Lu Qing first took out the casual notes of the Carefree Wanderer.
This time, after strolling around the city, Lu Qing made immense gains. Read the latest on My Virtual Library Empire
Among them, the greatest finds were this book of notes and the Qiankun Qi Bag.
According to information discovered by his Superpower, the notes contained some details about the Cultivation Era.
Lu Qing was quite curious about that mysterious era.
Thus, he decided to first make sense of this book.
On inspecting the book, Lu Qing found that even its material was extraordinary; the pages were especially tough, suggesting a long preservation without damage.
[Do you wish to download and learn?]
Faced with the prompt in his field of view, Lu Qing chose 'Yes.'
[Downloading, current progress 1%, 2%, 3%…97%, 98%, 99%, 100%]
[Download complete, do you wish to commence learning?]
Lu Qing continued with the choice to learn.
The next moment, a familiar sensation of assimilating knowledge emerged from the depths of his mind, and he gently closed his eyes.
After a while, when he had digested the information in his mind, he opened his eyes, a hint of lamentation in his gaze.
"This Carefree Wanderer really was a tragic figure."
Having absorbed the information from the notes, Lu Qing finally learned the deeds of the Carefree Wanderer.
The Carefree Wanderer, in reality, was a Cultivator from over a thousand years ago.
More accurately, he was a pitiable person in pursuit of the Way of Immortal Cultivation.
The Carefree Wanderer initially was a scholar; as a young man, he stumbled upon a legacy of Immortal Cultivation in an odd cave by chance.
Coincidentally, his talent was also remarkable, perfectly fitting that legacy.
Just like that, armed with the legacy he obtained from the strange cave and some resources, he managed to self-learn and break through limitations without any guidance, entering the Qi Refining Realm and becoming a bona fide Cultivator.
Later, he even exploited the resources of the cave to break through ranks rapidly, entering Qi Refining Perfection within a mere decade and some.
According to the Carefree Wanderer in his notes, such progress, even placing him in the resplendent Cultivation Era, would rightly consider him an unmistakable genius, the kind eagerly recruited by major Immortal Sects.
Sadly, he was born in the wrong era, one where Spiritual Energy was scarce, the Immortal Dao had faded, and Martial Arts flourished.
Even with outstanding cultivation talent, there were no Immortal Sects for him to join.
This caused the Carefree Wanderer to express in his notes more than once his lamentation of being born at the wrong time.
Even more despairing was that due to the scarcity of Spiritual Energy, his cultivation halted after reaching Qi Refining Perfection, no longer making any progress.
No matter how he practiced, he could not achieve a breakthrough, unable to step into the Perfect Realm that followed Qi Refining Perfection, a state of being flawless and immaculate.
In search for a breakthrough, the Carefree Wanderer began to travel the world.
He visited a variety of famous mountains, great rivers, and peculiar places, hoping to find a slim chance for advancement.
Having reached Qi Refining Perfection, his Cultivation Realm was equivalent to a Martial Artist at the Perfect Innate Realm, and even stronger due to the wonders of Immortal Cultivation.
Thus, traveling the world was not a difficult task for him.
However, after the Carefree Wanderer exhausted decades searching for the sites of former Immortal Sects as recorded in the legacy he inherited,
he discovered that those once magnificent Cave Heaven Blessed Lands and Immortal Cave Mansions had long vanished without a trace.
What little remained were only ruins and desolation.
It was then that the Carefree Wanderer truly realized the Cultivation Era had indeed come to an end.
But it wasn't all fruitless.
In one of the old sites of a Sect named Heavenly Dao Sect, as recorded in the legacy, he came across a Jade Wall.
The Jade Wall contained a secret history.
It implied that the decline of Spiritual Energy was the result of Heavenly Dao's self-regulating cycle, much like the breathing of a person, one rises as another falls.
One cycle of Spiritual Energy's rise and fall was roughly sixty thousand years.
Thirty thousand years of decline and exhaustion, followed by thirty thousand years of recovery and prosperity, the cycle repeating endlessly without halt.
Upon reading this secret history, the Carefree Wanderer's heart turned cold.
According to the records on the Jade, he calculated that he was in the late stage of the decline of Spiritual Energy, and it would be at least a thousand more years before the next recovery of Spiritual Energy.
Knowing this, the Carefree Wanderer began to despair.
As a cultivator with Qi Refining Perfection, equivalent to the realm of Martial Artist's Innate Perfection, his lifespan was only three hundred years.
Even if the path of Immortal Cultivation was mystical and he knew Secret Techniques to cling to life, at most he could only live for five hundred years.
Waiting for the true recovery of Spiritual Energy was impossible.
In other words, despite his exceptional talent and astonishing innate gift for Immortal Cultivation, he could not wait for the day of Spiritual Energy recovery to shine in his own glory.
At the very end of the scribblings, Lu Qing saw that after learning of the secret history on the Jade, the Carefree Wanderer did not give up entirely.
His entire life was a struggle against the laws of the Heavenly Dao, trying to step into a higher realm with his talent and effort.
In the centuries that followed, he made many attempts, seeking various secret lands, absorbing the residual Spiritual Energy, practicing Martial Arts, and even delving into the shocking path of Insect Witchcraft.
But all these attempts ultimately ended in failure.
Until the time of his passing, he was unable to break through the Qi Refining Perfection to step into the higher level of the Foundation Establishment Realm.
After finishing the record of the Carefree Wanderer's life in the scribblings, Lu Qing remained silent for a long time.
This was the second time he was deeply moved by someone's life story.
The first was Li Weitian, the second was this Carefree Wanderer.
However, compared to Li Weitian, the Carefree Wanderer's life seemed more tragic.
Li Weitian's end could be said to have been partly his own fault.
Had he not wasted too much time in his early life on striving to be better than others, he wouldn't have been forced to rush through his breakthrough with insufficient accumulation and ultimately pass away.
But the Carefree Wanderer was different; he pursued the Immortal Dao all his life, cultivated diligently, and never slackened.
Fate, however, played a cruel joke on him, having him born in the wrong era.
Despite possessing extraordinary talent for Immortal Cultivation, due to the lack of Spiritual Energy, he was trapped in the realm of Qi Refining Perfection for his entire life, ultimately dying of old age.
"A tragic genius abandoned by the era of Cultivation."
Lu Qing felt deeply moved and sighed at the Carefree Wanderer's fate.
In an era lacking Spiritual Energy, without any guidance, he managed to cultivate on his own to Qi Refining Perfection.
Had the Carefree Wanderer been born in the prosperous era of Immortal Cultivation, it was hard to imagine what heights he could have achieved.
Alas, there are no 'ifs' in the world.
Being born in the wrong era sealed the Carefree Wanderer's tragedy.
After dwelling on the Carefree Wanderer's life for a while, Lu Qing also turned his attention to another matter.
According to what the Carefree Wanderer noted in his writing, his era was at least a thousand years away from the period of Spiritual Energy recovery calculated by the Heavenly Dao Sect.
Nearly a thousand years had passed since the Carefree Wanderer's demise.
By that calculation, wouldn't the period of Spiritual Energy recovery be in the era he was currently in?
But he hadn't noticed any significant changes in the world, had he?
No, that's not right!
A sudden realization hit Lu Qing, sending a jolt through his heart.