Civilization Chronicles: Rise of the Divine Creator

Celestina had many questions, of course.

For instance, if breathing was classified as an autonomic function like Lucas had described, what did that make the act of holding one’s breath?

However, realizing that this was another rabbit-hole without any bottom, Celestina wisely decided to save that discussion for another time and instead lightly coughed, ”Now that you know what the Awakening process is, you should understand why so many people, despite having reached the peak of the Mortal Realms, never break through to the Spirit Realms, yes?”

”En,” Lucas nodded, ”Teaching the body a new autonomic process can’t possibly be easy. It’d be like trying to teach your body how to breath underwater.”

”Exactly,” Celestina concurred, ”Which is why, even for those who are extremely talented, Awakening takes a lot of time and practice.”

”I see,” Lucas felt enlightened, but then suddenly frowned, ”However, that still doesn’t explain why it would take Christina so much longer now to reach the Spirit Initiate Realm than before.”

”Of course it doesn’t,” Celestina smiled, ”I was getting to that.”

Pausing here to collect her thoughts, Celestina explained, ”Up until now, Christina has been cultivating like any other girl from a wealthy and powerful family, using a highly efficient Cultivation Technique in order to rapidly absorb World Qi and refine it into Internal Qi.”

”However,” Celestina snickered wryly, ”Despite this being the method that essentially every force on the Blue Sky Continent uses to train their members and maintain their dominance, there’s actually a fundamental problem with it.”

”It doesn’t fully temper the Body, Core, and Soul!” Lucas suddenly exclaimed.

”Precisely! Wait, you knew? But, how? How did you figure it out?” Celestina asked with genuine incredulity, stunned to discover that Lucas was actually aware of this subtle yet critical flaw inherent to all but one Cultivation Technique.

Celestina’s shock was perfectly reasonable here, as most people never realized that the Cultivation Techniques they cherished so dearly and protected with their very lives were actually all defective products.

Only those who reached the absolute upper limit their Cultivation Technique could bring them to, then continued trying to walk further, truly understood this reality and what kind of damage had really been done by following this method of cultivation.

”I understand now!” Instead of answering his Master’s question, though, Lucas’ eyes brightened as he rambled on, ”That’s why you insisted Christina stop cultivating and had me teach her the Unarmed Foundation Art to use instead!”

”You actually noticed the weaknesses in Christina’s foundation after only a few training sessions!?” Celestina gawked.

”No, I only figured it out just now,” Lucas shook his head, stroking his chin as he began pacing back and forth, ”Tina always seemed to have trouble with certain pieces of the Forms when using the corresponding breathing techniques. I thought it was just because she was unfamiliar with the exercises, but now I understand!”

Turning to face his Master, Lucas smiled widely, like he had just solved some great mystery, ”Her Cultivation Technique must have strengthened her meridians, physique, and Soul unevenly, but the Unarmed Foundations Art in conjunction with the Focused Breathing Art stresses and strains all aspects proportionally!”

”That’s why she had trouble adjusting! The flow of Qi through her veins turned unsteady as a result of the habits she had picked up from the Grand Mountain Record!”

”However, as long as she stops using her Cultivation Technique and instead uses my new method, she can overcome this issue, strengthen her foundation, and avoid having her path blocked in the future!”

”Doing this will delay Tina’s progress significantly in the short term, probably by several years, but given the current circumstances, that’s not actually a bad thing!” Lucas cheered excitedly.

By this point, Celestina’s jaw had dropped, unable to believe what she was hearing.

Celestina was well aware of the limitations traditional Cultivation Techniques had because she had personally run into those limitations.

In fact, it was precisely for this reason that she had been stuck at the Complete High-Rank Adept Realm for so many decades despite her Innate Talent being more than sufficient to rise higher.

The Flowing Flame Art was a High-Rank Spirit Grade Tier 2 Cultivation Technique, so Celestina had always known it could only bring her to the High-Rank Adept Realm at best.

What she didn’t know was that it would also create imperfections in the way she stored and circulated her Internal Qi that made it impossible for her to advance further.

When Celestina realized that the Flowing Flame Art she had practiced and guarded so zealously her whole life had actually stunted her growth potential, she nearly despaired.

Fortunately, when she reached out to her friends and comrades for help, a few of them had also run into this problem and had either found, or been taught by their Elders about the solution.

All one needed to do was repair the flaws in their foundation and then choose a new, higher-tier Cultivation Technique in order to continue improving their strength.

This often required moving to a bigger nation with better resources, but that was hardly a problem for Cultivators who had reached their limit already.

