Yun Jin's once-stable Soul Pool was beginning to crack under the relentless pounding force.
Tian Po Sword watched with mounting horror. "Young Master! Stop! If you keep going, you could drop in realm!"
He understood what Yun Jin was trying to do—use this brutal method to rapidly strengthen her soul. Others had attempted it in the past.
But the results had been grim.
Out of a hundred cultivators, perhaps one or two might succeed in unleashing their soul's power. The rest were consumed entirely by the overwhelming force, their souls obliterated.
It was a method with more loss than gain. These days, almost no one dared try it.
A trace of blood colored Yun Jin's lips, but she didn't seem to feel the pain at all. Her voice was flat and unshaken. "I said, continue."
She would win. She had to win.
Her eyes burned with a stubborn light, the kind that made her look completely deranged. Tian Po Sword still wanted to persuade her, but Yun Jin's focused gaze left him speechless.
He could only let out a bitter laugh.
Madness. She was truly mad.
The cracks in the Soul Pool widened.
Even the sentient weapons around her grew uneasy.
They instinctively wanted to pull back their power.
"Don't stop!" Yun Jin's sharp voice rang out.
They didn't dare disobey.
A brittle crack echoed through the air.
The Soul Pool had finally fractured. Pain struck directly at the soul—an agony far beyond what the flesh could bear. Anyone else would've collapsed by now.
But Yun Jin remained conscious.
She forced herself to stand under the pressure. Blood lined her lips, but a faint smile curled there too.
The sight was eerie—unnatural in its calm—and it sent an involuntary chill down the onlookers' spines.
An Tong watched in silence, unable to speak.
The Yun Jin he knew was usually approachable, even easy to talk to.
But this?
This was madness incarnate.
Ordinary people would have broken long ago, crushed by pain.
Yet she could still smile.
How terrifying must his Young Master truly be?
"Continue," Yun Jin said. Her voice was steady, cool.
Right now, she was in pain. Excruciating pain.
Pain that struck her Primordial Soul, a thousand times worse than any bodily suffering.
And yet…
Some strange part of her almost enjoyed it.
She found herself thinking back to her earliest days, when she had first traveled to those small worlds. Back then, she was timid. Inexperienced. Fragile in both mind and strength. Even the system that accompanied her had sighed endlessly, convinced she wouldn't survive her first world.
But she had.
Not only had she survived that first world—she'd survived dozens more.
And in the end…
That was what led her to this life.
This life had been smooth. Perhaps too smooth.
It had been a long time since she had felt the danger that lurked in every step—when she had to claw her way forward, pay any price, just to grow stronger.
That pressure. That tension. It had forged her will.
This pain now?
She had endured worse.
Let it serve as a reminder.
She could not grow complacent.
Yes, everything had gone her way so far—but that didn't mean this world held no dangers.
Just look—Blood Dao Sect had made its move. Against cultivators at the Mahayana stage, her current cultivation wasn't even worth mentioning.
Some might think that with several powerful masters behind her, she could walk this world unchallenged.
But clearly…
Even backers could be far away, tied up at Qingxiao Pavilion, unable to come to her aid.
In the end, what mattered most—what one must always secure—was strength of one's own. Only the power she cultivated herself could never be taken from her.
She had traveled through countless worlds, but this time, most of her memories and experiences were sealed. Even her perfected Primordial Soul had been bound.
Did that mean even one's own strength could be restrained?
No. It did not.
Even if her strength was bound, the will she had forged across those long years would only become sharper.
And her true power would return one day.
Perhaps it would rise even higher than before.
Just as her Primordial Soul Pool was on the brink of total collapse…
Suddenly—
A vast, gentle force emerged.
It shimmered softly, full of warmth. A radiance that seemed capable of healing all wounds. The cracks in the Primordial Soul Pool began to mend. The once-turbulent sea calmed.
That warm power continued to flow.
The ocean of her soul expanded outward.
It doubled in size before finally stabilizing.
Yun Jin calmly wiped the blood from her lips and smiled.
