Facing the Dispersed Master's killing moves, Marco had lost the will to fight. He hastily retreated.

"From today, the Low Hou Sword is no more in the Tera Dynasty."

His opponent's voice floated over, sounding either smug or regretful.

Marco's heart ached as he recalled the past. A sense of utter resolve welled up within him.

If the worst came, he could give up seeking the Way. Let it be, let it be - he would remain a freelance expert for life, unrivaled in the martial world!

On the brink of despair, Marco severed his obsession and cast aside seven years of bitter cultivation.

Billowing true qi surged out from his dantian's qi origin, instantly flooding Marco's mysterious orifices and welling up an aura mighty as mountains.

"Not good!"

The Dispersed Master's heart lurched. How could he not see Marco was breaking into the freelance realm? Quickening his steps, his long whip thrashed like a snake dance, tracing hundreds of afterimages in the air.

"Show mercy!"

"Dispersed Master, stop!"

Two shouts rang out from beyond East Pass Street, shaking the avenue until ice and snow swirled up, icicles on both eaves snapping off in unison to spear the snow, revealing the unfathomable mastery of the arrivals.

The Dispersed Master's thick brows angled up, a chill flashing through his eyes. But far from stopping, his steps grew even faster.

There was an unwritten rule in the Tera martial world that freelance experts must not kill each other. Any half-step master breaking into the freelance realm could not be attacked. Without thinking, the Dispersed Master knew who the arrivals were. Aside from him, two other freelance masters guarded the capital.

Yet at that moment, something completely unexpected happened.

Marco's retreating figure suddenly convulsed, his complexion going pale as his whole body seemed to instantly age ten years. The light in his eyes peeled away inch by inch. Then with a cough he spewed a mouthful of black blood, staggering as if drunk.

The sudden change not only startled the Dispersed Master but left the two rushing freelance masters frozen in their tracks.

Moments ago, Marco's aura had signaled he fully possessed the might to breakthrough. Given that seven years ago he was already evenly matched with a freelance master and even won, the three masters including the Dispersed Master had thought Marco's breakthrough would be easy. They never expected this outcome.

"Hahaha, I knew it, I knew it!" The Dispersed Master stroked his beard and laughed loudly. "I'd heard you were refused by every immortal sect in your path seeking the Way. This noble one thought the sects' criteria for accepting disciples had become impossibly high. Turns out, you're no longer the Low Hou Sword of the past."

With another long peal of laughter, the Dispersed Master vanished into a blaze, disappearing amidst the snow.

A lifetime halted here...if this continues, even my true qi will be hard to retain...forcing a breakthrough will just dissipate your true qi...

Shuro's words echoed in Marco's ears, buzzing like an iron mallet pounding his heart. Just before he was about to breakthrough, the true qi roiling in his mysterious orifices had crumbled apart in an instant. Not only was all vital energy sapped from his body, but his five viscera and six bowels were left in collapse, nearly extinguished.

"Every word came true. Master Shu, what manner of sage are you?" Marco mumbled as he stood numbly amidst the snow.

His expression was complex, tinged with self-mockery, marvel, and some stubborn denial.

True qi congelation, primordial essence generation - the immutable truth through the ages!

Even as nothing remained, to the last Marco's pride had refused to believe Shuro's words. He'd decisively shattered the qi elixir with no hesitation, determined to prove Master Shu wrong.

Yet everything had played out just as Shuro foretold. Even now, Marco could scarcely believe it. Today, seven years of bitter cultivation had somehow inexplicably succeeded. Amidst joy, Marco couldn't help feeling regret.

Looking back, Shuro's casual tone when speaking of shattering the elixir, neither cold nor zealous yet fully confident, embodied the awe-inspiring poise of an ancestral master.

One who could make the wily Judge Peng willingly serve him, surely that youth was no ordinary person.

To think I doubted such a fleeting sage and missed the chance to thank him!

Marco was anxious and concerned.

"Master Shu?"

The York Old Lady racked her brains but couldn't think of anyone in the capital or even the whole Tera nation by that name. She grew more certain this was Marco's excuse.

