Chapter 154: Comprehension Overload and the Absurd Instincts

Although he had achieved a feat that was absolutely impossible for ordinary cultivators, Yu Liang was still not satisfied.

Looking at the system interface, ’Basic Proficiency’ for a Tier 3 technique was merely scratching the surface. It allowed him to use the skill, but it was far from the ’Perfection’ realm where the technique becomes as natural as breathing, allowing for instant, flawless execution without any spiritual energy waste.

"One week for Basic Proficiency... If I use the remaining crystals one by one, it would take months to reach Perfection," Yu Liang muttered, his eyes flashing with a stubborn light. "I don’t have that much time."

He opened his system inventory. Inside, there was exactly one dozen Profound Wisdom Crystals left.

Knowing that he couldn’t achieve Perfection with just a few, and feeling the lingering confidence in his foundation, Yu Liang made a decision.

A very bad decision at that which he didn’t know.

"Since one crystal gave me a thirty fold increase, if I use all twelve at once, the comprehension multiplier should be enough to instantly push the technique to Perfection," he rationalized himself.

Without any further hesitation, Yu Liang took out all twelve glowing Profound Wisdom Crystals. He gripped them in his hands and crushed them simultaneously.

Boom!

The moment the crystals shattered, the effect violently exploded.

Instantly, two streams of dark blood shot out from Yu Liang’s nostrils, followed closely by blood tears rolling down from the corners of his eyes.

"Ugh—!" Yu Liang let out a muffled groan, his face turned pale instantly.

His consciousness was instantly flooded with loads and loads amount of information while soul power dramatically increased. It was too full! His sea of consciousness couldn’t hold even a fraction of this terrifying power. Bit by bit, his vision went dark, and he started to lose his consciousness.

’System... op..en st..or..e. b....u.y...’ he tried to command in his mind, but his thoughts were sluggish and fragmented.

He was able to only summon the system interface, then a sudden spike in his soul power completely short circuited his brain. His eyes rolled back, and he blacked out completely, collapsing onto the ground.

If one has to say, Comprehension is not merely a function of the brain, it is directly rooted in the Soul. The Sea of Consciousness is the vessel of the soul, and Profound Wisdom Crystals artificially expand and stimulate this vessel to process the information. Overloading it is like trying to force a river into a fragile teacup.

If mastering techniques by simply popping crystals were this easy and safe, then every rich young master and genius in the cultivation world would be doing it, and the world would be filled with Perfection level technique masters. The reason no one dared to use more than one crystal at a time was because the risk of soul dissipation and mental collapse was ninety nine percent.

It was literally courting death!

But fortunately, Yu Liang was not an ordinary cultivator.

As his consciousness fell into the abyss, his body tempering physique refused to let him die. The terrifying physical body he had tempering for so long automatically kicked into overdrive, releasing a strong vitality to heal the tears and blood vessels.

More importantly, because his conscious mind had shut down, the overflowing, rampaging soul power from the twelve crystals had nowhere to go. Driven by the body’s innate survival instinct, the boundless soul power flooded directly into his muscle memory, his bones, and his meridians.

While Yu Liang was completely unconscious, his body suddenly stood up on its own.

Whoosh!

His figure flashed, executing the Cloud Traversing Movement Art. But this time, there was no stiffness. The movement was ethereal, flawless, and completely devoid of spiritual energy waste.

Cloud Traversing Movement Art has reached Minor Proficiency.

But the body didn’t stop. It continued to glide, step, and shift. The profound mysteries of the Tier 3 technique, driven by the forced soul power, were being branded directly into his physical instincts.

Cloud Traversing Movement Art has reached Major Proficiency.

Less than ten minutes. In less than ten minutes of his body moving on its own, he had bypassed months of hard work and reached the absolute pinnacle of the technique.

Cloud Traversing Movement Art finally reached the Perfection Proficiency.

This process was utterly absurd. It defied the fundamental laws of cultivation. To comprehend a technique to Perfection usually required years of enlightenment and life or death battles, yet here Yu Liang was, achieving it while completely unconscious, purely through the brute forced instinct of his physique and soul.

But the nightmare didn’t stop there.

The soul power from twelve crystals was just too vast. Even after etching the Cloud Traversing Movement Art into his instincts, the energy was still raging wildly in his body, if not to be expended then it will cause an irreversible damage.

Out of pure, chaotic instinct, his body suddenly shifted its focus. It started to repeat all of his movement techniques.

His foot stepped lightly, executing the Tier 1 Misty Steps.

Then, in the next fraction of a second, his body blurred, switching to the Tier 2 movement technique Heavenly Star Shifting Flash.

Immediately after, his figure turned ethereal, transitioning into the Tier 3 Cloud Traversing Movement Art.

He was cycling through his entire set of movement techniques, but he was doing it incredibly erratically.

In normal circumstances, shifting from one movement technique to another should be relatively easy. A cultivator just needs to let the spiritual energy from the first technique to smoothly chnage pathway from the meridian circulation, and then activate the next technique.

But Yu Liang’s unconscious body wasn’t doing that. It was stopping the techniques midway.

He would activate Misty Steps, circulate the energy halfway through the meridian path, then abruptly cut it off and instantly force the energy into the pathway for Heavenly Star Shifting Flash, only to cut that off halfway and switch to Cloud Traversing movement technique.

Crack! Crack!

The sound of tearing flesh and popping joints echoed in the room. This erratic, mid way switching was incredibly damaging to the body. The spiritual energy, forced to change directions and attributes instantaneously without a buffer, created massive friction inside his meridians.

His meridians bulged violently, turning a dangerous shade of purple. Tears started to appear along the pathways, and blood began to seep from his pores. Shifting techniques midway without a transition was like slamming the brakes of a car and instantly throwing it into reverse just to once again putting into third gear, it was tearing his internal organs and energy channels apart from the inside.

Yet, his body kept doing it anyway, driven by the mindless, overflowing soul power.

Fortunately, Yu Liang’s body tempering was incredibly formidable. His flesh, bones, and muscles, forged through countless trials, acted like the strongest steel of armor, desperately holding his physical structure together and preventing his meridians from completely exploding.

But even with his physique, it was under increasingly terrifying pressure. The skin on his arms and legs began to split open, revealing the strained muscles beneath. His body was trembling violently, standing on the absolute razor’s edge between mastering the ultimate fusion of his techniques and exploding into a shower of gore.