Chapter 319: What is the Difference Between a God and an Immortal?

The fact that the God Slaughter Hall’s spies had already infiltrated Simurgh Pavilion was an extremely dangerous sign for Chu Fan.

Moreover, he couldn’t rush to purge the spies from Che Dagui’s and Ji Bufan’s businesses, or he would risk tipping them off.

After all, based on the intelligence Chu Fan currently possessed about the God Slaughter Hall, if the Hall truly decided to move against the Eastern Domain with its full might, the Eastern Domain would pay a heavy price unless those two reclusive Earth Immortals intervened.

This was a result Chu Fan was naturally unwilling to see.

‘I’ll deal with this after the war with the Northern Domain. I’ll gather Ji Bufan and the others, find a different pretext, and purge the spies gradually. It can’t be rushed.’

Over the next few days, while waiting for Jing’an to procure the items on his list, Chu Fan began to immerse himself in Cultivation.

He focused mainly on practicing the Sword of Time.

Whether it was for the war with the Northern Domain or his impending trip to the Southern Domain, the stronger he became, the more he could accomplish, and the safer he would be.

This was, after all, a world where the strong preyed on the weak.

Only by being strong enough could he remain undefeated.

‘Power is the only thing that is truly mine.’

At night, Chu Fan would meditate on the Scroll. He had already given the Scroll to Yan Ying, but that didn’t stop him from meditating on it from memory.

In truth, after his Spiritual Power reached Level 30, observing the Scroll no longer had much of an effect.

However, the requirement to unseal the Fourth Floor of the Juntian Mirror was to reach Level 40 in Spiritual Power. So, it was better than nothing. ‘Even if observing the Scroll doesn’t do much, meditating on my own should have at least some small effect, right?’

‘Drops of water form an ocean; a quantitative change will eventually lead to a qualitative one.’

Not even Chu Fan himself expected that simply meditating on the image from the Scroll would increase his Spiritual Power more than observing the Scroll directly.

He visualized the image from the Scroll in his mind, meditating on the various visual distortions created by the rotating Yin Yang Diagram.

As the image cycled over and over within his sea of consciousness.

In the process, his Spiritual Power gradually condensed under the influence of a profound and mysterious force.

When a Cultivator’s Cultivation reached the Divine Separation Realm, they could perform two tasks at once. Those with greater talent could even manage three.

Although Chu Fan also possessed this dual-tasking ability, he had never had a chance to use it.

But now, his consciousness had automatically split in two. One part was meditating on the image from the Scroll, while the other was engaged in Cultivation.

That’s right—his spiritual consciousness was cultivating on its own.

Within his sea of consciousness, two identical spiritual constructs sat cross-legged. One faced the endlessly rotating image from the Scroll, while the other was calmly focused, seeking enlightenment.

Once a Cultivator’s Cultivation reaches the Integration Realm, the concept of the Three Souls and seven spirits no longer applies. Starting from the Divine Separation Realm, the Primordial Spirit begins to merge with them. By the Integration Realm, the Fusion is complete, and the Primordial Spirit then perfectly integrates with the physical body.

In other words, even in death, the soul of a Cultivator who had reached the Integration Realm would be countless times more formidable than an ordinary ghost in the Netherworld.

A conscious construct was not the same as a Primordial Spirit; it was merely the Primordial Spirit’s Divine Sense.

At the Void Realm, only the Primordial Spirit itself could leave the body. But upon reaching the Mahayana Realm, the Primordial Spirit could condense its Divine Sense, allowing it to roam outside the physical body, take shape, and perform certain actions.

Of course, if this roaming Divine Sense were attacked, the Primordial Spirit would inevitably be damaged as well.

The wisp of Xiezhi’s Divine Thought that Chu Fan had encountered was, in essence, just a Spiritual Body condensed from its Primordial Spirit. However, Divine Spirits like Xiezhi could condense tens of millions of such Divine Thoughts. The annihilation of a single wisp caused negligible damage to their actual Primordial Spirit.

Whether it was a Primordial Spirit or a Spiritual Body, their very existence was fundamentally rooted in Spiritual Power.

This was why Spiritual Power would also rise after one’s Cultivation broke through to a certain Realm.

It was just that Chu Fan cultivated both his Spiritual Power and his physical body simultaneously, making his Spiritual Power far more formidable than that of other Cultivators at the same Realm.

Because his Spiritual Power was so strong, after a night of meditating on the Scroll, he found that as his Spiritual Power began to condense, he could suddenly form a Spiritual Body that could roam outside his physical form—all while still in the Void Realm.

This was something that should only be possible in the Mahayana Realm, yet he could do it in the Void Realm Early Stage.

Chu Fan was naturally ecstatic about this unexpected discovery.

He had only intended to try meditating on the Scroll to see if it would boost his Spiritual Power; he never expected such a surprising side effect.

Because he had never systematically studied Spiritual Power, nor had any Spiritual Martial Artist shared their experience with him, he didn’t know that reaching Level 40 in Spiritual Power was considered achieving sainthood in that discipline. He was also unaware that at Level 50, one could shed their mortal shell and undergo Ascension to Immortality as a soul.

Although both Immortals and Gods had to ascend to the Divine Realm, they were fundamentally different concepts.

Immortals cultivate the Technique—to put it bluntly, they cultivate Spiritual Power. As long as their Spiritual Power reaches Level 50, even if their physical body is destroyed, their soul can undergo Ascension to Immortality. After reaching the Divine Realm, they can use Heavenly and Earthly Treasures to reconstruct a new body.

However, even after an Immortal reconstructed their body, their offensive methods were limited to Spiritual Power attacks or relying on Magical Treasures for offense and defense. Their physical bodies were not as strong as those of Gods.

Gods, on the other hand, cultivate the physical body in a continuous process of improvement. For a mortal to become a God, they must endure a Celestial Tribulation. Only by withstanding it with their physical body and undergoing its baptism can they achieve godhood. If they fail, their Divine Soul is utterly destroyed.

After a night of Meditation, his Spiritual Power had not only condensed but had also increased significantly.

If the progress from Level 36 to Level 37 were divided into one hundred percent, a single night of Meditation had raised his Spiritual Power by two percent. This meant that at this rate, he would only need fifty days of meditating like this to reach Level 37.

How could Chu Fan not be thrilled by this discovery? ‘If meditating on the Scroll is always this effective, doesn’t that mean I can reach Level 40 in three to five years by meditating every night, even if the progress slows down later on?’

What people feared most was having no hope or no path forward. As long as there was hope, and as long as one knew the path to take, the rest could be left to diligence and hard work.

Three to five years might seem like a long time, but to a Cultivator who had reached the Void Realm, it was merely the blink of an eye.

After all, in the Secret Realm, he had spent three and a half years in the blink of an eye just cultivating the Sword of Time while in a state of epiphany.

‘Judging by the rewards from unsealing each level of the Juntian Mirror, once I unseal the Fourth Floor, my combat power will increase at least tenfold.’

‘And with all the Heavenly and Earthly Treasures inside, perhaps by then, even the God Slaughter Hall will tremble at my feet!’

“Master, what are you so happy about?”

Early in the morning, Ni Cailing and Bai Yun pushed open the door to Chu Fan’s bedroom. Seeing the unconcealed excitement on Chu Fan’s face, Cailing couldn’t help but ask curiously.

Their arrival naturally broke Chu Fan from his reverie.

“It’s nothing,” Chu Fan said with a grand wave of his hand. “Come on, let’s go outside. I’ll teach you the Sword Dao.”