Heavenly Jewel Change

As he circulated the energy with all his might, it all seemed smooth, and there was no sign of it being hard to control just because the energy was of a higher state. Just like in the past when he circulated his old Heavenly Energy, Zhou Weiqing managed to circulate the energy without any issues all the way to his Death Acupuncture point energy whirlpools. To his joy, although there were only about twenty drops of the Saint Energy liquid, he found he was able to easily break them apart, not needing to keep to the size of the droplet of water. In this way, he was able to spread the Saint Energy evenly between all of his Death Acupuncture Point energy whirlpools.

As the silvery white Saint Energy entered the energy whirlpools, a strange sensation, almost unprecedented in its strength, flooded Zhou Weiqing’s entire body.

All of the energy whirlpools turned the similar silvery white colour instantly, but their spinning did not actually increase, instead slowly down. Despite that, under such a circumstance, Zhou Weiqing felt as if he was in the midst of using the Devour Skill, Heavenly Energy pouring in from the atmosphere at a crazy rate. With the guidance of the Saint Energy, his cultivation level was almost three times faster than normal. However, before long, Zhou Weiqing realised a new problem. This Heavenly Energy that came from the atmosphere would not be transformed into Saint Energy from his own personal energy whirlpools, remaining as the same state of normal Heavenly Energy. Furthermore, as he drew in more and more Heavenly Energy, the energy whirlpools which had been activated by the Saint Energy grew slower and slower.

Perhaps a more accurate description would be that as the energy whirlpools grew less pure, the cultivation speed also dropped.

Zhou Weiqing discovered that this Saint Energy was extremely sensitive. He had only cultivated for such a short period of time, and though the rate of it was indeed much faster, how much total Heavenly Energy could he actually draw? Yet, the slowing of the energy whirlpool was already quite substantial.

Zhou Weiqing sighed inwardly at that. In the end, it was because he did not have the four Saint Attributes by himself! With his own strength, he was not able to generate the Saint Energy, and it seemed like that could only be done together with Tian’er.

At this point, he suddenly had a strange thought. If he and Tian’er had a child in the future, would he or she have all four Saint Attributes? Wouldn’t that be truly a talent that defied the heavens? If one wasn’t possible, then I’ll have more children… Heh Heh Heh.

Naturally, Tian’er did not know that a certain person was thinking of such things while cultivating. As for her, she had also discovered the same problem that Zhou Weiqing had run into. Although both their cultivation techniques were very different, the end result was about the same. No matter how they cultivated, they were not able to generate Saint Energy by themselves, only having the new Heavenly Energy cultivated having a strand of aura of the Saint Attributes.

Before long, the three of them opened their eyes slowly, one after the other. When they had all ended their cultivation, Shangguan Xue’er looked at Zhou Weiqing and asked: “How was it?”

Zhou Weiqing shook his head and said: “No, it isn’t possible to directly cultivate the Saint Energy by myself. Although my cultivation speed has increased for a time, but as the original type of Heavenly Energy increases, the cultivation speed will begin dropping. From what I see, the best way would be for us to cultivate individually for a period of time, to maximize the Heavenly Energy we have, then cultivate together to refine and transform the energy into Saint Energy. At least, we need to have sufficient Heavenly Energy to generate a drop of Saint Energy before that is worth doing, probably more.”

Shangguan Xue’er thought about it for a moment and said: “In that case, what if you Devour my Heavenly Energy before cultivating again?”

Zhou Weiqing said: “I’m afraid that isn’t possible. That is because I definitely need Tian’er and her other two Saint Attributes to be able to form the Saint Energy whirlpool. If I only Devour your Heavenly Energy, it will only be simply draining you to death. Furthermore, currently the majority of energy in Tian’er’s body is the Saint Energy, and I am totally unable to Devour anything to start the process.”

Tian’er said: “How about this… I will use the Saint Energy to activate just my two Saint Attributes and infuse them into your body. At the same time, you do the same with your two Saint Attributes to receive it. In this way, I can hold one of your hands to do so. While we do that, you can use your other hand to Devour Xue’er’s Heavenly Energy, and begin the process of transforming her Heavenly Energy into Saint Energy and infusing it back into her, and we can see if we are able to fully complete the process of purifying her Heavenly Energy. If that is possible, you can even start considering using this against enemies, Devouring, Transforming, Purification and making it all our own.”

“Good idea.” Hearing Tian’er’s words, Zhou Weiqing’s eyes lit up. In theory, that all seemed possible. The Saint Energy was extremely pure, and it held the aura of the four Saint Attributes, holding a massive amount of energy. Each and every drop was very precious indeed, and even if Shangguan Xue’er could just gain a few drops, it could come in handy in critical moments, as the power in using it should be extremely different. After pondering for a few moments, Zhou Weiqing said to Tian’er: “Let us first try if we can form the Saint Energy whirlpool in my body again. If it succeeds, then we can first attempt to cultivate like that. My thought is with the Saint Energy whirlpool, we can directly begin to draw Heavenly Energy from the atmosphere to refine and transform. The Devour Skill should only be hastening the entire process.”

Tian’er nodded and said: “Good, let’s try it then.”

Using a single hand, Zhou Weiqing held onto Tian’er’s hand. As the two exchanged looks, they began to circulate their Saint Energy.

