One year later. Lu Qingshan finished consuming the final batch of wood element secret medicines he needed. He concentrated deeply, refining the energy into his primordial qi. The last step he had to complete in order to finish attaining the peak of Mortal Shedding.

  He had long attained the level of martial arts necessary to reach separate channeling of the five elements. What had once stumped him was the fusion of the five elements. But he'd come up with a solution. Beside that batch of secret medicine was another batch of water element secret medicine. He tossed those in his mouth as well.

  The heat scorched his insides, only to heal within moments. Meanwhile, the proficiency of his Flowing Cloud Inner Force began to rise rapidly. Lu Qingshan had figured it out half a year into his retreat. The five elements were not something that could be easily fused step-by-step. Subconsciously, he knew this, which was why he hadn't forced the two elements together just yet.

  A martial artist at this stage needed to experience the five elements separately. Then, they drew upon their insights and proceeded with the fusion all at once. Instead of being a near-impossible task, forcing three or four already unstable elements to accommodate another, the practitioner only had to form a closed loop with the elements they knew intimately. Then, nature did the rest.

  Lu Qingshan shouted, as the Flowing Cloud Inner Force broke through to the fifth level. At this stage, a martial artist was already strong enough to hold their inner force together and transform it into primordial qi. It was just that most people didn't have enough inner force without the use of miracle materials. With the other four elemental inner force methods at a similar level, Lu Qingshan was finally able to see.

  Five elements gestated in his middle aperture. Five elements cycled through his body. Five elements imprinted themselves into his spirit. Five elements danced together. Five elements intertwined as one.

  And a new, ferocious strength rose up in his inner core. Lu Qingshan flicked a finger. A gargantuan tree large enough for a dozen men to wrap their arms around simply had a quarter its trunk blown off. Piercing straight through the wood was a massive, gaping hole.

  Yet Lu Qingshan still frowned. More powerful, sure, and his energy had become much higher. But it wasn't limitless. He could see multiple methods where he'd eventually lose all his strength due to prolonged battles over days or tricks pulled by immortal cultivators. No, this much was not enough. He needed one more year.

  Something urgent had happened in the sect a while ago. Now was the time to address it.

  The An siblings had finally finished their experiments with the two stone eye artifacts. They went down an entire rabbit hole before they discovered what the things were meant to do. Of course, they did it safely, so no one really had any complaints.

  It turned out those were formation eyes. Placing them within the right spots unlocked deeper secrets and sometimes even control over a formation. But they had been inactive beforehand, and it was only through the concentrated efforts of all the immortal cultivators in his sect that they managed to figure out a method.

  By using the insect essence produced by refining demonized insect swarms together, the eyes slowly awakened. An immortal cultivator could now cast their spiritual energy into the artifact and see clearly the flow of spiritual energy in the world. This was draining — even a Jade Cleansing stage could only power it for a few breaths of time before they had to meditate to replenish their energy.

  Fortunately, the Seven Mysteries Gate now had three of those cultivators. Qin Ye was still working on breaking through to Mystic Membrane. But both the An siblings had reached the fifth stage.

  Song Lin was about to head into a seclusion of his own. Li Fanghua had solidly stepped into Heart Clarity and was slowly working her way towards Jade Cleansing.

  “You’re telling me that all we need to do is bring these two objects to important places?” Lu Qingshan asked.

  “Indeed,” An Xin said. “We’ve managed to track down the two main nodes in the forest. Problem is we don’t know what will happen afterwards with the formation.”

  “The peak and the giant forest? Where specifically?” Lu Qingshan furrowed his brow. Even after a whole year, the giant forest had not been fully explored. There was just no way to cover all that land quickly, especially with all the mining that had to be done.

  “On the canopy, and below the mountain. We haven’t dug up that flower yet, so now’s as good a time as any.”

  Lu Qingshan nodded. “Let’s go,” he said. “Does it need to be an immortal cultivator who places the artifact into the formation?”

  “Yes,” Li Fanghua confirmed. “We’ll need to make minor adjustments to the formation and get everything to align correctly. This will require spiritual energy.”

  He wasn’t so sure. Perhaps there was a method to bypass the use of spiritual energy like how he managed to get the Insect Harmony Mantra working. But he lacked understanding of immortal formations, and decided to leave that to them instead. Maybe in the future it would be worth a second look.

  The group of cultivators first traveled to the mountain peak with a group of Viscera Tempering martial artists eager for their next dose of secret medicine. Even with most of the new batches sent to Lu Qingshan, the remaining scraps were enough to elevate these martial artists by one or two tempered organs. It was an amazing feat, finally binding these relatively powerful figures fully to the sect.

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  They still hadn’t uncovered the fabled Innate realm medicinal herb. But the spirit rice had succeeded in their harvest. After an initial series of failures, his sect had managed to formulate a method to use the high concentration of wood energy in the giant forest to accelerate their growth.

  A harvest didn’t bring enough spirit rice to feed everyone in the sect. Only each cultivator at most, and even then they had to give up some of their share to Lu Qingshan. But the effects were great. Even though he wasn’t an immortal cultivator, he could feel his mind relaxing and his body grow tougher day by day.

