Chapter 277: I Will Not Be Buried Here, But Ascend as an Immortal

After walking out of the Preaching Altar, Master Xuanji felt as if he had become ten years younger.

He used to worry constantly that after he passed away, the Nature Hall, without him, would decline even further, perhaps even to the point of dissolution. But now, he was filled with confidence about the hall’s future.

‘Hanzhong, what a fine seedling you chose,’ Master Xuanji thought, looking up at the blue sky. The white clouds above seemed to form the image of Pu Hanzhong, bringing tears to his eyes. ‘I was always worried about the future of the Nature Hall, but Haoxuan, the one you chose, has completely put my mind at ease. In his hands, the Nature Hall will not only avoid decline but will surely prosper even more! It’s just a pity… I probably won’t live to see that day!’

Master Xuanji’s expression dimmed slightly, but his eyes shone with a light they had never had before.

Walking into his room, Master Xuanji paced back and forth with his hands behind his back. Finally, he made up his mind and muttered to himself, “Haoxuan cultivates so quickly. Once he masters the fifth level of the ‘Sea-Gathering Art’, his cultivation speed will slow down. No, I absolutely cannot let Haoxuan repeat my mistakes. It has been so difficult for the Nature Hall to produce such a fine seedling, and I cannot fail Hanzhong’s dying request.”

“With Haoxuan’s cultivation speed, once he reaches the fifth level of the ‘Sea-Gathering Art’, his progress will slow. It will be too late to retrieve the ancestor’s Dao legacy then!” Master Xuanji took out a jade vial from his robes. Inside were several Lifespan-Burning Pills he had spent a large number of spirit stones to purchase. By consuming a pill and using a forbidden art, he could temporarily raise his strength to the Thirtieth-Leaf Spirit Sprout Realm. The price was burning three months of his lifespan and withering one or even several immortal leaves each time.

Having made his decision, Master Xuanji turned and opened the mechanism to a secret room. He followed a dark, hidden passage down into an underground chamber.

In the secret chamber, the Dharma Body of the Nature Hall’s ancestor sat within a spirit array. Three jade slips lay before the Dharma Body, each shrouded in a layer of restriction, with faint fluctuations of spiritual energy emanating from their surfaces.

If one were to assume from these faint fluctuations that the restriction was easy to break, they would be gravely mistaken. This restriction required the strength of at least a Thirtieth-Leaf Spirit Sprout Realm cultivator, combined with a specific unlocking incantation. Whether one’s strength was too weak or the incantation was wrong, there was no hope of opening this restriction.

Of course, a Spirit Tree Realm expert could still forcibly break it, but doing so would also destroy the jade slips within, which recorded the ancestor’s Dao legacy.

Master Xuanji respectfully kowtowed three times to the ancestor’s Dharma Body, then knelt before it and said, “Grand Master, your disciple Xuanji is incompetent and has been unable to break through the barrier of the Thirtieth-Leaf Spirit Sprout Realm. However, I have taken on a disciple of remarkable talent. In him, I see the hope for the Nature Hall’s prosperity. I do not wish for him to repeat the mistakes of our ancestors, nor do I wish for the Nature Hall to decline from this point on. For this reason, this disciple has decided to consume a Lifespan-Burning Pill and use a forbidden art to forcibly raise my strength to the Thirtieth-Leaf Spirit Sprout Realm to open the restriction and pass down the Dao legacy to my disciple!”

“This unworthy disciple apologizes for the offense!” Master Xuanji kowtowed nine more times, then took a Lifespan-Burning Pill from the vial and swallowed it.

As the pill entered his mouth, it instantly transformed into a stream of heat that surged into his dantian’s sea of qi. The somewhat listless immortal seedling within Master Xuanji’s dantian suddenly burst with vigorous life under the pill’s medicinal power.

The Lifespan-Burning Pill’s effect was potent; it was like a fire that ignited all the spiritual energy within Master Xuanji’s body. Ever since he had broken through to the Twenty-Ninth-Leaf Spirit Sprout Realm twenty years ago, his cultivation had not advanced. The once lush and vibrant immortal seedling had gradually grown dim and withered, until this pill entered his stomach.

“Sigh!” Master Xuanji sighed softly, quickly collecting his thoughts and beginning to activate the forbidden art to temporarily raise his realm.

