He had the godhood, but couldn’t assimilate it at the moment. In other words, it wasn’t going to help his fighting prowess at all. For now, the best way to get stronger was to go to the Joyflower Palace’s treasure storehouse and continue taking the god formations. Of course, the more he acquired, the more knowledge-devils he would have to conquer.
With a wave of his finger, he locked down the godhood in the depths of the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart. At the same time, he created an incarnation beneath the godhood and affixed the God Legion Seal to it, which constantly sent out a burning light.
Given the level of his cultivation base, it was now possible for him to make millions upon millions of incarnations if he wanted to. Furthermore, his command of the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth was such that he could actually remove the God Legion Seal from his forehead if he wished.
A moment later, he was in the storehouse, once again preparing to loot god formations.
The storehouse was still filled with countless dazzling treasures, with a small portion of them being virtual versions that he had placed there after having taken the originals. Most of them would last for several thousand years before it became obvious that they were mere illusions. However, by that point, his cultivation base would be so vastly superior to what it was now that it wouldn’t matter. Most likely, he would already have destroyed the Joyflower Palace by that time.
He wasn’t literally clearing out the entire storehouse, but rather taking what he could use and leaving behind the lesser items. The first reason was that the storehouse was so large that it would take too much time to remove everything. The second was for safety’s sake. Eventually, people would come to the storehouse to take items out, and if they took one of the virtual items, the game would be up. Therefore, Yang Qi only took the most valuable and important items, things that wouldn’t normally be given out blithely, and would generally remain in storage for long periods of time.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
Arriving at the god formations, he waved his sleeve, causing one formation after another to fly toward him, and replacing them with virtual versions. Thanks to his fight with Eunuch Sunflower and Zilin, and the other things he had experienced in the Exquisite Desert, his cultivation base had improved.
And that made it even easier for him to go about his work with the formations without anyone noticing.
His speed began increasing, until he was taking tens of thousands of god formations at the same time.
RIP!
All of a sudden, an enormous and incredibly powerful formation appeared in front of him, its perimeter filled with vajra scepters that radiated the most pure and intense power imaginable.
In the middle of the vajra formation was a projection of an enormous lokapāla, burly and broad-shouldered. Upon realizing that the formation was being approached, the lokapāla opened his eyes and lunged forward aggressively. [1]
‘Such strength!’ Yang Qi thought. ‘So this god formation comes from a buddhist school. What’s it doing here?’ He quickly threw his hands out to activate the strength god systems, then launched a palm strike that sent the lokapāla staggering back several paces. Obviously, the lokapāla was completely stunned by this. However, his astonishment quickly turned into rage and he attacked with even more mad ferocity than before.
As for Yang Qi, he decided to vanquish might with even greater might. In a short breath of time, he unleashed thousands upon thousands of moves, battering the lokapāla this way and that.
Crack!
His final palm strike hit the lokapāla so hard that he fell down on the ground. But then, the lokapāla burst into flames that took the form of a single character. Strength.
It wasn’t written in god script, but rather the writing of the ancient buddhist schools, an indication of how much the buddhists valued and recognized strength.
Meanwhile, the formation of vajra scepters shone with brilliant golden light that also turned into the character for strength and slowly flowed into Yang Qi’s palm.
Looking down, he saw that he held strength right in his hand. At the same time, the cultivation method for a boundless palm technique from a buddhist school filled his mind. The Lokapāla God Fist.
‘This is an incredible formation, filled with power. It seems like it’s on par with a Grand Emperor whose power index surpasses a hundred. That said, I don’t really have a use for it. I can benefit from some of its power structure, but as for the technique itself, I’ll just give it to father.’ With a thought, he sent the vajra scepter formation down into the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart to Yang Zhan. Instantly, the character for strength appeared on Yang Zhan’s palm and he began shining with golden light.
RUMBLE!
Yang Zhan unleashed a palm strike as a test, and it caused projections of powerful lokapālas to sweep forth, powerful enough to destroy immortal worlds.
The eye of the spell formation was formed by the buddhist character for strength, and although it was impossible to tell exactly which god from which buddhist school had penned it, one thing was clear: gaining enlightenment of it would give one a deep understanding into the essence of strength. For example, after just making initial contact, Yang Qi realized how it conformed to the strength god systems, and how it could push his Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth to incredible heights. [2]
With a new understanding of the strength god systems, he was able to extrude more impurities. As a result, even though his power index was still only at two hundred eighty, he was even stronger than before.
