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

by Translator: Johnchen

  Without waiting for them to arrive, the distant vortex had already absorbed enough Spiritual Qi, and with the huge cry of a phoenix, the vortex collapsed, scattering its remaining Spiritual Qi. The scattered Spiritual Qi then faintly shined with rainbow light, creating a beautiful sight .

  Afterwards, the cloud dispersed, the lightning and thunder disappeared, and everything returned to normal, returning to fine sunny weather.

  At that moment, those rogue cultivators that flew near the barren mountain, suddenly heard an extremely cold voice, “Those that approach this mountain without permission will die!”

  Those grim words were completely emotionless, causing the many low-grade cultivators nearby to grow pale. They all suddenly stopped and looked at each other. It was quite obvious that this Senior who succeeded in Core Formation did not wish for anybody to disturb him.

  After glancing at each other for a while, they all had no intention of disobediently moving forward and silently left.

  Not long after, the news of a cultivator having just reached Core Formation had spread throughout Sea Ape Island, leaving those who had been unaware shocked.

  They were extremely puzzled as to why a cultivator would choose to undergo Core Formation at Sea Ape Island. Soon after, a huge amount of low-grade cultivators started to create new Immortal’s caves at the center of the barren mountains.

  Although the Core Formation cultivator had given a warning and they didn’t dare to disobey and approach too closely to the mountain, the rogue cultivators all chose to cultivate nearby in hopes that they may perhaps meet him!

  For a time, the nearby lands were flourishing with people.

  But unbeknown to them, the barren mountain had long been abandoned, and the Core Formation cultivator in question was flying in the sky about a thousand kilometers away. He had a tranquil youth flying with him, Han Li, who had failed to form his core.

  As Han Li glanced at the meditating Crooked soul, his face was calm despite feeling joy in his heart.

  In truth, he had left seclusion about a year ago after having taken spiritual medicines and meditated for three years, he couldn’t help but give up. This attempt at Core Formation had definitely failed as there wasn’t the slightest trace of his true essence solidifying. As such, he stopped cultivating and focused on assisting Crooked Soul in Core Formation.

  Along with the forceful assistance of several other spirit medicines, Crooked Soul met a massive success a few days before and eventually formed a fiend core.

  This extremely smooth process left Han Li quite surprised and beyond happy.

  After Han Li shouted at the rogue cultivators that came to look, he immediately abandoned the Immortal’s cave and secretly brought Crooked Soul away from Sea Ape Island.

  He now wanted to return to Minor Expanse Island and see whether or not his true Immortal’s cave had been discovered. He was confident that even if his pursuers were patient, there would be no way that they would have a Core Formation cultivator standing watch at Minor Expanse Island.

  If it was unguarded, he would take away all of the wondrous bugs from his true Immortal’s cave and fly far away, completely abandoning the southwest sea. With the Scattered Star Seas being extremely large and Crooked Soul having an early Core Formation cultivation, Han Li would surely be able to find a suitable location.

  In addition, although Crooked Soul wasn’t able to use the “Green Brilliance Sword” due to his mismatching spiritual roots, he was still able to barely make use of Elder Gu’s magic treasure, the “Immemorial Bowl”.

  Even if he wasn’t able to completely refine the treasure and make complete use of its might, he was still able to use the magic treasure to fight against other Core Formation cultivators.

  Besides, he had also handed over the small golden sword treasure talisman and the golden skull treasure talisman to Crooked Soul. As for the small saber talisman treasure, Han Li kept it for himself.

  With Crooked Soul’s Core Formation cultivation, he would able to activate the treasure talisman at a much greater speed and attack enemies in an instant, making up for his deficiencies of not being able to make complete use of a magic treasure’s might.

  With that in mind, Han Li drove his Divine Wind Boat at its greatest speed, turning into a streak of white light flying in the direction of Stalwart Star Island.

  ...

  A month later, Han Li and Crooked Soul appeared once more above Minor Expanse Island.

  After searching through Minor Expanse Island with his spiritual sense and finding no cultivators present, he and Crooked Soul entered the island through the dock and flew towards the mountains containing his Immortal’s cave.

