My Longevity Simulation Chapter 1: Where Do Immortals Come From?

In the Grand Xuan Kingdom, within Xuanjing City at the Imperial Advisor's mansion.

Li Fan clutched his wine cup while gazing at the assembled civil and military officials gathered in the hall to mark his birthday. Though advanced in years now, a sense of smug satisfaction still bubbled within him.

One must realize that on this day, fully nine-tenths of the court's officials crammed into the Imperial Advisor's residence!

Who could have imagined that upon his arrival in this world, Li Fan had been nothing more than a destitute scholar.

Across the fifty years that followed, he rose from utter poverty to a position of vast authority and influence. His experiences alone could fill a multi-million-word epic.

With existence reaching such heights, what else could anyone desire?

Li Fan caressed his beard before downing the contents of his cup.

"To the birthday of the Imperial Advisor!"

The officials in attendance raised their voices in collective cheer.

Li Fan's sense of pride surged even higher.

Suddenly, a wave of jarring shouts erupted from beyond the gates.

"Hurry and see! What's that thing!"

"Fiery streaks are plummeting from above; it's a sign of good fortune! Rush to inform the Imperial Master!"

"Why does it look like it's heading straight for the Imperial Master's home?"

......

The noisy disturbance outside the estate made Li Fan knit his brows.

The hall, previously buzzing with energy, fell into sudden silence.

Li Fan rose and led the way toward the exit.

Yet, prior to any opportunity to berate his staff or vent his inner frustration, the spectacle overhead seized his attention completely.

In the distant heavens, two streaks of silver light trailed one behind the other, resembling shooting stars as they hurtled toward the estate.

"This must be..." Li Fan stood rigid.

Those twin meteors reached the skies over Xuanjing City in an instant and came to an abrupt halt.

Simultaneously, a thunderous voice boomed down from the clouds, resounding in the ears of all below.

"Dao Xuanzi! Do not overstep your bounds!"

......

Terror gripped those on the scene. Some even cried "Immortal master!" before prostrating themselves on the ground.

A term long buried in the recesses of his recollections, nearly erased from memory, abruptly resurfaced in Li Fan's thoughts.

"Cultivator... immortal cultivator!" Stunned, Li Fan whispered, "How could this be..."

The pair of immortal cultivators hovering above paid no heed to the reactions of the mortals beneath them.

Soon, a second voice echoed forth, "Kou Hong! You think fleeing to this Land of Immortal Extinction will save you? Surrender the technique you seized that day, or I'll hunt you relentlessly!"

"Absurd! The absence of a Golden Core technique has kept me mired in the Foundation Establishment stage for almost a century. I'm nearing my end, bones turning to dust. Yet now I've secured a Golden Core technique at last. Why would I yield it to anyone!" Kou Hong responded with a chilly snort, his words dripping with contempt.

"True enough!" Dao Xuanzi let out a sigh. "A solitary Golden Core technique, unmatched and priceless. While countless such techniques abound, endless cultivators remain bottlenecked at Foundation Establishment!"

Dao Xuanzi's voice shifted to savage intensity. "With the path to eternal life right before me, how could I spare you or hold back from crossing any line!"

Kou Hong burst into hearty laughter. "Mere one technique! How laughable that after a century as sworn brothers, we're clashing fatally over a slim shot at enduring!"

Dao Xuanzi issued a frosty chuckle and offered no retort.

Kou Hong then declared sharply, "I admit I'm inferior to you and won't evade capture this day. But with all these mortals around, can you endure the intense buildup of Immortal-Mortal Miasma!"

Dao Xuanzi's expression paled instantly. "Kou Hong! What madness are you planning?"

Kou Hong cackled wildly. "Simply grasping for a sliver of possibility!"

As Li Fan overheard the exchange between the two immortal cultivators overhead, fear clutched at him. But prior to any response, a scarlet blaze detonated high over Xuanjing City.

"Boom, boom, boom, boom!"

Earth-shaking blasts assaulted Li Fan's ears, his vision flooding with crimson. Moments later, darkness claimed him.

......

Li Fan stirred back to consciousness after a while.

Initially, dizziness clouded his mind. Only after an extended period did the events rush back.

Li Fan hacked up several gouts of blood, shuddered as he rose, and scanned his environment.

Night still held sway, transforming the once-opulent Imperial Master's mansion into rubble.

The air nearby reeked with the foul odor of charred remains.

The dynasty's civil and military elite, merry just moments prior, lay slain.

Neither Li Fan's spouses, consorts, nor his five offspring escaped the fate.

No feeling crossed Li Fan's weathered features. His eyes stared blankly.

Remaining motionless for ages, he finally hauled his frail form from the wreckage of the Imperial Master's mansion.

Xuanjing City, vibrant and bustling mere instants ago, now resembled a fiery inferno of gore, littered with mangled corpses and toppled structures everywhere.

Survivors of the catastrophe numbered scarce one per hundred.

This devastation stemmed from the abrupt arrival of those two "immortal masters".

Exhaustion overtook Li Fan, and he slumped against a shattered wall's edge.

