The logic was sound. Performance dictated valuation. His rapid breakthrough had significantly increased his perceived worth, prompting a proportional increase in investment. That Elder Xun was willing to allocate Holy Son-level resources after a single day was not sentiment, but a sharp recalibration of projected returns.
After a final bow, Zhang Chong led Li Yao to his new residence and provided his first monthly allotment: five hundred jin of Pure Source.
Li Yao processed the figure. For a newly minted Bitter Sea cultivator, this was an extravagant sum. Zhang Chong outlined the scaling: 500 jin at Bitter Sea, 700 at Life Spring, 1000 at Divine Bridge, 1500 at the Other Shore. It was a standardized investment schedule for a top-tier asset. Zhang Chong's faint envy was noted as a historical footnote, a comparison to his own, less-funded past.
"Thank you, Elder Zhang," Li Yao said, accepting the resources. Combined with the two hundred jin from the Hengyang Sect Leader, his total liquid capital was seven hundred jin. This was a substantial energy reserve for the Heavenly Book's charging protocols. The thought of Ye Fan's future resource struggles was a passing, irrelevant comparison.
Alone, he surveyed his new long-term operational base. It was not a palace, but a deceptively simple wooden house constructed of millennium Pineheart Wood, its scent a natural neuro-calibrant to stabilize the mind and focus the spirit. The courtyard contained a lake imbued with spiritual energy and a cliff face hosting a small, unknown spirit tree that passively purified environmental essence.
Every component was a high-grade cultivation-aid module. The environment was optimized. Here, the Heavenly Book's absorption rate would remain at peak efficiency without drawing undue attention.
Inside, he found a meditation futon of unknown but clearly valuable material that further accelerated mental clarity. He sat.
Now, in controlled conditions, he could fully inspect the Heavenly Book's state after the first deduction.
The ancient book was open. The first page, previously glowing with raw energy, was now inscribed with the perfected, deduced scriptures for the Bitter Sea Chapter of the Yao Guang Scripture. It did not contain the subsequent Life Spring chapter Zhang Chong had transmitted. Its operation was precise and compartmentalized, processing only what was immediately relevant.
The qualitative assessment was clear: The deduced Bitter Sea scripture was profoundly more potent and efficient than the non-deduced Life Spring chapter held in his general memory. The creators of the original Yao Guang Scripture were likely Great Sages. The Heavenly Book's output surpassed their foundational work for this stage.
As this analysis crystallized, the Heavenly Book emitted a subtle vibrational wave—a direct data transfer without language. The meaning was unequivocal: The deduced scripture had reached the theoretical pinnacle of the Human Dao for its realm.
Li Yao was not surprised. This was the expected function of a tool of its caliber. The implication, however, was operational: the most difficult step—transforming from a passive vessel into an active cultivator with a supreme foundation—was complete. For others, cultivation was a linear progression from 0 to 1. For him, with the Book, it was the activation of a system capable of asymptotic progression toward infinity.
A long-term strategic plan, previously vague, has now been resolved into a clear, audacious objective.
The Zhetian world recognized supreme physiques. The Innate Sacred Body Dao Embryo was a natural-born privilege. The Chaos Body, however, could be evolved.
Historical data pointed to two primary evolutionary paths:
The Ruthless Empress's Path: Devouring the sources of all constitutions. Highly efficient but cosmically transgressive, inviting catastrophic karma.
The Scripture Nurturing Path: Comprehensively mastering the supreme scriptures of multiple Great Emperors, integrating all Daos to reverse-engineer the primordial Chaos state. Theoretically possible, but pragmatically impossible due to the inevitable conflict and mutual inhibition of different emperors' laws, leading to certain Qi deviation.
Li Yao possessed the unique tool that nullified the fatal flaw of the second path.
The Heavenly Book could deduce, purify, and integrate. His core decision was reaffirmed: he would cultivate only the Yao Guang Scripture. But as he encountered other powerful scriptures—from other Holy Lands, ancient ruins, or even fragmentary Emperor classics—he would not cultivate them separately. He would use the Heavenly Book to analyze them, extract their core principles and insights into the Great Dao, and merge those perfected concepts back into his Yao Guang Scripture framework.
This was not about collecting scripts. It was about directed, iterative evolution of a single, ever-perfecting cultivation law. By integrating the essence of hundreds of scriptures, his understanding of the Dao would become omnifaceted, his energy would take on an omnipotent character, and his physical form would be perpetually reforged by these converging, harmonized truths. The end state of this asymptotic process was the theoretical model: a human-evolved Chaos Body.
A surge of intense focus, not passion, solidified within him. The record of an ancient Heavenly Venerable struggling against an eighth-level Chaos Quasi-Emperor was a compelling data point on the physique's combat superiority.
The Heavenly Book was not just a comprehension aid. It was the foundational instrument for a controlled, accretive evolution toward a supreme state of being. Its potential utility was defined by the ambition and precision of its user.
Therefore, the long-term objective was set: to utilize the Heavenly Book's properties to evolve a Chaos Body through the scripture-merging path.
The blaze in his eyes was not excitement, but the cold light of a finalized calculation. He now had a definitive terminal goal. The next step was to execute the immediate phase: efficiently consume the provided resources, advance swiftly through the Bitter Sea stage, and demonstrate the "prodigy" growth rate required to maintain and increase his resource stream. The future evolution would be built iteration by iteration, scripture by scripture, upon this stable and well-funded foundation.