Naturally, the source was the body!
Internal Force was refined by internal energies that were generated by your body, spirit, and soul. So, to put it simply, the higher your body, spirit, and soul, the faster you cultivated because you produced a large quantity of these internal energies.
The reason why Dante had such a huge reaction was simple: he had huge stats at the time of cultivation. It was the fact that whether students or natives, no one would pass 10 points in any stat when they start cultivating either Internal or External Arts because it was impossible to surpass that limit without cultivating in the first place.
So when they cultivated for the first time, the reaction was not as great. Reaching level 1 could take about a year depending on talent, but going to level 2 and beyond would take more than double that time.
The reason was kind of obvious. It was like having a full bottle of water and drinking it all at once to quench your thirst; you'd have a huge satisfaction.
That bottle refilled itself, but it took time and was not instant. If you wanted to wait for it to fill, months may have passed, if not years depending on your talent and body's quality. No one could wait that long and would rather cultivate day by day.
So it was like filling a bowl with a slow tap and drinking out of it. You couldn't even get one mouthful to gulp and would have to drink slowly over a long period of time to quench your thirst.
Unfortunately, it was pointless and stupid to wait until it was full. The time you'd wait and the boom you would get consuming it all at once were practically equal to what you would get if you cultivated day by day.
Even if you cultivated day by day, that was a real increase in your power, however small. If you waited months or years to enjoy the boom, pray someone doesn't smash your head open by having just slightly better power than you.
Assuming two people even had the exact same talent and used the exact same technique with the exact same body stats and they fought. Person A liked to accumulate and go up at once while Person B liked to cultivate day by day.
Person A was at level 1, 36% of the technique, and his next boom would send him to level 1, 72%, which he was looking forward to. However, he was now fighting a life and death battle with Person B over benefits or some feud, where Person B, with the exact same stats and cultivation technique as him, was at level 1, 48% because he cultivated day by day and accumulated it over 3 months.
Now, because of that 48%, Person A was heavily outmatched and was killed at the end. Wouldn't that be a very foolish death?
Dante also knew why achieving Internal Arts didn't raise his stats because it required the body and mind's stats to progress in the first place!
Internal arts users were even lucky that their stats didn't drop from cultivating Internal Arts, much less hoping it would increase.
But wait, if the way to increase my cultivation speed is to have better stats, then how do I achieve that? Wait a minute, those fellows over there glowing with blood Qi, they have such strong bodies and exuberant life force.
!!!
That's it!
And so, it was clear why Hao Donglei insisted that Dante cultivate both External and Internal Arts. After all, cultivating both would take time and would double the effort, but it was more than double the power.
ραndαsnοvεl.cοm The synergy between External art and Internal Art was crucial, which was why Dante was made to select one that matched. As he could use his Internal cultivation to boost his External one, which would yield returns in boosting the Internal one and so on for a stronger degree with each cycle.
If Internal Art users were not so rare, it was likely that this world would be fully under their control. Martial Gods and martial artists would not even have space to breathe and could only be cannon fodder in wars between Internal Arts users.
But was Dante's situation similar? Not exactly!
Dante's eyes flickered. He could quickly raise his SDI through absorbing stats until he hit the genetic limit. Then he could either rely on gene treatments in the highly technological Eternal Universe or use hard work in the True Martial World's External Art cultivation to break his gene limit and continue accumulating till the next barrier.
Rinse and repeat!
Using his increased stats, he could boom every time he advanced and rise through the levels in one go! What would take others years might be done in a few moments by him depending on his External Arts cultivation.
Dante might reach level 10, something that even Internal Arts users of great talent who were still alive and had lived for centuries had not achieved, in less than a year!
The very thought was preposterous and fear-inducing for anyone who was not on his side or his enemy. If the other students going into the Zero Gate with him saw this, they might just sell their souls to call down every armada in the universe to blast Dante into bits.
However, when Dante thought of this, his excitement and joy disappeared as his expression became ugly. Even with level 10 True Qi from the Inferno Ascension Technique and Blood Qi from the Raging Inferno Halberd Technique, he could not see how he would deal with Slessor's Spatial Folding or Humphrey's Aerogenesis.
The former could just watch him as he released his flames as well as his Blood Qi and fold him into paper then put it in her pocket, while the latter would watch Dante use his means and then wave a hand to blow his skin off his bones.
No wonder superpower users were the pinnacle of the Eternal Universe's hierarchy given their technology and methods, they were really overpowered cheats with no fairness to them! If Dante wanted to survive such encounters, either he gained offensive or defensive superpowers of his own, or he could try to accumulate more Internal Arts or External Arts if he could crack the way to increase his talents.
Like that Void Serenity Palm. With it, he could use spatial force to resist Slessor's abilities and even block Humphrey's own.
However, Dante did not have space-related internal talent.
Or did he? He glanced at the Quantum Entanglement superpower in his SDI row and various thoughts appeared in his mind. It didn't show now, but what if he raised Quantum Entanglement up the ranks and integrated it with his body even better?
Well, that was all for the future. Right now, the most important thing was to break the gene limit using External Arts, so Dante put away the manual for the Inferno Ascension Technique and planned to return it to the Techniques Hall later.
He opened the Raging Inferno Halberd Technique's manual and began reading it. It was thick and extensive, showing human body diagrams of the meridians, the various organs, and how they would be affected by cultivating.
There were detailed illustrations of a male or female silhouette taking various stances and forms, both wielding a halberd and not. There were even combat-related tips and details on how to use the forms for combat in a systematic fighting style, how to inject blood Qi into the weapon and body at necessary points to maximize the use of the technique as well as things to avoid doing.
It was comprehensive as hell and supremely simple to understand. Using this visual method, even the ill
iterate could understand what to do and how to cultivate.
However, there was also a lot more to memorize and understand, so it would not take a short while for a person to learn it all. They might spend a week or more just reading and memorizing before starting, but Dante, at 250 points of Intelligence plus with his AI chip and Psionics with him, recorded everything perfectly one time.
He closed the manual and then called over a servant disciple. He gave the fellow the two techniques and told him to return them to the Techniques Hall in his name, then watched as the fellow scurried off.
Jia Susu saw this and ran over, wondering why Dante didn't hand such an important task to her. What if something happened to that disciple and he didn't deliver it, or opened the books to sneak a read?
Even worse, what if he didn't deliver them or was intercepted and forced not to deliver? One should know that any of these scenarios could cause Dante significant trouble even if he was a core disciple.
Dante could read her with ease as usual and smiled, patting her soft head. "In order to lure the cunning snake or the patient spider into a trap, you first need tempting bait."
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