Chapter 125: New Law

Chapter 125 -109: New Law

The Earth Master inheritance in Chen Qi’s possession contained no Secret Technique for forcefully capturing Spiritual Energy.

Even throughout the entire Inner World, any orthodox inheritance would almost never teach such Secret Techniques.

Those who did were either taking a radical, unorthodox approach or following a heretical path.

Once a Transcendent’s Spirituality was contaminated by high-level Spiritual Energy, the person was as good as ruined.

According to the records of the Earth Master inheritance, only by reaching the High Tier of Transcendents could one capture Spiritual Energy with relative ease.

That was why some ancient inheritances had their apprentices sign a contract with some manner of existence after their Spirit Awakening to obtain Spiritual Energy.

For example, after their Spirit Awakening, Magic apprentices needed to sign a contract with the Four Symbols Book to obtain Magic Power.

Of course, the benefits gained from signing a contract with the Four Symbols Book were not limited to just Magic Power.

But the fact that the ritual required the sacrifice of a Source Ore meant the Magic inheritance deserved to fall into ruin.

A Treasure like a Source Ore, which allowed even a Low Tier Transcendent to obtain Spiritual Energy—how could it be wasted so extravagantly?

Even in the eyes of a worldly Earth Master, a Source Ore was considered a Top Grade item among Low Tier Treasures.

It was only in a small place like the Lanyu Kingdom that everyone was so parochial.

This was especially true for the players, who were all self-taught and had no shortage of Spiritual Energy points. As a result, not many of them paid any mind to Chen Qi’s Source Ore.

Had this been outside the Lanyu Kingdom—even in the Nulis Federation—it would have been enough to make Transcendents tear each other apart for it.

After all, to support its Transcendents, the Nulis Federation still had to purchase Spiritual Energy Capsules from external sources.

This also revealed just how incredible the King’s Game was, to actually provide players with Spiritual Energy points for free.

In some respects, players truly had it easier than the Transcendents of the Inner World.

They didn’t need to painstakingly hone their Spirituality to achieve Spirit Awakening.

Nor did they need to capture Spiritual Energy themselves, as the King’s Game distributed it freely.

Most importantly, they received a Superpower right from the very beginning.

Even if this power was initially weakened and restricted, it was still something far beyond what a normal Transcendent could possess.

Because, fundamentally, this was an ability only a Controller could possess.

…

Chen Qi had always been curious about how power levels were classified in the Inner World.

He was only familiar with the classification system of the Temya Magic Academy, which had just three tiers.

Magic Apprentice, Awakened, and Apostle.

‘So how is power defined and classified in other Transcendent systems?

Is there a unified standard for classifying power across the entire Inner World?’

Chen Qi hadn’t found the answers to these questions, even in the Royal Capital.

Chen Qi had initially assumed this kind of knowledge simply didn’t exist in the Lanyu Kingdom, but upon reflection, that seemed unlikely.

After all, apprentices from the outside world flooded in during each round of the game; it was impossible for all of them to be ignorant.

Ultimately, Chen Qi came to one conclusion: the veteran players had a tacit agreement to hoard this knowledge for themselves.

The players from the new round of the game had yet to make contact with the greater Inner World, so of course they wouldn’t know.

He even had a malicious thought. ‘Could it be King Gutaf himself who forbids the spread of this knowledge, especially to new players? If new players knew about the vast world outside, they might not be willing to remain cooped up here forever. Once ambition is ignited, it’s hard to extinguish. And that wouldn’t be conducive to the stable operation of the King’s Game.’

This had originally been just speculation on Chen Qi’s part, but an item he obtained from Trudeau indirectly proved his suspicions correct.

…

Inner World General Knowledge. This was one of the two items Chen Qi had taken from Trudeau’s remains.

He had been flipping through this very book in the metal fortress right before he was startled by the King’s Game locking onto him.

Trudeau had obtained this book from an apprentice from the outside world during the previous round of the game.

That’s right. Trudeau was a veteran player. He had survived at least one King’s Judgment.

Unfortunately, the man didn’t have a habit of keeping a diary, so Chen Qi had no way of learning the details of the King’s Judgment.

Besides Trudeau’s LV3 strength, the reason Chen Qi knew he was a veteran player was the more definitive evidence that came from this book.

