The art Lu Changan chose was called the Evergreen Art.
This was his second life.
He had obtained it from the cave dwelling of the great Nascent Soul cultivator Yan Donglai—an ancient health-preserving art.
At the time he was already four or five hundred years old, and he had fought another cultivator inside that cave dwelling, nearly losing his life.
His only gain was half a scroll of the Evergreen Art, cultivable up to the Nascent Soul stage.
The Evergreen Art was characterized by the tempering of spirit and temperament, the prolonging of life, and long, enduring qi channels.
Its drawback was that, as a health-preserving art, its power was mediocre and its cultivation speed gentle.
In his third life, he chose this art.
Lu Changan cared about exactly one thing: the added lifespan!
"The Evergreen Art must be cultivated from the Qi Refining stage onward, and as one's primary art, for its lifespan growth to take effect. Switching to it midway grants no added lifespan!"
"Its lifespan effect: at every realm, one gains half again the lifespan of cultivators at the same stage."
"At Qi Refining, it adds fifty to sixty years."
"At Foundation Establishment, a hundred and twenty years."
"At Core Formation, three hundred years."
An ordinary Qi Refining cultivator's lifespan was no more than a hundred and twenty years.
At Foundation Establishment, two hundred and forty.
At Core Formation, lifespans reached as high as five or six hundred years.
In other words, so long as Lu Changan made it back to the Core Formation stage he had reached in his last life, he would have nine hundred years of life as his floor in this life.
Add a few life-extending natural treasures, and a thousand-year lifespan was no impossibility.
Lu Changan refused to believe that with nearly a thousand years of life in this one, acting cautiously and advancing step by step, he still could not reach the Nascent Soul stage.
Having gone through two cycles of cultivation and reincarnation, he understood keenly what lifespan meant to a cultivator.
In the cultivation world, only the one who lived to the end was a true winner.
A cultivator gravely wounded in a duel, or one who resorted to certain secret arts, would often have his lifespan and foundation affected.
In his second life, Lu Changan had meant to advance to the Nascent Soul stage, but with his lifespan running short, he had to fight for every kind of opportunity and live through life-and-death duels; his foundation was inevitably damaged.
That in turn affected his later attempt at the Nascent Soul stage, and he had finally perished under heavenly tribulation.
"In my second life I had little lifespan left, and I was cultivating a fire-attribute art, with a spirit root leaning toward fire as well. It was unsuited for switching to the wood-attribute Evergreen Art."
"In this life I have a mid-grade spirit root, with good sensitivity to fire, wood and metal spirit qi—just right for cultivating the Evergreen Art from the Qi Refining stage, stacking up lifespan layer after layer."
A cultivator's aptitude was graded as follows:
inferior spirit root, low-grade spirit root, mid-grade spirit root, high-grade spirit root, earth spirit root, heaven spirit root.
Beyond those were the innate treasure bodies that stood outside the spirit-root system altogether—the Thunder Spirit Body, the Green Lotus Body, the Dragon Chant Body, and the like.
Innate treasure bodies were far too rare; Lu Changan knew little about them.
The grades in the spirit-root system were assigned by one's sensitivity to the spirit qi of heaven and earth.
Normal cultivators possessed all five elements.
A spirit root's grade depended mainly on the element to which one's sensitivity was strongest.
A sensitivity of ten was the minimum standard for a low-grade spirit root.
A sensitivity of twenty, the minimum for a mid-grade spirit root.
Lu Changan's sensitivity to fire spirit qi was just over twenty, meeting the minimum standard for a mid-grade spirit root.
Next came wood spirit qi, at a sensitivity of seventeen.
Metal spirit qi, at fifteen.
As for water and earth spirit qi, his sensitivity was under ten—ungraded. That meant cultivating spells of those two attributes would be rather difficult from then on.
That night, Lu Changan gripped his spirit sand and began cultivating the Evergreen Art.
On the road, a month passed in a blink.
The last grain of spirit sand in Lu Changan's hand crumbled to powder.
"The first layer of the Evergreen Art!"
Lu Changan circulated the mana in his body, fine as gossamer thread, and felt a brimming, evergreen vitality.
Barely past the threshold, and he could already feel that the Evergreen Art's mana renewed itself without end.
Long qi channels, strong endurance!
That one trait alone made up for the ancient health-preserving art's mediocre power.
In duels between cultivators of the same stage, magic treasures and divine powers mattered most.
Unbroken mana could sustain magic treasures and divine powers for far longer. Even when it came to running away, that was no small advantage.
"Still, the Evergreen Art cultivates even slower than I expected—it can't even match the Kaiyuan Scripture."
This flaw was the one Lu Changan felt most keenly.
Of course, the Evergreen Art held a hidden surprise as well.
Namely, its qi-concealing effect!
When this art gathered in one's aura, the whole person seemed to turn into a piece of dead wood, so that no one could tell one's true cultivation.
Plenty of wood-attribute arts had qi-concealing effects, but none came close to the Evergreen Art.
"Good. This suits exactly my notion of cultivating quietly and managing things steadily in this life."
Lu Changan nodded inwardly.
Once he chose this art, he should no longer keep thinking about duels and deadly fights, or contending for opportunities.
Avoid contention, avoid fighting!
In this life he would steadily step into the Nascent Soul stage and dig out the true secret of the Nine-Seal Stele.
Lu Changan's store of spirit sand was used up.
