An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

While Chu Kui made preparations for Core Formation, Luo Chen was far from idle. After advancing to the ninth stage, he allowed himself a few days of rest. During that time, he shared drinks with Wang Yuan, held long discussions with Min Longyu about formation theory, and guided Qu Lingjun in his cultivation, since the latter had become an Initiate and was in need of good advice. He even helped the young man set a date for his marriage to Mi Li.

In the days that followed, Luo Chen summoned the Luo Tian Society’s newly advanced Initiates one after another. Some he encouraged with kind words, others he rewarded with treasures as gifts for their breakthroughs, and sometimes he simply exchanged insights on cultivation.

At last, he spent three days together with Sima Huiniang and Gu Caiyi, testing and evaluating the... progress of their cultivation. When those three days of discussions came to an end, Luo Chen finally concluded his short period of rest and returned to seclusion.

***

Tao Wan entered seclusion twelve years ago to attempt Core Formation. Three years later, she succeeded. The Green Pill Valley rang its bells thrice in celebration. Since then, she has been in seclusion to stabilize her cultivation, and the day of her emergence is near. Green Pill Valley has already begun distributing invitations to the Core Formation Ceremony. Dan Yangzi succeeded in forming his core even earlier. He has already emerged from seclusion and held his own ceremony.

Tantai Jin of the Ice Fortress reached Perfected Mastery Foundation Establishment five years ago and entered seclusion to attempt Core Formation.

The Falling Cloud Sect held its Sixty-Year Grand Competition. They invited fifteen sects as witnesses. Thirteen True Inheritors stood out, earning the title of ’Thirteen Scions of the Falling Cloud.’ Aside from the youngest, Han Zheng, every one of them is a ninth-stage Initiate expected to attempt Core Formation within fifty years.

The Jade Cauldron Sword Sect is not far behind. In ten years, it will host the Jade Emperor Mountain Sword Duel, open not only to its own disciples but to all cultivators, regardless of level. Anyone who places in the rankings will receive rich rewards.

The Dao Scion of Ailao Mountain returned from the Howling Moon Mountain Range and apparently has acquired an extraordinarily detailed map of the region.

The Silktree Sect’s representative, Sage Cloud Crane, entered the Jade Cauldron Domain and first paid a visit to the Hundred Flowers Palace. The three Golden Core Adepts of the palace—Fairy Hundred Flowers, Grand Elder Peach Blossom, and Mistress of Fragrance—traveled a hundred li to personally welcome him.

Luo Chen browsed through one intelligence report after another. Some of his acquaintances had already succeeded in forming their cores, while others had secluded themselves to seek their own breakthroughs.

The Falling Cloud Sixty-Year Grand Competition and the upcoming Jade Emperor Sword Duel were nothing more than grand displays of power. Meanwhile, the arrival of high-tier cultivators from the outer domains’ upper sects added yet another spark to a cauldron already on the verge of boiling over. Everything pointed toward the feverish tension that always preceded war. In such a world, cultivators in the Foundation Establishment Realm no longer carried any weight.

”Dan Yangzi, Tao Wan, Tantai Jin, Chu Kui... they’ve all gotten ahead of me. It’s time I picked up the pace as well,” Luo Chen murmured to himself.

Even someone as calm as he was could not escape the creeping sense of urgency pressing at the back of his mind. Perhaps he would not have felt it so keenly before, but the times had changed. Ice Torrent’s failed attempt at advancing to Nascent Soul, the Ice Fortress’s loss of four Adepts, the wave of younger talents like Tantai Jin entering seclusion... All these spoke volumes about how dire things had become.

The Ice Fortress stood as Luo Chen’s greatest pillar of support. When even that support seemed to be on the verge of collapse, how could he possibly rest easy? Still, no matter how pressing matters became, Luo Chen’s cultivation plans remained structured amidst the chaos.

He had temporarily halted his alchemy work. Most of his focus now lay on his daily cultivation and the study of several Core Formation secret arts. Those manuals had been in his possession since the middle stages of Foundation Establishment, and he had never stopped studying them. By now, he knew them inside and out; only practical application remained.

Among those arts, the two that concerned him most were Beaded Curtain Lock and Stilling Wind and Waves, the latter personally transcribed for him by Miao Wen before his death.

