Free Web NovelChapter 245: Consolidation
At the Purple Firmament Institute, Yaoguang had just finished receiving Dong Liushui and the others, recognizing their contribution to the development of the Purple Firmament Type 20 flying sword.
He directly issued a substantial bonus to every refiner involved in crafting the prototype.
Only after completing all this did he return to his residence.
Splitting a strand of his consciousness, he quickly arrived at a dedicated information archive within the Void Psychic World.
Detailed records of his current cultivation, realm, secondary professions, and overall state were kept here.
Compared with the vague, generalized descriptions provided by the ancient tree, the information here was far more grounded and practical.
My Martial Dao is at the Star God Realm, my qi cultivation is at the Fission Realm, and my psyche refinement is at the peak of the Dharma Form Realm, or the fourth tier... Whether it’s the Primordial Creation Art or the Heavenly Dao Sword Will, both arts are compatible with body refinement and psyche refinement, yet they both focus on qi cultivation. They merely compensate for the shortcomings of the other two paths. Yaoguang studied the data and reflected.
Take body refinement as an example. Filling the 108 acupoints with Meteor Star power makes me a first-tier star god, capable of bearing fission power. Filling them with Heavenly Star power makes me a second-tier star god, capable of bearing fusion power. And once all 108 acupoints are filled with Primary Star power, I will become a third-tier star god, capable of containing the power of the Crimson Golden Core.
Beyond that, opening 365 acupoints and filling them all with Primary Star power would allow a cultivator to fully unleash the power of a Radiant Sun Golden Core.
As for the fifth-tier Star God, achieved by opening 1080 acupoints, one could freely unleash the power of a Blazing White Golden Core without restraint.
Body refinement followed this path. Psyche refinement was no different.
Cultivation at the Dharma Form Realm focused on the duration that a cultivator could maintain their Void Psychic World.
A year. A generation. A fortune. An era. A cycle.[1]
It was said that the most powerful Dharma Form cultivators could sustain a Void Psychic World for one cycle, 129,600 years, without it losing any power.
Of course, that referred to a Void Psychic World that, once created, was rarely used.
The more frequently it was used, the greater the depletion.
As long as the Dharma Form cultivator was alive, they could maintain and repair it at any time. Otherwise, there were only a handful of Void Psychic Worlds that could last even a single fortune, merely 360 years.
The ancient method of classifying Dharma Form strength used these terms: year, generation, fortune, era, and cycle. In recent times, however, these complex designations had been simplified into early stage, middle stage, late stage, peak, and perfection. The North Sea Star had even planned to adopt a tiered system similar to the Star God Realm's tiers, aligning tiers one through five with the fourth through eighth realms of the Golden Core Realm.
The Star Lord Realm and Primordial Psyche Realm replace the first three realms of body and psyche refinement. Based on these metrics, if my cultivation was evaluated entirely under the systems of the Primordial Creation Art and Heavenly Dao Sword Will, my body refinement corresponds to the third realm of the Star Lord Realm, added to the third realm of the Star God Realm, equivalent to the sixth realm. My psyche refinement corresponds to the third realm of the Primordial Psyche Realm, added to the fourth realm of the Dharma Form Realm, reaching the seventh realm.
After reviewing everything, he smiled faintly. Since both my body and psyche refinement exceed the Fission Realm, my actual combat strength should match the fifth realm of the Golden Core Realm. And with my own cultivation realm...
He sensed the progress within the ancient tree. The Void-Piercing Realm of the Immortal Dao had reached 47%.
Taking everything into account, my true combat strength should be at the peak of the Fusion Realm, perhaps even reaching the domain of the Crimson Golden Core Realm! Given the flaws in the cultivation system of the Great Cangwu World, a Radiant Sun Golden Core cultivator might not necessarily defeat a Fusion Realm cultivator... and I also possess an outer core. I believe I could drag down three to five Radiant Sun Golden Core cultivators without issue. Yaoguang did a quick calculation.
After running through the numbers, Yaoguang sighed softly. It’s far too complicated. I’ve heard that in the Lunar Fiend Empire, there's a special device that can directly measure a person’s combat power. It can take into account body refinement, qi refinement, psyche refinement, equipment, techniques, and realm with remarkable accuracy... If I had such a device, I could evaluate both myself and my enemies and never have to fear a battle.
As he pondered this, he also thought of his Perception secret technique.
Unfortunately, such a low-level technique could no longer keep pace with his growth.
It was like being ranked first in elementary school, only to find that such an achievement meant nothing in the wider world.
In terms of raw strength, even if I’m not the strongest in the Great Cangwu World, I’m not far from it. As for overall capability... He glanced at his two secondary professions.
To forge the Gathering-Separation Ring, his Refiner profession had advanced to 61% within the artifact paragon tier. By this world’s standards, that made him a level 12 artifact refiner.
As for the Array Caster profession... Due to the slow progress of others and the immense effort required for him to construct arrays alone, he had only raised himself to the equivalent of a level 10 array caster.
Both professions had granted him a talent.
From the Refiner profession came the Thousand-Spirit Master: Spirit Treasure chapter.
It was a divine ability that could awaken spirit treasures and grant them life.
The Array Caster profession gave rise to the Myriad Methods talent.
It was a passive ability that allowed him to more easily perceive arrays and identify their weaknesses.
However, at present, the Myriad Methods had only improved his understanding of arrays. As for breaking them, a level 10 array caster like him already found that most arrays up to level 8 were easy to break. The talent made little practical difference.
