges.
The Flaming Devil Ghost Sage, who was in Su Mo’s Devouring Martial Soul, was both stunned and envious.
He was increasingly amazed to see Su Mo devour numerous Beast Souls continuously.
It was one thing to be aware that Su Mo could devour Beast Souls, but it was another thing to witness how he actually savagely devoured so many of them.
At the same time, feeling the power of the beast souls that were devoured by the Devouring Martial Soul had awakened his craving as well.
“Su Mo, given that I am extremely weak now, can you spare me some of the power from these souls?” The Flaming Devil Ghost Sage implored.
At this point, Su Mo was standing on a mountaintop, devouring the savage beasts within an area of three thousand square miles. In response, he shook his head and replied. “I will only spare you some when my Martial Soul has reached Rank 8 Heaven Class.”
It was impossible for Su Mo to give an advantage to his opponent at this time lest his opponent regain his strength and Su Mo lose control over him.
“Alright! I will wait!” Flaming Devil Ghost Sage sighed and kept his peace.
Time passed slowly as the days went by.
Three days passed in the blink of an eye.
Su Mo was currently in a mountain valley. Once he successfully devoured an 8th Level savage beast, his Devouring Martial Soul shook violently as the eighth golden light ring appeared above him.
“Finally, I have reached Rank 8 Heaven Class!” Su Mo rejoiced. It had taken him 13 days for his Martial Soul to progress to the next level—it was fast.
Back when he was in Firmament World, he did not have many resources for cultivation. Despite having devoured numerous demonic beasts in the past, his Martial Soul had not progressed to the next level at that time.
The beasts of the Firmament World were rather low-level.
Although there were not many Eighth Level savage beasts among the savage beasts he devoured in the past ten days, there were still close to a million Seventh Level beasts among them.
“I suppose I should be able to reach Rank 9 Heaven Class within the next 17 days.”
Su Mo muttered to himself. He was not very confident seeing as it definitely got harder as he progressed.
Moreover, the Ultimacy of his Devouring Power had barely reached the first level. He would require more time to fully understand the first level.
Time was running out!
“Have you actually… actually progressed to the next level?” Flaming Devil Ghost Sage asked in shock.
Not taking into account those hundred thousand years of slumber, he had lived tens of thousands of years, but this was the first time he saw a Martial Soul that could be promoted to a higher level. It was something beyond his imagination.
This had completely broken the normal rules in the cultivation of the Martial Soul!