Chapter Fifteen: A System Beyond the World

"This cultivation process seems rather complex... and there are so many parts I simply cannot understand."

Huo Yuhao, who had been beaming with joy just a moment ago, now furrowed his brows, staring at the scroll in his hands with a bewildered expression. Could this really be used for cultivation?

"Hmph, hmph~ If you have questions, why not try asking Big Brother?" Tianmeng shook his head, looking smug and composed.

Ask you... Are you sure?

Huo Yuhao cast a skeptical glance at him. "Do you actually know what's written on this scroll?"

"While I wouldn't dare claim to know everything, I have accumulated so much knowledge and experience over the years that I must surely know more than you."

That was true. Asking more questions was certainly more efficient than fumbling around on his own.

Huo Yuhao pointed to the text on the scroll: "It says here that by meditating to concentrate soul power and releasing it outside the body to gather the energy of heaven and earth, one can fuse it with spiritual power to create magic power. What on earth is magic power?"

"No idea."

"..."

Huo Yuhao skipped to the next paragraph: "Concentrate the spirit through natural meditation, and use firm faith and willpower to draw out the magical attributes within the body, allowing them to naturally absorb external energy to continuously accumulate internal spiritual power."

"Can't understand it. Next."

Taking a deep breath, Huo Yuhao skipped ahead to the final third of the content: "After obtaining internal spiritual power, one can channel it through the following meridians, combined with physical arts to temper the body, continuously increasing the value of external spiritual power."

"The only difference between internal and external spiritual power is whether the energy is solidified into the flesh or stored within the body; the sum of the values equals the corresponding rank. However, internal spiritual power recovers more slowly but is relatively more powerful."

Once he finished reading, Tianmeng remained silent for a long time.

Magic power? Spiritual power? This stuff even differentiates between internal and external?

What in the world was written on this scroll... Not to mention explaining the underlying meaning to Huo Yuhao, even with his long life, he had never heard of such strange and peculiar terminology.

"Tianmeng? Tianmeng?"

Huo Yuhao roused the useless silkworm, who was currently questioning his own existence. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I’m just starting to doubt if I’m still living on the Douluo Continent..." Tianmeng lamented with a mournful face, before suddenly shaking his silkworm body, as if he had realized something. "Wait!"

Not on the Douluo Continent?

"I get it! The cultivation system written on this scroll doesn't belong to this world at all!"

Tianmeng exclaimed, pushing Huo Yuhao aside with his soft, rubbery head to press against the scroll and study it carefully. "Yes... that’s it. My guess was right."

"The cultivation method here is completely different from that of soul masters and soul beasts. Everything is centered on the power of the soul and what it calls pure and firm willpower!"

What?

Huo Yuhao’s eyes widened. "So you mean that the records on this scroll actually come from outside this world? They don't belong to the power we recognize?"

"Not necessarily."

Tianmeng used his short little arms to hold up the scroll, inspecting it from every angle. "It mentions here that a knight's magical talent is based on the firm adherence to ten principles, combined with a method of activation similar to the power of faith."

Looking at it from this perspective, this system might actually work on the Douluo Continent, provided one could find similar conditions for activation.

"Firmly adhering to the ten principles..."

Huo Yuhao’s thoughts began to drift. Could it be that those divine oracles could actually be used as a foundation for cultivation?

"Never mind that for now. Let’s just use soul power to try the operating method described and see what happens." Tianmeng pointed to the method for cultivating magic power. "If this actually works, then you won't have to worry about your soul power rank. If it holds you back, we'll just change your cultivation path and use your spiritual power to force your soul power progress."

"Alright!" Huo Yuhao nodded.

His greatest asset right now was his spiritual power, which was peerless among his peers. He had only been hindered by his low soul power rank, limiting the duration he could keep his Spirit Eye martial soul active and preventing him from fully leveraging this advantage.

But a problem arose. How was he supposed to release his soul power?

The scroll’s record was clear enough, but it drew a sharp distinction between the concepts of spiritual power and the soul—the former being a quantification of willpower, the latter the essence of consciousness. Given Huo Yuhao’s current state, the most he could do was guide his spiritual power out of his sea of consciousness through his Spirit Eye martial soul. Looking across the entire continent, there didn't seem to be any way for a person’s soul to spontaneously diffuse outside the body.

"Soul..."

Recalling the steps on the scroll, Huo Yuhao hesitantly summoned his martial soul.

"Find the... feeling of releasing the soul?"

Outside, Wang Dong, who was meditating opposite him, suddenly jolted, awakened by the fluctuations of the martial soul possession. He looked at the white soul ring floating around Huo Yuhao with a mix of shock and suspicion. The sense of crisis triggering in the center of his brow made him feel restless. What was he trying to do?

The next second, Wang Dong’s expression changed instantly. A dangerous spiritual fluctuation erupted from Huo Yuhao’s body, and the white soul ring flared with brilliant light.

Soul Shock!

Under an invisible spiritual perspective, a phantom energy body suddenly rushed out of Huo Yuhao’s eyes, blasting toward an empty corner of the room. Afterward, instead of stopping as expected, Huo Yuhao further increased his output.

It was like a floodgate opening.

The white soul ring hovering outside his body pulsated rapidly, erupting with faint flashes of light, as if it were stuttering. Huo Yuhao’s spiritual power was being rapidly depleted by one Soul Shock after another, and a sense of exhaustion began to well up in his mind.

"Enough! That’s enough... don't go any further!" Tianmeng, lying in the shrinking pool of the sea of consciousness, shouted in panic. "Your spiritual power is nearly bottomed out. If you keep going, you’ll start damaging your soul."

The world that had been rippling with waves had now become a vast, dry shore, the water surface divided by protruding land into numerous disconnected puddles.

"Spiritual exhaustion." Huo Yuhao, his vision darkening, gasped for breath. "Exhaustion is exactly what I need."

Biting his tongue hard to regain clarity, Huo Yuhao suppressed the weakness in his mind and settled into deep meditation.

Then...

Spirit Detection.

As the last bit of spiritual power was poured into the soul skill, all of Huo Yuhao’s physical senses closed off in an instant. It was like reaching out with his hands and feet beyond a blanket; it was like breaking free from shackles.

A phantom image identical to Huo Yuhao appeared above his body, extending tentacles of perception outward as the soul skill activated.

"This feeling..."

He looked down at his own body, which had turned pale from the continuous Soul Shock, and the moment his soul was liberated, his connection to his physical senses was severed.

"Energy of heaven and earth..."

He looked up.

Strange points of light were surging everywhere in the room, a mixture of various colors, though the golden points were clearly more numerous.

Unfortunately, this sensation came and went quickly. After sustaining it for less than three seconds, Huo Yuhao’s soul was yanked back into his body by a powerful force.

It was like having just drowned; his physical body in reality gasped awake, breathing heavily and drenched in cold sweat.