Cultivating To Immortality

"Complete Records of Immortal Dao Scenery..."

He seemed to have glimpsed it while searching for Sword Cultivator content in the Records of Scenery.

It was a story that sounded somewhat fantastical.

Song Yan didn’t rush to take out the Jade Slip of the Complete Records of Immortal Dao Scenery. Instead, he rummaged through Wan Songran’s miscellaneous items, as if to verify something.

A black wooden token, with a large character "Wan" carved in the middle, and two smaller characters, "Songran," carved below it.

A book.

Finally, he found what he was looking for. This was a booklet like a Wan Family Disciple’s Code of Conduct.

But it was very new, probably Wan Songran himself had never flipped through it. Instead, Song Yan picked it up and read it.

"Wan Family..."

"Ancestral Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator?"

"Wan Zhihong? Ancestral home in the Central Region..."

It really was from the Central Region...

The Central Region of this continent was vast and boundless, yet it only had one Immortal Court, the Great Tang.

For insignificant entities like the Chu State, struggling for survival in the crack between the Central Region and the Southern Frontier, the Central Region, whether the Mortal Realm or the Cultivation World, was a prosperous and flourishing place yearned for by all.

His gaze fell on the flute.

The flute was three feet three inches long. Held in hand, it was no different from a short sword.

It was entirely black and red, with a cluster of black clouds carved at the tail end of the flute. The section above it originally seemed to have some ornament, but it had broken off from the black cloud, leaving only the body of the flute.

Above the black cloud on the flute’s body, two characters were carved vertically in an ancient script. Song Yan had learned this ancient script previously to annotate some obscure parts of Five Stars Seizing Meridians.

"Tao Tail."

For some reason, as he gazed at these two characters, a terrifying and majestic Demonic Qi seemed to rush towards him.

Song Yan was startled and shivered, but found no abnormalities around him. He only saw Snake Babe Xiao He on the bed, wrapped in a small blanket, staring at Song Yan and the flute in his hand.

"What an evil treasure..."

"Yan Yan, what are you doing?"

You haven’t paid attention to me for a long time.

"Oh, I’m looking at an ancient legend..."

Only then did Song Yan open the Complete Records of Immortal Dao Scenery and carefully search its contents.

Finally, in one record, he found the legend that connected him to the tao tail flute.

"Secrets of Tianhai City..."

He didn’t know when, but Xiao He transformed into a small snake and climbed onto Song Yan’s neck. Her tiny snake tongue gently touched the Jade Slip.

"I want to see too, I want to see too!"

An ancient secret, like a series of paintings, slowly unfolded before the man and the snake.

Legend has it that in ancient times, in the Central Region, there was a famous ancient city called "Tianhai."

In Tianhai City, Cultivators and Mortals coexisted harmoniously.

Here, Cultivators were more like a profession, a pursuit, rather than high and mighty "Immortals."

One year, an unprovoked Demon Beast tide erupted in Tianhai City.

The Cultivators worked together, but could only continuously clear the Demon Beasts. They couldn’t figure out where these Demon Beasts came from; they seemed endless, emerging from the shadows of the city.

The Mortals simply couldn’t withstand such a disaster, and many Cultivators also suffered casualties.

Just when everyone was at their wits’ end, a Cultivator in a mottled Daoist robe arrived from the south. He had a black and red flute tucked at his waist and called himself the Demon Summoning Daoist.

He saw the situation in the city and said to the people: "I have a method that might resolve this anomaly."

"However, it consumes a lot, and requires your remuneration."

The people of Tianhai City were overjoyed and repeatedly agreed, asking the Flowery Robed Daoist to immediately lend a hand.

The Flowery Robed man blew the ancient flute in his hand, and a melodious flute sound echoed.

The Demon Beasts that continuously emerged like a tide in Tianhai City surged towards the Flowery Robed man in droves, stopping in front of him to watch, as if listening to the flute music.

The Flowery Robed man thus blew his flute and left the city, and with him went the entire city’s beast tide.

The matter seemed to have been perfectly resolved.

But the story was far from over.

There were many different accounts of the aftermath of this story in the Cultivation World, roughly divided into two types.

One of them was widely circulated:

The crisis of the beast tide was resolved, and the Flowery Robed Daoist also received the remuneration he desired.

The Daoist stayed in Tianhai City for a few days. A careful Cultivator followed the Flowery Robed Daoist when he was about to leave.

