Spirit Awareness

Gu Jinlai chose high-carbon steel.

Its performance was inferior to titanium alloy, but its composition was simple and it was cheap.

He planned to equip all one thousand elites trained by the Gu Clan with this gear in the future. Thus, cost-effectiveness naturally became the top priority.

"Visualize the Great Sun."

Gu Jinlai took a deep breath.

On the Green Lotus, the clear light did not pour into any of the light spheres. Instead, it shone onto the consciousness body.

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

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

Even the basic information about the sun's structure that had been broadcast on televisions in certain TV dramas was not omitted.

Ten seconds later, his brain seemed to have completed a sublimation of memory.

Moreover, the information formed after the sublimation was clearly reflected in his mind, making it as easy for him to understand as the fact that one plus one equaled two.

Taking advantage of the moment when the sun's structure was incomparably clear,

magnetic fields, plasma, gravitational confinement, the proton-proton chain reaction, helium formed by the fusion of hydrogen atoms, the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle...

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

Gradually, a genuine and rational Great Sun radiating a blazing, resplendent aura was visualized by Gu Jinlai in his mental world. It slowly guided the fluctuations escaping from the depths of his soul to resonate with it, forming spirituality.

Immediately afterward, the Great Sun Ninefold Refinement Visualization Method began to circulate, and the essence and qi within his body started to burn.

Because the state of resonance existed, the burning essence and qi ignited the spirituality that had originally been formless and intangible, existing only as a concept. It transformed into spiritual fire, then fused with the visualized Great Sun, evolving into a "true" Great Sun that interfered with his own spirit.

The relationship between essence and qi, spirituality, and the visualized Great Sun was equivalent to that between materials, an ignition device, and an energy-release formula.

It was like hydrogen as a material. Using fire to burn it as a means of releasing energy would produce only a flammable gas.

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

With essence and qi as fuelwood and spirituality evolving into the "Great Sun," his spirit changed from the void into reality, refining the unreal into the real and distilling it into spiritual sense.

Spiritual sense...

It was like the feelers of thought.

It was also like an extension of consciousness.

In an instant, Gu Jinlai felt that his "field of vision" had entered an entirely new world.

Not only had his perception of himself become precise to the extreme, but it could also reflect the surrounding outside world.

Although the range was not large, and the farther away something was, the blurrier the "image" reflected, this perspective had no blind spots across three hundred and sixty degrees.

If a stone were placed within the range of his reflection, he could clearly "see" the stone's top, bottom, front, and back.

"Spiritual sense."

Gu Jinlai was struck by sudden insight and immediately understood the truth behind this power.

As spiritual sense emerged, his observation of his physical body reached the extreme.

He could clearly see the true qi cultivated through the Great Sun Demon Radiance Art and the essence and qi produced by tempering his physical body being rapidly burned and transformed into spiritual sense, causing his spiritual sense to grow swiftly.

Moreover, unlike the spiritual sense cultivated by a pure Spirit Refining True Person, the spiritual sense of the Heavenly Master Lineage possessed a kind of "spirituality"!

It contained the power of the soul.

Because of the existence of spiritual power, his spiritual sense was more "heavy and solid," far less free and nimble than the spiritual sense described in accounts of Spirit Refining True Persons.

"No wonder that although both are Spirit Refining, a Spirit Transformation True Person can control a sword to assassinate people, while a Heavenly Master can only rely on soul arts."

At the root of it, the spiritual sense of a Heavenly Master contained more "spirituality." It was too "heavy."

So heavy that it could not fly and moved sluggishly—let alone control a sword to kill enemies.

Besides, he also realized that he had thought too simply.

Because a Heavenly Master's spiritual sense was "heavy" and insufficiently agile, guiding a Blood-Changing Martial Artist to cultivate true qi as Spirit Refining cultivators did would probably not be easy.

They were suited only to refining artifacts slowly and controlling beasts slowly.

