SFS Chapter 1: The Ascension Ceremony
Chapter 1: The Ascension Ceremony
The Great Jin Dynasty, the Yunxia Mountains.
On the final day of the Ascension Ceremony, the setting sun melted into gold.
On the jade-paved plaza, hundreds of teenagers lined up in a long queue, enveloped in a pale golden aura, their palms pressed against the spirit-testing stones, some excited, some dejected, some bewildered...
"Next."
The deacon's voice was flat and emotionless.
At the end of the line, an elderly man stepped forward, his steps faltering.
His hair and beard were all white, his face deeply lined, and his blue robe was covered in dust. Only his eyes, when gazing at the spirit-testing stone, shone with a longing far beyond his years.
Lu Qingyun stretched out his withered hand, his fingertips trembling slightly the moment they touched the cold jade.
Fifty-six years ago, it was also a similar dusk.
At that time, he was just an ordinary boy in a mountain village on the border of Daliang. When he went up the mountain to chop firewood, he saw two streaks of light streak across the sky and land, turning into two people with flowing clothes.
With a casual flick of the woman's wrist, withered trees come back to life; with a wave of the man's sleeve, stubborn rocks turn to gold.
They drank and chatted by the stream, completely unaware that a young woodcutter was staring in astonishment behind the rocks.
Hermit.
This word was branded into his soul like a hot iron.
That night, Lu Qingyun returned to the thatched hut and sat by the dim oil lamp all night.
Before dawn, he shouldered his dry rations, tucked his meager copper coins into his pocket, and began his pursuit in the direction where the streak of light had vanished.
This pursuit lasted a lifetime.
He traveled through the thirteen prefectures of Daliang, crossed the Burial Bone Snow Mountain, and traversed the Crimson Flame Desert. He served as a guard in caravans and as a lowly soldier at the border. He told travelers the "fairy tales" he had witnessed, earning both ridicule and a few meager provisions in return.
He had studied martial arts and had roamed the martial world in his youth, seeking righteousness and revenge. But the fire in his heart had never been extinguished—what he sought was not the pinnacle of mortal martial arts, but that rainbow light that transcended life and death.
At the age of thirty-five, in an old post station in the Great Yan Kingdom, he first heard the terms "spiritual root," "immortal cultivation," and "sect" from a drunken old merchant, and learned that there was a place in the world that specifically tested aptitude, called the "Ascension Assembly."
The old merchant spoke vaguely, only mentioning that the "Cloud and Mist Mountain Range" in the far west might appear once every ten years.
Lu Qingyun sold the sword that had been with him for many years, used the money for travel expenses, and continued westward.
At the age of forty-seven, he finally stepped into the territory of the Great Jin Kingdom.
Nine years later, he finally managed to find out the exact location of the Yunxia Mountains. His legs were no longer as nimble as when he was young, and the cold had left him with a cough, but his eyes grew brighter and brighter.
Today, he finally stands here.
He stood before the spirit-testing stone.
"Name, place of origin, age." The steward asked routinely, without even fully raising his eyelids.
"Lu Qingyun, originally from the Great Liang Kingdom, is seventy-one years old this year." His voice was hoarse, but he tried his best to speak clearly.
A faint, suppressed chuckle could be heard from the surroundings.
"Seventy-one? Did I hear that right?"
"He's even older than my grandfather..."
"Mortals are ignorant of their own limitations; cultivating immortality is no child's play!"
The steward finally raised his eyes, looked him up and down, and frowned: "You're over sixty, your vital energy has declined, and your meridians have hardened. Even if you have spiritual roots, it's difficult to draw energy into your body. The sect doesn't accept disciples of your age. Go back."
Lu Qingyun was struck dumb, frozen in place.
go back?
Where to go back?
His whole life was dedicated to getting here.
"Immortal Master... Immortal Master!" He took a sudden step forward, staggering in his eagerness, almost kneeling, but stubbornly straightening his already hunched back. "I beg you, Immortal Master, let me try! Just one try! I... I've searched for fifty-six years, all for this day! Just one look, let me know... whether I have that opportunity!"
