"Taoist Master!"
Facing the suspended wooden sword, Zhou Xuan was stunned for a few seconds before he finally came back to his senses.
Then the young Taoist knelt down before Su Ping, trembling slightly and with a cry in his voice, said,
"Thank you, Taoist Master! Seeing the True Skill today has resolved the heart demons I've faced for many years!"
"It's just... Taoist Master above!"
"Please guide me through!"
"My desire for the great Dao is steadfast, in this lifetime I truly wish to pursue it!"
Su Ping was not surprised by Zhou Xuan's sincere expression.
The temptation of transcendence, how many in this world could resist it?
Moreover, those who spent their days pondering how to transcend, unlike ordinary people, the cultivators?
"Immortal cultivation can't be achieved merely through steadfast belief in the Dao alone."
Su Ping withdrew the wooden sword.
In this ordinary world, saving some mana was still necessary.
As he spoke, he gently reached out his right hand and grabbed the arm of Zhou Xuan, who was kneeling on the ground.
Zhou Xuan felt an incredible surge of strength coming from the hand opposite him.
He was lifted off the ground like a chick and then, in a daze, found himself sitting in a chair.
This made Zhou Xuan admire Su Ping even more.
He appeared frail, but underneath his Taoist robe, there was muscle from regular exercise!
He weighed no less than a hundred and forty or fifty pounds.
Yet to be tossed around single-handedly like this!
This strength... Zhou Xuan had never seen anything like it!
"The essentials for immortal cultivation are wealth, companions, Dharma, and lands, as you must surely know."
"But in the mortal world today, compared to wealth and companion... it is the Dharma and lands that are crucial."
"Land is crucial, could it be..."
Hearing the enlightened master before him speaking to resolve doubts, Zhou Xuan, combined with his own cultivation experience, suddenly thought of a dreadful answer.
"As you think, and perhaps even more severe."
Su Ping looked at Zhou Xuan, his words devoid of deceit as a cultivator:
"In this mortal realm, whether it's famous mountains and great rivers or the so-called Cave Heaven Blessed Lands."
"You... probably can't cultivate any divine skills or immortal techniques!"
"After all, there is no spiritual energy in the mortal world!"
"And there is no method to cultivate immortality without relying on spiritual energy!"
At this point, Su Ping shook his head and no longer spoke.
To Zhou Xuan, it seemed that this enlightened master intentionally avoided recalling the painful incidents that caused all this.
"I have seen your determination to pursue immortal cultivation."
"It's good that you've taken over the East King Temple, which shows we are fated—this is very good."
"I will first pass on the Qi Cultivation method to you, you can start with that."
"Once you achieve some results, there will be a way to test your aptitude and spiritual roots."
"If you truly have the fate for immortality..."
Su Ping paused, painting a metaphorical pie in the sky that Zhou Xuan could never refuse:
"I can take charge and bring you to our sect's Cave Heaven Secret Realm."
"There you might have that one in a million chance to defy the heavens and strive for eternal life!"
"However, even with the fate for immortality, how easy is it to talk about Immortal Longevity?"
"Since ancient times, historical records of those who achieved transcendence and immortality are few and far between; what I've witnessed, more of them have just achieved a Foundation Establishment Life of 200 or a Golden Core Life of 500."
The more Su Ping emphasized the difficulty of achieving immortal longevity, the more Zhou Xuan believed his words.
And he was thrilled by the modest goals revealed in Su Ping's speech!
Even if one cannot achieve immortality, just being able to live for two hundred years through Foundation Establishment is excellent indeed!
Zhou Xuan had devoured the metaphorical cake drawn by Su Ping.
Even without eating dinner, Zhou Xuan was filled with energy.
His intelligence, having gone offline under a series of shocking impacts, had reclaimed his brain.
He immediately corrected his attitude and position, carefully asked what he should do and if there was anything to watch out for, after neatly storing the gold bar Su Ping gave him.
Su Ping was naturally satisfied with this.
Forget about being enigmatic like the Sphinx—that's for outsiders.
Normally, when dealing with one's own people, a superior would rather break down the details and feed them to the other party, fearing that the other party might take initiative and mean well but do something terrible.
He watched as Zhou Xuan left the room, following orders and starting to prepare supplies for him.
Su Ping sat down in his chair and took out tea sets and snacks from his storage bag, brewing himself a pot of fine tea at the same time.
He picked up the spare mobile phone Zhou Xuan had brought over from the table.
Before Su Ping had traversed, smartphones had already started to become popular.
He was not unfamiliar with phones, but felt they had become lighter and more user-friendly.
Moreover, the screen could be temporarily extended from the size of a mobile phone to that of a tablet to facilitate users watching shows or reading.
Additionally, there were accompanying smart earphones that had an air projection feature.
Su Ping played with various functions for a while, but eventually focused his attention on searching for information.
The first thing was time!
Twenty years seemed to have passed in both the Immortal Cultivation World and Water Blue Star, and even if the flow of time was not in sync, it couldn't be too different.
Then came the developments over these twenty years—human civilization on Water Blue Star was relatively stable overall.
There were various disputes and accidents intermittently, but progress and development continued amid bumps and knocks.
Although controlled nuclear fusion was still fifty years away from commercial success,
space technology had made significant progress with strong support and stimulation from the Eastern Ancient Country.
Several huge space stations had appeared in outer space.
Spacecraft capable of round trips to outer space were also in practical use.
This made the captivating journey into outer space no longer exclusive to the wealthy.
And humanity had finally established the first research base on the moon with long-term astronaut presence.
Further development of the moon had also been scheduled.
In addition, Su Ping noticed that recent news was buzzing about the space elevator project, which twenty years ago seemed no doubt a sci-fi concept!
The material problem, considered insoluble at the time, had in fact already had a prototype at that point.
With twenty years of experimentation and efforts, the prototype was perfected.
Thus, making the impossible spectacle seem possible!
In his heart, Su Ping, a spectacle enthusiast, used Zhou Xuan's account to like the proposal for this plan and cast an approving vote.
Then, Su Ping's finger paused on the search bar.
For a moment, Su Ping wanted to search for information on old acquaintances.
However, thinking that he might accidentally get targeted by major powers or meet with an accident,
Then... all operations on this phone might be analyzed thousands of times by professionals.
Su Ping, being a Transcender with a fishing system and an entire Immortal Cultivation World resource, definitely could not afford to leave any vulnerability before growing stronger!
Su Ping set his focus on historical current affairs and technological developments and continued browsing.
As night deepened, he was not sure how much time had passed.
Suddenly, Su Ping uttered a surprised sound; the Spiritual Rats had proactively called out to him.
Su Ping slowly closed his eyes to connect with the two Spiritual Rats and became aware of the situation.
It turned out that White and Grey, the two Spiritual Rats, lacking new instructions after Su Ping had visited East King Temple, had sneaked into the sewer system of this small city together.
There, they were like fish in water, and within a short time, they had gathered quite a number of rats following them.
As the numbers grew, a rat tide was beginning to form!