Taixuan Mountain, Xiaozhu Peak.
The bright moon hung high in the sky, and the early autumn night carried a hint of chill.
In a secluded mountain cave, however, the atmosphere was scorching. Even from a far distance, the intense panting of a man and a woman could be faintly heard.
A full hour later, the heat finally subsided.
Having fulfilled a long-cherished wish, Xia Changsheng wore a look of utter contentment. He lay sprawled out on a clean stone bed, entering a state of total post-coital clarity.
He glanced at the woman resting against his chest, who had fallen fast asleep from sheer exhaustion, and could not help a flash of triumph in his eyes.
Liu Qingyue.
A delicate beauty of the girl-next-door type—while not quite possessing looks that could topple a city or country, she easily scored above ninety.
Even more rare was her cultivation at Xiantian Perfection, just a step away from entering the realm of Qi Condensation true cultivation that countless people dreamed of.
The three secular realms: Body Tempering, Blood Moving, and Xiantian.
Xiantian Perfection.
This was already the peak mortals could reach!
In the cultivation world, the Xiantian Realm was also known as the Qi-Guiding Stage, where a Xiantian seed was nurtured within the body. As this seed grew and completely transformed into true qi, one could complete a transformation like a carp leaping over the dragon gate and officially step into the Qi Condensation Stage.
Without a doubt, Liu Qingyue, who had joined the sect only ten years ago, existed as an untouchable figure in the hearts of all the male outer disciples on Xiaozhu Peak. Yet just a moment ago, a woman like this had been plucked by him first, completing the most important transformation in a woman's life.
If those simps found out, it would probably trigger a riot among the outer disciples of Xiaozhu Peak.
Xia Changsheng thought with a trace of malicious amusement, then shook his head, collected his thoughts, and a transparent interface materialized before his eyes.
Host: Xia Changsheng
Rank: Tier 1 Elemental Apostle
Elements: 10/100
Law: Law of Wind I
Companion: Liu Qingyue
Talent: Grade 8 Wind Spiritual Root 0/500
The interface flashed and vanished.
Xia Changsheng felt a sudden, inexplicable influx of memories in his mind—this was an elemental inheritance. Raging winds howled in his mind, carrying him into an ocean of wind, flying higher and higher until he approached the barrier of the world before he seemed to snap back to his senses. At the same time, a warm current surged from his dantian, flowing instantly through his whole body, making him feel as refreshed as if bathed in a spring breeze.
Within moments, Xia Changsheng felt his entire body lighten. Not only was the fatigue from his recent exertion completely swept away, but even the hidden injuries he had unfortunately sustained during past trials were thoroughly eradicated.
This effect was no less than breaking through to the Xiantian Realm, and perhaps even surpassed it.
Xia Changsheng could not help his excitement. He had originally been an ordinary college student from Blue Star, transmigrating physically into this world a full twenty years ago. Having joined Xiaozhu Peak of Taixuan Mountain by a twist of fate, and realizing the cruelty and danger of this world, he had not dared to slack off in the slightest, rising early and sleeping late to cultivate bitterly. Yet due to limited aptitude, his progress had been slow.
Twelve years ago, he completed his bone-tempering, reaching Body Tempering Perfection. For many people with decent talent, the next step should have been a smooth and natural breakthrough into the Blood Moving Realm, but it had taken him a full year just to break through.
After that came another ten years of bitter cultivation to barely reach Blood Moving Realm Perfection, but fate loved to play jokes—the Xiantian Realm seemed right before his eyes, yet he could never find the way to enter it.
This was all because he possessed only a substandard spiritual root.
A spiritual root represented a person's cultivation aptitude. In this survival-of-the-fittest cultivation world, it was the mark of whether one could succeed or not.
Back then, among the batch of disciples who entered together, anyone with a graded spiritual root had basically already stepped into the Xiantian Realm. Among that batch of disciples, while he was not at the very bottom, he could only be considered mediocre.
Fortunately, he possessed a wealth of valuable experience acquired on Blue Star, deeply understanding that without absolute strength, keeping a low profile and developing steadily was the absolute truth.
For these twenty years, he had been extremely cautious, basically acting as an invisible person on Xiaozhu Peak. Usually keeping to himself, whenever the sect's annual evaluation tasks came around, he adhered strictly to the principle of never working alone, always teaming up with others to complete them.
Of course, as a time traveler, a golden finger was naturally indispensable. Yet no matter what Xia Changsheng did, this golden finger always remained like a transparent bead, quietly resting in his dantian without the slightest reaction, causing him considerable distress.
