A Moment Is Eternity

While everyone was busy throwing themselves into the sect’s various affairs, Lin Xiao was quietly meditating inside the Natural Platform.

He had already been here for a year.

If not for the faint, steady rhythm of his breathing, he would have looked no different from a lifelike, multicolored statue.

After spending a year in secluded cultivation here, Lin Xiao seemed to have completely merged with the interior of the Natural Platform.

Three years had passed, and Lin Xiao’s appearance had fully matured.

His once somewhat childish face was now filled with the sharp contours and youthful vigor of a young man.

With his eyes tightly closed, even his features appeared deeper and more defined, giving him an even sharper, more youthful edge.

However, although a year had passed in the outside world, Lin Xiao, who was currently breaking through to a new realm in seclusion, was completely unaware of it.

He was at a critical juncture.

When he had first transformed spiritual energy into essence energy, his Golden Core had undergone a change. It seemed to have been reborn, its surface now gleaming with a layer of immortal glaze.

At the time, he had only known that this was probably because he had successfully converted spiritual energy into essence energy and could now wield it. But after cultivating day after day, he discovered that it also seemed to be closely related to the Primordial Heart Sutra he cultivated.

Because spiritual energy had been converted into essence energy, his cultivation art had leveled up, and his Golden Core had leveled up along with it.

According to the system, Golden Cores were also divided into grades.

There were three grades in total: Heaven, Earth, and Human.

The system told Lin Xiao that, so far, every cultivator he had encountered possessed a Human-grade Core.

Lin Xiao had been the same before.

After the upgrade, however, his had become an Earth-grade Core.

As for a Heaven-grade Core, only cultivators born with Immortal Bones had any chance of forming one.

Lin Xiao understood the literal meaning of “born with Immortal Bones,” but naturally had no idea what the term actually meant. He had even asked Senior Liao about it. To his surprise, Senior Liao, who ordinarily knew an astonishing amount, had been stunned by the term before shaking his head and admitting that he had never even heard of such a constitution.

It was only later, after Lin Xiao had pestered the system relentlessly, that it reluctantly showed him the entry on those born with Immortal Bones.

After reading the entry with great interest, Lin Xiao promptly lost interest.

There was no other reason for it. This constitution was probably the sort of thing that existed only in legends.

For the overwhelming majority of people in this world, being born with Immortal Bones was something utterly beyond their reach. According to the entry, only the descendants of cultivators who had successfully ascended and possessed an immortal body had any chance of being born with Immortal Bones.

Not to mention how low that chance was, just consider the cultivators who had successfully ascended. Ever since Lin Xiao had taken up the profession of cultivation, he had never seen one—not even heard of one.

Well, that was not entirely true. He had heard of such people, but only in the tales and legends of the cultivation world.

Compared with the vast majority of cultivators, Lin Xiao’s Earth-grade Golden Core was already exceedingly rare—rare enough that Liao Pantu had immediately used an Oblivion Spell on himself the moment he heard about it.

At that moment, as Lin Xiao continuously absorbed the spiritual energy of the outside world and transformed it into his own essence energy, wave after wave washed through his meridians before converging inside his Golden Core.

The Golden Core began to swell within him.

It grew larger and larger.

Until it covered his flesh and enclosed his bones.

In the end, it encompassed his entire body.

An instant became eternity.

Time seemed to freeze at that moment.

Lin Xiao’s sea of consciousness was quieter than it had ever been.

It was as if he had entered the vast, silent expanse of the universe.

But in the next moment, surging essence energy became a torrent that drove time forward, pushing everything onward with overwhelming force.

The condensed essence energy filled every corner of his body. Every corner was more replete than it had ever been before.

In that instant, the depths of Lin Xiao’s soul seemed to suddenly resonate with it in a way that penetrated to the marrow. In the blink of an eye, his soul erupted into an incomparably blissful tremor.

As that pleasurable shudder gradually faded, something within his body seemed to begin drawing inward, starting from the outermost edge of his physical form and gathering little by little toward the center.

But this time, what gathered inward was no longer a circular core. Instead, it maintained the contours of Lin Xiao’s body while shrinking proportionally. Within the returning halo of light, one could even make out a pair of brows and eyes identical to Lin Xiao’s.

Time flew by outside, but Lin Xiao, inside the Natural Platform, remained completely unaware of it as he devoted himself to breaking through to his new realm.

The following day.

Through everyone’s efforts, the square of the Soaring Immortal Sect was, for the most part, complete.

This was the first square they had ever possessed, and it was an impressive one at that.

Looking at the results they had created with their own hands, everyone felt incredibly excited and happy.

Their enthusiasm for construction had been rekindled. Then, thanks to a casual suggestion from someone, they spent the following period of time building a cultivation hall as well.

This cultivation hall was intended for future newcomers. It was many times larger than the cultivation rooms they currently used.

However, the cultivation hall was not built halfway up the mountain. Instead, it was built into the mountain beside the square, making it closer to the newcomers’ residential area.

The main reason was that the sect’s currently developed and usable areas were no longer large enough, leaving them no choice but to expand toward the mountains farther behind them.

At present, the overall layout of the Soaring Immortal Sect was as follows:

On North Mountain, along the mountain path closest to the entrance from Beautiful Water Village, the halfway point was the familiar starting point marked by the thatched hut.

To the left of the halfway point was a small mountain that had only been partially developed: Returning Garden Retreat.

In the valley below and behind the halfway point had once been the herb garden. After the herb garden was moved, the area was converted into the beast enclosure.

The first mountain peak to the right of the halfway point was the newcomers’ residential area, where the path known as the First Step had been opened.

After circling around this first mountain and continuing farther back, they came to the newly built square of the Soaring Immortal Sect. Beyond that, on the second mountain peak, stood the newcomers’ cultivation hall.

Both the first and second mountain peaks were quite large. Even after being used for residences, they still had plenty of room for the expansion of other functional areas.

Even so, if the sect continued developing according to Lin Xiao’s ideals, its population would certainly grow tremendously. It was easy to predict that what they had developed so far was only the second mountain. In the future, they would inevitably expand farther and farther.

Fortunately, the entire North Mountain range had now been granted to the Soaring Immortal Sect by the imperial court, so they could use and expand it however they pleased.

Of course, all of this described only their current use of the land.

High above the ground, around five thousand meters in the air, a floating island was suspended there as well.

The floating island even came with a small world contained within an alternate dimension.

Overall, the Soaring Immortal Sect currently had an extremely ample amount of space.

Thinking of this, everyone felt thoroughly satisfied.

With this arrangement, the sect should be able to put on an impressive enough front before the newcomers, right?

The major structures were all in place. The remaining greenery and decorative touches throughout the sect were left to Yang Jinshu, who led everyone in completing them.

While the sect members who had relatively little else to do took time to assist the Affairs Hall in making all the necessary preparations for accepting new disciples, Sun Yigao’s high-grade Fasting Pill had also finished refining.