262 Ninth Floor

Bai Tianyi smiled wryly when he saw Xue Wei sitting like this, cultivating hard, but he said nothing more and turned around, ready to ascend to the fourth floor.

As Bai Tianyi reached the stairs, he looked behind him and saw that many were still observing him with wide eyes as if they could not believe what they were seeing.

Noticing their glances, Bai Tianyi felt incredibly satisfied with himself and started swaggering up the stairs towards the next floor.

Seeing him swaggering, everyone on the third floor had ugly expressions on their faces. They felt as if he had slapped them hard. His behavior not at all like a normal cultivator but so self-assured that they felt inferior to a small kid.

Although Xue Wei had his eyes closed, a small smile appeared on his lips as this happened. He found it rather amusing to see Bai Tianyi act the way he did.

After Bai Tianyi left to do what Xue Wei had asked him to do, Xue Wei directed his attention on improving his cultivation. Although many people had to have died to create this highly nourishing soul power environment, it would be a waste not to use it and Xue Wei would do just that.

He was looking within himself and focusing on the dragon that was growing at a rate visible to the naked eye.

The scales on it were growing bigger and bigger, shinier and shinier, and even the surrounding air within the mind palace was starting to shine with the same luster that came from the dragon.

Xue Wei felt himself break through to the next level and he was excited. He had waited for a breakthrough for a long time.

But the dragon did not stop here. It continued to absorb the energy in the Soul Tower, and soon it had consolidated the foundation of the new realm and was rushing towards another bottleneck.

Time slowly ticked by within the Soul Tower. Xue Wei had gotten used to the energy pressure on the third level and slowly stood up to move up to the fourth level. There was no signs of Bai Tianyi's return yet, but Xue Wei was not worried.

Bai Tianyi had not been able to cultivate for a long time on their way towards Yan Dalu in the transdimensional tunnel. Now that he had a chance, he was eager to consume all the energy in the tower, wanting to swallow it all like Taotie, the gluttonous monster of legends.

Reaching the fourth floor, Xue Wei saw a lot of experts again sitting at the sides of the room. There were more experts on the fourth floor than on the third, but there was almost no one moving to the fifth, and even fewer coming down from the fifth floor.

Xue Wei found a place to the side and sat down. Sweat once again started pouring from his forehead as he once more experienced the heavy pressure of the soul power that was pushing down upon him, but a smile appeared on Xue Wei's face and he looked at his surroundings with narrowed eyes.

Few paid attention to him up here, but he could feel plenty of spiritual energy probes being sent towards him, and he shielded his body with his own spiritual energy.

As soon as the probes arrived, they were bounced backward from the barrier Xue Wei had erected, and no one continued to probe, but many had surprised looks on their faces. To think that this two-eyed expert was capable of overthrowing so many probes in such a short while.

Xue Wei saw that no one else seemed to have any intention of interrupting him and he once more started cultivating while quietly looking at the changes that happened to the golden dragon in his mind palace.

While Xue Wei had moved to the fourth floor, Bai Tianyi was already at the eight. He had encountered three people on the seventh floor, but no one on the eight. The three on the seventh floor had looked at him as if they had seen a monster when they noticed his upright, unrestrained posture and casual steps.

Even more shocked were they when they saw him step towards the stairs to the eighth floor, and when they saw him vanishing up the stairs, their hearts were stirred with horror.

Bai Tianyi completely ignored these people, and when he vanished they all looked at one another with shock in their eyes.

One of them could not handle the pressure and the shock at once and even vomited out a mouthful of blood before he hurriedly stood up and descended down the stairs.

The eighth floor was empty, but the pressure was so heavy that if Xue Wei were to enter without preparation he would without a doubt perish on the spot. The amount of energy that was present was enough to make Bai Tianyi happy. He could feel his breakthroughs appear in succession.

Not only was the energy pouring into him naturally, but he was also becoming like a black hole, absorbing all the energy and swallowing it as if he was a bottomless abyss.

His body was made from soul power and spiritual energy. Every time he absorbed the ambient energy, his body was getting stronger and his inner energy was also strengthened.

Unlike Xue Wei, Bai Tianyi did not have a mind palace. His entire body was made from spiritual energy and soul power. It was obvious that the entire body contained his energy, and all of it was a container for him.

He felt how his body was getting stronger and stronger. "It is a shame I made a child's body," he grumbled to himself as he looked down at his small size. "I did not have a lot of spiritual energy so I decided to make a body that was not too big back then, but I could store more energy right now had I made it bigger.

