I Can Copy the Talents of All Creatures

Ordinary Martial Artists only attempt this step of cultivation after reaching the Grandmaster realm, and it is exceedingly dangerous.

He had reviewed the prerequisites for this cultivation.

The first was that his Melt Gold Jade Body Skill had to reach the level of great mastery. Yu Fei was quite confident on this point. Leveraging the resources of the Golden Stone Gang Realm, he had pushed this Iron Body Skill to its absolute limit, a point where it could no longer advance. In terms of physical strength, his body was comparable to a 7th-rank desolate beast.

Furthermore, the medicinal properties of countless precious herbs were still accumulating within him, so he absolutely surpassed this requirement.

As for his soul, even before his spiritual intelligence talent was upgraded, the strength of his Divine Sense was already on par with a Grandmaster’s, reaching a range of a hundred feet. Now, it had surpassed even that. In other words, Yu Fei’s soul definitely met the requirements.

His weakest aspect was his Inner Qi. Compared to a Grandmaster’s True Essence, his Inner Qi was on a much lower energy level. However, because he cultivated the All Things Return to Origin Scripture, his Inner Qi reserves were unprecedentedly vast, as was his recovery rate.

Combined with his formidable spiritual will, he could, in theory, successfully cultivate the Great Sun Glaze Body. This was why Ye Shuping dared to take such a risk.

"We’re here!"

Before them was a massive metal altar, scorched until it glowed crimson. It was positioned to face the red sun directly. In his perception, the vital energy here was incredibly domineering, possessing a sovereign disdain that seemed to transcend time and space.

Yu Fei glanced at the red-hot altar, then turned to stare at Ye Shuping in disbelief.

The scorching heat made Ye Shuping’s features appear blurry and distorted, even at such a close distance.

"Yes. Get on, and let’s begin!"

Yu Fei froze for a moment, then summoned his courage and stepped forward. ’This is like throwing myself onto a branding iron,’ he thought.

The moment he sat down cross-legged, his rear went numb. The accumulated medicinal properties in his body activated, stirring from his very flesh and marrow to continuously repair his frame.

With everything ready, Yu Fei opened his eyes and nodded.

Ye Shuping curled his fingers into a claw. In that instant, the world seemed to lose its color. The raging, fiery gales stilled. Yu Fei’s eyelid twitched uncontrollably, his heart pounding as his breath caught in his throat.

’This old coot’s power is terrifying!’

Countless streams of light converged in Ye Shuping’s hand, forming a ten-foot-wide fireball. Flames leaped and erupted from its surface until it became a near-perfect replica of the red sun in the sky.

Streams of crimson flame descended from the heavens, flowing into Ye Shuping’s hand. The fireball spun without stopping as the small red sun in his grasp continuously collapsed and condensed.

This was Ye Shuping’s technique. He was actually going to manually refine a sliver of the True Intent of the Great Sun.

Yu Fei was completely baffled by this maneuver. According to the Cultivation Technique’s description, he should be slaying this realm’s fire spirits to extract their essence and condense a sliver of true intent. During the Red Sun Realm’s period of unrest, the fire spirits grew stronger, with even the weakest reaching the 7th rank.

According to the philosophy of traditional Cultivation Techniques, the True Intent of the Great Sun was to be collected and condensed from fire spirits. As elemental life forms, the True Intent refined from their bodies was relatively gentle and less powerful, making it easier for a Martial Artist to achieve their initial breakthrough.

Ye Shuping had skipped this step entirely. He had virtually rewritten the critical initiation phase for the Great Sun Glaze Body. He was directly extracting and refining the True Intent from the very essence of this realm and the red sun high above. While far more potent, this method made the initial breakthrough significantly more difficult.

But he had high expectations for Yu Fei. If he were merely training an ordinary Martial Saint, Ye Shuping would never have gone to such lengths.

This was the first time the old man had revealed the true extent of his power to Yu Fei, and it felt as if he could blot out the sky with a single hand.

Before long, the fireball in his hand had shrunk to the size of his palm, continuing to purify itself as it spun. Countless impurities were flung out during the process, until all that remained in Ye Shuping’s hand was a single, flickering point of golden light.

Yu Fei’s scalp went numb as he stared at the golden light. He could feel the explosive power contained within it—if it were to detonate, it could easily destroy an entire city.

Then, Ye Shuping’s Finger Skill shifted. Ninety-nine percent of the golden light’s power was stripped away, leaving only that timeless, sovereign, and domineering intent.

Yu Fei had comprehended many forms of intent, but he found this feeling impossible to describe.

It was like an Innate divinity. It is forever there. ’All things are born because of me, and all things die because of me, yet what is that to me?’

Ye Shuping had stripped away its form and substance to obtain its pure, lofty essence. This was a sliver of the True Intent of the Great Sun.

This aura was on an entirely different level from concepts like annihilation, high temperature, or flame. In a way, this was the true essence of the great sun.

A star casts its light and heat upon all creation, indifferent to life or death, wild and unrestrained.

This sliver of True Intent was exceptionally pure; it would reveal different facets of its meaning to different observers. This was the facet Yu Fei perceived.

