The rules numbered several hundred, but as complicated as they looked, they were basically all about respecting one’s seniors, cherishing the Dao, and protecting the mortals. As for the admission guidelines, the most important thing to note was the map of the Green Cliffs that Hang Over an Empty Valley. Unfortunately, less than one-tenth of the places listed on the map were accessible to new disciples. The rest were forbidden to them.

There was a kitchen and a menial hall in the valley. They were responsible for the daily needs of all disciples. Wei Yuan was getting hungry after exerting himself for a whole day, and his appetite was bigger than most. Children of his age were particularly prone to hunger pangs as well.

Wei Yuan was curious about something, however. He picked up the bottle of Qi-drinking Pills and uncorked it. A faint but sweet aroma immediately hit his nostrils. When he tipped the bottle upside down, a creamy yellow pill with a light blue-colored line running along the center of its surface fell onto his palm. It was only the size of a human fingernail, but the admission guidelines claimed that consuming it would sate him for three days straight. He still needed to drink some water, but that was it. It didn’t just sate one’s hunger either. It could also enhance one’s bodily functions like a fortune technique—though, the effects were not as potent.

Wei Yuan lifted his head and swallowed the Qi-drinking Pill. Moments later, he felt a warmth rising inside his stomach and wiping away his hunger completely. Not only was his mind clearer than before, his thoughts felt as swift as lightning as well.

Evening arrived, and Zhang Sheng showed up in a hurry. The master and disciple began their evening lessons.

It wasn’t an unfamiliar routine. In fact, the duo had undergone a two-hour lesson after dinner each day. It primarily consisted of the scholar addressing questions and clarifying doubts. Today’s lesson was different, however. It marked Wei Yuan’s first formal lesson in cultivation.

Zhang Sheng lit an incense stick after the master and disciple took their seats in the cultivation chamber. As a faint scent slowly spread inside the room, Wei Yuan noticed that his mind was working much more swiftly than usual. His thoughts were unusually lively and active as if he had just gotten a good night’s sleep. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Zhang Sheng said, “Everyone thinks that becoming an immortal is good, but few understand how long and arduous the path to immortality really is, or how many aspirants have fallen in the process. Today, I will teach you a little about the affairs of immortals.”

“The path to immortality has never been singular. Over ten thousand years, countless generations have constantly innovated the methods and increased the number of paths. Our Palace alone boasts six Immortal Ascension Paths and three thousand Gates of Wonder. The Confucian and Buddhists have less, but they are by no means scarce. Of course, the arts of the miscellaneous schools of thoughts are positively innumerable.”

“There are five major stages in the Immortal Ascension Path. They are Body-tempering, Dao Foundation, Avatar, World Ruler, and Ultimate Unity. The Dao Foundation stage is also known as the beginning of immortal ascension, and Ultimate Unity stage the gate of true immortals. This is the same across all schools of thoughts or factions.

“Our Palace believes that the body is the boat that carries us across the sea. To attain a Dao Foundation, one must first temper their mortal body into a Dao bud; an immortal embryo. Hence the name. body-tempering is also split into several minor stages, and every sect has their own way of defining them. But ultimately, they all focus on tempering the flesh, the blood, the bone, and the spirit.”

“Upon attaining great completion in the Body-tempering stage, a Resonance with Heaven and Earth will automatically occur to harmonize one’s immortal embryo with the world and establish one’s Dao Foundation. This is the first foundational stone one sets down on their Immortal Ascension Road and the true beginning of one’s cultivation, which is why this stage is also known as the beginning of immortal ascension.

“Everyone’s cultivation method and fortune are different, so the immortal embryos they formed naturally vary as well. Furthermore, the heavenly timing, prevailing circumstances, and earthly veins present when establishing one’s Dao Foundation are also different, and this naturally results in all kinds of Dao Foundations. You can even go so far as to say that no two people share the exact same Dao Foundation. Even fellow disciples could obtain completely different Dao Foundations if the date they established their Dao Foundations were just a few months apart.

“Speaking of which, there are at least eight hundred officially recorded major categories of Dao Foundation, not to mention those that aren’t. There are subtle differences even within the same category as well. For example, say that two cultivators share the same type of Dao Foundation—an ancient bell. If one bell is purple, and the other is scarlet; or if one bell falls under the Metal element, and the other Fire, then there will be differences. If one bell has patterns of birds and insects, and the other has patterns of mountains and rivers, then their efficacy would be different as well.

“Just as arts may vary in quality, Dao Foundations naturally differ in strength. Over the centuries, our predecessors came to categorize the common Dao Foundations into three tiers: Heaven, Earth, and Human.”

“Human-tier Dao Foundations are most common and numerous. If it falls under the object category, then it would be an ordinary object such as a table, a chair, a bench, a pan,a bowl, a ladle, a basin, or more. If it falls under the Five Phases category, then it would be the most basic type of qi of the Five Phases. If it falls under the living being category, then it would be a mundane beast or bird.

“Human-tier Dao Foundations aren’t powerful per se, but they are incredibly diverse. Some rare Dao Foundations may possess extraordinary utility in certain contexts, so one cannot simply dismiss them as weak. That said, a key reason common Dao Foundations are classified as Human-tier is because their chances of becoming Avatars are incredibly slim.

“There are far fewer Earth-tier Dao Foundations than there are Human-tier Dao Foundations. A Dao Foundation must possess a much higher chance of becoming an Avatar or possess some sort of special function to be categorized as such. For example, most weapons under the object category would belong to the Earth-tier. Although the possibility that such a Dao Foundation would become an Avatar in the future was poor, it usually possesses outstanding combat power. That is why it is categorized as Earth-tier.

