Chapter 964: A New Era, A New World (I)
The ruins of Skystar Town.
There was ample energy here. A dozen plant spirits sat in residence, as well as Director General Wang, the Black Armor, and a few other powerhouses. Li Hao had not returned to Battle Heaven to revive anyone else. He was very busy these days and did not have time to visit.
There were still thousands of soldiers and five Silver Armors in Skystar Town at present. They spent their days repairing the town and activating it.
There was also a small crowd cultivating here. Liu Long and the rest of the first batch of Demon Hunters were in residence. The dense energy concentration in the environment was suitable for their training. Li Hao had always been biased towards his own and could not conduct himself with full impartiality.
However, no one mounted an objection as they were used to his style.
In the ruins.
The imperial guard swayed in the air. It was much stronger than before, but hadn’t set foot into the Immortal cultivation level. It was right on the precipice. Li Hao had some trunks of Immortal plant spirits that he was planning on giving to the imperial guard to facilitate a breakthrough.
When the group entered the ruins, they sped directly for the mine. Along the way, they glimpsed the vanished supernaturals such as Dao Sword and the others.
The latter was also training here. Pure supernaturals needed a vast sum of energy for cultivation. This was a sacred land for supernaturals.
Sky Sword scanned the premises—there were a lot of people that he could see. There even seemed to be some prisoners; he knew that these people had been hauled back from the City of Supernaturals.
The new arrivals watched silently. They might’ve been unsatisfied if they’d been sticklers for custom or old stick-in-the-muds, but Silver Moon martial masters were regular people. In their eyes, enemies should be killed. Taking them prisoner was just as well, it didn’t matter.
Sometimes, these martial masters were even more merciless than Li Hao.
......
The entrance to the mine.
Director General Wang was cultivating here. He nodded when he saw the young man approach and left, seeming to not want to have too much to do with them.
Yuan Shuo didn’t mind, but Northern Fist grumbled, “Rude.”
“......” Li Hao looked at him. This old man was a fake proponent of manners. If something was useful to him, it was proper manners. If not, then it was nothing. He just couldn’t stand the sight of the director general, could he?
“He didn’t even greet us. You brought him here from Silver Moon, after all...”
“We just have our own needs for each other,” Li Hao laughed. “He is an illustrious senior. Senior Northern Fist, we should be more polite.”
Northern Fist turned over his words before understanding. Li Hao didn’t say too much—Ole Wang was in a poor mood lately, so not saying much was to be expected. He’d been very depressed ever since he learned of a few secrets. The young man understood.
The Black Armor was acclimating to his new body, so Li Hao didn’t disturb him. The young man himself was yet to redraw his supernatural characters. It’d been quite the regret to be unable to do anything when Ying Hongyue escaped from their last encounter. That guy might not have been able to do so if he was at peak strength.
“I’ve summoned the seniors to cultivate with me because I’d like to reorganize the martial dao system...” Li Hao waved everyone to a seat. Their session began in earnest. “Martial dao starts from Slayer of Tens before moving onto Sunderer of Hundreds and Dominator of Thousands. Dominators form the aura and officially possess enormous killing potential.
“This is the level in which hot weapons begin losing effectiveness. Dominators were hailed as walking gods before the supernatural domain awoke. The appearance of the aura upended the cultivation system before it—it is the greatest difference between us and the ancient civilization.
“Slayer of Tens is simply an eruption of internal force. The presence of internal force makes one a Slayer. Sunderer is when we are able to outwardly project internal force. This is just a basic process of nurturing internal force and strengthening the body...”
The heavyweights nodded in agreement. This was general knowledge that Li Hao repeated.
“When we step beyond Dominator, we enter what my teacher has deemed Summoner of Spirit. The aura is summoned into the five organs. However, teacher’s Summoner level is too limited in scope...”
Yuan Shuo raised a brow and didn’t say a word. He looked at his student, wanting to hear what great opinions the young man held.
“There are a myriad of permutations when it comes to the aura. In reality, supernaturals are martial masters and martial masters are also supernaturals...”
Yuan Shuo wouldn’t stand for this. “Are you equating supernaturals and martial masters?” He fronted.
“Supernaturals are blessed by the heavens and born with aura!” Li Hao nodded. “I once said that there are many types of aura. Comprehending the aura through cultivation is the self aura! Comprehending it through heaven and earth is a heaven aura. But when the heavens themselves bestow a natural aura upon us, that is a heaven aura as well!
“Earth bending, wind bending, flying, seeing through falsehood, teleportation, spontaneous eruption of energy, and massive strength... Are these not a kind of aura?”
The group exchanged looks with each other and was silent before Tyrant Blade spoke up sternly, “I think so, it’s just that the supernaturals don’t know how to utilize them properly. They know the hows, but not the whys. And yet, this is indeed a type of aura!
