Eternal Life: My Lifespan Increases Daily

Without a doubt, this Insect Demon is also a coward, greedy for life and afraid of death.

Song Changming liked such a thing, with a smile on his face that seemed friendly, yet made the Insect Demon shiver, its four round bug eyes shrinking.

"Alright, then I will let you live."

Behind him, Xiao Peibai glanced at his Grand Marshal, saying nothing.

The Grand Marshal’s decision must have its purpose, he would not say more.

After dealing with this Water Insect, the mission of this march was half complete.

The remaining task was guarding a newly developed Spirit Crystal Vein near the Mineral River, which was actually the main task for the Nineteenth Army.

Exterminating the Water Demons in the river was merely incidental.

Song Changming had executed similar tasks in the past.

Back then, as Song Changming remembered, he was merely a small Deputy General in the army, but now had firmly established himself as the Commander of the First Army, being level five General!

The speed of acquiring power and military rank could not be described as slow.

Three days later, Lei City officials issued a notice that the Water Demons in the Mineral River had been eradicated.

All the civilians, upon hearing the news, breathed a sigh of relief, praising the mighty Cuiqi Army joyfully and exuberantly.

For ordinary civilians, although they were not miners making a living from the Mineral River, when a group of man-eating monsters emerged near their city, no one could live without fear.

Now that the demon plague was removed, they were surely glad to see it.

In the evening, Song Changming sat cross-legged on the top of a rocky mountain, gazing into the distance where he could see the wide Mineral River stretching through the endless mountain range which seemed to have no end.

Below him on the rocky mountain, there were occasional patrols of soldiers carrying torches, vigilant for unexpected guests in the starlit night.

This rocky mountain was one of the new veins they were guarding, stretching tens of miles, with fairly rich Spirit Crystal resources.

It was the enormous value of this newly developed vein project that led Song Changming to station his army here.

Although the overall military power of the Nineteenth Army might not be the strongest, the combat power of Song Changming, the Grand Marshal, was undoubtedly unrivaled in the Military Department!

This power was highly recognized by Grand Marshal Hu Tomb and was currently a universally acknowledged fact within the Military Department.

Song Changming was undeniably strong, strong beyond words!

At this moment.

He was cultivating amidst the heavens and earth, as he circulated his energy, the dense Spiritual Qi around him began to converge towards him.

In the darkness, a faint Spiritual Mist began to rise at the mountain top.

Cultivating on the Spirit Crystal Vein was as effective as practicing in some Dongtian Blessed Lands.

This was one of the benefits of such guarding missions, the ability to openly gather the abundant Spiritual Qi dissipating from the veins for personal cultivation needs.

Now, more than eight years later, Song Changming still looked young and carefree, but he was actually over eighty years old.

In the eyes of ordinary people, a solid old man over eighty, already in his old age.

But among martial artists, especially Innate Martial Artists, being over eighty was not considered too old, rather it was the peak of adulthood.

In terms of cultivation, in the fifth year of the past eight years, he completely opened the final Celestial Martial Vein within his body.

From then on, all constraints disappeared, and he was free to wander the universe!

Until now, Song Changming’s Qi Refining Cultivation had reached the Innate Realm’s Great Perfection stage.

And not long ago, he vaguely sensed an unfamiliar bottleneck.

It was as if the nine Martial Veins in his body could no longer accommodate more Innate Qi Aura.

The Innate Qi Aura cultivated daily became increasingly scarce.

Various situations seemed to be telling Song Changming, who had always had smooth cultivation, that these were the limitations brought by the bottleneck.

If he could not break through the bottleneck, his cultivation would become more stagnant and harder to improve!

Martial Artists trapped by such bottlenecks, unable to progress further in life, were indeed countless.

And this time, the rare bottleneck that hindered Song Changming was precisely the Grandmaster Realm!

However, Song Changming was not anxious.

Eight years ago, he had already obtained the Opening Mansion Technique needed to break through the Grandmaster Realm, and now, as he fortified his Cultivation Realm, he was studying and deducing that set of techniques.

