An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

As Luo Chen’s finger drew a downward line, his mind seemed to return to that experience of confusion and chaos.

In that sea of primal qi, in that place that gave him an intimate feeling, he had followed the guidance of the Withering-Flourishing Fire Sprite and discovered the Law of Withering and Flourishing. With that, he had come to an understanding as to what Laws were; they were neither physical substances, nor spirit energy, and not even primal qi; in fact, they were not even forces at all. Rather, they were more of a realization—whoever it dawned upon would, in a mysterious and fateful way, instantly understand the various changes of everything in nature, as long as those changes concerned the Law they had comprehended.

Flowers bloom and wilt; clouds gather and disperse; the sun and moon rise and set; birth, aging, illness, and death are all steps along the same cycle, and they all showcase one aspect or another of Withering and Flourishing.

The speed of grasping a Law was thousands of times greater with the help of the primal qi sea than when Luo Chen attempted it on his own. It was as if the world had compiled all necessary knowledge and presented it to him, so that all he needed to do was browse through it and select whatever suited him best.

Unfortunately, the help of primal qi was ultimately borrowed power. As a consequence, even as the Withering-Flourishing Fire Sprite evolved, it failed to attract much spiritual vitality for Luo Chen and thus he couldn’t have stayed longer even if it hadn’t been for outside interference. An indifferent yet cordial consciousness had pushed him out of there.

From what he could tell, that consciousness was the world’s consciousness, or the soul of the planet. In ancient books and canonical records, it was commonly referred to as the Heavenly Dao!

The Heavenly Dao hadn’t given Luo Chen much time before it expelled him from the sea of primal qi, so he hadn’t been able to grasp too much of the principles of Withering and Flourishing. But what he had gained was plentiful already. With less than three centuries of cultivation behind him, he had already reached a beginner-level comprehension of this Law. With this as the head start, gaining further knowledge would be much easier.

The reason he had taken so long to wake up after leaving the sea of primal qi was that he had another gain—not some other mysterious Law, but a new spell!

Throughout his cultivation journey, Luo Chen had produced a number of techniques, but none of them could be called purely his creation. Most of what he used came from other people, whether he had learned it directly from them or indirectly from books. There were also some techniques he had derived himself, but also based what he had learned and seen; for example, Voidburst Step was inspired by Azure Frost, Sevenfold Skyblaze Ring was derived from the defensive spell Fire Ring, and Ghosts and Gods Scatter took the Ghost Immortal Tower’s ability as a model. As for the Devil Lord’s Seven Strikes, they were more of a compilation of fragmentary techniques he had purchased and could not be considered his creation at all.

This new spell, by contrast, was entirely his.

Using the Withering-Flourishing principles as the main frame, Luo Chen had packed in the changes in mana he had comprehended, the two major restrictions of Darkness and Brightness, and even his own origin energy that was full of vitality. After the process was completed, he had finally developed the first version of a new spell and named it “Withering-Flourishing Dao Finger.”

These reminiscing thoughts crossed his mind in a flash before his attention went back to the battle.

The black blade light was slashing down toward his head, but as Luo Chen brought the finger stroke to a close, it shrank little by little, and the mana attached to it was dispersed by a strange force. Finally, the blade light returned to its true form—a small black knife. The weapon wailed and fled back to its master with the strange force hot on its heels.

When Qi Xiongcheng caught the knife, the strange force was transmitted to him. His whole body trembled, and then his eyes revealed a look of utter disbelief at what happened next. His mana started diminishing, and his Nascent Soul started withering. Even his body, full of vitality as expected of a third-tier Physique Refiner, was being drained like a wet rag, causing him to rapidly age.

”No way!” Qi Xiongcheng activated his illusory Go stone without hesitation; a vortex instantly appeared and enveloped him. By the time his figure disappeared in it, however, his hair had turned white.

On another side, the green bamboo forest covering several li of land was somehow quickly withering, even though it was made of mana. The leaves fell, and the canes turned yellow. The bamboo segments exploded one after another like firecrackers. Then, as Wang Yifu was still reeling from the shock, he heard a crack coming from within his own divine soul. His bamboo staff had been severely damaged by the blood-red sword in the battle at Three-Rainbow Falls, and now, the crack had resurfaced. It even rapidly expanded... until the staff snapped in half!

