Qin Chuan had a divine art. It was his reward for completing the recruitment of martial artists.
The name of the divine art was called Universal Emulation.
It was a divine art that could make people bigger.
Without looking at the introduction of the divine art, Qin Chuan already knew the effect.
He remembered that in Journey to the West when Sun Wukong had wreaked havoc in the Heavenly Palace, Erlang Shen had fought him. Both sides had used the Universal Emulation.
It was written as such in Journey to the West.
“The Lord[1] and the Great Sage fought more than three hundred rounds, and there was no winner.
“The Lord, filled with amazing power, became a hundred thousand feet tall. Then, with two hands, he held the three-pointed double-edged divine blade and stood like the peak of Mountain Hua.
“He was ferocious with hideous vermilion hair and viciously swung towards the Great Sage’s head.
“This Great Sage also used his divine art to become like Erlang’s body. While his appearance was the same, he held the Ruyi Jingu Bang[2], which grew to the heavens above the Kunlun Mountains to resisted Erlang.”
From this, it could be seen that one’s appearance would undergo a certain degree of change other than becoming bigger when Universal Emulation was employed, like the hideous features and vermilion hair.
Qin Chuan carefully looked at the Universal Emulation rewarded by the System.
The effect was similar to what he knew. The only difference was the upper limit given by the System.
According to the System’s introduction of divine arts, when cultivated to the highest level, one could reach the size of the universe.
However, Qin Chuan had only used this divine art once ever since obtaining it.
Although the divine arts and spells rewarded by the System could be used without any enlightenment, it was still a divine art, and it was quite strenuous for Qin Chuan to use it.
This was because the True Qi in his body wasn’t that abundant. So it would take some time to activate the divine art.
Even if it was successfully activated, it wouldn’t last long because he didn’t have enough True Qi.
Qin Chuan was still alright. However, his cultivation level and techniques had improved, and Universal Emulation could last for about three breaths.
To break through the barrier of the multi-colored crystal ball, Qin Chuan used his strongest attack.
After he successfully activated the Universal Emulation, Qin Chuan transformed into a 300-meter-tall giant.
He became ferocious with bright red hair. He looked fierce and terrifying.
He was a thousand feet tall, which was about three hundred meters. So if he wanted to increase his height, he would have to level up.
After all, divine arts required too much True Qi. It was not something that Golden Core cultivators could tolerate.
To be serious, if it was a real battle, divine arts would be completely useless if one’s cultivation level was insufficient.
The prelude was long, but the duration of effect was fleeting beyond imagination.
In the state of Universal Emulation, Qin Chuan quickly summoned his flying sword and enlarged it.
In the blink of an eye, a huge sword appeared in Qin Chuan’s hands.
Qin Chuan knew that Universal Emulation would not last long, so he immediately raised his huge sword, took a deep breath, and then heavily slashed down.
Boom!
There was a loud bang.
The surface of the multi-colored crystal ball suddenly began to vibrate with massive ripples. At the same time, the entire sphere began to tremble.
Fine cracks appeared on the surface where the giant sword struck.
Qin Chuan was overjoyed. He didn’t expect it to work this time.
However, not even an ant could crawl through such fine cracks, let alone a human.
So, his revolution had not yet succeeded, and he had to continue to work hard.
After executing this attack, the True Qi in Qin Chuan’s body was almost exhausted, and he returned to his original size.
He felt severely exhausted, weak, and limp.
Therefore, he immediately took some spirit stones and spirit pills from the system space to recover his lost True Qi.
After his True Qi had recovered, he made a simple regulation and continued to use the Universal Emulation.
Qin Chuan transformed into a giant, picked up his giant sword, and fiercely slashed towards the crack.
With this strike, more cracks appeared, but it was still not enough to break the crystal ball.
Qin Chuan panted heavily. His face was covered in sweat, and he looked fatigued. Every time he used the divine art, it was no less than an intense exercise.
Damn it, let’s take a break first.
He had to stop and rest for a while after using the divine art twice in a row.
Qin Chuan sat cross-legged in the air, holding his breath and circulating his cultivation technique to regulate his body.
After his body and True Qi recovered, he started working again.
Just like that, half a month passed.
He did not know that it had been so long.
In any case, he only did two things every day.
Firstly, he rested.
Then, he attacked the multi-colored crystal ball.
The crystal ball was extremely tenacious. Although cracks had appeared on it, it could not be broken.
Qin Chuan was also stunned.
He was like a fool, persevering without hope, determined to break open the crystal ball.
Although the crystal ball had not been broken yet, Qin Chuan could feel that his strength had improved.
Since he was intensively training every day, it promoted the body’s absorption and refinement of spiritual energy.
As a result, his cultivation improved rapidly.
In addition, after repeatedly using the divine arts, the usage of the divine arts became much easier for him, and the casting time was greatly reduced.
Now, under the effect of Universal Emulation, Qin Chuan was able to attack three times consecutively. And, each time, he would use his full strength.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Qin Chuan slashed three more times.
The cracks on the surface of the crystal ball were densely packed. A few cracks were so deep that a finger could be extended into them.
Qin Chuan reverted back to his original appearance. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and observed the cracks closely.
When he saw the thicker cracks, he felt a little gratified. At least his efforts over so many days had not gone to waste.
“Let’s keep going!” Qin Chuan encouraged himself.
Then, he sat down again and regulated his body.
He had thought that it would be better to stay here instead of searching for other immortal cultivation ruins.
This was because there were also crystal balls in other immortal cultivation ruins.
There was no guarantee that they would be weaker. And they would still be very difficult to break through.
Desolate Beasts existed in this space. If it were easy to break through, the Desolate Beasts would have long since occupied it.
Besides, there were already cracks on the surface of the crystal ball, which meant that there was still hope of breaking it.
