Yes, cremation was common in the cultivation world too. Aside from those whose lineages or sects could protect their graves, ordinary cultivators generally consigned themselves to the flames, lest someone dig them up to make them into Corpse Refining materials and deny them peace even in death.
Now, among the Bing-Gui Immortal Seedlings Lin Changheng was close to, almost everyone except him and Tantai Feiyue had been to the battlefield, suffering injury or death.
Someone like Bai Fengxian, who had merely been disfigured without damage to his foundation, could count himself lucky.
At the request of the two families' widows and orphans, Lin, Xu, and Bai handled the funerals.
After some deliberation, they decided not to scatter the two men's ashes into the Blackwater River. Instead, they buried them high in the green hills and planted a young pine above each grave.
One day, when those trees stood tall with canopies spread like parasols, they could watch over the changes of the immortal path in the men's stead, as seas became mulberry fields.
"The immortal path is heartless. I wonder, when our time comes... will anyone find us a treasured place for our eternal rest?"
Xu Fugui suddenly sighed.
"Why don't the three of us make a pact here? Whoever falls on the immortal path, the others must find him a good place to be buried." After a long silence, Bai Fengxian looked at the other two and made his suggestion.
"All right." Lin Changheng considered it briefly, then nodded.
"Agreed." Xu Fugui consented as well.
Three hands stacked together, sealing their pact.
"Brother Lin."
That day, a call suddenly sounded outside Lin Changheng's small courtyard, accompanied by a gentle knock.
Yet had anyone entered at that moment, they would have found not a trace of anyone, either in the house or in the courtyard.
"Coming."
A reply suddenly rang out from within the courtyard.
Someone was actually there?
Then a wondrous sight appeared. Faint earth-aspected fluctuations stirred over a patch of soft yellow soil in a corner of the courtyard.
Next, the yellow soil rippled like flowing water. A figure flickered and appeared out of thin air.
But a keen observer would have noticed that the figure seemed to have been spat out by the earth, bringing up a few wisps of dust with him.
It was none other than Earth Escape...
[Earth Escape Aberrant Art · Path-Peeking]!
The practical, life-saving art he had long awaited was finally his!
About a month earlier, with Tantai Feiyue continually supplying talisman ink, the [rockmountain tortoise treasure seed] had finally completed spirit seizure.
For the first time, the Origin Cauldron had also produced an ocher treasure seed.
His earth spirit root's spirit resonance had increased by one strand, bringing it to eight.
At the same time, he had refined [Earth Escape] into himself without a second thought.
In an instant, the earth's pulse surged toward him like the tides. Lin Changheng immediately sensed that peculiar rhythm, and his breathing unconsciously fell into step with it.
There was also the flow of earth qi-
It was not chaotic, but followed a rhythm more ancient than breathing.
From then on, the solid soil beneath his feet was no longer an obstacle to Lin Changheng. It had become a flowing "river," and he could begin to borrow the earth's "waves" to travel through it.
[Effect: Initial perception of the earth's rhythms; briefly merge into and travel through soil]
Overjoyed, Lin Changheng went straight to an uninhabited mountain nearby to test it.
After mastering this Otherworldly Art, as long as any part of his body touched the ground, he could sink into the earth with a mere thought.
It was an exceedingly mysterious state. The hard soil beneath his feet merely stirred, forming ripples like those on water.
It had neither been broken open nor damaged, yet he was already within it.
From Lin Changheng's perspective, his entire body resembled a drop of ink falling into a lake, gradually sinking amid spreading ocher spiritual power.
Before long, he vanished completely beneath the ground, leaving no figure behind.
"It really is wondrous!"
Lin Changheng could not help feeling both astonished and delighted. This trick alone would let him avoid some sudden dangers from the outside world.
He could sense that he was seven or eight feet beneath the soil.
He could go deeper still, but at a depth of ten feet, it became incomparably hard. His feet felt as though they rested on solid ground, and he could sink no farther.
