Exploring Immortality Cultivation
Chapter 428 - 181: Golden Experience

"This is impossible!" Zhen Chan had been continuously shocked or, rather, slapped in the face ever since he met Wang Qi. His millennia of cultivation had gone to the dogs. But this time, it was definitely the biggest shock he had received this year.

Inanimate Gold Stones undergoing Spirit Awakening is many times more difficult than living beings undergoing the same process. Transforming creatures from the phylum Chordata into Demon Soldiers is a very simple matter. During the era when humans and demons mixed, every Transformation Demon underling inevitably had some lower Demon Clan members created through the Enlightenment Technique. Due to the inferior technique of Enlightenment, these Demon Soldiers had a hard time advancing and could only handle chores or serve as cannon fodder. In contrast, enlightening creatures from the phylum Arthropoda was much more difficult. For instance, enlightening an ant would be tens of thousands of times more difficult than enlightening an Ant-Eater. This was not for any other reason but because the "physiological system's complexity" between ants and Ant-Eaters differed by several orders of magnitude.

Spirit Wisdom is the redundancy of a system; without a complex system, it is very difficult for Spirit Wisdom to emerge.

As inorganic beings, the complexity of Gold Stone's physiological system approaches zero, making Spirit Awakening naturally incredibly challenging. Typically, before a stone can undergo Awakening, it must be saturated with Spiritual Power and then after thousands or even tens of thousands of years of fermentation, it will naturally generate a "Soul".

The shattered stones that Wang Qi had just grabbed definitely hadn't fermented to even form a nascent Soul. This means that the process of tens of thousands of years had been condensed into just a few seconds!

Wang Qi was quite pleased with himself, "The life of these things was bestowed by me! It is precisely because of my bestowal that they were able to accelerate this process!"

Primitive unicellular organisms took 4.5 billion years to evolve into humans, but a fertilized egg completes this process in just nine months. This is because the fertilized egg contains genetic information provided by the parents, which encompasses the accumulation of 4.5 billion years and aids the fertilized egg in making a leap across 4.5 billion years.

The most fundamental instinct of life is to pass down the information contained in the genes. Therefore, the essence of life can also be said to be this genetic information.

Wang Qi infused the rocks with his own Soul Power and Holy Light. The unruly Negative Entropy Force of the Holy Light synthesized Wang Qi's Essence Qi into a Negative Entropy System, forming a Soul and ignited the Life Fire in the rocks, bestowing life upon them. And the most basic demonic power of these rocks was also infused by Wang Qi himself. All the Spirit Sense making up this physiological system came from the Spiritually Wise Wang Qi.

Zhen Chan's voice trembled, "How... how did you do this?"

Wang Qi laughed wildly, "This is my new ability, ha ha ha! Now that my fists have awakened new power, if I hit inanimate objects, they can produce other Life Beings. If I hit humans, their thoughts will race ahead, seeing every movement as super slow motion, even their senses! Once I've practiced the Thorny Halo that has a percentage rebound, I can simply poke myself with an arrow! Then... then I will be invincible, ha ha ha!"

"I always feel like you're talking about something else..." Zhen Chan completely didn't understand why Wang Qi was laughing or what he found funny.

Wang Qi stopped laughing and said seriously, "I'm telling the truth."

This brush with death was nothing compared to Wang Qi's greatest gain, which was the breakthrough in Holy Light.

Wang Qi's Holy Light was a Divine Skill that evolved naturally from the Heavenly Calculation Atlas while he was contesting with Entropy-Increasing Outer Demons. Because he was struggling to reclaim his sanity at that time, he inadvertently visualized the light, which transformed his Soul Light. The Light of Visualization, Soul Light, and Mana Radiance integrated to discern Holy Light as more oriented toward the psychic plane. Fundamentally speaking, however, Holy Light was still a variant of Life Flame. This time, in order to purify the Physical Body that had been contaminated by the Hongyuan Divine Power, Holy Light evolved into a substantial white Flame.

"Very close to Life Flame, but not as good as Senior Sister Ai nor Chen Feng. In the end, I only managed to master this Divine Power by a chance coincidence through evolution from the Heavenly Calculation Atlas, whereas they awakened it on their own after comprehending the Essence of Life, which puts my understanding a whole level behind theirs. However, this 'Light Transformation Flame' variation has allowed me to grasp the conversion formula between Holy Light and this white Flame, and I also understood the correct way to use Holy Light."

Holy Light, as a force that leans heavily toward the spirit, definitely isn't best utilized in direct combat but rather, in amplifying Illusion Techniques. Wang Qi even felt that under the enhancement of the Holy Light, he could produce effects similar to Chen Feng's with beginner-level Illusion Techniques—like speeding up perception.

As for the white flames, which skew more toward physical strength, they could be used directly to replace Life Fire.

With the aid of these two Divine Skills, Wang Qi could even Spirit Awaken any being with spiritual nature, turning them into demons!

Of course, what's more important was that Wang Qi had taken another step closer to an "indestructible cockroach physique." Although it wasn't possible to survive in the same manner as the legendary Ai Qinglan, who could live even if her physical body was shattered, minor injuries like a crushed heart could be completely ignored.

After showing off his abilities, Wang Qi then began to direct the newly Spirit Awakened Stone Demons to explore the maze. Since he instilled and created the souls of these Stone Demons, he could also share their vision. He split the Stone Demons into two groups, sending them in opposite directions down the corridor.

Less than a quarter of an hour later, he opened his eyes and said, "This is a dead-end? And the kind close to the very end?"

"You were already a dead man when you came in, so you shouldn't trigger any alarms," Zhen Chan analyzed. "Generally, explorers wouldn't venture too far into a side passage to avoid the risk of encountering more branches within it, complicating the search for an exit. At each junction, a few would go in a few steps, then wait to see if a Guardian makes a move."

"Tsk, tsk, my Strong Luck really lives up to its name, directly bringing me to a safe area," Wang Qi nodded, recalling the Stone Demons and moving them all to the other side. At each junction, he divided the Stone Demons into two groups. Wang Qi initially created around forty Stone Demons, which was as many as he could control simultaneously. Half a day later, all these Stone Demons had entered dead-ends.

Wang Qi did not create new Stone Demons but instead wiped the Seeking Dao Jade, calling up a mapping Path Rank.

"The corners of these mazes are all right angles, and the thickness of the walls and the width of the corridors are also fixed."

"In the end, this maze is just a simple Geometry of 'walls' and 'mazes.' As long as you know a part of the corridor paths, you can know the position of the walls! Some parts are obviously dead-ends because they are enclosed by known parts, and so couldn't possibly have an exit..."

"Navigating a maze doesn't require knowledge of the whole thing, because a large part of it is just 'side paths on side paths,' 'dead-ends on dead-ends.'"

"Knowing this much is enough..."

Wang Qi's right hand frantically danced on the virtual screen, drawing out the map of the maze. Within it, the pathways actually explored by the Stone Demons were outlined by him with solid lines, while those that were not traversed but could be inferred were dotted lines. Lastly, areas that couldn't be confirmed were left blank.

"Very good." Looking at the gradually taking shape maze on the map, Wang Qi started a new round of calculations.

"This is the path. With at most three more explorations using the Stone Demons, I'll be able to find an exit!" (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for it at Qidian (qidian.com), your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com to read.)