Martial Saint Realm
After returning, Mike didn't waste any time; he sat down and immediately began taking out the many pills and elixirs he bought. These elixirs would likely be more than enough to help him reach the Martial Saint realm.
Spending 30 billion to achieve this may sound unbelievable; after all, for martial saint realm practitioners, earning 30 billion RM would take at most a few decades, which is nothing compared to their lifespan. In reality, if this amount of resources had been given to anyone else, they would have been lucky even to have reached the Martial Domain realm. The reason Mike can do it is because of his extremely fantastic cheat—the Big Demon's body.
The Big Demon's body is nearly perfect, capable of absorbing everything to its fullest extent with no waste. Any martial arts training is countless times easier done with the big demon physique compared to even the most talented human body. After all, the essence of the Big Demon is still quasi-rank 10. Even if sealed, it retains some of its essence. Of course, had Lana wanted to, she could have sealed all the Big Demon body's abilities, but she didn't.
Without delay, Mike took fistfuls of pills, swallowing them all. Normal martial arts practitioners must be careful when using pills, as impurities may remain despite the efforts of pill makers. One must give one's body time to absorb and then use purifying pills to remove any leftover impurities. Of course, if a pill maker is highly skilled, they can make pills with negligible impurities, but those high-quality pills are far more expensive than the ones Mike bought.
Silver has many higher-quality pills, but Mike didn't buy them. It's not that he doesn't like higher-quality pills; he simply sees no point in buying them. His Big Demon body is so powerful it can easily resist the poisons and even absorb them.
Mike also bought a lot of raw materials, such as 1,000-year-old ginseng, leaves of the spiritual lotus tree, ancient energy grass, and more, to experiment with. He wanted to compare their effectiveness against the pills. After all, concocting pills is difficult. One might try a hundred times and succeed only once, wasting a lot of spiritual plants in the process. However, the Big Demon's body can resist all poisons below rank 9, meaning he could, in theory, eat raw materials without issue.
If anyone else tried to eat something like raw spiritual lotus leaves, they would most likely die. Though used in pill making, it's also famous for its poison. Mike, however, had no issue with it. After observing and comparing the effects of the pills and raw materials, he nodded in satisfaction. As expected, his plan wasn't feasible—he's no master of pills in this world, but he still has some common sense after living here in this world for some time; in theory, easting raw materials should have worked, but in reality, the cost-performance ratio of pills is better than raw plants; it may be related to laws of this world; mike has no idea why, nor does he plan on finding out.
The pile of pills he swallowed began to show their effect. A massive amount of energy transferred from his stomach to his meridians. Anyone else would have exploded and died, but the Big Demon body tolerated it without the slightest difficulty.
"Skin training," Mike thought. In martial arts, consuming pills alone isn't enough. One must perform the martial arts movements. Remembering the posture for skin refining, he began the exercise. Usually, it takes thousands of attempts to complete, but Mike, with the massive energy within his body, finished the skin refining after fully performing the posture just once!
"Next, flesh training," Mike recalled the posture and did it once. The energy in his body did the rest.
"Okay, flesh refining is done! Next, bone training!" If other martial artists saw him, they'd probably die of jealousy. What takes years or even decades for ordinary people, Mike was completing in minutes! The world isn't fair—Mike already has the Big Demon's physique as a foundation, making his path far easier.
"Bone training, done! Next, internal organ training!" In less than an hour, Mike had completed the five stages of the body training.
"It went as planned! Good, now I should take the innate realm pills," he thought. The previous pills were exclusively for the body training stage. The remaining energy in his body is no longer helpful for now, but it may come in handy later, so he didn't expel it. The Big Demon's body has an almost infinite capacity for storing energy.
After swallowing more fistfuls of pills, Mike sat cross-legged and began absorbing them carefully. After a while, the energy entered his meridians, and he performed the innate posture. This time, it took 10 tries before he finally broke through to the innate realm. Ordinary people may have to repeat the same posture tens of thousands of times, hoping to break through to the innate realm, and still fail.
"It should get harder after innate," Mike thought. He didn't plan on breaking through to the Martial Saint realm in one day. The realms after innate are increasingly time-consuming. He estimated it might take a few years or even a decade to reach the Martial Saint stage, but he had no plans to stop.
He took out thousands of innate realm pills and started performing the postures. It took 100 tries to break through to the middle stage of the innate realm, about 500 tries to reach the late stage, and 1,000 attempts to reach the peak of innate. In total, it took him five days.
"It's taking longer and longer!" Mike shook his head, dissatisfied. Even though he has an infinite lifespan, he was upset about being stuck in such a low realm for days. After all, he used to be quasi-rank 10!
After reaching the peak of innate, Mike took more pills to break through to the radiation realm. The pills for the radiation realm are different from the innate ones, so the remaining innate energy is now useless.
Mike performed the posture 2,000 times before finally breaking through to the radiation realm. This one step alone took 10 days. The postures of the radiation realm are more complicated and more consuming than those of the realms below.
Without delay, Mike took out hundreds of boxes of radiation realm pills, all low quality with considerable impurity. Typically, after taking one pill, the practitioner would have to wait a week before taking the next one, but Mike didn't care—he swallowed them all.
It took him 2,500 tries to break through the middle stage of the radiation realm, 3,000 tries for the late stage, and 5,000 tries to reach the peak.
"100 days!" Mike sighed, even more dissatisfied. Such a low realm shouldn't take this long.
If others saw him so displeased after taking only 100 days to get from the initial stage to the peak of radiation, they might explode with anger. It's fortunate to do the same task in 100 years, not days!
Mike took out more pills, this time for the Martial Domain realm. After swallowing them, he sat down cross-legged, absorbed the energy, and began performing the next posture. It took 10,000 tries before he broke through to the Martial Domain realm.
"A year to break through to the Martial Domain realm. Really unacceptable!" Mike sighed. At this rate, it might take more than a decade to reach the Martial Saint realm. Sighing at his misfortune, he took out another batch of pills and swallowed them all.
It took 15,000 tries to reach the middle stage of the Martial Domain, 20,000 for the late stage, and 25,000 for the peak, taking him six whole years in total.
"Finally! Once I break through this last bottleneck, it'll be over." He smiled. Over the years, he had done nothing but train in martial arts, aside from eating, drinking water, and paying Lord Silver for the loan.
"Let's take a few days off!" He stood up, feeling spiritually drained. He planned to wander in nature for some time to improve his mood.
...
After a month of rest, Mike returned to his room.
"Let's do it!" he thought as he took the last batch of pills. Though there were still many pills in his space ring, they were leftovers from previous realms. After reaching Martial Saint, they would no longer be applicable, except perhaps as a source of energy for fighting or casting spells—they couldn't help him advance any further in cultivation.
He absorbed the pills and stood up, performing the posture. It took him 50,000 tries and a total of 10 years before he finally succeeded in breaking through to the Martial Saint realm—far longer than his initial estimate.
"Finally!" Mike smiled as he felt the energy coursing through his body. In the last few years, with his power sealed, he had felt weak and vulnerable. Now, as a Martial Saint, at least he was no longer as helpless as before.