novelraw Chapter 501: Adapting to Death
Chapter 501: Adapting to Death
He froze abruptly. Enduring the soul-rending agony, he forced his sluggish mind to laboriously begin turning once more.
“Because… I’ve already died once?”
He recalled that experience in the “Justice” plane.
Faced with the obliteration from an intelligent construct left behind by a ninth-rank existence, he had been utterly powerless. His soul and very being had been completely dismantled.
It was the Substitute Doll he had prepared in advance that activated, pulling him back from absolute death.
“Could it be… because I truly ‘died’ once, the adaptive evolution of the Body-Forging Method… has begun to adapt to the very concept of ‘death’ itself?”
The mere thought sent a chill through him.
He had always known the self-adaptive evolutionary ability of the Body-Forging Method held immense potential. It allowed him to adapt to all kinds of damage, pressure, environments—even mental strain.
But he had never imagined that this adaptability… could possibly extend into the domain of “death”!
If that were truly the case, then his current condition suddenly made sense. Even if he had not yet achieved complete adaptation to death—only partial adaptation—it would still dramatically increase his tolerance for it.
When other wizards suffered inevitably fatal injuries, they would perish outright. The same injury landing on him might only result in “near-death” or “grave injury,” without immediately causing “death.”
Because, to a certain extent, the adaptability of his body and soul had vastly raised the threshold for “death.”
This also explained why, even after his soul had shattered, he could still maintain consciousness—still “live.”
“Body cultivation… in the immortal cultivation world, it’s said to possess the strongest combat power at the same realm… yet all this time I’ve subconsciously treated it merely as a supplementary method to strengthen the body.”
Jie Ming lay pressed against the cold ground. His broken soul trembled in agony, yet his thoughts drifted toward the records of the immortal cultivation world he had read in the Great Dao Book Pavilion.
“But thinking about it now—even cultivators of other systems can enhance their physical qualities through various means. So… what truly sets body cultivators apart at their core, distinguishing them from other cultivators, is precisely this ‘self-adaptive evolution’ ability. Its ultimate form… is to adapt to—even become immune to—‘death’ itself…”
A wave of numbness crawled across his scalp.
In that case, those body cultivation geniuses born into top immortal sects, with vast resources and guidance from seniors, could—under the protection of their sect—repeatedly “experience” death by consuming revival-type secret treasures or pills. They could force their bodies and souls to continually adapt to it.
In the end, they could forge a true monster that “cannot be killed”!
Body cultivators do not fear injury. What they fear is being killed in a single blow before they can adapt to the damage.
If even “being killed in a single blow” could be largely resisted—or even immunized—through prior adaptation…
“Then body cultivation would truly… have almost no weaknesses left.” Jie Ming murmured.
Though he had always raised his psychological estimation of body cultivation combat power, he now realized he had still underestimated it.
“In that case, perhaps I could also… No, the cost is far too high… At least at the current stage, it’s impossible.” He immediately shook his head, dispelling the unrealistic fantasy.
Even the most ordinary Substitute Doll was priced at one hundred billion high-grade military merits on the Star Ring Federation’s exchange list!
An astronomical figure that would drive many sixth-ring wizards to despair.
With his current earning ability, trying to grind “death resistance” this way was nothing but a pipe dream.
Nevertheless, this discovery still held tremendous significance.
At the very least, he now had a far clearer understanding of the potential contained within the Body-Forging Method he cultivated.
Time passed bit by bit amid the agony and wild thoughts.
Several hours went by. Jie Ming remained weakly sprawled on the ground. The soul-searing pain showed no sign of diminishing. Yet gradually, he began to sense something different.
The torment—intense enough to crush an ordinary person’s will—seemed… no longer quite so “unbearable.”
It was not that the pain had lessened.
Rather, under the continuous adaptive evolution of the Body-Forging Method, his “tolerance threshold” had been forcibly raised.
He could still clearly feel every shred of soul-tearing agony, but those pains no longer easily overwhelmed his consciousness.
He attempted—extremely slowly—to move a finger.
It worked.
Then his wrist, his arm. Bit by bit, with excruciating difficulty, he braced against the ground and lifted his upper body away from the surface.
Every tiny movement was accompanied by soul-rending pain. Cold sweat poured out like paste, but he gritted his teeth and, little by little, regained control over this broken body.
“I must… leave immediately…”
Gasping for breath, he staggered to his feet and looked around.
This entire area had been utterly devastated in the earlier battle. Energy fluctuations were chaotically abnormal.
The death of that sixth-ring wizard would absolutely attract the attention of the coalition’s upper echelons.
Pursuers could arrive at any moment.
Yet in his current state, even an ordinary fifth-ring wizard would be enough to take his life.
Jie Ming panted as he tried to gather his shattered mind.
He needed to erase traces, disrupt tracking.
From his cave-heaven he retrieved the wizard artifact inscribed with the Causal Trace Shadow Technique. Mental power slowly flowed toward it according to his will, activating the modified spell.
Then, just as Jie Ming intended to further manipulate the technique…
“Arghhh!!!”
A sudden explosion of pain—like billions of steel needles stabbing simultaneously—erupted from the depths of his soul. He let out a stifled groan; his vision darkened, and he nearly fainted.
The spell model that had just begun to form trembled violently under the disturbance of his mental power, like a candle in the wind, before collapsing and dissipating.
He dropped to one knee. Both hands clawed desperately into the cold ground. His knuckles whitened from the force; cold sweat streamed down his forehead.
“No good… in my current state, I can’t possibly control a spell that requires such precise, continuous manipulation…” Jie Ming gritted his teeth, his face pale as paper.
The Causal Trace Shadow Technique was not a spell that could simply be released and forgotten. It demanded the caster’s ongoing guidance and adjustment to precisely obscure or falsify information flows. It placed extreme demands on computational power and mental focus.
With his soul in its present shattered condition, forcing it would be no different from self-mutilation.
His expression grim, he abandoned the idea of using Causal Trace Shadow Technique to erase traces.
And if Causal Trace Shadow Technique was unusable, Light Form escape was even less feasible.
That required temporarily converting one’s existence—a process that placed the strictest possible demands on soul integrity and control.
Complex, high-computation spatial teleportation spells were even more out of the question.
In the end, he could only pin his hopes on other spells.
With a flicker of will, a specially inscribed rune-seal wizard artifact bearing the [Great Void Step] symbol activated from his cave-heaven and affixed itself to the side of his leg.
The familiar concealment and acceleration force field quietly enveloped his body.
Yet Jie Ming’s heart sank slightly.
Upon careful sensing, it was exactly as he feared: the “deep concealment” effect of Great Void Step—which allowed perfect integration with the environment in a stationary state and deception of ordinary perception—did not fully take effect.