The sun rose quietly above the mountains of the Golden Lotus Sect, gilding the peaks with morning light. Shen Mu stood at the edge of the sect's great terrace, his golden robes rippling in the wind. Below him stretched the vast valley, filled with disciples meditating, training, and chanting the scriptures of merit.
After centuries of devotion, the sect had become a sacred bastion — a fortress of faith and cultivation intertwined. And at its heart stood its founder, Shen Mu, whose presence alone commanded the respect of the heavens.
Yet despite the reverence and peace surrounding him, Shen Mu's eyes were sharp and restless. He could feel it — the faint tremor within his nascent soul, the call of evolution echoing from the depths of his being.
> "It's time," he murmured. "The next step is within reach."
---
Into the Depths Once More
For cultivators of his level, meditation was no longer enough. The path forward demanded struggle — confrontation with the extremes of the world. And for Shen Mu, that meant diving once again into the major dungeons that riddled Arin's world.
These dungeons had long grown beyond mortal understanding. Their deepest layers connected faintly to the void, spawning creatures that were neither alive nor dead — entities formed from distorted laws and leaking void essence. Even Nascent Soul experts would rarely return once they delved beyond the 12th floor.
But Shen Mu walked into the darkness without hesitation.
Golden light surrounded him as he stepped across the threshold. The dungeon's oppressive atmosphere pressed down like a mountain, yet his aura barely flickered. Every swing of his blade carried divine resonance, each strike cleansing corruption and generating pure merit.
> "For the balance of heaven and earth… and for the will of merit," he intoned softly.
Each slain monster released motes of golden light that gathered around him. Some took the shape of blooming lotus petals; others merged directly into his body. As the light accumulated, Shen Mu could feel the essence of merit condensing within him — a radiant core of pure karmic equilibrium.
Deeper and deeper he went, past crumbling labyrinths of obsidian stone, through rivers of blood-colored mist and realms where gravity twisted sideways. He fought for decades within that abyss, slaying horrors that could shatter mountains and distort space.
Until one day, in the deepest chamber of the 18th major dungeon, he stood before a creature the size of a mountain — a Void Devourer, its body pulsating with unstable laws.
The battle raged for seven days and seven nights. The dungeon trembled, the void itself groaned, and finally, with a cry that shattered the sky, Shen Mu's sword pierced the creature's core.
A flood of golden merit surged out, enveloping him.
When he emerged from the dungeon, he no longer walked — he floated, his presence weightless yet boundless. His nascent soul pulsed like a miniature sun, its golden glow burning purer and denser than ever before.
> "This is it," he whispered. "The merit I've accumulated is enough. The time for the next step has come."
---
Preparing for Breakthrough
Back at the Golden Lotus Sect, Shen Mu sealed himself within the Divine Merit Hall — a sanctum built atop intersecting ley lines and filled with pure spiritual energy. The air shimmered with golden mist as he sat cross-legged upon a lotus-shaped platform, stabilizing his mind and body.
Breaking through to the Soul Transformation Realm (by later generations will also be called Truth Realm) was unlike any other advancement.
It wasn't merely a refinement of energy or the growth of a nascent soul — it was the transcendence of self, the moment when the soul began to influence and merge with the laws of the world.
Shen Mu knew one misstep could erase him entirely.
So he spent two months adjusting his condition to perfection — circulating energy through every meridian, cleansing the remnants of battle from his soul, and harmonizing the balance between his spiritual energy and the surrounding heaven and earth.
When the time came, even the air grew still.
The disciples outside could sense it — a faint, rhythmic heartbeat echoing through the mountain. Every pulse resonated with their cores, stirring their own cultivation.
---
The Breakthrough
Shen Mu's nascent soul sat within his dantian, glowing like a star. Slowly, he guided his spiritual energy inward, compressing it, refining it, folding it upon itself until the energy condensed into a singular point — a golden seed of divinity.
The moment it formed, his consciousness expanded infinitely outward.
He saw visions — rivers of light, worlds collapsing into the void, countless souls praying to distant gods, and above them all, the great golden law of merit shining silently among the stars.
> "So this is… truth," he whispered. "The Soul Transformation Realm…"
Then the golden seed cracked — not from weakness, but from evolution. A blinding light erupted, flooding his inner world.
His nascent soul dissolved into streams of radiance, which then reformed into a new shape — a vast golden figure with a lotus halo and eyes filled with worlds.
The Soul of Merit had been born.
At that moment, Shen Mu stepped into the Truth Realm.
---
The Descent of Tribulation
But the heavens do not grant ascension without trial.
As soon as his aura stabilized, the sky above the Golden Lotus Sect darkened.
Thunder rolled across the heavens, and the clouds split apart — revealing a yawning crack in space itself.
