Eternal Night

Chapter 547 The Beginning of Immortal Martial Arts!
"...Mastermind, I plan to go to the central control room after returning to Gaia this time, and then use this thing there to explode together with you."

Holding an amorphous crystal of light in his hand, Wu Pifu spoke the most resolute words with a smile.

"The Flower of the Magical Girl's Heart (Broken)".

"...She wanted to save her world, but the overwhelming malice destroyed everything, so she shut out the light in her heart..."

"...The information below cannot be displayed due to the fragmentation."

"When the holder picks up the Heart Flower and places it on their heart, making a heart shape with their palms, the power of the Heart Flower will be activated, infusing their own consciousness and emotions, and entering a magical girl transformation state. Currently, the transformation can last for ten minutes, with a recovery time of one hundred and twenty hours. It can be repaired and sublimated."

"Judging in progress... Judgment complete..."

Just after Wu Pifu said those words, the mainframe's voice rang out again, a rare occurrence.

"...Citizen Wu Pifu was extremely lucky to trigger a double reward state and drew the second reward, the Free and Easy Ultimate Skill (one percent)..."

Wu Pifu paused for a moment, then subconsciously listened carefully to the second reward.

"Ultimate Skill (1%)".

"...This is the blessing of Heaven, the greatest mercy bestowed upon us by a powerful force in the unseen realm. But it is too difficult; we cannot understand it, we cannot understand it, we cannot understand it..."

"Originating from some unknown thing, it enabled... for three consecutive epochs... for five consecutive epochs... for ten consecutive epochs... and finally... from multiple secondary transmissions of information, the original version of the Free and Ultimate Technique was created. However, due to the original version being too powerful, it was punished by the heavens, and its fragmentation and disintegration were endless. Later, the Nine Revolutions Profound Technique was created based on the original version. This is one percent of the information of the original Free and Ultimate Technique."

"Passive skill, cannot be taught, cultivated, comprehended, or actively used. It can greatly enhance the compatibility of multiple extraordinary paths. For every additional 1%, an ordinary person can learn an extra extraordinary path, ignoring the backlash and negative effects of multiple extraordinary paths, but will suffer the ultimate negative consequences. For those with the ultimate path, every additional 1% reduces the ultimate negative effects of multiple extraordinary paths by 1%. Collecting all of them grants immunity to the ultimate negative consequences, but will result in endless pursuit after the ultimate negative consequences manifest. This technique has the same effect on ordinary people and those with the ultimate path. Every 1% increase enhances the strength of all techniques by 10%, with a maximum stacking of 1000% enhancement to the effects of all techniques. Collecting all of them allows one to trace the origin of this technique..."

"Checking, checking, checking..."

Upon hearing this, Wu Pifu's face lit up with joy, but at the same time, he felt a chill in his heart.

Sure enough, even though the seed of the ultimate path can learn countless extraordinary paths, there will still be terrible backlashes. It's just that there are none in the early stages, but they all accumulate until the final evil consequences.

This Ultra Instinct is incredibly powerful. If it really is the Ultra Instinct from the manga he knows, then it undoubtedly deserves this level of power.

However, upon hearing the final sound, the mainframe fell into the audio jamming stage of the judgment process.

This is truly an unprecedented event; on this very exploration trip, I witnessed the mainframe freeze twice in a row.

"...The judgment is complete. Once you have collected 100% of the Ultimate Instinct, you can trigger the Transcendent Mission... Tracing the Source."

"The ability to return to one's origin lies in the source of the Ultimate Intent Technique, learning the technique, and engaging in unrestrained combat... Error, error, error..."

After a series of errors, the mainframe went silent.

Wu Pifu frowned and said, "Mainframe... hey, you're not dead, are you?"

"Judging in progress...judging complete."

Hearing this reply, Wu Pifu breathed a sigh of relief. Sure enough, it was another response from the artificial intelligence. Then there was no problem.

Since the mainframe was working fine, Wu Pifu looked at his two rewards with great delight.

Although he didn't get a portable level 7 sanctuary or anything more powerful, getting two rewards at once is still pretty good. The magical girl transformation is awkward, but as long as he himself isn't embarrassed, it's others who are. Putting that aside, it's at least an attribute-stacking transformation, isn't it?

The real surprise was the second prize draw: Ultra Instinct!

Even though it's only one percent, isn't it a good start?
Its effect can make him immune to the backlash of the final evil. Although the description says that the final evil will manifest and hunt him down, we will only know after we fight it. A specific enemy is better than the backlash in his own body, right?
Moreover, judging from the description, this Free and Easy Ultimate Skill is incredible. For every additional 1% gained, the strength of all his skills will increase by 10%, which is equivalent to the current effect of all his skills being increased by 10%. Furthermore, judging from the description, this thing has huge secrets. It seems that after collecting 100%, it can also advance to a higher level. The advanced skill cannot even be determined by the main brain. This is simply so powerful that it has no equal!
These two rewards alone are enough to make his life-threatening ordeal of taking the Root's blow worthwhile!

At the same time, Huang Rong was also explaining the most basic introductory internal skills, and was talking about the relationship between breathing, mental focus, and meridians.

Wu Pifu listened silently, while constantly monitoring Huang Rong's condition, occasionally having the main brain send her points.

This exploration through the Lost Realm caused Wu Pifu's points to skyrocket to eleven million. It was precisely because he had so many points as a trump card that he asked Huang Rong to teach him internal energy at this time, which is the so-called Immortal Martial Arts Transcendent Path!

