Chapter 808 – The Trial of Life Destruction
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38,000 miles northwest of the Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom, there was a solitary small mountain range that extended for several hundred miles, named the Five Peak Mountains. Here, the heaven and earth origin energy couldn’t be considered too rich and the grade of spirit veins were barely classified as the fourth grade; they were slightly worse than the spirit veins of the Five Element Region’s seven great sects.
On Five Peak Mountains, there were three small sects scattered throughout, all of them third grade sects.
Although the three sects often had their own contradictions and battles, they were able to unite together to face a common enemy. Like this, they were able to protect their low fourth grade spirit vein from being captured by other sects.
In the early morning, disciples had already taken out their brooms and were sweeping up leaves from the stone steps of the mountain. Some core disciples began their day of training. Everything seemed calm and peaceful.
This area was outside of the four Divine Kingdoms and was also remote, thus they often didn’t interact with the wider world. The disciples here lived a very tranquil and languid life. Most disciples couldn’t even imagine what the Divine Sea was; they would be more than satisfied by reaching the Xiantian realm.
The three sects here each had Revolving Core Highest Elders guarding them. Generally speaking, the Sovereigns and the inner court Great Elders had an extreme Xiantian cultivation.
The head of the three sects was the Whiteart Sect, because their Highest Elder was at the middle Revolving Core realm. This Highest Elder’s name was Whitewood Chun. For a third grade sect to have a middle Revolving Core Highest Elder, that was already more than enough to rule over all other sects of the same rank.
Today, Whitewood Chun was sitting in his chambers at the highest peak as per usual, deep in meditation. Suddenly he had a strange feeling in his heart. He opened his eyes to take a look, when at this moment he felt a burst of cool wind pass over him. His body went limp and he slumped over, not knowing anything of what had just happened.
A blue-clothed youth appeared like ghosts and phantoms within the training chamber of the Whiteart Sect’s Highest Elder. He looked at the unconscious old man at his feet and shook his head, sighing, “It seems that wanting to hide from a Revolving Core powerhouse and quietly open a cave mansion underneath his room is really difficult…”
This blue-clothed youth was Lin Ming. He had been quietly digging out his own cave underneath the Whiteart Sect Highest Elder’s chambers, using the power of space to cover up the noise and fluctuations of energy. However, the results were that he had been found out so, his only choice was to make him faint.
Demonshine grumpily said, “Do you think this old fellow is an idiot or deaf? If you’re digging out a hole underneath his bed then he would notice it even if he were weaker. Otherwise he would be far too stupid.”
Lin Ming faintly smiled, thinking little of it. His mind stirred and his figure instantly vanished from the training chamber.
His plan was to close up in seclusion for a few months, or even half a year, and officially try to reach the Life Destruction realm. And if he chose an area without spirit veins then he would need to consume a massive amount of spirit essence stones.
Moreover, the key point was that although the heaven and earth origin energy in spirit essence stones was rich, it was slightly hot-tempered. In this aspect it was inferior to the pure and natural heaven and earth origin of spiritual lands. If he only used spirit essence stones, then some problems would inevitably arise in the future.
Thus, Lin Ming had to find a spirit land to use that had at least a fourth grade spirit vein or higher. But, these sorts of places were all occupied by sects. To find an ownerless spirit vein was impossible.
Lin Ming could only hide himself within another sect and secretly cut open his own cave mansion.
To hide from the eyes of a great sect was obviously impossible. Thus, he looked around until he finally came to this Five Peak Mountain.
The chamber of the Whiteart Sect’s Highest Elder was naturally the area of the entire Five Peak Mountain with the purest and richest origin energy. Thus, Lin Ming had chosen to carve his cave mansion here.
After making Whitewood Chun faint, Lin Ming was free to do as he pleased. He quickly completed the cave mansion.
Being cautious first and foremost, Lin Ming laid down a good number of array formations at the entrance of the cave mansion. There were defense arrays, concealing arrays, warning arrays, counterattack arrays, and all other arrays that could be imagined.
