After stepping into the Acupoint Opening Realm by forming a martial body, they needed to unlock the acupoints hidden in their body. Inferior martial bodies only had sixty acupoints, and a peak martial body had over three hundred and sixty.
To progress, the cultivator would unlock each acupoint until every single acupoint was opened, but even then, they would only be at the late stage of the Acupoint Opening Realm. To reach the peak of the Acupoint Opening Realm, they needed to connect them to form a single system, much like how a Qi Gathering Realm connected all their meridians.
If an acupoint opening master could not open all their acupoints and link them, they would never ascend to the next realm. It was a bottleneck that stymied numerous acupoint opening masters. At that point, they could take two options: reforge a new martial body or use external means.
Tianyi had the confidence to unlock all the acupoints of the Dragon Emperor Martial Body, but it couldn't withstand his qi, so he chose to reforge a new martial body.
From the outside, Tianyi's body appeared extremely abnormal. At some points, his skin would become translucent and reveal the inside of his body that resembled boundless darkness, and other times it resembled the star-filled night sky.
Tianyi had already spent over a month comprehending the Spring Autumn Scripture and dissected the profundities within. Strangely, Tianyi could quickly grasp the basic concepts. It was like a floodgate had opened within Tianyi, and he greedily drank it all, deducing several spatial concepts. It was like Tianyi had become a fish in the water.
Not even when he learned the concepts behind lightning did he have this easy of a time. Something that should have come naturally since he possessed the dao tribulation lightning spiritual roots. But the stranger part was that when he learned the spatial technique previously, his abilities to comprehend the spatial concepts were not as prominent as now.
Tianyi didn't dwell too deep on the oddity of the situation for now and immersed himself in comprehending as much as possible. Right now, he was deducing and testing on how to transform the Dragon Emperor Martial Body into a space-related martial body.
At this time, the Heavenly River within him played an immense role.
Each acupoint within his dantian had become tiny pseudo dantians capable of storing vast amounts of qi. There was no comparison between the previous size and the current size of the acupoints. And within each acupoint, tiny stars were taken from the Heavenly River floating aimlessly, each acupoint resembling a cluster of stars.
Tianyi's eight miniature dantian had been moved and merged with his main dantian with the transformation of his martial body. Now there was no miniature dantian and main dantian, only one dantian. All nine of his spiritual cores were now in one place and the Taiji symbol no longer encompassed everywhere and now existed only in his dantian.
His eight Yang Gold Cores all orbited his Dragon Yin Pearl Fore on the same plane in a counterclockwise direction. All of them were a different distance from his Dragon Yin Pearl Violet Gold Core, resembling a solar system. But rather than eight planets revolving around a star, it was eight stars orbiting an enormous planet.
At the same time, the grey cloud qi that had inhabited his dantian disappeared and became a black translucent qi with countless tiny lights within. When you looked inside Tianyi's whole body, it soon resembled a solar system surrounded by numerous stars.
His body was still under tremendous pressure from the ever-increasing production of the true qi of chaos, but it no longer felt as if a mountain was weighing down upon. Tianyi could feel his skin pulse as if a giant heart was beating. With each beat, the miniature cosmos within his body pulsed as it increased in size.
This was the concept of the ever-expanding universe that subsisted from the explosion of the big bang. Of course, back on Earth, this was only a theory known as the Big Bang Theory, but Tianyi substituted the big bang with his Sole Yin, Eight Trigrams Yang Formation.
Tianyi's nine spiritual cores created an endless amount of energy that expanded the cosmos while his new martial body constantly shrunk, creating a delicate equilibrium.
There was also an additional object existing within Tianyi's dantian. Surrounding the nine spiritual cores were countless tiny frozen droplets the color of gold. The Dragon Emperor's blood essence Tianyi had fused into his marrows, just floated around with the emergence of his new martial Boyd.
His only regret was that the pain he went through to absorb all the Dragon Emperor's blood essence was ultimately futile in the end. Although, if he hadn't cultivated a top-tier body like the Dragon Emperor Martial Body, he would have likely already died.
But he still couldn't get over the fact that he suffered tremendous torture for a technique he ultimately abandoned. Ultimately this complicated emotion couldn't push back by the joy of the embryonic martial cultivation method that Tianyi had formulated.
Tianyi held his face in his hand and began laughing madly. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!"
It was a laughter of liberation and happiness yet seemed to contain a hint of madness. For four years, he had been plagued with the constant threat of death from his cultivation method. But now, although it wasn't completely fixed, there was a clear direction for Tianyi to tread.
Tianyi's skin no longer appeared translucent and returned to its original color. For the first time in years, it was no longer sickly pale, and his body was no longer that of a child just before puberty and instead resembled a beautiful and handsome youth at the age of fourteen. An appearance closer to his true age now.
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'Still, the martial cultivation method I came up with is really flawed as well. Two wrongs do make a right, apparently,' Tianyi thought with a chuckle. 'If someone cultivated the martial method alone, even if they had a spiritual cultivation base at the same rank, then they would still die. The Martial Body formed is constantly contracting. Without an opposing force to counterbalance it, the cultivator would be squished to a pulp.'
'So the spiritual cultivation is flawed, the martial cultivation is also flawed. These two are perfect for each other. As long as the balance issue is solved, it can be the creation of a completely new method that encompasses both the spiritual and martial ways. I'm only missing a soul cultivation method.' Tianyi got excited while thinking about it. 'Since I'm the creator, it should have a great name that will reflect my title, right? How about Nine Dragon Classics or Scripture?'
