Origin of the Ancestor of Earth Immortals

Ancestor of Earth Immortals Inheritance

North of the Red Wasteland, the east-west trending Blackcloud Ridge resembled an azure dragon lying across the crimson wilderness.

True to its name, the characteristic of the Red Wasteland was precisely "barrenness".

Vegetation was a rare sight across the entire Red Wasteland, and spiritual energy was thin, leaving only Blackcloud Ridge with lush greenery.

Streams originating from the mountains nurtured patches of fertile oases, sustaining a considerable human population.

In the northwest of Blackcloud Ridge, there was a small hilltop named Yujin Mountain.

On the mountainside, there was a patch of flat land where several mu of spirit fields had been cultivated.

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

Liu Yuanchen drew a bucket of water from the well, seeing the water inside veiled in layers of faint mist.

He dipped one hand into the bucket, an azure light flashing and fading, and a wisp of emerald-green radiance instantly appeared within the water.

Casually picking up a ladle, he scooped water from the bucket and watered several spirit medicine saplings in the spirit fields.

With a single ladle of water, those saplings that had previously looked somewhat wilted immediately perked up their leaves.

At that very moment, a young man wearing an azure Daoist robe arrived at the flat land.

He called out to the youth: "Junior Brother Liu, this year's harvest is due to be turned in."

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

Zhang Jingcheng waved his hand: "So polite with me still. How is the harvest this year?"

Liu Yuanchen replied: "This year, we harvested a total of two hundred seventy catties of Golden-Thread Rice and two hundred thirty catties of Scarlet Millet."

Golden-Thread Rice and Scarlet Millet were both spirit grains, meaning grains containing spiritual energy, and could be considered the lowest-tier cultivation resources.

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

Yet Yujin Mountain's spiritual energy was exhausted, sustained only by a single well with some spiritual energy, allowing for only one harvest a year.

If too much were planted, it 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 trace of spiritual energy, the spirit field harvest has declined year after year.

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

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

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

Liu Yuanchen smiled: "Senior Brother praises me too much. Our Azure Elixir Sect is renowned for the Divine Farmer Art and Alchemy Art, and there are extremely many brilliant spirit apothecaries and alchemy masters within the sect.

This junior merely happens to have a bit of talent in the Divine Farmer Art, and mainly relies on hard physical labor.

Asking me to manage a vast expanse of medicine fields—I certainly don't have that ability."

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

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

Liu Yuanchen gave a bitter smile: "You know my situation as well—a distant branch descendant of the Dongyang Liu Household, and I only awakened a Grade-C Mid-Tier Immortal Seed.

Now approaching eighteen years of age, I am only at the Ninth Qi-Nourishing Layer.

I am not valued by the clan, and the main branch descendants of the Liu family within the sect don't take me seriously either.

Without sufficient resources, toiling bitterly for a lifetime will at most get me to the Ninth Qi-Nourishing Layer.

Wanting to break through to the Sea of Qi Realm is an absolute impossibility."

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

Human beings by themselves could not absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, but a few individuals possessed a special energy naturally born within the sea of consciousness at the center of their brows.

Those possessing this special energy could absorb and refine the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, stepping onto the path of immortal cultivation.

Consequently, this special energy was called an immortal seed.

The immortal seed had no physical form, yet it would manifest in various shapes such as birds, beasts, vegetation, or implements, lacking nothing.

The Qi-Nourishing Realm was the first major boundary of immortal cultivation, with the first four realms being Qi-Nourishing, Sea of Qi, Origin Condensation, and Spirit Platform respectively.

Before the Qi-Nourishing Realm, there was still an Essence Refinement Realm for laying foundations.

Only, the Essence Refinement Realm did not involve immortal seeds or spiritual energy, and mortals without immortal seeds could all practice it, so it was generally not counted as a realm of immortal cultivation.

The founding patriarch of the Azure Elixir Sect was a Spirit Platform Realm expert.

Later on, no one in the Azure Elixir Sect was ever able to break through the Spirit Platform Realm, and the current top experts within the sect were merely at the Condensed Origin Realm.

As for the Liu family, their strongest supreme elder was only at the Mid Sea of Qi Realm, not even touching the fringe of the Condensed Origin Realm.

