The Path to Immortality Begins with the Life-Extending Lamp

Chapter 193 Nan Dou Li Jun
As the abyss receded westward, ghostly calamities arose. But a Taoist priest arrived riding a crimson dragon, capturing souls and exorcising ghosts. He spent several weeks refining them with thunder and fire, traveling upstream to thoroughly cleanse the thirty-thousand-mile-long river...

The wandering spirits and the daytime ghosts were spotted by the Yin Eyes, who seized them with a single hand.

The hundred ghosts were captured by the "Zhong Kui Catching Ghosts" painting on Li Qing's waist. Here, fire from the stone, fire from the human world, and thunder from the water all erupted, scattering the hundred ghosts in the painting. The grand sacrifice to the Southern Dipper Longevity Jade Flower Lamp was performed.

Before the journey along the Yuan River was even halfway complete, the six rounds of sacrificial offerings had already pushed the Southern Dipper Life Lamp to over 680 levels!

When the three hundred Great Restrictions are fully circulated throughout the heavens and imbued with the majestic Daoist aura, they can be considered of the middle grade. Once the six hundred Great Restrictions are above, they become the top grade of all kinds of magical artifacts.

The complex legal prohibitions form a complete system, like the Milky Way in the sky, adorning the vast universe.

At this moment, Li Qing held up the lamp, and starlight swirled around the Qionghua lamp. The image of the stars and the universe in the high sky was unconsciously projected onto him within a hundred feet. The phantom images of stars moved around Li Qing. At this moment, he was like a visitor from the Milky Way!

Thousands of ancient and desolate rituals finally caused this spiritual lamp to begin to transform. The weight of the high heavenly star nourished the "Ancient Scripture of Extending Life in the Southern Dipper," and the Daoist essence of the stars descended upon the precious lamp, weighing bones and measuring destiny, balancing the Qi of the Dipper, all in a single thought.

On that foot-long jade stem, three jade flowers and three leaves appeared. The star spirit manifested itself, and with just a slight movement, the fifty-four fire stars of Nanming instantly took shape. The terrifying aura, like a meteor falling from the sky, instantly covered a hundred miles.

Soon, one of the fish that had escaped the net in the Yuan River seemed to be impacted by this aura. The tall, thin ghostly figure [thump] landed on the shore and stiffly headed towards the vast starlight.

"Oh? My magical artifact is already complete, and the testing stone has already delivered itself to my doorstep?"

Li Qing stood high above the North Gorge, glaring at the uninvited guest approaching from the valley.

It was a ghost, its body towering ten feet tall, overlapping with the shadows of the rocks, making it extremely well hidden. Even Yin Tong failed to detect it immediately, but Li Qing had sensed that malice and gloomy resentment long ago.

On the eight-hundred-foot-high North Mountain Gorge, the Taoist priest held a lamp, surrounded by spiritual light, and looked down at the shadow rapidly approaching below. He saw Li Qing's free right hand fluttering like a butterfly, first making a flower-picking hand seal, and then a sword-finger seal.

As soon as the mad old ghost got a little closer, Li Qing lit the lamp, exhaled a breath, and the Xuan Yin Qi rolled up a cold white flame, which in the blink of an eye overwhelmed the area within a radius of ten miles. The rocks and vegetation disappeared upon contact with the light, and the magnificent cold white flame gathered into a vortex, sweeping across the entire canyon in one go, turning it into ashes and smoke!

How could any evil spirit escape this fate?
"The lamp, the tripod, and the tower are all important artifacts used to suppress evil spirits, and their power and authority far surpass those of other types of magical artifacts."

"The Life-Extending Spirit Lamp, with its 680 restrictions, has transformed from an auxiliary treasure into a true protective artifact. Its power is by no means inferior to the Soul-Bearing Banner!"

Li Qing lifted her sleeve and hoisted the spirit lamp onto her shoulder, then continued westward with a sigh of praise.

This is the most suitable magical artifact for his path. Many spells and magics can be activated in an instant using the Qionghua Spirit Lamp as a medium. Even though it is only at a minor level now, its power is already quite remarkable.

As soon as Li Qing left, the "candle" that had been perched on the ridge immediately swam down from the boulder at the top of the mountain, leaving a deep scorch mark in the mountains.

"hold head high!!"

