An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

Fu Qinglan was apologetic. ”Even two illusory cores couldn’t help me progress much. I’m sorry, Senior Brother, I’m not very gifted.”

Not very gifted? Luo Chen shook his head. How could someone who had formed her Nascent Soul at the age of three hundred be called ”not very gifted”? In the end, it was because the illusory cores contained too little spirit energy to last a cultivator until they finished grasping a natural Law. What truly frustrated him was time—or, rather, the lack thereof!

Luo Chen extended his hand toward Fu Qinglan and said to her confusion, ”Let me take a look at your illusory Go stone.”

Despite not knowing what he wanted to do, Fu Qinglan handed him the stone. Luo Chen examined it and saw that the black light staining the white stone had covered roughly two or three percent.

In this pocket world, the Mirage Dragon’s power would corrode the contestants’ Go stones. The deeper the corrosion, the shorter the time they could remain inside.

But this situation is really odd...

”You used up two illusory cores, yet it’s only corroded this much after one year. Does this mean we’ll have to stay in this pocket world for decades, or even over a hundred years at this rate?”

This was the main reason why Luo Chen could not accept their situation. He couldn’t possibly devote nearly a hundred years of his life to someone else’s cultivation trial. This also differed greatly from what Fu Chaosheng had told him, which was that the Dao Sect’s grand competition would take at most one or two years.

Something isn’t right here, but what?

As Luo Chen pondered this, he noticed the hesitant expression of the woman before him. She looked like she was having trouble saying something, so he probed, ”Did you gain anything after using two illusory cores in a row?”

Fu Qinglan took a moment before saying slowly, ”I did gain some insights, though I’m not sure of how true they are. I’ll gladly share them with you if you wish, Senior Brother.”

***

Luo Chen was back at the plain surrounded by three mountains, but without Fu Qinglan this time. He had sent her back to his cave residence to recuperate.

After setting up the same formation using the same bait on the plain, he lay in wait on a mountain peak. He didn’t keep his eyes on the Heaven Mystery Pill; nothing could go wrong with the formation and his life-bound enchanted treasure protecting it. He scanned the surroundings as if to search for something, but no matter how carefully he looked, nothing was out of the ordinary.

He was not in a good state, to say the least. Fu Qinglan’s words from a few days ago still impacted him relentlessly.

”Illusory beasts are likely the product of the Mirage Dragon’s residual consciousness. It’s their instinct to try to rise from the ashes and rekindle the Mirage Dragon’s spirit within themselves. The Mirage Dragon Pocket World opening once every five hundred years is not only an opportunity for us but also a means to eliminate high-tier illusory beasts to prevent the Mirage Dragon from reviving. When we use illusory cores to cultivate, we must get rid of the influence of the Mirage Dragon’s vegetative consciousness and harvest the spirit energy inside...

”From the illusory beasts’ consciousness in the cores, I discovered an important difference between this pocket world and the outside world. It’s a disparity in the flow of time, with the ratio of roughly... a hundred to one...”

One hundred to one!

This ratio had kept Luo Chen restless for several days straight. Even from the perspective of the cultivation world, this kind of secret realm was something straight out of myths and legends!

Whether in this world or his previous one, among the countless myths concerning immortality, tales of destined individuals stumbling upon such places were not uncommon. These secret realms varied greatly; some offered infinite opportunities, while others were treacherous and imposed all manner of restrictions.

In his life so far, Luo Chen had encountered few secret realms and had entered even fewer. Nevertheless, he had gathered considerable knowledge on them. For example, he now knew that the secret realms of deceased Ascendants were unsuitable for most Sages because the Laws left by such mighty cultivators would influence their Dao. Only those whose paths were closely aligned with that of a secret realm’s owner were advised to enter it. This fell under the category of restrictions based on one’s Dao.

The Land of Fallen Devils, while fraught with dangers, did not actually have stringent entry requirements in that respect. Let alone Sages, it allowed even Adepts, and even Initiates who were bold enough could theoretically venture in. If there was any such restriction at all, then it was probably on Ascendants who had already grasped their own Laws; they were not to enter casually, lest they just drop dead like Grand Elder Blood Sea.

