My Journey to Immortality Begins with Hunting

The next day.

The rain finally stopped, though the sky stayed the colour of lead.

After a hot breakfast cooked by Xue Ning, Li Yuan left the manor and crossed over to a barren plain in the far distance.

Stabilising Mortal World Transformation had shown him something new. He no longer needed White Serpent to break through into fourth rank. Now it was time to put that theory to test.

Certain no one was near, Li Yuan rose into the air. His muscles and blood surged like water lifted from floodgate, drawing fire to blaze around his heart.

"Sure enough, I'm fourth rank now…" He muttered, feeling the power flowing within him. "Next step, merge Dragon's Breath into my domain."

HUMM!A sphere over 100 meters wide shuddered into existence around him, the air itself shredding.

With a thought he dispersed it. Then, in the space of a blink, scarlet flames flooded the same radius, his normal flame made manifest.

Li Yuan drew Azure Serpent. A tremor ran through his palm, and Dragon Breath condensed along the edge in a single sinuous line of incandescent power.

The annihilating power gathered inside Azure Serpent was eerily quiet. But the moment it so much as brushed another object, it would erupt into a searing crimson blast.

"One breath," Li Yuan whispered.

He tried merging that power out into his domain.

A deep red sphere peeled from the blade and began to hover in a forced, uneasy equilibrium. The energy was far too savage to compress into the usual crescent of blade qi, so it simply bulged against the limits of acircle, the one shape barely stable enough to hold it.

A beat later it blew apart, blazing across the sky like a small sun. Everything within a kilometer and a half went up in flames.

Fortunately Li Yuan had chosen a barren plain; anywhere else would now be an inferno.

"No good. The moment Dragon's Breath reaches the scale of a domain, I lose control. I can't even hold it for a single breath."

With another thought, 81 crescent blades winked into existence around him. He flicked his wrist; about two kilometers away. a monkey perched atop a tree suddenly found the fur on its head shaved perfectly smooth.

The monkey froze, squealed in terror, and bolted.

Li Yuan made another casual sweep.

BOOM!Halfway up a distant mountain, the rock face caved in as though a monster had taken a single bite. The peak unscathed, base untouched, only the mid-slope was gouged clean away. The monkey took one look and fled for its life.

Li Yuan dispersed the blade qi and drifted to the ground.

"My control over blade qi is now more precise than a surgeon's scalpel. No stray cuts. But the Dragon's Breath inside my domain refuses to compress into blade qi."

Clenching the hilt of Azure Serpent, he muttered, "Well, Again."

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Half a year passed in the blink of an eye, and Cloudpeak Province was deep into winter.

Li Yuan strolled the covered corridors of Dawn Manor. He had even gone west to the frozen tundra in hopes the cold might tame his Dragon's Breath Blade Domain. Each attempt resulted in utter, absolute failure. He didn't make a hair of progress.

Still, those failures had pinned down the real problem. His grasp of thedomainitself was too shallow. He had never truly stepped into fourth rank; every domain he'd use was a temporary forceful breakthrough.

To weave that flimsy footing into the Nine by Nine Formless Blades was already a miracle.

A Dragon's Breath Blade Domain demanded something finer, steadier. It required astabledomain, not a flash-in-the-pan.

"I need to make another breakthrough," Li Yuan concluded.

He recalled the previous bottlenecks he'd been stuck at. For fifth rank, he had to wait for the seeds he'd planted to mature. For sixth rank, it was figuring out the mysteries of the life chronicle. Even first starting out, he had to scramble to join the Blood Blade Sect just to get his hands on a cultivation technique.

Now at the peak of fifth rank, Li Yuan had wrung out every last drop of power from his cultivation realm. What he needed now was to hone it in battle. For breaking through into fourth rank, nothing could beat real world combat. Sparring with weaklings wouldn't cut it; he had to cross blades with foes who truly aimed for his life.

The problem was he never relished slaughter for the sake of slaughter. Sure, he could pick a side between the Five Elements Alliance and Lotus Cult, then rack up kills that way. But that came with its own set of problems. He'd already escaped that quagmire of politics before. He had no desire to dive right back in again.

