Chapter 1204: The Sea of Sundered Heaven and Earth
After drifting in the Star Sea for ten thousand years, even without suffering a civilizational collapse, the theoretical understanding of cultivation on the Mysterious Immortal Boat had stagnated completely.
Every realm they encountered was shattered, with only the destructive remnants of True Immortal Scripts echoing through the star-strewn void. As the saying goes, you make do with what you have. Thus, the people of the Mysterious Immortal Boat had wagered their entire future on studying this devastating power, neglecting all other aspects of cultivation.
Compared to the trial-hardened Xuanhuang Realm, they were lagging by more than just a small margin.
At the very least, the various ingenious techniques born from the extreme environment of the Xuanhuang Realm, where the same law could not be cultivated by multiple people, were all astoundingly brilliant in the eyes of the Mysterious Immortal Boat's cultivators.
With the vast repository of the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance's techniques as his foundation, Li Fan's clone swiftly identified the perfect cultivation path for Zhao Xian. Of course, from Zhao Xian's perspective, this was merely one of the countless techniques deduced by the Dao Proving Academy's Deduction Jade in the future.
"The Spirit God Harmony Technique. A divine art suitable for cultivation even when resources are exceptionally scarce. It achieves a perfect synergy between spiritual sense and spiritual power, allowing the stronger of the two to be converted to supplement the weaker one."
"The spiritual power supplied within the academy is severely limited; it's barely enough to get me to the Golden Core stage. Advancing any further is simply impossible. But with this, I can use secret arts to enhance my spiritual sense, and then use that growth to drive an increase in my spiritual power..."
"In the academy's exchange catalog, the items needed for those secret arts are far less valuable than spirit stones."
As Zhao Xian fretted over his bottleneck, a flash of insight struck him, and more memories from that strange dream of the future surfaced. Brimming with excitement, he immediately spent all the contribution points he had accumulated over the years, exchanging them for the materials required to temper his spiritual sense.
Zhao Xian used flames to smelt and melt these common mind-calming sundries from the Immortal Boat into a glistening liquid. Then, like a whale drawing in the sea, he guided the concoction into his sea of consciousness.
A searing wave of heat threatened to incinerate his spiritual sense in an instant.
After a brief moment of mental blankness, Zhao Xian found that he had somehow adapted to the intense heat. At the same time, the strength of his spiritual sense began to increase at a tangible rate.
"This is truly a peerless technique!" Zhao Xian marveled internally.
However, what Zhao Xian didn't know was that his fragile Qi Refining stage spiritual sense had only survived such a violent smelting process thanks to the protection of Li Fan's clone.
In fact, the vast majority of the concoction's efficacy had been absorbed and refined by Li Fan's clone. After all, Zhao Xian's cultivation was only at the late Qi Refining stage; a mere sliver of that power was more than enough to ensure his spiritual sense grew steadily.
When Zhao Xian awoke from his cultivation, he felt that the strength of his spiritual sense had nearly multiplied several times over, already reaching the level of a mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Compared to this "immense" spiritual power, his spiritual energy cultivation seemed rather frail.
It felt like a giant trying to manipulate a child's toy.
Suppressing the elation bubbling within him, Zhao Xian quickly activated the Spirit God Harmony Technique. An invisible millstone seemed to materialize in his sea of consciousness, grinding his spiritual sense into a fine, pure energy that nourished his body.
Without absorbing any external spiritual energy, Zhao Xian's cultivation base began to surge at an astonishing rate.
Finally, after three days, his spiritual sense and spiritual power reached a balance at the early Foundation Establishment stage.
"I... I've successfully established my foundation?"
Coming back to his senses, Zhao Xian stared at his hands in utter disbelief.
"That breakthrough was far too easy. I didn't feel any of the inner demons or bottlenecks my master and the academy seniors warned about."
"Now that I'm at the Foundation Establishment stage, my clearance within the academy has risen significantly. I can exchange for more resources. My cultivation speed will be even faster than before..."
He was, after all, still a young man. Fantasizing about the future, Zhao Xian found it difficult to contain his excitement.
In the end, it was the image of the Immortal Boat's destruction from his "dream" that pulled him back to reality.
"The path ahead is long. I still have a great distance to cover. I mustn't become complacent."
While Zhao Xian contemplated how to best leverage his "foreknowledge" to climb the ranks quickly...
Li Fan's clone was replaying the scene of Zhao Xian's breakthrough in his mind.
It wasn't that Zhao Xian hadn't encountered an obstacle during his breakthrough; it was simply that Li Fan had blocked it for him.
"That fluctuation that appeared from nowhere, striking directly at the heart."
"It wasn't a True Immortal Script. It was the Heavenly Dao of the Star Sea..."
At that moment, outside the Mysterious Immortal Boat, the Holy Embryo Li Fan felt a sudden resonance.
His body was in direct contact with this space, so full of silent desolation. Throughout his journey across the Darkest Star Sea, the Holy Embryo Li Fan had already understood that this region shared the same fundamental Dao laws as the Xuanhuang Realm. In fact, its upper limit was even higher.
His Sword Dao, which had reached its peak in the Xuanhuang Realm, had unknowingly broken through its former bottleneck during his transit through the Star Sea, reaching a new height.
And the bottleneck that manifested as the "Heavenly Disaster" in the Xuanhuang Realm took on a different form in the Darkest Star Sea.
"It urges one to return to the Dao, to let all ambition turn to ash. A mere breakthrough from the peak of Qi Refining carried such power. If I hadn't experienced so much, if my heart wasn't tempered far beyond that of an ordinary person..."
"I might have needed to use the Immortal Heart Mantra to resolve it," the Holy Embryo Li Fan thought with a sense of gravity.
Amidst the illusions carried by that formless wave, the Holy Embryo Li Fan seemed to witness scenes of himself breaking through successfully, only to endure endless hardships and ultimately perish in one calamity after another.
No matter how hard he struggled, failure was the only outcome.
"Better to return to the Dao, return to the Dao..."
The thought echoed like a siren's call in his sea of consciousness, persuading him to abandon cultivation.
"The Heavenly Dao of this Darkest Star Sea is quite interesting. It bears some resemblance to the ancient inner demons described in the texts of the Xuanhuang Realm."
"From this small glimpse, I can infer that although this Star Sea has been torn to shreds by the power of True Immortal Scripts, its fundamental, underlying operations are still intact."
As the Holy Embryo Li Fan pondered, his perspective suddenly widened, as if he could see a far vaster world beyond the Xuanhuang Realm, a world that enveloped it.
Even though this world was sundered and incomplete, it offered Li Fan new avenues for comprehending the principles of existence.
He once again savored the contents of the Heavenly Doctor's Heaven Mending Record.
"If the Xuanhuang Realm's condition is akin to a terminally ill, reanimated corpse stitched together from disparate parts, then this Darkest Star Sea is a body long dead, the majority of its form pulverized by immense force, with only shattered limbs and fragments remaining..."
"The Xuanhuang Realm might still be salvageable, but this Darkest Star Sea is utterly beyond hope."
"Of course," he mused, "that is from the perspective of the Heavenly Doctor at the time the Heaven Mending Record was written."
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