Chapter Six: The Final Letter of the Cultivator

The moment Zhang Kai saw the Daoist robe, he recognized it instantly—it was the standard attire of the Wudang Sect, and moreover, the simplest kind. Yet the person wearing it had long since become a skeleton, dead for who knew how long.

He approached the bed. It was a wooden frame, covered with soft cotton padding and neatly folded bedding, all blanketed in a thick layer of dust.

The white bones were seated cross-legged on the bedding, hands resting on the thighs, as if meditating. Beside the bed stood a small cabinet, inside of which were several books.

Zhang Kai drew one out and, to his surprise, found a letter at the top. The envelope was yellowed with age, bearing several characters in iron brushstrokes as sharp as silver hooks.

“To the friend who comes after.”

Zhang Kai was startled. This fellow actually foresaw my arrival? My goodness, can he truly divine the future? Was he a cultivator in the real world? But then, how did he die here?

Puzzled, Zhang Kai opened the envelope and took out a few sheets of ancient letter paper. Before his eyes appeared lines of delicate script, beautifully written, revealing the author’s literary skill.

Yet the opening lines gave Zhang Kai a second shock.

The first line read: “I regret being born in the wrong era! I resent the Dao for abandoning the world! I grieve leaving behind my family and children!”

Three great laments, the ink heavy and forceful, betraying the author’s grief and rage, as if every stroke weighed a thousand pounds.

What followed was the writer’s self-introduction.

Born in the Republic era, raised in Zhonghai, he took over the family business upon coming of age, married, and had children—a son and a daughter. He had achieved a life of wealth and privilege from the outset, something most could only dream of, and should have been content, enjoying the splendors of prosperity.

Yet, in a stroke of fate, he witnessed a miraculous duel—a battle between an old Daoist priest and a man in black robes. The two were like immortals of legend, leaping five or six meters into the air. The old Daoist wielded talismans that burst into flame and even lightning, while the black-robed man controlled venomous insects, sinister and terrifying.

In the end, both were gravely injured; the black-robed man retreated, coughing blood, and the Daoist collapsed, also bleeding.

The writer risked his life to save the Daoist, but the old man had already been bitten by poisonous insects, venom attacking his heart—beyond all hope of rescue. With his dying breath, the Daoist entrusted the writer with a package and a token, asking him to deliver them to a Daoist named Xuan Mingzi of the Wudang Sect, promising that there would be repayment in the future.

Had the writer followed the old Daoist’s instructions, what happened later would never have occurred.

Having witnessed the wondrous duel, greed sprouted in his heart. Though he brought the Daoist to Wudang Mountain, he did not deliver the package. Instead, he impersonated the Daoist’s disciple. By chance, his physique proved suitable for cultivation, but even so, Xuan Mingzi was reluctant to accept him, advising sincerely that the path of cultivation was arduous and all but ended. It would be better to live among mortals, passing down the family line, than to endure a lifetime of hardship in the mountains.

But the writer was determined, unwilling to return home. In the end, his wish was granted, and he remained.

He became a junior disciple of the Wudang Sect’s Internal Alchemy branch, keeping a low profile and focusing on Xuan Mingzi’s guidance, gradually stepping into the mystical world of cultivation.

What Xuan Mingzi never knew was that the package the writer had intercepted contained the long-lost internal alchemy secret of the Wudang Sect, personally annotated by the founder Master Sanfeng—a supreme method pointing directly to the Golden Core Dao.

Driven by greed, the writer not only kept silent but claimed the secret for himself, studying it in private. After Xuan Mingzi passed away, he had no more reservations, establishing a secluded abode in the back mountains to pursue his dream of becoming an immortal.

Alas, cultivation proved as difficult as Xuan Mingzi had warned—arduous, with the path all but severed. Cultivation required spiritual energy, and though it was most abundant in the mountains, mysteriously, the spiritual energy gradually dissipated. By the time he had achieved some progress in foundation building, he could scarcely sense any spiritual energy at all, which left him panicked.

Without spiritual energy, not only was further advancement impossible, but even daily consumption could not be replenished. After all, magical power, once used, must be restored; without replenishment, one would ultimately become an ordinary person with knowledge of spells but no energy to wield them.

Unwilling to resign himself, the writer quietly left the mountains, traveling to famous peaks and rivers in search of places rich in spiritual energy. At first, he found a few, though the energy was scant, enough for his needs and with some left over for cultivation. But gradually, all the great mountains and rivers became mundane, their spiritual energy gone.

Despair set in. He realized he might truly be cut off from the Dao, and by this time, he was over sixty, nearing old age.

Worse yet, when he sought out his family, he found that his clan had long since been ruined in a great catastrophe; his wife and children’s fates unknown. The blow nearly drove him mad.