For some unknown reason, upon perceiving this True Intent, his body was overcome by an intense craving. Yet, at the same time, his sense of danger flared just as fiercely.

At this moment, his reason and instincts clashed. A warning from his profound intuition screamed that this wisp of True Intent was dangerous enough to burn him to cinders. Yet he craved it with equal intensity, as if the Great Dao itself was within his reach.

"Yu Fei, get ready!"

From a distance, Ye Shuping’s figure wavered in the scorching heat. With a flick of his finger, he sent the ethereal sliver of True Intent flying toward Yu Fei.

Yu Fei subconsciously opened his mouth and swallowed the sliver of True Intent whole.

Instantly, his throat and chest cavity were nearly carbonized. Endless, unceasing pain washed over him, but Yu Fei grit his teeth and suppressed it, circulating his technique to painstakingly guide the True Intent down into his Qi Sea.

The moment the True Intent entered his incomparably vast Qi Sea, the sea began to churn violently, as if a great sun were boiling the ocean. Countless motes of starlight sublimated from the roiling energy, scattering throughout his body to repair it alongside the latent medicinal power.

When his Inner Qi was full, the All Things Return to Origin Scripture would produce motes of starlight that strengthened his body and soul during the refinement of a Spiritual Tide, though never in large quantities. But now, with the True Intent of the Great Sun boiling his Qi Sea, a massive amount of starlight was refined—what he gained in an instant was equivalent to half a month of cultivation.

His Qi Sea was now draining at a visible rate. Seeing this, Yu Fei dedicated a sliver of his consciousness to refining the external vital energy. Here, the power of the All Things Return to Origin Scripture, an ancient Daoist Cultivation Technique, was revealed. Boundless vital energy descended from the void like a tide, replenishing his Qi Sea’s expenditure. For a moment, the input and output actually reached an equilibrium.

Seeing the situation stabilize, Yu Fei seized the opportunity to draw the True Intent of the Great Sun into his Returning Ruins Spiritual Source. Now came the most crucial step: he had to use his own purified Returning Ruins Realm Sword to forcibly merge with the True Intent of the Great Sun!

One was lofty by nature, ancient and eternal, domineering and sovereign. The other was all-encompassing, its edge honed to perfection, its foundation firm.

The moment they met, each claimed half the domain, clashing in fierce opposition.

The Returning Ruins Realm Sword sought to suppress and devour its opponent with its own mighty power. The Great Sun’s True Intent was instantly enraged. A terrifying heat erupted, twisting everything as it tried to reduce its foe to ash.

The situation was like forging a sword in a blazing furnace.

The Returning Ruins Realm Sword was a tangible manifestation of intent, forged through countless battles and purified by his spiritual will. It represented the culmination of Yu Fei’s martial achievements.

As it struggled against the True Intent of the Great Sun, it was as if Yu Fei’s own consciousness was being roasted over a blazing fire.

An unknown amount of time passed. The form of the Returning Ruins Realm Sword grew indistinct, and as if shedding all artifice, it seemed to have become much leaner.

Meanwhile, the might of the True Intent of the Great Sun had not diminished in the slightest; on the contrary, it burned even hotter.

Yu Fei had comprehended over two thousand different forms of intent. Although he had forcibly contained them within his Returning Ruins Realm Sword through life-and-death trials, it was a crude process, like swallowing a date whole or trying to get fat in a single bite.

Now, under the tempering of the True Intent of the Great Sun, they were being refined and unified. The dross within the inner power of those intents was constantly being purged, their essences replenished, and their structures optimized, making them stronger than ever before.

Yu Fei’s consciousness was immersed in this wonderful experience. He wasn’t sure when, but he began to actively absorb the power of the True Intent of the Great Sun. Finally, a clear sword cry rang out from within his Spiritual Source. The newly tempered Returning Ruins Tribulation Sword was revealed—its substance was like jade, its form was ancient and simple, and its intent was indomitable.

Suddenly, a flash of sharpness swept past. The Spiritual Source collapsed inward, then erupted violently outward. This burst of foundational power surged through his Qi Sea, causing its boundaries to expand to three times their original size.

In the center of his Qi Sea, a noble and ancient longsword illuminated the vast expanse of Inner Qi. In the instant he successfully refined the True Intent of the Great Sun, Yu Fei shattered his realm’s bottleneck and advanced to the Gang Qi realm.

Outside, Ye Shuping had been watching Yu Fei’s transformation intently. Cultivating the Great Sun Glaze Body at the critical juncture between the fifth and sixth realms—this was the first step on the path to invincibility he had planned for Yu Fei.

Only by doing this could he hope to maintain the power to kill opponents two realms above his own.

A fifth-realm Yu Fei struggled immensely even to kill a 7th-rank desolate beast, to say nothing of fighting a seventh-realm Grandmaster. Perhaps with his various tricks, he could assassinate one or two, but fighting his way into a crowd of Grandmasters and then back out was pure fantasy.

Even so, what he could do was already pushing the limits of what was historically possible.