Chapter 47: Immortal Traces

"Sigh."

Su Chen let out a long sigh.

Drinking the tea in his cup, he admitted his identity.

"How did you recognize me?"

"To me, Lord Su is like a teacher and a father."

"When we first met at the Library, you delivered food to me in the guise of a black-robed eunuch. That hint of laziness and that air of casual indifference made you look somewhat familiar."

"That day behind the palace gates, I was investigating the imperial archives and discovered that several secret guards and imperial soldiers had died. Following the trail, I found they had all died miserably after stealing a hundred taels of silver from the pharmacy; the only thing missing from their bodies was that hundred taels..."

"Furthermore, I interrogated a eunuch who said that one night he went to the pharmacy for medical treatment and did not find you, but on that same night, someone was in the Library, and a single sword stroke through the wind and snow shocked the world..."

"Lord Su, you left too many loose ends. I have erased all those traces for you. Whether you want to be Xu Ge of the pharmacy or the black-robed eunuch of the Library, it is up to you..."

"Before, my godfather watched over you in the shadows; now, let it be me, Xiao Hanzi."

Xu Han spoke with a beaming smile.

In a daze, the figure in this grand red python robe seemed to overlap with that one clad in purple.

"Why?"

Su Chen looked deeply at Xu Han.

"What?"

Xu Han was puzzled.

"You have cultivated the complete Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art, haven't you?"

"With your aptitude, the Third Rank should have been your limit."

"Yet, the fact that you can hold your position as a Factory Official means you are naturally beyond the Third Rank—at least the Second Rank! In reality, you are at the First Rank. Burning your lifespan to become a True Yuan Minor Grandmaster... is it worth it?"

"Or rather, what are you plotting that requires such a massive sacrifice..."

"Why do this?"

"You will die."

Su Chen fell silent.

In his eyes, Xu Han—who should have lived for at least another sixty years—now possessed a lifespan like a candle in the wind, looking much like Zhang Gui back then, with only ten years left.

No!

Perhaps even less.

Xu Han would continue to burn his lifespan, shortening his own life, because he had not yet reached the limit of the First Rank. Only a peak First Rank, capable of borrowing the power of heaven and earth, could truly be a Minor Grandmaster.

"Why exactly are you doing this?"

His Longevity True Qi could not replenish the innate lifespan consumed by the Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art.

It was so back then.

It was so now.

Su Chen did not want to send another old friend to the grave.

"Lord Su!"

Xu Han took a deep breath. In his eyes, his heart, and even his body, there seemed to be a fire burning—the fire of ambition.

"My answer is the same as it was back then."

"I have no roots, and I have no home!"

"I want glory! I want power! I want to stand at the summit and be the one who treads others underfoot! Even if it is the Emperor, what is it that I cannot do?"

"Even if I can only have five years or three years of glory, so what? I have seen the scenery that I could not reach in a hundred years of mediocrity; it is worth dying for."

Xu Han left.

After kowtowing to Su Chen, he departed.

Over these years, one could only wonder what he had experienced while being exiled to the borders as a military supervisor; the ambition and longing in his heart had expanded wildly, like a wildfire spreading across the plains.

Before leaving, he left behind a key.

And a crystal.

The key was for the Library.

According to Xu Han, since the master of the Library had already appeared, the Library should return to its rightful owner. He had already settled the eunuchs within the Library into other places...

As for this purple glass crystal.

Xu Han said that Zhang Gui had asked him to hand it over.

Years ago.

Before Zhang Gui orchestrated the world-shaking incident at the Heavenly Martial Tower, he had sought him out, said some cryptic words, and asked him to deliver this purple glass crystal.

He had studied it for ten years and could never figure it out.

"Of course you couldn't figure it out."

"This glass crystal wasn't formed naturally; it was colored glass that Zhang Gui and I proposed. I didn't expect that fellow to actually manage to fire it into existence..."

Upon receiving the purple glass crystal, Su Chen threw it to the ground.

In an instant, a withered yellow letter was revealed.

