An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

A streak of golden light tore through the sky toward the ninth mountain. As it reached the mountain, it hesitated for the briefest moment, then shot up without pause.

Di Wanyun wore a face of utter gloom. What he had expected to be a straightforward revenge had turned into one stumbling failure after another. Whether it was Luo Chen’s impenetrable defense or Chu Kui’s uncanny ability to wield Golden Core techniques using someone else’s core, both had caught him completely off guard. He had been forced to undo the Withering-Flourishing Seal.

The Withering-Flourishing Seal was a peculiar creation of the Flame Alliance, a desperate measure for desperate times. It had been devised by Golden Core cultivators whose cultivation had begun to decline, and whose lifespans were nearing their end. By calling upon the power of the Withering-Flourishing Fire, they compressed their power and sealed away strength in exchange for time. Its purpose lay not in restoration but in conservation; it reduced energy consumption, decelerated physical decline, and delayed death. But withering could not be entirely stopped; it was in the fire’s name, after all.

Once the seal broke, that hidden power burst forth like dying embers reigniting into flame, burning with the brilliance of youth once more. To the eye, it seemed a revival of former glory. Yet in truth, it was a fire fed by oil, destined to burn itself into ruin. When the oil was burnt out, that fire would dwindle, and it would not be a lengthy process. The suppressed passage of time would catch up all at once, consuming lifespan at an accelerated, uncontrollable rate.

I must kill Luo Chen quickly and return to the Flame Alliance. If I delay any longer, the consequences will be unbearable.

That was Di Wanyun’s thought, yet the gap between him and Luo Chen remained out of reach. Eventually, frustration clawed at his heart.

What kind of flight technique is this brat using?How can a Foundation Establishment cultivator be this fast?Hisspeed is almost on par with a Golden Core cultivator!

Then, his eyes narrowed. Hm? Looks like he’s slowing down!

A spark of excitement lit within him. He felt that Luo Chen’s speed, though abnormally high for a mere Initiate, was still not beyond his ability to close the gap. His lips curled into a cold smile.

There’s no way such a technique doesn’t come with price. So, you can’t hold on any longer? Then die!

He glanced behind him, then abruptly surged forward.

***

A streak of white light pierced the sky, heading toward the ninth mountain. Fairy Ruthless had finally caught up. While Di Wanyun relied on the Withering-Flourishing Mark to track Luo Chen’s location, she had her own method of tracking him.

It was none other than the Black Ice Talisman, the life-saving talisman she had personally bestowed upon Luo Chen atop the Celestial Palace of Green Pill Valley. Within it were both offensive and defensive enchantments laid by her own power. Naturally, she could use it to track him. Without it, how else could she rush to his aid across a thousand li? Yet at this moment, her brow was deeply furrowed. What in the world is Luo Chen doing? Why isn’t he seeking me out? Why is he flying the opposite direction, growing farther and farther away?

Frustration churned in her chest. Even if Luo Chen would not serve her forever, his loyalty still held the greatest benefit for the Ice Fortress. Unlike Moonshade, whose interest in Luo Chen had visibly waned to the point that even his life and death seemed irrelevant to her, Fairy Ruthless still cared.

I have to save him, she thought. If not for myself, then at least for the Supreme Elder. I won’t be able to explain this failure otherwise.

She drew in a long breath. Frost swirled beneath her as she poured spirit power into her cloud shuttle. A burst of icy essence surged through it, and its speed leaped sharply. She transformed into a streak of gleaming white that shot toward the mountain.

***

The Trapping Hollow Valley! Once a forbidden zone of the ninth mountain, its terrain had long been infamous; no bird dared cross its skies, and lightning left no trace. But ever since the great battle, when Luo Chen unleashed Landslide, the valley’s landscape had utterly transformed.

Whoosh!

A crimson streak darted across the sky before coming to a sudden halt.

Luo Chen stood suspended in the wind, lifting his gaze to the heavens. Above him loomed thunderclouds dense enough to blot out the sun, roiling with power that felt as though it had accumulated for ten thousand years. A sharp light gleamed in his eyes.

”This place will do for a battlefield!”

Spirit light flickered from his hand, and more than a hundred smooth, round seeds appeared in his palm. These were second-tier thornflower seeds! He had prepared them long ago, before even departing from Tianlan Immortal City, each one specially treated so it could be activated instantly to unleash Vine Bind.

Every seed could grow into a single vine, and with his Perfected Mastery in Vine Bind combined with the Grandmaster-level Eternal Youth Evergreen Sutra, each vine carried the strength of an Initiate’s full-force strike.

Back on the battlefield, this spell had earned him great merit points. He and Chu Kui had relied on it time and again to surprise attack their enemies, and its effectiveness was nothing short of remarkable. Whether it was laying traps in advance or creating entangling barriers, the results always exceeded expectations.

Even the famed Thunderflash Sword, Jiang Cheng, had fallen prey to this very spell not long ago. He had been caught off guard and given Luo Chen and Chu Kui the perfect chance to launch a counterattack and overturn the battle. At that time, Luo Chen had only used ten seeds.

