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

by Translator: Johnchen

  Immediately thereafter, Han Li made a hand seal with each of his hands, and golden lightning began to flash within both of his sleeves.

  After adopting all of these defensive measures, Han Li transmitted an instruction to the puppet using his spiritual sense with a grim expression on his face.

  The giant ape puppet immediately stepped forward, raising its arms before pressing its hands against the gate before it.

  Han Li looked on with bated breath, only for the gate to be slowly pushed open without a hitch.

  It seemed that no restrictions had been placed on this gate.

  Han Li was naturally ecstatic to see this, but as a safety precaution, he urged the puppet to make its way into the side palace first.

  Thus, the giant ape puppet walked into the palace and no mishaps occurred. Only then did Han Li heave a faint sigh of relief as the protective layers of spiritual light around his body vanished in a flash. At the same time, he quickly clenched his fists, and the golden lightning in his sleeves also disappeared in a soundless manner.

  After that, he quickly made his way into the side palace.

  After arriving in the side palace, the giant ape puppet was already standing beside the entrance in a completely motionless manner.

  Han Li quickly cast his gaze around the palace, and a hint of surprise appeared on his face in response to what he saw.

  At the center of the palace was a giant table that was as pristine white as jade, and a shimmering purple shrine stood on the table, within which was a blurry and indistinct deity statue.

  Across from the statue were hundreds of yellow futons, and on top of that, there was an azure incense burner positioned at each of the four corners of the palace.

  The faint scent of sandalwood wafted throughout the entire room.

  Chapter 1709: Mats, Incense, and a God Statue

  The place appeared to be a Buddhist Temple.

  The area wasn’t small. There was even a small gate to either side, each a passage to a different area.

  Han Li quickly swept his gaze past the large hall and eventually looked at the two rows of wooden cabinets.

  The wooden cabinets were white as snow and faintly released threads of icy Qi. They were made from the snow wood famous throughout the spirit realm.

  The wood was an ideal material to refine ice attributed treasures, but here it was being used as the material for a common cabinet. This was so extravagant, it left Han Li speechless.

  The cabinets had a dozen various-colored tools laid on top of them. From a distance, he could see scepters, alms bowls, small bells, and other items.

  Han Li narrowed his eyes and his spiritual senses swept past the objects. After a brief moment of shock, delight beamed from his face.

  The tools possessed astonishing spiritual Qi, every one of them a top-grade half-finished treasure. If the original master refined them fully, they would be considered common spirit treasures at the very least, if not Divine Spirit Treasures.

  Most importantly, from the outer appearance of the treasures, he knew they were obscure treasures of extraordinary abilities.

  Even if he spent the effort to truly refine them completely, their effectiveness would still be as powerful as treasures refined by their original master. In this case, they could be considered top-grade treasures of the spirit realm.

  Han Li shook his sleeve and suddenly, a wave of azure mist flew out and swept over the area, sweeping up every last treasure.

  After acquiring so many powerful treasures, Han Li felt delighted.

  After looking past the hall once more, he slowly lowered his head and looked at one of the mats several times. Suddenly, he let out a yelp as if he discovered something.

  He immediately swiped his hand out the ground. Woosh. The mat silently entered his grasp. Not only did he find it flexible as water and numbing to the touch, but he sensed a wave of spiritual Qi suddenly blow past him.

  “This is...” Han Li’s eye flickered.

  The mat was clearly refined from some sort of spirit grass. It survived an unknown number of years yet it was still brimming with spiritual Qi.

  His expression stirred as if he had discovered something. Suddenly, he placed the mat underneath his nose and took a sniff, catching a faintly fishy scent.

  Han Li’s face turned off and he flipped his other hand. In an azure flash, a meter-long sword appeared in his hand.

  He flung it at the mat and shook his wrist, chopping at it with a streak of swordlight.

  An astonishing scene occurred. The swordlight sliced atop the mat with seemingly unstoppable force and entered several inches deep before being firmly deflected.

  Yellow light roamed across the surface of the light and restored the cut damage from the sword. The grass alone had blocked the strike from the Bamboo Cloudswarm Sword.

  Han Li flipped the mat several times and muttered, “This must be the legendary Cloth Armor Grass! It is a truly fantastical item. The grass by itself is capable of blocking the strikes of blade-type magic treasures. If turned into armor, it’ll be a top-grade defense. It is a pity that it’s deeply vulnerable to fire-attributed attack. This is truly an Immortal’s residence. They used such a vastly important material as a mere mat.”

  Since he’s discovered the mat’s value, he naturally wouldn’t leave it there.

  He promptly stretched out a pitch-black palm from his sleeve and he casually grasped towards the ground. A grey wave of light soon rolled across it.

  As grey light flickered, hundreds of mats silently vanished from the ground, sweeping the entire hall clear.

  When his spiritual sense swept through the storage pouch and saw the mats neatly arranged, he nodded with satisfaction. Since the grass has long been extinct in the spirit realm, the mats alone made the trip worth it.

