Chapter One: The End of the Star Path

“First find a place, then let us explore this unknown world together and look for any trace of Senior Guixu.”

No sooner had the words left my mouth than a savage tearing pain, as though it had risen from the very depths of my soul, and a dizzying sense of temporal and spatial dislocation, like a flood bursting through a dam, crashed through the composure I had been forcing myself to maintain.

The scene before my eyes—the three eerie suns, that sky of such breathtaking beauty it seemed almost unreal, the primitive mountain ranges stretching all the way to the horizon—twisted, spun, and shattered in that instant, collapsing into a storm of chaotic color.

I gave a muffled groan. It felt as if my organs had all been shifted out of place. The magic surging through my meridians was like a wild horse broken loose, battering madly against every barrier in its path. I forcibly activated the Longevity Scripture, trying to suppress the upheaval within me, but the sweet metallic taste in my throat could no longer be held back. A thread of golden blood, carrying a sliver of my own primal essence, slowly seeped from the corner of my mouth.

“Father!”

“Father!”

Jiang Yiyi and Jiang Xiaobai cried out at the same time, their voices tinged with barely concealed panic. Two pairs of soft little hands steadied my tottering body from left and right. I could clearly feel their bodies trembling faintly as well, their faces white as paper, their breathing weak and unsteady. Clearly, this interstellar crossing that spanned the cosmos had placed an immense burden on them too.

“I’m... fine.” My voice was hoarse as I waved a hand.

I immediately sat down cross-legged where I stood, closed my eyes, and sank my mind into my body, beginning to guide the turbulent flow of magic power. The laws of heaven and earth in this world were entirely different from those of Earth. Earth’s laws were gentle and restrained, while the laws here were wild, overbearing, and filled with unquestionable majesty. Our bodies were like things suddenly cast from fresh water into a high-salinity abyss; every cell seemed to cry out under the strain.

I at once turned inward to inspect myself, my divine sense following the meridians all the way through. The moment I saw the truth, even my thousand-year-old state of mind sank.

Within my purple mansion, the Spirit-Transformation Dao Embryo that had once fully condensed into substantial form, solemn and radiant, resonating with heaven and earth, had now grown dim. Fine cracks covered its surface, as if it were a porcelain figure on the verge of breaking. My vast sea of magic power was leaking uncontrollably through those fissures. My cultivation base, like an avalanche, was plunging at terrifying speed from the Spirit-Transformation stage... Spirit-Transformation early stage... and at the very brink of falling below the threshold of Spirit-Transformation, the remaining true dao resonance of Penglai suddenly trembled violently, barely halting the downward collapse and pinning my cultivation level fast at Nascent Soul perfection.

From Spirit-Transformation to Nascent Soul—only one step apart, yet as far as heaven from earth.

I forced down the turmoil in my heart and sent two strands of divine sense into Yiyi and Xiaobai’s bodies. Their condition was even worse than I had imagined. Yiyi’s Nascent Soul, that tiny, exquisitely carved little self, had also become somewhat illusory. Her cultivation had slid all the way down from Nascent Soul and finally settled at the late Golden Core stage. As for Jiang Xiaobai, the brilliance of her inner demon core had dimmed, and the six fluffy fox tails behind her looked somewhat listless. A cultivation base equivalent to a six-tailed demon king had been forcibly knocked back to that of a five-tailed fox demon, her strength now roughly equal to that of a human Golden Core cultivator in the middle stage. At times, her whole face would flicker with the old fox’s features, already showing signs that she was about to revert to her true form.

The three of us had all paid a grievous price for this successful crossing.

This was undoubtedly a beginning that could not have been worse. In this new world, where a single sweep of divine sense could detect countless formidable auras, Nascent Soul cultivation might count as respectable, but only just. Any genuine Spirit-Transformation cultivator, or even some practitioners with profound foundations, could easily spell doom for our fragile little “family.”

Quiet. Hidden. Patient.

