Chapter 3713: Spirit Cultivation

Lu Yin pointed a single finger forward and shattered the gate. He then turned his head to where Luo Ning was staring intently at him. “Do you truly want things to end in death?”

Lu Yin laughed. “And what qualifies you to fight me to the death?”

Luo Ning clenched his jaw as he looked over at the High Seraph. “If I’m captured, I’ll reveal everything. Everything that he wants to know, I’ll tell him regardless of whether it should be said or not.”

The High Seraph stopped walking and turned to look at the young man.

Luo Ning met the High Seraph’s gaze without shrinking back. He was trying to threaten the High Seraph into protecting him. The High Seraph did not know what Luo Ning might share, but the Lesser Sancte might also suffer if something detrimental was revealed.

“Heh, brat, you’re overthinking things. Instead of going through the trouble of protecting you, it might be easier to kill you to protect some secrets,” Yong Heng’s voice rang out.

Luo Ning’s eyes flickered. “Is that so? But you can’t kill me.

“High Seraph, are you really not going to help me?”

The High Seraph ignored Luo Ning, his eyes revealing nothing. It was unclear if the man simply did not care or was suppressing his desire to kill the young man.

Luo Ning let out a long breath and abandoned seeking the High Seraph’s protection. Instead, he turned to Lu Yin. “How much do you know about my Nine Odysseys Megaverse?”

“Not much,” Lu Yin replied plainly.

The cultivators from that megaverse who had been captured by Old Chief and the other Luminaries were rendered speechless. This man had clearly pretended to be a Lesser Sancte earlier, only to suddenly and shamelessly deny everything.

Luo Ning was unconcerned with any of that. “Have you heard of spirit cultivation before?”

Lu Yin arched a brow. “If you’re trying to buy time, don’t bother. No one’s coming to save you.”

“What we call spirit cultivation...” With no other choice, Luo Ning started revealing some true information about cultivation in the Nine Odysseys Megaverse. It was all information that everyone atop the cliff would eventually learn.

Of course, the High Seraph already knew everything that was said, and Yong Heng even knew about the Scion Spire. As for Old Chief and the rest of the conscients, they would eventually learn this information from their captives. There was no reason for Luo Ning to keep these secrets.

Everyone had assumed that Lu Yin was ignorant of this information, but in truth, he had already learned a great deal from Ru Guo.

Listening to Luo Ning’s repeated account of things was nothing more than Lu Yin confirming whether Ru Guo had lied. "You should understand what it means to be frozen in the Octagonal Pavilion of the Scion Spire. Each of us carries a guardian spirit seed, which serves as our protector. However, there are rules to the tower, and if we use our guardian spirit seed, we are forbidden from ever returning and will lose all qualifications to become a Lesser Sancte.

“Unless I am truly forced, I won’t use my guardian spirit seed, so why don’t we both take a step back? If you are one day able to enter the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, my Luo family shall receive you as an honored guest.”

Lu Yin remained unconvinced. “Just a guardian spirit seed is enough to make you confident that you can face me? If that’s true, then what’s the point of all our cultivation?”

Luo Ning sneered. “Do you believe that the cultivation of any of the three megaverses means anything to the Nine Odysseys Megaverse?

“Your only purpose is to pave a path for us.

“If you don’t believe me, just ask the High Seraph. He is perfectly well aware of whether guardian spirit seeds are real.”

Lu Yin glanced over at the High Seraph. “Mo Shang, care to add anything?”

The High Seraph looked over and merely glanced at Luo Ning. “What you don’t cultivate on your own will never be truly yours. You’ll just be trash.”

Luo Ning’s expression fell, and he glared at the High Seraph for a moment before returning his attention to Lu Yin. “While his words are harsh, he is not wrong. I don’t want to use my guardian spirit seed unless I am forced to. Taking someone else’s cultivation... there is no need for you and I to fight to the death. I’ll bluntly tell you that my guardian spirit seed comes from my Luo family’s patriarch, a powerful Dukkhan.”

𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Lu Yin already knew this was true, and that made things tricky.

The Scion Spire, huh? So they really did have a few aces up their sleeve.

