The two choices weren't mutually exclusive, after all.
"However, it seems like most people think of this as a pointless waste of time."
Tianming wanted to challenge his limits. That way, not only would he have a second option to make his progress easier, but he wouldn't have to give up on reaching peak power either. And the source of his confidence came from his Aeonic Grandbane. While most people would think that taking both paths would make it slower than the path of focusing on a single will, Tianming believed it would make him more stable and his progress quicker.
"With what I have, I don't have to be conservative about my choices." At the very least, he had long decided on what to cultivate as his second heavenly will. He had been simmering over it for a long time. In fact, it existed within the divine will of the Grand-Orient Sword and had something to do with his Aeonic Grandbane, the Li Saint Clan, changing his fate, and the Prime Tower. Tianming called it Lifesbane Will.
Unlike the path to sovereignhood of Imperial Will, Lifesbane Will didn't focus on the accumulation of good karma, nor did it rely on rulership. Instead, it was a path of defying his life's fate and changing it, never relenting in the face of heaven and earth. If the Grand-Orient Sword represented Imperial Will, the Prime Tower represented Lifesbane Will.
Thanks to his Aeonic Grandbane's Trisoul Prime, he had gained the courage to challenge all conventions. The seed of that heavenly will had been sown back in the Grand-Orient Realm when he fought with Li Wudi to earn new dignity for the Li Saint Clan. Back when he was fighting Yuwen Shendu to the death, he survived to join the Realm War and took the Grand-Orient Sword from Yueling Long. Then he went on to the Divine Capital and the Nine Divine Realms, becoming the emperor of the whole continent along the way.
Even so, this alternate path had never vanished from within him. One was the path of the emperor that ruled over all, while the other was the path of breaking his own fate and superseding his very being. With Lifesbane Will budding and vaguely manifesting in his astral discs, it was only a matter of time before destiny compelled him to develop it. But unlike most people, he didn't give up on Imperial Will in the process.
He began his completely new heavenly will cultivation at the Violetglory Pagoda.
"In actuality, cultivation is a path of conflict and overcoming obstacles. Cultivators fight to transcend the laws as much as they do strong enemies, all to change their fates of being weaklings to get dignity and a right to speak. As such, Imperial Will rules over all heavenly wills, while Lifesbane Will can identify all the rebellious aspects across all heavenly and divine wills. I wonder how each and every ancestor whose caelum is stored in Violetglory Pagoda has defied and rebelled against their own fate?"
Domination and rebellion were opposites, but were also sides of the same coin! "Only by fusing both together can one achieve godhood!"
Based on its name alone, it wouldn't be easy to tell that those two wills were complete opposites, but Lifesbane Will would be able to adequately counteract Imperial Will. Much like how Tianming always had the Grand-Orient Sword and Prime Tower with him, Lifesbane Will had always existed within Imperial Will, until today, when it separated into its own will.
When Tianming chose to embark on this path, a vague illusion of the Prime Tower manifested within his albi, separating from the divine will in the shape of the Grand-Orient Sword. Comparatively, the tower was much smaller, so small that it wasn't capable of properly countering it yet. In the future, however, it would grow and be able to control astralforce alongside Imperial Will and be the trigger Tianming needed for breakthroughs.
"Growing Lifesbane Will will be much faster than cultivating only Imperial Will." He was confident about this path. After all, every caelum in the Violetglory Pagoda contained the experiences of those forebears rebelling against their own fates. Tianming would be able to find the answers he needed from their tales.
"This is a most important time for me. I have to walk both paths, so let's begin!" To rebel against his fate and change it, protecting the last legacy of the sky plunderers who were eliminated, Tianming forged forward. "The divine wondersky race filled the void left by the sky plunderers, who were exterminated because my father stole the Primordial Chaos Beasts. I wonder if the pursuers have something to do with the divine wondersky race then?"
He didn't dare to think about it too much. Instead, he felt it would be better for him to slowly follow in his father's footsteps and let the truth unravel by itself. After all, there was nothing he could really do about it now. However, he had taken the first step on the path of rebellion with the aid of Caelum Prime.
……
One could take around thirty thousand breaths in a day. Tianming rapidly used his Caelum Prime's bane text to scan through more than thirty thousand caeli in that span of time, looking for instances where they rebelled. Each and every one of their divine wills contained insights about those tales.
"At the end of the day, cultivation itself is an act of rebellion against the heavens and earth." With that understanding in mind, he incorporated their stories much more easily. They were more relatable than stories of rulership and domination, which made them easier to resonate with. He resonated with the caeli of all those seniors of Violetglory Star and absorbed much of their insights into his caelum, which was in turn transferred to his real body thanks to the connection through the heavenly locus formation.
If he took in thirty thousand caeli a day, he would grow from a small seedling to a magnificent tree in a matter of days. Comparatively, Huiyue City's divine moon hall only had a total of a million caeli.
Violetglory Star had a far vaster selection to choose from. Not to mention, the quality of the caeli was much better than the divine moonrace's. Every day after his cultivation, he would have to defeat one opponent. The ones who came to challenge for his place on the first level were basically weaker than seventh-level ascendants. So as long as he had decent enough luck, he would be able to defeat basically all of them.
Thus, he managed to stay in the pagoda for days. Long Qingyun included, he had defeated nine opponents so far and stayed in for nine straight days, scanning through more than two hundred and seventy thousand caeli in total. Then the tenth opponent came on the tenth day.
……
Within the spherical formation was another person. Tianming was the one who entered later this time around and the opponent had already picked a locale for battle. He saw countless small hills where fauna flourished. There were countless towering trees stretching into the sky.
