Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

"Cang Qingfeng".

Tang Jie was stunned by this name.

How could it be him?

Find the original at bit.ly/3Tfs4P4.

When he was leaving the Water Moon Paradise, that monkey's words had piqued Tang Jie's curiosity, and he had gone to investigate this Cang Qingfeng's background.

He really had managed to find something.

This Cang Qingfeng truly had been a Basking Moon disciple, a long-ago disciple from fourteen hundred years ago. If he had survived until now, then he had every right to be considered an ancestor. Alas, many years ago, he had betrayed the sect and fled.

The reason for his betrayal and flight was that a Basking Moon disciple discovered one day that he was cultivating a heretical secret art.

The Basking Moon Sect didn't forbid its disciples to learn the spell arts of other sects. All the disciples needed to do was report on where the spell art had come from, and if they could hand over the spell art to the sect, the sect would pay out a reward commensurate with its value.

But heretical secret arts were not included, like the Ghost Classic of the Ghost Raising Sect. These were forbidden to cultivate.

The records did not say what sort of heretical secret art Cang Qingfeng had cultivated, but it was said that this person had had a mysterious background from the start. The Basking Moon Sect had long ago noticed that he was suspicious and had been watching him, but when they finally found a problem and were preparing to strike, this person saw a chance and fled.

That wasn't even the end of it.

What truly amazed Tang Jie was the people the Basking Moon Sect had sent to chase down Cang Qingfeng.

Xuan Jiuxiao, Ling Chongyue, Shen Wujiu.

In the present, these people weren't famous, but anyone who entered the Water Moon Paradise or was familiar with the talented individuals in history would know who they were.

They had all been illustrious figures of the Basking Moon Sect of that era, their statuses akin to those of Wang Juemie of the Seven Absolutions Sect and Tang Jie of the Basking Moon Sect.

But these people were no longer here.

They had all died at the hands of Cang Qingfeng.

That time was the darkest period in the Basking Moon Sect's history. One genius after another was sent after Cang Qingfeng, but all of them died under his sword. No matter how many people there were or how strong they were, they all met the same end. Numerous geniuses had vanished from the path of cultivation before they even had time to reach their true potential.

Xuan Jiuxiao had been the strongest genius of the Basking Moon Sect at the time. It was said that he had needed only thirty years to reach the Celestial Heart Realm, with Violet Palace in the future. He had had limitless potential, but he had ultimately died at Cang Qingfeng's hand.

Ling Chongyue had been the strongest swordsman prodigy of the Basking Moon Sect. It was said that if he hadn't died to Cang Qingfeng, he would have been the strongest candidate for the Sword of the Basking Moon Sect, not Xiao Biehan.

Shen Wujiu was said to have had the makings of a sect master. He was farsighted and intelligent, and he had personally laid down an execution formation to kill Cang Qingfeng. At the time, he believed that he had successfully killed Cang Qingfeng. When the formation was undone, they had found the remains of a corpse, and there had also been a spirit rain to prove that someone had died. But one hundred years later, Cang Qingfeng reappeared. However, his strength had fallen all the way from the Heart Demon Tier to the peak of Mortal Shedding. Even so, he managed to ambush Shen Wujiu and kill him with a single strike.

At the time, this had been regarded as a fanciful tale. How could someone at the peak of Mortal Shedding kill Shen Wujiu, who had been close to Soul Transformation at the time, with a single strike?

But Tang Jie now knew that this was no exaggerated tale. This was the Sacrificial Sword!

Besides that, the Basking Moon Sect had lost hundreds of other excellent disciples to Cang Qingfeng. One could say that this man had singlehandedly stirred up a storm of blood in the sect.

In the end, it was said that the Cloud Ancestor had personally intervened. He had first placed a mark on a disciple and then used that disciple to bait Cang Qingfeng out. Finally, he used some divine method to launch an attack from five hundred kilometers away, pulverizing Cang Qingfeng in a single strike.

