Back in the Cultivation Chamber
"Nova, the entire sect is glowing!" Luna had recovered from being blasted into the wall and was using her spiritual sense to observe the spreading chaos. "The Infinite Qi has contaminated the ambient energy. Everyone is breaking through simultaneously!"
"okay," Nova said through gritted teeth. His soul power was draining faster than he'd calculated, partially because the gate wanted to expand. The Dimension of Infinite Qi seemed eager to flood into the mortal realm, and keeping the opening small required constant effort. "But I can't close it yet. Not until we both finish cultivating."
Luna looked at the cracked chamber, the leaking energy, the growing pressure that threatened to tear reality apart.
Then she made a decision.
She crossed the chamber in a burst of speed, fighting against the pressure wave of escaping Infinite Qi. Each step felt like wading through molten lead—the density of the energy physically resisting her movement.
When she reached Nova, she sat down directly in front of him, close enough that they were both in the densest concentration of Infinite Qi pouring from the gate.
"If we're doing this, we're doing it together," Luna said firmly. "And we're going to extract every possible benefit before you close that gate."
Nova met her eyes and nodded. Then they both activated their cultivation techniques simultaneously.
The effect was immediate and catastrophic.
Nova's modified Primordial Yin-Yang Fusion Scripture, designed for maximum absorption efficiency, grabbed hold of the Infinite Qi like a black hole consuming light.
The energy flooded his meridians in a torrent that would have killed any normal cultivator instantly. His 69 Laws lit up simultaneously, each one resonating with different aspects of the Infinite Qi's fundamental nature.
His dantian, already compressed to the 91st stage of Qi Refining, began accepting energy at a rate that defied physics.
The advancement was explosive.
92nd stage. The breakthrough came in less than a second, the accumulated energy requirement met almost before Nova registered the threshold.
93rd. 94th. 95th.
Each stage flashed by faster than thought. The Infinite Qi was so potent, so perfectly refined, that bottlenecks simply didn't exist. His Perfect Foundation ensured that despite the impossible speed, every stage remained flawless, compressed to maximum density, stable beyond question.
100th stage. The barrier that should have marked a major milestone was crossed without even slowing down.
110th. 120th. 130th.
Simultaneously, Nova had activated the Eternal Cycle Tempering Scripture.
All 69 of his Laws channeled inward at once, using the Infinite Qi as both weapon and fuel. The tempering damage he'd inflicted with normal qi was like a gentle massage compared to this.
His body exploded at the molecular level. Every cell in his body was torn apart, atoms literally ripped from their bonds by overlapping Law applications powered by infinite energy. His bones disintegrated into component minerals. His blood vaporized. His organs ceased to exist.
His soul suffered the same fate. The metaphysical structure that defined his consciousness was shredded, fragmented into thousands of pieces, scattered across multiple dimensional layers simultaneously.
For a fraction of a second, Nova Solis ceased to exist as a coherent entity.
Then his Infinite Regeneration triggered.
The healing was instantaneous and absolute. Using the Infinite Qi as limitless fuel, his body reconstructed itself from nothing. Atoms reformed. Molecules bonded. Cells rebuilt. Organs materialized. His complete physical form regenerated perfectly in less time than a heartbeat.
His soul snapped back together with equal speed, pulling itself from across dimensional barriers to reform into crystalline perfection.
But the healed body and soul weren't the same as before. They were denser. Stronger. Enhanced by having survived complete annihilation.
The cycle repeated.
Destruction. Regeneration. Destruction. Regeneration.
Thousands of times per second.
The pain was beyond anything Nova had experienced, beyond anything language could describe. It was the agony of ceasing to exist and being forced back into existence over and over, each iteration carrying the accumulated trauma of every previous death.
But his Infinite Will processed it all as mere data. Pain signals flooded his consciousness, but they didn't overwhelm. Didn't break him. He simply observed the sensation, catalogued it, and continued the process.
His cultivation continued climbing.
140th. 150th. 160th.
His body was being fundamentally rewritten. The flesh that grew back after each destruction cycle wasn't quite mortal anymore. It was something denser, something that existed on multiple dimensional layers simultaneously, something held together by Laws rather than mere biology.
His bones became harder than any material in the mortal realm. Diamond would seem soft by comparison. Each bone was now a construct of overlapping Law principles—Earth for stability, Metal for hardness, Space for impossible density in finite volume.
His blood transformed into liquid energy. It no longer merely carried oxygen and nutrients. It carried qi, Laws, concepts themselves. Each drop contained enough spiritual essence to fuel a normal cultivator for years.
