Chapter 125: Spells Bestowed by Heaven, Martial Arts Reaching Divine Communion!

"Are you kidding me?!"

This was the first thought that crossed Chenlong's mind when he finally processed the situation. As his shock faded, his second reaction was worry, followed by intense suspicion.

"Did this kid break through before he even finished cultivating the Sacred Lord of Five Weapons?"

Chenlong never doubted that Wang Ping could break through to the Grandmaster Rank. The question was how he did it, and whether he could immediately push his combat strength to the absolute limit upon reaching the Grandmaster Rank.

And—whether he could avoid drawing the attention of the people above.

This was another hidden advantage of the Sacred Lord of Five Weapons. By merging the weapon into the body, the divine weapon concealed its own brilliance, allowing the practitioner to hide their existence from the Immortal Gate's patrols.

"With this kid's talent, breaking through before finishing the Sacred Lord of Five Weapons... If the divine weapon he forged is too extraordinary, it will alarm the people above. An extraordinary person might descend immediately, snatch him up, and refine him on the spot. If that happens, what use is reaching Divine Communion?"

At that thought, Chenlong grew even more anxious.

Even with the First Seat standing right beside him, his worries couldn't be dispelled. The First Seat's situation was highly unusual; she couldn't just casually intervene.

Inside the courtyard, Wang Ping had his eyes clamped shut, his jaw clenched tight.

An evolution that should have taken hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years to complete was now unfolding within his flesh by the second.

It felt as though someone had flayed his skin and dismantled his bones, breaking him down into a puddle of cellular sludge before reassembling him back into human form. Throughout the entire process, he could clearly feel his life vitality being violently depleted. His body, like a ravenous beast, frantically craved external nourishment.

"Hm? Not good!"

Chenlong, who had been keeping a close eye on the courtyard, instantly realized something was wrong. His expression shifted slightly. "His physical transformation—a single Great Restoration Pill isn't enough!"

This was both a good thing and a bad thing.

Needing this much life vitality meant the qualitative change was exceptionally profound, his foundation incredibly deep... But by the same token, if he couldn't fill the deficit, he was highly likely to fail!

Without time to overthink, Chenlong hurriedly pulled out every medicinal pill he had on him and crushed them all. A rich, fragrant torrent of medicinal power surged up, which he directed toward Wang Ping's courtyard with a palm strike. This bypassed the need for swallowing, allowing Wang Ping's body to absorb the medicine simply through breathing.

"Huuu!"

With a deep breath, Wang Ping inhaled the fragrant torrent into his body. His pores opened wide, and his previously famished body was instantly replenished by more than half.

This is...

Wang Ping froze for a moment before quickly realizing it was Chenlong's doing. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I was actually prepared for this.

With the life vitality Kongzhi had gifted him before dying, he hadn't been the least bit worried about this transformation going awry. Still, Chenlong's sudden intervention saved him a massive expenditure of that life vitality. Instead of wasting it here, he could save it for future breakthroughs in immortal cultivation.

"...Rise!"

Having absorbed enough medicinal power, Wang Ping suddenly snapped his eyes open, his voice booming like thunder.

Boom!

Almost simultaneously, the spiritual monkey standing tall in the vault of heaven somersaulted, its figure dissolving into a sky-filling sea of fire. Boiling with blood qi, it crashed back down to the earth.

The Mind Monkey returned to its rightful place, connecting the five viscera.

Wang Ping circulated his Divine Intent. Soon, he saw his heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and his left and right kidneys—a full six specks of light igniting one after another in that very moment.

Seeing Divinity!

The entire process unfolded without the slightest suspense. The heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys—the five elements within the body—were inherently the focus of both the Inner Landscape Scripture and the Sacred Lord of Five Weapons.

Since he had merged the two, achieving Seeing Divinity in the five viscera naturally posed no difficulty. As for the strain brought on by Seeing Divinity, his twice-transformed physical body was completely incorruptible. In fact, he could clearly feel he had plenty of strength to spare. If he wanted to, he could keep going!

No rush for now.

Wang Ping didn't aim too high, pondering to himself, The human body has twenty-four divinities. Aside from the six divinities of the five viscera, I have no idea where the other eighteen are located.

It's better to play it safe. It won't be too late to continue after I ask Chenlong...

With that thought, he prepared to retract his blood qi. However, right at that moment, an ethereal, drifting voice suddenly echoed in his ear without the slightest warning.

