The Lost immortal lived in the orphanage till he was of eight years of age. At that time, the orphanage was shut down and nearly all the children living there were left with no choice but to leave. Only the very young children were able to get transferred to other orphanages.
The lost immortal was one of the unfortunate ones that had to leave the orphanage. He didn't know what to do, thus he just begged on the streets. Years went by and when he was thirteen years of age, he accidentally offended one of the officials of the kingdom when he came in front of his carriage.
He was punished with imprisonment and was beaten up harshly. His body was already weak and malnourished thus it was with great fortune or perhaps misfortune that he survived it. While in the prison, he was forced to work as a slave and did various jobs and tasks.
One of the most dangerous tasks was the task of mining. Hundreds of prisoners would die every month, and it was nearly considered as a death sentence. The lost immortal was lucky to not get selected for the job since he was too weak and scrawny to do it.
Even in the prison, he would have to bear the beatings of the guards and the other prisoners. He didn't fight back and just bore with it. He had seen what happened to others that fought back and anyway he was not strong enough to resist.
More years passed by and the lost immortal was now seventeen. By now he had grown a lot and had surprisingly built up some muscle. Ironically, he was getting better food in the prison than he did when he was a beggar or back when he was at the orphanage.
But with his better condition, the lost immortal came to the notice of the guards and was selected for the mining job. He had nearly given up hope at that time and knew that this would be the end for him. Still unable to resist, he was forced to do it.
A month later he was shifted to the mines and started working there. The conditions were worse than the prison there, and he had a tough time at the start. He would get small injuries such as cuts and scrapes every day.
In just his first week, he had witnessed around a hundred prisoners die. Watching the process over and over had made him numb, and he became closer to a doll than a person. Eventually, a year passed by and there came a day when a large collapse had happened in the mine.
Something had destabilized the ceiling, and rocks had started falling from the top. All the prisoners ran towards the surface to escape their imminent death and pushed others in the process. The lost immortal was lucky enough to reach the halfway point when he suddenly saw a large boulder shifting from the walls of the tunnel.
He saw that the boulder was about to hit an old man. He didn't know what happened to him, but he lunged forward and pushed the old man aside, saving his life in the process. But unfortunately for the lost immortal, his own leg got crushed under the large boulder.
He was pinned and screamed in pain. The tunnels were still collapsing, so no one paid any attention to him and neither tried to save him. All except the old man that he had saved. The old man looked to be eighty years old and was bald.
Wrinkles covered his face and body, which was only accentuated due to his thin stick-like body. The old man was at first stunned and couldn't move after being pushed down to the ground. But a little time later, when the nearby people had moved away and the sounds of shouts had calmed down, he came to his sense.
The old man couldn't believe that someone would be willing to save his dog of a life in a place like this. And the person that saved him was even a young man that perhaps had some life ahead of him. Unable to bear the gratitude that was rising within his heart, the old man tried to pull out the lost immortal from under the rock.
But it took him far longer as the lost immortal kept screaming in pain and the old man was not strong enough either. The collapsing tunnel had finally stopped shaking, and the rocks had stopped falling. At the very last moment, by a stroke of luck, another falling rock hit the boulder that was pinning the lost immortal and set him free.
The old man pulled him out and dragged him to the surface after a rough two hours. By now, the lost immortal had screamed his throat hoarse and had passed out unconscious. The overseers of the mine didn't pay any heed to the injured and dead prisoners. For them, they were just expendable slaves.
Still, because the lost immortal was injured, he couldn't work and was most likely crippled for the rest of the life.
The old man who he had saved took care of him in this period and gave him food. In a surprise to him, the old man underwent a complete change in the coming few days.
The old man no longer looked as haggard and even the wrinkles on his face reduced. The other prisoners paid no attention, so these changes went unnoticed for everyone except for the lost immortal. Every day the old man would change the bandages that he had on his leg and would give him a strange kind of treatment.
It seemed like a massage, yet different. The old man would tap on certain places on his leg and the pain that he had would decrease. During this period, the lost immortal never talked and even the old man didn't say anything.
A few months passed by and finally, the lost immortal's leg was completely healed. He was shocked, as he knew that this should have been impossible. The only people that could heal from injuries were the cultivators, and he knew for sure that he wasn't one.
Finally, one day he made up his mind and spoke. He asked the old man if he was a cultivator and received the answer that he indeed was. Shock filled his body as he would have never expected this. To him, cultivators were people beyond his understanding and were people that belonged to the upper echelon of the world.
He couldn't understand why a cultivator would be here as a prisoner. A cultivator would have been strong enough to escape the prison, anyway. The old man then told him of his story and how he was crippled and thrown in the prison.
He was betrayed by his fellow disciples of the sect and was left to rot here. His fellow disciples then bribed the officials of this kingdom to put him in the prison. Unable to fully get over the betrayal, the old man lost his will and simply slaved over the years at the mine.
He stayed the same and had lost all hope in life similar to the Lost Immortal until he saved him. He thought that he now finally had a purpose in life again and which was to ensure that his savior was saved.
It was this drive that allowed him to regain his talent as he found out that he was able to cultivate again. The injuries that had been restricting him had actually healed over the years, and it was only his own mental demons that had been restricting his cultivation.
Released from his restriction, the old man had sworn to return and also help his savior. The old man finally asked the lost immortal a question he would have never expected. It was an opportunity he would have never imagined in a hundred years.
The old man asked him if he would want to become a cultivator. To this question, the lost immortal didn't even spend a second waiting as he answered 'YES' right away.
And so the lost immortal's journey began.
*****
~Sigh~
Lin Mu let out a sigh as he finished reading the first entry that was recorded in the wooden slip.
"Compared to the lost immortal, my struggles are barely worth considering." Lin Mu spoke to himself in a pitying tone.
Xukong was a little surprised upon seeing the change in Lin Mu's tone, but knew that he had probably read something that had moved him.
"So, what did you learn?" Xukong questioned.
Lin Mu then explained what he had learned to Senior Xukong, who too went silent after hearing it all.
"You do not need to compare yourself with the lost immortal or even anyone else. Your fate is yours to navigate through. The karma that you will sow will be yours to reap and deal with. If you go on this path, you will only lose yourself." Xukong spoke in a sagely tone after thinking for a minute.
After hearing his words, Lin Mu pondered on them for a bit before speaking.
"Yes senior."
"You can read the records as much as you want, but ensure that you simply learn from them and do not think that everything will be similar for you. The workings of fate are hidden by the will of the heavens and are not easy to pry into.
I have heard of such legacy records and memoirs before that have been left by cultivators before. Not all of their inheritors were fortunate enough, as they would often be mistaken with them and overestimate their own knowledge and wisdom.
While the guidance provided in them is priceless, it will still be detrimental for you if you don't utilize them properly." Xukong added.
Lin Mu simply nodded and pondered on.