I Have a Cultivation Simulator

[‘One thousand years old...’]

[Your expression remained calm. A few streaks of white dotted your loose black hair.]

[This was the outward sign of approaching your lifespan limit. As a Rank 4 Mid Stage body cultivation true lord, your qi and blood would not wane as your end drew near.]

[However, your physical appearance still had to follow the laws of nature.]

[Of course, as a Late Nascent Soul Great Cultivator, you had many ways to restore your youthful appearance.]

[But there was no need. It would not extend your lifespan.]

[And a few white hairs had absolutely no impact on your strength.]

[‘These past two to three hundred years...’]

[The changes of the past few centuries flashed through your mind.]

[For instance, Great Cultivator Fulong of the Dazhou Immortal Dynasty had passed away in meditation over two hundred years ago.]

[Your enmity with Great Cultivator Fulong was deep, as you had killed his most valued heir.]

[Yet from beginning to end, you and Great Cultivator Fulong had never actually met, which was truly remarkable.]

[As for the Heavenly Talisman Sect's Great Cultivator Sanfu and Grand Cultivator Xinfu, one had passed away in meditation over one hundred and seventy years ago, and the other over ninety years ago.]

[Fortunately, a new generation had risen in the Heavenly Talisman Sect, producing two more Late Nascent Soul Great Cultivators in succession.]

[One was the vice sect master of the Heavenly Talisman Sect, who, after failing several times to break through to the Late Nascent Soul Stage, finally stepped smoothly into the ranks of the Great Cultivators.]

[The other was True Monarch Wen, with whom you shared a good relationship. He had successfully broken through on his second attempt over sixty years ago.]

[The vice sect master was around your age, but his lifespan had not suffered much depletion. Combined with life-extending items, he could likely live for another two hundred years.]

[True Monarch Wen was younger than you and should still have three to four hundred years of lifespan remaining.]

[‘Dachun... died in the third phase of the trial...’]

[Your gaze was calm. Since you held Dachun's essence blood, combined with the karma between you two, divining his life or death was relatively easy.]

[Over a hundred years ago, Dachun's karma had dissipated, signaling his complete fall.]

[‘No matter how astonishingly talented and brilliant you are, standing unrivaled across an entire region, after a thousand or two thousand years pass, you still end up turning to dust...’]

[You sighed with emotion. The batch of Late Nascent Soul Great Cultivators who had roamed the Human Realm unhindered centuries ago had basically all died out.]

[Yet new Late Nascent Soul Great Cultivators still rose to the peak, establishing immense prestige and looking down upon the Human Realm.]

[No matter the era, new legends would always be born.]

[‘The heaven and earth remain...’]

[You looked up at the sky. In that moment, your mind experienced a brief sublimation, merging into the omnipresent grand net of heavenly secrets.]

[A burst of insight hit you, and you began to perform a deep divination. During this profound divination, your lifespan started to deplete rapidly.]

[Ten years.]

[Twenty years.]

[Thirty years.]

[Fifty years.]

[Your eyes slowly opened only after you had sacrificed fifty years of lifespan.]

[Your gaze was profound and boundless, as if reflecting the transformations of all creation and the fates of all living beings.]

[‘To think that nearing the end of my lifespan, there would actually come a day when I stepped into the Fourth Tier Mid-Grade Divination Art...’]

[You sighed softly.]

[At the age of three hundred and eighty, you had advanced to become a Tier 4 Divination Grandmaster.]

[For the six or seven hundred years that followed, your divination art had remained firmly stuck at Rank 4 Lower Grade.]

[You had originally planned to give up. Divination relied heavily on opportunities and turning points. Without the right opportunity, investing any amount of lifespan would not guarantee crossing the bottleneck.]

[‘Fourth Tier Mid-Grade Divination Art!’]

[You looked toward the grand net of heavenly secrets over the Central Continent Territory. Divination was an obscure and niche path, making advancement incredibly difficult.]

[Unlike other technical inheritances, each breakthrough and advancement in Divination required the expenditure of lifespan.]

[Even if you seized a moment of breakthrough, you still had to pave the way with your lifespan to cross the threshold.]

[When your Divination broke through from Tier 3 to Tier 4, you had sacrificed sixty years of lifespan. Now, going from Rank 4 Lower Grade to Rank 4 Middle Grade, you invested another fifty years.]

[‘Not bad, not bad.’]

[You performed a brief calculation and found that the karma you once felt was obscure and difficult to decipher had now become much simpler to deduce.]

[Tier 4 Mid-Grade Divination Grandmasters could be counted on one hand in the entire Human Realm. True Monarch Qingtian of the Wujian Region was only at Rank 4 Lower Grade. The Heavenly Supervision Temple Master of the Zhou Immortal Dynasty was also at Rank 4 Lower Grade, only managing to barely exert a Rank 4 Middle Grade deduction ability by borrowing the immortal dynasty's providence.]

[‘Having invested fifty years of lifespan, I have roughly fifty years remaining...’]

