Li Ming had already gotten a rough understanding of the Soul Refining Art.
And with that, it was time for him to start cultivating.
He realized that this cultivation technique's method of refining the divine soul was actually quite similar to how one would refine or temper their body.
Both means of cultivation would have either the body or the divine soul their potential stimulated through tempering.
The only difference was that the Soul Refining Art was more dangerous as it concerned the divine soul.
If he was unable to protect his original conscience, then he would face the danger of cultivation deviation.
Li Ming was in seclusion in his cave abode, studying the Soul Refining Art and consciously trying to cultivate his divine soul.
In the beginning, Li Ming, who had never cultivated his divine soul, could feel the trembling in the depths of his soul every time he cultivated it.
But as he grew more experienced with how the Soul Refining Art worked, he gradually adapted to the tempering of the divine soul.
He also understood how dangerous soul attacks could be.
"If one's divine soul is not protected and attacked at full force, one might turn into a vegetable."
"Additionally, if my divine soul is strong enough, illusion techniques would become unable to affect me."
The more Li Ming practiced, the more delighted he became.
In the past half a month, he had been in seclusion cultivating the Soul Refining Art. Because the divine soul involved the domain of the mind, he had to utterly complete an entire circulation, which was quite exhausting.
Li Ming could only devote himself to it day and night, repeatedly tempering his originally powerful divine soul.
Under his diligent cultivation, a green entry finally appeared.
[Light of the Soul (Green): Increases the degree of condensation of the divine soul.]
This made Li Ming even more surprised. With the help of this entry, his cultivation would become even more effective.
That night, a cold and moist feeling spread throughout his body.
Li Ming seemed to have ascended and was bathed in moonlight.
He had finally completed an entire round of condensation for the first time. He could be considered to have completed the initial step.
About one-fifth of his original divine soul had been condensed.
Although it had shrunk by one-fifth in terms of size, the strength of his divine soul had increased greatly.
As expected, the more condensed a divine soul was, the greater the power it would be able to exert.
The more solid one's soul was, the better one would be able to control it.
Moreover, the range of his divine sense had increased by nearly a third compared to the past, and the coverage area had significantly increased.
Furthermore, his perception had become even stronger.
Nothing in the entire cave abode could escape his perception.
This feeling of being in control of everything allowed him to feel the power of a foundation establishment cultivator in advance.
Moreover, the degree of the condensation of his divine soul was even stronger than that of ordinary foundation establishment cultivators.
Li Ming estimated that within the same level, his current divine sense should be unrivaled.
After doing all this, he threw himself into the cultivation of the Soul Refining Art.
After all, with the enhancement of the [Light of the Soul], when Li Ming cultivated, every bit of condensation of his divine soul could bring about visible changes.
His divine soul became increasingly solid and stronger. Now, his divine soul had begun to take shape. It became like a reflection of himself, sitting cross-legged in his sea of consciousness.
"This Soul Refining Art is indeed exquisite. It is a cultivation technique that is both efficient and profound."
"The means of applying my divine soul previously when I had nothing to guide me were truly too crude."
Li Ming had mastered the initial stage of the Soul Refining Art and began to think about the applications of his divine soul.
Previously, he had used his divine soul to explore the terrain, search for other cultivators, and sense their cultivation stages.
These were the most basic means of using the divine sense.
However, after reading this incomplete manual, Li Ming found some means to use his divine soul to launch attacks.
"By highly concentrating one's divine sense, they would be able to launch a destructive attack on the other party's soul..."
"Divine Sense Thorn!"
He looked at this move in surprise.
He did not expect that there would be a senior who could reach such a level with the application of their divine soul. This was an attack that was comparable to those constructed from spiritual qi in terms of might.
This Divine Sense Thron was a direct attack on the divine soul.
Even if his opponent was stronger than him, if the opponent was not on guard, the damage caused by this attack would definitely be more serious than an average attack.
Of course, this method could only be used once. After all, the effect would be greatly reduced if the other party was on guard.
