Chapter 140: Investment Has Risks

With someone funding him, Wang Ping could afford to be extravagant.

After he invited the ancestors of the Six-Eared Clan to possess him, the Six-Eared Dao-Listening Scripture held no more secrets for him, and his cultivation progressed without the slightest hindrance.

Blood Refining, Meridian Opening, Form Forging.

For the countless subjects of the Royal Court, these three realms were enough to consume half their lifetimes. Yet Wang Ping achieved them all in just three breaths, crossing the threshold in a single bound.

A visible layer of blood qi surged around Wang Ping. Under his control, this blood qi rapidly condensed into form, ultimately transforming into a fiery-red six-eared ape that sat cross-legged three feet above his head like an external avatar.

"Gulp..."

The six-eared ape inhaled deeply toward the Totem Pillar, sucking all the erupting blood qi into its body in a single breath.

Meanwhile, inside the Brahma Nation.

"Senior Brother, something isn't right."

Feeling his magical power pouring out like water from an open floodgate, Kongbei furrowed his brows. "Is this child's talent really this good? He's eating a bit too much."

"What are you afraid of? Good talent is a good thing!" Zongji dismissed the concern. "The blood qi he's eating is entirely transformed from our magical power. The more he eats, the easier he is for us to manipulate. Besides, eating like this just makes him a fattened pig. What use is having cultivation without any combat strength?"

Right at this moment, the six-eared ape suddenly opened its eyes.

"Howl... hungry! So hungry!"

The roar was filled with agony. It was the pain of being capable of eating more, yet finding the food gone, leaving it to starve.

Seeing this, Zongji instantly grew anxious.

"Did you hear that? It says it's hungry! Don't stop!"

"But..."

"There are no buts!" Zongji cast a glance at the hesitant Kongbei and said in a deep voice, "Relax. If he keeps this up, he'll soon transform into a Totem."

"Even if he needs more, it won't be much more."

"The moment it transforms into a Totem, we'll instantly turn on it and subdue it. This rare delicacy will be complete, and the Great Golden Wheel Wisdom King will certainly be pleased."

"...Alright."

Since Zongji insisted, Kongbei found it hard to argue further. He continued executing the empowerment technique, ceaselessly converting his magical power into blood qi to feed Wang Ping on the other end.

Receiving more blood qi, the six-eared ape was instantly overjoyed. It immediately began kowtowing frantically toward the Totem Pillar.

"Thank you for your blessings, ancestors!"

Of course, even while kowtowing, the six-eared ape didn't forget to keep swallowing blood qi. Under the influx, its originally blurry physical form became increasingly lifelike.

Just like this, a full half-shichen passed.

"Senior Brother, this really isn't right!"

Kongbei's face was deathly pale. He couldn't help but say, "Sixty percent of my magical power is already gone! Even if the empowerment technique has some loss, it shouldn't be draining this much!"

Hearing this, Zongji also hesitated, but he ultimately gritted his teeth. "Don't panic. Look at that six-eared spirit ape. It has achieved Ancestral Reversion and is on the verge of transforming into a Totem."

"Hold on just a little longer!"

After saying this, Zongji reached into his robes and pulled out two glowing pills. Gritting his teeth, he swallowed one and handed the other to Kongbei.

"This is a Flame-Return Pill. It can quickly restore magical power."

"Since things have reached this point, do not hesitate!"

At almost the same moment, the six-eared ape in front of the Totem Pillar suddenly stood up and let out a long howl at the sky.

"Thanks to the ancestors' empowerment, I am about to break through!"

"I'm just missing a tiny bit of blood qi! With just a little more, I can transform into a Totem! From then on, I'll become a Great Sage of the Heavenly Demons and stand proudly above the grasslands!"

As it spoke, blood qi skyrocketed into the heavens!

Looking at such immense momentum, and factoring in the full sixty percent of magical power they had already invested, Kongbei forcefully suppressed his doubts and pressed on.

"Yes, yes, yes! Just like that!"

Seventy percent of magical power invested.

"I can feel it! I'm about to break through!"

Eighty percent of magical power invested.

"Just a little bit more... just a bit more... the very last bit..."

Ninety percent of magical power invested.

"Today is the day! Ancestors, aid me!"

One hundred percent magical power...

"I'll Amitabha your fucking mother!"

Looking at the six-eared ape in front of the Totem Pillar—still howling, dancing around wildly, and looking as if it were about to burst into song—Kongbei finally couldn't hold on any longer.

"This son of a bitch... is definitely a mole from the Immortal Gate!"

Kongbei abruptly cut off his magical power output. Feeling his completely emptied body, his eyes twitched and he was so furious that smoke practically blasted from his seven orifices. "Senior Brother, he's playing us!"

It was just a mere piece of food on the Eight Treasure Table! The two of them, Holding Precepts monks, had exhausted the vast majority of their magical power and even taken spirit pills. Let alone one Totem, they should have been able to empower three or four Totems by now! Yet pouring it all into this beast was like tossing it into a bottomless pit. This was absolutely not normal!

On the other end, Zongji's eyes had also turned bloodshot.

"Playing me... it dares to play me?!"

In that instant, the two monks felt as if they had prepared a grand imperial feast, only for the roast suckling pig in the center of the table to suddenly spring up and punch them in the face.

Was there any justice left in the world?

The only explanation was that this was a motherfucking mole from the Immortal Gate!

Thinking of this, the two monks immediately formed hand seals, beginning to sense the magical power they had just sent out. They prepared to directly subdue this bizarre spirit ape.

'If it really is a mole from the Immortal Gate... then that's not bad either!'

