The world was vast and endless and there were countless immortals. Many lost their lives every day but even more rose to fill the ranks. Such an important book that every new Spirit Lord needed remained so tightly controlled because of a single reason, human greed.
Every mortal wanted to become a spirit lord and at the same time, every immortal at the higher realms also wanted the new spirit lords for themselves. Any Spirit King or higher cultivator could easily teach the contents of the book but they would only do so for their disciples. The Immortal Association was no different and the book was a ploy to try and gather loose cultivators under their banner.
Chen Wentian ended up owing Gong Liyun a favor for the book, but this didn’t mean he would be subject to her whims. If she requested something too distasteful from him then he would simply pay the borrowing fee and ignore her. Still, having a supporter in the association was convenient even if that support was ambiguous.
The book was very long-winded and had a lot of mumbo jumbo with it. Chen Wentian slogged through the archaic and mind-numbing paragraphs for days until the key concepts gradually became clear. He was surprised that it was much more straightforward than he expected.
Each immortal realm had what was called the Seven Stages of Spiritual Strengthening. For one that just entered the Spirit Lord Realm or a new immortal realm, they were considered to be at the first stage. Each stage involved improving their spiritual sea through meditation, improving on their Dao, and gathering spiritual energy.
Reaching the seventh stage took six strengthenings while the breakthrough to the next realm was the seventh and last strengthening. This required even more effort and spiritual energy, enough to expand their spiritual sea many times wider. Once this happened, one would receive a huge boost to their lifespan and power. The whole process was then repeated all over again in the new realm.
Seven was a powerful number in the world of cultivation. There were seven immortal realms; lord, king, emperor, overlord, master, saint, and demigod. There were seven colors in the rainbow; red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and violet. Seven Stages of Spiritual Strengthening… Seven days were in a week… There were also myths and legends of the seven heavens and the seven hells. Nobody knew why but everyone accepted these coincidences.
Chen Wentian was extremely powerful he was still at the first stage and had barely cultivated at all since entering the Spirit Lord Realm. Spiritual energy improved and increased after each stage but it did not always correlate to combat power. That still ultimately depended on experience, mastery of martial arts, and the power of one’s immortal Dao or bloodline.
For example, Mei Qiaofeng, the snake lady, most likely reached the higher stages but she was still weaker than Chen Wentian. It was unclear what stage Murong Aiyin and Fen Jue had reached but it could not have been high considering their pitiful performances. There were always strong cultivators out there in the world but Chen Wentian still had not found anyone in the Spirit Lord Realm that could match him.
Chen Wentian did not want to spent years meditating and gathering spiritual energy. His treasure weapons and armor didn’t really help him cultivate. He also did not have enough spiritual crystal, not at the amounts needed for a breakthrough. But he didn’t have to worry for long because he realized his heaven-defying soul art already had the answer…
Chen Wentian finished with the book and immediately returned to the sect. He entered his private cultivation room and prepared to undergo his first strengthening. He laid down a myriad of shadow anchors and sealed the room so no one would bother him. The most complex cultivation array was drawn, supported by all the remaining orange spiritual crystal he had. And the resources needed? It had already fallen into his hands inadvertently.
He closed his eyes and entered his soul space, the endless black void filled with tiny stars. His body materialized in front of two foggy masses floating in empty space.
One was split apart into many tiny strands, spinning around the center randomly. It emitted soft moans of anguish and despair like an eerie song.
“Son… son…”
The other was solid and looked like a person. It was furiously struggling against invisible bindings.
“Chen dog, release me! Ahhhh! I’ll make you pay!” It screeched when it saw him approach.
Chen Wentian stared steadily at the two. They were none other than the souls of Fen Jue and Murong Aiyin and they would serve as the fuel to power his breakthrough!
Fen Jue had self-imploded and his soul was partially destroyed. Chen Wentian was only able to collect some fragments as the majority had already dissipated. Murong Aiyin had still been alive and he forcibly captured her whole soul, killing her in the process.
Human souls did not behave well as weapon or armor souls because they were too rebellious. He also did not want to add these two detestable souls to his collection for no reason. He had to constantly exert soul power to keep them trapped all these weeks but it was worth it in the end.