"In recent years, Spirit Refining replaced Heavenly Masters as the orthodox path of cultivation. To distinguish the difference between the two, the spiritual sense of Heavenly Masters was forcibly renamed spirit awareness..."

Gu Jinlai carefully sensed the spirituality carried within his spiritual sense.

The name spirit awareness was indeed more fitting in practice than spiritual sense.

At the same time, he examined the state of his physical body.

"The consumption of essence and qi... wasn't as great as I imagined."

His physique and true qi had indeed been severely depleted.

But they had not fallen below the Core Forming realm.

He would only need to spend one or two months recovering.

This result...

"In the Great Sun Ninefold Refinement Visualization Method, the Great Sun is the foundation of cultivation. Perhaps because the Great Sun is so resplendent and its refining efficiency is extremely high, I was able to quickly complete the condensation of spiritual sense... spirit awareness."

It was like forging an iron ore into a weapon.

Others needed to burn it with fierce flames, smelt it at high temperatures, and hammer it again and again, while he had directly melted the iron ore into molten iron, poured it into a mold, and formed a treasured sword.

The entire process had flowed as one, so the consumption of essence and qi was naturally negligible.

Gu Jinlai's spirit turned toward the little figure on the Green Lotus.

A new light sphere appeared beside the little figure.

And this light sphere...

"Deep purple."

Gu Jinlai was somewhat surprised.

He had more or less guessed at the meanings of the light spheres' colors.

Green light spheres, according to the depth of their color, corresponded to Qi Refining, Gang Condensing, and Core Forming.

Blue light spheres, according to the depth of their color, corresponded to Spirit Refining, Spirit Transformation, and Primordial Spirit.

The Great Sun Ninefold Refinement Visualization Method had nine levels in total and could be cultivated to the peak of the Primordial Spirit realm. By rights, it should have been deep blue.

Yet now it had become purple...

Deep purple at that.

"Could it be because the Great Sun I visualized fundamentally changed this art's upper limit of potential!?"

Gu Jinlai came to a realization.

Then he recalled that he had cultivated spirit awareness while expending almost no essence and qi...

This was the change brought about by raising the level of the cultivation art.

"If the consumption is only at this level, is it possible that I can maintain my cultivation while switching to the Heavenly Master path?"

Gu Jinlai turned his gaze toward the Beast-Taming chapter derived from the Great Sun Ninefold Refinement Visualization Method.

Heavenly Masters had wondered more than once whether humans could evolve by using visualization to guide spirit beasts through evolution, but without exception, all attempts had ended in failure.

One could not resonate with oneself.

Borrowing another person's hand would not work either.

Resonance ultimately depended on the difference in spirituality between the two sides.

Dead materials had the weakest spirituality, followed by wild beasts. Thus, forging treasured artifacts and Spirit Artifacts was easier than cultivating exotic beasts and spirit beasts.

As for humans, they were the most spiritual of all living things.

"Cultivation, at its root, is refining essence into qi and refining qi into spirit."

The true qi of a Qi Refining cultivator was formed by condensing the essence and qi within the body. Once true qi was cultivated, it nourished the physical body in return, and the two cycled endlessly.

When the two grew strong enough to condense qi into a core and make the true body without leaks, one began nourishing, concealing, and nurturing the spirit until spiritual sense emerged on its own.

Once spiritual sense was formed, one could excavate the potential of the physical body in finer detail, nurture more spiritual sense, and further cultivate the Yin Spirit and Primordial Spirit.

"Compared with the cultivation path, where essence, qi, and spirit support one another in an endless cycle, the Heavenly Master path constantly draws from the physical body, throwing essence, qi, and spirit out of balance. Even health preservation and body refinement are like a cup of water on a burning cart. No wonder it was eliminated by the times."

Gu Jinlai shook his head. "Cultivators in this world can't be like those in novels, using the heavens and earth as a furnace and the physical body as the great pill, refining the power of heaven and earth to replenish themselves and relying on the cycle of heaven and earth to live endlessly."

At present, his consumption during the refinement of qi into spirit was extremely small...

