Unlike last time, the memory was very short, and Tai Wuling quickly awoke. Even after he had awoken, feelings of unwillingness, despair, and anger lingered in his chest. It took a few hours to separate his own emotions from those of the Yellow God's.
To his joy, Tai Wuling discovered that his willpower had increased. Although willpower didn't directly increase his combat prowess, it still had many uses, such as resisting soul attacks.
"What did he mean by pawn?" Tai Wuling uttered. Who could make a divinity despair and depreciate themselves as a pawn? The first thought that came up was the three most powerful divinities: the Heavenly Lord of Primordial Beginnings, the Heavenly Lord of Numinous Treasures, and the Heavenly Lord of Way and Virtue.
Did one of the Three Pure Ones scheme against the Yellow God, or did all three scheme against him? Maybe it wasn't just the Yellow God, but the other Five Element Gods: the Black God, the Red God, the Green God, and the White God.
Tai Wuling shook his head. He was far too weak now, but he had a feeling that he would eventually discover the truth behind the Yellow God's despair. He stared at the mountaintop where the divine palace was located.
Step by step, Tai Wuling started climbing the mountain. The stairs seemed to have been carved out of yellow marble and were over a thousand meters wide and three meters long. It was obviously made for beings that were around twenty meters in height, but it was still very long. From the bottom, it seemed to go on endlessly. Even if Tai Wuling grew to twenty meters tall, he was still just a speck of dust in comparison.
Not only that, but Tai Wuling discovered that the gravity slightly increased with each step he climbed. By the hundredth step, the gravitational force had already quadrupled, but that was nothing for most immortals, even spiritual immortals.
Once he reached the ten thousandth step, the gravitational force had increased to over twenty times. Now, Tai Wuling was beginning to feel the strain. It wasn't much, but it would increase exponentially with time. Still, this was far from enough for him to give up. It only made him more determined.
Once he reached the fifty thousandth step, gravity had increased by over a hundred times, and sweat coated Tai Wuling's body. His run had devolved into a forceful walk. Each step sent shivers up his leg, but he didn't want to stop. In fact, his eyes shone brilliantly with the increase in gravity.
Tai Wuling discovered that his fleshly body was being tempered by gravitational force, and he had not reached his body's limit. Once he did, then it would be time to reap the benefits.
He discovered his body's limit was around the ninety thousandth steps. Tai Wuling looked at the hundred thousandth step and urged his body to go on. He was just a little bit away from a hundred thousand, and he was unwilling to rest until he reached that height.
It was a test for both his willpower and body. Each step seemed to increase the gravity by another level, and his body was screaming for rest. It seemed that he would faint at any moment, but through sheer willpower, Tai Wuling reached the hundred thousandth step.
Tai Wuling collapsed onto his knees and allowed all tension to leave him. In his relaxed state, he slipped into unconsciousness and fell onto his back. When he awoke, most of his fatigue disappeared.
He scanned his body with his immortal sense and discovered that his body had improved again. Although the gravitational force was still harsh on his body, his limbs no longer felt like solid stones anymore. Feeling the abundant earth energy, Tai Wuling sunk deep into thought.
Tai Wuling dual cultivated the spiritual and martial ways. Thanks to mastering the Law of Fire and the Law of Earth and comprehending the Law of Water, Wood, and Metal, his immortal qi of five elements had reached the limit of the Pathfinding Immortal Realm, but his martial body was another story. He needed a vast amount of elemental energy to upgrade his body.
Given enough time, he could simply use his qi to temper his body, but that would take hundreds of years at best. On the earth path where earth energy was abundant, Tai Wuling planned on tempering and upgrading his martial body.
Tai Wuling sat in a lotus position and began to absorb the earth energy. Yellow energy coursed through his body. Each cell in his body was filled with energy, increasing its toughness. Individually, it was minuscule, but once the trillions upon trillions of cells all filled up with energy and transformed, the change would become shocking.
He could feel his body's defense become tougher. His pure strength didn't necessarily increase, but his body did begin to become as hard as immortal artifacts. Now, even if Tai Wuling did nothing, an immortal monarch would find it difficult to break his skin. Naturally, he wouldn't stop and become a punching bag in a real fight.
Tai Wuling stopped there. Unless he could find a location filled with dense energy of the other elements in the Yellow Mausoleum, he would no longer be able to bring about a qualitative change to his martial body. Considering that the pocket dimension was mostly filled with earth energy, he would have to exit it first.
He decided he would go to Blackplume Mountain in the Southern Region of the Earth Continent after leaving. Blackplume Mountain was an active volcano filled with fire energy and qi that most true immortals would never dare enter. Naturally, he wasn't among those true immortals.
Tai Wuling stood back up. It was time to resume his climb. Just as he was about to reach the next step, he stopped. His senses had not caught anything, and it was more instinctual than anything else, but Tai Wuling glanced back at the foot of the mountain.
There, he saw his hated foe, the Divine Flame Lord Yan Nie. Yan Nie seemed to have noticed him too, despite the vast distance separating them. Next to Yan Nie was Yun Xialan.
Tai Wuling narrowed his eyes and looked away. Yan Nie's presence only made him more determined to reach the stop. He resumed his journey and walked step by step. His gait was neither rushed nor slow. Each step was steady and taken with confidence.
