Chapter 239: Breakthrough, Second Level Spirit Realm!
The Rat King’s words were precisely what Jiang Chen was most preoccupied with as well.
Ever since leaving the maze realm, the focus of Jiang Chen’s martial dao training had been in this area.
Even when ranked against other greater entities, the Lotus was still at a very lofty level of existence.
He’d never thought that he would encounter something as heaven-defying as this within the maze realm.
Not only had he encountered it, but he’d also made it his own!
One had to know that the true core of the Lotus was the Flaming Heart of Ice.
After Jiang Chen had taken the Heart, it meant that he’d received the essence of the Heart. This was the equivalent of planting a Lotus blossom within his spirit ocean that belonged solely to him!
One had to know that the Lotus would be able to transmute into spirit as soon as it fully awakened. Once it transmuted into spirit, it wouldn’t have to stay in one place anymore.
Perhaps it was Jiang Chen’s luck that he had met the Lotus when it was in an infantile state. Since it hadn’t fully awakened, it was in a drowsy, half awake state
If it’d been a fully awakened Lotus, its intelligence would be incredibly astonishing, and its powers of manipulation would be at a frightening level. At the very least, It’d be a saint rank spirit entity .
The saint rank was the equivalent of an original realm human practitioner, whether in terms of spirit creatures, plant spirits, or other races.
If it could evolve to the true saint rank, then it would be even stronger than a human original realm practitioner.
The Lotus was a spirit entity that had extraordinary powers of evolution, even when compared to all others beneath the heavens.
There were even Lotuses that were at the earth, sky, and divine ranks beneath the heavens, much less than a true saint rank.
Jiang Chen had to admit that his luck had been beyond his imagination this time.
It was just like the Rat King had said, once he thoroughly refined the Lotus and made it his, it would become one of his terrifying aces.
This was also one of Jiang Chen’s fortuitous encounters. If it’d been any other practitioner who’d tried absorbing the Heart, the Heart would’ve surely turned against the practitioner and the practitioner would have exploded on the spot.
As for Jiang Chen, his spirit ocean had been shaped and elevated by the Five Dragons Opening Heavens Pill. The spirit ocean within his body was perfectly balanced and the five elements were in absolute harmony.
All of his peers within the sixteen kingdoms didn’t possess these conditions.
Their spirit oceans were on a completely different level from Jiang Chen.
It was because of the strength and the high tolerance of Jiang Chen’s spirit ocean that he had been able to absorb and assimilate the Heart that embodied both attributes of ice and fire.
Of course, the process wasn’t easy.
If Jiang Chen hadn’t mastered the mysteries of the “Divine Aeons Fist”, he likely wouldn’t have so easily absorbed the Heart into his spirit ocean.
All sorts of fortunate encounters seemed to have been predestined for this to happen.
If anything had gone wrong at any step, Jiang Chen would’ve narrowly missed the Lotus.
However, absorbing the Heart was one thing, exploiting it was another thing entirely.
The quality of the Heart was too high and it would impose great demands on the spirit energy stores within Jiang Chen’s spirit ocean in order deploy the techniques within it.
It would be exceedingly difficult to thoroughly deploy the Heart’s complete might without sufficient spirit energy.
“It looks like I need to strengthen my training and continue cleaving open my spirit ocean, raising the level of my training.”
With Jiang Chen’s current level at the first level spirit realm, it was virtually impossible for him to fully utilize the Heart.
He could, at most, manipulate two Lotuses right now, a far cry from the Lotus that was in the maze realm.
Although the Lotus in the maze realm hadn’t fully awakened, it could already manipulate up to a hundred vines.
The strength of its power had been such that even a spirit rank creature like the Rat King had had reservations.
This was why the Rat King had continuously prodded Jiang Chen to exploit the Heart. He was also in awe of that level of strength.
Since the Rat King was hanging around Jiang Chen, he naturally wished Jiang Chen to be as strong as possible. The stronger Jiang Chen was, the faster he would become stronger and the greater the likelihood that he would be able to help their bloodlines evolve.
In addition, the Lotus had a particular natural gift, and that was to absorb its prey’s spirit power and use it for itself.
The more prey it had, the more spirit power it could absorb and the faster its level of training would rise.
Jiang Chen circulated his spirit ocean within the secret room, holding the moon in one hand and the sun in the other, sending out two beams of spirit energy directly into the ground.
The ground of the secret room suddenly quaked slightly as two Lotus vines broke through the earth.
These two Lotus vines were the limits of Jiang Chen’s current manipulation abilities.
When manipulating these two vines, it was apparent that he was quite a ways off from the Lotus itself, whether in terms of vine thickness or sufficiency of spirit energy.
The vines continued to thicken as they swayed. One was like a blossoming flame, and the other was as if a lotus in the snowy mountains. Both of them interwove and radiated off of each other, appearing both bizarre and awe inspiring.
The Rat King circled the vines a few times, tsking in amazement. “Not bad, not bad. Young master Chen is a martial dao genius alright. To think that you would’ve grasped the mysteries of the Bewitching Lotus of Ice and Fire and can really manipulate them. If you weren’t confined by your current level of training, I’d say that the Lotus in your hands could absolutely challenge the sky spirit realm!”
