The Modern Martial Immortal

The progress only rose by four hundred-thousandths, yet the amount of information is anything but small. Yaoguang internalized what his high-dimensional cognition had newly acquired.

Thinking about it, it made sense. Going from one ten-thousandth to one thousandth of Dao Integration progress represented the step up to a whole new stage. In other words, four hundred-thousandths amounted to roughly four percent of the "Dao Lord" stage.

That was hardly trivial. After all, the gap between a Dao Lord and a Void-Shattering cultivator was truly enormous. If seen from the eyes of a technological civilization, the former could sail the universe, while the latter was still playing king on its home planet.

"Hmm?! The cultivation arts have come through as well! Though they're only the opening volumes—No, more precisely, only the early-stage progressions. Within the Dao Integration stage, whether Dao Lord, immortal, or even the legendary Dao Ancestor, the method of cultivation is virtually identical: raise your degree of mastery over the Great Dao from one ten-thousandth to one hundred percent..."

Yaoguang went through the contents of the thirteen cultivation manuals that had surfaced in his mind. Of the thirteen, one was a heavenly immortal art, one a psyche immortal art, three were earth immortal arts, and the human immortal and ghost immortal arts numbered four each.

The relative counts alone seemed to reveal how many cultivators walked each of the five immortal roads.

"The heavenly immortal path works by fusing Dao Techniques. This heavenly immortal art, the Doomsday Heavenly Immortal Art, requires fusing nine perfection Dao Techniques to reach the origin directly. But why is it the Great Dao of destruction? I thought the Great Dao of void was supposed to have the most Dao Lords," Yaoguang grumbled.

He looked next at the psyche immortal art. Just like the previous one, it was not related to the Great Dao of void. Among the remaining three earth immortal arts, four human immortal arts, and four ghost immortal arts, the Great Dao of void accounted for four. This was a slightly lower ratio than what one would find on the North Sea Star.

But that wasn't the point. The point was that of the thirteen arts, nine came from a power Yaoguang found both familiar and strange.

"The Creation Group?" Yaoguang turned the name over on his tongue.

Back when he had first come to the North Sea Star, it was divine abilities like Heavenly Dao Sovereign that led him to approach the Heavenly Dao Sect. But there had never been the slightest trace of the Creation Group, the power behind the Primordial Creation Art.

He had assumed the group came from some other mighty world like the North Sea Star, one with its own Gate of the Immortal Realm. Now, though, it seemed like the Creation Group's true origin...

"It's the Immortal Realm!" Yaoguang let out a breath. Or rather, the world behind the Gate of the Immortal Realm.

After a moment, Yaoguang turned his attention back to the four arts.

Of them, the earth immortal art would be easiest for him to practice. Find an immortal artifact, or an immortal plant. Use it to remake his grotto-heaven and merge it into the land of the Immortal Realm, forming a blessed grotto-heaven. The power of the immortal artifact or plant would then essentially determine the earth immortal's strength.

The ghost immortal art was simple and brutal. Find a way to slay a human immortal and refine them into an immortal pill, or refine away an earth immortal's blessed grotto-heaven, and take their place. A ghost immortal at the same stage would do as well.

But because this was a method of stealing another's foundation, a ghost immortal could not continue cultivating on their own; to advance further, they had to kill and plunder ever stronger immortals.

The system's advantage was speed; fuse another immortal's foundation successfully and the results were immediate. The drawback was that every advancement amounted to defeating a stronger opponent from a position of weakness.

But the biggest drawback was that, if the compatibility was poor, the fusion could easily fail, and the backlash ranged from regressed cultivation to the utter scattering of one's soul.

"Ghost immortal is out, obviously. Too many hidden dangers, and they look like the sort everyone in the Immortal Realm wants dead on sight. Earth immortal means being pinned to one place. That's probably the road the divine race walks. Psyche immortals grow stronger by deepening their Dao transformation, and over time they become emotionless and desireless, like machines, which runs against why I cultivate in the first place." Yaoguang paused there.

The true meaning of his cultivation was to enjoy life, to roam the starry sky, to savor the wonders of all things. But enjoying life and roaming the stars both required sufficient strength.

This was not a world where wanting to live quietly and develop in peace meant others would let you do so. There would always be those who envied your achievements and would come to attack and plunder you.

To live well, one needed the strength to stay safe while enjoying it. And to roam the universe, to observe and experience all things, likewise took power. Without it, how could he leave his footprints in every corner of the cosmos?

"What suits me best is actually the heavenly immortal road, then the human immortal. The heavenly immortal path means practicing Dao Technique after Dao Technique, using each one's distinct understanding of the void to fill in the gaps, until I fully enter the heavenly immortal's domain. That's also what makes heavenly immortals the most far-reaching in divine abilities of the five kinds. As for human immortals, what they cultivate is their own bodies!"

Weighing it over, Yaoguang felt the heavenly immortal resembled the orthodox Immortal Dao, while the human immortal leaned closer to the Nine Demon Race Lineages.

Given the choice, he would have taken the heavenly immortal road. The problem was that there was no heavenly immortal art to be had. Because, from what he could tell, the heavenly immortal was the hardest kind of immortal to cultivate.

