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

Grand Xuan Kingdom, the capital city of Xuanjing, at the residence of the Imperial Advisor.

Clutching a cup of wine, Li Fan surveyed the hall filled with civil and military dignitaries who had gathered to celebrate his birth anniversary. Despite his advanced age, a wave of self-satisfaction washed over him.

It was a sight to behold; today, nearly ninety percent of the imperial court had crowded into the Imperial Advisor’s mansion!

Li Fan reflected on how he had arrived in this world as nothing more than a destitute scholar.

Over the span of five decades, he had risen from poverty to become a statesman of immense authority. His life’s journey held enough drama to fill a novel of millions of words.

With a life such as this, what more could a man desire?

Li Fan stroked his silver beard and drained the wine from his cup.

"To the longevity of the Imperial Advisor!"

The assembled officials shouted their congratulations in perfect unison.

Li Fan’s heart swelled with pride.

Suddenly, a series of jarring shouts erupted from the courtyard outside.

"Look up! What on earth is that?"

"Fire is raining from the heavens; surely this is a divine omen! Hurry, inform the Imperial Master!"

"Wait, why does it seem to be descending directly toward our Imperial Master’s home?"

......

Li Fan’s brow furrowed as he heard the commotion outside the manor.

The previously boisterous banquet hall fell into a sudden, heavy silence.

Standing up, Li Fan led the way outside.

But before he could reprimand his servants or voice his irritation, he found himself transfixed by the spectacle in the sky.

In the distance, two streaks of silver light trailed each other like falling stars, hurtling toward the mansion at incredible speed.

"This is..." Li Fan stood frozen.

In a mere heartbeat, the two meteors reached the airspace above Xuanjing City and came to a dead stop.

Simultaneously, a voice like a thunderclap rolled down from the firmament, vibrating in the ears of everyone below.

"Dao Xuanzi! You have gone too far!"

......

Terror gripped the crowd. Several people cried out, "Immortal master!" and threw themselves onto the ground in worship.

Meanwhile, a term buried deep within Li Fan’s memories—one he had nearly forgotten—suddenly surged to the forefront of his mind.

"Cultivator... an immortal cultivator!" Li Fan was stunned, whispering to himself, "How can this be possible..."

The two immortal cultivators in the sky clearly paid no heed to the thoughts of the mortals beneath them.

Another voice resonated, "Kou Hong! Did you truly believe I would let you escape just because you fled to this Land of Immortal Extinction? Surrender the technique you seized that day, or I shall hunt you to the grave!"

"Absurd! It is precisely because I lack a Golden Core technique that I have been shackled at the Foundation Establishment stage for nearly a century. My life force is waning; I am but a skeleton in waiting. Now that I finally possess a Golden Core technique, how could I ever surrender it to another!" Kou Hong gave a cold snort, his voice dripping with mockery.

"True enough!" Dao Xuanzi let out a sigh, "A Golden Core technique without a master is a peerless treasure. Though many such techniques exist, countless cultivators remain stranded at the Foundation Establishment stage forever!"

Dao Xuanzi’s tone suddenly became murderous, "Since the gateway to longevity stands before me, how could I possibly let you go? How could I not cross every line to take it!"

Kou Hong burst into manic laughter, "All for a single technique! To think that after being brothers for a hundred years, we are now trying to kill one another for a sliver of hope!"

Dao Xuanzi offered only a chilling laugh in response.

Kou Hong spoke again abruptly, "I am aware that I cannot defeat you, and I doubt I will escape this day alive. However, with so many mortals gathered here, I wonder if you can endure such a concentrated blast of Immortal-Mortal Miasma!"

Dao Xuanzi’s expression shifted instantly: "Kou Hong! What are you planning?"

Kou Hong laughed with insanity, "I am merely searching for a path to survival!"

Listening to the exchange between the two immortal cultivators above, Li Fan felt a deep sense of dread. Yet, before he could move, a massive crimson explosion lit up the sky over Xuanjing City.

"Boom, boom, boom, boom!"

A deafening roar shattered Li Fan’s hearing, and his vision was instantly swallowed by blood-red light. A moment later, darkness took him.

......

A significant amount of time passed before Li Fan regained consciousness.

He felt lightheaded at first. It took a long while for the memories of the catastrophe to return to him.

Li Fan coughed, spitting out several mouthfuls of blood. Trembling, he forced himself to stand and survey the wreckage.

Night still hung over the city, but the once-grand Imperial Master’s mansion was now a field of rubble.

The air was thick with the sickening stench of charred flesh.

Every official of the dynasty who had been feasting moments ago was dead.

Li Fan’s wives, his concubines, and his five sons had been decimated as well.

Li Fan’s aged face remained a mask of hollow shock. His eyes were vacant.

After standing motionless for a long time, he dragged his battered body out of the ruins of the mansion.

Xuanjing City, which had been a beacon of prosperity just hours before, had been transformed into a nightmare of fire and blood. Dismembered bodies and collapsed ruins stretched as far as he could see.

