CHAPTER 230: END OF THE SECLUSION 2

Chapter 230: End of the Seclusion 2

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Creating an inner world takes time and resources, as well as an absurdly high amount of pure spiritual energy and a very deep compression of the main law one chooses to learn, since the basic characteristics of the world will be based on it.

Such an amount of energy is more than enough to give birth to dozens of cultivators at the third stage of the Spirit Realm, almost 100 of the second stage and around a thousand of the first stage.

The amount of spiritual energy in a plane of existence is limited, so if there isn’t enough spiritual energy in the surrounding environment, then one can only rely on the harvesting and refinement of the spiritual energy cultivated by other cultivators at the Spirit Realm,

or go hunting for places full of spiritual energy outside the plane of existence, or in a superior plane.

The presence of even a single cultivator at the fourth stage of the Spirit Realm, especially one near the peak, is enough to make a conspicuous portion of the total spiritual energy of the world disappear,

and this is also one of the reasons why these existences, once they reach that point, can no longer remain in that plane of existence and must ascend whether they like it or not.

Their strength is too devastating, to the point it can damage the plane of existence, and the fact that they take such a big slice of the spiritual energy available affects all living beings.

Thus, once they reach that level, they feel an attraction toward the superior planes that grows stronger and stronger, and they either follow this attraction and ascend, or resist until they can’t anymore and ascend forcefully, in other words, get kicked out.

Only in this way does the amount of spiritual energy balance out and an exchange happens between the two planes of existence.

The superior plane takes the cultivator, and the inferior one receives back an amount of spiritual energy equal to what the cultivator used to cultivate till that point.

Such is the balance between worlds, a balance hard to break, one that, if broken in any way, would lead to the ruin of one of the two planes of existence, almost certainly the weaker one.

And here lies the very problem Zhu Rong had to face when he decided to repair his divine weapon.

The amount of material and spiritual energy is insufficient, and this is because in this plane of existence there are many Spirit Realm cultivators, many of the first stage, some of the second, and 3 in particular of the third.

But more importantly, there is someone even more powerful who is holding back a huge amount of spiritual energy, and that someone is none other than that soul fragment dwelling in the Frozen Lands.

It uses the absorbed energy to distribute those cocoons,each one holding a pearl of concentrated spiritual energy, enough to nourish first stage Spirit Realm beings, or higher ones depending on that entity’s intent.

Even worse, that spiritual energy didn’t seem able to go beyond the Frozen Lands, so when the being died and its energy dispersed, it ended up in the enemy’s hands once again.

Only those who were defeated within the territory of the three empires had their spiritual energy dispersed into the surrounding environment.

This led him to raise the spiritual energy not in the outside world but in his secret realm, where everything is under his control and there is no risk of losing the cultivated spiritual energy.

In addition, with the heart of a dead star that Yuan Lan managed to obtain, he had everything needed to bring his little world to a completely new level,

repair his divine weapon, and most importantly, successfully step into the fourth stage and start the process of merging laws and his nascent soul, a process that had been going on for nearly 3 full years and that today was finally coming to an end.

Yuan Lan’s eyes were on Zhu Rong’s figure, immersed in the core of the secret realm’s world, lost in the sight as if in a trance, while who knows what thoughts passed through her mind.

But it didn’t last long, because finally an intense golden gleam began to be emitted from her cross shaped pupils as she felt a presence beginning to emerge from the man’s figure.

It was a subtle and weak presence, but growing, becoming easier and easier to perceive.

As soon as it appeared, a tremor passed through the body of the beautiful woman, but it didn’t stop there.

Her soul itself seemed to tremble as she felt that figure’s presence grow stronger and stronger.

Her whole being shook with fear at the perception of that presence, but not just any fear,

rather a fear caused by the emergence of a superior existence, one whose mere presence made others bow their heads and feel unworthy to exist,

like a deity looking at a mortal.

It was a familiar sensation to her, she had already felt it and remembered it very well, a sensation she had missed and had waited a long time to feel again, one she had only sensed once before, and even then the source of it was none other than that man.

Yuan Lan’s lazy attitude had disappeared at this point, replaced by an expression completely focused and concentrated on that being.

A joyful expression appeared on her face, one that surpassed even the one she showed when she met her master the last time, one filled with reverence, loyalty, and many other emotions mixed in a chaotic spiral.

But she wasn’t the only one who felt it, the whole world sensed it, every organism from the greatest to the smallest, from the fiercest to the meekest felt it and instinctively trembled as they wondered what was happening.

The world itself seemed to tremble as it welcomed the birth, or better, the return, of that figure.

On the surface everything was chaotic due to the appearance of that presence, but deep down, in the depths of the world, something even more surprising was happening.

The world core, large and radiant, filled with spiritual energy so dense and massive it made its previous self pale, trembled as strange symbols appeared in the air.

They appeared quickly, but as soon as they manifested they didn’t remain still, but instead, like existences with their own consciousness, began to move, intertwine and disappear, soon giving birth to other symbols just as strange and mysterious.

These new ones formed a thick but long strip of symbols that stretched further and further as new ones were created, until it circled around the world core and returned to the starting point, fusing the two ends of what now seemed to be a belt made of these symbols.

It pulsed once completed and then merged with the walls of the core, imprinting itself on it.

Such a phenomenon was strange and unexplainable to many, but not to the figure inside the core.

And that’s because it had something similar inside its body, deeper within, more precisely engraved on its dantian, where a similar strip of symbols also pulsed, circling the dantian.

A strip of runes that appeared a long time ago, and even after his body was recreated it remained and had shown no sign of life ever since, until now,

It was shining with an intense crimson red light.

Inside the dantian itself, which in the past had been a chaotic vortex of crimson mist with elemental cores arranged in formation at the center, another change was taking place.

The cores that in the past had been simple Fourth stage Mortal Realm cores were now all Spirit Realm cores, nothing less, at an advanced phase, each containing its own nascent soul.

But that was not the only change.

There were no longer seven elemental cores and a central demonic one; instead, there were nine elemental cores and one central core.

The formation of the elemental cores had already changed from the previous to a higher level one, making the harmony between the elements and the overall force much higher, all revolving around the demonic core hosting the Blood Demon.

The elemental cores had all been raised to higher levels, as had their nascent souls, each one a unique and magnificent creature.

Had these creatures been revealed to the outside world, they would have caused chaos everywhere, particularly in the Beast Empire, as the beasts reflected all the powerful rulers of the past from the various dominant races of that time.

The fate of these rulers had been tragic and mysterious, and only a few individuals knew that a certain human had playfully massacred them all and absorbed their blood essences back then.

Normally one would have had to create an inner world for each of those cores, but Zhu Rong decided to take a different and more drastic approach, that is to create a single inner world to which all his elemental cores were linked.

Such a thing would be impossible under normal circumstances, but with his cultivation technique it wasn’t, and in fact at this very moment, this was exactly what was happening.

The cores orbited around the demon core, which however was releasing a strong spark of crimson light.

This spark was the birth of Zhu Rong’s inner world, one more powerful than it normally would be, one nourished directly by the core of the secret realm’s world,

thus providing it with the vast amount of spiritual energy necessary to complete the entire process.