Ch.7 - Reforging the foundation
No one in the ancient violet domain besides the half-earth lords was aware of what happened just now. All the people knew was a giant formation circle appeared above the hidden palace then a mysterious force well beyond their range of perception shattered it.
Meanwhile, Dalin was in a mysterious state. He was in between life and death right now, he was everything yet nothing at the same time… This state continued for what Dalin thought was years, but it was actually only a few seconds. Dalin didn't get much out of it but when he woke up again he found his heart was much different.
It seemed to be ethereal yet material at the same time.
Dalin was shocked by this change.
Furthermore, his energy was much more condensed now, yet he hadn't broken through to the silver rank or anything at all.
This shocked Dalin.
'Have my overall limits been increased? Is that it?' Dalin couldn't help but come to that conclusion seeing this.
It should be noted that Dalin's limits were already extraordinarily high in this world, he just didn't try to truly reach them as he didn't have the time. Dalin nodded in approval.
Dalin also felt a link to some force hidden deep within himself that was also present throughout the entire multiverse.
Dalin took a deep breath and carefully tapped into a small strand of this force.
He wasn't stupid, he knew that this force was definitely not ordinary. So he didn't rashly try to utilize more than a strand.
Suddenly Dalin felt like he was one with everything in the nation!
Everyone in the Ancient Tian Empire suddenly felt a wave of dizziness momentarily and felt as if they were being watched, as if they were stark naked and had no secrets before whatever this force was. Everyone froze… None dared to move out of fear this was a supreme expert, not even the several half heroes in the empire.
However a moment later this force disappeared, and Dalin was panting. Just maintaining that force for 3 seconds drained all of his internal energy and he even overdrew it! Thus, Dalin had now lost 3 months of lifespan.
Dalin was stunned, he finally knew what that force was now!
It's Empyrean Quintessence!
Dalin shook his head, for now, he needed to recover his internal energy. He also intended to use the mortal gale fruit, however instead of rashly using it to charge into the warrior or even the champion realm, he wanted to use it to completely rebuild his foundation. Before he rashly cultivated to the bronze rank in an attempt to get the strength to defend himself and didn't try to meet his limits with each rank, he intended to fix that using the mortal gale fruit and reach his limits with every possible rank.
With that Dalin brought out the mortal gale fruit. He hesitated before cutting it in half and then the halves into 2 more halves before eating one on the 4 pieces. He put the rest in a small polished wooden box, this box was made out of black jade wood and was in the storage ring that Animus gave him.
It's lined with a formation to preserve any natural treasure such as fruits, herbs, etc, inside for up to 1000 years. So long as the energy in said treasure doesn't surpass the divine order, the treasure will be perfectly preserved for 1000 years. it can preserve saint order treasures for 350 years, immortal order treasures for 75 years, astral order treasures for 10 years, and stellar order treasures for a single year.
Dalin put the other 3 pieces of the mortal gale fruit in the small box, he had several hundred just like it courtesy of Animus.
The reason he did this is that right now, it would be a waste to use the other 3 pieces since the energy would dissipate before he could even do so. So he intended to use one at a time. Before he started though, the gate to yin yang empyrean heaven suddenly left Dalin's body, and a small arch-shaped double door appeared. The door opened and Dalin vaguely felt that time sped up even further.
This was when he heard the phoenix queen's voice in his head via mental communication.
[Heavens Will is helping you by speeding up time even further. So don't worry about time, just focus on cultivating. As it stands an entire month can pass and only a second will pass.]
Dalin smiled, now he truly didn't need to worry.
He didn't hesitate to tell the Empyrean Flame to sap his cultivation completely, it would be a waste to truly discard it especially since he had already used the 10 rebirths of the rebirth technique already.
The Empyrean Flame did as he said and sapped his cultivation and broke it back down to pure spiritual energy for him to use. Furthermore, his strength, empyrean core, etc, were all reset to nothing. This is something only those at the rebirth realm of the heavenly order get to go through, a chance to rebuild their foundation, but because Dalin had the Empyrean Flame, he could do it any time anywhere.
