What if I don't want to ascend to immortality?

Chapter 1 (Prologue): What to do if you can't ascend to immortality?
The last embers of the spirit fire gradually faded, and in the center of the enormous vortex formed by countless fragments, the figure of the suspended man dimmed, as if he were about to be completely swallowed by the boundless darkness.

This was his ninth battle against the Demon Emperor. He thought it should also be his last battle with this old rival.

The body, filled with intense hatred, finally felt a sense of relief at this moment, as if it were about to be released.

At the age of six, Han Meng Village was destroyed by the evil spirits that swept through the village.

At the age of ten, he endured a heart-wrenching ordeal and became the youngest disciple of Sanxing Guayue Mountain.

At the age of twelve, he successfully forged his first Heart Sword Form—Weeping Blood, which shocked the sect with its immortal sword quality.

At seventeen, he forged the Heart Sword of divine weapon quality—Great Hatred. On the same day, he abandoned his original name, Han Sanwang, and called himself Hanhen.

...That happened more than a hundred years ago, but in his daze, it felt like it was just yesterday.

He could not forget his master's sigh to him: "Hate is a double-edged sword, hurting both others and oneself. If you are so obsessed that you cannot extricate yourself, you might as well go to the extreme and see if you can use it to prove your Dao and ascend to immortality."

At this moment, he had already slain the Demon Emperor nine times. The corpses of countless demons were scattered across the void he had cleaved open, and under the pull of the aftershocks of spiritual energy, they circled around him, like extinguished stars, slowly rotating.

The deep hatred remained in his hand, the dark blade relentlessly drawing upon his lifeblood. Yet, for some reason, he didn't disperse it back into his soul.

He had a vague feeling that something was about to happen.

If it's bad news, the Demon Emperor probably has a backup plan. If it's good news... He smiled slightly, a hint of self-mockery in his eyes. In his entire life, he had been toiling away, led by hatred, vowing to slay all the demons in the heavens. He was either eliminating demons or on his way to eliminate demons. Where had he ever encountered anything good?

As for attaining immortality... ever since he first cleaved the heavens with his sword while chasing demons and only saw a void, he stopped thinking about it.

Beyond the heavens lies another heaven, not a celestial realm.

Soon, the Demon Emperor's last breath dissipated, and the last spark of spiritual energy could no longer illuminate this boundless void illusion.

He sighed softly, preparing to dispel his deep hatred and leave through the rift he had previously created.

But at the very moment the light of the spirit fire was extinguished, a dazzling seven-colored starlight suddenly erupted from the spot outside the wreckage where the Demon Emperor had fallen!

He frowned slightly, gripped his sword tightly, and held the black blade horizontally in front of his chest. The little spiritual power he had left surged up, stirring up terrifying ripples in the void.

He didn't detect any demonic aura, but if they were hostile spiritual cultivators, why didn't they take advantage of the situation when he was fighting the Demon Emperor to the death?

He extended his divine sense outward, trying his best to sense any possible movement within that brilliant light.

Unexpectedly, he not only sensed an extremely unfamiliar and surging energy, but also detected a series of messages being exchanged behind that energy.

It was a language he shouldn't have been able to understand, but the corresponding information, along with the accent and voice, naturally surfaced in his mind.

The first message came from a light and cheerful female voice, her tone somewhat hesitant: "Brother Jie, isn't it too fast to send the Lingyi Immortal Seed No. 841231?"

The response came from a calm, deep male voice, in a leisurely tone: "Such a promising talent, even if we don't want him to grow into an Anchorman too quickly, we should let him see the real outside world as soon as possible, right? In their words... what's it called again, ascending to immortality, right?"

"No, no, absolutely not. Although his perception and manipulation of energy constructs are close to the level of breaking through dimensions, making him a rare genius among multi-nodes, you should have received the information I just gave you by using the energy construct. His life experience is too pure. Not only is his temperament close to the extreme of extremism, but his interpersonal relationships are also like a blank sheet of paper. Even with the strongest level of spacetime affinity, it is still a very, very, very dangerous decision to use such a simple big kid as an anchor point to build a spacetime bubble barrier."

