Chapter 316 - The Nascent Reflection

Chapter 316: Chapter 316 - The Nascent Reflection

The moment Su Bai began drawing his spiritual existence inward, the difficulty of the breakthrough changed completely.

Moving Qi was familiar.

Even controlling all ten Dantians simultaneously had become natural thanks to his Myriad-Path Meridian Web.

But moving the foundation of his own consciousness was another matter.

The Sea of Consciousness trembled.

Su Bai felt his perception contract as spiritual power withdrew from its usual expanse and followed his awareness deeper into his body.

The process was uncomfortable in a way physical pain was not.

He had to guide something that normally defined the very place from which he observed himself.

His concentration nearly slipped.

Su Bai immediately activated the Dao-Shattering Jade.

The change came at once.

The Dao-Shattering Jade sharpened his thoughts and simplified the complicated changes within his foundation, allowing him to see the breakthrough more clearly.

Su Bai still did not rush.

The Nascent Soul was supposed to become a spiritual embodiment of the cultivator.

If his consciousness became unstable while shaping it, brute force would not save him.

His attention moved toward the Immortal Stone.

He drew out the smallest possible thread.

Dense Immortal Qi entered his body.

The familiar pressure immediately threatened his meridians before Reversal changed its effect.

Nourishment spread through him.

More importantly, the extraordinary clarity returned.

His perception of his own foundation deepened.

Su Bai stopped thinking about each of his abnormalities separately.

That was exactly the comprehension he needed.

His cultivation path could not be understood by asking which part should transform first.

All of it had to acknowledge the same transformation.

The idea settled into his mind.

The Binary Void-Sun Supreme Method responded.

For the first time since the breakthrough began, the Black-Ice Golden Core changed.

A faint tremor passed through its jet-black crystalline surface, and the golden Yang sun burning within it suddenly flared brighter.

Su Bai’s attention immediately focused there.

The Black-Ice Core had always been the central Yin foundation of his Greater Golden Core, while the golden sun within it preserved the opposing Yang that completed its balance.

Now, as the entire Greater Golden Core entered the Nascent Soul transformation, both were beginning to change together.

The black crystalline foundation slowly contracted around that golden radiance, while the sun at its center grew increasingly distinct.

Su Bai could feel that the core was no longer merely refining itself.

Its entire purpose was beginning to shift.

He felt his entire body respond.

The Macro-Taiji did not stop. Yin and Yang tightened around the transformation, preserving the balance throughout the Greater Golden Core as the Black-Ice Core and the golden Yang sun within it began changing together.

Su Bai’s heart quickened.

Something fundamental was changing within the Black-Ice Core.

It was no longer behaving the way it had throughout the Golden Core Realm.

Su Bai focused on the transformation, unwilling to interfere before he understood what it was becoming.

Yin and Yang remained together even as the structure that contained them changed.

Layer after layer of accumulated essence folded toward a point that seemed impossibly small compared with the original core.

Su Bai watched carefully.

The Crystalline Tree Spirit Root trembled where it remained rooted into that foundation.

For one frightening moment, Su Bai thought the transformation might reject it.

Instead, the roots adjusted with the change, tightening around the condensing foundation without being torn away.

Su Bai watched closely as the Black-Ice Golden Core continued to contract.

Only when the transformation settled did he realize that what remained was no longer functioning like an ordinary Golden Core.

It had become the central seat of the next stage of his cultivation, a place where the Nascent Soul could form, return, and cultivate.

Su Bai still did not know what to call it.

That hardly mattered.

The important part was that his foundation remained intact.

His nine Gateway Dantians reacted next. Each of them gave a faint pulse. The sprouts inside them trembled.

The Myriad-Path Meridian Web brightened throughout his body.

Su Bai could feel the ten cultivation centers resonating with the changing origin inside his Infinite Dantian.

Now came the dangerous part.

He began merging Qi, spirit, and understanding.

The solid Qi needles circulating throughout his foundation responded first.

They did not dissolve.

Instead, their movements became more precise as spiritual power gradually intertwined with them.

Su Bai could feel his control deepening with every circulation.

His soul followed.

The portion he had drawn inward from the Sea of Consciousness spread throughout the Greater Golden Core instead of entering only the central origin.

His consciousness touched the nine Gateway Dantians.

It touched the Myriad-Path Meridian Web.

It touched the Crystalline Tree Spirit Root.

It touched the transformed origin at the center of his Infinite Dantian.

Finally, it touched the physical body that contained all of them.

The Macro-Taiji accelerated.

For several breaths, Su Bai lost any clear distinction between where his physical foundation ended and his spiritual existence began.

Outside the barrier, the formation suddenly brightened.

Lu Canghai’s gaze sharpened.

Li Xuanzong looked toward the center.

"He started the transformation."

Huo Yan did not answer.

His attention remained fixed on the formation readings.

Nothing had gone wrong yet.

That fact did very little to relax him.

Within the barrier, Su Bai had entered a state where the outside world barely existed.

His recent understanding of the Greater Golden Core unfolded completely.

The physical body provided the shape.

The soul provided the spiritual existence.

Qi provided the power.

His comprehension provided the structure that allowed those things to become one.

Something began forming.

At first, Su Bai thought it was merely an illusion created by his increasingly concentrated spiritual sense.

A faint outline appeared around him, gradually tracing his shoulders, arms, torso, and legs until it followed the shape of his entire body.

Su Bai’s awareness trembled.

The outline continued becoming clearer.

It was not appearing inside one Dantian.

It was appearing throughout his entire body!

A second Su Bai was forming directly over the first.

The spiritual figure matched his height exactly.

Its features were still indistinct, but the structure within it was already far from empty.

A spiritual point formed where the Infinite Dantian should be.

Nine more appeared in corresponding locations throughout the projection.

Faint spiritual pathways began connecting them.

Su Bai almost lost concentration from surprise.

His Nascent Soul was reproducing his cultivation foundation!

The Myriad-Path Meridian Web had gained a reflection.

The ten Dantians had gained reflections.

Even deeper within the spiritual figure, a faint crystalline shape began appearing where his Spirit Root belonged.

Su Bai steadied himself immediately.

This was a Nascent Soul born from the entire Greater Golden Core.

Yet the process was not complete.

The spiritual figure remained unstable.

Each time the Macro-Taiji moved through his physical foundation, the Nascent Soul projection responded a fraction too slowly.

That tiny difference was enough to create pressure throughout his foundation.

Su Bai understood the problem almost immediately.

The Nascent Soul possessed the structure, but it had not yet been incorporated into the Yin-Yang balance that governed the rest of him.

His attention sharpened.

Instead of creating another Taiji circulation, Su Bai guided the existing Macro-Taiji beyond the limits of his physical foundation.

Yin reached toward the forming spiritual body.

Yang followed.

For several breaths, the projection resisted the unfamiliar circulation, then it trembled.

The Yin current entered first, followed almost immediately by Yang.

The Macro-Taiji widened.

What had once circulated only throughout his whole-body Golden Core now began passing through both the physical foundation and its spiritual reflection.

Su Bai felt the pressure between them weaken.

His excitement rose.

This was the path he had spent the entire previous night searching for.