The underground world was massive. Su Mo wandered for less than an hour without reaching the end.
He did not run into any danger or any other people.
However, Su Mo occasionally spotted some fresh corpses of new disciples and black Demonic Insects.
Su Mo obviously could not let these blood essence go to waste, so he devoured the essence of all the corpses he saw.
He could devour a large amount of blood essence without much effort. This was much faster than killing demonic beasts for their essence.
However, the Demonic Cores of these Demonic Insects had already been taken away. Su Mo also did not see any Spiritual Herbs, and he guessed that this was probably because the great geniuses had already taken them.
Su Mo was not worried. Even if he did not find any Spiritual Herbs or Demonic Cores, he was already happy with a large amount of blood essence he had.
As long as he could continue to improve his cultivation and strengthen his abilities, he was not worried about not having Demonic Cores!
“Lv 2 Demonic Insects?”
Suddenly, Su Mo’s eyes brightened as he saw a couple more corpses. There were the corpses of three Demonic Insects and two martial artists.
The three Demonic Insects were twice the size of previous ones he had seen, and they were as large as a cow’s head.
Su Mo was overjoyed and swiftly ran forward to devour.
Although the three Demonic Insects did not have as much blood essence as the two martial artists, the amount of their Blood Qi was about seven or eight times that of the martial artists.
After Blood Qi entered his body, Su Mo rushed to cultivate, and his cultivation soared once again.
Soon, he had progressed from late-stage of Lv 9 Qi Cultivation Realm to peak Lv 9 Qi Cultivation Realm, and there was still a large amount of Blood Qi in his body that had not been cultivated.
Su Mo sat down to cultivate the Blood Qi and refine his genuine Qi.
With the support of such strong Blood Qi, even if he did not directly break through the bottleneck to the Spiritual Martial Realm, he would at least achieve a half step to the Spiritual Martial Realm.
For the martial artists of the Spiritual Martial Realm, the genuine Qi in their bodies had already changed into congenital genuine Qi.
The so-called half step to the Spiritual Martial Realm meant a transitional period and not an actual realm.
For the martial artists at a half step to the Spiritual Martial Realm, their genuine Qi was turning into congenital genuine Qi, but they had not entered the Spiritual Martial Realm. However, they were still much stronger than the martial artists of Lv 9 Qi Cultivation Realm, so this period was called a half step to the Spiritual Martial Realm.
The strong Blood Qi had been turned into genuine Qi, and the genuine Qi turned into a mist and filled Su Mo’s entire elixir field. There was endless genuine Qi flooding into his meridians.
A large amount of genuine Qi stretched Su Mo’s elixir field to the point of discomfort, and he tried extremely hard to compress the genuine Qi.
When the amount of genuine Qi in Su Mo’s elixir field reached a certain boundary, the center of the genuine Qi suddenly collapsed, forming a vortex.
The genuine Qi vortex slowly turned, drawing in all the genuine Qi in the elixir field, and the vortex gradually widened.
After a while, Su Mo had completely cultivated all the devoured Blood Qi, and all the genuine Qi in his elixir field had been absorbed into the vortex. The genuine Qi vortex had increased greatly in size and took up almost half of Su Mo’s elixir field.
The vortex is made from genuine Qi which is so compressed that it is almost liquid.
Suddenly, wisps of congenital genuine Qi appeared from the center of the vortex and mixed into the genuine Qi.
A half step to the Spiritual Martial Realm!
Then, Su Mo violently opened his eyes, and they shot out two bright beams of light in the dark space.
“Time to get Demonic Cores and Spiritual Herbs!”
Su Mo clenched his fists and felt his strength greatly increase. He smiled.
Now that his cultivation had reached a half step to the Spiritual Martial Realm, there was no need for him to devour large amounts of blood essence anymore.
Even if he found large amounts of essence, he would not devour them.
In under two days, Su Mo had devoured a giant amount of blood essence, and his cultivation had increased from peak Lv 8 Qi cultivation Realm to a half step to the Spiritual Martial Realm.
He had to rest for a while and refine his genuine Qi before making more breakthroughs.
When cultivating the “Primordial Qi Method”, Su Mo felt that his Primordial Genuine Qi was very pure and refined. But now, the genuine Qi in his body was messy and crude.
