Chapter 53: Ao Run Advances, The Meridian Cold Wave

Su Yu offered a solemn salute to Xiao Qingli:
"Though lacking the title of master and disciple, the reality is no different. I will never forget your teachings, Teacher. Should I achieve success in the future, I will surely repay this kindness!"
Xiao Qingli chuckled lightly and waved a hand:
"I taught you only for Xinyue's sake. If it weighs on your mind, you can simply repay this favor through her."
"The Guild Leader is the Guild Leader, and the Teacher is the Teacher. I shall remember the kindness of both."
Xiao Qingli said nothing more, nor did she take his words to heart. In her view, although the young man brought by Xinyue possessed decent talent and progressed much faster than she had anticipated, she did not believe a young man who had only awakened to cultivation a year ago could offer her any genuine assistance.

Emerging from the estate, Su Yu looked up at the sky. The azure vault was completely free of clouds, matching his cheerful mood.
Lowering his head, he opened his communicator to find a message from Chu Xiaoyu:
"My lady has successfully transcended her tribulation, and you have also completed your studies. We are preparing to return in a week. Finish whatever business you have quickly."
"No problem!"
Closing the communicator, Su Yu departed immediately, flying toward the direction of the Cang River.
Reaching to touch the spirit cage at his waist, he could sense the changes within it. Several days had passed, and Aorun had successfully completed her transformation and evolution.

Arriving at the nearest riverbank, he plunged straight into the water. Descending to a depth of over two thousand meters, he tapped the spirit cage, causing its vortex to expand. A jiao dragon, covered from head to toe in brilliant azure scales that shimmered like fine jade, flew out.
Su Yu's gaze shifted to the top of her head, only to find that the small flesh lump was gone, replaced by a pair of delicate, crystal-clear, jade-like dragon horns. Reaching out to touch them, they felt as cool as jade.
Beyond that, the shape of her head had also altered. Previously halfway between a snake and a jiao, it now leaned closer to that of a true dragon.
Two blue-light dragon whiskers hung from her lower jaw, swaying gently as she flew toward him.

Aorun drifted before him and extended her front paws, her four crystal-clear, jade-like dragon toes repeatedly clenching and unclenching as if showing off.
"Four toes now!"
Su Yu remembered she had previously possessed only three. Now that she had four, she was just a single step away from the five toes of a true dragon.
Aorun circled around him, and accompanied by a blinding flash of blue light, the azure jiao vanished, replaced by an azure jade jiao dragon over one hundred and fifty meters in length.

Azure Jiao Aorun (Terrifying): Chieftain, Level 131, Aquatic Tribe, Jiao Dragon.
Attributes: Vitality 4,680,000, Demonic Power 390,000, Attack Power 42,000, Speed 2,200 km/h, Demonic Spells: Water-type Arts, Jiao-Walking Technique, Kui Water Divine Thunder, Kui Water Divine Thunder Net, Ice Soul Divine Thunder, Zi-Wu Cold Tide Ban (Exquisite Grade), Azure Nether Divine Breath Scripture 130th Layer (Profound Grade), Nine-Turn Dragon Transforming Scripture 3rd Layer (Great Divine Ability).
Affection: 83.

From the time she was subjugated until now, her affection had remained at a mere 53 points, but fusing the Great Wilderness Dragon Seal moments ago had instantly increased it by 30 points.

"Very good!"
After refining the Great Wilderness Dragon Seal (Chi), her template had also evolved from Elite to Terrifying, greatly enhancing her attributes while inheriting the Ice Soul Divine Thunder and Zi-Wu Cold Tide powers of that Chi dragon.
Additionally, the Nine-Turn Dragon Transforming Scripture had advanced to the third layer, significantly increasing the true dragon bloodline within her body.
According to what Aorun had mentioned previously, once the Nine-Turn Dragon Transforming Scripture reached the fifth layer, the true dragon bloodline within her would reach its limit, allowing her to transform fully into a true dragon.

