"Young Master, the Third Elder summons you."
The maid's soft voice drifted from not far away, tinged with unease.
Chen Nianzhi sat cross-legged upon a massive boulder at the cliff's edge, eyes closed, drawing in the morning light and exhaling a faint purple mist. Within his chest, a wisp of Primordial Violet Qi pulsed quietly.
"So it's already the hour of Chen," he murmured. "Tell the Third Elder I'll come shortly."
Only after the maid's footsteps faded did he finish absorbing the final thread of dawn and slowly open his eyes.
He had lived in this world for fifteen years now. Every morning and evening, he came to this cliff to breathe in the essence of sun and moon, refining it into that single breath of primordial energy within his core.
The method he practiced was called the Hongmeng Scripture—a secret art he had stumbled upon in his previous life, nothing more than a dusty booklet from a street stall. Yet after reincarnating into this realm, that very scripture became his greatest fortune.
The Hongmeng Scripture allowed one to absorb the radiance of dawn and moonlight, refining them into the mysterious Violet Qi of Creation, a power that could reshape destiny itself. Even from his own experiments, Chen Nianzhi had learned that this energy could subtly improve one's spiritual roots—the very foundation of cultivation talent.
He had been born with five-element roots, the poorest aptitude possible. But by luck or fate, he carried within him a trace of innate Violet Qi from birth. That faint blessing elevated his potential to rival even the rare three-root prodigies.
To him, the Hongmeng Scripture was the one true miracle of his life. For more than a decade he had never missed a single dawn or dusk, refining the celestial essences in secret, hiding every sign of it from the world. Even his true spiritual roots were a secret; he let others believe he possessed merely dual roots.
This life, at least, had given him a better start. The Chen Clan was a small cultivation family with over a hundred practitioners and even one Foundation Realm elder presiding over them. In the grand scale of the world, they were insignificant—but within Yu County, stretching for tens of thousands of miles, their name carried weight.
Among the younger generation, Chen Nianzhi was considered their brightest hope. At only fifteen, he had already reached the seventh level of Qi Refinement, a feat most cultivators could not achieve even after decades of practice.
For most, childhood was for establishing the body's foundation. Cultivation began at eleven or twelve, and if one worked hard, one might reach the mid-stage of Qi Refinement by the age of forty or fifty.
But Chen Nianzhi was different. With the insight of his past life, he began cultivating at the age of three. Those extra eight or nine years of training had allowed his progress to soar. Just three months ago, he had stepped into the late stage of Qi Refinement.
Since then, his position within the family had risen sharply. The elders had begun to see him as one of the clan's future pillars—someone who might one day break through to the Foundation Realm and strengthen the Chen bloodline for generations.
Pulling himself from thought, Chen Nianzhi stood and made his way toward the Clan Affairs Hall atop the mountain where the Third Elder resided.
The Cangyuan Mountain Range spanned thousands of miles. Its main peak, Qingyuan Peak, was counted among the finest spiritual mountains in the county. Within it flowed a mid-grade, second-rank spirit vein—the very heart of the Chen Clan's prosperity.
Centuries ago, the mountain had been the lair of a second-rank spirit beast, the Azure Ape. The Chen ancestor slew the beast, claimed the land, and established the family that now bore his name.
The spiritual energy of the mountain was uneven—thin at the foot, thick at the summit. Cultivators below the sixth level of Qi Refinement lived halfway up the slopes, each with their own modest cave dwellings. Higher up lay seventeen acres of spiritual farmland, the grand ancestral hall, and beyond that, the sacred spirit spring where the clan's patriarch cultivated in seclusion.
The Third Elder, Chen Qinghao, who oversaw clan affairs, worked within that hall.
When Chen Nianzhi entered, the air felt heavy. The hall was crowded with more than a dozen figures, all of them elders.
He bowed deeply. "Greetings, uncles and elders."
Every person present was a senior of the family—Third Elder Chen Qinghao, Fourth Elder Chen Qingyuan, Fifth Elder Chen Qingwan, and several of the older generation bearing the "Chang" character in their names. Of the "Nian" generation, only he and his elder brother were present.
Pursue the Dao everlasting, honor the sages of our line;aid one another to prosper, ascend to immortality divine.
Those were the sixteen words of the Chen family's ancestral precept. By now, of the "Chang" generation, only six or seven still lived, most already deep into their twilight years.
There were seven elders in total, all cultivators at the ninth level of Qi Refinement. The Grand Elder, Chen Qingxu, held watch over Pingyang City, a settlement of more than a hundred thousand souls—all descendants of the Chen bloodline. Each year, among those mortals, one or two children would awaken spiritual roots and be brought up the mountain to learn the Dao. They were the foundation of the clan's legacy.
Because demons and heretics viewed mortals as nourishment, the Grand Elder rarely left the city. He guarded them without fail.
The Second Elder, Chen Qinghe, managed several shops in Yuyang Market and was constantly occupied.
The Seventh Elder, Chen Qingyuan, only thirty-one years old, possessed extraordinary talent but had already joined Qingyang Sect. Though still of the Chen bloodline, his loyalties lay partly elsewhere.
Seeing that nearly all who could attend were here—save for the patriarch still healing in seclusion—Chen Nianzhi felt a subtle unease. Something serious was happening.
The elders nodded as he entered. Chen Qinghao, who presided over the meeting, even offered a rare, faint smile.
"Nianzhi, you've come," he said. Then, after glancing around the room, his tone grew solemn. "Now that everyone's here, let us begin."
The faint smile vanished, replaced by deep worry.
At that sight, Chen Nianzhi's heart sank. He already guessed the reason for the meeting.
A year ago, the alchemist Daoist Jiang of Tianxu Mountain had refined a batch of Foundation Pills—precious elixirs that allowed Qi Refinement cultivators to ascend into the Foundation Realm. Four pills had been produced, and two were auctioned to the world.
Such a treasure was beyond price. The Chen Clan had sold off estates and borrowed heavily, spending more than thirty thousand spirit stones to secure one pill.
But soon after the purchase, disaster struck. The patriarch, Chen Changxuan, had been ambushed by rivals seeking to steal the pill. Though he slew one of his attackers, a fellow Foundation cultivator, he was gravely injured in the process. He had since retreated into the rear mountain's spirit spring to heal, and no word of his recovery had yet come.
Now, with the pill in hand, the clan faced a difficult choice: who among them would use it?The best chance for success lay with cultivators under sixty; past that age, the body's life force weakened, and even with a Foundation Pill, the odds of breakthrough fell below twenty percent.
Within the clan, seven elders stood at the ninth level of Qi Refinement. Setting aside the seventh elder who had joined another sect, the remaining candidates were few. The Grand Elder was over seventy, the Second Elder past sixty, and the Third Elder himself carried old injuries that barred further progress.
Among the rest, the Sixth Elder, Chen Qingmeng, held the highest status as the clan's alchemist. His contributions and wealth outweighed those of the Fourth and Fifth Elders combined. In the end, by exchanging vast amounts of merit, he had claimed the right to use the pill.
For the past three months, he had been in closed-door cultivation, attempting his breakthrough. Whether he had succeeded or failed, news should have come by now.
Seeing the Third Elder's troubled face, Chen Nianzhi's throat went dry.
He already knew, before anyone spoke, that the outcome was not what they had hoped.