In his personal interface, that set of Opening Mansion Technique was already displayed.

[Opening Mansion Technique: Mastery (238/300), Basic Success Rate of Cultivation Technique: 20%]

Like his other learnings, Song Changming only needed to continuously accumulate experience value in cultivation techniques to deepen his mastery of this technique.

He had mastered the technique currently, and behind the interface, there was a particular annotation.

Basic Success Rate of Cultivation Technique: 20%.

Before he had attained the basic level of this technique, the basic success rate displayed was zero.

After acquiring the basic level, it was 10%.

Now the mastery increased it to 20%.

This annotation was actually not difficult to interpret.

After all, the technique had only one purpose, which was to open the Grandmaster’s Purple Mansion.

This is a technique dedicated to opening the Purple Mansion.

Thus the success rate value in the annotation was obviously indicating the success rate of opening the Purple Mansion.

In fact, the technique itself did not come with mastery levels.

Basic level, mastery, were specially displayed by the interface to distinguish how well Song Changming, as the possessor, mastered this technique.

Clearly, the higher the mastery, the higher the future success rate of opening the Purple Mansion.

Currently, a 20% success rate, naturally seemed very low to the cautious Song Changming, without even sparking a thought about attempting a breakthrough.

It must be known that failing to open the Purple Mansion, thereby failing to break through the Grandmaster Realm, comes at a significant cost.

At worst, one’s cultivation falls steeply, Martial Veins close, reverting to the original state.

At most, the Martial Tao roots are damaged, life is expended, becoming short-lived, and unable to cultivate again!

Some may even be gravely injured due to an abrupt breakthrough attempt and die!

These were things Song Changming learned from carefully consulting many people, even receiving warnings from Hu Tomb and Prince Cui, not to rush the process.

The closer one is to completion, the less one should hurry.

It is said that although one foot seems to tread upon the Grandmaster Realm, truly the other foot teeters at Ghost Gate.

Life and death hang by a thread.

Precisely due to this, with Song Changming’s personality all along, he would never attempt to break through the Grandmaster Realm without maximizing the experience bar of this technique.

Moreover, apart from mastering the Opening Mansion Technique, certain extremely rare Spiritual Objects could also increase the success rate in this aspect.

For instance, the drop of Earth Core Fire liquid that Su Fengye once gifted him was a top-grade Spiritual Object capable of increasing the success rate of opening the Purple Mansion.

Through the years, he had been actively searching for related Spiritual Objects, although he had some leads, yet had not acquired any.

"Indeed, the experience value of this technique proves difficult to increase..."

Ending a round of deducing and practicing, he looked at the slight rise in experience value, feeling rather vexed.

That is why it’s said the threshold of the Grandmaster Realm is harder to cross than ascending to heaven.

This was despite having the trait of ’Taoist Dreamer,’ which excels at deducing and improving techniques, even then it was so hard to enhance this technique, no need to mention other Martial Artists.

If he continued to accumulate experience in this manner, wanting to maximize the experience bar might not happen in the next three to five years.

This meant Song Changming had to be stuck in the Innate Perfection Realm for such a long time, hard to advance.

Originally, Song Changming was not in a hurry; after all, life was still peaceful and calm now, no one urged him forward.

He could just take his time slowly.

However, with the appearance of the Insect Demon this time and its connection with Master Baitian from Baitian Temple, Song Changming could not help but remember the deep-seated vendetta buried in his heart.

The ripple in his heart also sparked more desire for Cultivation Realm growth.

He wanted to quickly step into the Grandmaster Realm, bearing immense power, to settle this grievance that had spanned over dozens of years!

Everything had been dragging for too long, and with the continual increase in strength, this time he was somewhat impatient.

He wanted to rush to Baitian Temple, personally slay Master Baitian, transformed by the Demon Race!

"I hope this year’s annual rewards include options to increase technique mastery, then there might be a shortcut..."

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