Prologue: Surpassing the mortal world in a single bound!
Stories of deities and demons were something every child grew up hearing, whether one lived in a thriving metropolis or the rural countryside. Powerful warriors and heroes who could fly through the skies, seize stars and up-end the very heavens themselves! Eternal beings who could close their eyes only to open them again a millennia later! But no different from any other childhood belief like Santa, The Tooth Fairy, or The Easter Bunny, these larger-than-life fantasies would be buried and smothered under the reality of growing up.
And yet, as she stood alone under the autumnal glow of the setting sun, the endless expanding skies an orange hue, here, such a ‘fantasy’ appeared before her…
She had been standing on the school roof, casting a curvy - if not somewhat short - silhouette that for once was going unappreciated. After all, she was a girl with a following by no means small, gained from balancing her roles of the ‘popular one’, the ‘smart one’, and the ‘beautiful one’ over many years. Blonde hair, a narrow waist, and an ass that seemed desperate to pop out of whatever clothing it was wrapped, she was her school’s number one, unmatched in academia and looks. Underneath the glitz and the glam, under her cultivated aura of perfection, there had always been a sense of incongruity deep inside, a feeling that she was meant for more than anything the world could offer her. But this belief was crushed under the tedious grind of everyday life, with only the meager satisfaction offered by her school ‘queen’ status to compensate.
But at this moment all her beliefs about the world she lived in her shattered, and all her sense of tedium blown away as a grey-hair man appeared before her-. Old, adorned in eastern-looking robes, and flying- or floating- just off the edge of the school rooftop.
The thought that she could be the victim of a prank hadn’t even crossed her mind when the grey-haired elder, with a swish of his sleeve, brought her flying through the air towards him. She was grabbed by the scruff of her neck as though she weighed nothing, and before she could even let out a scream of protest, the two were shooting through the skies, a multi-colored blur to any who happened to look up.
Dangling in the air, like a kitten lifted by the nape, she shook and wailed in fright, she had never felt so shocked, and never felt so far from the jaded beauty she had considered herself not even five minutes ago. She was aware that despite their lightning-fast speed, she couldn’t feel the cut of the wind, and was also aware that there was something under her dangling feet, perhaps the source of the miraculous flight, but her thoughts her too chaotic and disordered to think any further than this. The dizzying heights robbing her of her usual wit. Yet in a display of surprising adaptability, by the time they had raced across a second city like a shooting star, she stopped shaking, her jewel-like eyes gaining their usual calm collectedness, as her breathing began to slow. As her curious eyes attempted to examine the object under her, an imperceivable glimmer of approval flashed in the grey-haired elder’s eyes as he gently lowered her down, until her feet touched the cold metal beneath.
It was a strange object, she observed. Wide enough to side cross-legged, and space still in front even with the elderly man behind her. It seemed as though it were made of azure sapphire, though as more menacing sapphire than she had ever seen, as its sides had a subtle sharpness to them, and there was a lethal point at the front end.
“It’s a sword.” The ancient-looking man finally spoke, as if to answer her unvoiced question, “Most Immortals use treasures of various kinds for flight.”
She waited patiently for the man to continue speaking, but after one…two…three minutes had passed, she realized that was all he was going to say on the topic and thus she remained silent, judging that he would talk when he wanted to.
Unbeknownst to her, another hint of approval flickered in his eyes at her tact.
*
As she anticipated, she received an explanation not long after. They were soaring through the skies when space seemed to rip open in front of them, and the world she had always known vanished in an instant. Instead, a new land, a new world unveiled itself in front of her, mountains suspended in the sky surrounded by countless mortal settlements below, like subjects trying to get as close as possible to their king. They flew directly over to this flying mountain, where she was dropped at a large, white-jade pavilion, and the elderly man vanished in an instant. Thankfully, there was a young woman nearby, who promptly introduced herself as her ‘sixth senior sister’. It was explained that she had been accepted as the ninth direct disciple of the sect master, a true immortal. The Master had eight disciples before her, each of whom she would refer to as senior brother, or senior martial sister respectively.
What followed was a rapid education that almost caused her head to explode, that deities and demons waged war and contented against each other and the heavens, concealed from the sight of the mortals of earth. That humans cultivated the mind, soul, and body, to attempt to achieve immortality, and grew their forces and armies in worlds of their own to battle one another for resources.
It seemed even immortals had their struggles.
But this new world was as bloody and violent as it was fantastical. A human, no different from her could develop themselves to the point of flying through the skies unaided, lifting mountains with one and churning the seas with the other! But perhaps even more jaw-dropping than that, at least to the sensibilities of a young and gorgeous 18-year-old, was the fact that the ‘senior sister’, who possessed a mature charm and grace she had never seen before, was actually over a hundred years old! The beauty that millions attempted to cling to in the mortal world… was as easy to keep as it was to breathe, in the lofty world of immortals!
There were countless paths to pursuit immortality and cultivate oneself to the pinnacle, and her master clearly sensed she possess the innate potential to be worthy of her position as his ninth disciple, but neither of them knew what this talent could be. Hence what followed next was a period of painful experimentation.
