Although Luosa had ten thousand years of time, he had spent goodness knows how long just studying the Soul Refining Great Art. Long as time was, it could not be wasted like that; wanting to cultivate more efficiently required raising one's comprehension.
How to raise comprehension? Luosa was not clear on that, but he could calculate the future. Since he had this thought, in the future he would surely seek out a cultivation method to enhance comprehension.
At this moment Luosa was as if taking out a loan, prematurely intercepting what he would obtain in the future. He knew this was a crooked path entangling him in future karma, and he did not know what kind of price he would have to pay for it down the line.
Yet he had no other choice now. Ten thousand years later he would face the Three Calamities, Six Disasters, and the World-Destroying Tribulation; survive it and seek life from death, fail to survive it and perish on the spot. He had to make all preparations before emerging from the coffin.
Luosa firmly believed that as long as his own strength was great enough, no karma could kill him. Thinking of the terrifying existences within the memories of the Heavenly Emperor, he became even more steadfast in his idea of overdrafting the future to elevate the present.
Accompanied by his calculations, a cultivation method for enhancing comprehension, "Life-Truncating Art", actually appeared. This was a typical crooked and demonic path, raising comprehension through the consumption of lifespan; elevated comprehension accelerated cultivation, and increased realms extended lifespan...
If not for his own innate talent being truly limited, nobody would ever use such an absurd cultivation method, because even with enhanced comprehension, one might not necessarily break through realms before lifespan was exhausted.
"Life-Truncating Art" was completely playing with fire. The balance between comprehension and lifespan was extremely difficult to find, and a moment of carelessness would result in dying an extremely ugly death. Even if one managed to luck into a breakthrough and extend their lifespan, wanting to break through again would require truncating life once more to raise comprehension.
Luosa looked upon the Life-Truncating Art, unable to keep a soft sigh from rising in his heart: "What a devilish cultivation method. Even if one is lucky enough to break through a realm, for the next realm and the realm after that, just how many times can one rely on luck? There will always be a time when the lifespan is exhausted without a breakthrough."
Yet Luosa did not care, because he was already of the Demonic Zombie Body, born from the convergence of the world's grievances and the devilish Qi of the Devil's Den, old age, death, and destruction unable to touch him, possessing endless lifespan. He even suspected that the "Life-Truncating Art" was simply meant for zombies to cultivate.
Although Luosa had this thought, he couldn't be bothered to calculate the origin of the "Life-Truncating Art". As long as it suited him, regardless of whether it was the righteous path or a crooked door, just practice it!
He began to circulate his energy according to the methods within the "Life-Truncating Art". How much lifespan was consumed he did not know, but he could clearly feel that he had awakened. The contents of the "Forty-Nine" that he originally could not make sense of suddenly became simple and easy to understand.
Just as Luosa intended to use his endless lifespan to raise his comprehension infinitely, he discovered that the "Life-Truncating Art" was truly a demonic technique that swindled people to their deaths without compensation—the comprehension it elevated had a ceiling!
Still, that stood to reason. If it could truly be raised infinitely, species with long lifespans would have long since dominated the entire Taixuan Realm, so how would it ever be the turn of those terrifying mighty figures to lord it over others?
Although the increase in comprehension was limited, it was still far higher than Luosa's initial level. His comprehension of the "Forty-Nine" rapidly advanced, and he calculated the powerful cultivation method obtained from the future.
The "Taixuan Scripture" came into view, which could not help but make Luosa start in surprise. This world was named the Taixuan Realm; could this "Taixuan Scripture" be related to this world?
Luosa did not hesitate, directly intercepting the "Taixuan Scripture" from the future. With just a single glance, he discovered that he could not practice this cultivation method—its cultivation difficulty was too high, even more complex and abstruse than the "Forty-Nine"!
Yet this made Luosa all the more excited. The harder a cultivation method was to practice, the more terrifying it was. The "Forty-Nine" could already calculate boundless mysteries; if in the future he could cultivate this "Taixuan Scripture", what kind of terrifying might would he possess?
