The Modern Martial Immortal

Chapter 271: North Sea

Dao Techniques. Yaoguang searched through his mind briefly.

Although he had come into contact with thirteen Dao Techniques, since the progress of the Immortal Dao(Void-Refining Realm) branch had only reached 41%, all of the knowledge about them was superficial, not even reaching the proficient stage.

As for supreme divine abilities... After taking a moment to digest them, he realized that he had already perceived over ten thousand. Yet these ten thousand supreme divine abilities corresponded to only three thousand Great Dao.

Clearly, when different Dao Lords comprehended the same Great Dao, they could derive entirely different Dao Techniques and supreme divine abilities. As for the strength of each, that was something he had to judge by himself.

Yaoguang did not rush to select an ability to cultivate to perfection. Instead, he immersed his psychic mind into the Dao Fruit that had formed during the transition from the Void-Piercing Realm to the Void-Refining Realm.

My previous Dao Fruit was the Psychic Heart, which I left behind in the Great Cangwu World... this time...

The Void's Child? Looking at this ability, Yaoguang immediately thought of the long-obsolete Star’s Child.

How perfunctory. Though he mocked it inwardly, he still carefully perceived its properties.

A favored child of the void could better perceive the changes within the void, gain precise insight into the flow of space, and find it easier to advance to the Void-Piercing Realm and the Void-Refining Realm.

These traits... Yaoguang’s mind was filled with the vast and overflowing experience and insight he had regarding the breakthrough to the Void-Piercing Realm.

Do I really need help reducing the difficulty? Useless. Completely useless.

Fortunately, the Child of the Void offered more than that. It reduced the energy consumption of void-related divine abilities and Dao Techniques, as well as their burden on the body, and increased the speed at which they were released.

These three traits finally caught his interest. To put it simply, it was like reducing skill cost, shortening cooldown, and increasing casting speed. Seen this way, it was not bad.

Still, this was ultimately a talent designed for the Void-Piercing Realm. Its true effects would only be clear once he reached that realm. For now, he needed to select a group of supreme divine abilities to adapt to and master.

The three thousand Great Dao form the essence of the world. Perhaps, at that level, there is no distinction, but for cultivators like us, there are always differences in rank. He quietly sifted through the many divine abilities within the information he had obtained.

On the North Sea Star, divine abilities were divided into ordinary divine abilities, great divine abilities, and supreme divine abilities. The distinction did not lie in power, but in their upper limits.

Supreme divine abilities directly pointed to Dao Techniques and were inheritances of Dao Lords. Great divine abilities pointed to incomplete Dao Techniques and belonged to Void-Shattering cultivators' inheritances.

Ordinary divine abilities were those created by Void-Refining cultivators based on their own understanding. Though they could point toward the Great Dao, their effectiveness remained unproven.

In other words, before reaching the Dao Technique level, ordinary divine abilities were not necessarily weaker than supreme divine abilities.

Of course, the vision of Dao Lords and Void-Shattering experts was far beyond that of Void-Refining cultivators.

Even simplified supreme or great divine abilities were far more profound than ordinary divine abilities. Thus, ordinary divine abilities that truly surpassed great or supreme divine abilities in power were exceedingly rare.

When my realm reached the Void-Refining Realm, I obtained thirteen Dao Techniques. The supreme divine abilities corresponding to these thirteen Dao Techniques... Yaoguang examined them briefly, his expression turning strange.

All thirteen were focused on survival, defense, evasion, or cultivation.

Is this a reflection of my true inner self?

But from what Susan and others had described of the North Sea Star, the more one yielded, the more others would press forward, until they drove you to death and stripped everything from you.

Thus, survival, defense, movement, and cultivation alone were not enough. He needed powerful killing techniques.

Very quickly, he selected five supreme divine abilities. A defensive type, aligned with the Great Dao of stars: Myriad Stars Chaotic Body. An evasion type, aligned with the Great Dao of the void: Nine Heavenly Transformations. An offensive killing technique, aligned with the Great Dao of the void: Space-Splitting Strike. An auxiliary type, aligned with the Great Dao of the mind: Supreme Emotional Detachment. A cultivation type, aligned with the Great Dao of devouring: Heaven-Devouring Kunpeng Technique.[1]

Each of the five supreme divine abilities served its own purpose, each excelling in its own domain.

Originally, I should have chosen five divine abilities aligned with different Great Dao. But with the Void's Child, the two void-based abilities, the Nine Heavenly Transformations and Space-Splitting Strike, will perform even better. As for the remaining three...

Yaoguang made his choices based on his current condition. The Myriad Stars Chaotic Body complements my body refinement. The Heaven-Devouring Kunpeng Technique, combined with the Star-Devouring Technique, will further accelerate the growth of my star god body. As for the Supreme Emotional Detachment, it focuses on refining the psyche and applying mental power, discarding all emotions to become one with the Dao, thereby allowing one to unleash one hundred percent of one's strength or even exceed one's limits.

Through the high-dimensional cognition, he already possessed sufficient understanding of these supreme divine abilities. All that remained was to spend some time mastering them, bringing them to the mastery stage, and eventually to perfection.

By then, not only would his strength rise significantly, but he would also have the power to contend against a true Radiant Sun Golden Core cultivator.

***

A month later, the Void Disk was gradually captured by the gravity of the North Sea Star. For many factions entering the North Sea Star, this process was extremely dangerous.

According to Susan, numerous cultivators would gather in groups around the outer perimeter of the North Sea Star, lying in wait to plunder and kill. When outsiders were caught in the gravitational pull and unable to disengage, they would strike, wiping them out and looting all their resources.

This was the first trial when entering the North Sea Star.

