“Thank you, Immortal! Your grace is like giving us life anew—we… we truly don’t know how to thank you!”
“No need for thanks. I like this child, Chun Xiang. She is very clever.”
Just as Mu Qiu Ying was observing this stranger, he suddenly turned his head to look at her.
He asked for her name and even gave her some very valuable things.
It wasn’t until she saw her sister again that she finally learned this man’s name was ‘Chen Juenian’.
“…”
So, why?
‘Chen Juenian’ should have discovered that her talent was better than her sister’s… yet in the end, he still chose her sister, leaving her behind in the Mortal Realm.
She fought her way through the first seven layers of the Heavens Beyond the Sky by herself, bringing her parents, who were destined for mediocrity in the Mortal Realm, onto the Immortal Path.
Meanwhile, her sister was trapped by emotions all day long.
She was jealous of her sister, and even more dissatisfied with ‘Chen Juenian’s’ favoritism.
“!”
Suddenly jolting awake from the dream, Mu Qiu Ying’s first action was to confirm there was no Soul Mark within her Spiritual Consciousness.
This baseless jealousy and so-called dissatisfaction with the Immortal… how could it be what she truly thought?
She had never been jealous of her sister, nor had she ever been dissatisfied with that Immortal.
Neither of them was wrong.
In fact, one could even say that without them, she would never have been able to reach where she was today.
Dispelling all the distracting thoughts from her mind, Mu Qiu Ying closed her eyes once more.
—
As dawn’s first light broke, Chen Juenian got up and began practicing with the weapon he had chosen yesterday.
The bow could absolutely be called an extremely rare weapon in the cultivation world.
It was indeed useful in the early stages of cultivation; the principle of ‘an inch longer, an inch stronger’ was taken to its extreme with it.
Not to mention, with the blessing of Spiritual Energy in the cultivation world, both the speed and power of a bow increased by a large margin.
But problems arose accordingly.
The bow had no corresponding martial techniques, or at least, very few bow-related martial techniques had been developed so far.
Furthermore, when one’s strength rose to a certain level, the bow’s drawbacks gradually became apparent.
One could only hope that the arrow shot wouldn’t be caught and thrown back.
High floor, low ceiling—this led many cultivators who had just stepped onto the Immortal Path to immediately filter out this weapon.
After all, who didn’t have dreams?
Drawing the bow in his hand, Chen Juenian aimed at the wooden dummy in front of him and released his fingers.
The Spiritual Energy Mu Qiu Ying had infused transformed into an arrow, piercing through the wooden dummy’s head and embedding itself into the stone slab behind it.
This level of power was already quite remarkable.
This wooden dummy could withstand attacks from the Foundation Establishment Stage, and now, Chen Juenian, only at the Qi Refining Middle Stage, possessed the strength to kill a Foundation Establishment cultivator with this bow.
The Spiritual Energy arrow was pulled out by Mu Qiu Ying, who had appeared at some unknown time, then gently crushed, the energy returning to her.
“Very impressive. At thirty meters, you can still be so accurate… if you encountered a genuine Foundation Establishment Stage cultivator, this single arrow would be enough to kill them.”
“Yes, Senior Mu. This junior has a question. After the Spiritual Energy in this bow is used up, how should it be replenished?”
To prevent Mu Qiu Ying from awkwardly praising him endlessly, Chen Juenian, who knew everything, proactively raised this question.
“Right now, the Spiritual Energy on this bow is all infused by me. Once you reach the Foundation Establishment Stage and can mobilize Spiritual Energy, you can replenish it yourself.”
“This junior understands.”
“Good. Practice a bit more on your own. If you shoot this dummy to pieces, just replace it. Perhaps you can also try getting closer to see if you can inflict damage on a Core Formation cultivator…”
As she spoke, Mu Qiu Ying recalled what happened when she obtained this bow all those years ago.
Back then, when that Mysterious Voice was still present.
She followed its guidance and obtained this bow in a cave, at a critical moment shooting and killing the Core Formation stage fierce tiger that was chasing her with a single arrow.
The Mysterious Voice was extremely enigmatic.
Although it didn’t appear all the time, before she reached the Refining Void Stage, it would occasionally appear to give her guidance or help her escape.
Was it that Immortal secretly helping?
Impossible.
That Immortal wouldn’t possibly focus his attention on someone he had only met once.
Then who else could it be?
Mu Qiu Ying had no clue.
That voice had no emotion, and one couldn’t even discern its gender.
In the end, Mu Qiu Ying could only assume it was some kind senior expert secretly helping her.
This bow held quite significant meaning for Mu Qiu Ying as well.
Although useless now, it had at least accompanied her through conquering the second layer of the Heavens Beyond the Sky.
Giving it to this junior now was better than letting it collect dust on the palace ceiling.
“I’m going out to take care of some matters. If you don’t want to practice anymore, you can go back to your room to rest or absorb Spiritual Energy here.”
“This junior understands.”
After Mu Qiu Ying left, Chen Juenian brought the bow before his eyes and placed his other hand on the bow limb engraved with the character ‘Seal’.
This bow’s power was far from as weak as Mu Qiu Ying believed.
Back in the day, even an iron rod he casually crafted was a divine artifact, let alone this bow?
Drawing the bow again, Chen Juenian held nothing back this time, exerting all the strength he could currently muster.
With the sound of an arrow splitting the air, the wooden dummy and stone slab in front of Chen Juenian instantly turned to dust.
“…”
Chen Juenian’s primary goal now was to break through to the Foundation Establishment Stage.
Only after reaching Foundation Establishment could he truly begin preparing to lay the foundation for his Innate Talent.
A few million Spirit Stones should be enough for him to buy materials.
Furthermore, after reaching Foundation Establishment, he would not only be able to look inward at his own body but also actively control his Spiritual Consciousness without relying on formations.
Chen Juenian’s Spiritual Consciousness seemed very special.
It wasn’t affected by the rebirth.
Judging by the strength displayed when helping Xuanyuan Jiong break through to Refining Void, his Spiritual Consciousness should still be at its peak.
Being able to casually annihilate Inner Demons… if such words were spoken, aside from certain people who might believe it, others definitely wouldn’t.
Sweeping away the thoughts in his mind, Chen Juenian sat cross-legged outside the palace and began absorbing the surrounding Spiritual Energy.
At the same time, Mu Qiu Ying, having completed a patrol around the Thousand Arms Sect, returned to the front of her palace and saw Chen Juenian in meditation.
The more she looked, the more similar he seemed.
Even his voice was almost identical to the one she heard in her childhood.
Apart from the different hair color, all other characteristics were almost exactly the same as back then!
A son resembling his father was no problem, but looking exactly like his father was a bit of an issue.
“Immortal—”
After softly calling out once, Mu Qiu Ying received no response.
Wasn’t it him?
Right, of course it wasn’t.
Chen Juenian remained seated there, completely unaffected by this abrupt call.
Seemingly deeply focused in his meditative state, he appeared to have defaulted her words to be mere background noise and ignored them.
Generally, a cultivator in a meditative state should have a special perception of things related to themselves.