The Long Journey to Immortality

This state lasted for only five breaths, but those five breaths were enough for Han Lu to do a lot of things.

With no prior grudge against him, and given that his opponent had fallen so easily to the combined effect of illusion and reality, Han Lu didn't hesitate and summoned a strong gust of wind, blowing Shang Wenxuan off the stage.

Once he landed off the stage, with his hair disheveled and clothes in disarray, Shang Wenxuan finally came to his senses and understood what had happened in that brief moment.

"That sword light just now was actually two soul attacks?"

"No wonder the light barrier formed by my jade pendant was easily penetrated."

The word "start" was still echoing in the referee's throat when the battle in the ring came to a conclusion.

The referees were stunned for a moment before announcing Han Lu's victory.

Apart from Han Lu and Shang Wenxuan, who could clearly explain what had just happened, everyone else looked completely bewildered.

If Han Lu and Shang Wenxuan weren't strangers, and if Shang Wenxuan weren't a lecherous man who lusts after beautiful women, there would definitely have been people shouting "fake match" and stirring up trouble.

In terms of strength alone, Shang Wenxuan is definitely one of the most outstanding disciples in the Zhengyi Sect at the mid-Foundation Establishment stage.

He was so powerless against Han Lu's unpredictable and bizarre methods, it would be no different for other cultivators.

The elimination rounds lasted for two days. Even including the fierce battle between Han Lu and Yi Qiyan, Han Lu only stood on the stage for about seven minutes.

In the final championship match, Han Lu only used five moves to destroy her opponent's two magical treasures with the Fire Phoenix True Flame, and then used the large bell she had obtained a few years ago to make her opponent vomit three liters of blood.

Knowing he was no match for his opponent, and to avoid destroying all his treasures on the stage, the opponent, already satisfied with his runner-up finish, simply chose to "surrender" and end the predictable match early.

The battle was over so easily, with Han Lu having won the championship she had been looking forward to for nearly a month and a half. This left Han Lu feeling somewhat powerless.

However, soon after, when Master Yunmin smiled and placed the trophy in Han Lu's hands, asking her to give a victory speech as a "double champion," she still delivered the words she had prepared beforehand.

She praised her opponent, thanked her friends, and finally offered her best wishes for her future, expressing her gratitude to all the audience members who had supported her.

With her tactful remarks, Han Lu effectively boosted her popularity and goodwill among her fellow students.

Having won the championship, Han Lu and Wen Erya naturally received many rewards from the sect.

Besides the privilege they both valued most—the ability to fly on swords within the sect for five years as disciples—the abundance of spirit stones, pills, contribution points, and a high-grade magic weapon made their already resource-rich storage bags even fuller.

Three days after the competition ended, Han Lu and Wen Erya came to the mountain gate to see Yi Qiyan off.

Friendships between cultivators are not maintained or deepened by "the passage of time". As a saintess, Yi Qiyan could not possibly stay in the Zhengyi Sect for another three months or half a year.

So I decided to go home early to avoid the sadness of parting.

In just over two months, thanks to the "help" of the Zhengyi Sect, Yi Qiyan's master had already secured his position in the Five Poisons Sect.

She, the holy maiden who came to the Zhengyi Sect for "political refuge," was able to return with a letter personally written by Daoist Yunmin.

When they parted, the three embraced, all with tears in their eyes.

Suddenly, a wicked thought popped into Yi Qiyan's mind.

She said, "Han Lu, I'm leaving now. Could you grant me one small wish before I go?"

"Okay." Normally, Han Lu might have hesitated a bit to avoid Yi Qiyan making any strange wishes, but at this moment, she didn't have the nerve to ask.

Seeing that Han Lu agreed, Yi Qiyan grinned mischievously and quickly reached out her hands to grab a handful of Han Lu's chest.

While Han Lu and Wen Erya were still shocked by Yi Qiyan's outrageous behavior, she had already flown away on her sword, letting out a wicked laugh like a "female hooligan" while leaving her two friends with a dashing back view.

Chapter 559 Seven Years

In the blink of an eye, seven years have passed.

On this day, Han Lu sat cross-legged in her small residence on Hanchan Peak, breathing in and out spiritual energy, trying to truly reach the bottleneck of the late Foundation Establishment stage. She hoped that before the new year arrived, she could successfully advance to the late Foundation Establishment stage through the trickery techniques recorded in the "Seven Kill Sword Technique," allowing her to take another big step forward on her cultivation path.

