Chapter 155
Lu Qing first took out the essay collection by the Wandering Immortal.
This time, after a stroll around the city, Lu Qing had gained significantly.
The greatest gain was this essay collection and the Qiankun Bag.
According to the information revealed by his special abilities, the essays contained records about the era of immortal cultivation.
Lu Qing was very curious about that mysterious era.
So, he decided to first delve into this book.
After a brief inspection, Lu Qing found that the material of the book was unusual. The paper was particularly resilient, seemingly able to last for a very long time without deteriorating.
"Do you want to download and study it?"
Looking at the prompt in his vision, Lu Qing chose "yes."
"Downloading... Progress: 1%, 2%, 3%... 97%, 98%, 99%, 100%""Download complete. Do you want to start learning?"
Lu Qing continued to choose "yes."
The next moment, familiar sensations and insights surged from deep within his mind. He gently closed his eyes.
After a while, when he had digested the information in his mind, he opened his eyes with a hint of sigh.
"This Wandering Immortal was truly a tragic figure."
After absorbing the information in the essays, Lu Qing finally learned about some of the Wandering Immortal's deeds.
The Wandering Immortal was actually a cultivator from over a thousand years ago.
More precisely, he was a pitiable person who pursued the path of immortal cultivation.
The Wandering Immortal was originally a scholar. In his youth, by chance, he obtained an immortal cultivation legacy in a strange cave.
Coincidentally, his aptitude was exceptionally good, highly compatible with that legacy.
Thus, relying on the legacy he acquired from the strange cave and some resources, he managed to achieve success through self-study, breaking through barriers, and stepping into the Qi Refining realm, becoming a true immortal cultivator.
Later, with the resources from the cave, he advanced rapidly, reaching the peak of Qi Refining in just over ten years.
According to the Wandering Immortal's words in the essays, his progress would have made him a genius even in the brilliant era of immortal cultivation, sought after by major sects.
Unfortunately, he was born in the wrong era, an era where spiritual energy was scarce, the path of immortal cultivation was extinct, and martial arts prevailed.
So, despite his extraordinary aptitude for immortal cultivation, there were no sects for him to join.
This made the Wandering Immortal lament his unfortunate timing many times in his essays.
What made him even more desperate was that due to the scarcity of spiritual energy, his cultivation stagnated after reaching the peak of Qi Refining, unable to progress any further.
No matter how hard he cultivated, he could not break through to the Foundation Establishment stage, a higher level where one’s body is flawless and free of impurities.
In search of a breakthrough, the Wandering Immortal began to travel the world.
He visited various famous mountains and rivers, strange places, hoping to find a chance to break through.
With his cultivation level equivalent to the Precelestial realm of martial artists, and even stronger due to the mystical nature of immortal cultivation, traveling the world was not difficult for him.
However, after spending decades searching for the locations of former immortal sects as recorded in his legacy, he found that those once-famed paradises and immortal abodes had vanished without a trace.
Occasionally, only ruins and desolation remained.
At this point, the Wandering Immortal truly realized that the era of immortal cultivation had indeed ended.
But he was not without any gains.
In the ruins of a sect called Tiandao Sect, he saw a jade wall.
The jade wall recorded a secret.
It roughly stated that the decline of spiritual energy was a natural cycle, like the breathing of a person, rising and falling alternately.
The cycle of spiritual energy's rise and fall was approximately sixty thousand years.
Thirty thousand years of decline and exhaustion, followed by thirty thousand years of resurgence and prosperity, repeating endlessly.
Upon seeing this secret, the Wandering Immortal's heart turned cold.
According to the jade wall's record, he calculated that he was at the end of a decline period, with at least a thousand years to go before the next resurgence of spiritual energy.
Knowing this, the Wandering Immortal became desperate.
At the peak of Qi Refining, with a lifespan of only three hundred years, even with mystical immortal cultivation methods prolonging his life, he could only live up to five hundred years.
Waiting for the resurgence of spiritual energy was impossible.
In other words, despite his outstanding talent in immortal cultivation, he would never see the day of spiritual energy's resurgence and shine with his own brilliance.
In the final part of the essays, Lu Qing read that the Wandering Immortal did not give up completely after knowing the secret on the jade wall.
Throughout his life, he fought against the laws of heaven, attempting to reach higher realms with his talent and effort.
In the following centuries, he tried many things, searched for various secret places, absorbed residual spiritual energy, practiced martial arts, and even studied the notorious path of insect sorcery.
But all attempts ended in failure.
Until his death, he could not break through the peak of Qi Refining and step into the higher Foundation Establishment stage.
After reading the life of the Wandering Immortal recorded in the essays, Lu Qing remained silent for a long time.
This was the second time he was shocked by someone's life story.
The first was Li Weitian, and the second was this Wandering Immortal.
However, compared to Li Weitian, the life of the Wandering Immortal seemed more tragic.
Li Weitian's end could be said to be partly due to his own faults. If he had not wasted so much time in his early years competing with others, he would not have been forced to break through in haste with insufficient accumulation, ultimately leading to his demise.
But the Wandering Immortal was different. He pursued the path of immortality all his life, diligently cultivating without ever slacking off.
Yet, fate played a cruel joke on him, letting him be born in the wrong era.
Despite having extraordinary aptitude for immortal cultivation, he was trapped at the peak of Qi Refining due to the lack of spiritual energy and eventually died of old age.
"A tragic genius abandoned by the era of immortal cultivation."
Lu Qing sighed deeply, feeling pity for the Wandering Immortal's fate.
In an era of scarce spiritual energy, without any guidance, he managed to cultivate himself to the peak of Qi Refining.
If the Wandering Immortal had been born in the prosperous era of immortal cultivation, it is hard to imagine what heights he could have achieved.
But, there are no ifs in this world.
Being born in the wrong era doomed the tragedy of the Wandering Immortal.
After sighing for a while about the Wandering Immortal's life, Lu Qing turned his attention to another matter.
According to the Wandering Immortal's records in the essays, in his time, there were at least a thousand years left until the resurgence of spiritual energy as calculated by the Tiandao Sect.
Now, nearly a thousand years had passed since the Wandering Immortal's death.
By this calculation, the period of spiritual energy's resurgence should be in his current era?
But he had not sensed any significant changes in the world.
Wait!
Lu Qing suddenly remembered something, and his heart shook violently.
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