After walking only a dozen or so feet, "Candle" saw Linglong squatting in the dust of the canyon. Seeing that she was still searching for the Netherworld Pearl left by the fallen old ghost, it called out loudly.

"Okay, okay, I'll be right there."

"Your master has gotten too high-minded now, he doesn't even want the Sun-Traveling Nether Pearl anymore!"

Linglong picked up a bamboo branch and searched through the dust for the Nether Pearl. She waved her hand impatiently, not letting the Candle Dragon wait any longer.

Once upon a time, a single Day-Wandering Netherworld Pearl could create a Night-Wandering Demon. Speaking of which, Li Qing wasn't exactly known for his thriftiness back then…

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The upper reaches of the Yuan River, 43,000 li away.

We've left the South, but that doesn't mean there are no people here anymore. In the southwestern mountains, there are demons and ghosts, and naturally, there are also mountain dwellers and wild villages!

Eight hundred years ago, the ancient Feng Dynasty's territory stretched from the westernmost point of Xidu to the banks of the Cangming River in the south. After the chaos of war, many mountain people were not incorporated into the two kingdoms of the north and south.

Recently, the ghostly afflictions have been frequent, resulting in heavy casualties in this western mountain village. The elders of the mountains then sought help from the "Ba Kingdom" in the north, hoping to ask the Sun Sect to cure the ghostly afflictions.

However, many major events have occurred in the Kingdom of Ba recently. Even the sun bird worshipped by the Sun God Cult has been injured. Sun God Cults from various places have successively sent their forces to the heart of Baqiu, but they are unable to help the mountain people from all sides.

At that moment, a pair of wandering Taoist priests from the north accepted the commission.

The mountains of that western land are home to great medicinal herbs. The herbal treasures collected by the mountain elders from various mountains amount to nearly two million zhu, including dozens of large and small golden lingzhi mushrooms, which are famous in the Ba Kingdom.

The master and apprentice from the north accepted the commission and followed the mountain people into the Yuan River to handle the matter.

"Master, I heard from the people of Nanqiu Prefecture that this ghost river is a man-eating river. Hundreds of people lose their lives in it every year, and fierce ghosts come to claim lives every night!"

"Are we... really going to catch ghosts?"

A young girl with jade-like skin grabbed the sleeve of a female Taoist priest, looking at the murky, deep abyss river with a troubled expression.

What use are those meager medicinal herbs? She still has to go with the villagers in the mountains to catch ghosts. She's heard that the mountain demons in the south love to abduct young women, so she dares not and does not want to go to the western south...

"Useless thing, what do you have to fear from evil spirits when you are a dignified cultivator?"

"Where have you put all the magic I taught you gone?"

Ahead stood a woman in plain clothes, her hair tied up with a green hairpin. She was dressed half as a Taoist priest and half as a hermit, but her pure and ethereal aura clearly indicated that she belonged to the immortal path, and... her aura far surpassed that of ordinary people in the Purple Palace.

This is a fallen immortal lineage north of Tiandu. Judging from its aura alone, its original lineage was probably not much worse than the Five Directions Immortal Sect!
"Don't be afraid, come with me."

The female Taoist priest had a cold and beautiful face, and her words were extremely forceful. With just a wave of her magic, she forcibly pulled the girl along and made her follow the mountain stronghold's team ahead.

This master and disciple were originally disciples of the Jade Spirit Dao lineage in the North of Heaven and Earth. The Jade Spirit School is said to be a legacy left by one of the Three Sovereigns. It is based on the legend of the five-colored stones left by Nuwa and has the supernatural power of the scripture "Five-Colored Sky-Mending Technique". After the sect was imprisoned and disbanded by the Northern Kingdom, they were scattered to all corners of the world.

Several years ago, the two were coerced by a person called "Heavenly Palace" to take away the Five-Colored Heaven-Mending Technique from the female Taoist priest. After fighting several times, they came here to avoid disaster.

The female Taoist priest had set up numerous protective barriers to escape the pursuit of "Sun" and "Jupiter," but her spiritual resources were also severely depleted. Upon seeing the precious medicinal herbs in the hands of the mountain people, she was immediately tempted.

She only regretted that she had been careless in accepting this disciple, who was as cowardly as a mouse.

