Immortal Path in the Palm of a Mortal's Hand

Chapter 28 Golden Pages

Saying goodbye to fellow disciples and stewards...

The stone door to the new cave was tightly closed, and a pale blue barrier of light flowed continuously. Chen Fan raised his hand and pressed it against the groove on the edge of the door. The barrier token sensed its owner's presence, and the light barrier vanished silently like ripples on water, allowing the stone door to slide open quietly.

Chen Fan got up and walked to the prayer mat, where he sat down cross-legged.

Chen Fan closed his eyes, and the pure liquid true essence flowed abundantly through his broadened and resilient meridians.

The foundation building was completed in a little over a month.

Inside the cave, Chen Fan sat cross-legged on a futon, taking out the thin, golden page from the depths of his storage bag and placing it on his lap. Iron Armor lay at his legs, clutching a half-piece of spirit stone, gnawing on it with a monotonous "crunch, crunch" sound—the only living sound in the cave.

The pages remain unchanged. The edges are irregularly wavy, and the surface is cool to the touch, covered with intricate and dazzlingly complex patterns. As Master Chiyun once said, this item was obtained from the ruins of an ancient cultivator, containing only the first four layers of the cultivation method; the subsequent parts have long since vanished without a trace.

He had indeed completed the first four levels: Concentration, Transformation of Thoughts, Suppression of Prison, and Suppression of Soul. However, the pages of the book were completely blank from the fifth level onwards, without a single word.

Chen Fan picked up the pages of the book and held them up to the soft light from the luminous pearl inside the cave. The light shone through the translucent, strange material, and the fine patterns refracted a very faint, almost imperceptible golden halo, which was quite beautiful, but that was all; nothing particularly special about it appeared.

The golden page that Han Li obtained contained the complete cultivation technique, seemingly hidden within a layer... not just words on the surface, but a universe within. The page itself might be a seal.

What about my own picture?

True Man Chiyun has possessed this page for decades. If the mystery could be discerned from its surface, given his Core Formation cultivation, he would have already begun cultivating it. How could it be his turn? The fact that he has not cultivated it is proof enough. Either the page has no hidden layer, or... its concealment is so profound that even Core Formation cultivators have failed to detect it.

Try it.

Chen Fan's eyes narrowed slightly, and a stream of pure liquid true essence slowly seeped from his fingertip, carefully injecting it into the patterns on the surface of the book's pages. Foundation Establishment true essence is far more refined than Qi Refining magic power, and its penetrating power is incomparable. When the true essence touched the patterns, those lines lit up slightly, the light flowing, and then... returned to silence.

He channeled his true energy inward. The patterns and light shone a little brighter, but the pages themselves remained unresponsive, as if they had sunk to the bottom of the sea.

Turning the page, I repeated the process. True essence seeped in from the back, the patterns lit up, but remained unchanged.

Chen Fan placed the pages on his lap, staring at them expressionlessly. Something was wrong. If only the first four layers remained, where would the subsequent cultivation methods be found? The material of this page itself was strange. Ordinary jade slips and golden pages, when infused with Foundation Establishment true essence, would either display words or shatter directly. This one, however, neither displayed words nor broke; the true essence poured in was like a mud ox entering the sea, not even causing a ripple. The peculiarity of the material itself indicated a hidden secret!

Divine senses probed out.

The patterns on the book's pages were clearly visible under his divine sense, as if etched onto a stone slab. He focused his divine sense, no longer lingering on the surface, but pressing it deep into the patterns, attempting to penetrate the material itself. His divine sense painstakingly seeped to a depth about the thickness of a hair, suddenly encountering an extremely thin yet incredibly resilient barrier. There was no fluctuation of spiritual energy; it wasn't a restriction, but simply that the material's internal structure had become exceptionally dense, preventing his divine sense from advancing an inch!

True essence and divine sense activated simultaneously! The left hand held the book page, continuously pouring in foundation-building true essence; the right hand made a hand seal, condensing divine sense into a sharp cone, fiercely stabbing towards the obstruction!

The moment the two forces converged within the pages of the book...

hum!

