Grasping Evil

Chapter 101 (2): Seclusion and Transformation!

Furthermore, there were still two magical arts he needed to cultivate properly - the Falsifying Art and Defence Art.

The three techniques of the Divine Art included concealment, defence and incarnation. The first technique called Falsifying Art required Spirit Refining Grass to cultivate. Coincidentally, he had plenty of them from Meng Chu’s garden.

The second technique called the Defence Art required one to swallow a spirit of magical treasure which Ning Fan already had much in his possession.

There were too many things he needed to do and half-a-year was just too short, however, he believed that after immersing himself in seclusion for half-a-year to scrape off the weaknesses that he had would make him become a true expert.

Whether it was cultivation or the enhancement of magical art, they were all the preparations he needed before breaking through into the Gold Core realm.

Even with the inheritance of Ancient Chaos, it didn’t raise the percentage of his success in breaking through to the Gold Core realm. According to his calculation, he would need at least ten years of seclusion to have a chance of breaking through the bottleneck before Gold Core realm.

But if he failed, the ten years of effort would be in vain!

Cultivators with inferior potential only had 10 percent success rate of breaking through the bottleneck of the Gold Core realm. As for those geniuses, their success rate wouldn’t be more than 20 percent. Every Gold Core expert had tried many attempts to break through that bottleneck before becoming a real Gold Core expert. Anyone who could make a breakthrough on their first attempt possessed a heaven defying luck.

Ning Fan was calculating his success rate in core formation. He might not have an excellent potential, but he wasn’t inferior either. So, it was safe to say that he had 20 percent chance of success.

“If I pluck the two girls, Bing Ling and Yue Ling, the success rate will become 30 percent, but that will be at the expense of them.”

Ning Fan’s eyes were filled with mixed feelings. He glanced at the Cauldron Ring on his left wrist and hesitated for the first time whether to pluck the two girls or not. In the end, he decided not to do so because he couldn’t convince himself to do such a thing to someone whom he was indebted to.

After letting out a sigh, he patted the top of his skull and a soul incarnation of half-step Nascent Soul realm exited his body. Due to the unstable condition of this incarnation, it wasn’t able to deal much damage to opponents, but it was still quite useful for sneak-attacking.

“Because of the slashing of my soul, my success rate in core formation will be lowered by 50% compared to an average expert, but my powerful spirit sense could help me resist against the Heart Devil. Therefore, instead of reducing my success rate, it has increased by 40% instead”

Later, Ning Fan slapped his storage pouch and produced a blood-red pill the size of a fingernail. It contained a vast amount of magical power. If one listened closely, one could hear the sound of a heart beating inside of it.

When he saw the pill, a trace of disappointment was seen on his face. This was the Cultivation Pill produced by the old ancestor of Hu Clan using his soul. It was supposed to be given to Hu Ming, but Ning Fan’s emergence had altered the old ancestor’s original intention.

“Cultivation Pill…it was condensed using the magical power of early Gold Core realm after the old ancestor of Hu Clan took the Decaying Corpse Pill. Although it’s a little inferior compared to an early Gold Core Dao Fruit, the difference isn’t really significant. After consuming this pill, my success rate in core formation will be increased to 60 percent.”

Lastly, he took out a primitive scroll of medicine record that was gifted by Xue Qing.

There was a Third Revolution Pill named Golden Red Clouds Pill in the medicine record.

Even though this pill could only raise the success rate by 10 percent, this 10 percent might play a critical role as to whether Ning Fan would succeed in the core formation or not.

Additionally, after taking in this pill, even if he failed in core formation, it could still help him accumulate magical power inside his body, laying the foundation and shortening the time for the next breakthrough.

With this pill, Ning Fan’s success rate in core formation would be 70 percent!

If this success rate was spread out, he was afraid that each and every Gold Core expert will be gaping at Ning Fan. There had never been an expert with such a high success rate. Furthermore, those old experts would be more than willing to exchange for pills that could raise their cultivation after core formation instead of spending time, effort and resources to increase the percentage of success in core formation with their limited resources.

They weren’t short of time and they weren’t afraid of failures. Ning Fan however, lacked such luxury. Core formation itself was a time consuming process. If he failed this time, he wouldn’t dare imagine that kind of powerlessness he would be feeling while confronting the Mosha Emperor a hundred years later.