Surprisingly, the Mirage Dragon Pocket World turned out to belong to a different category: those secret realms usually described in the legends as ”One day inside equals a thousand years in the outside world.” But in this case, it was the other way around; a hundred years inside the pocket world equaled only one year outside!

The time flow ratio between the Mirage Dragon Pocket World and the Mountains and Seas Realm was 100:1. Furthermore, cultivators aged normally inside the former. There would not be a situation where a cultivator entered at the age of 500 and emerged at the age of 501 after spending a hundred years in the pocket world; their remaining lifespan would instead become one hundred years shorter than that of a same-realm cultivator who had never entered the pocket world.

Luo Chen did not know why that was the case; it was probably related to the Dao Laws exclusive to the Mirage Dragon. What he understood from it was why the Heaven Origin Dao Sect reserved this opportunity for newly advanced Sages.

A normal Sage’s natural lifespan was around a thousand years. Everyone took a couple hundred years to reach the Nascent Soul Realm, however, so even when they did become Sages, they would only have a few hundred years left. Who would be willing to waste a century of that for no reason? Only newly promoted Sages, specifically those with exceptional enough talent enough to break into the Nascent Soul Realm at a very young age, had sufficient time to withstand the toll of the Mirage Dragon Pocket World. This was the actual, biggest restriction of the five-hundred-year grand competition! The speculation Luo Chen had made about newly promoted Sages having more affinity with heaven and earth was merely a minor part of it.

”No wonder records and legends say that when the big sects find a new, unknown secret realm, they often send in their disciples to test the waters first. It’d be a goddamn horror story if a high-realm cultivator with limited lifespan stumbled upon a pocket world only to straight out die once they left. But even so, Fu Chaosheng went too far!”

Luo Chen was truly angry because Fu Chaosheng had kept to himself this particular piece of information on the pocket world.

In fact, when Fu Qinglan had first mentioned her discovery of the time flow disparity, he had lost his composure in a very uncharacteristic display. His sudden burst of terrifying aura had rendered her paralyzed with fear. It was also why Luo Chen had come here to hunt illusory beasts alone this time; he still felt some apprehension toward her due to the deceit.

One damn CENTURY! How many centuries does a person have?!

He had been cultivating for barely two hundred years. If he had known that the Mirage Dragon Pocket World would cost him another hundred, he would never have agreed to this deal, no matter how favorable the conditions were.

”Were the other Dao Protectors also unaware of this, or did they knowingly head into the lion’s den? In any case, the nonstop benefits from Fu Chaosheng came with a hidden price tag all along! A hundred years of my life! I was careless, and I ended up eating a huge loss!”

Luo Chen took a deep breath and sat down on a rock. He first used the Fine Dust Primordial Art to calm down, then he began analyzing the situation in depth.

The first point was potentially losing a hundred years of his life. Unfairness and deceit aside, this was not an irredeemable loss. His lifespan already far exceeded that of his peers; it had shot up to 1500 after he entered the Nascent Soul Realm. It appeared that it was a firm cap this time, unlike in the previous realms where it had increased with each minor stage, but even so it was still much higher than the typical lifespan of a Sage. He could afford to lose a hundred years. Moreover, it wasn’t yet certain if he would lose that much. If he obtained enough illusory cores to help Fu Qinglan grasp the Laws sooner, he could leave sooner...

As Luo Chen reached this point in his analysis, his calm rapidly vanished, and a violent fury flared up once more. Fu Chaosheng has never been fully honest with me before, so why should I continue to go all out for Fu Qinglan’s sake?!

This fury stemmed from not only Fu Chaosheng’s concealment but also his own arrogance.

When he embarked on the path of cultivation, he had held sect cultivators in awe for their backing and also their formidable strength. However, as his own strength grew, he no longer feared those things. On the contrary, he had begun to look down on sect cultivators who were raised in a sheltered environment, and the shoddy mentality of his young peers in the Heaven Origin Dao Sect had only further fueled his contempt.

But now, reality dealt him a heavy blow. The younger cultivators might not be calculating, but their seniors were all shrewd foxes. How could he possibly take advantage of them so easily?

”When I deal with those old-timers from now on, I must think twice and weigh the pros and cons carefully.”

