A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality c1-2248

by Translator: Johnchen

“Hmph! Do you know how serious you will be punished if you cannot complete your mission? It’s not too late to go back and tell my Junior Martial Brother to send another person!” The small, old man rolled his eyes and snapped.

  “The medicine garden must be maintained, the medicinal herbs must not die, and every month a certain amount of medicinal herbs must be delivered! If that’s all, Junior is quite confident!” Han Li doesn’t seem to be shakened.

  Hearing what Han Li said, the old man was a bit surprised. It was the first time he met a garden-managing disciple who confident from the start. He looked and judged Han Li once again, but the doubtful expression in his eyes didn’t lessen.

  “You, come with me!” The small, old man suddenly barked coldly and walked out of the cottage. Han Li followed him without any hesitation.

  “How many of these medicinal herb can you recognize?” The small, old man pointed at the plants in the garden and stared at Han Li with slanted eyes.

  “One out of ten.” Han Li quickly swept his eyes across the garden, and replied softly.

  Hearing Han Li’s words, the small, old man hesitated a little but laughed coldly right away,

  “Little fellow, if you truly can recognize one out of ten of the medicinal herbs, I will let you manage the garden and will not utter another word!”

  With that said, Han Li smiled slightly and left the side of the small, old man.

  “Midnight Flower, Yellow Ball Grass, White Crane Flower, Full Moon Grass…” Han Li took a walk in the garden while casually calling out the names of the medicinal herbs that he was familiar with.

  At first, the small, old man was looking at him mockingly, but after listening for a while, his face expressed amazement. Han Li mentioned a lot of medicinal herbs that were not well-known, and for some of them, even he had to put a lot of work to know the efficacy of the remedy. Han Li’s response surprised him.

  “Enough!” Han Li had just finished telling less than half of the plants he knew when the small, old man spoke and stopped Han Li’s ‘performance.’

  “Very good, looks like you’re not completely bragging! This medicine garden will be in your management for now. This is the restrictive medallion. Take care of it!” The old man’s expression showed satisfaction as he dexterously took out a dark-green wooden tablet and threw it to Han Li.

  “Inside the house are some notes on my years of experience years with growing medicinal herbs. You need to take a good look at them since you’re still not familiar with most of the herbs. Don’t kill them!” The old man touched his mustache and exhorted.

  “Thank you for Senior Martial Elder’s reminder. This disciple will keep it in mind!” Han Li said respectfully.

  “Cough! I hope your ability is as useful as your mouth, that way I can truly be free from this medicine garden, and not delay this Elder’s cultivation any longer. This medicine garden is Elder’s private garden, so if you really can take on this job, Elder will not mistreat you. But I must warn you beforehand, if you can’t do it, then get out as soon as possible and have someone replace you. Do you understand?” The old man said with both kindness and severity.

  Hearing his blunt words, not only did Han Li not get mad, he also grew more fond of him. He thought that the old man was a lot better than that Martial Uncle Ye. At the very least, the old man wasn’t a hypocrite. So he quickly nodded and said ‘yes.’

  After briefing on a few things that needed attention when managing the garden, the small, old man then went back into the cottage, packed up in a hurry, and left the garden by flying without looking back.

  Watching Senior Martial Elder Ma as he left, Han Li randomly picked a cottage, cleaned it up, and made it his room.

  Because he had been busy the whole day and didn’t had the chance to rest, even a cultivator like Han Li would feel tired, so he climbed onto the bed and went to sleep.

  To him, even if something huge were about to happen outside, it would not be too late to solve it after he regained his energy. The sky went dark just in time.

  The first day Han Li joined the Yellow Maple Valley as a new disciple passed without any twists and turns. On the second day, when Han Li finally woke up feeling energized, his path to cultivation officially began.

  During the following days, Han Li spent the mornings studying the notes the old man left for him. At night, he secretly buried the mysterious little bottle in a corner of the medicinal herb field and covered it up with destroyed magic treasure fragment that he exchanged for a high price to conceal the prodigious sign of it absorbing the Spiritual Qi.

