Chapter 85: Three Hundred and Sixty Strands, Immortal Qi Refines the Immortal Embryo (Fourth Update)

“C-Chief…?”
In his dazed confusion, Qing sensed a strange trace of energy in the world around him.
But his mind was clouded, his thoughts scattered, and his feeble body was beyond his control, left utterly at the mercy of others.
What were these creatures saying? The language was entirely unfamiliar—could it be he had ended up in another tribe?
Qing had already forgotten what had happened to him; all he remembered was unbearable pain, so intense he had wished for death.
No, the chief was already…dead.
Yet the beings around him seemed jubilant.
Were they rejoicing for him?
Qing could neither comprehend nor understand. All he knew was that he was still alive, though frail and helpless, like a mindless beast.
But…wait.
Why was someone pulling at his head?
His head was about to come off.
Qing wailed in pain and despair.
His cries stirred his mother’s maternal instincts, and she rushed to his defense.
“My child, no, no, you can’t sacrifice him. He’s my child.”
His mother, a massive and well-fed serpent spirit, slithered to him.
Madness blazed in her eyes, bordering on frenzy. The weakness of childbirth had not diminished her in the least.
“This is his glory, and yours, and ours as well.”
The ancient serpent, undeterred by her hysteria, flicked his tongue coldly, his words even more chilling than his nature, yet burning with fanaticism.
“No.”
At this moment, all reason was swept away from Qing’s mother by the force of her instinct.
Hissing, she coiled around the elder serpent, snapping at his head.
But the old serpent only glanced at her, and her body instantly froze, unable to move.
Immobilized!
“You two! Take her away!”
The old serpent barked at a pair of serpent demons.
The serpent demons, who had been watching the bizarre scene from the sidelines, immediately bowed their heads in deference as the elder’s gaze swept over them.
“Sacrifice to the Lord!”
The old serpent hissed.
“To the Lord!” the other serpent demons chanted in unison.
Crunch!

One of Qing’s heads was torn off.
Blood spurted forth.
Another head was torn from his body.
Crunch!
Even the last of Qing’s three heads did not escape.
Every head was wrenched off and hurled to the ground.
But Qing did not die.
Luo Zu, who had been watching from the shadows, understood why.
Qing’s mind was not housed in those three heads, but in his torso, nestled beside his two hearts.
“This fellow’s luck is truly abysmal,” Luo Zu could not help but remark.
He himself had endured misfortune.
Yet Qing was also lucky—Luo Zu had granted him a second life, making him perhaps the first living being in the vast wilderness to undergo ‘reincarnation.’
He ought to feel honored, just as the tribal elders had said.
Despite having all three heads torn off by the grand elder, he still survived—was this not proof of his fortune?
His frail body was then tossed aside like a broken rag doll, left to live or die as fate decreed.
Luo Zu had no intention of intervening; he was curious to see if Qing had the makings of a ‘protagonist.’
The mortal world was now a turbulent place.
Among humans, the old protagonist was the ghostly immortal Yang; the barbarians had the orphaned bloodline Gu; among the demons, a ‘protagonist’ had yet to appear—only the Lord of Demons was known.
Now that Qing had appeared, might he not be the protagonist destined to descend from the heavens?
After all, he was the first in the world to be reincarnated, so surely a measure of destiny would cling to him.
But Luo Zu would not help him—he had more than enough projects on his hands.
Foremost among them were his divine spirit incarnations in the mortal world and the ‘Immortal Realm,’ as well as the cultivation of immortal essence.
Immortal essence was always the highest priority; when he had refined three hundred sixty threads, he could pursue the next transformation of his primordial spirit.
“With three hundred sixty threads of immortal essence, I shall temper the immortal embryo with my spirit.”
Yet this next transformation was not true immortality; according to Luo Zu’s calculations, the true immortal was the greatest metamorphosis for a living being, so a single transformation of the spirit would not suffice.
For now, Luo Zu had refined only three threads of immortal essence.
Still, if he could gather enough energy, he could quickly refine many more.
There was a great store of sun and moon essence in the world within his gourd; Luo Zu had borrowed a portion before, and continued to draw from it even now.

Moreover, he continually siphoned power from the sun and moon in the name of the spirits within the gourd world.
Many of these spirits had no ability to absorb the sun and moon’s essence, but they each possessed true souls, which meant they were entitled to a daily allotment of that vital energy.
Luo Zu simply claimed that allotment for himself.
With such a method, he could refine a thread of immortal essence in a day—measured by the days of the primordial world.
To that end, Luo Zu had slowed the flow of time in the gourd world, synchronizing it with the primordial realm.
After all, the sun and moon existed in the wilderness, not inside the gourd.
As for how mortal cultivators could draw in the sun and moon essence every day, the answer was simple: the wool comes from the sheep’s back.
The essence they absorbed was pulled from the primordial land itself, with Luo Zu skimming off ninety percent.
But time in the mortal world was accelerated three hundredfold compared to the primordial realm, so the cultivators’ own absorption was far from sufficient.
Therefore, Luo Zu daily claimed sun and moon essence in the name of all the living beings in the mortal world, ensuring enough for every cultivator’s practice, and leaving a surplus of several million threads each day.
It took about three hundred thousand threads of sun and moon essence to birth a single thread of immortal essence.
The main reason was that Luo Zu’s arcane arts now numbered one hundred and nine.
No, there were three more now, making it a hundred and twelve.
Thus, the amount of sun and moon essence needed for a single thread of immortal essence had to increase again.
The requirement was now about three hundred fifty thousand threads.
One could say that the difference between the primordial spirit and the yang soul was vast; moreover, Luo Zu’s achievement of one hundred and twelve arcane arts was truly unprecedented.
Currently, there remained ten million threads of sun and moon essence in the gourd world.
It sounded like much, but in use, it was not.
To manage the vast quantity, Luo Zu introduced a new unit of measurement: the Dao.
One Dao of sun and moon essence equaled three hundred sixty thousand threads.
In other words, a single Dao sufficed to refine a thread of immortal essence.
At that moment, Luo Zu drew in one Dao of sun and moon essence, slowly transforming it through his hundred and twelve arcane arts.
But the most crucial element of immortal essence was not the sun and moon energy or the arts themselves, but the power of the natural world.
Sitting in his mountain cave, Luo Zu attuned himself to the harmony between nature and his own being, then guided this attunement into his primordial spirit, weaving it into the hundred and twelve arcane arts and fusing it with the sun and moon essence, thus refining a single thread of immortal essence.
The cave alternately brightened and dimmed, in flashes like lightning.
A barely perceptible, crystalline wisp of energy emerged from behind Luo Zu’s head, then slowly settled into the purple chamber at the base of his brow.