A Mortal's Journey to Immortality

Three days later, when Zhou Ping woke up again, he felt completely refreshed, as if he had inexhaustible energy. Apart from his face still looking a bit old and frail, he felt that he was in surprisingly good condition.

He got up and went to the pots of spiritual plants he was cultivating. After glancing at them, a look of surprise unexpectedly appeared on his calm face.

Zhou Ping quickly focused his gaze on the empty flowerpot and began to examine it carefully.

A moment later, he actually reached out and searched through the spiritual soil. Soon, a fruit pit the size of a thumb appeared in his hand. Judging from its appearance, it seemed to be relatively fresh and contained a faint spiritual fluctuation, unlike what one would expect from a worthless seed.

"That's strange... Before I rested, I clearly poured some spiritual liquid into this flowerpot, so why is there not the slightest sign that the seed of this Purple Cloud Thunder Fruit is sprouting and taking root?"

Zhou Ping examined the small spirit core in his hand with a puzzled look on his face. This was the first time he had encountered such a situation.

Over the years, any medicinal herbs and spiritual plants that have been watered with agarwood elixir, as long as they still have vitality, have been successfully accelerated to maturity. Today, however, the Purple Cloud Spirit Core has given him a big surprise.

After a long period of secluded cultivation, Zhou Ping broke through to a new level in both body refinement and Qingyuan Gong cultivation.

He no longer had any better pills to continue his cultivation.

After Zhou Ping advanced to the late stage of Qi Refining, the effects of the Golden Marrow Pill were significantly weakened. This pill was originally intended for cultivators in the mid-stage of Qi Refining, so this change was within Zhou Ping's expectations.

The Blood Emperor Pill, a precious medicine for body refinement, completely lost its effectiveness after he reached the late stage of the first level of body refinement perfection, and there were no further reactions after taking it.

According to ancient records, when a body cultivator attempts to break through to the second tier, only Blood Emperor Pills made from Blood Emperor Grass that has been cultivated for over a thousand years can increase the chances of breaking through. Blood Emperor Grass with an age of less than a thousand years will no longer have any effect on them.

Zhou Ping doesn't have the energy to spend a considerable amount of time cultivating the Thousand-Year Blood Emperor Grass right now, and even if he were willing to do it, he wouldn't dare to casually consume and cultivate the Thousand-Year Blood Emperor Pills he refines.

If he fails to break through to the second level of Body Refinement, that's fine. But if by some twist of fate he manages to successfully advance to the second level of Body Refinement, wouldn't he be equivalent to a Foundation Establishment cultivator?

Although this is a joyous thing, he can no longer participate in the Five Elements Realm Trial, and there is no way to cure the injury to his Dao Foundation.

In this way, he would have completely severed his path to higher realms as a cultivator, and could only focus on body refinement for the rest of his life.

However, given the current state of the cultivation world, the path of body refinement has long been considered a dead end, so how could he possibly place all his hopes on this path?

After realizing these circumstances, Zhou Ping decisively shifted his focus from accelerating the growth of spiritual plants from the Golden Spirit Seed and the Blood Emperor Grass. Instead, he took the opportunity to use some of the freshly obtained Agarwood Spirit Liquid to accelerate the growth of the Purple Cloud Thunder Fruit that he had previously obtained from Qin Zhong.

The Purple Cloud Thunder Fruit in Zhou Ping's hand was originally taken out by Qin Zhong to make up the numbers because it had suffered severe loss of spiritual energy.

A few days ago, after remembering this thing, he curiously put the pulp into his stomach and tasted this legendary unique spiritual fruit.

Its effects were exactly as Zhou Ping had expected, because he did not feel any effects at all.

Fortunately, its remaining spirit core still possesses considerable spirituality, which is sufficient to serve as a spirit seed for the growth of the Purple Cloud Spirit Tree.

This was Zhou Ping's original goal. With his possession of the mysterious agarwood, why would he care about two mere spiritual fruits? What he coveted was the entire Purple Cloud Spirit Tree.

That's why he managed to get two Purple Cloud Thunder Fruits lacking spiritual energy from Qin Zhong, just in case.

"Could it be that the spiritual liquid used for watering wasn't enough? After all, it's a rare treasure of heaven and earth, and it must be extremely difficult to cultivate."

Zhou Ping pondered the information about the Purple Cloud Spirit Tree in his mind, remaining noncommittal.

He had heard about the cultivation of the Purple Cloud Spirit Tree before. Who wouldn't want to own such a spiritual root?

