Chapter 342 - Double Origin Core

When Lu Tianzi further inspected his inner world, he could not help but let out a look of surprise.

Within his inner world, two small orbs of differing energy sources was orbiting around each other.

These were his two true origin cores, one from the Spiritual Essence cultivation system and one from the Slaughter Essence cultivation system.

Before this, the two cultivation systems might have been present in his inner world at the same time, but they seemed to have existed in separate worlds, never showing any signs of interacting with each other.

However, now that his acc.u.mulations in both cultivation systems had been condensed into origin cores, some sort of resonance seemed to have started to form between them.

With the formation of his Spiritual Essence true origin core, not only did Lu Tianzi feel a new burst of strength coming from his Spiritual Essence cultivation system, even his Slaughter Essence true origin core started giving off a feeling of power unlike before.

His Slaughter Essence true origin core had always been constantly gathering World Origin Energy from the surroundings.

Now, the rate at which it absorbed energy from the surroundings had suddenly increased as well.

It could be said that his breakthrough in the Spiritual Essence cultivation system had amplified the strength of his Slaughter Essence cultivation system in almost every single aspect!

Even though he had already successfully broken through to the First Cycle Origin Core realm, Lu Tianzi did not end his meditation immediately.

With the help of his Slaughter Essence cultivation system, the excess energy that resulted from the breakthrough could still be assimilated back into his Spiritual Essence true origin core, further consolidating his current cultivation and bringing him one step closer to the next boundary.

While he remained in a state of deep meditation, his two true origin cores continued to orbit around each other in his inner world, both of them steadily gathering World Origin Energy from the surroundings.

At a certain point in time, an illusory green vortex shimmered into existence behind him.

This was Lu Tianzi's Origin Totem, only that it no longer looked the same as before.

Another green vortex had formed and was connected to the original one from behind, creating an illusory figure similar to the shape of a horizontal hourglass.

But while the original vortex seemed to be drawing in the very fabrics of reality into an endless void, the second vortex seemed to be acting in complete contrast, sending out energy from within instead.

Lu Tianzi instinctively understood that the contrasting properties of the two illusory vortices was because of his two different cultivation techniques.

The Heaven Devouring Divine Art sought to absorb everything, duplicating the laws of the world within his body and eventually form his own internal world system that could even match the real world.

However, the Undulated Currents Breathing Technique was the complete opposite.

It sought to assimilate oneself with the flow of the world, eventually becoming one with the world laws so as to borrow the speed of the world in every stride and the strength of the world in every strike.

Due to the vast difference between the two cultivation techniques, Lu Tianzi had even been a little worried when he first started cultivating the Heaven Devouring Divine Art.

Fortunately, everything seemed to be coming together nicely.

As for why the two differing cultivation techniques resulted in similarly shaped Origin Totems in the form of vortices, that was because no matter which cultivation system it was, his comprehensions into the world laws did not change.

In fact, a faint sense of sharpness could now be felt from the two illusory green vortices.

This was an attribute that was born from his newly attained comprehensions into the Law of Swords.

Lu Tianzi finally opened his eyes after another few hours.

After consolidating his cultivation, he realised that he had reached a bottleneck in his Spiritual Essence cultivation system.

This bottleneck was not a result of rushing his pace of cultivation.

On the contrary, his foundation was extremely solid, as could be seen from the fact that he was able to form a true origin core.

Instead, this bottleneck had resulted from the inherent limit of his cultivation technique.

The second level of the Undulated Currents Breathing Technique only showed him the way to break through to the Origin Core realm.

As for how he should progress from here, that was still a path that was still shrouded in mist.

Of course, this was a problem that Lu Tianzi had foreseen as well.

It was the reason why he had gathered the best cultivation technique manuals from the Ivory Rock Martial Academy before, and had been going through them in his spare time.

This was his attempt to find clues to developing his own cultivation technique.

Lu Tianzi understood that if he wanted to advance any further, he would have to achieve a breakthrough in terms of his understanding of the Spiritual Essence cultivation system.

Only then would he be able to personally refine the Undulated Currents Breathing Technique, eventually upgrading it into a cultivation technique that could at least reach the Overlord realm.

He had not been focusing on this aspect before, but now he no longer had the luxury of procrastinating.

The longer he dragged this on, the longer his Spiritual Essence cultivation would stagnate.

His Spiritual Essence cultivation had already fallen behind his Slaughter Essence cultivation. If it were to stagnate any longer, it might just become irrelevant in the future, and this was something Lu Tianzi did not wish to happen.

After all, Lu Tianzi's dual cultivation system had always been his advantage over others, and having one of his cultivation systems become irrelevant was as good as losing this unique advantage.

He really needed to start focusing on studying the Spiritual Essence cultivation techniques in his possession from now on.

Lu Tianzi went to open the windows, and was pleased to see that the first light of dawn had just descended.

He made it just in time.

It had now been a week since they arrived, and it was the day that the Sacred Lotus Auction would be held.

Lu Tianzi deactivated the formations around him and retrieved the formation flags before heading to the inn lobby.

As he walked down to the inn lobby, Lu Tianzi felt slightly surreal, as though everything in his surroundings now appeared much clearer to him.

It did not take long before he realised that after breaking through to the Origin Core realm in the Spiritual Essence system, his senses and perception had reached a whole new level, allowing him to now see things that he might not have noticed in the past.

Things had not been as obvious when he remained in his room, but now that Lu Tianzi had come into contact with others in the inn lobby, he was able to feel a stark difference from before.

