An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

For three or four months, Luo Chen remained on the greenstone ledge outside the cave to keep watch while Fu Qinglan cultivated within. In all that time, she never once stepped out, and he himself barely left his post.

A breeze passed through the forest, setting the sea of treetops swaying until they rolled like waves. Luo Chen watched them for a moment before glancing back at the cave with a trace of uncertainty in his eyes.

Is that just the wind, or is it coming from her?

At first, Fu Qinglan’s cultivation seemed perfectly ordinary. As Luo Chen observed her more closely, however, he began to notice something strange. She had actually allowed her Nascent Soul to leave the protection of her Purple Mansion and was using her main body to absorb the ambient spirit energy!

Under normal circumstances, doing something like this was practically courting death. Without the protection of the Purple Mansion, exposing one’s Nascent Soul to the outside world while entering such a deep state of cultivation was no different from waiting for heaven and earth to assimilate it. Yet Fu Qinglan was doing it with no concern whatsoever.

That reminded Luo Chen of something Fu Chaosheng had once told him about the Great Wilderness Mirage Dragon. A truly strong one could swallow clouds and breathe out mist; it could summon suns, moons, and stars, and form an entire pocket world within its own body. That world could appear almost the same as the one outside, but the Mirage Dragon’s physical body still separated the two. Because of that separation, the danger of being assimilated by the outside world was greatly reduced, and cultivators within its pocket world could connect far deeper with heaven and earth.

That explained why Fu Qinglan dared to expose her Nascent Soul so completely, but it raised another question. Although the spirit energy in this pocket world was abundant, it was neither especially concentrated nor particularly refined. If its only advantage was reducing the danger of assimilation, why would the Dao Sect open it only once every five hundred years and treat the opportunity with such importance?

After months of observing Fu Qinglan’s cultivation, Luo Chen gradually found the answer. The truth was, she was not cultivating qi at all. Instead, she was using her Nascent Soul as a conduit, allowing her divine soul to remain in continuous contact with heaven and earth as she sought to comprehend something hidden within it.

That something was naturally the Power of Laws. Conventionally, this manner of cultivation was only really feasible for late-stage Sages. For someone at Fu Qinglan’s level to attempt it should have been pointless. Yet with the special resource that was a fourth-tier illusory core, things were very different. With its assistance, several months of uninterrupted cultivation had already brought her close enough that Luo Chen could faintly sense her brushing against the Laws.

So that’s why they only give this opportunity to cultivators who’ve just entered the Nascent Soul Realm, instead of those already on the verge of Divine Transformation. It’s also why the sect elders won’t let them keep advancing before they come in. They want them to stay as close as possible to the state they were in when they first formed their Nascent Souls!

When a cultivator reached the Nascent Soul Realm, the newly formed Nascent Soul had an innate closeness to heaven and earth. The barrier between them was still thin, allowing it to reach outward and sense the workings of the world. As the cultivator advanced, however, they had to continuously strengthen the walls of the Purple Mansion to protect the Nascent Soul from being assimilated by heaven and earth. In doing so, their cultivation would rise, and their safety would be assured, but in exchange, the Nascent Soul would slowly lose some of its original intimacy with the world.

It was much like an infant’s relationship with water. Before birth, the child lived in amniotic fluid and possessed an instinctive ability to move in that environment. After birth, the body adapted to life outside the womb, and that instinct gradually faded. If the child later wanted to swim, they had to relearn that skill. The same principle applied here: The Nascent Soul was the infant, heaven and earth were the water, and comprehending the Power of Laws was the ability to swim freely within it.

The Dao Sect’s progenitors had clearly recognized this problem long ago. Rather than wait until their young geniuses reached the late stage of the Nascent Soul Realm and were already far away from heaven and earth, they seized the brief period when that connection was still fresh. Inside the pocket world, where the danger of assimilation was greatly reduced, those newly advanced Sages could deepen that connection while their instincts remained intact. Given enough talent and opportunity, they might even comprehend Laws suited to themselves long before they would normally be capable of doing so.

