Chapter 374: White Hair from Bitter Struggles, the Golden Core Dream Burns On (II)

Another long cycle of rest and recovery began.

By the time Luo Chen reached one hundred and seventy years of age, his cultivation had finally advanced to the eighth stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm.

In Tianlan Immortal City, he was already regarded as a figure of considerable influence. Even when the ruling authority shifted to the Flame Alliance, an ally of the Jade Cauldron Sword Sect, he leveraged the strength of his pill business to secure a formal vassal relationship with them.

Yet standing at the eighth stage of Foundation Establishment left him with a profound sense of hopelessness.

Despite the wealth he had accumulated over a century, despite the countless resources at his disposal, his innate talent weighed upon him like an invisible chain. His progress remained painfully slow, and this was only the eighth stage. Ahead still loomed the ninth, followed by the most perilous threshold of all—the Golden Core Realm.

In truth, his hopes of ever stepping into that realm were nearly nonexistent.

Yet Luo Chen refused to accept that. He frequently attended auctions, traveled to other immortal cities within the Jade Cauldron Domain, and even joined a major Golden Core sect as an external honored guest, all in pursuit of better cultivation resources and faster breakthroughs. Yet no matter how much he strove, his cultivation progress remained slow.

By the time he turned two hundred, he found himself once again seated atop Danxia Peak. The sea of clouds beneath him rolled in majestic waves, yet his heart was clouded in doubt and uncertainty.

Behind him, soft footsteps approached.

It was Gu Caiyi. She had survived both Foundation Establishment and the brutal war of the Upper Sects. Two centuries later, she remained stunning, her beauty mellowed by time, her figure touched with the graceful fullness of maturity.

"Luo Chen," she said quietly, her tone filled with warmth and concern, "will you not rest for a while?"

"The Great Dao lies before me," Luo Chen answered without turning his head. His voice was steady, brimming with resolve, yet beneath the firmness lingered a trace of despair. "How could I possibly rest?"

Gu Caiyi came to his side and looked at him with compassion.

"I've known you since you were only at the fourth stage of Qi-Refining. It has been nearly two hundred years, and you've never stopped cultivating and refining pills. And when you weren't doing either, you were negotiating with powerful sects, fighting for a future for the Luo Tian Society. For two whole centuries, you never stopped."

She paused, her voice softening. "Aren't you... tired?"

At those softly spoken words, Luo Chen’s chest tightened. A sudden dizziness swept over him, rising from the depths of his soul. What began as a faint tremor grew into a surging tide of exhaustion, washing over his mind and body alike.

He was truly exhausted.

For two centuries, he had touched no woman, craved no power, and had never once paused in his cultivation! No one in the world had worked as hard as he had.

His alchemy mastery had brought him wealth far surpassing others of his tier. Even Golden Core cultivators weren't half as rich as he was. Yet despite it all, the Golden Core Realm remained hopelessly out of reach.

The despair masked by determination spread without end...

A gentle mountain breeze passed by, and his figure wavered unsteadily. A soft, curvaceous waist pressed near, catching his graying face as it drooped.

Gu Caiyi stroked his silvering hair with tender care and whispered, "Let us stop fighting, shall we?"

Stop fighting...?

Three days later, a grand wedding took place atop Danxia Peak!

Luo Chen, now a late stage Foundation Establishment grand cultivator and a renowned second-tier alchemist, formally took Gu Caiyi as his Dao Companion.

The wedding was modest in preparation but grand in impact. Foundation Establishment cultivators from all across the region attended. Even three Golden Core cultivators arrived to offer congratulations. The Jade Cauldron Sword Sect sent a rare gift, and the Divine Talisman Sect dispatched two representatives: Fu Xiuxiu and Chen Shuyi, both Foundation Establishment disciples who had once followed alongside Luo Chen in their youth.

Though arranged in haste, the wedding left an indelible impression. Even twenty years later, it was still spoken of throughout the Jade Cauldron Domain as a tale of renown.

Two decades passed in the blink of an eye.

Once again, Luo Chen stood upon the summit of Danxia Peak, watching the sun sink into the boundless sea of clouds. In his arms lay Gu Caiyi, silent and without breath. Her allotted lifespan had run its course, and her beauty had faded like shattered jade.

Luo Chen sat motionless for a long time.

