Star Odyssey

Chapter 4088: Unity Of Wills

Greater Sancte Green Lotus stared fixedly at Lu Yin. “Do you understand what you’re doing? The slightest misstep will cause you to betray the entire human civilization. Don’t tell me that you believe that the human form is no longer fit for survival.”

“Of course not.” Lu Yin immediately knew that he had been misunderstood.

Immortal creatures could sometimes readily discard their previous forms in order to adopt a superior one. One such example was the Immortal monster.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus had already mentioned this to Lu Yin, essentially warning him against such a decision.

Upon seeing that Lu Yin was trying to deducing a new lifeform, it was only natural that Green Lotus had thought of their previous conversation.

Lu Yin explained, “I’m trying to find out if there is a possibility for humans to live as creatures of pure consciousness while also retaining their physical bodies.”

“Consciousness and physicality... You want the two aspects to separate and exist independently?”

“Yes.”

“So this has occurred to you as well.”

“Who else considered this?” Lu Yin was surprised.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus sighed. “Mi Jin.”

Lu Yin was astonished. “Greater Sancte Mi Jin considered separating humans’ consciousnesses from their bodies?”

The Immortal nodded, his eyes growing wistful. “He said that if humans could separate their consciousnesses from their physical bodies, then they would effectively gain two lives. Their consciousness bodies could die while their physical bodies endured, or their physical bodies could die while their consciousness bodies lived on. Also, because they would have already gained a second life from cultivating a spirit seed, people would essentially obtain three lives. This could be humanity’s absolute means to stand tall in the cosmos.

“Sadly, he was unable to accomplish this.

“Extracting a single strand of consciousness is simple. So long as the person agrees, their consciousness can be directly drawn out. But ten strands, a hundred, a thousand, 10,000, or hundreds of millions—how do you go about accomplishing that?

“If a person’s consciousness leaves their physical body without their consent, then the extraction becomes forced, and that inflicts great harm upon them.

“How do you go about persuading hundreds of millions of people to agree to such a separation? Human nature is the hardest to gauge.”

The man looked at Lu Yin. “For consciousness to live independently, it must also be capable of cultivating. For there to be cultivation, there must be a foundational soil to cultivate in and a path to follow. That is the first requirement. Second, a physical body is directed by consciousness. How do you ensure that the consciousness in the physical body and the one living independently in its own body share the same mind and will not betray each other?

“Third, and also the most difficult obstacle is that, even if you can separate the consciousnesses of a hundred or a thousand people and keep them alive, you cannot separate the consciousnesses of an entire civilization. This is especially so when those consciousnesses also need to cultivate. It is an impossible task.

“That is also why Mi Jin ultimately abandoned this effort.”

Lu Yin fell deep into thought.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus continued to say, “If you wish to try, I won’t stop you. I even hope that you can succeed. Should you succeed, our human civilization will take a massive leap forward. However, you must remember that this is almost impossible to accomplish. Don’t become disheartened by failure.”

There was something more that was not said: Green Lotus’s karma had been squandered for nothing.

In the past, no matter how much of his karma Lu Yin had used or what it had been used for, Greater Sancte Green Lotus had never minded. However, this time, Lu Yin’s use had been a genuine waste.

Lu Yin retracted his Karmic Dao. Beside him, Ming Yan’s consciousness body looked at him with gentle eyes.

“Let’s continue drifting along,” Lu Yin said.

Ming Yan beamed. “Whatever you wish.”

Lu Yin moved the bamboo raft to another river, and it proceeded to float downstream again.

In the blink of an eye, two years passed. Throughout that time, Lu Yin had continued to consider the feasibility of granting human consciousness an independent body. Since even Greater Sancte Mi Jin had considered the possibility, Lu Yin was certain that trailblazing this path would greatly benefit humanity, which was something that Greater Sancte Green Lotus had also acknowledged.

Even so, opening the path would be extraordinarily difficult.

The obstacles that Greater Sancte Green Lotus had mentioned needed to be resolved one by one.

