Chapter 147: A Remarkably Spiritual Primordial Spirit

The Nascent Soul stage is a critical bottleneck for cultivators. While the Golden Core stage only permits flying on a sword, the Nascent Soul stage allows one to traverse the void on foot. Only upon reaching the Nascent Soul stage can one truly be considered a powerhouse in the world of cultivation.

As the Golden Core shattered, a fertilized-ovum-like entity began to divide within the dantian, slowly transforming into an embryo. This embryo radiated a purple-gold hue, wreathed in purple mist, and gradually condensed into a tiny infant. It possessed the golden luster of jade, the form of a newborn child, was clad in red on its upper body and yellow on its lower body, and its head resembled that of a baby at birth.

At this moment, the Nascent Soul barrier within the dantian cracked and steadily widened. The spiritual energy of heaven and earth rushed into the dantian with even greater frenzy, and a vast, formidable aura of the Nascent Soul stage soared into the sky.

Following a thunderous roar, as if the heavens and earth were being newly partitioned, the Nascent Soul barrier was completely blown open. The lake of true essence within the dantian expanded abruptly by more than tenfold, instantly rendering the madly surging spiritual energy of heaven and earth somewhat insufficient to supply it.

Liu Junhuai swiftly swallowed three drops of spiritual liquid. The immense, pure spiritual energy surged inward like rolling waves, ultimately merging into the true essence lake.

As the water level of the true essence lake steadily rose, the tiny infant gradually took form. Its facial features slowly shifted to resemble those of Liu Junhuai, sitting cross-legged amidst the swirling purple mist while pinching a mental cultivation incantation.

A wave of joy washed over Liu Junhuai as he gazed fondly at the miniature version of himself. In that instant, he felt his features were exceptionally handsome.

Just as Liu Junhuai was reveling in his self-admiration, a sudden force invaded his sea of consciousness. His consciousness instantly went blank, accompanied by an agony as if this force were tearing his very body apart from within. This tearing pain swept through his entire body in a fraction of a second. Hastily operating the golden sphere and the golden blending vessel, Liu Junhuai used dense threads of heavenly consciousness to grab hold of that foreign force and begin devouring it, which only then caused the pain to gradually subside.

The previously clear night sky was suddenly cleaved by a peal of thunder. Rolling dark clouds swept across the heavens, blotting out the light, and in the blink of an eye, lightning flashed, thunder roared, and a torrential downpour instantly pelted down.

A top-grade Mysterious Essence Nine-Bundle Pill was swiftly swallowed and melted into the meridians. Part of the dissolved medicinal liquid traveled toward a spot roughly an inch inward from his heart and halted there, while the other part flowed down into the dantian, suspended mid-air, seeping into the swirling purple mist to envelop the infant-like Nascent Soul.

Almost simultaneously, following an earth-shaking clap of thunder, the gloomy clouds in the sky began to twist rapidly, forming a vortex. A straight bolt of lightning shot from the vortex with lightning speed, plunging toward Liu Junhuai.

Prepared in advance, Liu Junhuai instantly manifested a gigantic hand that covered the heavens, flipping his palm to meet the descending lightning.

Yet, that plunging purple lightning seemed to possess a will of its own; it instantly reversed itself in mid-air, doubling its might as it renewed its descent.

With a deafening crash, Liu Junhuai's heaven-covering hand managed only to slow the plummeting momentum of the lightning by half. Shattering the giant palm, the purple lightning struck directly onto Liu Junhuai's body.

The moment it came into contact with the lightning, Liu Junhuai's body was driven ten zhang deep into the ground by the fierce impact. His protective true essence barrier shattered upon impact, and the powerful shockwave invaded his internal organs.

As the shockwave entered his body, it was instantly swallowed by the vast torrent of true essence and began to be refined.