The sky spirit realm was seventh level spirit realm at the least!
As a spirit rank creature, the Rat King was the equivalent of a sky spirit realm practitioner. It was at the peak of existence within the spirit rank and was almost at the peak of the rank.
To be at the peak of the spirit rank meant the peak of the human spirit realm, which was a spirit king protector like Ye Chonglou!
Those who could receive such a title was almost the equivalent of half step original realm.
Of course, with the Rat King’s own level of strength, he wasn’t necessarily at Ye Chonglou’s level. But even if he was unable to win in a fight against Ye Chonglou, when combined with his fiendish ways of tunneling through the earth, several Ye Chonglous wouldn’t necessarily be able to handle him!
Jiang Chen didn’t treat the Rat King’s fawning words seriously.
With his current level of training, only an idiot would dare dream to contend against a practitioner in the sky spirit realm.
If he could manipulate more than ten vines at a time, then he would possibly have a chance.
Of course, in order to manipulate more than ten vines at a time, his spirit ocean wouldn’t just be at the first level spirit realm.
His spirit ocean would have to at least reach third level spirit realm, or even the earth spirit realm.
“I’ve obtained so many spirit ingredients in the maze realm. It’s time to select some and extract their essence for my use.”
Jiang Chen had been so keen on spirit ingredients in the maze realm for one reason alone, and that was to collect them, refine them into pills, and raise his strength as fast as possible.
Ever since arriving in this world, everything that Jiang Chen had run into had reinforced the notion that it was important to raise his strength as quickly as possible.
If he hadn’t been limited in his abilities due to the current level of his strength, he wouldn’t have had to keep his head down when handling so many matters previously and wouldn’t have had to leverage the influence of others.
Going from first level spirit realm to second level was a process of accumulation, a transformation of quality over quantity.
Jiang Chen gravely approached the matter of categorizing his gains from the maze realm over the next seven days, extracting out their essences, refining and absorbing them into his spirit ocean.
Absorption, refinement, tempering his spirit ocean, and then assimilating them into his spirit ocean.
Jiang Chen finally welcomed a new breakthrough on the seventh day after repeating this cycle over and over again.
He had taken another step forward in the spirit realm after breaking through the gate of the second level.
After his ascension, Jiang Chen’s spirits were greatly restored. Much of the impurities within his body were evaporated and expelled from his body through the tempering of his spirit ocean.
His physical body was now much closer to perfection after the reforging from his spirit ocean.
One had to admit that the spirit ocean reshaped a person in all areas.
The difference between Jiang Chen’s current demeanor to what he projected when he was beaten to death by Eastern Lu was night and day. He was as if a new person.
His features seemed more well defined, more handsomely shaped, and he had a more dashing air.
His entire bearing had been greatly elevated as well. He did not look like someone who’d originated from a small place like the Eastern Kingdom, and there were none amongst the younger generation in the entire Skylaurel Kingdom who could measure up to him.
Of course, he didn’t really care about these changes.
What Jiang Chen was more concerned about right now was raising his strength.
After breaking through to the second level, he deployed the Lotus again and discovered to his delight that he could manipulate four vines!
“To think that a small increase in training has led to double the number of Lotuses I can command. It’s also completely effortless to manipulate them now. It looks like the level of one’s training really does determine everything!” Jiang Chen thought with great emotion.
With the advent of breaking through to the second level, Jiang Chen’s training also improved in all areas.
The “God’s Eye” and “Ear of the Zephyr” all successfully broke through to the tenth level.
“Boulder’s Heart” rose from the fifth to the sixth, and there were signs that it would continue to advance.
Although it was difficult to improve upon “Psychic’s Head”, it too broke to the fourth level.
Jiang Chen had been unable to practice the “Vast Ocean Current Splitter”, “Divine Aeons Fist”, “Moonshatter Flying Daggers” within the secret room, but had new comprehensions after meditating on them.
He’d be able to obtain new breakthroughs the subsequent times he used them in battle.
He had profited handsomely all around, and Jiang Chen emerged from closed door cultivation with delight after seven days.
The situation in the outside world was calmer than what he’d thought it be.
The aftershock of Yang Zhao’s fall was slowly fading after seven days. The Dragonteeth Guard was slowly returning to normal after a large shake up.
It had been Crown Prince Ye Rong who’d benefited the most this time.
With Yang Zhao’s downfall, those courtiers and officials who’d wanted to see Ye Rong be made a laughingstock all finally acknowledged Ye Rong deep within their hearts.
Some of them even put aside their face and started interacting with Ye Rong publicly, openly accepting him.
Therefore, it could be said that Ye Rong’s position had finally been consolidated.
That wasn’t his biggest gain as everyone now knew that his right hand man was Jiang Chen, and the latter’s backer was Ye Chonglou.
This mean that the Crown Prince’s true backer was also Ye Chonglou.
The undercurrent of effects from this meant that those powers who’d originally looked down on Ye Rong were forced to compromise, adjust their strategies, and give up all thought of taking down the Crown Prince.