Heavenly Wu City.
In the Wu Central Lands, this city embodied the essence of royalty, power, and influence. The Wu Imperial Clan and the King of Wu were stationed in this city, within the Royal Palace.
It was built on flat land, with no major discernible landmarks. In fact, there were no protective walls surrounding the city with the outlines only being defined by lookout towers at the outer, inner, and central areas. These towers were of various heights. The tallest within the central areas while the shortest in the outer areas.
The Heavenly Wu City was vast, spanning nearly a hundred kilometers and housed tens of millions of citizens.
In the northwestern outer area of the Heavenly Wu City, Wei Wuyin and Su Mei were sitting within a restaurant called the Blue Jay. They served a signature Blue Jay Wine that was rumored to be delicious and bring about a floaty feeling.
Bai Lin was outside the restaurant. With her large body, she was eating her fill of food outside. However, she didn't mind. As the meat and various forms of fruit were brought to her, she devoured them all with joy.
Su Mei's expression was serious as she patiently listened to Wei Wuyin speak.
"To enter the Sixth Stage of Qi Condensation, becoming a Mortal God, requires the fusion of yin and yang energy into a single whole. You may have already known that those at this stage have wildly different viewpoints on how to ascend, and outside help was mostly useless. However, I can tell you this: 'World'." He was directing her on cultivation, giving her minor pointers on the subject of the sixth phase.
"We tap into it, to create, to interconnect vitality and form into one. A reality of our creation is made, while false, it is also true. After reading multiple viewpoints and reaching this phase, this is what I believe to be the most quintessential aspect to ascend." Wei Wuyin had thought long and hard on how to explain the way to ascend. After all, there were only a few hundred Mortal Gods in the entire Wu Country.
Even the Scarlet Solaris Sect had less than twenty. Even if you included the Wu Imperial Clan and myriad of forces outside of the Five Great Sects and Two Major Clans, they still wouldn't exceed a thousand.
Su Mei's eyes lit up with deduction and enlightenment. Wei Wuyin's words had hit the most core, crucial aspect of the sixth phase, and his words carried a unique charm. It was as if he was passing along his experiences to her.
In fact, he was incorporating a trace of Eden Qi, a Mind Qi, into his words, trying to incorporate how he felt during his realization and breakthrough. When he saw her descend into silence and contemplation, Wei Wuyin warmly smiled.
'She's quite talented.'
He could already sense her meridians galvanize itself to accommodate the world's force. After a few minutes, his mouth was agape in shock and disbelief. The world force was revolving around her faster and faster, and his heartbeat started to accelerate.
This was impossible, no?
However, at the next moment, that disbelief became awe and astonishment. She descended directly into a state of cultivation, her body started to rapidly absorb the world force via her Heart of Qi.
The surrounding patrons of the restaurant were startled by the swirling aura of vitality and form, various realistic images were birthed from nothing and given vitality. They gave off a surrealism, illusory yet real.
"Is this the False Reality Projection?" Since he had never seen someone breakthrough, he had only read about the circumstances surrounding ascending to the Mortal God level. As for himself, he would never experience it again after the first time and he had been like Su Mei, too focused to notice.
"What is the meaning of this? You dare execute spiritual spells in this eatery? Do you have no respect?!" An enraged patron shouted in anger. The surging aura had disturbed him, causing him to push his plate to the ground.
There were others as well. Many of which were misunderstandings because of the first customer's complaints.
"You dare fight here? Do you know who owns this place? Leave before you lose your lives!"
"Get the fuck out!"
"I didn't come here to be blasted by spiritual spells, I want a refund!"
The complaints started to get loud and wild, causing Wei Wuyin to grow irritated. He waved his hand, producing a ward of qi that cut off sound and other auras, hoping Su Mei remained undisturbed. This state was rare, and she might not be able to reach it again.
While the location was indeed unexpected and somewhat inconvenient, enlightenment didn't pander to convenience.
When the ward of qi was erected, the patrons started to become more angry and some even aggressive, as if they were insulted at being ignored. The insecurities of humans showed itself well.
The first patron who spoke grasped towards his table. He chucked his utensils at the ward in anger, spouting vulgarities. The silver utensils soundlessly disintegrated upon contact, but this only furthered the rage of the crowd.
At a certain point, people were already demanding refunds and free meals for this inconvenience, blaming the owner of the Blue Jay. There were even a few cultivators at the First Stage of Qi Condensation who brought their complaints unreasonably to the waiters and staff, demanding they take action and accede to their desires.
"Silence!" A powerful voice echoed, instantly silencing the crowd. A tall, burly man with a large black beard and bald head walked into the restaurant. His steps were like smashing mountains and caused the hearts of everyone to slowly follow its rhythm. He had very manly, handsome features, with a strong physique and powerful gaze filled with authority and ferocity.
When he arrived on the scene, all focus was immediately shifted onto him.
Some of the crowd whispered, "Isn't that the Third Prince of Wu?"
"That is! Oh god! I can't believe it's Prince Zhen!"
"Prince Zhen? The Bloodaxe Prince? I heard he's incredibly overbearing, arrogant, and does what he likes, when he likes. He even forced someone to be his Dao Companion."
Many similar comments were thrown around, but the more sensitive words were done via transmission crystals. After all, very rarely do people have the courage to openly gossip in the target's face.
