Chapter 633 – Impacting the Bottleneck
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“This is an ancient Supreme Elder’s battle spirit!”
The instant that Lin Ming entered the blood red world of will, he could feel a faint coercive pressure. Although this pressure wasn’t too obvious, it still brought with it a vast and wild energy that caused the mind to shake with fear!
It was very obvious that, because such a long span of time had passed, the ancient Great Emperor’s battle spirit had already weakened to the point of being pathetic. Otherwise, how could Lin Ming have possibly captured it?
Thinking of this, Lin Ming sighed, a bit gloomily. No wonder how powerful one was before death, no matter how heaven-shaking or earth-shattering, after death, they were nothing but ashes that returned to the earth. The body rotted, their energy concentrating into a Demon God Bone. As for the battle spirit, although it was in a sense endlessly enduring, after tens of thousands of years or even hundreds of thousands of years, it would slowly weaken, in the end becoming simply ‘nothing’.
Lin Ming wondered. If one could reach the highest boundaries of martial arts, could they break through the cycle of Samsara and live in perpetuity?
Lin Ming knew that, regardless of the Supreme Elder that had developed ‘Golden Roc Shattering the Void’, or the Saintess that was sleeping deep within the Magic Cube, neither of them had been able to fully step onto the peak of martial arts. He wondered, did the Evil God that created the Heretical God Force ever reach such a boundary?
Lin Ming had steeled his heart and soul to climb to the peak of martial arts. A big portion of the reason for this was because he wanted to take a peek at the pinnacle of martial arts and see just what it was like.
A red energy gathered in front of Lin Ming, forming an incomparably fierce demon.
Demonshine’s voice sounded out in Lin Ming’s mind, “This is the evil spirit that absorbed the ancient Emperor Will and evolved to this state. Although it was born from the womb of the ancient Great Emperor, the truth is that it has no relationship to them. Extinguish it, and use it to temper your battle spirit!”
Not only could the Blood Demon Bone help a martial artist break through a bottleneck, but it can even be used to temper the will. This was a rare treasure. If it wasn’t for this point, then Demonshine wouldn’t have been tempted by it to begin with.
After the red evil spirit formed, it rushed towards Lin Ming. Lin Ming’s mind stirred, and the Purple Comet Spear appeared. Thunderfire sparkled on the spear point, and with a sizzling sound, that blood red evil spirit was stabbed by a spear light. In the world of will, the battle spirit was king. The complete Blood Demon Bone wasn’t even Lin Ming’s match, much less this incomplete form in front of him.
A faint trace of red light escaped. Without hesitation, Lin Ming absorbed all of these energies into his will body. He saw these faint traces of red will intrude into his spiritual sea, clawing towards his soul.
With it, a violent and tyrannical consciousness flooded Lin Ming’s consciousness.
“Incorporate this energy, erase its soul mark, and turn it into the purest soul energy to absorb.” Demonshine reminded Lin Ming. The truth was that Lin Ming didn’t need a reminder, he already knew what to do. With his battle spirit gradually forming, his consciousness was as stable as a mountain. Swallowing this will would only be a matter of time.
With his consciousness linked to his spiritual sea, in the skies above Lin Ming’s spiritual sea, the faint traces of red energy were spinning around the tiny spear that was his battle spirit, constantly being absorbed into it.
Time passed second by second. From its illusory, translucent appearance, the little spear became increasingly solid. Its entire body seemed to take on a metallic color as if it were being formed from ancient bronze.
A day later, this spear completely formed, with only some missing parts at the end of the spear shaft.
Lin Ming was aware of the changes in his battle spirit. Using his mind to connect to his battle spirit, the little spear fiercely trembled, as if it didn’t want to be suppressed, wanting to rush out of Lin Ming’s spiritual sea instead.
“Good young man!” Demonshine couldn’t help but praise out loud, “Your cultivation hasn’t reached Revolving Core and yet your battle spirit has passed its elementary form and is rapidly taking shape! You are truly a monstrous genius! To form a complete battle spirit before Revolving Core, this can’t be done with just talent or any sort of heavenly treasures, none of that is sufficient. What you would need is an incomparably formidable will!”
In terms of willpower, there was no need to mention Lin Ming’s heart of martial arts. In addition, he had repeatedly swallowed the soul fragments of the Magic Cube and even had the Samsara martial intent helping him. In this aspect, the martial artists of the Holy Demon Continent were all left in the dust by him. In fact, even the geniuses of the Realm of the Gods would find it hard to compare.
Lin Ming remained silent, not saying a word. He clenched his teeth, completing the final tempering of the battle spirit. At the end of the spear shaft where it was incomplete, the wisps of energy were constantly solidifying it.
After two hours, the battle spirit had taken complete shape. In that instant, a faint dragon roar seemed to sound out as a vibrant and vigorous energy dissipated from the dark yellow battle spirit, filling the skies above his spiritual. Even the sleeping Demonshine was startled within Lin Ming’s spiritual sea!
“It really formed! A dark yellow level battle spirit!”
“Oh? Dark yellow level?” This was the first time that Lin Ming had heard the different classification rankings of a battle spirit. From the sound of it, a battle spirit had to be raised up, with great potential for growth.
Demonshine said, “The ranks of a battle spirit from low to high are dark yellow, silver white, gold, bright blue… because of these different colors, they are separately called a bronze battle spirit, silver battle spirit, gold battle spirit, and blue soul battle spirit. Currently, your battle spirit is a newly formed bronze battle spirit! Generally speaking, an Emperor of the mortal world would have a bronze battle spirit! But your cultivation is merely at the Xiantian realm and you already have a bronze battle spirit. Your future potential will be boundless! It looks like this saint made a good choice in choosing you, hahahaha!”
