135: Chapter 135 The Difficulty of Achieving Nascent Soul

According to statistics compiled by busybodies, the overall average probability of a Foundation Establishment Cultivator on the Tianling Continent breaking through to the Golden Core Stage is sixty to one.

However, in the Tianyun Realm, the transition from Golden Core to Nascent Soul is undoubtedly the first formidable barrier of life and death, and even more so, a chasm of the Heavenly Dao that countless Prodigies and titans fail to cross in their entire lives. The Heart Demon Tribulation is the key to this barrier. Even among forces above four stars, the success rate of a Golden Core breaking through to Nascent Soul is only about one in a hundred.

Since ancient times, the Cultivation World has never lacked gifted Geniuses, nor has it lacked peerless Spiritual Roots with eight or nine inches of bone marrow, let alone offspring of Prodigies backed by top-tier Sects and ancient Families with mountains of resources.

These Cultivators became famous at a young age, achieved Foundation Establishment Perfection as naturally as water flowing into a channel, and their assault on the Golden Core Stage was a smooth path with very few setbacks.

At its core, Core Formation has no Heart Demon Tribulation, while Nascent Soul does. The Heart Demon Tribulation is a barrier of the Heavenly Dao; this is the most essential and cruelest difference between the Breakthroughs of these two Realms.

The Nascent Soul is the Golden Core breaking out of its cocoon, the Divine Soul molding into a fetus. It uses one's own Divine Soul as the Foundation and one's lifelong Dao cultivation as nutrients to condense a Nascent Soul Immortal Fetus that shares the same Origin as the original Divine Soul and can exist independently of the Physical Body.

From Golden Core to Nascent Soul, it is no longer a simple advancement in power, but a leap in the level of life, a connection between the Divine Soul and the Great Dao.

It is precisely because of this that the Heavenly Dao sends down a supreme trial—the Heart Demon Tribulation.

This is the fairest and also the cruelest Heavenly Punishment in the Cultivation World.

The Aptitude, Bloodline, background, and resources that people rely on all become nothingness in the face of the Heart Demon Tribulation.

Even if you have a nine-inch Spiritual Root, talent that tops the region, and are a once-in-ten-thousand-years occurrence; even if you come from a top-tier Immortal Family, and the Family exhausts its heritage to set up a protective Formation for you, with Spirit Pills piled like mountains and elders acting as Protectors without leaving your side; even if your Physical Body is invincible, your Qi is vast, and your Foundation is perfect and flawless—once the Heart Demon Tribulation arrives, all external things are useless, and all assistance is ineffective.

The Lightning Tribulation, Gale Tribulation, and Water-Fire Tribulation of a Nascent Soul Cultivator are all external tribulations; they can be resisted with Magic Treasures, dissipated with Formations, and countered with external forces.

But the Heart Demon Tribulation is an internal tribulation, a self-tribulation; it is a supreme catastrophe born from the deepest part of a Cultivator's Divine Soul.

The Heart Demon does not come from heaven and earth, nor from demons; it only comes from the Cultivator themselves.

It will peel open the Cultivator's past, reenacting lifelong regrets, deep-seated hatred, greed, anger, ignorance, obsessions of love and hate, and the sins of slaughter.

For those who spent their lives killing, the Heart Demon transforms into thousands of vengeful souls seeking lives; for the cowardly, the Heart Demon manifests terror in desperate situations to crush the heart; for those with lifelong regrets, the Heart Demon presents the departure of loved ones and the failure of the Dao; for those greedy for power and obsessed with the Dao, the Heart Demon paves a path of ten thousand feet to immortality and supreme authority, enticing you to sink into it.

In the Heart Demon Tribulation, the illusion is indistinguishable from reality; the pain, obsession, emotions, and despair are no different from reality.

Protective elders cannot see the illusion, top-tier Magic Treasures cannot protect the Divine Soul, and rare Medicinal Pills cannot calm the Dao Heart. Myriad external forces can only protect the Cultivator's Physical Body from destruction, but they cannot protect the tottering Dao Heart Foundation.

A Golden Core Breakthrough cultivates the form; a Nascent Soul Breakthrough cultivates the heart.

This is the root cause of countless Prodigies falling and failing.

Peerless Geniuses in the Cultivation World are mostly smooth-sailing, famous from a young age, and invincible in their path of killing and seizing treasures. They hide arrogance, obsession, desire to kill, and unwillingness in their hearts.

They can rely on their Aptitude to crush their peers and rely on resources to pile up a perfect Golden Core, but they have never truly polished their original heart, never seen through their obsessions, and never let go of greed and anger.

