Daojun, start from Penglai foundation building

"Those who refine emptiness ascend to the highest realms of body and spirit and soar into the heavens."

"Those who unite in spirit attain true reality through the fusion of body and soul."

"After passing the three tribulations of refining emptiness, the tribulations of wind, thunder, and fire, one's essence, energy, and spirit will attain true perfection."

"The five elements combine to overcome the five signs of decay in the heavens and man, and thus achieve perfect and immortality."

"The essence of longevity, the root of the Great Dao, the origin of all things, and the truth of immortality."

The spirits of wind, thunder, and fire sometimes disperse and sometimes gather, transforming into a lotus platform of gold, silver, and lead that hangs three inches above the head.

The light of the four symbols shone brightly and swirled, transforming into a four-colored moon disc and a wheel of enlightenment that hung a foot behind the head.

As that azure spiritual light descended, it traveled from the top of Jiang Sheng's head through his spine and into his limbs and bones. As Jiang Sheng's meridians, acupoints, internal organs, and even his dantian pulsed with that azure spiritual light, a sense of decay and decay arose in an instant.

Wood energy flows towards the origin, and green energy floats in the east, marking the beginning of prosperity and decline, and the foundation of longevity.

However, the balance of all things, the emergence of yin and yang, immortality and decay are one and the same. When the green aura of immortality appears in Jiang Sheng's body, the decaying aura of all things also spreads in Jiang Sheng's body.

Sensing the aging and decaying aura within his body, Jiang Sheng frowned slightly and immediately activated his magic power to resist it.

He was, after all, a True Monarch of the Cave Truth Dao Fruit, the Ultimate Realm of Refining Emptiness, a powerful supernatural being who had achieved the Three Flowers Gathering at the Top and was half a step into the Integration Body. Under the supernatural powers of plucking stars and seizing the moon and manipulating creation, how could his mere old age and decay move Jiang Sheng?

However, even though Jiang Sheng's magical power was as vast as the sea and his supernatural abilities were as strong as the heavens, the decline of his physical body was unstoppable. It was as if the power of time was enveloping him. Jiang Sheng could clearly sense that he was aging and decaying.

It applies not only to the physical body, but also to the soul.

Just as a dam can hold back river streams but cannot stop a raging flood, Jiang Sheng's powerful magic and cultivation could not stop the passage of time and lifespan.

Originally, the sea of ​​consciousness, which was suppressed by wind, thunder, water, and fire, and whose secrets were fixed by Qingping, became vast and uncertain. The wind, thunder, water, and fire alternated, just like the changing seasons.

Almost instantly, Jiang Sheng, who had maintained the appearance of a young man in his early twenties and whose youth was never fading, began to age at a visible speed, and his aura began to decay.

All that could be seen was that the once radiant Three-Flower Lotus Platform above Jiang Sheng's head had decayed and crumbled, and the radiant Four Symbols Dao Wheel behind his head, which embodied the Daoist principles of clarity and naturalness, had also dimmed and then collapsed.

The falling of the three flowers and the merging of the Dao wheel signify that even the true spirit within Jiang Sheng's sea of ​​consciousness can no longer resist the power of aging and has begun to decay.

This is not simply the law of time or the supernatural power of time, but rather an aging process caused by Jiang Sheng himself, from the inside out.

This is the five signs of decay in the celestial beings.

Logically speaking, the three calamities of the Void Refinement stage should only occur a thousand years after a cultivator reaches that stage.

When a living being ascends to the Dao and attains the Void Refinement Realm, after stabilizing their cultivation for a thousand years, a wind calamity will occur. Overcoming the wind calamity will allow them to climb to the mid-stage of the Void Refinement Realm.

Upon reaching the mid-stage of the Refinement of Emptiness, a lightning calamity will occur after a thousand years. Surviving the lightning calamity allows one to ascend to the late-stage of the Refinement of Emptiness.

In the later stages of the Refinement of Emptiness, a fire will ignite after a thousand years. Surviving the fire allows one to ascend to the ultimate realm of Refinement of Emptiness.

As the saying goes, "The wind rises every thousand years, the thunder falls every thousand years, the fire burns every thousand years, and after three thousand years, the three flowers gather at the top."

This is the most orthodox cultivation of the Refining Void Realm. Even if the time required to cultivate the true disciples of the geniuses from various holy lands and obtain the Dao Fruits of the Profound Realm were shortened, it would still take at least two thousand or fifteen hundred years.

