Setting Foot on the Immortal Path

In a small courtyard in a town in the Border Wasteland of the Flowing Cloud Dynasty, in the Central Region, an old man named Gu Ling was teaching Lu Chen about cultivation.

After agreeing to become the old man's disciple, Lu Chen had bought a courtyard with him in town, and they had settled there.

"Back when I was still a mortal, I lived in this town too. Later, a chance encounter led me onto the Immortal Path, and only then did I leave. Time flies. Looking back now, more than two hundred years have passed," the white-haired Gu Ling said with a sigh.

"More than two hundred years is indeed a long time for mortals." Lu Chen sighed inwardly. In the mortal world, that was already a dozen or more generations.

"What made you suddenly decide to come back?"

"Ah!" Loneliness filled Gu Ling's eyes as he sighed. "I cultivated desperately, but sadly, my aptitude was mediocre, resources were hard to find, and opportunities were scarce. In my entire life, I only reached the Other Shore realm, and could advance no further. Now I have little lifespan left, and my final hour is approaching. I wanted to be buried in my hometown after I died-a fallen leaf returning to its roots!"

"Well..." Lu Chen did not know what to say, but he now understood why he had encountered the old man in this remote town.

"You needn't worry. Though I don't have much life left, I still have at least six months to a year. That's enough to lead you through the gates of the Immortal Path," Gu Ling said.

"Then, Master, you could look for spirit medicines that extend your life. Perhaps you could make another breakthrough within a year and go farther along the Immortal Path." Lu Chen said this, but he knew they were only words.

Just like in Spirit Ruins Paradise in the Yan Kingdom, most of the elders were only at the Life Spring or Divine Bridge Realm by the time they died of old age.

One Elder Han had even tried to refine Ye Fan, who had eaten Sacred Fruit, into a pill to prolong his own life essence. Yet he had failed to account for the strength of the Desolate Ancient Sacred Body and had instead been killed by Ye Fan, becoming a Treasure-Delivering Old Man.

This showed just how precious rare spirit medicines that extended lifespan were. Even mighty cultivators and holy lords longed for them without being able to obtain them, so how could lowly cultivators casually get their hands on them?

"Forget it. I've come to terms with it. Living for more than two hundred years means this life wasn't wasted." Though Gu Ling said this, there was no telling whether he had truly let go in his heart.

Time flowed like water. A month had passed since Lu Chen became Gu Ling's disciple. During this time, he had not immediately begun practicing a cultivation method, but instead absorbed the fundamentals of cultivation and the old man's insights into the Dao.

With a few rare exceptions, all living beings were weak by nature, yet their bodies harbored boundless potential. The cultivation world called these reserves of potential "gates," and such "gates" were as countless as the dust between heaven and earth.

A world in every flower, enlightenment in every leaf.

Each "gate" within the human body was equivalent to a world. Through various Profound Arts, one continually opened these "gates" of potential within the body, discovered the "true self," and released divine energy. This was cultivation!

Though living beings possessed countless gates of potential within their bodies, opening them always required a starting point and a sequence.

The first gate opened by the Shrouding Method was the Wheel and Sea Secret Realm, followed by the Dao Palace Secret Realm-the Four Extremes Secret Realm-the Dragon Transformation Secret Realm-the Immortal Platform Secret Realm.

These corresponded respectively to the body's storehouse of essence below the navel, the five organs within the chest, the four limbs, the spine that supported the body, and the brain that governed it.

As a novice cultivator, Lu Chen naturally had to begin with the first secret realm, the Sea of Bitterness.

The Sea of Bitterness lay below the navel. It was circular and palm-sized, and its core was called the life source wheel, also known as the wheel of life.

It was the birthplace of all life and the storehouse of essence for the entire human body. Ordinary people relied on it to bear children and continue their lineage.

Cultivators, however, took the life source wheel as the foundation of their cultivation, the Divine Power Source. If Lu Chen wanted to set foot on the Immortal Path, this was where he had to begin.

The sun and moon rose and fell, and the years slipped by. Time left its marks on everything between heaven and earth, just as a tree gained another growth ring with every passing year.