Now, all one hundred of his remaining seeds were being deployed. With a casual flick of his wrist, the seeds scattered across the landscape, drifting silently through the air before sinking into the soil in every direction.

Luo Chen poured spirit power into the ground. Deep beneath the surface, the thornflower seeds began to stir; tiny sprouts broke through their shells, curling and growing with suppressed ferocity, ready to burst forth at a moment’s notice.

A hundred strikes of Initiate-level force should be enough to trouble even an Adept. But causing him trouble isn’t enough!

Another motion of his wrist revealed a miniature mountain before him. Though no larger than a small hill, its aura pressed heavily upon the surroundings. A supreme-grade enchanted artifact, Thousandfold Summit!

It had originally been designed to replicate the legendary Thousand Layer, an earth-element enchanted treasure of tremendous complexity. But during its refinement, it failed to accommodate the massive layering required, and the part that had been completed was eventually fused into a single compressed form.

Despite this shortcoming, it had managed to reach the threshold of a supreme-grade enchanted artifact. Its offensive power was not quite as concentrated as it could have been, but its sheer suppressive force remained immense. Ever since he’d reached Foundation Establishment, it had become one of Luo Chen’s favorite weapons, second only to his sword orb!

He raised his gaze toward the sky, then casually lifted Thousandfold Summit into the air, sending it surging upward like a rising star.

”Vine Bind to entangle and pull. Thousandfold Summit to suppress and seal. Combined, they form the first strike,” Luo Chen muttered. ”Even if it doesn’t deal a fatal blow, it’ll buy me the window I need to unleash Landslide. In-between, I can cast additional spells as feints to confuse him.”

As his mind settled into quiet focus, Luo Chen began calculating the limits of his strength.

Golden Core cultivators were still mortal. They bled like everyone else. They could die.

Ever since the battle with Yan Leizi, he had gathered every piece of intelligence he could about Di Wanyun. This man was a one-trick pony, yet at the same time, a jack of all trades. The contradiction stemmed from the fact that he had poured all his effort into refining his life-bound enchanted treasure, the Thousand-Phantom Gold Cloud.

It was the cloud-shaped enchanted treasure Luo Chen had witnessed during their confrontation. Though the metal element was typically rigid in form, Di Wanyun had forged a weapon that defied these limitations. He had chosen a path few dared to walk, crafting an enchanted treasure capable of limitless transformations! As a result, this made him astonishingly adaptable on the battlefield. No matter the terrain or enemy, he could instantly adjust his approach, reshaping the Thousand-Phantom Gold Cloud into any weapon or tool necessary for the moment.

The earlier battle was a perfect example of this. The golden flash that had shot toward Luo Chen was the weapon’s hidden ability. Then came the golden cloud flying sword, which instantly shattered Luo Chen’s Glazed Skyveil. If not for Chu Kui interrupting the attack with his shield, Luo Chen would’ve died on the spot; he had been completely unprepared for that strike. Then came the hammer form, a titanic construct clearly intended to deliver a devastating, thunderous blow.

”In the end, I was too shaken by the aura of a Golden Core cultivator. I lost the initiative. This time, I must strike first. I can’t afford a moment of hesitation,” Luo Chen muttered.

He had pushed Landslide to Perfected Mastery, and it would serve as the second killing strike. But even though he was confident it would have some effect, he had more than just these tactics at his disposal.

A gray sword scabbard quietly emerged before him, hovering in midair. With a flick of his palm, six lifeless sword orbs emerged in his grasp. Three of the orbs had been acquired at the free trade gathering on Golden Sand Floating Island. The remaining three were spoils taken from battles. One belonged to an early-stage Initiate, another to a mid-stage one, and the last to the late-stage grand cultivator he had felled in one stroke, True Inheritor Lan.

None of these sword orbs was ordinary. Every single one had been painstakingly refined by a sword cultivator of the Sword Sect. Had their owners lived, these orbs would have eventually evolved into life-bound enchanted treasures upon their advancement to the Golden Core Realm. In essence, sword orbs were embryonic enchanted treasures.

Luo Chen carefully slotted the sword orbs into the corresponding sockets on the gray scabbard.

With one orb embedded, the sword scabbard was a low-grade enchanted artifact, capable of producing Sword Rays wieldable by Foundation Establishment sword cultivators. With two orbs, it rose to the middle grade. By the time the fourth orb was slotted into place, the sword scabbard had reached the supreme grade; yet its potential didn’t stop there.

Back in the day, Tian Xingzi had commissioned Duan Qiankun to forge this sword scabbard, likely in anticipation of the coming war between the two great sects. He had sought to harness an enemy’s strength to defeat that enemy; sword against sword, letting battle temper his battle strength. Luo Chen knew that if he could gather all seven sword orbs, he would be able to challenge even sword cultivators of higher level than him!

When he embedded the fifth orb, the sword scabbard’s power remained steady at the supreme grade of an enchanted artifact. But once he embedded the orb from True Inheritor Lan into the sixth, the sword scabbard began to tremble wildly, and the aura of an enchanted treasure spread out!