Hard to cultivate meant few cultivators; few cultivators meant few inheritances. Under those conditions, his high-dimensional cognition wouldn't be able to find enough information in the short term.

At the very least, in everything gathered by a mere four hundred-thousandths of progress, there was no trace of a heavenly immortal art fit for him.

I wonder if the five kinds of immortals can convert between one another. Yaoguang mused, and felt out his own grotto-heaven.

Within it sat two great Dao Seeds. If he could hold two Origin Dao Techniques, perhaps he could walk the heavenly and human immortal paths together?

His gaze settled on the human immortal art.

The Martial Dao Human Immortal Secret Cache? It follows the Martial Dao path?

Yaoguang studied the human immortal art. In a sense, it resembled the earth immortal arts.

The difference was that, where the earth immortal arts fused with the Great Dao through spirit roots, immortal artifacts, and immortal treasures, the Martial Dao Human Immortal Secret Cache refined oneself into an immortal artifact, an immortal treasure, thereby achieving unity with the Dao.

Come to think of it, the techniques from my Refiner and Array Caster branches are actually a considerable help to human immortal cultivation, aren't they?

By the time Yaoguang finished digesting the Martial Dao Human Immortal Secret Cache, understanding had already dawned. His thoughts went to the Limitless Sword within his body.

Fusing a top-grade Dao Artifact like the Limitless Sword into himself, then using it to project the power of the Great Dao of void upon his own body, obtaining greater power... Wasn't that already similar to a human immortal's cultivation path?

If he meant to keep walking that path, the next step was to work out how to build arrays within himself and integrate Dao Artifacts, even immortal artifact materials, until his body and his essence, qi, and psyche together became his own mightiest immortal artifact.

Whether it's the ghost immortal, heavenly immortal, psyche immortal, earth immortal, or human immortal, the great cultivation systems of the lower worlds, and their offshoot systems, have carried their shadows all along. Yaoguang smiled.

If the Martial Dao Human Immortal Secret Cache can let a cultivator's own body rival an immortal artifact... Let's try it.

He turned his psychic mind to the Refiner branch, thoughts flowing.

"Immortal artifacts are beyond me... and not just immortal artifacts, but also semi-immortal artifacts. I'd need to really achieve Dao Integration first."

Yaoguang took a moment to examine his newly attained level 16 refinement art. Still, if immortal and semi-immortal artifacts were out of reach, forging top-tier Dao Artifacts now came far more easily.

Human immortal cultivation means refining my essence, qi, and psyche into the strongest possible immortal artifact. For qi, I already have the Limitless Sword. Next is to forge a top-tier Dao Artifact of defense and reinforcement to embody essence, and another to answer to the mind, the psyche, the soul. Unite the three, and the foundation of a human immortal is laid. When that's done, my attempt at Dao Integration should go much more smoothly.

Yaoguang mapped out the road ahead according to the art. Once he had become a Dao Lord, refining the three top-tier Dao Artifacts of essence, qi, and psyche into immortal artifacts would mean truly reaching the Human Immortal Realm.

The heavenly immortal required fusing nine Dao Techniques into one. The human immortal bore three immortal artifacts upon essence, qi, and psyche. Yaoguang saw pros and cons in each.

Yaoguang sank his psychic mind into digesting the Martial Dao Human Immortal Secret Cache and the knowledge of his Refiner branch. Before long, the North Sea Star appeared in front of the warship.

"Deputy Sect Master, do we return straight to the Heavenly Dao Sect and the southern domain, or..." Li Hanqiu asked.

Yaoguang glanced at the North Sea Star below and pondered briefly. "To the Penglai Immortal Sect!"

"The Penglai Immortal Sect?!" Li Hanqiu froze, but asked nothing further, adjusting the warship's angle of descent before plunging into the North Sea Star, a planet with spiritual qi dense enough to condense into spirit rain.

Not long after the warship pierced the atmosphere, a boundless sea spread out across Yaoguang's view.

"The Deep-Blue Sea," Yaoguang said.

At the same time, he took out a communication jade talisman, finally able to receive the messages sent these past few years by the Heavenly Dao Sect, the southern domain, and various Void-Refining cultivators who were on good terms with him.

Yaoguang looked through them. In those few years, nothing major had happened anywhere on the North Sea Star.

The southern domain had pressed steadily into the Yin Lunar Sect's territory, occupying state after state, while the Yin Lunar Sect kept its gates sealed, not daring to resist anything the southern domain did.

"Not a single incident... I'm not used to the North Sea Star being this quiet," Yaoguang said with a laugh.

"A few years may feel long to you, Deputy Sect Master, but to the local Void-Piercing, Void-Refining, and Void-Shattering cultivators, it passes like a few days," Li Hanqiu replied. "Your sense of time simply hasn't adjusted yet."

Then he raised the jade talisman in his hand. "That said, it isn't true that nothing big happened at all."

"Hmm?" Yaoguang's gaze settled on him.

Li Hanqiu didn't drag it out. "The latest Dao Lord Candidate Rankings are published. Deputy Sect Master, you are ranked tenth!"

His voice carried unmistakable shared pride. "It means your strength has won true recognition from everyone. A place in the top ten among all the Void-Shattering cultivators of the North Sea Star!"