Chen Ganliu had never imagined that he would live into his eighties, withered in qi and essence before breathing his last—only to return to the age of six. He let his brush fall, felt mildly dissatisfied, casually put away the talisman he had drawn, then reached toward the desk. His hand closed on empty air, and he let out a soft sigh.
As a bastard son of the Chen Household, he received only half a sheet of yellow paper each month. He had no ink, paper, or brushes to waste.
With no yellow paper left, he could no longer draw talismans with brush and ink. Chen Ganliu braced a hand against the desk, gathered his focus, and continued practicing talisman arts, replacing the brush with his will and the yellow paper with air.
In his previous life, Chen Ganliu had only just transmigrated when he hurriedly revealed his talent for study. His reputation soon spread throughout the countryside, earning him the name of child prodigy.
This life, however, he was not so impatient, nor did he plan to seek fame through literature. More than three years after his rebirth, he had merely kept his head down and cultivated.
A mortal body could not withstand the washing of spiritual qi. When one first began cultivating qi, there was a daily limit. If one exceeded the body's capacity and suffered hidden damage, it would instead cause great harm to one's cultivation. That was why Chen Ganliu occasionally practiced talisman arts, so he would not let his time go to waste.
But his brush and ink were often in short supply. Even when practicing talisman arts, he could never give it his all.
The talisman art he studied was called the Twelve Talismans of the Profound Gate. It was an introductory transmission of the Immortal Encounter Sect's outer sect, divided into twelve formulas: Thunder, Fire, Prohibition, Binding, Restraint, Defense, Mountain, Lightness, Shock, Concealment, Gathering, and Illusion. It was the ordinary cultivator's art for protecting the body, driving away ghosts, and warding off demons when entering the mountains to cultivate.
The first—and only—master Chen Ganliu had taken in his previous life, Daoist Five Willows, had come from the Jade Mountain Sect, which was also a separate transmission of the Immortal Encounter Sect. That was why he had passed this talisman art on to him.
In his previous life, Chen Ganliu had spent more than fifty years painstakingly drawing talismans. He could be considered a grandmaster of talisman arts, and it was the only skill he had been able to truly show for himself. Had he not devoted most of his energy to refining qi, leaving little time for talisman arts, his achievements would have gone even further.
His senior sister-in-law had at least once been a Golden Core Great Cultivator. When she married into the family, she had brought seven or eight servants and maids with her. No matter how frugally they lived, their monthly expenses remained considerable. Chen Ganliu had relied on this talisman art to support the entire family.
In those days, he had even composed a poem: "Three months of talisman writing leaves the brush bald—how could this master not be poor? At Blazing Light Cave beneath the twin clouds, there must be someone willing to bend his back."
Drawing talismans purely with the mind and spirit consumed an enormous amount of mental energy.
Completing a single talisman took a full incense stick of time.
This was not a technique for someone just starting out. He had only been able to complete it with difficulty thanks to his more than fifty years of experience drawing talismans in his previous life.
Chen Ganliu felt slightly weary and sighed softly as well. He muttered to himself, "Three years!"
"I wonder how much longer it will take before I can begin refining qi."
To be honest, after living another life, if he had been given a choice, he would have preferred to return to Earth.
After all, he still had a daughter in that world.
Although he had lived more than eighty years in this world, there was almost nothing worth remembering. He had left home as a young man, then gone off to cultivate in middle age. Though his old wife had depended on him for her livelihood, there had always been an unspoken distance between them—they were merely acquaintances. He had never had anyone truly worth longing for.
Alone and solitary, cut off and by himself, without support or reliance—an utterly forsaken man.
Still, being given another life was not without its advantages.
In his previous life, although he had encountered Immortal Master Five Willows in his youth, the Immortal Master had found his aptitude ordinary and refused to take him as a disciple. He had only passed on talisman arts to him. Talisman arts were merely minor techniques, suitable only as assistance and never enough to advance one's cultivation.
By the time he gained the opportunity to join the Immortal Encounter Sect, he was already old and had missed the best time to enter the Dao. He had wasted much time and taken many winding detours, lamenting the years squandered. As a Servant Disciple, he had never received the Immortal Encounter Sect's true transmission and could not learn any superior cultivation arts. After twenty years of bitter cultivation, he had only reached the Second Layer of Qi Condensation, Boiling Liquid into Qi.
