Aspiring to the Immortal Path

It was rather strange for this cold spring of water to emerge from the ground for no explicable reason.

Tang Jie waved his hand, sending stone debris flying and revealing a giant, pitch-black boulder.

The water was flowing out from under this boulder.

Tang Jie looked at Huangfu Meng, who said, “The cold water flowed out from underneath this boulder, freezing all the Shadow Moss to death. The villagers tried to stop the water from coming out, but they failed. Then we tried to break the boulder with axes, and pile dirt to dam it, but it was all useless. The rock is very hard, and striking it with a hammer doesn’t even leave a dent. The dirt we piled on would come off on its own, and no matter how we dug, we couldn’t shift the boulder…”

“It’s not surprising. This is a Mothercore Stone, not something the likes of you could deal with,” Tang Jie said as he gazed at the rock.

Huangfu Meng looked questioningly at Tang Jie. “‘Mothercore Stone’?”

“Yes. Corestone is a common stone that often carries Earth energy, and Mothercore Stone is the king of these stones and much more difficult to find. It has a special property where it absorbs the power of the Earth so that as long as it’s in the soil, it will be extremely tough and difficult to break. For the same reason, you can’t add or subtract soil from around it. The Mothercore Stone has its own likes and needs, and nothing related to the earth can affect it, only be used by it. But this is my first time seeing such a large Mothercore Stone.”

He thought that he had come to get some exotic water, but he had instead ended up with an exotic stone, and one of impressive size—Tang Jie had already used his Divine Will to find out exactly how large it was.

Mothercore Stones were aggregations of Earth essence, and while this made them larger than other natural divine treasures, they were not usually as large as this. It was more like a Grandmothercore Stone.

This divine stone was truly too much for the villagers of Neverwinter to deal with. Without sufficient strength, even treasure placed right in front of oneself was unobtainable.

Of course, it was no problem for Tang Jie.

Through his Divine Will, his energy began to infiltrate the stone, completely wrapping around it and severing its connection to the earth. Then, with a light pull, he uprooted the boulder and held it aloft.

Huangfu Meng was stunned that Tang Jie had extracted that boulder that the entire village had failed to even budge.

This boulder was 480 feet tall and 320 feet wide, and despite its enormous weight, it floated in the air like a feather. With the boulder gone, a giant pit was exposed, water shooting out of the pit in pursuit of the boulder.

Tang Jie let out a little gasp. “So it’s pregnant with treasure. No wonder its essence has retracted and the spring is so forceful.”

In certain circumstances, when the mother stone was forming, it might wrap around some sort of object or creature, and as this envelopment continued, there was a chance that it could become pregnant with a special treasure, akin to how pearls were formed.

But this chance was extremely small, and Mothercore Stones were already rare, so finding one that was pregnant was even more difficult. A cultivator might be able to create such a Mothercore Stone, but this took extreme effort that not many had the patience for. For the most part, they would be planting trees so that future generations could enjoy the shade.

This was probably the case for this Mothercore Stone. Some object must have been inserted in its formation process, ultimately evolving into an embryo, which had continued to develop in the stone until it evolved into a divine item.

This item would be an Earth essence on the same level as Yellow Springs Essence or Triple Truth Flame.

Tang Jie immediately condensed his power into a blade and began to slice up the boulder, and he quickly hewed it down until it was only three hundred feet tall.

At this point, the stone became a little translucent, and one could vaguely make out something within the rock.

Tang Jie inserted his Divine Will and was able to “see” more clearly.

Inside was a human-shaped figure, and most surprisingly, it pulsed with life.

“An intelligent stone embryo!” Tang Jie cried out.

This was no natural treasure at all, but an intelligent stone embryo that someone had intentionally raised, one of the highest level, a stone human embryo!

To create a stone human embryo, one first had to obtain an embryo still developing in the womb, which meant killing it. While the intelligent stone embryo seemed to have a life, this was not the life of the human embryo, but an elemental life form nurtured over thousands of years, appearing human yet far from it!

Just who could be so cruel as to use a human as a seed to raise an intelligent stone embryo? Tang Jie scowled.

He didn’t know who had planted this intelligent stone embryo, but he certainly wasn’t going to leave it for them. Gazing at the stone, Tang Jie declared, “I share a destiny with this treasure. Since I have seen it, I will take it.”

