Eight Years

Cultivation knew no years; cold and heat gave no measure of time.

In the blink of an eye, Zhou Yang had already guarded the spirit vein at Haoyang Cave for eight years.

After eight years of arduous cultivation, his cultivation had successfully advanced another layer, reaching Qi Refining Layer Eight. He was only one step away from Qi Refining Layer Nine.

Eight years was neither long nor short for a Qi Refining cultivator.

For Zhou Yang, eight years had merely raised his cultivation from Qi Refining Layer Seven to Qi Refining Layer Eight. Yet for the entire Zhou Lineage, the changes over those eight years had been enormous.

First, Elder Zhou Quan and Elder Zhou Dan, who had guarded the Haoyang Cave spirit vein alongside Zhou Yang, had successively passed away in meditation. Both elders had already neared the lifespan limit of Qi Refining cultivators, and they had suffered internal injuries in their battle against the Poison Fire Scorpion King. Not long after the battle, they passed away one after the other.

Since they cultivated in the same spiritual land, Zhou Yang had personally watched as the lives of those two elders slowly approached their end.

Watching their mana dissipate overnight, their once rosy and healthy faces instantly crease with wrinkles, and all their white hair and teeth fall away, left Zhou Yang deeply shaken.

He had thought that, having lived two lives, he would face life and death with far greater composure. Yet after personally seeing two elders of great mana, who had been chatting and laughing with him the day before, die of exhausted lifespans after a single night, he was afraid!

Great Power Resides Within Oneself for cultivators. Even bare-handed, a Ninth Layer Qi Refining Cultivator could easily slaughter an army of over ten thousand mortals.

But once their lifespan ran out, they were no different from ordinary mortals. In the end, none could withstand the power called "time."

Without achieving Foundation Establishment, the lifespan limit of a Qi Refining cultivator was one hundred and twenty years. Without attaining immortality, even Golden Core Ancestors with lifespans of a thousand years would one day pass away in meditation!

Immortality!

Immortality!

Immortality!

It was after witnessing the two elders of his Lineage reach the end of their lives and pass away in meditation that Zhou Yang's yearning for those two words, "immortality," grew stronger than ever before.

He wanted eternal life and eternal youth. He did not want to one day become like those two elders, to see a century of cultivation scatter in a single morning and die helplessly amid endless unwillingness and regret.

He knew what the two elders had regretted in the end.

Elder Zhou Quan and Elder Zhou Dan had both once had the chance to attempt Foundation Establishment. Yet both had feared the terrifyingly high chance of failure and death. Neither had possessed the courage to take that step, severing their own paths to immortality.

Perhaps before passing away in meditation, the two elders would not have believed their earlier choices were wrong. After all, compared to the countless cultivators who died before the Foundation Establishment threshold in their fifties or sixties, they had at least lived nearly twice as long.

But at the moment their lifespans ended and they passed away in meditation, the two elders must have regretted it. Those unwilling, regretful looks in their final moments told Zhou Yang that they regretted it!

Zhou Yang did not want regret!

He did not want to one day pass away like those two elders, amid endless unwillingness and regret.

Thus, he made up his mind then and there. So long as he still had a chance in this life to advance further in cultivation, no matter how difficult or dangerous the road ahead might be, he would never abandon that chance.

It was precisely this unwavering faith of pressing forward without hesitation that made his journey from Qi Refining Layer Seven to Qi Refining Layer Eight smooth all the way through. He broke through in less than five years, and after another three years, he reached the peak of Qi Refining Layer Eight, only one step from Qi Refining Layer Nine.

Of course, Zhou Yang's rapid cultivation progress was not solely due to his own efforts and the Haoyang Cave spirit vein being especially compatible with him. It was also related to the pills his father, Zhou Xuanhao, had given him before leaving.

Before Zhou Xuanhao departed, he had specifically called Zhou Yang aside and given him three different Tier 2 High-grade Spirit Pills. The effect of taking one pill of each kind was equivalent to half a year of his own meditative cultivation, and over those eight years, he had taken twelve pills.

