Immortal of the Nine Realms

Children never know when they’re full. When there’s something delicious, they just keep stuffing it into their mouths. Little Sword was such a child. It swallowed all the treasures Fang Chen had given it in one go. Now, it sat at the side, suffering from indigestion, struggling to digest.

Fang Chen could not help but chuckle. He had already anticipated this would happen.

This time, he planned to stay in the Realm of Three Thousand Dao for 600 years, more than enough time for Little Sword to finish digesting.

In the first few years, Fang Chen did not immediately start his own cultivation. Instead, he carefully observed the progress of his nine avatars

It seemed that, aside from Fang Tianzun and Fang Xuanyang, the others cultivated in a fairly normal manner, not much different from ordinary cultivators.

Of the two exceptions, one was refining the power of Azure Lightning, while the other had taken the secret medicine left by Huang Chan to temper the second stage of the Four Stage Profound Yang Body.

Both relied primarily on external forces, with internal cultivation as a supplement. The effect of these external factors was clearly stronger than their own innate progress.

As long as Fang Chen could supply the resources they needed, their future progress would be the fastest among the nine avatars.

”If Fang Tianzun manages to refine ninety-nine kinds of foreign spiritual energy, then according to the description in the Great Heavenly Sovereign Chapter, he should at least reach the level of an eighth-transformation Immortal—perhaps even a ninth-transformation Immortal.”

Fang Chen looked at Fang Tianzun, who was still focused on refining the Azure Lightning. This avatar would likely be the first among them to reach the Ascension Realm, or even become a Loose Immortal.

Compared to the Four Stage Profound Yang Body, the profundity of the Great Heavenly Sovereign Chapter was clearly superior. Its lower bound and upper limit alike exceeded the other by far.

Fang Xuanyang might need to switch to other methods in the later stages, but Fang Tianzun could walk his chosen path to the very end.

”The Fusion Chapter of the Three Thousand Dao Art says that what the avatars gain in cultivation will be fed back to the original body in a certain proportion. I don’t know what that proportion is, but I can be sure that even after reaching the Fusion Realm, I can still use the Soul Splitting method to create more avatars.”

As he pondered this, Fang Chen’s gaze swept the other avatars, and he seemed to glimpse the glory of the Three Thousand Dao Sect’s golden age, with thousands of avatars standing beside Master Yun He.

From the Fusion Realm onward, the Three Thousand Dao Art took a completely different path from ordinary cultivators.

”Master Yun He once guarded the Nine Mortal Realms, standing even above Monarch Yan and the Immortal Emperor. This is probably largely attributed to the Three Thousand Dao Art.

”And yet, even such a mighty method could not prevail against those enemies, and Master Yunhe too was forced to tread the path of the Anomaly.”

”’People are important’, what exactly was this phrase hinting at...?” muttered Fang Chen, his expression growing solemn.

If he knew nothing of the greater truths, just mastering the Three Thousand Dao Art alone would have given him enough confidence to stand at the very peak of the Nine Realms. But he knew that even the most outstanding figures of that era had been defeated by foreign enemies.

And today, they did not even know who those enemies were, or where they were, only that they were still within the Nine Realms.

”No matter what, if they make a move, they should leave traces. Why has no one noticed anything?”

Unable to figure it out, Fang Chen put it aside and went to Little Sword, beginning to cultivate the Dao Arts.

By repeatedly casting Dao techniques until his spiritual power was drained, he could both raise his realm and improve his mastery of those arts—a double progress in the same span of time, an advantage enough to make any ordinary kill themselves from jealousy.

***

In the blink of an eye, a hundred years passed.

Over those years, with each cycle of exhaustion and recovery, Fang Chen’s spiritual energy steadily increased. He could faintly feel that he was at the edge of the mid-stage Fusion Realm. However, he was still lacking a little.

On this day, Fang Xuanyang successfully completed the second stage of the Four Stage Profound Yang Body. His qi and blood burned like a red sun rising in the Realm of Three Thousand Dao.

At that time, Fang Tianzun was still refining the Azure Lightning, while the other seven continued their steady cultivation, slowly improving their cultivation.

Fang Xuanyang’s aura surged through multiple breakthroughs, from the middle stage to the late stage, then to the grand completion stage.

In just an instant, he reached the peak of the Middle Three Realms, as if he didn’t know what bottlenecks or tribulations were.

His aura crossed the Fusion Realm to enter the Dao Union Realm. His progress didn’t stop there. His surging aura didn’t recede until he reached the Dao Union Realm’s grand completion.

Immediately afterward, a vast force fed back into Fang Chen’s true body—an unexpected flood of spiritual power that propelled him directly from the early Fusion to mid Fusion.

The avatar’s advancement really does feed back to me.

With that thought, Fang Chen began consolidating his newfound strength.

***

Another one hundred years passed.

Without more secret medicine, Fang Xuanyang’s cultivation returned to normal speed, like the other avatars. Even without great leaps, with high-grade spirit stones in hand and no concern for their consumption, visible improvements still came.

Fang Yangguang and the others were the same. After over two hundred years, after consuming spirit stone after spirit stone, their realms steadily advanced from the early stage of the Fusion Realm to the middle stage. Their feedback was not as dramatic as Fang Xuanyang’s, but still pushed Fang Chen’s cultivation up a notch.

A few years later, Fang Tianzun finally finished refining the Azure Lightning. His improvement was not as outrageous as Fang Xuanyang’s. He merely rose from the early stage of the Fusion Realm to the grand completion stage.

Fang Chen, however, felt that feedback. His bottleneck shattered, and he stepped straight into the late-stage Fusion Realm.

Fang Tianzun then began refining the Icy Wind spiritual energy in a top-grade spirit stone.

Roughly ten years later, with a low command of ”Condense the Dao,” a grim-faced youth appeared before Fang Chen. His skin was purple-blue, his build tall and slender, two heads taller than Fang Chen. He looked like a bamboo pole.

This was the first avatar Fang Chen had actively condensed since reaching Fusion Realm, using the Fighting Divine Whip. It had taken him over 200 years.

He realized that being able to condense nine avatars upon breaking through from Nascent Soul Realm to Fusion Realm had been because he had taken advantage of the breakthrough’s momentum; the nine avatars were simply the nine Daos chosen by his nine Nascent Souls.

This time, with the Fighting Divine Whip, the difficulty was far greater. Just the Dao Condensation step alone had failed more than ten times, and each failure meant starting over from scratch.

”The increased difficulty must also stem from my current cultivation,” Fang Chen noted. ”This new incarnation’s power matches my own realm the moment it formed, which raises the difficulty immensely. If I ever reach the Loose Immortal stage, condensing another will be even harder.”

Fang Chen examined the youth before him. His aura was at the late stage of the Fusion Realm, the same as Fang Chen.

Fang Chen smiled. ”From now on, you’ll be called Fang Dashen. Go find a place to cultivate.”

Fang Dashen nodded and chose a spot near Fang Tianzun to sit in meditation.

”In these two hundred years, aside from Fang Dashen and Fang Tianzun, the other avatars have consumed around 2,000 high-grade spirit stones.”

Fang Chen did a quick calculation and suddenly realized that by the time the 600 years were up, the spirit stones in his storage ring would have shrunk by 99 percent.

If not for the many enemies he had slain over the years, plus the surplus the Hidden Guard Division had earned from the Killing Spiritual Division and other factions, keeping all these avatars cultivating at peak efficiency would not have been easy.