Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Tang Jie plummeted from the sky like a comet, smashing into the side of a mountain and leaving a massive crater.

Even his formidable body couldn't get him back up.

If one looked carefully, one would find that almost every part of his body was covered in terrifying sword wounds, each wound thick with a frightening energy. Unless Tang Jie spent his life force to activate the Dao of Life or used sof his precious Immortal Spirit energy, he would find it impossible to heal these wounds.

Xiao Biehan appeared above the mountain, grasping his sword. "Tang Jie, do you want to keep fighting?"

Tang Jie gritted his teeth and tried to stand, but the moment he did, another wave of sword light csweeping down.

Xiao Biehan held nothing back, almost shattering his body with a single strike.

If he hadn't ascended to Deification and couldn't muster energy to rebuild his body, this attack might have actually killed him.

Dropping to a knee, Tang Jie began to cough up blood.

"This disciple understands," Tang Jie shakily replied.

As his reward for a successful ascension, Xiao Biehan had given him a callous and painful blow to remind him that he was celebrating too early.

"Two years," Xiao Biehan said. "You still have two years to consolidate your cultivation and grow stronger. So long as you can block my Starlight Execution, you can go and fight Jewel. At that time, even if you can't win, you can at least protect yourself, so at least you can lose without dying. But if you can't even take my Starlight Execution, then it's better for you to not take part in this battle. Jewel's one finger is enough to crush you, and give her hatred toward you and her fear of my Basking Moon Sect, I'm confident that she wouldn't pass up the opportunity."

Tang Jie sighed upon hearing this name.

This was one of Xiao Biehan's strongest moves. He hadn't even used it against Meng Guanshan, yet today, he had used it on Tang Jie.

When he used the Starlight Execution, all of the heavens filled with his sword light.

Every point of sword light was a rotating star, mincing everything around, as if it wanted to dice up the universe into a black hole and devour all the energy within it.

This was Tang Jie's first texperiencing the horror of Xiao Biehan, his first tseeing his ultimate move, and he was dumbfounded. He was dumbfounded at how a Divine Connection could be as powerful as a Dao Art, stunned that even his Infinite Palace couldn't block it.

At that time, Tang Jie had used everything he had—the Infinite Palace, the Immortal Spirit Body, his strongest body strengthening spell art, his strongest barrier spell art, and even the Mother Cloud Essence Metal armor. And all this had just barely been enough to block the strike.

But that seething flood of energy had still left him heavily injured and powerless to keep fighting.

Under this sword, any other light would seem dim by comparison.

And this was only 30% of the Starlight Execution's power.

In this strike, Tang Jie understood why this man was called the Heaven Sword True Lord.

Seeing that Tang Jie had been convinced, Xiao Biehan threw back the God-Conquering Merak Sword, letting it turn back into a mountain.

Putting his hands behind his back, he flew off.

Right after Xiao Biehan left, Ling Xiao arrived.

"Master, this disciple was incompetent and was easily defeated by Martial Uncle," Tang Jie sighed.

Ling Xiao was unsurprised. "If you were able to beat him, I would be wondering if this world was still governed by any sort of reason."

Ling Xiao smiled and went on, "In truth, besides your lack of solid foundations, having just entered Deification, your defeat is also in part because, as Biehan said, your body cultivation strength is growing slowly, so it can't serve as a powerful support like before. Didn't you say that the Parting Classic emphasizes only resources and is able to turn quantity into quality? If you have enough resources, can you make up for the short timeframe?"

"Yes, the Immortal Spirit Body uses an incredible amount of resources, and not just ordinary resources. Even if quantity can make up for quality, it starts from spirit plants that are at least several hundred years old, and huge quantities of them. Even with the wealth from the inter-domain trade, I couldn't satisfy both the needs for the charge at Deification and for my Immortal Spirit Body," Tang Jie helplessly replied.

"You alone aren't enough, but what about the strength of the Basking Moon Sect, the resources of Sageheart? If we paid no mind to the costs, would it be enough?"

Tang Jie was stunned. "Master!"

Ling Xiao placed his hands behind his back. "Tang Jie, you've already created many miracles, but in the end, you are only one person. If you rely only on yourself, your ability to create miracles will ultimately reach its limit. This time, let the Basking Moon Sect becthe support that allows you to create an even more glorious miracle."

Mobilizing the entire power of a sect!

What could possibly be more exciting?

Tang Jie found it impossible to hide his excitement.

