Aspiring to the Immortal Path
chapter-401-30041322

Far off in the mountains, spiritual currents surged and the world trembled. It was possible to vaguely see a mountain and river floating in the air, and a brief glimpse of a fairy. The common people were so alarmed that they kowtowed and begged for mercy.

Not far from that mountainous region, next to a lake, Mu Yi sat cross-legged on the ground and quietly waited.

Finally, the mountains stopped shaking, the spiritual currents dissipated, and the lightning vanished.

Mu Yi knew that the battle was over.

He sighed, raised his flute, and played a tune.

The sound of the flute drifted off into the distance.

A few moments later, Tang Jie arrived with Yiyi and Shi Jingzhai. He was carrying a body, that of Mad Sword Meng.

There was a hole where his heart was, but this wasn't the lethal wound. What had truly been lethal was that his meridians had been severed, his Spiritual Space destroyed, his Cognitive Sea extinguished, and his three major weak points all struck, rendering him as dead as one could possibly be.

Throwing the corpse in front of Mu Yi, Tang Jie said, "Take this back and tell your honorable sect that I've accepted their gift. The Dream Pearl Lady painting is very nice, and I like it a lot, and I suppose those bottles of life-saving salve are decent as well. However, overall, their Mustard Seed Bags had far too little, much less than I had anticipated. If they want to work with me, they should have someone send over two hundred thousand spirit coins. Don't resent me for this. You just tried to steal from me much more than I gave the Basking Moon Sect. I'm already being very sincere by offering you a two-hundred-thousand-spirit-coin silence fee. In addition, I'll treat this matter as a test, but I won't accept your sect trying anything against me a second time."

Looking at the corpse, Mu Yi finally nodded. "I will relay your message. But why is it only him? What of True Person Mei and Elder Qiu?"

Tang Jie replied, "The explosion of the Heavenbane Lightning Pearl was too thorough, leaving behind no corpse."

"'The Heavenbane Lightning Pearl'?" Mu Yi contemplated these words, and then he chuckled. "I was here for half a day, and while I perceived a mountain dropping from the heavens, blades dropping from the clouds, furious roars, crashing lightning, and even wails of despair, I didn't hear any explosion of a Heavenbane Lightning Pearl."

Tang Jie smiled. "You were rather far from the battlefield, and the cacophony of spell arts and the rumbling of thunder and mountains could have ended up as anything by the time it got here. While Junior Brother Mu has sharp eyes and ears, it isn't too strange for you to have mistaken a sound for something else."

Mu Yi considered his answer and nodded. "Senior Brother Tang is right. That being the case, I will just consider those two to have been killed by the Heavenbane Lightning Pearl. Now that I think about it, the sound of thunder might have been the explosion of the Heavenbane Lightning Pearl."

Tang Jie grinned. "Precisely, precisely."

Mu Yi stood up and bowed to Tang Jie. "My lowly sect was unobservant, playing host to lowly scoundrels who almost ruined the reputation of my Seven Absolutions Sect. Fortunately, Senior Brother Tang possessed astonishing strength and was not afraid of these scoundrels. The heavens are looking out for Senior Brother. Senior Brother is righteous and benevolent, magnanimous and forgiving, a hero among men. Mu Yi will spread the good word about Senior Brother and will make sure that Senior Brother's relationship with my lowly sect will not be affected by what these scoundrels did. As for the task that Senior Brother entrusted me with, I will do my utmost to carry it out."

Tang Jie chuckled. "That's fine. Then have a safe journey. I won't send you off."

Mu Yi picked up Mad Sword Meng's corpse, took a few steps back, gave Tang Jie a profound look, and then flew off.

Once Mu Yi was gone, Yiyi suddenly said, "It's finally over."

"What's over?" Tang Jie curiously asked.

"The matter of the teleportation formation. The formation has been set up, opening access to the hidden realm and allowing for exchange of resources. The news has also been let out, and we've fended off the Seven Absolutions Sect's petty actions," Yiyi listed, ticking them off on her fingers. "Everything is done now, so isn't it over?"

After some thought, Tang Jie smiled. "Yes, this matter is over. We no longer need to worry about resources. Starting from today, all we need to do is cultivate, cultivate, and cultivate some more!"

Yiyi clapped her hands and shouted, "Cultivate! Cultivate! Cultivate well!"

Shi Jingzhai saw that they were happy, so he giggled along with them.

The three of them flew back to Basking Moon Academy.

Half a month later, as agreed, Mu Yi sent over two hundred thousand spirit coins, and with them were a bottle of Nine Revolutions Heartseeking Pills and a bottle of Nine Revolutions Mind Nourishing Pills. Nine Revolutions pills were medicines to be used by cultivators in this period, and there were nine types for the nine organs. The Heartseeking and Mind Nourishing Pills corresponded to the heart and head.

The Seven Absolutions Sect's Nine Revolutions pills were top-class in the Rosecloud Domain. Not only did they increase one's cultivation speed, they also boosted the effect of the Nine Revolutions. The two pills the Seven Absolutions Sect had sent over were particularly valuable in the outside world, and they could be considered additional compensation. Besides that, the Seven Absolutions Sect also promised that so long as Tang Jie did not break their twenty-year agreement, the Seven Absolutions Sect was willing to refine his Heartbreak Saber to a top-grade art relic without compensation. Of course, this was also a tantalizing offer made to him for fear that Tang Jie would go back on his word.