The ferocious detonation had long obliterated his sense of hearing. Yet that proved irrelevant.

In that instant, laughter was all he craved.

Immortal cultivators existing in this realm—how could it be?

From his entry into officialdom, Li Fan had leveraged his authority to hunt for any hints of an immortal Dao.

Upon ascending to Imperial Master, commanding multitudes, he scoured every corner of existence!

His dominion stretched northward to the Ice Sea, southward to the Great Ocean, eastward to the Ruins Abyss, westward to the Lian Shan Mountains.

Not a single sign of immortals marked the whole of Grand Xuan!

Yet on this day, long after hopes had faded, two immortal cultivators plummeted from the skies to his very doorstep. Thoughtlessly, they shattered all that was his.

Such was immortality?

From whence did immortals originate?

Fury and resentment churning inside morphed into boundless confusion.

The heavens' mandate proved unjust!

Concurrently, an overwhelming gratitude washed over Li Fan.

He rejoiced that in his final moments, he verified immortals' reality!

Lest he squander yet another half-century in his forthcoming incarnation?

Exactly! How else could a simple mortal ascend from lowly scholar to Imperial Master without some foundation?

This very reliance explained his slim survival against the immortals.

"[Truth]!"

Li Fan whispered inwardly, and the surrounding vista abruptly darkened. A hazy veil, like dense liquid, obscured visibility.

"Truth to lies, reality to dream."

Six bold characters ignited amid the shadows, then scattered swiftly into a glowing panel.

"Charging complete."

"Virtualize the current scene and return to the initial anchor point?"

Tiny script materialized sequentially.

Concurrently, scenes emerged in succession, swiftly blanketing the full display.

These depicted the fifty years of Li Fan's existence here.

Li Fan remained transfixed for an extended duration, observing his likeness across the array of visuals.

[Truth]

Such was the title Li Fan bestowed upon this singular artifact accompanying him.

Its sole capability: converting truth to illusion, actuality to void!

What people termed the shift from real to virtual involved recasting all of Li Fan's encounters as fabricated simulations, reverting him to the starting anchor established upon his initial arrival in this world.

Truth be told, this era marked Li Fan's second existence.

In his prior life, despite lofty ambitions, innate shortcomings thwarted fulfillment. Repeated failures in examinations led him, at thirty, to abandon scholarship for trade. He managed a modest venture, amassed moderate wealth, wed, sired heirs, and led an unremarkable routine. Only on the brink of aged death did [Truth] awaken within him.

This iteration formed Li Fan's second chance, a relentless path to triumph.

Regrettably, destruction had overtaken it now.

After a brief contemplation, Li Fan refrained from terminating this existence at once. Certain tasks lingered beforehand.

Deactivating the display and resuming the tangible realm, Li Fan composed himself to manage the devastation's fallout in Xuanjing.

Having assembled the remnants of survivors, Li Fan leveraged his long-standing authority to soothe the populace's spirits.

Deaf as he now was, Li Fan procured writing tools. Though exchanges proved cumbersome, his directives flowed unimpeded.

To begin, Li Fan commanded the external garrison unit to hasten to Xuanjing City for upholding post-catastrophe order. Next, he dispatched missives to adjacent locales, summoning supplies, sustenance, and administrators to the afflicted area.

Nearly all Xuanjing's edifices lay in ruins; once the troops assumed control, Li Fan quartered in the camp to oversee reconstruction.

By Li Fan's edicts, resources and skilled individuals streamed continuously from nearby settlements into Xuanjing City.

Following a month's passage, the devastated Xuanjing City began to reclaim a modicum of its former vitality.

Solely after the Grand Xuan Kingdom steadied from the immortals' assault did Li Fan instruct the gathering of details on the duo who manifested that evening.

This encompassed their origins, destinations, and additional utterances if any.

Regretfully, months of probing yielded naught beyond the revelation that the pair had materialized from the eastern Ruins Abyss direction.

Li Fan's expectation that the immortals might mutually perish and yield advantages went unrealized.

"No surprise there." Li Fan inwardly lamented. "Thus, this realm holds no further purpose for me."

Positioned in the freshly erected Imperial Master's mansion, Li Fan reactivated [Truth].

"Virtualize the current scene and return to the initial anchor point?"

Li Fan wasted no further delay and affirmed the choice.

Across the panel, myriad vivid depictions paused in unison. Then, the splendor and opulence of this life fragmented like a mirage, dissolving into myriad luminous threads that surged into Li Fan's consciousness.

Visions cascaded past Li Fan's sight akin to lantern slides. At length, it halted upon the confrontation of the two immortal cultivators atop the Imperial Advisor's mansion.

"Dao Xuanzi, Kou Hong." Li Fan murmured their names gently. "In fifty years' time, I shall await you both in Xuanjing City."

"Material wealth and status mean nothing to me anymore." As Li Fan's awareness faded into haze, his resolve burned fiercer than before.

"In my coming life, I shall seize immortals!"

The glow within his thoughts dimmed progressively, drawing Li Fan into profound slumber.