Chapter 719: Soldier of War, A New Type of Cultivation
'Spiritualist!' Such a novel concept invigorated Wei Wuyin's mind, expanding his horizons and opening up pathways in his train of thoughts that he didn't know existed. Yet he was stumped almost immediately, finding some inconsistencies with this Spiritualist concept.
From his currently limited knowledge, spiritual energy was the combination of physical, mental, and essence energies filtered through the soul that was uniquely extracted during the Qi Condensation Realm process, the moment one established their Spirit of Cultivation. Then, spiritual energy was reintroduced in a balanced ratio of physical, mental, and essence energies to create Metaphysical Qi, the fundamentals of a cultivator's strength.
If one replaced their physical and mental energies with spiritual energies, wouldn't there be some confusing overlap? How could Metaphysical Qi be produced if it lacked these crucial components?
He was outright stumped by this for what seemed like a decade within his thoughts, his mental energies expended at an extremely fast rate to deduce and consider these elements. It was after a spark of realization that Wei Wuyin considered one detail he'd neglected—Spiritual Force. This was an evolved version of Metaphysical Qi that was generated during the Astral Core Realm. It was formulated by the imbalance of Spiritual Energy, Physical Energy, Mental Energy, and Essence Energies. This imbalance heavily favors Spiritual Energy, transforming Astral Force, this evolved version of Qi, into Spiritual Force.
This type of force was the primary power source of all Spiritual Spells at the Astral-grade, and why spells at the Astral-grade level were far more effective than their lesser versions. If Wei Wuyin had delved into the Dao of Design, creating Astral-graded Arts, Spells, Formations, and Arrays, then this wouldn't have required such extensive thinking.
However, since reaching the Astral Core Realm, he'd essentially focused on the Dao of Alchemy and testing out his current powers, something he still hadn't fully grasped. Be it the means of Draconic Void Energy, Elemental Origin Energy, Alchemic Eden Energy, he was still exploring their vast mysteries, not even capable of delving into advanced concepts.
To put it simply, quite pathetically in fact, his comprehension of Arts, Spells, Formations, and Arrays was still at the Qi Condensation Realm, with a few exceptions. This was all attributed to him prioritizing the Alchemic Dao and his short time spent cultivating overall, including the lack of guidance and pre-existing designs.
Fortunately, he now understood some of the principles behind Spiritualists. They replace Qi and Astral Force with Spiritual Qi and Spiritual Force, directly allowing Spiritual Energy, which has physical and mental energies, to replace theirs. It was an extreme act, and there might be some complications, even outright disadvantages, the most obvious would be discarding an entire vein of arts and aspects of cultivation, such as Creation. After all, Creation was centered around the balance of physical, mental, essence, and spiritual energies, creating Metaphysical Qi that could interact with the world, even gain permanence.
However, the advantages would be tremendous as well. The reserves of spiritual energies one would possess would be outrageously high, so spells, formations, and certain arrays that were too costly to be executed by a single cultivator could be perfectly performed.
What some cultivators didn't realize was that the vastness of physical energies in one's body, its potential, was utterly massive! The amount of physical energies Wei Wuyin's body, bloodline, and cells contained would eclipse all four of his World Seas combined. This was just a matter of quantity, not quality. While this wasn't true for the Sea of Consciousness, the container of mental energies, it was still far greater than a single World Sea.
If replaced by spiritual energies, the amount of Spiritual Force a cultivator possessed would be outright ungodly.
Spiritualist! A Spiritual Being!!
The wonders of cultivation were boundless!
While Wei Wuyin's mental energies had been rapidly used, coming to all these conclusions, only a few seconds had passed in real-time.
He couldn't help but directly ask, "I see. Why do you think I'm a Spiritualist?" The female titan was immersed in her self-generated awe, making one realise that she was just fascinated by these types of cultivators.
The others listening also turned to Wei Wuyin, giving him a strange stare. In their minds, it seemed Wei Wuyin was just torturing the female. After all, the concept of Spiritualist wasn't unfamiliar to anyone with the qualifications to enter the Battlefield, and Wei Wuyin was showing all the signs of being one.
The female titan also thought that Wei Wuyin was doing this on purpose, yet her mind was filled with impassioned thoughts as she explained: "This isn't the Battlefield, so the spiritual sense restrictions are pretty lax, but its still roughly ten thousand times more costly to use one's spiritual sense here than in the outside world. You've been using your spiritual sense…"
She trailed off, looking at Wei Wuyin.
Wei Wuyin was enlightened. They had mistaken his absurdly high spiritual strength through continuous refinement, a byproduct of his highly elevated physical, mental, and essence energies, as having vast spiritual energies. Well, he did also have far more spiritual energies than those of his cultivation base, but that was due to him having four Astral Souls.
