Longevity starts from having a daughter in old age

“Your soul is inherently incomplete, influenced by the Heart-Refining Formation; it bred a heart demon, causing you to faint!”

The elder continued with a look of regret: “Those with a fragmented soul are destined not to overcome the heart demon tribulation, and the road to future cultivation will be fraught with difficulties! So you… sigh!”

Sure enough!

Xu Mu didn’t need to guess to know this.

The soul of this separate entity was split from his main body, it naturally couldn’t be complete. Even if he cultivated his Mayfly Possession Skill to Transcendent level, it still wouldn’t be able to compensate for this shortcoming.

To split out a complete soul entity, it was said that only those at the Refining Void Stage could do so.

The heart demon tribulation the elder spoke of mainly referred to the calamity faced when breaking through from the Golden Core Stage to the Nascent Soul Stage, that is, a fragmented soul like his wouldn’t be able to advance to the Nascent Soul Stage, basically.

Of course, this wasn’t a big issue.

For their batch of disciples, it was a great fortune to be able to cultivate until the Golden Core Stage. As for the Nascent Soul Stage, it’s just good to think about.

The real impact of a fragmented soul on him now was his enlightenment.

Whether it was the future understanding of martial methods, skill cultivation, or learning divine skills, all would be much slower.

This would affect him regardless of his great physical aptitude.

Of course, facing methods that affect the soul, he was also easily infiltrated, like this time with the Heart-Refining Formation.

Even Xu Mu didn’t expect that the impact of the Heart-Refining Formation on this split entity would be so significant.

“What? How could this be? Impossible!!”

Xu Mu acted incredulously, portraying a deeply shocked expression, and performed it fervently.

Even an adult facing such a blow would invariably be dispirited, let alone him, a young man who hasn’t experienced many things in life.

Thus, he absolutely needed to act it out, otherwise it would be easy to arouse suspicion.

As for his physical condition being discovered, he was already mentally prepared. The only surprise was that he didn’t expect it to be discovered so soon.

He hasn’t even entered the gate yet!

Seeing Xu Mu’s dispirited look, everyone could only shake their heads helplessly. Anyone in such a situation would be uncomfortable. What’s more, they discovered that Xu Mu’s physique was superb and his spiritual power was very strong. His pure cultivation talent could be ranked in the top ten among these new disciples, but his fragmented soul was truly fatal.

He originally had limitless potential, but now he was not even as good as disciples who had been eliminated.

This stark contrast aroused everyone’s regret.

“Elder, isn’t there a way to mend it?”

Xu Mu looked at everyone expectantly.

“This…”

The elders looked at each other, and one of them spoke up: “It’s not that there’s no way, but… you better take a good rest!”

Obviously, a remedy was more difficult than ascending to the heavens.

The crowd comforted him and left one after another. The examination wasn’t over yet, they still had a lot of work to do; they didn’t have time to stick around Xu Mu. The reason they’d gathered in the first place was simply out of curiosity.

Few people with innate fragmented souls could maintain a normal mind.

After everyone had left, Xu Mu stayed in the room and continued acting disheartened.

The reason for his fervent performance was twofold: to keep his secret hidden and to stay in the Tianhe Sect.

From the Tianhe Sect disciple who took care of him, he knew that his result for the third examination was very poor. He wasn’t just poor, he was unprecedentedly and inevitably poor.

He fainted as soon as he reached the first step!

In the history of the Tianhe Sect for three thousand years, the worst result was only the third step, and that disciple didn’t faint and lasted till the end.

Xu Mu had directly rewritten the history of the Tianhe Sect.

Originally, passing the first two examinations would have allowed him to join the Tianhe Sect, the third one was merely to differentiate. But given Xu Mu’s performance in the third examination, whether he could stay was a real unknown.

So, to play the victim seemed reasonable and right.

Sigh! Originally, I wanted to join the Tianhe Sect as a genius, but I ended up being a waste from the beginning.

It seems fate naturally intends for me to be the protagonist!

One day, an elder in blue came to announce the result. After deliberation, the Tianhe Sect decided to keep him. The main reason wasn’t to pity him, but that rules cannot be broken.

No need to break long-standing rules just for a disciple’s quota.

After learning the result, Xu Mu finally felt somewhat relieved.

Without being a disciple, obtaining the Heavenly Divine Water would be ten times more difficult.

“This is your disciple token. If your body is all right, report to your designated peak as soon as possible!” the elder said.

“Yes!”

Xu Mu took the token, not looking at the words engraved on it, and respectfully escorted the green-robed Elder out.

