Lighting the Divine Lamp

Five days passed in the blink of an eye.

Zhuang Hong was fortunate enough to find three Void Spirits. After eating and drinking his fill, he returned to the Golden Cloud World once more.

After studying and adapting for some time, he felt he could continue unlocking the two Great Secret Treasures, Secret Awareness and Sky Bridge.

So he sought out Dancer again and asked in detail about the specifics and key points of unlocking those two Great Secret Treasures.

Dancer felt that her relationship with Zhuang Hong had grown much closer, so she told him everything she knew.

Only after she finished did she realize what he meant and ask in surprise, "Zhuang Hong, don't tell me you plan to unlock those two Great Secret Treasures right now?"

Zhuang Hong nodded. "That is indeed the plan. I came to ask you this time because I wanted to be more certain."

Dancer's eyelids twitched. "Didn't you say you only unlocked Secret Sea not long ago? Unlocking Secret Sea requires stimulating more than a dozen Heaven Locks at once, so it is relatively simple. But to unlock the second Great Secret Treasure, Secret Awareness, you need to stimulate twenty-eight Heaven Locks at the same time. Nearly all of them are concentrated around the head, making it extremely difficult and dangerous. To be safe, I suggest you practice for another year or so first..."

Zhuang Hong smiled. "You needn't worry about that. I know what I'm doing. What I'm worried about is whether I misunderstood how to unlock the Secret Treasures. Since I now fully understand the key to unlocking the Heaven Locks, there won't be any chance of stimulating the wrong locations."

As he spoke, Zhuang Hong rose to his feet. "Thank you very much for your guidance during this time, Dancer."

Dancer giggled. "Why are you thanking me? There's no need for that between us."

Zhuang Hong found a quiet place nearby and sat cross-legged, preparing to unlock the second Great Secret Treasure, Secret Awareness.

He turned to Xiao Bai, who was lying beside him, and said, "Xiao Bai, I'm going to rest my eyes for a while. Keep watch over the surroundings for me. If you spot any Void Spirit with bad intentions, be fierce and scare it off, understand?"

Xiao Bai jumped about and barked, "Woof Woof!"

Then it happily ran circles around Zhuang Hong, its expression turning unusually fierce.

What Void Spirit? It was just an ordinary little dog...

Zhuang Hong ignored everything else, closed his eyes, and activated Dimensional Sight.

The next moment, the structure of his body, inside and out, was revealed beneath his special vision.

He gradually adjusted his mental state, then locked onto the twenty-eight special points needed to unlock Secret Awareness and began stimulating them slowly.

The twenty-eight points were scattered throughout the inside and outside of his skull, linking together into a vast network. When Zhuang Hong began stimulating those special points, he once again felt something strange.

This time, it differed somewhat from the itch he felt when unlocking Secret Sea. Instead, it felt as though his nasal cavity had been irritated, giving him the urge to sneeze.

A sneeze could be released through the mouth and nose, but the "sneeze" inside his skull had nowhere to go. The sensation interfered with Zhuang Hong's concentration.

However, Zhuang Hong's will had long been tempered to extraordinary strength by prolonged insomnia. This little disturbance did not shake him in the slightest.

As Zhuang Hong continued stimulating the points, that peculiar sensation gradually intensified until it finally reached a peak.

Boom—

It was as though a rumble had come from the void, shaking his entire consciousness.

In that instant, Zhuang Hong felt as if his soul had left his body. His consciousness seemed to burst through some layer of restraint and arrive in another vast, empty place.

A different kind of freedom welled up within him.

Then, deep in his consciousness, Zhuang Hong saw a point of golden light emerge. It was like a candle suddenly being lit in a pitch-black void. Though that flame was faint, it looked so dazzling amid the dark and silent emptiness.

Unlock the Heaven Locks, light the Divine Lamp, and open Secret Awareness, which contained wisdom.

"I successfully unlocked Secret Awareness!"

According to the martial theory of this world, successfully lighting the Divine Lamp and opening Secret Awareness meant one had broken through.

Next, as long as he continued visualizing the golden light in his consciousness according to the cultivation method and trained his Mental Strength, he could achieve clear divine awareness, enhanced comprehension, keen hearing, and sharp sight.

After roughly a year, his five senses and reactions would be greatly strengthened, allowing his overall combat power to undergo a qualitative leap.

