Monsters Die When Killed

Ever since Su Zhou advanced to the Awakening Tier and obtained the Divine Technique of the Evil-Devouring Demon Lord, he had been hunting Demons and Evils all over Hongcheng, trying to see if he could obtain an ’Evil Soul’.

Unfortunately, perhaps because those Demons and Evils were too weak, or perhaps because Su Zhou finished them off before they had a chance to do any real harm, neither the human-faced cats nor the floating river corpses provided any Evil Souls. At most, he got a few scattered Spiritual Energy Fragments of varying sizes, which was better than nothing.

But honestly, these Spiritual Power Fragments contained very little Spiritual Power.

To put it in perspective, a single Spiritual Energy Fragment contained 5 to 50 units, while Su Zhou’s own Spiritual Qi was at least 15,000 and climbing.

A Spiritual Power reading over 100 points meant one had reached Spirit Awakening and could occasionally see Ghosts.

At 1,000 points, one was Half-Awakened and could intimidate ordinary Spirit Bodies.

Even the weakest Awakener had a Spiritual Power reading of over 3,000 points—a normal Awakener was typically around 5,000.

It had been less than a week since Su Zhou’s Awakening, yet his Spiritual Power reading was already three times that of an ordinary, mature Awakener. Among Awakeners, his foundation was incomparably profound. To put it in simpler terms, this was the point where his father should be declaring, "My son, Su Zhou, has the makings of a Great Emperor!"

Training Spiritual Power wasn’t difficult. Simply eating and exercising in a high-Spiritual Qi environment, a consequence of the Spiritual Energy Revival, would naturally accumulate Spiritual Power. Even an accumulation of one or two points a day—or sometimes none at all—was still considered training. It was just inefficient. An ordinary person could spend a decade or so and slowly approach the threshold of Awakening.

But for efficient training, one needed a ’Cultivation Method’—that is, a specialized legacy of Spiritual Power training.

It was just like how scientifically training muscles wasn’t as simple as just lifting weights and running, as ordinary people might imagine. Beyond all the minor, rational, and complex techniques, it also had to be paired with a specific diet and lifestyle.

Spiritual Power Cultivation Methods were the same. They needed to be used in conjunction with specific Spiritual Objects, perhaps worn on one’s person, and then one had to constantly engage in the relevant Cultivation in daily life.

A low-grade Cultivation Method might only involve simple visualization and meditation, accumulating a dozen or so points of Spiritual Power each day. But even so, this was over ten times faster than an ordinary person. What would take a non-cultivator more than a decade to accumulate, a person with a Cultivation Method could achieve in a single year of arduous practice.

Mid- and high-grade Cultivation Methods were even more incredible. They didn’t just accumulate Spiritual Power; they could also refine one’s Spiritual Energy, fundamentally improving a Cultivator’s Talent. The more one practiced, the faster their Cultivation speed became.

Su Zhou’s Sacred Geometry Cultivation Method, which even utilized his Celestial Human Cycle Talent, had already half-solved the problem of Spiritual Power accumulation. He only needed to focus on refining his Spiritual Energy and True Spirit, making it a truly fundamental Cultivation Method.

But regardless of the Cultivation Method, the most difficult part wasn’t the subsequent arduous training. It was the stage from being an ordinary mortal to reaching the Half-Awakened state. Even with a Spirit Root Talent, it required a long period of refinement to create something from nothing—to nurture one’s very own wisp of Spiritual Spiritual Power and nourish the True Spirit.

In a way, it was like earning your first million in capital—it was the stepping stone. That’s why the saying "one hundred days of Foundation Establishment" existed; it was all about taking that first step.

In summary, hunting low-level Extraordinary Creatures like Resentful Spirits yielded very little. It was like using them as fertilizer for a tree. For the current Su Zhou, only Demon Fiends and Evil Demons at the Awakening Tier were valuable enough to hunt.

At 1:27 AM on August 8th, Su Zhou was on the move, clad in dark blue Night Travel Clothes.

He wore his full Exorcism Armor, bounding across the rooftops of the old city district as if he were flying.

Lights still flickered in the city center. As the state capital, Hongcheng wasn’t exactly a Nocturnal City, but it certainly wasn’t devoid of life at one or two in the morning.

Cars drove down the streets one after another, their bright headlights illuminating corner after corner as they turned. They passed through a still-bustling commercial street, then crossed another road and vanished around a bend.

And amidst the flicker of streetlights and headlights, a dark figure swiftly crossed the roofs of one building after another, avoiding all the cameras he could sense as he moved warily through the city.

After his Awakening, Su Zhou’s jumping ability was several times greater than before. He could now leap over ten meters high and tens of meters forward in a single bound. And that wasn’t even his limit. Su Zhou felt that with the help of ’Wind Aid’, his maximum jump was probably over fifty meters high and two hundred meters forward—he was almost comparable to a human flea.

With this near-flight speed and mobility, it was almost impossible for ordinary cameras to spot him. Before long, Su Zhou saw a dim trail of Spiritual Qi lingering in mid-air. He continued on, following the trail as he sped through the shadows of the night.

Then, he arrived at his destination.

It was an ordinary-looking residential building northeast of the cross-river bridge, surrounded by other buildings in the riverside district.

Due to its age, its surface was mottled and dark, which almost obscured it from Su Zhou’s Spiritual Vision, making him think the trail ended there.

’Let’s see... Nine floors in total, and the Spiritual Qi trail leads to... the ninth floor?’

Standing atop another, taller residential building, Su Zhou looked down at the smaller one below, his pupils contracting slightly as he observed the end of the Spiritual Qi trail. ’As I expected. A human, then? Hmm, the parts I can see are pretty clean. I can’t make out anything useful.’

’Living on the top floor certainly makes it convenient for them to come and go for hunts.’

Yara was currently in a state of silence. Unless absolutely necessary, it wouldn’t tell Su Zhou what to do. Instead, it let him judge and experiment on his own—not just for the experience, but to help him cultivate a valuable mindset.