Spiritual Force easily slipped into the statue. Most of it was solid, with only a tiny space inside its head. A core hovered within, seemingly like a planet. The moment Spiritual Force entered, the tiny space reacted.
"Buzz."
A streak of purple light shot from the hovering core. Countless tiny characters seemed to shimmer within it, and the entire streak surged along the channel of Spiritual Force into Yin Congyang's Consciousness Sea, heading straight for his soul.
Yin Congyang was startled. He tried to sever the mental link and toss away the statue in his hand, but the purple light had already rushed into his Consciousness Sea.
The soul in his Consciousness Sea shuddered. The purple light transformed into countless characters and images, melding into the boundless sea. He couldn't read the characters, but each carried a mysterious pulse of awareness that made their meaning easy to understand.
[Clone Secret Technique]
When Yin Congyang saw those opening words, he was overjoyed. What was the rarest talent or secret technique in Devouring World? Clones were unquestionably among them.
Other secret techniques could be cultivated through comprehending laws, but clones seemed to be a talent-type secret technique directly bestowed by the Primordial Universe.
One fact offered indirect proof: after breaking through to become a Universe Supreme Being, all clones returned to their original source, and one could no longer possess clones, only create a few avatars with little combat power. A Universe Supreme Being's miniature universe had already separated from the Primordial Universe and was no longer favored by it. In fact, within the Primordial Universe, it was difficult for a Universe Supreme Being to kill a Universe Master. If one did, the Origin Will of the Original Universe would punish them.
This showed just how heaven-defying a secret technique that could cultivate clones would be.
Yin Congyang suppressed his elation and carefully studied the technique in his Consciousness Sea. After a while, his expression turned uncertain. He finally understood why a single Shake God attack had killed the Universe Level Aulis, and why there had been a thousand cubic meters of Universe Crystals.
The technique did indeed teach one how to create clones, but it was incomplete. It only explained how to cultivate them, and this method was very different from the Golden Horned Behemoth's innate clone ability. It could be called a shortcut.
Anyone cultivating this Clone Secret Technique needed a powerful soul, at least several times stronger than others at the same level, to meet the basic requirements.
The first part explained how to cultivate the Spiritual Consciousness within one's soul into a unified whole. The second described how to cultivate part of one's body into a Soul Container—for example, turning a third of one's liver into one. The third explained how to use the technique to separate a portion of one's soul without harming one's Spiritual Consciousness, then place it in the Soul Container. The fourth described how to nurture the Soul Container into a clone.
Once the original body reached Domain Lord Level, its soul and Origin Force would fuse into one, forming a Singularity. Through the secret technique, that Singularity would become something like the Golden Horned Behemoth's Original Core.
After that, if the clone met with an accident and was killed, the energy within the Singularity could be used to reform it. In other words, before Yin Congyang reached Domain Lord Level, even if he managed to cultivate a clone, it would be gone for good if killed. He wouldn't be able to recreate it and would have to cultivate another one from scratch.
The Soul Container could be nurtured into a clone using all kinds of treasures. The simplest was to use Universe Crystals directly; anything containing energy would work. The Soul Container could even absorb Origin Energy from the universe and grow on its own, though at a painfully slow pace. If one used Universe Crystals, however, it would take far more than just a few.
After Aulis had broken through to Universe Level, he had wondered whether he could cultivate another clone, so he had prepared over a thousand cubic meters of Universe Crystals. But that definitely wasn't enough to nurture a clone to maturity.
Once a clone matured, it was no different from a true clone in any meaningful sense. Its soul, will, and consciousness were all shared with the original. After reaching Domain Lord Level, even if the original body accidentally died, it could be reconstituted through the clone—provided the Original Core Singularity that housed the soul remained intact. From this perspective, the technique was a powerful means of survival.
Of course, if Yin Congyang cultivated a clone and his original body died, it was hard to say whether the Strange Light Point in his Dantian could still reconstitute him. A clone had no such concern: if it died, the original body could simply recreate it, without repeating the soul-separation process.
Everyone's soul power varied, but each soul was a complete whole. This technique could separate a portion of the soul without harming one's Spiritual Consciousness, which was impressive. But after the separation, the main soul would inevitably weaken, and even after a clone's soul matured, it would still be weaker than the soul of someone at the same level. That explained why neither of Aulis's bodies had the soul strength expected of someone at Star Level or Universe Level.
The technique also had a hidden drawback: it was unclear whether splitting one's soul would affect one's comprehension. After all, even creatures with clones, such as the Golden Horned Behemoth, still had a unified soul and didn't need to split it.
Aulis's soul power had undoubtedly met the minimum requirements to cultivate the technique. His talent wasn't bad, and he should have reached Universe Level long ago. But he had begun cultivating the technique while at Star Level, delaying his breakthrough by thousands of years. He had only managed to break through shortly before Yin Congyang found him. The reason was that his soul power wasn't strong enough, which greatly hindered him from breaking through the bottleneck of life evolution.
Yin Congyang had two theories. The first was that the technique should have a fifth part, detailing how to restore the soul. Combined, the five parts would make a complete technique. Perhaps that part had been lost; perhaps the creator had never managed to cultivate that far; or perhaps he had another way to restore his soul that he hadn't described.
