Desolate Era (Book 28 - Book 30)

If you had an incredibly deep foundation, you would be ready to build a massive palace atop it. Every floor would be quite difficult to construct, and to gain eternity would be even harder. However, if you succeeded you would be unfathomably stronger than your peers. This was true for Bertulu, Eastcult, Greatjoy, and the others. As for Ning, his foundation was the deepest of them all.

“Don’t worry at all, big brother.” Ning smiled, then both he and his clone both transformed into streaks of light that flew towards his distant estate as Daolord Battlemaster and Daolord Solesky both watched from behind.

“Brother Ji Ning truly has improved by an astonishing amount.” Daolord Solesky sighed. “When I first met him… I thought he was quite talented, but I never would’ve imagined that he would become as powerful as he is today. The evasion skill he used just now was very fast, but it didn’t seem to include any of his lightning or water. I have no idea what evasion skill he used, but just by relying on his sword-intent he was able to capture five World-level cultivators.”

Daolord Battlemaster nodded as well. “I tried to use Numerancy to divine his future, but I wasn’t able to divine anything at all. He’s too monstrously talented, even more talented than Brightfish. Calculating his future is far too difficult.”

Forget about him; even the Paragon of Pills was only able to use Numerancy to get the vaguest of ideas as to how long it would be before they met again.





* * *





Book 29, Chapter 16 - Becoming a Daolord


Vastheaven Palace. The Darknorth Estate.

The white-robed Ji Ning and the fur-clad Ning were travelling side-by-side.

“Master.” Su Youji and Pillsaint stared in astonishment.

“My clone has already returned from the Badlands Territory. It is now time for me to break through to become a Daolord as well,” Ning said. “Starting right now, do not disturb me unless something very important happens.”

“Understood.”

Both Su Youji and Pillsaint immediately acknowledged the order. They were unable to prevent looks of excitement from appearing on their faces. As they saw it, Ji Ning truly was an incredible figure; once he broke through to become a Daolord, his status would truly skyrocket even more.

Whoosh. Whoosh. The white-robed Ning and the fur-clad Ning both moved into a private room deep within the estate.

……

Within the secluded room.

Rumble…

Formations began to actiate, causing barriers of light to begin to appear around the entire Darknorth estate, preventing any outsiders from looking into it.

The white-robed Ning and the fur-clad Ning both sat in the lotus position. Both shut their eyes, then began to use the [One True Body] technique.

Whoosh. Both bodies began to emanate an aura of blurry light from their bodies, their Jindans, and their souls. They began to draw closer and closer to each other, before finally the fur-clad Ning flew straight into the white-robed Ning’s body, causing the light to expand dramatically.

The two came from the same source. They were identical in soul, truesoul, and body. This was why they were able to rejoin each other and merge into one.

“Now, all eighteen of my clones have been brought together into one.” The white-robed Ning opened his eyes, revealing a smile. He still remembered how he had first acquired the [Taowu Eighteen Fiendgods] and used it to create eighteen separate clones. Now, he had managed to once more merge all eighteen clones into one! A sense of perfection and contentment came from his very truesoul, causing him to feel a bit intoxicated.

Immortal energy and divine power flooded into the azureflower mist region within his body, and it actually began to transform into more of that mist energy. For eighteen of those bodies to come together meant that his divine body had only become more powerful than it had been in the past! His divine power was also slightly purer than before as well, allowing him to endure and hold a bit more of that mist energy.

“A hundred and twenty drops.” He had accumulated a total of 120 drops of ‘water’ within the azureflower mist region. This was quite a bit more than the 108 drops he had accumulated previously.

……

Within an estate located in the primordial chaos directly outside the distant Three Realms.

The black-robed Ning was seated there, next to another black-robed Ning. They simultaneously used the [One True Body] technique as well and merged to become one.

A short while later, there was only one seated black-robed Ning. His aura, however, was a bit stronger than before.

From this day forth, he would only have one true body and one Primaltwin, with no clones of either.

……

“Let it begin.” Both the white-robed Ning in Vastheaven Palace and the black-robed Ning in his chaos estate nodded, their eyes filled with resolve.

Boom!

The true body and the Primaltwin, though located extremely far away from each other, made their breakthroughs simultaneously. They could even sense a strange resonance between them, and in this moment they both established a Dao that belonged to them and them alone.

Samsara Daolords walked a path of their own devising, and with each step on their Dao they trod the line between life and death.

Each time he made a breakthrough, both his true body and his Primaltwin would have to make the breakthrough at the same time! Trying to break through with just one would result in being stifled by the other; there was no way for it to succeed. Consider the ‘Daomerge’; even a Daolord of the Fourth Step who had a Primaltwin would only have one shot at the Daomerge. There was no way to simply allow the true body to fail the Daomerge, then allow the Primaltwin to use that experience to succeed.

The true body and the Primaltwin would have to face it all together, and with each step they would risk death together. This was how things worked. If you weren’t extremely determined, you would never be able to succeed.

Rumble…

The primordial chaos outside the Three Realms began to rumble and churn with unearthly power, forming a chaos whirlpool of terrifying power and inconceivable size. The ripples caused by it actually affected even the insides of the Three Realms!

“W-what…”

“What in the world?”

“What are these terrifying ripples?”

Patriarch Subhuti, Windfiend, and the other elites of the Three Realms all flew to the void above the Three Realms. They stared towards the distant place where the ripples were coming from. They could sense that the normally calm and tranquil primordial chaos was now rumbling and roaring like a dragon in flight, churning with such power that they were all utterly amazed.

……

Vastheaven Palace. The Darknorth Estate was completely calm.

Although a Daolord’s aura was bursting forth from this place, the barriers which Ning had activated earlier made it so that the aura was completely blocked from escaping. As for the energy which he needed to break through from the World level to the Daolord level, Ning was able to simply generate it from the chaos jewels which he carried with him. This was a decision he had made ever since he comprehended his Omega Sword Dao.

Whoooosh.

The Jindan chaos region within his body. The Dao-tree which had been 108,000 meters tall began to draw nourishment from Ning’s insights into his Sword Dao. It quickly began to grow, and with a rumbling sound it started to expand. Although it was very slow in growing ‘taller’, it was beginning to thicken at an absolutely incredible speed.

The Dao-tree was growing thicker and thicker, but it was growing taller quite slowly.

“The deeper a Samsara Daolord’s foundation is, the thicker his Dao-tree will be. Thanks to my Omega Sword Dao, there should be very few Daolords of the First Step who are a match for me,” Ning mused. There was a fixed limit to how tall a Dao-tree could be. For example, if a Daolord of the Fourth Step trained for many years and reached the Verge, his Dao-tree would grow to become 540,000 meters tall. This was true for all Verge-level Daolords. The thickness, however, was different for each person.