Origin of the Ancestor of Earth Immortals

Legacy of the Ancestor of Earth Immortals

In the northern reaches of the Red Wasteland, the east-west trending Blackcloud Ridge crouched like a green dragon across the crimson earth.

True to its name, the defining trait of the Red Wasteland was utter barrenness.

Vegetation was a rare sight across the entire wasteland, and spiritual qi was thin; only Blackcloud Ridge boasted lush flora.

Streams originating in the mountains nurtured fertile patches of oasis, sustaining a sizable human population.

In the northwestern part of Blackcloud Ridge sat a small hill named Yujin Mountain.

A flat terrace rested on its midsection, upon which several mu of spirit fields had been cleared.

At the center of the spirit fields stood a water well measuring over three chi in diameter.

Liu Yuanchen drew a bucket of water from the well, the water within wreathed in layers of faint mist.

He dipped one hand into the bucket, a flash of azure light flickered and vanished, and a wisp of azure-green radiance joined the water.

He picked up a ladle on a whim to scoop water from the bucket and water several young spirit herb seedlings in the field.

With a single ladle of water, those seedlings that had been somewhat wilted immediately perked up their leaves.

At that moment, a young man wearing a green Taoist robe arrived at the terrace.

He called out to the youth, "Junior Brother Liu, this year's harvest is due for collection."

Liu Yuanchen put down his hoe, walked over to the newcomer, and saluted with cupped hands, "Greetings, Senior Brother Zhang."

Zhang Jingcheng waved a hand, "Why so formal with me? How is the harvest this year?"

Liu Yuanchen replied, "Two hundred and seventy catties of Golden-Thread Rice and two hundred and thirty catties of Scarlet Millet were harvested in total this year."

Both Golden-Thread Rice and Scarlet Millet were spirit grains—crops imbued with spiritual qi that could be considered the lowest-tier cultivation resources.

In places abundant with spiritual qi, spirit grains could yield three or even four crops a year.

Yet Yujin Mountain's spiritual qi was exhausted, sustained only by a single well with some lingering spirituality, allowing for only one crop a year.

Excessive planting would cause the spirit field soil to degrade.

A smile appeared on Zhang Jingcheng's face, "Junior Brother Liu, your Divine Farmer Art has improved immensely!

Ever since the spirit spring on Yujin Mountain dried up, leaving only a well with a sliver of spirituality, the spirit field's harvest has dwindled year by year.

I recall that three years ago the yield of Golden-Thread Rice was merely around two hundred catties, and the Scarlet Millet was only a hundred and seventy or eighty catties.

You've only been here for three years, yet you've raised the spirit grain yield by this much.

If you were put in charge of the medicine fields on Songyun Peak, I fear you could earn the sect several thousand more spirit stones a year."

Liu Yuanchen smiled, "Senior Brother flatters me. Our Azure Elixir Sect is renowned for the Divine Farmer Art and alchemy art, and the sect has a great abundance of accomplished spirit apothecaries and alchemy masters.

This junior merely happened to have a bit of talent in the Divine Farmer Art, relying mostly on hard labor.

As for letting me manage vast medicine fields, I lack that capability."

Zhang Jingcheng looked at his tanned face and the bulging muscles across his body, which clearly came from frequently doing heavy physical labor under the blazing sun.

"Back then you clearly could have stayed within the mountain gates to work as a spirit apothecary, tending casually to spirit fields and earning five or six spirit stones a month. Why torment yourself by coming to Yujin Mountain?"

Liu Yuanchen gave a wry smile, "You know my situation—a distant branch descendant of the Dongyang Liu Household who only awakened a Grade-C Mid-Tier Immortal Seed.

Now I am nearly eighteen years old, with only a Ninth Qi-Nourishing Layer cultivation base.

The lineage side pays me no heed, and the Liu family's main-branch descendants in the sect don't take me seriously either.

Without sufficient resources, toiling away in cultivation for a lifetime would at best leave me at the Ninth Qi-Nourishing Layer.

Breaking through to the Sea of Qi Realm is a complete pipe dream."

The so-called immortal seed was the medium through which human cultivators absorbed and refined the spiritual qi of heaven and earth.

Humans could not absorb heavenly and earth spiritual qi by nature, but a select few were born with a special energy residing in the niwan palace within their foreheads.

Those possessed of this special energy could absorb and refine the spiritual qi of heaven and earth, setting foot upon the path of immortality.

