Seeking Immortality in the Mountains

Yuezhou is a land of mountains, and immortals dwell among them.

People say cultivators live on wind and dew, ride swords through the clouds, and enjoy lifespans of several centuries. But ordinary folk have rarely seen what life as an immortal is really like.

Neither had Shen Yan of Stonebridge Village, Baishi County.

When he was sixteen, a severe drought struck his hometown and the harvest failed. To earn a hundred and fifty copper coins, he shouldered the stonecutting tools his father had left him and went with a group to repair an irrigation canal at the foot of Mount Qingya.

A job that should have taken only seven or eight days gave him the chance to stay in the mountains and become a menial worker of the Qingya Sect.

Only then did he gradually learn that cultivators, too, struggled to make a living. They chased after spirit stones, grew old, and died.

And longevity was never something one could gain simply by uttering a wish to seek the Dao.

Shen Yan had only average talent, no illustrious background, and no extraordinary powers.

All he could do was make the most of his meager cultivation resources, read a few old books, learn a few spells, and keep taking one step after another along the long and arduous road to immortality.

In the mountains, years pass unnoticed. In the mortal world, time stretches on.

Many years later, the people he had known in his hometown had gradually passed away, while the mountain sect of old had risen and fallen several times.

Shen Yan was still on the path to the Dao.

He wanted to see just how far that road could take him.