Yunfan opened his eyes, slowly taking in his surroundings. He stood at the bottom of an endless set of narrow stone stairs, which were hewn into the side of a majestic mountain. The stone was gray-blue, speckled with moss and the occasional hardy tree clinging to the cracks.
Moisture and mist clung to the cold stone. Soft white light emerged from the cloudy heavens. Beside Yunfan, an enormous river flowed. When he tried to peer into the depths, he couldn't even glimpse the riverbed. The rushing water seemed bottomless. Occasionally, he thought he saw the shapes of antiquated fishing rafts on the water, but they seemed to disappear when he focused on them.
Ahead of him on the stairs was the Alchemy Emperor, who floated with his hands clasped behind his back. "Welcome to the Mountain River Diagram."
"It's breathtaking," Yunfan marveled as he looked around. "Storing an entire mountain inside a spatial pocket? The Ancient Zenith civilization was truly incredible."
"'Ancient Zenith civilization' has a nice ring to it," the Emperor mused. "I don't think we ever had a name for our society as a whole."
"Why?"
"Too much fighting for us to ever develop into any unified or peaceful society, so we never really had need for a name." The Emperor shrugged. A dark look crossed his face, tinged with regret, but the expression was so fleeting Yunfan thought he might've been mistaken. He didn't say anything more and began flying up the mountain.
Chu Yunfan thought about the vast differences between the Ancient Zenith and Earth civilizations, before setting that thought aside for later. He refocused on the steps and began to climb.
***
After about ten minutes of climbing, the stairs leveled out into a flat mountain top. Cold wind whipped Yunfan's black hair into his eyes, which he irritatedly brushed aside. A thick mist clung to everything, even denser than it had been at ground-level.
"I don't feel tired," he said while looking down at himself in wonder. "That was easily over a thousand steps."
"Your body must've been enhanced as well, not just your mind and senses," the Alchemy Emperor observed. "I wonder what caused it?"
"I thought it was you?" Yunfan tilted his head questioningly.
"I told you it wasn't me!"
"Why should I believe someone who claimed to be a seventh realm cultivator without any proof?"
"You're about to get the 'proof' that you wanted so badly! Why do you keep doubting me?!"
Yunfan rolled his eyes. "So how do I unlock your memories?"
"Just stand right here," the Alchemy Emperor harrumphed, pointing at the ground right below where he floated before moving aside.
Yunfan did as the Emperor said, noticing that he was standing in the center of an incredibly complex, octagonal bagua carved into the bluish stone. The spell formation occupied every inch of the flat mountain top, which was easily one hundred meters wide. "Now what?"
"Just wait for a—"
Without warning, the entire spell formation began glowing bright blue. The world turned black.
Born on an auspicious day, when the planets aligned.
A prodigy of pill concoction, who was recognized by experts at ten years of age.
A trailblazer of medicine, whose innovative techniques made him an acclaimed master at 17.
An unrivaled alchemist, peerless even amidst the greatest grandmasters of the Nine Heavens.
An easy life and speedy cultivation supported by godly pills and divine medicine.
A lifespan that could've stretched onwards for upwards of 1,000 years.
Until the Divine Idol appeared from the Heaven Beyond The Heavens.
An unearthly relic whose transcendent nature could transform even the most talentless whelp into a heaven-cleaving talent of the last thousand generations, leaping from the lowest mortal to a True God.
Immediately, the Righteous and Demonic Factions began an incomparably fierce conflict to prevent the other from possessing the artifact. Even Emperors moved in tandem to seize the artifact.
However, as the war raged on, some cultivators from both the Righteous and Demonic Factions believed that neither Faction should possess such incredible power; they became the Balance Faction.
Those who sought to seize the relic for themselves became backstabbing, ruthless groups of a few powerful cultivators; they became the Deviant Alliances.
With the combined Balance Faction combatting the disunified Alliances, the war should've come to a conclusion quickly, with the Balance Faction wiping out each Alliance, one by one.
However, three cultivators from the original Demonic Faction suddenly made their move.
The Mammoth Emperor was the first to fall; his powerful fist techniques and immortal body did nothing to prevent every bone in his body from being crushed into powder.
The next to die was the Sword Emperor. He was found nine days after his death with his own sword rammed down his throat.
The Heavenly Hexagram Emperor was the third Emperor slaughtered by the Demon Lords. There was not enough of his body left to bury after the lethal Qi reflux.
Every day, Emperors and Kings from both the Deviant Alliances and the Balance Faction disappeared mysteriously, only to have their bodies be found within weeks.
Eventually, the Deviant Alliances, including the Demon Lords, and the Balance Faction waged their last, all-out battle.
Heavenly lightning rained down from the sky so often that it sounded more like constant crackling than individual strikes. The earth of the Ninth Heaven was cleaved into two, unleashing tidal waves of magma that instantly incinerated those who were not careful. Sword auras and blade lights danced through the air like the falling of flower blossoms in the breeze.
Then, the Demon Lords unleashed their unearthly trump-card techniques.
Seventh and even quasi-eighth realm cultivators were crushed, devoured, or liquified with impunity. The earth turned gray as death and the enigmatic smoke poured from the skies like volcanic ash.
During the chaos, the Divine Idol had ended up in the Alchemy Emperor's hands immediately earning him the ire of the three Demon Lords. With the three strongest cultivators focusing their attention on him, he raised the Divine Idol to block their attacks.
That was when the unthinkable happened. The combined attacks of the three Demon Lords shattered the Divine Idol.
Although the Divine Idol successfully protected the Alchemy Emperor from the three Demon Lords, his cultivation base was fragile since he had only used powerful medicines and never consolidated his foundation with combat or enlightenment. The resultant blast of the shattered relic instantly destroyed his shallow cultivation base and sent him to the brink of death.
However, the higher-dimensional energy released by the shattering of an item from the Heaven Beyond The Heavens transported him to the Third Heaven. When he emerged from an indescribable and confusing dimension, he found himself where the Heavenly Hexagram Emperor had died.
With his heaven-defying alchemy talents, he concocted three entirely new Nine-Star medicines from scratch, using only the herbs and cultivator souls from his spatial scroll: the Soul Stimulation Incense, the Soul Channeling Pill, and the Soul Hibernation Pill.
The Incense and Soul Channeling Pill revived the traces of the Heavenly Hexagram Emperor's Will that remained even after his fleshly body had been destroyed. The Soul Channeling Pill strategically ripped holes in the consumer's spiritual body to allow nearby souls to temporarily possess the user.
With the expertise of the Heavenly Hexagram Emperor, he stabilized the fragment of the Divine Idol by combining it with his Nine Star spatial scroll; the result was the Mountain River Diagram, an inheritance that sealed away all the treasures the Alchemy Emperor had collected throughout his cultivation career.
The Soul Hibernation Pill put the Alchemy Emperor's damaged spirit body into an extremely deep rest where he would recuperate from the Divine Idol's explosion and the Soul Channeling Pill's drawbacks. With the final traces of his Will, the Heavenly Hexagram Emperor extricated the Alchemy Emperor's soul and preserved it inside the Mountain River Diagram before sealing the scroll away inside an adamantium tablet until an appropriate host entered the scroll's proximity.
A bright blue glow enveloped Yunfan's vision, before the world faded to black again.
Chu Yunfan's eyes snapped open. He gasped, the overflow of centuries of memories and sensations causing him to drop onto all fours.
"—minute. Wait, are you alright?"