Inside a cafe, Huang Yu and Gu Yue were sitting at a two-person table whilst drinking a drink. The two of them were in a very filled restaurant waiting for a drink that had been gaining a lot of popularity recently.
After a while of waiting, a blonde waitress appeared and served them their drinks.
Gu Yue took a look at the drink that she had just been served. It was in a plastic cup and had multiple black pearls inside. On the outside of the plastic, there was a Nox logo with the words, "Bubble Tea" underneath.
As she took a sip, Huang Yu suddenly asked as he took a sip as well from his own cup. "Is it good?"
Putting down the cup after that sip, she smiled. "It's not bad. No wonder it has been quite popular lately."
"By the way, how did you even get a reservation here anyways? I thought this place doesn't do them."
Huang Yu let out a cheeky smile. "Well, I own this establishment after all."
Gu Yue snorted. "Sure, whatever you say. What are you going to tell me next? You own the entirety of Nox as well?"
"Yes?"
"..."
Gu Yue shook her head with mirth as she took another sip from the cup. After that, her expression suddenly shifted into a serious one. "Did you manage to succeed inside there?"
"Yup. Everything went perfectly inside. Only thing is, I'm not sure if I can do the same outside the spirit ascension platform."
She sighed. "You're a madman you know. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone who dared to try and use sword intent as if it was spirit energy…"
Huang Yu's cheeky smile turned sheepish. "C'mon, it wasn't that bad…"
"You blew like multiple see-through holes through yourself trying that. Three times may I add."
Well actually, it was fifteen times. However, she didn't need to know about that.
Trying to shift the topic away from that, Huang Yu abruptly asked, "How did you know that the energy from killing the spirit beasts inside the spirit ascension platform could be converted into sword intent and be easier to ȧssimilate though Gu Yue?
"It's a trade secret." she answered smugly.
A wry expression appeared on Huang Yu's face. In the past, Gu Yue's answers would have been rather straightforward. However, after interacting with Huang Yu for a few years, she naturally began picking up the Dao of Bullshittery from him.
Shaking his head, they spent an hour inside the cafe making small talk before leaving the cafe.
As they were about to part ways, Gu Yue suddenly stopped him.
"Huang Yu." There was a worried expression on her face as she called out to him.
"Hm?"
"Please stop if it gets too dangerous ok?"
A playful grin appeared on Huang Yu's face. "Oh? Are you getting worried for me?"
The look on her face didn't change. "I'm being serious here. Can you please promise me that Huang Yu?"
At that, the playful look on Huang Yu's face disappeared. "I'll try."
"Thank you." Gu Yue said as a beautiful smile bloomed on her face.
– – – –
Inside a large building, Huang Yu faced a very familiar woman kneeling on the ground. If Gu Yue were to see the woman now, she would be shocked. It was the waitress that had served on them in the cafe.
"My king, please forgive my transgressions, but as one of your priests, may I request that you rethink this? It's far too dangerous for you to attempt this once more."
Huang Yu waved her off. "It'll be fine Xiao Chen. The past attempts failed since I didn't have enough experience doing this. I managed to get a feeling of what it feels like inside the spirit ascension platform when I defeated the Tyrant Dragon."
Xiao Chen was a very beautiful woman with large eyes. If she had been standing, one would notice that she was very tall and possessed a voluptuous figure.
She had joined Nox two years back when Huang Yu had saved her from a horrifying fate. Due to her martial spirit having devastating powers, it drained a large portion of lifeforce to supplement it, causing her to be declared as an evil Spirit Master by the masses.
After that, with an invitation from Huang Yu himself, she joined Nox and quickly rose to the rank of a priest as a result of her own capabilities and undying loyalty to her new king.
In Nox, she could be considered to have the highest ranking along with two other priests if Guang Biao, who had been promoted to a Bishop, and Huang Yu weren't included.
"If you say so, my king." Although she didn't want Huang Yu to do what he was about to do, she had no choice but to step back since he was insistent on doing it.
"Just prepare to pump carbon dioxide into the room."
"Yes, my king."
