After hearing all this, Li Yan was momentarily stunned. "Divine consciousness… there's such a miraculous thing?" he murmured under his breath. Almost immediately, however, a wry thought came to mind—his own room was only six or seven zhang away from his teacher's. Doesn't that mean whatever he did or said in his room would be known to his teacher?
The gray-robed elder offered a slight smile before continuing. "When divine consciousness reaches a certain power, it can be used to kill. A powerful cultivator only needs to send forth a ripple of their divine awareness, and they can silently eliminate an opponent—even wipe out a whole group of lesser beings in moments. In time, as one's cultivation deepens, this divine consciousness will continue to strengthen. By the Nascent Soul stage, several threads of divine awareness may combine into a 'divine mantra' whose abilities are even more formidable. You'll have to explore that for yourself as you advance."
The elder then began recounting his own long search. "After emerging from seclusion, I waited in our sect for roughly a hundred years, yet none of the other four sects saw any of their successors return. At that time, I was only slightly past the Integration stage. I had even ventured out during my earlier periods—the Spirit-Splitting and Void Refinement stages—to look for the next heir, but to no avail. I traveled for five or six hundred years across vast continents, scouring every mountain and desert, yet still found no one. Eventually, I shattered the void and returned to the Mortal Realm, hopeful for some breakthrough. I continued my search in the Mortal Realm for more than two hundred years, again coming up empty-handed, until one day I received some news…"
He paused before explaining further. "I learned that in one hidden part of the Mortal Realm, there was a remote region where spiritual roots seemed more abundant. Even in ancient times, during the period when powerful Immortal-Spirit cultivators first sought out spiritual veins to found a legacy here, none had been able to establish a sect in that area. No record explains why—only that the ambient qi there was said to be the finest in the realm, attracting many with exceptional spiritual roots. But the catch was that to reach that place, one had to traverse a long, perilous route beset by bizarre red lightning tribulations—a danger that even our world has seldom seen. It was said that only cultivators who'd reached the Tribulation stage in power could pass through safely. After much deliberation, I decided to go and see for myself. Our sect's lineage must not perish in my generation."
Before departing, he explained that he left behind a divine imprint in a mystical jade box. "I imbued a certain divine mantra into this immortal artifact—a jade box—that can preserve a divine imprint for tens of thousands of years. This box is even capable of sensing whether a human within a radius of several thousand li possesses a spiritual root. As of now, that divine imprint—which is me in essence—is active there, while my original body has long moved off to an unknown place."
The elder's voice turned reflective as he continued, "However, I soon discovered a drawback. Directly propelling the jade box with my divine consciousness consumes my spiritual power. In the early days, I sent the jade box soaring across the land while I searched for a successor. Over the course of more than a thousand years, I still found no suitable candidate. Then I received word of that remote region I mentioned earlier. Yet even there, I realized that if I continued to search in the same fashion, in tens of thousands of years my divine consciousness would be utterly exhausted. So I devised another method." He explained that he would transform the jade box into an ancient jade slip—a kind of mystical book. "I embedded part of my divine manifestation into this transformed jade book, so that when some cultivator eventually finds it, they will treat it as a precious immortal treasure. Naturally, they will keep it with them at all times for both study and safeguard. In this way, the jade book will travel with them. My divine imprint inside will simply follow along, continuously scanning various territories as the owner moves, without needing to expend extra power to drive a separate box."
He went on, "Many cultivators—in the usual chaotic way of our world—have received this jade book over time. Some were slain, then replaced by other cultivators; some carried it for hundreds of years until they finally passed away, only for it to be rediscovered again later by treasure hunters. Yet no one has ever been able to decipher its mystery. The more unattainable its secret, the more treasured it becomes. As the jade book changed hands through numerous generations, it traversed vast regions of the Mortal Realm. After a full million years, I eventually found many individuals with mixed spiritual roots—but still none who completely fit our strict criteria. I even sensed that the strength of my divine imprint had diminished by some 60–70 percent. I know my original body has not been destroyed; I can sense its presence. If it were to perish or if it had already found a successor, I would know immediately. It seems likely that my original body is trapped somewhere, unable to break free. Therefore, I must continue the search. However, by my calculations, my remaining divine imprint can only sustain itself for another two or three hundred thousand years. So I have had to devise another method."
He described his solution: "I have temporarily put my main divine consciousness into a state of sleep so as to conserve energy. In doing so, I've split off a weaker strand of divine awareness to wander independently. This lesser divine consciousness can scan an area of roughly a hundred li, though it lacks any combat ability. This is the most practical solution available. When this wandering strand detects someone who might be our successor, it will awaken the main divine consciousness. The main consciousness will then assess that person's character and, if they are appropriate, pass on my memories to them. However, this strand only lasts about a thousand years before it dissipates. Each time it nears its end, it sends all the accumulated impressions to the main consciousness and then vanishes into the ether. The main consciousness, in turn, must issue a fresh strand before slipping back into sleep. Of course, this process gradually further weakens my primary divine power, but it nevertheless buys us more time to find a worthy candidate."
