My longevity simulation

A faint radiance was emitted from above.

Many blurred images emerged, accompanied by the light.

As Gu Xinghan was drawn to the scenes within the radiance, the jade disc in his hand seemed almost alive, transmitting waves of desire.

Coming back to his senses, Gu Xinghan felt a bit confused and somewhat surprised.

However, he had heard of treasures possessing sentience before.

After quickly accepting this fact, he began to sense the jade disc’s yearning.

Yet, it was only a vague, instinctive reaction.

The jade disc could not speak; he had to guess its intentions…

Gu Xinghan tried various methods to satisfy the jade disc.

But the jade disc showed no interest in any of them.

It continued to emit an insistent, unyielding desire toward him.

At the same time, his peers had all successfully reached the Foundation Establishment stage, while he remained clueless about how to proceed.

The combination of these two pressures left Gu Xinghan deeply frustrated.

Then, by a stroke of luck, he happened to witness Elder Fang Zaiji preparing the Endstone Plate for the newly admitted core disciples.

At that moment, the jade disc began to tremble violently, making Gu Xinghan instantly realize its target.

“This…”

Gu Xinghan hesitated.

After all, the Endstone Plate was a highly valuable artifact that Elder Fang had repeatedly emphasized as crucial.

If something went wrong…

Yet, in the end, he could not resist the jade disc’s overwhelming desire.

A flash of light later, the jade disc appeared within his Sea of Consciousness.

Under Gu Xinghan’s anxious gaze, the jade disc slowly descended onto the Endstone Plate.

Then, from its underside, countless tiny light tendrils stretched out like tentacles, clinging to the Endstone Plate.

At first, Gu Xinghan feared the jade disc might damage the artifact.

But after observing for a while, he realized that was not the case.

Instead, the two artifacts, connected through those sticky, luminous tendrils, seemed to be merging into one.

This put Gu Xinghan at ease.

At the same time, he found the situation rather intriguing.

“Could it be that the jade disc and the Endplate are actually the same thing?” he wondered.

However, being young, Gu Xinghan quickly lost interest in further research and set it aside.

Instead, he focused on the visions emerging from the jade disc.

“Foundation Establishment Through the Oneself? What is this? It seems to align with my own body’s condition?”

Gu Xinghan was overjoyed.

Without hesitation, he set aside the jade disc and dedicated himself to studying the Foundation Establishment Through the Oneselfmethod.

By the time he emerged from his enlightenment, the jade disc had fully fused with the Endstone Plate.

However, the fusion process seemed rather forceful, as if the jade disc had forcibly attached itself.

The final result was not particularly aesthetic.

But Gu Xinghan did not care about that.

He knew that this jade disc was likely an extraordinary treasure.

Though young, Gu Xinghan was not naive. He was acutely aware of the dangers of the world.

He understood the principle that a man without sin is still guilty when he possesses a treasure.

Thus, he decided to conceal both the jade disc and the Foundation Establishment Through the Oneself technique.

“Perhaps I can use this new jade disc as a cover and claim that it is a unique treasure that aids my Foundation Establishment…” The young Gu Xinghan pondered.

And so, without anyone knowing, the world’s sole practitioner of Foundation Establishment Through the Oneself began his cultivation.

At first, his progress shocked Elder Liu San and the others from the Medicine King Sect.

He grasped teachings instantly and displayed profound understanding.

Among his peers, he was unmatched. Even Foundation Establishment cultivators defeating Golden Core stage practitioners was considered rare, yet he achieved it with ease.

Gu Xinghan quickly became the most outstanding young disciple in the Medicine King Sect.

The entire sect placed great hopes on him.

However…

His peak was as fleeting as a meteor.

Before long, his fellow disciples advanced to the Golden Core and Nascent Soul stages.

Yet Gu Xinghan remained stagnant.

This anomaly baffled Elder Liu San and the others.

They suspected there was something wrong with his body and personally examined him multiple times.

But no one could identify any issue.

When asked directly, Gu Xinghan simply stated that he had tried his best but could no longer progress.

Thirty years passed in the blink of an eye.

The Medicine King Sect ultimately accepted the reality and officially abandoned efforts to cultivate Gu Xinghan further.

However, they did not treat him harshly. He was still allowed to access various resources at will.

They simply stopped paying attention to him.

Meanwhile, as more and more juniors surpassed him in cultivation, Gu Xinghan grew increasingly withdrawn.

He secluded himself, avoiding contact with others.

Gradually, he was forgotten.

And so, 263 years passed.

A now white-haired Gu Xinghan finally reached the end of his life.

“Primordial Golden Core… Primordial Golden Core…”

“What exactly is Primordial?”

He let out a bitter laugh, his expression filled with sorrow.

“To create something from nothing, to forge a new path… It is too difficult. Far too difficult…”

“Having succeeded in Foundation Establishment Through the Oneself, I no longer even had the option to regret and switch to another method…”

In his hand, a warm jade disc appeared.

