"Teacher, you're finally back. Where have you been all day?"
"Have you spent the whole day writing a cultivation method for me?"
"Not exactly, but it did take up quite a bit of time."
Neuvillette glanced at Chen Zhou with his cold, impassive face, then gave a soft cough.
He couldn't very well lie to his disciple. After all, the level of their world wasn't all that high.
Under these circumstances, writing down the process by which the Primordial Dragon gathered power as a cultivation method would allow Chen Zhou to make full use of it.
The purpose of this method was not only to help Chen Zhou grow stronger, but, more importantly, to keep his Martial Soul from collapsing.
Since Neuvillette had decided to bestow the Authority of the Primordial Sea upon Chen Zhou ahead of time, he needed to prevent his Martial Soul from being overwhelmed and collapsing.
If his Martial Soul really did collapse, Chen Zhou would be as good as crippled in their world. That was the last thing Neuvillette wanted to see.
He didn't tell Chen Zhou any of this, though. He planned to wait until Chen Zhou had advanced to the second ring before bringing it up.
"I'll pass this cultivation method on to you now."
"You can call it the Ancient Dragon Heart Sutra. It's a model cultivation method I devised based on the power of the Primordial Dragon and the workings of the Primordial Sea."
"It can help you quickly master Hydro and turn what you call Soul Power into elemental power—in other words, elevate it into a whole new level of power."
As he spoke, Neuvillette raised his hand and looked at the strangely shaped water sphere in his palm.
Without hesitation, Neuvillette pushed the sphere straight into Chen Zhou's mind, whereupon a cultivation method appeared in his thoughts.
Rather than a cultivation method, it was more like a complete martial arts system—a comprehensive map of the body's movements and channels.
Through repeated conditioning and changes to the acupoints, he could absorb greater power and, in turn, raise his body's limits.
Neuvillette had been born in human form. If he had been born as a dragon instead, Chen Zhou would never have been able to find the corresponding channels and use them to improve himself.
But as Chen Zhou sensed the method circulating through him, his eyes lit up.
There were twenty-four core acupoints in the human body. Neuvillette's method was essentially about opening all twenty-four, then beginning to comprehend the essence of Hydro.
The stronger the Hydro, the faster he could absorb it, and the more energy it would produce. That, in turn, would accelerate the growth of his Soul Power—or the newly emerged elemental power.
"Damn, Teacher, this method is incredible!"
"My cultivation speed is about twenty-four times faster than before. And if I use water from the Primordial Sea instead of ordinary water, it could very well reach 240 times faster."
Chen Zhou said this, swallowing hard.
The gap was so enormous that even he could hardly believe it.
A 240-fold difference in cultivation speed was practically invincible.
And that wasn't even the limit—it was only the amount of Primordial Sea water he could summon at the moment.
Even so, this peak cultivation speed far surpassed anything an ordinary person could imagine.
He wouldn't even need to cultivate much to rapidly raise his Soul Power Level to a level beyond what ordinary people could imagine.
Looking at Chen Zhou's stunned expression, Neuvillette's face remained impassive.
He had been the Primordial Dragon from the moment of his birth, the most powerful being in the world. He had little interest in matters like cultivation.
In fact, it could be said that he had never given cultivation much thought at all.
Still, he didn't mind seeing Chen Zhou so excited.
As he raised his hand slightly, the scenery around them began to change.
"You can close your eyes now and sense the way the energy moves through your body."
"I'll help you open the twenty-four acupoints first."
Neuvillette's voice was calm.
Chen Zhou gave a soft reply, then sat cross-legged and began quietly sensing the changes around him.
The dry air around them began to fill with Hydro, but it was utterly unlike any Hydro Chen Zhou had ever felt.
It seemed to contain two kinds of power. They felt completely opposed, yet were closely intertwined.
One seemed to represent a pure form of spiritual power. It was so pure that it began to slowly strengthen Chen Zhou's own spiritual power.
The other was a power akin to matter, and it began to transform his Soul Power.
At first, the sensation was incredibly pleasant. Driven by these two forces, Chen Zhou could feel his spiritual power and Soul Power beginning to change.
His spiritual power was affected most of all. In the boundless blue Sea of Consciousness within him, pinpricks of golden light appeared, gradually transforming it.
But as the two forces poured into his body in an endless torrent, Chen Zhou's eyes snapped open. He sat there, dazed.
An endless expanse surrounded him. There was no land, only an ever-churning sea.
The sea was utterly calm, yet beneath its placid surface seemed to lie the most fundamental source of life from another world.
Looking at the boundless sea and Neuvillette standing silently within it, Chen Zhou swallowed hard.
"Teacher, is this the Primordial Sea?"
"I... I thought this was a simulated environment?"
"Can you really simulate the Primordial Sea?"
After mumbling this, Chen Zhou glanced around.
This place was clearly a simulated environment, his dream. Could a dream really simulate a power like the Primordial Sea?
Chen Zhou found that hard to imagine.
Hearing his words, Neuvillette looked at him too, a trace of shock in his calm eyes.
"This isn't simulated. A trace of the Primordial Sea's power really is flowing through here."
"Though very little of the power here truly belongs to the Primordial Sea, I have no idea how it came to descend upon this place."
As Neuvillette spoke, he raised his hand slightly. Golden and violet light alternated in his palm, forming a terrifying power.
"This power is called Pneuma-Ousia. You probably can't absorb it—or rather, you can't make full use of it."
"But if this power can transform your Soul Power and spiritual power, giving them stronger properties, then you'll be better able to adapt to the Ancient Dragon Authority and wield greater power in the future."
Neuvillette didn't continue.
Human spiritual power was inherently weak, utterly incomparable to the power of Pneuma-Ousia.
The spirit represented by Pneuma wasn't a tangible form of spiritual power, but now that it had entered this world, it seemed to have become one.
After merging with Chen Zhou, this spiritual power had not only brought about an unimaginable increase, but had also strengthened his foundations beyond compare.
If the ordinary spiritual power of this world was just that—ordinary spiritual power—then once Chen Zhou's spiritual power had completely transformed into Pneuma, into this golden spiritual power...
Its density and quality would be at least fifty to a hundred times greater than ordinary spiritual power, and the special effects it contained would be beyond imagination.