Chapter 188: Legendary Realm: The Pinnacle of Mortal Cultivation (23)

Deep underground, Luosen's soul laboratory built at great cost.

The laboratory is equipped with phase confinement arrays, mind shield arrays, ring amplification arrays, soul focus arrays, and so on—over twenty arrays in total.

Building this array cost a full 200,000 Ogre, equivalent to three hundred million funds in a past life, to forge a personal laboratory.

Its purpose is to give him the optimal cultivation environment.

Sitting alone within the array, after confirming the arrays run smoothly, he closes his eyes and, based on known soul knowledge, constructs a "spiritual energy pump system" on the outer layer of his soul.

From another angle, this is a large soul array engraved onto the soul.

The difficulty is extremely high!

Because it's like a doctor using a scalpel to operate on himself—it's literally a gamble with his life.

During the engraving, he can easily feel sharp, excruciating pain transmitted from the soul.

This is a manifestation of soul vibration; nothing can lessen it, and without Luosen's Ten Rings–ultimate soul, he couldn't endure it at all.

The good news is that everything is as expected, and all the pain occurs on the soul's surface, not harming its core.

After an unknown amount of time, the engraving process ends and the "spiritual energy pump system" is completed.

"Laifu, I'm about to start a trial run, monitor the operational status."

"Already monitoring."

Luosen then attempts to run it.

During this run, he feels a sudden jolt in his chest as an overwhelmingly fierce ring power pours directly into his soul, nearly sending him away.

He immediately halts the run, wiping a cold sweat from his mind.

"The pump's power is too high. The pressure of the tenth ring is damn high."

The tenth ring's power is extremely abundant, its pressure exceedingly high; combined with a suction pump, even though he deliberately lowered the operating power, he almost couldn't withstand the torrent of magical energy surging into his soul.

"Laifu, how did the pump operate just now?"

"Everything normal, fully matches expected results."

Since that's the case, he can attempt to ascend the ring.

How to ascend the ring?

Of course, still relying on the spiritual energy pump.

He takes a deep breath, reactivates the pump, and to ensure safety, reduces the operating power to a minimal level.

A massive influx of ring power surges into the soul again; part enters the "combustion chamber" to burn, becoming the force that drives the pump, while the other part enters Luosen's soul, dramatically boosting his soul strength.

Throughout the process, the burned spiritual energy accounts for nine tenths of the total.

Even if only a tenth enters the soul, the soul strength still rises sharply, soon touching the wall of the tenth ring.

Luosen clearly feels a pressure, as if a rocket is strapped under his rear while the ceiling looms overhead.

Is it breaking through the ceiling to soar into the heavens?

Or his body can't bear it, smashing his soul against the ceiling? It depends not only on the experimental data but also on his personal willpower.

Because in cultivation, the mental component accounts for at least thirty percent.

If will is not firm enough, even wielding a divine artifact is useless.

Luosen grits his teeth and perseveres.

At this moment, his mind holds a pure yearning for higher magical realms and a strong protective conviction.

His master, wife, child, and each of those beautiful, vivid, uniquely charming women are the most beautiful scenery in the world.

If they were all destroyed by demons, it would be such a terrible loss.

After an indeterminate time, he vaguely feels the heavy pressure on his soul suddenly lift, and his whole being becomes weightless.

If the previous moment was pressure too great, now the pressure is too low.

Excessive pressure shatters the soul; insufficient pressure also causes the soul to disintegrate from within.

His mind instantly erupts with countless thoughts, even a sense of demons dancing wildly, unable to distinguish reality from illusion.

This is a sign that the soul is about to disintegrate!

"Reached the eleventh ring, feels just like Naya described!"

At this point, Naya's shared experience provides Luosen with excellent guidance, preventing him from being bewildered by the completely unfamiliar situation.

He holds his true heart and immediately begins executing the predetermined plan.

"Increase pump power, prevent spiritual energy backflow."

"Activate soul shield, stabilize soul pressure."

"Activate spiritual energy cooling system, stabilize the energy combustion chamber."

