Chapter 453: 453, [Is the Purple Palace closed?]
Lu Xun opened his character console to inspect the changes that had occurred on it.

Firstly, a suffix appeared after his name, changing it to[Name: Lu Xun (Great Cultivator)].

Although only he could see this panel and couldn’t show it off to others, he still felt a sense of thrill from it.

I’m so awesome.jpg.

Also, the character level column had changed to: [Level: 51], with the name of the cultivation technique listed as [Unknown Art (Orange)] behind it.

After closing the character console, Lu Xun began to investigate his current state.

“I’ll see if anything has changed!” he slowly closed his eyes.

Quickly, he discovered that his total spiritual power was terrifyingly high.

Compared to level 50, the total spiritual power at level 51 has more than doubled!

“No wonder people say that the fifth realm is a watershed, this difference is too huge!” Lu Xun murmured to himself.

As always, using Ye Sui’an as a measurement unit, Lu Xun felt that, at the very least, his current strength was equivalent to ten Ye Sui’ans.

Of course, that’s based on the last time he saw Ye Sui’an.

Since that guy is the ‘True World Protagonist’, he probably leveled up quite quickly recently.

“Did my grade change from superior purple to orange merely result in more robust spiritual power?” Lu Xun expressed disbelief.

He opened his palm and a small sword qi emerged within.

As soon as the sword qi was created, Lu Xun immediately felt a difference.

In the process of operating his spiritual power, he suddenly discovered that the five elements spiritual power inside his body could be converted into each other!

Previously, because he practiced the five elements simultaneously, the spiritual power inside his body could actually be divided into five streams.

These five streams of spiritual power were always on par with each other, maintaining a delicate balance.

But now, it seemed different.

If he wanted his spiritual power to change into a certain attribute, it would immediately do so!

This was actually very useful.

Again, citing Ye Sui’an as an example: if Lu Xun was currently facing ten Ye Sui’ans, he would consider their respective five elements in combat and fight them with his suppressing spiritual power.

But due to the fact that his spiritual power was separated into five streams, even though his total power was strong, each stream, when compared with other cultivators, didn’t have a distinct advantage.

In this case, he might exhaust his suppressing spiritual power after defeating a few Ye Sui’ans.

And then, he would no longer be able to use five elements to expand his advantage.

But now, it’s different.

If it could suppress, it would keep suppressing all the way!

“This is quite useful in actual combat,” Lu Xun was quite satisfied with this change.

In addition to this, he discovered another change.

That was an ‘automatic mana regeneration’ feature!

He just launched a sword qi a moment ago, consuming some spiritual power, but now, without doing anything, his spiritual power had already been restored!

——His mana bar can self-recover!

In ‘Heavenly Dust’, there were very few cultivation techniques with this kind of function. Lu Xun had heard of something similar, but they were all low-tier oddball techniques.

After all, the higher the level of the cultivation technique, the more complex it would be. High-quality techniques were usually more pure and it was hard to make fanciful modifications within them.

However, this automatic mana regeneration effect was incredibly useful in protracted battles!

“I already had more spiritual power than others, and now, with the endless generation of five elements spiritual power, the automatic mana regeneration effect has further enhanced my advantage!” Lu Xun thought.

He just sat there and started experimenting with it.

Then, his sword sheath was in for a treat.

Lu Xun kept stuffing sword qi into the entrance of the sheath. After stuffing dozens of them, he stopped to feel the rejuvenation effect.

Once it was full, he continued to stuff more in.

The black string on the sheath floated in the air, dancing happily. Clearly, it was full.

The satisfied sheath seemed in good spirits and affectionately rubbed against Lu Xun’s hand.

After some experimentation, Lu Xun roughly had an idea of how it works.

“No wonder this cultivation technique is orange level, it’s simply against the norm!” Lu Xun gave his assessment.

According to his understanding of the principles of the five elements, the speed of mana regeneration should be faster when there’s more spiritual power in his body.

Just like instead of one, ten hens laying eggs together would undoubtedly be faster, right?

