Star Gate

Chapter 762: Mass Cultivation (III)

“Then... how do you stabilize the character and prevent it from collapsing if you don’t use an aura?” asked Li Hao, mystified. The character broke apart in the absence of an aura because it lacked spirit! Some premier supernaturals did not possess an aura.

“If they have not comprehended the aura, then they can use immense mental strength to fortify it!” Hong Yitang smiled.

“What if they lack that as well?”

“......” Hong Yitang was truly feeling weary. “Then they have yet to qualify for this level of strength. Why are you in such a hurry? Do you expect Sunflares and Solars to accomplish what you have? Are they to soar to the heavens with one step? Don’t we see the way ahead? It’s just that the issue that eventually crops up with the five organs is thwarting many people for the moment.

“Breaking new ground doesn’t mean abandoning everything that brought you to this step. Only when people successfully make it to metamorphosis are they qualified to continue further...” The man looked at Li Hao. “Just what are you worrying about?”

Li Hao blinked.

“There is a path for martial masters as well, all the way to Refiner of Spirit. Does it fall upon only you to dwell on what comes after? The same goes for supernaturals. Only at Arcanus do hiccups occur, but everything is fine up to metamorphosis. Why must you discard all prior knowledge and theory?”

Hong Yitang felt that the young man was starting to sidetracked into strange territory.

“But in this case... the issue of weak organs hasn’t been resolved!” Li Hao frowned. “My thinking is that if we utilize this method from the very beginning and incorporate all of the supernatural locks into the character and strengthen it, we’ll avoid the issues having to do with the organs...”

“The organs aren’t weak from the very beginning!” Hong Yitang rolled his eyes. “Did you think that your organs were weak when you were a Dominator? Do you think Novas find their organs weak?”

That... was true!

“Right...” Li Hao nodded after some thought. “But... when one reaches the state that you and I are in and need to switch to the supernatural system, they’ll require Water of Life to fortify their organs. Isn’t that... not very good?”

They would have to rely on external forces in the end! Although the resources consumed would be less than what was needed to directly reinforce the organs, Li Hao still felt that something was missing from the picture.

Hong Yitang nodded in agreement this time. The young man had finally touched upon the crux of the issue. He mulled over the problem.

“Correct, you’ve come to the main point. I do have some thoughts after our conversation... These characters can nurture the body in return, can they not?”

“Yep!”

“Then you can try creating a character when the cultivator is weak so that they can fortify their organs from the very beginning...”

“That’s not possible!” Li Hao burst out laughing.

“Why not?” Hong Yitang asked seriously. “There are countless great daos beneath the heavens—none of them is the one and only. If you wish to complete this system, you’ll naturally need to work extremely hard and make certain sacrifices. You don’t know enough about the human body and don’t truly understand everything there is to know about martial dao yet.

“Since you've discovered that supernatural locks can be melded and assimilated into other things, as well as nurture the body, then you tell me if there’s a lock or anything else inside us that can fortify the entire body. Strengthening one area at a time doesn’t need to be the focus!”

Li Hao’s eyes widened with the new thought.

“If there are the paths of fire, wood, and all sorts of attributes out there, can there not be one of the body?” Hong Yitang smiled. “Of course, this is just a theory. I’m just following your line of thinking. I don’t have the ability to actually test my hypothesis.

“Since you’ve taken the first step, you can try to experiment and uncover the possibilities! Perhaps, in the end, you will find that such a character does exist to strengthen the entire body. It would plug in the hole in your current system.”

Li Hao was quite moved by the proposition—did such a dao exist? The dao of purely the body... and then incorporating it into the character system. All the cultivator would need to do after that was just train in one system and ignore everything else...

Hong Yitang didn’t say anything when he saw that Li Hao was contemplating what he’d said. He rapidly consolidated his fire attribute instead, marveling at what he was creating. It wasn’t hard, but if no one had tried it first and appraised the possibility, then no one might have tried it, ever. Li Hao was certainly someone brave enough to act on his thoughts.

At the moment, the young man was caught in a daze.

“There is a dao of the five elements, of wind and thunder, of light and dark. The body and five organs are related to these, but can also be viewed separately... Then is there an independent dao of the body and just the body? The rest would be supernatural abilities! I would train the body on the inside and the supernatural on the outside, training both at the same time...” Li Hao’s thoughts flitted from one to another in a disconnected haze. He didn’t have a proper outline tying them together, but he was taking in Hong Yitang’s words.

Perhaps he could treat the wind and thunder attributes as part of the random assortment to be shoved into the sword aura. In this regard, he could utilize the sword aura as a character to encompass all of the supernatural locks that didn’t host auras. He could organize them at a later stage, categorize them, then assimilate them...

A massive boom startled him out of his thoughts; he gaped at Hong Yitang. Earth energy surged out as the man had broken the lock of the spleen. He grabbed Panther with a smile. “Devour the earth energy leaking out... I’m going to try and assimilate three elements as one!”