At this moment, who cared about the rebellious disciple? He lifted the girl with one hand and crossed the cable car and the Abyss River!

A group of mountain villagers and local warriors, each with a sharp blade in their mouth, slowly moved across the thousand-foot-high cableway over the abyss. The female Taoist priest, however, merely touched the cableway with her toes, and with a gust of wind, instantly crossed the hundreds-of-foot-wide abyss. "Is she a deity...?"

"With mountains above, this is a divine manifestation!"

A deafening roar echoed through the abyss, while the local militiamen on the cableway, their steel knives clenched in their teeth, murmured in alarm.

The female Taoist priest named Mo Ling initially thought that the person was just an ordinary mortal who had never seen the methods of immortals, until a violent explosion and tremor came from the river abyss in the east, at which point she raised an eyebrow.

"The spirits of the mountains?"

"Are those the mountain spirits and land deities of your western mountains? If so, why not ask them for help?"

"This is not what you said!"

Daoist Mo Ling looked at the entity that was stirring up the Abyss River, his face showing even more suspicion.

Having traveled extensively, she naturally knew the wickedness of people's hearts, and her intentions in such deception were still unknown.

If the village elders can't give an answer, the Jade Spirit Flying Needles in her hand will probably take several more lives!
"Ah? Fairy, please don't be angry, please don't be angry." The old man among the mountain people waved his hands anxiously. He had heard that the fairy in front of him was a jinx who had killed several priests of the Sun God Cult as soon as she entered Nanqiu.

"This...this old man also does not know!"

"But the mountains are connected to the myths of the ancient kingdom. Legend has it that there is a god of Zhongshan called Zhulong, a red dragon with a human face and no feet, and a god of Beiman Mountain called Qiongqi, with a bull's head and a ferocious body..."

"This is just a rumor. Today is its first appearance, and it has not received any offerings from us..."

A crimson dragon was seen rampaging through a corner of the Abyss River, its crimson flames spreading for miles, covering the entire river surface and scorching the water ghosts below, who howled in terror.

The local militia and the old man on the high cliff explained in unison.

Both the Ba Kingdom and the Northern Empire revered the divine. The Ba Kingdom worshipped the nine-headed phoenix and used its sun god religion to ward off the monsters of the western lands; the Northern Kingdom respected Heaven and its ancestors, and its gods ruled the world. But none of this mattered to them, the mountain people. Why would they want to harm this fairy?

After the mountain people explained desperately, the fairy Mo Ling finally put down the flying needle in her sleeve, opened her spiritual eyes and looked into the canyon. The next moment, her pupils shrank.

"It seems you were right, that was a red dragon with an owner, not something that belonged to the mountains."

Fairy Mo Ling nodded slowly, recognizing at a glance the six-horned, crown-like, red-maned, footless fire dragon. This was a dragon beast raised using ancient dragon-taming methods, its body brimming with pure dragon energy, something that could not be nurtured in the mountains and wilds.

There was also the Taoist priest who traveled by day with a lamp, stepping on the waves of the Yuan River to go west. His right hand transformed into a claw, and ghostly script appeared. Whenever any ghosts or spirits appeared on the water, he would strike them down with a palm, capturing them one by one.

This person is actually cleaning up the ghostly affliction?
"Besides the unorthodox swordsmanship of Baqiu, does the Ba Kingdom in the Western Lands have any immortal cultivation lineages?" The female Taoist priest raised her eyebrows slightly, looked into the distance, and then asked the old man in the mountain.

The old man was extremely cautious in his words. As a mere mortal, he couldn't clearly see the Daoist figure in the distant river, nor did he know why the female Taoist priest had asked the question. He shook his head in confusion: "I don't think so..."

The mountain dwellers above gasped in surprise, causing "Candle" to turn around and gaze with its dreamlike vertical pupils toward the cliffs.

"hold head high!"

There's someone there!
Li Qing walked with a lamp in hand, and the ghostly inscriptions on his five fingers went straight into a bottomless abyss, summoning the evil spirits and water ghosts from the water and swallowing them into the abyss until they disappeared.

This place may be a gathering place for mountain people. Many living people have been harmed by water ghosts and fallen into the deep river. Those who become powerful are transformed into new water ghosts, while those who do not become powerful are also transformed into yin spirits that linger on the surface of the river.

