Stuck at Level 99, even though Yun Ming felt that the commonly accepted conditions for breaking through were unreasonable, he still followed the general direction of exploration.
Aside from secretly condensing a divine position, Yun Ming had also raised his spiritual power to the Divine Origin Realm.
Although he didn't possess a spiritual attribute, spiritual power in the Douluo Plane was unrestricted and could break through to the Divine Origin Realm.
Yun Ming's talent in spiritual attributes was slightly inferior to his soul power talent, but this didn't mean his spiritual level couldn't surpass his soul power level. After all, the soul power limit of Level 99 existed because the Douluo Plane's soul master system only went up to Level 99.
With the Seven Forbidden Techniques coordinating essence, energy, and spirit, Yun Ming's advancement in spiritual power wasn't effortless, but it certainly wasn't stagnating either. Especially with the feedback from his insights into the heavens and earth, which served as the best nourishment for his spiritual power.
As he focused, Yun Ming naturally connected with his physical body.
However, his expression soon turned hesitant.
"I can sense it—the flow of time in your space is abnormal. It's much faster than the outside world."
Yun Ming realized why Xu Yuan could cultivate so many side professions without neglecting his main cultivation.
With accelerated time flow, the amount of pure study time required could be minimized.
For four side professions, the time Xu Yuan invested, when converted to real-world time, was even less than what others spent on a single side profession.
"If I unify my consciousness, your space will be forcibly pulled back to match the same time flow as reality," Yun Ming warned Xu Yuan.
Xu Yuan nodded.
"I know. I just wanted to see how much of a time flow difference my dreamscape could maintain."
Yun Ming stopped worrying and directly linked his spiritual core to his physical body, achieving full unification of consciousness.
Instantly, Xu Yuan's face turned pale.
An irresistible force caused the time flow in his dreamscape to slow down, dropping from more than ten times faster than reality to just twice as fast. It didn't stop there—it quickly dropped to 1.5 times and continued decreasing.
Sweat dripped from Xu Yuan's forehead.
He struggled to maintain a minimal time flow difference between the two realms, managing to preserve only a 1.1x difference.
What Yun Ming was doing was fundamentally different from Xu Yuan's usual cultivation state. Xu Yuan split his consciousness into two streams—one for internal learning and one for external physical cultivation—with frequent information exchange between them. But Yun Ming achieved complete unity of consciousness, both within the dreamscape and in the outside world.
This caused Xu Yuan's dreamscape to rapidly synchronize with reality, bringing its time flow back to normal.
Exhausting every ounce of strength, Xu Yuan finally managed to maintain the gap between the two.
He smiled.
It was enough that he could still sustain this difference.
Yun Ming looked at Xu Yuan's smile, somewhat puzzled.
"Teacher, with my efforts, this space is nearing materialization. Perhaps when my spiritual power reaches the Spirit Domain Realm, this space will fully transform into a real, tangible plane," Xu Yuan explained. "However, during this process of transforming illusion into reality, my dreamscape has been heavily influenced by the Douluo Plane's laws, making it overly assimilated with the natural world."
To prevent his dreamscape from being taken over by some opportunistic plane master once it fully materialized, Xu Yuan now needed to differentiate it further.
"Do you need me to continue maintaining this state?"
Yun Ming didn't ask for more details or question why Xu Yuan was wary of the Douluo Plane's influence.
Since Xu Yuan had this need, Yun Ming simply asked if he should maintain this state long-term.
Xu Yuan shook his head.
"No, I've already gotten the hang of it. Now I'll try on my own."
Xu Yuan had grasped the feeling of unifying consciousness to affect both the illusory and real spaces.
Following this sensation, he could consciously begin reshaping his dreamscape.
Of course, relying solely on this feeling wouldn't make the transformation efficient.
But Xu Yuan didn't trouble Yun Ming further.
Primarily, he wanted to explore this high level of soul unity on his own.
By using this sensation, he could reverse-engineer it to work on merging his multiple streams of consciousness, indirectly refining his spiritual power.
---
At the same time, this was another form of training for his soul skill.
Xu Yuan's brain martial soul had two soul entities. Yao Yao provided him with three soul rings, and Huan Xing also provided three soul rings.
Among the three soul skills granted by Huan Xing, the fourth was actually a passive ability that allowed his consciousness to split, forming multiple independent branches within a single brain.
Xu Yuan had developed numerous uses for this soul skill. For example, he initially used it to simulate multiple brains in his spiritual sea, easily achieving multitasking. Later, he combined it with his dreamscape, directly manifesting an illusory brain within the dreamscape to host one of his divided consciousness streams.
Even in offensive applications, Xu Yuan could leverage the multi-consciousness and multi-source nature of his spiritual power to develop abilities like mental chaos.
However, this soul skill caused his consciousness to split too often, leaving his spiritual power feeling perpetually scattered.
At least, that's how Xu Yuan felt.
Compared to his soul power and blood energy, his spiritual power lagged significantly.
Despite his brain martial soul being inherently spiritual-focused, his spiritual power performance remained mediocre.
After this experience, he now had a clear direction—reforming his dreamscape while indirectly consolidating his spiritual power and refining his consciousness. This would resolve his issue.
"Teacher, about the crisis you mentioned earlier…"
Only now did Xu Yuan bring up the crisis he had previously ignored.
Yun Ming's gaze grew heavy.
He didn't intend to explain further.
However, Xu Yuan "guessed" on his own.
"Are they evil soul masters?"
Yun Ming sighed and nodded.
"Evil soul masters… they've acquired something that threatens our Shrek Academy?" Xu Yuan said hesitantly, his brows furrowed.
Yun Ming nodded again, confirming Xu Yuan's "guess."
"Evil soul masters…" Xu Yuan took a deep breath.
He had known about this crisis long ago, but he still pretended to guess, giving himself the opportunity to propose suggestions to Yun Ming.
His mind was somewhat chaotic.
The fact that Yun Ming was holding back for fear of repercussions showed the obvious threat posed by the evil soul masters—they had obtained two Godslayer Missiles.
In the end, they had succeeded in acquiring them.
Still, it was somewhat relieving that the academy was aware and could actively respond.
"Teacher, if you hadn't intervened, would the academy have been destroyed?"
Yun Ming remained silent, offering no response.
There was no way he wouldn't intervene.
"I think I might know what the evil soul masters have acquired," Xu Yuan said after pondering for a moment.
Yun Ming looked at Xu Yuan in surprise.
"Level 12 Godslayer Missiles."
"You know about the Godslayer Missiles?" Yun Ming's surprise quickly turned to understanding.
Xu Yuan's father was Xu Zhi.
Even though Xu Zhi had left when Xu Yuan was very young, given Xu Zhi's connections, it was possible he knew about the existence of the Godslayer Missiles and casually left some hints behind.
"The fact that evil soul masters managed to obtain the Godslayer Missiles…" A deep sadness and disappointment appeared on Xu Yuan's face.
------------------------------------------------------
40+ Chapters Ahead Guaranteed: patreon.com/EphemeralShadow
There's something for free patrons too! Free Patrons receive 1 chapter in advance :)