The Long Journey to Immortality

Having only just exchanged blows, he knew that he, a novice in combat, was unlikely to defeat Han Lu, so he just wanted to hold out a little longer, at least to lose in a more respectable way.

With this mindset, you lose in terms of morale, so how can you possibly have a chance of winning?

Realizing that she couldn't defeat her opponent quickly with just her spirit sword, Han Lu considered changing her tactics.

Having mastered the art of weapon manipulation, she was far more at ease than Bao Yi when wielding her spirit sword in battle, and was fully capable of diverting her attention to do other things.

So Han Lu resorted to her old tricks again, employing the strategy of "capturing the king first to catch the thief".

Relying on her powerful soul, Han Lu multitasked and used the water bullet technique once again.

This time, nearly ten water bullets, each the size of a fingernail, were fired at Bao Yi.

In terms of lethality, these water bullets are probably about the same as small pebbles, but Han Lu's purpose in firing these water bullets was not to cause any real damage to Bao Yi.

Caught off guard, Bao Yi, who was focused on controlling his spirit sword, was hit squarely by these water bullets.

The water bullets that hit his limbs and torso were not serious, only causing him a little pain, but it was still bearable.

However, two water bullets hit Bao Yi's face. The water splashed out of the bullets and blinded Bao Yi, causing him to instinctively close his eyes.

The spiritual senses of Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment cultivators cannot leave their bodies; they rely entirely on their five senses and their eyes to judge when fighting.

With his eyes closed, Bao Yi temporarily lost his ability to see, and he also lost the ability to locate objects by sound. Therefore, his spirit sword, which was still in the air, instantly became like a headless fly, unable to withstand the sharp attack of the golden sword.

When Bao Yi rubbed the water out of his eyes and was able to see again, Han Lu had already come to him with a golden sword in hand, pointing the sword at his throat.

With the outcome decided, Wen Erya, without waiting for Bao Yi to concede defeat, directly declared, "Han Lu, you win the third match."

It's not a pleasant feeling for a cultivator to be pointed at with a sword like an ordinary mortal knight.

However, even in this situation, Bao Yi could tell that Han Lu had held back. After saying, "I am inferior in skill and admit defeat," he decisively sheathed his spirit sword and left at a speed nearly ten times faster than when he made his hesitant entrance.

The last challenger also ended in defeat. While the onlookers were still savoring the match, Han Lu quickly sheathed her golden sword and announced the results.

"Everyone, today's competition is over."

"If anyone wants to challenge me in the future, as long as they meet the requirements I set, I am willing to oblige."

"But then, it won't be like today, where you can just walk away after losing."

Han Lu gestured a number with her hand, "Five spirit stones. The loser of a contest with me must give the winner five spirit stones."

"If you're short on cash or lack confidence in your abilities, don't bother me."

After all, the only cultivators with rich combat experience who could have a chance of winning against Han Lu and would want to challenge her were the older cultivators in the Zhengyi Sect.

Even the most aging cultivators in the Zhengyi Sect would not be limited to only the second level of Qi Refining.

As for those cultivators who meet the requirements and consider themselves "geniuses," it's unlikely they'll come to give Han Lu spirit stones after these three competitions.

With this request, Han Lu thought that she should be able to have some free time while she was still in the Daoist Child realm.

As for the future, when newcomers mature and focus their attention on cultivation, such tedious things should no longer happen.

After watching a good show, the onlookers dispersed one after another.

Wen Erya then came over to congratulate Han Lu and praised her, "Junior Sister Han, you played beautifully!"

"Thanks to the Rejuvenating Powder that Senior Sister gave me, otherwise I'm afraid I would have been defeated in the second round," Han Lu took out the pills that Wen Erya had given her, "There are three left, Senior Sister, here you go."

Wen Erya generously replied, "It's yours. Do you think I'm short of these three pills?"

"Then I'll thank you again, Senior Sister." There's no harm in having too many pills, so Han Lu didn't stand on ceremony and put the small bottle into her storage bag.

Wen Erya admired Han Lu's combat experience in the three matches. On the way back to the courtyard, she asked Han Lu several questions, hoping to learn some useful combat skills to prepare for the grand competition four and a half months later.

