Chapter 3 Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace
Zhong Yue wanted to open his eyes when he felt the rapid changes in his psyche ocean. The Sui Sovereign Art that was built up in his mind was also trembling so hard that it might crumble soon.
“Stay focused!” Xin Huo shouted. “Your efforts will in vain if you get distracted and it will pose a serious threat to your psyche. It would be even harder to build up the Sui Sovereign Art in your psyche ocean again. Now, stay focused and complete your cultivation in one shot!”
Zhong Yue quickly recovered and refocused on his cultivation. As he did this, the Flame Order Palace and the Sui Sovereign stopped trembling as well. They became even more complete and stable.
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After a long time, Zhong Yue opened his eyes when he felt that his psyche was completely exhausted; he looked at the Flame Order Palace around him in awe. He then looked down at himself in disbelief!
“There’s nothing unbelievable about this. It is just a scene created with your psyche and it exists only in your psyche ocean at the will of your psyche. However, it is your soul that will receive the training,” Xin Huo said proudly as it stood on his shoulder. “【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】is not like those rubbish techniques you practiced last time. Those rubbish techniques may have some little effect on nourishing your soul, but they have no use for training your psyche at all. The【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】I pass onto you can not only train your soul, it can also train your psyche, making your psyche stronger and stronger!”
Zhong Yue stood up. He wanted to walk out of the Flame Order Palace to look at the view outside. Suddenly, he heard a loud noise as the Flame Order Palace crumbled and the Fire Tree melted. Not only that, the Sui Sovereign body that he had agglomerated also disappeared, exposing his soul’s true form.
“This is?” Zhong Yue asked in confusion.
“If you walk out of the Flame Order Palace, then your soul is liberated from your body,” Xin Huo laughed. “No matter the Flame Order Palace or the Sword Gate, they all symbolize one door each. Inside these doors is your inner body, and outside these doors is the outside world. It doesn’t matter if you step out of the Flame Order Palace or the Sword Gate, but once you are out, it also means that your soul is liberated from your body. But now, considering you just got in touch with【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】, what you have achieved so far can be considered as a great accomplishment.”
“Really?” said Zhong Yue happily.
Xin Huo’s face immediately stiffened and he walked with his hands behind his back on Zhong Yue’s shoulder. He coldly said, “Descendant of Fuxi, do not get so cocky and proud. You are nothing when compared to the pure-blood inheritors of Xin Huo. With only one look, these pure-blood inheritors would have already built up the entire visualization art completely, but you could only built up a rough figure. You still have a long way to go!”
However, Zhong Yue was positive about this matter and he replied, “The pure-blood celestial race is that strong? Although they are of the celestial race, while I’m just a human, it is natural that I can’t match up with them. However, everything will be fine if I work very, very hard. I believe that I won’t be any worse than them.”
Xin Huo’s face blackened upon hearing Zhong Yue’s words, and he silently complained, Using hard work to replace talent? You’re already smarter and more talented than the others and now you want to be even more hardworking than the others? Are you trying to outsmart the entire world?
Although Zhong Yue’s talent was only at an average level compared to the previous inheritors of Xin Huo, those inheritors that Xin Huo had taught were all pure-blood members of the Fuxi celestial race!
Xin Huo was surprised that Zhong Yue was able to reach the level he was at now.
“Your psyche is too weak now, it takes only one visualization to exhaust your psyche completely and you have to take a rest. A few more practice sessions, and your psyche will gradually become stronger. When you can actualize your psyche, then it means you have slightly mastered this technique,” Xin Huo said after checking Zhong Yue’s depleted psyche.
Zhong Yue was startled and said, “What? Actualizing my psyche to the point that it is visible to the naked eyes is just the beginner level? Can I really achieve what the Qi Practitioners can do?”
Suddenly, an extreme dizziness struck Zhong Yue, bringing with it a wave of fatigue; he eventually fell asleep. The visualization just now had exhausted his psyche greatly.
Xin Huo then walked out of Zhong Yue’s psyche ocean and returned to the weathered lamp. There were still loud noises coming from the thick black mist that surrounded them. The child-like figure that was only the size of a finger looked at both Zhong Yue and the black mist with a confused expression. Xin Huo said, “How long have I been sleeping, how did the Fuxi celestial race become something like this? What happened? And what is this black mist? This little celestial race brat said that it is now the era of the Human Sovereign, what kind of era is this Human Sovereign era….”
Inside Zhong Yue, his psyche started to regenerate rapidly, gradually filling up his psyche ocean.
After a few hours, Zhong Yue woke up. He quickly cultivated for a moment and entered his psyche ocean. He could not help but feel happy as he entered, because the capacity of his psyche ocean had increased rapidly. It was now almost twice the size it was before.
The【Sword Gate Visualization Art】that had only increased his psyche by a bit more than ten feet after a few years. The【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】had almost doubled his psyche with only one attempt!
Such a strong visualization art ... Just who is this Xin Huo?
He collected his thoughts and continued cultivating the【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】. Due to the increase of his psyche, he managed to form up the entire Flame Order Palace, Sui Sovereign, and Flame Tree with less effort.
After a moment, Zhong Yue’s soul opened his eyes and he could feel that the Flame Order Palace built with his psyche was much more stable now. Although it would still cost him a considerable amount of psychic energy, there was still a portion left unspent.
There’s still quite a bit of energy left, maybe it can sustain for long enough for me to walk out of the Flame Order Palace? Zhong Yue’s heartbeat thumped quicker as this thought appeared.
He had spent six years of cultivation and he could not even reach the Soul Liberty level. However, he was sure that he could achieve Soul Liberty now after practicing the【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】two times.
