Desolate Era Book 29, Chapter 16 - Becoming a Daolord

Vastheaven Palace. The Darknorth Estate.
The white-robed Ji Ning and the fur-clad Ning were travelling side-by-side.
“Master.” Su Youji and Pillsaint stared in astonishment.
“My clone has already returned from the Badlands Territory. It is now time for me to break through to become a Daolord as well,” Ning said. “Starting right now, do not disturb me unless something very important happens.”
“Understood.”
Both Su Youji and Pillsaint immediately acknowledged the order. They were unable to prevent looks of excitement from appearing on their faces. As they saw it, Ji Ning truly was an incredible figure; once he broke through to become a Daolord, his status would truly skyrocket even more.
Whoosh. Whoosh. The white-robed Ning and the fur-clad Ning both moved into a private room deep within the estate.
……
Within the secluded room.
Rumble…
Formations began to actiate, causing barriers of light to begin to appear around the entire Darknorth estate, preventing any outsiders from looking into it.
The white-robed Ning and the fur-clad Ning both sat in the lotus position. Both shut their eyes, then began to use the [One True Body] technique.
Whoosh. Both bodies began to emanate an aura of blurry light from their bodies, their Jindans, and their souls. They began to draw closer and closer to each other, before finally the fur-clad Ning flew straight into the white-robed Ning’s body, causing the light to expand dramatically.
The two came from the same source. They were identical in soul, truesoul, and body. This was why they were able to rejoin each other and merge into one.
“Now, all eighteen of my clones have been brought together into one.” The white-robed Ning opened his eyes, revealing a smile. He still remembered how he had first acquired the [Taowu Eighteen Fiendgods] and used it to create eighteen separate clones. Now, he had managed to once more merge all eighteen clones into one! A sense of perfection and contentment came from his very truesoul, causing him to feel a bit intoxicated.
Immortal energy and divine power flooded into the azureflower mist region within his body, and it actually began to transform into more of that mist energy. For eighteen of those bodies to come together meant that his divine body had only become more powerful than it had been in the past! His divine power was also slightly purer than before as well, allowing him to endure and hold a bit more of that mist energy.
“A hundred and twenty drops.” He had accumulated a total of 120 drops of ‘water’ within the azureflower mist region. This was quite a bit more than the 108 drops he had accumulated previously.
……
Within an estate located in the primordial chaos directly outside the distant Three Realms.
The black-robed Ning was seated there, next to another black-robed Ning. They simultaneously used the [One True Body] technique as well and merged to become one.
A short while later, there was only one seated black-robed Ning. His aura, however, was a bit stronger than before.
From this day forth, he would only have one true body and one Primaltwin, with no clones of either.
……
“Let it begin.” Both the white-robed Ning in Vastheaven Palace and the black-robed Ning in his chaos estate nodded, their eyes filled with resolve.
Boom!
The true body and the Primaltwin, though located extremely far away from each other, made their breakthroughs simultaneously. They could even sense a strange resonance between them, and in this moment they both established a Dao that belonged to them and them alone.
Samsara Daolords walked a path of their own devising, and with each step on their Dao they trod the line between life and death.
Each time he made a breakthrough, both his true body and his Primaltwin would have to make the breakthrough at the same time! Trying to break through with just one would result in being stifled by the other; there was no way for it to succeed. Consider the ‘Daomerge’; even a Daolord of the Fourth Step who had a Primaltwin would only have one shot at the Daomerge. There was no way to simply allow the true body to fail the Daomerge, then allow the Primaltwin to use that experience to succeed.
The true body and the Primaltwin would have to face it all together, and with each step they would risk death together. This was how things worked. If you weren’t extremely determined, you would never be able to succeed.
Rumble…
The primordial chaos outside the Three Realms began to rumble and churn with unearthly power, forming a chaos whirlpool of terrifying power and inconceivable size. The ripples caused by it actually affected even the insides of the Three Realms!
“W-what…”
“What in the world?”
“What are these terrifying ripples?”
Patriarch Subhuti, Windfiend, and the other elites of the Three Realms all flew to the void above the Three Realms. They stared towards the distant place where the ripples were coming from. They could sense that the normally calm and tranquil primordial chaos was now rumbling and roaring like a dragon in flight, churning with such power that they were all utterly amazed.
……
Vastheaven Palace. The Darknorth Estate was completely calm.
Although a Daolord’s aura was bursting forth from this place, the barriers which Ning had activated earlier made it so that the aura was completely blocked from escaping. As for the energy which he needed to break through from the World level to the Daolord level, Ning was able to simply generate it from the chaos jewels which he carried with him. This was a decision he had made ever since he comprehended his Omega Sword Dao.
Whoooosh.
The Jindan chaos region within his body. The Dao-tree which had been 108,000 meters tall began to draw nourishment from Ning’s insights into his Sword Dao. It quickly began to grow, and with a rumbling sound it started to expand. Although it was very slow in growing ‘taller’, it was beginning to thicken at an absolutely incredible speed.
