There is a progress bar in my cultivation of immortality

Atop a solitary peak on a vast plain of Venus.

In front of a towering pagoda shimmering with Buddhist light, atop a golden lotus in a lotus pond, Tiangong had been meditating here ever since Wang Ping imprisoned his spiritual meridians. At this moment, he was looking up at the sky, the first time he had done so since his imprisonment.

The sky above Venus was now interwoven with endless divine light, looking incredibly beautiful, but Tiangong's face showed no appreciation; instead, his brows furrowed with a hint of irritation.

However, in the next instant, he forcibly suppressed the agitation in his mind with his cultivation and stretched out his hand to form a hand seal.
As he completed the incantation, fine golden light flowed from his fingertips, seeping into the massive lotus platform beneath him like threads. The platform hummed and trembled, and the ancient Buddhist inscriptions engraved on it lit up one by one, reflecting the Buddhist light emanating from the tower behind him.

Two breaths later, the Buddha's light shone brightly on the mountaintop, and the Buddha Kingdom in his spiritual sea manifested in reality. Then, the spiritual energy of his faith gathered at his feet to form a divine kingdom star map, and then the divine kingdom palace naturally appeared, merging with the Buddha Kingdom that had just manifested.

At the moment the Buddhist Kingdom and the Divine Kingdom merged, all the Buddhas in his Buddhist Kingdom manifested their divine powers and spirituality, standing on both sides of the golden lotus and extending all the way to the gate of the Divine Kingdom's palace. However, these Buddhas all had their eyes closed and no longer possessed the spirituality of the Buddhist Kingdom, clearly indicating that they had not achieved enlightenment.

At this moment, Tiangong's attention was focused on his mind. Like the Buddhas around him, he closed his eyes. However, he was surrounded by abundant spiritual energy and his aura was calm and concentrated. His consciousness was like an invisible giant net, instantly spreading to every corner of Venus and its surrounding star fields, precisely connecting with the hundreds of millions of believers who were praying devoutly in the thousands of ecological zones.

"To those who have faith in me, I offer you the light of your heart."

A grand and peaceful thought was quietly transmitted along the bond of faith. All the believers who were praying, no matter where they were or what they were doing, felt it in their hearts. They all bowed their heads more attentively and offered up all their faith and willpower without reservation.

In an instant, the immense power of faith was stirred!

Invisible to the naked eye, but in the perception of Tiangong's primordial spirit, countless pure and blazing golden streams of light, like rivers flowing into the sea, surged from all directions of the void and converged above the Venusian sky.

These streams of light originate from the purest prayers of millions of believers. Guided by the Buddha's light from the tower, they converge above the body of the Heavenly Craftsman, condensing into an incomparably dazzling pillar of faith!

The pillar of light contained an unimaginable torrent of willpower, radiating a warm yet powerful aura that cleanses all impurities.

The master craftsman steadily guided his fingers downwards in a hand gesture!
"Break through the barrier!"

The pillar of faith converged into a beam of light, and like a meteor falling to earth, it instantly entered his brow!
A gentle yet irresistible, vast power, like the purest warm current, instantly surged through Tiangong's limbs and bones, washing over every meridian and every acupoint.

The restraints originating from Wang Ping's divine arts vanished in an instant under the pure and ultimate power of faith.

A few breaths later, Tiangong's body trembled slightly, and the last bit of stagnation in his body completely disappeared. His spiritual meridians were unobstructed, and the vast and powerful Five Realms magic power surged and circulated in his body like a primordial beast that had been unshackled. It emitted a joyful hum.

The aura of divine craftsmanship surged, rapidly returning to its peak!
On the asteroid dock where Hu Qianqian's dojo is located, in Jupiter's orbit.

Wang Ping had sensed something was amiss. His consciousness from the border region instantly returned to his body, and he looked up at the star field where Venus was located, saying, "In just a few years, the restrictions I placed on the Heavenly Craft Spirit Vein and the Primordial Spirit will dissipate on their own, but he insists on expending so much power to remove them himself."

Upon hearing this, Yu Lian replied, "He does have a sense of shame, doesn't he? It would sound better if he had released himself from the restraints, or if he had released himself from the restraints."

Wang Ping shook his head: "When he gathered the spiritual energy of the believers of Jingang Temple, I had no intention of strengthening the confinement. Logically speaking, he should only need a few decades to break free from the confinement I set up, but it has dragged on until now!"

Yu Lian dove into the nearby lake, swam around for a bit, and casually asked, "Why is that? Could it be that he's using your binding spell to cultivate?"