Hovering on the brink of unconsciousness, Liu Junhuai gradually revived as the pain receded. Ignoring his naked, blood-soaked body, he hurriedly crossed his legs right where he sat and inspected the growth of his Nascent Soul.

The purple mist surrounding the tiny infant had been scattered by the shockwave, and it was only thanks to the protection of that medicinal orb that it had narrowly escaped disaster.

Seeing the serene expression of the Nascent Soul, the heart that had been hanging in Liu Junhuai's throat finally settled, only to be captivated once again by the infant that looked so much like him.

Gazing at this miniature version of himself, Liu Junhuai could not help but marvel at the vast and omnipotent nature of the Dao. The Dao not only gave birth to all things in creation but also transcended space and time, encompassing all phenomena. Every opportunity for human existence was bestowed by nothing other than the Dao. As a cultivator treading the path of the Dao, if one failed to perceive and grasp the potential mysterious opportunities hidden within subtle changes, one would undoubtedly lose chance after chance of attaining enlightenment.

Yet it was his accidental fall off a cliff, followed by his miraculous landing in Fengling, a nation of cultivators, that had allowed him to come into contact with the path of cultivation and embark on this boundless journey seeking the heavenly Dao.

Ever since his rebirth into this world, he had found everything here to be so unfathomably profound and vibrantly alive. This profoundness and vitality of nature far exceeded human intelligence and comprehension. The more his cultivation advanced, the more Liu Junhuai felt the natural, effortless, and all-pervading nature of the Dao.

Before this natural Dao, he sensed the insignificance and fragility of humankind. Humans were prone to arrogance; they created culture, writing, and systems, which appeared glorious and majestic. Yet, before nature, which generated all things in the universe, mankind was perhaps as insignificant as a single grain of sand in a vast desert or a single droplet of water in an endless ocean.

Although Liu Junhuai had now attained the Nascent Soul stage, the more powerful his cultivation grew, the more he felt the need to respect nature, follow its laws, and trust in the inherent vitality and potential of the natural world.

Trusting nature was not meant to belittle humanity; rather, trusting nature served precisely to shatter the barriers of "rules" and customs, returning humanity to its primal and magnificent potential.

When humans returned to their roots and pondered their predicament and the foundation of their existence, it constituted a profound understanding of nature.

Unawares, Liu Junhuai inadvertently fell into a state of inexplicable sudden enlightenment. It was much like gazing into the distance on a misty morning, where the winding path before his doorstep appeared both clear and blurred at the end, pacing back and forth while waiting for a distant loved one to return, yet never quite catching sight of their homecoming figure.

At this moment, Liu Junhuai was completely unaware that the miniature version of himself within his dantian was attempting to absorb the medicinal liquid surrounding it.

Meanwhile, that medicinal liquid was being diligently refined by the heavenly consciousness extending from his sea of consciousness.

One hour.

Two hours.

Three hours...

The same scene played out roughly an inch inward from Liu Junhuai's heart, where that cluster of medicinal liquid had already been refined and condensed into a multicolored gas the size of a fingernail.

After an unknown passage of time, as the medicinal liquid was gradually refined, the Nascent Soul in the dantian finally began its act of devouring and absorption.

The medicinal liquid diminished bit by bit, while Liu Junhuai's gaze gradually cleared, rendering the previously blurred vision increasingly distinct.

As Liu Junhuai experienced his sudden enlightenment, he abruptly felt the heavenly consciousness in his sea of consciousness emit a nearly joyous tremor, which in turn caused the Nascent Soul in his dantian to half-open its eyes, blinking amidst a tremor of its tiny body.

Following the wave of joy fed back from the heavenly consciousness to his mind, a sudden clarity washed over Liu Junhuai's sea of consciousness. A deep familiarity of fusing with the nature of heaven and earth welled up spontaneously, elevating his understanding of the laws of heaven and earth to a certain height and allowing him to conform to the rules between heaven and earth, reaching a state of perfection.

