Now that Han Zhan understood how far he had come, he stopped holding back and began explaining things in greater detail. 

Reaching the ninth stage wasn't simply about gathering more power. Before anything else, the Three Treasures had to be brought into balance. Only when that foundation was steady could one begin condensing the Nascent Embryo. 

To do so, both the blood essence and the divine soul had to enter the Golden Core and merge within it, using the core as the womb for the embryo's formation. This was nothing like the early stages of the Golden Core Realm, where the divine soul merely brushed against mana for an instant before withdrawing. This time, it had to remain inside together with the blood essence for an extended period and slowly blend until they became a unified whole.

When the right moment came, the Nascent Embryo would naturally resonate with heaven and earth, giving rise to a subtle movement that only the cultivator could sense. That quiet change marked the true beginning of Nascent Soul formation. From there, tribulation would follow, the Golden Core would break apart, and the Nascent Soul would form. Only after passing through that transformation could one truly step into...