An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

Two days later, a man and a woman were flying side by side through the hazy morning mist.

”Senior Brother Luo, where are we going?”

”You’ll know when we get there. Don’t worry. I’m not taking you anywhere dangerous.”

Fu Qinglan laughed softly. ”I’m not worried about that.”

”There is something I need you to do, though.”

”What is it?”

”When the time comes, I need you to keep watch over a formation for me. Don’t let anyone interfere with it. And if something does happen to it, make sure you warn me before I enter it. I don’t want to walk in without knowing something has gone wrong.”

”What kind of formation is so important?”

”Let’s go to Three-Rainbow Falls first. I haven’t settled on the exact plan yet.”

With that, they left the matter there and continued through the mist.

Finally, after flying for an entire day and night, the two finally stopped on a mountain. They were not at their destination just yet, but Fu Qinglan could already make out brilliant arcs of color glowing around a great waterfall in the distance. She studied it for a moment but was a little confused about why he had brought her all this way only to stop here.

Three-Rainbow Falls were not exactly a landmark of the Mirage Dragon Pocket World, and Fu Qinglan had no idea what or where they were. That said, there was no map of this world at all. The pocket world opened only once every 500 years, and that was more than enough time for the entire landscape to change out of recognition, due to the destructive illusory beasts roaming throughout it. Because of this, even the great families that had sent cultivators into the grand competition for generations knew little about its geography. Some even believed the pocket world’s landscape shifted according to the lingering instincts of the Mirage Dragon’s dead body rather than any natural pattern.

As for Three-Rainbow Falls, it was simply a name that Luo Chen had given the place when he passed through the area years ago. There was no telling whether the waterfall had even existed 500 years back. That said, Luo Chen’s naming sense was pretty good, so Fu Qinglan could easily guess that the distant waterfall was the one he was talking about.

There, a rush of water poured down the mountain and broke into three broad cascades where the slope angle changed. Each stream swept down the rock like a scarf of white silk, and wherever the sunlight struck the drifting spray, a rainbow shimmered over the water. From a distance, the sight was breathtaking.

Suddenly, Luo Chen spoke up. ”You’ve spent twenty years cultivating with illusory cores. You should know what spiritual vitality feels like by now. Release your Nascent Soul and see what you can sense around here.”

Fu Qinglan did as he said. A tiny female infant with fair skin and delicate limbs emerged from above her head and floated into the air. Doing such a thing in the outside world would have been recklessly bold, and even inside the pocket world, openly letting it out in front of another cultivator was hardly something anyone would do lightly. Yet the person beside her was Luo Chen, and she had no such wariness toward him at all.

After sensing her surroundings for a moment, she withdrew her Nascent Soul, and a look of surprise crossed her face. ”There’s so much spiritual vitality over there. Could it be a powerful fourth-tier illusory beast?”

There was simply too much of it. Even from such a distance, she could sense it clearly.

Luo Chen smiled and shook his head. ”No matter how strong a fourth-tier illusory beast is, its spiritual vitality stays inside its core. It wouldn’t be spilling out like this. Think again.”

Fu Qinglan rolled her eyes at him. ”Can’t you just tell me? Why make me guess?”

Despite the complaint, she gave the question some thought, and her expression soon changed. ”Wait... Is someone over there comprehending the Laws?”

”Correct!” Luo Chen nodded, though the smile on his face slowly faded. ”You’ve always been the one cultivating, so you probably never noticed. But I’ve been watching from the side all these years. Every time you refine an illusory core, spiritual vitality gathers around you and only disappears once the core is completely exhausted.”

Fu Qinglan understood his point, but something else he had said caught her attention. ”You can see spiritual vitality?”

Luo Chen ignored the question and continued, ”But one or two illusory cores couldn’t possibly produce this much. For spiritual vitality to gather here so strongly, the person inside must have entered a state of enlightenment and started drawing even more from the surroundings.”

Fu Qinglan’s expression changed as the implications sank in. Spiritual vitality existed throughout the world, yet it was so hard to perceive that even high-tier cultivators could barely sense it, let alone gather enough to cultivate with. Typically, only something as extraordinary as enlightenment or Ascension could draw so much of it into one place.

Yet within this pocket world, spiritual vitality had somehow been condensed into the so-called illusory cores, allowing people like Fu Qinglan to absorb and refine it directly. That alone should have been astonishing enough. But now, someone had gone a step further by drawing more directly from heaven and earth. Whoever it was could only be one of the True Inheritors. More importantly, if that person emerged from enlightenment after grasping their root power, the grand competition would be all but decided. As for who that was...

”The person inside is Gu Daosu, Go Master Daoyin’s younger brother.”