Hence, this special energy was designated as an immortal seed.

The immortal seed lacked a physical form, yet it could manifest various shapes such as birds, beasts, plants, or artifacts, endlessly diverse.

The Qi-Nourishing Realm was the first major cultivation realm; the first four realms in order were Qi-Nourishing, Sea of Qi, Origin Condensation, and Spirit Platform.

Before the Qi-Nourishing Realm, there was also an introductory Essence Refinement Realm.

Only the Essence Refinement Realm did not involve immortal seeds or spiritual qi, and mortals lacking an immortal seed could practice it, so it was generally not counted among the realms of cultivation.

The founding patriarch of the Azure Elixir Sect was a high-level master of the Spirit Platform Realm.

In later times, no one in the Azure Elixir Sect was ever able to break through the Spirit Platform Realm, and the supreme experts within the sect today reached only the Origin Condensation Realm.

As for the Liu family, their strongest supreme elder stood merely at the mid Sea of Qi Realm, having never even grazed the threshold of the Origin Condensation Realm.

A cultivator endowed with a substandard immortal seed had virtually no possibility of breaking through to the Sea of Qi Realm barring a miraculous encounter.

Liu Yuanchen possessed a Grade-C Mid-Tier Immortal Seed, so he did hold some hope of breaking through to the Sea of Qi Realm, though it would require quite a few spiritual treasures for assistance.

With aptitude like this, no faction in the barren Red Wasteland would be willing to nurture him, leaving all resources to be secured entirely by his own efforts.

Liu Yuanchen sighed heavily, "The steward managing the medicine garden over at the mountain gates is a man of the Chen Household, and the Liu and Chen households are old adversaries.

A distant branch descendant like me never enjoyed much benefit from the Liu family, yet solely because my surname is Liu, Steward Chen targets me at every turn.

Remaining within the mountain gates, I'd be ordered about all day without even time to cultivate; what future could there be?

At the slightest misstep, my spirit stones would be docked.

They claim it's five or six spirit stones a month, but if you actually manage to get two or three into your hands, thank the heavens and earth.

To earn such a pitiful amount of spirit stones, you still have to play the groveling coward all day long.

Are these spirit stones? They're pure humiliation money!"

Hearing this, Zhang Jingcheng could not help but laugh, "True enough, coming here at least lets you enjoy some peace and quiet.

No matter how deep the grudge between the Liu and Chen households, they wouldn't travel hundreds of li to come here and cause trouble for you."

After chatting for a bit, Liu Yuanchen led Senior Brother Zhang into a side cavern.

This cavern served as Liu Yuanchen's immortal cave, protected within by a rudimentary array formation.

The two arrived at a stone room deep within the cave, where two animal skins were spread out upon the floor, holding two small piles of grain.

The slightly larger pile consisted of plump grains of rice, the snow-white kernels bearing fine golden threads.

This was none other than Golden-Thread Rice, a mid-tier grade-one spirit grain.

The other pile of grain resembled sorghum, its entire body crimson as blood—precisely the low-tier grade-one spirit grain, Scarlet Millet.

Zhang Jingcheng swept his divine sense over them and nodded, "The quality of these spirit grains is vastly superior to before, and the weight is spot on.

According to the old rules, as long as Yujin Mountain's spirit fields yield two hundred catties of Golden-Thread Rice and two hundred catties of Scarlet Millet, you receive an annual stipend of twenty spirit stones.

The excess spirit grain will be acquired at eighty percent of market value.

Golden-Thread Rice goes for five catties per spirit stone, and Scarlet Millet for ten catties per spirit stone, so an additional seventeen spirit stones are owed to you."

He produced a crude animal-skin pouch, "Here are thirty-seven spirit stones, Junior Brother, please count them."

Liu Yuanchen took the animal-skin pouch, revealing a spherical spatial expanse three chi in diameter within.

Inside the space sat thirty-seven grey, translucent stones, each only the size of an adult thumb.

This variety of animal-skin pouch was the lowest-grade storage bag.

It could not hold too many items, or else it would be crushed flat under the weight.

Furthermore, however heavy the objects placed inside this storage bag were, the bag itself would weigh that much.

If it were loaded with hundreds of catties of goods, carrying it on one's person would prove exceedingly inconvenient.

It was suited only for holding spirit stones, clothing, magic tools, and other items that were not excessively heavy.

The storage bags seen on the market were universally of this low-grade variety.

Higher-tier spatial storage artifacts appeared only in legends.

