350 years later ...
Jack remained in closed-door cultivation for so long, but even then, using the databases from the Four Great sect and the brown dynasty, he barely succeeded in developing the Substance Soul Chapter of Heaven's Way.
It couldn’t be helped; the forces around here have little research on Heaven's Way. Jack can use other knowledge to make up for it somewhat, but there is a limit. Ultimately, there must be some direct knowledge about Heaven's Way itself.
Calculating the Substance Soul Chapter was already impressive; however, trying to calculate the Multiple Souls Realm with this little knowledge was just wishful thinking.
Faith acted as his helper during this time, and her cultivation skyrocketed to the 10th realm of the Nascent Soul. Even though it may sound unimpressive, it must be noted that she didn't have any system.
Her speed was impressive compared to that of the overwhelming majority of cultivators. She reached the peak of the Nascent Soul in less than 1,000 years.
It was always inevitable for Jack's followers to be left in the dust; after all, be it Faith, Lucy, or Mike, they do not have any system. Even with their peak talent, their speed would be far slower than Jack's unless they use some extremely heaven-defying pill.
Although with the Perfection Realm puppet, it should be possible to find a few heaven-defying pills, Jack didn't bother with it; the time he would have to consume to find pills could be better spent calculating Heaven's Way.
In the future, when he takes over a top sect, he will give pills to Mike and the others. In any case, they are not in danger of dying of old age. Even though they are not cultivating as fast as Jack, their speed is enough to avoid dying of old age. As for their self-protection ability, if the puppet can't protect them, being in the Substance Soul or Multiple Soul realm won't make any difference.
For now, however, Jack didn’t care about any of those; he was concentrating with closed eyes; it was time to break through to the Substance Soul Realm!
He opened his eyes and looked at his system interface.
"Name: Jack"
"Cultivation Level: Peak of 10th Stage of Divine Soul Realm"
"Main Mission: Conquer the World"
"Side Mission: Reach Soul Substance Realm - Reward: 2500 Years of Cultivation Practice"
"Temporary Task: None"
"Grandpa's Current Level: 9th Stage of Soul Substance Realm"
"Grandpa's Max Level: 10th Level of Soul Transformation"
"Cultivation Practice Reserves: 18,550 Years"
At the moment, the only limiting factor for him is his cultivation technique. If he had the complete Haven's way technique, he might have been able to reach the Multiple Soul Stage; after all, over the centuries, he spent most of his time in a closed and shut room calculating heaven's way; if he had been free, he would have solved a lot more temporary tasks and would have got many more years of cultivation reserves.
But Jack wasn't complaining about his cultivation technique. Reaching the Multiple Souls Stage with ordinary techniques was useless; without Heaven's Way, nothing can truly help conquer the world.
Thinking of this, he again closed his eyes, concentrating on his breakthrough.
Most find it difficult to break through to the Substance Soul Realm, but Jack has nearly a 100% chance of success if he does everything right.
In general, if one cultivates perfectly, one can break through big realms without risk of failure.
Once one breaks through the Core Formation Realm from the very start, they determine their path far into the future. If the core is high-quality, their future path will be much easier.
Jack had a near-perfect core, which resulted in a perfect quality nascent soul, much stronger than nearly all cultivators of the same realm. His powerful nascent soul was not solely because of his perfect core; his Heaven's Way technique also had much to do with it. While cultivation techniques aren’t required for one to break through to the next realm, they still can affect it; a good cultivation technique can increase the chance of the birth of a perfect and strong nascent soul.
Jack's perfect nascent soul was an extremely important achievement; with it, his future path through all the future realms would be much easier.
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With his perfect nascent soul, he broke through to the Divine Soul Realm much easier than most, with basically no risk of failure, without any pills. And now, while breaking through to the Substance Soul Realm, he would have an easier time and no risk of failure.
The rich get richer, even for cultivators. Once someone has a good start, they can build a good foundation and advance much more easily.
Substance Soul Realm cultivators no longer need a body; their soul itself is enough to act as both body and soul. Still, even though they don’t need a body, many keep one because it still can provide an extra layer of protection and serve as additional strength.
However, once one tries to break through to the Substance Soul Realm, they must shed their body.
Getting out of his body, Jack looked at his Divine Soul; it looked like an adult man with the same face as his body.
Without hesitation, he waved his right hand; a golden ray came out. The light hit his body and surrounded it; slowly but surely, it began disintegrating his body to nothingness. This is called the shedding stage.
With few exceptions, all those who break through from Divine Soul to Substance Soul would do this. Some pills could act as substitutes for the body, but Jack didn’t use them; he wasn’t very attached to his body anyway. Though able to save his body, those methods had a failure rate. Even though it was less than 1%, Jack didn’t want to take any risks.
