Chapter 1604: The Second Nirvana: Fine-Tuning

Time slipped by.

Before he knew it, three thousand years had passed.

On this day, within the Immortal Gate's Taiyi Healing Secret Realm, countless rays of brilliance converged, infinite solar radiance falling here, threads of light weaving, coiling, forging, the Heavenly Dao's craftsmanship hammering and tempering into form.

Gradually, as the light dimmed by a fraction, the outline of a body the size of a sixteen-year-old youth emerged.

He could not make out its specific features — it was crimson like red-hot divine gold, and in some places one could even see liquid metal flowing; the terrifying high temperature had melted space and rules alike.

This dreadful heat instantly caused countless vapors to rise within the Taiyi Healing Secret Realm, the space churning unsteadily, on the verge of disintegrating entirely.

His very aura was enough to shatter this Secret Realm completely!

The Central Array Spirit Computer immediately detected this situation and intervened at once; strands of azure chains descended from the Heavenly Dao, penetrating every corner of the Secret Realm's space, reinforcing every inch of space and rule.

Time flowed on — one year, ten years, a hundred years.

Two hundred years, three hundred years.

A full three hundred years passed, and the temperature on this blazing, radiant solar Dharma Body, brimming with destructive aura, slowly dropped; the crimson divine-gold-like frame gradually solidified, turning gold, then profound gold, and finally the profound-gold skin slowly returned to its original flesh tone.

Long hair like ink, features handsome and refined, skin white with a rosy undertone, full of elasticity, as if one could pinch water out of it — exactly the appearance a sixteen-year-old human youth should have.

The destructive pressure that had seemed about to annihilate the entire Healing Secret Realm gradually withdrew, not a trace remaining.

He looked no different from the youths one could see anywhere at the gates of an Immortal Gate high school.

No one would have imagined that this was an ancient existence, nearly as old as the entire history of the Immortal Gate; boundless time had flowed across him, yet left not a single mark.

His eyelashes trembled once, then opened, revealing eyes of distinct black and white, clear to the very bottom.

"Once again,"

"relying on a complete set of cells backed up in the Taiqing Flying Sword, I've reconstituted my Dharma Body…"

Jiang Ding Zi murmured.

He could clearly feel that, through this process of fighting to the death again and again until his body turned to ash, his Dharma Body was constantly growing stronger, more powerful, and better suited to his Great Sun Sword Dao.

Bloody battle and slaughter — that is the entire process of a sword cultivator's evolution.

Slaying foes and surviving amid such bloody battles is, for a sword cultivator, the greatest opportunity, one that can bring out his potential and foundations to the utmost.

This is a process — an amplifier.

And the immortal Dao foundations the sword cultivator himself possesses are an important factor in how much progress the bloody battles yield.

Some sword cultivators, after a single victorious duel, achieve leaps and bounds; some, after countless bloody battles, see their sword intent, sword soul, and sword art barely improve — this is the influence of one's own immortal Dao

foundations.

Bloody battle is a fine amplifier, but it is not everything.

"The only thing is,"

"am I still even a carbon-based lifeform?"

Jiang Ding carefully scanned his current Dharma Body with divine sense and quipped.

Take his skin, for instance — pick any point at random and slice it, and the composition inside would be all manner of things: various metals, spirit gold, sword intent, sword qi, solar rules, and so on; flesh-and-blood components were extremely few, requiring a careful search to find even a trace.

This kind of thing was certainly reproductively isolated from ordinary women.

Even from ordinary high-level immortal cultivators — for example, a Divine Monarch who had merged with the Dao of Water and the Dao of Ice would definitely be unable to bear his child, and would inevitably explode and die.

No wonder — the higher the realm of a high-level cultivator, the rarer their offspring.

"I am still a carbon-based lifeform."

"Definitely."

