Tempered Immortal

Chapter 3: Illusionary Torture

The younger generation gathered in the Young Hawk Pavilion, which stood alone in an area of several thousand square meters.

In the lobby, many disciples are doing their breathing exercises, at this time in the spacious hall, dozens of disciples of the Spirit Condensation Stage can be seen.

It was still early, so the Foundation Establishment seniors responsible for the gathering have not yet come. The disciples gathered in groups of twos and threes to talk about things of interest.

Lin Xuan quietly sat cross-legged, taking advantage of the time provided to cultivate for a while.

“Oh, isn’t that Brother Lin?”

“I heard you went into closed-door practice a while ago, wasn’t it to break through to the second layer?”

Lin Xuan’s brows wrinkled with his taunting laughter while trying to maintaining an unemotional surface. In the eyes of mortals, cultivators were truly extraordinary beings and immortals. However, that was only the outside appearance of it, cultivators also need to gain insights into profound teachings.

The cultivating world was, in reality, crueler than the secular, more realistic, and infinitely more snobbish.

But unlike the secular world, the world of cultivators is based only on strength, and the most powerful stand tall.

Those with the highest cultivation, those with the best skills, those who were truly immortal, were the ones in charge. Only they have the right to speak.

During these three years, although Lin Xuan’s efforts were higher than the others, but since he had no Spiritual Roots, he was left far behind by the others and left out in the cold.

“Well, he’s just a mortal without Spiritual Roots, no matter how hard-working he is, it still cannot be compared with us, rather he’s a disgrace to our sect.

“Oh yes, three years and unable to break through into the second layer. What a useless person he is.”

…..

Faced with the ridicule of his martial brothers, Lin Xuan did not bat an eyelid. He looked the same as usual, and after giving those silly guys a cold look, Lin Xuan went over to the side.

Not out of anger, or fear, but because those few shallow guys who ran their tongues were not worth the effort, and were unable to affect his state of mind.

He once again sat down cross-legged and began to absorb Spiritual Qi, and after another half an hour, a bell rang out. The disciples all stopped what they were doing and started to line up, with Lin Xuan all the way in the back.

A middle-aged man walked in, who on the surface, looked no more than forty years old, but was certainly older than that. With higher cultivation levels, life will also be extended as aging would gradually slow down.

“Master!”

All the disciples bowed down, per the rules of Whirlwind Cloud Valley, they must show respect to the one sent to teach them.

“My name is Zhang Yu, you are going to learn the secrets of the Spirit Shield.”

Spirit Shield, by definition, was when Spiritual Qi was gathered and distributed over the body surface to form a cloak. It was the most basic defensive spell.

The disciples excitedly started to whisper among themselves.

Except for Lin Xuan who was like an ordinary person. All the other disciples with Spiritual Roots, after cultivating the past three years, had reached the third and fourth layers, were mid-stage Spirit Condastation disciples, and had earned the right to learn basic spells.

“Such noise, quiet!” After seeing the undisciplined group, Zhang Yu had an ugly expression.

Seeing their senior angry, the disciples immediately shut their mouths.

Zhang Yu then began to explain in detail how to control Spiritual Qi, which required very high attention to detail.

Lin Xuan listened very carefully. As he was now recovering, his spiritual power was still not enough to use the Spirit Shield yet. But he knew that as long as he learned the method to practice the spell, he will be able to remember it in the future and slowly practice.

“Good, now go practice on your own.” After Zhang Yu finished giving instructions, he left the Young Hawk Pavilion. Whether their practices would succeed or not, it solemnly depended on the disciples themselves.

Lin Xuan also left, heading first for his residence, a small log cabin that had a high Spiritual Qi density. But this was a very simple living area for low-level disciples.

The house had few pieces of furniture, a table, chair, and a wooden bed. Lin Xuan opened a drawer on the desk, and after taking out a pen and paper, wrote down the cultivation method for the Spirit Shield he just learned.

This was a habit he has developed over the past three years. Since he lacked Spiritual Roots and couldn’t keep pace with the others in terms of cultivation speed, he always wrote down what he learned every time one of his senior’s taught something. Lin Xuan has by now recorded many things that he heard but was unable to practice, so he wrote all of them down to reference in the future in case he forgot.

After he finished writing, Lin Xuan carefully put away the book and started to make his way back to the inner area to continue cultivating. After two hours, he arrived at the training ground.

Even with the increasing Spiritual Qi, Lin Xuan stopped there, as he could go no further since the deeper one goes into the inner area, the more terrifying the illusions.

With the sound of rushing wind, the scene changes, all around him was a wide world of ice and snow, with the wind cutting into him like ten thousand blades of ice.

The snow was soon covering his ankle; his whole body froze in just a moment. Lin Xuan watched all this with a cold heart, wondering if there would be more changes in the illusions. First having him bear the pain of fire, and now the endless cold.

After staring blanky for a moment, Lin Xuan sat down cross-legged and began absorbing Spiritual Qi.

As his body froze, Lin Xuan’s hair condensed into icicles, but still, he sat motionless in the snow, enduring for more than twenty minutes before he ran out of the illusion to rest. He warmed his body to increase recovery speed and soon returning to cultivate.

…….

The cold wind soon condensed the snow into sharp stakes of ice that flew over to Lin Xuan, and still, you can see a rock-still teenager on the floor cultivating.

Two days later, Lin Xuan stood up expressionlessly, hesitating to continue cultivating. The Spiritual Qi here was not pure and enough, so to break through this layer, he would have to go deeper inside. Strengthening his resolve, Lin Xuan walked towards the depths of the cave…