Eternal Life Begins with Learning

"Something is... eroding my body..." 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Chu Mu walked deeper into the mine, his brow furrowed as he felt the changes in his body.

He had noticed it the moment he stepped into the mining field, but given the circumstances, he hadn’t used his Divine Sense to investigate.

Now, after entering the mine, the sensation grew much stronger.

With his Divine Sense enveloping the area, he could clearly feel wisps of purple lightning filling the mine. Being inside, he was naturally surrounded by these electrical wisps.

Furthermore, these wisps of lightning were clearly seeping into his body. A single wisp was insignificant, but a dense, almost endless torrent of it was continuously penetrating his flesh...

Destruction!

As he perceived his own body, all Chu Mu could feel was destruction—the destruction of his own flesh and blood!

’This level of destruction... if it were an ordinary person, they’d probably be turned to ash in minutes!’

’One hour!’

Chu Mu quickly made a calculation and came to a conclusion.

Even with his current physique, he could last an hour at most.

’That’s not right...’

Chu Mu glanced at the other miners. ’If it were really this dangerous, there would be no reason to bring Cultivators like them, who haven’t even officially started on the Immortal Path.’

’After all, you can feel the danger as soon as you enter the mountain. Who would willingly walk to their death?’

’They wouldn’t be mining so obediently!’

Chu Mu pursed his lips and once again enveloped his body with his Divine Sense. After a moment’s hesitation, he tentatively mobilized the Qi Blood within him to resist the invading lightning.

The lightning destroyed while the Qi Blood nourished, and a stalemate quickly formed within his body.

’So that’s why the Cultivation requirement is limited to the Divine Appearance realm...’

Chu Mu seemed to have a realization. The key wasn’t the Qi Blood resisting on its own, but the Qi Blood resisting under the direction of his Divine Sense.

Without the fine control of a Divine Sense, no matter how abundant one’s Qi Blood, it would inevitably be depleted.

But with the subtle control of a Divine Sense, this resistance could be turned into a stalemate.

It could even evolve into... refinement! A refinement of the body!

’If I had some external nourishment...’

Chu Mu gently caressed the cool Broken Spirit he kept on his person. Following his Divine Sense’s command, the Spiritual Qi within it slowly surged into his body, providing a deeper wellspring of power for the internal struggle.

Once he confirmed he was fine, Chu Mu refocused his attention on the lightning.

Drawing on his previous experience in the Nanshan Mine, he spread his Divine Sense and quickly locked onto the Ore Vein inside the cavern.

The Red Thunder Ore. It was the very reason this mountain was being mined.

It was also the main Ore Material he, as a miner, was required to gather.

It was the "main" material, not the "only" one, because the Steward had stressed that there was a chance of finding Frost Thunder Ore alongside the Red Thunder Ore.

For every jin of Frost Thunder Ore a miner extracted, the reward was one Broken Spirit.

Evidently, this lightning was just like the mysterious chill back in the Nanshan Iron Ore mine; it was being emitted by the Ore Materials themselves.

That mysterious chill had claimed the lives of countless conscripts performing Forced Labor.

And this lightning was just as deadly to anyone below the Divine Appearance realm—in fact, it was far more lethal than the chill!

It was no wonder there were no cheap, expendable mortals here.

As his thoughts churned, Chu Mu continued along the pitch-black tunnel, with no intention of interacting with the other miners.

’After all, that young Steward only specified the daily quota for each person. He never said that quota... had to be mined by your own hands.’

They weren’t true Cultivators, so Chu Mu wasn’t afraid of them, but he didn’t want any trouble either.

Right now, all he wanted was to quietly put in a few months of hard labor and save up enough Spirit Stones.

Once he officially set foot on the Immortal Path, with his two inheritances and the help of Spiritual Radiance, his journey would become much smoother.

He found an empty tunnel. The moment his pickaxe struck, Chu Mu was dumbfounded.

Even a casual strike from him contained terrifying Power. Back in the mortal world, he could have easily blasted a huge crater in a wall of solid stone.

But here, against this Red Thunder Ore Vein, the pickaxe head had barely sunk in.

Chu Mu was only stunned for a moment. He wasn’t too surprised. ’This is the Cultivation Immortal Realm, after all. Strange things are to be expected.’

’My inability to understand is just a limitation of my own knowledge.’

Chu Mu swung the pickaxe again and again, the ear-piercing sound of metal on rock ringing out with each blow. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

It took nearly twenty swings before he finally managed to pry a small piece of Ore Material from the vein. Chu Mu picked it up, tossed it into the basket on his back, and immediately went back to digging without a break.

He had longed to enter the Cultivation Immortal Realm, but before he could even set foot on the Immortal Path, the life of a miner had already begun.

Perhaps because none of them were true Cultivators, the trouble Chu Mu had anticipated never materialized.

A day passed, calm and uneventful.

After turning in his hundred jin of Ore Materials, Chu Mu had nowhere else to go. He built a simple shelter near the mine, slept for the night, and returned to the mining field on time the next day.

The days passed one by one, and Chu Mu’s labor in the mining field continued unabated.

The seasons turned, and several months of hard labor passed in a flash.

Five Spirit Stones. It seemed like such an insignificant number.

Yet Chu Mu had toiled for months for it, and his struggle was far from over.

Inside the mine, Chu Mu sat leaning against the cavern wall, his eyes half-closed. Beside him, his back-basket was already full of Ore Materials. After several months of mining, gathering a hundred jin of ore was no longer difficult for him.

He could usually finish his quota in just over half a day.

He spent the rest of his time concentrating on the two inheritances recorded in the Jade Scroll.

He focused especially on the Puppetry Skill inheritance. The mining field was full of Puppet Creations. Even just observing them from afar had greatly broadened his understanding, thanks to the sheer variety of Puppets present.

With this rudimentary knowledge, and by using the massive amount of "Spiritual Radiance Value" he had accumulated, Chu Mu could begin to comprehend the information in the scroll and build a basic foundation.

Chu Mu was positioned at the end of a branching tunnel. In fact, after months of mining, the hundred or so miners had developed an unspoken understanding: you stay in your spot, I’ll stay in mine. Everyone minded their own business.

Since none of them were true Cultivators, and there were no major gaps in strength or status, this tacit agreement held firm.

Nearly half an hour later, Chu Mu finally opened his eyes. He habitually scanned the dim cavern around him and, confirming nothing was out of the ordinary, allowed himself to relax.

He pulled a palm-sized cloth bag from inside his clothes, revealing dozens of fingernail-sized Broken Spirits.

Three months, twenty-four Broken Spirits.

Aside from his original one, which he had drawn from many times, the rest remained untouched.

’Sixteen more to go...’

’Fifty-three days left...’

Chu Mu pursed his lips. A complex look filled his eyes, and his brow was etched with a hint of weariness.

From what he had seen and heard so far, the Cultivation Immortal Realm was indeed a flourishing and diverse place.

It was exactly the kind of vibrant Cultivation Immortal Civilization he had envisioned.

The series of wondrous Puppet Creations in this mining field alone was clear proof of that.

’But what is it actually like to step into the Cultivation Immortal Realm?’

’Riding a sword between heaven and earth?’

’Living free and unfettered?’

’It should be like that. And for some, it is.’

’So why does it feel... like I’ve gone back to my previous life?’

...