In fact, the spiritual energies that his Astral Souls contained weren't outrageously high in comparison to his Astral Core's size. The reason his astral force and World Sea was massive had to do with the strength of his four aspects of energies, expanding it greater and greater, capable of storing more astral force than normal as a result.
While his upper limits of his energy reserves had elevated due to various means, such as his True Dragon Bloodline, Eden's continuous expansion of his Sea of Consciousness, refinement of his body by Elemental Origin Energies, it wasn't that vast of a difference quantity-wise.
To put it simply, if both Wei Wuyin and the female titan had a hundred units of spiritual energies, a single unit of her energy would be expended in a minute, while Wei Wuyin's would take twenty-four hours. This was brought about by their difference in Spirit Units and Spiritual Strength, not spiritual energies. Due to this, she had mistaken Wei Wuyin as having enormous spiritual energy to continuously power his spiritual sense, so had everyone else.
In fact, Wei Wuyin was well aware that the amount of his spiritual energy might not exceed these Star Core Phase titans. One's cultivation base was highly reflective of their spiritual energy limits and the potential of their Astral Soul as a whole, hence why his limits elevated with each stage, and Wei Wuyin was only at the Gravity Emission Phase, he hadn't even formed his Domain Seed yet.
That said, he suddenly recalled that he needed to concoct transcendent version of his Neo-Dawn Eclipse Pill before he ascends, since his estimation of the Neo-Dawn Eclipse Pill's peak-quality effect meant it could merge with one's self-created Domain Seed, increasing its potential outright. If the transcendent version was like the Soul Deity Invoker Elixir, then he must take it prior to ascending the next phase and maximize his cultivation foundation.
"Sir…" The female titan broke Wei Wuyin out of his thoughts, bringing him back to reality again. The continuous expansion of his horizons was a little overwhelming. Unlike most cultivators that gradually learned about these principles and studied these aspects, he was just being drowned by it all. He was like a youngster that just went from addition to multiplication in arithmetic.
What else did he not know?
Was Spiritualist the only new type of cultivator? Was there more to what he already knew? Purists? Could Tuo Bihan's path be secretly terrifying with unique arts and methods? He was just too ignorant of these things!
"Thank you for enlightening me. However, I'm not a Spiritualist," Wei Wuyin answered honestly. After that, he slightly frowned. He decided in his heart that he would acquire these so-called War Souls and obtain as much cultivation information as he could from this greater world. If he was going to face the Calamities of Hell, stay alive, reach the Realm of Sages, and accomplish his goals to conquer, then he needed to know all possible avenues available to him.
Despite his answer, the others felt that Wei Wuyin was teasing the female titan, dismissing her due to that insulting assumption. After all, Wei Wuyin had his eyes closed, and was releasing his spiritual sense in a range of several hundred meters at all times. They could distinctively feel it around their bodies!
Who else would be able to handle such exhaustive actions except a Spiritualist?
Yet before these thoughts could take effect as expression changes, the Void Gate started to make a series of mechanical noises.
"All soldiers of war, at the ready!" Zun Torju shouted thunderously, causing the bodies of all these titans to tense. They all stared at the black abyss that was the Void Screen that would lead them to the Battlefield. If before, they were somewhat leisurely, relaxed by Zun Torju's speech, then now, they were once again reminded of their circumstances.
Some gulped.
Some gripped the handles of their weapons.
Almost all their breathing hastened or halted.
And their hearts started to race.
The only exception amongst this Company of titans and Starlords was a single person: Wei Wuyin.
Since his Scarlet Solaris Sect days, he had been cultivating a relatively peaceful path through usage of wealth, influence, and status. Now, he was thrown to the wolves filled with ignorance, about to be thrown into a strange Battlefield by the Heavenly Daos where the weakest soldiers were Starlords!
Behind his closed eyelids was flickering saber light and his body released faint draconic roars. Kratos and King were amped! They wanted to finally use their full strength!!
Wait…
Wait!
'The bare minimum was Starlords?'
Wei Wuyin's expression drastically changed. This didn't make sense! The Heavenly Daos, who couldn't sense his actual strength and state, had given him an opportunity to fight in such a high-level battle? This didn't make sense at all!
Something's wrong…
Wei Wuyin's thoughts were like rapidfire explosions as he went through all of the recent events, realizing that he had somehow missed something along the way. An opportunity? Did he miss his fortuitous encounter? Was it Captain Zun? Battalion Commander Borus? Was it the opportunity to back out and return to the headquarters? Was it something else entirely?!
Shit!
Just as Wei Wuyin was about to take a step back, the Void Gate activated and he felt his body lift slightly off the ground. A vastly powerful, unable to be defied suction force was emitted by the Void Gate's abyss-like screen of jet-blackness and he was propelled forward before he could even think. His body entered the Void Gate as his mind roared and Kratos and King cheered!