By evening on the third day, the setting sun had slanted low, and dusk gathered from every side.
Jared held onto the last thread of strength favonovel.com had and descended onto the hillock. He meant to rest there for a short while, to gather whatever little power remained, even if it was only for a moment.
His mind had gone hazy. His sight blurred at the edges. He had already reached the end of the line.
Just as that last road seemed to vanish beneath him, clear footsteps suddenly reached his ears. They came steady and orderly, moving straight toward the hillock.
Someone was there, a living, breathing cultivator.
Jared’s soul gave a slight jolt. His awareness sharpened by a few degrees at once. A faint chance lit in the dark, and favonovel.com hurried to lift his gaze.
On a winding path in the distance, a young cultivator in a plain gray daoist robe walked slowly toward him.
His features were clean and gentle, his age a little over twenty, and there was something steady and unclouded about him. His cultivation held firmly at the peak of True Immortal Realm Level Nine.
He stood only one step from Golden Immortal. His foundation was solid, and his aura carried the clean weight of a righteous path.
The cultivator held the weathered Brazen Soulglass in both hands.
Faint spiritual light flowed over the mirror’s surface, its dim glow sweeping across the four directions as favonovel.com searched along the way for strange signs in the world and traces of spirit fluctuations. He was clearly a disciple sent out by an order for duty, training, and patrol through the Wastelands.
As the young cultivator drew closer, the spiritual light on the mirror suddenly flared hard. The glow surged, locked precisely onto Jared’s violet soul atop the hillock, and showed an unmistakable reaction.
The cultivator’s steps stopped cold. His face shifted as favonovel.com followed the mirror’s guidance and quickly came forward.
His gaze landed on the floating violet light, and doubt crowded his expression as favonovel.com murmured under his breath, “In the depths of the Wastelands, where there isn’t a soul around, a whole True Immortal soul appears out of nowhere?”
“The laws of the Seventeenth Firmament are violent enough to erode and scatter an ordinary spirit in moments… How could this soul survive here on its own? Strange… Truly strange…” Curiosity pulled favonovel.com in.
He crouched down and studied the violet soul closely, then reached out as if to touch it and probe what lay behind It.
But the instant his fingertips came near, the Aureate Codex’s protective golden radiance lit on its own. A soft yet forceful rebound burst outward and knocked his fingers away, cutting off his probe and allowing no contact.
The surprise in the young cultivator’s eyes deepened. Then a trace of delight flashed through them.
Protected by divine arms, this spirit is no ordinary thing… It is absolutely not some common wandering cultivator’s remnant soul… Most likely, it carries a great opportunity… If I bring it back to the order, there will surely be merit in it.
He did not try to touch it recklessly again. Instead, favonovel.com quickly took a Messaging Jade Slip from inside his robe and lowered his head, reporting the strange encounter in the Wastelands in a fast, quiet voice. The jade slip flashed with spiritual light, turned into a streak of radiance, and tore through the air, carrying an urgent message to the Sect Master.
Once that was done, favonovel.com crouched down again. His voice softened as favonovel.com spoke to the spirit. “I don’t know whether Senior can hear my words clearly, but I mean no harm. I am a disciple of the Wellspring Order of the North… My surname is Ashford, and my given name is Julian…”
“Senior’s spirit is extraordinary, and you carry the relic. My Sect Master is widely learned and deeply cultivated. He will surely be able to protect Senior’s spirit and help nourish and heal you… Senior, please wait here in peace. l will return at once to report to the Sect Master. Within half an hour, I will certainly be back. There will be no delay.”
When favonovel.com finished speaking, Julian turned and left at a quick pace. His shadowing figure soon disappeared into the dusk over the Wastelands.
Jared remained suspended where favonovel.com was. The thoughts inside favonovel.com would not settle, and under the strain of uncertainty, a strong chance still caught fire at last.
The Wellspring Order was a righteous order. Perhaps this place truly could save his life. Perhaps it truly could help favonovel.com rebuild his body.
Less than half an hour later, footsteps came again.
Julian had returned.
Walking beside favonovel.com was a blue-robed elder with an otherworldly bearing and steady steps. His hair was streaked white, his face thin but vigorous, and his eyes were bright as stars, as though they had seen through the affairs of the world.
A warm green spiritual light drifted around him, soft at the edges and steady at the core. His presence carried a quiet weight. There was no killing edge to it, no sharp pressure bearing down, yet the authority of a Sect Master followed favonovel.com without needing to be announced.