"By the time you see this letter, I may have already changed the world."

"Of course."

"It is also possible... that I failed..."

"Speaking of which, if it weren't for that single stalk of foxtail grass, I wouldn't have been able to make it back alive from Nanyang County. Fortunately, because it was a gift from you, I didn't simply discard that piece of weed but kept it close to my person. It saved my life!"

"I could never understand you. You seek neither power nor wealth, spending your days huddled in the Library doing nothing, even though you clearly hide immense abilities..."

"Forget it."

"None of this concerns me."

"However, if you are reading this and I am already dead, you must be extremely cautious. This world is not that simple..."

"Grandmasters are already legends, but there is a path beyond them. While being hunted by the Xuanyang Sect, I fell off a cliff. To my surprise, beneath the cliff, there was an assembly of immortals, shrouded in mist and clouds that blocked the sun and locked the mountains, opening once every ten years."

"The Heaven-Swallowing Demonic Art, such a monstrous technique, can be called a First-Rank miracle, a Grandmaster's ultimate skill, yet in the Immortal Market, it was merely goods laid out on a street stall. I exchanged seventy percent of that foxtail grass for it..."

"If you have need of it, you can go there. The address is ten miles deep into the Yunyin Mountains..."

"I will say no more."

"The night is deep."

"Regardless of success or failure, I am due to die tomorrow. More than half of the First-Rank Minor Grandmasters from the two sects, three religions, and nine provinces are all there! I wonder, by the time you read this, has the Emperor already been replaced? Haha, my lifespan is running low; if I don't gamble now, I truly won't have another chance..."

"If there is still a chance, I must drink White Scholar wine with you one last time before I die..."

"—Your friend, Zhang Gui, final words."

Su Chen fell into a silence.

It was not just the sorrow of mourning a friend, but also the contemplation of what the letter mentioned... an assembly of immortals?

"A path beyond Grandmasters... could it be cultivation of immortality?"

The Sword Fate Page transmitted techniques through dreams.

Su Chen had obtained three variations from a single sword strike.

Emperor Jianwu's original body was sealed in a black coffin, yet he used secret arts to conceive a child without a womb, using a surrogate to be reborn. This was a demonic method, far beyond ordinary cultivation secrets; it was simply inhuman.

"Could there truly be immortals in this world?"

As if remembering something, Su Chen took out a copper ring that resembled a storage ring, and a crimson fire bead, inside of which a small black snake seemed to lie curled in slumber.

The former had been taken from the ribs of the eldest prince; the latter was a sacred treasure of the Holy Sect that the Black Abyss had sent wave after wave of men to infiltrate the palace to retrieve.

"Let's try..."

Su Chen cut his finger and let a drop of blood fall onto the crimson fire bead.

There was no reaction.

The blood slid off the bead.

"It seems I was overthinking it."

Su Chen mocked himself.

He prepared to put them away.

But as he reached for the bead and the ring, the blood from his wound happened to touch the copper ring.

In an instant.

*Buzz!*

A roar erupted in Su Chen's mind.

In the next moment, a small space, five feet square, appeared in his field of vision.

"It really is a storage ring..."

It was more than just a storage ring; hidden within this ring, which had been sealed for fifteen years or even longer, was something else. It was an object as black as ink-jade, resembling a beast egg.

It was only the size of a palm, as translucent as ink-jade, and deathly still. When he took it out and held it, it was much heavier than expected. Had Su Chen not been a body cultivator who had already reached the Second Rank, he might not have been able to lift it.

A thousand catties?

No.

It was nearly ten thousand catties.

Having been sealed for fifteen years or more, even if it were the egg of some great demon, it should have been long dead.

"This is a dead egg..."

"However, gaining a storage ring is an unexpected joy."

Just as Su Chen was about to discard the beast egg.

Wait.

Su Chen's eyes turned strange.

He rubbed the patterns on the egg, and his Second-Rank visceral strength erupted. With his foundation, even a divine weapon forged from extraterrestrial meteoric iron could be easily snapped.

