The Stellar-Paragon Physique was only at its initial stage of development, and it was bound to become increasingly potent, bringing forth additional benefits that were hard to foresee even with the Mortal Intent of his World-Bound Star Domain.
Rising from his seated position, Wei Wuyin stretched his body taut until that feeling of rippling comfort spread across his bones, muscles, and skin. A hearty grunt of enjoyment later and Wei Wuyin relaxed fully, his joints loosened, and his flow of innate energies became incomparably smooth. The extraordinary feeling of strength and stability was hard to describe in simple words.
"Little Defiant's my greatest trump card for the coming days," Wei Wuyin had grasped extraordinarily profound powers as of late, such as the Minor Authorities of Space, Time, Imperial, Annihilation, Saber, and Origin, including Originfire and a Mystic-Rank Bloodline, but out of all of these, the Defiant-sized Solar Star that was now a critical component of his cultivation base was the most terrifying.
The sheer size and scope of it were enough to bring about great disaster and boundless destruction. Wei Wuyin had very little doubt that the Endless Voir Mirror's Sealing Array, a genuine Heavenly Treasure, would collapse if he were to bring it forth. Of course, everything within would undoubtedly follow.
"Fortunately, Baby Defiant can act as my World-Bound Star Domain while I can receive Little Defiant's solar essence emissions directly without end. My Astral Physique and the Star Cores are growing stronger with each passing second. Unfortunately, my Astral Physique is like a bottomless pit."
Wei Wuyin was fully aware that the concerns of the Heavenly War Spirit were undeniably real. If he resorted to mortal-grade products, he might take centuries to reach completion! This was considering Little Defiant's support!
"This is the consequence of pursuing a flawless cultivation," Wei Wuyin remarked.
"No—the 'result' of attaining a foundation beyond conventional standards," Eden corrected. The Astral Souls had more or less been silent throughout his analysis, they were likely inspecting themselves, and they hadn't intervened when the Heavenly War Spirit was giving its warnings.
"She is right," Kratos admitted, referring to the Heavenly War Spirit's earlier words about their foundation.
"She isn't just right!" Ori blurted out, its tone a little despondent and depressed. It was strange for it to feel down.
"What do you mean?" Wei Wuyin's communications with his four Astral Souls were private, so not even the Heavenly War Spirit could eavesdrop. Moreover, their conversations occurred at obscenely fast speeds.
"..." Ori went silent. Its mood was suspicious, and Wei Wuyin instantly realized that he might have missed something. A bad feeling emerged in his heart.
"Tch. Why hide it?" King said, continuing: "Our Star Cores isn't four—it's one."
"What?!" Wei Wuyin was instantly taken aback. He inspected his body and found four individual Star Cores, each representing their respective Astral Soul. Confused, Wei Wuyin furrowed his brows.
"Something wrong?" The Heavenly War Spirit noticed Wei Wuyin's mental change, asking curiously. While it seemed that Wei Wuyin had steeled his heart to face the future, her concerns couldn't be easily dispelled.
"I don't know," he replied honestly, then asked the four: "What do you mean by that?"
"It's my fault! It's my fault!" Ori cried out softly. It seemed Ori blamed herself for something, and Wei Wuyin's frown deepened.
"It's not your fault!" Eden, Kratos, and King said in harmony. They were consoling Ori together as if fearful that it would genuinely believe it was at fault, but this was the first time that Wei Wuyin heard them speak as one, especially with such urgency. "No one is responsible for this because this isn't a problem. It's a blessing. Alright?" Eden firmly stated, and King agreed silently while Kratos growled softly in acceptance. They seemed meek and thankful to Ori, completely unlike them.
Wei Wuyin kept getting an increasingly bad feeling. "What am I not noticing?"
"..." The four were silent for a long moment, seemingly conversing with each other. Then, Eden spoke up: "You're seeing four Star Cores, and you're not wrong, but you're not noticing it because we haven't actively cultivated yet." Eden paused for a brief moment, gathered its thoughts, and then explained.
"After we fully completed the Mortal Star Eradication Tribulation, our Astral Cores were about to merge," Eden started. This immediately caused Wei Wuyin to jolt in shock, blurting out uncontrollably: "About to?"
"Yes, about to." Eden nodded, continuing: "During the initiation process, we all acted. King annihilated the merging force, Kratos avoided it, and I began to contain it. I intended to refine it later. Unfortunately, the situation didn't go as we expected."