"This old one turns a hundred this coming month, on the same day next month. If Sir Low Hou is free, please come for a little gathering at my estate." The York Old Lady changed the subject.

The Tera freelance masters had always been distant from Sir Low Hou for the sake of the Tera king. Now that Sir Low Hou was about to embark on the immortal path, with his talent the future was limitless. Naturally she didn't want to miss this chance to build ties with Marco for her descendants' fortune and prosperity.

"The Third Young Master of York and my worthless boy have both drawn the attention of immortal sects and may barely gain some karmic ties. Though their talent can't compare with Sir Low Hou's, they are still of our great Tera lineage. I hope Sir Low Hou looks after them in the future." The man in yellow robes chuckled.

He wasn't simply being polite. Though the prodigies on the Unpolished Jade Ranking were extolled, next to Marco, the undisputed legend of Tera who'd shocked half the nation at seventeen by breaking into the half-step freelance realm, what were they?

Upon enlightenment, much of Marco's former temper dissolved, making him see worldly matters more clearly.

He cupped his hands in a bow to the York Old Lady. "Rest assured, Lady York, I will come calling in a month's time."

The frigid winter wind howled like a wild beast through Caelius Capital.

Shuro slipped along the snow as a coil of water, gliding like a snake.

Bundled in thick quilted jackets, old women sat a whole morning in the snowbound streets, sunning themselves while snacking on chickpeas in vinegar and chatting away. Merchants and peddlers hurried about their business. Soon teahouses, taverns, apothecaries, tailor shops, pawnshops, antique stores, theaters, leatherworkers, scribes...all trades successively opened for the day, and the previously deserted West Main Street grew lively.

Watching Caelius Capital at dawn, Shuro felt both intimacy and strangeness. Though gliding low along the ground, he somehow had the fleeting sense of gazing down upon the entire city from the nine heavens, the bustling multitudes following an indescribable order, maintaining the workings of the whole world, even heaven and earth. While he was the destroyer of all order - one snap to shatter propriety, one careless song to ruin cities and nations.

Soon Shuro realized this feeling didn't belong to himself, but came from that once aloof and remote demon lord of yore, His Highness Jiu Chen.

The pleasure in killing Guan Pang and Leonard, the nonchalance in sneaking through Caelius Capital, the latent abandon hidden deep in a youth's heart had been stimulated after a single night, blending together with that hint of Jiu Chen's devilry, silently growing within Shuro's psyche.

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Not far ahead was the secondary manor of the Luo family, with its twin bronze lion statues.

Just then Shuro caught a strange sound rising from his dantian, as if something was about to be born within his body.

"True qi?"

Shuro's mind shook. Then he suddenly felt every single pore on his body open up, an incomparable comfort suffusing him.

He'd expected it would take another three or four days to generate true qi. He never thought that after just one night, he could sense the signs of the true qi generation described in Jiu Chen's memories.

Elixirism and Foundation Establishment alike relied on true qi.

True qi was the primordial vapor formed from dual cultivating essence and life. Brimful of vitality, it linked the body's inner cosmos and mysterious orifices, holding infinite potential.

Not everyone had the talent and gift to conceal true qi. Of ten thousand children, only two or three truly had the gift. These talents were called prodigies by the secular world, seedlings of immortality by southern cultivation circles, and once tested, were fought over and accepted into immortal sects and cultivation sects.

Meanwhile, elixirs took a different path. First consolidating qi into elixir beads, constantly amassing the elixir with postnatal qi until quantity transformed to quality, finally generating true qi. This process could be shorter or longer, depending on one's talent. With better talent, from Minor Dan to Major Dan to Lesser Empty Spirit producing true qi might only take ten or twenty years. For poorer talent it may be impossible in a lifetime, halted at Major Dan.

Yet even Shuro had to admit, though elixirs took a roundabout route, it gave everyone at least a theoretical chance at true qi congelation. Of course, the purity, vitality, and potential of true qi congealed through elixirs was far inferior to that from Foundation Establishment. It could rarely make further progress.

