To comprehend all laws and attain immortality

After successfully returning to the Lingxiao Sect, Gu Fan's heart immediately calmed down.

Under the yellowing peach tree, Gu Fan lit a stick of incense and brewed a cup of fragrant tea before taking out a jade slip from his storage bag and quietly examining it.

A dense array of texts unfolded in my mind, some Taoist and some ordinary.

The record contains a basic cultivation technique called "The Record of Mysterious Gold and Shadows," which has mediocre effects and does not provide any bonus to Foundation Establishment.

Moreover, cultivating this method requires a metal-type spiritual root, which does not match Gu Fan's spiritual root attribute, so he only glanced at it briefly and then threw it aside.

The second jade slip contained a message left by the skeletons in the grotto.

He wrote a long and detailed account, including not only his life story but also the background and circumstances of where he hid the treasure. The complexity of the story made Gu Fan sigh as he read it.

It turns out that Hou Ying's ancestor was not surnamed Hou, but Xia, and his name was Xia Lingfeng.

The Xia family was originally a small cultivation family in the Chen Kingdom. The highest cultivation level in the family was only at the late stage of Qi Refining, and there was not even a Foundation Establishment cultivator.

Such a weak family, though somewhat stronger than a rogue cultivator, can barely make a living unless they produce a celestial seedling with exceptional spiritual roots or are fortunate enough to obtain an opportunity.

But perhaps due to the favor of the Dao Ancestor, Xia Lingfeng actually managed to snatch a rare treasure in an accident, and this treasure was also the culprit that led to the destruction of the Xia family.

Not long after Xia Lingfeng obtained the extraordinary treasure, the news was relayed by an inside agent within his clan to the Wang family, another Qi Refining family nearby.

The Wang family and the Xia family were originally related by marriage, but ever since they learned about the rare treasure, they have been thinking about seizing it for themselves.

Ultimately, the Wang family decided to use their kinship ties to hold a banquet and wipe out all the cultivators from the Xia family. They even paid a hefty sum to hire several rogue cultivators for this purpose.

Unfortunately, despite all their calculations, the Wang family did not anticipate that Xia Lingfeng would also obtain a secret technique along with the rare treasure.

This secret technique is called "The True Secret of Convergence," which is both a method of concealing one's aura and a way to sense the murderous intent of others towards oneself.

On his way to the banquet at the Wang family's residence, Xia Lingfeng sensed the murderous intent of the Wang family members and immediately became alert.

Seeing that their scheme had been exposed, the Wang family decided to strike first.

The Wang family had planned this all along, and with the help of rogue cultivators, the Xia family members were powerless to resist. In the end, only Xia Lingfeng managed to escape in a sorry state.

At this time, Xia Lingfeng had already reached the mid-stage of Qi Refining. With the Wang family relentlessly pursuing him, he had no choice but to risk crossing the Sea of ​​Clouds and Mist and fleeing towards the Wei Kingdom.

The Wei and Chen kingdoms faced each other across the sea, the closest point being a strait, no more than a hundred miles apart. Although there was white fog on the sea, Xia Lingfeng didn't care about that in order to escape with his life.

Good fortune smiled upon Xia Lingfeng once again. Thanks to the effects of the "True Technique of Pulling the Mechanism," he not only evaded several attempts by the Wang family to kill him, but also successfully crossed the Cloud Mist Sea. By chance, he also discovered the underwater spiritual vein cave.

After recuperating in the grotto for a while, Xia Lingfeng became a rogue cultivator in the Wei Kingdom. Harboring hatred for the royal family, he changed his name and went into hiding, hoping only to cultivate to the Foundation Establishment stage and return to the Chen Kingdom to avenge the extermination of his clan.

During his time as a rogue cultivator, Xia Lingfeng constantly motivated himself with the hatred of his clan's annihilation, cultivating tirelessly day after day to earn spirit stones.

Finally, before he turned sixty, Xia Lingfeng had saved up enough spirit stones to obtain a Foundation Establishment Pill from the auction house in the market!

Although he had exhausted all his possessions and only had a few dozen spirit stones left, Xia Lingfeng was still extremely excited, as if his great revenge was about to be achieved.

Then, he failed to establish his foundation.

