Chapter 522: Survival Order

A hundred years passed in the blink of an eye.
On this day, Su Che once again felt a blur before his eyes. Without any prior warning, he was pulled out by the mysterious old man from the secret chamber within the Time Wheel.
He was out.
Just like that…
One year in the outside world actually equaled a hundred years. Although he saw Tian Yin and Heng Yi again, Su Che felt little joy—only deep regret.
He had failed to reach the later stage of Huashen! His original goal had failed!
It really had failed!
By the 23rd year inside the Time Wheel, Su Che’s primordial spirit had reached the middle stage of Huashen. It could be said this was a good start.
Then, with another five years and the help of numerous Grade 12 spirit pills, his true energy cultivation also met the requirements for advancement. It was a smooth and effortless transition to the middle stage of Huashen, with almost no obstacles or barriers.
But after reaching the middle stage of Huashen, Su Che and Lao He realized they had underestimated the strength required at this stage.
They originally thought that taking five Grade 12 spirit pills a day might not even yield good results for true energy cultivation at this stage. To their surprise, continuing to take Grade 12 pills was completely ineffective—useless!
This meant the spirit pills used to assist cultivation were utterly insufficient.
On the contrary, with the massive support of soul energy from the Immortal Prison World, Su Che’s primordial spirit strength soared rapidly.
In the following seventy years, Lao He racked his brains and tried every means possible to fully utilize the world’s pill-making capabilities, but it still couldn’t meet Su Che’s demand for spirit pills.
Three Yellow-grade spirit pills were needed every day!
Where could he find so many Yellow-grade pills?
The initial 3,000 spirit pills of Yellow grade or higher obtained from the subordinates of the Four Void Refinement Stage could only last for 1,000 days—less than three years—before running out. After that, Su Che’s true energy cultivation speed plummeted sharply.
For others, true energy cultivation was relatively easy; with time, they could meet the advancement requirements, while strengthening the primordial spirit was the most difficult task. But for Su Che, it was true energy cultivation that held him back.
“Mistake in estimation!”
Regretfully, Su Che sighed, “I never expected that Grade 12 spirit pills would become completely useless at the middle stage of Huashen. My initial predictions were wrong, which led to setting overly ambitious goals that I ultimately couldn’t achieve.”

Speaking of which, it wasn’t exactly Su Che and Lao He making random predictions based on their own assumptions. A long time ago, they had already asked Heng Yi and the others, and the answer they got was that taking the highest-gradetwelfth-grade-grade spiritual pills in the cultivation world during the mid-stage of the Transformation God phase did have some effect to some extent.

But if it worked for others, why did it fail for Su Che? The answer to this wasn’t hard to understand. The explanation Su Che and Lao He could think of was that it must be because their cultivation path had always relied on spiritual pills to assist in their training. Over the years, even though their endless vitality had mitigated various side effects and caused no harm or hidden dangers to their bodies, some resistance had inevitably developed.

By resistance, it meant that what worked as an effective pill for others became completely ineffective for them. In theory, this was somewhat similar to one’s own detoxification ability. In short, after a hundred years of cultivation, Su Che’s spiritual essence had reached the peak of the late stage of the Transformation God phase, but his true energy strength was still at the middle level of the mid-stage.

To others, such progress would surely seem extremely astonishing and extraordinary, but Su Che himself was still far from satisfied. After all, failing to fully achieve his own goals was a regret. At this moment, when Su Che met Tian Yin again, they couldn’t tell any changes in each other’s strength, because once they left that miraculous Time Wheel, everyone’s cultivation level reverted to its sealed state, still at the late stage of the Nascent Soul phase.

Calculating it, Su Che hadn’t seen Tian Yin in a hundred years, and Tian Yin hadn’t seen Su Che in ninety years either. Yet, neither of them felt much sorrow over it. Time didn’t pass during cultivation; a hundred years of seclusion was like a single night’s sleep—there really wasn’t much sense of separation.

“How about you?” Su Che asked through telepathy.

Tian Yin knew what he was asking and replied in kind, “Early stage of the Transformation God phase.”

Through those ninety years of seclusion and cultivation, she had advanced from the late stage of the Nascent Soul phase to the early stage of the Transformation God phase. Of course, such a change was nothing unusual for a great shaman from her past life—it was quite normal!

“What about you?” Tian Yin asked next.

“Mid-stage of the Transformation God phase,” Su Che replied, his tone filled with obvious regret. “If I had enough spiritual pills, I should have been able to advance to the later stage…”

Tian Yin smiled gently and comforted him, “In cultivation, it’s not always better to progress faster. You should be satisfied with your own progress.”