With that in mind, Li Hanqiu, as a Void-Piercing Realm expert, had no choice but to pause refining the World-Stabilizing Ring and take control of the Void Disk. While releasing the aura of a Void-Piercing Realm powerhouse, he seized the moment to execute a round of void traversal.

Relying on this ability, the Void Disk directly skipped the entire gravitational capture phase, skipping the two-month-long process normally needed to reach the North Sea Star, appearing instantly on its outer perimeter.

There, a ring of azure radiance filled the view. It was the visible glow emitted by spiritual qi.

If a spirit-gathering array were set up in this region, the amount of spirit stones produced each year would be unimaginable.

But neither Li Hanqiu nor Yaoguang had the mind to consider such things. The restraint exerted by the North Sea Star on the Void Disk grew stronger and stronger, dragging it rapidly downward like a spacecraft about to crash onto the planet.

"It’s spiritual power!" Li Hanqiu said, after pausing briefly to sense the surroundings. "The North Sea Star is drawing in all the spiritual power from this region of space. The spiritual power and the spirituality contained within the Void Disk are also being pulled inward toward the planet’s core. Unless we stop operating this Dao Artifact, the pulling force will continue to intensify until all the spiritual power and spirituality within the Void Disk are drained, causing it to disintegrate."

"Can you hold it?" Yaoguang asked.

"If it were before, when my Primordial Void state was unstable, I wouldn’t dare give you a definite answer. But now..." Li Hanqiu smiled and glanced at the marked coordinates. "Hold tight."

As he spoke, the entire Void Disk rippled violently under his control. These ripples carried the power of the void, forcibly dispersing the North Sea Star's terrifying gravitational pull.

Seizing the opportunity, the Void Disk sped up and shot toward its destination.

Amid intense turbulence and the layers of spatial ripples that protected it, the Void Disk quickly pierced the outer layer of spiritual power surrounding the North Sea Star. At once, a vast landscape of towering mountains, great marshes, plains, and forests unfolded before Yaoguang’s eyes.

Along with it came a surge of spiritual qi rushing toward him.

Because of the abundance of spiritual qi, all flora and fauna across the North Sea Star had undergone transformation, becoming stronger and more aggressive.

Furthermore, the planet’s core seemed to be constantly absorbing and drawing both spiritual power and spirituality from the surrounding cosmos. As a result, the soil, wood, and rocks on the surface had all been infused with spiritual power, their very material composition altered.

It was no exaggeration to say that even the most ordinary stone on this planet could serve as material for forging a spirit artifact if taken outside.

Like matter from a neutron star, even a single gram brought into the outside world could enable technological civilizations to achieve groundbreaking advancements.

"As expected of the North Sea Spirit World. The spiritual power here is really abundant." Yaoguang spoke with genuine admiration.

Li Hanqiu nodded in agreement.

While continuously releasing the pressure of a Void-Piercing Realm expert, he controlled the Void Disk as it sped across a region resembling a vast primeval forest below.

The restraining force from the planet’s core was so immense that the Void Disk had to expend a great deal of energy just to counter it, and its flight speed had dropped to less than ten times the speed of sound.

Fortunately, the spatial ripples it emitted canceled out air resistance, preventing violent turbulence and sonic booms during flight.

As the Void Disk swept across the land, it startled countless cultivators dwelling within the mountains and forests below.

They looked at the Void Disk with eyes filled with envy and greed, yet they all wisely concealed those emotions, not daring to reveal even the slightest trace.

They feared that if they were noticed, a single passing sword could end their lives.

After flying for over an hour and crossing tens of thousands of kilometers, the Void Disk finally stopped above a city nestled among mountain ranges.

At once, the entire city reacted. Everyone hurriedly concealed themselves. Some gazes toward the Void Disk were filled with fear.

Yaoguang and Li Hanqiu observed the city quietly. Soon, Yaoguang stepped forward and exited the Void Disk.

Forming a hand seal, he released a unique fluctuation that rapidly spread outward...

After sensing things for a moment, Yaoguang frowned as he realized that his psychic thought had spread for only fifteen hundred kilometers.

The core of the North Sea Star devoured not only spiritual power but also spirituality. Spirituality was a form of soul power. Anything that lived possessed it. And psychic thought was no exception.

Because of this, his psychic thought, which had been able to cover tens of millions of kilometers in the Great Cangwu World, was restricted to only fifteen hundred kilometers here.

And when he attempted to unfold his Void Psychic World, he discovered that the consumption of psychic power was terrifyingly high.

It was as if a monstrous entity was constantly devouring his mental energy, increasing the cost of maintaining the Void Psychic World by over a thousand times.

This world is really just as Susan and the others described... It’s like compressing the essence of ten thousand kilometers into a single kilometer. No wonder those Golden Core cultivators were so relaxed when they went to the Great Cangwu World. I originally thought it was just psychological pressure from living here, but it turns out there’s physical pressure as well. Yaoguang thought.

After releasing his psychic thought through a secret art, he waited for a moment... No response.

He tried again. Still nothing.

The hand seal is correct. The coordinates are correct. According to Wan Liugui, he had arranged for someone to be here as a fallback...

But then, he seemed to perceive something.

There was a disturbance in this city?! And less than a year ago?!

Realizing this, he immediately rose into the air. His psychic thought spread across the entire city, locking onto the strongest lifeform within it, a Fission Realm cultivator.

"Come see me immediately!" he said.

1. A Peng (Chinese: 鵬; pinyin: péng) or Dapeng (大鵬; dàpéng) is a giant bird that transforms from a Kun (鯤; kūn), a giant fish, in Chinese mythology. ☜