Cultivation is just so scientific! Chapter 1553: 823: Devour

Li Shiming found himself in a state of bewilderment. He couldn't quite grasp the turn of events; all he'd done was draw out the Spiritual Energy from the Grotto Heaven, yet inexplicably, he'd managed to suck the vitality right out of a half-step Great Power until it perished!

That half-step Great Power proved utterly inadequate. Before long, Li Shiming's subtle maneuvers had sealed his fatal end.

In truth, he'd intended to take a few months to handle the matter of the half-step Great Power.

At this point, the sole remaining concern was that heart demon.

A heart demon confined inside the Grotto Heaven with no means of breaking free posed absolutely no threat against a Heavenly Ghost.

Li Shiming held back the Heavenly Ghost from advancing to consume the heart demon, pondering if the Grotto Heaven itself could be spared.

Regardless of its modest size, this Grotto Heaven marked a vital milestone for any Great Cultivator on the path to half-step Great Power status. Countless Great Cultivators had met their doom without ever forming one.

Yang Xing's Grotto Heaven as a half-step Great Power predated even Half-Life Cave Heaven, serving almost as a prototype for the initial creation of such a realm.

By delving into the secrets of this Grotto Heaven, Li Shiming stood to acquire invaluable insights and resolve numerous challenges.

The details recorded in ancient texts often diverged from actual practice, leaving many hands-on aspects unexplained in mere writings.

To fully command this Grotto Heaven, the matter of the heart demon demanded careful thought. Once devoured, would authority over the Grotto Heaven shift entirely to the Heavenly Ghost?

After some deliberation, he reached a firm conclusion.

Ultimately, the heart demon lurked deep within the Grotto Heaven, and Li Shiming himself lacked the ability to step inside.

This heart demon had sprung from a half-step Great Power's essence. Without the Heavenly Ghost's natural supremacy over such entities, even in the vast Cultivation World, only a full Great Power could hope to vanquish it—no lesser cultivator would stand a chance.

Suddenly, Li Shiming realized his suppressed Nascent Soul had quietly broken free from its bindings.

Evidently, the demise of the half-step Great Power had nullified the seal's hold.

At the same moment, inside a Grotto Heaven belonging to the Yuqing Sect on the West Yan Continent, a silhouette seated in meditative pose amid the emptiness abruptly stirred.

With that stir, roaring thunder and crackling lightning erupted throughout the entire Grotto Heaven, as though he ruled it supreme, and the slightest shift in his presence unleashed its furious backlash.

“Yang Xing has fallen!” He quelled the fury surging from the death of Yang Xing the half-step Great Power, his tone laced with utter astonishment.

As a Great Power within the Yuqing Sect, he had borne witness to the rise and fall of innumerable cultivators, including many who shone as geniuses of their eras.

Still, breaching the threshold into half-step Great Power realm occurred far less than once every thousand years.

Entering the half-step Great Power stage meant facing a perilous trial of life and death; the subsequent leap was to the Mahayana Realm, ascending to the pinnacle of existence in the Cultivation World, with every other route ending in oblivion.

Scarce few half-step Great Powers ever progressed to the Mahayana Realm, which deterred many Great Cultivators from even attempting that critical step, either out of reluctance or sheer terror.

For a mighty force like the Yuqing Sect, their accumulated legacy far exceeded what outsiders could imagine; superpowers like them likely harbored concealed reserves of power.

Yang Xing stood as the Yuqing Sect's most recent breakthrough to half-step Great Power. Given his brief tenure in that rank and the nascent phase of his Grotto Heaven's merging, assigning him a mission carried relatively little risk.

Thus, the Great Power selected Yang Xing, and under such commanding orders, Yang Xing had little recourse but to obey.

Naturally, Yang Xing reaped rewards too; upon mission completion, the Great Power promised extra guidance sessions to deepen his grasp of the heavenly rules, plus a bounty of valuable resources.

From forging a half-step Great Power's Grotto Heaven to solidifying its foundations, an immense stockpile of resources was essential for pushing toward the Mahayana Realm. These treasures held immense worth, directly influencing a half-step Great Power's future heights and prospects.

Though Yang Xing harbored doubts about navigating the Grotto Heaven's initial fusion stage to reach stability, he knew he must stockpile for the resource-heavy phases ahead.

“How could he have fallen?” The Great Power whispered to himself in quiet dismay.

In the Cultivation World, solely other Great Powers possessed the might to eliminate a half-step Great Power.

Yet Yang Xing had ventured to the Dongqi Continent, a place devoid not just of Great Powers but even Peak Great Cultivators. So how exactly had Yang Xing met his end there?

He activated a transmission spell, directing the Yuqing Sect's intelligence network to probe the status of Master Wang He. No sign of Master Wang He's life aura fading meant he remained among the living.

Locating Master Wang He would reveal the full story of events.

Without solid intel, direct intervention stayed out of reach, and he reflected on the swarm of elite cultivators who had perished chasing the ‘Shenxiao Thunder Pearl’ on behalf of the Yuqing Sect.

Now, with half-step Great Power Yang Xing's downfall, the odds of the Yuqing Sect birthing a new Great Power in the coming two or three millennia had plummeted.

The birth of any half-step Great Power hinted at the dawn of a potential Great Power. These figures emerged roughly once every one or two thousand years.

Before a superpower's Great Power reached the end of their lifespan, every extra half-step Great Power bolstered the chances of spawning a new one, sustaining the superpower's bloodline across ages until fresh might arose.

Yuqing Sect's lineage strategy had been flawless, churning out a half-step Great Power every one or two thousand years to guarantee an unbroken chain of Great Powers. Across that array of half-step Great Powers, the likelihood of yielding a true Great Power loomed large.

But losing one—especially the freshest half-step Great Power—threw Yuqing Sect's long-term Great Power blueprint into disarray.