"Keep going. Do not stop."

"The three divisions, eight landscapes, and twenty-four divinities. The five viscera sit in the middle, and you have already seen six of them. For your next step, you must see the Gallbladder Divinity and the Throat Divinity. Push through in a single breath."

Who is it?!

Wang Ping jolted in horror. The voice had come so suddenly, yet it left no trace. Whether he swept the area with his Divine Intent or his spiritual sense, he couldn't detect a thing.

But he quickly calmed down, recalling what Chenlong had told him: minor tribulations were nothing to fear, and major tribulations couldn't be escaped. Chenlong was currently standing guard outside. If this newcomer harbored ill intentions, there was nothing Wang Ping could do about it anyway. He might as well go with the flow... Besides, his resurrection cooldown had already reset long ago!

At that thought, Wang Ping immediately steadied his mind and focused.

The Mind Monkey, still brimming with energy, stepped out from his heart once more. It marched toward the gallbladder in his lower abdomen and up toward his throat, quickly spotting two more minuscule specks of light.

The timing is just right...

With a single thought, Wang Ping's Divine Intent sank into them.

In an instant, the eight Body Divinities—throat, heart, liver, gallbladder, spleen, lungs, left kidney, and right kidney—converged within his body, merging into his Internal Force.

Boom!

Empowered by the Body Divinities, his Internal Force underwent an awakening, much like dotting the eyes of a painted dragon. Billowing into the sky like a massive plume of smoke, it gathered and coalesced, manifesting once more in the shape of the Mind Monkey.

"Did he really reach Divine Communion?"

Outside the courtyard, Chenlong stared, dumbfounded.

It was important to note that the astral qi of the Grandmaster Rank varied in quality. When an ordinary grandmaster broke through, they usually only saw a Body Divinity once, resulting in rather unremarkable astral qi.

The more divinities one saw, the stronger their astral qi. Of the three divisions, eight landscapes, and twenty-four divinities, when a grandmaster saw eight divinities that were interconnected, they would complete one of the three divisions—upper, middle, or lower. At that point, their astral qi would undergo a qualitative change, refining the false into reality to become true astral qi. In a grandmaster's cultivation, this step was known as Divine Communion.

Seeing Divinity, and then Divine Communion.

This was the Realm attained by martial artists after reaching the Grandmaster Rank. As for what to do after Divine Communion in order to achieve Manifesting Divinity—that was the coursework of the Great Grandmaster Rank.

Thinking up to this point, Chenlong felt his scalp go numb.

Back in the day, it had taken him ten full years to go from breaking through to the Grandmaster Rank to reaching Divine Communion. But the man before him had achieved Divine Communion the very moment he broke through.

Where was the justice in that?

Especially when comparing this to Wang Ping's initial strength, Chenlong felt even more horrified—just half a month ago, this kid was merely a Martial Master!

He could have slapped him to death with a single palm.

Yet in just this half-month, Wang Ping had first mastered the Martial God Pictorial Record, and then the Sacred Lord of Five Weapons, advancing by leaps and bounds at an unimaginable speed!

And... he actually broke through to the Grandmaster Rank before the First Seat even met him.

Not to mention that less than a second after breaking through, he crossed the hurdle of Divine Communion that had taken Chenlong ten years to clear, condensing true astral qi and ascending to the upper echelons of the Grandmaster Rank.

That wasn't how you practiced martial arts!

You were supposed to train tirelessly through the freezing winters and scorching summers, struggle through countless bottlenecks and barriers, and only then experience a sudden epiphany. How could you just skip the prelude and jump straight to the epiphany?!

At this thought, a terrifying premonition suddenly seized Chenlong. If things kept going at this rate, with this little bastard's incomprehensible, completely inhuman cultivation speed, was it possible that the kid would successfully break through to the Great Grandmaster Rank before he even did?

Impossible. Absolutely impossible!

The Grandmaster Rank was one thing. Compared to Seeing Divinity, the difficulty of Divine Communion merely lay in the number of Body Divinities one had to see. The Manifesting Divinity threshold for the Great Grandmaster Rank wasn't nearly so easy to cross.

Chenlong tried his best to convince himself.

I've already fully grasped the secrets of Manifesting Divinity. The First Seat acknowledged it herself. I'll break through in a month or two. No matter how fast this little bastard is, he can't possibly beat me!

Meanwhile, inside the courtyard.

