There was a mountain range that extended all the way across the southernmost part of the Celestial Pole, known as Kunwu. Kunwu extended for thousands of miles from east to west. It was an endless mountain range. From ancient times, no one had ever been able to cross it. Mortals, who lived not too far from it, could sometimes see dense purple clouds with multicolored twinkles on the mountain. However, they would get lost in the mist if they went looking for them. Thus, they could only turn around to find the way out.

　　As time went by, people said these mountains were the mountains of the Immortals. Only the Immortals could enter these mountains.

　　Those Immortals came with the clouds and went with the mist. They had otherworldly temperaments and magical powers, each with different capabilities. Whenever they found people with spiritual roots in the mortal world, they would take them back to the mountain of the Immortals to be taught about cultivation.

　　Everyone in the secular world wished to enter the mountain of the Immortals and train their Immortal’s Bone. Unfortunately, spiritual roots very rarely appeared among them. Most people had only heard about the Immortals from legends.

　　In a small stall on the road of a market square sat a childish-looking youngster. This youngster was holding a book from the secular world, reading excitedly. Sometimes a smile would appear on his face, and other times, he would frown. Whenever he read a funny part, he would laugh heartily without a care for other people.

　　Luckily, this place was a cultivators’ market square that was affiliated with a cultivation sect in Mount Yunwu. People in this market square were either cultivators or mortals who were already accustomed to strange sights. If this was in the secular world, his behavior might attract the scrutiny of other people.

　　“Xiaotian, what are you reading? Is a mortals’ book really that interesting?”

　　A middle-aged Daoist standing beside the small stall stared at the youngster while stroking his beard.

　　The youngster called Xiaotian looked up and answered, “Uncle Huang, this book isn’t really interesting to read. It just feels amusing when I read about how those mortals looked at us cultivators.”

　　“Oh?”

　　The youngster marked a page before saying, “This book tells the story of an Immortal. In the human world, he banished evil and protected the weak and robbed the rich to help the poor. Later, an emperor in the secular world wanted to recruit him into the imperial court. In the end, he walked away to avoid trouble, living a free and unfettered life in the secular world. Tsk tsk…” the youngster shook his head. “For cultivators, if there’s no benefit for their cultivation, what would they go to the secular world for? Mortals obviously have an overly romantic delusion about Immortals.”

　　The Daoist surnamed Huang shook his head and said, “They’re just daydreaming. How can they imagine the hardships of cultivators?”

　　What everyone had been calling Immortals were, in fact, cultivators like them. It was said that if one’s cultivation reached the pinnacle, he would be able to fly heavenwards and become a real Immortal. However, this was nothing but a legend. What everyone knew was that the highest realm a cultivator could achieve was the Deification realm. Furthermore, this only happened a thousand years ago; that senior had long ago gone into seclusion and had never appeared again. Whether he was still alive or not was unknown. Meanwhile, for the four remaining levels, the Aura Refining realm, the Foundation Building realm, the Core Formation realm, and the Nascent Soul realm, each realm was harder to achieve than the previous one. In the entire Celestial Pole, there were only several hundreds of people who could reach the Nascent Soul realm.

　　Everyone in front of the youngster and Daoist Huang were all Aura Refining cultivators. There weren’t many Foundation Building cultivators in this market square, while Core Formation cultivators were simply nonexistent.

　　Both of them sighed. The Daoist then stared at the objects in the youngster’s stall and said, “Xiaotian, it seems you haven’t sold anything today, right?”

　　Hearing this, the youngster heaved a deep sigh. “Before you came, someone came to ask about my items, but he thought they were too expensive. If it wasn’t because my uncle urgently needs medicinal pills, I would’ve sold these items directly to a shop. It’s a pity that shopkeepers don’t know their worth…”

　　His stall displayed several formation discs and formation flags. They were used to lay formations, something every ordinary cultivator needed either to guard against others when they were cultivating or to gather spiritual aura. However, the Law of Formations was a profound mystery—even studying it for hundreds of years wouldn’t be enough to master it. Cultivators were afraid they wouldn’t have enough time, so there weren’t many of them who were willing to use their time delving into this law. Usually, Masters of Formations only existed in cultivation schools, sects or clans, and were rarely seen among individual cultivators.

　　Normally, formation discs were extremely sellable. However, his formation sets weren’t ordinary goods commonly seen in the cultivation world; the materials used to make them were rare, so they were highly expensive. During the past few days he had them on display at his stall, many people came to ask about them, but in the end, all of them shook their heads and walked away. Although formations were good items to have, if he couldn’t set an appropriate opening price, he wouldn’t sell any!

