Dao Conference Festival (2)

Sky Pill World, Southern Province, Flame Territory, Skyflame Sect

Chiyan Peak.

At last it was the fated day, the Dao Conference Festival was about to start. A group of about ten of thousands of young prodigies in the Heavenly Dipper realm and above were standing in formation.

They were in the Chiyan Battle Arena which was situated on the highest mountain peak within the Skyflame domain. In fact the arena was carved out of the mountain itself and one could say that it was only an extension of the peak.

The coliseum was of shattering dimensions with countless spectators in its stands and down on the arena floor, the numerous geniuses were patiently waiting for the competition to start.

They were all facing a building intricately mashed with the stands, a VIP booth of some sort, which hosted a group of thirteen individuals seated atop of thrones. All of these people were peak level Celestial Phenomenon Ascendant as well as the respective representative of a certain superpower.

Suddenly on the battle platform, an old man in green coloured robes appeared out of thin air. It was as if he emerged out of the void. He had radiated an aura that only the mighty possessed. He took a few sips from the gourd attached to his dark coloured sash and then finally open his mouth to talk.

"I am Daoist Tan. I'll be the examiner for this first round of the Dao Conference Festival. The trial is simple; enter this tower and the faster you get out, the higher will be your ranking." The old man did not say any superfluous words and pointed at the centre of the platform.

A huge pagoda, which completely dwarfed the arena, had mystically appeared at the centre of the platform.

This coliseum was huge enough for several millions of people to be comfortably seated next to each other, so the gargantuan size of the Nine floor Pagoda could only be imagined.

The pagoda gave off such transcendental feeling and this could only mean that it was an Immortal-level divine weapon.

"What are you waiting for?" the old man's words jolted every participant awake, they immediately scramble to the tower's gate.

Daoist Tan then made a seal using his right hand and countless screens appeared all around the nine floored pagoda. Each of them broadcasted, in real time, what a particular participant was up to. At first the feed was similar for each contestant then it differed based on their decision.

The Dao Conference had started.

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Immortal Ascension Pagoda.

Ji Bolin was transferred into a spacious hall as soon as he crossed the tower doorstep. Everything was made out of divine material and several pillars intricately decorated with beast carvings surrounded the square hall.

"Welcome contestant! This is a replica of the true Immortal Ascension Pagoda found deep within the Darknorth Immortal Dynasty. You will have to complete nine trials so as to be able to leave. But first choose the path you want to follow. A little reminder that death is not out of question if you were to ever fail at clearing a floor."

Those were the words of an incorporeal two-tailed cat which had suddenly emerged in front of Ji Bolin.

The information about the different paths was communicated directly into his head via divine sense; the path of Comprehension, the path of Strength and lastly the path of Luck. It was evident what each path would test and thus Ji Bolin did not even hesitate in his answer.

"I will go through the path of Comprehension, please."

The weapon spirit answered with a smile, and as for how Ji Bolin knew they were smiling — only he knows.

"I like polite humans. I wish you the best then!" The cat disappeared and the world changed.

This pagoda obviously had several secret realms refined into it by an immortal-level weaponsmith. The first floor appeared to be populated by Ji Bolin alone. This could only mean that every participant was in a different dimension that is multiple separate spaces stack upon the only real world space — Features truly worthy of an Immortal weapon.

Ji Bolin appeared mid-air in another separate space, in a completely barren landscape, only rock could be seen everywhere up to the horizon. Silently the silhouette of a man appeared not so far from him, still in the air; he casually blasted out a palm strike and a huge palm imprint made up of solidified astral light was created.

The palm imprint hit the barren ground but there was no earth shattering sound or loud explosion, the enormous imprint simply went into the ground similarly to how a hot fork would go through butter.

The palm had simply melted away the ground and left a pool of bubbling magma in the shape of a gargantuan palm.

"Such a pure and unadulterated palm art, I can't even tell which Mandates were used. I was only able to discern what attribute the palm contained after the palm imprint made contact, if I unknowingly went at the reception of such a strike — it would be incredibly dangerous." Ji Bolin's vivid mind already had a judgement about the situation.

