Chapter 954: Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness
The remaining consciousness of the Imperial Emperor retreated, quickly vanishing without a trace, leaving only a cold snort behind.
Qin Mu paid it no mind. The Imperial Emperor was, after all, the Imperial Emperor—the foremost master of consciousness throughout the ages. Being able to capture a sliver of his consciousness was already quite an achievement.
Consciousness was thought and awareness, tied to memory. His goal was merely to obtain from the Imperial Emperor's consciousness the supreme and unrivaled method for cultivating consciousness: the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness.
He lacked the ability to completely refine the Imperial Emperor. The consciousness left behind was merely the tip of the iceberg, a single hair from nine oxen.
If he could refine this portion of the Imperial Emperor's consciousness and obtain the cultivation method for the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness within it, that would be an immense stroke of luck!
Summoning the Imperial Emperor's consciousness using the Imperial Emperor Seal and the altar had been a crisis for him. But within a crisis, there is both danger and opportunity. To navigate the danger and seize the opportunity—that was what a wise person should conceive and accomplish.
Many people, when facing a crisis, only see the danger and try to avoid it, forgetting that a crisis has two sides. While avoiding danger, they often miss the opportunity.
Qin Mu, joining forces with others to force back the Imperial Emperor and capture a portion of his consciousness, had managed to rise to the challenge and seize the opportunity.
Yue Tingge and Luo Wushuang, seeing the Imperial Emperor's consciousness retreat, also flew out of his divine repository.
Qin Mu thanked them both. Shu Jun also returned to the Primal Chaos Divine Stone. Qin Mu's consciousness descended, and he expressed his gratitude to him as well.
"This concerns your life and death, but it also concerns mine. No thanks are necessary."
Inside Shu Jun's massive head, his two eyes bounced around in their sockets, and he chuckled, "If you feel bad about it, then provide me with more consciousness and blood energy to help me recover my ears, mouth, and nose!"
Qin Mu laughed heartily. "Rest assured, Lord Jun, I will grant your wish!"
Shu Jun sneered, "What Lord Jun? Though I am one of the Three Primordial Kings, my people do not call me Lord Jun, but Divine King Shu Jun! You should address me as Divine King! You've captured a part of the Imperial Emperor's consciousness, but do you know how to refine his consciousness and extract the memories within? If not, then offer me more blood energy and consciousness to help restore my brain. This deal isn't a loss for you, is it?"
Qin Mu frowned and proposed, "How about this: you teach me how to refine the Imperial Emperor's consciousness, and I will impart the information from his consciousness to you. Don't you want to obtain the Imperial Emperor's Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness? Wouldn't that be a better deal?"
Shu Jun was greatly tempted. After a moment's thought, he said, "This proposal isn't bad. My Three Enclosures Supreme Consciousness is very powerful, but it's still slightly inferior to the Imperial Emperor's Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness. However, the reason the Imperial Emperor became the Imperial Emperor wasn't solely due to the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness. Countless clansmen visualized him, aiding his cultivation..."
Qin Mu coaxed him gently, "If the Imperial Emperor's consciousness contains the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness, I will surely impart it all to you without reservation! After Divine King Shu Jun is reborn and possesses the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness, becoming another Imperial Emperor is only a matter of time!"
Shu Jun laughed. "It's a deal!"
"It's a deal!"
Shu Jun was overjoyed. "This kid is rarely this straightforward! Hehe, the Imperial Emperor's Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness is far superior to my Three Enclosures Supreme Consciousness. This fool has no idea how much he's losing out... Wait a minute!"
His two large eyeballs blinked, and he suddenly realized, "If I restore my brain, I can take the opportunity to seize his physical body, erase his consciousness, and then slowly refine the Imperial Emperor. Wouldn't that be better? I teach him the refining method first. Even if the Imperial Emperor's consciousness he's imprisoned contains the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness, I don't have a brain to cultivate it... I've been tricked!"
The massive head bounced furiously on the altar, its two eyeballs hopping around, shouting, "You little brat, you dare toy with the Divine King! You're dead, I tell you, you're dead!"
Qin Mu smiled. "Is Divine King Shu Jun, one of the Three Primordial Kings, going to break his promise and grow fat?"
After a moment, Shu Jun finally calmed down. He kept his word and still taught Qin Mu the method for refining consciousness and obtaining the memories within, though he was extremely displeased.
The method he taught Qin Mu was also a consciousness divine ability, called Pacing the Heavens to Transform Consciousness.
