Chapter 2: Soul Nourishing Heart (This characteristic's initial intensity will be determined by your soul and heart condition. After mastering it, it can provide benefits based on the robustness of your soul).
Tip: If you choose this characteristic, it will occupy one of your "Supreme Passive Skill Slots," depending on your current soul strength.
……
Two choices: one offers immediate power but with a limited ceiling, the other starts strong but has extremely high potential, tied to soul strength. The choice is clear—don't forget, one of Su Xiao's innate abilities is to enhance soul strength.
[You have chosen "Soul Nourishing Heart." This promotion will continue.]
Surges of soul power churn within his body. Su Xiao feels a sharp pain in his head, as if his soul power is merging with his willpower? Not merging, but a synchronized resonance—mutual state, mutual connection.
An hour later, the enhancement concludes. Su Xiao finally shakes off the headache.
[You have completed this promotion.]
[Your "Soul Strength" attribute will synchronize with your "True Willpower" attribute. This characteristic ensures your "True Willpower" attribute cannot exceed your soul strength. In return, your "True Willpower" attribute will immediately rise to match your soul strength. Subsequently, every time you increase your "Soul Strength" attribute, your "True Willpower" attribute will also increase, achieving perfect resonance.]
[You have mastered the Supreme Passive: Absolute Will (Half-Awakened State).]
[Absolute Will (Half-Awakened State)]
Skill Effect: When facing mental, spiritual, soul-based, or any effects involving illusions, mind control, manipulation, etc., requiring a willpower attribute check, you gain a willpower judgment intensity of +4344 (this judgment intensity is 2172 points of soul strength + 2172 points of true willpower).
Tip: When the combined judgment of your soul strength and true willpower attribute reaches 6000 points, this ability will fully awaken, granting you a 100% compatible "Absolute Will" judgment.
……
[Tip: Due to overlap between your "Absolute Will" ability and the "Immunity to Mental and Spiritual Control" bonus from Blade Grandmaster, this ability has absorbed that characteristic from Blade Grandmaster.]
[Your "Blade Grandmaster: X" has changed.]
[Blade Grandmaster: X (Technique Core Passive)]
Skill Effect: Blade weapon damage rank +1000 (increased by 20), blade weapon slashing force judgment rank +1000 (increased by 20), blade weapon armor-breaking judgment rank +1000 (increased by 20).
Soul Severing Intensity: 60 points (increased by 10 points)…
……
The three basic characteristics of Blade Grandmaster have improved by about 2%, while Soul Severing Intensity has increased by nearly one-fifth.
Overall, this aligns with Su Xiao's earlier estimates. The immunity to mental and spiritual control accounted for roughly 5% of Blade Grandmaster's total strength. Now that this characteristic has been replaced and stripped, the freed-up 5% has naturally been distributed to other aspects.
Although Su Xiao has temporarily lost the immunity to mental and spiritual control, his judgment intensity against such effects has reached +4344.
For now, this may not be as good as outright immunity, but it's more comprehensive. As long as he raises his soul strength to 3000 points and fully awakens his "Absolute Will," it won't just be immunity to mental and spiritual control—other similar abilities will have minimal effect on him.
Moreover, this is a 100% compatible "Absolute Characteristic" ability, impossible to obtain from the Void Tree using an [Immortal Will] scroll. After all, a traded "Absolute Characteristic" ability maxes out at 99.99% compatibility, and such "Absolute Passive" abilities are snatched up the moment they appear in the Void Tree's inventory.
Regarding whether awakening "Absolute Will" allows the use of "Daddy-Level Original Sin Objects," Su Xiao is certain—no. For Daddy-Level Original Sin Objects, losing reverence is a fast track to death.
It's like the Abyss. Su Xiao once single-handedly wiped out an entire Abyss Sprawl Zone, thinking, "The Abyss isn't that dangerous." Many of the dark beasts there resembled common creatures.
But that's when the real danger begins. Remember, the Abyss Sprawl Zone isn't the "Abyss"—it's a dark region created by uncontrolled Abyssal energy surging through an Abyss Passage into a world.
This is like the difference between dark creatures and Abyssal creatures. Dark creatures spawn in Abyss Sprawl Zones (i.e., dark regions of a world), while powerful Abyssal creatures, unless they choose otherwise, rarely approach Abyss Passages.
They're too massive. If someone leaves the Abyss near the Star Realm and ventures deeper, they'd eventually see Abyssal beings so large they dwarf stars. The largest detected Abyssal creature is about one-fifth the size of the Void, fortunately located deep in the Abyss where concepts of matter and even time cease to exist.
At low ranks, one feels insignificant compared to their world, let alone planets, galaxies, and the universe.
At high ranks, one feels their world is small, only to discover the Star Realm—a multi-layered expanse where each world is one of many, each with its own planetary vista.
