The Small Paths to Immortality

A humble seeker once asked: with a single sword that chills fourteen provinces, could one achieve immortality? The answer came: the sword is the king of weapons, unmatched in its power to kill. Yet it cannot sever the threads of karma, and in the end, it remains trapped within a cage. The seeker asked again: if one refines a nine-turn immortal elixir that defies yin and yang and overturns life and death, could the path of alchemy reach the divine and attain immortality? The answer: alchemy takes the body as its furnace. At its pinnacle, the flesh remains fragile as paper. The seeker asked once more: what of body cultivation—punching mountains into rubble, sanctifying the flesh, impervious to all spells—could that lead to immortality? The answer: body cultivation refines essence and blood. But essence and blood will one day run dry; when all vitality is spent, only a pile of hardened bones remains. For a thousand years, ten thousand years, every path was questioned, and every path had its flaw. Until Su Moyin descended from the heavens. When asked what path he cultivated, Su Moyin offered a faint smile, and behind him, layer upon layer of shadows materialized. "Of the great myriad paths," he said, "I have dabbled in a little of each."