This move could be used as a trump card and used when his opponent least expected it.
In the following period of time, Li Ming completely mastered the Divine Sense Thorn.
...
After nearly a month, Li Ming had completed his initial cultivation of his divine soul.
Now, his divine soul was quite condensed. Compared to when he had not cultivated the Soul Refining, his divine soul had shrunk by an entire quarter.
The strength it brought was also very terrifying.
It was rare for anyone below the foundation establishment stage to have such a powerful divine soul.
From now on, his main focus of cultivation would shift back to body cultivation.
Cultivators could not excel at everything, so they had to make some sacrifices.
Strength and realm were often the most fundamental foundation of a cultivator.
Now, he needed to break through to the foundation establishment stage!
After all, he was going to participate in the inner sect grand competition next.
He had to reach the foundation establishment stage as soon as possible.
Li Ming knew that with his immortal cultivation aptitude, the difficulty of cultivating qi and building a foundation through that path was too high.
However, it was not impossible for him to do so for the martial dao.
He had the [Martial Arts Prodigy] and [Unobstructed Hundred Meridians] entries, together with the firm foundation that he had forged day and night for so many years.
It was not impossible for him to reach the martial dao foundation establishment stage.
It just so happened that he had obtained a lot of resources from the trial in the secret realm, all of which would help him to break through to the foundation establishment stage.
The only thing he was lacking was him actually carrying out the cultivation and attempting to break through to the foundation establishment stage.
He was still cultivating the Blazing Sun Body Tempering Art and had not switched to the Golden Crow Body Tempering Art.
This was because he would also need to re-establish his foundation after changing his cultivation technique. Changing his cultivation technique now would only be a waste of time.
Therefore, Li Ming planned to change his cultivation technique after he reached the foundation establishment stage and use the Blazing Sun Body Tempering Art to lay a good foundation.
He focused on body cultivation, and this cultivation lasted for another half a month.
According to the Blazing Sun Body Tempering Art, the sixth level was to use the true flame and complete the qualitative change in the blazing fire.
The seventh level combined the four steps of bone forging, blood changing, organs refining, and marrow cleansing.
Cold fire forged the bones to forge the meridians, quenching fire changed blood to nurture qi, true fire refined the internal organs to shed the body, and blazing fire cleansed the marrow to build the foundation.
The sun was shining brightly in the courtyard.
Li Ming's body was lit up by an open fire. Around him, streams of blazing sun true qi slowly rotated.
The surrounding grass turned pitch-black in several places. There were traces of them being burned by the true flame.
"Phew..."
The spark between Li Ming's eyebrows disappeared, and the flames on his body disappeared.
At present, he was able to release and retract his true flame as he pleased, just like a perfect container. He had reached the peak of the sixth stage of the Blazing Sun Body Tempering Art.
However, if he wanted to go one step further and forge a martial dao foundation establishment stage, it would be even more difficult.
His eyes were burning as he looked at the pool in front of him.
After his true fire had previously evaporated the pond, he drew in another pond from the back mountain.
Now, it was already overflowing.
Li Ming mumbled to himself. "Innate martial dao, tempered spirit."
That was the level of the immortal body.
In the martial dao, there were all sorts of ways to temper oneself, such as the power of heaven and earth, wind and frost, ice and snow, or the blazing sun that he used.
They all allowed for one to breakthrough to this level.
He had to be as fierce and domineering as a blazing flame and charge straight through!
Li Ming seemed to have realized something. For the past half a month, his strength had stopped increasing.
It was like a pool that had been filled to the brim. No matter how much he tempered himself, he still remained at the sixth level.
He was unable to enter the seventh level.
He suddenly stood up. Perhaps all he lacked was a driving force.
Li Ming understood that the spiritual liquid he had been soaking in these days was too mild.
In order to reach the martial dao foundation establishment stage, he had to make use of stronger stimulation.
This was the only way to break through to the final level.