The morning breeze blew through the night's dew as tree leaves trembled in the sun's wake.
Beyond the mountain's shadow, an old bridge arched over the shimmering body of a small river spring, and a lone carriage could be seen making its way through its steps.
At the helm, two figures sat from across the leading horses while basking under the dim sunrise's warmth.
"Ahhh, Old Fourth…This year's trades seem to be particularly dire." A bald middle-aged man wearing thick, black-furred clothes silently complained while ushering the horses forward.
"Oh… Old Third, Is that even such a big issue? With everything else going on in these accursed lands, keeping our lives is already good enough." The other man, Old Fourth, burped while chewing on a small chicken bone. He looked to be in his late twenties, wearing a loose hemp hat and covered in a long mantle of dirty wool.
"I know, but still..." The middle-aged man, Old Third, briefly frowned before sighing.
"Maybe Old Second is right. Maybe it's about time we start probing the western route…"
That idea left them both quiet and sullen.
Having been born in the North, they loved and knew these lands like the palm of their hands.
Unfortunately these very same lands had never felt bleaker.
As of late, the trees seldom bore fruit.
Most rivers had either permanently froze or gone dry.
The mountains were teeming with wild, bloodthirsty beasts.
A ghastly chill permeated the air.
And the people no longer looked after their own. Their hearts had grown cold and foggy.
Of course the North wasn't the sole victim of these strange and eerie changes.
Rumors grew of ghostly apparitions and demonic beasts terrorizing the eastern roads.
Not to speak of the growing number of bandit gangs acting up along the forest paths down in the south…
These compounding issues had made the old roads almost empty, and forced the villages in between to shut themselves off from wandering merchants.
Only the West seemed to remain relatively stable amidst these turbulent times. Which also led to the spreading of a few unsavory rumors among the common folk.
The two brothers looked at each other and let out a collective sigh of dismay.
"Man proposes and heaven disposes…" Old Third muttered, feeling slightly depressed.
Then, as if reminded of something he turned toward the back of the carriage with a wary and pitiful look on his face.
"Of course there are some whose fate has been a little worse…" He whispered in a strange tone.
"Mmm. D-…Do you think it could've been one of those ghosts?" Old Fourth murmured without turning his eyes away from the road.
Although he was mostly level headed, when it came to things outside of the mortal realm he couldn't help but feel a cold shiver running through his bones.
In this world, mortals like them, were as insignificant as the ants beneath one's feet.
Unlike in the old legends, setting aside supernatural horrors, encountering a wandering Immortal Cultivator more often than not led to a terrible fate.
"No, those evil things don't leave anything behind. Didn't you see the wounds?" Old Third solemnly shook his bald head.
"If it had been an evil spirit even his soul would've been sucked away. This fellow must've been attacked by a pack of starving wolves. He was just lucky enough to have reached the river before they finished the job." He calmly added while stroking his beard.
"Lucky, uh…" Old Fourth bitterly smiled.
"Can he really be called lucky? Aya, those damn beasts have grown too unruly these days!" He shook his head, feeling quite a bit of pity.
Old Third shrugged. "Wolves are wild beasts, they're just trying to survive. We already saved this fellow free of cost, he should indeed count himself lucky."
"Now, whether or not he lives through…That has nothing to do with the two of us brothers." While speaking, he carefully eyed the surrounding trees.
"Instead of worrying about a stranger, we should first worry about our own skin."
"En." Old Fourth lightly nodded with a hidden sense of wariness.
"Thankfully the city is just a few hours away."
"Hmm, this old body of mine is trembling for some warmth."
"Hehe, let's hope there's some hot porridge left at Uncle Wei's inn…"
"Hehehe, there always is…"
As the two brothers dreamed of the near future, deep within the confines of the carriage a pair of pitch black eyes slowly opened to the world.
Xu An tried to rise but his body seemed to crumble under the slightest of strains.
Waves of burning pain constantly surged throughout every corner of his being, making him grit his teeth in agony.
The last thing he could remember was being found by those two men and brought inside the carriage. Then everything had turned into a blur of pain and cold.
It felt as though a thousand horses had run across his bones.
Yet, his will to live had made him persevere.
If he couldn't even survive a bunch of starving dogs and a little cold, then how could he be worthy to walk down the path of immortals?
In fact, Xu An had already been awake for more than half a day, and through the whispers of the two brothers out in the front, he had managed to vaguely make out his current situation.
