Chapter 335 The Path Forward 1

Dante and Beatrice had different targets for cultivation in the first place. For Beatrice, her goal was to use the energy gathering of the cultivation system to store enough energy to catalyze her Origin Core when the time was right.

She intended to cultivate right from the start of Qi Condensation and dutifully got through all the stages and converted her spirit energy into Immortal qi at the peak of the world's realm before using it and the multitude of energy here to do what needed to be done.

As for Dante, he already produced energy internally that surpassed the purest immortal qi in existence. He would be dirtying himself to absorb more and condense it the way cultivators do, so he was not focused on that aspect.

He was more focused on the power aspect, the energy utilization by cultivators, and especially the dao system of controlling laws and concepts at higher realms. If he could incorporate it well and find an encompassing Dao to coalesce into his origin power system, he would be truly set.

So the difference in the way they cultivated was set from the start. For Beatrice, she first went through the details of the cultivation technique and easily understood its essence for the absorption part.

Cultivators usually needed a spiritual organ called the spirit root to be able to even sense and interact with the energy that pervaded the air; otherwise, there would be a lot more cultivators in existence and not the select few compared to the number of non-cultivators.

However, Beatrice did not need a spirit root with the current stats she had. Using psychic energy from her high stats, she could already sense and control spirit energy, dragging it over to her.

This was one method.

Another was to use her Luminous Ascension Technique to interact with spirit energy using her spirit sense from level 2 or her Compassionate Luminescence at level 4, which allowed her to absorb energy and convert it.

This would be slightly faster and more optimal than using raw psychic ability.

Of course, all of this was not necessary since she had the power system of the Concoction of Absorption. The rules of the Concoction of Absorption were simple, based on her physical stats and energy requirement, all the necessary energy she needed would be pulled from all and any source for as far a range as possible.

It was a passive ability that was quite tyrannical if you thought about it, as it really took Dante and Beatrice a long time as well as a lot of hard work to customize it.

Now, its effect for Beatrice was noticeable since the moment she began the Qi Condensation chapter and was absorbing spirit energy to fill her dantian, a powerful torrent of energy was formed above her that created a vortex.

Even Dante had to open his eyes and stop his contemplation to look at the situation with a grim expression as he was ready to resolve the situation should anything go wrong.

As for Beatrice, the energy vortex above her head grew bigger and bigger until it formed a literal cyclone above their mansion that could cause a hurricane alert on earth, and a level 1 one at that.

Of course, this caused a phenomenon that many could see from miles away. A mountain with a tornado above it, how could the entire sect and slightly beyond not see this? Even if they could not see the visual effect, they could certainly feel the effect of the spirit energy that was always around them being dragged away and leaving nothing behind.

Many faces changed greatly as everything within the sect seemed to grind to a halt. The array masters on their mountain peak stopped studying and debating, talisman masters stopped drawing, alchemists' cauldrons blew up as their energy supplement was taken away, and battle cultivators stopped their training due to the feeling of losing their support.

Just as all eyes converged on the personal peak allocated to Dante and Beatrice, the energy vortex suddenly swelled in size as Beatrice got more familiar with the energy absorption method and comprehended new ways to better absorb the energy in tandem with the Concoction of Absorption.N0v3lTr0ve served as the original host for this chapter's release on N0v3l--B1n.

This led to the vortex going to the size of a level 2 hurricane alert, now spreading past their mountain and enveloping the foot of some others. This energy vortex did not have a strong physical pull on people, and for the cultivators of this sect, it was practically negligible, but one could not help but flee at the sight of such a thing.

It was simply basic instinct to fear storms.

The elders of the sect and the sect master had shocked expressions as they quickly left their various resting and cultivation areas to hover in the air over the sect, glancing at the energy vortex that was beginning to even pull energy from outside the sect into its fold.

"Elder Ling, what's going on?" The Sect Master turned to the gray-bearded Elder Ling who had just left this mountain peak not but a few minutes ago.

Elder Ling was naturally speechless. "I do not know. I simply took them through the various processes and then left them to cultivate on their own."

"Huh? So this phenomenon is just from cultivating? But if I remember correctly, neither have started cultivation and should be at the Qi Condensation stage.." another elder spoke slowly until his voice trailed off.

After all, the impact of his assumption was too great, enough so that everyone here felt their skins crawl. It was possible to create an energy storm like this at their levels with a casual wave of their hand, and that was fine.

However, these two were only beginning their cultivation and could do this? Then what about when they ascended higher, would they swallow the entire world?

As for within the mansion, Beatrice had already blazed through Qi Condensation and was currently soaring through Foundation Establishment. The first three realms of cultivation were basic energy absorption realms where you absorb, compress, and repeat that cycle as you purified and purified your energy better.

The energy absorption was not the problem for Beatrice but the compression was. These techniques were designed for people starting out in cultivation, meaning that their stats grew with each cultivation level they climbed as they went from weak to strong.

If the 'machine' that a normal cultivator were to use at this stage was like a normal pressure machine, then Beatrice was using an entire continent!

Theoretically, this should make things easier for her, but no. Rather the difficulty was cranked up to an insane level as she had to regulate the force used; otherwise, forget compressing, she might end up smashing her entire dantian into paste!

It was only when she entered the peak of the Golden Core realm and was ready to form the Nascent Soul that the energy vortex began to calm down as the energy requirements died down at this stage and focused more on comprehension as well as the soul.

Seeing that Beatrice was settled, Dante then relaxed his guard and began to focus on his own cultivation process. Currently, he had read through the earlier bits and realized that his Origin Core had the effects of a Golden Core and an Essence Soul in one.

A Golden Core's main feature was its ability to cultivate on its own through autonomous absorption, which was a far weaker version of the Origin Core's autonomous energy production feature.

Likewise, an Essence Soul contained the memories, thoughts, and especially the spiritual essence of a cultivator. Dante's Origin Core possessed that too as even if his body was blown up, he could reform himself with his Origin Core.

In that same vein, no one could steal or copy his Origin Core because every bit of energy contained his essence so those who used it would be soon taken over and possessed by him. This was why when he bestowed energy to others, he had to physically detach his essence from it; otherwise, those fellows would just be 'poisoned' by it.

He had no interest in being a parody of Agent Smith.

So Dante skipped Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Soul Formation, and went straight to Dao Integration, the sixth realm out of nine in the mortal stages.

The Dao Integration Realm required a cultivator to build a Dao Bridge between themselves and the world, effectively connecting the Essence Soul and Dantian to the world and obtaining the ability to manipulate the world around them.

Here, the cultivator would take the first step into understanding laws. All the stages before were basically preparatory, to cultivate enough pure energy to power the world's forces and then to cultivate one's soul to be able to control the world's forces.

For Dante, this was the first step in deciding his Origin Power as he sought not to control a mere world, but the entire universe.. no, the entire multiverse. Utilizing the process in which the Dao bridge is constructed, he might be able to carve his path toward that end and form something unique.