Chapter 262 - 261: Forming Primordial Spirit
A/N: Welcome to the beginning of the next phase of the novel!
From this point onward, you can expect better and higher-quality storytelling, and more engaging developments. I’ll be putting even more effort into making every Chapter worth your time and making every cent you spend on this story feel worthwhile.
Thank you for continuing this journey with me. The real story is only just beginning!
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Wooooom!
The golden-purple mist within his mind condensed into a solid, indestructible core.
Lin Yuan stepped into the absolute zenith of the Spirit Severing Realm. He entered the Transcendent Stage—the Tenth Step of Dao Resolve!
The physical manifestation of this breakthrough was not a violent, destructive explosion like the other stages. It was a silent, conceptual ripple that washed over the entire Central Continent’s Grand Court. The air grew impossibly heavy, yet completely still. The ambient spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth halted its natural flow, as if holding its breath in profound reverence for a mortal who had walked to the absolute edge of the dust.
Bai Qingyue, whose own restored cultivation was still surging brilliantly at the Peak of the Foundation Establishment realm, felt the shift instantly.
She took a slow, trembling step backward, her bare feet pressing against the star-iron floor. The man standing before her no longer felt like a mere Expert; he felt like a natural law of the universe made flesh.
"Is this it?" Bai Qingyue whispered, her eyes widening as she stared at the ethereal, golden-purple light bleeding from his pores. "Will he finally enter the Soul Transformation realm?"
She knew what the Tenth Step signified. The Transcendent Stage was the absolute threshold.
Across the vast expanse of the arena, sitting alone in the isolated pavilion of the Feng Province, the sixteen-year-old boy suddenly stood up. Feng Yao’s milky white, pupil-less eyes burned with a blinding intensity. He quickly sensed the shift the moment it occurred.
A genuine, radiant smile broke across Feng Yao’s youthful face, entirely erasing his usual melancholic apathy.
"So this is your fortune, Daoist Lin?" Feng Yao called out, his dual-toned voice vibrating across the silent arena, carrying a depth of joy and absolute certainty. "With your conviction, this day, you will form your Primordial Spirit!"
Feng Yao’s declaration shattered the silence of the Grand Court, sending shockwaves through the minds of the Six Peerless Geniuses who were still reeling from their respective defeats.
In the Xuan Province pavilion, Xuan Mingzhe stood paralyzed. The tri-Dao legend, who had spent decades meticulously forging his own path toward Soul Transformation, looked down at Lin Yuan with an expression of profound awe.
"Transcendent Stage," Xuan Mingzhe murmured, his fists clenching at his sides. "He shattered the absolute ceiling of the mortal dust simply because his heart found peace. The Dao is truly unfair. I sought power through the annihilation of space and gravity... yet he reaches the summit through devotion."
Jiang Wan, sitting battered and bandaged in the Wan Jian Sword Sect pavilion, slowly opened his silver, sword-pupiled eyes. "A blade that does not cut, yet severs the final, heaviest chain binding the soul," the sword genius whispered. "We fought a man who was only half-awake. I am witnessing a living myth."
"His aura..." Ye Ao groaned, struggling to push himself up on the eastern terraces, his chimera blood still boiling from his injuries. "It is heavier than a true dragon! How can a human vessel hold that much conceptual weight without detonating?!"
Even Ling Chuan, the calm master of glacial mist, shook his head in absolute disbelief. "He is shedding the mortal coil right in front of us. We are not competitors, brothers. We are merely witnesses to an ascension."
In the Zhao pavilion, Lord Zhao Shenming was happy. The Provincial Lord had been caught in a tempest of ecstasy upon seeing Bai Qingyue’s crippled meridians restored by the Void Refinement Emperor. But as his tear-filled eyes shifted from the radiant Saintess to the glowing figure of Lin Yuan, the Provincial Lord’s breath caught in his throat.
He felt the change. Every instinct forged over six hundred years of cultivation screamed at him that the fabric of reality was about to tear open.
"The Tenth Step," Lord Zhao gasped, dropping to his knees once more, unable to bear the spiritual weight radiating from his General. "He has perfected the Dao Resolve. He is touching the boundary of the gods."
Far away, tucked into the dimmest, most obscure corner of the lower spectator terraces, an old man in faded, unassuming grey robes stood trembling. He was an elder of the Bai Clan—the only member of the once-proud family who had traveled to Sky Jade City, having spent good money simply to watch the tournament from the absolute worst seats in the amphitheater.
Tears streamed down the wrinkled face of the Bai Clan elder. He had watched the golden beam of Void Refinement energy strike Bai Qingyue. He had watched the crippled girl, cast out and abandoned by the foolish patriarchs of his clan, rise into the air, her cultivation restored to the Peak of Foundation Establishment in a single heartbeat.
