Eternal Life from the Golden Needle Technique

Chapter 4: Chapter 3: The Arduous Immortal Dao

But he could clearly feel that after those Traits appeared, the accuracy of his Golden Needle Technique had improved somewhat.

The feeling was like gaining a new level of understanding after mastering a Magic, or like having some kind of knowledge and experience infused into him.

He couldn’t say for sure what it was.

But one thing was certain: the Traits that appeared as a suffix were a good thing.

Just now, for instance, the fact that his two Golden Needles could accurately strike both eyes of the giant wild boar after activating the Golden Needle Technique was the result of the Trait he gained after raising his Cultivation progress for the Skill to 100%.

’Too bad the progress bar on this thing can only be increased through my own Cultivation. I can’t just add points to it. I wonder what kind of hack designed this. It’s obviously a flop.’

’These days, it’s all about being overpowered from the start, mindlessly adding points, or gaining XP or lifespan from killing enemies. That’s the real meta!’

Shen Changchuan couldn’t help but roast the panel in front of him again.

But obviously, the panel remained completely unresponsive, just as it had the dozens, or even hundreds, of times before.

Shen Changchuan could only accept reality.

There was nothing to be done. His cheat system was a bit lousy, but it was a cheat system nonetheless.

It gave him some small measure of confidence to establish himself in this Otherworld.

That’s right. To Shen Changchuan, this was an Otherworld.

He was not a native of this world, but a Transmigrator who had been here for two and a half years.

About two and a half years ago, he was just a ”chosen” office worker, a few years out of college, who loved slacking off at work to read novels and play games.

Then one day, while pulling an all-nighter grinding a game full of progress bars, his vision went black. He had transmigrated into the body of this world’s Shen Changchuan, who had been severely injured by a Demon Beast while traveling.

And along with him came this small, utterly useless progress bar panel that now hovered before his eyes.

At first, Shen Changchuan was quite unsettled. ’After all, this is a world with a Path of Immortal Cultivation, and I’ve transmigrated into the Shen Family, a powerful Immortal Cultivation Clan. Who knows if they have concepts like Possession here? What if someone finds me out?’

But thankfully, the worst-case scenario did not happen.

His identity was merely that of an insignificant son of a concubine, so not many people paid him any mind.

Furthermore, after transmigrating, he had assimilated the original owner’s memories and did his best to remain silent, acting with extreme caution.

As a result, in the eyes of others, the drastic change in his personality was due to being severely injured, remaining unconscious for seven days and seven nights, and having a brush with the Ghost Gate.

This sort of thing seemed perfectly normal in this world.

Even his current body’s mother didn’t have the slightest suspicion.

And so, Shen Changchuan quietly settled into the Shen Family.

After a one-month adjustment period,

Shen Changchuan learned that the world he had transmigrated into was a vast and boundless Immortal Cultivation World. He also came to understand the progress bar cheat he now possessed.

At that time, Shen Changchuan was ecstatic.

He couldn’t help but fantasize about soaring to the heavens, becoming an Immortal ancestor, and even achieving Transcendence in this world!

However, before Shen Changchuan could even think about using the progress bar panel to reveal his talent, attract the attention of his so-called father or the clan, and receive special nurturing,

an incident within the Shen Family doused him like a bucket of cold water, completely extinguishing his enthusiasm.

It was the matter of one of his young, talented, so-called half-brothers—who had just broken through to the Qi Introduction Sixth Layer—”committing suicide” by stabbing himself in the back seven times!

How did he know it was seven stabs to the back?

Because when the terrified Shen Family servants were carrying the body to a physician, Shen Changchuan happened to run into them.

He had seen it with his own eyes: the hilt of the knife was still sticking out, clear as day, from the man’s back!

Shen Changchuan didn’t know the specific details of the incident.

He only knew that less than two days later, that so-called brother was declared dead.

The official cause of death was announced as suicide.

Not long after, the birth mother of the ”suicided” half-brother supposedly went mad and was sent to a small temple on West Mountain outside the city to ”recuperate.” On the grounds of filial piety, her other son—his full-blooded brother—was also sent to the temple, ordered to serve his mother.

Shen Changchuan was just a ”chosen” office drone who had only been in the workforce for two years and had only seen a glimpse of office politics. How could he have ever witnessed such a sinister and treacherous power struggle within a great clan?

Moreover, he suddenly remembered that the reason the original owner of his body had lain in bed, unconscious for seven days and seven nights, was due to a Demon Beast attack!

’God knows if that was really an accidental Demon Beast attack, or if there was some other reason behind it?’

Terrified out of his wits, Shen Changchuan immediately reined in all his ambitions and cautiously became a complete nobody within the Shen Family.

He didn’t even dare to practice his Cultivation too diligently, terrified that if he accidentally showed any exceptional talent, someone would write him a script that ended with ”suicide by seven stabs to the back.”

This was why, after two and a half years of being a Transmigrator, his Cultivation Realm and various progress bars were still at such a low level.

However, because of this, Shen Changchuan saw the darkness lurking beneath the glamorous facade of this Immortal Cultivation Clan even more clearly. And, unwittingly, he had also avoided a potentially fatal disaster.

Because in those two years, two more of his so-called brothers had died in ”accidents”—one by drowning and the other by falling off a cliff. Furthermore, another person had gone missing, and two of his sisters had supposedly eloped.

Even Shen Changchuan, who lived a secluded life within the Shen Family, could feel the turbulent undercurrents.

Internally, the First Madam and Second Madam’s fight for favor, along with the escalating power struggles between the various branch factions, had grown fiercer, with even external forces getting involved.

Watching from the sidelines, Shen Changchuan was terrified.

Fortunately, thanks to some advance planning on his part and the help of his current body’s mother, he had managed to secure an external assignment, allowing him to escape the vortex of the Shen Family Mansion in Tian Nan City.

Otherwise, Shen Changchuan wasn’t sure he could have survived the future internal struggles of the Shen Family.

’Sigh, this useless progress panel. I don’t dare to dream of becoming an Immortal ancestor anymore. For now, I’ll just focus on surviving and trying to live a better life.’

Recalling his experiences over the past two and a half years, Shen Changchuan couldn’t help but sigh in his heart.

Reality had already smoothed away his sharp edges.

Becoming an Immortal... he no longer had such daydreams.

His biggest dream now was simply to one day reach the Soul Emergence Realm, giving him enough power to distance himself from the Shen Family’s affairs.

Then, he could return to Tian Nan City, get his mother, and escape that vortex for good.

Thinking of his mother’s love and the sacrifices she made for him to get this external assignment, Shen Changchuan sighed once more.

Securing this assignment had not been easy at all.

Before he left, he heard that the First Madam had ordered his mother to be confined to the ancestral hall for half a year.

His mother didn’t mention it, and Shen Changchuan didn’t ask.

Because at a mere Qi Introduction Third Layer, he had no power to change anything.

Only by advancing to Soul Emergence would he have any say in the Shen Clan.

But while the Soul Emergence Realm was the next level after Qi Introduction, the Qi Introduction Realm itself was composed of nine layers, and advancing through each one was incredibly difficult.

To complete all nine layers of Qi Introduction and break through to the Soul Emergence Realm, one needed talent for Cultivation, financial resources, and luck. Not a single one could be lacking.

The entire Shen Clan was said to have tens of thousands of members,

yet there were only a few dozen True Cultivators at the Soul Emergence Level.

It was only because of the progress bar panel that Shen Changchuan had any extra confidence at all.

But even so, he wouldn’t dare say he was guaranteed to break through to the Soul Emergence Realm in the future.

’The Immortal Dao is a difficult path, after all!’