If he broke through into the Spiritual Martial Realm under these circumstances, that would affect the foundation of his martial arts, so he did not want to rashly break through.
Su Mo sighed and drifted forward like a ghost.
After walking for a couple miles, Su Mo felt a strong wave of genuine Qi in front of him, followed by a series of rumbling sounds. He was startled and hurried to conceal his Qi so that he could prowl ahead.
Soon, Su Mo saw a mountain of hundreds of giant black insects crazily attacking a group of young men.
There were over 20 people, and Su Mo saw the four great geniuses, including Yan Qi, Wu Kui, Feng Zilan, and Luo Qifan was also among them.
In front of them stood a tree that was over 333.3 meters tall. The trunk was as thick and strong as a pillar, and it grew from the floor of the underground world straight into the top of the rocky mountain.
On the trunk were many gray scabs that were as large as watermelons, which coated the tree’s branches.
Su Mo looked closely and noticed that there were signs of life in every gray scab, revealing that they were all insect eggs.
Here had to be the breeding site of the black Demonic Insects.
There were not only many insect eggs on the tree, but there were also nine red fruits as large as fists on the branches. The fruits gave off a red glow, and Su Mo could smell their light fragrance from more than 100 meters away.
“What kind of spirit fruit is that?”
Su Mo’s eyes lit up. Although he did not recognize the fruit, he knew that they were no ordinary objects or these people could not be here.
These men were obviously trying to get the spirit fruits, which is why they were attacked by the insects.
Su Mo did not rush up to seize them, and instead, he carefully observed the battle.
There were at least 10 Lv 2 Demonic Insects in the crowd, and three of them were class 2 Lv 2 demonic beasts, which were equal to a martial artist of Lv 2 Spiritual Martial Realm martial artist.
Most of the Demonic Insects were Class 9 Lv 1 Demonic Beasts, and even the lowest ones were Class 8 Lv 1.
These 20 new disciples were also not weak. All eight of the Spiritual Martial Realm experts were present, including the five great geniuses.
The rest mostly were at peak Lv 9 Qi Cultivation Realm, and some had even reached a half step to the Spiritual Martial Realm.
However, they were still no match for the Demonic Insects.
Many of them were injured and on the verge of death.
Luo Qianfan was dealing with one of the Class 2 Lv 2 Demonic Beasts, and Wu Kui, Cao Yuan, and others were dealing with the other two.
Although the three Demonic Beasts were temporarily restrained, no one could deal with the other Class 1 Lv 2 Demonic Beasts, which were striking down man after man.
The Demonic Insects had hard shells that required a large amount of force to break through, and they had sharp incisors that could tear off a large piece of flesh with one bite.
“Huang Yunqing, block it so I can get the Empty Spirit Fruit!” yelled Wu Kui towards a tall young man who was battling a Class 2 Lv 2 Demonic Insect with him.
Then he turned around, abandoned the Demonic Beast, and rushed towards the giant tree.
“Brother Wu, I…”
Huang Yunqing was startled, but he had no time to finish his thought. The Demonic Insect struck again with its menacing incisors, which gave off a cold light.
“Huff!”
Huang Yunqing yelled and released his Martial Soul, using all his force to block the Demonic Insect’s attack.
His Martial Soul was a Cyan Feather Bird with piercing eyes and fierce glow.
He pushed his Martial Soul to use all its strength. Although it was not a match for the Demonic Insect, it barely held it off.
Wu Ku hurried towards the giant tree and soon approached it. When he saw the nine red fruits on the treetop, his heart raced with excitement.
He was about to jump onto the three when a loud scream sounded behind him.
Wu Kui was startled and turned to his side as a dark flash sped past him.
It was an arrow!
“Luo Qianfan, what are you doing?”
Wu Kui turned around and glared at Luo Qianfan, who had shot the arrow.
“Wu Kui, are you trying to take all the Empty Spirit Fruits for yourself?”
Luo Qianfan chuckled as he fought the Demonic Insect.
Luo Qianfan was very powerful, and the Class 2 Lv 2 Demonic Insect could barely contend with him. Now that he was using his full force, he was able to kill the Demonic Insect in no time.