Beside the lake, a body lay there. It looked as though the body had dropped into the lake and been washed ashore, asides the fact that that was impossible, there was also no height in sight, and this place was like an oasis within the forest. Most importantly, the body wasn't wet.
It was grotesquely decorated with bruises, though. Whoever this person was, he had received a very brain-resetting beating.
The body stirred and immediately shot up in shock, letting out a sharp exhale.
The owner of the body froze for a moment, his eyes going wide.
"I'm… I'm alive?"
He looked at his hands and touched his cheek. He could feel his body. He could also hear the chirps of distant birds and smell the fresh scent of water. He quickly confirmed that all of his senses were working.
The last battle on the mountain peak had dragged on longer than he expected. He slaughtered many of those bastards, but alas, he couldn't overcome the wound.
Seeing that he was going to die anyway, he decided to use a forbidden Qi reversal technique, turning himself into a time bomb but before he could take everyone with him, he died to the Star King's Void Purgatory Sword. And even failed to kill the Star Mother.
'That worthless slut… she should have stayed until the end to see if I wouldn't chop off her breasts!'
But the problem now was… how did he get here?
Why was he still alive?
And even more so, in this body, at this same scene.
It had been over two hundred years, and he remembered only vaguely but after a tragic incident where he was hit by a truck that had crashed into his office building on the tenth floor, he died… and found himself in this world.
He made sure he did everything in his first life to avoid death, and yet death still found him on the tenth floor of his building.
He didn't want to die. Back then he had a good life for himself, he was making seven figures every month, why should he want to die. He feared death in fact and had never wished it for a day!
But the damn truck had no respect for his wishes.
In this world, he learned the worth of life again and at an early age he understood the true value of immortality.
So he spent this life chasing it…
And it led him to losing his life.
Again.
And again he was back here.
The boy leaned on his hand, his back against the edge of the lake and stared at the vast blue sky.
"Surely the dirty elders in the Heavens wouldn't be so generous to me, right?"
Of course they wouldn't. They hated him more than anything in the world.
For a few seconds, the boy sat at the edge of the lake, pondering what could have happened. When he couldn't find an answer, he sat in a lotus position and turned toward the water.
Staring back at him was a boy with jet-black hair and a bruised face. The swelling around his face distorted his handsome features and made him look like a beggar, and the mismatched clothes he wore weren't helping either.
He touched his swollen right eye and winced in pain.
"Haaoow… haaaooww."
He glared at his reflection with a threatening look on his face.
'Who in the world could have beaten me like this? I don't remember my face being reconstructed like this back then.'
His memory might be foggy after two hundred years, but there were certain things he could never forget, if such an event happened at an early point in in his year, he would certainly have known!
But before all of that, he closed his eyes and dove into his soul.
'There's something I must confirm. If it's not there… all of this effort would be fruitless.'
When he dove into his soul, he was struck by a terrible shock, and his eyes widened.
First of all, the form of his soul had taken on a vast and endless darkness, as though he had formed a Nascent Soul from the boundless space that separated the Seven Realms.
'But that should be impossible, right? Unless it worked?'
In his pursuit of immortality, Shi Lan had discovered a very uncommon and ancient form of cultivation. It produced results ten times faster than normal cultivation and only worked between two Daoists through the balance of yin and yang energy.
Through it, he had even discovered that by siphoning an impossible amount of divinity qi, he could achieve immortality. Because of this, he began a journey of hunting down every spark of divinity he could find.
From the Star Constellation Body Constitution to the Flawless Shattered Jade, he stopped at nothing. No morals or common sense were enough to make him rethink his actions. All he saw was his goal, and for that goal he lived.
Until he reached his first milestone… a thousand goddesses.
It had been merely a fable, but Shi Lan devoted his life to it, and after cultivating with a thousand Divine Goddesses, he finally obtained it.
The first step toward becoming truly immortal.
'It really existed.'
The Primordial Black Sea truly existed.
And it had been integrated into his soul.