Chapter 007: Fighting for Life with Heaven

The mirror in the old house is neither big nor small. The plastic frame, shaped like a flower branch, has oxidized and lost its original flexibility, becoming hard and brittle.

A piece of thread is tied to the plastic frame and hangs on a corroded and rusty nail. One corner of the mirror is broken, and only the middle part is barely usable.

The person in the mirror is her, yet not quite like her.

Her originally unruly shoulder-length hair is now smooth and shiny, reaching down to her waist. Her face is delicate and fair, with all the blemishes that used to be there completely gone, leaving her skin unbelievably tender.

After the dark complexion and sunspots disappeared, her exquisite features finally emerged, and her temperament underwent a tremendous transformation.

In fact, Lin Jiu herself was not bad-looking. You could tell from the youthful face of her twin brother, Lin Ye.

But years of toil and financial constraints left Lin Jiu with no time or energy to take care of herself, and her dull and rough skin significantly lowered her attractiveness.

As Lin Jiu touched her face, even though she had never cared much, women do love beauty after all, and the smooth and tender touch of her skin brought her joy.

The elixir of life has this effect? After the apocalypse, water-based ability users indeed undergo slight changes in appearance under the influence of their abilities. Most water-based ability users' skin gradually becomes smooth and fair, but the changes are slow and gradual.

In her previous life, even with her level 5 water-based ability, Lin Jiu did not experience such a dramatic effect from the elixir of life. Even if her family were here, they might not recognize her.

Lin Jiu admired herself in the mirror for a while, her slender and fair fingers twirling her smooth long hair. After some thought, she took a pair of scissors from the side cabinet.

With a snap, her waist-length hair immediately returned to its original length. This long hair was indeed beautiful, but it was difficult to manage in the post-apocalyptic world, and if she were caught by zombies, she would lose more than just her hair.

For Lin Jiu, these past few days felt like a dream. She cut her own hair with a pair of scissors, then made some adjustments in front of the mirror, making the cut ends look more natural before stopping.

She now only had an earring on her left ear, and a light green mole appeared on her right earlobe, barely noticeable without careful observation.

According to the inscription on the small building, the Little Fairy Source was originally a small world, and its carrier was this inconspicuous jade bead.

The immortal who discovered and named the Little Fairy Source later searched through the three realms and found the best spatial material, refining it into the mustard seed, which is the other jade bead on Lin Jiu's left ear. Together, the two beads formed a pair.

The mustard seed is just a magical tool, and using it temporarily with a drop of blood is only possible. Only through refining can it truly belong to Lin Jiu. However, refining a magical tool requires at least the cultivation of the Foundation Establishment stage, so Lin Jiu could only put it aside for now.

In other words, Lin Jiu now possessed a pair of spaces: one was the Little Fairy Source, which had turned into a light green mole on her right ear, and the other was the simple storage space worn on her left ear. It took Lin Jiu quite a while to digest this tremendous piece of good news. She had truly struck it rich.

However, the earring on her left ear was too conspicuous. After some thought, Lin Jiu took out a silver necklace from her suitcase. It was the first thing she bought for herself when she received her first paycheck. The pendant was small and looked rather plain, but it was her only decent piece of jewelry.

Lin Jiu removed the pendant and the hook from the jade earring, threaded the earring onto the necklace, and wore it close to her body, hidden under her collar.

Wrapping herself in a woolen coat and covering half of her face with a scarf, Lin Jiu quickly wrote "mask" on her checklist and hurried out.

The yard was spacious, and the nearest residents were separated by fields, making it peaceful but also inconvenient for transportation.

Although there were frequent buses to the county town, they only waited for passengers at the village entrance each time. Lin Jiu needed to go there to catch a ride to the small bus station in the county town and then transfer to the village where the blacksmith was located to pick up her customized weapon.

Lin Jiu had originally planned to rent a car a week before the apocalypse, but now it seemed she needed to do it earlier.

Lin Jiu went to the village and borrowed a small three-wheeled vehicle from the express delivery station, making five trips to transport all the packages back home, directly storing them in the bead space.

The space available in the bead was quite substantial, and the packages floated in the void, with Lin Jiu carefully feeling around and not detecting the edge of the space.

After some thought, Lin Jiu also put a bowl of hot water into the space to test whether the bead space could maintain the quality and temperature of the items and whether they would affect each other.

