Cultivation begins with separation.

Chapter 424 Qi Qi
"Is this the Immortal Kingdom of Qingzhou?"

A man suddenly appeared from the void.

"The cultivators here call this place the Immortal Kingdom. How come the spiritual energy is so thin outside the spiritual veins, even less than that of the Rainbow Moon Continent?"

This person was none other than Qi Qi.

Just then, a phantom image of a jade plate covered in patterns appeared beside Qi Qi.
"Qi boy, be careful, you're already inside the formation."

"Formation?"
Could it be an illusion formation?

Qi Qi was startled, but he had no doubt about what the spirit of the Heaven-Mending Jade Disc had said.

"It's not an illusion array, this is..."

Ok?
Detects spiritual energy, records its trajectory, collects its aura, locates it in space, and locks onto its orbit.

A formation with so many functions.

"what happened?"

"It's nothing, I've already covered for you. Now, go underground first, and I'll analyze this formation."

As soon as the Jade Disc of Heaven finished speaking, a layer of spiritual light appeared on Qi Qi's body, and his body disappeared into the soil.

Three days later, Qi Qi, who was hiding in a small underground cave, spoke up with some confusion.

"Senior, may we leave now?"

"Alright, it seems that someone is missing from the key position of that formation."

However, we still need to be careful.

"While the formation isn't fully activated, you'd better hurry and gather resources."

“Alright, Fellow Daoist Zhan said that there are no markets here, only immortal cities as trading hubs.”

The Immortal City has a well-established system, so we probably can't get in. Let's go to the towns around the Immortal City first and try to make contact with the cultivators inside.

Qi Qi was about to emerge from the ground as he spoke.

"Wait, didn't I tell you to be more careful?"

Why do you still want to fly on the ground?

If you fly like this and get too close to the Immortal City, it will inevitably be detected by the Immortal City's formation. At that point, even underground, we might not be safe.

"What should we do then?"
We can't rely on burrowing underground.

"No need. After three days of research, I discovered that the earth's veins beneath the ground have been cleared, and teleportation is now possible between underground caves."

"Um?

The Frozen Continent appears to be the largest continent in the Vast Ocean Spirit Realm.

"Cave teleportation is dangerous; won't frequent teleportation cause problems?"

"With me here, you don't need to worry."

Helpless, Qi Qi could only escape underground, following the direction where the earth's vein power was strongest.

Neither the Heaven-Mending Jade Plate nor Qi Qi knew that if they had arrived earlier, they might have already been discovered by the Primordial Purple Apricot.

Tai Chu Zi Xing had been plotting against Qi Qi for a long time, wanting to use him to activate the Heaven-Mending Jade Disc to complete herself, so that she could break through her own limits without needing Yi Dong's Golden Core origin.

Furthermore, Tai Chu Zi Xing even wanted to refine Qi Qi into the Rainbow Moon to make its functions even more powerful.

The reason why Qi Qi wasn't captured directly on Rainbow Moon Continent.

It was because Taichu Zixing knew that the Rainbow Moon Child had great fortune that she slowly guided him to the Qingzhou Immortal Kingdom, hoping to catch him like a turtle in a jar.

Unfortunately, the preparations made by Taichu Zixing were still insufficient. As the son of Hongyue, when a being plots against him, the power of Hongyue would naturally guide Qi Qi to avoid danger while simultaneously targeting the being plotting against him.

The Primordial Purple Apricot received the power of the Rainbow Moon, but was also affected by the Rainbow Moon.

The fact that Qingniu was able to so easily banish Taichu Zixing to the void is probably due to the influence of Hongyue's power, which interfered with Taichu Zixing's perception.

Thirty years have passed slowly.

Over the past thirty years, Qi Qi has gradually gained a deeper understanding of the Qingzhou Immortal Kingdom.

Qingzhou Immortal Kingdom, no wonder it is called an Immortal Kingdom.

This place might truly allow cultivators to achieve the Dao-merging True Immortal realm.

Compared to the continental cultivation civilizations where humans live in the vast spiritual realms like Rainbow Moon Continent, the cultivation knowledge here is far more advanced.

In other continents, Golden Core cultivators can be called patriarchs, Nascent Soul cultivators are already renowned, and as for Deity Transformation cultivators, they are even more legendary. Most Nascent Soul cultivators never see a Deity Transformation cultivator in their entire lives.

