Eternal Life Begins with Learning

’It really is an isolated case...’

The small boat sped several miles across the lake. When Chu Mu stopped to perceive his surroundings again, the Spiritual Qi had returned to its usual gentle state, confirming his thoughts.

’Was it because of a fight between Cultivators, or for some other reason?’

Chu Mu pondered for a moment before pushing the thought aside. He scanned his surroundings, and after confirming no one else was present, he reached into his robes. Two Jade Scrolls were now in his hands.

Through his Divine Soul Perception, he observed that the two Jade Scrolls showed no abnormalities. Unlike Spirit Stones, which overflowed with Spiritual Qi and flickered with light, these seemed like nothing more than ordinary Jade Slabs from the mortal world.

When he focused his Divine Soul Perception, however, he could faintly discern flickering patterns on the Jade Slabs. But whenever Chu Mu tried to get a clearer look, the patterns would vanish. This happened again and again.

Chu Mu didn’t dwell on it for long. His Divine Soul Perception enveloped the Jade Scroll that Elder Li had given him.

The moment it was completely enveloped, it was as if a switch had been flipped. A massive stream of information surged along the path of his Divine Soul Perception and flooded into his mind.

Veins bulged on Chu Mu’s forehead as his face turned deathly pale in an instant. He clutched his head, his face a mask of agony as he gasped for air.

’Just now, it felt as if a huge, foreign object had been forcefully shoved into my mind, threatening to make my head burst.’

His heart still pounding with fear, Chu Mu calmed himself and began to slowly sort through the massive stream of information in his mind.

This rough sorting took nearly an hour.

He had started at sunrise, and now the sun was hanging high overhead, its light glinting on the water.

"Alchemy..."

Chu Mu murmured to himself, his expression a mixture of joy and confusion.

He was joyful because the Jade Scroll truly contained the Alchemy Inheritance he had longed for.

An Alchemy Technique, a Pill Recipe, and a Spirit Medicine Diagram, which recorded the properties and characteristics of thirty-eight types of Spirit Medicine at various stages of growth.

There was also a detailed guide to Alchemy Basics, which was filled with theoretical knowledge.

It was similar to how the concept of Essence, Qi, and Spirit was the fundamental guiding principle for Qi and Blood Cultivation; this section mainly described the core theories of Alchemy.

The inheritance was genuine, but it was clear that this collection of knowledge was nowhere near enough to form a complete, foundational system for the Alchemy Skill.

It was like his secular understanding of medicine; only after studying hundreds of medical texts and receiving Elder Li’s personal instruction was Chu Mu able to piece together a rudimentary framework for diagnosis and treatment.

Alchemy in the Cultivation Immortal Realm was clearly far more complex. The countless Spirit Medicines, each with different properties based on its age, were like an endless series of nearly unsolvable math problems.

’I was getting greedy...’

Chu Mu let out a long breath, admonishing himself internally.

No matter how rudimentary the inheritance, it was still something far beyond his reach.

This knowledge alone would take him a long time to digest. It was enough to begin his transition from a secular understanding of medicine to its equivalent in the Cultivation Immortal Realm.

He couldn’t expect Elder Li’s inheritance to carry him all the way to the top.

Chu Mu gently caressed the other Jade Scroll. He had gotten this one from the youth from Qili Village, and it was the inheritance of that village’s mysterious old man.

The scenes he had witnessed involving the youth surfaced in his mind.

That mysterious old man from Qili Village was definitely no ordinary Cultivator.

Chu Mu was certain of it.

’Otherwise, how could that youth have stirred up so much trouble? On what grounds? The fact that he was just a village boy, powerless to stop the massacre of his own village?’

The Jade Scroll was cool in his hand, and the wind off the lake was chilling.

Chu Mu found a comfortable spot to lean back in the small boat. He extended his Divine Soul Perception. ’No,’ he corrected himself, ’according to the Alchemy Inheritance left by Elder Li, what I call Divine Soul Perception is known as Divine Sense in the Cultivation Immortal Realm.’

His Divine Sense enveloped the Jade Scroll, and the massive stream of information appeared once again.

Chu Mu braced himself for another head-splitting torrent of information, but to his surprise...

