Aspiring to the Immortal Path

“Wh… what?” Huangfu Meng stared with mouth agape at Tang Jie.

“What? You don’t want to?” Tang Jie glanced at Huangfu Meng.

Huangfu Meng immediately came to her senses and prostrated. “I want to! Meng’er is willing! Meng’er pays respects to Master!”

Thock! Thock! Thock! She kowtowed several times.

Fortune had come so suddenly that Huangfu Meng felt dizzy. After numerous kowtows, Tang Jie stopped her. “Enough, silly girl. Fear, hatred, and resentment didn’t make you lose your senses, and neither should joy and rewards turn you into a fool… Do you know what made me want to take you as my disciple?”

Huangfu Meng froze, and then she shook her head.

Tang Jie explained, “I liked the way you considered problems. You were correct. Even if you begged me and I agreed, me acting on your behalf does not count as your revenge. Only when you use your own strength does it count, whether it is through trading or some other method. I also like your ability to remain calm and collected in surprise situations. In short, I see myself in you… You and I are very similar!”

Huangfu Meng was a lot like Tang Jie!

This was the most important reason Tang Jie had chosen to take her as his disciple.

Alas, neither of them was really like him.

Xi Canhen had a very unconventional and flighty personality, while Wang Posha was very mature and solid. While they had taken Tang Jie as their master, they each walked their own path and could not be considered his successor. Tang Jie had simply instructed them and guided them, but he hadn’t given them his most prized arts. He had not passed on to them the Parting Classic, his Dao of Formations, or his self-created secret arts.

…Because they weren’t suited for them!

In this aspect, Tang Jie had both succeeded and failed. He had succeeded because he had respected the talents of his disciples and not tried to shape them according to his will. He had failed because he had no one to inherit his legacy. He had once placed his hopes on Tang Zixi and Tang Xuanyu, but these two innately spiritual children also had their own paths and were unsuited for Tang Jie’s legacy.

Tang Jie felt very regretful about this.

And then Huangfu Meng had appeared.

He hadn’t expected to run into this kind of girl here. She was extremely similar to him when he was young, with the same resolve, the same pride, the same way of dealing with things and logical way of thinking, the same composure in dangerous situations, and the same daring to take risks.

It was at that moment that he was tempted!

Although he had never thought that his true successor would be a girl, at that moment, he had decided to take Huangfu Meng as his disciple.

Now that he had taken her as his disciple, Tang Jie told her everything about his identity and purpose in coming.

Huangfu Meng wasn’t surprised that Tang Jie had come from outside the Divine Spring Domain. Given how smart she was, she had already guessed that this was the case, since it was very difficult to find a human with such cultivation within the Divine Spring Domain. But she was surprised by Tang Jie’s goal.

Conquering Divine Spring and liberating the humans! This goal that she hadn’t even dared to think about was now close at hand, and she could hardly believe that it was real.

“All of this is still too far off for you. All you need to do is cultivate. This mantra is something I made in my spare time, containing all that I learned and comprehended in my lifetime. You can study from it. As for what path you take in the future, that depends on what you comprehend.” Tang Jie took out a small book and handed it to her.

Just as he had said, he had summarized all he had learned in this book, and though it was only the most fundamental part, it covered a wide range and provided a solid foundation. Finally, different people would experience it and progress in different ways.

Once Huangfu Meng established this basic foundation, Tang Jie could confirm that she was suitable to inherit all of his teachings.

Huangfu Meng gratefully fell to her knees. “Thank you, Master!”

Tang Jie waved his hand. “Tang Chuan!”

Tang Chuan appeared next to Tang Jie, startling Huangfu Meng with his sudden entrance.

Tang Jie said, “Go and kill those Blood Disciples.”

Tang Chuan nodded and disappeared.

After doing this, Tang Jie said, “Let’s go and see the next treasure spot of the Dark Night Ancestor. We might find something.”

“Yes!” Huangfu Meng excitedly replied.

Tang Jie called out the intelligent stone man, which carried master and disciple to the next location as directed by Huangfu Meng. This stone man’s earth movement art was quite formidable, able to travel a thousand kilometers in an instant.

This was no joke. When Tang Jie entered the Dao of Space, his Nearby Horizon could only go as far as he could see, and in normal circumstances, Tang Jie could not see a thousand kilometers.

As a child of the Earth, the stone man could be said to have innately entered the Dao of Earth to the highest level, which was why it could do this. This instant travel was incredibly convenient, bringing back a level of transportation which Tang Jie had lost along with his avatar.

They emerged in front of another temple to the Dark Night Ancestor.

Tang Jie ignored it and spread out his Divine Will to scan the vicinity for anything suspicious.

But there was nothing.