Over the course of seven years, she experienced a lot, but overall, things went smoothly for her.

For the third time, she participated in the Zhengyi Sect Competition as Han Lu, and together with Wen Erya and Shui Bingxin, who temporarily joined the team, she fulfilled the promise she had made earlier.

Five years of accumulation not only made Han Lu's magic power more profound, but also enabled Wen Erya to successfully advance to become a mid-Foundation Establishment cultivator, greatly enhancing the team's strength.

Even in front of Shui Bingxin, Han Lu could not transform into her true spirit and fight in the secret realm as a phoenix spirit.

However, the number of Spirit Beads obtained in the secret realm ultimately surpassed and significantly increased the record left by the predecessors three thousand years ago.

To paraphrase Bing Xin.

"It was like spending three days playing with my two junior sisters in a secret realm and collecting a total of 340 Spirit Rhinoceros Pearls. This was the most relaxed competition I've ever experienced."

Just as she thrived in the secret realm, Han Lu also unleashed powerful punches on the arena.

Ultimately, Han Lu and Wen Er Ya, who had a favorable draw, even staged a sisterly battle for the championship on the ring.

Both sides used every skill and trick they could openly employ, but in the end, Han Lu was one step ahead and became the defending champion of the mid-Foundation Establishment level competition.

Three major competitions, three championships – this achievement is rare in the more than 10,000-year history of the Zhengyi Sect.

At this moment, even the disciples and elders who were not familiar with Han Lu and did not know her abilities began to imagine that Han Lu, this rising star, would advance to the Golden Core Realm in a few years and become a true backbone of the sect.

Han Lu had not brought any sect affairs with her, and many worldly matters had also entangled her.

The merchant accepted the money to do the job. Although he had investigated and found out through various channels that Han Lu was mostly fabricating an identity to contact him, Long Qian, who had received a lot of benefits from Han Lu, still helped Han Lu quite seriously in searching for the whereabouts of the Phoenix Blood Essence.

Over the course of seven years, they provided intelligence twice, and Han Lu also made a trip based on that intelligence.

One time it was to the Western Regions, but the blood essence sold at that auction was not that of a Nascent Soul Realm Phoenix, making Han Lu's trip a waste.

Another instance was in the Northern Dynasty. The essence blood auctioned at the auction did indeed come from a Nascent Soul Realm Phoenix, but unfortunately, it originated from an Ice Phoenix and was useless to Han Lu.

Long Qian felt quite bad for making Han Lu make two wasted trips, and repeatedly promised in his letter to Han Lu that he would definitely not make Han Lu make a wasted trip next time.

Han Lu, however, did not take the matter too seriously and did not feel any displeasure towards Long Qian. On the contrary, she felt that he cared about the matter.

After all, even if she obtained another bloodline besides the Four Phoenixes, she would only try to harmonize after reaching the Golden Core Realm.

This matter is important, but there is no rush.

Han Lu has been taking the monthly Moon Pearl World Tour, but only for the first three of these seven years.

It wasn't because Han Lu was too busy with worldly affairs to spare three or four hours on a full moon night to visit the world of 100,000 years ago.

Instead, the timeline of the Moon Pearl World, thanks to Han Lu's advancement, has reached a point a few days before Senior Wang Han's tribulation.

Moving forward, Han Lu will witness Senior Wang Han overcome the Heavenly Tribulation of Transformation and hold a Daoist Dharma Assembly after the tribulation.

This was a rare opportunity, and Han Lu didn't want to waste it.

She would prefer to experience this again after she has advanced to the Golden Core Realm and reached a higher level of cultivation, to listen to Senior Wang Han's insights into the truth of the Heavenly Dao, and thus improve herself.

If she were to be exposed to the teachings too early, merely listening in, it would be like a primary school student listening to a university chemistry course. Even if she were to concentrate, it would be like listening to gibberish, offering no help or improvement whatsoever.

Therefore, the Moon Pearl was temporarily shelved, freed from Han Lu's bosom, and returned to her storage bag.

When this rare treasure can be bathed in moonlight depends on when Han Lu breaks through to the Golden Core realm and gains a deeper understanding of the Heavenly Dao.