Beaded Curtain Lock came from the Falling Cloud Sect and was an Upper Path Core Formation art. On the other hand, the Stilling Wind and Waves was a simplified version of the Jade Cauldron Sword Sect’s Illuminated Sword. Though its effects were not as profound, Miao Wen’s deep remorse after regaining clarity and Pang Renxiong’s smooth transformation into a ghost cultivator both proved the strength of this derivative art. Ever since returning, Luo Chen had studied Stilling Wind and Waves until the jade scroll was polished clean, finally confirming that Miao Wen had left behind no hidden traps meant to harm him.

”I can’t rush this. Beaded Curtain Lock can wait until Chu Kui completes his Core Formation; then I’ll decide how to proceed. Stilling Wind and Waves, though... That one, I can start right away.”

What made Luo Chen so resolute was that this art bore a resemblance to Divine Breaker of Malevolence. Both served to temper a cultivator’s willpower. It was the will, not the divine soul! The two were fundamentally different.

Having a strong divine soul but a weak will was like owning a sharp blade but not daring to pull it out of the scabbard. By contrast, one whose divine soul and spirit power were weaker could often go far if their will was firm enough. It was related to what cultivators often called the three pillars of cultivation—whether aptitude came first, or opportunity, or one’s state of heart.

In essence, willpower was one’s state of heart. The two concepts were not entirely the same, but Luo Chen didn’t dwell on the distinction. Through his research, he confirmed that Stilling Wind and Waves truly did temper the will. But if Divine Breaker of Malevolence honed willpower through pain, torment, and the grinding of fiend qi, Stilling Wind and Waves clearly stood on an even higher level.

By anchoring the mind and spirit upon a single object and nurturing it through constant focus, one could temper an intangible will until it became as solid and unyielding as a tangible treasure. It was said that high-tier sword cultivators would, upon reaching a certain realm, naturally give birth to Sword Will.

Rumor also claimed that such sword cultivators truly lived and died by the swords—the sword lives, the man lives; the sword perishes, the man perishes. It was further said that after advancing to the Golden Core Realm, sword cultivators of the Jade Cauldron Sect could refine their sword orbs until they became enchanted treasures. All of these stories proved that sword cultivators practiced techniques designed to fortify their will.

Stilling Wind and Waves had a similar effect. The stronger and more closely connected the chosen object was to the cultivator, the greater the effect of the technique. Naturally, most Jade Cauldron sword cultivators chose the sword orbs bound to their very lives.

However, that was precisely what led Luo Chen to encounter a dilemma. If he had to select an external object, he had plenty to pick from, but none were quite it.

The Shangshu Cauldron would have been the ideal choice. It was a low-grade enchanted treasure and an alchemical cauldron intimately linked to his own path of alchemy. If he were to practice Stilling Wind and Waves using that cauldron, the results would surely be astonishing. However, the cauldron was damaged. Worse still, it had once been the life-bound treasure of a renowned master alchemist that also happened to be Fairy Ruthless’s late Dao companion. That was unquestionably a no-go.

What about the Mystic Flame Sword, then? This weapon did enhance Luo Chen’s combat power significantly, especially when wielded with artifact control, where its performance shone at its fullest. Moreover, since Stilling Wind and Waves was derived from Illuminated Sword, it naturally resonated with sword-type enchanted treasures.

Sadly, the poor thing was of terrible quality. It was a shoddy product made by the Flame Alliance, less reliable than even the mass production items of Skysail City. After countless battles, the sword had sustained rather substantial damage, forcing Luo Chen to ask Duan Feng to repair it from time to time. He genuinely feared that the Mystic Flame Sword might shatter during his next battle, and he had no wish to imitate those sword cultivators who bound their lives to their swords and perished alongside them.

Aside from those two, Luo Chen still possessed a few high-quality enchanted treasures. Even among low-grade enchanted treasures, they were considered exceptional. The Soul-Seizing Jade Flute of Hermit Xiao, Song Taozi’s flying sword, Zheng Xian’s fire fan, Mi Shuhua’s Heavenly Moon Purple Gold Wheel, and even the eighteen Millennial Lightning Essences he kept in storage could all serve as ”anchoring objects.” Yet after thorough consideration, Luo Chen ultimately set them all aside.

