Soon, the basic information of the eight surviving companions was carefully reviewed by Ding Yun.
They were all doing quite well, it seemed.
Much better than Ding Yun, who was all alone.
The one with the least influence had occupied hundreds of mountain ranges and heavenly domains, with millions of innate beings under his command.
The strongest among them had pioneered the Spiritual Race lineage, protecting all living species that were unwilling to join the Dragon, Phoenix, and Qilin tribes, as well as all plant spirits.
Their overall strength had now surpassed the Xuanwu and Baihu tribes. While inferior to the Dragon race, they could be compared to the Phoenix or Qilin tribes. Furthermore, he had begun preaching within the Spiritual Race, with at least ninety percent of its beings practicing the cultivation techniques and laws he had imparted.
As the Spiritual Race's foundation lay primarily in plant spirits, the cultivation techniques he had taught were based on the method of creating blessed lands and heavenly domains. Plant spirits could occupy a spiritual脉 (pulse/vein), refine and merge with it, evolving into blessed lands, which then advanced to heavenly domains, and from heavenly domains to small myriad worlds, and then to middle myriad worlds.
The process was complex, but theoretically feasible.
Theoretically, as long as one could elevate their blessed land to a great myriad world, they could directly attain enlightenment.
However, in practical terms, only a lower-grade innate spiritual root would even have a chance of elevating its blessed land into a small myriad world. Only an utmost-grade innate spiritual root held the hope of elevating a blessed land into a great myriad world. For plant spirits lacking sufficient foundation and depth, attempting such an advancement would lead to a dead end.
Therefore, the patriarch of the Spiritual Race had to further refine the original cultivation method, adding a secret technique called the Origin Mending Heaven Art. When plant spirits practicing the blessed land and heavenly domain method reached the limit of their foundation, they could shatter the world they had created, transforming it into world origin to forcefully supplement their own foundation and advance, then starting anew.
This secret technique was also theoretically feasible.
In theory, with enough time, patience, and resources, even a lower-grade innate spiritual root could eventually raise its origin foundation to the level of an utmost-grade innate spiritual root through this secret technique and create a great myriad world. However, the specific time required could not be measured in Yuan Hui (an epoch).
It needed to be measured in Liang Jie (great calamity).
Moreover, beings other than plant spirits could also cultivate the blessed land and heavenly domain method, as well as the Origin Mending Heaven secret technique. They would simply need to refine an innate spiritual root or use a seed of an innate spiritual root as their cultivation foundation.
Replacing their own origin with the spiritual root or its seed.
The subsequent operations would be the same.
However, despite their considerable achievements and strong respective forces, Ding Yun remained confident in herself.
Because none of these eight individuals had accumulated as deep a foundation as she had. Currently, if she wished, she could easily create over two thousand Grand Unity Dao Lords by allowing others to comprehend the laws within her Creation Jade Disk. A Grand Unity Dao Lord was essentially equivalent to a Grand Unity Golden Immortal, the master of a middle myriad world, and so on. Even the Yin-Yang God-Demon at its peak could only be considered to have reached the extreme of the Grand Unity Dao Lord path, a step away from enlightenment.
The total number of Grand Unity Dao Lords in the entire world currently.
Did not exceed a hundred.
This illustrated the profound depth of Ding Yun's accumulated foundation, and this did not even include the spiritual treasures and spiritual roots she had plundered in the recent past.
"Judging by the current situation, only the patriarch of the Spiritual Race is a bit dangerous. However, by establishing the Spiritual Race at this juncture, it's unlikely he can avoid the next great calamity, no matter how much he wishes to. The Dragon, Phoenix, and Qilin tribes will not allow him to remain on the sidelines. He is destined to be drawn into the calamity, and his fate is uncertain. There is no need to worry about him.
Since there is no need to worry, I shall ignore him.
I should focus on my plan for enlightenment..."
After reviewing the current situation of the eight companions, Ding Yun had enough confidence that she did not take them seriously.
Then, she began her plan for enlightenment.
The enlightenment plan Ding Yun set for herself was incredibly grand and complex. In fact, many of the initial steps were merely paving the way. This was because she did not want to simply attain the ordinary Hunyuan Grand Unity Golden Immortal realm.
Attaining the ordinary Hunyuan Grand Unity Golden Immortal realm was easy.
At least, it was easy for her now.
However, an ordinary Hunyuan Grand Unity Golden Immortal was far from invincible. A few cultivators who had reached the extreme of the Grand Unity Dao Lord path, if they joined forces and utilized the power of heaven and earth to set up a peerless formation, might still be able to contend with him.
Therefore, if she were to preach the Great Dao and impart the method of enlightenment solely based on the ordinary Hunyuan Grand Unity Golden Immortal realm, it would be very easy to fail. If her disciples later attained enlightenment, they would easily recognize the small gap between them.
At that point, it would be quite embarrassing if they surpassed their master.
Therefore, what Ding Yun wanted to achieve was to become a Hunyuan Grand Unity Golden Immortal who could control a majority of the world's authority. If possible, it would be even better to simultaneously become the Lord of the World upon enlightenment. Only by achieving this could Ding Yun ensure her invincibility and also ensure that even if her disciples attained enlightenment in the future, they would still be far from her equal.
However, considering that the world's consciousness in this world was quite sentient and unlikely to be a being willing to be refined by others, Ding Yun slightly weakened her plan after the Yin-Yang God-Demon Dao transformation.
From her original ambition of becoming the Lord of the World.
She lowered it by one level.
She aimed to become the Lord of the Heavenly Dao, indirectly controlling a majority of the world's authority through this position, and then slowly extend her influence to other areas, strengthening her authority.
As for what is the Heavenly Dao?
This world currently had no concept of Heavenly Dao. The world consciousness could, to some extent, be called the Heavenly Dao, but the Heavenly Dao in Ding Yun's plan was definitely not the world consciousness.
In Ding Yun's plan, the Heavenly Dao was essentially a Heavenly Dao network she constructed using countless base stations and robots, a network that encompassed most of the world's regions. Once this Heavenly Dao network was successfully built, it could definitely seize a significant portion of authority from the world consciousness. The most crucial aspect of this process was to bind the network base stations to the entire world. If the base stations were destroyed, the entire world would be largely destroyed as well.
This was to guard against the world consciousness acting maliciously and causing disruption.
To bind the world consciousness as much as possible.
To share life and death, to prosper and decline together.
As of now, the base stations and robots were fully prepared. The only missing elements were the complete binding of these base stations together, not just between base stations, but also binding them to the core parts of the world. This would allow for rapid repair if a few base stations were damaged, and if a core base station or a large number of base stations were damaged, it would lead to the destruction of all base stations and the world's core parts bound to them.
Achieving this required not only many tasks but also the deduction of a grand formation that could connect all the base stations. In short, Ding Yun had a lot of work to do.
Most importantly, these matters were extremely secret and crucial.
She dared not entrust them to anyone else.
She had to handle it personally.