Chapter 557: 402
Perhaps it was due to different circles, information hard to come by in Pengcheng was easily accessible in Kyoto, or perhaps Gavin felt that Dong Tianyu’s cultivation level had reached the Path Entry Realm, so he didn’t hide how to use artifacts to break through.
"To use an artifact to break through your cultivation level, first and foremost, you must not merge with the artifact before you have fully mastered the Energy Refining Realm. That is a prerequisite."
Dong Tianyu understood this condition, since after merging with an artifact, even the energy cultivated would be absorbed by the artifact, accelerating one’s control over it and enhancing the artifact’s powers.
"Under normal circumstances, once the cultivation level is fully complete in the Energy Refining Realm, you should try to break through directly. However, the success rate of breaking through on your own is not high. After all, the Path Entry Realm is different from the Energy Refining Realm. To break into the Path Entry Realm, you must thoroughly comprehend a certain ’Dao Essences’.
As for what ’Dao Essences’ are, to tell the truth, although I have also broken through to the Path Entry Realm, up to now, I’m not very clear about it either.
However, according to those martial artists who have broken through without the aid of artifacts, ’Dao Essences’ are actually a kind of law. The choice of which ’Dao Essences’ to follow represents the path you have decided to take in the future.
It’s like the laws in cultivation novels, where the ’Three Thousand Great Path’ can all lead to sanctity. As long as you have a preliminary understanding of the law, you have stepped onto the true path of cultivation. That’s why this realm is called the Path Entry Realm.
If martial artists who break through to the Path Entry Realm on their own have a clear understanding of the direction of their future cultivation, then those of us who use artifacts to break through are on a pre-planned path.
This path may seem clear-cut, but unless you fully merge with the artifact and completely understand the law that the artifact’s power represents, the Path Entry Realm will be the end of your cultivation.
It’s like reading comprehension in a language test, those who break through on their own are like the authors of the texts—whatever they say is right, since they wrote it.
And martial artists who break through with the aid of artifacts are like students answering questions in an exam. They can only respond according to definite answers and cannot extend on their own; otherwise, they will lose marks," Gavin explained.
Hearing this, Dong Tianyu nodded in understanding, then waited for Gavin to continue.
"The method of breaking through with the help of an artifact is quite simple. Once your cultivation level is complete, just conduct a ritual with heart-blood and the artifact.
However, there’s a problem here. First, the artifact chosen must be one that hasn’t been refined and merged by others. An artifact that has been fused with someone else’s essence is already tainted. Having lost its purity, such an artifact cannot facilitate a breakthrough.
That’s why there’s a problem now. Even in Kyoto, there’s no equipment to accurately determine if a target item is an artifact, and heart-blood is not ordinary blood. Even though becoming a martial artist greatly enhances one’s physical condition, extracting heart-blood is still dangerous.
And even if the bloodletting process goes smoothly, the body will still become weak afterward and will need some time to recover.
Therefore, if the ritual fails, it will take a long time to recover before trying again to merge with another artifact.
Ten of us conducted the ritual together, and even though various methods were used to assess the items, we selected 100 items that seemed more likely to be artifacts from numerous ’special’ items for us to choose from.
Yet even so, when the actual ritual started, three of them chose targets that were not artifacts, resulting in a failed ritual."
Seeing the astonished look on Gavin’s face, Dong Tianyu sensed that Kyoto already had a way to help people break through to the Path Entry Realm in large numbers.
From Gavin’s words, Dong Tianyu also gathered that Path Entry Realm cultivators were not rare in Kyoto. Although Kyoto was still somewhat secretive, Dong Tianyu was clear that the Imperial Court’s strength was far beyond his previous imagination.
Perhaps guessing that Dong Tianyu was interested in this method, or maybe thinking this method of advancement was quite harsh—after all, not to mention the risk involved in extracting heart-blood.
Just consider the selection of the artifact for the ritual: after excluding the clearly refined and definite artifacts, one has to rely on luck to choose an unrefined artifact, and failing once means at least delaying three months just to recover.
This path to advancement demands high resources, so even if ordinary people are aware of it, without substantial resources to support them—even knowing this path—they cannot choose it due to lack of enough resources.
Those who are less well-off can only rely on talent, choosing the difficult path of self-breakthrough that becomes a golden road if successfully traversed.
Afterward, Gavin outlined the general process of this method of breakthrough to Dong Tianyu, as well as the entire process of the heart-blood ritual, and what to look out for during this process.
The two continued to talk and arrived at the place where they first met. It was still very calm here, just as it had been when they left.
Gavin took out a device from his backpack, fiddled with it for a moment, placed it on the ground, and pressed the control switch on the device.
