Chapter 164 - 158: 50% Progress, Heaven-Defying Cultivation Technique

Chapter 164: Chapter 158: 50% Progress, Heaven-Defying Cultivation Technique

For the past ten years, Jiang Zuo had continued to hunt for treasure around the Nameless Island, not straying too far.

Once his Cultivation Technique was nearly mastered, he returned to the Nameless Island to reduce his age and promote to the Innate realm.

This was Jiang Zuo’s third time promoting to the Innate realm, so he was quite familiar with the process.

This time, his age was reduced to thirty-seven. As before, he first broke through with the Earth Attribute Nine Revolutions Returning Essence Skill, followed by Fire, Wood, Water, and Metal in that order.

After a continuous, alternating baptism of Heaven and Earth Spiritual Power, the breakthrough concluded smoothly.

After this round of breakthroughs, his Earth Spirit Root successfully advanced to high-grade, lower-tier. His Fire Spirit Root and Wood Spirit Root also broke through, both reaching high-grade, upper-tier.

Even his Metal Spirit Root, with the help of the Extraterrestrial Ore, successfully broke through to high-grade, upper-tier.

At this point, all of Jiang Zuo’s Spirit Roots were at least high-grade.

And this was only his third time promoting to the Innate realm.

If he went through nine Reincarnations, Jiang Zuo could still promote to the Innate realm another seven times.

Jiang Zuo had already made up his mind to complete all nine Reincarnations!

The reason was simple.

During this breakthrough to the Innate realm, Jiang Zuo had once again eaten a black fruit.

His supreme-grade Water Spirit Root had indeed not changed any further.

However, after the baptism of the Power of Heaven and Earth, Jiang Zuo felt a subtle change in his body.

When he came into contact with water, he could clearly feel that the same seawater seemed to grow much gentler in his hands.

Water Attribute Affinity!

Water Spirit Body!

These two terms instantly appeared in Jiang Zuo’s mind.

He didn’t have a Water Spirit Body yet. His affinity with the Water Attribute had just become much higher.

In the future, cultivating Water Attribute Cultivation Techniques would be easier, and his cultivation speed would be faster.

’After I complete the nine Reincarnations, even if I can’t cultivate the other four attributes into full-fledged Spirit Bodies, they won’t be far off. The only exception is the Earth Attribute.’

’To temper an Earth Spirit Body, I’ll still need a Spirit Root awakening item.’

’But that’s like finding a needle in a haystack.’

Jiang Zuo shook his head at the thought.

Over the past decade of treasure hunting on the surrounding seabed, he had made some other gains.

Besides the ores devoured by the Innate Spiritual Soil, Jiang Zuo had managed to snatch a piece of Fire Attribute Extraterrestrial Ore from its "mouth."

This ore lay hundreds of meters deep on the ocean floor, yet it managed to keep the seawater within a radius of several dozen meters as warm as a hot spring.

However, after sensing it, he was disappointed to find it couldn’t be used as a Spirit Root awakening item.

Still, this Fire Attribute ore was undoubtedly a good find. It could be used to forge Fire Attribute Spiritual Artifacts.

’After this baptism from heaven and earth, my physical body and Divine Sense have improved again. Especially my Divine Sense. I can strongly feel that during my next promotion, I’ll be able to take that final step and open the void world for visualization.’

’The opening of my Qi Sea is still hazy. It will probably take another two times.’

Jiang Zuo’s thoughts were filled with renewed motivation.

’Also, in a few more years, the refinement progress of the Mysterious Stele will reach 50%. I wonder if there will be any new changes.’

Several decades ago, the Mysterious Stele’s refinement progress had reached 40%, but no new changes had appeared. He only felt his connection to the stele tighten slightly, and the power of the projection visualized on his Blood Qi Avatar had increased a little.

But now, Jiang Zuo felt that the 50% mark was not far off.

「In the blink of an eye, five years passed.」

The refinement progress of the Mysterious Stele successfully reached the 50% milestone.

’The stele still hasn’t changed. Or maybe it has, and I just haven’t discovered it yet.’

