It was mid-autumn in year 10016 of the Dharma-Ending Era.
On a towering cliff at Southern Border Azure Mountain, Fang Qianyuan stood facing west, dressed in a blue robe.
Below the cliff lay a landscape of crisscrossing field paths and groves of green trees.
A little over a third of a mile away, a cluster of buildings with blue-brick walls and gray-tiled roofs stood beside the woods, more than half their structures visible.
Farther away, distant mountains rose and fell beneath a sky filled with glowing clouds. A flock of wild geese moved slowly in a V formation, bathed in the lingering light of the setting sun.
Fang Qianyuan stood motionless for a long time, as though he had become a statue firmly rooted to the cliff. His face, turned toward the sunset, took on a gilded hue, and before he knew it, his thoughts had sunk into memories.
Fang Qianyuan had lost his father as a child. He had thought it was simply the decree of fate, never imagining that someone had caused it. The source of the disaster was a fragment of the Flying Immortal Records that his father, Fang Hai, had chanced upon while exploring a secluded, mysterious place.
The Flying Immortal Records was a secret treasure of ancient cultivators from before the First Year of the Dharma-Ending Era. Legend held that it concealed an earth-shaking secret that could guide one to ascension, carry one to the other shore, and even allow one to attain the Dao and become eternally immortal. But during the wars of the First Year of the Dharma-Ending Era, the records had been split into nine pieces. Unless all nine were reunited, even the world's finest minds could not unravel them with a lifetime of effort.
Fang Hai had been nothing more than an ordinary Human Rank Spirit Tamer in the Spirit Taming Sect. He had no hope of safeguarding this heaven-sent fortune. Within a single year, his secret had been exposed, and he had met a gruesome, undeserved death.
First, an unimaginably powerful and terrifying enemy had interrogated him under torture, flaying his skin and tearing out his tendons. After taking the treasure, the enemy had severed his limbs and gouged out his eyes to torment him further. Finally, poison from demonic gu had dissolved him alive into pus and blood, leaving not a scrap of flesh or bone.
What that enemy had not expected was that this act had failed to erase everything as he intended.
At the place where he had discovered the fragment of the Flying Immortal Records, Fang Hai had swallowed an unnamed silver pill. Not long after the enemy left, it had actually reconstructed his body and brought him back from the dead!
Such uncanny power, which wrested creation itself from heaven and earth, was utterly beyond anything the Dharma-Ending Era possessed. Amid his relief and lingering terror, Fang Hai had become all the more certain that the legends were true.
After that, Fang Hai had fled far away and concealed his identity, hiding in a small mortal kingdom under the Azure Cloud Sect's rule. There, he continued to watch for news of the treasure and await a chance for revenge.
But with his humble origins and meager strength, this had been nothing more than a fool's dream.
At his level, he never even had another opportunity to learn anything about the records or his enemy.
His wife, daughter, and parents had all died at his enemy's hands as well. Alongside his hatred came grief and self-reproach. Within a few years, despair had made him ill, and he had departed this world. All he left behind was his young son, Fang Qianyuan, whom he had intended to leave in the care of a mortal farming family because taking him along while fleeing was inconvenient-a decision that had fortunately allowed the boy to escape the calamity.
Fang Hai had secretly brought Fang Qianyuan back, and they had lived together for seven years. Fang Qianyuan had known nothing of these twists and turns until Fang Hai revealed every secret on his deathbed.
"Brother Fang, you're here looking at the scenery again! The sun's almost down. Stop watching-let's head back!"
A sudden shout roused Fang Qianyuan from his thoughts.
Fang Qianyuan turned to look. A lanky, monkey-thin boy had come along the mountain path and was standing at the fork, waving and calling to him.
Fang Qianyuan gave him a gentle smile and nodded slightly. "All right."
He then gathered the firewood beside him, hoisted the carrying pole onto his shoulder, and followed the boy down a narrow path along the hillside toward the blue-brick, gray-tiled buildings.
Along the way, the boy excitedly chattered about his discoveries in the mountains, while Fang Qianyuan offered an occasional response. Before long, they returned to the rear courtyard. After handing over the firewood to the old gatekeeper who had come at the sound of their arrival, they went to the dining hall.
"Brother Fang, you're back."
