Immortality Cultivation: Fellow Daoists, please live for two more episodes!

Inside the secret realm, Shen Ye rested for a moment, then stood up again and pushed open the door.

The voice of the stone figure could be faintly heard.

"The final hurdle."

"On the path of spiritual practice, you will always encounter countless difficulties and temptations. Will you be able to persevere and remain true to your original aspiration?"

"Let's wait and see."

As the stone man spoke, Shen Ye felt everything go black before his eyes and lost consciousness.

……

In a remote mountain village, Shen Ye lay on the rooftop, watching the setting sun, feeling as if he had forgotten something.

I grew up in a mountain village, living a life of working at sunrise and resting at sunset.

It has been going on for a full thirteen years.

Such days were poor but peaceful.

If we continue living like this, it doesn't seem like there's anything wrong with it.

But a lingering feeling remained within him, a sense that he should never end his life so ordinarily.

"Ye'er, Ye'er, where are you? Come back for dinner!"

Shen Ye remained unmoved by his mother's calls.

He looked up at the sky, at the birds flying over the mountain ridge, at the sun and moon that have existed since time immemorial and are independent of human will, lost in thought.

Until night fell, and the sky was filled with stars.

Under the vast starry sky, he felt even more insignificant.

And so I watched all night.

As dawn approached, he suddenly realized something.

With a flip, he jumped off the roof.

He rushed into the house and shouted at his still-sleeping mother, "Mom, stop asking people to find me a wife."

"I'm not getting married. I'm going to cultivate immortality!"

The sleepy mother was startled awake, thinking her child had lost his mind. She quickly got up and grabbed Shen Ye's hand: "What kind of immortal cultivation is this! There are no immortals! Wake up, child!"

Shen Ye pulled his mother's hand away, his young face full of determination: "I don't know where the immortal is, but I will definitely find him."

After saying that, amidst his mother's sobs, he quickly packed his luggage and strode out of the house.

Six months later, while searching for medicinal herbs in the deep mountains, Shen Ye tragically fell off a cliff and died.

……

Amidst the flickering flames and the weeping of the crowd in front of the dilapidated Qingfeng Temple, Shen Ye felt utterly lost.

"Senior Brother, Master is dead. What will become of our Qingfeng Temple?"

Beside me, my junior brother asked timidly.

Shen Ye was about to speak when he heard angry voices coming from all around him.

"What else can we do? Of course, everyone should divide up the things in the temple and go down the mountain!"

"We all went through so much trouble to become disciples of Master because we thought he was a truly capable cultivator. We never imagined he couldn't even stop the monster tide, and we all perished in the process!"

"Yes, could someone with true cultivation really die in the mouths of a few beasts?"

As everyone got more and more excited, Shen Ye didn't know how to explain, so he could only let them loot all the items in Qingfeng Temple.

A moment later, Shen Ye was all alone on the mountain.

As Shen Ye gathered and buried his master's ashes, he recalled the look in his master's eyes before his death.

Discontent, regret, melancholy, hope...

Was Master's cultivation in vain?

Are the cultivation techniques and insights left by the master also fabricated?

Shen Ye felt that perhaps it wasn't as everyone thought.

Spiritual practice might indeed be a viable path.

In the end, Shen Ye did not go down the mountain.

He spent the rest of his life alone in the ruins, watching the clouds drift and the sun and moon rise and set in the mountains.

He spent his days studying the notes left by his master.

He is over fifty years old, but has made no progress whatsoever.

He died with regrets.

……

Inside the Cangyun Sect.

As the founder of the immortal path in this world, Shen Ye never imagined that his most beloved disciple and most respected old friend would both betray him.

Shen Ye looked at the list of disciples handed to him by the sect elder, and a cold glint appeared in his eyes once again.

"Kneel down and admit your mistake, stay in the Cangyun Sect, and I will not pursue the matter of your affair with the Grand Elder."

"Your junior brother has already been expelled from the sect. You should know what to choose."

"Please forgive me, Master! This disciple still wishes to try with the Grand Elder to see if the path to immortality is truly the only one you have found."

"Um?"

A cold glint flashed in Shen Ye's eyes.

"...Are you really sure? You won't regret it?"

"Alright, then you guys go and give it a try."

