Divine Brilliance - Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Chapter 18 Sky Mirror Soul Shining
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

A total of six Grade One purple beast soulstones were placed around it, each taking a corner. On the windows were a total of six copper mirrors, shining the light into the room.
Zong Shou was sitting at the center of a room now covered in talisman patterns drawn from fresh blood, looking around and checking carefully if he had missed anything.
Drawing the talisman formation was to ward away outside evils, and also the astral wind that was present everywhere in Heaven and Earth. When spirit masters first created their soul oceans, what they feared most was attracting all sorts of outside evils. If one wasn’t careful, their soul would be stolen away, and they would become a vegetable. 4
Those purple beast soulstones were a special stone created after sealing beast spirits.
They were originally used by spirit masters to improve items and build formations, but were now being used by Zong Shou as a source to absorb spiritual energy.
The Heaven Energy Swallowing Conversion Technique was not limited to the martial path, it was also similar to the incantation techniques of spirit masters!
The Path of Heavens: reduce what is too much, increase what is too little. The Energy Swallowing Technique could steal and take anything, which was why future people saw it as an evil art and listed it into the path of the devil.
Using six soulstones at once was because of Zong Shou’s high hopes for himself.
Spirit masters similarly placed a lot of importance on foundations. The quality and scale of the soul ocean directly decided the future achievements of the spirit master.
With the cultivation experience from his last life and the Heaven Energy Swallowing Conversion Technique in his hand, naturally Zong Shou felt really confident.
Confirming that all the talismans and charms were correct, and that Yin Yang and Chuxue also wouldn’t disturb him at such a time, Zong Shou directly cut open his middle finger and dripped many drops of fresh blood around.
Only after the entire talisman formation lit up did Zong Shou activate the Energy Swallowing Conversion Technique to absorb and swallow the six soulstones around him. The six beast soulstones gave off a purple glow. From weak to strong, threads of spiritual energy, supported and enhanced by the formation, were infused into the brow of Zong Shou.
However Zong Shou had just absorbed it for a moment when the talisman on top of that soulstone broke. Six loud roars appeared in his ear, and the surrounding beast soulstones all exploded into pieces.
A purple smoke rose out from them, quickly all turning into the shape of igers. They were all close to five feet tall, looking ferocious. They roared towards Zong Shou, looking like they were about to leap at him at any moment.
“You are all dead beasts, unwilling to be slain… Do you still want to harm people?”
Zong Shou gave out a cold laugh. Grade one beast souls were unable to harm people and could only act powerful or launch spiritual energy attacks, their threat level was naturally pitifully low.
However, if the person displaying the skill couldn’t keep calm or his heart wavered, or if he was unable to resist the beast soul assault, they would still have a chance of dying.
Zong Shou was mentally prepared, and naturally wouldn’t make such mistakes.
In the last life, to practice and cultivate in real life, he had also gone through numerous difficulties and hardship. In this life, pretty much every moment of every day he had to face the pain of his meridians clashing. His stability of his heart was far greater than those experts who hid themselves and didn’t appear. As for these external evils, he naturally didn’t fear them.
Soul energy was being forcefully sucked out from the beast soulstones, leading them into the Cloud God Point located right between his eyebrows. Zong Shou also started to focus and sink into his own thoughts.
Normally when spirit masters cultivated, they would use Chakra Meridians as their foundations. Meditating everyday, after storing enough soul energy and spirit energy in the Intelligence Chakra Meridian located between the eyebrows, they would try to build the soul ocean.
This entire process, depending on the talent and quality, would take anywhere from one month to three years.
Zong Shou, being unable to practice martial arts after becoming a Martial Master, was a good choice. However the Intelligence Chakra Meridians in his head being dual meridians were a problem that he couldn’t avoid. Thus, in three years, he had achieved nothing.
Using the six beast soul stones as a source for energy helped Zong Shou jump directly through the process of accumulation, choosing to build the soul ocean directly.
Spiritual energy all around him as well as the soul energy he snatched directly was moved by him from his God Cloud into his mind.
Zong Shou gathered them up into one point in an experienced manner, while drawing various types of talismans and charms in the room, a total of thirty-six of them.
He could slowly feel that below his energy ocean there was a repulsive force, which was preventing him from gathering up the energy.
This was a conflict between internal energy and soul energy, which he had expected. At the current moment, it was really slight and could just be ignored.
After he compressed all the spirit energy and soul energy to the extreme, he suddenly exploded it. When it formed once more, it became a spinning purple cloud-pool.
This was the so-called soul ocean! From now on, his mind would have a true core, the foundation for spirit master cultivation. At the current moment, it was far from an ocean; it was just the seed of a true soul, needing a lot of effort to grow.
Zong Shou let out a huge sigh of relief and relaxed his senses. Although the entire process seemed really simple, many people who cultivated in spiritual techniques failed at this step.
As he continued to meditate, he was a little worried whether or not his soul ocean had parts of the Heaven Energy Swallowing Conversion Technique in it.
The soul ocean that was formed wasn’t the pill shape like normal people, but a small whirlpool. Not only was it swallowing up spiritual energy from around him, it was also absorbing those scattered soul fragments! The effects were really small, unlike the Heaven Energy Swallowing Conversion Technique but every moment there would be new soul energy and spiritual energy entering his mind, showing no signs of stopping.
He was already showing signs of regret, wondering whether or not such a mutation was good or bad.
“I don’t need to purposely lead it, but it can swallow energy on its own all the time. Wouldn’t I be meditating at every moment? Spirit masters prioritized the purity of the energy. For me to use the Energy Swallowing Technique to train the path of spirit masters is because I had no choice. Who cares… I can’t solve it, at most I will have a few more problems to solve…”
With a bitter sigh, a sharp glow appeared in Zong Shou’s eyes. With a heavy scoff, the six green tigers which had been totally sucked dry couldn’t hold on anymore, turning into a green smoke which thinned quickly.
When he looked outside the window, he saw that the moon was hanging high in the night sky.
“I have actually used up four hours. This is the right time!”
When one built a soul ocean, it was a matter of success following naturally when the conditions were right. This moment was the truly crucial part!
Taking out nine sticks of sandalwood incense, he lit them up one by one and stuck them in front of him, Zong Shou closed his eyes once more and started to meditate.
Using the Twelve Floor Method to imagine his soul climbing up floor after floor, when he reached the final layer he gave out a soft shout.
“Out of Body!”
Instantly smoke drilled out of Zong Shou’s head. Ethereal and near invisible, only the center portion was slightly thicker.
At the same time, outside of the talisman formation, numerous spirits and demons of many different sizes appeared. They were all staring aggressively, trying their best to strike, but they were all stopped by flashes of purple light outside of the formation.
There was also that astral wind blowing in from the outside, seeping in bit by bit. When Zong Shou’s soul came into the slightest contact with it, it would shake vigorously, like it was on the verge of collapsing.
“What a sharp astral wind! After being pretty much blocked off by my formation, it still has such strength! The environment ten thousand years ago is actually so dangerous, no wonder when ancient spirit masters cultivated they had to complete the Focus Concentrating, Soul Observing and Spirit Cultivating stages before truly being able to reach the Out of Body stage…”
Using all of his energy, Zong Shou managed to gather up his soul, compressing it and hanging it out half an inch away from his body, waiting quietly.
When the time hit midnight, the moonlight reflected in by the six copper mirrors was all gathered in one spot, the center of which was Zong Shou’s soul.
After a short while, bits of the sun’s essence flame could be seen indistinctly within!