"Qingyue... our Saintess is restored..." the old elder wept, his heart breaking with profound regret for the sins of his family. "She has reached where she was before the incident in the secret realm! The Heavens have shown mercy!"
But then, the elder’s gaze shifted to the black and white robed man standing beside her.
With his pitiful cultivation at only the Early Stage of Core Formation, the Bai Clan elder lacked the divine sense to comprehend the intricacies of Dao Resolve or Supreme Stage Qi. To him, the aura radiating from Lin Yuan was merely a confusing, terrifying storm of pressure. He could not make out the impossibility of what was happening.
But his mortal instinct—the primal, shivering dread of an ant standing in the shadow of a descending dragon—told him that a great change was about to occur. The air around Lin Yuan was warping, folding in on itself, emitting a pressure that made the Core Formation elder want to bury his face in the dirt and pray.
"What is happening to her husband?" the elder whispered, clutching his chest as his weak spiritual sea threatened to fracture. "My soul is trembling..."
Down in the Zhao pavilion, Bai Chen was experiencing a similar phenomenon. The young man was practically glowing with happiness, having watched his beloved cousin finally freed from her years of agony. But as he turned to congratulate Lin Yuan, Bai Chen stopped dead in his tracks.
"Cousin is healed," Bai Chen muttered, his eyes wide. "But Brother-in-law... his aura is disappearing into the fabric of the world. It feels like he is becoming the sky itself! I can look right at him, but my divine sense tells me the space is empty!"
High above the arena, seated upon their primordial thrones, the Five Emperors were engaged in a frantic, hushed debate.
"The Fortune Banner failed," Emperor Nanheng pointed out, her fiery eyes darting between the inert golden standard in Lin Yuan’s spatial ring and the man himself. "It did not recognize him as an entity possessing immense fortune."
"The banner failed because it is an instrument of the Heavens," Emperor Tianxu concluded, his eyes burning with a terrifying realization. "Do you not see it? His fortune is not bestowed upon him by the Great Dao. I believe he is drawing upon someone else’s fortune."
His expression grew increasingly solemn.
"He severed Heaven’s judgment when he refused to abandon his obsession. And now that his obsession has been cured..."
Emperor Xiyan leaned. "The Transcendent Stage!"
"It is happening," Emperor Beiming rumbled, his voice thick with reverence. "It’s always a beautiful, and terrifying sight to watch. The formation of a Primordial Spirit!"
Down on the star-iron plates, Lin Yuan did not waste a single, precious second.
He knew exactly what the Transcendent Stage meant. He knew the path that governed the transition from Spirit Severing to Soul Transformation. It was not a casual breakthrough. It was an event with a painfully narrow margin of error.
Without a word, Lin Yuan swept his robes aside and immediately sat cross-legged upon the floor.
He closed his eyes. The tri-colored light of the Dao of Three Rebirths faded from his irises, his focus turning entirely inward. He began circulating his Spiritual Energy, anchoring his perfectly forged Nascent Soul for the impending storm.
Bai Qingyue did not waste time either.
She was not oblivious to what was about to occur. During the quiet, intimate nights in the provincial palace, Lin Yuan had meticulously explained the process of one ascending to the soul transformation realm. He had detailed what would happen when she gained her cultivation back, and the exact phenomena that would trigger when he was finally ready to form his Primordial Spirit.
She moved with the swift, elegant grace of a restored Saintess. She glided across the floor, positioning herself directly behind her husband.
She sat cross-legged, the sheer silk of her blue gown pooling around her. She closed her eyes, forming a complex series of hand seals.
Because they were bound by their Dao Companionship, their souls shared an unbreakable karmic tether. When a cultivator formed a Primordial Spirit, they became a temporary conduit for the absolute, purest luck and energy of Heaven and Earth. The universe literally shifts to accommodate the birth of a new god.
Bai Qingyue intended to use that immense Heaven and Earth luck. As it aligned to wash over Lin Yuan, she would use their karmic bond to siphon the residual, overflowing fortune to wash her own physique. It was an incredibly dangerous gambit, but with her talent for cultivation finally untethered and her meridians flawlessly restored, she possessed the capacity to absorb it. She intended to have great leaps and bounds in her physical cultivation, ensuring she would never be a burden to her husband again.
Then, it happened.
The laws of Heaven and Earth dictated a singular truth: The instant a cultivator reaches the Tenth Step of Dao Resolve, something extraordinary happens.
The world itself responds.
Above Sky Jade City, the sunlight was violently extinguished. The sky turned a deep, abyssal black, devoid of stars or clouds.
And then, with a sound that resembled the tearing of a colossal silk tapestry, Heaven and Earth opened a tiny crack.
It was a literal, physical fissure in the fabric of the universe, suspended miles above the arena. It was no larger than a blade, but the light that spilled from it was so blinding, so conceptually pure, that it erased all shadows in the Grand Court.