As the elder spoke, Li Yan listened in silence, marveling at the extraordinary powers of immortal cultivators—a single thread of intention capable of lasting a thousand years, a concept utterly beyond the realm of mortal imagination.
"Then, after tens of thousands of years," the elder continued, "I eventually discovered many mixed-root individuals. Still, none of them met our sect's exacting standards. About fifty years ago, a cultivator in the Golden Core stage acquired the jade book, among other artifacts. During his travels, he encountered a formidable enemy and barely managed to escape using every bit of his divine technique. By the time he returned to his cave, his injuries were grave—the Gold Core within him was nearly on the verge of disintegration. He barely managed to fly back to his hermitage to try and recover. But shortly after arriving, his life extinguished. Fourteen or fifteen years later, surprisingly, a low-level devotee in the Foundation Establishment stage discovered this cave. Normally, someone of his limited skill wouldn't have been able to break through the protective formations a Golden Core cultivator had set up. Yet this cultivator had merely opened the entrance—had not activated the outer wards again—before he died. The young cultivator then ventured inside and reaped many benefits, including obtaining the jade book, the jade slip, and a paper folio that had once been protected by immortal techniques. Of course, those protective spells on the paper folio were shattered in the cave's collapse. Not long after, the young cultivator's soul departed for the underworld. And so the process continued: I fell back into deep sleep, awaiting the arrival of the next 'fated one' who would claim the jade book. Years later, a man in a black robe—a mortal—stumbled upon the remains of that Foundation Establishment cultivator. By his side lay the jade book, the jade slip, and the now unprotected paper folio."
At that point the elder paused, and a faint, enigmatic smile played across his blurred features. "That man, as it turns out, is your teacher."
When Li Yan heard this, he thought, "So this person is my actual teacher, then?" The elder nodded slowly. "Precisely. He is the 'Junior Master' you now call your teacher—Seasonal Master Ji." He deliberately emphasized the word "teacher" with a trace of playful irony.
Li Yan could detect the underlying mockery in the elder's tone. It seemed there was something peculiar about his teacher—and he suspected it had something to do with him, though the exact nature remained elusive.
The elder then clarified, "Your teacher isn't of that so-called 'Mu Ying Sect' that he casually mentioned. That name is nothing but a fabricated title. In reality, he belongs to the 'Xunxian Lineage.'"
Surprised, Li Yan asked, "'Xunxian Lineage'? Does that mean searching for immortals?"
The elder chuckled. "You could say so. Ever since ancient Immortal-Spirit cultivators came down to establish sects in the Mortal Realm, over tens of thousands of years, whispers of these events have reached the common folk. Many longed to join these families or sects in hopes of learning immortal arts and attaining eternal life. At first, only a scattered few ventured deep into the mountains seeking immortal favor, only to be devoured by demon beasts or become lost to ghostly clutches. The carnage that ensued was not what these hopeful aspirants desired. So gradually, they banded together to search for their fated chance. Later, martial warriors entered the fray—some as hired muscle, others driven by the pursuit of greater power. Hearing of the existence of immortals, they joined the ranks, reducing the chances of death. In this way, they scoured mountains and rivers, desperately seeking that elusive spark of destiny. Over time, among them, some individuals with true spiritual roots actually found and joined immortal sects, learning the immortal arts. Others discovered the immortal techniques or hermitages left behind by deceased cultivators; if they too had a spiritual root, they would embark on the immortal path. This only further solidified their resolve. They eventually withdrew from worldly affairs, concentrating solely on the training of martial skills to delve deeply into uncharted realms. These seekers, known among cultivators as the 'Xunxian Lineage,' include your teacher, who is the inheritor of that very tradition."
As Li Yan absorbed these revelations, a troubled thought tugged at his mind: "Why would my teacher deceive me by claiming affiliation with the so-called 'Mu Ying Sect'?" The answer was not yet clear to him.
The elder continued, his tone shifting as he recalled details of his own past: "After Junior Master Ji obtained the jade book, the jade slip, and that paper folio, he was understandably overjoyed. Yet he did not know that this was the greatest stroke of luck waiting for him. The paper folio and jade slip together contain a set of immortal techniques called the 'Wuye Lanying Skill.' The paper folio records the introductory methods to sense the qi of Heaven and Earth and the spoken formulas for the first three layers of the Qi Condensation stage, while the jade slip contains the formulas for layers four through ten. (They were designed for beginners of a sect's entry into the Qi Condensation stage.) The design was necessary because novices lack the strength in their divine consciousness to project outside the body until reaching the third layer. Thus the first three layers are recorded on paper; these texts are further blessed by our sect's techniques for safeguarding. Ordinary mortals cannot open them—the protective spells on some of these folios are so strong that even a Foundation Establishment cultivator cannot break them. And even if a cultivator at that level could break through, they wouldn't care much; such a cultivator is already capable of establishing their own sect, making these entrance-level techniques rather trivial."