He began with the remnants of Fen Jue and locked in place with his spiritual energy. Numerous stars in the surrounding suddenly exploded in brightness and shot rays of colorful energy into Fen Jue.
“Nooo… nooo…”
The ghost moaned softly as the remaining its foggy body gradually evaporated into pure spiritual energy. It was a slow process as even in a remnant form, Fen Jue struggled and resisted.
However, the struggle was futile as more and more of the soul was refined and turned into extremely potent spiritual energy. This energy was then captured by Chen Wentian and smoothly absorbed.
And after many hours… there was no more Fen Jue in this world.
Chen Wentian moved on to Murong Aiyin who still struggled but to no avail. Rays celestial light once again emerged and aimed at her soul.
“No, you bastard rapist. Don’t do this to me… This is impossible… Nooooo!”
---
Chen Wentian opened his eyes after ten days, having finally refined and absorbed the spiritual energy of both souls. He sensed his spiritual sea was finally finished with its first strengthening. Boundless energy erupted from his body, mind, and spirit. He flew out of the room, his aura blazing a fiery trail as he launched into the air.
He laughed joyfully at the clear blue sky; he was now at the 2nd Stage of the Spirit Lord Realm!
I wonder if his soul cultivation technique would be considered a devil cultivation. He is pretty much devouring other people's and beast's souls to increase his own soul's strength.
I had that thought as well but it's not clear if that's just one of his methods that he can use or if it's his actual cultivation technique.
@Venizal Well I think he has two main ones but it hasn't really been said yet. I think has one for the blue dragon(fire) and then one for soul.
The soul one is what I would think would be the devil. So far he can capture souls, merge other souls into his own(hive-mind soul), bind souls into equipment, and now devour souls for strength. Thats an awful lot of abilities for just a method instead of a cultivation technique.
That is unless that the blue dragon has something to do with souls. Perhaps the blue fire is soul fire? Makes me think of Hades fire. If thats the case it might fall into a monster/beast/bloodline type cultivation but I still think the righteous people would call him a devil if he knew he could eat souls.
@KidBuu699 I agree with what you're saying except we don't even know if this world has righteous or evil factions so far... although it wouldn't be at all surprising since it's such a tried and true method of story telling. Besides if cultivation in this novel is mainly a strengthening of the soul then shouldn't any immortal with sufficiently powerful soul be capable of these things assuming they have good enough control? I think his Dao of the soul just gives him an edge in being able to do things that shouldn't be possible at his current level.
@Venizal
In pretty much all cultivation stories there are at least 3 factions for human cultivators. There is righteous, devil, and then "neutral." On a side note one of my favorite quotes in any of this type novels I read is that there is no such thing as a righteous sect because they will throw away there beliefs to survive.
From what I've gotten of the story is that humans aren't top dog. If the monsters have armies and can just invade, and the death of two cultivator leaders put enough attention on the mc that he had to babysit their sects; I would assume that humans are not doing that well in the big picture. Its probably one of those situations where the righteous and devil cultivators exist but aren't fighting because of a greater threat to humanity. Once the outsiders are taken care of then they will be at each others throats.
And also its not him strengthening the soul that is the issue. Most cultivation stories have something to do with the soul. Once foundation(body) stage is completed they move on to the soul. Its the way that he is doing it that makes it a devil cultivation method(in my opinion). One of the main Devil cultivation methods is usually summed up as taking energy from someone else to increase your own. The difference between dual cultivation and devil cultivation is that in devil type you take enough or all the power from the source to the point of hurting/killing them. In our mc's case he is literally "eating" their souls.
On a side note I have nothing against devil cultivation. To be honest I enjoy reading stories with the mc using them more than righteous methods. I find it more entertaining. Also if I was in there situation I would probably use devil cult as well. Its faster, stronger, and not as restrictive. I doubt I have the patience or am willing to give up wine, meat, and women just to use a "good" method.
@KidBuu699 no no, I understand these things, it's just that the cultivation in this novel seems a bit different from most cultivation systems.
