Chapter 285: Cultivation!
Ashen returned to the forest of the beasts in the Zhuji tribe.
He then checked his remaining 24 million Villain Points. This meant that he had earned around 29 million Villain Points from the attack on Qin Feng.
With the 24 million, he first bought the healing skill—Heavenly Time Regression. This skill cost him 16 million, leaving him with 8 million Villain Points.
At first, he thought of buying enslavement path skills as he had originally planned; however, the reveal of three new protagonists changed his mind.
He first decided to ready his cards.
Firstly, he needed a crimson demon mask that would be most crucial in disguising as Lin Feng. For a while, he had been having thoughts of going after the biggest fish in the sea.
Though he didn't know how he was going to do it, he still needed to be ready to take action at any time.
Every significant achievement begins with a single step. He decided to first acquire a crimson demon mask.
Even if it was a bit different from Lin Feng's, it wouldn't pose a problem, as anyone who sees the mask will describe it as a crimson mask resembling a demon's.
If someone committed a crime using that mask, the suspicion will go to Lin Feng.
Also, he needed to hide his tracks. No one should be able to trace the mask's origin.
For example, if Ashen placed an order at some artisan's shop openly, it would leave traces that anyone could use to link Ashen to the crime and prove Lin Feng's innocence.
However, in this world or his previous one, money could solve most problems.
He took a hemispherical artifact and activated it. It was a different communication sphere, one that connected to Ji Jun.
The sound qi traveled at a terrifyingly fast speed to make the other half ring with its unique sound.
Ashen was able to talk with Ji Jun and give him the order to use the black market in the eastern region to craft a mask detailing the appearance as told by Han Wuji.
Ji Jun accepted the task and traveled to the Eastern region to get the mask made. He was previously a mercenary in the mercenary sect; hence, he knew the shortcuts to reach the dark network of the black market.
After Ashen had given the orders, he waited in the forest for their reply. In his free time, Ashen cultivated using his cultivation art, the four dancing gods.
He was told by the system that this cultivation art could let him advance to the emperor realm on his own; however, it will take more than a century.
A cultivation art was a breathing method that would help a cultivator to dive into their sea of consciousness, where they would be able to generate thoughts at a much faster speed and bring their imaginations to reality more easily.
A cultivation art helped a cultivator to raise their attainment in their path. This is why cultivators choose their cultivation art only after selecting their path.
The cultivation art should be of the same path as the cultivator to let the cultivator use it to raise their attainment.
Raising one's attainment was like solving a very tough math problem!
To explain it more clearly, look at the core-formation realm cultivator who needs to raise their attainment to the master level to advance to the King Realm.
Now, why was this necessary?
Because of the Dao Patterns!
To advance to the King realm, a cultivator needed to inscribe Dao patterns on their body using their core qi.
These Dao patterns increased and enhanced the power of skills of their path.
Similarly, when one advanced to the Emperor realm, they inscribed more Dao Patterns on their body. These increased Dao Patterns increased the Emperor realm cultivator's power to another level.
But how can one inscribe the Dao Patterns?
You cannot inscribe Dao Patterns like some children's scribble!
There was a unique pattern for every cultivator and path!
This pattern was the problem that cultivators needed to solve through their attainment!
If you look at it as a math problem, then becoming a master in attainment meant mastering the basics of their path, like arithmetic in math. You learn subtraction, addition, multiplication, and division.
Then, to find the Dao pattern that would advance someone to the King Realm, it was like solving a huge series of subtraction, addition, multiplication, and division to reach an answer!
The cultivation art just helped your mind focus and reach enlightenment to learn a faster method to solve this problem.
Similarly, when you want to advance to the Emperor realm, you need to raise your attainment to the quasi-grandmaster level.
It would be like learning the basics of equations, and to find the dao pattern, you will need to solve a difficult equation with a high power.
For example, raising your attainment would be like first solving quadratic equations, then cubic equations, and so on...
The end goal would always be to find the Dao Patterns.
This was the reason why it took hundreds of years for cultivators to reach the King realm or Emperor realm.
Moreover, most would spend their lives in closed cultivation, trying to raise their attainment to rise to a higher realm.
It was because of this reason that although cultivators lived for more than a thousand years, they still weren't detached from the pleasures.
They have spent more than a third of their lives in closed cultivation.
Also, since lifespan increased according to the realm of a cultivator, they didn't have a choice but to strive to rise to a higher realm.
Now, Ashen used his cultivation art to enter his sea of consciousness to cultivate.
He already had a master-level attainment in all of his paths.
This enabled him to think forward. He decided to focus on his sword path first.
In his sea of consciousness, he spent five days without budging even a little.
It was at this moment that the half-sphere in front of him rang, jolting him awake from his focus.
He slowly opened his eyes and picked the sphere up in his hands.
He channeled his qi into the sphere as the call connected.
A voice entered from the other side: "Can you hear me, your highness?"
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