Chapter 987 – Enhanced Perception … … … As Lin Ming realized this, he began to vigorously guard his mind. A silver gray spear-shaped battle spirit shot out from between his eyebrows and smashed into the void! Peng! With an explosive sound, countless cracks appeared where the spear-shaped battle spirit struck the void. These cracks spread out at a speed faster than light, spreading through countless galaxies. The entire universe shattered like glass and completely broke apart! “Ahh!” Lin Ming screamed out. It felt as if what collapsed in front of him was not the universe but his spiritual sea. It was like his soul and mind shattered alongside the universe as an indescribably pain wracked his very essence. His head felt as if it were splitting apart! “Was I wrong? Was there a mistake?” Was that just now not my heart demon, but my spiritual sea that I personally destroyed? This thought flashed through Lin Ming’s mind. For the briefest of moments his heart wavered but he immediately rejected this idea! “My battle spirit is my will, a spear of will that is bred from within my spiritual sea. My will would only destroy illusions and lies. How could it possibly harm my own spiritual sea? “Break! Break it all!” Lin Ming loudly shouted into the void. His spear of will grew endless millions of miles, then came smashing down like a cosmos splitting axe! Kacha! The endless space was shattered by the spear of will! The scenery changed. From the cracks within the space, endless devils, evil spirits, raving ghosts, zombies, cruel demons, yakshas, asuras, and other monsters appeared. They blotted out the heavens as they rushed toward Lin Ming, wanting to swallow him whole. Each and every single one of these beings were hundreds of feet tall, with some even a thousand feet tall. They gathered together in a line that stretched for infinity. From the distance they resembled an army of ants! Lin Ming’s eyes flashed with a severe light. The spear that was hundreds of millions of miles long suddenly swept out and countless screams filled the air as the trillions of evil creatures were slain by Lin Ming! At this time, Lin Ming’s spear of will had also weakened by a great deal. Although he had a powerful will, it wasn’t endless. After killing so many demonic illusions in a single breath, the burden on him was also great. He focused his heart, continuing to gather and sharpen his will to guard his mind. If he wavered and the Gate of Opening didn’t completely open, his consciousness would fall into an illusion and he would be beyond saving. After the demonic illusions vanished, countless Fey flew through the space cracks. As these Fey flew forward, they changed into exquisite and peerless beauties. They were light and transparent veils and their bodies were half clothed, exposing lusty imagery. Some of them were slender with a bountiful figure, some were young, some were more mature, some were cute and lovable, some were charming and seductive, and some seemed as pure as snow. All of these beautiful women danced and sung as light music filled the air. They had dark eyes that held promises of sweet nights, visions that blurred the eyes and sent one into a drooling stupor. Even a high monk might find their will shaken by this scene, but Lin Ming’s eyes were actually filled with a cold indifference. He swept out with the spear of will once again! Peng! All the beautiful Fey women were reduced to ashes! The spear of will faded further. It was only by relying on the grandmist attribute of the spear that it was able to keep its strength and complete this final slaughter. At this time, Li Ming felt his own strength suddenly leaving his body. He looked down to see that his hands had aged. His skin was mottled and wrinkled, his eyes were deeply set back in their sockets, his hair was stringy and white, and his fires of life were lowly flickering, as if they were a candle in a storm, ready to fade away at any moment. Maggots began to crawl out from his old and nearly rotten skin. Beetles began to gnaw on his flesh and dig away at his bones. Lin Ming coldly snorted. “My will is everlasting and eternal. My flesh can tear off mountains and split apart the earth. My fire of life is like the sun that blazes in the brilliant skies, burning away all!” Lin Ming roared out and his entire body lit up with flames. The maggots and beetles were all burnt to ashes, and as Lin Ming’s body was wreathed in these flames, his rotten old skin was scorched away by the fire and replaced by delicate newborn skin. He was like a phoenix in the flames of nirvana, reborn through a bath of fire! Bang! Fire erupted, filling the entire universe. At this moment, Lin Ming’s spiritual sea violently trembled. His spiritual sea was filled with raging flames, and the universe around him seemed to fuse into that sea! Lin Ming stuffily coughed as his eyes suddenly shot open. His complexion was paler than paper and his body was soaked with sweat! A feeling of infinite exhaustion filled his heart and mind. Lin Ming felt his eyelids weight down like lead and a piercing ache on the side of his head. Moreover, the illusions caused him to have trouble differentiating reality from fantasy. He looked up to see Fairy Feng sitting in front of him. She was looking at him with a bright smile and nodded appreciatively. “It’s over. I’ve done it.” 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶 Lin Ming took a long breath and slowly sank into a deep sleep. Opening the Eight Inner Hidden Gate’s fifth Gate of Opening was equivalent to opening one’s spiritual sea. It caused a terrifying consumption on one’s mental strength, divine soul, and will. If one lacked in willpower or soul force, it was possible he’d fail to fully open the Gate of Opening. There were even some people that would suddenly die. Others would exhaust themselves, allowing their minds to fall into illusions and become vegetables for the rest of their lives. Lin Ming’s sleep was extremely deep, 100% of his being concentrated on his slumber. His heartbeat slowed down and his senses were completely closed off. His brain was closed off and all the pores on his body were relaxed open, spontaneously absorbing heaven and earth origin energy. During this period, if anyone wanted to kill Lin Ming, he wouldn’t have any ability to resist them. Fairy Feng sat in meditation on the side, keeping track of Lin Ming’s condition the entire time. She was satisfied that Lin Ming was able to reach this step, extremely satisfied. Lin Ming had almost exhausted all of his will and battle spirit in this attempt and the result was that he had perfectly opened the Gate of Opening and had completely developed the potential of his brain. ‘In terms of how formidable his will and battle