Chapter 70 : The Divine Soul Reigned Supreme Over All

Chapter 70: The Divine Soul Reigned Supreme Over All

Long Tao’s entire body stiffened.

His mind felt as though it had been struck by a bolt of lightning, leaving nothing but blankness.

This… this voice was… the System?!

No—impossible! This absolutely could not have been that cold, mechanical tone that only issued tasks and warnings!

This manner of speaking, this cadence, this overwhelming sense of human shock and snarky commentary… it was clearly a living person—or rather, some kind of existence with a strong sense of self-awareness—speaking directly inside his mind!

“You… what the hell are you?!” Long Tao almost lost control and shouted aloud.

Fortunately, at the last moment he remembered the Golden Core powerhouse glaring at him nearby and forcibly crushed the exclamation into a thought.

Even so, the shock in his heart surged like a tidal wave.

“How are you inside my head?! Where’s the System?!”

The voice seemed to choke on Long Tao’s sluggish reaction.

It fell silent for quite a while before sounding again, its tone tinged with speechless exasperation.

“Sigh… no wonder you’ve only made it this far and are still stuck at Qi Refining. With reactions and comprehension like yours… do I really need to break this down and explain it bit by bit? I am that… uh, that so-called ‘System’!”

As if he would believe that! With how jumpy and confused this thing sounded, it was obvious it had only just figured out the whole “System” situation itself, wasn’t it?! But Long Tao no longer had the luxury to nitpick.

This suddenly “living” presence in his head was the only lifeline he could cling to right now.

“Since… since you, this ‘System,’ have come alive!” Long Tao practically roared in his mind as he communicated, “Then you should be useful, right?! Hurry up and open the System Shop for me! Just let me buy a few divine weapons or heaven-defying cheat items on credit! I took on your damn System Task, and I’m about to be crushed into paste by that Golden Core powerhouse beside me!”

“Hey, hey, hey! Have you even figured out the situation?!”

The voice snapped back immediately, carrying a tone of frustration at wasted potential.

“I’ve already fallen so far as to attach myself to you as a ‘System.’ Do you really think I’d still have some shop full of divine weapons for you to pick from? If I had that kind of ability, would I still be wasting time stuck to a Qi-Refining little shrimp like you?!”

Wait! Long Tao suddenly caught something deeply off about that statement and immediately pressed the issue.

“What do you mean by ‘fallen so far as to attach myself to me as a System’? Didn’t you say before that it was because you ‘bound the wrong person’ that you had no choice but to attach to me? You even said it was because my Destiny Luck was too low to support opening the System Shop or something like that…”

“Oh? Bound the wrong person? Well… that explanation isn’t entirely wrong,” the voice became a little vague, its tone tinged with a philosophically evasive air.

“After all, in this vast universe, who can really say what’s right or wrong? Besides… your Destiny Luck really is pitifully low. You’re only a hair better than an ordinary mortal from the mundane world. For the path of cultivation, that’s completely inadequate.”

“Cut the mystical bullshit! Just tell me straight—can you help or not?!”

“I want to help you!” the voice replied helplessly.

“But to put it plainly, I’m now just a crippled… uh, System, attached deep within your Sea of Consciousness. My greatest ability is probably no different from that rigid program from before—at most, I can help you slightly enhance your Divine Soul strength. That’s it. I’ve got nothing else!”

“Divine Soul?” Long Tao froze.

“When did you ever help me strengthen my Divine Soul?”

“Wait!”

The voice suddenly shot up in pitch as if it had heard something utterly unbelievable.

“You idiot! Don’t tell me you never noticed?! That ‘Soul Lamp Value’ listed as the reward on the System Interface after every task—it directly increases the strength of your Divine Soul’s origin! You’ve accumulated so many points, and you seriously felt nothing at all?! Just how thick are your nerves?!”

Long Tao was completely stunned.

He abruptly recalled his breakthrough during the Sea-Eye Stabilizing the Origin stage.

Based on his fragile Divine Soul at the time, he had estimated that it would take at least two or three attempts to succeed.

Yet he had cleared it in a single try! He had thought it was sheer luck, or that the technique itself wasn’t as difficult as expected.

He had never imagined that his Divine Soul had truly grown stronger without him even realizing it!

This damn System… it had actually been quietly handing out tangible rewards all along?

At that moment, a subtle sense of comfort unexpectedly welled up in Long Tao’s heart.

But that comfort didn’t even last a single breath before it was overwhelmed by an even greater surge of resentment.

Damn it!

In his current situation—on the brink of death and Dao collapse—what use was a slightly stronger Divine Soul?! Could it be eaten? Could it block a single strike from a Golden Core powerhouse?! What he needed right now was immediate combat power! A divine artifact to turn the tables! An escape talisman to save his life!

“Divine Soul strength isn’t that useful to a Qi Refining cultivator like me!” Long Tao couldn’t help but complain.

“And besides, you only give a few points each time. That’s way too stingy! What’s that even enough for?”

