A Chaotic World

The moment Lu Tianzi took his first step into the boundary of the formation, it was as though the entire world experienced an abrupt change.

With a single glance, Lu Tianzi could immediately tell that within the space marked out by the formation, the flow of energy was completely different from outside of the formation.

World Origin Energy from the surroundings were being constantly absorbed into the formation, then released through the core of the formation and transmitted directly to the red pearl. Facing this constant feeding of World Origin Energy, the red pearl furiously took in everything as though it was a hungry beast devouring its meal!

In fact, the rate at which it was devouring energy was even faster than the speed at which Lu Tianzi extracted wisps of energy from an Essence Stone!

Without a doubt, this red pearl must be a peerless treasure, and this energy gathering formation had been specially put in place to cultivate it to perfection.

But if the formation was meant for gathering World Origin Energy, then that also meant the red pearl was free for him to take!

His heart brimming with excitement, Lu Tianzi immediately rushed forth towards the centre of the formation, his hand reaching out for the red pearl that rested defencelessly on the wooden stand.

But at this time, Lu Tianzi suddenly felt a huge fluctuation of energy around him.

The world around him had experienced yet another abrupt change!

Powerful winds tore through the air, swirling ferociously around the red pearl as if it was consciously guarding the pearl within, not intending to allow anyone near it.

This was definitely not an energy gathering formation!

Hidden within the wider energy gathering formation, there was actually another formation that gave birth to an oppressive wind barrier!

By impatiently rushing forward, Lu Tianzi had unknowingly entered the second formation, and that meant that he had also stepped into the effective range of the wind barrier, causing the howling winds to smash right towards Lu Tianzi!

Seeing that there was no longer any way for him to dodge, Lu Tianzi immediately drove the Spiritual Essence within his inner world, wanting to forcibly withstand the powerful winds.

However, how could his haphazardly formed defence stand a chance against a formation that was carefully set up with the sole purpose of warding off people like him?

Bang-!

The strong winds collided into Lu Tianzi with a loud bang, and his defence was barely able to hold for a moment before crumbling into oblivion.

In the face of the mighty wind barrier, Lu Tianzi was completely helpless!

The impact was so strong that Lu Tianzi was directly repelled from the formation, flung out of even the wider energy gathering formation and finally slamming right into the inner walls of the Treasury.

Damn it!

Why even bother with the two guards outside when there was already such a powerful formation protecting the pearl?

Lu Tianzi cursed under his breath as he struggled back to his feet, a tiny streak of blood escaping from the corner of his mouth.

After standing back on his feet, Lu Tianzi cleaned off the blood on his face before taking a moment to calm his breath and regain his focus.

Driving the Spiritual Essence within his inner world to the extreme, a thin film slowly emerged from his hands, slowly stretching out to cover every part of Lu Tianzi's body as it eventually enveloped him from head to toe.

Materialisation of Spiritual Essence!

Prior to this, the most that Lu Tianzi could do was to envelop his weapon with his materialised Spiritual Essence. However, that was a far smaller surface area as compared to now.

This was the first time that Lu Tianzi had materialised his Spiritual Essence around his entire body as a way of defending his body!

It was only possible because over the past few days of cultivation, the unification rate of the Spiritual Essence particles within his inner world had already reached forty percent.

This meant that he was almost about to hit the fifty percent threshold that would officially qualify him to attack the Essence Condensation realm!

This insane speed of cultivation was only possible because Lu Tianzi had comprehended the second level of the Undulated Currents Breathing Technique, which aided him greatly by simulating the unification of Spiritual Essence particles.

If it had been any other cultivation method, then even if Lu Tianzi had managed to attain a similar level of progress on the cultivation method, the rate at which he unified his Spiritual Essence would definitely not be comparable to his current one!

However, as the unification rate went higher, the difficulty to progress further would only increase exponentially, and thus his rate of cultivation was only going to slow down in the future.

That was only natural as well.

Otherwise, no martial artist would ever stop at just fifty percent unification rate before attempting to break through, and those famed geniuses would definitely not stop at eighty percent unification rate instead of aiming for a complete unification!

But even without considering his future progress, just the current Lu Tianzi had already gained the ability to completely envelop himself with materialised Spiritual Essence.

And this time, Lu Tianzi knew better than to rush blindly towards the red pearl.

Instead, he took one step at a time as he steadily advanced.

With his materialised Spiritual Essence actively strengthening his bodily defence, Lu Tianzi once against stepped in range of the wind barrier.

This time, however, he was prepared for the impact.

Bang-!

The howling winds mercilessly slammed into Lu Tianzi once more!

It was as though his entire body was simultaneously struck by a hundred sledgehammers, and continuously so!

Lu Tianzi gritted his teeth as he endured the hellish punishment, standing firm against the powerful winds that constantly assaulted every fibre of his being.

He had no doubt that the moment his focus wavered by even the slightest bit, the wind barrier would immediately send him flying out of the formation once more.

Boom-!

Lu Tianzi took another step forward, but the wind barrier seemed to be only getting stronger as he advanced!