A mouthful of heart’s blood sprayed from his mouth. After leaving his lips, the crimson droplets of blood bizarrely floated in mid-air, gradually merging into a blood sphere the size of a fist.

Master Xuanji opened his mouth again and spat out a breath of immortal spirit qi. This qi was unprecedentedly dense, like a flame, refining the blood sphere.

A cold wind swept through the secret chamber, stirring up dust. The flames of the torches on the walls flickered unsteadily, making Master Xuanji’s shadow dance high and low.

The blood sphere, enveloped by the immortal spirit qi, gradually shrank as the impurities within were burned away by the dense qi, finally condensing into a drop of deep red Blood Essence the size of a fingernail.

Master Xuanji had spat out a large mouthful of vital blood and a breath of his own immortal spirit qi. At this moment, his face was deathly pale. The wrinkles that had smoothed out because of Qin Haoxuan now deepened once more, also because of him.

One drop of Blood Essence was not enough. After all, he was only勉强 reaching the Thirtieth-Leaf Spirit Sprout Realm by relying on the pill. The quality of his spiritual energy was not truly at that level. Master Xuanji dared not trifle with the ancestor’s Dao legacy. If he failed to open the restriction properly and ended up destroying it, causing the jade slips to be ruined as well, his sin would be immense.

Therefore, Master Xuanji spat out another mouthful of vital blood and another breath of immortal spirit qi, continuing to refine more Blood Essence.

This time, the immortal spirit qi was not as dense as the first. To ensure the purity of the Blood Essence, Master Xuanji continuously circulated the spiritual energy in his body. The intense fluctuations of spiritual energy blew out the torches on the walls.

The entire secret chamber was plunged into darkness, with only the three layers of restrictions protecting the ancestor’s Dharma Body emitting a faint glow.

After refining seven drops of Blood Essence in a row, not only was Master Xuanji’s face deathly white, but even his lips were as pale as paper. His body was completely devoid of color, and his eyes were dull and lifeless.

Illuminated by the faint glow of the restriction, Master Xuanji’s steps were unsteady, but his expression was resolute. Propping up his weak body, his ten fingers danced with determination, weaving nets of spiritual energy from his fingertips that enveloped the seven drops of Blood Essence floating in the air.

The glow of the restriction shone upon his stooped and aged body. His pale face bore an expression of unyielding will, a sight both tragic and heroic.

Once the forbidden art was complete, Master Xuanji clapped his hands together and uttered a single word, “Explode!”

The seven drops of Blood Essence silently merged, emitting a faint, violent, and bloody aura. The resulting thumb-sized drop of Blood Essence quietly crashed into the first layer of the restriction.

The blood drop shattered. The first layer of the restriction shook violently, and then its light flared as countless golden inscriptions appeared. The blood drop’s energy was exhausted, but the restriction did not break as he had hoped.

“It failed! So close… but it still failed!” Master Xuanji, who had thought he could at least retrieve the jade slip from the first layer, wore an expression of indescribable loneliness and disappointment. ‘It seems I’ll need to do it one more time to open the first layer. However, this forbidden art can only be used once a month, or else it will cause the immortal seedling to wither and die…’

‘Three restrictions will require at least six months and six uses of the forbidden art.’ Master Xuanji calculated silently, thinking of the mere two or three years of life he had left, and how each pill would cost him another three months.

If he could open all three restrictions and retrieve the three jade slips of the ancestor’s Dao legacy to pass on to Qin Haoxuan with six uses of the art, he would die without regrets.

Exhausted, Master Xuanji slumped to the ground, panting heavily. Not only had he lost three months of his lifespan, but the immortal seedling within him had grown even dimmer. Even more terrifying, of the twenty-nine leaves on the seedling, only twenty-eight remained. The one at the very top had completely withered.

Master Xuanji had fallen from the Twenty-Ninth-Leaf Spirit Sprout Realm to the Twenty-Eighth-Leaf.

Now, he was just an old man at sunset, powerlessly looking at the cracked but still unbroken restriction. He collected his thoughts and sat cross-legged to recover his energy.

…

Qin Haoxuan chatted with his senior brothers in the Preaching Altar for a long time. The senior brothers were eager to return to their meditation, so they reluctantly bid him farewell.

Instead of going directly to Master Xuanji’s room, Qin Haoxuan went alone to the Mountain of Heroic Spirits and found Senior Brother Pu Hanzhong’s grave.