The survivors surely numbered less than one in a hundred.

All of this destruction was the result of two "immortal masters" passing through.

Losing his strength, Li Fan slumped down against the corner of a broken wall.

His hearing had been permanently lost in the explosion. But it didn't matter.

At that moment, he felt an urge to laugh.

How could there actually be immortal cultivators in this world?

Since the day he became an official, he had utilized every ounce of his power to hunt for any sign of the immortal Dao.

Once he ascended to the rank of Imperial Master and ruled over millions, he had scoured the entire world!

His dominion reached the Ice Sea in the north, the Great Ocean in the south, the Ruins Abyss in the east, and the Lian Shan Mountains in the west.

In the entirety of the Grand Xuan Kingdom, there had been no trace of an immortal!

Yet today, years after he had abandoned all hope, two immortal cultivators had dropped from the clouds. Without a thought, they had ground everything he built into dust.

Is this what it means to be immortal?

And where did they come from?

The fury and resentment in his heart dissolved into a profound, endless confusion.

The heavens were playing a cruel joke!

At the same time, Li Fan felt a strange sense of relief.

He was grateful that before his death, he had finally confirmed that immortals truly existed!

Otherwise, would he not have wasted another fifty years in his next life searching in vain?

That was the secret! How could a mere mortal rise from a lowly scholar to the Imperial Master? How could he not possess a trump card?

This was also the reason he had managed to survive the immortals' collateral damage.

"[Truth]!"

Li Fan called out in his mind. The world around him grew dim and hazy, as if viewed through a thick, murky curtain of water.

"Truth to lies, reality to dream."

Those six powerful words glowed in the void before shattering into a screen of light.

"Charging complete."

"Convert the current scene into a simulation and return to the initial anchor point?"

Small characters manifested one by one.

Simultaneously, a flood of images surged across the light screen.

It was the chronicle of Li Fan’s fifty years in this world.

Li Fan watched his various selves in the images, standing still for a long time.

[Truth]

That was the name Li Fan had given to the mysterious treasure he carried.

It possessed only one power: to turn truth into falsehood and reality into a dream!

This process of virtualization meant that everything Li Fan had lived through would become a mere simulated memory, allowing him to return to the specific point in time he had set when he first arrived in this world.

In truth, this current timeline was already Li Fan’s second life.

During his first life, Li Fan had great ambitions but lacked the talent to realize them. After failing the imperial examinations year after year, he abandoned his studies at thirty to become a merchant. He led a modest, wealthy life, married, had children, and lived to an old age. It was only on his deathbed that he finally activated [Truth].

His second life had been a meteoric rise to power.

It was a tragedy that it had ended so abruptly.

After a moment of reflection, Li Fan decided not to end this life immediately. He still had a few tasks to complete.

He closed the light screen and returned to the physical world, steadying himself to manage the devastation of Xuanjing.

By gathering the survivors, Li Fan used his years of established authority to calm the panicked populace.

Though he was deaf, he could still write. While communication was difficult, he ensured his commands were executed.

First, he ordered the garrison stationed outside the city to enter Xuanjing immediately to restore order. Next, he dispatched messengers to neighboring provinces to requisition food, supplies, and administrative staff.

With most of the city in ruins, Li Fan stayed within the military barracks to oversee the recovery efforts once the soldiers took control.

Under his direction, a steady stream of resources and skilled labor flowed into the capital.

A month later, a semblance of life began to return to the broken streets of Xuanjing.

Once the Grand Xuan Kingdom had stabilized from the immortal strike, Li Fan ordered a massive intelligence gathering effort regarding the two figures from that night.

He sought their origin, their destination, and any word they might have spoken.

Unfortunately, months of searching yielded nothing, save for the fact that the two immortals had arrived from the direction of the Ruins Abyss in the east.

Li Fan’s secret hope that both immortals might have killed each other, leaving behind treasures for him to find, went unfulfilled.

"I shouldn't have expected such a miracle," Li Fan sighed inwardly. "In that case, there is nothing left for me here."

Standing within the newly reconstructed Imperial Master’s manor, Li Fan once again activated [Truth].

"Convert the current scene into a simulation and return to the initial anchor point?"

Without hesitation, Li Fan confirmed his choice.

On the screen of light, the countless vivid images of his life froze. Then, the wealth and glory of this existence shattered like glass, turning into streaks of light that poured into Li Fan’s soul.

Memory after memory flickered past like a revolving lantern. Finally, the vision settled on the image of the two immortal cultivators confronting each other above his mansion.

"Dao Xuanzi, Kou Hong," Li Fan whispered their names. "Fifty years from now, I will be waiting for you right here in Xuanjing City."

"Wealth and power are nothing but empty pursuits to me now." Li Fan’s consciousness began to fade, but his resolve was ironclad.

"In the next life, I shall hunt the immortals!"

The light in his mind dimmed to nothing, and Li Fan drifted into a profound slumber.