The mountain was not tall, and the small Daoist shrine was worn and weathered — old bluestone, grey clay roof tiles, rotting wooden beams. A weathered old grapevine grew to one side, accompanied by a sickly tree. By any measure, it was a scene of desolation.
Behind the small shrine was a vegetable patch — lush and green, with a well alongside it, carrying an air of ancient elegance.
This place was utterly ordinary, with nothing remarkable about it at all — and the same was true of the Daoist who lived there. If one did not look closely, he appeared to be nothing more than a simple old country Daoist, with no divine abilities and no immortal root.
Ye Fan cupped his hands in greeting. “My respects, Daoist master.”
The old Daoist returned the gesture politely, without the slightest air of arrogance. Only at this moment did Ye Fan realize that the other was a quasi-emperor of the sixth tier — on par with himself — a supremely powerful master of the Daoist tradition.
What was most extraordinary of all was this man’s ability to conceal his presence. Unless one drew to near proximity, even Ye Fan at a distance could not necessarily have detected him — truly remarkable.
Though the main reason was that he had not opened his Heavenly Origin Immortal Eyes — it would have been rude to look so directly.
“Daoist Master, why did you address me in such a way just now?”
“Please do not take offense, guest — this poor Daoist spoke rashly.” The old Daoist explained that the Daoist tradition had once had an ancient venerable perform a deduction, suggesting that a similar flower might appear — perhaps in this very lifetime — comparable to an Emperor Venerable.
“Though this poor Daoist dwells in a corner, hidden away in the wilds, I have heard something of your deeds and past battles, Fellow Practitioner Ye — and mistook you for that flower. But looking at you more carefully now, I think perhaps you are not.”
“A similar flower may actually appear?” Ye Fan was considerably taken aback.
“The future is vast and indistinct. Even the deductions of an ancient venerable need not necessarily come true,” the old Daoist explained.
“May I ask your honorable name, Daoist Master?”
“In the past, I had a name — it was Ge Xuan,” the old Daoist said.
Ye Fan was shaken — and even with some mental preparation, his heart rose and fell. He had at last met a cultivator from ancient China — and a supremely powerful one, of extraordinary origin.
Who was Ge Xuan? He was one of the most important figures in the Daoist tradition, venerated by later generations of the Numinous Treasure sect as the founding patriarch of the Cabinet-of-Pavilions lineage, known by the title Ge Immortal Elder.
The Numinous Treasure sect honored the Supreme Clarity Deity — the Celestial Worthy of Numinous Treasure — and was one of the Daoist tradition’s most important branches. Ge Xuan was the transmitting patriarch of that lineage for one era, and his standing within the tradition could well be imagined.
Moreover, he was honored as one of the Four Celestial Masters of the Daoist tradition — a position of tremendous prestige. And the title of Ge Immortal Elder alone was enough to speak to his stature.
“My respects to the Elder!”
Ye Fan offered a salute. His emotions were complex — in the past, he had known of such figures only through ancient texts, and had not truly believed them capable of soaring through the heavens. Then, unexpectedly, he had been drawn onto the path of cultivation, and now he stood face to face with such a man. His feelings were beyond expression.
“Please, dear guest, be seated.” Ge Xuan invited him to sit upon a meditation cushion.
Ge Xuan was himself a person of remarkable attainment — and furthermore, he had a grand-nephew whose name was Ge Hong, who had authored The Master Who Embraces Simplicity and was even more accomplished, having become the leader of Daoist thought during the Eastern Jin dynasty.
In the course of their conversation, it was natural that Ye Fan would come to mention Ge Hong. This man’s work had referenced the Nine Secrets, holding that constant recitation of the nine characters could drive away evil and protect the body.
Ge Xuan said plainly that his grand-nephew’s cultivation had surpassed his own — the student had outdone the master — and that this was truly admirable.
“I wonder why the Immortal Elder has remained hidden here?” Ye Fan naturally asked. It was a profound mystery that ancient China’s Qi Refiners had all come here.
“Breathing in morning mist and swallowing the vital breath, a life devoted to the Dao — what does one seek? All of it is for immortality,” Ge Xuan said — and then he shook his head with a sigh: “Yet in the end, every last one of them lay buried in the yellow earth, unable to obtain that great transformation.”
Ye Fan was moved. These people had come seeking immortality — and yet they had not chosen the Northern Dipper, but this place instead!
He sought confirmation and received an unambiguous answer. The Qi Refiners all believed that the immortal path existed here.
Not every powerhouse on the imperial path believed the Northern Dipper to be the true place of immortal ascension and the correct destination. Some believed it to be here — on the Ascending Immortal Star.
