Against The Heavens 94 Body And Soul Cultivation.

"Guess I'll start with you."

The book he took out was the one that detailed how to cultivate the first stage of the b.l.o.o.d.y Shura technique, a soul cultivation technique. It was only the first stage, so it could only be used to cultivate to a realm equivalent to the early stage of the Immortal Rebirth realm, but it was better than nothing. It also detailed the various cultivation realms that soul cultivation had, so Li Yang could learn quite a bit from this thin book.

He opened the book and started to carefully scan the pages, making sure not to miss a single word. Each page was filled to the brim with tiny words, so one had to take care to not accidentally mix up sentences. The book was written by someone called b.l.o.o.d.y Soul Monarch Long Jintu, Li Yang had never heard the t.i.tle before, so it was likely someone who had risen to prominence after his death.

The way to cultivate the technique sounded simple but was actually rather complex. One had to kill a cultivator or Demonic beast, the stronger the better, and use a very specific and complex utilization of Qi to compress all their Qi, blood, and soul into a single rune called a Blood Seal. This Blood Seal would then be led into the cultivator's body, allowing it to travel through their veins so that it could get attuned to their Qi and blood so that the two wouldn't reject each other in the future.

Once the Blood Seal was attuned to your body, you had to fuse it into your own mind and allow it to disperse itself, strengthening your currently formless soul. After your soul was strengthened enough, it would materialize itself within your mind, allowing you to fuse future Blood Seals directly into your soul to strengthen it.

Once your soul was materialized it would mean that you had entered the first soul cultivation realm, the Soul Materialization realm which was equal to the Human Rune realm. As you continued to implant Blood Seals into your soul and strengthen it, it would turn more and more corporeal. The more corporeal a soul was, the closer one was to enter the next realm of soul cultivation, the Heaven Reaching Soul realm.

This stage was equal to the Ascending Heaven realm and it meant that a person's soul would be able to leave their body and try to stretch towards the heavens above, the closer the soul could get to the heavens the higher you were in this cultivation realm. Once your soul became able to leave your body, it would automatically form a special type of energy called Vital Essence, the soul cultivation equivalent of Qi. This energy was ethereal and seemingly unreal, perfect for attacking souls and similarily ethereal things.

The next realm was called the Heaven Touching Soul realm, the realm equivalent to the Immortal Rebirth realm, and to reach this stage one's soul had to stretch so high into the skies that it managed to make contact with the heavens. Once it made contact with the heavens, the soul had to start absorbing the might of the heavens, greedily swallowing it and using it to evolve itself. Once the soul had swallowed so much of the heavens might that it had finished evolving, you would enter the next cultivation realm.

This stage was called the Primordial Soul realm and was equal to the Primordial Rune realm. To cultivate through this stage, you had to use the might of the heavens that your soul had swallowed, using the might to hollow out your entire soul. Even though you hollowed out your soul, it would actually grow stronger as it got hollower, the outside of the soul becoming so compressed and strengthened that it would almost be like a physical body. Once the soul was fully hollowed out, one would enter the next cultivation stage.

This stage was called the Heaven Imitating Soul realm, and the way to cultivate through this stage was exactly what the name implied. Using the might of the heavens that your soul had absorbed, you had to form your own pseudo-heaven within your hollowed out soul, filling your entire soul with that pseudo-heaven before you could enter the next stage, the Heaven's Soul stage.

The Heaven's Soul stage was the equivalent of the True Deity realm, and to enter and cultivate through this realm, one had to disintegrate their own soul and fuse it into the pseudo-heaven that they had created inside their hollowed-out soul. During this fusion process, one also had to fuse all their laws into the pseudo-heaven, turning it into a true heaven once all your laws and your entire soul had been fused into the pseudo-heaven.

After the pseudo-heaven had turned into a true heaven, one would enter the peak of soul cultivation, the Soul Empyrean realm. This stage was equivalent to the Empyrean realm and the two were much the same, the heaven that one's soul had become would become an entire universe, sp.a.w.ning living and sentient beings. The soul cultivator could draw upon the strength, faith, and life-force of these living beings, infusing it into every single one of their actions.

After reading through the thin book several times, making sure that he memorized every word, Li Yang put it down and let out a light breath. It sounded simple, but he couldn't even begin to fathom just how many attempts it had taken people to come up with a cultivation system for the soul. How many Blood Seals had ended up wrong, how many of them had ended up being fatal to the one trying them out? Li Yang was arrogant, but even he had respect for people who carved open a new cultivation path for others.

Reading through the description of the soul cultivation realms, it was clear that whoever had come up with the first soul cultivation system had used the standard Qi cultivation system as a blueprint. The last three cultivation stages were practically the same as the last three Qi cultivation stages, forming an entire universe within oneself and drawing strength from it. Just having one universe was enough to cause someone to reign supreme over all creation, Li Yang could not even imagine how strong someone who had two would be.

Li Yang swiped his interspatial ring and took out a clay jug of wine, uncorking it and taking a few swigs. He enjoyed the sweet and fruity taste for a bit, closing his eyes and allowing his mind to get a bit of rest before he started reading through the next book, the Myriad Monarch technique. After taking a few more swigs of the fruity wine, he put away both the jug and the b.l.o.o.d.y Shura technique, bringing out the rainbow-colored book that was the Myriad Monarch technique, the body cultivation manual.

