Before, once the Skycloud King left Zhao Cheng's spiritual world, he would immediately vanish into smoke and dust. But now, he could briefly appear in the real world. Zhao Cheng himself seemed to have become an anchor sustaining the other's existence.
But the greatest change was that the life within Zhao Cheng's spiritual world had actually begun to show faint signs of brewing spiritual light.
Of course, they were only signs; no spiritual light had truly been born. Zhao Cheng guessed that this change was most likely related to his having touched upon Origin.
If one day he attained Origin, perhaps he would truly create heaven and earth, forming a world of his own.
For now, although information clusters like the Skycloud King were vividly lifelike, no different from real people, they lacked spiritual light. Like the false people in the phantom visions of the universe's future, they could learn, but could not innovate.
In essence, they were still merely information—or, in other words, a different kind of "strong artificial intelligence," rather than life.
Yet being able to go from illusion to reality was not even the most remarkable thing. More remarkable was that he had brought out his own "power" as well!
The path the Skycloud King followed was called Star Tamer. It involved inscribing the patterns of stars upon one's body in order to gain the power of the ancient stars above the firmament.
Zhao Cheng's spiritual world contained an immense variety of paths, and this was merely one among countless routes.
Shedding Mortality, Earth, Sky, Stars!
In the Skycloud King's understanding, this path had only four realms, but each realm possessed ten heavens.
Shedding Mortality was aimed at continuously tempering body and spirit: nurturing strength, training flesh, forging tendons, grinding bones, cleansing marrow, replacing blood, then gathering