After this was completed, Lin Ming sat down on the stone bed, feeling satisfied with the density of heaven and earth origin energy around him. Then, he took out a half-foot long wood spirit jade box from his spatial ring. He unraveled the layers of seals on it, revealing the engraved Giant Demon design on the box. This was the God Transforming Pill!
“Lin Ming, if you want to attack the Life Destruction bottleneck then using a mere God Transforming Pill is far from enough!” Demonshine warned. When they had left Jagged Slope Mountain, Demonshine had warned Lin Ming that for him to reach the Life Destruction realm, the difficulty would be several times or even a dozen times harder than it would be for a normal martial artist.
A God Transforming Pill was greatly beneficial to a high stage Life Destruction powerhouse. It could even increase their chances of successfully becoming a Divine Sea Supreme Elder.
But when put in front of Lin Ming, it wasn’t even enough to have him successfully break through to Life Destruction. This truly made one feel as if they had been wronged.
“Demonshine, can you explain in detail to me about my situation in crossing Life Destruction?”
Demonshine jumped out of Lin Ming’s spiritual sea, gathering into his pug form in front of him and said with an air of great importance, “Lin Ming, this Saint has once told you that even in the Realm of the Gods, there aren’t many martial artists that dual cultivate body and law. There are countless, infinite geniuses in the Realm of the Gods, and everyone there is well aware that a dual body and law cultivating martial artist is stronger than other martial artists of the same level. Yet even so, there are very, very few martial artists that choose that path of dual cultivation. Do you know why that is?”
Demonshine didn’t speak directly of the difficulties of Life Destruction, instead first starting with body transformation. It was obvious that body transformation was closely linked with impacting the Life Destruction realm. This was already something that Lin Ming had anticipated.
Crossing through Life Destruction was to be reborn.
And body transformation was the process of tempering the body, washing the marrow and cleansing the flesh!
Since both focused on the body, it was inevitable that they were related.
Lin Ming didn’t reply, instead continuing to listen to Demonshine’s explanation.
Demonshine said, “There are four reasons why the geniuses within the Realm of the Gods rarely practice body transformation.”
“The first reason is that dual cultivating body and law takes energy. Humans have a limited amount of energy they can spend. Even if body transformation is a bit easier to train in, it still requires a good deal of energy to practice. Just the essence gathering system is more than enough to occupy your time. And isn’t saying that you’ll reach the peak of martial arts easier said than done? Rather than wasting all your energy with a dual cultivation system, sometimes it might be better to take a single road and travel down it even further.”
Lin Ming nodded. Indeed, in the memory of those Realm of the Gods Supreme Elders, there was no concept such as the so-called ‘martial arts peak’. As for what end the ultimate limit of martial arts was, no one had ever been able to define it. Even the highest peak had a higher peak; nobody would dare to ever say they reached the top. For a general martial artist, the essence gathering system alone was enough to occupy all of their time and energy.
“Secondly, practicing body transformation requires far too many resources. For essence gathering system martial artists, they can make breakthroughs by swallowing pills at their level. But, a body transformation martial artist can eat a bunch of pills and still not feel full. Especially when you reach the later stages, the total amount of resources you’ll need only becomes more and more terrifying. Even those great and respected family clans in the Realm of the Gods cannot withstand such a burden!”
Lin Ming agreed with this point even more. In the past, the Heaven Opening Pill was a medicine that low level essence gathering martial artists could only ever dream of. Even the calm and open-hearted Qin Ziya found it hard to maintain his concentration in the face of such temptation.
But Lin Ming couldn’t complete Tempering Marrow even if he gulped down Heaven Opening Pills like candy. Even the more precious Shattered Demon Heart Crystal hadn’t been enough. In order to complete 100% Tempering Marrow, Lin Ming had to absorb a several ten thousand year Nirvana Dragon Roots. That had been a heavenly material that even Life Destruction martial artists would go crazy over!
