Eternal Life from the Golden Needle Technique

Chapter 252: Chapter 249: 3-Year Plan

Master Wandering Dragon certainly didn’t want the disciple he had just accepted to fall into such a massive pit.

The cultivation of Divine Techniques was no simple task.

Even for a genius with exceptionally high Comprehension,

it would take at least a decade of painstaking effort to cultivate a single Divine Technique to Perfection!

For those with lesser Comprehension, they could spend several times that amount of time and effort during the Qi Introduction Realm and still not succeed!

And this,

was merely the prerequisite for even being able to form a Divine Seed!

The subsequent process of forging the Divine Seed was fraught with difficulties, each step as hard as ascending to the heavens.

Once,

back in Master Wandering Dragon’s youth, there had been a genius whose Comprehension and talent far surpassed his own. This genius had confidently traded for a Divine Technique from the Sect,

intending to forge a Divine Seed and become invincible within his Realm after advancing to the Soul Emergence Realm.

But unfortunately,

the outcome was tragic.

In the first year, the man began studying the Divine Power Technique. He acted with supreme confidence before his fellow disciples, proclaiming that his success was inevitable.

By the third year, the first among their batch of Outer Disciples had already advanced to the Soul Emergence Realm. The man grew quieter, beginning to spend more of his time in secluded cultivation and research.

By the tenth year, as more and more geniuses from their batch advanced to the Soul Emergence Realm, the man became withdrawn and taciturn. He was rarely seen within the Mountain Gate anymore.

Thirty years later, nearly every Outer Disciple from their batch who could advance to the Soul Emergence Realm had done so. The rest, unable to break through, had returned to their homes in the Mortal World to start families and live out their lives.

The man was still stubbornly wrestling with his Divine Technique. On the rare occasions he appeared, he had lost all of his former energy, his hair disheveled and his face unkempt.

Eighty years later...

The last time Master Wandering Dragon returned to the Sect, he happened to hear news of that man once more.

He was already old and frail, his end drawing near.

It was said he had cultivated that Divine Technique almost to the Extreme Realm, just one step shy of Perfection.

But alas,

that single step was a world of difference!

Moreover,

Master Wandering Dragon, whose own Cultivation had reached the Divine Travel Peak Realm, knew with certainty,

that even if the man broke through that final barrier and brought the Divine Technique to Perfection, he would no longer have any chance of advancing to the Soul Emergence Realm.

His body was old and feeble, his Qi and Blood in decay.

It was impossible for him to break through and advance, let alone form a Spirit Body, much less forge a Divine Seed...

A prodigy who once had the potential to reach the Divine Travel Realm,

had been broken by the great pitfall that was the Divine Seed.

It was only then,

that Master Wandering Dragon found a faint answer to some of the questions he had long held.

’Why is forging a Divine Seed so difficult that it can destroy a genius, yet the Sect’s leadership doesn’t keep it a secret, but instead makes it known to all?’

’Perhaps it’s because, if a younger prodigy succeeds, the Sect gains a peerless Demon capable of suppressing an entire generation.’

’And if they fail, it means that person’s character wasn’t good enough. They lacked self-awareness and didn’t know when to admit defeat and cut their losses.’

’With such a flawed character, they would likely never reach the higher echelons anyway.’

’So it might as well be treated as an early screening process to avoid wasting resources on their training later on.’

That was when Master Wandering Dragon once again felt the cold, calculating nature of the Sect’s system and its leadership.

It was one of the reasons that had prompted him to temporarily leave the Yuqing Immortal Sect and found the Dragon Cloud Sect here...

For this reason,

Master Wandering Dragon shared this cautionary tale with Shen Changchuan,

urging him to take it as a warning and weigh the decision carefully for himself.

Of course,

if Shen Changchuan was truly determined to take this gamble, he wouldn’t stop him.

Everyone has their own path.

As a master, his duty was to pass on knowledge, teach his craft, and resolve doubts—to point his disciple in the right direction,

not to make the decision for him.

Besides,

everything in existence held a sliver of hope. The success rate for forging a Divine Seed was minuscule, but it wasn’t zero.

Naturally, there were those in the Yuqing Immortal Sect who had succeeded.

He couldn’t stop his own disciple from trying just because that genius from his own generation had failed.

Shen Changchuan was deeply moved by Master Wandering Dragon’s patient and detailed explanation and advice.

Then,

he set himself a three-year plan.

In essence, if he could not cultivate the Sanqing Forest Sword Array to Perfection within three years, he would abandon the goal of forging a Divine Seed, regardless of his progress.

’Although I have a progress bar panel, it’s not like one of those systems where you can just mindlessly dump points into something to level it up... The panel itself has a chance of failure...’

’If I can’t succeed within three years, I have to give up and cut my losses immediately!’

Without a doubt, the story Master Wandering Dragon had told him about the senior from his generation served as a stark warning for Shen Changchuan.

Once you go down a rabbit hole and the sunk costs pile up, you only get more entangled.

It was just like with stocks.

He had no desire to meet the same fate.

Regarding this,

Shen Changchuan did not hide his thoughts from his master.

He simply explained his plan.

Master Wandering Dragon couldn’t help but nod in approval.

Youthful spirit was a powerful thing.

How could a young man turn back without first being impulsive and hitting a wall?

Before he himself had advanced to the Soul Emergence Realm, he too had dreamed of forging a Divine Seed.

It was only later that he came to terms with his own limitations,

saw reality for what it was, and finally gave up.

In Master Wandering Dragon’s view,

going through this was actually a good thing.

Because such a reality check would teach a person one thing:

the wisdom of knowing when to quit.

”Then give it a try.”

”But you must remember to stick to your plan. Don’t think that just because you’re close to Perfection, you can add another three years after the first three are up... and end up throwing your entire future away.”

”Use these three years to properly refine your Magical Power and build a solid foundation.”

Master Wandering Dragon did not object to Shen Changchuan’s decision.

Of course, he didn’t actually believe Shen Changchuan could cultivate the Divine Technique to Perfection before advancing to the Soul Emergence Realm.

Wasting three years,

while Shen Changchuan was still so young, was no great loss.

And to show his support,

Master Wandering Dragon even gave Shen Changchuan special permission to enter the Dragon Cloud Sect’s Scripture Pavilion and browse any Wood Element or Sword System Magic he wished,

allowing Shen Changchuan to accumulate the necessary foundation.

He hoped that by studying them, Shen Changchuan might gain insights by analogy that would help his Cultivation of the Divine Technique.

Of course,

once he advanced to the Soul Emergence Realm, he would have to pay back the Contribution Points for all the Magic he had browsed.

After all, rules were rules, and one couldn’t reap without sowing.

But for Shen Changchuan, this was still a massive boon!

Thus,

in the period that followed,

when he unsurprisingly found it difficult to even reach the Entry Level for the Sanqing Forest Sword Array,

he went to the Scripture Pavilion and began devouring large numbers of Wood and Sword Element Magic to cultivate, using them to accumulate relevant Magic Traits and experience.

With his Divine Sense having already achieved an early form of Soul Emergence, combined with his accumulated experience from similar Magic,

the time Shen Changchuan needed to cultivate a new Magic from scratch to Perfection was drastically reduced. He could basically master a new one every two to three days.

The number of Magic spells on his progress bar panel grew rapidly.

At the same time,

thanks to this massive accumulation of experience,

Shen Changchuan’s Sanqing Forest Sword Array broke through its bottleneck and officially reached the Entry Level!