  And just like that, besides that corner having a thicker Spiritual Qi than other places, there was nothing else that would catch people’s attention. This put Han Li’s cautious heart at ease.

  Martial Uncle Ye brought the so-called ‘compensation items’ for the Foundation Establishment Pill a few days later to Han Li, but he only gave Han Li less than one fifth of what they originally agreed on. As for what happened with the pill, this Hall Master Ye seemed to have forgotten already, and Han Li also pretended like it never happened.

  But even so, Han Li still became rich all of the sudden over one night. He received two mid-grade spirit stones, dozens of low-grade spirit stones, three well-made magic tools, and several talismans.

  Chapter 152: Two Years Later

  This was the first time Han Li had seen mid-grade spirit stones. One was a fire attribute spirit stone with a sparkling red light. Another was a dark-yellow earth attribute spirit stone. These were the most commonly seen mid-grade spirit stones.

  They looked to be entirely different from the faint attributes of those low-grade spirit stones. It wasn’t their luster that was different, but rather that their spiritual ripples were much stronger. It was impossible for one to be mistaken as low-grade.

  In addition, those three magic tools were quite good. Naturally, the goods refined by a Foundation Establishment expert did not lose to the low quality goods Han Li had seen at the Great South Meeting. Indeed, they were far more powerful.

  One of them seemed to be a ring made of fine steel. When casting it, it would automatically fly out and bind an enemy. Within a certain distance, it could freely change its size. Han Li became interested in it and poured all the magic power in his body into the ring. The ring actually emitted a faint yellow light and expanded to the size of the inside of the cottage, causing Han Li to be speechless.

  Another magic tool was a pitch-black pole with a small triangular flag. This magic tool was not simple to use. So long as spiritual power was poured into the flag, with a wave, it would immediately turn into a cloud of black fog, causing the enemy’s spiritual sight to fail and conceal the tracks of the user. It was a great defensive magic tool.

  These two magic tools were first-rate goods rarely seen in the outside world. Although this caused Han Li to initially be wild with joy, he still had the final auxiliary-type magic tool. It was a brass bottle that prevented the spiritual power of any object it stored from dissipating

  When Han Li held this bottle magic tool, he immediately thought of his problem with preserving the mysterious green liquid.

  Ever since Han Li found out about the existence of spiritual power, he had long suspected that the small bottle absorbed and condensed the natural Spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth during the night. Previously, he hadn’t any appropriate means to confirm this, so he could only bury these assumptions in the depths of his heart.

  With the appearance of this yellow bottle magic tool, he finally had a method of confirming his assumptions. As a result, on that evening, he stored the condensed green liquid into the brass bottle to test whether the brass bottle could retain the green liquid.

  However, the result left him greatly disappointed.

  The brass bottle could only preserve the green liquid for a time, extending its use from its original quarter hour to a full day. Past this time limit, the green liquid in the bottle would disappear without a trace. It seemed this liquid was not at all so simple
as Spiritual Qi condensed from Heavens and Earth. There was certain to be something more complicated mixed within.

  After this test, Han Li knew more about his present situation, but he was unable to easily answer this riddle at his current stage stage. Thus, he no longer troubled himself to think of this question and intended to drift with the waves in the future, letting nature take its course. In any case, the present function of this small bottle would give Han Li endless benefits.

  Having let go of the matter that was gnawing at his mind, Han Li began to efficiently use the green liquid and produced batches of Yellow Dragon Pellets and Gold Essence Pills. He prepared these medicine pills, which had previously lost much of their effectiveness, while trying to find the recipes of more spiritually potent medicine pills within the valley.

  However, Han Li clearly understood that this matter was not urgent.

  If a new disciple that had just entered the sect were to go asking about for medicine pill recipes so conspicuously, he would undoubtedly be telling others that he was hiding something! He mustn’t arouse the suspicions of others, thereby bringing about his own misfortune.

