It wasn't that the completed Elemental Fusion technique returned feedback in two waves, but that in the few seconds before Elemental Fusion was completed, Bloom in an Instant upgraded first.
These two peerless technique were put on AFK back to back after he advanced to nine rings and became a Titled Douluo. The AFK upgrade time for Bloom in an Instant and the AFK completion time for Elemental Fusion were the same. After both upgraded and completed, the related insights from the peerless art and the secret art were fed back to Chu Chengzhou one after another.
The information load was heavy this time. It took Chu Chengzhou half an hour to digest it.
With its rank promoted to rainbow-ranked Super-Divine, the protective divine radiance condensed by Bloom in an Instant further improved in defensive power, consumed less soul power when blocking damage, and changed from only being usable on a single target, including himself, at any one time to being applicable to multiple targets simultaneously.
After the rainbow-ranked Super-Divine Elemental Fusion was completed, Chu Chengzhou finally got what he wanted and directly mastered the ability to perfectly fuse soul power of all elemental attributes.
Only, the specifics seemed to differ from what he had expected.
He extended his right hand. With Chu Chengzhou's near-MAX level of soul power control, eleven strands of soul power representing the eleven basic elemental attributes of metal, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, thunder, light, darkness, space, and time in gold, green, blue, red, yellow, cyan, purple, white, black, silver, and gray surged from the tip of his index finger.
With a foundation of Five Elements soul power to begin with, Chu Chengzhou first fused the six elements of metal, wood, water, fire, earth, and wind.
After that, thunder, light, and darkness fused one after another.
The more elements joined the fusion, the higher the difficulty rose. With perfect mastery of the Elemental Fusion technique, however, it posed no real problem.
Half an hour later, when the nine basic elemental attributes had fused except for time and space, Chu Chengzhou felt that the strand of nine-element fused soul power at his fingertip, shining with nine-colored light, had entered a state of perfection, as if it could not continue to fuse the time and space elements.
Sensing that fullness, he gazed at the strand of nine-element fused soul power at his fingertip and at the two remaining strands of time and space that had yet to fuse. He opened his attribute panel.
"Hm? Nothing appeared?"
He did not find a new law progress bar in the laws section of the attribute panel. There were still only the eleven basic elemental laws, the Four Symbols law, the Five Elements law, and many fusion laws of attributes below four elements that he had tinkered out over this period, such as the Time-Space Law and so on. Chu Chengzhou frowned.
He pondered for a moment but could not figure it out. He closed the attribute panel and turned his gaze back to the strand of nine-element fused soul power at the tip of his right index finger.
Is nine-element fusion perfection?
I refuse to accept that. Force it. Push it hard.
He immediately merged the strand of space soul power at his fingertip into the nine-element fused soul power.
Suddenly a wave of dread rose in his heart. Chu Chengzhou felt as if he had been locked onto by some unknown terrifying behemoth. Without thinking, he used the nine-element fused soul power to trigger the newly upgraded rainbow-ranked Super-Divine Bloom in an Instant.
As the nine-colored flower of soul power bloomed overhead and streaming protective radiance fell, Chu Chengzhou let out a quiet breath, spread out his spiritual power, and probed for the source of that dread.
Before he could find it, he felt his soul power inside him drop sharply. The next instant, a shocking scene unfolded.
"Bang."
It was as if a detonation sounded. The nine-colored protective radiance shattered. The brilliant nine-colored flower overhead withered and dispersed.
"Damn."
Chu Chengzhou's eyes widened in disbelief.
Monstrous.
The defense that made him absolutely invincible below god level, one that even a level 100 soul master might not be able to break, was shattered in an instant.
A cross-border attack from a god?
Impossible. Absolutely impossible.
Chu Chengzhou admitted he had done plenty of bad things, but he had not offended any deity.
Besides, even if a god disliked him, it would not be this blatant.
At present the God Realm was not the Tang Clan God Realm of the later original timeline. Gods were forbidden to interfere in the mortal realm unless there was just cause, such as mortals provoking them first.
Otherwise, even if they wanted to act, they could only strike indirectly through god-position inheritors or deity priestesses on the continent.
There was no time to think. A stabbing pain surged from the tip of his right index finger, making the corner of his mouth twitch.
He looked down and saw that a tiny hole had somehow appeared at the tip of his right index finger.
Strangely, after the flesh and blood that should have been there vanished, there was no blood seeping from the edge of the hole. He could faintly sense threads of multicolored light.
Seeing the hole still expanding, Chu Chengzhou did not hesitate. Soul power flared at the tip of his left finger, and he directly cut off the tip of his right index finger.
"Tss."
Blood sprayed. A small severed segment fell. Chu Chengzhou sucked in a sharp breath from the pain. Yet right after he severed it, he found that the dread vanished.
"What on earth was that?"
Chu Chengzhou could not help cursing.
Seeing blood still flowing from his fingertip, he ran Indestructible Golden Body. His surging vital energy rolled. With soul power consumption, bone grew and flesh regenerated. In the blink of an eye, his right index finger returned to normal.
After Nine-Breath Qi advanced to Rainbow rank, it gained the trait of refining all energy for his own use. After Indestructible Golden Body advanced to rainbow rank, it naturally gained a trait as well.
That trait was limb regeneration, similar in effect to the soul bone skill Wildfire Cannot Burn It Out, Spring Wind Brings New Life on the hundred-thousand-year Blue Silver Emperor right leg bone.
"Could nine really be the ultimate number?"
He thought about the anomaly just now and frowned.
If he was not mistaken, the sense that nine-element fusion was perfection was not wrong. The source of the sudden dread and the "terrifying attack" was precisely that he fused the tenth elemental soul power. Ten-element fusion clearly exceeded the limit allowed by the rules of the Douluo universe, which triggered a great terror.
At this moment Chu Chengzhou felt fortunate.
Luckily the elemental fusion test was conducted outside his body, and not at a vital point on his fingertip. If he had fused it inside his body, he might not even have ashes left.
Every time he recalled that terrifying dissolving force, he felt a chill. The power was too dreadful. It could not withstand even a second of Bloom in an Instant when driven by nine-element fused soul power.