The Long Journey to Immortality

The high priest first criticized Han Lu's interpretation of the first ritual music from the perspective of a "musician" and "creator," and then demonstrated it on the erhu. Only then did he mention Han Lu's illusion magic that had affected 100,000 mortals, and the great achievements Han Lu had made the day before.

The high priest, who had been planning to "seduce" Han Lu, naturally rewarded her for her excellent work.

The prepared reward wasn't generous, but it was right in Han Lu's comfort zone.

"Some of the exquisite artworks in the Western Regions style are not available on the market."

"Some of them I even got from the public treasury."

"I heard from your father that many people in the Phoenix Clan love art."

"I suppose you, who haven't spent much time in the clan, would need these things as gifts to smooth things over."

In terms of value, the artworks placed in front of Han Lu combined might not even be worth a thousand spirit stones.

But just as the high priest said, these works of art could exert a far greater effect in Han Lu's hands than ten thousand spirit stones.

After expressing his gratitude repeatedly, the High Priest, who already regarded Han Lu as a kindred spirit in "art," chatted with Han Lu about art for a full half hour before reluctantly letting his young friend leave.

After staying in the city for two more days to fully recover her spiritual power, Han Lu finally delivered a farewell letter through the hotel, following proper etiquette.

After waiting for half a day and receiving an echo, Han Lu left the royal city alone, following the two marks she had made on the ancient map to search for the whereabouts of Xiaoyaozi's cave.

Chapter 673 Finally Entering the Cave

During her research in the Western Regions capital, Han Lu compared old and new maps and identified two suspicious treasure locations using simple methods.

One was not far from the capital of the Western Regions, and the other was close to the border between the Central Plains and the Western Regions.

Based on her understanding of the memories in Xiaoyaozi's remnant soul and her speculations based on various actual situations, the latter is obviously more likely to be Xiaoyaozi's cave dwelling or treasure trove in the Western Regions.

After all, although the number of high-level cultivators in the Western Regions is not as large as in the Central Plains and the East Sea, there is always at least one Nascent Soul cultivator cultivating in the royal city every year.

Although Xiaoyaozi was also a Nascent Soul cultivator and was not afraid of his opponent, he was ultimately an outsider on someone else's territory. It was somewhat inappropriate for him to swagger over to the other party's "lair" to build a cave and hide magical treasures and secret manuals.

Not to mention it might cause unnecessary trouble for your "future self" when searching for and retrieving treasure.

Based on this reasoning, Han Lu is more inclined to believe that the latter is the real treasure trove.

However, since such a result has already been reached, there is naturally no need to go the long way around. Han Lu also cannot guarantee that Xiaoyaozi will not play by the rules.

By carefully checking both locations along the way, there's no way there could be any mistakes.

Leaving the royal city, Han Lu flew at almost the fastest speed, and in less than an hour, following the map's guidance, she found the first possible treasure location.

However, after arriving at the approximate area marked on the map, Han Lu encountered the first unexpected difficulty.

The land in this area has been completely desertified, and there is no trace of the oasis it once was.

Determining direction in the desert is not too difficult for cultivators, but matching a real-world scene with a location on a map in an environment where the surroundings are almost identical and there are no reference points is quite challenging, even for a Golden Core cultivator like Han Lu.

Originally, finding an oasis in the vast desert by following a map would have been easy.

Now, the challenge is to find a slightly special desert in the middle of the desert by following an old map. This makes the task much more difficult.

Looking at the desert scenery that seemed to be copied and pasted, Han Lu pondered for a moment before reluctantly coming up with a not-so-good solution.

She used her divine sense to search inch by inch within the approximate area she could determine, looking for traces of spells, restrictions, and formations.

If these traces are found, the location of the cave can be determined.

If not, then it means the cave dwelling is not located here.

This process was long and tedious. In order to avoid any oversights, Han Lu had to assume that a large area of ​​desert was the possible location where the cave was hidden.

Although her soul was powerful, the area covered by her divine sense far exceeded that of ordinary early-stage Golden Core cultivators.

However, it still took Han Lu half an hour to thoroughly "sweep" this nearly ten square kilometers of land.

The result was naturally fruitless, which made Han Lu, who was slightly dizzy, feel annoyed.