First of all, it was not possible to extract billions of people’s consciousnesses. An individual’s consciousness and the consciousnesses of an entire civilization were completely different concepts. If it was not possible to extract the entire civilization’s consciousnesses, it would not be a transformation for human civilization. At the very least, it needed to be possible to separate the consciousnesses of those who went to fight abroad. This would effectively grant those people a second life, thanks to the Nirvana Tree Path.

The Nirvana Tree Path allowed all of an individual’s cultivated powers to become a single whole. Consciousness was just one such power.

For campaigns against foreign megaverses, it should be possible for combatants to fuse their various powers with the Nirvana Tree Path and then separate their consciousness into a separate body. Then, that consciousness would possess the majority of the cultivator’s power. Only in that manner would separating consciousness become useful in war. If a cultivator died, they would only lose their separated consciousness body, sparing their physical body.

Even if their cultivation was lost, they would still be alive.

Essentially, the entire Aevum Inch would become similar to how the spirit seed liquid in the Nine Odysseys Megaverse granted cultivators a second life while in the megaverse.

The second obstacle was the “soil” required for cultivating consciousness. If consciousnesses could be separated, but then only rely on the Nirvana Tree Path to retain most of the cultivator’s original strength, there would be no growth potential. While the method of separating consciousnesses would still help during warfare, it would not be enough to qualitatively transform human civilization.

The third obstacle was whether or not an independent consciousness would conflict with the original body.

For this last issue, there was already an answer from the Nine Clones Secret Technique: yes. Xia Luo had replaced Xia Jiuyou to become the dominant personality among the nine clones.

The consciousness that remained in a cultivator’s physical body and the consciousness that existed separately in its own body and continued to cultivate were bound to eventually clash, especially once the independent consciousness grew beyond the original. Why would it willingly return?

If this method was to leap to a higher tier of life, then the implication was that the independent consciousness body would no longer desire the shackles of a physical body. However, that would be disastrous for cultivators.

Lu Yin lay on the raft, staring up at the blue sky with its white clouds. Was it truly a higher tier of life?

He had always found that notion flawed. If an independent consciousness body that was free of physical form was a higher tier lifeform, then did that mean that humans were naturally inferior to conscients?

Of course not. The physical body itself was a component of cultivation.

That Immortal beast, for instance, had relied almost exclusively on its body to step into the Immortal realm.

At best, gaining an independent consciousness body would elevate human civilization’s combat power, not the essence of human life.

The previous karmic deduction had just revealed the possibility, but actually realizing the possibility required far more than just karmic deduction.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus would not likely be willing to help any further, as the basic karmic deductions had already consumed vast amounts of karma. Mi Jin’s previous failure had also convinced the Greater Sancte that what Lu Yin was attempting was effectively impossible.

Was it truly impossible to succeed without karmic deduction?

Lu Yin had made progress just fine before he started using karma to deduce the possibilities.

After considering the matter a great deal over the course of two years, he decided to try.

Sitting up, Lu Yin smiled at Ming Yan before closing his eyes. Above his head, the Wordless Heavenly Book rose into the sky, releasing its warm radiance.

Lu Yin trembled, and his silhouette expanded outward, surpassing the Shenwu Continent and the Outerverse. He eventually enveloped the entire Tianyuan. At that moment, countless creatures saw Lu Yin’s figure up above.

To cultivators, it looked like Lu Yin was seated cross-legged in outer space. His size surpassed imagination, and yet the details of his figure were astonishingly clear. It was as though the megaverse itself was inside of him.

To ordinary people, Lu Yin had just replaced the universe itself. He looked like a god or divine being.

It was a scene that they had witnessed once before. The light and warmth that previously appeared had left an indelible impression.

At this moment, Lu Yin and the Tianyuan became one. When he opened his eyes, he could survey the entire megaverse, and every creature within it saw him as well.

In the Heavens Sect, Ku Wei gaped. “Master, you’ve gotten huge!”

