Su Mo did not find any trace of the enemy, and the Palace-protecting Formation was not attacked again after a long time, so he returned to the Firmament Palace.
"My Palace Master!"
The instance Su Mo flew to the front of the Thick Earth Pavilion, Gold One, Fire One and other puppets came up to him.
"Pay attention! Once the enemy appears, inform me at once!" Su Mo instructed.
"Yes, Palace Master!" several puppets responded.
Su Mo nodded his head and entered the Earth Palace to embark on cultivating.
During his cultivation, Su Mo did not forget to pay attention to the Palace-protecting Formation outside. If it suffered aggression a second time, he would immediately strike back.
However, Su Mo was apparently too scrupulous. The Palace-protecting Formation was not under attack within next ten days.
Thereupon, Su Mo immersed himself in cultivation.
The speed of refinement for Dark Force cultivation dropped dramatically after he reached Lv 2 Martial Royal Realm, for his Dark Force was too strong.
It was another month before Su Mo's refinement for Dark Force cultivation was almost accomplished, and he managed to break through.
"I hope I succeed!" Su Mo thought with a sigh. Then, stepping into the Divine Map, he took out all the Spiritual Stones and Spiritual Herbs, closed his eyes and began to devour.
In the blink of an eye, Su Mo was completely enveloped by the full-bodied Spiritual Qi.
His cultivation was now at the initial stage of Lv 2 Martial Royal Realm. As the number of devoured Spiritual Stones increased, his cultivation started to rise rapidly.
After about 6 hours, all the Spiritual Qi was exhausted, and Su Mo opened his eyes.
"Alas!" Su Mo sighed helplessly.
He had consumed all of the Spiritual Stones as well as Spiritual Herbs, but his cultivation had barely reached the peak of Lv 2 Martial Royal Realm, not to mention Lv 3 Martial Royal Realm.
"This took too many resources!" exclaimed Su Mo with a wry smile. Nearly 5 billion Supreme Spiritual Stones and a small amount of Spiritual Herbs were still totally inadequate.
Moreover, the gifts from the Sky-sea Pavilion had been given away to disciples by Light One and some other puppets.
Those gifts definitely were only a fraction of what he needed, and the Upper Spiritual Stones were useless as well.
As for the pseudo Dragon Ball sent by the Flood-dragon tribe, it was reserved for promoting physical strength.
"I have to figure out another way!" Su Mo was in contemplative mood.
There were still large quantities of Spiritual Stones and Spiritual Herbs in the Firmament Palace, but they were all in lower levels and offered to disciples in the palace.
If he used them, he was likely to run out all at once, and the other disciples would have no resources available!
"I have to get out!" Su Mo's eyes sparkled. This time, he was going out not only to look for resources, but also to pry out every major force's movement, the Netherworld Devil Sect's in particular.
Persons of the Netherworld Devil Sect had not shown up since the Firmament Palace came into the world, but Su Mo did not believe they would leave him to develop.
The last blow on the Palace-protecting Formation was most likely by the Netherworld Devil Sect.
They wanted to take out the Palace-protecting Formation's defense, which was too strong for them to break, so they did not show up.
On the contrary, if the Palace-protecting Formation was not powerful enough, they probably would have gone inside.
Having left the Thick Earth Pavilion, Su Mo found Gold One and other puppets to instruct some matters carefully and left the Firmament Palace.
What Su Mo said was simple. He commanded that no one, including Sikong Yan and Jiang Fengran, was allowed to go out. Meanwhile, the Palace-protecting Formation would operate all the time.
The Palace-protecting Formation opened a channel, and it closed after Su Mo flashed out of the Firmament Palace.
Su Mo rode on the sword towards Sky-sea Pavilion at a high speed.
He hastened on as fast as lightning above the clouds, but he stopped after less than half a day.
"Rats, since you are here, come out!" Su Mo squinted and yelled.
He vaguely felt that more than one person was following him, thanks to his strong willpower.
"Ha, ha, ha!!"
Hardly had Su Mo stopped talking when sounds of wild laughter arise. The next moment, five beams of black light burst out of the dense cloud in the distance at a extremely high speed.
They surrounded Su Mo in an instant.
Then, the burst of light stopped and turned into five black-robed men.
Their auras were exceedingly mighty, as overwhelming as the sea.
Among them, Su Mo was familiar with Yan Ta, who was the First Elder of the Netherworld Devil Sect.
"Su Mo, it's your time to die!" Yan Tai shouted coldly with ghastly killing desire.
"Is this what you do?" Su Mo sneered. In fact, he had wondered before he left whether the Netherworld Devil Sect would lay ambush outside.
However, he was unafraid and felt confident about his strength!
The Netherworld Devil Sect had ambushed him as expected.
"Four hall masters and I are all here, do you think you are capable of escaping under our control?" Yan Tai asked with a sardonic laugh.
"Four hall masters?" Su Mo raised his eyebrows and sized up the other four people.
The four men's marvelous auras varied. The soaring Corpse Qi of one man formed into dense fire beacons. He was a bag of bones shaped like a mummy and had high cheek-bones, who should be the hall master of the Corpse Hall.
Surrounded by gloomy Ghost Qi, another man was invisible. It seemed that a lot of phantoms flickered on his body, which were really dreadful.
Another man, short in stature, had a strong smell of death. The violent Shade-devil Qi was extremely frigid, as if from hell, lowering the temperature of the space in a thousand-mile radius.
The last one was a emotionless young man. His aura was weak, but it was hard for Su Mo to surmise his level.
These four people were hall masters of the Corpse Hall, the Ghost Hall, the Shady Hall and the Yama Hall. They all were super experts at the Lv 9 Martial Royal Realm.
Besides, the Yama Hall and the Ghost Hall's hall masters were at the peak of their level.
Su Mo looked a little grave. In spite of his confidence and his advantage over martial artists at Lv 9 Martial Royal Realm, he had to be cautious in the face of this five-person ambush.
It seemed that the Netherworld Devil Sect was determined to kill him, otherwise such a squad would not be deployed!
"Yan Tai, you are too presumptuous to kill me simply with some guys who no longer looked human, not even like ghosts." Su Mo cajoled. Although he worried inwardly, he would not draw back verbally.
"Go to hell!"
"You're asking for death!" the five yelled in a towering rage upon hearing Su Mo's words.
The hall master of the Ghost Hall took the lead. As his hand pushed forward, a gruesome evil spirit appeared with gusts of chilly wind.