Seventy-Ninth Layer
"His Spirit Root disappeared? But he had clearly already reached the twelfth layer of the Qi Refining Realm!"
Liu Xing could hardly believe it.
"Alas! The sect's higher-ups paid particular attention to Senior Brother Yi's case at the time. After all, Rootless People were so rare that no one in the sect had even heard the term! Senior Brother Yi himself didn't realize how serious the problem was and continued cultivating. It wasn't until that thing happened during his cultivation that the sect's higher-ups truly panicked!"
"What happened? Was it Qi Deviation?"
Liu Xing immediately thought of that condition, which every immortal cultivator feared, but saw Senior Brother Zhao shake his head.
"Senior Brother Yi actually raised his cultivation to the thirteenth layer of the Qi Refining Realm!"
"What?"
Only when he saw Senior Brother Zhao nod did Liu Xing realize he had heard correctly.
"How can the Qi Refining Realm have a thirteenth layer? Haven't there only ever been twelve layers of Qi Refining throughout the ages?"
Senior Brother Zhao nodded in agreement. "Exactly! Even the grand elders in the Nascent Soul Realm were alarmed by this, but no one in the entire sect had ever experienced anything like it. They had no choice but to search the scripture repository and see whether any ancient books contained records of a case like Senior Brother Yi's."
"So the sect found a record about 'Rootless People' in the scripture repository!"
"That's right! After searching through all the sect's texts, the grand elders finally discovered a record from two thousand years ago. Back then, a sect member had been in the same situation as Senior Brother Yi-he was also a Rootless Person!"
"What exactly is a Rootless Person?" Liu Xing asked, somewhat curious.
"Rootless People have been abandoned by the Heavenly Dao. No matter what kind of Spirit Root is detected when they enter the sect, they lose it when they reach the twelfth layer of the Qi Refining Realm and attempt Foundation Establishment. After that, they can never break through to the Foundation Establishment Realm and can only remain in the Qi Refining Realm for the rest of their lives. No matter how they cultivate, their realm will only keep adding layers within the Qi Refining Realm. The Rootless Person in the sect's records once cultivated all the way to the thirty-sixth layer of the Qi Refining Realm!"
"Wouldn't that still be good? They can still grow stronger! Besides, each layer of Qi Refining adds five years to one's lifespan. As long as they cultivate the Qi Refining Realm to a high enough layer, they can still live forever, their lifespans equal to heaven itself!"
Senior Brother Zhao glanced at Liu Xing and shook his head. "Their strength does increase, but it's always a matter of quantity, never quality. What use is that? Even if the amount of True Qi reaches the level of the Mahayana Realm, it's still True Qi. You should know that once we enter Foundation Establishment, our True Qi transforms into True Essence. That gap in quality can't be bridged by quantity!"
"As for what you said about a lifespan equal to heaven, let me ask you: did you spend more time cultivating at the first layer of Qi Refining, or at the twelfth?"
Liu Xing realized what Senior Brother Zhao meant.
Even if a Rootless Person could raise the layers of the Qi Refining Realm without limit and gain five more years of life with each layer, the higher the layer, the longer it took to cultivate. Liu Xing had spent a full year cultivating from the eleventh layer of Qi Refining to the twelfth.
"Then what ultimately happened to the Rootless Person in the sect's records?"
Senior Brother Zhao gave Liu Xing a bitter smile. "He died of old age! It took him twenty years to cultivate from the thirty-fifth layer to the thirty-sixth. In the end, he didn't have enough life left to support another breakthrough, and he died of old age!"
Hearing that ending, a trace of sympathy appeared in Liu Xing's eyes. It was for Senior Brother Yi, who had sold him a weapon at the stall earlier.
The topic was rather heavy, and neither Liu Xing nor Senior Brother Zhao spoke again. The two left the market together and headed up the mountain.
Meanwhile, after seeing the two off, Yi Xuan looked at the sun. It was already noon, so he gathered up the things on his stall, pushed open the gate to the courtyard behind him, and went inside.
After closing the gate, Yi Xuan tossed the weapons he was carrying onto the ground as though throwing out trash. Quite a few similar weapons lay scattered on the ground in the small courtyard.
It was summer, and the temperature outside was frighteningly high. Although Yi Xuan was an immortal cultivator, he still found the heat extremely unpleasant.
So he decided not to set up his stall by the gate for the time being. He would return to his bedroom and cultivate, then deal with it in the afternoon, when the sun was less scorching.
Yi Xuan returned to his bedroom and sat cross-legged on the bed. Closing his eyes, he entered a state of cultivation.
Two hours later, a soft pop sounded in Yi Xuan's ears as he cultivated. He slowly opened his eyes and checked his cultivation.
"The seventy-ninth layer?"
Yi Xuan muttered helplessly to himself, "I wonder what expression that senior from the sect who was also a Rootless Person would make if he knew about my situation!"
Yi Xuan was not from this world; he had transmigrated here. When he first woke up, he was at the Azure Cloud Sect's disciple recruitment assembly. Before he even understood what was happening, he was found to have a seventh-grade Spirit Root and was admitted to the sect in a daze.
It took Yi Xuan some time to understand his circumstances. He had never imagined that he had transmigrated into a world of immortal cultivation.
Deciding to make the best of things now that he was here, Yi Xuan began his life as an immortal cultivator.
The aptitude provided by a seventh-grade Spirit Root was indeed formidable. Yi Xuan took only a year to reach the twelfth layer of Qi Refining.
The sect master even announced that he would personally accept Yi Xuan as a direct disciple on the day he broke through to the Foundation Establishment Realm, and that once Yi Xuan entered the Golden Core Realm, he would pass the position of sect master on to him.
But it seemed heaven had played a joke on Yi Xuan. For the next three years, he could not break through no matter what he tried. In the end, because he had entered the thirteenth layer of Qi Refining, the sect determined that he was a Rootless Person.
Yi Xuan had already been battered by society before transmigrating. Although he deeply regretted what had happened to him, it did not affect him too much. After all, if he could accept something like transmigration, what else could he not come to terms with?
Although he learned about his situation from the other Rootless Person in the sect's records, Yi Xuan refused to accept it and chose to continue cultivating.
Unexpectedly, he seemed to be somewhat different from the Rootless Person in the sect's records. At first, there was nothing unusual, but as Yi Xuan's Qi Refining cultivation continued to rise, he noticed that something seemed to be wrong with his body.
First, Yi Xuan's cultivation speed grew faster and faster. At the beginning, breaking through from the thirteenth layer to the fourteenth had taken nearly a year, but going from the fourteenth to the fifteenth had taken only eight months.
After that, Yi Xuan's cultivation speed became more and more outrageous. By today, going from the seventy-eighth layer to the seventy-ninth had taken him only two days, and that was with Yi Xuan cultivating for less than four hours a day.
Second, something resembling a black hole had appeared in Yi Xuan's Dantian, drawing his True Qi inside and storing it. As a result, although the amount of True Qi in Yi Xuan's body was outrageous, people stronger than him had noticed nothing unusual. To outsiders, the True Qi in Yi Xuan's body was now only a little stronger than that of an ordinary immortal cultivator at the great perfection of the Qi Refining Realm.
Yi Xuan looked at the sun outside. It was almost ready to set. He walked out of the room, casually picked up a few weapons from the courtyard floor, pushed open the gate, and went out to set up his stall by the entrance again.