Five Immortal Sects

Chapter 21: The Power and Legacy of the Five Immortal Sects

The Five Immortal Sects, though hidden, remained unfathomable, with their heads visible but their tails invisible, always keeping a low profile in the world.

“A powerful immortal technique must have a powerful foundation. I’ve told you about the several types of Spirit Roots: Miscellaneous Spirit Root, Mysterious Spirit Root, Earth Spirit Root, Heavenly Spirit Root, Sacred Spirit Root, and Anomalous Spirit Root.”

“We are called the Five Immortal Sects, and we are divided into the Water Immortal Gate, Wood Immortal Gate, Fire Immortal Gate, Earth Immortal Gate, and Metal Immortal Gate, each corresponding to the most sensitive attributes of the five elements.”

“For example, the Wood Immortal Gate cultivates techniques that target the wood attribute, so those who are sensitive to wood spiritual energy cultivate the best; the Fire Immortal Gate, on the other hand, focuses on fire-attribute techniques.”

“However, the Five Immortal Sects require not a Sacred Spirit Root, but rather someone who possesses all five elemental attributes simultaneously to cultivate.”

At this point, the old man in gray paused.

“Mixed Spirit Root?”

Li Yan, although still unclear about many things, had grasped some of the concepts and couldn’t help but feel puzzled.

‘This person’s words are truly strange. Earlier, they said that those with a Sacred Spirit Root were the strongest, but now it seems they’re saying that those with a Mixed Spirit Root cultivate the best.’

“It is indeed the Mixed Spirit Root, which is the greatest secret of our ancient Five Immortal Sect. Although we need individuals with a Mixed Spirit Root physique, this is not an ordinary Mixed Spirit Root.”

“A mixed Spirit Root means having an affinity for the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire and earth. We not only need this person to possess these five elemental attributes, but these five attributes must be ranked in order of strength according to the generating cycle.”

“The generating cycle is ‘water generates wood, wood generates fire, fire generates earth, earth generates metal, metal generates water’ in this endless cycle of generation.”

“So for a cultivator, the five elemental attributes within their body must also be ranked in order of the generating cycle’s strength.”

“For example, the ‘Metal Immortal Gate’ takes ‘metal’ as primary, so the order of the five elements they sense must be metal, water, wood, fire, earth – with metal being the strongest sensed and earth the weakest. If a later element is stronger than the preceding one, they cannot cultivate that sect’s immortal techniques.”

“Similarly, for our ‘Water Immortal Gate’, the order we sense the world’s spiritual energy is water, wood, fire, earth, metal – decreasing in strength successively. Only this way can one cultivate our sect’s immortal arts.”

“This is the greatest secret of my Five Immortal Sects, and also the biggest difficulty we face in finding successors!”

The gray-robed elder laid bare the Five Immortal Sects’ secrets before Li Yan. For ordinary cultivators in this mortal realm, finding even one spirit root among 100,000 people would be difficult enough, considering all spirit root types.

Then among those extraordinarily rare individuals, finding a mixed spirit root may only happen once in a million.

And finally, from that tiny pool, finding the precise elemental ordering required – the probability was self-evident.

Seeing Li Yan’s look of dawning comprehension, the gray robe relaxed slightly. His time was short; he could only hope Li Yan understood as much as possible.

“So although the Five Immortal Sects’ arts are matchlessly powerful in the cultivation world, we have next to no disciples each generation – a pitiful number.”

“Each succession requires exhausting all efforts to find the next heir. Basically each generation only has a single disciple or a few at most.”

“On one hand, we must cultivate the great path ourselves. Cultivation takes little time in the beginning, but later each closed-door meditation may span decades or centuries which is  just the blink of an eye for us.”

“So apart from cultivation time, the time we have to go out and seek a suitable successor is confined to certain periods. No wonder we are so rarely seen by mortals.”

“As for why we don’t openly recruit – that method was tried in ancient times with little success, and it would expose the Five Immortal Sects’ secrets.”

“We use our divine senses to scan junior cultivators more discreetly and reliably. Divine sense is a spiritual ability cultivators possess – without using the eyes, they can see through walls and buildings clearly.“

“Your so-called teacher is merely a junior cultivator. His cultivation is negligible. Though he also has divine sense, he cannot see through others to detect if they possess a Spirit Root.”

“So he must resort to inferior methods to probe if someone has a Spirit Root.”

“My teacher is a cultivator?” 

Li Yan was stunned to hear the legendary immortals were so close by. His thoughts showed on his face.

The gray-robed elder saw Li Yan’s realization. “About that minor cultivator, I’ll explain later if there’s time.”

