Chapter 107: Chapter 105: Peach! The Heaven-Defying Peach
’Since this is the [Peach Garden], the most precious things here ought to be... peaches?’
Standing before the boundless peach grove, his gaze swept over a layered, resplendent sea of pink blossoms that looked like clouds. A vast, majestic vitality seemed to overflow between Heaven and Earth as the thought crossed Qi Yun’s mind.
His gaze fell upon the nearest peach tree.
The tree had an ancient, unadorned form with gnarled branches, upon which seven or eight peaches were sparsely scattered.
The fruits were small and their skins were green. They looked far from ripe and were entirely unremarkable.
To test his theory, Qi Yun strode forward, intending to pick one and see for himself.
But the very instant he lifted his foot to step into the grove,
an unprecedented sense of immense danger, like an ice-cold poison needle, stabbed deep into his Divine Soul.
An eerie, invisible suction force erupted from the beautiful, resplendent Peach Garden before him.
HUM!
A tremor ran through Qi Yun. Before he had even set foot on the grove’s soil, countless glittering green specks of light had surfaced on his skin uncontrollably.
The purest of his life essence was forcibly squeezed from his pores, transforming into wisps of faint light that threatened to leave his body and fly toward the seemingly peaceful, beautiful grove.
His skin visibly lost some of its luster, and a sense of weakness and fatigue, originating from the depths of his life force, crept over him.
His expression changed slightly as he rapidly backed away. As he distanced himself from the grove, the suction faded, and the wisps of life floating on his skin returned to his body.
After that single encounter, the entire peach grove was no longer a vibrant wonderland in his perception.
Instead, it was an invisible abyss that swallowed the life of any who dared to enter.
Qi Yun stood in the distance, his gaze thoughtful as he looked upon the grove.
’Could the Silver Bracelet be a trap? Luring people here only for them to rashly step into the grove and have their life essence drained?’
’But if so, the trap is far too random.’
Unable to puzzle out the core of the matter, Qi Yun began to form a hand seal. A crimson glow coiled around his fingertips. With his current Cultivation, it was impossible to divine the karma of the Peach Garden.
So, he would divine his own.
He would divine the fortune, good or ill, that awaited him if he remained here!
As the Secret Technique activated, the skin on his arm suddenly split open into a network of fine, bloody lines that steadily deepened. Intense pain followed, but Qi Yun’s expression remained unchanged.
At the same time, he activated [Gathering Form and Scattering Qi]. His body instantly transformed into ethereal Pure Qi, and surging True Qi rushed to his wounds to repair the damage.
One process injured as the other healed, canceling each other out.
The limits of the [Blood-Drawn Profound Mechanism] were broken, allowing a clear thread of heavenly fate to gradually manifest before Qi Yun’s eyes.
[GREATLY AUSPICIOUS]
’Just as I thought!’
Seeing the manifested fortune, Qi Yun felt reassured. This Peach Garden was indeed a place of profound opportunity.
’That suction force from earlier was likely just an instinctive defense mechanism of the grove, not a deliberately set trap.’
’That’s right!’
’The peach branch...’
Whenever a benefit was on the line, Qi Yun’s mind worked with incredible speed. In an instant, he thought of the mysterious peach branch hidden within his Silver Bracelet.
When he fell into the tree hole earlier, he had placed the branch into his Storage Magic Bracelet to keep it safe.
With a flip of his hand, he retrieved the peach branch. He gripped it tightly, his eyes fixed on the grove as he once again strode forward.
One step, two steps... He once again reached the threshold where the terrifying suction had first appeared.
The very moment his foot landed,
the eerie, powerful suction—a force that pulled at the very source of one’s life—descended once more.
An invisible power tried to forcibly drain the life essence from his body. The glittering green specks resurfaced on his skin, trying to fly away.
Qi Yun’s brow furrowed, and he instinctively moved to retreat.
But at that moment, the previously inert peach branch in his hand, as if awakened by some force, suddenly bloomed with a soft, warm, pink halo.
The light wasn’t blinding. Gentle as a mother’s caress, it formed a curtain of light that slowly descended to envelop him.
The tyrannical, eerie suction—strong enough to instantly drain the life of any Cultivator below Foundation Establishment—melted away like snow in the sun the moment it touched the pink light, dissolving into nothing.
’It worked!’
Seeing the branch take effect, Qi Yun’s furrowed brow slowly relaxed, and a smile touched his lips.
"Finally, I’m in."
Having successfully entered the mysterious grove, Qi Yun walked to the nearest peach tree and reached out to pick one of the small, green-skinned peaches.
’Hm? It’s so heavy... And picking it actually consumes True Qi...’
Qi Yun looked surprised at the peach in his hand. It was only the size of an egg, yet it weighed hundreds of pounds.
He had also expended a small amount of True Qi while picking it.
It wasn’t much, but the phenomenon was bizarre.
"This world really is one big cultivation test. Even picking a peach requires a certain level of Cultivation..."
Muttering with a smile, Qi Yun carefully examined the unripe peach. As he held it up to the light to inspect its surface,
several dim, obscure characters in Ancient Seal script, branded onto the surface, faintly appeared.
[INCREASES LONGEVITY BY TEN YEARS]
His pupils contracted. He stared in disbelief at the unremarkable green peach in his hand—a fruit so plain no one would bother to pick it up off the street—and couldn’t help but swallow hard.
"So the fruits in this Peach Garden... they’re Longevity Peaches?"
Of all things between Heaven and Earth, across the vastness of all life,
if there was one thing all beings feared and respected, it was Time.
Even Cultivators who pursued immortality and defied the heavens could only sigh in helpless sorrow when faced with the erosion of time and the shackles of their lifespan.
