I am a late bloomer in the world of cultivating immortals

Mount Duanhun in Jingguo is quite famous in the cultivation world of Jingguo. It is close to the Demon Wolf Mountain Range, which blocks the forces of the righteous and demonic paths. It is a wild and untamed place in the minds of lower-level cultivators, a place where demonic beasts gather.

However, more than a hundred years ago, with the arrival of a great cultivator, this place gradually became 'prosperous', attracting many Nascent Soul cultivators.

Of course, the escape lights of these Nascent Soul Ancestors were difficult for ordinary cultivators to detect. In fact, because that great cultivator had occupied the spiritual land within Broken Soul Mountain, many demonic beasts had migrated, making the mountain appear even more wild and terrifying in the eyes of the Jing Kingdom cultivators.

"Another fellow Daoist has come to visit Senior Wei?" Deep within Broken Soul Mountain, outside a valley, a short, stout Daoist stood and, seeing the streaking light approaching from afar, smiled slightly with delight.

"I hope this fellow Daoist will have the opportunity to meet Senior Wei, so that we can take advantage of the situation and receive some guidance from Senior Wei..." Upon hearing this, a disheveled cultivator standing not far from the short, stout Daoist also showed joy and murmured softly.

Sixty years ago, they followed the trail of that legendary figure from the Great Cang Cultivation World, based on rumors, and arrived here.

Unfortunately, no matter how much they pleaded, the 'Senior Wei' living inside remained unmoved, opened the barrier outside the valley, and let them in.

It was a Nascent Soul cultivator friend who told them a trick to get a meeting with 'Senior Wei'.

Either search for traces of some 'ancient secret realms' that were previously circulating in the Great Cang Cultivation World for Senior Wei, or stand at the entrance and wait! Wait until someone finds information about the former, and then follow him inside.

The latter may not have many opportunities, but they are fortunate enough to receive some guidance from 'Senior Wei'.

Within a span of sixty years, they had encountered no fewer than a handful of Nascent Soul cultivators, yet without exception, they were all, like them, ineligible to meet Senior Wei.

However, the light that appeared today gave them a glimpse of a possibility.

—The speed of its escape was almost the limit of the Nascent Soul escape speed he had ever seen.

In other words, the visiting cultivator is most likely a rare Nascent Soul cultivator in the Great Cang cultivation world!

Such cultivators are undoubtedly far more likely to possess information about ancient secret realms than other ordinary cultivators.

"That...that's the Hermit of Yellow Sands from Zheng State? When did he break through to the late Nascent Soul stage?"

Before long, as the escape light drew closer, the short, stout Taoist and the disheveled cultivator finally saw clearly the cultivator riding the escape light.

The two of them exchanged a glance, their faces showing surprise.

The reason is simple: for cultivators in the Great Cang cultivation world, the late Nascent Soul stage is practically a watershed moment in the Nascent Soul realm. More than 95% of Nascent Soul cultivators will never reach this stage, even in their final moments.

"That's right, that's Huangsha Sanren! He's probably the easiest one in the entire Great Cang cultivation world to break through to the late Nascent Soul stage." Suddenly, the disheveled cultivator seemed to have thought of something, and his envious gaze turned into one of relief.

Upon hearing this, the short, stout Taoist slapped his forehead, his face immediately showing a look of surprise and delight. "That's right! This Hermit of Yellow Sand is Senior Wei's junior, half a disciple... With him here, isn't it a sure thing that the two of us can meet Senior Wei?"

After speaking, the two men had an idea and immediately searched their storage artifacts for a suitable gift to give to Huangsha Sanren as a token of their gratitude for being introduced to 'Senior Wei'.

As for the tall, thin, pockmarked cultivator who was traveling with Huangsha Sanren, the two of them didn't pay much attention to him.

He regarded him as a junior who was taken by Huangsha Sanren and was not worth mentioning.

After all, there are only a handful of Nascent Soul cultivators in the Great Cang Cultivation World, and the situation they had never encountered before is practically nonexistent.

"Yellow Sand Hermit... This cultivator actually dares to come to Broken Soul Mountain to see me? Ha, breaking through to the late Nascent Soul stage gives him such confidence?"

Within the valley surrounded by the forbidden formation, amidst the dense fog, stood a simple thatched hut.

Inside the thatched hut, a black-haired man who looked exactly like Wei Tu sat cross-legged on a futon with his eyes slightly closed. After sensing Huang Sha Sanren's escape light, a look of astonishment immediately appeared on his peaceful face.

However, in an instant, this astonishment turned into a strong sense of mockery, and his face instantly changed from that of a righteous cultivator to one that was quite sinister.