During daily cultivation, the Heart Demon hides deep within the Divine Soul, silent and soundless. But when the Nascent Soul threshold opens and the Heavenly Dao triggers the Origin of the Divine Soul, all hidden darkness, obsession, and sin explode instantly, turning into an unsolvable Heart Tribulation.

How many magnificent and peerless Golden Core Peak powerhouses, with perfect Foundations and deep heritage, just one step away from ascending to Nascent Soul, doubling their Lifespan, and transcending the mundane, ultimately fell under the Heart Demon Tribulation.

Some sink into illusions, never waking up for the rest of their lives, becoming insane cripples; some have their Dao Heart shattered and their Divine Souls dissipated, dying on the spot; some cannot break through their obsessions, allowing the Heart Demon to enter their bodies, falling into the Demonic Path and becoming a scourge upon the world.

Conversely, Golden Core Breakthroughs never have such unsolvable trials.

With sufficient Aptitude, enough resources, and a stable Foundation, one can form a Core; the Dao is broad and smooth, without obstacles.

Even if one's Dao Heart is weak, obsessions are deep, and Heart-Nature is flawed, one can still become a Golden Core Cultivator and dominate a small region.

This is also why in some large Sects above four stars in the Cultivation World, Golden Core Cultivators are as numerous as crucian carp crossing the river, while Nascent Soul True Monarchs are as rare as Phoenix feathers and unicorn horns.

Usually, a force with a Soul Transformation Stage Cultivator can mass-produce dozens or hundreds of Golden Core Cultivators; as long as resources are sufficient and the Legacy is complete, they can continuously create Core Formation Cultivators.

But even the immediate descendants of Void Refining Cultivators dare not say they will definitely be able to become Nascent Soul Cultivators.

Aptitude can determine whether you can easily form a Core, background can ensure your cultivation is worry-free, and resources can pave your path of cultivation, but only the Dao Heart cannot be replaced by anyone, and nothing can compensate for it.

In front of the Heart Demon Tribulation, all living beings are equal.

A nine-inch Spiritual Root and a one-inch Spiritual Root, a top-tier Immortal Family and a humble Cultivator, sitting on ten thousand treasures and having nothing—under the trial of the Heavenly Dao Heart Tribulation, there is no difference at all.

Those who can cross the Nascent Soul barrier may not be the most talented, nor the ones with the greatest background, but they must be the ones with the firmest Dao Heart, the lightest obsessions, and the clearest original heart.

Golden Core is the limit that human intervention can reach; Nascent Soul is the true threshold of the Immortal path, the true beginning of the Heavenly Dao's screening.

...

Time passed quietly, and the twenty-five-day voyage was drawing to a close. Outside the window, the sea of clouds became increasingly dense, and the Spiritual Qi drifting between heaven and earth became purer and thicker.

The spiritual light circulating on the hull of the cloud ferry became increasingly brilliant, layers of spirit patterns lit up one after another, and the speed slowly slowed down.

Many Cultivators inside the ship who were coming to the Tianxuan Prefecture for the first time could no longer suppress their excitement; they stood up one after another on both sides of the ship's railing, gazing eagerly into the depths of the endless sea of clouds ahead.

Li Changqing slowly raised his eyes, the impurities in his clear gaze fading away, leaving only calmness.

The flying boat slowly approached the Tianxuan Market, which was a large market established by the Tianxuan Sect.

The sea of clouds receded layer by layer, and the clear light of heaven poured down, piercing through the long-standing vast mist.

The spiritual charm and flowing light surrounding the cloud ferry gradually receded layer by layer. The thousand-year-old spirit patterns covering the hull turned from brilliant and blazing to warm and lustrous white. The massive hull, carrying an invincible inertia, slowly decelerated, broke through the last layer of high-altitude gale, and landed steadily towards the vast land below.

Li Changqing slowly stood up, brushed off the fine spiritual dust from his cyan robe, and stood by the cabin window with a posture as straight as a pine.

His gaze passed through the transparent spirit crystal window lattice, looking at the magnificent scene emerging at the end of the sea of clouds. His eyes were as calm as water, showing no trace of the restlessness of arriving in a strange place for the first time, only the prudence and indifference of one who has experienced a hundred battles.

Looking down from high altitude, the ten thousand miles of mountains and rivers were all in view.

The direct territory of the Tianxuan Prefecture was a hundred times more magnificent than the Huangfeng Prefecture. On the land, Spiritual Veins crisscrossed, and endless green mountains and steep ridges rose one after another. Between the mountains, Spiritual Qi evaporated into curling purple mist that never dispersed throughout the year.