Just as Zhuang Hong was preparing to awaken from meditation, the golden light in his consciousness suddenly flared brightly, transforming into a sun that almost illuminated his entire consciousness.

Zhuang Hong's mind jolted. A profound sense of enlightenment surged into his heart. In that instant, he gained an entirely new perspective, looking down from a lofty place upon his own thoughts, his past, his joys and sorrows, and even his soul.

He seemed to understand something, yet also seemed to understand nothing at all.

Who knew how long passed before everything calmed down and Zhuang Hong awoke from that wondrous state.

The moment he opened his eyes, he immediately noticed the changes in himself.

The entire world before his eyes had become completely new. The breeze swept up dust, sand and stones trembled faintly along with the vibrations of the Great Earth, and tiny crystals scattered across the ground reflected specks of light...

No subtle movement in the surroundings could escape his notice.

He had been able to see such details before, but after his eyes saw them, his brain would often automatically ignore them. Now, it was different. Not only could he see them, he noticed them as well.

And that was not all. The sensations on his skin, his sense of smell, his hearing, and everything else had all changed.

Everything indicated that his five senses had been greatly enhanced.

"Hm?"

Suddenly, Zhuang Hong reached out and made a grasping motion. Stones of various sizes around him seemed to answer some summons, abruptly leaping from the ground and floating densely around him.

With a turn of his hand, the floating stones immediately began spinning rapidly around his body, soon leaving behind only streaks of afterimages.

He pointed toward the distance.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh—

The rapidly spinning stones immediately shot out, riddling the distant ground with holes and sending Smoke Dust soaring into the air.

Zhuang Hong murmured, "My special ability, Manipulation, has also been greatly strengthened! It seems I understood my own special ability far too little. These abilities are much more powerful than I imagined. I simply lacked the ability to bring out their full potential..."

His Manipulation was like a psychic ability, allowing him to use Mental Strength to control certain objects and make them move as he wished. Controlling large numbers of stones to spin at high speed and fire outward just now had been done through Manipulation.

But in the past, his Manipulation could not achieve anything close to that. At most, he could use it to control light objects, such as controlling Fine Silk to wrap around an enemy precisely. That was all. It had no real combat power at all.

He had never expected that after unlocking Secret Awareness, this ability would receive such an enormous boost.

If his Manipulation could continue to grow stronger, then using a Flying Sword to kill an enemy from a thousand meters away might no longer be a fantasy.

As Zhuang Hong thought this, his gaze involuntarily fell on Xiao Bai.

He made a grasping motion and activated Manipulation. Xiao Bai, who had been running around Zhuang Hong, suddenly began floating in midair.

It looked utterly bewildered, as if it had fallen into water, and its four legs instinctively started paddling.

"Woof?"

Zhuang Hong thought, My current Manipulation can affect Void Spirits, but controlling a Void Spirit takes far more effort than controlling an inanimate object, and my control is greatly reduced. Against a stronger Void Spirit, trying to directly restrain it with Manipulation clearly won't work. It would be more efficient to just rush in and slash it with a blade.

He set Xiao Bai down, checked his physical condition, and found that he was in better shape than ever. Then he sat cross-legged again and calmed his mind.

He intended to unlock the third Great Secret Treasure, Sky Bridge, in one go!

Sky Bridge was located throughout the spine and contained thirty-six Heaven Locks. It was far less dangerous to unlock than Secret Awareness, but because it had so many Heaven Locks, it was the most difficult Great Secret Treasure to unlock.

Once Sky Bridge was unlocked, Secret Sea and Secret Awareness would be connected, allowing the entire body to function in perfect harmony. Every part of the body would be under the control of consciousness, often enabling movements beyond the ordinary and explosive power beyond imagination.

For martial artists, this was another watershed.

Zhuang Hong greatly anticipated what changes would come after he unlocked Sky Bridge.

After entering meditation, he quickly adjusted his mental state and began stimulating the thirty-six corresponding Heaven Locks in his spine.

At that moment, he discovered once again that after unlocking Secret Awareness, adjusting his Mental Strength had become far easier and more natural.

"My control over myself has undergone another qualitative leap. The benefits of unlocking Secret Awareness are greater than I imagined."

"Secret Treasures truly deserve to be called treasures hidden within the human body."

About an hour later, Zhuang Hong's entire body suddenly shook, and he awoke from meditation.

He lowered his head to look at his palm, his face filled with amazement. "So this is the Sky Bridge Secret Treasure. It's incredible."