The Quest for Immortality

From the small state boundary at the edge of the second grade to the largest third grade Canglang State nearby, the mountain path winds and turns, scattered with branches and hidden by forests, revealing many dead-end roads.

A strange cultivator, walking this path for the first time, would find it hard not to get lost.

Fortunately, Mo Hua found Luo Master as an ”escort,” and afterward, the journey became much simpler and easier.

Luo Master frequently travels this road.

Along the way, though it is a rugged and dangerous terrain with many evil cultivators, having encountered quite a few incidents, Luo Master handles them with ease due to his years of escort experience.

Mo Hua watched from the sidelines, untainted by cause and effect, feeling quite relaxed.

He happened to have some leisure time to observe the local villages and customs along the way.

The first impression that caught his eye was poverty, extreme poverty.

Like the loose cultivators he had seen before in the small state’s village, there was no difference.

These cultivators were pale and thin, barely able to fill their stomachs.

Their cultivation levels ranged mostly from the third to the fourth level of Qi Refinement.

Mo Hua even encountered many who were quite old, possessing spiritual roots but having no trace of cultivation ”indigenous people.”

This indicated that from birth, they had barely refined a single spirit stone nor inhaled even a wisp of spiritual energy.

Then muddling through life into their thirties and forties, they relied solely on physical strength to earn a meal, often lacking even that.

Mo Hua had never thought before that, in the world of Tao cultivation, there could exist cultivators so impoverished that they could not cultivate even a bit of ”cultivation,” feeling a complex emotion inside for a moment.

The aristocratic families are extravagant, overflowing with spirit stones and spiritual objects like an ocean, yet even a single drop could at least enable hundreds and thousands of impoverished loose cultivators to embark on the great path of cultivation.

Even if they cannot reach Foundation Establishment, at least reaching the mid to late stage of Qi Refinement would pose no issue.

But the reality is different.

In this world, spirit stones only flow towards those who do not lack them.

This is human nature, and the reality of the cultivation world.

Everyone is concerned only with their own cultivation, paying little pity or sympathy to the bottom-tier loose cultivators.

But following this realization, another harsh question arises:

Do the bottom-tier loose cultivators truly deserve sympathy?

Mo Hua frowned.

At least, not all bottom-tier loose cultivators are worthy of sympathy.

Take, for instance, the mountain bandits who died under his Fireball Technique.

These mountain bandits were actually loose cultivators too.

They refused to starve and suffer, so they claimed the mountains to banditry, extending their butcher’s knife towards weaker loose cultivators, to rob, to steal, to kill, accumulating evil deeds, death not worth pity.

By reason, the Taoist Court concentrated power, aristocratic families extracted wealth, and sects monopolized resources, all being the ”exploiting” side.

But according to Mo Hua’s experiences along the way.

Inside the Taoist Court, there are indeed people with grand righteousness in their hearts.

In the aristocratic families, there also exist sincere disciples.

Within the sects, there are ancestors like Elder Master Xun from Taixu Gate, taking the idea of spreading Tao and teaching as their principle.

Similarly, the bottom-tier loose cultivators, being bullied, exploited, and squeezed with no path to Tao cultivation, seem ”worthy of sympathy and pity.”

But precisely a part of them is not worth sympathy.

Some of them covet vanity, cling to aristocratic families.

Some betray faith, abandon name and origin.

Some, just like those bandits, murder and rob, oppress and kill even poorer loose cultivators more ruthlessly than aristocratic families and sects.

Aristocratic families and sects are ”evil,” yet not entirely evil.

Bottom-tier loose cultivators are ”pitiful,” yet not all of them are worthy of pity.

Some noble family children, if their hearts hold kindness, can still benefit loose cultivators.

And some loose cultivators, if they rise to noble families and great sects, might inflict even more severe, greedy exploitation on the bottom-tier loose cultivators.

Their actions might be more evil than ordinary noble family’s children.

Mo Hua’s brows were tightly knitted, deeply sighing.

This cultivation world is truly too complex. .

Human nature is also too unpredictable.

Mo Hua realized that his previous thoughts might have been somewhat too simplistic.

This cultivation world might not be that simple where everyone gets to eat a full meal, everyone learns Tao cultivation, and things automatically improve.

Different Tao cultivation levels, different forces, different origins of cultivators, each individual’s heart varies... mixed together, forming the entire cultivation world, resembles a vast chaos.

Within the chaos, everything mingles, thousands of cultivators intertwining, unclear, and impossible to unravel.

If one wishes to change, there’s no knowing where to start.

Mo Hua didn’t know what ”Dao” is hidden within it...

The so-called ”changing the world, achieving Dao and becoming an immortal,” how indeed should things be changed, seek Dao, and ascend as an immortal?

Mo Hua fell into contemplation, momentarily lost in thought.

Until someone beside him called out, ”Brother Little Mo, try some wild fruit.”

Mo Hua turned his head and saw a valiant lady, dressed in men’s attire with a red cloth tied about her head, looking fresh and pretty, handing Mo Hua a bunch of wild fruits.

This lady, named ”Ying Lady,” is one of the chiefs of the escort agency, also the daughter of Luo Chief, with a cultivation age of thirty to forty years, at the peak of Qi Refining Ninth Level, nearing Foundation Establishment Realm.

Ying Lady started traveling with the escort team at the age of twenty, being straightforward and treating people well.

Mo Hua took the wild fruit, smiling:

”Thank you, Sister Ying.”

Ying Lady’s eyes remained fixed on Mo Hua’s face.

A man nearby said sourly, ”Ying Lady, I want to eat wild fruit too.”

Ying Lady turned and scolded him, ”Eat shit! If you want to eat, go pick your own.”

The man shrank his head, looking somewhat embarrassed.

People laughed around them.

Ying Lady turned back, openly looking at Mo Hua with beautiful, bright eyes, marveling in her heart:

How could such a handsome person exist in this world...