Published: August 10, 2026
Chapter 1055: Refining Essence into Qi, Refining Qi into Spirit! (Part 2)
There were mainly three great bottlenecks in attempting to break through to the divine transformation realm.
The first great bottleneck was opening the "Heavenly Gate" and the "Dragon Gate."
This "gate" did not exist in the real world. It could not be directly observed with the naked eye, nor could it be swept by divine consciousness.
It could only be vaguely sensed by spiritual perception when a living being was making a breakthrough.
Only when the yuan ying reached its limit could it be "seen" clearly.
However, under normal circumstances, even the time during which it could be seen was very short.
That was because at that moment, the breakthrough cultivator's yuan ying was in a theoretically perfect, peak state, with divine consciousness and everything else rising to several times their normal level, something impossible to maintain under ordinary conditions.
This state was usually supported by spiritual objects, elixirs, secret techniques, and the like, so it could not last long.
If one could not open the Heavenly Gate as soon as possible, one would quickly fall out of that perfect state, lose the sense of it, and fail the breakthrough.
Since the Heavenly Gate did not exist in reality, it naturally was not affected by magical power, magical treasures, or the vast majority of divine abilities and secret techniques.
According to the records in the classics, the only way to open that gate was by relying purely on the power of divine consciousness.
Although it could not be swept by divine consciousness at first, once the yuan ying underwent its final sublimation and saw the Heavenly Gate, one could then use divine consciousness to exert influence and open the gate.
Naturally, the stronger the divine consciousness, the greater the chance of pushing that gate open.
Because people differed from one another, the difficulty of opening the Heavenly Gate also varied, so just how strong divine consciousness had to be remained unresolved in the cultivation world to this day.
But it was generally accepted that if it was below a thousand li, there would not be the slightest hope!
The divine transformation spiritual object, the Divine Connection Pill, was beneficial in helping yuan ying transform into Primordial Spirit. In this bottleneck, it could also enhance the yuan ying.
Its effect was roughly to temporarily increase divine consciousness strength by sixty to one hundred twenty li.
Though it was only a temporary boost, at such a critical moment, even increasing the chances of success by a little was good. Thus, in the end, it still flowed into the hands of the three major divine transformation factions.
However, this pill had probably already lost its effect on Liu Yu.
His yuan ying was now nine chi and nine cun tall, and his divine consciousness had also surged to roughly two thousand li.
This was a permanent improvement, achieved by damaging the flesh to nourish the Primordial Spirit, and it would not fade. Perhaps it had already exceeded the upper limit of the Divine Connection Pill's effect.
After all, the farther one went, the greater the difference became. The gap between two thousand li and one thousand li of divine consciousness was not merely a doubling in name.
In reality, the strength of the former's divine consciousness was at least five times that of the latter.
With two lifetimes of experience, Liu Yu had always had divine consciousness as his advantage, and an unusually huge one at that. Before breaking through the bottleneck, he had already reached one thousand five hundred li.
This was also the confidence that let him dare to directly attempt the bottleneck without preparing a divine transformation spiritual object.
After all, when breaking through to the divine transformation realm, the most important thing was the strength of divine consciousness.
Although his cultivation time was relatively short and attempting the bottleneck now seemed hasty, from start to finish he had firmly grasped the key point.