"All right!" Fairy Qingxia nodded. With a flick of her fingers, a talisman appeared between them. She chanted, then raised her hand, sending a streak of blue light shooting away. In a flash, it vanished without a trace.
"Hey! Master Sister, what are you doing? That talisman looks like the ones Heavenly Master Li uses to catch ghosts in our Treasure Immortal Town!" Li Xiaoya asked curiously.
Fairy Qingxia gave a soft scoff. "You actually compared the immortal arts of us Immortal Cultivators to the tricks of those wandering swindlers! This is called a Voice Transmission Talisman. You simply use your Divine Sense to speak whatever you want to say into it, and it records your words, then automatically flies to the recipient. It's an immortal art we Immortal Cultivators use every day."
"It's that amazing?" Li Xiaoya could hardly believe it. Then he reconsidered. His Master Sister could already fly, so knowing how to use such a marvelous Voice Transmission Talisman was hardly surprising. "Ah! Master Sister! Will you teach me immortal arts?" he asked, gazing at Fairy Qingxia with pleading eyes.
"Didn't I tell you already? You can stay in the Heavenly Dao Sect from now on and learn immortal spells!" Fairy Qingxia said with a smile.
"Really? Then you'll truly be my Master Sister!" Li Xiaoya exclaimed, bursting with delight.
"Hey! I never said I'd take you as my disciple! I don't accept male disciples!" Fairy Qingxia said awkwardly.
"Huh? Then who am I supposed to learn from?" Li Xiaoya asked, disappointed.
"Our Heavenly Dao Sect has a Merit Transmission Hall specifically for teaching cultivation methods to low-level novice disciples. You can go there to learn when the time comes!" Heavenly Venerable Daoling said from beside them.
"Then how many years will it take before I'm as powerful as you?" Li Xiaoya asked.
"Hehe! With your aptitude? If you want to reach our Nascent Soul Realm cultivation, and you encounter enough fortunate opportunities, you might have a chance after cultivating for a thousand or two thousand years!" Fairy Qingxia said with an odd expression. Inwardly, however, she thought, With that wretched aptitude of yours, you'd be lucky to reach core condensation!
"Ah! More than a thousand years? I'd be dead long before then! How could anyone live that long?" Li Xiaoya said, pouting.
"Hehe! We Immortal Cultivators are different from mortals. An ordinary person who lives to a hundred is considered long-lived. What we pursue is the Heavenly Dao of eternal life. The higher our cultivation, the longer our lifespan. With my nascent soul late stage cultivation, I can just about live to three thousand!" Heavenly Venerable Daoling said with a chuckle.
"Th-three thousand? Then how old are you?" Li Xiaoya asked, astonished and scarcely able to believe it.
"This humble Daoist is nothing exceptional-merely seven hundred and eighty years old, exactly!" Heavenly Venerable Daoling gave a number that left Li Xiaoya gaping, utterly dumbfounded.
"You're lying! You only look about forty!" Li Xiaoya exclaimed in shock.
"Hehe! Once you join our Heavenly Dao Sect, young friend, you'll know that this humble Daoist speaks the truth." Heavenly Venerable Daoling was surprisingly easygoing and took no offense.
"Then what's this nascent soul late stage? What does reaching the nascent soul late stage mean?" Li Xiaoya asked again.
"As our cultivation advances, we divide the realms of Immortal Cultivators into ten ranks: true cultivation, core condensation, golden core, nascent soul, spirit communion, great void, heaven and earth, mighty one, immortal tribulation, and true immortal. Once you have fully perfected the cultivation method of a realm and reached the peak of its tenth level, you can attempt to break through to the next rank. Every successful breakthrough to a new rank brings increases in cultivation, magical power, lifespan, and so on. This is also the very foundation of our pursuit of immortality...
And so Li Xiaoya pestered the two immortals with their profound cultivation, asking about this and that and learning a great deal about the wondrous world of immortal cultivation. It did not last long, however, because a disciple brought food up from the foot of the mountain. Although Heavenly Venerable Daoling had told him that most Immortal Cultivators did not need to eat, either because their cultivation had reached grain avoidance or because they sustained themselves on medicines such as Grain-Avoidance Pills, there were still many Immortal Cultivators on the mountain in the true cultivation stage who had not yet reached grain avoidance and needed to eat ordinary grains. Thus, the mountain still had a fairly large dining hall. These meals had been brought up from below.
Li Xiaoya opened the dishes and found nothing but vegetables such as greens and radishes. They tasted bland, too, as though hardly any oil or salt had been added. He could not help complaining that the Heavenly Dao Sect was far too stingy, unwilling even to add a little more oil and salt. His opinion of the sect plummeted.
Only later did he learn that those cultivating immortality had to restrain their appetites, and that eating ordinary grains increased impurities in an Immortal Cultivator's flesh and internal organs, hindering cultivation. Basically, once an Immortal Cultivator reached the core condensation stage, they no longer needed mortal food and had attained grain avoidance. Of course, that did not mean they consumed nothing at all. Rather, they stopped eating mortal food and instead took Grain-Avoidance Pills refined from medicinal ingredients. The better the Grain-Avoidance Pill, the greater the improvement to their physical constitution and other attributes. Grain-Avoidance Pills were classified by grade, with ten grades in total.
Nor was taking a better Grain-Avoidance Pill necessarily preferable, since this also depended to some extent on one's cultivation realm. First-, second-, and third-grade Grain-Avoidance Pills, for example, were daily medicines taken by most Immortal Cultivators below the core condensation stage. Pills of the fourth grade or above were too potent and could instead damage their internal organs. Ordinary core condensation cultivators generally took only first-grade Grain-Avoidance Pills, because most Immortal Cultivators considered it better to refine medicinal ingredients into pills that increased magical power rather than second- or third-grade Grain-Avoidance Pills. After all, the ingredients required for second- and third-grade Grain-Avoidance Pills had to be at least ten years old. Only Immortal Cultivators at the golden core stage could afford them.
Immortal Cultivators in the Nascent Soul Realm took Grain-Avoidance Pills of the sixth grade or above, but apparently no longer needed them once they reached the spirit communion stage. By then, they could directly draw upon the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to sustain their lives.
Although Li Xiaoya disliked the Heavenly Dao Sect's food, he was used to hardship. Having eaten little for more than a day, he was already so hungry that his belly seemed to cling to his spine. He polished off everything in a few mouthfuls, belched, and said, "Hey! Master Sister! The food in your Heavenly Dao Sect is really terrible! It's even worse than the Four Directions Inn, which makes the worst food in our Treasure Immortal Town!"
If Zhang Dafu of the Four Directions Inn had heard that, he would surely have been so furious that smoke poured from all seven openings of his head. What did he mean, worse than the Four Directions Inn? Constantly eating and drinking for free was bad enough, but now he was calling the food terrible too??? If he had the guts, he should stop eating it!
"We who cultivate immortality must remember not to indulge our appetites. It does nothing to help our cultivation advance!" Fairy Qingxia said with a faint smile.
"Then if you can't eat delicious food, there's not much point in living longer!" Li Xiaoya said dismissively.
"Once you start cultivating immortality, you'll understand its benefits!" Fairy Qingxia said mildly, looking disinclined to explain further.
(I was rather hesitant when writing the cultivation realms. Although, as a fan of A Mortal's Journey to Immortality, I drew on many of its settings, I have also read plenty of other books and thought up many settings of my own that differ from it. Following its settings instead felt somewhat confusing, so I had no choice but to redesign them. I hope readers who continue will take the time to understand them.)
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