It was just a matter of cultivating according to the technique — how hard could it be?

It wasn't as though he were inventing something from scratch.

Shen Yi felt the confusion steadily piling up in his mind, and rubbed lightly at his temple.

A vast quantity of banked demon lifespan was draining away at speed.

At last, he sensed something beginning to change within the divine spirit in his qi sea.

【Year 793 — You begin to think that perhaps this technique was never meant to provide a single correct answer in the first place — or perhaps all answers are equally correct. Instead of going in circles in your head, you decide to try practicing it first and see what happens】

In an instant, the vast white mist was set into motion once more.

It poured entirely into the divine spirit, flowing slowly through it along some arcane trajectory.

But the flow was anything but smooth — it moved haltingly, as though forcing its way through each passage by degrees.

There were even moments when it simply reversed direction partway through without warning.

【Year 2,900 — Something still feels faintly off. It seems you may have gotten it wrong just now, and for the numberless time, you have changed your approach】

"..."

Shen Yi stared at the panel prompt in silence and sighed inwardly.

Good thing it was putting the divine spirit through the wringer and not his own body — with a cultivation method this chaotic, sooner or later, someone was bound to end up derailed into qi deviation.

Well, consider it practice, then.

The overwhelming accumulated faith finally began to ebb.

In its place, the divine spirit grew steadily more solid, condensed nearly to substance.

It remained seated cross-legged, its features growing sharper and more defined, but its expression growing colder and more remote by the degree — as though it were shedding all attachment to the mortal world, pulling free of the red dust of life, taking on more and more the aspect of a divine statue on a temple altar.

The most visible change…