One tier every two years, leaving a legacy for the future original self

[Random identity: abandoned infant in the capital of the Fallen Heaven Empire, Northwest Continent]

[Random timeline: two thousand years ago]

[Deployment commencing.]

[Year one: the moment your consciousness awakened, you realized that your circumstances were far from promising. A cold wind swept past, and you instinctively cried out.

Space rippled slightly, and a figure suddenly appeared. An old man with white hair and straight brows looked at you and murmured, "Naturally powerful soul perception. A promising seedling for an alchemist."

You were taken away and adopted, brought to a secluded little courtyard, and handed over to an attendant to raise. The old man only came to see you occasionally.]

[Year two: through deliberate investigation, you discovered that the One-Brow Old Man who had adopted you was actually a seventh-tier alchemist, highly renowned in an empire called Luotian.

You began learning to read and write. Naturally bright, you learned quickly.]

[Year three: your body was too frail to cultivate yet, but the One-Brow Old Man already required you to begin learning to identify medicinal ingredients.

Rather than finding it tedious, you loved it, often studying for an entire day and only reluctantly resting when your eyes grew sore.

The One-Brow Old Man saw this and gained a little more approval and concern for you. He did not seem to regard you as a son, but rather as a young disciple who had taken him as his master.]

[Year four: you began cultivating Dou Qi and discovered that your talent was exceptional, your cultivation speed far surpassing that of your peers.

In just one year, even while continuing to learn to identify medicinal ingredients, your Dou Qi still reached the third stage.

The One-Brow Old Man attached ever greater importance to you.]

[Year five: you never slackened in cultivating Dou Qi. After two years of study, you could already identify a great many medicinal ingredients.

At the end of the year, your cultivation broke through to the Sixth Stage of Dou Qi.]

[Year six: you cultivated Dou Qi diligently and successfully broke through to the Ninth Stage of Dou Qi midway through the year. The One-Brow Old Man personally refined a dose of Qi Gathering Powder for you, and you smoothly broke through to Dou Zhe.

Your reputation as a genius began spreading through the capital. Powers great and small throughout the capital sent congratulatory gifts, but you knew this had little to do with you. They had all come to curry favor with the One-Brow Old Man, a seventh-tier alchemist.

You checked your affinity: fire with a trace of wood.

From that day onward, the One-Brow Old Man's attitude toward you changed somewhat.

He began treating you as his true successor, sharing his meals with you, teaching you the high-level Earth-class fire-affinity cultivation method he practiced without holding anything back, and personally instructing you in alchemy.]

[Year seven: you rarely went out. The outside world held little attraction for you, and you spent all day in the little courtyard, studying alchemy with the One-Brow Old Man.

Alchemy, dull and tedious to others, was the sweetest pastry to you, holding you spellbound.

After studying alchemy for half a year, you attempted to refine a pill in June. The refinement failed, the cauldron exploded, and the One-Brow Old Man scolded you for reaching too high too soon.

You continued building your foundations, honing your Fire Control Technique and alchemy.

At the end of the year, you refined a pill again, and it took shape.

The One-Brow Old Man appeared and apologized to you.]

[Year eight: you continued studying alchemy without neglecting your Dou Qi cultivation. Supported by all manner of resources, your cultivation reached Five-Star Dou Zhe.]

[Year nine: the One-Brow Old Man brought you a pill that could enhance soul power. You took it, and your soul power increased.

Your confidence soared, and you now set about refining a second-tier pill.

The refinement failed. The One-Brow Old Man punished you by making you clean his alchemy room, then refined second-tier pills himself over and over for you to watch.

At the end of the year, your cultivation reached Nine-Star Dou Zhe.

You attempted to refine a second-tier pill again and succeeded.

On the night you succeeded, you secretly fed the second-tier pill you had refined to the One-Brow Old Man. Its effect was to restore the body.

The pill lodged in the One-Brow Old Man's throat. He woke in the middle of the night choking and thought someone was trying to murder him. Only when you asked about its effects the next day did he learn you had done it, leaving him angry and helpless.]