At once, I set down the guiding principle for our conduct over the long days ahead. Before we recovered our strength and truly understood this world, we could not allow ourselves to attract the attention of any powerful existence. We had to be like a stone sinking to the bottom of the sea, quietly gathering our strength.

Just as I was pondering how to break the deadlock and find a safe refuge for my daughters, the ancient token I had always kept close within my sea of consciousness suddenly gave a faint tremor without warning. A warm, vast, and utterly familiar aura spread from within it, instantly smoothing the roiling blood and energy in my body.

Hm? This is... the Penglai Sect Master Token?

My thoughts stirred, and I sent a thread of exhausted divine sense into it. When my consciousness passed through that familiar barrier, the sight before me left me completely stunned.

Inside the token lay a boundless, self-contained independent space! Within it, immortal energy drifted in veils and auspicious radiance shone in countless streams. And at the very center of that space, a grand, ancient immortal hall, suffused with endless dao charm, floated silently in the air!

This... this was the Penglai Immortal Hall atop the highest peak of Penglai Immortal Isle, the very symbol of the sect’s core! How... how could it be here?!

My divine sense took human form, and I stepped into the hall in a daze. The layout of the grand hall was exactly as I remembered it. The Nine-Dragon Divine Flame Pillars in the alchemy chamber still radiated a lingering warmth; the thousand-year dark iron anvil in the artifact-forging pavilion seemed to still retain the echo of hammer blows; the jade walls of the talisman room were engraved with profound and enigmatic runes... Everything was intact, as if it had merely been moved to another place.

Suppressing the frantic pounding of my heart, I nearly stumbled as I rushed toward the deepest part of the immortal hall and pushed open the heavy stone door carved from a single slab of starlight wood.

Hall of Myriad Scrolls!

What came into view was an immense bookshelf towering from floor to ceiling—rows upon rows, endless as the tracks of the stars. Upon those shelves were packed millions upon millions of jade slips, beast-skin scrolls, and golden classics! From the most basic Breath-Receiving Art to the supreme cultivation method that pointed directly to Great-Open-Eye Immortals, the Penglai Void-Profound Scripture; from records of strange happenings in the Eastern Sea to maps of the cosmos; from the introductory principles of alchemy to the Nine Revolutions Golden Pill Secret Art; from a hundred methods of artifact forging to the Illustrated Method for Forging Dao Soldiers...

Everything the Penglai Immortal Sect had accumulated—its knowledge, its cultivation methods, its secret arts, its inheritance—had all been preserved here, perfectly intact!

I understood. I finally understood.

This Sect Master Token, at the final moment of the Penglai Star-Path Grand Array’s activation, had sealed away the core immortal hall that carried everything the sect possessed, together with the Hall of Myriad Scrolls within it, into the token itself. This token had been passed down from Elder Guixu to me for who knew how many hundreds of thousands of years, but everyone had kept it on Earth. Likely none of them knew that the token and the immortal hall were originally one and the same.

What sort of Sect Master Token was this? It was clearly a moving, complete, priceless treasure vault of the entire sect!

A surge of overwhelming joy crashed over me like mountain and sea, instantly sweeping away all the gloom and unease brought on by my fallen cultivation. I almost wanted to throw back my head and laugh to the heavens to release the wild exaltation in my chest.

With this in hand, let alone merely falling temporarily to the Nascent Soul stage—even if we were cast down into mortal ruin and had to begin again from nothing, I still had absolute confidence that I could rebuild Penglai’s glory in this vast world and once more rise to the summit of the cultivation realm!

Slowly, I drew a deep breath and withdrew my divine sense from the immortal hall.

When I opened my eyes again, the weariness and heaviness in them had vanished without a trace. In their place was a firmness and brilliance I had never known before.

I saw Yiyi and Xiaobai watching me with worried expressions, their large eyes filled with concern.

I raised a hand, wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth, then gently brushed their pale little faces. A smile, utterly at ease and utterly confident, spread across mine.

“Yiyi, Xiaobai, don’t worry.”

“All our greatest trump cards, all our family’s foundation—have come with us.”