"Brother Fang, come on! They're about to serve dinner!"
"Brother Fang..."
The dining hall was already packed. Most of those inside were boys around Fang Qianyuan's age, all wearing blue robes-the attire of odd-job workers.
Fang Qianyuan seemed to command considerable respect among these boys. Many greeted him of their own accord as he passed, and he answered each of them, a smile never leaving his face.
After dinner, everyone scattered noisily, heading to the bathhouse in turn to wash before returning to the courtyard to enjoy the cool air and play.
Fang Qianyuan, however, returned to his room alone. He sat cross-legged in the darkness and silently began practicing the introductory cultivation method taught by the branch courtyard.
This introductory method awakened the inner faculties before one entered the thirty-three stages of the Spirit Taming Art. It focused on refining spirit essence within the inner world deep inside the human body and opening a spirit sea. Only after completing both steps could one enter the first revolution of Human Rank and become a newly initiated Spirit Tamer.
Anyone who wished to become a Spirit Tamer naturally had to devote themselves to arduous practice. Even so, countless mortals exhausted a lifetime of effort without ever crossing these thresholds.
Fang Qianyuan, however, did not find any of this particularly difficult.
After coming to the mountain, Fang Qianyuan had learned the cultivation method at the sect's branch courtyard and laid his foundation. For several months, he had studied, practiced, and experimented tirelessly. At first, lacking anyone to guide him, he had struggled to grasp the essentials. Soon, however, success had come as naturally as water flowing into a channel. He had even drawn the attention of the courtyard elders and become a celebrated example of genius.
But the Azure Cloud Sect was a renowned great sect with strict rules. Everyone recruited from the mortal world had to spend years in the outer courtyard as a registered disciple, undergoing observation and trials while receiving instruction. Only after reaching the appropriate age and passing the courtyard admission examination could they formally enter the sect.
Fang Qianyuan could only remain in the outer courtyard, living and growing alongside the other registered disciples.
Years passed in the blink of an eye. Fang Qianyuan was now sixteen, and once he passed the autumn examination at the end of next month, he would receive his first spirit entity and officially become a Spirit Tamer.
Before long, his spirit essence completed its circuit through his body, seemingly fuller and denser than before. Fang Qianyuan slowly concluded his practice but remained seated cross-legged, returning to the memories that had been interrupted earlier.
He clearly remembered that his father had told him to come here, find a master, and learn the arts of a Spirit Tamer so that he could avenge their suffering.
His other purpose was to recover the lost fragment of the Flying Immortal Records-and, if possible, gather all the pieces and unravel the astounding mystery that had circulated in the cultivation world for so many years.
That, too, would make up for his father's regrets.
"Qianyuan, my son, your father was useless. I failed to support my parents and failed to protect my wife and daughter. Now our family is shattered, its people dead, and I am alone with no one to rely on. I have languished in the mortal world for years, and now I must leave you to suffer as well. All of this came from my foolish dreams."
"But I cannot accept it!"
"Why must those of us born lowly as grass roots never have our day to rise? Why, when we finally find an opportunity, must someone seize it through trickery and force?"
"How bitterly I hate it!"
"But now, I can only entrust my final wish to you. My son, I pray with all my heart that you will fulfill it in my stead!"
"Only then, if my spirit knows of it beneath the earth, will I be able to close my eyes in peace!"
In Fang Qianyuan's memory, his father, Fang Hai, had always been a strong, unyielding man. He had never imagined that, at the end of his life, his father would weep with such heart-rending anguish.
Fang Hai had drawn his last breath with a heart full of resentment. Even after death, his teeth remained clenched, his face twisted with regret and hatred. The sight had shaken the young Fang Qianyuan deeply. With no one left to support him after Fang Hai's death, he had obeyed his father's last wishes and joined the Azure Cloud Sect.
Now, years later, Fang Qianyuan's mind had gradually matured, and he had developed thoughts and convictions of his own. Yet the decision he had made as a child had likewise become an obsession, rooted deep within him. In his heart, he also cherished a longing for the vast world his father had described to him. He yearned to escape the fate of the lowly and see the view from the heights.
And all of that began with passing the sect's examination. Unless he became a Spirit Tamer, everything else was out of the question.