Traveling through time to cultivate immortality: a life and death test

Liu Xing frantically chanted the Heart-Clearing Mantra, gradually calming his frantic heart. His state of mind also gradually stabilized, and his anxious heart finally settled. It had been too dangerous just now. If he wasn't careful, all his efforts would be wasted and his path to immortality would be cut off.

He was about to retrieve the Chongxu Taoist's foundation-building technique, "Chongxu Fa Jue," to practice. He didn't have any other foundation-building techniques at hand, so he had to make do with it for now. As his realms improved, he needed a follow-up technique to continue practicing, otherwise his magical power would stagnate. He had never had the opportunity to learn foundation-building techniques before. He had planned to join the Xuantian Sect and obtain foundation-building techniques from them, but things didn't go as planned. A series of unforeseen events caught him off guard. He had no choice but to change his strategy and build his foundation first, raising his strength to a higher realm and giving him greater ability to seek out better techniques. His spiritual energy was now vast and raging, and he needed foundation-building techniques to guide his practice, otherwise he would fall back into a lower realm.

At that moment, he felt the bamboo flute in his storage bracelet glow faintly. A thought struck him, wondering if something had happened to the bamboo flute. He immediately summoned it, grasped it in his hand, and slowly infused it with spiritual energy. A powerful suction force emanated from the bamboo flute, instantly sucking away all the spiritual energy within Liu Xing's body, along with much of the medicinal power he hadn't yet refined. At that moment, Liu Xing felt like a deflated ball, his entire body empty, only flesh and blood remaining. However, Liu Xing had experienced the bamboo flute transforming into a spirit before, so he wasn't alarmed. Sure enough, in an instant, a purer spiritual energy, carrying a hint of a foreign, pale yellow substance, returned and infused his dantian.

However, at this moment, something strange happened, and a piece of text came into his mind from the bamboo flute.

"Wind and Thunder Manual Volume 1 - Wind and Cloud Power"—the first thing that caught his eye was these large characters, followed by the content of the exercises, which included cultivation techniques for the Foundation Establishment and Core Formation stages. In fact, this manual was divided into three parts: Volume 1, "Wind and Cloud Power," for the Foundation Establishment and Core Formation stages; Volume 2, "Thunder Power," for the Nascent Soul and Spirit Transformation stages; and Volume 3, "Dragon Riding the Nine Heavens," for the Void Refinement and Fusion stages. However, the contents of Volumes 2 and 3 were obscured by restrictions, and Liu Xing knew nothing about them.

It seems this technique is the Di Xian's main cultivation method, and it seems the bamboo flute is the primary magical instrument of the Di Xian in Jiao Jiao's dream. However, Jiao Jiao described a "green jade flute," but the one he held was a rather unremarkable tan bamboo flute, surely a treasure hidden for protection. The technique's title says "one," but could there be two, three, four, or five more? He speculated that as his realm rose, the subsequent techniques would automatically unlock. He reminded himself not to aim too high and to master the Wind and Cloud Sutra first. His spiritual roots were so weak that even the Foundation Establishment stage was more than ten times more difficult than others, leaving him with no confidence in reaching the Core Formation stage. Now that he had reached the Foundation Establishment stage, his lifespan had increased to 250 years, leaving him with only about two hundred years left. He needed to reach the Core Formation stage within these short 200 years. In the path of immortal cultivation, if you don't advance, you're regressing; every moment counts. He had just broken through the Foundation Establishment stage and was naturally eager to reach the next level, thus building an invisible sense of urgency.

What was his relationship with the Flute Immortal? Liu Xing was perplexed. Was the Flute Immortal reincarnated, or had his remains fallen into his hands? He could only bury these doubts in his heart, waiting to solve them later. For now, he simply followed his instincts, diligently cultivating, racing against time, and finding every possible way to improve his realm. Liu Xing was quite carefree, and soon stopped dwelling on the question of whether the Flute Immortal was reincarnated. After all, everything was moving in a direction that was beneficial to him.

Since the Flute Immortal was so powerful, he decided to follow Bamboo Flute's instructions and focus on Wind and Cloud Power. Liu Xing quickly made his decision, secretly anticipating the magical power of this technique. He estimated that there couldn't be a more powerful technique in the entire human world, unless another immortal had reincarnated into the human world and brought their own techniques with them, but the probability of that was too low.

Liu Xing carefully studied the technique many times, finding it to be complementary to the "Ice and Water Art" he was practicing during his Qi Training phase. This significantly accelerated his understanding of the "Wind and Cloud Art." He was in a rather good mood at the moment. Just when he wanted to sleep, someone offered him a pillow. Just when he needed a Foundation Establishment technique, the bamboo flute delivered the Wind and Cloud Power. Perhaps this was fate, Liu Xing glanced up at the sky outside his cave, muttering to himself.

The next step was easy. He immediately began practicing the techniques of the initial stage of foundation building in the Wind and Cloud Realm. Spiritual energy obediently flowed through his designated meridians, and after a single cycle, he had opened up numerous cultivation channels. He then continued practicing until the newly opened meridians were as spacious and resilient as the others. This was primarily achieved through the special spiritual energy within him, which cleansed the tendons and marrow. Liu Xing had long mastered this technique, now performing it with speed and precision. He discovered that these newly opened meridians had more than doubled the spiritual energy transport channels within his body. As a result, the magnitude and speed of spiritual energy transmission doubled, resulting in a Foundation Establishment cultivator's magical power and cultivation speed exceeding twice that of a Qi Condensation cultivator. Therefore, once the foundation is established, one can officially embark on the path of immortal cultivation, experiencing a qualitative leap in both lifespan and other aspects.

Liu Xing suppressed his inner joy, concentrating his mind and calming his spirit, diligently cultivating Fengyun Jin. Three months passed quickly, and his realm was finally stable. During this time, he also told Jiao Jiao to put her mind at ease. At the same time, Liu Xing also found that with the success of his foundation building, the soul imprint planted in Jiao Jiao's mind became more solid. Now, if Jiao Jiao wanted to rebel, she could not harm him in the slightest. Jiao Jiao next door finally let go of her worries and continued to sleep in the cave. The cultivation of monsters is different from that of humans. Humans need to close their eyes and meditate to practice, but monsters can automatically practice the inherited skills and gradually stimulate the power of their bloodline as long as they sleep. Therefore, many monsters will find that their magic power has increased a lot when they wake up from their slumber. In this way, the method of cultivation of monsters is the most comfortable, but it is much slower to improve the realm.

There are no years in cultivation, and no eons in the mountains. From the moment Liu Xing entered the cave, four years had passed in the blink of an eye. Liu Xing had finally raised his initial Foundation Establishment mana to great perfection, but he still had a long way to go before breaking through the bottleneck of the middle stage.