  As a result, Han Li prepared to take a true, years-long secluded cultivation until he thoroughly understood the inner affairs of the sect. When he was no longer a newcomer to Yellow Maple Valley and no would would pay notice of him, he would reconsider the problem of acquiring recipes.

  As for the medicine ingredients Han Li must hand over regularly, he need not worry. With the assistance of the diluted green liquid, how could the medicinal herbs not ripen overnight? This was a completely trivial matter. He had already intended to live in the medicine garden for a long time. Surely that Martial Elder Ma wouldn’t have anything against it.

  Thus, every day, Han Li busily attended his regular affairs.

  During the day, after he finished looking through the small old man’s notes, he would diligently run towards the cultivation guidance disciple, Wu Feng, and learn quite a few incantations for practical elementary magic techniques.

  In addition, Han Li would eat large amounts of those Yellow Dragon Pellets and Gold Essence Pills on a daily basis as if they were sweets. According to Han Li’s thoughts, since quality is out of the question, he would have to offset this by relying on quantity! If these medicinal pills were like little drops creating an ocean, there would be results.

  Like that, time passed by! Unwittingly, Han Li became a member of one of the Seven Great Cultivator Sects, Yellow Maple Valley, and remained there for two years.

  Within these two years, many things had happened. The sect’s ten-year recruitment period began not long after Han Li’s secluded cultivation. From noteworthy cultivator clans of all sizes, over a thousand youths with acceptable spiritual roots entered the Yellow Maple Valley Sect. There were even two siblings among them that both possessed mutated spiritual roots. In addition these mutated spiritual roots were thunder spiritual roots, which were widely known for their destructive power.

  When these two brothers appeared, they greatly attracted the attention of the valley’s upper echelon. Even a Core Formation expert who had long secluded himself made an exception to leave and observe their bones. He publicly declared that so long as these two were capable of reached Foundation Establishment, he would stop his seclusion to personally instruct these two brothers.

  When this was stated, their fellow martial brothers were greatly envious. However, aside from those two, there were also several other disciples who were geniuses with rare aptitudes.

  For example, a youth from a small clan surnamed Li had unexpectedly reached the peak of the ninth layer in his foundation cultivation technique at the age of twelve without having previously taking any medicine pills. It could be said he improved surprisingly fast. He wasn’t at all inferior to those who possessed mutated spiritual roots.

  A different, eight year-old boy surnamed Wang was even more extreme. Not only was he a direct descendant of the great Wang Clan, his innate “Profound Yin Eyes” could actually cultivate the long lost “Eyes Imposing Deity’s Light”. It could restrain all ghosts and phantoms in the entire world.

  Of course, apart from those two, there were also several other outstanding talents that were far greater than ordinary disciples. With the recruitment of these top disciples, it could be considered a grand harvest, causing Sect Master Zhong to be unable to conceal his happiness for several days. Many individuals believed that the sect had caught the Heavens’ attention and was being placed above the other sects!

  However when others came to the valley, they found that the strongest of the Seven Great Sects, the “Masked Moon Sect” had actually received a young woman with heavenly spiritual roots. This caused the recently proud Great Sect Master Zhong to become speechless for half a day.

  However, regardless of what was said, this batch of newly accepted disciples attracted the attention of many within the sect. The low-level disciples who had been accepted slightly earlier talked about their talented Martial Juniors every day. When their foundation cultivation technique improved, who knew what they were capable of!

  Thus, underneath these many dazzling rays of light, Han Li, who entered the sect with the Writ of Immortal Ascension, was thoroughly forgotten by Sect Master Zhong and all the other stewards.

  Having also spent his entire day running around the medicine garden without going out of his way to see others, a pitifully few amount of disciples recognized him. Perhaps only that cultivation guidance disciple Wu Feng and the Hundred Opportunities Hall’s Honored Disciple Yu occasionally remembered Han Li. After all, those two met him when he asked for guidance toward cultivation techniques or when he received spirit stones each month.

