(OLD/NOT CANON) Immortal Ascension Tower

Chapter 114 - Glass Cannons, Diamond Cannonballs

For the first time ever since he had taken up, albeit a bit unwillingly, the role of Spirit of the Mountain... Cheng Hao finally felt as if it was worth it! After all, while the blessing he had received may have looked extremely useful at first, he had soon found out about many of its shortcomings...

'Will of the Sovereign.'

The strength to be above anybody else! The ability to be superior, to look down upon others! The power of a sovereign!

Will of the Sovereign was such an ability... 

It allowed the user to freely change one's own or others' cultivations by controlling the amount, density and quality of the spiritual energy in one's surroundings!

Whether this meant increasing one's cultivation beyond measure, or lower one's opponent's strength so much they would turn back into mere mortals, one would be able to do either of them! Cheng Hao, through this heaven-defying ability, could basically control the flow of Spiritual Energy at will!

This was also how he had managed to make a pathway through the spatial rifts back when he was attempting to save Xu Ling: he had bended the world's spiritual energy so that he could build a bridge to pass through the void.

A divine ability, sure, but the Heavens blindly blessed nobody. Everything was impartial, in a way or another. Such was a hidden law of the universe which applied even in the most random activities: there would be light in the greatest darkness and darkness in the brightest light.

And, just as it was powerful and apparently almighty, Will of the Sovereign had just as many shortcomings!

For example, the enormous strain that it put on the wielder's mind was such that if Cheng Hao had tried the previously mentioned feats with his true body, one that barely touched upon the Sung stage, his mind would have shattered and his consciousness would have crumbled!

Without the support of a powerful cultivation base, the strain the ability imposed on the user's mind was enough to shatter the consciousness! Cheng Hao was no exception: best-case scenario he would go in a comatose state as soon as he attempted to activate the ability!

And that was even with the two lives he had gone through!

During his former life as Xu Ling, he had been a one-man army, fighting huge hordes of enemies much stronger than him. His mind would constantly be pushed to its limit with each battle, struggling every instant to find a way to survive against the most unfair of odds.

After countless years of fighting with his life on the line, it had come to a point his mind was on a whole other level compared to that of his peers! His will had grown sharper than a sword, his knowledge when it came to battle was the most unparalleled spear under the heavens, and his determination had become even more durable than the sturdiest of shields!

And yet, even with such a powerful mentality, the required processing power to even solely activate the technique would make that god-like mind of his crumble away, like dust in the midst of a powerful hurricane...

Cheng Hao had made a few calculation and had come to the conclusion that, if the Will of the Sovereign were to be activated without a cultivation base higher than the Ageless Realm, he would die, without a doubt. Only the Immortal Realm seemed to hold a chance to use this heaven-defying ability, albeit still with some repercussions.

He also could not increase his cultivation indefinitely to increase the amount of pressure his mind could bear. This was because, first of all, the requirement to simply activate the technique was too high, and, secondly, such pressure would increase the more the Spiritual Energy he moved... such amount would always be slightly higher than the allowed amount. That was, of course, if he wanted himself to have no future repercussions.