Sage Monarch

'I have to speed up my cultivation,' Yang Qi thought. He reached out and grabbed a eunuch from the Joyflower Palace, a vicious fellow who had taken too many lives to count and was constantly encircled by the images of swirling ghosts. Peering into his fate, Yang Qi could see the blood-red color of karma. Obviously, this man had killed and tortured so many individuals that their animosity had laid a curse on his fate.

Although Yang Qi had also killed too many enemies to count, as a Fateless One, he wasn't affected in the same way, even if people tried to curse him directly.

Right now, Yang Qi was hoping to learn a thing or two from this eunuch. Despite being held captive, the eunuch was just as fiendish as ever and fairly radiated an air of ruthlessness. His vicious eyes darted back and forth, making him look like a viper that might try to bite Yang Qi at any moment.

Yang Qi had no desire to have such a person as one of his subordinates, so he simply slapped him with a palm, forcing the True-Devil Unspoiled-by-Myriad-Kalpas-and-Tribulations Body into him.

The eunuch shivered as explosive vital energy coursed into him. "You're using me to do research, boy!? Fine! I'll cultivate this technique to the point where I can cut you down and possess you!"

Soon, popping sounds rang out inside him, and tribulation energy surged as he reached the level of four tribulations.

Yang Qi let the process go on for a bit, then hit the eunuch with another palm strike. "Circulate your psychic power and send it into this ancient jade!"

THUMP!

The eunuch struggled, but couldn't resist Yang Qi. Before long, his psychic power was being extracted from his nascent divinity and sent into the Mahātmā Jade.

As soon as the jade was stimulated, it emitted a faint glow, within which was a gravitational force.

Whooooosh!

The eunuch screamed shrilly, and writhed within Yang Qi's grasp. Within moments, all of his blood had been sucked out of him and he was left as nothing but an empty husk. His sea of consciousness was empty, and he was no more.

Completely gone.

Utterly and thoroughly vanished from within heaven and earth.

Not even his soul remained in the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart. It had been instantly absorbed by the Mahātmā Jade.

Yang Qi was actually startled, as he realized that if he blithely experimented on his own, with his own psychic power, he would also have been turned into a desiccated corpse by the Mahātmā Jade.

With that, he produced another vicious character from the Joyflower Palace, a burly consort that had slaughtered too many people to count. He was obviously the kind of villainous person who would never turn over a new leaf, no matter what happened.

Yang Qi first had him try to use his true energy to pick up the Mahātmā Jade, but such efforts were useless. It was too heavy. In fact, the only reason the immortal-slaying clone had been able to lift it was because he exercised complete command over everything in the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart.

"Cultivate this," Yang Qi ordered, and imparted the True-Devil Unspoiled-by-Myriad-Kalpas-and-Tribulations Body to the burly man with a palm strike. Soon, the man had reached the level of ten tribulations and was getting so strong that it seemed he was getting ready to break free and fight back against Yang Qi. Sadly for him, Yang Qi's psychic scale was at eighteen, so there was no way he was a match for him.

The man shouted in rage, but had no choice but to follow Yang Qi's orders.

This time, the jade didn't absorb his psychic power. Instead, a stream of psychic power flowed back into him, causing him to suddenly rocket toward the Terrifying level.

Looking closer, Yang Qi realized that the burly man had absorbed the psychic power that had been taken from the eunuch, and was using it to reach a higher level.

'Don't tell me you have to use it to kill someone before using it for a breakthrough,' Yang Qi thought. Meanwhile, the burly man already thought he was invincible, and turned to start fighting Yang Qi. However, Yang Qi slapped him off his feet with a palm and said, "Send your psychic power into that jade again!"

The man had no choice but to follow the order.

Instantly, a soft light seeped out of the jade and the burly man sighed in resignation. In the blink of an eye, all of his psychic power, flesh, and blood were sucked into the jade, and he withered into a desiccated husk.

Yang Qi was stunned. Apparently his previous supposition had been correct. Clearly, the Mahātmā Jade would only be useful to someone who cultivated the True-Devil Unspoiled-by-Myriad-Kalpas-and-Tribulations Body. But the Shepherd didn't cultivate that technique, so how had he been able to manipulate it?

Meanwhile, the immortal-slaying clone watched as the two corpses slowly collapsed into ashes. Glancing over at Yang Qi, who was simply sitting there in deep thought, he asked, "Well, what do you think? Did your experiments succeed?"