Hearing this complaint, the voice seemed genuinely angered.

Its tone turned solemn, even carrying a scolding edge.

“A few points?! You truly have no sense of scale at all! Do you have any idea how precious a single point of Soul Lamp Value is out there?! You should know that in our era… countless great powers standing at the peak of this world acknowledged a supreme truth: spiritual roots, cultivation methods, cultivation levels, magical artifacts—all of them are fleeting clouds, flashy but empty. Only the Divine Soul reigns supreme over everything!”

This… Long Tao felt dazed listening to this.

Setting aside whether the theory itself was true, which “era” was it even talking about?

This so-called “System” sounded more and more like the remnant soul of some ancient monster left behind from antiquity.

Yet the way it spoke also oddly resembled someone from his own “hometown.”

“You don’t need to know my true origins right now, nor do you have the ability to probe them,” the voice seemed to see through his thoughts and immediately cut off his wandering mind.

“The layers involved are both dangerous and meaningless for you at your current level. Let me first explain to you what Divine Soul—and the ‘Soul Lamp Value’ you receive as task rewards—actually represents in terms of immense value!”

Long Tao truly wasn’t in the mood for a cultivation theory lecture right now.

But he glanced sideways at the Golden Core True Person nearby and at Nan Yuchen, who was still incubating his egg.

The Yaoguang Azure Phoenix Egg showed no sign of hatching at all.

Since there was nothing he could do but wait anyway, he resigned himself to “listening to the lecture” obediently in his mind.

“First, you must understand that Divine Soul power is completely different from spiritual energy cultivation levels. Between cultivators and mortals, the difference in physical strength and spiritual energy quantity is like heaven and earth. Suppose an ordinary mortal’s combat power is 5—then what about a Golden Core or Nascent Soul cultivator? Fifty thousand? A hundred thousand? Or even five hundred and thirty thousand? All of that is possible.

The gap is absurdly large, to the point it can’t even be quantified.”

“But what about the Divine Soul? The difference in its innate foundation is extremely, extremely small. To begin with, untrained mortals, Qi Refining cultivators, and even those in the early to mid stages of Foundation Establishment all have Divine Soul strength that’s actually quite similar. If quantified using Soul Lamp Value, they’re basically all within the range of 10 to 20 points. A higher-quality Foundation Establishment might add a bit more, but not by much.”

So that was how it was… Long Tao thought to himself.

He had probably just been average before.

“Only at the late stage of Foundation Establishment does the Divine Soul begin to strengthen noticeably, and even then it usually doesn’t exceed 30 points. Some special techniques that specialize in Divine Sense might reach 40 points. Once a cultivator successfully forms a Golden Core, however, the Divine Soul undergoes a qualitative leap! Depending on the quality of the Golden Core formed and subsequent minor realm advancements, a Golden Core True Person’s Divine Soul strength generally falls within the range of 100 to 200 points. Of course, the actual numbers won’t be that neat, but that’s the general scope.”

“That… is far less than I imagined,” Long Tao couldn’t help but interject.

In his mind, Golden Core True Persons were beings of boundless power.

Even if their Divine Soul strength exceeded a thousand points, he wouldn’t have found it strange.

“Exactly. The numerical increase may not look dramatic, but it represents a true qualitative transformation,” the voice affirmed, then continued.

“At the Golden Core stage, cultivators can already separate one or several strands of Divine Sense from their bodies to scout, and even employ Divine Sense attacks or defensive techniques.”

“As for the Nascent Soul stage… the ‘infant’ in Nascent Soul is, in essence, the cultivator’s Divine Soul condensed to an extreme degree, transforming from the intangible into the tangible! But if converted into Soul Lamp Value, it’s actually only around 500 to 800 points. Now, do you understand how precious Soul Lamp Value truly is?”

Long Tao silently nodded in his heart.

The System’s explanation genuinely helped him understand the value of Soul Lamp Value.

This thing was indeed incredibly difficult to raise.

But the feeling was like biological evolution—prioritizing intelligence was undeniably the optimal long-term strategy.

The problem was that the return cycle spanned millions of years! On such a long evolutionary path, surviving first was the top priority!

What he lacked right now were claws and fangs he could use immediately—not some “brain” with limitless future potential!

“There is still one method,” the voice continued.

“Didn’t you say there’s a Golden Core cultivator outside who wants to kill you? Golden Core cultivators are already extremely sensitive to Divine Soul strength. I can temporarily lend you some Soul Lamp Value and drastically boost your Divine Soul strength for a short time. If you’re lucky, you might even scare him into retreating.”

“Lend a little? What’s that going to do?! How could it possibly scare a bona fide Golden Core cultivator?!” Long Tao was on the verge of going mad.

The idea sounded completely unreliable.

“Sigh… forget it. Just tell me first—how much can you lend?”

The voice fell silent for a moment, as if carefully tallying its remaining assets, then reported a number.

“Mm… in my current state, scraping things together… I can probably free up around… 1,000 points.”