Desolate Era

Rumble…

The awesome energy of the prime essences was pooled here in vast, interconnecting lakes. There was a lake filled with the prime essence of lightning, a lake filled with the prime essence of destruction… the different lakes all represented different prime essences, and together they formed the vast sea.

The power here was truly limitless.

A white-robed youth was standing in the center, surrounded by the lake filled with the prime essence of water. Boundless amounts of energy poured towards him and were all absorbed in turn.

“Stonerule, Darknorth’s heartworld is probably on par with yours,” Autarch Ekong chuckled. The six Autarchs were standing next to each other and watching from afar.

“His heartworld was formed using the Eternal Omega Sword Dao as the focus. Of course it is in par with mine!” Autarch Stonerule said. He was the only one of the six who had an Autarch-class heartworld.

“I really envy you guys,” Autarch Titanos sighed.

“You? Envy me? I envy you!” Autarch Stonerule smirked.

“Titanos, at least you once were a Heartforce Emperor! The rest of us weren’t able to truly stabilize our heartworlds at all,” Autarch Skyfeeder said. “And you control the mighty Karma Daobirth Essence; in terms of power, you are the strongest of us six. How can you have the audacity to say you envy us? I’m hurt! Hurry up and bring out your finest food and wine as compensation.”

Autarch Titanos stared at her wide-eyed. “Are you kidding? It took me ages to build up my collection. Don’t even think of touching it.”

Heartforce Cultivators had to follow a different path in making their breakthroughs. Those who followed other Daos would reconstitute their divine power and Immortal energy, but Heartforce Cultivators relied on expanding their heartworlds. The more stable a heartworld was, the larger it could become and the more powerful the Heartforce Cultivator would be.

Once the entire heartworld became large and stable enough to become perpetual, the Heartforce Cultivator would be able to step into the Emperor level! This was why almost all Heartforce Emperors had reached Hegemonic levels of power. Stabilizing a heartworld enough to make it eternal was extremely difficult! The ones who succeeded were almost all Hegemons, with just the tiniest of fractions being at the Archon level of power.

Of course, there were many who dabbled as Heartforce Cultivators. Bertulu, Winesage, Ning… all of them trained both as normal cultivators and as Heartforce Cultivators. This was generally true for all truly talented cultivators!

Early on, Autarch Skyfeeder had trained as a Heartforce Cultivator as well. However, after she completed the Daomerge and gained Hegemony via the Dao of Time, she discovered that her Dao of Time was not a Dao that could produce a stable, perpetual heartworld. She had thus been forced to abandon the path of heartforce, and after 108,000 chaos cycles her unstable heartworld came to a natural end.

Of the living Autarchs, Autarch Titanos was the most powerful. He had reached Hegemony via the Dao of Karma, and his Dao of Karma was capable of allowing his heartworld to become eternal. In other words, he had been both a Karma Hegemon and a Heartforce Hegemon! Alas, when he made the breakthrough which enabled him to become an Autarch, his heartworld wasn’t able to expand alongside any further. He too was forced to abandon the path of heartforce as he allowed his Dao of Karma to transform into the Karma Daobirth Essence.

“Omega Daos really are the best,” Autarch Titanos sighed. “Only Omega Daos can be considered truly perfect Daos. Even the heartworlds formed by them are the best.”

“Yes, only Omega Daos can allow for truly perfect heartworlds,” Autarch Stonerule said. His Illusion Daobirth Essence allowed for his heartworld to reach the Autarch level, but his heartworld still couldn’t be considered ‘perfect’. This was why he remained slightly weaker than Autarch Titanos.

The Azureflower Estate was floating right next to Autarch Skyfeeder’s wood cottage within the vast sea of prime essences. Autarch Skyfeeder had begun the process of keeping time accelerated at a rate of 1000x for the entire Azureflower Estate, while Ning trained within the second hall inside.

He had already finished his heartworld breakthrough. Now, it would be a slow process of training.

……

Back in the Three Realms.

“Whew. I’ve finally finished.” The golden-robed Ning stared at the six golden swords before him, a pleased smile on his face. He had spent over fifty thousand years to create these swords, and the materials he had used were superior to the ones which had been used to create the original Northbow swords! Back then, Ning had been comparatively weak; how could he possibly acquire as many precious materials as he had now? The materials he now had were far superior to what was available back then. If Ning wasn’t such a perfectionist, he would’ve been able to complete these six Universe weapons within just a thousand years.

“Unfortunately, they haven’t been developing by my side for countless aeons like the Northbow swords. I’ve done as much as I can, but they are still a teensy bit weaker than the Northbow swords.” The golden-robed Ning smiled. “Still, they are more than good enough for killing Sithe. From this day forth, you shall be named… the Northmoon swords.”

Swish. Swish. Swish. All six golden swords flew into the sheath on Ning’s back. He was now dressed in golden robes, carried golden swords on his back, and had a body formed from so many precious materials that it was comparable to Universe treasures in strength.

“Time to expand my heartworld.” The golden-robed Ning took a single step forwards, then departed from the Three Realms and reappeared within the Great Dark just outside the Flamedragon Realmverse.