The good fortune that had favored him so many times had no effect whatsoever at this moment.

With a mid-grade spiritual root, unless there is a cultivation technique or a foundation-building spiritual item to enhance it, the probability of foundation building is only 10%.

Foundation Establishment Spiritual Objects are extremely rare, and cultivation techniques that increase the probability of Foundation Establishment are even rarer. In the Wei Kingdom, only the Lingxiao Sect has this lineage.

In the Lingxiao Sect, cultivating a mid-grade technique increases the probability of success by 10% when establishing one's foundation. Many people have defied fate and successfully established their foundation by relying on this increased probability.

Upon seeing this, Gu Fan couldn't help but feel a moment of silence for Xia Lingfeng, while also feeling fortunate that he had joined the Lingxiao Sect.

Xia Lingfeng was heartbroken after failing to establish his foundation, because he knew he could no longer raise the spirit stones needed to buy another foundation-building pill.

Moreover, after a cultivator reaches the age of sixty, their vital energy declines, and even with a Foundation Establishment Pill, they lack the confidence to successfully establish their foundation.

In despair, Xia Lingfeng decided to place his hopes on the next generation.

From that day on, a new lord, Lord Hou, appeared in Haifeng City. He was not only wealthy but also highly skilled in martial arts.

When Lord Hou announced his intention to take wives and concubines, the matchmakers in Haifeng City practically wore out the threshold of the Hou residence.

So, Lord Hou channeled all his energy for earning spirit stones into his wives and concubines, and after several years, they finally had five children.

When a child reaches the age of five, their spiritual potential can be tested.

When Master Hou tested the spiritual roots of his five sons with high hopes, he was instantly struck dumb.

None of his five offspring possessed spiritual roots!

Unwilling to give up, Lord Hou continued to take concubines and have children, eventually fathering more than twenty offspring over a period of more than ten years.

Perhaps he had used up all his energy, for none of his more than twenty offspring possessed spiritual roots.

Moreover, cultivators in the Qi Refining stage have a lifespan that is only a few years longer than ordinary people. He had also been injured in past pursuits, and as he grew old and his body weakened, his hidden injuries flared up, causing his body to gradually wither away.

Seeing that Master Hou was nearing the end of his life, his more than twenty sons immediately began to fight over the family property. Although they did not openly turn against each other, open and covert struggles were inevitable.

Only then did he realize that he had only hoped that his offspring would have spiritual roots, while neglecting to teach those who did not, which had led to this situation.

His many descendants still outwardly respect him, but in reality they have become disobedient.

At this point, Master Hou was utterly desperate.

After a night of contemplation, he carved the black wooden plaque, recording the location of the grotto.

He summoned his descendants, explained that he was a cultivator, left the Hou family with a method for guiding Qi and several cultivation techniques with the five elements, and then left under the cover of night.

If future generations possess spiritual roots, they can find his hiding place and retrieve the treasure; if they cannot find it, then let the treasure that led to the Xia family's extinction be buried with him.

This was the last struggle of Master Hou, who was also Xia Lingfeng.

Based on the time mentioned in the jade slip, Gu Fan calculated that it had been more than two hundred years since then.

In two hundred years, not to mention mortal families, even immortal cultivation families, such as the Xia family, have seen many families wiped out.

Now, the Hou family only has one heir, Hou Ying, which shows that the entire Hou family fell apart after Xia Lingfeng left.

When Hou Ying moved to Lin'an City, Gu Fan had seen all of Hou Ying's belongings. There were no cultivation techniques among them, so it was likely that they had been lost long ago. It was already a stroke of luck that the black wooden plaque was left behind.

Gu Fan shook his head, put the jade slip away, and then took out the jade ring.

The rare treasure Xia Lingfeng obtained was this jade ring, but no matter how Gu Fan examined it, even with his Myriad Manifestations Eye, he couldn't see anything unusual about it.

The jade slip did not explain the use of this rare treasure, which made Gu Fan very curious.

Reluctantly putting the jade slip away, Gu Fan shook his head and took out the third jade slip with great curiosity.

This jade slip contains the secret technique called "The True Secret of Pulling the Mechanism" that Xia Lingfeng mentioned!