Despite the near-death experience, Yan Zaizen's mental state was unperturbed. It was as if this experience wasn't worth mentioning, but when he recalled his memories, he felt this was only natural. In the Asura Phantom Domain, his soul was sealed and his body had died. This event left a profound feeling in his soul and psyche, no longer containing a trace of fear towards death as it was no longer an unknown event.
There was likely an inkling of his understanding of samsara that left an even more profound mark. Even if he died, he was only be sent to heal and cleansed. Somehow, death felt unconcerning. That being said, it didn't mean he would chase death, just wouldn't allow its possibility to affect his decisions.
This subtle yet profound aspect of his mind made him feel lighter.
Inspecting the spatial ring of the corpse, Yan Zaizen's eyes blazed with shock and joy! "This person's ring is mostly heavenly materials…"
In the Fortune Cemetery, Yaoguai had Heaven Hearts. These hearts were like cores of mysterious material beneath the heaven. If obtained, one can infuse law energy into it and produce heavenly materials of said law with incredible ease. It was profound and mysterious leaving one with many interesting questions, but this made it so heavenly materials were abundant.
As for heavenly crystals, they were too widespread. When Yan Zaizen inspected the ring of this cultivator whose cultivation base didn't exceed the second-floor, he discovered hundreds of heavenly crystals and planet-sized vats of heavenly liquid. This was more than enough to push one into the middle-stages of the Heavenly Genesis Realm.
"Tch, heavenly crystals and liquids truly are like cabbages here," Yan Zaizen cursed. Even if it was logical due to cultivation bases and environmental factors, he still hated it. "At least still person had quite a few heaven hearts." Yan Zaizen extracted a prism object the size of a marble that throbbed like heart.
Heaven hearts could be divided into thirteen ranks and were truly mysterious. Firstly, all heaven hearts were of the same physical size. This baffled Yan Zaizen slightly when he learned of this. Secondly, the greater the rank, the heavenly source energy within become denser and greater.
Explained simply, the higher the grade, the greater the heavenly material yield. Lastly, they were divided into different shades of gold; the purer the golden color, the greater the grade.
The one he had in his hand had the color of a rank two heaven heart. It was also the highest grade in the ring.
He looked further into the cave. Eshe's group and the others were likely far ahead. With his current speed, its unlikely he could keep up and his current true-essence reserves were too low; following in his current state was suicidal.
Not to mention, since they wished to use him as bait, they should be prepared for the consequences.
"The heaven heart...I infuse my law energy into it and that's it?" Yan Zaizen walk towards the destroyed wall and leaned against it.. A few rocks fell from above like raining pebbles harmlessly. Sitting down with his back facing this shattered wall, Yan Zaizen's hand that held the heaven heart erupted in misty white energy.
This energy seemed to contain everything the world has to offer and could offer as well as nothing at all. This very odd sensation would make anyone think they were looking at the mist that created the universe. If they looked even closer, they would find every color in existence sifting through the mist. Despite that, the mist never changed its misty white color.
This was the law of mimicry and it could mimic all things and also nothing. Because of this, it contained all colors in the world and produced the color white. In the heavenly world, colors were an interesting product of laws, but many people didn't understand that the color white beneath the heavens were produced by the law of mimicry.
It was the law of everything.
"The law of Samsara is a dark-white...nearly surreal and ethereal, impossible to describe, impossible to see. Is it not white?" As Yan Zaizen pondered this, he recalled the unyielding flame of life and life itself and how it was presented by the color white. He felt that colors that were often overlooked by many were fundamental to comprehending the essence of laws.
For example, death was purely black. It was blacker than darkness laws and more absolute than anything, yet…
As he pondered the mysteries of laws and colors, faintly touching upon the profound and mysterious realm of sovereignty of the heavens, the grade two heaven heart turned misty white and throbbed even more intensely than before.