Finding it strange, Tang Jie expanded the search area, but he still found nothing. With the strength of his Divine Will, little could hide from him, but he still couldn’t find a thing, which left him baffled.

After some thought, Tang Jie ordered the stone man to search, but it also found nothing. Meanwhile, the idol in the temple seemed to notice them, and a stream of smoke emerged.

The Dark Night Ancestor’s clones were very different from Tang Jie’s avatar, and the clones didn’t seem to operate based on some soul connection with the main body. The previous clone had transformed into a wisp of black smoke after Tang Jie killed it, yet the clone within this temple didn’t seem to know what had happened, which resulted in it taking the wrong response.

Tang Jie snorted and immediately unleashed a pressure that wrapped around the smoke. Before Dark Night’s clone could realize what was going on, it was caught off guard and obliterated. But this time, it could no longer flee as a wisp of smoke, Tang Jie pressing down more and more in an attempt to destroy it. Strangely, no matter what Tang Jie did, the black smoke refused to stay down.

Tang Jie frowned and realized that this must have been one of the Dark Night Ancestor’s secret arts. Completely destroying the black smoke’s link with the main body probably wasn’t possible.

“Still, I’m not letting you run away so easily.” Tang Jie decided to transform his will into a cage to pen up the smoke.

This black smoke seemed helpless against Tang Jie’s suppression, but it was actually quite formidable. As it battered around the cage, it began to slowly corrode it, so Tang Jie had to create more cages to hold it. “Let’s not delay. Since there’s nothing here, we should go elsewhere.”

“Mm!” Huangfu Meng immediately told him the location of several other temples.

The stone man took them to the next temple.

Here, Tang Jie found nothing either, and this time, Tang Jie left without bothering the Dark Night clone. The third temple also came up empty. At the fourth temple, Tang Jie found himself in an extremely cold region.

With a slight scan from his Divine Will, Tang Jie sensed a treasure and raised an eyebrow. “So there really was something.”

He flew toward the indicated location.

This was an icy pool of water which was thick with cold energy, so cold that it transcended the concept of temperature and directly touched the soul.

Tang Jie was delighted, reaching into the water. The moment his hand entered the pool, the water instantly froze into a solid block of ice. But his hand simply flashed red, upon which the ice shattered, and Tang Jie reached deeper into the pool, reaching the bottom and pulling out a small pearl.

The moment the pearl was out, the temperature of the surrounding area plunged.

“As expected, an Ice Mothercore,” Tang Jie said.

In the center of this pearl was a slumbering infant. But unlike the stone man, the pearl was extremely small, so the infant inside was like an ant.

Tang Jie knew that this was simply because the Ice Mothercore had yet to mature. Once it was complete, it would be the same size as a normal person.

Tang Jie placed a drop of his blood on the Ice Mothercore and then threw it back into the cold pool, after which he poured in some Yellow Springs Essence. As a divine water, the Yellow Springs Essence could more than make up for anything the water baby lost as Tang Jie hastened its growth process, which Tang Jie proceeded to do.

In the distance, the Dark Night Ancestor’s clone sensed that something was amiss, but before it could react, a majestic will enveloped and sealed it.

As the Yellow Springs Essence permeated through the pool, a powerful energy began to emerge.

Finally, the icy energy of the pool completely disappeared, and a baby jumped out of the water. This was a crystalline doll of a girl, in complete contrast to the giant stone man. There was a little red birthmark on her forehead, created by Tang Jie’s essence blood.

The moment the doll appeared, she prostrated to Tang Jie, recognizing him as her master.

Tang Jie laughed. “Wonderful, wonderful. This Dark Night Ancestor was trying to raise Five Elements life forms, but I ended up getting two of them instead. That means that there should be three more.”

“But, Master, why did the Dark Night Ancestor also set up all those useless temples?” Huangfu Meng asked.

“As a cover, of course,” Tang Jie said. “My luck was just good enough to find the stone man from the beginning, or else I really might have been fooled.”

“But these are all the temples I know of. Your disciple is unaware of the location of any others,” Huangfu Meng sighed.

There wasn’t much time, and the Dark Night Ancestor’s main body might find out what was happening at any time. Once it realized that its hidden treasures were being stolen, it would definitely strike back. Tang Jie wasn’t afraid of that. He was more worried that the Dark Night Ancestor would go collecting the rest of the treasures.

If he could collect all five Elemental Essence lifeforms, he could create the core materials for all formations in the world, which would make for a terrifying combo with his Eight Gates Banners.

“It’s fine,” Tang Jie said. “If he wanted to raise Elemental Essence lifeforms, he needs special environments. With this Earth Elemental, nothing in this underground world can hide from us.”

He put away that crystalline doll and departed using the Earth Elemental’s movement arts.