vstars Chapter 652 The Threshold of Nascent Soul Transformation! A Little Girl!
Chapter 652 The Threshold of Nascent Soul Transformation! A Little Girl!
The Gu woman stared at him blankly, her eyes flashing several times before finally turning into a helpless sigh.
"Master Chen, you really..." The Gu woman opened her mouth, but swallowed the words back.
She suddenly realized that anything she was about to say would be superfluous.
This eunuch wasn't unaware of the value of the Soul-Devouring Gu inheritance, nor was he unaware of what he could gain by staying on the grasslands; he simply didn't care.
"Very well." The Gu woman composed herself, her expression becoming more complex. "Since Elder Chen has made up his mind, I will say no more. Tomorrow is the cultivation arena; I wish Elder Chen all the best."
Chen Fan cupped his hands in greeting to her, then turned and walked towards the City of Ten Thousand Gu. After taking about ten steps, he suddenly stopped and said without turning his head, "Although I did not accept the Gu Maiden's invitations twice, I will remember your sincerity. If there is an opportunity in the future, we will continue this connection."
The Gu woman watched the thin, bluish-gray figure disappear into the night. After a long while, she gently shook her head and whispered, "Opportunity? Once you enter the cultivation arena, it won't be so easy for you to come down. Song Tianren, Xue Chanzi, Wang Zhenyue—aren't they all after you?"
She turned and transformed into a streak of dark green light, disappearing into the depths of the grassland.
It was already late at night when I returned to my room in the inn.
Chen Fan sat cross-legged on the futon, but did not immediately enter meditation. Instead, he recalled what the Gu woman had just said!
He wondered if this was an exaggeration, but he couldn't tell for the moment. But one thing was certain: the cicada's evolution had indeed encountered a bottleneck.
After breaking through to the peak of the mid-stage Nascent Soul realm by devouring the Azure Phosphorous Serpent Gu King, he had Jin Chan devour several low-level Gu worms provided by the tournament. However, Jin Chan's aura remained unchanged, and the insect spirit power it devoured seemed to sink into the sea.
It needs higher-level nourishment, or a more core inheritance, to open the next door.
With a thousand thoughts swirling in his mind, Chen Fan decided that these matters could only be discussed later.
With a calm expression, he closed his eyes to rest...
……
The next morning, just as dawn broke, Chen Fan left the post station.
The arena for cultivation battles has begun to be set up in the Gu Battle Square. Dozens of Gu cultivators are re-carving the array patterns on the arena, and the barrier light screen glows faintly in the morning light.
With several hours to go before the start of the competition, many early-arriving cultivators had already gathered around the plaza. Some were meditating and adjusting their breathing, while others were talking in hushed tones. The air was thick with the tense atmosphere of an impending battle.
Chen Fan stood outside the square for a moment, then turned and walked towards the city gate.
For some reason, he suddenly felt it was a bit noisy.
This feeling was quite rare for Chen Fan.
Having served as a eunuch in the palace for decades, he was used to being scrutinized, talked about, and ostracized, and had never been disturbed by it.
But for some reason today, he just wanted to find a quiet place to be alone for a while.
Once you leave Wan Gu City, you'll find yourself in a vast, boundless grassland.
The grassland in the morning light is completely different from that at noon and at night.
The sky was so high and distant it seemed unreal, and so blue it looked like crystal that had been washed with water.
White clouds piled up on the horizon to form majestic cloud mountains, casting shadows that moved slowly across the grassland, like invisible giant hands caressing the earth.
The dark green sea of grass surged and undulated in the morning breeze, and the dewdrops on the grass blades shimmered like scattered silver in the sunlight.
In the distance, several herds of wild horses could be vaguely seen galloping across the horizon, their hooves thundering and kicking up clouds of dust before disappearing into the grassland on the other side.
Chen Fan walked slowly along an unnamed path, and before he knew it, he had walked several miles. He found a low mound, sat cross-legged on the top of the slope, took off the Black Soul Banner and placed it on his lap, closed his eyes, and emptied his mind.
The wind blew from the depths of the grassland, carrying a dry and desolate scent, brushing against his cheeks and making his robes flutter.
The scent was a mixture of the fresh fragrance of grass and leaves, the earthy smell of soil, and a faint hint of insect spirits.
Those were traces left by the ubiquitous Gu worms on the grassland, subtle yet continuous, as if the entire grassland was the breath of a giant Gu worm.
His mind gradually calmed down, as if all his distracting thoughts had been blown away by the wind on the grassland.
At that moment, he seemed to merge into the world of this grassland, becoming a blade of grass in the sea of grass, a grain of sand in the wind, and a ray of light cast by the sun in the sky.
I haven't felt this way in a long time.
The last time was on Demon Abyss Island in the Boundless Sea, where he disguised himself as Gui Muzi and mingled among demonic cultivators, experiencing the fusion of immortal and demonic energies during his daily cultivation.
This time, it wasn't during cultivation or battle; it was simply sitting alone on a vast, boundless grassland when he touched that seemingly intangible threshold.
The threshold to becoming a deity.
He could clearly feel that the threshold was right in front of him.
The spiritual energy nascent soul in his dantian had solidified to its limit, and the demonic energy core had also stabilized at the level of the Great Perfection of the Nascent Soul stage. He was only one step away from breaking through the bottleneck and entering the realm of the Divine Transformation.
But for this step, Chen Fan doesn't need the accumulation of spiritual power or the assistance of pills, but rather a transformation of his artistic conception.
The biggest difference between the Nascent Soul and the Spirit Transformation stage lies in the artistic conception.
Nascent Soul cultivators can comprehend the essence of things, but only Deity Transformation cultivators can truly internalize the essence of things, integrating it into every move and even into their own existence.
Chen Fan once inadvertently stepped into the realm of cause and effect in the Great Abyss Imperial Palace, and from then on, his sword intent was imbued with the power of cause and effect.
Later, he encountered the rudiments of the concept of life and death in Xiao Die and Shi San, and thereafter the boundary between life and death became both blurred and clear in his eyes.
As for the concept of "stillness," it originates from the art of "stillness"!
The three realms of meaning: cause and effect, life and death, and stillness.
Ordinary Nascent Soul cultivators are considered exceptionally talented if they can comprehend one concept, and can be considered monstrous if they can comprehend two. However, Chen Fan possesses three concepts, yet he still cannot step into the Divine Transformation realm.
The reason is that he also grasped the true meaning of artistic conception.
Chen Fan did not know what the Transformation God was.
While contemplating in the rain pavilion, he gained some insights, but never truly grasped the essence.
This trip to the grasslands gave Chen Fan some new insights.
Lost in thought, he suddenly sensed someone approaching from behind.
Chen Fan did not turn around.
His divine sense had already detected the presence of the newcomer.
The other party showed no signs of cultivation or spiritual energy, and their steps were light but slightly unsteady, clearly indicating that they were not a cultivator, but merely a mortal.
A little girl peeked out from under the mound.
She looked no more than seven or eight years old, wearing a sheepskin jacket commonly seen on the grasslands. Her hair was braided into two thick black braids that hung over her shoulders. Her face was slightly red from the grassland sunlight, but her eyes were unusually bright.
It wasn't the bright, spiritually rich glow of a cultivator, but rather the clear, childlike quality, like two black pebbles just pulled from a stream.