Senior Brother Zhang produced two larger storage bags, loaded the two piles of spirit grain into them respectively, and took his leave.

After he had walked far away, Liu Yuanchen made his way to a lushly vegetated spot in the back mountain.

He sat cross-legged among the foliage, closed his eyes, and used his divine sense to perceive all around him.

Low-tier cultivators using divine sense to scout could perceive only a blurred, black-and-white world.

Objects and living beings possessing spiritual qi would emit unique fluctuations.

Yet in the world perceived by Liu Yuanchen's divine sense, those plants appeared vivid and lifelike, radiating an azure-green glow.

He circulated his foundational wood-attribute cultivation technique, the Azure Wood Formula, drawing the extremely sparse spiritual qi of the surroundings into his body.

Simultaneously, those azure-green radiances broke away from the plants one after another, entered Liu Yuanchen's body, and converged along his meridians toward his niwan palace.

Within Liu Yuanchen's niwan palace stood a sapling, its entire body resembling jade and emitting an azure-green, eerie luminescence.

The sapling stood over three chi tall and bore six leaves—this was precisely his immortal seed.

At the roots of the sapling lay a patch of black earth.

Encircling the black earth were dozens of fragments resembling dark gold.

This sapling, the black earth, and those dark-gold fragments all possessed a tangible existence, rather than being a cluster of illusory energy projections.

Especially regarding these dark-gold fragments, Liu Yuanchen retained a vivid memory—it was this meteorite that had brought him to this world.

The Liu Yuanchen of his past life was a college student in Huaxia on Blue Star who had just begun to experience the harsh beatings of society.

On his way home from work in the dead of night, he suddenly spotted a shooting star streaking across the firmament.

He muttered to himself, "They say 'believe and it exists, doubt and it does not'; making a wish upon a shooting star can't hurt.

Grant me a modest little lottery win—a small target would be acceptable.

Also, please send my black-hearted boss off to bliss early."

Before his words fell, that shooting star actually plummeted toward him.

In the final instant, he caught sight only of a dark-gold meteorite smashing right into his forehead.

In this lifetime, when Liu Yuanchen turned ten, he tested his immortal seed using the Mortal-Immortal Mirror within the Liu Family Ancestral Land.

Back then, the Mortal-Immortal Mirror released a beam of white light that shone upon him.

Liu Yuanchen, who had yet to break through the Qi-Nourishing Realm, found that he could actually look inward at his Sea of Consciousness, and he "saw with his own eyes" that there was a Black-Gold Meteorite inside his Sea of Consciousness.

Under the illumination of the white light, the meteorite shattered into dozens of pieces.

Stimulated by this Black-Gold Meteorite, he also recovered the memories of his past life.

After the meteorite shattered, inside was a piece of black soil, and amidst the soil was a "baby" the size of a fist.

This "baby" existed for less than a breath of time before turning into ashes, leaving behind only a greenish-blue seed the size of a fingernail.

That seed completely absorbed the white light, rapidly sprouting and growing into a tiny sapling.

Moments later, a one-inch-tall sapling appeared within the Mortal-Immortal Mirror.

The sapling in the mirror was completely identical to the sapling in his Sea of Consciousness.

Only, the black soil and shattered meteorite at the base of the sapling did not appear within the Mortal-Immortal Mirror.

However, two white auspicious clouds coiled around the sapling in the mirror.

The color and quantity of the auspicious clouds served as the basis for grading an Immortal Seed.

Grade-A Immortal Seeds displayed purplish-gold auspicious clouds, Grade-B gold auspicious clouds, and Grade-C white auspicious clouds.

Three auspicious clouds signified high-tier, two auspicious clouds mid-tier, and one auspicious cloud low-tier.

Two white auspicious clouds encircled Liu Yuanchen's Immortal Seed, naturally making it a Grade-C Mid-Tier Immortal Seed.

If there were no auspicious clouds coiled around the Immortal Seed, then it would be an unranked Immortal Seed.

After awakening his Immortal Seed, Liu Yuanchen passed out.

Amidst his unconsciousness, a scene appeared within his Sea of Consciousness.

On a lush, leafy ancient tree hung thirty baby-like fruits.

Immortal light coiled around the tree, looking rather extraordinary at a glance.

Beneath the giant tree, a Daoist priest wearing a purplish-gold crown, dressed in a crane-feather cloak, and holding a jade whisk sat cross-legged.

Before him were several little boy attendants.