There were thousands of scattered ghosts, most of which couldn't even be considered to be wandering at night, but Li Qing still "kindly" helped them pass on.

Upon hearing the meddlesome "Candle's" reminder, Li Qing turned her head and exchanged a glance with the people on the cliff.

"I haven't learned the official language of Baqiu, so I'm afraid we won't be able to communicate..."

When Li Qing was young, he entered the palace and learned the languages ​​of the Southern and Northern Kingdoms, but he had never been exposed to the language of the Ba Kingdom.

Although they were only seven or eight miles apart, he could hear the woman and the mountain folk talking to each other, but unfortunately, he couldn't understand them!
He turned and met the woman's gaze, but the two of them looked away at the same time. After all, they were both Taoists, and it was not proper for them to stare at each other like that. They figured they had no connection with each other and didn't need to pay any attention to her.

"For thousands of miles, there have been many evil spirits and ghosts in the river. They must be the vengeful ghosts who died unjustly in the river over the past few hundred years. But what is the source of this ghostly affliction?"

After turning his gaze away, Li Qing was truly puzzled. How could there be such a continuous stream of water ghosts being generated in the ordinary river?

There are no extraordinary Yin veins beneath the Yuan River, nor are they the spirits of the dead people who died after the fall of the ancient kingdom, as the legends say. The water ghosts of the Yuan River are extremely pure and have no resentment. Many of the water ghosts seem to be born that way.

Li Qing walked with a lantern, his dark eyes probing the depths of the Abyss River as if the sun and moon were shining brightly. He then used his soul-summoning magic to fish for vengeful ghosts, and thus, he stepped on the waves of the Abyss River, moving upstream step by step...

To be honest, such methods really startled the master and disciple on the cliff.

No matter how powerful this Taoist's methods are, how dare he be so arrogant as to walk on the Ghost River? Is he really not afraid of being attacked by the fierce ghosts underwater?
However, no one could answer their question, and the dragon and the man below quickly disappeared from their sight.

After another cup of tea, the female Taoist priest Mo Ling belatedly began to mutter to herself:

"That's the path of ghosts. The path of ghosts still exists in the Southern Kingdom of Tiandu, where immortals, ghosts, and humans coexist. So, is he a Taoist priest from the Southern Kingdom...?"

The group lingered on the cliff for a long time until the red dragon below disappeared. Then the old man in the mountain bowed and stepped forward, inviting Fairy Mo Ling to accompany them westward into the mountain.

His invitation to the Taoist priest to lend a hand was certainly not a request from Tiannan to Linyuan Mountain to completely suppress the ghostly scourge of the Yuan River.

The villages in the mountains diverted a small tributary of the Yuan River into the mountains. They also used ancient folk methods, nailing 365 twelve-foot-tall willow wood spirit stakes upside down at the riverbank and erecting a nine-layered net to prevent wandering souls and water ghosts from entering the stream.

The mountain elders only wanted to find someone to cleanse the water ghost that had wandered into the tributary, and then drive back the large willow stake that had been overturned by the evil ghost, so that they could continue to draw water from the stream.

The master and apprentice followed the mountain people to the west into the mountains to rid the villages of troubles, while Li Qing went upstream along the great ghost, intending to measure the Yuan River for 100,000 miles with his own feet and take away all the ghosts in it.

The great ghosts were forged and refined, offering sacrifices to the Southern Dipper's life-extending lamp, using the essence and spirit of all kinds of great ghosts to feed back to the stars and celestial prophecies and authority; the lesser ghosts were refined into the ghost script, combining the two minor supernatural powers of Wuwei and Soul Summoning to create a great magic power to capture souls and seize spirits!

This is a training of the mind, and also a training of the Way. Seeing countless spirits die violently, one must not feel sorrow; slaying thousands of ghosts with one's own hand, one must not feel pity; staining one's palm with blood, one must not feel cruelty; slaughtering ghosts without hesitation, one must not feel heartlessness. This journey will also be a test of one's own strength!
On their journey westward, ordinary ghosts and spirits would never dare to provoke Li Qing, who possessed the aura of the Netherworld and the Ghost Mother, but there were always some terrifyingly powerful ghosts who were exceptions.

Finally, the first great demon, having roamed the world in a single day, appeared...

(End of this chapter)