Hermit in the Mountains

Halfway up Changsheng Peak, in the wooden bedroom, Gu Changsheng finished his practice and exhaled a breath of stale air. The white mist that came out of his mouth shot out like a sharp arrow a meter away before disappearing.

His eyelashes fluttered, and his eyes slowly opened, a grayish-brown light flashing in his left eye and a bright green light flashing in his right eye.

His gaze fell through the wooden window onto the vegetable patch in the distance, and he murmured to himself, "The ninth attempt at the 'withering and flourishing' transformation has succeeded."

He clenched his right hand, "My strength is nine thousand jin, approaching the ten thousand jin mark."

He used his divine sense to observe the changes in his body. The vital points such as his mouth, nose, ears, and eyes were covered by the "withering and flourishing armor" and closed off, achieving a body without leakage. His whole body was perfectly round and unified, reaching the legendary state of fetal breathing.

At this point, he no longer needed to breathe through his mouth and nose, completely cutting off the entry of acquired energy into his body.

By breathing directly through the pores of the skin, one can absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to sustain one's own energy consumption. By truly cultivating the supernatural power of "abstaining from grains," one can refine the essence of the sun and moon, inhale and exhale the energy of mountains and rivers, and absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to replace the "oxygen" needed by the body.

In the future, he will abandon all acquired food and only consume innate substances, such as the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, the energy of mountains and rivers, the essence of the sun and moon, and rare and precious materials.

It's not that he can't eat regular food, but regular food won't have any effect on his body. He also needs to be careful about the accumulation of waste gas in his body from the miscellaneous foods he eats, and he needs to actively clear this waste gas from time to time, which is a bit troublesome.

He can solve his food problem by replacing ordinary food with innate spiritual items, such as spiritual rice, spiritual fruit, and spiritual water, which contain spiritual energy. Long-term consumption of these spiritual items can also slowly nourish his physical body.

Gu Changsheng activated his full divine sense, and an invisible ripple spread outward from the wooden house. He could perceive even the slightest movements within a 100-meter radius of the house, and the spiritual energy particles in the world flickered like tiny lights.

Within a ten-meter radius, the wooden house was in sight and the breeze was in his ears; he could see and hear everything within that range.

He withdrew his divine sense and glanced at the life chart within his body. Twenty new emerald green rings had emerged in the center of the glass life chart.

Looking at the 240 annual cycles on his horoscope, he sighed, "At the age of 40, one can observe the rise and fall of dynasties."

Gu Changsheng pulled himself out of his thoughts, slowly raised his right hand, and made a gesture with his five fingers.

A grayish-brown nine-inch silk thread appeared out of thin air in the palm of his right hand, and it seemed to be sentient as it moved around in his palm.

He suddenly turned his right palm to face the ground, and slowly raised his index finger to gently tap the wooden window in front of him.

A grayish-brown thread flew from his index finger, like a sharp arrow, and instantly disappeared into the wooden window.

The grayish-brown thread moved with lightning speed, disappearing in the blink of an eye. Its presence was imperceptible to the naked eye, and it flashed by without a sound, like a ghost.

Before long, the wooden window was still the same wooden window, but in Gu Changsheng's eyes, something was different inside the window. The inside of the one-meter-long wooden strip looked as if it had been eaten away by termites, with only the surface still retaining the shape of the wooden strip.

Gu Changsheng gently tapped the wooden strip with his right index finger again, and a nine-inch emerald green silk thread flew out from his index finger and disappeared into the wooden strip.

Before long, the hollow wooden plank returned to its original solid state. Unfortunately, the "Power of Withering" caused permanent damage to the plank, and the "Power of Glory" could only repair more than 90% of it, not restore it to its original state.

Over the past twenty days, Gu Changsheng has explored and experimented, and has initially mastered the method of using the "Power of Withering and Flourishing" to transform into spiritual threads for attacks.

Although the method is simple, it can be considered as mastering a basic form of magical attack. The next step is to deduce the attack spell seal, amplify the attack power, increase the attack range, reduce the spiritual energy consumption, and reduce the casting time, so as to form a regular magical attack method.

Knowing that the higher-ups had already noticed the appearance of cultivators, Gu Changsheng devoted all his time outside of cultivation to deducing attack spell seals. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned, and he was always just a little short of being able to deduce the attack spell seals.

The legendary spells such as Fireball, Wind Blade, Ice Sword, Vine Entanglement, and Water Droplet could not be successfully condensed.

