【You granted your disciples Paris and Lei Ming the Purple Jade Mystic Thunder Crystal, earning a hundredfold return. You have obtained 2 cubic meters of Lightning Source Crystal...】
It's actually Lightning Source Crystal?
Lu Qingshan drew a deep breath and stared in disbelief at a stele-like crystal that had appeared before him.
This stuff—can it really get this big?
This was not the first time Lu Qingshan had received a Lightning Source Crystal as a return. The last time, he had obtained only a small piece, and after fusing it into himself, his talent for the Lightning Origin Law had received a hundredfold boost.
From then on, he had gone from mediocre aptitude to a genius at cultivating the Lightning Origin Law.
But this time, his cheat had brought him such a huge chunk.
"Is the System telling me I have to become a cultivation genius of the Lightning Law?"
Lu Qingshan already knew how to use it, and without further hesitation he cut off a piece and carefully fused it into his body.
A moment later, Lu Qingshan could feel that the Lightning Origin Law surrounding him had grown clearer.
Let me put it this way.
At the very start, he could not see or touch it at all—like a blind man groping at an elephant, grasping only that tiny bit. After he obtained the Lightning Source Crystal last time and his body was fully remade, it was as though his eyes had become those of a man five hundred degrees nearsighted: he could make things out only vaguely, and could sense them. That alone marked him as an exceptionally gifted being.
And now... as the Lightning Source Crystal fused into his body once more, his sight gradually sharpened. Perhaps if he fused this entire stele into his body, he could see it clearly and distinctly.
Only then would his affinity for the Lightning Origin Law reach its peak, and he would truly become the favorite of the Lightning Origin Law...
"That I've achieved such heights—it's all thanks to my own hard work!"
Gazing at the Lightning Origin Law, now clearly visible atop Wind Thunder Mountain, Lu Qingshan marveled inwardly.
Next came the return from Ling Yu's side.
【You granted your disciple Ling Yu the flawed Dragon Soul Jade, earning a thousandfold return. You have obtained the Undying Soul-Soothing Grass...】
The Undying Soul-Soothing Grass!
Could this thing be a treasure used by the Undying?
Lu Qingshan immediately had Nesethes look it up. After becoming a Special-Class Instructor of the Qianwu Secret Realm, his access privileges had risen considerably once more, and information about the Undying Deity stage that he previously could not find could now be searched.
This Undying Soul-Soothing Grass was among them!
This thing...
Lu Qingshan read the description.
"So after reaching the Undying, the soul completely transforms, merging into every strand of divine power in the body. It is no longer a pure soul form..."
"No wonder every top human genius is sent to Primal Chaos City once—because only before reaching the Undying does the soul manifest outward. Only then can the City Master of Primal Chaos City clearly judge whether it is a human soul, or whether the body has been seized by a foreign race."
"Once past the Undying, the soul merges into every tiny strand of divine power in the divine body, and even the City Master of Primal Chaos City cannot tell whether one is human or a foreign race! In that situation, even if one went to the Primal Universe, they would be kept under close watch!"
Having understood the form of the Undying soul, Lu Qingshan naturally grasped the purpose of this Undying Soul-Soothing Grass.
The Undying Soul-Soothing Grass was not a natural treasure meant for Undying Deities to use, but a treasure that could greatly boost the final leap and transformation of a peak World Master's soul. That was one of the barriers to the Undying—apart from a complete Lower Law and hundredfold power exertion, the complete transformation of the soul was one of them as well!
Reaching the Undying really is hard!
Even completely mastering a single Lower Origin Law was not enough. Only by being in the thick of it could Lu Qingshan truly understand the gap between reality and his memories.
True. When Luo Feng was at the World Master stage, his will was already at the level of an Undying Venerable, and his soul had long since fully transformed. Soul and willpower were never the protagonist's bottleneck—the sturdy original core was.
So when Luo Feng broke through to the Undying, the hardest thing was shattering the Golden Horned Beast's absurdly sturdy original core. All the descriptions, all the creation of secret methods, revolved around this.
But to an ordinary human, the Life Core? What is that thing—is it really that sturdy?
The trial that was hardest for Luo Feng was, for ordinary World Masters, actually the simplest; conversely, what posed no bottleneck at all for Luo Feng—power exertion and soul willpower—was the hardest trial for ordinary World Masters.
"With this Undying Soul-Soothing Grass, I can count as having half a foot already into the Undying stage. The road ahead is bright."
Lu Qingshan carefully put the Undying Soul-Soothing Grass away in his inner world for safekeeping.
Now, to him, the Undying was no longer a distant, unreachable dream.
First requirement: the Lightning Origin Law! For his former self, it had been no trouble at all—he had only needed to put in the time and he would eventually comprehend it fully. Now, having obtained such a huge chunk of Lightning Source Crystal, with his affinity and potential both greatly boosted, it was even less of an issue.
Second: physical power exertion! He was already at 94-fold power exertion, and his Thunderbolt Ten Transformations had reached its final layer. He only needed to finish cultivating Thunderbolt Ten Transformations, and he would hit the hundredfold power exertion mark exactly.
Thunderbolt Ten Transformations was in tune with the Lightning Origin Law, so cultivating it had always been twice the result for half the effort.
Third: soul transformation. Lu Qingshan was not, after all, of Earth human bloodline, so his soul and willpower were an issue. But with this Undying Soul-Soothing Grass, plus the ceaseless cultivation of the Thousand-Thread Soul Refinement within Analysis of the Soul, and endless cycles through the illusion realm... the possibility of a complete soul transformation before reaching the Undying had risen greatly.
Last was the original core. His human true self was not the Ghost King avatar; unlike Luo Feng, his Life Core was not sturdy, and with his ability, splitting it open would be easy... It was just that the Ghost King's original core was a bit of a problem. Still, for one who dissected the Time Origin Law, creating secret methods in the future would be even simpler, so that shouldn't be a problem either.
In sum.
Lu Qingshan had already, truly and solidly, stepped one foot through the great gate of the Undying.
...
Just as Lu Qingshan was still slowly fusing the Lightning Source Crystal to raise his bloodline grade and lightning affinity,
the preliminaries of the Qianwu Universe's "Peak Genius Battle" had already begun.
Lu Qingshan received word from his two disciples and from Ling Yu.
Lei Ming was in World District 88.
Paris was in World District 71.
Ling Yu was in World District 12.
The World Districts were essentially arranged at random—and "essentially" is the key word, because this was the Qianwu Universe Kingdom's preliminaries. They certainly would not place another secret-realm genius who had comprehended an origin law in the same district as Ling Yu.
Of course, for 99.999% of the geniuses, the preliminaries were no different from being completely random.
In the Virtual Universe.
Many people had already entered ahead of time.
Row upon row of spacious seats held Special-Class Instructors seated one after another—White Eyebrow World Master, Yang, Blood Eye World Master... basically all the instructors Lu Qingshan knew were among them.
Of course, there were also many, many more that Lu Qingshan did not know!
These were all World Master instructors; the Undying Deities were not seated together with them.
"Qingshan, over here..."
Yang stood and picked up the hat resting on the chair beside him. He had arrived first and had saved a seat for Lu Qingshan.
Lu Qingshan smiled and nodded in greeting to the other instructors, then walked over and sat down beside Yang.
Chapter 84