The first yellow-black orb sank into his rainbow-coloured soul without much problem, it just sent a tingle down Yin Long's back. The second one was equally easy, the tingle it produced was just a few magnitudes greater than the previous one. The third orb was the last of the easy ones, the tingle so great that his spine practically convulsed somewhat.

After the third orb sank into his soul was also when the faint image of a scaled leaf appeared on the hilt of the sword that was Yin Long's soul. Yin Long didn't notice it right now since he was pre-occupied, but a closer look would reveal that the scaled leaf looked a tiny bit different from the version he was used to seeing.

The scaled leaves that he was used to seeing were covered in neat rows of tightly packed scales, a uniform pattern all the way. But this single scaled leaf wasn't covered by these neat rows of scales, the scales on it were clustered into groups of three that were scattered in a seemingly haphazard manner without an ounce of planning or rhythm.

As Yin Long hadn't noticed the change in the pattern, he directed the fourth orb to sink into his soul, finally encountering some trouble. The orb first just bounced off of his soul, only starting to slowly sink into it after he forcefully pressed it up against the rainbow-coloured sword. But the process was much slower this time around, it felt as if he was trying to push mud through a fine sieve.

There was no tingle running down his spine this time around, just a bloating feeling that pervaded his entire body. The fifth orb was much the same, only it was even harder to force it into his soul, the bloating feeling growing in intensity. By the time he managed to squeeze the sixth orb into his soul, the sword flashed between bright and dim, the bloating feeling so intense that he felt like every inch of his body was filled with so much water that he was about to burst.

He knew that there were risks involved with what he was trying, anything that had to do with the soul was dangerous. But he still persisted, originally it was just because he was somewhat confident in his idea, but now he pushed onward because he felt like he would miss out on something should he pull back and try something else. It was just a whispering of his instincts, dredged out from the depths of his soul, but his instincts hadn't led him astray yet, so he placed his trust in them.

So he moved on and forced the seventh orb to make contact with his soul, a flash of pain blanketing his mind for a second. He immediately bit down on his tongue, using the sensation of touch that the bite brought with it to quickly regain his senses. The seventh orb had floated away again during that brief second, returning to orbiting around his soul.

But to his delight, the sixth orb hadn't floated out from his soul, nor had the other orbs. This at least showed that his initial thought had been correct, by merging the orbs into his soul, he could keep them merged together even if he stopped focusing on them. This meant that in theory, he just had to get through the last hurdle of the final three orbs to formally reach the realm of the Immortal Doors.

But that jolt of pain made it clear that the final hurdle would not be kind to him, it would certainly take a toll on his mind. But ever since he was freed from the Lang clan, Yin Long had all along been continuously pushing forward without pause, all to reach the highest height he could with his sword. And he would do the same right here, he would push forward with the same simple-mindedness.

He didn't immediately start working on the seventh orb again, sitting there quietly for a few moments to prepare himself. Just the first contact with the seventh orb made his mind turn blank, so he didn't even dare think about what the eight and ninth orb would do, especially if he had to go through them all one by one.

At that point it became a question whether or not his mind would be able to bear the constant onslaught of gradually increasing pain, it wasn't out of the question for it to just shut down after prolonged exposure. So he decided on the path that while it resulted in more pain, the pain shouldn't last as long, and it wouldn't vary in intensity so it should be easier to bear.

He wasn't the type to hesitate, so the moment his mental state reached its peak state, he sprung into action. He focused his entire mind on the final three orbs, the yellow-silver ocean of Qi beneath his soul surging violently as he forced the three orbs up against his soul at the same time. And as he expected, a soul-rending pain immediately assaulted him and made him feel as if his entire being was exploding piece by piece.

Yin Long was still incredibly young for a cultivator, he could be considered no more than a young chick among cultivators. As a result, the number of experiences he had gone through was quite small, but even so, there was one event whose pain was on par with what he was feeling right now, his first death.

When Lang Huo's greatsword cut straight through his torso and he fell into the Netherworld, the pain he felt in that moment could compare to what he was feeling right now. Normally people wouldn't look fondly back at their painful moments, but having experienced such pain once before, Yin Long was a bit better equipped to deal with the wave of pain washing over him.

