I Arrived At Wizard World While Cultivating Immortality

Chapter 396: Ascension — Spirit Transformation Stage

At the core of the Infernal Sulfur plane, within the central array of the Incense Fire Divine Dao, time seemed to lose all meaning.

Jie Ming’s consciousness did not fully immerse itself in polishing his cultivation; instead, it frequently drifted into his mind-space, lingering before the towering jade-like edifice of the Great Dao Book Pavilion.

At this moment, his consciousness-body sat cross-legged before the pavilion, cradling a simple cyan notebook warm to the touch.

Unlike most of the pavilion’s tomes that recorded divine abilities and cultivation methods, this notebook was unadorned.

Its cover bore no title—only a faint line of ink that seemed ready to fade at any moment: Miscellaneous Records of Seeking the Dao · On Realms.

It was not a cultivation technique, nor a heaven-defying secret art; it felt more like the idle reflections of an unknown senior tracing the origins of their path.

Yet Jie Ming read with rapt fascination, for the notebook explored the essential origins of each major realm in the immortal cultivation system.

Combining the text with his own experiences, his thoughts rose and fell like waves.

“The desire for immortality is the beginning of the Dao.”

So began the notebook, stating its thesis plainly. It held that the creation and division of every major realm on the path of immortality stemmed not from the pursuit of world-shattering power, but from living beings’ most primal, most fervent longing for eternal life.

The earliest stage, Qi Refinement—or in even more ancient terms, “Refining Qi”—arose when the ancients discovered a substance in heaven and earth called “Qi” (Spiritual Qi) that could nourish life, delay aging, and bestow extraordinary strength.

Thus they devised methods to absorb and refine it, thereby transcending mortal lifespan.

Yet mere Qi refinement progressed slowly and had a high barrier to entry.

Countless people spent their entire lives without achievement, wasting their years in vain.

Thus, peerless geniuses proposed uniting the three treasures of the human body—essence, qi, and spirit—to build a foundation, allowing the three to support one another.

This made the path of cultivation steadier and more efficient, giving far more people the chance to touch immortality.

Thus was born the Foundation Establishment stage.

Yet even Foundation Establishment cultivators, though granted longer lives, still faced inevitable limits.

Seeing their end approaching and the immortal path still distant, predecessors blazed new trails: since the mortal flesh would eventually age and decay, why not refine all one’s essence to its utmost, condensing it into an indestructible, eternally enduring Golden Core?

With this Golden Core as the center, one could break free from the shackles of bodily decay.

Thus the Golden Core stage came into being.

With an undying body, immortality seemed achieved.

Yet cultivators soon discovered that bodily eternity did not guarantee eternal soul or self; the soul that represented “I” would still decay with time.

The goal of immortality remained unfulfilled.

Thus the pursuit continued.

How to make the “self” harder to destroy?

The ancients fused “spirit”—representing soul and consciousness—with the immortal “essence” (the Golden Core), giving birth to the Nascent Soul.

The Nascent Soul was the condensed essence of a cultivator’s life and consciousness. From this point onward, cultivators completely transcended the constraint of lifespan.

At the Nascent Soul stage, the simple desire for longevity seemed provisionally satisfied.

But… people die when they are killed.

Even the wondrous Nascent Soul was not invincible.

To truly safeguard this hard-won fruit of immortality in a world full of danger, to prevent others from easily taking their lives, the primary aim of cultivation after Nascent Soul quietly shifted—from pursuing longevity to seeking the power to protect the Dao.

The Spirit Transformation stage was born from this need.

The core of “Spirit Transformation” lay in using every available internal and external force to dramatically enhance recovery, survivability, and combat power—making oneself far harder to kill.

To achieve Spirit Transformation, one had to take the three treasures—essence, qi, and spirit—that were initially united in Foundation Establishment but later skewed toward Golden Core and Nascent Soul, and perform a complete, perfect reunification and sublimation at a higher level of existence.

Moreover, since Spirit Transformation cultivators already possessed near-infinite lifespan, they had ample time to delve deeply into arts of combat and protection, and to explore the deeper “principles” of heaven and earth.

In wizard terms, they began systematically and profoundly researching “laws.”

