Time passed.
Seven years later.
5th May, Year 41977 of the Elemental Emperor Era.
Jin Huang's popularity had already spread throughout the Northern Continent. She was known as the 'Phoenix' of the Golden Crow Kingdom.
At the same time, Jin Long also gained fame as a young genius, having reached Rank 2 Warrior by the age of 10, earning the title of 'Dragon' of the Golden Crow Kingdom.
Now both of them were around 12 years old.
Within the first two years of Jin Huang's tenure as Prime Advisor, she faced heavy counterattacks from Jin Wei, as countless demons ran rampant, causing various internal conflicts and threats of civil war.
However, Jin Huang successively killed all those demons involved and calmed the civil unrest, thwarting all of Jin Wei's plans again and again.
The reason those demons became so rampant was because the leader she killed at the border of Luyang and Dongning was the leader of all Demonic Warriors in the Northern Continent. He was also the strongest among them, with battle strength equivalent to early-stage Rank 6.
After this, both Jin Wei and Jin Huang's actions halted. They withdrew themselves from the limelight.
During this time, Jin Long began gaining attention as he continuously defeated many of his peers.
At the same time, Jin Huang faced an important issue. In fact, she had always expected this situation to arise sooner or later.
As her cultivation reached the Rank 3 stage, she noticed a slight burden on her soul. It was minuscule, but she perceived it. She did not have any spiritual imprint, and thus, she was incapable of cultivating her soul.
Due to her absolute talent, she had perfect synchronization between body and soul. Thus, improvement in her Soul Cultivation would not affect her talent growth, but it would improve her cognitive abilities and processing power.
However, these were not the main issue.
If there is a huge gap between Warrior Cultivation and Soul Cultivation, there is normally a synchronization issue that directly hinders further cultivation.
But what if there is no such hindrance?
Wouldn't that be a cheat that breaks the balance?
It turns out there is no way to bypass this loophole.
Even if someone is capable of cultivating and bypassing the synchronization issue of body and soul, further internal pressure will develop within the soul.
As a warrior's cultivation improves, their body reaches greater heights. And you must know that the body is nothing but a garment of the soul.
What will happen if this garment becomes too heavy?
Obviously, it can no longer bear the burden of such clothing.
Similarly, if the gap between body and soul keeps increasing, the soul will feel tremendous pressure stacking upon it, ultimately causing it to be crushed into fragments and finally detached from the body, leading to death.
Jin Huang had realized this major issue long ago. Thus, she had to suppress her cultivation and search for alternate methods that could help her in Soul Cultivation.
However, these thoughts did not generate in her brain through direct thinking; she thought all of this with her Abstract Thinking, so as not to let those Immortals realize she lacked a Spiritual Imprint.
At the same time, she also knew they would deduce it sooner or later. Thus, she created a plan to gaslight those Immortals and make them think their own deduction was wrong. It had to be known that these Immortals had been manipulating and controlling the world since the beginning. They were capable enough to see through her lack of a Spiritual Imprint sooner or later, no matter how perfect her disguise was. Their intelligence was above even that of Emperors.
What was her plan?
Her cultivation system was entirely different from that of other warriors. She cultivated a self-created cultivation method perfectly suited to her physique. However, there was a difference between her and other warriors—she possessed far higher Spiritual Essence than others.
Even as a beginner warrior, she could absorb Spiritual Essence and use it. Generally, this was only possible for intermediate warriors. But this was what set her apart. Unlike others, she had been able to perceive Spiritual Essence since birth. It wasn't difficult for her to come up with a method to handle this.
What she had to do was fake her cultivation! If she was Rank 4, she would make it appear Rank 5; if she was Rank 5, she would make it appear Rank 6; and if she was Rank 6, she would make it appear Rank 7! Then, she would perform a ritual to obtain a fake Spiritual Imprint while "ascending" to Rank 7, and wait until her real cultivation matched her fake cultivation.
While ascending from Rank 6 to Rank 7, if a warrior performs certain rituals, they can gain abilities related to them.
The abilities obtained during this ascension cannot be distinguished from an actual Spiritual Imprint, because they also possess traces of the Heavenly Dao, just like true Spiritual Imprints.
However, this depends on certain opportunities. It must also begin from Rank 4 cultivation, where the true cultivation can be determined by the quality of Spiritual Essence in the Heavenly Core. Since there was no way to determine her cultivation based solely on the amount of Spiritual Essence she possesses. This was also why she spent most of her time playing instead of cultivating—to fool those Immortals in the future. She must ensure her Cultivation doesn't reach Rank 4, before she figures out a way to cultivate her soul.
