Martial Immortality: Starting with the Spirit Beast Scroll

The Nine Palace Diagram on the wall was created by a painter Zhao Lin had hired, to whom he had described the Spirit Beast Scroll from his mind.

Compared to ten years ago, it now had one new addition: the Essence Soul of a Fire Cloud Silkworm.

In truth, he had been searching for mutant beasts all these years, hoping to absorb their Essence Souls to advance his cultivation.

But while mutant beasts were easy to find, suitable ones were rare.

The seven mutant beasts in the Spirit Beast Scroll—the bear, Wind Fox, Silver-winged Bat, Fragrant Mink, Cold Ice Silkworm, Thunder Catfish, and Gold-devouring Rat—were already the paragons of their respective kinds. Further "upgrading" them was basically impossible.

With only two empty slots remaining, he had to choose carefully, which was why he had yet to make a decision.

That was until last year, when Zhao Lin heard that Weizi of the Flame Sect possessed a Fire Cloud Silkworm over a hundred years old. An idea began to form in his mind.

As it happened, Weizi’s sect had performed poorly in battle in recent years and was required to pay a large tribute of rare medicinal herbs to Great Yue. Zhao Lin thus proposed that they use the Fire Cloud Silkworm to "settle the debt."

Although the Flame Sect was reluctant, they had no choice but to hand over the Fire Cloud Silkworm with a heavy heart to protect their last supply of Dragon Bone Tree Blood.

The Fire Cloud Silkworm was a Fire-Attribute Mutant Insect. After Zhao Lin absorbed its Essence Soul, he naturally gained an additional stream of Fire Attribute True Qi in his body, and his cultivation base soared directly to the perfection of the Primordial Realm!

Unlike the Power, Qi, and Blood Realms, the Primordial Realm was not divided into three layers. It only had two states: "incomplete" and "perfection."

The cultivation process for a martial artist in the Primordial Realm involved absorbing the Primordial Qi between heaven and earth to replace the original qi in their body.

Normally, after stepping into the Primordial Realm, it would take at least ten years of effort to reach perfection.

But Zhao Lin had won four consecutive martial arts tournaments, earning himself a vast amount of cultivation resources.

Take Dragon Bone Tree Blood, for example. It was exceedingly difficult for anyone to obtain even a single drop, yet he possessed over a hundred!

With these resources, he had reached the perfection of the Primordial Realm in just three years.

Now, he had only one goal: the Innate Realm!

...

Early the next morning, Zhao Lin left his residence, traveled out of the city, and arrived at the Xingyun Sect.

Despite his noble title of Duke, he preferred to travel light and alone.

"Good morning, Elder Zhao."

"Greetings, Law Enforcement Elder..."

As he walked through the mountain gate, the disciples on the path who saw Zhao Lin all stopped and bowed respectfully.

Zhao Lin had broken through to the Primordial Realm at the age of twenty-seven, becoming the youngest martial artist in the history of the Xingyun Sect to reach that realm.

At that time, the Law Enforcement Elder, Fan Wenshu, was advanced in age, so the Sect Leader and the other elders unanimously nominated Zhao Lin to take his place.

Zhao Lin hadn’t originally been interested in the position, but since elders had the authority to read all the sect’s Cultivation Techniques and consult the historical annals, he readily accepted.

Before long, he arrived at Leisure Cloud Hall on the mountain’s peak, passed through two long corridors, and entered a meditation chamber.

The chamber was spacious and bright, with a floor paved with bluestone slabs. To the right of the entrance, beneath a skylight, stood a desk and a chair. Two thick stacks of books were piled on the desk, and there was nothing else in the room.

This was Zhao Lin’s private place for meditation, where he usually studied the martial way.

He walked to the desk, skillfully pulled out more than a dozen books, opened them all, and began to read and cross-reference them.

These books included Cultivation Technique manuals, notes from his predecessors, historical annals, and even his own compiled cultivation insights...

From the very first day he stepped into the Primordial Realm, Zhao Lin had been planning his breakthrough to the next stage—the Innate Realm.

To break through to the Innate Realm, one had to deduce their own Cultivation Technique.

The human body was as vast as an ocean. While the fundamental meridians and acupoints were the same for everyone, there were many subtle details that differed greatly from person to person.

