1: Chapter 1 The Li Family

Tianxuan Prefecture, Huangfeng Prefecture

In the southeast direction of Huangfeng Prefecture, there was a Cultivation Family famous for Talisman Making—the Anping County Li Family.

Nine hundred years ago, the first-generation Old Ancestor of the Li Family, Ancestor Li Anping, followed the Tianxuan Sect to expand territory into the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Range with a cultivation base at the Foundation Establishment Stage Peak. After the war, relying on his contributions, he exchanged for this land in Anping County, which had a total area of about 98,000 square kilometers, and settled down there from then on.

After nearly nine hundred years of diligent development, the current Anping County Li Family had three Foundation Establishment Cultivators, two hundred and eighty-five Qi Refinement Stage Cultivators, and the number of Mortals with the Li Family Bloodline had exceeded 1.8 million.

As the first light of dawn appeared, a bright pearl circled in the sky, and golden radiance poured down. The mountain Peaks were permeated with rosy clouds, and translucent milky-white mist filled the valleys, rising and falling with the terrain like a living thing, sometimes gathering into whirlpools, and sometimes dispersing into drifting clouds.

In the morning sun, translucent Spiritual Plants could be vaguely seen swaying, with dewdrops condensed on their leaves. Each dewdrop reflected a miniature star map, and when touched, it would ripple with Spiritual Qi fluctuations.

On the mountain Peak, rows of pavilions stood majestically. At the entrance, a huge plaque hung in mid-air, inscribed with two large characters that looked like silver hooks and iron strokes—"Li Mansion". From afar, they looked like a raging storm, written with effortless ease; up close, they possessed the momentum of a thunderbolt, completed in one breath.

The patterns on the carved beams and painted pillars were exceptionally clear amidst the interplay of light and shadow, as if they had frozen a thousand years of time, with pavilions and towers arranged in a well-ordered manner.

Shifting the gaze, moving steps to change the scenery, on a certain mountain Peak, a cyan pavilion came into view. In front of the pavilion lay a quiet pond, with water lilies floating on the surface and weeping willows by the pond, their branches swaying gently in the morning breeze.

At this moment, in a secret room of this pavilion, a young man opened his eyes, let out a long breath, and slowly whispered: "A month has passed, and this treasure has finally been successfully refined."

The young man was named Li Changqing. He was thirty-one years old this year, had a four-inch Spiritual Root, and his cultivation was at the Qi Refining Stage 6. He was a native member of the Li Family and ranked ninth among the Li Family's 'Chang' generation.

This Cultivation World was called the Tianyun Realm. The Tianyun Realm was vast and boundless. In this vast Cultivation World, living beings were like dust, and Lifespans were like morning dew.

However, even if as small as a mustard seed, one could still harbor the Universe in their heart. In order to break through their cultivation and pursue immortality, ambitious people challenged the Heavenly Dao with Mortal bodies and sought to glimpse the Dao with humble aspirations.

The Cultivation Realms were divided into several major Realms such as Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, and Soul Transformation. The Qi Refinement Stage was divided into layers one to ten. After Foundation Establishment, each major Realm was divided into four minor Realms: Early Stage, Middle Stage, Late Stage, and Peak.

If there were no natural or man-made disasters, long-lived Mortals could live for two sixty-year cycles. Although Qi Refining Cultivators were only at the starting point of the path of cultivation, they could increase their Lifespan by half a sixty-year cycle, living up to one hundred and fifty years. Foundation Establishment Stage Cultivators could live for three hundred years, and Golden Core Stage Cultivators were known as having 'minor immortality' and could obtain a Lifespan of eight hundred years.

For a Mortal to embark on the path of cultivation, they must possess a Spiritual Root, but the probability of having a Spiritual Root in the Mortal Bloodline was one in ten thousand.

In the Tianyun Realm, the grade of a Cultivator's Spiritual Root was determined by its length. The longest Spiritual Root was nine inches, and the shortest was one inch. The length of the Spiritual Root determined the speed at which a Cultivator absorbed Spiritual Qi; the longer the Spiritual Root, the faster the absorption speed, and conversely, the shorter the Spiritual Root, the slower the absorption speed.