Yet in the Star Realm's concept, this is just one world's scope. The Star Realm is so vast that even long-lived species can't explore 1% of it in a lifetime.
At the top tier of individual combat power, one feels the Star Realm is vast, but the ceiling isn't as large as imagined—fewer than thirty high-level or transcendent worlds, and the Void above.
But as understanding deepens, beyond the Star Realm's elemental layer lies the boundless Abyss—an endless darkness where colossal entities swim. Their low hum, once it penetrates the elemental layer into a world, drives all life there into mental mutation, distortion, and madness.
This makes Su Xiao consider another possibility: Is the so-called Abyssal Dark Apocalypse really just the elemental layer breaking, allowing Abyssal energy to flood the Star Realm?
If so, when the current Lord of the Abyss commands, would those massive Abyssal entities deep within swarm forward, like sharing a delicacy, to crush and devour the unprotected Star Realm?
Remember, the Abyssal entity one-fifth the size of the Void is just what's been detected. The Abyss is infinite unknown and darkness—there's a high probability of even larger, undetected Abyssal entities.
Ultimately, people have a misconception: the Lord of the Abyss might not want to break the balance and is forced to endure the disruption of the Abyss-element balance.
But consider another possibility: the Star Realm and natural elements actually suppress the Abyss, maintaining the balance. The Lord of the Abyss doesn't need the Star Realm or natural elements. If only the Abyss remained, wouldn't that be better for all Abyssal beings?
In absolute darkness, elemental power would eventually be reborn, as the Abyss and elements never exist alone for long. The question is: can elemental power re-emerge, but can the Star Realm?
Whether the Abyssal darkness fully engulfs the Star Realm or the Abyssal beings destroy it, for Su Xiao, there's no essential difference.
What he must do is advance to the peak and prevent this. Not out of righteousness—he lives in the Star Realm too. If it's destroyed, he dies. So, this must be stopped.
Don't the spellcasters of Arcane Eternal Star know this? Of course they do. Devouring natural elements for overwhelming power is the foundation of Arcane Eternal Star's dominance over the Void.
If they abandon this power source, the Star Realm's major factions, suppressed since the Second Era, would swarm them. So, rather than being besieged and annihilated, they'd rather drag the entire Star Realm into the Abyssal Dark Apocalypse.
A pitch-black ring, its inner darkness seemingly infinite, appears in Su Xiao's hand—[Endless Ring].
[Abyssal Sacrifice (Passive): When you kill an Abyssal enemy, you accumulate "Dark Sacrifice Value." The cap of "Dark Sacrifice Value" depends on this equipment's current rating. You can consume all current "Dark Sacrifice Value" to perform a sacrifice to the Abyss, receiving an Abyssal gift based on the amount sacrificed.
Current Dark Sacrifice Value: 270/270%.]
Su Xiao had previously cleared over twenty Abyss Sprawl Zones, maxing out the "Dark Sacrifice Value." He originally didn't plan to perform an "Abyssal Sacrifice" in this world, both due to threats from the three major factions and because it felt risky.
Now, it's the opposite. For now, there won't be conflicts with the old immortals of major factions, especially the ancient patriarch of the Rune Family, Hatu. No confrontation.
This makes it worth considering trying an "Abyssal Sacrifice" to see what happens. Besides, this equipment is certified by Reincarnation Paradise, and its type clearly states "Buff Equipment." Even if using it is dangerous, it shouldn't be too extreme.
Su Xiao releases the [Endless Ring], letting it float naturally, and chooses to perform the "Abyssal Sacrifice."
A massive amount of "Dark Sacrifice Energy" surges from the [Endless Ring]. It's not a conventional sacrifice—Su Xiao uses this energy as a bargaining chip, sacrificing it to the Abyss. This sacrifice consumes the energy to form a peculiar ritual circle.
This circular, pitch-black ritual circle, like a wound on the world, briefly stabilizes before crystalline chunks of various sizes emerge from within. Then, as if a passage fully opens, various items scatter out until the circle shrinks and vanishes into the air.
[You have obtained 3.52 standard units of Initial State Precipitated Glass (can be sold to the Void Tree, each unit yielding 30,000 Precipitated Glass).]
[You have obtained 7.882 standard units of Ancient Bones (severely decayed, worthless, dangerous, requires sealing).]
[You have obtained an Unknown Abyssal Creature Corpse (highly active state).]
[You have obtained Demon Scythe Eye (Second Era Supreme Demon Scythe Relic).]
……
This "Abyssal Sacrifice" gives Su Xiao the feeling that, through this ritual, he opened a medium-sized sacrificial hole at a random location in the Abyss's depths.
This hole then, based on the amount of "Dark Sacrifice Energy," erupts with a strange suction force. What he gets depends entirely on what's in that part of the Abyss's depths, sucked into the sacrificial hole.
PS: (Tomorrow is Sunday, a day off. Please forgive me, dear readers.)