He could use his divine sense to control the water droplets from a distance, but it was like raindrops hitting his body—it didn't hurt or itch, and it lacked the power of water dripping on stone.

Every time the spell seal was formed, it would fail the moment it was completed, which once undermined Gu Changsheng's confidence.

Gu Changsheng couldn't understand why the three techniques of "Gathering Spirit," "Gathering Rain," and "Spiritual Rain" could be successfully deduced, while the attack technique "Spirit Seal" couldn't.

His final guess was that it was due to his own cultivation level or the rules of heaven and earth that did not allow it, but he had previously successfully deduced three spells, so his two guesses were not valid, and there must be some secrets that he did not know.

Unable to condense an attack spell seal for a long time, Gu Changsheng had no choice but to turn to divine sense manipulation. However, the consumption of divine sense power was too great, so he could only use attack methods as a trump card.

While Gu Changsheng was still immersed in the joy of his breakthrough and the frustration of his failed attempt at the Derivation Technique, thousands of kilometers away in Beijing, a top-secret meeting concerning him was being held in an office.

Inside the heavily guarded conference room, nine solemn-looking elderly men sat quietly on mahogany chairs, their eyes fixed on the projection screen in front of them, listening to the report given by a middle-aged man next to the projection equipment.

The projected images are accompanied by text descriptions, including endless mountain ranges, rushing rivers, dark and gloomy seabeds, and various plants and animals.

As images of mountains, rivers, herbs, and animals disappeared, ID photos, resident records, and a page of analysis results appeared instead.

The pictures include ID photos, half-body photos, and the people in the pictures have different hair types: some have white hair, some have jet-black hair, some are wearing Taoist robes, some are wearing kasayas, some are wearing Zhongshan suits, some are wearing long robes and gowns, and some are wearing exercise clothes.

These people all have one thing in common: they are all over forty years old and have been practicing health preservation exercises or various traditional mental cultivation methods for many years.

The middle-aged man reporting next to the projection equipment was named Zhao Tianhu. He was the director of the Security Bureau and was responsible for investigating the appearance of practitioners in the civilian population and unusual events in the wild.

After Zhao Tianhu finished reporting the contents of the document, he suddenly turned around and solemnly told the nine elders about the special person in this investigation.

"Elders, during this investigation, we have also discovered a rather unusual person;"

"This person is not a registered Taoist priest, Buddhist monk, or martial arts practitioner, but an orphan who is suspected of possessing the legendary alchemy skills."

When the words "alchemy" were uttered, strange looks appeared in the eyes of the nine old men in the room.

One of the elderly men spoke up, "Has the news been confirmed?"

"Reporting to Seventh Elder, the information was confirmed last night, but we have not yet sent anyone to contact this person. We would appreciate the elders' decision." Zhang Tianhu explained why they had not yet contacted the other party.

The elder, known as the Seventh Elder, continued, "You should have gathered enough information about this person by now. Tell me about his situation."

"Okay." Zhang Tianhu replied, then opened another file, which displayed five images with the profile information of the people in the images below.

If Gu Changsheng saw the five pictures on the projector, he would realize that the pictures depicted him in different periods of his life.

Nine elderly men in the meeting room looked at the person in the picture with puzzled expressions.

Zhang Tianhu began to introduce the people in the picture.

"Elders, the person in the photo is Gu Changsheng. He is thirty years old and an orphan. Because of his withdrawn personality, no one has adopted him, and he grew up in an orphanage..."

"The first photo is Gu Changsheng's ID photo from a few years ago, the second photo is a photo of him working last October, the third photo is a photo of him being hospitalized last November, the fourth photo is a photo of him this March, and the fifth photo is a photo of him this April."

The nine elders also noticed something unusual; Gu Changsheng had changed drastically, in terms of his appearance, physique, and spirit.

In particular, Gu Changsheng's hair is very noticeable. In just six months, he went from being bald to having thick hair that reached his shoulders, and in the fifth photo, he had half white hair and half black hair.

Another elderly man asked, "Xiao Zhang, are all the people in the photos the same person?"

"Reporting to Ninth Elder, it is the same person. The hair on Gu Changsheng's head is real hair, not a wig," Zhang Tianhu replied.

The old man, known as the Ninth Elder, gestured for Zhang Tianhu to continue. "Go on."

Zhang Tianhu nodded, his gaze returning to the projection screen. He pressed a button on the remote control in his hand, switching to a new file.