《My Journey to Godhood as a Caterpillar》 Cultivation Realms and treasures (No Spoilers to MC cultivation) Earthly Realm - There are 9 stages In all cultivation realms, the earthly realm consists of taking energy to refine your body, from your skin to your internal organs muscles and bones, at this cultivation realm you can learn weak techniques such as conjuring fire. Heavenly Realm- At this realm, you start to strengthen your soul and learn how to use telepathy, the power difference between an earthly and heavenly realm practitioner consists in that this realm your soul gets stronger and you get in touch with inner ki, which makes a huge difference between these two cultivation realms. Ki Cultivating Realm: In this realm, you start to cultivate your inner ki and gain the ability to strengthen your body again, but from here it would be your ki pathways, you can learn a lot more techniques at this realm as it''s one of the most important ones in the early stages of cultivation. King Realm: At this point in the cultivation sense you are a king on the battlefield, all below you won''t be able to do anything besides bowing their heads in sub servitude, your soul gains a kingly quality to it and it''s very hard to be controlled, here soul magics that pertain to forceful control lose their effectivity. Emperor Realm: The emperor realm is the peak of the mortal plane, at this point, you would be strongest in all wars, your techniques are unrivaled and your power is above anyone else, however that is in the mortal realm, you can also gain access to flying in this realm, ki weapons can be created which are indestructible to anyone below your realm. Sage Realm: You arrive at the sage realm after you go to the realm above the mortal realm, there are two realms that exist in the universe while there''s a third one that one is only accessible to people who broke down the fetters of the universe, at the sage realm you gain an avatar that can grow as strong as you. God Realm: At this stage, you fuse with your avatar after you both reached the peak of the sage realm entering in a godly state where you can control the laws of the universe, however, there is a limited amount of laws you can control as the universe is still restraining you - MC was at this point when he died. True Realm - The realm above the god realm, the strongest and ultimate realm known to everyone, Buddha, Hades and other types of gods that reached the ultimate peak have reached this realm, much isn''t known about it, nor how you are supposed to reach this realm, however, the rumor of the spirit realm says that you would need to break the fetters of your universe and absorb it to reach the true realm, the powers of the true realm are unknown. There are four types of treasures: Soul enchanting, Body strengthening attack and defensive ones, they are pretty self-explanatory, each realm can create their own treasures that are only effective at their own realm, depending on the skills and materials the quality of the treasures may vary: Ordinary < Special < Strong < Overwhelming < Godly < True Just like the cultivation realms, each treasure has its own powers, soul enchanting ones strengthen and heal the soul of the wielder making it a perfect treasure for soul bodies, body strengthening is useful for everyone so I won''t comment about this one, as for attack and defensive ones any other explanation is needed? If you have read any other cultivation novel you should know what they do. In conclusion, these are the cultivation realms and treasures, for other things they will be explained in the novel chapters. Chapter 1: Can I die again? Yun Jhin was a man of many talents and titles such as "evil overlord of the blood throne", "crazy maniac", "perverted old fool", and many more that I wouldn''t have time to list. His universe one of the many that exist in his world was just like all of the other cultivation worlds out there, strong eat the weak, famous young masters who will throw you out because you looked at them for a nanosecond, and others such miscellaneous things. Yun Jhin himself thought that the more someone cultivated the dumber they become, fortunately for him, he removed this problem by fusing with all of his former reincarnations, he was a man with no scruples when it came to victory and with his wits and skills. He took the leadership of the throne of blood, the greatest evil organization known to man in his universe. He drained the blood of countless virgins in his ying-yang activities and made them his concubines, even the greatest women of the celestial sects bowed down to his greatest little brother, to him life was going so well he thought that nothing would make him unable to achieve eternal life. But like always the man plans and heaven disagrees, the universe wouldn''t let a mortal become its equal, try as he might Yun Jhin just couldn''t achieve eternal life. He extended his life using multiple methods until he became nothing more than a fossil, he tried all of the cultivation techniques he gained through his whole host of reincarnations, he tried everything he could, elixirs, stealing constitutions from fortuned people. Be they just born or already have reached the peak, but all they did was prolong his lifespan, he thought that after so many failed reincarnations where he either fell before he could reach his full power or just died like now by this time he would have been able to reach eternal life! Unfortunately for him, the universe he was currently in would never let him achieve his dream no matter how many more times he would reincarnate, even though he reached the peak of cultivation he still wasn''t at the true at the end of the road if we would put it in percentages he would be in the top 20%. There were still people out there that were stronger than him, however, these people weren''t restricted by the universe they were in, Yun Jhin was restricted by his home universe, he was just an unlucky guy in the end. Now as an old man who outlived all of his descendants, wives, and concubines he stood in his great palace all alone, dying on his bed that was created with the softest silk ever known to man, beast, or hybrid. His breathing was roughed as his skin was pretty much falling from his bones, he was so old you couldn''t recognize him at all, you would think he was a patch of skin instead of a human, you could see his sickly white bones sticking out of his putrid skin, suddenly the prone form of the strongest man known in his universe started to cough as blood dripped down from the corners of his mouth. Old age combined with all of his attempts at gaining eternal life wore down his body to the point he wasn''t practically ''human'' anymore, his days were numbered that was for sure. Above his head, the sands of time were wearing down in a clepsydra made of silver, this was the time he had left on the mortal plane before he would be taken back to the spirit plane and reincarnated for the hundred thousandth time. As a man with extreme experience in reincarnation he wasn''t that sad he was dying but he was disappointed as he muttered to himself with the last vestiges of his strength: "One more time? maybe one more time will I reach the peak then?" That''s what he told himself every time he reached the end of the line, one more time, would he reach the peak then? But he failed, and failed, and failed so many times he didn''t know. His intelligence and wisdom were just a drop in the ocean compared to his inexperience. He never thought that the universe itself was shackling him down, he always thought that a better bloodline would help him, a better cultivation technique, a better physique. In the end, everything failed. Yun Jhin coughed out one last time before his spirit left his body and entered the reincarnation cycle for another time. However, something different happened to his spirit this time around. A fat jolly bald man who wore a kasaya robe and prayer beads around his neck took a hold of his spirit and examined it and said: "Such evil putrid karma, reincarnating as a pig or a dog would be something that would be too good for you." He was one of the experts that achieved cultivation above Yun Jhin, he was the peak of righteousness and light the ascended being with the perfect moral compass: the Buddha! Suddenly behind the Buddha, a man ensconced in the darkness appeared as he tried to take Yun Jhin''s spirit back from the Buddha but the Buddha clapped his hands together and pushed the shadow back. The man cursed as he swore: "You dumb fatty what do you think you are doing with my champion?" Buddha looked at the spirit in his eyes then at the man who tried to assassinate him and laughed joyfully: "Oh, Hades? He is your disciple? Why don''t I see anything like that in his memories?" Hades grumbled under his breath, well after so many reincarnations he thought Yun Jhin would make a good disciple, he was finally going to teach him the way to break through the Universe''s borders and ascend, he needed a helper anyways and Yun Jhin would make a good right-hand man for Hades or so he thought. The jolly Buddha shook his head repeatedly as he pushed the spirit down in his palms, Yun Jhin knew something was wrong with the reincarnation process as the eyes of his spirit opened wide open as he saw the giant palm starting to squish him. Suddenly he transformed into a small being, a being so small he wouldn''t even look at, Buddha laughed as Hades tried to stop him but the Buddha threw him down from the spirit realm to be reincarnated again, forcefully and earlier than intended! No blood nor anything was felt around Yun Jhin, he could feel only heat and darkness, what was this feeling? Was he going to get reborn so soon? Was the bald fat giant just a fever dream created from the reincarnation cycle? This never happened before Yun Jhin felt something wasn''t right, he felt so small so weak, so hungry... Suddenly he felt something break, his long green body broke through the layers of a humid but weak flesh trapping, he immediately looked around and the site in front of him made his nonexistent eyes widen, a bunch of small eggs so small they couldn''t be seen with the naked eye were all around him. He was the first to hatch, but what kind of creature hatched from such big eggs, what was I reincarnated into? Yu Jhin thought, however, the eggs weren''t that big, they were actually very small, they just looked big due to his size. Suddenly in front of him, a blaring green screen appeared which said: [Caterpillar system activated.] [Host is advised to eat leaves to restore strength.] Did I become a caterpillar? Yu Jhin said the following words after his thoughts: "Can I die again?" But out of his nonexistent mouth came no sound as he was a caterpillar only a few pews were heard. And so the story of Yun Jhin started, as a normal tree caterpillar with no cultivation powers, he was going to be an easy target to the birds of prey. But this wasn''t going to happen anytime soon, right now Yun Jhin had to put his pride down and do something he would never have thought to do before, eat leaves! There were multiple leaves down on the ground left by the mother of the bunch of larvae, Yun Jhin felt especially weak as he was forcefully reincarnated and he started to eat and eat, till he ate all of the leaves down, he became as full as he could, transforming from the small shape that he was formerly into a fat caterpillar that could barely move because of its weight. Suddenly some words appeared in front of him which said: [Host consumed many leaves and is advised to begin the first evolutionary phase from his larvae form to his child caterpillar form.] As much knowledge as he had from his previous lives Yun Jhin knew that caterpillars had very few growth phases and the last one made them into a butterfly finally cutting off their evolutionary path. Yun Jhin looked around himself and realized that he couldn''t do anything, he was too weak, he needed to gain strength before he could leave the nest, and as a larva, he couldn''t. He would need to reach the last phase of being a caterpillar before he found himself to be strong enough to leave the tree and see where he was situated. He decided to use this system he acquired to his advantage, he cultivated countless strange techniques before and he wasn''t going to inquire much about the system, after all, he had similar experiences in the past but they were either weaker or hallucinogen involved. But for now, the system looked pretty solid to him. Yun Jhin laid down his fat caterpillar body and started to sleep, this was what his body told him to do so he could evolve the last words he saw before his consciousness faded were: [Host begins the evolutionary process of Larva > Caterpillar Rank 1] Chapter 2: Fratricide is the new leaf In his sleep, Yun Jhin saw scenes that happened in his former reincarnations, at first he was a young handsome teen who was strutting around a huge palace, in another one he was a poor beggar with a glint in his eyes that showed he wasn''t that normal, and there were some he wasn''t even human, with help and cultivation techniques he evolved to the point he became akin to one, but in the end, he was never something so weak as a caterpillar, all the times he wasn''t a human he was still considered a beast capable of cultivating and not a weak insect such as a caterpillar. Technically speaking not all beasts could cultivate just like not all humans could, humans needed a physique or talent to learn how to cultivate while beasts needed an adequate bloodline which caterpillars lacked, of course not all caterpillars couldn''t cultivate but from what he inferred when he looked around the size and consistency of the eggs Yun Jhin realized that he was just the most normal caterpillar type that ever was. In the end, the evolutionary process of a caterpillar would end at the butterfly and so the talent of his current life was extremely weak, Yun Jhin was considering suicide he didn''t want to bother himself trying to evolve from a caterpillar it was too much work! Suddenly he woke up as his skin started to molt and he grew up from his larvae form to a little bigger and stronger form, now he could move around instead of just staying on the same spot, he saw some new leaves were added on the ground and he immediately went to eat them not leaving anything behind for the future larvae. Yun Jhin could care less about some weak caterpillars he was a peak cultivator and he would eat as many leaves as he wanted! Suddenly some notifications appeared in front of him from the system: [If the host dies he won''t reincarnate again] [Host is full again, eat 5 more times to reach Caterpillar Rank 2] [Caterpillars have 3 ranks and afterward, the host will have to evolve into a butterfly unless certain conditions are met] Yun Jhin''s nonexisting eyes widened as he read the system notifications as he thought what do you mean no more reincarnations? what the hell was this bullshit? I have reincarnated countless times with no problems this was the first time I was getting denied! He wanted to ask the system whatever it meant but it didn''t respond at all, seems like he didn''t have any control over it or he just wasn''t strong enough to make it respond to him. Nothing happened as he waited for more leaves, Yun Jhin felt like he wouldn''t survive outside without reaching the max rank of a caterpillar he needed to eat more to evolve! Evolution, evolution just like in his past lives all needed to be done by evolution, Yun Jhin thought hard about some of his past information, non cultivating animals were things that he didn''t care much about so, he had almost no information about them, but there was a chance for normal animals to gain cultivation talent, they needed to eat a cultivation treasure and be lucky enough to not explode from its power. Yun Jhin didn''t have many skills he could use in the body of a caterpillar, his soul got thinned and weakened from the reincarnation process so if he overused it in the caterpillar body it might even explode! He needed a strong enough body to be able to use his soul powers properly, and now that was the thing he lacked the most if he would put the humans at 1 he would be -1 in terms of strength agility, and vitality, however, his intelligence was top notch! but what use would be the intelligence without any power to use it? he would need to have at least a 1 in vitality before he could use his soul power properly. Yun Jhin sighed as he looked around, there wasn''t anything he could after he ate all of the leaves, but he looked at the egg sacks that haven''t hatched yet, it wasn''t the first time he would have done cannibalism, would the sacks help him evolve? He tore down on the sacks and started to eat them opening up his small mouth and taking bites out of the egg sacks till none were left, his body felt full and disproportioned as a notification appeared in front of him: [Host has eaten it''s brothers and sisters and directly skips all other evolutionary processes to reach Rank 3] Suddenly Yun Jhin blacked out for what felt like hours on end as memories started to play again in his mind when he woke up he was now a proper adult Caterpillar, he directly left the nest and started to walk slowly on the tree''s surface, as he looked around he realized that he was in a cemetery! Some humans who wore dark gowns were talking under the tree near a tomb: "The sect master gave us such a shitty job, why do we have to kill the revenants, shouldn''t that be the job of the newbies?" The other human said in a high pitched tone of voice towards his companion: "You shut up, we only got in this problem because you couldn''t keep your d*ick in your pants when you saw Hall Master Yuria." The man chuckled awkwardly, he was caught beating the meat near Hall Master Yuria''s place, and unfortunately for his friend who was coincidently walking by he got implicated by the pervert. Yun Jhin listened deeply to what they were talking about, it seemed there was a sect situated nearby, and from the looks of it, it wasn''t a friendly one as it dealt in death decay, and necromancy. But this was just like home for Yun Jhin, well he had many lives where dealt in such practices and it could be said he enjoyed the evil branch of cultivation the most, after all, the evil cultivation was superior in his opinion. However, he decided to retreat to a higher vantage point as there was nothing he could do he was a caterpillar with no power, all he could do was try to eat new things and see if he could evolve into something else besides a normal butterfly, He evolved faster due to eating his unborn siblings, he tried to eat some leaves and got the following notification: [Eat 100 more leaves before you can evolve into a butterfly.] Eating more leaves was out of the question for Yun Jhin now, after all, he didn''t want to become a butterfly with no future, he needed something else, but what else could he eat? he needed to eat something, he tried some tree bark and after a long time he finally ate some and he gained another notification: {Eat 100 more tree bark pieces to evolve into a tree butterfly.] Tree butterflies were a variation of normal butterflies still not being cultivation worthy, he needed a variant that he could cultivate with, as long as he could get his hands on one such variant he would be able to find a cultivation technique, after all, with so much time passing by and so many reincarnations he got too many cultivations techniques, he could find one for even the lowliest beings that could cultivate, unfortunately, he was in a body that couldn''t cultivate! Yun Jhin sighed inside as he looked around and he couldn''t see anything else that he could eat, what could he do, in the corner of his unexisting eyes, he finally saw the duo move as a withered arm started to get out of the tomb nearby them breaking through the cement and trying to leave it''s resting place. Maybe eating some undead could help, in his memories, Yun Jhin remembered a caterpillar known as corpse eater, it could cultivate, but he couldn''t get near the undead unless it wouldn''t move, there were also the maggots inside the body of the undead that were stronger than he was. What could he do? normally disciples would thoroughly destroy the body to get rid of such cases... Yun Jhin thought a bit about it and his small body started to move down the tree he quickly got to the earth and hid as well as he could, the disciples made quicky work of the corpse and were ready to incinerate it when Yun Jhin suddenly made a strange sound that seemingly came from the tree, he used his soul to send out a wave that made the apprentices think that there was a sound coming from the tree. Almost exhausted to death Yun Jhin crawled towards the corpse while the apprentices started to look at the tree and inspected it, this was a sound they never heard in their lives and different from the grunts and moans of the undead. Yun Jhin took a quick bite of the corpse and his body froze as he looked at the notification in front of him: [Eat a whole corpse before you can evolve into the corpse devouring caterpillar.] This was practically impossible! Yun Jhin retreated as the apprentices came back and they thoroughly destroyed the undead corpse then left the area disappearing in the bunch of tombs to find a new target. Yun Jhin thought that it wasn''t practically possible to eat a whole body, he only took a very small bite that wasn''t even worthy of an ant bite and he needed to eat a whole adult body to become a corpse devouring caterpillar. The only way to do that would be to distract the disciples from a body for days or even weeks even maybe months. Yun Jhin got a headache, in his previous lives everything was extremely easy for him, he got his hands on the best cultivation resources as long as he showed his talent no matter the sect he was in, as long as he got a good to use body he would pump it with the highest quality cultivation technique till it became a worthy physique to him. But now he needed to use his brain more than before! even though he had a lot of information and ''wisdom'' he never used more than he needed because everything fell in his palms at the first moment he showed his talent or the moment he cultivated for a good enough while. And for now, he would have to create a good enough plan to divert the attention of the corpse cleaning apprentices for months? This was what the grunts he had did for him or else they died. Yun Jhin sighed as he started to think, the best way was to create a fake treasure and make them look for it but how? Then a lightbulb lit up in his mind as he said to himself: "Even though I would tire myself to almost die every time I do it I should be able to use that technique albeit barely, I would need to do it many times but in the end, it would be worth it." Yun Jhin knew what he had to do and immediately went to work, of course only after he ate enough and slept to restore his weary caterpillar body, his soul was weaker than before but it could recover with time however no matter how strong the soul was it couldn''t be used at its full potential without a strong enough body. [Host needs to engage in the evolutionary process himself even if he eats the required amount of materials.] This was what Yun Jhin wanted to hear as he already quite a lot of leaves, he made a gamble, after all after eating and resting his body would feel refreshed and like new, this might have been another effect of the system. Yun Jhin looked down from the tree as the apprentices appeared again and sighed, he needed time to enact his plan so he could only start when these guys left. But suddenly the apprentice threw his clothes away and pinned the other apprentice down on the ground, Yun Jhin took a better look and realized that the other apprentice was female. Yun Jhin sighed as he looked down at his caterpillar form, he now had no little friend down there and that made him sad as he remembered his former glory days. He decided to go back into the nest and ignore the people down. He thought he would have his fun in the future. Chapter 3: One plan to eat a corpse After the apprentice duo finished their ''business'' I decided to leave my nest after I heard no more sounds, I crawled outside and saw them just putting their clothes back, the woman had a short pixie cut and looked like a tomboy she looked wronged as she looked at the man with short black hair which was shadowing his eyes as she said with a tear streaking down her face: "You animal you didn''t even spare me..." The man chuckled as he looked at her and said: "Of course I didn''t you were the only one that escaped my clutches in the outer sect, be a good girl and don''t tell anyone or my uncle will use you just like I did, and let me tell he won''t be as gentle as I was." The woman''s face whitened at the mentions of his uncle and she put her clothes back on her body quickly while running away when suddenly an arm clutched her ankle from the ground, an angry expression took her face as she stomped on the undead''s arm and destroyed it quickly with a bunch of weak fire that shot out of her hands. The undead arm was destroyed but the corpse didn''t make itself visible as he seemingly knew it was going to get destroyed if it left its hiding place. (...) I looked around and saw the man chuckling to himself as he started smoking a tobacco pipe, he felt refreshed after he put down such a fierce lady and reminisced his past accomplishments, I knew that look because I would look like that when I was thinking back on how I conquered so many celestial ladies. This guy would make the perfect bite, I started to use my soul to create a delayed sound, from what I could infer from his body language he would come around here again and pin the woman down at the same place just to humiliate her further and make her his slave. I have done many similar things in the past and knew how these people thought, even though he lacked finesse in his actions at the core they were the same, the creation of the delayed sounds would persist since he would come again, looking at his age and build I guessed he would come back with her in tow after a few hours. As I waited I munched on leaves to restore my power while I also half slept keeping half of my soul awake to continue creating the delayed sounds, if I wasn''t wrong they would come back around... After a few more minutes of waiting they finally came back, it was approximately 4 hours since they finished their first round, It wasn''t that impressive as I had already done around 10 thousand concubines at the same time, but this kid wasn''t bad for his low cultivation base, I might even have taken him as an apprentice if I wasn''t a caterpillar. I sighed as I finally let the delayed sounds appear, by now another undead appeared which was quickly killed before I could let the sounds out, just like I calculated. (...) Yun Jhin looked down at the undead''s body as the sounds started to appear around the cemetery, the man eyes widened in surprise and delight as he slapped the woman unconscious, he didn''t even get his pants back up as he suddenly ran towards the location of the sound. Yun Jhin shook his head as he took back his thought of taking the young man as an apprentice, no apprentice of his would run around with his pants down. Yun Jhin crawled down from the tree and approached the unmoving corpse on the ground and the unconscious woman, he started eating the corpse slowly as the woman came back to her consciousness and ignore the corpse on the ground. Her ears perked up as she heard the sound from before and just like the young man she started to run in its direction, after a short while the sound stopped but the duo never came back. (...) As I started to dig into the corpse, the decayed blood entered my mouth and I didn''t think like a caterpillar, so I thought I wouldn''t feel anything but I felt disgusted, I wasn''t sure why, In the past, I did eat a lot of corpses before, maybe caterpillars weren''t intended to eat meat, but I stopped thinking about such things and continued eating. Fortunately, the system helped me with this as normally a caterpillar wouldn''t be able to eat meat. the decayed meat that was as grey as it could be, the dead fried maggots around the body, the crunching of the bones under my altered Caterpillar mouth, time passed by as I slept in the body but just like I calculated no one else came. I ate and ate fell full and slept, as It continued my body changed it became stronger, faster and I could eat longer and longer, finally, after 2 months of eating at the corpse I finally finished it, blood maggots bones and everything else, I ate everything! (...) Strange changes happened to Yun Jhin''s little caterpillar body as it started to grow in height and weight, suddenly a notification from the system appeared, instead of the green screen that appeared before now it turned into a deep decaying purple as it said: [Corpse fully digested, Host is ready for the Corpse devouring caterpillar evolution!] It was time to change from this weak caterpillar form that incapable of cultivation to a similarly weak caterpillar form but one which could give me way more many paths of growth! Yun Jhin took his fat bloated body towards the nest and found it to be full of leaves, a grieving butterfly could be seen inside it, seeing one of its children being alive and well it finally made a strange sound as it approached but then it smelled a different scent on it as it started to screech. Butterflies could screech? Yun Jhin thought, but well he did eat his siblings, however, this butterfly looked like it wanted to attack as it waved his wings towards Yun Jhin and tried to throw him off the nest, fortunately, Yun Jhin''s was now too fat for the feeble butterfly to throw him out! He was almost like a rotund ball as he didn''t digest everything yet, he rolled on the butterfly and squashed it into a mush which he also ate! {Conditions met for a variant of corpse-eating Caterpillar, changed to family eating Caterpillar!] Yun Jhin didn''t think he would be so lucky he would be able to eat his mother, he knew of the variant of family eating caterpillar, it was different kind of caterpillar which evolved from eating its siblings and parents, it was one of the vilest caterpillar known to the cultivation bestiaries, however, in the end, it was still a caterpillar that even the lowest cultivators would scorn at. However, for Yun Jhin, even the smallest improvement would make a huge change in the future as he had tons of cultivation techniques. Yun Jhin chuckled inside as he went to sleep in the nest. Eating a corpse and his mother made him feel so full like he couldn''t eat anything again, he started sleeping as his caterpillar form started to change it''s color from a normal green to a deep dark, he started to grow from the length of an infant''s finger to the height to an adult ring finger, a skull pattern appeared on his back that could only be discernible if he grew up to his full length. Finally, after 30 hours of sleeping Yun Jhin woke up as refreshed as he could be as suddenly his stomach started growling! As a family eating caterpillar he was cursed with eternal hunger but since he was in a cemetery he would do a favor to the corpse cleaning apprentices and make the cemetery his buffet! Family eating caterpillars were different from normal caterpillars as they were as quarter as strong as a normal human child, meaning that as long as Yun Jhin could get near a corpse be it moving or not he could eat it if he made a good enough plan. And even though he wasn''t extremely smart when it came to plans he was a genius with multiple reincarnations which made him very experienced when it came to combat to a point where he would act instinctively when it came to dodging, he would drill into the earth and hide into the shadows where he would devour unsuspecting undead! As Yun Jhin made his plan he quickly drilled into the earth using his new corpse-eating teeth they were sharp enough to slash meat and bone and eat them at a way faster pace compared to the 3 months it took him to first finish that one body, he dropped into the catacombs below the cemetery as he looked around, mindless undead humans were sleeping here and there. The cemetery was cleaned so very few undead were still intact, most of them were destroyed and cleansed, they were the results of failed corpse refining experiments of the nearby sect. (...) I started munching on one nearby undead and finished his whole body in ten hours, I got bloated as I hid deeper in the earth to fully consume his nutrients when a notification took me away from my musings: [Eat 100 bodies to achieve rank 2, the family eating caterpillar has 9 ranks you have to go through before you can evolve into a Death Butterfly.] (...) The Death Butterfly was the next evolution of the family eating caterpillar Yun Jhin also knew of the next evolutions about the Death Butterfly, which was Flesh-Eating Butterfly and Monstrous Butterfly, but he didn''t intend to go down this path, he needed to unlock a higher level bloodline, he needed to devour something else to change from family eating caterpillar to a different type of caterpillar, he needed to become a devilish caterpillar the highest bloodline known to the caterpillar kind! However to do that he guessed he would need to devour high demons and devils, right now he couldn''t even devour a hell salamander so he put that thought away. Right now he would have to reach rank 9 of the family eating caterpillar before he found a substitute to evolve into a different caterpillar, he wouldn''t go down the butterfly evolution path until he gained the best bloodline! Yun Jhin started to sleep as his soul kept replaying information that he would need in the future, due to Hades''s intervention his memories didn''t get fully wiped but he still lost quite a few of them... Yun Jhin slept unknowingly to him his soul was bleeding out some memories, even though they weren''t that important as long as he didn''t heal his soul quickly he might even start losing important ones! Chapter 4: Soul leakage Yun Jhin woke up from his dream with a feeling of cold sweat on his caterpillar body but it was just a hollow feeling as he couldn''t truly sweat, he stood there unmoving as he started to analyze his soul and he said slowly in his mind: "A soul leakage... this reincarnation is more and more problematic, how can I fix the hole in my soul?" Yun Jhin knew of many ways to fix it but he needed the proper materials, unfortunately for him, most of the materials were either extremely rare or expensive or just out of his proverbial hands right now. Yun Jhin knew that if he lost memories he would continue to lose them to the point his soul would become empty like one of a newborn he would transform into an idiot for the rest of his life! Because the hole would remain there no matter what he would learn in the future it would leak from there slowly and transform him back into what he was before. Yun Jhin slowly pondered what to do as his body was now full of energy, there was a more primitive way to fix the problem, and since he was in the right place to fix his soul he guessed he could only take this one. He started to look around and he ignored the sleeping undead, he needed to find souls! Souls were of the energy plane and they could be used to heal someone''s else wounded soul through a certain technique he knew, however, this technique put a huge burden on the user and if he wasn''t in his right mind there was a chance to develop a multiple personality disorder or even explode! Luckily for Yun Jhin, he had mastered this technique back in one of his older reincarnations, as he looked around he finally spotted a darkened patch of energy, it was a tortured soul of the undead, it became an evil spirit after being unable to achieve reincarnation up till now, Yun Jhin quickly approached him and opened his ''mouth'' and immediately the soul went directly into his body where his soul started to refine the soul who was screeching and shouting. Dark Soul flames came out of Yun Jhin''s soul as he refined the weaker soul however the soul was too weak and he couldn''t patch the hole at all, it helped him but it was only a temporary seal, he needed a stronger soul, but where could he find such a soul? This was a cemetery meant for the failed experiments of the nearby sect, there was no way Yun Jhin would find a good enough soul to fix his soul leakage problem when suddenly a notification from the Caterpillar system appeared: [Soul devoured, devour 100 more souls to transform into a soul-devouring caterpillar.] [Soul devouring caterpillar gets the ability to self heal through eating other souls, however, if you evolve to the soul-devouring caterpillar you can''t revert to your family eating caterpillar.] (...) I could care less what this damned system told me if I needed to become a soul-devouring caterpillar to fix my soul it didn''t matter, my memories were more important than this body, the soul-devouring caterpillar was still a cultivating insect so I could still make do with that evolution, it had fewer evolutions than the family eating caterpillar but I didn''t mean to evolve from this weak caterpillars anyway. I continuously searched the catacombs for souls and fortunately, the souls hid from the apprentices of above, unlike the dumb ghouls the souls had a little bit of clarity in them that scared them away from the apprentices who would harvest them for soul pills. Instead of becoming soul pills, they would become my food! (...) Yun Jhin searched and devoured, searched, and devoured, always walking forward, there was no taste nor crunches, it felt hollow as he continuously refined the souls, it was just like a chore for him, it was harder to find the souls rather than refining them. After a few days of searching the catacombs, he finally refined 100 souls! He created a cocoon over himself as the system said in his ears: [Evolving from family eating caterpillar to soul-devouring caterpillar, power changed, the body adapted to better capture souls, strength reduced, vitality reduced, agility increased, rank reset to 1.] Yun Jhin shook his head as he left the cocoon, now he changed to a blue spectral caterpillar with strange purple dots as its eyes, his length remained the same but he grew wings and he felt faster than before, the power of the family eating caterpillar and soul-devouring caterpillar was equal it''s just that the family eating caterpillar was a mutant among its kin and it could evolve more times, so it had better potential. Unlike the family eating caterpillar, the soul-devouring one could only reach rank 6 instead of 9. The higher the rank the caterpillar could reach before evolving the better it was, at maximum, it could reach the rank of 10,000. However those were the devilish and godly caterpillars of legends that Yun Jhin haven''t met even when he reached the peak of his power, they were elusive creatures that liked to hibernate for the time when they would evolve in their butterfly form. The hibernation period of such creatures was in the millions of years or even tens of millions, technically speaking these types of beings were the best for Yun Jhin as he wanted a longer and longer life expectancy. Yun Jhin shook his head as he cleared his mind using a mantra he knew from his previous life, he looked down at his body as he felt that now with the help of his constitution he could fix a patch in his soul as long as he ate enough souls, even notified him with the number: [To fix the host''s soul 1000 weak souls are needed, 100 medium souls or 1 strong soul.] Weak souls came from people without any cultivation, medium souls came from people withing the first cultivation realms while strong souls came from those within the middle, there was no way to get any of those, even if he could drag some cultivators into the tombs there wasn''t a good way for him to kill them and absorb their souls. Only if he could control the ghouls... Suddenly a flash appeared in his purple eyes, maybe as a soul-devouring caterpillar he could control the zombies! He found a sleeping zombie and used his mind to imprint a contract into the zombie''s empty mind, suddenly the zombie''s eyes opened as it stood there without moving, his wide eyes were looking at Yun Jhin without saying anything, Yun Jhin gave him some mental commands and he moved as he intended. Yun Jhin started laughing as he looked at the zombie but all that came out of his body was a high-pitched chirp sound. Yun Jhin ignored the chirping sound and then he continued to enslave more and more zombies, unfortunately, his soul was injured and he needed to enslave only a limited number, he thought that 20 zombies were enough to deal with the weaklings outside as long as he controlled them, he was a master in battle formations and the apprentices shouldn''t know any techniques besides conjuring fire. Yun Jhin grinned as he looked at his zombie squadron and then made them drag some apprentices under the ground along with his help and soul cries they dragged two unsuspecting apprentices under the ground they were unknown to Yun Jhin but he could care less, he immediately sent a soul cry inside the duo''s mind and shook the membrane of their souls making them both nauseous, as a soul-devouring caterpillar he gained the ability to control his soul better however his body still wasn''t strong enough to fully handle it, at the same time it was also injured so he could only use what he dubbed as ''parlor tricks''. However, these ''parlor tricks'' of his were most deadly to newbies who only entered the first level of the earthly domain, they could barely conjure some flames with their inner qi as they tried to defeat the zombies while their soul shook, unfortunately for the duo the zombies bit them hard scratched at them and even ripped one of their arms off before they both died. They died a painful death and their souls were full of vengeance towards these beings that dragged them under the catacombs where they found their resting place, a thing for them as the vengeful soul was the favorite snack of Yun Jhin, he opened his ''mouth'' and absorbed both souls he now just needed 98 more! Yun Jhin knew how evil sects acted, at most, they would send more people to investigate, if they still didn''t find anything after they lost enough people they would just ''recruit'' more people and send them here, in the end, if they didn''t find anything they would finally put a middle level to investigate, by then he would have already fixed his soul and left the cemetery! Yun Jhin chuckled as he waited for more apprentices to enter the cemetery, to him they were the sweetest nectar and the best nourishment to his injured soul, his soul wasn''t even at 1% of his original power or else these souls wouldn''t do a damn thing to heal it. But for him, it was a stroke of luck and a curse at the same time that he was reborn as a caterpillar if he got reincarnated anywhere else with this soul leakage he would have most likely become an idiot. Yun Jhin sighed as he enslaved the duo''s bodies, due to the dark energy in the cemetery most bodies thrown here would become undead after a while, to not waste his time Yun Jhin already put two contract seals in their memory sea, when their body fully turned into undead he would have already controlled them! Yun Jhin waited for hours and hours that turned into days before some other apprentices were sent out to investigate, now there were 3 more making their number 5 in total. Yun Jhin just took it as extra food as his two new cronies were already up and ready, he killed two of his normal zombies and changed them with the cultivator ones who had a sturdier body. Yun Jhin knew when to attack, suddenly when the team of 5 people got under Jhin''s location one of the now undead cultivators immediately dragged an unsuspecting apprentice to his death, Jhin immediately killed him and absorbed his soul refining it into his own. The other apprentices weren''t so easy to trick as they already knew where to look, their leader looked at the ground and shouted: "They are in the catacombs be wary of the hands!" Yun Jhin shook his head, the man''s warning wouldn''t do anything, they were doomed to join his soul as nutrients so he could repair the leakage, just like everyone else that appeared in front, be it either friend or foe, Yun Jhin was a man who would get what he wanted no matter the price or the actions he needed to take. Suddenly one of the apprentices from above shot a fireball that immediately incinerated one of the zombies. Yun Jhin narrowed his purple dots that acted as his eyes as he looked up, it was time to show these people what a reincarnated cultivator could do. Chapter 5: Underestimation Yun Jhin started to give out orders to the zombies making them spread out so they wouldn''t all catch on fire by a lucky strike from the apprentices from above, they were now huddled together back to back trying to see any movement below, waiting to strike again with a fireball. Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked at the four people outside and he suddenly threw out a wave of soul power-infused attacks immediately rattling the apprentice''s brains. Another hand popped out of the ground dragging another fellow down into the catacombs, the zombies swarmed him like a horde, his soul left his body as Yun Jhin absorbed it quietly delighted at the taste of the soul of a cultivator which was way tastier to him compared to normal souls. He would have licked his lips if he had a tongue and for the matter lips as well, he did the same thing as before, however, unlike before a fireball suddenly hit nearby almost hitting Yun Jhin head-on and ending his reincarnation cycle forever, cold sweat appeared on his soul form as he looked up and sensed the people above. They were all scared and one of them randomly threw a fireball that almost ended his life! Angry at his complacence and the other party''s luck he immediately sent out his most powerful soul wave stunning the trio, dragged underground while being stunned they were light work, the souls devoured, strengthening Yun Jhin''s soul and with the medium souls he acquired he even was ready to rank up as the system notification appeared: [Ready to rank up to soul-devouring caterpillar Rank 2] It would be quite sometime before another patrol party would come up to give themselves on a silver platter to the overlord caterpillar so he decided to take the notification seriously and he started his evolution process directly while being guarded by his new zombies, he already used his soul technique to enslave the other would-be zombies and ghouls. After 6 days of incubation Yun Jhin finally broke through again reaching the soul-devouring caterpillar rank of 2, he could feel his soul mending at a quicker speed as he grew stronger and bigger, his wings turned transparent and his ''eyes'' glowed with a deeper purple color, his body color also changed to a deep dark blue, his length increased to the length of two adult fingers, his width that of a kids palm. Yun Jhin wasn''t interested in his outer appearance as he looked at his newly risen slaves and nodded to himself, with the boost from being rank 2 he would need fewer souls to fix his soul and he would also devour them faster, the power of the soul-devouring caterpillar was useful for him now but in the future, after he fixed his soul leakage he would immediately abandon it. He couldn''t start cultivating either, he needed the body to be at the peak of its cultivation capability before he started, that meant rank 6 but if he changed his race his progress would be reset and he would need to rank up again, he didn''t know if his cultivation would reset as well, he first needed to get to rank 6 and cultivate a bit before he changed his race to know what would happen. Fortunately for Yun Jhin the patrol team this time came in the tens, but it obvious these people were all people who just started to refine their bodies, they were cultivators but they were the weakest of them all. None of them took Yun Jhin''s attention they were all weaklings, he immediately gave some orders to the zombies as he now sent out his soul waves at a certain group of three people who were huddled together, immediately they were dragged down and devoured by Yun Jhin, the others were scared like chickens, only one of them looked down and seemingly saw Yun Jhin''s form in his pupils as he muttered: "Soul devouring caterpillar?" When Yun Jhin heard the teen''s voice through his mental network he immediately became interested, he sent out a few mental waves towards the teen and his brain shook as he fell to the underground. The teen wore the same dark outfit as the others, his dark green hair was peculiar as his gray pale orbs, he wasn''t handsome by any other case but he looked quite different due to the uniqueness of his hair color and eyes. Suddenly he got up and a fire started to immolate the nearest zombies, fortunately, they weren''t the ones made from cultivator corpses, it seemed him falling was a feint, he used this to make himself look vulnerable before counterattacking! Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he observed the green-haired youth better, could there something different about him? he was in the earthly realm that was for sure, not that high either, at most the 3rd refining, he must have learned how to create flames just recently, there was something strange about him that made Yun Jhin attracted to him, like devouring him would give him a huge boost that would give him a big difference in his future evolutions, did the kid have a special bloodline or physique? (...) I looked at the kid with narrowed eyes as I controlled the cultivator bodies to attack him when suddenly from above some fireballs dropped directly on a few other zombies and one even almost hit me as well, I flew deeper into the catacombs as I gave orders to the remaining zombies to kill the green-haired youth, I made them take a circular formation and hug him at the same time if he tried to immolate the zombies he would burn himself as well! The youth smile disappeared from his face as I made the zombies bite into his flesh and drag him towards me, it seemed the mental connection he had with his teammates broke off as no more fireballs were sent down, either that or they ran out of energy. (...) It was a bit strange considering they hit so many zombies accurately, the teen must have a treasure on him that was for sure, there was no way an earthly realm fledgling had such a strong soul that he could communicate with others, this could only be done at the heavenly realm and above. Yun Jhin slowly approached the teen as he flew near him when the teen''s voice entered his ears: "Caught you." Suddenly a bunch of fireballs fell from above almost immediately engulfing Yun Jhin''s frail caterpillar form! Almost dead and burnt to a crisp Yun Jhin sent his orders angrily at the zombies killing the green-haired youth, as fast as his little body let him he devoured the man''s soul and body, leaving behind only a special type of conch shell, fortunately, he already reached rank 2 and his body was sturdy enough to survive the fireballs, however, if anything else hit him right now he would instantly die, he needed to recover, he left the zombies behind as he crawled away not caring if they were annihilated or not. [Host situation is critical, host devoured a special kind of body and a soul artifact, due to the soul artifact your soul can be mended, the special fortuned constitution is added to the collection, devour 1000 fortuned ones to become a fortuned caterpillar, the system recommends to the host to find a hidden place to recover the host''s physical strength and mend his soul!] Yun Jhin already knew that he didn''t need the system to remind him, he knew he felt something strange coming from the teen''s body, that was the fortuned energy! Fortuned people were extremely rare people that were loved by the universe, they tended to go pretty far in their cultivation if they weren''t found out, however, most of the time old monsters like Yun Jhin would find out they have fortune energy in their body and try to assimilate them for themselves, but Yun Jhin tried this many times before but he couldn''t just take a hold of the energy it would always slip between his fingers, as the universe''s hatred for him increased every time he has slain one more fortuned person, maybe that was also one of the reasons he couldn''t breakthrough. He could hear the zombies moan behind him, they were becoming undead effigies as they burnt to the ground due to the efforts of the apprentices, he couldn''t control them anymore and he let them do as they saw fit, even though a lot of them died almost 18, they still brought down 2 other apprentices, however, that left Yun Jhin to deal with at least 17 more. Yun Jhin knew there was no chance he could deal with them by himself and he already gained what he needed. Now he needed to find a quiet place where he could undergo his soul mending and recovery of his physical strength, being a caterpillar with wings he was quite fast as he drilled down into the earth then he hid as deeply as he could rolling himself into a ball and starting the healing process. He could hear footsteps above him, the disciples didn''t look down as they started to run rampant in the catacombs, Yun Jhin frowned he won''t be able to use the same strategy as before as it seemed they were ready to destroy all of the remaining corpses in one fell swoop! He didn''t need their help anymore, now he just needed to find another evolution he could hang on to after he mended his soul. Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he used the artifact and the soul of the fortuned green-haired youth to mend the hole in his soul, slowly but surely his physical strength and mental one was restoring themselves at a quick speed, after he woke up he could feel that his powers were back to normal, his soul wasn''t leaking memories anymore, fortunately, he only lost some of his earliest reincarnations that weren''t that useful, even though he also lost some knowledge about some type of caterpillars it wasn''t anything big. Yun Jhin sighed as he got out of from the ground and looked around, he didn'' see any zombies as he flew around, only smoldering ashes were left behind, the bodies of the cultivators were of the same state as the zombies, it seemed they knew there was something below the ground that was more terrifying than the zombies, Yun Jhin knew that he couldn''t stay under the catacombs any longer or else the higher-ups of the sect might come to investigate and he wasn''t ready at all for something like that! Yun Jhin drilled out of the ground and flew away from the catacombs, as he looked around he saw the sect that stood nearby the cemetery, it was full of dull black painted houses that were almost ready to fall, they looked like the houses of commoners of the lowest rung lived in. But those were only the one at the outskirts of the sect, there were also better houses and even a palace in the middle of the sect, the palace was painted brown purple and Yun Jhin could feel the power of a peak earthly expert living in there, hidden he could even feel a heavenly expert. Yun Jhin sighed as he looked around, maybe he could hide inside the dilapidated houses, with some luck he could find a starving disciple that he could enslave with his soul will. Chapter 6: Mind controlling caterpillar Yun Jhin flew quickly, looking around the dilapidated houses with his soul will, he tried to find a very weak soul that he could take control of, he needed one human to control so he would be able to infiltrate the sect and get his hands on better materials that he needed to eat to evolve, as for the fortuned caterpillar evolution, where could he find 1000 fortuned people? Fortuned people were people that the universe loved and they were as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns, he decided to stop thinking about the fortuned caterpillar form as it wasn''t even remotely possible to put his hands on it, technically speaking the fortuned caterpillar was a higher existence compared to the celestial and devilish ones, after all, it would be the most loved caterpillar of the universe. But the universe was currently directly hating Yun Jhin for how many ''sons and daughters'' he slaughtered, how could the system transform him into a fortuned caterpillar he didn''t know, was the system above the universal laws? that wasn''t right at all. He shook his head as he stopped thinking about such things, he finally found a weak will enough he could take control of and flew directly into the dilapidated house that was ready to fall on its inhabitant''s head. It was a poor boy that looked to be around 8 years old, he looked sick as his countenance was so pale it was almost transparent, his stomach was grumbling as he looked around trying to see any bug or thing he could eat, suddenly he saw Yun Jhin and jumped directly at him with a weak attempt to try to capture and eat him. Yun Jhin shook his head as he saw the youths attempt at capturing him, he was too weak from starvation to do anything to him, he entered the youth''s ear as a wet squelch was heard, as he entered the boy''s cranium and bit into his brain a notification appeared: [Due to your actions a different branch of the soul-devouring caterpillar has been unlocked, mind-controlling caterpillar!] [Do you wish to undergo evolution right now?] Yun Jhin closed his eyes as a cocoon started to form inside the boy''s mind, he was pretty much braindead right now, after Yun Jhin bit into his brain, he made it stop functioning, the youth was like the living dead as he collapsed on the ground, however, his stomach kept on growling even though his brain was dead his body was alive, as an evil sect which was proficient in undead Yun Jhin couldn''t take control of a dead body, he needed to keep this boy alive, he sent some of his nutrients in the boy''s body to keep it alive while he continued his evolution, afterward, he would try his best to get his hands on some food for his new body. After what felt like days of waiting for the transformation, it was finally was done, breaking out of his cocoon which also enveloped the boy''s brain he was now connected to it by a sharp stinger, he could now see what they boy saw but not feel, so he wasn''t hungry, but the body still gave him warnings when it would be injured or well hungry. His body shrank to not burden the boy''s cranium and his length and width were just a bit bigger than a normal caterpillar now, his rank was reset to 1, the mind-controlling caterpillar was a variant of the soul-devouring one and it could gain rank 7, his soul was already basically devoured after he bit into the boy''s brain but his body was still alive. The boy''s stomach continued growling as the hunger was still there, the nutrients Yun Jhin gave him were enough to keep him alive but not sate his hunger. The boy got up from the ground as he looked at his hands. (...) Finally a familiar body, I thought to myself, even though I will have to discard it in the future it was better than being a caterpillar, fortunately, this system was extremely useful and it gave me what I needed to grow stronger and evolve, at least in instructions. The boy was emaciated and small from starvation, his brown hair was also very long reaching his waist, he wore nothing but ragged clothes, he was one of the kidnapped people who didn''t have a talent for cultivation but this could change now with me in control. However, first I needed to get this body some food, afterward, I can start cultivating, a notification appeared in front of me: [Mind controlling caterpillars share their cultivation with their hosts and can absorb it back into their bodies if they wish to leave the host''s body] Very convenient I thought to myself. (...) Yun Jhin shook his head as he left the dilapidated house and walked around looking for another weak signal of life, he knew what he needed to do to fill his belly, he quickly found another weak signal, it was a little girl around the same age as the boy, her eyes widened in surprise seeing the boy as she said: "Kintaro, how can you walk? did you get some food?" Her eyes were hopeful as she looked at him, it seemed the little girl knew the boy named Kintaro, however now there wasn''t a Kintaro anymore, just Yun Jhin! Kintaro smiled at the little girl, as he devoured his soul he gained some of the boy''s memories which he was now looking through: "Yun-Yun I have gained some food, you just stay there quietly as I will feed it to you." The girl known as Yun-Yun smiled weakly at the boy as she waited, Yun Jhin kept his hands behind him as he walked closer to her, thinking that the food was behind his back she thought that he was going to give her a surprise, and a surprise he did gave her. Before he entered the house he got his hands on a sharp rock which he immediately sent through her soft skull as he got as near as possible to her, her visage was blocked into the same weak smile as before as her gray matter splattered on the ground, Yun Jhin smiled at his handy work and then quickly went to work with the rock, he cut strips of her flesh and started to devour them raw where he used one of his cultivation techniques to transform them into pure energy that sailed through his body. As he finally finished the young girl''s body and cleaned the area with her clothes he could feel the strength within himself, it was the first stage of the earthly realm, organ tempering! to be able to sustain the other temperings the body would first strengthen the organs before moving to bones muscles and lastly skin. Yun Jhin''s human skin started to itch but he chose to ignore it, but he couldn''t ignore his caterpillar body as he thrashed a little inside the brain, dead skin left his body as he threw it outside the head, form the ears of Kintaro''s body a bunch of dead skin appeared which he picked up and ate. Yun Jhin nodded his head as he checked his inner situation properly, he was at the first stage of the earthly realm and his internal organs were changing, a caterpillar didn''t have many internal organs so he skipped directly to skin tempering, however technically speaking he was still a stage 1 practitioner. He used the Devil human devouring cultivation technique combined with Kintaro''s body he easily achieved stage 1 and he was ready for stage 2, he only needed to devour more bodies to reach that stage. Yun Jhin''s smile appeared on Kinator''s body it was a scary smile someone wouldn''t want to see even in their worst nightmares, something so vile that couldn''t be explained with words alone, it was the smile of an apex predator ready to hunt. Then he shook his head as he felt Kinataro''s body shake as he coughed up a mouthful of black blood, these were the impurities that made his body unable to cultivate, he cleaned his mouth as he looked down at the black blood and left the dilapidated house, no one knew what he did here, the official apprentices wouldn''t bother themselves checking the house of slaves. Speaking from experience, kidnapped people who couldn''t cultivate would be either enslaved or thrown to the beasts that the sect reared, Kintaro was lucky and unlucky at the same time as he was sent to die slowly in these houses that were almost ready to fall on them, as Yun Jhin looked at the body''s former house, it finally fell after he breathed towards it a bit too hard. Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at the house, now that he could cultivate he could join the sect officially, it was a thing he didn''t really like, him the greatest leader of the throne of blood, to join a backwater sect that held only one heavenly realm expert? But he immediately strangled his pride as he walked towards an apprentice who was supposed to watch the slaves, he was there to make sure no one ran away and properly died in their homes so they could be thrown in the cemetery to create more zombies, those zombies based on quality would either be taken back or a patrol would come to exterminate them, however, 95% of the time they would be exterminated. The apprentice''s eyes narrowed as he looked at Yun Jhin and said: "Halt where do you think you are going, slave!" Yun Jhin shook his head as he creates a small flame in his palms and then faked that he collapsed, the apprentice eyes widened in surprise, a slave cultivated to the earthly realm? this never happened before! He quickly carried Kintaro''s feeble body away towards the sect medicine hall where he told the doctor what happened, the doctor was an old man with a blind eye who wore a white gown and brown sandals, he looked at Yun Jhin''s body and checked his pulse as he said: "Yes, hmm, yes the first stage of the earthly realm, newly entered his body is over exhausted and starved, he needs to eat, as a cultivator we need to at least give him the bare needs, unlike those trash slaves, get him some food and some robes, you will take care of him until he wakes up." He carried me towards his house which was only a little better compared to the dilapidated house that Kintaro lived before, Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at the house with his eyes narrowed, he waited for the man to give him some food and water before he woke up, the man walked up to him with a friendly gaze as he said: "Hello there junior brother, you gave me a scare back there, who would know that a slave could learn how to cultivate by themselves?" This was something that never happened before in their sect but it did happen in some nearby sects so the medicine hall elder didn''t investigate, after all, it was only a lowly disciple who broke through the first stage of the earthly realm by luck. (...) I got up from the bed and weakly smiled at the man as I said: "Might I know your name elder brother?" The man laughed as he said: "My name''s Chu Mang, what''s your name junior brother? Just so you know I was assigned by the medicine elder to look after you till you get better, I also got some robes for you." He pointed near the bed where a black robe made for my small size was neatly arranged, I faked a blush as the man turned around and put the robes on my body, it looked just like the other apprentices, I nodded to myself and said: "You can turn now elder brother Chu Mang, I''m done changing, also my name is Kintaro." The man heaved a chuckle as he said: "Ok then, if you feel better we can go to the mission hall to get you registered what do you say?" I nodded my head at him but suddenly faked a tumble as I fell from the bed, the man quickly caught me before I could fall and put me back in the bed as he said: "It seems you aren''t ready yet, go rest for a while, I will come with some food so you can recover your strength, after all, I know what you went through." A dark light went through Chu Mangs''s eyes as he said that, it seemed he was a former slave himself. I looked at his back as he left the house and thought: "I cannot kill and devour him for my cultivation, they would investigate, it''s not like he is one of the slaves, I would need to stealthily go back and eat more slaves, but if I eat too many they would realize... I need to get the job of a corpse disposer." (...) Yun Jhin knew that most of these types of sects had a corpse disposer, one of the weakest disciples who were the ones that had to carry the corpses to the cemetery, he needed to get this job so he could eat them to further his cultivation! Chapter 7: Corpse disposer Yun Jhin sat on the bed appearing sickly on the outside as he waited for the man to come back with his food, after a short while he became with a tray of dark porridge and a glass of water, he quickly ate the food to make himself look famished and waited for the nutrients to settle in his body before talking to Chu Mang: "Thanks for the food elder brother, I think after I rest a bit we could go to get me registered in the sect what do you say?" Chu Mang just nodded and left, he had his duties to do and he only came to his house very rarely, he only had a house in name as most of the time he had to warily sleep at his job, that''s why he had big dark bags under his eyes that showed that he currently lacking sleep. Yun Jhin started thinking about what he should say and do to get his hands on the corpse dispenser job, they didn''t know anything about him as the body he was using was just a slave one, so if he played his cards right he might be able to get the job easily, after all, there would never be too many corpse dispensers, every day people would die in the outer sect and their bodies would need to be disposed of. (...) I sat cross-legged on the bed as I started to do a breathing exercise, even though the exercise wouldn''t be as effective as devouring bodies it was still useful to further my cultivation and make me feel rested at the same time, due to the body''s low talent it could only be trained with extreme cultivation techniques for it to get any results. It was unfortunate I had to possess such a talentless body but there was not much I could do about it right now, I was too weak, it was impossible to currently possess anyone else besides mortals. I got up from the bed and waited, slowly time trickled as Chu Mang returned, his eyes widened as he already saw me up and about but he smiled as he looked at me: "You recovered quite fast, it seems you can''t wait to get registered, after all, it''s an honor for mortals such as us to learn cultivation and join a sect like our Corpse Refining sect." Even though he said those words I could see that he didn''t mean them, he was angry at the sect, angry that he got kidnapped and given such a shitty job, maybe the man had a wife a son, or daughter out there, now they were all alone to fend for themselves after he got kidnapped and thrown into the sect against his will. Maybe he would be useful in the future, I thought to myself as I started following him to the place where I could register in the sect. (...) Chu Mang walked slowly as Yun Jhin followed behind him, after a short while of walking they left the low leveled area of the sect and entered in the middle area, there they walked to a dark color painted pavilion with the inscriptions of some low-level formations here and there. There they met with a young man who helped them register, the man had a hooked aquiline nose and deep green eyes, his countenance was pale and he was hunchbacked, he looked to be around 25 years old as he made Yun Jhin drop some blood on a contract then he asked: "Do you have any opinions on the job you want to get?" The hunchbacked young man only asked in passing and he wouldn''t do as Yun Jhin would say, after all, he thought that the young man would want an easy job that he could laze around in just like Chu Mang. Chu Mang knew the hunchbacked young man talked about him when he asked Yun Jhin about what kind of job he wanted and didn''t say anything as he put his head down, this hunchbacked young man had a good backing in the sect and he also had a cultivation of the 4th stage in the earthly realm, he couldn''t say anything in his defense or he would be challenging the man''s authority and he might even become a corpse later. Yun Jhin slowly opened his mouth as a wronged expression appeared on his face: "I wish.. I wish I could let my former mates from the low area to their resting place, I know it''s a bit too much to ask but I feel like I owe it to them." The hunchbacked young man eyes narrowed as he looked at Yun Jhin and said: "You want the corpse dispenser job? this is one of the harsher jobs for the 1st stage newbies, you might even get attacked by the zombies from the cemetery, and your former mates will become zombies that you will have to destroy in the future, do you think you can do that?" The hunchbacked young man was testing the will of Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin''s eyes started to water and shake as he said with conviction in his tone, seemingly as if he was ready to put his life on the line to get this job: "I already lost someone important to me, and I couldn''t let her body to her final resting place, my father and mother usually told me that this is the most important ritual so they could get to the afterlife safely, please let me do it for the others." The hunchbacked young man laughed as he looked at Yun Jhin and said: "You won''t last long in this sect with your mindset, very good, go haul some corpses, they should be still warm throw them in the cemetery after you hauled 100 corpses you can come to get some pills." He waved some pills as he held them in his finger, they were food pills that were supposed to keep you full, they were better than normal food as they didn''t need to be chewed and could instantly keep your stomach full for days. Yun Jhin scoffed inside, such low-quality food pills he wouldn''t even have fed his slaves in his dungeon in his former lives, Yun Jhin''s eyes were curious as he looked at the food pill, the hunchbacked young man started to explain the benefits of the food pill then said: "My name is Gamp Ping, remember the name kid, you will see me every time you haul 100 corpses, however, you only get food pills the first time, afterward you get normal food, so I suggest you keep these food pills for dark days." Yun Jhin nodded his head quickly as Gamp Ping waved his hand indicating they could leave, Chu Mang walked away and Yun Jhin followed him slowly, Chu Mang face scrunched as he looked behind then he spat on the ground saying: "Make sure to collect some belongings from the dead or that guy will cut your contributions, you will need proof or he will overwork you, *sigh* if I knew this before I wouldn''t have accepted the guard job, he is basically making me work for free and only gives me the most basic amount of food, in the future little brother could you share some of your food with me?" As Yun Jhin took a better look at Chu Mang he realized that he seemed quite thin under his robes and nodded his head, making friends with Chu Mang was one of his plans at manipulating the man, he needed some help inside the sect, as long as he continued cultivating inside in the future he could even take control of the sect leader and get a hold of the treasury of the sect, no matter how poor the sect was it should have some good things he could use towards his evolution. (...) After I finished talking with Chu Mang about some miscellaneous things I went back towards the dilapidated houses and directly went and searched through each of them taking one corpse after another and throwing them outside, afterward I took the grouped corpses and started to carry them to the cemetery, Chu Mang looked with steely eyes at the sight and nodded his head at me, this only one of the few low-level places, as I walked towards the cemetery I met with other corpse dispensers who nodded at me as they threw the corpse away when we finally reached the cemetery. Down below a mountain of rotting corpses could be seen, some of their skins were green and blistered full of pus, some of them were already skeletons, the smell that was coming from the mountain of dead bodies was nauseating, some of them even started to move, below I could feel the power of a formation pumping the corpses with death energy that could reanimate them. I needed fresh blood and meat so I could only eat recently dead bodies for the corpse devouring cultivation technique, I ignored the decayed bodies and quickly devoured the corpse that I carried, the flesh was good but the body was also rather crunchy and dry, after all, it was a body which starved to death. I would need at least 10 more before I could reach the second stage of the earthly realm, I licked my lips to clean them off the blood and got up from the hidden place where I devoured the corpse. (...) Yun Jhin then continued back and forth devouring one corpse after another, after a while he was already at the second level of the earthly realm, bone-strengthening! One needed tough internal organs then strong bones to handle the muscles that came afterward, another batch of impurities was spat out as black blood remained there it suddenly was absorbed by the ground, Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked down at the ground that absorbed his blood, the formation from below would use them to create a corpse toxin zombie, he looked forward to seeing this zombie kill some more apprentices, eating cultivators would make him stronger at a way faster pace! Right now Yun Jhin was using the fastest and cruelest way possible to cultivate, he couldn''t wait due to his status as a caterpillar, even though he was controlling the body who knew when the body''s potential would end? it might not even reach the peak of the earthly realm, Yun Jhin could feel the body start to creak the stronger he made it, after all the cultivation technique he used right now was devilish and pretty taxing on the will, as the body had no will as he became a living dead that was controlled by Yun Jhin so the body couldn''t cultivate the technique properly. Technically speaking, Yun Jhin was forcefully making the body to cultivate the technique due to his connection with it, however, it might not be able to resist much further, the body had almost wasted all of his talents and without a true soul housing the body it would self destruct soon enough. (...) Chu Mang could make a great new body, I could also reach Rank 2 or 3 of the mind-controlling caterpillar if I took ahold of him, but let''s not waste this body yet, until it will explode I will still have use for it, Chu Mang body had a higher talent than Kitaro''s body if it wasn''t for my intervention he would have never been able to cultivate. But Chu Mang passed the talent test and even reached the second level of the earthly realm on his own. (...) Yun Jhin already knew the next body that he would snatch. he chuckled as he finally finished carrying bodies for the day and he did as Chu Mang instructed taking some keepsakes from them and presented them to Gamp Ping, Gamp Ping grumbled under his breath as he presented the unknown caterpillar with a food pill and then waved his hand angrily telling him to leave, it seemed like Chu Mang would get in trouble for telling Yun Jhin about the keepsakes. It was a good thing for Yun Jhin as the weaker the target the higher the chances for him to control their body, he felt glad that Chu Mang was such a fool who looked out for others, he would capitulate on that and take his body for his own! Chapter 8: Chu Mang Yun Jhin walked back to Chu Mang''s home as he didn''t get assigned one yet and sat down on the bed, Chu Mang came home rarely so he didn''t come back even though he knew that Yun Jhin would stay in his house. Yun Jhin observed the food pill in his hand and shook his head, such a low-quality pill won''t be useful for him, but he could use it on Chu Mang''s body after he took over it. Yun Jhin waited and waited, as he controlled the body and cultivated his caterpillar form was changing Kitaro''s cranium. His caterpillar form changed color to a fully dark purple color and due to his cultivation increase more skin started to leave the head of the body as it ate it afterward, caterpillars didn''t have bones either so his skin got strengthened again, technically speaking he would continue strengthening his skin till it became as hard as iron as he couldn''t strengthen anything else, his insides would strengthen at the same time as his skin and he would become sturdy. Being a caterpillar had some benefits it seemed, Yun Jhin finished cultivating as he felt the changes inside his caterpillar body he looked down at the door of the house as it opened slowly, in came Chu Mang who immediately collapsed inside, his body was full of injuries and bruises, his eyes were closed in pain as he groaned with a low voice. (...) I quickly approached Chu Mang as I put a hand on his shoulder and put him on the bed I let Kitaro''s body fall as I jumped away from his head and directly burrowed into Chu Mang''s with a wet squelch I finally entered his cranium area where the brain was and instantly my stinger entered his brain taking control of his body and devouring his soul. as I guessed he had a wife and a daughter outside of the sect, he was kidnapped when he came from working the fields, hmph, a poor guy even though his constitution is decent compared to that trash Kitaro he is still unable to satisfy my needs. (...) Yun Jhin immediately took the food pill from Kitaro''s body and made Chu Mang''s body eat it, then with an act of savagery he cracked Kitaro''s body skull open and started to feast, he thoroughly ate the body till nothing was left, the wet squelches and bones grinding were slowly heard if you would listen hard enough from outside, Chu Mang even licked the blood clean from the floor, then his body started healing at a visible rate, he chuckled as he looked at his new hands and said as some more dead skin was leaving his head: "Ah, the third level of the earthly realm, combined with this body which was already at level 2 I could already be considered at the middle levels of the third level." The dead skins couldn''t be wasted as they had important nutrients in them, the nutrients of the dead skin directly entered his body, he then shook his head as he muttered: "What should I say when they want to investigate Kitaro''s ''death''?" Right now Yun Jhin was playing on the sect''s ignorance but if they ever found out such a parasite as he existed they would do the best to capture him and refine him into a gu, gu''s made from soul infesting parasites were especially deadly no matter their rank. So he would have to do his best to keep his true identity a secret if he didn''t want to become a weapon in the sect masters'' hand. Yun Jhin got back to the body''s main job which was guarding the slaves, after a while, some men came to him and looked him up from head to toe as their eyes widened in surprise while saying: "How come you healed this fast Chu Mang!" They were ready to give him another walloping before they were stopped by a voice that came from nearby: "What happened to the brat, I haven''t seen him come to collect his food, don''t tell me he quit and ran away?" Yun Jhin put a very sad expression on his face as he looked down at the ground then said: "He was there when I returned home, it seemed he fed me his food pill then left to do his job but he never returned, there is a high chance he met with a mishap, maybe he died to a corpse attack..." Quite a few disciples died already so what was one more? that was what Gimp Ping thought, he looked Yun Jhin up and down for a few more times then he chuckled as he said: "It seems the food pill did you well, but it wasn''t yours, so you have to cough it back up!" One of the men suddenly punched directly towards Yun Jhin''s new body as his fist directly made contact with his stomach but instead of Yun Jhin being pushed back the man clutched his hand as he said: "Why is your stomach so hard!" Gamp Ping eyes widened as he said while looking at Yun Jhin: "You broke through the 3rd stage? it seemed that the food pill wasn''t wasted by you, good very good." Gamp Ping frail and hunched back figure suddenly and quickly made it''s way over to Yun Jhin and started to punch and kick at him, a low punch to the sternum a quick uppercut and a sweep kick that threw Yun Jhin''s body on the ground, then with a maniacal look on his face Gamp Ping threw a kick towards Yun Jhin''s balls. Finally, Yun Jhin dodged as he immediately went to the defensive punching Gamp Ping into an acupuncture point making him collapse in a heap on the ground, Gamp Ping glowered at the body snatcher as he said: "You think you are going to get away with this Chu Mang? If I want to you will be dead tomorrow!" The effect of hitting the acupuncture point wore off as Yun Jhin didn''t hit it hard if he wanted to he could have already crippled Gamp Ping, Chu Mang looked at the hunchbacked young man''s frame as he said: "Now that I broke through I''m not scared of you anyway, I can just go get another job, after all, I''m not a low leveled disciple anymore." Gamp Ping''s eyes narrowed as he heard that, it was true, as long Yun Jhin left the lower area and entered the middle area he could be accepted as a middle disciple for breaking through the third stage of the earthly realm. Gamp Ping was the local tyrant who got an easy job due to his uncle''s position, however, there were some harder jobs for the middle area sect members that Yun Jhin could do to escape from the clutches of Gamp Ping''s claws. Gamp Ping chuckled as he looked at Yun Jhin and said slowly: "Be my guest and go, let''s see how much you will live there before you will crawl back into the lower area and beg me for forgiveness." He waved his hand to his cronies, one of which was still nursing his hand, the man glared at Yun Jhin then followed Gamp Ping back to their hideout. Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked at the trio''s leaving back and shook his head as he said to himself: "Troublesome fellows, I can''t invite calamity yet, but when I will do you will all be this body''s meal!" He didn''t mean as troublesome as he couldn''t truly deal with them yet but it would be annoying and it would delay his true objectives and he didn''t want that. Yun Jhin left the lower area behind as he walked further into the sect, leaving Gamp Ping pavilion behind as it was at the entrance of the middle area, as he walked further in he met with another pavilion which was grander and more beautiful than Gamp Ping''s there he met with another senior brother who assessed his cultivation and then smiled sadistically at him: "Good job at advancing to the third stage Chu Mang, ah I didn''t know when you would, it has been almost 5 years since you joined the sect." The sect was full of psychopaths and evil people, Yun Jhin felt just like at home, but he also had to be more careful from now on as the middle area murders would be investigated thoroughly, after all, if he tried to kill people with cultivations of the third stage and above that would mean he would encroach on the main important population of the sect. Yun Jhin already knew the sect''s situation after he learned only one early heavenly realm patriarch was holding the fort, so he knew when to advance and when to retreat based on the strongest person''s cultivation. The man who was at the fifth stage of the earthly realm then put a bunch of jade slips with jobs on them that Yun Jhin could take, as he looked through them Yun Jhin''s eyes started to glow as he read a particular one and then gave it to the man, the man took the jade slip and read it while his eyes narrowed: "You want to help with maintaining the sect''s undead formation? Do you know even the littlest bit about formations?" Yun Jhin nodded his head as he said: "I have learned a bit from a book I found in the cemetery when I was sent on patrolling duty." It wasn''t strange to find such items in the cemetery as other strange things have been found before, to give him a test the man put one formation in front of him and told him to solve it, it was one of the lowliest formations in Yun Jhin''s eyes, he easily solved it in his mind but he made it look like he was struggling outside till finally after half an hour he solved it. The man eyes widened in surprise as he looked at the formation than at Yun Jhin as he said: "Damn Chu Mang I didn''t know you had a talent for formations, I''m going to tell elder Chen Ming to pick you up." A while later an elder with a wretched expression on his face came forward and sniffed Yun Jhin then he smiled as he said: "Fresh meat, very good, I heard you know something about formations, come with me to the cemetery, I know the best place you can monitor gah gah." The man coughed as dark fumes came out of his mouth and ears, it seemed he consumed some dark spirit pills in quick succession and it left behind some residues. Yun Jhin nodded his head at the elder as he cupped his fist in respect to the elder, Chen Ming immediately picked Chu Mang up like a baby chick and ran towards the cemetery. The man who was working as assessing the newly promoted stage 3 cultivators shook his head as he looked at Yun Jhin figure: "Well, you chose to work with that crazy old fool yourself." Yun Jhin kept mum as he waited to be let down on the ground, finally after a minute of waiting he was dropped near the mountain of corpses he saw before, suddenly the old man made a dive into the mountain of corpses and started to swim deep into them! Yun Jhin looked at the man and jumped down directly into the mountain of corpses as well following right behind him! Chapter 9: Corpse King As Yun Jhin started to navigate through the ocean of corpses he easily identified the elder''s location as he followed him down, he knew where the elder wanted to go, he was going directly to the deeper ends of the mountain of corpses where the core of the formation laid. Chen Ming decrepit form could be seen quickly navigating through the corpses like he was a slippery eel, Yun Jhin followed behind him while putting up a front that he was disgusted and nauseous, after all, Chu Mang wasn''t known for having an easy time with corpses. Chen Ming snorted as he looked at Yun Jhin, he thought that if he couldn''t even resist this test he would throw him out of the sect and make him join the corpse pile! Yun Jhin ignored the old man''s gaze and followed him directly, after a short while of ''swimming'' they finally dropped from the ocean of corpses into the cave that stood below them, a gray-colored formation engulfed the whole cave as dark energy seeped out of the ground directly into the corpses, some of the corpses at the bottom of the mountain would sometimes drop down and start moving, being controlled by the formation they would enter a corridor that led them to the catacombs under the cemetery. Chen Ming eyed Yun Jhin for a little while before saying in a hoarse voice: "You have to protect the formation and fix whatever damage will be inflicted by the overuse of the dark energy, here I will teach you how to do the fixes." Chen Ming walked closely as he started scribbling on the ground the way on how to fix the formation, Yun Jhin nodded his head occasionally as he explained his insights which made Chen Ming nod his head approvingly as he said: "That brat from before was right you have some talent in formations, very good I will let you take care of the formation while I will go to get some more corpses, I have heard the Sword Devil sect threw out some good 2nd stage earthly realm corpses, wait for me, I will have to show you something when I come back." Chen Ming jumped into the ocean of corpses and started to swim up and out of it, Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked at the receding figure of the decrepit old man and said to himself: "You don''t have to show me anything you dumb old man, I already know what the sect is preparing to do here, and I''m even going to give you a boost!" Formations didn''t need soul power or high cultivation as long as they were inscribed properly only the location mattered, the better the location with more spiritual energy, the better the formation would behave, the formation of the Corpse sect was complete trash in Yun Jhin''s eyes but he could make it a low-level formation if he wished so. The Corpse sect wanted to use the formation and the ocean of corpses to create a toxic corpse king, one of the few corpse puppets that could reach the heavenly realm, their body was extremely though and poisonous, one-touch and even someone at the 3rd stage of the heavenly realm couldn''t escape, there shouldn''t even be a mention about people under the heavenly realm. It also didn''t have the normal weaknesses of ghouls and zombies such as fire and ice, it was a perfect puppet that could be controlled regardless of the cultivation of a heavenly realm cultivator as long as he was in that realm. Yun Jhin started to look around the cave as he tried to identify the hidden place where the corpse king was manufactured, as he looked around slowly he used his soul will to search through the cave and quickly found out an empty place under the cave where he found a hidden trap door which he opened, there he found a corpse with no facial hair as he looked to be freshly shaved, it seemed before his last fight that leads to his death he shaved his beard, he wore a dark red samurai armor, the corpse also had a katana at his waist and no eyes, his white short hair was done in a top knot. Yun Jhin observed the corpse and then he shook his head as he muttered: "Not even 30% done, it would take up to 500 years of refining to activate this corpses potential, a waste of time and resources, this formation is truly the lowest grade of trash." Yun Jhin started to redraw some of the formations on the ground in such a way even if Chen Ming came back and he looked he wouldn''t see any difference but the lines and scribbles on the ground were way more complicated and longer than before, however, to the eye of an apprentice such as Chen Ming there would be no difference, he would just think that the formation was working at a faster speed due to the increased energy in the area. After all, this area was extremely concentrated in Yin qi which was very useful to the corpses, combined with the ocean of corpses above it was the best situation in creating a corpse king. Yun Jhin finished altering the formation just before Chen Ming came back with a few other corpses slung on his back, the corpses wore white gowns with a devil and sword etched on the back of the gown, he slowly approached Yun Jhin and looked him up and down as he said: "No Yin poisoning? very good it seems you know what to touch and what to not touch, you will stay here for a long while from now on, once a month you can go and get your allowance from Ming Shan, he is the young man who checked out your cultivation, that day you get your allowance is also your only free day of the month, now let me show you why I have taken this corpses down here instead of throwing them in the mountain up there." Chen Ming slowly walked directly to the same place that Yun Jhin investigated and opened the hidden hatch, Yun Jhin put a serious and inquiring expression on his face as he looked at the hole in the ground, Chen Ming chuckled darkly at Yun Jhin''s expression as he threw the two corpses down, sizzling sounds could be heard down there as suddenly the armor wielding corpse unhinged his jaw and immediately engulfed the two bodies immediately devouring them both, then the corpse stopped moving as it stood there stiffly. A scared expression appeared on Yun Jhin''s pale face that still had dark bags under it, Chen Ming walked towards him after he closed the hatch and said: "Don''t ever walk close to that Corpse, unless you have to feed him, let me tell you one thing Chu Mang, that corpse is like our future sect master, as long as he will continue growing and eating we will have another heavenly realm powerhouse on our side and then we could go and conquer the sword devil sect and the ice fairies sect!" A peculiar light appeared in the man''s eyes as he said the words ice fairies, Yun Jhin shook his head inside, another fool that was controlled by his carnal desires, even though he had so many concubines and wives in his past lives he only acquired them after he reached the peak of his cultivation, carnal desires were so low on his list that they almost disappeared from his vocabulary as he would never talk about them. In the end, he only used the women as his toys to release some pent up stress from not acquiring eternal life, to him they were only tools that he could use or toys he could play with, his descendants never achieved anything much either even though he gave them the best cultivation resources techniques and environment, they were all trash so he pretty much gave up on siring descendants, he could reincarnate endlessly before but now a problem came up to him. He was a caterpillar and even though he could self reproduce there was no need to even in the future he knew that he wouldn''t ever use those functions of his body, all cultivation caterpillars didn''t need mates as they could create egg sacks regardless if they were male or female. Yun Jhin shook his head as those strange thoughts wandered in his mind, he became a bit melancholic as he saw the corpse king, when he was 3 years old he created his first corpse king and he wandered down memory lane which also triggered some information that regarded his current situation. As Chen Ming left Yun Jhin behind he left him with a few more words: "Don''t forget every day the corpse needs to eat at least 2 bodies." Yun Jhin didn''t say anything until the man left but then he said slowly in a whisper: "Of course I won''t forget, from now on he won''t eat only 2 bodies, by the end of the year the sect will have their corpse king, of course, it won''t be yours but mine..." Yun Jhin went back to work on his cultivation as he sat cross-legged in the cave, sometimes he would unhinge his jaw and devour a corpse that fell from the mountain above, even though they weren''t as useful as fresh corpses the meat and bones would still help him no matter how dry and old they were, it was better than nothing, also he could employ some more cultivation techniques because Chu Mang''s body had better talent than Kitaro''s he could even discard the devil corpse devouring technique and train in something else. (...) I looked down at my hands as I clenched them, the fourth stage of the earthly realm was already in my grasp after one month of fully cultivating in the cave, I already switched from the devil corpse devouring technique as I didn''t want to discard Chu Mang''s body yet, it was useful, even though it would be hard to break through to the heavenly realm with the body it was still doable, especially that my main body as a caterpillar needed to reach it''s maxed rank before I could achieve the heavenly realm. I reached rank 4 and my body changed by quite a bit, however it was the same size, I wasn''t sure what changed to it as I didn''t have any mirrors or reflective surfaces insides Chu Mang''s cranium but I felt that my stinger was sharper, my ''eyes'' changed and I also felt that my skin toughened up a lot. (...) As Yun Jhin pondered his transformations, Chen Ming came down from the mountain of corpses as he looked at Chu Mang and said in a short and concise tone: "Your free day has come, go get your allowance and do whatever you want with it, however, don''t forget to come back, I will need to quickly leave later as I heard there was a fight between the ice fairies sect and the sword devil sect, hehe it''s been such a while since I have gotten my hands on a fairy corpse, so don''t make me wait." From the vile smile on his face, Yun Jhin already knew what the old man was going to do with the corpses and it wasn''t feeding them to the future corpse king. Yun Jhin nodded at the man and started swimming out of the ocean of corpses, he wondered what he would gain from the ''allowance'' the sect gave him, maybe it could be something useful that his main body could devour so he had a future evolution ready when he needed it. Yun Jhin slowly walked towards the middle area to the big pavilion where Ming Shan the young man that checked his cultivation was stationed. Ming Shan''s eyes widened in surprise as he saw Yun Jhin and said: "Damn you aren''t dead yet? Yin poisoning is a big problem with most disciples who are sent to the cave, it seems you are quite lucky." Yun Jhin shook his head as he said: "I might have a Yin constitution who knows?" Ming Shan nodded at him, Yun Jhin''s words made sense to him, yin constitutions weren''t that useful but they could endure the yin energy easier and they wouldn''t be poisoned by overdosing on it. He pulled something from his robes as he walked towards Yun Jhin, it was a green sack, Ming Shan opened his mouth as he said: "A corpse refining pill, 2 spirit stones, and a food pill, you should know what these do already, I will go back inside now, I have to wait for other disciples to get their allowance and I need to get theirs from the storeroom." Ming Shan walked inside the pavilion and left Yun Jhin outside, Yun Jhin weighed the sack inside his hands and left towards Chu Mang former''s home, he would see what he would do with the items there. Chapter 10: Rank 7 mind controlling caterpillar Yun Jhin walked slowly towards his body''s former house, he avoided Gamp Ping''s pavilion to not get himself in needless trouble, after all, he would leave Chu Mang''s body for a while as he would devour the food pill and spirit stones, as for the corpse refining pill it would have another use that would hasten the creation of the corpse king. Yun Jhin entered the home that he couldn''t even call home and made Chu Mang''s body put the spirit stones and the food pill on the ground, then he started to quickly devour them as he left Chu Mang''s body through his nose, Chu Mang stood there with his eyes wide open like the living dead, his soul devoured, only his body was ''alive'' but technically speaking Chu Mang was lost forever. As Yun Jhin finished eating the spirit stones and the food pill he fattened up quite a bit, he entered back into Chu Mang''s cranium where he stabbed his stinger again, as he looked down at his chest area as the body''s head fell he could see a silver pendant hanging at his neck, Yun Jhin took the pendant off from his neck and inspected it for a little bit before opening it. It was the wife and daughter of Chu Mang, they were all happily hugging each other into the photo, Yun Jhin chuckled coldly as he looked at the image then he crushed the pendant into a ball of silver that he incinerated as he said to himself: "Family? Useless, love? Useless, anything else besides power and eternal life was useless and temporary, as long as I can gain eternal life I could have as many families and love as I want, eternal life, eternal life, how much have you eluded me, killing me more than a few times, age age age." As he said the word, age three times he looked at his hands as he shook his head and continued his thoughts: "Useless attachments slow down your cultivation and cloud your judgment, I like foolish people with such attachments, they are easy to control and break, get at their family and they break down, they become angry, they become sloppy, and then they die." Yun Jhin chuckled to himself as he reminisced the many times he did such things against his enemies then he shook his head as he stopped thinking and looked at a new system notification that hasn''t appeared in front of him since he achieved rank 4: [Spirit stones are highly infused with energy and you can skip directly to rank 7, the combination of the food pill with the two-spirit stones made host''s body overflow with energy, I recommend the host to sleep as the system would help the host with the immediate evolution skip from rank 4 to 7, the excess energy will be turned into cultivation energy.] After reading the notification Yun Jhin nodded to himself as he left the house and returned directly to the cave below the corpse mountain, Chen Ming immediately left at the quickest speed, he couldn''t wait to get his hands on a fairy''s corpse from what it seemed, Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at the back of the man: "Another fool, people like him die first, he still has attachments no matter how vile they are." Yun Jhin wasn''t emotionless but the control he had on his emotions exceeded anyone he knew, even people at the same cultivation realm in his former life were jealous of his emotional control, it all led from the combination of his previous lives, all the emotions and experienced combined together, all of the cultivation techniques all of the power from before made him realize how emotional control was sometimes better than one of the highest-ranked cultivation techniques. Yun Jhin breathed in and out as he went into a trance, Chu Mang''s body looked like it was cultivating while inside the cranium Yun Jhin was evolving, directly skipping to rank 7, his body elongated and shortened as his evolution went by, his energy increased as well as his stinger that became sharper and sharper, his soul was slowly recovering its power from his previous lives but it wasn''t anything special, as long as he continued growing his soul would mend by itself. After a long while of waiting Chu Mang''s body opened its eyes as it reached stage 5 of the earthly realm, as soon as he opened his eyes the crooked nose and the smell of decay hit him, in front of him stood Chen Ming who looked at Yun Jhin as he said: "Broke through did you fledgling, you might reach my power after a few more years, aren''t you talented, I might have to call you junior brother in the future, whatever I fed the corpse in your stead, but something strange is going on, he started to eat more and more these days, according to the sect master it would be a long while before the corpse would start acting this way." Yun Jhin got up from his cross-legged position and said: "It might be due to the increased energy inside the cave, you should have felt that the Yin energy has increased in number for some reason." Chen Ming nodded his head as his white hair moved up and down, he then looked at the hidden door and said: "Ok you can feed him from now on, call for me if anything special would happen, the sect master left me to take care of the corpse, I have to immediately call on him if something happens, do you understand?" Yun Jhin nodded his head and made sure to put on a respectful expression on his face as he said: "Of course elder Chen Ming, you have taken good care of me and I will surely inform you of anything peculiar that would happen, after all, as you said the corpse has the battle power of a heavenly realm master, I would be the first one who ran away if it suddenly woke up." Chen Ming chuckled as he looked Yun Jhin up and down and said: "You are a good man Chu Mang if you keep it up the sect might even let you go back to see your family." A yearning expression overtook Chu Mangs''s face as Yun Jhin made sure to put on a good act as he said with a trembling voice: "Really? elder Chen Ming, you would talk with the sect master to let me see my family?" Chen Ming chuckled ominously as he said: "Of course just keep looking after the corpse king, when he wakes up you will be able to go see your family." Yun Jhin chuckled inside, giving out such a tempting reward, if the real Chen Ming was still in control he might even kowtow as he didn''t know 500 years would have to pass by before the corpse king would awaken, 2,3 more people would be changed before the corpse king would awaken, generally earthly realm practitioners could live for at most 300 years, if the heavenly realm patriarch of the sect was quite old he might die before the corpse king awakened! Chu Mang would die waiting even though his family would have already been long dead, normal humans can at most live 100 years, and those were the humans who were extremely taken care of, commoners like Chu Mang''s family would die at 50 or at max 70 years old, let''s not even talk what would have happened to his daughter and wife already, after all, there was no man to save them from the greedy hands of practically anyone, they might already be cultivation cauldrons or corpse puppets some sick freak would enjoy, of course, there was the chance they were still alive but it was slim, Chu Mang already unlocked a bit of cultivation potential when he was with his family that''s why he was kidnapped, in general, adult men wouldn''t be kidnapped often because the best time for their cultivation would be already gone, however, Chu Mang was an exception because of his talent. That''s why most of the corpses on the top were young children around 6-8 years old, but not all of them were talented, some might show talents while others talent needed to be investigated, only some of the more talented people would show their talent outside their body. As Chen Ming left, Yun Jhin stopped acting and he took the corpse pill from the green sack and walked towards the end of the cave where he found some Yin grass, he took the Yin grass and wrapped the pill with it, then he took a sharp rock and he started to mash the Yin grass together with the corpse refining pill, afterwards he used his fire conjuring to transform the mashed pill and yin grass together into a though paste, he let his ear next to the ground as his main body dripped some mind-controlling venom on the paste, the paste would hasten the creation of the corpse king while the mind-controlling venom would make sure that the corpse king would be numbed when he tried to take control of his sea of consciousness. A corpse king needed a person with atleast the cultivation of heavenly realm to be taken control of, but with his soul strength as long as he reached the 8th or 9th stage of the earthly realm combined with his poison he would be able to easily take control of the corpse king, he would make sure he tired the ancestor of the sect and then when the time was right, abandon Chu Meng''s body and take control of the patriarch of the Corpse refining sect! Ever since he felt the patriarch''s cultivation fluctuations this plan was concocted in Yun Jhin''s mind, however, he didn''t know how to weaken the patriarch, but the corpse king was the best way on how to do it! With the help of his former knowledge he would make it so the corpse king was finished earlier when the poor fellow came to check up on it, he would make it act berserk and injure him, in the end, he would stop the corpse king and take over the patriarchs body! Technically speaking it should be impossible for a mind-controlling caterpillar to take over a heavenly realm or above expert, but with the help of his cultivation base, his strong soul, knowledge, and the weakness of the other party, there was no way he could fail! Yun Jhin looked down at the corpse as he opened the hidden hatch and threw the paste to him which he immediately gulped down like it was a heavenly elixir, now just to reach the peak of the earthly realm, Yun Jhin altered the formation again to slow the Yin energy accumulation, he needed quite a bit of time to reach the 9th stage, maybe in two more months as he will get two more allowances, he had enough time to wait, he would keep things slow and steady. Chapter 11: Corpse King is ready Yun Jhin kept his breathing exercises even, one more month passed by and he got his hands on one more allowance from the sect, with it he was now at the 7th stage of the earthly realm, one more allowance and he would either reach the 8th or 9th stage, Chen Ming looked at Yun Jhin weirdly as he kept pacing around the cave, he didn''t care the yin energy amount subsided, it happened in the past, sometimes it would increase some time decrease, he didn''t know much about it as his knowledge in formations was basic at best, he knew how to keep the formation working and repair it, but anything above that wasn''t his domain, after all, the heavenly realm patriarch set up the formation not him. Chen Ming coughed awkwardly as he looked at Yun Jhin and said: "Uh, junior brother it seems your growth is quite fast, haha, nothing expected from a man that could externalize his talent, even though you were already quite old when you started cultivating it seems your potential just doesn''t want to let you go unnoticed." Chen Ming''s cultivation was at the 6th stage of the earthly realm, elders were assigned the position at the 6th stage and Yun Jhin was already the 7th stage so he was basically outranking Chen Ming already, the difference between cultivation bases was quite huge so even when Yun Jhin was one level below him, he still thought he had the upper hand but the moment Yun Jhin passed him in cultivation he started to wag his tail at him like he was a small puppy who saw some delicious food for the first time. Chen Ming knew that he would still get the rewards from guarding the corpse for such a long time but he knew he would have to share them with Yun Jhin so that was why he started to pester him and say how much talent he had, how handsome he was and other compliments that he shamelessly spewed with his old mouth. Most of the time Yun Jhin ignored him but some other times he nodded his head, which made the old man extremely happy, most of the time Yun Jhin would still be the one who protected the corpse king''s cave while Chen Ming would still come with the corpses, even though Chen Ming thought that the corpse gathering mission was easier and he wanted to give it to Yun Jhin, however, the body snatcher refused him. He needed to be near the corpse king when it woke up to control it, if not there was a chance it might truly go berserk due to that paste he fed him a month ago, it did increase the corpse kings growth rate but it also made it unstable, the mind-controlling poison was there to numb him for enough time so Yun Jhin could take control of his consciousness space with his soul technique. Chen Ming left Yun Jhin alone as he went on corpse scavenging again, even though he couldn''t find corpses daily it was his job to search for them every day, so he couldn''t laze around, some of the other elders might even talk about his back and report to the sect master, his allowance would be then lowered and he would make less cultivation progress, he knew that he couldn''t advance much anymore, so he tried his best to get as many cultivation resources as he could, he thought that if he got enough he might be able to breakthrough. The man''s thoughts were correct but after he broke through the 7th stage he would never be able to go further, the man just wasn''t talented enough, Chen Ming was already an old man and he was stuck at the 6th stage, while Chu Mang''s body didn''t even reach 40 years old and he was at the 7th stage. That was the difference in talent! Technically speaking as long as Chu Mang got a decent cultivation technique and some of the resources that Yun Jhin got he could have got to the 7th level by himself in the same amount of time. Chu Mang''s talent was decent but Yun Jhin found it to be only barely acceptable for a temporary body. Yun Jhin sighed as he continued to cultivate and waited, inside Chu Mang''s cranium Yun Jhin was looking at another notification from the system: [Evolution towards mind-controlling butterfly stage one available, continue?] Yun Jhin shook his head, evolving to a butterfly meant the end of his evolutionary state, because once he became a butterfly he would never be able to go back again, and the butterfly evolutions were extremely limited, he already knew which race of caterpillar he needed to achieve the peak so he ignored the words in front of his face. (...) After I dismissed the notification I looked around the cave then at the corpse king, he was getting stronger and stronger by the day, only a month or so was left before I would turn the formation into a full-throttle that would immediately awaken the corpse king, I only just needed one more stage of the earthly realm, it would be for the best if I directly advanced to the 9th stage as it would increase my chances of possessing the heavenly realm patriarch. Chen Ming came back after a few days of searching with a few more cultivator corpses that he fed to the corpse king, I continued observing, finally, after another month I left my post and made sure the corpse king wouldn''t awaken earlier by slowing the formation as much as possible to the point that Chen Ming even scratched his head in wonder why the cave wasn''t wet damp and cold anymore. I got more resources now that I was an elder, 2 corpse refining pills, 5 spirit stones, and 3 food pills, still a meager amount but enough for me to break through again. I decided to do my breakthrough in the cave after Chen Ming left after he finished feeding the corpse king, he left quickly as if my gaze could kill him. (...) Chu Mang''s body sat cross-legged as Yun Jhin''s true body left his head and ate the resources, a dark brown aura engulfed him as he quickly entered back the man''s cranium, the brown aura came from reaching the peak of the earthly realm, the earthly realm was called that because of its connection with the earth the cultivation lived on, they used the earthly ki to refine their bodies, afterward, they would connect with the heavenly ki in the heavenly realm, to refine their souls, that was the heavenly realm. the heavenly realm didn''t truly connect to the heavenly realm, they would use the sky ki to refine their soul which was pretty much wind ki, however, it was called heavenly realm because the sky was the heavens for those who didn''t venture into it. Yun Jhin''s caterpillar form shredded its skin for the last time as his body now was so though even other peak earthly realm practitioners couldn''t break through it, since there weren''t internal organs, bones or muscles to strengthen in a caterpillar all the cultivation energy went to strengthening his exterior carapace which made him pretty much unpenetrable unless a heavenly realm patriarch attacked his soul, but unlike a normal caterpillar his soul was extremely strong, so strong the heavenly patriarch would get backlash from attacking him unless he was at the 9th level. Even if he couldn''t achieve the full potential of his soul power the defense of his soul wasn''t something measly heavenly realm bugs could touch. Yun Jhin used Chu Mang''s body to look like he stretched, popping sounds could be heard as the bones of the body started to strengthen, he finally reached the last phase as his skin sizzled and turned a deep red, after finally finishing with the bones and muscles his skin started to strengthen, the bags under his eyes were removed and his skin turned a deep pale color that then started to turn bronze. Yun Jhin looked at his host''s arms as the muscles now were big enough to crush Chen Ming''s head with the biceps alone, he chuckled as he would imagine the man''s expression when he saw him next. Suddenly below a moan could be heard from the hidden hatch, even with the slower formation the corpse king woke up, it seemed the paste combination was a bit too strong, Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he thought: "I think I gave him too much, whatever I''m stage 9, time to enact the plan." He quickly walked down as he used his soul to immediately trigger the poison that should have made it''s way to the corpse kings consciousness space, there the poison started acting stopping his moaning and mumbling as he woke up, as he was at his weakest, Yun Jhin directly sent his soul will into his consciousness space as he imprinted himself there, however, the consciousness space was stiff and hard, but Yun Jhin knew what to do in this situation, he transformed his soul will into a knife form that carved his control center inside the consciousness space, finally after a short while Yun Jhin finished his job and looked up as he felt that Chen Ming was swimming down to the cave. Right at the best time, Yun Jhin thought to himself he immediately shouted as he put an excited look on his face: "Elder brother Chen Ming, the corpse started moaning, go get the sect master, the corpse king is waking up!" Seeing the excited look on his face and how he could also hear some slow moans from below, Chen Ming started swimming upwards like his ass was on fire as he then started running towards the inner palace of the sect where the sect master meditates. Yun Jhin chuckled as he felt the will of both the peak 9th stage earthly realm and the heavenly realm patriarch stir at the news, they were quickly running towards the location as if their lives depended on it. It was time for a show, a show which would decide the future of the Corpse Refining sect! Chapter 12: Sect Master and Patriarch Chen Ming quickly came down as he told me: "Chu Mang, the sect master, and the patriarch are coming right now, bow down, and wait for them!" Yun Jhin bowed his head as he slowly waited, after a few seconds of waiting the sect master entered the cave first, his eyes were a dark golden color as he observed Yun Jhin''s bowing form and nodded his head at him, he wore a long black robe that hid his body, his face was average but his fiery red hair was there for all to see. The patriarch came down next, his blonde hair fluttered in the wind as he crashed directly in the cave making a cloud of dust go up, after the dust settled down the heavenly realm patriarch figure appeared, unlike the sect master his robe was fully white with no specks of dust on it even though the cloud of dust settled down none touched his body, Yun Jhin chuckled inside as he looked at the man, he used his soul power for such a petty trick, that would just make it easier for him to capture his body later. The patriarch walked forward as he told Chen Ming and Yun Jhin: "Let me be clear with you two, as long as the corpse king is fully awakened you both will get a very big reward from the sect, you would have done us a huge favor, as the patriarch of the sect I thank the both of you." Chen Ming and Yun Jhin both cupped their fists and bowed to the patriarch, the sect master and the patriarch then opened the hidden trap as they looked at the armor-wearing corpse twitching and moaning, the patriarch looked like a kid who waited to open his gift in a Christmas morning, he was giddy that he almost jumped in place waiting for the corpse to wake up. Yun Jhin looked at the patriarch and sect master with a cold look on his face, suddenly the eyeless corpse opened it''s mouth as a soundless scream was heard from its mouth, the soundwaves impacted both the patriarch and the sect master as the sect master fell on the ground and blood started seeping out of his eyes nose and ears. The patriarch had it better as his soul was refined for quite a bit as he reached the 2nd stage of the heavenly realm, as he was closer to Yun Jhin, the body snatcher realized what kind of cultivation he achieved, he also realized that he cultivated a peculiar technique for corpse enslaving, too bad he couldn''t use it on the corpse king as it was already under Yun Jhin''s control. The patriarch thought the corpse king was acting up as it fully awoke and it tried to pierce his consciousness with his soul, he saw that it was already controlled by someone and he shouted quickly and wrathfully towards Yun Jhin and Ming Chen''s direction: "You traitorous dogs, how could you!" Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at the patriarch then his palm entered the body of Ming Chen immediately killing him, he slowly slid his hand out of the man''s now dead body and looked at the patriarch: "Too late to realize that dear ''patriarch''" Yun Jhin said in a slow and bored tone, the corpse jumped from the hidden place and attacked the patriarch brutally, he unsheathed his katana and slashed at the patriarchs head trying to bisect him. Yun Jhin frowned as he started controlling the corpse''s bloodlust, he needed the patriarch whole! The corpse started to attack at a slower pace and less brutally as he only tried to tire out of the patriarch instead of killing him directly now, the patriarch took a fan out of his robes and parried the corpse king katana then he used it to slash it at the corpse''s armor and he rushed directly towards Yun Jhin as he shouted: "If I kill you I will directly take the control back, DIE!" Yun Jhin slowly backed away and dodged the patriarch attack, however, the fan nicked his face as a little bit of blood started to leak from his right side, Yun Jhin tongue extended from his mouth as he licked the blood from his cheek and continued to look coldly at the patriarch, the patriarch''s gaze had to return to the corpse as the katana almost slashed his back open, suddenly fire started to assault him from behind as Yun Jhin finally made his move! The small fireball was concentrated and fast, however it wasn''t a killing blow, it was meant to only injure, at quick speeds the patriarch barely dodged the fireball as his clothes were singed by the fire, but due to his sudden dodge, a katana lodged itself in the man''s shoulder as he cried out in pain. His soul will came out of his forehead in the form of a dagger as it rushed towards Yun Jhin''s forehead since he couldn''t deal with Yun Jhin with his physical body as it was preoccupied with the corpse king he now tried to destroy his soul with his. Yun Jhin sneered as the soul will hit his soul defenses and rebounded injuring the man''s soul and making him stagger, another slash at his other shoulder immediately incapacitated him, Yun Jhin slowly walked forward towards the patriarch as he clapped slowly: "Good job patriarch, now this corpse refining sect is mine." The patriarch chuckled coldly when Yun Jhin finally stood in front of him, out of the patriarch''s mouth a hidden kunai immediately lodged inside Yun Jhin''s heart, Chu Mang''s body started to give out as a bunch of blood was spat out but a smile remained on his face as he looked down at the patriarch and said: "Is that all?" The body''s pulse stopped as it dropped down out of his now open mouth, Yun Jhin''s true body immediately entered the patriarch''s cranium through his nose, the patriarch started shouting as he said: "A mind-controlling caterpillar? HOW?" Mind controlling caterpillars weren''t intelligent at all if a body with a mind-controlling caterpillar was found it was very easy to see if it was possessed or not as it would act like a zombie, it wouldn''t even be able to talk normally, but Chu Mang acted normally and he could even cultivate to such a high level! A voice echoed inside the patriarch''s cranium that now housed Yun Jhin: "If you haven''t heard of my name Yun Jhin, then you should die unknowingly." That fiend Yun Jhin? the patriarch''s eyes widened as his brain was impaled by Yun Jhin''s stinger, his body went limp as he suddenly laughed and looked down at his hands: "Finally a decent body, a very decent one!" The patriarch''s body had a yin ki constitution, his body could transform into a living dead that could cultivate! (...) I started to check the body''s condition as I looked it up and down with my soul, it was a very good body, very good. With one of the cultivation techniques, I knew about corpse refining I could make this patriarch even reach the King Realm if I was lucky! (...) The corpse king suddenly lurched at Yun Jhin''s new body as his mouth was ready to devour the patriarch''s head, the sect master suddenly regained consciousness as he looked at his father almost meeting his end at the corpse king hands, but suddenly the corpse king lurched back as new orders from Yun Jhin came and he stopped meekly walking a little behind and then sat down. Yun Jhin closed eyes opened as he looked at the sect master which was the man''s son, the patriarch was called Sun Sisheng, and his son was called Sun Miedo, as he started to collect the memories of Sun Sisheng he nodded his head inwardly as he finally knew the patriarch''s whole life story, he got up from the ground as his wounds healed slowly and walked to his son as he helped him up: "Miedo, it''s fortunate that you almost reached the entrance to the heavenly realm or else the corpse king soul attack would have killed you *sigh* I didn''t know this Chu Mang and Chen Ming are spies, they almost realized their mission, killing you and me, it''s fortunate that when Chu Mang wanted to give me the finishing blow I attacked him with my hidden kunai killing him instantly, with his soul will being dissipated, the Corpse King consciousness space was now empty so I could finally brand him with my own and I stopped him from killing me." Sun Miedo nodded his head at his father as he cleaned his face from the blood, then he walked towards the duo''s corpses as he spat on them and said: "Should we feed them to the corpse king, father?" Yun Jhin nodded his head at his new ''son'' and said: "I will feed them to the corpse king, I now need to be alone with it to finish the bonding ceremony, you go back to the palace and inform the elders about what happened, I will come to join you and the others after I finish, also prepare a banquet, we need to celebrate our second heavenly realm expert!" Miedo smiled at Yun Jhin as he swam out of the sea of corpses, Yun Jhin looked down at his hands again as his cultivation base was getting slowly boosted towards the first stage of the heavenly realm, however, he couldn''t advance now as he still had to get rid of the bodies, and he wouldn''t be giving them to the corpse king. Yun Jhin slowly inched towards the two dead bodies as his jaw unhinged, he used a technique to sharpen his teeth as both of the bodies entered his mouth their slowly crunched and eaten, even though he didn''t need to cultivate the corpse devouring technique the nutrients from two high leveled earthly realm practitioners were extremely useful to him at this point, as he needed them to stabilize his breakthrough to the heavenly realm. His mouth returned to its normal state as he stored the nutrients in his snatched body, he would use them later on his main body when he broke through, he already knew what the treasury of the sect had from the patriarch''s memories and he realized that some things wouldn''t be that useful for his next transformation, but he could evolve his current one to a different branch of the mind-controlling caterpillar with the items in stock, and continue his control behind the shadows, giving missions to the disciples to get the rare materials that could be found around, but the materials that not everyone knew about, he would also mask his intentions of gathering materials by sending them on getting some of the more popular ones. As he made the plan in his mind Yun Jhin looked at the corpse king as he made it follow him, the cave was now useless, so he decided to destroy it, he didn''t need the cave to create more undead! He jumped outside of the cave as lightning appeared at his fingers, the lightning shot directly into the cave and destroyed it burying a lot of bodies under the debris and rocks, Yun Jhin nodded to himself as the corpse king followed him back to the inner palace, he now had to play the role of the patriarch but considering the patriarch mostly cultivated in seclusion, he only had to waste his time on the banquet, after all, the patriarch truly promised a great banquet after the corpse king would have awakened. Yun Jhin shook his head as he got near the inner palace, he would quickly finish this ''banquet'' and then go directly to the treasury! Chapter 13: Poor treasury Yun Jhin walked inside of the inner palace slowly as the corpse king followed behind him like a meek lamb, the insides of the palace were sparsely decorated as pillars with skulls and bones were situated both to the left and right, a big table was already laid in the middle of the palace where the elders and the sect master were waiting for him. Yun Jhin chuckled as the corpse king followed behind him and he said: "This is a celebratory banquet, for our second heavenly realm expert, let''s all enjoy ourselves for a while." The elders smiled as they clinked their wine cups, Yun Jhin stood at the top of the table as he was the patriarch while the sect master stood on his left, on his right was an empty seat left for his wife which passed away a few years ago. The food on the table was the best that the sect could get its hands on, spicy crocodilus meat with medicinal plants sauce sprayed on top, wine from undead grapes fermented for 100 years, and a lot of other ''special foods''. After everyone had their fill Yun Jhin as the patriarch had to make a speech: "Thank you all for coming to my banquet today, you should know what happened to the two traitors by now as my son informed you, fortunately even though the traitors tried to assassinate me and my son we made fortune from calamity and with their help, we hastened the creation of our corpse king, a few months from now I will attend the yearly meeting with the patriarchs of the sword devil sect and the fairies sect, you should know what will happen after they will see a new heavenly realm patriarch in our ranks." The elders chuckled as they looked at the corpse king that stood behind Yun Jhin like a guard dog, it stood there stiffly, if someone wasn''t in the know they would think it was just a normal corpse without any power. Yun Jhin cleared his throat as he continued: "For now I will have to leave you as I have to enter closed-door cultivation until the meeting, as before my son will be in control until I exit the closed-door cultivation session of this time around, do not disturb me unless it''s something really important, do you understand? I have the feeling that I could break through the 3rd level of the heavenly realm." Yun Jhin walked a little bit closer to Miedo and whispered to him: "slow the kidnapping unless they are talented, we need to put on a weak front for the others, maybe they would even attack if they thought something happened to me, we don''t know for which sect Chu Mang and Chen Ming worked, I couldn''t even guess that our elder Chen Ming betrayed us, he worked for the sect for such a long time but alas *sigh* maybe he was bought over by the promise of a breakthrough." Miedo nodded his head slowly as he said: "Yes father, I will see to your orders, anything else you have to tell me before you leave for closed-door cultivation?" Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked at Miedo and said: "You are already pretty old Miedo, do you want me to tell you this even at your age?" Miedo nodded his head as he looked at Yun Jhin with clear eyes, seemingly waiting for a response: "Ok, I love you son, your mother loves you as well, I will see you after I leave closed-door cultivation, hopefully, you might breakthrough as well after what you experienced. so we could have 3 heavenly realm patriarchs holding the fort for the Corpse Refining sect." Yun Jhin left the banquet behind as he entered the patriarchs cultivating quarters, it was near the treasury so it was very easy for him to directly enter the treasury, even if he didn''t have patriarch his knowledge of formations would let him to easily infiltrate the treasury. Yun Jhin looked around the treasury and sighed to himself, even though he had the memories of the patriarch he still felt that the treasury was a bit too empty, corpse pills and spirit stones, a few medicinal plants here and there, no treasures, Yun Jhin wondered where did that green-haired teen even get his artifact when the sect was this poor. The patriarch''s body stood on the spot as Yun Jhin''s main body left the man''s cranium through the nose and he started to take a closer look towards some of the things he didn''t see in the patriarch''s memories, some of them were a little useful but others were just straight trash, he shook his head as he looked around and then ate some medicinal plants and 3 spirit stones, afterward a notification appeared: [Rank 7 mind-controlling caterpillar can evolve into the mind-transforming caterpillar.] A mind transforming caterpillar was a higher form of the mind-controlling one, it could now control the people from a remote distance, it was like a robot which could be remote-controlled after the caterpillar ate the soul he would gain the remote control and it could control the body in a range of a few tens of kilometers, however, it would take more soul power to make the body act like normal, but it was also safer if it were unlucky in a fight the attacker might pierce the head of the host and the caterpillar would die. A mind transforming caterpillar could reach Rank 8, after making sure he nestled himself well inside the patriarch''s cranium he immediately started his evolution, Yun Jhin dreamt of his past lives as time passed, he woke up but he wasn''t a caterpillar he was an old man! it was one of his memories as a past life. He looked down at his withered hands as the memory played: "Life, what is life? why do I seek eternal life? Do I seek it because I truly want to live forever? Why have I done so many atrocities throughout my life?" This was one of the reincarnations that he didn''t gain the memories of his past ones so he started to get a death resolution at the end of his lifespan, not many did reach the end of lifespan but a few did. The memory continued to play as the withered old man said: "Eternal life, eternal sands, I always wanted to reach that place, the place above, for what reason? I already had whatever a man could want, many beauties surrounded me, I was strong, I was rich but in the end, all my riches dried up, my beauties died and my strength was seeped away by the time and age." "iii, how good it would be to be eternal, to be fully like this forever, to enjoy life at it''s highest for how much you wanted to." A dark gleam started to appear in the old man''s dying eyes as he questioned himself: "Would I enjoy eternal life? Would I? there was nothing for me out there, I already achieved everything that could be achieved, but I still feel empty and hollow, like something was eating at my heart, like something was still achievable like it was in front of me but I couldn''t grasp it." The man grasped the air as sand drifted through his fingers, those where the sands of time that we''re eating away at his mortal body. He chuckled darkly as he looked at his own body which was starting to disintegrate from the waist up: "So many lives taken, so many bloodlines and constitutions, but not even one could reach the apex, what a trash world! What a trash universe! WHEN WILL YOU LET ME ACHIEVE WHAT I WANT? WHEN WILL YOU LET ME BE FREE?" As the man shouted his last words he became a bunch of ashes that drifted into the wind, he lived his last seconds outside in nature, but even the birds and other animals wouldn''t look down at him, his back carried too many sins and no one would mourn him, not even his descendants, they would rather start celebrating at their father''s death. Yun Jhin woke up from his dream as he felt the changes around his body, his face was a cold stone mask that couldn''t be seen through, such pesky memories wouldn''t touch him at all, after all, he already knew about them, sometimes dreams like these would initiate by themselves as a side effect from absorbing too many past lives memories, the fusion wasn''t perfect but it gave him what he needed and he would have done it even if he knew such side effects existed in the first place. Yun Jhin shook his head as he felt his new body, his rank was reset and fortunately, his cultivation didn''t drop that much, he was at the eight stage of the earthly realm and he could feel that if he reached Rank 8 with his caterpillar body he could immediately break through everything and reach the heavenly realm in one fell swoop. What he feared the most didn''t happen, even though his body cultivation regressed it wasn''t a bad thing, instead it was a good one, which meant he didn''t reach his full potential, so he could cultivate again and get the benefits of that stage again, his body felt as strong as the ninth stage but he could cultivate again to the ninth stage! It was like basically becoming 2x as strong in the ninth stage. Yun Jhin nodded to himself as he left the patriarch''s cranium and saw his image reflected on the floor. He didn''t change much but he now had two thin antennae on his head and his skin color was a deep red, his stinger was even sharper than before and it took a deep blue color. Yun Jhin shook his head as he walked towards some spirit stones and ate them slowly, afterward, he found some food pills and ate them as well, after he felt he was full he directly entered back into his layer inside the patriarch''s head and started his cultivation, with the help of the nutrients from the bodies of Chu Mang and Chen Ming he would now start his breakthrough to the heavenly realm, combined with the spirit stones and food pills that he ate right now he had a 100% chance of breaking through. [Host can immediately reach the maximum rank of the mind-transforming caterpillar if host break through the heavenly realm.] This was a piece of extra information that was really useful to Yun Jhin, he smiled to himself as he started to cultivate, he firstly fully adapted to the patriarch''s body before he started his breakthrough session. He made sure the corpse king kept a lookout for him while he broke through as he didn''t want to be disturbed. It was finally time to break through to the heavenly realm! Chapter 14: Heavenly realm 1st stage The heavenly realm consisted on taking wind ki to purify your soul, the thing was Yun Jhin''s soul was already way stronger than what the heavenly realm could purify for him, what he needed was to mend his soul but he couldn''t skip this stage, Yun Jhin started his breakthrough as the body of the patriarch sat cross-legged on the ground in the treasury. His eyes were closed as inside his head the main body was doing it''s breathing exercises, then he created a cocoon over himself as he started his breakthrough. A light started to appear around the patriarch''s head just like a halo engulfing his head, however, the halo didn''t come from the patriarch''s body but Yun Jhin''s, he was breaking through the heavenly realm and the energy released from his body made it look like the patriarch was emanating it. As Yun Jhin used all of the energies he gathered for his breakthrough the aura around the patriarch''s head intensified in color and light, suddenly the light faded only for quietness to take over the whole treasure hall. Yun Jhin''s body entered hibernation again as he started to mend his soul while his body devoured all of the nutrients, as he kept mending his soul memories of his past lives resurfaced in front of him but he chose to ignore them, he didn''t need the remainders of his former failures, he already knew what he needed to do to achieve eternal life, he had the information, he had the tools, he just needed time. But sometimes time wasn''t on your side, after a few weeks that spanned into two months of closed-door training he finally mended a bit of his soul, his main body absorbed all of the nutrients from the pills spirit stones and bodies while he broke through directly to the 1st stage of the heavenly realm! He woke up suddenly as his soul''s willpower engulfed the whole inner palace, he saw that the elders were panicky as well as his ''son'', it seemed something happened while he was mending his soul, the corpse king kept them from approaching the treasury so they were all panicked and didn''t know what to do. The patriarch''s body broke through to stage 3 while his main body broke through to the first stage, in the end, the body only had the battle power of a 3rd stage expert but it couldn''t do any soul attacks, the soul attacks would come from Yun Jhin! (...) As I finalized my breakthrough I took another look around the sect with my soul willpower and decided to leave closed-door cultivation, I needed to play the part of the patriarch until I reached a high enough cultivation base that I could fully suppress the whole nearby sects, after that it won''t matter who they thought I was, but for now, I would need to play a game to keep their guard down and strike when they were at their weakest! I exited the treasury and gave the corpse king new orders as he followed me back to the inner palace where I met with the elders and my ''son'', there my ''son'' went to his knees as he gave me a report of what happened while I was in closed-door cultivation: "Patriarch, as I you commanded we showed our weakness, but the sword devil sect and the fairies sect took over it too fast, it feels like we have a mole around us, it should be one of the elders, please patriarch we need you to investigate, the devil sword sect patriarch and the fairies sect patriarch said that they would come and visit one day from now." I nodded my head and looked around at the elders, noticing a mole will be extremely easy with my now more mended soul power. (...) Yun Jhin sent out his soul willpower out of his body as it engulfed the whole palace, suddenly some of the elders started to sweat intensely seemingly like they were carrying huge boulders on their backs and they were ready to collapse, Yun Jhin sent his soul will inside their sea of consciousness and ripped their soul apart as he infected them with his new skill gained from becoming soul-transforming caterpillar, he started to manually control them and made them all confess, they were three elders which started kowtowing in fear as they shouted with tears in their eyes: "We were threatened patriarch, we didn''t mean to leak the news." These were the elders who weren''t present that day, they didn''t know about the corpse king, they were of the lower caliber as they were all only at the 6th stage of the earthly realm, Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at the trio and made a cutting gesture which meant that they should be decapitated. The corpse king appeared in front of the trio and like a guillotine, his katana decapitated the trio. All of the elders sucked in a mouthful of air as they looked at their patriarch in unison, they knew the patriarch was brutal but this was the first time they found traitors in their sect! Yun Jhin smiled as he looked around and said: "Now that I took care of these traitors we have to welcome our guests properly tomorrow, you know they will be pretty surprised when I will welcome them with the corpse king in tow." Miedo cupped his fists at his father''s body as he said: "Patriarch, I should be there with you when you will welcome the other patriarchs, they will come with their sect masters as well and we have to respond in kind." Yun Jhin nodded his head at Miedo and then said with finality in his tone: "Prepare for the patriarch''s visit tomorrow, and you should know what I mean by ''preparing'' tomorrow we go to war!" Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes inside as he thought about the treasuries of the other sects, even though the corpse refining sect was poor that should be because they used all of their resources on creating the corpse king, would the other sects be as poor? Hopefully not, he disliked taking control of other''s bodies, it stalled his growth and cultivation, but no matter how backwater and primitive the region was to him he knew that he should play it safe until he gained atleast the cultivation of 5th stage. At the 5th stage, he felt like his soul be mended enough that he would be able to defeat a peak heavenly realm practitioner. He didn''t feel like there would be any Ki Cultivating realm experts around this backwater place, as they would call even heavenly realm weaklings as ''patriarchs'' a person could be only considered to be a true patriarch at the King Realm or above. Unfortunately for Yun Jhin his current caterpillar body was restraining his potential, breaking through higher levels of the heavenly realm would be harder and harder, even the second level was quite far away from him, he decided that as long as he got his hands on the nearby sects he would devour the patriarch to achieve his Yin constitution, he might even be able to transform into a zombie caterpillar which could get to rank 80, as a zombie caterpillar he wouldn''t have problems at achieving the Ki Cultivating realm. As for the future, he would see then. Yun Jhin sighed as he waited slowly, his corpse king waiting for his orders at his side, one day immediately went by as the patriarch of the sword devil sect and the fairies sect arrived. The sword devil sect patriarch was a tall young man that looked to be around 2,30 metres tall, his waist was as big as a bear and his biceps were the same, he had a steely beard on his face, and his head was shaved, he wore short robes that made his muscle contours be easily recognized, he looked like a savage man that didn''t know anything about culture, his thighs were as wide as two adult men put together and green veins could be seen pulsating across his body. The patriarch of the fairies sect was an effeminate man with a powdered face and a short stature, he wore an ocean blue yukata that didn''t hide his female figure, however, no matter how femininely he made himself to look he couldn''t hide his Adam''s apple and no matter how much he tried to change his voice it was still too deep to be a female one. They came in tow with their peak earthly realm sect masters, one was a tall woman with sword-like brows who gave out a heroic feeling, she wore a short battle dress that did nothing to hide her figure while it wasn''t that enchanting for the males of the Corpse Refining sect which dealt with dead bodies every day it was still very attractive. The other sect master was an middle-aged man with white sideburns and dark hair, he had a sword at his hip and he wore dark battle armor with strange engravings on the back and front, he also wore sandals on his feet and had a stalk of a plant in his mouth that he used to clean his teeth. They all went directly to the inner palace ignoring all of the looks the disciples of the sect gave them. There they met with Yun Jhin who greeted them along with the corpse king. The greeting was a drawn-out sword from the corpse king and a sharp fan in each of Yun Jhin''s hands as he said: "You thought that leaving some spies in my sect would give you an advantage? That was what I was waiting for!" The patriarch''s glared at Yun Jhin as they were ready to unsheathe their weapons when Miedo appeared out of the shadows and stabbed the heroic woman in the back with a kunai! Yun Jhin chuckled as he said: "Good job Miedo." Then he threw himself directly to attack the other patriarchs, he attacked the sword devil patriarch while the corpse went to take care of the fairies sect patriarch. A fight for the control of the nearby sects started! The sword devil patriarch glared intensely at Yun Jhin while he kept him back as the sect master unsheathed his sword and directly attacked Miedo. Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked at the sword devil patriarch and said: "This is what you get for trying to attack with the wrong information, now die!" Yun Jhin and the sword devil patriarch clashed directly with their bodies as their soul willpowers started to fight in mid-air. Chapter 15: Sword devil patriarch peculiar technique The sword devil patriarch practically glowered as his sect master was now fighting Miedo, his sword immediately went for a decapitation slash on Yun Jhin''s body, Yun Jhin blocked the sword with his sharp iron fans and gave a counterattack directly to the man''s belly, ready to make him lose his innards. The sword devil patriarch dodged by jumping backward but then a muffled sound came out of his head as his soul willpower took a hit, he started to bleed from his nose as he staggered for a bit before he stood his ground. The moment he stood his ground properly he was met with an iron fan directly to the shoulder which disabled his left arm. The sword devil patriarch shouted in pain, even though his muscles were thick and strong he was at the second level of the heavenly stage which was below Sun Sisheng''s body. The Iron fan was ready to give the sword devil patriarch his final hit when it suddenly stopped near his forehead as Yun Jhin said in a slow tone: "I can forgive you for this intrusion and that you planted spies in my sect, but you have to give me your allegiance!" Yun Jhin knew the patriarch wouldn''t give out his allegiance but he acted just like Sun Sisheng would, as he knew it would happen the sword devil patriarch said in a loud tone as he looked from his downed position directly into Yun Jhin''s eyes: "I Miao Suiren am not a coward, kill me but you cannot humiliate me!" The fight with the corpse king was still going on as the effeminate man was almost cut in two more than one time, he was using a dagger vs a katana so it was pretty much a fight that he would certainly lose. Yun Jhin shook his head as he said: "Miao Suiren I have given you a way out but you just didn''t want to take it, your sect will still be in my hands if you die, why don''t you just accept your outcome and serve me? As you should have seen by now I have broken through the third stage of the heavenly realm, it''s time for our sects to merge with me as the main patriarch! Let''s not even talk about the fact that my sect is the only one which has two heavenly realm powerhouses." The sword devil patriarch Miao Suiren seemed to ponder these words when suddenly out of his mouth a sword appeared which was thrust directly towards Yun Jhin''s throat, Yun Jhin easily dodged the thrust as he shook his head and said: "I already know this trick, anything else you have for me?" Miao Suiren was fuming but as he looked at his sect master direction he saw that he captured Miedo! A victorious smile appeared on his face as he said: "If you do anything to me your son is dead!" Yun Jhin looked towards Miedo''s direction and suddenly the sect master that took Miedo hostage collapsed in a heap as blood dripped down from his nose ears and eyes, Suiren eyes widened in horror as he looked at Yun Jhin and said: "You, you! is this the power you unlock at the third stage?" Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at Miao Suiren''s form that was struggling to get up from the ground, even though he was tall and full of muscles he still looked pretty pitiful in the current situation. Yun Jhin walked forward and placed his fan near the man''s thyroid artery as he slowly said while observing the battle between the corpse king and the effeminate man: "Nao Mao won''t be able to deal with the corpse king, I haven''t even unleashed it''s full capability yet, do you want to enjoy the show with me or should I end it now?" Miao Suiren looked down at the ground as he shook his head dismally, the lack of news that Yun Jhin broke through the 3rd level of the heavenly stage combined with the additional heavenly realm expert the alliance between the sword devil sect and the fairies sect was meant to fail spectacularly due to the critical lack of information. But it wasn''t mostly because of that, normally even if Sun Sisheng broke through to the third level he would have had a hard time beating the duo and he might have even died at their hands, but Yun Jhin''s soul was way stronger and thus in the heavenly realm he was practically invincible as long as the difference between the stages wasn''t too big. Finally, after a short while of fighting Nao Mao collapsed as the poison that the corpse king was emanating from his mouth finally reached his bloodstream and paralyzed him. Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at the duo and then attacked their sea of consciousness with his slave imprint, it was the same as trying to imprint it on undead but the duo had to accept it otherwise if he forcefully tried to enslave them he might turn them into idiots. Even though he could control people remotely the distance between the sects was too big so he could only opt for a slave contract. The duo''s eyes widened in surprise, for Nao Mao that was the only part of his body which he could move anyway if that mattered, Yun Jhin dangled a bottle with a white content in it as he looked at Nao Mao with a smug smile and said: "If you want to move again I would recommend you to accept the soul willpower inside your consciousness." Nao Mao would have gritted his teeth and cursed if he could but all he could do was giving a glare, Yun Jhin shook his head and said: "Glare some more, glare until your eyes fall out, let''s see how you will be able to start to move again." Nao Mao was trembling inside as he looked at the antidote bottle and finally opened up his consciousness as Yun Jhin scared his consciousness with his soul willpower directly transforming him into a slave that he could control at will, even though he still had his personality and memories and he could even act however he wanted when he wasn''t in Yun Jhin''s presence he couldn''t disobey him no matter what order he gave, he would also have to obey others who had Yun Jhin''s bloodline. Miao Suiren looked down at his big hands and was ready to press his sword into his stomach to kill himself when a hand stopped him, Yun Jhin looked down at him and said: "Even if you want to kill yourself I won''t let you, having a 4th capable heavenly realm warrior would make us a middle rate sect around these parts, don''t you want to be part of it?" Yun Jhin threw the antidote at the corpse king which then fed Nao Mao, afterward, the man got up and kneeled directly to Yun Jhin as he said: "Nao Mao bows to master Sun Sisheng" Yun Jhin nodded and waves his hand as he sent a mental command for him to go back to his sect and order everyone to search for some materials that he needed, some for the transformation of the Yin constitution and some for his main body, he also told him to throw the female body''s into the cemetery as she might become a good zombie for the sect. Nao Mao grabbed the female''s body as he left quickly, Miao Suiren shook his head as he looked at Yun Jhin and said: "I should accept this but, I don''t want to, I just don''t want to, all my life I thought myself as a leader and as of someone with high importance in the sect, my former master chose me because of my talent with the sword, I cannot go under someone else!" Yun Jhin''s smile turned into a frown as his brows locked and he said: "I wasn''t urging you to accept, it was a command!" Suddenly the soul willpower that went into the man''s consciousness turned violent as it started to scar the man''s psyche, he started to roll around the ground as his wounds opened up and blood started to fall, his muscles were writhing as Yun Jhin started to carve them with his iron fan, then he said in slowly: "Do you accept it now?" Miao Suiren started laughing like a mad man as he threw himself at Yun Jhin as a devilish red light engulfed him, Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed that was a devil detonating technique, it was a technique given to devil slaves, it would be normally used in wars where the slaves would detonate themselves to get rid of the enemies cannon fodder and even luckily some of the foot soldiers. Yun Jhin''s fingers moved so quickly that they didn''t even blur as he hit 3 acupoints on the man''s chest and the devilish light subsided, Yun Jhin''s face was near the man''s as only a few centimeters were between them as a cold voice came out of the body snatchers mouth: "Interesting technique, mind if you tell me where you got your hands on it?" The man vomited one mouthful of blood as he gritted his teeth and said: "Torture me as you may but I won''t tell you a thing!" Yun Jhin hated this persistent and prideful types, most of the time they wouldn''t break down to torture and they would take important information down with them, sometimes not even the most painful sensation would defeat the wills of such warriors, they could be killed but not humiliated and Miao Suiren was one of these types of annoying people. (...) I looked at the fool''s prone form as he sat on the ground trying to regulate his breathing, what a waste of a fully useful servant, I shook my head as my arm directly went through his chest, torturing him would be a waste of time, I withdrew my arm and cleaned it off his filthy blood, Miedo was looking at me with wide eyes as he smiled and said: "I knew father would defeat them easily, haha!" I nodded in Miedo''s direction as I looked down at Suiren''s body and shook my head, creating another corpse king would take a year at most and I would have to waste resources too, it would be better to put those resources to increasing my strength rather than getting another subordinate, I would have minded if the fool gave me his allegiance but since he was stubborn only death could follow him. (...) Yun Jhin picked up Suiren''s body as he could devour it, even though he wouldn''t be able to break through to the 2nd stage with his main body it could help him cultivate Sun Sishgeng''s body into a true living undead. As a living undead he could cultivate and think for himself, well he couldn''t truly do it anymore as Yun Jhin controlled his body but hypothetically speaking if Sun Sisheng got his hands on the technique that could transform him into a living undead he could have thought for himself and still had his consciousness intact, he could devour others to quickly increase his cultivation base, his body would have been way sturdier he would have lived for a much longer time. The only downside would be that he couldn''t procreate anymore, even as an undead he wouldn''t have had the weakness that normal undead would have, that was the specialness of the yin constitution combined with the cultivation technique. Yun Jhin got interested in the devil detonation technique he saw Miao Suiren use, it made him remember of the days he was dueling with the monarchs of the 9th hell, they would sometimes host wars between the lower hells and Yun Jhin would be there to spectate from time to time. Only devil generals or above could impart such techniques to the devil slaves, but technically speaking this region was too backwater for the devil''s attention to be garnered, there wasn''t even a Ki Cultivating realm expert here which was the basic realm of the cultivation world, only from the Ki Cultivating realm and above you could be considered an ''expert'' in the world. Yun Jhin sighed as he devoured the body and then looked towards the direction of the sword devil sect, he would need to visit immediately! Any devils he could find no matter how low level they would be, they would help him evolve into a devilish caterpillar, and that''s was what he needed the most, that or either the fortuned or heavenly caterpillar transformations but it was very unlikely to achieve the other two, it was easy to sin but hard to become pure. Yun Jhin told Miedo to keep the things under warps and announce how he captured one of the patriarch''s killed the sect masters and annihilated the other patriarch, the other sects needed to know that now they were under the leadership of Yun Jhin''s iron fist! He would quickly go towards the sword devil sect to appoint a new patriarch no matter the cultivation he had and also investigate the devil presence there. Chapter 16: The sword devil sect Yun Jhin was ready to leave the Corpse refining sect and go directly to the sword devil sect and see what happened there for the patriarch of the sect to acquire such an ''interesting'' technique, but first, he had to take care of some of the things at his sect before he went, after he finished everything he had to take care off he directly left the sect. As he finally left the sect location he could finally see how it was outside, the sect was situated in the middle of the woods where heavy fog surrounded it, most of the time the fog would ensnare poor civilians who were courageous enough to venture so far into the forest before they became corpses for the Corpse refining sect, those were the rare cases as most of the time the sect members went by themselves to procure fresh corpses. To get to the sword devil sect Yun Jhin had to get outside the forest and go to a nearby river, he needed to follow the river tail till he found a waterfall, there above the waterfall he would find the sword devil sect, at first, the sect wasn''t called sword devil sect, but sword devil slaying sect, not much was known about why the sect''s name changed but Yun Jhin knew as he absorbed some of Miao Suiren''s memories, the thing was the memories of him learning the technique were missing seemingly erased, that why Yun Jhin wanted to go and investigate the sect. Yun Jhin frowned as he ran out of the forest and found the river that led to the sect, as he ran alongside the river bed he thought to himself: "Missing memories can mean just one thing, a Ki Cultivator or above expert, but he should have already left by now, a devil Ki Cultivator is above the normal standard when it comes to fighting power, fortunately, he shouldn''t be at the sect anymore if it showed anything the Ki Cultivator devil should have been injured when he arrived at the sword devil sect..." As he thought about it a clear image appeared in his head, the devil was injured but still strong enough to deal with the others, however, to not aggravate his injuries he bewitched the sword devil sect patriarch and the others taught them some techniques in exchange of resources that he could heal himself with. But due to his cautious nature, in the end, the devil deleted all of the memories regarding himself, but he let them have the techniques as promised, they must have signed a contract, devils must always adhere to a soul signed contract, it was their only weakness, making them sign the contract was another thing. Yun Jhin finally reached the waterfall''s location after a few tens of minutes of running alongside the river bed, there he easily scaled it till he reached the sword devil sect, the sword devil sect was minimalistic as it had huts instead of palaces and pagodas, on the surface, it seemed way poorer than the corpse refining sect. Yun Jhin snorted inside, this was a good way to make others think they were poor but with the memories of the patriarch, he knew that their resources were quite plentiful even after they gave some to the passing devil, as not many things would interest a Ki Cultivator, at his stage the resources on this patch of land would have quite a tiny effect on his body and cultivation base. (...) The sentry that stood nearby the waterfall to wait for intruders immediately sounded a war bugle as I approached but when he saw my figure he froze up and his sword started to tremble in his grasp, I grabbed his sword and put it back in the disciple''s sheath. I looked over at him and said: "Your patriarch is dead and now I''m your leader, call all of the disciples and elders, I''m here to appoint a new patriarch to control the sect while I''m not here, do you understand?" Most of the disciples beside the new ones knew how the patriarchs of the other sects looked, so when the disciple saw me he almost pissed himself in fear, after all, he was only a stage 2 earthly realm rookie. I nodded at him then motioned with my hand, now his voice combined with the earlier bugle call it finally took the attention of the whole sect. After the elders and other disciples came out of their huts I immediately jumped up on a nearby tree and made all of them look at me as I said with a loud tone: "As of now I''m the patriarch of all of the three sects in the nearby vicinity, but my headquarters are at the corpse refining sect, I''m looking for the strongest elder in the sect to take the helm as the new patriarch while I''m at the headquarters." (...) The elders started to talk among themselves as they whispered to each other: "The patriarch and sect master is dead, no way!" "They must be, Sun Sisheng wouldn''t have come this way leaving his sect alone, *sigh* It seems our sect lost all our prestige and now we are the slaves of another." Another young-looking elder looked indignant as he said: "Why would we let ourselves be conquered by him, he is one man and we are many, let''s fight him to death!" An older elder slapped the younger elder on the head and said in a raspy tone: "Shut your dumb ass up, you just advanced to the 6th stage of the earthly realm and you don''t know anything about the heavenly realm, he must have broken through the 3rd level that''s why our patriarch lost, we are pretty much doomed no matter how many earthly realm experts we throw at him, we would need heavenly experts to deal with him!" The young-looking elder sulked as he looked at his feet and nursed the back of his head where the older man hit him, As Yun Jhin was already hearing whatever they were speaking he suddenly interjected: "I was waiting for you to decide whoever is stronger not to gossip about my strength, if you won''t choose by yourself I will choose myself." His soul willpower engulfed the bunch of elders and then he pointed at a middle-aged man with sideburns and a small mustache as he said: "You are at the 8th stage of the earthly realm and the current strongest elder, you will be the patriarch under my absence, come here and make your allegiance!" The man wanted to say something but a formless power dragged him towards Yun Jhin and made him kneel, his soul space was opened as his consciousness and psyche were invaded by Yun Jhin''s soul willpower, unlike heavenly realm experts, earthly realm rookies could be forcefully enslaved. The man started kowtowing immediately as he was on his knees and said: "Oh lord Sun Sisheng, might the heavens let you live a life as long as them, I Mandred Branco will follow your lordship anywhere I can go!" Yun Jhin nodded his head as his eyes trained over the others and then he threw a pill he refined while at the corpse refining sect and said: "Eat this pill and you should break through the 9th stage, there you won''t have any opposition from the others." Branco immediately ate the pill without any hesitation as strange sounds came from his skin bones and organs as they were all strengthened at the same time, a bright red aura enveloped him as he broke through to the 9th stage of the earthly realm! Yun Jhin nodded his head as he said: "All of you go back to whatever you were doing, I will have to check up on something in the treasury and I don''t want to be disturbed, Branco keep guard for me!" Branco nodded his head like a loyal dog, if he had a tail right now he would be wagging it furiously to show how happy he was to serve his new master. Yun Jhin climbed towards a man-made cave under the sect near the waterfall, that''s where the treasury was located and the things Yun Jhin needed for his cultivation base to advance a bit. Yun Jhin finally entered the cave and disabled the weak formations that were guarding it, he then looked around and nodded his head as he saw that the riches the sword devil sect had were more abundant than what the poor corpse refining sect had, he didn''t need spirit stones nor certain pills, what he needed were some spiritual plants the sword devil patriarch encountered a certain while ago. As he looked through the piles of spirit stones pills and trinkets he finally found what he needed, 3 eyes grass, 2 forks snake chrysanthemums, and one blood devil rose, they could be used to make a pill which would propel him directly to the second stage of the heavenly realm. However he wasn''t here just for these, he looked around for some more in the treasury until he found an old tablet bathed in crimson blood. The engravings on it were the cultivation techniques of the devil detonating technique, as he looked at the engravings he muttered: "Not Asmophel descendant, not Mulciler either, Brotokus? no Brotokus descendants don''t know how to write at all, they are all dumb brutes, Milizhaus? maybe but not probably, Milizhaus hates humans and he would never let his tribe out of hell." Yun Jhin shook his head as he tried to thread on which devil monarch let his descendant out of hell, but he shook his head continuously as he couldn''t identify the caligraphy, that either meant the devil wasn''t from royalty or he was a traitor who didn''t want his identity to be leaked, all royals wrote the same calligraphic, and the common calligraphy in hell wouldn''t let someone inscribe such engravings easily..." A traitor from the devil royalty, interesting, Yun Jhin mused as he used his soul to inspect the engravings better when he noticed the crimson blood that looked fresh suddenly dry up, he frowned as he took a better look and he shook his head as he said: "He died, what a pity, if he was still alive I could have used his blood to track him down when I was strong enough." When such engravings dried up that meant the one who wrote them died. Yun Jhin kept the engravings as he could teach them to the cannon fodder of the sects, the devil detonation technique was one of the techniques he recognized and could teach but if he had the cultivation technique inscribed directly he didn''t have to waste his time engraving such a tablet himself as it would take quite a while. As he looked around and noticed he didn''t need anything else he left the treasury and notified the sect that he will leave. The sect elders and disciples took a deep breath as they watched Yun Jhin''s receding figure and finally restarted their daily activities such as sparring cultivating and fishing. Yun Jhin looked back at the sword devil sect as he now walked towards the direction of the fairies sect, he had to visit their treasury as well! There was something useful there that he had to get his hands on, an artifact that would increase the speed of mending his soul. Chapter 17: A female only sect Yun Jhin left the sword devil sect behind him as he started to travel towards the fairies sect, the fairies sect stood at a bigger distance as it was the most remote sect in the distance, it stood in a distant clearing in the forest almost at the end of it, while the corpse refining sect stood in the middle and the sword devil sect stood outside. Yun Jhin started to run towards the fairies sect without any rest as he had to get his hands on the artifact that would help to mend his soul faster, he would be able to increase his cultivation speed with the artifact, atleast in the heavenly realm. As he controlled the fairies sect master he had all of his memories so he already had a mental map with the location of the sect. It took him almost 4 hours to get to the sect location and he there he met with a bunch of frightened females, most of them didn''t know why their sect master would come back alone and he immediately put them to gather materials, most of the time their sect master took great care of them. Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at the clueless females and he sent a mental command to Nao Mao to immediately explain what happened. Nao Mao came out of the main building of the sect which was a white temple and sent out an announcement to everyone: "The leadership of the sect has changed hands, I am now serving leader Sun Sisheng of the corpse refining sect, he has come to visit come and kneel to him!" Yun Jhin jumped directly near the temple building and Nao Mao went to his knees directly as he put his forehead to the ground, the females of the sect were wide-eyed as they saw their sect master kneeling to someone. Most of the females were rather sheltered and they only came to learn cultivation for beautifying reasons, the sect master accepted them and thus a sect was created, as time passed the sect master finally found someone who could take his mantle, it was the warrior woman that was killed at the Corpse refining sect. The sect was pretty much useless now as its only combatant was Nao Mao, the women were only good for gathering jobs as they didn''t have much combat ability, it was because they didn''t like fighting they just didn''t want to cultivate for fighting reasons, they came here because they wanted to lead a longer life and look younger for more time. Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at the women eyeing him, some of them were ready to try and seduce him but he sent a command to Nao Mao, the feminized man got from his kneeling position and said: "Go and find the herbs and materials I have sent you to find, master Sisheng needs them, don''t loiter around here!" Yun Jhin nodded and then left Nao Mao as he directly went to the sect treasury and looked around, even though it wasn''t poor it wasn''t as rich as the sword devil sect''s, he quickly found what he came for, it was a blue marble that looked like it had liquid inside of it. One of the disciples found it when she went for a walk, she thought it looked cute so she took it, when the sect master found about it he thought that it was special but he didn''t know what uses the marble had so he left it in the treasury, but Yun Jhin knew. It was a low ranked natural treasure that could help the heavenly realm practitioners refine their soul faster, it was useless after the heavenly realm and it was of low rank so the increase of speed wasn''t anything phenomenal but even a mosquito was still meat, no matter how tiny the increase was it was still an increase in speed. He found another useful plant that he took from the treasury, it was an ice lotus. After he got what he wanted he left the fairies sect behind and went back to the corpse refining sect where he started to use the materials he gathered. (...) First I must concoct the pill and use it at the same time with the soul marble to increase the speed of cultivation, to reach stage 2 the pill is useful, afterward if they find the plants that I need I could concoct more pills that would get me through the heavenly realm but up till then I will have to cultivate by myself with this marble. I sighed as I looked down at the marble, I was currently in the Corpse refining sect treasury as I used a cauldron to concoct the soul rising pill, it was a one time use pill to rise the cultivation level by 1 level, but for me, the 1 stage rise was something that couldn''t be compared to others. I finished concocting the pill after a few hours of toiling under the heat of the cauldron. (...) The pill was a deep red color as Yun Jhin''s main body came out of the patriarch''s ear and ate the pill a change directly happened to his caterpillar body as flames started to engulf it, impurities seeped through his skin as his cultivation started to slowly inch towards the second stage of the heavenly realm. After his skin burned off and a new layer of skin appeared he directly went back to the patriarch''s cranium where he entered a session of cultivation that lasted almost 2 weeks. After 2 weeks of cultivating, he finally entered the second stage of the heavenly realm. Yun Jhin sighed as the host body couldn''t eat the pill so he didn''t gain anything from this session since it was a one time pill if he had more materials he could concoct another one for the body. He looked at the remaining plants, the ice lotus, and the blood devil rose. He needed 5 more components to start on the corpse transforming pill all of yin nature, he already gave out the order for them to be found but they were considered pretty rare around these parts, unless he got lucky he would have to leave the sect behind and go on a journey himself to find the rest, as long as his cultivation advanced to a certain range he would surely leave the sect behind, there was no reason to keep himself tied to this sect, there were no benefits as the place was too trashy. Even though the concentration of ki in the air wasn''t bad he was lacking too many resources to further his cultivation. He also needed certain body constitutions and or materials so he could evolve his main body those were extremely rare even where his past life came from, he would surely not find them here. Yun Jhin shook his head, there was not much for him to do so he entered a normal long closed-door cultivation session. Months passed by in cultivation as he breathed in and out the ki of the world, with the help of the marble, the rate at which he mended his main''s body soul increased every day, by the time he reached the peak stage of the heavenly realm he might be even able to use 1% of his former soul power. However the progress towards the 3rd level of the heavenly realm was too slow, the caterpillar''s potential wasn''t high enough to his liking but the others didn''t find the materials he needed to upgrade his main body, he was left out with only waiting. Suddenly outside the sect, a big commotion started. A young girl looking to be around 16 to 17 years old was killing disciples left and right, her eyes were red with malevolence as a blood-red color aura enveloped her body as she shouted: "Where is the man you kidnapped, where is Chu Mang? WHERE IS MY FATHER!" She shouted as he threw a giant fireball onto one of the tattered buildings at the outer area and thoroughly burned it down, she started rampaging inside the sect as if it was her backyard, the blood-red aura intensifying with every kill. Startled out of his cultivation by Miedo, Yun Jhin could only go outside and see what happened, when he heard the girl''s cries of Chu Mang, he realized that the young woman was the daughter he saw on the man''s pendant, Chu Mang was talented and it seemed his daughter inherited some of the man''s talent. Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed as he observed the blood-red flame-like aura enveloping the young girl and a smile appeared on his lips as he muttered: "So he didn''t die but got assimilated instead, strange very strange, did the resources from the sword devil sect didn''t heal him properly?" Getting assimilated was the same dying for a devil, however when getting assimilated there was a chance for the host to be enthralled and enslaved by the devil''s will and lose their mind to the devil''s control. Yun Jhin shook his head as he approached the young lady, the aura she exuded looked like something a Ki Cultivating realm would have but on that was only on the surface, it was the waning power of the devil that she somehow assimilated when the young girl saw Yun Jhin she almost attacked him instinctively but Yun Jhin''s words struck her out of her stupor: "I know where Chu Mang is, he is one of our dear elders, as he already advanced at the 9th stage of the earthly realm, this young lady does want to go meet him?" The aura on the young girl started to subside as she heard those words, but suddenly she seemingly heard something that made her blood turn cold as her eyes glared at Yun Jhin: "YOU ARE A LIAR, YOU KILLED MY FATHER!" Yun Jhin frowned as he used his soul to observe what happened in the young girl''s consciousness and like he guessed a devil was sitting cross-legged inside her psyche, he was whispering words trying to influence her thoughts as he healed the nasty sword scar that almost bisected him. Yun Jhin''s soul was stealthily investigating while the devil was healing himself and trying to influence the girl at the same time so he didn''t get found out. Yun Jhin frowned, it seemed the devil found out he was lying using his clan''s techniques, it was a racial thing as all devils knew when someone lied to them, it was quite a bullshit ability that could only be countered if the one who lied to the devil had a higher cultivation than the devil. The young girl was ready to attack Yun Jhin but a thunderous snort directly attacked her consciousness space as it made the devil act and block the attack, his wound was ready to open as he had to block the soul attack and Yun Jhin said with a righteous air around him: "Your body hosts a devil coming from hell, you are a sinner and you should be exterminated, but I can help you expunge the devil out of your body and forgive you for killing some of my disciples, Chu Mang, your father betrayed the sect and almost assassinated me trying to steal our newly created corpse king, it''s not my fault I had to fight back to save myself, it was all done in self-defense." The young girl frowned as she looked at Yun Jhin, the devil was silent and that meant he was telling the truth, technically it was the truth as Yun Jhin was speaking using the body of Sun Sisheng. The girl, however, didn''t react as reasonable as she should as rage smoldered deeply in her soul finding that her father was dead only added fuel to the fire as she suddenly appeared near Yun Jhin and thrust her arm like a spear directly to his heart. Yun Jhin dodged at the last nick of time as he looked at the girl and said: "Don''t say that I didn''t give you a way out girl, as you are possessed by the devil it won''t be much time before your body gives out, from what I see you are only a second stage earthly realm, abusing the power that the devil gave you, the devil will either absorb your consciousness and take over your body or cripple you!" However the girl wasn''t listening to any of that as her mind was now fully controlled by the devil''s whispers, she was trying to kill Yun Jhin before her body gave out, the devil inside her wanted to use her body to jump into Yun Jhin''s and take over it! That was what Yun Jhin was betting on... Chapter 18: Outsmarting a devil As devil was currently controlling the girl no words would shake her out of her stupor, maybe only if Chu Mang was here but that wasn''t going to happen but Yun Jhin still had a plan as he mimicked Chu Mang''s voice and he said: "Darling remember when we first got you to the fields so you can see a rabbit?" Tears started to drip out of the girl''s eyes unconsciously as the voice struck a chord in her heart and she whispered: "Papa?" Suddenly Yun Jhin appeared in front of her as he cut one of her arms off! The girl clutched her stump as the devil directly ignored her soul and took control of her body as a raspy voice came out of the girl''s mouth: "Aren''t you a smart human cultivator, taking advantage of the girl''s weakness and then disfiguring her instantly, I like you human, your body would be a very much needed aid to my recovery." Yun Jhin snorted as he looked at the devil as he said: "Thinking you can take my body devil? I know what you have done to the sword devil sect, I have the cultivation technique you left behind right here and I already taught it to some of my disciples." Some disciples came forward as they inched closers to the controlled girl''s body, they were glowing red as if seemingly ready to explode. The girl frowned as he observed the canon fodder disciples inch closer to her body, the devil shook his head as he looked at the disciples and said: "So the sword devil sect changed hands, whatever, I know how to easily counter the technique." He snapped his fingers as the glow on the disciple''s bodies faded away, the disciples looked down at their hands wondering what happened to their technique. Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he said: "What have you done devil?" The devil chuckled as he didn''t say anything and started attacking again, using the girl''s body he savagely tried to choke Yun Jhin''s body, the speed increase of the girl''s body was exponentially bigger than before as her skin started to melt and drip on the ground near, some of the skin even dropped on Yun Jhin''s robe and hardened immediately. Suddenly from the girl''s forehead, a devilish red face quickly entered the consciousness space of the patriarch to only find nothing there, a chuckle came out in the empty consciousness space as soul willpower directly struck the devil''s body, the wounds on his body opened immediately as he shrieked in pain, his physical body was ejected from the patriarch''s consciousness as it appeared on the ground near the dying girl''s body. The girl dying throes were ignored by Yun Jhin as he got up from the ground dusted himself scrapping the dead petrified skin from his robe easily, he looked down at the devil that was clutching his wounds, he looked like an insect with sharp claws and teeth, no maw could be seen as only his teeth were visible, he had wings on his back and as he stood down there on his back he looked like a cockroach who couldn''t get up after falling on it''s back. Yun Jhin''s hand directly hit a meridian point in the body of the thing, clogging his blood flow and slowing his regenerative abilities to nothing, he stood there writhing in pain as Yun Jhin told the disciples to disperse, the corpse of a devil was very useful to the current Yun Jhin, especially that he was a Ki cultivating expert. Yun Jhin dragged the body back to the treasury under the wide-eyed stares of everyone, elders and disciples alike, even his ''son'' Miedo didn''t know what to say to his father as the door to the treasury locked itself. Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked down at the downed devil and his arm directly went to the being''s skull as it crushed it and he absorbed the soul, the information from the soul wasn''t very useful as bits and fragments here and there were destroyed, it seemed not only was his body injured so was his soul, Yun Jhin grumbled as he didn''t find the information he wanted, the current location of the entrance to hell! The entrance to hell would shift locations every 100 years and he wasn''t sure how much time passed since he was reincarnated so he wouldn''t waste his time to go and find the former entrance to hell as there was a chance his journey would be in vain! The soul of the devil didn''t have much information so after he fully absorbed it he used the remainder of the soul energy to mend his soul by quite a bit, even though it was damaged and fragmented he felt that he was halfway to the third stage of the heavenly realm. As his main body left the patriarch''s body he immediately went to devour the devil, the taste of the meat was different from humans, it was acrid and it smelled horribly, the bones were though and hard to crunch, the blood was acidic, the wings tasted like sandpaper, devils weren''t things that he liked to eat, even in his former lives, only devils found other devils to be delicious, but when they got ahold of human meat they even stopped eating themselves as they found each other to be too disgusting. As he finished the devil''s body he felt that he was only a hair away from breaking through to the third level, as he used his nutrients to quicken the mending of his soul instead of strengthening his body, he was already at the max rank of the current caterpillar form so he didn''t need anything else before evolving. [Host devoured a middle-level devilish entity at the Ki Refining realm, body extremely damaged, nutrients insufficient for the host to evolve to a devilish caterpillar, host needs to eat 500 whole devils above the host''s current cultivation base to evolve into a devilish caterpillar!] The devilish caterpillar could reach rank 9,500 and it was one of the strongest known caterpillars, however, it wasn''t the strongest, there was still the celestial caterpillar which could reach rank 9,999 and the fortuned caterpillar which was the strongest caterpillar that could reach the max rank at 10,000. However, to reach these caterpillars was impossible as technically speaking he had to eat celestial beings at the god realm, there weren''t even that many celestial beings in existence, there was a very low chance for him to become a celestial caterpillar as for becoming a fortuned caterpillar that was out the question as well. Where would he find 999 other fortuned ones to devour? technically speaking fortuned ones were born each 500 years, so that meant he would have to live for 500,000 years to be able to devour 1000 fortuned ones. The average lifespan of a god realm cultivator was 100,000 years and the most Yun Jhin reached in his former lives was 200,000 years, that was with the cultivation of multiple bloodlines and constitutions that he stole, he was basically at the peak of longevity that a human could reach, even though he could technically live more being a caterpillar he still couldn''t live to 500,000 years, let''s not even speak about the fortuned one''s locations, even though he could identify them when he saw them, he would have to see them first! As Yun Jhin looked down at the ground where the body of the devil stood he shook his head, the devil had nothing on him anymore, all of his belongings were either used up or destroyed when he fought with the one that injured him, Yun Jhin could use more materials from hell to hasten this current body of his into the transformation of the living undead, he would mostly have to use this body until he could either find a more talented one or evolved from his mind-transforming caterpillar form. Yun Jhin took a hold of the opportunity of devouring the devil and strived to break through to the third level of the heavenly realm, with the marble in his hand he used it to mend his soul faster as he sat cross-legged. After 3 months of continuous cultivation, he finally reached the 3rd stage of the heavenly realm and sighed as Sun Sisheng''s body reached the 4th level. He knew that he couldn''t get stronger anymore in this environment, it was too poor! He might even need to leave the sects earlier than he planned, due to the good fortune in form of the devil''s body and soul he became way stronger than before and gained another stage of cultivation, however, the material that he sough-after wasn''t found at all, he thought that his subordinates were mostly useless, how couldn''t they find the plants he needed? He just needed a few more plants to be able to concoct the pill so he could transform Sun Sisheng''s body into a living undead. Yun Jhin sighed as it was time to take the bull by the horns and go into a plant harvesting adventure himself, his subordinates weren''t reliable at all when suddenly Miedo banged on the door of the treasury as he said with joy in his voice: "Father, one of the disciples from the fairies sect found one of the plants that you wanted, she came here and awaits for your orders!" Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed as he heard that, this was an interesting coincidence, the moment he wanted to go adventuring himself, one of the plants he sought was sent to his door, he left the treasury and met with the woman that got her hands on the plant, she was a small woman that stood at 1,57 meters and she had a fair complexion due to the cultivation technique she trained in. Her body wasn''t that hot as her chest area was as flat as a board and her thighs weren''t thick, she looked like a little school girl that hasn''t matured yet, the girl''s hands were trembling as she presented Yun Jhin the dark flower that he needed, it was a Yin Corpse flower that required the gathering of both Yin ice energy and Yin corpse energy to grow. Yun Jhin patted the girl''s head and indicated for her that she could leave. The girl didn''t even say an eep as she left with her head down, she bit her lips and left the palace. Yun Jhin looked at her receding back and said: "Give her 5 food pills and 10 spirit stones, also do her one favor." Even though Yun Jhin was an evil overlord he couldn''t keep his subordinates starved if they put in good work or else they would revolt against him, he did try that once in a former life and he had to kill all of his subordinates in the revolt making him having a harder time gathering information and resources. Yun Jhin then went back to the treasury as he left the plant with the others, now he was only missing a dragon flower, white ginseng, an undead worm flower and a maggot of the highest level. These were the main ingredients needed to create the corpse transforming pill combined with the others that he already had such as the blood devil rose and the ice lotus, now that he had Yin Corpse flower he was closer and closer to his goal of transforming Sun Sisheng''s body. Even though one of the ingredients was found Yun Jhin didn''t want to loiter around waiting for the other''s to be found as one year or so already passed since he gave the order for the materials to be found and only one of them was found after such a long time! He needed to take on the fields himself and find the materials, his lifespan was limited and he couldn''t waste it on waiting, he already learned this from his former lives, no matter what he did the faster the better! In the end, death would come no matter in what form, death on the battlefield, death peacefully in your bed, death by assassination, etc. So rushing to complete your goals was the best way of cultivating, of course, rushing cultivation would leave sequelae and impurities but with the pieces of knowledge, he gained from his former lives Yun Jhin could neutralize all of them! After he made sure he kept the ingredients in a good location he left the sect behind as he exited the forest and went to a nearby city, maybe there he could find some of the ingredients he needed, as they couldn''t be found in the wild that meant either mercenaries or herb pickers might have picked them by accident thinking that they could be valuable, he already visited both sects and took as many spirit stones as he could. He needed to get his hands on a spatial bag these days. Chapter 19: First time in the city Yun Jhin knew where the city was as he devoured the memories of multiple people, even though some didn''t leave their sects in their life, some of the others did travel before they settled down in their sects, with the help of those memories Yun Jhin immediately made a mental map that could lead him to the nearest city. As he left the forest Yun Jhin realized that the city stood almost 1000 or so kilometers away from the forest entrance, it would take him almost 3 hours of running at his quickest speed to reach the city, but it didn''t matter much for him, as long as he found what he needed in the city. Yun Jhin running speed was quite normal for the body''s cultivation realm, but as he used a technique his speed increased by quite a high deal, instead of reaching the city in 3 hours he would need 1 hour and a half now, Yun Jhin nodded to himself as he continuously used the technique without regards of the usage of his ki, after all, he had some food pills with him that he could use to quickly regain his ki, even though they wouldn''t be useful to advance his cultivation with them they could increase the ki recovery. As Yun Jhin approached the city he finally met with it, it didn''t have any high walls protecting it, it looked a little like a village instead of a city, it seemed the place he got reincarnated in was a backwater place of the highest degree and one of the worse parts of the empire he currently lived in. Before he went to the apothecary to find if they have any of the plants he needed he first had to get his hands on some important information that he couldn''t find in the sect patriarch''s memories. He found a rogue gathering quite quickly as the city locations were easily identifiable to him, the rogue gathering immediately became respectful after he unleashed his full cultivation base showing them that he was at the 4th stage of the heavenly realm, as strong as their city lord, the rogue captain immediately came forward and asked: "What does this patriarch want with our small rogue gathering?" Yun Jhin nodded at the man as he said: "I just want some up to date information about the empire and nearby cities, as well as a map of the empire." The rogue captain frowned as he said slowly: "While information about the empire and cities is doable a map of the whole empire isn''t something we little people could get our hands on, if you want one you would have to talk with the city lord." Yun Jhin just nodded and waved one spirit stone in his hand, the rogue captain gulped seeing the spirit stone and he said quickly: "The emperor is currently recovering after a war against our neighbor empire, his son has taken the crown and is doing a great job as a supplicant emperor, the nearby cities had high unrest as they heard about the emperor''s injuries and it looks like they might riot soon, after all, the son is too young and most people don''t think he could take care of the whole empire by himself, some say they should let the right minister take control of the dynasty until the prince becomes of age." His eyes dilated as he looked at the spirit stone and continued: "As for our small city, the city lord decided to not put himself in an awkward situation and didn''t join any side as he remained neutral, Long Sunwing, the city lord is a banished royal from the imperial palace, he was banished due to unknown reasons to us small people, this is the most recent information we have, could I have my payment now?" Yun Jhin nodded as he split the spirit stone into two and threw one part at the rogue captain, the rogue captain wanted to say something but Yun Jhin''s words made his throat stop: "You would have gotten one spirit stone if you would have a map of the empire, however, it seems your rogue guild is lacking, forgive me for not giving you the full payment, but if you want some more spirit stones you would have to do some jobs for me which you couldn''t deliver." The rogue captain started to sweat as he heard Yun Jhin''s cold tone and he took the half of the spirit stone and retreated as he bowed and left hiding through the shadows. Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked back and directly went to the apothecary''s location. He would make sure he got his hands on the empire''s map after he found if the apothecary had the plants he needed, as he walked around the small city he saw that most buildings were either dilapidated or directly broken down, most of the city''s population was looking to be starving from their skinny bodies, beggars could be seen on the streets keeping their hands out, most of them gazed into a single place as they were dead, from time to time some patrols would come and take the beggars bodies away, most of the normal people would avoid the beggars, even the unmoving ones. In the past, some of the beggars would go crazy and even eat human flesh, directly attacking their brethren to survive. After a short while of walking, Yun Jhin found the apothecary''s place, it looked quite better compared to the other buildings, seemingly as if it was new, with the words ''apothecary'' painted on a board above the entrance of the building, Yun Jhin entered the place and met with a young man who stood behind the desk, the young man had clean white clothes and a face mask over his face of the same color, mortals couldn''t breathe in too many odors of different plants or else there might be a strange reaction that could happen in their body. Yun Jhin immediately listed on all of the plants that he needed and waited for the young man to do the inventory, with good luck Yun Jhin got his hands on most of the things he needed the dragon flower, white ginseng, and undead worm flower, however, the highest quality maggot couldn''t be found at the apothecary, it would most of the time be found inside either a high-quality corpse that has rotten for a long time or if a maggot was especially fed a type of body part until it burst apart when it burst apart there was a low chance it would lay its progenies, then if you were lucky one of those progenies would have a chance to grow into a high-quality maggot. It would be better if he could find a tomb with a cultivator of the same stage as him, that would make him save a lot of time, as the young man packed Yun Jhin''s plants and gave out the price Yun Jhin frowned, the price would almost take away all of his spirit stones but he didn''t say anything as he paid for it in full, he didn''t have the strength to go against the empire yet, he wasn''t even a ki cultivating expert yet so he could only adhere to the law, however, if he could have he would have stolen the whole apothecary, unfortunately, he didn''t have the space mirror that he used to strut around with. In his previous life if he saw something he liked he would throw it in the mirror''s space! Yun Jhin left the apothecary, then directly went to the city lord''s house, he didn''t waste any time as the guards at the front pointed their sabers at him and inquired why did he approach the lord''s house when his cultivation base aura struck the guards and made them whimper like dogs, they immediately entered the courtyard of the house and came back with the captain of the guards who bowed and said: "Might I inquire why is this hero coming to the city lords house?" Yun Jhin didn''t beat around the bush and said that he had been in closed-door cultivation for a long time and he needed some fresh information that only the city lord would know. The captain left and came back after a few minutes then invited Yun Jhin in. The city lord was a spirited middle-aged man with a strong figure, he had a small beard on his face and long black hair tied in a ponytail at his back, he wore normal official clothes which consisted in a big yellow robe with the words of ''city lord'' on them. The city lord warmly invited Yun Jhin to tea inside his house and said: "What do respect do I commend for the corpse refining sect patriarch to visit my humble abode?" Yun Jhin didn''t bother with the formalities and said directly: "You should know that I don''t usually leave my sect, I just want some information about the empire and the map, it would be helpful for me if you didn''t know I already subdued the other two sects near me, the sword devil sect and the fairies sect." The city lord nodded his head seemingly knowing what happened, after all, he still had scouts inside the woods who would report on the happenings of the sects, sects were most of the time lawly abiding the empire but the strongest sects would look down on ''mortal empires'' such as the one that Yun Jhin lived in currently and invade them just for the disciples to have a good time, most of the elders would look down on the treasures of such empires and they would keep the powerhouses of the empire in check while the disciples would run amock. As Yun Jhin waited for the man to explain the situation in the empire he suddenly heard a dark chuckle coming from the man''s mouth: "Don''t you feel a little bit lightheaded, Sun Sisheng?" Yun Jhin drank the tea the city lord offered and his eyes narrowed as he looked insides his host body, it was a chunk of poison that he immediately eliminated, Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he looked at Long Sunwing and said: "Nice, very nice, I see why you were exiled, however unfortunately for you such weak poisons don''t work on me, it seems I was a fool trying to work this peacefully, *sigh* well the dynasty can''t blame me." Long Sunwing looked confused as he looked at Yun Jhin''s host and he was ready to attack with a hidden weapon when Yun Jhin spat a senbon needle out of his mouth which impacted the man''s throat and killed him, the body snatcher then refined the man into a corpse and slung him over his shoulder, since he decided to take things like this he would take them to the end, but based on the way the man was exiled and isolated to such a shit place nothing would happen to Yun Jhin, he would maybe even get rewarded, the royal house forbade siblicide in the open but that didn''t mean the siblings couldn''t hire someone to kill each other. After he looked around the city lord''s house Yun Jhin left with a spatial bag full of spirit stones and some high-quality food pills, also a new possible corpse king, as they were both at the level 4 he could rush the corpse king creation at the cost of a cultivation stage, it wasn''t worth to do so with stage 2 and 1 experts so he ate their bodies before. Their strength would reduce too much and even peak 9th stage earthly realm rookies could deal with such corpses. The guards looked horrified as they saw Yun Jhin leave the house with their boss slung over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes, the dark grey skin of their boss indicated that he was now an undead! Yun Jhin smiled as he devoured the man''s soul and got his memories, he now knew exactly how the empire worked, even though he was a low-ranking imperial he still had some good information about the inner circle of the Long empire. The guards didn''t dare to attack Yun Jhin as he already killed their boss so they could only look to the other side when Yun Jhin walked by them and whistle, Yun Jhin liked how the guards kept their place and patted both of them on their shoulder and said: "Good job keeping watch, your city lord had great guards, you are however now relived of your posts." He threw half a spirit stone to each and went to his way, with the number of spirit stones he got right now one spirit stone didn''t mean anything to him, he just felt happy that he got a spatial bag and the information he needed directly without any problems so he decided to make a good act out of his infinite benevolence. As he left the city behind him, Yun Jhin continued to absorb the memories and see how the man offended his superiors and make sure there will be no problems in the future. Chapter 20: How to get a high-quality maggot Yun Jhin entered the forest with the city lords body slung across his shoulder, he hummed a happy little tune that he learned in his previous lives as he walked towards the corpse refining sect, now that he had the body of a relatively high-quality practitioner he could create his maggot! However not any maggot would do, he needed to find the fattest one that he could in the sea of corpses, it would also need to be deep green indicating that it ate quite many cultivators'' bodies. After he got back to the sect he left the body back into the treasury, Miedo and the elders didn''t let out a peep as he came with a body slung over his shoulder, it didn''t matter that the body wore the outfit of a city lord, they knew better than to question their patriarch as they still remembered how the corpse king decapitated the traitors. Even Miedo was quite shaken inside at that moment. Yun Jhin made his way to the corpse sea and started freely swimming in it as he looked for the special maggot, his soul willpower engulfed the whole mountain of corpses as he searched for the peculiar feeling that the green maggot would exude, after a long while of searching he finally found what he was looking for, the green maggot, however, it was too small it seemed to be almost dead as well but Yun Jhin knew what to do to resurrect it. He immediately took it to the city lord''s body and made it eat some flesh, then miraculously the maggot started to peep as it came back alive, it drilled into the man''s skull and started to eat him from the inside slowly, it would be better to get the maggot for the pill instead of making him a corpse king, after all, if the dynasty wanted to put the crime on him he would just deny it because there was no evidence, and the duo guards from before would keep their mouth shut for sure unless they thought they could relocate their families and relatives by themselves. Yun Jhin was currently an overlord in this backwater place, he already sent Miedo to take over the city, and a message came back that he successfully became the new city lord as the citizens wouldn''t riot, with things being like this no messages could leak to the higher-ups of the dynasty, and even if some did, they wouldn''t investigate or send someone that strong to such a lowly place as it would be a waste of resources, even though the war with the nearby kingdom was ''done'' on paper that didn''t stop the kingdom from sending assassins and other hidden attacks to disrupt the peace of the dynasty. It was unknown what happened as the kingdom was way smaller than the dynasty but supposedly the kingdom was owned by a sect with the same strength as the empire, the sect was angered as the empire attacked their kingdom and now they were ready for revenge! That''s how the emperor got injured and why most of the officials didn''t look favourably on the prince''s position, most of them wanted to give up on the throne and the empire and join the sect! After all, their strongest expert was defeated and almost killed! Yun Jhin pondered what happened in the empire as he heard the maggot gorging itself on Long Sunwing body and he caressed his host''s short beard that he let grow. He could profit from this, as the clam and sandpiper fought the fisherman would catch both. However he needed to finish the transformation of the yin body and cultivate it to the qi cultivating realm and above, he atleast needed to reach the peak of the body''s potential which was the king realm before he could contend with the sect and the empire. However as long as he transformed the body he would be able to go on a devouring spree, the yin body needed fresh flesh and blood to cultivate it to completion, most of the people who went on this path were fiendish killers with no way out to advance their cultivation, but what Yun Jhin wanted was the quickness that the cultivators of this path attained. Yun Jhin kept slowly cultivating as he waited for the maggot to grow to its full length and potential, months passed by as the maggot grew to 1 meter tall and fully ate the man''s body, the maggot started pewing aggressively as it threw itself at Yun Jhin ready to tear into his body as well but a finger stopped it as it fell on it''s back and it started shrieking. Yun Jhin immediately poked it three times in its fat tummy making it stop moving. The high-quality maggot looked almost dead as it stopped wriggling and Yun Jhin nodded to himself as he took out all of the ingredients from his new spatial bag, he then used the cauldron as he heated it and he started putting the ingredients in one by one, lastly, he would put in the green fat maggot and a vial of his blood and stir them together, as the fire intensified under the cauldron the combination started to coagulate and harden into a form of a half green half white pill. Yun Jhin smiled as he took the pill from the cauldron and observed it, then he used a cultivation technique to inscribe it with a few formations lines and infused it with a bit of ki. Suddenly the pill started to glow with an ethereal half and half-light, one part deeply green while the other white. As he observed the pill for any impurities he nodded to himself as he put it in his mouth and directly swallowed it, inside Sun Sisheng''s body strange changes happened, his skin broke as he became a red man his flesh and blood ready for all to see, but after a while, new gray flesh with a certain armored pattern appeared on his body, his heart stopped pumping fresh blood as the blood transformed into a deep grey color, his canine teeth grew to fangs that protruded out of his mouth, his hair turned a deep silver color as his eyes turned red. His hands became claws as the armor pattern on his skin turned into tattoos, finally, after a few months, the bodily changes stopped as the body cultivation peaked at the 5th stage of the heavenly realm. Even though the body achieved a cultivation breakthrough, Yun Jhin''s main one was still at the 3rd stage even though he advanced in it he didn''t gain anything from the body breaking through, while his cultivation would be shared with the body vice versa wasn''t possible, but it did increase his cultivation speed even though it was even below the marble''s increase. Yun Jhin took a mirror out of the pile of treasures and looked at his host''s new body, he nodded and opened his mouth as he looked at his tongue which now had a hole in it, this was the way the living corpse would feed, with the hole in his tongue he would extract the nutrients from his targets body till it would turn into a dry corpse and it transformed into dust. The pill fully transformed him into a living undead, as he looked at his claws that would grow stronger along with his cultivation, he even hit his chest a few times to see how though was his new body, it sounded just like a piece iron hitting another piece of iron. Yun Jhin threw the mirror away as he took all of the spirit stones out of the corpse refining sect treasury and initiated a meet up with all of the elders of the sects, from the fairies sect to the sword devil one, everyone was invited, he made the excuse that he broke through and he needed all of his subordinates to hold out a giant banquet. After a few days, everyone was gathered, when they saw Yun Jhin coming out of the treasury looking like a corpse monster everyone took a few steps backward, but then the formation of the palace he inscribed a few days priorly activated and made them all trapped like turtles in a jar. Yun Jhin chuckled as he walked down near the elders and said: "I shall let the banquet commence right now, the first and only food that would be served would be... all of you." Yun Jhin''s tongue shot of his mouth as it impaled an elder and drained him all of his nutrients, the man couldn''t even scream as he became a dry corpse then turned into dust, all the elders started panicking, as the one who berated the young elder at the sword devil sect trembled and said: "We are done, we are done, the patriarch cultivated an evil technique that requires human sacrifices!" Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at the elder, the man was smart but unfortunately, this was the fastest way for the body to reach the 9th stage of the heavenly realm, afterward, he could just go hunt other sects while the empire was in disarray and get stronger and stronger! He never intended to keep the sect''s alive after he finished the transformation of his living undead corpse. Most of the elders tried to run away and escape using the doors but they were all closed and wouldn''t budge due to the formation, Yun Jhin''s tongue started to drain elders of their nutrients as more and more piles of dust appeared in the hall, Miedo fell to his knees as he kowtowed and said: "Father please spare me, father please spare me." He had gigantic tears in his eyes as they flowed freely down to his chin and he said: "Think about what mother would say in this situation father, please spare me for the sake of my mother''s request, before she died of that illness!" Yun Jhin seemingly pondered for a second but then his tongue impaled Miedo in his chest as his nutrients were drained but with his last amount of power Miedo said: "Why?" Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked down in his eyes and said as he was transforming into dust: "Because I''m not your father fool." Dying knowing the truth Miedo''s eyes widened as he fully transformed into dust. The elders were like headless chickens as they tried every possible escape route, they even tried to dig through the foundation of the palace and escape! Yun Jhin continued feeding as he ate more and more elders, finally, after a while only Nao Mao and the corpse king were left, Nao Mao and the corpse king were both on their knees as they waited, Yun Jhin made a swift motion with his tongue as they both transformed into dust. Dark eerie energy engulfed Yun Jhin''s body as his cultivation base increased, the 6th stage, the 7th stage, and the peak 9th stage! There it stopped as Yun Jhin breathed out a dark mist that immediately corroded the pillars of the palace! He left the palace behind as he left the sect''s surroundings. Then he left for the sword devil sect as he emptied the treasury of the most important items, and he did the same with the fairies sect treasury. Afterward, he left the forest through the northern parts where the fairies sect was based, according to the map he gained from the city lord, his city was located at the southernmost place of the dynasty, to get to the capital he had to go north! The capital was where he would unleash himself without any consequences, all of the higher elites ki cultivating masters were either dealing with the sect fighters or the assassination attempts, they could at most dispatch some early-stage elites that he could use to break through the body to the ki cultivating realm! Even though his main body lagging in cultivation as long as he had Sun Sishengs body slowly but surely he could catch up, and if he could find hell''s entrance it would be even better! However it was very unlikely, as the empire had at most a middle to early level King Realm expert so it couldn''t even be called a middle-level organization, and only god realm or above organizations were privy to hell''s entrance! There was a chance for such information to be had by middle level or below organizations only if they were favored as a subordinate of a god-level organization but from what it seemed the Long Empire didn''t have such luck, nor did the sect with the same power as the empire. If they were favored the god level organization would have already intervened and made the other organization bow down. Yun Jhin shook his head as he thought about these things and made sure he was on the right way to the capital, as it had the highest population of cultivators, there he could either accumulate enough resources or eat a ki cultivating expert! Chapter 21: On the way to the capital Yun Jhin checked the map again as he walked on a forest trail, he was quite far away from the capital and even at his fastest speed it would take him up to a month to get to it on foot, Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at the map and muttered to himself: "If I had my dragon mount..." If he had his dragon mount he would have arrived at the capital in nanoseconds, but that was just him reminiscing about his past he knew there was no chance to get his dragon mount back as it wasn''t even dried bones anymore by now. Yun Jhin kept running at a quick speed as his surroundings changed around him, the trees became sparser as he left the forest and entered a plain, there he met with a merchant caravan that he ignored and continued on his way to the capital, however, to get to the capital he had to go through a few cities that he couldn''t avoid, or else it would take him a long time to get to the capital and Yun Jhin was a caterpillar that didn''t dilly dally around. He wanted to avoid cities due to his monstrous form that he was hiding using a cloak, unless he got to the ki cultivating realm he couldn''t use his technique to hide his living corpse features, at the ki cultivating realm experts could start to transform their body using ki making them able to change their physical features, but that was only for the people who got their hands on such cultivation techniques. Yun Jhin entered his first city after a few days of traveling and looked around, even though it looked better than the one near his sect it was still a pretty run-down city, he shook his head as he quickly looked around and found nothing worth noting of the city and left. As he traveled Yun Jhin found more similar cities and as he got closer and closer to the capital he realized that the cities got better and better in quality of architecture and the living conditions of the people, the closer he was the more he realized how the empire worked, it was pretty much a normal monarchy where the nobles were kings and the civilians were treated worse than shit. This was one of his favorite type of empires, most of the emperors of such empires were pretty self-centered and selfish, they would only look out for themselves making it easier to do things outside their bubble if Yun Jhin took a hold of the sects nearby the capital as long as he didn''t attack the capital immediately he could grow in power enough to take over the empire by himself. But he couldn''t alert the sect that was fighting with the empire or else there would be problems, after all, the sect wanted to take over the empire unless the king realm expert fought and injured each other he would lay low no matter what, the emperor of the empire was already injured but that didn''t mean he would go down when he was going to be attacked, he should have some aces up his sleeve. Yun Jhin stopped at another city on the way to the capital where he found some plants that he ate with his main body, those plants strengthened his soul mending speed and put him closer to the fourth level of the heavenly realm. After he looked around the city some more and found nothing else that could help his main body he tried to leave but somehow the city lord got a hold of his location and invited him to his palace. Yun Jhin didn''t refuse as he met with the city lord, just like the former city lord his family name was Long, all city lords were imperials, and the closer they were situated to the capital the more favored they were by the true imperial family. This guy was quite close to the capital so he must be a quite important fellow to the imperial family, Yun Jhin wondered why he would get invited as he didn''t do anything in the city but when he met with the man and heard his words he smiled inside, it seemed he was right. Long Mansing was your average greedy fatty, he looked oiled up with dark slick back hair, he wore a flowered robe and had an amiable smile on his face, his small goatee and stature enhanced his funny look. The man smiled as he immediately went to the subject and said: "Sect leader Sun Sisheng of the Corpse Refining sect, my men heard how your son took over that city south of here, what was it called again? Slums something or whatever, we don''t care about such a lowly city but we also heard you have killed the former city lord." The man smiled as he walked forward to Sun Sisheng, how did he know about what happened was pretty normal, the rogues of the city must have put the information for auction and after it was bought it shared with everyone of importance. Long Mansing stood up near the window of his office and said: "You might have heard that the former city lord was isolated there as punishment, you have done a great favor to the right minister by silencing the man, even if you didn''t know, I''m not sure why you are traveling to the capital but the right minister is looking forward to your visit, he also said that you can visit him at the palace at any time as he needs people of your caliber on his side." The man smiled as he slid Yun Jhin a spatial bag that Yun Jhin grabbed and nodded at him, under his hood his red eyes were observing the fatty as he said: "I might wonder if this city lord has any new information about the capital?" The fat city lord chuckled as he kept his hands behind his back and said: "Of course, as my city is quite close to the capital I get news way faster than the others, might I inquire what this sect master needs?" By the looks of it, the dynasty was pretty desperate if they wanted to rope in sects from all over the counties. After all, not all patriarchs reached the heavenly realm in such sects, most of them were at the peak of the earthly realm stuck there, even though the place Yun Jhin considered backwater was pretty bad there were worse places out there, Yun Jhin eyed the fat man before asking: "I have heard the emperor is injured, might I know if he will come out of seclusion soon, I''m worried about the safety of the empire." The fatty snorted as he looked at Yun Jhin''s hood that was covering his face and said: "Our emperor was injured due to the traitorous actions of one our generals, but he was already executed, as for his injuries he should heal himself soon enough, by that time the people who threaten our empire should be dealt with." The man was full of bullshit, from what he could hear in his tone he was trying to force himself to think that it was true, from his tremblings lips it seemed that the emperor was injured quite lethally, Yun Jhin nodded to himself, the harder the fall of the emperor the harder he would hit the aggressor back when he would come to execute him. Yun Jhin was ready to take his leave as he cupped his fists to the city lord, the city lord smiled and did the same gesture as he waved to Yun Jhin and let him leave as he muttered: "To think that the empire fell so low we have to recruit this savage patriarch''s from these lowly sects without even a ki cultivating realm expert *sigh* will the empire fall?" Unknowingly to him, Yun Jhin heard every word that he muttered, Yun Jhin left the man''s office and then the city as he shook his head, it seemed it wasn''t going to be easy to eliminate the emperor and the other party, as he thought about it he realized that the emperor might not be the only king realm expert of the empire, however, he didn''t have any further information, the only way to get more would be to join a faction in the capital. Yun Jhin wasn''t against joining factions, as he could leave them whenever he wanted, even if his temporary body would die he could just onto another one, but for now he would need to get more materials to evolve his mind-transforming caterpillar into a higher tier of the same race. There were still some types of mind caterpillars that he could reach but he needed special material''s such as white soul ginseng, death water of middle quality, and some eyes of a spiritual creature. Those weren''t rare materials but considering the location, he was in they might as well be extinct to him. Yun Jhin frowned as he left the city and looked on the map, only a few more days before he would reach capital! He walked through plains, he walked through some mountain zones and some other forest trails until he finally reached the capital. The capital wasn''t that beautiful but it exuded opulence, the giant gates that were open as they weren''t in war times officially, Yun Jhin shook his head as he observed the opulence of the capital, with the money and resources they wasted to beautify the capital they could have created some more experts! He looked around as he counted the materials used, golden sand, soul marble, dainty ice, dragon scales rock. The gates were painted with two dragons intertwined, one was red and one green, they looked like they were fighting and embracing at the same time, Yun Jhin wasn''t sure what did they signify as he didn''t research the history of the empire. After a while of traveling, Yun Jhin finally reached the capital! Coincidentally as soon as he reached the capital he met with an allay of people who were carrying a sedan chair with an extremely beautiful woman on it, her white baby clear skin, blue eyes, and long flowing blonde hair made her look sexy and innocent at the same time, Yun Jhin stopped a nearby netizen of the capital and asked him about the event: "It''s the main princess, Long Mumu, the one that the emperor dotes the most on, ah, just look at her beauty, it says that after her mother died the emperor went into such grief that he almost killed himself, but when she smiled at him all his grief went away and he returned to being the same emperor as before, maybe even more benevolent!" Yun Jhin shook his head, what a good way to brainwash the citizens he thought, then he eyed the allay that was going deeper and deeper into the capital and approached the main palace. Yun Jhin''s eyes sparkled as he thought about a plan to get inside the palace faster, this was one of the former abilities that lead him through hard times when he was weak. But with his current body''s appearance he couldn''t do it, he needed to first break through the ki cultivating realm, after he made sure he memorized the layout of the capital he walked towards a shop that sold information and asked: "I would like to know about the nearby sects, would this brother be so kind." He waved a spirit stone in the air and the man at the desk nodded his head as he said: "Well there are 5 sects that are nearby the capital, as for this brother''s heroic aura I would recommend the Divine Feather''s sect they are the strongest sect nearby and they have a patriarch at the 5th stage of the Ki cultivating realm." That took the Divine Feather''s sect out of his list as he couldn''t attack the sect, or his body might get destroyed, he couldn''t deal with a ki cultivating expert at the 5th stage. Yun Jhin continued to look at the man as he waited for the information of the 4 other sects, the man continued by saying: "The second sect would be The righteous sword sect their patriarch is at the 4th stage, then the beast taming sect, 3rd stage patriarch, the reliance sect with a patriarch at the 2nd stage and most lastly the dragon eating sect, this one of the sect''s that I wouldn''t recommend this brother to join." Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed at the name, dragon eating, that meant the sect was directly going against the imperial family, quite an interesting thing. As Yun Jhin inquired about the sect''s name the shopkeeper was ready to tell him the story as he eyed the spirit stone and said: "This friend would have to pay the whole spirit stone for all the information." Yun Jhin nodded at him and threw him the spirit stone, then the man cupped his fists and started his story. Chapter 22: The tale of the dragon eating sect The information shopkeep started to talk about the dragon eating sect: "It''s the other son of the emperor, he, well he got jealous of the crown prince and tried to attack him, so he went and created this dragon eating sect as a type of revenge on his brother gaining the throne after his father went into seclusion." The shopkeep shook his head as he said: "The sect can''t even be called a sect, the young man created it out of spite and he has some of his loyal subordinates protecting him, it''s more like a child playing house, but he sent some flyers here and there saying they recruit, most of the free practitioners wouldn''t approach his sect though." Yun Jhin nodded at the shopkeeper as he left the shop and thought to himself: "A very good way to infiltrate the palace, I can kill the son and take over his identity after I get this body to the ki cultivating realm, it''s way better than trying to seduce the princess, it''s simpler and takes a shorter time too." As Yun Jhin finished his plan he left the capital and directly went to the headquarters of the dragon eating sect, there he met with some guards that looked like they came straight out of the empire''s military because they did, they were subordinates of the general who had to take care of the second prince. They immediately shouted at Yun Jhin: "Halt who dares to trespass into the territory of the dragon eating sect, state your name and business!" Yun Jhin stopped and put his hands up as he said: "I''m a now wandering pugilist called Sun Sisheng, I have heard this sect requires personnel and I would like to join it!" The guards looked at each other, and thought, did this guy read one of their flyers? one stood at the gate as he observed Yun Jhin and said: "Our sect master will invite you for an interview if he agrees for you to join." The other guard came back after a while and said: "The sect master agreed and he would like you to come inside." The inside of the sect wasn''t anything grand as the second prince didn''t have enough time to create a proper sect, inside the main hall of the shabbily built palace stood the second prince on his throne, he was a well built tall young man looking to be around 17-18 years old, he had short silver hair and a fair countenance, he also had deep blue eyes and wore a yellow imperial robe. Behind him stood a man that burst with muscle, his face was hidden under a samurai mask and his heavy armor didn''t do anything to impend his muscles as it seemingly plied on his body, he was the general that was supposed to protect the second prince, he was one of the weaker generals as the prince fell out of grace so he was only at the 1st level of the Ki Cultivating realm. The prince got up from his sect as he looked Yun Jhin up and down and said: "You have come to join my sect but it seems you aren''t that honest with me, what''s with that cloak hiding your body? Do you have something to hide?" Yun Jhin shook his head as he said: "I have trained in a special undead technique, sect master please bear with my looks." He dropped the cloak from his body showing his horrid visage to the prince and the general behind him, the prince observed him with a critical eye while the general''s eyes looked as steely as before, as he identified his cultivation realm which stood at the peak of the heavenly realm. The second prince clapped as he looked at Yun Jhin''s body and marveled: "How interesting, such a corpse technique existed in this world? you are living undead, very interesting, very interesting, why would you want to join this prince though? You should have heard what happened between me and my elder brother." Yun Jhin nodded as he opened his mouth said: "Yes I have heard what happened between your highness and your royal brother, but I have also heard Long Sunwing was the one who offended you, I know you are good friends with the minister of the right, even though the minister invited me directly to his home I''m of lowly standing and I didn''t even break through to the Ki cultivating realm yet so I''m too ashamed to present myself to the minister of the right like this." At the mention of Long Sunwing the prince''s eyes clouded over as he finally remembered the name and laughed: "Oh, I remember now I got a report saying that Long Sunwing was killed, so you were the one who did it? marvelous indeed he was a cousin of mine so I couldn''t kill him myself as it would have angered royal father, but you killed him so it has nothing to do with me right?" He winked at me and said: "So you want to connect yourself to the minister of right through me? Quite smart of you, you are also at the peak of the heavenly realm from what my guard told to me, with the resources of the imperial palace we could make you a ki cultivating expert." Yun Jhin bowed as he kept his fists cupped at the prince and said: "Your highness, my cultivation technique requires special nutritious objects, I want to join the war efforts and serve the dynasty as a soldier, I know this is a sudden request that shouldn''t be even appointed towards your highness, but I do not want to go through the normal joining efforts, I would like to join your highness personal guards." The prince looked at Yun Jhin and took a pondering look on his face, he would need a special unit with Yun Jhin at the head, from his observation he realized that Yun Jhin was stronger than the average 9th stage heavenly realm and he didn''t break through the Ki cultivating realm yet, how strong would he be then? The prince continued looking at Yun Jhin as he waved his hand at the general behind him and said: "Welcome our friend to the dragon eating sect, however for his other requests I would have to ponder some more by myself, get him something to cover himself in our sect colors, also make sure you help him break through to the Ki cultivating realm sooner than later, at that time based on the results I will give him a satisfactory answer." Yun Jhin bowed again and followed the general that waved to him, the body snatcher followed the general towards a rather luxurious room as he said: "You are one of the first disciples with such a high cultivation base, so you can be the second sect master, here in the room you will find a robe of our sect, I will send a maid to modify it so you could hide your appearance, I will need some time to get the needed materials to help you breakthrough, what do you need?" Yun Jhin''s passive face turned into a deep smile as he said: "Any corpses at the 9th stage or above, a corpse of a Ki cultivating realm expert would immediately propel me near the Ki cultivating realm." The general nodded his head as he looked at me through the slits of the helmet and said: "Quite a strange cultivation technique you have there my friend, you wouldn''t mind if I." Suddenly he attacked with lightning quickness as his hand directly went to Yun Jhin''s neck, the man clasped Yun Jhin by the neck and picked him like one would pick a little chick. The man''s eyes narrowed as he said: "I Bong Susang never saw such a peculiar cultivation technique that can transform one into a living undead, where are you from Sun Sisheng, you can''t be a normal patriarch from a small sect at the borders of the empire, you also came to the capital fast based on your cultivation base, you are trying to infiltrate the imperial family?" He sneered as he clutched his neck harder and said: "Tell me who sent you? The Heavenly turtle sect? the Bagan Empire?" Yun Jhin shook his head and said, he didn''t need air as a corpse as he unclasped the man''s hands from his neck using his superior body strength, the man didn''t use his Ki as he thought he could easily deal with a 9th stage heavenly realm practitioner. Bong Susang''s eyes widened as he looked at his hand and then at Yun Jhin as he said: "I have underestimated you, but that won''t mean I''m done with you." He started powering up his ki as he was ready to start a fight here and there when Yun Jhin opened his mouth: "I have gained this cultivation technique during one of my travels outside the sect, I have based my sect on the borders because I have heard about a tomb of an expert in corpse refining, luckily with tens of years of searching I finally found the tomb with the corpse technique, I''m not sent by anyone, you can ask the spies you have near that region, this is my first time in years I have left the sect grounds." Bong Susang narrowed his eyes as he took his helmet off his head showing his scarred bald head and mutilated face then he said: "If you aren''t a spy then I will give you my apologies, but up till then my men will keep an eye on you." Bong Susang lived through countless wars since he was a young man, he became extremely paranoid and immediately suspected something when he saw such a high-level patriarch would like to join the army, most of the time patriarch''s from small sects would be too prideful to do such things on their initiative, as they would rather be the head of a snake than the backside of a dragon. The general would immediately get in touch with the spies at the border to make sure what Yun Jhin said was the truth, the man abhorred traitors and spies as a traitor that turned out to be a spy was the one who got the emperor injured. As most of the soldiers from the army were brainwashed into loving their emperor, especially as the emperor had quite a high martial might, most of them wanted to be taken as apprentices by the emperor so they could learn the imperial cultivation technique. Yun Jhin shook his head as he entered the room and cracked his neck, even though the hold on his neck didn''t hurt him it made his neck rather stiff. He knew such things would happen if he tried to suddenly join the imperial family but the best way to destroy them would be from the inside. He just had to go through some screens but they wouldn''t be able to find anything on him as his past was pretty clean, the disciples didn''t even know the elders were eaten as they thought they were all in closed-door cultivation, and the patriarch left for greener pastures so they could do whatever they wanted. Yun Jhin knew he was already in the army at this point, he just needed to wait for a little to get his confirmation. Chapter 23: The second princes worries As Yun Jhin cultivated in his room after the maid came and changed his outfit to fit him better, Bong Susang was making his way towards the communication place, there he directly connected with the spies at the border of the empire and asked them about Sun Sisheng. However he came out empty-handed as the information he gained gave Yun Jhin a very strong alibi and confirmed his words, the general shook his head, maybe he overthought this, he went back to Yun Jhin''s room where he knocked a few times then said without entering the room: "I''m sorry for my previous actions and I welcome friend Sun Sisheng in the army! As for your request, I will try to do my best to get my hands on the goods." Yun Jhin followed by responding: "No hard feelings general, after all, you just tried to protect the benefits of the imperial family and I can respect that I will wait for goods news from you." Yun Jhin kept himself in his room as the general left and met with the prince who said: "So is he a spy?" Susang shook his head as a strange light appeared in his eyes and responded to his liege: "Most likely not but there is something fishy about him, I would like to continue observing him if his highness agrees, what does your highness have to say about this?" The second prince looked at his most trusted general and shook his head as he said: "If you keep your men observing him who will protect me from the assassination attempts? Do you know my elder brother almost lost his head yesterday if it wasn''t for eldest uncle timely help?" The general wanted to say that he wasn''t as important as his eldest brother but he kept his tongue as it would only anger the young prince, then he shook his head and left the prince alone, it would be quite bad for him if he angered the prince for no reason, after all, he was still the man''s guard. Yun Jhin eyes opened as he stopped eavesdropping on their conversation and nodded his head and thought: "It seems the imperial family isn''t dumb when it comes to their safety, this would make my job harder, hmm." He thought about taking over the prince''s body but if he did he wouldn''t be able to leave the sect grounds or they would realize the man is braindead afterward, he needed to evolve to a stronger caterpillar form before he took over his body! While the second prince was worrying for his safety Yun Jhin concocted a plan on how to take over the man''s body, but he would need the general to be away so he wouldn''t be able to sense the soul fluctuations. Yun Jhin kept himself in his room as he waited for the bodies that were supposed to be delivered to him, after a few days of waiting for some bodies were delivered by a soldier from the army, before he soldier left Yun Jhin stopped him and said: "I would also require some of these materials, a soul white ginseng, yin strengthening paste, death water of middle quality, and some amplifying paste." Yun Jhin didn''t know the formula of stronger caterpillars but he analyzed the powers and characteristics of the caterpillar forms he knew and then he thought about the materials that could technically make his current caterpillar form go into the direction that he wanted. It didn''t take him much time to finish what he said when the man scratched his head awkwardly and said: "Death water is a quite rare material, brother Sun I will have to report to the general first, the other things can be given as fast as possible but the death water..." Yun Jhin nodded his head and waved his hand indicating he wanted to be left alone, as his mouth opened sickly crunching sounds could be heard behind the door as the man started to shake and ran away sweating heavily. Bang Susang snorted as he heard the soldier''s report and said: "Death water of middle quality? where does he think he lives, does he think he is a member of the imperial family? Second prince, what I should do with his request?" The second prince looked at his nails as he cleaned them with a knife and said after he finished: "If he wants death water it should be to advance his undead physique, just like all cultivators all he wants is to further his cultivation, it''s quite normal in my opinion, we can give him the death water, I already have a batch waiting for me at home, but can we give it to him for free? Soldiers should work for their meal!" Yun Jhin finished the bodies as he looked towards the second prince''s location and narrowed his eyes, putting me to work huh, he thought. Yun Jhin wasn''t lazy but he didn''t want to go on any suicidal missions if he got any mission that was out of his scope he would directly leave and try to steal the death water, afterward he would come back and take over the prince''s body! Before he could reformulate a plan the general''s voice was heard outside his door as he said: "I have heard your request and the second prince is inviting you to a briefing." As Yun Jhin finished the bodies he decided to follow the general to see the second prince, he left his room behind as he met with the prince in the main building, the prince was admiring his nail''s as he didn''t even look at Yun Jhin as he said: "If you want death water I have a job for you that you must do before I can give it to you." Yun Jhin waited for the man to say what he wanted before he responded, the prince took the silence as an affirmative response and he said: "You see my good general here identified some rebels inside the Heavenly Feather''s sect, they work for the heavenly turtle sect if you didn''t know the heavenly turtle sect is the sect that backs up the kingdom that we went to war with, we are in this situation due to their interference." The man frowned as he said: "The sect patriarch protects his subordinates even though we have hard evidence against them, it''s because they are his foster sons, I have one job for you, go and assassinate them and the death water is yours, they deserve death for betraying the empire and becoming such traitorous dogs, even though sects aren''t under the empire''s hands, on paper, they live on empire''s land and they are the empire''s citizens." The prince frowned as he continued: "Betraying the empire is the highest grade of crime that currently exists, so they have to take capital punishment, do you understand Sun Sisheng? I want their heads presented to me before I will give you the death water, you can refuse this mission but who knows when there will be another easy mission like this? With such a huge reward to boot!" Death water was used in many things, formations, pill refining, healing, etc. It was a very important material that the imperial family wouldn''t easily part with, technically speaking, what the second prince wanted from Yun Jhin was extremely simple as the other people from the imperial family wouldn''t give away their quota of death water even if they were held at sword point. Yun Jhin knew that the Divine Feather''s sect had a 5th stage patriarch, if he offended the man he was pretty much lost, he looked at the prince and said: "What if the patriarch realizes I was the one who killed his foster sons and wants to kill me? Who will protect me?" The second prince shook his head as he said: "As I said I won''t force you to do the mission, maybe if you broke through to the Ki cultivating realm you could easily deal with the traitors as you could shape yourself with this cultivation technique." He waved a book in front of his face as he used it as a fan, but then he coughed as a bunch of dust left the old tome and entered in his mouth, then he threw the book away as he shouted at the general: "Damn it Susang, didn''t I tell you to get me a fresh copy?" Susang shook his head as he said: "This is the freshest copy my liege, no one touched the library section of the body transformation techniques in years, not everyone has the constitution to use these type of techniques." Yun Jhin snorted inside, it wasn''t the constitution but the inability of those people to understand the technique, he grabbed the tome from the ground and looked through it, he shook his head inside, it wasn''t that they were dumb. The technique they used was broken, it was fragmented and it couldn''t be used no matter how talented the man who trained in it was. It was a useless piece of garbage. But he didn''t say anything as he pocketed the book and bowed to the prince: "After I break through to the ki cultivating realm I might be able to train in this technique, with my living undead physique I should be able to do it!" The prince smiled as he looked at me and said: "Then I will do my best to get you the 1st stage Ki cultivating realm body that you need, Susang, I know my elder brother got his hands on a body of an elder from the Heavenly turtle sect, it was the assassin that uncle dealt with, make him spit it out, tell him what happened here, he will understand, right now he can''t send anyone to assassinate these two curs but with the help of Sisheng here things are now doable." Susang nodded and left after he bowed to the prince, the prince then looked at Yun Jhin and started to chat with him about his past, Yun Jhin used Sun Sisheng''s memories perfectly and even had to act here and there to make things look true on his part. After a few hours of waiting the prince got bored with chatting and told Yun Jhin that he could go back to his room. After a day of waiting Susang still didn''t come back, 2 days, 3 days, 4 days... After 2 weeks Susang finally came back, coincidentally Yun Jhin broke through to the 4th stage of the heavenly realm with his body that day. Slung over his shoulder in a body bag stood the corpse of the elder that attacked the crown prince, he looked embarrassed as he scratched his bald head and said: "I''m sorry, second prince but your elder brother couldn''t be convinced easily, he said that he wanted to show the body to his father as a trophy but with the help of the right minister after a lot of arguing and going back and forth I could finally get my hands on the body, I''m sorry again for making you wait so much." Technically speaking without the interference of the right minister Susang wouldn''t have ever got his hands on the elder''s body because it would assist the second prince to grow in favor in the eyes of the emperor after he heard of his deeds, this was something the eldest prince wouldn''t ever want to see, he already got a hold of the taste of power and he wouldn''t let go of it easily. He might even break the rules directly and he would go himself to kill his brother, after all, the cultivation difference between the eldest brother and the second prince was enormous, while the second prince was at the 7th level of the heavenly realm the eldest prince was as strong as the patriarch of the Heavenly Feather''s sect! Busang excused himself as he delivered the body to Yun Jhin''s room. Busang then left as he didn''t want to watch the grisly scene of a monster like Yun Jhin eating the body of another human being, even though he killed countless people in his time, there was a difference between killing and eating humans. Yun Jhin looked at the corpse of the elder and licked his lips, this was his ticket to the 1st stage of the Ki cultivating realm, afterwards, he could finally start moving freely in the capital! Well as freely as he could under the ''protection'' of the second prince. Chapter 24: Ki cultivating realm 1st stage Yun Jhin started feasting on the body as his teeth started to rip and shred the meat of the bones, he swallowed and munched on the meat as his body started to glow a peculiar red light, the bones crunched under his sharp fangs, a sickly sound could be heard as he drank the blood like it was water, the meat was hard but his teeth were sharp so he could chew it easily. After the 1st stage of the ki cultivating realm the body will be refined again using the inner ki one would cultivate at this stage, it was way stronger than the outer ki you would use to cultivate your body at the earthly realm as it was of higher quality. As Yun Jhin feasted on the body inner ki started to appear in his ki pathways around his body, a fire started to burn inside his stomach area that went and extended to his whole body, at first the blue fire was weak but as he feasted on the body parts and reached the bones the fire increased it''s an intensity to a point that his ki pathways started to visible harden, they became just like pipes in a machine that couldn''t be dislodged, this was a benefit of the living undead constitution. His ki pathways couldn''t be broken by inner ki attacks that would attack his organs so his ki circulation couldn''t be disturbed reducing any ki deviation and inner injuries. As the body was finished Yun Jhin sat cross-legged on the ground and he started to cultivate, the inner ki started to quickly work in his body''s ki pathways, as it spun faster and faster his face and skin tone started to change his fangs disappeared as the claws retracted, he returned to his former appearance, but then it changed again! He became a hunchbacked old man with white hair, his voice became hoarse and he looked like he had one foot in the grave, he nodded to himself as he felt the transformation and reverted to his former appearance as he left his room, he met with general Susang and said: "I have finished cultivating, I''m ready to set out and deal with the traitors." Susang looked at Yun Jhin up and down and nodded his head as his appearance thoroughly changed and he could feel the 1st stage ki fluctuations from his body and said: "I will inform his majesty, I will go and get the map of the layout of the heavenly feather''s sect, and also some information about the habits of the men you have to kill." He looked around before saying: "We can also give you some weapons to make the assassination easier, we have quite a lot of hidden weapons that could help you in this situation, just tell us what you are more experienced with." Yun Jhin got some hidden weapons from Susang and the map and a scroll with information about the targets. As he read through them he burned the map and the information scroll afterward then made sure all of the weapons were hidden properly on his body, then he left for the heavenly feathers sect. it was nearby the capital for about a 50 minutes walk but with Yun Jhin''s new speed and power he got to the sect in 1 minute. He stood in the shadows as he observed the sect and according to the layout he used the surroundings to hide, the formations around him were no problem as he easily saw holes through them that he exploited, as he thought about the formations he sneered: "They didn''t give me information about the formations, they thought that they could test me here and even get rid of me, I will make sure to reward them properly later." He easily dodged the formations and got near a courtyard where the men were supposed to be relaxing, as they were under the protection of the sect master they had guards near the courtyard''s door 24/7 but Yun Jhin didn''t need to go through the door, his body turned spectral as he went through the wall! Assassination techniques weren''t his favorite but he had quite a high proficiency in them as one of his former lives embraced this type of attacking technique, however, due to the limitations of the techniques the former life ended dying before he even achieved the god realm, which was pretty much a failure in Yun Jhin''s opinion. Yun Jhin looked as two men were doing a certain activity inside the courtyard and shook his head, a different type of people exist everywhere and he wouldn''t judge them but he came at the right time to end them, while they were distracted with their ''wrestling'' Yun Jhin threw two kunai''s direct to their necks, their arteries easily cut as two fountains of blood worth amount of blood appeared on the ground, he looked at the disgusting scene and nodded his head as he left, turning spectral again he left through the shadows. Suddenly as there was no more sound coming from the room behind them the guards entered the verify if anything happened to the darlings of the sect master and he gagged as he saw what happened, not only was the image disturbing to the guard, two men, atop of each other naked with their throats slit, but the guard immediately stopped thinking about the image and started trembling! He was dead as well, the foster sons of the patriarch were dead and he was going into their footsteps soon! Instead of letting his death be arbitrated by the sect master he took his sword and driven it through his stomach committing suicide. Yun Jhin was already away from the sect quickly reaching the dragon eating sect grounds as his form changed from the hunchbacked old man that he used to kill the traitorous duo and went to his normal human form of Sun Sisheng. He met with the second prince and bowed as he said: "The deed is done, you can send some spies to confirm, I couldn''t take their heads as it would have alerted the patriarch of my presence, their location was littered with formations that could have been triggered if I entered unknowingly." The second prince smiled as he nodded his head and said: "After the kills will be confirmed I will get someone to send you the death water, of course, their death is very sad, our empire lost two great men." He sarcastically said as he waved his hand indicating that Yun Jhin could leave him alone, Yun Jhin bowed again as he left after he got his hands on the death water combined with the other materials he could finally evolve his main body''s form again! Susang came quickly as he approached the prince and kneeled as a victorious smile appeared on his face: "Sisheng didn''t lie, he did it, our spies in the sect confirmed the duo''s death, um it was a little bit strange but their death was confirmed anyway, will you truly give him the death water? Your highness, you should know that the water would be useful for you as well." The second prince shook his head as he said: "I promised him the death water and I cannot go back on it if I will my future subordinates believe in me? It''s just some death water, next month there will be another batch." Susang nodded his head as he looked at his liege and asked: "Should I go and collect this month''s worth for you?" The prince nodded and waved his hand indicating that the general should go and as he said. The general bowed and left the prince behind. Yun Jhin nodded his head inside his room as he eavesdropped on their conversation, he was ready to go and kill the duo if they refused, he would take control of the prince using his remote control and eat the general, then he would use a fodder soldier to get the death water. Yun Jhin waited as Susang entered the palace after a few hours of waiting but his face was red with anger as he reported to his liege: "I''m sorry my liege I... I failed you, such a simple request, the princess said that she wanted some beautifying pills and she took your death water quota, when I came there she was just retrieving the death water and I couldn''t stop her or else she could have even tried to execute me." He dropped to his knees as he started kowtowing and shouted: "Please punish this subordinate." The second prince frowned as he looked at Susang and said: "Sister Mumu? I remember she doted on me when I was small, why would she?" He frowned as he thought about it and then he shook his head as he said: "Did she got roped into elder brother''s faction?" Susang stopped kowtowing as the prince waved his hand and said: "I''m not sure how are we supposed to explain things to Sun Sisheng, after all, he did his job and we don''t have the pay for him, this will turn things awkward between us, as cultivator who practices such an evil incantation I''m not sure how he will react to this, after all, I know that such techniques tend to warp the user''s emotions quite a lot, even if he is at the early stages." The second prince frowned as he started to think about what he could do to help Yun Jhin get his death water, he looked at Susang and asked: "Is the black market selling any contraband death water?" Susang frowned as he looked at this liege and said: "Your highness you know that the contraband death water is extremely expensive, it might even cost us 90% of our funds." The second prince frowned as he heard this, he still needed funds to rope in other cultivators in his sect, this was a job the right minister gave him to infiltrate in the inner circle of the outside sect and invite them towards the side of the empire, his job was to get the sect''s to fight the enemy kingdom and defend the empire if he did that he might get a chance to overthrow his elder brother as the crown prince. That was the promise the right minister gave him! Yun Jhin frowned inside his room, the princess took a hold of the share of the second prince death water, this was a troublesome matter to him, but he broke through the ki cultivating realm so he could act on his first plan, he had a lot of seducing techniques in his arsenal and the young princess shouldn''t be able to resist his charm, after all, Sun Sisheng wasn''t an ugly man. Yun Jhin left his room as he seemingly got in the moment the duo was talking about how to get him his reward, the imperial duo looked awkwardly at each other as they spotted Yun Jhin entering the hall and they coughed awkwardly as they said: "You didn''t hear our conversation did you?" Yun Jhin frowned as he looked at the duo, his expression told them what they needed to know and they sighed as the second prince said: "I cannot do much about what happened, friend Sisheng, please don''t get mad, I will try my best to get my hands on another death water vial." Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at the man, he knew he was just bluffing right now, he wouldn''t want to waste his money on a ''subordinate'' like him, even though he did his job they were skimping on payment, it wasn''t their fault but Yun Jhin was still quite angry, but he decided to rein in his anger as he said: "I wonder if the second prince could make me and princess Long Mumu meet, I might be able to persuade her to give back the death water and even join the right minister''s side." Susang frowned as he said: "You eavesdropped on the whole conversation." Yun Jhin just smiled at the man''s words, Susang shook his head, they were in the wrong on this one so it didn''t matter if Yun Jhin eavesdropped, these were things he needed to know anyways. The second prince took a better look at Yun Jhin and said: "You want to talk with my sister? It can be done quite easily, but my sister is quite fickled and ill-tempered, I wonder how will you charm her into giving you the death water and even betray my eldest brother?" Yun Jhin chuckled as he said: "I have my ways second prince, just leave it to me, you might even have to call me brother in law in the future." The second prince chuckled himself as he said: "Susang, arrange a meeting between my sister and my future brother-in-law here." He looked quite skeptical as he chuckled but since Yun Jhin offered himself to do this he didn''t refuse, after all, it would save him time work and money if Yun Jhin got his reward himself. Yun Jhin thought about thanking the princess if she didn''t take the second princes'' death water he wouldn''t have been able to get near her as easily! Chapter 25: Seducing one princess Things went quickly the following days Yun Jhin could go and meet with princess Long Mumu, due to his heroic act and hard work for the empire, it wasn''t known what kind of act he had done and why he wanted his reward to be meeting the princess. The second prince looked at Yun Jhin as he changed his outfit to a yukata for the ''date'' with the princess, his hair was done in a ponytail at his back and he gave off a suave air that could entrance younger women like the princess. The second prince clapped a few times as he said: "If I liked men I would have been entranced by you as well, good job, my sister like''s pretty boys that dress like this, you have a high chance to get in her bed, but getting her heart? That''s another thing that I cannot say." Yun Jhin shook his head as he said: "We will see your highness." Susang looked Yun Jhin up and down and narrowed his eyes, then he escorted him to meet princess Mumu inside the capital and then into the main palace. There they took a few winding pathways as they entered the inner garden of the palace where Long Mumu was waiting with her back to them. She wore a short blue dress that accentuated her curves and a white hair clip that kept her hair tied up. She walked forward and her eyes shined as she looked at Yun Jhin and she said: "General Susang you can leave us alone, go back to my second brother, I will see what this gentleman has to talk with me." Yun Jhin smiled at Mumu gently as he held her hand kissed it with the same amount of gentleness as his smile as he said: "Your beauty is more mystifying at a closer proximity princess Mumu, ever since I entered the capital I have dreamed of meeting you." Mumu blushed, most of the men she met would directly court her to the bedroom and they wouldn''t act like gentlemen to her, after all, most of them didn''t care about her and they wanted to use her to get into the government. Yun Jhin has seen countless such cases and knew if he gave her some attention and listened to her problems she would easily fall to him and believe whatever he said to her, after all, she has been heartbroken many times. Mumu shily blushed at the man''s actions, even though she was experienced in bed she was a child at the matters of the heart such as romance, and Yun Jhin''s words and actions touched her scared heart in a way no other did. Yun Jhin walked closer to her as he said: "Why don''t you tell me how your days have been your highness? I''m a good listener and I might be able to share some of your burdens." Long Mumu started to talk about her daily activities such as the normal stuff, cultivating, reading, and other normal things that a girl of her age would do, Yun Jhin listened and said: "Your life is pretty normal your highness, ah you couldn'' even think you are a royal but just a normal girl." At this comment, she shook her head as she started to talk about the political meetings she had to attend from time to time how she was used as a token of exchange between nobles and how even her brother forsaken her in exchange for benefits. Yun Jhin hugged her and she started to cry in his Yukata, he let her fully exert all of her sadness before he used his hands to clean her face and he cupped it slowly as he approached it and said: "This is something you can easily solve, just become stronger, stronger than your brother, and stronger than anyone who wants to hurt you!" Mumu chuckled sadly as she looked down and she chuckled the hems of her skirt as she said: "Easier said than done Sisheng, my cultivation talent isn''t that good, I''m just at the 2nd stage of the heavenly realm, I know you are a ki cultivating expert, but I don''t think you can help me with anything regarding cultivation." Yun Jhin shook his head as he said: "I have a cultivation technique perfectly suitable for your body, why don''t you try it." He started to impart her the cultivation technique and she quickly absorbed it, her eyes widened and sparkled as her cultivation started to work by itself, her soul cleaning and refining speed increased by 200%! Mumu embraced Yun Jhin as she said: "Thank you thank you!" Yun Jhin''s smile was as kind as before but if you would observe it there was something hidden in it, he patted her back as he said: "I heard you have got your hands on some death water? I know how to increase the speed of your cultivation even further, I know how to concoct a pill with the death water that should surely get you to the 7th stage of the heavenly realm in a few months!" The princess''s eyes widened at my words and she immediately shouted for a maid to get her the death water and a cauldron. Yun Jhin smiled at her as he waited for the maid when the maid came with the death water and the cauldron Yun Jhin continued: "The other materials for the pill, I have them with me, you don''t need to send for anything else." The princess looked down at her feet, she knew Yun Jhin was a recruit in the army and that he didn''t have much money, the materials would be very expensive for him, she shook her head as she said: "I have an idea after you concoct the pill you can take the rest of the death water as payment," Yun Jhin gasped as he said: "Your highness, do you know how expensive the death water is? I couldn''t, after all, they are just some complementary material''s with a few months of hard work I can just make the cost of them back, I''m just a lowly newly recruit, I might become a general as I have broken through the ki cultivating realm and get even higher pay, I don''t want to you to get in trouble!" The princess shook her head stubbornly as she said with a finality in her tone: "We don''t have many pill refiners, take this as payment for refining the pill!" Yun Jhin wanted to say something else but a mischievous smile appeared on the girl''s face as she said: "This is an order from your princess, soldier so you better obey!" Yun Jhin shook his head as he started the concocting session and put on an act making it look like it was very hard for him to concoct the pill and that he almost failed through the concoction multiple times! As she watched him struggle to concoct the pill she realized that Yun Jhin didn''t lie, if the pill was that hard to concoct that meant the results will be genuine! Yun Jhin smiled as he scratched the back of his hand and gave the princess the pill, it was deep blue, he told her that she just could eat it now and see the effects. She ate the pill and her cultivation immediately saw a boost in the wind ki gathering area, as she could gather wind ki faster and purify her soul. She squealed as she hugged him then gave him a deep kiss. Yun Jhin reciprocated the kiss and she was ready to throw her clothes off when he stopped her and said: "Princess, I''m not after your body, I just thought you were an interesting woman when I first saw you, after all, we don''t know each other that well, it''s too early to jump to such actions." This was the first time Mumu found a man that wasn''t interested in sex, her eyes sparkled as she looked at Yun Jhin and thought that she finally found her ''prince in shining armor'' then she stopped what she was doing and Yun Jhin told her: "With this death water I could achieve another breakthrough in my techniques, I recommend you go and cultivate as well Mumu, the pill''s effects are temporary and you should hurry up and use them as long as you can." Mumu nodded her head as she giggled and skipped away from him, a maid then escorted him out of the palace where he met with Susang, he looked him up and down and then asked: "Any luck?" Yun Jhin waved the container that was resealed and Susang''s eyes widened, the proud Mumu was conquered that easily? Susang wanted to bow to Yun Jhin and ask him to teach him his ways, he was still a virgin up to till this day due to his ugly looks, not even peasant women wanted to be with him, and he wasn''t such a beast that he would force himself onto an unwilling woman. Yun Jhin shook his head as he heard the man''s question and said: "Your appearance is a big deterrence, I can teach you a technique that would fix your scars." The man clapped his hands as he threw one arm over Yun Jhin''s shoulder and said: "Aren''t you a good brother, thanks for helping me out, after all, from now on we will be both generals under the second prince, it seems you stabilized yourself in the 1st stage of the ki cultivating realm." Yun Jhin nodded his head as he made the man take his arm from his shoulder and said: "I will teach you the technique before I enter closed-door cultivation to refine this death water and the other materials, let''s go back to the dragon eating sect grounds." Susang nodded his head as he left with Yun Jhin in tow, they were back into the hall as they reported to the second prince, the second prince was thoroughly surprised that Yun Jhin could steal his sister''s heart but then he shook his head and decided to not bother with it. Even though Yun Jhin didn''t get her to be on the right minister''s side yet. Yun Jhin said that it will be a slow endeavor so he didn''t bother to question him. After Yun Jhin taught the face altering technique to Susang he entered his room and closed it. He laid down some formations to make sure no one would be eavesdropping or spying on him, then his main body left through Sun Sisheng''s nose as he looked at all the materials that were in front of him. The next caterpillar form would reach a rank of 100! it was a qualitative increase due to all of the materials he got his hands on, he would be able to reach the max rank quickly as his host body was now at the ki cultivating stage. As he ate the materials on the ground the system finally appeared after a long while: [Special materials devoured by the host, the host can evolve into the true mind caterpillar] [True mind caterpillar can remotely control people regardless of range as long as they have enough soul power, they can reach rank 100 on the caterpillar evolution tree and their body is sturdier, stronger, and faster than the previous evolutions, this is the peak of the soul and mind caterpillar tree!] Yun Jhin smiled as he returned to Sun Sisheng''s cranium and started his sleep, from here on he would truly be able to start his plan on taking over the empire! Chapter 26: True Mind Caterpillar (Flashback Chap) As Yun Jhin''s body went through one of the most important evolutions in his life, his soul wandered around his former lives experiences, back when he was a small kid, how he easily killed adults that thought he would be an easy target, how one time his reincarnation led him into a bad position and he was *redacted*, as he reincarnated he was both a man and a woman in the past but he realized that he preferred being a man after all of his memories fused, he just felt freer in a way that he couldn''t explain. The cocoon inside Sun Sisheng''s head was growing into a deep blueish purple color as it started to leak green fluids his evolution skipped through some of the other caterpillar forms so these green leaking fluids were representing his liquified body remains that he had to excrete, they were the extra things that he didn''t need, with the help of the evolutionary process he was shedding them, reaching the peak of his life form. Yun Jhin''s main body was moving continuously inside the cocoon as it evolved, his form was changing into something far greater than he was before, something that would help him to achieve his objectives inside the Long Empire. As he slowly evolved inside his cocoon, he reminisced to let the time go by faster, suddenly he was back in one of his former reincarnations, the one where he was the evil emperor, the previous one before he became a caterpillar. Yun Jhin thought that this was one of his most effective reincarnations but he still knew he didn''t do enough. A man with silver hair who wore a dark cloak was sitting on a throne made of bones of different species besides him stood a woman that kneeled and she was *redacted* after the woman finished she got up bowed and left with a smile on her face. Yun Jhin was bored, while he was entertained by one of his concubines he waited for his subordinates to get him any news of fortuned constitutions. By time went by and no one came, 10 years, 100 years, 1000 years, finally some news came by but it was quite late, the fortune constitution brat already grew up into an overlord but Yun Jhin smiled as he got up from the throne of bones, his dark boots left footprints into the bones as they caved in under his weight, giant bones refined into a throne with special god ki, and they were destroyed under his fleshly bodyweight alone. As Yun Jhin walked he suddenly disappeared to only appear near a tavern at a crossroad, there he slowly walked inside, all the people who saw his robe and his face immediately bowed down to the ground while shaking in fear, only one man who drank some cheap ale at the bar didn''t say anything. As he continued to drink Yun Jhin observed the man''s body, he was scrawny and he wore peasant clothes, he had a shabby katana tied to his waist and his face was dirty with mud, he had a stalk of an unknown plant in his mouth as he drank the ale some of it dropped on his clothes dirtying them further. Yun Jhin slowly got near the bar and said: "Don''t you know to greet your seniors? Kaze Camino." Camino laughed a bit and he started coughing as the ale went on the wrong pipe, then he hit his chest a few times and said: "Yun Jhin from the throne of blood, what are you doing here? I haven''t offended you." Yun Jhin smiled to him as he waved his hands in the air and said: "No you didn''t, but you didn''t come to pay respects either when you advanced to the god realm, don''t you think you are a little too presumptuous?" The man chuckled as he finished his ale and unsheathed his katana: "Presumptuous for not licking your ass your highness?" Yun Jhin laughed and said: "I like your mouth, it''s pretty sharp." Suddenly a spatial tear appeared near Camino''s mouth almost tearing it apart: "I want to have it on my wall." Yun Jhin''s smile turned up as he said that then his arm directly went into the void as he took out a fully dark sword, the sheath and the body of the blade were both dark, as he unsheathed it you could see that the edge of the blade had flame-like patterns on it, it was a katana as long as Camino''s. Yun Jhin thrust his sword forward immediately impaling Camino and then slashed the man''s katana away throwing it away making it embedded into the wall behind Camino and killing the scared barman. Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at Camino: "1st stage vs 9th stage, not a fight you can take pipsqueak, thanks for the fortuned constitution." A mouth opened inside Yun Jhin''s palm as it started devouring Camino''s frozen body after his katana was thrown out of his grasp, his body was infiltrated with darkness energy from Yun Jhin''s katana which paralyzed him, as the mouth inside Yun Jhin''s hand ate at him both his soul and body were tortured due to the pain of being eaten alive! Even though he was paralyzed he could still feel everything his senses were amplified during this! Yun Jhin shook his head as his body was fully consumed and looked down at the mouth in his hand that licked it''s ''lips'' then closed transforming his palm into a normal-looking fair palm. He looked around himself and saw a wasteland, an area around him for millions of kilometers was destroyed, the earth was scared and lava was ready to shoot out. Yun Jhin shook his head as he teleported away and like time itself was reverted things started to go backward, everything was as before Yun Jhin came but the only difference was that no one remembered Camino coming to the inn, nor that he existed! Yun Jhin returned to his throne of bones as he stood down, another concubine ready to serve him. Yun Jhin scoffed as he looked at the man then backhanded her killing her instantly as she transformed into dust and muttered: "No transformation, after so many fortuned constitutions? 999, I''m running out of time." His face started to scrunch up as it started to seemingly dry up, he looked older in an instant as his silver hair lost it''s luster and became a dry white, his hands started to tremble as wrinkles appeared on them, his muscles dried up and his back bent he coughed a mouthful of blood as he cursed: "Oh you darn time, I thought I could have attained eternal life already!" His hand returned into the void as an infant appeared in his arms, suddenly he plunged his hand in his chest and took out its young heart he looked at it for no more than a nanosecond as his mouth opened and he gulped it up with gusto as it was seemingly the best food in the universe. He coughed up a bit as he said: "*Sigh* even though this would give me another hour, I cannot die yet!" His skin returned to its peak as his muscles build up again, he left the throne behind as he shouted to the skies: "I WON''T DIE YET, ETERNAL LIFE IS MINE, YOU SHALL SEE YOU DAMN WORLD!" But in the end, he failed, he was now alone, as he ate more and more infant hearts to extend his lifespan forcefully he realized that his sins accumulated, all his subordinates and concubines died due to the retaliation of his enemies, some of them died to old age. He chuckled as he sat on his death bed, the same image as he saw before, the clepsydra above his head, the sands of time washing him away, death and reincarnation, but the images stopped here. He didn''t see Buddha or Hades as he was forcefully woken up by the evolution of his main body! His body started to break through the cocoon, as he slowly broke through the cocoon his main body finally reached the 5th stage of the heavenly realm! He looked down at his new body and realized that he gained some arms that looked similar to a humanoids, and he could feel that his head was heavier than before, he used his new arms to touch his head and felt that it was way bigger than before! Even though his size didn''t increase much his power, speed, stamina, and physical endurance have increased by a lot, also his rank at his ''rebirth'' was 10! Yun Jhin left Sun Sisheng''s cranium as he looked in a mirror he had in his room, he was now a deep dark color as his bulging head was the first thing he observed, the veins on it were pulsing as he now developed a big brain to help him with controlling people regardless of range! Yun Jhin then looked at his new ''arms'' he didn''t know why the true mind caterpillar needed arms but he would see in the nearby future, as he finished looking at the new appearance of his body. he returned inside Sun Sisheng''s cranium through his nose and took control of the body which was way easier than before, he also felt that he could now control the body regardless if he was inside it or not, Even though he lost his stinger at the end of his body, he now had a different connection to Sun Sisheng''s body, a mental imprint was left in his empty sea of consciousness and with the help of his now gigantic brain, he could easily control the man''s body as if it was his own! Yun Jhin smiled as he used some of the remaining death water to fully stabilize his host''s body in the 1st stage of the ki cultivating realm and increase his cultivation realm by a bit. Then he finally left his closed-door cultivation, and according to his calculations almost 6 months passed by! Susang was immediately happy to meet with him as he patted his back and said: "I almost thought you wouldn''t make it in time for my marriage ceremony brother Sisheng, I want you to be my best man!" Yun Jhin smiled at Susang but sneered inside as he responded to the man: "Sure brother Susang, you go finish your preparations and send me a mental notice when you are ready, I''m going to talk with the second prince, with the death water I gained from him I''m sure that I can easily break through to the second stage, but I still need some materials." Susang didn''t care about that as he smiled like a fool and said: "Whatever brother, live a little, don''t focus on cultivation day in day night, I heard from my spies that your wife died while giving birth to your son, why don''t I introduce you with some fine ladies, or you might even want to visit princess Mumu, she has been talking and asking about you ever since she left closed-door cultivation one month earlier than you." Yun Jhin continued to smile as he said: "I will consider it but first I will have to talk with the second prince about some matters, as I said before you go do your stuff." Susang nodded his head as he didn''t think Yun Jhin would do anything to the second prince as he now trusted the man with his back and his liege''s safety due to his actions, he thought that Yun Jhin only had the best intentions for the second prince''s party. Yun Jhin ''inside sneer'' continued to lengthen as he looked at Susang and then he left him behind as he entered the hall and saw the prince on his throne, it seemed he was lucky that he found him there, he approached the prince and bowed as he said: "This subordinate was lucky to refine the Death water, but I still need some help from your highness, I just need one more thing before I''m sure I could finally stabilize myself in the Long Empire and the capital." The second prince smiled kindly at Yun Jhin as he asked: "What else would you need my friend Sisheng?" Yun Jhin smiled cryptically as he said slowly: "Your body your highness." The formations that were supposed to protect the prince suddenly faltered as when the prince and Susang were away he already tampered with them, the ordinary soldiers protecting the hall wouldn''t even realize what was done to the formations. Suddenly a soul attack invaded the man''s consciousness and devoured it! A soul imprint entered the man''s body as his glazed eyes returned to normal and he chuckled as he said: "Good joke Sisheng but we both know that you and I like women, what else would you need?" Yun Jhin shook his head as he said: "Nothing much your highness, just another batch of death water would be useful." The ''second prince'' frowned as he said: "I cannot give any more water unless you gain merit on the battlefield!" Yun Jhin bowed his head and said: "Then let me on the battlefield, your highness." A strange light appeared in the second princes'' eyes as he said: "Of course, you will now be I, Long Manison personal guard along with general Susang, I have fully accepted you after all you have done for my party!" Yun Jhin smiled as he bowed his head down, a similar type of light as the one that appeared in the princes'' eyes appeared in his eyes, and afterward, he left the hall. Yun Jhin finally accomplished the first step in infiltrating the imperial family! Chapter 27: Joining the war for merit? As Yun Jhin left the hall behind him he could feel the connection that he had made with the second princes'' body, it felt just like having a second character that he could control, but the body itself would do its normal actions without the need of him to fully control it, it was like a mental slave without a personal will. Yun Jhin went back to his room as he took both of his spatial bags and then met with Susang as he said: "Well Susang, you see the prince finally let me join the war efforts after I reported my cultivation improvement, I think I cannot be your best man at the wedding, I''m sorry." A pure disappointed look appeared on Susang''s face as he patted Yun Jhin''s shoulder and said slowly: "Well protecting the empire comes before such a little man like myself, I will join you at the front soon after I finish my wedding, after 6 months the Heavenly Turtle sect decided to take the war into the open, aye I hope I won''t on the front and let my newlywed wife become an early widow." He shook his head as he left Yun Jhin behind and started to walk inside the capital, Yun Jhin shook his head as he left towards the military barracks, The second princes'' body already sent out a military letter and with his identity confirmed he was led inside to join the war effort under a general. Susang was one of the weakest generals so he could only be under the 10 legions great generals which had a cultivation of the 2nd stage of the ki cultivating realm or above. Every stage in the ki cultivating realm was a high difference in fighting power so normally speaking not many could surpass stages and in this realm. It could be done in the lower realms as the difference wasn''t that huge but in the ki cultivating realm, it was different. The ki quality of different stages was too huge to be compared, the same could be said about quantity, if the first stage was a small spring then the second stage was a river! However, Yun Jhin had some techniques that he could use combined with his Yin body he could defeat people 1 cultivation stage above his own if he used some forbidden techniques he could even defeat people 2 stages above his cultivation stage. Most of the generals were condescending to him as he came from the second princes'' faction which was looked down upon in the capital. Some of them called him a dog of a dying party and some of them called him hick that got lucky to hug the second princes'' thigh. Yun Jhin ignored all of them as he directly went to the first legion general who had the cultivation of a 5th stage, Ki cultivating realm, he was as strong as the crown prince! Yun Jhin bowed to the man as he said: "I would like to join the 1st legion to protect the empire with the best extent of my abilities!" The man was quite tall with a strong aura around him, he didn''t care about the others said as he was impartial to background or origins, as long as the man he put his eyes on was strong and loyal he could care less from where he came from or who he was backed by! The general of the 1st legion was called Mono Sukehiro he was of humble origins from an unknown county near the eastern borders of the empire, with his talent in cultivation and hard work he became the general of the 1st legion of the empire! He had a short black beard and a bald head, he wore dark military armor and he had two swords tied to his back, he was a dual sword user, he was also quite tall around 1,96 meters. His aura gave off a feeling of experience and maturity. Suddenly his finger went directly towards Yun Jhin''s throat but at the last second before his finger could puncture Yun Jhin''s throat Yun Jhin moved his head backward and avoided the deadly finger. The man gave a boorish smile as he clasped Yun Jhin on the shoulder and laughed while saying: "Welcome to the 1st legion, make sure to make your empire proud!" He wasn''t sure how old Yun Jhin was but he looked middle-aged to him, even though he was a bit older he saw Yun Jhin as a comrade and not as a subordinate as they were in the same realm of cultivation so he gave him some respect. Yun Jhin nodded towards Mono Sukehiro and saluted him, a hidden smile could be found under his serious visage that not even the experienced general could discern, as he left the military building Yun Jhin took a turn and walked towards the palace, he was invited in the palace by the princess and he couldn''t turn her down. As he met with princess Long Mumu she told her maids to leave them alone, Yun Jhin looked around and shook his head he couldn''t mess with the formations with Long Mumu present and he didn''t want to be seen or felt that he attacked the princess, he couldn''t take over her body, yet. The princess started to pester him with words and how happy she was due to his pill she broke through to the 7th stage of the heavenly realm as he said, she also said that she felt that she would break through to the 8th stage soon! The princess kept talking and talking and Yun Jhin sat there near her and nodded his head seemingly enjoying listening to her, but inside he was as annoyed as he could be, her use to him was already done and he couldn''t wait till he could devour her soul and take over her body, she was annoying and useless right now, as he looked at her he realized that she might not even be able to break through the ki cultivating realm! He kept a straight smile at her as he from time to time would respond to her questions and give some of his own, after a few hours of talking or ''wasting time'' as Yun Jhin dubbed it, he left her alone and then exited the palace. Yun Jhin looked behind and shook his head as he walked back towards the military building where he met again with the general of the 1st legion, the general smiled at him as he patted his back and said: "You got the attention of her highness Long Mumu, if you don''t die in this war you are going to lead a good life as you would become royalty." Yun Jhin shook his head, the man was simple, he knew that while the crown prince would let him have her body he would never marry her to him due to his political views! He would need her to be a political asset that he could use whenever he wanted and he understood the man perfectly as he would the same if he was in his situation, he didn''t care about her anyway but he had to play the role for now. Yun Jhin nodded his head as he looked normal on the outside: "Don''t patronize me general. I had a wife and a son once, it isn''t that I like her but she became attached to me because I helped her a bit some months ago." The general cringed as he looked at me and said: "I''m sorry for your wife and son, and I heard how you helped her highness with her cultivation problems, I see then, you don''t want to break her heart, you are a good man Sisheng, I will make sure you come back alive from the battlefield." He patted Yun Jhin on the shoulder as he coughed then said: "We will take some warhorses towards the first battlefront, we are trying to push the invaders back, they are a combination of the Heavenly Turtle sect and the Earth Kingdom." He looked towards the other generals and recruits as he created a map with his ki and pointed at it: "We are here at the capital the battlefield is around 800 kilometers away to the northeast, we got invaded and they are so far inside the empire, that means we have traitors near the border as they didn''t report anything!" The man scrunched his brows as he mentioned traitors then he said: "This is all the information we have, there have been no sightings of elders from either the kingdom or the sect, however, they are most likely waiting for us to begin an ambush!" He shook his head as he continued: "We cannot abandon so many cities or we would lose both prestige and land, we have to break through their ambush and kill our way towards the battlefield, the other 6 legions are already out there and we are the only ones that remained in the capital, you as generals are only sent out during the highest war times." He pointed to himself as he said: "I''ll make sure I will save as many of you as I can, hopefully, they won''t send people above the 5th stage or we will be in trouble, we would need the military minister''s help then, however he is in secluded-cultivation." He shook his head as he mentioned that then continued with a short sentence: "We have to leave right now, let''s go!" He walked outside and everyone else followed as he went to the stables of the military building, there Yun Jhin found quite a lot of warhorses, they were clad in bronze armor that was supposed to slow them down but they still looked full of life and energy, they were a cultivating breed of horse! They were around the 6-9th stage of the earthly realm, Mono took the strongest horse and made himself comfortable in the saddle as he looked at everyone else and said: "Let''s go men! To protect the empire and it''s people!" They all shouted in unison as they all took the reins of their horses and followed the general who hyped them up for war, at the rate the horses ran they would reach battlefront in a few hours! As they ran in a forest region deep in the trees two unknown people were talking, from their hidden aura''s you couldn''t surely say what their cultivation base was: "This is the empire''s army? pretty strong, however, they are meant to never reach the battlefield, tch they even sent out their first general, this will be troublesome, we will need Elder Fung Hui to stop him, hopefully, the old man won''t die at this guy''s hands." The other silhouette said: "I could care less about old man Fung Hui if he dies and we can take even half of their army down we would have won the war!" The other silhouette chuckled as he continued from where the other one stopped: "I guess we could call him our Martyr of the Earth Kingdom, couldn''t we?" "It seems the Earth Kingdom didn''t really like being under the Heavenly Turtle sect." Another voice broke the duo''s concentration and discussion as they both froze on the spot and looked up, a young woman was above them with a giant black cleaver that transformed the duo into butchered pigs, their entrails fell along with other organs, the seemingly young woman looked at the duo and scoffed: "Trash, you dare to conspire against your betters, It''s good that the Heavenly turtle sect didn''t send out Elder Fung Hui alone, psch." Her eyes seemingly saw the warhorses galloping towards the battlefield as she whispered behind her: "Are you ready to take care of these peasants elder?" An old man who wore a robe that hidden his whole body besides his head bowed towards the young woman and said: "Of course young lady, immediately!" The young woman laughed as he watched the man run towards to intercept the warhorses and slowly followed him from behind, she would make sure no one escaped from her cleaver! She licked the blood from the blade of the cleaver and moaned as she looked down at the war horses. Yun Jhin looked up and saw the hidden duo but decided against saying anything, Mono stopped his warhorse as he shouted: "Everyone stop! We have entered their ambush!" A shrill laugh of an old man was heard as Fung Hui appeared and directly attacked Mono stopping him from trying to take any other action. Suddenly a giant black cleaver appeared above Yun Jhin''s head as a shrill crazy voice of a woman was heard: "You are the weakest here, it seems you broke through the ki cultivating realm some months prior didn''t you, shrimp?" Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed, it seemed this woman took the wrong target, he would make sure her body would be properly digested after he finished her. However his eyes narrowed as he dodged her attack, the horse under him became two halves as it''s organs fell down. Her cultivation was at the 3rd stage of the Ki cultivating realm. He frowned as his body started to heat up, making him have to use a forbidden technique already, tch, how infuriating he thought. Chapter 28: First fight for merit The woman frowned as she looked down at Yun Jhin''s body and felt the aura that was raging on his body then she dashed directly at him ready to slash him in two with her cleaver, Yun Jhin closed his eyes as his arms muscles bulged up and he caught the cleaver with his hands, due to his strengthened body as a living undead the cleaver couldn''t cut them off even though he started bleeding a little. The girl frowned as Yun Jhin headbutted her, drops of blood started to fall from her nose and she let go of her cleaver, Yun Jhin looked at the cleaver for a moment and then immediately let a slash go forward to the woman who was now clutching her nose in pain. Mono planted his fist inside the elder''s stomach as he coughed up some bile and then backed off from him, he looked at the girl and shouted: "Yu''er run away, that guy isn''t normal, look at his aura!" Yu''er gritted her teeth as she looked at her cleaver and then at the elder and started running away, Yun Jhin scoffed as he looked at her back and jumped above the horse and ran after her. The elder backed off slowly into the forest as he tried to run away as they failed their ambush, but suddenly Mono planted his feet on the ground as he put his hands together and channeled a ball of lightning that he threw at the elder like a baseball. The lightning ball hit him directly in the head knocking him over and putting a dent in the man''s head. Mono shook his head, he was still alive but unconscious, he wouldn''t kill him yet as he wanted to extract some information from him. Yun Jhin used the drops of blood that dripped from the woman to easily identify where she went, even though she hid her aura Yun Jhin could still feel her faint life aura through the drops of blood she left behind, he clutched the cleaver and suddenly threw it behind him, a gasp could be heard as the woman was almost decapitated by the cleaver, she tried to unpray it from the tree that was stuck in. Yun Jhin knew that it was a strong artifact so she wanted to get it back, that was what he hoped for, the woman also seemed to lack in battle experience so she was going to be good nutrients for him. As Yun Jhin ran towards her he suddenly turned transparent as he disappeared from her view she started panicking as she looked around and then she shouted: "Don''t get near me! I''m the daughter of the sect master of the Heavenly Tortoise sect! He is a 2nd stage King Realm expert!" Suddenly behind her, an arm entered her back and came out of her chest with a still-beating heart in hand. Yun Jhin sneered loudly as he looked at her and he whispered in her ear: "Think that you can attack me and get away with it? Why would I care your father is the sect master, you came to a battlefield and you should expect death!" Yun Jhin took his arm back as her body dropped down, he immediately unhinged his jaw like a deadly predator and swallowed the body whole, he almost collapsed as he fell to his knees and started panting hard, one of his arms almost popped like a balloon from the stress of the forbidden technique. He frowned as he started to devour her nutrients and ki, healing himself and pushing his cultivation base further, he would need to find a good place where he could fully heal himself and breakthrough to the second stage of the ki cultivating realm. Her body was full of unrefined helpful materials, it seemed she grew like a sheltered flower, fed with the best cultivation materials. Yun Jhin laughed as he got up from his kneeling position and looked at the cleaver, he couldn''t use it or the sect mater would realize that he was the one who killed his daughter, but if he left it behind he could use divination to know what happened. Yun Jhin took the cleaver and then started burrowing in the ground as he borrowed further and further he reached the place where magma existed. He threw the cleaver down inside and then left, it took him a few hours but he made sure no one could trace the woman''s death back to him. Yun Jhin sighed as he continued his way towards the battlefield, he met midway with Mono and the others as they were questioning the elder. The elder''s eyes widened visibly as he looked at Yun Jhin''s blood-soaked form, but then he shook his head as he didn''t think his young lady would die at Yun Jhin''s hands, he looked at Mono with a sneer as he said: "Kill me but I won''t tell you anything, you peasant piece of trash from the Long Empire!" Mono was ready to slap him again when Yun Jhin came forward and put a hand on his shoulder as he said: "I have some techniques that could make him talk, what do you say, general?" Mono Sukehiro looked Yun Jhin up and down and asked slowly: "Are you sure you are up to it? It seems you have lost that woman and got injured as well." Yun Jhin shook his head as he said: "I have enough energy to take care of him, he is tied up by your ki and he can''t even use his ki, he will scream like a pig soon enough." Mono knew that Yun Jhin cultivated a special corpse technique as the letter from the second prince indicated that, so his eyes didn''t change when he saw Yun Jhin''s hand transform into a wretched claw, the others however gasped and looked at Yun Jhin with strange eyes. Yun Jhin claw was then engulfed in purple energy, it was poisonous yin ki from his undead body, it was one of the few active abilities that the yin body gave, Yun Jhin smiled at the old man as his claw didn''t even slap him, he just put it slowly on the man''s chest then retracted it. The man laughed as he looked at Yun Jhin and said: "Was that a love tap you kid? What do you think that will do to me? Trash!" Yun Jhin didn''t say anything as he continued to smile at him and started to count down: "5, 4, 3, 2..." The man frowned as he said quickly: "What are you counting down for stupid? ugh!" He started to roll on the ground as his restrainments didn''t stop him from doing that, he started banging his head on the ground till it bleeds severely. He then started to shout till his throat almost gave out on him, all of the remaining soldiers and generals'' eyes wandered between the tortured man and Yun Jhin as they thought that they would never incur his wrath. Mono narrowed his eyes but didn''t say anything as he waited. After a while, the poison finally wore off under Yun Jhin''s command as he was ready to put another batch on the man, the elder cried as hot tears started to pour out of his eyes as he said: "No more please, please no more!", he tried to huddle into a ball as he moved back and forth like a lunatic, the pain inflicted was on his body as well as his soul. Yun Jhin walked forward to him and was ready to pat him a second time when he shouted: "You want information?? I can give you all the information, please no more!" His eyes were dilated and it seemed that if he took another dose of the poison he would die from the pain excess, Yun Jhin looked at Mono then nodded his head while saying: "It''s ok you can ask him whatever you want now, I will have to go and rest for a bit, as you can see I''m quite wounded, tell me when we are ready to move to the battlefield." Mono started to question the man as Yun Jhin went to rest under a tree, most of the other people were looking at him with fear in their eyes as they avoided him, but that was something Yun Jhin wanted so he was extremely pleased with his act. Mono started questioning the elder and the answers he gave him made him pale as he shouted: "We need to quickly get to the battlefield, a powerhouse on the same level as me is already there and wreaking havoc on our troops! Yun Jhin, we cannot wait any more, I know you are wounded but I will give you a very important mission, please get rid of this elder for us, he is useless right now as he told us everything he knows." He got back on his horse and whipped it as he made the others follow him away, Yun Jhin smiled devilishly as he looked the receding figures of the horses and then at the old man that was tied on the ground as he approached him slowly. The old man looked at Yun Jhin and he could feel the man''s aura suffocate him, it felt just like a beast ready to devour, no it wasn''t a beast, it was more of a demon or devil to him! Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked down at the old man''s lone form and he said: "What should I do with you... I''m already three-quarters full, I haven''t digested her yet *sigh* I cannot let you die either, it would just be a waste of a perfectly fine body at the 4th stage of the ki cultivating realm." The old man trembled as he heard Yun Jhin''s voice that looked just like the shouts of demons and devils in his ears, he looked down at his pants only to see them wet, Yun Jhin frowned as he looked at the old man and said: "Can''t handle your bowels anymore old man?" The old man naturally nodded his head as fast as he could thinking that Yun Jhin would become disgusted with him but suddenly his head flew into the air as he was decapitated, his corpse was burnt to a crispy brown level with his ki and Yun Jhin bowed as he said: "Thanks for the meal." He ate the man just like one would do a rotisserie chicken and frowned after he finished: "I lost quite a bit of ki from burning him but atleast I didn''t waste a lot if I killed him normally his ki would have dissipated way faster, *sigh* whatever let''s try to break through, even though I cannot reach the third stage I should be able to stabilize myself easily into the second stage and reach the middle parts of it." Yun Jhin went back to the same tree that he sat under before and stood unmoving cross-legged. His ki started to increase as he was ready for another breakthrough, his body was devouring the nutrients and ki from the woman and the elder at a frightening pace as his ki continuously increasing breaking through his cultivation barriers. His host body was ready for another breakthrough due to this lucky encounter! Chapter 29: Another day another break through Yun Jhin''s energy started to fluctuate as he broke through to the second stage of the ki cultivating realm, his ki amount increased and its purity did the same, his eyes glowed with a peculiar red-black color as his body under his normal disguise got some changes. His claws strengthened as did his skin which took a darker shade of grey. Yun Jhin made sure his internal situation was ok as he used the remaining nutrients and ki from the bodies to stabilize himself in the second stage of the ki cultivating realm, however from all he did his main body was still at the 5th stage, however, with a little bit of luck he would break through to the 6th stage in a few weeks. Yun Jhin looked around and found that no one was spying on him with his soul willpower, then he started running towards the battlefield at his fastest speed, it took him almost 3 days to break through and stabilize his body, it was fortunate the Heavenly Turtle sect thought that the elder and the woman would be enough to tie and maybe even kill the whole squad of generals. However, by now they should have realized they are both dead as they didn''t report in a long while. Yun Jhin ran towards the battlefield at his quickest speed as he finally left the forest, in front of him appeared a battlefield full of dead bodies, some were burnt some decapitated and some cut in two. Some of them were diced into small bits and some of them were just ashes, as Yun Jhin looked around he licked his lips as he felt the abundant death ki around and took in a deep breath as the ki entered his body it started to swell up then deflate a few seconds later. He looked around and realized that the fight was pretty equal between the empire, kingdom, and sect, Mono was tying with a 5th level ki cultivator and making sure he didn''t attack the lower leveled cultivators while the low-leveled ones were fighting to the death. Yun Jhin looked from afar and then jumped directly into the battlefield! His attacks were swift and without mercy, as he plucked heads and hearts on the battlefield, his hands were fast precise and deadly as he dealt with a multitude of heavenly realm peak elites, he even one shot 1st stage ki cultivating experts if they got too close to him. From time to time, pieces of meat would end up in his mouth as he would swallow them, diced meat, whole heads, or even hearts that he would extract from the enemies, the others were too distracted to realize what he was doing or they would have become disgusted and scared of him long ago. Only Mono realized what Yun Jhin was doing but the prince also said that eating corpses would further his cultivation, even though this type of cultivation was frowned upon in most kingdoms the Long Empire accepted anyone regardless of cultivation technique or origins as long as they were loyal. However, that meant some bad apples would appear here and there, as long as their cultivation got high enough they would surely strike back towards the empire regardless of how they were treated. And Yun Jhin was one of those apples, however, unlike the others, he knew how to act before his power was enough. Yun Jhin''s smile widened as he massacred one soldier after another until he met with a stage 3 cultivator who punched him in the stomach and threw him away while he had a great time. Yun Jhin frowned as he put a hand over his stomach as he got up from the ground, the ground under him broke into splinters as his immense speed propelled him directly into the man''s face and broke his jaw, he let his guard down thinking no one could disturb him while the 5th stage cultivator was taken care of. Technically speaking it was the truth, the punch from the 3rd stage guy made him take no damage and only enraged him, Yun Jhin''s hand immediately went to his head as he cracked it at weird angle immediately killing him, he opened his jaw like a whale and inhaled the corpse. All the others finally saw what he did and looked at him with fear in their eyes, even his allies were perturbed and backed away from him, Yun Jhin ignored them and continued to attack the alliance of the Earth Kingdom and the Heavenly turtle sect as they pushed them out of the battlefield. Mono was having a hard time with his opponent but then he shook his head as he unsheathed one sword from his back and said: "One sword style: darkness slash." He appeared behind his opponent as a shower of blood splurted upwards from the man''s chest. As Yun Jhin took a better look at the man he saw his features, he was a brutish man with an extreme amount of bodily hair, his hair was done into an afro and his thick dark skin showed he was a foreigner, he had an afro as his hairstyle and he fought aggressively, even though he took a head-on hit from Mono''s darkness slash attack it only made him spurt blood as the wound quickly closed itself. Yun Jhin frowned as he looked over and thought to himself: "It''s a beast physique but which one? bear? leopard? lion?" Yun Jhin took a better look at the man and saw how his muscles bulged up from time to time and how his ki enveloped him to increase his physical strength and he realized that he had a bear beast physique, some physiques needed you to have a constitution to be developed while others you were just born with, bear physiques gave you innate strength since the moment you were born. Yun Jhin knew Mono wouldn''t be able to defeat him easily as his self-regeneration abilities and defense were too much for a normal human cultivator without any bloodline or constitutions like him. However Yun Jhin''s eyes widened as he saw Mono draw out his other sword, a different air appeared around him as he kept his swords around his body, he looked like a predator ready to hunt, even the afro guy started to frown, he could feel that Mono''s aura changed somewhat after he unsheathed his second sword, he defended himself as he watched Mono charge at him. Suddenly Mono started to flicker around the battlefield as after images of him appeared, his swords multiplied somehow as he struck the man in 5 places at the same time, lungs spleen heart neck and spine. The man looked down at his chest as he saw it spurting with a huge amount of blood then he retreated slowly to the back, Mono breathed hardly as the technique took a lot of ki out of him. However unluckily for him, the man wasn''t finished yet! The man''s hands turned into bear paws as he swatted Mono away, then he looked down at his body that spurted blood from time to time and decisively ran away! He knew that even though he could kill Mono, he could be teamed upon latter by the others and killed as well, he didn''t want to give his life to take all of the others down with him so he ran away! Yun Jhin looked at his receding figure as he ran away quickly from the plains where the battlefield was. He knew that he couldn''t follow the man, even though he was injured he was at the 5th stage and he would defeat him even when injured, he might be able to kill the man but in the end, he would lose this host body which wasn''t worth it. Yun Jhin quickly ran towards Mono and supported him, he wanted to eat the man but he still needed him later, also his body wouldn''t be able to break through again so fast, he would need a while for the body to adapt to the second stage, even though he ate many people on the battlefield they weren''t enough to get to the 3rd stage, he was halfway there because he ate one third stage expert, he would need atleast 2 or 3 more before he could advance again, and that''s after his body adapted. Mono got up and patted Yun Jhin on the back as he saw how he was cached in blood and ashes from the fight, however, all the blood wasn''t Yun Jhin''s, Mono nodded at Yun Jhin and said: "You did a good job, thanks for the help here, *sigh* it''s good that he ran away, I was betting on him being too scared to continue fighting and I won, let''s clean up." The other enemies were immediately taken care of as their leader ran away, even though some ran away they were only weaklings. Yun Jhin walked inside the newly risen tent where Mono was resting as he said immediately: "You should know why I''m here general Mono." Mono stood up from his cross-legged position on the mat and he said: "You can have the 1st stage ki cultivating bodies, for 2nd stage and above I cannot give them to you unless you want to use your military merit to them, they are useful to the empire as well." As Yun Jhin would fight in more such skirmishes as the war wasn''t even halfway done he didn''t more bodies, he was content with getting the 1st stage ki cultivators, with them he would be 75% on the way to the 3rd stage. Yun Jhin bowed to Mono but before he could leave Mono stopped him as he said: "Good job out there Sisheng, I see why the second prince recommended you, his party might be revived with you at the helm!" Yun Jhin laughed slowly as he shook his head as he said: "Maybe it will, who knows?" Mono didn''t know what he meant by those words but he joined in the laughter and said: "You can go now, I have to rest to recover my ki, we will move 3 days from now, you should go and rest as well, we need all of you to be at full capacity before we move to the next battlefield." Yun Jhin nodded his head but he stopped mere centimeters before he left the tent and said: "About the 1st stage ki bodies.. can I eat those that were on our side as well?" Mono frowned as he looked at Yun Jhin and said: "I.. can let you but your reputation among the soldiers will take a huge hit, they already fear you but now they will hate you as well if you do that." Yun Jhin shook his head as he left the tent and then went to eat the bodies, the men that looked at him were disgusted to the point some even vomited and when his hands went towards his ''comrades'' bodies some shouted at him and said: "What are you doing?!" Yun Jhin looked at the man coldly and said: "Ask general Mono, he should give you a good explanation." The man feared Yun Jhin too much to do anything else besides shouting once at him and backed off, but the others looked at Yun Jhin with hatred in their eyes now, some of them were even planning to let him die on the next battlefield, it was one thing to be so arrogant but to eat the bodies of your comrades? Some of them were cursing him under their breath as a monster or a demon and pervert. But Yun Jhin ignored them as he feasted with a giant grin on his face, which disturbed the others even more. Mono shook his head as he felt what happened outside with his soul willpower and said to himself: "You are a weird one, but atleast you are reliable, you are lucky you were born in the Long Empire." He sighed as he looked down at the pendant that hanged at his neck, he gritted his teeth and clutched it in his hand before he made sure it was hidden. Then he went back to restoring his ki. Yun Jhin finished eating and burped loudly letting out an acidic gas that almost broke down the skin of some unlucky fellows that were in the way, he laughed to himself as he left towards his tent while patting his stomach. Yun Jhin got back into his tent and his satisfied look transformed into a cold one as he muttered: "This act should make them fear me enough, combined with their prior lack of knowledge this personality should be good enough to put them on a tight leash." Yun Jhin nodded to himself as he sat on the ground and started to do his breathing exercises slowly to help his body adapt quickly to the second stage of the ki cultivating realm. With all the extra bodies from his ''comrades'', he was ready to break through again with his host''s body. As for his main body, it was a hair away from breaking through the 6th stage! Chapter 30: Push back the invasion While Yun Jhin was resting Mono got an important message in his tent from the dynasty, he clutched his pendant as he looked down at his hands and muttered: "We have to go already..." Yun Jhin just finished his first cultivation session as he got up from the ground when Mono''s voice appeared around the whole camp: "Get up, we have to go to the next battlefield, orders from above, we have to push the invaders back!" Yun Jhin didn''t mind as he was already at full energy but the others groaned as they didn''t have enough time to heal themselves and restore their ki, Mono got on another horse as the one at the 9th stage died. He took the horse''s reins as he looked around and waited for everyone to follow him. Yun Jhin was the first who found himself a horse and followed behind Mono, Mono nodded at him and smiled as he waited for everyone to get ready, he looked at Yun Jhin and while they waited he decided to make some conversation: "So uh, why have you joined the army Sisheng?" Yun Jhin kept a straight face as he responded shortly: "For merit." Things started to quickly get awkward between them as Yun Jhin didn''t continue the conversation and they just waited in silence after a few minutes everyone was ready and the horses started to run to the north towards the border, they needed to push the invaders back as they already conquered a bit of land under the traitors lead. Yun Jhin made sure to memorize the layout of the army for later, as their surroundings changed they approached a giant lake, as they neared the border of the empire they neared the big water bodies, beyond the empire at the north stood an ocean, beyond the ocean, stood the Earth Kingdom, and in the ocean dwelled the Heavenly Turtle sect! The Earth Kingdom was using the Heavenly Turtle''s sect formations to cross the ocean and attack the Empire. Mono continued to look forward as he had things on his mind, but he still kept his eyes and ears open towards any other ambushes so he wouldn''t be taken by surprise, Yun Jhin was cultivating while on horseback, he wanted to quickly adapt his host''s body so he could break through again. The lake''s water was as clean as it could be, it was transparent and you could even see the lake bed near the shore. Yun Jhin looked around as he used his soul willpower to look for any enemies, he shook his head as he found none and Mono continued to control his horse so they could avoid the lake. This was just an in-between place before they got to a port city that was taken over, it was their new job to reclaim all of the cities according to the crown prince''s wish, Mono didn''t support the crown prince but he still had to take orders for him which made him quite angry, but he hid all of his anger under a mask of coldness and simultaneous friendliness, he was friendly to those that could approach him but cold to those who couldn''t. While Mono was internalizing his anger towards the crown prince, Yun Jhin kept a cold expression as he waited for the horse to take him to the battlefield. As time passed their surroundings changed again as they finally got near a city, the city wasn''t big for any standards, if you compared it to the capital it wasn''t even as big as 1/5 of it. The flag of the Earth Kingdom was used instead of the Long Empire, that meant the city has been taken over, Mono stopped all of the horses and slowly said: "Depending on who is guarding the city we have only two ways of attacking, loud and stupid or stealthy, what do you guys think would be the best approach." Yun Jhin got down from the horse as he said: "I can go scout ahead and come back with information general Mono, wait for me." His form turned ghostly as he suddenly disappeared from everyone''s eyes and perception, he ran towards the city and eyed the formation''s that were supposed to protect the city and walked straight through them, as he stealthily laid out his soul willpower like a spider''s web around the city he felt all of the cultivators inside of it. Yun Jhin looked around with his soul willpower as he frowned inside and thought: "Too many, there are 2 Stage 5 ki cultivating experts here? Why this is only a small city... there should be something to station two powerhouses." As Yun Jhin focused on the two auras he felt that one of them was familiar as it was weakened, it must have been the dark-skinned man from before, it seems he came here before them to heal himself. Yun Jhin kept himself still as he felt the fluctuation of their cultivation bases and realized that with their army there was no way they could attack, Mono was fool thinking attacking normally would work, it seemed the man was distracted by something as he wouldn''t have put up such a dumb suggestion. Yun Jhin knew he couldn''t bite more than he could chew here so he started to retreat, his technique was peak grade so even though these two were three levels ahead of him in the cultivation stages they couldn''t find him out even though he even released such a high amount of spiritual power, as long as it didn''t touch them directly and only observed them from a distance they couldn''t find out. Mono kept a passive face as he waited for Yun Jhin to return and then he smiled at him as he saw him materialize near his horse, Yun Jhin shook his head at Mono and said slowly: "The guy from before is here in addition to another unknown stage 5 cultivator, if you think you can fight 2 people at the same stage, one even though albeit injured, I''m sure you haven''t recovered fully as well." Yun Jhin''s words hit Mono were it hurt it was true he was only around 50% recovered according to his ki capacity, Mono looked at his men and then said: "We will have to avoid this city, we need reinforcements from the military minister, he will need to send his private army if he wants to push out all of the invading forces *sigh* I''m sure the unknown cultivator must be from the Heavenly Turtle sect, they should have techniques on par with the imperial family." Mono Sukehiro frowned, as he used a technique that could only be called decent, unlike the ones that the imperial family practiced and rarely let out of their hands, even if someone gathered enough merit they could only take low-level techniques out of their treasury. Mono frown never left his face as he instructed the horses to avoid the city, Yun Jhin continued to cultivate on horseback as they left the city behind them. Back at the city, the dark-skinned man frowned as he looked in their direction and said to a pale man with his hair done in braids, the man wore a robe with the symbol of a rainbow tortoise on his chest and his features were above average. The dark-skinned man growled as he looked at him and said: "Suigo, you should have felt them retreating, should we follow?" Suigo smiled leisurely as he said: "From what I felt, they only have 1 5th stage ki cultivating expert, you are injured and this guy isn''t at full power from the amount of ki he was emitting, I''m not sure what they were up to but it seems they knew they couldn''t take over the city." The man''s smile dropped off as he said: "Are there still Long Empire vermin in the city that warned them?" His aura intensified in strength as his soul willpower encroached on the city, however, he didn''t feel anything wrong, he could only feel his subordinates and the one from the Earth Kingdom, he frowned as he looked at the dark-skinned man and said: "Think there are any traitors among our ranks?" The dark-skinned man responded with the same facial expression as the other man as he said: "Think someone from my squad betrayed us? No chance! The long Empire invaded us why would they defect to their side?" This made sense, the man continued frowning as he continued to look around but he didn''t feel anything, something really strange was going on. Yun Jhin kept his back straight as his body was adapting to the changes the second stage ki cultivating realm were doing to his body, as he cultivated time passed and after a few days on horseback they finally saw a second city. Mono waited for a little before he looked towards Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin knew hat Mono wanted him to do and he didn''t say anything before he became invisible and walked towards the city, after some investigation, he found out that the city was thoroughly lacking in defense even though it has been taken over. Yun Jhin''s speculations were correct, there must have been something at that city if it needed 2, 5th stage ki cultivating experts. With the help of the army Yun Jhin easily took over the city, Mono narrowed his eyes as he looked around and came to the same conclusion as Yun Jhin, he took a strange-looking stone from the spatial bag that he had tied at his waist and talked into it: "Hello-hello, general of the 1st legion Mono here, I have something to report, I need reinforcements quickly at City Horobros, the nearby city Boroso is under the control of 2, 5th stage ki cultivating experts, I need atleast someone around my strength or 10 4th stage Ki cultivating experts as reinforcements." Mono nodded his head as he heard the words he wanted from the stone as he smiled at everyone and said: "We will wait 5 days here for the reinforcements, then we will march directly to Boroso!" It seemed there really was something important at City Boroso, if not why would the military minister send out a 5th stage expert out so easily? The military minister was at the 8th stage and he had very few 5th stage experts under him, at most he could have 4, and with the capital infested with spies, they needed all of their manpower there. There must be something really important in that city if they could spare manpower... Yun Jhin looked towards the direction of city Boroso and shook his head, what could it be? If it was a treasure he wouldn''t be interested, treasures were temporary things as he grew in strength they would become useless later, but if it was a rare material... He kept his back straight as he looked to the horizon then left towards the house he was given to rest in, most of the people who lived in the city were massacred so after they took over it, it remained empty. Yun Jhin sat on the bed as his head started to shine, his main body was ready to break through to the 6th stage of the heavenly realm! Chapter 31: A change in plans Sun Sisheng''s forehead started to glow in a certain blinding light as his main body was breaking through to the 6th stage of the heavenly realm, his caterpillar rank was continuously increasing as well, from the 10th rank to the 20th, 30th, 40th, it finally stopped at the 65th rank as tones of shredded skin came out of his hosts head. The skin of a 6th stage heavenly realm caterpillar wouldn''t have enough nutrients for a 2nd stage ki cultivating realm expert so he just burned the skins away instead of eating them like in the past. Yun Jhin kept a straight face as he looked down at his hands. After he inspected his main body and his soul he directly went back to cultivating his host''s body, just a little more and he could break through the 3rd stage if he did he could fight the 5th stage practitioners, and with some ''luck'' he would be the only survivor in the city! As Yun Jhin was making his plan, Mono was sharpening his swords in his house, he kept a straight face but his anger was still spilling out of him, it was visible as his aura was distorted and it burned with a certain vengeful attribute. Mono muttered to him in a quiet voice: "He should be the one who comes, yes, my revenge should come, for my sister..." He opened his pendant which showed a young girl with black hair, he clutched the pendant as his eyes turned fiery and continued to mutter: "After we take care of the enemies, I shall unleash it then." Yun Jhin didn''t know anything about what Mono planned, he kept cultivating in his room as if he was entranced suddenly his body started to contort and increase in height as he started to forcefully break through the 3rd stage, he felt the body adapted enough, even though it was way earlier than when he was supposed to break through, Yun Jhin decided to forgo waiting. He could just get his hands on another body, but he felt the thing that these people were guarding could help his main body. After a few days of waiting a sole male finally appeared in the city, he had blonde hair and an arrogant smirk on his face, his face was oval with a small nose, his pupils glowed with a deep green color and he wore the normal military uniform of the empire. He walked slowly towards Mono''s house as he waited, then Mono came out and his eyes couldn''t hide his anger anymore as he slowly said: "Long Minimus, you piece of trash..." Minimus laughed as tears suddenly appeared at his eyes and he said: "Sukehiro, you piece of crap, you are the one who requested reinforcements? I knew something was fishy when the military minister didn''t say who I was supposed to help, and now I know why." Minimus and Mono had extremely bad blood between them, Minimus abused Mono''s younger sister to death when he was on a mission, as he thought that as imperial royalty he could do anything, and well the crown prince took over the case and closed it making Mono get no justice in the end. Mono''s hatred for the crown prince was great due to that, but his hatred was even higher at Minimus! The man unsheathed both swords as he was seemingly ready to fight there and then but Yun Jhin walked out of his house and said with a cold tone of voice: "General Mono, what are you doing? Fighting with the reinforcements?" Minimus laughed as he looked at Yun Jhin and said: "Oh, who is this fool? I quite like him already!" Yun Jhin didn''t respond to Minimus as he walked towards Mono and said: "You can take care of him after we liberate the city, I feel these enemies aren''t there for a random reason." Minimus frowned as he looked at Yun Jhin up and down again as he said: "Well aren''t you a smart little soldier." Yun Jhin looked at Minimus and said: "I should be a general by now, however, due to the circumstances I couldn''t get my medals." Minimus looked at Yun Jhin as he felt his 3rd stage rampaging ki and he said: "Oho, you have broken through the 3rd stage?" Even Mono was startled as he looked at Yun Jhin and said slowly: "But you have just broken through the 2nd stage a weak or so ago, you..." Minimus eyes narrowed as he heard that and he changed the subject: "As this guy here said, the Empire''s needs come before yours Sukehiro, you should have known that since you joined the army." A vile smile appeared on his face as he continued: "Of course you should have also known what would happen to such a beautiful woman with no cultivation as well!" Mono gritted his teeth so hard that blood flowed from his mouth but Yun Jhin patted him on the shoulder and said: "It''s not worth it." Yun Jhin tried to play it off so he could use these two, but it seemed there has been a change of plans for him as Mono suddenly unsheathed his sword and his aura pushed Yun Jhin back. Before Minimus could react a sword light immediately went towards his throat! Minimus tried to react quickly but the light grazed his neck and it started to spurt blood, he put a hand on his jugular to try and calm the bleeding down but it wouldn''t stop, more and more blood would flow out. Mono put his guard down as he started to breathe extremely roughly as if he would fall down the next second, he looked at the dying man''s eyes as the light started to fade from them and he said: "This is for my sister you little son of a bitch." He fell to his knees and then used his swords to support himself up, he looked around and smiled at Yun Jhin but when he looked at the location he blew him away to he realized he wasn''t there anymore! He looked down at his chest to only see a bloodied beating heart and a pendant, his eyes clouded over with his last strength he looked behind him to only see two red eyes staring into his soul: "You have made things way easier for me Mono Sukehiro, I shall use your body well." Mono chuckled as he said with his last breath: "I was expecting you..." But before he could finish his body fell on the ground, without breath. Yun Jhin shook his head as he devoured both of their souls, his soul started mending at an extremely quick speed, combined with the souls from the other two cultivators, the woman and the elder he was ready for another breakthrough with his main body. His Jaw opened up and both of the bodies entered in his stomach as they dissolved into nutrients for him, and with the memories, he gained from Minimus he