An Old Grudge

Yi Xuan pictured the Enforcement Elder and had to fight back a laugh. It was hard to imagine what it would have been like if that old man had become sect master back then.

Xiao Anhe found the sight of Yi Xuan suppressing his laughter quite amusing. "What? Was there a problem with the Enforcement Elder and me competing for the position of sect master?"

Yi Xuan waved his hand. "It's not that there was a problem, haha. I just can't imagine what it would have been like if he'd become sect master with that face of his, always dark as thunder. I'd guess it would have affected how many disciples the sect recruited!"

Xiao Anhe hadn't expected Yi Xuan to dare make fun of a sect elder, and he shot him a fierce glare. Sensing the sect master's warning, Yi Xuan didn't dare be too presumptuous. He wiped the smile from his face and listened quietly as the sect master continued.

"It was probably about a hundred years ago. The sect master at the time was still my master, your grandmaster."

"My master led the Azure Cloud Sect for three hundred years, but in the end, because of his aptitude, he couldn't break through to the Nascent Soul Realm. His life came to an end in the Golden Core Realm."

Hearing his master's words, Yi Xuan asked curiously, "How long can someone in the Golden Core Realm live?"

Xiao Anhe's expression soured at the question. "You don't know something everyone in the cultivation world knows?"

Xiao Anhe could hardly believe it.

Yi Xuan, however, showed no embarrassment. "It's not that strange! After I joined the sect, I threw myself into cultivation and had no mind to care about anything else. Later, after I was found to be rootless, I had even less need to know about anything above Foundation Establishment. I'd never come into contact with it in this lifetime anyway."

The sect master had been somewhat annoyed, but his expression gradually softened when he heard Yi Xuan's words. Yi Xuan was right. As a rootless person, he could never come into contact with anything above Foundation Establishment in this lifetime. What was the point of learning so much? It would only add to his troubles.

Xiao Anhe had long regretted that Yi Xuan was rootless. Hearing his words now, he could only reach out and pat him on the shoulder. "You should at least know how the cultivation realms are divided, shouldn't you?"

"Of course. Qi Refining Realm, Foundation Establishment Realm, Grain Avoidance Realm, Golden Core Realm, Nascent Soul Realm, Spirit Transformation Realm, Body Integration Realm, Mahayana Realm, and Tribulation Transcendence Realm. I know those much!" Yi Xuan said with a smile.

"Since you said you couldn't break through to the Foundation Establishment Realm and didn't learn much about what lies beyond it, let me ask you: do you know how long a Qi Refining Realm cultivator lives?"

Yi Xuan naturally knew all about something so closely tied to his own life. "Ordinary people live eighty years. In the Qi Refining Realm, every step takes you to a higher heaven. Each level adds five years to your lifespan, so a cultivator at the twelfth level of Qi Refining can live for a hundred and forty years! Even a rootless person like me can live as long as heaven itself, as long as I break through one level of Qi Refining every five years!"

The sect master chuckled and shook his head. "As you said, every step in the Qi Refining Realm takes you to a higher heaven. Even rootless people are no exception. Breakthroughs will only get harder from here on. Didn't you read about that senior in the sect's records..."

The sect master suddenly realized he had said something he shouldn't have, but it was too late to stop.

He looked over at Yi Xuan, only to find that he seemed perfectly untroubled, with no worries at all about his future.

The sect master gave a bitter smile. "You don't need to worry too much. I've heard there's a sect in the Central Land that focuses on pill refinement, called the Medicine Sect."

"If a day comes when you don't have enough lifespan left, then even if I have to throw away all my face, I'll find a way to beg for some life-extending pills for you!"

Yi Xuan knew that his situation had weighed on the sect master's mind all these years, so he nodded. "That's still a long way off! Right now, I don't even need a year to break through a level. Master, you should hurry up and make a breakthrough yourself, or perhaps I'll be the one begging for medicine for you!"

Xiao Anhe laughed and chided him, then continued, "Since you don't know how long cultivators live after Foundation Establishment, I'll tell you!"

"After breaking through to the Foundation Establishment Realm, one's lifespan is two hundred years. Breaking through to the Grain Avoidance Realm brings it to three hundred, and breaking through to the Golden Core Realm brings it to five hundred."

"Five hundred years? Doesn't that mean Grandmaster lived for five hundred years?" It was the first time Yi Xuan had learned anything about the lifespans of cultivators beyond Foundation Establishment, and he was somewhat surprised.

Xiao Anhe nodded and continued, "That's right! Your grandmaster was ultimately unable to break through to the Nascent Soul Realm. His lifespan stopped at five hundred years, and he passed away!"

"After that, breaking through to the Nascent Soul Realm brings one's lifespan to a thousand years. Once you reach the Nascent Soul Realm, you can be called an ancestor! Beyond that, breaking through to the Spirit Transformation Realm brings it to two thousand years, Body Integration three thousand, Mahayana five thousand, and upon reaching the Tribulation Transcendence Realm, one's lifespan is ten thousand years!"

After listening to Xiao Anhe's explanation, Yi Xuan had a clear idea of cultivators' lifespans for the first time.

At the same time, he reflected that compared with technology, cultivation truly had strengthened the individual to the utmost.

Even in the world of his previous life, where technology had developed to the level of modern civilization, humanity still had no way to extend its lifespan. Centenarians were exceedingly rare in that society, let alone people who were two hundred years old. There were none at all.

If someone who had lived for two hundred years were really discovered, the first reaction would probably be to capture them and study them thoroughly.

After explaining cultivators' lifespans to Yi Xuan, Xiao Anhe continued, "After your grandmaster passed away, the sect urgently needed to elect a new sect master to take charge. At the time, the only suitable candidates were me and the current Enforcement Elder!"

"Then how did you decide who would become sect master in the end? Did you fight?" Yi Xuan asked, looking at his master.

Xiao Anhe shook his head. "Strength is certainly something a sect master needs, but it isn't the deciding factor. A sect master has a greater need for the ability to lead."

"As it happened, the sect was in conflict with another sect at the time, and with the sect master's passing, there was no one who could step forward and decide how the sect should respond. So the grand elder set us a task: each of us had to put forward a plan to resolve the conflict, and all the elders in the sect would judge them. Whoever won more support would become the next sect master and resolve the conflict!"

"It looks like you won in the end?"

"That's right!" Xiao Anhe nodded, but there was no happiness on his face.

"Master? Did you fail to resolve the conflict?"

"No!" Xiao Anhe shook his head. "At the time, it seemed I had resolved it very well!"

"What do you mean?"

"Because decades later, everyone discovered that if we'd used the Enforcement Elder's method back then, the sect would have gained far more than it did through mine!"

"Then what was his method?"

"Mobilize the entire sect and annihilate the other side!"

Yi Xuan had only ever known the Enforcement Elder as a man who seldom smiled. He hadn't expected him to have been so radical in his youth.