Moving away from the conflict between the two sides, Chen Feng had already moved himself into the Longevity Tower.
Tower had decided to take action.
The broken sword and the will of the world kept exchanging blows, destroying the areas around it. The destroyed area covered a radius of up to several thousand li. And yet, the word exhaustion seemed to be a foreign concept for the two sides as they kept on unleas.h.i.+ng stronger blows.
Both believed that the other side was challenging its dignity. At the same time, however, both were also existences without the ability to think properly. The broken sword"s artefact spirit had already disappeared. It could only rely on whatever spiritual attributes, imprints and instincts left within it to fight.
As for the will of the world, it was the laws of the world given form. It would automatically bring down the suppressive might of Heaven whenever it sensed a threat to its existence.
The two sides fought for a long and indeterminate amount of time. Finally, the sword light s.h.i.+ning out from the broken sword abruptly faltered before slowly growing weak.
“All right, it"s time.” After Tower said that, the entire s.p.a.ce shook violently. It was as though an erupting volcano had appeared all of a sudden. A grand and unstoppable aura promptly erupted through the world.
The towering Longevity Tower had appeared. The sky froze and all the sword beams and sword intent dispersed into nothingness and tranquillity returned to the place.
Sensing the aura coming off the Longevity Tower, the incomparably sharp broken sword released a wail of both dread and panic.
The lofty aura that the Longevity Tower was releasing had instinctively brought the broken sword feelings of fear and submission.
Kacha! Kacha! Kacha! Kacha!
Due to the Longevity Tower"s appearance, however, a change happened to the laws of the world there. The aura from the Longevity Tower caused that part of the world to begin failing.
This was not due to an attack from the Longevity Tower. Rather, it was simply due to the existence of the Longevity Tower"s innate, essence power. It was something that stood on a higher level than this world.
s.p.a.ce cracked open. Next, various tribulation powers and even void storms poured in through the cracks.
“Urgh!”
Chen Feng, who was inside the Longevity Tower, quickly closed his eyes. Later, he even retracted his mind and cut off his link with the Longevity Tower. A clash of this level was not something the present Chen Feng could bear witness to, not even with the protection of the Longevity Tower.
Neither the laws of this world nor the broken sword were existences that the Longevity Tower could easily take care of, after all.
A fierce battle would certainly entail in the attempt to collect the broken sword. Additionally, success or failure was still up in the air.
Weng!
The 100,000 great magic arrays within the second floor of the Longevity Tower began operating as well. However, all of them were broken and not even 0.1% of their full power could be brought to bear.
Looks like Tower is going all out as well. Hopefully, he can succeed. After integrating with this broken sword, he should be able to restore part of his strength, no? Chen Feng thought.
Sou! Sou! Sou! Sou! Sou!
The Longevity Tower had nine levels and the eaves on each level fired out a thick chain to instantly wrap around the broken sword.
Tower"s plan was obvious. He would first put the broken sword into the Longevity Tower, utilizing the Longevity Tower"s indestructible toughness to trap the broken sword before slowly refining it.
However, despite its fear towards the Longevity Tower"s aura, the broken sword instinctively struggled against it.
As a result, three of the chains were cut apart by the sword beams it released.
“As expected, an Immortal artefact that still has combat power is very difficult to collect. However, I have already made up my mind to collect it! After refining this broken sword, I"ll go search for some more Immortal artefact fragments. That way, I should be close to recovering to the Dao artefact tier!” Tower had his own plans. However, he also knew that collecting this broken sword would be difficult.
Thankfully, there were also the laws of the world.
Again, the broken sword was without an artefact spirit, operating solely through instinct while the laws of the world would only act according to the laws.
Thus, the Longevity Tower, which had an artefact spirit, occupied the upper hand here.
The Longevity Tower possessed the ability to think. More importantly, it also possessed an unparalleled amount of experience and wisdom. Thus, in this three-way-battle, the Longevity Tower could make use of the powers of the other two sides to achieve its objective.
Sou!
After an unknown amount of time had pa.s.sed, a stream of sword intent suddenly descended before pouring into Chen Feng"s sea of wisdom.
Weng!
Chen Feng"s eyes promptly shone with light and his skin began cracking.
“This is, sword intent. Tower, what are you doing!” Chen Feng shouted.
“It"s nothing. I just extracted a strand of sword intent. Naturally, it also contains some other stuff, like immortal energy and immortal laws.” Tower"s voice spread towards him.
“I have yet to fully comprehend even the will of the world and now this? This is the sword intent of an Immortal artefact! Not to mention, there are so much of it. How am I supposed to refine it?” Chen Feng bellowed. Cracks had spread out all across his skin surface and strands of sword energy sprayed out. Even his blood was evaporating as a result of that.
“Kid, let me tell you. Your rate of cultivation is too slow! Due to the commotion I have caused this time around, my enemies might be alerted. If they are to rush over before you can grow strong enough, you will be killed and I will be refined,” Tower said coldly.
“Enemies!” Chen Feng"s heart lurched. Even the Longevity Tower was nearly destroyed. Chen Feng could not even imagine how powerful they could be.
“Looks like I will need to hurry up and cultivate up to the Human Immortal stage to find out the truth.” Chen Feng gritted his teeth and his resolve grew even stronger.
“Whatever, I"ll cultivate like this!” Chen Feng extended a finger to tap his glabella and his First Origin acupoint began operating at full power. The waters from the Fountain of Life that were stored there began stirring quickly.
