Chapter 518: The Tower of Eternity Descends! (III)
His encounter with the Divine Snail of Sun and Moon was really important. The advices he obtained were even more tremendously helpful than the Divine Snail Shield.
The need to be strict with himself was, as a Scion of Light, one of the most important lessons he could learn. Obtaining a divine tool only increased his strength, but without a strict behavior, the Scion of Light could also become contaminated and walk on a wrong route.
Therefore, no matter what kind of force Long Haochen obtained, the most important remained for him to keep his own heart pure, and not let himself be contaminated by anything. Naturally, this implied that he couldn’t let this deathly aura pollute his body. He had not the slightest desire to accept the inheritance of the Slumbering Calamity Elux either.
A massive flow of spiritual energy came pouring in, and caused Long Haochen’s amazement because it was all pure, yet not highly concentrated, light essence. In other words, this spiritual energy was like the one already contained in him, and blended with him to perfectly become part of his strength.
He had met with such a situation before as well, but it wasn’t as intense and massive. He faintly came to understand that this should be one of the benefits provided to him due to the Tower of Eternity’s great harvest.
After the projection of the Tower of Eternity appeared, Long Haochen also had a foolish look on his face. A red-hot feeling immediately filled his whole body with burning sensations, as if putting him in a half-unconscious state.
But his mental force remained far stronger than ordinary people, and so, he could perceive some of the external changes even in this situation.
In his mind, the Tower of Eternity was like a living being, and not simply a building or a divine tool. In his struggle with Elux, Saminaga had simply been led by his nose all along. This was especially true in the way that the tower caught the twelve Specter Kings.
Long Haochen felt a palpable greed from the Tower of Eternity. The whole area around the tower frantically swallowed the power of Saminaga’s domain as well as the innumerable specters inside. And to Saminaga’s despair, his all-out effort was totally fruitless. The Tower of Eternity just brought Long Haochen away, and even the fragments of scattered Specter Kings seemed to have become adamant to follow him back.
Because of his close relation with the Tower of Eternity, Long Haochen’s grasp of the situation was a lot deeper than Saminaga or Long Tianying.
When the seven great demon gods joined hands to attack the Tower of Eternity, Long Haochen could sense a great disdain emerging from the Tower of Eternity. But it still didn’t choose to meet it head on. From this, Long Haochen was certain that the Tower of Eternity had the capability to resist that attack, but without a doubt, it would have had a massive cost to pay for that. So, the Tower of Eternity directly brought Long Haochen away, and not because of being unable to resist their force, but because it was not worth it.
In other words, if the Tower of Eternity wanted to resist such an attack, it would need to consume a lot of its energy. And this consumption would be a lot greater than what he could gain afterwards. Therefore, for the sake of getting benefits, the Tower of Eternity deemed it unnecessary to clash, and took the easy way of bringing Long Haochen to leave through space. The lock of the seven great demon gods left him without other choices.
Long Haochen had a chill when thinking about this performance of the Tower of Eternity. It was just way too rational, and totally based on the notion of profit, without consideration for the rest. And Long Haochen clearly perceived that the Tower of Eternity could at any time unleash power that was way beyond his capability. But in past battles, the Tower of Eternity only really helped him once, at the time he was on the edge of death, and only gave a minimal assistance.
The last time Long Haochen and Cai’er were confronted with danger and he gave his all to protect her, the Tower of Eternity hadn’t made the slightest move. But this time, he just activated the teleporting ability, yet the Tower of Eternity chose instead to appear and come to his aid just because it sensed an immense benefit.
This felt hard to bear for the kind-hearted Long Haochen. Today, the appearance of the Tower of Eternity gave him an increased understanding regarding this supra-divine tool. He faintly realized that even the soul memories left by Elux were unable to fully control the supra-divine tool in question, which completely had its own knowledge and judgement. In other words, even if he really ends up obtaining Elux’s inheritance, making an unprofitable or too costly choice from the point of view of the Tower of Eternity would end up being refused by it.
If Long Haochen was someone that could be driven by lust, he would surely find the Tower of Eternity to be a twin-edged sword, though full of benefits to him.
Using it was very simple, and only required him to maintain a win-win situation for the Tower of Eternity and himself.
But Long Haochen absolutely didn’t have such thoughts. He had no desire to maintain a win-win situation. This supra-divine tool was fully relying on the energy of death to strengthen itself, and Long Haochen was unable to approve its greediness.