realized what the guys at the city were protected, he smiled to himself as he went around killing the other generals and devouring them, he used his assassination technique so none of them realized they were dead. It was basically like dying in their sleep to them, however, their souls didn''t have the same luck. Yun Jhin finished the whole city in 3 hours, he chuckled as he sat cross-legged in the middle of the city, there was no one there anymore, the city was empty, of anything, empty houses laid around as a ghastly wind would breeze by from time to time. Yun Jhin looked towards the horizon as he murmured to himself: "Dragon stone?" Yun Jhin got up from the ground and walked away from the city, he needed to get his hands on the dragon stone, he knew of a way that could break him away from his current weak caterpillar form! And all he needed to do was get his hands on the dragon stone, even though he wouldn''t be able to immediately use it, with his new plan in mind he knew what to do. He threw away the communication stone from Mono''s and Minimus''s spatial bags as they were used for tracking as well and then took all of their belongings, after he finished sorting through everything on the way to the Boroso city, he made sure his body was in tip-top shape before he went head to head with two, stage 5 experts. He pushed his body again as he ignored it''s warnings, breaking through the 4th stage of the ki cultivating realm, at this rate his host body might not even be able to break through to the king realm anymore. But Yun Jhin didn''t care, all he cared about was the progress of his main body, and the dragon stone was something that would help him on his journey to true immortality, it was a thing that he had an utmost need of! Yun Jhin used the strongest horse that remained alive, it was Minimus''s mount, and with its extraordinary speed he reached city Boroso, however, he realized there was no one there anymore! That meant they should have already excavated the dragon stone and they left Yun Jhin in the dust! Yun Jhin face transformed into a gigantic scowl as he looked around, the dragon stone was vital to his plans! With it, he could reach a caterpillar form that was around the 5,000 ranks! He would be able to get rid of the host body and make his way into the world using his own! He didn''t hate using the host body but he disliked being cooped up inside a cranium, he wanted to use his own body! It would give him way more satisfaction and he wouldn''t have to act so much. Also, he would be able to gain strong wings in that form that could make it easy for him to roam around the world! Yun Jhin unleashed his soul willpower at the fullest capacity as he used it to analyze how much time ago they left. Using the experience''s from his previous lives along with logic and the things he found in the city he realized that they should have left 1 day ago. Yun Jhin frowned as he continued to look around then found which direction they took, they directly walked into the sea! Yun Jhin didn''t even bat an eyelid as he quickly jumped into the sea and started to swim, he didn''t need to use any techniques to breathe underwater as he was a living undead, he didn''t need air to breathe! He looked around and extended his soul willpower without any abandon to find their steps. He needed to get the dragon stone before they reached the Heavenly Turtle sect, or else he would have other problems to tackle then. Yun Jhin frowned as he looked in front of him, it seemed they were going deeper, deeper, and deeper inside the ocean. Yun Jhin knew about the underwater sects so he didn''t bat an eyelid as he continued to swim down, luckily for him, the other''s didn''t meet with their transport yet so after a few hours of swimming, he cloaked himself in his stealth technique as he observed the 5th stage duo from before and a 4th stage unknown person. Yun Jhin made sure he was at his strongest as his muscles tensed up and his power increased, his hidden aura started fluctuating as he activated the forbidden technique he used before, he needed to kill all three of them in one strike and steal the dragon stone! Chapter 32: Failure Yun Jhin knew he had to do things quickly or else he might fail in his endeavor, he was a person that hated failure so he wouldn''t be able to look at himself anymore if he failed such an easy job. Yun Jhin aura started to increase as his muscles bulged up, veins started to appear on them, his breathing quickened his blood flow did the same, his undead heart started to beat as his putrid blood started to rush in his veins. His red eyes glowed with a peculiar color and he gritted his teeth as he made sure his wild aura didn''t leak at all, his perfect control over his host''s ki made it possible, combined with his stealth technique the trio ahead of him didn''t realize they were stalked by a predator that could gulp them up in seconds. Small shockwaves started to appear around Yun Jhin''s body as he speeds up, he immediately went directly to the unknown guy with the cultivation of the 4th stage, his hand was made into a spear motion as he made sure he would direct it into his chest and take his heart. This was one of his favorite finishing moves, it was also one of the quickest ones, taking out the heart directly was the best way to know someone was dead, that or decapitating. However the 4th stage unknown guy smiled to himself as he dodged Yun Jhin''s attack at the last second, however, Yun Jhin still grabbed him by the arm and ripped the appendage off! The man continued laughing as he looked at the fountain of blood that came out of his stump and said: "Digo, Bango, GO TAKE CARE OF HIM!" Yun Jhin frowned as the dark-skinned man and the other 5th stage practitioner made a pincer attack towards him, however, his breakthroughs combined with his use of the forbidden technique and his constitution made him able to fight a 6th stage cultivator, while 2 5th stage ones would be troublesome he could still deal with them for some time and even kill them both if they didn''t get reinforcements! As Yun Jhin failed with his attack he made sure he didn''t leave the 4th stage cultivator alive as he grunted and sent 2 dark-colored balls of ki at the man, the balls collided with his body and electrocuted him to death, the dark electricity spread to the 5th stage duo and Yun Jhin himself, but while the duo got fried Yun Jhin took no damage! His aura changed as electricity started to run around his body, he didn''t like open combat but that didn''t mean he was weak in it! His body disappeared as his meridians burst with electricity increasing the speed of the body to an immense degree, due to the body''s sturdiness even though his meridians started cracking they held well. The dark-skinned man was called Digo and his body was very sturdy, he wouldn''t be able to kill him one shoot but the other guy looked quite frail, he decided to attack him while he dodged a straight claw attack that came from Digo. Digo furrowed his brows as his claw missed, he was strong and steady but not fast, Yun Jhin''s figure appeared near Bango as his hand went directly to his chest, ready to pierce through and take out his heart! Yun Jhin''s attack hit home but the man dissipated as if he was an illusion, Yun Jhin looked around and his hand went directly to an empty area behind him, a cough could be heard as blood started to appear in the clear water, Yun Jhin smiled as he retracted his hand, a heart that was slowly stopping it''s beating was in his hand. His hand quickly went directly to the man''s spatial bag but he frowned as he found that it didn''t have the dragon stone. He looked at the dark-skinned man and he launched himself directly at him but before he could do anything light started to shine on his body, Yun Jhin frowned as he looked at the formation and realized that it was a teleportation one! Such a weak sect with only a King Realm expert had a formation master that could lay teleportation formations? Yun Jhin frowned as he sent out a long slash of energy that struck at the man''s spatial bag destroying it and spilling all of its contents, Yun Jhin saw the stone and lunged towards it, he grabbed it as the man disappeared but a big smile was on his face as he pointed towards his pants and he pulled a similar-looking stone out of them. Yun Jhin cursed as he watched the man vanish and roared in the sea as the water around him started to evaporate due to his anger, he broke the fake dragon stone into little bits with his hand as he unleashed a giant beam out of his mouth that destroyed the seafloor. He started to control himself and said: "I have let my anger take a hold of me, *sigh* I didn''t think there would be a teleportation formation on that guy''s body, did they stay in this region to charge it?" Yun Jhin could feel that this region had quite a lot of spatial ki in it, that meant his guess was right, only if he could have gotten here faster... The only way for him to get his hands on the dragon stone would be to directly infiltrate the Heavenly Turtle sect, but it was currently impossible, he would need to switch bodies, even though he could change his outer form with the ki technique, the sect must have some ki detecting formation that he couldn''t fool, even though his main body wouldn''t be found, his host''s body would surely will. Yun Jhin frowned as he left the sea and returned to the city, he broke his own arm and hit himself in the stomach as he laid down seemingly ''dying'' on the ground, after a few hours of waiting a squadron of fighters from the empire found him and took him away. After ''regaining consciousness'' Yun Jhin found himself into a medical tent, the doctor there walked forward to him and said: "The minister of the military has sent out 2 other generals besides Minimus after he found out Minimus died, they found you unconscious and half-dead at the city with no one else in sight, could you tell us what happened? Wait for a little so the generals can come." The medic rushed out of the tent and later came with two imposing men full of muscles that looked the same, it seemed they were twins, both of them were bald and wore the imperial armor of the minister of military showing that they stood in his camp, the minister of the military worked with the minister of the left who supported the crown prince. The duo talked in unison as they questioned Yun Jhin: "General Sisheng, would you mind telling us what happened?" Yun Jhin coughed a bit as some blood welled up from his throat and stained his clothes, his hand was dangling in front of him as it didn''t heal properly yet, it seemed they didn''t apply the treatment for him, Yun Jhin eyes narrowed as he looked at them and said slowly: "Ah I''m quite injured you see, maybe could you fix my arm first before I can give my report?" The duo frowned then they motioned for the medic to enter back, then he settled Yun Jhin''s arm back into its socket and gave him a pill which immediately healed some of his self inflicted injuries. The twins then came slowly in front of Yun Jhin and glared at him while saying: "Now that you are healed, could you tell us what happened to general Mono, General Minimus, and all of the other troops?" Yun Jhin nodded his head as he started his story when general Minimus came: "General Minimus and General Mono started off by fighting each other at the base, then after they settled their differences, *cough* I and some other soldiers had to stop Mono before he dealt a fatal blow to Minimus." Yun Jhin''s coughing worsened as he coughed up another mouthful of blood and continued: "After we made sure Mono and Minimus were at full power we ran at our quickest speed towards the city, there we met with two 5th stage ki cultivating experts, Minimus was fatally wounded by one of them and then... General Mono gave the finishing blow taking General Minimus''s life." The duo frowned as they looked at each other then nodded seemingly beliving the story, they knew the story behind Minimus''s and Mono''s hatred, so it wasn''t surprising to them that Mono would do such a thing. Yun Jhin didn''t technically lie to them there. As he continued his story Yun Jhin coughed a few more times and the medic had to stabilize his condition, even though he needed to rest from what the medic said, the twin duo didn''t want to let him go before he finished his report: "After Mono killed Minimus he fought a deadly 1v2 fight, in the end, he took one down but the dark-skinned man he fought before made him meet his end, as for me and the others, there was a back up at the 4th stage that fatally injured me and then he killed the others, fortunately, I faked my death using my corpse technique if not I wouldn''t be here to report this to you." Yun Jhin finished his report as he ''collapsed'' on the bed and he coughed one more mouthful of dark blood, the medic quickly came to him and started resuscitating him with lightning ki, after a while the doctor felt that he wouldn''t die, he knew that he cultivated a special corpse technique, but he could still feel his life force, as it wasn''t decreasing anymore he thought that he wouldn''t die. Yun Jhin stopped controlling the level of his life force as he smirked inside, he fooled these empire dogs but he grimaced as he thought about his failure, to get his hands on the dragon stone wouldn''t be easy. However, before he could cultivate under the guise of resting a palm smacked him in the face as he was seemingly ''awakened'' by it. He looked up at one of the twins which hit him in the face and gritted his teeth as he made himself look like he was unable to get up and said: "What''s wrong I told you everything!" The man laughed as he said: "True I couldn''t see any lie in your story, however, there''s one thing you forgot to tell me!" He put a paper that had the image of the dragon stone on it and shouted in his ear: "DID YOU SEE THIS STONE?" Yun Jhin squinted his eyes then widened them as he said: "Yes, yes, I saw the dark-skinned man take it in his spatial bag, when we got there they just excavated it from the city lord''s house, I wonder why would the city lord keep such a thing under his house.." The man frowned as he heard Yun Jhin''s words then he looked at his brother and said to Yun Jhin: "You did a great job out there peasant, I will make sure the crown prince hears of your merit." The man gave a creepy smile to Yun Jhin as he said those words, Yun Jhin knew the man was going to embezzle his merits but he just nodded his head and made it look like he was too tired and injured to realize that. The twin brothers laughed in unison as they left the medical tent behind, the medic from before continued to tent to Yun Jhin''s body as he monitored his life force, as he felt that it was increasing steadily he left the tent and went to do other miscellaneous jobs. Yun Jhin frowned as he felt the damage done around his body, the self-inflicted damage was only on the surface, as for the attacks from the others they didn''t faze him much, the most damage that he got was from the forbidden technique and his forceful breakthroughs. He frowned as he felt that he would need atleast 2 years to heal this normally, the damage from the forbidden technique could be healed faster, but if he didn''t take care of the sequelae from forcefully breaking through he would have to abandon this body, not because it wouldn''t be able to fight anymore, but because it wouldn''t be able to get him to the King Realm! He deeply frowned inside as he kept his unconscious act up, he thought about what herbs he needed to heal his body quickly and then made sure those were the things he would ask for with his merit, as for the dragon stone, he would make sure he got his hands on it sooner or later. As long as Yun Jhin wanted something, he would be able to get his hands on it, he would also need to show these two bald muscle heads who was boss afterward, even if the emblazed his rewards, he would make sure they coughed up double of what they took at the minimum! Chapter 33: Get rid of Sun Sisheng? As Yun Jhin was recovering inside the medical tent, the twins reported Yun Jhin''s story to the crown prince, the crown prince responded to them with these words: "Sun Sisheng might still be useful, however, my younger brother enrolled him into the army, you have said he reached the 4th stage of the ki cultivating realm? If he shows his allegiance to me you can spare him, but if he says that he will still be under my brother.. you know what to do, get rid of him while he is still weak!" The twin''s nodded at each other as they responded into the communication stone: "Yes your highness, we will see to it!" The duo smiled at each other as they went directly to Yun Jhin without any other stops, they woke him up the same way as before but instead of looking at an arm like before he now saw a sword near his neck, one of the brothers said with a deep laugh: "You trash, you now have 2 options, join the crown prince''s party or die, we will let you think about your choice." Yun Jhin immediately said nonchalantly: "I will join." The duo guffawed as they looked at Yun Jhin and said: "So easy?" The twins then immediately reported to the crown prince, the crown prince frowned as he looked at his communication stone and then gave out the order: "I have a peculiar mission that he can do in the capital, send him back, and make sure that he is fully healed." The duo gave out an affirmative response and then closed the link with the communication stone, afterward they took some herbs from their spatial bags and made Yun Jhin eat them, Yun Jhin complied and ate them, they were supposed to be poisonous but they wouldn''t do anything to his undead body. However he put on an act as his countenance paled, then the duo smiled as they weaved their hands in some strange hand seals and inserted their ki inside his body. It was a poisonous formation that Yun Jhin easily neutralized in such a way that the duo thought that it was still in effect. Afterward, they chuckled as they told him: "The crown prince just got a new dog, but you will have to work for us when the crown prince doesn''t order you around you trash!" Yun Jhin smiled at them when suddenly he disappeared from the bed and appeared behind the two of them, he poked both of them in the same meridian point at the neck freezing their bodies, they looked at Yun Jhin with terror in their eyes as they realized they provoke a calamity on themselves, but Yun Jhin just patted the duo on their shoulders and said slowly: "You see, I don''t really like being controlled, especially by two pieces of trash like you, you aren''t even true imperials, I will only do what the crown prince says, and to make sure you don''t say anything to him." He returned them the favor by inserting a poisonous formation in both of their bodies, one trigger from him made the pain and certain death arrive on their heads slowly. As they experienced the first taste of the formation they nodded with all of their might as Yun Jhin unfroze their bodies then they kowtowed to him and said: "Lord Sisheng is strong and mighty, we will make sure the crown prince doesn''t hear about this!" Yun Jhin nodded at them and then asked: "Do you have anything special for me to ride back to the capital?" The duo nodded hastily as they guided him to one of their mounts, it was a giant lizard at the first stage of the heavenly realm, it was pretty tame and Yun Jhin immediately jumped on its saddle and made it move towards the capital. The twins looked at each other as they smiled ruefully and said: "We kicked a hornet''s nest." "Yeah." "We are his slaves now." "Yeah." "Can you say anything besides yeah?" "No." While the duo was having their conversation Yun Jhin''s surroundings were changing at an amazing speed as he was getting nearer and nearer to the capital. After a few hours of the lizard running at full speed, he got to the capital''s gates! There he met with a guard that immediately ushered him into the imperial palace, there inside a secret room he met with the crown prince and the left minister. The crown prince was a tall man around 2 meters tall, he had a long blonde mane tied in a ponytail, he wore blue imperial robes with the characters of ''ruler'' and ''crown prince'' on them, he had an angular face and deep blue eyes, the minister of left wore official robes, he was a thin old man around 1,70 meters with braided white hair and a small mustache on his face. He stood behind the prince as he waited for him to talk. The prince looked Yun Jhin up and down for a little while before he said: "I do not believe that you have betrayed my brother, my mission to you is simple, go to the dragon eating sect and assassinate him, I want to see his head!" Yun Jhin nodded his head slowly as he looked at the crown prince and said: "I can do that but I have taken quite the hard injuries fighting for the country, If I assassinate him I would like to be able to cash all of my merits afterward." A glint appeared in the crown prince''s eyes as he looked at Yun Jhin and he laughed as he opened his mouth and said: "Of course, of course, as a mighty general from the army how could I deny your merits? Do your job and you should be able to get your hands on anything on the treasury as long as you have enough merits." Yun Jhin put his hands in his robe as he took out a list of materials and said: "I need all of the herbs on this list." The crown prince looked at the list and nodded his head, some of them were fairly rare but he could use his authority to get them if he didn''t reward his subordinates the other ones might riot on him and that was the last thing he needed during the invasion of the Earth Kingdom and the Heavenly Turtle sect. Yun Jhin left the palace in a hurry as he returned to the dragon eating sect grounds, he quickly decapitated the second prince''s body and incinerated the remains, afterward he got back to the palace and showed the crown prince his brother''s head! The crown prince clapped slowly as he observed the head and made sure it wasn''t a fake one, then he took it from Yun Jhin''s hands and evaporated it with ki. His mouth curved upwards slowly as he said: "Oh second brother, would you have ever thought that offending me to such a high degree would make even your subordinates betray you? Hahahahaha!" As the prince was enjoying his familial victory, the minister of the left whispered something to a guard, the guard came later with a spatial bag that contained all of the herbs that Yun Jhin required, the crown prince took the spatial bag and weighted it as he looked at Yun Jhin and said: "Here''s a reward for a job well done, all your merits are now clean!" Yun Jhin frowned as he caught the bag and looked inside of it, even though the herbs were quite rare they wouldn''t be worth that much, it meant that he was charging him more for the herbs but he didn''t say anything, in the end, they would all be the sheep that he would slaughter, he would just need to break through the king realm and get his hands on the dragon stone, and he would be the ruler of the Long empire! He bowed his head as he left the imperial palace, princess Mumu wanted to catch up, but Yun Jhin slowly denied her advances and said he was injured and that he needed to recover, Mumu looked at him with love-filled eyes as she traced her finger on his chest and said: "Of course, how silly of me, go and recover, I heard you had done many things for the empire." Yun Jhin blew her a kiss as he left, making her blush deeply as she entered back into the palace, Yun Jhin frowned inside as he looked at the dumb woman that kept pestering him, he couldn''t get rid of her near the palace, and she wouldn''t leave the palace grounds much either, however, to him she was just a nuisance that he could ignore. Yun Jhin went back to the dragon eating sect grounds and dismissed everyone there, as Yun Jhin was way stronger than before they all listened to him, especially the ones that saw him decapitate the second prince, in the main hall where the prince''s throne was he met Susang. He looked a bit better than before, it seemed his marriage bloomed, however, he had tears in his eyes as he looked at Yun Jhin and shouted: "How could you have betrayed his highness? He took care of you and took you in his sect, he gave you opportunities and sent you in the army so you can gain merit! You are an animal!" Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at Susang and said slowly: "It was either me or him Susang, you should understand that all people would look after their lives instead of others, you should understand, the crown prince had me at his mercy, it was either killing the second prince or dying myself, I have gone so far with my cultivation and I feel this isn''t the end of my progress, you should feel it yourself." Yun Jhin''s aura engulfed Susang as he looked at him with cold eyes, Susang eyes widened in surprise and then into fear as they looked at Yun Jhin and said: "You, you are a cultivating monster! You are already at the 4th stage of the ki cultivating realm? How many months has it been since you came to the capital?" He moved backward in fear, as he stepped away from Yun Jhin, but Yun Jhin slowly walked towards him putting more and more pressure on his body, as Susang finally felt that he would die, all of the dark aurae returned to Yun Jhin, he walked ahead ignoring Susang as he went to his old room. Susang gasped for air as he looked at Yun Jhin''s back and he said: "It seems you still have some humanity left in you, I can understand that the crown prince gave the order..." But before he could say anything else his head flew up into the air, the head looked down at its body as his life disappeared from his eyes, they turned a dull grey as the last remaining words left his mouth: "But I still consider you my friend..." Yun Jhin shook his head as he said to himself: "Friends? Why would I need that, friends can betray you, friends can hurt you, friends can steal from you, there is no such thing as friends in this cold cultivation world, it will always be an exchange of benefits between two parties, if one party doesn''t benefit anymore from the second one, that party will get disposed of immediately!" He walked inside his room as he left the body there, a 1st stage ki cultivating realm expert was of no use to him anymore, only those at his realm and above would give him enough nutrients and ki. Just like Susang thought, his newly wedded wife became a widow, but not because he went to war and never came back, but because he was foolish enough to confront Yun Jhin after he killed the prince! Chapter 34: Healing and killing Yun Jhin entered his former room as he took a deep breath and opened his spatial bag, out of there he took all of the herbs he needed and mashed them together using his hands, as he cupped his hands together with the mashed herbs a purple flame appears in his hands. As the flame intensity increased a multitude of impurities were extracted from the herb mush. Then he used the herb mush to clean his body, the soothing feeling of the hot herb mush immediately gave him a good feeling, his tense torn muscles started to mend and relax, his hidden injuries started to slowly heal, after he made sure he finished with his outer body, he took the mush of herbs and heated them again. After he finished heating the herbs again, he took a cauldron out of his spatial bag and threw the herbs inside, then he put a lid on the cauldron and increased the heat from his flames, the heat of the flames was way higher than before as the herbs started to liquify in the cauldron, the liquid then started to harden in the form of a multicolored pill. After a few hours of creating the pill, he finally stopped heating the cauldron. Opening the lid of the cauldron he looked inside and smiled as he took the pill in his hands, he then scribbled the pill with some little formation runes and inserted his ki in it. After he finished with everything he opened his mouth and ate the pill! The pill dissolved into his stomach as a smile appeared on his face, all of his hidden injuries started to heal at extreme speed as he kept a cold expression on his face, after a few days of resting and letting all of the medicinal effects heal him fully he walked outside the headquarters of the dragon eating sect, then as he looked backward he let loose a barrage of flames that engulfed the headquarters and destroyed it! There was no need for the headquarters to exist as the sect master was dead, Susang''s body was still in there and it burnt to cinders along with the headquarters, Yun Jhin gave him a flame funeral. He slowly started to walk towards the capital after he finished everything at the headquarters, the body snatcher knew that the crown prince would send for him sooner or later, so he decided to go by himself if he was lucky he might get appointed to the dragon stone retrieval team. As Yun Jhin entered the capital he met with a guard which directly invited him to meet the crown prince, Yun Jhin shook his head inside, the crown prince was very previsible in his opinion. Yun Jhin went directly to the imperial palace and met with the crown prince and the left minister again, the crown prince looked like he didn''t sleep well for some days as there were dark bags under his eyes, he smiled faintly at Yun Jhin as he entered the room and he said: "You are the last one who saw the dragon stone, might you tell me in which direction the one who stole it went?" Yun Jhin knew the twins must have reported what he said to the crown prince by now but the crown prince wanted to see if I omitted anything or lied. Yun Jhin opened his mouth and said: "I''m not sure your highness, they walked towards the docks of the city, they could have gone into the ocean, maybe that''s where their sect is located?" The crown prince''s eyes widened as he looked the left minister and slowly said: "Under the ocean? Yes, I see I see now!" The crown prince always wondered how such a small kingdom like the Earth Kingdom could travel the sea to attack them in such a way, but with the help of the underwater sect, things would be way easier for them! The crown prince kept a warm smile on his face as he looked at Yun Jhin and said: "Thanks for the extra information Sisheng, I see why my second brother believed in you, fortunately, you made the right decision and sided with me, anyways my little sister asked for you and I wouldn''t want to keep her waiting, you should go and meet her, afterward, come back because I have an important mission for you..." The crown prince left the room and walked towards the imperial hall where the throne was then he disappeared from Yun Jhin''s view, Yun Jhin frowned as he looked at the hall and said to himself: "Formation behind the throne, I guess that''s where the emperor is currently residing to heal himself... I cannot attack yet, I would need to be atleast at the 9th stage of the ki cultivating realm." He shook his head as he went to talk with princess Mumu for a while then Yun Jhin left her alone, the princess felt very wronged as she wanted to give her body to him but Yun Jhin wasn''t interested at all, after all, his true body was a caterpillar and his host''s body was living undead, the only disadvantage of a living undead body would be its erectile dysfunction, however, Yun Jhin could have cared less about this weakness when he made the host''s body eat the pill. If Sun Sisheng soul was still alive he would have cried seeing how Yun Jhin handled his little brother. Not long after he finished dealing with the princess he met with the left minister, the old man nodded at Yun Jhin as he said slowly: "The crown prince is left attending some important matters with his imperial father, he told me to give you the mission instead, and it''s going to be a very important one." The older man had a strange glint in his eyes as he looked at Yun Jhin and opened his mouth again: "Your file says that you have a very strong stealth technique, the crown prince told me that you should go and scout out the Heavenly Turtle''s sect location if you do that you would gain unpreceded merit!" Yun Jhin laughed inside as he heard the older man, they were sending him to death! Even if he did find the Heavenly Turtle sect location there was a very high chance he could trigger a formation if he wasn''t careful enough, after all, the sect had a formation master! He was a formation master in his previous lives, even though he was one of the highest grades formation masters, it remained that a long time passed since he was last reincarnated, some formations would change forms in time and new formations would be birthed, thus he would have to take some time to reread and observe new formations in action before he could say he was up to date with all of the new formation information from this era. He wasn''t sure how much time passed since his last reincarnation but he thought that it must have been quite a long while as he didn''t hear anything or read anything about the Blood Throne his former sect, they were one of the strongest Godly Sects out there of the evil alignment, everyone would tremble in front of their actions and reputation, they have done countless evil things under the guise of attaining eternal life. Yun Jhin shook his head as he stopped thinking about these things, as long as he observed the formation of that formation master enough time he would be able to decipher it and make sure he wouldn''t trigger it no matter what happened! Yun Jhin nodded at the left minister and the man chuckled inside as he looked at Yun Jhin but he didn''t let anything spill on his outside expression as he patted Yun Jhin''s shoulder and said: "You are a great general of our empire, I will make sure your deeds will be known by everyone in our empire when you come back with the information!" Yun Jhin was ready to kill this old fart in front of him right here and then, but he was at the 7th level of the ki cultivating realm and he was also inside the imperial palace, it wasn''t worth it. Yun Jhin was then sent back to the city on the lizard mount, he wasn''t given anything besides a communication stone and some reinvigoration pills. Yun Jhin looked around as he entered the dock city and met with the twins, the twins immediately bowed to him as they said: "Moro and Toro are greeting lord Sisheng." Yun Jhin waved at them and then he looked around as he retraced his steps and told the duo: "You stay here and protect the city, I have a special mission from the crown prince, I have to go alone." Moro and Toro nodded simultaneously and then went back to their jobs. Yun Jhin looked at their receding figures as he shook his head if it came to a deadly situation he would use the formation he planted into their bodies to extract all of their nutrients and ki to send them to his host''s body, they weren''t only poisonous formations, they were long-range transfer formations as well! Yun Jhin jumped into the ocean as he started to swim back to the location where the dark-skinned man was teleported, he could trace the teleportation back to the location using the coordinates left behind by the formation ki, however for that he would need quite a lot of time and concentration, he didn''t do that before because it would make the others suspicious if everyone was wiped out. As Yun Jhin concentrated the underwater currents started to beat his body, he ignored them as they wouldn''t do anything to his tempered undead body, light sparks started to appear around him that he traced using his soul willpower. His soul willpower was quickly exhausting itself doing this, this was the power of the king realm that he was using at the ki cultivating realm! Yun Jhin''s face scrunched up as his sou willpower weakened but he continued using it to find the coordinates of the sect. Almost when his soul willpower emptied he finally found out the coordinates, it was quite a long way from him and he would need to swim for almost 2 months to get to it! However his job was done, he knew where the sect was located, he wanted to go there himself but he lacked in materials and cultivation base to create a teleportation formation, he would need to go with the others from the empire, that way while the others fought their hearts out with the Heavenly Turtle sect, he could be the fisherman who would catch both the sandpiper and clam. Yun Jhin started swimming out of the ocean at a slow speed as he recovered his soul willpower, he clutched the bead from the fairies sect then he opened his mouth and ate it! The energy of the treasure directly entered into his soul and increase the speed of his soul willpower recovery, the treasure was useless for him and the only way to make a use for it was by extracting the soul liquid inside of it. He breathed out as he finally swam out of the ocean and went back to the city, there he called the crown prince and told him the location of the Heavenly Turtle sect, the crown prince was at first perturbed that he location was found this fast but he decided to believe in Yun Jhin''s words and he sent out his private squad full with elites! He also sent out some aquatic mounts that could reduce the traveling time, when Yun Jhin said that he wanted to join the operation the crown prince told him that he was welcomed to join along with the twins, but inside the crown prince took them as cannon fodder that would help his elites to recover the dragon stone. But Yun Jhin already had a plan in mind that would make him gain everything he needed from this journey, as long as the elites did as he guessed, he would fake his death and get his hands on the dragon stone as well! After he became strong enough he would come back with the dragon stone and take over the Long Empire to fully enact the plan he concocted when he found out about the existence of the stone in question. Chapter 35: Invade the Heavenly Turtle sect Yun Jhin waited inside a tent with the twins, his face was a cold mask that didn''t betray any of his emotions as he looked at the duo and asked them with a monotone tone: "Any information about the elite squad of the crown prince?" The duo sweated intensely as they looked at Yun Jhin''s expression that didn''t tell them anything and they bowed quickly as they immediately started to spill the information: "The elite squad consists of 25 people with the cultivation of 6th stage ki cultivating realm and above, they are consisting in 10 attack roles 10 defending roles and 5 support roles, 5 attack roles are for short-range and 5 for long-range, the defending roles are full of people who focused on cultivating iron ki and refining their bodies, as for the support roles they have focused on plants and healing ki, they all have handpicked cultivation techniques from the imperial treasury." The duo kept their face straight as they continued their report: "As for the captain he has reached the peak of the 9th stage of the ki cultivating realm and it''s said as long as he gets enough merit on the battlefield, the emperor might help him break through to the legendary King Realm!" Yun Jhin waved his hand indicating that they could shut up, he caressed his chin as he thought what he would need to do to make sure his host''s body was going to survive this endeavor, he needed to make sure his main body was safe too, he decided that he would hide his main body in the ground before they went to the Heavenly Turtle sect grounds. Before the elite squad came Yun Jhin hid his main body inside the ground 20 kilometers down, he hid his aura and soul fluctuations to make sure no one could find his body as he would have to put all his concentration on controlling the body at long-range. Sun Sisheng''s body then walked back to the tent and waited with the duo for the squad to come, after a day of waiting the squad of people came, the captain was a short unsightly man with crossed eyes, his pale sickly skin tone showed that he wasn''t alright physically, his thick grey hair showed that his life force was imbalanced and used even though it seemed he wasn''t that old. The captain wore a strange imperial armor that consisted of a big chest piece that covered his whole body like a suit, his eyes were covered by half a helmet that looked like some devil''s horns. Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he observed the captain, but suddenly the captain pointed his finger at Yun Jhin and said: "You, you have to show us the way to the sect!" The captain said those words then didn''t say anything else, he was a strange man, Yun Jhin nodded at the man and then looked around at the other squad members, but none of the other''s looked peculiar or strange, everyone else looked and acted normally. The captain waved his hands to his subordinates as they opened their special spatial bags and let out the water horses, they then let them into the water to regain their strengths, the water horse was an aquatic horse with gills and no nose holes, they were deep blue had scales over their bodies and had no tails, but besides those changes, there wasn''t any difference in appearance with a normal horse. The captain immediately went over to a water horse and took hold of its rains as he pointed at Yun Jhin again and then pointed at a horse indicating that he should take that one. Yun Jhin went over to the pointed horse and the other''s from the squad took over their horses as well, the twins stood behind Yun Jhin and waited for the captain''s orders. Yun Jhin closed his eyes for a little before making sure everything was already in his host''s body and then made the water horse moved forward, as the surroundings changed Yun Jhin looked around and saw that all of his ''colleagues'' were using ki to support their breathing, Yun Jhin nodded to himself, this way they wouldn''t be at full power when they got to the sect, however, the captain used a bubble artifact that let him breathe underwater. Yun Jhin frowned inside as he looked at the artifact, he knew that the man would conserve his ki for the big fights out there, and unless the sect master came out to deal with them they would be able to rampage around the sect, the man looked like he had a unique physique and strange bloodline that increased his battle power, he might even be able to fight with a 1st stage King realm, of course, being able to fight didn''t mean he could win nor run away, in the end, the difference between realms was too high. Only Yun Jhin could fight between realms and maybe win, but he would need to be on home advantage and use formations with this body, the higher the talent of the body the higher the battle power, while Sun Sisheng''s body was pretty talented considering the location, he was still far away from reaching the apex. Yun Jhin kept a straight face as he sat on the horse and cultivated, while the others would chat and joke from time to time they would all ignore Yun Jhin as he was cannon fodder to them. However, they would talk with twins and even joke with them, it seemed they knew each other from previous meetings with the crown prince. Yun Jhin cultivated with his eyes closed as he waited to reach the Heavenly turtle''s sect grounds, while he cultivated the strange captain seemingly dozed off, but Yun Jhin knew that the man wasn''t actually sleeping as he felt his soul willpower looking out for any ambushes. The body snatcher kept a neutral expression on his face as he closed his eyes and cultivated while he made sure his horse kept going the right way, with the coordinates he gained from using his soul willpower he could easily imprint them in the horse''s mind and make it go the way he wanted. Finally, after 15 days of swimming the ''elite team'' of the Long Empire reached the Heavenly Turtle sect location. As they finally reached their location Yun Jhin slowly opened his eyes as he looked around and put his plan in action as he looked at the captain and said: "I have done my job." The man chuckled ominously as he released his 9th stage ki cultivating power directly at Yun Jhin, the man''s aura engulfed him as it stopped him from moving, his aura was so strong that it started crushing his body slowly signs of the man reaching the gate of the king realm. While Yun Jhin was struggling to keep himself steadily on the horse the man looked directly at him and said: "I heard from a little birdie that you have very good stealth technique, you go ahead and scout things up, your job here isn''t done at all!" Yun Jhin frowned as he said slowly to the man: "There is a formation around the perimeter, I will need time to locate a weak spot." The man kept steady on his water horse as he put his hand up and showed 5 fingers: "You have 5 hours." Yun Jhin nodded his head as he looked at the formation, he didn''t need 5 hours, he could crack it in 2, even though the formation master did a great job, it seemed he just broke through the formation master realm and didn''t specialize in defensive formations. Yun Jhin looked around at the sect, the buildings were created from differently colored corals, most of the corals consisted of red and blue but there were some green scattered here and there too, most of the buildings were tall and they spanned across the ocean floor, it seemed that no one stood outside the protective formation as Yun Jhin and the others watched from afar. Yun Jhin observed the formation for a while and said softly to the captain after 5 hours: "I have found a weak point and I''m ready to go in, I should be able to find some information quickly depending on the people that I can capture." Yun Jhin entered through the gap in the formation and found himself inside the sect, he became transparent as he used his stealth technique and he looked around for someone that looked like he was important enough around the sect. As he kept looking around he finally found a woman that kept her head up as she sneered at the other disciples around her, she was a beauty of the considerable standard but Yun Jhin just narrowed his eyes as he started tailing her, finally after a while she entered her cultivation dwelling and Yun Jhin followed behind. The woman jumped on her fluffy bed as she sighed and slowly said: "It''s so tough keeping a cold appearance to these disciples, but I must keep it up so I can inspire them to train harder!" It seemed the Heavenly Turtle sect was a mostly female sect with 60% females and 40% males from what Yun Jhin saw, his form was transparent as he approached her bed from behind and he looked down at her, his hand directly latched on her throat making her unable to let out even a peep, she was at the 1st stage of the ki cultivating stage so there was no way she could do anything to him. The soul willpower that he kept inside Sun Sisheng''s body immediately entered the woman''s sea of consciousness and devoured her memories and soul, Yun Jhin nodded to himself as he now knew the sect, he got a free map and information about the sect from the woman''s memories and discarded the useless ones. Yun Jhin left the woman''s cultivation dwelling as he patted his stomach and left, he waved his way around the disciples and left the sect where he met outside with the invading elite team. He took out a map that he created inside the woman''s dwelling and gave it to the captain, the captain took the map and looked at it for a few seconds before taking a better look at the sect, even though the sect was as big as the imperial capital, maybe even a little bigger, the map was extremely detailed showing the whole sect. The captain nodded at Yun Jhin and then said: "You go in again and we will follow you from behind, it seems we are at the middle sect grounds, we will have to enter deeper to get to the treasury to retrieve the dragon stone." Yun Jhin abided to the man''s instructions and entered ahead, but instead of letting them follow him he disappeared, he then took control of an earthly realm newbie and put her to stay near the hole in the formation, there she immediately shrieked as she saw burly men and a strange-looking old man appear from nowhere. The captain tsked as he now had the hand of the woman in his hands and said: "We will have to rush to the treasury immediately, it seems we were unlucky and an earthly realm newbie saw us." Yun Jhin made it so the woman would appear at the location the moment they entered so it looked just like a coincidence. The captain looked at Yun Jhin and nodded his head as he said: "You and the twins make sure you keep us ahead as we go further into the sect, we will need you to supply information and scout, so go forward, your technique should be shared with others right?" Yun Jhin nodded as he made the twins transparent and made them follow him, he chuckled inside as he looked at the old man following slowly from behind, with the information he got from that 1st stage ki cultivating woman he would make sure they entered into the lion''s den, after all, the map he gave them was tampered with. Yun Jhin made to keep a steady distance between them as he lured them to an inconspicuous looking house, where he became visible as he made some motions with his hands and indicated that this should be the treasury. The captain looked at the map and then saw that this building was highlighted so he just walked directly to it without any thought that it would be a trap! Chapter 36: Grand Elder Xue Piao The moment the captain wandered too close to the building a hairy old man that looked like a gorilla came out of the building and punched the captain directly in the head throwing him away from the building. Yun Jhin was already invisible and a long way from the building as he watched the elder angrily look around then he shouted: "Invaders from the Long Empire? You bunches of trash!" The elder wore a short open white robe that showed his muscles and hairy body, it was also quite disheveled so that meant before he was interrupted he must have had some fun with a fellow elder or a disciple. He immediately shouted as he released his aura and became a killing god as he rushed into the formation of elites, as they stopped the elder and pushed him back, the captain got up from the rubble as he cleaned some blood from his head and appeared in front of the elder. The elder countered with a ball of lightning to the face that the captain easily negated with his own, his power started spiking as he punched the elder in the stomach, that threw the elder back into the building which destroyed half of it, the elder then came out covered in blood, but it wasn''t his own! The elder said with gritted teeth: "How dare you! I grand elder Xue Piao will make you suffer for killing my disciple!" Technically speaking Xue Piao killed the disciple himself as his body collided with hers, it seemed she was really weak if such a collision transformed her body into mush. Yun Jhin kept himself out of their way as he made sure he walked towards the right direction of the treasury, this commotion should startle the whole sect and make them rush towards this location. The captain frowned as he looked around trying to see Yun Jhin then his brows furrowed under his helmet and he shouted: "There''s a chance Sun Sisheng betrayed us! Make sure you kill him on sight!" The elites clamored as they shouted a yes in unison and started to help their captain to deal with elder Xue Piao. However, the elder was a tough nut that couldn''t be cracked easily, he easily kept all of them at bay even though he was injured, he was waiting for reinforcements! Yun Jhin stopped looking at the fight as he quickly ran away towards the treasury, a small building appeared in front of him after he dodged around the frantic disciples for a long while, he chuckled inside as he looked at the treasury and entered, the formation there was the same as the one that covered the sect, it had a hole in it which could be easily exploited for him. The twins were already dead as he extracted their nutrients with the formation he put on them. They would drag him down and make him use extra ki to keep their cover-up so he just disposed of them, he kept the extra ki and nutrients in his body just in case he needed a burst to heal up any sudden injuries that might make him unable to escape. There was a very high chance the captain and the elite squad would be buried on the Heavenly Turtle''s sect grounds. As he entered the treasury a visible frown appeared on his face, things weren''t as easy as entering and leaving! He had to alter some formations to continue inside the treasury, and there were physical traps as well, he had to dodge the physical traps and disable the formation which made him waste quite a lot of time. By the time he got to the place where the dragon stone was almost 2 hours passed! He knew he had to rush so he quickly pocketed the Dragon stone and left, there was no way he could continue staying inside the treasury and take anything else as he felt people approach the treasury, Yun Jhin kept himself near the wall and used his stealth technique. The door of the treasury opened as a man that looked to be around his forties walked in, he gave out terrifying energy as he looked around and narrowed his eyes, Yun Jhin knew the man was a King Realm expert! Yun Jhin made sure to control his life energy so he wouldn''t be able to discover anything, he couldn''t breathe anyway and the stealth techniques made him thoroughly invisible, the man continued to walk inside the treasury and Yun Jhin quickly left through the open door that closed itself afterward. Yun Jhin made sure to leave a fake dragon stone behind, just as payback for what happened with the dark-skinned man. He knew he finished the operation but that didn''t mean he was safe yet, he looked around and saw the strewn corpses of the elite squad and the decapitated head of the captain that looked at his killer with wide eyes and deep hatred. Yun Jhin ignored the bodies and left the sect grounds, fortunately, most of the water horses were still ok, Yun Jhin jumped on the quickest one and left! He knew he couldn''t return to the Long Empire, it would be strange if a 9th stage ki cultivating expert fell and Yun Jhin came back, he would be the first culprit that they thought of. Yun Jhin urged the water horse away from the sect grounds and towards the surface, according to the memories he gained from the woman, he could go to the Earth Kingdom if he rode the current he was currently in. There he could change his identity and made use of the Dragon stone first, the Long Empire was more ideal for his plan as it had a bigger population but he couldn''t go back there yet, he would first need to go to the Earth Kingdom and move to the Long Empire later. Yun Jhin rode the water horse for a few months as he finally left the ocean and looked around the coast, he let the horse leave back into the ocean and walked towards the Earth Kingdom''s location according to the stolen memories. As he walked to the Earth Kingdom he looked around and realized that this kingdom was extremely bland and poor, the Kingdom was created in the middle of the desert and there was no way they could grow any grains or something similar, the earth was too poor. Yun Jhin wasn''t even sure why would the Long Empire want to invade this poor country, as he looked around the only living beings he could detect with his soul willpower would be some mole rats. He kept his pace steady as he went from village to village and inspected the population and lives of the Earth Kingdom, most of them grew what they dubbed as ''dessert cabbage'' and they gained their proteins from eating mole rats, that''s what all the villagers ate, cabbages and mole rats. As he went deeper and deeper into the kingdom he found that most of the population didn''t know about cultivation, and only those that were around the edges of the royal capital would know about cultivation. Yun Jhin decided against going to the capital to initiate his plan, he wanted to create his own sect and spread out cultivation in the Earth Kingdom first! He went to a border town where he enslaved the population and made them his first disciples, he imparted to them the least demanding cultivation technique he knew and made them cultivate and spread the news about his new cultivation school! After some time passed people came from far and wide to the Earth Sticks village to learn from the grandmaster Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin decided to use his real name as Sun Sisheng''s was known in the Earth Kingdom, he also changed his appearance. His main body was still resting on the borders of the ocean city but there was no chance for anything to happen to it as he already predicted what would happen next according to his immense experience, his main body would awaken by itself if it would sense anything around the area that would put it in danger. Yun Jhin was now a spirited middle-aged man with a clever look around him, he had an air of nobility and a cute looking face for his middle-aged look, his hair was done in a bun atop his head and he wore the normal garb of the Earth Kingdom which consisted of a grey and yellow robe with earthen colored rock designs at the seams. He was inside his sect grounds teaching a youngster a cultivation technique: "You see here, this is how you should circulate your energy so you can gather the earthly ki faster to temper your body, you should also eat plenty of dessert cabbages and mole rats so you can improve faster." The youngster bowed to Yun Jhin and left the sect grounds, most of the people that came didn''t want to cultivate around Yun Jhin but he didn''t mind, in the end, they would all come to him. Yun Jhin smoked a pipe made from a rocky material as he looked at a space beside him and said: "What might I owe the visit of a royal messenger?" A man jumped out of the ground and bowed towards Yun Jhin and he said: "Might I inquire why master Yun Jhin decided to teach peasants cultivation?" The man had a small mustache and wore a simple cloth outfit, if you looked at him you wouldn''t put the words royal and messenger together. Yun Jhin looked the man up and down and he said slowly: "I have opened this cultivation grounds for the people of the earth kingdom who couldn''t get to the royal capital due to their material reasons, I have fought in the war with the Wind Kingdom and I decided to retire, but I felt that I could teach people of the same standing as me how to become strong, after all, I was a peasant myself once." The messenger kept a smile on his face as he looked at Yun Jhin, he knew that the body snatcher had a high cultivation base as he couldn''t see through it. Yun Jhin waved towards the man and imparted him some secrets that could boost his cultivation base and sent him on his way, then he chuckled as he muttered: "This should hook the royals of the capital here." He knew that the royals would try to extort his secrets but when they would come here he would be gone! He needed to go back and retrieve his main body after so much time passed the waters should have calmed down and he could get near the dock city by now, he left the Earth Kingdom and went to the ocean where he called his water horse, he already controlled it''s mind when he let it go. Yun Jhin made his way back to the dock city as he dug into the earth and took out his main body which crawled back into Sun Sisheng''s cranium. He chuckled slowly as he said: "It''s good to be back home! Now to get back to the Earth Kingdom, they should be pretty antsy as they couldn''t find me, Hahaha." Yun Jhin chuckled blew into a burst of full-on laughter as he rode the water horse, back to the Earth Kingdom then he ran to Earth Sticks village, a bunch of people that looked like they had stuck up their ass was waiting in front of his abandoned sect. Most of them looked angry and disappointed at the same time, Yun Jhin kept a smile on his face as he yawned and walked towards the sect grounds and opened them, the people at the entrance looked at him with wide eyes as they questioned: "You are Yun Jhin?" Yun Jhin just kept his smile on his face as he walked inside his sect grounds and sat cross-legged in the middle of the courtyard on an old tree stump and said three words: "Yes I am!" Chapter 37: Get inside the royal capital Yun Jhin observed the ''royals'' that came to him to demand his cultivation techniques, but he knew these people were weaklings with their royal house''s in decline, he made the messenger think that he was around the 1st stage of the ki cultivating realm which made the messenger respect him but not to a high degree as he met people at higher cultivation stages. His main body broke through to the 7th stage of the heavenly realm while his host''s body stood at the peak of the 4th stage of the ki cultivating realm. He looked as the royals walked towards him and demanded: "You should tell us your cultivation secrets immediately! We are royalty and we demand you peasant tell us what cultivation technique you are using!" He told the messenger that he was a peasant himself in the past to draw out the dumb royals of the capital, with their bodies he would be able to infiltrate the capital easily, he wasn''t sure if the Kingdom truly had a King Realm master, he was only guessing back then but they should have had an expert at the 7th stage or above holding the fort. Yun Jhin wasn''t strong enough to deal with such a guy yet, he would need to break through atleast 2 times to be sure he would be able to take over the Earth Kingdom. He looked at the royals and shook his head as he pointed at them, their souls were immediately devoured as their bodies were taken over, they were weaklings at the 9th stage of the earthly realm so he didn''t need to do much to kill them. Using their bodies he granted his host body a new identity and moved to the royal capital as the new guard captain and teacher of the house of Fong! Yun Jhin looked around his new courtyard as he shooed the maid away from it, he didn''t need anyone else besides himself inside, he looked at the mental map he gained from devouring the souls of the royals, he pinpointed the location of the royal palace and then he seemingly started wandering around the city. From time to time some royal would disappear in the capital and people would talk, thinking that there was something strange going on around the forementioned place, Yun Jhin kept devouring royals until he found one that knew the cultivation of the king and it''s royal guards, the king stood at the 8th stage and the royal captain at the 7th stage of the ki refining realm. With the information gained there were no more royals disappearing, Yun Jhin now had to cultivate seriously to break through and take over the kingdom. From time to time he would leave the capital and search for special herbs, even though the dessert was barren on the outside in the earth some special herbs were growing deep inside, some cultivation rocks that could increase his cultivation base depending on the grams used in pills. With the help of a few herbs and rocks he created a pill that helped him break through to the 5th stage, he decided that it was enough to help him on this endeavor as he was ready to abandon his host body, with the help of the dragon stone, he would become a dragon caterpillar that could reach the 5,000th rank, this kind of caterpillar could reach up to the Emperor realm. Yun Jhin walked slowly through the capital as he looked at the rustic buildings surrounding him, he walked into the palace as his host''s muscles started to contract and expand his appearance turned to his corpse one, now he had a full-on armor on his body created from his skin, his crimson eyes turned a deep blue as his ki was ignited. His hair turned purple as his veins started to move like earthworms around his body, he appeared directly inside the royal palace in the place where the king kept his throne, the king eyes widened as he saw Yun Jhin''s appearance and immediately got up from his throne and knew it was an attempt on his life. The king immediately struck down on the ground, a giant boulder came out of the ground and attacked Yun Jhin, but Yun Jhin used his claws and cut the boulder in two, he didn''t have much time before this body gave up so he immediately went to the king''s location and struck him in the stomach, the king didn''t think that his opponent would be this fast, his entrails colored the palace red before he could say anything to Yun Jhin his body was decapitated. The guard captain entered the place the same moment that the king was decapitated and he shouted in anger and grief! But before he could do anything or even attempt to attack Yun Jhin his head flew into the air as well! Yun Jhin laid out an instant attack formation the moment he crashed into the palace, fuelling it with his burning ki it immediately killed the distracted man before he could do anything, Yun Jhin''s true body escaped Sun Sisheng''s body as it started to break apart into dust, he immediately used his main body to eat the two bodies and then hid. ---------------------------------------------------------------- The queen cried for her late husband as she kneeled beside the throne, she knew the man was dead all the investigations lead to this. Unknowingly to her Yun Jhin''s true body was breaking through to the peak 9th stage of the heavenly realm after he overate, it has been almost 2 months since the investigation began and the queen would come here daily to mourn her husband and her lover the guard captain. Suddenly out of the throne a small caterpillar entered the woman''s nose and before she could say anything else or cry her expression changed, she got up from the ground and looked at her own hands as she chuckled: "Great success, the queen has only given birth to a son a few years ago and he can''t lead the country, I will improve this body''s cultivation forcefully and make everyone listen to her, with the dragon stone in hand I should be able to do this experiment!" Yun Jhin now using the body of the queen Kino Atomi, walked around the palace''s halls and went back to ''her'' room there his main body forcefully injected her body with a cultivation technique that swelled her cultivation base to the 3rd stage of the ki cultivating realm and shortened the body''s lifespan to 2 a remaining of 2 years, her body started to age extremely fast, from a young woman in her thirties she became a doddering grandmother in her 80s. But Yun Jhin used his body-altering technique to make her look the same as before and then he announced to the whole Kingdom! Telling the people that she found a cultivation resource that could be shared with everyone, the dragon stone. Her announcement became big after she explained what the cultivation resource did and that he let anyone use it as it had unlimited uses! The dragon stone could indeed be used unlimited times but it wasn''t a very good resource, the amount of dragon bloodline it gave out was minuscule to the point that it wasn''t that useful and it could only give a 10-15% of cultivation speed increase. To Yun Jhin it was worse than trash but to the poor people of the kingdom, it was like a divine item! Yun Jhin let everyone use the stone so they could gain the dragon bloodline, it didn''t matter who touched it, however, it couldn''t be moved, Yun Jhin used extremely strong formations to keep it in place so no one could steal it. After 2 years the queen died and her son became the successor of the kingdom, of course, Yun Jhin took the son''s body the moment his mother died. He then continued to act as the puppet ruler as his main body continued to cultivate inside his new host''s cranium. As time passed, 3 years after the queen died the little king was assassinated! Yun Jhin escaped from the little boy''s body and took over the attackers, he let the kid die and took over the 1st stage ki cultivating assassins body. With this body in arms, he used another forbidden technique to defeat the currently strongest being in the kingdom and take over his body as well, afterward he reinstated himself as the king using the new host body, he just acted naturally seemingly as if things went how they should be, but under the guise of a new kingdom, Yun Jhin was still the ruler! 