Within the binding array, surrounded by eighteen pillars of condensed Microheavens, Wei Wuyin sat down, both legs flat, outstretched, holding his upper body with his arms behind his back. Despite the radiance of unfathomable light emanating from his every pore, he was languidly lackadaisical, exuding the pinnacle of idle behavior with free- flowing thoughts.
The Stellar Paragon's demeanor was simple, mortal-like. While the shedding of mortality had occurred, his thoughts, mind, and emotions remained grounded, staying true to himself and his interests. Even something as simple as lying on your ass, unwilling to exert any extra energy existed within him.
"So that happened.” Commenting off-handedly, Wei Wuyin deeply inhaled, feeling the somewhat enjoyable feeling of his lungs expanding by breathing in the surrounding void like oxygen.
“...It worked," Eden explained simply, justifying everything with two words. After all, the ending result rightfully justified the method to get there, right?
"Are you mad?" Ori softly asked.
“..." Wei Wuyin slowly blinked. All aspects of his body, mind, soul, spirit, will, blood, and energy had undergone a dramatic change, entering into the complete boundary of the unfathomable. He was no longer a mere mortal.
He was no longer tethered by the concept of a Mortal. It was wondrous yet also emotionally complex, inspiring ambivalent feelings within his heart. Since he was born, he had always been just a mortal. Nothing more. Nothing less. Now, he was no longer that, but a true Ascended being defined by his cultivation up to this point.
Not only had his cultivation ushered him into that point of no return, his Astral—no, Mystic Souls had gone above and beyond their original plan. What should have been four tribulation gates, potentially higher if they could achieve it, at least from what he understood, had gone from four to twenty-five.
Not only had they executed this newly invented Externalized Paragon Avatar Art multiple times, creating sixteen tribulation gates as a final effort to push their cultivated foundation to the maximum by leveraging the profound rules established by the great daos, tapping into forces that normal cultivators should not possess, such as that irresistible merging force, they had...risked his True Soul by daring to defy the limit of True Soul division.
Mad? No.
impressed? Absolutely.
However, the profound outcome of this action fueled by madness was not small. Not small at all.
Firstly, he took note of his Mind's Eye, the gateway between his Soul and his Sea of Consciousness. Immense would no longer do it justify—ever. Little Defiant had split into twenty-five versions and absorbed Mystic Energy and Mystic Soul Energy to the point of pushing each to their peak limits, and then merged all twenty-five seamlessly into a single whole.
A single Solar Star. A single World-Bound Star Domain.
Within the Mortal Dao, the maximum size classification of Defiant had expanded once again. And it would continue to increase as Little Defiant grew. So he could only consider it an apex-sized Defiant Solar Star, and that was...far 00 big.
However, his Mind's Eye metaphysical space had expanded in equal measure, capable of housing it with greater ease than before. Utterly absurd.
Secondly, his Soul Energy had drastically increased, a consequence of his True Soul and Soul having been split twenty-five... TWENTY-FIVE times and then fused as one after recovering fully from absorbing enough Mystic Soul Energy. Not counting the normal boost from ascending.
Thirdly...forget it. There was too much to consider.
He could only be happy that Athena's transformation hadn't been interrupted. However, due to her location within his Mind's Eye, tethered already to his soul and Sea of Consciousness after decades of refinement, the Heaven's Gate had been split alongside Little Defiant.
it was no longer Absolute-sized, but could be considered as small Defiant-sized. Utterly absurd.
All of his Major Authorities were split, once again mutating as they fused, becoming far larger, sturdier, and stronger than any average authority. Since his Laws had been affected, so had his Primordial Seeds of Sin. All of it. Everything.
All the things!
internally analyzing his Dantian, fleshy heart, and Sea of Consciousness, there existed an astonishing number of Mystic Runes, all completed. They were no different than the Runic Ascension Mystic Runes of Earthly Saints. The only reason he hadn't leapt to the Earthly Saint Phase was that his Stellar-Paragon Mystique Physique was in its early stages, requiring digestion of these runes, and he hadn't grasped Awakened Mystic Intent.
Deliberately, of course.
In fact, he could already feel his Mystic Dao's blessing, which had similarly been divided and merged like everything else, buzzing with activity, urging him to ascend by alerting him that he was ready to do so.
He wasn't.
However, the total number of Mystic Runes was 2,025!
They were clustered into nine fish-like schools of runes, each consisting of 225 Mystic Runes, that naturally circulated from his Dantian, Meridians, Heart, Sea of Consciousness, Mind's Eye, and every vein, artery, bone, cell, there was not a single aspect of his cultivation base that these Mystic Runes didn't touch.
It was a type of natural cultivation, an automatic response of refining his physique through exposure and contact. All cultivation methods of the Mystic Ascendant Realm used this route as a foundation to grow from or add complexity, branching to the unfathomable.
Out of all these things, the most outrageous was his Second Mind's fate.
"MAGUS SAID YOU WOULD AGREE!" Ori snitched under no pressure, folding as easily as a lawn chair, pushing all the blame away.
