Chapter 204.1: Eight Years in Seclusion; Dao Fruits Finally Formed! (I)
Lu Changsheng was no stranger to mental divine techniques. He already had one, namely the Mental Millstone, a supreme technique he had once selected from numerous mental divine techniques.
He began the process of devising divine techniques. Drawing on the characteristics of the Mental Millstone and applying his extraordinary Perception, he worked through multiple variations.
One day passed, then three days, five days, ten days...
Lu Changsheng's brow furrowed slightly. He had devised several divine techniques, but none of them proved satisfactory.
Still not quite there. None of these have reached the standard I had in mind. My foundation is still lacking. If I could study more mental divine techniques, it would clearly deepen my accumulated knowledge.
With that thought, he rose from his cave residence and flew toward the Transmission Hall.
The elder spotted him immediately. "Junior Brother Lu, what are you looking for?"
"I need to study mental divine techniques," Lu Changsheng said.
"The grand elder gave instructions long ago that you are free to browse any texts you wish," the elder explained.
Lu Changsheng nodded and went directly to the shelves, pulling out multiple manuals. He spent three days in the Transmission Hall, working through dozens of mental divine techniques in total.
At last, as he prepared to leave, he went up to the elder and said, "I recently devised five mental techniques of my own, but they're of no use to me. I shall give them to the Transmission Hall as a donation, to add to the sect's accumulated legacy."
With that, he left the techniques behind. With his level of Perception, he could devise other techniques with almost no effort. Since those five techniques were useless to him, he decided to leave them with the sect, so that someone else might make use of them.
I suppose that's why the Transmission Hall has such an enormous variety of divine techniques.
Supreme Dao Foundation martial artists, in their efforts to condense a divine ability, would devise technique after technique to accumulate experience, and the ones they had no use for were passed on to the sect.
In other words, every grand elder had been quietly building up the sect's legacy throughout their journey to the Divine Ability Realm.
"Five mental divine techniques?" The Transmission Hall elder's heart jolted. He was astonished at the fact that Lu Changsheng had devised five techniques in such a short amount of time.
Lu Changsheng returned to his cave residence and resumed the process. Another ten days had passed, and at this point, roughly a month had gone by since he began the process of devising mental divine techniques on his own.
A month was not quite enough to produce a compound divine technique, but deducing a technique from a single Principle should have been well within reach, especially given that he had now studied dozens of mental divine abilities and built a substantial foundation. Flashes of inspiration were coming to him constantly.
And yet he still had not managed to come up with a truly powerful divine technique. He had to aim for that, since the more powerful the divine technique, the more powerful the divine ability.
Just like before, he frowned. Another three... But these are also mediocre. Any divine ability condensed from these would almost certainly be a minor divine ability, perhaps a supreme minor divine ability at best, but never a major divine ability...
Now, he had gained a rough understanding of the current ceiling of his Perception. No matter how many divine techniques he tried creating, a major divine ability was beyond his reach at this level.
So the most critical factor in condensing a Major Divine Ability Dao Fruit is Perception? My current Perception has already surpassed 90,000 points, placing me at the Dragon Among Men level. Still, it's not enough for me to attain a Major Divine Ability Dao Fruit.
That explained everything. No wonder almost no one in the entire Ancient Region had ever condensed a Major Divine Ability Dao Fruit. If even Lu Changsheng's Perception fell short, how could anyone else hope to manage it?
For Lu Changsheng, however, this was not an insurmountable problem. If his Perception was insufficient, he simply needed to raise it further.
Over the past month, his Perception had not increased at all. He had devoted himself entirely to creating divine techniques, not actually practicing any martial techniques. However, that hardly mattered, as there was a shortcut available to him now: practicing divine techniques.
Ordinary divine techniques still took Lu Changsheng some time, sometimes even several months. But practicing techniques he had devised himself was a different matter entirely. He could bring them to Perfection in a day or two, sometimes in just several hours.
In that one month, he had deduced eight mental divine techniques in total, five of which had already been handed over to the Transmission Hall.
If I can bring all eight divine techniques to Perfection, that would add 8,000 Perception points, enough to reach the 100,000-point threshold and trigger a new transformation.
Lu Changsheng's heart burned with anticipation, and he began right away.
Shouldn't take too long.
He organized all eight of his self-devised divine techniques and began practicing them one by one.
One day passed, then two days, three days, four days, five days...
Since these were the techniques he himself had devised, each one only took about two days to practice to Perfection. In total, it would take him around half a month to bring all eight to Perfection.
Those sixteen days had passed in the blink of an eye, and Lu Changsheng succeeded in bringing all eight divine techniques to Perfection. And sure enough, his Perception rose by 8,000 points.
When the eighth technique reached Perfection and his Perception crossed the 100,000-point threshold, a deep resonance rang through him.
Lu Changsheng could feel it clearly. His Perception was transforming, but the transformation itself was difficult to describe. It was as though a veil had been lifted from everything before his eyes, a veil that had always been there without him realizing. Where everything before had seemed faintly shrouded in mist, he could now see straight through to the very essence of things, Principles and divine techniques alike.
The Mental Millstone... The concept is sound, but it could be so much more. His thoughts went immediately to the Mental Millstone.
It was an excellent divine technique, undoubtedly a supreme one. And yet, it remained trapped within the same framework, unable to transcend it. Any divine ability condensed on the foundation of the Mental Millstone would only ever be a minor divine ability. Ultimately, the gap between a minor divine ability and a major divine ability was one of fundamental quality.
He had previously racked his brain and devised eight techniques in the same vein as the Mental Millstone, each one equal to it and some perhaps marginally stronger. However, that was all—no fundamental transformation or breakthroughs.
Now, with his Perception transformed, his mind erupted with inspiration. The ideas collided and cascaded, arranging themselves into combinations he could not have imagined before, and a feeling of sudden, profound clarity washed over him.
So the Mental Principle can be reassembled in that way? Incredible!
Once again, Lu Changsheng threw himself completely into devising new techniques. WIth his Perception now exceeding 100,000 points, his focus was absolute, and his efficiency rose to new peaks.
Ten days passed, then twenty, thirty...
Now, the process was taking far longer than before, already stretching well past a month. However, Lu Changsheng was so utterly absorbed in the process that he did not notice the passage of time at all.
Two months passed, then three months, four months, five months...
At this point, Lu Changsheng had been devising techniques for a full six months, completely unaware of how much time had passed.
When his Perception surpassed the 100,000-point threshold, Lu Changsheng went from Dragon Among Men to Praised for a Hundred Generations. The leap in his Perception was not insignificant; it was a qualitative transformation, an increase of at least tenfold.
And yet, even with that tremendous level of Perfection, it had taken Lu Changsheng every ounce of his focus and six months of complete immersion to come up with new divine technique.
Lu Changsheng had been working solely with the Mental Principle, rearranging and restructuring this single Principle to create a new divine technique. Now, the question was, what could such a technique be capable of?
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