Fallen Hope

The night was like water.

Ji Haoyuan sat alone outside a stone house, staring blankly into space.

After midnight tonight, it would be his hundredth birthday.

Time truly passed quickly.

A trace of bitterness, helplessness, and melancholy appeared on his face.

It had been a hundred years—an entire century since he had transmigrated into this world.

From the moment it was discovered that he possessed a Dual Spirit Root, he had been regarded as the Lineage's hope, and all manner of cultivation resources within the Lineage had been supplied to him first.

And back then, he had not disappointed his clansmen.

At ten years old, he had successfully drawn qi into his body and become a Qi Refining Level One cultivator.

By his thirties, he had already reached the peak of Qi Refining.

When he was forty, bearing the hopes of all his clansmen and carrying a Foundation Establishment Pill that the Lineage had spent enormous resources to obtain for him, he began attempting Foundation Establishment.

Yet it was from that very moment that his forward steps came to a halt.

Two years later, his Foundation Establishment attempt failed.

Fortunately, his foundation was solid. Although he had failed at Foundation Establishment, the Foundation Establishment Pill had prevented his foundation from being damaged. He still had another chance to attempt Foundation Establishment, and his odds of success remained far from small.

Thus, ten years later.

After the entire Ji Family's collective assessment, and with Old Ancestor Ji Bochang making the final decision, the Ji Family had nearly emptied more than half its resources to obtain a second Foundation Establishment Pill. Once again, it fell into Ji Haoyuan's hands.

By then, the Ji Family's circumstances had already become quite difficult.

Especially after their Old Ancestor, Ji Bochang, returned severely injured from an outing, his lifespan had been gravely damaged.

Though he had originally been in his prime and could have lived for another hundred-odd years, he now had only fifty or sixty years left.

This caused some of the Ji Family's businesses and influence to shrink invisibly.

Along with them, the Lineage's income and the resources distributed to its members were likewise reduced.

Unless the Ji Family could produce a second Foundation Establishment cultivator.

Only then could all of this begin to improve again.

It could be said that Ji Haoyuan's Foundation Establishment attempt concerned the rise, decline, survival, and extinction of the entire Ji Family.

For after this attempt, the Ji Family no longer had the means to seek a third Foundation Establishment Pill.

Should he fail, only one outcome awaited the Ji Family: in the near future, they would be kicked out of the ranks of Nanning Prefecture's three great Foundation Establishment Families.

What would happen then was something anyone with eyes could foresee.

Those who had once held grudges against the Ji Family, and even those who had not, would swarm toward them like sharks that had caught the scent of blood, until they devoured the Ji Family whole.

Yet, whether because the pressure Ji Haoyuan bore this time had been too great or for some other reason, with every clansman waiting in desperate anticipation, his Foundation Establishment attempt failed once more.

Ji Haoyuan still remembered the heartbroken, despairing gazes of the Elders and clansmen after he emerged from seclusion, as well as Old Ancestor Ji Bochang's helpless, disappointed sigh.

Now, exactly fifty years had passed since that day.

For fifty years.

Ji Haoyuan had continuously worked for the Lineage, using it to repay the debts he owed within it.

And throughout that process, he had increasingly felt that as Old Ancestor Ji Bochang's lifespan drew near its end, the Ji Family's position throughout Nanning Prefecture was becoming more and more difficult.

Compared to fifty years ago, the entire Lineage's businesses and influence had undoubtedly shrunk by more than half again.

At present, they had only one market district left under their name, along with scattered businesses spread throughout other places.

Even the Ji Family's Tier 1 high-grade Fire-element Spirit Vein on Taiping Mountain had been bought at a low price by the Zhang Family, one of Nanning Prefecture's three great Foundation Establishment Families.

One had to know that a Fire-element Spirit Vein was an outstanding place for alchemy, artifact forging, and cultivators who practiced fire-attribute cultivation arts.

Although it was only Tier 1 high-grade, its value was equivalent to half of an ordinary Tier 2 low-grade Spiritual Vein.

Bitterness once more curled across Ji Haoyuan's lips.

He knew that the Ji Family did not actually have much time left.

As far as he knew, the Lineage had begun secretly sending people down the mountain in batches many years ago.

Their purpose was naturally to leave behind a spark of fire and a thread of hope for the Ji Family.

But Ji Haoyuan, who had drifted through the Cultivation World for nearly a hundred years, understood very clearly that once those people descended the mountain, they would fall from disciples of a cultivation family into Rogue Cultivators in an instant.

And for Rogue Cultivators to survive in this Cultivation World, where the strong devoured the weak and every step required bitter struggle just to stay alive, was an extraordinarily difficult thing.

Their hope and likelihood of rising again were countless times slimmer than winning five million in the lottery of his previous life.

But there was no helping it.

No matter how low that probability was, even the slightest thread of hope was better than having nothing at all, better than seeing nothing at all.

As these thoughts ran through his mind, a trace of resolve gradually surfaced on Ji Haoyuan's aged face.

Rather than continue dragging out a wretched existence through the time he had left, he might as well give it one final fight while he still could.

Yes, he intended to make one last attempt at Foundation Establishment.

Though he himself knew that, at his current age, with his qi and blood declining by the day, gambling on that threadbare chance of Foundation Establishment was no different from seeking death.

But so what?

Having lived to this age, having gone through such towering highs and crushing lows, having witnessed all the warmth and coldness of human affairs, what was there left that he could not let go of?

Perhaps ending the rest of his life in such a manner would not be a bad kind of release.

With that thought, Ji Haoyuan slowly rose to his feet.

At that moment, the moonlight slipped behind the clouds.

Silently, midnight arrived.

And at that very instant, Ji Haoyuan seemed to hear a voice in his ears.

"Achievement: One Hundred Years of Age unlocked. Drawing your unique talent now.

Drawing talent...

Congratulations. You have obtained Max-Level Comprehension."

In that instant, Ji Haoyuan felt as though his consciousness had been raised without limit.

All kinds of insights, ones he had experienced before and ones he had never possessed, surged into his heart in one great rush.

Especially the reasons why his previous two Foundation Establishment attempts had failed—under his present state, they became as clear as the lines on his palm.

So that was it. This fire-attribute cultivation art possessed by our Ji Family, the Blazing Fire True Art, actually had so many omissions.

Especially when it came to condensing Liquid Mana, it lacked the most crucial step: a spiritual material called a Water Brilliance Crystal was needed to temper the most violent and blazing portion of the art.

Otherwise, it would be impossible to truly control that violent, scorching mana, resulting in failure to condense the mana into liquid.

No wonder the Ji Family had never had anyone successfully break through to Foundation Establishment with the Blazing Fire True Art.

Of course.

That might also be because the Blazing Fire True Art was not the Ji Family's lineage-defending cultivation art, the Azure Wood Longevity Art.

Not many people cultivated it in the first place.

And even those who did mostly cultivated it in order to pursue the path of alchemy or artifact forging.

Furthermore, the previous Clan Leader had only acquired it by chance while traveling outside.

It had not been stored within the Ji Family for long to begin with.

It was hardly strange that no one had truly discovered or noticed the flaws in this cultivation art.

After understanding the situation, another thought could not help arising in Ji Haoyuan's mind.

Could I revise this cultivation art now, turning it into the art most suited for my current breakthrough to Foundation Establishment?

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