As for the humans not being top dogs, well it seems that the story so far is taking place in an underdeveloped area cultivation wise since the strongest characters so far are only spirit kings which is the second out seven ranks so it's not hard to imagine the human forces in this area being weak. Maybe the beast forces in the area are equally weak due to poor resources or there's a super powerful beast deep in the mountains and stronger cultivators that are in the know keep away?
As for the factions... I'll give you that one I was just pointing out that they at least haven't been introduced in this story YET.
@Venizal As a whole I don't think the cultivation in this novel seems that different.
Okay so I want you to take a step back, forget the mc's cultivation, and just look at everyone else's. Every other sect that has been mentioned I have seen in other novels. The fire/ice dual cultivation sect is used a lot. Also the beast transformation as well but usually its only used by "barbarian" humans.
For the soul stuff just look at other novels past core formation realm. After that stage its usually soul transformation or nascent soul or something like that.
Now the mc's stuff is very different. The fire stuff not so much with it being a dragon but all the moves he got from his soul moves is unique.
For setting wise you ever read the cultivation story Rise of Humanity? Just a heads up the site that was doing it no longer is. In that story the main group of humans lived in this protected area. They weren't that strong, as a whole, but they had immortal weapon that they used to threaten all the powerful beasts in the area. Now the weapon the humans had would hurt them as well so they didn't take it out unless extinction risk so there were always border skirmishes between human and beast.
That was just in that story though. My guess for this story probably goes along more with your story. I would say poor resource area or just lack of knowledge. If the knowledge for the mc to go to the next level is so hard to get then think of what the next stage is like.
@KidBuu699 Yeah, after core formation would normally be things like nascent soul, soul transformation, nirvana/rebirth realm and all that soul jazz which basically the same here except the standard of qi gathering/refining, foundation forging and core formation are replaced with these starting 3 spirit stages. The thing is, if these three starting stages are equivalent then these 'immortal' realms are already at the soul stage of cultivation and spirit Lord where our Mc is at is equivalent to nascent soul meaning it should be normal t be doing stuff with the soul. So back to question of whether it's a devil or evil technique, well refining souls and attaching them to equipment certainly seems like it but it's not like a high grade soul cultivation technique isn't capable of these things and more which aren't necessarily evil and from what we can gather so far the mc is cultivating a VERY high grade technique.
In any case, my final point is that it seems evil on the surface but it's far from certain so I don't want to make that call just yet.
Also, great to have intelligent back and forth without flame.
@Venizal
I always enjoy back and forth where people actually talk. No point in yelling over a computer.
Moving on to the stages I have been debating the mc's stage for a while. I wasn't sure if he would be in core formation or nascent soul but this chapter pretty much answers that. Perhaps somewhere in the middle since he is just now refining his soul.
Anyway being somewhere in those stages does make sense. In most cultivation stories it is in those stages that a person can be an "ancestor" or leader of a sect.
Now a big point of the soul technique being normal or devil would depend on if the outside knew he could refine/combine/devour HUMAN souls. I don't think they would care much about putting monsters souls in weapons(thats pretty common) but that messing with the human soul's makes him a devil.
I do agree that this is a very high grade cultivation technique. I am curious on what it is exactly. For some reason there is a voice in my head saying that this goes with his blue fire and nickname. Perhaps the blue dragon is an underworld dragon. . . I think that would be very cool. However, it probably isn't a beast cultivation technique since he was studying the beast god sects cultivation. Perhaps he just got the underworld dragon's soul/fire and got its technique off there. I wish an upcoming chapter would give more detail about his backstory.
@KidBuu699 I thought the story thus far hinted that he just had the soul art as his main cultivation and with his extreme luck captured a dragon soul with blue flames.
@KidBuu699 This form of cultivation is like giving it un limitations level 100 weaponry at level 1. You will advance like a bull to level 100 and test and error for 101, 102, etc. The Saints, demigods must already know these methods, but the immortals of their subcontinent do not know it because of lack of knowledge (and lack of power, yet at least one Spirit Emperor has appeared) and if they see him advancing at breakneck speeds, his first thought will be to take it away and whether he is evil or not, no immortal cares as he moves forward.