Woah! Woah!
The longevity-type primary energy circulated rapidly to heal the wounds on his body.
“Soul storm, shred!”
The soul vortex inside his sea of wisdom began spinning at a furious rate and his Lifebound Flame burned fiercely to break apart the energy of the sword intent pouring into his sea of wisdom.
However, the stream of sword intent was near indestructible, like a ten-thousand-year-old rock that could stand unmoved by the wind. Chen Feng had to go all out just to refine a small portion of the sword intent.
“Too slow! If this keeps up, this stream of sword intent will destroy my sea of wisdom.”
“Looks like I will need to use some other methods to help me do this.”
“Longevity Sword, come!”
Making up his mind, Chen Feng then directed a stream of his own sword energy into his sea of wisdom. The stream of sword energy then transformed into a sword, which began clas.h.i.+ng against the sword intent.
The magic treasures inside Chen Feng"s body were all kept inside his insight acupoints for protection. As for the various Longevity weapons he condensed, they drifted within the various parts of his body. Chen Feng planned on keeping all of them inside the Longevity acupoint once he opened it.
The Longevity weapons were created through the condensation of Chen Feng"s energy. Thus, they were essentially different from other magic treasures. They were existences which lied between the tangible and intangible. They could disperse into energy to meld into Chen Feng"s body at any moment, but could also be brought out to serve as magic treasures for fights.
Sending it into his sea of wisdom was a move that Chen Feng had a.n.a.lysed. It was the best method to deal with the present situation.
Boom!
The overpowering sword intent smashed forward and the Longevity Sword was blown apart into pieces. However, it quickly reformed itself.
On the other hand, three strands of sword intent fell off the stream of sword intent. Chen Feng swiftly devoured and refined the three strands. Instantly, he could sense the Longevity Sword improving. The refined strands of sword intent fused with the Longevity Sword and some of their powers flowed into Chen Feng"s soul to further increase the strength of his soul.
“All right! This is it, continue!”
“Spiralling Sword Beam!”
“Explosion of Wind and Lightning!”
Chen Feng mobilized the Longevity Sword to continuously unleash one move after another so that the power behind it would grow even stronger.
As expected, the sword intent that was wreaking havoc within Chen Feng"s sea of wisdom began breaking apart and the broken strands were all refined by Chen Feng.
“Too slow! I"ll give you more time.”
Tower"s voice suddenly rang out and an energy stream enveloped Chen Feng to change the laws of time acting upon Chen Feng relative to the laws of time outside the energy stream.
One to a hundred.
A high number of spirit stones stored inside the Longevity Tower began burning up, used to create more time for Chen Feng.
One hour outside meant that Chen Feng could cultivate for 100 hours inside.
As Chen Feng continued refining the sword intent, the various powers stored and hidden within Chen Feng"s body were stirred out non-stop and Chen Feng absorbed them to strengthen his fleshly body and soul.
The power of the Demon Subduing Mountain"s artefact spirit, Demonic One-eyed Lizard"s eyeball, Fountain of Life"s waters, energies that Chen Feng would store inside his insight acupoints during his cultivation processes and the essence powers hidden inside his blood that had yet to be refined were all released.
The rate at which Chen Feng"s body was healing multiplied and he quickly made a full recovery. In fact, the state of his body became even better than before.
Heh! With the amount of strength I have acc.u.mulated, I will have to undergo my tribulation again, Chen Feng thought.
Naturally, the thought merely flashed by as most of his attention was on refining the sword intent.
Every time a high number of spirit stones were used up, Chen Feng would feel his heart aching.
In order to not let the spirit stones go to waste, Chen Feng pushed his cognitive abilities to the max. Due to that, Chen Feng felt as though he had entered a wondrous realm. It was as though he was rapidly advancing through the river of time and the outside world had become slow.
Naturally, Chen Feng realized that he was far from capable of even making contact with the realm of time. It was probably due to the cognitive shock from Tower"s actions of changing the laws of time.
“Not enough! Not enough! Far from it!!!”
Tower seemingly grew irritable and pile after pile of the spirit stones inside the Longevity Tower blew up, transforming into surging streams of spiritual energy to flow into the Longevity Tower.
“Two hundred times!”
One day outside was the equivalent of 200 days for Chen Feng.
Bang!
Somewhere inside the Longevity Tower was a white-clad cultivator, a Human Immortal. He had been suppressed inside the Longevity Tower for quite some time now. Suddenly, his body exploded and the essence and power of his body were absorbed by the Longevity Tower, turned to fuel.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The corpses of yao beasts and high-level cultivators kept inside the Longevity Tower blew up, turned into streams of essence power as well.
Chen Feng had collected all those corpses to be used for practicing the puppet crafting technique and pill concoction. However, Tower simply turned them all to fuel.
Naturally, Chen Feng, who was focusing wholeheartedly on cultivating himself, was in the dark about it all.
The reason for that? A new challenger had appeared. This time, the thing that Tower sent into his body was not a sword intent. Rather, it was a stream of the will of the world that Tower had managed to capture.
Upon the arrival of the will of the world, Chen Feng"s sea of wisdom fell into a state of chaos. It was as though water had been poured into a boiling wok of oil.
Note: The white-clad cultivator is probably the Human Immortal that Tower caught back in in the Pot Mountain arc.
1 li = 0.5 km