Although the system allowed him to have stats that were one point higher than his enemies, it was full of limitations.

Just like when forming karmic bonds with golden cores, he didn't suddenly condense a golden core; instead, he just had the same amount of qi but one point higher.

Thus, when realizing that Da Jiu had more mental power than him, this showed that the next stage after the golden core had a unique trait on these three aspects: soul, spirit, and mind.

"It's fine if it's just a mere natural protection similar to the golden core, but for the soul, spirit, or mind. But if it is an entirely new power that I'm helpless with, this would be a big problem."

With that in mind, Niu Chang quickly reformed his formation and, at the same time, raised the cultivation of his soul to the limit of the qi refinement realm.

He almost didn’t move since his body was being baptized by the system to increase his soul cultivation level. It was his second brain that handled the upgrade of the formation entirely.

The soul was a rather unique thing or substance in this world. Even Niu Chang was skeptical about its existence.

Although he was a reincarnation himself, he didn't just go and be happy and smiley all the way through his entire journey. Instead, he believed there should be a deeper reason as to why he was able to reincarnate into this world, something that only after he had walked two-thirds of his journey if he followed the conventional path he would be able to unravel the first clue.

There were various possibilities since he had already read so many books; one of them would be similar to what happened to him.

So he made his second brain come up with a contingency plan for each scenario.

Now getting back to the soul, Niu Chang, who chose to approach everything as nothing but mere facts and information, defined the soul as the body of thoughts.

Just like the physical body, the soul also contained thoughts and became akin to a mecha for the mind.

At some level, the soul would be able to detach itself from the body and live without any worries in the outside world.

Going higher on the level, it would be the unification of the soul and physical body, allowing living beings who were mortals to be innate creatures where their mind and body were one and no longer limited by the nature of postnatal creatures.

No longer limited to their biological logic nor by the physics of the world.

Since it was a virtual body, it would be easier to cultivate it with the soul type Impossible Idea, right?

No, it was completely wrong since the soul body was in another realm and played with different rules. Even Niu Chang was still researching the facts about souls.

Even so, he still came up with a very powerful soul cultivation technique for his current self.

It was called the Prisoner Suit. Sure, he admitted it has a wacky name, but it was because that was basically the technique.

It could also be called a restraining cloth, but it sounded more like it was for a mental patient, so he chose the second option.

The soul was mysterious and had various strange rules. It was uncharted territory that was hard to explore, mainly because of that, Niu Chang wanted to cultivate a technique that allowed his soul to be impenetrable by anything and escape the rules that work for the soul.

If he could change his soul’s rule that followed the rule of the physical body, it would be easier for him to guard it by any means in his arsenal, since his creativity knew no bounds as long as he was able to put his finger on the problem.

So if his soul stayed as an ordinary soul where he knew nothing about it, how could he imagine something that he didn't understand?

Thus it was called the Prisoner Suit, to take the soul body as the captive of the physical body, changing anything that worked for the soul no longer applied to it.

Naturally, it came with various drawbacks, but it could be easily handled by adding numerous auxiliary soul-based skills to fortify its defense.

Niu Chang kept making his preparations as he second-handedly observed the approaching Da Jiu from his mental map.

Not long after, he raised his head.

In the sky, it was empty, but according to the system, Da Jiu had already arrived in front of him and was now standing quietly there.

Various qi with different attributes started to glow in Niu Chang’s eyes, trying different investigation skills to perceive Da Jiu, but he was unsuccessful.

He could capture the strangeness of that place, but he was unable to fully unravel Da Jiu’s existence.

Then from qi, he changed the source to vitality and mental power. Only then was he able to get a better grasp on Da Jiu’s hidden body.

"It is no use; his hiding skill is beyond everything that I have now. It is as if he could isolate himself from the world, which should be on a reality-bending level…"

With his vast array of information from reading various books, naturally, Niu Chang had his guess.

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‘A stage where the cultivator is able to interact with the world? Or interacting with the Law or Dao itself?’

It made sense, since all of his skills were still within the limits of physics. Even if some of them had effects beyond it, in the end, they still worked according to logic, not sentiment.

If the skill worked based on sentiment, it wouldn’t be different from bending reality at will.

Niu Chang held his horse and limited what he could show to his enemy.

From the karmic connection between them, Niu Chang could mentally locate Da Jiu’s location precisely with no error.

His eyes followed the spot that was supposedly where Da Jiu's location was.

“Impressive,” an old man's voice suddenly appeared directly next to his ears. It sounded like two people were talking next to his ears.

But Niu Chang knew Da Jiu was still outside his formation; it may be a trick of those on Da Jiu's cultivation level.