Usually, it was very difficult for those with one-inch or two-inch Spiritual Roots to Cultivate to the Qi Refining Stage 10 before the age of eighty without a great Opportunity. Mortals began to suffer from insufficient Qi and blood after the age of sixty, and Qi Refining Cultivators generally began to see their physical functions decline after the age of eighty. Breaking through to Foundation Establishment would then be as difficult as ascending to heaven, unless one had a Heaven-Defying spiritual item to cleanse the marrow and refine the bones.

...

One month ago, when Li Changqing was searching for a Spiritual Plant in an extremely remote area on the periphery of the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Range, he saw a white light descend from the sky and land several hundred zhang in front of him.

After observing for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, he slowly approached and discovered it was a man wearing strange clothing. Upon checking, he found that this person no longer had any breath and possessed no cultivation base, which made him feel very strange.

However, he could not see through the cyan bottle and the millstone-shaped item that this person was carrying at all. The man was also holding an unknown red Talisman in his hand, which only had a trace of energy fluctuation remaining. Just as he reached out to touch the Talisman, a Divine Soul suddenly intruded into his Sea of Consciousness.

Fortunately, this Divine Soul was extremely weak, only slightly stronger than an ordinary Mortal, and it was absorbed and refined by him before long.

After absorbing most of the memories of this outlander named Zhang Lijian, Li Changqing was surprised that this man actually had the Opportunity to enter the Cultivation World from an ordinary foreign world.

In Zhang Lijian's memories, there were several particularly clear scenes. Due to the continuous progress of technology, the civilization on Tianlan Star, where Zhang Lijian lived, had reached what scientists from all countries unanimously considered a Level 1 civilization.

Just as various countries were immersed in joy, a sudden disaster descended. The world began to slowly grow larger. Under the erosion of a special energy, most humans gradually turned into zombies, animals and plants began to evolve crazily, and various natural disasters arrived. Under these circumstances, some ruins that did not belong to the Tianlan Star civilization began to slowly appear, and humans on Tianlan Star also began their path of evolution.

Zhang Lijian survived in the apocalypse for five years before successfully breaking the potential lock and becoming a Tier 1 Evolver. More than a month ago, he was chased by others and, by chance, escaped into an unexplored ruin, where he luckily obtained three treasures.

Unfortunately, after Zhang Lijian left the ruins, he exhausted all methods to figure out the function of these three treasures. He had no choice but to try the method of dripping blood to recognize the owner, as he had seen in a cultivation novel where the protagonist did the same. When blood was dripped onto the cyan bottle and the black millstone, neither of them had any reaction.

Unwilling to give up, he cut his hand again with a knife, squeezed out blood, and dripped it onto the remaining red Talisman. Just as he was secretly anticipating, the red Talisman instantly brought him and the cyan bottle and millstone at his waist to the periphery of the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Range in the foreign world where Li Changqing was.

Regarding this person from a foreign world, Li Changqing felt no sympathy or regret. He only sighed that the Talisman capable of crossing worlds no longer had any effect. To be able to bring a human, who was not even as strong as a Qi Refining Stage 1 Cultivator, across an unknown distance to break through the world boundary, and still preserve their Divine Soul without dissipating—what a Heaven-Defying treasure this was.

At this moment, the cyan bottle had already been refined by him and was standing upright in his Sea of Consciousness. This bottle was called the creation bottle! It could automatically absorb the essence of the sun and moon, and every three years, it could condense one drop of creation immortal liquid.

The effect of the creation immortal liquid was that it could allow all living things to break through their original innate Bottleneck, transforming them upwards by one level in all aspects, including Physique, Soul, and wisdom.

For example, it could allow ordinary beasts to turn into Yao Beasts, and it could also allow Yao Beasts to break through their Bloodline shackles, but any living thing would only be affected by the first time it was consumed.

As for the other black millstone, no matter how much Spiritual Qi Li Changqing injected into it, there was no reaction. He could only keep it in his Storage Pouch and try again after his cultivation improved.

Li Changqing did not intend to disclose even a hint of this encounter to anyone. The principle that "possessing a treasure is a crime" was even more cruel in the Cultivation World.

With a movement of his Divine Thought, the creation bottle appeared out of thin air in front of Li Changqing from his Sea of Consciousness. He supported the bottom of the bottle with his right hand and looked into it. Three drops of milky-white liquid appeared in his eyes, looking pure and flawless, containing a thick aura of life, as if they could nourish all things.

The creation bottle could store at most three drops of creation immortal liquid. These three drops were left over from past years. Li Changqing had already planned to keep an eye out for treasures that could store rare spiritual liquids in the future.