Chapter 150: Dual Cultivation of Dao and Martial Arts

Juno returned to the primary world with a heavy heart.

In Artificial Divine Realm 2055, only Lan Yi remained as the final psionic cultivator.

According to the underlying logic, once Lan Yi also departed, this artificial divine realm would disconnect from the primary world for a very long time, reconnecting only after its civilization had recovered its vitality.

A disconnection was actually a good thing.

The primary world was currently a powder keg.

Two major civilizations, multiple factions, and different social classes were all strung together by psionic cultivators. As the deterrence of conventional firearms gradually diminished, the seemingly minor, acceptable, and hardship-enduring contradictions of the old era were about to be detonated in the most brutal way possible—and that most brutal way was, naturally, war.

The descent of the Conquest Realm essentially meant handing a gun to everyone.

No one cared about the consequences of everyone getting a gun, nor how unpredictable and devastating those guns might be. When holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail. During this turbulent era, people in the primary world harbored more or less internal nails. If their strengths were comparable, how could they call themselves psionic cultivators if they didn't hammer those nails a bit?

They might as well crawl back into the deep mountains and forests to farm.

The previous life had been exactly the same.

Once the psionic cultivators grew powerful enough to ignore firearms, or when their stealth became sufficient, various bloodshed events and even clan-annihilating atrocities began to erupt en masse. To maintain order, the military drove straight into the cities back then, but even so, they could not suppress the increasingly fierce Daoist magic and martial arts of those seeking revenge after tasting blood.

When a single slap, a harsh word, or a hint of suspicion could trigger a tragedy, things went from one extreme to another.

The gentle and moderate nature of the Jianghe River was instantly transformed by the overcorrection into the cruelty of a malevolent stellar demon. To the common folk, a vast multitude of Ah Qs suddenly morphed into the ferocious and bloodthirsty Li Kui.

Revenge became rampant, evolving into rioters thinking, "So what? At worst, I'll just go hide for ten days or half a month."

"Once I run off to the artificial divine realm to grow stronger and return, we can fight again!"

"Let's see who holds out the longest!"

Evidently, Old Devil Lan had been one of them back then.

Psionic cultivators played a massive role in the collapse of the old order. Handing over power to you was considered showing you respect; if you refused to give it, they would simply take it themselves!

This time, with the efforts of the reincarnators, although the general trajectory remained unchanged, the environment should improve significantly. However, one thing was bound to be accelerated: the status of psionic cultivators would rise even faster than in the previous life, elevating them to the ranks of the rulers.

Whether it was war or construction moving forward, neither could do without psionic cultivators.

Regarding construction, Lan Yi's attitude was to ramp it up. Regarding war, his attitude was to accompany them for as long as it took.

Having completed the early eradication of the Southern Abyss tumor, the unification of the Jianghe civilization sphere was a sure thing, an absolute certainty. Even if Lan Yi didn't do it, the dragons and fierce tigers within Jianghe would. To put it bluntly, once power was sufficient, it became the aspiration of the people and the irresistible trend of the times.

Contemplating the upcoming events in the primary world took only a few fleeting thoughts.

Old Devil Lan closed his eyes and plunged once more into the grueling sleep of cutting his own flesh.

During this trial, when he frontally intercepted the crash-landing body of the Masked Ghost Realm, although he snatched a bit of flesh as a medicinal primer, the Conquest Realm did not reduce his reward because of it.

A three-month stay.

Permanent access rights to the sole passageway of Artificial Divine Realm 1909.

These were the rewards bestowed upon Lan Yi by the Conquest Realm.

Every single one of them was urgently needed and immediately useful to him. A three-month stay was roughly the time required for Lan Yi to break through and perfect his ultimate Dharma form; if it took longer than that, it could only mean something had gone wrong with Old Devil Lan's cultivation. As for the permanent access rights to the sole passageway of Artificial Divine Realm 1909, should the psionic cultivators accidentally mess things up and render planet Earth uninhabitable, it would leave the Jianghe civilization with a retreat and a chance to make a comeback.