However, everything that Luo Ning had revealed only made Lu Yin more eager to capture him. This young man was guaranteed to be extremely well informed.

After all, he was both the heir to the Skyward Gate’s Luo family as well as someone from the Scion Spire.

As for why using their guardian spirit seed would disqualify them from ever becoming a Lesser Sancte, Lu Yin already knew the answer to that as well. According to Ru Guo, using another person’s guardian spirit seed would prevent a person from ever being able to cultivate in the future. Their realm would be fixed at the level of the guardian spirit seed.

Even if using his guardian spirit seed would raise Luo Ning to the peak Dukkhan level, he would never be able to advance any further. His cultivation would be bound to that level.

Lu Yin had found this explanation unbelievable when he first heard it. Could someone really be raised to the level of a peak Dukkhan? That flew in the face of all that Lu Yin had ever known.

However, Ru Guo had proceeded to shatter all that Lu Yin knew to be true with just one more sentence: “Why else would the people of the Spirit Nidus cultivate their spirit seeds in the complete opposite direction?”

Specifically, the spirit seeds cultivated in the Spirit Nidus were liquified before they were pulled into the Nine Odysseys Megaverse. There, the Nine Odysseys cultivators removed their spirit seeds from their bodies to cultivate them. When the spirit seed returned, the cultivator’s strength would sharply improve. Even if the spirit seed was taken by someone else, it would still be able to improve their strength. More importantly, some ancient Nine Odysseys cultivators removed their spirit seeds right before their deaths, leaving them for their descendants as an ultimate life‑saving treasure.

In the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, cultivation realms were essentially a tradeable commodity that could be granted or revoked. Even an incredible realm like a peak Dukkhan was possible to achieve with liquified spirit seeds.

This method also ensured that the Nine Odysseys Megaverse would never be limited by their number of lower level cultivators. The longer the megaverse existed for, the more that they would accumulate powerful guardian spirit seeds. At a critical moment, an entire host of pinnacle experts could suddenly appear. Even if those people would no longer be able to cultivate, their power would be more than sufficient as they would have achieved a cultivation realm that was impossible for most people to reach no matter how long they cultivated for.

In the Nine Odysseys Megaverse, it was not surprising to encounter a young person with incredible power. Their cultivation method even allowed another person’s spirit seed to serve as a second life, which greatly decreased outright assassination. Killing a person was meaningless if they could simply continue living through their spirit seed.

The power of the Nine Odysseys Megaverse entirely originated from their unique cultivation method. The environment of the entire megaverse, and even the scarce number of distinct factions, all stemmed from their cultivator method. The strength of their organizations was entirely determined by how many powerful guardian spirit seeds they had hoarded. Additionally, while stealing another’s spirit seed was a grave crime, trading cultivated spirit seeds was not.

Various things had resulted in guardian spirit seeds being concentrated in specific places, which had eventually given rise to absolutely monstrous organizations.

A faction like Loneswan Island might appear to only be as strong as one of the Spirit Nidus’s seven major powers and only be a middling organization in the Nine Odysseys Megaverse. However, if they were driven to desperation and forced to use all of their guardian spirit seeds, who could say how many top‑tier experts might suddenly appear?

This was the truly terrifying aspect about the Nine Odysseys Megaverse.

Every faction, no matter however inconspicuous they might be, could produce supreme experts.

Ru Guo’s revelations had put an unprecedented amount of pressure upon Lu Yin. Even when facing Aeternus or the Spirit Nidus, he had not been this pressured. The Nine Odysseys Megaverse did not have open displays of fearsome power, but rather terrifying, unseen foundations. No one could accurately judge any of their organizations’ hidden power.

Upon first learning about the Nests and their Immortal Lord, Lu Yin and many others had struggled to believe that such a terrifying civilization could exist. At this moment, it appeared that both the Nest civilization and the Nine Odysseys Megaverse stood equal to each other. Both were unimaginably powerful according to their standards.

The only way to stand against such power was to reach the very top. The High Seraph did not fear the Skyward Gate’s Luo family, as no one there was his equal. It did not matter how many experts they sent against the High Seraph.