And the spiritual vitality hidden inside the fourth-tier illusory cores was what made that attempt possible. If the Nascent Soul was an infant still within the womb, then that trace of spiritual vitality was like an umbilical cord that sustained its connection as it grasped the workings of heaven and earth.

Those seniors really thought things through. They went to incredible lengths to make this possible!

Luo Chen could not help but admire them. This was the true advantage of a proper, complete lineage. Across generations, they would create a treasure trove that could be passed down to their children, from cultivation methods and treasures all the way to little details and shortcuts that ordinary cultivators would need untold years to discover by themselves.

It was difficult not to be jealous of such an inheritance, but Luo Chen had little desire to steal it for himself. There were undoubtedly countless hidden tricks and subtleties involved, from how to harness the Mirage Dragon’s power and unlock an illusory core to how one extracted that trace of heavenly mystery and used it to comprehend the Laws. Obtaining the cores alone would be useless without knowing the rest.

Most importantly, the illusory cores here belonged to the True Inheritors of the Dao Sect. Dao Protectors had entered only to assist them, not to take the opportunity for themselves. If he truly tried to seize them by force, he would have hell to pay once he was out. Even setting the Dao Sect’s Ascendants aside, its hundreds of Sages were more than enough to make him think twice.

For now, he could only make use of the time in his own way. He had prepared a supply of Grand Origin Pills beforehand, so while Fu Qinglan cultivated, he remained outside the cave to keep watch and advance his own cultivation.

The spirit energy within the pocket world was abundant but too scattered for a Sage to cultivate normally. Lucky for him, the top-grade Grand Origin Pills allowed him to bypass that problem almost entirely. Together with the surge of primal qi he had received during the Saint Alchemist’s Ascension, he could already feel that the second stage of the Nascent Soul Realm was within reach.

***

Another two months passed until footsteps finally sounded from within the cave residence. Luo Chen slowly opened his eyes and looked toward the approaching figure with a downcast expression.

”It didn’t work?”

She shook her head and pursed her lips. ”I’m sorry, Brother Luo. I let you down.”

”There’s nothing to apologize for. We’ll just find another fourth-tier illusory core.”

Luo Chen rose to his feet, and his white robes fluttered lightly around him.

Fu Qinglan looked as though she wanted to say something more, but in the end, she could only force herself to nod. ”Then I’ll have to trouble you again, Brother Luo. Fourth-tier illusory beasts aren’t easy to find, though. We may have to spend some time searching.”

To her surprise, Luo Chen merely smiled, as though that posed no problem at all. ”Just come with me.”

Fu Qinglan blinked in confusion before following him into the air. The moment she tried to draw on the ambient spirit energy, however, her movements faltered, and she actually staggered for a bit.

Luo Chen stopped at once and looked back with a frown.

Fu Qinglan quickly explained, ”My Nascent Soul was outside my body for too long. Now that it’s back, I’m still a little slow when controlling the spirit energy around me. It’s nothing serious.”

Luo Chen nodded. The explanation made sense. While outside the body, the Nascent Soul could interact directly with the natural spirit energy. After spending months in that state, suddenly having to work through the physical body again would naturally leave her control somewhat sluggish until she readjusted.

At her answers, he also realized why this particular competition, held once every five hundred years, differed completely from the usual ones and required protectors to take part. During this period, people like Fu Qinglan were at their most vulnerable. With their Nascent Souls exposed and all their attention devoted to comprehending the Great Dao, they had little strength to spare for protecting themselves and therefore needed someone else to guard them.

That realization only made Luo Chen more curious about Shi Ju. The man had originally wanted to enter the pocket world without a Dao Protector at all. Although he had eventually brought Qi Xiongcheng with him, that did not change the fact that Shi Ju had genuinely believed he could protect himself while cultivating here. So what exactly was it that gave him such confidence?