Liu Ruyan's threat? Cut it down with one sword!
Chief Steward Wang's harassment? Cut it down with one sword!
Everyone who looked down on him, everyone who had bullied him—cut them all down with one sword!
What bliss!
What freedom!
And yet, as Zhou Xuan gazed at the immortal sword radiating endless temptation, he still didn't reach out.
He felt he couldn't do it.
Whether he was the ordinary man in his previous life, scrambling to survive in a jungle of steel and concrete, or the chore servant in this life, struggling desperately to stay alive at the bottom of the Sect.
His creed had never been about being invincible or sweeping all before him.
He was more accustomed to enduring, to scheming, to gathering strength in the shadows and delivering a fatal blow when his enemies least expected it.
Exposing himself like a sword cultivator, staking everything on an unstoppable, razor-sharp edge—that wasn't him.
"I am not a sword."
Zhou Xuan murmured silently in his heart.
At his thought, the peerless immortal sword shattered inch by inch, turning into a shower of lights that vanished into Nothingness.
But if he wasn't a sword cultivator, then what path should he take?
For a moment, Zhou Xuan was lost.
Just then, scenes began flashing before his eyes.
They were scenes from his previous life, from an ignorant child to an adult who had fought his way through society and tasted every bitterness and sweetness life had to offer.
He had no distinguished family, no astonishing talent, and every step had been exceptionally difficult.
Only through sheer, unyielding grit had he managed to find his footing.
The scene shifted, becoming a vision of his life now.
He had started from nothing and, after enduring countless hardships, become a wealthy man in the mortal world. Then he had entered the Sect, only to become a chore servant, abandoned by his childhood sweetheart and subjected to contempt and bullying at the very bottom of the Sect.
In both his previous life and this one, he had begun from a pitifully low starting point.
He was like a wild weed growing on a sheer cliff, struggling to force its way through a crack in the stone, facing gales and enduring downpours, scorched by the blazing sun and buried beneath ice and snow.
When the wind blew, he would lower his head and bend with it.
When the sun beat down mercilessly, he would wither and turn yellow, as if he might die at any moment.
But...
Before Zhou Xuan's eyes appeared a wasteland scorched by heavenly fire.
The earth was blackened and scarred, without the slightest trace of life.
Yet, right in the middle of that silent wasteland, beneath the cracked, charred earth, a stubborn patch of green quietly pushed aside a stone and defiantly poked its head out.
Then came a second patch, a third...
Specks of green quickly joined together, spreading into a vast expanse!
Millions upon millions of weeds swayed in the fierce wind, but never broke.
They bowed beneath the downpour, yet their roots dug even deeper!
They were small, they were inconspicuous, and people could trample them at will.
But they possessed the most powerful thing in the world: vitality!
Give them a little soil, a ray of sunlight, a drop of rain, and they would grow like mad!
Wildfire could never burn them all; the spring breeze would bring them back to life!
That was their Way!
An unprecedented light burst from Zhou Xuan's eyes.
He understood!
He finally understood!
Could a sword really cut through everything?
It could cut down one blade of grass, but could it cut through a whole grassland?
Could it sever the tangled, unceasing roots buried deep beneath the earth?
He was that blade of grass!
Amid a hundred deaths, he would seek that single thread of life!
Let the world batter him with wind and rain, hardship and danger; he would keep sending his roots deeper, drawing in nourishment.
He would keep reaching upward, seeking the sun!
This was his Way!
The Way of Nature, ceaseless and ever-renewing!
Rumble!
The instant this thought fully formed in his heart, the vast Spiritual Energy stalled before the barrier in his Dantian seemed to find a true outlet!
It was no longer chaotic, no longer violent.
That energy seemed to have been imbued with the will to live!
It no longer struck the barrier rigidly. Instead, it was like billions upon billions of living seeds, madly seeping through and burrowing into that seemingly indestructible barrier!
Within the barrier, they put down roots and sprouted!
Crack...
A tiny yet crystal-clear sound of breaking rang out in Zhou Xuan's consciousness.
The indestructible Mortal Immortal Barrier that had troubled him for so long began to develop a fine crack from within.
Then came a second, a third...
Countless cracks spread across the entire barrier like a spiderweb!
The next second!
Boom!
The barrier shattered with a roar!
An even greater and purer tide of Spiritual Energy than before seemed to be drawn by some fatal attraction. It surged wildly in from outside, flooding into Zhou Xuan's body!
At that moment, all the Spiritual Energy within him completed a fundamental transformation!
Zhou Xuan could clearly see a newly born wisp of energy, brimming with vitality, slowly rotating inside his otherwise empty Dantian.
It was like a nascent star vortex, beginning to spin, faster and faster!
The Spiritual Energy around him didn't even need him to actively circulate his cultivation method to absorb it.
The tiny vortex continuously drew it in, pulling it into his body and strengthening that faint wisp of energy.
The Way of Nature—passive absorption!
This was what it truly meant to be a cultivator!
Qi Refining Realm, achieved!
Zhou Xuan abruptly opened his eyes.
Two unprecedentedly brilliant glimmers flashed through them and vanished!
He slowly lowered his head and opened his palm.
His skin was still the same, but everything within him had undergone a world-shaking transformation.
He could feel a warm current slowly flowing through his Meridians, perfectly blending with his flesh and blood.
At a thought, that wisp of energy rushed along his Meridians and gathered at his fingertip.
There was no light, no heat.
But Zhou Xuan could clearly feel that his fingertip held enough terrifying power to pierce through a steel plate with ease!
This was Mana!
He had succeeded!
He had finally broken free of the shackles of mortality and truly set foot on the path of immortal cultivation!
Zhou Xuan let out a long breath. In the air, it gathered into a faint plume of white vapor that lingered for a long time.
At the very instant Zhou Xuan entered the Qi Refining Realm and the first wisp of Mana was born in his Dantian,
deep within the Chore Servant Courtyard, in a residence far more refined than the other thatched huts,
a middle-aged man in brocade robes, portly and lounging with one leg crossed over the other, suddenly stopped picking his teeth and humming a tune.
This man was none other than the steward of the Chore Servant Courtyard, Chief Steward Wang.
His eyes, usually narrowed to slits, flew open. A rare trace of alarm flashed in them.
"Hmm?"
Just moments ago, his spiritual sense—something only a Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator possessed—had keenly detected an extremely faint, yet unmistakable fluctuation of Spiritual Energy.
It was the unique ripple produced when someone broke through a realm and drew the Spiritual Energy of heaven and earth into their body!
Although the ripple disappeared quickly, there was no mistaking it!
"Someone in the Chore Servant Courtyard broke through to the Qi Refining Realm?"
The leisure vanished from Chief Steward Wang's face, replaced by a grave expression mingled with disbelief and a trace of greed.
What kind of place was the Chore Servant Courtyard?
The Sect's garbage dump, a refuge for useless trash!
Everyone here had mixed Spirit Roots and no hope of ever setting foot on the path of immortality.
Forget breaking through to the Qi Refining Realm—even those who could cultivate the Body Tempering Realm to perfection were few and far between.
How could someone break through here?
Who was it?
Before you continue