If he also maintained proper health, he might not be unable to replenish the losses from refining qi into spirit each time.

"Each refinement of the Great Sun Ninefold Refinement Visualization Method draws more spirituality from the soul and raises the resonance rate. The stronger the spirituality and the higher the resonance efficiency, the greater the might of the Great Sun ultimately evolved, allowing it to refine more spirit awareness with greater efficiency..."

Gu Jinlai carefully sensed it for a moment and quickly realized how astonishing the refinement rate of the Great Sun evolved from his spiritual fire was.

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

No!

It was practically refining as much as he invested.

This efficiency...

Even someone at the ninth refinement could not compare with him.

In other words, he had already cultivated this art to perfection?

To verify the guess in his heart, Gu Jinlai immediately ended his cultivation and left the courtyard.

"Master."

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

"I switched to the Heavenly Master path while possessing the bearing of a Spirit Refining cultivator. Naturally, I succeeded in a single step."

Gu Jinlai replied.

Su Nanxing nodded. "Master is right."

"Call two people with a foundation in forging and have them follow me to the outer courtyard."

Gu Jinlai gave the order.

By the time he reached the outer courtyard, Gu Chaoyang and two other unknown members of the Gu Clan had hurried over and stood by, awaiting instructions.

There was a forging platform there.

"Ancestor."

The few of them bowed respectfully.

"Light the fire."

Gu Jinlai looked at the breastplate blank for the front section of the plate armor, which had already been prepared on the forging platform, and gave the order.

The forging platform was soon activated, and the two Gu Clan disciples with blacksmithing skills stepped forward to forge the armor.

Gu Jinlai, meanwhile, directed them on the proportion of carbon content.

An hour later, the breastplate had completed its initial forging.

At that moment, Gu Jinlai had also completed visualizing the "high-carbon steel" breastplate.

The instant the breastplate section finished being forged, the visualization pattern entered the newly born breastplate through his spirit awareness.

In a haze, Gu Jinlai seemed to sense the life of this section of breastplate.

It was a kind of...

Resonance that could not be spoken of or explained.

Resonance!

The resonance rate was related to the similarity between the visualization object and the physical object.

Spirituality, resonance, and spirit awareness were, in the terminology of the telecommunications industry, equivalent to transmission speed, the success rate of signal transmission, and the length of time for which transmission could be sustained.

Having download speed without a seed would not work.

Having a seed without download speed would not work either.

Having both download speed and a seed, but being able to download for only one or two minutes, would not work either.

Because he understood the structure of high-carbon steel extremely clearly, Gu Jinlai's resonance rate with the breastplate was exceptionally high.

As the spiritual power contained in his spirit awareness poured in, the breastplate, which originally possessed extremely weak spirituality, seemed to "awaken." It was endowed with consciousness and life, then, under Gu Jinlai's guidance, adjusted and grew according to the structure of high-carbon steel, continuing until it transformed.

"Heavenly Master artifact refinement."

This scene fell into the eyes of Gu Chaoyang and the others, leaving them afraid to even breathe loudly.

Before the time it took to burn a single incense stick had passed, Gu Jinlai stopped.

He felt fatigue in his mind.

His spirit awareness had been greatly depleted.

After all, he had only just become a Heavenly Master. The Great Sun Ninefold Refinement Visualization Method was not a martial art skill, and no matter how miraculous it was, it could not let him refine a treasured artifact in a single day.

"According to the materials I just mentioned, forge the other parts of this plate armor."

Gu Jinlai said.

"Yes."

The two men answered excitedly.

Gu Jinlai brought the breastplate back to the cultivation room and recovered his spirit awareness according to the meditation section of the Great Sun Ninefold Refinement Visualization Method.

"The growth of spirit awareness won't happen overnight. It requires refining qi into spirit again and again. But I can raise the level of the Great Sun Ninefold Refinement Visualization Method and obtain more spirituality."

Gu Jinlai turned his gaze toward the deep purple light sphere beside the consciousness-body figure in his mental world.

"Add it all!"