Cultivators possessing unranked immortal seeds had almost no possibility of breaking through the Sea of Qi Realm without fortuitous encounters.

Liu Yuanchen, with this Grade-C Mid-Tier Immortal Seed, at least had some hope of breaking through the Sea of Qi Realm, though it required quite a few spiritual objects for assistance.

With such talent, not a single power on the barren Red Wasteland would be willing to nurture him, leaving all resources to be obtained entirely by himself.

Liu Yuanchen let out a long sigh: "The steward in charge of the medicine garden over at the mountain gates is a person from the Chen Household. The Liu family and the Chen Household are old enemies after all.

As a distant branch descendant, I never enjoyed many benefits from the Liu family, yet simply because my surname is Liu, I am targeted everywhere by Steward Chen.

Staying within the mountain gates, I get bossed around all day without even time to cultivate. What future could there be?

With the slightest carelessness, my spirit stones would be docked.

They say it's five or six spirit stones a month, but to actually get two or three into one's hands is something to thank the heavens for.

Just for this tiny bit of spirit stones, I still have to play the grandson all day long.

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

Hearing this, Zhang Jingcheng couldn't help laughing: "That's true, coming here at least allows you to escape and find peace.

No matter how deep the enmity between the Liu and Chen families is, they wouldn't run several hundred miles just to come here and cause trouble for you."

After chatting for a few moments, Liu Yuanchen led Senior Brother Zhang into a cave to the side.

This cave was Liu Yuanchen's immortal cave, protected within by a simple formation.

The two arrived at a stone room in the deepest part of the cave and saw two animal pelts spread out inside, upon which were piled two small mounds of grain.

The slightly larger mound of grain consisted of plump, full grains of rice, the snow-white grains still carrying fine golden threads.

This was precisely Golden-Thread Rice, a low-tier mid-grade spirit grain.

The other mound of grain resembled sorghum, completely crimson-red like blood, which was precisely the low-tier low-grade spirit grain Scarlet Millet.

Zhang Jingcheng swept his divine sense over them and nodded: "The quality of these spirit grains is far superior to before, and the weight is also correct.

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

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

Golden-Thread Rice is five catties for one spirit stone, and Scarlet Millet is ten catties for one spirit stone, so seventeen additional spirit stones should be given to you."

He took out a crude animal-pelt pouch: "Here are thirty-seven spirit stones, Junior Brother can check them."

Liu Yuanchen took the animal-pelt pouch and saw inside a spherical space three feet in diameter.

Inside the space were also thirty-seven gray, translucent stones, each only the size of an adult's thumb.

This kind of animal-pelt pouch was the lowest-tier storage bag.

It could not hold too many things, or else it would be crushed to bursting.

Moreover, however heavy the objects placed inside such a storage bag were, the bag itself would weigh that much.

If it were loaded with several hundred catties of heavy items, carrying it on one's body would be extremely inconvenient.

It was only suitable for holding things that weren't excessively heavy, such as spirit stones, clothing, and magical tools.

The storage bags seen on the market were all of this low-tier variety.

Higher-tier storage magical tools only appeared in legends.

Senior Brother Zhang took out two larger storage bags, loaded the two mounds of spirit grains into them respectively, and then bade farewell and left.

After he had walked far away, Liu Yuanchen went to a lush, vegetation-grown spot at the back of the mountain.

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

When low-tier cultivators probed with divine sense, they could only see a blurry, black-and-white world.

Objects and living beings with spiritual energy would emit special fluctuations.

However, in the world observed by Liu Yuanchen's divine sense, that vegetation appeared vivid and lifelike, glowing with emerald-green radiance.

He circulated his foundational wood-attribute technique, the Azure Wood Formula, and the extremely thin spiritual energy around him was drawn into his body.

Simultaneously, those emerald-green radiances also detached one after another from the vegetation, entered Liu Yuanchen's body, and converged along his meridians toward the sea of consciousness at the center of his brows.

In Liu Yuanchen's sea of consciousness stood a sapling, its entire body resembling emerald jade and emitting a dim emerald-green glow.

The sapling was over three inches tall and had sprouted six leaves; this was precisely his immortal seed.

At the root of the sapling was also a patch of black soil.

