Chapter 1456: Bottleneck

The moment they began talking about the Immortality Wine, the normally indolent Traveling Buddha suddenly became a lot more serious. He stared fixedly at Xia Fan and said darkly, “Immortality Wine is considered a water of immortality to some elderly individuals out there, but it’s practically a poison to us.

“If you risk tasting the Immortality Wine, you’ll die.”

Xia Fan was slightly startled. He rarely ever seen Traveling Buddha speak so seriously. Perhaps it was because of how tightly knit the friendship they shared was, becoming bosom buddies who were willing to die for one another, that made Traveling Buddha treat this whimsical suggestion of Xia Fan so seriously.

Xia Fan frowned, “But Chef Grandpa told me that not talking about dosage when discussing toxicity is all just to fool the dim-witted. Any poison will only affect the human body after achieving a certain dosage. If I were to try a very small amount, it should not cause too big an injury to my body, right?”

!!

Traveling Buddha shrugged. “Humans and dragons are species apart.

“I asked my grandpa specifically about Immortality Wine before, and he told me that not only were humans and dragons different in how we looked, but the greatest difference was between mortals and the gods. Even Yggdragons are just an offshoot of the Dragons.”

“If you must know, every living creature has the natural instinct to resist threats. The seed of a plant is usually very tough, all so that when a predator eats it, it can still survive. The porcupine has a body covered by hard spines to protect itself from being eaten by predators.

“Yggdragons are a type of biological life that does not stand at the apex of the food chain, and their natural enemy was the Dragons.

“Dragons are a god-like existence, so how could we resist them?

“The Yggdragon’s solution to this was to use their blood, filling it with an unprecedented super poison so powerful that even the Dragons couldn’t resist it. Even Dragons, the apex predator that stood atop the universal food chain, would die after eating a Yggdragon.

“You and I are just mere mortals. How could we withstand a super poison that could even kill Dragons?”

“Honestly, forget you or me. When I previously asked for a bit of Immortality Wine to give grandpa as his birthday gift, he flat out rejected it.

“Our Clan goes by the surname of Buddha, and was one of the founding clans that established the Starcloud Union. My grandpa’s rank is far greater than many of the old monsters all across the Union have.”

“Even someone like him is afraid of tasting the Immortality Wine, yet you wish to give it a try? Seriously, I have no idea if you’re far too impetuous, or just looking to gamble with your life!

“Isn’t living great? Why would you want to try something so dangerous?”

Traveling Buddha practically nagged till he was parched. It was rare for anyone to hear such a sincere warning coming from Traveling Buddha like that.

But Xia Fan still had his doubts. Chef Grandpa was a poisoner, and a very impressive one. He once told Xia Fan that because Xia Fan had grown up eating Grade 9 energy crystals, he would be very different from anyone else.

He was just a mortal when he was first born, but he had forcefully relied on the magical energy crystals’ power to attain his heaven-defyingly tough body. Xia Fan had long since become immune to many poisons.

There was nothing in the world that could cause Xia Fan to succumb to just any poison. He was anything but a normal person, someone with a unique energy crystal constitution.

These were facts that Xia Fan could not share with Traveling Buddha openly, and Traveling Buddha most likely would not believe that Xia Fan right now was actually born a super common child.

Plus, there was no way Traveling Buddha would believe that Xia Fan alone had actually eaten several thousand Grade 9 energy crystals before he even reached adulthood!

The price of peak grade energy crystals was astronomical. Even if the Battle Buddha Clan had all the fortune in the Union, they would not have been able to provide that many energy crystals. This was because they were not just expensive, but also rare!

Those energy crystals were the entire savings of the extinct Mystic Gold Clan, which was Blind Grandpa’s heritage, and had been hidden in a place of the greatest importance, their Ancestral Tomb!

It had to be said that the Mystic Gold Clan’s Tomb was known as the Holy Tomb, and Xia Fan had not met anyone as strong as Blind Grandpa. He was able to send Xia Fan from the Chaos Gate all the way to Starcloud Union territory with his Twin Golden Pupils alone.

Now, Xia Fan already knew that in the center of the three Federations was the Chaos Gate, an area that was called a restricted zone by all three Federations. No one was allowed in, nor could they get close to the gate.

The distance from said gate to the Starcloud Union was well over ten million light years. For Blind Grandpa to actually send Xia Fan across such a distance meant he was not human, but a god, a monster!

There was no way for mortals to withstand the huge amount of poison found in the Immortality Wine, but a unique individual who had grown up consuming Grade 9 energy crystals like food? Could he not withstand it either?

But with how insistent Traveling Buddha was acting, Xia Fan was unable to come to a decision, so he could only chuckle, “What are you getting so anxious for? I was only just asking.

“Speaking of which, if there comes a day where I actually have qualifications to drink the Immortality Wine, what would happen?”

Traveling Buddha thought Xia Fan had realized how potent the wine was, which was why he relaxed and returned back to his insouciant self and lazily drawled, “If you were ever to become that powerful, I heard from my grandpa that not only would the Immortality Wine allow the imbiber to leap through ranks, it could even completely change their constitution.

“Dragons possess a divine body, and the Yggdragons could be considered as half-divine. If a human were to drink the Immortality Wine, then they would transform into a being with a quarter-divine constitution.

“As for what constitutes a divine constitution, I have no clue, but it ought to be very powerful. Otherwise those people from Murder Shrine wouldn’t have tried snatching it so crazily.”

A quarter-divine constitution?

Crap! Traveling Buddha’s explanation not only failed to dissuade Xia Fan, it even made his heart itch even more.

Just what sort of body would someone with a divine constitution have?