As if confirming Yu Lian's guess, a blinding aurora suddenly emanated from the direction of Venus's orbit...

At the summit of Venus's solitary peak.

The last bit of stagnation in Tiangong's body completely disappeared. Just as Wang Ping's divine spell was completely overwhelmed by the vast power of faith, the golden spirit energy in Tiangong's body, which had been suppressed and restrained for hundreds of years, suddenly erupted!
A dazzling platinum-gold light burst forth from his pores, making him appear transparent, and his primordial spirit coalesced into a phantom image of a bull.

The next moment, his physical body suddenly expanded in the Buddhist kingdom, and in the blink of an eye, it became a fifth-realm Dharma body. Every bone and every meridian of his Dharma body turned into pure platinum light. It was the most unrestrained release of the golden spirit energy rules that had been dormant for many years after breaking free from their restraints!
Tiangong's eyes had turned into a pure, cold white-gold color, and his expression was devoid of any human emotion.

Immediately afterwards, he changed his hand seals again. When the seals were formed, the pillar of faith light that had not yet completely dissipated above his head, which was condensed from the power of the believers' wishes, seemed to be under the absolute control of an invisible hand and became extremely sharp!
"Quench!"

The divine craftsman commands silently in his heart.

The torrent of pure faith transformed into the most precise forging hammer in the world, smashing into the boiling, surging platinum light within his body with overwhelming force!

boom!
The power of faith is pure and holy, and the energy of the golden spirit is sharp and firm. The two are originally different systems of power, but at this moment they are forcibly mixed together under the will of the heavens, and are undergoing the most direct collision and fusion!

The golden spirit core within his body was repeatedly squeezed, tempered, and solidified under the frenzied forging of the external faith power and the fierce resistance of the internal golden spirit origin!
Deep within, every single, minute golden spirit rule was emitting a strained clang, as if it were about to shatter at any moment. Yet, under the protection and repair of the immense power of faith, it stubbornly reassembled itself, removing the last trace of impurities and disharmony, becoming purer, more resilient, and more radiant!
This process was domineering and dangerous. Tiangong's body became the most intense battlefield, with dazzling platinum sparks constantly bursting from his body. These were the sights of the sharp golden spirit that could not be absorbed and refined instantly being forcibly forced out of his body by the power of faith and then annihilated.

The space around him was slightly distorted, emitting a faint tearing sound.

I don't know how much time has passed; it may have been a moment, or it may have been eternity.

The raging pillar of faith gradually dimmed, and the boiling platinum light within Tiangong's body slowly receded, becoming deeper and more profound, like divine iron that had been forged through countless trials, with all its sharpness contained deep within its core.

Finally, all the strange phenomena disappeared.

Tiangong sat quietly on the golden lotus, his aura completely calmed, even more unassuming than before he broke free of his confinement. But when he occasionally opened his eyes, a flash of extremely refined white-gold light appeared deep within them, carrying a pure sharpness capable of severing all things, causing the surrounding space to tremble slightly.

"Order and stability are the eternal rules of this world!"

Tiangong uttered these words softly, and as soon as his voice fell, a golden light appeared below the artificial atmosphere of Venus, and his form returned to normal.

His whispered words, "Order is the only eternal rule," resonated deeply within the minds of all believers, like a finalized law.

The next moment, the most fundamental desire and obsession for "order" in the hearts of millions of believers transcended the void and converged in his cold sea of ​​consciousness.

He slowly raised his hand, gently touched the seemingly empty starry sky in front of him, and uttered a command:
"order."

There was no earth-shattering fanfare, only two words uttered from his mouth, clear and cold, as if they themselves carried an unquestionable weight.

Once the imperial edict is issued, its word becomes law!
An invisible yet immense power spread silently from his fingertips, like mercury spilling onto the ground, instantly engulfing the surrounding starry sky.

Wherever this force passed, the universe seemed to have all its rough edges smoothed out by an invisible, gentle yet firm hand.

In the void, the originally ubiquitous and chaotic weak energy radiation seemed to be restrained by invisible reins, instantly becoming docile and regular, flowing smoothly along some unseen trajectory, without any further agitation.

Several tiny meteorites, which were following their natural trajectories, suddenly became exceptionally precise in their movements, drawing arcs as if they had been etched with the most precise tools, and moving at a breathtakingly constant speed.

The space itself seemed to become more rigid, and the subtle wrinkles caused by the impact of the force were completely smoothed out, revealing a cold and hard sense of flatness.

Even the starlight projected from distant galaxies seemed to become straighter and colder as it passed through this area, losing some of its natural softness and gaining a rigid clarity.

