As soon as these two words appeared, you immediately understood what they meant.

["This is about cultivating immortality!"]

You thought more carefully and realized that martial artists below the Ultimate Grandmaster level indeed operated within normal human capabilities.

It was only at the Ultimate Grandmaster level that they started becoming superhuman.

You then wondered: since spiritual energy exists in this world, why wasn't anyone cultivating immortality instead of practicing martial arts?

You speculated it must be because the spiritual energy was too sparse.

You couldn't help but think to yourself: "Sparse spiritual energy? What phase is this then - the End of Days or the Spiritual Energy Revival?"

"If it's the End of Days, everyone happily practicing martial arts and refining true qi from within their bodies actually makes sense."

"If it's Spiritual Energy Revival, everyone happily practicing martial arts... also makes perfect fucking sense!"

You frowned deeply: "I hope it's Spiritual Energy Revival. Otherwise, even if I fuse with more Earth Sources and live for hundreds or thousands of years more, it would just be slow death!"

You then thought about the Earth Sources - these things were strange, clearly exceeding the power level of martial arts and not something that should exist in a martial world.

You understood all the forms of Earth Sources and could discern their specific imagery - they were all people, events, or objects that had left profound marks between heaven and earth.

The vast majority of Earth Source imagery fell within martial arts scope, with only a very few being utterly absurd, like Li Anlong's Soaring Golden Dragon Earth Source.

Something like the Soaring Golden Dragon clearly shouldn't exist in a martial arts world.

Although you'd once been serviced by a dragon, you knew this world had no actual dragons.

To summarize, most Earth Source imagery belonged to the martial arts scope, with extremely few representing people or things from the immortality cultivation scope.

Since things from the immortality cultivation scope could be recorded by Earth Sources, it proved they had once existed.

Thinking this through, you suddenly had an epiphany: "This means there was once an era of immortality cultivation, and it was very long ago, at least before martial arts history!"

Immediately, your expression turned bitter: "Dammit! So this is the End of Days?!"

"What can I even achieve in the End of Days? Isn't this just slow death?!"

Your dream of becoming an immortal ancestor shattered into pieces.

You looked up at the sky, feeling only darkness ahead.

You couldn't help but ask heaven: "Dare I ask the heavens - do immortals exist?"

Just as your handsome face was full of despair, you suddenly felt something was wrong.

"Martial arts flourishes now, the immortality cultivation era predates martial arts, and according to existing ancient records in Great Qian, martial arts has been passed down for who knows how many years!"

Your eyes suddenly shone with light: "If there had been even a trace of spiritual energy during the martial arts era, there should have been some inheritance of immortality cultivation traditions, not this complete dominance of martial arts practice!"

"Then..." you suddenly raised your head, "could the sparse spiritual energy appearing in the Qianming Mountain Range be the first spiritual energy to appear since the martial arts era?!"

"That is to say, this is the Spiritual Energy Revival period, not the End of Days!!"

This speculation made you suddenly excited.

You felt hope for becoming an immortal ancestor again.

But you immediately calmed down because this was just your speculation.

You decided to come test the spiritual energy concentration in the Qianming Mountain Range every ten years to see if it decreased or increased.

With your current three-hundred-year lifespan, you should be able to observe changes. Even if three hundred years isn't enough, you'll fuse with more Earth Sources and eventually have about a thousand years of life.

Even if a thousand years isn't enough to see changes, you could actually start cultivating immortality by directly absorbing spiritual energy.

You could feel the spiritual energy's affinity toward you, which you guessed was due to the Earth Sources.

Because you didn't have this feeling after fusing with one Earth Source - only after fusing with two did you feel this affinity with spiritual energy. Fusing with more Earth Sources would definitely have better effects.

Then there was the issue of immortality cultivation techniques.

This was easy to solve - your Lin·Human-shaped Cheat·Mo would take care of it.

Speaking of which, your great benefactor Lin Mo would be born in two years.

You planned to find time to bring two boxes of milk to visit Wei Xia, to make sure nothing goes wrong.

The final problem was that the spiritual energy in the Qianming Mountain Range was too sparse - normal absorption and cultivation would probably achieve little.