…

The next day was the end of their break.

Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha had already returned to the station, thinking that Chief Huo Jiang would immediately assign them a new mission.

But who would have thought that Huo Jiang actually seemed to have all forgotten about the pair and did not have them do anything at all.

If they had no case, the Logistics Division would be very free. After Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha were done reporting to Division Head Tong Guan, they were soon surrounded by colleagues eager to ask about what they experienced.

Xia Fan selectively shared with them details about the cosmic storm and the graveyard of warships. It was enough to leave his colleagues shocked, cheering Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha for successfully taking down four warships from Murder Shrine.

Without even realizing it, it was already noon, and it was time for their lunch break. Xia Fan played host and treated everyone to a feast at a fancy restaurant near the Special Bureau as a way of celebrating his triumphant return from the Outer Frontier.

…

Later in the afternoon, the Logistics Division still had nothing to do, so Xia Fan went to the underground training center situated in the headquarters and booked himself the largest training room available.

Xia Fan’s training was also very simple. First he performed the Startip Mantra, widely known as the basic training for everything under the sky. The Startip Mantra played a key role in honing one’s physique, so no matter how great a special ability warrior one was, the need to practice the Startip Mantra daily was something that could not be missed.

Recently, Xia Fan had found a more efficient method, where he would change his speed while going through the motions of the Startip Mantra.

If this was normal training, the Startip Mantra would be akin to Taichi, where the movements were slow and would exercise the muscles in his entire body, waking up the sleeping cells that would slowly let the practitioner enter the required state.

But Xia Fan was a speedster, and he wanted to demonstrate his heaven-defying capabilities by increasing the speed of his training.

Normally, others would take 25 minutes to finish one round of Startip Mantra, but Xia Fan only needed 30 seconds.

As such, the intensity of his training had greatly increased.

Xia Fan had thought of this accelerated training, all for the sake of living on a warship.

The Scourge lacked space for training, which was why Xia Fan had come up with this solution that not only saved space, but also increased the intensity of his training.

He never would have imagined that the effect of doing so would be so great that after several rounds of the accelerated training. While he had been undergoing this accelerated training, he needed to constantly adjust himself to keep up a suitable tempo during the training. His nervous system needed to be completely alert, otherwise he could very easily make a mistake.

That was to say that Xia Fan had turned the ancient Startip Mantra into a miraculous discipline that doubly trained his body and mind!

Whether it was the body or mind, both could be trained to become stronger, from an inactive person to someone with well-developed muscles.

Warriors would often state that only true battle could make someone grow exponentially. Why was that?

It was because during a fight, users would have their physical and mental states pushed to a state of heightened tension, where adrenaline would be secreted in large quantities. The moment someone became used to fighting where their lives were on the line, normal training would turn into child’s play. What troubles could someone encounter if they could handle even the battlefield?

Xia Fan’s accelerated training was like getting into a fight with himself!

With speed comes inertia, and such movement at high speeds also needed to stop, along with a change of tempo when necessary. It was not simple at all, the difficulty comparable to being in a fight using real swords and guns.

Thus, this highly-difficult training was also very good at improving Xia Fan’s reaction speed in both mind and body. It was not wrong to call it killing two birds with one stone!

Of course, a training that could figuratively achieve this killing of two birds with one stone was only possible by a speedster like Xia Fan.

—

After about half an hour passed, Xia Fan was completely drenched in sweat. He collapsed to the hard reinforced-fiber floor in the training center, panting heavily.

Looking up at the ceiling, he just so happened to see his speed display on the screen. The training center had a speedometer installed, so Xia Fan could find out if his maximum speed had changed.

The display showed that Xia Fan’s maximum speed has now reached 397 m/s.

To most special ability users, that was a speed that they could never surmount, but Xia Fan only felt that he was now at a bottleneck.

Half a month ago, Xia Fan’s speed had broken past 350 m/s, and now he was still under 400m/s. On average, it seemed he barely increased his speed by 1 m/s every day.

According to the rules, in order to reach Advanced Starbase rank for speed-types, they would have to reach 571 m/s, while Star Domain rank would need a speed of 1143 m/s.

With the current state he found himself in, Xia Fan would need at least two years before he could achieve Star Domain rank.

That was too slow!

So what even if he reached Primary Star Domain rank; there was still Intermediate, Advanced, then Star River rank. Each and every towering mountain was awaiting Xia Fan to climb to their respective summit!

If this was the speed of promotion he had to contend with, then even if he spent his entire life cultivating, Xia Fan was afraid that he would not be able to reach his fellow clansmen. They were already at the realm where they could fly across the galaxies and nine heavens with wings on their backs.

Xia Fan was unwilling to admit defeat, especially when he knew that he had kin who were terrifying enough to sweep the world. Even if he had to give it his all, he would also strive to become stronger.

The Speed special ability was unique in that it was an ability that became harder the higher one climbed through the ranks. It was known to be the ability that was the most difficult to cultivate, and if Xia Fan were to stumble at this point, his future would surely be worse.

With a brush of his finger over his spatial ring, Xia Fan’s thoughts went to that bottle of Immortality Wine again.

The Immortality Wine was a drink for the immortals, while also being the most poisonous poison known to the world. It could help special ability-users rapidly increase in rank, but it would do so at the cost of their life.

Though Traveling Buddha had warned Xia Fan repeatedly, he still refused to believe his claims. He had clearly gotten his hands on something wonderful, yet he was unable to use it. That was far too tragic!

“No matter what, I should first do a biological experiment at the technical division,” Xia Fan silently murmured to himself as he displayed the perseverance of a scientist.

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