However.

A second passed.

A moment passed.

A stick of incense's worth of time passed...

"I'm going to get serious."

Su Chen exhaled a mouthful of turbid air.

His breath was like a sword.

*Boom!*

A single strike of sword qi was enough to kill a Second-Rank expert, but upon hitting the beast egg, it left not even a trace.

"As expected..."

Having read through the archives of the Library, he recognized the origin of this egg.

It was a turtle egg.

Ancient records stated

There was a turtle ten zhang high, which, when pleased, spat water to create torrential rains that blocked the sun and sky. When angry, its body was surrounded by black flames, like a messenger from hell, capable of destroying cities and nations. Even a Grandmaster, if they had not reached the Xiantian realm, would be swallowed in a single bite. It was a high-ranking being among the great demons.

The Two-Faced Black Tortoise!

Also known as the Black Flame Turtle or the Holy Water Turtle.

A high-ranking great demon, equivalent to a legendary Xiantian Grandmaster.

"It's actually the egg of a high-ranking great demon..."

Su Chen clicked his tongue.

No wonder it had to be stored separately in a ring.

It was worth it.

A high-ranking great demon.

Once grown, even Emperor Taizu of Liang would have to kowtow before it.

The entire Great Liang would tremble; the three sects, four religions, and nine great families would be nothing more than passing clouds, turned to black ash before it.

"Let's try..."

An idea formed in Su Chen's mind.

In an instant, a rolling surge of Longevity Qi, like a rushing river, poured into the egg.

Thirty percent Longevity Qi.

Fifty percent Longevity Qi.

This egg was like a bottomless pit, devouring the Longevity True Qi.

"Fifty percent."

Su Chen prepared to cut his losses in time.

Once his Longevity True Qi had been consumed once, its recovery speed would be halved; therefore, unless absolutely necessary, he rarely consumed it.

*Buzz!*

The egg's aura changed.

It had originally been a dead egg, but a faint trace of life—fainter than a candle in the wind—emerged, thirsting for Longevity True Qi.

It was pleading with Su Chen.

Even with a muddled consciousness, it craved to live.

"It actually turned death into life..."

No.

Perhaps it wasn't turning death into life.

That would be too heaven-defying.

Perhaps, even after fifteen years, this egg had always retained a sliver of muddled consciousness, forcing itself to stay in a deep slumber.

Now, the arrival of the Longevity Qi had bolstered its vitality.

It had woken up.

"Continue."

Soon.

It reached seventy percent Longevity Qi.

A full seventy doses—he could have gotten two Thousand-Year Ginseng Kings with that much.

This beast egg finally dissipated half of its death qi and gained a faint vitality.

But Su Chen stopped the supply of Longevity Qi.

He could not exhaust all his Longevity Qi at once.

"Slowly does it."

"I have plenty of time anyway."

"Feeding it one dose of Longevity True Qi every three to five days, one day, I will be able to raise it."

One month later.

In the pharmacy.

At Su Chen's feet sat a turtle the size of an egg, its body as black as ink-jade. It nuzzled Su Chen's finger affectionately and began nibbling on the broken shell on the ground.

It was so weak.

So weak that an ordinary eunuch could crush it with a single step.

It was also so strong.

So strong that once it grew, both the Great Liang and the Great Zhou would prostrate themselves at its feet.

"What happened to the high-ranking great demon?"

Su Chen remembered.

The Two-Faced Black Tortoise was indeed a high-ranking great demon, but it underwent a metamorphosis once every ten years and could only reach the First Rank after fifty years. It took a hundred years to metamorphose into a great demon, and two hundred years to hope to become a high-ranking great demon.

It was one of the rare demons whose innate lifespan exceeded two hundred years.

"I wonder if I can ripen it like a precious herb—ripen the Black Flame Turtle so it becomes a high-ranking great demon directly..."

Su Chen stared at the little turtle with ill intent.

The little turtle gave an inexplicable shudder, but it looked around; aside from that kind human brother, there was no one else around to be a bad person.