I Break Through Realms with Bounties

A Yi and A San climbed the nine hundred and ninety-nine stone steps together. But by nightfall, only one of them remained inside the mountain gate.

A Yi was found to have a perfect, ten-part Water Spirit Root. Every peak fought to recruit him, and he rose to the heavens in a single bound. When A San placed his hand on the spirit-testing pillar, all he got in return were three words: no spirit root.

One entered the immortal sect. The other returned to the mortal world.

But no one saw the ray of golden light that slipped into A San's palm as he pulled his hand away. That night, the Heavenly Secrets System activated. It didn't grant him a spirit root or give him cultivation, and it charged Spirit Coins for even a single answer. If he wanted pills, cultivation arts, or clues about the future, he had to complete bounties himself and risk his life to earn them.

To save an old man who had once given him a roasted sweet potato, A San exposed a fraudulent debt contract and tore up the Qingfeng Gang's account books. To protect Pingshan Village, he single-handedly killed thirteen mounted bandits despite being only an ordinary person who had just entered the First Realm. With a wave of Yun Jiuchen's hand, more than a hundred members of the Qingfeng Gang were wiped out.

Yet A San continued down a path the spirit-testing pillar had never offered him.

Meanwhile, within the Righteous Qi Sect, the unwanted pearl on A Yi's chest was quietly rewriting his fate.

Later, Yun Jiuchen took A San as his disciple, gave him the name Bai Shan, and led him across the boundary gate into the Immortal Realm.

Many years later, the two boys met again.

Behind one stood ten thousand immortals, bowing their heads.

The other lifted his head and asked the heavens:

“Can I really not cultivate to immortality?”