The stars in the sky sometimes appear very close, as if suspended directly above, embedded in the deep, dark firmament. When standing on a mountain, it feels as though one could reach out and touch them.

However, in reality, the stars we see might be light cast tens of thousands of years ago.

Chen Ji didn’t know how long Xuanyuan’s lifespan was, such that he could casually spend 434 years just laying the groundwork for cultivation.

He looked at Crow and asked, “Uncle Crow, do you know Lu Yang, the director of the Jing Dynasty Martial Temple?”

Chen Ji then asked, “Do you know how old he is?”

Before Crow could respond, Old Man Yao walked out, hands clasped behind his back. “Why are you up so early asking about Lu Yang instead of sleeping?” he asked.

“Uh,” Chen Ji thought for a moment before replying, “Didn’t Liang Gou’er say I was suitable for cultivating the Sword Seed? I heard that Lu Yang, the director of the Jing Dynasty Martial Temple, cultivates the Sword Seed, so I was asking around.”

Old Man Yao laughed. “You think you can just learn it if you want to? Will anyone teach you? Didn’t your fever break? Why are you still talking nonsense!”

Chen Ji insisted, “First, tell me how old Lu Yang is!”

Old Man Yao said nonchalantly, “According to rumors, he should be 130 years old. His high cultivation level naturally allows him to live longer.”

“How old was he when he became famous?”

Old Man Yao glanced at him, then said indifferently, “Why should I tell you these things? Go ask someone else.”

After a moment of thought, Chen Ji went inside and brought out Old Man Yao’s bamboo recliner, helping him settle into it.

While massaging Old Man Yao’s legs, he said sincerely, “Master, I could go ask others, but no one is as knowledgeable as you! As the saying goes, ‘An elder in the home is like a treasure.’ With you, my treasure mountain, by my side, why would I need to seek anyone else? Can they compare to you, Master? They cannot!”

Old Man Yao glanced at him, remained silent for a long time, then slowly spoke. “What was it you just asked?”

“How old was Lu Yang when he became famous?”

“How old when he became famous?” Old Man Yao fell into contemplation, his eyes filled with memories. “He is a legendary figure, one of the few living legends in the martial world.”

“Lu Yang came from a noble family of the Jing Dynasty. His father, Lu Xiao, was the Marquis of Champion of Jing, who became disabled in the Battle of Chongli Pass. Thus, he passed down the Lu family’s hereditary Sword Seed cultivation method to Lu Yang early on. Legend says Lu Yang entered the Xiantian realm at twelve, the Xundao realm at sixteen, the Shendao realm at twenty-one, and became the director of the Martial Temple at twenty-two, making him the youngest director in the Jing Dynasty!”

After Lu Yang took charge of the Martial Temple, he traveled south to the Ning Dynasty twice. During his first journey south, he ascended Linghua Temple on Jinghai Mountain, shattered the bronze bell in the temple’s entrance, and crippled the abbot’s cultivation.

During his second journey south, Lu Yang stormed Yuqing Temple on Lingxu Mountain, killed its Daoist leader, and split the plaque in front of the Jade Emperor Hall. Under siege by hundreds of Sanqing Temple disciples, he even warmed wine on the Jade Emperor Hall plaque and drank it. As he left, he declared, “Nothing more than this!”

Chen Ji was shocked. Could a master of the Shendao realm really do whatever they pleased?

“Why did he attack those two sects?”

Old Man Yao chuckled. “Because Lu Yang is a martial arts fanatic. After entering the Shendao realm, he always wanted to find an opponent in the Jing Dynasty but couldn’t, so he came to the Ning Dynasty. Both the abbot of Linghua Temple and the Daoist leader of Yuqing Temple were rumored to be the most promising Shendao realm masters in the Ning Dynasty, capable of crossing the threshold to the Celestial-Human realm.”

“Two Shendao realm masters were defeated so easily?” Chen Ji was confused. “Aren’t they all in the Shendao realm? Why was Lu Yang so much stronger?”

“Shendao realm, my foot! Do you really think Shendao realm masters are as common as cabbages, found everywhere?” Old Man Yao shook his head. “The atmosphere was different back then. Many people exaggerated their cultivation levels to attract disciples. There were many who falsely reported their strength; you could pull any stable boy off the streets and he’d claim to be in the Xundao realm. It was all highly inflated. In reality, those two from Linghua Temple and Yuqing Temple were only in the Xundao realm.”

“Ah? They dared to falsely report even that?”

