Exploring Immortality Cultivation

Omen, omen, the sign of breakthroughs, profound in its influence due to a cultivator's cultivation reaching Spirit Communication, forming a spectacle unto itself.

Every breakthrough a cultivator makes is a sublimation of their life. Beyond the three realms in the Human World, a cultivator's internal system gradually becomes perfected. Qi Cultivation, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, each qualitative change actually has an omen. However, the omens of Qi Cultivation and Foundation Establishment are confined within the body, and all others can perceive are the tumultuous waves of nature's spiritual energy.

By the time one reaches the Golden Core, having control over the "hub," a cultivator's life system and internal world approach completion, capable of preliminary connectivity to Heaven and Earth. It is then that the omen becomes quite conspicuous.

And upon reaching the Primordial Spirit Stage, a cultivator opens the bridge between Heaven and Earth, linking the inner and outer worlds, beginning the transformation into a fully open system, maintaining constant Entropy Reduction. This step puts the range of the omen's influence on an entirely different scale from the Golden Core Stage. Clouds of Qingyun bring sweet dew, purple mists come from the east for three thousand miles, Heavenly Flowers Falling and Earth Bursting Golden Lotus are all but a fraction.

In Wang Qi's perception, this omen enveloped the entire courtyard, not a wide area, precisely the omen of Golden Core Early Formation. And this omen manifested as fluctuations in Gravity. Wang Qi only felt the ground inexplicably tilting, with scenes in his vision becoming slightly misaligned and distorted.

"Did that kid Ai Changyuan finally succeed with the Artificial Golden Core?"

Wang Qi didn't think there was someone who mainly studied Gravity as their Cultivation Technique just so happening to live next door, who then had a Golden Core Breakthrough. Although the Heavenly Song directly points to the essence of Electromagnetic Force, it is entirely in the essence of Mathematics, with the Great Dao at its simplest, returning to the pure and unadulterated form, which is why it is widespread. Gravity, however, is much harder to describe, and Gravity Domain Cultivation Techniques are infinitely more complex than Heavenly Song.

Wang Qi kicked open the gate with one foot and walked into the courtyard. There, in the center of an exceedingly intricate Array, his Ghost Soldier floated amidst the void, with Spiritual Energy swirling around, a Qi Vein River coming from beyond the heavens, traversing layers upon layers of Spirit Energy Fields, pouring into the body of the Ghost Soldier. This Qi Vein River was incredibly thick, forming a Spiritual Energy Layer with a radius of about ten feet around the Ghost Soldier.

Ai Changyuan was sitting on the ground, fully immersing his Spirit in experiencing the changes of Core Formation. Wang Qi followed suit, sitting down next to Ai Changyuan to feel the changes in Spiritual Power at this moment, collecting data through direct sensory observations.

For him and Ai Changyuan, designing a Golden Core wasn't difficult. After all, they had hundreds and thousands of years of foundation from the Immortal Alliance. Due to deep research on Cultivation itself, representing and summarizing the principles of Foundation Establishment and Golden Core Formation, any Cultivator entering the Immortal Dao can Cultivate to Golden Core.

But their goal was to render the Golden Core artificially generatable, transplantable at will, allowing even those who have not formed a Golden Core to use it.

That was not so simple.

As the process of Core Formation advanced, the surrounding Spirit Energy Field began to change. Mana and nature's spiritual energy were not the type of special Spiritual Energy easily drowned in the background like the Power of Human Dao; Wang Qi was no longer the ignorant man he once was. Using only his Spiritual Sense, he easily perceived the entire process. What's more, the Ghost Soldier was his, and he had more than enough methods to involve himself in this process.

The Golden Core is the hub, the Core. It is the center of the human body's Spiritual Energy System. All Spiritual Power circulating within the Ghost Soldier's body began to dissociate the moment it emerged in the Spiritual Energy Layer. But this was not towards Chaos; instead, many new tributaries appeared in the cycle of Mana. These tributaries fed into the newly-formed Spiritual Energy Layer outside the Ghost Soldier.

