278: Chapter 278 Perfection, Divine Soul

Soon, a line of text appeared on the heavenly book of prison suppression.

[Do you wish to consume cultivation power to deduce the Nether Soul Heart Sutra (Major Achievement) Cultivation Technique?]

"Yes."

As the voice fell,

Chen Ran only felt a throbbing pain between his brows, as if something was about to break out of its cocoon.

The mental cultivation method of the Nether Soul Heart Sutra circulated wildly within his body, refining and absorbing those wisps of Origin power bit by bit.

His Divine Soul kept solidifying in his Sea of Consciousness, and the originally illusory outline gradually became clear, even the expression between his brows was identical to his Physical Body.

Time ticked away, and the night grew deeper.

The aura around Chen Ran became increasingly profound and unfathomable, as if blending into the boundless night, completely silent.

I do not know how much time had passed, when a sudden roar came from Chen Ran's Sea of Consciousness, like a great bell echoing, deafening.

Just like the creation of heaven and earth, his Divine Soul power ushered in a qualitative transformation at this moment.

[You have cultivated wholeheartedly for many years, tempered your will, and refined your Divine Soul; your Cultivation Technique has greatly improved.]

[Congratulations, your Cultivation Technique, Nether Soul Heart Sutra (Major Achievement) has upgraded to → Nether Soul Heart Sutra (Perfection)]

[Your Divine Soul strength has been greatly enhanced]

Chen Ran abruptly opened his eyes, and a soul-stirring eerie glow flashed through his profound eyes, like a cold flash of lightning cutting across the night sky.

With a slight thought, an illusory figure stepped right out from between his brows.

That figure was identical to Chen Ran, except that its entire body was condensed from pure Divine Soul power, exuding an ethereal and void aura, as if it did not belong to this world.

Divine Soul leaving the body!

Chen Ran felt an unprecedented agility and freedom.

Without the heavy shackles of his Physical Body, he seemed to have transformed into a wisp of breeze, able to shuttle freely between heaven and earth at will.

He looked down at the figure with closed eyes on the couch; that was a handsome-looking man, half-shrouded in moonlight, which only illuminated half of his body.

But Chen Ran felt a tremendous shock from it.

First, he glanced at his own hands, and then scanned his entire body.

Right now, he did not have the skin texture of ordinary people's Physical Body, but rather looked like a layer of translucent jelly.

With a thought from Chen Ran, his entire person actually flew upward, leaving the ground and heading straight towards the roof beams.

When he was about to touch the roof beams, his body met no obstruction at all, instead passing right through them very smoothly.

"Leaving the body to pass through walls, flying freely!"

After passing through that patch of darkness, the line of sight in Chen Ran's eyes suddenly brightened.

The night breeze was gentle, and the tree shades rustled.

But Chen Ran no longer had the heart to pay attention, because what appeared before his eyes was a brightly lit capital city, with the light wrapping around the entire city like a glowing Dragon.

Unwittingly, he had already flown dozens of zhang high into the air.

Looking down below the capital, he also saw that in the center of the Dragon's brows and eyes, a beam of light seemed to be shining as well.

The light was dazzling and eye-catching; at a glance, it looked as if the Dragon was breathing in and out all states of the mortal world.

Gradually, Chen Ran noticed something was wrong; the Dragon was not composed of bright lamps, but rather seemed to be a truly majestic colossal beast.

It was alive, it had life.

From time to time, it would move its body and turn over lazily.

"That place is... the imperial palace!"

Chen Ran looked closely and recognized that the place where the light was deepest turned out to be the location of the imperial palace.

"So this is the Dragon Vein."

After his Divine Soul left his body, Chen Ran could see even more clearly.

He could clearly see that the Dragon's body was not entirely flawless either; aside from the trace of light between its brows and eyes, the rest of its body was somewhat dim, and even its tail had dimmed a lot.

That was the evidence of the Dragon Vein's dissipation.

Chen Ran looked down at all this, and a profound and abstruse enlightenment arose in his heart.

Those were the residual memory fragments of Shen Jixuan, as well as his true insights when he Cultivated back then.

"The Physical Body is like a raft crossing the sea, while the Divine Soul is the true essence of the other shore."

