Chapter 965: A New Era, A New World (II)

“The advantage of supernatural characters can be found in their tangible aspect,” Li Hao continued. “The aura cannot be seen and neither can supernatural abilities. They’re a subconscious kind of comprehension and utilization. Meanwhile, supernatural characters manifest the abstract!

“There’s an enormous advantage to this in that it’s difficult to bring about anything that exists only as theory. When there is a physical example, however, that makes even the simplest of imitation possible. It means that we’ll be able to directly utilize dao meridians in martial dao!”

Yuan Shuo nodded. Li Hao had grouped auras, supernatural characters, and supernatural abilities as the same kind of existence. Dao meridians encompassed all of them.

Li Hao suddenly laughed; all of the fire energy within his body abruptly disappeared amid the crowd’s disbelieving eyes.

“You can probe me with your aura, everyone. You don’t need to rely on your eyes!”

Auras shimmered over people’s bodies as everyone closed their eyes. A stunning scene developed in front of them. They could see that Li Hao’s heart beat fiercely. Each beat compressed all of the fire energy within his body until finally, a ferocious tiger melded into the energy.

A chain appeared over the organ.

The broken supernatural lock had been reformed, but then vanished in the heart. It traveled through the void to arrive at the Hao Cosmos.

“Did all of you see that?”

“A supernatural has become a martial master!” gasped Yuan Shuo.

“Correct,” Li Hao nodded. “This is why some of the previous supernaturals could convert back to being martial masters. Since the two paths are interlinked, of course cultivators can transform between the two.”

𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

“No no no, this is not how one can switch between the two,” frowned Yuan Shuo. “How do you do it so easily?”

“The Hao Cosmos!” Li Hao smiled. “In my eyes, the Hao Cosmos is a relative universe and the ultimate resting place of every supernatural lock. It is the universe of dao. Supernatural locks and auras can freely make their way there. Energy is also easily converted there. It is the intersection of auras and supernatural locks.

“That is because both of them are dao!”

Tyrant Blade blinked dazedly. He seemed to think through something—the universe of dao, aura, and supernaturals...

A surge of mysterious power shimmered over him—it appeared to be mental strength that quickly turned into an aura. The surge of strength constantly transformed between the aura and mysterious power without becoming a supernatural character.

After a while, a character appeared in his hand—a blade! Both mysterious power and aura were gone at this stage.

“Therefore, I want to take myself back to my initial state as an ordinary person!” Li Hao concluded. The rest of the group, stunned as his previously broken supernatural looks returned, whole and complete. They melded into the five organs and four limbs, then vanished without a trace.

Li Hao’s presence abruptly disappeared; he seemed to be a mundane. Even the ancient powerhouses observing from the shadows were astonished. The young man really could fully conceal his powers! Or should it be said that he was truly a mundane in this moment?

Yuan Shuo watched silently and said after a long while, “What other benefits are there to returning to your original state, other than fully concealing yourself?”

“A humongous one!” smiled Li Hao. “Teacher, I can cultivate all over again!”

Yuan Shuo frowned. Was there a point to that?

“Teacher, I’ll run through a demonstration for you guys. Watch this!” The young man rose to his feet and started jumping up and down like a monkey. He absorbed ambient energy in the surroundings and nourished his body until rays of internal force rippled from his being and also fortified his body. He quickly became a Slayer of Tens since he was producing internal force.

Yuan Shuo still couldn’t identify what was different about this process. It was then that a supernatural lock manifested in Li Hao’s heart and abruptly broke apart. A supernatural character formed and a ferocious tiger gradually gathered together.

The old man frowned, a reaction echoed by others. No one understood. What did this mean?

Li Hao suddenly wished he could dig his heart out for everyone to look at. They were just focused on the aura!

“Everyone, don’t look at the aura, but at the changes in my heart!” he said with resignation. “I shattered a supernatural lock when I became a Slayer. Have you not discovered that the lock I broke was transformed into a supernatural character, which then melded all of the energy into my heart? My heart has been strengthened!”

The group blinked, then changed the direction of their focus. Indeed, Li Hao’s heart was beating very quickly. It was absorbing both of the energy within the lock and internal force.

“Internal force... supernaturals...” Yuan Shuo muttered after observing for a while. “Do you mean that if we are mundanes, we should cultivate martial dao first to strengthen our internal force so that it manifests our supernatural locks. When we shatter them, we can train as both a martial master and a supernatural at the same time, using the supernatural characters as our foundation. So... we can strengthen our organs and bodies when we’re still so fragile?”

“Correct, it’s this cross-training that I’m getting at!” Li Hao nodded. “Internal force can fortify the body. I’ve discovered that internal force isn’t just naturally produced in the human body, but also contains energy of the secondary universe. We can use internal force to break the supernatural locks when they appear.