Dalin began rebuilding his foundation, his swords of bronze flames shattered into motes and shards of light, a moment later those motes and shards of light stopped drifting away and were reformed into a single sword made from white flames. This time it was much larger than previously! In fact, it was 3 times as tall as Dalin when he stands up. It should be noted Dalin was about 198 cm tall, 6 foot 6 in imperial units. (A/N: If that's inconsistent, it's the official height now.)
The ceiling is 635 cm high so the blade almost touched the ceiling!
This was something Dalin did intentionally because this is the true form of the Empyrean Flame Blade cultivation technique. The previous technique was a scaled-down version.
The blade was extremely imposing, in fact as Dalin constructed it he managed to gain a small insight into the sword. Because the empyrean flame blade cultivation technique uses blades it has a relationship to the dao of the sword and can increase one's attainments in it slowly.
With that, Dalin took a deep breath and began condensing the energy from his previous cultivation base severely. White gas reappeared in his empyrean core, this time it glowed brightly. Dalin wanted to condense that white gas to its limits without it becoming violet mist.
Actual cultivation does 2 things, it increases the density of your energy and it expands the capacity of your energy. However it doesn't really increase the actual quality of your internal energy, this is something that is done via a cultivation technique. For someone to advance from the white rank to the violet rank 2 conditions must be met, their energy must be condensed enough, and their energy must be of a high enough quality.
Dalin's energy was teetering on the edge of being enough to break through to the violet rank, and his energy was already high enough quality.
However, Dalin forcefully stopped his energy from fusing into violet mist and making a breakthrough into the violet rank.
He wanted the quality of his energy to reach its limits before breaking through to the violet rank.
So he madly absorbed energy from the earth crystal while also receiving the broken down energy of his previous cultivation base and began fully condensing the sword of white flames.
Previously the white flames were extremely pale, calm, and almost translucent. However now they were beginning to become bright, violent, and opaque!
The Empyrean Flame knew what Dalin's intentions were so it helped him restrain his energy and prevented it from fusing into a violet mist.
4 hours passed, and in the end, Dalin managed to fully complete the 1st sword and formed the 2nd sword to a barely stable level.
An entire day passed before he made the 3rd sword to 15% completion which is the barely stable level.
Like this 4 days passed for Dalin while less than a second passed outside.
In the end, he managed to create 18 flaming swords! This was his limit for the white rank, no matter how much he tried he couldn't create a 19th stable sword.
So Dalin decided it was time to break through to the violet rank!
Previously, although Dalin's strength surpassed the bronze rank as a bronze rank himself, his foundation wasn't stable since he rushed. It could be said although his strength surpassed the bronze rank any silver rank that was actually worth their salt would be able to defeat Dalin with enough effort.
The Phoenix Empress had long noticed this but she figured Dalin was in a bind and he would fix it later, sure enough, he was fixing it now.
Dalin decided to try and condense more energy in the 18 swords before breaking through.
Sure enough, he managed to increase the purity of energy by 3%, and with that, he finally began fusing them. A deep rumbling filled the underground chamber, and the 18 swords struggled to move but Dalin refused to give up. An hour passed during which incessant rumbling filled the chamber and even the ground trembled.
Finally… The swords all converged! A bright light flashed and a sword of calm, pale, translucent, but majestic violet flames was standing imposingly in front of him.
*BOOM!* A titanic explosion was heard in Dalin's body as he coughed up blood.
The Empyrean Flame had suddenly stopped restraining his energy causing it to forcefully condense. This rocked Dalin's internals injuring him.
Once it fused into violet mist, the empyrean flame stopped it from condensing into a clear liquid characteristic of a quasi-bronze rank, even though it desperately wanted to.
The density of the violet mist in Dalin's core was truly thick. If Dalin were to pull a strand out of his core and put it into the world and give it to a mortal, that mortal could instantly become an ordinary quasi bronze rank or even an ordinary apprentice bronze rank if their innate talent was decent.
Dalin exhaled a mouthful of foul air. These were the impurities from the energy in the air that he expelled.
Although Dalin wanted to solely absorb from the earth's crystal, he still subconsciously absorbed some of the energy in the air.
Luckily the Empyrean Flame helped him catch these impurities and even taught him how to deal with them himself.