Besides that, there was the trade for the thousand-year Whitefiend Lotus.

As the Seven Absolutions Sect had tried to seize the diagram, Tang Jie had rightfully taken away the Whitefiend Lotus, but he had also earlier said that he was willing to sell them to the Seven Absolutions Sect if he were offered the right price.

Although Tang Jie had made a lot of money, his expenses were so great that he was always short on cash. While Whitefiend Lotuses were nice, there were still fifteen in the valley, and he couldn't use all of them by himself. Thus, he should just sell what he couldn't use. The Seven Absolutions Sect was extremely wealthy, so it was the best buyer. This was exactly why Tang Jie wasn't willing to break up with them despite the fact that they had schemed against him, instead using the opportunity to extort more from them.

After negotiating the price, Tang Jie ultimately sold the Whitefiend Lotus for one hundred thousand spirit coins, seven bottles of Nine Revolutions pills, and two Heavenly Profundity Talismans.

Heavenly Profundity Talismans were one of the talismans the Seven Absolutions Sect specialized in. They were high-level art talismans like the Free Roaming Talisman, and extremely difficult to produce. Their primary use was in calculation and simulation of formations, seeking out doors and channels. They were of great assistance in both breaking formations and laying them down.

After doing this, Tang Jie spent every day in secluded cultivation.

Ever since Tang Jie had read the Violet Jade Mantra, his cultivation speed had increased. His heart was rapidly spiritualizing with each passing day, and if one used inward sight to peer into his body, one would discover that his heart had become crystalline. If this pace kept up, he would soon reach greater attainment in the heart revolution.

But Tang Jie knew that he had yet to reach the end. While his heart seemed crystalline, there were actually still many impurities that needed to be purged. Only by further tempering his heart and removing all impurities could he achieve advancement.

The gap between the six major sects and those wandering cultivators was so great because of small details like this. For every realm, every tier, and every minor threshold, everything needed to be done perfectly. This ensured that there were no lingering misfortunes and that one's path forward was smooth and open.

Long ago, Daoist Ku had once said during his lessons that the Immortal path that cultivators normally took might start wide enough to fit two carriages side by side, but as they progressed, the small blemishes would make this path narrower and narrower.

Being narrow didn't mean that one couldn't advance along it, but one would inevitably find it harder and harder to progress, and as one got through each checkpoint and encountered various obstacles, some problems would eventually crop up that had no solutions. In the end, the path would be completely stopped up.

The Basking Moon Sect was better with this, as it possessed orthodox Immortal arts, but even if one cultivated the arts of the Basking Moon Sect perfectly, that two-carriage road might shrink down to one and a half carriages. If someone was a little lacking, it might be even worse. And this theoretical perfection was basically impossible to achieve. If this was the case for the six major sects, it could only be even worse for those wandering cultivators. This was precisely why Celestial Heart was the end for the vast majority of people.

Clearing impurities was a minor threshold. Clearing out more than half of the impurities might be a matter of one or two months, but making one's heart as clean as a mirror could be a matter of years. This was like how mopping a floor so that it was clean was easy, but mopping a floor so clean that one could lick a spilled bowl of soup off it to no consequence was hard.

This was a problem that was neither too great nor too small. Doing it to the utmost might not help much, and not doing it well might not have too much of an effect, but as these small things accumulated, a problem would inevitably manifest. Of course, with the Heartseeking Pill, this problem was no longer a problem.

Cautiously puncturing a hole over his heart, Tang Jie took out a Heartseeking Pill and inserted it.

The pill scattered in the wound, merging with his blood and traveling through his meridians. Tang Jie cautiously guided the medicinal power to his heart, converting it into a tiny trickle that watered his crystalline heart.

With each powerful pulse of his heart, the medicinal power seeped into the heart and spread to every corner of it. Tang Jie could even "see" these little drops being expelled from his heart with each pulse, carrying away tiny purple-black specks.

After all the medicinal power had seeped in and been expelled, his crystalline heart appeared even brighter.

Tang Jie took out another pill and put it in.

By repeating this until the medicinal fluid no longer carried out any impurities, Tang Jie finally knew that he was done with the purging.

He looked at the time and found that only twenty hours had passed for ten pills—one pill for every two hours.

What should have taken at least a year had now taken less than a day with the Heartseeking Pills. Even Tang Jie couldn't help but feel fortunate that the Seven Absolutions Sect had tried to steal from him. Before then, he had never even imagined that he could have Heartseeking Pills to help him cultivate.

In truth, when Tang Jie had been diligently improving himself before, he had not thought about doing every step perfectly.

This was too extravagant!

At that point in time, he had been far from reaching that level of wealth.

All he could do was pick up his pace as much as he could so that he could catch up to others.

But now, his teleportation formation was complete, and he had the resources in hand, and he had also established a trading relationship with the Seven Absolutions Sect. Tang Jie realized that he could finally pursue perfection.

Fortunately, before Mortal Shedding, there hadn't been too many places that demanded detail. It was actually exactly at Nine Revolutions where every step started to matter, so he had gotten there at just the right time. This could be the arrangements of the heavens, and if that was the case, why should he pass it by?

Thinking this, Tang Jie couldn't help but smile.

A formless flame began to blaze in his heart, and that glassy heart appeared all the more gorgeous and dazzling in the light of the spiritual flames.

This was the final catalysis.

The catalysis went on for three whole days and nights.

After these three days, he achieved greater attainment in the heart revolution!