　　The Daoist surnamed Huang also opened a stall, but he sold low-grade talismans instead. In fact, he had sold far more than the youngster had. His wares were almost sold out after having his stall open for one full day.

　　Daoist Huang hesitated for a moment before asking, “Xiaotian, what’s the lowest price you can give for this formation?”

　　“Huh? Uncle Huang, do you want it?” the youngster happily said, “If you want it, I can give it to you for 300 spirit stones.” This formation disc was formerly priced at 400 spirit stones, so he had indeed given a very large discount.

　　After muttering indecisively for a moment, Daoist Huang finally nodded in delight. “Fine, Uncle Huang will shamelessly take advantage of you.”

　　He then took out the spirit stones he earned from selling talismans and counted them. One of them handed over spirit stones while the other handed over a formation disc.

　　The youngster took out a Jade Slip from his robe. “Uncle Huang, this is the formation manual. You just need to hold the master formation flag to lay this killing formation.”

　　Daoist Huang handed over the spirit stones with heartache and nodded. “I know the formation. A formation disc sold by you guys will be worth its expensive price. If it was anybody else, I never would’ve bought it.”

　　300 spirit stones… Even disciples in cultivation schools or sects would need a few years to collect such an amount, let alone individual cultivators. They might even need a few years longer. Were it not for Daoist Huang having a knack in business, he probably wouldn’t be able to come up with this many spirit stones.

　　“Uncle Huang, thank you very much. I’ll go buy some medicinal pills first; my uncle is still waiting for me.”

　　The youngster packed up his stall and headed towards a shop opened by Yunwu Sect.

　　Although in the cultivation world Yunwu Sect was only a small sect, there were quite a few cultivation clans and individual cultivators depending on it. Many individual cultivators relied on this market square on Mount Yunwu to gain spirit stones to use in their cultivations.

　　Yunwu Sect’s shop was the largest shop in this market square.

　　Right after the youngster entered the shop, the clerk greeted him: “Fellow Daoist, how may I help you?”

　　This clerk was just in the early stage of the Aura Refining realm, so he was very courteous when he saw that the youngster was in the middle stage of the Aura Refining realm.

　　The youngster said, “Do you have ten Small Reversion Pills?”

　　Small Reversion Pills were a healing medicine. Because they were quite expensive, people usually only bought one or two pills. Ten pills could be considered a very big sale.

　　A huge smile appeared on the clerk’s face once he heard the youngster’s request. “We do, we do! Please wait here for a moment.”

　　He turned around and went to report to the shopkeeper before taking a jade bottle from the counter. “These are Small Reversion Pills; you may verify them first.”

　　The youngster unplugged the bottle and poured one pill out. The smell of medicine instantly entered his nose. After taking a careful sniff and verifying the pill, the youngster nodded. “These are the real deal.”

　　“For ten pills, the total will be 500 spirit stones. You may also exchange them with rare or precious items if you have them.”

　　The youngster didn’t say anything and just took out the spirit stones from his storage bag, handing each one of them to the clerk.

　　Having cautiously put the medicinal pills into his storage bag, the youngster excitedly left the shop.  With these ten Small Reversion Pills, Second Uncle’s injury can be healed!

　　After the youngster left the shop, he made several turns and detours before he finally arrived in front of a small courtyard. Soon after he made a hand seal ¹ , the courtyard gate was opened as a response.

　　He went into the courtyard, pushed open the door of a room and called out, “Second Uncle?”

　　After a long while, an old, hoarse voice appeared from the corner of the room: “Xiaotian, you’re back…” An old poisoned-looking man was sitting in the lotus position on the bed at the corner of the room.

　　The youngster walked towards the old man while excitedly taking out the jade bottle from his robe. “Second Uncle, Uncle Huang bought our Five-Elements Life and Death Formation! We’ve gathered enough spirit stones to buy medicine.”

　　“Did he?” the old man smiled reluctantly and took the jade bottle the youngster offered before letting out a sigh. “I told you they’re useless, but you still bought them. If you use the spirit stones to buy Aura-Nourishing Pills, your cultivation level would rise at least three layers and you could enter the tenth layer. At the Immortals Assembly, you’d have an easier time…”

　　The youngster angrily exclaimed, “Second Uncle!”

　　The old man stopped speaking. He stared at the youngster before letting out another sigh.

　　The youngster smiled again. “Rest assured, Second Uncle. Although my cultivation level isn’t really high, I’ve been practicing a lot of spells, so there’s still hope.”

　　Even so, the tension in the old man’s face persisted. He said, “If you can’t do it this time, we can try again next time. Safety is the most important, so don’t fight recklessly.”

　　“I know… The most important thing for us cultivators is life. If we can’t live a long life, there’s no point in cultivating. I’ll definitely come back safe and sound.”