Jiang Ding immediately concluded: "This is just one form of evolution for a carbon-based lifeform — what's wrong with having a bit of metal in my cells? Which mortal doesn't have some metal in their body? Iron in the blood, all sorts of trace elements the body contains — sodium, potassium, calcium, manganese, zinc…"

"It's perfectly normal for a human body to contain some metal."

"Making a fuss over nothing."

With all these reasonable justifications, Jiang Ding was satisfied.

In truth, this was a branch of Immortal Gate political science — the discipline of high-level cultivator self-identification; high-level cultivators had to be, culturally, human, and to that end they had to compile all manner of classic treatises to argue the point, emphasizing one thing through every theory and every science.

High-level cultivators are human.

This kind of high-level cultivator cultural identification was extremely important for the Immortal Gate as a polity.

Currently, the Immortal Gate's high-level cultivator textbooks had already begun popularizing this viewpoint and theory, nipping problems in the bud to prevent a future great split within the Immortal Gate between high-level cultivators, low-level cultivators, and mortals.

In practical effect it was quite good — after all, Immortal Gate cultivators had grown up with this from childhood.

Jiang Ding scanned the reconstituted Dharma Body, confirmed there were no problems, then turned his attention to his cultivation: "In at most five thousand years, I'll be advancing to the peak of Refining Void."

"I'm having such a hard time."

Jiang Ding lamented.

The improvement of cultivation was a good thing; his foundations in magic power and divine sense were also quite solid, unrivaled across the entire Ancient God World Cluster, far surpassing what the Ancient God Patriarch possessed at Refining Void in history — they simply weren't existences that should be compared on the same level.

However,

measured by the eyes of an Upper Realm Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong Dao Child, by the exacting eyes of one seeking immortality, his foundations were far too flimsy.

Jiang Ding knew where the reason lay.

Gong Fa.

The Gong Fa developed and created by the Immortal Gate was already extremely powerful, building on numerous Celestial Being inheritances to bring forth the new and create techniques suited to Immortal Gate cultivators; among them

the very finest was the "Wan Hua Wanhua Ciyuan Jing (Great Sun Six Paths Version)," a Bu Gong Fa that had already surpassed the Gong Fa of the Badaxian Sect's Dao Children, reaching an entirely different realm.

But even such a Gong Fa still fell far short of the scriptures cultivated by Upper Realm Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong Dao Children.

"Yang Gu Celestial Being gave me a severely incomplete near-immortal-grade scripture, the 'Qing Di Yun Cong Tian Huang Jing' — the supreme scripture of the extinct Upper Realm Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong Qing Di Yun Cong Hai. I can study and contemplate it…"

Jiang Ding silently considered.

Yang Gu Celestial Being was truly a great person.

He had given Jiang Ding dozens of Celestial Being scriptures, plus incomplete near-immortal-grade scriptures, and had also blocked the vast majority of the Qi Sect's Celestial Beings… in this world, there was simply no Celestial Being better than him!

Jiang Ding planned to spend several thousand years reading and comprehending these scriptures one by one, participating in and leading the cultivation sect's numerous Dao research projects, integrating the essence of these Heavenly and Mortal scriptures into the "Wan Hua Ci Yuan Gong Fa (Great Sun Six Realms Edition)," and further narrowing the gap with the Dao Son of the Upper Realm's Taiyi Qingmu Xianzong in Gong Fa.

In this process, if the Central Array Spirit Computer promoted to the Eighth Rank, it would greatly benefit his Dao path; the deduction of Gong Fa and sword techniques would accelerate significantly, with efficiency increasing by a vast margin.

"My greatest gain this time should be in sword technique."

"The second rule fine-tuning Nirvana,"

Jiang Ding settled his mind, carefully sensing his own path, his materialist Sun Rule: "Thanks to the realization gained from slaying the Thread-Pulling Heavenly Mortal, my exploration of the rules has advanced by leaps and bounds. Now, the probability of successfully fine-tuning for the second time..."

"Ninety-eight point five percent."