“Thus, the Spirit Transformation stage is fundamentally a realm dedicated to enhancing combat and survival capabilities while laying a solid life foundation for deeper exploration of the Great Dao (laws),” Jie Ming concluded, closing the notebook. Cyan light flowed back into the pavilion as his consciousness-body revealed a look of deep emotion.

Indeed, every mature power system bore the deep imprint of the culture and core desires of the civilization that birthed it.

The immortal cultivation civilization arose from the ultimate pursuit of individual “longevity and vision of eternity,” “freedom between heaven and earth.” Each realm’s evolution revolved tightly around extending lifespan and protecting that longevity.

Every step brimmed with exploration of life’s essence and obsession with continued existence.

In contrast, the wizard civilization originated from an infinite thirst for knowledge and truth.

To acquire more knowledge and understand the world’s essence, they needed stronger perception, computational power, and the ability to interfere with reality.

Thus, wizard rank advancement focused more on qualitative leaps in mental strength, upgrades to computational architecture, and efficiency in analyzing and applying specific laws.

That was why third-ring wizards already possessed the basic perception needed to study laws.

Yet in terms of lifespan, even sixth-ring wizards—if they did not regularly take longevity potions or undergo bio-modifications—had quite “limited” lives.

Different starting points, different paths, vastly different ways of wielding power.

Wizards and cultivators of the same tier might possess similar total energy or destructive force, yet their internal logic and expressions differed like night and day.

Yet fascinatingly, when these two paths reached their extremes—whether immortal cultivators becoming true immortals or wizards reaching eighth- or ninth-ring—they faintly pointed toward similar endpoints.

“Truly… different roads leading to the same goal, yet each with its own splendor.” Jie Ming’s consciousness-body slowly dissipated, returning to reality.

Within the central array, Jie Ming, seated cross-legged, slowly opened his eyes.

Starlight seemed to swirl within his pupils before settling into serene clarity.

The earlier reading and reflection had been like a clear spring, washing away the slight tension accumulated from long research and breakthrough preparation.

It gave him a clearer, more essential understanding of the Spirit Transformation realm he was about to enter.

At this moment, he clearly felt his internal state had reached perfect harmony and completion; essence, qi, and spirit resonated in exquisite balance at a delicate critical point.

The Nascent Soul in his dantian glowed softly, eager and ready.

The Ring of Truth spun steadily in his sea of consciousness, providing powerful spiritual backing.

The body tempered by the Body Forging Art was like a drawn bowstring, brimming with surging power.

The moment had come; everything was ready.

“The time is right. Then… let us begin.”

Jie Ming murmured to himself, closed his eyes, and sank his mind into his dantian, beginning to circulate the profound method recorded in the Qi Refinement Art specifically for breaking through from Nascent Soul to Spirit Transformation.

There were no heaven-shaking phenomena, no painful struggle.

Under the command of a fourth-ring wizard’s immense spiritual force, the entire process was unimaginably smooth—like gently pushing open a door that had long been ajar.

Within his dantian, the Nascent Soul that looked identical to him began to slowly “grow.”

Yet this growth was not mere increase in size, but an essential “diffusion” and “fusion.”

The Nascent Soul’s radiance grew ever brighter while its form became increasingly translucent, gradually transforming into a chaotic yet brilliant mass of spiritual light.

This light did not leave the dantian. Instead, like mercury spilling across the ground or spring sun melting snow, it flowed in reverse along predetermined meridians and vessels, spreading upward.

It re-fused, at the deepest level, with every inch of Jie Ming’s flesh, every bone, every cell.

Not the Nascent Soul leaving the body, but spirit and form achieving perfect unity on a higher dimension.

An indescribable sense of “wholeness” filled Jie Ming’s entire being.

It was as though the invisible, microscopic barrier that had always existed between Nascent Soul and body had been utterly shattered.

Before, though he could command his Nascent Soul as easily as his own limbs, it still required conscious effort.

Now, he was the Nascent Soul, and the Nascent Soul was he.

Essence, qi, and spirit reached an unprecedented harmony and unity—circulating endlessly, generating life without cease.

The already ocean-vast spiritual power within him seemed infused with new vitality and spirituality, flowing with even greater smoothness and freedom.

Recovery speed became astonishing: with a mere thought, depleted spiritual power could be replenished by madly absorbing ambient energy through every pore or instantly regenerated from internal circulation.