"I'm not sure yet," Yang Qi replied quietly. "By the way, what does it feel like when you hold that jade?"

The clone shook his head. "It feels like I'm trying to pick up a mountain. It's only with the power of the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart that I can even budge it. Now that I've reached the Terrifying level, I have access to more functions of the chart. With that, and the Engine of the One God, I could probably uproot ancient mountains from the god world."

"I need to do some more experiments. Maybe I'll even try to use the God Legion Seal or King Immortal-Slayer's legacy medallions on it. This might even be the key to finally breaking free from the threat of King Immortal-Slayer, as well as the seal."

Thus, Yang Qi continued with his studying. Not only was he improving his cultivation, but he was also figuring out ways to fully break free from the shackles imposed by the God Legion Seal. Once he pushed his abilities to the highest level, and increased his psychic power, then it would no longer matter who he faced. Fiend-Devil League. Executors of the Ancient Road. Proud Heaven. Or even the person from the Primeval Age with a God Legion Seal. He would definitely be able to keep himself safe.

Although he had a psychic scale of eighteen, he was fully aware that there were experts out there whose scales surpassed a hundred. For example, the emperor of the executors, Proud Heaven, and most likely the Shepherd as well.

Time passed, and he performed experiments on over a hundred vicious captives. The results were very confusing. Sometimes people who used the jade to improve their True-Devil Unspoiled-by-Myriad-Kalpas-and-Tribulations Body would experience breakthroughs. Others would get absorbed. Some who used it a second time would actually experience more breakthroughs, while others would die.

Yang Qi couldn't make heads nor tails of it.

There was only one constant. All of them ended up dying in the end, their psychic power and tribulation energy sucked into the depths of the Mahātmā Jade.

As for the jade, nothing seemed to happen to it. It was almost as if some mysterious entity lurked inside, ravenously devouring everything. So far, Yang Qi wasn't able to discern any sort of pattern or rule to it all.

His original assumption had been that the jade would absorb someone, then give their power to the next person. But after experimenting with over a hundred villains, he found that his theory was incorrect. Some people would experience two or three breakthroughs and immense increases in energy arts, then ultimately die.

Occasionally, people were able to use the jade four or five times before dying.

Yang Qi had no idea what it all meant, and couldn't even guess at what the requirements of the jade were. And he had no idea whether or not sending his own psychic power into the jade would end with his death.

Furthermore, there didn't seem to be any special benefit to the psychic power that the jade would release. After all, Yang Qi himself had plenty of energy arts that could absorb his enemies' souls, psychic power, and energy arts.

However, as he continued to do his research, he realized that there was something odd going on. There didn't seem to be any limit to what the jade could provide.

For example, Yang Qi, who had a psychic scale of eighteen, could go around killing all sorts of enemies with immense psychic power, but it wouldn't help him reach a higher level. That was how things usually worked. The only way to achieve breakthroughs was to practice cultivation, acquire enlightenment of magical laws, and slowly build up psychic power.

But the Mahātmā Jade was different. When it absorbed psychic power, then released it, that power had no limitations. It would be directly added to the psyche of whoever took it.

Yang Qi had previously had a psychic scale of three. Then, thanks to the Shepherd's psychic power that had been unleashed on him by the Mahātmā Jade, he had instantly jumped to eighteen.

Even if the Shepherd had intentionally attempted to bless Yang Qi, there was no way he could have pushed him even to the level of four. And if he exerted himself too much in that regard, he would have damaged, or even destroyed his nascent divinity.

But the Mahātmā Jade operated completely differently.

It was in defiance of heaven, the dao, gods, immortals, and all creation. There were simply no words to accurately describe how shocking it was.

Yang Qi conducted such research for about a hundred years, using over a thousand evil characters in the process. Some of them started out at extremely low levels, for instance, Grand Emperors with power indexes in the hundreds, and only Stupendous will. Then, in the blink of an eye, they would reach the Destabilizing level, and eventually become Terrifying experts with a psychic power of five.

Such people would often arrogantly try to kill Yang Qi, only to be slapped into submission by him and forced to continue working with the Mahātmā Jade.

Even the luckiest among them would never last more than about five times working with the jade before they were sucked dry.

Even after a thousand experiments, Yang Qi hadn't made any real progress. It was almost as though the Mahātmā Jade were a naughty child that just liked doing random things. Sometimes it would provide ten boosts in a row, and sometimes it would absorb ten victims in a row.

The only constant was that the psychic power it provided was not limited in any way.