This life, however, was different.
His senior sister-in-law had failed in her attempt to reach the Spirit Embryo Realm. After marrying him, she had left the Immortal Encounter Sect and established an outer-sect family.
According to the sect's rules, disciples below the Spirit Embryo Realm who left the sect could not pass on the Dao arts they had cultivated to their children and grandchildren. They could only choose two Qi Refining arts and use them to establish their family's foundation.
His senior sister-in-law had once been a peak Golden Core Realm cultivator, and her status had been extraordinary. The two arts she had chosen—the Azure Emperor Jia Yi Art and the Geng Metal Qi Refining Art—were both top-grade arts at the Qi Refining level, a hundred times more profound than the Six Harmonies Qi Refining Method Chen Ganliu had primarily cultivated in his previous life.
The Azure Emperor Jia Yi Art in particular was one of the Immortal Encounter Sect's three sect-guarding arts, pointing directly to the Great Dao of True Yang!
His senior sister-in-law herself had entered the Dao by cultivating this art. She knew not only the arts of the Qi Refining Realm and Golden Core Realm, but had even mastered the cultivation methods beyond the Spirit Embryo Realm.
Although the two of them had barely spoken before becoming Dao companions, and their feelings had remained exceedingly faint even after marriage, they had still been husband and wife. His senior sister-in-law had exploited a loophole in the sect's rules and secretly passed the complete art on to him.
After cultivating anew in both lives, Chen Ganliu naturally would not choose the Six Harmonies Qi Refining Art again. It was the art cultivated by the Immortal Encounter Sect's Servant Disciples. Apart from being easy to begin with, its only advantage was that it was moderate and balanced, making deviation into qi deviation extremely rare.
For these three years, he had devoted all his efforts to the Azure Emperor Jia Yi Art.
Chen Ganliu believed that by cultivating the Immortal Encounter Sect's superior art more than forty years ahead of schedule, his future Dao Path would certainly surpass that of his previous life by who knew how much.
But after three years of lying low, he still had not soared into the heavens in a single flight, and he occasionally felt somewhat dispirited.
After resting for a short while, Chen Ganliu embraced the One and guarded his spirit, then began cultivating the Azure Emperor Jia Yi Art once more.
This time, for some unknown reason, he entered stillness with extraordinary speed. In a daze, he forgot both self and world. Before he knew it, two hours had passed. First, a chill arose in his heart. His dantian was boiling as though steamed, while a faint warmth spread along his spine, throbbing without end. A strand of vigorous life force, like spring sprouting, flowers first blooming, and myriad trees budding, emerged from nothing and gradually took shape.
Another half hour passed. Chen Ganliu opened his eyes and felt vitality flooding his entire body. Even his mind had become much clearer. It was precisely the sign that the Golden Essence Jade Liquid of the first Qi Refining layer had begun to form.
His hands, still holding the hand seal, trembled. His emotions surged, and he vaguely remembered that in his previous life, he had cultivated the Six Harmonies Qi Refining Art, famous for its easy entry. It had taken him seven years and nine months to refine a thread of true qi and step onto the path of cultivation. The Immortal Encounter Sect had judged his aptitude dull and deemed him incapable of achievement.
In his previous life, after marrying his senior sister-in-law, he had bitterly cultivated the Azure Emperor Jia Yi Art for more than forty years, yet had never entered the first layer before his death.
Feeling the cultivation that had just been born within him, Chen Ganliu had thought he would be wild with joy. Yet, unexpectedly, his heart was utterly calm. Only a surge of vicissitude welled up within him as he murmured, "So this is the first Qi Refining layer? I've entered the Dao already?"
Even the first Qi Refining layer set one apart from ordinary mortals.
From this day onward, he could call himself a Qi Cultivator. He was no longer a man of the secular world.
The first chapter had been revised fifty or sixty times over, all to find that thread of subtle profundity and establish the tone for the entire book...
It had only been finalized a few hours before uploading.
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