Chapter 344: [Foundation Of the Hive Mind] & Spirit Realm

Like this, various scenes unfolded across the Heaven Immortal Sect.Sword peaks, beast peaks, libraries, arenas, hidden caves – everywhere, strange figures emerged.

Talents appeared one after another, each bizarre, each exceptional, each walking a path that felt exceptionally strong.

And yet, there was one detail that unsettled everyone who paid attention.

Not a single one of them possessed Tier Four cultivation.

They were strong.

Terrifyingly so.

But they all lingered below that threshold.

Many whispered that these were children of ancient experts, deliberately suppressing their cultivation to play pranks on the sect.

Others suspected the opening of Ascension Realm prematurely.

But those rumors were quickly dismissed.

Because such "exceptions" were no longer rare.

They were appearing daily.

And when anomalies cease to be anomalies, only one conclusion remains.

Something enormous was approaching.

It was as if the sect itself was holding its breath.

As if something enormous was approaching and all these talents were merely the prelude.

The answer came soon enough.

Ominous gates began to appear in the skies above the Heaven Immortal Sect.

And the disciples understood.

The calm had ended.

***

Yu Xuan had a thought.

A simple question.

If cultivators could refine their bodies, strengthen their souls, temper their spirits.

Why couldn’t they learn everything?

A mortal who devoted his entire life to a single craft became terrifyingly proficient at it.

A butcher who cut meat for fifty years could kill with a blade better than a soldier.

A scholar who read until death could understand words much better than others.

Now imagine combining that obsessive endurance with the lifespan, memory, and comprehension of a cultivator.

It was absurd.

Cultivators, especially in the later realms, could observe techniques with divine sense, analyze intent, deconstruct principles, and reproduce results with frightening ease.

And yet—

Most of them didn’t.

Because learning something deeply was painful.

It required repetition.

Failure.

Time.

Patience.

Things cultivators tended to abandon once they gained power.

They copy results without inheriting the process.

They could imitate techniques, but not the intent behind them.

Why spend years mastering an art when a technique scroll could give instant results?

Why struggle through inefficiency when copying was faster?

Replication was real, but it was hollow.

Borrowed intent was not one’s own intent.

Copied skill was not true mastery.

Without effort, without time, without struggle.

There was no Dao.

Because even Dao required refinement.

And so cultivators faced an unspoken dilemma.

If a cultivator could replicate anything...

Then what was truly their own?

Should they narrow their path and push forward as fast as possible?

Or should they broaden it – slowly, painfully, knowing that the body was only one, the mind only one.

Even if they created a perfect clone, how would that clone’s experience truly integrate into their Dao?

If a clone learned something.

Did you truly learn it?

What if that clone gained sentience, because nothing is impossible right?

And if they put restrictions within the clone, with the clone or this other self be truly free?

Many answers existed.

But under his master’s guidance, Yu Xuan found one.

One that did not dilute the self.

One that did not rely on shortcuts.

He realized there was a way to make every experience his own, no matter the origin.

A way to let all paths return to one source.

A way to turn learning itself into cultivation.

It was neither simple nor fast.

But it was absolute.

And its name was.

Creation Affinity.

Yu Xuan did not know whether the path he had chosen was right or wrong.

But he did know one thing.

It was worth trying.

Failure would still yield understanding.

Success would bring unimaginable gains.

And for a cultivator, knowledge itself was never wasted.

Thus began Yu Xuan’s experiments.

It was no coincidence that he could heal Yu Zhen’s eyes.

That miracle was not improvised.

It was the result of countless prior failures.

And his first test subject had always been.

Himself.

After all, who could understand Yu Xuan better than Yu Xuan?

After all, only he knew his own limits. Or maybe was he Limitless?

Following his ascension to the Core Formation Realm, his body had undergone a fundamental transformation.

Every cell was no longer merely flesh.

Each contained a tiny golden core.

A miniature foundation of his cultivation.

This made his body a perfect laboratory.

The experiments were brutal.

Failures piled up one after another.

Cells collapsed.

Structures destabilized.

Creations dissolved before they could stabilize.

Yet every failure taught him something new.