But the pain back then only lasted for a few instances, the magnitude may be the same, but the duration couldn't be compared to what he was experiencing right now. But even so, he grit his teeth until they cracked and shattered, forcing the three final orbs to slowly sink into the frantically flashing sword.

The ocean of Qi beneath him was surging and tossing, waves shooting all the way up to the sky-covering Netherworld energy. Each wave would crash against Yin Long's soul, further forcing the three orbs into it while also depositing some Qi into the scaled leaf resting on the handle.

Half of the three orbs merged into the soul after an unknown amount of time, and the pain had indeed not increased in magnitude, allowing Yin Long to continue resisting it. But just as he felt the urge to heave a sigh of relief, the situation changed.

The yellow section of his soul lit up with a resplendent light that washed over his entire soul sea, forcing his surging Qi to turn placid while the sky-covering Netherworld energy started to roil violently. But the strange situation didn't persist for long, the yellow light receded as quickly as it arrived. It sank back into his soul, dragging with it the last three orbs and causing the single scaled leaf on his soul to flash with a multitude of lights.

The pain he felt instantly vanished when the yellow light washed over him, giving him the clarity to finally notice the strangeness of the scaled leaf. But while the scaled leaf indeed looked different from those he was used to, it had the same problem as the other questions he had about himself, he had no way of getting an answer.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

So what if he was curious about it, so what if he wanted to know why this one was different? He had no way of getting an answer so the questions were simply pointless, pondering over them with what little information he had would just be a waste of his time. So he did as he always did when he faced a question about himself, he let out a drawn-out sigh and muttered silent questions that no one around him could answer for him.

Of course, he didn't forget to check his soul and make sure that nothing had gone awry. And indeed, nothing seemed to have gone wrong, the nine orbs had vanished and been replaced by that single scaled leaf. And he didn't feel any weaker or strange, on the contrary, he felt filled with power and vigour. His body was currently releasing a greedy suction force that drew in the surrounding Qi, the yellow-silver ocean of Qi in his soulsea growing rapidly in front of his eyes.

He had successfully entered the 1st Immortal Door, a qualitative change for most cultivators. Not only did the ocean of Qi grow larger, but it also grew purer and stronger, a strand of Qi from this new ocean was equal to about 10 strands of Qi from his previous ocean. His body didn't suck in Qi for too long, the change completing in only a few moments, allowing Yin Long to open his eyes again.

The first thing he noticed when he opened his eyes again was that the layout of the cavern had changed slightly, Lan Yun had increased its width by quite a bit. And both she and Jin Wang were sitting at the other side of the cavern, as far away from him as possible. And the moment he drew in a breath, he realized why.

A horrible stench immediately struck him as he drew in that breath, the smell of dirt and excrement mixing together as they invaded his nose and almost made him gag. Quickly looking down, other than the shattered remains of his teeth, he also saw that his robe was exceedingly dirty right now, a pool of filthy liquid pooling around him. He immediately held his breath, a pang of intense hunger and thirst assaulting him as he turned to look at Lan Yun, who immediately answered his un-asked question.

"You've already been stuck in that position for two months, we might have woken you up if it weren't for the strong fluctuations you were constantly emitting. But as you can see, you clearly haven't reached a realm where you can just sit around and cultivate for two months straight. So forgive me for saying this, Young Master, but go take a damn path before I encase you in a cocoon of earth and toss you into the nearest lake."

Yin Long could only smile somewhat bitterly, an odd sight now that all his teeth had shattered. He had expected to at most spend a few days on this project, he certainly hadn't expected it to take two entire months. But of course, since his perception of time was muddled while cultivating, what he didn't know was that he had indeed only spent nine days on forcing the orbs into his soul. It was that final flash of yellow light that had taken up the rest of the time, stretching out his perception of time so much that what felt like only a moment was actually over a month and a half.

Yin Long quickly took out some water from his interspatial ring and greedily drank it down, also pulling out some softer fruits that he could eat without teeth. Having put a small dent in his intense hunger and thirst, he stood up and ignored the disgusting sensation around his legs, mobilizing his law of space and phasing through the ceiling of the cavern after a few seconds.