Today, although the Tower of Eternity grievously wounded Saminaga, and greatly intimidated the seven great demon gods, importantly, it also reinforced Long Haochen’s rejection of it, and reinforced his resolution to refuse Elux’s favors.
Thanks to his great mental control, Long Haochen arranged the spiritual energy in his body in the shape of a large net to absolutely stop any deathly aura from penetrating his spiritual energy. Only through a perfect filtering of the spiritual energy could he perfectly integrate the spiritual energy into his spiritual cavities.
This inevitably made it take more effort to integrate the spiritual energy, but preserving the purity of his spiritual energy was more important by far.
Long Haochen came to the vague realization that his butt was gradually feeling signs of a disturbance due to spiritual energy, which was the sign of the expansion of another spiritual cavity here.
Chest, abdomen, the space in the midst of his eyebrows, and another in each arm were the five spiritual cavities that he had already opened, and these five supported his trunk and arms.
Only, Long Haochen didn’t expect that the process would continue so soon after he opened the arms’ cavities.
Insight and perception all came fast and also leave fast. Hence Long Haochen would not let go of such a good opportunity. While absorbing the spiritual energy that came from outside, he paid careful attention to the stirred undulations. Even if he didn’t manage to break through, this experience would be very advantageous for his future series of breakthroughs.
Time passed, minutes after minutes, and noticeably, on the first floor of the Tower of Eternity, a series of golden glows of light continuously shifted from the surroundings to Long Haochen’s direction, and continuously blended into his body. A part of it was rejected while a part was absorbed, and at the same time, a faintly discernible brilliant light started to shine on his body.
If at that time, Long Haochen had chosen to go for a deep meditation, he would very possibly have constructed in a spurt of inspiration his sixth and his seventh spiritual cavity. But unfortunately, he didn’t have such plans for now. Thus, after the Tower of Eternity terminated its transfer of spiritual energy, he awoke from the state of cultivation.
Taking a deep breath, his body started to float naturally. Long Haochen couldn’t help but exude a pleasant surprise, but after that felt an air of unwillingness.
He indeed didn’t want to receive the help of the Tower of Eternity, because he didn’t want to owe it anything. He went so far as to make the decision not to set foot onto the third floor of the Tower of Eternity. But, he was unable to deny that he could obtain extreme benefits from the Tower of Eternity.
After breaking through the eighth step, although Long Haochen never stopped cultivating, to fill the spiritual cavities on his arms was not the matter of an instant. Even as the Scion of Light wielding the special physique of a god’s chosen one, and therefore absorbing light essence much more rapidly than ordinary cultivators, amassing these 200,000 spiritual energy needed the time of about two years.
After all, the measure of spiritual energy is not a simple number. For instance, gathering a bit of spiritual energy for a knight of the seventh step is totally different from gathering a bit of spiritual energy for a knight of the eighth step, since the latter is much more concentrated.
In other words, the same notion of spiritual energy differs totally between the seventh and the eighth step. It can perhaps be the same in total volume and elemental contents, but the concentration will very clearly affect the wielded power in the battlefield. And that is one of the great strengths of Spiritual Highland.
After reaching the eighth step, Long Haochen had a total of five spiritual cavities, and the speed of increasing his spiritual energy actually became slower than before, because he needed a time of adaptation.
But this time, or to be more precise, after the end of this session of cultivation, to his nice surprise, the two spiritual cavities on his arms became full at one third. Without need for any further effort, this time the Tower of Eternity brought him no less than 5,000 units of the purest spiritual energy. And this was after he filtered out a great part of it, otherwise this count would be even higher.
Long Haochen’s current total spiritual energy was already nearing 37,000, which was quite a qualitative leap compared to before.
Turning back, Long Haochen gave the sculpture standing in the midst of the first floor a complex look. After calming himself down, he immediately teleported back. He didn’t want to let himself feel any attachment for this place. Every time he recalled the events of the past, when the Slumbering Calamity relied on this supra-divine tool to slaughter an unthinkable count of humans, he felt great grief rise within himself.
With a glint of bright light, when Long Haochen reappeared in the night sky, it had become totally quiet. By chance, the flash of light disappeared instantly, and because Long Haochen didn’t spread his wings, his body started to fall almost instantly.
