The candle in the room had long since burned out, leaving only a wisp of smoke curling through the gloom.
Chen Ping sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion, eyes tightly shut. He had held the Five Hearts Facing Heaven posture for three full days.
His breathing was faint, and following the obscure chant of the Everlasting Spring Technique, he tried to capture that wisp of "qi" drifting between heaven and earth.
Yet nothing happened.
All around him was silence. Aside from the piercing numb ache in his legs from poor circulation, his Dantian remained utterly empty.
Chen Ping slowly opened his eyes, their whites webbed with blood vessels. He summoned the panel, and the line of text glared back at him:
[Cultivation Technique: Everlasting Spring Technique (Not Started 1/10000)]
"Three days of sitting in meditation, and I only gained one proficiency point..."
Chen Ping tugged at the corner of his mouth, his expression bitter.
At this rate, it would take thirty years of sitting without sleep or rest just to get started.
He rose and worked the stiffness from his joints. His bones cracked like popping beans.
He went to the window, opened it a crack, and gazed at the bustling yet filthy mortal county town. Suddenly, everything became clear.
To cultivators, this mortal world was a desert barren of spiritual energy.
Without water, no matter how hard a fish thrashed its tail, it could only wait to die on a dried-up riverbed.
"If heaven and earth won't provide it, then I'll have to rely on this."
Chen Ping reached into the concealed pocket against his chest and took out the Low-Grade Spirit Stone Ye Muqing had given him.
The gloomy room seemed to brighten with a faint lamp.
The Spirit Stone rested in his palm, radiating a soft, milky-white glow. Even before he began absorbing it, simply holding it brought a soothing coolness that eased his mind.
It was his only lifeline, and the stepping-stone that would knock open the gate to immortality.
"If even this is useless..."
Chen Ping suppressed the anxiety in his heart, sat cross-legged again, gripped the Spirit Stone tightly in both hands, and resumed reciting the Everlasting Spring Technique.
This time, everything was different.
The moment he began circulating the chant, a powerful, irresistible coolness surged from his palm.
It felt as if a parched, cracked earth had suddenly been blessed with sweet rain.
The cool current poured wildly through his Laogong acupoint, forcing its way through his dry, blocked Meridians.
The numbers on the panel began to race.
[Everlasting Spring Technique Proficiency +1] [Everlasting Spring Technique Proficiency +1] ...
Chen Ping had never experienced anything like it. If practicing martial arts was laying bricks to build a wall, then cultivating immortality was riding the wind with a sword.
Every pore was cheering, and every inch of flesh greedily devoured the energy.
The ecstasy of ascending to a higher level of life surpassed every pleasure in the world. It drew him in, making him never want to wake.
Who knew how long had passed? Outside, the sky shifted from pitch black to the pale white of dawn.
Chen Ping felt a tremor in his Dantian, as if something had been broken through.
The cool current coursing through his body converged like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea. At last, it gathered in the center of his Dantian and condensed into a thread—fine and weak, yet undeniably real: magical power.
It was only as thick as a strand of hair, with a faint blue-green sheen, but it stubbornly swam through his Dantian, brimming with vitality.
Chen Ping's eyes flew open. A flash of light streaked through his pupils, and the dust motes in the room came into sharp focus.
[Realm: Qi Refining, First Layer (1%)] [Cultivation Technique: Everlasting Spring Technique (Initiated 1/100)]
He had done it!
He lowered his head and looked at the Spirit Stone in his hand.
The once-crystal-clear stone had lost half its luster, and fine cracks had appeared across its surface.
Just one night had consumed half its spiritual power.
Cultivation really was a bottomless money pit.
But the rewards were astounding.
With the birth of that thread of magical power, Chen Ping sensed a few wondrous changes in his body.
The Longevity of Pine and Crane force, which had reached a bottleneck, began circulating on its own, forming a strange resonance with the thread of Everlasting Spring Magical Power.
The panel refreshed:
[Lifespan: 20/120]
"One hundred and twenty years..."
Chen Ping stared at the number, his heart pounding.
A mortal who lived to seventy was considered long-lived, yet he now had two whole centuries to his name!
That wasn't all. When he closed his eyes, it was as if a veil had been lifted from the world around him.
In the courtyard, he could clearly hear a cricket rubbing its wings in the grass.
In the side room next door, he could hear Yun Niang's faint, steady breathing, even the rustle of her bedding as she turned over.
His range of perception had doubled!
Was this how the world appeared to cultivators?
Chen Ping held down his wild excitement and turned his gaze to the final page of the incomplete Everlasting Spring Technique.
There, he found a minor spell that required no hand seals, only the impetus of magical power: the Flicking Finger Technique.
"Let's see what it can do."
He went to the corner of the study, where a hardwood post used for martial training stood.
Chen Ping channeled the pitiful thread of magical power in his Dantian, guiding it to the index finger of his right hand.
His fingertip immediately began to swell, as if a needle were about to burst through his skin.
"Go!"
He flicked his finger.
"Pop!"