’However, the power my Blood Qi Avatar can wield has greatly increased. If I visualize the stele’s projection for a longer time, it can now launch about ten attacks.’

’The Blood Qi Avatar’s range of activity has also surged to thirty li.’

The Mysterious Stele in his Sea of Consciousness remained motionless.

Jiang Zuo could only test his Blood Qi Avatar.

The results showed that the Blood Qi Avatar’s improvement was substantial, making it much more practical.

Even from a distance of thirty li, Jiang Zuo could still share its vision in real-time and control the Blood Qi Avatar through the stele’s projection.

The Mysterious Stele seemed to have no other changes. Jiang Zuo was a little disappointed, but not overly concerned.

「Two years later.」

『The Celestial Dao rewards the diligent! Through your continuous nurturing of the Silver-striped Electric Eel, your piscine Underwater Breathing Technique racial talent has been strengthened. You have acquired the Silver-striped Electric Eel’s secondary racial talent: ’Discharge’!』

——Discharge: A secondary racial talent of the Silver-striped Electric Eel. Your body will slowly generate an electric current. When the current builds up to a certain level, you can release it to attack and paralyze enemies.

Looking at this Discharge ability, Jiang Zuo felt it was rather useless.

Jiang Zuo gave it a try and found that the gap between this and the Thunder King he had imagined wasn’t just far—it was a world apart.

Ignoring the useless ability, Jiang Zuo prepared to focus all his efforts on nurturing the Great White Shark.

The nurturing period for a Great White Shark was very long, requiring a full three years.

Previously, because he needed to nurture the Silver-striped Electric Eel, his progress with the Great White Shark had been slow.

But after all these years of underwater treasure hunting, Jiang Zuo was very familiar with Great White Sharks. He could now directly imitate their sounds on the seabed to summon a school of them.

If he were still around the Nameless Island, Jiang Zuo wouldn’t even need to go to that trouble; he could just go find them directly.

Jiang Zuo was now incredibly familiar with the seabed and fish species around the Nameless Island.

However, in the previous twenty years, Jiang Zuo had already scoured the entire seabed in that area.

Now, Jiang Zuo had left the Nameless Island and was exploring in an unknown direction.

「A few days later, Jiang Zuo found enough young Great White Sharks.」

「Nearly three more years passed.」

Jiang Zuo arrived on an unknown small island.

His third Reincarnation was almost complete. In another two or three months, he would be able to promote to the Innate realm again.

So, Jiang Zuo temporarily settled down on this island.

「Three months later.」

This time, Jiang Zuo reduced his age to thirty-six.

Jiang Zuo activated his Cultivation Technique, and the Nine Revolutions Returning Essence Skill broke through to the Innate realm as usual.

An earthy-yellow Power of Heaven and Earth descended. Jiang Zuo assumed this would be another normal baptism from heaven and earth.

But as the Power of Heaven and Earth landed on him, he was shocked to discover that the Mysterious Stele in his Sea of Consciousness had suddenly begun to turn gently.

He then felt a vaguely familiar Cultivation Technique appear in his mind.

Driven by the Mysterious Stele, this Cultivation Technique instantly and automatically began to circulate within Jiang Zuo’s body.

Then, to his utter astonishment, he discovered that he was absorbing all of the descending Power of Heaven and Earth into his body!

Normally, when the Power of Heaven and Earth descended, besides the portion that landed on him, there was another portion he couldn’t absorb, which would simply return to the world.

And this portion was quite substantial.

But under the effect of this Cultivation Technique, all of the Power of Heaven and Earth that should have returned to the world was absorbed by Jiang Zuo!

This wasn’t just true for the Earth Attribute Power of Heaven and Earth. The subsequent Powers of Heaven and Earth for the Fire, Wood, Water, and Metal attributes all received the same treatment.

Suddenly, five different types of Power of Heaven and Earth were inside Jiang Zuo, slowly circulating along with the Cultivation Technique.

As the Cultivation Technique circulated, this Power of Heaven and Earth was also baptizing Jiang Zuo’s body.