Surrounding the black soil were dozens of fragments resembling dark gold.

This sapling, the black soil, and the fragments resembling dark gold all genuinely existed, rather than being an illusory ball of energy.

Especially these dark gold fragments—Liu Yuanchen remembered them vividly, for it was this meteorite that had brought him to this world.

Liu Yuanchen of his past life was originally a college student in the Huaxia country of Blue Star who had just begun experiencing the cruel beatings of society.

On his way home from work in the early hours of the morning, he suddenly saw a shooting star cut across the firmament.

He muttered to himself: "They say 'believe and it exists, disbelieve and it doesn't'; making a wish to a shooting star won't hurt.

Bless me to win the lottery with a moderate sum, a small goal would also be acceptable.

Also, make my black-hearted boss ascend to ultimate bliss early."

Before his words fell, that shooting star actually smashed toward his direction.

In the final split second, all he saw was a meteorite resembling dark gold smashing straight into his forehead.

In this lifetime, when Liu Yuanchen was ten years old, 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, discovered that he could actually look inward into his Sea of Consciousness, and he "saw with his own eyes" that there was a Black-Gold Meteorite inside it.

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 patch of black soil, and amidst the soil was an "infant" the size of a fist.

This "infant" existed for less than a breath of time before it turned to ashes, leaving behind only an emerald-green seed the size of a fingernail.

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

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

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

Only, the black soil and the shattered meteorite at the root of the sapling were not displayed within the Mortal-Immortal Mirror.

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

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

Grade-A Immortal Seeds displayed purple-golden auspicious clouds, Grade-B golden auspicious clouds, and Grade-C white auspicious clouds.

Three auspicious clouds represented top-tier, two auspicious clouds middle-tier, and one auspicious cloud bottom-tier.

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

If no auspicious clouds hovered around an Immortal Seed, it was an unranked Immortal Seed.

After awakening his Immortal Seed, Liu Yuanchen lapsed into unconsciousness.

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

Upon an ancient tree with luxuriant foliage hung thirty infant-like fruits.

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

Beneath the massive tree, a Daoist priest wearing a purple-golden crown, draped in a crane-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 the posture, that Daoist priest seemed to be lecturing on the Dao to these few attendants.

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

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

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

At this moment, 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 had shattered to reveal a fist-sized infant, which was 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 infant during the recent awakening of the Immortal Seed was a Ginseng Fruit; eating a single one allowed one to live for forty-seven thousand years, and just like that, it was gone.

Though the sapling remained, when on earth would this sapling bloom?

The legendary Ginseng Fruit Tree bloomed in three thousand years, bore fruit in three thousand years, and matured in 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 one hundred and twenty years, a Qi Sea cultivator two hundred and forty years, an Origin Condensation cultivator five hundred years, and even a Spirit Platform cultivator only a lifespan of a thousand years.

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

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

Along with the enhancement of his cultivation, he was actually able to hear some sounds from that Daoist lecture scene, though they were muddled and unclear.

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

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

Later on, he was actually able to understand some of the contents of Grand Immortal Zhenyuan's Daoist lectures, among which was included the cultivation method of the Earth Immortal Path.

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

So-called grotto-heavens and blessed lands were simply growing small worlds.

Regardless of whether they were natural grotto-heavens and blessed lands or ones personally opened up, they could all assist in cultivation.

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

Wanting to advance 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 one managed to acquire that kind of natural grotto with an extremely high grade, as long as one cultivated properly, one could steadily advance to the realm of eternal youth and immortality.

Self-opened grotto-heavens and blessed lands possessed a much higher degree of compatibility with oneself, promoted mutual growth, and boasted an extremely high upper limit.

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

This treasure could be a rare natural resource or a man-refined magical treasure, but it had to possess an extremely deep connection with the cultivator himself.

When Grand Immortal Zhenyuan cultivated back then, he had refined the Ginseng Fruit Tree, using it as the foundation to open up his blessed land.

Longevity Mountain's Five Villages Abbey was Grand Immortal Zhenyuan's grotto-heaven and blessed land, only its grade was extremely high, having already exceeded 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 trace larger.

Subsequently, a strand of pure Dharmic power surged out 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 trace, and his entire body was filled with strength.

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