Although the Great Dark was quite distant from the Three Realms, the golden-robed Ning still released his godsense and kept it spread across the entire Flamedragon Realmverse. The Sithe danger was all-encompassing, and Ning didn’t want to let his guard down.

“Let it begin.” The golden-robed Ning began to expand its heartworld as well. Here in the Great Dark, he was able to draw upon a large amount of energy from an extremely wide region with impunity. Ning had already scanned this part of the Great Dark to ensure that there were no living creatures here.

“At this rate of absorption, it’ll take me roughly thirty billion years to finish expanding my heartworld.” The golden-robed Ning sat down within the endless Great Dark, beginning to slowly train as he absorbed power from within it.

……

Time flowed on like water. Over 120 chaos cycles went past in the blink of an eye.

“I’ve finally completed the Tenth Chaos Seal.” The white-robed Ning had a smile on his face as he turned to glance at the nearby white-haired elder: “Autarch Awakener would probably be ecstatic, were he still alive.”

“Master’s final wishes have finally been completed.” The white-haired elder was extremely excited.

“Let’s start.” Ning immediately began to use the perfect, complete technique on himself. The previous azureflower technique he had used was incomplete and flawed. Autarch Awakener had actually fixed those flaws in his private version, but had intentionally released a flawed version in order to separate the gold from the dross.

“Out with the old…” With but a thought, Ning sent his will descending deep into his sea of consciousness, where an azure flower was slowly swaying. When Ning’s will descended, the flower suddenly began to decay and break apart. A moment later, the azure flower had completely vanished within the sea of consciousness.

“…and in with the new.” Ning began to redeploy the true, complete, and perfect technique. It was now suitable for even Autarchs to use, although Ning wasn’t completely sure as to whether or not it could convert Autarch-level divine power and Immortal energy.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. The various chaos seals began to manifest within Ning’s sea of consciousness. Ten of them appeared in succession, and they began to interlay atop of each other, solidifying into an azure seed.

The azure seed popped open as a sprout emerged from it. The sprout began to grow, resulting in a series of dazzlingly beautiful leaves appearing, with a little closed bud appearing in their midst. The bud slowly grew larger and larger, and it looked as though it was opening up but not quite ready to fully bloom just yet. The beautiful azure flower emanated an aura of ineffable mystery, and it was many times more dazzling than the previous one. It gently swayed there in Ning’s mind, surrounded by countless green leaves.

This was the perfect azureflower technique which arose from the Ten Chaos Seals.

Strands of divine power, Immortal energy, and heartforce all flowed into the azure flower, which was able to easily take them in and then transform them into a new type of energy. As soon as this new type of energy was created, Ning felt extremely comfortable.

Whooosh. Under Ning’s control, this new type of energy quickly filled every inch of his body. Crack! Pop! Ning’s muscles, tendons, and blood began to change and transform.

This was a new form of energy, a perfect form of energy that vastly surpassed divine power and Immortal ki. As a result, it could be used to create a more perfect body as well! It could be used for close combat, could control magic treasures from afar, and was incredibly strong.

Ning’s physical body was quickly remade by this new form of energy. He withdrew his Immortal ki back into his Jindan chaos region, leaving only this new energy pulsing through his veins.

“This is the new type of energy which Autarch Awakener hoped for. I shall call it…” Ning paused for a moment, then smiled. “Mana.” He opened his eyes, his entire body feeling clean, refreshed, and comfortable as the mana flowed through him. This new power, mana, was a thousand times stronger than Emperor-class divine power or Immortal ki. When he used mana to execute his Eternal Omega Sword Dao, the power of his strikes would probably increase by another twenty to thirty percent.

The reason it ‘only’ increased by that amount was because at Ning’s level, the power of one’s attacks was chiefly determined by one’s insights into the Dao. Personal strength only played a fairly minor role. For ‘mana’ to improve an Autarch’s power by 30% was absolutely incredible!

“Mana… so it has finally been completed.” The white-haired elder was very excited. “Master was unable to perfect it, and so he never even came up with a real name for this new type of energy. Now, it has finally been completed.”

From this day forth, ‘mana’ was born. In the future, it would slowly be spread throughout the Chaosverse and supplant divine power and Immortal ki as the most important type of energy a cultivator could train in.

Completing the Ten Chaos Seals had been fairly easy. Now, Ning would need to go into deep meditation to work on his other Daos.

……

After 360 chaos cycles in secluded meditation, Ning fused the Dao of Light into his Sword Dao and created the Light Sword Dao.

After 430 chaos cycles in secluded meditation, Ning mastered the Dark Sword Dao.

After 3,200 chaos cycles in secluded meditation, Ning learned how to fuse his Dark Sword Dao together with his Light Sword Dao into a new technique he named the Cycle Sword Dao.

After 11,100 chaos cycles in secluded meditation, Ning fused the Dao of Formations into his Sword Dao and created the Sword Formation Dao.

Ning continued to fuse one Dao after another into his Dao of the Sword. Finally, after 3,900,000 chaos cycles, Ning successfully integrated his Dao of Karma into the Dao of the Sword and created the Karma Sword Dao. This took Ning the most time of all to complete.