Chapter 203: Earthly God
With Bai Mo's words, many members of the Martial Arts Symposium present stared intently at Hua Taishan, as if he were a rare treasure, making his heart pound with unease.
The main reason, of course, was that the Xingyi Dao was not without its dangers; only a little over thirty people had succeeded, and most of them couldn't achieve Hua Taishan's level of effortless control. Thus, he became a "heavenly material and earthly treasure" in everyone's eyes.
Other successful cultivators were also quickly surrounded by people trying to curry favor.
"Elder Hua, might you be free tomorrow...?" Someone quickly piped up.
"That Bai lad has only just proposed the idea. What we need to do next is quantitatively explore it and determine the appropriate intensity for the will trial."
"If not for his special abilities, with the output I just demonstrated, not many here would have survived." Hua Taishan seized the opportunity to display his power, subtly warning everyone not to bother him.
"Elder Hua makes a good point, don't you all agree?"
"Right!"
"Now that we have a beginning, there's no rush for many things; safety comes first..." After being warned, many opportunistic individuals immediately shifted their tone.
"Yes, sir!"
"A troublesome bunch, these people."
He also knew that blindly expanding the Martial Arts Symposium would lead to many problems, but Hua Changjiang, to counter the increasingly aggressive new ability user faction, could only continually apply pressure, forcing the symposium to rapidly swell. This ultimately resulted in a mixed bag of members, with a swarm of petty individuals eager to seize any advantage.
"It's estimated that the Spirit Energy Network system in Tianzhong City will be formally completed in another ten months. The proliferation speed of Primal Matter is still too slow; even with twenty years of natural growth, it wouldn't be enough to cover the entire Huaxia Federation's network usage."
According to Bai Mo's plan, the Primal Matter that constituted his existence would, as the network project expanded, continuously spread to every city, eventually enveloping the entire Huaxia Federation.
Then, using the almost countless amplifying resonance runes within the network, coupled with spirit-energy machinery as leverage, and a large number of newly constructed nuclear power plants as energy sources, he would ultimately realize his vision of magnifying his abilities tens of thousands of times within the network's coverage area.
Once the plan succeeded, he would transform the entire Huaxia Federation into his own personal "Blessed Land," becoming a true "Earth Immortal" and an "Earthly God."
He would completely control the Huaxia Federation with absolute strength, not relative strength, thereby initiating the next phase of his leap-forward plan.
But then, a problem arose: the current quantity of Primal Matter he possessed was clearly far from sufficient to support his massive plan. Calculated at a ratio of one to three thousand, all the Primal Matter he currently had was only enough to lay down the Spirit Energy Network for two cities.
In a year, the Spirit Energy Network in Tianzhong City would begin its acceptance testing. Bai Mo couldn't imagine any possibility of the testing failing. However, according to the overall project schedule, after confirming the success of Tianzhong as a pilot, the second phase would commence network construction simultaneously in eight cities, at which point a shortage of Primal Matter would emerge.
"I hadn't expected that cultivating acupoints would lead to the proliferation of Primal Matter..." This had initially been an unintentional experiment on his part, but the result was unexpected, alleviating the issue of insufficient Primal Matter to some extent.
The total amount of Primal Matter was not only related to the aforementioned plan but also a direct manifestation of Bai Mo's power level.
Accordingly, the more Primal Matter he possessed, the stronger his various abilities became, and he hadn't yet found any limits to its growth. This was also one of the reasons he intended to shift his focus from the Spirit Hub System to this new Acupoint system.
"Energy that improves the body, surging forth from an indescribable place within..." For the next few days, he pondered this matter constantly, driven by curiosity to understand the true source of this energy.
...
"Could it be vacuum zero-point energy?" He deliberated back and forth, and compared to other hypotheses, only this explanation seemed less mystical. This form of energy, existing only in theory, could be considered a relatively reasonable conjecture, yet Bai Mo found no way to verify it.
"Following this deduction, the cultivation method for acupoints would involve seizing vacuum zero-point energy at the moment of breaking through a bottleneck, and then utilizing the acquired energy to improve the body..."
"But this brings up another problem: if they are both energy, why can only vacuum zero-point energy achieve the effect of body tempering... while simply electrocuting oneself only leads to an electrical accident?"
Bai Mo thought long and hard, feeling as though he had stepped into a deep pit and was sinking further. He decided to temporarily bypass this problem and directly begin his cultivation of acupoints and the Xingyi Dao.
"You possess an incomparably powerful mental force, but you lack the martial artist's indomitable, never-retreating fighting spirit." A month later, after a private sparring session with Bai Mo, Hua Taishan gave this assessment. "Honestly, cultivating the martial path isn't your best choice."
"I'm just someone who only fights crushing victories..." He spread his hands helplessly. "I'll never engage in battles where the weak overcome the strong. Constantly gambling on such low-probability events will eventually lead to death."
"Everyone has their own aspirations; it's not something that can be forced."
"If my estimation isn't wrong, simply by sparring with you, I can probably open up to the fifth acupoint."
After this sparring session with Hua Taishan, he successfully opened another acupoint, but the difficulty had clearly increased significantly compared to the last time.
"Have you ever tried to specifically guide that energy to optimize a certain part of your body?" Bai Mo suddenly asked.
"Yes, but I found it had little significance. Generally, letting nature take its course is the best optimization for the body. Simply strengthening one part can easily cause imbalance, reducing overall combat effectiveness instead."
Bai Mo said no more, for he had used most of the energy he obtained the second time for the proliferation of Primal Matter. The total amount of Primal Matter had increased by nearly a third, while his physical strength had barely progressed.
"The fifth acupoint is already quite good. Among my disciples, only three currently exceed that number." Hua Taishan was quite open-minded now and no longer incessantly urged Bai Mo to delve into this 'pit'.
"Your Dharma Body is quite strange, though." He felt his previous words weren't entirely appropriate, so he decided to change the topic.
"Is it very strange?"
"All the ones I know are fierce beasts. For example, my Dharma Body is a White Tiger. That boy Li Luo's is also a tiger, and that old geezer Zhen Yao's is a Qilin. Only yours is a starry sky."
"I think it's quite grand and pleasant to look at."
After hearing Bai Mo's words, Hua Taishan didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "In my vision, the next step for the Xingyi Dao is to turn the illusory into reality, allowing the Dharma Body to influence the real world. Your starry sky is vast enough, but it lacks practical combat significance."
"My current pillar is still the abilities granted by the Spirit Hub System. As for the Dharma Body, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."
Comments