  Regardless of how others regarded him, Han Li was currently very satisfied with cultivating in half seclusion. In addition, the small old man who collected medicine ingredients every several months was very pleased! After all, Han Li was able to hand over the required goods on time. Where else could he find a garden caretaker that wouldn’t fall behind on his payments?

  Thus, in order to hold onto this genius garden caretaker Han Li, the old man gave greater and greater spirit stone rewards. From the original two low-grade spirit stones, he eventually rose to a monthly five spirit stones, causing Han Li to become a large earner among low-level disciples. It should be known that the average income of ordinary disciples was only three spirit stones per month. This further greatened Han Li’s impression of Martial Senior Ma.

  As for that reneging Great Hall Master Ye, who embezzled more than half of his goods, rumors had it that the grandnephew whom he put his hopes into was not able to achieve Foundation Establishment after taking the Foundation Establishment Pill. His grandnephew helplessly stayed at the peak of Qi Condensation, greatly vexing him. When Han Li heard of this, he inwardly laughed and immediately felt his mood improve considerably.

  Furthermore, after pushing down countless medicine pills, Han Li’s Eternal Spring Arts tenaciously broke through two layers in succession, finally entering the eleventh layer and causing him to obtain a medium rank among low-level disciples in the valley. Also, the Yellow Dragon Pellet and Gold Essence Pill had completely lost their effectiveness. Although he consumed many of them, there were no more results!

  With this, Han Li had no choice but to advance his plan and find other medicine pills.

  Fortunately at this moment, there wasn’t anybody in the valley that was interested in a nobody like him. So long as he was a bit careful, his actions would not attract attention.

  Chapter 153: Yue Lu Hall

  Han Li stood on a stone platform halfway up the Great Shaman’s Mountain. About ten meters wide, the stone platform was a huge Immortal’s abode entirely covered by a spell formation: Yue Lu Hall.

  (TL: ?? Yue Lu of Yue Lu hall, means the base of a tall mountain)

  This “Yue Lu Hall” was the Yellow Maple Valley’s specialized storage for magic tools, medicine pill recipes, and secret technique manuals. In addition, it offe
red all sorts of assistance for pill and magic tool refining as well as a few common raw materials. It could be regarded as one of the most important places in the sect. Thus, not only was it covered in many layers of spell formations, but it was also patrolled by over a hundred disciples in case outside enemies invaded. It was also said that there was a Core Formation martial ancestor secluded within, keeping watch all year in case other great experts were to invade this place.

  After Han Li went over the relevant information in his mind, he calmly walked forward.

  Just as he landed, there were several gazes that sized him up from a secret location. However, upon seeing Han Li’s magic power was ordinary, they quickly vanished. Even if it were merely that, Han Li was secretly startled.

  Since Han Li was unable to respond to these people, they demonstrated that they either had first-rate concealment magic tools or their magic power was truly above his, which meant that they were elite disciples of the twelfth layer or above. How could this not cause Han Li to be even more cautious!

  After walking forward several steps, he stopped. Then he softly chanted several verses and raised his hand, releasing a stream of red light toward the seemingly empty space in front of him.

  As a result, the empty space fluctuated for a moment, and a wall of light appeared with a flash of red light, blocking him. Immediately after, two disciples wearing red clothes appeared behind the wall of light.

  “Were you the one who triggered the restrictive spell?” A red-clothed disciple coldly asked.

  “This one is Han Li, I…”

  “Do we care who you are? Since you haven’t reached Foundation Establishment, you need a sponsor! Bring out the token of trust of one who vouches for you! ” The disciple explained, impatiently interrupting Han Li.

  After Han Li heard those impolite words, he did not angry. He took out a jade talisman from his bosom and set it down on the ground in front of the wall of light.

  At this time, the cold-mouthed red-clothed disciple held his hand again wall of light. A hole the size of a hand appeared in the wall.