Desolate Era (Book 19 - Book 21)

The first requirement was to have a perfect divine body, and his body had reached that level long ago. The second was to have mastered a Grand Dao, and Ning had mastered three of them already; the Grand Dao of Lightning, the Grand Dao of the Waterdrop, and the Grand Dao of the Sword.

“According to the [Solitary World God], I’ll need to find a spark of inspiration from within the midst of endless solitude. Once I find it, I’ll be able to make my breakthrough.”

“That…sounds incredibly opaque and mysterious. Ugh…the most important thing needed for the [Solitary World God] is time. The thing I lack the most is also time.” Ning shook his head.

The critical part of training in this technique lay in the word ‘solitary’. Once one actually began to cultivate in it, one would sit there without moving whatsoever, just like a solitary, withered tree. Only then would one be able to find that necessary spark of insight. This technique generally needed a great deal of time.

“The second method is to use Violetjewel,” Ning mused to himself. “Violetjewel was the most important weapon owned by World God Northrest, and it is powerful enough that it would cause Chaos Immortals and World Gods to go crazy over it. According to what World God Northrest said, so long as I can repair even just the surface layer of the weapon, its power will vastly surpass that of any Chaos treasures. If I can use this weapon, my power will dramatically increase as well.”

“By comparison…my chances of repairing Violetjewel in time are probably better.” Ning nodded to himself.

He had already repaired the surface of Violetjewel by roughly 20%. Now, he had reached the fifth stage of swordforce. Although he was unable to defeat True God Shiyu, Shiyu was known to be one of the most powerful and most troublesome Gods of the entire prisonworld. The other True Gods should be much easier to deal with.

He could sweep through all of them, acquire their treasures, and then use them to repair Violetjewel’s surface layer.

“Then let’s begin.”

After pondering for a moment, Ning flew out of the gorge in the form of a black lightning serpent, disappearing into the horizon.

True God Shiyu watched as Ning left, a cold look in his eyes. “He wants to take my treasures? I have three Chaos treasures on me. If I didn’t have a few tricks up my sleeves, others would’ve taken those treasures from me long ago. Ugh…damn the fact that I’m imprisoned here and have nowhere to run.” Aside from being skilled in defense, he was also skilled in fleeing…but alas, he was now shackled and had nowhere to run.

As for Ning, he began to act against the True Gods and True Immortals of the prisonworld on a large scale. There were far fewer True Gods and True Immortals here than there were Empyrean Gods and Celestial Immortals. Thus, Ning prized every one of them. After every battle, he would immediately meditate on any new insights he felt he had gained, so as to gain the most benefit possible from these battles.





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Book 21, Chapter 37 - The Bloodlotus Blooms


Some True Gods and True Immortals were much weaker than Ji Ning. They only had the power of an ordinary Daofather, and so Ji Ning was able to easily defeat them. He didn’t even gain many insights from battling them, only spending a few hours in meditation afterwards.

After battling the more powerful ones or the ones who had some special abilities, Ning might spend seven or eight days carefully reflecting on their battle.

Twelve months after Ning began his sweep through the prisonworld. He was within a region filled with dark fog where a True Immortal was kept prisoner. Boom! Boom! Boom! The sounds of a major battle could be heard booming out from within the fog, causing the fog itself to roil and roll about.

Within the fog.

“Go!” The seemingly berserk violet-eyed woman pointed towards Ning, causing a sky filled with black light to shoot towards Ning

Ning held his twin swords in his hands, slowly stepping through the air and advancing.

He was in no rush to attack his opponent. He just slowly advanced through the air, giving his opponent plenty of time to attack him.

Although collecting enough treasures to repair Violetjewel was important, his own personal skill and power was his true foundation of strength. He had to treat every battle against these True Gods and True Immortals seriously.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Ning’s sword-light fluctuated in an unpredictable manner. He even used his attacking stance, ‘Shadowless’, to defend against all the enemy’s attacks. From this, one could tell how transcendent his sword-arts had become and how vastly superior he was compared to his foe.

“Is that your ultimate attack?” Ning continued to stroll forward as he spoke.

The violet-eyed woman’s face was ashen. She growled out, “Come back.”

Whoosh. Instantly, the countless streaks of black light flew back to her and entered her body. Only then did her face recover a bit of color.

“You are far more powerful than me. If you want me to submit, I’ll submit.” The violet-eyed woman came to this decision in a straightforward manner.

“A hundred and ninety-two.” Ning nodded and murmured softly to himself.

The violet-eyed woman was stunned. What did the Overseer mean by mumbling that number?

“Alright.” Ning pondered for a moment. “I’ve swept through a hundred and ninety-two of the True Gods and True Immortals of the prisonworld. That’s more than half of them. That should be enough treasures to repair the surface layer of Violetjewel.”

All the treasures he had acquired from the Celestial Immortals and Empyrean Gods here, combined with a few treasures from True Gods and True Immortals, had only been able to repair a fifth of the surface damage to Violetjewel.

This time, he had collected far more treasures. It was most likely enough.

“Time to give it a try.” Ning immediately made the decision to temporarily stop his campaign and instead go give repairing Violetjewel a try.

But of course, before he went to repair Violetjewel, he still had to finish what he came here to do.

Ning reached out with his hand, letting it rest upon the head of the violet-eyed woman. Ning was going to search through the memories of every single True God and True Immortal. Perhaps he might some information which might be of some help to him.

……

Next to a beautiful lake.

The white-robed youth, Ji Ning, landed on the ground next to it. With a wave of his hand, he caused the jade shrine to appear on the grassy banks of the lake. The enormous stone sword-steles landed next, followed by the 3600 enormous Goldstar Beads of the Heavens that surrounded everything.

Ning then stepped into the jade shrine, seated himself on the prayer mat, then began his meditations.

After each battle, he would carefully reflect on every single thing he had seen.

Although he had decided to go repair Violetjewel after this battle, he still chose to first calmly meditate on the battle he had just experienced.

Time slowly flowed on…

Ning just sat there quietly in the lotus position. A full day later, he opened his eyes, rose to his feet, then walked outside the shrine.

He was in quite a good mood right now. In the past year or so, his sword-arts had continued to slowly improve a bit, and he had now acquired enough treasures to be able to repair Violetjewel. With Violetjewel in hand, he would probably be at the overlord level of power. Even though he might a bit lacking compared to those elder figures who had long ago reached this level of power, the difference wouldn’t be as great as it had been in the past.

“The Nine chaos Seals.” Ning’s gaze fell upon the nearby goldstar beads, each roughly ten meters tall right now. The goldstar beads were covered with the complicated flowing runes of the Nine Chaos Seals, which continued to change and transform with every moment in a pattern which was never repeated.

Ning had a smile on his face, and he continued to look at the beads in quite a fine mood.

“Eh?” Suddenly…

Ning felt a tremor in his heart. He stared closely at the constantly changing runes.