Spiritual Awareness

Gu Jinlai chose high carbon steel.

Its performance couldn't match titanium alloy, but the composition was simple and cheap.

He planned to equip all one thousand elites he was training for the Gu family with these items in the future, so cost-effectiveness became the top priority.

"Visualize the great sun."

Gu Jinlai took a deep breath.

Above Qinglian, Pure Light did not inject into any of the light spheres, but instead shone directly onto his consciousness body.

In an instant, information about the sun and carbon steel surged wildly in Gu Jinlai's mind.

Not a single detail he had encountered in his entire life was missed.

Even basic information about the sun's structure from TV programs in some dramas was not omitted.

For ten seconds, his brain seemed to complete a sublimation of memory.

And the information formed after this sublimation was clearly reflected in his mind, making it as easy for him to understand as grasping that one plus one equals two.

Seizing this state where the sun's structure was exceptionally clear.

Magnetic fields, plasma, gravitational confinement, proton-proton chain reactions, helium formed by hydrogen fusion, carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle reactions...

Countless pieces of information flowed through his mind, over and over again.

Gradually, a round, realistic great sun radiating a blazing, majestic aura was visualized by Gu Jinlai within his spiritual world, slowly guiding the fluctuations emanating from the depths of his soul to resonate with it, forming spirituality.

Then, the Great Sun Nine Refinements Visualization Method activated, and his essence and qi began to burn.

Due to the existence of the resonance state, as essence and qi burned, the originally formless, intangible spirituality that could only exist as a concept was ignited, turning into spiritual fire, which then merged with the visualized simulated sun, evolving into a "true" sun that interfered with his own spirit.

The relationship between essence, qi, spirituality, and the visualized sun was like that of material, igniter, and energy release formula.

Just like hydrogen as a material, using fire as an energy release method only made it a flammable gas.

But if it underwent a thermonuclear reaction, its power would increase countless times.

Using essence and qi as fuel, and spirituality to evolve the "great sun" for cultivation, the spirit transformed from void to reality, refining the void into truth, and was refined into divine thought.

Divine thought...

Was like the tentacles of thought.

Or an extension of consciousness.

In an instant, Gu Jinlai felt his "field of vision" enter a completely new realm.

Not only did his perception of himself become precise to the extreme, but he could also reflect the external surroundings.

Although the range was not large, and the further away, the blurrier the reflected "image" became, this perspective was a full three hundred and sixty degrees without blind spots.

If a stone were placed within his reflection range, he could clearly "see" all six sides of the stone.

"Divine thought."

Gu Jinlai had a flash of insight and immediately understood the truth of this power.

With divine thought derived, his observation of his physical body reached the extreme.

He could clearly see the true qi cultivated by the Great Sun Demonic Radiance Technique and the essence refined from tempering the body being rapidly burned, transforming into divine thought, causing the divine thought to grow swiftly.

Moreover, unlike the divine thought cultivated by pure Spirit Refining True Persons, the divine thought of the Celestial Master Lineage possessed a kind of "spirituality"!

It contained soul power.

Because of the existence of this spiritual power, his divine thought was more "heavy and solid," far from the free and flexible depiction of a Spirit Refining True Person's divine thought.

"No wonder, though both are spirit refining, a Spirit Transformation True Person can wield a flying sword for assassination, while a Celestial Master can only rely on Soul Secret Arts."

At the root, the Celestial Master's divine thought had an extra "spirituality" component, making it too "heavy."

So heavy it couldn't fly, slow and sluggish, let alone wield a sword to kill enemies.

Additionally, he realized he had thought too simply.

Because the Celestial Master's divine thought was "heavy" and lacked flexibility, imagining they could guide a Blood Changing martial artist to cultivate true qi like a Spirit Refiner probably wasn't easy.

They were only suited for slow artifact refining and slow beast taming.

"In recent years, Spirit Refining has replaced the Celestial Master as the orthodox path of cultivation. To distinguish the difference between the two, the Celestial Master's divine thought has been forcibly renamed Spiritual Awareness..."

