Mortal: The Path to Immortality

Several weeks later, in the outer mountain range of Spirit Beast Mountain.

Lu Nanzhu stood on a mountain ridge, looking out into the distance. The towering peak was the foundation of the Spirit Beast Mountain, the great sect of beast taming.

He came here entirely because of the black box he had obtained in Qinglan Valley.

Not long after leaving the city, he opened the black wooden box. Inside were no extraordinary treasures, only half a slightly yellowed animal horn and a silk scroll that had long since dried up and become brittle.

That silk scroll turned out to be a will left by the Lu family ancestor.

A hundred years ago, our ancestor once saved a severely injured cultivator during his cultivation. The man claimed to be surnamed Zhong and came from a cultivation family on Spirit Beast Mountain. To repay the life-saving grace, the Zhong cultivator left behind half of a beast horn called "Lingxi Guide" as a token, promising that he could come to Spirit Beast Mountain to find him if needed.

Unfortunately, the ancestor felt that his talent was mediocre, and none of his descendants were able to embark on the path to immortality, which is why this item has been sealed away for so long.

He figured that the Golden Light Master of the Seven Mysteries Sect had probably been dealt with by Han Li, so there was no point in him returning to the Seven Mysteries Sect. Since he had this stepping stone, he might as well go to the Spirit Beast Mountain and try his luck.

"A hundred years of gratitude, in the eyes of cultivators, is probably just a burden to collect debts if there is no equivalent bargaining chip."

He knew very well that if the cultivator surnamed Zhong was still alive, he would be at least at the Foundation Establishment stage or even the Core Formation stage, or he might have already passed away. If he rashly brought this "Spiritual Token" to their door, the worst outcome would be that he would be treated as a "poor relative" trying to freeload and easily dismissed by their descendants. He might even bring up some old grudges because of this token, which could lead to his death.

He had no intention of risking his life to betray the Zhong family's conscience.

"Establish a firm foothold first, then talk about friendships."

Lu Nanzhu turned and disappeared into the mist behind the mountain ridge. Instead of heading directly to the mountain gate, he turned back south and went to a market town for independent cultivators within the territory of the Spirit Beast Mountain – "Qingya Immortal Market".

Half a month later, in a secluded house in the market.

The furnishings inside were extremely simple, with only a small, antique inkstone placed in the center of the stone table, emitting a faint blue-green light.

Lu Nanzhu sat cross-legged, his body pulsating with spiritual energy. He hadn't dared to slack off along the way, and the spiritual power within his body had become increasingly refined. The bottleneck that had been blocking him for so long finally loosened, and his cultivation of the "Eternal Spring Technique" successfully entered the eighth level.

A few days ago, he searched around the market and finally found a complete thirteen-level "Eternal Spring Technique" at the stall of a slovenly old Taoist priest, where he exchanged three low-grade spirit stones.

After breaking through, Lu Nanzhu did not rest, but instead turned his attention to the spirit-gathering moss in the center of the inkstone. That was his top priority.

He went to the table and took out nearly a hundred sprigs of Spirit Moss that he had picked earlier. These plants would be used as consumables and placed into the small inkstone.

Lu Nanzhu skillfully activated the small inkstone, and his consciousness was drawn into that secret realm by the deep blue light.

With the breakthrough to the eighth level of the Everlasting Spring Technique, the illusory spiritual tree in the sea of ​​consciousness grew significantly taller, its branches becoming increasingly vigorous, and its deduction limit had actually advanced to nearly fifty generations. Hundreds of crystal-clear fruits hung from the branches, each carrying the potential for countless twists or evolutions of the parasitic moss in the future.

Lu Nanzhu scanned the fruits one by one with his divine sense, and streams of complex information rushed into his mind.

"No, although this plant has a bright color, it is aloof and only moves an inch every few decades. It grows too slowly."

"This plant grows fast enough, but its symbiotic efficiency is outrageously low. It can only maintain its own growth and cannot nourish external things at all."

"There's even this kind of 'anti-symbiotic' mutation..." Lu Nanzhu frowned. The "offspring" not only didn't absorb spiritual energy, but instead, like a malignant tumor, it frantically plundered the nutrients of the surrounding plants. "It's all waste."

Unable to find a satisfactory transparent fruit, he immediately withdrew from the secret realm. As his consciousness returned, the spirit-carrying moss plant at the center of the inkstone instantly transformed into specks of light, dissipating into the air.

"The range of mutations in this medicinal plant, Parasitic Moss, far exceeds that of the spiritual herbs we've tried to deduce before, making it extremely difficult to achieve the desired characteristics. It seems we can only rely on increasing the number of retries and grinding it down."

Lu Nanzhu glanced at the few remaining plants on the ground, a hint of worry flashing in his eyes. If these plants were exhausted without bearing fruit, he would have no choice but to go to Qinglan Valley again next year to collect some more.

For the next ten days or so, blue-green light could be seen flashing in the room from time to time.

Just as the last batch of Spirit Moss was about to run out, Lu Nanzhu used his divine sense to capture a transparent fruit at the highest point of the Spirit Tree, recording a near-perfect balance:

It inherits the "rapid growth" gene and also possesses the characteristic of "efficient symbiosis".

"This is it!"

Lu Nanzhu's heart trembled, and he condensed his divine sense into a hand, resolutely picking the fruit.

The moment they left the secret realm, the original plant at the center of the inkstone underwent a dramatic transformation. Its original green faded, replaced by bluish-purple, velvety leaves. These velvety leaves undulated slightly, as if they were alive.

