Lucian opened his eyes once again, and this time, he stood in the heart of an infinite, silent void.
"Ah..."
Lucian exhaled slowly, and the entire cosmic space trembled at his breath.
Boundless power.
The power to create Heaven and Earth, shatter them a thousand times over, and weave them back together with a single thought. Never in his existence had he felt such absolute, terrifying power.
Instinctively, a solitary truth took root in his soul:
’I am the Immortal.’
His gaze, blazing with condensed starlight, looked down upon the universe beneath his feet. Countless galaxies and solar systems drifted like shimmering dust in a chaotic yet perfectly balanced harmony.
Curious about the extent of his powers, Lucian focused his will upon a barren, dying planet drifting alone in the dark.
He leaned forward and breathed upon it.
The dead world, which should have frozen into cosmic ash, suddenly sprang to life. Volcanic fires cooled into fertile soil, and a great ice age blanketed the continents in pure white snow.
Lucian waved his hand, letting time race forward by years in seconds.
The ice receded, and the evolution of an entire world unfolded before his unblinking eyes. It was the most brutal, beautiful spectacle he had ever witnessed.
At his silent will, the sun, moon, and neighboring planets shifted their orbits, locking into the exact astronomical alignment required to nurture life.
Seasons flashed in a blink of an eye. Comets crashed, oceans boiled, and great tectonic plates collided long before the first living cell ever stirred.
Then, microscopic organisms too small for mortal eyes formed in the warm waters, spreading across every tide pool.
He gave birth to One; One turned into Two; Two turned into Three; Three blossomed into the myriad things of creation.
Lucian watched it all with detached fascination. His omnipotent consciousness recorded every grain of sand, every wave, and every sprout simultaneously.
Soon, vast forests swept across the continents, and beasts of every shape and size roamed the earth he had breathed into existence.
And then, something extraordinary occurred.
From the lingering essence of his initial breath and the natural harmony of Heaven and Earth, a Human was born.
She possessed a sharp, radiant intelligence far surpassing any beast on the planet.
The First Human walked the four corners of the world, observing the thunder, the rivers, and the stars. To survive and understand the violent majesty of nature, she invented Cultivation—absorbing ambient spiritual energy to strengthen her mortal vessel.
Growing increasingly lonely in the vast wilderness, the woman gathered moist clay from a riverbank, shaping figures in her own likeness and breathing life into them, just as Lucian had breathed upon the planet.
’So she is acting like the first god for humans?’
Lucian felt no anger at her. Instead, he felt the quiet, warm joy of a father watching a child take her very first independent steps.
After shaping one hundred and eight humans, the First Human taught them how to speak, make fire, and farm, building a modest settlement in the center of the continent.
Watching her stand proudly among her people, a random, gentle image of a blooming Tulip crossed Lucian’s mind.
"From this day forth, you shall be named Yu Li," Lucian declared into the void.
He did not yet realize the absolute weight of an immortal’s decree.
The moment the words left his lips, thousands of radiant golden tulips condensed out of pure spiritual energy, descending from the clouds to weave an ethereal crown atop her head, designating her as the Mother Goddess of Humankind.
Enlightenment flooded Yu Li’s soul. Her cultivation broke through mortal limits in an instant, and she gazed up toward the stars, perceiving the boundless cosmos.
After passing down the foundational methods of cultivation to all one hundred and eight mortals, Yu Li departed the world, ascending into the starry skies alongside her companion—a young celestial dragon born from the mountains.
Left behind, humanity multiplied.
Lucian watched civilizations rise and fall from his silent space.
The original one hundred and eight founders drifted to the stars, and new generations took up the mantle of power.
Thousands of years swept past until a flourishing cultivation world covered the planet.
Yet with power came ambition, and with ambition came endless war.
Sects clashed over spirit veins, dynasties burned to ashes, and blood stained the continents. Lucian felt a quiet pang of sorrow watching so many fragile souls perish in meaningless slaughter.
Reaching out with his will, he carved out an independent underworld—an afterlife where wandering souls could reunite with those they loved and send gentle farewells to their living kin through dreams.
Time, which stops for no one, held no meaning for Lucian. Over the centuries, he watched greedy cultivators exploit his spirit veins and twist his gifts for profit, but accepting it as the natural course of mortal will, he simply continued to watch.
Then, his gaze drifted toward the frozen northern edge of the continent.
Down in a snow-swept place, a small settlement of people took in a strange young man who had seemingly fallen out of the sky.
Two months of quiet hunting passed peacefully, until a sudden, merciless catastrophe destroyed everything.
The villagers were butchered. The young man was left kneeling alone in the snow, clutching the bodies of his family, sobbing until his voice broke.
Then, a grief-stricken roar tore through the clouds, reaching all the way to Lucian.
"HEAVENS ABOVE!"
A strange, uncontrollable ache squeezed Lucian’s chest.
"I am a grandson to my grandmother, a nephew to my Uncle, a big brother to my younger brother, a lover to my lover, and above all, I am &$#%@∆, the kin of all these people! Like the spark of happiness you bestowed upon them, I offer you my blood in return for their safe and happy journey to the afterlife!"
Lucian stared down at the burning pyre in absolute daze. The young man’s name sounded static in his ears.