Although their appearances could not be seen clearly, judging by this posture, that Daoist priest seemed to be lecturing on the Dao to these few attendants.

Yet Liu Yuanchen could only vaguely see their movements, while unable to hear what they were saying.

Within the scene, the perspective gradually pulled back, and that ancient tree was located within a Daoist temple.

On the plaque of the Daoist temple's gates, three large characters were written: "Five Villages Abbey".

At this time, Liu Yuanchen snapped awake from his unconsciousness, sitting on the bed in a daze, his heart filled with extreme astonishment: Five Villages Abbey? Ginseng Fruit Tree?

When he tested his Immortal Seed earlier, that meteorite shattered and exposed a fist-sized baby, which was completely identical to the Ginseng Fruit of Five Villages Abbey.

The leaves of the sapling were also extremely similar to the Ginseng Fruit Tree.

That being said, his Immortal Seed was a sapling of the Ginseng Fruit.

Could the Daoist priest lecturing to the attendants not be the Ancestor of Earth Immortals, Grand Immortal Zhenyuan?

The baby from when he awakened his Immortal Seed just now was a Ginseng Fruit, consuming a single one could grant a longevity of forty-seven thousand years, and it was just gone like that.

Although the sapling was left behind, when on earth would this sapling ever bloom?

The legendary Ginseng Fruit Tree bloomed once every three thousand years, bore fruit once every three thousand years, and ripened once every three thousand years.

Even if this sapling bloomed now, he would still have to wait nine thousand years to eat a fruit.

A Qi-Nourishing cultivator possessed a lifespan of a hundred and twenty years, a Qi Sea Realm cultivator a lifespan of two hundred and forty years, an Origin Condensation cultivator a lifespan of five hundred years, and even a Spirit Platform cultivator only possessed a lifespan of a thousand years.

Wanting to live for nine thousand years, how easy was that to say?

After that, when Liu Yuanchen entered meditation, he would occasionally see the scene of Grand Immortal Zhenyuan lecturing on the Dao.

Along with the enhancement of his cultivation, he actually managed to hear some sounds from that lecturing scene, only they were muffled and unclear.

Moreover, the Immortal Seed also gradually displayed its extraordinary traits.

During cultivation, he could sense the vitality of vegetation and could extract that vitality, fusing it into the Immortal Seed.

Later on, he was even able to comprehend some of the content of Grand Immortal Zhenyuan's Dao lectures, among which was included the cultivation method of the Earth Immortal Path.

According to the content of Grand Immortal Zhenyuan's lecture, cultivators of the Earth Immortal Path needed to utilize grotto-heavens and blessed lands for their cultivation.

The so-called grotto-heavens and blessed lands were simply ungrown minor worlds.

Regardless of natural grotto-heavens and blessed lands, or those carved out by oneself, both could assist cultivation.

Natural grotto-heavens and blessed lands had mostly undergone years of growth and were already stabilized.

Wanting to advance any further was extremely difficult.

An Earth Immortal was bound to a grotto-heaven and blessed land; if the grotto-heaven and blessed land could not improve, the Earth Immortal's cultivation could only mark time in place.

Unless they managed to secure that kind of naturally high-grade grotto-heaven, as long as they cultivated properly, they could steadily advance to the realm of eternal youth and immortality.

Self-carved grotto-heavens and blessed lands possessed a much higher degree of compatibility with oneself, mutually promoting each other's growth, with an extremely high upper limit.

However, the early-stage investment was exceptionally heavy, requiring one to first seek out a treasure as the foundation for carving out a grotto-heaven and blessed land.

This treasure could be a rare natural resource or a manually refined magical treasure, but it had to possess a deep connection with the cultivator themselves.

Back in the day when Grand Immortal Zhenyuan cultivated by himself, he refined the Ginseng Fruit Tree, using it as a foundation to carve out his blessed land.

Longevity Mountain's Five Villages Abbey was Grand Immortal Zhenyuan's grotto-heaven and blessed land, only its tier was exceptionally high, already exceeding the scope of a grotto-heaven.

The vitality of vegetation fused into the Immortal Seed, causing the entire sapling to sway gently, and the two topmost leaves grew a fraction larger.

Following that, a surge of pure dharma power gushed forth from the sapling, left the Sea of Consciousness along the meridians, and circulated throughout Liu Yuanchen's entire body.

He only felt his vital energy and blood strengthen a fraction, his entire body brimming with strength.

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