  Although he was still far away from the mountains, Han Li’s spiritual sense had already examined them ahead of time.

  Han Li was dumbfounded! Not only were both his true and false Immortal’s caves untouched but the three spell formations he had placed down were as well. This was truly beyond his imagination.

  Upon this strange discovery, Han Li became even more vigilant and stopped the Divine Wind Boat at a distant location.

  He didn’t enter the formation spell. Instead, he gloomily shifted his gaze around.

  In the end, he discovered there was nothing odd about the mountains. Han Li lowered his head and muttered to himself for a moment and suddenly stamped down on his Divine Wind Boat and started flying into the formations with a raised brow.

  The formation spells were exactly the same as they were four years ago. After further hesitation, Han Li entered his Immortal’s caves.

  He didn’t care about the false Immortal’s cave in the short mountain; instead, he directly entered his true Immortal’s cave and headed towards the secret room housing the wondrous bugs.

  When Han Li arrived in front of the secret room, his jaw dropped. The scene before him left him stunned.

  Chapter 387: Gold Devouring Beetles

  Han Li had kept his wondrous insects in several tens of concealed stone rooms of differing sizes. Fearful that they would escape, he had set up a small formation in each of them so that they wouldn’t break down the walls.

  According to Han Li’s thoughts, as these wondrous bugs were young despite having high rankings, these ordinary restrictions should be enough to contain them. But now, his formations were no longer present and the stone doors were filled with hexagonal shaped holes.

  Han Li was aghast and willed Crooked Soul to take a large step forward and open the nearest stone door, revealing a completely empty room devoid of life.

  Han Li let out a light sigh. Although he had already prepared himself, he still felt rather depressed.

  After sweeping his gaze over the room, he turned around to look at the stone door. Then he wordlessly walked out and squatted in front of the broken door.

  The stone door was very strangely damaged, with small holes of similar sizes densely scattered across it. But what Han Li didn’t understand was why the holes were so rough, unlike the smooth cuts magic tools would produce.

  Han Li wrinkled his brow and slowly stood up.

  He slowly shut his eyes and swept his spiritual sense throughout the rest of the rooms. Having found that the others rooms were the same, Han LI felt quite a bit of heartache.

  But suddenly, his face moved. He opened his eyes to reveal a cold glint and walked towards a different hidden room.

  The room was also empty, but Han Li entered without any hesitation and crouched, picking up something from the limestone floor and placing it in his palm. He then brought it up to his eye and saw that is was a bean sized insect shell that twinkled with a silvery light. It was very beautiful and appeared to be entirely created out of silver. Han Li then touched the insect shell to find that its shell was extremely smooth and very hard.

  After lowering his head in contemplation, he was certain that this wasn’t the insect shell of anything he was raising.

  Han LI’s face grew solemn, and he narrowed his eyes.

  From the center of this
room, Han Li started to search every inch of his Immortal’s cave with his spiritual sense. Han Li was confident that he’d be able to find something.

  After a moment, Han Li made a surprising discovery in his medicine garden. A sparkling silver sphere hung on the thick trunk of a flower tree, an undoubtedly recent addition to the Immortal’s cave.

  Han Li called out to Crooked Soul and gloomily walked towards the medicine garden.

  The silver sphere wasn’t very large and was only the size of the head of a small child. But its sparkling, bewitching silver light was extremely eye-catching.

  Han Li stood at the medicine garden’s entrance and attentively stared at the silver sphere in silence. He felt that he had heard of this silver sphere before, but he couldn’t recall anything about it at the moment. Regardless, he was certain that this object was related to the silver insect shell he had previously found.

  ‘Insect shell!’ Han Li’s mind suddenly thought of something.

  He hastily patted his storage pouch and a green jade slip appeared in his hand. This was the document of detailing the insect cultivation experiences of the Controlling Spirit cultivator that previously occupied Crooked Soul’s body.

  After submerging his spiritual sense into it, Han Li immediately found that the description of a rank twelve insect seemed relevant.