'After all, catching a mole will also earn the favor of the Great Golden Wheel Wisdom King!'

In an instant, two streams of spiritual sense projected out remotely through the Totem Pillar, attempting to retract the magical power they had just fed to Wang Ping while forcibly restraining him.

Seeing this, Wang Ping simply gave a cold smile.

What was this about "their" magical power? Once it entered his pocket, it was his magical power. They sure had a lot of nerve, daring to run over here and try to snatch it back!

"Rumble!"

With a thought, the magical power Wang Ping had just refined roared outwards. Light surfaced in his eyes, landing squarely on the streams of spiritual sense sent by Kongbei and Zongji.

This single glance felt like an eternity.

Soul Seizing!

Soul Pursuing!

Tracing the connection between their spiritual sense and their true bodies, Kongbei and Zongji's vision was instantly flooded by Wang Ping's gaze. All of their thoughts became incredibly heavy in an instant.

In their daze, it was as if an invisible, massive hand had clamped down on both of their necks.

This grip instantly extinguished the Buddhist light around them and silenced their Zen chanting. Their Dharma bodies ceased circulating, rendering them no different from the living dead, their souls practically blasting out of their bodies.

"Ah? It really is a mole from the Immortal Gate?!"

The two monks were horrified. If this had happened earlier, they might have been able to put up a struggle. But as luck would have it, their magical power was so severely depleted that even if they had tricks up their sleeves, they couldn't use them.

This made them even more terrified.

'Not only is he a mole from the Immortal Gate, he must be a true transmission disciple! His fate and destiny are incredibly strong, far surpassing the mundane, which is exactly why our minds were rendered so sluggish just now!'

'We are doomed!'

As their final thought vanished, Zongji and Kongbei froze in place. Their souls traveled through the void along their spiritual sense, ultimately falling into Wang Ping's eyes.

The invisible hand that Zongji and Kongbei had just felt was actually Soul Seizing, while the subsequent pull was Soul Pursuing. It was all simply because Wang Ping had used their spiritual sense connection to see the two monks' appearances, using that as a medium to cast his spells and pluck them out of thin air.

"This really is an unexpected harvest."

Wang Ping closed his right eye, thoroughly trapping the two Brahma Cultivators. However, this was only temporary; after all, it wouldn't do for him to actually kill the two of them.

'If I really kill them, it will cause too much of a commotion.'

'No need to rush. I'll toy with them first and see if I can fish out the exact situation inside the Brahma Nation, as well as the role the Heavenly Demon Royal Court plays within it.'

Gathering his thoughts, Wang Ping shifted his gaze.

Three feet above his head, the six-eared ape formed from blood qi was already remarkably lifelike, yet it still fell far short of what he had envisioned.

This was because the Totem he wanted to construct wasn't the six-eared ape from the Six-Eared Dao-Listening Scripture. After all, adding another low-level cultivation system like this wouldn't improve his strength by much. What he wanted to do was extract its essence, discard the dross, and merge it into his own system.

Thus, he had already made up his mind:

'If I'm going to construct a Totem, I will construct my Divine Intent!'

On the martial path, Wang Ping was already a Divine Communion Grandmaster. Thinking back to the day he broke through, his manifested Divine Intent was exactly a heaven-battling, earth-fighting ape that refused to ever admit defeat.

That was his Mind Monkey, and it was also his Divine Intent.

And now, he was going to turn it into his Totem as well!

Wang Ping naturally had his own calculations regarding this.

'Chenlong once said that a martial Great Grandmaster's Divine Communion and Manifesting Divinity is actually the process of turning one's Divine Intent from a phantom illusion into reality, granting it boundless might.'

'So if I use my Divine Intent to construct the Totem, treating the Totem as a vessel, wouldn't that be equivalent to indirectly manifesting my Divine Intent in reality?'

Although the actual underlying principles were definitely vastly different, the final visual effect should be quite similar. Even if the resulting power couldn't be compared, it would at least allow him to experience the process of his Divine Intent merging into reality. It would definitely aid his future attempts at true Manifesting Divinity.

No matter what, it was worth a try!

Of course, as for the result, the consumption of this process was far greater than normal—so much so that completely draining two Brahma Cultivators who had cultivated magical power still wasn't enough to perfect it.

'However, thanks to their generous contributions, they've still solved seventy to eighty percent of the problem for me.'

'The people of the Brahma Nation really are good people.'

'This makes things much easier for me.'

Thinking up to this point, Wang Ping urged his Divine Intent and began mobilizing the blood qi he had just swallowed, slowly continuing the construction while filling in any slight gaps with his own magical power.

'There's no need to pursue quality.'

'When it comes down to it, my cultivation is still mainly focused on martial arts and immortal cultivation; everything else is secondary. The Totem cultivation is just to help me better elevate my Divine Intent.'

Therefore, pursuing quality was just a waste of time.

As long as the quantity was massive, it would do.

Gradually, under Wang Ping's continuous fine-tuning, the original appearance of the six-eared ape slowly changed. The six ears vanished, and instead, its two eyes shone with dazzling brilliance.

During this process, Wang Ping also felt streams of spiritual light being extracted from the boiling blood qi inside his body. They converged toward his sea of consciousness and swiftly transformed into a spell talisman identical to Soul Pursuing and Soul Seizing. It was exactly the bloodline inheritance spell of the six-eared spirit ape clan.

"The six-eared do not fall into the ten categories."

"When this monkey stands in one place, it can know the affairs of a thousand li away; it can even understand the speech of Mortals. Thus, it excels at Sound Perception, can discern reason, knows the past and future, and understands all things."

Therefore, it was called:

Sound Perception.