This was the first time Wei Wuyin had heard this, something he hadn't even noticed. Then again, these Astral Souls of his were troublemakers that often acted under their own will, and Wei Wuyin had trust in them, so he rarely oversaw their actions. In fact, he could barely understand how they did what they did, so it was hard to interfere. Of course, now that he grasped Mortal Intent, he finally realized how they distorted the Astral Tribulations, which was extremely profound. Even he wasn't confident that he could replicate their feats.
"What happened?" Wei Wuyin asked.
Eden confessed, "the Mortal Dao acted."
Wei Wuyin's pupils constricted slightly; when he was sent out of the Samsara of Stars, a terrifying ripple of power erupted that dispersed the condensed Chaos Mana in the area, revealing that the Mortal Dao had been angered. He originally believed it was due to Little Defiant's incredible consumption. Was it not?
Wei Wuyin's calm returned swiftly as a question dawned on him. "You all interfered with the tribulations before, what's the difference now?" Since the first Astral Tribulation, the four rascals kept playing around with the Astral Tribulations without consequence, and the Mortal Dao never interfered.
"Tch. That's because we never intervened with the result, only the process. Unlike now," King explained solemnly. Those words instantly enlightened Wei Wuyin. Eden was right! They had never messed with the resulting bestowals of benefits that the Astral Tribulations delivered.
An example would be forcefully extracting additional creation power during the Domain Seed formation! This was very, very, very different than messing with the process. While these Astral Souls were seemingly reckless, they only acted to affect the process, never the result!
Even ordinary cultivators could interfere with the process with little issue, saving those on the cusp of failure, but if they wanted to steal the fortune of a cultivator's breakthrough...he'd never heard of such a thing! In all their difficult tribulations, even the Mortal Star Eradication Tribulation, everything his Astral Souls and Little Defiant received was rightfully theirs, gained through facing equally difficult tribulations. When had the Mortal Dao ever punished someone for gaining what they deserved?
Out of the various Daos, it was by far the most gentle and forgiving! But in the same vein, it was the worst to offend!
Eden finished its explanation. It was extremely lengthy, but the gist of it was this: the Mortal Dao noticed their interference and acted, punishing them by amplifying the merging force, and they were going to be tethered together. But they knew that they had made a mistake; the memories of debonair Wei Wuyin revealed that he had difficulties separating the Astral Souls after ascending, which was proportional to the strength of his foundation. While that version of Wei Wuyin didn't pursue the same path as their Wei Wuyin had, his cultivation was by no means weak.
He had to rely on the Endless Voyage Realm's resources and the World Beyond to assist in the segregation process, and the cost was astronomical. It was this opening that Liu Yinlan used to reel him in and take everything from him.
Everything.
They resisted the merging process because they knew the path to segregation would require outrageous amounts of resources! Wei Wuyin didn't have the time to waste trying to accumulate enough resources to do so, the Calamites of Hell were too pressing, and their foundations broke far too many conventions! What if he couldn't? What if, for the next several hundred years, Wei Wuyin spent concocting products and not properly cultivating? The Calamities of Hell and the All-Ending Stellar Calamity weren't waiting for them! So they resisted! They refused!
This new level of merging force would only up the difficulty exponentially! Combining them most thoroughly. They realized they had made a mistake! A horrible mistake! Unfortunately, the Mortal Dao was not so gentle concerning this situation. It wouldn't relent! So they fought against it again! And they resisted...again! But the Mortal Dao's following action was horrifying, and the merging force was so tyrannically powerful that they might never separate.
Despair. They felt true despair! In a way, this could be a benefit to them. If this merging force compressed their Core's Quintessential Energies, not only would the density be unprecedented, but the quality and purity would likely reach ungodly levels!
But who knew what type of changes would occur if they were merged so strongly by this force? What if they merged their sentience? No longer individual spirits? Not even humans could accept that situation!
The only one that hadn't acted, Ori, decided to make a move at this critical moment! Ori could connect all things, a true embodiment of Origin, and it merged them prematurely! Its thinking was simple: if they merged purposefully, then the merging force should dissipate, right? They could then separate later without any issue!
Ori believed it was smart! Those were its thoughts. While the three were thinking of how to resist or use the merging force, it was thinking of how to trick it! Eden, King, and Kratos had vetoed this option because it was too silly. How could the Mortal Dao be so easily tricked?
Left with no other option, Ori connected their Astral Cores and Astral Souls through its Law of Origin, essentially making it as if they were one. Alas, the Mortal Dao wasn't so easily tricked!
The next sequence of events caused Wei Wuyin's heart to race, eyes to bulge, and sweat to drip from his back.
The Astral Cores were going to merge! They couldn't stop it, and the force was disgustingly powerful. Out of sheer fear of melding their sentience, Eden ordered them all to directly externalize internally and sought refuge in his Mind's Eye, hiding alongside Little Defiant!
