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Chapter 600: Chapter 592: Forcing a Breakthrough
"Strongest True Immortals!"
Through Jin Haoran’s description and the memory of Immortal Sui Mu, he understood the concept of the "Strongest True Immortal."
This, essentially, was the pinnacle a True Immortal could attain.
Any tier above Supreme True Immortals belonged to the rarified realm of those with exceptional talents and the Heavenly Immortal Immortal Masters.
Heavenly Immortal Immortal Masters, far beyond what Cave Heavens could harness in battle power, were termed Supreme True Immortals.
"Aside from the distinctions among ordinary, high-level, top, and peak True Immortals among True Immortals, there is no term for ’National Guardian Immortal.’ Beyond Peak True Immortals come the Strongest True Immortals. If you say a Top True Immortal could instantly slay an ordinary True Immortal without giving the latter any chance to escape, then a Strongest True Immortal would have a similarly vast advantage over a Top True Immortal; one Strongest True Immortal could be worth ten or eight ordinary True Immortals."
Gu Jinlai was very clear about this in his mind.
The Three Realms Technique had only reached Small Achievement, a stage that simply meant his power system was complete in oversight, gradually filling various deficiencies, yet not significantly boosting his combat strength.
He felt somewhat confident against Top True Immortals and Peak True Immortals.
But against Strongest True Immortals...
The chances of victory were three to seven.
He was the three.
"After the fall of Star Trace and Long Xiao, those Demon Emperors actually didn’t awaken the Netherworld God..."
Gu Jinlai was somewhat surprised.
However, considering the Demon Emperors might not have had the authority to awaken the Netherworld God, and since all three Great Demon Spirits had already perished by then, even awakening the Netherworld God to face six Supreme Void Immortals with True Immortal battle power and him, comparable to a Top True Immortal, the chances of victory would have been no better than fifty-fifty.
In such a scenario, the devils opted to keep the Netherworld God as a trump card, not using it lightly.
After all, for Demon Lord Cangming to split a Divine Thought and infuse it into the Netherworld God was no simple feat.
Rather than gamble with a fifty percent chance that the Netherworld God could crush the Sacred Land, they preferred to continue fostering Demon Lord Cangming’s Divine Thought within the body of the Netherworld God, until it could merge with other Netherworld Gods, thus allowing the incarnation of the Demon Lord to descend upon the world.
"Hummmm!"
While contemplating, Gu Jinlai ceased the Void Projection Technique, and withdrew his True Spirit.
As his Martial Arts Will was shattered, Wu Tianya’s consciousness began to fade, quickly losing all trace of sound.
This scene made everyone who witnessed it shudder fiercely.
Martial Saint!
A Peak Martial Saint had just been annihilated by Gu Jinlai!
For a time, even Lan Yuxue, who tried to remain as calm as possible, showed a pale face.
And behind her, fear completely filled the eyes of Lan Yuxian.
Gu Jinlai swept a glance over the two...
Lan Yuxian was marked in red.
As for Lan Yuxue, her accumulation of Karma was actually less than that of Lan Yuxian.
This was probably related to her continuous secluded cultivation in Taiao Cave Heaven without the time or opportunity to commit evil deeds outside.
Gu Jinlai flicked his fingers.
Thunder roared, instantly enveloping Lan Yuxian.
In an instant, this former leader of the Sweeper Team followed the same fate as Pan Dali.
Standing beside Lan Yuxian, Lan Yuxue’s body couldn’t help but tremble slightly.
However, Gu Jinlai did not strike her again, "Since you are intent on atoning for your deeds, I will wait to see your performance when the time comes."
Hearing Gu Jinlai’s words, a sudden surge of desire to "live" emerged in Lan Yuxue’s eyes, as if rekindled with light, "Please rest assured, Prince Li Yang, Yu Xue will not disappoint you." 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘱𝘶𝑏.𝑐𝘰𝑚
Gu Jinlai nodded.
His gaze swept over the others.
Anyone marked in red received no mercy from him.
The rest were granted a chance to redeem themselves.
The threat of the Netherworld God, the Heavenly Dao nurtured by the Immortal Country, the menacing Ten Thousand Stars Sword Sect, the ferocious battle in the Blood Moat Demon Abyss of the Demon Realm, and the terrifying forces lurking in the deepest parts of the Spirit Realm, left him no room to pause.