His organs evolved beyond their biological functions. His heart didn't just pump blood—it regulated the flow of Laws through his body. His lungs didn't just process air—they extracted spiritual energy from the very fabric of reality. His brain became a processing center capable of handling consciousness split across multiple parallel streams simultaneously.
170th. 180th. 190th.
His soul underwent parallel transformation. The constant destruction and regeneration was compressing it, refining it, making it so dense that even Peak Mahayana cultivators would struggle to damage it.
The crystalline structure became more pronounced. His soul no longer looked like a ghostly outline of his body—it had become a geometric construct of interlocking Law principles, each facet reflecting different aspects of his nature.
200th. 209th.
At the 209th stage, Nova felt the advancement slow. Not stop, but the breakthroughs were taking longer now—perhaps five seconds instead of one. His dantian was so compressed, so densely packed with Infinite Qi, that even unlimited energy required more time to push to the next level.
Nova made a decision. He had perhaps two more minutes before soul exhaustion. Rather than pushing for more stages, he'd focus entirely on the tempering process, making his body and soul as perfect as possible.
The Eternal Cycle Tempering accelerated to its maximum rate.
Ten thousand destruction-regeneration cycles per second.
His body died and was reborn ten thousand times in a single heartbeat. His soul was scattered and reformed with the same impossible frequency.
The chamber around him began to glow from the sheer amount of energy being channeled through his form. Spatial distortions appeared in the air, reality itself struggling to accommodate the density of power concentrated in one location.
Luna was experiencing her own apocalyptic transformation.
The moment she'd begun actively cultivating, drawing in the Infinite Qi with her Primordial Yin-Yang Fusion Scripture, she'd felt it penetrate every layer of her existence.
The energy didn't respect boundaries. It flowed through her meridians, yes, but also through her bones, her blood, her organs, her very soul. It found every imperfection, every flaw, every weakness accumulated over a thousand years of cultivation.
And it burned them away.
Foundation cracks from advancing too quickly during her youth? The Infinite Qi filled them completely, then compressed the foundation further until the cracks were not just healed but erased from reality.
Impurities in her meridians from countless imperfect pills consumed over centuries? Dissolved instantly, expelled through her pores as black sludge that sizzled on contact with the Infinite Qi-saturated air.
Her Divine Grade meridians, already among the best possible in the mortal realm, began to evolve. The pathways widened while simultaneously becoming more efficient—another paradox made real by impossible energy. The structure became more complex, more optimized, transcending the limitations of Divine Grade entirely.
Her Golden Core—the foundation of her power—started to rotate faster. The sphere of compressed qi that represented decades of cultivation began to glow brighter, impurities burning away like mist in sunlight.
Luna gasped as her cultivation base surged forward.
Early Mahayana became Mid Mahayana in seconds. The transition that should have taken decades of careful cultivation and multiple dangerous breakthroughs happened smoothly, naturally, as if it had always been inevitable.
But the Infinite Qi didn't stop there.
Mid Mahayana became Late Mahayana just as quickly. Luna's power multiplied, her spiritual pressure building until the cracked walls groaned under the weight of her aura.
Late Mahayana became Peak Mahayana.
Luna's consciousness expanded. She could feel her body, qi, soul, and Laws synchronizing into perfect unity. This was what Mahayana Realm truly meant—not just power, but harmony. The complete integration of every aspect of her being into one seamless whole.
Her Ice Law, Water Law, and Lunar Law—all three already at peak level—began to resonate with something greater. The boundary between Law and Dao, that impossible threshold most cultivators never even approached, suddenly became visible to her comprehension.
And then something awakened deep within her bloodline.
Luna's eyes snapped open, glowing with silver radiance that illuminated the entire chamber.
Her parents. Memories she'd buried for centuries suddenly surfaced with perfect clarity. They hadn't been mortals. They'd come from the Immortal Realm, descended to the mortal plane for reasons Luna had never fully understood.
Her mother had been a Lunar Spirit—not merely someone who cultivated lunar arts, but an actual spirit born from moonlight itself given form and consciousness. Her father had been an Immortal Realm cultivator who'd fallen in love with something that shouldn't have been capable of mortal emotions.
Their union had been forbidden. Their escape to the mortal realm had been desperate. And Luna, their daughter, carried both legacies in her blood.
A legacy that was awakening now.
Deep within her genetic structure, coded into the very essence of what made her her, a constitution stirred. It had been dormant since birth, waiting for a trigger that the mortal realm simply couldn't provide.
Until now.
The Infinite Qi, with its quality surpassing even Immortal Realm energy, was exactly what was needed.