Of course, while this all sounded simple, in practice, it was extremely difficult.

In order to repair flaws to one’s foundation, one first had to overwrite the circulation paths they had learned and return them to the simplest, most natural, most fundamental pattern possible.

Only once this was accomplished could an individual train themselves to accept a new Cultivation Technique with a different circulation path.

There were some extraordinary Arts, Pills, and other external methods which could assist in this process, as well as some natural treasures which could speed the process up; but ultimately, there was only one real way for a True Cultivator to unlearn their original Cultivation Technique; cultivating the simplest, most basic Cultivation Technique in existence.

It was a supreme irony that the Focused Breathing Art, which was despised by everyone who had even slightly decent Innate Talent and was shunned by the ruling forces of the Blue Sky Continent for its uselessness, was the only hope those who had reached their ’superior’ Cultivation Techniques’ peak had to break through their limits.

Whether a person could actually succeed using this method, however, depended a lot on luck.

It was already hard enough for most people to complete the Awakening process, transforming the somatic process of absorbing and refining World Qi into an autonomic one. Spending tens, if not hundreds of years repeating this autonomic refining process, then trying to forget it and learn a new one, was naturally not something every person could accomplish, no matter how talented they were.

In this regard, people who cultivated lower-grade Cultivation Techniques actually had something of an advantage as they inevitably ran into this problem sooner and thus had less ingrained habits to overcome.

Now, this didn’t mean that using lower-grade Cultivation Techniques was a better idea, nor did it mean that the Focused Breathing Art was some kind of perfect method that was the answer to all the issues of cultivation.

Lower-Grade Cultivation Techniques were still less efficient at absorbing and refining World Qi, after all.

If a reasonably talented individual only used the Focused Breathing Art from the moment they began cultivating, chances were they would die of old age long before reaching their full potential.

In other words, it was better to use a Cultivation Technique of the highest Rank, Grade, and Tier available to reach the Spirit Adept Realm by the age of 150 and not be able to advance any further, than it was to use a low-grade technique and perish at the age of 120 having only reached the Core Formation Realm.

This was precisely why, despite knowing full well the disadvantages of using High-Grade Cultivation Techniques, all the top forces on the Blue Sky Continent still encouraged their juniors to cultivate using this method.

All this, Celestina learned only a little over 70 years ago when she brought all three of her cultivations to the absolute peak of the High-Rank Adept Realm. In other words, she had been totally unaware of this issue for almost 200 years.

The fact that her 10-year-old Disciple, who had barely begun cultivating, was able to figure all this out was nothing less than astonishing.

Shaking her head, Celestina couldn’t help laughing.

Whether she was laughing wryly at her own inadequacy, or joyfully at the genius of her First Disciple, even she didn’t know

After getting the chuckles out of her system, Celestina reached out and ruffled Lucas’ hair roughly, saying with a grin, ”I originally thought that your Unarmed Foundation Art was valuable as an Auxiliary Cultivation Technique, but after using it myself for a while, I realized it also had the potential to solve this age-old problem which has plagued Cultivators since the dawn of civilization.”

Celestina wasn’t certain if this new method could help advance her cultivation, as she hadn’t had nearly enough time to experiment with it, but from the little practice she did have, she could tell it was much more efficient at helping a cultivator ’unlearn’ their old circulation paths.

Her expression turning solemn all of a sudden, Celestina added, ”I’ve yet to confirm all this, but if one day I can, it will mean the value of your Unarmed Foundations Art is many times higher than we originally thought.”

Lucas’ joyful expression instantly cramped up when he heard this; however, he soon relaxed and shrugged his shoulders, ”The value of the Unarmed Foundations Art was already high enough for Kings and Emperors to covet, it doesn’t really change much if it becomes even more precious.”

Knitting her brow, Celestina ruminated over Lucas’ words for a moment before also shrugging, ”You’re right. Whether a mortal farmer finds 1 million or 10 million Spirit Crystals buried in his fields, the danger to their life is the same.”

”Haa...” Lucas sighed, ”Just one more reason to get stronger, I suppose.”

To this comment, Celestina could only nod.

The room then fell silent, with both Lucas and Celestina contemplating the uncertain future ahead of them.

Eventually, though, Celestina cleared her throat, ”Ahem, we’ve gotten a bit off-topic, but what I wanted to convey to you was, you have some time to think about the situation between you and Christina, so use it well. When the time comes, make sure you make a decision where you have no regrets.”

Nodding soberly, Lucas stood in place for a while before he began sorting reports again, though it was clear his mind was no longer focused entirely on this mundane task.