“The Five Immortal Sects rarely reveal themselves to the mortal world because we have so few disciples left. The cultivation world is a jungle where the strong prey on the weak. Without great strength, venturing out would lead to our demise. “

“So before becoming powerful enough, our sect’s disciples must either stay hidden in seclusion or remain undercover in bitter cultivation…”

“And to go out for extended periods seeking successors, one must at least reach the Union of Souls realm. If you have a weak cultivation level means a high chance of falling when travelling outside for long, especially with so many coveting the Five Immortal Sects’ arts.”

“Our five gates cannot afford such accidental demises, given how few disciples we have left.” 

“It is so difficult to find disciples of the five sects. With the changes in the ages, the five sects began to decline slowly. By my era, those of us who reached the late Divine Transformation stage had to go out successively to find heirs.”

“Though our realms were not high, fortunately the immortal arts we cultivate are powerful. At the same level, few can match us – slaying them is like slaughtering chickens and dogs. Even if we face three or five cultivators of the same realm at the same time, we can still win.”

“Even against enemies one great realm higher, it’s not impossible for us to kill them.”

The gray-robed elder’s face showed arrogance as he spoke, a ferocious aura emerging from his withered appearance, revealing his pride in his sect’s immortal arts.

“The reason we considered going out in the Divine Transformation stage to seek successors was first out of desperation, given how scarce disciples had become. Secondly, few cultivators above the Union of Souls realm show themselves even in the Immortal Realm – they’re long secluded in closed-door meditation.”

“Yet even so, the Five Immortal Sects continued declining. The special ‘Mixed Spirit Roots’ we require are extremely rare to find. At times we had no choice but to range across vast regions and continents, even crossing between different realms in search of disciples.  “

“Which is precisely why encountering stronger foes and unpredictable spatial turbulences did occur. 

This is how some of the senior experts our five sects sent out to find successors never returned. They

are likely to have perished outside. Our sects’ disciples dwindled further.”

The gray-robed elder’s voice grew heavy with desolation, a hint of reminiscence on his face.

Li Yan did not dare interrupt as the elder soon continued.

“My Water Immortal lineage was left with only me a million years ago. By then, there was no news from the other four sects – they had likely gone before me.”

A melancholic nostalgia crossed the elder’s face as memories resurfaced.

Though the five sects had feuded at times in the past, they had kept each other company since antiquity, as branches of the same tree, cultivating and roaming the rivers and lakes together.

The long years passed like that, and now that he has woken up, everything is over, as if it was a dream.

When Li Yan heard “a million years ago,” disbelief showed again on his face. How could a human live a million years?

It sounded like a ludicrous fantasy, yet the person before him spoke it so plainly. Li Yan didn’t know why, but he had an inkling to believe it – a thought that itself startled him.

The gray robe paused briefly. When he looked at Li Yan again, his heart felt a bit more reassured.

“Over a hundred million years ago, I went into secluded meditation for a century. When I emerged, the other four sects’ grounds were already desolate, overgrown with weeds.”

“Only Fairy Ningke, of the Wood Sect, left behind a jade slip!”

“It said she had reached the Void Refining Realm after emerging. She waited seventy years with no word from the other three sects, and seeing I still hadn’t emerged, she went out to seek a successor as well. But from then on, we never made contact again.”

The gray-robed elder’s expression dimmed, his figure becoming slightly more indistinct compared to before. However, Li Yan’s sense of shock had not subsided, so he did not notice the change initially. 

After hearing all this, Li Yan opened his mouth as if to speak, but felt it inappropriate to interrupt the elder’s narration. Yet the old man immediately looked towards Li Yan.

“Is there something you do not understand from what I have said?”

Li Yan hesitantly asked, “What is a jade slip?”

The elder was briefly taken aback, then let out a self-mocking laugh. “Haha…I had forgotten you know nothing of the cultivation world.”

For those he normally interacted with, who would not know even the most basic cultivation concepts? But Li Yan was completely ignorant. 

“A jade slip is like a book for mortals. It is made of a special jade material that is difficult to damage. Unlike paper books or bamboo scrolls, the text, images and sounds inscribed within can only be recorded by a cultivator’s divine sense.”

“As long as the jade slip remains intact, its contents are permanently preserved. As I mentioned before, divine sense can substitute for not just the eyes but the ears as well to hear.”

“You have also begun cultivating divine sense, but it is still too faint to manifest substantially, let alone project it externally. “

“Generally, one must reach the third stage of the Qi Condensation Realm before their divine sense can extend outwards, with a maximum range of around fifty meters. The exact range depends on the strength of their cultivation method – the stronger the divine sense, the further one can see and hear.”

“That Military Advisor Ji has reached the third stage of Qi Condensation. He can already project his divine sense outside his body. “

“In other words, without using his eyes or ears, he can surveil what you are doing and speak within a certain area through divine sense, perceiving it even more clearly than sight or sound.”

The gray robe looked at Li Yan with a wry smile.