Han Lu was generous and briefly explained her thoughts and feelings during several battles, passing on the essence of them to Wen Erya, just like that night when Wen Erya took the initiative to teach Han Lu her insights and experiences in cultivating the Five Elements Qi.

Han Lu was well aware of the reasons for her victory in this competition, which was far beyond her level, and her suggestions were quite reasonable.

As Feng Bailu, he experienced the battles between Foundation Establishment cultivators and also witnessed the extraordinary abilities of Golden Core and Nascent Soul cultivators in Xiaoyaozi's memories.

Han Lu had no intention of savoring the three matches that resembled children's fights. After touching on them briefly, she stopped talking about them.

“Senior Sister Wen, your cultivation level is high, but you haven’t been a disciple for long. Most of your opponents in the competition should have been cultivating in the sect for three or four years.”

"They have participated in several small competitions, and their experience in combat is far greater than that of the few I am fighting today. They are not so easy to deal with."

"Just by listening to me say a few words, you won't get much useful information, senior sister."

Ultimately, we still need to accumulate experience through actual combat.

After listening to Han Lu's words, Wen Erya nodded slightly and began to think about how to gain practical experience in the Zhengyi Sect.

Han Lu brewed a pot of tea for Wen Erya, and looking at the water stains on the floor, she realized that there was another person in the bathroom.

With a sigh, Han Lu gave a brief explanation and then went to find Zhan Yujun alone.

Upon arriving at the bathroom, Han Lu first listened carefully to see if there was any sound of water inside.

"It seems there's no sound?" Han Lu had a bad feeling. "Could it be that he felt too embarrassed and lost face, and impulsively tried to kill himself here?"

Thinking of this, Han Lu knocked on the door anxiously, "Are you still there? I'm coming in."

"Ah."

Hearing Zhan Yujun's voice coming from inside the bathroom, Han Lu breathed a sigh of relief.

She pushed the door open, revealing a small crack, and stepped sideways into the bathroom.

In the bathroom, Zhan Yujun was still soaking in the bathtub.

"What, you've started to enjoy taking showers here?" Han Lu tried to lighten the mood with some jokes.

Zhan Yujun's head popped out of the water, and she whispered, "No, I just didn't bring any spare clothes with me."

Judging from Zhan Yujun's tone, Han Lu felt that her parting words had had some effect. In order to resolve Zhan Yujun's inexplicable resentment towards her, Han Lu decided to be generous this time.

“I have a lot of clothes, and they’re similar in size to yours, so I’ll just lend you one,” Han Lu said readily, not giving Zhan Yujun a chance to object. “What color do you like? I’ll go find one.”

Zhan Yujun did not reject Han Lu's advances, "Blue."

After Han Lu came in and out, and sat down to drink tea with Wen Erya for a while, Zhan Yujun finally changed into Han Lu's clothes and appeared in front of the two of them in a more disheveled state.

"Han Lu, if you do me one more favor, we'll make up." Zhan Yujun's tone left Han Lu no room to refuse.

Han Lu was a little confused by these words, and she quickly asked Zhan Yujun, "How exactly did we become enemies?"

Zhan Yujun pursed her lips, realizing that she couldn't bring herself to say what she was thinking, so she simply avoided the topic. "Whatever, you'll have to help me now, and we'll go to the place where we had the competition to find grass seeds."

These grass seeds need to be soaked in a special spiritual liquid for at least a year before they can grow rapidly under the activation of magic and transform into plant soldiers. Zhan Yuyun only has this much in her storage bag, so she can't treat them as disposable talismans to be used and then discarded.

"If you find the grass seeds you scattered, then you won't blame me?" Han Lu simply gave up on investigating the cause and process, only caring about the outcome.

Zhan Yujun nodded.

"Okay," Han Lu replied immediately.

That night, Wen Erya lit the lamp, and Han Lu and Zhan Yujun searched on the ground for about 15 minutes before they found all the grass seeds that Zhan Yujun had scattered.

The next day, as if to prove that she no longer minded Han Lu taking her "position," Zhan Yujun waited in front of Han Lu's courtyard for nearly fifteen minutes, just to wait for Han Lu to appear, and then greet her with a stern face and a "Good morning."

