Necropolis Immortal

Things were calm over the subsequent days and nothing of note took place.

With Lu Xiaochi emerging from seclusion to take the helm, Lu Yun couldn’t be bothered exerting the same effort as before for the family’s affairs. He spent his days in his typical indolence and lackadaisical pleasure seeking.

Nor did the Origin Sect send more people against him. In their view, a soul separation powerhouse was more than enough for a foundation establishment boy.

Jiang Feng and Mo Qiyue headed for the Profound Wing Empire.

……

It was a starry night with no sign of the moon, Lu Yun sat in his yard with a jar of wine. The bleak autumn wind howled through the trees—mid autumn was upon the world.

“What a pity that the memories of my three thousand lifetimes are independent of each other. It would be so helpful if they were interconnected and could be referenced against each other.” Lu Yun’s straight brows drew together as he laughed ruefully at himself.

In his current state, he was just the collection of memories from three thousand powerhouses. While they were rich in experiences, they could not be overlaid on each other.

Storing the memories of three thousand people in one mind was a vastly different concept to one person retaining their own memories and reincarnating three thousand times. The horrors of the latter far exceeded the former.

Each of Lu Yun’s three thousand lifetimes saw different accomplishments that were for better or worse. More important was the cultivation of his mind and heart. He brought back only an additional portion of experience from each of his reincarnations—his mind and heart didn’t undergo any changes. It was like he’d experienced three thousand dreams. He still needed to cultivate from the beginning.

However, he instinctively sensed that the memories of three thousand lifetimes were to suppress his initial memories. Their purpose was to turn him into a pristine sheet of paper and forget about the past.

Each lifetime left a mark of reincarnation that stamped another seal over his past.

If he wanted to connect all of the memories to each other, that would be the mental equivalent of yet another reincarnation. It wouldn’t help his sealed memories at all.

The three thousand reincarnations were the heavenly dao’s tutelage for its newest disciple. All of Lu Yun’s skills were a function of the heavenly dao passing them to him through the reincarnations.

“It’s time that I broke through.” Lu Yun slowly refined a ball of connate fire origin in his hand and called upon the Seal of the Multitude. A moderate surge of goodwill flowed out of it and melded into his dantian.

Boom!

His Hongmeng qi trembled and turned viscous while his dantian and meridians enlarged.

Latter foundation establishment.

“I can use goodwill to raise my cultivation however I like when I’m foundation establishment, but I probably won’t be able to do that when I’m golden core and nascent soul.” Lu Yun knew where his limits would be after taking stock of his condition.

As marvelous as goodwill was, it was fundamentally different from the energy of heaven and earth. Based on what his senior brother had said, goodwill was just a supplemental force as it still fell to Lu Yun himself to break through the bottlenecks.

Of that, Lu Yun was well aware. He could even vaguely sense that he’d cultivated in a similar way in his sealed memories.

Qi refinement and foundation establishment were the accumulation of strength. Golden core, nascent soul, and above focused on the comprehension of heavenly dao.

Such was Lu Yun’s underlying goal.

“Looks like I need to find a time to visit Great Xia. The Jade Ruins Realm is just fringe territory, one of the most impoverished worlds of cultivation there is. It’s a ninth rank world that requires the administration of wandering immortals. I bet there aren’t any wandering immortals in Great Xia,” Lu Yun mused to himself as he toyed with his wine cup.

One of the major benefits of practicing the Nine Chapters of Dao was that anything he did was the natural course of nature. Even drinking wine in his yard was following the heavenly dao and enabled him to break through.

“Hmm? Seven Kills, Greedy Wolf, Army… And there’s the Taisui and Yinghuo…” Lu Yun bounced up from his stool and stared at the night sky.

Seven Kills, Greedy Wolf, Army, Taisui, and Yinghuo were the five stars of disaster and ill omen. Normally unobservable and hidden deep within the cosmos, the appearance of a single one heralded inauspicious tidings. All five appearing at the same time shocked Lu Yun beyond belief.

“Wait, no, no. The five stars counter and complement each other. If only four were present, then this world or Great Xia would soon be rocked by unrest. But with five appearing, they maintain a delicate balance that ensures everything is fine.” Lu Yun made swift calculations as he tilted his head up at the sky.

Appearance of the five unpropitious stars wouldn’t raise a disturbance in the world. Not many cultivators nursed this kind of interest.

“Hmm?” Lu Yun narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t the Mindful Immortal Potentate in the world of immortals gain a treasure that was coveted by the immortal emperor in the central celestial court? The five immortal kings of Seven Kills, Greedy Wolf, Army, Taisui, and Yinghuo deployed their respective star’s power to suppress the potentate. What the Mindful Immortal Potentate obtained was a tower… The Eighteen Cerulean Sword Dragons, Iron Pagoda Mountain, the five stars…”

!!!

Lu Yun nearly leapt to his feet.

“No way! Can it be that the Iron Pagoda Mountain of the Profound Wing Empire is the potentate’s treasure?! Although he wasn’t an immortal king, he caused the mutual destruction of five immortal kings with the pagoda. After his demise, the pagoda vanished as well…

“That’s right, the five stars in the heavens must be attracted to the residual power of the five immortal kings around the treasure. Yong Heyu has revealed the dao weapon at this precise moment so he can lure powerful cultivators to the mountain. He wants to use their strength to cut through the power of the immortal kings and claim the pagoda!”

