Chapter 216 - 181: Using [Cosmic Four Source Attraction]

Chapter 216: Chapter 181: Using [Cosmic Four Source Attraction]

In the Void Illusion Realm, Zhang Ji stood in a courtyard. Before him was Qu Wuyin, her face veiled by a light gauze.

Contacting her wasn’t easy.

She was hiding her identity within the Celestial Sword Group. To avoid exposure, he could only leave a secret signal and passively wait for her to make contact.

"How did Yan Jiulin die?" Qu Wuyin asked.

Her expression didn’t change, but Zhang Ji could feel that she cared.

"While we were stealing the Illusion Realm, an expert from Nine Nether Deep Technology came to stop us," Zhang Ji explained. "Brother Yan Jiulin covered our retreat, sacrificing himself to take the expert down with him."

Qu Wuyin was silent for a moment.

She had seen Yan Jiulin’s true self and knew what kind of person the real Yan Jiu was.

They had both given their all for the Ascetic Order’s grand cause.

In that shared dedication, they had found common ground.

They were true companions on the Path.

Without any outward display of grief, Qu Wuyin passed the information she had gathered to Zhang Ji. "No matter what," she said, "please carry on in his stead."

With that, she logged off.

Zhang Ji’s eyes narrowed. Something felt off.

’Could Qu Wuyin have figured something out?’

’Not that it would matter if she did.’

’At best, she’s a Late-stage Nascent Soul. I could finish her in a single move. She can’t stir up any trouble.’

’I’ll have to be a bit wary of her influence within the Ascetic Order, though.’

’But that’s not a major problem at the moment.’

’The Ascetic Order isn’t just the Ascetic Order anymore.’

’Countless cultivators from the Floating City have pledged allegiance to us. It’s a motley crew now, not the original, scummy organization driven purely by ideals where everyone had their own ulterior motives.’

....

「The Thirty-second Heaven, Taiyao Heaven.」

Celestial Sword Group.

Linghu Yao sat on high, staring blankly at the empty Sword Grinding Platform and the surrounding buildings.

Not long ago, those places had been filled with people, with so many of her fellow sect members.

There were some she despised, but they were all disciples of the same sect.

But now, so many of them were gone.

It was all so empty.

Those who remained had donned their battle armor and taken up their weapons, preparing for the coming fight.

She didn’t understand. She didn’t understand why things had come to this.

It was just like that time in the Nine Heavens Sword Tomb, when Ling Xuzi activated hundreds of millions of Spirit Swords to slaughter indiscriminately.

’Is there really no room for compromise?’

Just then, Qu Wuyin’s figure appeared below.

"Senior Sister Linghu, what are you doing here?"

"Wuyin? Didn’t you leave with the others?" Linghu Yao asked in surprise.

The coming battle was expected to be immense, so all cultivators below the Golden Core realm had been sent away.

"I didn’t go. I wanted to stay by your side, Senior Sister Linghu..." Qu Wuyin said, seeming to shrink into herself.

Linghu Yao wanted to scold her for her recklessness, but the words wouldn’t come out. Instead, she leaped down from her high perch, gently ruffled Qu Wuyin’s hair, and said, "I’ll protect you."

...

The situation grew more tense, and the Floating City grew more empty.

Everyone was waiting—waiting for an outcome.

Meanwhile, on Zhang Ji’s side, Ferguson and his group had gathered local intelligence. Zhang Ji appointed them to high-ranking positions in the Ascetic Order, and they began leading the many defecting cultivators to establish a base within the Abyss of Eternity, launching research projects and other such initiatives.

They acquired vast amounts of research data and resources.

Zhang Ji then brought all of it back to Origin Star, his trips back and forth becoming increasingly frequent.

-----------------

「Origin Star. The third day of the third month.」

Zhang Ji had mastered the Celestial Wind Body Surrounding Skill, acquiring his ninth Epic-grade combat crystal of the Cultivation Technique type. With this, he had finally gathered the Four Elements: earth, water, fire, and wind.

He planned to study the Cosmic Four Source Attraction technique and finally open the Dunjia Formation Box.

Guning Country.

Zenar Desert.

Returning to this desert, Zhang Ji felt a strange mix of emotions.

The last time he came here, he had been hunted, a fugitive on the run.

Now, he returned as a sovereign.

Zhang Ji reached out and clenched his fist. The sand responded, coalescing into a solid platform that lifted the Dunjia Formation Box into the air.

"Be careful, don’t hurt me," Taiyi-Zero said.

"Don’t worry. I need to study this first," Zhang Ji said.

He had only just met the basic requirements to use Cosmic Four Source Attraction: an S-rank Spirit attribute and mastery of four Epic-grade martial arts for earth, water, fire, and wind. But he wasn’t sure if he could actually pull it off.

He knew the theory behind it, but the skill demanded an incredibly high level of Control Power and finesse.

He also had to make sure he only shattered the box without harming Taiyi-Zero inside.

’First, I’ll try it at minimum output...’

Zhang Ji extended his right palm, closed his eyes, and focused his spirit, beginning to sense the Four Elements.

"Divine Wind! Flowing Water! Quaking Earth! True Fire!"

In an instant, his spirit resonated, and the Four Elements gathered in his palm, spinning and converging.

However, the desired reaction didn’t occur. Instead, once the Four Elements converged, they became extremely unstable.

"Shit!"

Zhang Ji’s expression changed, and he quickly hurled the volatile mass high into the sky.

The sphere of elemental energy flew several hundred meters into the air before abruptly exploding.