Until ten years ago, when he teamed up with Liu Qingyue, who had just entered the sect not long ago, for a sect evaluation task. While cooperating to hunt down a Blood Moving Realm demonic beast, he accidentally brushed against Liu Qingyue's arm during the fight, and the bead, which had been playing dead all along, finally showed a trace of reaction. Although it was fleeting and very weak, it was still caught by his observant eyes.
This discovery left Xia Changsheng wild with joy; the matter that had weighed on his mind finally had a lead. After completing the evaluation task, he hurried back to the sect and shut himself away to study it.
Yet after a whole month, the bead seemed to have fallen dormant again, ignoring whatever methods he used to urge it.
After pondering for a long time, he felt the root of the problem should be related to Liu Qingyue. Moreover, possessing an advanced sense of crisis honed through these years of tempering, he also felt he ought to find a powerful backer to lean on—especially an attractive and fragrant one. Even if the golden finger turned out to be useless in the end, he could still cling to a powerful thigh and avoid ending up too destitute.
People often found motivation once they had a goal, and Xia Changsheng was no exception.
For the period that followed, Xia Changsheng visited Liu Qingyue's quarters from time to time. Naturally, adhering to the principle of keeping a low profile, he would never go in broad daylight lest he become a target for those senior and junior brothers who admired Liu Qingyue. He usually made his moves under the cover of night, sneaking over under the fine-sounding excuse of consulting her on cultivation matters.
Relying on a unique brand of flattery, coupled with a handsome appearance and pleasant conversational skills, through nearly ten years of persistent effort, Xia Changsheng finally managed to slowly pry open the fairy's heart.
Whenever he occasionally teased Liu Qingyue to the point of delight, intimate actions like touching her palms would at most earn him a reproachful yet bashful sideways glance, which meant he had finally weathered the clouds to see the moonlight.
Whenever the two of them had even the slightest physical contact, Xia Changsheng would notice the mysterious bead inside his dantian emit a trace of glazed luster. But that was all; the moment they separated, it would go dormant again. Unreconciled, Xia Changsheng had also used the excuse of sparring and seeking guidance to test it on other senior and junior brothers, discovering that the bead had zero reaction to males, though it reacted differently to females.For female cultivators without any notable aptitude, the bead showed no reaction whatsoever, whereas those endowed with Spiritual Roots invariably caused the bead to respond. However, compared to Liu Qingyue, the resulting activity was noticeably subdued.
It was plainly a matter of aptitude.
These outer sect female cultivators possessed mostly ninth-grade Spiritual Roots, and their ultimate future achievements would at best stop at the Qi Condensation Stage. Liu Qingyue, on the other hand, held an eighth-grade Spiritual Root, holding the promise of reaching even higher realms.
Though it was a difference of merely a single grade, the gap between them was as wide as heaven and earth.
According to Xia Changsheng's understanding, the outer sect of Xiaozhu Peak alone numbered over a thousand disciples. Over the span of twenty years, disciples had been recruited twice from the outside, yet Liu Qingyue was the sole person among them with an eighth-grade Spiritual Root. Provided no unforeseen mishaps occurred along the way, her ascension to an inner sect disciple of Xiaozhu Peak was just around the corner.
With tens of thousands of disciples across the entire Taixuan Mountain, even though Xiaozhu Peak occupied the lowest tier among the seven peaks, becoming an inner sect disciple was already a supreme honor for the vast majority of people!
Once he figured out that this mysterious bead was essentially a celestial talent detector—a cheat code that refused to follow the beaten path—Xia Changsheng paid even closer attention to Liu Qingyue.
He wanted to completely capture the heart of this alluring Junior Sister to put his inner hypothesis to the test.
The outcome naturally unfolded just as Xia Changsheng had anticipated. On this dark and windy night, after the two of them consummated their union, his unorthodox cheat code finally responded.
Suppressing the surge of excitement within his chest, Xia Changsheng rose from the bed, casually threw on a garment, and stepped out of the cave dwelling to put what he had just learned to the test.
Outside the cave.
The moon hung high in the middle of the sky, accompanied by a gentle, refreshing breeze.
Moonlight poured down like liquid silver, blanketing Xia Changsheng and accentuating his already tall and well-proportioned frame, making him appear even more imposing and upright.
His face possessed sharp, angular features, crowned by sword-like brows and star-like eyes, with a high and straight bridge of his nose. His jet-black hair was simply secured by a coarse cloth band, and an uninhibited, free-spirited aura emanated inexplicably from his entire being.
In this world, lifespans were generally long. Setting aside cultivators who commanded centuries or millennia of life, even ordinary mortals could easily live to be a hundred. Although he was approaching forty, years of dedicated cultivation meant his appearance had changed very little from when he first arrived in this world; if anything, he had gained an added layer of poise.
