It was a rainy night.
Black clouds pressed down over the city, and torrential rain poured from the sky. The streets inside the market district were dim and deserted.
"Creak!"
The back door of a courtyard building opened. With charred hair and beard and a dazed expression, Lin Changheng clutched an old cloth bundle to his chest and stumbled into the rain. He walked alone, and from a distance, he looked like a withered, walking corpse.
He had no idea how long it took him to walk the mile or so. Only when a little warmth finally returned to his soaked body did Lin Changheng slowly come back to his senses.
A shabby room, its furnishings sparse and empty, abruptly came into view.
Memory after memory unlocked in his mind. The torrent of information hit him like an iron shovel churning through his brain, making his head throb as if it would split.
He could still remember how the sun had been shining just moments ago. He had been a master's student in agricultural science, working shoulder to shoulder with his senior sister in a sorghum field, researching ways to increase yields. Then his vision had gone black, and he'd suddenly died from overwork.
As an avid reader of immortal-cultivation novels on a certain website, he wasn't afraid of transmigration or rebirth. He'd even dreamed in the dead of night of soaring through the void and challenging the heavens with his sword.
But now that it had really happened, he couldn't help feeling alarmed. He gritted his teeth and slapped himself. The sharp crack and stinging pain made him let out a sigh—
"So I really did transmigrate. More accurately, I broke through the mystery of the womb..."
After quickly sorting through nearly thirty years of memories from before his awakening, Lin Changheng's brows, which had only just relaxed, furrowed tightly once more.
More than ten years ago, after losing both his parents, he had been scraping by in a mortal town when an immortal master happened to reveal his powers.
The whole city had erupted. The streets had emptied as people sent their children to have their Spirit Roots tested, hoping they might find an immortal opportunity.
According to the immortal master, any child or youth over seven and under eighteen could come forward to have their Spirit Roots tested.
Rich or poor, noble or lowborn—it made no difference!
Of the thousands of people tested, only three had Spirit Roots.
Fortunately, he was one of them.
As countless commoners pleaded earnestly and the rich and powerful looked on in astonishment and envy, the three of them boarded an immortal crane at the immortal master's invitation. With a single flap of its wings, they vanished into the distant sky like streaks of light.
Their departure left behind an immortal sight that the townspeople would recount for a hundred years.
He had been full of high spirits, believing his hardship was over and that he had ascended to immortality in a single leap. But within three days, cruel reality had slapped him from the sky and sent him crashing back into the dust.
"Lin Changheng, a mixed Spirit Root!"
This was the Spirit Root assessment gathering, where promising young cultivators from eight commanderies assembled. It was also an occasion for the various factions to divide up the young talents.
Once the announcement was made, someone with Spirit Roots like Lin Changheng's, who was also nearing the age of eighteen, couldn't join a sect. Even the less prestigious cultivating Aristocratic Clans had extremely high thresholds, and he couldn't get his foot in the door. Even the Foundation Establishment families shook their heads and turned him away.
Only one Qi Refining family, known as the Blackwater River Xu Clan, had extended him an offer.
Though he hesitated, he still understood that if he didn't accept, he would either become a rootless Rogue Cultivator, wandering from place to place, or return to the mortal world and enjoy sixty years of worldly prosperity.
Having set foot on the path to immortality, how could he be content to return to the mortal dust?
Whatever happened, he had to give it a shot!
And so, he resolutely decided to join the Xu Family.
He didn't attend the feasts and celebrations afterward. The Xu Family's elders immediately led the young talents down the mountain and back to the family's territory, where they began assigning them their paths.
They offered two choices.
The first was to marry into the Xu Family, wed one of its daughters, and bear children for the family.
The more children with Spirit Roots one produced, the greater the rewards and the higher one's standing. The logic was simple: more children meant more blessings. All he had to do was sow seed like a stud boar.
The second was to become a guest cultivator. For twelve years, the Xu Family would provide support according to set standards, including spirit stones, spirit rice, and spirit tea.