The Conquest Realm tailored its rewards to the individual.

Its cooperation with Lan Yi had been exceptionally pleasant, and its preferential treatment of Old Devil Lan laid bare its snobbish side.

At this moment, Lan Yi was still cutting his feet to fit the shoes.

Enduring pain, adapting to pain, and growing stronger amidst pain.

Under the scouring of a boundless ocean of mind and spirit—unswayed by love, untempted by hatred, and unterrified by fear—the mold Old Devil Lan forged for himself was akin to the physical instrument of the Iron Maiden. Only through such extreme and stubborn persistence could he rapidly grow stronger while keeping his true self unchanged.

With every instance of cutting his feet to fit the shoes, Lan Yi's self-awareness grew a fraction clearer.

Reflected directly upon his physical being, it meant he had grown stronger. This strength was not a crude enhancement of physical might, but a strengthening of the soul, which directly translated into his martial arts and Daoist magic.

From Lan Yi's perspective, his Daoist cultivation realm was building a heavenly palace, while his martial arts realm was forging a divine Dharma form.

This was an extremely crucial node.

Because past this node, the concepts of Daoist magic and martial arts would no longer conflict; instead, they would converge on the same destination through different paths. Moreover, the might of dual cultivation in both martial arts and the Dao would gradually manifest after this stage. For instance, Lan Yi's earlier double suppression and double nullification were the direct results of this.

Yet this was not the cause, but the effect.

The root of Lan Yi's soaring strength lay in his operational precision.

The precision of his Daoist magic operations in building the heavenly palace had approached the molecular level, while the breadth of his operations in forging the divine Dharma form encompassed light, heat, electromagnetism, gravity, and both strong and weak nuclear forces. Combining the two yielded an utterly exaggerated effect!

To explain it in simpler terms:

Building the heavenly palace gave Lan Yi the eyes to manipulate the world, while forging the divine Dharma form provided him with the tools to manipulate it. In Western fantasy, a capability of this tier would be a divine body; in Xianxia, a flawless Dao body; in sci-fi, a cosmic entity; and among psionic cultivators, it was known as Dao rhythm!

Had that unfortunate individual of the evil god race stayed close by to observe Lan Yi at this moment, it would have been horrified to find that it could no longer see through this human. Sound waves, light waves, gravitational waves, radiation, various particles, and all kinds of microscopic energy fluctuations were being reined in with every round of Lan Yi cutting his feet to fit the shoes.

Neither increasing nor decreasing, neither impaired nor defiled.

Like a gemstone scoured clean through repeated cycles of flesh-cutting, combat, and self-preservation, Lan Yi's soul stood firm. Any transmigrator who laid eyes upon Lan Yi at this moment would turn around and flee instantly without a moment's hesitation, while the Dao rhythm of Luo Qian continued to help him consolidate and devour nourishment.

Crack!

The bracelet on Lan Yi's left hand fractured and fell off.

He no longer needed this trinket to help conceal the Dao rhythm of the Divine Destiny Cluster.

"Well then, beneath my heavenly palace and divine Dharma form, anyone I glance at twice will simply explode," Lan Yi said in a joking tone, exposing the sheer terror of his current state.

Those lagging behind in realm would literally explode the moment he gave them a second look. He could not only suppress the psionic energy within a psionic cultivator's body, but also accelerate their energy depletion and lower the reaction barriers of various energies.

The Myriad Things Vitality Lock, Mana Burn, Dao-Magic Dissolution—he had mastered them all.

Conversely, this meant:

Mind Fire (all-encompassing amplification), Mana Infusion (mana recharge), and Chosen Blessing (Daoist magic amplification).

If the current Lan Yi were to kill the Masked Ghost, the outcome—and life or death—would be decided within three moves.