It had to be understood that this wasn't as simple as having the disciples go hunting for fiends. That had been a free mission, and not everyone would go and do it. Those that did were mostly lower disciples, and they mostly consumed resources intended for external use.

Now, Ling Xiao was saying that he would mobilize everyone in the sect to serve Tang Jie, and they were going to empty the coffers, not only extracting resources from outside but also using a thousand years' worth of savings on Tang Jie.

In other words, a major sect was handing over a thousand years of its reserves for Tang Jie to use without restriction.

This was exactly why Tang Jie was so stunned.

Ling Xiao smiled. "Don't get too excited. Martial Uncle has already told you that he will break through within five years. All of this is because of you. Today, it is Martial Uncle's task to bring about the ascendancy of the Basking Moon Sect, but in the future, it will be your task. Is there anything better than to have a resurgence in the present and successors to enjoy it? Forto have such a disciple, to see the Basking Moon Sect thriving and developing under my hand, means that I can go unashamed to face our ancestors."

These words essentially confirmed that Tang Jie would be the future sect master.

"Master!" Tang Jie dropped to his knees, unable to say a word.

Ling Xiao smiled and waved his hands. "Enough, enough. It's not like we're dying, only passing on a mission. There's no need to start weeping. After all, you are a Celestial Sovereign and the future leader of the Basking Moon Sect. You have to remember your image. As for investing all of the sect's resources into you, don't get too smug about it. In the future, this will have to be deducted from your inter-domain profits."

Tang Jie laughed. "Master is so awful. If you had mentioned repayment earlier, you would have saveda lot of tears."

"Brat." Ling Xiao slapped Tang Jie on the head. "Don't go acting cute whenever you want something."

The totality of the resources the Basking Moon Sect was investing was so vast that it would take more than a hundred years of Tang Jie's inter-domain trade profits to return, and he was even being generous by not charging interest. And this wasn't even considering the manpower.

Thus, starting from this day, the Basking Moon Sect began to pour resources into Tang Jie.

In the past, Tang Jie would take baths that could expend ten thousand spirit coins at once, but now, one bath was worth several hundred thousand.

The stronger the medicinal power, the longer the tit took to absorb.

To satisfy Tang Jie's needs, the Basking Moon Sect found a place rich in Earthfire, cleaving a mountain to create a lake and drawing out the fire from the earth so as to heat the water.

Tang Jie took his giant form and entered this lake to cultivate.

He ended up cultivating for more than a year.

In this time, Basking Moon Sect disciples constantly dumped in various herbs.

The youngest of these plants was at least five hundred years old. For the Immortal Spirit Body, any younger was useless. All these herbs dissolved into medicinal power for Tang Jie to absorb.

The disciples felt both pained and envious to see all these resources being thrown into the lake. But they were better off than the Storehouse Hall disciples, who were on the verge of tears—warehouses across the land were being emptied, depriving them of their jobs.

The Agriculture Hall disciples were little better off. Sspirit plants that had been planned to grow for more than five hundred years had had these plans canceled and were picked ahead of schedule.

The Commerce Hall and Service Hall were mobilized, the Basking Moon Sect issuing an order that all spirit plants five hundred years or older had to be sold to them, and anyone who refused to sell would be executed.

In short, whether it was in the warehouse or still growing, on their property or someone else's, it had to be handed over. The land of Sageheart was picked clean of every plant that fit the criteria.

In the center of his heated lake, Tang Jie immersed himself in this full service experience. For almost a year and a half, he didn't move a muscle.

His huge body beclike a mountain, his solid muscles becoming the hardest rock as he took root in the center of the lake. The scalding heat could melt steel, but it couldn't harm a single hair on him.

Unlike with the Diamond Body, Tang Jie's body no longer grew, despite the copious amounts of medicinal power he absorbed. As the medicinal power entered his body, it was all converted to Immortal Spirit power by the Parting Classic and stored within him.

Immortal Spirit power cfrom Tang Jie's own power, with each drop requiring him to basically squeeze himself dry, allowing the Parting Classic to refine this energy into Immortal Spirit power.

This was a mysterious power that even surpassed the power of a Primal Infant.

Tang Jie could clearly sense that the Parting Classic's body cultivation path began to exceed the law cultivation path at this point. While the Diamond Body and Celestial Heart Realm weren't too different from each other, the gap widened at the Immortal Spirit Body and Violet Palace Realm.