The Dao-tree was growing thicker and thicker, but it was growing taller quite slowly.
“The deeper a Samsara Daolord’s foundation is, the thicker his Dao-tree will be. Thanks to my Omega Sword Dao, there should be very few Daolords of the First Step who are a match for me,” Ning mused. There was a fixed limit to how tall a Dao-tree could be. For example, if a Daolord of the Fourth Step trained for many years and reached the Verge, his Dao-tree would grow to become 540,000 meters tall. This was true for all Verge-level Daolords. The thickness, however, was different for each person.
As the Dao-tree grew thicker and taller, the roots would also extend deeper and deeper into the Jindan chaos region, allowing it to become more and more stable and expand even further in size.
The Dao-tree continued to grow until it reached a height of 156,000 meters tall, then finally came to a halt.
The Jindan chaos region, however, was still furiously expanding. Its aura was expanding as well, and the Jindan core at the very heart of the region was becoming increasingly mysterious and profound.
“Time to rebuild the divine body.”
The white-robed Ning sat there in the lotus position. His bones, his flesh, his sinews… they all began to be fundamentally remade and rebuilt, using the Omega Sword Dao as their core. They drew in the chaos energy, using it to remake his divine power itself. His awesome Daolord aura burst forth from his room, and the many chaos jewels in Ning’s possession were being continuously used up and replenished. In truth, not even a Daolord of the Fourth Step would really use up that many chaos jewel in replenishing his divine power. To Ning, such a small amount of chaos jewels was negligible.
……
“A Daolord’s aura. Master is making his breakthrough.” Pillsaint was nervous.
“Right, but the aura is so powerful… it is far greater than the aura we had when we made our breakthroughs.” Su Youji was quite moved, but a puzzled look appeared in her eyes as she raised her head skywards. “Odd. Why isn’t there any disturbance in the local primordial chaos?”
Pillsaint revealed a puzzled look as well. “Right. Is Master not using the chaos energy of the outside world?”
Only when breaking through would you be able to absorb an enormous amount of chaos energy in a very short period of time for ‘free’. When you normally broke through to become a Daolord, you would make use of that free chaos energy from the outside world. Ning, however, was so filthy rich that he didn’t care about that at all, and he had his own reasons for not wishing to draw upon the chaos energy of the outside world.
“Master probably has other things on his mind,” Su Youji suggested.
……
Just two hours later, the true body had completed its breakthrough. Given that he had an unlimited supply of chaos jewels, the breakthrough was naturally incredibly fast. As for the Primaltwin, its breakthrough would take significantly more time, as it was still furiously drawing upon the energy of the primordial chaos outside of the Three Realms.
“So this is what it is like to become a Daolord?” The white-robed Ning sat there, a smile on his face. His aura was noticeably much more powerful than it had been in the past, and it was actually on par with that of Daolord Brightfish, a Daolord of the Second Step.
Anyone who saw Ning and sensed his aura would judge him to be a Daolord of the Second Step.
In truth, this actually wasn’t that impressive. All Ancient cultivators and members of the Brightshore Imperials were comparable to Daolords of the First Step when they were actually at the World level. Once they broke through, their divine bodies would be comparable to Daolords of the Third Step, and their auras would be far stronger than Ning’s! As for Kilostar, who had trained in the [Thousand Bodies Sutra], he would be every bit a match for those Ancient cultivators and the Brightshore Imperials.
However, there were very, very few Ancient cultivators and Brightshore Imperials. As for cultivators who both trained in the [Thousand Bodies Sutra] and were able to break through to become Daolords? They were probably even rarer than Brightshore Imperials!
Thus, in the outside world people usually judged a person’s power based on his aura.
Ning used his Omega Sword Dao to serve as the basis and core of his divine power, and had combined eighteen bodies into one; this was why he had a body comparable to a Daolord of the Second Step after making his breakthrough.
“In the future, I’ll just pretend to be a Daolord of the Second Step. In the end, my Omega Sword Dao is simply too powerful, far more powerful than the Daos of Eastcult, Greatjoy, or the others. Based on what I know, not even figures like the almighty Brightshore Hegemon or the Paragon of Pills have encountered World-level cultivators who had as unearthly a Dao as I do.”
Ning knew that in everyone’s eyes, being able to master and then join together multiple Supreme Daos meant that you were the most supreme of geniuses. And yet… he was even more powerful than the ‘most supreme of geniuses’?
If others found out about this, there might be some benefits for him, but… it would also bring quite a deal of trouble! It was better to be cautious; on the surface, being just one of those other ‘supreme geniuses’ was enough.
After making his breakthrough, Ning could sense that he had undergone an earthshaking transformation. He felt certain that thanks to his Omega Sword Dao, even as a Daolord of the First Step he would be comparable to the likes of Greatjoy and Eastcult once they became Daolords of the Second Step. There were very few Daolords of the Fourth Step who could do anything to him! This made Ning feel a sense of uncontrollable heroism and valor.
In the past, any powerful Daolord could pose a threat to him. Now… he would pose a threat to them instead!