After learning Pacing the Heavens to Transform Consciousness, Qin Mu immediately set about modifying it. Shu Jun was long accustomed to this; after all, no matter what Qin Mu learned from him, he would modify it, and Shu Jun could never raise any objection.
Once Qin Mu finished modifying Pacing the Heavens to Transform Consciousness, he eagerly went to refine the Imperial Emperor's consciousness.
Pacing the Heavens to Transform Consciousness was a divine ability within the Three Enclosures Supreme Consciousness technique. It required mobilizing the seventy-eight constellations and three hundred and twenty-eight star lords of the Three Enclosures Supreme Consciousness. The constellations and stars would shift and move, and the three hundred and twenty-eight star lords would pace the heavens, moving stars and swapping constellations, causing the stars and constellations to operate according to a peculiar pattern.
With each movement, a powerful refining force would be generated, refining the enemy's consciousness and claiming it as one's own.
The memories within the enemy's consciousness would be refined, transforming into information that surged into one's own mind, without altering one's own thinking. It was equivalent to providing nourishment for one's own consciousness.
This avoided the result of being assimilated by the other's consciousness and also allowed one to refine the other's consciousness to enhance one's own consciousness cultivation.
Pacing the Heavens to Transform Consciousness was a divine ability created by the Primordial Era Creators against other Creators. Battles between Creators were frequent in the Primordial Era, so how to eliminate enemies became a subject of study for the Creators of that time. However, the divine abilities of that era were vastly different from those of the present age, and for Qin Mu, it was still an unfamiliar field.
In his Embryonic Divine Repository, he activated Pacing the Heavens to Transform Consciousness, beginning with the refinement of the Imperial Emperor's consciousness trapped in the Celestial Vase. Instantly, a flood of chaotic information surged in. Various images appeared in Qin Mu's mind—it was the Imperial Emperor's memory stream!
He immediately discarded the dross and selected the essential, searching for useful things from the Imperial Emperor's memory stream, directly obliterating what he didn't need.
The Imperial Emperor's consciousness contained far too much. Simply the memories of the Primordial Era encompassed countless pieces of information.
Qin Mu frowned deeply. Among these memory streams, memories related to the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness were extremely scarce. There were, however, many fragments of consciousness divine abilities, but they were only fragments, not complete abilities.
His consciousness strength, however, was rapidly increasing, growing stronger and stronger, even many times faster than when he cultivated the Three Enclosures Supreme Consciousness on his own!
By the time the Imperial Emperor's consciousness in the Celestial Vase was completely refined, Qin Mu had only obtained a short passage of the technique from the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness.
He was still unwilling to give up. He refined the remaining Imperial Emperor's consciousness, and his consciousness cultivation grew even stronger.
This time, the memories concerning the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness finally increased.
Qin Mu breathed a sigh of relief and immediately began organizing the chaotic information, trying to piece together the technique for the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness.
The biggest difference between the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness and the Three Enclosures Supreme Consciousness lay in the difference in visualization. The Three Enclosures Supreme Consciousness visualized seventy-eight constellations and three hundred and twenty-eight star lords, while the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness visualized as many as three hundred and sixty-five constellations and nearly two thousand star lords!
The sheer number even surpassed Qin Mu's understanding of star lords!
Currently, the Heavenly Court only had three hundred and sixty star lords, yet the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness mentioned nearly two thousand star lords. What did this mean?
"Are there so many ancient gods in the world? Where did the ancient gods in the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness go?"
Qin Mu pondered for a moment. The current number of ancient gods was far less than the number recorded in the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness. Was it possible that, at some point in time, there really were two thousand ancient gods in the world?
"Most of these ancient gods are probably dead."
Qin Mu set this matter aside and continued organizing the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness. Besides the number of star lords, the visualization techniques of the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness were also superior to those of the Three Enclosures Supreme Consciousness.
The Three Enclosures Supreme Consciousness arranged the Supreme Enclosure, Purple Forbidden Enclosure, and Heavenly Market Enclosure within the Primal Chaos Divine Stone or the Primal Stone, while the visualization of the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness was spread throughout every part of the physical body, making the entire person resemble a cosmic starry sky!
Cultivating this method meant that every corner of the physical body housed a deity!
The space between the eyebrows housed the Purple Forbidden gods and the Heavenly Emperor, the energy sea housed the Return to Void Two Gods, the elixir field was the Earth Mother, the Yongquan acupoint was the Earth Lord, and the spine was the thirty-three heavens and the stars of the celestial realms!
