Chapter 574 552: Top Journal Achievement Speedrun

"You have experienced an unprecedented divine battle between High-star Pet Beasts."

"Cyan Treasure's Time Reversal Talent stimulated a Dao Seed that Rootless Wood had planted in the past."

"Sensing the Daoist Skill aura of a Time Element Skill, it quietly awakened and reshaped its physical body inside the Ancient Dragon's corpse."

"Nine-star powerhouse Tang Tianyi and fellow Nine-star Xiao Jinfu joined forces, exhausting all their Pet Beasts' Power. After a fierce, ten-round battle, they finally destroyed the true Dao Seed of Rootless Wood that had been planted in the past."

"Xiao Jinfu's face turned ashen; he stared at the spatial rift, unable to mend it."

"Tang Tianyi closed his eyes and frowned. Though his expression was usually placid, he now heard the call of a horn."

"Although one of Rootless Wood's Dao Seeds was dead, right before its demise, it released the call of an Ancient Dragon's War Horn into the Inner World."

The system's messages stopped there.

Gu Ming let out a long breath.

'So that's the reason. It really was Rootless Wood's fault.'

'Then again, this Rootless Wood's origins... are certainly not simple.'

'The Dao Seed sensed the power of the Time Element, awakened on its own, and attempted to devour Cyan Treasure.'

'That was the system's explanation.'

'Setting aside the possibility of a system bug, if I analyze this rationally... did that Dao Seed really awaken because of the power of the Time Element?'

'Could it be that it detected the Rootless Wood inside Cyan Treasure, discovered they both shared the same source of Power, was shocked, and then... lunged over?'

'After all, Rootless Wood is literally "rootless." There shouldn't be another body with the same power from the same origin.'

'Cyan Treasure's appearance went against its instincts. If I were in its place, I would have chased after it too.'

'In that case, Rootless Wood definitely won't let this matter rest.'

Gu Ming's mind raced. 'What I'm most unsure about right now is this: was that thing we just encountered merely a beacon it planted long ago, or was it the true body of Rootless Wood?'

'If it was the true body, then Master Xiao's full-power strike might have conveniently eliminated a future archfiend of the Inner World for me ahead of time.'

He secretly rejoiced at the thought.

However, that relief did not last long.

The two teachers were frowning deeply at the spatial rift that the puppet Ancient Dragon had torn open.

They sensed that something was amiss.

A massive amount of foreign energy was pouring out from the still-open rift, pressing in on them.

Gu Ming noticed the disturbance a moment later.

He looked out and saw swarms of Inner World Demon Fiends stepping out onto the sea from the spatial rift near the Cloud Country.

Their Star Levels were not high, mostly ranging from Two to Three-stars, but their numbers were simply overwhelming, a dark, teeming mass that covered the surface of the sea.

Furthermore, they didn't stop. The ones in the back constantly pushed those in front, as if an endless beast tide was driving them onward from behind.

The system's message suddenly flashed through Gu Ming's mind: "the call of an Ancient Dragon's War Horn."

'A war horn is always the signal to begin a war.'

'Could it be that the roar from Rootless Wood was truly a summons for an army?'

If that was true, Gu Ming's heart sank.

'The Demon War foretold by the system was likely beginning right here, right now.'

'This stretch of sea is the front line.'

"Teacher, we have to seal that opening as quickly as possible!" Gu Ming said rapidly. "Is there any way to destroy it?"

Teacher Tang and Master Xiao shook their heads at almost the same time.

Teacher Tang said grimly,

"It can't be sealed."

"The spatial energy in the surrounding area is in complete chaos."

"The Spiral Jade from the Dark Star Jellyfish collided with the base of Rootless Wood's energy, creating spatial turbulence with an intensity comparable to a nuclear explosion in the modern world."

"The spatial structure of this region has been completely destabilized. It won't recover naturally for at least ten years."

'It won't recover for ten years.'

Gu Ming's expression froze.

'In other words, a permanent gateway connecting the Inner World to the real world has just been opened.'

