In the mountains, years slipped by unnoticed. Staying in a remote, uninhabited old forest, one could almost believe time wasn't passing at all.
In the blink of an eye, three months had passed.
Over those three months, the Rogue Cultivator Gathering Place had remained rife with conflict.
Unlike the Lineage disciples who could cultivate peacefully in the cities, the Rogue Cultivators were all wretched, impoverished souls with no one to care for them. They had to fight for every resource themselves.
Even a "safe place to live" had become a luxury, so competition was naturally fierce and fights broke out all the time. It was exactly as the saying went: the strong helped one another, while the weak tore one another apart.
But one thing had taken Chen Dengming by surprise.
After he'd killed someone and left that day, Golden Character Workshop and Hutong Street seemed to have suddenly made peace. On the surface, it was simply, "You killed one of ours, and I killed one of yours. We're even."
Only Qian Yuan, the boss of Hutong Street, was still hunting for Chen Dengming, wanting to flay the mortal who had made him lose face.
The fighting between the two factions seemed to have died down all at once. Instead, Chen Dengming and a few dead men had become the greatest victims.
Some of the more clear-eyed Rogue Cultivators at the Gathering Place weren't surprised in the least.
Some of the old hands had seen these "bigwigs" at work long ago.
One moment, the bigwigs would be trading threats, swearing to kill each other. After their underlings had fought until they were at each other's throats, the two sides would reach an agreement over some benefit. In the end, it was the underlings who died in vain, while the bigwigs walked away with tangible gains as always.
Clearly, a mere mortal like Chen Dengming wasn't worth keeping up the friction and fighting between Golden Character Workshop and Hutong Street.
Golden Character Workshop had provoked them in the first place because of the death of Old Lin, the cultivator.
They'd used it as an excuse to compete for resources and stir up trouble. But once Chen Dengming had killed a cultivator from Hutong Street as well, they'd known when to quit and stopped pursuing a defeated enemy.
Hutong Street had no choice but to swallow the bitter pill and accept it.
In the end, all their anger could be vented only on Chen Dengming, the mortal.
When Chen Dengming once crept near the Rogue Cultivator Gathering Place and learned what had happened, he could only smile and feel privately relieved that he'd left so quickly after killing his target.
If he'd chosen to trust Golden Character Workshop and counted on its protection to keep him safe, they might have sold him out before he even knew it.
That didn't mean Golden Character Workshop couldn't be used as a shield, though.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have deliberately written its sign and name in large letters on the wall. In truth, he'd been choosing sides on purpose—using Golden Character Workshop to draw some of the fire while testing the workshop master Xu Ning's attitude.
As things stood, he was just a mortal. Unless he became a cultivator, he'd most likely be treated as a pawn to be discarded. He could forget about making use of Golden Character Workshop.
Besides the affair between Golden Character Workshop and Hutong Street, another thing had caught Chen Dengming's attention: a bounty posted by the Lüo Family's Eldest Miss.
The bounty was for gathering materials used to refine the Golden Silkworm Gu.
It also hinted that anyone who knew what those materials were used for could go to Lüo Family Mountain City and receive an audience with the Eldest Miss.
When Chen Dengming saw the bounty, his first thought was that Lüo Bing, the Lüo Family's Eldest Miss, was looking for him and wanted him to report to Lüo Family Mountain City.
After all, Gu refinement was an obscure branch of cultivation, and few people excelled at it.
For the Eldest Miss of the Lüo Family to suddenly post such a bounty at a Rogue Cultivator Gathering Place she looked down on—it seemed like she was fishing.
And the fish was most likely Chen Dengming.
If his guess was right, then the trouble of being hunted by Qian Yuan, the boss of Hutong Street, didn't count for much at all.
Which mattered more: a poor gang boss's manhunt, or the Eldest Miss of the Lüo Family's bounty?
Qian Yuan himself would understand the difference. And if he didn't, someone would turn his head around and help him see reason.
Even so, Chen Dengming didn't rush straight to the Lüo Family.
A guess was a guess; reality was reality.
In stories, someone could sell fish and end up winning a rich woman's heart, turning his life around. But Chen Dengming's chances of winning over a wealthy young lady through Gu refinement were far from certain.
The bounty never said what sort of treatment awaited anyone who reported to the Lüo Family. Even though they knew he was being hunted, they hadn't named him or directly offered him protection. It was as if they couldn't care less if he got into trouble.
If it wasn't a windfall like someone offering a huge reward for a husband, but instead a trap baited with fried dough sticks... then he'd only be making a fool of himself.
"Even if this is a way to solve my troubles, I should wait a little longer. At the very least, I need to become a cultivator first. In this cultivation world, you have to earn the right to be respected. What a grind."
Chen Dengming made up his mind, buried himself in cultivation, and spent every day grinding away at the progress bar for the Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique.
Over these three months, aside from refining Gu to ward off Demon Beasts, he'd devoted all his time to cultivation. He sat quietly on the southern mountain, incense burning in the brazier; he spent his days serene, forgetting every worry. He neglected food and sleep as he delved into cultivation, hoping the day would come when he could rise above it all.
Today marked the ninety-eighth day since he'd left the Rogue Cultivator Gathering Place.
His progress in cultivating the first layer of the Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique had nearly reached the threshold of a breakthrough.
At that moment, outside the mountain crevice, more than a dozen Snake Gu under Chen Dengming's command were slithering about on guard.
Inside the crevice.
