Naturally, Chen Daoxuan, who had returned to his cave abode, was not aware of this.
His thirteenth uncle, who had previously claimed that the clan was poor, was now counting his wealth in a secret chamber filled with spirit stones.
Inside his cave abode, Chen Daoxuan opened the stone plate that sealed his spiritual eye. Immediately, spiritual essence began to gush out again.
Upon seeing this, he did not dare to waste any of it. He quickly activated the Origin Convergence technique and absorbed the spiritual essence into his body to refine it.
In the cultivation world of the Myriad Sea of Stars, a cultivator's spiritual root was generally divided into four grades, based on their efficiency in refining spiritual essence. These were lower spiritual root, middle spiritual root, upper spiritual root, and heavenly spiritual root, which only could be found in one-in-ten-thousand cultivators.
Normally speaking, when a cultivator with lower spiritual root absorbed ten percent of spiritual essence into his body, he could only refine one percent of it, which was very inefficient.
Therefore, given identical cultivation resources, compared to the other grades of spiritual roots, the cultivation speed of a cultivator with lower spiritual root was the slowest.
Middle spiritual root cultivators were much more efficient in refining spiritual essence. Generally speaking, they were twice as efficient as lower spiritual root cultivators. Two of the ten percent of spiritual essence absorbed could be successfully refined.
The speed at which upper spiritual root cultivators refined spiritual essence was double that of middle spiritual root cultivators. Four of the ten percent of spiritual essence could be refined.
The most terrifying thing was that heavenly spiritual root cultivators could completely refine the spiritual essence they absorbed into their bodies. Given identical cultivation resources, their cultivation speed was ten times faster than lower spiritual root cultivators.
As for Chen Daoxuan...
He did not know what grade of spiritual roots he possessed.
Since the Chen clan of Shuanghu Island did not have a spiritual artifact to test his spiritual roots, the clan's cultivators could only vaguely judge the grade of their spiritual roots based on the speed at which they refined spiritual essence.
In addition, there was no accurate reference standard, so they could only rely on their own judgment.
Based on this, Chen Xianhe, who was the clan leader, possessed the lower spiritual root.
The clan leader started cultivating at the age of ten. It had been eighty years since then, and he had barely reached the sixth level of the Qi refinement realm.
It was true that Chen Xianhe's slow cultivation was partly due to the lack of cultivation resources in the clan, but the main reason was that his cultivation aptitude was indeed too poor.
Chen Daoxuan's cultivation speed was much faster. In just five years, he had broken through to the third level of the Qi refinement realm.
At this rate, he would be able to catch up to Chen Xianhe's cultivation of the sixth level of the Qi refinement realm in at most a dozen years.
Compared to Chen Xianhe, who had only reached the sixth level of the Qi refinement realm after eighty years of cultivation, his cultivation speed was more than four times faster.
In other words, if Chen Xianhe possessed the lower spiritual root, then Chen Daoxuan possessed the upper spiritual root.
Other than the one-in-ten-thousand heavenly spiritual root cultivators, Chen Daoxuan's spiritual root was already considered to be at the top level.
However, he had been born in a small clan like the Chen clan of Shuanghu Island. Had it been a large cultivation clan, his talent would have warranted the best treatment and resources from the clan; and this was without mentioning his terrifying talent in artifact refinement.
...
The next morning, Chen Daoxuan, who had been cultivating for the whole night, refined the last bit of spiritual essence. As he felt the true Qi in his dantian gradually solidify, he could not help but display a satisfied expression.
He had just broken through to the third level of the Qi refinement realm and, after only one night of cultivation, he had already solidified the illusory true Qi. He was already very satisfied with this kind of progress.
At this speed, in at most three years, he would be able to break through to the fourth level of the Qi refinement realm and become a mid-stage Qi refinement realm cultivator.
After all, breaking through to the fourth level of the Qi refinement realm would increase a cultivator's strength much more than breaking through to the third level of the Qi refinement realm.