It was only when the Elder had left that he picked up the token to examine it carefully.

The token was made of black iron, engraved with formation runes on it, giving a cold sensation to the touch. When knocked, it produced a clear echoing sound.

There were characters engraved on both sides of the token. On the back were the six characters for “Celestial River Sect’s Lonely Sword Peak” and on the front was his name.

Within the Celestial River Sect, there were thirty-six peaks, and all new disciples basically joined one of these thirty-six peaks. Lonely Sword Peak happened to be one of them. As for the Medicine Hall, Law Enforcement Hall, and Refinery Hall, these were integrated departments. Disciples of the thirty- six peaks could join any of them after passing the assessment.

“Lonely Sword Peak?”

Xu Mu began to recall related information just as Qi Yue Xing, dressed in the white disciple’s uniform of the Celestial River Sect, rushed in hurriedly.

Behind him were two older disciples of the Celestial River Sect, one male and one female.

They were both dressed elegantly in white. Although their faces were not more than seventeen or eighteen years old, their cultivation level had already reached the Qi Cultivation Late Stage, making them absolute geniuses in White River City.

However, their current appearance made it seem like they were Qi Yue’s followers.

“Senior Brother Xu, are you okay?” Qi Yue asked anxiously as soon as he entered the room.

“I’m fine!”

Xu Mu shook his head, smiling.

Before they had joined the sect, Qi Yue had referred to him as a brother. Now that they had joined the sect, it was indeed appropriate to address each other as senior and junior brothers.

The age Xu Mu had reported was eleven and a half, while Qi Yue was ten, just two months shy of eleven. Addressing him as a senior brother was not a problem.

However, this address caused a faint disdain to appear on the faces of the two people who were following.

“As long as you’re alright! You gave me quite a scare! If I hadn’t had to complete various induction formalities, I would have come to see you sooner!”

Qi Yue grabbed Xu Mu’s arm and looked him up and down to make sure he was really alright.

“Just your willingness to come and see me makes me very happy!”

Xu Mu smiled and extricated his arm.

Honestly speaking, apart from bragging a bit when they were first admitted, the two did not have much of a relationship. The fact that the other could come a long way to see him was indeed a surprise to Xu Mu and also prompted a great deal of goodwill.

“Right, how did your assessment go?” Xu Mu asked.

“Hehe!”

Qi Yue began to laugh smugly.

“Why don’t you take a guess!”

“Take a guess?”

Xu Mu glanced at the two disciples following Qi Yue, had a thought, and ventured, “Could it be the tenth place?”

“Damn! Brother, did you hear it from someone else?” asked Qi Yue, incredulous.

He had originally wanted to show off, but hadn’t expected Xu Mu to guess it right away.

“I just made a random guess!”

Xu Mu laughed heartily.

Seeing the two people following him, he could deduce that Qi Yue’s ranking was not low, otherwise, he would not have received such treatment. As for the specific rank, he just habitually started guessing from the tenth position.

If it wasn’t that, he would then guess the fifth position and then analyze whether it was higher or lower.

“You’re really something!” Qi Yue exclaimed sincerely.

Perhaps it was because he had just joined the sect, or perhaps because of his young age, Qi Yue didn’t have any ill intentions. He sincerely praised Xu Mu one after another, displaying no arrogance despite his good talent.

“Right, which peak have you joined?” Qi Yue pointed to the two people behind him and said, “Brother Fei and Sister Jia here have kindly offered to escort you. Going from here to each peak involves crossing several floating cloud bridges, so it’s quite a distance if you walk!”

“Thankyou, Brother, Sister! I’ve joined Lonely Sword Peak!”

Xu Mu was not at all polite.

“Lonely Sword Peak? Why does that sound familiar?” Qi Yue frowned.

“That’s the last ranked peak among the thirty-six peaks. The whole peak doesn’t even have ten disciples!” Sister Jia couldn’t help but interject.

“Oh! Now I remember! That’s where that one known as the Drunkard Peak Master of the sect resides…cough cough!”

Qi Yue was about to elaborate when he suddenly realized that Xu Mu was about to join Lonely Sword Peak and that the Drunkard Peak Master would be Xu Mu’s future master. Speaking about someone’s master in front of their disciple was somewhat improper.

“The person on Gu Feng has profound cultivation. With him as your mentor, you surely will have a promising future!” Qi Yue forced himself to say.

“Thankyou for the good words, junior brother! Let’s get going!”

Xu Mu smiled, not taking it to heart.

Thanks to Sister Jia’s flying boat, they very soon reached the location of Lonely Sword Peak.