”These items either don’t match my affinity or haven’t been properly refined. None is truly bound to me. The most fitting one...” Luo Chen murmured and tapped his brow.

A faint black radiance slowly surfaced, and when the light dispersed, an ancient black chess piece appeared in Luo Chen’s palm.

”The answer was right here all along,” Luo Chen whispered.

As his gaze settled upon the black chess piece, all traces of doubt faded from his heart. The Forsaken Black Chess Piece was one of the three sacred treasures of the Valley of Ghosts and Divinities. Though damaged, it was far from useless. What it lacked was merely its white counterpart, which once served as its defensive pair. Without that companion piece, the black piece was only considered low-grade.

Yet the pair had been a mid-grade enchanted treasure and had never been fully bound or refined by any member of the Valley of Ghosts and Divinities. As far as Luo Chen knew, the Forsaken Black and White Chess Pieces and the Divine Ghost Heartmirror were alternately held by the sect’s Supreme Elder and Heritage Elder. They were heritage tools of the sect, used to aid disciples advancing from Foundation Establishment to Golden Core.

Not only did this object hold immense potential, but Luo Chen had been nurturing and refining it every day since reaching Foundation Establishment. It was already deeply attuned to him. Moreover, he rarely used it in battle, which greatly reduced the risk of it being damaged. With this as an anchor for Stilling Wind and Waves, the outcome was likely to be optimal.

Once that decision was made, all traces of hesitation vanished. With a single thought, the black chess piece rose and hovered above his head.

Luo Chen fixed his gaze upon it for a moment, then slowly closed his eyes. At the same time, he formed seals with his fingers and sent streams of spirit power and spirit consciousness forth, flowing into the Forsaken Black Chess Piece. They coiled and surged, enveloped it, and etched spirit patterns upon it.

In the midst of this, a faint realization dawned on him. This so-called ”simplified” Stilling Wind and Waves had never been simplified at all. With Miao Wen’s ability and knowledge, how could he possibly simplify a secret art created by the elders of the Sword Sect? Instead, what he had done was add some things to it that did not quite fit into the Dao of the Sword. He had incorporated a method of refining enchanted treasures and the principle behind Buddhist meditative stillness.

But at its core, it was still a technique for Core Formation. With the aid of the anchoring object, spirit power and spirit consciousness intertwined and merged into one. Was this not akin to Beaded Curtain Lock? The difference was that the spirit beads formed by the Beaded Curtain Lock were extremely dangerous and easily lost balance. Thus, Miao Wen had introduced an external medium, allowing spirit power and spirit consciousness to buffer and harmonize with one another.

If that was the case, then what of the original Illuminated Sword? By using the sword orb that they refined day and night as the anchor, sword cultivators allowed spirit consciousness and spirit power to interweave within it so that every thread composing the orb bore their imprint. Did that not also mean forming another Golden Core, in a sense?

Hence, when a sword cultivator succeeded in Core Formation, the sword orb usually advanced in grade as well. Likewise, if the sword orb was destroyed, the sword cultivator suffered grievous injury, sometimes even perishing along with it.

If viewed this way, everything made sense. The sword orb was the seed for a sword cultivator’s second Golden Core.

Years of reading and an exceptional talent in spellcraft allowed Luo Chen to comprehend such things rather quickly. During his first practice of Stilling Wind and Waves, he immediately saw past the surface and grasped its true functions. He even traced it back to the original Jade Cauldron secret art and glimpsed a corner of the truth.

With the foundation built from his earlier mastery of Divine Breaker of Malevolence, he easily adapted to the cultivation of Stilling Wind and Waves. In a drifting trance, he seemed to transform into a black chess piece, weathered by the river of time until it began to decay.

Yet through that ceaseless erosion, his will stood like a black cliff in the current of time, unmoving as a mountain. Ever cautious, as though standing at the brink of an abyss; ever vigilant, as if treading on thin ice. The immortal path stretched on without end, and sharp peaks and icy valleys were but fleeting trials along the way. Even if the world around him crumbled like a decaying chessboard under the burden of a thousand years, his heart would remain unchanged.