The Secret Way of Immortality

Ren Qing seemed to fall into a long, illusory dream, his mind recalling the bits and pieces that formed the five Immortal Ascension Arts.

In the eyes of others, the aura he emitted became extremely unstable.

From time to time, the aura of his techniques would erupt, making the rules within the Immortal Forbidden Zone unpredictable, twisted, and disordered.

Ren Qing's size was also constantly expanding.

Song Zongwu glanced at Ren Qing's location, seemingly unintentionally, and couldn't help but mutter to himself, "Is he starting to become an immortal..."

He pondered for a moment, then turned to face the scorching heat in front of him.

The Immortal position of the Fire Virtue Star Lord was in the shape of a heart, beating every few breaths, releasing immeasurable terrifying heat.

Song Zongwu's skin and flesh were already damaged, revealing pale flesh. Even with the healing speed of the Heavenly Gu Realm, he couldn't completely heal the injuries.

He sat cross-legged in the magma, looking like a skinned monster.

Karma fire protected Song Zongwu's life, but the maintenance of the karma fire was very difficult, because the karma fire would devour the flames of the Fire Virtue Star Lord, causing the total amount of karma fire to gradually increase.

To ensure that the karma fire would not harm his body and soul, Song Zongwu had to restrain his techniques. However, correspondingly, he had to endure the burning every minute and every second.

Fortunately, he had long been accustomed to the pain brought by the flames during his hundred years of slumber.

Song Zongwu occasionally threw some pills into his mouth, but they could only ensure that his injuries would not worsen. Next, he had to refine the Immortal position as soon as possible.

He was just about to study the Fire Virtue Star Lord when his expression suddenly became strange.

Song Zongwu looked back and saw a figure swimming towards him with difficulty. His aura was not obvious, but there was a pungent smell of incense.

Xiao Yan was only a skeleton left. His internal organs were already dilapidated. The techniques he practiced prevented his soul from being scattered by the flames, and his body mainly relied on the incense brought by the God-Entering Art.

Obviously, Xiao Yan never intended to leave alive.

Either obtain the Immortal position, or become a withered bone in the Fire Virtue Cave, a stepping stone for Song Zongwu to become an immortal.

"Why bother?"

"Maybe in another thousand years, Ren Qing can open up a new path to immortality."

Song Zongwu stared at Xiao Yan with a slightly complicated expression, but he didn't have the slightest pity in his heart, and directly used his techniques to the extreme.

The road to immortality is a single-plank bridge, with bones everywhere under the bridge.

Song Zongwu's body emitted scorching karma fire, his body swelled to more than fifty meters, and his momentum reached its peak.

The magma couldn't help but surge, and the temperature became even hotter. Ordinary Heavenly Gu Realm cultivators could no longer approach within a hundred meters, otherwise their blood might boil like boiling water.

Xiao Yan's consciousness was blurred, but he still stubbornly rushed towards Song Zongwu.

Bang!!!

With a muffled sound, Song Zongwu disappeared from the spot, like a sprinting swordfish, swimming quickly in the magma without resistance.

His fist slammed heavily on Xiao Yan's head. The latter barely stretched out his hand to resist, but what greeted him was the continuous punching of the Eight-Armed Asura.

Song Zongwu was a martial arts fanatic who loved to spar on weekdays.

Many cultivators knew that if Song Zongwu gained the advantage, his attacks would be like a storm, giving no chance to breathe.

Moreover, Song Zongwu was now in the Heavenly Gu Realm, and eight arms represented an unsolvable close combat attack.

By the time Xiao Yan's consciousness recovered, only one-third of his body was left. Song Zongwu grabbed his spine with both hands and launched a new round of attacks on the joints of the bones.

"Impossible..."

He opened his mouth, forcibly urging the God-Entering Art, allowing the incense to pour into his body, vaguely connecting with the Fire Virtue Star Lord.

Bang!!!

An explosion sounded.

Song Zongwu was blown away by the shock wave, but his expression did not change at all.

The pain that had exceeded the limit was transformed into the strength to punch. Unless his life ended, his fist would only become harder and harder.

One who has suffered all hardships will not fall, this is the way of Asura.

The great battle between the two in the Fire Virtue Cave could be detected even in the void.

The magma continued to explode, and the air burned, causing the Fire Virtue Cave to completely become a forbidden place for cultivators, which could be described as death on touch.

The battle lasted for several days, and the cave returned to silence after the explosion subsided.

Song Zongwu was riddled with holes, only half of his eight arms were left, and his legs were severed. His vitality was weakening at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Xiao Yan was even worse, with only a head floating in the magma.