Then, Lin Jiu went to the village entrance to catch a ride to the county town's agricultural market, where she stored all the goods accumulated in the warehouse into the bead. Most of the packages received in the village were daily necessities, while the warehouse was filled with various food items such as rice, flour, oil, instant noodles, and ham.

The small warehouse used to store agricultural goods was not well managed and lacked surveillance cameras, so even if Lin Jiu took the goods, they would not be discovered. She also bought a seal script dictionary from a bookstore two streets away and left without lingering.

When Lin Jiu left, it was already two or three in the afternoon. With the short days of winter, she finally managed to pick up the modified steel bars in a village farther away before it got dark.

The blacksmith almost didn't recognize the greatly changed Lin Jiu after she explained multiple times before finally allowing her to take the goods.

Before leaving, Lin Jiu casually bought a large pile of farming tools and politely declined the offer of the person to deliver the goods for her. In the end, she couldn't resist and the uncle who was working rode an electric tricycle and took Lin Jiu and the farming tools to the village intersection.

While waiting for the last bus at the village intersection, Lin Jiu took the opportunity to discreetly put the batch of farming tools and steel bars into her space pearl, and then easily got on the bus.

On the bus, Lin Jiu silently recorded the uncle's number in her phone's memo, planning to send a text message to remind him before the apocalypse arrived.

Rushing and hurrying, it was completely dark by the time Lin Jiu returned home.

After putting everything away, as soon as she stopped, a strong feeling of hunger instantly occupied Lin Jiu's senses. It was then that she realized she hadn't eaten for four days.

She took a bucket to fetch water from the spring in the small fairy source, quickly steamed a large pot of rice, and then quickly made a simple tomato and egg stir-fry, shredded pork with green peppers, and a seaweed and egg drop soup. The dishes and rice were almost ready at the same time.

The strong aroma of the food filled the kitchen with steam. Lin Jiu sniffed and took a bite of the tomato and egg stir-fry. The eggs were smooth, the soup was rich, and whether it was due to genuine hunger or the blessing of the spring water, Lin Jiu finished the whole pot of rice without leaving a single grain.

While eating, Lin Jiu added the bottled gas to the list. It would be awkward if she had all the raw rice and noodles but no fuel to cook with.

Oh, water!

Lin Jiu remembered the bowl of hot water she had put into the space pearl before leaving and quickly took it out to check. The water was still piping hot, and there was no evaporation.

Upon learning this information, Lin Jiu was happy for a long time. This solved the problem of worrying about food spoilage! Lin Jiu immediately ran to the storage room to put all the previously hoarded food into the space pearl.

The items in the space pearl could be controlled by thought. After sorting everything out completely, Lin Jiu was exhausted and covered in cold sweat.

In her previous life, with the upgrade of her abilities, her mental power also increased... It shouldn't be any different if she followed the path of cultivating immortality.

It was only now that Lin Jiu finally had a sense of the experiences of the past few days. She had actually encountered such a great opportunity, which undoubtedly was the greatest guarantee for her to survive in the apocalypse.

Lin Jiu calmed down her emotions, took the tool book and paper and pen she had bought from the bookstore in the afternoon, and went into the small fairy source.

The problem of storing food was temporarily solved, and improving her strength was equally important!

Lin Jiu flipped through the tool book in front of the bookshelf in the small building, and after a busy hour, she translated the titles of the bamboo slips on the bookshelf.

In order to deal with various spiritual roots, the bookshelf contained a wide variety of cultivation methods. Lin Jiu first took out "Frost Technique" and "Water Control Technique," then selected "Spirit Refinement Technique" for training her spiritual power. Thinking about her habit of using a knife as a weapon in her previous life, she also took out a book on knife techniques from the martial arts section.

Cultivating the spirit and refining the body complemented each other and were both indispensable.

The small fairy source only had one cultivation method, the name of which was unknown, and it was engraved on the wall of the first-floor practice room.

Lin Jiu spent the whole night translating several cultivation methods and the first cultivation method. Fortunately, after washing her marrow, Lin Jiu's spiritual power had also significantly increased, and she could almost remember the characters she had checked at a glance, saving her a lot of time.

Finally, Lin Jiu sat cross-legged on the cushion, memorized the content of the cultivation method, closed her eyes, and began her first cultivation. Without a mentor's guidance, everything could only be explored by Lin Jiu's feelings.

