Dark Shadow
Death was the final destination of every living thing. But for the special group known as cultivators, death represented more than an ending:
Failure—utter, complete failure.
To pursue immortality only to meet death in the end was undoubtedly a denial of everything they had sought in their lives. Yet for most cultivators, death remained impossible to escape.
From the very beginning of cultivation, cultivators fought against their own lifespan, hoping to remain in this world for as long as possible. They had three chances.
The first came at the start of cultivation, when one passed from Qi Movement into the Long Breath realm. A mortal body would shed its fleshly shell and gain true breath, extending one's lifespan by nearly a full sixty years, ending at one hundred and fifty. This was the very foundation of cultivation. Anyone who could be called a cultivator had certainly crossed this threshold. Yu Ci was no exception.
Compared to the universality of the first chance, not everyone could enjoy the second. One had to consecutively cross the two realms of Orifice Enlightenment and Spirit Communion, reaching the achievement of the Restored Pellet. Only then would essence, qi, and spirit become a seamless whole, joined and embraced together, with all vitality throughout the body governed by the "Restored Pellet," no longer leaking away or dissipating. This time, on top of the former foundation, a cultivator's lifespan could double again, reaching three hundred years. That was already the limit of the human body's potential. Among ten thousand cultivators, perhaps not even one could reach this realm.
As for the third chance, even fewer could touch it. One had to break through the Restored Pellet realm, stride through the void and fly into the Outer Domain of the Nine Heavens, absorbing "Mysterious Truth," the