(Author’s Note: Calling Emotionless Fang Lin as Robotic Fang Lin seems a little long, so I shall call Robotic Fang Lin as R. Fang Lin.)
The path of a practitioner is a hard path to thread.
To reach the peak, a person must break through their limits and build up their power inside their bodies.
The Body Refinement Stage aims to strengthen the practitioner’s body.
The Qi Refinement and Mana Circulation Stage aims to introduce the concept of ‘foundation’ to the practitioner.
The Foundation Establishment and Mana Materialization Stage are the culmination of the practitioner’s insights combined with their foundations.
These are the Preliminary, First, and Second Stages.
As for the Third Stage or the Core Formation Stage, which produces Dao Core for the Immortal Practitioners and Mana Core for the Godly Ascenders, this is the stage where a practitioner has to destroy and rebuild their foundation!
As one ancient hermit had said before,
Strengthen your body, that’s how everything starts.
With this body, create your own foundation.
Upon this foundation, integrate all your insights.
Destroy this very foundation and rebuild it once more!
Use this foundation to awaken your weak and frail mind and soul!
Grind your soul, make it independent of your physical vessel!
Refine your insights and make them your domain!
Do all these things and becoming a God or an Immortal will be in your grasp.
This was the guide for the fledgling practitioners, which even Fang Lin had followed ardently before.
Upon reading this mantra, one can see that if a practitioner wants to reach the Core Formation Stage, he/she must first destroy his/her foundation!
Only when this was done that a core can be created!
This part of the breakthrough was what made the Third Stage a large gap that was extremely difficult to fulfill.
After all, nobody wants to personally destroy their own foundation. It’s just against their will.
But they have to do it if they want their power to be reborn.
This inherent fear of their foundation’s destruction made countless practitioners to remain stuck at the Second Stage, never wanting to go beyond that.
Even though R. Fang Lin knew the dangers that he was about to undergo, his current state made him fearless, making him unperturbed about breaking through.
Scanning complete. Confirmed that 100% of my foundation are all destroyed.
R. Fang Lin knew that compared to a normal practitioner, his difficulty of breaking through will be as twice as hard!
After all, he had to do two different breakthroughs at the same time!
With Beleth suppressing his abilities, R. Fang Lin was unable to split into Fang Lin and Fang Yu.
Coupled with the limitation of a Duality Divine Beast, and R. Fang Lin has to create both the dao core and mana core inside him at the same time!
……..
R. Fang Lin took a deep breath as the scattered pieces of his foundation began to shake. He closed his mouth and focused his mind as he began his breakthrough process.
There are 3 ways that a practitioner can create the core to step into the Third Stage.
One was through the use of resources and energy from the universe.
There are countless resources that can help create a core, like the Core Manifestation Pill, which will exponentially increase the creation of a core.
A practitioner can also absorb the energy from the Universe to hasten the core creation process.
Other external help can be also included here, as long as they provide resources to build the core.
These methods will 100% allow the creation of the core, but these cores will be weak.
After all, these cores were created with foreign materials. Cores like these were bound to have numerous impurities inside them.
But many still use this method, as there are no inherent dangers if the practice this method!
Cores created this way are called Mortal Cores!
If a practitioner wants to create an extremely strong core, then he/she must not rely on any resources to create the core.
That exactly is the second method. A practitioner must reject any supplements and resources for the core creation.
He/she must create the core out of willpower alone!
Cores created this way are considered to be the strongest, since they embodied the determination and will of the practitioner.
They did not seek for aid from the heavens, opting to build their power from their sheer will alone.
Cores created this way are called Heaven Grade Cores!
People with cores like these are as rare as qilin feathers, since creating a core out of sheer will was almost impossible.
First, a practitioner has to deal with the pain of having their foundation destroyed. Not only that, but since no energy was allowed to be used, a practitioner has to force his/her foundation to be a core just through his/her mind!
Imagine just using your mind and body alone to force your rampaging mana or the pieces of your dao palaces to fuse together. This is not just hard, but also torturously tedious!
Intense concentration and patience was needed here, and almost none can reach this state of mind.
Only those who can get rid of their thinking and emotions can partake at this method.
The third method was easily understandable. The third method will be done through the use of both the resources and the willpower to create the core.
Cores created this way were called Earth Grade Cores.
The chances of creating an Earth Grade Core will depend on the materials used by the practitioner combined with the practitioner’s willpower.
The more resources and less willpower were used, the higher the chance to create this Earth Grade Core.
The converse also applies, with less resources and more willpower decreasing the chance to create an Earth Grade Core.