Chen Dengming pressed all ten fingertips to the ground, raising his seated body off the floor. Every muscle in his body tensed as the Xiantian True Qi he'd condensed inside him surged rapidly through the hidden meridians and acupoints, carried along by his will.
In this state, his body, mind, and True Qi—the three elements of Essence, Qi, and Spirit—were brought together and concentrated. This drove his True Qi to rapidly transform into spiritual energy.
He swiftly absorbed the spiritual energy in the air, drawing it into his body and merging it with his True Qi, gradually increasing its purity.
During this time, after spending another eight years of his lifespan cultivating the Life-Damaging Seedling Pulling Technique, he'd raised his Medium-grade Spiritual Root's affinity to four points.
Now that he had a Medium-grade Spiritual Root and the Life-Damaging Seedling Pulling Technique hadn't advanced, sacrificing two years of lifespan could only increase his spiritual energy affinity by one point. Eight years of lifespan could raise it by just four points.
On top of that, taking a Pure Spirit Pill could temporarily increase his spiritual energy affinity by ten points. As a result, his rate of absorbing spiritual energy was now about ten to twenty percent higher than it had been three months ago, when he'd first gained a Medium-grade Spiritual Root.
However, spiritual energy in the wilderness was much thinner than at the Rogue Cultivator Gathering Place, so his cultivation speed hadn't improved.
At the Gathering Place, after taking a Pure Spirit Pill, he could cultivate the Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique nine times a day to gain one point of proficiency.
In the wilderness, even with pills and his improved potential, he still had to cultivate the Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique twelve times a day to gain one point of proficiency.
That alone showed how important a "cultivation treasure ground" was among wealth, companions, techniques, and places.
Without one, Chen Dengming could only make up for his shortcomings through hard work. But each session of the Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique took half an hour.
Twelve sessions a day was already his limit.
If he exceeded it and didn't rest enough, his Essence, Qi, and Spirit couldn't stay balanced. His muscles might cramp, his mind might grow exhausted, and he'd have even less chance of bringing the three elements together.
As time passed, beads of sweat like grease streamed down Chen Dengming's bulging muscles. The sweat dripping to the floor had already soaked a patch of ground.
Within the eight extraordinary meridians in his body, the surrounding spiritual energy flowed into Chen Dengming's meridians in endless waves, like smoke and tide, rapidly elevating his Xiantian True Qi into spiritual energy.
The process was agonizing. His meridians felt as if they were being slashed by knives, each inch on the verge of splitting. His sweat was already streaked with blood as spiritual energy washed over him, cleansing his marrow and cutting away the old.
If he faltered even once, the surging, astonishing spiritual energy—more than his mortal body could withstand—could snap his meridians.
If that happened, not only would the breakthrough fail, but he'd also suffer severe injuries. His meridians would be damaged, making future breakthroughs even harder. That was why so many people possessed Xiantian potential, yet so few became cultivators. It wasn't only because of the limitations of their Spiritual Root Potential.
The transformation from mortal to cultivator was like a fish leaping over the Dragon Gate. It carried no small risk.
Fortunately, Chen Dengming had cultivated for years and accumulated deep reserves. His resolve was also exceptionally firm.
After the time it took an incense stick to burn, the worst passed and relief came.
All the pain turned into a soothing stream that coursed through his body. Every trace of Xiantian True Qi had been converted into spiritual energy.
At that moment, he felt as light as a swallow. Spiritual energy swirled within him, rosy light shimmered around him, and a faint spiritual might filled his body.
His spiritual body had formed!
"I'm at the Qi Refining First Layer. I've become a cultivator?"
Chen Dengming's eyes shone brightly, and he could barely contain his delight. The spiritual energy surging through him felt far more powerful than his Xiantian True Qi, and after being tempered by the spiritual energy, his body felt much stronger as well.
He felt his ability to control the spiritual energy around him leap up by more than a dozen levels.
It was as if he could simply reach out and draw in the spiritual energy around him, bending it to his will.
This sense of control seemed to be the source of the spiritual might he radiated.
Put simply, it was like an ordinary person surrounded by a dozen or so underlings. One wave of his hand, and they'd come rushing out in a great crowd—naturally, a formidable sight.
Cultivators were surrounded by spiritual energy they couldn't see but could feel, like a group of invisible underlings.
The higher a cultivator's Strength Realm, the larger the range of spiritual energy they could control, and the stronger their spiritual might. That also let them wield more powerful arts.
"This feeling... it's a little like the realm described in the Martial World records of the Nanxun Kingdom."
The Martial World records of the Nanxun Kingdom mentioned a peerless martial artist who had once seemed to break through beyond the Xiantian realm. He could control some kind of force in the air within a one-zhang radius to suppress his enemies, defeating them without even striking. It sounded like the fabled Unity of Heaven and Man, borrowing power from heaven and earth.
Now that Chen Dengming had reached this realm, he finally understood. It seemed a cultivator had once emerged from the Martial World of the Nanxun Kingdom.
It was just that spiritual energy in the Nanxun Kingdom was so scarce as to be nearly nonexistent. Even a clever housewife couldn't cook without rice. That cultivator had possessed only the appearance of spiritual might, with no spiritual energy to command.
"That person truly had heaven-defying talent. What a pity."
Chen Dengming sighed, then sprang to his feet. He furrowed his brow in thought for a moment, then abruptly curled his finger and gathered his power there, using the Finger Flick Divine Art.
"Whoosh!"
A Spiral Qi burst forth. With a bang, it blasted a deep hole through the rock wall opposite him.
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