As Aksai continued his conversation with Haitin, his mind drifted to the worlds he had explored—the Martial World Sharang and Acarnis.
Haitin’s mention of Spirit cultivators plundering lesser worlds stirred something within him, bringing back memories of the corrupted druids he had encountered in Sharang.
‘So the Spirit cultivators are truly seen as invaders, pillagers, in those other worlds? What do the Spirit cultivators get by doing something like that? They are clearly not after the paths of power found in the lesser worlds. Otherwise, the body cultivation path wouldn’t be seen as an inferior path.’
Aksai had many questions in his head but he couldn’t ask them. After all, he couldn’t explain the origin of the knowledge his questions were based on. As such, he pondered silently in his head.
The corrupted druids in Sharang were a perfect example of what Haitin had hinted at. Despite the martial prowess of Sharang’s inhabitants, they had been unable to stand against the druids’ Spirit spells.
Aksai remembered how the druid harnessed elemental energies effortlessly, conjuring elemental Spirit spells and a druid-based puppet technique to subdue his foes. No matter how skilled the martial artists were, they couldn’t withstand the raw force of nature being manipulated against them.
A single well-cast flame spell could burn through the toughest martial body, and a stone-fist spell could pulverize even the most well-conditioned warrior.
‘The strength of the body wasn’t enough in the face of that kind of power. Or rather, the strength levels of Copper Body Realm and Argent Body Realm were too shallow,’ Aksai thought.
He recalled seeing tree devils encased in Spirit artifact armor, compensating for their relatively fragile bodies. Their defensive spells created protective barriers around them, and alchemical solutions could temporarily enhance their strength or resilience.
No amount of raw physical training could keep up with those temporary boosts. For the martial artists of Sharang, it was a losing battle. The corrupted druids were like tyrants, dictating the very elements of the world while the denizens fought back with nothing but their fists, swords, and skills.
It wasn’t just Sharang either. The alien invaders in Acarnis operated similarly, using their advanced cultivation methods to overpower the locals, who relied on more primitive forms of energy. Spirit cultivators, like those Haitin spoke of, could decimate entire regions with their superior techniques. Aksai couldn’t help but see a pattern here—one where the Spirit cultivators of powerful worlds exerted control over weaker ones.
‘Is this how it always is?’
Aksai wondered, as he tried to reconcile his understanding of Spirit cultivation with its more destructive side.
Haitin’s voice cut through his thoughts, and Aksai returned his focus to the conversation at hand. They had moved on to more mundane topics, discussing cultivation resources and techniques, but Aksai’s mind lingered on the broader implications.
He looked at Haitin with a newfound perspective—this man, with his deep knowledge and connections, represented a piece of a much larger and more ruthless system of cultivation that spanned worlds.
Aksai hadn’t voiced any of these thoughts, but his mind was racing. If the Spirit cultivators were as domineering as they seemed, what did that mean for the paths he himself was exploring?
He was dabbling in Spirit cultivation, Aether cultivation, and now body cultivation. Was he just on the edge of becoming one of those invaders, stepping into worlds and taking what he wanted? Will he eventually come across a true monster in the 6th Spirit realm if he continues to explore the otherworlds?
Aksai knew one thing for certain—power was everything in this universe, and the Spirit cultivators wielded it like no other. But do the other paths have no future at all?
Aksai felt that the path of Spirit cultivation seemed more powerful and profound because it had been diversified by an uncountable number of Spirit cultivators of the previous generations. The other paths didn’t have such privilege. Or rather, the paths related to other forms of energy found in the lesser worlds didn’t have such privilege.
For example, the Devil’s Den that the corrupted druid had used to trap the citizens of an entire city was nothing but a well-formed array formation. That formation had been a nightmare for the martial artists trapped inside it, sealing them in a web of complex, otherworldly Spirit-essence-based techniques.
To the denizens of Sharang, it was something they couldn’t even begin to decipher, let alone counter. If Aksai hadn’t intervened, knowing enough about array formations and how to manipulate Spirit spells, the druid would’ve succeeded in using the martial artists as nothing more than fuel for his own growth.
The situation had been dire, and yet, Aksai had managed to dismantle the Devil’s Den. The druid had underestimated him, assuming the martial world’s primitive knowledge of arrays and Spirit cultivation techniques would be his undoing.
And then there was Acarnis.
To be honest, Acarnis was faring better against its invaders than Sharang. The denizens of Acarnis, with their Aether-based cultivation, were not as helpless as the martial artists in Sharang. They fought back fiercely, using their own version of arrays, spells, and artifacts powered by Aether essence.
But even there, Aksai couldn’t help but see a pattern—the Spirit cultivators, who had appeared like invaders from some distant realm, still managed to suppress the local cultivators with relative ease.
‘Is Spirit cultivation inherently superior?’ Aksai pondered this as his conversation with Haitin meandered over less critical topics.
But deep down, he already knew the answer.
It wasn’t that Spirit cultivation was inherently better than the paths based on Qi energy or Aether essence. Aksai knew that much.
The Spirit cultivators weren’t suppressing these other worlds because they were stronger by virtue of their cultivation path alone. Instead, it was their advanced civilization—one that had spent millennia refining and perfecting the path of Spirit cultivation—that gave them the upper hand.
Their techniques, their arrays, their artifacts, were all backed by an ancient, deeply rooted history that stretched back millions of years.
In contrast, the Martial World Sharang had only known martial arts for a few thousand years at best.
Two or three millennia was impressive, but when compared to Dadangar’s millions of years of Spirit cultivation heritage, it was nothing more than a footnote in the grand scheme of things.