A soft hum resounded from the depths of Chen Fan's consciousness! It was as if an ancient, unlocked, yet incredibly heavy door had been pushed open!

The next instant, a strange change occurred on the surface of the book's pages!

Countless fine lines, as thin as gossamer and purely formed of golden light, suddenly peeled off the page and rose up! They did not dissipate, but rather rapidly intertwined, coiled, and outlined themselves in the half-foot of empty space above the page! In the blink of an eye, lines of square, ancient seal script, with strokes as sharp and powerful as if carved by a knife and axe, appeared suspended in mid-air!

At the very top, five large characters pierced through the void: "Dayan Zhenyu Jing" (Great Evolution Prison Suppression Scripture)!

The first layer, Concentration. The second layer, Transformation of Thought. The third layer, Suppression of Prison. The fourth layer, Suppression of Soul… all were exactly the same as what he had cultivated. The golden threads continued to weave and extend rapidly downwards without stopping…

Fifth floor. Sixth floor. Seventh floor…

Heading downwards.

Ninth floor. Tenth floor…

The gold lines are still being drawn.

The thirteenth level! ... "Great Evolution Returns to One"!

The golden light finally settled. The complete thirteen layers of the cultivation method, starting from the Foundation Establishment stage and extending all the way to the elusive and unpredictable early Nascent Soul stage, floated majestically before our eyes!

Chen Fan's fingers, gripping the edge of the book, tightened suddenly, his knuckles turning bluish-white from the excessive force.

The complete text! Not a fragment, but a complete thirteen-level Great Dao inheritance that leads directly to the Nascent Soul stage!

True Man Chiyun… a Core Formation cultivator, had possessed this page for decades. He had tested it with his true essence and scanned it with his divine sense, yet he still couldn't decipher its mysteries! It wasn't that he wasn't careful enough; the pages' interlayers showed no leakage of spiritual energy. Only by simultaneously applying pure Foundation Establishment true essence and refined divine sense to its internal structure, converging at a specific point, could it be triggered! Who would expend their energy to force true essence and divine sense into the depths of a seemingly unaffected, "damaged" page? When Chiyun obtained the treasure, he was already in the late Foundation Establishment stage. After scanning it with his divine sense and confirming that only the first four layers existed, he considered it useless and discarded it in a corner of his storage bag. Why would a Core Formation cultivator waste so much energy on a "fragment"?

Thus, this complete inheritance, which was enough to drive even a Nascent Soul cultivator mad, had been gathering dust in his storage bag for decades. In the end, it fell into Chen Fan's hands as an "add-on," just like discarding a useless item.

Chen Fan placed the book pages on his lap, his chest rising and falling slightly. He took a deep breath, the cold air filling his lungs. He abruptly stood up and paced back and forth in the cramped cave, his footsteps silent yet carrying a forced, suppressed rhythm. After pacing three times, he abruptly stopped. He took out a blank jade slip from his storage bag, and with his divine sense, meticulously inscribed the names of the thirteen layers of cultivation techniques, their corresponding realms, and the prerequisites for cultivation, all of which were floating in his mind. After finishing, he put the jade slip away and placed it next to the strange bone fragment wrapped in thick oilcloth.

After the armored creature finished gnawing on the scraps, its tentacles unconsciously twitched in Chen Fan's direction.

Chen Fan sat back down on the futon, his face expressionless. He tucked the golden page containing the path to heaven back into the hidden pocket inside his Daoist robe, close to his chest. The cold, hard touch through the fabric felt like a brand.

The Nascent Soul cultivation technique… Yue Kingdom, a barren desert of cultivation, is sparsely populated with spiritual energy and scarce resources. Even if the entire nation were to exhaust its resources, it might not be able to support a mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator. Nascent Soul? That's nothing short of a pipe dream. Spirit Beast Mountain is no place to linger, nor is Yue Kingdom a place to stay forever. The day when the six demonic sects will turn their armies against us is not far off, the banner of rebellion will soon rise on Spirit Beast Mountain, and the seven sects of Yue Kingdom will crumble in an instant… By then, it will be too late to find a way out. We must leave. But before fleeing, we must accumulate enough resources.