The lake formed from that palm strike was still around: Sageheart's famed Cloud Immortal Lake.

But when he was drawing back his hand, the Cloud Ancestor shook his head. "The evildoer is difficult to exterminate, and the ashes of the dead will blaze back to life eventually. This palm has only bought a few centuries of peace."

From the sound of it, it appeared that Cang Qingfeng was still alive.

But after this incident, all information concerning Cang Qingfeng was sealed, and it was forbidden to speak of Cang Qingfeng among mortals. Tang Jie was able to find out this much because he had an illustrious status in the Basking Moon Sect, and the person in charge of the records had let him take a look in order to get on Tang Jie's good side.

Tang Jie hadn't expected to hear Cang Qingfeng's name again.

The Cloud Ancestor had been right. This guy was truly a cockroach-like evildoer. Even an Immortal Platform Titan hadn't been able to kill him.

He had now appeared again, but this time, he had stopped killing the Basking Moon Sect's people. Instead, he had gifted Xi Canhen a sword and three spell arts.

This left Tang Jie very confused.

He still didn't know much about Cang Qingfeng, but he knew that there was no such thing in the world as a free lunch.

He could tell from how Xi Canhen could kill people two tiers above him after getting the Immeasurable Sword and the Sacrificial Sword art that this was no child's toy. It was an authentic divine art!

Giving something so good so easily to Xi Canhen truly was a little unjustifiable. Thus, Tang Jie made up his mind to meet with Xi Canhen and take a look at his sword and sword art.

Fortunately, Xi Canhen had the same thought.

After telling her tale, Xi Shangyue said, "After learning that you had come to Nadir Hill, Big Brother was very worried about you. But you're too hard to find, and after thinking about it, the two of us decided that we had to show ourselves so that you would come and see us. Thankfully, the heavens favored us and allowed Young Master to see Big Brother."

"Do you have a way to get me to meet with Canhen?"

Xi Shangyue shook her head. "They're currently staying in a house on Whitewater Street and don't go out unless they need to. They know that you're after the Five Energies Sovereign Essence Pill and plan to strike at that time. Before then, they don't want to alarm you. Big Brother used Dark Fiend to break the rules, but after showing himself, he had to return. For the short term, he won't be able to go out alone, so we'll need to look for another opportunity."

"So it was Whitewater Street! Number 28 or 32?"

Xi Shangyue's eyes flashed. "As expected, they couldn't hide it from Young Master. And here I thought I could provide Young Master with some useful information."

"Of course you can. I know how many Heart Demon and Spirit Ring cultivators there are, but I don't know who they are or what their abilities are."

Xi Shangyue covered her mouth and laughed. "Wonderful, finally something that Young Master doesn't know. The two of us didn't plan all this for nothing."

Her laugh and smile were quite striking.

Tang Jie was momentarily taken aback before finally saying, "There are still many things I will have to rely heavily on the two of you for."

Xi Shangyue began to explain what she knew to Tang Jie.

This operation was primarily led by the 12 Hawks. Besides them, Godhead Palace had sent two Heart Demon True Persons and five Spirit Ring True Persons.

One of the Heart Demon True Persons was called "He Yueyang", and the other was called "Li Song". Both were Heart Demon True Persons of profound cultivation.

Of the five other True Persons, Dark Fiend had specialized in pursuit and had been extremely fast. But alas, because he hadn't been on his guard against Xi Canhen, he had been slain by a single strike.

Of the remaining four, one was called "Liang Chunsheng". This person cultivated a secret art that could seize the soul and unsteady the mind. However, he had been sent not to befuddle Tang Jie, but to deal with Tang Jie's mind-seizing art. Although Tang Jie had rarely used the Soul Refining Pearl recently in order to ensure that he exposed no flaws, Godhead Palace had not forgotten his use of it, sending Liang Chunsheng. This person knew how to upset the soul, so he also knew spell arts that could defend against this.

Another was called "Huang Yue", and he was skilled in Insight.

