Book 13, Gebados – Chapter 30, A So-Called Spar

The environment of Mount Copper Gong was very beautiful. Within the quiet, deep valley, there was a waterfall and a pool of water beneath it. Linley and Bebe had built two stone houses and were living there. Linley didn’t want to go disturb that Lord of Mount Copper Gong. It was already enough for him to have given Linley pointers.

“Rumble...”

The waterfall cascaded down like countless white pearls, smashing down into the deep pool below.

“Splash!” The water in the pool flowed out in small streams. Linley sat in the meditative stance by the side of the pool in a patch of grass. His original body had begun to calm down and focus on attuning with the Profound Mysteries of the Essence of the Earth. As for his divine clone, it continued analyzing the Elemental Laws of the Wind.

“I have never paid such close attention to the elemental essences as I currently am.”

Linley sent out all of his spiritual energy, infusing it into every single earth elemental essence particle.

Earth elemental essence particles were extremely small. There was no way one could see them with the naked eye, but these elemental essence particles filled the entire world. Each earth elemental essence particle hovered throughout the nearby area, moving in a chaotic, random pattern. And then they would collide into each other, then separate.

The earth essence particles attracted each other, then repelled each other.

“How strange. Is this the elemental world?”

Linley sighed inwardly in praise.

And then, as Linley infused his spiritual energy into the earth: “These solidified elemental essence particles are far too close to each other.” Indeed, this was the case. Rocks and dirt were actually all formed from earth elemental essences, except the elemental density was extremely high.

“Although the boundless earth and the stones of the mountain are all formed from earth elemental essences, they don’t give off a strong elemental aura. Ah!” Linley’s heart was filled with shock. “According to the way the earth elemental particles in the air are behaving, when elemental particles reach a very close distance from each other, they will repel each other. Then why is it...that those extremely densely packed particles in the rocks don’t repel each other?”

Linley himself was capable of controlling earth elemental essence to form mounds of dirt or rocks or metal, but when he did so, it emanated a strong elemental aura.

“Why is it that stones and dirt don’t give off a strong elemental aura?” Linley had never discovered this before. So it seemed the ordinary, unassuming pieces of rocks and dirt actually contained unique profound mysteries of their own.

Linley’s mind couldn’t understand it.

All sorts of contradictions vexed his comprehension.

Training like this, Linley became completely absorbed into this world of the miraculous ‘Essence of the Earth’.

“Groooowl...”

During the past two months, Mount Copper Gong would occasionally have angry roars and bellows emanate from within it. This was because while training, Linley would control elemental essence to create all sorts of magical beasts, which would occasionally let out angry howls. Based on his insights into the nature of elemental essences, one contradiction after another was resolved.

Only now did Linley understand that applying spiritual energy to forcibly control elemental essences to form a solid was a foolish technique!

“Between each elemental essence particle and each other particle, there is a mysterious, amazing relationship. All I have to do is just to use a little bit of extra spiritual energy, and I can cause countless elemental essence particles to become one.” Linley opened his eyes, looking at the angrily howling Savage Worldbear in mid-air.

This Savage Worldbear’s entire body was faintly surrounded by a yellow light. It was currently roaring in anger while beating its chest.

This Savage Worldbear was created from elemental essences.

“Two months ago, if I were to utilize a forbidden-level magic spell to summon this ‘Savage Worldbear’, I would have used up ten times as much spiritual energy, or perhaps even more!” Linley couldn’t help but sigh. “And this is with me only understanding a little bit of the ‘Essence of the Earth’.”

If he had completely mastered the Profound Mysteries of the Essence of the Earth, the difference would be far greater.

“If you take two people with the same amount of spiritual energy, one of whom has trained in the ‘Essence of the Earth’ while the other has not, the difference in power of the ‘Sacred Earthguard Armor’ they created over their bodies would be as great as the difference between the heavens and the earth.”

“Elemental essences are indeed marvelous.” Linley felt some gratitude towards the Lord of Mount Copper Gong, Leylin.

Leylin’s words were correct. The Profound Mysteries of the Essence of the Earth was just the basics. The entire Laws of the Earth were actually nothing more than the many profound mysteries which were created from the countless earth elemental essences. Understanding the ‘Essence of the Earth’ would be of great benefit to understanding the other profound mysteries.

Mount Copper Gong. Leylin’s residence.

