Chapter 1070: Path of Body, Mind, and Soul to Transcendence (part 2) |
Die, surpass your limit, or become a Transcendent. There were three options available to a cultivator who had attained a State of Unity.
Every single living being born on a continent, whether an Iron Grade Pranic Beast or a Gold Grade Pranic Beast, are born with the same size of their souls. The size of the soul, as permitted by a Continent to enter it and connect the body and mind of a creature, is its natural limit—Expert Gold Grade.
Therefore, for an Expert Gold Grade Pranic Beast, attaining a State of Unity means they have already turned the entirety of their soul into an astral sea.
So, they won’t have much room for growth beyond this.
For anyone else, even after attaining a State of Unity, they would still have a small portion of the inertness in the soul left. They would have to swiftly rattle it by relying on their State of Unity, moments after obtaining it, since they would have fully consumed their astral sea by then.
Using their State of Unity, they would convert the soul completely into the astral sea. Now, in their combination of body, mind, and soul, the soul is stronger.
The excess astral sea, will be slowly but steadily pushed into the singularity with repeated activation of the State of Unity. To maintain unity, their Prana would take action by consuming itself to forcefully generate more of the body and mind aspects.
This had to be done steadily, at extremely minuscule amounts each other. Otherwise, their Prana wouldn’t be able to handle it, resulting in the Pranic Beast’s death.
They had a soul with enough astral sea to reach Expert Gold Grade. So, as long as they maintain their State of Unity, little by little, they will go up the grades.
However, since every leap in Grade results in a qualitative upgrade, the difficulties too are exponentially higher.
To jump from Expert Iron Grade to Beginner Silver Grade, a sizeable portion of the inertness in the soul has to be rattled spontaneously, and then have their Prana handle that sheer load. Chances of death were significant, with very few successes.
To succeed, the Pranic Beast would have to prepare nutrient-rich food, Elixirs, medicines, a beneficial environment, and as much external assistance as possible.
The highest lifespan in the Iron Grade is around 90 years while the lowest for Silver Grade is 300 years. At Expert Gold Grade, the maximum lifespan is 2000 years. Therefore, approximately a tenth of the soul has to be rattled, turned into the Astral Sea, and then fed into the State of Unity.
Their Prana then has to withstand this load and supplement with the body and soul aspects. Even with all sorts of preparations, the chances of failure were still exceedingly high.
Maybe one in a billion attempts would work. And this was to jump from Expert Iron Grade to Beginner Silver Grade.
The peak lifespan of the Silver Grade is 600 years, while the lowest for the Gold Grade is 1000 years. This is another 400 years’ worth of jump, basically one-fifth of the soul. This jump is even harder to traverse and has stopped pretty much the majority of the Pranic Beast Races from ever reaching the Gold Grade.
That was why, Continents starting with a Body Path Primary Nature take billions of years to develop. Their natives progress at a grudging snail’s pace to accumulate power, failing more times than not.
A single success was enough to be marked in their history books, for it was such a rare event.
In contrast, Sumatra Continent casually soared past them thanks to the existence of Free Humans and the relationship between them and Pranic Beasts in a power system that followed the Mind Path.
After attaining a State of Unity, a cultivator required a lot of resources to train and strengthen their singularity, until they consume all the Astral Sea. In this situation, they would die, for their Astral Sea had been consumed.
If they manage to destabilise the inertness of their soul, they’ll get more Astral Sea. They’ll be on the verge of death if they put it in their singularity. If they leave it as is, they’ll live longer, until the newly obtained Astral Sea turns inert.
They had that choice. And depending on the situation, some Pranic Beasts with enough potential strive to increase their strength and tread higher through the Grades. Upon obtaining even the slightest bit of success, they would hurriedly mate and pass down the slightly improved genetics.
In the Body Path, their accumulations wouldn’t disappear. That was the only advantage of this path. Hence, the progeny will always be born at a slightly higher point than the parents.
The final option available to Pranic Beasts with a State of Unity was to target their soul itself.
At the end of their lifespan, at the exact moment their astral sea is consumed, the Pranic Beast could use its State of Unity to sever the singularity from the inert part of their soul.
Once severed, all that remained behind was a singularity. That meant, they had attained the Transcendence Stage and would spontaneously be ejected out of the Continent.
That was their entire progression system, which ended at Expert Gold Grade, since that was the limit of the Soul.
Then, how did a Pranic Beast enter the Mystic Grade? They didn’t.
The only Mystic Grade existence in these Continents was their Blessed Race, and that was it. The rigidness of the Body Path system meant the natural progression of the Pranic Beasts was halted at the peak of the Gold Grade.