"Activate soul shield array, isolate soul vibration."

"Laifu, start gathering data, train the new ability 'Legendary Ring'."

"Gathering data now."

As the pump's power rises, in Luosen's soul combustion chamber, soul energy burns fiercely in the spiritual furnace, the generated force sustaining the consumption of various soul spells.

As he expected, the whole process is extremely complex; merely maintaining it consumes a huge amount of mental effort.

The most terrifying part is that any slight slackness causes this intricate soul system to halt, leading to a dreadful "spiritual energy backflow."

According to the experimental conclusion, a mere three seconds of intense backflow will cause the soul to collapse.

Luosen strains to maintain it, thinking: "This damn thing is literally playing for my life!"

Why is this happening?

Why did the previous demonic power not require such effort, even detached magical energy could persist for a long time?

Luosen previously didn't understand, now he gets it.

Because the eleventh ring directly connects to Huan Wai Xu Kong, one could even say it is Huan Wai Xu Kong itself!

And demons are native lifeforms born in the Huan Wai Xu Kong, like fish living in the sea, naturally fully adapted to the void environment.

And mortals are originally land creatures, they should not be living in the sea.

Now, Luosen wears a 'diving suit', builds an 'underwater oxygen supply system', and tries every way to dive into the sea; just being able to survive in the sea is already good, naturally he cannot be as relaxed and free as a fish.

What to do? 'Laifu, have you learned it?!'

Although maintaining various soul spells is quite cumbersome, the void environment is not actually complicated; as expected, Laifu should learn it quickly.

'Initial study completed, gained the ability Burning Soul Secret Method.'

'Activate Burning Soul Secret Method, switch to background operation.'

With this command, Laifu successfully took over Luosen's work.

To avoid accidents, Luosen himself did not stop the Burning Soul Secret Method, but instead maintained it while observing Laifu's operational status. No one ever stipulated that a soul can only activate one spirit power pump.

Luosen's idea is simple: open two pumps simultaneously to maintain redundancy.

So that if one fails, he won't be caught off guard.

After a thorough check, he found Laifu operating well, the spirit power pump gaining spirit power much more steadily than his own, and he immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

'Laifu, start another Burning Soul Secret Method, also run in the background, but maintain minimum power operation.'

Laifu immediately complied.

Then Luosen himself stopped the Burning Soul Secret Method and began to focus on observing Laifu's operational status.

After a while, Luosen asked: 'Laifu, how much computing power does maintaining the Burning Soul Secret Method consume?'

"Currently it needs 25% of computing power."

This consumption is astonishing, meaning that Luosen's three-line operation ability is again tied up by one line due to the Burning Soul Secret Method, the Duke's puppet occupies another line, leaving him only one line.

But this is only temporary, because Laifu's total computing power has also increased.

"The soul has become much stronger; has the total computing power increased?"

"The total computing power is increasing, no limit has been detected yet."

"Very good!"

Luosen then examined his own magic power intensity, finding it had increased by about twenty percent compared to the peak of the Ten Rings, and it is still rising at a considerable rate.

At the current rate, if not limited, it is estimated to increase the current base value by five percent per hour, doubling in twenty hours! This is truly insane, even making Luosen decide to be somewhat afraid.

Now the Law Ring has no limit, but life does have a limit! Mortal soul and biological brain are completely fused.

Once the life limit is exceeded, the brain may collapse because of it.

But the brain is too complex; Luosen has not fully studied it, naturally cannot improve it, so he dare not take risks lightly.

Furthermore, the soul power rising too fast will itself cause violent soul tremors, possibly even causing the soul to collapse.

'Laifu, lower the spirit power pump's operating power, keep the soul strength stable. After the soul tremors disappear, then continue to increase, but reduce the increase speed to one percent of the current.'

'Continue collecting data, train the Burning Soul Secret Method'

With this command, the soul gradually stabilized, and Luosen also secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

He decided to proceed cautiously, advancing bit by bit, and to stop immediately if anything went wrong.