Demonshine happily laughed. Lin Ming was also in a good mood. After absorbing the will body of the Blood Demon Bone, there was still the main event. That was… breaking through to Revolving Core!
With its will erased, all that was left over of the Blood Demon Bone was the purest form of energy!
This energy had been sealed within Lin Ming’s body with the power of thunder.
After removing the seal of thunder, the Blood Demon Bone’s energy flooded into him, like a dam that had suddenly burst!
A vast, torrential wave of energy surged into Lin Ming’s meridians, flushing in every direction. Even though Lin Ming’s meridians were tough, it was still difficult to accept such a baptism; some meridians even began to break. But, with Lin Ming’s formidable regenerative ability, this minor damage wasn’t considered anything at all.
“Gather the energy in your dantian; condense the cyclone to a core!”
Demonshine’s voice sounded out in Lin Ming’s mind. In truth, Lin Ming didn’t need Demonshine’s words; he already knew what to do. Out of the cultivation methods he had studied, the ‘Great Desolate Halberd Art’ was well suited for moving infernal energy.
By forcefully revolving the ‘Great Desolate Halberd Art’, Lin Ming directed all the energy within his body to rush towards his dantian.
Energy came from all directions like a massive ocean tide. Wherever it went, even if the meridians were blocked, it would wash everything away. All of this energy finally poured into the dantian with overwhelming force, smashing together!
Bang!
For a time, it was like Lin Ming’s dantian had exploded. The originally spinning true essence cyclone was completely broken!
Lin Ming stuffily coughed and spat out a mouthful of blood. Using such a wild and brutal energy to break through to Revolving Core was not something that most martial artists could withstand. If the meridians weren’t toughened and the foundation wasn’t extremely solid, then if a martial artist rashly did this it was very likely their dantian would explode, causing them to perish in a miserable fashion!
As for Lin Ming, by virtue of his solid foundation, he could stiffly compression this turbulent energy into his dantian. Under such a potent storm of true essence, the massive pressure caused the true essence there to condense into tiny grains!
The tiny grains grew more and more, becoming increasingly crowded. They were like tiny Blood Demon Crystals that floated within Lin Ming’s dantian.
A new true essence cyclone slowly formed. The difference from the last true essence cyclone was that this one contained a great number of solidified true essence grains!
If Lin Ming could gather all of these true essence grains together, slowly forming them into a revolving core, then he could officially break through to the Revolving Core realm!
This process could not be hurried. If this was a normal breakthrough, then even an Emperor level talent might need to close up for half a year to condense their core. Using the energy of the Blood Demon Bone, the time Lin Ming needed was greatly shortened. Still, it might take around 10 days to half a month.
Not bothering to wipe the blood from the corners of his mouth, Lin Ming manipulated the remaining energy to continuously gather in his dantian. As the pressure in his dantian grew, more and more true essence condensed, forming solid grains. These tiny solid grains slowly began to be sucked into the spinning true essence vortex.
And in the center of this cyclone, a tiny rice sized crystal core appeared. After this crystal core emerged, tiny grains of true essence constantly fell onto the crystal core, slowly becoming a part of it.
In this way, the crystal core slowly snowballed to a larger size…
Time passed a day at a time.
In the blink of an eye, 10 days had passed. From the time Lin Ming had first entered the Eternal Demon Abyss, a month had passed.
According to the speed of a normal squad, this was the time they would have traveled 8500 miles deep into the Eternal Demon Abyss.
On this day, there were indeed five squads of people gathered at the 8500 mile meeting point.
These five squads originally had some 50 people, but now, there were only 39 remaining. 11 martial artists had perished so far. The probability of dying had far exceeded the former trips into the Eternal Demon Abyss.
“This is it. We are only responsible for bringing you here. As for the remainder, that is all up to you!” A guide said.
After speaking, the guides all sat down and began to meditate, recovering their energy. After all, this entire time they had been constantly exploring, analyzing the situation, and calculating scenarios, all of this together was a major burden on the mind, causing them to consume a great deal of mental energy. And the return trip would also be another month long journey. Naturally, they had to readjust to their peak condition before headed back.
As the guides sat down to rest, the other martial artists began milling about.
“Lan Xin, how was your harvest?” Among the group, Duanmu Qun had travelled so long and was still able to maintain his breezy and handsome appearance. As he saw Lan Xin, he moved over to her. Both of them were of the same race, and, as descendants of Holy Lands, they naturally knew each other.
“Very average.” Lan Xin shook her head. Along the way, Sada’s squad had only found three Demon God Bones. These three Demon God Bones were the size of a wild chicken’s egg. As far as Demon God Bones went, they were quite large. However, compared to their large squad, the harvest was quite small, much less that according to the rules of Skysplit Tower, half of all findings had to be given to the guide.
“It’s already good that you could arrive here safely. Your squad…” Duanmu Qun glanced over Lan Xin’s squad. Out of 10 people, there were only seven left. They were missing two Fey youths as well as Lin Ming.
“Mm? Lin Ming? How come he’s not here?” Duanmu Qun asked, surprised. He didn’t believe that Lin Ming would fall on this 8500 mile journey. He only thought that he had some matter to attend to so he left off by himself.
“Lin Ming...” Lan Xin shook her head. “Lin Ming is missing. He might be alive, but the chances of him having perished are higher.”
As Lan Xin spoke, Duanmu Qun was completely stunned. “Missing? Perished?”