  “Gold Devouring Beetles, ranked twelve amongst the wondrous bugs. Travels in vicious swarms. It loves to eat other wondrous bugs and is adept at consuming the five metals[1. Five Metals: gold, silver, copper, iron, and tin] and Heaven-Earth Spiritual Qi. They also cannot tolerate heat or cold. It is extremely vicious and tends to amass into a sphere. It tends to perch on spiritual trees. Jade and wood are capable of capturing it. Spider type wondrous bugs are capable of restraining it...”

  After reading through the passage several times, he felt pleasant surprise and couldn’t help but take another look at the silver sphere.

  Although there weren’t detailed instructions for raising this wondrous bug, he was completely sure he would’ve been willing to trade all those wondrous insects ranked lower than the Goldenback Demon Mantis for it.

  According to what the jade slip said, the Gold Devouring Beetle was capable of eating through anything, apart from jade or wood. As such, seizing them is quite difficult, but Han Li fortunately had two Bloodjade spiders. Although they were ranked far lower than the Gold Devouring Beetles, they should still be able to restrain it. The jade slip had mentioned that newly hatched silver Gold Devourer Beetles are especially vulnerable to spider type magic beasts ranked at least high grade one, much like his own two spiders.

  However, he first wanted to test whether this insect was as vicious as described in the jade slip.

  Crooked Soul stepped forward in large steps and stood in front of him. Crooked Soul then emitted a blood-red light and opened his hand before suddenly flying over in a streak of red light. He ended up grabbing the sphere without any trouble, and it didn’t show any reaction in the slightest.

  Han Li stroked his nose and felt slight disappointment. The Controlling Spirit Sect cultivator had bragged about this insect’s ferociousness, but why was it so slow?

  After a moment of hesitation, Han Li had Crooked Soul test it using other methods.

  With an ominous glint flashing from Crooked Soul’s eyes, he waved his hand and a green magic art struck the blood light surrounding the silver sphere. Suddenly, the blood light gradually turned purple and quickly combusted into an impressive devil fire.

  The bewitching devilfire roasted the silver sphere. Eventually, the silver sphere appeared as if it were made from sand and started to break into specks of silver, producing a humming noise.

  Han Li carefully looked at it and saw that the silver specks were soybean sized flying insects. Apart from sharp teeth that could be seen with the naked eye, they appeared exactly the same as a common beetle and didn’t seem noteworthy in the least.

  Han Li was confused! Was this not the Gold Devouring Beetle? Could he have been mistaken?

  But after looking at them for a moment more, Han Li was stunned.

  Crooked Soul’s devilfire wasn’t burning the beetles at all. Not only were they unscathed, but incredulously, they were eating the devilfire at an extremely fast pace. In the blink of an eye, half of the violet flame had disappeared.

  After recovering from his surprise, Han Li was wild with joy.

  He instantly opened the leather bag at his waist and released his two Bloodjade spiders with a flash of light.

  Without any hesitation, he gave the order to capture them alive.

  The instance when the final flames of the devilfire were eaten away by the Gold Devouring Bugs, his two spiders shot out a shining white liquid from their mouths that turned into two three-meter-wide nets. They were much different than ordinary webs. Their extremely finely woven webs left gaps too small for the silver beetles to escape.

  The Gold Devouring Beetles detected danger and immediately turned into silver arrows, fiercely attempting to shoot out of the web.

  Pupu. The two spider webs firmly held against the assault from the silver arrows, turning the web into a ball and causing the Gold Devouring Beetles to grow frantic. After releasing a deafening screech, they started to tear at the spider webs with their teeth, intending to break free of the spider web and escape.

  The two spiders gave them no such opportunity and continued to spew out mouthfuls of white liquid. In the blink of an eye, the beetles were trapped in a huge ball of webs.

  Han Li knew that the spider webs wouldn’t be able to trap the Gold Devouring Bugs for long, so he hastily took out a jade box and quickly jammed the ball of webs into it. Afterwards, he closed the box and placed it into his storage pouch.

