Chapter 9: The Realm of Duality

Without the sun, people's sense of time fell into chaos. Although clocks could still show the exact date and time, could you really say it was daytime and not night? Every moment was night now!

So, ever since the red beetles appeared, people gradually began to use the 24-hour system to tell time, no longer distinguishing between morning, evening, day, and night.

The door of Building 8 was damaged by the red beetles, and there were no materials to repair it. People gradually moved out of other buildings and moved into Building 8. By 8 PM, Chu Yunsheng noticed through the peephole that his doorway was filled with people seeking refuge.

It seemed that only staying in Building 8 could provide a sense of security. More and more people gathered, and after two hours, someone finally started knocking on Chu Yunsheng's door.

Chu Yunsheng ignored them. At this point, taking care of himself was enough. After the life-and-death struggle a few hours ago, he clearly understood that to survive in this world where bugs could appear at any time, he needed to urgently cultivate his primordial energy.

In the past two days, he had figured out the meanings of several symbols in the ancient book and realized that he was only at the level of the First Heaven of Primordial Energy cultivation. This level was too low! Not only could his physical strength absorb a limited amount of primordial energy, but the level of talisman creation was also greatly restricted.

Talismans were his means of survival. His situation was different from that of self-awakened experts.

Self-awakened experts, though having a single attribute—be it fire, ice, or other types—could directly use the power of their physical energy after awakening, as if a certain rule's talisman was instinctively sealed within their bodies.

Like the ice-fisted man, who could punch and release ice energy, something Chu Yunsheng couldn't do. He followed the orthodox cultivation method described in the ancient book. Only when his physical primordial energy reached the Sixth Heaven could he use those innate combat techniques without relying on talismans. Of course, if he combined them with primordial talismans, their power would be even greater.

Before that, he had to rely on primordial talismans to release his power. Naturally, the diversity of primordial talismans allowed him to use various attribute skills, and with the help of talismans, his power was no weaker than that of self-awakened experts.

Currently, he could barely create second-stage primordial talismans. If he wanted to create third-stage talismans, he needed to quickly cultivate to the Second Heaven of Primordial Energy.

Third-stage primordial talismans were truly reusable, unlike the one-time-use talismans he had now. Each time the talisman's energy was depleted, he had to quickly replace it with a new one.

Advancing from the First Heaven to the Second Heaven was not too complicated. According to the ancient book, he just needed to completely release and then refill his primordial energy within his body, a total of eighty-one times, to thoroughly temper all parts of his body. After the eighty-first time, he would reach the Second Heaven.

However, his cultivation speed was extremely slow, like a snail! Although Chu Yunsheng basically spent all his time, except for eating and sleeping, desperately cultivating his primordial energy, the thickness of his primordial energy increased extremely slowly, unaffected by his urgent desire!

At this rate, it took Chu Yunsheng eight to nine days to fully recover his primordial energy. Even without considering the time to release the primordial energy, it would take him almost two years to reach the Second Heaven!

Two years? If it were a peaceful and sunny era, he could cultivate slowly, but now, in this perilous dark age, it was definitely not possible! Just dealing with three red beetles was already challenging, let alone encountering fifty bugs like he did a few hours ago. Without a chance to escape, he would be doomed!

Two years was enough time for the bugs to kill him countless times!

He had to find a better cultivation method; otherwise, even with the ancient book, Chu Yunsheng realized he was always in danger of losing his life!

He took out the ancient book again and studied it tirelessly, believing there must be a way. If only he could recognize more characters, he could read the ancient book smoothly and find something he hadn't thought of!

After a thorough search, he finally found a few relevant things. After testing them one by one, most of them failed, leaving only a talisman called "Primordial Energy Absorption Talisman."

Chu Yunsheng looked at the name of the talisman uncertainly. Although he could recognize the three characters, he didn't understand more than two-thirds of the function description. However, he could recognize the inscription method.

This talisman was a second-stage talisman, requiring all his primordial energy to create. He had already used nearly half of his primordial energy testing other methods, so it was impossible to inscribe it now. He would have to wait about four days!