She had won the bet.
This reckless gamble had paid off—her soul force had leapt to late-stage Unity.
Still short of the peak.
But the power was still unfurling slowly.
She had three hundred days. More than enough for her soul to naturally grow to the peak of Unity.
And once she reached Unity…
The next stage was Tribulation.
In this world, reaching Unity already marked someone as a top-tier cultivator.
But Tribulation was where the true elite began.
Those who survived Heavenly Tribulation would ascend to Mahayana. Once there, they need only await the right moment to transcend to immortality.
No one knew what triggered that moment.
In this world, it had been over a thousand years since anyone ascended to the Immortal Realm.
Yun Jin gave the idea a brief thought, then let it go.
Mahayana was already the pinnacle of mortal cultivation.
But even among Mahayana cultivators, strength varied immensely.
Take someone like Wan Dao Saint or Ji Wusi. Fighting an average Mahayana cultivator for them was no more difficult than slicing melons.
She would get there one day.
But she had no interest in becoming just another Mahayana cultivator.
She had said it before.
Among her peers, she would be invincible.
The day she entered Mahayana would be the day she became unrivaled in this world.
And to achieve that…
From this moment on, she would pave her path to invincibility with the blood of the heretics and the demon clans.
Blood Dao Sect would be the first offering.
"Young Master… you… you actually succeeded?" Tian Po Sword's voice trembled.
He couldn't believe it.
That reckless, mad approach of Yun Jin's had actually worked.
And more than that—
Her soul power had jumped by an entire major realm.
Because even with such extreme methods, success still required dormant potential to awaken. The rare few who had succeeded before were all people who had cultivated for decades, with power built up over years. The external pressure simply helped them break through naturally.
But Yun Jin?
She hadn't cultivated for long at all.
So where did all that terrifying potential come from?
Tian Po Sword couldn't understand it.
In the end, he could only tell himself:
This must be the difference…
Between a genius and a mere mortal.
"Yes. I succeeded." Yun Jin's tone was calm, as if it had been inevitable.
She turned to the many weapons, all still uneasy from what they had just witnessed, and gave them a respectful cupped-hands salute. "Esteemed seniors, please forgive me. In pursuit of cultivation, I may have been rude earlier. I offer my sincere apologies."
"Young Master, no need to apologize!" Feng Xing Sword still looked shaken. "Just—please don't drag us into anything like this again."
It had been far too intense.
Their experiences were limited, and frankly, they couldn't survive another round of this madness.
===
The cultivation cosmos is a grand, hierarchical structure composed of various interconnected worlds, each layered according to size, complexity, and the completeness of their governing laws. At the lowest level are the Small 3,000 Worlds (小三千世界, Xiǎo Sānqiān Shìjiè), followed by the Middle 3,000 Worlds (中三千世界, Zhōng Sānqiān Shìjiè), and then the Big 3,000 Worlds (大三千世界, Dà Sānqiān Shìjiè). Above these are the Great Worlds (大世界, Dà Shìjiè), and standing at the pinnacle of this cosmic order is the Eternal World (永恒世界, Yǒnghéng Shìjiè), the most perfect and enduring realm in the vast universe.
Each hierarchical level of the worlds maintains a numerical balance: one Middle World typically governs up to 3,000 Small Worlds, forming a collective with shared but distinct laws and energies. Similarly, one Big World encompasses 3,000 Middle Worlds, and one Great World contains 3,000 Big Worlds. The Eternal World, at the summit, presides over as many as 3,000 Great Worlds, making it the ultimate realm, unscathed by the catastrophic cycles that plague the lower realms.
Above is information that I get from novel '我,羲和,最强女帝' or "I, Xi He, the Strongest Empress" in English. Of course I also add my own understanding too on this, as the hierarchy of Worlds is just being described as "3000 worlds for each Small, Middle, Big, Great. And above the Great World is the Eternal world and how to make this world evolve" (The world that was opened by beings).
Anyway you can visit the link that I drop at the 'introduction' chapter for more information about this.