Chapter 390: Peak Integration
Xiang Yu focused his creation domain on the crystal formations and dove straight into their atomic structure.
With his immortal grade blacksmithing, he already had the general structure of the material he was trying to make and somewhat understood how crystal formations got to that point naturally. Now all he had to do was speed up that process.
Every single atom had to be moved into the right spot and pushed through the same growth process it would go through naturally over years.
This was way harder than he thought it would be.
Each atom needed his full attention, and trying to control millions of them at the same time was making his head hurt. His creation domain let him mess with matter at this level, but keeping track of everything while still managing his creation domain that made him always aware of every atom within it was almost impossible.
It became so hard to concentrate that he was forced to shrink his creation domain to just the area he was working on to make it just about bearable.
He was sweating now as he kept working. Hours went by and he stayed completely focused, carefully putting the right amount of spiritual energy into each atomic structure. Too little and nothing would happen. Too much and everything would blow up.
He pushed each particle through its natural growth cycle, cramming decades of spiritual energy absorption and creation and destruction cycles into a few moments. The structures slowly changed, their insides becoming more refined and their spiritual conductivity increasing.
Finally, after what felt like forever, Xiang Yu finished the last transformation. He opened his eyes and looked at what he’d made.
A good amount of heavenly grade spirit metals sat there.
These would be enough to make two of his flying boats, but he didn’t need any more of those right now. He needed immortal grade resources.
He wiped his sweat and went back into focus mode, starting on the much harder job of creating immortal grade materials.
...
Lightning crashed down from the dark clouds in the sky, striking Li Yao over and over again as she sat cross-legged on the rocky mountain peak.
Since the tribulation was also mixed in with the heavenly dao body’s heavenly lightning, each bolt would’ve been enough to kill a normal void realm cultivator instantly. But to Li Yao, this was nothing, she just absorbed it all, pulling the energy into her body and refining it.
She’d been sitting here all night, letting the tribulation lightning hit her from every direction. Her Nine Heavens Thunder Body drank up the energy hungrily, and she could feel herself getting stronger with each strike.
The lightning that had started as agony hours ago now felt almost comfortable.
The storm kept going and going and seemed as though it would go on forever. Not that she minded - she needed all the energy she could get for her nine heavens body.
As dawn approached, the lightning was finally starting to calm down, but one last massive bolt was building up in the clouds above her.
Li Yao looked up at it and smiled. "Come on then."
The final strike hit her harder than all the others combined. Pure lighting energy flooded through her body, and she felt something click into place inside her.
The Integration realm. She’d made it.
As the lightning faded away, Li Yao opened her eyes and watched the sun rise over the mountains.
It was beautiful. She wondered if her senior brother was seeing the same sunrise back at home. The thought made her chest feel warm.
There was something she needed to do though. She couldn’t go back to him empty-handed. Her cheeks turned red as she thought about it - she needed to get him a gift. Since the two of them didn’t have parents and were basically alone in this world, they could only give each other dowry. Well, there was their master and martial aunt, and her cousin too, but Li Yao didn’t think it was the same thing.
"I guess I just want to do something for senior brother after he’s done so much for me," she thought, twirling a strand of hair around her finger.
[How is it?] the Empress spoke up in her mind.
Li Yao straightened up.
"Everything is working fine. I’ve broken through to the Integration realm and stabilized it completely thanks to senior brother’s food," she said, glancing at Xiang Yu’s flying boat that she had tied down with her qi.
"I’d really appreciate it if you returned my GT 6090 Ultra Compact Form Convertible," Xiang Yu’s partition spoke up, sounding tired.
Li Yao smiled. "We’re married so what’s yours is mine. Why be so stingy?"
"Do you know how much I went through to make this one? And it’s a special edition too with only one in existence," Xiang Yu complained.
He thought to himself that he shouldn’t have sent it to Li Yao after all. "Just don’t break it," he said, giving up.
"Why are you so worried? I just want to use it for travel," she said.
"Do you even have a driving license?" Xiang Yu asked. "Well, I guess it’s fine since it’s self-driving," he added with a sigh.
Li Yao closed her eyes and felt her energy start churning again. She’d opened the fifth heaven of her Nine Heavens Body and leveled up her Heavenly Dao Body to level two. Now she just needed to push her cultivation to the peak of Integration realm.
...
She focused her mind and began breaking through consecutively - third layer, fourth, ninth, peak. In just two minutes, she had reached the peak of the integration realm.
She stood up and clenched her fists, testing her new strength.
"Finally, with this power, I can tie up senior brother," she said with pride.
"Keep dreaming," Xiang Yu said dismissively, though internally, he felt a little uneasy. He thought to himself that he should run a few simulations just in case. Not like he was scared or anything.
[With this, your power should be barely passable for a successor of the human emperor seat. Now you just need to build your bridge and you can enter the tribulation realm] the empress said.
"Building a bridge?" Li Yao wore a bored expression. Building the integration bridge looked so tiresome - no way she would spend her entire life trying to do that. Playing with senior brother was much more fun.
The empress noticed her expression and sighed.
[Since we share the spiritual sea, I can help you with building the bridge] she said.
"Really?" she asked in excitement.
The empress just shook her head. How was this girl supposed to take over as the human empress with such an attitude? It seemed she could only revive herself and return to her seat.
Li Yao walked over to Xiang Yu’s flying boat and released it. It instantly tried to tear through space to escape, but she caught it easily. She then climbed onto it. "Let’s go," she said.
"That’s not how you sit on it. It won’t be able to tear through space efficiently when you’re on it" Xiang Yu said.
"Ah, how do I sit?" she asked.
"There’s a button below. Just click it and it will unfold, then you can sit inside," he explained.
She followed his instructions and boarded the flying boat.
Although it was originally small, it was actually quite big - it just folded itself using flexible spirit metal. After completely unfolding its true form, it looked similar to a fighter jet and could carry at most a single person.
Li Yao sat comfortably inside the boat and smiled.
"To the central continent," she said, and the boat tore through space, disappearing.