"Let’s meet again, everyone... in the afterlife you believe," the boy whispered before his form vanished into thin air.
Centuries marched on, yet Lucian remained seated in profound silence, unable to shake the phantom ache in his heart.
Sometime later, another anomaly appeared.
A young disciple appeared out of nowhere in an ordinary sect, possessing a pre-established background as an unranked lay youth.
Lucian turned his gaze toward him, watching his life unfold.
This man’s journey was far longer but similarly bitter like the boy in the snow.
Unlike the unconditional warmth the hunter had received, this youth knew little affection—sparing only the gruff care of an eccentric master.
Lucian watched as the master vanished into a perilous secret realm to get precious treasure for his disciple and die there, leaving the disciple behind to weather decades of mockery, poverty, and poisoned veins.
Lucian had witnessed millions of such tragedies across time. To an immortal, this struggling youth was just another grain of sand in a cruel world.
Yet mortality offered no second chances. The young disciple’s hair turned gray in his late twenties, his body hunched and scarred from walking a road that offered him no glory.
Then came the day of the sect entrance exams.
Leaning against a wooden rail, the gray-haired man looked down at the excited new recruits and smiled—the most open, unapologetic, and radiant smile he had ever worn.
Lucian focused his perception, and the man’s final thought echoed clearly across the stars:
’I just hope that whatever you all choose, you stay just as you are now.’
"Filled with life, brimming with hope, and always striving forward on the immortal path."
With that, the man’s physical form broke into silver dust, scattering into the wind.
Lucian hovered in the void, deeply troubled.
’Just what was the immortal path he dreamed of?’
It was a question the universe could not answer. Lucian searched the planet, the mortal cities, and even the afterlife he had created, but the man had left behind no soul, no reincarnation, and no trace.
Yet Lucian knew that both men—the boy in the snow and the sect disciple—were the exact same soul.
He remembered the desperate plea the hunter had shouted to the heavens as he ignited the pyre: a prayer for a safe journey to the afterlife.
Because he was an Immortal, he granted that request.
"Granted."
Lucian spoke the word, and the fundamental laws of reality bent to his will.
The stars shifted. The void before him rippled like water, and familiar figures began materializing on the cosmic stage one by one.
There stood kind Granny Meng, Village Chief Xiao, Uncle Han resting his heavy spear on his shoulder, the silent woodcutter, the blacksmith, Mei holding her pale Ice Lotus, little mute Yan, the various figures of the village and even Elder Qi, frowning with arms crossed.
’Huh?’
Lucian stared at them, startled as hot, uncontrollable tears began streaming down his face.
Why was an all-powerful Immortal weeping for strangers?
As if sensing his confusion, little Yan stepped forward across the starlight.
The boy looked up into Lucian’s glowing eyes, reached out with his small, warm hand, and lightly tapped Lucian’s chest.
Thump.
That single, fragile touch hit Lucian’s soul like a shattered mirror snapping back into place.
The dam broke.
The numbness of godhood shattered into splinters. The memories rushed back in a roaring tidal wave: the bitter cold of the blizzard, the salt sprinkled around the dead, the corroded meridians, the broom sweeping stone steps, the pride of standing unbroken.
He was the boy in the snow.
He was the disciple.
He was Lucian.
"Ha-ha-hahahahahaha...!"
Lucian threw his head back, laughing with pure, wild, and liberating joy into the boundless heavens.
Standing before him, the villagers and his master smiled warmly, their eyes filled with pride and affection. Slowly, their figures dissolved into motes of golden light, flowing straight into Lucian’s chest to become an eternal, inextinguishable warmth.
Opening his eyes once more, Lucian looked upon the vast universe with absolute clarity.
"That’s right, my Immortal path is..."
***
The next instant, Lucian found himself standing once again amidst drifting white clouds. Directly in front of him stood a weathered stone statue of an elderly Daoist.
’What a long trial.’ Lucian sighed softly, his limbs feeling strangely light.
He instinctively knew that the disciple trials had concluded, though he had no idea whether he had officially passed or failed the sect’s recruitment.
He certainly hadn’t anticipated the test would take him through the entirety of a mortal life, decades of bitter cultivation, and the dizzying heights of immortality.
He did not even know what the passing criteria was.
"Senior Xuanling!" Lucian called out into the mist but no one answered him.
Suddenly, a warm, golden radiance flared from the stone statue’s eyes.
Lucian watched in stunned silence as the gray stone softened, shifting into living skin, white hair, and flowing Daoist robes. In a matter of seconds, the inanimate statue transformed into a lifelike, breathing figure of an old man.
"Sit."
The old man spoke with a voice as gentle as a morning breeze. A tranquil, invisible warmth washed over Lucian’s soul, instantly soothing his racing heartbeat.
Before Lucian could move, a low tea table made of ancient, fragrant wood and two soft meditation cushions materialized silently between them upon the clouds.
"Sit, child. This old man is called Taixu Mystic Immortal, and I am the founder of The Boundless Mystery Sect."
As the old man spoke, his calm gaze pierced straight through the dense protective formations of the trial realm.
Hovering in the air, Senior Xuanling was in a state of absolute panic, spinning frantically as the entire trial realm threatened to crack apart.
Poor Xuanling simply thought it would soon be punished for breaking the sect’s laws.