In the Sand Village, the clones are everywhere, and the Arkham game begins

Chapter 482 Celestial Master's Ascension
Time is like a giant clock, exquisite and complex.

If someone travels back in time and does something, then they will have triggered one of the threads.

If one of its parts shifts, it may still work, but it will just be different from the previous clock. It's like a line splitting into two; the clock is still the same clock, just in two different states.

However, if a critical part breaks down, it can affect other key components and directly impact the clock itself, causing the hands to slow down, speed up, or even spin erratically. In some cases, it may even stop turning altogether.

That would be worse.

Trying to control time as a whole is extremely difficult because, from a macro perspective, all timelines move in parallel.

However, if one wants to influence time, there are ways to do so.

Artifacts like the Time Stone, which restore time to certain areas, essentially copy these lines from their previous state.

For example, if someone is killed by a car at 10:02, but is resurrected at 10:03 using the Time Stone, it's equivalent to copying them from 10:01 to 10:03.

On the macro timeline, the ends of each line are still aligned, all at 10:03.

Conversely, time acceleration is also like a spiral line. Within a defined distance, this line becomes longer than before, but at the end, it still aligns with the ends of other lines outside.

As for the time loop, it is a Möbius strip, a line that keeps spinning within this distance, and Dormammu is trapped in this small loop and keeps spinning with it.

Time passed by little by little, and a day and a night had already passed outside.

The ball of light in front of Qingshui and the old celestial master gradually shrank, changing from the size of a human head back to the size of a grain of rice.

That feeling of having everything right in front of you gradually diminished.

Shimizu and the old master had already pulled their hands back and closed their eyes to contemplate their previous gains.

A few hours later, Qing Shui, having finished combing her hair, was the first to open her eyes. She glanced at the old master beside her, whose aura was becoming increasingly ethereal, but did not disturb him. Instead, she sat down cross-legged and began to explore the abilities she had just developed.

"The Primordial Qi can now be synthesized on its own by absorbing natural energy from the outside world. With the promotion of this energy, the body is more active, and the life essence is slowly increasing with the Primordial Qi that I have refined. Judging from the current state, after the foundation of this incarnation is transformed, my lifespan should be able to increase to nearly three hundred years."

"Whether in normal or reverse state, my basic abilities such as strength and speed have also increased significantly. It is foreseeable that using this higher quality energy to perform ninjutsu and magic will be more effective."

Feeling the abundant innate Qi within his body, Qingshui nodded with considerable satisfaction.

As the quality of his innate Qi improves, he can also become a powerful numerical monster.

The upper limit of this thing is much greater than that of simple Qi and Chakra.

Furthermore, with the improvement of his mental aura and the enhancement of his own mental power, he can even receive a super buff that greatly increases all his stats.

Imagine a new avatar is released. Without doing anything, as long as that world has natural energy, it can immediately possess the combat power of an elite Jonin simply by using breathing techniques and mental aura.

If one has enough time to cultivate and strengthen, relying on the innate Qi, one can directly possess the strength of a Kage. If one also has time to collect materials to forge a puppet battle armor and further cultivate, then if placed in the One-Punch Man world, one could also have the combat power to the threshold of the Dragon level.

And this is just one of the gains.

In the past, Shimizu's earliest related skill regarding space was summoning, and then he obtained the Blood Demon Art version of Flying Thunder God through his perfect demonic body.

However, this is only a basic version of the Flying Thunder God Technique, which can be used to teleport using one's own blood as a coordinate. At first, Shimizu only knew how to use it but not why. He could use it, but he couldn't figure out the underlying principles.

Later, he learned a lot about magic in the Marvel universe, but still needed high-quality energy to cast it. After that, he obtained the Wang family's divine painting technique from Wang Ai. His Marvel avatar also learned some spatial techniques during Dormammu's invasion, thus embarking on this path.

It was roughly the size of a door to a space that was half-open, with one foot already inside.

Now, finally, there was a chance for him to step inside with both feet, and the machine pushed him even deeper.

Those spatial skills, at this moment, were like mathematical and physical formulas, their principles and applications deeply imprinted in Shimizu's mind, without any limitations.