But even so, his soul was close to dissipating, he was still tirelessly spitting out flames, indicating that his obsession was supporting his instinct.

Song Zongwu let out a silent laugh, grabbed Xiao Yan's skull with his intact palm, and then used the Immortal Key to open the gate.

He had no intention of returning to the Stomach World to recuperate, and casually threw the head in.

Xiao Yan taught Song Zongwu a lesson. Having a way out is not a good thing. Once a firm state of mind becomes shaken, failure is not far away.

Song Zongwu swam to the Immortal position with difficulty, closed his eyes and communicated with the Fire Virtue Star Lord.

Strands of fire bypassed the encirclement and interception of karma fire, drilled into Song Zongwu's body, destroying and nourishing his internal organs at the same time.

The winner walks across the single-plank bridge, and the loser's soul flies away.

Xiao Yan's situation was slightly better. Most of his three souls and seven spirits were lost. Even if he spent a lot of resources, he could only be transformed into a zombie.

Song Zongwu did not kill him because the Stomach World needed the remnant souls of cultivators.

Several fungal souls wrapped Xiao Yan and went to the depths of the mountains in the mortal world.

After thousands of years of development in the Stomach World, due to the abundance of food, the population has grown particularly rapidly, with countless villages.

The fungal soul led the head to a secluded mountain village.

You can see a temple dedicated to the mountain god at the entrance of the village. The incense is not bad. Every day, old people come to take care of the temple.

Xiao Yan's remnant soul was thrown into the statue of the mountain god, and merged with the ghost immortal position.

Under the effect of the ghost immortal position, the remnant soul gathered into a ball, stopping the trend of collapse, and it would take a long time to recover.

Ren Qing once used Madam White Bone and other cultivators to refine pseudo-souls, wanting to breed some Heavenly Gu Realm cultivation seeds.

The result was not very successful, the limitations of pseudo-souls were too great.

Pseudo-souls can indeed use the Earth Immortal position to reincarnate, but their temperament is too extreme and it is easy to go astray.

No matter how you look at it, it is a bit of a waste of the Earth Immortal position. You must know that only those in the Yang God Realm can be qualified to obtain the Earth Immortal position.

If pseudo-souls continue to be mountain gods, there will be no possibility of losing control.

Even the Stomach World, under the evolution of the Heavenly Dao, has given birth to a set of incense immortal god system, which is closely related to the immortal position.

Mountain gods and stream gods are the most basic grass and wood gods, and are served by virtuous mortals or the remnant souls of dead cultivators, without any immortal position.

When the incense they accumulate reaches a certain level, the Heavenly Dao can actively bestow blessings, thereby integrating into the lowest ghost immortal position.

The mountain god will be promoted to the land god, managing the people within a hundred miles.

Further up is the City God of the Human Immortal position, responsible for the towns and villages in an area.

There are two routes for the City God to continue to be promoted: Judge and Heavenly Official. The Judge belongs to the Underworld, and the Heavenly Official belongs to the Immortal Department of the Heavenly Court.

The promotion of the stream god is the River God of the Ghost Immortal position, and the River God of the Human Immortal position.

The formation of incense immortals is the result of the Heavenly Dao actively delegating power, making the operation of the Stomach World more reasonable.

However, Ren Qing is currently in seclusion, and the authority of the Heavenly Dao can only build a framework, and the incense immortal system seems very immature.

But it does not prevent the fungal soul from collecting the remnant souls of high-level cultivators to breed mountain gods and stream gods.

The cultivators of the Forbidden Soldiers Hall who can travel through the three realms have noticed the changes in the mortal world, and can't help but have a premonition that the Stomach World seems to be about to transform.

The transformation is likely to involve Ren Qing's becoming an immortal.

It is a great opportunity for one person to attain the Tao, and chickens and dogs to ascend to heaven.

The Immortal Forbidden Zone did not cause any waves because of Xiao Yan's death. In fact, in recent decades, many Heavenly Gu Realm cultivators have died.

The number of missing cultivators is countless, and 80% of them died in a corner of the cave.

However, the total number of cultivators has not decreased, but has increased day by day. After all, high-level cultivators have methods to reproduce and increase manpower to obtain a large amount of resources.

They originally thought that the Immortal Forbidden Zone might maintain a stalemate for hundreds of years, until the cave was explored almost before gradually falling into the chaos of the Immortal position competition.

But unexpectedly, Song Zongwu opened the prelude to the consecration of gods.

The Fire Virtue Cave burned fiercely, and the puppets arranged by the Forbidden Soldiers Hall were immediately wiped out, and sporadic cultivators were also wiped out.