“70% chance of success isn’t low, but I still need to increase it higher! If I perform the Body and Essence Dual Cultivation, my success rate will increase by another 5 percent. If I advance the Black Demon Art and Snow Treading Art to the third level, it will increase by another 10 percent. In that case, my total success rate will become 85 percent. I have already reached my limit for this. So if I still fail after all of that, I can only accept the Heaven’s will.”

Ning Fan showed a helpless smile. There was no one who could defy the Heaven’s will.

The Old Devil had been embarrassed by Heaven’s will when his True Immortal realm fell drastically to the Harmonious Spirit realm, and even to the extent where he couldn’t become a cultivator anymore, like a crippled man. Anyone who violated the will of the Heavens would never end up well.

The word defying in heaven defying lied with endless difficulty.

If Ning Fan had a choice, he wouldn’t pick the path of defying the heavens as that was too difficult, painful and lonely.

If he still failed in the core formation process even with 85% chance of success, he would make sure to defy the heavens next time in order to succeed.

“Let’s start the seclusion! First off, I will have to comprehend two different types of cultivation law first. The more cultivation laws one can comprehend, the better it is. This is the right time to use the third technique of the Divine Art, Body Art and also known as the cloning technique.”

While Ning Fan gestured his fingers with incantations, an illusory clone of himself exited his body one after another. It had the same appearance as Ning Fan, but there was no cultivation base inside of it.

This type of cloning technique was akin to a fake clone of oneself. It was completely different from an incarnation. Using these clones in battle would mean sending them to their end, but it could be quite useful when it came to collective comprehension.

In an instant, roughly a hundred clones were produced. This was the maximum limit of his half-step Nascent Soul realm spirit sense.

“All of you can only live for three days. So within these three days, I want you all to comprehend the Black Demon Art and Snow Treading Art together!”

“Roger!”

A hundred illusory Ning Fan replied in unison.

Using a hundred clones to comprehend was a hundred times faster than the comprehension speed of an ordinary person. Although this was a great burden to one’s spirit sense, Ning Fan was determined to endure the pain.

Advancing these two cultivation laws to the peak of the second level wasn’t a difficult task in half-a-year’s time of seclusion.

In the first transformation, Ning Fan was transformed into a cultivator from a mortal human after obtaining the inheritance of an Immortal Emperor.

For the second transformation, Ning Fan desired to become a true and powerful expert.

While Ning Fan was still in his seclusion, some changes began to take place back in Ning City.

In the City Lord’s room, inside the fragrant boudoir, Zhihe and Si Wuxie were sleeping on the bed with their usual clothes as if they had had a long chit-chat last night.

The innocent-natured Zhihe and Si Wuxie who had lost her memory seemed to be getting along very well.

As some of the morning light streamed in from the curtains, Zhihe lazily made a roll and continued with her sleep, while Si Wuxie’s whole body shook lightly as if she had been electrocuted.

Immediately, she opened her beautiful eyes and was awoken.

In fact, she wasn’t really awake, she was sinking into the memory of her body.

“Ning Fan! My sect! I remember them now!”

Si Wuxie revealed an expression of indignation, but almost instantly, she felt a sudden pain and passed out.

After a long time, she reopened her eyes and returned to her pure girl style.

“It was strange. I had a very strange dream just now.”

“Hmm? Sisi, what’s wrong with you?” Zhihe rubbed her eyes and yawned.

“It’s nothing. I just had a dream. I dreamt about my other self. It was strange.” Si Wuxie was bewildered.

“You must be thinking too much about it. Oh, by the way, I’m going to break through to the Harmonious Spirit realm soon, I will collect the pills from Nan Gong and then go into seclusion later. Would you mind keeping a lookout for me?” Zhihe sounded pleadingly. When Si Wuxie heard that Zhihe was breaking through to Harmonious Spirit realm, her mouth couldn’t close which made her seem cute.

You haven’t cultivated once in your life, so how are you able to break through to the Harmonious Spirit realm?

Although she had lost her memory, she could vaguely remember that Harmonious Spirit realm was an extremely difficult level to break through.

Could the silly-looking Zhihe really had such a high talent for cultivation? No wonder master is so fond of her.

Speaking of her master, she was missing him very much.