In truth, the business of selling blood essence was a low cost business. Most of the expenses consisted of storage, haulage, extraction, and salaries. As for the cost, if one could get to the Allheaven Battlefield, a hundred thousand dollars would allow one to purchase hundreds of Great Strength corpses from the army. These corpses were nothing at the Allheaven Battlefield. It wasn't like the soldiers were going to consume these corpses as food. Even if they did, there would still be too many corpses for them to finish.

The biggest chunk of the expenses would come during the latter processes such as extraction and haulage from the Allheaven Battlefield back into the Human Realm. In truth, haulage was so expensive that unless one was hauling a large volume of products at once, it wouldn't even be worth it.

Of course, the armies also had their own cultural researchers that could extract the blood on the spot. However, Great Strength blood essence wasn't exactly that valuable, so most cultural researchers couldn't even be bothered to perform the extraction. Su Yu did not know all that before. Now that he had learned more about cultural researchers, he could easily guess most of that.

"The character ‘blood’ wants to consume blood..."

Su Yu sighed. He felt like he was going to go bankrupt soon. If blood could really nourish his Divine Character, he would have to purchase some. There was no choice. The nourishment of his Divine Character was too important. Without sufficient willpower, he would have to look for alternatives to nourish his Divine Character. He could see himself getting more and more poor in the future.

While entertaining himself with random thoughts, Su Yu continued working hard on identifying the corpses. The process was rather exhausting and he was sweating badly from all the work he was doing. These corpses were too heavy. He was only a Source Opening cultivator. Some of the corpses were so heavy he wasn't even able to move them.

Some of the corpses were piled together, so he was forced to move the corpses bit by bit to get a clearer look at them. Not long had passed before Su Yu was dyed red in blood. At that point, the blood character became even more restless. It was on the verge of charging out of Su Yu's body, forcing him to suppress it with his willpower. Was this fellow asking for a new round of beating?

...

When evening arrived, the door was finally opened and Su Yu was released. Looking at Su Yu's dirty appearance and the book filled with characters, Liu Wenyan smiled. Very good. He had not complained about the hardship, nor had he performed the task half-heartedly.

"We'll stop here today and continue tomorrow. You'll be staying here for five days. After five days, we'll go to a different place."

Liu Wenyan paused and thought for a bit before saying, "Previously, Bai Feng helped you perform your first attempt at forming a Divine Character. Of course, that isn't something you can perform to completion right now, but you can get used to the process and try a few times.

"Divine Character formation is an extremely exhausting process for your willpower. There is actually a shortcut to the process. By using the blood essence of the demonic races that came with willpower and source qi, you can draw out the character you want in reality before trying to draw one in your mind. That is also the common method the academy uses to train their students.

"I had not taught you any of that before, but I'll start teaching you all that from now on. Every five days, come get a drop of blood essence suitable for Divine Character formation from me. Of course, to claim the blood essence from me, you need to perform your assigned tasks well."

Su Yu was excited, but he turned awkward and said, "It's fine, instructor. I don't need it."

Instructor Liu would be paying for the blood essence out of his own pocket as it was impossible for the school to foot the bill. Even if the blood essence was purchased from the school, Instructor Liu would still be paying one merit point per drop.

"Like I said, you need to perform well in your assigned tasks. Do you think I'm going to be giving them to you for free? Do you think you can complete my tasks so easily? Maybe you will not be able to get more than one drop after two months. That's worth one merit point. It's nothing for me."

Su Yu had an embarrassed expression. He wanted to say that he had completed his Divine Character, but the people of Xia Trade Company were nearby so he said nothing. He would wait and see. His instructor was right. He might not be able to claim that much blood essence in the first place. The task today was a good example. If he wasn't already used to being killed himself in his dreams, he probably wouldn't be able to last long facing all those corpses.

"Let's go. Rest well tonight. You will have a lot of difficult tasks waiting for you. If needed, slow down on your Source Opening cultivation."

"I understand. Don't worry, Instructor. I won't let anything get in the way of my studies."

"..."

After a short chat, Su Yu returned to his home while Liu Wenyan returned to the school.

...

One day after another, time passed.

During the day, Su Yu would follow Liu Wenyan around for his studies. Even at night, he had heavy tasks as well. He needed to cultivate, study the Source Opening Codex, fight in his dreams, and even spend some time learning more languages.