“Here’s another example. Say a cultivator possesses a Dao Foundation that falls under the Five Phases category. If it takes the form of a spirit beast belonging to a primal qi of the Five Phases, then it would be categorized as Earth-tier. On a related note, a Yin Yang Dao Foundation is extremely rare and boasts immense power if it is successfully cultivated. Therefore, it is at least an Earth-tier Dao Foundation, if not higher.

“Speaking of which, the tier above Earth is Heaven. Heaven-tier Dao Foundations are exceedingly rare. Anyone who possesses one is a potential Avatar Trueman, and any sect would cherish such a cultivator. If it falls under the object category, it would take the shape of a sacred vessel of the state, or a ritual object. It must be connected to the fate of the human race, and it can only appear to one who carries fortune. Other examples include a divine beast of the Five Phases, an extraordinary phenomenon of yin and yang, miscellaneous gods and devils, and more.”

It was a lengthy and complicated explanation, so Zhang Sheng took a small break and waited for his disciple to digest it all.

Right now, Wei Yuan’s memory was perfectly retentive. He could have memorized a book that would have taken an ordinary child weeks or even months to commit to memory in a single reading. Thus, every word Zhang Sheng had spoken was etched into Wei Yuan’s mind. Half of this was due to Wei Yuan’s innate brilliance, and the other half was the combined effects of the Qi-drinking Pill, the house, and the entrance gate’s arrays.

Wei Yuan replayed everything his master just said and asked curiously, “What is your Dao Foundation, shifu?”

Zhang Sheng replied smilingly, “When I first joined the sect and paid homage to the Founder, he took a liking to me and gave me two wisps of sword qi. When I was tempering my body, I attained enlightenment and cultivated three immortal swords as my Dao Foundation. Normally, a single immortal sword is good enough to be Heaven-tier. As my Dao Foundation is a little different from your ordinary cultivator’s, it is untiered so to speak.”

Wei Yuan understood his meaning immediately. The grade above Heaven was Superior, so his master was saying that he possessed a Superior-grade Dao Foundation. As usual, the scholar’s humble-bragging skills were most impressive.

The stages past Dao Foundation were still very, very far away for Wei Yuan, so Zhang Sheng didn’t bother explaining them to him. With that done, he officially started teaching him the arts.

Of course, the arts he was passing down belonged to True Lord Xuan Yue of the Skyblue Hall. However, the True Lord was the head of the Skyblue Hall and the Water Moon Hall, meaning that he was actually a master of two Dao lineages. Thus, Zhang Sheng was passing down the Skyblue Hall’s Qianqing Orthodox Canon Time Resisting Scripture as the primary method, and the Water Moon Hall’s Lunar Essence Myriad Faces Supreme Yin Chapter as the supplementary method to Wei Yuan.

In the cultivation world, the Body-tempering stage boasted the greatest number of cultivation methods. Many minor sects and schools established themselves with just a single cultivation method that was barely good enough to make someone a Dao Foundation cultivator. In fact, most of the independent cultivators wandering the jianghu could not even cultivate a Dao Foundation.

The Palace of Absolute Beginning boasted many Dao paths, and the number of body-tempering cultivation methods they possessed were as numerous as the stars in the sky. But thanks to their forebears refining and revising these cultivation methods again and again, generation after generation, they were ultimately compiled into six universal cultivation methods.

Each cultivation method corresponded to a disciple of a certain foundation and fortune, and they had long surpassed the ancient methods of every hall. That was why the hall disciples all completed their body-tempering process using these universal methods. It was only when they were about to establish their Dao Foundations that they picked up their hall’s respective Dao lineages.

The halls of the Palace of Absolute Beginning wasn’t just a name. They were also environments that had been fine-tuned to perfection for all cultivators who walked their Dao paths. Take Zhang Sheng’s primary cultivation method, the Qianqing Orthodox Canon Time Resisting Scripture, for example. There was a whopping twenty percent chance increase if he tried to form an Avatar in the Skyblue Hall.

Zhang Sheng’s shifu, Trueman Fen Hai, also cultivated the Qianqing Orthodox Canon Time Resisting Scripture. However, he had chosen the path of the Five Phases and cultivated the Avatar called the Heavenly Fire that Boils the Ocean. It was a rare, extraordinary Avatar that was rooted in the natural inhibition between water and fire. The good news about the Avatar was that it was extremely powerful. The reason he loved “debating” others was because his ocean-boiling techniques were sublime. The bad news about it was that its potency was difficult to control, and it was all too easy to go overboard. It was the source of many of his grudges and grievances.

Although the six universal body-tempering cultivation methods were universal, there were differences as a matter of course. Zhang Sheng had thought long and hard to choose the most suitable method for his disciple. Originally, he was going to teach him the Earth Origin Scripture, a cultivation method rooted in solid foundation and painstaking effort. It was a perfect match with the boy’s steady temperament. But at the last possible moment, he suddenly recalled the day Wei Yuan was born and felt a strange flutter in his heart. Thus, he changed his mind and taught him the Jade Toad Full Moon Painting instead.

Out of the six universal methods, the Jade Toad Full Moon Painting was the one that shared the deepest connection with fortune. It could absorb part of a person’s fortune and mold it into their foundation, replenishing it to perfection. However, fortune was a fickle thing, and the outcome could be better or worse for the cultivator. Thus, the Jade Toad Full Moon Painting was far, far less reliable a cultivation method than the Earth Origin Scripture.

Normally, only a disciple who was blessed with great and positive fortune would cultivate this. An example of such a disciple was Lee Zhi. Unfortunately, Wei Yuan’s fortune came from the Beyond, and not even Zhang Sheng could tell if it was positive or negative. Thus, his decision was a fairly risky one.