After a long silence, Li Yuan muttered, "Maybe I'll harvest some more seeds first. After all these years, there should be more ripening about now."

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North of Gemhill County, on the outskirts of Silver Creek, sunlight danced on the water.

The Bladeseekers compound rose behind the bank, gilded and resplendent, sprawling like a crouched golden lion.

Over the years, it had expanded again and again; within its walls stood teahouses, clothing shops, and even pleasure pavilions.

An entire miniature township had cropped up.

Crowds thronged the avenues, the air thick with martial fervor. People swirled like a river, horses clattered like dragons, but every conversation was blade forms and inner strength, never mundane haggling.

"Tomorrow I finally get to view the Young Master Riding the Deer scroll," one man said, eyes alight."Congratulations, Brother Gu! Shall we celebrate at Drunken-Dream Pavilion tonight?""I'll toast you after my visualization session. If enlightenment strikes, we'll drink twice as hard! Haha!"…

"No matter how I swing this blade, it never feels right. I'm missing real combat—that's why I'm here to spar with you, Brother Hou.""You flatter me, Brother Wang. I was itching for a bout myself. After you.""After you."…

"They say our blade lineage came from a blade Immortal who lives in some secret corner of the Eastern Sea.""I know, I know. You mean the Phoenix Lord Immortal Land, right?""Right. The Ruling Blade, Phantom Blade, and Final Blade…each blade is exquisite. Heaven knows which one I'll awaken.""Whichever it is, people will die of envy.""Then I'd better train till I drop and leave the rest to fate."…

"Brother Cao, looks like the Ruling Blade suits me. From here on, you and I may walk different roads.""Still the same stick-in-the-mud, I see. I lean toward the Phantom Blade, but—""Righteous and wicked cannot share the way. Let our paths part here."…

All sorts of conversations overlapped within the streets of The Bladeseekers headquarters. It had really turned into a miniature jianghu.

Of course, this was all by design.

The Lotus Cult and Emperor had gathered young talent and dangled resources as prizes; the greater the competition, the richer the harvest.

Only two people knew the truth, Zhao Chunxin and Yang Teng.

Because these two were the only known cases of disciples who had recovered their sanity after breaking through to sixth rank, they had been showered with high quality demonic beast meat, pills, and skill manuals. These resources allowed them to rapidly advance.

After all, both the Lotus Cult and Emperor were curious to see what this mysterious martial cultivation technique would look like at fifth rank.

A total of 14 years had gone by in the blink of an eye. The two now stood at the very peak of sixth rank, one step from the threshold.

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Zhao Chunxin strolled through the streets. The scar that ragged from the corner of her lips to her cheek like a crooked centipede only sharpened the fierceness in her eyes. Every muscle under her clothes jumped like hammered iron.

Disciples bowed left and right, murmuring greetings, but her thoughts were miles away.

Who dragged Yang Teng and me out of that madness? Why are we the only ones who regained our sanity?

Soon, she approached the main gate of the compound.

A Lotus Cult disciple saluted from the watch-tower. "Off to pay your respects again, Instructor?"

"Big battle coming," she rumbled. "Need some quiet first."

They opened the gate doors and fetched her a horse. Only she and Yang Teng had the right to leave.

A long ride took her west of the old Hundred Lotus Manor, now a distillery. Spring rain had left the gravestone damp.

「Tomb of Beloved Master Li Yu.-Erected by Li Yuan.」

Zhao Chunxin ran a calloused finger over the chiselled strokes, stared a moment, then uncorked a jug of Springdream Brew and poured it over the stone. It was Senior Li's favourite drink and brewed by a man who had become a deeper mystery with every passing year.

Once her junior brother; later her teacher. The Blood Blade Patriarch, the weaponsmith who forged the demon sword Sun And Moon Aloft, a figure entwined with the very art that fueled The Bladeseekers.

Who was he, really? And is he…truly gone? Just like that?