The man's voice, gentle and tinged with amusement, asked, "And what do you mean?"

"I think he needs to further his spiritual practice."

“His current level is already capable of intercepting our information flow, which is far beyond the overall level of this spacetime bubble cluster. How can he go any further? I think we should just bring him over here.”

The woman's voice was quite stubborn, "All strength and no character, he'd just be a troublemaker who makes a mess and we'd have to clean up his messes. Me... wait, you just said he might already be eavesdropping on our conversation?"

"Yes, they might be listening to it with great interest right now."

"Ahem, um... well, let's not talk about it anymore. Anyway, I'll take care of this seed. Until there are results, I'll be in charge of the entire spacetime bubble cluster. Don't worry about it, go home and wait for me."

He slowly lowered his hands, his wariness gradually fading, yet doubts arose. The information he had gleaned from the two of them was clearly not incomprehensible, yet he was utterly bewildered, unable to understand a single word. Even the woman's final, coquettish "Wait for me at home" was something he had never experienced before, its true meaning elusive.

With a slight thought, the dazzling seven-colored starlight before him gradually receded and gathered, rotating and condensing into a huge ring composed of a soft halo. Within the ring, it seemed as if billions of stars were twinkling, resembling a strangely shaped gate.

This time, the woman's clear, melodious voice truly came from inside the door.

The voice wasn't very loud, but it passed through countless dissipating demonic remains and reached his ears without being damaged in the slightest.

However, compared to the relaxed and leisurely atmosphere of their previous exchanges, the woman's tone was now solemn, her words were slow and deliberate, and the resounding echoes amidst the swirling soft light truly gave her an astonishingly ethereal quality.

"Are you filled with resentment?"

He nodded slightly in response.

He knew the other party could definitely see it.

"The Gate to All Wonders, the Path to Immortality, is right before you now. Do you have anything to say?"

He felt a pang of unease; he always felt that she was more approachable when she spoke in a way he couldn't understand. But he had a vague feeling that the other end of this passage was indeed another world that would be extremely beneficial to him, even if this "ascension to immortality" might not be the kind he knew, it was still tempting enough. He sighed softly, cupped his hands, and said, "I have slain demons to prove my Dao, and I am exhausted. I beg the immortal to guide me quickly, and not delay any longer."

"Are you teaching me how to do something?"

"Huh?" He was taken aback, not expecting the fairy from the upper realm to change her tone so suddenly, and he didn't know how to respond.

“I am not here to guide you. With your current state of mind, you are simply not suited to ascend to immortality. Immortals come from the mortal world. You have spent your life slaying demons, yet you have hardly ever been involved in worldly affairs and know nothing about humanity. How can you ascend to immortality?”

He frowned slightly, his weariness growing stronger. He thought to himself that even with the Demon Emperor killed, there were still countless evil spirits lurking in the world. Why waste time here?

He released his deep hatred and, with a restrained expression, offered one last gesture of respect: "Since that's the case, I won't trouble you any further, Immortal. Farewell."

"Wait a minute." The woman's voice was slightly cold, as if she was angry at his lack of ambition. "Since the founding of the Three Stars Hanging Moon Mountain sect, you are the only one who has forged nine Heart Swords and possesses the qualities of three immortals and one god. Have you ever thought about why, with your strength that has made you invincible in the world, you have not been able to kill off the endless stream of evil demons for more than a hundred years?"

He narrowed his eyes and said calmly, "I never thought about it. There are many things that no one is willing to do, simply because they think too much."

"You..." The woman seemed to hold her breath, and the passage filled with radiant light dimmed for a moment. "Fine, so be it. Your stubborn and unyielding nature certainly lacks the experience of the mortal world. My great immortal realm doesn't want another cold, rotten rock."

Upon hearing this, he knew that ascension to immortality was no longer possible. Fortunately, he did not feel particularly disappointed; instead, he felt a complex sense of relief.

Ultimately, what suits him best is the battlefield ravaged by demons.

