Chapter Eight: First Encounter with Cultivation

Tang Wei’s body was still sleeping, but her soul had been drawn into a mysterious realm.

At this moment, a faint silhouette floated atop a circular platform. At the center of the platform lay a multicolored stone, radiating five-colored light that wrapped around the figure and slowly revolved. As the glow grew more dazzling, Tang Wei’s soul spun faster and faster. The shape at the center became increasingly distinct, until it was clear—it was none other than Tang Wei herself.

The stone gradually faded until it vanished completely, and all the light converged into a single beam, shooting into the center of her forehead. Only then did Tang Wei’s spinning slow, and she drifted gently down to the ground.

Now, Tang Wei appeared exactly as she did in the world outside, lying there as though asleep. No one could tell how much time had passed before her eyelids fluttered gently—she was about to awaken.

Meanwhile, Tang Wei was absorbing the torrent of new information flooding her mind. This place, she realized, was a space painstakingly crafted over tens of thousands of years by the Divine Realm’s Violet Clarity Lord and his wife. They had forged it with one purpose: to save their son’s life.

In the Divine Realm, eight Lords—Violet Clarity, White Feather, Blue Luo, Green Sun, Black Scourge, Brown Origin, Jade Lady, and Blaze—vied endlessly for supremacy, never yielding an inch. After Violet Clarity and White Feather became companions, they withdrew from worldly affairs, leaving the battlefield behind to focus on creating a child. After ten thousand years of effort, their son, Zi Xuan, was born.

But Zi Xuan came into the world without a spiritual root and could not cultivate, suffering endless ridicule. Proud and stubborn, he swore he would forge his own path and, ignoring his parents’ pleas, set off alone to seek the lost Sword Sect, hoping to discover the secret of cultivating through martial prowess.

To become an immortal or a god, mortals needed both innate talent and the right state of mind, supplemented by profound cultivation techniques. Only after countless millennia of struggle could one reach the peak. Yet the Sword Sect’s disciples needed no spiritual root; with unwavering will and the right techniques, they could become sword cultivators, who were far more formidable than ordinary practitioners. This made them a thorn in the side of all other cultivators, and the rift between the two groups only grew.

Eventually, all cultivators joined forces—uniting the Cultivation World, the Immortal Realm, and the Divine Realm—to exterminate the sword cultivators. The battle was catastrophic, and the Sword Sect was utterly wiped out. Since then, advanced sword-cultivating arts have vanished, and ordinary mortals, no matter how hard they train, can amount to nothing. Now, even if someone encounters a sword cultivator, they simply turn a blind eye, for such a person could never threaten their position.

Zi Xuan, by sheer determination, did uncover sword cultivation methods. But this threatened the other Lords’ interests. Even Blue Luo and Green Sun, who were friendly with Violet Clarity and White Feather, could not tolerate such a development.

In the end, Zi Xuan was destroyed. When his parents arrived, his soul was on the verge of utter annihilation; they managed to salvage only a wisp of consciousness. Yet even then, Black Scourge and his allies would not relent. In the end, the eight Lords agreed: the sword cultivation technique would belong to them all. From then on, mortals seeking immortality could only do so through discipleship under one of the eight.

To save Zi Xuan, Violet Clarity journeyed alone into the Chaotic Spirit Realm—a place so perilous that even a Lord had little hope of survival. After searching for tens of thousands of years, he discovered the Chaos Five-Element Stone. Upon his return, he enlisted Blue Luo and Green Sun, and together, using the stone as the main material, Violet Clarity expended all his cultivation to forge the Violet Pearl Space.

Within this space, the power of the five elements is in perfect balance—only the Chaos Five-Element Stone can steadily emit such balanced spiritual energy, both harmonious and mutually restraining. Through the Five Elements Restoration Formation, they needed to find a woman whose elemental powers were perfectly balanced to serve as a medium, so the formation could create a spiritual body in perfect harmony with the five elements. Only then could Zi Xuan be saved.

Legends spoke of the Chaos Body—the spiritual form achieved by cultivating perfect balance among the five elements. Since the Sage of Primordial Unity sacrificed himself for the world and became one with the Dao, no one had ever attained sainthood again. The Chaos Technique, known to all in the Divine Realm, required a perfectly balanced five-element spiritual body, which no one had since managed to find.

Of course, Blue Luo and Green Sun were unaware of Violet Clarity’s true intentions. They simply believed he wanted to use the space to keep his son’s soul from fading, as it was nearly impossible for beings like them to have another child. Remorseful over Zi Xuan’s fate, they agreed to help without hesitation.

Tang Wei, in truth, was not a spiritual body perfectly balanced in the five elements. Such a body would be born with five spiritual roots, each of identical, exceptional quality. Many were born with five roots, but for all five to be equal in innate talent was unheard of—only the Sage of Primordial Unity had ever possessed such equilibrium. Yet, with Zi Xuan’s soul about to vanish, Violet Clarity had no choice but to try.

Tang Wei was the ideal candidate for this experiment. Although her spiritual roots made her a hopeless cultivator, it was one in a billion to find someone like her, whose wood, fire, and earth roots were of equal quality, and whose gold and water roots matched one another, though they were weaker.

Because Tang Wei’s gold and water roots were inferior, they needed to find two top-tier gold and water spiritual bodies as focal points for the formation, then use the array to enhance her talents. In the Cultivation World, there were ways to improve someone’s aptitude, but the price was steep, and enhancing a specific root had yet to be achieved.

Violet Clarity had secretly tested this method on more than a dozen people before, with not a single success. The cost of failure was complete annihilation.

It’s worth noting that Violet Clarity could not personally come to a place as insignificant as Earth—the realm could not withstand the power he bore. The rule was clear: those from the Divine Realm could not enter the Immortal Realm, immortals could not enter the Cultivation World; it was like trying to fit a large bowl into a small one—it simply couldn’t be done.

If someone from the Cultivation World wanted to ascend, as long as they found a way, they could go at any time. All those tales of flying ascendancy were just pretexts for the upper realms to recruit people and balance their own factions. Even mortals, if they had the right connections, could travel freely across the realms—though, of course, not just any acquaintance would do. After all, the teleportation arrays were tightly controlled by the few major powers in each realm.

Some might wonder why no one ever came to Earth for a visit. To use the bowl analogy again: Earth’s bowl was about the same size as the Cultivation World’s, but while one was filled with pure spring water, the other held only murky sludge. Which would you choose?

To cultivators, Earth was a place shunned by all—its spiritual energy was thin, and the air was thick with filth. Carelessly inhaling it could take countless spirit stones to cleanse, making any trip here more trouble than it was worth.

In fact, not even a beggar would come to Earth from the Cultivation World. Over time, it became a forbidden zone no one dared enter. That was why Violet Clarity dared to have his confidants search for experimental subjects here; even if the experiment succeeded, no one would know. If the upper realms ever learned of this, not only Zi Xuan, but Violet Clarity himself would face annihilation. No one would tolerate a new power rising above them. If this attempt failed, they would simply try again.

Of course, cultivators were forbidden to take lives recklessly. Tang Wei had been fated to die anyway, destined to fall to her death from a cliff. Only because someone intervened in secret did the ensuing events unfold at all.