“In the past, the resulting release of mysterious power would devour internal force. But if we use supernatural characters to envelop the mysterious power and slowly release it bit by bit, we’ll avoid that consequence! Both types of strength can coexist at the same time! Breaking the supernatural lock opens the secondary dimension, which means internal force can absorb more energy to strengthen our bodies!”

“It’s a brand new way of cultivation!” Yuan Shuo murmured. “Cultivating mysterious power and internal force at the same time... but that will result in a new problem of a more difficult cultivation process.”

“No!” Li Hao shook his head. “On the contrary, it will be easier so long as the cultivator learns how to trace supernatural characters! The two forces complement each other. That makes cultivation easier overall. The aura will be naturally grasped in hand, which means everyone will know the aura!

“Even if one doesn’t know how to use it, they’ll be able to possess it through comprehending the supernatural characters. The aura is too abstract, as are supernatural abilities. Everything can be replaced by the supernatural characters!

“Then all we need to do is to know two methods. The first is that of producing internal force and the second is the one of tracing supernatural characters. Knowing these two will allow humans to perfectly develop themselves!”

For cultivators, learning two secret arts wasn’t too much.

“Does this mean to say that from now on, we can simply utilize the number of supernatural characters to determine a martial master’s strength?” Yuan Shuo rumbled. “Or perhaps the strength of all cultivators? Is this a path that leads directly to the most high?”

“The number of characters is one point!” explained Li Hao. “There’s also quality to consider!”

“Quality?” Everyone looked at Li Hao; none of them perceived a difference in the quality of their supernatural characters.

“The quality of supernatural characters has to do with the locks!” explained the young man. “Locks of varying degrees of strength will result in different supernatural characters. We didn’t sense a difference before because we traced our characters only after saturating our locks. There naturally won’t be a large difference between the characters then.

“I’ve discovered countless supernatural locks in the body,” Li Hao grinned. “From this, we can see that there are differences in the strength of supernatural locks!”

The group listened silently as Li Hao detailed his thoughts. His propositions were many, but they didn’t form a complete system. Yuan Shuo and the others frequently interjected, raised questions, or supplemented the current concept being discussed.

“All in all,” Li Hao ultimately concluded, “The difference of my system from the previous is that we can cultivate from both paths before the Arcanus level. Once we reach Arcanus, the two paths can be combined as one!

“Martial masters will need to complete the supplemental portion of the aura, whereas supernaturals will need to internalize their strength!”

“This kind of organization is still too much of a hassle,” Northern Fist said with a brewing headache. “Cultivating two paths at the same time is not a good idea for most people. Is there a simpler way? Whether it is martial masters or supernaturals, they’ll all wish for a simpler and more foolproof way of cultivation.”

Li Hao blinked. Upon further thought, the man made sense. The young man sank into prolonged deep thought.

Most people could neither see the supernatural locks nor detect them. However, they led to the secondary dimension. Each lock was a passageway and

that

could be faintly discerned. They could be detected when they absorbed energy. Therefore, it was doable when they were connected to the secondary dimension. The Five Styles Breathing Method!

Li Hao thought back to some of the experiments he’d conducted earlier. “I have a very direct way,” he suddenly said. “The secondary universe can be found behind each supernatural lock and there is an endless amount of energy in the secondary universe. Every lock is a passageway that leads back to the human body. Once we utilize a secret method to extract energy, we can create a devouring force.

“If we view this passageway as part of the human body and call it an acupoint—a similar notion to the seven orifices of the face—then each point will correspond to a meridian. One point will hold one lock. Clearing an acupoint will result in a noticeable change in one’s strength!

“Whether it is internal force or blood qi, aura or supernatural characters... all can be found within the acupoints,” Li Hao took a deep breath. “There is a benefit in viewing things this way because we can section each supernatural lock into different portions. We can find ways to cut a supernatural lock into many different parts, such as drilling nine holes in one lock and extracting part of its energy at one time.

“That will prevent an internal detonation and make cultivation easier to attempt from the very beginning! Once all nine holes are cleared, that will be the equivalent of fully shattering one supernatural lock and releasing all of its energy...” The young man grew more excited the more he spoke. “Take the Five Styles, for example. It can excavate the locks of the five organs, but opening them at the same time will result in nothing but death.

“Opening just one lock is hard to bear, but if ten holes are drilled into one lock and one hole cleared at a time... The entire lock will be fully excavated after all ten holes are cleared. But the issue is that it’s difficult to section the lock at this period of time...”

“That’s easy enough,” Yuan Shuo suddenly said. “The supernatural characters don’t necessarily need to devour all of the locks in one go. Characters can be traced one stroke at a time, which means a supernatural lock can be cracked open through one stroke. That one stroke can be used to block the hole in the supernatural lock!”

Li Hao thought it over, nodded, and gave the idea a try instead of saying anything. He attempted cracking a supernatural lock open, then wrote down half of a character. The results demonstrated that this method was feasible!

Supernatural characters could indeed be used to plug the hole and release energy in a natural manner.

With that... Li Hao grew excited. This meant that cultivation could be partitioned out in segments!