Within that elemental manor, Leylin was with his two brothers.

Leylin’s crimson eyebrows rose. Sighing in praise, he said, “This Linley’s innate talent really is quite good. In two short months, he has already reached such heights in his insights into the ‘Essence of the Earth’. Given his current speed...with the ‘Essence of the Earth’ being a simple type of profound mystery, most likely in just two or three years, he would have completely mastered it.”

“Linley has innate talent, but can it compare to yours, Third Brother?” That bald man, Burgess, laughed.

The white-robed man also said, “Third Brother, you are the only true, most powerful genius in the history of our Yulan Plane.”

The white-robed man and Burgess both looked at Leylin with a hint of admiration in their eyes.

“You can’t say that.” Leylin gazed towards the southeast, as though he were capable of piercing through the walls of reality with his gaze and seeing that distant Linley, training within the mountain gorge. Laughing calmly, he said, “This Linley is only a Demigod. He has only just started on the road to training. Who can predict what his future accomplishments will be like?”

“At least given his current speed, he’s only slightly slower than I was in the past. As for his future accomplishments, that is hard to say.”

The bald man and the white-robed man both nodded slightly.

“That Beirut has also informed me that in other planes, there are absolute geniuses who were able to reach the Demigod stage in ten years, the God stage in a hundred years, and the Highgod stage in a thousand years. But to stupid, foolish people, they might be stuck at a bottleneck for ten million years without being able to break through to the Demigod stage.” Leylin laughed calmly.

“That is what insight and perception means.”

Leylin sighed, “This Linley is a very insightful and very perceptive person.”

“Become a Highgod in a thousand years. This is simply inconceivable.” Burgess and the white-robed man both sighed.

Leylin laughed calmly. “This has to do with each person’s destiny and life experiences. Those ultimate geniuses aren’t worth envying either!”

Leylin clearly felt rather disdainful towards those geniuses.

“Those geniuses desperately desired to reach the Highgod level as soon as possible. But how could they know that if one doesn’t begin trying to fuse the various profound mysteries from early on, if they only begin attempting to fuse them upon reaching the Highgod stage, it will be too late!”

“The profound mysteries of the Laws must be fused early on. The earlier, the easier it will be.” Leylin sighed. “If I had understood this when I was a Demigod, most likely I would have been able to fuse the six profound mysteries and have become a Paragon.”

“Fuse all of the profound mysteries? Third Brother, in all the countless planes, how many people have accomplished this?” The white-robed man said.

Leylin chuckled, no longer continuing on this subject.

“Big Brother.” Leylin looked towards that bald man. “It can be considered that Linley helped contribute to our successful flight from the Gebados Planar Prison. You are also someone who trains in the Laws of the Earth. Go have a spar with him.”

“Fine.” The bald man, Burgess, nodded straightforwardly.

Leylin looked at the white-robed man. “Second Brother, I have received great kindness from that Beirut. You go help take care of that Godeater Rat, and spar a bit with him as well.”

“And here I was, just feeling a bit bored.” The white-robed man laughed as he spoke.

.........

The water gurgled forward in the creeks.

Linley was completely absorbed in attuning with the elemental essences. One drop of wisdom after another filled his mind, causing Linley to unconsciously reveal a hint of a smile on his face. While Linley was training, Bebe had also calmed down and begun to train.

Suddenly, a man appeared here.

“This Linley.” The bald man, Burgess, saw the hint of a smile on Linley’s face. “He actually smiles while he is training. This really makes one jealous!”

Only a few experts were able to treat training as a source of pleasure.

If you liked to do something, then once you became absorbed in it, your effectiveness would be extremely high. If, on the other hand, you didn’t like to do something and instead forced yourself to do it, the effectiveness would be very low.

The vast majority of experts forced themselves to train because they didn’t want to be inferior to others, didn’t want to be killed by others, or for other reasons.

How could they, who forced themselves to train, possibly compare to someone who liked training?

These countless experts all understood this reasoning, and they wanted to try and make themselves enjoy training and make training a source of pleasure, thus allowing themselves to train faster, gain insights more easily, and break through.

But whether or not you liked something was something determined by your nature and soul.

You couldn’t just choose to like something. For example, if you saw an extremely ugly woman, no matter how hard you tried to make yourself ‘like’ her, you wouldn’t be able to do it. The choices of your innate nature were unchangeable.