Just a few days before Han Lu began her cultivation today, the modern and fashionable Qiyue Alliance Prison Phoenix came to the Zhengyi Sect.

After conveying friendly sentiments to the Zhengyi Sect on behalf of the Seven Mountains Alliance, he made a special trip to Hanchan Peak to visit Han Lu, acting as a messenger to deliver a letter from Fengyang written two and a half months earlier.

While delivering the letter, Feng Yufei also chatted with Han Lu for a few minutes, extending an invitation to her to visit the Seven Mountains Alliance.

Han Lu gave only a vague answer and did not give a clear and decisive reply.

After the sparring session with Feng Yufei's younger sister, Feng Yufei became quite friendly towards Han Lu, but Yu Feng's attitude towards Huan Feng was not friendly. Han Lu felt that now was not the right time to get close to Feng Yufei.

Seven years is just a blink of an eye for Zhenling, but for Fengyou and Feng Rubing, who recognized Hanlu and established a close relationship, it was an incredibly long time.

The newlyweds, childhood sweethearts, channeled their nearly five-thousand-year-old emotions, accumulated for various reasons, into the grand project of "creating a phoenix."

In the letter, besides expressing her longing for her daughter in just a few lines, Fengyou also told Hanlu the good news that she might be getting a younger brother or sister.

Sitting in her room, reading the good news in the letter, Han Lu's expression was incredibly complex.

It should be noted that the phoenix, as a true spirit, has an extremely low birth rate.

Conceiving a mixed-race child like Han Lu is slightly easier, but a purebred phoenix is ​​truly a rare feat, and many parents may not be able to conceive even after a hundred years of effort.

Phoenixes like Fengyou, which can "bloom in multiple places" and "achieve immediate results," are definitely among the very few.

Despite being thousands of miles apart, Han Lu was unable to persuade her parents with any of their fallacies, such as "family planning" or "it's good to have only one child."

All she could do was offer silent blessings and hope that the younger sister or brother she met after returning to the wilderness would match her imagination of what a sister or brother should be, and that they could get along well with her half-sister.

Sitting in her room, Han Lu meditated for a full day and night before emerging from her meditative state.

She opened her eyes, which were filled with joy.

Because, after seven years, she finally felt that she had reached a bottleneck again, and could try to take the step of converting liquid spiritual power into solid spiritual power, so as to raise her cultivation to the late stage of Foundation Establishment.

"Next time I cultivate, I'll try out the secret techniques from the Seven Kill Sword Manual."

Chapter 560 Extreme Magnetic Gold

It has to be said that Han Lu was quite lucky.

The Great Zhou Heavenly Water Condensation Technique, which she mainly studied, recorded a secret technique that helped cultivators "convert gaseous spiritual power into liquid spiritual power." This meant that the threshold of advancing from the early Foundation Establishment stage to the middle stage did not hold her back for long.

The Seven Kill Sword Technique that she obtained from Senior Fang Lin contains a secret technique that helps cultivators convert liquid spiritual energy into solid spiritual energy.

It is called "Polar Magnetism".

If everything goes smoothly, she will be able to complete this step using secret techniques, and thus break through the bottleneck of the mid-Foundation Establishment stage at a speed far exceeding that of other cultivators, thus advancing to the next level.

However, such a "powerful" secret technique naturally has many restrictions when it is used, and it cannot be used casually.

Performing this secret technique is similar to practicing the "Seven Killing Sword Technique," requiring the ingestion of metal as a catalyst.

This auxiliary metal is called "Extreme Magnetic Gold," and it is a relatively uncommon material for refining artifacts.

This material is generally only used when crafting alchemy furnaces of the spirit weapon level.

One tael of "extreme magnetic gold" is roughly equivalent to 1,500 spirit stones.

The amount of "extreme magnetic gold" needed to perform one round of the secret technique is not much, only about two ounces.

In other words, each use of the secret technique, regardless of success or failure, costs three thousand spirit stones.

This is a price that an ordinary mid-Foundation Establishment cultivator cannot afford.

Even Han Lu, a wealthy cultivator, felt a pang of heartache upon seeing this number.

However, because the success rate of the "Extreme Magnetic" secret technique is only 30%, and a cultivator can only attempt to use this secret technique three times in their lifetime, therefore...