A short, sharp crack exploded through the air, like a firecracker going off beside his ear.
Three meters away, a finger-sized hole had appeared in the hardwood post. Wood chips flew, and the area around the hole was charred black, carbonized by the heat.
Chen Ping's eyelid twitched.
That was more terrifying than the pistols of his previous life!
If it hit someone, it could pierce straight through even iron armor.
But the next second, an intense wave of weakness washed over him. His legs gave way, and he nearly collapsed to the floor.
The blue-green thread of magical power he had worked so hard to gather in his Dantian had vanished without a trace. Not a drop remained.
"One strike..."
Chen Ping braced himself against the edge of the table and gasped for breath. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
"One strike was all it took to drain every last bit of my magical power."
That was the awkwardness of a low-level cultivator: wielding a cannon, but having only one cannonball.
He instinctively picked up the dimmed Spirit Stone, hoping to restore his magical power.
But the moment he tried to absorb it, the Spirit Stone, already riddled with cracks, gave a sharp "crack" and crumbled into a heap of gray-white powder in his palm. It sifted through his fingers and scattered to the floor.
Chen Ping froze, staring at the stone dust on the floor as the bold confidence that had just risen in him evaporated.
The Spirit Stone was spent.
In this mortal world, where spiritual energy was thin, restoring that thread of magical power through meditation alone would probably take ten days or half a month.
And continuing to cultivate and advance was nothing but a pipe dream.
"The road's cut off."
Chen Ping slumped into a chair and looked at the rising sun outside. His gaze had grown clear, and cold.
The resources of the mortal world could not sustain a cultivator.
Even as a Tanhua in the Imperial Military Examination, even with a household worth a fortune, he could not buy so much as a speck of spiritual energy here.
If he wanted to grow stronger, if he wanted immortality, he had to leave this place and seek the Cultivation World Ye Muqing had told him about.
"Creak—"
The door opened softly.
Yun Niang walked in carrying a tray, with a steaming bowl of old hen soup on it.
"Pinglang, you've been in there for three days..."
When Yun Niang saw Chen Ping's face, pale as paper, and the cold sweat on his brow, the tray in her hands trembled. Her eyes immediately reddened.
She hurried over and set down the soup, then pulled out a handkerchief and tenderly wiped his face.
"How can you practice like this? You'll ruin your health. I'm not asking you to become an immortal or an ancestor. Our life is already good enough..."
As she spoke, her tears began falling like beads from a snapped string.
Chen Ping put away the coldness in his eyes and let her wipe his face. Then he took her warm hand in his and gently rubbed the calluses on her palm.
"I'm fine. I'm just a little tired."
Chen Ping's voice was gentle, as reassuring and steady as ever.
He lifted the soup and drained it in one go. Warmth slid down his throat and into his stomach, easing some of the emptiness in his body.
As he watched Yun Niang bustle around, draping a robe over his shoulders and tidying the disordered study, deep sorrow lay hidden behind the tenderness in his eyes.
He had a hundred and twenty years to live, and perhaps even more in the future.
But what about Yun Niang?
No matter how well-fed and finely dressed a mortal was, life still passed in a fleeting hundred years.
In a few decades, she would grow old, her hair would turn completely white, and she would finally become a mound of yellow earth, while he remained young.
Just imagining it left Chen Ping struggling to breathe.
"I have to find a way to extend a mortal's lifespan, or a way to grant someone a Spiritual Root."
Chen Ping swore it silently to himself.
"By the way, Pinglang."
After tidying up the stone dust on the floor, Yun Niang said worriedly,
"When I went to buy vegetables this morning, I heard the neighbors say there was news from the county office. Jin Zhenshan of the Iron Palm Martial Hall has been acting strangely lately."
Chen Ping's gaze sharpened. "What do you mean?"
"They say Jin Zhenshan has been hosting those desperadoes from the martial world at the Drunken Immortal Pavilion these past few days. Even people from Black Wind Stronghold outside the city have come in. Everyone says Master Jin is planning something big. It seems things are about to get rough."
Yun Niang was full of worry.
At her words, Chen Ping narrowed his eyes slightly and tapped his fingers lightly on the table.
Jin Zhenshan.
The name was like a thorn buried in his heart.
The murder of his son was a blood debt beyond reconciliation.
Jin Zhenshan had held back from acting because he feared the authorities, and the County Magistrate who had kept him in check.
But now the old dog couldn't sit still. He was even joining forces with desperadoes. Was he planning to sink both ships, or had he found some new backing?
Chen Ping rose and walked to the window.
The rising sun fell across his face, but its light could not reach the abyss in his eyes.
Now that he had caught his first glimpse of cultivation, and had decided to leave the mortal world in search of an immortal opportunity, there were some hidden threats he had to uproot before he left.
He couldn't leave anything filthy behind at home.
"Don't be afraid."
Chen Ping turned and gave Yun Niang a warm smile. His tone was as casual as if he were discussing what to eat for dinner.
"They're just a few grasshoppers hopping around in autumn. They won't be bouncing for much longer."
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