“Mr. Burgess, why have you come?” Bebe called out loudly.

Linley now opened his eyes and immediately rose up. With a laugh, he said, “Mr. Burgess.”

The bald man, Burgess, laughed loudly. “Linley, I know that you train in the Laws of the Earth. By coincidence, I too train in the Laws of the Earth. Let’s have a spar between you and me. What say you?”

“This...this is wonderful, of course.” Linley was very surprised and pleased.

Sparring with an expert who trained in the same Laws, especially someone much more powerful, was an extremely rare opportunity. After all, this meant the stronger person had to lower themselves to train with you.

Although it was described as ‘sparring’, in reality the other was helping him and guiding him!

“Haha...I’m rather stupid. I’ve only trained in two of the profound mysteries of the Laws of the Earth. One is the Profound Mysteries of the ‘Essence of the Earth’, while the other is the Profound Mysteries of Strength.

Linley’s heart leapt.

He now knew of yet another profound mystery of the Laws of the Earth; the Profound Mysteries of Strength.

“Rumble...” A large amount of earth elemental essence solidified, and the body of the bald man, Burgess, became covered with a sparkling earthen armor.

“Not the color of adamantine?” Linley was secretly surprised.

“Linley, against you, there’s no need for me to utilize the Profound Mysteries of Strength. I’ll directly utilize the Profound Mysteries of the Essence of the Earth. Careful!” Burgess laughed loudly, and as he spoke, he kicked off the ground powerful, charging forward while smashing towards Linley with his fist.

The sun reflected off of his sparkling earthen armor in a dazzling manner. Burgess’ right fist actually transformed into the head of a vicious wolf which opened its mouth and bit downwards.

“Hoooooowl!” The vicious wolf actually let out a howling sound.

Linley’s face changed. He wanted to retreat, but Burgess had actually utilized his Godrealm. As a God, Burgess’ Godrealm had caused Linley’s speed to drop dramatically.

𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

“Clang!” Bloodviolet clashed against that vicious wolf’s head fist.

Linley was sent blasting backwards like a sandbag. With a ‘boom’, he smashed viciously into the deep pool of water like a meteorite, sending water spraying everywhere. Under the light of the sun, the water drops spraying everywhere seemed like sparkling jewels.

“Hey, that’s way too weak.” Burgess shook his head.

“Boom!” Linley erupted out from the surface of the water, then landed on the ground. Staring at Burgess, he immediately asked, “Mr. Burgess, how is it that the vicious wolf’s head which your fist had transformed into could have such power? How could its hardness be on a level with a divine artifact?” Linley felt utterly mystified by what had just happened.

Burgess quirked his lips. “Think about it for yourself.”

Linley’s smile froze.

“Alright. Let’s do it again.” Linley gritted his teeth.

From this day onwards, each day, Linley would be defeated by Burgess three times. Burgess never gave him any guidance. Any questions Linley had, he would tell Linley to go think about it for himself. Actually...even if Burgess had explained it, he wouldn’t be able to truly explain it clearly.

After all, in order to understand the profound mysteries of the ‘Essence of the Earth’, Burgess had spent over a thousand years.

Linley sparred with Burgess, while Bebe sparred with that white-robed man.

With this sort of continued ‘sparring’, Linley’s rate of improvement in understanding the ‘Essence of the Earth’ increased greatly.

Once again, Linley was sent flying. As he fell down onto the ground, a smile actually appeared on his face.

“I was wrong, wrong!”

Linley began to laugh loudly. “It isn’t dead. It isn’t dead.”

“I never understood what the power behind the throbbing pulse everywhere in the boundless earth was all about. Now, I understand. I understand. The Throbbing Pulse of the World. Haha. So this is the Throbbing Pulse of the World!” Linley seemed to have gone mad, as he raised his head and laughed wildly. And just as Linley began to laugh loudly...

An enormous, unique, irresistible surge of force descended. The space around Linley became distorted. In the face of this unique presence which was like the Laws, any creature, no matter how powerful, was like nothing but an ant.

Even Burgess couldn’t help but tremble.

The bald Burgess, who had just defeated Linley yet again and was preparing to delightedly lecture him, was stupefied. “This Linley, he...he broke through, just like that. This is too monstrous?” Burgess finally understood the difference between himself and a genius.