Liang Kingdom. Golden Cloud Valley.
The third test of the immortal sect's entrance examination: the Illusion Heart Platform.
On a round platform built of white jade, a hundred or two hundred youths were wrapped in pale purple streams of light, sunk deep in illusion. Fury, terror, or utter devastation played across their faces…
"Hiss—!"
Lu Changan let out a stifled grunt and snapped awake.
His brows knitted, and beads of sweat the size of peas broke out on his forehead. Deep in his mind it felt as though some seal had cracked open, and he was taking the full impact of a flood of information!
"Not bad! Third to wake on the Illusion Heart Platform—willpower of the highest order."
Not far off, several immortal masters of the sect were trading comments in low voices.
The Illusion Heart Platform was the final test of Golden Cloud Valley's entrance examination, and it measured state of mind and willpower.
"Lu Changan, mid-grade spirit root, third place on the Illusion Heart Platform. A fine little immortal sprout, I'd say…"
"Hm? First layer of Qi Refining, and nearly eighteen years old?"
"What a pity…"
A murmur of regret came from the people around him.
The Liang Kingdom's cultivation world… Golden Cloud Valley's entrance examination…
Lu Changan, nearly eighteen years old?
I broke the womb's mystery much later this time than in my last life. I've missed the best age for entering the immortal path.
On the platform, Lu Changan's expression shifted; his gaze was deep and unreadable.
Judging by the memories of this life, he had landed in yet another cultivation region, different from his first life and his second.
Waking in this life, fed back by the Nine-Seal Stele, my soul's strength at the very start is actually a notch above my second life's?
Lu Changan's brows eased, and his expression returned to something natural.
That's right—the Nine-Seal Stele!
He half-closed his eyes, looking for all the world like a man gathering his strength.
Deep in his mind's eye surfaced an ancient, simple stele of dark stone, its surface traced with abstract patterns.
The Nine-Seal Stele was the mysterious ancient monument he had chanced to touch back on Earth, the very thing that had set him on his wondrous cycle of cultivation and rebirth.
He did not know its origin, and had named it himself after its shape and markings.
Its front face.
From top to bottom ran nine rectangular, frame-shaped brands.
In the first frame was carved a handsome young man of upright bearing, a talisman brush in his grip.
In the second frame stood a white-bearded old man in a black robe, treading a ray of escape light.
The first two frames were dead and dim, the figures in them like portraits promising long life.
The third frame, though, held the phantom of a youth, white light slowly turning within it.
Flickering in and out, it had not yet truly been carved into the stele.
That phantom youth matched the Lu Changan of this moment exactly.
The six brands below were all blank.
Counting from my first life, when I crossed from Earth into the cultivation world, this is already my third.
Lu Changan withdrew his consciousness from the Nine-Seal Stele and sorted through his experiences of the previous two lives.
In his first life, newly arrived in the cultivation world with mediocre aptitude, he had been a lone rogue cultivator, stumbling along and barely grinding his way to the ninth layer of Qi Refining.
The only thing he had to show for himself was talisman drawing.
In the end, fighting for a chance at Foundation Establishment, he was outmatched and died in a spell duel.
In his second life he was born into a cultivation clan with a high-grade spirit root. With his first life's cultivation insights and talisman craft to build on, he advanced in triumph all the way to the peak of late Core Formation—for a time, he cut a splendid figure indeed.
But in the end his assault on the Nascent Soul stage failed, and he perished, his Dao extinguished.
In my first two lives I barely scratched the surface of what the Nine-Seal Stele can do. My guess is that I'll have to rise to the Nascent Soul stage at least, and undergo a qualitative change of soul, before I can dig out its true secrets.
With that thought, Lu Changan's purpose in this life was settled.
Nascent Soul!
If he could not reach that realm, perhaps the Nine-Seal Stele would carry him on into yet another life… nine lives at most.
Of course, that was the optimistic guess.
Perhaps there were only three lives, three worlds.
In that case, if he failed in this life, utter annihilation was what awaited him!
"Ah! No…"
Time wore on. The youths on the platform woke one after another, and the place turned clamorous, breaking across Lu Changan's thoughts.
"Lu Changan, when did you wake up?"
A few youths nearby stared at Lu Changan, awake well before them, looking rather surprised.
"Got lucky. A little ahead of you."
Entirely at ease, Lu Changan sized up the two young men and one girl before him.
They were all immortal sprouts brought in from Hengshui Prefecture, and had gotten to know one another on the road.
Zhao Siyao, mid-grade spirit root, from a family of scholars.
Only fourteen or fifteen, she was already slender and graceful, with bright, clever eyes and lips like cinnabar—a budding beauty through and through.
Lin Yi, low-grade spirit root, concubine-born son of the Marquis of Guang'an.
A youth of sixteen or seventeen in fine brocade, with sword-shaped brows and dashing eyes, he had the highest cultivation among them, having reached the third layer of Qi Refining.
At that moment, though, Lin Yi's face was gloomy and displeased.
Li Ergou, low-grade spirit root, born to a farming family.
Dressed in a hemp short jacket, thin and dark-skinned, he looked flustered and fearful, not quite daring to draw near Lin Yi and Zhao Siyao.
"Brother Lu, that third test is so hard. If my family's old hen hadn't suddenly crowed at dawn, I'd have near enough gotten lost in a life of fine clothes and rich food…"
Still shaken, Li Ergou patted his chest and naturally edged closer to Lu Changan.
