"Ah, so you are fellow cultivators who have just ascended."
Hearing this, the old man immediately grew solemn and respectfully clasped his hands. "Then please, follow me."
The old Daoist invited them onto the immortal island before smiling and saying, "This old Daoist is Qian Xuande, Supreme Elder of the Qian Clan of Azure Rock Island. This is the current clan head of our Qian Clan, Qian Shuwen."
As the white-haired elder spoke at length, Chen Nianzhi gradually gained a general understanding of their identities.
Of the two, Qian Xuande had attained the Dao over a million years ago. Yet because his foundation and reserves were insufficient, and he had never encountered an opportunity capable of defying fate itself, he had remained trapped at the seventh level of the Ascension Realm, unable to advance any further.
Chen Nianzhi had expected as much. Though immortals were free and unfettered, possessing lifespans as eternal as heaven and earth, continuing to break through was incomparably difficult.
This was not only due to the limits of one's foundation and reserves. It was also because, after gaining immortality and losing the constraints of lifespan, many immortals no longer possessed an especially urgent obsession with further cultivation.
After all, immortals possessed inexhaustible lifespans. So long as no external tribulation descended upon them, even a million or ten million years often amounted to nothing.
After all, the reason immortals became immortal in the first place was to live free and unfettered, beyond death itself.
Now that they had attained longevity, many cultivators who believed the path ahead held no hope simply set aside their eagerness to cultivate.
Some immortals sought freedom and ease, choosing to become unrestrained wandering immortals. They traveled throughout vast immortal domains and even the great cosmos, leaving behind countless immortal ruins.
Other immortals