Eldest Senior Sister's Core Formation Method

"Do you really want to know?" "Really, really." Lu Yang nodded vigorously, pecking like a chick eating rice. Yun Zhi weighed the pros and cons and decided there was no harm in speaking of it; she could simply treat it as satisfying her junior brother's curiosity. "Very well. Since you want to know, I will tell you. But I stand by what I said: just listen, and do not imitate me." "I definitely won't," Lu Yang promised. The Immortal Fairy was also intensely curious about Yun Zhi's Core Formation. She wanted to hear what kind of core this junior had formed—could it possibly surpass her own Invincible Core? "It happened several hundred years ago..." Yun Zhi drifted into reminiscence. Lu Yang blurted out, unable to hide the astonishment in his voice: "Several hundred years ago?!" Eldest Senior Sister was a peerlessly cold beauty who looked to be in her twenties. Walking down the street together, they looked like an older sister and younger brother. On top of that, her attitude toward Lu Yang was not that of an elder, but rather the caring demeanor of a mature peer. This often gave Lu Yang the illusion that Eldest Senior Sister was roughly his age. Now, the moment Eldest Senior Sister began recounting the story of her Core Formation, it had taken place centuries ago. Only then did Lu Yang realize that Eldest Senior Sister held the highest seniority among all the disciples, and her true age was far greater than he had imagined. Just how old was Eldest Senior Sister? Several hundred years old? Could she be nearly a thousand? This train of thought seemed complex, yet it flashed through his mind in a single instant, swift as lightning. Before Lu Yang even had time to deliberate, his genuine thought burst out. The moment the words left his mouth, Lu Yang felt a sense of impending doom. Yun Zhi's gaze slowly settled on Lu Yang's shoulder. For a fleeting instant, Lu Yang felt as though a gleaming blade were resting across his throat. He was walking along the precipice of death, separated from demise by only a single thought. Fortunately, the sensation vanished as quickly as it had arrived. Eldest Senior Sister withdrew her gaze, choosing not to hold Lu Yang's excessive curiosity against him, and continued her tale. "Several hundred years ago, I reached the late Foundation Establishment stage and prepared for Core Formation. "At that time, Master saw that my talent was rare in this world and that I could shoulder great responsibilities in the future, so he disclosed several secrets to me so I would be prepared for what lay ahead. Among them was how the Ancient Nameless One refined the stars into a continent, and that most of the stars today are merely phantom illusions, while the real stars lie beneath our feet." It was widely recognized in the cultivation world that only cultivators at the Nascent Soul stage were qualified to know that the stars were false. It was better for the masses and ordinary cultivators to simply believe the world was peaceful. Otherwise, the public and ordinary cultivators would start to worry: if the Ancient Nameless One could refine stars into a continent back then, might someone come along now and refine the continent back into stars? That would only breed unnecessary anxiety, so it was better to keep it from them. "I believe I told you before that I grew up in a secret realm and only left it later to join the Dao Seeking Sect." Lu Yang nodded. Eldest Senior Sister had indeed mentioned this. She said she had lived in a secret realm since childhood, interacting only with cultivators, and the same had remained true after coming to the Dao Seeking Sect. Consequently, she did not understand mortal customs and had not realized mortals could not bathe in boiling water. —That had been her explanation when Lu Yang's skin was red and swollen after taking a bath in boiling water, while Eldest Senior Sister applied medicine to him. "There was no night sky inside the secret realm. When I left the secret realm and arrived in the outside world, seeing the night sky dotted with starlight, I thought it was breathtakingly beautiful. "In my leisure time between cultivation, I often lay on the grass, watching the stars and counting them. "When Master told me that there had long been no actual stars in the sky, I did not show it outwardly, but I was deeply disappointed inside. "The stars I looked at every day were merely phantom illusions left behind three hundred thousand years ago. The moment that thought took hold, I no longer found the night sky beautiful. "When I was contemplating what kind of Golden Core to form, I read in the *Discourse on the Golden Core*: 'Gold is that which is firm, unyielding, and indestructible through eternity; the Core is that which is round, radiant, pure, and without deficiency.'" An absurd thought faintly crept into Lu Yang's mind. *Eldest Senior Sister, you couldn't possibly have done something that outrageous, right...?* Yun Zhi continued, "At that time, I thought: an immaculate, indestructible Golden Core—isn't that precisely the star in my heart? "Since the stars are gone, why shouldn't I replace the stars with Golden Cores to recreate the resplendent night sky of the ancient era?" *I knew it,* Lu Yang thought. *Eldest Senior Sister truly was thinking along those lines.* "Among Golden Cores, the first grade is the finest. Thus, I formed my core according to the stars in my heart, creating a new kind of first-grade Golden Core called the Splendid Star Core. "In the beginning, my technique for forming cores was somewhat clumsy. Later on, as the number of cores increased, my speed picked up as well. "Throughout the entire Golden Core stage, the main thing I did was continuously form cores, striving to make their number match the stars in the sky." Lu Yang drew in a sharp breath of cold air. Eldest Senior Sister truly dared to imagine it, and dared to do it! "During the Golden Core stage, replacing the stars with Golden Cores proved difficult. When I broke through to the Nascent Soul stage, I shattered one of the Golden Cores to form my Nascent Soul, while the remaining Golden Cores stayed inside my body. "Later, after my cultivation reached success, I extracted all the Golden Cores from my body, using tangible objects to replace the illusions, replacing the stars in the night sky. "Unfortunately, there were simply too many stellar illusions in the night sky. Even though I worked hard to form cores, I could not equal their number. The count of my Golden Cores fell far short of the phantoms. "Still, having some is better than none. Wasn't the whole reason for laboriously forming cores back then to replace those phantom stars?" "So among the stars in the sky right now... a portion of them are your Golden Cores?" Lu Yang's tone unconsciously became cautious. There was no other reason—what Eldest Senior Sister had done was so preposterous that Lu Yang could not help but revere her. "Only a small fraction." "...Even a small fraction is plenty." Lu Yang did not even know what to say. Still uneasy, Eldest Senior Sister repeatedly cautioned him, "My method of Core Formation differs from ordinary people. Do not try to imitate me just because you find it novel." "I will definitely never imitate it." If Lu Yang's earlier agreement not to imitate her had been casual lip service, this answer came straight from the depths of his heart. Imitating this would be sheer madness. Anyone could tell that the process of Core Formation could not have been anywhere near as breezy as Eldest Senior Sister made it sound. What did she mean, "the more cores I formed, the faster my speed became"? Did that make any sense whatsoever? No wonder Eldest Senior Sister had written in her Core Formation notes: *My personal Core Formation possesses zero reference value; do not imitate. To learn from me is death; to resemble me is death.* Sometimes, Lu Yang felt that the difference between one person and another was greater than the difference between a person and a dog. We are all cultivating immortality—how on earth can you be this outrageous? "Fairy, can your Invincible Core compare to Eldest Senior Sister's?" Lu Yang asked secretly. The Immortal Fairy scoffed dismissively, "It's just a pile of Golden Cores. No matter how many useless Golden Cores there are, they are still garbage. As the second-in-command of the Immortal Lineage, you must remember that our Immortal Lineage has always valued quality, not quantity. That little girl went for quantity, while my Golden Core has superior quality. The two are not even comparable." "Would you dare say that to Eldest Senior Sister's face?" "I wouldn't dare." She said it with complete, righteous confidence. "..." Lu Yang had thought that with Eldest Senior Sister and the Immortal Fairy backing him, having two such massive pillars of support would make his cultivation journey smooth sailing. Looking at it now, neither pillar was reliable. Speaking of which, just how old was Eldest Senior Sister?