Using the Saint Energy to invoke their respective Saint Attributes, as soon as they began to do so, they immediately had a totally different feeling. It was clear that it was extremely different from their previous usage of the Saint Attributes. With just a single thought, the Saint Attributes were easily activated, rising instantly, and the ‘fuel’ of the Saint Energy glowed brightly in their bodies. However, to both Zhou Weiqing and Tian’er’s surprise, the rate of consumption of the Saint Energy was also extremely fast, far beyond their expectations. Although the Saint Energy held more than ten times the energy of their original Heavenly Energy, the rate of consumption was actually about the same. This continued all the way until the Saint Energy whirlpool started forming in Zhou Weiqing’s body, before the consumption began to lower slowly. As soon as the Saint Energy whirlpool formed, the normal Heavenly Energy that Zhou Weiqing had just cultivated earlier was drawn in and transformed. However, the amount was just too little, and new Saint Energy was not formed. Still, as they had hypothesized, when they tried cultivating new Heavenly Energy, it would instantly be drawn into the Saint Energy whirlpool.

After a while, both of them finally stopped. Exchanging glances, they asked: “Why is the energy consumption so high?” They began to describe what they had gone through to Shangguan Xue’er.

As the saying goes, ‘The spectators see the chess game better than the players.’

Shangguan Xue’er said: “Hmm… it is possible that in this case, the high energy consumption, or rather similar rate of energy consumption means that this Saint Energy is not just a compressed form or to save energy. On the other hand, it means the output or quality of Skills used would be correspondingly much larger. Why don’t you try using the Saint Energy to use a Skill. Just now, when you were circulating the Saint Energy, the aura that you both gave forth caused me to feel such a powerful presence, even that of awe.”

Zhou Weiqing nodded and said: “Let me try.” As he said that, he focused his will to activate the Demonic Attribute, releasing the Ward of the Demon God silently. Instantly, a strange anomaly occurred. Originally, the Ward of the Demon God was just a single layer of faint grey light shield. However, this time, when Zhou Weiqing used the Ward of the Demon God with the Saint Energy, a crystalline layer of grey light burst out of his body. For a grey colour to actually glow with such resplendent magnificence… they did not even need to test it out to know how terrifying the defensive capabilities of this new Ward of the Demon God brought. It gave Zhou Weiqing the feeling similar to that of his second stage of the Dragon-Tiger Transformation. However, Zhou Weiqing quickly ended the Skill, as he was shocked to find that in just that short moment he had it up, he had almost used up an entire drop of Saint Energy.

“The consumption rate is just too high!” Zhou Weiqing said in shock. The increase in power was clear to everyone, but if the consumption rate was so fast, with just a mere twenty drops of Heavenly Energy, how could he even fight ordinarily?

Tian’er also gave it a try of her own, but the result was the same as Zhou Weiqing. Furthermore, they realised that after using up a drop of Saint Energy, it would not automatically recover as time passed or even with their own cultivation.

The two of them joined hands once again to experiment. This time, they discovered another few profound secrets of the Saint Energy. Indeed, as they used the Saint Energy to unleash their Skills, the consumption was a direct link to the increase in power. However, when they had formed the Saint Energy whirlpool before using the Skills, then the consumption of Saint Energy would allow them to recover some of the Saint Energy, and as they drew in more energy from the atmosphere, it was refined and transformed until they reached their ‘theoretical max’ once more.

After several tries like this, the three of them exchanged looks. Zhou Weiqing smiled bitterly as he said: “What is this… after transforming our energy to Saint Energy, we aren’t even able to fight normally anymore. What kind of sustainability do we have? This is even worse than I had imagined! Even with my Immortal Deity Technique, I can’t sustain such a massive drain. Even when we are joined together with the Saint Energy whirlpool, we can’t even do many normal attacks. The most we can do is to ensure that our Saint Energy doesn’t totally vanish… but that is still far from having a sustained fighting capabilities.”

After some musing, Shangguan Xue’er comforted them, saying: “This world is a fair one after all. The Saint Energy would give a massive burst in power in a short period of time. If it could really be used like ordinary Heavenly Energy, wouldn’t your current cultivation level be equivalent to tearing down the heavens? In my opinion, this Saint Energy should be used like an ace up your sleeve, a hidden trump card.”

“As for normal fighting, I also have some thoughts about that. Why don’t you try to see if you can transform the Saint Energy back to normal Heavenly Energy. If that is possible, then you all can maintain the majority of your Heavenly Energy, with a small portion transformed into Saint Energy as your aces. After all, your cultivation level is still far from true powerhouses. Perhaps, we can only uncover more of the profound secrets of this Saint Energy when we reach the Heavenly King Stage or higher…”

Zhou Weiqing’s eyes glowed in sudden inspiration. “You mean to say… reverse the Saint Energy whirlpool?”

Shangguan Xue’er smiled faintly and said: “Well, not exactly reverse. In truth, our body is limited in its own ways, no matter your DanTian or your meridians. When we reach the Heavenly Xu Stage in cultivation, isn’t it exactly because we have liquified our Heavenly Energy so that we can hold more of it? More so, when we continue cultivating, we are further compressing and consolidating the liquid Heavenly Energy, so that when we breakthrough to the Heavenly Dao Stage, we can form a Heavenly Core Nucleus to enter the Heavenly King Stage.”

“If you think about it in that fashion, your current bodies do not have any Heavenly Energy to fill up, let alone being able to compress and consolidate the Heavenly Energy. As such, you can try to directly draw the atmospheric Heavenly Energy to fill yourself up right? You do not need to think about transforming these into Saint Energy. In the future when you cultivate, only when you find you are unable to continue compressing the Heavenly Energy, then you can start transforming them into Saint Energy… eventually you can reach a point where your entire body and meridians are filled with Saint Energy… and you can use that Saint Energy to form the Heavenly Core Nucleus… I think that would be the point you can start cultivating the Saint Energy on your own individually.” (Zen: Not too satisfied with this last paragraph, a lot of specialised terms and strange phrasings so I spent a lot of time rewriting it. Let me know if you all can understand what it means, or any suggestions in rephrasing)