  With that thought, Han Li let out a long sigh and took a deep breath. For some reason, he felt the scent of the sandalwood seemed to have grown denser.

  “Sandalwood!”

  He suddenly turned his head and his eyes lit up as he quickly looked at the incense burner at the corner of the room.

  The incense stick in the burner was burned halfway and its color was a faint yellow. It was unknown how long it was placed there.

  Han Li’s brow stirred and he took large strides towards the corner. But before he arrived, he had already looked at the incense burner with his spiritual sense and immediately frowned.

  Surprisingly, the incense burner was made out of common bronze. It couldn't be considered a magic tool.

  Han Li blinked and he already walked in front of the incense burner. He then lowered his head and looked at the remaining third of the burning incense stick. A rich scent was leaking from the stick.

  The stick appeared to be more than meets the eye. From its appearance, it was no different from a common incense stick. But since it was able to retain a dense fragrance after so much time had passed, it must be extraordinary.

  Han Li looked at it for a long while and his face turned grim.

  He raised his hand and reached out to extinguish the burning incense, but before he touched it, spiritual light flashed and a layer of azure light wrapped around his fingers.

  With extreme care, he put out the tip of the burning incense and nothing happened.

  However, Han Li’s expression still remained odd. He sternly looked at the incense several more times and took a long sniff before wearing a pensive face.

  Suddenly, he flicked his finger and red light flashed. A rice-sized star shot out from his fingertips and struck the end of the incense stick.

  As the light faded away, the incense wasn’t reignited.

  Han Li narrowed his eyes, faintly betraying a trace of excitement. He flicked his finger again and a crimson fireball shot out from the tip of his finger. It floated motionlessly in the air.

  When the fireball struck the end of the incense stick, he stared in silence.

  As a result, the scorching flames hadn’t burned the incense stick in the sli
ghtest.

  “As expected, its the Serene Blackice Incense! It wards off one’s inner demons when breaking through to the Body Integration stage!”

  When Han Li saw this, he wore a face of delight.

  He promptly flipped his hand and a pure-white jade box appeared in his hand. He carefully put the stick into his hand.

  Afterwards, his body shifted as he looked for the other half-burned incense stick at the other corners of the hall. With that said, he summoned a jade box in his hand with a flicker and it completely vanished.

  Afterwards, Han Li took another look throughout the hall. It was a pity there weren't many things there to begin with. Apart from the shrine and the withered spirit fruits offered to the shrine, there was nothing else.

  With that, he eventually took a look at the shrine.

  Purple light shimmered from the shrine and it appeared three meters tall. It contained the statue of a god as if it had been carved from top-grade jade.

  The god statue wore green robes and held a snow-white horsetail whisk in one hand and a purple gourd in the other. He had a long beard and mustache trailing down his chin, giving him a faintly Immortal aura.

  However, Han Li simply looked at the god statue for a short moment more, and he couldn't help but betray his shock.

  He suddenly discovered that no matter how long he stared at the statue’s face, he could only see a haze of glimmering green light in front of it. He hadn’t been able to perceive the statue’s true appearance.

  Suddenly, he narrowed his eyes and blue light soon shined from them. He then forcefully peered at the god statue’s face.

  It did have an effect. He gradually saw through green light mist covering the statue’s face and saw it thin out.

  His mood lit up and his gaze grew focused, wanting to look at the god statue’s face.

  But before he could see the finer details, a heavenly sound and a Buddhist chant rang through his mind. As his ears rang, his entire spiritual sense was thrown into disarray.

  Han Li's eyes turned black and he staggered to the ground. He took a seat, nearly dazed.

  Fortunately, his spiritual sense was comparable to Body Integration-grade cultivators. After hastily circulating the Great Development Arts through his body, he eventually regained clarity of mind and stood back up.

  After straightening himself, he took another look at the god statue with bewilderment.

  The god statue was so strange; even given his current cultivation stage, he wasn’t able to see its true appearance. The statue itself was a grand treasure of immeasurable power.

  Since it was enshrined, the statue must’ve been modeled after an important figure even in the True Immortal Realm.

  The god statue was an immensely profound object. Even a few vastly powerful individuals in the spirit realm, drew the support of god statues to manifest the primal soul or soul fragment from a deity an unfathomable distance away.

  Even though it had never been heard of for an immortal of the True Immortal Realm to use such a method to descend into the Spirit Realm, taking this god statue would definitely be unwise if it really were modeled after an important figure of the True Immortal Realm.

  Han Li’s expression wavered for a long while before he eventually took a deep breath. After forcefully suppressing his desires, he looked away from the shrine and to a door at the side.

  His body stirred and he walked over without any further hesitation. And with a mental command, the huge ape puppet followed after him.

  Soon, all that was left in the hall was the lone shrine.

  At that moment, Han Li already walked through a passage and arrived in front of a dozen side rooms. The rooms didn’t appear very large and there all appeared identical.

  Han Li quickly looked at them and had the huge ape puppet open the doors to the rooms one by one. When he saw that nothing happened, he began to flicker and enter each of the rooms.