Taking out the jade pendant and holding it in her hand, Han Lu crossed out the small red dot next to the location.

Having completed her "revenge," she patted her storage bag again, summoning an ark which she placed on the sand, using it as a temporary cave dwelling to take some pills and rest briefly.

Only after his senses were clear and his mind was sharp did he continue his journey eastward.

Due to the long distance, it took Han Lu almost a day and a half to reach the approximate location of the cave.

The oases here have not been degraded for very long; there are still many traces of their existence on the desert surface.

This made Han Lu's search work a little easier, as she no longer needed to include large areas in the search as before.

"Hopefully, we can find traces of the cave this time."

With a silent prayer in her heart, Han Lu opened her divine sense again and repeated the process.

As her wish came true, Han Lu soon reaped the rewards.

Beneath the sands where there once was a lake, Han Lu found traces of an array.

“This should be it,” Han Lu said happily. “Thinking back three hundred years or even earlier, this would not have been an important oasis on the trade route, and there certainly wouldn’t have been any cultivators setting up formations here.”

Using her spiritual power, Han Lu simply waved her hand, "shaving" away five meters of the sand layer in the area where the array was detected, revealing the secret buried deep within.

Sure enough, beneath the sand layer, there was a formation that was partially activated.

Based on Han Lu's judgment, this formation should have some "teleportation" properties. As long as it is triggered correctly, it can teleport the cultivators who enter the formation to the target location set by the formation.

Looking around and scanning the area with her divine sense, Han Lu found only sand and dust everywhere. She then took out the array flags and used the array to cover and protect the area before feeling at ease.

Having previously entered Xiaoyaozi's cave in the Southern Frontier, Han Lu was quite familiar with the route this time. Without hesitation, she sat cross-legged directly into the formation.

He activated the "Great Circulation Water Condensation Technique" and slowly infused spiritual energy into the formation.

The process was rather lengthy. It wasn't until a quarter of an hour later that Han Lu poured nearly 30% of her spiritual power into the magic array, allowing it to be fully activated.

If Han Lu hadn't noticed the change in the formation the moment she injected spiritual power, she would have thought there was a problem with some part of it, or even that this place wasn't the location of Xiaoyaozi's cave she was looking for at all.

The formation was triggered, and a light blue portal appeared in front of Han Lu.

Han Lu had no idea where the portal would take her. But based on the method she used to activate the magic array while simultaneously channeling spiritual energy into the "Great Zhou Heavenly Water Condensation Technique," she was certain she was on the right track.

Without hesitation, Han Lu walked straight in.

Outside the portal was a scorching desert, but inside was a chilling, rocky cave.

Although she didn't know where she had arrived through this portal that was destined not to take her too far, Han Lu could confirm that she had indeed arrived in the third cave dwelling set up by Xiaoyaozi by looking at the portrait of Xiaoyaozi hanging on the wall of the cave dwelling in front of her.

This was originally Xiaoyaozi's temporary residence during his cultivation in the Western Regions, so the cave dwelling was simply furnished like any other cultivator's cave dwelling.

The only difference between this cave and the previous one in the southern border region is that, because there is an external teleportation array as the first and absolutely effective security measure, Xiaoyaozi did not play any tricks in this cave this time.

He didn't do much pretense, but simply placed the many treasures left for the "remnant soul" in the central cave, using only the most basic restrictions for simple protection to prevent accidents from happening.

Han Lu's gaze immediately fell upon several jade plaques displayed among a pile of treasures.

Needless to say, the information recorded in these jade tablets is Han Lu's goal for this trip.

Chapter 674 Letters

With a flick of her wrist, Han Lu took the five jade pendants into her hand.

Using her divine sense to read the information within, Han Lu unexpectedly discovered that the information recorded in these five jade tablets was not limited to the cultivation techniques in the "Great Zhou Heavenly Water Condensation Technique".

Of the five jade tablets, only four contained the cultivation techniques, while the last jade tablet contained a letter written by Xiaoyaozi to the "later generation".

Upon noticing the existence of the letter, Han Lu immediately put down the other four jade tablets.

She wanted to see what words Xiaoyaozi had left behind, and what he wanted to say to the remnant souls who had come here according to the plan.

"Hello, I am here a thousand years from now, whether it is a hundred, two hundred, three hundred, or even a thousand years later."

