Chu Kingdom.
The Primordial Yang Sect.
The Primordial Yang Sect was one of the Chu Kingdom's five great immortal cultivation sects, boasting formidable strength, deep foundations, and an ancient legacy.
Eight thousand years had passed since its founding.
Every generation had Nascent Soul Realm cultivators overseeing the sect. It was a true colossus, drawing countless rogue cultivators and lineages like ducks flocking to water.
The sect stood on a branch of the Hengduan Mountain Range that extended into Qing Province, encompassing hundreds of spiritual mountains of all sizes.
The outer sect, Greenwood Peak, a first-tier spiritual mountain.
Halfway up the mountain stood an ordinary cave abode with exceedingly simple furnishings.
There was only a table, a chair, and an old stone bed.
Liu Yu sat cross-legged in the center of the stone bed, his expression serene, free of sorrow or joy. An azure spiritual glow flickered across his face.
His hands formed hand seals, his chest rising and falling slowly as he circulated the Wood Spirit Art, absorbing and refining the spiritual qi of heaven and earth.
"Whew..."
After a long while, Liu Yu forcefully exhaled a breath of stale air and slowly brought his cultivation to a close.
"Not bad."
Feeling the slight improvement in his cultivation, he smiled.
He was now not far from the fifth layer of the Qi Refining Realm!
This was a world of immortal cultivators. Only those born with spiritual roots could refine the spiritual qi of heaven and earth, embark on the path to immortality, and wield all manner of inconceivable divine abilities!
At profound cultivation realms, even living forever, burning mountains, and boiling seas were not impossible.
Mortals without spiritual roots, however, could not sense the spiritual qi of heaven and earth, much less refine it.
They were destined to become a handful of yellow earth after a hundred years, scattered into the depths of some nameless darkness!
Most mortals, however, never came into contact with the cultivation world from birth to death.
When they discussed it over tea or after meals, they treated it as nothing more than legend.
In this world, people with spiritual roots were exceedingly rare. Often, only one among several thousand mortals possessed them.
If either parent was an immortal cultivator, however, the odds of their offspring possessing spiritual roots increased greatly!
Thus, even when cultivators wished to have children, their first choice of partner was another cultivator.
Over time, blood ties became the bonds that formed cultivation lineages of all sizes.
Spiritual roots were generally divided into five elemental attributes: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.
The spiritual roots of the vast majority of cultivators consisted of one or more of these five attributes.
Under normal circumstances, the fewer attributes a spiritual root possessed, the purer it was.
The easier it became to sense the corresponding spiritual qi of heaven and earth, and the faster that qi could be absorbed and refined.
Mixed spiritual roots with four or five attributes refined spiritual qi extremely slowly. Known as mixed spiritual roots or false spiritual roots, they represented the poorest category of aptitude.
Spiritual roots with two or three attributes offered a tremendous improvement in cultivation speed over false spiritual roots, and were therefore called "true spiritual roots."
As for a "single spiritual root" with only one attribute, it allowed its bearer to sense and refine the spiritual qi of heaven and earth with ease, granting the fastest cultivation speed.
Thus, it was also known as a "heavenly spiritual root," signifying a favored child of heaven!
Beyond the five elemental spiritual roots, there were also mutated spiritual roots.
Special spiritual roots such as ice, wind, and lightning offered various advantages in cultivation, but still fell considerably short of heavenly spiritual roots.
Liu Yu was fortunate enough to possess spiritual roots. His luck was neither good nor bad.
He was a cultivator with a "true spiritual root" comprising wood, fire, and earth attributes.
Yet because his affinity for spiritual qi was only average, his aptitude could only be considered mediocre within the vast Primordial Yang Sect.
Liu Yu had originally been an ordinary office worker on Water-Blue Star who enjoyed collecting all sorts of rare and curious objects.
One day, while he was handling an ancestral Emerald Jade Pendant, it suddenly shone with green radiance.
Amid that dazzling light, he lost consciousness.
After a stretch of darkness, he regained consciousness to find himself in this world, a six- or seven-year-old beggar boy with neither father nor mother.
A Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator from the Primordial Yang Sect discovered him, recognized that he possessed spiritual roots, and brought him back to the sect, sending him to the Origin Sun Villa for training.
The Origin Sun Villa was where the Primordial Yang Sect trained new disciples, teaching children who had just embarked on the path to immortality.
At the villa, instructors taught the children to read and write, along with some basic knowledge of immortal cultivation.
Once the villa's disciples turned twelve and the meridians in their bodies had largely developed, they were taught basic cultivation arts.
If they reached the third layer of Qi Refining before turning sixteen, the Origin Sun Villa's special status allowed them to enter the outer sect directly.
As for children who failed to reach the third layer of Qi Refining, their fate was miserable.
They were demoted to menial servants, serving the Primordial Yang Sect for the rest of their lives to repay the resources the sect had invested in them.
With Liu Yu's three-attribute spiritual root aptitude, reaching the third layer of Qi Refining in the four years between twelve and sixteen was naturally not particularly difficult.
After all, the first three layers of the Qi Refining Realm required the least accumulation of cultivation and magical power, making them the easiest to attain.
Thus, as naturally as water flowing into a channel, Liu Yu became an unremarkable outer sect disciple of the Primordial Yang Sect. Two years had passed since then.
Whenever Liu Yu cultivated, he could sense an emerald-green speck of light three inches inward from the point between his eyebrows, suspended quietly above his Niwan Palace.
The speck was oval, emitting a faint glow.
Like a green moon, it illuminated this place of eternal darkness!
It brought precious glimmers of light to the mysterious dwelling of his soul.
Yet the Emerald Light Dot remained motionless in his Niwan Palace. No matter how Liu Yu probed it, it showed not the slightest response.
The Niwan Palace was the soul's dwelling, the brain within the brain, the core within the core. He dared not act rashly.
If this point were injured, his soul could be damaged at best, and he might die outright at worst. Then it would truly be too late for regrets!
Liu Yu had a vague suspicion about the Emerald Light Dot's origins. Perhaps it was connected to the Emerald Jade Pendant from his previous life.
He did not dare mention the anomaly he experienced during cultivation to anyone.
It concerned his past and present lives-his greatest secret!
Liu Yu resolved never to reveal even the slightest hint of it, not even to those closest to him.
He alone would know this secret!
Whenever Liu Yu cultivated, his divine sense passed through his Niwan Palace as he circulated his cultivation art. Bathed in the green radiance, he could always feel a trace of coolness.
That coolness was like a clear spring in the desert, refreshing and sweet.
It even seemed to greatly reduce the mental energy consumed during cultivation.
As his divine sense passed the Emerald Light Dot, Liu Yu discovered that a faint, inexplicable connection had formed between them.
The connection was elusive and exceedingly fragile. Without carefully sensing it, he would never have noticed it.
As that connection formed, he gained a glimmer of understanding.
He frequently enveloped the Emerald Light Dot with his divine sense, strengthening that inexplicable thread of connection in the hope of unraveling its mysteries sooner.
Since beginning cultivation at twelve, he had worked tirelessly for six years, and the inexplicable connection had grown ever stronger.
Deep within, he had a powerful premonition that something would change today!
That premonition had neither basis nor explanation. It resembled the rumored "sixth sense," yet was not quite the same.
What exactly was the Emerald Light Dot?!!
Liu Yu opened his eyes, his heart brimming with anticipation.
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