Even the sand boats that wanted to approach the cave could not escape.

The Fire Virtue Star Lord seemed to have recovered, actively shrinking his limbs, burying his head in his chest, and finally forming an oval fire egg.

The cultivators were silent, looking at the Fire Virtue Star Lord neatly.

Their thoughts were chaotic, and all the towns fell into a brief stagnation. Song Zongwu's actions completely disrupted the stable situation.

Madam White Bone stood on the edge of the city wall, lowering her head and said, "The world is changing?"

After she finished speaking, she left the town and plunged into the throat area of ​​the Giant Force Cave, her goal was naturally to find the location of the Immortal position.

Boom!!!

The second aura erupted, this time from the Moon Cave, and the dreamlike light and shadow made the nearby void extremely bright.

The Dream Realm technique of the Great Dream Master is not as enchanting as Ren Qing, but it can confuse the five senses of cultivators, making them seem to be in a dream.

The Old Man Under the Moon hugged his knees, and countless blood vessels spread on his body.

The second blood egg took shape, and the two caves had completely isolated the outside world, bringing the cultivators no less stimulation than the transformation of the Fixed Light Buddha into a demon.

You must know that there are only twelve caves in the Immortal Forbidden Zone in total.

The number of places to become immortals is very limited. Now that two have been occupied, how can the remaining ten Immortal positions not make them crazy?

The most important thing is that the successors of the Old Man Under the Moon and the Fire Virtue Star Lord had not shown any traces before, and are likely to come from the Heavenly Court.

Looking at the Wind God Cave, it has also been occupied by Feng Kongren of the Thunder Department of the Heavenly Court. Unconsciously, the Heavenly Court has no longer concealed its ambitions.

If they don't make a move, they will immediately seize two Immortal positions as soon as they make a move.

How dare they neglect, after the number of Immortal positions is reduced to a certain level, the competitors they have to face are a group of lunatics, and it will become more and more difficult to become immortals.

There are also cultivators who want to be mantises catching cicadas, and orioles behind.

They quietly went to the periphery of the Fire Virtue Cave, planning to pry open the cave's defenses and intervene while Song Zongwu had no power to fight back.

But the cave could not be broken by conventional means at all.

The refining of the Fire Virtue Star Lord has already begun, and the process is difficult to shake.

Of course, it does not mean that Song Zongwu is in an invincible position. The influence of the Immortal position on the body and soul is profound, and he may become possessed at any time.

Song Zongwu seemed to return to the years of sleeping for a hundred years.

His consciousness must resist the impact of information from the Immortal position, otherwise it will be completely worn away and eventually become a walking corpse.

He could only grit his teeth and silently recite the content of the technique, awakening himself again and again.

Any doubt about his own existence may lead to the collapse of his body and soul, or become a different "self".

In a sense, Song Zongwu also saved Xiao Yan's life.

Xiao Yan stepped into the magma without any preparation. Even if he could approach the Immortal position, his body and soul would have been irreversibly damaged.

It is almost certain death to refine the Immortal position forcibly.

Forcibly refining the Immortal position is extremely dangerous. After all, the Immortal Ascension Art mastered has nothing to do with the Immortal position, which means that the body and soul do not fit the Immortal position at all.

The situation of the Great Dream Master is much better. He does not have Song Zongwu's injuries, and his consciousness can still go to the deep dream, so he is considered to be at ease.

He has been in contact with the Matchmaker Immortal for even longer than Ren Qing.

The Immortal Ascension Ladder for the Great Dream Master to be promoted to the Yang God Realm is to use the ability of the Old Man Under the Moon to extend hundreds of strands of souls.

In just three years, a subtle connection was established with the Old Man Under the Moon.

The core element of the Old Man Under the Moon is "in charge of the world's marriage", which is not closely related to dreams.

But since ancient times, there has been a saying of "Yellow Millet Dream", which tells the story of a poor scholar named Lu Sheng who married and had children in a dream.

"I have seen since ancient times, what is the constant master of the country, what is the fixed number of wealth? In the blink of an eye, the shape is different, like a Yellow Millet Dream."

The Great Dream Master knows this well, so the refining process is quite smooth.

Ren Qing in the center of the void seemed to perceive the vision of the Great Dream Master, his eyelids trembled slightly, and the meditation of Heaven and Earth did not stop.

Most of Ren Qing's mind was preparing for becoming an immortal, trying to polish the technique to be flawless, and at the same time, he needed to nourish and strengthen his body and soul to the extreme.

He was mainly afraid that the protection of the information flow would not be able to cope with the crisis when he became an immortal. Anyway, it would take some time for the Heavenly Dao to heal the cracks, so he took the opportunity to make his foundation closer to the True Immortal Buddha.