Seeing the astonished faces of the disciples and the Grand Elder in front of him, Shen Ye ultimately couldn't bring himself to be ruthless and let out a helpless snort.

"You will come back one day."

For more than a hundred years afterward, although Shen Ye's disciples and his great elder did not find any other path, they spread the path to immortality that Shen Ye had created to all parts of the world.

As a result, various sects quietly sprang up, and numerous geniuses emerged one after another.

While exploring a desolate ruin, Shen Ye was unfortunately ambushed and killed by a group of geniuses.

When the body dies, the Dao vanishes.

……

Cangqiong Peak.

"Why have these tribulation clouds been gathering for so long without falling?"

"The power of this heavenly tribulation is probably unprecedented in this area for hundreds of miles in the past hundred years, isn't it?"

"That's for sure. In terms of cultivation and combat strength alone, Sect Master Shen can be considered the number one person in this area for the past thousand years!"

Looking at the increasingly imposing tribulation clouds above his head, Shen Ye felt a surge of heroic spirit.

Having cultivated for countless lifetimes, what is there to fear in a mere heavenly tribulation?

A beam of emerald light shot into the sky from the Azure Peak.

Split the sky full of calamity clouds in two!

Sunlight streamed down through gaps in the clouds, illuminating the Azure Sky Peak.

The tribulation clouds shattered, and the gate to the Nascent Soul stage opened instantly.

Shen Ye flew into the light without the slightest hesitation.

After breaking through to the Nascent Soul stage, Shen Ye realized that the road ahead was still so long that he couldn't see the end.

While cultivating, he also explored the possibility of reaching higher realms.

For hundreds of years, there has been no answer.

……

On the top of an unnamed peak.

Since Shen Ye reincarnated countless times a thousand years ago, gradually rising from a mortal to establish the path of immortality, and now, it is difficult to find anyone in this world who can rival him.

Over the years, I have gone through countless cycles of life and death, and traversed countless mountains and rivers, yet I have never found the road leading to the end.

In the end, only this nameless peak in front of him remained untrodden throughout the entire world.

Now, he stands alone on the summit, overlooking the thousands of mountains and rivers below.

Beside him, the disciple who had followed him for many years looked at Shen Ye, who was resting with his eyes closed, and hesitated to speak.

Shen Ye opened his eyes and looked at the disciple who had always been by his side, a rare smile appearing on his face.

"You seem to have something to ask me?"

"To be honest, Master, there is indeed something I don't understand."

"Please feel free to speak."

"In this world, there are no immortal arts."

"Logically speaking, Master started as an ordinary person and went through countless hardships to finally get to where he is today."

"The world is vast, and no one can rival us, yet why does Master show no sign of stopping? What is it that Master is so relentlessly pursuing?"

"Now that things have come to this, what are Master's plans?"

The disciple stared at Shen Ye and voiced the question that had been on his mind.

"hehe."

Shen Ye chuckled softly.

"All I seek is spiritual practice."

He said it calmly.

The disciple was stunned, seemingly unable to believe his ears.

"Cultivation? With Master's current level of cultivation, can't you be considered to have achieved great success? Is there anything in this world that Master cannot do?"

He asked, his face filled with shock, as if he couldn't understand.

"Having reached this point, can one presume to claim mastery?"

Shen Ye smiled and simply asked a question in return.

"You must have heard me tell you about my ability to awaken my innate wisdom."

"In my first life, I died deep in the mountains, without even getting a glimpse of the path to cultivation."

"In his second life, he spent his entire life meditating amidst the ruins, but he never managed to grasp the essence of it before he died."

"Now I have finally reached the summit. Looking back, I realize that my previous lives were nothing but ants. Even standing here, I still cannot see the end."

"Upon closer reflection, perhaps everything I've experienced is nothing more than a flower in the water, or the moon reflected in a well."

"I will continue forward to see if the path to immortality truly ends."

Shen Ye's tone was calm, yet so resolute that it brooked no argument.

The disciple was speechless.

Because he knew that the road ahead was uncertain and might not even have an end.

So he could only silently lower his head.

Shen Ye glanced back at the disciple who had followed him for many years, but said nothing.

Then he stepped into the rift in the void.

The crack was filled with endless darkness.

Everything in the world seemed to shatter and recede behind us.

Shen Ye strode forward and rushed into the darkness.

He was met only with endless darkness.

……