Prince Zhen walked in dressed in his sleeveless, light bronze battle armor. There were faint runic markings etched onto its surface, giving off an aura of power and suppression.
Beside him was a woman and a male, both young-seeming, both slim, beautiful looking, and seemed to be twins. They had short red hair, crimson eyes, and pale skin. Their physiques were similar outside of the noticeable male and female differentiation, but if they wished, they could easily shift into the other.
The woman had small mounds of womanly flesh, perky ass, and decent curves. While the man had a noticeable bulge that was incredibly difficult to miss.
Wei Wuyin didn't even bother looking at them as he focused his attention on Su Mei while guarded by the ward.
Bai Lin outside had also peeked her head into one of the upper-floor windows, her lone golden eye gazing at the situation with curiosity.
"My Prince," The female twin wanted to say something, but was interrupted by Prince Zhen who nonchalantly showed her the back of his hand. She obediently stayed silent afterwards, remaining behind him.
"Who's crane is that outside?" Prince Zhen asked. He had flown over randomly and saw a golden eyed, golden beak, crane that seemed to have an interesting latent bloodline. As a prince of wu, he was well-educated, but those who stood beside him were even more so. They easily deduced that the crane had consumed a Golden Phoenix Fruit, a legendary heavenly resource that could bring out the innate potential of avian creatures.
There were many beasts of legends, and the phoenix was heralded as the progenitor of all avian creatures. Therefore, they all had faint traces of phoenix bloodline that could be brought to bare with the fruit. If they can awaken, they even had a chance of evolving.
In the era after Divine King Han Xei, there was a beast that had become famous for awakening, reaching the Astral Core Realm of strength, otherwise known as an Astral Beast, and ascending to worlds unknown.
If Prince Zhen could obtain this bird and gift it to his future Dao Companion, her feelings may become solidified and true with this gesture. While this form of thinking was naive, it still held the inkling of possibility of being true; therefore, he desired to do so.
The silent crowd remained silent at his question. Instead, they all looked towards the ward that had been set up by Wei Wuyin.
Prince Zhen followed their gazes and his eyes lit up. In this ward was a woman who had her eyes closed but gave off a dense vitality and illusory feeling.
"My Prince, she's undergoing her ascension to the Sixth Stage of the Qi Condensation Realm," the male twin respectfully commented.
"Here?" Prince Zhen was startled, but the crowd was even more startled. In fact, they became frightened at the words of the male twin. There was a noticeable trembling of fear in the crowd. Many of them who had wildly cursed and thrown objects at the ward were terrified to the limit.
"Haha! Enlightenment truly does not care for convenience or location. You can gain one at a funeral or while pissing!" Prince Zhen laughed heartily, but then his expression turned stern.
"Everyone, leave." The moment those words were said, everyone felt like a weight had been lifted from their shoulders and feet. They bowed towards Prince Zhen and left. Before long, the entire restaurant had been cleared.
The restaurant's owner, a chubby man with a relatively decent cultivation base at the Third Stage of Qi Condensation, appeared with a humble, low-born expression. He clasped his hands and said a few words, but the Prince didn't even respond. Instead, the male twin sent a ray of light towards the owner. That ray contained a bag with two essence stones, sufficient enough to make up for the lost business and more.
With thanks, he retreated back to his office and sent the staff home for the day.
Prince Zhen waited. He knew this moment was crucial, whether she succeeded or not will depend on her own personal talent. After all, despite Mortal Gods having three to four hundred years of lifespan, there were less than a thousand in a country of hundreds of millions.
If she did, her entire future would change and she could establish a force that could easily last a century or two with her at the helm. It was a huge step forward in the cultivation world.
Prince Zhen already had faint thoughts of recruiting her into his faction if she had no prior history against the Wu Imperial Clan.
A few hours passed before Su Mei's closed eyes opened, revealing a world of her own creation, a false reality. She felt that the sequence of events were out of this world. A few months ago, she had been at the Fourth Stage of Qi Condensation, now she was at the Sixth Stage of Qi Condensation and a Mortal God level figure!
Wei Wuyin warmly smiled, congratulating her with his gaze. "You've succeeded. Now, we should come up with a title, no?" As he said this, the qi ward dissolved into nothing, revealing their figure.
Even he felt it was sudden, but that's how cultivation was. He had reached the Second Stage to the Sixth Stage in less than a year. Wei Wuyin had always had a distinct feeling that the Qi Condensation shouldn't be as difficult as it was. Now that he was a Lord Alchemist, capable of concocting sixth grade alchemical products suitable for the entire Qi Condensation Realm, he knew it truly shouldn't be.
Outside of grasping world force and the fusion of your spirit and core, it was truly just a realm of accumulation, only requiring resources already heavily prevalent in the heavens and earth.
His own thoughts were that the alchemy talent was low and the innate resources the Myriad Yore Continent provided was far too low per divided territory. No wonder those truly divine figures had combined the six countries into a single empire. It was to have more resources! Well, ambition to rule likely mattered as well.
While Su Mei and Wei Wuyin exchanged a few words, still remaining indeterminate about the title, the male twin cleared his throat to grab their attention.
Wei Wuyin now shifted his gaze towards this tall, muscular man and his two twins. He softly sighed. With a hint of impatience, he said, "Bai Lin isn't for sale, and never will be."
Prince Zhen frowned.