Right after the silhouette executed his palm art, Ji Bolin received his mission via divine sense "reproduce this innate technique with a mandate of yours".

Ji Bolin was not especially a good palm art user but he still complied and this was probably why he was given such a technique to replicate. Nonetheless he simply obeyed and immediately blasted a palm strike at the ground.

Similarly to when the silhouette performed his, an enormous palm imprint was willed into existence yet the difference was that his was radiating with a terrifying glow. The fact that the palm imprint was made up of baleful qi could be felt from miles away.

"This is not it!!"

Ji Bolin blasted out another palm but that one had radiated with a sharp sword qi. Anyone within the palm surroundings could feel the mandate of the sword used.

"This is not like that either"

Ji Bolin tried a few times with his other two mandates but the result remained the same, the mandates used to boost the palm imprint dangerosity could be felt from miles away.

Ji Bolin was a ruthless character and he had no time to lose on this first floor. The answer to his problem was simple, he used a movement technique to appear right in front of the silhouette mile large palm imprint.

The palm imprint connected with his body and his flesh instantly started to melt. Just as with the ground there was no heaven shattering effect or loud explosion, he was just being melted. The pain of having your flesh being liquified is not something that anyone could imagine, the closest one can get is thinking about that single time one got burned with a hot stove and multiply that feeling infinitely.

However the silhouette had the same cultivation realm as Ji Bolin or else he would have never dared to do such a crazy thing. Imagine if this was a Celestial Phenomenon Ascendant, he would have been vaporised. Ji Bolin's horrifying body with its overwhelming vitality was already regeneration.

Ji Bolin senses were busy feeling how the palm imprint was made and it finally clicked in his mind.

He immediately moved out of the silhouette palm imprint attack and thought about what he just experienced; his body was still charred thoroughly, some of his bones were visible yet his mind was only focused on comprehending all the insights he just got.

"Ha ha ha ha! I understand, so this is done like that!" Ji Bolin's gruesome body could be seen shaking from his laughter. Bits and pieces of charred flesh fell off as new portions grew up thanks to his regeneration.

"This technique does not simply use the mandates to augment his palm strikes but rather fuses the mandates with astral energy to create a whole new kind of astral energy with the properties of the mandates. This is simply marvellous." Ji Bolin mumbled to himself as he blasted out several palm strikes.

The enormous palm imprint of solidified astral energy only now had a slight shimmer to it. No trace of the baleful qi from his Archaic Demon Sovereign astral soul could be perceived in any way shape or form.

The palm hit the floor like how a fallen meteor would thoroughly destroying the ground. A lingering baleful qi persisted on the crater and any weak individual would still be grieviously injured by it. Whilst this baleful qi would be extremely beneficial to its wielder, to any body else this was simply poison that impeded one's astral energy flow.

The scenery changed and the now barren ground was now covered with inches long green grass. The landscape had become a beautiful and calm expanse of grassy plains. A divinse sense message informed Ji Bolin that he had succeeded and was now at the second floor.

The silhouette appeared once more and blasted a mile large palm imprint, the ground was scorched beyond measure but this time there was another effect added — corrosion.

The palm no longer simply burnt but instead scorched everything, corroding the grass and soil; the corrosion seemed to fuel back the flame who in turn burnt more readily.

This trial's aim was obviously to force Ji Bolin to fuse a pair of true intent of the mandates he understood and then infuse the mandate fusion into the palm imprint. All of this was simply free training for Ji Bolin as this the needed prerequisite before him attacking the Celestial Phenomenon realm.

Hesitation was an unknown word to Ji Bolin, he once more took on a palm imprint strike from the flying silhouette. This time he took care to put on a layer of defence as this strike was incomparable to the previous one.

The feeling of being scorched alive was now accompanied with a feeling of being gnawed by an infinite amount of microscopic maws, the corrosion attribute was an especially painful one. Ji Bolin needed to use his baleful qi to disperse the corrosive energy.