But this was only [Earth Escape Aberrant Art · Path-Peeking], its most basic level, so Lin Changheng was already more than satisfied.
"Now let's try moving through it."
With a thought, Lin Changheng continued his tests.
His eyes focused as he began to sense his surroundings. Soon, he detected a certain rhythm within the earth, and with the Otherworldly Art in motion, he traveled through the ground.
As though carried along by a current, he arrived a hundred feet away almost instantly.
The tightly packed stone and soil around him no longer posed an obstacle. Instead, they parted naturally like flowing water, then closed soundlessly behind him, leaving only the faintest traces.
"Tsk, tsk. Even though it's pitch-black underground, to my senses, it's like scattered star-sand, with little specks of hazy yellow light... quite magnificent, really. A view I've never experienced before."
After roughly five breaths, Lin Changheng, who had been swimming underground like a fish, began to feel uncomfortable.
His body felt the pressure of the earth, while his breathing also began to grow labored.
He immediately chose a spot and emerged from the soil.
Not a trace of dirt or dust clung to his robes.
"Truly marvelous."
After resting for a while, Lin Changheng continued testing.
Soon, he reached his conclusions.
With [Earth Escape Aberrant Art · Path-Peeking], he could enter the earth upon touching the ground. Once inside, his depth was limited to ten feet, and his time to five breaths.
He could travel roughly five hundred feet.
In the face of danger, Earth Escape alone would not let him get away. Its strengths, however, lay in being silent and traceless, unrestricted in direction, and unpredictable in movement. Combined with other methods, such as the Breath-Concealment Technique or a Concealment Talisman, it would allow him to leave the battlefield and vanish without a trace.
Finding him again in the short term would be exceedingly difficult.
His years of solving problems had honed Lin Changheng's mental agility, and he soon thought of ways to make up for its shortcomings.
He firmly believed that problems were dead things, but people were alive; there was always a suitable solution.
While Earth Escape remained weak, why not amplify its strengths and compensate for its flaws? Wouldn't that give him the optimal solution?
Once he accumulated more [rockmountain tortoise treasure seeds] and improved the [Earth Escape Art] again, its duration, range, and depth would change, and naturally, he would no longer need these extra measures.
The courtyard gate opened.
Tantai Feiyue walked in, casually sat down on a stone stool, and pushed a wooden box toward him. At the same time, her starry eyes studied Lin Changheng suspiciously; he had clearly taken far too long to open the gate.
After years of close association, the two no longer had the reserve of their early acquaintance.
"Could this be..."
Lin Changheng did not take the bait. With a warm smile, he simply drew the wooden box toward him and opened it.
Inside lay four talismans, their strokes like silver hooks and iron lines, thick with spiritual radiance.
"As the great Pill Master Lin requested: two low-grade [Breath-Concealment Talismans] and two low-grade [Concealment Talismans], all of premium quality."
Seeing this, Tantai Feiyue gave a light huff, picked up a teacup, and spoke while drinking.
"Sorry for the trouble, Fairy."
Lin Changheng swept his sleeve, and both the wooden box and its talismans disappeared. Then he looked at the commandery princess, who was enjoying her tea without a care, and his expression turned peculiar.
"What? Do I have flowers on my face?"
Noticing this, Tantai Feiyue instinctively paused with her cup and asked in surprise.
"Your beauty makes the moon hide and flowers blush, Your Highness. Ordinary flowers could hardly compare..."
At Lin Changheng's words, Tantai Feiyue secretly rejoiced, though outwardly she remained as calm and unmoving as a mountain.
But Lin Changheng pointed at the teacup in her hand, and his next words made Tantai Feiyue's lovely face flush scarlet, dazzlingly radiant:
"It's just that I was drinking from that cup a moment ago. If you're truly thirsty, Fairy, you need only say so, and I'll pour you some. There's no need to save me those few leaves of spirit tea."