Huang Yu entered the aforementioned room and sat down into a lotus position. Taking a deep breath, he signalled Xiao Chen with a use of the King's Wisdom as a vast amount of sword intent filled the surroundings.
At this moment, Huang Yu began playing a very dangerous game. If he did one wrong move, it could potentially end his life.
What was he doing? It was quite simple really.
When he used sword intent, his raw intention of cutting seemed to influence the energies of nature into forming a sharp power. No matter how much he used it, the natural energies that formed sword intent seemed to be limitless, allowing him to use sword intent as much as he wanted without drawback.
Knowing all this, a thought appeared in his mind. Couldn't he try to merge sword intent and spirit energy?
As for why he was doing such a thing? It was for a massive power boost of course. Inside the spirit ascension platform, he had slain a large number of spirit beasts and forcefully rerouted that energy from going to Jormungandr and instead becoming sword intent. As for how big the boost was…
Well, what happened to the Tyrant Dragon was a prime example if he succeeded in the real world.
Without that boost, how could he possibly have beaten something like the Tyrant Dragon so easily? One should know that it was still a beast with strength equal to Titled Douluos!
Out in the real world, he had already failed many times in this experiment. After the nth failure,he was about to give up. However, Gu Yue seemed to realise what he had been doing and gave him the idea to do it in the spirit ascension platform.
It worked. Somehow, unlike in the real world, the sword intent formed inside was a lot less unruly that it was on the outside. It merged into his meridians effortlessly while it would rampage and destroy them in the outside world.
Huang Yu didn't know the cause for this, but being able to achieve that state inside the spirit ascension platform had reinvigorated his drive to achieve this and shown him a path to doing it.
With that, Huang Yu pulled all the sword intent from the surroundings into his body. He was extremely careful doing all this, making sure that he didn't harm himself as he did in the beginning as he did so.
Unfortunately, mistakes happened, and a tiny portion of the sword intent accidentally cut into one of his internal organs.
Spitting out a mouthful of blood, he quickly calmed his mind as the internal injuries instantly healed. This massive healing factor that he had obtained in the past three years from playing around with his genome was one of the reasons he dared to do such a foolish thing like infusing sword intent into his body.
Although he healed quickly, with so many injuries, such a great healing factor required insane amounts of blood essence to function; something that he was quickly running out of despite his arduous body cultivation.
Luckily, this was where the carbon dioxide he had asked Xiao Chen to pump in came in. To refuel his blood essence, he would need one thing: nutrition. Hence, with the King's Wisdom, he could unbind the carbon from the carbon dioxide, and attach it to food in his body.
This created a practically unlimited amount of nutrition to fuel his blood essence. As for processing speed, after cultivating his body for so long, the conversion of the nutrition was near instantaneous.
With that, blood continuously poured out of all the pores of Huang Yu's body as he tried to fuse his sword intent to his spirit energy.
However, matter how he tried, he merely couldn't do it. Although he had already succeeded inside the spirit ascension platform, why was there such a massive difference in the real world?
After trying for several hours, he finally gave up for the day. With a sigh, he quickly gathered all the blood that had come out of his body as he atomized it with a snap. Didn't want anyone making a clone of him after all.
He was frustrated at this. Ever since he had arrived in this world, thanks to the King's Wisdom, everything went exceedingly easy for him. Yet, despite the King's Wisdom's help, he couldn't help but feel that something was missing for him to not be able to achieve his goal.
Well at least this period wasn't a complete waste. Despite not being able to achieve his true goal, he had still managed to improve in his control over sword intent quite a bit.
Leaving the room, a bawling Xiao Chen suddenly appeared before him.
"My king! Please don't do something like this again! There are lots of people who are in pain seeing you like this my king!" she said before she continued bawling.
Seeing her like this, Huang Yu laughed sheepishly as he tried to soothe her.
Although Xiao Chen was one of his retainers, with the way she acted around him, he couldn't help but see her as a friend.
After a while, he managed to soothe Xiao Chen. Bidding her goodbye, he left to return to the academy.