Yuangeng

Yuangeng often dreamed.

In his dreams, he always felt as though he had become something transcendent, swimming upstream against the great river called time, passing through magnificent vistas of ancient history as he traced the river of time to its source.

In those dreamlike, illusory memories, at the end of time stood a plateau veiled in mist and dawn light. The plateau was small, with only a little courtyard standing quietly beside a lake.

There seemed to be nothing special about the courtyard. Built from the simplest black stone, it was somewhat rough and looked as though no one had lived there for a very long time. Its low walls were covered in marks left by wind and rain. Though they still stood, moss had spread all over them, with no one to tend them.

Through the half-open stone door, the courtyard's contents looked equally unrefined: stone stools, a stone table, a stone mill, a stove... and a stone zither. All seemed to have been hewn with axes and chisels, ordinary and unremarkable, scattered quietly and casually about the courtyard.

One thing stood out: beside the stone mill, a plain flower bud grew toward the sky. It was not vivid, but it was tenacious, blooming and withering in the little courtyard before becoming seeds and growing anew.

Something had clearly happened to the owner of the plateau, courtyard, and lake, for they had not returned in far too long. As the years passed, the plateau collapsed, a bronze coffin appeared, and many things happened, bringing an upheaval never seen throughout the ages.

During that process, the stone zither, stone mill, stove, and everything else disappeared. The flower bud was gone as well, leaving only scattered specks of pollen drifting into the distance.

After a very, very long time, even the little courtyard was buried deep within the river of time. Only the stone door remained, lying alone amid the plateau's ruins.

Another stretch of endless ages passed, and the stone door seemed to feel the summons of fate as well. It fell from the plateau's ruins, turning into an utterly unremarkable beam of light that wandered through the river of time.

One day, that radiance seemed to finally find its destiny. It crossed time and space and sank into a young man's brow.

Then he woke from the dream.

Above the Primordial Ancient Mine, the stone coffin that had slumbered for untold ages stood in the void. When its heavy lid was lifted completely away, everyone finally saw the being lying inside.

He was a young man who looked to be in his twenties or thirties. Burly and clad in black-gold battle robes, he had sharply defined features and swordlike brows as keen as blades. He resembled a towering black mountain, his coldness suffused with profoundly unfathomable depths and an overwhelmingly weighty, domineering presence.

Whoosh!

At a certain moment, the young man opened his eyes. Pitch-black light, surging like an ocean, instantly blazed within them. The saints of the Hundred Clans immediately felt a bone-piercing chill-a pressure upon the very essence of their lives, no weaker than that of the supreme beings in the deepest reaches of the Ancient Mine.

Yet to the ancient supreme being deep within the Primordial Ancient Mine, the creature before him felt entirely different. His coldness and profundity seemed to come from beyond antiquity itself. He appeared to be one with the yin of the myriad Daos, immeasurably deep and impossible to fathom.

"An ancient creature from before the Mythological Era..."

The supreme being murmured to himself. He could sense it clearly: the being before him possessed roughly the same strength of aura as he did, both standing at the pinnacle of the mortal domain. Yet their origins were fundamentally different, a distinction arising from different cultivation systems that could not possibly be faked.

"What era is this..."

At the same time, Yuangeng's gaze had already pierced the darkness of the Primordial Ancient Mine. Beneath the mining pit, he saw immortal source inscribed with intricate formation patterns cracking apart. A withered, aged being sat cross-legged in its deepest reaches, staring fixedly at him with eyes frighteningly bright.

Having only just awakened from an age-spanning slumber, Yuangeng's thoughts were clearly still muddled.

He was a transmigrator. His original home had been a mysterious yet ordinary Blue Star. He had died in an accident, then crossed over to an era in which kings contended and the Immortal Dao flourished, aided by the stone door deep within his true spirit.

Yes, when Yuangeng transmigrated, he was born in the distant Immortal Ancient Era.

In those flourishing years, the Immortal Dao was lofty, but it was not some level that remained unreachable even after a lifetime of effort. Across the boundless lands of the Primordial Ancient Realm, there were at least a thousand immortal beings, while kings stood alongside one another, worshipped by countless trillions of living creatures.

Yuangeng truly had enjoyed good days in his youth.

The tradition into which he was born was an ancient cultivation nation called White Origin within the Primordial Ancient Realm. Its territory was frighteningly vast, spanning untold billions of miles. It was an enormous tradition with a True Immortal-level Sacrificial Spirit and dozens of supreme beings.

The ancient nation's Sacrificial Spirit was a Six-Eared Immortal Ape, a genuine True Immortal who understood the principles of all things. He had even listened to the teachings of the Ancestral Sacrificial Spirit, an Immortal King, received an Immortal King scripture, and embarked upon the path of Sacrificial Spirits.

At birth, Yuangeng had been merely one utterly unremarkable person among the vast population of White Origin's countless cities. Yet he displayed extraordinary cultivation talent, revealing a profound understanding of the Dao, of methods, and of the natural world from a very young age.

From beginning to end, his Dao had been exceptionally clear and single-minded—the Lunar Essence.

Within the first century of his life, Yuangeng had already made a name for himself in the ancient nation. His combat prowess was extraordinary, and he defeated several descendants of supreme beings in succession. His outstanding cultivation talent earned the approval of the nation's upper ranks. He even drank the Sacrificial Spirit's immortal blood, undergoing a complete transformation and rising to greater heights.

