A Loose Cultivator's Path to Longevity

This was the first time Lü Zhong had ever encountered a Foundation Establishment Cultivator.

Just being near them produced an inexplicable fear in his heart. The Spiritual Power inside him grew restless, and if he didn’t keep it under tight control, he risked losing command of it and suffering a Qigong Deviation.

’So this is Foundation Establishment?’

So powerful, so utterly unbeatable!

To a Qi Refining cultivator, someone at the Foundation Establishment Stage was an absolutely undefeatable existence.

Lü Zhong wondered to himself, ’Will I be able to reach Foundation Establishment?’

As a cultivator with Four Spirit Roots, his journey to Foundation Establishment was destined to be incredibly difficult.

Although scriptures and rumors told of Four Spirit Root cultivators who had successfully reached Foundation Establishment, such tales were only worth telling precisely because of how rare they were.

To reach Foundation Establishment, the Foundation Establishment Pill was an absolute necessity!

The Foundation Establishment Pill had only one function: to increase one’s chances of reaching Foundation Establishment.

While it was possible to reach Foundation Establishment without the pill, the success rate for someone with Four Spirit Root Talent attempting to break through without external aid was appallingly low. Otherwise, a single success story wouldn’t have been retold for millennia.

That’s right. Whether in folktales or in scriptures, it was always the same single story being told.

’I’ve heard Foundation Establishment Pills are incredibly expensive, starting at a hundred Mid-grade Spirit Stones at the very least.’ Lü Zhong did the math. Even if he didn’t eat or drink, with his current earnings from Talisman Making, it would still take him at least seven or eight years to possibly buy one.

And that was assuming the price of a Foundation Establishment Pill was only one hundred Mid-grade Spirit Stones—that is, ten thousand Lower-grade spirit stones.

Otherwise, it would take even longer to save up.

Shaking his head, Lü Zhong stopped dwelling on it. He was only at the Qi Refining Fifth Layer, a long way from Foundation Establishment. There was no need to worry about that now. It would be better to figure out how to solve his current predicament.

He had been hoping to just slack off and ride this out, but he never expected to be dragged back here.

Down below in Ghost Cloud Valley, inhuman roars echoed one after another.

Compared to what he had seen on his previous visit, the valley’s landscape had changed dramatically. A massive collapse had clearly occurred, making the valley much deeper—it looked to have sunk by several hundred feet.

A repulsive aura hung in the air.

Lü Zhong had kept his Qi Observation Skill active and could see that the world was suffused with a massive amount of Yin Qi.

’What happened here? Why is there so much Yin Qi?’

Before he could make sense of it, the Flying Ship beneath him dove at high speed, landing in what looked like a fortified camp.

The Evil Cultivators were now nowhere to be seen. More than thirty cultivators had set up a defensive line centered on the camp, holding back enemies charging from all directions.

They were ghoulish creatures that looked like rotting corpses yet possessed some of the motor skills they’d had in life.

Living Corpses.

RUMBLE!

The ground suddenly began to shake.

Spiritual Light first erupted from the ground over there, then a golden blade suddenly thrust out. The blade was clearly composed entirely of Spiritual Qi; its tip alone was over ten feet long and radiated a terrifying aura.

With a BANG, the blade violently exploded.

A golden wave of light swept out, pulverizing all the Living Corpses in its path. Nothing survived within a hundred-foot radius.

’Is this the power of a Foundation Establishment cultivator?’ Lü Zhong was deeply shaken.

"You, over there! Get over here and help!" someone nearby suddenly shouted. "I can’t hold them back much longer! Please, give me a hand."

"No problem," Lü Zhong replied, nodding as he joined the defensive line.

The Walking Dead were not particularly strong and stood no chance against his Golden Devourer Sword. A single sweep felled several at once. Their only real advantage was their sheer numbers; otherwise, they posed no threat at all.

With him joining the fight, the pressure on this section of the line eased considerably.