To think that the world outside of that little mountain would be in such chaos.
Of course, chaos could also represent opportunity and danger.
Such is the nature of change.
Stagnation on the other hand often leads to decay…
Ever since he could remember, that small village had been his entire world. But now…
With one trembling movement after another Xu An slowly propped his back against the wall.
His bones and joints seemed to crackle, like the lingering dregs of thunder, and the numbness in his fingers gradually went away.
His trembling hand reached into his robes and he took the small booklet out.
Through the dim light burrowing through the gaps in the carriage's tarp, Xu An could see that the cover of the book had been torn by a pair of claws and blood had stained the edges of the pages.
However, the water from the river had left no effect on the writing, and as he flipped through the book and vaguely saw the characters written on the first page, a smile gradually etched itself onto his lips.
'To first gaze up the mysteries of life, one must suffer the wrathful gaze of the world…' He calmly read the first line with a smile.
However, the moment he tried to follow the breathing instructions etched onto the first page that smile soon turned into a look of absolute horror.
His whole body trembled, his blood turned cold and his heart grew stale.
A single set of breathing movements and he felt his throat turn bone-dry.
He slowly turned upwards, his neck stiff and hesitant.
Although his sight couldn't pass through the fluttering ceiling of tarp, he vaguely felt that a pair of eyes was gazing at him from above, and the moment he looked up, a terrifying chill seemed to spread across his soul.
Xu An felt as though an incomparably cold glare was piercing through the light, shadow, cloud and flesh of the world before falling directly upon his figure.
The feeling was vague and it quickly faded away. Like the casual glance one would give at a lonely tree when walking by the forest.
"Agh..-!" He quickly shut his eyes and restrained his breathing to the limit but the shivering in his soul remained all the same.
In the instance, he felt as though a boiling sea of blood was being poured over him.
Mountains, as far as the eyes could see were being ravaged by lightning and the skies rumbled with a furious and desolate roar.
It was like a dream, one that only lasted for an instance and yet, that horrifying sensation still left him shaken to the core.
The book fell from his hands and he instinctively gripped at his own heart.
'Is subverting mortal fate such a grand taboo in this world?' Xu An asked himself while trying to subdue his trembling hands.
For some reason, he felt like he had just been given a warning.
After waiting in silence for a few breaths of time, he slowly turned his eyes back to the writings on the book.
The first page was still opened, yet that first line seemed to have faded away.
He blankly looked around for a few instances before gritting his teeth and taking a deep breath.
He reached down and tightened his grip over the book.
Even if it went against the natural order of the world, he would still walk down this path.
'If others can, then I can as well.' Xu An's thoughts were the same as his actions. And, without wasting another moment, he began following the steps recorded in the first page of the book.
His gaze grew narrow.
The instructions were a bit vague and after carefully reading through it a couple of times, he was left with a strange expression.
'Spiritual energy… Spiritual energy.'
'The energy that binds, flows and permeates everything in this vast Heaven and Earth.'
'In order to mold it, one must first be able to perceive it. Only then can a mortal begin to seek his own immortal path.'
Xu An calmly closed his eyes and began breathing in accordance with the instructions written in the book.
A small breath followed by a pause…
three small breaths followed by a long and deep breath…
two small breaths…
His turbulent mind gradually calmed down, the cold shivers from that terrifying sensation also began to slowly fade.
The world around him seemed to grow deadly silent.
The only thing left on his mind was the rhythm of his own heartbeat, and a sea of memories that gradually unfurled before his eyes.
Xu An felt himself floating above this sea and as he looked down on the chaotic flow of waves, most of the water seemed blurry.
Meanwhile, a suffocating pressure began to fall upon his body, followed by a sensation as cold as ice that seemed to want to permeate into his skin.
Xu An instinctively tried to grasp this sensation with his mind.
His originally strained muscles began to burn once more.
Hot sweat began to drip down and flow through his skin, sizzling as it fell upon the wooden floor, and gluing his tattered robs onto his figure.
The blood in his veins began to flow faster and hotter.
His gaze began to waver and his original calmness soon turned into what looked like an agonizing despair.
But…
Before he could delve in any further, before that sensation could pull it further down that agonizing abyss, he suddenly trembled, the sea of memories quaked and everything began to collapse.
"Brat-!"
"Hey! Brat, are you still breathing?" A loud and carefree voice suddenly resounded.