  Normally, demon beasts could only be contained in a specialized spirit beast pouch; otherwise, they would face suffocation from the lack of air in an ordinary storage pouch.

  However, high ranking wondrous bugs were different as they had incomparable vitality and could survive in a storage pouch without air. Otherwise, that Controlling Spirit Sect cultivator definitely wouldn’t have carried so many of his insect larvae in his storage pouch.

  Naturally, if he truly wished to use the beasts to fight, a specialized bag for spirit beasts would be best. Not only could he summon them easier, but it would also be more convenient to train them.

  Most importantly, the specialized pouch was able to store demon beasts at a reduced size, where ordinary storage pouches while incapable of shrinking living things. Thus, even if it were a wondrous bug demon beast, they would still have to be stored in a spirit beast pouch if they were too large.

  Having put away the jade box, Han Li swept his spiritual sense through his Immortal’s cave once more, fearful that he had missed something. Apart from discovering numerous dense, small holes in his storeroom, Han Li didn’t discover anything else.

  Those small holes should’ve been marks left behind from when the Gold Devouring Beetles dug into his Immortal’s cave.

  Since Han Li no longer dared to stay behind in this Immortal’s cave, he immediately left and soared off after retrieving his three magic formations.

  Chapter 388: Crooked Soul’s Devilish Might

  After flying about five kilometers away from Minor Expanse Island, Han Li’s expression suddenly darkened, and he stopped his Divine Wind Boat.

  “Don’t hide! Reveal yourself!” Han Li spoke calmly while facing forward.

  “Yi!” A cry of surprise came from an empty area. With a flash of rainbow brilliance, eight Foundation Establishment cultivators appeared not far in front of him.

  “Han Li, in order to acquire Dustfall Pills, you and Crooked Soul killed the Tail Star Island Lord’s disciple and the other cultivators involved. Now, we’ve come as enforcers by order of our island lord. You are to quickly enter our custody so we may deliver you to Island Lord Zhan Tai for punishment!” A late Foundation Establishment cultivator among the group proudly yelled to Han Li.


  In order to fool the others, Han Li and Crooked Soul had restrained their own cultivation. As a result, the group had misjudged their cultivation and appeared carefree. Although they were somewhat surprised that Han Li had discovered and ruined their ambush, with their superior cultivation and numbers, they should be able to easily handle them! As a result, they were careless and took a blunt, direct approach.

  After calmly sizing them up, Han Li insipidly said, “You are cultivators from Stalwart Star Island? Do you have any evidence that I killed those other cultivators?”

  Upon hearing this, a white-haired old man among them was stunned for a moment before sneering and saying, “What? You still wish to quibble against the testimony of the Six United Palace’s Elder Miao? Don’t get your hopes up! Our island lord has already said that you two are extremely crafty and that we are to immediately destroy your cultivation.”

  Han Li’s expression slightly changed. With a face covered in a layer of icy intent, he said, “Destroy our cultivation? Does your island lord not intend to resolve this matter with us?”

  “Hehe! You two have fled in guilt for several years; the evidence has long been collected. What is there to resolve? Everyone, go! Let’s bring these two back for a reward!” The white-haired old man turned his head, and impatiently called out to the others with wide eyes. Suddenly, the cultivators acted without speaking any further, releasing their magic tools towards Han Li in streaks of overbearing light.

  Han Li watched on with his eyes wide open. How was this possibly intending to destroy his cultivation? It seems they were gazing at him with killing intent and intended to elimnate him.

  Although he didn’t know whether or not there was something amiss, Han Li had no choice but to get rid these cultivators.

  “Crooked Soul, kill them! Don’t allow a single one to escape!” While Han Li’s voice wasn’t loud, it was colder than ice.

  Crooked Soul, who had been standing motionlessly behind Han Li, silently stepped forward and released an astonishing blood-red light. After a moment, his entire body was enveloped in a blinding sphere of light. Then with a soft hiss, a yellow light flashed underneath Crooked Soul’s feet and he shot towards the approaching magic tools.