"Wait, no, I no longer cultivate the Dragon Emperor Fist, so I have no connections with dragons anymore, and nothing about the cultivation method really involves dragons. How about... the Big Bang Manual? Ugh, forget I said that. I don't even have a title aside from my name... Heaven's Will Scripture? Nope! Nope! Nope!"
In the end, Tianyi decided to hold off the matter of naming the cultivation technique. It was still incomplete after all. He could name it after he perfected it. What attracted Tianyi's attention next were the members of the Bliss Earth Sect that had entered the inheritance site of Immortal Riverrat.
Tianyi could see a soul nourishing grandmaster and three acupoint masters fighting the stone soldiers. Unlike when Tianyi underwent the trial, the number of stone soldiers increased by four. So the group of four had to face a total of eight stone soldiers each round.
At least that was the situation when they first entered, nearly two weeks ago. Even after all this time, they couldn't pass the trial and could only stand by and watch Tianyi cultivate. Right now, the three acupoint opening masters waited outside the gate while the lone soul nourishing grandmaster attempted to clear the trial by his lonesome self.
The soul nourishing grandmaster wore a plain white robe, had a head full of white hair, and exuded an aura of decay. 'This guy doesn't fit the description of the Roving Dragon. As expected, the number of grandmasters on this island isn't just one. But so what? This guy looks like he could keel over anytime.'
"Junior, if you give up and return the inheritance to us, I'll let you die with a complete body!"
Tianyi ignored the half-dead cultivator's words. It wasn't like it was the first time Tianyi had been threatened since coming into the inheritance site. Besides, he had numerous treasures, and even without them, Tianyi had enough strength to defeat the soul nourishing grandmaster.
He likely had formed an inferior martial body, resulting in him emitting qi weaker than some acupoint opening master Tianyi saw at the Three Heavens Connection Meeting.
Tianyi walked to the edge of the land and looked at the artificial river of time. The individual silver threads that made up the river were extremely beautiful, like a strand of silk-thin silver. When all of them formed together, it gave a feeling of the passage of time like something was slipping through one's fingers.
He held his chin deep in thought as he eyed the river and then jade pendant on his waist. "This should be enough to make a sea, right?"
Once he decided to do it, Tianyi immediately acted on it. He tapped his finger onto the jade pendant, and one real mountain, eight illusionary mountains, and nine illusionary seas descended appeared.
The soul nourishing grandmaster instantly felt the powerful pressure from the formation and disengaged with the two Nascent Soul Realm stone soldiers. He regretted his earlier words and hoped Tianyi wouldn't take this chance to attack him.
Unlike back in the Immortal Court where Tianyi had relied on the Pendant of Nine Mountains and Seas to forcibly uproot the mountain and merge it, the process of turning the artificial River of Time into the First Mountain's sea went far more natural.
Tianyi quirked his lips upward as the inheritance site began to tremble with the decrease in size of the River of Time. It seemed that history was repeating itself. However, since this wasn't in the Vast Void, Tianyi wasn't worried about being crushed by the mountain.
Outside of the inheritance site, more than ten master-level elders had gathered. They were all summoned here and waiting for one reason and one reason alone.
It didn't take a genius to figure out what the reason was.
However, at this moment, the mountain began to tremble, and with each passing moment, the shaking increased in strength.
"What's happening?"
"Did something happen inside?"
"Are the grand elders fighting with the intruder?"
"What could cause something like this?"
"Not even the grand elders' battle would result in the mountain shaking like this!"
The ten elders, upon sensing something amiss, shouted, "Retreat! Get as far away from the mountain as fast as possible!"
Alas, it was too late as the mountain began to collapse into itself. All the trees that had dug their root into the mountain did nothing as they too shattered and snapped. Not only were the trees getting buried from the imploding mountain, but the various beasts as well.
The most heart-wrenching thing for the Bliss Earth Sect was the unaccountable number of body transformation acolytes that were unable to escape in time, being buried alive by the calamity. To lose so many at once would result in the Bliss Earth Sect's influence and strength drastically lowering.
But what could they do?
The ten elders could only try their best at saving as many Bliss Earth Sect members as possible. At the same time, they couldn't help but worry for the Soul Nourishing Realm and three Acupoint Opening Realm elders inside the mountain.
When the shaking finally calmed down, before anyone could release a breath of relief, they immediately suffocated again when a heavy pressure began to bear down on them.
Emerging from the imploded mountain remain were nine mountains and nine seas. Eight of the mountain and seas resembled phantoms and seemed to be able to flicker into nonexistence at any time. Still, there was one mountain that was even larger than the collapsed mountain with an argent-colored sea surrounding it.
To the relief of all those suffocating from the pressure, the nine mountains and seas soon faded away to reveal a single person standing in the air.
The Core Formation Elder that had been struck by lightning when his neck had been grabbed by Tianyi's hand shivered. Although Tianyi's appearance had slightly changed, he would never forget the person who caused his fatal injuries. Even now, he was still injured and barely managed to keep his spiritual core from shattering.
To the Bliss Earth Sect's member's surprise, the figure in the air made several hand seals, and then silver strands descended onto fallen Bliss Earth Sect members. Before they could panic, they realized that their injuries were being healed, and even those near death or just died had revived.
Under the amazement of the Bliss Earth Sect members, the damage caused by the collapse by the mountain was reversed. The only one who wasn't overjoyed by this was a certain elder whose body returned to its previous state before consuming several life-saving pills.