Eventually, he returned to Wudang Mountain, secluded himself here, and made a decision he had never dared before: to forcefully attempt a breakthrough. If he succeeded, he would form the Void Pill, extend his life, and continue on the path; if not, he would perish and his Dao would be extinguished.

The result, naturally, was the pile of white bones that Zhang Kai now saw.

The letter also described many other secrets.

For instance, the writer’s encounters with disciples of other sects during his travels—nearly all had withered away, their lineages verging on extinction.

He also recorded the discovery of several strange places too dangerous to enter, leaving their locations for posterity to investigate.

And the fox—he had encountered it in the mountains, at first mistaking it for a wild animal, but later realizing it possessed great intelligence. Delighted, he accepted it as a companion, so as not to be alone in the mountains.

At the end, the writer begged whoever found the letter: if cultivation is no longer possible, please return the Internal Alchemy secret he had greedily kept to the Wudang Sect. There were also some gold and silver hidden in the cabinet as a reward.

After reading the letter, Zhang Kai sat in silence for a long time.

The contents were deeply shocking.

First, it confirmed that cultivators had indeed existed in the real world, once flourishing, but perhaps now extinct.

Second, there had been a transformation in the world—spiritual energy fading was the greatest threat to cultivation, leading to its demise.

The second was most serious, because the loss of spiritual energy throughout the world was no simple problem—it involved the very laws of reality.

It was as if Heaven and Earth no longer permitted the existence of spiritual energy.

If even Heaven and Earth forbade it, would the divine treasures, immortal pills, and magical artifacts Zhang Kai could retrieve from movies and dramas also be restricted by these laws and lose their original power?

At this thought, Zhang Kai’s heart trembled.

Martial arts were not a concern; no matter how strong, one could not escape life and death. Only immortality offered a path to eternal life.

If Heaven and Earth truly forbade cultivation, then the problem was immense. He would have to find a solution, or else abandon the dream of immortality before ending up like the letter’s author—failing at cultivation, losing his family, and dying alone in the mountains with no one to collect his bones.

Feeling heavy-hearted, Zhang Kai browsed through the rest and found a book titled “Internal Alchemy Methods” in fine script.

Flipping through it, he saw Daoist terminology, explanations of meridians, and diagrams of the human body marking the routes of cultivation.

But unfortunately, if Heaven and Earth restricted cultivation, even the most supreme method was useless.

Thinking this, Zhang Kai grew restless; he needed to return and test his suspicions.

He glanced at the fox, which sat obediently, watching him like a human.

Zhang Kai smiled. “I didn’t expect you to have ties with a master of Wudang Mountain. In that case, I’ll consider you a companion on the path.”

To his surprise, the fox grinned, scratching the ground with its paw, expressing excitement and joy.

“Live here peacefully. I have obtained some secrets from this friend and must go back to consider them. I’ll come visit you often, and if you cultivate well, I can guide you in the future.”

Hearing this, the fox lay down again, chin to the ground, as if bowing.

This pleased Zhang Kai.

He liked clever animals, and since fate had brought him together with this fox, he’d see how things went in the days to come.

After a few more words, Zhang Kai left, first collecting the secret manual, then soaring all the way back.

When he had arrived, he was only able to make awkward leaps, but on the way back, he could already glide over the land, riding the wind, not only looking much more impressive but also several times faster, crossing mountains as if skimming over flat ground.

In less than fifteen minutes, he returned to the courtyard at the front of the mountain.

He closed the door, took out his phone, opened Tencent Video, and played a TV series.

“The Legend of Sword and Fairy.”

He wanted to choose something from this show to test whether the rules of the real world limited supernatural items, and the Five Element Spirit Orbs were the perfect test.

These were divine pearls brimming with infinite spiritual energy—if even they could not withstand the suppression of reality’s rules, then cultivation would truly be difficult.

Nervous yet expectant, Zhang Kai found episode twenty.

The male lead, Jing Tian, who bore a slight resemblance to himself, had just obtained the Fire Spirit Orb from the Fire Demon Lord and was showing it off when Zhang Kai hit pause.

For film and television, the pause button was the strongest rule—once pressed, even the Patriarchs of the Three Pure Ones would have to hold still, not daring to blink.

He snatched the Fire Spirit Orb from Jing Tian’s hand, ignoring the show, and stared anxiously at the orb.

The moment the Fire Spirit Orb appeared, it radiated a brilliant crimson glow, dazzling and beautiful, and Zhang Kai felt a wonderfully comforting aura emanate from it.

The aura even stirred his own internal energy, as if longing to absorb it.

But in the next instant, the crimson light of the Fire Spirit Orb quickly faded, and in a flash, it became a crystal-clear bead—still precious in appearance, but the comforting aura was gone.

Zhang Kai’s heart sank.