As for the Thousand-Spirit Master, he had once tried awakening the Stellar Soul. The spirit treasure had come alive, developing its own thoughts and consciousness. Then it had refused to obey, attempted to escape, and sought the meaning of its own existence.
He had immediately refined it, turning it into one of the energies filling his 108 acupoints.
In the end, Yaoguang concluded that unless he wanted to play some kind of nurturing game, it was better not to grant life to spirit treasures.
"The Refiner and Array Caster professions are good for now. Now I have to focus fully on advancing my understanding of the Void-Piercing Realm. I need to reach the true Void-Piercing Realm as soon as possible..." At this point, he shook his head helplessly.
Now that his body, qi, and psyche refinement had all reached entirely new domains, the pills available on the market could no longer support his cultivation.
Psyche refinement was slightly better. It was more abstract. Once the realm advanced, psychic thought would naturally transform, rising like the tide.
As for qi cultivation, the Fission Realm actually consumed fewer resources than body refinement at the Star God Realm.
This realm required using the stellar essence within the body as a source of fission energy, and then utilizing the source of true origin—the Inner Fission Core—to enable the cultivator to easily obtain both energy and mass through a process of material transformation.
The key issue was that the amount of stellar essence produced by a star-god-level body was extremely limited.
Especially for someone like him, who had cultivated to the Primary Star tier. The stellar power he condensed through daily absorption of spiritual power was not even enough to fill his 108 acupoints. There was simply no surplus essence to supply the Inner Fission Core within his body.
Fortunately, when he had pushed his realm to 41% of the Void-Piercing Realm, he had uncovered a secret art. It was called the Star-Devouring Technique. It allowed him to refine stellar cores and extract stellar essence, which he could then use to fill the 108 acupoints in his body.
Before reaching the Crimson Golden Core Realm, body refinement is actually the most critical part, at least for someone like me who has no concerns about breaking through realms. During the fission process, stellar essence continuously puts pressure on and elevates the limits of the Inner Fission Core, thereby increasing its temperature and pressure. When the heat and pressure within the core reach an extreme, the utilization of stellar essence shifts from a fission state to a fusion state, unleashing far greater energy. Yaoguang continued to deliberate.
Beyond that was the Crimson Golden Core Realm.
At that stage, the 365 acupoints would form a self-sustaining life array based on the human body, enabling the continuous generation of large amounts of stellar essence. This allowed the Inner Fusion Core to achieve cyclic energy utilization, forming an endless loop of fission and fusion.
Of course, this cycle still required environmental support and external energy. But the true difficulty was finding the balance point for fusion. Only by achieving this could one reach the Crimson Golden Core Realm and obtain efficiency exponentially greater than that of the Fusion Realm.
For me, this isn’t much of a concern either. After all, my realm has already reached the Void-Piercing Realm. Advancing from the Fusion Realm to the Crimson Golden Core Realm is like recultivating. As long as I’m careful, there won’t be any issues. It’s only for others that the Crimson Golden Core Realm becomes a great dividing line within the nine realms of the Golden Core Realm. After reflecting on it, Yaoguang felt that if he could resolve the energy supply issue, the path ahead would become smooth.
The transition from the Fusion Realm to the Crimson Golden Core Realm was one of the greatest hurdles of the Golden Core Realm.
As for the leap from the sixth to the seventh realm, it was actually not that difficult. After all, the Crimson Golden Core Realm did not require one to collapse their core into a Primordial Void. That was why it was still classified within the middle three realms.
In truth, the Crimson Golden Core Realm, the Radiant Sun Golden Core Realm, and the Blazing White Golden Core Realm were not fundamentally different. There was only a quantitative difference in the amount of energy stored.
Only upon reaching the Azure Golden Core Realm would there be a change at the qualitative level, and the cultivator would start advancing toward the Void-Piercing Realm.
Thus, the three great changes within the nine realms of the Golden Core Realm were the one between the Core Formation Realm and the Fission Realm, the one between the Fusion Realm and the Crimson Golden Core Realm, and finally the one between the Blazing White Golden Core Realm and the Azure Golden Core Realm.
"Accumulation... it ultimately refers to energy. In the Great Cangwu World, nearly all pills are now ineffective for me. Even the Hundred-Acupoint Star Pill can only help open a hundred acupoints. Opening 365 acupoints and filling them will still be something I'll have to do on my own" As he spoke, Yaoguang lifted his gaze.
Beyond the Great Cangwu World, 108,000 worlds revolved in endless cycles.
With the Star-Devouring Technique, he could still fill the 108 acupoints by refining stellar cores. But the time required for the process would not be short. It would take him almost ten years.
And if he further accounted for opening 365 acupoints at the fourth tier of the Star God Realm, and 1080 acupoints at the fifth tier... Simply reaching the required standard for body refinement within the nine realms of the Golden Core Realm would take over a hundred thirty years.
Although his lifespan had greatly increased under this new system, making a century insignificant, it was still too long for Yaoguang.
"I need more resources," he muttered softly.
A moment later, he withdrew his thoughts and turned his gaze toward the Gathering-Separation Ring, which he had finally completed after working tirelessly over this period. Picking up the spirit treasure, he rose into the air, shooting straight toward the heavens.
1. This is a method of calculating the cycles of the cosmos in ancient China. A generation is 30 years; a fortune is 12 generations; an era is 30 fortunes; and a cycle is 12 eras. ☜