He was Shi Wunian's personal disciple, and though he was only at the Spirit Ring Tier, he had a rather lofty status. Just like Tang Jie, he cultivated the Celestial Eye, but while Tang Jie's Celestial Eye focused on seeing into the void, Huang Yue's emphasized seeing through illusions. Seeing into the void allowed one to see farther and also allowed one to better identify an opponent's weakness, while the one who saw through illusions could differentiate between true and false. Huang Yue's Celestial Eye was extremely mature, and his Insight abilities were far above those of the Panther Monkey. Tang Jie's disguise art and Duplication spell basically didn't exist to him.

The third was called "Ming Yezhen".

Tang Jie froze, instinctively thinking of Ming Yekong.

Ming Yezhen was part of the Ming Clan, one of the four major cultivation clans of Nadir Hill. He specialized in Space, but rather than traveling through space, he was good at sealing space. His goal here was very simple. It was to stop Tang Jie from escaping through the use of some escape art or teleportation talisman.

This was the Nadir Hill Ming Clan's specialty.

When Tang Jie heard that the Ming Clan specialized in Space, he again couldn't help but think about Ming Yekong. Wasn't his expertise also Space?

Tang Jie was basically certain now that Ming Yekong had some ambiguous connection with Nadir Hill. But it wasn't as though Tang Jie was the only one who knew about this. The upper echelons of Basking Moon probably all understood, and the reason they didn't ask any questions was probably that, like with Xi Canhen, while there was a connection, Ming Yekong probably hadn't had a good relationship, and in the end, he had chosen another master.

In the blink of an eye, Tang Jie finished analyzing various possibilities and found the result that was closest to the truth.

"And the last person?" Tang Jie asked.

To his surprise, Xi Shangyue paused, and then she said, "The last person is a woman. She is skilled in formations, and she is primarily here to deal with your formations."

"What's her name?" Tang Jie asked.

Sighing, Xi Shangyue replied, "Her name is 'Xu Mingyue'."

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When Tang Jie came out of Drifting Red Pavilion, he still felt dizzy.

Xu Mingyue!

If he remembered correctly, this person was Xu Muyang's second sister.

In truth, some time ago, Tang Jie had thought about paying a visit to the Xu Clan to see how Xu Muyang's relatives were faring.

But considering his current circumstances, he would only cause trouble for them by associating with them, so he ultimately put aside the idea.

He hadn't expected the people of the Xu Clan to come and find him instead.

'Xu Mingyue is skilled in formations'?

Tang Jie pursed his lips.

Bullshit!

The Xu Clan had never been a clan renowned for formations. Xu Muyang's strength in formations had nothing to do with his clan and came from his own enjoyment of formations. Before him, there had never been any formation expert in the Xu Clan.

As for Xu Mingyue, she was proficient in a variety of things.

As the Xu Clan's mantra was harmful to women, Xu Mingyue was the weakest of the Xu Clan. After advancing to Spirit Ring, she found it hard to advance any more. This woman then began to research the various auxiliaries, surpassing even Xu Muyang in her studies.

But these studies did not include formations.

Perhaps because of her personality, Xu Mingyue didn't like formations. Her expertise was in pills and talismans. Xu Muyang had personally told him all of this.

Even if Xu Mingyue decided to take up formations in remembrance of her little brother and perhaps had some success in the last twenty years, there was no way she could compare to professionals. Moreover, interest was talent, and Xu Mingyue's interest in this pursuit was limited.

She was here for another reason.

Godhead Palace knew about his relationship with Xu Muyang, and while Tang Jie could kill anyone else in Nadir Hill, he couldn't kill members of the Xu Clan. It was for the same reason that Xi Canhen could kill members of the Basking Moon Sect except for Tang Jie.

Unfortunately, while Godhead Palace didn't know of his relationship with Xi Canhen, it did know who Tang Jie respected the most in his life.

Tang Jie deeply frowned.