Eternal Life: Talent Grows with Age-Chapter 157 - 122: Withdrawal from the Martial Artist Council

Chapter 157: Chapter 122: Withdrawal from the Martial Artist Council

The sleeping Lu Chang’sheng had a dream. In the dream, there were five-colored lights leaping around him, like little sprites flitting about, circling him.

When he couldn’t resist reaching out to touch them, those five-colored sprites shrank back in fear, retreating in all directions.

Lu Chang’sheng was in an excellent mood, playing merrily—it even felt like his aged heart had become more lively.

After waking, he vaguely had some guesses in his heart. Glancing again at the Light Curtain Panel, he saw that the main Root Bone Talent had undergone considerable change.

"Name: Lu Chang’sheng"

"Age: 50/120"

"Root Bone (Main): 0/10 [Immortal Dao Spirit Root, low-grade, next stage, utterly ordinary]"

······

"Techniques: Five Elements Divine Skill (Great Success), Five Treasures True Skill (Great Success)······"

"Skills: Alchemy (Great Success), Wandering Dragon Body Technique (Great Success)······"

"So it really is the Immortal Dao Spirit Root!"

Lu Chang’sheng felt overjoyed.

This meant he, too, now possessed the talent for cultivating immortality.

"Now, all I lack is a method of cultivating immortality."

The Immortal Cultivation Method is a technique for attaining immortality, and just like Martial Dao’s skills, it is the foundation for any cultivator.

"Now that items from the Spirit Realm have started appearing in the territory of Great Yuan, it’s likely the two realms are beginning to fuse."

Otherwise, creatures from the Spirit Realm could not possibly enter the lands of Great Yuan.

"Hopefully, the fusion zones won’t be too dangerous."

Lu Chang’sheng was deeply worried. While he had people monitoring news in every area, he focused his own attention on studying alchemy.

After awakening the Spirit Root, his mastery of alchemy had jumped up by a huge margin. Even those aspects he’d ignored in the past due to lack of comprehension were now unearthed and made up for, patching up the shortcomings in his alchemy.

At the same time, he gained a new insight into the Longevity Pill.

Although due to the advanced level of the Longevity Pill, he still could not reverse-engineer it, he’d already gained much understanding, and started trying to concoct an inferior version of the Longevity Pill.

Of course, Lu Chang’sheng had his own ideas about this.

The pill recipe he had derived for longevity was far inferior to the true Longevity Pill, but could still extend one’s lifespan. A rough estimate—one to two more years of life at best.

Whereas the Longevity Pill itself could extend one’s life by five years—and it also had other healing effects.

In comparison, his own version lagged far behind, but for Lu Chang’sheng, it was clearly an excellent beginning.

Lu Chang’sheng then ordered the Martial Artist Council to start gathering materials for refining a Longevity Pill.

By now the Martial Artist Council was a behemoth; backed by an Innate Martial Artist like himself, his underlings were unimpeded whether facing officials or gang powers.

Nowadays, the Martial Artist Council’s entry requirements had become increasingly strict. Otherwise, anyone who heard even a rumor would find a way to join.

The Martial Artist Council had transformed into an interest-driven confederation, expanding at a remarkable speed.

The only flaw—it lacked enough upper echelon members.

This would take time to solve; there was no shortcut.

Soon, Lu Chang’sheng managed to gather the very first batch of alchemy materials.

"Lord Lu, here are the items you requested."

That day, a caravan rolled into the Lu Family Manor and, after making their report, were received at the Lu Mansion.

A man led Lu Chang’sheng, who came at the sound, to inspect the medicinal ingredients.

The quantity wasn’t great—just a single cart.

The main ingredient was a millennium mountain ginseng, stored in a silver casket.

The responsible man marveled, "This thousand-year ginseng is called Mountain God by the mountain folk. They say it can walk through the earth."

No one knew, but when he heard this, he’d once tried it out of curiosity.

Unfortunately, nothing happened.

If it weren’t for those deep-mountain herb gatherers swearing it was true, he’d have never given it much thought.

Now, in speaking with Lu Chang’sheng, he was clearly hoping for a bit of credit.

Lu Chang’sheng thanked him with a smile, and had the steward hand over a sum of silver coins.

Only then did the man leave, satisfied and proud.

Lu Chang’sheng personally moved the ingredients to the Alchemy Institute, then focused on the primary herb—the Mountain God ginseng.

He thought to himself: I almost overlooked this angle.

His attention had mostly been on strange items—he hadn’t realized that Great Yuan itself still had valuable medicinal materials.

It had only been a month or so since he’d given the order, and already the Martial Artist Council had gathered five Mountain Gods. Clearly, Great Yuan still held many such herbs.

But— 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

"The higher grade the herb, the stranger it gets. As soon as one appears, it’s likely already been claimed by local gentry or wealthy families. Forcing them to hand it over would be troublesome."

Lu Chang’sheng sighed inwardly.

With his current power, ordinary households couldn’t withstand his influence at all.

But if someone already owned it, it was best not to seize it—better to trade for benefit.

With this in mind, he had someone clarify the matter to the Martial Artist Council.

And now, his reputation began to play a role.

Upon receiving the news, certain Council members visited local big families.

Learning that Innate Martial Artist Scholar Lu wanted the herbs, these household heads would almost always hand them over, and at the same time, gain considerable benefits in exchange.

For example: silver coins, official status, martial arts skills, and the like.

Lu Chang’sheng didn’t really care much about these mundane things.

With Great Yuan soon to merge with the Spirit Realm, no one could guess what the future would bring.

However, in one search for spirit medicine, the Martial Artist Council unexpectedly ran into some rivals. A fight nearly broke out, but once the other side learned it was for Scholar Lu, they relented and allowed those members of the Council to go free.