However, in the Qingzhou Immortal Kingdom, as long as you have enough spirit stones, you can advance to the Golden Core stage with a 100% success rate, achieve the Nascent Soul stage with a high probability, and advance to the Divine Transformation stage with a small probability.

Moreover, one's state of mind, comprehension, willpower, and so on can all be enhanced in one step using formations, pills, or other spiritual energy machines.

To be honest, Qi Qi had heard Zhan Mingyue talk about the Qingzhou Immortal Kingdom before, but he still didn't really believe it.

Now, having experienced it firsthand, I feel that Zhan Mingyue was still too conservative. In the Qingzhou Immortal Kingdom, there is no limit to how outrageous the cultivation of immortality can be.

What Qi Qi found most absurd was the lifespan of cultivators.

In the Immortal Kingdom of Qingzhou, cultivators who cultivate Qi can easily live to be five or six hundred years old as long as they can purchase longevity-enhancing elixirs or undergo various modification treatments. Foundation Establishment cultivators, as long as they have spirit stones, live to be in units of thousands of years. It is said that some Nascent Soul cultivators have already increased their lifespan to more than ten thousand years.

Of course, I've heard that those longevity-enhancing elixirs are all synthetic, and even modified treatments can't achieve perfection.

In other words, while gaining a long lifespan, one will lose other things, such as a deterioration of bloodline, a decline in spiritual talent, or an impact on comprehension.

In short, any unreasonable attempt to extend lifespan will almost always have side effects.

In fact, in the Qingzhou Immortal Kingdom, official citizens—those outsiders who call themselves part of the Immortal Kingdom's human race—are forbidden from using these unorthodox methods to extend their lifespan. Once they use such methods, they lose their citizenship, and it's said that the bloodline of their descendants for generations to come will be affected. Qi Qi believes that those lifespan-extending pills may have even more hidden dangers, because he knows the Immortal Pill Pavilion. Most of the pills sold there have some side effects. If it weren't for the Heaven-Mending Jade Plate, he might have been able to cultivate to the Nascent Soul stage using the pills from the Immortal Pill Pavilion, but to break through further, he would likely need various heaven-defying spiritual treasures to replenish his own essence.

The cultivators of Rainbow Moon Continent have basically had their potential overdrawn by the Immortal Pill Pavilion.

For cultivators who aspire to become immortals, having too much lifespan is actually not a good thing.

Cultivating immortality requires courage and diligence. Without the pressure of death, it is difficult to unleash one's full potential. One may get stuck at a certain level and be unable to break through for a long time, thus severing the path to immortality.

Having achieved the Nascent Soul stage, Qi Qi naturally did not need unorthodox methods to extend his lifespan.

At this moment, Qi Qi was on a small island in Blue Ice Lake outside Blue Ice Immortal City, pondering the information he had gathered.

Blue Ice Lake, though called a lake, is actually as vast as the sea. Even Nascent Soul and Divine Transformation cultivators would find it difficult to cross it by flying alone, even if it took them three to five years.

Cultivators cannot travel through space unless they have reached the Void Return stage and rely on external objects.

On this day, a Nascent Soul cultivator flew in from afar and soon hovered in front of Qi Qi.

"You know Fairy Mingyue, and you're her friend?"

Qi Qi looked at the middle-aged cultivator in front of him with a disbelieving expression, smiled, and took out a jade pendant containing a unique aura.

"Um?

This is indeed the magical aura of Fairy Mingyue.

The middle-aged man landed on the ground and introduced himself:
"I am Zhou Rulong, and I am considered a subordinate of Fairy Mingyue."

When Zhan Mingyue was mentioned, Zhou Rulong's expression was not particularly respectful.

Over the past thirty years, Qi Qi has come to understand.

Since Zhan Mingyue landed on the moon, the forces she left behind have been, if not completely fragmented, nearly so.

In the Qingzhou Immortal Kingdom, sects and other organizations are not allowed. The forces that Zhan Mingyue built were already very loose, so she dared not bring them into the open.

Looking at the young man before him and sensing the other's aura, which was even stronger than his own, Zhou Rulong abandoned his original plans.

Although his magic weapon was specially made, battles between Nascent Soul cultivators are extremely dangerous. He has a long lifespan, so it's not worth risking his life for the possible relic of Fairy Mingyue.