While reading Inner World General Knowledge, Trudeau had jotted down quite a few of his own thoughts. Based on the handwriting, Chen Qi determined that these notes were at least four years old.

This meant the man had definitely been through the last round of the game.

…

Inner World General Knowledge was, as the name suggested, a primer on the basic state of the Inner World.

It didn’t just come from one of the surrounding regions of the Inner World; it was a book intended for apprentices across the entire Inner World.

The book briefly chronicled the history of the Inner World’s evolution and some of its landmark events.

Reading it left Chen Qi deeply shaken. For the first time, he caught a glimpse of the Inner World’s true vastness and its tumultuous history.

Most of the book was dedicated to the history of the Inner World’s development after the establishment of the V5 and the World Government.

It was less a story of development and more one of the old ways decaying as the new way flourished.

Before the rise of the V5, there were thousands of different Transcendent inheritances circulating in the human world.

After the V5 swept through the Inner World, and especially after the promulgation of the Human Spiritual Awakening Bill, only a few hundred Transcendent inheritances survived.

Furthermore, most of these surviving inheritances existed only in the Outer Ring; they were nowhere to be found in the Inner Ring.

In the Inner Ring, an apprentice who wished to undergo Spirit Awakening had only one path: the Spirit Realm Declaration.

But once someone Awakened using the Spirit Realm Declaration, their Spirituality could no longer form a contract with any higher-level entity.

To be precise, those higher-level entities would simply ignore you. You were, for all intents and purposes, blacklisted.

This effectively ripped out the roots of certain Transcendent systems, such as the Magic inheritances.

As a result, the great ancient inheritances of the Inner Ring were no longer the pure, original versions, but various abridged and grafted hybrids.

Their power and wondrous aspects were both greatly diminished, and so they naturally fell into decline.

As for the new way, there was only one guiding principle: “The essence of being Transcendent is to directly perceive and reshape the world through Spirituality.”

Cultivation under the new way, after one became Transcendent, required no Secret Techniques whatsoever.

As long as one’s perception continued to expand, their Spirituality could grow infinitely, and in turn, be used to reshape the world.

This was a privilege granted to one’s Spirituality only after Awakening through the Spirit Realm Declaration.

The source of this privilege was, of course, the Spirit Realm.

The ancient Transcendent systems had no such privilege. Their Cultivation methods were all incredibly complex, each more so than the last.

The secret texts for subsequent Cultivation in virtually any of these systems could fill a two-story building.

The root cause was that after Spirit Awakening in the ancient systems, one’s Spirituality did not grow infinitely on its own.

More accurately, the “power of interference” within one’s Spirituality did not.

The difference lay in the fact that, by not using the Spirit Realm Declaration, their Spirituality had not been “authorized.”

These ancient Transcendent systems tended to view Spirituality as merely a medium for connecting to a certain type of Spiritual Energy.

For example, some inheritances named the Spirituality awakened through their own Secret Techniques a Spirit Root.

Spirit Roots were then subdivided into types like Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth, each linking to a specific kind of Spiritual Energy.

In a way, this type of inheritance was far more generous than the Magic inheritances. It at least allowed a Transcendent to possess Spiritual Power immediately upon Awakening, without needing to sign a contract.

In that type of inheritance, however, once a Spirit Root was formed, it became very stable and incredibly difficult to enhance further.

And this was a “common flaw” in almost all ancient Transcendent systems, especially those that didn’t require contracts.

Before the Spirit Realm Declaration appeared, Spirituality had never been something that could grow infinitely.

Quite the opposite, the vast majority of ancient Transcendent systems believed that every living being’s Spirituality was a fixed constant.

At most, there were variances between individuals, which resulted in different qualities of Spirit Roots post-Awakening.

From their perspective, the idea of a Spirit Root growing infinitely on its own and continuously improving in quality was what was truly incredible.

It completely subverted all previous Transcendent systems, yet the new way had actually achieved it.

Relying on its convenience and unbelievable results, and with the strong backing of the V5 and the World Government, the new way developed and expanded over just a few hundred years until it could contend with the old ways.

The landmark event that marked this shift was the promulgation of the Human Spiritual Awakening Bill.

If the new way hadn’t been powerful enough, the World Government would never have passed such a bill.

After the bill was passed, it was like pouring oil on the fire for the new way, and its spread became even more rampant.

Thus, the Ancient Techniques fell into complete decline and were driven out of the Inner Ring.