In an instant, a vast amount of information was indeed flowing through his mind.

Yet he felt nothing.

Pain?

There was none whatsoever.

’They are both Jade Scrolls, yet one’s information transfer is agonizing, while the other’s is completely painless...’

’Does the Cultivation Immortal Realm have counterfeit products too?’

Looking at the two Jade Scrolls, which appeared identical on the surface, Chu Mu couldn’t help but grumble internally.

Chu Mu put the Jade Scrolls away, closed his eyes, and began to sort through this new inheritance.

A moment later, Chu Mu shot upright, his eyes wide with disbelief.

Chu Mu gulped down two large mouthfuls of cool water, trying to calm himself.

It took a long while for Chu Mu to force himself to calm down. He closed his eyes and once again began to process the information from the Jade Scroll.

This time, it took far longer than it had to sort through the knowledge of Alchemy.

He started before noon and continued through dusk and sunset, until the starry sky glittered above the quiet lake.

Chu Mu finally managed to pull free from the knowledge of the Jade Scroll.

Incredible.

Even after all that time, Chu Mu still found it hard to believe.

Chu Mu gazed at the night sky. It was deep and distant, studded with brilliant stars. The profound tranquility of the scene could easily calm even the most agitated heart.

Chu Mu raised the Jade Scroll he had gotten from the youth, examining it closely in the moonlight.

In all his time in this world, he had come to understand it as a cruel era.

The ignorance of the lower classes and the upper class’s disregard for human life had constructed a grotesque, yet strangely stable world that defied all logic.

Because looming over this grotesque world was the Cultivation Immortal Realm, a place where immense power was concentrated in individuals.

’What is the Cultivation Immortal Realm like?’

He had speculated a great deal, but a faint sense of superiority, a remnant from his past life in an age of technology, always remained.

But this single Jade Scroll, and the information it contained, had just revealed a Cultivation Immortal World that completely shattered his preconceptions.

"The Artifact Refining Skill, or more specifically, the Puppetry Skill..."

Chu Mu murmured, still staring at the Jade Scroll.

What the Jade Scroll recorded was another of the Hundred Skills of Cultivation Immortal that Elder Li had mentioned: Artifact Refining. To be more precise, it was a branch of Artifact Refining: the Puppetry Skill!

The term "Puppetry Skill" sounded ordinary enough.

But the knowledge it contained was anything but. It was far beyond anything Chu Mu could have imagined.

Although the Puppetry Skill inheritance in this Jade Scroll was far more complete than the Alchemy Inheritance from Elder Li, it was clearly still just introductory, foundational knowledge.

But no matter how basic, it presented a complete intellectual framework.

Even though he couldn’t understand ninety-nine percent of it, he could still grasp the general concept of the Puppetry Skill.

The term "Puppet" was a bit too abstract. Chu Mu felt it was better to draw a comparison to his previous life.

’Human exoskeletons? Mechs? Robots?’

Based on his general understanding from sorting through the inheritance, the Puppetry Skill seemed to correspond to those very things from his past life.

It used Spiritual Power as its driving energy, Arrays and Runes as the network for power transmission, and Artifact Refining to forge the main body...

That was the Puppetry Skill!

The Jade Scroll also recorded the Refining method for a Puppet called the Giant Divine Arm Puppet. The name alone sounded fantastical, but when combined with the diagrams...

It looked no different from the exoskeletal power arms in the science fiction movies of his previous life.

The only difference was its power source. Instead of electrical or nuclear Energy, it used Spiritual Power.

Its main structure wasn’t made of alloys but was refined from the various Spirit Ores of the Cultivation Immortal Realm, supplemented with Arrays and Runes to channel its power.

This was just a glimpse, but from the Puppetry Skill alone, he could tell that this Cultivation Immortal Realm was completely different from what he had imagined.

Elder Li’s words about a "hundred flowers blooming" were absolutely right.

His past life had a technological civilization. This Cultivation Immortal Realm, then, should be called... a Spiritual Civilization!

A Spiritual Cultivation Immortal Civilization that, compared to his previous world, would likely flourish even more, and hold even greater possibilities!

...