Chapter 4121: Where the Crux Lies
When Long Chen layered the two triangles on top of each other with the Violet Tower Star at the center of the six stars, Long Chen felt his Blood Qi go out of control. It felt like some other power was pulling at them, causing Long Chen to enter a state of self-detonation.
“Detonate the seven star diagram!” shouted the dragon expert.
Detonate the seven star diagram? Wouldn’t he still die then? But Long Chen had no time to think about it. After forming hand seals, the seven star diagram behind him exploded.
BOOM!
The impact caused the entire Linglong World to become covered in cracks. As for Long Chen, he gasped for breath, looking pale with fear lingering in his eyes. It was the Linglong World that had saved him just now.
The Linglong World had transferred the burden of the detonation of the seven star diagram into heaven and earth. Otherwise, the detonation would have blasted him to bits.
Long Chen had once more failed. Furthermore, he was unable to find the reason. If it weren’t for the Linglong World’s aid, he would be dead now.
“How can this be?!” demanded Long Chen angrily. This shouldn’t be happening.
“Cool your head. I think I might understand,” said the dragon expert.
“Understand what?”
After repeated failures, Long Chen was out of energy. So, he simply sat on the ground, his head buzzing.
“The Nine Star Hegemon Body Art revolves around using astral energy to temper the body, creating a powerful physical body from the outside and inside. But your current physical body is too powerful and has started to reject astral energy. Perhaps…” The dragon expert suddenly paused.
“Perhaps I have to choose one of the two? I have to abandon either the Dragon Soul Body Forging Art or the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art?” asked Long Chen.
The dragon expert was silent for a long time before sighing. “Long Chen, this time, it truly is my fault. I’m sorry. I…”
“You were using me to test if the Dragon Soul Body Forging Art could beat the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art,” said Long Chen slowly.
“Yes. The Nine Star Hegemon Body Art is said to be the strongest cultivation technique within the nine heavens and ten lands. As for my self-created Dragon Soul Body Forging Art, it has never met a match before, so I wanted to see which one was stronger. However, from what we’ve seen so far, the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art is still stronger. The Dragon Soul Body Forging Art is unable to change the will of the nine stars. That is why it tries to erase everything in your body related to me. I’m sorry for wasting so much of your time. In the end, it’s still a failure,” sighed the dragon expert.
The Dragon Soul Body Forging Art was something that the dragon expert’s descendants had been unable to inherit. Seeing that Long Chen was exceptionally talented, a selfish part of him wanted to see if Long Chen could inherit it.
Of course, the dragon expert also had its pride. It had thought that the Dragon Soul Body Forging Art would not lose the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art. But the facts showed that the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art was superior, and the Dragon Soul Body Forging Art could not replace it.
The current Long Chen now had to choose. Would he train in the Dragon Soul Body Forging Art or the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art? Whichever one he chose, he would have to abandon the other one.
However, if he were to abandon the Dragon Soul Body Forging Art, he had to expel the dragon blood from his body. The Nine Star Hegemon Body Art had now formed a resistance to it. After all, one mountain could not hold two tigers.
“No, it’s not a failure. I still have hope,” said Long Chen.
“It’s impossible. Don’t do anything crazy, or you won’t survive,” exclaimed the dragon expert, feeling shocked. Did this little fellow’s temper flare up again?
“The more I can’t obtain something, the more I want it. As for what I’ve obtained, I naturally won’t let go of it,” said Long Chen obstinately.
Perhaps, if he had not experienced the power of the Dragon Soul Body Forging Art, he wouldn’t have minded. However, it was impossible for him to abandon it now that he knew its power.
He was currently only at the early level of the Dragon Soul Body Forging Art, but it had completely changed all aspects of him. He couldn’t just give it up.
Long Chen then summoned the Seven Treasure Colored Gla.s.s Tree. He was injured and agitated, unable to calm himself down, so he needed the Seven Treasure Colored Gla.s.s Tree’s influence to calm himself down, pondering how to merge the two.
Originally, the dragon expert wanted to advise Long Chen to give up, but after thinking about it, considering how stubborn Long Chen was, there was no way to change his mind.
The dragon expert even felt regretful over teaching Long Chen the Dragon Soul Body Forging Art. Perhaps doing so had ruined Long Chen’s future. But with things having reached this point, there was no going back.
Long Chen spent three full days beneath the Seven Treasure Colored Gla.s.s Tree. Countless stars whirled in his mind, arranging themselves in all kinds of permutations. His dragon blood runes also whirled about in his mind as he derived various possibilities.
Finally, Long Chen sighed and opened his eyes. The next moment, he formed hand seals, summoning his divine ring, causing a radiant spectrum of colors—red, orange, yellow, green, azure, blue, and violet—to illuminate the surroundings.
Following that, the seven stars emerged: the FengFu Star, the Alioth Star, the Life Fate Star, the Enlightenment Palace Star, the Divine Gate Star, the Nethergate Star, and the Violet Tower Star.
However, what was different was that the seven stars now appeared on top of their corresponding colors.
“Blood, qi, bone, spirit, soul, will, mind…”
As Long Chen murmured, the strange dragon marks that Long Chen had condensed when cultivating the Dragon Soul Body Forging Art appeared and flowed toward the seven stars.
When the runes touched the stars, the stars quivered, rejecting them. However, it clearly wasn’t as strong as before.
The dragon expert was amazed to see this. Immediately, it understood what kind of path Long Chen was trying to walk.
Thousands of stars appeared behind Long Chen; those were a projection of the starry sea in Long Chen’s Dantian. At this moment, violet qi poured out of them and enveloped the seven stars.
As the violet qi flowed into the seven stars, those dragon runes slowly merged into them as well.
Upon seeing this scene, Long Chen almost jumped up and cheered. He had finally succeeded.
However, he didn’t dare to move. He simply continued to circulate the starry sea’s violet qi, bringing the dragon runes into the stars. When he sensed that the dragon runes had been absorbed by the stars, he sighed with relief.
It seemed that it truly was as the dragon expert said. The Dragon Soul Body Forging Art was a level inferior to the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art. Otherwise, when the two merged, there should have been a change as it attempted to wrestle control over the stars. But instead, the dragon runes were simply absorbed by the stars.
The Dragon Soul Body Forging Art was already so terrifying, but the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art was on an even higher level? That made Long Chen feel immense confidence. With such an unrivaled cultivation technique, who would he need to fear?
As more time pa.s.sed, more of the dragon runes were absorbed by the stars. However, when fifty percent of the runes were absorbed, no matter what Long Chen did, the stars were unable to absorb more dragon runes. They were full.
Long Chen was startled by this. After taking a deep breath, he activated the Starry River of the Sky Art, causing the stars in the sky to tremble. He attempted to use the power of the countless stars to continue, but his effort was in vain. His own stars could no longer absorb any more runes.
“One begets two, two begets three. The Dragon Soul Body Forging Art is one, and the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art is one. In order to fully merge them, I still need something important. What is it?” murmured Long Chen to himself.
After thinking for a while, both Long Chen and the dragon expert cried out at the same time.
“Long Aotian!”