  Chapter 1710: Golden Sword

  The interior was very simple; there was a small door that separated the rectangular room into two sections. The outer section was the larger one of the two, and it was clearly a guest hall, which was completely empty aside from a simple table and some chairs, as well as a tea set.

  Han Li swept his spiritual sense over these items to find that the materials used for them were all quite precious, but they were completely useless to him. Thus, he continued onward without pause, stepping into the inner section, which appeared to be a bedroom.

  There were slightly more items in this room. Aside from a faint green jade bed, there was also a rectangular desk, upon which were placed several writing brushes, a faint red inkstone, and a pile of thin snowy-white silk-like sheets.

  Han Li's raised an eyebrow as he strode over to the desk. He picked up the writing brushes and inkstone one after another before giving them a quick inspection, but he then shook his head before putting them down again.

  After that, he reached out to grab the thin silk sheets before gently spreading them open, only to find that they were completely blank and devoid of any writing.

  Han Li's expression remained unchanged upon seeing this. He placed the silk sheets back to their original spot, then carefully swept his spiritual sense through the entire room again to make sure that he wasn't missing anything before immediately departing.

  This was clearly the living quarters for a disciple, so he didn't have high hopes that he would discover anything useful here anyway. As such, he naturally wasn't going to linger here for too long.

  Furthermore, there were over 10 rooms that were similar to this one, and he was on a tight schedule, so he couldn't conduct thorough investigations of all of these rooms.

  Thus, Han Li quickly searched through the dozen or so rooms, but didn't reap any worthwhile rewards for his efforts aside from a few jade slips, which had an unknown ancient scripture inscribed upon them.

  These jade slips had only been casually placed on a bedside table, so they most likely weren't important anyway. Han Li had only picked them up as an afterthought, thinking that he could perhaps glean some useful information from them if he were to decipher this ancient text someday.

  After all, he was very curious about everything in the True Immortal Realm.

  He returned to the main hall with his puppet, then immediately strode through the side door on the other wall. After passing through another passageway, Han Li found himself standing in front of another orderly row of cabins.

  These cabins were completely different from the rooms he'd just visited; each cabin was completely square and angular in shape with a small door and no windows.

  Furthermore, all of the cabins were completely independent from one another, with a distance of over 100 feet between each cabin.

  What especially drew Han Li's attention was that the surfaces of these cabins were all shimmering with silver light and inscribed with faint silver runes, which were none other than the beveled silver text that he was now extremely familiar with.

  Han Li stared at these cabins for a while before finally ascertaining that these were secret chambers specifically designated for cultivation. This was quite an encouraging discovery to him as it was very possible that there could be things left behind in these secret chambers by the people who had cultivated inside them in the past.

  However, a slightly grave look then appeared on his face at the sight of the finely inscribed silver runes on the doors of the cabins.

  Generally speaking, restrictions and formations that were set up on secret chambers were ones that isolated sound and kept out spiritual sense. However, with the terrifying ordeal he had suffered at the gate of the main palace earlier, he naturally wasn't going to take things lightly.

  On this occasion, he didn't spur on his giant ape puppet to test anything. Instead, he set up a few layers of defenses over his own body, then swept a sleeve directly toward the stone door of one of the secret chambers.

  A small azure sword shot forth, then transformed into an azure streak of light
that was around 10 feet in length before striking the door in a vicious manner.

  He was immediately resorting to brute force to try and force his way through the restrictions on the door!

  Brilliant silver light radiated from the door, and a crisp ringing sound erupted from within the secret chamber. The silver light appeared to be quite ordinary, but it was able to keep out his Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Sword. It was as if the streak of sword Qi had struck a body of water, and was completely unable to break through the silver light; it was only able to slowly wear down this spiritual light.

  However, Han Li was quite relieved to see this.

  Just he had expected, the restrictions on the door weren't capable of retaliation. Furthermore, they were most likely restrictions of a very low caliber in the True Immortal Realm.

  That made sense, considering that this was a row of a dozen or so secret cultivation chambers lined up next to one another; why would anyone set up powerful restrictions on this cluster of buildings?

  With that in mind, he no longer hesitated as he flipped a hand over to produce a tiny black mountain that was around several inches tall, then tossed it forward.

  The mountain immediately expanded to around 10 feet in size amid a flash of black light, then struck the silver light in a vicious manner.

  The restriction on the door was clearly unable to withstand such an enormous impact, and the clear ringing sound immediately cut off while the silver light instantly dissipated.

  Azure light flashed, and the stone door was sliced in half by the azure sword Qi before the two halves of the door fell to either side.

  Han Li stowed away his treasures before quickly striding into the room.

  The secret chamber was only around 70 to 80 feet in size, and the interior was completely empty aside from a futon that had also been woven from Cloth Armor Grass. As such, there wasn't even any need for him to use his spiritual sense to detect anything.

  Thus, he could only heave a faint sigh and exit this secret chamber after picking up the futon. However, there weren't many such secret chambers in this area, so he wasn't actually all that disappointed.