Aspiring to the Immortal Path
chapter-827

It was an unremarkable purple flower, swaying in the wind, a red fruit growing from its heart.

"A Violet Berry," Yiyi said.

Violet Berries were fruit that were rich in spiritual energy, and they could be used after a mere one hundred years. When consumed, they could refine the bones and strengthen the body. They were practical fruit, but they weren't especially rare. When cultivating the Parting Classic, Tang Jie had used a lot of them.

The problem was that this Violet Berry was still red and yet to ripen to purple. It would be another few decades until it matured.

There was a ripening fruit in a garden from High Antiquity? This was rather interesting.

And there was only this one Violet Berry in the entire garden, which meant that it hadn't descended from another one planted earlier.

Tang Jie carefully examined the fruit, and then he looked around the garden and found several other spirit plants that clearly hadn't grown long enough yet.

Tang Jie confidently said, "Someone has been here."

"Based on their ages, it should have been sixty years ago." Yiyi was better able to analyze the age of plants. After examining the plants, she confirmed, "These plants were all planted later on."

Tang Jie thoughtfully looked at the eighteen puppets. "Could it be…"

As he was thinking, a boom came from the distance.

His eyes flashing, he suddenly rushed in the direction of the sound, ignoring the garden.

As he emerged from the garden, a valley appeared before him.

This valley was also quite special. The path split off into two here, one extending into a frost-blasted and freezing area and the other extending into a scorching hot area.

In the valley of flames, waves of fire danced, and a firebird screeched high up in the air. Several people were battling with the flames, one large bearded cultivator fighting with the firebird, each punch unleashing a thunderclap like the one Tang Jie had heard earlier. But despite all that sound, the fury of the punches was quite mediocre. In the valley of ice, several people were running, led by a blue-clothed woman. She was fast and nimble, moving across that dark ice like she was flying.

However, these people were only Mortal Shedding cultivators. The ones with the highest cultivation level were the bearded man and blue-clothed woman, and they were both at the peak of Mortal Shedding, having already passed through the Three Witherings and landed only a step away from Celestial Heart. At this time, they were all charging toward the valley entrance.

This was what amazed Tang Jie the most. Considering that it was Immortal Ji Yao who had provided the coordinates for this teleportation point, he was sure that the owner of the estate had been a member of the Court of Myriad Domains. In other words, they had to at least be a Soul Projection Celestial Sovereign, and was even more likely to be an Earth Immortal.

When had the estate of an Earth Immortal been a place a group of Mortal Shedding cultivators could wander around in?

Thinking this, Tang Jie waved his sleeve and concealed his group. He wasn't an expert in concealment arts, but with his Deification cultivation, even the lowest level of stealth spell was something these Mortal Shedding cultivators couldn't see through.

Those cultivators were still running through the valleys of ice and fire.

The bearded cultivator sprinted ahead, enduring the attacks of the firebird. As the valley entrance neared, he excitedly yelled, "I, Tuoba Hong, will finally take first place!"

At this moment, the woman in blue shot forward like a bolt of lightning, catching up to the bearded man and giggling, "Senior Brother Tuoba, it's still your junior sister that will take first this time."

"Lan Yuyan, you scoundrel!" the bearded Tuoba Hong furiously said.

Just when the woman was about to exit the valley, a handsome man flew past her.

The woman in blue paled. "Senior Brother Du!"

Just when that man was about to exit the valley, he suddenly stopped at the valley edge. Turning back, he said, "Since Junior Sister wants first place, then Junior Sister can have it."

Lan Yuyan broke into a smile. "Thank you, Senior Brother!"

She ran past him.

The bearded man followed, but that man didn't show the same courtesy to him, so as a result, the bearded man ended up being third.

He emerged to see Lan Yuyan affectionately standing with that Senior Brother Du, at which he could only shake his head. "I guess no matter how good your cultivation is, you just can't beat a good face."

But he didn't indicate whose face he was talking about.

The valleys of ice and fire were rife with dangers, and everyone had used quite a lot of spiritual energy to push through. Thus, there wasn't much conversation after they were all out, everyone finding a place to sit down and meditate.

While they were resting, quite a few more cultivators emerged from the valley and started resting as well.

A while later, that Senior Brother Du took stock of the group and frowned. "Why isn't Junior Brother Yuan here yet?"

Someone chortled, "Do you even need to ask? His kind heart must have acted up again, and he went to save those weaker junior disciples."

"That's right, that's right. With Junior Brother Yuan's strength, if he went all-out, he would at least be able to get top three, if not first place. That do-gooder attitude of his must have made him help out those good-for-nothings," another person agreed.

The bearded man was very unhappy to hear this, because this was essentially saying that his third place had been undeserved. But he had remained silent, tacitly acknowledging that this Junior Brother Yuan was stronger than he was.