This was his life-bound enchanted treasure; the connection between them had been forged over several hundred years of painstaking refinement. Therefore, its destruction instantly dealt him a heavy backlash. On top of that, Wang Yifu had also lost the shelter of the bamboo forest, which allowed the same strange force to land on him. Although he constantly urged his mana to move, so he could fight back, it was all futile. Before, he might have acted like a wise elder, but he had been strong and healthy; a few breaths later, he was a real decrepit elder, looking like a withered tree on the verge of death.

However, none of that mattered to Luo Chen right now. His eyes were fixed on Shi Ju’s peculiar attack, which looked like a stream of fire and a beam of lightning at the same time. Upon collision, it actually managed to endure his spell and even sapped the huge finger manifestation in return.

What is that power? wondered Luo Chen. It’s full of destructive energy. How did it block my new spell?

But it was only temporary. After a brief moment of stalemate, the fire and lightning stream suddenly disintegrated.

”Pfuh!” Shi Ju spat out a mouthful of blood, despite his best efforts to stop himself. He watched the huge finger manifestation press down toward him with madness in his eyes. ”Fuck! Failed again!”

After shooting a spiteful glare at Luo Chen, he suddenly brought his hands together and then opened them. As his arms spread further from each other, his body actually stretched sideways, until... he split into two! The newly-appeared figure had two hands, two feet, and a head raised high. It looked in every way identical to Shi Ju, down to face and aura, but it looked even more violent and hostile. The second they separated, they sped off in opposite directions.

From Luo Chen’s perspective, one of them was flying left and the other was flying right. This display caused him to hesitate for a moment, and then he saw a fire light and a lightning flash.

Fire Escape and Lightning Escape?!

Despite his astonishment, Luo Chen controlled the remaining power in his finger manifestation and directed it at the figure covered in lightning.

Bang!

A faint sound rang out as the target got pinned by the finger power and fell. But in mid-air, he suddenly regained balance, coated himself in lightning again, and with a flicker, appeared dozens of li away. Meanwhile, the figure enveloped in fire had long since vanished.

Luo Chen lowered his hand with a thoughtful look on his face.

A lightning incarnation... So that’s what he puts his money on? It even holds his second Nascent Soul that cultivates the lightning dao to boot! Well, I guess it all makes sense now.

Those who cultivated a second soul had many tricks up their sleeves, and when it was a second Nascent Soul, it came with the extra benefit of having potent mana that far surpassed regular same-realm cultivators. If, on top of meeting these two conditions, one also produced a true incarnation, a legendary immortal technique, then their battle power would become simply impossible to measure by ordinary standard.

This was especially true for Shi Ju, since both fire and lightning were combat-oriented elements. With such an ace in his arsenal, he didn’t need a Dao Protector at all. This perfectly explained his earlier attitude; he truly could dominate the Mirage Dragon Pocket World on his own, and even when he was cultivating, he didn’t need anyone to protect him. It was also perfectly understandable why Fu Qinglan still found it hard to match him even after she successfully grasped root power.

Unfortunately for Shi Ju, though, he had Luo Chen for an enemy. The latter had higher cultivation and vastly more combat experience, among other things. Furthermore, Luo Chen had also grasped a Law and created his own spell based on it.

Shi Ju was not his opponent at all, so Luo Chen had no intention of chasing after him. It was impossible to kill the young man anyway; if push came to shove, he would certainly activate his illusory Go stone and leave. For that reason, there was no need to push him to the edge. Defeating him was enough. Besides, Luo Chen knew that pressing a cornered enemy only served to deepen the enmity between them. It would be bad if it got to the point where the Shi family decided to intervene.

Suddenly, Luo Chen noticed something and looked up. There, the white eagle had stopped swooping toward him and was now fleeing in a hurry.

He smiled faintly. You’ve come all the way here, so how could I just let you leave?

He did nothing new; he simply pointed his finger again. It didn’t cause as big a commotion as before, but the residual power around him was ready to be mobilized and thus the spell hit the eagle in the blink of an eye.

A mournful cry echoed, and then the bird exploded into fine mist. It tried to gather into form again, but how could Luo Chen’s power be offset by simply condensing and dispersing energy? The large mass of mist kept trying, only to keep collapsing again and again. Finally, it turned into a huge illusory core shrouded in mist and flew toward Luo Chen.