"Let's test the Zi-Wu Cold Tide!"
Aorun turned her head and opened her jaws, expelling a fierce blast of chilling mist in a fan shape. The river water rapidly froze, spreading into the distance and extending over a thousand meters away. Several schools of aquatic spirits caught within it were instantly frozen solid.
With a flick of her thick jiao tail, she smashed it against the ice surface. An invisible force swept across the ice layer, shattering it inch by inch, while the aquatic spirits trapped inside each suffered 40,000 damage points overhead, instantly tearing them apart.

"Incredible!"
Checking her attributes once more, the move had consumed only 30,000 mana.
Normally, spirits of this level only had around 100,000 demonic power, insufficient to unleash such a technique four times.
However, Aorun practiced the Azure Nether Divine Breath Scripture, which was a Profound-grade Daoist technique, giving her a massive mana pool of 1,860,000 and explosive endurance.

Seeing this, a bold idea suddenly sparked in Su Yu's mind.
Shifting his gaze to the surroundings, he summoned the Obscuring Sun Azure Finches and sent them flying left and right. His flying sword crossed over a thousand meters to pass through a school of greenfish spirits, brushing past them to draw their attention before flying further toward a distant school of blackfish spirits.
Circling back and forth, he pulled in more than two hundred aquatic spirits across over a dozen schools, all ranging from level sixty to seventy, in one fell swoop.
Once they were gathered close enough, Aorun opened her mouth and unleashed a torrent of Zi-Wu Cold Tide. Within seconds, the thousand-meter fan-shaped area was frozen, followed by a single sweep of her tail.
"Bang!"
The ice shattered, and every spirit inside was instantly eliminated.

"Awesome!"
Next, they changed locations, luring over a thousand aquatic spirits back and forth before unleashing another blast of the Zi-Wu Cold Tide, instantly netting over three hundred thousand slaughter experience points.
"This move is fantastic!"
The human and jiao immediately changed locations again, repeating the process to lure a massive horde of spirits before clearing them out in a single wave, boosting his slaughter experience by two to three hundred thousand all at once.

Generally, gathering a wave of monsters took about half an hour. Grinding twelve hours a day meant twenty-four waves. With an average of two hundred and fifty thousand slaughter experience points per wave, he could accumulate nearly six million slaughter experience points a day, reaching up to one hundred and eighty million in a month.
Perhaps not quite that high, but one hundred and sixty to seventy million was well within reach.
"Carrying on like this, by the time of the year-end grand examination, it will be more than enough to elevate the Taibai Sword Scripture to the seventieth layer."
"With a little over two months left until the end of the year, if this rapid pace keeps up, I might even be able to raise my Qi Refining mental cultivation method to the seventieth layer, or advance the Heavenly Ghost Transformation Art to the sixtieth layer."
"Continue!"

From then on, Su Yu spent twelve hours every day grinding diligently. Even upon returning, he wasn't idle, spending several more hours leveling up on the Sword-Trial Platform, his daily schedule packed to the brim.
A week later, as Chu Xinyue prepared to return to the guild, Su Yu approached her and said:
"Guild Leader, I won't be traveling back with you. I plan to head down the Cang River to the Yuan River, and then follow the Yuan River back to the guild."
Chu Xinyue nodded:
"Travel safely."
"I will be careful."

After seeing them off, Su Yu plunged straight into the Cang River to reunite with Aorun, heading downstream while grinding levels and traveling simultaneously, wasting not a single day.
Having transformed into the Terrifying template, Aorun's strength was vastly superior to before. Since the Cang River was merely a river about a hundred miles wide, grand demons above level two hundred were likely few and far between, and since they stayed away from the center of the river, they would practically never run into them.
Whenever they reached a spot, the human and jiao cooperated to lure all the spirits within a radius of a couple of kilometers, after which Aorun unleashed a single Zi-Wu Cold Tide Ban to wipe out the area in an instant, netting hundreds of thousands of slaughter experience points on the spot and occasionally picking up a few points of Dao attainment.

Most of the day was spent at the bottom of the river. For resting, they simply found a shallow water area where Aorun would settle down, and no spirits dared to approach.
Moving like this in stops and starts, they hadn't covered a vast distance on the map, but his experience had accumulated through the roof.