As for Shuro himself, due to the presence of innate true fire and innate true water, he had discarded elixirism's path and was not taking the common immortal sect route either.

All the way down Eighteenth Alley to the sixth manor, the Luo family's secondary residence, Shuro suddenly halted and straightened up. His water illusion dispersed into a trickling stream as thin as a finger, crawling up the wall like ivy to circle halfway around the compound before climbing over the rear courtyard.

Lewis sat under a bare tree, hugging the Illusion Arts Compendium, brows knitted in frustration as he mumbled something - it was unclear whether he was reading with great difficulty or savoring it attentively. His dark eye circles showed he too had been up all night, wholly absorbed in the Seven Illusion Arts.

Without alerting Lewis, Shuro headed straight for the secret chamber.

"The human body holds great medicine, which can achieve the grand Way," he wrote with the chopsticks on the ground.

His writing wasn't particularly good-looking, just ordinary daily script in a classical Tera style. But once he finished those ten characters, they appeared chiseled like silver hooks from any angle, archaic yet vigorous, lacking only the vigorous curves and flourishing style that would make them remarkable, yet full of a profound and distant classical charm, even somewhat resembling the ancient seal script on the plaque at the Southern Wastes River Lord's estate.

An indescribable emotion swelled in Shuro's heart. These ten words had changed his fate. Ten days seemed to have passed by in the span of a long time yet also in the blink of an eye. After ten days, his heart was no longer confined to the palm-sized Luo family manor, but had flown beyond Caelius Capital, beyond Tera Dynasty, toward that poetic, fantastic realm of cultivation depicted in legend.

Just as the Seven Illusion Arts had opened a door for Lewis into the abstruse world of elixirism martial arts, the Nine Deaths and One Life Art was guiding Shuro onto an equally extraordinary path toward higher realms.

As Shuro constantly absorbed Jiu Chen's cultivation insights and knowledge, he increasingly grasped the profundity of the Nine Deaths and One Life Art.

The Heavenly Star Continent that Jiu Chen came from had formed from the debris of stars falling when the heavens first collapsed. Thus the nine heavenly realms were divided into two historical periods - before and after the Great Demise when the Heavenly Stars perished and the Continent hadn't yet formed, and after the Great Demise when the Continent was established. Each spanned tens of thousands of years, with completely different order and propriety, natural environments, and prevalent cultivation civilizations.

The differing cultivation civilizations inevitably led to one unavoidable issue. Whether pills, seals, tools, formations, or anything else - as long as imprinted with arcane symbols now, they could be restored or used. The only exception was cultivation arts. After testing by countless generations of exceptional talents, it was proven that pre-Demise arts were completely unusable in the current age.

In the Heavenly Star Continent, pre-Demise arts were classified as antique arts. These were passed down in ancient clans or unearthed from ancient sites, but shared one trait - contemporaries were unable to cultivate them. Yet they held considerable collectible value, mostly as priceless treasures, firstly for their research worth, and secondly for corroborating side accounts to locate pre-Demise relics.

The Nine Deaths and One Life Art seemed to break this rule. Likely from before the Great Demise, it had nevertheless broken free of historical shackles and transcended time itself to guide Shuro onto the path of cultivation.

Shuro didn't know what grade the Nine Deaths to Reborn Technique was among Foundation Establishment arts, but from its latent explosive power and potential he could sense its past magnificence. Especially its nine stages of Foundation Establishment, each transformation over life and death thresholds akin to breaking cocoons and being reborn in fire as phoenixes, evolving life in each stage - this filled Shuro with anticipation.

Compared to the trials of life and death within the Nine Deaths to Reborn Technique, Young Master John's impending tribulation seemed insignificant now.

Filled with these emotions, Shuro sat cross-legged and grasped the unmoving root mudra. Soon he entered an abstruse embryonic respiration state.

The innate true fire and innate true water congregated into a mass like a snake biting its tail, circulating and revolving above the dantian.