During these four days, when he was tired of practicing, he took out his bow and crossbow and followed the shooting tutorials he had downloaded at night, practicing shooting accuracy. For his current level, where he could only release a few arrows, shooting accuracy was crucial. If he missed, the loss of primordial energy would be significant.

After four days of practice, combined with the potential enhancement from the Six Jia Primordial Talisman, he was confident he could accurately hit a red beetle within thirty meters, provided it was stationary. Hitting a moving target was a skill that required experience and couldn't be mastered overnight.

Four days later, he finally inscribed the Primordial Energy Absorption Talisman, but encountered a small problem when using it. No matter how he activated it, the talisman did not automatically absorb the primordial energy from the universe.

After a long time of struggling, Chu Yunsheng had a sudden idea. If the talisman couldn't absorb the primordial energy from the universe, could it absorb the primordial energy stored in the human body after transformation?

With this thought, he immediately prepared to act but was disheartened to find that his primordial energy was already very thin, making it impossible to test.

He immediately thought of the red beetles. The pale red protective shield on their bodies was definitely generated by primordial energy, indicating that they had primordial energy in their bodies!

Chu Yunsheng immediately took out the red beetle's corpse he had collected and manipulated the talisman. Indeed! The talisman, which had been inactive before, immediately shot out a beam of white light onto the red beetle's corpse. Then, he saw a series of milky white auras being absorbed by the talisman. After about ten seconds, the talisman retracted the white light. When Chu Yunsheng examined the talisman, he found that nearly one-sixth of the blank area was filled with flame-pattern symbols.

Chu Yunsheng guessed that this indicated the red beetle's primordial energy was of the fire attribute.

However, just as he was about to store the talisman, he was pleasantly surprised to find that a slight, unintentional connection of his primordial energy with the Primordial Energy Absorption Talisman immediately caused the talisman's primordial energy to flow back into his body!

Of course, he could have stopped this backflow, but he didn't. He wanted to see what would happen!

The entire process was twice as slow as the absorption, taking about twenty seconds. As the flame-pattern symbols on the talisman disappeared, the talisman hissed and broke. Second-stage talismans were one-time use.

However, Chu Yunsheng was not sad about the talisman breaking. Instead, he was so excited he wanted to shout. He clearly felt that his physical primordial energy had increased by nearly one-third!

This was equivalent to the level he could reach after nearly three days of hard cultivation!

How could he not be excited? The energy from one red beetle, even with significant loss during the transformation, could still replenish nearly one-third of his primordial energy!

So, he only needed three red beetles to fully replenish his primordial energy, instead of the eight to nine days of hard cultivation!

A cultivation plan immediately formed in his mind, the one he had been searching for these past few days.

First, he would inscribe a Primordial Energy Absorption Talisman, then spend eight days cultivating to full primordial energy. With his current full primordial energy, he could shoot six ice arrows. In an ideal state where all arrows hit, he could freeze six red beetles. In the frozen state, the red beetles had no protective shield, and he could kill them with other methods, allowing the talisman to absorb the primordial energy from six red beetles.

Since the talisman was one-time use, regardless of how much primordial energy it absorbed, it would break after completely releasing the absorbed energy.

Similarly, this one-time-use talisman, after absorbing full primordial energy, could not be refilled with more energy, even if some energy was released.

To maximize the use of the talisman, he needed to first absorb full primordial energy, then release it into his body in two stages, each time filling his body with primordial energy. The last time, the talisman would break after releasing all its energy.

Thus, after freezing six red beetles and using the talisman to absorb their primordial energy, his body would be nearly depleted. He could immediately replenish his energy for the first time, then immediately inscribe a new Primordial Energy Absorption Talisman, depleting his body again, and then replenish his energy for the second time. The old talisman would break, but with full energy, he could shoot six more red beetles, use the new talisman to absorb their energy, and repeat the process.

Theoretically, by killing 243 red beetles, he could break through the First Heaven and enter the Second Heaven. At the Second Heaven, he could create reusable third-stage talismans, no longer needing to meticulously calculate the number of talisman uses!