"Sharpening the axe won't delay the work of chopping wood. This 'second-generation spirit moss' is a success." In the following days, he began day and night experiments and verifications in the basement.

From the most common hemostatic herbs to the Solomon's seal needed to refine the Spirit Gathering Pill, he forcibly "grafted" them all onto this layer of blue-purple "fuzz".

Through repeated comparative experiments, Lu Nanzhu recorded the changes in each medicinal plant. He discovered that although the "new generation of parasitic moss" selected through deduction and screening was far less capable of seizing the power of nature than the heaven-defying "little green bottle" in Han Li's hands, its symbiotic ripening effect was already extremely satisfactory to him.

"Although the effects of symbiotic ripening vary for different medicinal plants, most common plants can be artificially ripened to the level of one or two hundred years within a few weeks by this bluish-purple fuzz."

He knew very well that in the world of cultivation, resources were everything. With this second-generation Spirit-Gathering Moss, he had essentially secured a "breeding ground" capable of mass-producing century-old spiritual herbs.

"More importantly, this approach hasn't died out yet."

Lu Nanzhu began to plan his next steps: since he could deduce the Spirit Moss twice, it was not impossible that he could use this as a basis to deduce and cultivate an even better "third deduction" or even "fourth deduction" version of the Spirit Moss when his cultivation level was higher and his spiritual sense was more stable.

Thinking this, he stopped the experiment and put all the items in the basement into his newly purchased storage bag. He then set fire to the basement floor and surrounding walls to avoid leaving a single trace. As the residual power of the fireball spell gradually dissipated, the rich, fresh scent of grass and wood in the basement was completely masked by the smell of burning.

A few months later, at a simple stall on the west side of "Qingya Fairy Market".

Lu Nanzhu was dressed in a faded blue robe, his face sallow, still looking like an unremarkable, down-on-his-luck rogue cultivator. His stall didn't display any rare items, just common medicines for those in the Qi Refining stage.

"How much is this medicine?" A gruff voice broke Lu Nanzhu's drowsy state.

The newcomer was a burly man with an animal skin bag slung across his waist. He picked up the porcelain bottle suspiciously, uncorked it, and sniffed it. His previously disdainful gaze instantly turned serious.

"Huh? The medicinal properties... The Polygonatum you used in this powder has been heated for almost a hundred years, right? You actually didn't ruin this old medicine?" The burly man looked at Lu Nanzhu in astonishment.

Lu Nanzhu slightly raised his eyelids, his voice hoarse: "Oh? You also know about medicine. I happened to obtain a seventy-year-old Polygonatum plant, so its medicinal properties are naturally stronger. Twenty spirit stones, no bargaining."

"Twenty yuan? That's a bit expensive." Although the burly man complained about the price, he gripped the medicine bottle tightly. "However, your skill is truly extraordinary. These days, those so-called 'alchemists' in the market, in order to rush production, dare to throw even several-year-old medicinal seedlings into the furnace, causing most of the medicinal power to dissipate. Medicines like this that can retain their spiritual essence for decades are rare."

Lu Nanzhu remained calm and unhurriedly accepted the spirit stones offered by the other party, casually replying:

"Only good medicine is worth the effort. Ordinary medicinal seedlings cannot withstand the furnace fire, so refining them is a waste of time. Only old medicines that are over fifty years old have their spiritual energy stabilized and can withstand the tempering of fire. If I were to encounter a treasure that is hundreds of years old, I would probably hesitate even to open the furnace, for fear of ruining its destiny."

"That's right!" The burly man was deeply moved by these words and slapped his thigh. "Brother, what you said makes sense. The older the medicine, the more delicate it becomes. Let alone refining it, we herb gatherers can't even find it. So, it's perfectly reasonable for the Zhong family to offer such an outrageous reward for finding such aged medicine."

Lu Nanzhu's eyes flickered slightly as he put the spirit stones into his cloth bag, casually adding a comment:

"The Zhong family? Is it the Zhong family of Spirit Beast Mountain? It's quite strange that such a family would come to the market for loose cultivators to seek medicine."

"Hey, brother, you didn't know about this?" The burly man chuckled, seemingly enjoying the thrill of pointing fingers. He lowered his voice and said, "It's only because we're close to Spirit Beast Mountain that we've heard a few accurate stories. The third young master of the Zhong family, I heard, has a rare lightning spiritual root. He was a genius with a bright future, but something went wrong when he was breaking through to the Foundation Establishment stage. His meridians were sealed, and only the mild and gentle Qingzhi grass can neutralize it, and it has to be at least three hundred years old!"

The burly man shook his head, a hint of regret in his voice: "At this critical juncture, the Zhong family is truly desperate this time, even willing to give up their quota for introducing someone to the mountain. It's a pity, though; how can one easily find a 'herb ancestor' who has existed for hundreds of years? Let alone the 'Green Ganoderma' that is extremely picky about its environment?"

Lu Nanzhu stroked the porcelain bottle, a wry smile playing on his lips at just the right moment: "Three hundred years... that would require divine intervention. If I were to encounter such an opportunity, I wouldn't be here selling medicine at a stall."

"Haha, who says otherwise! People like us are only fit to drink a couple of sips of Spirit Gathering Powder. Let's go!" The burly man waved his hand cheerfully, pocketed the medicine bottle, and strode away.

Watching the burly man disappear into the crowd, Lu Nanzhu immediately packed up his stall and returned to his residence.