The Demon Chief's Inner Core was an egg-sized crystalline, jade-like object of dark red.
Wrapped in a membranous sac and connected to flesh and veins, it radiated dense demonic baleful energy.
When Li Chen held it in his hands and examined it closely, the surrounding Host Insects grew unusually restless. A few bolder ones tried to approach, letting out low growls.
Their eyes were bloodshot, and they stirred eagerly, seemingly about to throw caution to the wind and pounce to seize it.
As expected, something like this is enormously tempting to Demons. They can grow by devouring one another's flesh and Inner Cores.
Seeing this, Li Chen thought to himself.
But a tangible Inner Core can never compare to the True Core a cultivator condenses through successful cultivation.
The core formed in the Core Formation Realm is a True Core, born from the union of essence, energy, and spirit, existing between the tangible and intangible.
To the naked eye, it cannot be seen, yet within a cultivator's body, its existence is utterly real.
It floats within the dantian's sea of energy, gathering vast amounts of primordial energy and magic power. If cultivation succeeds and the power of law is refined into it, it becomes a perfectly rounded, golden-bright Golden Core Dao Fruit!
Gold was that which remained hard and enduring, forever incorruptible; a core was that which was whole, luminous, pure, and flawless.
The ancient immortals borrowed the name Golden Core as a metaphor for the true spirit's innate, perfectly rounded and radiant nature-the foundation of attaining the Dao through cultivation.
A True Core was not a Golden Core, but it was the foundation for cultivating one. Cultivators who attained the Dao through the flesh and entered the Golden Core realm could condense imperishable substance within their bodies to replace