It was the same on the other fronts. With the arrival of Yani Ping and the others, the defense became much more manageable.

"What in the world is going on?" Lü Zhong asked a burly, brown-robed man next to him during a lull in the fighting. A swarming horde of Living Corpses this large was obviously not normal.

"Sigh, it’s all because the Golden Rainbow Sect is in seclu—" The burly man next to him suddenly stopped himself, then switched to cursing. "It’s because someone sold mortals to the Evil Cultivators of Ghost Cloud Valley! Who knows how many mortals those damned bastards sold off. The Ghost Cultivators in the valley used an Evil Skill to refine them all into Living Corpses. We’ve been killing and killing, and there’s still no end to them."

’So that was the reason!’

Lü Zhong had thought Loose Cultivators had it bad, but he’d never imagined there were those who had it even worse.

The slaughter continued for nearly an hour.

He couldn’t even be bothered to count how many Living Corpses he had slain, because there were simply too many.

RUMBLE!

The ground shook again. After a violent tremor, countless fissures appeared.

Immediately after, another part of the valley floor collapsed.

Lü Zhong struggled to keep his balance to avoid accidentally falling into a fissure.

After a long moment, the earthquake finally subsided.

Compared to before, the ground had sunk by another hundred feet or more.

A subsequent headcount revealed that no unlucky souls had fallen into the fissures.

But before they could even breathe a sigh of relief, the familiar roars sounded once more.

This time, Living Corpses began struggling out of the fissures that had even opened up inside the camp.

To prevent the line from being breached from within, they had to split off a portion of their forces to specifically deal with these sporadic Living Corpses.

Gradually, the number of Living Corpses began to dwindle.

The once-dense horde started to thin out.

Thanks to this, the sky-high column of Yin Qi also began to thin.

’Huh? Are my eyes playing tricks on me?’

Lü Zhong froze and quickly rubbed his eyes. When he opened them again, the scene in his field of vision was unchanged.

Within his field of vision, small plumes of Spiritual Qi had begun to erupt.

This Spiritual Qi was mixed in with the dense Yin Qi. Besides him, who had kept his Qi Observation Skill constantly active, it was unlikely that anyone else would have noticed it at a glance, even if they used the same skill.

’Something’s not right. The amount of Spiritual Qi erupting is increasing rapidly!’

Lü Zhong couldn’t help but guess that there was a Spirit Stone Mine underneath.

The reason he didn’t suspect a Spirit Vein was that the erupting Spiritual Qi was mottled and impure. Although there was a lot of it, it wasn’t suitable for cultivators to absorb directly. It would first need to be purified by a Spirit Gathering Array and converted into low-impurity Pure Spiritual Energy before it could be used to advance one’s cultivation.

As the subterranean eruption of Yin Qi weakened, others began to notice the Spiritual Qi gushing out and likewise suspected there was a Spirit Stone Vein below.

SMACK!

A Loose Cultivator, his face full of confusion, grabbed the object that had just ricocheted off his face.

When he looked down at it, he froze completely.

"A... a Spirit Stone?"

"It’s Spirit Stone Raw Ore!" someone shouted.

Instantly, the entire camp erupted into a frenzy.

As everyone knew, Spirit Stones were processed from raw ore.

No one could have imagined that the earthquake had actually exposed the subterranean Spirit Stone Vein.

It’s unclear who started it, but someone suddenly leaped into one of the fissures.

Immediately, the Loose Cultivators began to scramble, jumping down one after another, each afraid of being left behind.

In no time, only Lü Zhong, Bai Xiaohan, Huang Shuyuan, and two Golden Rainbow Sect disciples were left.

Of the two Golden Rainbow Sect disciples, one was breathing heavily, his eyes bloodshot. Finally, he gave up his struggle, let out a great cry, and leaped into the fissure as well.

Men die in pursuit of wealth, and not even Sect Disciples were an exception.