The human body was no different. Each year, time carved another scar into the source wheel. When those scars covered the entire life source wheel, the moment of its shattering arrived, and the person naturally reached the end of his life.

Ancient lore held that if a cultivator could keep his life source wheel crystal clear, without marks or scars, forever as it had been at birth, he would have hope of becoming an immortal.

"Master, could you see how many marks there are on my life source wheel?" Lu Chen asked when his lessons reached this point.

Though he knew the course this world would take and the broad outlines of the Shrouding Method, he still needed someone to guide him through these detailed cultivation principles.

Gu Ling extended his palm and gently pressed it against the location of Lu Chen's Sea of Bitterness. As his divine power circulated, he understood the situation within and said, "Time has left eighteen marks on it."

"Eighteen!" A faint smile appeared on Lu Chen's face.

Although he had not regained his youth to the age of eleven or twelve like Ye Fan and Pang Bo, he was even more pleased to have returned to eighteen.

Several days later, Lu Chen had gained a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of cultivation and a clear grasp of the Sea of Bitterness. Gu Ling finally began teaching him the actual Profound Arts of cultivation.

Within the palm-sized Sea of Bitterness, an ocean covered the life source wheel. This was a sea of tribulations, also called the bitter sea. It intertwined with the life source wheel, one above and the other below.

In the first cultivation realm, one used Profound Arts to sense the Sea of Bitterness, then drew the essence of heaven and earth into the body before striking at the bitter sea, opening it up and continually expanding it.

At the same time, the life source wheel would grow more substantial, and the vital essence it contained would increase.

Once the bitter sea grew to a certain extent, the vital essence within the source wheel would gush forth, forming a "spring" that reached all the way to the seabed. At this point, one entered the second stage of the first great secret realm-the Life Spring.

The spring released an unending stream of vital essence, which was a cultivator's divine power, also called dharma power. It was the source of a cultivator's strength.

At this point, cultivators crossed a firm boundary separating them from mortals. As long as their divine power did not run dry, they could soar through the heavens, burrow through the earth, overturn rivers and seas, and display all manner of divine abilities and spells.

Creating life within the desolate bitter sea, nurturing vast vitality, cultivating a divine meridian, forging a heavenly bridge, and reaching the Other Shore at the bitter sea's farthest end-this was cultivation in the Wheel and Sea Secret Realm.

At the outset of his cultivation, Gu Ling struck Lu Chen's bitter sea with his own divine power to help him quickly sense the existence of the Sea of Bitterness.

Ordinary cultivators still needed a long time to sense the Sea of Bitterness, even with a senior guiding them.

This was when differences in talent and aptitude became evident. Some needed several months, or even longer.

Pang Bo of Spirit Ruins Paradise, for instance, possessed the Demon God Bloodline and had also consumed Divine Spring water and Sacred Fruit. Yet when he first began cultivating under an elder's guidance, he still needed more than ten days to sense the Sea of Bitterness. Clearly, setting foot on the Immortal Path was no easy matter.

Those monstrous prodigies, however, could sense the Sea of Bitterness on their own even without guidance, and in very little time.

Though Lu Chen's innate aptitude had not been impressive, after being tempered by the Bodhi Divine Leaf, Divine Spring water, Sacred Fruit, and the Nine-Turn Immortal Pill, he could no longer be spoken of in the same breath as before. He was not the slightest bit inferior to the greatest prodigies.

He took only a single day to sense his own Sea of Bitterness and take his first step in cultivation. On the second day, he even opened up his bitter sea.

This left Gu Ling shaken, crying out in astonishment. "Back then, it took me nearly half a year just to sense the Sea of Bitterness, and more than a year to open up my bitter sea. But you..."

Though he had discovered that Lu Chen's blood and vital energy surged like a flood dragon and that divine radiance lay hidden within him, marking him as a heaven-gifted genius, he had never expected anything this terrifying. In more than two hundred years, he had never even heard of such a thing. As far as he knew, perhaps only those legendary divine bodies, king bodies, and the like could possess such extraordinary aptitude.