The Matter is Discovered, Three Essences Gathered

"That stinky fish seller living in the old shack to the west—been there over a month now, have you gotten the info? Is he really connected to the Luo Family somehow?"

"Brother Xu, I've checked it out. Hiss... you won't believe it, but there's actually a bit of a connection, and it's even got some weight behind it.

Rumor has it that the waist token in that Qian fellow's hand was personally given by the Luo Family's eldest miss, Lüo Bing. Sure, it's just the lowest-grade token, but still—"

"Eldest Miss Lüo is a high disciple of the Wonderful Sound Sect, with a High-grade Spiritual Root, and she's already at Qi Cultivation Eighth or Ninth Layer, right?

She did come back to the Luo Family last month, and Old Master Luo even threw a banquet. The timing lines up with that Qian guy too, tsk. Why would the eldest miss favor a mortal? What kind of fish-selling could possibly get you in with her?"

Inside a six-story pavilion in the Rogue Cultivator Zone, two men sat talking by the window. One, wearing a purple, ornate dharma robe, furrowed his brow in thought for a moment, then nodded.

"If it were just an ordinary Luo Family token, it wouldn't matter—not worth me recruiting some mere Innate Martial Artist.

But since it's tied to the eldest miss, we have to take it seriously. Go recruit him immediately, before the other factions get wind of it and beat us to it."

"Got it!"

"Also, take a Spirit Stone as a greeting gift. If he agrees to join our faction, once he becomes a cultivator, move him to better lodgings—no more living in the shantytown."

"Alright! But Brother Xu, there's one more thing. Old Lin's been found—dead. The body's in one of his wilderness hideouts by the birch forest at Lingyue Lake, rotted to pieces, but it's clear he was killed head-on."

"Dead?"

The man in the ornate robe's face darkened instantly, his gaze turning icy. He stood, looking down from the window with a frown. "Old Lin was at Qi Cultivation Second Level—low, sure, but he still had the low-grade dharma artifact I gave him and a First-Grade Level Two Golden Light Shield talisman. In this little patch of ground, only the core rogue cultivators from other factions could kill him. Who could it be?"

"Brother Xu, do you think it could be that Qian from Hutong Street? They've been at odds with us over several resource points. I heard he was preparing to break through to Qi Cultivation Sixth Level recently—maybe he already did."

Inside a simple wooden house in the shantytown.

Chen Dengming was drenched in sweat. His well-defined, layered muscles were slick with fine, oily beads of sweat rolling down.

He held an extremely bizarre posture, his True Qi constantly cycling through several pathways, causing steam to rise from his body and faint spiritual energy to ripple around him.

"Three hundred ninety-ninth time..."

After more than ten minutes, he let out a long breath. His whole body twitched with muscle spasms, and he collapsed to the ground, utterly drained. After a moment, he stood up and focused on the panel.

Innate Eighth Layer Martial Artist [Chen Dengming]
Lifespan: 82/148
Spiritual Roots: Metal, Wood (Low-grade 87/100)
Martial Arts: Chen Family Martial Arts General Outline (Mastery 29/100)
Dao Arts: Gu Refining Chapter (Proficient 0/100), Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique (Beginner 3/100)

"Hah, thirty-nine days gone. Looks like with this Spiritual Root Potential of mine, I really have to train ten times a day for ten days just to barely squeeze one point of proficiency into the Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique."

"At this rate, even in ideal conditions, I'd need over nine hundred sixty more days to reach Qi Refining First Layer. Too slow."

Chen Dengming stared at the data on the panel, sighing inwardly. He grabbed a towel hanging on a chair, wiped the sweat off his body, then picked up a brush and paper to practice calligraphy.

That's right, calligraphy.

The language of this Cultivation World was mostly the same as the Nanxun Kingdom's, with only minor dialect differences, but the script was vastly different.

Left with no choice, Chen Dengming had to start learning to read from scratch.

Luckily, though he was older, he was still an Innate Martial Artist. He might not have a photographic memory, but after a few looks, he wouldn't forget. Learning the script came quickly—within a month, he'd grasped most of the characters.

Ever since officially earning the right to live in the Rogue Cultivator Gathering Place, he'd kept a low profile, holed up in his house healing and cultivating. In his spare time, he practiced calligraphy, writing out The Art of War.

He occasionally used some Spirit Rice to build goodwill with his neighbors, picking up bits of info about the Cultivation World and the surrounding area—no point being a fool who works behind closed doors.