As if summoned, vital energy and essence hiding in every corner of Shuro's body poked out their heads, converging toward the fiery water maelstrom like birds paying court to a phoenix, or swords returning to their lord.

The fiery water maelstrom spun faster and faster, mobilizing the potential within Shuro's body.

Previously, regardless of battles or cultivation, whenever Shuro roused the maelstrom he could gather tremendous power. But never before like now, when each strand of energy summoned gave rise to marvelous sounds from within him, echoing repeatedly, vaguely narrating something.

Anyone else experiencing this would be scared out of their wits and halt cultivation, bewildered and doubtful.

Yet Shuro remained unperturbed, even increasingly anticipative.

As the fiery water maelstrom gathered more and more energy, the fantastic sounds overlapped, like the yellow bell and great tone, seemingly from the distant past before the Great Demise, vast and full of boundless profundities.

In antiquity when there was no writing, only speech and language existed, among the most primordial powers grasped by mankind.

Shuro pondered deeply, comprehending.

Abruptly, all sounds vanished and the world turned starkly barren and gloomy. Yet in the very barrenness and gloom, an exuberant vitality seemed to be silently brewing within Shuro's body.

Shuro didn't know what others felt when congealing true qi, only that he had never been so expectant in his fifteen years as today.

The fiery water maelstrom stilled its spinning, blood no longer flowed, vitality and essence settled down.

In an instant after, the innate true fire and innate true water flared brilliantly. Though not spinning, they congregated into a very marvelous gesture, one above, one below, one bearing, one embracing.

Buzz!

The yellow bell's clarion cry rang out once more, this time extraordinarily clear, unlike from a distant age but right beside his ear.

As the sound rose, an energy that made Shuro's blood boil yet was also peaceful and tranquil - in short, extremely contradictory - was born between the fire and water.

It was a qi so pure it was without scent, aura, or color, almost imperceptible unless experienced closely. Born within the fiery water vortex, like a newborn infant both curious and afraid toward the novel world, it lingered and hovered above the maelstrom instead of immediately leaving.

"Is this my true qi?" Sincere emotion welled up in Shuro.

"I wonder what grade it is."

Primordial vapor from dual cultivating essence and life - true qi was but the initial transitional stage in the vast worlds of cultivation. Yet for every cultivator it was supremely important, representing their potential. Its quality and grade determined the heights each could reach.

In Jiu Chen's memories, the cultivation worlds used a nine-tiered three-talent ranking system with a total of twenty-seven grades for appraising tools, pills, terrain, arts, even talent. Self-evidently, nine was the lowest grade and one the highest.

True qi similarly had grades. It was no coincidence that Jiu Chen could become a phenomenally brilliant demon lord thanks in part to congealing a type of grade one lower-talent true qi called the Demonic Emperor's True Qi during his Foundation Establishment. The top three grades of true qi were all called high-grade, and any sect or cultivation faction would madly vie over one appearing in the Heavenly Star Continent.

The higher the true qi's grade, the better it opened the mysterious orifices, and the higher the grade of refined primordial essence.

Identifying true qi grades required specialized appraising immortals, one of the many cultivation professions, needing unique tools and methods. Although Shuro had produced true qi and knew of many types from Jiu Chen's memories, he couldn't judge what grade his own was.

"With the Nine Deaths to Reborn Technique as my foundation, my true qi's grade surely won't be lacking," Shuro mused no further.

Above his dantian, the innate fire and water still embraced in that marvelous posture. Shuro faintly felt some mystery hidden within.

But unexpectedly, the unthinkable happened!

The innate true water and innate true fire faded like watercolor paintings, gradually dimming until both vanished entirely from Shuro's body.

What was going on?

Bewilderment covered Shuro's face, his heartbeat quickening!

Though it had only been a single day, he'd already grown accustomed to the innate fire and water. While he still didn't grasp their metaphysical profundities, this didn't prevent him from recognizing their rarity and uniqueness.

Now, despite congealing true qi, the "grand medicine" that had overturned his fate had disappeared without a trace.