Chapter 272: Self-Assessment
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Sizzle, sizzle ~
The sound, similar to the corrosion of steel by strong acid, suddenly emanated from Lu Ming’s body.
The moment the purplish-black poisonous gas landed on Lu Ming’s body, silver light emerged from his body again.
The purple poisonous gas, like a living creature, desperately burrowed into Lu Ming’s body, while the protective light on Lu Ming’s body acted like an armor, desperately resisting the purple poisonous gas.
As the two of them fought intensely, the silver patterns on Lu Ming’s chest also began to flash wildly.
“Your source of magic comes from a body protective technique.”
Esek muttered and then said, “It’s a very conventional path.”
There were many people who had advanced to the Ancient Realm through body protective techniques, more than other types.
This method was simple, but not very powerful, belonging to the lower tier of the Ancient Realm.
Esek remained silent and just watched as the purple poisonous gas slowly burned through Lu Ming’s body protective technique, making direct contact with his skin.
“It’s even weaker than the lowest tier, unable to withstand even a single blow…”
“Therefore, I estimate that this person must have used a large number of Spirit
Realm or even lower-level protective techniques to create these silver patterns.”
Esek was not a fool.
From Lu Ming’s words just now, he vaguely guessed Lu Ming’s situation. At this moment, he was not surprised to see this scene and just felt pity in his heart.
“Exceptional talent but an unfortunate background. An unfortunate background means insufficient resources. Using a large number of low-level defensive techniques to create these silver patterns, their strength is even weaker than the ordinary methods.”
Thinking of this, Esek shook his head, “If it’s only at this level, I’m afraid you won’t be able to withstand my Zombie Beast Poison…”
Strictly speaking, although Esek’s Zombie Beast Poison, while being the Foundation of Matter, was not very potent.
This was because the essence of the Zombie Beast Poison was to infect and transform exotic beasts into zombie beasts.
Both toxicity and corrosiveness were incidental and secondary.
According to Esek’s own evaluation, the direct lethality of Zombie Beast Poison was probably only slightly stronger than the silver patterns of ordinary poison-type magic sources, but not significantly.
Even so, this poisonous gas easily penetrated Lu Ming’s protective technique and the silver patterns of the Source of Magic!
This was enough to show how weak Lu Ming’s silver patterns were…. even weaker than the weakest level of the Ancient Realm by a significant margin…
“Let’s end this,” Esek muttered. Then, he stood up and prepared to help Lu Ming again.
He naturally had the ability to retract the poisonous gas he released.
However, just as Esek was about to do that, what happened before his eyes changed his mind.
The poisonous gas pierced through Lu Ming’s body protective technique and entered his pores, infiltrating his body.
At that moment, Lu Ming felt immense pain!
It was as if he had turned into an ordinary person, and someone had injected sulfuric acid into his body.
Countless cells collapsed and disintegrated under the infection of the Zombie Beast Poison, and large ulcers instantly formed on Lu Ming’s body.
However, Lu Ming was not flustered and just sighed slightly.
“Ancient Realm… Ancient Realm!”
After experiencing it personally, Lu Ming vaguely understood the strength of the Ancient Realm.
The strength of the Ancient Realm lay in the power of the natural order.
And the power of natural order was above everything else!
The moment the magic patterns were born, the superhumans could be considered to have stepped into the Ancient Realm. The appearance of the magic patterns meant that the superhumans were accepted by the rules of the world, thereby gaining an intrinsic strength far surpassing that of the Spirit Realm or Source Realm!
The mystical patterns provided natural immunity to spiritual pressure and could even amplify the spiritual pressure of the bearer.
The mystical patterns could also provide natural immunity to source power manipulation and could even amplify the bearer’s ability to control source power.
Mystical patterns could also increase the strength of related source power skills or related abilities—for example, Lu Ming’s body protective technique.
From the moment the mystical patterns appeared, the strength of Lu Ming’s body protective technique was immediately elevated countless times—of course, on the attribute panel, this change manifested as a new characteristic: [Absolute Defense (Level 1)].
And when Ancient Realm experts battled, they were essentially competing in the strength of their mystical patterns, which could also be called their mastery and affinity with the power of the natural order!
Esek’s Foundation of Matter patterns were stronger than Lu Ming’s Source of Magic silver patterns. Moreover, it was not just a little stronger.
The Zombie Beast Poison used its own weakness to attack the enemy’s strength. It actually easily disintegrated Lu Ming’s protective technique and directly affected Lu Ming’s body.
This meant that there was a huge gap in the strength of the power of the natural order between Lu Ming and Esek!
And when the Zombie Beast Poison pierced through Lu Ming’s protective technique and broke down his mystical patterns, everything seemed to have been settled.