Sword talent? Short sword? Broadsword? Long Sword? No talent...
How about Spear talent? Nope.
Talent of the Bow? Not at all.
Maybe Beast Taming? Definitely not.
Body Cultivation? Pass- No interest in being a bodybuilder.
At last, she tried her hand at Alchemy, or more specifically, Eastern Alchemy. Unlike Western Alchemy which occupied itself with the transmutation of materials, and was closing tied with weapon forging, mechanics, and puppetry, Eastern Alchemy oversaw the concoction of medical pills and elixirs, as well as the brewing of poisons and toxins. While it was a somewhat usual sight, such a beautiful girl fussing over a bubbling medicinal cauldron, she saw great success!
In fact, the words ‘great success’ would be an understatement, as it was rumored that her master, a man of great wisdom and composure ripped off his beard in shock when the first medicinal pills she concocted were brought to him by her sixth senior sister. These medicinal pills were of course ‘beauty preservation pills’, designed to fix one’s appearance at its current state until the day the one died. These were not particularly rare, nor particularly difficult to make, but the purity was unprecedented, at these were her first pills, made on the time attempt! Countless alchemy legends would have wept tears of blood to know that such talent was being wasted on mere beauty preservation pills!
She naturally didn’t know if this highly embarrassing rumor was true or false, nor did she dare to walk up to her master’s face to have a look as she would catch a beating even if she was a rare talent. She did know, however, that when it came to alchemy she was like a fish in water, and that when rumors of her unparalleled alchemical talent began to spread across the immortal worlds, her master did not step out to downplay or correct them.
Within the immortal world, talent doesn’t necessarily have to be an individual’s innate talent but can also refer to one’s mindset. The process of cultivating oneself to the pinnacle is daunting, tedious, repetitive, and lonely. An individual’s path is unique to them, and no one can walk it alongside them. Going to into seclusion to meditate and immerging a dozen, even a hundred years later is common, thus one must be indifferent to the world around them.
Time flows like water, and one can never walk against the flow, because of this the barrier between Mortal and Immortal can never be breached. A short nap for an Immortal, and an entire generation passes in the mortal world. How can one have mortal friends and family when the two are so different? This is a lesson every immortal cultivator must experience personally to understand.
A lesson she was now to learn.
As her sixth senior sister stirred her from what she believed was three months of fanatical alchemy practice, she was gently informed that it had instead been… 10 years.
Her body had long since unknowingly ceased to be human. Her skin was more supple and fair, her body overflowing with a soft, unintended seduction, and eyes that shone with a profound light, her beauty had practically transcended the mortal world despite her not aging a single day. Not to mention that despite her focusing entirely on making medicinal pills and poisons, her strength could now bend metal with ease, and a single breath could sustain her for a month.
She was more aware than anyone, of just how inhuman she had become, yet it was a fact was hadn’t entirely been understood until she realized that her parents would think her long dead, and she would be nothing but an old memory to anyone who once knew her. She had always intended to go back, even if just to visit on occasion friends and family on occasion, never having understood that she had taken a step she could never take back. She didn’t hate her master for dragging her into this strange new world, after all, she never protested, never attempted, or wanted to escape, never looked back even looked back as they flew away.
But now she could only imagine how many things had changed in 10 years, thinking about the life that could have been. Prom Queen and a tearful graduation, all kinds of fun and excitement at college, meeting someone, and, maybe settling down with someone special. A lot could have happened in those 10 years and the many years that would follow. But now they never would.
It was not a sense of regret that seized her, but a complex kind of uncertainty and doubt. A return of the incongruity she thought she had left behind.
It was under the gentle and consoling words of her beautiful and supple senior sister that she understood that to feel this way was normal, and even a good thing to confront sooner, rather than later. To let these doubts fester would turn them into a heart devil, a demon of the psyche that could rear its head at any moment to ruin her and cripple her path to immortality permanently. It is precisely to prevent this from happening that it is common practice across the immortal worlds to send all young disciples from mortal origins back to their homeland after a certain period of time for a process known as their ‘mortal severing’.
Mortal severing could be anything and involve anything, so long as it doesn’t cross certain taboos, and in the case of Earth, blatantly expose the existence of the immortal worlds. Most likened it to going out to play, then coming back when the game got boring. Some, however, would realize that the Immortal Path isn’t for them, and wish to return to mortal life.
And so, with her sixth senior sister waving farewell, she departed from her master’s immortal world sitting on a flight treasure of her own, one that took the shape of a large folding fan.
Unbeknownst to her, however, she was not the only ‘unparalleled alchemical prodigy’ whose talent was making waves in the immortal world. In fact, there was another young and blonde ninth disciple who had been hidden away in her master’s immortal domain for the last 10 years. A girl with medicinal means just as miraculous as her own, and whose poisons were equally deadly.
A girl who was also setting out on a mortal severing of her own. Like this, two supposedly unparalleled talents were about to have an unexpected encounter!