The heavenly source energy within the heaven heart was pure and untainted, being remarkably pure and originating from the law of mimicry. This was an imperial law, a law that governed the functions of the world!
"This?" Yan Zaizen's eyes lit up in intense excitement. In the heavenly world, materials of mimicry was impossible to locate! That was because it would perfectly mimicry its surroundings, no longer containing any outward appearance of itself. It was similar to how his own heavenly bloodline mimicked his black hole so perfectly he didn't notice it for so long!
Because of this, outside of the Yan Clan's ancestor, no one has been able to comprehend the law of mimicry to the sovereign level in the entire thirty-three heavens! However, the Yan Clan ancestor did not have a mimicry-based heavenly shrine, but a fire-based one!
The main reason is because heavenly materials of mimicry were impossible to obtain!
Yan Zaizen pondered deeply after this thought emerged. "How come my ancestor didn't use heaven hearts to construct his shrine?" As he thought about this, he felt that there was a reason for this but couldn't figure it out. After all, he could easily have a ton of heaven hearts sent to him for cultivation…
Unless…
Could heaven hearts not exist outside of the Heavenly Origin Grounds?
As he thought about this, he nodded in acceptance of this answer. If Yaoguai was as limitless as people described and they all had heaven hearts then heavenly materials would become as obsolete as heavenly crystals.
"Luckily I deduced this early...otherwise…." As Yan Zaizen recalled only being able to enter the Heavenly Origin Grounds once in a lifetime, he shuddered. Fortunately, the compass would enable him to return, but first he had to find it.
"Let's devour this." Yan Zaizen brought out his heavenly shrine and refined the heaven heart. It became strands of heavenly source energy of the mimicry law. This was a grade two heart, equivalent to a second-floor expert. When it entered his shrine, it didn't need to be refined too much after entering the black hole.
The heavenly materials were deconstructed and converted into the purest form of energy suitable for himself and started to fill up his first-floor.
"What?" Yan Zaizen was startled immediately after observing himself. The strands of mimicry was abundant. It was incredibly abundant! Before long, in less than thirty minutes, his heavenly shrine's first floor was eighty percent completed.
Yan Zaizen's emotions were jubilant and far too intense when he discovered this. He didn't hesitate to withdraw the rest of the grade one heaven hearts, totaling seven, and converted them into mimicry material. The conversion was far too quick and the refinement was exceptionally smooth.
Before, Yan Zaizen had to convert other forms of heavenly materials into mimicry materials, but refining mimicry materials directly expedited the entire process by dozens if not hundreds of thousands of time!
His first floor reached full completion in another few minutes, his eyes sparkling. With a wave, he brought out a heavenly crystal and cut off ten percent of it. Immediately, he performed a few handseals. These handseals were part of a soul technique to better control the soul.
In the Sirius Titan Realm, when Yan Zaizen recalled the incident of being attacked by a soul illusion, he couldn't help but look into it after. With his soul weakened, he tried to bolster its stability by executing a variety of techniques. Then, a black hole emerged in his glabella.
It was his soul bloodline!
He executed its abilities with his all, devouring the piece of heavenly crystal instantly, refining it and sending it into his heavenly shrine. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, but with his soul considerably weakened, his soul bloodline was affected heavily. This made the pressure he had to withstand to be massive.
Despite this, he pushed through the immense pain he felt from trying to utilize his bloodline with his current cultivation base and devoured the piece of crystal.
In a minute, his first-floor was completely filled with heavenly energy. When it did, his eyes shined with a light of the heavens and he felt invigorated!
"Yes!"
Feeling his heavenly cultivation base be re-established, he felt profoundly powerful. Now, he could use the heavenly crystals to reach a greater height, touching upon the middle and even upper stages of the Heavenly Genesis Realm even without heavenly materials.
Why?
Because he had a heaven-defying Heavenly Shrine!
"Oh?" He turned to hear sounds of combat and grunts of pain fill the tunnel. His eyes lit up brilliantly!