Super plane Jupyter.
This was one of the hundred super-planes in the 26 dominions. These super-planes were the main centres of civilization and cultivation across the 26 dominions covered by the law ocean. The 26 dominions were huge. It consisted of many incredible natural wonders. There were beasts that bred, grew and survived in the law ocean. These beasts had law marks even at birth. In terms of cultivation, they were ascendants just after being born. There were bloodlines that were extremely ancient. And there were mysteries that came from beyond the law ocean - the primordial void.
The 26 dominions were so big that not even divine beings could possibly influence it entirely. In fact, the waters of the 26 dominions were so deep that even divine beings had to be careful. Because it was too huge, very few people would travel across dominions. Also, the dominions were separated by law-walls. Breaching these law walls required the combined power of many divine beings. So, the dominions more or less functioned independently. Each dominion had three or four super-planes. These massive planes could even handle battles between divine beings. Clearly, they were very sturdy and stable. In each of these planes, countless races and mortals lived. And all these mortals cultivated. Cultivation was the only way to survive in a world this huge.
Cultivation was a journey. It was a way for mortals to obtain power. The power could originate from different sources, from the world around them, from their own willpower or from the mystical foundational laws. Any method or process that raised one's power was cultivation.
Of course, all methods varied differently and were effective in different scenarios. For example, consuming one's own race was also a method - the cannibalistic path of cultivation. It was not appropriate for mortals and humans, the social stigma was too strict and the benefits were negligible. But there were races that had extremely strong bodies. They also had the power to digest many things and increase their own power. In such races, the cannibalistic path was much more common.
Three cultivation paths were extremely prominent - body, soul and spirit path.
These paths were not actually a single method but were a sea of different methods to become stronger. Take body path as an example. One could increase one's power but learning martial arts, by using medicines to increase the quality of one's body, using laws to obtain law marks, using different treasures to forge one's body, ... and so on.
In the 26 dominions, these three paths were extremely widespread, and almost everyone would follow these paths to some extent. The reason these paths were prevalent was that they were extremely well researched. The cultivation techniques for these were widespread. Also, all three paths led to the possibility of reaching the divine stage. One could form a divine body, a divine soul or divine spirit after having significant achievements in these paths.
There were a few other paths of cultivation as well - like the dao path or the psychic path. These were very rare because they required special talent.
Michael was currently reading through a huge stack of books. It had already been one month since he came to this plane. What shocked him the most upon his arrival was the abundant heaven-and-earth energy. It was so dense that one could feel it permeating the entire world. Michael had appeared in a forest with a flash of light. After looking around, he decided to head in a random direction to contact other lifeforms.
It did not take long for him to find many wild beasts in the forest. These beasts were all in different stages of consolidation realm. Few beasts were in the purification realm as well. Michael searched the souls of these beasts to get knowledge about the geography of the area. Following the traces, he reached the cave of a beast lord of the area. It was a rhino beast that had reached the condensation realm. Its soul was in conception realm. It was about as strong as the guardian beast of the forbidden forest many years ago. Looking at the beast, Michael remembered how he had to hide and cower inside a tree when the beast fought.
The beast did not feel much threat from the human in front of it and decided to kill. Beasts were like this. There was no reason to kill. It was an instinct. But what happened later was completely out of its expectations. Michael wiped the floor from it killing the beast in a short battle. But, he did not use his internal energy in the battle. He defeated the beast with raw physical power! Of course, he used his indomitable dao intent. This allowed Michael to sense the power-level that he had attained.
With his dao intent, Michael was as strong as the devil captains that he had fought earlier. Adding his law cultivation, he could defeat them. Adding internal energy, he would surpass the devil captains by a lot. He could kill them easily even three on one without any assistance from the plane-will. This level of power was enough to hold a small territory in the super-plane. He could even open a new country if he wanted to. But this was not the most important aspect of his improvement. It was the rise in his combat sense.
Due to his broken conscient, Michael found it hard to learn new techniques or internalize old ones. His movements were forced and he had managed till now with only his willpower. But now, it was different. It was like a blind man suddenly getting his sight back. His perception, talent and all other aspects like combat instinct improved tremendously. This meant that now, he could battle even people who were stronger than him. This was something that he had seen only in Kandrif and Mero among all the new generation. Even including immortals, the number of combat geniuses in Aterna was less than 20. But Michael reached this level directly. And this was when he was still unfamiliar with his psychic powers.