In an instant, this starry sky transformed into a blueprint drawn by a supreme craftsman to absolute standards. Everything operated according to some cold and absolute rules, and its precision and stability caused it to lose the dynamism and randomness that the natural universe should have.

This is the 'order' characteristic under the Golden Spirit Rules. Its existence is a definition and constraint. It forcibly imprints the mark of order onto this void with absolute rationality.

Wang Ping, far away on Jupiter, disliked this power intensely because it violated the natural and unrestrained growth of the Wood Spirit, even forbidding him from peering into space and time, and also blocking its healing, reproduction, and corrosive properties.

This oppressive feeling gave rise to the idea of ​​testing the waters in Wang Ping's mind, and he immediately put this idea into action...

In an instant, Wang Ping unleashed a Wood Spirit World around himself. Yu Lian, who had already sensed Wang Ping's thoughts, immediately flew down onto Wang Ping's shoulder. Then, Wang Ping brought Yu Lian to the outer edge of Jupiter's orbit.

A moment later, a spacetime turbulence spanning millions of miles suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the outer starry sky of Venus, colliding with the starry sky of 'order'.

At this moment, Wang Ping was surrounded by dazzling emerald light, and the illusory image of the Jianmu tree behind him grew infinitely taller. He held a spell firmly in his hand, and his gaze pierced through the endless starry sky, landing on the star field where the two characteristics collided.

The void outside Venus's orbit, which should have been empty, has now become a silent battlefield where two fundamental properties clash fiercely.

The power of 'order' from the heavens, like invisible yet cold and hard glass, attempted to completely solidify this starry sky. Wherever it passed, the starry sky turned into parallel and equidistant pale lines; tiny specks of space dust were instantly frozen and arranged into precise geometric patterns; even the trajectory of photons was constrained, refracting a cold and rigid luster.

In just a moment, the star field became like a flawless crystal, all variables were eliminated, all randomness was suppressed, leaving only absolute predictability and cold stability.

Wang Ping's 'space-time' characteristic is like a boulder thrown into this stagnant pool, creating ripples that transcend conventional dimensions. It fundamentally undermines the very foundation upon which 'order' depends.

At the boundary where the two meet, the scene becomes bizarre and fantastical…

One instant, everything in the area experienced a billionfold acceleration, as if a lifetime had passed in an instant, and even the dust was almost weathered away and annihilated; the next instant, time froze like amber, and everything, including the spreading power of 'order' itself, was absolutely frozen, and even thought could not be transmitted.

The next moment, time began to flow backward, and the particle trajectories fixed by 'order' were forced to reverse and rewind.

Deeper still, the boundary between reality and possibility is blurred. In some areas, fleeting images of history emerge, showing what this starry sky used to look like; in other places, countless fragmented pieces of future possibilities flicker. The uniqueness and certainty emphasized by 'order' become shaky under the erosion of these countless "possibilities".

The collision of the two forces produced no deafening explosion, but rather a deeper level of mutual annihilation and distortion. The starry sky oscillated violently between order and destruction, presenting a bizarre scene that was both extremely orderly and infinitely chaotic.

That cold 'order' power does indeed restrain the transformation of the wood spirit in essence, but when the power of the wood spirit becomes too great, the quantitative change leads to a qualitative change. Just like even the sharpest scissors cannot trim a wildly growing primeval forest, but will instead be broken by the intertwined roots of the giant trees and the surging life force!
What Wang Ping did at this moment was exactly that. With his absolutely powerful cultivation, he remotely enhanced the 'space-time' property with even more vast and pure wood spirit magic power.

The power of the 'order' attribute attempted to restrain it, but instead collided with a bottomless ocean of life. Its precise and cold lines of rules, upon touching this suddenly escalating torrent of power, were like fragile ice crystals crashing into an ancient and immovable mountain range, and then shattered inch by inch!
The pervasive 'order' domain was forcefully compressed by the 'space-time' properties, as if an invisible giant hand was pushing it little by little toward the star field where Venus was located with an irresistible force.

Just as Wang Ping extended the spacetime characteristics to the inner ring of Venus's orbit, and then invaded and observed the state of Tiangong on Venus, Tiangong's voice echoed throughout the universe: "Fellow Daoist Changqing, what is the meaning of this?"

The moment his voice rang out, the force resisting from the direction of Venus vanished without a trace.

Seeing this, Wang Ping stopped attacking and immediately dispersed the 'space-time' turbulence, replying, "I was just itching to show my skills; please don't take offense, Fellow Daoist Tiangong." (End of Chapter)