He quickly led the team, managed by Liu Feiyun, to sweep through several cities in the Outer Ring as well as the Inner Ring Twelve Cities.
However...
The Six Great Cave Heavens, in order to prevent Gu Jinlai from finding an excuse to attack opportunistically, conducted a preemptive sweep inside the Holy Dynasty’s territory, and thus the amount of Qingguang Gu Jinlai ultimately collected was much less than he anticipated.
Despite a more thorough search than the previous sweeping of the Nineteen Cities, the amount of Qingguang collected in three months barely exceeded that of Yinglong Sacred Land.
...
Imperial Capital.
Julong Mountain Palace.
Duanmu Chengyun said to Gu Jinlai with a wry smile, "Ancient True Immortal, it’s not that we’re unwilling to sell Cave Heaven Stones to you, but rather... we truly no longer have enough Cave Heaven Stones available for sale."
Gu Jinlai did not speak, merely looking at the box Duanmu Chengyun handed him.
Inside the box were twenty Cave Heaven Stones.
Since the Cave Heaven Stones carried a sort of spatial ripple, they couldn’t be stored in storage rings and required external storage.
And these twenty Cave Heaven Stones also represented Gu Jinlai and Duanmu Chengyun’s third transaction.
Counting the previous sixty Cave Heaven Stones, he had spent a fortune, nearly selling off some unnecessary items from the Aries Star Palace completely, yet all he got in return were eighty Cave Heaven Stones, still short of the minimum standard of one hundred needed to construct a grotto heaven.
"Not enough Cave Heaven Stones? Perhaps that’s not necessarily true."
Gu Jinlai eyed Duanmu Chengyun with a hint of dissatisfaction in his expression.
Duanmu Chengyun responded with a forced smile, "Although there are some left, someone in our Grotto Heaven is on the verge of attaining a Dao Fruit. Once the Dao Fruit is formed, it can use the power of the Dao Fruit to transform the Great Dao and serve as the foundation for constructing the Grotto Heaven. Therefore, we must reserve those Cave Heaven Stones for him... I hope Ancient True Immortal can understand."
Gu Jinlai knew Duanmu Chengyun was wary of him, but since the other party was unwilling to trade, he couldn’t just forcefully take them by his own power.
Moreover...
The items in the Aries Star Palace that were of no use had already been almost entirely exchanged, and the rest...
Had other wonderful uses.
"Compared to Immortal Essence Gold which is refined from gold, and Heavenly Spirit Wood which grows over tens of thousands of years from special spiritual wood, the method to refine Cave Heaven Stone is somewhat easier. A True Immortal possessing a Dao Fruit can extract spatial fluctuations from areas where space is unstable and condense it into Cave Heaven Stones... In other words, the more True Immortals there are and the more unstable the space is, the higher the yield of Cave Heaven Stones..."
Compared to the Holy Dynasty that relied on its old reserves, if he really wanted a large amount of Cave Heaven Stone, he would have to go to the Holy Dynasty itself.
"Actually, to truly obtain a large amount of Cave Heaven Stones, one must visit the Profound Immortal Realm, and furthermore, the value of Dao Artifacts within the Profound Immortal Realm is astonishing!"
Gu Jinlai recalled the memories of Immortal Sui Mu.
It was hard to imagine that many Saints might never obtain even the most common low-grade Daoist tools in their lifetimes.
Even for Void Immortals, ordinary Daoist tools might be used in rotation to deeply comprehend the Laws of Dao they contained.
It was quite normal for True Immortals to use top-grade Daoist tools.
Those who could afford Supreme Daoist Artifacts were simply Heavenly Immortal Immortal Masters or those top True Immortals with significant statuses and backgrounds.
Shaking his head, Gu Jinlai shifted his gaze back to Duanmu Chengyun, "That’s settled then. How is the war against the devils going?"
"Due to the need to reinforce the Immortal Country, we have started consolidating our occupied territories and have not expanded further."
Duanmu Chengyun said, "Looking at the time, it’s almost ready for us to depart."
"Let’s depart in three days then."
Gu Jinlai said, "The sooner we get to the Immortal Country, the bigger the role we can play."
"Alright, in three days."
Duanmu Chengyun nodded.
