“If we manage martial artists like enlisting them into the army, managing their meals, their livelihood, and cultivation resources will lead to a huge expense. It’s too big of a burden when there’s no war, and we can’t just disband them once again.
Once they are disbanded, these martial artists will cause chaos everywhere, potentially becoming bandits and a scourge to the people.
Therefore, the Royal Court needs to utilize martial artists to eradicate demons but also must control their numbers. Balancing these two is a complex issue that involves countless brilliant strategies and tactics, which are too numerous to fully describe.”
“All things resemble Yin and Yang, but maintaining balance is difficult,”
Li Hao said.
Governing the world is not his forte; that requires understanding people’s hearts.
And once you completely understand people’s hearts, life becomes inevitably dull.
He could endure the loneliness of drinking alone, but he could not endure a dull life.
Hearing Li Hao’s words, Xia Linglong’s eyes flickered with thought, and then she looked deeply at the young man and whispered softly, “Haotian General, please, you can look inside as many days as you wish, as long as you promise it will never be disclosed.”
“I will not fail this trust from the Head of the Xia family,”
Li Hao responded.
He then walked into Lingyuan Pavilion.
The pavilion was filled with manuals of cultivation skills, similar in setup to Listening Rain Tower.
He did not delay much, swiftly flipping through the books, one by one, and collecting them into his panel.
Originally, he selected cultivation skill manuals selectively for storage, but now he didn’t have much time to deduce which were completely redundant, so he decided to store first.
Besides taking up names, there was no downside to storing them in the panel.
Since the battle in Qingzhou City where he killed the incarnations of the two Desolate Gods, Li Hao had been on high alert; although he was now in the Grand Tao of Peace Realm, within the Dayu Divine Dynasty, there were only one person overtly and possibly no more than three covertly, who could defeat him.
But those two original Desolate Gods were in the Tao Comprehension Realm!
Yet, they’d delayed their attack on the Dayu Divine Dynasty, instead using demonic forces from other realms to restrain, likely planning to remain hidden if it were not for his intervention.
If they truly wanted to invade the Dayu Divine Dynasty, they only needed to kill Emperor and slaughter the Imperial Family to directly nest in their place, starting with attacks from the Imperial Capital, and destroying the five Divine General Mansions; this would be the optimal route.
If they hadn’t done so, it wasn’t from stupidity, but inability.
It might be because the True Person from Gan Tao Palace was too powerful, or perhaps the unseen strength within the Dayu Divine Dynasty deterred them, still needing external forces to draw them out.
Now, having killed those two incarnations of the Desolate Gods, they would surely see him as a thorn in their side; merely facing the incarnations was horrifying enough, and Li Hao wasn’t sure he could win against their true bodies, thus increasing his strength would provide him a better chance.
At that moment, as he collected every book on cultivation skills, the Body Refining Techniques were no exception, Li Hao stored them all in his panel.
From the Eighth Stage Physical Body Dao, he extrapolated the Body Refining Techniques, upgrading the low to mid-grade skills to superior, and superior ones to peerless, then merging them to create more superior skills.
As each cultivation manual was collected, a stream of information flooded into Li Hao’s mind, but with his current physical strength, he could easily assimilate it.
Dozens, hundreds, thousands of books!
Every cultivation manual in Lingyuan Pavilion was collected by Li Hao as he wandered through, storing them all in his panel.
Among these techniques, Li Hao discovered most were oriented towards Refining the Spirit and Object Control.
There weren’t many Body Refining Techniques; Swordsmanship, Fist Skill, and Knife Skill type techniques also weren’t plentiful.
Li Hao had heard before that the five Divine General Mansions each had their specialties; the Li Family studied diverse skills, the Xia Family specialized in refining the spirit, and the Wang Family had bizarre cultivation techniques, adept in cultivating avatars and controlling puppet mechanisms.
In the Divine Traveling Realm and the Fifteen Li Realm, people from the Xia Family were generally stronger than those from other Divine General Mansions.
Their strongest Divine Spirit Cultivation Skill was nearly on par with the Imperial Family’s.
The same was true for their Object Controlling Qi Circulation Skills.
This gave Li Hao an unexpected pleasure, feeling he had come to the right place.
As multiple Divine Spirit Cultivation Manuals were collected, quickly assimilated by his Seven Stage Imperial Path, the energy of his Divine Soul started to climb slowly, then more rapidly.
Immediately, Li Hao enveloped himself with the Dao Domain, isolating any aura, and began cultivating cross-legged on the spot.
His Divine Soul manifested behind him, like a golden War God, his whole body burning with flames, refining his Divine Soul.
The top peerless Soul Refining Skill from the great families could refine the spirit up to twenty Li.
The Royal Family’s top Soul Refining Skill, however, extended to thirty Li.
Originally, Li Hao possessed three top Soul Refinement Skills from the Li Family, plus Feng had helped him steal the Number One Spirit Refinement Skill from the Royal Family, allowing his Divine Soul to cultivate up to an extent where he could Divine Travel fifty Li.
Now having cultivated to the Four Stands Realm, his Divine Soul naturally strengthened, allowing him to effortlessly travel out to a hundred Li.
However, this distance relied on his Dao Thoughts, as well as the shaping of the Divine Soul during realm advancement; setting aside these enhancements, his limit in the Divine Traveling Realm was still fifty Li.
And to extend the limits of the Divine Traveling Realm to its maximum, Li Hao guessed, required at least a hundred Li.
At this moment, as multiple Soul Refining Skills extrapolated, Li Hao cultivated on the spot, his Divine Soul forming seals, enveloped by Divine Fire. Explore more stories with empire
This was all confined within the Dao Domain, even the temperature didn’t escape.
As he continued his cultivation, Li Hao’s Divine Soul also transformed, absorbing the roaming lunar energy of the heavens and the earth, refining and repairing his spirit.
Soul Refining Cultivation, similar to demons ingesting the essence of the sun and moon for their cultivation, but while most demons, aside from those with special talents, could only absorb moon essence—because it was gentle while solar essence was fierce and could burn the spirit when absorbed—Li Hao now, with his enhanced Divine Soul, absorbed both solar and lunar energies, his Divine Soul ablaze with an intensely hot Divine Yang flame, exuding a terrifying aura.