After a few minutes, the entire body was gone.
"Alright, time to start!" Jack sighed and called the last tribulation of the Divine Soul stage. This time, he didn’t delay it but embraced it.
This last tribulation is what can strengthen his soul enough to promote it to the next realm. There are other ways, but Jack prefers the most straightforward way. In general, there is a workaround for most things, but Jack prefers to use the most orthodox method.
Extremely thick tribulation clouds gathered. Still, it was only around the late stage of the Divine Soul Realm, and Jack was not in danger of death.
But even though the tribulation level was quite weak, the tribulation clouds were too thick for their level; their color was also different, being a mix of red and golden colors.
After rumbling for a while, the first bolt of golden-red lightning hit Jack right in his soul.
Boom!
"Ahh!" Jack shouted but tolerated it. It was painful; he clearly felt the red tribulation as it penetrated a bit beyond his skin, but no further.
The golden part, however, penetrated deep, to his core!
"It's working!" He smiled slightly after feeling the comforting sensation from the depths of his soul. The golden energy was upgrading his soul.
There was no process of destruction and repair; those are for the physical body. The golden energy was not harming him at all; it was just improving the quality of his soul, making it as strong as a physical body of the same stage.
This part was extremely easy for Jack. His divine soul was flawless, so the golden energy strengthened it without harming it at all; if his soul had any flaw, the golden energy wouldn't have been this comfortable.
This golden energy is called the heavenly blessing. It rewards those who survive the divine soul realm. However, as is the case with heaven, it has rigid standards. If the divine soul is perfect, it will upgrade the soul without modification, but if it finds flaws, it will forcefully try to 'fix' those flaws.
This 'fixing' process can greatly damage the soul, which is why a perfect divine soul is so important; a perfect soul would easily pass this layer. If one's divine soul is too far apart from heaven's standards, then one should never call the last tribulation. Otherwise, this 'blessing' would be worse than a curse; they would have to look for alternative, less orthodox ways of reaching the substance soul, such as strengthening the soul manually, which has great risks of its own.
The second bolt of lightning fell!
"Ahh!" Jack again shouted; his pain tolerance was surprisingly low.
This one, too, only penetrated his surface muscles. The golden energy, however, was amazing and even addicting.
One after another, golden-red lightning bolts hit his soul, improving it by leaps and bounds.
Finally, the clouds disappeared, leaving behind a man sitting on the ground, Jack, who had just reached the Substance Soul Realm.
...
After sitting cross-legged and consolidating his realm for a few months, he opened his eyes and ordered, "System, use 10,000 years of cultivation practice and improve my cultivation base using Heaven's Way technique."
In the past, he tried to slow down his advancement speed because he was afraid of being found, but now, with the puppet around, he is not restrained anymore.
"Adding 10,000 years of cultivation practice to your cultivation using Heaven's Way… Operation successful."
Jack felt a powerful force passing through his soul. After a few minutes, he looked at his system interface.
"Name: Jack"
"Cultivation Level: 8th Stage of substance Soul Realm"
"Main Mission: Conquer the World"
"Side Mission: Reach Soul Substance Realm - Reward: 2500 Years of Cultivation Practice - claim"
"Temporary Task: Reach the peak of substance soul realm - reward: 2000 years of cultivation practice"
"Grandpa's Current Level: 9th Stage of Soul Substance Realm"
"Grandpa's Max Level: 10th Level of Soul Transformation"
"Cultivation Practice Reserves: 8,550 Years"
"As expected, even after 10,000 years, I still failed to reach the peak of the 10th stage!" Jack thought, then ordered, "Use however many years of cultivation practice necessary to improve my cultivation to the peak of soul substance stage using the Heaven's Way technique."
"Task successful! Cultivation practice reserves consumed-3988 years."
Another wave of energy appeared in Jack's soul from nowhere. At the same time, his level directly increased from the 8th stage to the peak of the 10th stage of the Substance Soul Realm.
"Cultivation Level: the peak of the 10th Stage of substance Soul Realm"
"Main Mission: Conquer the World"
"Side Mission: None"
"Temporary Task: None"
"Grandpa's Current Level: 9th Stage of Soul Substance Realm"
"Grandpa's Max Level: 10th Level of Soul Transformation"
"Cultivation Practice Reserves: 13,050 Years"
"So comfortable!" Jack thought as he moved around with his soul body. It was perfect; he felt no weakness from not having a body; in fact, he felt much better in his current form.
"Okay, I have finally reached the peak of the Substance Soul Realm! Now, let's look at the new spells!" Jack thought excitedly.
These new spells should be powerful.