His current Divine Soul Realm had already reached the level of Shen Jixuan in the past.

Not only could he temporarily leave his body with his Divine Soul, roam heaven and earth, and ignore the shackles of his Physical Body.

Even after the Physical Body perished, he could still rely on this powerful Divine Soul for Possession and Rebirth, living another lifetime!

Such means had already transcended the scope of mortal martial arts, coming close to an Immortal.

"Shen Jixuan..."

Chen Ran withdrew his Divine Soul and whispered this name, his eyes full of amazement and regret.

"This person is truly a natural-born prodigy, stunningly peerless; throughout the ages, I am afraid not a few can be found to match him."

"To think that in this era of declining martial arts, he forcefully carved out a Divine Soul Cultivation system even more terrifying than the Grandmaster Realm."

"This kind of Cultivation Technique is already comparable to the legendary Immortal family methods, pointing directly to the Origin of the Dao."

Chen Ran let out a long sigh, his tone tinged with some emotion.

"If not for the exhaustion of Spiritual Qi in this world and the lack of the Origin of Heaven and Earth to support it, with Shen Jixuan's talent and brilliance, he probably would have already become a supreme expert of a region, shattering the Void Realm and leaving."

"It is time, it is also fate."

While thinking, Chen Ran also felt a sense of traction coming from below himself.

"Has it reached the limit distance?"

Chen Ran in his spiritual body state frowned slightly and muttered to himself.

Unlike Cultivators like Shen Jixuan who had completely abandoned their bodies and switched to Cultivating the Divine Soul Dao.

Chen Ran's original body was still present; if his Divine Soul left his body too far, the connection with his Physical Body would become weaker and weaker.

Furthermore, if he remained in the state of the Divine Soul leaving the body for a long time, he might even lose contact with his Physical Body.

Thinking of this, Chen Ran turned into a streak of gloomy shadow, falling down from the sky and rushing straight toward the seemingly ordinary courtyard.

The night breeze brushed past the window lattice, making a faint sound, like a lingering sigh.

Chen Ran collected his thoughts, closed his eyes again, and the aura around his body gradually returned to calm.

In this troubled world, only by constantly growing stronger could one protect everything they wanted to guard.

Chen Ran's eyes were gloomy, and purple flames rose all over his body.

At this moment, the strength of his Divine Soul had undergone heaven-shaking and earth-overturning changes compared to before.

If his Divine Soul was a stream before, now it was like a surging river.

Even without using [Sky Net], his Divine Sense could now freely cover dozens of zhang around him.

Under normal conditions, casting [Nether Eye] could also last for several hours without extinguishing, and the Divine Soul killing secret technique [Nirvana Slash] could also be cast nearly ten times consecutively.

Only at this moment could he be considered to have walked his own path on the Divine Soul Dao.

Such means were something even a Grandmaster had never possessed.

Afterwards, Chen Ran felt the consumption of the Divine Soul leaving the body,

"Just with the Divine Soul leaving the body for a quarter of an hour, nearly forty percent of the Soul Power in my body was consumed. This consumption intensity is simply too great."

Spiritual Qi was scattered in this world, and the Origin of Heaven and Earth had become extinct. This Nether Soul Heart Sutra was nothing more than forcibly abducting other people's Divine Souls to use as consumables.

Wanting to cast this technique to one's heart's content relying solely on oneself was simply impossible.

Therefore, in order to continue Cultivating this technique, Shen Jixuan actually refined the Divine Souls of thousands of people, which caused a shock to the imperial court and led to his imprisonment in the heavenly prison.

"Fortunately, however, I have the heavenly book of prison suppression. Shen Jixuan needed to slaughter on a large scale to replenish his consumption, whereas I only need to accumulate cultivation power daily to continuously replenish it..."

Chen Ran sat up from the bed; this was the fundamental difference between him and Shen Jixuan.

What others Cultivated were Demonic Techniques, but what he Cultivated was merely an ordinary method.

"Completely abandoning the Physical Body and switching to Cultivating the Divine Soul might be a very strong path, but it is not what I want. What I want..."

Chen Ran walked to the window, the moonlight spilling down from the upper-diagonal, covering half of his face with a layer of shadow.

"...is for both the Divine Soul and the Physical Body to be within the palm of my hand."