Then, that layer began a directed collapse. Like a dying star, unable to combat its mass with the heat from fusion, it started to collapse precipitously. A massive outburst of Spirit Light emerged, dazzling to the eye.

And in accordance with the changes of Core Formation, Gravity in the surroundings underwent various alterations. The warping of space started to become prominent. In Wang Qi's eyes, the process of Ghost Soldier's Core Formation was as if it was in slow motion.

"Has the effect of spatial expansion already become prominent? This is without borrowing the gravity of a planet, purely achieved through one's own Mana."

Once the outer Spiritual Energy Layer of the Ghost Soldier completely collapsed into its body, nature's spiritual energy suddenly became furious. The Spirit Energy Field went into disarray, then sought a new balance. During this process, the small courtyard was like a typhoon passing through, raising a strong wind, with electric light flashing and disappearing on the Ghost Soldier's body.

Wang Qi felt the pain of the Ghost Soldier. After the roaring wind dissipated, he realized that the recent "small thunderbolt" had actually disrupted the Ghost Soldier's physical form.

"It seems this method of Artificial Golden Core is still insufficient," Ai Changyuan shook his head, "The tribulation of small thunderbolt involved in Golden Core Formation can't even be considered a Heavenly Tribulation, it should be withstood easily by any reinforcement."

"After all, it's just a Ghost Soldier with no Self-Awareness, lacking any other means beyond that set of Divine Skills," said Wang Qi, recalling the Ghost Soldier, then asked Ai Changyuan, "What's the result?"

Ai Changyuan pointed to the ground where on the extremely intricate Array were five hundred and twenty-six interfaces, each interface had a Spirit Rhinoceros Bottle placed on it: "Following a specific sequence to insert or activate these specially-made Spirit Rhinoceros Bottles, channeling concentrated Spirit Sense into the body, even a pig could form a top-grade Golden Core. You've succeeded, Old Wang, in transforming Cultivation Technique into Yao Language encoding!"

Yao Language is the term used in Shenzhou for mechanical language.

Human genetic information is essentially composed of four types of base pairs. Although the mechanism by which they express control over proteins remains a mystery, human genes can indeed be considered the program of life written in quaternary code.

However, whether it's Earth or Shenzhou, the reverse-engineering of this program has not been completed. They may have glimpsed the "hardware structure" of this life program but haven't understood how it operates.

This idea is reflected in Ai Qinglan's personal notes. With her foundation in Mathematics, the cooperation of the Zhenhai Navy, continuous breakthroughs from Divine Capital, and the Cultivation thoughts of Jiyin Valley's Chief Disciple, was Wang Qi able to achieve this step.

For the average Cultivator, this step might not seem significant. However, for Wang Qi, the loophole created from his rashness all those years ago was finally plugged, and without relying on unverified theories. The significance of this step was immense.

All potential dangers were eliminated, all Cultivation Techniques unified harmoniously, and even if the theories supporting these laws were overturned, Wang Qi wouldn't find it difficult to reconstruct his own system.

He had taken a critical step on the path of Longevity.

Wang Qi collected the pile of Spirit Rhinoceros Bottles, musing, "It seems that we still need to devise a method to package it into an installation package, a simple operation, one-click Core Formation, only then will it be meaningful. Moreover, there is also..."

"Old Wang, let's fix up your Ghost Soldier and then test its power, shall we?"

Wang Qi then realized that Ai Changyuan was curiously observing his Ghost Soldier. The Ghost Soldier had nearly been scattered into oblivion by the small thunderbolt and its form was hardly recognizable, barely maintaining a humanoid silhouette. Wang Qi pondered for a moment, placed his hand atop the head of the Ghost Soldier, and began a new round of refinement: "Since you've evolved for the second time, I should give you a new name as well."

The shape of the Ghost Soldier writhed, its surface turning white, and underwent a strange transformation. Now its upper body was human-shaped, but its lower half was the front of a horse, resembling a rider grown into his steed.

