Chapter 86: When Intent Intrudes Upon Reality
“Perfect Primordial Unity Force!”
“You actually cultivated Perfect Primordial Unity Force on your own at the martial apprentice stage—”
“So that means you had already comprehended the Primordial Unity intent back then?”
Lu Chunyuan asked, studying Lu Sheng in astonishment.
Although comprehending Primordial Unity intent was not especially difficult, to grasp it and refine Primordial Unity Force to perfection while still at the martial apprentice stage was exceedingly rare.
After all, gifted martial artists, once they began training at twelve or thirteen, usually needed only three or four years to refine force into qi.
Those who, within that span, could independently comprehend Primordial Unity intent and bring Primordial Unity Force to completion—
As far as Lu Chunyuan knew, there had been no more than a dozen in the past hundred years.
Aside from those who had perished along the way, every one of them had later become a Martial Grandmaster—
And he himself was one of them.
“Potential for Martial Grandmasterhood, and perhaps more besides. No wonder the Old Ancestor of Ten Thousand Mountains values him so highly.”
As these thoughts passed through his mind, Lu Chunyuan heard Lu Sheng say:
“What, is the intent realm of Primordial Unity Arts that difficult to comprehend?”
“Isn’t Emperor Jing’s Primordial Unity True Intent preserved within the legacy stone?”
That day, after Lu Sheng had contemplated the Primordial Unity True Intent, he quickly grasped the intent realm of Primordial Unity Arts and refined Primordial Unity Force to perfection.
By that logic, the Great Jing Lu clan, which possessed more of Emperor Jing’s inheritance, could not possibly find it harder than he had—
“Could it be that the Great Jing Lu clan has too many disciples, and the youths cultivating Primordial Unity Force never get the chance to contemplate Emperor Jing’s Primordial Unity True Intent within the legacy stone?”
As Lu Sheng was thinking this, Lu Chunyuan, after hearing those words, suddenly sprang up from the reclining chair, seized his collar, and shouted:
“Primordial Unity True Intent!”
“You actually comprehended the Primordial Unity True Intent left by Emperor Jing!”
“You comprehended Emperor Jing’s Primordial Unity True Intent from the legacy stone of the Bing Prefecture Lu clan!”
He repeated it three times in a row, each time with greater disbelief.
Two years ago, when Four Seas Trading House reclaimed the Bing Prefecture Lu clan’s legacy stone from the Bright Moon Sect, Lu Chunyuan, as the foremost figure beneath the Grandmaster level in the Great Jing Lu clan, had personally taken part in verifying the stone’s authenticity.
Although, through his years of devoted cultivation in the Primordial Unity intent realm, he had sensed Emperor Jing’s Primordial Unity True Intent from one of those legacy stones—
He had never imagined that anyone could, from that trace of trivial True Intent, comprehend the intent realm of Primordial Unity Arts.
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“Uh... Master, please let go!”
“Is there something wrong with this?”
Startled by Lu Chunyuan’s reaction, and more shocked still that he could not the slightest bit evade it, Lu Sheng asked cautiously.
From Lu Chunyuan’s response, he faintly sensed that—
His having comprehended the Primordial Unity True Intent left by Emperor Jing seemed to be an astonishing feat!
“Wrong, of course it’s wrong!”
After repeating himself several times, Lu Chunyuan finally calmed down a little, released Lu Sheng, and said:
“Do you know that there are also distinctions between one intent realm and another?”
“Why are the intent realms left by the mightiest Grandmasters called True Intent?”
Lu Sheng shook his head to indicate that he did not know. The intent realms he had comprehended so far had only been understood after the system had recorded them.
As for how one cultivated intent realms, he knew very little.
Thus, with sincere respect, he said to Lu Chunyuan:
“Please enlighten me, Master!”
Nodding in satisfaction, Lu Chunyuan finally recovered a little of a teacher’s confidence from Lu Sheng’s respectful manner.
He paced slowly before saying:
“Like power itself, the cultivation of intent realms also follows a clear path.”
“After the emergence of the mightiest Grandmasters, people divided the various levels of intent realms into four tiers!”
“This system has long been universally recognized throughout the martial world!”
Lu Sheng listened from the side. When he saw Lu Chunyuan pause, he tactfully asked:
“What are the four tiers? Please explain, Master!”
Though they had not known each other long, Lu Sheng had already guessed from Lu Chunyuan’s reactions that this teacher of his seemed quite fond of instructing others, and that when asking him questions, one had best remain humble and deferential.
“Haha!”
With a pleased laugh, Lu Chunyuan said:
“You come from the Bing Prefecture Lu clan, which long ago broke away from the martial world of the Central Plains. It is understandable that such things were lost.”
“So long as you keep following me, I shall teach you everything, one by one!”
Only then did he explain to Lu Sheng:
“The four tiers of intent are condensed intent, harmonized intent, law intent, and true intent.”
“The intent realm of the mightiest Grandmasters is what is called True Intent!”
“Do you know why it bears that name?”
“Again?” Lu Sheng lamented inwardly, but because of Lu Wanshan’s earlier instruction, he did not dare show the slightest dissatisfaction. He merely inferred from the words themselves and ventured:
“Could it be that the intent realm of the mightiest Grandmasters can turn the false into the real?”
He had just witnessed Lu Wanshan transmuting matter with vital energy, and now that thought returned to him once more.
“Turn the false into the real?”
With a hearty laugh, Lu Chunyuan shook his head.
“The mightiest Grandmasters do possess the power to turn the false into the real, but that relies on vital energy.”
“The reason their intent realms are called True Intent is because, though they belong to the illusory, they can affect reality!”
“Belonging to the illusory, yet affecting reality? What does that mean?” Lu Sheng asked with a furrowed brow.
He could understand the first part well enough, but he truly could not make sense of what it meant to affect reality.
Stroking his beard, Lu Chunyuan said:
“Belonging to the illusory means that the intent realm of the mightiest Grandmasters remains an illusory existence, something that cannot be seen in any tangible form.”
“As for affecting reality, it means that once they unleash it, even without vital energy as a medium, it can still influence the real world—”
“Indeed, if they do not deliberately restrain it, and if that intent realm is not destroyed, its influence can last for a thousand years!”
“That,” he said, “is the reason it is called True Intent!”
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“Without even using vital energy, it can affect the real world, and endure for a thousand years!”
Hearing that, Lu Sheng drew in a sharp breath, at last understanding the power of True Intent:
“It breaks down the boundary between the material world and the spiritual world, allowing an illusory intent realm to intervene in reality—”
“The mightiest Grandmasters actually possess such power!”
If that still seemed too abstract, there was an even simpler example.
An ordinary martial artist, once he had comprehended an intent realm and begun cultivating the spirit, could launch intent attacks against another person’s spiritual world.
But the True Intent of a mightiest Grandmaster could strike the opponent’s body at the very same time as it attacked their spiritual world—
That was the power to influence reality with an illusory intent realm.
And that was why Lu Sheng was so astonished.
“A person like that, if anger rose in his heart, could probably give birth to flames that truly burn the world.”
“And if his intent realm formed blades and spears, they would probably truly be able to slay enemies.”
“No wonder a single mightiest Grandmaster can suppress the whole world!”
Power is limited. Spirit is limited. Even vital energy, manipulated within a certain range, is likewise limited...
But a person’s will can be boundless.
Possessing the ability to intervene in reality through intent realm alone, so long as he did not meet an opponent of the same level, a mightiest Grandmaster in this world could indeed be called invincible—
That, too, was the reason they could press down upon the age with overwhelming force, leaving no one able to defy them.