A terrifyingly sharp pressure surged outward. Even Luo Chen’s body, forged and tempered to an extreme degree, couldn’t withstand something like this. Deep, bone-revealing cuts split open across the flesh of his palm; the power radiated by the scabbard was beyond his control.

Luo Chen’s expression shifted subtly. ”It’s lacking a dominant core. So be it. If I’m going to face a Golden Core Adept... how can I afford to hold back?”

He opened his mouth and spat out a blood-hued sword orb that spun rapidly in the air. It was the same one he had been nurturing with blood rituals since his early days in Dahe Market. As soon as he placed it into the final socket of the gray scabbard, the violent trembling abruptly ceased.

Yet beneath the stillness, an unimaginably terrifying blade was sharpening itself. With that, his third killing move was prepared.

Not enough! It’s still not enough!

Madness flickered in Luo Chen’s eyes as he pressed a shard of bone-chilling black ice into his chest. The Black Ice Talisman had been a personal gift from Fairy Ruthless. It was neither purely a talisman nor an enchanted artifact, but something in-between. It contained the force of a strike from Fairy Ruthless, and beyond that, it could seal him in ice during peril, a defense only a Golden Core cultivator could break.

As the talisman sank into his body, a biting cold spread swiftly through his veins. The storm of frenzy and violence within him froze into perfect clarity.

Four killing moves are more than enough to fell any Foundation Establishment cultivator. Even the Dao Scions of the Seven Sects would struggle against them. But Di Wanyun has been renowned for years; however weak he looked before, if he goes all out, even four killing moves might not finish him. I’ll have to bring out that thing.

Luo Chen drew in a slow breath and reached into his storage pouch and carefully took out a compass-like disc.

The Wandering Eighteen-Formation Disc.A masterpiece of formation enchanted treasures from the Valley of Ghosts and Divinities! Luo Chen had once stumbled upon it by sheer luck, assumed it was damaged beyond repair, and gifted it to Min Longyu. Yet Min Longyu later collaborated with Duan Feng to fully restore the disc, and its might as an enchanted treasure was reborn.

Since that day, the formation disc had earned countless battle merits. During the battle at Danxia Peak, it had aided in the annihilation of the Geng siblings. At the Divine Craftsman Sect, it had unleashed an eight-times-reinforced fire dragon that shattered the mountain-guarding formation, and its ninth power cycle had forced two late-stage Initiates into retreat. On the seventh mountain battlefield, its power had shown no sign of lagging behind. The Fivefold Thunderfall Formation had obliterated five Initiates, earning Min Longyu the Dao title of Lei Zhenzi. Even if that title had not become widely known, and even if Min Longyu himself remained unaware of it, the feat had proven beyond question the immense power of this treasure.

Before Luo Chen departed from Danxia Peak, Min Longyu had returned the disc to him and presented him with a detailed blueprint for a third-tier offensive formation. Since arriving at the battlefield, Luo Chen had followed that guidance with utmost precision, patiently nurturing and attuning the disc to perfection. Every element of preparation had been completed. All that remained was a single final condition—the last missing piece, the wind of change that would set everything into motion.

Luo Chen abruptly looked up and muttered, ”There it is... the eastern wind is stirring in the skies above.”[1]

That was precisely why he had chosen the ruins of Trapping Hollow Valley as his battlefield. A third-tier formation capable of harnessing the thunderclouds that had accumulated over a thousand years across the Jilei Nine Mountains. If that power could be unleashed, who could resist it?

With great care, he buried the formation disc deep beneath the valley floor. Right beneath an ancient stone door, hidden among the shattered remnants of the valley, a place Di Wanyun would never detect. That ruin had lain hidden for over a thousand years; the level of concealment keeping it away from prying eyes needed no explanation.

Had Luo Chen not cast Landslide here during the war, he and Wang Yuan would have never discovered it, and he was certain that Di Wanyun’s divine consciousness wouldn’t pick it up. The Sword Sect had camped in the area for years and yet they’d never found it.

With that, all five killing moves are in place. Now all I can do is wait for the prey to step into the snare.

Luo Chen swept his gaze around the valley, a surge of pride rising in his chest. What came next would be letting the enemy exhaust himself while he struck with full strength. His eyes roamed the desolate landscape until they paused on a particular spot. A thought stirred in his heart.

With a flick of his sleeve, an object appeared in his hand. ”This little gift... I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”

With all his preparations complete, Luo Chen sat down cross-legged atop the shattered ground of Trapping Hollow Valley. A pill rested between his lips, and a spirit stone lay in his palm as he focused on restoring his spirit energy as much as he could. About ten breaths later, he slowly opened his eyes.

From a distance, a domineering and piercing aura surged toward him with terrifying speed. Even at such a distance, the sharpness it exuded was enough to sting the skin like tiny blades.

”He’s here.” Luo Chen’s gaze narrowed as he watched a streak of golden light cut through clouds and mist, hurtling through the sky like a divine spear. His pupils contracted sharply, but in the next breath, he regained composure.

1. The phrase 万事俱备，只欠东风 originates from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, where the famous strategist Zhuge Liang had prepared every aspect of a naval attack but lacked the favorable wind to launch it. ☜