Luo Ning stared intently at Lu Yin. The guardian spirit seed was the young man’s ultimate trump card, as well as his only means of facing such a formidable foe. However, using it would also be Luo Ning’s undoing.

Lu Yin paused for a moment as he looked at Luo Ning. “Mo Shang is also a peak Dukkhan, and I can fight against him. Even if you can also become a peak Dukkhan with that guardian spirit seed, I don’t believe that you will gain your family’s patriarch’s full strength. At best, you’ll be just another peak Dukkhan.”

Luo Ning could tell that Lu Yin was about to attack, so he gave another warning. “But my Luo family’s patriarch wasn’t qualified to become a Lesser Sancte.”

Lu Yin frowned and automatically turned to look at Yong Heng.

The man was well-informed about the Scion Spire.

Yong Heng was staring at Luo Ning. “Only the greatest geniuses of an entire era are allowed to be frozen in the Scion Spire to await an opportunity to compete for the title of Lesser Sancte or even Greater Sancte.

“The fact that you were frozen in that place means that your talent must have surpassed your era. Should that talent merge with the peak Dukkhan cultivation of your ancestor...” True God looked over at Lu Yin. “He could very well prove to be even more terrifying than his ancestor.”

Lu Yin asked, “Was his Luo family’s patriarch a Lesser Sancte?”

“No,” the High Seraph replied.

Lu Yin let out a breath of relief.

Luo Ning raised his chin. “But I can become one.”

Lu Yin laughed. “Are you trying to threaten me with empty words? Even if you already possessed the strength of a Lesser Sancte, Mo Shang is right here. He won’t simply allow you to kill me.

“Isn’t that right, Mo Shang?”

The High Seraph did not respond. His mind was racing; when had Lu Yin become so confident that he would help him? First, he had deliberately allowed himself to be blackmailed by the Lesser Spirit Megaverse’s information. Later, when Lu Yin had become suspicious of that, the High Seraph had brought up Master Qing Cao’s intentions. Lu Yin must have believed that excuse as well.

Could it have been when Emperor Wu was killed?

Luo Ning felt an encroaching headache. The relationships between these people were far too tangled for him to make any sense of them.

The High Seraph had attacked Lu Yin, and Lu Yin had attacked another person who had knowledge of the Scion Spire. That man had later teamed up with Lu Yin to attack the High Seraph. All three men had cooperated with the conscients at different times, and those creatures had in turn attacked Lu Yin. Lu Yin was constantly trying to kill the High Seraph, yet the High Seraph still protected the younger man. On top of all that, Lu Yin had even saved the conscients.

The more Luo Ning thought about them, the messier the situation became. What a tangled web of nonsense.

Only the people directly involved understood their current situation. Not even the conscients had any idea what was really going on between the three men.

This was precisely what Luo Ning feared the most. Even if he used his guardian spirit seed and gained the strength to kill the man in front of him, the High Seraph would not simply stand by and watch.

At best, the current four-way balance would become a five-way balance. The man in front of Luo Ning would lose nothing, but Luo Ning himself would forever lose any chance of further advancement.

The Nine Odysseys Megaverse would never allow someone whose cultivation was permanently fixed to become a Lesser Sancte. That would be a tremendous loss for Luo Ning. Countless years of the Luo family’s efforts would be erased in a moment. He could not accept that outcome.

Not only would he lose his qualifications to become a Lesser Sancte, but his Luo family would also lose their ancestor’s guardian spirit seed.

Luo Ning took a deep breath. “You’re targeting me because I was rude to you earlier. I’m willing to pay for my actions. Ask me anything, and I'll give you a truthful answer. So long as you spare me, the Skyward Gate’s Luo family will owe you a favor.

“The High Seraph belongs to the Spirit Nidus, and thus he has long been hated by the Nine Odysseys Megaverse. He doesn’t care about my Luo family, but you are different. When you enter our megaverse, you will learn just how valuable a favor from the Luo family is.”

“How valuable?” Lu Yin asked.

Luo Ning was momentarily stunned. He had not expected Lu Yin to follow along so easily, and he was slightly caught off guard by the sudden reversal. Still, this was a good sign. As long as Lu Yin was tempted, there was hope for Luo Ning.