Lying on the bamboo chair, Old Man Yao recalled an anecdote from those years. “When Lu Yang first entered the Shendao realm, he was young and full of vigor. He heard that someone in the Demonic Sect was about to reach the threshold of the Celestial-Human realm and wanted to challenge them. The elders of the Martial Temple advised him not to go, warning that defeat could harm the Jing Dynasty’s vital energy. But Lu Yang merely left with the words: ‘If the bandit can go, so can I.’

Then he went down the mountain and spent a full sixty years eradicating the Demonic Sect of the Jing Dynasty.”

“Did he find that Demonic Sect master?”

“He did!”

“Was the opponent in the Shendao realm?”

Old Man Yao burst out laughing. “When Lu Yang returned to the Martial Temple after sixty years of vanquishing demons, someone there also asked him that. He replied, ‘The bandit lied!'”

Chen Ji thought, “…If they hadn’t pretended so much, they wouldn’t have brought about their own demise.”

Old Man Yao continued, “In those years, he not only eradicated the Demonic Sect but also challenged all masters who claimed to be close to ascending to the Shendao realm or crossing the Celestial-Human threshold. As a result, for the past thirty years, hardly anyone has dared to falsely report their cultivation level. The name Lu Yang is like a massive mountain, pressing down on all masters in the world, unmovable and unshakeable.”

Chen Ji was filled with respect. Wasn’t this an expert anti-fraud fighter?

He wondered, “Was there no one in the Ning Dynasty who could contend with him?”

“It’s said that Apostle Zi, the Daoist leader from Mount Huang, could. Thirty years ago, the two fought outside Chongli Pass for a month. Afterward, Apostle Zi returned to recuperate and never left Mount Huang again, while Lu Yang went into seclusion for thirty years and never left the Martial Temple.”

“Did Lu Yang lose?”

“He didn’t lose, but he didn’t win either!”

Old Man Yao remarked with emotion, “I heard Apostle Zi came down the mountain a few days ago. I imagine there will be another battle between the two of them.”

“Master, do you know Lu Yang? How do you know so much?” Chen Ji asked, puzzled.

Old Man Yao didn’t answer. Instead, he asked again, “You want to learn the Sword Seed? I advise you to give up. The Lu family’s Sword Seed has no precedent of being taught outside the family. With Lu Yang’s Shendao realm cultivation, he can live for at least another hundred years. Such a person, who has hope of touching the Celestial-Human threshold, will not take on disciples!”

“He reached the Shendao realm at twenty-one. Why hasn’t he crossed the next threshold after more than a hundred years? Is it because someone else is also cultivating the Sword Seed?” Chen Ji asked.

“Exactly,” Old Man Yao confirmed. “Lu Yang once said that there must be another person in this world cultivating the Sword Seed alongside him, which is why he hasn’t been able to cross the final threshold.”

“For the past few decades, the entire Jing Dynasty has been helping him search for this other person cultivating the Sword Seed, but they’ve never found them. No one knows where they are hiding!”

Chen Ji pondered to himself: If Lu Yang entered the Xiantian realm at twelve, at what age did he begin cultivating the Sword Seed?

Even calculating by Proxima Centauri, the closest star to here, it would take over four years for one’s divine sense to reach it.

How did Lu Yang nurture his sword?

Chen Ji looked at Old Man Yao and asked directly, “Do you know what Lu Yang used to nurture his sword?”

Old Man Yao was surprised. “You even know about nurturing a sword? Did the boy from the cloth shop tell you?”

“…Hmm…” Old Man Yao thought for a moment. “It’s not really a secret. To the north of the Jing Dynasty is the vast and boundless North Sea. Lu Yang used the immense North Sea to nurture his sword, making it the greatest in the world!”

Chen Ji: “Ah?”

Nurturing his sword with the vast North Sea, not a star? How is that different from the Sword Seed he’s cultivating? Did Xuanyuan omit something?

By the apricot tree!

Old Man Yao, wearing a loose cloth jacket and black cloth shoes, stroked his beard and cast a sidelong glance at Chen Ji. “Don’t aim too high. The Mountain Lord Path is no worse than cultivating the Sword Seed; it’s just much harder to cultivate. You’ll understand later!”

Chen Ji understood that to cultivate the Mountain Lord Path to the Shendao realm, half the officials in the Ning Dynasty would probably have to die.

The difficulty was indeed immense!

But whether he could cultivate the Sword Seed, he wouldn’t know until he tried.

