Desolate Era (Book 28 - Book 30)

“Haha, I’ve gained certain insights and wish to make my breakthrough,” Ning sent mentally. “After I do so, the Ninedust Sectlord will no longer be a problem.” Swoosh. A black flying vessel appeared, and Ning entered it. With his nine novessence arts and his flying vessel guarding him, he was ready to begin his breakthrough.

However, his breakthrough would be a two-step process. He would first make a breakthrough as a Ki Refiner, upgrading his Jindan chaos region, then make a breakthrough with his divine body as well! He was on a battlefield, after all. If he tried to breakthrough simultaneously in both aspects, he wouldn’t even be able to fight back if he ended up in serious trouble. It was best to be careful. To speed up the process, Ning elected to simply use chaos jewels.

When he had killed Daolord Kongsan, he had acquired a good number of treasures. Other treasures and curios aside, Ning had over two hundred million cubes worth of chaos nectar and chaos jewels! The amount of chaos jewels needed to break through to become a Daolord of the Second Step was negligible for Ning.

Rumble…

The Dao-tree within Ning’s Jindan chaos region began to grow.





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Book 30, Chapter 11 - Breakthrough The Ninedust Sectlords Goal


Every branch of the titanic Dao-tree luxuriated with foliage and stretched skywards like a dragon in flight. They had previously been 156,000 meters high, but now they began to climb once more. The tree trunk grew thicker and thicker, soon climbing to the awesome span of 252,000 meters!

252,000 meters was a limit for Daolords of the Second Step. Ordinary Daolords, when they made their cultivation breakthroughs to the second step, would generally only reach at most a height of 210,000 metres. Only after they slowly gained more insights and further perfected their Dao would they reach 252,000 meters.

Ji Ning, however, was different. His Omega Sword Dao truly was the omega; it would always be at the apex of power for any level he was at, and going past that would represent a fundamental, qualitative change! Similarly, there were some Daolords of the Fourth Step who would need to train for countless years before reaching the Verge, but some would be at the Verge of the Daomerge as soon as they reached the fourth step.

“However… it is much harder for me to train in my Omega Sword Dao. It took forever for me to go from being a Daolord of the First Step to being a Daolord of the Second Step,” Ning sighed.

Su Youji had reached the second step long ago. As for Pillsaint, he had buried himself in his study of alchemy and broken through in a very natural manner. This was the case for most Daolords; moving from the first step to the second step was very, very easy. There were no bottlenecks involved for the vast majority of them… but Ning had technically been trainng for over a million years of accelerated time!

“Still, by comparison breaking through to the second step was fairly simple. Becoming a Daolord of the Third Step will be a hundred times more difficult. As for reaching the fourth step… that’ll be even tougher.” Ning understood that the more difficult a Dao was, the harder it would be for him to break through while training in it. Take Numerancy for example! Even someone who was as incredibly talented in this dao as Daolord Badlands was still just a Daolord of the Third Step! Ning’s Omega Sword Dao was far more powerful than Badlands’ Dao.

Whoosh. As the Dao-tree grew, the Jindan chaos region began to expand as well. Because Ning was using chaos jewels to make his breakthrough, no commotion was caused and no fluctuations in the surrounding primordial chaos could be observed.

……

Ning’s attention was completely focused upon making the necessary breakthroughs, and he spared just a bit of energy on maintaining his nine novessence arts and having them attack the Ninedust Sectlord.

“Damn. Why have these secret arts suddenly become so much more powerful?” The Ninedust Sectlord spun the longstaff in his hands, his body constantly flickering as he swept his weapon out in every direction to block the endless sea of small golden snakes and the nine mighty novessence arts.

“That’s the direction, over there. I can sense the whispers of fate growing louder and louder.” On the surface, it looked like the Ninedust Sectlord was able to fight back against the nine novessence arts and the little golden snakes, but in reality he was ‘accidentally’ moving further and further in a certain direction while dodging. He’d sometimes go left, sometimes go right, sometimes advance, sometimes retreat… but on the whole, he was moving closer and closer to the place which was calling out to him.

“That’s where my destiny lies. I’ve worked so hard to follow the Emperor’s guidance. I’ve taken over the Ninedust Sect and used it to explore all of the surrounding territories… and now, I’ve finally verified that my destiny lies within the Eastroad Sect. I’m going to grasp it, no matter what.” While it looked like the Ninedust Sectlord was being pressed quite hard, in reality everything was still under his control.

Although the formations of the Eastroad Sect and the nine novessence arts were all extremely powerful, they shared a common flaw; both were domain-type attacks. There were simply too many of those little golden serpents, and they had primarily been designed to entrap and encumber a foe, allowing Daolord Eastroad himself to deliver the actual fatal blow.

As for Ning’s nine novessence arts, they were also meant to be used as a domain-type attack. Daolord Allgod had devised this technique to entrap Emperor Melobo! They were meant to serve as a domain for trapping and surrounding an enemy. They would be able to easily smash through weaker Daolords, but only have a restrictive effect on a truly powerful one.

Whoosh. Whoosh. The Ninedust Sectlord continued to silently advance at a glacial pace, afraid of attracting the attention of Daolord Thunderheat or Ji Ning.

……

“Success.” Ning revealed a look of delight within his black flying vessel. He had finally made his breakthrough. His aura was now markedly stronger than before, and his divine power and Immortal energy had both reached a fundamentally higher level than they had before. Ning quickly began to enhance the six Northbow swords on his back, guiding them in improving their quintessence cores of Sword Dao. This was what was good about Lifeblood weapons; you could continuously perfect and upgrade their quintessence cores, allowing them to grow alongside you.

Still… the requirements for the creation of a Lifeblood weapon were quite stringent. None of the treasures left behind by Daolord Kongsan were suitable for conversion into a Lifeblood weapon.

“Next, time for me to upgrade my azureflower mist energy.” Ning’s combat prowess was primarily thanks to the azureflower mist energy. He rapidly poured his divine power and his Immortal energy into the azureflower region, replenishing both with his chaos jewels as necessary. However, his azureflower region was now far larger than before, and so more time was needed to ‘fill it up’ with azureflower mist energy than had been needed for Ning to upgrade his divine body and his Jindan chaos region.

……

“I can sense that it is within a hundred kilometers of me.” A hint of delight flashed through the Ninedust Sectlord’s eyes. “No need to delay any further. Let’s do this!”

The Ninedust Sectlord suddenly struck out with the longstaff in his hands, sweeping aside the domain attacks as though he was parting the waters with them, then charged at full speed towards a certain direction. To someone like him, a hundred meters was nothing.