Chapter 253: Separation
Cheng Mu held the Kong Xuanjing in his left hand, simultaneously activating the Spirit Art he had learned beforehand to shift his vision, allowing him to perceive the existence of Faith Power.
In his sight, the entire world was a boundless expanse of pale red, a crimson mist permeating every corner of the venue, constantly being swallowed by the crystal on Bai Mo's chest.
"Based on my current observations, the quality of Faith Power can roughly be divided into seven categories, ranging from low to high and appearing in seven colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and purple. All red is within expectations."
"It's begun."
Holding the crystal, Cheng Mu watched as the red mist, everywhere his vision reached, began to roil and boil, no longer scattered, but gradually surging towards him.
"This isn't your power. If you don't want to become a god held hostage by Faith Power, don't try to use it," Bai Mo instructed him, all the while using his mental power to control the Faith Power throughout the venue.
"Understood."
As the red mist continuously surged in, Cheng Mu felt a subtle change begin in the Kong Xuanjing in his hand, as if a new world was being born within it.
He quickly followed the previously instructed steps, continuously pouring his mental power along with the red mist into it.
The soft chanting of a single person might sound like nothing, but what about ten thousand people, or a million? The low hum of sound waves continuously impacted the cultivators present.
Ordinary people had long been instructed to wear protective headphones, so aside from feeling a continuous, gentle stroking sensation on the fine hairs of their skin, they didn't experience much discomfort.
The martial artists, led by Zhang Xu, began meditating to the side, trying their utmost to contend with the sound waves permeating heaven and earth, seeking an opportunity for a breakthrough.
Battling against man, battling against earth, battling against heaven—tempering their will had become an integral part of these martial artists' lives.
Bai Mo used his terrifying mental power to continuously drive the red mist towards Cheng Mu. During this time, the Soul Crystal on his chest also voraciously swallowed the surrounding Faith Power, but what it actually absorbed was nothing more than a drop in the ocean.
Four hours later, even with the supplement of numerous medicinal potions, Cheng Mu felt his mental power had reached its limit and ceased his self-exertion.
He stepped into this small world under his control, then closed the portal, sat cross-legged inside, and closed his eyes, carefully sensing everything around him.
The entire divine kingdom now felt like a part of his body, yet controlling it was still incredibly clumsy, like a toddler just learning to walk on their own two feet.
"The feeling of power is truly wonderful." Even though he couldn't yet perfectly control this domain, the surging power within it still filled him with longing. Cheng Mu now truly understood why Chen Bo and the others had increasingly looked down on him; the disparity in power was simply too vast. Comparing an adult to an infant wasn't even enough to describe the difference between these two levels.
However, despite his excitement, he hadn't forgotten the main task. So far, he had only completed the first stage of deification.
Bai Mo stood in place, casually waiting for the divine kingdom's portal to reopen. After several hours of continuous, high-intensity use of his mental power, he had inadvertently let a few strands of white light escape his control when he suddenly relaxed, allowing them to dart into the crowd.
"Can it be used as a stimulant?" He watched as the white light shone into the bodies of several ordinary people, their provided Faith Power gradually changing from the red of transactional pseudo-believers to a light tinged with orange.
"Bathed in small amounts of this light, thoughts do become more active, and there are no side effects like with stimulants."
"The activation of thought brings mental pleasure; this should be the fundamental reason for the change in the level of faith."
Seeing this, he cautiously loosened his restraint on the white light, letting faint rays scatter onto more people. Slowly, a circle of orange began to appear around him, strikingly conspicuous in the sea of red.
Among those observing the ceremony from the stage, there were naturally many cultivators who could perceive Faith Power, and they were all extremely curious about this situation.
As an atheistic nation, when conducting such a ceremony, it was theoretically impossible for the orange light, representing shallow believers, to appear on such a large scale as it was now.
"Will staring directly at him kill us?" Chen Bo keenly noticed that the light emanating from Bai Mo seemed to have brightened slightly, and the center of the appearing orange light was precisely him. He couldn't help but recall Bai Mo's previous words.
Just as the orange light continued to spread, a void suddenly appeared in mid-air.
The void was, of course, the portal to the divine kingdom. The divine kingdom's essence was a sub-dimension extended using the Kong Xuanjing. After Cheng Mu refined the Kong Xuanjing with his mental power, he began the continuous process of merging with the sub-dimension.
Once the portal opened, Bai Mo's active guidance was no longer needed; the divine kingdom, having undergone preliminary refinement, could now proactively absorb Faith Power.
The mixed orange and red mist was continuously swallowed by this seemingly insatiable maw...
The pure mental power, refined multiple times by the divine kingdom, was guided by Cheng Mu into his body. At this moment, he felt his body undergoing truly earth-shattering changes, and his soul gradually felt an impulse to leave his physical form.
Following Bai Mo's prior warning, he did not resist this impulse. The separation of the soul from the body, and its subsequent transformation into a Divine Soul, was a necessary step.
After the soul separated from its shell, the soul was strengthened into a Divine Soul, and the physical body was transformed into a Divine Body. This seventy-something-year-old man, for the first time, saw his own body from the most unique perspective.
Bai Mo sensed that everything was normal inside, meaning that after the successful deification, he began his further experiments during the time Cheng Mu spent strengthening and organizing himself.
He slowly ascended into mid-air, to a height of about fifty meters, completely releasing the Xuanhua barrier, leaving only A Thousand Miles in a Foot as a spatial buffer, allowing the gentle white light to shine upon most of the people.
The cultivators in the venue instinctively tried to resist these unknown white lights, but to their surprise, they found that none of their ingrained, trigger-activated defensive Spirit Arts had taken effect. It was as harmless and friendly as sunlight.
After the martial artists behind Zhang Xu were imbued by the white light, each of them felt their thoughts become more active. Many cultivation problems that had plagued them daily now found answers, and the comfortable sensation made them feel blissful, instinctively wanting to move closer to Bai Mo.
"What do you think you're doing?!" He had witnessed this kind of invisible, lethal, soft light two years ago. So, after waking the others, he charged forward and questioned Bai Mo.
"Just conducting a small experiment, nothing will happen. In fact, they're getting a good deal," Bai Mo continued his experiment. He wanted to know if, without killing anyone, the orange Faith Power could ascend another tier and become the yellow light representing true believers.
He was only concerned with the ordinary people participating in the chanting. As for the cultivators present, they were temporarily outside the scope of Bai Mo's research..
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