Having killed the two young men in yellow and brocade robes, Su Mo returned to the forest. He sat cross-legged and continued to cultivate under a tree.
During the following period, the Icy Messenger Charm on Su Mo quivered every dozen seconds to 30 minutes. With the forest as his center, Su Mo began to gallop back and forth within a 2-km radius.
He was so formidable that no one he encountered could escape pillaging or even death.
Within six hours, Su Mo robbed over 20 people. If Firmament Divine Realm were more densely-populated, he would have robbed even more.
Thankfully, the distance Su Mo had to travel was not long enough to cost much of his time.
He sat cross-legged under the tree and corpses of several talent who refused to surrender their storage rings or attempted to resist lay before him.
Besides the corposes, there were also millions of Lower Spiritual Stones in front of Su Mo.
Releasing his Devouring Martial Soul, Su Mo began to devour the spoils. Spiritual Stones exploded, and his blood essence surged.
His body was once again shrouded in an eye-catching golden light as the gigantic elephant's shadow constantly flashed. What a majestic scene!
Su Mo was temporarily unable to improve his cultivation. It had skyrocketed by three levels, so the foundation was unstable, and his Genuine Vitality needed to be condensed.
Therefore, he could only enhance his physical strength. His Elephant's Strength Skill had reached Middle 9th Stage, comparable to the strength of Peak Lv 8 True Spirit Realm martial artists. However, there was still room for improvement.
As time went by, Su Mo devoured all the blood essence and Lower Spiritual Stones.
"Damn! Lower Spiritual Stones cannot meet my increasing demand for Spiritual Qi. I'd better go look for some Medium ones."
Su Mo's demand for Spiritual Qi greatly increased as his physical strength improved, just like with his cultivation.
Oh la la!
With a wave of his arm, millions of Lower Spiritual Stones appeared again.
After devouring all the stones, he stopped cultivating.
"I've reached Late Lv 9 at last! Even with my physical strength, I won't lose out to average Lv 9 martial artists!"
Su Mo immediately ceased devouring. He could not cultivate his physical body because it had already surpassed his cultivation by two realms. If he continued, his body would probably absorb Genuine Vitality from his elixir field.
At present, Su Mo had reached some bottleneck in terms of both Genuine Vitality cultivation and physical strength.
With floating Genuine Vitality and an unfirm foundation, his cultivation and physical strength were temporarily stagnant.
In short, he was unable to enhance any kind of strength for the time being. Instead, he had to solidify his foundation for some time.
"What's wrong?"
Su Mo looked down at the skin on his arm and frowned.
With his physical strength fully activated, pale golden scales covered his body, which made him look like a merman.
Previously, his body had glowed rays of golden light, but now, the golden light converged to form scales.
Su Mo felt bewildered because nothing was said about this in Elephant's Strength Skill.
He did not know if he would turn into a monster covered with scales if he continued cultivating.
He looked slightly grave and sighed. Fortunately those golden scales only appeared when his physical strength was fully activated, so there was nothing much to worry about.
"The defense of these scales should be strong!"
Su Mo's eyes lit up. He swiftly drew his Spirit-slayer Sword and slightly stabbed at his arm.
Clang!
After the stab, Su Mo remained unscathed. There was not even a scar on his arm.
He was shocked. The Spirit-slayer Sword was sharp enough to cut through Body-protection Genuine Vitality of any Peak Lv 6 martial artist. How could he remained untouched?
After a mutter, he lifted his glowing long sword and activated some Genuine Vitality. Once again he stabbed at his arm.
Clang!
After another clang, Su Mo remained unscathed. There was no scar at all on his arm.
"Amazing!"
Su Mo was exulted. That stab could well match the full stroke from any ordinary Peak Lv 7 martial artist. However, he was still protected.
Before this, such an attack that would have surely left a clear scar on his skin even if it did not hurt him.
"Try again!"
Su Mo wielded his long sword and released overwhelming force.
This time his stroke was extremely powerful, comparable to a full attack from any average Peak Lv 8 expert.
Swish!
In a flash, the sword stabbed down.
Clang!
Once again, the sword rebounded from Su Mo's arm and did not hurt him.
Su Mo stared at his arm, only to find an faint white scar on the skin.
"Huff!"
Su Mo exhaled and then smiled.
"Such defense is strong enough to deflect any attack from normal Lv 9 martial artists. I won't be hurt at all. Combined with my Body-protection Genuine Vitality, I'll be more formidable!" Su Mo mumbled to himself.
He needed no more trials, for he fully understood his newly-developed defense.
It would be impossible for Li Hai, Fang Qingyun and the like to hurt him even if he did not fight back.
After a while, Su Mo operated the Nirvana Cultivation Method to cultivate a more solid foundation while taking out dozens of scrolls from his storage ring.
These scrolls were all about martial arts techniques.
For now, his comprehensive strength was peerless among the same rank. His only weakness was the speed of his body moves. He planned to cultivate another profound martial arts technique before the Firmament Palace turned up.
These martial arts techniques were all his trophies.
Su Mo began to check them one by one.
Even the worst martial arts techniques were of Medium Lv 3, while the majority were of Upper Lv 3, and the final four were of Lv 4.
Among the four, three were of Lower Lv 4, and the last one was of Medium Lv 4.
Su Mo packed up other scrolls and kept the best one in hand.
He began to read them carefully.
"Dragon Sky-roaming Steps teaches body moves of Medium Lv 4. When one reaches the Great Completion, (s)he will move like a flying dragon traversing through the sky, fast and agile… "
Reading this scroll, Su Mo nodded.
Dragon Sky-roaming Steps was much powerful than the Shadow Steps he had formerly cultivated.
"I'll take this one!"
Su Mo smiled.
Just then, the Icy Messenger Charm on him vibrated again.
Su Mo checked it and heard Han Qianze's voice.
"Su Mo, 950 kilometers to the East stands an ancient city in ruin. As many as 300-400 talents are gathered there, but many are experts of Lv 7 and Lv 8 True Spirit Realm. We will be no match for them, so I retreated. Why not explore a new direction?"
Upon hearing this, Su Mo felt overjoyed. He hurried to say, "Don't move, I'll come to you at once!"
With these words, Su Mo rushed toward the due east.
Han Qianze thought Su Mo wanted to rob some weaker men, so he stayed put to wait for him without thinking twice.
Su Mo flew forward while informing the other three to meet in that ancient city.
No figure could be found within a 1,000-kilometer radius. There was no need for a further search.