After understanding his current situation, Lu Yuan became even more diligent in his cultivation.
Having ended his holiday, he devoted himself entirely to integrating the Taiping Tao Fruit into the peaceful domain and began his sprint towards the second stage of being a Heavenly Immortal.
The so-called second stage of becoming a Heavenly Immortal is essentially a grueling task.
After reclaiming the Dao Fruit, a cultivator must first cleanse the Heavenly Path’s residual traces within the Dao Fruit, making it completely private, severing any connections with the Heavenly Path from then on.
Only at this step, does the Dao Fruit truly belong to the cultivator.
Once truly in control of the Dao Fruit, the next step for the cultivator is to merge and bind their Divine Soul’s essence with the Dao Fruit, making the two completely one.
From then on, the Dao Fruit is the cultivator, and the cultivator is the Dao Fruit; the two are indistinguishable.
To achieve this, the cultivator is considered to have merged with the Tao; oneself is a Great Tao.
But this is just the beginning.
Merging with the Tao ensures that a cultivator can fully control and use the Great Tao, but this Great Tao has already been completely severed from the Heavenly Path and the Immortal Realm by previous cuts.
Without the support of the Heavenly Path and the Immortal Realm, a single Dao Fruit is like a rootless tree, with no soil to sustain itself.
It can neither stand firmly, nor last long.
If this state is sustained for a long period, the Dao Fruit will, like a fish out of water, gradually die of thirst and starvation, the Great Tao will wither, and the Dao Fruit will collapse.
And when the Dao Fruit is gone, the cultivator, who has merged with it, naturally cannot escape the same fate.
Destruction together is the only outcome.
Thus, after separating from the Heavenly Path and the Immortal Realm, if a cultivator wants to preserve their Dao Fruit and their life, they must find a new place for the Dao Fruit to reside before it withers.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.
However, there’s no need to hurry too much with this step.
After all, the Dao Fruit is a transformation of the Great Tao, and its resilience and tenacity are not easily destroyed.
Even if it were to wither, it would be an exceedingly long process.
Consider the Nine Provinces’ Cave World, which relies on the Dao Fruit; even after its creator, the Nine Spirit Celestial Noble fell, it still maintained itself for seventy thousand years with the support of the Dao Fruit’s power before it headed towards destruction.
A derivative of a Dao Fruit possesses such strong vitality.
Let alone the Dao Fruit itself, as the source of everything, its robust and powerful nature goes without saying.
In simple terms, even if left without support, Lu Yuan’s Taiping Tao Fruit could also independently last over a million years without perishing.
With such a lengthy period, what can’t be achieved?
Of course, there’s no need to worry about the Dao Fruit not holding up and thereby killing him.
In fact, what should be a concern is not the Dao Fruit, but the cultivator himself.
Because once a cultivator enters the Earthly Immortal Realm, they are targeted by the Heavenly Path, entering a countdown to harvest a ten-thousand-year lifespan.
If the cultivator cannot become a Heavenly Immortal within this ten-thousand-year limit, even if they temporarily retrieve the Dao Fruit from the Heavenly Path, they still cannot escape the fate of the Great Tao being taken back and perishing once their lifespan ends.
Therefore, what needs urgent attention is not the Dao Fruit, but the cultivator.
After separating from the Heavenly Path, even waiting a few thousand or tens of thousands of years is not a significant concern for the Dao Fruit.
After all, by enduring till the ten-thousand-year limit, if the cultivator fails, the old master, the Heavenly Path, will take back the Dao Fruit.
It’s all about serving; who to serve doesn’t really matter!
But cultivators cannot afford to endure this.
The three stages to becoming a Heavenly Immortal, each fraught with peril, require utmost effort to break through.
The threat of the Heavenly Path constantly draws closer, and before clearing these stages, not a single moment can be wasted.
Among the group of Grand cultivators, someone like Lu Yuan, who can afford a fifty-year holiday after breaking through one barrier, would not even dream of such a luxury.
Others are fighting every minute, wishing they could split it into two to use, still finding it insufficient.
For Lu Yuan, having the luxury to waste time like this, it’s because he has an additional seven thousand years, enough to gradually break through three barriers. This naturally eliminates the need to rush, allowing him to proceed slowly.
He could even afford to spend a hundred years adjusting his mindset after breaking through.
But others don’t have this luxury; they must immediately embark on a frenzied sprint to breakthrough after advancing beyond a Grand cultivator.
But now, Lu Yuan knows the hidden dangers he faces, although he didn’t say anything when previously discussing with Wang ShiZhou.
But as the one directly facing the danger, how could he possibly not have thoughts?
Pressured by the crisis, he naturally developed an urgent need for strength.
Advancing to Heavenly Immortal earlier would grant him the strength to face the crisis sooner.
And if, in the end, there truly were issues, facing perilous encounters upon breaking through to Heavenly Immortal, that would also mean early death and liberation.
No need to continue bearing the heavy psychological pressure in fear like now.
With a heavy heart, Lu Yuan began the cleansing of his Dao Fruit.
With the Longevity Dao Fruit as an aid, cleaning the Taiping Tao Fruit was not particularly challenging for him.
It was just some residual essences of the Heavenly Path.
The Heavenly Path of the Immortal Realm is so vast, having far too many places and issues to manage.
Lu Yuan stole such a significant Dao Fruit from their hands unnoticed.
Now, merely cleaning the stolen Dao Fruit, there certainly wouldn’t be any problems.
The only trouble is that washing the Dao Fruit might be a bit tiring.
Based on Lu Yuan’s personal experience, in order to cleanse the Taiping Tao Fruit thoroughly, he used his Divine Sense to inspect tirelessly, day and night, repeatedly using his Divine Soul’s magic power to cleanse every strand, every thread of the Dao Fruit.