Before reaching the Mu family, Lu Changan could not be bothered to cultivate any further.
In the spirit-poor regions of the mortal world, cultivation results were too poor—and the Evergreen Art advanced slowly to begin with.
Two months of road still remained.
Since he was not cultivating immortality, Lu Changan simply picked up the mortal martial arts and practiced them.
In his first life, as a rogue cultivator, Lu Changan had drifted through the mortal world for a time; he had killed several martial-arts Innate grandmasters and collected some top-tier martial manuals.
He remembered it vividly: mortal martial-arts grandmasters posed a threat to Qi Refining cultivators. If one let one's guard down, even a Qi Refining cultivator could end up dead.
In this life he had started at the first layer of Qi Refining, his mana too weak, with no magic treasure or talisman to protect him.
The Evergreen Art's power was mediocre; it could not be counted on.
He was sorely lacking in means to guard his path.
Over the road that followed, Lu Changan found the time to practice martial arts, thinking only to add a few more means of self-defense.
And that practice brought a considerable surprise!
Mortal martial arts demanded very little of the spirit qi of heaven and earth.
Lu Changan had been a second-rate jianghu expert to begin with—a martial prodigy.
Fed by the Nine-Seal Stele, his soul far surpassed the ordinary, and his divine sense at the first layer of Qi Refining already approached the seventh layer.
With a powerful soul and a cultivator's vantage from on high, his martial cultivation advanced a thousand li a day.
In less than two months,
Lu Changan's martial cultivation went from second-rate to first-rate, then to super-first-rate, and finally broke through to martial Innate!
At that point, Lu Changan had just turned eighteen.
"A martial grandmaster at eighteen—that's enough to shake the mortal martial world."
Lu Changan felt the Innate true qi brimming in his body, the robust physique of a body wholly remade.
Of course, set against a cultivator's mana, martial true qi fell far short.
"Look alive! Half a day more and we reach the Mu family's holdings."
On the official road, the Mu family head's spirit foal led the way, with a dozen fine horses following close behind.
After two or three months of long traveling, the spirit-rooted youths were worn out in body and mind.
Only Lu Changan, cultivating the Evergreen Art, was full of vigor and recovered quickly.
In the meantime, he even had time to spare for martial arts.
As for Lu Changan's martial practice, the family head Mu Maode saw it and said nothing.
Lu Changan had been a jianghu man to begin with; practicing martial arts fit his persona.
As for whether it would hold up his cultivation, the Mu family head cared even less.
He had no real intention of nurturing Lu Changan and the others; all he cared about was how much spirit-root bloodline they could bring the family.
If Lu Changan did not devote himself to cultivation, so much the better.
Once his immortal path showed no hope, he would be all the more likely to stay with the Mu family and pour in more effort later on.
"There it is! Feiyue Lake!"
The Mu family cultivators perked up.
Lu Changan and the others gazed into the distance: the outline of a lake shimmered with a jade-like luster beneath the pale moonlight.
"That is the spirit lake the Mu family controls. They say it can produce spirit fish…"
A breeze brushed their faces, and everyone felt a trace of watery moisture.
The spirit qi of heaven and earth around them far surpassed that of the spirit-poor mortal regions.
Feiyue Lake was not far off.
They were already close to Mu family territory.
The Mu family people, vigilant the whole way, could not help letting out a long breath.
This mission of escorting immortal seedlings was finally complete.
Just as everyone's hearts began to relax—
Chi-xiu—
A harsh screech rang out, and a scorching breath rushed at their faces.
Fwooom—
In an instant, dozens of lantern-sized balls of flame came crashing down on the Mu family's escort of immortal seedlings.
"Enemy attack!"
The Mu family head's face changed drastically, and he bellowed.
Apart from the spirit foal beneath him, the other horses went weak in the legs, shrieking, or bolted in terror.
In a moment, riders and horses were thrown down, dust flying everywhere.
"Protect the seedlings!"
Amid the furious shouts, the Mu family head and four family cultivators each brought their own means to bear.
Water screens, golden light shields, earth-wall arts, a magic-treasure umbrella… all striving to shield the ten seedlings.
But the flame balls numbered in the dozens, and they could not make the protection airtight.
"Aaah…"
A miserable scream came: a bookish-looking youth was struck by a lantern-sized flame and blazed up.
Soon his body was charred black, and he stopped struggling.
The other nine youths shivered with horror and scrambled to dodge.
Cultivators had physiques better than ordinary folk, but a few of them were still injured.
"Good god! The cultivation world is terrifying…"
Li Ergou's face was ashen; he nearly wet himself with fright.
Lu Changan grabbed him by the arm and dragged him seven or eight meters across the ground, just clear of a fireball's blast radius.
Lu Changan had powerful divine sense and martial skill besides, so he was comparatively composed.
"Hahaha… Mu Maode! You want to bring this batch of seedlings home? Not without my Zheng family's say-so!"
From the hills on the left, seven cultivators flew out, each with a magic treasure in hand.
Their leader was a dark-skinned burly man treading a crimson-flame saber; a centipede-like scar ran down his cheek almost to his neck, lending him a ferocious edge.
The mana fluctuations on this man had plainly reached the ninth layer of Qi Refining!
"Zheng family cultivators! Zheng Centipede!"
Several Mu family cultivators could not help crying out.
The spirit-root system borrows its setting from the single-player game Tale of Immortal, and differs slightly from the traditional mortal-flow genre.