Read Novel Full Chapter 1924: The Price
Chapter 1924: The Price
Central Area, Dao Blessed World, Central Continent, Emperor Dao Holy Land:
The Emperor Dao Holy Land had a strange architecture. As the most powerful entity of the Dao Blessed World, it occupied the best cultivation area: the Saint Rising Mountain Range. Purple mist covered the entire mountain range because of how intense the spiritual energy concentration was; The Dao Rhymes present were so potent that they could be seen from every corner of the Central Continent. But despite all that, what the holy land is most famous for is the seven towers that were taller than the mountains and even reached the clouds.
As soon as Wu Hong successfully condensed her Dao Sea, the head of the Destiny Peak suddenly opened her empty eye socket. Class in all black, Empress All Seeing glanced at the sky and muttered, "The revival of the Emperor Path? Am I seeing things?" Without missing a moment, she immediately cast a divination.
Spew!
Empress All Seeing stumbled backward as blood began to trickle down her face. Her aura became turbulent, but her long black hair and youthful expression remained the same. However, the emptiness or darkness deep inside her eye socket became more profound.
"Someone, come."
"Peak master, do you need…Peak Master!" A young woman dressed in all white rushed over to Empress All Seeing and immediately fed her a few pills.
"Don't worry about me. Hurry, summon the other Peak Masters and Elders. The future of the Emperor Path is still bright: there is still hope."
The young maiden was shocked. As the person responsible for the All-Seeing Empress's health, she knew perfectly well how significant these words were. So, she rushed over to call a meeting despite knowing her priorities should be to help her Peak Master.
Source Qi Space, Symbol Array Master's inheritance:
"It really feels like a piece of myself that was missing for years, and now, I have finally retrieved it," Wu Hong muttered as she sensed the power coursing through her veins. "Alright, let's heal the previous injuries first to prevent any lasting damage to my foundation."
Wu Hong sat cross-legged and immediately began using healing techniques. "Hmm, what's going on?" she suddenly thought. The healing process had suddenly become three times faster than normal; her first instinct was that something was wrong until she realized it was because of the nourishing effect of the Dao Sea.
"This is just a passive effect. How good will it be if I modify my healing techniques to include my Dao energy?" The perfect harmony between her Dao energy and her Grand Dao Source made the process relatively easy, allowing Wu Hong to test out her theory immediately.
"A fivefold increase," she thought. "And that's before I push the technique to its limit." Such a drastic improvement immediately excited her, so Wu Hong tried her other techniques. However, the result was somewhat disappointing. Stat Enhancing only received a double boost, but attack techniques only increased by 30 – 70%.
"The benefit of the Dao Sea might primarily be support — especially in healing and recovering." Wu Hong immediately tested this theory, and she was correct. With the Dao Sea, the stamina of the B-Class Primal and above has drastically improved; A-Class Primals don't have to worry about draining their soul strength after only using a few 6-Construct Ultimate Skills. Although the effect was not as perfect as the Saint Foundations, it's still a massive improvement for Primals of that class; the increased stamina will buy A-Class Primals more time to defeat S-Class and above Primals.
Wu Hong continued testing her new transformation: how does the Dao Sea affect the Dao Will? What about True Will Manifestation? What impacts does it have on the True Power Dao Path? How well can it be used with the Grand Constructs? It worked well with the Source Qi Space and the Grand Dao Source, but what about the others? And is there a difference between artificial and true Grand Constructs? The empress wanted to know the answers to all these questions. And above everything else, she wanted to know the downside.
One of the constants of the universe is the Law of Balance — nothing can escape this truth, not even Saints. The harmony of the Dao Sea and Dao Body has drastically improved many aspects, but there will definitely be a price. At first, Wu Hong thought the downside would be the transformation itself; maybe not every cultivator would be able to utilize this new Emperor Path.
However, after a few tests, she realized the process itself can be simplified. The system she built was complex, but it can be simplified. The Dao Sea does not have to be as vast as hers, nor does Dao energy need to be purified to the extreme. After simplifying the process to the extreme, she realized that even the lowest Third-Class Emperor could do it with a bit of effort to raise their Grand Dao Source manipulation.
The truth eluded her, so Wu Hong continued. A few more tests later, she had her answer: the price was revival resources. According to her calculation, with the Dao Sea, on average, an Emperor will require 12 times more resources to revive themselves from death.
"That number seems a bit exaggerated," Wu Hong frowned. At the same time, it was true that the Dao Sea improved many aspects of an Emperor, which meant that theoretically, they would now become even more dangerous and damaging to the environment; that was not the complete truth. One thing Wu Hong discovered was that she was now in a harmonious relationship with Heaven and Earth, resulting in an increased affinity with all the energies and laws in her surroundings. In a sense, her talent had improved.
However, this improvement or harmony was not one-sided. Her Dao Body, soul, and even Grand Dao Source were also passively nurturing the surrounding Qi and laws. Emperors already had this ability, which is why their residences are always full of Dao Rhymes and used as a cultivation holy land. However, this ability has now been enhanced.
"Now, Emperors can passively help Heaven and Earth just by breathing, which should have accounted for the resource revival. I'm starting to feel this was done on purpose," Wu Hong thought. The Balance Mechanism was a nightmare for powerful Emperors who broke the system in the lower dimension. After so many years, Wu Hong sensed its annoying presence once again.
"But why would Grand Dao want to improve the Emperor Path but also severely punish them? What am I missing?"
Wu Hong thought about possible answers, and the only one that came to mind was a conversation she had with Wang Wei in which they concluded a possibility: the Transcendent Age might not be as sweet as so many people think. "Let's hope I'm wrong," Wu Hong thought, shaking her head.
New strength means a new period of adaptation. And this time around, Wu Hong didn't just use the Dream Battle Technique. Instead, she used an Avatar she granted the same strength as her own; they battled it out for years, upgrading their techniques and skill arsenals while also finding each other's flaws.
Once she had mastered her strength — well, mastered might not be the right word; once she had controlled her strength — Wu Hong then proceeded to her next cultivation plan: the Quasi-Saint Stage. As prideful as she was, the empress would not accept the Emperor Path being weaker than anyone else. Although this timeline had something called the Origin Realm Crystal — an artificial Genesis Qi Realm condensed into a crystal that Paragons fused with their Dao Weapons to compete with the Quasi-Saints of the Qi Path — Wu Hong was not satisfied with using foreign means.
Unlike before, Wu Hong needed to be extra cautious. The Dao Sea is ultimately a Tier 10 concept, and as a Tier 12 being, Wu Hong had many advantages when she tried to add to the Dao Body; the entire process could be summarized as a Tier 12 entity trying to fuse two opposite but complementary Tier 10 concepts.
However, for the next step, Wu Hong wanted to transform the Dao Sea into something of the same level as a perfected Genesis Qi Realm. Now, she was dealing with Tier 12.5 concepts, which necessitated a higher level of caution since failures or backlash could not only severely injure her but possibly worse.
"It would have been better if I had more information," Wu Hong thought. She was willing to bet all her savings that the Emperor Dao Holy Land had explored similar experiments. And if she could have her hands on their data, the chances of success would be higher. Unfortunately, she could not risk being entangled with these people given her identity as a foreigner.
So, for this experiment, Wu Hong chose a slightly different approach. Like before, she still created new pill formulas to help with the backlash. But unlike before, she did not try the experiments herself. Instead, she used an Avatar.
"Are you ready?" Wu Hong asked.
"Let's do it," the avatar nodded.