Stealing Heavenly Secrets

Based on this, Wa Huang deduced a method of longevity.

Wa Huang believed that if immortals could transform into Immortal Divine Medicine after death and continue to exist in the world, then could a Great Emperor also transform into divine medicine after death, and a Saint into Saint Medicine?

Thus, the Transformation Medicine Longevity Method was born, with the hope that one could one day reawaken spiritual wisdom in the form of a spirit medicine and live another life.

As this Great Saint's lifespan drew to a close, he decisively chose to attempt this highly immature longevity method pioneered by Great Emperor Nuwa.

He sacrificed everything he had to a Longevity Fruit Tree, imprinting his Life Imprint onto a single Ginseng Fruit.

He hoped to extend his life in the form of a Ginseng Fruit.

When that Ginseng Fruit fully ripened, it would be the moment he was reborn with spiritual wisdom as a spirit medicine, and also the day he would take form again.

Unfortunately, this longevity method was far from mature; even Wa Huang didn't know if it could succeed.

After sacrificing everything, that Great Saint only managed to imbue the Ginseng Fruit with sixty percent of the potency of an Elixir of Immortality.

As for the Life Imprint, there was no reaction at all.

Let alone the reawakening of spiritual wisdom.

Moreover, during the gestation of the divine medicine, the Heaven and Earth Essence in the outside world suddenly began to plummet.

Earth entered the Era of Dharma Decline.

This directly interrupted the gestation process of the divine medicine.

If it had been continuously nourished by abundant essence, perhaps one day the imprint he had engraved into that Ginseng Fruit might have had a chance to give birth to new spiritual wisdom.

Later, the deity within this Quasi-Emperor Divine Weapon, in order to ensure that the Longevity Fruit Tree and the Ginseng Fruit on it did not degrade in quality, had to squeeze the essence from other medicinal fields within the small world to nourish the Half-Divine Tree and the Ginseng Fruit at the summit.

After hundreds of thousands of years of this squeezing, the Chaos Small World was nearly drained dry.

If no one used magical power to refine and replenish its essence, perhaps within a few thousand years, this small world would completely wither.

In the end, the Half-Divine Tree and the Ginseng Fruit would also perish from lack of essence.

This was also why the poisonous insects Li Zhi encountered were not spirit insects, and why the spirit medicines in the fields had degraded into ordinary herbs.

After understanding all this, Li Zhi had no intention of immediately picking that Ginseng Fruit.

Instead, he considered how to leave this place first.

To pick or not to pick—that was the big question.

Who in this world could face an Immortality Elixir (even half of one) with a calm heart?

Aside from a Great Emperor, probably very few.

Of course, it wasn't that Li Zhi didn't want to pick the fruit right now.

Rather, he simply had nothing on hand that could preserve its potency.

Moreover, the entrance to this Great Sage Mystic Realm was near Jade Emperor Peak. If he ran into cultivators coming to pay homage after leaving, carrying half an Immortality Elixir would likely get him killed on the spot.

Also, every medicine has its poison.

Though Li Zhi wasn't well-versed in medicine, he knew this principle.

Any highly nourishing substance cannot be consumed in excess, or it will cause indigestion and turn from a tonic into a toxin.

Lacking basic cultivation knowledge, Li Zhi didn't know if the Ginseng Fruit on the tree could be eaten raw, but he did know that with his current mortal physique, rashly consuming it would certainly fail to digest the vast spiritual energy within.

There was a high chance that after eating that Ginseng Fruit, he would be burst apart by its overwhelming spiritual power.

But not eating didn't mean he couldn't use it.

Li Zhi recalled the effect of the Ginseng Fruit in Great Immortal Zhen Yuanzi's hands: a mere sniff could extend a mortal's lifespan by three hundred and sixty years.

Though the two weren't from the same world, Li Zhi secretly wondered if he could give it a try.

So, Li Zhi stood beneath that Ginseng Fruit, tilted his head back, and began to practice the Breathing Method.

Sure enough, as the Breathing Method circulated, he sensed a wisp of strange fragrance wafting toward him.

As the fragrance entered his body, he immediately felt every cell in his body start to cheer and leap with joy.

The strength that had previously felt like it could no longer grow began to increase rapidly once more.

The limit of two thousand jin per arm was quickly broken.

In the following ten short days, his strength grew to the level of five thousand jin per arm.

After reaching this level, continuing to practice the Breathing Method and absorb the medicinal fragrance no longer made his cells feel that surge of joy.

It seemed that mere fragrance could no longer drive them to evolve.

