Looking back over the life of his master, Chen Yunshou-
At twenty, his master had followed his own master up the mountain to seek the Dao.
Cultivation originally had no distinct realms. Back then, simply to give his disciples a clearer concept, the Patriarch had roughly divided it into six realms.
At forty, after twenty years of cultivation, his master had reached the fifth realm, Entering Stillness, Treading the Void, which allowed him to draw the intangible spiritual resonance of the world into his body to nourish his spirit. His master's master had declared that he had formally entered the Dao. That same year, his forty-year-old master had been sent down the mountain to begin his first wandering journey, which lasted twenty years.
After returning to the mountain, his master had spent three years in seclusion. At sixty-three, he had reached the sixth realm, Unity of Heaven and Man, which allowed him to transcend the boundaries of his individual body and mind, resonate and merge with the fundamental energies and natural laws of the universe, and borrow that mysterious spiritual resonance to perform Daoist arts and supernatural powers.
Unfortunately, his master's cultivation had made little further progress beyond that point.
At sixty-five, his master's master had passed away, and his master had gone down the mountain again, returning at eighty-five.
After another three years in seclusion, eighty-eight-year-old Chen Yunshou had once again left the mountain, returning at one hundred and eight.
That had been Chen Yunshou's last journey down the mountain in his pursuit of the Dao. This time, he had brought back a disciple he had found and named him Chen Shi'an.
From then on, Chen Yunshou had stopped going down the mountain to seek the Dao. Instead, he had remained there, imparting everything he had learned, known, and