100X Returns System: I Dominate the Age of Gods - Chapter 47

Chapter 47: 47. Cultivation
[A/N: Guys, spirit summoning and spiritual energy are not related; please don’t get confused. The names may sound similar, but the meanings are not.]

[I write some data for a rough quantification, but some readers start doing all the math. I hope you all take this as a fantasy depiction made for imaginative and entertainment purposes and not a science class.

The story is a softcore fantasy, not a hardcore one like Lord of the Rings, so please just enjoy the ride. ヾ(≧▽≦*)o]

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Sovereign Spirit Transformer (Legendary)

Effects:

Spirit Possession: The host may temporarily merge with a contracted spirit, gaining its elemental abilities and undergoing partial or full physical transformation.

Sequential Possession: The host can undergo multiple spirit possessions during a single battle, limited only by stamina and mental focus.

Element-Adaptive Techniques: While possessed, the host can fuse their own elemental affinities with the spirit’s skills, creating compound attacks with layered and lethal effects.

Shared Growth Combat: while transformed permanently, it increases the host’s perception, control, and compatibility with the possessed spirit’s element.

Minimal Backlash Transformation: backlash is heavily reduced, fatigue and strain are manageable, and recovery is quick after disengagement.

Spirit Skill Assimilation Repeated: possession allows the host to retain fragments of spirit skills, enabling limited use even without transformation.

Transformation Stability Possession: remains stable even under heavy damage, interference, or environmental disruption.

Combat Instinct Synchronization: The host inherits the spirit’s combat instincts and elemental intuition, drastically improving reaction speed and technique execution.

Emergency Spirit Shift: At critical moments, the host may instantly switch possession to another contracted spirit to evade fatal damage or counterattack.

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The translucent system screen hovered steadily in front of Will.

The list of effects belonging to the Sovereign Spirit Transformer talent remained displayed, glowing faintly in the air as if waiting for him to come to a conclusion.

He stood at the perimeter of his small hut inside the Domain of Infinity, one hand resting loosely at his side.

The hut itself had long since stopped feeling temporary. Over the years it had become familiar, even comforting, despite its simple structure and sparse furnishings.

“Well, I still have to get some summoning ability.”

He spoke as his gaze remained fixed on the screen. The talent itself was powerful, undeniably so, but without spirits to contract or summon, its potential remained unutilized.

Roughly six months had passed in the outside world since Will last emerged. However, within the Domain of Infinity, time had flowed very differently.

By his own estimation, close to one hundred and seventy years had passed since he began this phase of training.

The passage of time was not something he felt acutely anymore, but the changes it had brought were undeniable.

Will himself had undergone immense transformation.

After acquiring the fusion core, cultivation had become a central focus of his daily routine. Unlike before.

The most significant contributor to his rapid progress had been the 100x cultivation feedback from the four bound main cast.

Although Will had long since surpassed each of them in terms of rank, the multiplied feedback still carried immense value. The insights, refinements, and minor breakthroughs experienced by his bonds were amplified and fed back into him continuously.

Even small gains compounded rapidly under such conditions.

Still, the foundation of his cultivation lay in a God-rank technique.

Primordial God Flow Scripture.

It had been hand-picked by the system during a free purchase opportunity, and in hindsight, Will understood why.

The scripture did not restrict the cultivator to a single energy type. Instead, it treated energy itself as a flowing concept, allowing multiple forms of power to coexist within the same framework.

The technique did not change its breathing patterns regardless of the energy being cultivated.

What changed was the internal flow. Mana circulation could be diverted seamlessly toward the mana core. While spiritual energy could be diverted to the spiritual core.

The adaptability of the scripture made it uniquely suited to Will’s condition, especially after the fusion core had been integrated.

With its help, Will had cultivated three distinct energies.

Mana.

Spiritual energy.

Demonic energy.

The decision to cultivate demonic energy had not come easily. Will despised demons on a fundamental level, and his past experiences ensured that his hatred was not shallow or symbolic.

However, practicality had overridden sentiment. Demonic energy possessed qualities that were difficult to replicate through other means. It was inherently destructive, violent, and overwhelmingly aggressive.

That same aggression was what made it dangerous.

