Of course, eating and drinking were no longer daily necessities for cultivators. Through internal cultivation, they possessed powerful control over their physical bodies and could regulate the expenditure of what they consumed to the greatest extent.
Yet their spirits and cultivation still ultimately depended on the flesh. Unless they could transcend the physical body, the body needed continual nourishment to survive. Otherwise, once the body perished, their spirit and cultivation would also collapse, and the person would vanish with it.
That was why breaking through to the Nascent Soul Realm was every cultivator's dream. The Nascent Soul Realm transcended the shackles of the flesh—it was what people called immortality.
An infant symbolized new life. A Nascent Soul, as its name implied, was an original rebirth. The Nascent Soul Realm was another realm of original rebirth.
In this new realm, a body that had transcended ordinary flesh and blood could bear far greater cultivation.
It was a realm countless cultivators dreamed of, but reality was cruel. Those standing high above, holding the right to speak, did not wish to share it with others. For those who came later, climbing to the summit was difficult.
Perhaps the places their group passed through had already been swept clean once by Misty Pavilion's people. Niu Youdao and the others gained little.
Everyone had already spread out and advanced separately, still basically grouped according to their respective sects. Their search and hunting range centered on Niu Youdao, and their meeting point lay ahead—the next rendezvous and assembly point Niu Youdao had designated on the map.
In an open, deathly silent marsh, mist drifted faintly through the air. Three figures moved through it.
Niu Youdao led the two from Purple Gold Cave onward at an unhurried pace. When they came upon a hill in the marsh,