Ren Qing separated a little consciousness and noticed the Immortal position of the Fire Virtue Star Lord.

"Huh?"

Ren Qing narrowed his eyes and glanced at the position of his right arm. There, the projection of the Wave Refugee Tide suddenly became clear.

The refugee tide did not believe in the Arctic Star Lord, but they did have the habit of worshiping the "Matchmaker Immortal".

The belief in the Matchmaker Immortal may have been established thousands of years ago, when the soul of the Matchmaker Immortal was still alive, and may have done something to occupy a place.

What surprised Ren Qing was not that the refugees believed in the Matchmaker Immortal, but that the refugees did not migrate north.

They seemed to be in a relatively safe north, which was the destination that the Mad Woman and others of the Southern Ming Dynasty had tried so hard to reach.

More and more of Ren Qing's consciousness paid attention to the refugees, and he didn't know what the situation was in the north.

He wanted to let the fungal soul descend, but the Great Dream Master had not completely refined the Immortal position, and the refugees seemed to be covered in a layer of window paper.

Ren Qing took a deep breath, and his huge body looked up at the sky.

His flesh and bones were stimulated by the Heaven and Earth, and they swelled wildly, and in a moment they turned into the immortal body "Return of All Things".

How shocking is a ten-thousand-foot immortal god? Cultivators are like ants in front of Ren Qing.

The strange entities within the cave dwelling experienced a surge in power due to the stimulation of the Universal Oneness, catching the hunting cultivators off guard.

Strange entities that were originally only at the Yang God realm directly fought against those at the Heavenly Strange realm.

Moreover, they became extremely hungry, devouring everything around them, as if possessing a bottomless stomach.

However, before the influence of the Universal Oneness could deepen further, Ren Qing suddenly canceled the Immortal Body and continued to meditate on his techniques with his eyes closed.

The Universal Oneness only lasted for a brief ten breaths, leaving them deeply puzzled.

Some cultivators interpreted the phenomenon as a sign that Ren Qing was about to become an immortal and attain enlightenment, hence the unstable aura of his techniques.

The Heavenly Court has currently refined two Immortal Seats, and the Wind God Cave Dwelling also holds an advantage.

If a cultivator from the Heavenly Court achieves True Immortal status, they would have no need to compete for the Immortal Seat; it would be impossible to risk certain death to snatch food from a tiger's mouth.

As a result, the competition for the Immortal Seat became even more intense.

Ren Qing had no intention of influencing the movements of the Immortal Seat Forbidden Zone; in any case, based on the Great Dream True Man's refinement speed, it would take at least a century.

Even if the refinement was completed, it would not mean that the Great Dream True Man had achieved Earth Immortal status.

The Great Dream True Man would still have to climb upwards from the Law-Birth Dao, but with the blessing of the Immortal Seat, his cultivation speed would far surpass ordinary individuals.

Ren Qing had plenty of time to squander, adopting a laissez-faire attitude towards the Immortal Conferral.

He simply discovered that the Universal Oneness could not descend upon the Mycelium Soul, indicating that the problem still stemmed from the Great Dream True Man not mastering the Immortal Seat.

Ren Qing also considered the Five Immortal Bodies, hoping to use the complementary abilities of the Immortal Bodies to establish a bridge to communicate with the outside world.

However, the cultivators in the Immortal Seat Forbidden Zone would definitely not be able to withstand it, and at least half of them would die.

After much deliberation, Ren Qing reluctantly abandoned projecting the Mycelium Soul, and could only wait another century, hoping that the refugees could endure.

He withdrew his consciousness and was about to continue his seclusion when he inadvertently glanced at the world within his stomach.

Ren Qing noticed the unique incense-based Immortal system in the world within his stomach, and at the same time noticed that the faith in immortals and gods was already very prosperous in the mortal realm.

There were many festivals for mortals to worship immortals and gods, praying for favorable weather.

Temples were filled with worshippers, and the resulting incense energy, guided by the Heavenly Dao, formed an invisible torrent.

In the Heavenly Palace within his stomach, there was a small world specifically for housing the incense immortals.

The environment of the small world was ordinary, entirely covered by clouds and mist, surrounded by layers of rugged mountains, with palaces located in the center.

The four Heavenly Gates in the east, south, west, and north served as seals for the small world.

The arrangement of the palaces was the same as that of the Heavenly Court, but the area was smaller.

The incense immortals all stayed in their respective palaces, digesting the incense energy from the mortal realm, and it could be seen that some intelligence had already emerged.

