Chapter 18: Breakthrough
At the bottom of the pool, Jian Wushuang slowly rose to his feet. As he stood, his muscles and bones let out a series of crisp crackling sounds. Stretching his body, Jian Wushuang leaped fiercely and instantly appeared on the ground of the cave dwelling.
Jian Wushuang's gaze was like lightning as he looked at a section of the cliff wall directly in front of him. His right hand suddenly clenched, and in the next moment, explosive power blasted forward against the rock wall.
Boom!
The tremendous sound caused the entire cave to tremble. Jian Wushuang stared at the enormous hole that had appeared in the rock wall before him, his eyes burning with intensity.
"Divine Dao, Eighth Heaven — and at the peak of the Eighth Heaven at that!" Jian Wushuang clenched his fists tightly, feeling the surging power contained within his hands, his heart surging with excitement.
Twenty days of cultivation in this cave, and he had absorbed every last drop of that vast expanse of Innate Spiritual Liquid from the pool!
One must understand — just how vast was that Innate Spiritual Liquid, and how much pure spiritual power was contained within it? And all of that pure spiritual power had been completely absorbed by him and converted into his own spiritual power. Naturally, the improvement in his strength was terrifying.
Before this, he had only been at the Divine Dao Sixth Heaven, approaching the peak of the Sixth Heaven. Now, however, he had crossed several barriers in succession — breaking through to the Divine Dao Seventh Heaven, then breaking through again to the Eighth Heaven, and now, ascending straight to the very peak of the Divine Dao Eighth Heaven in a single step!
An explosive breakthrough.
And yet, it all seemed perfectly natural.
After all, not everyone had access to such a vast reservoir of Innate Spiritual Liquid to aid their cultivation, and no one else possessed a heaven-defying cultivation method like the Great Fortune Art. It was precisely these two points that made Jian Wushuang's breakthrough over these twenty days nothing short of unbelievable.
"Divine Dao Eighth Heaven — by realm classification, it should be equivalent to the Minor Completion of the Sea Formation stage for ordinary warriors. The peak of Divine Dao Eighth Heaven would be equivalent to the peak of Sea Formation Minor Completion. Add to that the strength advantage of the Great Fortune Art, and my spiritual power eruption is practically on par with Sea Formation Major Completion. Even if it falls somewhat short of Sea Formation Major Completion, the gap certainly isn't large."
At this thought, terrifying sharp light instantly burst forth from Jian Wushuang's eyes.
"Jian Meng'er, I've caught up with you!" Jian Wushuang roared inwardly.
Jian Meng'er possessed the spiritual power cultivation of Sea Formation Major Completion, while he, though he had not yet formed his sea, relied on the heaven-defying nature of the Great Fortune Art — his spiritual power eruption and every other aspect of his abilities were in no way inferior to an ordinary Sea Formation Major Completion expert.
In other words, compared to the current Jian Meng'er, there was virtually no gap between them anymore.
Two months — not even two months — and he had already caught up to Jian Meng'er.
"Ten days! There are still ten days until the competition." Jian Wushuang narrowed his eyes slightly. "No rush. Although my combat strength is now on par with Sea Formation Major Completion, and I have great confidence in defeating that Jian Meng'er, just to be safe, I still need to prepare some trump cards for myself."
Speaking of trump cards, the first thing that came to Jian Wushuang's mind was the secret arts contained within the Great Fortune Art.
The Spirit Seizing Secret Art!
An incomparably domineering, heaven-defying secret art.
This secret art, together with the Great Fortune Art, was deeply imprinted in his mind — he could not forget it even if he wanted to.
Jian Wushuang had briefly skimmed through this secret art back then, but that mere glance had immediately frightened him, because this secret art was simply too terrifying, too domineering! So domineering that it was almost an offense against the heavens. It also inflicted great harm on its user — the kind that wounds the enemy a thousand while costing oneself eight hundred. Thus, unless it was truly a matter of last resort, no one would likely dare to use it.
But an overbearing secret art like this was precisely the most suitable choice for a trump card, a killing move.
"The Spirit Seizing Secret Art consists of three volumes. Given my current realm, I can probably only attempt the first volume. As for the second and third volumes, I shouldn't even think about them." Jian Wushuang smiled faintly, then began to study this domineering secret art in earnest.
This study lasted five days.
Five days later, on an open patch of ground in the northern canyon of Nine Wolf Mountain, Jian Wushuang sat cross-legged.
"Let's begin."
He took a deep breath and immediately began attempting to perform the Spirit Seizing Secret Art.
After five days of study, he had barely managed to grasp the cultivation method of the first volume, but this was still his first attempt. He knew full well how great the harm this secret art inflicted on its user, so he performed it with the utmost caution, not daring to be careless in the slightest.
"Secret art — Spirit Seizing..."
As the secret art was deployed, a hum echoed through the surroundings in an instant — the very void around him trembled. Then, Jian Wushuang's body seemed to transform into an enormous black hole, and from the surrounding heaven and earth, streams of strange power poured into his body at an astonishing speed, continuously and without end.
These powers were extremely mixed and impure; Jian Wushuang could not distinguish exactly what kind of power it was. However, as these powers poured in, he discovered that his cultivation had, at this moment, begun to surge violently upward.
His spiritual power cultivation had originally been at the peak of the Divine Dao Eighth Heaven, but as these powers frantically poured in, it instantly began climbing toward a higher level. In merely a moment, it climbed past the limit of the Eighth Heaven.
Divine Dao Ninth Heaven!
And even after reaching the Divine Dao Ninth Heaven, the climb continued rapidly.
At the same time, a searing pain from the depths of his being also climbed sharply. As his cultivation rose higher and higher, that agony grew ever more intense.
"Stop — stop it, quickly!" Jian Wushuang gritted his teeth, his face contorted. Feeling that searing pain within, he hastily halted the performance of the Spirit Seizing Secret Art.
The moment the secret art stopped, his continuously climbing cultivation also immediately ceased — and then began to decline rapidly. Even so, the searing pain in his body showed no sign of subsiding for quite some time.
On the open ground, Jian Wushuang sat with his eyes closed, gasping heavily for breath, looking utterly exhausted. Only after a long while could he barely lift his eyelids.
"The Spirit Seizing Secret Art... so this is the Spirit Seizing Secret Art?" Jian Wushuang couldn't help shaking his head.
Too painful. The harm this secret art inflicted on the human body was simply too great. In this one attempt, he had still held back, not pushing his cultivation to its limit, yet even so, the agony was unbearable. If he performed it to the extreme, that pain would be far worse.
"This Spirit Seizing Secret Art can indeed cause my cultivation to surge in a short time, but the harm it does to me is even greater," Jian Wushuang thought to himself.
The Spirit Seizing Secret Art consumed the body's essence, qi, and spirit — not spiritual power.
If it merely consumed a large amount of spiritual power, he wouldn't care in the least — after all, the Great Fortune Art restored spiritual power extremely quickly. But essence, qi, and spirit — even the Great Fortune Art could not restore those.
Jian Wushuang shook his head, but the moment he raised it, his expression instantly turned exceedingly strange.
"This... this is..." Jian Wushuang stared in horror at everything around him.
He saw that within a radius of several dozen meters around him, the land had already become a dead zone!
The originally dark-green earth had long since turned yellowish, and even cracks had appeared across it. The flowers, grass, and trees had all withered and died. In just a brief moment, all signs of life within dozens of li around him had utterly vanished!
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