Cultivating the Sea of Consciousness

Yaan continued to train within the Brain Devour Formation, this time using twelve mortals as the material.

Twelve mortal lives, all experienced simultaneously. The forceful influx of memories, mental wisdom and comprehension of the world, and the strength of mind that these experiences caused the mortals to develop throughout their lives, all fused together into one big mess of the human experience.

Yaan opened his eyes and gasped for breath. It took him a minute to return to reality, at which point he stood up and assessed his gains.

As expected, he improved his Psyche Power by approximately four psych avatars! It didn't sound like a lot, but this was a near-instantaneous improvement!

After preparing himself using the mortal prisoners, Yaan moved on to Rank 1 cultivators, placing twelve of them into the formation runes once again. Rui advised against this, but he ignored her. He knew his own capabilities better than anyone else.

The strength of mind possessed by cultivators was much greater compared to mortals. Because of this, the immersion into their lives was almost impossible to distinguish from reality. However, a part of Yaan always seemed to be aware…

This is not you…

This was his dao of illusions, helping him to understand the truth.

Rui watched as he progressed from Rank 1, to Rank 2, to Rank 3 cultivators.

Each time he came back delirious, shouting incoherently, gasping for breath, asking random questions and screaming random words…but this only lasted for around half a minute. After returning to reality for a single minute, his sanity always returned and he was ready to repeat the cycle once again.

"Monster…" Rui muttered as she watched him go through this self-inflicted viciousness time and time again. However, she was more referring to his ability to retain his sound mind than anything else.

Finally, Yaan brought in twelve 4-Star Realm warriors. At this point, Rui stepped in, telling him that there was no way he should do this. Not only were their minds too strong, but they were all 150-350 years old!

In a single instant, he would be experiencing a highly compressed 3,000 years of life!

Whilst it wasn't quite the same as living for 3,000 years, it had that sort of impact on a person's sanity.

Yaan ignored her. He knew his limits…he knew what he was pursuing.

And so, he activated the formation.

The minds of twelve 4-Star Realm warriors were forcefully devoured into the formation, then shot directly into Yaan's mind. Instantly, his Sea of Consciousness was swept up in waves. White bubbles of memories formed rapidly, the expansive fabric of wisdom grew thicker and larger, and the walls of sentience…

Showed signs off crumbling.

When it all ended, the twelve individuals were dead. Yaan was not screaming deliriously like last time, but staring blankly down at his lap. He was drooling, unmoving, like a vegetable.

Rui quickly investigated his condition, gravely realising that his Sea of Consciousness was damaged badly. The walls of sentience had finally cracked, unable to endure the influx of 3,000 years of life experience!

Unknowingly, unseen to anyone else, an illusive membrane pieced over the cracks plaguing the walls of sentience. Gradually, the membrane expanded, covering the walls of sentience and eventually enveloping the entire Sea of Consciousness.

As it became less illusive and more material, Rui became able to see this illusory layer. She stopped what she was doing, staring at Yaan with glowing red eyes, hardly able to believe what she was seeing.

"His dao…is healing him?" She muttered in doubt, but quickly shook her head at the thought.

"No, his illusion dao is naturally covering for his deficits!"

Rui did nothing, simply watching as Yaan's Sea of Consciousness gained real stability thanks to the illusion of it being stable; what started as an illusion, was slowly becoming reality. In this condition, his Sea of Consciousness began to recover. It grew even stronger than it was before, removing its previous defects and reaching a higher state of being.

Finally, after a month of unassisted rest, Yaan woke up.

"Ugh…" He muttered.

"You're lucky to be alive." Rui stated bluntly.

"It's not luck." Yaan sighed. "So long as my dao is in tact…I will not die."

For a moment, she was struck by this line.

'So long as my dao is in tact…I will not die.'

Eventually though, she rolled her eyes.

"You think that if your body disintegrates into ash, your soul dissipates in the wind and your mind collapses into nothingness, that you will still somehow live? How poetic, how moronic."

Yaan sat up and chuckled.

"I was never in any serious danger. It was only a crack in my Sea of Consciousness, it's a rough injury, but it would heal on its own either way."

"That's true, but it was too close. Be more careful, these risks you take are pointless."

"No…" Yaan muttered, recalling his last experience. "They are far from pointless…"

For a moment, as he recalled those twelve, entangled and overlapping lives, a faint golden vortex formed within his eyes, briefly suppressing the slaughter. This vortex had appeared in his gaze many times before. He had noticed it a couple of times, but he had no idea what it meant…only Rui understood its meaning.

