Nighttime, at the Wang household.
After returning home, the very first thing Wang Chen did was to immediately check whether there had been any change in the black book within the depths of his soul.
Everything else had to wait.
Wang Chen's consciousness sank into his soul. Compared to before, the black book's once-damaged cover now looked slightly improved—some of the broken sections had already begun to mend.
Wang Chen couldn't help but grow a bit excited.
He thought to himself,
As I suspected—my guess was exactly right. Increasing my social status really does accelerate the black book's recovery speed.
If that's the case, then I must continue to raise my position. Right now, I'm already the patriarch of the Wang Clan.
Next, I'll aim to become, like Jing Hongchen, one of the most influential figures of the entire Sun Moon Empire. And after that, the ultimate step—becoming the ruler of the Sun Moon Empire itself.
Wang Chen firmly believed that as long as he kept improving his status, allowing the black book to restore itself further, one day he would stand at the very peak of this world, fully controlling his own destiny—free and unrestrained beneath heaven and earth.
Having confirmed his hypothesis, Wang Chen began examining whether the newly repaired black book had developed any new abilities.
His consciousness delved deeper into the black book, observing carefully. Soon, he discovered that a new crystalline sigil, composed of countless mysterious inscriptions, had appeared within it.
This crystalline sigil was constructed differently from the first one.
Wang Chen directed his consciousness into the second crystalline sigil—and soon understood its function.
The function of this sigil was Directional Deduction.
In the past, when Wang Chen used the first crystalline sigil to refine and evolve his techniques, the direction of those evolutions was entirely random.
Now, however, he could consciously guide and control the direction of the deduction according to his will.
For example, if Wang Chen wished to evolve his cultivation method Tongmai Gong toward a path that strengthened both the body and the mind, he could now do so.
To Wang Chen's knowledge, all truly exceptional cultivation arts cultivated the trinity of essence, energy, and spirit.
Yet his current Tongmai Gong merely enhanced his soul power—it did not temper his body or spiritual force.
He had long felt regretful about this. While his soul power grew rapidly under Tongmai Gong, the improvement of his spiritual power and physique relied entirely on the nourishment of Soul Life Gold.
Now, with the black book's third function, this flaw could be perfectly remedied—something that delighted Wang Chen greatly.
The method for using the second crystalline sigil was identical to the first:
He needed to infuse it with spiritual power and insert a recorded technique from the black book into it, thereby initiating a directional deduction.
The extent of that deduction depended on both the technique's potential and Wang Chen's own spiritual strength.
Without hesitation, Wang Chen placed his Tongmai Gong cultivation art into the second crystalline sigil.
Under the guidance of his intent and with massive expenditure of spiritual power, Tongmai Gong soon began evolving toward the path of cultivating essence, energy, and spirit in unison.
Before long, the evolution reached its limit—continuing further would require an even higher level of spiritual power.
Wang Chen then sat cross-legged and began meditating to restore his spiritual energy. Once it had recovered, he inserted the newly evolved technique into the first crystalline sigil for refinement.
After refining it to the utmost limit his spiritual power could sustain, Wang Chen carefully studied the new technique.
This new cultivation art allowed the simultaneous cultivation of essence, energy, and spirit.
While absorbing the world's ambient energy, it could also draw upon it to temper both the body and the spiritual sea located between his brows.
After memorizing the new method, Wang Chen couldn't wait to test it.
Through a round of experimentation, he discovered that the new technique's soul power cultivation speed was identical to before.
But what was most remarkable was that, without affecting the progress of soul power cultivation, it simultaneously refined his physique and spiritual force.
This meant that his future progress in both body and mind would be much faster than before—while still maintaining rapid soul power growth.
After cultivating for a while, Wang Chen slowly opened his eyes.
He thought to himself,
This black book's abilities truly advance step by step… I wonder what kind of function it'll unlock next.
Perhaps a "point-allocation" system, or a time-and-space ability, or even the power of laws itself—that'd be nice. I wouldn't be greedy…
After experimenting for a bit, Wang Chen, exhausted from spiritual depletion, lay down to rest.
Earlier, during his battle with Wang Yan, he had used the Ring Explosion Secret Technique.
Even though his version—perfected by the black book—had far fewer drawbacks than the original Haotian Sect's Ring Explosion Technique, the side effects still existed.
After using the technique, his soul rings would temporarily vanish, rendering him unable to use soul skills. The immense backlash from detonating a soul ring would also leave him in a weakened state.
The detonated soul ring would begin to reappear after one day and would fully recover in twelve days—only then could he use the technique again.
Fortunately, after absorbing the Soul Life Gold, Wang Chen's vitality was extremely strong, and his body's recovery rate was astonishing.
Although the explosive power of the Ring Explosion had inflicted some internal damage, his vigorous life force rapidly healed those injuries.
Thus, he could largely ignore the weakness—but the missing soul rings would still need time to recover.
Without soul rings or secret techniques, Wang Chen's current strength was greatly reduced compared to his peak.
Even so, he could still channel soul power, and as long as he could use soul power, he could activate his battle technique King Over the World (Jun Lin Tianxia).
With his Soul Emperor-level soul power, Soul Sage-level physique, Soul Douluo-level spiritual power, and soul tool armor,
Wang Chen could still maintain Soul Sage-level combat strength.
All he needed to do was wait one day for his soul rings to recover gradually—then he could use his soul skills again.
In twelve days, he could once more employ the secret technique.
Before falling asleep, Wang Chen thought,
Once I've rested, I'll definitely place the Ring Explosion Secret Technique into the second crystalline sigil for directional deduction—to shorten its cooldown.
Twelve days of downtime is still far too long…
——————————
Meanwhile, as Wang Chen rested, inside a secret chamber in the residence of the deposed Crown Prince Xu Tiannan—
Xu Tiannan sat in a wheelchair.
Across from him sat a middle-aged man clad in a black robe, with dense, needle-like silver hair that looked as hard as steel.
The man had sharp brows, a straight nose, and a square jaw—handsome and imposing.
But within his deep violet eyes glimmered a faintly unfathomable aura.
This man was Zhongli Wu, the illegitimate son of Ye Xishui and the previous Holy Spirit Sect Master, Zhongli Old Ghost.