Looking at Pu Hanzhong’s name on the tombstone, the senior brother’s kind and caring face appeared in Qin Haoxuan’s mind. It was as if he could still hear him coughing and calling out to him affectionately, “Cough, cough, Junior Brother Qin…”

Qin Haoxuan sat before the tombstone and, under the faint moonlight, began to talk to the grave.

“Senior Brother Pu, are you doing well in the netherworld? I’m doing quite well now. I’m at the Ninth-Leaf Spirit Sprout Realm. Surprising, isn’t it? It’s a pity you didn’t get to see me complete the trial and enter the mortal world… Oh, right, Senior Brother Pu, I went to your hometown. Your descendants are doing quite well now, though they are a bit arrogant and bully others. But I’ve already taught them a lesson on your behalf. You wouldn’t mind, would you?”

“You haven’t been back to your hometown in a long time. Let me tell you about the changes. Your home is no longer a thatched hut. The place is now called Puxian Town…”

Sitting before Pu Hanzhong’s grave, Qin Haoxuan spoke eloquently, recounting every detail of his senior brother’s hometown. Then he spoke of his own journey into the mortal world and his feelings after meeting the many senior brothers of the Nature Hall today.

“Senior Brother Pu, I have to leave the sect again tomorrow, and I still need to go see Master soon, so I can’t stay with you much longer. I’ll talk to you again when I come back next time.”

Qin Haoxuan stood up and gave the tombstone a deep look. His peripheral vision swept across the countless graves covering the Mountain of Heroic Spirits. This was the burial ground for generations of Taichu Sect cultivators. Every cultivator buried here had once fought unyieldingly against the heavens for their destiny, unyielding to fate, unyielding to the heavens, yet in the end, they had not won. They were buried here forever.

‘This will not be my burial ground. I will become an immortal, and I will ascend within my parents’ lifetime!’ Qin Haoxuan looked around and swore to himself, ‘Nothing can stop me. Not even the heavens.’

Qin Haoxuan returned to Nameless Peak and walked into his master’s room. He saw Master Xuanji sitting on a cushion, meditating to regulate his breathing. His face was pale and looked very unwell, without even a hint of ruddiness. On his master’s bed lay the various medicinal herbs his senior brothers had given him during the sermon today.

“Master.” Qin Haoxuan bowed slightly and asked with concern, “You don’t look well. Are you feeling unwell?”

“Hehe, I’m just a bit tired from the Dao discussion today. That’s how it is when you get old and your body weakens.” Master Xuanji opened his eyes. His once bright eyes were now cloudy and dull, like those of an ordinary old man on the verge of death. The wrinkles on his face were deeper, but his smile was as kind as ever.

Qin Haoxuan looked at the pile of herbs on the bed and said, “Master, would you like this disciple to brew the medicine for you?”

“No need.” Master Xuanji looked at the herbs on the bed and shook his head. “These herbs were all painstakingly found and purchased by your senior brothers at great cost. How could I truly take their things? I am old, a man whose lifespan is nearing its end. Using these herbs would be a waste.”

Master Xuanji pointed to a cabinet covered with a black cloth behind Qin Haoxuan and said, “Lift that black cloth and place these herbs under the nameplates of your respective senior brothers. When I pass away, you can return them on my behalf. If I give them back now, they won’t accept them.”

Qin Haoxuan thought to himself that his guess had been correct. His master had only accepted the gifts to put the disciples’ minds at ease; he had no intention of actually consuming the herbs.

Qin Haoxuan said nothing more and walked over to the cabinet as instructed. He lifted the black cloth. The cabinet, which was as tall as two men, had over three hundred small drawers, each engraved with the name of a Nature Hall disciple.

“This He Shou Wu belongs to Bai Qianchang,” Master Xuanji said, his gaze falling on the herb, and then he looked at Qin Haoxuan.

Qin Haoxuan sighed softly, then picked up the He Shou Wu and placed it in the drawer engraved with Bai Qianchang’s name.

As Master Xuanji identified each item’s owner, Qin Haoxuan placed it in the corresponding drawer. It took the time of a full incense stick to sort through the pile.

After this was done, Master Xuanji had Qin Haoxuan sit on the cushion before him and said, “What have you gained from entering the mortal world this time? Can you talk to your master about it?”