Lu Yuan, Ancient God, and many others looked up above. They once again saw Lu Yin merge with the megaverse and could not help but wonder how Pillar had accomplished such a thing. Had he devoured the entire Tianyuan Megaverse?

The Ancestor Tortoise was enormous, as were the Megalith and the Pridebeast, but when they looked up at the stars, they could not stop themselves from offering a thumbs-up. Lu Yin was truly the largest of all.

In Millions City, Astral Anura sat atop the tallest, frog-shaped building, staring up with longing. “So big... I wish I could be like that.”

In a parallel universe, Forgotten Ruins God and her companions could not see Lu Yin, as he was only visible to those within the Origin Universe.

Even so, the same figure who had previously taken Forgotten Ruins God and the others away reappeared before them. A bone-white hand that looked like polished jade stroked Skydog’s head. “Every time this happens, I have to make a trip to prevent you from being found. Right now, if he seizes the sequence strings, he will be able to see every parallel universe in the Tianyuan.

“What is he up to this time? He’d better not do this too often. I’m also busy.”

The commotion in the Tianyuan even disturbed the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus peered across the distance. This was not the actions of an individual, but the stirring of an entire megaverse.

When Lu Yin merged with the Tianyuan, he essentially became the megaverse itself, and the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm only encompassed four megaverses.

Greater Sancte Green Lotus did not know what Lu Yin was trying to do. While the Immortal held little hope for Lu Yin’s success, no one desired a method of separating human consciousness more than Green Lotus. This was not something that only Lu Yin had conceived of, as it had also been a goal of Mi Jin’s.

No one understood Mi Jin better than Green Lotus.

In the Tianyuan, Lu Yin’s massive phantom looked about the universe. He saw the Outerverse, the Astral River, and all its branches. Everything was under his control. The feeling of holding the megaverse was astonishing. He could feel every person’s emotions and see the stories of their lives.

In his eyes, the Tianyuan was like a painting. One stroke could create a river, while another could raise a mountain.

Countless thoughts and minds were scattered about the universe like the stars in outer space.

Lu Yin knew that, if he so wished, he could separate everyone’s consciousness from their physical bodies and send them wherever he chose.

His will had merged with the Tianyuan. When his heart grew light, the glow illuminated the megaverse.

For some reason, he was reminded of the Heartrift Technique; when the heart aligns with the universe, when one’s heart becomes invincible, then one is invincible in all things.

The merging of heart and desire was in and of itself a form of power.

When seeing the Aevum Inch from the perspective of an entire megaverse, it was vast beyond measure. Lu Yin’s eyes were as deep as an abyss.

The Mindscape Megaverse had transformed Greater Sancte Awe Gate and also allowed Master Ku Deng to break through to the Immortal realm. Suddenly, Lu Yin found himself very interested in that place.

This was not because he wanted to cultivate Heartrift, but rather because he wanted to know if the sensations at the bottom of the abyss was the same as what he was currently feeling as he stared out at the Aevum Inch.

Soon, the megaverse returned to calm.

The enormous phantom of Lu Yin faded away.

On the bamboo raft, he opened his eyes again and let out a long breath. The first obstacle had just been resolved.

However, that was only true within the Tianyuan. It was impossible for Lu Yin to separate the consciousnesses of countless beings in either the Spirit Nidus or the Nine Odysseys Megaverse.

It was the same way in which he could only unite with the Tianyuan Megaverse’s will.

He had sacrificed much for the Tianyuan, and the megaverse was compensating him.

The universe suddenly roared again, and Lu Yin looked up. Greater Sancte Green Lotus wanted to talk.

The Karmic Dao was released and merged with the Heavenly Karmic Macrocosm. Once again, Lu Yin met with Greater Sancte Green Lotus.

The Immortal looked at Lu Yin with open admiration. “I thought that it was just a coincidence that you merged with the megaverse upon entering Dukkha and that it would be difficult to repeat. I underestimated you. You are actually able to freely merge with the Tianyuan. From this moment on, within the bounds of this megaverse, you are truly an Immortal. You can wield the power of an entire megaverse.”