BOOOOOM!

The resulting shockwave blasted away the clouds in a radius of several thousand meters. Down on the ground, Zhang Ji was battered by a violent gale that formed into a storm.

"A failure!" Taiyi-Zero declared.

"Yeah. The elemental acceleration was insufficient, the impact pressure was too low, my Control Power was too weak, and the amount was too small..." Zhang Ji muttered, analyzing the failure.

As it stood, he couldn’t yet cast Cosmic Four Source Attraction with the effortless control he desired, unable to trigger the reaction at will.

There was only one way to successfully generate Chaos Energy.

He would have to slam the Four Elements together with all his might, using immense impact force to trigger the reaction and generate a sufficient amount of Chaos Energy.

But doing that on Origin Star was out of the question.

This desert might not even be able to withstand it.

Zhang Ji grabbed the Dunjia Formation Box and tossed it into the Ark of Hope. Then, he shot into the sky, heading straight for outer space.

His flight speed was so great that he effortlessly broke through the atmosphere. In outer space, Zhang Ji felt no air, but he hardly needed to breathe anyway. In fact, he found the complex radiation of space even more comfortable than being on Origin Star.

The light from the great sun before him was more direct and pure than anything from the Gathering Light Towers on Origin Star.

Zhang Ji’s gaze turned to the moon in the distance.

That celestial body was also luminous, not much smaller than the sun. It seemed to be a special type of star as well.

The moonlight seen on Origin Star really wasn’t reflected from the sun.

This was quite different from the laws of physics in the world he’d lived in before his transmigration.

Zhang Ji flew onward for a while until he felt he was far enough away. He found an empty stretch of space and prepared to test the Cosmic Four Source Attraction.

’First, I’ll see if I can even cast it properly. Then I’ll try opening the Dunjia Formation Box.’

Closing his eyes, Zhang Ji began to sense the Four Elements permeating the cosmos.

In the vacuum of space, the Fire Element was incredibly abundant—dozens of times more concentrated than within the planet’s atmosphere. With a star nearby, that was to be expected. What was surprising, however, was that the other three elements were also plentiful.

The Wind Element was hidden deep within space, but it was still in motion, at about one-sixth the concentration found on a planet with an atmosphere. The Earth Element was also present; though much sparser than on a planet, it was still at ten to twenty percent of the concentration. The Water Element was also there, at roughly half the concentration found on the planet.

’Is the universe itself an ocean filled with the Water Element?’

Zhang Ji’s understanding of the world was once again slightly altered.

He then composed himself and prepared to use the Cosmic Four Source Attraction.

He already met the attribute prerequisites.

His Control Power was also more than sufficient.

He exceeded many of the requirements for the most basic version of the skill.

This time, to ensure success, Zhang Ji also opened a spatial channel near the Bodhi Tree inside the Ark of Hope, allowing the Bodhi Aura to envelop him.

The state of Bodhi enlightenment, free from distracting thoughts, would aid his control.

As the golden light enveloped his body, Zhang Ji raised his arms high and began to cast the skill.

His expression was ice-cold. As he tuned his spirit to the correct frequency, the Four Elements within the cosmos and within his own body were mobilized, beginning to gather above his upraised palms.

First came True Fire.

In the void, a crimson-gold flame ignited, flowing into a sphere several hundred meters in diameter.

Flowing Water manifested next.

A deep blue sphere appeared on the other side.

Divine Wind!

An azure radiance coalesced into a gleaming sphere of air currents.

Quaking Earth!

The brown Earth Element formed the densest, heaviest sphere.

With the four cosmic sources present, Zhang Ji’s spirit pulsed. With a gentle stir of his arms, the four spheres began to rapidly rotate, converge, and then slam into one another.

The moment they spun and collided, the skill was already about to escape Zhang Ji’s control.

Their rotation was accelerating, the collision reaction intensifying.

At the center of the Four Elements, a speck of dark-purple light appeared.

In that instant, a dire warning surged through Zhang Ji’s mind.

Without a second thought, he shot off to the side, fleeing as fast as he could.

At that same moment, the dark-purple Chaos Element behind him erupted.

It entangled the four fundamental sources of the universe, setting off a chain reaction that expanded outward in a sphere. The expansion was so fast that even Zhang Ji was caught in it. Fortunately, the power of the chain reaction was limited; he was only violently shoved a great distance away.

When everything gradually calmed, Zhang Ji turned back and looked at the spot where he had cast the skill.

The space there had collapsed, leaving a dark, deep spatial rift. Tides of Energy Particles, drawn by the universe’s gravitational field, were already beginning to repair it.

He estimated his distance from the core of the explosion.

’At least three thousand kilometers...’

’If I’d actually used that on Origin Star, I might have wiped a continent clean off the map.’

’It didn’t feel this ridiculous in the game...’

Zhang Ji’s expression was strange; deep down, he was utterly shaken.

’Putting aside everything else, the destructive range of this skill is just too vast.’

’The damage at its core is insane, too. It can tear space itself apart.’

"You know, I think it’s pretty nice inside the box. You really don’t need to go to all this trouble..."

Taiyi-Zero’s Divine Thought suddenly reached him, its tone laced with an unreadable mix of emotions.

It was genuinely terrified.

If the Dunjia Formation Box had been thrown into that, it probably wouldn’t have even had a chance to turn to dust.

"Then let’s wait a bit longer," Zhang Ji said.

He didn’t have the confidence to control the skill right now. He could barely cast it as it was; using it to delicately open the box for Taiyi-Zero was simply impossible.