When Tang Jie first attained the Immortal Spirit Body, he didn't have much Immortal Spirit power, so he hadn't been able to feel this difference. Even so, when he had been facing Han Wuxin, who had activated the power of his Dao armament, that little bit of Immortal Spirit power had kept him alive.

Now, thanks to that endless stream of medicinal power, his reserve of Immortal Spirit power was growing, and bringing with it shocking progress.

Tang Jie sensed that although he was far from the peak even of the Immortal Spirit Body's early phase, the power within him was enough to match a Deification expert.

In other words, with just this minor early-phase Immortal Spirit Body, he could fight against a Deification expert.

He had to keep going!

Driven by this clear progress, Tang Jie greedily seized all the power that the Basking Moon Sect offered, and even this wasn't enough. When Tang Jie told Ling Xiao of his progress and the changes he had experienced, Ling Xiao unexpectedly decided to take a loan from the Seven Absolutions Sect.

As the richest sect in the Rosecloud Domain, it was the only one capable of continuing to provide the vast quantity of resources Tang Jie needed.

Initially, the Seven Absolutions Sect wanted to refuse.

After that honeymoon period against Godhead Palace, the two sects had gradually turned cold to each other.

After all, Tang Jie was going to fight the Jewel Immortal Sovereign of Horizon Ocean Pavilion, and Horizon Ocean Pavilion and the Seven Absolutions Sect were allies.

Just like how the Thousand Passions Sect was unhappy to see the Seven Absolutions Sect growing closer to the Basking Moon Sect, Horizon Ocean Pavilion had its objections toward the Seven Absolutions Sect.

But every sect was independent, and so long as they didn't break any longstanding principles, they wouldn't meddle too much in each other's business.

But on this matter, the Seven Absolutions Sect truly couldn't offer aid.

However, Yun Tianlan soon paid a personal visit to the ancestor of the Seven Absolutions Sect.

Nobody knew what they discussed, but after that meeting, the ancestor personally issued an order to unconditionally provide resources to the Basking Moon Sect.

They weren't as crazed as the Basking Moon Sect, emptying out everything and leaving nothing behind, but as the Seven Absolutions Sect had gained much of Nadir Hill's resources and territory, essentially controlling two sects' worth of wealth, just providing half of their wealth was like an entire Basking Moon Sect.

Moreover, even the Thousand Passions Sect started to volunteer resources for Tang Jie.

These women had seemingly realized something and started to put aside their grudges and mend their relations.

A little less than half of the Rosecloud Domain's resources began to converge on Tang Jie, and Tang Jie was making full use of the Parting Classic's voracious abilities, taking in everything he could.

The Immortal Spirit Body soon went from early-phase initial-grade all the way to peak, upon which he easily broke through the threshold and attained a middle-grade Immortal Spirit Body.

Although the Immortal Spirit Body consumed a huge amount of resources, the resources of half the Rosecloud Domain still outmatched it. If it weren't for the five-hundred-year age limit, Tang Jie could have consumed resources all the way to the Great Dao Body.

Still, Tang Jie managed to go all the way to peak middle-grade Immortal Spirit Body.

At peak middle-grade, Tang Jie's advance was halted, for he had reached another bottleneck. Although body cultivation bottlenecks weren't a significant problem, Tang Jie had ultimately spent too little tin the middle grade of the Immortal Spirit Body, so he found it difficult to break through so quickly. While Tang Jie had needed much less tto go from lower-grade to middle-grade, it had to be remembered that Tang Jie had already spent more than a hundred years at lower-grade and had becextremely familiar with how to use Immortal Spirit power at that level. This wasn't true for middle-grade, and he had yet to use his new powers.

But if he had more time, the bottleneck would pose no problem.

His strength had stopped growing, but the resources were still pouring in.

Tang Jie decided to seize the moment. Since they were taking loans anyway, they might as well make full use of their credit, and he decided to take the resources into the Mountain River State Diagram.

It was after quite a few days that Ling Xiao found that this bastard was embezzling goods, after which he "angrily" stopped the flow.

Only then did the great resource rush that had involved four countries and more than half of the Rosecloud Domain finally stop.

After this matter, while everyone still had sresources, finding anything more than five hundred years old would basically be impossible for the tbeing. Those that remained were either those plants growing in remote and uninhabited corners of the world, or they were more than a thousand years old, far too valuable to waste on Tang Jie.

At this time, only half a year remained until the duel with the Jewel Immortal Sovereign.