The Void Tribulation had arrived.
Unlike mortal lightning tribulations, the Void Tribulation drew directly from the chaotic energy between worlds. It sought to erase the cultivator completely — body, soul, and Dao — to test whether their truth could withstand annihilation.
Every living being in the sect looked up in awe and terror.
High above, nine colossal whirlpools of lightning formed, each radiating a color beyond mortal comprehension.
Shen Mu stepped out of the sanctum, rising calmly into the sky. His robes fluttered in the void winds, his eyes serene.
> "So even the heavens wish to test me…"
"Then come."
---
The first bolt fell — a pillar of golden-white lightning thick as a mountain. Shen Mu raised his hand, condensing a lotus seal of merit. The bolt struck, exploding into millions of sparks that scattered harmlessly into light.
The second and third bolts followed, darker and sharper, infused with void corruption. Shen Mu chanted softly, and each word turned into a glowing sigil. The sigils spun around him, devouring the corruption and purifying it into merit essence.
By the sixth strike, the world was trembling. Mountains cracked, rivers boiled, and space itself began to distort. Shen Mu's golden body dimmed, his soul trembling under the weight of divine wrath.
Yet his eyes remained calm.
He could see it — behind the chaos, the tribulation wasn't meant to destroy him but to refine him. The void lightning carried fragments of the world's fundamental laws, testing his resonance with them.
> "If I cannot endure," he whispered, "then I am unworthy of truth."
The seventh and eighth strikes descended together, weaving into a spiral of annihilation. Shen Mu roared, his voice echoing across continents.
He summoned his golden nascent soul projection — now colossal, standing shoulder to shoulder with the clouds — and met the tribulation head-on.
The collision was apocalyptic.
The heavens shattered, the sea of clouds evaporated, and all living beings across the world felt their souls tremble. For a moment, time itself seemed to halt.
When the light faded, Shen Mu hovered in midair, blood flowing down his arm, his aura flickering — but he was still there.
The ninth and final bolt descended silently.
It wasn't lightning, but a black flame, the pure will of the void itself.
Instead of resisting, Shen Mu lowered his guard. He opened his arms and allowed it to merge into his soul. The flame burned through him, consuming everything — his pain, his fear, his ego — until only pure essence remained.
Then, within that darkness, a lotus bloomed — golden and perfect.
---
The void flame vanished.
The tribulation clouds dissipated.
And a wave of divine brilliance swept across the world.
Every cultivator felt it. Even mortals, who could not perceive spiritual energy, instinctively looked to the heavens in awe. The very laws of heaven seemed to tremble, resonating with a single presence.
The aura of the Truth Realm blanketed Arin's world.
---
The storm faded, and calm slowly returned. Shen Mu stood amidst a sky still quivering from the remnants of void thunder, his aura surging beyond what the mortal world could contain. The heavens recognized him — a new existence had stepped into the Truth Realm, the Soul Transformation Realm.
Yet, as his consciousness settled, a strange new vision opened before him.
It was as if the veil of the world had been lifted. All around him — in the air, the ground, even within the flowing rivers of spiritual energy — patterns of radiant threads shimmered faintly, interwoven like endless chains of order. These were not visible to mortal eyes. Shen Mu instinctively understood — he was seeing the laws that governed existence itself.
However, his perception did not reach the deepest layers. The ten supreme pillars — Time, Space, Mass, Gravity, Positive and Negative Charge, Motion, Life, Death, Genetic, and Faith — remained hidden, their presences veiled in unfathomable obscurity. What he saw instead were their children — the derivative laws branching and twisting like roots spreading through the fabric of the world.
He could glimpse the Law of Fire, born from motion and positive charge. The Law of Metal, woven from mass and gravity. The Law of Water, an elegant balance of life, death, and motion. Countless derivative laws intertwined before his eyes, pulsing with divine rhythm.
It was beautiful — and terrifying.
Then he noticed his own spiritual energy. Once purely golden with the glow of accumulated merit, it now shimmered with countless faint hues— red, blue, green, white, and others he couldn't even name. They seemed to be impurities, but they pulsed with the same rhythm as the laws he had just glimpsed.
A frown crossed his face.
"What… are these colors? Why do they resonate with the world itself?"
Sitting cross-legged within his cultivation chamber, he calmed his mind and began to circulate his energy, attempting to refine away the strange hues. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months. Yet no matter how precisely he controlled his qi, the colors remained, inseparable from the golden glow, as if they were part of his very essence.
A year passed.
Shen Mu opened his eyes, a trace of confusion hidden within their golden light.
He still could not understand what those colors were — nor why his energy had changed. He had gained power, yes, but also something else… something ancient and vast that he could not yet comprehend.
And somewhere, far beyond his reach, Arin's world pulsed faintly, as if watching.