Su Che knew that these words were not just comfort but also a warning. Tian Yin had countless years of experience from her past life, so her words must make sense. As for Heng Yi and the other two, there was no need to ask—Su Che could guess that in just a few decades, their cultivation levels couldn’t possibly change much. To advance to the Lingxu stage, each step required countless efforts and an extremely long time. After a hundred years apart, Su Che and Tian Yin’s conversation had to be temporarily interrupted because the mysterious old man’s thunderous voice rang in their ears once again. “You ten have already received the reward for the first game. Now, the second game is about to begin!” There was a second game? Su Che and the others, along with dozens of powerful beings at the Mahayana stage like the Snow Jade Fairy, all paled uncontrollably. Their thoughts were similar: Just the first game had killed nearly two thousand people from the Spirit Realm, leaving only these few… If there was a second game, would they all die before it ended? “Hahahahah…” As if able to read their minds, the mysterious old man laughed triumphantly and roared, “Do you think this is a teahouse or an inn, where you can come and go as you please? Let me tell you—coming here is easy, but leaving is hard!” Everyone was speechless, thinking, “Did we come here on our own? It’s you who forced us here, right?” Of course, there was no point in reasoning with a madman. These thoughts could only be kept to oneself; no one dared speak up to argue. “Well, you insignificant ants can provide me with very limited fun. That’s why I’ve only arranged three games for you.” The first half of his sentence was spoken in a normal tone, but the second half was suddenly shouted in fury, “But you worthless bunch have utterly disappointed me! Just the first game, which was nothing more than walking, resulted in so many deaths. Look at yourselves—how many are left now?” Everyone remained silent, arguing inwardly, “It’s still your fault so many died!” “A bunch of trash! I don’t want to waste more words on you!” The mysterious old man continued, “In the second game, out of these fifty-five of you, only about twenty-seven and a half will survive…” Twenty-seven and a half? “What does that half mean?” Su Che and the others didn’t understand.

The mysterious old man didn’t explain anything either. Instead, he conjured a token in mid-air that was blood-red in color, with a large character for “life” engraved on its front. He continued, “Next, I’ll transport you to a place where you’ll be separated and each have to search for these ‘Survival Tokens.’ There are twenty-seven complete tokens and one and a half partial tokens scattered over an area of thousands of miles. Whoever gets one lives; whoever doesn’t dies!”
“The rules of this game have changed slightly. Your feet still can’t leave the ground, but you can stay in one place for a long time. If any of you idiots want to, they can even lie down and sleep. However, the entire game has a time limit—only one hundred hours. Those who fail to find a Survival Token by then will be executed by me in even more amusing ways.”
At this point, he unusually asked, “Do you understand, you useless bunch? If anyone has questions, I allow you to speak now.”
No one dared respond, fearing that even a single wrong word might get them killed by this mad old man.
Su Che hesitated for a moment before asking, “Elder, I have a question. If I find two Survival Tokens while my friend finds none, can I give him the extra one when the game is over?”
Of course, Su Che asked this question thinking of Tian Yin. He had heard from the mysterious old man that once they entered that special space, he and Tian Yin would be separated. No one could guarantee whether Tian Yin would be able to find one of the Survival Tokens. His advantage was that Lao Hei’s detection ability still remained, which would be very helpful in searching for things. If he could find two tokens, could he also save Tian Yin’s life?
Protecting one’s woman is something a man must do. So, even though everyone else wisely stayed silent, Su Che still mustered the courage to ask.
The mysterious old man stared at Su Che with his huge, fierce eyes for a long time, making Su Che feel uneasy, before finally saying, “Why do you, kid, have so many questions? So annoying.”
Su Che gave a wry smile and could only shake his head helplessly, shrugging his shoulders.
Lao Hei, furious, jumped around in the Immortal Prison and cursed loudly, “Damn you… My master just asked a question, and it’s you who said it’s okay to ask! Damn you…”

Tianyin, on the other hand, acted differently—she quietly took Su Che’s large hand. If the mysterious old man would kill someone over this, then they could die together…
Fortunately, after that, the mysterious old man merely snorted coldly, seemingly not angry, but still muttered, “If you keep being so annoying, I’ll turn you into a fat pig woman, hahaha, a fat pig woman, hahaha…”
As he spoke, he laughed again, his madness fully exposed.
What’s so funny about turning someone into a fat pig woman?
It’s truly incomprehensible…