Upon reaching the Integration Realm, the so-called Five Signs of Decay of Heaven and Man require five thousand years to pass through in sequence.

The three calamities of refining emptiness and the five tribulations of merging the body, added together, amount to eight thousand years of time.

However, Jiang Sheng survived three calamities, yet it only took him three hundred years.

Three hundred years later, three calamities descended simultaneously, allowing Jiang Sheng to witness for the first time the devastation of the Three Calamities of the Void Refining Realm.

Having overcome the three calamities of the Void Refinement Realm in one go, Jiang Sheng's cultivation progressed smoothly, reaching the pinnacle of the Void Refinement Realm and then knocking on the door of the Body Integration Realm.

What Jiang Sheng didn't expect was that just as he began to prove the Wood Qi Gathering Origin and was just beginning to climb to the Integration Realm, the first tribulation of the Five Signs of Decay of Heaven and Man also came.

In the blink of an eye, Jiang Sheng, who was in the prime of his life, could not escape the erosion of time and aging, and became a frail, decaying, and shriveled old man.

For nearly 1,700 years, since Jiang Sheng attained the Dao, his appearance has never changed. He has always maintained the appearance of a young man in his early twenties, with a face like jade and a handsome and dashing appearance. No one would fail to say that Lingyuan Zhenjun has the bearing of a dragon and the appearance of a phoenix, and is as beautiful as the sun and the moon.

However, at this time, Jiang Sheng's skin began to age and lose its vitality like that of an old man. Just like an old tree, the skin on his face and body became crisscrossed with wrinkles and drooped as if he were critically ill and dying.

Jiang Sheng's once pure and righteous spirit had also decayed, losing all its fresh and profound meaning, and instead filled with a stench and decay, like a dead man pulled from a swamp, his odor unbearable. In an instant, the stench permeated the entire palace, and Jiang Sheng's skin and flesh became completely withered and shriveled. The young man who was in the prime of his life just a moment ago had become a frail and dying old man in the blink of an eye.

His vital energy was waning, his spirit was decaying, and Jiang Sheng was too weak to open his eyes. He barely managed to maintain the posture of facing the sky, sensing his abundant life force constantly draining away and feeling death drawing ever closer.

How many people can survive in the Refinement of Emptiness realm?
Those who cultivate Qi can live to be 120; those who successfully establish their foundation can live to be 40; those who are skilled in the Purple Mansion Taoist path will live to be 500; and those who are true cultivators of the Golden Core stage can live to be 800.
The deeper one's spiritual cultivation and the higher one's realm, the longer one's lifespan.

A cultivator at the Purple Mansion level can live for five hundred years, and upon reaching the Golden Core level, they can live for eight hundred years, truly achieving longevity.

The Nascent Soul Realm has a lifespan of 1,500 years, while the Deity Transformation Realm is just a fleeting 3,000 years.
As for True Monarchs of the Void Refinement stage, even if they are only at the early stage, as long as their tribulation avoidance is effective, they can still live for six thousand years or even longer.
Jiang Sheng is considered incredibly young even among Nascent Soul cultivators, not to mention that he has already attained the Three Flowers Gathering at the Top and survived the Three Calamities of Refining Emptiness. His lifespan can even be said to be as long as heaven and earth, or at the very least, seven or eight thousand years.

However, even with such a long lifespan, Jiang Sheng could clearly sense his lifespan constantly slipping away, starting from a lifespan that was worthless for ten thousand years, and then passing through one year, ten years, one hundred years, and one thousand years.
As time passed faster and faster, death drew ever closer. This feeling of being able to clearly foresee one's own death would undoubtedly drive a cultivator in the upper three realms mad, but Jiang Sheng remained calm throughout.

Perhaps Jiang Sheng was used to being indifferent, or perhaps he was too old, so old that he could no longer move the skin and flesh on his face, so old that he could no longer lift his eyes.

At this time, Jiang Sheng was nearing the end of his life. The various injuries that had been suppressed by his peak lifespan and abundant vitality were now manifesting in various parts of his body, causing the already frail and elderly Jiang Sheng to suffer another wave of illness.

Birth, aging, sickness, and death are the end of sentient beings.

At this moment, Jiang Sheng felt that his body was aging and decaying everywhere, especially his arms, which he had been holding a sword for many years, which were in unbearable pain, as if they were about to break.