"Wind Blade!"
Concentrating and holding his breath, Xia Changsheng fixed his gaze on a large boulder twenty paces away and chanted silently in his mind. This was an elemental spell he had just mastered, boasting terrifyingly formidable offensive power.
The next instant, Xia Changsheng felt a warm current spontaneously generate within his Dantian. It felt like a trickling stream—warm and comforting, yet at the same time seemingly pregnant with boundless power.
With the natural ease of innate understanding, he flicked his hand lightly. Accompanied by a sharp crack in the air, an invisible razor-sharp blade whistled straight toward the boulder.
Boom!
In a flash, violent energy surged outward. The entire boulder was blasted into dust, kicking up a cloud of smoke three zhang high. Stone fragments drifted down through the air, taking quite a while to finally settle.
Fortunately, this location was a remote corner on the outskirts of Xiaozhu Peak, where disciples rarely patrolled under ordinary circumstances, let alone in the dead of night, preventing any major commotion.
Witnessing such immense destructive power, Xia Changsheng was startled at first, which was immediately followed by wild elation.
With his cultivation at the Blood Moving Realm Perfection, if he were to strike with all his might, a single punch would at most crack that boulder in half; reducing it to powder was entirely beyond him. As far as he knew, even if Liu Qingyue went all out, she could barely manage that feat.
Yet with just a casual flick of his wrist, he could rival a practitioner of the Xiantian Perfection.
Xia Changsheng could sense that the elemental energy flowing through his body was sufficient for him to unleash several more wind blades.
Quietly contemplating the sensation, he realized this was a form of energy distinct from the cultivation system of this world. And the source of it all was that mysterious bead resting within his Dantian.
After a moment, the turbulence within his body gradually subsided. Xia Changsheng couldn't help clenching his fist, discovering that his physical body had also been enhanced to a degree that rivaled the physique of a Xiantian Realm cultivator.
However, Xia Changsheng knew deeply that from this day forward, he would likely have to bid farewell to the cultivation system of this world. Comprehending the Xiantian seed and condensing true essence to become a Qi Condensation cultivator was now completely out of his reach.
"I'll just dedicate myself fully to the elemental path. With my current strength, I should be able to trade blows with genuine Qi Condensation practitioners."
At this thought, Xia Changsheng's confidence skyrocketed, and his future instantly appeared bright and promising. Even Liu Qingyue, with whom he had been deeply discussing the meaning of life just moments prior, could now be easily defeated by him.
As the saying went, all those beneath the Qi Condensation Stage were mere ants.
"I suppose I've finally made it through the hard times."
Xia Changsheng was in exceptionally high spirits. He had once thought that his cheat code would never awaken in this lifetime; given his aptitude, he could only have hoped to reach the Xiantian Realm by the time he died, and in the end, he probably would have had no choice but to leave the sect, descend the mountain to marry and have children, and become just another nameless face among the ordinary masses of this world, turning into a pile of dust a hundred or so years later.
This world was vast—vast far beyond his comprehension. While he previously harbored empty dreams and ambitions, he now felt the urge to climb to the very pinnacle and gaze upon the scenery at the absolute summit.
Though he generally kept to himself and led a secluded life, driven by curiosity and a subconscious sense of crisis, he had still managed to glean an understanding of this world from the sect's classics.
This realm was named the Cangyuan Realm.
Also known as the Cangyuan Continent.
Just how massive it was was not detailed in the sect's records.
It was only known that the realm was vast and boundless beyond measure.
Pingyang Prefecture, where Taixuan Mountain was located, spanned three thousand li from north to south and five thousand li from east to west. An ordinary person would likely never venture far from Pingyang Prefecture throughout their entire life, and even a Xiantian Realm powerhouse, traveling at full speed, required two or three days to cross it from south to north or from east to west.
Only cultivators who had surpassed the Xiantian realm and stepped into the ranks of true practitioners could travel by riding the wind, making the round trip in just a few hours.
The sheer scale of the territory was readily apparent.
Yet Pingyang Prefecture was merely one of the eighteen prefectures of Jiangzhou, and Jiangzhou itself was just one of the seven provinces of the Dayue Dynasty.
It was said that beyond the Dayue Dynasty, other dynasties existed, and even great empires established by supreme sovereigns.
However, all of this was still far too distant for Xia Changsheng, glossed over with just a few brief mentions in the sect's texts.
Over these past twenty years, Xia Changsheng's activities had been largely confined to Xiaozhu Peak. The annual sect assessment tasks only took him as far as the nearby Dahuang Mountain, which was mostly devoid of human presence, and the farthest he had ever traveled was Liucheng, the sprawling major city closest to Taixuan Mountain.