This cultivation manual was written by another person that Li Yang had never heard about before, someone known as Fiend King Xue Ying. Li Yang did the same as he did with the b.l.o.o.d.y Shura technique, carefully reading every word and making sure that he memorized the entire thing.

This body cultivation technique also used the standard Qi cultivation as a blueprint, so it wasn't too hard to understand. The way one cultivated it was by fusing together multiple different laws using the complex principle of the cultivation technique, using the fused ma.s.s of laws to form a rune, a Monarch Rune, that one would then fuse into their body.

To fuse together the various laws, one had to designate their strongest law as the core of the rune, fusing the other laws into this core and using it to stabilize the fused ma.s.s of laws. For Li Yang, the core of the rune would obviously be his law of destruction. Not only was it one of the strongest laws in existence, its special property was to swallow up all creation and turn it into a single thing, nothingness. As long as he made sure to control it properly and prevented it from fully swallowing up the other laws he used to form the Monarch Rune, there was no better law to use as the core.

Cultivators of this Myriad Monarch technique couldn't just fuse the Monarch Runes into their body as they pleased, they had to follow a certain pattern. First, they had to fuse Monarch Runes into their bone marrow, replacing all their bone marrow with such Monarch Runes. They could then do the same to their bones, then their blood and flesh, and then finally their organs and outer parts of their body, things like hair, nails, and skin.

Once their entire body had become Monarch Runes, they could enter the final three stages of body cultivation, which were very similar to the last three stages of soul and Qi cultivation. Just like the b.l.o.o.d.y Shura technique, this book also had a detailed list of all the standard body cultivation stages.

The first stage of body cultivation was called the Core Forging realm and it required a person to strengthen their bones using Qi as well as their laws, engraving their bones with their laws. Once a person's entire skeleton was engraved with runes signifying their laws, they would enter the next cultivation realm, the Heart Rune realm.

The Heart Rune realm was much the same as the Core Forging realm, it required one to carve all their organs with their laws, forming runes that would cover all their organs. These runes would connect with the runes carved on the cultivator's bones, the combined might causing the runes to resonate with the heavens and starting to draw down their might. This process will create a type of energy unique to body cultivators, Dark Star Essence, the body cultivation equivalent of Qi. Dark Star Essence is as heavy and strong as the core of a star, containing tremendous might and vitality. It's not as versatile as Qi, but it contains far more power and is perfectly suited for body strengthening and physical attacks. The tremendous amount of vitality it contains also allows a cultivator's body to quickly regenerate itself.

Once a cultivator had engraved all their organs with their runes, they would enter the next cultivation realm, the Star Blood realm. In this realm, a cultivator would have to use their laws and their Dark Star Essence to engrave their runes directly into their veins and onto their blood, connecting these runes with the already carved runes on their bones and organs, drawing down even more of the heavens might.

The next step was the Primordial Body realm, and it required a cultivator to carve the runes into their flesh and the remaining parts of their body, covering every inch of their being in the runes that signified their laws. With all the runes gathering together, they would call down a vast amount of the heavens might and use this energy to further evolve and strengthen the body, entering the next cultivation realm.

This realm was called the Heaven Imitating Body realm, and just like the soul cultivation realm with the same name, it required the cultivator to hollow out their own body and form a pseudo-heaven within the hollowed out body. Once every inch of their insides had become a pseudo-heaven, the cultivator could enter the next cultivation realm, the Heaven's Body realm.

This realm required a person to disintegrate the remains of their body, fusing their laws and their disintegrated body into the pseudo-heaven they had created, turning it into a true heaven that was unique to them. And just like with Qi and soul cultivation, once your heaven had become completely real, you would enter the final body cultivation realm.

This realm was called the Star Empyrean realm and it required the same as the other final cultivation stages, turning the heaven you had created into a new universe that could give birth to living and sentient beings from which you could draw strength. At this point, each of your actions would bring with them the might of an entire universe, and you would reign supreme.

Li Yang put down the book and let out another light breath, putting away the cultivation manual and bringing out his jug of wine. He was both awed and amazed at these two cultivation manuals he had just read, at the description they gave of the various cultivation realms. How long had it taken for these cultivation systems to be created? How had people learned to turn their own souls and bodies into new universes? Who had even come up with such grandiose ideas?

Li Yang knew that he himself was not smart or creative enough to come up with a completely new cultivation path, so he had great respect for whoever it was that came up with these new paths. He took a few more swigs of the fruity wine, savoring the taste for a few minutes as he finished up the remainder of the wine within the jug. Once the jug was empty, Li Yang stored the jug and the Myriad Monarch technique into his interspatial ring, closing his eyes again.

He couldn't cultivate the b.l.o.o.d.y Shura technique since he didn't have any fresh corpses he could use to cultivate it, but he could cultivate the Myriad Monarch technique as well as focusing on his normal Qi cultivation. The test to become an inner disciple was only a few months away, and Li Yang was determined to pa.s.s the test and receive the rewards for becoming an inner disciple.

The compet.i.tion where he would meet up with Fang Ying again was only a year away, so he had to gather up as many resources as he could so that he could increase his strength as much as he could. With this thought in mind, Li Yang ignored the outside world and immersed himself in his cultivation, focusing on body and Qi cultivation for now.