For the Qin family, the more the better. If they could cultivate them in large quantities, it would be an unimaginable temptation for the clan.

However, neither the Qin family nor any other forces or sects that acquired this spiritual fruit afterward seem to have ever heard of anyone successfully cultivating a brand new Purple Cloud Spirit Tree.

This result was also the main reason why the Qin family felt confident in spreading the Purple Cloud Thunder Fruit after countless trials.

Zhou Ping was initially skeptical, believing that with his mysterious agarwood, he might actually be able to cultivate one.

However, given the current situation, his hopes are likely to come to nothing, just like everyone else's.

"In any case, let's wait a few days until we have the spiritual liquid, then we can continue to water it and see. There's no need to rush."

After comforting himself, Zhou Ping tidied himself up a bit, left his residence, and flew towards the direction of the Asking Pavilion.

News of the Five Elements Realm Trial is now flying around the sect, and he doesn't know which ones are true and which ones are false. So he plans to go to Senior Brother Fang Miao to inquire and see if he can find out any useful information.

Zhou Ping has made great progress in both his Qingyuan Gong realm and his body cultivation, which has given him a lot of confidence.

With his current strength, as long as he doesn't actively provoke those elderly cultivators whose strengths are unclear, as well as the elite geniuses of various sects, he should be quite confident in ensuring his personal safety after entering the Five Elements Realm.

Because the number of people or things that could pose a fatal threat to him has been greatly reduced after his cultivation level improved.

Moreover, he now possesses a top-grade magic artifact, the Golden Crow Hairpin. After breaking through to the late stage of Qi Refining, with the surge in his magical power, he is now able to barely wield this artifact.

Zhou Ping felt that, apart from those he was wary of, few people could withstand the fatal blow from this magical artifact.

With all these guarantees in place, Zhou Ping, for the sake of prudence, still planned to find out more about the Five Elements Realm before making a decision on whether or not to participate in the Five Elements Realm Trial.

After all, if he were to wait another twenty years or so, his age would become a significant concern.

No one can say for sure what kind of impact it will have on his foundation building. He doesn't want to regret it when that time comes, because then it will be too late.

"Junior Brother Zhou...?!"

Several years later, when they met again, Fang Miao looked at the man in blue before her with an incredulous expression.

"How have you been, Senior Brother Fang?"

Zhou Ping raised his hand in a gesture of respect and greeted him with a smile.

Upon seeing this, Fang Miao suppressed her surprise, politely returned the greeting, and gestured for her to take a seat.

"I never expected... Junior Brother actually broke through to the late stage of Qi Refining. I lost my composure for a moment, please forgive me."

As soon as the two sat down, Fang Miao said with a touch of emotion, a hint of amazement still lingering on his face.

As Zhou Ping's senior brother who passed on his skills, he knew the latter's aptitude very well; otherwise, how could he have guided him in his cultivation?

But this cultivator with a pseudo-spiritual root was able to leap two minor realms in about four years, advancing directly from the mid-stage of Qi Refining to the late-stage. This result would be quite remarkable even for some disciples with good talent, let alone Zhou Ping.

"Just lucky... just lucky. If it weren't for that bottle of Golden Marrow Pill that Uncle Qin gave me back then, I'd probably still be stuck in the same place!"

Zhou Ping brought out his prepared shield at the opportune moment, looking extremely lucky.

"Golden Marrow Pill?...I see. No wonder Junior Brother's cultivation has improved so quickly."

Upon hearing the words "Golden Marrow Pill," Fang Miao's face showed a hint of surprise. After a pause, he continued...

"Even so, Junior Brother is still quite remarkable. Although pills can accelerate the cultivation speed of us cultivators, they have no way to break through the bottlenecks that may appear between different realms. Junior Brother's ability to break through to this realm in one fell swoop can be described as extremely fortunate!"

After listening, Zhou Ping's face showed a hint of agreement. He was indeed extremely lucky to have broken through so smoothly this time, without encountering the obstacles and bottlenecks that were rumored to exist.

These past few days, he has often thought about this question, hoping to gain more cultivation experience from this training.

But after much thought, he still couldn't figure it out, and could only attribute it back to the unknown benefits brought to him by body tempering and the Spring of Spiritual Eyes.

However, he was more inclined towards the Spirit Eye Spring. After all, although there were not many body-refining cultivators in the cultivation world, there were still many people who practiced both. No one had ever heard of anyone who could accelerate their cultivation speed by cultivating both body and magic. Generally, it required more effort and time to cultivate both at the same time.