“The cosmos may be divided into yin and yang. Perhaps the Northern Dipper and the Ascending Immortal Star are symmetrical yin and yang counterparts, both paths to the immortal domain. But after the great battle more than three hundred years ago, it was proven that route could no longer be taken. And so the Qi Refiners came to believe even more firmly that the path lies on the Ascending Immortal Star.”
They had been searching — solely for immortality.
Ye Fan sighed inwardly. In the ancient history of cultivators, virtually all the disputes, all the large-scale and blood-soaked battles, had been sparked by immortality.
Long life was an eternal subject — the fruit of the Dao that every cultivator dreamed of. Yet so many years had passed, and everyone was still searching, and immortality remained beyond their grasp.
“Is there truly an immortal path in this place?” Ye Fan sat cross-legged upon the meditation cushion and spoke at length with Ge Xuan.
“According to certain ancient venerables’ deductions, within the sealed land of the Ascending Immortal Star — that is, within the forbidden zone of the mythological age — an immortal path will emerge,” the old Daoist answered. Everyone was waiting for the opportunity — but none dared break the seal.
Ye Fan sat in silence. Immortality had ensnared so many people. Every cultivator throughout history had striven toward it — and yet those called “immortals” in the records and histories were all still merely travelers on that road.
Not just them. Even others, such as Shakyamuni, had come to this star and established a presence — only in recent times their traces had grown faint, and it was suspected they were out in the outer reaches somewhere, searching.
“Where is the Young Immortal Elder?” He asked after Ge Hong.
The number of Qi Refiners, while not enormous, was certainly not small either. Many of them should be names known far and wide, figures of great renown in ancient China.
Ge Xuan said directly that others were in secluded cultivation on this star, while still more were traveling through the cosmos, visiting ancient immortal ruins one after another, seeking the method of long life.
Among those still alive, the two with the greatest cultivation were naturally Laozi and Shakyamuni.
Everyone was waiting. They believed that the failure of the Northern Dipper immortal path did not mean this one would also come to nothing — sooner or later, the fate of immortal ascension would appear once more.
“This sealed land of the Ascending Immortal Star must certainly be extraordinary. Should it be opened and entered, there will assuredly be a vast and terrible trial to endure,” Ge Xuan said.
If something was truly sealed within it and had not yet perished — enduring to this day — then the immortal path would certainly be the first thing seized upon by those beings, who would then use it to charge through the gate.
According to people’s deductions, there may be a great crack leading to the immortal realm here. In ancient times, immortal realm beings had fought great battles — and may even have clashed with ancient venerables — and this place had been suppressed and sealed as a result.
“Does the Ascending Immortal Star truly live up to its name?”
In time, the conversation between Ye Fan and the old Daoist touched upon many subjects. The Kunlun Remnant Clans also came up, and what he learned was much as he had suspected.
The Kunlun Remnant Clans too understood the secrets of the Ascending Immortal Star. They needed to reclaim the Immortal Bell, and even hoped to transport the Kunlun Immortal Mountain here, to use it as a foothold from which to ascend to immortality.
“The Immortal Bell, the Primordial Tower — ancient beyond measure. Some say all things are born of the cosmos, that heaven and earth gave birth to them. Others say they are connected to the immortal courts, and even that there was once a true Celestial Emperor.”
These were all matters from the distant past. Only those from the era of the Kunlun Ancestor or the Emperor Venerable could know anything of them, and in this age they could only be speculated upon — evidence was scarce.
The two conversed at great length, touching upon everything from legends to cultivation. There was much they explored together.
The old Daoist had been recognized by the Numinous Treasure sect as the transmitting patriarch of one generation, having revived the transmission of an ancient celestial worthy. That this was so meant he had gifts beyond ordinary measure — and it was also through his guidance that Ge Hong had found his path.
“This poor Daoist received certain fortunate encounters and came upon some dharma texts and transmissions.”
Ge Xuan and Ye Fan discoursed upon the Dao, discussing certain passages from these texts. The two came to a shared view — that among all the scriptures of the Celestial Worthy of Numinous Treasure, the Scripture of Salvation was the most mysterious and difficult to fathom.
Ge Xuan recited a version of it — a secret text, one not seen in the outside world. Ye Fan then brought out the Human Body Ghost-Faced Lamp and recited another version. The two versions were closely aligned — comparing them against each other made the scripture seem even more mysterious and unfathomable than before.
“Having read the authentic scripture and then internalized the ghost lamp’s imprints, this scripture may now be considered complete,” Ge Xuan said.
Ye Fan nodded in agreement.
This exchange brought him great gains. The old Daoist transmitted an ancient formula called the Supreme Clarity Golden Elixir Divine Scripture, said to have been left behind by the Celestial Worthy of Numinous Treasure.
