For a long time, Nie Tian had been focusing on learning and tempering the several powerful magics he had learned from the mysterious land, as well as the profound truths of flame power and star power.
He seldom spent time contemplating the profundity of wood power.
He wasn’t aware that in order for him to make his next breakthrough, he would have to gain a fairly deep understanding of each of the various types of power within his spiritual sea. The mere act of accumulating and refining spiritual power was far from enough.
When the green aura stopped devouring the newly-generated essence of flesh and let it disperse to every corner of his body, Nie Tian sensed a subtle change in his vortex of wood power, and thus realized that this was a signal telling him that his understanding of wood power was not deep enough.
After realizing this point, he finally found the right direction. During the following days, he took out his collection of scrolls about wood power cultivation, most of which had been looted from the Dark Moon’s experts and Hunters, and read them around the clock.
Some of the scrolls recorded techniques and skills regarding the application of wood power, while others stated the profound truths of wood power.
After reading wholeheartedly for a few days, Nie Tian’s understanding of wood power and wood-attributed incantations rose to a new level.
He also conducted thorough examinations of the green aura that carried his bloodline power and his vortex of wood power. After combining his findings with his understanding of wood power, some new thoughts emerged in his mind.
Wood power was spiritual power with the wood attribute, and was contained in the essence from plants and vegetation.
Some plants and vegetation lived on for thousands of years. Being nurtured by the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth for such a long time, they contained extremely rich wood power.
These plants and vegetation were the main ingredients in making high-level medicinal pills, since they carried copious amount of energy that could be directly refined and absorbed by Qi warriors.
The essence of these plants and vegetation was by nature their life power.
However, humans, outsiders, and spirit beasts were also living creatures, so the essence of flesh within their bodies was also life power by nature.
Even though they belonged to two different types of life forms and there were noticeable differences between their life powers, the differences were not unbridgeable.
Many Qi warriors who practiced wood-attributed incantations had unique ways of channeling their wood power into their bones and muscles in order to strengthen their flesh power and enhance their physical body.
Nie Tian had done the same thing before.
Back when he had cast a long-range Starshift to escape the pursuit of numerous Hunters in the wasteland, he had used the essence of wood in his vortex of wood power to replenish his flesh power and heal his seriously wounded body.
This meant that cultivators who practiced wood-attributed incantations were able to convert wood power into flesh power.
The green aura that coiled at the bottom of Nie Tian’s heart was the soul of his life power, inside of which was branded the profound mysteries of life.
After realizing that wood power and flesh power shared a similar origin and fell into the same category, Nie Tian began to channel the wood essence in his vortex of wood power in an attempt to refine his physical body.
A wisp of wood power quietly flew out of his vortex of wood power and entered his meridians and blood vessels.
In the next moment, a soothing and comfortable feeling was born in his heart, making him feel as if he were filled with vigorous life force.
As he continued to channel the wisp of wood power, it ran through his meridians, and slowly flowed to every single bone and internal organ.
Via his Heaven Eyes, he could see that the wisp of wood essence was gradually wearing down as it circulated within him.
It seemed that whenever it reached a certain part of his body, a small portion of the wood essence would be kept and absorbed by the flesh or bone.
This feeling was slightly different from the feeling he had when he tempered his body with flesh power from spirit beast meat.
Whenever he tempered his physical body with flesh power, he would alway experience soreness and pain. However, when he nourished his fleshy body with wood power, it felt as mild as a drizzle and as gentle as a breeze. The warm and comfortable feeling gave him great physical and mental pleasure.
At that moment, he sensed that both his flesh power and wood power began to work together, and were circulating inside of him simultaneously.
He observed and contemplated attentively, hoping to discover the differences between the two types of power and their unique features.
It wasn’t very long before he discovered that whenever he tempered his body with his flesh power, the process would follow the strange pattern of breaking down before repairing.
By nature, flesh power was more violent and fierce. It would usually rip Nie Tian’s muscle fibers, bones, and meridians apart before healing them.
The healed muscle fibers, bones, and meridians would turn out to be even tougher and more resilient, and thus his refined body would be able to contain richer and purer flesh power.
The breaking down process was usually very quick. However, the repairing process was usually rather slow.
That wasn’t the case with wood power.
The destructive power of wood power was no match for that of flesh power. However, wood power possessed a healing ability far stronger than that of the flesh power when his flesh, bones, and meridians needed repairing. Perhaps this was the main difference between the two types of power.
No matter whether it was the human race, an outsider race, or spirit beasts, they shared the same process of body refinement, which was destruction before construction.
When they had both flesh power and wood power inside of them, flesh power would be mainly in charge of tearing their meridians, muscle fibers, and bones, and that would be where its duty ended. The extra flesh power would be deposited in their blood.
Afterwards, wood power would take charge as it gradually healed the destroyed parts and made them strong again.
Since the two types of power had unique features and a clear division of work, when he tempered his body with both of them, the efficiency would increase severalfold.
Only then did he come to realize how fast his wounds had healed when he had drawn on wood power instead of flesh power.
Flesh power resided in his flesh, bones, and blood. In a battle, it could immediately burst forth and form powerful strikes as soon as it was summoned.
However, since wood power originated from plants and vegetation, it couldn’t reside in his flesh, bones, and blood for a long period of time. Therefore, it would only circulate within him and rapidly heal his wounds when he was injured.
After contemplating for a few days straight, Nie Tian finally achieved a fairly deep understanding of the two types of power.
After that, he also discovered that even though he could channel his wood power to help with the refinement of his body, he wasn’t able to channel his flesh power into his spiritual sea and use it to replenish the wood essence within his vortex of wood power.
That was when he came to realize that since he was a fleshy creature, he could only strengthen his flesh power with wood power, and not the other way around.
Upon such enlightenment, Nie Tian immediately began consuming spirit beast meat and using both his flesh power and wood power to temper his outstandingly tough fleshy body.
Soon, two weeks passed…
During this period of time, neither did Nie Tian witness anymore meteors fall from the sky, nor did he come across Ning Yang again.
Early in the morning…
After consuming some more spirit beast meat, Nie Tian attempted to circulate the newly-generated flesh power within him, along with his wood power.
At that very moment, he suddenly had a feeling that his physical strength had also come to a bottleneck, and his body had been refined to the point where it could no longer be strengthened by the two types of power.
However, in the next moment, a loud snapping sound rang out through his mind as Nie Tian was struck by a wonderful feeling, as if he had just broken away from the shackles that had been holding him down for a long time.
Afterwards, huge waves were immediately created in his dantian’s spiritual sea, and his vortexes of spiritual power, flame power, wood power, and star power all started to rotate madly.
“I’ve finally shattered the barrier in my path of cultivation!”
Joy filling his eyes, Nie Tian didn’t hesitate in the least before taking out the spirit jades he had prepared for such occasions and jumping into an enormous crater, where he began to focus solely on breaking through into the next cultivation stage.
Only at that moment did he realize that he had ignored a very important factor to the breakthrough in his cultivation: refinement of his physical body.
Due to his uniqueness, not only did he need to refine and contemplate the profundities of spiritual power, flame power, wood power, and star power, but he also needed to temper his physical body consistently.
Only when the refinement of his body and spiritual sea both reached their limits would he be able to shatter the barrier in his cultivation and naturally enter the next stage.