Several days later, having left behind the basin where the Chixiao Sword Vein was located, the river channel grew narrower, flanked by towering mountains on both sides with treacherous terrain.
Occasionally floating up to the surface, they could catch sight of ape and monkey spirits traversing the mountains, or sword lights flashing across the sky, and from time to time, massive warships gathered together to slaughter monsters with bombardment.
Passing the warships by about a thousand miles, a tributary roughly ten miles wide appeared. Standing on one side of this tributary was a city named Flame Dragon City, which served as the headquarters of a guild called Flame Dragon.

Continuing past Flame Dragon City and moving further down, half a month later, they had completely entered the wilderness region. Human habitation became a rare sight even once every thousand miles, and even the figures of players flying high through the sky grew sparse.
Here, the river channel had narrowed to little more than forty kilometers wide, flanked by sheer cliffs on both sides and plunging down to a depth of over a thousand meters upon entering the water.
Few people came here to grind levels, and as a result, the density of spirits within this river section was extremely high, with levels frequently hitting the seventies and eighties.
Yet for Su Yu, this turned out to be an advantage, and his leveling journey couldn't have been smoother.

After another stretch of four consecutive days of slaughter, accumulating nearly twenty-five million slaughter experience points in one breath, Su Yu surfaced to catch his breath.
Just as he broke the water's surface, he was surprised to discover a tributary several miles wide not far ahead, from which a large vessel was currently sailing out.
What startled him was that the people aboard this large vessel were not humans, but a group of white ape spirits wearing human clothes. Even more astonishingly, this group of ape spirits were not red-named wild monsters, but green-named NPCs.

By this time, a white ape on the boat had already spotted Su Yu hovering above the water, and the white ape at the bow cupped his fists in a salute to him.
White Ape Yuan Hao (Elite): Level 86, Ape Tribe.
Su Yu returned the salute, looking rather perplexed as he watched the large vessel cast a large net to fish, behaving no differently from ordinary humans.
"Strange!"
He rubbed the bridge of his nose and flew toward the tributary they had emerged from, discovering that not far up the tributary, the two riverbanks opened into a basin. The banks were dotted with numerous buildings, populated by many bipedal white apes alongside a small number of humans, with quite a few players among them.

Curious, he flew over and approached a player fishing by the bank to greet him:
"Brother, where is this place? Why are these ape demons all green-named?"
Without turning his head, the man pointed behind him with a finger.
Following the direction of the finger, Su Yu saw a cliff face with one side sheared off, upon which several large characters were inscribed—White Ape Town.
"This is White Ape Town, the gathering place of the White Ape tribe."
"The ancestors of this White Ape tribe were once spiritual pets of an immortal from the Xuanzhen Immortal Sect. When their lifespans were nearing an end, they returned to their birthplace and gathered the remnants of their tribe to settle here. Backed by an imperial decree from the Immortal Sect, the descendants of the white apes possess innate spirituality and are no longer mere spirits."
"Oh!"
Su Yu looked up and around. The town of White Ape Town was quite sizable. He turned back to ask:
"Does brother know if this White Ape Town has any local specialties? It would be a great pity to come all this way and return empty-handed."
"Specialties?"
"Monkey Brew could be considered one. Taking a single sip increases the maximum mana limit by 10 points, up to a maximum of 10 sips."
"Where can I buy it?"
"Any tavern in town."
"Thanks a lot."

Su Yu waved his hand in gratitude and flew toward the town.
After wandering around inside for a bit, he quickly found a tavern. Inside, numerous white apes were drinking and chatting merrily, alongside several human players mingled among them, conversing animatedly with the apes.
He spent 10 gold coins to purchase 10 gourds of Grade 4 spiritual wine, Monkey Brew.
Each gourd held precisely ten sips, and the remaining 9 gourds could be taken back to Qianyu City to sell, which should yield a decent profit.
With his trait taking effect, the Monkey Brew provided him with an additional 200 points of maximum mana.
Furthermore, the Monkey Brew also possessed mana-recovery effects, restoring 5,000 points of vitality and mana per sip, and continuously regenerating 500 points of vitality and mana per second over the following ten seconds.