Come to think of it, this was the first time Zhou Yang had used pills so frequently to raise his cultivation.

Before this, he had always followed the instructions of his father and the Old Clan Leader: unless he had reached the final critical moment before a breakthrough, he would never use the power of pills to increase his cultivation.

This was because although pills could greatly increase a cultivator's mana and cultivation, they also left behind "pill toxins" within the cultivator's body. If these "pill toxins" accumulated excessively and were not dispersed in time, they would not only fill a cultivator's mana with impurities and affect future breakthroughs, but also damage the cultivator's body and reduce their lifespan.

For Qi Refining cultivators, the harm of "pill toxins" was especially severe. If one consumed too many spirit pills to raise cultivation before Foundation Establishment and could not disperse the "pill toxins" in time, even taking a Foundation Establishment Pill later to attempt Foundation Establishment would greatly reduce the chance of success.

Therefore, in the Cultivation World, the elders of those cultivation sects or Cultivation Families with inheritances would explain the dangers of "pill toxins" clearly to their juniors from an early age. They also strictly controlled the distribution of pills, lest someone be unable to resist the temptation of rapid cultivation growth and take desperate risks.

Only Rogue Cultivators who lacked reminders from teachers and elders yet happened to come into wealth would happily purchase large quantities of spirit pills to increase their cultivation without knowing the dangers of "pill toxins," believing this would let them catch up with cultivation geniuses more talented than themselves.

Little did they know that the moment they took that step, they had already completely lost any hope of catching up to others.

Zhou Yang had taken very few spirit pills in the past, and the tiny amount of "pill toxins" in his body had long since been completely refined away through years of arduous cultivation. That was why Zhou Xuanhao had dared to let him take those spirit pills without worry.

Unfortunately, even so, his repeated pill consumption over the past eight years had accumulated quite a bit of "pill toxin," causing a cultivation barrier to emerge. He would be unable to break through to Qi Refining Layer Nine anytime soon.

However, according to Zhou Yang's own calculations, this amount of "pill toxin" would not be enough to affect his future Dao Path. So long as he refrained from taking such cultivation-boosting spirit pills for the next eight or ten years, the traces of pill toxin remaining in his body would naturally be washed away when the spiritual qi of heaven and earth poured into his body after he achieved Foundation Establishment.

"Eight years have passed. This Earth Origin Spirit Milk should be about to condense. I wonder what Father has decided!"

Inside Haoyang Cave, Zhou Yang looked at the pale-yellow stalactite pillar within the stone chamber with a complicated gaze, his heart equally complicated.

The pale-yellow stalactite pillar was like a piece of finest jade, smooth and lustrous as it emitted a faint radiance. Having stayed here day and night, Zhou Yang could clearly sense a familiar energy gathering and strengthening within the pillar. He was no stranger to that energy—it was the Earth Vein Spiritual Qi he had once absorbed.

According to the records concerning Earth Origin Spirit Milk that he had read over the years in the Record of Heavenly Treasures given to him by his father, Zhou Xuanhao, once the Earth Vein Spiritual Qi within the stalactite pillar gathered and strengthened to a certain point, Earth Origin Spirit Milk would seep from the surface of the pillar.

Besides the effects the Old Clan Leader had mentioned before, this Earth Origin Spirit Milk was also a rare spiritual treasure that enhanced the cultivation of demonic beasts. The reason the Poison Fire Scorpion King had likely become a Third-Rank Demonic Beast was because it had swallowed a great quantity of Earth Origin Spirit Milk.

Zhou Yang had once been unsure whether he should urge his father, Zhou Xuanhao, to consume Earth Origin Spirit Milk and attempt Foundation Establishment. But after witnessing the two Zhou elders reach the ends of their lives and pass away in meditation, he now hoped his father would take the risk and gamble on it.

Of course, as a son, even if he harbored such thoughts, he certainly would not speak them aloud. He could only secretly hope that his father would come to understand.

