Illusion?

The blazing sun sank in the west, and lamps were lit throughout the Central Palace, their light like fire. As the sun and moon shone together, this place of immortal cultivation seemed especially gentle.

Jiang Wangxuan strolled through the sea of clouds with Lin Tongjiang. This was the Central Palace's "Hidden Deep in the Clouds," where Luyu University's teachers cultivated.

Lin Tongjiang stopped at a secluded white-jade corridor and looked down at Luyu University. The day's classes had ended, and students in the bloom of youth were calling out to their friends in the twilight.

As the wind rose and the clouds dispersed, the sounds of students laughing and playing seemed to drift up to them.

"Wangxuan, I'm very disappointed."

Lin Tongjiang looked into the young man's peach-blossom eyes, his expression indescribably stern. "What were you thinking? Why did you reach Qi Refinement Perfection so quickly? Why didn't you stop for a while?"

Jiang Wangxuan looked a little uneasy. Half a month ago, he had been gathering Qi as part of his routine cultivation when an uncontrollable accident occurred. By the time he came to his senses, his cultivation was racing headlong toward Qi Refinement Perfection.

It was only two days ago that Jiang Wangxuan had finally regulated his Qi and emerged from seclusion.

"You should know what proportion of core disciples from the great immortal sects failed to break through to Foundation Establishment in the near-ancient era, before Qinghuan."

"Seventy percent." Without waiting for Jiang Wangxuan to answer, Lin Tongjiang gave the figure himself.

"What about Lüyu, then, if we don't count the seeds in the grotto-heaven?"

Jiang Wangxuan let out a breath. "Over the past fifty years, the casualty rate among Lüyu's senior students breaking through from Qi Refinement Perfection to Foundation Establishment has been nearly eighty percent."

"Good. Tell me, then: modern cultivators clearly have better Cultivation Resources, and the Cultivation Methods practiced at Lüyu are all fourth grade or higher. Applications for pills to assist breakthroughs are rarely held up, so why are we still worse at this than the great immortal sects of the near-ancient era?"

"It's Dao wisdom. Whether in the near-ancient era or today, cultivators sought a breakthrough only after reaching Qi Refinement Perfection. But today, our Cultivation Resources are more abundant, and we progress faster, so our understanding of our Cultivation Methods lacks a great deal of tempering."

Jiang Wangxuan had naturally thought about this question and had some ideas and conjectures of his own.

"What else? Don't tell me that's all you've understood?" Lin Tongjiang didn't let Jiang Wangxuan off, pressing him further instead.

"There's also the Dao heart. Our cultivation environment is too favorable now. In the near-ancient era, heaven and earth were in chaos for a long time, and most cultivators at the bottom fought their way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Many of the Cultivation Methods they practiced were incomplete, but they could still break through to Foundation Establishment. Back then, cultivating the Dao meant striving. If they failed to win, they would become a handful of yellow earth."

"Back then, the cultivators who made it to Qi Refinement Perfection were themselves geniuses tempered through struggle. They had both talent and the perseverance to seek the Dao."

Only then did Lin Tongjiang nod in satisfaction. "Dao heart is too vague. The perseverance you mentioned afterward gets to the point, but even perseverance is too hollow a word for the present. What's actually missing is resolve."

At some unknown point, night had quietly fallen. The Foundation Establishment cultivator gazed through the sea of clouds at the countless lights below. "When I'm in the grotto-heaven, I also like to look down at the blessed land beneath me, at the cities towering over the earth."

"To them, Foundation Establishment, the Purple Mansion Divine Ability, and Golden Core True Lords are all too distant. Many people have never seen a Foundation Establishment cultivator in their entire lives. With their current cultivation as Qi Refinement cultivators and a Law Technique or two they're adept at, they can return to the steel jungles on the ground and secure wealth and standing for at least three generations of their families."

"Tell me, why would these Qi Refinement cultivators pursue Foundation Establishment? Why would they seek the Dao?"

Lin Tongjiang turned to look at the young man before him. He was only twenty years old, truly too young. "The freshmen at Lüyu who graduate after six years are all Qi Refinement cultivators with no hope of Foundation Establishment. For them, rather than pursue that faint, elusive chance at Foundation Establishment, they're better off going home, marrying, having children, and supporting their Lineages."