And the Ginseng Fruit appeared to stop emitting its fragrance as well.

Whether it was an illusion or not, Li Zhi felt the fruit was less plump than ten days ago, and the hazy aura on its skin had noticeably faded.

In just ten days, his strength had undergone earth-shattering changes; he felt as if he had undergone a Transformative Rebirth, and even the scars on his body had faded significantly.

Li Zhi couldn't help but wonder how his current strength compared to Ye Fan's before he opened the Bitter Sea.

Standing beneath the Longevity Fruit Tree, overlooking the entire small world, Li Zhi felt a surge of lofty ambition, almost as if he had the world beneath his feet.

But when he looked down at the medicinal fields below the peak, that rising ambition instantly fizzled out.

Those bugs were so dangerous, you couldn't guard against them even if you tried.

After surviving countless brushes with death to finally reach the mountaintop, he'd likely face another round of attacks from the little critters on the way down.

It wasn't that he lacked confidence in himself.

But the dense scars all over his body constantly reminded him that he was still just a mortal.

If he let his guard down even slightly and fell into a swarm of bugs, he'd almost certainly meet his doom.

Besides, he wasn't sure if there was some special method required to leave this Magic Treasure Space.

They said saint weapons had spirits, so a Quasi-Emperor Divine Weapon should have intelligence too, right?

With that thought, Li Zhi respectfully bowed to the sky before him and said, "Senior, can you let me out?"

The sky showed not the slightest change—not even the clouds shifted an inch. The spirit of the Hundred Herbs Diagram ignored him.

Li Zhi gave an awkward smile and thought to himself, "The spirit inside a divine weapon isn't human, so why would it speak human language? It should communicate through divine thought."

Then he sat down beneath the Longevity Fruit Tree, emptied his mind as much as possible, and tried to connect with the Hundred Herbs Diagram's spirit through his heart.

One minute, two minutes, a quarter-hour, half an hour passed—the Hundred Herbs Diagram's spirit still paid him no attention.

After that, Li Zhi tried several other methods of communication, but still got no response from the spirit.

This left him somewhat puzzled. "Do I really have to cultivate mana before I can communicate with the spirit inside this Quasi-Emperor weapon? Or has the spirit inside this treasure diagram already died?"

After failing to make contact, Li Zhi temporarily gave up on the idea of leaving immediately.

The environment here was pretty good, suitable for reading scriptures and comprehending the Dao.

He planned to read through the "Primordial Longevity Art" Scripture several times, then chant it beneath the Longevity Fruit Tree.

Maybe he could catch the insights into the Scripture left by that Great Sage who had sacrificed everything to the Longevity Fruit Tree. If he could resonate with those insights, it would bring him endless benefits in future cultivation.

The more he studied the Scripture, the more Li Zhi admired the brilliance of the Longevity Daoist who created this Cultivation Method.

Unlike ordinary cultivators who pursued overwhelming combat power, the Primordial Longevity Art created by the Longevity Daoist fully embodied the concept of "longevity," accumulating boundless Life Force within the body. Once one cultivated to Quasi-Emperor, they were practically a human-shaped immortal medicine.

No wonder he had possessed a lifespan equal to a Great Emperor's at the Quasi-Emperor Triple Heaven level.

He had almost completely dissolved the Killing Aura within him, which explained the saying that he was a third weaker against peers of the same rank.

This Cultivation Method essentially abandoned all other strengths, pursuing only longevity.

Just like the conversation between Patriarch Bodhi and Wukong in Journey to the West.

The Patriarch asked Wukong, "How about I teach you the way of the 'Art' school?"

Wukong asked, "What's special about the Art school?"

The Patriarch replied, "The Art school covers summoning immortals, divination, fortune-telling, and yarrow-stalk reading—it lets you know how to seek good fortune and avoid disaster."

Wukong asked, "Can this achieve longevity?"

The Patriarch said, "No."

Wukong said, "Then I won't learn, I won't learn."

Then the Patriarch asked Wukong if he wanted to learn the ways of the "Flow," "Stillness," or "Motion" schools.

After understanding their core principles, Wukong refused them all.

Wukong wouldn't learn this, wouldn't learn that—he only asked the Patriarch, "Can this wonderful method achieve longevity?"

As the saying goes, a riot of colors dazzles the eyes, but only Wukong sought the true Dao.

Wukong held fast to the goal of longevity, never letting those Flashy and Ostentatious things distract him, cutting straight to the root of the matter.

All kinds of marvelous methods—can they achieve longevity?

If they can't achieve longevity, he won't learn them. No matter how mighty their power appeared.