And the effect seemed even better than a direct baptism from heaven and earth.

It was truly heaven-defying!

Nearly ten minutes after the baptism from heaven and earth had ended, the Power of Heaven and Earth inside Jiang Zuo was finally depleted.

The Mysterious Stele in his Sea of Consciousness returned to its usual state, motionless once more.

Jiang Zuo tried to communicate with it but received no response.

When Jiang Zuo inspected his Five Elements Spirit Root, the shock he felt could only be described as a raging storm.

Earth Spirit Root: high-grade, upper-tier!

And apart from his Earth Spirit Root, the other four attribute Spirit Roots had all become supreme-grade and were transforming into Spirit Bodies!

’The void world for the Visualization Technique has been successfully visualized. I can now officially begin cultivating the Visualization Technique.’

’My Qi Sea was also successfully opened during the baptism of the Power of Heaven and Earth!’

’However, there isn’t the slightest bit of Spiritual Qi in my Qi Sea yet, so I’m not considered a Qi Cultivation Cultivator.’

Jiang Zuo examined the changes in his body more closely.

The Visualization Technique had successfully broken through, and his Qi Sea had also opened ahead of schedule.

One could only say that the Cultivation Technique the Mysterious Stele had imparted to him was too heaven-defying; it could even absorb the Power of Heaven and Earth.

’This technique that can absorb the Power of Heaven and Earth... it seems to be a modification of the Golden Qi Jade Body Skill, which absorbs Gold Qi and Jade Qi?’

Jiang Zuo carefully sensed the heaven-defying Cultivation Technique he had just learned, and a strange expression appeared on his face.

’The Mysterious Stele has the ability to modify Cultivation Techniques!’

Jiang Zuo had suspected this before, but now he was absolutely certain.

’It was the same with the Dual Cultivation Technique before.’

’The Cultivation Techniques it modifies become incredibly heaven-defying.’

’The headache is that I don’t seem to have any control over whether it modifies a technique, or what kind of technique it will modify. There’s no way to know.’

’And it only acts after I reach a certain refinement progress. After it acts, it consumes power and then becomes almost completely inactive again.’

Jiang Zuo lowered his head in thought.

If he could control the Mysterious Stele and have it modify the specific Cultivation Techniques he wanted, that would be incredible.

But unfortunately, Jiang Zuo currently had no leads.

’With this Cultivation Technique, I no longer critically need a Spirit Root awakening item. I won’t have to go through nine Reincarnations; I’ll be able to possess a Five Elements Spirit Body very soon!’

He no longer needed to search for an Earth Spirit Root awakening item, but after a moment of thought, Jiang Zuo still decided to continue his underwater treasure hunt.

In his current state, he absolutely could not return to the Mortal Territory or the Cultivation Realm.

If anyone saw him like this, the consequences would be dire.

Besides, he had nothing else to do out here at sea. Although he had been searching for decades without finding much of great value, it was still better than staying idle on an island.

Jiang Zuo began his fourth Scattering and Reincarnation.

This time, he spent eleven years leisurely treasure hunting on the seabed near the small island.

During the fourth Reincarnation, the shackles imposed by the Nine Revolutions Returning Essence Skill were much more difficult.

Now, it took Jiang Zuo one year longer than before to complete the Reincarnation of the Nine Revolutions Returning Essence Skill.

But his other Cultivation Techniques could still be cultivated rapidly.

「Five years later.」

Jiang Zuo reduced his age to thirty-five.

In the decade since he had last obtained a Cultivation Technique, Jiang Zuo had practiced it to a highly proficient level.

When the Power of Heaven and Earth descended, the Mysterious Stele no longer moved. This time, Jiang Zuo could circulate the Cultivation Technique on his own, absorbing nearly all of the surrounding Power of Heaven and Earth into his body.

Once this round of the Power of Heaven and Earth was completely consumed, Jiang Zuo inspected the changes within his body again.

His Five Elements Spirit Root had all advanced to supreme-grade!

Furthermore, Jiang Zuo could feel that he had successfully cultivated a Water Spirit Body!