They would also let him choose one of several cultivation arts the Xu Family had mastered and become an apprentice in that field. If he could reach the entry level, he would have succeeded, his status would rise, and his stipend would increase!
But if he failed, he would have to take on the dangerous duty of reclaiming land in the Wilderness as a member of the Xu Family.
Hearing this, Lin Changheng couldn't help but marvel. This really was a righteous family: the pros and cons were laid out plainly, and each person could choose for themselves. They didn't resort to threats or deception.
After much hesitation, eighty percent of the young talents chose to marry into the Xu Family, while only twenty percent chose the apprenticeship path. His predecessor had been among the latter.
He wasn't content to give up. He still wanted to take a gamble.
His Fire Spirit Root had the highest [Spirit Charm] value, with eight strands, so he had been advised to study alchemy.
And so, he became an alchemy apprentice. He tended the furnace and controlled the flame at the Xu Family's alchemy shop in Zichuan Market, where he remained for eleven years.
He had first set foot on the path of immortality at eighteen. Eleven years had flashed by in the blink of an eye, and he was now nearing thirty.
Yet he had never reached the entry level and become an alchemist.
His cultivation was also stuck at the second layer of the Qi Refining Realm. For some reason, he couldn't advance any further.
The Xu Family's twelve-year agreement was nearly up, and in another year, the Endless Wilderness would begin its once-every-twenty-years Great Reclamation...
If he still couldn't become an entry-level alchemist, he would be sent to the reclamation front, where he'd have to fight ferocious, man-eating demonic beasts day and night and risk his life traveling through poisonous insects and miasma. He was no good at combat magic. He was sure to die.
On top of that, with the Great Reclamation drawing near, the various factions were pulling back to prepare. The area outside the market was even more chaotic and dangerous. He had nowhere else to go even if he tried to flee. He was a plump, juicy target in the eyes of the raiders.
All of this had driven him nearly to despair. Then, while forcing himself to refine a pill just moments ago, he'd suffered a furnace explosion. Exhausted in mind and body, he had passed out.
As the saying went, nothing could be built without first breaking the old. And so, he had awakened overnight!
After sorting through the memories from before his awakening, Lin Changheng couldn't help taking a deep breath.
His situation was truly dire!
Unless he became an entry-level alchemist, he was all but certain to die.
But he quickly forced himself to calm down and began to think through the problem, searching for a way out.
Soon, his eyes lit up. He spotted something amiss and began pondering it carefully:
"Normally, cultivators at the second layer of the Qi Refining Realm rarely encounter bottlenecks. Bottlenecks only appear at the middle and late stages of the Qi Refining Realm. So why is my cultivation stuck at the second layer..."
"Could it be... because I've been losing vital essence all these years?"
"Could that also be why my control over alchemy is weak and my spiritual power can't hold out?"
Lin Changheng thought of a possibility. Ever since he was born, he'd suffered from a mild lack of qi and blood. It didn't affect his daily life, so he'd never paid it much attention.
After he began cultivating, however, the problem grew more frequent and severe!
Like clockwork, once every month his vital essence would be depleted, as if some demon or ghost were secretly sucking it away. For a while afterward, he would be listless and unable to sustain his spiritual power.
He'd tried blood- and qi-restoring tonics and protective talismans, but neither had helped.
"That's probably it!"
Lin Changheng slapped the table. The more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. Just as he was about to keep mulling it over, a sudden, inexplicable weakness swept through him again. "Damn it, not again!"
The familiar sensation of his vital essence being drained made Lin Changheng's expression change, but he couldn't stop it.
All he could do was let it happen.
He didn't know how long passed before Lin Changheng slumped against the table, utterly drained. His eyes were cold, and his expression was steeped in helplessness.
Just then, a profound and mysterious aura of righteousness came from the void and poured straight into Lin Changheng's mind, banishing his exhaustion and dispelling his anxiety.
"What is this?"
After the strange sensation faded, Lin Changheng closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them again, everything before him abruptly changed.
His vision pierced through the void and fell upon his sea of consciousness.
Right in the center of his vision, a strangely shaped, mysterious little bronze cauldron suddenly appeared.
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