Immortality begins with Becoming an Alchemy Grandmaster

Open War!

Luo Chen had heard this term countless times.

He had even experienced it himself.

But only when he saw in the records that the Tianyuan Daoist Sect had taken the lead in entering the Mountain Sea Realm did he understand that this was in fact also an open war against a Barbaric World!

However, Spirit Mechanism Miscellaneous Talks did not record much about this matter.

After Luo Chen hurriedly skimmed through it once, he roughly memorized it, then his Divine Perception surged as he continued to read other books.

Before long, in another book, the Youxuan Annals, he saw a detailed account of this event.

Approximately twelve thousand years ago, Earth Qi circulated, the Demon Cave stirred, and the entire Mystic Realm shuddered as a result. At that time, another great realm—the Demon Realm—began to border the Mystic Realm, spatial overlap appeared, and the Demon Realm began its invasion of the Mystic Realm. Over more than a hundred years, the cultivators of the Mystic Realm shattered the Demon Race army that had invaded the Mystic Realm and once again completed the suppression of the Demon Cave.

During that century, the cultivators of the Mystic Realm swept the battlefields everywhere and were astonished to discover that multiple space passages had appeared within the Mystic Realm. Some of these passages even led to certain life-bearing planets.

The Mountain Sea Realm was among them!

And that particular passage lay within the territory of the Tianyuan Daoist Sect.

At that time, the Holy Land Youdu Source Court on the Youxuan Continent was busy suppressing the Demon Cave and was not particularly interested in Small Worlds, so it handed the matter over to the Tianyuan Daoist Sect to deal with.

Thus, an open war erupted!

Back then, the Tianyuan Ancestor was nearing his lifespan limit. Knowing he lacked the ability to devour this piece of fat alone, he united the Yuan Mo Sect and Dark Abyss Sect—two of the Nine Great Saint Sects—along with many powers on the Youxuan Continent, and even drew in the Gate of Life and Death, a Holy Sect from the Ten Thousand Spirits Continent outside, forming a coalition army to jointly open up the Mountain Sea Realm.

Yet because the space passage was narrow, cultivators whose realm was too high could not pass through it; if anyone tried to force their way in, at best their cultivation level would be completely lost, at worst they would die and their Dao be extinguished.

Therefore, at that time only low-order cultivators at Divine Transformation and below were allowed to enter the Mountain Sea Realm.

Apart from the Four Sects among the Five Great Sacred Lands, the other powers also invested enormous manpower and resources.

Top-tier Refining Void powers of that era—such as the Hanging Temple, Great Soul Sect, Five Elements Divine Sect, and so on—all took part.

Yet the coalition somewhat underestimated the native powerhouses of the Mountain Sea Realm!

There dwelled countless powerful Savage Beasts, among which there were existences whose realm reached Late Nascent Soul Stage, and even Refining Void Level.

With the advantage of terrain added to this, the coalition’s pace of opening up the realm was not particularly fast.

Some Refining Void Powers even had to give up on this open war after suffering grievous losses.

For example, the Great Soul Sect!

Despite throwing itself in with full force, not only did it fail to reap rich rewards, it instead suffered disastrous casualties; the sect’s Refining Void ancestor even exhausted his lifespan and sat down in death. With no one left to hold the gate, the sect fell into internal strife and regretfully dropped down to a Divinity Transformation Power.

Even now, the Great Soul Sect remains merely an ordinary Divinity Transformation Power, with only two Divine Transformation Great Powers within the sect bitterly supporting it.

Of course, the overall progress of the opening was still relatively smooth.

Several thousand years later, the Human Clan truly gained a foothold in the Mountain Sea Realm and established the Five Great Sacred Lands as Daoist Lineage inheritances.

Among them, the West Desert—with the poorest resources and the fiercest folk customs—was claimed by the top-tier Refining Void Power, the Hanging Temple.

That war was recorded within the Mountain Sea Realm as the Ancient Human–Demon War.

In reality, however, the true protagonists were the Human Clan and the Savage Beasts; the Demon Clan was merely a group that gradually rose only after some Savage Beasts later gained intelligence and turned to cultivating the Human Clan’s methods.

After the ancient war ended, before people had time to extract more abundant rewards from within, bad news arrived.

The space passage connecting the Mystic Realm and the Mountain Sea Realm began to show a trend of contraction.

This was not man-made, but the natural repair of World Power.

The spatial anchor points that the Five Great Sacred Lands had set up in the Mountain Sea Realm also began to blur, causing the lower-realm cultivators of the other Four Sects, apart from the Tianyuan Daoist Sect, to be unable to naturally come to the main sect in the Mystic Realm.

The Tianyuan Daoist Sect was an exception!

The sect lay extremely close to the space passage; one might even say the space passage was within their territory.

They had also seized the most prime land in the Mountain Sea Realm and possessed the strongest might.

Most importantly, someone had refined a Space Spiritual Treasure for the Tianyuan Daoist Sect; relying on that treasure, the Tianyuan Daoist Sect was able to maintain its control over the Mountain Sea Realm.

”Star Gate!”

In an instant, Luo Chen knew what that Space Spiritual Treasure was, and he even knew clearly who had refined it for the Tianyuan Daoist Sect.

He also understood why, after the Ancient era in the Mountain Sea Realm, all recorded Ascension Cultivators were from Zhongzhou.

As the space passage contracted, the spatial anchor points of the other Four Sects lost their effectiveness; only in Zhongzhou was there a Star Gate that could open the road to the Mystic Realm, so naturally ascension could only be achieved from Zhongzhou.

Perhaps this was also why, later on, many Nascent Soul Divinity Transformation Cultivators would actively seek to submit to the Tianyuan Daoist Sect.

After grasping this secret history, many of Luo Chen’s doubts were instantly resolved.

But another doubt surfaced in his heart.

That was the ”Demon Cave”!

Both records mentioned the phrase ”Demon Cave stirring.”

They even described the earthshaking tale of the Demon Realm’s invasion of the Mystic Realm.

So what exactly was this Demon Cave?

Luo Chen wished to investigate further, but no matter how he went on to rummage through the collections on the seventh and eighth floors, even when he occasionally found related words, there was never any true body of description.

”It seems that either the Su Ling Sect has no precise record, or even if it does, it’s only on the ninth floor, which only Divine Transformation Cultivators are allowed to read.”

Luo Chen stopped his steps with regret.

At this moment, he had already stepped onto the sixth floor.

And outside, the sky had completely darkened.

A transmission echoed in his ears.

”Time is almost up. Have you not yet decided, junior?”