After purchasing the wine, Su Yu did not leave immediately, instead strolling around White Ape Town.
Towns with such unique characteristics invariably harbored special opportunities.
After making a round and inquiring of several white apes, he located the largest shop in White Ape Town and discovered several interesting items.
Brewer (Spirit Ape): Lifestyle profession, capable of brewing fine wines.
Brewing was the profession, and Spirit Ape represented the lineage—a unique lineage exclusive to the Spirit Ape tribe. Aside from brewing ordinary fine wines, they could also craft the exclusive fine wines of the Spirit Apes.
For instance, Monkey Brew was a fine wine exclusive to the White Ape tribe.
This lifestyle profession came with seven kinds of spiritual wines available for brewing out of the box: Sweet Potato Spirit (Grade 1), Old Baiigan (Grade 1), Coconut Wine (Grade 1), Yellow Wine (Grade 1), Glutinous Rice Wine (Grade 1), Hundred-Day Drunk (Grade 2), and Monkey Wine (Grade 2).
The seven kinds of spiritual wine that came with the profession did not include the Monkey Brew he had just purchased; that was an advanced version of Monkey Wine, requiring the brewing skill to reach the Advanced tier before it could be learned.
Moreover, the formula was quite expensive, costing 20 taels of gold, whereas transitioning to the Brewer profession itself only cost 10 gold.

Having acquired the profession, Su Yu departed White Ape Town directly.
Lifestyle professions were easy to level up in the early stages; he just needed to find time to brew a few more batches. As for the Advanced tier, that was a matter for the future, by which time he would surely have ample time to slowly grind it up.
He plunged back into the river to reunite with Aorun and continued grinding his way downstream.
This time, he encountered no anomalies along the way. Aside from farming monsters, he gathered spiritual herbs and minerals, occasionally bumping into minor bosses. He easily eliminated them to harvest some Dao attainment and loot a few spoils of war.
Their grades were not particularly high, mostly tier 4 or 5. He equipped whatever was useful and stored the rest to sell for money later on.

It took him nearly a month in total to cross nearly two hundred thousand kilometers in one breath, finally arriving at the lower reaches of the Cang River, close to the estuary of the Yuan River.
Although the banks on both sides remained rugged mountains, the river surface had widened considerably.
As they drew closer to the estuary, players began to appear in succession. From time to time, warships could be seen anchored on the water, luring massive numbers of spirits with Demonic Attraction Incense and bombarding them with hundreds of thunder-fire towers firing in unison.
The jiao and the human passed the warships from beneath the riverbed. They hadn't swum far when Su Yu suddenly halted:
"There are people."

Four or five kilometers away from him on the riverbed, a large group of players was surrounding and attacking a Level 145 Elite template Black Water Mysterious Snake.
Before Aorun could even draw close, the scouts stationed on the perimeter scared themselves into retreating repeatedly. Then a group of people leaped down from the surface above, part of them raising array flags to deploy a formation while the other part activated flying swords and magical treasures to charge in.
"Good grief, are they mistaking Aorun for a boss?"
Su Yu hurriedly flew up to Aorun's head and waved his arms vigorously:
"Hold your fire, this is my spirit pet!"
"Hold!"
The leader, Lu Boxiao, gestured for his team to halt, looking Su Yu up and down before turning his gaze to the exceptionally majestic jiao dragon beneath him, a trace of envy flashing across his face.

Su Yu breathed a sigh of relief and cupped his fists:
"I am Su Yu of the Qianyu Guild. We meant no offense, just passing through."
Someone beside Lu Boxiao let out a soft exclamation:
"Qianyu Guild? I've heard of that—an old-established guild in the lower reaches of the Yuan River."
Hearing his subordinate's words and taking another look at the level and template of the blue jiao beneath Su Yu's feet, Lu Boxiao said in a deep voice:
"This is the Giant Boat Faction, and I am Lu Boxiao, the 22nd independent squad captain of the Giant Boat Faction. We are in the midst of hunting a boss and mistook you for another boss arrival. If there was any offense, please forgive us."
Su Yu smiled:
"It's only human nature. I would have thought the same in your position."

With the misunderstanding cleared up, Su Yu felt relieved. Unwilling to linger, he directly cupped his fists:
"The misunderstanding is resolved. I still have a journey to make, so I'll take my leave!"
"Safe travels!"