Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Myriad Core Divine Art Sweeps Across the Primordial Wilderness

To set the stage for this battle of unparalleled magnitude, the heavens themselves, presided over by the Elder Celestial, Luo Ancestor, bestowed upon the grand western city of Boyang in the Chu Kingdom a fine, drizzling rain. The gentle droplets fell thin and sparse, dimming the sky and weighing upon the hearts of men, compelling them to grip their sharp blades all the tighter.

Luo Ancestor’s divine consciousness was attached to two individuals, not to control them, but merely to observe with utmost attention the changes in their bodies as they clashed in magical combat. Unfortunately, upon reaching the spiritual level, even Luo Ancestor could not precisely grasp the subtle fluctuations of their minds. He could only deduce their state by monitoring the flow of spiritual energy and the great surges of their emotions.

Luo Ancestor held both of these combatants in high regard. The Barbarian Lord, by innovating upon the Yang Spirit arts and cultivating a Manifested Form, had simulated an external brain—a secondary mind to augment himself. This allowed the barbarians, hampered by inherent cerebral limitations, to gain an additional measure of wisdom, enabling their kind to bypass millennia, if not tens of thousands of years, of arduous evolutionary struggle. Yet, such a method would also restrict their future progress, for their descendants would be born several steps behind the human race; after all, intelligence is of paramount importance to any living being.

Fortunately, the barbarians possessed extraordinary physical gifts. They had taken up the path of blood and martial discipline long abandoned by humans, refining it step by step to influence the spirit, and finally to cultivate a Manifested Form. This was the very subject the Barbarian Lord had been researching for years.

Luo Ancestor appreciated the Barbarian Lord’s ingenuity and did not hesitate to appropriate it for himself. Within the lower reaches of his Gourd World, he fashioned a barbarian physique—at the vast scale of three feet, the limit his world could now sustain. With this miniature avatar, Luo Ancestor set about evolving the Manifested Body technique derived by the Barbarian Lord: training in martial arts, stimulating vitality and blood, nourishing the spirit, and finally forming the manifested brain. As for the next step, the true Divine Body, that could wait.

“This Manifested Form is truly peculiar,” Luo Ancestor exclaimed, gazing at the delicate brain formed purely of spirit and vital energy. Upon refining such a brain, he suddenly experienced an odd sensation—his memory had improved, his thinking grew sharper, yet his spirit was not increased; instead, it was being consumed.

After long contemplation, Luo Ancestor understood the reason. Spirit, in essence, arises from the soul—the triad of souls and the seven spirits. Thus, he developed a Yang Spirit method and a Yin Spirit method based on the three souls and seven spirits. This division was a concept from his former life; other races had their own distinctions. The soul is the vessel of thought, the spirit the essence of blood and flesh. Though they seem parallel, in truth they complement each other: the body is the vessel of the soul, allowing it to function; the soul, in turn, nurtures the body, maintaining order and preventing decay. Their interplay gives rise to the intangible phenomenon called spirit. (This, at least, was Luo Ancestor’s current understanding.)

Thus, he realized that without strengthening his three souls and seven spirits, even an extra brain would not empower his spirit. Rather, it would only add another drain upon it. Admittedly, the drain was slight, but such a one-sided loss was not ideal. Still, Luo Ancestor’s thinking did become more agile—his wisdom, somewhat increased.

With this insight, Luo Ancestor let his thoughts roam, attempting to construct another manifested brain. But a single body could house only one. This posed no real obstacle; he simply fashioned eight more barbarian bodies in the Gourd World and refined eight additional manifested brains. His wisdom soared, but his spirit was stretched to its limits. Nine manifested brains proved to be his upper boundary.

Counting those nine, plus his own brain, and the thinking capacity of the Yang Spirit, Luo Ancestor now possessed the equivalent of eleven minds... or so he reckoned. But his mind did not rest there. He proceeded to experiment, crafting a normal human body at the same scale, then tried the manifested brain technique with it. It succeeded, but the enhancement in wisdom was little greater than with the barbarian body.

With the power of his "eleven-core processor," Luo Ancestor instantly deduced the reason: there had been no fundamental change in the brain’s structure, so wisdom had not truly increased. But how could the structure of the brain be improved?

His thoughts wandered further. The brain was always the body's most mysterious and intricate organ. Back when Luo Ancestor had researched the second generation of miniature humans, his study had been only superficial. He had managed to make their intelligence slightly superior to that of modern barbarians, but the remarkable intelligence of present-day humans was their own evolutionary achievement.

So—should one trust the wisdom of future generations? For now, Luo Ancestor could put aside improving the brain’s structure and instead focus on elevating his cultivation, strengthening his three souls and seven spirits, increasing his spirit, and then constructing even more manifested brains.

Perhaps, when he one day attained the rank of Grand Celestial Immortal, he could create billions of manifested brains. But perhaps this was no more than wishful thinking—a golden shovel in the emperor’s dreams. Who could fathom the wisdom of a Grand Celestial Immortal? It was likely that not even a trillion manifested brains could hope to compare.

Boom! A sudden thunderous crash and a jolt of information snapped Luo Ancestor from his reverie.

The Barbarian Lord’s mighty hammer came crashing down upon the city wall of Boyang, shattering a hundred feet of stone. A terrifying gale, carrying the Barbarian Lord’s sorcery—"Mind Seizure"—swept into the city. In this critical moment, the Master of Demon-Banishing drew his blade and cut through the force of the hammer, preventing the townsfolk from being turned into mindless husks by the sorcery. This technique was precisely what the Barbarian Lord used to control the wild behemoths of the wastes.

But the Master of Demon-Banishing wielded the Blade of Life and Death, a single stroke severing all thought.

Clad in a black robe with his hood pulled low, his true face hidden, a withered hand gripped a plain, unremarkable long blade.

The Barbarian Lord cared for none of this; his resolute, chiseled face twisted with a cruel smile as his powerful arms hefted the great purple-gold hammer for another savage strike.

Boom! The air itself trembled, the sound as deep as muffled thunder, shaking the entire city.

Yet the Master of Demon-Banishing was no easy opponent. Murderous intent rolled from beneath his blade, and the thin steel edge withstood the savage blow head-on.

The Barbarian Lord, seeing his foe’s prowess, burst out laughing, a relentless storm of hammer blows descending upon the Master of Demon-Banishing.

But the Master of Demon-Banishing had more than just swordplay at his command. Fire, smoke, golden light, and blood all burst forth upon the Barbarian Lord’s body. Meanwhile, the Master struck by the flurry of hammer blows dissolved into mist and vanished—it had been a phantom all along.

The Barbarian Lord, unfazed, spun and swung his hammer once more.

Bang!