Every collapse refined his understanding.

Breakthroughs were born from mistakes.

Then at last.

He succeeded.

He created a [True Body].

And immediately.

Heaven descended.

A tribulation erupted without warning, obliterating his creation before it could stabilize.

Only then did Yu Xuan realize a terrifying truth.

Every act of true creation invites its own tribulation.

Creation was not imitation.

Creation was defiance.

It was the disturbance in the Heavenly Laws.

And though in theory he should have been able to make something stronger than himself, but in reality that was impossible.

Because he felt multiple things restricting him.

They were from physical to spiritual on every level.

Yet the real miracle occurred later.

When he dared to create a body that carried not only his flesh and blood.

But soul and spirit too.

One Yu Xuan became two.

Then two became three.

Each was real.

Each was complete.

Each shared a singular origin.

Though the source could be traced back to him, Yu Xuan was not concerned for now.

Because something far greater had begun.

A project that would be his long term goal now rather than seeking Immortal Masters to teach him.

A foundation unlike anything Heaven had seen or maybe has it?

He named it.

[Foundation of the Hive Mind]

And no.

It had nothing to do with yellow bees!

And absolutely nothing to do with mechanical robots or Artificial Intelligence at all!

Not even movies!

...Probably.

***

From the evaporating blood, figures began to emerge.

One after another.

Each took form with terrifying clarity.

Each carried an aura uniquely its own.

One reeked of endless slaughter, as though it had waded through seas of corpses and bathed in blood for epochs.

Another radiated sanctity so pure that even demons felt an instinctive urge to kill this being, as if they are standing before a nemesis.

Twenty figures stood in total.

All twenty figures embodied different paths, different obsessions, different areas of focus.

War.

Knowledge.

Medicine.

Death.

Order.

Chaos.

And more...

A different embodiment of Yu Xuan’s potential.

Yet the moment their disguises fell – when masks were removed, cloaks dissolved, and concealment was abandoned.

The battlefield froze.

Because every single one of them bore the same face.

Yu Xuan’s face.

The demons expressions turned stiff with disbelief, terror creeping into their eyes.

All of them were Yu Xuan.

All except one.

One figure remained masked.

And Yu Xuan’s gaze immediately locked onto that persona.

The problematic one.

Not a small problem.

A catastrophic one.

That persona had been cursed and blessed by knowledge itself.

Or rather.

By an Unknown Being whose very existence was intertwined with knowledge beyond mortal comprehension.

That persona had made contact with it.

Not in the physical world.

Not even in the soul realm.

But within.

The Spirit Realm.

Not the spirit realm fantasy spoke of, the one where cute beasts wonder.

Nor the places where wandering ghosts lingered.

The Spirit Realm was something else entirely.

A vast, unseen plane that stretched across all Heavens.

A domain where ideas themselves existed.

A place where the concepts that had ever existed or ever would, were recorded by Heaven.

It was also the final destination of Heaven and Earth born beings.

Natural spirits do not enter the Underworld upon death.

Unlike ordinary beings who descended into the Underworld after death, such entities returned to the Spirit Realm.

To be recycled.

To be remembered.

To be rewritten.

Yu Xuan fully knew what had happened to that persona during its contact.

But one thing was certain.

He had no intention of destroying it.

Not after realizing the benefits it could bring.

The risks were real.

He knew that if that Unknown Being wanted to track him, it could reverse-track karma and potentially locate him.

But Yu Xuan did not feel malice from that being.

But this also taught him to remain cautious and never make a direct contact with the spirit realm.

And in future be careful of powerful beings.

For now, Yu Xuan had already halted the creation of new personas.

And the existing ones were focusing on their development.

Yu Xuan closed his eyes briefly, recalling the events of that day.

Within his mind.

The Main Sea of Consciousness stood vast and stable.

Three terrifying spiritual beasts guarded its core.

Around them, nearly twenty gates lingered in silence.

His personas.

His attention shifted toward a particular mental gate.

A gate etched with symbols of books, runes, and flowing knowledge.

As his consciousness connected with that gate, the memories of that day surged back.

Every moment, every consequence, replaying with clarity.