The Legend of Min Hong

Two years passed by in a flash. A very peaceful night…

The ceiling of the room was lit with gems, and it was extremely bright. Min Tian sat in his usual position, with Min Rou on the left and Min Hong on the right. The table was covered with the usual menu with the exception of the vegetables and fist size guava from the field.

Min Hong obliterated the entire meat on the table whilst raising his head up to speak; "Grandpa, Mother!"

"What is it, little one?" Min Tian and Min Rou looked at Min Hong. Although Min Hong's intelligence filled them with boundless joy, it wasn't startling, because this vast world contained many people who were devilishly clever.

"I want to train!" Min Hong said seriously. "I wish to cultivate to become an immortal!" He added.

Seeing the serious look on Min Hong's face, Min Rou began to laugh. "Train to become an immortal? Father, my son wishes to train to become an immortal!"

"Immortal?!" Min Tian looked at his grandson coolly. "Do you know what it means to train to become an immortal?!"

"I don't know. Please enlighten me, grandpa" Min Hong said respectfully. Actually, after reading so many books, Min Hong already knew about it long ago. But as a five-year-old child, there was no need to appear too intelligent as King Yama's warnings still rang in his head.

"Then I will let you understand." Min Tian's voice was solemn. "First, let's talk about the meridians before explaining the seven known stages."

"All cultivation techniques in our Min Family requires one to at least, have opened 20 meridian channels. Naturally, your 8 great meridians should appear at the age of three, but because of the condition of your body, I think you'd have to wait till you're seven years old before you can start training in cultivation techniques."

"But in training cultivation techniques to become an immortal, there are seven known stages, and mortals who wish to train must ascend in the following order;

"The first stage; Qi creation stage. One would be able to condense the natural energy of the world into Qi and use it to temper the body. Life span of a hundred years."

"The second stage; Qi sea stage. In addition to the previous stage, one would create a storage for the Qi and would be able to draw from its reserves when doing battle. Life span of three hundred years."

"The third stage; Dan formation. In addition to the previous stage, One's Qi sea would condense and transform into a Dan where a Qi soul is incubated. Life span of five hundred years."

"The fourth stage; Nascent Soul. In addition to the previous stage, The Qi soul in the Dan emerges after being nurtured by the Dan Qi and this awakens divine abilities and also births soul flames. Life span of a thousand years.

"The fifth stage; Saint Stage. In addition to the previous stage, the nascent soul in the body is purified by soul flames and then it begins to shed the mortal nature of the expert. The expert gains flight ability. Life span of five thousand years."

"The sixth stage; Nirvana. In addition to the previous stage, the saint soul is purified by nirvanic flames and is free from absolute death by the cycle of reincarnation into the same world. One will be able to also manipulate the threads of karma and form spirit flames. Life span of ten thousand years."

"The seventh stage; Immortal stage. In addition to the previous stage, the spirit flames purify one's soul and gains the ability to split their souls and form a primal twin; a sentient independent soul which is linked to the main soul. In this stage one can live forever except the soul shattered." "Also, one's appearance would stop aging at this stage. Therefore, the younger an immortal appears, the more talented and dangerous that expert is."

"Each stage is furtherly separated from One star to Nine Stars." Min Tian stared at his grandson intently, expecting to see the look of awe and shock on his face, but Min Hong just listened intently.

"You say you wish to train to become an immortal. Thus, I want you to know how hard it is." Min Tian's voice became more solemn at this stage. "The first obstacle was Nascent Soul formation…This is because before forming a nascent soul one must be able to at least sense the Laws of one of the five elements of nature; Earth, Fire, Lightning, Water and Wind." "There were some experts who was also able to sense the Laws of supreme elements like; Space-Time, Life & Death, Yin & Yang and Light & Darkness."

"This will determine the types of elemental Nascent Souls one would be able to form, and this determines the type of elemental law one would be able to manipulate." "Also, this determines how strong one's saint soul would be.

An expert who formed his saint soul from the merger of two elemental nascent souls will naturally be weaker than one who formed his from the merger of three elemental souls and so on."

"The second obstacle are the flame tribulations in which one must pass from the saint stage all through to the immortal stage and are as follows;

Saint Stage – Soul Flame Tribulation

Nirvana Stage – Nirvanic/Rebirth Flame Tribulation and;

Immortal Stage – Spirit Flame Tribulation."

"If one could survive these obstacles and tribulations one will naturally become an immortal. But, if one fails, the flame tribulations will incinerate the person's body and even the person's soul will vanish. Moreover, for an ordinary mortal to embark on the path of cultivation, by its very nature, is against the will of the heavens, making it very hard. The success rate is lower than one in ten thousand! Tell me, is it difficult or not?!"

Min Hong nodded. Right, it was indeed difficult.

Min Tian and Min Rou looked at the Min Hong who was currently wearing a look of shock and disbelief, Min Tian smiled coldly, he had finally managed to quench the eagerness within Min Hong.

"Father, Hong'er is still very young. Why did you tell him all these scary things?" Min Rou said unhappily.

"Mother" Min Hong raised up his head, a smile on his greasy lips. "It's fine".

Min Tian looked at him in surprise.

"Grandpa." Min Hong laughed. "The nascent soul obstacle alone… is extremely difficult. The flame tribulations are very distant and still far off. I don't need to worry about them for now."

"Mm." Min Tian nodded. Your attitude isn't bad. You're right. Currently, there's truly no need for you to think about becoming a Nascent Soul expert. That's too far away for you. Even in the vast Soaring Cloud Village, the strongest people are only at the Nascent Soul stage."

"The path to immortality is a hard one, even our massive East Wind Empire would perhaps produce only a single Immortal stage expert in the space of a million years."

Min Hong nodded gently.

"Hong'er, do you still desire to train to become an immortal?" Min Tian asked looking at Min Hong.

"Yes." Min Hong nodded affirmatively.

Min Tian nodded slightly. If the boy had been terrified just by hearing these things alone, he would have been disappointed. In the world of cultivation, cool headedness, a steady heart and resolute mindset is extremely important.

What he didn't know was… how could Min Hong be easily terrified? There was nothing without risk. Even when eating, one could choke to death. Therefore, training to becoming an immortal is an extremely risky path. It would be bizarre if it wasn't.

"However," Min Tian frowned. "Your body is too feeble and you're still too young. Training techniques are very complicated. If I was to give you a high-class immortal training technique to you and you train in the wrong direction, it would harm you. But ordinary techniques aren't worth learning either."

"Grandpa," Min Hong spoke. "I wish to learn a body refining technique".

"Eeh! You know about the body refining?" Min Tian was extremely surprised while Min Rou began to laugh. "It seems this little one has read quite a few books. He even knows that there are two main paths to immortal training."

There were two primary paths to immortal training; The first being Qi Refining, Refining Qi energy! 99% of all experts who cultivate choose this part. This part allowed one to use many mysterious treasures, create complicated puppets, control many deadly magical beasts, develop magical formations and also use some vile techniques.

It was indeed a very glorious and profound path.

The second path was Body Refining; supposedly, there were techniques which allowed one to train their body, these techniques would allow experts to possess the bodies of Devas and Asuras, having three heads six arms, transforming into various primeval mystical and mythical beasts, regenerate from a drop of blood and even undying bodies.

All of these belongs to the Body Refining Path of Immortal Cultivation.