[You reined in your thoughts and stopped your deductions.]

[After losing fifty years of lifespan, your black hair was now nearly half white. Your appearance had lost its youthful look, gaining an air of mysterious, weather-beaten antiquity.]

[‘The remaining time should just about be enough...’]

[You thought to yourself that you still had a few things to do at the end of this simulation.]

[First, sell off all your treasures and weapons, exchanging them for numerous technical inheritances, secret arts, and cultivation methods that could be inherited in reality and in future simulations.]

[Second, attempt a breakthrough to the Deity Transformation Stage.]

[Currently, your cultivation in the Late Nascent Soul Stage was still quite a ways off from the Peak.]

[Coupled with the fact that the Heavenly Monarchs of the current era had not fallen, their positions were not empty.]

[Your hopes of successfully pushing into the Deity Transformation Stage were infinitely close to zero.]

[But failure did not mean the attempt was meaningless.]

[Other Late Nascent Soul Great Cultivators only had one chance to attempt the Deity Transformation Stage, but you were different.]

[Even if you failed this breakthrough, you could fully absorb the experience to prepare for the next simulation.]

[As for the third matter... it was to make another trip to the Ghost Realm Trial Field.]

[You had mastered the second layer of the Divine Origin Void Crossing Great Art decades ago.]

[According to the standards of the second phase trial you had experienced, mastering it within ten years would earn you rich rewards.]

[However, it had taken you almost a thousand years to master this secret art. Logically, there was no need to go to the Ghost Realm Trial Field just to humiliate yourself.]

[But you still planned to visit the Armored Guardian to inquire about the contents of the third phase of the trial.]

[If it meant inviting humiliation, so be it; you did not care about such things.]

[In any case, this matter would not cost you much time. With your current strength, a round trip between the Central Continent and the Taiyuan Region would only take a little over ten years.]

[If you used a cross-domain teleportation array, the time would be even shorter.]

[Half a month later, you secretly left the Heavenly Talisman Sect and returned to the Taiyuan Region.]

[Six years later, at the age of one thousand and six, you arrived smoothly in the Taiyuan Region.]

[By this time, the Nascent Soul True Monarchs you knew of in the Taiyuan Region and the surrounding major domains had long since been replaced by a new generation.]

[You gazed from afar at the spirit vein dojo where the Zhou Family resided. The current generation of the Zhou Family had produced a Mid Core Formation Stage true person and two False Core True Persons, reaching an unprecedented height.]

[You glanced toward the direction of Profound King Island and casually made some deductions.]

[‘Venerable Xuan is also approaching his lifespan limit. He has about seven to eight hundred years left...’]

[You thought to yourself. Black tortoises were naturally long-lived; a Tier 4 black tortoise had a lifespan of up to five or six thousand years.]

[An hour later, you arrived at Nether Mountain, circulated your secret art, and entered the Ghost Realm Trial Field.]

[In the next instant, you felt the world shift around you as you arrived in a vast space. In the distance sat faint ancient buildings.]

[‘The Ghost Realm Trial Field?’]

[You carefully observed your surroundings. Now that you were a Late Nascent Soul Great Cultivator, as well as a Tier 4 Mid Stage Array Dao Grandmaster, what you saw and felt was naturally completely different from when you had first entered the Nascent Soul Stage.]

[‘What terrifying means.’]

[You were shocked. You could clearly sense that the space within the Ghost Realm Trial Field was covered in miniature void arrays, and the ancient buildings in the distance were each complete, independent worlds of their own.]

[‘Incredible... Is this the work of the mighty Heavenly Monarchs of the ancient era?’]

[You marveled inwardly. It was said that the mighty Deity Transformation Heavenly Monarch who established the Ghost Realm Trial Field and the Thirty-Six Grotto-Heavens possessed strength far beyond that of a normal Heavenly Monarch.]

[After observing your surroundings for a while, you followed the white jade stairs up to the high platform.]

[‘A challenger?’]

[The Armored Guardian had already been waiting for a long time. The moment you entered the Ghost Realm Trial Field, he had opened his eyes.]

[You speculated that this was because your strength had triggered the warning range of the Ghost Realm Trial Field. Back when you entered during your Foundation Establishment Stage, Core Formation Stage, and even Early Nascent Soul Stage, the Armored Guardian showed no signs of waking up immediately.]

[‘Guardian, I have mastered the second layer of the Divine Origin Void Crossing Great Art...’]

[You got straight to the point, actively revealing your divine soul aura at the same time.]

[The Armored Guardian remained silent for a moment before speaking, "The challenger took nine hundred and eighty-nine years to master the second layer of the Divine Origin Void Crossing Great Art..."]

[Looking at the Armored Guardian, you asked, "Can I enter the third phase of the trial?"]

["Access denied."]

[The Armored Guardian stayed silent for a long time. "The challenger has not met the standard to unlock the third phase of the trial..."]