Ji Bolin could not grasp the intricacies of mandates fusion in a single instance despite his tyrannical talent so he had to allow himself to be hit several times before he could finally have that spark of insight much needed.

He had long been familiar with integrating true intent of his mandates into his several innate techniques and with the previous trial had even perfected such aspects of his abilities yet fusing two true intent of his mandates was still very challenging.

True intents are the purest incarnation of various Mandates so by that logic if they are fused with another one, isn't that going backwards but this is where Ji Bolin genius made him understand.

After Ji Bolin fused two true intents, they were no longer either one of the previous one but rather a whole new kind of concept. The fusion of true intent caused a marvellous transformation and created a new energy.

"Yes, it's this kind of energy. This kind of energy is able to fuse with astral energy much better than any true intent of a mandate ever could, it's an incarnation of true intent." Ji Bolin's heart shook slightly, right now, a marvellous astral energy emanated from him. The astral energy all contained hints of true intent within, covering his body with a surreal glow, yet giving off a sense of extreme power.

He used this new found astral energy to blast an enormous palm imprint of his own, completely destroying the tranquillity of the grassy plains.

Suddenly the scenery changed, as if time was going faster, the plains changed as trees grew at a fast pace and in the blink of an eye — the whole landscape became a boreal forest with snowfall.

"You little monster. This test was merely to fuse the primary level of your several mandates with an innate technique yet your weird brain found a way to fuse the true intents. There is no longer any need to clear floor three to eight then. You will directly face the ninth trial." the divine sense of the weapon spirit informs Ji Bolin.

This trial was an interesting one, Ji Bolin cultivation realm would be artificially elevated to the celestial phenomenon realm and he would need to create constellations to hold up against a beast tide for the time an incense stick needs to burn.

Ji Bolin was only allowed the usage of his constellation as means of attack and even if he wanted to, he wouldn't be able to disobey. He could feel a restrictive force that prevented him to urge his astral energy for any offensive moves other than via his constellation.

If he is not able to do so then only death awaits him.

A wonderful yet somewhat off putting sensation raced through Ji Bolin's body as his astral novas were forcefully taken from his Nine-Floor Yuanfu and fused with their respective corresponding astral souls.

Astral souls were the foundation of Celestial Phenomena (constellations), they are an evolved form of astral souls and naturally, one had to evolve their astral souls first to condense any kind of constellations.

For Heavenly Dipper Sovereigns, they have a total of four astral souls, and after stepping into Celestial Phenomenon, they could begin forming an innate connection with their fifth astral soul. This indicated that for Celestial Phenomenon Ascendants, the maximum number of constellations they can have is five but of course this was only a fake breakthrough and Ji Bolin could only have four available.

Four constellations, with each different from the last because they would all be evolved from the various astral souls one had condensed earlier on their journey of cultivation. There were strong ones and weak ones and all this depended on the stellar martial cultivator's comprehension abilities.

Although theory stated that condensing five constellations was possible, usually the vast majority of ascendants would only condense either one of two types of constellations. The reason for this varies for everyone.

For some, it might be because their talent was limited.

Another reason was the speed of one's cultivation.

Although they could use their strongest astral soul as the foundation to condense a constellation to break through to Celestial Phenomenon, after they broke through and selected their fifth astral soul, this astral soul would definitely be stronger than the other four. What's the point in spending time to condense a weaker constellation? They would rather use the time on cultivation instead.

But of course, there would also be demon-level characters like Ji Bolin. Each and every one of the astral souls he has were all exceedingly powerful, from high-tiered heavenly layers. In addition, he was also newly proficient in the fusion of true intents. This type of existence was a different case altogether.

For these people, since their astral souls were already so powerful, they would choose to condense as many constellations as possible in order to raise their combat strength further. This was also part of the reason why ascendants would have such a huge difference in their combat strength.

Obviously Ji Bolin was in desperate need of combat strength.

For people like Ji Bolin, he had the chance to condense many different types of powerful constellations. Therefore he did just that and started with using the astral soul that had accompanied him for the longest.

Things were about to get truly interesting.