When she saw this golden vortex in Yaan's dazed gaze, she stared at him intently, not wanting to miss the sight of this rare phenomena.

"I understand now. You were also pursuing dao within those lives." Rui finally spoke.

"Hmm? How did you know?" Yaan asked with a raised eyebrow.

Rui became silent. She had to make a decision here…to tell him, or not to tell him…

In the end, Yaan's knowledge and progression had more benefit to her than demerit. She decided to reveal a certain truth to him.

"Yaan, have you ever seen a unique golden vortex within your own eyes?"

Yaan's body trembled. He immediately sat upright and stared at Rui intently.

"Twice. Once atop Heavenly Path Mountain, in the eyes of my other self in the True-False Illusion World. Then once again at the ending of that trial…"

Rui nodded slowly. It had naturally appeared in his eyes more times than just that, but it was only normal that Yaan was only able to see it for himself on those two occasions.

"That golden vortex is the symbol of samsara. It is the visual manifestation of life and death, of eternal reincarnation, in all shapes and forms. And somehow, you, Yaan, have a deep comprehension into that principle law…the law of life and death."

"Oh…I know."

"Hmm? You already knew?"

"Mm. I figured it out a while back. I didn't know about the golden vortex though, that's very interesting."

Yaan stood up and stretched. After spending some time regathering his mental faculties, he dove into his Sea of Consciousness and assessed his newfound power.

"Still only 8,700, tch…" Yaan muttered under his breath.

Rui's eye twitched.

"This rate of progress is already phenomenal, and you're still unsatisfied? What do you want next, twelve 5-Star Realm warriors?" She asked sarcastically. However when she saw Yaan's thoughtful expression, she quickly urged him to forget it.

"You will die. You will definitely die. You cannot devour the brain of a being ranked higher than your Sea of Consciousness."

Yaan sighed. In the end, he knew that she was right.

"Well what do you suggest then? How am I supposed to gain a Myriad Sage Grade Sea of Consciousness?"

"Hmm…well, how did you train you Sea of Consciousness up until this point?" She asked.

"By battling against the belligerent slaughterous power released from my soul for 200 years…"

"Then just do that again."

"Hah?" Yaan raised an eyebrow. "Fight my own slaughter power? What would be the point, I've already tamed it!"

"What about the Slaughter Aura?" Rui asked.

Suddenly, despite his Thousand Sage Grade Sea of Consciousness, Yaan felt extremely stupid. Right, why had he not considered trying to devour Slaughter Aura into his Sea of Consciousness?

Controlling Slaughter Aura was extremely difficult…but with his Slaughter Soul, it should not be a problem!

But the greatest danger with using this method, was that the slaughter might completely take over his mind. It was dangerous, but then again, his path of cultivation had always been this way.

Rui continued to push for this course of action.

"This way, you will be able to train your Sea of Consciousness, whilst also comprehending slaughter to help you make progress towards completing that dual-layered core idea of yours."

Yaan couldn't help but feel tempted. Very, very, tempted…

The dual-layered core was still his best idea as a method for harnessing Slaughter Aura in order to cultivate his soul. Yaan's soul cultivation talent was basically non-existent, it was impossible for him to cultivate his Spirit Soul using normal methods. His only hope was to use a highly demonic practise, copying the Fiend Transformation Technique and overcoming the restriction of 'talent'.

So long as he could form a dual-layered core, retaining his Vital Qi Core on the outside, but gaining a second layer of slaughterous Soul Force on the inside, it should be possible to convert the absorbed Slaughter Aura into slaughterous Soul Force at the boundary between the two layers! Of course, he would also need to resolve the issue of his Dantian, which still automatically converted all absorbed Slaughter Aura into Slaughter Energy and then Qi.

As of right now, Yaan's understanding of slaughter wasn't deep enough to make his theoretical dual-layered core into a reality. But, if he trained his Psyche Power by dragging Slaughter Aura directly into his Sea of Consciousness, he would be killing two birds with one stone; cultivating his mind and comprehending slaughter simultaneously!

Yaan knew that his strong desire to go through with this crazy idea was caused by his slaughterous Spirit Soul, but even so, he couldn't help it. The longer he lived with this slaughterous soul, the more twisted his personality became. Day by day, he was becoming increasingly drawn towards slaughter…

He finally came to a decision after a few minutes of deliberation.

"Let's try it out."