“..." Wei Wuyin was stunned, dryly saying: "Magus?"
After changing existences, his Second Mind had chosen its own name. A name that Ori seemed to have already accepted.
Wei Wuyin warmly smiled, "That's the name I—"
“That you liked most for me," Formerly the “Second Mind, now Magus said, allowing its presence to be felt within his Sea of Consciousness from inside the Library of Eden's palatial building. "Magus, from the story of the wise man obsessed with knowledge who challenged the world with a pen and his thoughts. A Sorcerer of Words. A Wizard of Knowledge. And finally, it sounds similar to Magi, which you think I take after."
Wei Wuyin let out a long breath before asking, "Do you like it?"
"Aura of eternity?" Magus completed his thought. Now that it was tethered to his Sea of Consciousness as a Spirit of Cultivation, it possessed a shared mind, so it could read his thoughts like Eden.
“Yeah. Strange," Wei Wuyin frowned for a brief moment before relaxing.
“It's definitely a level or two lower than the Aura of Eternity, but it's intrinsically greater than Life Qi," Eden added its assessment. How could it not join in on this? It had the Mark of Eden first. It was originally the condensation of its lifeforce as a tree before converting to a Spirit of Cultivation. It inadvertently could convert energy into unrefined ifeforce, and even if it had no understanding as to why.
Perhaps it had to do with one of its earliest memories?
"An Enlightened Spirit. A true Mind Dao Spirit of Cultivation, huh?" Wei Wuyin commented. While Eden was an Alchemic Akashic Spirit, it was hard to say that the Akashic Energy tied to Creation was only a Mind Dao power. It was likely that the Akashic Energy it possessed leaned toward Mind Dao in regards to its foundational properties after Eden embedded itself in his Sea of Consciousness as a Spirit of Cultivation.
“Problem with that?" Magus questioned with a hint of aggression. It was quite clear that an Enlightened Spirit of Cultivation had very little force-based combat strength, but there were things only it could do!
"Haha. None. None at all" Wei Wuyin laughed. Magus' defensiveness was entirely unnecessary. When it came to combat-oriented strength, King, Ori, and Kratos were more than enough.
“You're going to stay here?" Kratos asked with a voice laced with boredom. Wei Wuyin had been sitting here for three hours, just staring silently at nothingness with steady breathing. Ori was terrified of this silence.
In actuality, Wei Wuyin was adjusting to his physical and spiritual strength, not wanting to exert too much to destabilize the region. Moreover, he was analyzing these eighteen pillars with Eden.
“We can do it," Eden confirmed. The confirmation was obvious for retrieving this binding array! Eighteen Microheavens were treasured materials, capable of formulating eighteen Secret Realms, potentially full Dominions capable of benefiting a wide array of cultivators.
If handled well, the Neo-Dawn Empire would gain eighteen Secret Realms comparable to Dominions. He just had to...seize control of it.
And if it was one thing the joint ability of Akashic Energy and Alchemic Energy alongside his Celestial Eyes had was their uncanny ability to take control over arrays and formations!
Slowly rising, the ground beneath Wei Wuyin's feet rippled. He had put a little too much force into rising. He was heavy. Unimaginably heavy. The innate energies within him were the densest they've ever been, and they were all solidly within the Mystic Ascendant Realm.
"We were just about to leave," Wei Wuyin informed Kratos who responded with an excited roar. It was tired of being cooped up in this cage.
Executing a hand-seal, Wei Wuyin tapped into Eden's newly refined Alchemic Akashic Mystic Power! Suddenly, millions of illusory Mystic Runes were conjured, circulating him with a howling of wind that caused his robes to flap, and with a stomp of his legs, the llusory Mystic Runes integrated into the eighteen pillars.
Wei Wuyin quietly watched as he felt a connection form. This prison had no Spiritform. However, he sensed that there was one. It was likely killed by the Supreme Existence imprisoned, potentially the very start of its attempt to escape from this cage, and probably why the Secret Realm was fragmented.
Sensing no resistance, Wei Wuyin held out an open palm. And then, he clenched his fist. As he did, his fist became covered in draconic scales. The entire fragmented Secret Realm trembled as the edges began to crystallize.
Wei Wuyin appeared in the Dark Void. In his hand was a rhombic triacontahedron Void Crystal the size of a baseball. The surface glistened with a mystical radiance while inside were eighteen sticks of golden light.
“Void Crystallization works far easier on Mystic-Heaven grade materials than before," Wei Wuyin casually remarked as he sensed the qualitative change of his bloodline abilities. He played with the crystal for a bit before placing it within his Void Ring.
With his Celestial Eyes active, he observed the Secret Realm the Spiritualist Supreme Existence had concealed themselves in. When he peered into it, all the obfuscation spells placed on it were no longer able to hinder him in the slightest. Seeing everything within, his eyes widened...slightly! Very slightly!
Erdiul's Note: It's a woman. GG.