After bringing his emotions back under control, Luo Chen compared what he had given up to what Fu Chaosheng had given up, and realized that the other party had truly been calculating to the extreme.

If he worked hard and helped Fu Qinglan grasp the Laws as quickly as possible, and then they immediately left the Mirage Dragon Pocket World, then he would lose at most a few decades.

Meanwhile, what he had gotten from Fu Chaosheng was great quantities of soul essence, Withering Origin Fire Essence, pills, the status of External Affairs Guest Elder at Heaven-Earth Peak, and the mobilization of the Heaven Origin Trade Alliance’s manpower and resources to gather various ingredients for him. Together, these benefits sufficed, albeit barely, to hire a Sage to run errands for a few decades. If Luo Chen had to do all that himself, it would have probably taken the same amount of time, if he didn’t take into account the effort needed and unforeseen complications.

”Never mind. I’ll just have a word with that old codger after I’m out of here!”

Luo Chen let out a long breath and resumed his earlier train of thought. Since he was already here, he might as well make the best of it. There was no way he’d let decades of his prime years slip away without doing anything.

The scattered and disorganized state of spirit energy in this pocket world made it unsuitable for qi cultivation. Moreover, because he had to guard Fu Qinglan, he couldn’t project his Nascent Soul to bind with heaven and earth and study the Laws without a care like her.

At the thought of having to protect that foolish and naive woman, Luo Chen felt as though he was forced to swallow a fly that had accidentally flown into his mouth. He shook his head hard to suppress the queasiness.

”It’s fine. Even if it’s difficult to make significant leaps in cultivation here, small steps shouldn’t be a problem. The second stage of the Nascent Soul Realm is just around the corner. I need to spend the free time on myself and work on my proficiency with Fire Phoenix’s Prairie Blaze and Flame Dragon’s Descent.”

The Mirage Dragon Pocket World was vast beyond measure, so it was quite convenient to train here, and it wasn’t just limited to practicing spells. Now that Luo Chen had the Heaven Mystery Pill, his Withering-Flourishing True Fire could take its final step any time, so long as he wanted. He could also add to his schedule the refinement of the White Tiger puppet and the Penglai Eightspire Pavilion...

Finally, Luo Chen set his sights on Soul Split. His main soul had already reached the limit attainable in his current realm, so it was entirely possible to split off another subsidiary soul.

Back in the day, Han Zhan had started practicing Soul Split while in the Foundation Establishment Realm, and strengthened his divine soul’s foundation while in the Golden Core Realm. Then, after merely a hundred years since forming his Nascent Soul, he had amassed nine subsidiary souls. Luo Chen was lagging far behind right now, but with a miracle pill like the Great Soul Pill, he reckoned he could achieve the same eventually.

”One step at a time!”

With no other choice, he devised his plan for the days ahead.

That is just how life is: One is bound to suffer setbacks when they least expect them, but life must go on.

No, that’s not enough. Not only must my life go on, but it must also get better and better, so that those who have wronged me will have to look at me with respect, regret what they did, and pay the price!

***

”Here, the third core.”

Fu Qinglan hurriedly caught the fourth-tier illusory core flying in her direction. She wanted to say something, but her interlocutor put on a do-not-bother-me expression and activated a protective formation. As she stood there, locked outside it, her agape mouth turned into a wry smile.

Sure enough.... I should have expected this after I decided to reveal such a crucial secret like the time flow difference.

However, there was nothing else she could have done. The Fu family had been in decline for so long that they simply could not cultivate strong enough loyal servants. As for outsourcing the job... Whether they could find a Sage who met their requirements was one thing; but whoever that was, their strength would have been no match for Luo Chen’s. It was for lack of a better option that her grandfather had to conceal the truth from him and lure him in.

And after all that, Luo Chen was still willing to gather illusory cores for her. This was an incredibly noble and honorable act on his part. Her grandfather had not misjudged him. The only issue was their relationship—it had become distant once more, after so much effort to get familiar.

Forget it. I’ll try to grasp the Laws as quickly as I can so he can leave this prison.

With a bitter smile on her face, Fu Qinglan gripped the illusory core tightly and entered her simple cave residence.