Chapter 227: Synchronization
Xiang Yu felt a small pang of disappointment when he examined the experience gain for his body refining cultivation. He had expected the numbers to be higher than this, though when he really thought about it, the fact that his cultivation had jumped two entire realms made the moderate gain somewhat understandable. Still, he had a feeling the growth would pick up again soon.
Although his body was gradually adapting to the constant cycle of destruction and regeneration, the two bloodlines within him continued growing stronger with each passing moment. They were expanding and concentrating into themselves, having no room to grow beyond their current boundaries. As they became more and more densely packed with power, Xiang Yu suspected the experience gain might start increasing dramatically.
As for his qi refining progress, he couldn’t say he was particularly disappointed, but he wasn’t entirely satisfied either. He held onto hope that this aspect would also improve along with the increasing concentration of his bloodline essences.
His mind and soul cultivation levels had both crossed the halfway point and would advance to their next ranks after the next reset. But these weren’t the only attributes preparing for major breakthroughs after the next reset. His spiritual root, Transcendent Dao Body, Chaos Body, enlightenment, and even the Abyssal Void Flame were all positioned to level up during the very next reset.
Just thinking about this convergence of breakthroughs made him feel incredibly excited. These were the stats he was most eager to see advance, and somehow they had all synchronized to evolve at the same time. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of changes they would bring to his abilities. Would he instantly ascend? Well, maybe that was pushing it a bit far, but they would definitely increase his combat power by a significant margin.
He found himself wondering if he’d finally be able to defeat Li Yao in her limit break form after all these improvements. Well, he’d just have to wait and see what happened.
Suddenly, he noticed something he had actually missed during his initial review. His spiritual root had increased by fifty points, which made him pause in confusion. He tried to figure out how this had happened, eventually guessing it was probably due to the bloodlines constantly tearing apart and mending his body, creating some sort of rebirth effect that refined his spiritual root.
What he couldn’t understand was whether this was a one-time occurrence or if he could potentially increase his spiritual root experience points daily through this method. The implications were staggering if it was the latter. He decided to set this mystery aside for later investigation.
Looking over his combat techniques, he wasn’t entirely satisfied with their progress, though the advancement was still respectable. He hoped the development speed would increase once his enlightenment attribute advanced the following day. He knew he could gain even more experience if he simply allocated more time to practicing his techniques, but he didn’t want to carve out even more hours from his already impossibly tight daily schedule.
He had asked Li Yao about cloning techniques before, and she had explained that the ones she knew could only work for Soul Formation realm cultivators. Xiang Yu wondered if this limitation had something to do with true qi, or perhaps the soul itself. The cult leader had managed to create a soul clone, so did the technique require an actual soul to inhabit a new body constructed from true qi?
Realizing his thoughts were spiraling into increasingly complex territory, he decided not to dwell on it for the moment. When his enlightenment improved, he would try conducting some experiments of his own. So what if such a technique didn’t already exist? He could always create one himself.
...
More of his elemental palm techniques were beginning to enter the completion stage. He had grown so powerful that he’d almost forgotten the original reason he had learned these techniques in the first place—to eventually merge them into a single, usable combat method back when he didn’t possess any high-level techniques of his own.
Nowadays, with his current understanding and abilities, he could probably create something entirely new at the level of the Ten Seasons Sword Art without breaking a sweat. Well, he’d see what happened when the time came to actually attempt the fusion. Even if the merged technique didn’t produce something particularly spectacular, he didn’t think it would be much of a loss. In the process of developing these palm techniques, he had discovered the Chaos Body physique, which had already proven quite useful.
Speaking of the Ten Seasons Sword Art, it had just advanced to the major success stage. The Soul Spike technique was following closely behind, having recently entered the intermediate stage. Both techniques were becoming increasingly useful with each passing day.
For his secondary professions, most of the first generation had successfully entered the fourth grade, while the rest weren’t trailing too far behind. What surprised him most was that after the Runesmith profession’s experience doubling, he had gained even more insights into the craft.
This profession could actually solve one of the issues he’d been facing with the School of Talismans. Apparently, back in ancient times, practitioners didn’t actually need to reach the Golden Core realm to draw functional runes. They simply needed sufficient understanding of heaven and earth’s fundamental principles to be able to form runic patterns. Of course, higher level runes would still require correspondingly high cultivation levels, but the basic techniques were far more accessible than he’d originally thought.
This revelation was incredible. He could teach runesmithing to his students instead of having them practice dangerous mental cultivation techniques that might cause them to fall into qi deviation or complete madness just to make talismans. The mental cultivation approach had always made him nervous, given how easily things could go catastrophically wrong for inexperienced practitioners.
Still, there was a significant catch to this discovery. Runesmithing, although more accessible in terms of cultivation requirements, was actually several times more difficult than traditional talisman making in terms of technical complexity and theoretical understanding. The precision required was far greater, and the margin for error much smaller. Well, there was nothing he could do about that—every powerful technique came with its own set of challenges.
When he finished thoroughly examining all his stats, Xiang Yu waved his hand dismissively to make the system notification disappear. He then allowed his consciousness to sink into his spiritual sea.
The soul infant was still diligently cultivating when he arrived, though calling it an "infant" now was a little inaccurate. The infant had grown considerably and now resembled more of a teenager than the small child-like figure it had been before.
Xiang Yu felt that their synchronization had increased to such an extraordinary level that he was essentially thinking through the infant’s consciousness as well as his own. The sensation was incredibly strange—like having two separate brains operating simultaneously. Although his current mind level already allowed him to think thousands of times faster than an ordinary person, now he could also process thoughts in parallel streams, doubling his already impressive mental capabilities.
He thought about opening his eyes, and the infant immediately responded, opening its own eyes and stopping its cultivation practice. Although the connection still felt a little rough around the edges in some areas, it seemed they had essentially become one unified consciousness.
Xiang Yu felt a touch of sentimentality wash over him as he observed this transformation. After all, he had grown quite fond of the little guy during their time together. Well, nothing could be done about it.
With that, they entered the battle simulation together. Just like the previous day, he selected the Nascent Soul realm version of Li Yao as his sparring partner. Since nothing particularly dramatic had changed in his abilities from the day before, the fight proceeded much the same as it had previously, with him just barely managing to keep up through the assistance of his precognition ability.
He ran multiple simulation scenarios for about an hour, testing different approaches and refining his combat techniques. After he felt satisfied with the session’s progress, he allowed the infant to resume its mind cultivation practice while he settled into a meditative posture beside it.
This post-simulation analysis process was quite important, as it allowed him to extract maximum benefit from each training session. Since his muscle memory always reset after each simulation ended, this reflection period helped him integrate the lessons learned and identify specific areas where he could improve his performance in future battles.
After approximately thirty minutes of careful analysis and mental integration, he felt completely satisfied with his progress and quietly departed from his spiritual sea.