Chapter 261: Chapter 249: Transcend and Foundation Establishment

His terrifying Magical Power and Divine Soul, along with his immense physical vitality, were a near-constant reminder that the boundary to Foundation Establishment seemed like something he could shatter with a single touch.

While it was most likely an illusion, didn’t that very illusion prove how immense and terrifying the foundation of his Cultivation had become?

And with such a profound foundation, his Magical Power was one of Supreme Yang and Firmness. Under the influence of the Great Sun True Flame Seed, the Mighty Power of his Fire Attribute Magical Artifacts and Magic had practically doubled!

His overall Combat Power...

Compared to his former self, Chu Mu could only think of two words.

And that was... Total Domination!

"Foundation Establishment..."

Chu Mu looked up at the sky, letting the excitement surge within him.

Foundation Establishment was truly, genuinely within his grasp.

The supposedly essential Foundation Establishment Pill.

He was going to find out if it was truly necessary!

’A Spirit Root is determined by fate...’

’But... this life is in my own hands!’

"Let’s go, Wangcai. We’re going for a walk."

"When we get back, I’ll be taking that next step..."

"WHINE..."

Wangcai darted forward, its head held high, blinking its dog-like eyes as if to ask if he was telling the truth.

"Hahahaha..."

Chu Mu laughed heartily, patted Wangcai’s head, and strode out the door.

The moment he stepped onto the street, the feeling of the mortal world washed over him.

In the Cultivation Immortal Realm, such a feeling was completely absent.

Comparatively, he liked the peace of the mortal world, but he was even more captivated by the unrestrained nature of the Cultivation Immortal Realm.

The mortal world was a world constructed from etiquette and morality.

No one within it could escape their influence.

Etiquette and morality are the most fundamental restraints on the human heart.

As for laws and rules, they are merely superficial constructs.

But in the Cultivation Immortal Realm, could etiquette and morality possibly restrain a Cultivator?

Obviously not.

When immense power is concentrated in one individual, they can do as they please.

In the face of profit, few Cultivators care about etiquette and morality. No one cares about being a gentleman or a villain, and no one cares how the world judges them.

Of course, in the Cultivation Immortal Realm, no one would bother to criticize or judge anyway.

Take, for instance, his killing of Zhao Tang and the disciples of the Longevity Sect...

In the Cultivation Immortal Realm, who would criticize him, Chu Mu, as a murderer? As an irredeemable villain?

Would his friends or family care that he broke some law? Would they care that... his hands were stained with blood?

The ways of the mortal world were completely nonexistent in the Cultivation Immortal Realm.

All that existed... was the primitive law of the jungle!

Might makes right!

The Cultivation Immortal Realm was a world of unbridled willfulness.

As long as you had strength, you could be truly free and unrestrained in every sense of the word.

He liked a world like this.

As for why he liked the peace of the mortal world, it was only because...

...the peace in the Cultivation Immortal Realm was found at every Spirit Vein.

And every Spirit Vein represented a gathering place for Cultivators established by some power, which meant it came with the rules and restraints of the Cultivation Immortal Realm.

And these were rules and restraints that, at his current level, he could neither ignore nor resist. He could only be forced to accept them.

There were many, many Cultivators like him in the Cultivation Immortal Realm.

This was also the fundamental reason for the chaos outside the various Marketplaces and Black Markets.

Of course, the most important reason he currently disliked rules and restraints was simply because he was one of the ruled, one of the restrained.

If one day the roles were reversed, Chu Mu felt he would probably grow to like rules and restraints.

His many thoughts swirled before settling back into silence. Chu Mu led Wangcai down the street, moving slowly with the flow of the crowd.

This city, likely due to its location on a major mortal trade route, had a rather prosperous air despite not having a large population.

Carriages and horses filled the streets, and the crowds were bustling.

Walking among them, Chu Mu was just like an ordinary mortal, completely unremarkable.

Sensing this prosperity and liveliness, Chu Mu couldn’t help but feel a bit complicated.

He felt somewhat fortunate.

Fortunate that mortals, whether their Divine Souls or their bodies, were of no real use to Cultivators.

Otherwise, he probably wouldn’t be here today.

If the Divine Souls and Qi Blood of mortals were useful to Cultivators, for a bustling scene like this to exist for even a single day would likely be a challenge to the very concept of humanity.

