Cultivating Immortality, Starting from Childhood Sweethearts

Chapter 223

Walking through the forest of Sanshi Peak, Xu Xuenuo held her longsword in hand, glancing warily in all directions, her guard fully raised.

To Xu Xuenuo, this mountain was far from ordinary—who knew when a magical beast might suddenly leap out?

Her life-bound flying sword had only recently developed consciousness and could only express simple intentions. As for why it had led her to this place, Xu Xuenuo was completely clueless. Thankfully, the sword continued to guide her, ensuring she wouldn’t wander aimlessly like a headless fly.

Still, Xu Xuenuo couldn’t figure it out.

What could possibly resonate with her life-bound sword?

As she walked, her vigilance began to waver.

Xu Xuenuo noticed that, at first glance, this mountain didn’t seem special—just like any other ordinary spiritual mountain.

But the deeper she ventured, the more she realized something unusual about it.

Normally, the spiritual energy on a mountain is distributed evenly. Even in places with higher concentrations of spiritual energy, the difference is typically limited to small areas.

The spiritual energy here was layered.

For example, right in front of her was a tree branch. Taking one step forward, Xu Xuenuo felt the spiritual energy become so dense it was almost overwhelming. Taking one step back, the energy was thin and sparse.

“Artificial,” the word popped into Xu Xuenuo’s mind.

Only an array deliberately arranged by someone could cause such a distribution of spiritual energy.

The purpose of such an array was usually to nourish and preserve something—or to imprison something.

Xu Xuenuo had already realized that she had wandered into one of Tianxuan Sect’s forbidden areas without permission.

She knew this the moment her sword pierced through a gap in the array.

After all, who would set up an array on a mountain for no reason?

What she did was, admittedly, rather impolite.

Not just impolite—more like the behavior of a bandit.

But Xu Xuenuo didn’t care.

Before arriving at Tianxuan Sect, her master had explicitly instructed her:

“In Tianxuan Sect, go wherever you want. You don’t need anyone’s permission, nor do you need to ask anyone.”

Xu Xuenuo had initially been puzzled by her master’s words.

Now it seemed like her master had foreseen something. Could it be that coming to this mountain was all part of her master’s plan? That was the only explanation.

After all, cultivators in the Ascension Realm could occasionally glimpse certain unspeakable truths about fate.

Otherwise, her master wouldn’t have said those strange things.

Xu Xuenuo continued forward, passing through patches of forest and descending a slope under the guidance of her life-bound flying sword, Qingming.

The further she went, the denser the spiritual energy became.

This level of spiritual energy concentration was highly unusual. Even in the Wanjian Sect, areas with such dense spiritual energy were reserved exclusively for core disciples—and access was both limited in duration and frequency.

It had been about an hour since Xu Xuenuo entered Sanshi Peak when she finally stopped.

She found herself standing before a cave.

Thick wisps of smoke drifted out from the cave—these weren’t ordinary smoke, but pure, materialized spiritual energy!

Xu Xuenuo had never seen spiritual energy so dense that it became tangible.

Steeling herself, she entered the cave. She wrapped herself in sword aura for protection and extended her spiritual sense to probe her surroundings.

But the dense spiritual energy interfered with her spiritual sense, making it unreliable.

After about half a stick of incense’s time inside the cave, Xu Xuenuo suddenly felt her Dao Heart issue a warning. At the same time, her sword began trembling violently, letting out urgent warnings.

Without warning, a pair of crimson eyes snapped open in front of her!

“Roar!”

A monstrous creature swung a massive claw at Xu Xuenuo. She reacted just in time, raising her sword to block the strike.

The force of the blow sent Xu Xuenuo flying out of the cave.

“Roar!”

Before Xu Xuenuo could steady herself, the monster had already charged out of the cave in pursuit!

“This isn’t right—something’s very wrong,” she muttered to herself.

Meanwhile, on another part of Sanshi Peak, Xu Ming walked through the dense forest with a furrowed brow.

He had been wandering the mountain for a long time and had finally realized he was lost.

Sure, he had the stone Mo Zhuer had given him, but it was only useful for detecting traps, formations, and poisonous miasmas.

She had told him to investigate Sanshi Peak, but she didn’t give him a map or any clues about where he should go.

“Does she seriously expect me to figure out the way on my own after wandering around for four or five days?”

Xu Ming was starting to lose hope.

To make things worse, flying was forbidden on this mountain. Some kind of natural anti-flight formation blanketed the entire area.

“Three days!”

Xu Ming made up his mind. He’d spend three days here. If he still couldn’t find anything, he’d call it quits and head back.

Clutching the stone in his hand, Xu Ming prepared to keep moving.

But just then, a loud commotion reached his ears.

Looking up, Xu Ming activated his Dao-patterned eyes and gazed toward the source of the noise.

He saw spiritual energy so dense it resembled a thick fog, swirling in the air above the area. Alongside it, sharp bursts of sword aura sliced through the atmosphere.

The sword aura felt eerily familiar—just like what he had sensed earlier at the base of Sanshi Peak.

“Could someone have forced their way into this place? No, wait—how would they even do that? Did they break the formation? But the array looks perfectly intact…”

No matter how much Xu Ming pondered, he couldn’t figure it out.

After some hesitation, he decided to check it out.

Whoever the person was, they were obviously at an unusual location. That beat aimlessly wandering the mountain.

With that, Xu Ming started sprinting toward the source of the sword aura.

As a martial artist at the Heroic Soul Realm, Xu Ming’s speed was incredible—faster than a cheetah at full tilt.

In less than half the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, he reached the area.

Sliding down a slope and crashing through a dense thicket as tall as a man, Xu Ming came to an abrupt halt.

His pupils contracted sharply at the sight before him.

A young woman, her back to him, was hurtling through the air, crashing directly into him.

Xu Ming had no time to dodge.

The woman’s back slammed heavily into his chest, and the two of them flew backward, locked together, smashing through seven or eight trees before finally crashing into a massive boulder.