"...transferring 100,000 points..."

"...Transfer 100,000 points..." "...Transfer 100,000 points..."

As Huang Rong continued to recount the contents of the cultivation technique, the main AI's voice began to ring out frequently. The more crucial the information, the more points it consumed. By the time Huang Rong stopped speaking, Wu Pifu had already consumed 5.5 million points.

"Five and a half million points..."

Wu Pifu narrowed his eyes, not at Huang Rong, but at this so-called Immortal Martial Arts, and at the main brain.

"If it's not worth 5.5 million points in the end, Mastermind, you know... I suspect you're deliberately suppressing my combat power or withholding my salary! You don't want to see me chasing after my salary, I swear."

After saying this, Wu Pifu ignored the five old, weak, sick, and disabled people in the distance and said directly to Huang Rong, "Rong'er, I need to cultivate my internal energy here immediately. You protect me. If we are attacked, use the extradimensional space!"

Huang Rong looked worried, but still nodded seriously.

Wu Pifu immediately sat down cross-legged, recalling Huang Rong's instructions on the basics of internal energy cultivation. He focused his mind on his dantian, adjusted his breathing, and used his thoughts to circulate his essence, refining his qi with his essence...

At first, there was no problem, and no abnormality was observed. At the same time, Huang Rong also felt a sudden change in the atmosphere. In this world shrouded in thick fog, it seemed that the fog had some kind of will and was converging towards the sky.

Not only Huang Rong, but even the five old, weak, sick and disabled people looked up at the sky, and then their faces showed horror.

"No, it can't be, this is..."

"It penetrated from the deepest part to the outermost circle??"

"This place is already close to the edge of the real world. Even with the help of the containing civilization, this is still too..."

"What on earth did this guy do?! This is already part of the final defense agreement. He's not even an Ascended Being, how could he possibly threaten the infinite loop and perfect closed loop formed by the three fundamental sources?!"

Hearing the voices of the five elderly, weak, sick, and disabled people, Huang Rong's worry deepened. She looked at Wu Pifu, seeing his face and body covered in injuries, and felt both heartache and distress.

Then suddenly, her heart skipped a beat—not out of girlish sentimentality, but a genuine skip. And it wasn't just her who felt this way; the five elderly, weak, and disabled people almost instantly shifted their gaze from above to Wu Pifu.

A strange sensation was emanating from Wu Pifu, like the vitality of a beating heart or a silent volcano about to erupt. They couldn't describe it, but all their attention was focused on Wu Pifu.

Focus your mind on the dantian, and let your qi circulate throughout the body...

Refining essence into qi, qi flows through heaven and earth...

At first, Wu Pifu felt nothing, but in the tenth second of his meditation, a faint heat arose from the acupoint at the very end of the technique, traveled along the meridian for about one millimeter, and then dissipated.

His physical strength was so immense that, in the context of the internal energy worldview, he was a god, a demon, a peerless ferocious beast from the wilderness, and could not be described or depicted by humans.

This amount of internal energy didn't even break through a single meridian; it was immediately absorbed by the physical body.

But then, the internal energy surging from his acupoints began to flow continuously. At first, it was in one or two clumps like hot currents. After about thirty seconds of meditation, the internal energy changed from clumps to streams, like a torrent of floodwaters, rushing through the tough rock mountain.

When he entered a meditative state for a minute, the torrents of internal energy transformed into ocean waves. No matter how tough the rocky mountain was, these waves still managed to seep up bit by bit, struggling to penetrate its meridians.

Then, after he had been meditating for two minutes, his internal energy transformed from a torrent into a tsunami, surging forward with a force far exceeding that of a solid rock mountain, rampaging and crashing through his meridians.

The accumulated martial arts skills he had been cultivating, which had been dormant due to the lack of higher-level techniques, were now unleashed by his internal energy cultivation. Even though it was just the most basic internal energy cultivation technique, once the process of refining essence into qi began, the internal energy became so vast that it was terrifying.

If a martial artist practicing internal energy encounters this situation, the only outcome would be qi deviation and self-destruction. However, Wu Pifu's physical body was too robust, and he also had a self-healing mechanism to counteract negative mental turmoil. His meridians withstood the surge of terrifying internal energy. Finally, after five minutes of meditation, the first meridian of this introductory technique was broken through, and the internal energy successfully converged into his dantian.

After gathering his energy in his dantian, Wu Pifu's internal energy underwent a qualitative change. He could now control this energy with his mind. Following Huang Rong's instructions, he began to use this internal energy to circulate it through the Great Circulation, but...

What he didn't know was that the so-called "Great Circulation of Qi" was a daily practice for those who had achieved extraordinary internal energy cultivation. It was something that internal energy martial artists would spend their entire lives doing, starting by opening up every meridian to achieve the full opening of all eight meridians, then opening up all the extraordinary meridians to achieve the connection between the Ren and Du meridians, passing through the gates of life and death, and finally opening the two bridges between heaven and earth. Reaching that stage would already be beyond the ultimate fantasy of innate martial artists. It is estimated that in all of Jin Yong's stories, only those characters who came close to passing through the gates of life and death were still some distance away from opening the two bridges between heaven and earth.

And Wu Pifu...

After ten minutes of meditation, all eight meridians were open, and judging by Huang Rong's standards, his total internal energy was approximately...

That's equivalent to ten cycles of the Chinese calendar!
(End of this chapter)