The Zombie Beast Poison penetrated Lu Ming’s body, advancing without any resistance.
No matter how strong Lu Ming’s body was, it was useless against the power of the natural order—this was the fundamental difference.
Lu Ming’s body was like air, while the Zombie Beast Poison, carrying the power of the natural order, was like an iron weapon!
How could air possibly withstand a sharp iron weapon?
“Therefore, once the mystical patterns are broken, the outcome of the Ancient Realm battle is essentially determined.”
“Without the mystical patterns, any resistance is completely futile in front of those with mystical patterns.”
Just like when Spirit Realm beings faced Physique Realm beings, just the spiritual pressure alone was enough to disintegrate everything in the Physique Realm.
Similarly, when Source Realm beings faced Spirit Realm beings, the control over source power could instantly defeat the opponent.
It was the same when Ancient Realm beings faced Sourcen Realm beings. The mystical patterns brought about the most fundamental and entirely irresistible gap!
“But… I refuse to accept this!!”
For countless days and nights, Lu Ming had been crazily boosting his attributes through the attribute system. He had forged his body to be as strong as steel, but now, he had easily collapsed under the power of the Ancient Realm mystical patterns.
How could Lu Ming accept this?!
“I don’t believe that one can’t withstand the power of the mystical patterns with one’s physical strength alone.”
At this moment, Lu Ming had not calmed down.
As a result, Lu Ming’s temperament was a little stubborn.
He had tangled with this Zombie Beast Poison…
Taking a deep breath, Lu Ming’s muscles tensed all over his body.
A large amount of energy burst out of his body and rushed into his corroded cells.
Therefore, the cells that had just been disintegrated by the Zombie Beast Poison regenerated and healed at an extremely fast speed!
The rotten sores on his body began to heal.
However, they festered again under the corrosion of the Zombie Beast Poison.
Healing – festering constituted a cruel cycle.
What Esek witnessed was Lu Ming’s body being destroyed time and again and being regenerated and healed again and again!
This made Esek raise an eyebrow.
“What incredible physical strength.”
“And an iron-like will.”
What moved Esek was not Lu Ming’s physical strength, but his willpower!
In the Spirit Realm and even the Source Realm, Lu Ming’s attributes of more than 600,000 were indeed explosively powerful. Coupled with the weakest silver patterns in the Ancient Realm, he was easily able to crush Haohuang and Queen blade, both of whom were only in the Source Realm.
However, in the Ancient Realm, these attributes were not particularly remarkable, and were even considered ordinary, just enough not to be a burden.
After all, Ancient Realm experts had access to higher-level body forging techniques and various natural treasures for body refinement.
Plus, their lifespans were measured in thousands or tens of thousands of years.
This meant that even if they did not specialize in body forging techniques, they could easily maintain strong physical attributes. In other words, their efficiency in boosting attributes was much lower than Lu Ming’s. However, as pioneers, they had a huge starting advantage in terms of timing and accumulation!
However, Esek did not know that Lu Ming was only 26 years old this year…
No one, not even the offspring of god who had started cultivating body forging techniques from his mother’s womb, could reach the height that Lu Ming had achieved at the age of 26…
In any case, Esek just watched and marveled at Lu Ming’s incredible willpower.
About ten minutes later, everything finally calmed down.
Lu Ming, who was standing before Esek, was unscathed, but his face was a little pale.
“It’s done…”
He muttered and slowly closed his eyes to sense his physical condition.
“But the consumption was too great.”
Using pure physical strength to resist the Zombie Beast Poison that contained the power of the natural order!
Ten minutes.
It took Lu Ming a full ten minutes to completely erode the Zombie Beast Poison!
He felt immense fatigue, but it also confirmed a fact.
Those without mystical patterns were not entirely powerless against those who possessed them.
After all, although the specification was extremely high, the essence of the power of the natural order was only a form of high-level energy.
Air indeed couldn’t resist an iron weapon, but if the iron weapon was exposed to the air for a period of time, it would rust or even degrade into dust!
“Then here’s the problem… How much strength did this bit of Zombie Beast Poison consume from you?”
As he muttered, Lu Ming looked at Esek and saw that Esek had already suppressed his surprise, and his gaze towards Lu Ming had become much more serious.
After some thought, Esek waved his hand again.
As a result, hundreds of streams of Zombie Beast Poison surged out of Esek’s hand.
This made Lu Ming’s eyes darken.
“There was hardly any consumption…”
That stream of Zombie Beast Poison.
The poison that took Lu Ming ten minutes and almost exhausted all his strength to eradicate.
Esek could easily produce hundreds or even thousands of them with a wave of his hand…