"You are the cornerstone leading to the Human Dao Heaven, an important experimental subject, so let's call you 'Heaven Creation.'"

Ai Changyuan clicked his tongue in amazement: "This form, it's not mundane at all, Old Wang, how did you come up with this?"

Wang Qi spoke without expression: "We are on our way to Heaven; it's symbolic."

"Interesting," Ai Changyuan nodded: "If I'm not mistaken, it should be able to complete the Cave Heaven Comparison Ruler's task. Shall we try?"

Wang Qi nodded and placed one hand on his hip: "Heaven Creation!"

"Heaven Creation" tugged on the reins, its two horse legs kicking incessantly. Gravity became prominent, space became evident, and the rules of the high-speed domain were pulled into the normal domain, "Twin Paradox" emerged, and the frames of reference for Wang Qi and Ai Changyuan shifted from this planet, desynchronizing their personal time from the planet's.

Ai Changyuan took out an apple, took a bite: "How long can this last?"

Wang Qi shook his head: "It's limited. According to our personal time, it should be about two hours. If we were in Shenzhou, I reckon it would be a few seconds."

"Not bad," Wang Qi's gaze suddenly caught the apple in Ai Changyuan's hand: "Speaking of which, Old Ai, do you have any extra apples?"

Ai Changyuan took out another one: "After Foundation Establishment, my family gave me another one. There's one more if I achieve Core Formation. The tree of our family's provenance is still there; it bears a few every year."

Wang Qi said: "Old Ai, would you lend me one of these for a practical trial? I want to refine a magic artifact!"

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Residents of Beichang Port have felt as if they've been hounded these past few days—not to say that the half-demoness or dog demon acting as Guardian Envoys in the vicinity are particularly indiscreet, this is just a rhetorical expression.

Recently, the source of their strange sensations has been the inexplicable phenomenon of Golden Core Phenomena.

Generally speaking, such phenomena are not rare, but they're also not commonplace. Cultivators about to have a breakthrough usually choose a secluded place to prevent disturbing the populace, but there are those who inadvertently achieve Golden Core Formation at home. With the cultivation of the Immortal Dao being so advanced nowadays, the success rate of achieving a Golden Core is even higher than giving birth, so there's not too much need for caution.

However, no one has seen this kind of situation before. In the same courtyard, a series of Golden Core Phenomena has appeared within just a few days. People hadn't even settled into meditation before the balance of spiritual energy around them broke. For those deeply immersed in cultivation, there's even a risk of being distracted and suffering a deviation.

"What exactly is going on with that family? How come there are so many people achieving Golden Cores?"

"Could they be running a training class, helping with Core Formation?"

"That would be a little too effective, wouldn't it?"

"Is it possible they are disciples from a major sect, coming here to tutor and run training classes?"

"Why would they come here and run private classes instead of acting as Guardian Envoys?"

While there were many speculations outside, Wang Qi and Ai Changyuan had already completed another round of experimentation.

The Spirit Rhinoceros Bottles needed for Core Formation had been reduced from five hundred and twenty-six to three hundred ninety-nine, and there was still potential for further reduction. After numerous summaries of the Core Formation process, Wang Qi had already tasked Jarvis with the insertion and activation of the specially made Spirit Rhinoceros Bottles.

Being able to delegate tasks to machines was proof of liberating productive forces.

As for Wang Qi's subject of experimentation—due to the restrictions placed on him, he hadn't conducted biological experiments, nor had he created a Golden Core inside any living being. Using spiritual power-infused Spirit Fruits as a base, he refined them into active magic devices that could take the place of a Golden Core.

Ai Changyuan looked at a lock in his hand with a complex expression: "I feel like this is a bit of a waste."

Wang Qi gave a thumbs up: "This is a necessary price on the path to Human Dao Heaven. Old Ai, you should be prepared; the enlightened are always blissful!" (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, we welcome you to vote for us at Qidian (qidian.com), also for your monthly pick. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please go to m.qidian.com to continue reading.)