Immortality: Starting with the Fruit of Taiyin

"Really... never mind."

"But speaking of which, what happened to the promise that your first murder would be disgusting?"

Reaching out to rub his somewhat stiff face, Wang Xuan took a deep breath to dispel the slight tension in his heart.

He had just prepared to attack, but only defensively.

If the sneak attack fails, he will do everything he can to ensure his own safety, leaving the fighting to his spirit pet.

After all, compared to Qingyingque, he was the biggest weakness.

"Xiao Qing".

"Chirp..."

With a wave of his hand, the bluebird landed in his palm.

Wang Xuan stroked the bluebird's feathers and touched the silver spot between its eyebrows with his finger.

"Well done, all the effort I put into you was worth it."

He smiled slightly and then put away the black-clad cultivator's storage bag.

Upon inspection, besides a variety of miscellaneous items worth roughly one or two hundred spirit stones, there was only a mid-grade magic weapon shield and a small black dagger.

"The fighting wasn't too intense, but we should still get out of here quickly and hopefully avoid any further accidents."

There's no time to refine the magical artifact; time is the most important thing right now.

Wang Xuan gently shook his head, glanced at the middle-aged cultivator's corpse, stepped forward, and pressed down on him.

In order to obtain the source and activate the Dao Fruit, he had to sacrifice himself or the essence blood of demonic beasts.

To this day, he has found a third way to acquire it.

"Hmm... I am Han Feiyu, the future great demon."

"Fellow Daoist, may you rest in peace..."

A moment later, looking at the corpse that had lost all its spiritual energy and whose essence and blood had dried up, Wang Xuan casually summoned a fire snake.

With a calm expression, he turned it to ashes.

With a wave of my sleeve, I leave without taking away a single speck of dust.

……

Nearly a month later.

We traveled a long and arduous journey, and proceeded with extreme caution.

Following the route he had inquired about beforehand, Wang Xuan finally arrived near Qingyefang City.

No further unexpected events occurred along the way, just as he had anticipated.

Judging from the speed at which news spreads in the Chen Kingdom's cultivation world, by the time ordinary Qi Refining cultivators react, the lower courtyards and branches of the several destroyed Core Formation forces would already be deserted, leaving them with no chance to do anything.

In addition, although the major forces suffered heavy losses, they were suddenly wiped out.

They remained a legitimate sect and family recognized by the Tianshan Sect, the overlord of the Chen Kingdom, so no one dared to openly threaten or kill them; they could only secretly target these "fat sheep."

Thus, the ancient well remained calm on the surface, but beneath the surface, turbulent waves lurked.

When Wang Xuan, using the alias Han Moumou, stepped into Qingye Market, the first thing he did was to inquire about news from the cultivation world.

Half a month later, he walked into the courtyard where he rented a place in the market.

Wang Xuan released the bluebird to observe his surroundings, his expression a mixture of joy and worry.

"More than a month after the incident, the news gradually spread."

"The destruction of the five major Core Formation forces in a single day shocked all the nations, but the Tianshan Sect, the hegemon of the Chen Kingdom, remained silent."

"It wasn't until a few days ago that the old True Lord of their sect finally showed up and met with the True Persons from other Core Formation forces who came to inquire about the matter. He declared that he would investigate the matter thoroughly and would not tolerate it."

"It was also said that this matter was not just a problem for the State of Chen, so he called on the surrounding states to help. Finally, he solemnly promised that he would ask a king from the Great Zhou to personally investigate the matter and find out the real culprit no matter who was behind the trouble."

"However, at the same time, the Tianshan Sect announced a temporary closure of the mountain and officially acknowledged that its newly promoted Nascent Soul True Monarch, Earth Lotus, had died from his injuries. The entire sect was in mourning, so it had no time to attend to anything else."

"Ah...Truly, hearing your words is like hearing a lecture."

"Everything else is fake; fear is real."

"I'm afraid that before that king of the Great Zhou arrives, the entire Chen Kingdom will enter a phase of overall stability but localized chaos."

"That makes sense. If the five major powers can be destroyed in an instant, this power is enough to kill a Nascent Soul True Monarch who is not in the sect."

"If I were the Supreme Elder of the Tianshan Sect, I wouldn't dare to go out now, for fear that if I left the protection of the fourth-order forbidden array, I might inadvertently follow in the footsteps of the former."

He tapped his fingers lightly on the table, recalling the information he had gathered over the past few days.

In Wang Xuan's view, the statement from the Tianshan Sect wasn't actually that bad.

Even disregarding the danger posed by the culprit behind all this, it might actually be a good thing.

After all, the shrinking of power by the Nascent Soul sects meant that the tight legal network suppressing the Chen Kingdom had a loophole.

The destruction of the five major Core Formation forces means that many smaller forces have five more vacant spots to compete for.

The Tianshan Sect, after all, only closed its mountains; it wasn't completely destroyed.

Therefore, it will not allow the legacy of these five forces to be divided up by the original forces, but will only make way for the newcomers.

Suddenly, a small passage seemed to have been opened for many Foundation Establishment families to rise to power...

Of course, whether this news was good or bad had little to do with Wang Xuan at this time.

He is far from reaching the Foundation Establishment stage and has no power of his own.

This at most means that internal conflicts in Chen State will intensify in the near future, and the prices of some strategic materials may rise, thus increasing the importance of alchemists.

That was the bad news. In contrast, the good news he had heard, which he wasn't sure was good or bad, was closely related to his future.

"In the Chen Kingdom, the five major powers have been destroyed."

"But what perishes is the main body, not the whole."

"One of the eight great families and the third of the six great sects."

"Among them are various collateral branches of cultivation families, disciples and branches of sects outside the main gate, and True Immortals who are not in the mountain gate or clan territory... there are too many to count, and I am one of them."

"For these cultivators who have suddenly lost their support, apart from becoming rogue cultivators, there are roughly these few options."

Silently pondering the information he had gathered, Wang Xuan categorized it using methods that were easy to understand.

"Firstly, those with superior spiritual roots or above, and who are not too old, are willing to be accepted by major Core Formation forces."

"But barring any unforeseen circumstances, they are destined not to be trained as pure comrades, and will need to sign corresponding spiritual contracts, and will be trained as future henchmen."

"Secondly, the original disciples of sects and the direct descendants of aristocratic families are also willing to accept them."

"However, these cultivators usually have a strong sense of belonging to their original forces and are likely to know the location of some remaining secret vaults... It's less about recruiting and more about exploiting those who have no descendants."

"As for supporting them to reach the Core Formation stage in the future, that's even more impossible."

"Thirdly, there are the remaining cultivators."

"After excluding those highly talented geniuses, only small cultivation families are willing to recruit them."

"However, they weren't aiming to cultivate him, but rather with the intention of recruiting sons-in-law and wives/concubines, solely to enhance the family's spiritual root aptitude and produce outstanding offspring."

"After all, the more outstanding the parents' spiritual roots, the higher the probability that their offspring will also possess extraordinary talents..."

"Just like the previous two, they are also unlikely to be cultivated as one of their own by these cultivation families."

"In retrospect, it's just a tool for producing offspring."