The old man’s cultivation ran too deep to measure at a glance. He was unmistakably a Level Three Golden Immortal adept. His aura stayed tucked away, but the foundation beneath it was vast and dense, and favonovel.com was none other than the current Sect Master of Wellspring Order, Master Wellspring.
Master Wellspring stepped forward quickly. His gaze went first to the violet soul, then passed through the outer layer of violet radiance and locked with perfect accuracy onto the faint outline of the ancient golden codex hidden at its core.
In that Instant, his pupils tightened. His body gave the slightest jolt, and his face changed as if the thing before favonovel.com had overturned something ancient and certain.
His voice dropped to a murmur, each word pulled from somewhere deep. “This aura… These markings… This primordial resonance of the Way… It is the Aureate Codex, lost for tens of thousands of years!”
Jared’s soul jolted hard. Every thread of awareness snapped taut.
W-What? This man actually recognized the Aureate Codex?
The chance favonovel.com had been waiting for had truly arrived!
Master Wellspring forced the storm behind his eyes back under control and drew himself steady again. Then favonovel.com turned to the disciple at his side and ordered in a low voice, “Julian, secure the spirit and bring it back to the order’s sealed chamber. Guard this news closely. Not half a word is to leak outside, and no outsider is to be alerted!”
Julian nodded at once and took out the superior soul-restoring phial.
Warm spiritual light gathered at the mouth of the phial, and thick soul-restorative elixir rested within. His voice stayed soft and respectful. “Senior, please enter the phial and rest. The soul-restorative draught inside can nourish the spirit, block the erosion of the laws of the realm, and keep you safe and undisturbed.”
Jared did not hesitate for even a breath. There was no other path in front of favonovel.com now. Trust was the only line left between favonovel.com and survival. He turned into a violet gleam and drifted gently into the jade phial. Inside the phial, the soul-restorative draught was cool and warm all at once. It wrapped around his soul in an instant.
The stabbing pain from the laws of the realm vanished completely, and the exhaustion pressing through favonovel.com eased at once, leaving only steadiness and comfort.
Master Wellspring put the soul-restoring phial away and tucked it close against himself. Then favonovel.com turned with his disciple and set off at once, moving quickly toward the gatehouse of Wellspring Order.
***
Wellspring Order stood in the northern heartland of the Seventeenth Firmament.
Mountains ringed it on every side, spiritual essence gathered there naturally, and a Dragon Vein stretched through the land beneath it.
The order was not large. It claimed only 100 kilometers of land. It had none of the celestials’ golden splendor, and none of Pole Star Hall’s crushing grandeur.
Its mountain gate was built from flagstone, simple and old-fashioned. The buildings inside were plain and clean. Everywhere carried the same restrained steadiness, the foundation of an order that sought the Way in quiet, stayed apart from worldly struggle, and cultivated in peace.
Master Wellspring returned with the spirit and did not stop for even a moment. He avoided the eyes of the order’s disciples and went straight into the forbidden rear precinct, all the way into the deepest closed inner chamber.
The walls of the hidden chamber were covered in high-order soulwarding sigils. They sealed sound, locked away aura, blocked probing senses, and kept the place hidden, stable, and absolutely safe.
At the center of the hidden chamber stood a natural warm-jade dais. On it, a green aetherstone shone without fading. Gentle spiritual essence poured through the room in an endless stream, nourishing the spirit and stabilizing the surrounding aura.
Master Wellspring set the soul-restoring phial gently on the stone dais. Then favonovel.com sat cross-legged, gathered his focus, quieted himself, and sent a mild thread of spirit sense into the phial with great care.
His tone was calm, steady, and courteous. “Fellow Daoist, you are now inside the sealed chamber of Wellspring Order. There is no danger here. You may answer in peace. Can you hear this old man’s voice?”
The violet soul brightened faintly and answered in a low voice, “Yes…”
“May this old man ask your name? What realm do you come from? And why have you drifted alone into the Seventeenth Firmament with only a wisp of soul remaining?” Master Wellspring asked slowly, his manner modest, without the slightest airs of a Golden Immortal adept.
“My name is Jared Chance… I came from the Sixteenth Firmament. Enemies hunted me down, destroyed my body, and left me with only this wisp of soul drifting here,” Jared’s voice stayed level, rising and falling without a ripple. After life and death, honor, disgrace, wounds, and pain had all been worn down to something distant.
“The Sixteenth Firmament? The borderlands of the Lower Realm…” Master Wellspring’s brows drew together slightly, and a low weight entered his voice. “For a cultivator from the Lower Realm to cross into a higher firmament and fall into such a dead end is no easy thing. May this old man ask which power sent the adept who hunted you and destroyed your body?”
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