In the Flame Order Palace, Zhong Yue’s soul that had morphed into the Sui Sovereign, started advancing toward the outside of the palace!
As he started moving, his psyche also began to deplete each step he advanced. One step, two steps, and three steps. The seawater in his psyche ocean that resembled his psyche depleted rapidly.
After the ninth step, Zhong Yue had managed to reach the entrance of the palace with one foot preparing to step out of the palace. At the same time, his psyche was close to depletion.
Finally, as soon as he stepped out his ninth step, his psyche depleted at the same time!
Boom!
A loud noise roared beside his ear. The noise was so loud it could make him go deaf. Zhong Yue felt the world being swallowed by a massive whirlpool. Suddenly, he felt like he had entered a whole new world!
At this moment, his soul walked out of his body and stood in front of himself.
The stage of Soul Liberation!
Zhong Yue felt extremely excited as he had finally achieved the Soul Liberty level!
He had entered Swords Gate when he was nine and it has been six years since then. Six years of hard work. He had been more determined than others and had also trained more frequently than others. But, he had not managed to reach this level. However, he managed to make it there after only a few hours of practicing【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】.
Zhong Yue was sad and happy; he felt like he wanted to cry and laugh at the same time to express his happiness.
Flames sparkled from the weathered lamp. Xin Huo flew out and stood face to face with Zhong Yue. At that moment, Zhong Yue realized that his soul was so tiny, it was almost the same size as Xin Huo.
The two little figures looked at each other in confusion, and then laughed at the same time.
“The Soul Liberty level is just the beginning, there’s still a long way to go before becoming a Qi Practitioner.”
Xin Huo measured Zhong Yue from top to bottom and said, “This level of Soul Liberty is too low, your soul is still weak now. You can’t even perform soul manipulations, let alone the manifestation of spirit.”
“Soul manipulations?”
After his soul returned to his body, Zhong Yue could only feel a very strong sense of dizziness, the side effect brought by the depletion of his psyche. He forced himself to resist the strong urge to sleep and said, “There are fifty thousand outer disciples in Swords Gate and less than a thousand are able to perform soul manipulations. How is this going to be something easily achievable?”
While they were talking, Zhong Yue felt that his psyche had recovered slightly, but the speed was much slower than recovering through sleeping. If he wanted to recover quickly, he still needed to sleep.
Soul Manipulate was another level. Once you got the soul out of the body, the soul could control objects and start moving them. However, it required a very strong soul to perform soul possession. Those who were able to perform them were all elites among the outer disciples.
Are soul manipulations really that hard?, thought Xin Huo.
Xin Huo landed on his shoulder and said, “You can try when you cultivate next time.”
Zhong Yue felt that his eyelids were getting heavier and heavier as he muttered, “It is impossible to be that soon….”
When he woke up again, he immediately checked his psyche ocean and found out that it had gotten even larger. He happily thought in his heart, Maybe I could really try soul manipulations this time.
Eh? How come I’ve gotten thinner suddenly?
He looked down and he realized that in just a couple of days, he had become much thinner, losing almost a layer of skin. He became shocked. Although he was only a fifteen-year-old boy, his body was one of the best among the outer disciples of Swords Gate. In fact, he was one of the minorities that practiced martial arts.
Martial arts were not important to Qi Practitioners. There had not been many Qi Practitioners who managed to excel in the martial arts, causing Swords Gate to have little to no interest in this area.
Swords Gate mainly practiced Sword Qi. They first manifest and awakened their spirits, and then practiced the Sword Qi through it. Average Swords Gate Qi Practitioners were able to stand in the air using their Sword Qi and cut down any objects with it. However, Swords Gate was a sacred land that had existed for a very long time. Therefore, they still had some martial arts heritages, and they did not forbid disciples from practicing martial arts.
The physique refining art that Zhong Yue had gotten was called the【Jiao Dragon Winding Body Totem Art】. This was also a type of visualization technique that originated from a tribe who worshipped Jiao Dragons. To practice this technique, one had to imagine a fierce Jiao Dragon winding around one’s body to strengthen the body and grow immense strength.
After a long period of practicing this technique, Zhong Yue’s body was much stronger than the other outer disciples. The reason he chose this art was because his family was in poverty and he needed something to protect himself when he had to go into the mountains to search for herbs in order to strengthen himself.
The【Jiao Dragon Winding Body Totem Art】had helped him escape death numerous times. The claws of the beasts only left numerous scars on his body, but his soul remained intact and whole.
He could not believe that in just a few days, the high-quality body he had after all these years of training would suddenly shrink.
Although his body had become much thinner, he still felt that his strength did not deteriorate and it was still there.
“Practicing the【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】requires a huge amount of energy. Your muscles were being used up in your two attempts at imagining,” Xin Huo explained patiently. “Your body was not weak at all, you must have practiced something, I suppose? You did a good job in this area as body, psyche, and soul are all very important. These three are related and they support each other greatly. In order to reach a higher level, you must have a very strong body! If your body was weak, you would have died due to starvation during the first attempt at practicing the【Sui Sovereign Flame Order Palace Visualization Art】.”
Zhong Yue was shocked and he shouted, “Practicing this art can lead to death!?”
“Of course. The psyche is connected to the body. The stronger the body, the stronger the psyche. Exhausting the psyche will also exhaust the energy of the body. Therefore, if the body is weak, one will definitely die during the cultivation.”
Xin Huo then said, “Luckily, your body is still very strong, able to support cultivating twice. However, if you carry on for a third time, you will become a skeleton. Now, you must eat something and a lot of it. You must not only eat until you are full, you must also eat something good such as medicinal pellets of high quality, or your body will be depleted again.”