Chapter 99 - 98: Peak of the Nascent Soul Realm
The second floor of the River of Years Pagoda was a realm fundamentally divorced from the constraints of the Nine Provinces. There was no sky here, nor was there any solid earth beneath his feet. Instead, it was an endless, suspended void of shimmering twilight, where enormous temporal runes drifted through the air like lazy fireflies, tracing the visible currents of time itself.
Within this isolated pocket of eternity, the frantic and desperate passage of the outside world was reduced to absolute stillness.
At the exact epicenter of this temporal void sat Lin Yuan.
He was completely stripped to the waist, his robe folded neatly beside him. His physical body sat in a perfect lotus position, completely motionless. He did not breathe in the mortal sense. Instead, his entire being was sustained by the sheer, overwhelming influx of spiritual energy.
Hovering exactly three inches above his head was his Nascent Soul.
The ethereal avatar sat cross-legged in the air, perfectly mirroring Lin Yuan’s posture, its hands forming the Apaan Mudra. Then, at that exact moment, it began to cultivate, drawing the energy of Heaven and Earth into its being like a roaring river of liquid light, which continuously poured into the crown of the Nascent Soul.
Time, in this void, became an abstract concept.
Outside the Pagoda, the sun rose and set over the valley. Bai Qingyue admired her crimson wedding dress, and Bai Chen diligently swept the courtyards. One day passed. Then two.
Then three days passed in the outside world.
Within the absolute isolation of the second floor, a staggering fifteen years had elapsed.
For fifteen years, Lin Yuan had done nothing but cultivate.
Then, suddenly, the void violently trembled.
BOOM!
A deafening explosion resonated through Lin Yuan’s Sea of Consciousness. The Nascent Soul hovering above his head violently expanded, its ethereal form becoming instantly denser, heavier, and far more distinct. The facial features of the avatar, which had been slightly blurred, snapped into flawless, crystal-clear focus, looking exactly like a miniature version of Lin Yuan himself.
His meridians widened, the beast-forged bones within his chest groaning as a massive wave of newly spiritual energy flooded his system.
He had successfully broken through. Lin Yuan had officially entered the Middle Stage of the Nascent Soul realm!
A terrifying pulse of purple lightning suddenly sheared through the temporal void, yet Lin Yuan did not open his eyes. He did not break his posture. The Middle Stage was merely a stepping stone on his path toward the peak.
He continued cultivating, relentlessly absorbing the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth as the vast currents of energy poured into his nascent soul.
In the profound depths of his meditation, Lin Yuan could deeply feel his progression. Cultivation at this profound level was no longer a mere accumulation of energy; it was something else.
It was as if he were a mortal man standing at the absolute edge of a well. For fifteen long years, he had been slowly, steadily, and painfully hauling a massive bucket up from the darkest depths of the Great Dao by a coarse rope. His hands had bled, his muscles had screamed, and his willpower had been tested. Finally, he had pulled the bucket over the edge. But as he looked inside, the truth of the universe revealed itself—what he had done just now was simply draw enough water to fill the bucket halfway.
He had slaked his initial thirst, but the true reservoir of power remained buried deep below. It was time to cast the heavy rope back down into the well and draw another bucket of water!
To Lin Yuan, cultivation was now like a master blacksmith relentlessly pounding a slab of iron. For fifteen years, he had rhythmically struck the metal, folding it over and over again, driving out the mundane impurities of his early-stage cultivation until the blade began to take a lethal shape. But the sword was not yet sharp enough to cut the heavens. He needed to throw it back into the roaring furnace.
It was like a solitary silkworm spinning a cocoon from raw starlight. The first layer had been woven, offering a shield, but to truly transform into a butterfly capable of soaring above the Nine Provinces, thousands of more layers had to be meticulously spun.
And so, Lin Yuan continued to haul the rope. He continued to strike the iron. He continued to weave the starlight.
Outside the Pagoda, the days ticked by. The fourth day. The fifth day. The sixth day.
By the time the sun crested over the valley on the seventh day, a colossal thirty-five years had passed within the River of Years Pagoda.
The ambient spiritual river flowing into the Nascent Soul had become a violently raging torrent of lightning. Lin Yuan’s physical body was currently radiating a heat so intense that the void around him was actively warping and distorting.
The spiritual energy within his nascent soul reached a critical point. The water in the well was overflowing. The sword had been folded a million times. The cocoon of starlight was completely impenetrable.
BOOM!
A second, far more violent explosion suddenly erupted within his soul. The Nascent Soul hovering above his head trembled violently before releasing a terrifying shockwave that rippled outward, causing the surrounding void itself to shudder under its overwhelming force.
Late Stage of the Nascent Soul realm!
The sheer influx of power was intoxicating. A lesser man would have stopped here, completely satisfied with becoming an entity capable of wiping out entire sects with a single wave of his sleeve.
But Lin Yuan’s eyes remained firmly shut under his brow.
There was more. Breaking through into the Late Stage was undoubtedly a monumental achievement, but a fresh breakthrough was inherently unstable. His cultivation had advanced, yet the foundation beneath that advancement had not been fully consolidated.
Lin Yuan needed to solidify his Late-Stage realm completely. He needed to accumulate his spiritual energy until his foundation became as stable as an ancient mountain, pushing his cultivation to the absolute peak of the Nascent Soul Realm.
Only then could he stand firmly upon the precipice of the legendary Spirit Severing Realm, with nothing left between him and the next great step.
He then cast the rope down the well one final time.
The flow of time resumed. The eighth day passed outside.
Then came the ninth day.
Exactly forty-five years had elapsed since Lin Yuan first sat down within the temporal void. Forty-five years of uninterrupted cultivation. Forty-five years of accumulating spiritual energy, refining his foundation, and preparing for the next great step.
On the forty-fifth year, the swirling vortex of spiritual energy within the temporal void suddenly snapped shut. The golden runes froze in mid-air.
Lin Yuan had reached the absolute Peak of the Nascent Soul realm!
His spiritual energy could no longer be refined even a fraction further. His Nascent Soul cultivation had reached an absolute limit, and any attempt to push it beyond this point would inevitably initiate the process of Spirit Severing.
According to what he had learned from the monk within the Mountain and Rivers Painting, entering the Spirit Severing Realm required a cultivator to sever their mortal attachments. Yet those words alone were far from sufficient to truly understand how the process of Spirit Severing was performed.
There was a profound principle hidden behind those seemingly simple words. Severing an attachment was not the same as abandoning the people or emotions one cared about. A cultivator had to comprehend what it truly meant to sever, what needed to be severed, and what remained after the severance.
Lin Yuan understood that he had reached the absolute limit of the Nascent Soul Realm. His spiritual energy could no longer advance, but his understanding of Spirit Severing remained incomplete.
Undoubtedly, after his wedding, he would need to carefully comprehend the true meaning behind Spirit Severing and discover the path that would allow him to take that next step.
With that, Lin Yuan’s eyes snapped open.
The gaze was so terrifyingly profound that the void of the second floor literally fractured like a pane of glass.
Above his head, his Nascent Soul immediately ceased its meditation. It opened its crackling eyes, stood up, and took a single step downward, seamlessly phased through the crown of Lin Yuan’s head, sinking directly into his body before returning to his dantian. There, it settled back into a lotus position.
Lin Yuan quickly stood up.
The very moment his bare feet touched the invisible floor of the temporal void, his physical and spiritual aura erupted. The crackling purple lightning violently whipped around his body like a hurricane. The sheer weight of his Peak Nascent Soul aura slammed against the walls of the Pagoda, causing the artifact to vibrate slightly.