He could even try to integrate the existing formulas to derive other formulas.

There have also been considerable gains in the realm of time and reality.

While it cannot compare to the space that has already embarked on the path of greatness, it still possesses one or two practical and powerful skills.

Unfortunately, this opportunity is almost used up. Absorbing the remaining small point of light won't cause much of a qualitative change, so I might as well leave this little bit behind.

In the future, this spot of light can be restored; it just takes time.

More than nine hundred years ago, during the mid-to-late Northern Song Dynasty, Zhang Boduan, a man from Ziyang Mountain, did the same thing: he sealed away this opportunity and set up a checkpoint to test whether those who came after him were qualified to obtain it.

After Qing Shui finished sorting through the harvest, the old celestial master opened his eyes, and white qi emanated from his body, like the feathers of a crane.

"Is this... ascension to immortality?"

Looking at the old celestial master's posture, Qingshui was quite surprised and uncertain.

In his perception, he found himself unable to see through the old master's true nature.

This feeling is quite similar to when I first met Dormammu.

Could it be that he has actually cultivated himself into a miniature world?
The old master gave Qingshui an affirmative answer.

"Indeed, I have cultivated the Dragon-Tiger Golden Core that my ancestor spoke of. It is not like those in those mythical novels where a golden core is formed in the dantian. Instead, it is based on the five internal organs corresponding to the five elements, and life force corresponding to yin and yang. The dragon and tiger are in harmony, and the primordial unity is achieved. My body is like a golden core, reversing the innate state and forming its own universe. Now I am generating innate primordial ...

The old master said with no small amount of pride.

"So, you're going to ascend to immortality like all those extraordinary people who became immortals throughout history?"

“That’s right. Now that I have cultivated my inner world, if I don’t want to cause damage to the world that gave birth to us, I must leave as soon as possible. With my current level of skill, I can only stay for three days at most. After three days, what I expel will not be excess innate Qi, but my very origin will be affected. At that time, I will not ascend to heaven in broad daylight, but will merge with the Heavenly Dao and be assimilated by this great world as a small world.”

So this is the truth behind ascension to immortality.

Those highly accomplished elders who became immortals didn't not want to stay and lord it over others; they simply couldn't stay.

The so-called ascension to immortality is almost equivalent to cultivating oneself into a single universe, becoming a dimensional demon like Dormammu, except that their dimension is a weak, tiny single universe.

Even though there are still huge differences in their energy levels and methods, they can still be considered to be on the same level. The old Celestial Master's current state is equivalent to a newborn dimensional demon infant. Even though he is now over a hundred years old, among dimensional demons who are hundreds of millions, tens of millions, or even billions of years old, a hundred years old is indeed equivalent to being a newborn.

“The Celestial Master seeks the Dao, but I seek both the Dao and the techniques, which seems a bit greedy.”

Shimizu clicked his tongue in amazement.

However, he had no regrets. The amount of the Qi of Heaven and Earth was too small. The amount he and the Old Celestial Master had after splitting it in half was not enough to push his avatar to this level.

This incarnation lacks a solid foundation.

Even though he is very strong in combat and has reached the pinnacle of this world, and has a relatively deep cultivation level in the cultivation system of the supernatural beings, there is still a big gap between him and the Old Celestial Master.

Reflecting on the Reverse Life Triple Stage, his body's life cultivation was only enough to sustain him until the mid-stage of the second stage, still falling short of Lu Jin's level before his life-or-death battle with Li Muxuan.

At that time, Lu Jin was in the late stage of the second level, only one step away from the peak of the second level of reconstructing the three cores.

And even if he could push this avatar to that level, what would that bring to the original body?

Perhaps some of the dimensional demon's characteristics can be synchronized back, but it is destined to cost a massive amount of luck.

It would be more worthwhile to directly comprehend techniques that don't require luck to bring back, just like comprehending the Eight Extraordinary Techniques.

Besides, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth here is renewable. We can think of ways to speed up its accumulation later. When this avatar reaches the required level, it's not impossible to come back again.

By then, it's uncertain how much the original body will have grown.