"No wonder Shu Jun praised the Imperial Emperor, calling him the strongest physical body in history. With this cultivation method, it would be hard for the physical body not to be strong. I wonder who has the stronger physical body between the ancient god Heavenly Emperor and the Imperial Emperor?"
The Imperial Emperor's consciousness in his Embryonic Divine Repository was completely refined. Qin Mu frowned, only then realizing that the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness was different from the Creator techniques he had imagined.
The Imperial Emperor's Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness was actually a technique from the Divine Repository cultivation system and the Heavenly Palace cultivation system!
The Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness he had obtained was incomplete, missing the techniques for the Seven Star Divine Repository and the Human Immortal Divine Repository. Furthermore, after cultivating the Heavenly Palace realm, the techniques for the realms after Jade Capital were missing!
"The Imperial Emperor modified the technique!"
Qin Mu's mind buzzed, feeling as if he had gathered all his strength to throw a punch, only to hit nothing but air.
If it were the original Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness, he could have used the original technique, integrated it with his own Embryonic Divine Repository, and modified and perfected it to make it suitable for himself.
However, after the Imperial Emperor integrated the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness with the Divine Repository and Heavenly Palace cultivation systems, its usefulness to him was greatly diminished.
Because he only had one Embryonic Divine Repository, and he didn't even have a Heavenly Palace!
The usefulness of this technique to him was negligible.
He imparted the incomplete Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness to Shu Jun. Shu Jun was also stunned for a moment, but he still began to study it seriously.
Qin Mu was puzzled and asked, "Divine King Shu Jun, you are one of the Three Primordial Kings. Why do you still need to learn the Divine Repository and Heavenly Palace cultivation system? The modified Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness is of little use to me, and it's completely useless to you!"
"Little brat, do you think that after I am reborn, I will still walk the path of consciousness visualization?"
Shu Jun shook his head, his two eyeballs flying out of their sockets and bouncing around. One eye said, "If I still walk the path of consciousness visualization, I will be alone against the knowledge and achievements of all living beings over a million years. I will still end up like the other Creators, eliminated by the times, eventually causing the Creators to go extinct."
The other eye laughed, "After I am reborn, I will learn your cultivation system and integrate it with the Creators' consciousness visualization methods. This way, even if it's not the complete Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness, my achievements will not be much inferior to the Imperial Emperor's."
Qin Mu was stunned.
Shu Jun's two eyes activated their consciousness, continuously evolving and deducing the mysteries of the Supreme Unsurpassed Divine Consciousness. He continued, "I entered your divine repository and discovered that your divine repository is incompatible with the Imperial Emperor's technique, lacking many divine repositories. You have probably carved out a unique path for yourself, but you are trapped on your own path. There is no road ahead, and you don't know how to proceed."
Qin Mu nodded.
Shu Jun had pointed out his pain point.
He had opened the Embryonic Divine Repository and used it to evolve the universe and the primordial chaos. However, the development of the Embryonic Divine Repository would eventually reach its limit. Earlier, he had already exhausted the potential of the Embryonic Divine Repository. It was only after obtaining the Primal Chaos Primordial Liquid from Earth Mother Yuan Jun that he managed to stimulate some of its potential.
Nevertheless, the Embryonic Divine Repository truly had no more potential to tap into.
Recently, especially, he felt that his magical power had reached its peak, the limit of what the Embryonic Divine Repository could achieve. His primordial energy cultivation was equivalent to that of a True God, but this was also the limit of the Embryonic Divine Repository.
That was why he had been working so hard on consciousness, hoping that a stone from another mountain could polish his jade, trying to break free from his current predicament.
He had never clearly figured out how to proceed on the path ahead.
He wanted to carve out a new path based on the Embryonic Divine Repository, but where was this path, and where did it lead? He had never had a concrete idea.
Yet, in a hazy way, he felt that the end of that path might be a wondrous realm, a realm that flowed with the Dao, unspeakable and indescribable.
Shu Jun said, "If I were you, I would open a Heavenly Palace."
Qin Mu humbly sought advice, bowing and saying, "Please enlighten me, Divine King."
— Let me tell you an embarrassing story about Zhai Zhu. A couple of days ago, I went to Beijing for a meeting. Night Cat, the moderator, and a few patrons invited me for tea. The tea house was 1.5 kilometers from the hotel.
So, I got lost. It took me about an hour and a half to find the tea house. After only a few words of conversation, I had to rush to catch the high-speed train. Night Cat and the others insisted on seeing me to the train station and only dared to leave after watching me enter the station. I think they were worried I might get lost again...