His voice, tinged with sobs and roughened by the hardships of life, echoed through the gradually quieting square.
Some of the teenagers stopped laughing and looked at the stubborn old man with complicated expressions.
A hint of impatience and a barely perceptible trace of pity flashed across the steward's eyes, but rules are rules.
He shook his head, his tone resolute: "The rules cannot be broken. Next."
Lu Qingyun's outstretched hand froze in mid-air, his fingertips only an inch away from the cold spirit-testing stone.
An inch separated him from his fifty-six-year journey, from his lifelong dream, and from the mortal world to the immortal path.
He slowly withdrew his hand, and his expectant eyes gradually dimmed.
Lu Qingyun fell silent, retreating to the edge of the plaza. Leaning against a weathered stone pillar, he slowly slid down to sit. His cloudy gaze remained stubbornly fixed on the spirit-testing stone, and on each of the young men and women who stepped forward to take the test.
Watch them tense, watch them excited, watch them either leave dejectedly or full of vigor.
The setting sun cast his shadow long, very long, as withered and thin as an old tree in the desolate autumn wilderness.
A young boy with a mid-grade spiritual root cheered with joy.
A young girl, with a low-grade spiritual root, was on the verge of tears.
Yet another young man, possessing the rare dual spiritual roots of metal and fire, moved the steward cultivators and drew gasps of astonishment from the entire audience…
Lu Qingyun watched quietly, his face expressionless. Only he knew that the anticipation in his heart was completely dissipating and cooling down as the last ray of dawn faded away.
Fifty-six years of wind, frost, rain, and snow; fifty-six years of solitude; fifty-six years of relying on the mirage seen at dusk to support me as I traversed thousands of miles of human life.
It turns out they weren't even qualified to take the test.
It turns out that before even embarking on the path to immortality, he had already seen the end—the end that belonged to him, Lu Qingyun.
As night deepened, the last boy finished his test, the crowd dispersed, and the steward cultivator put away the spirit-testing stones and vanished in a streak of light.
The huge square was instantly empty.
Lu Qingyun felt extremely tired, more tired than ever before.
His vision began to blur.
It felt like I was back at the moment when I first traveled through time, by the mountain stream at dusk, behind the rocks, with that dumbfounded young woodcutter.
If... if I had mustered up the courage to go out back then, would things have been different?
If... if I had been born thirty years earlier, would things have been different?
If... if that twilight hadn't happened, would I have lived a simple life in a mountain village, married, had children, and lived out my days in ordinariness?
There is no answer.
The night wind grew colder and colder.
Lu Qingyun leaned against the stone pillar, his eyelids heavy as mountains. In his last moments of consciousness, the faint glow of the spirit-measuring stone strangely overlapped with the rosy light that flowed from the fingertips of the immortal by the mountain stream fifty-six years ago.
So beautiful...
His lips twitched very slightly, as if he wanted to laugh, or perhaps he was about to sigh.
Then, everything returned to darkness.
"hiss--"
Excruciating pain!
It wasn't physical pain, but rather a deep ache in my soul, as if something had been violently torn apart, and an endless torrent of memories washed over me!
"Rules cannot be broken...! No, I refuse to accept this!"
Lu Qingyun suddenly opened his eyes.
What came into view was a low thatched roof and walls plastered with yellow mud, with light filtering through the cracks. Beneath me was a hard wooden bed, covered with a patched but clean coarse cloth quilt.
"I...I've been reborn?" Lu Qingyun asked subconsciously, his voice so childish that even he was stunned.
He suddenly raised his hand and saw a boy's hand, which, though calloused, had firm skin and was full of strength.
Lu Qingyun sat there blankly, like a clay or wooden sculpture.
Woodshed... High fever...
This is... when he first transmigrated, at the age of sixteen?
That autumn before I met the immortal?