Aspiring to the Immortal Path

To understand what Tang Jie had discovered, one had to first understand the meaning of Immortal Platform.

Every tier had a specific reason for its existence. Going up a tier didn't only mean that one had gotten stronger and could live longer.

They each had their own structure, meaning, and foundation.

For example, opening the Jade Gate granted the ability to absorb spiritual energy, opening the Spirit Eye granted the ability to store spiritual energy, and the Spirit Spring, Spirit Lake, and Spirit Sea determined how much spiritual energy could be stored. In the Hundred Refinement Period of the Mortal Shedding Realm, one could use spiritual energy to refine and strengthen the body. In the Nine Revolutions Period, one used spiritual energy to bathe the organs and extend one's lifespan, thus gaining a lifespan greater than an ordinary mortal's for the first time. But besides this, there was no other fundamental change. Cognitive Creation nurtured the Spirit Will, which was the first step to strengthening the soul. The Three Withering Tribulations were meant to create the spirit body, and the Celestial Heart Realm was meant for sensing the will of the heavens—the first step to linking with the world and strengthening the soul once more. Spirit Ring expanded one's powers, while Heart Demon was when the soul began to turn physical, with Soul Transformation further pushing things along.

Each step had a clear and different meaning. This was what was meant by advancement!

The same was true for Immortal Platform.

Advancing to Immortal Platform was to go from a spiritual cultivator to an Immortal cultivator, and only here could one truly be called an Immortal.

This was similar to the Three Withering Tribulations. Before the Three Witherings, a cultivator couldn't be called a spirit cultivator, only a mortal who knew a few spell arts. After them, the mortal body died and the spirit body was born. The cultivator, now endowed with greater power and lifespan, could now truly call themselves a spirit cultivator.

This was a fundamental evolution, escaping the flesh and shedding the bonds of mortality, hence its name.

When one ascended the Immortal Platform, one converted from a spirit cultivator to an Immortal. For this reason, many people regarded the spirit cultivator phase as only the process of becoming an Immortal, with attaining Immortality being the real dream.

But going from spirit to Immortal was much more difficult than shedding mortality.

The reason was that this world did not have Immortal energy. To be more precise, there was no pre-made Immortal energy.

Unlike spiritual energy, Immortal energy was not produced by the world, but had to be refined, compressed, converted, and sublimated by the cultivator, like the difference between iron and steel. The former could be found naturally in mines while the latter required special processing. Thus, the Imperial Sky Stamp could produce Immortal energy because it was essentially an Immortal energy processor, with the materials it processed being spiritual energy.

Mortals needed to cultivate spirit bodies, which necessitated areas that were rich in the spiritual energy that they would use to forge their bodies. So without natural Immortal energy, how could one forge the Immortal body?

Those cultivators thirsty for Immortality thought of every idea they could.

Before that first person realized this dream, countless peerless geniuses sacrificed themselves to pioneer the Immortal path, until finally, the first Immortal was born.

The method he found to become an Immortal was to first become a God!

A God was the apex of the soul, and what was the soul? It was the physical manifestation of an individual's mind. Instead of the brain, the soul now controlled the thinking process.

The Celestial Heart Realm and Violet Palace Realm both cultivated the soul, and when it reached a certain level, it could connect with the world and allow for the usage of more powerful spell arts. At Violet Palace, one's soul could merge with the world and control a small part of the world, including all of the spiritual energy in the area, allowing for thought casting.

But this fusion was momentary, and no soul could do this for too long. Why was the Violet Palace Realm called so? Because the Violet Palace was the house of the soul, its suit of armor. The soul itself was still weak and unable to live on its own, and only at Soul Projection did the situation somewhat improve. Soul Projection simply meant that one could finally leave the protection of the Violet Palace.

But only when one truly no longer needed the Violet Palace could one be called a God, also called a "Yang God". The Divine Soul before then could also be called a "Yin God".

Regardless of what they were called, when reaching the Yang God level, the cultivator's Primal Divinity could travel a vast distance, and even if their physical body died, they could control their Immortal energy to be reborn. This was the secret to the deathlessness of Immortals.

From this, one could understand how cultivators created an Immortal body.

One first became a Yang God, and then the Yang God refined Immortal energy and used it to create the Immortal body, thus making one an Immortal. In essence, this was a kind of rebirth. The difference was that rebirth was mechanical repetition, a copy, while forging the Immortal body was drawing on a blank piece of paper. Rebirth used one's accumulated Immortal energy to build, while forging involved creating Immortal energy at the same time as one forged the body.

The latter was a hundred times more difficult.

Finally, becoming a Yang God was itself a major threshold, with many people even failing to get this far.

The Heaven–Man Union was the first step to becoming a Yang God. Like with the Three Withering Tribulations, experiencing this phase would allow the soul to evolve into a God.

In truth, this state was an improved version of the Violet Palace soul merging with the world, no longer being restricted to control of spiritual energy. In this state, one could feel the emotions of the world, which was the reason behind Tang Jie's emotional state.

And in this process, Tang Jie had made a surprising discovery.