A Loose Cultivator's Path to Longevity

Lü Zhong racked his brain, but for the moment, couldn’t think of a good application for it.

Fortunately, Lü Zhong wasn’t counting on it much anyway. What he truly cared about was whether the idea of using a collapsing Singularity to exile an enemy into the Void was actually feasible.

To that end, he prepared to conduct an experiment.

Lü Zhong took out a blank Incarnation and inserted a blank soul split into it.

Then, he began Casting. He quickly constructed a Singularity, but due to incorrect positioning, it collapsed the instant it appeared. There was no way to sustain it, and it rapidly expanded into a black hole.

An immense suction force was generated, instantly pulling the Incarnation inside.

After taking control of the Incarnation, he found that he had indeed arrived in the Void.

”It really works!” Lü Zhong exclaimed in delight.

Just as the ancient texts described, the Void was a swirl of vibrant colors, filled with numerous spatial storms. These storms would shred everything in their path, leaving only a few small safe zones.

After observing for a moment with curiosity, Lü Zhong had no intention of exploring.

According to the ancient texts, the Void outside the Qinghe Realm was the territory of Celestial Demons.

An Incarnation with no self-preservation capabilities was like a sheep in a tiger’s den here. The loss of an Incarnation was nothing to him—just a few million Spirit Stones. The main concern was that the abilities of Celestial Demons were bizarre and unpredictable. There was no guarantee they didn’t have a way to affect his true self through the Incarnation.

So, he simply had the Incarnation self-destruct.

When his consciousness returned to his true body, Lü Zhong could hardly contain his excitement. He thought to himself, ’The ability to banish an enemy to the Void... I’ll just call it the Void Exile Technique!’

Just like that, he had another trump card up his sleeve.

In the future, if he encountered a particularly tenacious enemy, he might be able to use this to eliminate them, or at the very least, banish them to the Void.

The only drawback, presumably, was that he would get far less loot.

Furthermore, if he were to ever face a Divinity Transformation cultivator, this might be his only chance of survival.

...

Time continued to flow.

Spring came and went, flowers bloomed and withered.

In the blink of an eye, another five years had passed.

After mastering his new Divine Technique, Lü Zhong shifted his focus back to his cultivation.

Now that he was in the Late-stage Nascent Soul realm, his need for Pills had increased once again. Even the Six Yang Sandalwood True Pill could no longer keep up with his progress, preventing him from maximizing the speed of his cultivation.

He needed a new Pill suitable for the Late-stage Nascent Soul realm.

Lü Zhong had no easy solution for this problem.

He was, after all, self-made, unlike the Immortal Sects with their profound heritage.

There were only two possible solutions.

One was to trade with the Gui Miao Immortal Sect for a usable Pill Formula, as he had done before.

Lü Zhong estimated this path was most likely a dead end.

A formula for the Mid-stage Nascent Soul realm was one thing. However, leaking a Pill Formula for the Late-stage Nascent Soul realm—especially a special one that didn’t require Heaven and Earth Spiritual Medicine—was tantamount to arming an enemy. For an Immortal Sect, whose status depended on such advantages, it was unthinkable.

A while ago, when the Gui Miao Sect was busy fighting the death tide, a trade might have been possible. But now, according to reports from the Incarnation he’d sent to Central Earth, the Gui Miao Sect had already achieved a preliminary victory in its defensive war.

Once they finished clearing out the Soulless and Ghost Cultivators within their borders, the disaster would be resolved.

This shift was particularly evident in the trade of goods and materials.

The Daoist Sects had already slowed their procurement rates six months prior, leading to a market glut for certain materials, which was followed by a crash. As a result, some clans and Sects found themselves insolvent and went bankrupt.

Reining in his wandering thoughts, Lü Zhong felt his only remaining hope lay with the Spiritual Energy Conversion Technology.

’Unfortunately, over in the Western Border Alliance, despite a massive investment of resources, there’s still no technological breakthrough in sight. The population has grown substantially, and I even had them restructure their society to specialize in research, but it’s all been for naught. For now, all they’ve managed are minor improvements on the existing foundation.’

Lü Zhong sighed at the thought.

The path of cultivation was arduous; taking even one more step forward was no easy feat.

Even though he had blazed his own trail—solving his resource problem by using his Sect to control resource-rich lands and wielding the Creation Secret Array technology—there were still countless hurdles ahead.

Sometimes, Lü Zhong truly wished he were an Immortal Sect cultivator.

With the great tree of an Immortal Sect providing shade, all one had to do was climb. The difficulty was still immense, of course—the backstabbing and power struggles were no simple matter—but it was still better than forging a path alone through thorns and brambles.

After meditating for a while, Lü Zhong composed himself.

Now that he had achieved initial success with the Sleeve Universe Technique, continuing to the Second Layer wasn’t realistic. It would require constructing seventy-two auxiliary nodes based on the First Layer’s Singularity.

With his current computational ability, cultivating the Second Layer of the Sleeve Universe Technique would likely take a thousand years.

The reward wasn’t proportional to the effort required.

After careful consideration, Lü Zhong decided to abandon the idea.

After some thought, he decided to change his main focus and complete the restoration of his Spirit Root first. Achieving Five Elements Unification early would admittedly hinder his cultivation progress, but it was currently his best option.

The process of nurturing an Acquired Spirit Root...

...relied on a ”Singularity”—also called a Source Root in the Heaven-Mending Mantra. Using this Source Root as a foundation, one would then use a special Technique to shape Magical Power and provide a constant supply of nourishing Heaven-Mending Liquid. This would allow the Source Root to continuously ”grow” until it finally transformed into an Acquired Spirit Root.

Only by understanding the process in depth could one appreciate how truly heaven-defying it was.

’If I can master this principle,’ Lü Zhong couldn’t help but wonder, ’I could probably cultivate artificial Spirit Roots, couldn’t I?’