Chapter 18: The Five Avatars

The Star Luo Ding stood quietly on the ground.
Around it, the ten figures from the upper realm—Zong Xi, Feng Qu, Yan Xuan, Qiu Rui, Yi Xi, Chen Yan, Rong Han, Jun Wei, Zhuo Hong, and Qi Jia—sat on the ground, rapidly refining the primal energy in the natural spirit energy to replenish their own reserves. At the same time, they kept a close watch on the Star Luo Ding, ready to focus on it at the slightest anomaly.

Meanwhile, Qu Yi had been practicing the “Soul Division and Fusion Technique” and was nearly done. Once completed, he would be able to imprint his own soul and create a new soul identical to his own.

By the lake in the Tiny Realm, Qu Yi sat quietly, swiftly forming magical seals with his hands to guide the transformation of his soul.

A month later, Qu Yi finally succeeded.
Within his soul space, soul matter resembling clusters of gray clouds had, under the guidance of his magical seals, settled down and formed a gray egg-like shape. Near this gray egg, another vague, egg-shaped object of similar size was slowly taking shape.

Qu Yi was imprinting his soul!

The Artifact God, lying on the soft chair, also noticed Qu Yi’s actions and realized he was imprinting his soul. It wisely stopped slapping the five Soul Essences, allowing them to lie obediently beside the chair, waiting for Qu Yi to create a new soul.

Three days later, Qu Yi stopped forming the magical seals and opened his eyes.
“Artifact God, I’ve succeeded!” Qu Yi said with a faint smile.
Without responding, the Artifact God jumped down from the chair, went to the Golden Soul Essence, gave it a gentle kick, and threw it beside Qu Yi.

Qu Yi had created a new soul, which he intended to use to replace the Golden Soul Essence’s soul, thereby creating his first soul avatar.

The Golden Soul Essence stood up in fear, its sword-shaped body trembling, clearly showing that over the past month, it had been thoroughly tamed by the Artifact God and now feared Qu Yi deeply.

Seeing the Golden Soul Essence’s timid demeanor, Qu Yi’s smile widened. He greatly admired the Artifact God’s training skills and then focused his gaze on the Golden Soul Essence.

At the moment the Golden Soul Essence’s trembling reached its peak, Qu Yi’s spiritual consciousness suddenly pierced into its soul. A gray egg-shaped mass rose above Qu Yi’s head, seemingly entering the Golden Soul Essence’s soul along with his spiritual consciousness.

Soul replacement!

The soul created by Qu Yi entered the soul space of the Golden Soul Essence at this moment, aiming to erase its soul and truly become its own. The once fearful Golden Soul Essence suddenly sensed an overwhelming force approaching, realizing it would perish soon. Faced with this death threat, its fear vanished instantly, and it regained its sharp, aggressive instincts. Unfortunately, the Golden Soul Essence’s consciousness became aware too late. Qu Yi’s soul, arriving deliberately, was like a towering mountain pressing down on it. Though sharp, the Golden Soul Essence only began to resist when it saw the mountain descending; even with invincible strength, it was crushed under its weight. Before long, Qu Yi’s created soul erased the Golden Soul Essence’s soul and took control of its space. Thus, the current Golden Soul Essence was actually a clone of Qu Yi’s soul. Next, by using the essence energy of metal to shape a body and having the Golden Soul Essence inhabit it, Qu Yi could create another clone of himself. “Haha, Artifact God, your method truly works. Now that one of my soul clones has been created, I’ll turn the Wood Soul Essence, Water Soul Essence, Fire Soul Essence, and Earth Soul Essence into my soul clones as well, turning them all into my five clones,” Qu Yi exclaimed excitedly after realizing he had taken control of the Golden Soul Essence. The thought of having five extra lives filled him with uncontrollable excitement. The Artifact God, also standing happily on the soft chair, replied, “Then continue creating four more souls. I’ll tame those four for you. Oh, by the way, those ten outside have already brought the Star Luo Ding to the outer area of the Five Souls Desolation and are about to leave. They probably intend to take the Star Luo Ding back to Liupan Star and figure out a way to force you out together.” It turned out that after guarding for over a month and finding Qu Yi still inside the Star Luo Ding, the ten people realized he wanted to prolong the struggle. So, they informed the powerful cultivators at the ten sects who were at the Great Vehicle stage or Tribulation stage, set up a spatial teleportation array, and together transported the Star Luo Ding to the outer area of the Five Souls Desolation before returning to Liupan Star. On Liupan Star, each of the ten sects’ headquarters had a “Six-Star Formation” that allowed communication with the upper realm. Their plan was to use this formation to contact the powerful beings in the upper realm and seek help.