"The Tao gives birth to One, One gives birth to Two, Two gives birth to Three, Three gives birth to all things. All things originate from the Tao, and techniques can also approach the Tao. Professor Zhuo, you have nothing to regret. In the eyes of others, I have already attained the Tao, but I still have to continue to seek the Tao. Techniques and the Tao are inherently interdependent. If you reach my level, you will have to seek the Tao by evolving your inner world on your own, or you will have to plunder other worlds to accelerate the evolution process."

At this time, the more techniques one masters, the closer one gets to the Dao, the more complete one's inner world becomes, and naturally, the stronger one becomes.

Zhang Zhiwei stroked his long white beard as he looked at the clear waterway.

Two days later.

Longhu Mountain, Jiangxi Province, the Celestial Master's Mansion.

Large numbers of extraordinary individuals from all over the country and even the world are continuously flocking to this place.

Almost everyone who had time came.

Because the Celestial Master is about to ascend to immortality, and before ascending to immortality, he will preach for a day.

There are at least 70,000 to 80,000 extraordinary people in the whole country, and there are as many as 400,000 to 500,000 extraordinary people in the world. But on this day, a full 100,000 extraordinary people came to Longhu Mountain.

To the outside world, the Taoist Association could only announce that this was a grand Taoist ritual that had been prepared long ago.

The Universal Grand Ritual is similar to the Heavenly Grand Ritual, but it is of a higher standard. Above the Heavenly Grand Ritual is the Zhou Tian Grand Ritual.

Throughout the entire history of Taoism, there are only five clearly recorded Zhou Tian Grand Ritual and only three Universal Grand Ritual.

This is the fourth time.

They were so busy that the Central China division of Nadotong was short-staffed and had to temporarily borrow staff from the South China, North China, and Southwest regions to help.

Managing these hundreds of thousands of people with various extraordinary abilities is indeed an enormous challenge.

Fortunately, Longhu Mountain is a well-known tourist attraction, and during holidays it has hosted more than 100,000 tourists in a single day.

However, at any given time, there are only forty or fifty thousand at most.

This forced the Celestial Master's Mansion and the local cultural and tourism bureau to temporarily set up many venues to accommodate these extraordinary people.

Even so, only a few thousand people in a square were able to hear the Old Celestial Master preach in person.

Fortunately, this is a modern world, and it can be watched via live stream.

Aside from not being able to personally experience the Daoist spirit when the immortals preach and not having the opportunity to ask questions, it's not much different from being there in person.

The night before this grand religious ceremony, the Celestial Master had secretly held a closed-door Dharma assembly, where he wrote down all his insights and compiled them into "The True Chapter of Asking the Way of the Dragon and Tiger".

Aside from the old master's direct disciples and a few important grand-disciples like Zhang Chulan, only Qingshui and Lu Jin were present when the transmission was received.

On the first day of the Pu Tian Da Jiao (a religious ceremony), after the sermon, at 5 p.m.

The sky was still bright, and it was not yet evening.

In the presence of numerous disciples of Longhu Mountain, representatives from the world of supernatural beings, and many envoys of supernatural beings from around the world, Zhang Zhiwei, the 65th Celestial Master of Longhu Mountain and the Celestial Daoist, passed on the position of Celestial Master to his last disciple, Zhang Lingyu.
Ascend to heaven in broad daylight and become an immortal!
……

……

Naruto World.

Sunagakure Village, the highest experimental base.

The true form of Qingshui sat in the chair, picked up a pen and wrote down the old Celestial Master's "True Chapter of Dragon and Tiger Asking the Way," carefully studying it.

Even for Shimizu today, this is still a very valuable reference.

The path he took was not the same as that of the Old Celestial Master, but they led to the same goal. This cultivation notebook could also guide him on how to proceed in the future.

Yes, this is just a practice notebook, not a cultivation method.

If it were a common cultivation technique, or even a slightly more advanced one, the old Celestial Master could easily write it down with his current level of understanding and vision.

But to write a book that would allow future generations to follow in his footsteps, embark on the path to immortality, cultivate their inner world, and transform into dimensional demons, would require far more time, and there's no guarantee that it could even be written.

(End of this chapter)