Cultivation of immortality begins with an eighty-year-old eunuch.

Chapter 674 Bewitched. A Stone with a Soul.

By summer, Chen Fan had mastered making a decent stone pot. Batu's wife used it to cook a pot of mutton soup. The bottom of the pot burned for half an hour without cracking, and the soup tasted even better than that cooked in an iron pot.

Batu would praise Chen Fan's skillful hands to everyone he met, saying that this outsider could not only treat illnesses but also carve stones, and was simply a treasure bestowed upon the tribe by the gods of the grasslands.

Chen Fan simply shook his head slightly and continued to learn the craft in front of Morigen's tent.

The stonemason's next challenge is carving.

Morrigan's proudest work is that stone horse.

He said that when he was young, he saw a pure white horse outside Wan Gu City, and after returning home, he spent three years carving that stone horse based on his memory. Although the carving was rough, it was the only piece of work he was proud of in his life.

"Carving is different from chipping stone." Morigen sat in the shade in front of the tent, slowly sketching the outline of the stone with a chisel. "Chipping stone only requires following the grain, but carving requires adding your own thoughts on top of the grain. If you want to carve a horse, you must first have a horse in your mind. How the horse's four hooves stand, how its mane flows, where its eyes are looking—all of these must come alive in your mind before you can put your chisel to the ground. If you don't have it in your mind, your hands won't be able to carve it."

After listening, Chen Fan remained silent for a long time.

These words are remarkably similar to his realization at the threshold of the Nascent Soul stage.

When a cultivator breaks through to the Nascent Soul stage, they need to integrate their inner vision into the world. Sculpture, on the other hand, is the process of infusing the image in one's mind into stone.

One is merging with heaven and earth, the other is merging with stone; the principle is the same.

He picked up a chisel and began learning from the simplest stone horse.

The first stone horse took seven days to carve.

The sculpted horse was a terrible sight; its head was crooked, its legs were of varying thickness, and its tail resembled a rolling pin.

When Batel passed by, he glanced at it and asked curiously, "Uncle Chen, are you carving sheep?" This made Morigen laugh so hard he almost passed out.

Chen Fan ignored Batel's teasing and simply examined the stone horse in front of him for a long time.

When he was sculpting, he didn't have a horse in his mind; he only had a bunch of fragments about horses.

It has four legs, a head, and a tail, but when put together, it doesn't look like a horse.

Because he had never actually observed a horse.

The next morning, Chen Fan led Grey Mane to Morigen's tent and had it stand beside him.

As he watched, he carved. Gray Mane stood dozing, occasionally flicking his tail to shoo away mosquitoes. He carved these subtle movements into the stone one by one.

The second stone horse took half a month to carve.

When the sculpture was finished, Batel came to see it again. This time he didn't ask if it was a sheep, but just scratched his head and said that the horse's legs seemed to be a little longer than the gray-maned horse's legs.

Chen Fan carefully compared the stone horse with the gray-maned horse, and it was indeed so. The gray-maned horse was an old horse, its legs were not very nimble, and its posture was slightly hunched.

The horse he sculpted had legs that were too straight, lacking the sense of weariness that comes with age.

He didn't change it. He simply put the stone horse aside, picked up another piece of stone, and began carving the third one.

This time, Chen Fan no longer just looked with his eyes, but used his divine sense to sense every detail inside Gray Mane's body while sculpting. Every undulation of every muscle, the direction of every bone, the blood vessels under the skin, even the slight opening and closing of the ribs when breathing.

He didn't use any spiritual power to control the chisel; he simply tapped it with the skill of an ordinary person, carving out details invisible to the naked eye into the stone.

The third stone horse took a month to sculpt.

When it was finished, Morigen held it in his hands and examined it for a long time without saying a word.

He held the stone horse up to the sunlight, turning it over and over to examine it closely, a complex light flashing in his cloudy old eyes.

After a long while, he put down the stone horse and said in a hoarse voice, "This horse is alive."

Greymane peeked over from the side, sniffed the stone horse with its nose, snorted, sniffed again, and even stuck out its tongue to lick it. It seemed to have mistaken the stone horse for another horse.

Chen Fan stood aside, watching the gray-maned horse lick the stone horse, and was suddenly moved.

The stone horse he sculpted had no spiritual power infused into it, nor any array patterns added to it; it was just an ordinary piece of bluestone.

But it contains all his observations and understanding of Greymane.

Its old age, its gentleness, its slightly bent forelegs and half-drooping eyelids as it stood there dozing.

These details, taken together, give this stone something indescribable. Not vitality, but an aura. An aura that makes you feel at first glance that there is something within this stone.

artistic conception.

Chen Fan suddenly understood.

Between heaven and earth, everything has its own texture. Stones have their textures, horses have their textures, and people have their textures.

The so-called artistic conception is not some transcendent power that rises above all things, but rather the deepest perception and response to the textures of all things.

Cause and effect are the connection between all things, and the cycle of life and death is the most fundamental thread in this process.

Birth is the cause, death is the effect; cause and effect continue, and life and death share the same root.

The key is to find your own unique pattern in this vast world and then follow it peacefully.

It's not about forcibly changing your position, but about being content with the present moment, being content with this place, and being content with yourself.

He held the stone horse in his palm, closed his eyes, and in that moment of enlightenment, the three realms of his mind merged once more.

From that day on, Chen Fan became fascinated with carving.

He was no longer satisfied with carving stone horses, and began to carve everything he could see. Wild ducks by the lake, lambs in the pen, sheepdogs in front of the tent, and even the old iron pot at the entrance of Batu's tent were all carved by him.

Each piece became increasingly refined, so refined that even Morigen shook his head upon seeing it, saying that this kid was probably a born stonemason. He had taught apprentices for half his life and had never seen anyone improve so quickly.

Chen Fan didn't explain, he just continued carving.

In the autumn, he began to carve human figures.

The first one to be carved is Morigen.

That day, Morigen squatted in front of the tent, chiseling a stone mill, while Chen Fan sat beside him, watching and carving. He carved all day, from sunrise to sunset. When he finished, Morigen took the stone statue, looked at it, and suddenly fell silent for a long time.

The stone statue was only the size of a palm, yet it contained all of Morgen's features.

Those cloudy yet sharp old eyes, that face weathered by wind and sun like old tree bark, those hands with large knuckles and calloused palms, even the old scar behind his ear from being broken by gravel in his youth—everything was exactly the same.

What left Morigen speechless was that this stone statue was not just an image, but also contained something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

He looked at the stone statue as if he were looking into a mirror that could reflect his soul. The aura emanating from the statue made him feel as if the stone was looking at him.

"You kid...where did you learn this skill from?" Morigen asked in a hoarse voice.