76: Chapter 76 Fifteen million going down the drain?!

[ Ding! ]

[ 15 million balance successfully exchanged for 15 million years of cultivation time! ]

[ Cultivation begins!!! ]

Boom!!!~~~

As the cold System prompt faded, Chen An felt his mind shake violently, his Divine Soul instantly sinking into a boundless void.

The flow of time in this space was completely different!

A single moment in the outside world was an eternity here!

Time passed like a rushing torrent, flowing by rapidly!

One year, ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years...

Endless time slipped away in an instant!

With his consciousness immersed within, Chen An clearly saw another version of himself, sitting cross-legged and Cultivating diligently without sleep or rest, exhausting every ounce of strength to charge at the barrier between Great Grandmaster Perfection and the higher Realm.

That Bottleneck was like a towering gate cast from ancient immortal gold, thick, hard, and unbreakable; no matter how fiercely he bombarded it, it remained unmoved.

One charge failed, two charges were futile, a thousand, ten thousand times, all met with failure!

Within the vision, he witnessed himself charging at the barrier with all his might countless times, only for every attempt to end in tragedy.

Countless times his Gang Essence rampaged, causing his body to explode and die; countless times his forced Breakthrough caused his Meridians to snap inch by inch, leading to death; countless times...

Over the long years, failure had long become the norm, but the version of him in this mysterious Secret Realm was like an unkillable cockroach.

He had no fear of death, no trauma from his Meridians rupturing; time and time again, he charged at that Bottleneck, tireless and fearless.

"Holy crap!!!"

"Do you have to be this ruthless?!"

In the past, when he used the System to Cultivate by spending money, he was always like a mindless robot, simply watching himself Cultivate within the System space.

Moreover, the time often passed so quickly that it ended before he even had time to think.

However, perhaps because the cultivation time exchanged this time was too long, Chen An discovered that he could actually think for himself.

But precisely because of this, watching the version of himself in the Secret Realm charge with all his might to break through the shackles, only to be defeated tragically time and again—countless times his Gang Essence went out of control, causing his body to explode on the spot, flesh tearing apart, Meridians snapping—those bone-chilling, tragic scenes were burned into his eyes.

Even though he was just a bystander, he still felt his scalp tingle and his whole body turn cold.

"Something's wrong. It's already been over 300,000 years, why hasn't there been a Breakthrough yet?!"

"Is this right?!"

Feeling that over 300,000 years had already passed in the System space, yet his Breakthrough still failed, Chen An couldn't help but doubt whether his choice had been correct.

"Wait, how do you Breakthrough from Great Grandmaster Perfection to Martial King?!"

"What kind of Realm is Martial King?!"

At this moment, Chen An suddenly remembered another question.

It seemed, perhaps, that he didn't actually understand the Martial King Realm.

He only knew that the Realm after Great Grandmaster was the Martial King Realm, but his understanding of the Martial King Realm was limited to just the name.

As for how a Great Grandmaster breaks through to Martial King, what characteristics it had, or what mysteries lay within, he knew absolutely nothing.

"I'm screwed!!!"

Chen An slapped his forehead, feeling he had been too reckless.

He hadn't even bothered to find out how to Breakthrough to Martial King before going all-in with his money; he looked like an utter idiot.

Of course, this couldn't be blamed entirely on Chen An.

It could only be blamed on him trusting the System too much.

After all, who could blame him when the System had been so useful before?!

Previously, he had broken through from Condensing Qi Stage 2 to the Acquired Realm, then from the Acquired Realm to the Innate Realm, the Grandmaster Realm, and the Great Grandmaster Realm.

Throughout all these Breakthroughs, he hadn't gone out of his way to understand what the Acquired Realm was, or how to Breakthrough from the Acquired Realm to the Innate Realm.

All he had to do was spend money, and the System handled all the Cultivation.

As long as the System helped him Cultivate and Breakthrough, he would naturally understand the mysteries of the Acquired Realm, Innate Realm, Grandmaster Realm, and Great Grandmaster Realm.

As it turned out, the System had actually "malfunctioned" this time!

In the blink of an eye, another million years or so passed like flowing water!

The version of him in the System space was still uselessly charging at that unbreakable barrier time and again, exploding, being reborn, and exploding again, in an endless cycle.

Yet, not a single bit of mystery regarding the Martial King Realm had naturally flooded into his mind as it usually did.

He was like a soldier with infinite ammunition, frantically firing at a steel gate as thick as a city wall, but without a key.

Bullets could be remade if they ran out, but the gate remained unmoved.

"What is going on!"

Chen An scratched his head in frustration within his consciousness.

"It wasn't like this before?!"

"System, why are you dropping the ball at such a critical moment!"

"Damn it, these 15 million yuan crystals aren't going down the drain, are they?!"

A look of annoyance flashed across Chen An's face, while he desperately racked his brain on how to break the deadlock.

This was 15 million yuan crystals!

If they really went down the drain like this, and he couldn't even Breakthrough from the Great Grandmaster Realm, he would probably vomit blood and die.

"Calm down! Calm down!!!"

In his consciousness, Chen An subconsciously took a deep breath to calm himself down, his brain cells working at high speed.

"The Innate Realm requires breaking through the Bridge of Heaven and Man to connect with the Origin Qi of Heaven and Earth!"

"The Grandmaster Realm compresses Innate True Qi, turning it into Innate Protective Aura, allowing the True Qi to further transform!"

"And the Great Grandmaster Realm also compresses the Innate Protective Aura, turning it into Gang Essence, allowing the energy in the Dantian to transform once again!"

"However, the Martial King Realm is clearly no longer about compressing the energy in the Dantian."

"At the very least, simply compressing the energy in the Dantian is no longer a viable path!"

Watching himself in the System space, where over two million years had passed, still trying to compress the energy in his Dantian without a single success, exploding and dying every time, Chen An couldn't help but shake his head.

"Then what on earth needs to be done?!"

"What exactly is the Martial King Realm?"

Chen An frowned, frantically retracing all his past Breakthrough experiences in his mind, attempting to find a clue that would lead to the Martial King Realm from the patterns of the past.

"The Qi Condensation Realm is about taking the Origin Qi of Heaven and Earth into the body and making it one's own."

"The Acquired Realm uses Origin Qi to temper the Physical Body and toughen the bones and muscles."

"The Innate Realm is about opening the Bridge of Heaven and Man, allowing one's own Origin Qi to resonate with Heaven and Earth, becoming endless."

"The Grandmaster Realm is about compressing and refining Innate True Qi, turning it into an indestructible Innate Protective Aura that can kill enemies outside the body."

"The Great Grandmaster Realm is about compressing the Protective Aura another thousand or ten thousand times, turning it into liquid Gang Essence, forming a sea of Gang Essence within the Dantian, granting one the strength of ten thousand jin with every movement."

"From Qi Condensation to Great Grandmaster, the core of all these Realms is essentially an upgrade of the container!"

"Continuously widening the Meridians, reinforcing the Dantian, and tempering the Physical Body is all just to hold more and purer power."

"But now, my container has been polished to its absolute limit!"

A thought struck like a bolt of lightning, instantly clearing away all the fog in his heart!

"I understand!!!"

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