Suddenly, scenes from the past flashed before Jiang Sheng's eyes, as if the sword that had been used to review the past had finally struck him, causing Jiang Sheng to begin to review the past in a cursory manner.

Sect competition, field training, battling the river god, and defeating a Golden Core cultivator.
Each memory brings a new layer of trauma to Jiang Sheng himself. When Jiang Sheng recalls the recent events and the few Refining Void True Monarchs of the Qiankun Dao Sect that he killed, all kinds of traumas and hidden injuries can no longer be suppressed. The pain within Jiang Sheng's already decaying and aged body erupts like a volcano, and all kinds of injuries manifest on Jiang Sheng's body.

Internal organ decay, heart failure, broken tendons and bones, deafness and blurred vision
In the end, Jiang Sheng's physical body decayed to the point that it affected his soul and spirit. Even though Jiang Sheng possessed immense magical power and still had the formidable cultivation of the Void Refining Realm, he could not stop the decay of his soul and body, nor could he prevent himself from gradually aging and eventually dying.

When Jiang Sheng's soul and spirit had aged to the extreme, even his powerful cultivation and magic could not help him. After his lifespan had run out, Jiang Sheng's soul and body finally reached their final stage.

Finally, Jiang Sheng barely managed to open his eyelids and took a look at his current appearance: all his white hair had fallen out, his old teeth had fallen out, and he was so decayed that only a layer of skin and bones remained, just like a corpse that should have died long ago.

With his throat moving, Jiang Sheng squeezed out a dry, hoarse sound from his throat, which seemed to break through the wind.

"Immortality, immortality."

"No wonder people associate immortality with eternal youth. Even with immortality, one is still plagued by illness, old age, and decay. One may have great magical powers and cultivation, but one cannot stop one's own decline. In the end, one is nothing more than a lump of rotten flesh with great supernatural abilities lying paralyzed in bed."

"Even if one has a lifespan of ten thousand years, being paralyzed in bed all day without dying is not a blessing but a curse."

"To truly achieve freedom and ease, immortality alone is not enough; one must also be ageless."

With his last words, Jiang Sheng, having exhausted all his strength, breathed his last.

At this point, there was no longer any trace of Jiang Sheng in the hall. There was only a withered body, with only a layer of old skin hanging on the skeleton, its head drooping, like a dried-up corpse. Only a trace of azure light was hidden in its liver, like a candle flickering in the wind, about to go out.

As the saying goes, life and death, prosperity and decline, old age and sickness.

Zhuzhou, on Jiutou Mountain.

As the vast and mysterious vortex of spiritual energy continued to twist and turn the power of space, streaks of light and shadow appeared within the Nine Provinces Realm.

Those were colossal Dharma ships, stretching for tens of thousands of miles. On these ships hung all sorts of banners: some depicted the sun, moon, and stars soaring in the sky; some showed vast mountains and seas floating in the air; some depicted azure waves and boundless oceans; and some showed auspicious clouds obscuring the sky.
Every banner and every magic vessel that appears here represents a powerful force that ranks among the top in the myriad realms. The fact that their banner can appear in this Nine Provinces Realm indicates that the entity behind it is at least a celestial sect that occupies a middle-thousand world.

Now, these forces, obeying the orders of the Eastern Heavenly Daoist School, have rushed from their respective worlds to the Tianyuan Realm, and then arrived in the Nine Provinces Realm through teleportation arrays, becoming an aid to the Eastern Heavenly Daoist School in this great war.

As one magical vessel after another appeared in quick succession, the chanting of Taoist priests rose and fell, announcing the arrival of the renowned immortal sects that dominated their respective regions.

“The Three Star Immortal Lord Jingbai of the Naluo Realm has arrived with eight million Dao soldiers.”

“The True Lord of Chongshan, the Immortal Palace of the Eastern Yu Realm, has arrived with five million Dao soldiers.”

“The True Lord Haiyu of the Linghai Immortal Sect of the Linghe Realm has arrived with six million Dao soldiers.”

“The Purple Cloud Immortal Sect’s True Lord Ziming from the Upper Purple Realm has arrived with five million Dao soldiers.”

"The White Crane True Lord of the Antarctic Immortal Palace in the Southern Hua Realm has arrived with seven million Dao soldiers."

"The Immortal Lord Jixing of Mount Yue in the Northern Sea has arrived with eight million Daoist soldiers."

For a moment, the stars shone brightly, and immortals filled the court. (End of Chapter)