He discovered that the beast tide in the city was actually orchestrated by him, solely to obtain the Cultivation resources in the city.

He returned to the city and told the Cultivators. The people were very angry, and the Cultivators of Tianhai City pursued him relentlessly.

Ultimately, the Flowery Robed Daoist was severely wounded and perished.

The other version was not as widely circulated, but it was completely different from the previous one:

The crisis of the beast tide was resolved, but when the Flowery Robed Daoist wanted to claim his rightful remuneration, the Cultivators in the city went back on their word and refused to pay him.

In a fit of rage, the Flowery Robed Daoist played his flute. The Spirit Beasts, Spirit Yao, and even Mortals in the city suddenly went mad and attacked each other.

However, the Cultivators of Tianhai City were, after all, numerous and powerful. They attacked him en masse. The Flowery Robed Daoist fled all the way, and ultimately, he was severely wounded and perished.

"..."

Song Yan pondered.

Two completely different versions of the story.

"Yan Yan..."

"Hmm?"

"Which one do you think is true?"

"..."

Song Yan shook his head, indicating that he didn’t know either.

However, he didn’t dwell on the truthfulness of these two story versions.

Instead, he began to re-evaluate the value of this tao tail flute.

"If this ancient flute is truly the one from the ancient legend, then the Flowery Robed Daoist in the Tianhai secret is very likely the Wan Family ancestor, Wan Zhihong."

Could this flute actually be the... genuine article from a Great Master?

In the Cultivation World, Spiritual Artifacts and Talismans all have distinctions of genuine, replica, and counterfeit.

Taking Spiritual Artifacts as an example, genuine articles are naturally Spirit Treasures and Spirit Items of heaven and earth, or original treasures crafted by Artifact Refining Great Masters.

The power and ease of manipulation of Spiritual Artifacts and Magic Treasures are the strongest.

Replicas, as the name suggests, are products made by Artifact Refiners of slightly lower skill, or Disciples of genuine Artifact Refiners, imitating the genuine articles.

They are slightly inferior in all aspects, but generally good and have a higher cost-performance ratio.

Counterfeits, on the other hand, are things cobbled together and forged by some minor Artifact Refining imps. They are generally useless, only used to deceive unsuspecting Cultivators and extort Spirit Stones.

Song Yan had always believed that a so-called "treasure" in the hands of a Qi Refinement Stage Disciple, no matter how Heaven-Defying its efficacy, would at most be a replica.

But if this was real...

A Magic Treasure used by a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator!!!

This flute, in Song Yan’s eyes now, was not a flute at all.

It was an inexhaustible source of Spirit Stones!

Selling it at the Lingyuanze Market auction for three to five hundred Spirit Stones to a bunch of ignorant fools?

Absolutely impossible!

He had to find a big buyer!

Having made up his mind, he put the precious flute aside.

The remaining Medicinal Pills and Talismans were sorted by Song Yan. He kept what he could use for his Cultivation.

What he couldn’t use, he put in a pile with the Spiritual Artifacts he intended to sell. The legitimate ones, he would sell to Granny Qin at that time.

As for the illegitimate ones... he would wait for the Night Market.

It’s worth mentioning that among Wang Xi’s items, there was a bottle of Qi Condensation Pills.

The Spiritual Qi and medicinal efficacy of Qi Condensation Pills far surpassed that of Huang Ya Pills. These were Medicinal Pills that only Late Stage Qi Refinement Stage Cultivators would take.

After methodically completing everything, Song Yan began to plan.

"Right now, the most lacking things for Cultivation are the Ultimate Spirit Item and the Natal Flying Sword."

One can strengthen the Dao Seed under the Zhen Dao Sword Mansion, and the other can not only strengthen it but is also the most important offensive means for a Sword Cultivator.

It can be said that the Natal Flying Sword determines whether a Sword Cultivator is powerful.

"Let’s first restore my spiritual power Realm to the fourth layer of Qi Refinement Stage."

Whether it’s the Natal Flying Sword or the refining of the Ultimate Spirit Item, it requires at least the Middle Stage Qi Refinement Stage Realm.

Restoring to the Middle Stage Qi Refinement Stage is considered having regained the ability to protect oneself.

Song Yan sat cross-legged on the stone bed, the chaotic thoughts in his mind gradually clearing, and slowly began to Cultivate.

Only Xiao He remained, holding the Jade Slip, deep in thought at the table.

"Which one is true?"