Since it was a serious situation, Niu Chang withdrew from his seat and let his second brain take over his body since he didn’t want to make any minor mistakes.

The second brain seamlessly controlled his body like a cold, emotionless machine but still retained the touch of humans.

With his usual tone, Niu Chang said, “Old man, why are you standing there? Come on in.”

The battle had already begun; it was a battle of nerves right now. Anything that happened from now on would give valuable information to each party.

Da Jiu just stopped directly in front of the invisible formation. One step forward and he would be blocked by the formation.

Niu Chang was unable to see his expression, so all he could do was to create and improve his current skill to be able to capture this invisible old man.

The old man no longer talked as he continually flew around the formation that Niu Chang had built.

Ten minutes later, he stopped and started another conversation. “Boy, you are not what I’m looking for, but that is not a problem anymore. You have a unique constitution that should not be less than what I’m looking for. How about this, if you choose to be obedient and become my disciple, then I will help you uncover the secret in your body.”

Niu Chang pondered for a moment before shaking his head, “that won’t do. I can cultivate on my own; if that is all, then you can go.”

He neither directly rejected or accepted Da Jiu since he didn’t want any direct conflict, at least for now. If he could change the date of their battle, naturally the second brain would act that way.

“Is that so?” the old man’s voice contained a slight sadness.

“Then don’t hate this old man for forcing his way.” As he finished talking, the formation that was carefully designed so that no golden cores would be able to destroy it was easily resolved.

Niu Chang had a belief. As long as it was within a fantasy world, energy would always be the limitation for any kind of skills or techniques.

Even if a cultivator or mage reached a level of reality-bending, they would be limited by their energy reserves, be it qi or mana or magical energy.

So having an unlimited supply of energy from the system, naturally Niu Chang would utilize everything he was capable of to create the most powerful formation to guard against Da Jiu.

‘But it seems, I was wrong for this one,’ as he was not in control right now. Niu Chang saw how the invisible formation easily dissolved into their basic form, which was qi.

The outer layer of the formation focused on defending; this was to test the bottom limit of the enemy.

The inner layer of the formation focused on attacking; this was to test the upper limit of the enemy.

It was simple yet effective, and Niu Chang liked effectiveness very much.

Since it was the second brain in charge right now, Niu Chang could enjoy the live data being shown in front of his face as he tried to figure out how Da Jiu was able to dismantle his perfect formation.

Everything was always about energy.

So instead of replaying the scene, it was better to analyze the data and parameters since it was easier.

The structure of the formation.

The types of formation.

The energy supplies of the formation.

All of them were the control variables; they wouldn’t change and stayed the same for the time of the experiment.

The next variable was Da Jiu’s method of attacking. It was the independent variable that was unknown for now and caused the destruction of the formation.

The last one was the dependent variable; it was how the formation was dismantled.

Da Jiu easily walked forward as he silently destroyed various formations in front of him. The more he walked forward, the longer it took for him to take his next step.

The formation kept changing and testing his method subtly.

But even so, their changes that tried to prevent Da Jiu from advancing naturally made it easier for him to realize this.

"What a good technique, to be able to control such a delicate formation and change its form and shape at will, even more so to adapt to changes. Magnificent!"

"You think this will buy you more time?"

"Instead, this only made me want you more and take the secret in you."

There was no need to panic; the greed of cultivators was always about cultivation, be it material or knowledge. In the end, they were no different from animals who were stronger than ordinary animals.

Looked at how greedy Da Jiu became after he witnessed the ever-changing formation that Niu Chang implemented.

Naturally, it was strong, strong enough for someone who was beyond the golden core stage to want it. Someone that only a handful of people knew their existence, how can someone at that level show greed for ordinary things.

Seeing the data and parameters changing drastically, Niu Chang realized that Da Jiu was just playing before and now he was getting serious.

But at the same time, it showed his true strength.

There was nothing perfect in this world; everything beneath transcendence was imperfect.

Thus Niu Chang was able to discern the truth of Da Jiu’s method.

But at the same time, he was confused.

‘Is it still energy manipulation…’ he stared at the changing data and parameters in front of him. ‘But why is his energy able to act that way? It no longer matters on quantity, but the quality of qi is on another level.’

Then in response, he manually told the second brain to do various tests to check which quality improvement that Da Jiu had on his qi.

More and more data and tests were conducted, but more questions arose instead.

Da Jiu arrived in front of the inner layer, the offensive layer. From there, he no longer took another step as he silently stayed there for a whole thirty minutes.

For the whole thirty minutes, Niu Chang kept testing his hypotheses.

He didn’t go overboard in his testing, just a little tickling and picking here and there.