Chapter 2: Foreseeing the Years of Old Age, How Can One Change the Flow of Time?

Chen Qianliu never expected that after living to his eighties, his qi withered and his essence dried up, and upon dying, he would actually return to the age of six. He finished a stroke of the brush, slightly dissatisfied, and casually put away the finished talisman. When he reached for another sheet on the desk, his hand met empty air. He let out a soft sigh.

As an illegitimate son of the Chen family, his monthly allowance was only half a stack of yellow paper. He didn’t have much ink and paper to waste.

With no more yellow paper, he could no longer practice with a brush and ink. Chen Qianliu rested his hands on the desk, focused his mind slightly, and continued to practice the art of talismans, using his will as the brush and the air as the paper.

In his previous life, as soon as he had transmigrated, Chen Qianliu had eagerly displayed his literary talents, quickly gaining fame in his village and earning the title of a child prodigy.

This life, however, he was not so hasty. He had no intention of seeking literary fame. It had been over three years since his rebirth, and he had spent them all quietly cultivating.

A mortal body cannot withstand the scouring of spiritual energy. For a beginner, there was a daily time limit for qi refining. If one exceeded the body’s limit and suffered hidden damage, it would be a great detriment to one’s cultivation. This was why Chen Qianliu would occasionally practice the art of talismans, so as not to waste time.

But with the constant lack of ink and paper, even his talisman practice could not be done to his heart’s content.

The talisman art he studied was called the Twelve Talismans of the Mystic Gate. It was a common art in the outer sect of the Sect of Encountering Immortals, divided into twelve characters: Thunder, Fire, Restrain, Bind, Still, Command, Mountain, Lightness, Startle, Conceal, Gather, and Illusion. It was a technique for self-protection, exorcising ghosts, and warding off demons, commonly used by cultivators who entered the mountains to practice.

The first and only master Chen Qianliu had in his previous life, Daoist Wu Liu, came from the Jade Mountain Sect, which was an offshoot of the Sect of Encountering Immortals. That was how he had been taught this talisman art.

In his past life, Chen Qianliu had spent over fifty years of hard work on drawing talismans. He could be considered a master of the art; it was the only skill he could truly be proud of from his last life. If he hadn’t spent most of his energy on qi refining and had dedicated more effort to talismans, his achievements would have been even greater.

His senior sister had, after all, once been a great Golden Core cultivator. When she married him, she brought seven or eight servants and maids with her. No matter how frugally they lived, their monthly expenses were still considerable. Chen Qianliu had relied on this talisman art to support his entire family.

He had even written a poem about it back then: “The talisman brush wears out in three months, how can the master not be poor? In the Blazing Light Cave of Double Cloud Mountain, there must be one who bows his back for a living.”

Drawing a talisman purely with one’s mind consumed a tremendous amount of mental energy.

To draw a single talisman this way took him the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.

This was not a beginner’s technique. It was only thanks to his fifty-plus years of experience from his previous life that he could barely manage it.

Feeling slightly tired, Chen Qianliu sighed softly and muttered to himself, “It’s been three years!”

“I wonder how much longer it will be before I can enter the first stage of Qi Refinement.”

To be honest, if he had a choice in this new life, he would much rather have returned to Earth.

After all, in that world, he still had his daughter.

Although he had lived in this world for over eighty years, there was almost nothing worth feeling attached to. He had left home as a youth, pursued the Dao in his middle age, and though his old wife had been his companion, there was always an unspoken distance between them. They were more like acquaintances. There was no one he truly cherished.

He stood alone, a solitary figure, without support or reliance, a lonely man.

However, being reborn was not without its advantages.

In his previous life, although he had met Immortal Master Wu Liu in his youth, the master had disdained his ordinary aptitude and refused to take him as a disciple, only teaching him the minor art of talismans. Talismans were merely a supplementary skill, not a path to higher cultivation.