"I wonder how Second Uncle and the others are doing with building the oasis. Since my cultivation cannot break through anyway, I'll spend the coming days cultivating the Artifact Forging Art while helping them build the oasis!"

Letting go of his worries over Zhou Xuanhao's Foundation Establishment, Zhou Yang's heart stirred. Having been still for so long, he began to feel the urge to move.

Over these years, although three elders of the Zhou Lineage's "Guang" generation—Zhou Qian, Zhou Quan, and Zhou Dan—had successively passed away,

Zhou Xuantai, Zhou Xuanbin, Zhou Xuanlin, and Zhou Xuanyan of the "Xuan" generation had also successively broken through to Qi Refining Layer Nine and taken over the elder positions left by the three deceased "Guang" generation cultivators. Thus, the number of Zhou elders had not decreased but increased, reaching nine.

While Zhou Yang had been in secluded cultivation, the Zhou elders had also surveyed the reserves of the Crimson Flame Iron Ore Vein near the Haoyang Cave spirit vein. This ore vein was unexpectedly a relatively rare large-scale vein!

This discovery had filled the Zhou cultivators who knew the details with boundless delight. If the Zhou Lineage had not currently lacked a Foundation Establishment Cultivator capable of guarding the Haoyang Cave spirit vein, the Old Clan Leader would likely have immediately organized a large workforce to develop the ore vein.

Even so, after deliberation among the Zhou elders, the Lineage successively relocated several thousand mortals from the Jade Spring Lake Oasis to the area around the Haoyang Cave spirit vein, where they constructed a huge earthen city aboveground for the mortals to live in.

Naturally, the public explanation was that these people had relocated to the Qingping Mountain Oasis, and that the Zhou Lineage intended to increase its Fine Iron Ore mining efforts.

With the arrival of several thousand mortals, the Haoyang Cave spirit vein finally gained a little human presence. Then, with the help of the two newly promoted elders, Zhou Xuantai and Zhou Xuanyan, the Zhou mortals and cultivators worked together to divert water from the underground river into a desert depression, artificially creating a desert lake several hundred square meters in size.

After creating the lake, Zhou Xuantai and the others organized the Zhou mortals to carry water on their shoulders and in their hands, watering the sandy ground to cultivate drought-resistant plants. They then cast growth-accelerating spells upon those ordinary plants.

It was worth mentioning that ordinary plants accelerated by cultivators' spells could not survive for long, and the fruits and grains borne by such magically accelerated plants could not be eaten by mortals.

However, after those accelerated plants withered and died, they could be used to enrich the soil.

After years of experiments and accumulated experience, the cultivators of the Boundless Sea of Sand had long developed a complete oasis-building plan. So long as the geographical conditions were suitable and one was willing to invest sufficient manpower and resources, turning desert into oasis was not mere fantasy.

Now that Zhou Yang felt the urge to move after being still for so long, he immediately left the stone chamber where he had been cultivating in seclusion. Outside the chamber, in the empty underground stone cavern, only his Fifth Uncle, Zhou Xuanbin, who was guarding him, sat there meditating with his eyes closed.

Of the four Zhou cultivators at Haoyang Cave, aside from Zhou Yang, the other three had already reached Qi Refining Layer Nine, and their mana could not increase by even the slightest bit further.

Thus, in order not to disturb Zhou Yang's cultivation, they normally cultivated in the outer caverns, and every day they took turns assigning one person to guard Zhou Yang while he cultivated in seclusion.

No one else in the entire Zhou Lineage received such treatment besides Zhou Yang.

Because of this, Zhou Yang felt an immense weight of pressure. He knew that only by successfully achieving Foundation Establishment could he live up to the efforts of these elders of the Lineage.

First, thank you to reader Past Events Follow Fate for the 100 Qidian Coins reward. Then, regarding how this chapter was written: originally, I should have described the scenes before the two Zhou elders passed away in meditation, but I was afraid someone would say I was padding the word count, so I only touched on it briefly here. Later, I will write about it using flashbacks. Finally, please vote with recommendation tickets, join the new book investment group, and send rewards!