Maybe thanks to the Luo Family's waist token, no one had bothered him. Life was very peaceful.

That let him breathe a full sigh of relief, quietly feeling that killing that old cultivator wouldn't bring too much trouble.

But the one thing still pressing on him was his cultivation progress.

Ever since moving into the shanty, he'd started practicing the Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique.

But that Metal-restrains-Wood Spiritual Root was no joke.

Every time he managed to gather the surrounding spiritual energy, the Metal Elemental Spiritual Energy would hunt down the Wood Elemental Spiritual Energy and hack it to pieces. In the end, both sides took losses, but the Wood Elemental Spiritual Energy suffered the most.

This meant he could absorb very little spiritual energy. After over thirty days of cultivation, training the Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique ten times a day, over three hundred ninety sessions, the technique had only gained three points of proficiency.

Still, the one silver lining was that learning this cultivation art had directly extended his lifespan by ten years, pushing his Lifespan Limit to 148 years.

But at this rate, breaking through from Innate Eighth Layer to Qi Refining First Layer would still take at least two or three years—far too long.

"After Innate Eighth Layer comes Qi Refining First Layer. It's just one major realm apart, but it's the difference between mortal and immortal. In this Cultivation World, I need to become a cultivator right away to have any standing or a chance to survive."

Chen Dengming tossed the towel onto the table, brooding with some anxiety.

It wasn't that he was impatient.

Coming from the Martial World into the Cultivation World, he'd gone from a big shot in the underworld to a disposable pawn in an instant.

He'd thought he could just lie low and cultivate slowly, eventually making it through.

But after that sudden fight with the old cultivator, he realized that the tree may crave stillness, but the wind will not cease. Weakness was the greatest sin.

If he wanted peace, he had to get stronger.

"Looks like... you can't catch a wolf without risking your child. I'll have to consider practicing the Life-Damaging Seedling Pulling Technique and burning my lifespan."

Chen Dengming took a deep breath, then drank a cup of water from the room to calm his mind.

In truth, his current situation wasn't particularly dire.

Although he still didn't know how fast other cultivators with Low-grade Spiritual Roots could cultivate.

Based on his many years of experience, he could almost imagine that none of them could match his speed.

Because he possessed a cultivation panel, his mind seemed to be strengthened during training.

As long as he trained diligently, he would naturally deepen his understanding of the technique, thereby increasing its proficiency—meaning effort would always yield results.

Thus, every ten days of cultivation, his technique proficiency would increase by one point. After over nine hundred days, the technique's realm would naturally break through.

For others to have no bottlenecks or obstacles like him, where simply cultivating led to improvement, was utterly impossible.

Therefore, his cultivation speed wasn't particularly slow—he was merely unsatisfied with it.

"If I try cultivating the Life-Damaging Seedling Pulling Technique to improve my spiritual root quality, my cultivation speed will increase further. I can cautiously attempt it soon."

After encouraging himself.

Chen Dengming assumed another strange posture according to the hand seals of the Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique and continued cultivating.

In this odd posture, every muscle in his body was stretched taut, his attention highly focused. He began to tremble lightly and sweat, his Essence, Qi, and Spirit highly condensed.

After the time it takes an incense stick to burn.

Chen Dengming collapsed limply to the ground, his muscles spasming. Yet his Xiantian True Qi began to race swiftly through the secret acupoints and meridians of his body, eventually returning to his dantian, becoming purer and transitioning toward spiritual energy.

"Four hundredth time."

On the panel, the data for Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique had also changed.

"Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique (Beginner 4/100)"

As the proficiency of Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique changed, Chen Family Martial Arts General Outline also improved, its proficiency directly increasing to 30.

This technique was originally a martial arts general outline that Chen Dengming had synthesized from a hundred schools of learning.

Now that he was cultivating an immortal path technique.

From a higher vantage point, this technique was also being pushed toward complete perfection.

Perhaps one day, it would become a technique general outline perfectly suited to him, transitioning from martial arts to immortality.

Bit by bit like this, he would eventually reach the pinnacle of the immortal path.

"Bang bang—"

At that moment, the thin, crude door was knocked upon, and a soft, beautiful woman's voice suddenly came from outside.

"Young Master Chen, are you home? This Concubine has a matter to trouble you with!~"

The previous version had the character named Junyu, but the editor said it was too refined, so it was changed to Dengming. If it occasionally appears in the text, it may be a missed edit or a mistake. I'll correct it immediately. My apologies.