Immortal Ascension Through Marriage: Investing in My Wife Get Returns

The quiet morning at home had been a much-needed break for Lin Yuan. For a short while, he could forget about the endless battles and dangers of the Great Dao.

After making sure Bai Qingyue was comfortable and resting after their wedding night, Lin Yuan quietly left her side. There were still three months before the Lord Tournament began in Sky Jade City, and Lin Yuan had no intention of wasting that time. He had a tournament to win, a Void Refinement Emperor to seek out, and a wife to restore.

With a fold of spatial Qi, Lin Yuan had teleported out of the master bedroom, leaving the scent of morning pine and the warmth of his bride behind. He materialized directly inside the cultivation chamber located on the highest floor of the master pavilion.

Lin Yuan then walked to the center of the chamber and took a seat upon the mat of calming spirit-grass. He crossed his legs, entering a flawless lotus position, his back perfectly straight. He did not immediately summon the River of Years Pagoda. Before he subjected himself to the temporal isolation of the artifact, he needed to thoroughly understand the tool Lord Zhao gave him.

With a flick of his wrist, he reached into his spatial ring.

A soft hum vibrated through the chamber as Lin Yuan withdrew his hand, now holding the Dao Stone gifted to him by Lord Zhao Shenming.

The Dao Stone rested lightly against his palm. It was a crystalline orb roughly the size of a peach, utterly devoid of the blinding light typical of high-tier artifacts. Instead, it contained a swirling, infinite galaxy of dense grey mist within its core.

As Lin Yuan stared into the crystal, his perception picked up the phantom-like images flashing within the mist—billions of fleeting mortal lives, echoing with the joyous laughter of births and the agonizing wails of death.

This was the Seek the Dao with the Illusion of the Heart. It was a complete structure of a Spirit Severing expert’s personal Dream Dao, inscribed perfectly into a physical medium.

"To sever the mortal heart, one must first possess a mortal heart worth severing," Lin Yuan murmured softly to the empty room, repeating the words Lord Zhao had told to him.

Lin Yuan closed his deep purple eyes, regulating his breathing until it slowed to an almost imperceptible rhythm. He pushed the distracting thoughts of the upcoming tournament and the Central Continent entirely out of his mind. He focused all of his mental acuity on the crystalline orb resting in his hand.

He channeled his Late Stage Nascent Soul Qi. Slowly, deliberately, Lin Yuan extended a single thread of his Thunder Rain Dao Intent and drove it directly into the surface of the Dao Stone.

The reaction was instantaneous.

Wooooom!

Lin Yuan’s physical senses were instantly, forcefully severed. The feeling of the spirit-grass beneath him vanished. The ambient chill of the room disappeared. The faint, rushing sound of the garden’s waterfall was completely silenced. It felt as though a colossal, invisible hand had reached into his physical body and violently yanked his consciousness straight out of his body.

His perspective rapidly inverted, diving deep into the fathomless depths of his own Sea of Consciousness. The vast ocean of his spiritual sea churned violently as the power of the Dao Stone flooded his mind. The structure of the dream domain forcefully expanded, rapidly weaving a new, isolated reality within his soul.

Lin Yuan’s consciousness stabilized, and he found himself standing within the newly formed dream domain.

However, as he looked around, his brow furrowed in profound confusion.

The domain was completely empty.

It was a pitch-black void. There was no starry sky, no earth to stand upon, no horizon to look toward, and absolutely no light. It was a sensory deprivation chamber of the soul, an endless expanse of absolute nothingness. Gravity did not exist here, yet he felt as though he were standing firmly on an invisible plane. The silence was so profound and heavy that it physically ached, pressing against his consciousness like the weight of a collapsed star.

Is the inscription flawed? Lin Yuan thought, his mind racing with terrifying speed. Did Lord Zhao Shenming hand me a broken Dao Stone, or a trap designed to imprison my soul in the dark?

But as he analyzed the black void surrounding him, he quickly realized the profound truth of the domain.

The Dao Stone was not broken, nor was it a trap. It was functioning absolutely perfectly.

Seek the Dao with the Illusion of the Heart was a blank canvas—an adaptive dimension of pure illusion that required the host’s own desires, intentions, and subconscious will to shape it.

When Lord Zhao Shenming had used this domain, his intent had likely shaped it into a bustling mortal world where he could live and cultivate his mortal heart. The void was pitch black right now because Lin Yuan had not yet aligned his intent with what he actually wished the dream to be. He had entered the domain, and the domain had responded by giving him exactly what he projected: a formless void.

To initiate the tempering of his Mortal Heart, he needed to actively build the world. He needed to paint the canvas.

Lin Yuan stood in the endless dark, his consciousness pondering the choice before him. What kind of mortal life should he live? Should he simulate being a peasant, toiling in the mud to understand the desperation of hunger and the fragility of a mortal lifespan? Should he become a mortal emperor, ruling vast lands to understand the hollow nature of absolute power without eternal life?

No.

Not now.

Before trying to immerse himself in the mortal world after becoming a cultivator, Lin Yuan first needed to understand the ultimate goal. The goal that drove every single cultivator in the Nine Provinces to madness and bloodshed. He thought of Ascension. He thought of the Immortal Realm—were eternal gods resided, free from the cycle of reincarnation and the petty squabbles of the lower worlds.

If I am to experience an illusion that tests my attachments, Lin Yuan declared within his mind, then, first, let me experience the absolute pinnacle of existence. Let me be an immortal in the highest heavens!

He focused his intent, pouring it into the fabric of the dream domain.

However, there was a fundamental paradox. Lin Yuan had never truly seen the Immortal Realm.

But the dream domain was a masterwork. It did not require an accurate understanding of reality to function. It simply bypassed his lack of experience and drew directly from the deepest parts of his subconscious imagination.

The dream gave him exactly what he believed the Immortal Realm should be, shaping the illusion entirely around his personal vision of absolute divinity.

The pitch-black void suddenly violently shuddered.

A single, blinding spark of golden light ignited in the absolute center of the darkness.

The spark rapidly expanded, tearing through the void like a cosmic brush painting across a dark canvas. The silence was suddenly shattered by the faint, ethereal, and impossibly beautiful sound of a million unseen zithers playing a melody that resonated with the very core of the Great Dao.

Lin Yuan watched in profound awe as the darkness was aggressively pushed back, replaced by sweeping, vibrant strokes of reality. The nonexistent ground beneath his feet solidified, transforming into flawlessly, and translucent immortal jade that seemed to glow with its own internal starlight.

The air was suddenly filled with an ambient Qi so unfathomably dense that it manifested as a physical, rolling mist of pure, liquid gold. He could feel the phantom sensation of a gentle, divine breeze brushing against his face, carrying the intoxicating fragrance of mythical immortal peaches and blooming celestial lotuses.

Massive, towering pillars of carved jade rapidly grew from the ground, reaching endlessly upward. Majestic, sweeping pavilions with rooftops made of crystallized starlight materialized around him, hovering effortlessly amidst a sea of pure, golden clouds.

Ethereal, and majestic beasts—soaring true dragons with scales of sapphire, and resplendent phoenixes trailing ribbons of immortal fire—danced through the air in the distance, their roars sounding like harmonious music.

The transition was flawless, completely overwhelming his senses and blurring the line between illusion and reality.

Lin Yuan slowly opened his eyes within the dream domain.

The black void was entirely gone. Instead, he found himself standing at the edge of a magnificent, celestial balcony, looking out over an endless, breathtaking expanse of majestic skies and floating immortal palaces. He had wished to see the heavens, and the illusion of the heart had delivered a paradise beyond mortal comprehension.