True Essence

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	True Essence
Original Name	真元
Classification	Refined cultivation energy; the essence of True Qi 171
Advanced Form	Sword Essence, attained by Ye Chen after reaching the Life and Death Realm Seventh Heaven 1227
First Appearance	Chapter 171

Power Progression

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Half-step True Essence; first refinement completed	308 310	Ye Chen begins refining True Essence, then strips away nearly half of his Half-step True Essence as impurities; its reduced quantity is offset by a higher quality and stronger combat power.
Pseudo True Essence, nearing completion	316	More than 99% has been refined, leaving only a minute portion before the final agitation needed to enter the Star Extremity Realm.
Full True Essence / Star Extremity Realm	321	Pseudo True Essence condenses into an azure core. Ye Chen immediately demonstrates the ability to burn True Essence, doubling his combat power.
Spirit Sea Realm True Essence	517	Ye Chen’s True Essence core melts into a True Essence sea; the returning energy from its undertow becomes twice as pure.
Life and Death Realm King-level True Essence	903 904	An Origin Energy sphere provides Ye Chen with roughly eighty to ninety years of King-level cultivation, and his cultivation subsequently reaches one hundred years.
Peak First Heaven Life and Death Realm	985	After his breakthrough, Ye Chen’s True Essence cultivation reaches the equivalent of two thousand years.
Peak Third Heaven Life and Death Realm	1015	Ye Chen’s True Essence becomes several times more potent and rises sharply in purity, while remaining liquid despite its diamond-like density.
True Essence approaching Sword Essence	1179	After Azure Lotus Swordplay reaches Heaven-Rank Top Grade, Ye Chen’s True Essence takes on the exceptional purity and qualities of Sword Essence.
Sword Essence	1227	Ye Chen’s True Essence fully transforms into Sword Essence upon reaching the Life and Death Realm Seventh Heaven; it is stated to surpass even the Gang Essence of a Gang Spirit Body Sovereign.
Supreme Sword Essence	1298	Ye Chen’s ascension to Supreme causes his Sword Essence to increase nearly a hundredfold, becoming described as a thousand times purer than pristine crystal.

Nature

True Essence is the refined essence of True Qi. Internal Energy first liquefies into True Qi, but the conversion from True Qi into True Essence is a qualitative leap rather than a mere change of form. A Star Extremity Realm martial artist’s body is filled with True Essence, whereas even all of Ye Chen’s True Qi at the Primal Origin Realm would have been insufficient to refine more than a single useable mouthful. 171

Thunderclap Hermit’s True Essence is described as more than ten times purer than True Qi. This disparity explains why a Star Extremity Realm expert can kill a Late Primal Origin Realm martial artist with a single strike. 171

Some exceptional cultivation methods can refine a strand of True Essence before the Star Extremity Realm. The Grand Dark Art can do so at its eleventh layer, granting a strike equivalent to an ordinary Early Star Extremity Realm martial artist’s full-force attack. 235

Refinement and Capacity

• True Essence refinement requires the cultivator to actively agitate Half-step True Essence and remove its impurities; it does not complete naturally on its own. 316
• Refinement trades quantity for quality. During Ye Chen’s first refinement, nearly half of his energy was expelled as shattered light, but the resulting Half-step True Essence was substantially stronger. 310
• A cultivator’s total True Essence capacity depends on both physique and soul. A powerful body cannot be fully utilized if the soul lacks the control capacity to support it. 420
• True Essence tempers the body as it circulates. Ye Chen’s Half-step True Essence greatly strengthened his flesh and blood even before he reached the Star Extremity Realm. 310
• A Spirit Sea Realm martial artist possesses a Spirit Body capable of enduring stronger True Essence; a mortal Star Extremity Realm body would collapse or be unable to circulate Spirit Sea-level True Essence at full power. 475

Applications

Burning True Essence

True Essence can be made to rub and collide within the body, producing outward flames and dramatically increasing combat power.

• Ye Chen’s burning Azure True Essence manifests as azure flames around his body. 321
• Burning True Essence doubles a Star Extremity Realm expert’s combat power. 321
• Ye Chen’s Lesser Bloodfiend Disintegration Art conflicts with this technique: while burning True Essence, it adds only about 20% more combat power and accelerates the consumption of his Blood and Qi. 323

True Essence Threading

True Essence can be manipulated into fine threads to improve its release and precision.

• Ye Chen attains preliminary mastery of True Essence Threading, allowing his True Essence to unleash greater power. 475
• The technique is considered difficult but is primarily an energy-control method rather than a martial art. 475

Artifact Activation

True Essence is required to activate and attune Mystic Artifacts.

• To initially refine an artifact, a user circulates True Essence into it and merges it with the artifact’s origin power. 1109
• A soul mark must then be imprinted for the artifact’s full strength to be unleashed. 1109
• Higher-grade artifacts can consume True Essence at an extreme rate; a Life and Death Realm Seventh Heaven cultivator using an Emperor-level weapon and armor may rapidly exhaust their reserves. 1165

Bodily Regeneration

At high Life and Death Realm levels, True Essence becomes integrated throughout the body.

• At the peak third level of the Life and Death Threshold, Ye Chen’s flesh, blood, meridians, skin, and organs merge with True Essence. 875
• Integrating True Essence into his bones enables Ye Chen to regenerate severed limbs using True Essence instead of pills or vital energy. 875
• True Essence cultivation enhances explosive force by combining cells with True Essence, though body cultivators’ Qi Force remains vastly stronger in close combat. 888

Stored Sword Intent

Ye Chen can compress True Essence carrying Sword Intent and implant it in another person’s Soul Sea.

• The stored drop is designed to activate only in a life-or-death crisis. 1020
• Unlike ordinary Will True Essence, Ye Chen’s Sword Intent-infused True Essence can counterattack as well as defend. 1020
• A drop carrying Ye Chen’s Second Heaven Life and Death Realm True Essence and peak sixth-tier Destruction Sword Intent is sufficient to protect Ji Xueyan from ordinary Life and Death Realm Kings. 1020

Variants

• Demonic Qi-tainted True Essence — Human-Demon Hybrids possess True Essence with characteristics of demonic power, making it superior to ordinary human True Essence. 535
• Gang Essence — Formed by combining two compatible kinds of True Essence. It is several times more powerful than ordinary True Essence, but normally requires the innate Gang Spirit Body. 467
• Sword Essence — Ye Chen’s evolved True Essence, associated with his Heaven-Rank Top Grade cultivation method, Sword Intent, and Sword Domain. It is stronger than a Gang Spirit Body Sovereign’s Gang Essence. 1227

True Essence Crystals

True Essence Crystals are solid condensations of True Essence that have had their attributes removed, allowing them to be safely refined by other cultivators. 755

• Directly compressed attribute-based True Essence is unstable and generally usable only by cultivators of the matching attribute. 755
• True Essence Crystals are difficult to manufacture; ordinarily, only Life and Death Realm Kings can reliably create them. 755
• Their cultivation efficiency is stated to be ten times greater than ordinary methods. Five crystals raise Ye Chen from the Late Spirit Sea Realm to its peak. 755
• At the Half-Step King and Life and Death Realm levels, True Essence Crystals become crucial because restoring highly refined True Essence through ambient Heaven and Earth Origin Energy is extremely slow. 774 887
• Once Ye Chen reaches Flesh Regeneration, he can store True Essence throughout his body except in his Soul Sea, though his dantian remains its principal reservoir. 950