'And this was a rift that could only be created by the full-power strike of an Eight-star Pet Beast.'

"You two go first."

Master Xiao stepped forward, his tone leaving no room for argument.

"This is the real world now. You can get back using Teacher Tang's Pet Beast."

"I'll hold the line here and suppress them for a while."

"These Demon Fiends were probably drawn by the aura of that Dragon Race corpse from the Inner World. Once they're all killed, things should quiet down."

Despite his words, Gu Ming had other worries.

He had future knowledge from the system and knew things were probably not that simple.

'How far did the call of that Ancient Dragon's War Horn travel?'

'If it could reach the entire Inner World, that would mean an endless stream of Demon Fiends would cross over. This wouldn't be something that could be suppressed in just a day or two.'

But saying more now was pointless. The urgent priority was to get back, spread the news, and get more people to respond to the threat.

Without further hesitation, he followed Teacher Tang back to the official outpost on the coast.

At the outpost, Gu Ming, Teacher Tang, and Lu You jointly registered all the information from the research process, with a special note on the spatial passage that had been created and its coordinates.

After learning that large numbers of Demon Fiends were crossing over, the Great Zhou authorities immediately dispatched a group of garrisoned Beastmasters to the rift zone for suppression.

However, this was only a portion of the local reserve forces, far from the level of a national emergency mobilization.

Gu Ming knew this couldn't be rushed; he could only watch as the situation at the border slowly escalated.

Meanwhile, he didn't remain idle.

He took the data he had collected and, in a temporary research institute rented by Teacher Tang from the Border Company, delved into the study of the Dragon Transformation Pool's evolution factor.

Dragon Transformation Pools had only been discovered on a large scale during the summer break, and the academic world had not yet formed a systematic understanding of the effects of the various liquid components within them.

The vast majority of researchers were still fumbling in the dark, proceeding by trial and error.

But Gu Ming was different.

He already knew the purification techniques detailed in future academic papers, as well as the ingredients for the cultivation aid used with the Absolute Defense Spiritual Heart Method.

First, he read through all the publicly available academic papers related to the Dragon Transformation Pool. Then, he singled out a primary filtration method—one repeatedly mentioned in future papers—to use as his core tool.

Then, using this as a foundation and with the help of Teacher Tang's Pet Beast, he designed a new Water Element Technique.

After spending several days on repeated iterations and optimizations, he finally improved the filtration method's purity level to match the precision and extraction efficiency of the papers in the future Peak Journal.

It was like taking an open-book test.

Using this fully refined filtration process, Gu Ming performed a large-scale separation and identification of the raw liquid he had collected from the Dragon Transformation Pool.

Dozens of pure substances were laid out in a row and numbered one by one.

Teacher Tang was astonished to find that the reagents were all comprised of liquid #019, all at ninety-nine percent purity.

The only difference lay in the decimal places after the ninety-nine.

Some were pure to five nines, others to seven nines.

The best bottle was purified to eight nines!

This was the pinnacle of purity; it couldn't be refined any further.

This was because evolution factor #019 was an extremely sensitive and active molecule that would readily combine with other molecules carrying mystical power.

Making it stable was incredibly difficult.

Even with Gu Ming's reagent of eight-nines purity, its purity would drop a level if left to stand for just three minutes.

It had to be consumed the instant it was created; otherwise, its purity couldn't be maintained.

Furthermore, there was a specific method for consuming it.

A substance of such high purity had to be paired with a specific Cultivation Technique. It had to be enveloped in Mana of a special frequency and circulated through the body's meridians to be absorbed during cultivation.

The speed of the Cultivation Technique could not be slow; it had to be a rapid Circulation technique.

Then there was the Spiritual Technique, which also had to have good compatibility with one's own core Cultivation Technique in order to increase the success rate.

Clearly, every subsequent step was a major undertaking.

Thinking of this, Tang Tianyi looked back at Gu Ming. "With these results, we have enough to write a preliminary paper for a top-tier journal. How about we co-author it?"