But in reality, it’s not like that at all!

The more he depleted his Spiritual Power, the faster he would recover!

This meant that the more exhausted he was, the more replenished he became.

Even if he were completely drained, just resting for a while would immediately restore his ability to fight!

“Amazing!” Lu Xun exclaimed.

This would be truly terrifying in actual combat!

“It’s a pity I can’t use [One Sword] here, otherwise I could test how quickly my spiritual power would recover after being completely depleted,” thought Lu Xun.

Now, if he were in the midst of a battle with the Foreign Race, he would be like a perpetual fighting machine!

As long as he didn’t deplete his spiritual power too violently, he could operate like an eternal engine!

Of course, the situation in the battlefield was ever-changing, and it certainly wouldn’t match the ideal state he had in mind.

But regardless, this effect was still incredibly against the heavens!

“Master’s brother is such a genius, to be able to create such a defying Cultivation Technique. I truly admire him!” Lu Xun was full of admiration.

…

…

At this moment, Lu Xun was still injecting Sword Qi delightedly, while the gaming forum was blowing up because of him!

The reason was quite simple – many players were surprised to find that they had inexplicably advanced one rank in the [Faction Contribution Points Ranking]!

Once this news spread, many high-ranking players all discovered, “I also climbed up one rank!”

Later, everyone found out that it was because the person who had been at the top of the leaderboard had unexpectedly disappeared!

“Damn, why did Heavenly Dust disappear from the leaderboard?”

“Yeah, I looked at the leaderboard this morning and Heavenly Dust was still in the top spot!”

“Could it be… that Heavenly Dust died?”

Once this speculation was made, the comments below were a series of “???”

Couldn’t help it, there were a lot of parroted comments among the humans.

Actually, if an NPC died, it would indeed be removed from the leaderboard.

But if you were to say that Heavenly Dust had died… the players simply did not believe it!

“Are you joking? Heavenly Dust is the World Protagonist!”

“If the World Protagonist were to die, wouldn’t the game plot collapse?”

“Does the game ‘Heaven Defying Dragon Slaying Record’ develop this marvelously? Like Zhang Cui Shan initially being the protagonist and then after his death, the protagonist becomes Zhang Wuji?”

“Don’t curse my Heavenly Dust! Wah wah wah! Protect the best Heavenly Dust! Wah wah wah!”

“What are you crying about, are the baby talkers now invading the fandom?”

In the forum, the topic of whether Lu Xun died or not unexpectedly topped the trending list.

Naturally, there will be some rational voices at such times.

“Speaking of…you guys aren’t familiar with the leaderboard rules, are you? This leaderboard only displays NPCs who are within 15 levels above the players. Since the highest level among players is now Level 35, then the leaderboard will only show NPCs of Level 50 and below!”

“So the person above is saying that Heavenly Dust is now at Level 50+?”

“What else could it be? Could the World Protagonist have really died?”

“But I checked the leaderboard this morning, and Heavenly Dust was at Level 46. How is it possible that he advanced through at least five levels in half a day?”

“Yes, especially since it’s a major breakthrough from the fourth realm to the fifth. We players, who rely on Experience Points, can’t level up that fast. Is it really that exaggerated?”

There was endless debate in the forum.

Until the highest-ranking player in the game leveled up again.

This person was not a professional player and the Cultivation Technique he practiced was not particularly strong.

In contrast, his Cultivation Technique was rather poor, so he needed fewer Experience Points to level up. Plus, he was rather lucky and had gotten two pieces of decently ranked [Equipment], making him efficient in both questing and monster killing.

Everyone knew that the leaderboard was not the only standard for assessing strength, this player was simply making a show on the rankings. If it really came to fighting, he may not even win against Mo Guanji.

But after he raised his Character Level to 36, the players immediately noticed that Heavenly Dust had returned to the top of the leaderboard!

At the top of the leaderboard, it clearly read:

[Demon Sect Lu Xun, Level 51]!

…