Ju Hua had cultivated the Crimsonbright Diagram of the Nine Heavens since childhood. That was also why he had been able to inherit the Immortal Abode passed down by Daoist Sanshou. According to the descriptions in Desolate Era, Daoist Sanshou was a True God, so naturally, the successor he sought would also follow the God-Fiend Path!
When cultivating the Crimsonbright Diagram of the Nine Heavens, comprehension came first, followed by the spirit!
Only with strong comprehension could one avoid getting stuck at a bottleneck. Only with a powerful spirit could one clearly sense the two stars, Taiyin and Taiyang, and draw upon their power to temper one's body!
With insufficient comprehension, one could easily get stuck at a bottleneck and never make further progress. With a weak spirit, cultivation would be slow. While others drew in a hundred portions of Taiyin and Taiyang power, you would draw in only one. How could your cultivation speed compare to theirs?
Ju Hua's comprehension had been quite good before, or he could never have inherited the Immortal Abode, much less become an Earth Immortal within three hundred years!
However, after Ju Hua cultivated the Crimsonbright Diagram of the Nine Heavens to the thirteenth level, he had made no further progress for a long time! In theory, levels thirteen through fifteen of the Crimsonbright Diagram of the Nine Heavens were all equivalent to the Primordial Spirit stage. Any bottlenecks along the way should have been minor, and with Ju Hua's talent, he shouldn't have been stuck. Yet stuck he was!
There were many reasons for this, but the main one was that Ju Hua had once focused single-mindedly on overcoming the Celestial Immortal Tribulation and neglected this aspect of his cultivation. Otherwise, he should never have been stuck here.
"If everything described in Desolate Era is true, then even when I die, I still won't have cultivated the Crimsonbright Diagram of the Nine Heavens to the sixteenth level. In other words, I'll remain a Primordial Spirit Fiendgod for the rest of my life!" Ju Hua couldn't help shaking his head.
He had no idea how Ji Ning, the protagonist of Desolate Era, cultivated. The other man seemed to find cultivating the Crimsonbright Diagram of the Nine Heavens as easy as eating or drinking. Aside from running into a small bottleneck at the beginning, he'd had smooth sailing ever since.
From the fifteenth level to the sixteenth—that was the leap from the Primordial Spirit stage to the Void stage. What a tremendous hurdle! And yet the other man had simply broken through whenever he wanted.
"The Zhuanshui Clan also has a legacy visualization diagram, the Battle Map of Emperor Zhuanxu. I've visualized it since childhood, so my spirit is far stronger than that of ordinary Earth Immortals and Loose Immortals. Now my talent has inexplicably improved by who knows how many times. I should have no problem cultivating the Crimsonbright Diagram of the Nine Heavens. I absolutely won't end up stuck at the Primordial Spirit stage for my whole life, like the one described in Desolate Era!"
Ju Hua pondered silently for a moment. Then he calmed his mind and began to sense the two stars, Taiyin and Taiyang.
Relying on a spirit far more powerful than that of ordinary Earth Immortals and Loose Immortals, Ju Hua quickly sensed the two enormous stars in the Three Realms. One was covered in endless flames, illuminating the Endless Worlds. The other was covered in boundless ice, its cold moonlight blanketing every world.
Soon—
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Vast quantities of Taiyin and Taiyang power converged upon him. One force froze, the other seared. Together, they tempered Ju Hua's body, and strands of new divine runes appeared across his skin.
Ju Hua had gone through this same process countless times, so it felt perfectly routine. His monotonous cultivation continued, and half the night slipped by in a flash.
At one moment, a vortex suddenly appeared in Ju Hua's otherwise peaceful spirit. Two specks of light, from who knew where, were forcibly dragged into it.
The sudden turn of events gave Ju Hua quite a fright. He immediately stopped cultivating, no longer caring about absorbing Taiyin and Taiyang power, and focused his mind on his spirit instead.
The vortex that had just appeared had already vanished. Ju Hua searched again and again, but couldn't detect anything unusual about his spirit.
"Could this be why my comprehension suddenly changed?" The thought crossed Ju Hua's mind. It involved his spirit, and what had just happened was so bizarre that it was no wonder he would think so!
"If my comprehension grew stronger because of this, then what were those specks of light? Treasures of heaven and earth that can improve one's comprehension even a little are only found in legends, let alone something capable of raising my comprehension to this degree! And why did my spirit devour those specks of light on its own?"
Ju Hua had far too many questions, but no one was there to answer them. He thought it over for a long time, yet still couldn't come up with an explanation.
In the end, Ju Hua decided to stop thinking about it for now.
He would stick to his original plan. If this was a fortuitous coincidence, he would make good use of it. If some senior expert was manipulating things from the shadows, he would follow that person's guidance. After all, even if things went badly for him now, they couldn't get much worse!
With the sky still dark, Ju Hua cultivated the Crimsonbright Diagram of the Nine Heavens for a while longer. Once dawn had fully broken, he stopped and took a dark gray longsword from his Storage Magic Treasure. Then he went out into the courtyard and began practicing his sword art.
This dark gray longsword was Ju Hua's blood-refined divine weapon. It was called the Qiuhua Sword.
Back when he cultivated both body and energy, he had often used this sword. Later, as his energy-cultivation grew stronger than his body-cultivation, he rarely drew it anymore.
Ju Hua had decided to continue along the path of Fiendgod body refinement from now on, so naturally, the Qiuhua Sword would have to come out again!
He used no divine power and called upon no power of the Dao. Ju Hua simply practiced his sword in the courtyard.
His sword carried a special quality. Those who understood the sword would naturally cry out in admiration, while even those who didn't could feel a hint of sorrow in it.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Ju Hua's sword grew faster and faster. Gradually, the fallen leaves in the courtyard began to move along with its strokes. After a long while, when Ju Hua finally stopped, the leaves on the ground had formed what looked like a giant "kill" character.
An ordinary "kill" character, yet it seemed to contain boundless Sword Intent. Just looking at it sent a chill through the heart.
"So that's how the fourth stance of the Great Sorrow Sword Art, the Hundred Kill Style, came together!" Ju Hua sighed.
It had happened too fast. He could barely keep up!
The Great Sorrow Sword Art was a powerful sword art Ju Hua had found in the Zhuanshui Clan's Library Pavilion. It was said to have been passed down by an extraordinarily powerful Celestial Immortal under Emperor Zhuanxu.
During one war, this Celestial Immortal had lost his beloved wife. In the depths of his grief and fury, he created the Great Sorrow Sword Art!
The Great Sorrow Sword Art had nine stances in all. Legend had it that once someone mastered all nine, they would be only one step away from comprehending the entire Great Dao of the Sword!
The fourth stance, the Hundred Kill Style, could usually be mastered only by a handful of people who had comprehended the Domain of the Dao of the Sword. Even a considerable number of those who had comprehended that Domain still couldn't master this stance.
Ju Hua had comprehended the Domain of the Dao of the Sword, so in theory, he had a chance of mastering this stance. But he had only just begun practicing the art, and he'd mastered it at once. The speed had left him reeling.
If he'd had this kind of comprehension before, how could he have failed to overcome the tribulation?