New concept of the mysterious way to ascend to immortality

Chapter 69 Burn the sky, the earth, and yourself!
"Have you really decided to choose Holy Light? Although I also think Holy Light is quite good, I still need to warn you. Once you actively choose to embrace a power and let it seep into your soul, then for ordinary people, you have been marked by this root. There is no turning back, you can only move forward with determination."

Yuan Zhu heard the hidden meaning and asked, "What about those who are not ordinary people?"

"Oh, forget it. For truly extraordinary people, their souls are naturally powerful. Just being marked by a single force is nothing. All you need to do is select the power you like and apply a higher level of contamination to it, and you'll be able to submerge and distort the previous mark."

Senior Chen looked at Yuan Zhu. "But do you think an ordinary person could withstand such an impact? Their souls would have been shattered long ago. And even if someone is born with extraordinary roots, once they gather a certain foundation, that is, a seed, their soul will be tied to this root, and there will be no turning back. Now, have you realized it?"

Yuan Zhu: "I've considered [Holy Light] for a long time, but I just wanted to come to Yuyuan to see if there is anything better. It seems that [Holy Light] is more suitable for me."

The senior student nodded, stopped, and changed direction. "Since you're interested in the [Holy Light], then forget about the zoo. I'll take you to the church. We at [Rain Academy] also built a church, and we have a cooperative project. We are also the introducer of the [Nightmare School] on the East Coast. Therefore, everyone in the academy who wants to enter the [Holy Light] system undergoes the ceremony here. I'll take you there to experience the atmosphere and ask about the price."

"Are there many Holy Light monks in [Rain Court]?"

"It's not a small number. They're all students who have despaired of their respective majors. For example, the Zoology Department's [Wolf School]... Only a fool would choose to become a werewolf. Wouldn't it be happy to learn the Holy Light and then burn frogs? Those in the Industrial Department who don't want to work in the mines or accept the 'steam transformation' will choose the Holy Light. If you ever truly master the Holy Light, you're welcome to come to our Rain Courtyard to buy frogs. We can breed them, no matter how sinful."

The young lady took Yuan Zhu and turned onto a stone arch bridge, walked across a lotus pond, and entered the rockery area of the Jiangnan mountains and waters. It felt like they were having a secret meeting.

"Frogs, sin? What does this have to do with the Holy Light? Are they using frogs as biological batteries?"

Senior: "Since you want to take this path, let me explain. Since you know about bio-batteries, you must have some understanding of the [Stigmata] and the Holy Light. You must have seen a gas canister, right? The [Stigmata] is like the ignition mechanism on a gas stove, and your body is the gas canister. When you output the life energy in your body, the [Stigmata] will burn life and release the [Holy Light]."

"The most primitive form of [Holy Light] is the burning of a monk's own life force (physical energy/vital energy) to release Holy Light to illuminate others. For you, the [Stigmata] is more than just an ignition device; it also regulates the output, determining the intensity of the [Intense Light]. If you, fearing death, set the output to minimum, your physical exhaustion will be greatly reduced, eliminating the risk of weakening or even shortening your lifespan. However, the [Holy Light] will also be pitifully weak. At this point, if you possess a small, sinful frog, pierce its body with Holy Light."

Yuan Zhu continued, "The frog will burst out with endless light!"

"Yes, it's burning itself, dedicating itself to illuminate everyone! It also redeems sins." Senior Chen Yi's face was filled with piety and gratitude. It was as if there really was a frog dedicating itself to becoming light!
Yuan Zhu: "What does this have to do with sin?"

"The moment you were branded with the [Stigmata], the Holy Light was initially bound to your body. Through the never-ending burning of the [Stigmata], it slowly transformed your constitution, gradually eroding, penetrating, tainting (polluting), and transforming the very essence of your soul, gradually drawing it closer to the [Holy Light].

The senior student paused and said, "You're not naive enough to think that [Holy Light] is just a simple energy, are you?"

"Then what is it?"

"It's hard to describe. The Holy Light is alive. It lacks self-awareness, but once you receive the stigmata, this power gradually merges with you, manifesting in your personality, thoughts, and actions. Your will is reflected through the Holy Light. Therefore, the Holy Temple uses the color of the 'Holy Light' to determine a practitioner's goodness and evil."

"The closer you align yourself with the teachings of the Holy Temple, the more you sacrifice and devote yourself, the higher the quality of the Holy Light will be, and the more holy its color will become. The more selfish you become, the more you stray from the teachings of the Holy Temple, or the more you burn others in self-sacrifice, the more turbid and degrade the Holy Light will be. It can be said that pure and noble souls elevate the Holy Light, while vile and selfish souls corrupt it."

Yuan Zhu frowned. Would the Holy Light force people to passively brainwash themselves and move closer to the [Holy Temple]?
"What is the teaching of this [Holy Temple]? Will the Holy Light become turbid and affect its power?"

