Dyon sat silently in a den of beasts, not that any of them were left alive, anyway. A bloody cut of meat hung from his lips. It wasn't that he hadn't cooked it, but rather that he preferred it a bit on the rare side. Plus, that seemed to maximize the nutritional value of his meals.
These days, he needed more food to sustain himself without the use of his qi. He had practically gone back to being a mortal, needing to eat several times a day to not feel the pang of hunger.
For a person like Dyon, this meant committing hours a day toward devouring thousands of jin of food.
It had been a few days since he entered the immortal side of the Ancient Battlefield. However, he hadn't returned to that endless land of desert since he left it.
With his Immortal Sense, though he didn't use it as wantonly as he had on the mortal plane, it was quite easy for him to avoid big trouble. If Dyon burned his soul, his senses were slightly stronger than an average 5th Grade World Seer. Even if he didn't, he was at the very peak of the 3rd Grade World Seer level.
The highest level Spiritual Sages were only of the 9th grade. Such individuals could see through 9 world barriers at once. Yet, Dyon's soul could already touch the 5th grade and cross 5 world barriers. Such individuals were already inconceivably rare.
Simply put, Dyon was actually being overly cautious. But, within the Ancient Battlefield, it was warranted. There were definitely individuals here who surpassed him even if the only criteria tested was his soul.
There was another problem Dyon faced as well. One's Immortal Sense allowed to see details impossible for the eye. However, the 'details' of the Immortal Plane were far beyond anything the mortal plane could provide.
This was where Dyon ran into a sudden problem. He could theoretically observe any world within 5 barriers of him simultaneously. However, his mental energy drained far too quickly. He wouldn't be able to keep it up for even a single second….
It was just like he was observing The Entity's Origin Source all over again…
However, these setbacks weren't what Dyon was focused on at all. The simple solution to his Immortal Sense problem was to just rein it in. He could maintain a few hundred meters without issue. And, he could observe an entire world for about a minute. It wasn't like he absolutely needed to observe so many worlds at once anyway.
Rather, Dyon was focused on something else entirely: his Inner World.
After dispelling his qi cultivation, his Inner World had been in a perpetual state of collapse. In fact, the only reason it hadn't completely crumbled yet was because Dyon was protecting it with his soul.
His Inner World had been constructed by both his qi and soul. During the years it was slowly being built, his energy and soul cultivation had been sealed away. So, having lost one of its pillars, it was no wonder it was in such a sorry state.
Dyon understood why this had been necessary.
In the beginning, his Inner World relied on the Heavens to exist. This was why teleporting into his world from anywhere on the mortal plane had been possible, because they were fundamentally on the same plane. As a result, one's qi, the path the closest to the Heavens, was used to establish this connection. While the soul, which acted as a bridge to connect to the Heavens, was used as the proxy to strengthen it.
It made sense that qi was the closest to the Heavens. After all, weren't all tribulations reliant on the strength of one's qi path cultivation?
But now Dyon had run into a dilemma. He didn't want to lose his inner world, but he didn't want to recultivate his qi via normal means either…
For Dyon, reaching the Peak Dao Realm again would only take a matter of weeks, if that. He only needed to swallow a few Half-Immortal Grade pills.
However, while Dyon was certain that he wanted to regain his qi cultivation one day, he was also certain he didn't want to follow the same path he had before. He wanted a qi path cultivation that existed outside the control of the Heavens.
The good news was that the Heavens suppression of him had stopped after he came here. This was probably because if he was here, he wouldn't be able to affect the timeline of events on the mortal plane anyway. So there was no need to continue suppressing him.
The bad news, however, was that he somehow needed to rebuild the greatest cultivation technique ever created to suit his needs. This was a tall task indeed.
This was the true reason Dyon hadn't returned to the world of desert quite yet. He wanted to reconstruct his cultivation technique first. He already had a plan in mind too…
He couldn't qi cultivate without relying on the Heavens. But, in order to qi cultivate without the Heavens, he needed an Inner World that produced its own qi. But, he couldn't rebuild his inner world without qi cultivating.
There was only one way to end the cycle. His Inner World had to be built on something completely different, an opposing existence in comparison to qi.
The only solution, then, was his body.
This was how Dyon slowly began building his plan to refine his body.