My Journey to Immortality Begins with Hunting

Li Yuan did not head straight for Gemhill County. First he visited the black market ghost domain.

A crimson and black mist formed a neat border in mid-air, Yin and Yang in perfect contrast. On one side sat Yan Yu in her blue robe; opposite her, Li Yuan in dark robes. She dragged over a chair steeped in gloomy Yin energy; he chose a boulder shot through with milky-white veins.

This stone appeared to be a local ghost domain oddity, like strange flowers thriving beside a florist's door.

Husband and wife could not touch across the membrane, yet they chatted like newlyweds.

However, Li Yuan suddenly narrowed his eyes mid conversation.

Behind Yan Yu, deep in the gloom of the ghostly black market, waddled a grotesque stranger. It was a corpse swollen into a human meatball, skin puckered with purple blotches. The thing bent under a slab of stone strapped to its back, shackled ankles dragging an iron ball that clanged across the ground with every step.

Li Yuan fell silent, watching the nightmare inch closer. And the darkness behind it seemed to breathe.

A little farther off, Li Yuan noticed something new, a pond he'd never seen before. A closer look turned his stomach. Thewaterwas all blood.

"Yan Yu," he blurted, "did you recruit two more ghosts?"

"Yup!" Yan Yu beamed. "You're working so hard yourself. How could I possibly slack off? Come, let me introduce them."

She clapped. The first apparition waddled over, the corpse so bloated it looked like a flesh-colored boulder, with sightless sockets like melted wax.

"This is the stone bearing ghost," Yan Yu explained. "It teaches you not to waste food. If you eat in its territory and toss away even a scrap, the rule is triggered. It will hunt you down, set its stone on your back, and let the weight crush you inch by inch."

Next she crooked a finger. From the blood pool, a skinned cadaver slithered out, leaving a crimson smear as it crawled to her feet.

Li Yuan's scalp prickled.

"This one's the blood pool ghost, a champion of filial piety," she said, patting its bald skull. "Strike your parents or curse them inside its range and it drags you under. Simple."

Li Yuan stared, speechless. At last he understood that Yan Yu didn't collect ghosts at random. Every specter she chose embodied somemoral code.

Inside her ghost domain, a person survived only by being a morally upright poster child. Lie? Dead. Waste food? Dead. Hit your mother? Double dead.

He also recalled the lie detector ghost that Yan Yu had previously recruited. If a major power were to operate here, wouldn't everyone activate her ghost domain's killing grudge? After all, who didn't tell a white lie here and there these days?

As for that stone bearing ghost and blood pool ghost, they'd be a killing machine for nobles and toddlers alike.

Seeing the horrified look on his face, Yan Yu laughed. "What, scared?"

"Terrified, actually," he admitted.

She grew wistful. "But if my ghost domain spreads far and wide someday, wouldn't we create a wonderful world?"

He rubbed his temples. "More like a world where everyone tiptoes in panic."

"But if all the bad people are gone, isn't that wonderful?"

"You're walking an awfully sharp edge," he sighed. "A lie might be kindness, wasted food might be a fussy child, quarrels with parents can heal by morning. To err is to die, never allowing a second chance…that isn't paradise, it's hell."

Yan Yu opened her mouth, hesitated, then nodded slowly. "Maybe I've let the ghosts' instincts seep in. Merging two more at once was…a bit much. I'll need to adjust." She waved him off. "Go on, Husband. I'll have Sheng'er drop by and check on me."

Li Yuan switched topics. "Yan Yu, are you up to the level of the Exotic Beast Park yet?"

She shook her head. "That place layers power in ways I can't match for now…"

From her sleeve she produced a corpse-white box. "A fresh souvenir for you."

Whitewood Casket…Li Yuan read out the item name.That doesn't tell me much.

"It's a blend of the ice coffin ghost and the lie detector ghost," she said. "Collect a lock of your target's hair, place it inside, ask your question, and the target themselves will answer truthfully. The stronger they are, the shorter the conversation; the hair burns while you talk, and when it's ash the link snaps. One-time use, I'm afraid."