For instance, the position of the heart’s chambers, the shape of the foot’s arch, the length and paths of the meridians, and the "hidden acupoints" scattered throughout the body.

These subtle differences could be ignored in the Power, Qi, and Blood Realms, but upon reaching the Innate Realm, they could no longer be overlooked. The Cultivation Technique had to be tailored to the individual!

This was why martial artists of the Innate Realm were called Grandmasters. One could not become a Grandmaster by blindly copying others; one had to possess the ability to deduce a Cultivation Technique suited to oneself.

Zhao Lin had been studying martial theory in Leisure Cloud Hall since he was nineteen. After twelve years, he had built a considerable foundation in this area.

After reaching the perfection of the Primordial Realm, he began trying to deduce his Cultivation Technique.

However, he soon discovered that a martial artist in the Primordial Realm had already reached the physical limits of the human body.

Primordial Qi permeated the entire body, multiplying the power of one’s Cultivation Technique, and it could even be projected externally.

For example, the Sky-splitting Slash that Zhao Lin cultivated could truly live up to its name, unleashing a wind blade of Primordial Qi that lost none of its power within a range of thirty feet.

To deduce any further, he found that the Cultivation Technique itself had reached a dead end. There was only one path forward: reforge the physical body, a complete metamorphosis!

To verify his theory, Zhao Lin consulted the notes left behind by the sect’s past Grandmasters.

Although he couldn’t use another person’s Cultivation Technique directly, he could still discern the general direction of their cultivation and draw inspiration from it.

These notes also confirmed Zhao Lin’s theory: the Primordial Realm was the end of the martial path. To advance further, one had to undergo Body Tempering and reforge the flesh.

While reading the notes, he inevitably had to cross-reference them with the sect’s annals, and in doing so, Zhao Lin discovered another issue.

In the six hundred years since the Xingyun Sect’s founding, a total of four Grandmasters had appeared.

Apart from the first Grandmaster, who lived out his twilight years peacefully in the Xingyun Sect, the other three all left the sect around the age of forty, after which their whereabouts became unknown.

’Strange. Forty is the prime of one’s life. Why would they leave?’

Zhao Lin was puzzled. ’Could it be that it’s lonely at the top, and their cultivation could no longer advance within the sect?’

’That seems unlikely. Even if they were wandering the world in search of fortune and enlightenment for their cultivation, they should have returned at least once.’

Yet these three had left and never returned.

’Were they murdered?’

’Even less likely! It’s incredibly difficult to kill a martial artist of the Primordial Realm, let alone a Grandmaster.’

Zhao Lin was completely baffled. He had asked the Sect Leader and several elders about this matter, but none of them had an answer. After all, it had happened hundreds of years ago.

’How bizarre. Could it be that cultivating to the Grandmaster Realm allows one to enter another world?’

Zhao Lin shook his head and sighed, casually picking up one of the sect’s annals from the desk and beginning to read.

The sect’s annals were written by its administrators and deacons, recording all events, large and small, that occurred within the sect, as well as the activities of important figures like the Sect Leader and the elders.

Since there was more than one scribe, multiple annals might exist for the same time period. Over several hundred years, the sect’s collection of annals had grown to be voluminous.

Zhao Lin had been reading them intermittently for over a year and had only gotten through less than a third.

Because he had recently become interested in the experiences of the past Grandmasters, he had borrowed the annals from the periods before and after they left the sect, hoping to find something.

As he flipped to one of the pages, a particular record caught his eye.

"Year 32 of the Yanhe Era, sixth month, fifteenth day. The Daoist Pu Yuanqing of Xuanyue Mountain paid a visit to the Sect Leader..."

Zhao Lin’s gaze sharpened. ’Why has another Daoist appeared?’

If he had seen this record before yesterday, Zhao Lin certainly would have overlooked it. But now, after learning what happened to Liang Song, seeing it again filled his mind with suspicion!

Lu Yuanxiu was the senior who had left the words on the chair in the Lotus Mountain villa. In the 32nd year of the Yanhe Era, he was already an Innate Realm Grandmaster and the Sect Leader of the Xingyun Sect.

In that same year, Lu Yuanxiu resigned as Sect Leader and began to wander the world!

’Liang Song met a Daoist before he disappeared, and so did Lu Yuanxiu... What is the origin of these Daoists?’

Zhao Lin shot to his feet and strode quickly out of the meditation chamber.