Cultivation required a high level of concentration. Fortunately, Lin Jiu had been very diligent in her studies, and although her mind was average, she had a sense of calm and perseverance. She silently recited the cultivation method over and over in her mind, and after more than an hour, Lin Jiu entered a mysterious state with difficulty.

Her soul seemed to leave her body, and although her eyes were closed, she saw herself sitting on the cushion.

Two halos of water blue and silver light swirled around her body with her breath, and after completing a full cycle, they all gathered at her dantian. At the same time, Lin Jiu clearly felt a tremor in her mind, and a cool aura surrounded her body, slowly circulating along her meridians, repeating the process.

After each cycle of spiritual power, Lin Jiu could feel a slight increase in her dantian's spiritual power. More and more spiritual energy from the small fairy source began to gather around Lin Jiu, almost forming a cocoon.

Lin Jiu had accidentally taken three marrow-cleansing pills and absorbed a lot of spiritual energy in the spiritual spring, and unexpectedly advanced to the seventh level of Qi cultivation.

"At the seventh level of Qi cultivation, one can visualize spiritual power. The internal breath is stable, and after completing thirty-six major cycles and thirty-six minor cycles, spiritual energy gathers at the dantian, and the person's spirit is at the Baihui acupoint, gradually entering the eighth level of Qi cultivation."

"At the eighth level of Qi cultivation, one can visualize the internal meridians."

Lin Jiu held her breath and focused, gradually sensing the flow of spiritual energy. Following the cultivation method, she maintained the circulation of spiritual energy within her body. Initially, it was quite difficult, and there were several times when she was forced to stop after the tenth cycle, and the cocoon formed by the gathering of spiritual energy instantly dissipated.

Eleven, twelve, thirteen... Lin Jiu didn't know how many times she persisted. Each time she persisted, she would add another cycle. The cocoon of spiritual energy gathered and dissipated, repeating the process. Lin Jiu's clothes were soaked with the sweat that had seeped out, and her already thin spiritual power was momentarily exhausted and slowly recovered. Her head felt heavy and swollen, and the feeling never stopped.

"Cultivator, struggling against the heavens, and against the three thousand great ways."

This was a sentence left by a great being on the second floor. At this moment, it was deeply imprinted in Lin Jiu's mind. As the apocalypse approached and the order collapsed, she was struggling against more than just the heavens.

These truths were clearer to Lin Jiu than ever, after struggling for five years in the apocalypse.

She encountered a great opportunity, and if she couldn't endure a little hardship, she might as well commit suicide on the spot, at least she could leave a complete corpse, right?!

Twenty, twenty-three, thirty... thirty-six!

The thirty-sixth week of celestial circulation was completed, and a cool sensation radiated from her dantian along the meridians to various parts of her body. Lin Jiu's spirit shook, feeling refreshed!

Following the instructions of the heart method, Lin Jiu focused her mind and indeed saw a complete pathway of spiritual power circulation within her body - the meridians.

Within the intricate meridians flowed water-blue or silver-white spiritual power, with pure light attached to them, more dazzling than the Milky Way.

The spiritual power traveled through the meridians, absorbing new spiritual power from the outside along the way, and ultimately converged in the dantian, bursting outwards from there... like her second heart.

After a long time, Lin Jiu came to her senses in this magnificent scene, opened her eyes, and her dark pupils were moist and shiny, like stars.

Perhaps due to the two types of spiritual roots belonging to the same series, combined with Lin Jiu's relatively calm nature, despite the continuous hardships, the results were not bad.

She did not have a mentor to teach her, but all the previous owners of the Little Immortal Source were her mentors. The inscriptions and techniques they left behind were guiding lights on her path forward!

Although Earth was in the Dharma-ending Age, it was not impossible that there were still immortal sects with a heritage of will in the deep mountains and old forests. On this path, she was not alone.

Having realized this, Lin Jiu felt a sudden surge in her consciousness at the Baihui acupoint.

Qi refining, foundation building, enlightenment, integration, heart movement, golden core, nascent soul, out-of-body, soul separation, body fusion, void piercing, great vehicle, tribulation crossing, ascension!

One after another, the realms unfolded before Lin Jiu's eyes, shaking her spirit.

Lin Jiu stood up from the cushion, walked to the wooden wall inscribed with the heart method, knelt down, and respectfully kowtowed three times.