Chen Mo was born into the poorest family in Qingshi Village. Every day, he went up the mountain to chop firewood before dawn and didn’t return home until dark. He had never dreamed of cultivating immortality. That path was only open to the children of rich and powerful families. It wasn’t until his mother fell gravely ill and his little sister fainted from hunger at their doorstep that he understood for the first time: in this world, a poor person’s life wasn’t worth a thing.
His mother needed a Life-Sustaining Pill to survive, but even the lowest-grade one cost thirty spirit stones. His family worked themselves to the bone all year and could save only two or three. Chen Mo knelt outside the apothecary for three whole days, but the shopkeeper only tossed him a single remark: “A pauper like you thinks you deserve spiritual medicine?”
Just as all hope seemed lost, his father dug out the “Primordial Stone Embryo” that had been buried at the bottom of a chest for years: a bluish-gray stone said to have been left behind by a cultivator they had once saved. His father had no real hope for it. He only wanted Chen Mo to pawn it for money to buy medicine. Carrying the stone into town, Chen Mo passed a mass grave, and the Stone Embryo suddenly grew hot. In that moment, for the first time, he “saw” the spiritual energy between heaven and earth.
As it turned out, the Stone Embryo could absorb faint spiritual energy and transform it into a mild form that could be absorbed.
Every day, Chen Mo finished his farm work, then secretly cultivated late into the night. Transforming the energy consumed the Stone Embryo’s vitality, and each session felt like being flayed alive, but he gritted his teeth and endured. Three months later, he had actually reached the first level of Qi Refining. He used a low-grade spiritual herb, accelerated to maturity with the Stone Embryo, to trade for his mother’s Life-Sustaining Pill.
But word got out. When the Lin family of the town heard about it, they came to demand the Stone Embryo. The Lin family’s third young master trampled Chen Mo underfoot in front of everyone and snatched it away. Curled up in the mud, Chen Mo clenched his teeth so hard that they…