Chen Ji quietly observed Old Man Yao. Should he secretly cultivate it behind his master’s back? It seemed unnecessary to hide it; if his master wanted to harm him, he would have died ten times over already.

He tentatively asked, “Master, if there’s a chance, and I mean if, if I could cultivate the Sword Seed method, would you be angry?”

Old Man Yao said jokingly, “If, and I mean if, you can cultivate the Sword Seed, then go ahead and cultivate it. It would be perfect for chopping down officials and princes with your Sword Seed, making the Mountain Lord Path even faster to cultivate.”

The next moment, ignoring the strange looks from Old Man Yao and Crow, Chen Ji used the method taught by Xuanyuan to lightly cut his brow with a short knife.

A drop of fresh blood seeped from his brow, slowly trickling down.
Chen Ji used his right thumb to spread the blood upwards.
This smear left a crimson mark on his brow, as if a third eye had opened.

Chen Ji sat cross-legged beneath the apricot tree, using his blood-stained right thumb and index finger to pinch the base of his left ring finger, while his left thumb pinched the tip of his middle finger.

Old Man Yao sprang up from his bamboo chair, bewildered. “Isn’t this the Daoist Zi-Wu incantation? The root of the ring finger represents ‘Zi,’ and the tip of the middle finger represents ‘Wu.’ With hands clasped in front of the body, it’s exactly the Zi-Wu incantation used by Daoists when bowing. Strange, where did this boy Chen Ji learn it?”

However, Chen Ji paid no mind to Old Man Yao’s astonishment.

When the Zi-Wu incantation was complete, he felt as if he saw “the world” through the wound on his brow.

But this world was different from the normal one; it was only a vast, boundless sea of stars.

Sirius, Tian Shu, Yu Heng, Orion’s Belt, Orion, Fomalhaut—the stars twinkled brightly.

Yet, Chen Ji did not look at them; instead, his gaze was fixed intently on the nearest sun.

The next moment, he floated lightly upwards, soaring into the sky as if in a spiritual journey.

Looking down, Chen Ji saw “himself” sitting cross-legged under the apricot tree in the small courtyard of Taiping Medical Clinic, while Uncle Crow observed him with curious, tilted head.

He was hopping back and forth among the branches, constantly changing angles to observe.

Old Man Yao was pacing back and forth beside “himself,” his eyes wide as copper bells.

Across from the clinic, in front of the breakfast stall, a peddler was removing the door planks.

On the bluestone path of Anxi Street, an old man carrying dry firewood on a shoulder pole hurried along, the pole rhythmically bouncing up and down on his shoulder.

Looking further, Chen Ji even saw Wuyun squatting on the roof of the cloth shop, with a tabby cat squatting opposite, and the two seemed to be exchanging very foul language.

The tabby cat pounced at Wuyun, but Wuyun pinned the tabby cat to the ground, balled up its paws, and savagely thumped the tabby cat’s head!

Chen Ji had never experienced anything like this before; it was as if he no longer belonged to this world, yet at the same time, the world belonged to him.

For some reason, the long-accumulated oppressive energy from Yunyang, Jiaotu, Jinzhu, and Sicao was swept away.

Chen Ji instinctively wanted to let out a joyful shout, but no sound escaped him.

He wanted to fly elsewhere but couldn’t control himself; he was only being gently pulled by the sun.

Chen Ji suddenly turned and flew at an incredibly fast speed towards the rising sun.

It seemed like a long time had passed, yet also no time at all. He traversed the vast distance and arrived beside the blazing sun.

There was no burning sensation. The erupting, churning flames before him had no effect whatsoever on his “divine sense”; he felt no change in temperature.

Chen Ji gently extended a finger and touched the sun’s rolling lava. In that instant, he began to fall rapidly downwards, and the fingertip that had touched the sun was connected to a fiery ribbon of light, which retreated from his brow back into his body.

Everything returned to normal. Chen Ji could feel the wind again and hear sounds!

He felt a wondrous connection established between himself and the sun, with an endless stream of warmth converging upon him from the retracted ribbon of light.

Inside him, sixteen furnace fires blazed, seemingly echoing the warm current Chen Ji had drawn from the sun.

An invisible yet sharp energy coursed through his meridians and blood, like a tiny sword.

So this was the Sword Seed.

So this was the sword energy capable of cutting through the injustices in one’s heart.

Chen Ji opened his eyes, raised a hand, and wiped away the wound on his brow. The wound healed instantly, leaving no trace.

Old Man Yao, beside him, kept exclaiming in astonishment, “You? You? You?…”