Through that opening flowed Origin Qi.
It was the very first breath of creation. It was the raw essence that existed before the separation of Yin and Yang, before the formation of the elements, and before the birth of time itself.
The lore of the ancient era was absolute on this matter. The cultivator has only a limited window. The crack in reality cannot sustain itself against the atmospheric pressure of the mortal plane for long. If the cultivator fails to seize the Origin Qi within that brief period, the opportunity disappears into the void, and they must spend centuries attempting to re-perfect their Dao Resolve before Heaven grants them another chance.
For Lin Yuan, there would be no second attempts.
As the beam of pure, liquid-white Origin Qi descended from the crack in the sky, bathing Lin Yuan in its absolute brilliance, the process of forming the Primordial Spirit commenced.
During this brief window, the cultivator must draw the Origin Qi directly into their perfected Nascent Soul.
The Origin Qi does not strengthen the Nascent Soul. It does not add layers of Qi or increase its density.
It transforms it.
Deep within Lin Yuan’s spiritual sea, his Nascent Soul projection raised its head, opening its mouth to consume the descending beam of Origin Energy.
As the Origin Qi made contact, the Nascent Soul was violently stripped of every remaining trace of mortality. The lingering attachments to the physical limit, the impurities absorbed from the atmosphere of the Nine Provinces, and the conceptual limitations were instantly incinerated.
The Nascent Soul was reborn as a Primordial Spirit.
From this point onward, the cultivator’s true existence is no longer their fleshly body. Their physical form becomes merely a vessel, an avatar to interact with the lower dimensions. Their true, absolute existence is the Primordial Spirit itself.
The beam of Origin Qi struck Lin Yuan.
The sheer, overwhelming luck and fortune of Heaven and Earth radiating from the impact immediately spilled over his shoulders.
Sitting perfectly still behind him, Bai Qingyue gasped softly as the residual fortune slammed into her. The Heaven and Earth luck washed through her newly restored meridians, violently purging any remaining damage from her years of crippling agony. Her flesh became luminescent, her bones achieving a density akin to divine jade. Her cultivation, which had just stabilized at the Peak of Foundation Establishment, began to surge forward once more, effortlessly pushing against the boundaries of Half-Step Core Formation.
But Bai Qingyue’s miraculous physical evolution went entirely unnoticed by the rest of the Grand Court.
The absolute, intoxicating presence of Origin Qi spilling into the mortal plane had triggered a continent-wide frenzy.
"Origin Qi!" Xuan Mingzhe roared, violently snapping out of his awe-induced paralysis.
The tri-Dao legend, who sat at the Half-Step Soul Transformation realm, immediately dropped into a cross-legged position right there on the upper terraces. He closed his eyes, his hands blurring into a frantic series of seals.
"Do not just stand there!" Xuan Mingzhe bellowed to the elders of his province. "Sit down and cultivate! He has opened a crack to the Origin! If I can manage to just take a faint wisp of that leaking Origin Qi, I can stabilize the spatial tears in my Annihilation domain and complete my own ascension!"
The realization hit the other Upper Division elites like a thunderbolt.
"He’s right!" the Patriarch of the Jiang Province screamed, throwing his longsword aside and collapsing into a meditative stance on the floor. "The first breath of creation is leaking into our atmosphere! Even a faint fraction of it can extend a lifespan by centuries!"
"Seize this great opportunity!" the Chu Patriarch howled, his grief over his dead son momentarily overridden by the primal greed of a high-tier cultivator. "Breathe the air! Cycle your arts! Do not let a single drop of that mist escape!"
Across the entire amphitheater, absolute chaos erupted. Hundreds of cultivators, who were at least at the half step of soul transformation, simultaneously dropped to the floor. They frantically circulated their cultivation arts, desperately attempting to siphon the ambient, leaking wisps of Origin Qi that drifted away from the primary beam striking Lin Yuan.
Even the Five Emperors seated upon their thrones slowly closed their eyes. Though they were all Void Refinement experts, Origin Qi remained the rarest and most coveted form of energy in the entire universe.
It was the only energy capable of nourishing and improving one’s Primordial Spirit, making even these supreme existences take it extremely seriously.
"To think," Emperor Tianxu murmured, deeply inhaling the profound scent of creation, "we sought to push him to his limits, yet he provides the entire continent with a blessing."
In the center of the arena, entirely oblivious to the frantic, cultivating masses surrounding him, Lin Yuan remained perfectly still.
The golden-purple glow of his body shifted, turning into a blinding, liquid-white radiance as the transformation took hold.
His Nascent Soul was dissolving. His Primordial Spirit was awakening.
With his deep purple eyes closed, his breathing slowed until it stopped entirely. He no longer needed mortal air.
Lin Yuan opened his spiritual maw, and he began absorbing the absolute, boundless power of the Origin Qi.