Wang Ping's eyes were so bright they seemed to illuminate the empty space in the room. He slowly withdrew his blood qi and true astral qi back into his body, thoroughly enjoying the serene aftermath that followed the climax of his sudden breakthrough.

With a mere thought, the Mind Monkey immediately leapt out. Wearing a purple-gold crown, clad in golden armor, and stepping on cloud-walking boots, it wielded a Divine Treasure Iron in its hand, swinging it as fast as the wind... Now, this Mind Monkey didn't just appear in the inward vision of his spiritual sense; it possessed a physical form within his Divine Intent.

Incredible!

Wang Ping freely controlled the Mind Monkey, letting it leap around the area and swing its staff. This monkey now bordered on the line between illusion and reality; only those with a high enough cultivation in Divine Intent could see it.

Its movements didn't even stir up the wind.

It can't affect reality yet.

But given enough time, if I elevate it even further, I might be able to turn the illusion into reality and truly manifest it in the physical world. Only then will it be considered perfected.

Such were the Divine Powers of the martial path.

Wang Ping could even imagine a future where the Mind Monkey grew strong enough to go out in his place, wandering the mountains and seas in a spiritual journey, crossing vast distances with a single thought.

When that time came, even as a martial artist, he could probably proudly call himself an Earthly Immortal, couldn't he?

Clang!

The Dragon Head Guillotine burst from his body as a streak of light before solidifying and slamming heavily onto the ground. It had taken on a completely new appearance, with the faint rumble of wind and thunder echoing along its blade.

The divine weapon received a massive upgrade too.

Before this, the Dragon Head Guillotine only possessed the single mystical ability of the Dharma Covenant. While its utility wasn't small, it ultimately wasn't geared toward slaughter, leaving its capabilities somewhat lacking in versatility.

But now, things had changed.

Having fused with Kongzhi's three magical artifacts, the Dragon Head Guillotine didn't gain any new mystical properties, but it underwent a qualitative improvement in a completely different aspect.

And that was the effective range of the Dharma Covenant.

Originally, the Dragon Head Guillotine's Dharma Covenant required him to leave a wound on the enemy before he could issue commands. Now, it had evolved.

"What the blade can cut is no longer limited to physical bodies; it now includes the very fabric of the world it touches. In other words, from now on, as long as I swing my blade, I can establish a Dharma Covenant with the surrounding environment and issue commands. The effect will depend on the amount of astral qi I expend."

The more astral qi he injected, the stronger the effect.

"No... astral qi is still a bit lacking. If I can pass the Human Tribulation, cultivate dharma power, and use that dharma power to drive the Dharma Covenant, the effects will be truly optimal."

Storing away the Dragon Head Guillotine, he pulled the Mind Monkey back into his body.

Wang Ping stood up, but he was in no rush to head outside. Instead, he twisted his body and lunged forward. Mid-pounce, his figure instantly swelled and transformed—

"Roar!"

In the blink of an eye, a living, breathing human had turned into a brightly striped, ferocious tiger! With razor-sharp teeth and a gaping maw, it looked completely flawless at first glance!

Right after, the tiger leapt into the air.

"Screech!"

All its fur and muscle vanished, replaced by a pair of broad wings. In the very moment of its leap, the tiger transformed into a fierce golden eagle.

Then came a monkey, a swimming fish, a rat, a wild bull... He shifted continuously through various creatures before finally reverting to his original form. A satisfied smile graced Wang Ping's face. "Sure enough, after mastering the Mind Monkey, my physical body gained the ability to undergo countless transformations. This is a spell, too."

False Form!

Just like when he had naturally learned Soul Seizing after becoming the Six Desires Heavenly Demon King, this False Form was also a spell bestowed by heaven and earth.

At that thought, he cast another glance toward the Great Peace Mortuary.

On the towering ledger within the Great Peace Mortuary, Kongzhi's portrait, having fulfilled its purpose with the mission's completion, gradually dimmed before fading away with a smile.

You truly worked hard!

Wang Ping felt somewhat moved. After all, this man had been incredibly generous, gifting him magical artifacts and a cultivation method, and even helping him achieve a critical breakthrough after death.

It could truly be said that he bent himself to the task until death.

It was a pity such good people were so rare.

At this thought, Wang Ping found himself wondering: What about Book Mountain? Why hasn't there been any reaction from them? When will they arrange for another one to come over?