Because of the gap in their backgrounds, the immortal sprouts from the same region naturally kept close to some and at arm's length from others.
The aristocratic air and faint arrogance about Lin Yi filled Li Ergou with instinctive fear.
Zhao Siyao, a well-bred young lady of a notable house, was learned and courteous; she was polite to everyone, and never once looked down on Li Ergou and Lu Changan for their low birth.
Li Ergou, though, did not dare look the lively, lovely Zhao Siyao in the eye.
Whenever the young beauty's gaze happened to settle on him, he turned red to the ears and had no idea what to do with himself. Luckily his dark complexion hid some of it.
Li Ergou felt close to Lu Changan, and no one else.
Lu Changan was an orphan.
He carried another identity as well: a man of the martial world, an expert of a gang.
To be exact, he was the adopted son of the leader of Hengshui Prefecture's Raging River Gang.
Lu Changan had shown excellent martial talent since childhood, and at a young age he was already a second-rate expert of the martial world.
By the original plan, in a few years he would succeed his adoptive father as gang leader.
Then, the year before last, he had befriended a down-and-out Daoist priest and learned that he actually possessed a spirit root for cultivation—a mid-grade one, no less, hardly poor aptitude.
The course of his life had turned at that point.
Here, on the Illusion Heart Platform, the third test of Golden Cloud Valley's examination, he had recovered the memories of his past lives.
"Ergou. You have a spirit root. Once you set foot on the immortal path, it doesn't matter whether you were once a king or a minister, a farmer or a peddler… the past is all drifting cloud."
Lu Changan looked at the lowly, timid Li Ergou and gave his shoulder a light pat.
After two lifetimes of cultivation and reincarnation, Lu Changan's true heart was as it had always been; he had not turned into an old monster with centuries of scheming in his skull.
That was the wonder of the Nine-Seal Stele.
It was as though he had woken from an immersive film, his consciousness peeling away and returning to him, with only two lifetimes of cultivation memories added on.
He had more life experience now, and a greatly broadened horizon.
And his true heart remained as it had been on the day he first crossed into the cultivation world.
"Mm, mm, I know. Thanks, Brother Lu…"
Li Ergou rubbed the back of his head, feeling a touch of warmth.
"Lu Changan, what place did you take on the Illusion Heart Platform?"
At this point Lin Yi, his face fretful and restless, could not hold the question back.
Lu Changan glanced at Lin Yi, concubine-born son of a marquis, and mused.
If he remembered rightly, on the Illusion Heart Platform Lin Yi had been the last of their group to wake.
In cultivation, Lin Yi was the strongest of them, at the third layer of Qi Refining.
And yet on the third test, which weighed state of mind and willpower, Lin Yi's showing had been the worst of the lot!
Even Li Ergou the farmer's son had done a shade better than he had.
"Third place, I think." Lu Changan considered it for a moment.
"Third place?"
Lin Yi's pupils contracted, and his face darkened, as though he could not stomach the reversal.
On the first two tests, his overall performance had beaten Lu Changan's without question.
"I never imagined Brother Lu's willpower was so formidable—truly worthy of a young hero of the martial world! Congratulations…"
Zhao Siyao was surprised as well; her dark brows arched and her bright eyes flickered.
On the journey to the sect, Lu Changan—a man of the martial world, rich in experience and easy in temperament—had grown familiar in conversation with Zhao Siyao.
Since he was also the oldest of them, she had taken to calling him Brother Lu.
The closeness between the two of them was beyond even what Lin Yi, born to a marquis's house and on friendly terms with Zhao Siyao, could manage.
Lin Yi's mood soured further. Forcing his composure back into place, he remarked as though it were nothing:
"A pity. If Brother Lu had taken first place on the Illusion Heart Platform, he could have ignored the results of the first two tests, passed the examination outright, and become an outer disciple of Golden Cloud Valley."
"First place on the Illusion Heart Platform, straight into the sect?"
Lu Changan was caught off guard; he had not known about this inside rule.
A faint regret stirred in him. If I break the womb's mystery a few days earlier, the Nine-Seal Stele's soul boost will make this entrance exam a sure thing.
Even armed with two lifetimes of cultivation memories, Lu Changan had no wish to be a rogue cultivator.
The hardships of a rogue cultivator's life in his first life—those he knew intimately.
On the immortal path to longevity, none of the four may be lacking: wealth, companions, methods, and place.
The last of these, "place," meant a training ground for cultivation.
And in the cultivation world, nearly every spirit vein, blessed land, and cave-heaven was in the grip of sects, great clans, or powerful demon beasts.
Mortal lands were called "spirit-poor regions," where spirit Qi was incomparably thin and barren.
Utterly unfit for cultivation!
Without a spirit-vein training ground, efficiency fell away by more than tenfold!
Ranked first, "wealth" meant cultivation resources: spirit stones, pills, magic treasures, and the like.
No training ground, and no cultivation resources either.
At the very start of the immortal path, even a big shot starting over from scratch would not have an easy road of it.
So Lu Changan would not let the chance to enter a sect slip past him.
"Those whose names I call, step forward!"
Before long, a steward of Golden Cloud Valley floated in midair and began announcing the list of those who had passed the examination.
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