The dog wasn’t angry about being handled roughly; it opened its mouth and swallowed a large surge of energy. It then directed its attention to Hong Yitang and also sucked out the strength that he’d yet to make use of!

Hong Yitang stared ominously at the dog. Li Hao was likewise resigned. “Panth!”

You’re just supposed to take care of the extra energy, not drain Hong Yitang dry! He hasn’t even tried using his power yet, but you drained it out of him. Is this appropriate in your eyes??

Panther looked innocently at Li Hao. He said it, he wanted me to do that! I didn’t do it on purpose! He said to devour any energy leaking out, so I thought the part coming from his body was part of that too!

A wordless Hong Yitang didn’t want to bother saying anything. He decisively snapped his supernatural lock and turned his ‘sword’ character yellowish-brown. It was an exceedingly smooth process!

He was known for his earth sword aura to begin with, so the yellow-brown character seemed to easily suppress the rampaging thunder and fire attributes within. Li Hao watched the change quite enviously. So this was possible as well?? Using one character for everything seemed to be a much simpler prospect. If he could change the colors of his character like Hong Yitang... how nice would that be!

Sighing, the man sensed Li Hao’s jealousy and envy. “There’s no need to stare, you’re certain to be stronger than me in the end. However much effort we put in is how much we gain. I’m taking a shortcut...”

“I want to take it too!”

“......” Hong Yitang didn’t know what to say anymore. Why is this your reaction when I’ve said all that I’ve said? There was nothing he could respond with other than, “Let’s put it this way. You can take my path, just discard your five auras first and focus on the sword aura. You might reach my heights then and be able to manipulate one aura as many!”

Fine then, Li Hao gave up the idea. That wouldn’t do!

Hong Yitang was finally spared from having to speak sense into the young man. See, you won’t do what it takes, but you want to take a shortcut. How will that do?

“Does martial uncle intend to fully integrate three elements together? Will your body hold up?”

“That’s not a problem since I have ten saturated locks. Do you think my body is weaker than yours? You can endure four elements, so it’s not much of an issue for me to withstand three. If the lock of my zifu was saturated, I should be able to persevere against four or even five...”

The strongest martial master of their age had likely saturated eleven locks. No one dared try the one of the head. As far as Li Hao was aware of, only Yao Si had completed that risky undertaking. He wasn’t clear on Hou Xiaochen and the rest. Perhaps they were at eleven, perhaps they weren’t. It was hard for him to determine if they didn’t say anything.

Li Hao spoke no further since Hong Yitang said he could tolerate more. He simply crushed some more Water of Life and directed the energy into the man’s body. The assimilation of three elements would require more resources, and Hong Yitang consumed a lot to begin with. He seemed to need more than Li Hao!

Arcanus might require one hundred drops of Water of Life to progress from two elements to three. Hong Yitang needed less, but Li Hao consistently pulled out more Water of Life. He reached twenty drops in the blink of an eye—this might not be enough.

Hong Yitang’s presence fully faded after a moment. The ‘sword’ character was more resplendent than before. Li Hao had expanded thirty drops. When combined with the amount that he’d utilized at the very beginning, it amounted to almost fifty drops for Hong Yitang to advance to a three element ‘sword’ character.

That was a rather significant amount!

He’d also spent some outside, leaving him approximately only three hundred drops left. Damn he was really ripping through his stores! Granted, he could trade ten thousand mysterious power stones for one drop, so he hadn’t really consumed that much.

Hong Yitang swallowed the character without saying anything, recovering some of his mental strength. His presence grew more contained compared to before. However, he frowned despite his success.

“It... really is a bit hard to bear if there’s no character written specifically for strengthening the body. This thing consumes too much blood qi and mental strength—it even absorbs a lot of life force. I’d probably die of old age in the process if there wasn’t Water of Life reinforcing me.”

At the same time, there was a sparkle in his eyes. “But it really does nurture the body when stored inside. I have to say, Li Hao, this really was a great idea!”

“I have an even better idea.” Li Hao grinned. “The characters can operate breathing methods by themselves!”

Hong Yitang blinked. Li Hao hadn’t mentioned this before. He quickly put it to the test!

“This... is a stroke of brilliance, kid!” He breathed with astonishment. “This idea didn’t occur to me at all! This is the equivalent of dual cultivation, the characters can cultivate by themselves! This will accelerate cultivation and save a lot of time!”

“Martial uncle’s single character is quite impressive.” Li Hao grinned. “But I was thinking that if I imbue each character with one breathing method, that is the equivalent of a single person cultivating. If I coalesce endless characters, that is the combined effect of innumerable people cultivating.

“No matter what martial uncle comes up with, you can only train one breathing method. That’s only two people cultivating. So... hmm... I think my condition is pretty good too!”

Hong Yitang blinked, then didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Yes indeed, the lad possessed a great advantage!