[Year ten: your cultivation broke through to Dou Shi, and you wanted to venture out to gain experience. The One-Brow Old Man did not stop you. He prepared a large supply of lifesaving pills for you and coldly told you to get lost, saying he was sick of looking at you. Yet the moment he turned around, he cried. You returned partway through your journey to fetch something and caught him, making his old face flush crimson.

While gaining experience outside, you entered a legacy site and obtained a seventh-tier Medicine Cauldron and some precious medicinal ingredients. However, a powerful local clan set its sights on you. You escaped by luck but could not take the items with you.

You returned home and told the One-Brow Old Man what had happened.

A few days later, the Medicine Cauldron and ingredients were all back, and that clan had vanished.

That same year, you gave the Medicine Cauldron to the One-Brow Old Man as a gift.

It turned out that you had thought this was your tenth year together with the One-Brow Old Man, making it worth commemorating, and wanted to give him something. But everything you normally had was provided by him, so you had proposed venturing out to gain experience precisely because you wanted to find something to give him.

Moved to tears, the One-Brow Old Man gave you a gift in return: the Medicine Cauldron he had painstakingly sought out, named the Falling Star Cauldron, ranked tenth on the Heavenly Cauldron Ranking.

The next day, the old man sheepishly asked whether he could take it back. You refused, and he regretted it so much that quite a few hairs fell from his beard.]

[Year eleven: you diligently studied alchemy and Fire Control Technique. While in exceptionally good form, you refined a third-tier pill.

Your reputation spread further, throughout the entire Luotian Empire.

That same year, your cultivation broke through to Eight-Star Dou Shi.]

[Year twelve: you broke through to Da Dou Shi.]

[Year thirteen: you refined a fourth-tier pill and smugly proclaimed yourself a fourth-tier alchemist to the outside world. The One-Brow Old Man reprimanded you, saying that the pill contained many impurities and you could only count as a half-baked fourth-tier alchemist.

You reined yourself in and settled down to continue studying.]

[Year fourteen: your cultivation broke through to Dou Ling.]

[Year fifteen: you refined a fifth-grade pill, shocking the entire Fallen Heaven Empire. Many people believed you would definitely become an Eighth-Rank Alchemy Grandmaster in the future.]

[Year sixteen: your cultivation broke through to Dou Wang. Your daily life followed a fixed three-point circuit: cultivating Dou Qi, studying alchemy, and turning away the clans that came seeking marriage alliances.]

[Year seventeen: you refined a sixth-grade pill, an achievement without precedent or successor in the Fallen Heaven Empire.

Even without the One-Brow Old Man backing you, you had already become an important figure whom others had to respect.]

[Year eighteen: you broke through to Eight-Star Dou Wang. The One-Brow Old Man held nothing back from you. To enhance your soul power and Dou Qi cultivation, he had nearly emptied his coffers.]

[Year nineteen: you broke through to Three-Star Dou Emperor and failed in an attempt to refine a seventh-tier pill.

Instead, everyone in the empire breathed a sigh of relief. Advancing one tier every two years was simply too terrifying.]

[Year twenty: you refined a seventh-tier pill, shocking the entire empire once again.

The One-Brow Old Man said he had nothing left to teach you.

He said, "The Northwest Continent is too small, so small it cannot nurture a true dragon. Raising an eighth-tier alchemist requires countless medicinal ingredients. You shouldn't stop here. Go to the Central Plains. That is where you truly belong. If a higher-tier alchemist takes a liking to you and wants to accept you as a disciple, don't refuse. Just pretend you never had me as your master."

You kowtowed three times, your head striking the ground loudly, then left the Luotian Empire.

The One-Brow Old Man announced his retirement into seclusion. He would take no disciples and refine no pills, and he dismissed his servants.

After leaving the Fallen Heaven Empire, you did not head straight to the Central Plains. Instead, you came to a place at the edge of the Northwest Continent called the Magical Beast Mountain Range.

You wondered: since you had been deployed here, could you leave some legacies for your original self in the future?

In this era, the Jia Ma Empire and the other empires familiar to you did not yet exist, so the Magical Beast Mountain Range became your choice.

You would leave some legacies here, left for your original self in the future.]