He turned and flew toward the nearest weak point in the void.

Just as he was about to unleash his Heart Sword, Mist, he suddenly felt a chill down his spine. In an instant, his hair stood on end, his intuition warning him, making even his scalp tingle.

He quickly spun around, gathering his remaining spiritual energy at his fingertips, and in the blink of an eye, he drew a highly protective spiritual array in mid-air.

But he was still a step too slow.

A dazzling radiance, carrying with it the incomprehensible, immense power he had previously sensed, bound him tightly.

"This world is not your answer," the woman's ethereal voice softly whispered in his ear. "I cannot stand by and watch you stray further and further down the wrong path. Neither the celestial realm nor the mortal world needs a weapon that only knows how to slaughter. Whether you are grateful to me or resent me in the future, I do not care. Go!"

The moment he heard the last word, the light that had been binding him suddenly burst forth, and streams of power he could neither describe nor comprehend flowed through his entire body in an instant.

Immediately, he began to disintegrate.

He raised his hand and watched as his body, that extraordinary physique brimming with spiritual power, suddenly transformed into countless shimmering specks of dust, dissipating into the void.

He wanted to speak, but it was too late. In the blink of an eye, all that remained in the void was his spiritual power, his soul, and the Heart Sword Form hidden within his soul.

Was he dead? But apart from his physical body, he hadn't lost anything. Only his soul, still retaining consciousness, remained firmly restrained by that power.

The light began to move, carrying all that remained of it, rushing extremely fast toward another weak point in the void.

The next second, a fair and delicate hand reached out from the passage, extending its slender index finger and making a sweeping motion.

The void was easily torn apart like paper windowpanes, and he was enveloped in light, instantly disappearing into the crack.

"With your control over spiritual power, it shouldn't be difficult to patiently and calmly rebuild your body. The two worlds you've been transferred to are too different, and I can't do it right now with your physical body. You'll just have to bear with it and start over slowly."

Those words, tinged with a subtle mockery and a hint of eager anticipation, were the last sounds he heard before the long, agonizing dizziness subsided.

When he awoke, he found himself transformed into a small ball of light, about a foot in size. He explored the surrounding area with his divine sense and found it to be a good place to find a secluded retreat cave.

The only problem is that the spiritual energy here is very thin and the flow of energy is quite strange. If one were to rely on spiritual power to reshape one's body here, it would probably take a hundred years to achieve even one year's worth of results. To recover to the peak state of being twenty years old, it would take two thousand years!
Even though he was usually polite when he wasn't slaying demons, he couldn't help but curse the capricious fairy from the upper realm in his heart at this moment.

But since things had come to this, after venting his anger, he could only calm himself down, use his spiritual power to move the ball of light, and carefully examine it from all sides.

Within a radius of more than ten miles, there is only a small village hidden in the mountain valley on the east side, named Hanmengzhuang—which differs from his hometown, which he can never return to, by only one character.

Perhaps it was this sliver of fate that sparked his idea. Before leaving, he secretly left a spirit array at the location of the Meng family ancestral hall in the center of the village. If ordinary evil spirits quietly passed through, that would be fine, but if they attempted to attack, they would be annihilated.

Only after finding a secluded cave where spiritual veins converged did he feel somewhat at ease. He then extended his divine sense to roughly perceive the distribution of spiritual energy in this world, in order to plan for the future.

Unexpectedly, this investigation revealed an extremely strange situation.

In this vast world, spiritual energy is scarce everywhere. Only in nine places scattered across the vast planet is there an extremely rich concentration of energy. He focused his mind on sensing the one closest to him, and the shape he visualized was an enormous cauldron, as big as a mountain.

If there were nine such cauldrons, they might be able to form a grand array powerful enough to influence the entire world.

Thinking of this, he abandoned the idea of ​​refining his body by the cauldron. To be cautious, he sealed the cave entrance with spiritual magic, then slowly descended to the deepest cave wall, drawing strands of the surrounding spiritual energy into his soul, attempting to transform it into a physical body.

Thus began an incredibly long period of cultivation...

(End of this chapter)