"If you can read the message in this jade tablet, I will be very happy, because it means I have succeeded."

"Whether or not the cultivator who comes here is still called Xiaoyaozi, at least someone has inherited my mantle and my memories, and has come here as a Golden Core cultivator, embarking on another path of cultivation."

"Here, I just want to leave some traces, hoping that when I see this letter in the future, I will feel some emotion, and that it will leave a deeper mark on this world."

Clearly, when this letter was written, Xiaoyaozi was only a few years away from the end of his lifespan.

He himself was well aware that the success rate of his plan was only about 50%, and even if the remnant soul successfully possessed the body, it was still unknown whether it would recognize its own identity as Xiaoyaozi.

Seeing this, Han Lu couldn't help but be lost in thought, recalling some philosophical questions she had pondered before and reached a conclusion about.

She became increasingly certain that her existence must have been an accident; her successful entry into the cave and reading of the letter clearly did not fall into any of the scenarios mentioned by Xiaoyaozi.

She muttered to herself, "I wonder how Xiaoyaozi would react to this outcome if he knew what happened to me and what my situation was like?"

“Perhaps,” based on the memories in the remnant soul and Han Lu’s understanding of Xiaoyaozi, she guessed, “he might bite the bullet and consider me as his successor to cover up his small mistake.”

Keep reading.

Since he wanted to leave a mark on the world, the information left by Xiaoyaozi was naturally more about his own past experiences than a message to future generations.

In Han Lu's view, this jade pendant was more like an autobiography written by Xiaoyaozi for himself, a loser.

Fortunately, the cave where the remnant soul resided was the last one left outside Moyu City, and Han Lu did not obtain Xiaoyaozi's complete memories. Otherwise, she would definitely have lost interest in this matter and would not have read this autobiography, which seemed like idle talk and a diary.

Skipping over Xiaoyaozi's recollections of his cultivation years, Han Lu focused on reading Xiaoyaozi's self-reflection and introspection, hoping to glean some insights from them and see what small lessons this Nascent Soul cultivator, who knew his death was near, had learned in the final moments of his life that could offer her some help.

While panning for gold in the water, Han Lu actually pulled out some gold.

When faced with a newcomer who was closely connected to him through reading the letters in the jade tablet, Xiaoyaozi made no attempt to conceal anything, and in the latter half of the jade tablet, he imparted all his understanding of cultivation.

In addition, as a wandering cultivator, Xiaoyaozi also shared all the "jianghu experience" he had accumulated in the cultivation world, hoping that this would point out the man-made traps on the path of cultivation for the junior who came to the cave, so that the junior who was likely to ascend to the spirit world under his series of arrangements would not die prematurely due to human factors.

Although the words were rough, they were spoken with heartfelt sincerity. Han Lu could understand the difference between the Xiaoyaozi in this matter and the Xiaoyaozi who set up the first cave and left behind a remnant soul.

Finally, Xiaoyaozi reflected on some of the evil deeds he had committed while wandering in the East Sea and explained the reason why he had set up his cave in the Central Plains.

"I hope that my remnant soul can enter the body of a cultivator from the Central Plains, and after possessing that body, I can gain the goodwill of that cultivator, be influenced by the cultivation culture of the Central Plains, do more good deeds on the path of cultivation, and become a cultivator who follows the will of Heaven."

Upon reading this passage, Han Lu couldn't help but sigh inwardly, marveling that death was indeed something that could bring profound enlightenment to long-lived cultivators.

Finally, Xiaoyaozi introduced the cultivation resources left in the cave, including the only two magical treasures among them, to prevent future generations from taking detours when using these two treasures.

Han Lu casually picked up the two magical treasures that were placed in the cave.

One was a sky-blue ring, and the other was a cloth bag that looked about 70% like a storage bag.

According to Xiaoyaozi's description, this sky-blue ring is called the "Spirit Water Ring". It is a versatile magic weapon that can be used for both offense and defense. Its grade is slightly lower, barely reaching the fifth grade. If it were in the hands of Han Lu, a cultivator who mainly cultivates the "Great Zhou Heavenly Water Condensation Technique", it would be able to reach the fourth grade.

As for the cloth bag that resembled a "storage bag," Xiaoyaozi called it the "Spirit-Gathering Heavenly Bag."