According to the records of the Origin Convergence technique, when a cultivator broke through to the mid-stage of the Qi refinement realm from the early-stage of the Qi refinement realm, their true Qi would be strengthened by at least 50% , far exceeding the 20% increase when they broke through to the third level of the Qi refinement realm.
After finishing his cultivation, Chen Daoxuan used the stone plate to seal the spiritual eye in the cave abode again to prevent the spiritual essence from overflowing.
Following that, he could not help but fall into deep thought.
According to his usual outing, every morning after he finished his cultivation, he would meditate on the Hong Meng Enlightenment Sutra.
However...
He sank his mind into his sea of consciousness, and observed as the nine Stardust revolved around the golden scripture. He was contemplating...
To be honest, he was a little unsure whether he should continue to meditate on the Hong Meng Enlightenment Sutra.
The nine Stardust in his sea of consciousness appeared after he meditated on the Hong Meng Enlightenment Sutra for nine consecutive days.
Today was the tenth day, so he continued to meditate on the scripture. He did not know what kind of changes would happen next, but the Hong Meng Enlightenment Sutra was Chen Daoxuan's biggest trump card. It was obviously impossible for him to give it up just like that.
"Forget it. It's a blessing, not a curse. If it's a curse, I can't avoid it anyway. Since I can't let go of this opportunity, then I should prepare myself mentally for the possible consequences!"
With this thought in mind, Chen Daoxuan's gaze became resolute once again.
He then closed his eyes and meditated on the Hong Meng Enlightenment Sutra.
Very soon, a dao verse circulated in Chen Daoxuan's Sea of consciousness. Following that, he fell into a state of chaos and lost consciousness, although his mouth continued to instinctively recite the Hong Meng Enlightenment Sutra.
The time it took for an incense stick to burn passed in the blink of an eye.
When Chen Daoxuan opened his eyes again, he discovered that another Stardust had appeared in his sea of consciousness.
"It's the tenth one," Chen Daoxuan said in a low voice, "But..."
He frowned. "It seems to be a little different this time."
Chen Daoxuan discovered that the ten Stardust revolving around the golden scripture in his sea of consciousness seemed to be attracted to each other.
If Chen Daoxuan did not deliberately control them, the ten Stardust would have been combined into one.
"Do you guys want to combine?"
Chen Daoxuan muttered, after which his eyes turned firm. "Then I'll fulfill your wish!"
With this thought in mind, Chen Daoxuan stopped controlling the ten Stardust and allowed them to collide.
Boom!
When the ten Stardust collided, Chen Daoxuan's consciousness went blank initially. Then, he felt his consciousness rising continuously. Finally, the scene of the universe's Big Bang seemed to appear in his consciousness.
"This is..."
In the depths of his sea of consciousness, the knowledge and information that he had studied and obtained previously surged toward him like a tide. Within the waves of knowledge were things that he had studied in his previous life, but only had already had a vague impression of, and there were also some things that he had studied in this life that he had a deep impression of.
For example, the main cultivation technique that he practiced every day, the Origin Convergence technique.
Chen Daoxuan's consciousness gently focused on the Origin Convergence technique.
Immediately, he suddenly comprehended many things about the Origin Convergence technique, and a large amount of information surged into his mind.
"This is... so this is how the Origin Convergence technique should be cultivated. No wonder I always felt that something was wrong when I cultivated it in the past. So cultivating like this will allow me to absorb spiritual essence to a greater extent..."
In just an instant, he discovered a problem in his cultivation method that he had never realized before.
"It turns out that I can cultivate like this..."
"This... What's going on? Why do I feel like I've become so intelligent all of a sudden? This feeling is just like the legendary epiphany!"
That's right… epiphany!
He recalled a cultivation phenomenon recorded in his clan's ancient books—epiphany!
However, the opportunity to experience an epiphany only existed in legends.
Most cultivators would never experience an epiphany throughout their entire cultivation life.
However, what was going on now?
The ten Stardust collided together and he suddenly had an epiphany?
Chen Daoxuan, who had thought this thought, could not help but be stunned by this kind of heaven-shaking opportunity...