“Originally, I planned to live in peace with this yellow sand. Since he is so ignorant of his place, it’s good to get rid of this future threat today… If it weren’t for the fact that the demonic soul that was separated from him collided with Wei Tu a thousand years ago, and died, causing the main body to be severely damaged, he wouldn’t have been able to ambush this junior hundreds of years ago, and he hasn’t even succeeded yet…” The black-haired man muttered to himself in a low voice.

As he said this, a look of resentment suddenly appeared on his face, as if this matter was a grave hatred akin to killing his father and taking away his mother.

"Forget it, it's just my bad luck. My clone just escaped the seal and ran right into an ascension cultivator that's a once-in-a-millennium event in the human realm... It's not a disgrace to be defeated by Wei Tu. I'll settle the score with him when I return to the Ancient Demon Realm." The black-haired man shook his head, his expression softening and returning to its previous calm.

"This repair is considered the commission I received from settling accounts with Wei Tu!"

The black-haired man sneered, raised his right hand, and suddenly grabbed forward. Several array flags appeared in his palm. After he made a hand seal, they shone brightly, hovered in the air for a while, and then landed around the valley.

At the same time, the protective array surrounding the valley and the mist obscuring the thatched hut vanished completely in an instant.

"Fellow Daoist Huangsha has come to visit. I, Wei, have failed to greet you properly. Please come inside for a while..." The black-haired man smiled faintly and called out to Huangsha Sanren, who was outside the valley and whose escape light had just subsided.

"Indeed! When Fellow Daoist Huangsha came to see Senior Wei, Senior Wei immediately opened the restrictive array..."

Before Huangsha Sanren could respond, the short, stout Taoist and the disheveled cultivator were overjoyed. They exchanged a glance and secretly felt that their luck was not bad.

"Fellow Daoist Huangsha, do you still remember me? More than four hundred years ago, at the Wanshan Exchange Conference of Xiao Kingdom, I had a brief encounter with Fellow Daoist Huangsha..." The short, stout Daoist laughed and took out a bamboo basket magic artifact that shone with precious light, handing it to Huangsha Sanren in front of him.

"Eight hundred years ago, when I was traveling in the State of Zheng, the Huangsha Sect had just been established. I recommended a formation master to the Huangsha Daoists to create the sect's grand formation..."

The monk with disheveled hair also offered a gift and reminisced with the hermit of the yellow sand.

"This..." Seeing this unexpected scene, Huangsha Sanren looked stunned and couldn't help but frown.

However, before he could even ask Wei Tu what to do next, he saw Wei Tu standing beside him take a step and slowly walk towards the thatched hut.

"Fellow Daoist Huangsha, what's wrong with your disciple? How can he be so disrespectful?" Instantly, the disheveled cultivator who saw this scene became very anxious, worried that Wei Tu had acted recklessly and offended the 'Senior Wei' in the valley.

but--

He hadn't even finished his words.

The next moment, the disheveled cultivator turned around as if he had seen a ghost, staring intently at Wei Tu's back.

Its pace was not fast; in fact, it could be described as slow.

However, for him, the distance of several hundred feet seemed to be only two or three steps, and he arrived at the door of the thatched hut deep in the valley as easily as a ghost.

This kind of instantaneous movement technique...

Even he, a Nascent Soul ancestor, had never seen it before, let alone used it.

"Who exactly is this pockmarked cultivator?" the disheveled cultivator wondered.

But just as he was about to ask Huangsha Sanren about it, he saw Huangsha Sanren say "Retreat quickly" and immediately take off into the air, fleeing far away from Duanhun Mountain as if his life depended on it.

The next instant was followed by a huge explosion from within the valley, and a sentence that shocked them greatly.

"Wei Tu, you actually went down to the mortal realm?"

Upon hearing this, the short, stout Taoist and the disheveled cultivator, who were slow to realize what was happening, finally reacted. Their faces showed undisguised astonishment as they fled outwards, subconsciously glancing back at the valley.

In the ancient valley, the pockmarked cultivator who had just passed by them stood calmly in mid-air, facing off against 'Senior Wei' who was inside the thatched hut.

Surprisingly, the exclamation just now did not come from the pockmarked cultivator, but from the person they considered to be 'Senior Wei'.

At the same moment, under the hand seals of the grim-faced 'Senior Wei,' more than a dozen array flags appeared in the void one by one. In an instant, they transformed into a solid, yellowish light shield, which fell down on the pockmarked cultivator in the air, seemingly intending to bind him on the spot.

Even so, this 'Senior Wei' did not linger in battle. The moment the battle flags were lowered, a flash of demonic light appeared, and he prepared to flee.

