Desolate Era (Book 22 - Book 24)

Desolate Era (Book 22 - Book 24)

I Eat Tomatoes



Book 22, Chapter 1 - Becoming a True God


Ji Ning opened his eyes and looked at the beautiful bloodlotus flowers hovering in the air around him. Although their baleful aura filled the entire region, the aura was unable to disguise their beauty. Ning almost felt as though he could see a dazzlingly beautiful woman surrounded by that sea of blood. The woman’s face was the face of the woman he wished to see the most. She silently stood there, amidst the bloodlotus flowers, smiling at him.

“Senior apprentice-sister…”

Ning gently murmured these words to himself. He was silent for a moment, then waved his hand and took back the bloodlotus flowers.

Then, Ning sat down in the lotus position and began to train in the [Solitary World God].

Stillness.

His heartrate began to slow down; in fact, it very nearly stopped. His blood flow began to stop as well. Ning just sat there, seeming to have become a solitary, withered tree. However, his senses were more acute than ever before.

“My divine body…” Ning traced the sensations of starvation back to its source, finding the sense of hunger that permeated his entire body.

“There we go.”

“Time to begin.”

Ning immediately initiated the technique for making the breakthrough.

“Let the Dao of the Sword serve as the core.” Instantly, the divine power that permeated every single cell in Ning’s body began to change, transforming into countless tiny swords. Every single drip of divine power was in the shape of a sword, making it as though Ning’s entire body was composed of countless tiny swords. Every single tiny sword embodied the essence of a Grand Dao, the Dao of the Sword.

When breaking through to become a True God, an Elder God, or a World God, there was one thing in common that was needed: A specific Dao had to be used as the core.

Two identical sets of rocks. If one’s construction techniques were poor, they would result in a flimsy, easily destroyed building. But if one’s construction techniques were good, they would result in a building that would last for thousands of year.

The principle was the same. If one wished to build a powerful divine body, one needed to use absolutely brilliant techniques. The trick here lay in the Dao that was used for the core.

Take Ning, for example; as an Empyrean God, his divine body had reached the level of perfection long ago. He wasn’t able to make any further improvements whatsoever. However, to step into the higher realm of True Gods, he first had to have sufficiently pure divine power. His divine power had to more than a hundred times more pure than that of an ordinary Empyrean God, which meant that he would have to change even the core Dao which was the source of his divine power. When Ning had become an Empyrean God, his core Dao had been the Dao of Rainwater. Now, for the sake of breaking through to become a True God, Ning chose to use the Dao of the Sword as his core.

In in the Three Realms, it was believed that there actually weren’t any ‘taboo’ Daos that could not be used as the core. Upon mastering a specific Heavenly Dao, one would generally use that Heavenly Dao as the core for becoming a Daofather.

However…

The techniques passed down by World God Northrest included many details notes within them.

With each breakthrough to a new realm, the divine body would be remade anew and perfected. The core Daos used each time should not be contradictory ones! For example, if he had become an Empyrean God through using the Dao of the Inferno as his core, then when he became a True God he shouldn’t use the Grand Dao of the Waterdrop. If he did, the two Daos would interfere with each other. He would still be able to become a True God, but he would never have any chance of becoming an Elder God again.

In the Three Realms, becoming a True God through cultivation was considered the apex of power; they naturally wouldn’t care about such a thing.

However, some of the high-level cultivators within the endless primordial chaos had set their sights on greater heights. They learned from the wisdom of their elders, and so also set down rules of their own to ensure their successors would know which choices were taboo. For example, the Daos that you chose for making your breakthrough absolutely could not be Daos that repelled each other! Once that happened, the divine body would have an unstable foundation and it wouldn’t be able to advance much further.

The element of water and the Dao of the Sword, however…one was an elemental Dao, while the other was an attacking Dao; there were no contradictions at all. Thus, there wouldn’t be any issues caused by choosing the two.

If both Daos were elemental Daos, such as the Daos of Fire, Water, Metal, Earth, and Wood, there would be contradictions. The only question would be how serious the contradictions were.

If both Daos were attacking Daos, such as the Daos of the Sword, the Saber, etc., there would also be contradictions.

If the contradictions were minor, one would still eventually be able to become an Elder God, but becoming a World God would be much more difficult.

If the contradictions were major, with the Daos being opposite-aligned, then even becoming an Elder God would be extremely difficult. As for becoming a World God, there would be no hope of that at all.

In the primordial chaos, this was considered to be secret information. Only people with exalted statuses would be in possession of this knowledge. World God Northrest, for example, knew these things because Vastheaven Palace had an excellent repository of legacies. Ordinary cultivators weren’t in possession of this information. Ning wished to tell his master and the others, but when World God Northrest had transmitted these legacies to Ning, Ning had long ago been forced to swear a lifeblood oath that unless he became a World God, he was not permitted to teach anyone the things which World God Northrest had taught him.

Boom!

Ning activated the technique for making a breakthrough.

Instantly, his divine body gave birth to an incredibly powerful sucking effect that filled the prisonworld. The prisonworld had an enormous formation that was meant to distill the primordial chaos within it into chaos nectar, but as Ning made his breakthrough, his body began to ravenously draw energy from the primordial chaos. This caused the formerly calm primordial chaos within the prisonworld to suddenly become turbulent.

Rumble…

More and more chaos energy was drawn into Ning’s body and converted into divine power.

The Dao of the Sword served as his core, and it transformed the chaos energy into divine power that was far purer than the divine power he had as an Empyrean God. It was the divine power of a True God.

As more and more divine power built up inside Ning’s body, it slowly began to evolve and transform. Every single bit of divine power in his body was transforming.

……

“What’s going on?”

“Why can’t I draw any more divine power? The prisonworld’s formation is constantly leeching energy from the primordial chaos, taking away more than 90% of it, but we should still be able to draw power from the remaining amount. But now, I can’t draw any power from it at all.”

“What happened to the primordial chaos? Why did it become so frenzied and turbulent?”

The Elder Gods and Ancestral Immortals imprisoned within the prisonworld, alongside exceptional True Gods and True Immortals who were able to tap the power of primordial chaos such as True God Shiyu, all became puzzled.