Determination alone, as it turned out, could not fill an empty stomach. After three days of attempting to close his eyes beneath the Bodhi Tree to no avail—having no idea how to control the warm energy within him—hunger clawed at Ye Tian once more. To survive, he had no choice but to descend the isolated hill and make his way toward the foot of the mountain, where the back gate of the Cloud Sword Sect was located.

It was there that the mortal servant quarter was situated. A sect of this scale required thousands of manual laborers to handle daily chores, ranging from cooking and sweeping the grounds to chopping spiritual wood for the elders' fireplaces.

"No spiritual root? A purely mortal body?"

A pudgy overseer named Overseer Zhao appraised Ye Tian from head to toe. He snorted in contempt, taking in Ye Tian's tattered clothes and emaciated face. However, as the sect was currently short-handed on woodchoppers due to several servants being killed by wild beasts, Overseer Zhao finally tossed a rusty iron axe at Ye Tian’s feet.

"It so happens we are short of hands at the Woodchopping Peak. The labor there is brutal. Every day, you must chop one hundred trunks of Black Ironwood. Fall short by even a single log, and there will be no food ration for you! Understood?" Overseer Zhao barked.

Ye Tian picked up the axe. It was extraordinarily heavy, weighing nearly thirty kilograms. For an ordinary mortal, merely lifting it was exhausting, let alone wielding it to chop wood all day. Yet, Ye Tian simply gave a firm nod. "I understand, Overseer."

To Ye Tian, this job was the perfect cover. Bound to his waist, his sister's precious half-bag of rice was safely hidden inside a tattered cloth sack so as not to attract unwanted attention.

The next day, the true ordeal began. Beneath the blistering sun of the Immortal Realm, which felt twice as hot as Earth's, Ye Tian stood before a Black Ironwood tree. True to its name, the bark was as hard as metal.

CLANG!

Ye Tian's first swing only sent sparks flying off the bark, while his hands instantly went numb from the violent recoil.

"Haha! Look at the new kid!"

Mocking laughter echoed from a distance. Several senior mortal servants and passing outer disciples stopped to watch. They were well aware of Ye Tian's reputation as the "pest" accidentally dragged into this realm.

"Ignorant mortal from the lower world. You swing an axe like a little girl!" scoffed an outer disciple clad in gray robes, tossing a pebble toward Ye Tian. "In the Immortal Realm, without cultivation, you are lower than a guard dog!"

Ye Tian ignored the insults. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, tightened his grip on the axe handle, and braced himself for a second swing. However, the agony in his arm muscles made his body tremble. He felt he wouldn't even be able to finish ten logs if he continued like this.

No... I cannot give up here. Xiao Mei is waiting for me! Ye Tian thought, gritting his teeth so hard they bled.

Just as his emotions and physical stress reached their absolute limits, something extraordinary occurred within his body. The remaining Ascension energy from Lady Mei that lay dormant inside him suddenly reacted to his rage and resolve. The stream of warm energy that had been stagnant in his lower abdomen abruptly exploded, surging violently through his blocked meridians.

BOOM!

Ye Tian felt a sensation akin to boiling water being forced through clogged pipes. The pain was excruciating, causing cold sweat mixed with a thick, dark liquid—mortal impurities being purged from his body—to ooze from every pore. Yet, alongside that pain, a colossal power he had never possessed before flooded into both of his arms.

Ye Tian’s eyes flashed with a momentary golden glint. The rusty axe in his hands suddenly felt as light as a feather.

Guided by pure instinct, Ye Tian took a deep breath, twisted his waist, and swung the axe with breathtaking speed.

SCHWING—CRACK!

The metallic-hard Black Ironwood trunk split into two perfect halves in a single clean strike.

The surrounding taunts instantly died down. The square of the Woodchopping Peak fell dead silent. The senior servants gaped with wide eyes, while the outer disciple who had mocked him stood stunned, his jaw nearly dropping to the ground. A talentless mortal had just cleaved Black Ironwood with a single blow? Even an outer disciple with low-level cultivation needed three to four strikes to bring one down!

"Th-that... how is that possible?" one servant whispered in horror.

Ye Tian himself stared at his hands in disbelief. He could feel that hidden stream of energy now flowing serenely within his muscles and bones. Lady Mei's Ascension energy was no ordinary spiritual energy; it was pure, high-tier celestial energy gained when one was on the verge of godhood. Though Ye Tian knew no cultivation chants, his mortal body was forced to physically evolve by that energy every time he exerted brute force.

Unintentionally, Ye Tian had discovered his own path of cultivation: Mortal Body Cultivation—an ancient path that tempered the physical form to match the hardness of divine weapons without requiring a spiritual root.

Ye Tian paid no mind to the shocked stares around him. He gazed at the row of Black Ironwood trees before him with a faint, cold smile.

"One hundred trees?" Ye Tian whispered to himself, raising his axe once more. "That's far too easy."

That day, Ye Tian completed his task in less than two hours, shattering the fastest record on Woodchopping Peak. Wiping his axe in the shade of a tree, he looked up at the majestic night sky of the Immortal Realm. The energy stream within his body felt considerably more solid now. His first step had succeeded, and this mortal servant they so despised had only just begun to forge the foundation to shake the heavens.