Still, Tai Wuling spared some of his attention on Yan Nie and Yun Xialan.
As expected of his fated foe, Yan Nie's ascension speed was barely slower than his despite not majoring in the Law of Earth. Even from his height, Tai Wuling could see a fiery aura coating Yan Nie as he climbed step by step.
However, Tai Wuling only smiled. Yan Nie was using some sort of physical boosting technique. While it may work out in the short run, Yan Nie would eventually lose not only his speed but his ability to resist the gravitational force. He might even die if his body reached a height it couldn't withstand without the physical boost.
The name of the game was endurance, and Yan Nie had obviously yet to realize that.
Yun Xialan didn't use any physical boosting technique. Whether she couldn't or figured out the purpose, Tai Wuling didn't know. Perhaps it might have been because he had taken her Polar Profound Umbralwater. Still, her speed was vastly inferior to Yan Nie's, much less his own.
Without worry, Tai Wuling continued to climb the mountain path.
When he turned back on the one hundred and fifty thousandth step, Tai Wuling saw Yan Nie struggling around the fifty thousandth steps. His fiery aura constantly flickered as if it would extinguish at any moment. Yun Xialan had barely reached the ten thousandth step.
Tai Wuling resumed his climb. He wanted to reach the two hundred thousandth step before resting again. His breath had become labored as the gravitational force increased, and he sweated enough to fill up a large lake. He even felt like he would collapse before reaching the One hundred sixty thousandth step.
He slowed down and controlled his breathing. Tai Wuling reminded himself that he couldn't rush or he would repeat Yan Nie's mistake. After he slowed down, the pressure became much more manageable after giving him more time to adapt to the changes.
Earth energy constantly circulated and filled his cells. Every time Tai Wuling felt like his cells couldn't take anymore, they would constantly prove him wrong. The more he climbed, the more energy his cells could store. As a side effect, so did the total amount of immortal qi he could store.
A year later, Tai Wuling reached the two hundred thousandth step. He looked back down, and his eyes widened. Yan Nie had reached the one hundred ten thousandth step, and his fiery aura had increased instead of extinguishing like a candle at the end of its lifespan. If anything, Yan Nie's fiery aura seemed infinite and grew stronger with each step he climbed.
Tai Wuling had originally planned to rest, but he changed his mind as a sense of urgency pressed down upon him. He could not allow Yan Nie to reach the top first. He had a feeling that whatever awaited them at the divine palace atop the mountain was an opportunity he could not miss.
He redoubled and scaled the mountain. Tai Wuling's pace did not increase, but he maintained a steady pace. Usually, the higher one walked, the slower their pace became, so Tai Wuling's action was akin to speeding up.
Of course, it had its drawbacks. His joints started to creak, and his bones started to bend under the increased gravitational force. The gravity he now faced was at least five thousand times what he normally faced. Still, Tai Wuling persevered, pressured by the shortening distance between himself and Yan Nie.
On the three hundred thousandth step, Tai Wuling looked down, and he saw Yan Nie around the two hundred thousandth step. Yun Xialan hadn't even reached the fifty thousandth step. In addition to the three of them, more and more people arrived and started to ascend the mountain, but one caught his eye.
A woman of ephemeral beauty clad in a blue dress scaled the steps faster than even himself. Her skin seemed to glow as she left lingering afterimages of herself in her wake. She was Jiang Daoyi.
Tai Wuling frowned. He was quite sure that Jiang Daoyi was a soul cultivator that didn't cultivate the martial way. So how was it that she was able to breeze through the gravitational force without a strong body? Was it a special soul technique?
Aside from Yan Nie, Tai Wuling now had to face another contender from reaching the mountaintop first. Luckily for him, he had already made it past the midpoint.
In truth, Jiang Daoyi didn't have it as easy as it appeared. She had used a soul method to shift her physical body into a spiritual form, one that did not tire nor was it burdened by material constraints. But this was the Yellow Mausoleum created from the Yellow God's domain. Although the gravitational force shouldn't have affected her, it still did.
Like this, more and more people arrived and tried to scale the mountain. Tai Wuling maintained his lead to the very end, with Yan Nie in a close second and Jiang Daoyi in third.
When Tai Wuling reached the five hundred thousandth and final step, the pressure did not disappear like he imagined it would. Luckily for him, the gravitational force did not increase after reaching the top. Still, Tai Wuling was forced to crawl on all fours like a bereaved dog just to move.
Enduring the great humiliation, Tai Wuling crawled into the divine palace and made his way toward the grand hall, where he saw the Yellow God sat and overlooked everything. When he made it in, he saw a figure over twenty meters tall sitting on a golden throne.
Tai Wuling's eyes widened in shock. This was the Yellow God. Why was he still alive?
His shock disappeared as he looked closer. The Yellow God's figure was only a mirage created by the golden droplet inside. Tai Wuling's heartbeat increased erratically as he stared at that droplet. It was a tiny thing, barely large enough to rest on his finger, but it emanated a terrifying pressure.
Tai Wuling knew what it was. It was a drop of blood from the Yellow God, divine blood. His body and the black sphere inside of him urged him to consume it.
As if beguiled, Tai Wuling moved toward the throne and climbed atop it. His hands reached out and grasped the divine blood between his fingers.
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