When Zhou Rulong was in the Golden Core stage, he climbed up to Zhan Mingyue. Relying on Zhan Mingyue's connections, the Zhou family gradually developed from a scattered cultivator family outside the city into a powerful immortal cultivation family within the city. He also became one of the few Nascent Soul cultivators under Zhan Mingyue's command. If he wasn't naturally cautious, how could he have accomplished this?

"Fellow Daoist Qi, what brings you to contact me?"

"I need some rare spiritual items and would like to ask Fellow Daoist Zhou to collect them."

"No problem. Within the Immortal Kingdom, resources below the Nascent Soul stage, whether magic weapons, pills, or spiritual herbs, can be purchased quickly as long as you have spirit stones."

Zhou Rulong was not joking. The underground of the Immortal Kingdom has maintained a large number of miners year-round, with countless spirit mines.

Five or six out of ten of the surface and underground spiritual veins have been transformed into massive plantations. Even the spiritual veins within the immortal city have numerous spiritual plant gardens occupying a large amount of space. One can imagine how many spiritual plants there are within the immortal kingdom.

Qi Qi was somewhat embarrassed.

"I don't have many spirit stones."

Within the immortal kingdom, while resources are abundant, prices are also incredibly high.

The enthusiasm on Zhou Rulong's face immediately faded; what was the point of talking about anything without spirit stones?

Trying to take advantage of someone else's money is impossible, not even for Zhan Mingyue's friends, let alone her own son.

There has been no news of Zhan Mingyue since her moon landing nearly a thousand years ago, and there are even rumors that she has already perished.

Zhou Rulong only maintained a superficial respect for her; it was completely impossible for her to take advantage of him by using Zhan Mingyue's name.

"Brother Zhou, when you advanced to the Nascent Soul stage, was the Nascent Soul spiritual light you used artificially created?"
In such a resource-rich immortal kingdom, and still only at the early stage of the Nascent Soul realm, the Nascent Soul aura must be of a low-quality type among artificial auras.

Therefore, advancing to the Void Returning stage will likely be extremely difficult.

Zhou Rulong's expression remained unchanged. Qi Qi was right; his breakthrough was difficult because he had used an inferior version of the Nascent Soul Transformation Aura.

However, he didn't really care.

In the Qingzhou Immortal Kingdom, elixirs for the Nascent Soul stage already require a lot of spirit stones, and even if elixirs for breaking through to the Void Return stage exist, they probably cannot be bought with spirit stones.

Under normal circumstances, Zhou Rulong might not even have the hope of breaking through to the Void Returning Realm in his lifetime.

However, the Immortal Kingdom is now in its early stages, and there are many opportunities.

For example, there is an urgent need for cultivators and miners underground.

In the Vast Ocean Spirit Realm, intelligent races are as numerous as hairs on a cow. As long as the Zhou family cultivators are diligent in recruiting from all corners of the world, they can always raise funds to help their ancestor advance in rank.

Although the Immortal Kingdom can create various puppets for mining, these puppets require spirit stones to operate, and repairing and maintaining them also requires a large amount of resources. Furthermore, creating intelligent puppets requires expensive artificial spirits.

In comparison, cultivators from intelligent races are much cheaper.

While alive, it can be used by consuming electricity and spiritual energy; after death, it can extract souls to create alternative artifact spirits, with an exceptionally long lifespan.

The laws of the Qingzhou Immortal Kingdom only protect humans with the bloodline of the Immortal Kingdom. Those without the bloodline of the Immortal Kingdom, theoretically speaking, have very few human rights in the Qingzhou Immortal Kingdom, and even less so underground, and can be treated as tools at will.

As for cultivators from other races, the cultivators of the Immortal Kingdom treated them as slaves.

Since the Immortal Kingdom opened teleportation arrays to various continents, many cultivation families have been engaged in the lucrative job of "recruiting" miners.

The Zhou family, thanks to Zhan Mingyue's connections, not only had a large workforce but also leased multiple underground mines, generating even greater profits.

Over time, over tens of thousands of years, Zhou Rulong will eventually be able to advance to the Void Returning Realm.

"You may not care about advancing to the Void Returning Realm, but what about replenishing your own foundation?"
I have a way to remove the side effects that Fellow Daoist Zhou experienced after using various elixirs.

(End of this chapter)