After Zhan Yujun heard Han Lu say "Good morning" in return, she seemed to have completed an important task, her face relaxed, and she left with her head held high.

Looking at Zhan Yujun's back, Han Lu didn't know what to say, and just assumed that Zhan Yujun was an oddball in the eyes of ordinary cultivators, just like Feng Bailu.

It's because she didn't know the word "tsundere" existed.

[Author's Note] Today's word count is 7000. Please give me some recommendation votes!

Some readers have commented that I've explained too much. But in reality, even with all that explanation, some readers still raise questions that are clearly stated in the text, which is quite frustrating for me.

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Rumors That Are Deceptively True

The three matches allowed Han Lu to fully demonstrate her strength in front of her fellow disciples.

Coupled with her outstanding potential written in her file, naturally no new disciples questioned whether Han Lu was worthy of being a "nominal disciple of a Golden Core cultivator".

Some bored individuals who wanted to gain fame and fortune by stepping on Han Lu have also given up on their ideas because of this incident, temporarily giving up and looking for other easy targets.

After all, these older cultivators were only trying to cause trouble for Han Lu for the sake of their reputation and future prospects.

Han Lu is clearly no longer suitable to serve as a stepping stone for them.

As a result, Han Lu was able to have some peace and quiet for a while, but although the heat of the matter subsided, it was not completely over.

The spirit sword artifact that Han Lu used during her duel with Bao Yi aroused the curiosity of the onlookers that day.

It should be noted that Bao Yi often showed off his seventh-grade spiritual sword to the newly initiated disciples.

Han Lu was able to wield the spirit sword with the cultivation level of a Daoist disciple and even outmaneuver Bao Yi in the battle, which naturally made people feel that Han Lu's spirit sword was of superior quality.

To the cultivators watching, Bao Yi's spirit sword was a lower seventh-grade weapon, while Han Lu's spirit sword was at least a middle fifth-grade or even a middle fourth-grade magic weapon.

Such a conjecture is already quite exaggerated.

After all, spirit swords are more expensive than other types of magic weapons. In fact, many cultivators at the seventh or eighth level of Qi Refining do not own a good spirit sword.

It is already astonishing that Han Lu, with the cultivation level of a mere Daoist novice, possesses a mid-grade spiritual sword.

This method was obtained from Han Lu, not from Elder Piaomiao.

If a novice monk were to discover the treasure of a senior master and obtain a magical sword and artifact by chance, probably no one would believe it.

Therefore, some people have linked the origin of Han Lu's spirit sword to Han Lu's background.

Rumors spread within a small circle, but under Han Lu's deliberate guidance, quite a few low-level cultivators in Dongshan Academy actually regarded Han Lu, who had recently become somewhat famous, as a disciple of a certain large family.

However, Han Lu underestimated people's imagination.

She simply pointed out a direction and provided an outline, but someone used fragments and rumors from the cultivation world to fabricate a seemingly incredibly believable backstory for her.

The story states that Han Lu was born into the famous cultivation family of the Northern Dynasty, the Han family, and was the eldest daughter of a branch of the Han family.

Despite his extraordinary talent, he was ostracized due to internal family conflicts and did not experience spiritual root perception until he was 15 years old, thus truly entering the path of cultivation.

After learning of Han Lu's extraordinary talent, the branch of the bloodline that had a conflict with Han Lu wanted to kill her to prevent the "don't underestimate a young man's potential" scenario from playing out on Han Lu.

As a result, Han Lu could no longer survive in the Northern Dynasty, nor did she dare to cultivate in the small sects of the Northern Dynasty. In the Xuan Yang Valley, the number one sect in the Central Plains, there were also descendants of her "enemies", leaving Han Lu with nowhere to stay.

Fortunately, an elder in the family learned of this by chance. When he heard that Han Lu was quite talented, he took a liking to her and decided to secretly take her to Moyu City, the northernmost city in the Southern Dynasty, and send her to the Zhengyi Sect to cultivate, so that she would be spared from harm.

Han Lu's treasure was a magical artifact given to her by that elder for protection.

Everything seemed to fall into place naturally.