But the more willpower was involved, the stronger the Earth Grade Core will be.
Most of the geniuses employ this method, as it allows them to create a core better than a Mortal Core.
In terms of hierarchy, an Earth Grade Core will be stronger than a Mortal Core but will be visibly weaker than a Heaven Grade Core.
Mortal Grade Core < Earth Grade Core < Heaven Grade Core
Since Fang Lin was a practical person, he knew creating an Earth Grade Core will be his best choice of core to create.
After all, he already had an experience creating Earth Grade Cores before.
Fang Lin’s Essence Cores can actually be considered to be Earth Grade Cores, since Fang Lin used his Essences as the resources for his Essence Cores, and Fang Lin had to personally guide the whole creation process.
With that experience, Fang Lin was fairly confident on creating an Earth Grade Dao Core and an Earth Grade Mana Core.
But fate does not always agree with him.
Right now, R. Fang Lin had no way to create an Earth Grade Core. He has no way to access his storage, depriving him of the resources that he can use to breakthrough.
He was also situated in a Stage Zero Planet, meaning there are no mana and qi that he can absorb to aid his breakthrough.
The actions of his pursuers also left R. Fang Lin trapped and cornered.
…
With these factors present, R. Fang Lin only had the option to create a Heaven Grade Core.
Though it may look like a disaster, R. Fang Lin might actually be able to pull this off!
After all, the current R. Fang Lin has reached the state on where his mind was free of distractions and his emotions would not hinder him at all.
One can say that the current R. Fang Lin’s willpower was way above what the normal Fang Lin would have.
Empty my thoughts, and discard all emotions.
R. Fang Lin muttered as he closed his eyes.
Even with his current state of mind, R. Fang Lin still gritted his teeth as he forced the rampaging mana inside his body to slow down.
He then slowly pushed the mana inside him towards his dantian. He adapted the concept of a typhoon, as he made the mana inside him to rotate like a cyclone, with the eye situated at the dantian.
His law insights and his core spell were all fitted snugly at the eye of the Mana Cyclone.
R. Fang Lin then watched carefully as he slowly compressed the Mana Cyclone towards its center.
Guh!
R. Fang Lin spat out blood, as his body could not take the forced compression that he was doing. His body shivered, as he saw the Mana Cyclone tearing through his insides.
If Fang Lin continued to compress this cyclone further, all his organs will be shredded by his Mana Cyclone!
But he must not stop, as his Mana core will be created from this Mana Cyclone!
……
The situation of the creation of his Dao Core were just as bad as this.
Instead of a cyclone, R. Fang Lin adapted the method of a star creation, using the destroyed parts of his immortal foundation to create a star inside his dantian!
Fizz….
R. Fang Lin’s body began shaking as the Dao Star that he was creating inside him began to look dangerous.
He was just starting to fuse all the pieces of his immortal foundation as one, yet this Dao Star of his was already releasing energy that was slowly killing R. Fang Lin from the inside!
It was lucky he was not feeling pain, as R. Fang Lin knew getting his insides cooked and shredded at the same time will make the normal Fang Lin scream in agony.
This is wrong…..
R. Fang Lin realized that he was almost at the right track on his creation of his cores. But, he faintly felt that there was something missing from what he was doing.
Ah, I must do it at the same time….
R. Fang Lin clasped both of his hands together, as if he was praying.
R. Fang Lin was actually apologizing to his body as what he was about to do next will be an extremely fatal move.
Boom!
In a shocking set of events, R. Fang Lin decided to fuse both the Mana Cyclone and the Dao Star, creating an extremely ferocious new object!
R. Fang Lin casually plopped the Dao Star into the eye of the Mana Cyclone, and the rest was history.
The Dao Star began to shrink as its materials began to mix with the cyclone.
The Mana Cyclone, which just exuded the essence of the gods before, started to change as the immortal essence of the Dao Star mixed with it
Woosh…..
The end product was a spinning object inside Fang Lin’s dantian, with a blazing spherical object at its center. R. Fang Lin decided to call this new object Star Cyclone!
Duality…..
R. Fang Lin muttered as he stared at his Star Cyclone.
The concentrated lethality of a star combined with the explosive wrath of a natural disaster. What a fitting way to create my core. That is if I survived this one.
Just the Mana Cyclone or the Dao Star alone were damaging his body.
But with the combination of these two, R. Fang Lin’s body began to rapidly break down!
If he will do nothing, he will die in seconds and dissipate into nothingness, killed by his own creation.
If he wants to survive, he must create his Heaven Grade Cores now!
R. Fang Lin was not panicking at this moment as he slowly muttered,
Compress and collapse!