But fortunately, you were a cheater with an unclosed simulator.

Calculating one simulation per second, that's 86,400 simulations in 24 hours, and 31,536,000 simulations in 365 days.

Adding your actual lifespan of up to a thousand years and the average few hundred years of life in each simulation, theoretically you could cultivate for over ten trillion years!

Even a pig would become an immortal!

However sparse the spiritual energy was, it would be a paradise for you.

Extremely excited, you laughed uproariously: "Hahaha... So whether this is the End of Days or Spiritual Energy Revival, I'm destined to have the makings of a Great Emperor!"

You also understood why not all beast vital blood in the Qianming Mountain Range contained spiritual energy.

Because only beasts cultivated for many years using the beast taming manual could gradually enhance their intelligence.

For example, some animals in your Youtong County Zoo cultivated with the beast taming manual could already understand simple commands.

Only these animals had the chance to instinctively absorb a trace of spiritual energy into their bodies.

Of course, such advanced beasts were rare even in the Beast Taming Sect - they were all treasures cultivated by the sect for many years.

As for that drop of vital blood containing spiritual energy that you just refined, it was because Dong Zhijie had cultivated it using the beast taming manual while also long-term feeding it fifth-grade Blood Essence Pills, accelerating the animal's intelligence enhancement.

You understood that these powerful beast bloods posed no threat to you.

So you directly refined all the remaining beast vital blood in your hands, but no more spiritual energy-containing vital blood appeared.

You obtained ninety-one drops of ordinary vital blood and one drop of powerful beast blood containing spiritual energy.

You could now safely use these beast bloods to practice the Guarding Gate Body Technique.

You inventoried all the vital blood you'd quietly collected during your last visit to the Beast Taming Sect when you picked them up at midnight.

Including today's vital blood, you had refined but not yet fused 648 drops of ordinary vital blood and 16 drops of powerful beast blood.

You planned to fuse all these beast bloods today.

You hadn't touched them since last time when you fused three drops of Emberhawk vital blood and raised your additional physical strength to the early Marrow Washing stage.

You were quite excited to see what level you could reach with so much vital blood this time.

Without further ado, you sat cross-legged on the open grassland and began fusion.

You were already thoroughly familiar with fusing beast blood - in less than half a quarter-hour, you had completed all fusions.

Your additional physical strength jumped from the early Marrow Washing stage across a major realm to the early Organ Fortifying stage.

You stretched comfortably: "The Guarding Gate Body Technique must be practiced. Even if I cultivate immortality later, I'll have a good body. Might as well go for dual cultivation of law and body too."

After fusing the beast blood, you used Source Power to erect a massive barrier shield over the Qianming Mountain Range.

Then gradually shrunk it to the size of a small finger joint, attempting to capture spiritual energy.

But you ended up capturing nothing - the spiritual energy in the Qianming Mountain Range was too sparse to condense.

Forcing a trace of spiritual energy to condense would require countless attempts, so you could only give up.

You also tried to absorb the trace of spiritual energy extracted from the powerful beast blood into your body.

You controlled Source Power to wrap around the spiritual energy and circulate it twice through your body, but nothing happened.

You understood that without immortality cultivation techniques, it was like knowing how to put food in your mouth but not how to chew and swallow - impossible to convert food into nutrition.

You ultimately abandoned the meaningless attempts.

Planning to wait another two years until your human-shaped cheat is born, then bring him to the Qianming Mountain Range for training from childhood - immortality cultivation should start from infancy.

Now you needed to continue collecting Earth Sources. Earth Sources could make you more affinity with spiritual energy, laying foundation for future absorption.

Only after fusing multiple Earth Sources would you have the ability to shatter that light shield on Sea Snake Island and see what good stuff was hidden beneath.

That light shield's defensive power was above second-level extreme path warriors, and now it seemed possibly related to the immortality cultivation level.

But everything from the previous immortality cultivation era had vanished after erosion by endless time.

How could this small light shield cross the river of time and survive to the current martial arts era?

You couldn't understand, but you believed that when you break it one day, you would understand everything.