"Although only a breakthrough to Foundation Establishment can currently increase one's lifespan, Qi Refinement cultivators usually know some Cultivation Methods for extending their lives. Living to around a hundred and twenty is no great problem. In the cities of steel, they have status, resources, and Lineages, and the world today is relatively peaceful. So why would they seek Foundation Establishment?"

"Wangxuan, do you know how many years it takes for a city of a million people to produce one Foundation Establishment cultivator?"

Jiang Wangxuan really had never considered the question in detail. Recalling the circumstances in his hometown of Luzhou, he ventured an answer. "One every twenty years?"

"Then your hometown is actually doing fairly well. In Jiangnan, the average is thirty-three years. In the Northern Lands, it's thirty-eight. As for the Six Realms, the picture is even bleaker."

Lin Tongjiang smiled without realizing it. "To ordinary people in the cities, a Qi Refinement cultivator is a mountaintop they might never see in their entire lives. What does Foundation Establishment have to do with them? And our students at Lüyu come from the cities and return to them."

"Tell me, would they choose a dead-end road with a death rate as high as eighty percent?"

Jiang Wangxuan fell silent. After he was lucky enough to be reborn in this world of immortal cultivation and pursuit of the Dao, all his little head had thought about was how to study techniques and seek the truth.

His aptitude was especially good, and he had a golden finger that had followed him from his old home, so he naturally felt that his future was bright. Thus, from an early age, he had devoted himself wholeheartedly to his Dao Path.

Especially after coming to Lüyu, ascending from a small pond to a larger "world," he naturally had to cultivate even harder to live up to such a wonderful fortuitous opportunity.

And now, Teaching Assistant Lin had exposed that illusion. His own views had blinded him.

The students of his generation who had entered alongside him hadn't come to Lüyu with their minds set on Foundation Establishment, either.

What they were really doing was befriending disciples of the major Aristocratic Clans, broadening their connections, and getting to know promising Foundation Establishment seeds.

Then they would invest in classmates they favored, hoping to earn a little goodwill in the future. A more practical choice would be to find a partner with a Spirit Aperture and become dao companions.

When both parents had Spirit Apertures and cultivation at the Qi Refinement stage, their descendants had a far higher chance of possessing Spirit Apertures than ordinary people. Those descendants were the foundation that sustained a Lineage's wealth and standing.

Seeing that Jiang Wangxuan had understood, Lin Tongjiang finally spoke in a subdued voice. "Cultivators like you and Xue Renya are out of place in the present age. You don't fit in. You're different."

"Even among the seeds in the grotto-heaven, most think only of Foundation Establishment, of maintaining their Lineages and passing them on. As for the Purple Mansion Divine Ability, how many of them are willing to fight for that sliver of a chance?"

"And you, Jiang Wangxuan-from the first moment I saw you, I knew that you wanted more than Foundation Establishment. You longed even more for the Purple Mansion Divine Ability. Isn't that right?"

"Yes!" Jiang Wangxuan answered readily. He couldn't say no, because that would affect his Dao heart.

Lin Tongjiang shook his head again. "Then why are you in such a hurry? Haste makes waste. Fast is slow, and slow is fast. You should understand that."

"Look at what Xue Renya did. After reaching the Ninth Layer of Qi Refinement, he joined the Thunder Palace's training camp to polish his cultivation and deepen his Dao wisdom. The Qi Refining Stage is the perfect time to lay a solid foundation. Even if you manage to reach Foundation Establishment by luck, the Immortal Foundation you condense will be insubstantial and weak. What will you have to stake on reaching the Purple Mansion Divine Ability?"

By this point, Lin Tongjiang's tone had grown very severe, with a trace of self-reproach.

When Lin Tongjiang first took over as Jiang Tongxuan's assistant teacher, he had been a little worried. Becoming the assistant teacher to a Grand Yin cultivator, and one with a Spirit Aperture between his brows at that-wasn't his master putting him over a fire to roast?

But afterward, Jiang Wangxuan broke through realms as easily as drinking water, his cultivation rising layer by layer without the slightest hitch. It went so smoothly that Lin Tongjiang wondered whether he had been mistaken. Could Jiang Tongxuan truly have the fate of Grand Yin? Had he misjudged him?

But when Jiang Wangxuan charged all the way to the Late Qi Refining Stage and kept up the same pace of growth, breaking through a layer every six months, Lin Tongjiang was terrified. It was his first time serving as a student's assistant teacher, and he had no experience.