Luo Chen had discovered Gu Daosu’s presence here years ago, though not by noticing the man himself. As he had just said, whenever a cultivator refined illusory cores, traces of spiritual vitality gathered around them. Those traces were so faint that most cultivators could barely sense them, and even he needed to channel origin energy into his Spirit Eyes to see them clearly.

The illusory beasts of this world were far more sensitive to spiritual vitality. If a cultivator remained in seclusion refining illusory cores for too long, the accumulated vitality could easily attract powerful beasts. That was the first reason each True Inheritor entered the pocket world with a Dao Protector. After all, while they were in search of the Laws, someone had to keep those beasts away.

Luo Chen had encountered exactly that situation while Fu Qinglan was cultivating in the valley. A fourth-tier diving beetle had been drawn to her and tried to attack, only for him to intercept it before it could disturb her. Naturally, he had no intention of letting a fourth-tier illusory beast that had practically delivered itself to his doorstep escape. Unfortunately, the diving beetle was incredibly fast, and it managed to get away when he let his guard down for just a moment.

He had chased it all the way to Three-Rainbow Falls, but before he could catch it, a beautiful woman appeared and killed it. Luo Chen recognized her as Gu Daosu’s Dao Protector, so it was easy enough to infer that the man was cultivating somewhere nearby. From the spiritual vitality gathering around this place, Luo Chen had been able to tell that his progress was remarkably fast, even ahead of Fu Qinglan’s.

At the time, he had not thought much of it because Fu Qinglan was still in seclusion, and protecting her naturally took priority over anything else. Now, however, circumstances had changed. A few other possibilities had occurred to him, and with his current strength, he finally had the confidence to act on them.

Fu Qinglan nodded slowly as everything fell into place. ”So it’s Senior Brother Gu. No wonder. He’s talented enough to begin with, and his elder brother even won a Woodrot Black Go Stone for him in the Peach Garden. With that protecting his divine soul, he doesn’t have to worry as much about losing himself while searching the sea of primal qi for his root power. It’s not surprising that he’s progressing faster than we are.”

So the black Go stone can do that too? Luo Chen was a little surprised by Fu Qinglan’s explanation, but his hands never stopped moving. As he did so, one material after another emerged from his storage ring and was laid out before him.

Fu Qinglan crouched beside him and watched with curiosity as she recognized each one. Profound Link Celestial Crystal, Crimson Flame Sand, Spirit-Gathering Wood...

When Luo Chen reached the final material, however, he paused briefly before taking it out. A transparent crystal appeared in his palm, its interior gleaming with light.

She fixed her gaze on it. ”Is that a Void Prism Crystal?”

Luo Chen held the crystal in his hand. ”You know this?”

”Of course.” Fu Qinglan nodded. ”It’s an extremely rare space-attribute material. There’s a space inside it, and it can be expanded quite easily, so it’s usually used to make storage artifacts. Most people only use it for enchanted treasures, though. Using something this valuable to make a mere enchanted artifact would be far too wasteful. My sect has actually collected quite a few of them, but they’re mainly kept for building teleportation formations.”

Quite a few? Luo Chen was surprised at first, but after thinking about it, he realized there was nothing strange about that.

The Dao Sect had built teleportation formations not only on Star Island but also across several islands controlled by the Heaven Origin Trade Alliance in the Northern Sea. If they could maintain a network on that scale, it was only normal that they would possess many Void Prism Crystals. Besides, they were a Holy Land! However rare such materials might be to ordinary cultivators, a power like that would always have some means of acquiring them.

He, on the other hand, possessed only one, and even that had come from Flying Cloud’s inheritance. That was why he had been reluctant to take it out.

Fu Qinglan had noticed that hesitation, and now she was even more curious about what could possibly justify sacrificing such a rare material. She glanced over the collection spread before them. ”Senior Brother, what exactly are you making? An enchanted treasure? Or are you planning to build a teleportation formation?”

Luo Chen finally stopped keeping her guessing. ”A teleportation formation! I want to set up a small one here with a range of about five thousand li. Though, to be precise, it’s more of a translocation formation.”

The two sounded similar, but in practice, they were quite different. For one, a teleportation formation was fixed in place and built for repeated use, which meant it placed far greater demands on the surrounding terrain, spirit veins, and materials. A translocation formation, conversely, did not need to be permanently anchored. It was generally meant for a single use and could be assembled wherever it was needed, which made it far less demanding and much faster to set up.

And for Luo Chen’s use case, that was more than enough. In fact, a translocation formation was already close to the limit of what he could currently construct. He would never have dared to build something like this in the past. Only after dismantling the countless formations inside the Penglai Eightspire Pavilion and greatly broadening his understanding of the Void restriction had he gained enough confidence to try.