He was also slowly starting to study the original Great Strength bone fragment. Although he still couldn't properly read it, each attempt was a clash of willpower that would help him improve. Bai Feng had advised him to not read the bone fragment more than twice per day. But Su Yu had actually been making about a dozen attempts each day.

He didn't feel any discomfort from his attempts. Rather, he could quickly recover from each session after a minor headache. As for his "blood" character's desire to consume blood, Su Yu was too busy to entertain it. He would first focus on nourishing the character with his willpower. It wouldn't be too late to start experimenting when he had more free time.

In the blink of an eye, a new month arrived. 

It was now the middle of May.

Year 350 of the Anping Calendar, 18th of May.

Su Yu had spent around one month following Liu Wenyan around. That was a tiring month for him, but it also came with plenty of joy. He had improved considerably in his cultivation. During the month, he had used a few more drops of blood essence while his source qi liquid remained unused. He had opened the acupoints of both his eyes, becoming a proper seventh-stage Source Opening cultivator. Opening two acupoints in one month was an incredible feat.

The present Su Yu could be considered a cultivation genius even in a bigger city. As for reaching the eighth-stage at his age, that was extremely rare even in the bigger cities. Generally, such people would only appear in the capital. And even in the capital, such people were good enough to be considered top geniuses.

At the eighth-stage, one would open the Spirit Palace acupoint. With the opening of that acupoint, one would finally gain the ability to sense source qi or even slightly manipulate it. That was when a cultivator would finally obtain some proper combat strength.

The eighth-stage Source Opening Realm was basically a dividing line between those with and without combat strength. The difference between cultivators with and without combat strength was the same as the difference between a cultivator and a non-cultivator.

Su Yu's progress in physical cultivation had been obvious. However, that was also the case for his progress in willpower cultivation. According to Liu Wenyan, Su Yu's willpower had reached fifteen percent full in the span of one month. The five percent increase might not seem like much, but that was actually an unimaginable growth. After all, it had taken Su Yu so many years of studying previously to only reach ten percent.

With his current growth, he might even be able to reach twenty percent prior to the examination. And at that point, Su Yu would no longer be a weak clueless student anymore. With twenty percent willpower, he would be able to directly read original Great Strength texts. That was basically the very first step one would take as a cultural researcher. At that point, one could already be considered a cultural researcher.

Apart from the growth in his cultivation, he had also followed Liu Wenyan to many places over the past month. He had seen a lot and gained a lot of knowledge that was probably more important than pure growth in cultivation.

...

"Two hundred thousand dollars, ten gold coins, two drops of blood essence, ten merit points."

Su Yu had used some blood essence during the month, but he had not wasted much of his cash. His merit points had even increased. That was because Liu Wenyan had rewarded him with three drops of blood essence during the month. All three times, Su Yu had picked the iron-winged bird blood essence. As for his extra merit points, he had gotten them from the reward of the kill Chen Hao had claimed.

In truth, Su Yu had only spent about sixty thousand dollars during the month to purchase two drops of blood essence from the Xia Trade Company at a special price. The trade company was offering him a special price out of respect for Liu Wenyan.

"Seventh-stage Source Opening Realm!"

While walking toward Liu Wenyan's office, Su Yu clenched his fists in excitement. He had only broken through last night. His next goal was the eighth-stage. The Spirit Palace acupoint would be harder to open. After opening it, he would be able to start practicing martial techniques properly. He would finally possess combat strength. 

Today was supposed to be a rest day, but Su Yu was getting impatient. His blood character had been clamoring for blood recently. He had stopped the character from doing anything. During a previous test of his, the character had actually tried to consume the drop of blood essence in his hand, greatly alarming him.

He was only a Source Opening cultivator. He had only been able to consume blood essence because his book was the one absorbing the blood essence instead of his body. But the Divine Character resided within his mind. If he was careless when allowing the character to absorb blood essence, he might even blast his own head apart. It would be very unfortunate if that happened.

Su Yu did not dare to act rashly. He didn't even dare to feed the character some ordinary blood. He was worried that this little brother of his would kill him. He had nourished his little brother with willpower for a month. After breaking into the seventh-stage, he had more confidence in dealing with whatever the Divine Character was up to.

Today, he was here to see Liu Wenyan regarding his Divine Character. Liu Wenyan had not been giving him lessons on Divine Characters. With the lesson provided by Bai Feng previously, Liu Wenyan was of the opinion that Su Yu did not need more of such lessons for now.