Compared to two centuries ago, its radiance had entirely faded.

It now resembled an ordinary stone on the roadside, unworthy of attention.

Gu Xinghan gazed at the jade disc that had accompanied him for nearly a lifetime, his emotions complex.

“You have ruined me… Ruined my entire life…”

He murmured softly.

He wanted to throw the jade disc to the ground, yet he hesitated.

In the end, he held onto it tightly.

Amidst deep unwillingness, he breathed his last.

Gu Xinghan’s death caused no ripples in the world.

Because no unusual phenomenon occurred after his death, his corpse was not discovered until three years later.

Over two hundred years have passed, and the landscape of the Longevity Valley has long since changed.

No one remembers the one who was once the great hope of the Medicine King Sect.

No one pays attention.

His funeral was kept simple.

Soon, Gu Xinghan’s body was buried in the Medicine King Sect’s disciple cemetery within the Beast Realm.

Among his few remaining belongings, the jade disc in Gu Xinghan’s hand was overlooked by everyone.

It was buried along with him, deep underground.

From then on, it remained in endless darkness.

Beyond the Xuanhuang Realm.

Inside the Medicine King True Cauldron.

A frail figure, strikingly similar in appearance to Li Fan, let out a muffled groan.

Blood continuously seeped from his nose and mouth, which he wiped away with his hand, as if he might die at any moment from excessive blood loss.

Yet, his expression remained unchanged.

“A moment inside the cauldron, a millennium in Xuanhuang.”

He coughed lightly, his eyes filled with deep emotion.

“To personally experience the difference in the flow of time—this feeling is truly indescribable.”

Inside the Medicine King True Cauldron lay [Holy Embryo Li Fan].

As part of a deception, he was created by Li Fan using his own essence blood through the Holy Blood Embryo Transformation Technique, forming a temporary clone before the arrival of Mr. Bai.

Due to time constraints and the fact that his talent matched that of his true self, he was merely an ordinary mortal with no cultivation.

Shortly after leaving the Xuanhuang Realm, he sensed that the Medicine King True Cauldron had deviated from its original trajectory.

Moreover, the images transmitted from the Dissociation Disc, which he had transformed into, were accelerating rapidly.

The overwhelming influx of information nearly made his mind collapse.

Fortunately, everything eventually faded into darkness, allowing him to recover slightly.

“Even though I transformed into an object, since this Holy Embryo still exists, I can exert some control over my external manifestation, albeit in a limited capacity.”

However, because he was outside the Xuanhuang Realm, he was unable to witness the battle between the Immortal Ancestor and Mr. Bai, as recorded by the Dissociation Disc.

Still, for Li Fan, seeing the Immortal Ancestor in action for the first time was already a significant gain.

Suppressing his thoughts about the Immortal Ancestor, Holy Embryo Li Fan began to feel a rising excitement.

Because he was about to witness the legendary Immortal Ruins.

Creaking sounds echoed from all directions within the Medicine King True Cauldron, a testament to the immense pressure it was enduring.

Holy Embryo Li Fan activated a distant-viewing telescope, which had been prepared in advance inside the cauldron, to observe the Immortal Ruins.

Ahead, there was only darkness.

The Medicine King True Cauldron was accelerating rapidly.

Deafening roars thundered from all sides.

It seemed on the verge of breaking apart at any moment.

Yet, within Holy Embryo Li Fan’s vision, there was still nothing to see.

“Will it end here?”

A hint of disappointment flickered in his heart.

Boom!

The Medicine King True Cauldron began to collapse.

The violent tremors made it nearly impossible for him to stand firm.

Struggling, Holy Embryo Li Fan grabbed the distant-viewing telescope and hid in the cauldron’s core—

A narrow sanctuary made entirely of Eternal Calamity Gold.

Under increasing and almost unimaginable pressure, the Medicine King Cauldron could no longer endure and shattered into countless fragments.

At the same time, it began plummeting toward the Immortal Ruins.

Moments later, Holy Embryo Li Fan realized that even Eternal Calamity Gold would not hold out much longer.

Yet, true to his nature, he refused to give up.

Still gripping the distant-viewing mirror, he looked forward once more.

In that instant, his eyes widened slightly.

In the once pitch-black void, an endless desolate land had appeared.

The barren wilderness was littered with countless ruins.

A colossal corpse sat cross-legged upon the ground.

Its flesh had almost completely decayed, leaving behind only a layer of skin draped over its bones.

Dozens of blood-red chains were deeply embedded in the earth, binding the skeleton to the desolate land.

All around the corpse, deep trenches crisscrossed the ground.

Together, they formed an intricate symbol on the land’s surface.

Though he had never seen this symbol before, the moment he laid eyes on it, Li Fan instinctively understood its meaning.

It was a single word.

The word “Hunger”!

An overwhelming hunger surged through Holy Embryo Li Fan’s mind.

At that very moment…

The ancient corpse on the desolate land suddenly opened its eyes!