To achieve the realm of attaining the Dao, to live eternally alongside heaven and earth, to manipulate the fundamental rules of the cosmos, and to carve out one's own grotto-heaven world—all for the purpose of achieving longevity!

Liu Junhuai sensed that the primary goal of cultivation was not longevity, but rather finding and fulfilling one's own Dao among the myriad avenues of this world. As for longevity, it was merely a natural fringe benefit granted upon attaining the Dao!

The Dao had the heart as its root; when the heart had a pursuit, the only pursuit was the Dao! Solidifying one's Dao heart ought to be the primary task of any cultivator.

Furthermore, only by grasping a glimpse of the Dao and breaking through certain barriers could one successfully advance. Shaping the Nascent Soul, advancing to the Mahayana stage, and subsequently undergoing tribulation to attain eternal Dao—at every single advancement, the Dao heart had to reach a certain degree of purity, rather than relying merely on the accumulation of power!

At present, using the Dao to give birth to an infant of vital breath in order to nurture one's own Dao was the righteous path.

Following Liu Junhuai's momentary comprehension of the Dao, the multicolored gas near his heart suddenly emitted a brilliant five-colored radiance, overflowing his entire body with an aura closely resembling heavenly consciousness yet carrying a hint of spiritual sentience.

This cluster of multicolored gas gradually drifted toward the dantian. The infant Nascent Soul, sitting cross-legged, instantly emitted a series of excited tremors, opened its tiny mouth, and inhaled deeply, swallowing the entire sheet of multicolored radiance in a single instant.

After a more violent tremor, a formless and colorless gas slowly emanated from around the Nascent Soul, while the multicolored radiance permeated the surface of the Nascent Soul's skin. Moving around its body along with the inhaled true essence, it was brilliantly colorful and exceptionally striking!

At this moment, Liu Junhuai was wild with joy. His sudden enlightenment of the heavenly Dao had directly catalyzed the materialization of his divine soul, and that multicolored radiance was the precise manifestation of the quintessence of the five elemental attributes.

He closed his eyes to carefully sense the changes within his body. This divine soul was similar to his heavenly consciousness—both belonged to subconsciousness of an intentional nature, invisible under normal conditions, yet containing all the informational space-time experiences of a person, representing the true essence and本体 of human life.

However, unlike heavenly consciousness, which originated in the brain and could control brain functions and bodily actions through intentional force, the divine soul originated from outside the physical body. It was a high-energy spiritual entity, far stronger in intent than heavenly consciousness.

When the intentional force of heavenly consciousness was exceedingly strong, brain functions and bodily behavior were entirely controlled by heavenly consciousness, generating and regulating human emotions and desires, rendering the divine soul unable to communicate with the brain or exert its spiritual role.

Yet now, the intentional force of the divine soul had surpassed that of heavenly consciousness, seizing control over the brain and life actions, and possessed the capacity to govern emotions and desires.

Liu Junhuai felt this sensation was wondrous. The divine soul should possess its own sentience; it was now beginning to slowly devour the heavenly consciousness, while the heavenly consciousness was cooperatively and gradually flowing toward the formless, colorless gas-like divine soul.

This divine soul was equivalent to his own soul, possessing independent consciousness, whereas his former heavenly consciousness still relied on Liu Junhuai's intentional force to guide it.

Now, the divine soul moved like his own arm—wherever his intent went, it followed, acting entirely according to his will with effortless fluidity.

At that very moment, Liu Junhuai suddenly felt a wave of coolness wash over him, realizing only then that he was stark naked, which prompted a quiet, helpless chuckle.

Forming a clear-water incantation with his fingers, he refreshed his entire body and donned a spare set of robes before leaping out of the ten-zhang-deep pit in a single bound.

A-Jiu, who had been waiting faithfully by the edge of the pit, was overflowing with joy. Its nine heads crowded forward in a flattering manner, gently nudging against Liu Junhuai's body.