spirit are, I fear that there is no one of his age in the entire Divine Realm that could stand on par with him. The benefits that this powerful willpower will grant him will slowly manifest during his future cultivation. For instance, for him to open the Gate of Opening and also to such a degree, all of that is because of the strength of his will. Moreover, his battle spirit seems to have a strange attribute to it. It is wild and vigorous, and it seems to correspond with the Heavenly Dao. If it weren’t for the support of this special attribute, Lin Ming wouldn’t have been able to open the Gate of Opening to perfection.” For Lin Ming to open the Gate of Opening to perfection, it would greatly enhance his perception and soul force. The advantages to his future cultivation were obvious! If each and every martial artist was able to open the Gate of Opening to such a degree, there would likely be many geniuses that wouldn’t hesitate to dual cultivate body and energy at all costs just for this Gate of Opening. But what a pity, that was only a dream. If one desired to dual cultivate body and energy, they would have to start from a period when their cultivation was at an extremely low point. Otherwise, if they cultivated to Life Destruction and their physical body was transformed into a spirit body, they would be unable to practice body transformation any longer. This was because the bodily matrix would’ve already changed. When one reached the Divine Transformation realm or the Divine Lord realm, a small world would begin to open within their bodies as their spirit bodies slowly became divine bodies. At that point, there was no need to even raise the question of body transformation. The opposite was true too. If one managed to cultivate the body transformation technique to some point within the Eight Hidden Inner Gates or even the Nine Stars of The Dao Palace, the physical body would simply become too tough and durable. Wishing to cross Life Destruction at that time would be nothing more than a wild dream! In both these situations, a martial artist’s boundary was destined to be low when they opened the fifth Gate of Opening of the Eight Inner Hidden Gates. If their boundary was low, the boundary of their will wouldn’t be higher either, and their will and battle spirit would be correspondingly weak. With a weak will and battle spirit, wasn’t wishing to open the Gate of Opening easier said than done? It was more accurate to say that regardless of failure or success, it would be excellent if they didn’t lose their mind to an illusion. “This child is truly a dragon in a pool. All sorts of destiny have converged onto his body, and as he walks forward on his road of martial arts, every step he takes nears perfection. If he can continue this progress, he’ll be a legend in the future, an Empyrean. But the problem is that to have every step reach perfection is far too difficult. Especially during the Divine Transformation realm and Divine Lord realm. At that time, there are many geniuses that will have exhausted their potential. They must seek their own lucky chances in order to further advance.” “Yet even so, within the lower realms with the barren resources that exist there, he was able to cultivate something that required countless resources like the Eight Inner Hidden Gates to such a degree. Moreover, he obtained a 100,000 year medicine garden from somewhere, and this allowed him to continue cultivating. Now he has fully opened the Gate of Opening and completely developed his brain. Perhaps, perhaps he really might have a chance of stepping into the Nine Stars of the Dao Palace.” “To my knowledge, no one has managed to step into the Nine Stars of the Dao Palace for millions or even billions of years. Of course, in the vast and endless Divine Realm, what I know is also limited. There might be some people out there somewhere who have managed to do so, but I simply haven’t heard about it at.” The Divine Realm was truly broad and boundless, with countless geniuses everywhere. However, martial artists that dual cultivated body and energy only accounted for a miniscule amount. As for those that were able to step into the Nine Stars of the Dao Palace, those individuals had all but vanished! If one couldn’t step into the Nine Stars of the Dao Palace, the might of their body transformation would be limited. To open the Eight Inner Hidden Gates, that required one to consume a massive amount of resources, and there was also the added difficulties of crossing Life Destruction. This meant a tremendous delay in one’s cultivation. If one couldn’t open the Nine Stars of the Dao Palace, all of that really wasn’t worth it. The Eight Inner Hidden Gates would have a much weaker role once one stepped into the Divine Lord realm. And the higher one’s cultivation rose, the more diminished it would become. Lin Ming’s sleep continued for a full seven days and seven nights. Seven days later, Lin Ming finally woke up from his deep slumber. He felt that his mind was refreshed and light and his thoughts were incomparably quick! As he inspected his own spiritual sea, he was pleased to discover that his spiritual sea had expanded by several times its original size. It faintly felt as though it was becoming a world of its own! The spear-shaped battle spirit floated high in the skies above his spiritual sea. His battle spirit was wrapped in a thick silver gray mist, but in the deepest layers of that mist, there was actually a faint golden color. Pale gold! That was the sign of a gold battle spirit! This meant that after Lin Ming’s battle spirit was tempered through opening the Gate of Opening, it had reached the peak of silver perfection! It would soon break through and become a gold battle spirit! But there still existed a great gap between a silver battle spirit and a gold battle spirit; this was an extremely difficult step to take. After Lin Ming’s battle spirit had reached silver perfection, he experienced some lucky chances, but that only made his silver battle spirit approach a gold battle spirit that much more; he hadn’t been able to make the breakthrough yet. “My soul force has become three times as powerful in a single go. Moreover…” Lin Ming’s thoughts stirred. He recalled the blue lotus image that Fairy Feng had drawn, and he was pleasantly surprised to discover that many previous areas he didn’t understand completely became crystal clear to him. Of the areas he couldn’t understand at all, he touched upon some directions of where to begin. He was confident that as long as he had the time, he would be able to thoroughly perceive the blue lotus image! Perception. After opening the Gate of Opening, Lin Ming’s originally decent perception had undergone a massive leap upward.