“Third, while you can pile on pills and resources to pass the early stages of body transformation, once you approach the Nine Stars of the Dao Palace, not only will you need a massive amount of resources but you will also need to comprehend the source Laws. The further you go in body transformation, the more and more difficult it will be to cultivate! There was once an unrivalled talent who had dual cultivated body and law to an extremely high boundary. But, his body transformation system cultivation speed couldn’t keep up with his essence gathering system speed and he eventually turned into a useless weakling.
“And the fourth reason, which is the main point of what I wish to say today, is that it increases the difficulty of crossing Life Destruction!
“When an essence gathering system martial artist crosses Life Destruction, the first three stages are to reform the body. You will melt back into your embryonic form and be rebirthed from a mortal, reshaping your very flesh. As for the next three stages, that is to shatter your core and reform your dantian. As for the seventh stage and the eighth stage, that is to reform the soul. Many martial artists miss out on this boundary and decide to reach the Divine Sea at only the sixth stage of Life Destruction. Without having tempered their soul, these powerhouses are destined to mediocrity.
As Demonshine spoke here he paused, letting Lin Ming mull over his words. Then, he continued, “The following is the key point. As you cross through the first stage of Life Destruction, your very body will decompose into its most basic components before reforging itself. This means that the martial artist’s physical body will become like their dantian, able to store and save true essence at will. Thus, this is similar to body transformation’s tempering of the body where the body becomes invincible like a treasure, but there is a fundamental difference. And, this is the point. Through body transformation, the body becomes that much tougher and much more difficult to decompose. You must consume far, far more energy to do so, and the process of reforming your body is exceedingly dangerous!
“You have now opened the third of the Eight Inner Hidden Gates and you have also tempered your body with the profound gold divine fruit. Your body is comparable to a high-grade earth-step treasure. If you wish to fully break down your body then it will be difficult, far too difficult!”
Demonshine emphasized ‘difficult’ twice in order to stress how dangerous and hard it would be for him to cross Life Destruction. Then he switched the tone and said, “Although crossing Life Destruction is impossibly difficult, if you can achieve this then you will obtain an enormous advantage. That is that your body will be able to maintain the toughness of the body transformation system, being nearly invulnerable, while also being able to gain the spiritual body of the essence gathering system, freely absorbing true essence with your very flesh!”
Lin Ming was silent as he listened to Demonshine’s words. When he had first decided to officially step onto the road of dual body and law cultivation, Demonshine had warned him that this road he would travel was extremely difficult.
However, since Lin Ming had chosen so, he would unwaveringly walk down that road until he completely opened the Eight Inner Hidden Gates and even the Nine Stars of the Dao Palace. In the memories of that Realm of the Gods Supreme Elder, he had heard that those martial artists who could open the Nine Stars of the Dao Palace would gain infinite strength. Their fists could break through the endless blue skies and their steps could sunder the earth.
And according to Demonshine, the Nine Stars of the Dao Palace involved the source Laws. Did this mean that all cultivation methods were connected to each other? Once he reached the limit of body transformation, would he reach the same origin as the essence gathering system?
So, wasn’t it even easier to touch upon the very source Laws of this universe by dual cultivating in body and law?
Lin Ming temporarily didn’t think about such remote matters. He opened the wood spirit jade box, revealing a thumb-sized green pill. This was the God Transforming Pill.
This pill contained a heaven and earth origin energy that was compressed to a terrifying degree. The entire pill seemed as if it were a black hole of energy, not releasing even the slightest bit of origin energy.
No matter how difficult it was to cross Life Destruction, he would walk down that road one step at at time.
Lin Ming swallowed the God Transforming Pill without hesitation. First, there was no reaction, and then slowly a flow of heat began to spread out into his meridians, passing into his limbs and bones.
Because of the highly compressed true essence in the God Transforming Pill, it was extremely difficult to refine. It could take a hundred days to fully assimilate with him, perhaps even longer. But Lin Ming didn’t worry. A bit at a time, he began to impact the Life Destruction realm.