Chapter 209: Reincarnation State
"Soul of the Planet Thrae?" Fang Lin's eyebrows raised as he heard this absurd claim from Long Juo. "You sure you are not high on something!"
"I am not high!" Long Juo complained as he stomped the ground angrily. This sight must have been endearing when he was a girl, but now it just looked like he was a bratty person. He gave Fang Lin an angry look as he asked him,
"Do you even know that planets can cultivate?"
Fang Lin's eyebrows raised after hearing that. "Of course I know that!" Pretty much everyone who follows the practitioner path knows about the fact that planets can also get stronger.
Of course because the planets were different from living creatures, their way of cultivation was different too.
The First to Sixth Stages on a planet's cultivation focus on the creation of the planet's Nascent Soul.
When a planet comes into being, it will have no soul at all. It will be just comparable to a piece of rock floating in space, empty and cold. Only when living beings start to occupy a planet that it can start to cultivate.
Of course since it was originally a soulless object, the cultivation of a planet depends entirely on the creatures living on it.
It was the strength of a planet's soul that determines the living conditions that it can give to its residents.
The environment, the qi and mana in it, the power of the creatures that can live in it all depends on the planet's soul.
The soul developed by the planet at the early stages however, were not that intelligent. Once can say that it just... exists there. It will react instinctively, but it will not proactively make an action and it cannot think rationally yet. Only once the planet's soul power reaches the boundary of the Fifth and Sixth Stage that it can start behaving like an intelligent life form.
There were distinct boundaries for each stage of the soul cultivation of a planet.
A planet can only step on the First Stage once its soul can sense all the objects residing on it. At this stage, the planet's soul was not yet concentrated. It was spread throughout its whole body, which made it possible for it to sense everything on it.
At the Second Stage, the planet's soul will be powerful enough to start releasing more qi and mana. It was also at this stage that it can feel the instinctive yearning to produce more living creatures.
At the Third Stage, the planet's originals spread-out soul starts to converge into a smaller shape. At this stage, the soul was powerful enough to subconsciously manipulate its physical conditions like weather and natural disasters.
The planet can only step on the Fourth Stage once its soul was small enough to fit its core. At this stage, the planet can start to sense the daos and laws of the universe. With the support of its resident practitioners and the almost unlimited time it had, the planet will start to subconsciously comprehend a dao or a law.
Of course the way it comprehends was different from a practitioner. Its comprehension depends on the comprehensions obtained by the practitioners living on it. And because the planet was originally a non-living object, its comprehension of the dao or law of the Universe was way, way, way too slow.
That slow comprehension speed was the reason the most common planets in the Universe were at the First until the Fourth Stage.
Only when the planet can comprehend a dao or a law that it can be considered in the Fifth Stage. That was the current stage of Fang Lin's planet. Once a planet was in the Fifth Stage, the living conditions in that planet improves dramatically.
But even with this comprehension, the soul of the planet could still not think intelligently. It will still act on its instincts.
The planet will only start developing intelligence once it was at the state between the Fifth and Sixth Stage, the reincarnation state.
The way a planet can advance into the Sixth Stage was full of risks and dangers. One slight misstep and the planet can lose its soul entirely, leading to its death.
At this point though, even if the planet's soul dies, the body of the planet can still support its residents. The planet will just have a new soul be developed on it. This new soul can then attempt to step on the Sixth Stage once it was strong enough to do it.
As for why the breakthrough to the Sixth Stage was risky, it was because the planet had to reincarnate its soul as a living being.
Once the planet instinctively feels the need to break through the Sixth Stage, it will send its soul into the cycle of reincarnation, and it will be reborn as a living creature. At this point, the soul of that living creature was still in its essence, the soul of the planet.
Now, the goal of the reincarnated planet was to make its living body reach the Sixth Stage in the cultivation of the living creatures.
Once that living body becomes an Immortal or a God, the planet will use this living body as the foundation so that it's original, non-living body can break through to the Sixth Stage.
At this point and beyond, the planet was already a sentient being.
As for the steps to reach the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Stage, Fang Lin had no idea of it, since they were treated as very restricted information.
As he remembered these facts, he gave Long Juo another doubting look as he asked him,
"So how are you sure that Tang Li was the reincarnated form of the planet Thrae?"
Long Juo gave scoffed as he said,
"From where I came from, there were records of individuals who were reincarnated planets. According to those records, a reincarnated planet, once born, have a high intelligence. But since their living vessel was still young, it still had to seal itself to prevent its living body from being destroyed by its powerful soul."
"Hmm.... So that means that once the body of the living vessel had already acclimated enough, the soul of the planet will unseal itself or in what you said earlier, awaken?"
"That's right." Long Juo nodded. He then tilted his head as he recalled something. "The records also stated that once the soul of the planet fully awakens, two phenomena will happen. One is that the entirety of the planet will tremble, celebrating the full awakening of its soul. Second is that the living vessel will emit a multi-colored light, signifying the complete integration of the planet's soul into a living body."
"......." Fang Lin had no choice but to accept what Long Juo was saying. He glanced at Tang Li, who was still in the midst of her awakening. From time to time, she will sleeptalk, muttering about mwilk and pwaying.
"Wait, if you know that, then other practitioners must know about it too right?"
"Exactly." Long Juo replied grimly. "And I am sure they will rush here to do something with Tang Li. After all, obtaining the soul of Planet Thrae will be highly beneficial to any practitioner.
"Crap!" Fang Lin cursed as he looked outside the window. He knew that any moment now, somebody might come to obtain Tang Li.
"Having difficulties here, I presume?" Fang Lin looked outside, and a relieved expression appeared on his face. As long as this man was here, Fang Lin knew they can survive this situation!
"You couldn't have chosen a better timing master." Fang Lin said as he gave a toothy grin to Wang Hao.
Wang Hao, who was now on his original form and was not donning any armor, gave Fang Lin a thumbs-up as he said
"So you have a wife and two children now. You really are diligent!"
"..."