Hence, Qin Chuan chose to put all his eggs into this basket. He was determined to crack this tough nut.
…
A year later.
Boom boom boom boom boom boom!
A giant that was over two hundred feet in size held a huge sword and struck a massive crystal ball aggressively.
The crystal ball exploded with sparks as the giant slashed down.
After a dozen strikes, the giant’s body rapidly shrank.
“Hu~”
“Damn it, it’s already been a year, yet it’s still not broken!” Qin Chuan panted heavily, his body weak.
He had stayed here for an entire year.
In ancient times, there was Wu Gang cutting the laurel[3], and now there was Qin Chuan splitting the ball.
He admired his own perseverance. He had persisted for such a long time.
After a year of hard work, there was a basketball-sized hole on the surface of the multi-colored crystal ball.
Around the hole were densely packed cracks.
Qin Chuan felt like he was close to breaking open the crystal ball.
Now, his cultivation level was already at the seventh class of Golden Core, and his cultivation technique had reached the fourth class.
During this one year, the sect disciples cultivated diligently. Their cultivation realms rose steadily.
When a disciple leveled up, Qin Chuan would receive points.
There were over three thousand cultivators now. If they leveled up, Qin Chuan would obtain quite a number of points.
Qin Chuan used these points to improve himself, and he used the extra points to improve the infrastructure of the sect.
Although he had been staying here for the past year, he understood the situation outside clearly.
He instructed Wang Zhixing to come outside every once in a while for a look and learn more about world issues before reporting to himself.
After all, it was getting closer and closer to the time when the monsters would awaken. No one could predict if they would suddenly awaken earlier.
He learned from Wang Zhixing that the world had not changed much in the past year, with occasional extreme weather in parts of the world.
As for the movements of the monsters, there were also some individual monsters that woke up early and appeared in some sea areas, but they did not cause much of a problem.
Finally, it was the experimental subjects.
As the various countries around the world had sent out their troops, the experimental subjects were now under effective control.
In this sense, the world was still considered normal.
However, Qin Chuan was still worried. He asked Wang Zhixing to continue observing the trends of the world.
Just like this, another half a year passed.
After Qin Chuan finished slashing at the multi-colored crystal ball, he suppressed the fatigue in his body and went forward to check on it.
The hole on the surface of the crystal ball had doubled in size, and the cracks around it grew longer and wider.
“It’s almost time!”
“When I upgrade my technique to the fifth class, there is a high chance that I can break through the defense of the crystal ball.
Qin Chuan murmured softly, his gaze filled with confidence.
He had been accumulating points since half a year ago and planned to use them to upgrade his cultivation technique.
The Nine Revolutions Golden Pill Technique was a Tier 5 cultivation technique, after all. The further one cultivated it, the more difficult it would become.
In the previous year, his cultivation realm had increased by two classes, and his cultivation technique had increased by one class.
However, he needed even more recourses to advance by a class.
Qin Chuan did not do any precise calculations. In any case, he needed more than 200,000 points to upgrade his technique by even one class.
As for advancing from the fourth class to the fifth class, Qin Chuan estimated that the number of points required would be even greater.
Hence, Qin Chuan had long made preparations.
In this half a year, those people in the sect had been cultivating diligently as usual.
The seniors had already reached the Foundation Establishment realm half a year ago.
Because the spiritual energy required in the Foundation Establishment realm was much more than before, the majority had only advanced by one class in the past year.
People like Wang Zhixing, who had a Heavenly Spirit Root, managed to advance by two classes with some hard work.
As for the new students, their cultivation levels were still increasing very quickly.
Some of them had already reached the peak of Qi Refinement and were not far from Foundation Establishment.
Qin Chuan looked at the points on the system interface and calculated the resources needed to upgrade his cultivation technique. He estimated that he was still lacking some points.
He had already been delayed for a year and a half because of the multi-colored crystal ball.
Qin Chuan had made a goal: break the multi-colored crystal ball within a year. Now that the time limit had been exceeded, he could not delay any longer.
Thus, he went to the System.
The System provided two types of help to a host like Qin Chuan in terms of an upgrade of cultivation and cultivation techniques.
One was to use points to buy the items needed to level up in the Merchant Shop.
The second was to consume a certain number of points to allow the System to upgrade the host directly.
Under normal circumstances, Qin Chuan would choose the first option.
The first option used up fewer points than the second.
But there were also some flaws.
Firstly, he would have to refine the items he exchanged for. That would take a lot of time.
Secondly, due to a miscalculation, the number of items exchanged was insufficient, so he could not upgrade even after refining them.
Third, during the refinement process, there was a small probability of Qi Deviation.
If he chose the second method of leveling up, he could avoid all of the above situations.
However, it was expensive!
Qin Chuan didn’t even have enough points to buy the items needed to level up, so he naturally wouldn’t choose the second option.
Therefore, he asked the System if he could spend the points in advance, like a credit card.
However, the system didn’t seem to be very smart. It didn’t know how to be flexible and directly rejected Qin Chuan.
Qin Chuan instantly felt disappointed.
However, the System soon gave him a clear path towards more points.
“There are as many as 1,000 people in the Foundation Establishment realm. You’ll receive an achievement reward.”
After Qin Chuan heard this, his eyes instantly lit up.
He knew that achievement rewards were usually not bad.
Therefore, he asked the System what the reward was.
The System replied, “Three Gold Upgrade Cards.”
Gold Upgrade Cards!!!
Qin Chuan was incomparably excited. In an instant, he saw hope.
[1] Referring to Erlang Shen
[2] The magical staff wielded by Sun Wukong
[3] Chinese folklore about a man trapped in the cycle of chopping a self-healing laurel tree in the Moon Palace