In particular, when his master and the important figures in the grotto-heaven all said it was very likely an "illusion" caused by the cultivator being affected by the overflow of Fruit Flavor, Lin Tongjiang had already called a halt to Jiang Wangxuan's cultivation progress and strictly limited the time he spent refining Qi each day.

The "illusion" of Fruit Flavor referred to a cultivator in the Qi Refining Stage suddenly feeling as though an immortal had laid a hand upon his head, as if he had gained sudden enlightenment. His Cultivation Method would run with extraordinary ease, leading him to mistakenly believe that his natural talent had suddenly burst forth, and he would charge ahead at full speed.

Little did he know that the overflow caused by fluctuations of Fruit Flavor between heaven and earth had merely swept up a lucky person by chance. But such "favor" was only temporary, and as time passed, the lucky person would find that his Cultivation Method had become unusually difficult to circulate.

More frightening still, the lucky person couldn't properly control cultivation that didn't belong to him. His Dao attainment and cultivation would fall severely out of alignment, and then everything would swiftly collapse like an avalanche.

In mild cases, his cultivation would regress, and he would never advance again, though he could still keep his life. In severe cases, his mind would lose balance on the spot, his sanity would collapse, and he would be reduced to a cripple.

Most terrifying of all was when a Qi Refinement cultivator carried such an "illusion" to the threshold of a Foundation Establishment breakthrough. Everything would be exposed for what it was, and then the Spiritual Qi would riot, turning his cultivation into a stream of Spiritual Qi and returning it to heaven and earth.

But Lin Tongjiang had acted too late. The "momentum" of Jiang Wangxuan's cultivation was too great, carrying him all the way to the Ninth Layer of Qi Refinement. Over the past half month, while Lin Tongjiang was busy with the trifles of the new school term, Jiang Wangxuan had quietly cultivated all the way to Qi Refinement Perfection.

Jiang Wangxuan, it's that damned addiction to cultivation that's ruined you!

Lin Tongjiang might have looked calm and collected as he criticized Jiang Wangxuan, but inside he had long been wailing. If such a good seed is ruined in my hands, my reputation in education will be in tatters!

Master, this is all your fault! Why did you shove all the work onto me and hide in your cave abode to cultivate? You already have three Divine Abilities-what the hell are you still cultivating for?

A long silence fell between them. Jiang Wangxuan naturally couldn't tell Teaching Assistant Lin about his fortuitous opportunity, but he didn't know how to answer him, either.

From Teaching Assistant Lin's perspective, he really had been rather willful and disobedient in this matter.

In the end, Lin Tongjiang let out a long, helpless sigh. "Since things have come to this, stop cultivating for now. Read more Dao scriptures and Daoist texts, and deepen your Dao wisdom, especially the theories of the Five Virtues, Theory of Five Manifestations, and Five Elements. You can also try studying the principles of yin and yang. It never hurts to read more of the annotations left by your predecessors."

Jiang Tongxuan nodded obediently. After thinking for a while, he seemed to make up his mind. "Teaching Assistant Lin, I want to go home for a visit in the next couple of days."

"Hmm?" Lin Tongjiang looked at Jiang Wangxuan in confusion. "Why are you going home at a time like this? Didn't your sister Jinyi just arrive?"

"I need to go home and have a look. If I don't go back now, I'm afraid I won't get another chance. There are many things I need to arrange in advance." Jiang Wangxuan's voice was quiet, tinged with a trace of sorrow.

Ha! Lin Tongjiang understood what the brat meant now. The boy hadn't taken in a single word he'd said!

"You want to break through to Foundation Establishment?" Lin Tongjiang asked through gritted teeth.

"My cultivation can advance no further. Since that's the case, rather than sit idle as the years pass, I might as well stake it all!"

Jiang Wangxuan turned to look at the city lights below. He didn't quite dare look at Teaching Assistant Lin's "pitch-black" expression, and added, "My chances of success in the future won't be any greater than they are now. If it really is this so-called 'illusion,' then now is actually the best time. Maybe Grand Yin really does love me?"

"If I really wait for the 'illusion' to fade, I wouldn't even dare hope to keep my life on the spot, much less have a chance to condense an Immortal Foundation. Teaching Assistant Lin, I believe the cultivation I gained through arduous training all this time is real, and that it's under my control."

"Since that's the case, why should I be afraid to move forward?"