The young lady had anticipated his question and waved her hand. "Don't worry, that's just the Holy Temple's opinion. You can disregard it. Holy Light is indeed a manifestation of one's will, but it has nothing to do with holiness or non-holiness. From an objective perspective, outside of the Holy Temple, as long as you use Holy Light to burn the pollution source, it's a good deed. By burning yourself more, you can increase the color of the Holy Light. If you don't have those psychological burdens and guilt, and openly burn rats and frogs, you can also increase the purity of the Holy Light. Holy Light is the manifestation of will! Of course, if you burn rats and frogs crazily and don't burn yourself much, the color of the Holy Light will still decline and eventually turn to gray light."

Yuan Zhu pondered, "Purity and color are two different things. Purity corresponds to the quality of Holy Light, while color represents behavior and alignment, reflecting personal will."

"Yes, purity can also reflect will. The more sacred the color, the closer it is to the teachings of the Holy Temple. Those who are neither corrupted nor self-sacrificing, and have extremely strong wills, will emit [Pure Gray Light], which is also quite effective."

"I see! What about the sinful little frog you mentioned?"

Senior: "It's actually a severely contaminated discarded frog from a laboratory. Using Holy Light to burn it is equivalent to incinerating the source of the pollution. You can harvest 'Pure Ashes' to enhance the color of the Holy Light, which is a good deed and will accumulate merit. For us, it's also destroying harmful polluting waste, killing two birds with one stone."

"Then you still charge money?" Yuan Zhu was very surprised. It turned out to be dangerous and contaminated waste that the laboratory was unwilling to deal with, and they still charged money for it?
"Many people want to burn garbage, but of course they have to pay for it. If you burn ordinary frogs, they only have life force, but their souls are ordinary, and the resulting 'soul ash' is of average quality. This behavior is indiscriminate killing of innocent people and will lower the reputation and rating of the Holy Light. Conversely, burning polluted souls is a punishment in the Holy Temple doctrine. Burning sins can obtain 'pure ash', which is a good deed, and it is cultivation."

"You're asking about 'ashes,' right? The Holy Light has a powerful property, similar to ultraviolet light, capable of killing even weak or thin pollutants, and even incinerating souls. After the Holy Light destroys these things, it leaves behind 'ashes' invisible to the human eye. The ash can be captured and absorbed by the Holy Mark, but it cannot be utilized or stored, and will quickly evaporate and dissipate."

"So you have to go to the Holy Temple to register, take the test, and then obtain the [Holy Seal]. The original Holy Light system is also called the [Holy Seal System]. There are many types of Holy Seals, each of which contains a concept that can grant Holy Light additional attributes and skills. For example, you can grant Holy Light 'healing' or 'flame burning'. With the [Holy Seal], your Holy Light will become stronger and more lethal. You can kill monsters, burn souls, and plunder ashes to forge the [Holy Seal]."

"The Holy Seal continuously absorbs the ashes, transforming from virtual to real, and your Holy Light system will also undergo a qualitative change. When the Holy Seal is completely condensed, your Holy Light will also undergo a qualitative change. This process also writes your behavior, personality, will, and thoughts into the Holy Seal. This process is called "Casting the Seal." Yuan Zhu was puzzled: "Wait, how can personality and behavior be written into the Holy Seal?"

"It's very simple. Every time you release Holy Light, you're burning yourself to some extent, right? Burning yourself also produces faint 'ashes' that are captured and absorbed by the Stigmata and cast into the Holy Seal. When you use Holy Light, no matter what percentage of your life force is used, the Stigmata will record it, casting varying proportions of ash into the Holy Seal. When you kill a monster, the intensity of your battle and your actions are recorded by the Stigmata through the ash and written into the Holy Seal."

"Holy Light is the manifestation of your will. The Holy Light you release can never return. Only the remaining ashes remain, preserved by the Holy Seal. Your kills, your battles, your squandering, your torture and abuse... all will be cast into the Holy Seal. Eventually, the Holy Seal will be completed, and the foundation of your Holy Light will be frozen."

Yuan Zhu: "What's the purpose of this base color? The higher the purity, the better? Or the purer the color, the better?"

Chen Yi: "None of that matters. The underlying color of your Holy Light is the appearance of your soul. Appearances are innate and cannot be changed, so it's okay if they're a little ugly. A Holy Seal, once fully filled, will have a guaranteed 4 ke. This is the unit of Holy Light, so it doesn't matter. When your Stigmata collect ashes to forge the Holy Seal, the stronger your soul's will and the more terrifying the tainted monsters you hunt, the higher the quality of the remaining 'ashes'. Once used to forge the Holy Seal, the potential of the Holy Seal will increase, reaching 5 ke, or even 6 ke. Then you'll be stronger than other practitioners."