Gu Jinlai carefully sensed the spirituality carried within his divine thought.

The name Spiritual Awareness was indeed more fitting than divine thought.

At the same time, he examined his physical state.

"The consumption of essence... isn't as great as I imagined."

His physique and true qi were indeed severely depleted.

But it hadn't fallen below the level of Dan Formation.

He would only need a month or two to recover.

This result...

"In the Great Sun Nine Refinements Visualization Method, the Great Sun is the foundation of cultivation. Perhaps because the Great Sun is so radiant, its refining efficiency is extremely high, allowing me to quickly complete my divine sense... Spiritual Awareness condensation."

It was like forging iron into a weapon.

Others needed to burn it with fierce fire, smelt it at high temperatures, and hammer it repeatedly, but he directly melted the iron into molten liquid, poured it into a mold, and a sword took shape.

The entire process was seamless, so the consumption of Essence was naturally negligible.

Gu Jinlai shifted his attention to the small figure on Qinglian.

A new light orb appeared beside the small figure.

And this light orb...

"Deep purple."

Gu Jinlai was somewhat surprised.

He had some guesses about the colors of the light orbs.

Green light orbs, depending on depth, corresponded to Qi Refining, Condensing Gang, and Core Formation.

Blue light orbs, depending on depth, corresponded to Spirit Refining, Spirit Transformation, and Primordial Spirit.

The Great Sun Nine Refinements Visualization Method had nine levels, capable of reaching the peak of the Primordial Spirit Realm, so it should logically be deep blue.

Yet now it was purple...

Deep purple, at that.

"Is it because the Great Sun I visualize has fundamentally changed the upper limit of this technique's potential!?"

Gu Jinlai had a sudden realization.

Then he thought back to how he had cultivated Spiritual Awareness with negligible Essence consumption...

This was the change brought by the upgrade in technique level.

"If the consumption is only this minimal, is it possible that I could maintain my current cultivation while switching to the Celestial Master path?"

Gu Jinlai turned his gaze to the Beast Taming Chapter derived from the Great Sun Nine Refinements Visualization Method.

Celestial Masters had considered more than once whether they could use visualization to guide the evolution of Spirit Beasts as a means to evolve humans, but every attempt ended in failure.

One could not perform Spirit Fusion with oneself.

Nor could it be done through another person.

The key to Spirit Fusion depended on the difference in spirituality between the two parties.

Inanimate materials had the weakest spirituality, followed by wild beasts. Thus, forging treasure tools and spirit tools was easier than cultivating exotic beasts and Spirit Beasts.

And humans were the Spirit Lords of all things.

"Cultivation, in the end, is Qi Refining to Essence, Qi Refining to Spirit Transformation."

A Qi Refining Realm cultivator's True Qi was condensed from the Essence within their body. Once True Qi was formed, it nourished the physical body in return, creating a cycle of endless vitality.

When both grew strong enough to condense Qi into a Core and achieve a leakless true body, one began to nurture the spirit, store the spirit, and cultivate the spirit, until divine sense spontaneously emerged.

Once divine sense was formed, one could more precisely tap into the physical body's potential, nurture more divine sense, and further cultivate a Yin Spirit and Primordial Spirit.

"Compared to the cultivation path, where Essence, Qi, and Spirit complement each other in an endless cycle, the Celestial Master Dao constantly draws from the physical body, causing an imbalance between Essence, Qi, and Spirit. Even health preservation and body tempering are like trying to put out a cartload of firewood with a cup of water. No wonder it was eliminated by the times."

Gu Jinlai shook his head. "The cultivators of this world can't, like in novels, use heaven and earth as a furnace and the physical body as a great pill, refining the Power of Heaven and Earth to replenish themselves, borrowing the cycle of heaven and earth to sustain endless vitality."

Now that his consumption during Qi Refining to Spirit Transformation was extremely small...

If he also practiced health preservation well, he might be able to make up for the losses from each Qi Refining to Spirit Transformation session.