Gu Jinlai then took along those Cave Heaven Stones onto a Flying Boat prepared in advance by Liu Feiyun and left the Imperial Capital.
On the Flying Boat, Gu Jinlai directly refined a Cave Heaven Stone into his body, silently feeling a special power akin to "gravity" increasing within him.
"Indeed, the Grotto Heaven inside the body is not the same as ordinary Grotto Heavens. Since there are no other materials to assist in construction and it purely relies on Cave Heaven Stones, about three hundred stones are needed just to initially establish the Grotto Heaven within the body."
Three hundred stones weren’t considered many.
You see, for those thousands of miles wide Grotto Heavens at the heart of the Immortal Country, the number of Cave Heaven Stones invested absolutely reaches into the tens of thousands.
However, Grotto Heaven, in some cases, is equivalent to the foundation of a Heavenly Immortal; no one would deem such a resource excessive.
Grotto Heaven is a lake, and Spirit Mechanism is its water.
Lacking Spirit Mechanism is alright; one can slowly gather it.
But if there’s enough Spirit Mechanism and the Grotto Heaven cannot accommodate it, that would be regrettable.
"The remaining Cave Heaven Stones perhaps can be gathered in the Immortal Country. Once the Grotto Heaven is founded, I can fill it with Spirit Mechanism, shaping the Grotto Heaven inside my body into a mini Spirit Realm, and using the characteristics of the Spirit Realm to transform the Spirit Mechanism into spirituality... Because of the special nature of the Three Realms Technique, this Spirit Realm and I are connected as one. In other words, I will be able to obtain a continuous supplement of spirituality..."
Gu Jinlai’s eyes sparkled.
Although a continuous supply of spirituality wasn’t much to him, at least it would save Qingguang.
In future battles against Spirit Venerable Level Demon Spirits, he could simply rely on the spirituality transformed by his body’s mini Spirit Realm to exhaust them to death.
Moreover, when using the Void Projection Technique, it would also greatly increase the endurance.
One Qingguang per minute...
Just thinking about the consumption was painful.
After glancing at the Qingguang accumulated over the past three months, Gu Jinlai hesitated no more and invested it into the Three Realms Technique.
This time, using just over a hundred Qingguangs, he stopped from the "cultivation" state.
"Is the prerequisite for Mahayana Three Realms to nurture a micro Spirit Realm? Just like the prerequisite for the Seventh Refinement of the Great Sun Nine Refinements Visualization Method is to condense a True Spirit..."
Gu Jinlai had already refined sixty portions of Cave Heaven Stone earlier, feeling the changes in his body and the remaining six hundred twenty lines of Qingguang...
"The Immortal Country might not be able to easily gather two hundred portions of Cave Heaven Stone, after all, the Immortal Country’s True Immortals are not just one or two, and casting a Grotto Heaven is the foundation for achieving Heavenly Immortal status; everyone wants to have a Grotto Heaven of their own..."
Considering his current situation...
Gu Jinlai made up his mind.
He swiftly invested the newly traded Cave Heaven Stones one by one into the Eternal Core formed by the Three Realms Technique.
Instantly, ripples endlessly emanated from the Eternal Core, and Gu Jinlai could clearly feel a special space being nurtured at the deepest part of the Eternal Core. At the same time, rings of visually detectable "gravity" waves dispersed in all directions.
Once he had refined all these Cave Heaven Stones, he turned his attention back to the six hundred twenty lines of Qingguang.
With a single thought, the Qingguang washed continuously, pushing the Three Realms Technique stuck at the Small Achievement stage.
He used Qingguang to bypass the resource demands and prerequisites of the technique, forcefully breaking through.
Under the wash of Qingguang, the Three Realms Technique continuously flickered; Gu Jinlai’s mind birthed countless more efficient uses for Cave Heaven Stone, even adaptating and optimizing his own cultivation techniques, enabling him to depend on just eighty Cave Heaven Stones to open up space within his body.
This process lasted a full hour, and Gu Jinlai felt as if he had broken some mental shackles, his mind becoming clear and bright.
And in the center of the Eternal Core, a space resembling a black hole rapidly nurtured into existence.
A force, many times stronger than before along with a completely new power, emanated from this void space...
Three Realms: Small Achievement → Mahayana.
Derived trait: Nuclear Power.
