Shadow Puppets, Paper Folding, and Creating Spirit Roots: The Unorthodox Path to Immortality

[Travel between two worlds + strange monsters and demons + unorthodox cultivation + farming + some graphic violence] Three hundred li west of Linyuan City stands a hundred-mu ironwood forest called the Flesh Tree Temple. Its arts are devastatingly powerful and easy to learn, but they come with a serious hidden danger. Flesh becomes trees, and the trees grow as hard as fine iron. There is no denying the strength this grants, but once someone masters the art, they transform completely into a monster tree. The hundred-mu ironwood forest is full of such practitioners of the heretical path. Fifty li east of Linyuan City lies a black pool, three hundred zhang wide. Its depths cannot be seen. It is teeming with monsters and spirits of unfathomable power. Two hundred li south of Linyuan City is a cave. It is full of dutiful sons who murder their fathers to nourish their mothers. Their mothers smile and say, “Good boy, good boy.” In Linyuan City lives an immortal who knows the path to immortality and can live forever.