Luosa sealed the "Taixuan Scripture" within his soul and recalculated the future to search for cultivation methods. Through calculation, he discovered that there were many ways to raise comprehension. The simplest was not a crooked path like the "Life-Truncating Art", but rather raising the strength of the soul.
Comprehension was tied to the soul; the stronger the soul, the higher the comprehension. So-called geniuses were those whose soul strength was higher than ordinary people right from birth, allowing them to grasp the mysteries of cultivation methods more easily.
After the nine-fold soul refinement of the Soul Refining Great Art, Luosa's soul already surpassed ordinary cultivators, but this was still far from enough. Wanting to fully comprehend the mysteries of the "Forty-Nine" required making his soul even stronger.
Recalculating the future, Luosa quickly made a new discovery. It seemed that every decision he made now would change the trajectory of the future; the "Annotations on the God-Refining Chapter of the Taixuan Scripture" appeared within his calculations.
What was going on? Luosa froze for a moment, then reacted—if he could not cultivate the Taixuan Scripture, then upon leaving the Devil's Den he would inevitably search for related things, and these annotations were the very first things he would find.
"At the dawn of Taixuan, the beginning of chaos, the sun and moon roar, heaven and earth revolve..."
The "Taixuan Scripture" was divided into nine parts: the Qi Condensation Chapter, Foundation Establishment Chapter, Golden Core Chapter, Nascent Soul Chapter, Deity Transformation Chapter, Tribulation Crossing Chapter, Heavenly Tribulation Chapter, Body-Forging Chapter, and God-Refining Chapter.
The first seven chapters corresponded respectively to the seven cultivation realms of the Taixuan Realm, while the final two chapters were body refinement and soul refinement. The God-Refining Chapter annotations were precisely what he needed most right now.
With the help of the annotations, Luosa finally understood the mystery of Taixuan soul-refining: it actually absorbed the origin of heaven and earth to strengthen the soul, subsequently merging as one with the entire Taixuan Realm, ultimately becoming the Lord of the Realm.
Before even cultivating, Luosa had already begun cursing fiercely in his heart: How on earth did his future self manage to get hold of this thing? The contents of the "Taixuan Scripture" were simply too preposterous!
Having finally calmed down, Luosa began cultivating the Taixuan God-Refining with his life on the line. So what if he lacked a golden finger or a system? Wasn't the "Taixuan Scripture" much more aromatic than any cheat?
Luosa's soul grew increasingly powerful, even beginning to erode the Demonic Zombie Body to take control of it, yet he was astonished to discover that he still could not move, as if a mysterious power bound him atop this demonic coffin.
He suddenly realized something was wrong. The dissolution of the Heavenly Emperor's soul was probably no accident; how could the place of resurrection he prepared for himself bind his Demonic Zombie Body?
Could someone be trying to prevent the Heavenly Emperor from resurrecting? And therefore tampered with the demonic coffin after he was buried in the Devil's Den, turning the place of rebirth into a seal, and even causing the Heavenly Emperor's soul to scatter so that there was no possibility of rebirth!
At this thought, Luosa once again began to calculate the past, controlling the scope around the demonic coffin. Scene after scene of the past slid before his eyes like a film.
Luosa had already practiced the "Forty-Nine" to a minor success by this point, and his effectiveness at calculating the future was ordinary, but calculating the past that had already occurred was like taking a disc out of a time archive to watch.
In the records of time, a million-strong army was buried alongside the Heavenly Emperor as funerary sacrifices, their battle cries before death soaring straight to the highest heavens. Luosa had originally thought the Heavenly Emperor intended to use the resentment of the million-strong army to be reborn, but he never expected that what they left behind was only boundless fighting spirit.
They went to their deaths willingly; after the Heavenly Emperor was reborn, they would fight for him once more, transforming into an undying, immortal zombie army to crusade against all the gods in the world!
Luosa watched in a daze. What kind of Heavenly Emperor was it that could command such a death-defying following!