Afterward, Yuangeng continued his triumphant advance, forging straight ahead along the path of cultivation and gaining a modest reputation within Qingwei Heaven in the Primordial Ancient Realm.

Around the age of one thousand, Yuangeng passed an extremely arduous trial in Qingwei Heaven and became a True Immortal's disciple. His master was named Heavenly Lord Mo, whose true form was a Lunar Essence Black Qilin that had lived for more than half an epoch. Though he was not the Qilin Immortal who held a place among the Ten Fiends, he stood alongside such figures as the True Immortal Azure Moon.

Around the age of eleven hundred, Yuangeng lived up to everyone's expectations and fused with the lunar Dao seed. Through that flawless immortal seed, he became wholly one with the Dao and perfectly unleashed his potential.

By the age of three thousand, Yuangeng was already a renowned prodigy of the younger generation in the Primordial Ancient Realm. Across all heavens and lands, it was difficult to find anyone below the supreme level who could stand shoulder to shoulder with him.

It was also around the age of three thousand that, during a sparring match with a prodigy from the Immortal Realm, Yuangeng won half of the Heaven-Covering Immortal-Burning Art from a Golden Crow Clan prodigy, using the Solar Essence to corroborate the Lunar Essence.

At ten thousand years old, Yuangeng finally succeeded in practicing the Heaven-Covering Immortal-Burning Art in reverse, transforming the Solar Essence into the Lunar Essence. Through a breakthrough in his understanding of the lunar essence, he stepped into the supreme level.

A ten-thousand-year-old supreme being might not have been the youngest of that era across the entire Primordial Ancient Realm, but he still surpassed many, many prodigies of Immortal King clans and was counted among those with the greatest potential to achieve immortality.

Afterward, Yuangeng began his travels and cultivation, which would last tens of thousands of years.

During those seventy or eighty thousand years of cultivation, Yuangeng visited the Immortal Domain, attended the Flat Peach Gathering organized by Pan King, and took part in a gathering held by a Golden Crow Clan princess to choose a husband. He even journeyed personally to the Burial Domain, where he had the good fortune to read a Burial King's scriptures...

During those years, he witnessed many kinds of Dao, cultivated many kinds of methods, and crossed blades with young prodigies. He also became Dao companions with a Golden Burial Cultivator. It was the most leisurely and rewarding period of Yuangeng's life.

The Immortal Ancient Method emphasized comprehending heaven and earth and becoming one with nature, and its cultivation was not particularly fast. Yuangeng's progress could be considered outstanding among its practitioners. Around the age of ninety thousand, he made a major breakthrough, crossed a certain threshold, and entered the domain of the truly powerful.

In those days, the pinnacle of the mortal path, the summit of the supreme domain, was already known as the "Extreme Dao."

Originally, many people in the Primordial Ancient Realm and the Immortal Domain acknowledged Yuangeng's potential. They believed that perhaps, in only a million years, the Primordial Ancient Realm would gain another Lunar Essence True Immortal. There might even be a Lunar Essence Immortal King born within that epoch, making an already flourishing era still more brilliant.

But before Yuangeng could become an immortal, the bloody war that overturned the cosmos at the end of the Immortal Ancient Era began.

He remembered being around five hundred thousand years old at the time. By then, he had undergone several transformations within the Extreme Dao domain. Though he had yet to enter the Immortal Dao Domain, he possessed deep foundations.

Yet when the Foreign Realm's many Immortals and Immortal Kings invaded the Primordial Ancient Realm with their vast armies, Yuangeng was still caught somewhat off guard.

As a transmigrator, he had actually anticipated the outbreak of that great war at the end of the Immortal Ancient Era. Unfortunately, the original work's description of when the war took place had been far too vague. Even though Yuangeng had striven to catch up, he had still had too little time to cultivate.

Two thousand years after the Foreign Realm invaded, Yuangeng faced his final battle. Five beings from the Foreign Realm who had set half a foot into the immortal domain surrounded and attacked him. He gave everything he had and slew two against the odds, but ultimately lost, pinned to death upon a battlefield. Despite his many means and numerous life-preserving methods, only a wisp of his true spirit remained.

His last memory of the Immortal Ancient Era was a scene blurred by the blood of battle. Yuangeng remembered his master—the Lunar Essence qilin Heavenly Lord Mo—finding him. Together with the Six-Eared Immortal Ape, that ancient immortal begged for a stone coffin beneath a willow tree and buried him in the Primordial Ancient Mine using the Burial Domain Method, hoping that he might someday be reborn... or awaken with a new spirit.

"Ah..."

At that thought, Yuangeng could not help letting out a long, quiet sigh. With a slight stir of his will, the extraordinarily mysterious, unknown object behind him flew over and sank into his chest. It was the lunar Dao seed, a flawless seed rare even in the Primordial Ancient Realm, and the foundation of Yuangeng's Immortal Ancient Method.

Then Yuangeng touched his brow. The stone door that had fallen from the plateau was there. Although he did not know how many years had passed since the Immortal Ancient Era, the fact that his body had endured from the end of that era until now and could recover to its peak condition was almost certainly connected to that stone door.