Shockingly, this caused something unprecedented to occur. He couldn't quite explain it, but the four Astral Cores had merged into a single Astral Core. This Star Core had left his Dantian, existing at the center of his chest alongside the Dual Cosmic Singularity.
Then, Wei Wuyin was pushed out forcefully from the tribulation. He feared that, if not for the Blessing of the Mortal Dao he had received during the refinement of the Neo-Dawn Paragon-Forging Pill, this type of interference would've resulted in a judgment of Mortal Annihilation or direct destruction!
However, while being sent out, the four Astral Souls left his Mind's Eye, and Ori discovered that it could split the cores apart! The Law of Origin was profound in regards to connecting and segregating itself into many different parts! A Stellar Region is an example of this!
It segregated the core into four equal parts and returned them to their rightful locations; the Astral Souls then entered without any resistance and began exerting their cultivated powers. Even they were baffled by how easy it seemed.
Had they fooled the Mortal Daos?
"I was actively watching you guys form your Astral Cores into Star Cores, guiding the process—when did this happen?" Wei Wuyin couldn't help but ask.
"Within the single instant when Kratos and I returned," Eden confessed. "It was before our Astral Cores became Star Cores. This was how we bypassed the process inexplicably and remained independent. It was a timing coincidence, truly fortunate."
"..." Wei Wuyin couldn't help but recall Ori's happiness. He had initially thought it was because they had completed the Astral Tribulation; who knew it was because they had survived and completed their objective seamlessly!
"I don't get it—if the merging failed, why the gloom and doom? You all made it seem like something bad happened." Wei Wuyin shook his head with a slightly amused and relieved smile. From his point of view, nothing had changed. Their cultivation bases had somehow evened out in the end, and the best-case scenario occurred, so why does this matter? At the very least, rhis event allowed him to understand that he had some leeway with interfering with the Daos before getting into trouble, likely another benefit of the Stellar-Paragon Physique.
They survived, they didn't merge, and they were all here as Star Cores. What was there to be all grim and glum for?
"..."
"I told you he wouldn't realize it directly," Kratos grumbled. Wei Wuyin felt immediately insulted by that statement. He was just about to give Kratos a verbal spanking when...it clicked.
Oh boy, did it click. It clicked so hard that his heartbeat stagnated for a brief moment!
"It didn't..." Wei Wuyin muttered.
"..." Ori, King, Kratos, and Eden.
"It didn't." Wei Wuyin's eyes widened.
"..."
Wei Wuyin's heart resumed pounding, and he hastily checked his Star Cores. He had been so focused on his Stellar-Paragon Physique that he hadn't inspected his Star Cores yet, and before that, he gave his complete attention to Cao Cuifen. He wasn't someone who would half-heartedly be present, especially not before a lover.
"!!!" His pupils shrunk to their limit!
The merged Astral Core had split into four! THE MERGED ASTRAL CORE HAD SPLIT INTO FOUR INDEPENDENT STAR CORES!
"All four Star Cores...are formed from a quarter-fragment of a Merged Astral Core?" Wei Wuyin blankly muttered.
"..." The four Astral Souls silently nodded in unison. It was as if Wei Wuyin could feel them standing in a line, just watching his reactions with varied expressions.
As someone who cultivated the Dao of Alchemy, understanding how the principles of cultivation reformation worked, even having solved this issue with Zuhei once before, he was fully aware of the implications! To put it simply, the Merged Astral Core's upper limits had changed!
The maximum limit of each Star Core was the same as the combined maximum of their Merged Core! Wei Wuyin's 'peak' state had been multiplied by four! How difficult will it be to reach that limit?!
To top it all off, each Star Core was a fourth complete and could be considered in a state of severe depletion, borderline crippled! Due to his newfound strength, which placed this state so far above his Temporal Eye Phase cultivation base, he hadn't noticed!
Centuries with Mortal-grade products? Whatever the Heavenly War Spirit's estimation was, it would have to be multiplied by sixteen! At least!
Centuries?! More like millennia! It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that for the final Astral Tribulation, these four Astral Souls that loved to defy conventions didn't fail to do so...
Now that he thought about it, all the Astral Tribulations had heaven-defying changes, even if they didn't affect him negatively, and only the Mortal Star Eradication Tribulation had the most typical start and end! These Astral Souls had simply started and completed without anything changing except doing it together. It was his and Little Defiant's efforts that toppled the tribulation—not them!
But it seems they were unable to resist flipping the table one last time!
Wei Wuyin was utterly speechless for a long, long time.

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