’However, similar to the Mammoth Clan, they sought power.’ All the relevant information streamlined in his mind as Inala punched a Brully to the neck, distorted the latter’s windpipe, and got sent flying by a sneak attack.
"Urgh!" Coughing out a broken tooth stuck in his mouth, Inala got up slowly and chuckled, ’However, there were exceptional individuals who went against the norm and surpassed their natural limit.’
’They managed to enter the Mystic Grade, and due to the traits of the Body Path system, they kept progressing without limits.’ Problem was that a natural living being only had enough Soul to reach Expert Gold Grade.
What did it mean when they could cross that threshold? It meant this existence was able to tap into the infinite transcendental inert mass that existed in the cosmos to rattle it, and funnel the generated astral sea into themselves.
Someone with such capability was able to gather enough astral sea that...their lifespan was ever expanding.
’These individuals are pretty much what Brimgan had gathered clues about, those in the Sandbox Universe that stand even above Brangara.’ His Billakin arms pulsed with a sharper presence as Inala jumped straight into the middle of the Brully group to exchange a flurry of punches, ’Being who, in their continents, had an infinite time to train and progress through the Mystic Grade without issues.’
Such cases only appeared in Continents with a developed power system, where the aspects of the body, mind, and soul had been fully explored, and all the natives had entered the Gold Grade.
When all the natives had reached the Gold Grade, the Continent reached a status of being ’Developed.’ And among those Continents, the ones whose natives had, without exception, reached Expert Gold Grade, were considered as Mature Continents.
And only in such Continents were there cases—so few that they could be counted on one hand even across the entirety of the Sandbox Universe—where a Pranic Beast surpassed their natural limit and entered the Mystic Grade. Without exception, they became existences with limitless power and potential, having surpassed the power system itself.
Such existences were given a fearsome prefix—Celestial!
’Sumatra’s home Continent is a Mature Continent.’ Inala recalled the time he exited Sumatra in an effort to gather information. Even though it wasn’t obvious, there were clues and rumours related to Sumatra’s home continent that was on its way. ’And the rumours state it has one such existence, within the Continent.’
A Celestial!
This existence never became a Transcendent, for Transcendents cannot grow. However, this existence was capable of infinite growth, possessing an infinite lifespan.
It became the Continent’s strongest sword and shield, giving the Continent enough confidence to go on a hunt for its Child Continents. It devoured the Child Continents and grew in size, causing more and more races to appear.
Its Blessed Race continued to spawn on the Continent and generate a steady stream of Mystic Transcendents, while the Celestial remained as an absolute defence within the Continent.
’If this conjecture is right,’ Inala’s hands turned into a blur as he began to spontaneously change their shape during the fight. Claws, hammer, whip, etc., he constantly changed them to target his opponents better. ’Then the reason Sumatra’s Home Continent is attempting to target us is just one.’
And whenever he had the choice, he created a syringe to stab into the chest of a Brully and suck out its heart for consumption. This was how he recovered his Prana efficiently, for the Brully group was rapidly evolving by observing his tactics and beating him up more and more.
"Brangara..." Inala muttered softly, ’He’s not experienced enough to survive a Celestial that has spent an infinite duration of time to train. He’ll be consumed.’
’And Sumatra’s Home Continent will replace its Blessed Race with the Celestial Boar.’ It was a horrifying conjecture. ’Wait, that doesn’t seem right.’
’How are Blessed Races created? Does it follow some rule? It probably does.’ Inala frowned, ’That rule is probably tied to the Continent’s existence or authority. That’s why every Continent has a Blessed Race.’
’Then,’ Inala’s face paled as he understood the true reality of the Continental Invasion, "Oh...shit."
A Continent could swallow any Continent that had a parent-child or vice-versa relationship with it. Doing so, it gains all the Continent’s accumulations, including its authority, which basically results in...
"A second Blessed Race..." Inala raised his hand in a hurry as spontaneously, the golden humanoids intercepted the fight, locked up the Brully group, and transported them away. ’Then, depending on the number of Continents it has devoured, it will have as many Blessed Races.’
’And in Sumatra’s case, Sumatra’s Home Continent will devour it and probably has some method to swap the Blessed Race status of Mystic Empyrean Tentacle on Sumatra to the Celestial Boar.’ Inala sweated in worry.
He plopped on the ground and closed his eyes, appearing before the grey tower in the mind space, "Have you read my thoughts?"
"I’m seeing them," The Royal Zinger pointed at the respective data cluster, "I’m afraid your conjecture is right. It makes perfect logical sense."
"Then isn’t destroying Turnip our easiest bet?" Inala asked, "If it’s gone, Sumatra’s Home Continent will lose its reason to travel a probably incomprehensible distance to reach us."
In response, the Royal Zinger only eyed Inala calmly, "You already know the answer."
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