He quickly reached the surface and moved over to one of the lakes he remembered them passing earlier, pulling out a large bowl from his ring and scooping up the cool water. He gave himself a thorough wash, tapping into his Netherworld energy to quickly regrow the teeth that he had shattered during his cultivation.

Once he was clean, he ravenously devoured the food and water he had stocked up before they left, sating the hunger and thirst that had built up over two months. Lan Yun and Jin Wang also found him while he was eating, they had probably guessed that he would head to the nearest lake and moved to follow him after a short while. With him finally being clean, Lan Yun could easily sit down close to him and flash him a charming grin.

"So? How's it feel to take a step further and stop lagging behind?"

Lan Yun was just joking around with him, she knew that even if his cultivation lagged behind others, his strength did not. Back when he was at the 9th Mortal Door, he was able to quite easily defeat cultivators at the 3rd Immortal Door, so just what could he do now that he had stepped into a new realm entirely? Yin Long simply shrugged his shoulder in response to Lan Yun's question, allowing his gaze to roam over her body.

"Much the same as previously, just...denser. But it seems like you also haven't been just wasting the last two months, you must have worked very hard."

She had been at the 1st Immortal Door when he started his own cultivation, but looking at her now, he could feel that she had just recently stepped into the 3rd Immortal Door. That was a non-insignificant jump in strength, and it was a jump that could take others more than a year to achieve. Lan Yun's grin grew a bit wider as she nodded her head, not hiding the truth.

"Yeah, the earth and wood element energy here is really dense, coupled with the high grade of the cultivation technique you bought for me, I feel like my cultivation speed has increased by at least five-fold."

The cultivation manual she cultivated right now focused on the laws of earth, wood, crushing and tearing, and except for the final two, this location had an abundance of energy suitable for it. In such a situation, how could it not yield excellent results to her cultivation? Yin Long couldn't help but nod his head, rubbing his chin slightly as he downed one last mouthful of water.

"That's good, that means we can come here in the future when you need to focus on your cultivation. Depending on how long we stay here, coming here to help you with your breakthroughs probably isn't a terrible idea."

Finding an environment so perfectly suited to your cultivation technique wasn't as easy as it sounded, it was easy for the energy in the area to be tainted by something else. And since they had such an area so close, it would be foolish to not take advantage of it while they could.

Yin Long put away the empty waterskins and containers that he had just gone through, taking the chance to tell the curious Lan Yun about the cultivation he had just gone through. She already knew all of his other secrets so he had no reason to hide these things either, even detailing the strange scaled leaf that appeared on his soul. Hearing that another leaf had gotten involved, Lan Yun couldn't help but grimace slightly, poking Yin Long's chest with a slender finger.

"I really don't know what sort of connection you have with this Lord of Everburning Trees, but this leaf motif is really being taken to a ridiculous degree. Think that Burning Trees was once a plant-type Demonic beast?"

Leaf patterns had been prevalent on Yin Long's sword from the first time he used his parasitic soul, and they even started appearing on his body after he acquired his Netherworld energy. And thinking about the title that the people from the Netherworld used in front of him, it was unlikely that the leaf-pattern didn't have some sort of connection with the Lord of Everburning Trees. Lan Yun only asked the question somewhat curiously, Yin Long only giving a carefree shrug of his shoulders in response.

"It's not out of the question, but does it really matter to us right now?"

It was the same as the other questions he had about himself, they had no way to get an answer so there really wasn't any point in thinking about the questions. Lan Yun wasn't bothered by Yin Long's carefree way of looking at the situation, her poking turning into a gentle caress as she dragged her finger across Yin Long's chest.

"Hey, you can never be too careful, wouldn't want anything to happen to your tender body before I get the chance to at the very least taste it."

Yin Long couldn't help but heavily roll his eyes in the face of Lan Yun's now seductive smile, grabbing onto her hand when she started to guide it down towards the bottom of his stomach. She puffed out her cheeks slightly, but Yin Long ignored it as he stood up and stretched his body.

"Yeah yeah, let's return to the city, I'm curious to see what's happened while we were gone."

They were quite far away from the city right now, but even that distance wasn't enough to mask the lively atmosphere coming from the city. He didn't know exactly what sort of event was going down, but it was clearly something grand enough to affect the entire city.