Chapter 1202 – Cultivating Essence, Energy, and Divine

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After Lin Ming listened to this dark-skinned youth’s words, he laughed, and in a very reckless manner.

As that rampant underling from before saw Lin Ming’s smiling face, he was horrified. Even so, he mustered up his courage and put on a brave face, saying, “Is it funny? What are you laughing about?” Then, he pointed at the symbol on his robes. “This is the True Martial symbol, it is something that is impossible to fake. In this dreamland space, everything is the same as in reality and you can even look it up yourself. As long as you pour your true essence into it, you’ll know that it is real!”

Lin Ming chuckled. “I’m laughing at all the idiotic nonsense you’re spouting. Do you think I don’t know you’re from the True Martial Holy Lands?”

“You…” The dark-skinned youth stiffened. He gloomily said, “The True Martial Holy Lands is the influence that is currently in control of True Martial City. If you kill a disciple of the True Martial Holy Lands, you will be the one killed in the future! Do you really think that you can face the entirety of the True Martial Holy Lands by yourself!? Our lives are not valuable at all. Even if we die, we won’t lose too many merit points. But you are different. Your merit points are enough to rank you in the top 50 masters of True Martial Great World!”

The dark-skinned youth bit out, the threat evident in his words.

“Face the entirety of the True Martial Holy Lands?” Lin Ming rubbed his chin. “If you didn’t say that, I wouldn’t have thought of this. But now that you mention it, that’s quite a good idea. I’m missing some merit points right now, so if you people are planning on delivering some snacks to me then go ahead, I’ll welcome all of you.”

“You!”

The dark-skinned youth’s complexion sank. He suddenly said, “You have no idea of death or danger!”

“Attack together!” The dark-skinned youth shouted. After stumbling into such a lunatic, he had no hopes of still living after this. The final counterattack of these three people was fierce, but in front of Lin Ming it was nothing at all.

The Phoenix Blood Spear swept out; all of their attacks were completely crushed!

“You will pay for this!”

The dark-skinned youth shouted. His saber cut towards Lin Ming’s throat, but the Phoenix Blood Spear was already a step ahead; it passed right through his heart.

Soon after, a blazing spear light flashed out and the other two people were cut apart, their blood splashing out into the skies!

“I will… remember… you…”

The dark-skinned youth glared at Lin Ming as his body fell down.

In just 10 short breaths of time, the six martial artists had been completely wiped out. Their bodies turned into pure dreamland energy that fused into Lin Ming’s body, where it was absorbed by the divine dream marks on his soul.

“Six people altogether gave me a total of a million merit points. Not bad.”

Lin Ming looked up his own merit points and saw that he had finally broken through 10 million. He guessed that these people were ranked around 200 at True Martial Great World. As for that dark-skinned youth, he contributed the most points to Lin Ming at around 500 thousand. The other five people contributed the other 500 thousand. Compared to the first round of eliminations, although these participants were in similar positions, the number of merit points had increased by far too much. Otherwise, if Lin Ming killed participants of this level, the rise in his merit points shouldn’t be so high.

“My divine dream marks are even more complete… but, these newest two divine dream marks have an even greater need for dreamland energy than the first two. It seems that every time I form another divine dream mark, I’ll need more and more dreamland energy… I wonder just what it will be like the further I cultivate them? I do not have Empyrean Divine Dream’s transcendent divine might and can only rely on the Magic Cube to help me perceive the method to this miraculous ability. Even if the Magic Cube is a heaven-defying tool, it still isn’t enough. It might be able to help me at the start, but the further I go, the less useful it will be.”

As Lin Ming understood the Divine Dream Law more and more, his admiration towards Empyrean Divine Dream increased by leaps and bounds. He simply had no idea how Empyrean Divine Dream had managed to create such a brilliant transcendent divine might.

Lin Ming gradually realized that the Divine Dream Law was not just its own independent system of Laws, but also something that could be an independent cultivation system!

Currently, Lin Ming trained in two types of cultivation systems. One was the body transformation system and one was the essence gathering system.

As he thought about it, body transformation trained the mortal body. In terms of essence, energy, and divine, this would be called flesh and blood ‘essence’. Body transformation was to refine the flesh and blood and temper one’s essence. Finally, one’s body would be similar to a God Beast, a being with incomparably powerful defensive power. With just a single step, one could sunder the earth.

As for the essence gathering system, that was to cultivate the dantian and to grow one’s inner world, constantly gathering energy within it. In essence, energy, and divine, this represented energy. Heaven and earth origin energy was this ‘energy’, and essence gathering was to cultivate a breathing technique that could gather the spiritual energy of the world, becoming more and more in tune with the power of nature.

But whether it was training the body or training one’s dantian, there was something that was impossible to cultivate: that was the divine soul.