As for whether the major powers of the Cultivation Immortal Realm would go to great lengths to protect mortals...

Outside the Marketplaces, with so many Cultivators, with countless instances of the strong preying on the weak and killing for treasure, who would even care about those Clan powers?

Moreover, the most important thing for Cultivation Immortal was the Spirit Root.

And the countless years of history in the Cultivation Immortal Realm had long since proven that if both parents possessed a Spirit Root, the likelihood of their offspring also having one was extremely high.

Over countless years of development, a unique ecosystem for the Cultivation Immortal Realm had formed around the Spirit Veins controlled by the various powers.

The mortals living around these powers were the primary source of new blood for the Cultivation Immortal Realm.

Compared to a Cultivator’s lifespan, the number of mortals was simply staggering.

The lifespan of a single, ordinary Qi Cultivation Realm Cultivator spanned the procreation of several generations of mortals.

With his current lifespan, if he were to marry and have children, he would undoubtedly have a massive Clan three hundred years from now.

As far as he knew, in the cities near the Water Heaven Workshop, the mortal population grew so rapidly that the Xie Family had even decreed a rule: any family that failed to produce an heir with a Spirit Root within three generations would be exiled to the mortal world.

They were forbidden to return to the cities surrounding the Water Heaven Workshop unless a descendant was born with a Spirit Root.

If mortals were of great use to Cultivators, the more likely scenario would be that they’d be farmed like livestock!

Aside from the bloodlines propagated by the various Clans and powers, all other mortals would be treated as consumables, farmed just like Spirit Beasts.

Perhaps the Hundred Skills of Cultivation Immortal would even gain a new entry...

’A Human Trainer?’

Chu Mu shook his head...

He looked at the mortal prosperity before him.

If not for experiencing it himself, who could have imagined that this prosperity was only allowed to exist because... it was useless?

That human beings could be equated with two words: cheap and useless.

It seemed absurd, yet at the same time, perfectly normal.

With a myriad of feelings churning inside him, Chu Mu had a sudden, whimsical thought. In the vastness of the Cultivation Immortal Realm, could there have been a once-in-ten-thousand-years hero who dedicated their entire life to fighting for human equality?

He thought about it seriously. It seemed genuinely possible.

After all, if one’s Cultivation was strong enough to suppress all opposition, they could instill a new set of moral concepts. After a few generations, a complete system of etiquette and morality could be established.

Take himself, for example. Even with only a few decades of moral conditioning from his past life, now that he had stepped into the Cultivation Immortal Realm and gathered immense power in himself, he still found it hard to completely escape those old moral concepts.

It was conceivable that for many years to come, he would find it difficult to avoid the influence of his past life’s morality.

’If there were a social environment where the entire society shared that kind of moral fabric...’

’After all, even Cultivators are still human...’

’They would also be... influenced by their environment...’

His thoughts swirled, but Chu Mu just shook his head with a smile and suppressed the unrealistic notion.

’Something like that is meaningless.’

He let out a soft breath and looked around. He had been wandering for several hours, and as dusk fell, the crowds on the streets seemed to be growing even larger.

The night market...

Chu Mu composed himself, tried to relax, and continued to stroll down the street.

It wasn’t until late at night that he returned to the weed-choked courtyard.

The decaying courtyard gate and the door to the house closed one after the other.

Down in the burrow, the partition and the Gathering Spirit Restriction were activated in succession.

Billowing Spiritual Qi, drawn by the Gathering Spirit Restriction, swirled throughout the burrow.

He sat cross-legged, his mind clear and empty.

Only the subtle pull originating from his physical body, Magical Power, and Divine Soul grew ever clearer within that mental void.

Wangcai lay to the side, a pile of several thousand Spirit Stones and dozens of bottles of Elixirs—which it ate like candy—in front of it.

It would occasionally look up at Chu Mu, then glance over at the core points of the surrounding formation.

If it noticed that the Spiritual Qi in a Spirit Stone was depleted, it would lift a paw, and a new Spirit Stone would float over to replace the spent one.

Chu Mu remained seated in meditation. But as time passed, faint fluctuations of scorching Magical Power began to emanate from his body.

Foundation Establishment...

It had begun.

...