Spring Autumn Sect!

The spirit boat flew for several days, crossing mountain ranges until it finally arrived at an immortal paradise steeped in spiritual energy and veiled in mist.

Between the overlapping peaks, palaces and pavilions appeared and vanished in the clouds. Immortal cranes wheeled through the sky as rosy light shimmered all around. This was the mountain gate of the Eastern Wasteland's great sect, the Spring Autumn Sect.

Ye Lingshuang and Zhang Ming immediately brought Li Qingshan and Er Ya straight to the Outer Sect Deacon Hall.

News of a Heavenly Spirit Root appearing had struck like thunder from a clear sky, instantly setting the Outer Sect's senior ranks ablaze!

"What? A Heavenly Spirit Root?!"

A booming voice, thick with astonished delight, rang out from inside the hall.

A moment later, a middle-aged cultivator in a blue Daoist robe strode out. His face was stern, and his aura was as deep as the sea.

He was Zhou Changhai, an Outer Sect Elder and a Foundation Establishment Late Stage Cultivator!

Zhou Changhai's eyes flashed as he immediately fixed his gaze on the two people behind Ye Lingshuang and Zhang Ming.

His eyes first landed on Er Ya, who was brimming with spiritual energy and had an extraordinary Root Bone. A flash of excitement crossed his face.

"Is it her? Her spiritual grace is truly innate, and she possesses a wisdom root. With a Heavenly Spirit Root like this joining our Spring Autumn Sect, the heavens are truly blessing us!"

Zhou Changhai was beside himself with excitement as he sized up Er Ya, as if she were a rare treasure.

"Ahem... Uncle Zhou, um, it isn't Er Ya. It's... him!"

Zhang Ming gave an awkward smile, then pointed at Li Qingshan.

"What?!"

Zhou Changhai's eyes widened.

Li Qingshan's face was covered in wrinkles, his hair and beard were snow-white, and he looked even older than Zhou Changhai. He had to be at least eighty, if not a hundred.

Was this damn old man really a Heavenly Spirit Root?

Zhou Changhai's face said plainly, Are you messing with me?

"Uncle Zhou, Er Ya has a Superior Spirit Root. This is Li Qingshan... and he really does have a Heavenly Spirit Root," Ye Lingshuang added with a wry smile and a nod.

"Old brother, do you just look older than you are? No matter. Our Spring Autumn Sect has spirit pills that replenish qi and blood. As long as you're under sixty, it won't affect your cultivation at all!" Zhou Changhai said, a note of hope in his voice.

"Um... I just turned a hundred this year," Li Qingshan said somewhat sheepishly.

"How old? A hundred?"

Zhou Changhai shuddered, nearly blacking out and collapsing on the spot.

A hundred-year-old Heavenly Spirit Root?

Was this guy pulling his leg?

Zhou Changhai's face turned livid. He blurred forward and appeared in front of Li Qingshan in an instant. His immense spiritual pressure made Li Qingshan feel as if his breath had caught in his throat.

Zhou Changhai seized Li Qingshan's wrist and sent a stream of pure spiritual power into his body. The last glimmer of hope on his face turned to profound disappointment the moment it entered.

"A hundred years old... qi and blood depleted... meridians like rotten wood... sea of consciousness murky as a mud pit..."

Zhou Changhai's voice fell from an excited, ringing high to an icy low, filled with boundless disappointment and grief. "A Heavenly Spirit Root... He actually has a Heavenly Spirit Root... How cruel is the Dao of Heaven! To leave a pearl buried in the dust until the twilight of his life!"

He released Li Qingshan's wrist and looked at him with complicated eyes—regret, sorrow, and even a trace of anger, as if demanding to know why the heavens would play such a cruel joke.

"With talent like this, if we'd found him eighty years ago... no, even forty years ago, our Spring Autumn Sect could have poured every resource into him and raised a Nascent Soul True Lord. He might even have reached Spirit Transformation!"

Zhou Changhai shook his head in anguish. "But now... even with a Heavenly Spirit Root, drawing qi into his body will be as hard as climbing to heaven. Late Qi Refining is probably his limit, and Foundation Establishment is nothing but a foolish dream! His lifespan... at most, we could extend it by another eight or ten years. What good would that do?"

The other deacons in the hall gathered around. Once they learned what had happened, they all shook their heads and sighed. Their expressions as they looked at Li Qingshan changed from initial shock to deep regret.

"Elder, how should we arrange things, then?" Ye Lingshuang asked respectfully.