They were incense immortals formed from techniques, which Ren Qing called "Innate Gods", some of whom had already reached the Heavenly Strange realm.

Those who were promoted from Mountain Gods and Stream Gods were also incense immortals, but they were Acquired Gods.

Because they were formed from remnants of souls, their intelligence was higher, but their cultivation had to be accumulated bit by bit within the scope of their duties.

Ren Qing gazed at the incense immortal "Old Man Under the Moon", the relationship between the two was similar to that of a main and secondary soul.

Statues of the Old Man Under the Moon were displayed in thousands of households, and there were also many in temples, because his duties involved seeking children and marriage.

Anything related to descendants would inevitably generate a significant amount of incense.

The Old Man Under the Moon relied on the faith of mortals to reach the Heavenly Strange realm, although the strength of the incense immortal was slightly superficial.

Ren Qing tried to use the Old Man Under the Moon to replace the Mycelium Soul for descent, and easily established contact with the refugees.

On the surface, there was not much connection between the incense immortals and the Immortal Seat.

In reality, during the formation of the incense immortals, Ren Qing deliberately made the incorporated Immortal Duties close to the Immortal Seat, and the two produced a subtle connection through the "Immortal Duties" that both had access to.

With a thought, the Old Man Under the Moon disappeared from the Heavenly Palace.

Ren Qing's consciousness quickly attached to the Old Man Under the Moon, using this to observe the situation outside.

Noises rang in his ears, but he did not hear anxiety or fear, the mortals here seemed to have truly escaped danger.

With the descent of the Old Man Under the Moon, Ren Qing's perception of the outside world became clearer.

What came into view was a spacious ancestral hall, filled with wooden tables and benches, with men, women, old, and young sitting around the tables.

Ancestral halls were generally used to enshrine ancestors, and could also be used to hold weddings and funerals.

The mortals did not notice that the matchmaker statue on the nearby wall had come to life and was looking around the ancestral hall.

The ancestral hall did indeed have ancestral tablets, arranged in tiers, with the matchmaker statue at the top, naturally holding the highest position.

Ren Qing had no intention of exposing himself, even though the descended Old Man Under the Moon was at the Perfected Yang God realm, far more reliable than the Mycelium Soul, but he would first figure out the situation in the north.

He was afraid that the statue would shatter, so he carefully controlled it.

The statue opened its mouth and nose, and smoke-like incense energy emerged, entering the window crevices in the heat of the cooking food, and came outside.

As soon as Ren Qing arrived in the courtyard, he noticed the abnormality of the sky.

The sky was actually purplish-red, neither like the afterglow of dusk nor the rising sun, with a strange sense of unreality.

The sky was covered by thick clouds, and the light seemed to shine down from beyond the heavens.

Ren Qing was stunned for a moment, the north was not a safe area at all, it had clearly encountered unimaginable changes.

He gathered a large amount of incense energy, and then floated straight up.

Raising his perspective to a thousand meters, he could see that there were many villages within a few hundred miles, with mortals busily working on crops in the fields.

But there were still strange things.

For example, the rice growing in the fields had ten times more ears than normal rice, and the branches were bent over by the heavy seeds.

Mortals did not manage the fields much, not even fertilizing them.

They were mainly pulling out weeds in the fields, their movements were extremely skilled, but the weeds grew endlessly.

Ren Qing's consciousness rose to five thousand meters, and the purplish light was terrifying.

The incense energy was rapidly consumed, and as it approached the clouds, it had weakened to the size of a copper coin, and was about to dissipate completely.

Ren Qing stared at the clouds, and his main body in the Immortal Seat Forbidden Zone felt inexplicably uneasy.

Just as the incense energy passed through the clouds, Ren Qing's eyes were enveloped in purplish-red.

Then, after a brief moment of disorientation, he saw a scene that he would never forget in his life, and his main body could not help but tremble.

A giant head floated in the high sky, the surface was a lifelike statue shell, and countless twisted tentacles could be seen from the broken opening.

The tentacles inadvertently released purple mist, causing the phenomenon to occur.

What shocked Ren Qing the most was that the appearance of the head was actually "Lord Lao", exactly the same as what he faced when he comprehended the Ascension to Immortality Technique.

The head of Lord Lao almost covered the entire sky, and the invisible purple light was already transforming the ecological environment.

The mortals seemed to live and work in peace, but who could know what internal changes were taking place.

After Ren Qing's consciousness returned to his main body, he remained in a state of confusion for a long time, what exactly happened in the outside world in just a hundred years?

Was the head really Lord Lao?

Then why was it so incomplete, and did it have anything to do with the Supreme Heavenly Demon?