In the 26 dominions, strength was revered above all. This was something common with Aterna. If you were a divine being, even super-forces would give you great respect. If you were an ascendant, you would still be given a place and great benefits with super-forces. Or else, you could join first rate forces as a prominent member. But, battle strength was different from cultivation realm. After all, there were many races, many paths of cultivation and even among the same race and same cultivation realm, the battle strength of people would differ. Thus, cultivation was not very reliable in judging the might of cultivators.
Michael had found the nearest village after soul searching the beast lord. He went to the village and introduced himself as a wandering expert who had just left training with his master. He was out on an adventure and needed the "letter of acquaintance" from the village head. Michael bribed the village head and easily obtained the letter. Then, he travelled to the nearest town and managed to obtain his registration as a citizen of the country. As soon as Michael's profile was filled in the machines of the town, it was entered in the database of the country and the central database. This also gave him his identity and opened several avenues for him.
Michael was rich. So, the entire procedure went swiftly for him. He obtained his identity token and became a member of this country ruled by humans - Glandor.
After establishing himself, he went to the national capital. It was a huge city known as Neodel.
Michael had travelled on foot but he was aware that the country had many transportation methods. There were many machines that people of Glandor used in their daily lives and Michael had no idea what they were. He had read their information in the scout's report but even that guy was not very clear on these. Michael knew that information was the key to gaining a foothold in this plane. He did not want to alert the authorities by his suspicious behaviour. Thus, he went to the capital and entered the national public library with his identity token. That was 20 days ago.
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Currently, Michael was reading the book - "The distribution of political power and structure in Glador". It described the political structure of the country as well as several neighbouring countries. These countries were part of a huge federation - The liberty federation. This federation was actually one of the bodies of a super-sect of humans - the Black Lotus Sect. Black lotus sect was a super-sect and held a huge territory. In their territory, there were many subsidiary forces and the liberty federation was one of them. Apparently, several hundred thousand years ago, a group of slave humans rebelled against their masters of another race - the demon race. They managed to escape from the demons' control and return back to the human lands. The escaped slaves were actually helped by the Black Lotus Sect. These slaves cleared forests and later established their own countries. They formed an alliance known as the liberty federation which grew over the past several years and became a subsidiary force of the Black Lotus Sect.
Becoming a super-sect was not easy. Being acknowledged as a Super-force had many requirements - the most important one being the presence of a divine being. The Black Lotus Sect was established by a divine being known as Hajoor. His signature move was called black lotus - summoning forth the netherworld river and forming a huge lotus that engulfed all his enemies. This was the signature move of the entire Black Lotus Sect. After one reached the divine realm, one obtained a title. Quite obviously, Hajoor's title was Black Lotus as well.
In his 20 days of reading, Michael did not take a break. He did not need to. His conscient had the recovery attribute. There was no need to sleep or rest. He was at his best concentration the entire time. Also, his conscient was extremely powerful giving Michael a terrifying comprehension and reading speed. In the past 20 days, Michael had read more than ten thousand books. This was actually only a small portion of the entire library. But it had deepened Michael's understanding of this new world by a huge amount. In fact, he was so immersed in the new information and knowledge that he did not want to stop. These books did not mention any new cultivation techniques or scriptures. These were daily general knowledge books. But the knowledge contained in them was quite valuable.
For example, the political system of liberty federation. It was a unique system that Michael had never seen. There were many powerful families in this country and they all had many experts and cultivators. But there was no king! No central authority. Michael could not believe that Glandor, a country as large as the entire light empire and countless times more populous could be ruled without an extremely powerful king. But there were procedures and methods of functioning that made this possible.
As Michael got completely immersed in his reading, he totally forgot about the time. He learned a great deal about the recorded history of this plane, the technology and the fundamental science behind it, the politics of the countries and the different races and super-powers in the plane. He even read about the law ocean and the 26 dominions. In the next five months, Michael read non-stop like crazy. In fact, he read more than half of the books in the national library! The ones left were the ones he had no interest in, like literature, fantasy stories or tales popular in the different races, detailed history of the races, medicine etc. In the first six months of his stay, he had gained enough knowledge to become a renowned scholar.
