Chapter 456: Chapter 395: Advancement, Divinity Transformation Stage
At the core of the Purgatory Sulfur Plane, within the central array of the Incense Fire Divine Dao, time seemed to lose its meaning.
Jeming’s consciousness was not entirely immersed in the refinement of his cultivation. Instead, he often sank into his consciousness space, lingering in the grand Great Dao Book Pavilion that seemed carved from pure white jade.
At this moment, his conscious form was sitting cross-legged in front of the Great Dao Book Pavilion, holding a smooth, cyan notebook in his hands.
The material of the notebook was different from most of the scrolls in the pavilion that recorded divine techniques, appearing more plain.
The cover had no title, only a faint line of ink that seemed ready to disperse at any moment: "Miscellaneous Dao Records: Understanding of Realms".
This was neither a cultivation method nor a shocking secret technique, but more like musings and reflections of an unnamed predecessor on the path they had trodden.
However, Jeming read it with great interest, for the notebook discussed the intrinsic origins of every realm for cultivators.
Combining the book’s content with his own experiences, Jeming’s thoughts ebbed and flowed.
"The desire for immortality is the beginning of the Dao path."
The notebook explained straightforwardly at the start.
It posited that the original driving force behind the establishment and division of each great realm on the path of cultivation was not the pursuit of apocalyptic power, but the most primitive and strongest desire of sentient beings for ’eternal life’.
Originally, "Qi Cultivation" or more anciently "Qi Refining", was when the sages discovered a kind of ’Qi’ (Spiritual Qi) in the universe that could nourish life, delay aging, and grant extraordinary power.
Thus, they explored methods to absorb and refine it, thereby transcending mortal life spans.
However, simply refining Qi progressed slowly and had a high threshold.
Many spent their entire lives and achieved nothing, wasting their time.
Thus, exceptional talents proposed the integration of the body’s three treasures—’Essence, Qi, and Spirit’—as the foundation, allowing the three to work in harmony.
This made the cultivation path more stable and efficient, allowing more people the possibility of touching immortality.
This is the Foundation Establishment Stage.
But although Foundation Establishment cultivators had increased lifespans, it was still limited.
As they saw their end approaching, with the immortal path seeming distant, some predecessors carved a new path: since the mortal body would eventually age and decay, why not refine and compress the ’essence’ to the extreme and forge an ’indestructible, timeless’ Golden Core?
Using this Golden Core as the core allows one to break free from the shackles of physical aging.
The Golden Core Realm came into being.
The body is undying, seemingly already gaining immortality.
However, cultivators soon realized that physical eternity did not equate to the infinity of the soul, as the soul representing ’self’ would also decay over time.
The goal of immortality was not entirely achieved.
Thus, the pursuit continued.
How to make ’self’ less likely to be destroyed?
The sages combined the soul and consciousness-representing ’Spirit’ with the immortal ’essence’ (Golden Core), birthing the Nascent Soul.
The Nascent Soul is the concentrated essence of a cultivator’s life and consciousness, marking the point from which the cultivator has completely broken free from ’lifespan’ limitations.
Reaching the Nascent Soul Realm, the desire for mere ’longevity’ seemed to be momentarily satisfied.
But... when a person is killed, they die.
The Nascent Soul is wondrous, but not invincible.
To truly ’protect’ this hard-won fruit of immortality in this crisis-ridden world and to avoid having their life taken easily, after the Nascent Soul, the main objective of cultivation quietly shifted—from pursuing ’immortality’ to seeking the power to ’protect the Dao’.
The Divinity Transformation Realm was born out of this need.
The essence of ’Divinity Transformation’ is to greatly enhance a cultivator’s recovery, survival, and combat abilities using both internal and external forces, making oneself harder to kill.
Accordingly, advancing to the Divinity Transformation requires a complete and perfect re-integration and sublimation at a higher life level of the initial integration of ’Essence, Qi, and Spirit’ established at Foundation Establishment, later refined by the Golden Core and Nascent Soul.
Also, because Divinity Transformation realm cultivators inherently possess nearly infinite lifespans, they have ample time to delve deeply into the art of combat and methods of protection, to explore the deeper ’truths’ of the universe.
As the wizards would say, it is the beginning of a systematic and in-depth study of ’Laws’.
"Thus, the Divinity Transformation Realm, is essentially a realm specializing in enhancing combat, survival abilities and laying down a solid foundation of life for deep exploration of the Dao (Laws)," Jeming closed the notebook as azure light merged into the pavilion, a look of reflection on his conscious form’s face.
Indeed, any mature power system bears the deep imprint of the cultural heritage and core demands of its birth civilization.
The Cultivation Immortality Civilization stems from the ultimate pursuit of individual ’eternal life and freedom within the universe’, with its realm evolution tightly focusing on extending life and protecting the fruits of longevity.
Every step is filled with exploration of life’s essence and a persistent will to ’endure’.
In contrast, the Wizard Civilization originates from an endless thirst for ’knowledge’ and ’truth’.
To gain more knowledge and understand the essence of the world, they need stronger perception ability, computational power, and reality-interference capability.
Hence, the advancement in Wizard Levels often emphasizes qualitative changes in spiritual power, upgrades in computational frameworks, and the analysis and application efficiency of specific laws.
So by the Third Level, wizards begin to possess the basic perception for studying laws.
But in terms of lifespan, even a Sixth Level Wizard, if they do not regularly consume longevity potions or undergo biochemical modification for extension, their lifespan is quite ’limited’.
Their starting points are different, their paths divergent, and their methods of utilizing power vastly different.