"Still, it will cost quite a bit of energy to remake my body and I am not willing to do so right now. I guess I will just have to absorb energy until my body has reached its limits, then refine it, and then repeat like this until my body slowly grows on its own."

Contemplating for some time, Bai Tianyi decided to do it this way. It was not that his body could not grow and become an adult's, it was just that the energy needed to do so was quite exorbitant, almost as much as creating a body from scratch.

If he were to create a new body, he would lose all the energy he had stored within the one he had right now, and that would be quite the significant loss to him, so in the end he made the difficult choice.

"Wei is busy cultivating and he should take around a week to break into the Earth Warrior rank," Bai Tianyi continued to mutter to himself while moving past the floor towards the stairs to the ninth floor. "I guess that means that I can stay on the ninth floor for a week and swallow up all this lovely soul power."

Bai Tianyi's face was filled with a great smile and he had high expectations for the floor above. The energy he was getting on the eighth floor was already so dense, so how would it be on the ninth floor? It had to be the most outstanding environment he could imagine; perhaps the air was so filled with energy that there was no space for anything else?

With this in mind, his steps picked up their pace and he almost rushed to the stairs. However, he quickly noticed that something was amiss.

Usually, the pressure would get worse the closer to the stairs one came, but here it was very steady throughout the entire floor.

As he reached the stairs, he found that there was still no change, and when he placed a foot onto the first step his face turned grim. The energy was actually dissipating!

And it was not slowly either—it was dissipating at a very rapid pace for each step that he took on the stairs towards the upper floors.

"Did those crooks trick me?" Bai Tianyi could not help but wonder about this. "They have noticed my ability to devour and become cheap?"

He stepped back down to the eighth floor, and here the energy was still as dense as before, but when he went up a few stairs again, the energy quickly vanished.

"No? Then is there something special on the ninth floor?" Bai Tianyi could not comprehend what was happening and he kept muttering to himself as he decided that even if there was no energy, it would be worth it to go to the last floor to have a look.

As he made it up into the ninth floor, Bai Tianyi found that there was absolutely no energy remaining. There was even less soul energy than there was outside, and he could not help but frown. What was the point of this floor if there was no energy?

Bai Tianyi started exploring. He looked through every nook and cranny, but no matter how much he looked, it was obvious that there was absolutely nothing there.

After looking around for the umptieth time, he finally realized that there was really nothing at all on this floor. Perhaps they just never expected that students would reach the ninth floor and thus they deactivated it?

Having spent a full day on the ninth floor without absorbing any energy, Bai Tianyi's mood was rather foul and he quickly descended to the eighth floor again where he sat down in the very middle of the room and started to absorb the energy at a speed so fast that everything around him became a blur.

The soul power poured into him at such a speed that it seemed as if a mist had appeared around him. He was not capable of seeing it himself, but anyone who saw this sight would be stunned silly.

While Bai Tianyi was busy absorbing the energy, he was unaware that his actions had caused a stir in the rest of the academy.

Outside, there were certain lights on the tower that lit up when someone entered one of the floors and stayed alight while they were there.

Many people had seen that the light of the ninth floor had been turned on and even worse, they had seen it being on for a full day before it finally descended to the eighth floor where it stayed.

Everyone was filled with curiosity about what exactly the monster that had caused such a commotion looked like.

But as the days ticked by, more and more were getting annoyed waiting, and only a few teachers and stubborn experts stayed behind to see this marvelous expert.

While Bai Tianyi was causing a shock throughout the academy, Hei Gou and Lin Xiao were staying at home in the courtyard, both busy cultivating their Qi.

Neither of them were shocked that it would take Xue Wei and Bai Tianyi a long time before they would return. Both of them had expected this, and thus they just focused on cultivating themselves, not stepping out of their rooms for even a moment.

Xue Wei was the same. He was not worried about Bai Tianyi not returning. He knew that the sword spirit was likely to have been intoxicated with the energy that was coming from the Soul Tower and had forgotten all about the time that had passed, thus he also just focused on his own cultivation.

After a week, Xue Wei once more saw the familiar figure of a small child appearing on the fifth floor where he was sitting now.

Seeing that Xue Wei had moved to the fifth floor, Bai Tianyi could not help but raise an eyebrow in surprise. He had not expected that he could move up that fast. He did not have a spiritual body after all.