　　The old man finally smiled. “Having this kind of mindset will do. There are still ten days before the Immortals Assembly begins, so you should prepare yourself well. In particular, you have to practice your skill in using spirit tools; they will be life-saving.”

　　“En! Second Uncle, you should rest now. I’m going to cultivate.”

　　“Alright, go.”

　　The youngster exited the room then entered the room next door.

　　He washed his face before untying his hair to comb it. The mirror was projecting an elegant and beautiful face. However, the instant after the hair was buckled into a headband, the reflection turned into that of a childish-looking young man.

　　Ye Xiaotian was her name now. “Mo Tiange” shouldn’t appear as her name before she could enter the Core Formation realm. This was what Second Uncle decided back when they left Mount Dongmeng.

　　In the past seven years, she had been following Second Uncle around eastern Kunwu, collecting medicine, opening shops, and catching beasts. Second Uncle was injured right when they were forced to capture a demonic beast to earn their living because they could no longer maintain their small shop.

　　In the beginning, with the extremely bountiful belongings of Ye Clan and the things left behind by her father that Master Daoist Shoujing delivered, the two of them were quite well-off. However, the path of cultivation consumed too much, especially since their spiritual roots weren’t good. Even though Second Uncle had four spiritual roots, he could reach the Foundation Building realm only because her father gathered a lot of medicinal pills. As for her, she had five spiritual roots. Although she had a good cultivation method, taking each progressive step was difficult. She was able to reach the seventh layer of the Aura Refining realm because Second Uncle spent a lot of medicinal pills on her.

　　In these past few years, they used all their spirit stones on cultivating and had to think of a way to make some earnings. At first, they just gathered spiritual plants and exchanged them with medicinal pills, but they found that doing so was insufficient to provide for their cultivation. Hence, they decided to use all they had left to open a shop in a certain small market square. However, because of oppression from the cultivation clan that managed the market square, they couldn’t get a lot of income and had to close the shop and go looking for another place. Finally, Second Uncle found that catching demonic beasts was extremely profitable. He formed a group with other cultivators and went into the depths of the forest in the southern mountain. As a result, because of a moment of carelessness, they ran into a fifth-rank Lightning Beast which was equivalent to a Core Formation cultivator. Of the five people who entered the forest, one was dead and four others came back injured.

　　Since Second Uncle was injured, they found themselves in an even more difficult situation. Not only could they no longer use medicinal pills to help with their cultivation, they also needed to heal his injuries. Fortunately, Ye Clan used to spend a lot of time studying formations, so although their spiritual roots weren’t good, they were very talented in formations. Uncle and niece then did research on some formations. Whenever Mo Tiange had leisure time, she would open her small stall to sell things in order to buy some medicinal pills.

　　Second Uncle always said that she would be dragged down and wouldn’t be able to enter the Foundation Building realm if this continued. Therefore, a year ago, they came to this Mount Yunwu with the plan of entering Yunwu Sect through the Immortals Assembly. Cultivation groups possessed material benefits, so if she became a member of the sect, things would be easier for her.

　　The so-called Immortals Assembly was a method for individual cultivators like them to be admitted into a cultivation group. These cultivation groups normally only accepted those with max three spiritual roots as their disciples; only those from cultivation clans who had extremely good relationships with these cultivation groups could enter with four spiritual roots, and it was utterly impossible for individual cultivators like Mo Tiange and her uncle.

　　However, though most individual cultivators didn’t have good spiritual roots, some people were blessed with luck and fated chances and could progress very quickly in their cultivation. The Immortals Assembly was held to select these promising cultivators to be admitted into cultivation schools and sects.

　　As for the selection method, it was done by having the cultivators fight against each other. Once they entered the ring, they had to be prepared to die in the fight. Although most cultivation groups had a Core Formation cultivator overseeing the matches, they couldn’t guarantee there would be no casualties. Sometimes, the fights turned so bitter that tragedies like taking the opponent down along with oneself occurred.

　　Mo Tiange naturally didn’t have any intention of following their footsteps and risking her life. Following Second Uncle for the past few years around had really broadened her horizons. Second Uncle treated her extremely well; the two of them were interdependent. She also left the shadow of her childhood behind and became a lot more cheerful. She always kept what Second Uncle said in her heart—the purpose of cultivating was to have a long life, so your life should always be the most important thing. Furthermore, she never thought her life would be doomed if she couldn’t enter a cultivation group. Second Uncle told her that her father also advanced into the Foundation Building and Core Formation realm on his own. It was precisely because of his existence that Ye Clan lasted two hundred years in Mount Qingmeng.

　　Since Father did it, I can too!

　　Having firmly made up her mind, she sat on the bed and started the day’s cultivation.