An illusion of “near-infinite spiritual power” arose spontaneously.

The raw quantity of mental strength, fixed by his wizard rank, did not explode due to the cultivation breakthrough.

Yet Jie Ming keenly sensed that his precision of control and efficiency of application had leaped several tiers.

Operations that once required utmost caution now felt as natural as moving a finger.

The breadth, depth, and speed of his thinking had all markedly improved.

Direct physical enhancement was not particularly pronounced—after all, the Body Forging Art had long forged his body far beyond peers.

But that feeling of “perfect roundness,” “inner and outer unity,” seemed to raise his body’s defense, recovery, and adaptive evolution against all forms of damage to new heights.

The change that delighted Jie Ming most, however, occurred on the level of cognition.

His mind became extraordinarily clear and calm. Difficult problems from past research now yielded insights from new angles with just a little thought—sometimes even direct answers.

His perception of the surroundings reached an entirely new realm.

He no longer needed to actively cast spells; through mere sight, hearing, touch, even the most basic sense of “presence,” he could vaguely “see” the flow of elements in the air, the paths of energy veins, the minute vibrations of material structures…

It was as though all things in existence were “speaking” to him of the principles governing their operation.

With a thought, his gaze fell upon a cup of ordinary water he had prepared beside the array.

No incantation, no spellcasting, not even an obvious energy fluctuation.

He simply “thought” of making the water disappear.

The next instant, in Jie Ming’s perception, the most fundamental material particles composing the water—the primal “earth” elemental base state in wizard theory—had their activity “dialed down” by an invisible force.

Not alchemical decomposition and conversion, but something closer to… temporarily shifting from an active state of existence toward stillness or dissipation.

The cup remained in his hand, yet the water within had been erased as though by the most masterful eraser—silently vanishing.

No steam, no residue, as if it had never existed.

“The threshold for manipulable elemental activity has dropped dramatically… So this is the preliminary application of ‘Dao’ when fourth-ring wizardry combines with Spirit Transformation? It shares the same wonder as wizard law manipulation, yet approaches from the essence of ‘existence’ and ‘change’…” Marvelous light flashed in Jie Ming’s eyes.

He immediately tested his commonly used observation spell: All-Purpose Eye.

When activated, this spell collected every observable datum within range without omission.

Energy spectra, material composition, microscopic structures, life fluctuations, even the faintest spiritual remnants—the volume of information was staggering.

Previously, even after reaching fourth-ring and vastly increasing his mental strength, Jie Ming could only maintain All-Purpose Eye’s effective radius at four or five meters around himself.

Beyond that, the flood of raw, unprocessed data would overwhelm his consciousness and cause “mental crash.”

Now, All-Purpose Eye activated silently.

Hum…

The familiar torrent of information poured in.

Yet what Jie Ming felt was not burden, but effortless reception and sorting.

With a mere thought, the observation range rippled outward like water.

Five meters, eight meters, ten meters… twelve meters!

Everything within a twelve-meter radius lay completely within his “eye”!

Moreover, the fineness and dimensionality of information processing far surpassed before.

He could “see” the dynamic balance of faith power and Spiritual Qi conversion within the Incense Fire Divine Dao energy network.

He could “see” the slow isotopic decay of several inert elements deep within the rocks beneath his feet due to prolonged geothermal heat.

He could “see” the extremely subtle polarization phenomena of different attribute elemental energies in the air caused by the plane’s characteristics…

This was no longer mere observation; it approached omniscient insight.

Jie Ming had no doubt that the current precision and processing power of All-Purpose Eye alone could replace most standard laboratory instruments for routine material and energy analysis!

“Spirit Transformation… so this is the benefit of unifying all power.” Jie Ming slowly withdrew the spell, a sincere smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

Sublimation of life, leap in cognition, the first manifestation of ability to interfere with the world’s essence.

This was not merely an increase in combat strength; it was a tremendous leap in his capacity as a researcher to explore truth.

He slowly rose, feeling the new power flowing endlessly within him—perfectly unified, whole and complete—and turned his gaze toward the depths of the Incense Fire Divine Dao network.

Spirit Transformation achieved; the road ahead lay wider still.

It was time to put all the theories and insights accumulated over the years into practice.