Chapter One: Heaven's First Floor

  The dome is like the sky, and the starlight is so brilliant. It's as if the eternal and indestructible starlight is inlaid with beautiful gems in the vast night sky. And at some point, on the ground of this Morning Star Temple, a faint starlight suddenly appears out of the darkness, and it seems to be reflected from deep beneath one's feet.

  At that moment, Shen Shi seemed to have scattered his body, his spirit was bewildered, and he found himself in the vast starry sky, with countless stars surrounding him like sand and sea.

  Behind the starlight, in the profound and endless darkness, a low and thick voice sounded, echoing in Shen Shi's ears, making him suddenly wake up from this dreamlike and illusory starry realm, saying:

  "Wielding the Spirit Crystal, practicing the Secret Technique."

  Wiping away the cold sweat that had somehow appeared on his forehead, Shen Shi couldn't help but take a few deep breaths. The illusion from earlier had come suddenly and seemed to have an incredibly strong pull, instantly dragging his mind into the Starry Sky Illusion. Not to mention resisting, he didn't even have any space to react.

  At this moment, Shen Shi was shocked awake by Wang Yun's voice. He had just calmed down from the initial shock and realized that he was still in his original position in the Morning Star Hall. The same was true for many of the other young men around him, although most of them looked surprised, and a few even had their eyes closed, with a hint of a dazed expression on their faces.

  Nor does one know whether these people are still immersed in that fantasy.

  Sneaking a peek around, Shen Shi saw the stars twinkling above his head, and the floor of the hall below him was made of some kind of spiritual material that emitted a faint glow. In the darkness, it looked just like the starlight in the night sky. As he gazed for a while longer, his spirit suddenly became drowsy again, and he vaguely felt as if he were about to enter that beautiful, dreamlike starry sky. This sudden shock was no small matter, and Shen Shi jumped in fright, immediately closing his eyes and still not feeling at ease. He bit his lip hard, and under this stimulation, his whole body shook, only then did he truly come back to his senses.

  This immortal family's Taoist magic is truly unbelievable.

  Thus, Shen Shi dared not glance around again, although he vaguely felt that under the starry light, his body seemed to be in a dense river that was almost turning into water. He didn't know if it was the magical Taoist ritual set up by the ancestors of Ling Xiao Sect when building the Morning Star Hall. At this moment, he simply looked at his nose with his eyes, and his nose with his heart, following Wang Hang's previous words, took out the spiritual crystal from the iron box in his pocket yesterday, like the "Star Luo Fa Jue" required, tightly grasped it in the palm of his right hand, then slowly closed his eyes.

  At that moment, his mind was empty and his thoughts seemed to disappear instantly. He quickly entered a state of meditation with an incredible speed, and in the palm of his right hand, there was a faintly discernible crystal clear spirit bead, which contained a very weak and indescribable spiritual power that he could sense.

  Shen Shi didn't know at this time, but in fact, this was one of the wonders of Chen Xing Hall. For children who had just started practicing and had never come into contact with spiritual crystal energy before, the value of this unremarkable step was truly beyond words.

  Why is it that among the billions of people in the human race, some can cultivate and others are hopeless for their entire lives? And why is it that the disciples of famous schools and sects have such a huge gap with ordinary cultivators when it comes to cultivation? At this initial stage of cultivation, aside from those rare geniuses, perhaps ordinary people will have to grope around for a long time and spend countless energy before they can feel the invisible and intangible spiritual power. Meanwhile, the famous schools and sects that have been passed down for thousands of years have gone through the painstaking efforts of many talented predecessors, and only then do they possess these magical methods that can improve their disciples' cultivation efficiency bit by bit.

  It was a very strange feeling, one that Shen Shi had never experienced in his entire life. It was as if a faint glimmer of light had flashed by in the endless and eternal darkness.

  He gazed far away at that ray of light, which was the only hope in the darkness, and nothing else.

  He desperately wanted to go and feel that light, wanting to feel the warmth, brightness, or whatever of that light, nothing else mattered, as long as he could get close to that light, it was good.

  The cool sensation, in the darkness, came from the palm of his hand, it was the unique temperature of the Ling Crystal, no matter how he touched it, this crystal-like small stone seemed to be forever cold. A small piece of Ling Crystal, at this moment, in Shen Shi's feeling, it was like a vast and boundless sky, what he had to do was to first grasp that endless darkness, then use the Xing Luo Gong secret method passed down by the Ling Xiao Sect, to slowly pull in that faint and imperceptible heavenly power, into his physical body, entering the meridians, taking this as the foundation, beginning his cultivation path.

  That wisp of light, like a dream or an illusion, seemed very close yet felt extremely far away. At this moment, Shen Shi was completely immersed in his own world of cultivation and could no longer feel any movement around him. His heart and mind were focused solely on grasping that elusive, ghostly glow.

  Wang Huan had a thick voice, which was also echoing in the Chenxing Hall at this moment, but unlike before when everyone heard it, his voice would suddenly appear in the ear of a certain disciple, and what he said was to hint and point out the difficulties that person was experiencing in absorbing the spiritual energy of the Ling crystal. It seemed that he had a pair of strange and wise eyes in the Chenxing Hall, which could see the situation of every young man who closed his eyes and cultivated.