Dalin breathed a sigh of relief, he began absorbing energy from the earth crystal, he was about to channel it through his body to repair it but suddenly Dalin felt the energy pulled towards the Empyrean Flame.
Dalin didn't hesitate to let the Empyrean Flame control it, he knew that right now it was actually in an extremely weak state, it was nothing but a few embers. Although those embers are capable of turning into true flames for periods of time, it couldn't do so for long periods of time without assistance.
Since it wanted to absorb energy, Dalin let it.
Soon enough it began puffing out new strands of energy, this was Empyrean Ember Energy!
It was a byproduct of it absorbing any kind of energy in its current state. To it, that energy was useless, but to Dalin, it was currently priceless!
It instantly healed his internal injuries and was also used to so make the violet flame sword slightly more complete, if before it was 10% complete, now it was 15% complete!
White flame swords require 15% completion to be stable, but violet flame swords due to being made of condensed and superior energy only require 10% energy.
With that Dalin got back to cultivating, while the empyrean flame suppressed his energy, but just as he was about to finish making a stable 2nd violet sword, the Empyrean Flame's control slipped and Dalin coughed up blood.
"What was that for?" Dalin couldn't help but be slightly irritated. Now the 2nd sword had entirely dissipated.
The Phoenix Empress exited the gate to Yin Yang Empyrean Heaven and looked at Dalin.
"It's naturally because it's currently weak right now. It can't restrain your energy while it's also slowly increasing for long periods of time. The Empyrean Flame is nothing but a few embers right now, so it's extremely weak compared to its peak state. So you need to do one of 3 things. The first option is to stop cultivating and let the Empyrean Embers get used to your current energy for a bit.
"The 2nd option is to actually cultivate the Empyrean Embers allowing it to recover a bit so it can continue to suppress your energy, preferably to the point its at least a candle flame. Or the 3rd option, learn to control your energy better and stop making the Empyrean Ember do all the work of preventing your breakthrough."
Dalin thought for a moment "I'll go with the 2nd option before moving to the third option. I can't rely entirely on the Empyrean Flame."
She nodded. A technique appeared in Dalin's head and he began circulating energy in the air and in the earth crystal and let the Empyrean Flame absorb it.
Slowly the dim embers in Dalin's body lit up. An entire day passed before they merged and formed an extremely small flame.
However, this exhausted an entire 1% of the earth crystals' energy! That may not seem like a lot but considering it was enough for a mortal to cultivate to the pinnacle paragon realm with some energy to spare, that was actually a lot!
Dalin noticed though that he could vaguely feel a connection with all flames now. Even the flames that burn inside the phoenix empress.
He stared at her and imagined a small strand of those flames coming to him. Sure enough, a pained expression covered her face a moment later as a strand of her flames was ripped from her.
"I… I didn't know it would harm you…" Dalin apologized worriedly. Although Dalin was cold, that was only to enemies. He genuinely considered the phoenix empress at the very least as a close acquaintance, but now he had harmed her just to test something… he felt bad about it.
She smiled bitterly shaking her head.
"It's fine… it's an honor to be used as the first test subject of the Flame Empyrean's absolute control of flames." She replied with a pained smile.
Dalin frowned he suddenly remembered someone who looked a little like her back on earth. "Your not a test subject." he stated irrefutably.
She smiled gently seeing he genuinely meant it.
Dalin noticed something "You're using a clone?"
She nodded "My true body is a pinnacle half earth lord, if I were to leave heavens gate with it, the Heaven Dao of this world would force me to ascend to the middle or top layers. Those from the top layer can descend to the middle layer with their true bodies but they can't descend to the lower layer."
Dalin nodded.
"Can I ask something?"
She nodded.
...
A/N: Hello everyone! Day 6 now, hope everyone is doing well! Hope yall are willing to give me some power stones so we can up this book's ranking since rankings will be unlocked after this chap is published. Also thank you everyone for the 2.7 thousand views, and the 33 collections so far! Keep those collections coming please, it means a lot to me and helps support the book. Also, I would love it if I could get a few reviews before chapter 10, I would love some genuine feedback from all of you. Also, as usual, if you have any comments feel free to send them my way!