He spat out a flame.

The flame instantly lit up this cavernous world, radiating heat into the surroundings. At the same time, Tang Jie waved his hand, casting a barrier over Huangfu Meng.

The flames flew to the Mothercore Stone, but instead of burning it, they simply radiated light and heat. In this process, the Mothercore Stone became even more transparent, like a giant piece of jade. The stone embryo became clear enough that even Huangfu Meng could see something like an infant curled up within. Even though this stone embryo was nearly three hundred feet tall, its appearance was like that of an infant, even sucking its finger.

This was the Triple Truth Flame, which Tang Jie had taken from the Great Sun Sect after killing Yuan Tianzhong, counting it as part of the interest—the treasure of a sect hadn’t even been able to pay off some of the principal.

The tempering of the Triple Truth Flame caused all the elemental essence to surge toward the stone embryo, and as the stone grew more and more transparent, the embryo matured. To be honest, this was a subpar method, akin to triggering a premature birth, and it would definitely be inferior to a natural birth. But Tang Jie couldn’t wait that long, and besides, the intelligent stone embryo was already close to maturity.

Comparing this to a normal pregnancy, while a baby coming out at three months definitely wouldn’t survive, pushing out a baby that was only a few days away from birth wouldn’t do anything that some extra care and attention couldn’t make up for.

This was the situation the intelligent stone embryo was in. It had already been growing for nearly ten thousand years. Normally, Tang Jie would have had to wait another one hundred years for it to come out, but through the Triple Truth Flame, this process was greatly accelerated.

As the Earth essence disappeared and the Mothercore Stone became more and more transparent, the stone embryo grew stronger and stronger. Seeing this, Tang Jie took out a small bottle containing Yellow Springs Essence.

Aiming it at the stone, he said, “Hurry and wake up!”

A drop of Yellow Springs Essence fell on the stone, which immediately erupted with light, and then the stone embryo moved.

The curled-up body instantly unfurled as if stretching, and then the jade-like stone blew apart.

A naked giant flew out of the debris like Pangu waking up, but its eyes were empty.

(TN: In Chinese creation myth, Pangu was said to be born from a cosmic egg and then separated the heavens and earth.)

This wasn’t strange. While it had a human form, it wasn’t a human, but an Earth elemental, made up of Earth essence like that which Tang Jie had once gathered long ago.

But the Earth Element essence he had gathered was small in quantity and had not taken any form. This one had a complete form and had absorbed the life of a human. It had a small amount of intelligence and had much more potential. It could even be called a child of the earth.

But it had just been born and knew nothing of the world.

As it fell toward the ground, Tang Jie summoned a gust of wind to hold it aloft, at the same time sending a drop of blood toward the earthen being and shouting, “Stop!”

The stone embryo froze as the drop of blood fell on its forehead and vanished. Tang Jie’s will immediately dominated the embryo, taking complete control of it.

Only then did he release the wind and let the stone embryo hit the ground.

The moment its feet touched the earth, energy began to converge from all around, and the earth shuddered.

The stone embryo threw back its head and roared, but from its perspective, this earth-shaking roar was nothing more than a baby’s first cry.

But with all the power at its disposal, its cry could make the earth quake, and even Tang Jie was surprised at the power flowing through it. Fortunately, he had stopped it from hitting the ground and taken control of it. Trying to take control of it after it had linked with the earth would have been extremely difficult.

Now, however, this intelligent stone embryo was entirely his.

“Come; let me see what abilities you have,” Tang Jie said.

The stone baby pointed at a nearby mountain, and its arm flew out. When its arm touched the mountain, the mountain came to life, turning into a giant and walking over to Tang Jie.

This alone made Tang Jie very content. With this stone baby’s size, it could bring more than one hundred mountains to life. It was truly a child of the earth.

But this clearly wasn’t its only power. A moment later, it stopped the mountain and called back its arm. It then disappeared into the earth, instantly appearing many kilometers away. The ability to travel almost instantly across vast distances through the earth was another one of its talents.

At this moment, an ancient and majestic will suddenly appeared, and a furious voice bellowed, “Who stole my treasure!?”