The other theory was that perhaps only an incomplete technique like this could be cultivated in the Primordial Universe. A complete technique might be incompatible with the Primordial Universe, just like the Nine Tribulations Manual that Luo Feng cultivated later.
Yin Congyang felt the second theory was probably more likely.
Should he cultivate this technique? Yin Congyang quietly considered the question. First, his soul was extremely powerful. Even with a Planetary Level Nine body, he possessed the soul power of someone at Universe Level. He believed that even after separating off part of his soul, the impact wouldn't be too great.
Second, his soul power was inseparable from the mysterious pulses emitted by the Strange Light Point in his Dantian. If those pulses could replenish his soul power after he separated part of his soul, he might suffer no loss at all.
And given how mysterious the Strange Light Point was, Yin Congyang thought it was very likely that it could replenish the lost soul power.
Of course, more clones weren't always better. They all shared the will attached to the main soul. Even if one's soul was powerful enough, without a sufficiently strong will, one couldn't bring out the full combat power of every clone. The clones might even interfere with each other—like having a Mental Power Amplitude of only 3 yet insisting on controlling five throwing knives. That would greatly weaken every knife.
As for cultivating one part of his body into a Soul Container, that was no concern. Even if ordinary people had a small portion of their liver removed, it could grow back. And he was about to break through to Star Level. With a Star Level body and treasures such as Moya Crystals, it would regenerate in just a few days, without any impact at all.
After thinking it over for a long while, Yin Congyang decided: he would cultivate it. But to be safe, he'd wait until after reaching Star Level, when his soul power would be even stronger.
He put the stone statue back in his storage space, then took the seed-like sphere from the Strange Ring. The moment it appeared outside the ring, it emitted a faint pulse that swept over Yin Congyang and the entire spacecraft.
When the pulse passed through Yin Congyang's Dantian and met the pulse within, the sphere suddenly transformed into a streak of light and shot into his Dantian. The faint pulse abruptly ceased, and he could no longer sense it at all.
Yin Congyang had no time to react. He could only watch as the sphere, nearly a meter in diameter, struck his body and entered his Dantian. Yet he felt nothing.
He quickly focused his mind on his Dantian. The sphere had shrunk into a tiny speck, no bigger than a sesame seed, and was orbiting the Strange Light Point. Bathed in the mysterious pulses emitted from the core of his Dantian, the seed flickered faintly whenever a pulse passed over it, as if undergoing some mysterious change. But even after watching for a long while, nothing happened.
Yin Congyang shook his head helplessly and let out a frustrated breath. Seeing no further change in the seed, he simply stopped paying attention to it.
Yin Congyang sorted all his belongings into categories. He kept whatever was useful to him, including the Universe Crystals. He packed up the rest—things he had no use for—in a storage space. Once he returned to the Training Camp, he would send them to Thunder God through the Virtual Universe System's logistics service and let him decide what to do with them.
The journey back to the Training Camp would take more than twenty days, so Yin Congyang decided to break through to Star Level aboard the spacecraft.
Before breaking through, Yin Congyang consulted an instructor at the Training Camp. He explained that his mission was complete and asked whether he could advance to Star Level before his graduation date. The answer was yes, but once he arrived at the Training Camp, he would enter the Star Level Elite Training Camp.
He stretched a little and adjusted himself to peak condition. Then he sat cross-legged. His powerful soul split into two streams: one began pushing the nine Mental Power planets in his Consciousness Sea to evolve to a higher level, while the other pushed the nine Origin Force planets in his Dantian to begin evolving.
The nine Origin Force planets in his Dantian and the nine Mental Power planets in his Consciousness Sea had long since reached the limit of what Planetary Level could contain. Each was perfectly round and flawless. The nine planets revolved endlessly along profound trajectories, impossible to comprehend no matter how hard he tried, like a perfect star chart.
Now, however, Yin Congyang was about to shatter that perfection in order to rebuild it.
The nine planets gradually drew closer as they revolved, until they collided and compressed against one another. Just as they were about to disperse completely, a tremendous force of suction erupted from the central point, pulling everything toward it. Once all the matter had gathered together, a qualitative transformation began at the very center. The low-density, static planets began to change into stars undergoing constant nuclear fusion, growing to more than ten times the combined size and mass of the nine planets.
Looking at the shining star that represented Star Level in his Consciousness Sea and Dantian, Yin Congyang smiled. His strength had taken another step forward. At this stage, he needed to find a way to gain a deeper understanding of the various laws and the Law of Space.
He also needed to start planning for another goal: finding a way into the Core Layer of the Virtual Universe Company. Even if he entered the End-of-the-World Secret Realm, Yin Congyang believed he would keep climbing, step by step: Heaven and Earth, Primordial Beginning, Primal Chaos, Universe Level, Domain Lord Level, World Lord Level...
Once his Star Level cultivation had fully stabilized, the pulses in his Dantian began continuously sending out energy again, transforming his physical constitution and mental power. His soul power needed no explanation: after stepping into Star Level, it had surged once more, becoming far stronger than when he had first reached Universe Level.
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