Through his analysis, he formulated another plan.
First of all, he needed to get stronger. If he could reach the transformation realm, it would give him many options. His goal was to oppose the devils. From his reading, he already knew that the devil army was one of the super-forces of this dominion and to remove this threat, he needed to join another super-force. But right now, his value was not enough to bargain the protection of an entire plane. So, increasing his cultivation was the first thing to do.
But even this had many things that needed to be done. His analysis of the third chapter of life laws was underway and he was constantly engineering the death chapter as well. His speed was countless times faster than before. While reading, Michael had kept cultivating simultaneously and was already in the mid-conception realm in the internal path. It would not be long before he could reach the late perfect realm. And once he finished the third chapter, he would break through into the demi-ascendant realm. But this was an established path and Michael did not need to focus too much to achieve this. He was confident in becoming a demi-ascendant in just a few years. What was troublesome was another matter - his psychic cultivation. From his reading, he already knew that psychic cultivation was very hard to grasp and not many inheritances were there. He also knew that due to his attribute and willpower, as long as he could find a decent enough teacher, his power would increase by leaps and bounds. But it was just too hard to truly find a teacher who would teach psychic cultivation.
Dao cultivation was different from psychic cultivation in the sense that it could not be schooled. While psychic cultivation could be taught. It was just that there were very very few known psychic cultivators. But Michael knew that his talent was most supreme in the psychic path. If he did not use it, it would be a huge waste.
Another important thing to do was to begin practising spirit cultivation. Spirit energy was nothing new. It was heaven-and-earth energy. Spirit cultivation required one to form their spirit-pool. Then, one would keep on cultivating and increasing their spirit pool. With a better quality of spirit energy and more reserves for it, one could channel it into many areas. It could be used in combat to form spells. These spells were completely different from what Michael ever knew. But they had terrifying power and were extremely widespread in the secondary, primary and super-planes. Thus, Michael had to begin his spirit cultivation as well.
Another important thing that he learned during his reading session was about fusion paths of cultivation. For example, both body path and soul path were extremely popular and widespread. But there was a way of combining these paths so that they are in complete agreement with each other. This was the technique of internal energy. As a result, once one managed to form internal energy, one could practise both the paths in close conjunction. But this was not the end of merging different paths.
Many different paths could be similarly merged together. Fusion paths not only had greater power at the same level, but they also had greater potential. But, they were similarly hard to master. Thus, the number of people who could cultivate these paths were rare as well. The three prominent paths too merged together.
Body and soul formed the internal path.
Body and spirit formed the Spirit physique path.
Soul and spirit formed the Soul Oracle path.
Body, Soul and Spirit path combined formed the Celestial path.
The Celestial path was the culmination of three great paths. Thus, it was even harder to attain. Celestials were the symbol of great talent. Any cultivator who could fuse the three paths and become a celestial would have great improvements in his strength and potential. For celestial cultivators, reaching the ascendant realm was a guarantee. Even the chances of reaching the divine stage were much higher. Thus, celestials were extremely valued by all forces in the 26 dominions.
As everyone's body and soul were different, getting to the fusion of these paths depended mostly on one's talent and not on resources that much. Thus, celestials were a sign of incredible talent.
Michael knew that the super forces of this plane would not move for him even if most of his trump cards were to be revealed. If he did sign a slavery contract after placing his psychic attribute on the table, things would be different. There was no way he would consider that. But for a celestial, they might consider holding a plane.
After finding out about the celestial path, Michael wanted to try his hands at it. After all, he had already stepped on the internal path and had some advantage. Michael's personality would not let him rest without trying.
As Michael thought of these different things that needed to be done in just one direction, he felt that it was quite a difficult problem. But there was another set of tasks to focus on. It was to gather the different Aternians that came here. He also needed to chose which super-force to ally with and how to enter the upper echelons. And almost all these tasks needed Michael to gather more information.
All in all, Michael needed to progress on many fronts at the same time and it was not going to be easy.