  Shen Shi did not hear Wang Yun's voice ringing in his ears, nor did he know the situation of those young men around him. At this moment, he was still wholeheartedly contending with that bit of spiritual energy.

  For him, the speed of sensing this spiritual power was extremely fast. Although he himself didn't know, among these more than 400 new disciples, even with the assistance of the Morning Star Hall's mysterious formation, his speed of sensing the spiritual power of heaven and earth was also among the top twenty fastest. This speed caused even Wang Huan to pause his gaze on him for a moment at the very beginning.

  However, in the subsequent and actually crucial step of absorbing spiritual energy into his body, Shen Shi encountered trouble.

  That faint, ghostly glow darted back and forth in the boundless darkness like lightning, as if it was deeply attached to this profound darkness and refused to get close to him. No matter how Shen Shi tried to approach and capture it, he always ended up failing at the last moment.

  Time flowed away minute by minute, second by second. The starlight in the Chenxing Hall was still shining, and Shen Shi's face was a bit pale under the faint starlight. In the darkness ahead, Wang Heng sat on the high platform, his eyes scanning the crowd, stopping briefly on someone's face without any emotional fluctuations or expression changes, before moving his gaze away to another place.

  In the darkness, the pursuit of spiritual power continues unabated.

  It wasn't until after countless failures, even when Shen Shi felt his physical strength was almost exhausted in the spiritual realm, that a faint light finally seemed to be cornered by him into a dark corner, unable to escape. In the next moment, Shen Shi pounced like a fierce beast he had imagined himself to be, and with great difficulty, managed to grab hold of that faint light.

  An unparalleled joy surged up in my heart, and at the same time a warm breath seemed to be transmitted from the Lingjing in my palm, which was completely different from the coldness emitted by the Lingjing before. Perhaps this is the aura of the heavenly spirit?

  Shen Shi was overjoyed, and without further hesitation, he took a deep breath and used the Xing Luo Gong Fa Jue that he had memorized the night before to guide this weak thread of heavenly energy from his palm into his body, merging it with his own meridians and veins.

  As long as the spiritual energy enters the body, it will run through the meridians of the flesh for a week, and then it will be stable, from then on, it will be stored in the meridians. Repeating this process of absorption, the spiritual energy will gradually become thicker. At first, only the spiritual energy of one arm's meridian can be used, while the rest of the spiritual energy is scattered throughout the meridians and cannot be moved. After bitter practice, the realm will rise, from the initial stage of Qi refining to the middle stage, then to the high stage. When finally taking that crucial step, opening up the "Yu Fu" or "Qi Hai" under the abdomen, all the spiritual energy in the body's meridians will gather here like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea. From then on, all the spiritual energy in the body can be used at will, and various magical powers and Taoist methods can be practiced and displayed. This is the realm of Condensing the Origin, and it is also the first step to entering the hall of immortality on the path of cultivating immortality.

  A bright future prospect, the magnificent scenery of the Great Dao of Cultivation is unfolding before one's eyes, as if it has already been revealed at this moment, just... this strand of spiritual energy enters the body safely!

  Suddenly, a severe pain, without any warning, burst forth from Shen Shi's head like a raging stormy sea, instantly engulfing him whole. Under the starlight, this twelve-year-old boy's already pale and tired face contorted in an instant, his body began to shake violently, and his mouth involuntarily let out a hissing sound of pain and anguish.

  On the high platform, Wang's gaze suddenly turned over and stared at Shen Shi, his eyebrows furrowed instantly.

  At this moment, Shen Shi Ru felt as if he was in a purgatory, his entire body filled with an invisible force that seemed to be on the verge of tearing him apart. Especially in his head, it was as if an ancient ferocious beast was wildly howling and frantically biting his brain, the pain was ten times more intense than the "ant bite" he had endured when he was forced to sit in the transmission array to come to Haizhou.

  What is this all about? What has happened?

  In unbearable pain, Shen Shi didn't know why he was still holding on and hadn't passed out yet. In his heart, a puzzled thought even flashed by, and it was at this moment that a thick male voice suddenly sounded in his ear, which was Wang Chen's voice, with a few serious and solemn tones, saying:

  "This is a physical backlash, cannot be resisted strongly, immediately throw away the spiritual crystal, relax and calm down, take short breaths and long exhales, slowly inhale and exhale."

  His words were solemn and majestic, but at this moment, in the midst of Shen Shi's confusion, they sounded like a guiding light, and he unconsciously followed his instructions. As soon as the Ling crystal was released, the intense pain wave immediately subsided, and afterwards, following Wang Chen's advice to relax and calm down, Shen Shi slowly calmed down, and the sudden suffering gradually dissipated.

  When Shen Shi opened his eyes again, he felt like he had exhausted all his energy, and there was even a dizziness in his mind. At this time, the morning star hall, the starlight dissipated, whether it was the dome above or the strange stone slabs below, had all returned to their original state. The two heavy doors also slowly reopened, and warm light re-entered the hall.

  Sun You was still sitting beside him, and many young people were still in their original positions. Before all the young people reacted, Wang Tong's voice echoed again in everyone's ears in this hall:

  "Today's practice ends here, you all go back and rest. Just now during the practice, those whose physical bodies rebelled will stay behind."