All she had to do was develop a technique that would make the gaseous Spiritual Essence appear liquid when observed, and remain gaseous when not observed.
It was similar to how electrons behave: when we observe them, photons interact with them and force them to appear as particles; but when unobserved, they remain in a wave form, maintaining their wave-particle duality. You must have heard of Schrödinger's cat? The principle is similar.
The real difficulty would come at the Rank 6 stage.
At that stage, she would have to break her Heavenly Core without dying and without losing cultivation, in order to make it appear she had reached Rank 7 without performing any ritual. That was where her physique could help her.
It was built on the concept of truth—an undying physique that allowed her to incorporate Spiritual Essence into her non-existent cells without truly reaching Rank 7 cultivation. Thus, only she had the ability to deceive Immortals about her real cultivation.
Her physique itself was unawakened, but even then, Immortals could not see through it completely. They could only obtain a vague illusion of what it truly was, thus always remaining skeptical about it.
They could easily figure out her plan if she gave away a single clue. Thus, while "ascending," she would have to ensure the pain she felt perfectly corresponded to that of another Rank 6 warrior ascending—without ever seeing one ascend herself or letting the Immortals know she had witnessed such a thing.
She did not know how another warrior's state was during ascension—how much pain they felt, or what their emotional and physical states were. If she had ever witnessed them before her own ascension, it would leave a clue.
This clue could be used to deduce that she had faked her cultivation through reverse reasoning. The best way to increase her credibility was to do all this without ever meeting a Rank 7 warrior.
In that case, even for her, it would be impossible to calculate the state of Rank 7 warriors based only on fragments of information. Since the cultivation system was accompanied by its "Probabilistic Nature," no one could deduce what the next stage of cultivation would feel like unless they had witnessed it firsthand. They could only form a set of possibilities, never the exact reality. This could not be fabricated even with infinite intuition because of a special law.
Law of Unpredictability: The universe will behave differently once any incident is observed or any unknown information is known.
The moment you know something—even intuitively—as long as it is not already established history or fact, it will begin to behave differently from before. This is part of one of the supreme laws: the Law of Balance.
In order to balance extremely intelligent warriors with foolish creatures, the universe creates this Unpredictability. This is also the sole reason why no single being can foresee the future accurately. They can only foresee a set of possibilities. In simpler terms, assume this world is a novel. The novel has a main storyline, side storylines, and fillers. Warriors can only understand the general direction of the main storyline, but they cannot predict the fillers and side stories. They can only form possible scenarios for what those side stories might be.
Thus, she silently left the Golden Crow Kingdom in search of a solution or an opportunity. For her plan to succeed, she had to ensure that at the Awakening Ceremony—held between the ages of 10 and 15—she displayed a Spiritual Imprint. Only then could she gaslight them. She would first deceive them, then let them realize they were deceived, and as soon as they realized it, she would throw out evidence of her Spiritual Imprint, completely catching them off guard.
But how could she prove the existence of a Spiritual Imprint at the Awakening Ceremony?
She could sense her soul, but only in an intuitive way. Her unique perception granted her higher-dimensional awareness, allowing her to simulate the existence of a soul, mimicking higher-dimensional perception. But in reality, she could not use her will to affect the soul. She needed something that could help her truly sense her soul—something like the Heavenly Lotus.
There was a forbidden land near the border of the Shu Dynasty and Wei Dynasty. It was said that the Heavenly Lotus grew there. The moment she used the Heavenly Lotus, it could be used as a clue in reverse deduction before she provided full evidence of her "Spiritual Imprint." This time, she was going to visit that forbidden land and seek the opportunity.
For her plan to succeed, she made numerous contingencies and preparations. She even created an entirely new persona: "Jin Huang," an ambitionless warrior dedicated to the Golden Crow Kingdom. This was the persona she would maintain until she regained the ability to think with complete privacy and freedom. However, the ambition in her heart might still leak out in the future—perhaps even before she regained her ability to think. It all depended on circumstances.
She finished her preparations, completed all tasks at hand, and persuaded her father before leaving the Golden Crow Kingdom. She had to visit the forbidden land and return before turning 15, or she would miss the Awakening Ceremony.
She stood at the border of the Golden Crow Kingdom, her gaze falling on the vast land behind her. She spoke softly. "The next time I stand here, the air will not be the same. But... I am prepared!"