The Immortal-Slaying Gourd

His gaze fell on the Wine Gourd in his hand.

He had found it six years ago, when he was still an orphan, in a dilapidated temple at the foot of a mountain.

Back then, parched with thirst and hunger, he had picked up the gourd to fill with water and drink.

After he came to Green Cloud Mountain, he had used it to hold wine ever since.

For six years, he had never noticed anything unusual about the gourd.

But now, he saw that its exterior seemed to have changed.

The gourd's surface, once dull and gray, now shimmered faintly with flowing light, and ancient-looking patterns had appeared upon it.

A thought suddenly rose in his mind.

He bit his fingertip, squeezed out a drop of blood, and let it fall onto the gourd.

Buzz!

The instant the blood touched it, the entire gourd erupted in brilliant golden light!

A stream of indistinct information surged into his mind like a rising tide.

[The Immortal-Slaying Gourd was refined by Yun Zhongzi, the legendary immortal, in imitation of the Innate Spiritual Treasure Immortal-Slaying Flying Knife, a primordial divine relic from the age of the ancient wilderness. It is a postcelestial spiritual treasure.]

[The gourd seems able to devour the spiritual energy of all things, purifying and refining it.]

[The gourd contains a space of its own, within which lies a strand of Innate Geng Metal Sword Qi, whose power is boundless.]

[The space inside the gourd can be used to store items.]

Li Xiaoyu froze.

He finally understood!

It wasn't that he lacked talent!

Nor was it that he hadn't worked hard enough!

It was that every last bit of spiritual energy he had painstakingly cultivated over the past six years had been swallowed by this gourd!

The gourd was like a bottomless pit. It had drained his Cultivation dry, only to return all that spiritual energy to him today, refined to an even purer state!

"Haha! Hahahaha!"

Li Xiaoyu threw back his head and laughed, his voice brimming with relief and exhilaration.

Six years of frustration, six years of resentment—all of it vanished in that instant!

"So that's how it was!"

"So that's how it was!"

He gripped the Immortal-Slaying Gourd tightly and felt the surging power within him.

This was the power that belonged to him!

This was the real him!

"Hahahaha!"

A flash of light sparked in Li Xiaoyu's eyes as he looked toward Big Bamboo Peak.

Let the bonds of the past end here.

He stirred his thoughts and urged the spiritual energy of the fourth layer of the Jade Purity Realm within him.

Using his finger as a sword, he drew a shallow line in the earth between himself and Big Bamboo Peak.

Sever the ties of affection. Sever the past!

From this day on, he, Li Xiaoyu, would live for himself!

Li Xiaoyu turned and disappeared into the night.

Without disturbing anyone, Li Xiaoyu quietly returned to his residence in a remote corner of Morning Sun Peak.

It was a simple wooden hut, its courtyard overgrown with weeds and its stone table covered in a thick layer of dust.

Ever since his Cultivation had stagnated, this had become the loneliest place on Morning Sun Peak.

Li Xiaoyu didn't mind. He pushed open the creaking wooden door. The furnishings inside were even more meager: a wooden bed, a table, and a meditation cushion. Nothing else.

He walked to the cushion, sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and sensed the changes within him.

The fourth layer of the Jade Purity Realm!

Surging spiritual energy flowed through his meridians like a great river. Compared with the trickle he had felt before, the difference was like heaven and earth.

His senses had sharpened, too. He could clearly hear autumn insects crawling over blades of grass a hundred meters outside.

With the slightest stir of his thoughts, the teacup on the table floated gently into the air and hung there. It moved with his will, nimble and free.

This was the Object-Driving Realm!

After six years, Li Xiaoyu could finally feel the joy of making progress again. The sensation was so unfamiliar, yet so intoxicating.

He sank his awareness into his dantian. There, the dull gray Immortal-Slaying Gourd floated quietly, as though it had turned back into an ordinary wine gourd.

If he hadn't experienced it himself, who would have guessed that this gourd he'd found was a legendary divine treasure?

Li Xiaoyu marveled inwardly.

Perhaps fate had brought it about.

If not for Tian Ling'er's cold decisiveness, if not for those words that trampled his dignity into the dirt, perhaps he would never have indulged in drink at the edge of the cliff—and would never have awakened the gourd.

It all seemed like a preordained twist of fate.

"From now on, I, Li Xiaoyu, will live only for myself—and for the immortal path and eternal life!"

He made his vow in his heart, and at that moment, his Dao heart grew firm.

The night passed in silence.

Li Xiaoyu meditated all night, consolidating the realm he had just broken through to.

As dawn pierced the Sea of Clouds and shone upon Morning Sun Peak, he slowly opened his eyes. A glint flashed in them, then they settled into calm.

Li Xiaoyu opened the door, picked up the broom in the corner, and began sweeping leaves and dust from the courtyard, as though sweeping away the gloom of the past six years.

Just then, a powerful aura shot skyward from the main hall of Morning Sun Peak.

It was Shang Zhengliang, Chief Seat of Morning Sun Peak.

Shang Zhengliang had been unable to sleep all night, his heart full of disappointment in Li Xiaoyu and anger toward Tian Buyi.

As usual, he went to the Martial Arts Arena atop the peak at first light, drew in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, and began his daily cultivation.

As a powerful cultivator of the Upper Purity Realm, Shang Zhengliang had keen spiritual senses that could cover almost all of Morning Sun Peak.

In the past, whenever his spiritual sense swept over Li Xiaoyu's residence, he felt only faint, stagnant ripples of spiritual energy.

But today, when his spiritual sense habitually passed over that corner, it abruptly stopped.

An entirely different aura emanated from the wooden hut.

Though its owner was doing his utmost to conceal it, its strength and vitality stood out like a bonfire in the night.

It was pure and condensed, imbued with a lively essence.

"The fourth layer of the Jade Purity Realm? The Object-Driving Realm!"

Shang Zhengliang's eyes flew open, his face full of astonishment.

Thinking he must have imagined it, he gathered his spiritual sense and probed again.

No mistake!

Absolutely certain!

That aura was unmistakably the hallmark of the fourth layer of the Jade Purity Realm.

Shang Zhengliang's heart was swept by a storm. Once his shock passed, suspicion took its place.

To break through from the second layer of the Jade Purity Realm to the fourth in a single night?

How was that possible?!

The Taiji Profound Clarity Path of the Green Cloud Sect emphasized gradual progress and a solid foundation. Such a leap was absolutely impossible.

Unless...

Shang Zhengliang's expression darkened at once as a thought rose in his mind.

The Demon Sect!

Only the Demon Sect's bizarre techniques could make someone's Cultivation surge overnight.

But such methods usually destroyed one's foundation, or even caused qi deviation and demonic possession, dooming the practitioner beyond redemption.

"Wretch! You dare practice the Demon Sect's heretical arts!"

Shang Zhengliang roared and vanished from where he stood.

He was shocked that Li Xiaoyu could be so audacious, and furious that he could sink so low, wrecking his own path to protect his pride.

In the next instant, Shang Zhengliang appeared outside the gate of Li Xiaoyu's small courtyard.

But when he saw what was inside, he froze.

Li Xiaoyu wore a blue Daoist robe and held an ordinary broom, quietly sweeping leaves from the courtyard.

His movements were unhurried but rhythmic. Each sweep seemed to bring him into harmony with the world around him.

Morning light fell upon Li Xiaoyu, stretching his shadow across the ground. His expression was calm and focused, without any of the madness or brutality of someone tainted by demonic energy.

The anger in Shang Zhengliang's heart ebbed of its own accord.

But he still did not let down his guard.