Qu Yi heard the Wordsmith’s words and looked relaxed, as if he didn’t even care about those ten people in the upper realm.
“Ten guys? Let them keep busy for now. Once I create five avatars, they’ll know what it’s like to suffer,” Qu Yi said with a faint smile.
The Wordsmith nodded, then lightly settled onto the soft chair and fell asleep.
…
It took three days to create a new soul.
Twelve days later, Qu Yi had already created four new souls. He had also erased the souls of Wood Essence, Water Essence, Fire Essence, and Earth Essence, replacing them all with his own soul.
That was four more soul avatars.
Thus, Qu Yi now had five soul avatars.
With the soul avatars ready, the next step was to create five dharma bodies—dharma bodies of his primal essence.
Inside the Star Luo Ding, Qu Yi controlled the five soul avatars to emerge from the Dimensional Sphere, then quickly arranged the five primal essence stones he had gathered into five piles.
Primal essence stones of the Metal element: Sharp Metal Stone, Pressing Metal Stone.
Primal essence stones of the Wood element: Wood Wheel Stone, Wood Spirit Stone, Wood Sparse Stone.
Primal essence stones of the Water element: Tidal Stone, Mysterious Ice Stone.
Primal essence stones of the Fire element: Rising Fire Stone, Fiery Heart Stone.
Primal essence stones of the Earth element: Resting Earth Stone, Kindness Stone.
These five piles of primal essence stones emitted streams of primal energy, filling the entire Star Luo Ding.
Qu Yi intended to use these primal essence stones to create five dharma bodies.
At that moment, the Wordsmith spoke up, “Qu Yi, go to the center of the five piles of primal essence stones, then control the Star Luo Ding to extract all the primal energy from them and condense it into a form.”
Qu Yi nodded.
In an instant, he arrived at the center of the five piles. With a thought, he took control of the Star Luo Ding and activated the array inside it.
Only within the Star Luo Ding could these primal essence stones have their primal energy rapidly extracted. If ordinary spiritual-grade artifacts from the cultivation world were used, they would be unable to control this energy, and such artifacts would be destroyed the moment the energy was released.
Inside the Star Luo Ding, a pentagonal light column formed in an instant. The five piles of primal essence stones were located at the five corners, while Qu Yi’s body was at the center of the pentagon.
From the pile of Metal primal essence stones, golden lights shot out rapidly, forming clusters of Metal primal energy, which then converged into one mass.

Similarly, the pile of Wood Element Origin Stones, the Water Element Origin Stone, the pile of Fire Element Origin Stones, and the pile of Earth Element Origin Stones also emitted clusters of elemental energy that converged together. Within the pentagonal area, these five clusters of elemental energy, initially in cloud-like shapes, gradually changed—first shrinking and condensing, then slowly taking on the form of human bodies. Referring to Qu Yi’s own body as a standard, all five elemental energy bodies eventually became identical to Qu Yi’s body. This demonstrates the power of the Star Luo Ding; for other beings at the Mahayana stage, refining elemental energy or creating an energy body would take at least a hundred years. Yet, under Qu Yi’s control, the Star Luo Ding created five such elemental energy bodies in a very short time. The five dharma bodies were now formed. Qu Yi still remained within the pentagonal light column area. Opening his eyes, he looked at the five soul clones outside the column. “Soul clones, come in!” Qu Yi ordered calmly, and immediately the five soul clones entered the column and surrounded him. “Dharma bodies and souls, merge!” Qu Yi shouted fiercely, his expression resolute, exuding an air of commanding authority and an unyielding pressure. As expected, guided by Qu Yi’s consciousness, the five soul clones flew out one by one—the Golden Soul Essence entered the Wood Element Origin Body, the Wood Soul Essence entered the Wood Element Origin Body, the Water Soul Essence entered the Water Element Origin Body, the Fire Soul Essence entered the Fire Element Origin Body, and the Earth Soul Essence entered the Earth Element Origin Body. Since these five soul bodies originated from elemental energy, they felt at home within the five dharma bodies as soon as they entered, like fish returning to the sea or swallows returning to their nests, quickly becoming familiar with them. Qu Yi’s consciousness moved swiftly, issuing commands one after another. In an instant, the five soul clones merged with the five dharma bodies, with the souls taking control of the bodies—complete fusion achieved. With the fusion complete, five more waves of intense energy emanated from within the pentagonal light column. Moreover, Qu Yi sensed that after the fusion, the relationship between him and his five clones was no longer one of control and being controlled; these clones now had their own independent consciousnesses and could cultivate on their own. Now, the six “Qu Yis” inside the pentagonal light column were actually on equal footing, as if Qu Yi possessed six lives.

Suddenly, Qu Yi, who was at the center of the pentagram-shaped light column, shouted, “Instrument God, what’s going on? My original spirit should have the form of a six-headed human. Why has it turned into a single head now? Oh, this original spirit looks very much like me.” It turned out that Qu Yi had just conducted an internal inspection and discovered the strange changes within his body, which shocked him greatly. “Haha, my guess was correct. Qu Yi, your technique of dividing your spiritual consciousness into six parts ultimately evolves into dividing your original spirit into six parts. Excellent! Now, this main original spirit is inherited by your true body, while the five divided original spirits have entered your five alternate bodies,” the Instrument God exclaimed happily. Qu Yi was stunned.