“When it comes to the aura, that is simply the ability to manipulate part of the world. These people can become part of the world and all living things. That makes it an innate aura that they are born with!”
Everyone turned over his words.
“Therefore, supernaturals and martial masters are the same,” Li Hao continued the line of thought. “Their only difference is that supernaturals do not understand much about the aura. They have a connate aura that they do not know how to use.
“Modern humans are equipped with supernatural locks. These locks already seal away auras of their own—auras that we are all born with.”
Yuan Shuo and the rest listened to him, not interrupting.
“Therefore, these two paths are ultimately interlinked,” Li Hao concluded. “They are related to each other, it's just that their starting points are different. After martial masters exceed Dominator, they become Summoners. The supernatural equivalent is Solar. There aren’t many commonalities between Solars and Summoners, but if we further extend this to Refiners and Novas...”
“There aren’t many commonalities between these two either.” Yuan Shuo raised an eyebrow.
“No!” Li Hao refuted. “There’s a lot in common between them! Novas have shattered the supernatural locks of the limbs, whereas Refiners are saturating their locks of the limbs. It looks to be diametrically opposite, but both actions fully develop and utilize the supernatural locks of the limbs!
“The two paths are starting to come together at this stage. If we take another step forward, martial masters focus on the locks of the five organs and can unseal themselves. The supernaturals have also started developing their organs at this stage.”
The group continued to listen intently.
“Therefore, I have a thought. What if we stimulated the supernatural’s understanding of their natural aura. Would that make them a pure martial master? Of course, martial masters train the heart, so supernaturals may not be martial masters simply because they grasp the aura. But that’s not important. Today, we discuss accessing power and its usage...”
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“Tell us straight,” Yuan Shuo frowned. “What kind of outcome and discussion do you want from us?”
“The outcome I’m looking for is that the two paths are the same, that this is still an excavation of supernatural locks at the end of the day. By the way, who says the term should be supernatural locks? In my view, they should be called dao meridians!”
Dao meridians?
Eyebrows raised in the group.
“Indeed, dao meridians! The powerhouses of New Martial find us modern humans to be very weak. But actually, they’re wrong. We are the favored children of the world! I suspect that has something to do with the origins of this world and how it’s developed its own consciousness. Strictly speaking, we might be the first humans born of this world. Everyone is a natural dao entity!”
The others couldn’t believe what they were hearing. Modern humans were incredibly weak. The difference between their bodies and that of New Martial humans was... stark. But Li Hao said that the humans of this age were more favored than humans of any other age!
“That’s how I would look at it,” Li Hao continued. “We can more accurately compare ourselves to the Initial Martial age before New Martial. Everyone possesses the great dao and stands a chance of taking one step further!
“The birth of the world placed dao meridians inside all of our bodies, locking our potential within. The heavens have bestowed upon us a different kind of capital and deep foundations...”
“Dao meridians...” murmured Yuan Shuo. “Everyone has these dao meridians and you mean that they contain aura and energy. These are the fundamentals of martial dao...”
Li Hao nodded.
“Therefore, the martial dao of this age should be called initial martial dao. If it wasn’t for the time period before New Martial already being called Initial Martial, then that’s probably what we should call ourselves!” the young man chuckled. “New Martial denotes the period of time long after Initial Martial was established. It wasn’t founded by the first batch of humans with dao meridians, but the accumulated foundations of later generations.
“New Martial was grand and marvelous. In my eyes, Initial Martial should have been equipped with greater advantages.”
The group at hand listened quietly, as did others further away. Director General Wang listened in on the conversation, as did Zhang An even further away.
Dao meridians, Initial Martial. The newly born world and the human race growing with it. The world had its own consciousness now, so it bequeathed the human of this age with greater advantages. The weaknesses in the ancients’ eyes was their greatest innate strength to Li Hao. Was this the case?
Even the plant spirits listened quietly. The young man’s voice drifted along the wind and landed in their ears. Even Panther opened its eyes and paused from devouring energy to take in Li Hao’s analysis.
The young man didn’t voice deeply profound words; he’d simply changed the name of the supernatural lock. And yet, that made it radically different!
......
“Martial masters and supernaturals have different ways of utilizing dao meridians. Martial masters extract a tiny bit of energy from them to nurture and strengthen the meridians. Supernaturals use a more violent way to directly withdraw energy from the meridians. They do not nurture or rebuild the meridians.”
“Based on the cultivation method of the supernatural characters, they can eventually contain everything,” Sky Sword rumbled. “So what does that make them?”
“Supernatural characters... are a medium through which dao meridians can manifest in this world,” Li Hao smiled. “Dao meridians naturally exist, but cannot be seen. The aura is another manifestation of them. Martial masters leverage the aura and supernaturals employ them via special abilities. And now, we use supernatural characters. What is the advantage in that?”