On the contrary, the Spirit Eye Spring is widely rumored in the cultivation world and is almost universally recognized as a rare treasure of heaven and earth that can enhance the cultivation speed of cultivators.

Perhaps it was because he had ingested a large amount of spiritual spring water, and his whole body was cleansed by pure spiritual energy, which invisibly resolved any potential bottlenecks in his cultivation.

Zhou Ping could only speculate in his heart.

"Senior Brother Fang, please stop praising Zhou Ping. I know myself very well, and I am still worlds apart from you senior brothers."

Zhou Ping waved his hand modestly, not daring to show the slightest hint of pride on his face.

Seeing this, Fang Miao didn't dwell on the topic any longer. Instead, he looked at the former with great interest and asked meaningfully,

"Junior Brother, you've come to see me today not to ask about cultivation issues, have you?"

"It seems that junior brother's little schemes cannot escape the discerning eyes of senior brother."

Zhou Ping raised his hand and scratched the back of his head, chuckling as he continued,

"Actually, after being in seclusion for so long, I do have a few questions about cultivation that I would like to ask you, senior brother. However, my real purpose in coming here today is to inquire about the truth of the rumors about the Five Elements Realm. These days, all sorts of news about it are flying around, and I really have some difficulty in distinguishing the truth from the falsehood."

"With Senior Brother Fang's abilities and connections, he should have been fully aware of this long ago, right?"

Faced with Zhou Ping's flattery, Fang Miao remained silent, instead appearing as if he had expected this. After observing Zhou Ping for a few moments, he sighed softly and said...

"It seems that Junior Brother still has his heart set on the Five Elements Realm... Indeed, anyone would be unwilling to give up such an opportunity easily."

Fang Miao sighed slightly, seemingly unsurprised by Zhou Ping's thoughts.

The latter's aptitude is what it is; if he were to willingly wait more than twenty years to seek the opportunity to establish his foundation, his mere willpower would almost certainly put him out of reach of the Great Dao.

"Most of the news that Junior Brother Zhou heard is true. I estimate that the sect leader will announce it to the entire sect soon."

"Could other cultivation forces really be involved?! Wouldn't that make this Five Elements Realm Trial even more dangerous and unpredictable?!"

After receiving Fang Miao's affirmative answer, Zhou Ping's expression darkened considerably. This result was not a good thing. The Five Elements Realm Trial had suddenly expanded from an internal struggle among the five major sects into a battle across the entire cultivation world of the Great Liang Dynasty. Just thinking about it made one's scalp tingle.

"Hehe... The final scene might be much more complicated than you imagine, junior brother."

Fang Miao chuckled self-deprecatingly; even he felt an indescribable sense of apprehension towards this Five Elements Realm Trial.

"Oh? Please enlighten me, senior brother!"

Zhou Ping's heart skipped a beat, as if a bad premonition was welling up in his mind, and his expression became serious.

"Although it has been confirmed that other cultivation sects will join forces to participate in the Five Elements Realm Trial, this is only a part of it. It is said that the demons of the Hidden Thunder Mountains have secretly colluded with the great demons of the Yin-Yang Forest, and will also send their younger demons into the Five Elements Realm to compete for the rare treasure that is about to appear in the world."

Fang Miao slowly recounted the information he had gathered, and the atmosphere in the room became heavy.

The demon race has been an undeniable overlord in this world since ancient times, and its strength and heritage are in no way inferior to those of the human race.

Even in the ancient times, before the rise of the human race, the demon race was already the master of this world. Even now, the human race is only on par with them. In this vast world, there are countless unknown ancient demon races and forces. The Great Liang is just a small part of the world.

"Demon race? How could this be? Isn't the method to open the Five Elements Realm in the hands of the Five Great Mystic Sects? Do they really dare to attack Yinzhou?"

Zhou Ping voiced his doubts, finding it hard to believe that the demon race would dare to act this way. If not handled properly, wouldn't it trigger a great war between the human and demon races? This outcome was not something that a single sect or country could bear.

If war were to break out, several countries and the cultivation world surrounding the Great Liang would likely be drawn into it, and no one would be spared.

The Hidden Thunder Mountains are a vast domain of demon races that spans several countries and the cultivation world. The reclusive demon races within it definitely have the strength and confidence to not fear a cultivation kingdom like Great Liang.

Even the Yin-Yang Forest within Flower Valley is merely one of its countless branches. Its vastness and complexity are beyond what Zhou Ping could comprehend after merely wandering around its outer corner.