Ye Fan was astonished. This Daoist alchemical scripture — he had long since heard of it, and the version available in the world was one intended for ordinary people. He had never been able to obtain the version meant for cultivators — but now, here it was before him.
They sat for seven days, conversing freely, exchanging much of what they knew and touching upon many secrets.
At last, Ye Fan rose and bid farewell. He walked upon the Ascending Immortal Star, and a sense of emptiness came over him. He had walked this path, grown to where he was today — he could be counted among the peerless masters of this age. Looking back, so much had changed. The Qi Refiners — in the past he had thought them so immensely powerful, like figures out of myth. Yet when he stood before them in person, he found they were all simply travelers on the road to long life, just as he was.
Without quite realizing it, Ye Fan had wandered through many regions when he came upon another old man, who introduced himself with these words: “This poor Daoist is Jiang Ziya.”
Ye Fan was taken aback — and then sighed once more. Figures of ancient China were indeed appearing before him one by one. There were not many — but seeing them left him with a tumult of feelings beyond words.
“The Deity-Whipping Rod was left by the Elder, was it not?”
“Yes. I encountered some difficulties in the Northern Dipper back then — I left the rod there and departed, for the one with the destined connection to find,” the old man said. That wooden rod was not to be underestimated — it was a length that had fallen from the imperial venerable’s immortal tree, its divine effects without limit.
Ye Fan bid farewell and set out once more, feeling a sense of wistful melancholy. Were it not for the immense pressure brought by the Underworld — which compelled him to advance his cultivation to protect his loved ones and friends — he felt that the end of the cultivation path would truly seem an empty and indistinct thing. He would have had no desire to continue walking it.
“What is happening to me? After coming to the Ascending Immortal Star, why do I feel so hollow and adrift? I’ve seen the Qi Refiners of ancient China, and felt no great excitement — only this.”
Ye Fan fell into a long silence, then suddenly raised his head sharply. This was not in his nature. It seemed as though some force was influencing him.
“Heavenly Origin Immortal Eyes — see through all illusion!” he cried out clearly.
In the next instant, the magnificent mountains and rivers vanished. What met his eyes were white bones like snowfall, an expanse without limit — weathered skeletal remains scattered everywhere.
No grass. No divine waterfall. No immortal mountains. The landscape was gone. All that remained was death.
Strange indeed!
Without realizing it, he had come close to the sealed land — and had been deeply affected, nearly losing himself.
“Were Ge Xuan and Jiang Ziya I saw just now not real, then?”
He turned back and looked into the distance. He walked toward where they had been, and indeed he found vast stretches of ruin — the dwelling places of the Qi Refiners had been mostly destroyed, rubble everywhere.
Yet the small mountain was still standing, and the little Daoist shrine still stood upon it.
But Ge Xuan was no longer there.
Ye Fan kept his Immortal Eyes open at all times, their light shining steadily. He continued walking, entering another region where Qi Refiners dwelt, and encountered some Daoist monks, of whom he made inquiries.
“At least half the Qi Refiners have died. It was strange and terrifying — some lost their physical bodies, yet their obsessions remained unscattered, and they could still manifest, believing themselves to still be alive. Others around them could barely tell the difference either. It is said to be the work of the immortals and demons sealed beneath the earth, who truly recreate everything about these people.”
The young Daoist spoke and drew a boundary, naming regions that could not be entered — they had long since become ghost domains.
Ye Fan felt himself go cold all over. The Ge Xuan he had just seen — and Jiang Ziya as well — both were within those regions. He had been speaking with departed souls, exchanging words with the obsessions of the dead?
“Immortal Elder Ge Xuan and others have indeed had their physical bodies perish for many years. Master Ge Hong is still living and traveling beyond this domain.”
He had his answer. The terrifying beings sealed beneath the earth were directing all of this, attempting to draw away his very soul as well. He had been crossing blows with the beings sealed within the mythological-age forbidden zone!
Had the sealing power not been in effect, the trouble would have been immense.
Ye Fan sighed. He believed that what the souls of Ge Hong and Jiang Ziya had spoken was true — but those were only their obsessions being used by another power. They were no longer who they had been.
Cultivation — how ruthless it truly was. Seeking long life, so many had in the end found it all come to nothing: bloody, empty, hollow.
Ye Fan traversed most of the region, witnessing many dead zones. Many among the Qi Refiners had perished — only a minority survived, and the most powerful among them were mostly out traveling beyond this domain.
“In time, a great battle must also come here,” Ye Fan murmured. The moment would come when he had attained great completion — or perhaps on the day he attained the Dao.