He realised that within a certain radius from him, every small action that the other guests made did not escape his perception, and that was even without him actively checking on them.

Since it was still early in the morning, Lu Tianzi ordered a few simple dishes while waiting at the inn lobby, taking the chance to get used to his enhanced level of perception.

Initially, it was a bit of a sensory overload as he had yet to get used to the large amount of information that was flooding into his brain.

But as an Origin Core realm martial artist, Lu Tianzi was able to adapt quickly enough. Before an hour had passed, everything was already feeling completely natural to him.

"You are finally out," Nanlan Qianxue smiled as she naturally took a seat beside him, giving him a good lookover while she was at it. "Seems like you had some significant gains during this time."

While she was unable to see any difference in Lu Tianzi's cultivation level, she could sense that something about him had changed, and it was for the better.

"Yeah, it was quite a fruitful session," Lu Tianzi did not bother hiding it from Nanlan Qianxue. "How did you spend the past week?"

"I went out with Brother Xuan Hao and Sister Ruan Ling to explore the city," Nanlan Qianxue answered with a somewhat excited tone in her voice. "There is so much to see in Sacred Cliff City, you are really missing out!"

"Haha, is that so?" Lu Tianzi laughed. "Then you would have to show me around after this!"

"Brother Tianzi don't have to worry about that, I will show you all around!" Young Master Xuan Hao's voice came from behind, interrupting the conversation between the two.

"Brother Xuan Hao, Sister Ruan Ling," Lu Tianzi turned around and clasped his fists towards the approaching duo.

"Brother Tianzi sure is serious about cultivation, to think that you would prioritise cultivating despite having just arrived at Sacred Cliff City. No wonder you are such an impressive martial artist," Young Master Xuan Hao smiled.

"Brother Xuan Hao must be joking. Compared to you and Sister Ruan Ling, my cultivation level is still far too lacking. I just happened to have some issues with my cultivation that I needed to resolve," Lu Tianzi shook his head. "Are we heading to the Sacred Lotus Auction now?"

"That's right," Young Master Xuan Hao nodded. "While there is still some time before it starts, it would be best to go early so that we can get some good seats. Shall we?"

They were gathered here for this very reason, so there were naturally no complaints from the others.

Under Young Master Xuan Hao's lead, the group left Fortune Queen Inn and slowly made their way over to the venue of the auction.

Sacred Lotus Treasury was a major influence within Sacred Cliff City, reknowned for being one of the largest producer of quality equipment and accessories in the city, and had multiple branches in other cities as well.

They had numerous smiths and artificers under their wing, and each of its products had gone through stringent checks and scrutiny before being put up in the market.

It was said that as long as an equipment or accessory came from the Sacred Lotus Treasury, there was no need to worry about its quality.

But not only do they produce their own equipment and accessories, they also traded in these items.

In fact, there were many times when they bought inferior equipment from others, only to resell these equipment after upgrading them into superior ones.

But regardless of all that, they were still best known for being the organisers of the biennial Sacred Lotus Auction.

The Sacred Lotus Auction was held in their headquarters – a lotus-shaped building located near the very centre of Sacred Cliff City.

The outers regions of the Sacred Lotus Treasury Headquarters had always been a place that was crowded with customers, but today the number of people was even greater than usual.

When they arrived, Lu Tianzi could not help but feel surprised to see the sheer amount of people present.

Just like them, countless people had arrived early to gain entry into the Sacred Lotus Auction, and the queue to enter was already extremely long.

"Let's just join the queue..." Young Master Xuan Hao felt helpless as well.

If he wanted to, Young Master Xuan Hao could try showing off his status and try to gain an expedited entry. However, he had been hiding his real identity throughout his journey, and was not intending to reveal it for such a small matter.

After all, the venue for the Sacred Lotus Auction was known to be able to accommodate a large number of people. Despite the long queue, it was almost guaranteed that they would be able to get a seat.

Indeed, after queuing for around twenty minutes, it was finally their turn at the reception counter.

"There are four of you? Each bidding card requires a deposit of five hundred low ranked beast cores. How many bidding cards do you need?" the middle-aged man at the counter got straight to the point.

"I will have one," Young Master Xuan Hao casually passed over a spatial ring.

The middle-aged man checked the spatial ring before handing over a palm-sized bronze tablet. "Send a wisp of energy into the tablet in order to bid. Be careful though, there is no retracting of bids. If you don't have enough money despite making a bid, we will consider you to be a troublemaker and act accordingly."

"Understood," Young Master Xuan Hao nodded while curiously inspecting the bronze tablet in his hands.

"All right, next," the middle-aged man moved on quickly.

"Wait, I would like to have a bidding card as well," Lu Tianzi interjected.

"Oh?" Young Master Xuan Hao looked at Lu Tianzi in surprise. "I didn't know Brother Tianzi is interested in bidding as well. I guess we might even end up being competitors."

Lu Tianzi responded with a smile while passing a spatial ring over to the middle-aged man.

He might not be exceedingly rich, but now that he was at an event like this, he naturally need to be prepared.

It was one thing if nothing of interest came up, but how indignant would he be if something did come up but he didn't even have a bidding card to bid for it?

Of course, whether he was able to obtain anything with his current wealth was an issue as well, but that was besides the point.

Just as Lu Tianzi received his bidding token, someone suddenly shouted out from afar.

"Make way, make way! Grandmaster Weiwo is coming through!"

Hmm?

Lu Tianzi's group turned around to see a huge commotion arising from among the crowds as a group of strong men forced their way through to the front of the line.