"Each refinement of the Great Sun Nine Refinements Visualization Method draws more spirituality from the soul and increases the Spirit Fusion rate. The stronger the spirituality and the higher the Spirit Fusion efficiency, the greater the power of the Great Sun that ultimately manifests, which in turn can more efficiently refine more Spiritual Awareness..."

Gu Jinlai sensed carefully for a moment and soon realized just how astonishing the refining rate of the Great Sun derived from his Spiritual Fire was.

Three times? Ten times? Thirty times? A hundred times?

No!

It was almost as if whatever he put in, he got out.

This efficiency...

Even someone at the ninth refinement couldn't compare to him.

In other words, he had already effectively perfected this technique?

To verify his speculation, Gu Jinlai immediately ended his cultivation and left the courtyard.

"Master."

At the courtyard gate, Su Nanxing opened his eyes. "Did you succeed?"

"With my Spirit Refining aptitude, switching to the Celestial Master path naturally succeeded in one go."

Gu Jinlai said.

Su Nanxing nodded. "Master is right."

"Call two people with forging experience to accompany me to the outer courtyard."

Gu Jinlai gave the order.

By the time he reached the outer courtyard, Gu Chaoyang and two other unknown Gu family disciples had arrived and stood waiting at the side.

Here, a casting platform was set up.

"Patriarch."

The several people bowed respectfully.

"Light the fire."

Gu Jinlai instructed, pointing at the breastplate preform that had already been prepared on the casting platform.

Soon, the casting platform was activated, and the two Gu family disciples with blacksmithing skills stepped forward to forge the armor.

Gu Jinlai stood by, guiding the carbon content ratio.

An hour later, the breastplate completed its initial forging.

At this moment, Gu Jinlai had also finished visualizing the "High Carbon Steel" breastplate.

The moment the breastplate portion was forged, this visualization pattern was infused into the newly born breastplate through his Spiritual Awareness.

Vaguely, Gu Jinlai seemed to sense the life within this part of the armor.

It was a kind of...

indescribable, inexplicable resonance.

Spirit Fusion.

The Spirit Fusion rate is related to the similarity between the visualized object and the actual object.

Spirituality, Spirit Fusion, and Spiritual Awareness—to use a telecommunications analogy, they correspond to signal transmission speed, signal transmission success rate, and the duration of sustained transmission.

Having download speed is useless without a seed.

Having a seed is useless without download speed.

Having both download speed and a seed, but only being able to download for a minute or two, is equally useless.

Because he was thoroughly familiar with the structure of High Carbon Steel, Gu Jinlai's Spirit Fusion rate with the breastplate was extremely high.

As the spiritual power contained in his Spiritual Awareness poured in, the breastplate, which originally had extremely weak spirituality, seemed to "awaken," endowed with consciousness and life. Under Gu Jinlai's guidance, it adjusted, grew, and transformed according to the composition of his High Carbon Steel structure, until it underwent a metamorphosis.

"Celestial Master Artifact Refining."

This scene, witnessed by Gu Chaoyang and the others, made them hold their breath.

In less than the time it takes to burn an incense stick, Gu Jinlai stopped.

He felt a mental fatigue.

His Spiritual Awareness had been heavily consumed.

After all, he had only just become a Celestial Master. The Great Sun Nine Refinements Visualization Method was not a martial art skill; no matter how Mysterious Power it possessed, it couldn't allow him to forge a treasure artifact in a single day.

"Cast the other parts of this plate armor according to the materials I just specified."

Gu Jinlai said.

"Yes."

The two responded with some excitement.

Gu Jinlai carried the breastplate back to the training room and began to recover his Spiritual Awareness through the meditation portion of the Great Sun Nine Refinements Visualization Method.

"The growth of Spiritual Awareness doesn't happen overnight; it requires repeated Qi Refining to Spirit Transformation. But I can raise the level of the Great Sun Nine Refinements Visualization Method to gain more spirituality."

Gu Jinlai turned his gaze to the deep purple orb beside the miniature consciousness body in his Spiritual world.

"Add it for me!"