Ten days later, as mist surged from the east and a blazing sun leapt above the clouds, the old cultivator slowly exhaled. In that golden light, his weary heart stirred once more.

"I have rested enough," he said quietly.

After burying Gu Caiyi, Luo Chen resumed his path of cultivation.

This time, he no longer sought caution but became more frenzied than ever before. With his cultivation advancing slowly, he craved more efficient cultivation resources.

The great sects offered him nothing. Not even as a nominal honored guest would they part with the supplies he so urgently required.

Luo Chen thought darkly,

If you won't give it to me, then I'll take it for myself!

With that ruthless resolve, he began consuming his hidden reserve of Imperial Nectar, sparing no expense to fortify both his own cultivation and the strength of the Luo Tian Society. The number of Foundation Establishment cultivators under his banner swelled, climbing from a handful to dozens.

Later, many rogue cultivators who had lost hope of breaking through came flocking to join. Ten came, then twenty, then thirty, then fifty...

In this process, he lavished resources and recruited several Golden Core cultivators! These were not nameless wanderers. These were not nameless wanderers but once-renowned figures whose sects had perished in the devastating war between Nascent Soul powers. With their sects gone, they survived but only as isolated remnants, clinging to life.

"Join the Luo Tian Sect!

"Stand with me to strike down the Jade Cauldron Sword Sect and seize the chance to form your Nascent Soul!

"They are weakened. The war a century ago bled them dry!

"This war, I've planned for years. It won't be just the Luo Tian Sect. The Flame Alliance, Green Pill Valley, and Hundred Flowers Palace will all act in unison!"

No one truly knew how much effort Luo Chen had poured into uniting four sects into a joint army through intricate alliances and diplomacy. He did it for the Golden Core while the others joined for revenge. The Golden Core cultivators sought to reach the Nascent Soul Realm!

And so, war returned to the Jade Cauldron Domain.

However, it ended as quickly as it began.

From another domain, a Nascent Soul Sage descended. He was a rising star of a major sect, seeking new territory to expand his sect’s influence.

To a cultivator of that realm, the war between the five Golden Core sects was nothing more than a joke. With a single wave of his hand, he crushed the conflict entirely, scattering the ambitions of countless factions.

Even after the war's end, its repercussions continued to ripple outward.

As the orchestrator behind the war, Luo Chen was placed on a most-wanted list. The newly established Luo Tian Sect was almost immediately struck by catastrophic devastation.

All those dear to Luo Chen, his friends, disciples, descendants, and even his friends' descendants were wiped out without a trace.

Only Luo Chen survived.

Like a stray dog, he wandered the cultivation world in exile. By then, his figure was aged beyond recognition. His lifespan had long surpassed the Foundation Establishment limit, and he was now two hundred and eighty years old.

It was Wang Yuan's legacy that had made his survival possible.

During the war between the Sword Sect and the Luoyun Sect, Wang Yuan had mastered a cultivation method for advancing from the second to the third stage of Physical-Refining. It combined the Dao of Immortality with brute force, centered primarily on blood path cultivation.

Drawing on his natural talent and comprehension, Luo Chen fused the soul path into this foundation. He then survived by devouring the essence blood and souls of other cultivators.

Even when the elders of his slain enemies came to strike him down, he repelled them with brutal force. Even Golden Core elders often returned empty-handed after confronting him.

Thus, a new name gradually spread through the Far East’s Six Domains.

The Blood Devil.

When Luo Chen reached three hundred and thirty years of age, he returned at last to Tianlan Immortal City. With his Perfected Mastery Spirit Suppression and an enormous sum of spirit stones, he temporarily exchanged for a third-tier low-grade cave residence atop Tianlan Peak.

By then, his cultivation had already reached the Perfected Mastery of Foundation Establishment. Not only that, he possessed several secret techniques for forming a Golden Core.

Thus, on this day, Luo Chen sat in solemn meditation, ready to challenge the threshold that had eluded him for centuries. A massive vortex spun wildly within his dantian. Vast spirit energy surged toward him from all directions.

His long white hair floated behind him without the wind, and beneath those weathered eyes burned unwavering resolve.

Through hardship and frost at the temples, my ambition endures. The Golden Core is within reach. In this life, how could I possibly stop here?

Boom!