  Things were looking up for the entire sect. His elders received their share of benefits too. Liu Yingting had opened his lower aperture. Wu Ruoling refused to fall behind, attempting to do the same currently. And the others — even Li Fanghua — had reached Viscera Tempering at the minimum.

  It didn’t take too long to reach the mountain peak. Soon the martial artists got to work, digging a tunnel furiously at the places where the spiritual earthworm had highlighted. This was the path of least resistance and danger.

  The excavation was set to take months. In the meantime, Lu Qingshan prepared to tackle his next great project: reaching the peak of the Giant Whale Breathing Method. It was faster than the Dragon Spine Manual and the Insect Harmony Mantra, his other two focuses.

  He took out a bowl of spirit rice. Mixed inside were finely diced pieces of demonized insect meat. After scarfing it all down, he tossed another batch of secret medicines down his throat.

  The excavation of the mountain tunnel went better than he thought it would. The higher average level of the martial artists made them much more enduring. A path opened up in half the time he was expecting.

  Lu Qingshan entered the tunnel, a makeshift cloth mask blocking the dusty air. The other immortal cultivators used spiritual energy to shield themselves.

  At the end of the passageway, a flower — a lotus — sat still in the middle of a small room, bloody crimson liquid dripping down onto its stamen. Immediately after spotting the plant, An Xin barked a warning. “Stop!”

  “What is it?”

  “An ice and fire lotus. I don’t know what it’s being fed, but right now, it hasn’t matured. If we get too close, we might interrupt its cycle, and cause it to explode.”

  “It’s a rare treasure?”

  “Indeed. Once it’s fully grown, an alchemist can make a pair of separate Qi Refinement pills, incredibly good for a cultivator. But since we don’t have an alchemist, we’ll have to make do with consuming them raw. This can be dangerous.”

  She continued, “we don’t have the luxury of waiting. The lotus will explode on its own at the end of its lifespan. The problem is that this has always been random. I’ve heard of it exploding the moment it ripened, so we should tread with absolute caution and move as soon as safely possible.”

  “Understood,” Lu Qingshan said. He did want to try growing more, but from her words he got the idea that doing so would be next to impossible for them. Unless they had some way to balance out the plant’s turbulent reaction.

  “Judging from the current look, it seems the lotus will finish growing in a few months. We should place down the stone eye and leave. I don’t think there will be anything bad happening, hopefully.”

  They carefully stepped past the blooming lotus and walked into the next tunnel. Fortunately, none of the martial artists were so bold as to try and steal the lotus. That would’ve caused a problem, maybe even a cave-in, resetting their month of hard work.

  “Here’s the place,” An Xin said. “Just place the stone eye right there and we should be good. I don’t have the spiritual energy left to do it, so my brother can handle this.” She gave the stone eye to An Zichen, standing silently to the side.

  “I hope you’re right,” Lu Qingshan said. He couldn’t see how this made sense, and was hoping nothing bad would happen.

  The man inserted the stone eye into a chunk of dirt, then covered it. After a few pats, it was done. Their group turned around and hurried back through the tunnels.

  “I don’t see a difference,” Lu Qingshan mused. “Will the next placement cause trouble?”

  “Maybe. That’s why we did this one first, so that we can mount a better position over there.” An Xin looked towards the sky with the other stone eye. “There has been a ripple in the spiritual energy. Looks like it worked.”

  Returning to the giant forest, Lu Qingshan and the others waited for their chance. First they had to clear out the demonized insects, which took some time due to all their venom. Only Liu Yingting stood supreme in his number of kills.

  Then they had to climb up to the canopy. Doing so didn’t take too long, but unfortunately Song Lin had to step away. He had a fear of heights.

  “I suggest you find a way to solve that before you reach Qi Refinement,” An Xin said. “In that realm, you can fly temporarily. Wouldn’t want to lose such a big advantage due to fear, right?”

  Song Lin hesitantly nodded, disappearing back into the forest. After that, the rest of them traveled on the tree tops to reach the point specified by An Xin.

  An Zichen inserted the stone eye artifact right into the crown of the tallest tree. Then they waited for something to happen. It seemed like nothing was happening, until a familiar buzz came from Lu Qingshan’s pocket.

  The crystal cicada flew around their heads. It was trying to guide them somewhere. They followed it down the trees and back to the mountain peak, where a coffin sat still and unopened.

  Or at least it had been. Somehow the lid had slid off all on its own. The crystal cicada danced above it, dropping crystal dust onto a receptacle. And the immortal cultivators’ eyes widened.

  “Spiritual energy,” An Xin whispered. “It’s an artifact.”

  Through their spiritual connection, Lu Qingshan understood it wanted him to enter the coffin. Even so, he didn’t exactly have the spirit qi to wield it. Unless it somehow worked with mortals.

  It went just as he expected. After climbing into the coffin, nothing happened. Instead, Lu Qingshan sent his grievances over to the crystal cicada. It hovered there in confusion before finally gliding above Qin Ye.

  “Your turn,” he said, climbing out of the coffin. “It needs spiritual energy.”

  Qin Ye silently slipped inside. Then he unwittingly let out an exclamation, and a string of curses.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We’re surrounded,” he said grimly. “By other cultivators.”