Ascension of the Immortal Asura

The Grand Abbot knew he had just witnessed something inconceivable. Something that should not be possible. Something that no one in the universe would believe had happened, or was even possible. It defied everything he knew, and yet it had happened. That was an irrefutable fact.

He was old, but not old enough to become senile. His cultivation was strong and thus his mind was strong. He knew what he had seen had happened.

And it was just getting started.

The Grand Abbot breathed out lightly, realizing he had been holding his breath the entire time. One as strong as him didn't need to breathe, but it still felt stifling to hold it in as long as he had done.

His eyes were glued to John's back. He dared not miss a single moment of this historic event.

John grit his teeth tightly, mind aching with excruciating pain. He had truly pushed himself to the very edge of collapse just moments ago, and even had one foot stepping off the edge. The feeling of strengthening both his dantian and soul had been euphoric, and he had pushed himself hard; harder than perhaps he should have.

Each cycle of Qi strengthened him, but also pained him. Both his dantian and his soul were pushed closer and closer to their limits; limits that were firm. Limits that would mean his death if he pushed past them. Even someone as talented as him had limits, and he had nearly pushed himself past them.

On the last cycle of Qi, his dantian nearly fractured and burst, and his mind nearly shattered apart. He breathed in and out deeply, pushing down the pain. A chill crawled up his spine as he realized just how close he had come to his death.

If one more sliver of Qi had entered his dantian, if one more ounce of soul power had entered his soul, both would have burst apart. If that happened, he would have died without question. That chilling sensation turned into elation, and John smiled to himself with satisfaction.

He had pushed himself to his absolute limits. He had done all he could have done, and has seized every possible sliver of strength he could grasp from this ascension. This satisfaction lasted for a mere instant, as John could tell there was more to be done.

His instincts screamed at him loudly, just as it had done with the Qi cycles, urging him forward once more. His mind calmed, and he fell into a focused trance once more. John's divine sense washed over his dantian, which felt as firm and hard as any material he knew. In fact, he was sure it was denser and harder than anything he had seen before, including the material used to make his scythe.

His dantian was as if it were an entire world, condensed into a small ball no wider than a finger. It brimmed violently with calamitous energy, trembling as if it were about to burst apart. It could grow no more in this realm. His dantian was ready to ascend.

As if his instincts were a set of instructions engraved into his mind, John continued his breakthrough. He knew he was not yet done. He had transformed his Qi, but had not yet done anything to transform his Dao's. That part came next.

The thought of rampaging lightning, violent with ruinous energy entered his mind, as if it had appeared on its own volition. John did not brush this thought aside, and instead focused on the lightning.

It was the first Dao he had ever truly focused on. The Dao that had helped him through his cultivation journey, fighting alongside him against the heavens. It was only natural that this was the first Dao to appear in his mind.

His mind focused on the Dao, on his comprehensions into the wondrous law of the universe. Of everything he knew about lightning. The thought seemed to almost become corporeal within his soul, something real, like a rain drop forming in the air above the ocean of soul-power within his soul.

That drop flashed brightly from within, as if it contained a storm of lighting. His thoughts focused on the Dao of Lightning, the drop growing ever larger, ever brighter, ever more profound. At long last his mind sorted through all his comprehension, and he felt as though he had forgotten the Dao of Lightning for a moment. It was as if all his comprehensions had been taken from him, and infused into the drop within his soul space.

The drop then disappeared, as if vanishing from existence. John didn't panic. He knew where it had gone. His divine sense flooded over his dantian once more, noticing the drop of lightning hovering just next to his dantian, as if wanting to enter within.

At his urging, the drop moved ever so slightly, barely nudging against his dantian.

Boom!

It was as if he had finally exploded from within, his dantian no longer able to contain the explosive amount of Qi within. Once again, John did not panic. This was supposed to happen.

The explosion did indeed happen within his body, centered on his dantian. Normally such a thing would spell death for a cultivator, but he was still perfectly unharmed.

John's divine sense flooded into his dantian once more, which was not a blackened orb of physical mass, but a colorful orb of profundity, ever changing colors. His eyes lit up with realization.

Space! This was spatial energy.

There had indeed been an explosion within him, but instead of his dantian exploding, space had exploded instead. An entirely new spatial realm, one housing his dantian within, had exploded into existence. His divine sense flooded into this spatial cocoon, which was the exact same size as his physical dantian had been.

An entirely new realm opened up before him, one reminding him of whenever he stepped into his body dantian and entered his palace realm. However, instead of a palace at the center of the realm, it was his dantian.

It floated in the very center of this newly established spatial realm, like a singular tiny world floating within a void. It almost reminded him of the World Dimension Seed, floating within the void it had created around himself. The two were very alike.

John inspected the tiny world, his dantian, and noticed a tiny little protrusion, almost imperceptible unless he looked closely. Compared to the dantian itself, it was like an ant standing on a mountain. And yet it was the only thing sticking out of the dantian, which was marble smooth everywhere else.

John focused on this protrusion, and his eyes lit up with wonder. The protrusion flashed brightly on occasion, and he instantly knew what it was.

The droplet of lightning! A droplet of lightning slightly stained with his own Qi, as if it had been altered ever so slightly, so small that it would be unnoticeable to anyone but himself.

It appeared like a small sapling springing up from the ground. A sappling of the lightning Dao! Like a seed of the Dao come to life.

His eyes lit up with realization of what he had to do next.

It was time to plant the rest of the Dao Seeds! It was time to sow the fields of his dantian with all of his Dao comprehensions.