As the cannonball strike hit the perfect defense and exploded, Qin Feng felt the threat of death. He knew he was about to die. He couldn't withstand this cannonball, and even the perfect defense had already crumbled the moment it made contact. He had no residual power to maintain the perfect defense. The immense impact force would obliterate him into dust.
However, his strong will did not surrender. He circulated all the potential within his body, causing the perfect defense to manifest once more, striving to keep himself alive.
It was at this very moment that Qin Feng felt a door instantly open to him, and then powerful strength surged forth from his body. The spiritual energy within the cave also instantly converged onto Qin Feng's body, and an even more potent perfect defense materialized around him.
At this critical juncture, Qin Feng finally broke through the late stage of Void Refinement and reached the cultivation of Mahayana stage. It was at this crucial moment that his perfect defense displayed a brand-new state. The golden radiance no longer lingered around Qin Feng's body but entered it entirely, making Qin Feng appear as if he were forged from gold.
The powerful impact force that erupted from the explosion, when it struck Qin Feng's body, had no effect whatsoever. His body was like a star, seemingly transformed into an eternal and indestructible existence.
However, the immense power still propelled Qin Feng to the deepest part of the cave. Even the steel walls crumbled under such a colossal impact. Qin Feng was instantly sent tens of thousands of miles away by this force, and he was directly ejected from the secret realm.
Above the sky of the secret realm cave, golden auspicious clouds slowly descended. This was a unique celestial phenomenon characteristic of Mahayana stage cultivation. But the moment that cannonball exploded, this celestial phenomenon also followed Qin Feng's figure like a cannonball, disappearing in the blink of an eye. At Qin Feng's location, the golden auspicious clouds reappeared, then slowly descended and merged with Qin Feng's body.
At this point, Qin Feng had truly reached the Mahayana stage cultivation. With the fusion of the celestial phenomenon, his strength was further enhanced. There were already signs of him breaking through to the middle stage of Mahayana.
Feeling the improvement in his strength, Qin Feng was overjoyed. At the same time, he was filled with trepidation. The place he had entered in the secret realm earlier far exceeded the level of a Level Five spiritual energy gathering area. He had no room to fight back. Fortunately, his strength improved at the critical moment; otherwise, he would have been dead.
Qin Feng hadn't expected that the mecha-type monster in the secret realm could seal the cave entrance, preventing him from escaping. At the same time, this indicated that the monster could detect his strength level. Otherwise, the steel walls wouldn't have been able to withstand his full-power attack precisely, and the other party wouldn't have played cat and mouse, refusing to show itself, quietly watching him attack the steel walls, and quietly waiting for the opportune moment.
High-level monsters were extremely terrifying, possessing many special abilities he was unaware of. However, Qin Feng did not regret his decision to personally explore the secret realm. It was precisely because of this decision that his realm improved. Without this test, he might never have progressed.
Now, he had reached the Mahayana stage cultivation. With the increase in strength, reaching the Immortal stage was also within reach.
When he reached the late stage of Mahayana and encountered a bottleneck, if he made another risky move and faced a life-or-death choice, he might leap to the Immortal realm.
After this experience, he had mastered the method of opening opportunities. However, Qin Feng no longer planned to do this in the future, because he understood very well that when he reached the Immortal stage, he might encounter true danger. This was because the contract within his body would begin to manifest, and he had to unseal the powerful existence located in the extreme desert. This was a promise he had to keep.
However, if his realm never progressed and he could never reach the Immortal realm, he wouldn't have to fulfill this agreement. Thinking of this, Qin Feng became full of confidence, because whether to improve his realm was a matter of his will. As long as he didn't want to reach the Immortal realm, no one could force him, and thus the contract within his body would be non-existent.
The most important thing was to obtain a few mechas and then use the teleportation arrays in the spiritual energy gathering areas to quickly refresh his experience and treasures, allowing his strength to increase rapidly again. As long as he remained at the Mahayana stage cultivation and didn't break through the bottleneck, he could completely break through to the Immortal realm, or even beyond, within the Mahayana stage cultivation.
As long as his strength increased, even if his realm didn't improve, he would have a way to leave this planet.
This was because Qin Feng knew that realm and strength were two different things. Although a higher realm meant higher strength, it didn't mean that low realm implied low strength.
To put it bluntly, a realm was just a larger water缸. It could hold a lot of water. A low realm was a small bowl. Although the bowl couldn't hold much water, it could hold gold sand. No matter how much water there was, it wasn't as heavy as gold sand. Water was strength, and gold sand was also strength.
Accumulating more and more, water could turn into gold sand.
He could even challenge opponents of higher levels and achieve things he couldn't before, as long as he didn't break through the bottleneck.
Thinking of this, Qin Feng sat cross-legged on the ground. The improvement in his realm caused more knowledge from the depths of his mind to appear. His physical qualities had greatly improved, and his capacity to carry knowledge had also been greatly enhanced. More content from the complex knowledge recorded by that powerful existence in the depths of his mind was now appearing.
For example, the knowledge within the teleportation array, about how to leave this terrifying planet, about how to teleport himself to the other side of the world, Qin Feng could now comprehend.
Although with his current strength, he couldn't yet engrave such complex teleportation arrays, he had already grasped some of the essentials and knew how his future path should proceed.
Thus, Qin Feng stood up again and flew directly towards a farther place on his sword.
Qin Feng's current objective remained to challenge the monsters in the spiritual energy gathering areas, especially the monsters in the secret realms, with the goal of obtaining their mechas.
Because of the improvement in his realm this time, Qin Feng's confidence had greatly increased. His sensing abilities had also greatly improved. With his current powerful perception, he could already deduce which secret realms he could challenge and which ones contained danger. This was a direct manifestation of his realm improvement.
Not long after, Qin Feng landed at the entrance of a secret realm. Qin Feng could sense that the monster blocking the secret realm was not as powerful as the monster in the previous secret realm, but it was definitely stronger than the monsters in the Level Four spiritual energy gathering areas. This meant that this secret realm was likely a Level Five spiritual energy gathering area monster!
This was exactly what he had been painstakingly searching for.
Therefore, Qin Feng hesitated no longer and stepped into this secret realm.
The moment he entered the secret realm, Qin Feng sensed the mecha-type monster in the depths of the secret realm. Its strength was completely exposed to Qin Feng's perception.
Qin Feng was not mistaken; this monster was indeed a mecha-type monster from a Level Five spiritual energy gathering area.
Before, he couldn't perceive its strength and realm so directly. Now, he could.