[You were not surprised. Having passed the first phase, you already knew that the Ghost Realm Trial Field possessed an elimination mechanism.]

[Only challengers who completed their objectives within a certain time limit were qualified to enter the next phase.]

[‘What is the exact standard to unlock the third phase of the trial?’]

[You asked.]

[There was no harm in asking. Since you were already here, you naturally intended to air all your questions.]

[Whether the Armored Guardian would answer did not matter. You were going to dump every question weighing on your mind this time.]

[From the matter of acquiring the subsequent inheritance of the Mountain Sea Art, you had realized that you could freely glean some inheritances and secrets out of the Armored Guardian.]

[The Armored Guardian was a relic from the ancient era. Even passing words from such an old antique could resolve your doubts and clear your confusion.]

["Conditions to unlock the third phase of the dharma cultivation inheritance—"]

["Master the second layer of the Divine Origin Void Crossing Great Art within a hundred years."]

["Divine soul age must be under one hundred and fifty years old."]

[The Armored Guardian looked at you and slowly spoke.]

[‘Master the second layer of the Divine Origin Void Crossing Great Art within a hundred years?’]

[Your mouth twitched slightly. Mastering it within ten years granted bonus rewards.]

[Mastering it within a hundred years was the bare minimum to unlock the third phase.]

[On top of that, one's divine soul age had to be under one hundred and fifty years.]

[These two conditions for the third phase were meant to filter for the absolute top-tier geniuses.]

[The age limit of one hundred and fifty for the divine soul eliminated those old monsters in the Nascent Soul Stage who relied on their realm advantage to study from a higher vantage point and master the Divine Origin Void Crossing Great Art faster.]

[Given the same secret art and the same aptitude, a Late Nascent Soul Great Cultivator's comprehension speed would undoubtedly far outstrip that of a Core Formation Stage true person.]

[‘A divine soul under a hundred and fifty years old... That means most challengers who enter the third phase are at the Core Formation Stage, with a small fraction perhaps having just stepped into the Early Nascent Soul Stage...’]

[You thought to yourself.]

[Even in a cultivation environment like the Central Continent, cultivators who stepped into the Nascent Soul Stage before a hundred and fifty were in the minority. Practicing the first and second layers of the Divine Origin Void Crossing Great Art during the first two phases of the Ghost Realm Trial Field would also burn a massive amount of time, leaving even less time for actual cultivation.]

[The true lords painstakingly nurtured by the major top factions of the Central Continent could generally condense a Nascent Soul before two hundred, step into the Mid Nascent Soul Stage before four hundred, and reach the Late Nascent Soul Stage before six hundred.]

[That was because they did not walk the path of the Ghost Realm Trial Field.]

[The trials of the Ghost Realm Trial Field emphasized accumulating deeply before erupting. They required spending far more time in the earlier realms to build a solid foundation for the future.]

[‘It seems the dharma cultivation trial is different from the body cultivation trial...’]

[You recalled that when Dachun unlocked the third phase of his trial, there was no restriction of being under one hundred and fifty years old.]

[‘Then, what are the specific contents of the third phase of the dharma cultivation inheritance? Can you give me a general idea?’]

[You looked at the Armored Guardian and asked probingly.]

[Hearing this, the Armored Guardian was silent for a long time before finally speaking, "The third phase of the dharma cultivation trial will teleport the challenger to a secret realm to compete with other challengers of the same phase from the current era... Only the final victor can obtain the third and fourth layers of the Divine Origin Void Crossing Great Art, along with corresponding treasures and rarities."]

[Hearing this, you instantly understood.]

[Clearly, the third phase of the dharma cultivation trial was no longer limited to practicing a secret art; it had started to involve real combat.]

[After all, no matter how powerful a secret inheritance was, it was still meant for combat. Only by displaying greater combat power at the same level could one meet the Ghost Realm Trial Field's standard for nurturing geniuses.]

[The body cultivation trials placed even more emphasis on this aspect, whereas the dharma cultivation trial only incorporated actual combat starting from the third phase.]

[As for the body cultivation trial... according to the information Dachun had shared with you, the very first phase already involved actual combat. One had to kill a specific number of monsters to pass the trial.]

[The same applied to the second phase, which required slaughtering countless monsters.]

[The monsters in question were demons.]

[In every phase of the body cultivation trial, Dachun was teleported to a Demon Cave swarming with massive numbers of demons.]

[‘I wonder how many challengers are currently in the third phase, and what cultivation base the strongest challenger possesses...’]

[You continued to ask.]

[Red light flared in the Armored Guardian's eyes. "The challenger has no authority to know."]

[‘No authority?’]

[You were not disappointed and continued to ask other questions.]

[Time flowed by, and in the blink of an eye, several days passed.]

[Over these past few days, you asked the Armored Guardian every single question you had accumulated since stepping into the Mid Nascent Soul Stage, regardless of the subject matter.]

[A few days later, you left the Ghost Realm Trial Field fully contented.]

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