His body had been nourished by Spiritual Essence over the years, and were now much tougher than a regular non martial artist's. Even so, he could feel that his skin was about to tear under the relentless assault of the wind barrier, and that was despite the protection of his materialised Spiritual Essence.

Even the clothes that he had stolen from the demon guard's corpse were slowly getting shredded up by the wind barrier, with holes starting to appear on the surface.

At this moment, Lu Tianzi realised that he would not be able to go all the way in his current state.

If he wanted to reach the red pearl, then he needed another way to mitigate the impact from the wind!

After a split second's consideration, Lu Tianzi began to drive his Spiritual Essence according to the second level of the Undulated Currents Breathing Technique, trying to align his body's frequency to that of the wind barrier!

The wind barrier was coming at him fast and furious, but Lu Tianzi decided to accept this ferocity, directly assimilating the powerful winds into his inner world!

By doing this, Lu Tianzi was able to divert a portion of the burden to his inner world, slightly relieving his exterior defence that was already on the brink of collapse!

Within him, the movement of Spiritual Essence particles started to grow faster and faster, colliding with each other as energy wildly fluctuated, threatening to explode outwards at any time!

Holding in this wild and chaotic mess of energy within his body was something unthinkable for mere Essence Building realm martial artists. Had it been any other person instead of Lu Tianzi, he would have long lost control over his Spiritual Essence and be directly sent out of the formation by the wind barrier.

However, because Lu Tianzi's body had been strengthened beyond the limits of his cultivation realm, he was able to forcibly withstand the rumbling energy fluctuations within his body, and ultimately remain in control of his inner world.

Step by step, he slowly but steadily advanced as his eyes stayed locked onto the prize.

Just a little more and he would be able to reach the red pearl!

These few moments felt like an eternity, but unknown to Lu Tianzi, this torturous process was actually a painful but rare bout of good fortune for him.

To one who was ready, even the harshest of beatings would only temper his endurance.

To one who was not, even the most luxurious baths could cause him to drown.

This wind barrier was never designed to allow an Essence Building realm martial artist to pass through. By trying to brute force his way through, Lu Tianzi was currently receiving a fierce tempering of both his physical body and inner world.

His body was slowly getting used to the assault of the wind barrier, and it would permanently retain this as its physical memory. In the future when it finally recovered, even if his body would still not be able to withstand such powerful winds on its own, the body tissues would at least grow much stronger than before.

As for Lu Tianzi's inner world, at this moment it was actually starting to take on the properties of the powerful winds. Although it was only temporary, the invasion of the powerful winds had caused the majority of his Spiritual Essence particles to spin like a tornado within his inner world.

This tornado of Spiritual Essence particles was wrecking havoc within Lu Tianzi's body, forcing him to endure a sharp pain as though something was grating him from the inside!

But at the same time, this also meant that majority of his Spiritual Essence particles were now moving in a unified direction!

As long as he could keep his Spiritual Essence particles moving in their current orbits, then Lu Tianzi would be able to obtain a huge boost in his unification rate due to this unexpected tempering.

Lu Tianzi quickly realised this point as well.

Unfortunately, he was not exactly in the position to choose what to do at the moment. Facing the relentless assault of the wind barrier, all he could think of was to get to the red pearl before his endurance ran out!

If he failed to do so, not to mention a boost to his unification rate, he might even suffer a severe backlash and receive heavy internal wounds!

With a final step forward, Lu Tianzi reached out and finally grabbed hold of the red pearl.

Once he felt the cool sensation of the pearl in his hands, Lu Tianzi immediately pulled back, removing the pearl from its resting place on the wooden stand.

The moment the red pearl left its original spot, the world around Lu Tianzi seemed to experience yet another abrupt change!

But this time, it was simply reverting back to before.

The howling winds quickly died down and the energy gathering formation similarly ceased to work, returning the Treasury to a state of peace and quiet, as though the two formations never existed in the first place.

However, the formation flags and drawings on the floor were absolute proof of their existences.

Even without them, just the tattered clothes on Lu Tianzi would be sufficient to remind him of what he just went through.

At this time, Lu Tianzi wanted very much to just collapse to the ground and rest. But he knew that it was a critical period for him.

Lu Tianzi hurriedly sank his perception into his inner world and locked onto the swirling ball of Spiritual Essence particles. At this time, the Spiritual Essence particles that were spinning like a wild tornado were rapidly slowing down.

If left unchecked, it would slowly revert to its previous state of randomness, and Lu Tianzi was not about to let that happen.

The thin film of Spiritual Essence around him vanished as he concentrated all his energy on maintaining his current Spiritual Essence unification rate, forcing it to stabilise rather than revert to its previous state.

It was merely stabilising the current condition of his inner world, and yet the complexity of the matter caused Lu Tianzi to take around ten minutes in a meditative state.

However, stopping for these ten minutes actually served to save him a lot more time in the long run!

Lu Tianzi's current Spiritual Essence unification rate – sixty percent!