Zhou Changhai clasped his hands behind his back and paced the hall several times before stopping. His tone had returned to the authority and detachment of an Outer Sect Elder. "Since he has a Heavenly Spirit Root, leaving him as an ordinary laborer in the Outer Sect would disgrace the sect and make the Spring Autumn Sect look callous. But giving him the resources of an Inner Sect disciple would be wasteful and unfair to the others."

He pondered for a moment, then looked toward a corner deep in the clouds behind the hall. "How about this? The Hall of Discarded Treasures on the back mountain needs a caretaker. It's quiet there, and the spiritual energy is just sufficient for drawing qi. Send him there. He'll be registered as an Outer Sect disciple and handle the daily sweeping while keeping watch over the... junk inside.

"If he has free time, he can try drawing qi on his own. The sect won't interfere, but it won't provide him with any extra resources, either. Whether he gains anything will depend entirely on his fortune... and those pitiful years he has left."

"The Hall of Discarded Treasures?"

Zhang Ming was taken aback. He'd heard of that place. It stored all sorts of discarded artifacts, materials, and odds and ends that the sect had retired over the years—things that were damaged, impossible to repair, of unknown origin, or of unknown use.

No one had paid the place any attention for years. Its spiritual energy was pitifully thin. It was practically a giant rubbish heap.

They were sending a Heavenly Spirit Root to guard it?

Ye Lingshuang furrowed her brows slightly, but when she thought of Li Qingshan's circumstances, this did seem like the most suitable arrangement.

It gave him a place in the sect and somewhere to stay, without wasting the sect's resources.

"We will obey the elder's decree," Ye Lingshuang and Zhang Ming said, bowing.

Soon, an Outer Sect Deacon disciple led Li Qingshan away from the bustling Deacon Hall and along a secluded mountain path toward the back mountain.

Ye Lingshuang took Er Ya to complete the formalities for entering the Inner Sect. When they parted, Er Ya looked at Li Qingshan reluctantly, her eyes full of worry.

Li Qingshan merely smiled and waved to reassure her.

The mountain path grew rougher as they went. The farther they traveled toward the back mountain, the thinner the spiritual energy became and the more desolate the surroundings grew.

At last, they stopped before a dilapidated hall half-hidden by weeds and withered vines.

A crooked plaque, blanketed in dust and cobwebs, hung above the entrance. Three mottled ancient characters were inscribed on it: Hall of Discarded Treasures.

The doors stood half open, and a stench of dust, rust, rotten wood, and old mildew came rushing out.

The interior was dim. Strange objects filled the vast space.

Broken flying swords, rusted armor, cracked artifact fragments, dull ores, incomplete jade slips, and even strange implements whose purpose was impossible to guess, all blanketed in dust.

They lay scattered in heaps, like the forgotten dust of history.

"L-Li... Junior Brother Li!"

Seeing how old Li Qingshan looked, the Deacon disciple found it awkward to call him "Junior Brother."

"This is the Hall of Discarded Treasures. Your duties are to sweep the dust from the hall every day and organize... well, you don't really need to organize much. Just make sure nothing falls and hits anyone.

"There's a small room behind the hall. You can stay there. Here's your identity jade token and the basic qi-drawing cultivation method, the Evergreen Technique."

He handed Li Qingshan a poor-quality jade token and a thin booklet. His voice carried a trace of pity. "The spiritual energy here is thin. Take care of yourself. Don't wander off for no reason. There are restrictions deep in the back mountain, and it's dangerous."

After finishing his instructions, he hurried away as if fleeing.

Li Qingshan stood at the entrance to the Hall of Discarded Treasures, gazing at the vast, desolate place piled high with "junk." The rotting stench in the air seemed to mirror his hundred years of life.

He tightened the Yellow-Skin Wine Gourd Er Ya had given him around his waist, the one that had kept him company for a year. Its surface was smooth and warm, and it seemed to resonate ever so faintly with some of the dormant objects in the hall.

He stepped inside, leaving shallow footprints in the dust that covered the floor.

He looked around, his gaze sweeping across the remnants forgotten by time before finally settling on the equally ruined little house behind the hall.

His aged face showed no disappointment or anger, only the calm and equanimity of someone who had weathered a hundred storms.

"The Hall of Discarded Treasures... At least it's quiet."

He murmured to himself, his cloudy eyes reflecting the dim light and mountains of abandoned things.

"The road to immortality is cut off? Heh... A hundred years gone, with the grave already up to my neck. Getting a glimpse of the immortal sect was already an unexpected blessing. Since my path has been set, I'll... let things take their course."

Clutching the Evergreen Technique booklet, he walked toward the little house.

In the dim light, a faint glimmer flashed across the Yellow-Skin Gourd, then vanished.