With that, Yang Qi continued with his work, taking more and more god formations. Some of them were focused on poisons, filled with toxic energy that could render Grand Emperors unconscious. Others provided medicinal benefits, and some even improved one’s intelligence. There were even some that created dream-like illusions. Thankfully, after having to deal with the Magnificent Dream Heart-Sutra, Yang Qi had nothing to fear from such effects.
His speed increased, as did his enlightenment regarding the dao of spell formations. From what he could tell, if he really did get enlightenment from the entire collection of a billion spell formations, he wouldn’t necessarily increase his power index but his will convergence would become incredible.
After about two hours had gone by, Yang Qi had taken several hundreds of thousands of spell formations. His speed was already far beyond what it had been in the past.
And the replacements he put in their place were so realistic they almost weren’t even virtual.
‘I’m getting such incredible enlightenment that by the time this is over I’ll be a king of formations!’ Smiling, he continued with his work. Soon, the formations were stronger than ever, and were becoming even more difficult to break down and take. Eventually, he had to sit there cross-legged to go about the work, dealing with the knowledge-devils at the same time.
For now, he didn’t need to pay attention at all to any external matters; his power double was still a god general in the prison on the planet of flowers.
Days began passing. Eventually, three months had gone by.
During that time, Yang Qi broke down and took about ten million formations. In other words, he had only acquired about one percent of the total one billion. And unfortunately, his speed eventually declined as the spell formations grew more powerful. Each formation was something from the legion of gods, filled with profound and deadly killing intent. Given his own wisdom and strength, it was exhausting to deal with them, and required significant time.
Because Yang Qi no longer had the God Legion Seal weighing down on his sea of consciousness, he felt freer and stronger. He was filled with a holy light, without even a scrap of darkness or gloom. In fact, his nascent divinity was becoming like a new God Legion Seal, sending golden radiance out in all directions.
It was almost as if his will could create a second God Legion Seal for himself. Of course, the original God Legion Seal wasn’t his, but rather came from the boundless Sovereign Lord. The fact that he had acquired it was a huge opportunity, but unfortunately, he lacked control regarding that opportunity. Therefore, if he could turn his own nascent divinity into something as mighty as the God Legion Seal, he could break through the fetters that were prescribed by heaven and earth. He could make his own opportunities and nothing would be able to hold him back.
It was an incredible level to have reached, and a very unique way to approach cultivation.
No one could ever have predicted that Yang Qi would use the God Legion Seal like a blueprint with which to mold his own nascent divinity.
Before, he would never have been able to do this.
But now that he was taking so many god formations, he was getting information that had once belonged only to the legion of gods. He had experiences that contained the will of the gods, and as such it was almost like he was receiving instructions from them. As he conquered the knowledge-devils, he applied what he was learning and slowly began making his nascent divinity like the God Legion Seal, mighty and strong.
During the three months that passed, his cultivation base went through heaven-shaking, earth-toppling transformations. Bit by tiny bit, he was making progress assimilating the godhood he had taken, and had already used it to reach a power index of three hundred sixty.
Of course, his fighting prowess was also rapidly advancing. As of this point, he wouldn’t even need to use the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart to deal with Eunuch Sunflower and Zilin.
His power double, meanwhile, had managed to accomplish some important missions and was gradually attracting some attention.
In fact, on more than one occasion, female members of the Joyflower Palace came down to inspect him, as if they were considering taking him as a consort.
Yang Qi was curious to see who would finally do so. In fact, having his power double become a consort was one of the first steps in his master plan. Hopefully, succeeding in that regard would get him information about what exactly Leaf Dao-Denier was up to.
As Yang Qi’s true self continued taking god formations, gaining experience, and furthering his cultivation, his nascent divinity was becoming more and more like the God Legion Seal. And he was getting the feeling that by the time he finished his work, his will convergence would likely reach the Terrifying level.
Once he had Terrifying will, then no Grand Emperor would be able to defy him and he would be able to dominate the Ancient Road to the Gods. After all, not even Empress Joyflower was close to reaching the Terrifying level.
Another month flew by.
Around the time that he had taken twenty million spell formations, he suddenly felt an immense wave of power filling the Joyflower Palace that caused the entire place to tremble.
The power assessment systems immediately spoke up.
[Danger. Danger. Extreme Danger…. Power index surpassing three thousand. A colossal and deadly entity is approaching….]
1. In Chinese, vajra and lokapāla are essentially the same characters.
2. A reminder that the “strength” from the Strength of the Hell-Crushing Godmammoth is a different chinese character from the “strength god systems”, and also the specific character in this formation. I got boxed in and couldn’t avoid this term crossover, sorry.