A mortal was considered old at seventy. A Qi Refining Cultivator, even at the Realm of Great Perfection, could live for 136 years at most.
Even a lofty Foundation Establishment Master who looked down upon all mortals could only watch the world change for eight hundred years.
These lifespans were the absolute limits set by the heavens!
No Life Elixir could ever surpass them.
But there was one exception—the Longevity Peach in Qi Yun’s hand!
It was a life-extending treasure recorded in ancient texts and recognized by the entire world of Cultivation.
Legend had it that four hundred years ago, a Longevity Peach capable of extending one’s life by one hundred fifty years appeared, sparking a mad scramble among Foundation Establishment Masters.
At least four Foundation Establishment Masters fell during the conflict before the prize was finally claimed by the Eastern Earth Zen Sect.
"Don’t tell me this entire grove... grows nothing but Longevity Peaches?"
Snapping back to his senses, Qi Yun stared at the vast, boundless grove before him, which contained at least tens of thousands of peach trees.
The ecstatic feeling of having struck a mountain of gold nearly made him swoon.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he reached for another unripe fruit on the same tree, intending to pocket it as well.
But this time, the seemingly ordinary peach felt as if it were one with the entire grove.
No matter how hard Qi Yun tightened his grip and pulled, the peach wouldn’t budge an inch, as if it were cast from iron and rooted to the spot.
"Hm?" Qi Yun’s eyebrows knitted in surprise, but he didn’t stop.
The Innate True Qi in his body surged, flooding his arm with immense power. His muscles bulged slightly as he once again unleashed a terrifying force capable of crushing steel.
SCREECH!
The friction of his fingertips against the peach’s skin produced a sound that set his teeth on edge.
But the unripe peach remained firmly attached to the branch; the twig didn’t even tremble.
"I refuse to accept this!"
A sharp glint appeared in Qi Yun’s eyes. His stubborn, competitive spirit was thoroughly roused.
With a Heart Thought, a dark light flashed beside him. The Abyssal Iron Sand howled out, instantly condensing into a giant, ice-cold, jet-black metal hand that grabbed at the stubborn peach with enough terrifying force to level a small mountain!
BOOM!
A dull thud erupted as the giant Iron Sand hand made contact with the peach. The violent force even created ripples in the surrounding air.
But the result was still unbelievable.
The slender branch bent to an astonishing degree but showed no sign of snapping.
And the unripe peach still hung there, completely unharmed. Not even its skin was scratched!
"Could it be... you can only pick one?"
The thought flashed through Qi Yun’s mind like lightning.
He immediately let go, put down the unripe peach he had picked earlier, and then tried to pick a different one.
Just as he thought!
This time, it felt as light as a feather.
With just a gentle tug, the new Longevity Peach fell into his hand. The process was effortless, completely unlike before.
However, before Qi Yun could get a good look at this second Longevity Peach,
he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. The first unripe peach, which he had just set down, blurred for a moment like a phantom.
Then, just as real and intact as before, it reappeared on the branch where it had been, as if it had never been picked at all.
Qi Yun froze. He looked at the new peach in his hand, then back at the first one that had bizarrely "returned" to the tree. The initial, fiery greed in his eyes slowly faded, replaced by a dawning realization and a profound sense of awe.
This corner of Heaven and Earth had its own rules.
One person could only take one Longevity Peach.
Greed was pointless.
Once he understood that he could only take one Longevity Peach, a sharp glint flashed in Qi Yun’s eyes, and he instantly changed his plan.
’Since I only have one chance, I should naturally take the best one.’
Clutching the now-dim peach branch, he set off, heading deeper into the grove.
The deeper he went, the more ancient and vigorous the trees became. The Longevity Peaches hanging from their branches were completely different from those at the grove’s edge.
They were no longer small and green-skinned; the fruits grew larger and plumper, their color shifting from green to pink, and they exuded an increasingly rich and alluring fragrance.
Ten years... Twenty years... Thirty years... Fifty years... Seventy years... One hundred years!
With every few steps he took, the potency of the Longevity Peaches leaped to an astonishing new level.
However, as he ventured deeper into the grove,
Qi Yun keenly sensed that the mysterious peach branch in his hand—the one emitting a soft halo that protected him from the grove’s suction—was gradually growing dim.
The branch itself was starting to dry out and curl, and its tip was even showing signs of withering.
The deeper he went toward the grove’s core, the more terrifying the mystical power that invisibly drained one’s life source became.
Though the branch was miraculous, it was clearly not omnipotent. The power it contained was being rapidly consumed and was already nearing its limit.
"Tsk!" Qi Yun’s brow furrowed. He had to make a choice before the branch withered completely.
He stopped. His gaze flashed, rapidly scanning the Longevity Peaches ahead, which exuded an even richer fragrance. He then assessed the remaining power in the branch he held.
’This is the place!’
This was the absolute limit he could safely reach.
It was also the limit of what his True Qi could handle.
The next moment, he made his move.
His target was the most dazzling Longevity Peach on a branch just ahead of him.
It was luscious, a flawless, tender pink, and as large as a soup bowl, hanging quietly on the branch.
The instant his fingertips touched the Longevity Peach,
SNAP.
With a nearly inaudible sound, the withered yellow tip of the peach branch in his hand quietly broke off and fell away.
But Qi Yun had no time to spare it a glance. The peerless, bowl-sized Longevity Peach was now securely in his palm.
A boundless torrent of Life Essence Qi, vast as the sea, instantly poured into his body through his palm, causing every pore to open in blissful release.
’Success!’
Without a moment’s hesitation, Qi Yun gripped the Longevity Peach and the nearly-depleted branch and retreated, flying back the way he came at top speed.
...