Li Yuan turned the casket over in his hands, mind racing. Ghost items kept rewriting the possible. If Yan Yu could build this, others surely could too. He'd already seen thesoupthat mimicked the human-skin manacles.

A sudden, practical thought struck him. Maybe he could persuade Xue Ning to burn every strand of his hair. Better yet, shave himself bald before someone decided his locks were the key to inconvenient truths.

"Yan Yu, could you make me a few more of those caskets? Your husband roams a lot. One won't last me long."

"All right, all right," she chuckled. "I only finished the first one yesterday."

Li Yuan slipped the whitewood casket into his sleeve, then straightened. "Let me show you a new trick in return."

"By all means." Yan Yu's eyes sparkled.

He stood still. A breath later his body began to ripple. Old men and young girls, fat scholars, lean ruffians, killers with wolfish glares, pale waifs with tear-bright eyes, heroes, fools, saints, scoundrels, even a face so handsome it hurt to look at. A hundred human masks flashed across his bones before he returned to himself.

Yan Yu blinked. "Impressive, though a few need polishing. Just now you turned into a thug, but his eyes were that of a pure scholar."

"Then I'll keep practicing," Li Yuan laughed. "Tell me, could you sense anything odd? Could you tell I'd changed?"

That was why he'd come. He needed a heavyweight like Yan Yu to test whether Mortal World Transformation could fool real powerhouses.

Yan Yu weighed his aura. "It's different from ghost makeup. Ghost makeup leaks Yin energy, but what you showed was pure Yang, exactly what a high ranking martial artist carries. No red flags."

Perfect.Li Yuan exhaled, feeling as if someone had stamped an approval across his heart.

He lingered another half a month. Yan Yu worked day and night and handed him three more whitewood caskets.

Only then did he set out.

Li Yuan tugged the thousand-mile thread, but it failed. That could only mean one thing. The anchor on the other end, the blacksmith who'd set up shop in his old home in Little Ink Village, was already dead.

No soul, no connection.

Li Yuan sighed. He always picked steady targets, yet fate was fickle.

He would have to fly over to Gemhill County the hard way. This time, he planned to bind the thread to someonecertainto stay alive.

After some thought, Li Yuan decided on Zhao Chunxin. Since regaining her sanity, she'd remained as an instructor at The Bladeseekers; few lives were steadier than hers. Now that he had Mortal World Transformation, slipping in should be easy.

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One month later.

Deep in the mountains west of Gemhill County, three figures stood in a triangle.

The first was Zhao Chunxin, the muscle-bound woman carrying an executioner's blade over her shoulder. The second was Yang Teng, standing straight with a long blade in hand. The third was an odd fox-eyed man, gripping a razor-thin blade.

All three bowed.

Yang Teng spoke first. "The Lotus Cult teaches that to step into fifth rank, one must duel peers on different paths and comprehend their ancestral seal seeds. The three of us who study the Final Blade, Ruling Blade, and Phantom Blade respectively are perfectly matched. Winner breaks through; losers recover for a year, then try again."

The fox-eyed man's smile curdled into pain. "You two don't know what it's like for me. When night falls I have to chain myself up. I'm losing my mind! If I reach fifth rank, I might be free, so I won't let you stop me!"

He flung back his head and howled, lunging at Zhao Chunxin. "Yang Teng, she's the strongest. Help me!"

"A bout among disciples should be fair." Yang Teng merely clasped his hands behind his back. He watched while the other two clashed, intending to face the survivor after they rested.

At first the plan held, then the heat of combat swallowed reason and all three plunged into a true melee.

They fought ten days and ten nights.

At dawn on the eleventh day, first light spilled into the valley. From the shattered forest strode a broad-shouldered woman with an executioner's blade across her back, her scarred face wet with dew and triumph.

Zhao Chunxin was the first to break through into fifth rank.