Golden Light Daoist

"Splash..."

Through the curtain of pouring rain, a thinly dressed youth staggered toward a ruined temple.

The temple had long since been abandoned. Weeds grew thick around it, amid crumbling walls and shattered masonry. Its once-imposing doors had rotted away, their surfaces riddled with cracks.

A faint, flickering glow shone through the battered temple doors and caught the youth's eye.

At the sight of that light, his expression tightened. He wiped the rain from his forehead with his right hand, then slowly approached the doors.

"Patriarch, there's hope! I brought the herb back."

After calling out softly, the youth reached out with both hands and carefully pushed the doors open.

There was a faint crack.

Despite his care, the thoroughly rotten doors could no longer hold together. They fell to the ground and broke into countless pieces.

Without the doors to keep out the wind and rain, the feeble flame inside went out completely, plunging the temple into darkness.

"Patriarch, I..."

The slightly dark-complexioned youth's face immediately filled with guilt. He stood frozen in the doorway, unsure whether to advance or retreat.

"Hmph..."

An old man's faint snort came from ahead of him.

The youth's entire body tensed, and sweat beaded on his forehead. He looked ahead with a hint of pleading in his eyes.

Following his gaze, one could see an old man with an ashen face seated beneath a broken statue of a deity.

The old man wore a tattered Daoist robe. His face was covered in wrinkles, making him look ancient. Seated on a worn rush cushion, he studied the youth before him.

Their eyes met in the gloom, and Xu Yan was seized by tension.

The old man before him was no ordinary elder, but an immortal out of legend. With a mere thought, he could make Xu Yan suffer a fate worse than death.

"Patriarch..."

With a thud, Xu Yan dropped heavily to his knees, terrified that this mercurial old man might end his life on a whim.

Three years ago, the old man had had seven youths accompanying him. For some unknown reason, they had vanished one after another, leaving only Xu Yan.

That was why Xu Yan feared the old man so deeply.

It was not that he had never considered escaping. But whatever means the old man had planted inside his body allowed him to find Xu Yan wherever he went. Frightened into putting all thoughts of escape behind him, Xu Yan could only stay obediently by the old man's side and slowly search for an opportunity.

Now, a rare opportunity had presented itself. The old man's old injuries had flared up, and he seemed to have reached the point where his oil was spent and his lamp was dying.

Xu Yan trembled as he knelt with his body bowed low, giving the old man the impression that he was utterly terrified. Yet where the old man could not see, a vicious gleam flashed through Xu Yan's eyes.

After a long while, seemingly satisfied with Xu Yan's demeanor, the old man finally spoke.

"Get up."

"Thank you, Patriarch." Joy flashed in Xu Yan's eyes, and he inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.

Once Xu Yan had risen, the old man continued, "Bring out the spirit herb. Cough, cough..."

"Yes, Patriarch!"

At his words, Xu Yan carefully took a white jade box about a foot long from inside his robe. Bending at the waist, he offered it with both hands to the old man on the rush cushion.

The old man extended his withered hands and slowly accepted the jade box. He ran his fingers over it for a long while before gently opening it.

An emerald-green glow instantly spilled from the white jade box, making the old man's ashen face look especially sinister.

"Cough, cough... The Soul-Returning Grass I spent decades painstakingly cultivating is finally of use. Though its medicinal potency falls short of what is required, it will just barely suffice."

Following the old man's gaze, one could see an emerald-green, three-leafed herb about the length of a palm lying quietly inside the jade box.

Soul-Returning Grass grew one leaf every ten years. Its three leaves meant that it was thirty years old.

Xu Yan had picked this herb on the old man's orders from an extremely well-hidden herb garden. The garden was small, only thirty feet square, with a few scattered spirit herb seedlings that Xu Yan did not recognize.

This herb garden was the old man's greatest secret.

The old man's name was Golden Light Daoist. He had been a menial disciple of the Blazing Fire Sect, which had been destroyed a hundred years ago. Only his lowly standing had allowed him to escape the catastrophe with his life.

Later, relying on the cultivation method he had obtained from the Blazing Fire Sect, he had successfully drawn qi into his body despite having low-grade mixed spiritual roots. After nearly a hundred years of cultivation, he had reached the fourth level of Qi Refining and become a rogue cultivator of some renown within a hundred-mile radius.

He excelled at wielding a Golden Cone magical artifact. Whenever he activated it, a ray of golden light shot out, earning him the name Golden Light Daoist.

As for the herb garden, Golden Light Daoist had poured considerable effort into establishing it. It stood on a branch of a first-tier spiritual vein. The main vein had long since exhausted its spiritual energy, leaving only a little thin spiritual energy in some of its branches. Though insufficient to support a cultivator's cultivation, it could sustain the growth of certain low-tier spirit herbs.

Though the spiritual energy in those branches was also steadily dwindling, Golden Light Daoist had privately estimated that it would take at least two hundred years to run dry. For a rogue cultivator like him, this already counted as a considerable stroke of fortune.

"Bubble..."

Just as Xu Yan was staring intently at the Soul-Returning Grass, a sound from nearby caught his attention.

He turned toward the sound and saw a bronze medicine cauldron, three feet square, standing in the temple's northwest corner. The temple was so dim that he had failed to notice it when he first entered.

"Bubble, bubble..."

The sound of boiling came from the Medicine Cauldron. A slightly pungent, rank smell reached Xu Yan's nose, setting his nerves on edge.

As a rogue cultivator who had cultivated for nearly a hundred years, Golden Light Daoist had dabbled in pills, formations, talismans, and artifacts. What he excelled at most, however, was concocting all manner of strange spirit medicines.

The spirit medicine brewing in that Medicine Cauldron is probably for the old monster's own injuries, Xu Yan thought as he withdrew his gaze.

This flare-up of the old monster's injuries looks extremely serious. If he dies of them, it will be my chance to break free. Xu Yan silently weighed his prospects. For the past three years, he had lived every day and night with his heart quaking in fear, terrified that one careless mistake would anger Golden Light Daoist and cost him his life.

"Cough, cough... The spirit medicine is finally almost ready. Good boy, hurry and help your patriarch up." Seeing Xu Yan look toward the Medicine Cauldron, an inscrutable gleam flashed through Golden Light Daoist's eyes. Once Xu Yan withdrew his gaze, he gave the instruction softly.

Xu Yan's heart tightened at those words, and he murmured his assent.

"Yes, Patriarch."

With that, Xu Yan let out a soft breath, pulled his hands out from beneath his robe, and slowly walked toward Golden Light Daoist.

The moment he drew near, Golden Light Daoist's withered right hand settled on his arm. The old man then slowly rose to his feet and, drawing Xu Yan along with him, tottered toward the Medicine Cauldron.