Lu Yun strung everything together. The era that he’d once reincarnated into could not be determined. In this day and age, the entire world of immortals had vanished and been reduced to a myth, so it was logical that the power of its immortal kings had been degraded through the long passage of time.

“Even if the Iron Pagoda Mountain isn’t the one that killed the Mindful Immortal Potentate, it must be related. It looks like I'm headed there after all.” Lu Yun licked his lips. “Power leaking from the immortal kings has called the five stars to reveal themselves. Looks like we’re not far from the treasure truly coming out into the light.”

Lu Yun craved everything about the Mindful Immortal Potentate, whether it was the Eighteen Cerulean Sword Dragons or the Iron Pagoda Mountain. While the Mindful Immortal Potentate’s title was immortal potentate, he’d defeated numerous immortal kings in his time. He was the greatest immortal potentate of the world of immortals in both deed and name.

The central immortal emperor had had to send out the five most premier immortal kings of the world to bring him down. They only completed their mission through dying with the immortal potentate. Even the immortal emperor was gravely injured after the fact.

……

The second day.

“Lu Xuan, what are your thoughts now?” Lu Yun asked his guard while he ate breakfast in the yard.

“I have thought it through. Lu Xuan is willing to give up his cultivation to practice the young master’s methods.” Lu Xuan looked firmly back at the young man.

Lu Xuan’s potential was extremely poor; he’d made it to golden core purely through Lu Tianling’s secret arts. Although his battle strength was on par with a golden core cultivator, there was no possibility for him to ever advance again.

Lu Yun constantly wanted to increase the cultivation of those around him, including Lu Xuan. But Lu Xuan was utterly loyal to Lu Yun, so he hesitated when he heard that the requirement was to sever his previous cultivation.

After he saw the young master defeat nascent soul powerhouses with a few simple moves, however, he hesitated no longer. He was Lu Yun’s guard, but he wouldn’t be able to do anything if they met real danger, due to his cultivation of initial golden core.

“This is the Sword of Slaughter Record, it walks the path of slaughter. Train in it and go to Bloodbath when you reach foundation establishment. He’ll make further arrangements for you.” Lu Yun handed a jade slip to Lu Xuan and dismissed the guard.

“Are you leaving Dark City?” A Lu Xiaochi in high spirits came to Lu Yun after Lu Xuan left.

Upon breaking the Severed Meridians Hold and advancing in his cultivation, the Lu second master issued a series of challenges throughout the capital. He fought every latter nascent soul powerhouse in the great families, apart from the Lings that’d been nearly exterminated.

He only lost to the newly possessed Ouyang Shengtian by half a step, making him top three in nascent spirit powerhouses of Darklake Empire. And this was simply due to his lack of familiarity with the Major Five Elements Demolition Godslayer Record.

“I want to go stretch my legs,” Lu Yun nodded and didn’t answer with the truth. He didn’t want his second uncle to go to the Profound Wing Empire. It was highly likely that it would be a very perilous and bloody trip given the background behind the Iron Pagoda Mountain. Great Xia experts might even appear at the end.

“Oh right, second uncle, if you feel that there’s not enough of a challenge in Darklake powerhouses, you should visit the Celestial Realm Battlefront. That’s where all of the geniuses in the worlds are gathered.”

“The Celestial Realm Battlefront!” Lu Xiaochi took a deep breath and smiled wryly, “I’d have to join a mid rank empire faction if I want to visit the Celestial Realm Battlefront.”

“That’s easy enough, we’ve got a mover and shaker living at home. Ask her.” Lu Yun pointed at the house next door.

“You mean Miss Fengxian? She’s just golden core,” Lu Xiaochi blinked.

Apart from being part of a fourth rank or above cultivation empire, one needed to be stronger than nascent soul. Golden core cultivators were prohibited from entry into the Celestial Realm Battlefront.

“She may just be golden core, but her identity is sufficient to take you into the battlefront,” Lu Yun smiled.

“Alright, I’ll ask her for help.” Lu Xiaochi turned on his heel and left.

“The Fengxians… so Fengxian Wu is from that family,” Lu Yun sighed with emotion.

When he reincarnated into Great Xia, the Fengxians were just a tiny family content with their tiny part of the world. Who would’ve thought that they’d grow to the point where a single disciple could lay down the law in a world of cultivation?

While the law enforcers of the Jade Ruins Realm were scattered throughout the three ninth rank empires, they were subordinates of the Great Xia royalty and the true masters of the Jade Ruins Realms.

Any of them, even an ordinary enforcer, had no need to bow and scrape before an ordinary Great Xia faction. Only the dynasty’s most supreme forces inspired fear and reverence. Ouyang Shengtian had said that it was highly likely Fengxian Wu was from the royal family.

A family that called itself royal required the presence of titled kings.

“With the world of immortals gone missing, who bestows titles now?” Lu Yun curled his lip. But the process of conferring titles… seemed a bit familiar.