"Even the ashes left over from burning some powerful pollution sources carry information about the source. When cast into the [Sacred Seal], they can mutate the Seal itself, granting it stronger attributes or new skills. However, this also carries the risk of contamination and distortion. Therefore, purity and color are unimportant; strength is paramount! Color is merely a reflection of your personality and behavior; you can fake it for a moment, but not forever. Your priority is to maximize the strength and quality of the ashes."

The young lady added, "Finally, there's one more very important point. It's understandable that you're afraid of death and unwilling to burn yourself. But the more ruthlessly you burn yourself, the greater the proportion of your own will (ashes) in the Holy Seal, and the lower the risk of losing control. Conversely, if your own ash content is very small, and you incorporate a large amount of high-level contaminated embers, your Holy Seal will be very powerful, but the Holy Light will also be very dark... This is the path of degeneration."

"Well, it's better to force people to burn themselves hard."

Yuan Zhu was not surprised at all. There were two kinds of vegetative patients in the immortal way, and the Buddha head cocoon was also strange. Now it was the turn of the [Holy Mark]. It was simple and crude, which was to use the ashes of one's own soul to [cast a seal] (erect a tombstone), and also to compile one's ugly behavior of abusing small animals into an epitaph, and release it through holy light for everyone to appreciate.

If you burn small animals to save people, your soul's radiance will still be brighter. If you simply burn small animals to use as flashlights... your soul's radiance will be severely reduced and amplified by the holy light.

Yuan Zhu: "After the first Holy Seal is cast, what should we do next? Cast the second Holy Seal?"

"Once you successfully forge the [Holy Seal], the intensity and quality of your Holy Light will be temporarily locked and solidified. At this point, you can continue to burn monsters or bully small animals to collect more ashes. The [Holy Seal] will purify and compress these soul ashes, mixing them with your Holy Light and pouring them into your soul, causing it to burn itself."

Yuan Zhu: "Fuck! Burning my life force isn't enough, should I burn myself?"

"Your own Holy Light, your own Holy Seal, the ashes you burned, eventually flowed back into your soul, smelting it bit by bit into a Soul Crystal. This thing is the seed of the Holy Light System and the symbol of Tier 1. Congratulations! Your Holy Light finally has a container to store. You no longer need to burn your life force at any time and place, constantly scattering it."

Yuan Zhu: "But in order to refine the [Soul Crystal], I used the Holy Light to burn myself fiercely inside my soul."

[Soul + Holy Light + Ashes (Ashes)], heated and pressurized by the [Holy Seal], will burn out relics!

"What's the difference between [Soul Crystal] and [Holy Seal]?"

Chen Yi encouraged, "The [Holy Seal] is a system of your will, recording the information of the Holy Light, unique skills, and the corresponding qualities of the Holy Light. The [Soul Crystal] is your soul itself, the core of the transcendent. It is the product of the deep fusion of your soul and the Holy Light. With the Soul Crystal, you can release the Holy Light directly from the Soul Crystal without having to light the fire yourself, burning the biological battery to produce Holy Light, and then storing it through the Soul Crystal, completing a closed loop."

"Any more?"

Chen Yi: "That's all for now. When you reach level two and begin casting the second [Holy Seal], the number of Soul Crystals will increase directly to 4! Each Soul Crystal can store the total scale of the Holy Seal. At level one, your Holy Seal has 6 ticks, and your Soul Crystal stores 6 ticks of Holy Light. At level two, the two Holy Seals have a combined total of 14 ticks, so your Holy Light reserve = 4 Soul Crystals x 14 ticks = 56 ticks. At level three, the number of Soul Crystals is 9, and the Holy Seal counts are also increasing... The future achievements of the Holy Light system are very promising!"

Yuan Zhu: "But I only saw that each [Holy Seal] would burn a large amount of ashes, and the soul crystal would have to test itself again and again, burning itself in more challenging rounds."

When you cast a holy seal, you have to add ashes from high-level pollution sources to improve its quality and strength; in order to improve stability and prevent distortion, you have to use a large amount of spontaneous combustion to balance the proportion of polluted ashes.

After burning this wave, you need to accumulate high-quality ashes to burn soul relics. Burning soul crystals is another round of more exciting self-incineration! The more you practice, the greater the challenge, and you can't stop at all...

Yuan Zhu: "What's the point of burning so many soul crystals?"

"Soul crystals are your soul, the solidification of your soul. The number of soul crystals corresponds to the strength of your soul. When the number of soul crystals reaches a certain level, they can carry and record your current soul information, allowing for rebirth after death. Or they can create clones. They can also be implanted into the souls of subordinates, allowing them to possess and be reborn... In short, it's absolutely worth it! The [Holy Light System] is famous for its ability to survive."

(End of this chapter)