Senior Brother Du frowned, but he remained silent.

After a while, ice and fire suddenly began to erupt from the valley.

The cultivators gasped. "It seems like it's about to reach its limit."

Whatever this was referring to, that Senior Brother Du became very anxious, constantly peering into the valley. At this moment, a doll-faced youth ran out from the flames, carrying someone on his back.

"It's Junior Brother Yuan! He's coming out!" Everyone shouted.

Someone added, "I knew that he wouldn't be coming out alone."

But not only was that Junior Brother Yuan carrying a person, he also had to put more energy into sustaining his barrier. Just as he was about to reach the end of the valley, he swayed as if he was tired out.

Senior Brother Du paled. "Oh no! Junior Brother Yuan's about to hit his limit!"

He rushed over to the valley.

It seemed like he was going to save Junior Brother Yuan, but the hidden Tang Jie could tell that he was actually trying to head Junior Brother Yuan off, blocking his way out. Most importantly, he was using spiritual energy to blow at the flames, which only served to make them fiercer.

Openly helping while secretly hurting!

Tang Jie inwardly snorted, and with a thought, he had the waves of flame part.

The sudden parting of the flames assailing the pair greatly reduced the pressure on Junior Brother Yuan's spiritual energy, and he rushed forward, excitedly saying to the approaching Senior Brother Du, "Senior Brother Du, thank you for your help!"

Senior Brother Du was also taken aback.

He had always been wary of Junior Brother Yuan, and he wanted to use this chance to kill him in the valley. To his surprise, he had made a mess of it and failed to control the flames properly so that the waves of flame opened, helping him instead. If he had known that this was going to happen, he wouldn't have helped at all.

Despite his thought, he was all smiles, going back with Junior Brother Yuan.

Once they were out of the valley, his face darkened. "Junior Brother Yuan, it's good that you have such a kind soul, but you need to temper it with a little reality. The martial uncles using all their strength can only suppress the Valley of Fire and Ice for a limited time. But rather than using this chance to get through, you waste your time on people who are bound to not pass. Isn't this letting down your teachers? Even if you can help one person, can you help them all? Even if you can help him now, with his strength, do you really think he can get anything out of the trials ahead?"

He glared at the fellow disciple on Junior Brother Yuan's back. On the surface, he was rebuking him for being so incompetent, but secretly, he cursed that this guy wasn't more incompetent so that Junior Brother Yuan could be dragged down even more.

But Junior Brother Yuan was too young. He bowed his head to this criticism. "I know that Senior Brother only means well, but as a cultivator, I always act with compassion for all life. If I can't even lend a helping hand to the people at my side, what sort of cultivator would I be? As for this Five Origins Paradise, if I miss out on it, I miss out on it. After all, this is a free chance, and there will be another chance in forty years."

He laughed, a rather silly and cute laugh.

But Senior Brother Du was so angry that he couldn't speak. He was about to give a good scolding when another voice shouted, "Little hoodlum, what nonsense is this?"

The disciples looked up to see an old man floating in the air, seated on a small gray donkey and carrying a large wine gourd on his back.

The old man jumped down from the donkey and gave Junior Brother Yuan a rap on the head. "Yuan Chenfei, has a Heart Demon entered your brain? Doing something like this!? What 'free chance'? 'Another chance forty years from now'? What sort of place do you think the Five Origins Paradise is? An Immortal estate, with countless lucky opportunities all around, only opening once every one hundred years. That it opened early is a gift from the heavens, but you don't value it at all, saying that it's nothing and that there will be another chance in forty years. How do you know that it will open in forty years? Maybe it will be another one hundred instead. At that point, your cultivation will have long since gone past the threshold, and you won't get another chance to enter the paradise, and you'll be cursing yourself for having wasted this chance! And you almost lost your life! You want to anger your teacher to death!?"

He struck that kid called Yuan Chenfei again and again, but while his strikes seemed heavy, they were actually very light. It was clear that he cherished this boy.

Tang Jie also gathered some useful information.

It seemed that this place called the Five Origins Paradise had become the hidden realm of some sect. But this hidden realm clearly had limits on the cultivation level of the people who entered it.

This donkey-riding old man was a Heart Demon cultivator, so he guessed that those above Heart Demon couldn't enter.

Someone like Tang Jie naturally would have been denied, but the seal was on the entrance to the hidden realm, whereas Tang Jie had entered through teleportation. And perhaps it was because of Tang Jie that this paradise had opened early—since it couldn't deny him, it was trying to throw him out.

From the tone of these people, these were probably all disciples of that sect.

When Tang Jie came out of the academy, as an outstanding individual, he had just entered Nine Revolutions. But here, some random sect had disciples who were mostly at Mortal Shedding. Clearly, this Vast Wilderness World was a place of crouching tigers and hidden dragons.