Normally, a martial artist would increase their soul force by studying a few supporting skills, such as alchemy, refining, array formations, and so forth. The further one studied these skills, the more they could increase their soul force.

There were even some sects that developed a number of arcane skills that trained the divine soul. For instance, the Overbearing Soul Tactic that Lin Ming had first practiced a long time ago was one such technique. But this technique didn’t fuse true essence into the soul, it simply enhanced one’s soul force.

There was an overwhelming difference between the Overbearing Soul Tactic and the Divine Dream Law. For comparison, the Overbearing Soul Tactic could be considered the exercise techniques of a mortal. If they jogged every day, lifted weights, and trained their body, then after a long time their body would become stronger and they would naturally have an advantage in fights.

As for the Divine Dream Law, that was the true training of a sect’s martial artists. One could train, enhancing their cultivation and rising in boundaries and accomplish miraculous things. They could split apart oceans and shatter mountains. The difference between these two techniques could be imagined.

So, if one continued with this train of thought, then if one were able to cultivate the Divine Dream Law to perfection, one could learn a completely new cultivation system – the soul cultivation system!

Body transformation, essence gathering, divine refining, if one could practice all three of these systems, they could completely train in essence, energy, and divine!

If a martial artist could cultivate all three systems, what boundary would they be able to reach in the future?

As Lin Ming thought of this, his mind bubbled with anticipation.

To a martial artist, essence, energy, and divine were all indispensable. If one solely cultivated body transformation or essence gathering, then they would always have a weakness.

An essence gathering martial artist had a weak body. They had to constantly create shields of protective true essence around themselves. And once this protective true essence shattered, their mortal body would easily be torn apart.

For instance, if Lin Ming killed someone now, even if they were a Divine Sea master, if he were to rip out their heart or tear off their head, then they would die, no matter how strong they were.

𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

But if one was solely a body transformation martial artist, then even if their body was powerful, they would be lacking in flexibility. Without the support of the essence gathering system, they would not be able to display their speed, striking power, or explosive force to the limit.

But even if a martial artist cultivated body and energy, there were still flaws.

For instance, Mo Eversnow. She was a rare heaven-gifted genius who would have become a Great World King character in the future. Even though she dual cultivated in body and energy, she still managed to reach a half-step World King cultivation at an extremely young age. She had even nearly stepped into the legendary Nine Stars of the Dao Palace. But even for someone as gifted as her, once her body disintegrated and her inner world was shattered, leaving nothing behind but her divine soul, she became extremely weak. Her combat strength had fallen to that of the weakest early Divine Lord martial artist. Moreover, if she used too much energy, her soul would suffer damage and she might fall into a deep slumber.

In the end, this was caused by the fragility of Mo Eversnow’s soul. If she had been able to cultivate her soul to an extremely high boundary and allow her soul to directly move energy, then she would never have ended up in such a state. Even if a Holy Lord level powerhouse faced Mo Eversnow’s remnant soul form, they would still be instantly killed!

If there could really be called a peak of martial arts in this world, then the person who could climb to that peak could be called a True Divinity, a being whose lifespan surpassed the sun and the moon and even the boundless universe. Such a person might be skilled in all three aspects of essence, energy, and soul, someone who reached the peak of all existence!

If one cultivated essence, energy, and divine to the limit, would there be a qualitative change?

As Lin Ming thought of this, he could only sigh with emotion. He hadn’t even managed to fully dual cultivate body and energy, and now he had to add another cultivation system – soul cultivation!

If he cultivated all three systems to perfection, then Lin Ming might become the most terrifying martial artist to ever exist since ancient times.

However, if he failed to fully cultivate all three systems to perfection then he would have wasted his energy and also his time.

Of course, there was no need for Lin Ming to consider what cultivation paths to take. With his character, he was destined to never let go of any opportunity that walked across his path. He would cultivate essence, energy, and divine.

Especially since Lin Ming possessed the heaven-defying cheat tool called the Magic Cube!

For an entire day, Lin Ming constantly cut down nightmare beasts in Demon Sealing Ridge as well as familiarized himself with the surrounding environment. With his powerful soul force supporting him as well as his current understandings of the Divine Dream Law, he was able to sense all powerful nightmare beasts and participants within 100-200 miles. None of them were able to escape Lin Ming’s sense. Lin Ming was able to sense them, but they weren’t able to sense him. This gave Lin Ming a tremendous superiority.

As Lin Ming hunted more and more, he continually gathered dreamland energy within his body, becoming more and more powerful.

And at the end of the day, the six True Martial Holy Land martial artists that were killed by Lin Ming finally revived…

In the deep dark, the dark-skinned youth’s eyes flashed open, hatred and anger shining in them. “Brat, you are dead!”