"Demonic energy? This Senior Wei is an imposter, a demonic cultivator in disguise?" The short, stout Taoist and the disheveled cultivator were utterly shocked, unable to believe that Senior Wei, whom they had been waiting for at the entrance of the valley for sixty years, was just a fake.

Moreover, judging from the fluctuations in his magical power, although his realm was much stronger than theirs, it seemed to be quite limited, far from reaching the level of the Nascent Soul stage.

“Fellow Daoist is quite clever, guessing at a glance that it is I, Wei, who have come here.”

Inside the trapped formation, Wei Tu, who witnessed this scene, neither dodged nor avoided it, but smiled slightly.

But in the next instant, just as the array's protective barrier was about to land on him, a flash of multicolored light appeared on his body, and he transformed into a streak of light, easily passing through the barrier's restrictive structure.

Immediately afterwards, his escape light flashed again, and in an instant, he arrived behind the fleeing black-haired man, less than a foot away from the demon.

"The Five Elements Law?" The black-haired man was also a knowledgeable person. When he saw Wei Tu ignoring his trap and chasing after him, he immediately felt a chill run down his spine and exclaimed in his heart.

He knew all too well what the emergence of the Five Elements principle meant.

The cultivation of fusion!

He is currently being hunted down by a powerful being at the Integration Stage!

"However, Wei Tu underestimates me. In a normal battle, I would be no match for him. But he is approaching me now... so close." The black-haired man, sensing Wei Tu's sudden approach, sneered inwardly.

In terms of cultivation level, he is indeed only at the Nascent Soul stage at present, and has not even broken through to the Divine Transformation stage.

However, it should be noted that more than 100,000 years ago, he was one of the ancient demons who was suppressed by the Holy Monk Kubei, a transcendent immortal, so he could not have been an ordinary person.

Let alone a Nascent Soul cultivator, even a Mahayana cultivator at his peak could be killed by his schemes.

"Die." The black-haired man gave a sinister smile, and in that instant, his long hair suddenly fell loose, revealing another face that resembled a demon.

At the same moment, a pair of invisible, bony ghost claws, instantly condensed from demonic energy, reached out and grabbed at Wei Tu, who was less than a foot away from him.

Just as the black-haired man had thought.

At this moment, a look of surprise appeared on Wei Tu's face, as if he had not expected that as a 'last gasp', he would still have such a means to deal with him, a powerful figure in the Spirit Realm.

"The power of these ghost claws is comparable to the full-force attack of a mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator." Wei Tu's eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at the pair of demonic claws that suddenly tore through the rule domain surrounding him and descended upon his body.

“However, it seems that it’s still a little short to tear apart my flesh.” Wei Tu sneered and raised one hand forward.

There was a loud 'bang'.

The pair of 'ghost claws' that the black-haired man had placed so much hope in were easily blocked by Wei Tu's dragon-scaled arms, leaving only a few deep bloodstains on his arms. Then, under the surging blood energy, they instantly dissipated.

"How is this possible? How is this possible?"

"How could you, a mere ascended cultivator from the lower realm, possibly be a seventh-level body refiner?"

At this moment, even the black-haired man with the grotesque face on the back of his head was shocked and stared in disbelief at the scene unfolding before him.

Seventh-order body refinement is several times more difficult than breaking through to the fusion stage.

Even in the 'Primordial Demon Source Realm', there are not many ancient demons capable of becoming Body Refinement Demon Lords.

"There's no need for you to concern yourself with that, fellow Daoist."

"Back then, it was time to settle the score for the grudge you inflicted on a certain companion by possessing him."

Wei Tu snorted coldly, grabbed forward with one hand, and the Five Elements Rule Domain instantly spread out from his body, pressing down on the black-haired man in front of him.

He harbored a deep-seated 'hatred' for this ancient demon.

Back then, if he hadn't possessed Bai Zhi's soul, forcing Bai Zhi to be 'sealed' for hundreds of years, he wouldn't have had such a short lifespan and been forced to die.

That's right! When he was at Huangsha Gate, after hearing Huangsha Sanren's information about this demon, he already had some guesses about its origins.

At this moment, after this brief exchange, coupled with the pure demonic energy on his body comparable to that of an ancient demon, how could he not guess who this 'fake Wei Tu' impersonating him really was?

—It was the ancient demon that was suppressed by the Nan Hua Relics!

Only this demon possessed the strength to fearlessly traverse the vast, spiritless regions of the Great Cang and Great Yan cultivation realms. After gathering intelligence within the Great Yan cultivation realm, he returned safely. (End of Chapter)