As the soul stabilized, he gathered his mind and began to carefully sense the situation of the Eleven Law Rings.

Then he discovered many changes.

'The Eleven Law Rings are truly vast, giving a feeling of no top in sight.'

'Looking down, hmm~~~ actually able to overlook the Law Ring.'

'The Law Ring is not completely calm either; will there be various power ripples?'

Before, Luosen could also vaguely feel this change, but it was far less clear than now, and his perception range was far narrower than today.

The reason is simple: because at that time he was inside the Law Ring.

When a person is in the situation, naturally they are confused by being part of it.

But now, he has jumped out of the Law Ring and looks down from a high place.

Before, he could at most sense the Law Ring fluctuations within a kilometer around him; now he can overlook fluctuations of several kilometers.

As soul strength increases, the overlooking range also keeps expanding, and the precision also improves accordingly.

He soon discovered that the frequency of Law Ring ripples is not many, but not few either.

The vast majority are caused by mages casting spells, ripples very small; there are also extremely few caused by natural environmental changes, ripples very large, even causing noticeable fluctuations in the Law Ring's height.

Watching and watching, Luosen understood.

'By observing Law Ring ripples, one can infer most of the events happening in the mortal world, but not all.'

'To truly see clearly, one also needs rich experience; this ability is very important, but relying on mortal brainpower, one definitely cannot see comprehensively.'

'We need to train Laifu to look.'

Just like on Earth, training AI to view various medical examination images; with a large enough sample, diagnostic level becomes much higher than doctors' naked eye.

'Those violent ripples should be caused by various natural events. They could possibly create some lucky individuals, making it easier for them to leap to higher ring numbers.'

'Some lucky individuals, after encountering several violent fluctuations in succession, immediately reach high rings, even super-high rings.'

After understanding, the pressure in Luosen's heart caused by the outer demons instantly dissipated by half.

'Indeed, on the path of cultivation, before reaching it seems unfathomable; after reaching, it feels just like this.'

'Entering the Eleven Law Rings, one is still merely a mortal, just a mortal who has mastered stronger arcane secrets.'

But to say cultivation has reached the peak? That is also not correct.

Because the Eleven Law Rings impose no limit on soul strength, no one knows how high it can ultimately be raised.

'What is the limit of a mortal body's endurance, exactly how high is it?'

Don't know; at least Luosen hasn't encountered it yet.

Besides, this is ultimately just personal cultivation; although strong, it still cannot do without worldly support.

Just like the astronauts and divers of his past life, who could travel through heaven, earth, and sea, but whose essence remained mortal, he still needed to eat, drink, defecate, and urinate, and still had to return to everyday life.

After confirming everything was normal, Luosen slowly opened his eyes, a thought jolted him, and a thread of pure magical power appeared at his fingertip.

The magical power was pure and transparent, like a flowing heat wave.

After appearing in the air, it immediately decayed into various kinds of spell energy, and did not stably exist like demonic power.

But in terms of magical power strength, it was now not much different from the former ice‑blue demonic power.

The reason is also clear: demons are native species of the void, while Luosen is an imitator of mortals.

But after all, it is the legendary magical power of the eleventh ring, which differs very obviously from low‑ring magical power in being extremely fine, easy to control, and completely at one's will.

It even has strong control over mid‑low ring spell energy, able to directly seize control of spells from mid‑low ring spellcasters.

"Now I stand once again at the pinnacle of spellcraft, able to focus on worldly power."

Meidiyana's described Nawat Republic is very powerful, very perfect, and very worthy of reverence, but he has no need to study it rigidly.

Because his legendary power relies on himself, not on the condensation of national belief.

Moreover, his Burning Soul Secret Technique is far from perfect, so research will continue, but there is no need to be as rushed as before.

With a turn of thought, Luosen disguised his magical power, and what ultimately appeared was still the early‑stage eighth‑ring magical power.

This disguise is far more perfect than before, and can even fool the demons of Huan Wai Xu Kong.

For at least in magical cultivation, the two sides now stand on the same level.

(End of chapter)