By the time he got the opportunity to enter the Sect of Encountering Immortals, he was already old, having missed the optimal time to begin the path. He had wasted a lot of time, taken many detours, and could only lament the squandered years. As a handyman disciple, he had never received the true teachings of the sect or learned any superior cultivation methods. After twenty years of hard practice, he had only reached the second level of Qi Refinement, “Boiling Liquid into Qi.”

This life was different.

After his senior sister failed to break through to the Spirit Embryo realm, she married him and left the Sect of Encountering Immortals to establish an outer sect family.

According to the sect’s rules, disciples below the Spirit Embryo realm who left the sect could not pass down their own cultivation methods to their descendants. They could only choose two qi refinement methods to establish their family’s foundation.

His senior sister, after all, had been a peak Golden Core figure with a high status. The two methods she chose, the “Green Emperor Jia-Yi Art” and the “Geng-Jin Qi Refining Art,” were both top-grade methods for the Qi Refinement stage, a hundred times more profound than the “Six Harmonies Qi Refining Method” Chen Qianliu had practiced in his previous life.

The Green Emperor Jia-Yi Art, in particular, was one of the three foundational arts of the Sect of Encountering Immortals, leading directly to the Great Dao of True Yang!

His senior sister herself had used this method to enter the Dao. Not only did she know the techniques for the Qi Refinement and Golden Core realms, but she had also learned the cultivation methods for the realms beyond Spirit Embryo.

Although the two of them had barely spoken before becoming Dao companions, and their relationship was distant even after marriage, they were husband and wife after all. His senior sister had exploited a loophole in the sect’s rules and secretly passed the complete version of the art to him.

Reborn for a second time, Chen Qianliu would of course not choose the Six Harmonies Qi Refining Art again. That was a method for the handyman disciples of the sect. Apart from being easy to start, its only other merit was its balanced and stable nature, which made it very unlikely for one to suffer from cultivation deviation.

For the past three years, he had dedicated all his efforts to the Green Emperor Jia-Yi Art.

Chen Qianliu believed that by being able to cultivate a superior method of the Sect of Encountering Immortals more than forty years earlier, his future path in the Dao would surely be countless times better than his previous life.

But after three years of quiet cultivation, he still hadn’t soared to the heavens, and he occasionally felt a sense of despondency.

After a short rest, Chen Qianliu centered his being and began to practice the Green Emperor Jia-Yi Art once more.

This time, for some unknown reason, he entered a state of tranquility extremely quickly, suddenly forgetting both himself and the world around him. Unknowingly, four hours passed. First, a coolness spread from his heart, then his dantian felt as if it were boiling. A slight heat rose up his spine, throbbing continuously. A thread of vibrant life force, like the budding of spring, the first bloom of a hundred flowers, the sprouting of ten thousand trees, emerged from nothingness and gradually took form.

Another hour passed. When Chen Qianliu opened his eyes, he felt his entire body brimming with energy, and his mind was much clearer. This was the sign of the birth of “Golden Essence and Jade Fluid,” the first level of Qi Refinement.

His hands, held in a cultivation seal, trembled. His heart surged with emotion. He vaguely remembered that in his past life, cultivating the Six Harmonies Qi Refining Art, which was known for being easy to start, it had taken him seven years and nine months to cultivate the first wisp of true qi and step onto the path of cultivation. He had been judged by the Sect of Encountering Immortals as having dull aptitude and being unworthy of nurturing.

In his last life, after marrying his senior sister, he had practiced the Green Emperor Jia-Yi Art for over forty years, yet he had not even stepped into the first level by the time he died.

Feeling the newly born cultivation within him, Chen Qianliu thought he would be ecstatic, but instead, his heart was incredibly calm. Only a sense of the vastness of time washed over him. He murmured to himself, “So this is the first level of Qi Refinement? I have… entered the Dao?”

Even the first level of Qi Refinement set one apart from mortals.

From this day forward, he could call himself a Qi Refiner, no longer a person of the secular world.

(End of Chapter)