Chojusen was currently on the brink of going insane. He had already consumed several hundred million kilograms of elemental essence, but his myriad manifestation had yet to be complete.
After drinking the one million kilograms he had prepared to finish the Adept Stage, he had only finished a tenth of his second level of manifestations. Now, his Dantian was filled with stars, moons, and planets, but his Zifu still had space to hold a couple more celestial objects.
At the 100 million kilogram mark, nebulas started to appear, and now that he finished consuming a grand total of 1 Billion kilograms of elemental essence, a black hole had finally formed. However… This black hole was ridiculous in its own right. It was sucking in the nihilty from around Chojusen's body and consuming it, out of Chojusen's control.
The formation of this black hole ended Chojusen's journey in the Wanxiang Adept stage, as he could no longer create more celestial bodies in the skies of his Zifu. However, the black hole seemed to disregard his limits and kept forcefully expanding the space in his Dantian through its consumption of the nihility around Chojusen.
Along with the expansion, small bits and pieces of leftover energy turned into elemental essence and filled in the space the black hole created; meaning Chojusen was always at the peak of his Wanxiang Adept cultivation, even if he was rising in cultivation in the meantime.
Chojusen couldn't be bothered to care about this black hole as he was currently calculating how many kilograms of elemental essence he would need to complete the next stage. 100 Billion kgs? 1 Trillion kgs? It could even be more…
Chojusen ceased his worrying when he read about how one would go about becoming a Primal Daoist. He would only have to use his soul to complete the stage; he would also need energy if his level of Dao wasn't so god damn high.
The level of Dao insight required to stabilize the Primal Daoist stage was to create a Dao Domain; a Domain countless times less profound than the Domains Chojusen was capable of unleashing when he mastered several laws.
Chojusen collected himself and dove deep into his body with Internal Viewing and found his Dantian. He entered the Dantian and found the center of his Zifu and began to lock that space down for his primal turtlesnake to settled down in.
He opened his eyes in the real world and started sucking in the nihility from all around him. By using only the nihilty and his soul, a small mass started to form in his Dantian. The mass became a small turtle which had a snake as its tail, and with a continuous stream of nihility coming down to nurture it, the turtle quickly grew in size.
An hour after Chojusen started this process, the turtle was several thousand kilometers long and transcended the moniker of "Primal;" this turtlesnake became a Chaos Turtlesnake. When Chojusen finally felt his turtle snake stop taking in energy, he knew he had completed the Ki Refining path's Primal Daoist stage.
At the moment it stopped accepting energy from Chojusen, the turtlesnake had another transformation and gained the same barcode-like tattoos that Chojusen had; It became attuned to the Nihility Dao.
With a Turtlesnake now residing in his Zifu, Chojusen's soul experienced quite the ridiculous leap in growth. He had never bothered to train his soul in the past, but as a True God, how could his soul not be overwhelmingly strong? Now that he had this turtlesnake in his Zifu, Chojusen's soul had more than doubled in power.
Now, for the Body Refining path, Chojusen had to take his soul and fuse it with his body. Even before straightening his soul with the turtlesnake, Chojusen could easily fuse his soul with his body, so now it was even less of a problem.
After completing the fusion, Chojusen had to admit, these cultivators sure had ingenious techniques. Chojusen was still far from reaching his previous level of power, but now that his soul and body had fused he could create avatars and clones by just splitting himself with divine energy.
"Primal Stage: Complete! Whats next??? Mhmm… the Void Stage? Well that sure was fast, it's only been a couple days. The silly system actually said that cultivating to my previous peak would take centuries or even millennia."
[Che! It would have… if you hadn't skipped two universe ahead… Here the rules of the Omniverse are very forgiving. If you had gone to the place you were intended to go, you would have had to cultivate the soul, with nothing to back you up! Something you had no experience doing! But now that we're here, not only do you get to cultivate the energy, soul, and body, there are no restrictions from the Laws! You can use your overpowered Dao of Nihility to create elemental essence like its water! Do you think everyone here is like that?]
"..." Chojusen wondered why the system was so bipolar.
'Whats the Void stage again? Lets see...' The book of Dao Origin specified "Complete a Dao-path, any will do, and take on the Celestial Tribulation."
"My Dao of Nihility totally eclipses all these other Void stage cultivators' Daos, so it must be good enough. But what is this Celestial Tribulation?"
[The Celestial Tribulation is a challenge from you to the Heavens to acquire something pretty close to immortality.]
"Ok? But how do I start it? Should I just curse at the sky?"
[First of all, doing the Celestial Tribulation right now would be suicide. Secondly, you shouldn't curse the heavens or they'll send down a more powerful tribulation. And lastly, what sky? We're in a zone of nihility, remember?]
"Wait, why would it be suicide? I'm quite overpowered, if you didn't realize it yet."
[You can be as overpowered as possible and you'd still die from the tribulation.]
"Why?"
[The Celestial Tribulation comes down in four waves. Two of the four waves test your Dao Heart. We both know that you Dao Heart has been untrained.]
"Ok? So what should I do? Buy a Dao Heart training technique?"
[Yes… But training the Dao Heart is… unpleasant to say the least. The best skill you can buy right now is a technique called "Daoheart" which stimulates you into taking pain.]
"Just a bit of pain, and I can train my Dao Heart?"
[Just a bit? Phffff. Yeah. Just a bit.] The system tried not to laugh, but failed miserably.
"What's so funny?"
[The Daoheart technique costs 1.5 billion shop points and can generate enough pain at its final level, to cause even Emperor level powerhouses despair. The Emperors I'm talking about are cultivators above Daolords; you know, the level you're trying to reach?]
"It's just a bit of pain? How bad could it possibly be?" Chojusen was taking this too lightly because he had already experiences some of the worst pain imaginable. He had lost and broken several limbs in the past; if not by fighting, then by training. What could possibly be more painful than losing your limbs.
If only he knew…
Chojusen bought the technique for 1.5 Billion shop points and received a set of memories for a chant in his head. The Daoheart technique came with seven levels. It stated that the first three levels were for… Daolords? And the last four were for Eternal Emperors? No matter, Chojusen tossed these "irrelevant" titles out of his head and readied himself for whatever pain might come from the chanting.
Chojusen started "Cha..."
Eh? What was that? Chojusen opened his eyes and looked down. He was currently in so much pain that his body shut down. He could only see a stream of blood coming from his eyes, nose, mouth and ears… The next thing Chojusen knew was waking up several hours later.
When he came to, he had a look of misery on his face. This was only the first word of the first level and he had already been driven to near insanity? Chojusen couldn't be bothered to wave his hands, he used what little control over energy he still possessed and created a small mass of water to heal himself.
Several hours later, his body was still aching and crying out from the pain, but at least his consciousness was not at risk. Chojusen kept up his water healing domain until he was back to perfect condition. He thought long and hard about whether to go through that horrible experience again and eventually decided on not wimping out; just that decision alone improved his Dao Heart, as not many would dare go back into hell after having a taste and escaping.