Demonic energy was notorious for eroding its wielder’s body from within. Unless the physical vessel was exceptionally sturdy, like the demons, prolonged use would result in irreversible damage or complete collapse.

Many demonic cult cultivators, especially human ones, died due to backlash or became twisted abominations incapable of rational thought.

When Will first formed a demonic core and cultivated it to the level of the other two cores, the consequences had been immediate.

The energy surged violently, attempting to consume everything around it. It lashed out instinctively, seeking to destroy both the mana cores and the spiritual cores that already existed within his body.

For a brief moment, the internal balance of his body had been on the verge of catastrophic failure.

At that crucial moment Lawless Adaptation had intervened.

The talent asserted itself without hesitation, suppressing the destructive interaction before it could spiral out of control.

At this point, Will could not imagine surviving without that talent.

Even after stabilization, the situation remained volatile.

His Light and Sun affinities reacted violently to the presence of demonicenergy, instinctively attempting to purify it.

The clash between opposing energies should have torn him apart repeatedly. Instead, Lawless Adaptation mediated continuously, maintaining equilibrium between forces that should never have shared the same body.

And right now all the conflicting forces somehow were resting calmly inside his body thanks to the talent.

[Anyway, host, you have already reached S rank in all three cultivations; you now stand at the pinnacle of this generation.]

Even though his mana core was progressing faster than the other two cores due to all the feedback, his cultivation remained slow due to the nature of the primordial godflow structure. The scripture did not allow the use of any elixirs or other supports from arrays or artifacts; just pure, slow-burning cultivation was allowed.

[Not using any external aid has its benefits; your potential will never diminish, and since it is a god-rank scripture, the progress is expected to be slow, but the amount of precise control on all the energy it grants cannot be matched by any normal techniques.]

Will did not respond immediately. He turned his gaze upward toward the sun suspended in the domain’s sky, its light bathing the land below in a steady glow.

The scripture also provided the ability to interconvert different energies; now that Will had three energy cores, he had almost three times the energy reserve of a normal S-ranked individual.

“Yeah, but the most interesting part is that the shadow-borne art still hasn’t reached perfection.”

His tone carried faint frustration, though it was restrained.

Despite spending nearly the first fifty years cultivating three separate energies to S rank and the rest dedicated to this art, the Shadow Born Manifestation Art lagged behind.

Even after more than one hundred and twenty years of effort, he had only reached the beginner stage of the incomplete technique.

Progress had been painfully slow.

At his current level, Will could conjure simple shadow constructs. Small animals, vaguely humanoid figures, and basic shapes were all within his capabilities.

However, these manifestations drained his mana rapidly, despite his vast reserves. Maintaining them required constant focus, and even then, their operational duration rarely exceeded a few hours.

The constructs could perform simple tasks when given direct instructions. Sweeping, guarding, carrying, or standing watch were manageable.

However, the moment any complexity was introduced, they faltered. Commands that required interpretation or adaptation caused confusion, leading to delayed reactions or complete breakdowns.

In that sense, they were even more mechanical than Tamasya’s shadowborns.

Tamasya’s constructs, though lacking true consciousness, responded with a fluidity that suggested deeper conceptual anchoring.

Will’s manifestations felt crude by comparison, as though they were imitations rather than genuine extensions of shadow.

Will released a slow breath.

It had taken him more than one hundred and twenty years to reach the beginner stage of the Shadow Born Manifestation Art.

By comparison, Ethan had reached the intermediate stage of a saint-ranked sword technique in a single month, although progressing beyond that point had taken him significantly longer.

The disparity was irritating, even though Will understood it logically.

The system spoke again.

[Host, don’t compare techniques; every technique requires different conditions. For the shadow-born manifestation technique, you need a profound understanding of the shadow element, which is a derivative of the darkness element. If it was a darkness technique, your absolute affinity would have helped you reach the grandmaster stage directly.]

Will tilted his head slightly as he processed the explanation.

“So if I gain the shadow affinity, I can master this technique better?”

[affirmative]

A brief silence followed.

“At this point I know if I ask you the price of shadow affinity in the shop, you will just tell me a big-ass price I could never afford, like 2 trillion or something.”

The system responded instantly.

[Actually it’s 2 zillion, but yeah, you know the drill.]

“Tsk, shameless.”

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