1 year after the little king''s assassination passed the new king made a gathering of all of the people with the 6th stage heavenly realm and above that touched the dragon stone to meet at the royal palace! Yun Jhin stood on his throne as the palace filled up with people, he got up from the throne as he looked around and then started talking: "Our Earth Kingdom entered into a time of cultivation with the help of the dragon stone, this seemingly miracle artifact was one that gave you all that you have today." The crowd nodded to Yun Jhin as they looked at him and thought why would the king ask for such a high amount of people to come to the palace, but Yun Jhin''s next words made them realize why: "I thank all of you for coming to the palace, with all of you people, I can finally attain a decent form!" The crowd panicked as they didn''t understand their King''s words, they even wanted to ask him what he meant by that but the formation that he worked on for years activated, Yun Jhin kept a passive face as he looked at all of the people dying around him, the blood, limbs and bodies, all of them just stood there waiting for Yun Jhin to devour them, all of the people in this palace were 10% of the kingdoms cultivators! Yun Jhin''s main body left from his new host''s corpse and started to feast! Crunch splash splish, blood, and meat, bones and organs, feast a giant feast for Yun Jhin! [Host has eaten a body that contains an extremely small amount of dragon ki, eat 50,000 bodies to be able to evolve into the dragon caterpillar!] Finally after a long, while the system was heard again, Yun Jhin almost forgot he had such an ability in him, after all, what he ate up till now didn''t give him a caterpillar form that was above his current one so the system ignored everything unless a higher caterpillar form was achieved than his current one he would be notified. There were around 55,000 corpses around so Yun Jhin had plenty to eat, he kept eating, his body increasing in size, as he ate more and more the bones crunched and the room started to smell more and more of blood, the blood started to rot as time went by and people would come to investigate what happened but they would join the corpse pile! As Yun Jhin eat more and more corpses, after a few weeks he finally finished and he met with another notification: [Host has eaten enough bodies that contain dragon ki, would host like to evolve into a dragon caterpillar? Even the weakest dragon caterpillar can reach the 5,000th rank and the strongest can reach the 7,500 ranks.] Yun Jhin hid inside his host''s body as he made it move away from the blood cacked hall inside the hidden cultivation chambers of the king. This was the last time he would be using a host body, from now on he would move around with his real body, as a new dragon caterpillar! He started to sleep inside his host''s cranium as he started the evolutionary process, the next time he would wake up he would have broken through the 1st stage of the ki cultivating realm and became a new species! Yun Jhin went into a deep sleep as a different past life appeared inside his dreams, this was one of his first ones... Chapter 38: Yun Jhin Yun Jhin found himself looking at a small child, the kid was around 5-6 years old and he was huddled in a dark alleyway, his knees to his chin, the snow around him almost buried him alive, his life was slowly disappearing from his tiny body, but he held on with strong willpower, but willpower wouldn''t help him from frostbite and his constant reduction of life force. Yun Jhin looked at the small child with an apathetic expression on his face as he said slowly: "I have been quite unlucky in a few lives as well." The child didn''t die, a rough middle-aged obese man saved him from the snow, he grabbed him by his long brown hair and dragged him towards a nearby house, inside the house Yun Jhin''s former self stopped shivering as the man came to him and dropped a blanket to heat his little body. Yun Jhin continued to observe what happened as he shook his head, his young self looked with dazed eyes at the man as he said: "Sir, why would you help me..." The obese middle-aged man laughed as he patted the little kid''s head and said: "Ah you see it''s my hobby to help those young and in need, I have had quite a lot of young children like you in my care." The man then smiled wretchedly as he felt that the kid''s body heated up enough and then his hand started to snake around the young child''s undeveloped body, Yun Jhin shook his head as he forcefully cut the image that came afterward, even though he vividly remembered the moment he didn''t want to live it out again. The scene changed, a draped blanket was the only thing that kept Yun Jhin''s little body from not being naked, near him stood the corpse of the middle-aged man, a knife implanted in his stomach, he bled out to death. The kid then started to move backward in fear apprehension and disgust of the older man, he kept his distance from him as he started rocking back and forth, it was his mechanism to cope with what happened, out of the man''s closet a bunch of dead bodies fell out, they were poor young men and women just like Yun Jhin, however, the difference between them is that they were corpses and he was alive. Yun Jhin ran out of the man''s house and shouted so hard all of his neighbors were alarmed when they came and saw the grisly sight they immediately called the authorities to investigate. Yun Jhin was taken into custody by the authorities and then sent to an orphanage... Yun Jhin''s life wasn''t good at all, he kept bumping into problems, most of the other foster children were beating him up most of the time, even though the staff of the orphanage didn''t mistreat him the other children would steal his food and toys. Till one day when the military came and found out that Yun Jhin had a high talent for cultivation, they enrolled him into the military and gave him a cultivation technique. However, things didn''t turn out as well as Yun Jhin thought. As he grew he thought that he would keep his distance from everyone, that he would be able to keep a steel heart in front of every person he would know and knew, but this woman he met, it melted his heart and his defenses, she was beautiful and kind to him, they worked in the same squadron and they deeply fell in love. But just like all tales, he had a rival, this rival of his didn''t like to play nice and due to an accident on the battlefield, his future lover perished under friendly fire... Yun Jhin was heartbroken and became mad, he killed all of his teammates and defected. He started to dabble into dark cultivation technique as he thought he could revive his former lover, necromancy, death decay, that was what he lived in for hundreds of years, in the end, he revived his former lover, but her soul was gone, she was an empty shell that he crushed under his boots as he realized that all of his humanity perished the moment she died. The only woman that was good to him, the only woman he loved, killed by his rival due to jealousy and an unfortunate accident. He then started to seek further cultivation, but his body gave out on him and he died... His next life he tried again, and again, and again, but he died as well. He failed every time as he became numb through reincarnations and realized that he couldn''t do anything, he gave up on his goal, he didn''t care about his only light as it snuffed out, he became a monster, he realized that the weak were preyed upon by the strong. He realized that he couldn''t believe anyone, he realized that hatred was his only friend, hatred, and power! His hatred changed from people as he continued to cultivate, he realized that people weren''t the things that he hated the most, they could be controlled, manipulated and used however he wanted, but the thing was, he couldn''t control death, he couldn''t live as much as he wanted to, in the end, he would one day become white sparkling bones that everyone would forget after a certain time, no matter how many accomplishments he had in his life. He realized that to become something, to become the something that he wanted, his distorted personality made him seek eternal life, from a normal human his life was always wretched which in turn transformed him into a monster, that''s what he thought but when Yun Jhin thought about it back then. He enjoyed killing... the moment the knife entered the obese man''s belly he felt exhilarated and full of life, the moment he killed his comrades made him happier than when he was loved by that woman, the moment he resurrected her, he realized that he could give her soul back, but he didn''t. He knew that if he did that his humanity might have a chance of coming back, and his dark twisted soul didn''t want that, he was evil to the bones and that was his nature, people would think that the environment you lived in would shape your personality and this was true for most of the people, however, sometimes there would be people who would have an innate quality that wouldn''t change no matter what happened. Yun Jhin kept a passive face as he looked at his former lives take place in front of his eyes, he kept looking and shook his head as he saw a particular memory. After so much time passed in Yun Jhin''s first life he finally reached the Emperor realm, he thought of himself invincible in the world only to get killed later in a fight with a fellow Emperor realm expert, Yun Jhin chuckled as he saw that memory and said: "Ah, I was so foolish, but that was my first life anyways..." He kept looking as he saw his former lives continue and then he stopped, all the images stopped, everything stopped, his breathing stopped, his blood circulation, even his life. Yun Jhin frowned as he looked around and then his heart started to beat again, bum bum bum, new blood started to circulate in his body, it was a strange feeling like he was something he was never before, the feeling of evolution was strange and familiar at the same time. Yun Jhin''s main body started to change as it grew up to 2 meters in length and 500 kilograms in weight, his body was as thick as two adult men put together and it grew yellow scales over it, even though he was still a caterpillar he wasn'' any normal caterpillar. He grew dark-colored eyes and scaled wings, horns grew out of his head and he also gained claws instead of the normal caterpillar feet, he exuded an aura of majesty and power as his power increased. His ki started to appear in his body, it was a deep imperial yellow color, the character for ''dragon'' was imprinted on his back as his evolution stopped, but he didn''t wake up as he didn''t finish his breakthrough in the ki cultivating realm. There weren''t any things such as heavenly tribulations in cultivation, however, there were tribulations of self, only talented people could trigger these tribulations and if you passed them, the cultivation speed of the realm they were in would be way faster than normal. Yun Jhin encountered such a tribulation, it was the past self tribulation that only reincarnators got, however this type of tribulation was almost nonexistent in Yun Jhin''s eyes, he has reincarnated for countless years and lives, technically speaking the more you reincarnated the stronger the tribulation, but with Yun Jhin''s experience, the tribulation couldn''t do anything to him anymore. Yun Jhin sighed as he felt his new body generate tons of ki, as his body was quite long and strong, the amount of ki it stored inside was way higher than a human or even some other special cultivation beasts. His host body was already destroyed into a shower of blood as he grew out of his skull into a big dragon caterpillar. His eyes were still closed but then suddenly they snapped open, his dark-colored sclera was like a mirror, nothing remained around him, the whole royal palace broke down into cinders as he opened his new mouth and incinerated the place with his dragon flames. The palace burned down into cinders even though it made out of stone and not wood, the fire took the attention of every survivor in the capital and they rushed to see what''s happening, however, all the saw was Yun Jhin''s new majestic body take flight from the palace and flying into the direction of the ocean. A system notification came when he started flying towards the ocean: [Host has successfully evolved into a dragon caterpillar (weak form), the host can reach rank 5,000] [If the host wants to evolve the dragon bloodline further, the host has to eat 100,000 cultivators with a dragon bloodline at the 1st stage of the ki cultivating realm or above!] Yun Jhin looked at the notification as his new face didn''t betray any of his emotions, but a smile appeared on it as he said: "It seems the Long Empire will have to be useful as well..." He started flying towards the Long Empire''s location as he flapped his wings faster, he concocted a new plan combined with his former one he knew what to do, the dragon stone was in his spatial bag and he was ready to deliver it to the Long Empire pronto. Chapter 39: Becoming a pet Yun Jhin''s big body flew above the ocean as he looked down at it from time to time, getting to the long empire while flying would be faster than swimming with the water horses but it would still take him almost 7 to 8 days, while Yun Jhin flew towards the empire, the empire was in an internal crisis. The crown prince had a haggard expression on his face as he kneeled beside another young-looking man, the man''s aura engulfed the whole imperial palace as he glared at the crown prince, the man then opened his mouth and said: "I have finished healing and I even broke through, but you tell me you lost your elite squad and the dragon stone as well? You are very lucky the Heavenly turtle sect hadn''t retaliated for your dumb act yet! If they attacked while I was healing the empire would have been done for!" His aura intensified as the kneeling crown prince fell to the ground, the ground started cracking due to the intensity of the aura and the crown prince''s bones started to make crunching sounds as they were breaking due to the pressure. The crown prince wanted to get up and kowtow to his father but he couldn''t due to the aura. Long Huang frowned as he looked at his eldest son and said slowly: "I even heard you assassinated your younger brother with the help of an outsider that died during the dragon stone recovery mission, I''m extremely disappointed!" The man pointed at the downed crown prince as he continued to berate him: "It doesn''t matter that you killed that weakling but you didn''t even make good use of the assassin either, you even let spies in your party that told me about what you have done, my disappointment is unmeasurable and my happy day is ruined." The emperor wanted to throw out a banquet for healing and having his breakthrough but the right minister immediately contacted him and told him everything that happened while he was in seclusion, the failures that the crown prince had made soured his mood to the point that he almost thought of killing his son! His anger subsided as he looked at his son''s downed form and remembered about his late wife, even though he had more concubines that gave him children, the crown prince was the most talented and had a chance to follow him into the King Realm even though it was a very low chance. His aura dissipated as he looked at his son and said: ''Jun''er your father isn''t making things tough for you on purpose, you have failed consecutively so many times so I have to punish you." The emperor shook his head as the crown prince started shaking in fright, he pointed towards him and gave out his final verdict: "Due to everything that happened up till now, unless you gain enormous merit you will have to be exiled out of the capital, your crown prince title is removed, you cannot come back unless you get the dragon stone back or something equivalent to it!" The crown prince started kowtowing with tears in his eyes as he was thrown outside of the capital, the man grumbled as he looked down at his feet and left, his eyes wandered around as he found himself in the forest near the capital and he shouted: "GODDAMIT GODDAMIT, SUN SISHENG HOW COULD YOU HAVE FAILED!" The crown prince blamed Yun Jhin for everything that happened, he most likely thought Yun Jhin betrayed them and the heavenly turtle sect killed him as well after they made use of him, he couldn''t take revenge on Yun Jhin even if he wanted to, he tried to find his family or sect but after some investigations, he found out that the sect was full of weaklings that weren''t even at the heavenly realm and his family was dead! The crown prince fell to his knees as he punched the ground multiple times in anger, his face looked like a malevolent spirit''s as it distorted his beautiful features, suddenly he heard a growling coming from the forest. He ran towards the growling regardless of consequences, he felt that the aura that the owner of the growl emanated was 4 stages below his, as he walked slowly into the forest he found out a long dragon caterpillar with a wound in its sides, near it stood the dragons stone! The crown prince eye''s widened in delight and surprise as his body started shaking and he said slowly: "Do the heavens want me to become the emperor? this is..." He examined the injured dragon caterpillar and then the dragon stone, he slowly approached both of them but the dragon caterpillar growled as it started talking: "Don''t come near me human! I will burn you to a crisp!" Inside the dragon caterpillar''s mouth, fierce flames started to appear and he pointed his mouth directly to the Long Jun''s body, the flames were so strong that they could even burn his body that was strengthened to the 5th level of the ki cultivating realm, he was even close to the 6th level after so many years of training. The crown prince backed away from the dragon caterpillar as he looked at it, of course, it was Yun Jhin who made up this act was to try and get close to the crown prince and the emperor in his current new form, they would try to contract with him and make him their pet. Yun Jhin continued to growl as he looked at the crown prince''s small form, his wings started to flutter, but the crown prince slowly got closer and closer to Yun Jhin and he said slowly with a scared look on his face: "I see you are wounded, please let me take care of you..." The dragon caterpillar snorted as his big frame moved a little bit showing his wound to the crown prince better, however his mouth was still full of flames if the man decided to attack him while he showed him his weakness he would be burnt to a crisp! Long Jun backed away as he said: "I know that most likely a human injured you, but not all humans are the same, please let me help you, I just want to be able to use the dragon stone in your possession." If he gained any amount of dragon bloodline his imperial father would welcome him back with open arms, the right minister and his party wouldn''t be able to say anything as well, and he could even leak the location and existence of the dragon caterpillar while he was at it! Yun Jhin''s body started shaking in pain as his wound opened up and fresh yellow blood started to pour out of it, however, he kept his dragon face serious, the crown prince approached his body and started to tend to him, Yun Jhin kept his mouth aimed at him the whole time. The crown prince didn''t lie as he started to help him to heal, even though he didn''t need it, it was just an act to get near the crown prince, after a few months Yun Jhin was as good as new, but he sneered inside as he looked at the giddy crown prince and he lent him the dragons stone. The dragon stone glowed a deep yellow light as it engulfed the crown prince, the higher the cultivation the better the effects, after a few hours the dragon stone stopped glowing and out of the light came the crown prince who broke through the 6th stage of the ki cultivating realm! The crown prince laughed as he patted Yun Jhin''s big body and he said slowly: "What''s your name dragon friend? would you mind if we made a contract?" Yun Jhin kept his pitch-black eyes narrowed as he looked at the crown prince and said in a distrustful tone: "What kind of contract?" Cultivation beasts could make contracts with humans to get what they needed peacefully, however, most of the cultivation beasts would never let their pride down to accept such contracts, but Yun Jhin made himself look more humble because the crown prince ''healed'' him. The crown prince Long Jun smiled as he looked at the dragon caterpillar and thought to himself: "I helped him heal, he should trust me enough, for now, I should be able to come back to the capital with the dragon caterpillar and stone in tow!" The man approached Yun Jhin''s body as he used his soul willpower to transfer the contract to Yun Jhin''s consciousness space, there Yun Jhin looked over it and he sneered inside, even though on the surface it looked like a contract that would benefit both parties, there was a hidden clause that would make him a slave if it was broken! Yun Jhin smiled inside as he looked at the contract, with his proficiency in soul manipulation he could easily change the contract in such a way that the other party wouldn''t realize, after he finished changing the contract to his liking he signed it! The contract returned to Long Jun''s consciousness space as he looked over it, seeing nothing wrong with it he signed it as well as he smiled devilishly inside, then he patted Yun Jhin''s body as he said: "Your name is Yun Jhin, right? The soul contract showed me your true name." Yun Jhin leaked his name to make him more trustful, but it didn''t matter, he never used this name in this life besides in the Earth Kingdom, and they wouldn''t link a gigantic dragon caterpillar to a now-dead human, besides where would they get the news of what happened in the Earth Kingdom? The heavenly turtle sect would surely not leak those type of news. Long Jun jumped on Yun Jhin''s body as he said slowly: "Let''s make a great entrance, to the capital, my new friend!" Yun Jhin complied with his order as he started flying directly inside the capital, the capital wasn''t that far away so they got there very quickly, Long Jun had the dragon stone in his hand as he made Yun Jhin fly above a certain courtyard of the palace and land there. After a very short while the Emperor quickly walked inside the courtyard as he looked at his son with wide appreciative eyes, he walked forward as he patted Yun Jhin''s thick body and then looked at the dragon stone in his son''s hand, he thought that his son might never come back into the capital again, after all, how could a young man below the King Realm invade the heavenly turtle sect to get the dragon stone back? However, it seemed luck was on his son''s side as he found not only the dragon stone but a guardian beast for the Empire, The dragon caterpillar! The emperor appreciated Yun Jhin''s big thick body as he looked at it up and down and then he took the dragon stone from his son''s outstretched hands as he ruffled his hair and said: "The other''s can''t say anything about your failures anymore son, actually you should be rewarded as you came in with something extra!" Yun Jhin''s voice was heard after the duo finished talking: "I was promised cultivation resources." The emperor laughed as he patted Yun Jhin''s body again as he said: "Of course my draconic friend, we need you to be strong to be the guardian beast of the empire, in future invasions we will need your help, and that might be quite soon, fortunately, I have some draconic herbs that would agree with your bloodline perfectly!" Even though the draconic herbs were meant for him, a dragon caterpillar had a better battle power than most humans, if he increased his cultivation quickly he might even be able to fight peak human experts that were at the 4th or 5th stage of the ki cultivating realm! The emperor left leaving Yun Jhin and the crown prince alone, Long Jun looked at his new friend as he started to pat his body fondly while saying: "You have done great Yun Jhin, I''m very happy that I found you, my father should come with those herbs sooner or later, actually if I look at you more, you are even cute, you might be able to soothe the broken heart of my little sister." Long Mumu became brokenhearted when she heard that her sweetheart Sun Sisheng died in the retrieval mission and she hid in her room ever since. Now with Yun Jhin''s arrival, the crown prince wanted to use him as a pet to help her out of her depression. Yun Jhin didn''t say anything but he narrowed his eyes inside, he didn''t like that woman very much, but until he reached atleast the 8th stage of the ki cultivating realm he would need to put up with the imperial family''s antics, after all, he was here to advance his dragon bloodline. Chapter 40: Draconic herbs Yun Jhin frowned inside as he looked at Long Mumu''s figure, she was crying in her hands with her brother behind her, then her brother told her something that made her look forward, her eyes started sparkling as she saw the dragon caterpillar and she ran towards it with an excited look on her face. It has been quite a long time, did princess Mumu missed him so much that she was grieving even now? Well it was normal as he was quite charming when he wanted to. Yun Jhin wanted to burn her to a crisp but the crown prince shook his head as he pointed at his hand, Yun Jhin stopped charging his breath seemingly looking at the prince''s palm and nodding his head at him. The crown prince then said: "Mumu, he is my friend, but he is wary of strangers so please do not aggravate him." The princess nodded her head slowly as her eyes sparkled while she looked at the big dragon caterpillar, she petted his big body as she took a better look at him, Yun Jhin just stood there on his side as he waited for the draconic herbs to make their way to him, this was why he created organizations in his previous lives, for them to gather resources for him, as long as he was important enough to the organization he joined he would also get resources for free. It wasn''t that Yun Jhin was lazy but some type of resources would take too much time to gather, time that he could use by cultivating instead, it would be may more effective to cultivate and wait for the resources instead of just searching for them. While Yun Jhin was waiting, the princess kept herself preoccupied with his cute chubby body, even though he looked awe-inspiring, the way he sat on the ground right now just made him seem like a dog that wanted belly rubs, the princess stood with him for a few hours before she left, even though she still seemed rather sad her complexion took a turn for the better. The crown prince coughed as he looked at the dragon caterpillar and he said: "My father said that he will get the draconic herbs to you in a short while, you should cultivate until then, I have some work to do as I was reinstated as the crown prince and I don''t have time to accompany you, I will visit you later with my father." Yun Jhin nodded at him and closed his eyes, the crown prince left the courtyard that was now Yun Jhin''s, Yun Jhin looked around before he started cultivating, he knew that he was observed by the crown prince so he had to act up. While he cultivated he thought on how to find hell''s portal, as he was now a decent enough caterpillar, and he would become a stronger one later as long as his plan in the Long Empire was fulfilled, he needed to know where the entrance to hell was! Demons and devil are dwelling in hell, demons were of lower class and devil''s of the higher class, he needed to become a devilish caterpillar to reach the peak of his talent, however, to do that he would need to reach the 6th or 7th layer of hell to be able to eat so many devils, that would need him to be around the middle stages of the Emperor realm. Cultivating became harder as one reached the king realm, even now at the ki cultivating realm, after he got those draconic herbs there might be a chance for him to break through the second stage, and to break through further he would need more and more resources, the body of a dragon caterpillar required countless nutrition amounts, even though he could get this nutrition from eating humans they would need to be of the higher realm than he was. After all, a dragon caterpillar battle power was around 4-5 times stronger than a human''s, it was additional battle power not multiplying one, after all, the dragon caterpillar wasn'' a true dragon. If Yun Jhin was at the 1st stage he could battle 4th 5th and even 6th stage cultivators with his current body, however, that would mean only 1 of each, if there were more they could give him trouble. Fortunately for Yun Jhin, he lived near the top of the lower continents, which meant there was a big lack of experts around, there weren''t even Emperor sects around, let''s not talk about Sagely or Godly sects. The planet Yun Jhin lived in was one of the many in his universe, he pretty much reincarnated on every liveable planet there was, and he knew most of them like the palm of his hand, he was currently on the Draconic planet Longo, that''s why there were dragon stones around such lowly places, the planet itself housed true dragons. It was one of the 4 strongest planets in the universe, the other being the Phoenix Planet Yuro, The Dark Tortoise Planet Ruko, and the White Tiger Planet Suro. They were all equal in power and they had their special planetary formation as they were in alliance with each other, even though they were the strongest they were in the top ten and were around the 5th to 9th ranks. Yun Jhin knew to get to hell he would need to analyze all of the planets of the universe and find the location of the entrance, or well just find a devil and get the location from him, however, most devil''s would rather self destruct than leak the entrance, after all, their ruler''s didn''t like unwanted guests, most of them couldn''t leave the 9th layer of hell without the hellish will of the place letting them. Most of the Godly Patriarchs of hell, were considered to be the hell''s children and hell wouldn''t let them leave the 9th layer unless the place itself was in peril, and such a thing didn''t happen for millions of years. While Yun Jhin thought on how to get to hell, time passed by quickly, he cultivated while he thought as he stabilized his cultivation in the 1st stage of the ki cultivating realm and made way for his breakthrough with the help of the draconic herbs. While Yun Jhin was thinking about the future and making plans, so was the Long family! Long Huang looked at his son as he squinted his eyes at him and then he laughed: "Good job fooling that dragon caterpillar, as long as he goes against that clause you put in the contract he would be our slave, good very good!" The crown prince smiled bashfully at his father''s compliment then he said: "It''s ok, imperial father, however, the dragon caterpillar isn''t at its full potential yet, we should go and give him those draconic herbs so they could stimulate his bloodline, he might even breakthrough!" Long Huang caressed his chin as he thought about it if the dragon caterpillar broke through they would have a pawn equal to the 6th level of the ki cultivating stage which would be very useful for them, after all, they lost quite a bit of manpower during the attack of the heavenly turtle sect and they needed to create a new elite squad, but that would take tens of years or even hundreds! Suddenly Long Huang eye''s started to sparkle with deep red color as he said: "I remembered something, a dragon caterpillar sense of talent is way higher than a human''s with its help we could go around the empire and recruit the most talented youths!" The crown prince nodded at his father and waited for further instructions, Long Huang left the throne room as he went to treasury and came out with a few herbs that took the form of the head of a dragon, they exuded pure draconic ki of a deep imperial yellow color. The duo left the throne room and went directly to Yun Jhin''s courtyard where they saw him cultivating, the duo didn''t stop him as they watched him cultivate, deep blue ki engulfed his body as he opened his mouth to devour it little by little, both of them took inspiration from his cultivating technique and waited till he finished. Yun Jhin knew the duo came inside his courtyard but kept ignoring them, seemingly as if he was in deep cultivation, the duo waited for Yun Jhin to finish staying in the courtyard for almost 20 days, Yun Jhin suddenly woke up as his black eyes looked at directly at the duo. The emperor and his progeny nodded at Yun Jhin, with their observation of how Yun Jhin cultivated they made great harvests and they would be able to increase their cultivation speed by quite a high deal. Long Huang unsealed the draconic herbs and presented them to Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin opened his big mouth and said: "Leave them near and you can go, It will take me around 2 months to fully refine these herbs, I hope that I won''t be disturbed during that time." The emperor laughed and left with his son in tow, Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes inwardly as he looked at the leaving duo and made sure to investigate if they tampered with the herbs, to his surprise the herbs were clean! Yun Jhin opened his mouth as he blew fire on the herbs transforming them into liquid! Then he absorbed the liquid in his mouth as he slowly used the flames to harden the liquid, from time to time he would spit out some impurities, Yun Jhin was using his body as a cauldron to refine a draconic pill! This was a technique that he didn''t use before, after all, most of his reincarnations were humans or humanoid forms, only certain cultivation beasts would be able to use this technique of refining pills in the body. This was Yun Jhin''s first reincarnation as a pure cultivation beast, while the pill was forming in his body the Emperor and his son observed the courtyard using formations, they both were surprised inwardly as they saw Yun Jhin''s way of refining pills and they said in unison: "Such a way to refine pills... get the imperial refiners here and let them observe!" Quickly some old men who wore robes with pills engravings etched on them came and kowtowed to the imperial duo as they waited for instructions, the Emperor told them to observe Yun Jhin''s way of refining and the old men squad shook their head in unison as they said the same thing: "There is no way for a human to refine like this your imperial majesty." "Yes your highness, it seems this a cultivation beast special way of refining pills." "Your highness, we humans have frail bodies compared to beasts, this beast seems especially sturdy and I could guess not even many of his kind could employ such a special technique." The duo furrowed their brows as they looked at the old men and dismissed them, Yun Jhin laughed inside as his soul willpower observed their attempt at replicating his technique, he showed this unique talent so he could get even more benefits, after all, who would kill the goose who could lay golden eggs? This was his way to cement his position in the empire as best as he could, in the future even if the emperor had to choose between his son and Yun Jhin, he might choose Yun Jhin instead! After a long while of refining, Yun Jhin finished refining the pill and he vomited a pile of slag that he burnt to cinders, then a round yellow pill appeared in front of him it looked flawless and spotless as dragon howls could be heard from it. It was a high-quality dragon herb pill, it was good at tempering the body and ki of the user and even king realm experts at the 1st stage could use it, however, it was useless for those at the 2nd stage of cultivation and above. The emperor sighed as he looked at the pill and lamented: "Oh, if we could have found this dragon caterpillar earlier, he might have been able to make me a pill and I wouldn''t have been injured by the patriarch of the Heavenly Turtle sect." Yun Jhin then ate the pill as it dissolved in his mouth and currents of herbal draconic energy started to seep into his body, his new organs started to cheer as they got strengthened by the pill. Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he entered into closed-door cultivation, the duo looked away as they already knew how Yun Jhin cultivated and closed the formation, they had things to do and prepare while Yun Jhin was cultivating. Chapter 41: Heavenly Turtle retaliation While Yun Jhin was cultivating peacefully in his courtyard, things weren''t so peaceful under the ocean, a middle-aged man with graying hair looked down at his subordinate that kneeled with a deep fearful look on her face, the man waved his hand and the woman disappeared in a cloud of ashes. The man shook his head as he looked down from the blue throne that he stood on and he sighed while saying: "We lost the dragon stone and these fools couldn''t find it in such a long time, is it possible I missed someone when I went to inspect the treasury? When I touched the dragon stone it turned into bits, someone should have stolen it but who?" The man scratched his chin as he then gave out a command: "There''s a big chance the stone is back into the Long Empire''s hands, we will attack with full force to recover it, it''s time to end this charade, that poor emperor should still be in seclusion, I injured him quite heavily." The man got up from his throne and disappeared into a swirl of blue water, back in the Empire Long Huang and his son were giving out commands for the army to gather, they were ready to invade the Heavenly Turtle sect again, and with the help of the dragon caterpillar, they were sure they were going to win, as a dragon caterpillar could fight with atleast 6-7 same cultivation realm adversaries, they also knew that as long as it ate enough it could grow in cultivation, they would make sure that all the high-level Ki cultivating enemies would end up in its stomach! Long Huang opened his mouth to tell all of his ministers and officials: "It''s time for us to end this hidden war with the Heavenly Turtle sect, these petty fools thought that because we attacked their subordinate that they had a good reason to attack back, but I know they had been eyeing our dragon stone for a long while, they coveted it, and I made a foolish mistake that gave them a good reason to retaliate..." The emperor admitted his mistakes as he looked at his subordinates and continued: "However! This is also an opportunity for us, an opportunity to expand our empire and take over the Heavenly Turtle sect, I will go immediately to ''invite'' all of the rogue sects around the empire and enroll them into our service, of course, benefits need to be dolled out or else they would rebel." The ministers and officials nodded their heads like chicks pecking at rice, they didn''t dare to talk back or say anything to their emperor, after all, he broke through to the second stage of the King Realm! The right minister didn''t like the crown prince but that didn''t mean he was against the imperial family, he was supporting the Emperor but he thought that the crown prince wasn''t a good enough descendant and he felt that if the emperor fell he shouldn''t take over the throne. After the emperor finished talking everyone dismissed as he waved his hand, only Long Huang and his son remained in the throne room, they looked at each other as they surveyed a military map, Long Huang opened his mouth and told his son: "I shall teach you some military tactics, in my youth I was known as the best military tactician, the only one who I could call equal would be the minister of the military, but his sharp edge started to dull as he hasn''t been on the battlefield for a long time." Long Huang started to point at some important points on the map when suddenly the formations at the border of the ocean were triggered, even though the capital was far away the Emperor made sure to connect all of the important formations to his soul so he knew when their borders were attacked. Long Huang frowned as he looked down at his son and said: "It seems we don''t have to invade them, they already came!" The crown prince gasped as he said: "Imperial father, the heavenly turtle sect came already?" His father didn''t bother to respond as he should already know the answer, then he immediately sent out a message to recruit all of the sects, mobilize the army and make way to the battlefield! The emperor was ready to wake up Yun Jhin. In Yun Jhin''s courtyard, different transformations happened inside his big body, his ki transformed from a little spring into a lake as his whole body started to fill up with ki, a peculiar yellow golden aura started to encase Yun Jhin''s draconic body, his power increased by quite a high deal as both his body and ki passageways were strengthened by the medicinal power of the draconic pill, even his bloodline was stimulated somewhat and strengthened, but the bloodline strengthening was negligible at best. Yun Jhin opened his dark eyes as he looked in front of him and saw the father-son duo ready to wake up him, they smiled awkwardly at each other as the crown prince went forward and said: "Yun Jhin, I''m sorry but we need your help, we are invaded by the Heavenly Turtle sect and we need to employ your flying ability to get to the battlefield quickly, the other troops are ready to go there, with your giant body you should be able to drag all of them along with this boat me made." As the crown prince explained things, hot air came out of Yun Jhin''s nostrils as he looked at the duo and said: "I can do that, but I will need some more draconic herbs." The emperor smiled as he saw Yun Jhin''s attitude, even though the dragons were proud beings, that pride wouldn''t fully transfer to halflings or quarterings, it seemed to the emperor that Yun Jhin was a practical cultivation beast who knew what was best for it. The duo jumped on his back as they made him fly to the army''s headquarters there they tied 50 big boats to his body which weren''t a big strain to Yun Jhin''s new body, he wasn''t that long but most of the boats were tied in one spot which didn''t take much space. Yun Jhin started flying at quick speeds according to the instructions of the Emperor as Long Huang closed his eyes and felt the responses of the formations Yun Jhin flew accordingly. Finally, after a moderate amount of traveling they all dropped on the battlefield surprising the army of the Heavenly Turtle sect with an aerial ambush! Yun Jhin kept flying up above then he looked at the crown prince and the Emperor as they dropped down on the ground, the Emperor looked around and frowned as he didn''t spot the patriarch of the Heavenly Turtle sect. He ordered the army to attack and a bloodbath ensued, limbs and organs flew around the battlefield as the Heavenly Turtle sect was massacred, however, something wasn''t right, most of the disciples were too low level for them to start this war, this was most likely to be a diversion! Yun Jhin didn''t say anything as he opened his mouth and inhaled a bunch of disciples in the heavenly realm, he made sure to look like he was working. The Emperor frowned as he looked around, then his eyes widened as a sword stuck out of his thigh and a snort was heard: "It seems you have broken through, lucky for you, you almost dodged the attack fully!" The middle-aged greying man appeared near the Emperor and out of the sea a barrage of water blasts shot out, the water blasts pushed back a lot of the army and hastily recruited sect members, some of them even drowned and died. The Emperor frowned as his thigh wound closed up and healed then he said: "Luo Sunfeng, I didn''t know you would be so underhanded that you would do such a sneak attack." Luo Sunfeng laughed as he pointed up at the sky where Yun Jhin was flying around: "I didn''t know you got your hands on a dragon caterpillar, I see now why you called yourself and your empire Long, unluckily for you I will kill you and take both the caterpillar and the dragon stone for myself!" While the King''s fought there was no space for small fries around, The emperor pushed the crown prince away then threw him directly on Yun Jhin''s back, Yun Jhin looked down at the duo and waited, if things went out as he planned he would profit immensely from their fight! The emperor and the patriarch looked at each other as they sneered, lightning clashed in the middle as they glared at each other. Long Huang immediately attacked, taking a sword out of his spatial bag he went to the offensive as he made an overhead slash trying to directly cut the patriarch into two pieces. The patriarch waved around the slash as if he was dancing and took his weapon out, it was a simple blue trident with some turtle engravings on it, Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he looked at the trident, those engravings were familiar, could the heavenly turtle sect be connected to the Black Turtle planet? Yun Jhin flew further away from the battlefield as he didn''t want the shockwaves from the fight to hit him, he would need to be at full power to be able to take advantage of the duo''s weak moment. The crown prince looked at his father fight with wide eyes as he seemingly couldn''t look away, even though he couldn''t make out what happened with his eyes, his soul willpower boosted with his inner ki could make him keep up a little and understand what happened. The patriarch''s aura intensified as he waved his trident and a giant wave of water appeared and started to engulf Long Huang, however, Long Huang grasped his sword with both hands as he slashed the wave into two, he dashed inside the opening he made but Luo Sunfeng chuckled as he put his hand forward and clenched it! The wave closed in and buried Long Huang inside of it, but a barrier of sword slashes stopped him from being crushed inside the water currents, Long Huang coughed out a bit of water as he looked at Luo Sunfeng and he said: "It seems your control of the Sea Turtle sutra has increased even further..." Luo Sunfeng didn''t say anything as he waved his hands in some peculiar hand seals then slammed his palms on the ground, out of the ground a giant geyser of hot water rushed directly at Long Huang, but Long Huang jumped away as soon as he felt the earth tremble, he knew most of the patriarch''s tricks as this wasn''t the first time he fought him head-on. Long Huang took out a second sword as he dashed directly to the patriarch cutting through the water geysers that would spawn from time to time, he engulfed his body in a deep red aura that kept him safe from the attacks of the patriarch, when the emperor was almost head to head with the patriarch, Luo Sunfeng suddenly smiled as he got up from his kneeling position and the trident appeared in his hands again, he thrust his trident forward at an extremely quick speed ready to impale Long Huang in the heart and take his life! Long Huang crossed his swords at the last moment and he was pushed back for tens of meters until he got control of his body, the technique that he used with the trident sent a shockwave through his swords directly into his body unbalancing it, if it hit his chest and his heart the shockwave would have directly destroyed it killing him instantly! Long Huang frowned as he looked at the patriarch and muttered to himself: "Even though he didn''t break through to the 3rd stage, the improvement of his technique is something that I can barely keep up with... have I made a mistake here?" Before he could say anything else, Luo Sunfeng dashed at him as he got into melee range, the man was so confident of the new techniques which he mastered that he challenged the emperor in the area he was the most confident in! But the patriarch wasn''t the only one who learned and mastered some new techniques! Long Huang put both of his swords forward as he suddenly disappeared from where he was, Luo Sunfeng''s eyes widened as he looked down at his chest as a current of wind threw him away into the sky and a rain of blood appeared where he previously stood. The emperor looked at the sky as he said slowly: "Dragon style swordsmanship: wind slash stage 1" He jumped after the patriarch as he was ready to use his swordsmanship combo on him when suddenly the crown prince''s scream could be heard up from the sky! Long Huang cursed as he used his ki to enter into a stance of pseudo flying, he needed to be faster to get to his son, it seemed he made a mistake when he threw Luo Sunfeng into the sky, he didn''t think that Yun Jhin would be still flying in the same place! Chapter 42: A single death doesnt change a thing The battlefield on the plains was a grisly sight, for both the Long empire and the Heavenly Turtle sect, even though the sect has gotten some reinforcements, due to the aerial ambush from the empire, most of the turtle sect cannon fodder has already died, rivers of fresh blood were flowing on the plains, the green grass on the ground turned a deep fresh red, organs were scattered here and there along with decapitated heads and human body parts, it wasn''t a pretty sight. Yun Jhin chuckled inside as he looked at the patriarch picking up the crown prince like a little chick, he grabbed him by the neck as he held him up and floated there, however after he floated for a bit he let himself fall, it took too much out of a King Realm expert to fly, even though they could pseudo-fly they wouldn''t be able to truly fly at their realm. He dived into Long Huang''s direction with one hand holding his son with the other holding the trusty trident, he looked ready to skewer the man who was exhausting his energy to save his son. Yun Jhin smiled to himself as he was ignored by the man, he was an important beast that wouldn''t be killed unless he would be obstinate to the point that he couldn''t be tamed. Yun Jhin looked down at the ground as he heard the sound of steel clashing, blood splashing, and lives ending, it was a symphony of death. A symphony that he enjoyed very much, he kept his eyes trained on the duo as they clashed again, using his dual swords Long Huang tried to save his son from Luo Sunfeng''s hand, they both plummeted to the ground as their ki couldn''t let them float anymore, there was a saying in the cultivation world, while a king can look at the sky an emperor can embrace it, and it applied to the cultivation realms as well. While a king could float using his ki an emperor could truly fly! They both fell to the ground on their legs, even though they fell from a high distance in the air nothing happened to them due to their tempered bodies and strong constitutions, anyone that got to the king realm and above would have a strong bloodline or unique constitution, or else they wouldn''t have been able to go this far on the cultivation path. The dragon caterpillar looked down as Luo Sunfeng threatened Long Huang with his son''s life, his hand which was on his neck started to clench, the crown prince couldn''t do anything, even let out a peep as his neck bones were slowly getting crushed, if they broke he would instantly die! Long Huang growled as he threw his swords down and said: "Ok, I admit defeat, what do you want to let him go?" Luo Sunfeng laughed as he stopped clenching his neck but kept a tight grip on him, he opened his mouth and started telling his conditions: "I do not want your land or resources, I just want two things, the dragon stone, and the dragon caterpillar!" Long Huang gritted his teeth as he said: "You already took one dragon stone and you want to take the second one too?" Luo Sunfeng frowned as he said: "The one we took was stolen and changed with a fake, I''m not sure how you got yours but I don''t care either, now hand it over!" Yun Jhin lent the dragon stone to the emperor when he got his draconic herbs, he knew something like this would happen sooner or later so he didn''t want to become a target. The emperor opened his spatial bag as he took out the dragon stone. The patriarch laughed heartily as he kept his eyes on the dragon stone and said: "Get the dragon caterpillar down too, I want to make a contract with it, don''t forget to erase yours from its consciousness space." The emperor frowned as he kept his hold on the dragon stone and told him: "The contract was made by Jun''er, you will have to let him go if you want him to destroy the contract." Luo Sunfeng frowned as he looked as his captive''s face and then he put his trident away and waved his free hand while saying: "Throw the dragon stone here and I will release him, make sure it isn''t a fake or I''m killing him immediately!" Long Huang gritted his teeth so hard they started cracking as he looked at the dragon stone and then at his son, he threw the dragon stone in Luo Sunfeng''s empty hand, the patriarch caught it easily as he looked at it to make sure it''s genuine then he frowned: "You don''t treasure your son''s life do you, Long Huang?" The emperor laughed as he looked at him and said: "A single death won''t affect the future of my Long Empire, not even the crown prince''s, as long as I''m alive I can sire more descendants." Suddenly two swords drilled from the earth and directly pinned the man''s feet to the ground, Luo Sunfeng growled as he clenched Long Jun''s neck, easily breaking all of his bones and effectively killing him. His head dropped to the side like a broken doll''s and the luster in his eyes turned grey, however, Luo Sunfeng met with the cold sharp edge of a sword that was ready to cut him into two parts! The patriarch laughed as he watched the sword get nearer to his head and then he shouted as his aura increased in volatility and depth, he escaped from the swords that were pinning him to the ground by jumping up, even though this action leads the swords to cut some of his bones and heavily injuring his feet, atleast he didn''t die. His trident appeared in his hands as he grasped it tightly then thrust it in front of him at extreme speeds even dislocating his arms in the process due to the speed he used, this was a blitzkrieg strategy, by using strength his body couldn''t handle he wanted to end the emperor! However, the trident missed his heart by a few centimeters, but the tri-pronged weapon still hit both of his lungs and made them collapse. Long Huang vomited a mouthful of blood as his lungs started to fill with the same substance, Luo Sunfeng laughed loudly but then he cringed as he looked at his feet and used some of his ki like bandages to wrap up his feet in them so the injury wouldn''t worsen. Long Huang did the same with his inner injuries, as a King realm expert even though his lungs have been perforated he could still live due to the high vitality the King realm gave to the practitioner who reached the realm, even deadly injuries to those below the realm could be healed by Kingly experts, however, that didn''t mean the injury wasn''t deadly! Yun Jhin shook his head as he stopped observing, he looked down at the battlefield as both sides stopped fighting, but the surroundings were bloody and full of corpses and death, organs and the other things, Yun Jhin laughed to himself as he looked around, he flew around the surroundings as he used his claw to make peculiar hand seals. Those hand seals weren''t normal as from the seals different type of runes started to etch themselves into the air, he ran along with the air, the space above the battlefield was engulfed with his runes, after a short while a formation that looked like a devil''s skull appeared, with horns and all. Using the bodies blood and injured cultivators Yun Jhin started to chant: "Oh Zolal, Amon, Shacono, I give you these petty sacrifices to hit those two injured King realms down there, if you kill them you can even take their corpses!" The formation started to light up with a peculiar red devilish light, the skull started to move as it seemingly laughed in delight, it''s mouth opened as all of the gore and bodies on the battlefield started to disappear as they were transported to hell! Even though Yun Jhin could create such formations to connect to hell, he knew that devils were very cunning and they would never leak hell''s entrance location, at most he could make them do some work for him if they were interested in the sacrifice. A creepy laugh could be heard as a pure black hand struck directly at the emperor and the patriarch hitting them directly, then a soul-chilling voice could be heard coming from the formation: "Storm of blades!" Blades of different lengths and colors, both physical and made of ki started to rain on the duo as they were cut up, they were both injured and on their last legs considering mobility, one had injured lungs and the other had skewered feet. The rain of armaments cut them up pretty good as they were on their last legs, the pitch-black arm went directly to take a hold of the duo as it started to crush their bones, the emperor and the patriarch looked at each other as they shouted in unison and powered their auras to their maximum, furthering the injuries they escaped from the hand as a ''tch'' sound could be heard from the skull formation. The other cannon fodder down were absorbed into the formation as they died, the injured ones went first as even some of the healthy ones were absorbed, the formation was just like a vacuum! After the formation had its fill of flesh and blood the skull stopped laughing and it transformed into ashes that drifted in the wind, a disappointed voice could be heard coming from the formation as it fully transformed into ashes: "Two king realm experts, such abundant flesh and blood, you are a lucky one contractor..." Yun Jhin ignored the voice as his big body flew down, he looked at the dying sect patriarch and emperor, they both looked at his dark eyes as the emperor wanted to get up and he said: "Good, good come here Yun Jhin, help me up and kill this pig, he killed my son Jun''er!" Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked at the man''s attempt of getting up and he said: "He killed your Jun''er? You might as well have killed him yourself." Long Huang eyes widened as he heard Yun Jhin''s tone, he didn''t know who activated the formation but he never thought that Yun Jhin would be behind it, after all, he was a beast, and cultivation beasts had the worst talent for formations! Humans and elves were the best at formations and beasts were the worst! As for the other races they were all average but that didn''t mean geniuses from these races wouldn''t rise and create new ways of using formations, it was possible but had a very low chance of happening. Yun Jhin slowly approached them as his claws struck the both of them in the chest sealing the deal, they were slowly dying and Yun Jhin put the nail in their coffin. Long Huang looked with wide eyes at Yun Jhin''s figure but Luo Sunfeng laughed loudly as blood flowed freely from his mouth and he said: "Fooled by a beast! We were both played by a beast!" Long Huang didn''t want to believe those words but he realized that his enemy was right, they were both played by Yun Jhin! Yun Jhin kept a straight face as he took the real dragon stone from Long Huang''s spatial bag and he looked at his dying form as he said: "What you have said is true, it doesn''t matter who dies, it won''t change my future, however the amount of deaths matter!" He grabbed the dragon stone as it flowed with a red light, the light entered in both of their bodies as they forcefully gained the dragon bloodline! They screamed in pain as their bloodlines were forcefully changed by Yun Jhin''s claws, doing such a thing while injured and on the verge of death exuded both of their life force, even though their bodies gained the dragon bloodline they immediately died! Yun Jhin opened his mouth as he devoured both of their bodies, but things became problematic as he chewed on their hards bodies, King realm practitioners bodies were remodeled after they reached this cultivation realm, their toughness increased and Yun Jhin was actually having a hard time eating them! Yun Jhin frowned as he tried to eat them but he realized that he couldn''t! Their bodies were too hard, his fangs almost cracked as he tried to continuously bite and chew on their hard meat and skin, he frowned as he looked at the bodies and used a free spatial bag to store both of the bodies, this wasn''t a thing he liked, eating them sooner was better but his teeth weren''t sharp enough to chew through their though bodies! He needs to break through to the 3rd stage to be able to slowly chew through their bodies and he might not even be able to eat the bones! Yun Jhin frowned as he looked at the empty battlefield, all of the elites and cannon fodder of the empire and the Heavenly Turtle sect perished here, their armies were dead but that didn''t mean these places lacked cultivators, there were still the ones who dealt in logistics and other miscellaneous stuff, not everyone was talented at doing battle. Yun Jhin frowned as he rushed towards the Long Empire, he needed to the treasury and enter a hidden place, with the memories he gained from both the emperor and the patriarch, he knew that he had to visit both treasuries, they had things that would help him, however, he needed to quickly eat the bodies or they would lose a high deal of nutritional ki! Yun Jhin''s big body flew at the highest speeds back to the empire, even though the ministers were still alive he could shrink his body and use the stealth technique to get inside the treasury, with the emperor dead there was nothing else he needed to fear! Unknowingly to Yun Jhin back the formation entrance, a black hand grasped the firm space there and tried to slash it with his long dark nails, however another ''tch'' could be heard as the voice complained: "The dragon planet, the space is so hard there, goddammit! I would have wanted to rampage there for a while... but the entrance to the human world is so far away from that planet, not worth it..." Space there returned to normal as the voice disappeared, the devil gave up on invading for now... Chapter 43: Another day another empire Yun Jhin kept his body steady as he flew at his fastest speed towards the imperial capital, as he flew he thought on how to use the corpses, he shook his head as he realized that he couldn''t make in time, they would lose too much ki. Yun Jhin dropped to the ground in a nearby forest as he took both of the corpses out of his spatial bag, he needed to turn them both into sarira beads so they wouldn''t lose more ki, his eyes narrowed as his draconic flames turned green. His green flames engulfed both of the corpses as they started to melt and contract into two deep red sarira beads, this was basically like pickling them so they would last longer, Yun Jhin grabbed both of the sarira beads with his claws and attempted to chew on them again, but unfortunately even though the bodies have been melted his teeth still weren''t strong enough and if he swallowed the beads it wasn''t known if his digestive system could melt them. Yun Jhin kept the sariras in his spatial bag as he resumed his flying to the capital. However at the capital, things weren''t that good, the left and right minister made an emergency meeting the moment the Emperor''s life crystal broke, their ruler was dead! That meant they would die soon as well if they didn''t surrender to their invaders, the left minister frowned as he said: "We cannot do anything anymore, if the emperor died his son should have as well, after all, they left together on the dragon caterpillar, we must surrender even though it''s shameful, atleast the empire will continue to exist." The right minister didn''t say anything, he was a man of few words and it seemed that he agreed with the left minister''s words, the military minister had no army to lead anymore so he kept his mouth sealed, the other officials were of a lower standard than those three so they couldn''t butt in this conversation as well. The princess was cleaning her cheeks of tears, hearing that both her father and big brother died made her extremely sad but now she was the only imperial alive that was also old enough to lead, there was also her smallest brother but he was a baby! Technically speaking she was the last in line to inherit the throne in the future when her little brother grew up a little, but now she had to become empress! The left and right ministers supported her as the new empress as they said: "Empress Mumu, you will have to lead the peace talks with the patriarch of the heavenly turtle sect, I heard he is an understanding man when it comes to the fairer sex.", The left minister winked as her as he waved his hands. Mumu frowned as she looked at the men inside the meeting place, they were all eyeing her and thinking how they could use her to save their hide. Suddenly a woosh sound could be heard as the doors of the palace opened, but there was no one there... The left and right ministers were thoroughly scared by what happened, and the military minister looked around the palace but he couldn''t find anything. Yun Jhin was basically in their face as he laughed at them, he shrank to a size of 1 meter long using his body ki manipulating technique and waved slowly at them as he walked towards the treasury room. The Long Empire''s treasury was pretty rich considering they took taxes from 95% of the population, the 5% consisted of nobility that didn''t have to pay taxes. The treasury was full of herbs, spirit stones, armors, weapons, scrolls with techniques and other unique things, Yun Jhin ignored everything around him as he walked further inside the treasury. The things he needed weren''t those flimsy things, as he walked further into the treasury, the mountains of spirit stones herbs and other things started to thin, in front of him appeared a giant skull of a dragon! The Long Empire was founded when the ancestor of the Imperial family found the skull of a dragon, with the help of a forbidden technique he extracted the last semblance of the bloodline from it and bestowed it upon his descendants, however, such a long time passed that the bloodline thinned out to the point that they wouldn''t realize they got one. However this was where the dragon stone intervened, for the royal family it didn''t grant them the bloodline, it refreshed and activated it! This is why the Emperor wanted to get his hands on the dragon stone so bad, in the end, his bloodline was activated, but not at a fortunate moment. Yun Jhin took a good look at the skull, this should help him advance further into the dragon caterpillar race tree. He walked towards it and easily disarmed the formation that was protecting it, then he opened his maw as an attracting force sucked the skull inside Yun Jhin''s body. Crunching sounds could be heard from his body as the old dragon skull disappeared from existence, it wasn''t known at what realm it was when he lived but with so much time passing by it didn''t matter as it became weak enough for Yun Jhin to digest. The system made clear that it didn''t disappear as a notification appeared in Yun Jhin''s face: [Eat 3 more dragon skulls, if the host cannot gain more dragon skulls, to evolve further, the host would need to eat 50,000 more humans with dragon bloodline, their cultivation should be atleast at the 1st stage of the ki cultivating realm.] Yun Jhin looked at the system notification as he asked it: "What if I ate 2 King realm sariras at the 2nd stage?" The system took some time to respond as another notification appeared in front of him: [Host would still need to eat atleast 5,000 more humans based on the ki intensity remaining in the sariras.] Yun Jhin nodded his head as he dismissed the notification, he was getting closer and closer to his goal of reaching the peak of the draconic race tree, however, this wouldn''t be the peak of his evolution, he wanted more and more, but he first needed to increase his cultivation for that... The dragon head was consumed and even though his cultivation didn''t reach the 3rd stage, with some help of the herbs inside the treasury he could still get there. He made sure to get his claws on the rarest types that were beneficial to him and he made a pill that he immediately ate, with the pill in his body his cultivation was ready to break through to the 3rd stage. He closed his eyes as his body filled up with ki again, this ki was purer than the last stage and the increase was substantial, he could feel his ki pathways strengthening along with his body, his soul was also engulfed in ki as it was purified and mended further. Yun Jhin could control the breakthrough to strengthen all of his attributes but if he did that it would take him long to finish. But he didn''t care as he would be extremely safe inside the treasury, no one would enter for a long while as they would be too scared of the retribution of the Heavenly Turtle sect. While Yun Jhin was cultivating inside the treasury, outside things were in a pandemonium, Long Mumu''s fair skin was bloody as the left minister held her hostage, the right minister had a smoking pipe in his mouth as he narrowed his eyes at the other older man and said: "You want to escape with her highness? Such a sudden betrayal from you, the lackey of the crown prince, and the most supportive of the imperial family." The left minister laughed as he watched the right minister movements, ready to retaliate and even kill Long Mumu if the man got closer to him, he looked at him and opened his mouth to say: "Don''t give me that bullshit Fuo Song, I know you wanted to kidnap her the moment you heard the Emperor fell, I saw it in your eyes, I just got to her first!" The left minister thought that he could curry favor with the Heavenly Turtle sect if he gave them the most important current living imperial. The right minister shook his head as he looked at the left minister and said: "I''m sorry Mumu." His pipe grew to a length of 1 meter as it transformed into a sword going through both the left minister and Long Mumu''s heart, he looked down at them as they both fell to the ground in a pool of blood and said slowly: "It doesn''t hurt to tell you this now, I have always been a spy from the Heavenly Turtle sect, and I''m disappointed to say that both the patriarch and your emperor fell in battle, I''m not sure who did it but both sides were fooled, however, that doesn''t mean I will have to let the enemy live." The left minister coughed mouthful of blood after mouthful of blood he wanted to say something but his eyes turned grey and lifeless as he took his last breath. Fuo Song shook his head as he looked at the grisly sight in front of him and he took the sword out of his mouth as he pointed it at the downed bodies and incinerated them with a fireball that shot out of the tip of the weapon. Unknowingly to him, while he finished the ministers and the other''s in the imperial palace, Yun Jhin was quickly finishing his breakthrough, even though it took him longer than normal, it wasn''t a breakthrough from a realm to another so it wouldn''t take days or months, however, with the amount of time he used to finish his breakthrough his body still needed to adapt to the stage he was in for quite a while before another breakthrough. He opened his dark eyes as he looked around and used his soul willpower to feel what happened around the palace, his willpower saw how the right minister finished the last official, Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked at the man and immediately realized that he was a traitor, how else would the sect know where the dragon stone was located? Yun Jhin took his body out of the treasury as he stealthily walked towards the right minister, however, the man shook his head as he looked directly at the place Yun Jhin was and he said: "I know where you are, dragon caterpillar, I''m not sure how you got back to the capital and why you have such a strong stealth technique on you, but I guess you will tell me later." The man unleashed his aura which put him at the 9th stage of the ki cultivating realm, but there was also something strange but similar in his aura, his bloodline reeked of the tortoise smell, that''s what Yun Jhin thought, he smelled like a tortoise! It was impressive he could see through Yun Jhin''s stealth technique, only those who cultivated the 4 beast''s eyes or similar technique could see through his stealth, and that was because he wasn''t at his full potential. Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked at the man, his shorter body immediately expanded to its full length as he looked at the right minister and said: "Well aren''t you special, seeing through my stealth technique, are you descendant of the Black Tortoise?" The man decline in saying anything as he observed Yun Jhin and said: "Your dragon bloodline isn''t that thick but it''s consistent, a dragon caterpillar is a rather rare creature, I would like to know why would you put yourself in service to this pitiful empire, doesn''t your pride stop your from doing that?" Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at him and said: "The cycle of life and death continues, I will live they will die." The man frowned as he looked at Yun Jhin and tried to understand what he meant by that, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw a dark claw that immediately clutched him! Yun Jhin used the same formation as before, summoning a devil to do his bidding, he used all of the corpses that the man didn''t bother to dispose of, of course with fewer corpses meant a weaker devil accepted the contract. The man broke through the claws constraints but it was too late, Yun Jhin aimed a breath attack to him which hit him head-on, but Yun Jhin failed to kill him. The man breathed hard as he fell out of a water defensive technique which took the form of a bubble, the devil seeped him of his ki when he clutched him in his claw, this was a natural talent of the devils, if you made physical contact with them, they could seep your ki and use it for themselves. Fuo Song frowned as he felt his internal condition and decided he had to flee! He didn''t live for such a long time to be killed here! He got baptized with the black tortoise blood and became an inheritor of its will, he couldn''t die here! However, Yun Jhin would never let pray to escape from him, his claws formed a few other handseals as the formation of the palace was triggered, but it wasn''t the same as before, it was slightly modified. Strong gravitational pressure applied to the right minister''s body as Yun Jhin slowly got close to him and said: "You should understand my previous words now right?" The man chuckled then shook his head as he laid down on the ground, he accepted his death. Yun Jhin smiled as he opened his mouth and ate him in one big mouthful. The man tried to trash or even attack Yun Jhin''s insides but unfortunately for him anything that entered in Yun Jhin''s body wouldn''t be able to leave. Another notification appeared in Yun Jhin''s face as he finished digesting the man: [Black Tortoise bloodline found, Dragon bloodline found, lacking Vermilion Bird, White Tiger and Azure Dragon bloodline, the artificial celestial caterpillar can be created when all bloodlines are united! Artificial celestial caterpillar can reach rank 10,000 as long as it keeps consuming fully bodied members of the 4 sacred races.] Yun Jhin frowned as he looked at the notification, he didn''t know about this! Chapter 44: Lack of information Yun Jhin frowned as he thought about the artificial celestial caterpillar and shook his head as he realized that his memories contained no information about such a thing! He looked at the notification screen as it dissipated and thought about the new form that he gained knowledge off, he ignored the half-destroyed palace as he pondered about the new form, the system said that it could reach the 10,000th rank which meant it could grow to have the potential of a fortuned caterpillar. Fortuned caterpillars were very peculiar to the point that Yun Jhin didn''t know their appearance or powers, he just knew they were one of the most loved insects in the universe when they evolved into their fortuned butterfly form, the universe would cheer them on and open so they could leave and ascend. He didn''t know anything about the artificial celestial butterfly so he wasn''t sure if he wanted to follow this path in the future, Yun Jhin stopped thinking about such a thing as there was no way he would be able to eat so many dragons/tortoises/vermillion birds/azure tigers so that he could evolve into the A-C-C. To begin with, there weren''t that many pure-blooded sacred beasts and their descendants, secondly, pure sacred beasts were born at the Sage Realm and Yun Jhin wasn''t even a king realm expert yet, a sacred beast cub could breathe in his direction and he would disintegrate, thirdly he would need to eat atleast 2 pure-blooded sacred beasts to transform into an A-C-C, there was no chance he could do that. Most sacred beasts had a connection to their kin so if one of them died by someone''s hands they would know who did it unless the one who killed their kin was of a way higher cultivation base than they were, that would just make them vigilant and they would do their best to hide. Finally, Yun Jhin didn''t want to make enemies with the 4 planets unless it would be his last standing, besides the sacred beasts themselves, they had human counterparts that they blessed with their bloodline at the God realm, even if Yun Jhin could take care of the beasts themselves that didn''t mean the humans wouldn''t intervene, even if he was at the peak God realm, back in his previous life he didn''t want to fight these planets and their sacred beasts. They were also quite vengeful. Yun Jhin started looking around the palace as he cleared his head, he had killed a spy from the Black Turtle planet, that was both a good thing and a bad thing, the good thing was that he took care of a variable that could have hit him hard in the future. The bad thing was that he got the attention of the one''s who sent out the spy, however, they couldn''t invade the dragon planet willy nilly, after all, the true imperial family that lived in the upper continents had a one or two god realm experts themselves, let''s not even talk about the other sects that lived in the upper continents. Most dragons were free and liked to live to the fullest, they all came from the same imperial family on this planet, they were all related but that didn''t mean they were all friendly with each other, most of them took diverging paths, while others decided to live normally as their ancestors did, this is what Yun Jhin knew from his previous life and he wasn''t sure what happened now, he needed to move to the upper continents to learn about it. However it wasn''t time yet, he would need to be atleast a King Realm expert first. Yun Jhin made use of the deaths of the Emperor and his family to take over the empire, he did it slowly but surely, as he was a dragon caterpillar and now the only strongest person in the empire, considering the others died in the war with the heavenly turtle sect and he had a dragon bloodline the population decided to abide by his rule. Yun Jhin lent the dragon stone to the population just like in the Earth Kingdom, he created the same formation as before and let it in a public place in the capital so people could visit and touch it to gain the draconic bloodline. After he finished everything he made sure to let some of his new subordinates take care of the empire while he left to subdue the Heavenly Turtle sect as well. Yun Jhin flew in the ocean as he approached the sect grounds of the Heavenly Turtle sect after a while of swimming, he easily broke through the formation that protected the sect and started a rampage in its ranks, the new patriarch and sect master tried to stop him but easily took care of them and enslaved the sect. No hidden experts or anything was protecting the sect, only the weak members remained after Yun Jhin took care of their elites and leaders. Just like the empire the sect slowly slid into Yun Jhin''s control, but Yun Jhin didn''t let them stay in the sect grounds, he took the treasury with him using multiple spatial bags and relocated all of the people inside the empire! With all of the people from the Heavenly Turtle sect that were relocated to the empire''s land the empire got a huge population influx, but with Yun Jhin''s abilities he easily quelled any unrest due to the population influx, he gave food herbs and spirit stones out of the treasury to the needy and made his public image to be pristine. With the help of some special underwater herbs from the Heavenly Turtle sect treasury, his body adapted to the 3rd stage of the ki cultivating realm at a quicker pace, and in a few weeks, he would be able to eat the sarira beads created from the two King Realm experts. Yun Jhin looked at the capital from his spot atop the palace, he created a room big enough to house his body with the help of his new subordinates and now he was at its balcony overlooking the capital with his soul willpower, his eyes were closed as he muttered: "With enough time, everyone should be able to gain the draconic bloodline, however, the dragon stone seems to be reaching its limits, this is strange, wasn''t it supposedly indestructible?" Yun Jhin frowned as he felt the condition of the dragon stone, it started to crack here and there as it''s dragon bloodline started to leak out of it, people would get influenced by it easier, they thought that it was a blessing but Yun Jhin knew that leak was due to overuse, the stone could heal itself if left alone. However, the stone was used every day by thousands of people that meant no matter how indestructible it was it still got exhausted, as long as it was used in moderation it could be used an unlimited amount of times. Yun Jhin chuckled as he shook his head and said: "Let them use it more, the explosion should create radiation that should create even more draconic bloodlines and even of a purer range than this one, even though I would lose a lot of meat because of it, it doesn''t matter much." Yun Jhin opened his spatial bag as he eyed the two beads, his mouth unhatched like a python ready to swallow his prey as his teeth broke through the hard layer of the beads, dark blood red seeped out slowly of the beads that Yun Jhin drank merrily. Changes could be seen on Yun Jhin''s body, he grew smaller and more compact as his fat turned into streamlined muscles, his dark eyes started to change color into a deep red as his draconic horns changed from their original color into an indigo color. It took him almost 2 weeks to finish one bead and afterward he opened the second one as he started with the shell... another change happened to his body as his bloodline evolved, he could now reach rank 5,500 even though his bloodline didn''t finish evolving, the benefits of eating two experts at the 2nd stage of the king realm with a draconic bloodline were very visible. Yun Jhin clenched his claws as his muscles started rippling, his skin turned a deep azure color as his cultivation was ready to do a breakthrough in the 4th stage whenever he wanted, but he kept his body soft as he didn''t attempt a breakthrough. He needed to fully assimilate the benefits from the two sariras before he broke through, Yun Jhin closed his eyes as the remaining bits of energy from the sariras washed his whole body and ki pathways, strengthening them further increasing their durability and purifying the body, until the Sage Realm there would always be impurities in the body that could be extracted using techniques or cultivating, those impurities would limit the potential of the body. While Yun Jhin was cultivating in his new room, the population of the empire was praising Yun Jhin as a benevolent emperor who put the citizens before himself! Even though they knew he was a cultivation beast they thought that he was a better human than the former emperor who only thought about himself and the imperial family! Yun Jhin didn''t truly care about the public sentiment as he would hate to eat a lot of them in the future, but now he had to wait for them to mature, so if he was seen as a good emperor the better for him. In an alleyway near the dragon stone location a child that stood at the height of 1,45 meters clutched the hem of his shirt as he slowly closed into the dragon stone location, he thought that the emperor said that everyone could touch the dragon stone to get its blessings so he wanted to try his luck. The small child didn''t look special at all as he got closer and closer to the dragon stone location when his hand touched the dragon stone nothing happened seemingly as if the dragon stone didn''t want to bless the little guy with its special powers. However, after a few seconds when the child wanted to leave with a disappointed look on his face, the dragon stone started to turn a deep red color! After so many people touching it, the dragon stone finally reached its limit as it started to power up, the dragon stone red exterior started to burn with bloodline flames. The bloodline flames started to engulf the child as he cried out in pain and fright, then the flames started to spread around the dragon stone''s surroundings, the stone started shaking, seemingly as if it was angered by the overuse the humans put on it, it endured the abuse in the Earth Kingdom but the difference in population between the kingdom and the empire was too big! The dragon stone shaking intensified as the cry of a dragon was heard, it was crying howl of a desperate being that was on its last throes, a death cry of a warrior on his death bed. Suddenly the dragon stone exploded into a shower of pieces that took the child along with half of the capital along with it! Yun Jhin made sure the dragon stone wasn''t the imperial palace so he didn''t feel anything besides the tremor and the sound of the explosion. Yun Jhin opened his eyes as he looked at the red radiation at the location of the dragon stone near the slums, the radiation spread among the still-living people, some had missing limbs but they were still breathing. Some of them started to grow draconic limbs out of their stumps as they cried out in pain, some of them grew dragon eyes or tails, the radiation was so strong that it mutated their outer appearance into half draconic beings. Yun Jhin laughed as he watched everything happen outside and said: "You want to cultivate so I let you cultivate, you wanted a draconic bloodline so I gave it to you, now you have even been blessed by the shards of the dragon stone, aren''t I a benevolent ruler?" He ignored the deaths of the hundreds of thousands of people that lived in the capital as he looked at the living people in the slums, they were the future nutrients that would help him evolve on the draconic tree! The dragon caterpillar went back to cultivating as he stopped looking outside, it would be quite a long time before they matured enough for him to consider them snacks. Chapter 45: Empires are like sand castles Yun Jhin started to enter into a deep sleep as his body circulated his ki cultivating technique by itself, by doing this he could cultivate faster and if anyone approached his formations he could wake up easily, but if he were to wake up too late he could be in trouble if someone with a higher cultivation base attacked him. But Yun Jhin didn''t do things without a backup plan, if anyone attacked his body they would trigger a formation that would instantly crush them to the ground due to increased gravity giving him enough time to wake up. Yun Jhin looked down at this human form as he shook his head: "Another review of memories?" Yun Jhin looked as images appeared in front of him, darkness, blood, limbs his former lives came and went fast by his eyes, death, decay. Lives lost, power gained, death by old age, hatred, a lot of hatred towards the universe at large. Hatred for others, jealousy, power hunger, deep soul injuries that have been created through repeated reincarnations, his personality split and ruptured, craziness, death, reset. Yun Jhin laughed as the images stopped appearing around him, he started meeting with his former personalities, most of them shouted at him clawed at his spiritual body and even tried to posses him to get ahold of his new body. Yun Jhin stripped them of their memories transforming them into inner demons that he used to temper his soul with, however, they were now akin to poison but he didn''t care as he looked at them almost brush their claws around his spiritual body. Even if an older personality took over his body the memories from before would enter in the mold that was the empty personality and recreate his current personality, they were just empty egos he couldn''t get rid of, they were useless and had no way to escape from his soul space. Yun Jhin actually pitied them, after all, they were his former lives, the only one that he could pity would be himself, he always felt that the universe was against him, that he was unliked and unloved, he lashed out at people and said that he hated them but as he reincarnated more and more he realized that he was childish. He didn''t hate people, he hated circumstances, he hated how he was forced to act, he hated how he lived, as he grew stronger and stronger he became intoxicated with the feeling of power and being in control, that''s what happened with most cultivators that reached the God Realm. As he got into control of his destiny his further reincarnations reached the God Realm further and further, until his last one where he reached the peak of the God Realm, when he mastered all of the laws of creation that he could he looked back into his soul and opened the key that was locking his former reincarnations in place. Pandemonium went loose, but Yun Jhin was stronger than all of the former reincarnations combined, he slashed their heads open metaphorically speaking and took out their memories. All of his memories overloaded his soul to the point that it almost burst, but he went through with the help of some devils, he used the souls of 50 million people as a sacrifice to use the soul regulator machine of hell. Of course, the devils almost killed him in his attempts to regain his sanity, after all, the devil''s rarely made themselves sign contracts and the oldest devils could also break through them at a price, they thought that they would gain more than the price they paid for breaking the contract. But they failed, Yun Jhin fused all of his memories and he became invincible, he slaughtered all of the devils that went against him and fed on their carcasses restoring the lifespan that he used to maneuver the soul regulator. He left hell a complete man, he went on a rampage across the land finding all of the hiding fortuned people and slaughtering them like sheep, he even fought for years on with the peak God Realm fortuned people. In the end, he didn''t live enough to taste the last fortuned one and gain his way to breakthrough. Eyes opened wide, Yun Jhin looked at his human arms as he muttered: "Not done yet?" Behind him a voluptuous woman with a big smirk on her face embraced him as she said slowly: "Enjoyed the ride, honey?" Suddenly the image broke up into a million pieces as he was thrown inside a deep blue ocean that cooled his mind, Yun Jhin looked around as he said: "Such fragmented memories, it seems the soul leakage did some damage." This wasn''t supposed to happen, it seemed even though he closed the hole in his soul some of his memories were still gone, they seemed important too, but at the time he could have cared less... What was so important? Yun Jhin looked around the ocean as he sank to the ocean floor, but there was only darkness, nothing else, countless yellow eyes opened as claws went towards Yun Jhin, some of his former lives were here too, but they were deformed, broken shattered, nothing like the ones above the ocean, Yun Jhin knew the cause of this but he couldn''t do anything about it. The man sighed as he looked at the broken apparitions and then he closed his eyes. He disappeared from the ocean as he woke up in his room in the palace, 2 years went by since he went into that deep sleep and no one bothered him, his cultivation was ready to break through the 4th stage but he just needed a little push. Yun Jhin unleashed his soul willpower around the whole capital as a wide smile appeared on his face: "So many, so dense, such a fine bloodline amount... the explosion was a huge success." Even though some of the cultivators went above his cultivation realm he had things planned for that as well. After all, he killed King realm experts, why would some people around the 6-7th stage of the ki cultivating realm matter to him, even though they had draconic bloodlines they could only fight 1 or 2 stages above their own cultivation base, compared to Yun Jhin they weren''t that strong, he could fight 4-5 stages above! Yun Jhin made an announcement for a tournament to be held, rich resources were added as rewards and even imperial titles, Yun Jhin even said that he may appoint a successor to the throne from this tournament. While the people were running towards the capital from around the country, Yun Jhin was busy settling many types of formations around the gigantic battle arena he created with the help of his subordinates, even though they grew stronger they already lent their souls to Yun Jhin or else he might have just killed them on the spot. Countless amounts of people joined in the capital, a dark-haired young man that stood in the sea of men and women reminisced about the past as he thought: "To think that explosion would do this to me..." It was the same young man that triggered the dragon stone explosion, it wasn''t known how he survived but somehow here he was, he didn''t look different from a human, but there was an aura around him that made him different from the ones who only had an arm or a leg changed into a draconic one. The young man followed the crowd towards the palace, and Yun Jhin went out to welcome them, his draconic body looked much more majestic now as he smiled towards his people as he said with a clear tone of voice: "I welcome you, my people, to the tournament that I have decided to hold due to one reason!" Yun Jhin stopped talking as he looked around for a little while before continuing: "I wish to enter into a prolonged session of closed-door cultivation that would take too long, I need someone to act as the emperor while I''m gone, the session might even take my whole life for all I know, I seek to do multiple breakthroughs to reach the King Realm." "With the information that I have spread around you should know all of the cultivations realms, I shall thank all of those who decided to join the tournament, the rules should already be known they weren''t changed and they are the same as my subordinates have relayed to you." Yun Jhin closed his mouth as he pointed with his claws towards a giant arena near the palace, his next shout rumbled as some weaker cultivators held their ears in pain: "LET THE BATTLE ROYALE COMMENCE!" The young man was the first to enter the arena, he had a smug smile on his face as he looked at all of his ''competition'', he thought that he would become the first and inherit the throne for sure. After all, he wasn''t a small rabble like most of them were. Yun Jhin looked at them as they started fighting, punches kicks, cultivation techniques stacked to their full potential, draconic abilities thrown around, breath attacks, swords, halberds, fans, and other weapons strewn around the arena. Yun Jhin closed his eyes for a brief moment before he opened them up again, the formation started roaring to life as it engulfed the downed unconscious bodies of 99% of the contestants, the only one who was up and about was the same young man that entered first, the one who triggered the explosion and brought forth this era of draconic cultivators. Yun Jhin smiled as the young man looked around in puzzlement and anger as all of his opponents were sucked into the formation and transformed into beads of blood, he shouted towards Yun Jhin: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Yun Jhin chuckled as he appeared in the arena, the formations didn''t do anything to him. The young man looked down at his chest as he saw a claw sliding out of it, his body was then sucked by the attraction force from the formation, he shouted as he clawed towards Yun Jhin, he had a crazed expression on his face as he said: "WHYYY? DON''T YOU REALIZE THAT YOU HAVE CRIPPLED YOUR EMPIRE?" Yun Jhin looked at the sky as some clouds went by and he said: "Empire''s ah, for me they are just like sandcastles, if I go to the beach, I can build a lot, and all it takes from me is one wave of the hand to destroy them, they are fragile but beautiful at the same time, and you get an accomplished feeling when you finish your sandcastle don''t you?" The young man didn''t know what Yun Jhin talked about, he looked at him like he would look at a mad man, the formation was already sucking the blood out of him and transforming his body into the bead, he shouted as he tried to resist but Yun Jhin hit in the chest disabled his main acupoint where ki would go through. The man cursed as his appearance changed, wings appeared out of his back as scales grew on his skin, his mouth became the muzzle of a dragon as his eyes turned into deep yellow slits, he groaned as the attraction force from the formation intensified. Yun Jhin shook his head as he told him: "You have just doomed yourself, I created this formation in mind that those with a higher concentration of draconic bloodline would get sucked faster inside than the others, you could have just hidden your bloodline and escaped, maybe..." Yun Jhin was giving the young man false hope as he saw him struggling, but he realized he was already done, a vicious expression appeared on his face as he tried to self detonate his body, as he became a half draconic being. He gained a draconic core in exchange for his human heart, draconic cores could be exploded if the dragons were in a perilous situation where they couldn''t escape, they could take their foes down with them! Yun Jhin smiled as he looked at his last attempt to get at him and he did a few hand seals, those hand seals manifested in a form of some runes that entered directly inside his body and sealed his draconic core. Yun Jhin waved at him as he was transformed into a blood bead by the formation, Yun Jhin looked around as everyone that didn''t go inside the arena looked horrified at his actions. But he didn''t care much, he took all of the beads inside his spatial bag and looked behind at the empire, they could still make more draconic bloodline descendants but with the dragon stone destroyed and most of the residue already absorbed, there was a very low chance for them to be talented. The most talented was the young man he just absorbed inside his formation, he left the arena as he basked in the fearful gazes that looked at him, he decided to leave the empire alone, he had made use of them, with the help of so many draconic blood beads he would be able to evolve again, however, to go further down the path of the dragon he would need to eat pure draconic beings... Pure draconic beings could morph into the form of the human and hide well in human society but Yun Jhin knew their hideout, however knowing their hideout and entering it were two different things. Yun Jhin flew as he kept his spatial bags tied tight to him, there was no reason for him to stay in the Long Empire anymore, he had gained everything he could and the remaining things in the treasury had no use to him, he already razed them of their best herbs and spirit stones before he even did his announcement. It was time to leave the lower continents and go for greener pastures. The number of benefits he gained here wasn''t low but he was still disappointed, his greed was unmeasurable, but he thought he would feel better when he reached the upper continents. But a hidden part of him always asked him: would he? This was a question that Yun Jhin couldn''t answer, he was a broken machine that tried to achieve his last goal, this was his last life, according to the system. If he couldn''t achieve eternal life this time, there wouldn''t be a next, but in a small part of his consciousness he would welcome eternal rest, but the small part was overwhelmed by the insane desire of achieving true immortality. Yun Jhin was truly a deranged individual but he grew to embrace that part of him, that''s what made him truly strong. That''s what made him who he currently was. Chapter 46: Middle regions Yun Jhin left the capital behind as he traveled for around 50,000 kilometers before he stopped to catch his breath, he wasn''t sure if the Empire''s backer would notice what happened up till now as he sealed the news but with him gone pandemonium would rise, the Heavenly Turtle sect backer wouldn''t be able to do anything anyway as it was a spy sect and revealing themselves in the territory of the dragons would be a really unwise move. Yun Jhin looked around as he spotted a mountain nearby, he flew directly to the base of the mountain where he dug a cave, he settled himself nicely there as he put up some formations to keep himself safe while he would be evolving again. Yun Jhin opened his spatial bag and took out all of the blood beads that he created using the formation and nodded his head as he looked at their quality, the highest quality one was from the man who tried to go against him in his last struggles, but failed miserably in the end. Yun Jhin opened his mouth as he inhaled blood bead after blood bead, impurities were extracted from his bloodline, from time to time he would vomit black blood in form of those impurities, he was getting nearer the perfect dragon caterpillar form with every bead consumed. A cocoon started to engulf him as he finished the last blood bead and a notification appeared in front of him: [Host has consumed enough draconic blood to evolve into the peak form of the dragon caterpillar tree, a pure dragon caterpillar of the highest bloodline rank, however as you are a mixed-blood no matter how high your bloodline is you will still feel suffocated in front of a true dragon.] Yun Jhin knew about bloodline suppressions but with the purity of his evolving bloodline, only the highest royalty of dragons could suppress him, after all, not all dragons bloodline continued to be the same after they split up, some regressed and some strengthened. Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he felt his body evolve again, his caterpillar height weight and length remained the same, but his skin transformed into scales as his body changed form, his body was still that of a caterpillar but he gained the maw of a dragon, his horns became sharper and turned crystalline. He continuously slept as his form changed nothing woke him up as his body evolved and his bloodline strengthened, his cultivation broke through to the 5th stage of the ki cultivating realm in one go due to reaching the peak of the caterpillar evolutionary tree, but due to that happening his further breakthroughs would become harder. The more talented the body the more energy it would require to breakthrough. It was the law of equivalent exchange, while the universe blessed him with a talented body and gave him higher battle power, it also made him have a harder time to break through into new realms, however that didn''t mean his future breakthroughs would be limited, he would just need to gain more energy than normal experts. While Yun Jhin was cultivating and breaking through, in the middle regions, a border sect received some news. The grand elder of the sect looked at the news and shook his head: "The Long Empire is in pandemonium? *puh* Why would the disciples send us this lowly information, do they think that we from the Middle continent care about this lowly bunch?" The elder was ready to destroy the news when a hand stopped him, a rather youthful woman appeared near him as he took the news from his hand and read it more carefully then she shook her head and said: "I thought it would be something interesting but it''s just the normal emperor slaughtering their people to breakthrough, this damn savages from the lower continents with trash talent always use this technique to further their breakthroughs, how sad." The grand elder bowed to the youthful woman and said: "Should I go and investigate since madam is interested in this news?" The woman shook her head but the grand elder knew that this meant she wanted to investigate, but not as an individual from their sect, the woman couldn''t technically give orders to sect elders yet but the grand elder knew what kind of position she had in the sect master and patriarch''s hearts. He nodded as he left the hall he was currently in and left the sect grounds disappearing over the horizon. The woman shook her head as she burned the bamboo slip that contained the news and muttered: "A dragon caterpillar became the emperor of the Long Empire?" Yun Jhin continued his evolution, he knew that the news of the empire being in pandemonium should have got to the border of the middle regions by now but he could care less, he took a different path to the one on the capital and hid the cave he dug very well, combined with his formations there was a very low chance of being found. But just to be sure he also laid some strange poisonous plants that he got from the treasury of the heavenly turtle at the entrance, even 7th stage ki cultivating people who touched them would wither and die, experts would naturally recognize these plants and avoid the place. Yun Jhin''s body finished it''s transformations as his wings could be now retracted into his body, he now looked half-draconic half-caterpillar, his big eyes turned a deep pure blue that would make him look cute but also a little bit ferocious in the face of female disciples. While Yun Jhin was testing his new body and checking his internal cultivation state, the grand elder from the border sect was currently flying above the mountain! The man looked down as an excited expression came over his face and he said: "Poisonous Mondergartens and Dandriols." It seemed the grand elder either trained in a poisonous technique or liked to refine gu''s using poisonous plants, the man slowly descended to the cave''s entrance as he got his hands on the plants using a special ki technique that made it look like he was wearing special white gloves, his cultivation base was still unknown as he didn''t release his aura fully. Yun Jhin felt the disturbance from above but kept himself calm, he just waited for the man to leave, unless he found the formations he wouldn''t think there was anything else in the cave. However, the man seemed to like poisonous plants as he went further and further into the cave until he hit a formation! The formation made the man furrow his brows as he pushed it with his hand, the floating runes rebound pushing him back but he smiled as he looked at the runes and he shouted inside the cave: "I wonder which friend is cultivating in this cave? Might I join you to talk about our experiences?" The voice revealed the man''s cultivation base, it was around the 3rd stage of the King Realm, Yun Jhin frowned as he felt the man''s power, even though he broke through and was at the 5th stage of the ki cultivating realm that didn''t mean he could clash head-on with a King Realm expert. Only with tricks and formations, he killed those two king realm experts, they were exhausted and injured combined with the fact that the devil absorbed their last amount of ki and crushed their bones a little bit was the only reason they couldn''t retaliate and kill Yun Jhin on the spot, that was also the reason they couldn''t reject the forceful bloodline alteration from the dragon stone. Yun Jhin knew that the man would become suspicious if he didn''t respond so he talked back: "Might I know where this friend is from and what are his intentions in visiting my dwelling?" The grand elder laughed as he said: "Well I have seen some poisonous plants at the entrance of the cave and I might wonder if this brother has more? After all, there should be more the deeper you go into the cave, this brother should know about the specifics of the plants right?" Yun Jhin cursed inside as he heard the man''s words, it seemed he knew his way around poisonous plants, he planted those specific ones in the mountain cave because with the right conditions they could grow inside such a cave. Yun Jhin knew that if he gave away the other plants the man would realize that he was weak and there was a high chance he would be attacked, if he let him in he would see his body and cultivation base and he would attack as well. The only way for him to not get captured would be to bluff: "You know I might have some more plants of this type, but I have had quite the hard time picking them up." The grand elder laughed again as he responded: "This brother doesn''t have to think much, I would like to trade with you, might you be able to tell me what do you require?" Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he said: "Any kind of draconic herbs would do fine, after all, I left my home in search of these." The grand elder frowned inside as he now had to think about Yun Jhin''s background, what if he was from somewhere important? They weren''t nearly at the border of the middle regions but they were pretty close, what if he was from a stronger sect than his own? The difference of one level between King Realm experts made it that a 2nd stage would most likely easily get killed by a 3rd stage if they didn''t have a strong treasure or body. The grand elder said with a more respectful tone: "Might I ask where this brother is from?" Yun Jhin frowned as he scanned his memories for a sect name that he could use, but a long time passed and he wasn''t sure if the sects existed anymore, Yun Jhin finally knew what to say as he opened his maw and said: "If you want to know I guess I can entertain you, I''m from a subsidiary clan of the true dragons." Yun Jhin unleashed his new bloodline aura sending it to the man so he could analyze it, the man frowned as he felt the aura, it truly was from a subsidiary clan of the true dragon race! Subsidiary clans tended to live in the upper continents as servants or disciples of the true dragons. That was on the surface but in truth, most of them were bastards sons or daughters of the true dragons. Most dragons wouldn''t care with who they mated, after all, true descendants were harder to conceive than mixed ones, there was a 7/10 chance for a mixed-blood to be born then there was a 2/10 chance for a pureblood to be born. Most of the population of the upper continents consisted of mixed-blood dragons, they mated with all type of creatures that could cultivate consisting from humans to insects, elves and other beings, however, dragons couldn''t mix with all races so some mixes tended to be born dead or die along with their mothers. In female dragon situations, the male wouldn''t last enough to fill her with enough sperm so that she could conceive a child and they would die of exhaustion. The grand elder knew that what he felt was a mixed aura of a high-class dragon, from what he knew this should have been the aura of a dragon caterpillar of the imperial rank or above! The grand elder coughed as he waved his sleeve and said: "Actually if you think about it more, I don''t think I want this brother''s plants at all, I have a job to do anyways gotta go!" The grand elder flew away from the mountain cave at top speed as he didn''t look back, he didn''t want to trigger the behemoth that stood beside Yun Jhin, or so he thought. Yun Jhin didn''t have any backer if you didn''t count the Throne of blood sect that might or might not exist anymore. Yun Jhin sighed as he felt the man''s aura disappear from his senses, he quickly took care of all the formations around and left in the opposite direction the man went in. Even though he was bold he wasn''t dumb, he didn''t have the right preparations to take on a King Realm expert that was also at a higher stage than the ones he dealt with. For now, he would retreat and try to find a real backer, after all, with his talent and techniques anyone would like to recruit him, but he wouldn''t settle for any weak sect, Yun Jhin only wanted the best regardless of their ethics or beliefs. Yun Jhin passed the border of the middle regions after a few days of flying, he finally reached another step up in his new cultivation life. For now, what he planned was to reach the upper continents and join the true imperial family, there as long as he conducted himself well he could break through to the Emperor realm and leave the planet, but first, he would make sure he had his fill of true dragons for the system... Chapter 47: One thing leads to another The grand elder that met with Yun Jhin finally reached the Long Empire and questioned some of the people with a higher cultivation base that didn''t mature enough to get into Yun Jhin''s ''tournament''. Those people didn''t know much besides that their emperor was a dragon caterpillar, they also didn''t see what happened at the capital so they couldn''t say for sure what happened. Yun Jhin made sure to take care of all the eyewitnesses before he left. While the grand elder was frowning trying to get any leads on Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin was making contact with the first city in the middle regions. The city stood at the border of the entrance of the middle region so it was pretty poor compared to the ones at the center, however, the difference between continents could be seen the moment Yun Jhin entered the city, it wasn''t much different from the Long Empire''s capital! The capital of a lower continent was only equal to a border city in the middle continent! Yun Jhin wasn''t surprised by this, the difference between continents would always be enormous no matter the planet he would be on, this was how things were meant to be, the weak remained weak while the strong got stronger. Even if people that had less talent were born in the upper continents they would still look down on the talented people from the lower continents and scoff at them, this is how most silk pants young masters acted, most of them were weak trash with a great backer. Yun Jhin strolled around the city using his ki transforming technique to morph into a humanoid form then he hid his draconic features with a brown cloak. The dragon caterpillar wasn''t up to date with the information about the dragon planet, if he got it right it had been almost 500,000 years since his last life, most of the people he knew would have died by now and the draconic planet and it''s people weren''t that warm to Yun Jhin in the first place. Yun Jhin went to a booth where he could buy information of today''s happenings and a planetary map, even though the planet environment shouldn''t have changed, it has been almost 500,000 years. The man at the desk was dozing off when Yun Jhin woke him up by punching his desk, the man got up frightened as he looked at Yun Jhin''s cloak and he said: "Dear customer, what would you need?" Yun Jhin went directly to the subject and asked for a planetary map and the current happenings around the planet, the man chuckled as he opened a drawer below his desk and took out a map and a jade slip. He pointed to them and said: "20 middle-grade spirit stones or 200 low-grade ones." Yun Jhin threw 200 low-grade spirit stones on the man''s desk as he took the jade slip and map, he took a good look over them to make sure they were genuine then he nodded at the man behind the desk and left. The man started to count the spirit stones and after finding out they were all genuine as well he sighed, there were times he was fooled and he had to hire some people from the Assassination sect. Yun Jhin found himself a nice restaurant where he ordered some food and wine then he opened the map and examined it thoroughly, even though some places changed and some were erased much didn''t change. As for the news that happened recently, there had been a tournament in the upper continent which let the mixed-bloods join the main clans depending on their talent and battle power, Yun Jhin frowned as he looked at the date, it had happened 3 weeks prior and the winner was already announced, this was a golden opportunity for him that he missed! Yun Jhin shook his head as he continued reading news, even though he missed an opportunity that meant he just had to create one himself! The news said that had been an increase of mutated cultivation beasts that went out of control nearby and that mercenaries could join the extermination operation handled by the Zither Sect. There was also other news regarding royal and imperial clans of the middle regions along with which sects recruited these times of the year, Yun Jhin skimmed trough all of the information before he destroyed the jade slip and burned the map, he didn''t need them anymore as he memorized everything. Then the food came and Yun Jhin enjoyed himself a little bit, even though people at his cultivation base didn''t need to eat food as they could live by breathing ki. From the Ki cultivating stage and above bodily needs ceased to exist, meaning you didn''t need to eat drink or defecate. But that didn''t mean people would stop eating and drinking, for them, food was merely eaten for enjoyment, Yun Jhin was a big gourmet in his previous life as he ate countless rare animals and humans with different constitutions, of course, some of them weren''t eaten for taste. After finishing his food Yun Jhin got up from his table and left the restaurant, he visited some other places inside the city such as the herbal store and the auction house, to break through further in his cultivation he needed to either massacre a lot of people, which he couldn''t do yet as there should be peak 9th stage King realm experts in the middle continents. Or find rare herbs that he could concoct into pills, or by an accumulation of eating a lot of pills, accumulation was the longest type of cultivation that Yun Jhin didn''t enjoy at all, he was always a man of action that wanted the best and fastest way to reach immortality, however, he realized in his countless lives that slow and steady wasn''t wrong as well. While Yun Jhin was visiting the city and buying herbs, the grand elder of the border sect came back to the sect and met with the voluptuous woman from before, he kneeled to her and said: "I have failed the Zither Sect, young lady please punish me!" The woman frowned as he looked at the grand elder and said: "You haven''t found anything? Anything at all?" The grand elder remembered the peculiar meeting with the draconic expert at the mountain and narrated it to the woman, the woman frowned as he listened to the man''s story, and then she said: "I thought you were a smart man Grand elder Mu Gong, the draconic expert should have been the dragon caterpillar! He should have escaped from the Long Empire in fear of their backer from the middle regions!" The man looked at her with a questioning gaze as he said: "But your excellency, you should know that the Long Empire didn''t have any backers..." The woman frowned as he looked at him and said: "I wondered if your cultivation base was the only reason you became a great elder in our sect and your words right now made me realize that it was." Mu Gong coughed awkwardly as he waited for the woman to tell him what she meant by that: "You see, while I do know that they don''t have a backer how would the dragon caterpillar know? Just use your damn small brain that''s filled with muscles and poisonous incantations you damn fool!" The man scratched the back of his head as he looked at her and said: "Suo''er you should know that your uncle isn''t the tactical type." The woman now identified as Suo shook her head as she said: "Actually it''s my fault that I sent you, whatever, he should have escaped by now and entered the middle regions, we can''t find him anymore, he might even have a backer and it would be dumb for us to make an enemy out of him." Suo shook her head as she waved her hands and made the grand elder leave her alone. She looked down at a jade scroll as she thought: "A dragon caterpillar heart should be able to save father, even though it wouldn''t be as effective as a dragon heart, we could never get a dragon heart..." Killing dragons was strictly forbidden on the azure dragon planet, anyone who killed a dragon would get marked with a curse from the Dragon Emperor and had his whole bloodline, sect, and friends annihilated! However, mixed-bloods didn''t have the protection of the Dragon Emperor, the draconic monarch didn''t care at all about the offsprings of the dragons that weren''t pure-blooded, of course, most humans still feared of killing anything with dragon blood. But some bold humans killed a mixed-blood once secretly and found out they didn''t get cursed so, from time to time traveling mixed-bloods would disappear. In the end, draconic organs, scales, claws and everything from a member of the draconic race was valuable to humans, they could create weapons armors pills and other things with their bodies, they might even derivate new techniques from their bones and breakthrough their cultivation bottlenecks, even life-saving medicine could be created with dragon hearts. *** Yun Jhin left the city as he flew further inside the middle continents, there he found a gigantic forest that was called "Giants Forest" it was a relatively simple-looking forest if you ignored the trees that were thousands of meters long, it was a forest that was inhabited by the giant tribe. Yun Jhin went to this forest for one reason, giants had way more ki in their flesh and blood and they were scorned by both humans and dragons, their gigantic stature made the dragons think that they were challenged and they were feared by the humans due to the same thing. Yun Jhin knew that even though he couldn''t attack humans and dragons, he could still attack and devour the tribes that were hated by both parties. While they thought he would do them a favor, in the end they would become his food as well. Yun Jhin slowly flew down in the forest as he concealed himself using his stealth technique, the higher the cultivation base, the better the stealth technique became, now at the 5th stage of the ki cultivating realm, he could erase both his presence and become transparent as well to the point no one could see through him. He reined in his aura as he made his way through the forest, he made sure to be in his humanoid form, the giants were scared of the dragons but they would unleash their hatred on the humans if they found out some of their tribesmen were killed by them. Yun Jhin wanted to do the same thing as before with the Heavenly Turtle sect and the Long Empire, he wanted to be the fisherman who benefited by taking care of both sides! He masqueraded as a human as he invaded the giant''s living place, he ran quickly in the forest as he tried to find a giant village. The giant''s villages weren''t hard to find in the first hours of searching Yun Jhin found atleast 3, but most of them had chieftains with cultivations at the King Realm and above so he wouldn''t be able to attack them without preparations. The dragon caterpillar ran and used his soul willpower as well to scan around the Giant''s forest to find a run-down village that he could attack. He went back and forth into the forest as he finally found one at the northern borders. What he found there made his mouth curve up, there were quite a few giants in the village, around 100,000. But most of them were starved so much that only skin and bones remained of them, unlike humans giants still needed to eat until the King Realm, those at the ki cultivating realm needed to eat less but they still had to eat. Surprisingly most of the giants were at the ki cultivating realm but there was no one at the King realm, there were a few 9th stage ones here and there but there was no sight of King realm experts. Yun Jhin laughed to himself as he looked at the village, this was a perfect prime target! Even the smallest giant was over 10 meters tall, his gut would be overflowing with ki flesh and blood after he ate 100,000 giants! In the village, children of various ages were surrounding an old giant that was 20 meters tall, the children were around 6-8 meters tall, most of them looked malnourished, and those that didn''t look like that were feeling like they could fall down at any moment due to starving. A giant girl looked at the elder as she said: "Grandpa, why do the other tribes hate us?" The man sighed as he looked at his granddaughter then at the other children, he opened his mouth to tell a story... Chapter 48: The giant tribe Yun Jhin kept his breathing steady as he disappeared from his spot and approached the giant gathering, he kept himself well hidden as his aura disappeared as well, he waited for the opportune time to strike! While he waited the old giant started to tell his tale: "Ah you see children, our village wasn''t marginalized since the start, one of our women was kidnapped by a dragon and gave birth to his child, unfortunately, the other tribes didn''t like that so we were thrown here." The old man started the story and ended it quickly as well, he sighed as he looked at the children who didn''t understand his story much, after all, they weren''t that old, the old man started to explain the story in a better fashion so the children could understand better. He was one of the older men of the tribe who were supposed to take care of the children, but he was one of the most awkward ones, the children found him funny. Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he kept his soul willpower on the older giant as he was the strongest out of the bunch and thought about the characteristics of the giants. Giants were loved by nature and their bodies were harder and stronger according to their height, the bigger they were the stronger, but this affected their speed by a lot, they also had the same vital points as humans as their body structure was the same besides being way taller than humans. They were proficient in the earth and water techniques as most of them were born wielding these elements, most of the time cultivators were born with a specific element in their bodies, those cultivators would have a higher attack power compared to those who were born element-less. However that didn''t mean element-less people were weaker, Yun Jhin himself has always been born element-less! Elements were tied to the soul and personality, not the body, however, souls tended to change as they reincarnated, memories wiped away and new ones coming, Yun Jhin was a different type of soul, not many could reincarnate for so many times and keep their memories intact in a backlog that they could access if lucky. Giants were inherently loved by nature so their elemental powers were above humans and only the elven and dwarfen race could rival the intensity of their power. While people tended to be born to certain elements, Yun Jhin thought these people were weaklings, being element-less was the best as he could switch between elements as he liked! Due to his ki having no former elemental attribute he could transform it into whatever attribute he wanted using his memories and techniques he learned in his previous life, technically speaking every element-less person could do this, but the amount of training and techniques they needed to learn to do this was astronomical! Only Yun Jhin was able to do this due to his former life memories combined with his meticulous control coming from his 9th stage God Realm soul, that even though was injured it was still way stronger than people in the same realm as him. The giant elder finished his explanation as he looked at the children, but most of them weren''t listening or playing around, even though they were poor and malnourished they tried their best to enjoy their lives. The elder giant didn''t get angry as he smiled at the children, he felt that even though their village was in precarious situations they could pull through in the future! The moment the elder smiled a wind sword immediately flashed towards his throat, the elder was at his weakest as he thought about his future and looked at the children, even though he was at the 9th stage of the ki cultivating realm he was weakened and distracted! The elder fell in a gigantic pool of blood as the children shrieked in fear and ran away, the other giants were alarmed as they ran towards the dead elder. Yun Jhin frowned as he looked at the giants, as they were a race loved by nature he couldn''t use formations against them, after all, formations used nature to the cultivator''s advantage. If he used formations the giants might just break through them with ease. However, formations weren''t the only things he was good at! Yun Jhin opened his mouth as he spat out a purple fog, this was a poisonous pill that he cultivated using his inner draconic energies and highly poisonous plants. Giants tended to not lose ki at all after death and the ki in their bodies could last for hundreds of years before it dissipated. As they were loved by nature, nature would find it hard to decompose their bodies and destroy their darlings. Yun Jhin smiled as he saw the giants fall to the ground, this was a paralyzing poison and not a deadly one, what was deadly here was Yun Jhin. He slowly made his way to the downed giants and started to rip into them with gusto, eating them alive was the best way to gain the most amount of nutrients from their flesh blood, and ki! The giants were paralyzed but you could see the anguish and pain in their eyes! Even though 100,000 giants lived in the village, the village grounds were huge and it would take them quite some time before more would come, he would use the same strategy and eat the whole giant village! The giant children wanted to shriek but they couldn''t, a cloaked small being was digging in their grandfather''s body as it ate it like a ravenous beast which hadn''t eaten in months, even though they were starved and emaciated, they still had a lot of flesh and blood, the quality was low but the quantity was high! Yun Jhin finished the elder''s body in about 3 minutes before he moved on to the other adults, the sickly sound of blood being drunk and bones crunching entered the young giant children heads, tears started to pour out of their eyes as they stood in the same paralyzed position as before. Yun Jhin looked at the children as he made a motion with his hands indicating that he would come for them after he finished the others. The children wanted to sob but they couldn''t they wanted to cry more but they couldn''t, their paralyzed bodies made their minds explode, they were going insane, they even wanted to laugh right now but they just couldn''t! Yun Jhin chuckled a bit as he looked at the changing facial expressions of the children and he thought to himself: "Despair induced targets taste the sweetest, especially the children." Yun Jhin continued to feast upon the corpses of the downed giants and after an hour of nonstop extremely quick eating he finally finished all of the adult''s bodies, his body was bloated and huge now, but after he burped his body turned to normal proportions. The paralyzation effect started to wear off as the children stumbled and tried to back off from Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin''s mouth could be seen through the edge of the hood, big blood stains stained his lips and teeth as he gave them a big smile, just like a wolf when seeing a sheep. The children cried or laughed as they shivered and hugged each other, there wasn''t much time Yun Jhin thought as he could feel the other giants rush towards the village, he killed and ate almost 500 giants and on the way came more than 1500! Yun Jhin shook his head as he suddenly disappeared from the children''s view and appeared behind them, his jaw unhinged to the maximum as his head increased in size and he gulped down on all of the children in an instant! He turned transparent as he hid inside a nearby ravaged house of a giant and waited in silence. The other giants ran in the border part of the village as they shouted: "Ghulu, Parto, Sadko?" These were the names of the three strongest giants with the cultivation at the level of the 9th stage. They looked around but all could they see were disheveled bloody clothes on the ground and huge bloodstains, there was even a huge blood pool on the ground where the children were usually playing and learning! The giants all frowned in unison as they looked around, Yun Jhin''s attack was fast accurate and he didn''t give them any clues as he ate the bodies. Yun Jhin''s ki was overflowing as he quickly used the nutrients and extra ki from eating the bodies in stabilizing his body and paving a way to break through to the 6th stage of the ki cultivating realm. As long as he ate the whole village he would be almost there! The giants inspected the bloodstains and the quickly drying blood pool, the captain of the squad frowned as he looked around and said: "This isn''t right, even though the other tribes hate us, nature strictly forbids an inter tribe genocide." Nature loved the giants so much that it made them unable to kill each other, if they did the aggressors would be the ones to follow the dead ones as they would explode into pieces of gore! The captain frowned even further as he looked around again and said: "There is no flesh or gore, even if there would have been a suicidal squad they would have left something behind..." Yun Jhin smirked as he looked at the man, he blew another cloud of poison towards them immediately paralyzing them. Yun Jhin walked forward out of the house as he directly went to chomp on another body when the giant captain made a sudden motion with his hand trying to capture him while saying: "A crafty human!" It seemed the giant was a rare breed who was born with poison resistance, Yun Jhin laughed as he looked at him, even though he was born with poison resistance it was a very low one, he could barely stand straight before him! And he wasn''t even a peak expert at the 9th stage, he was the 7th to 8th stage! Yun Jhin created another wind sword that he grasped with his hand as he ran upwards the giant body and dodged the man''s attempts to swat him away, he had a huge speed advantage, the giants were innately slow combined with the paralyzing poison in his nervous system that slowed him even further he couldn''t catch Yun Jhin even if he let him! Yun Jhin''s eyes spun as the giant tried to throw him away by shaking his body like a dog after he took a bath, but Yun Jhin grabbed on his thick skin as he threw himself at the giant''s eyes and impaled both of them as he created another wind sword and threw both in the man''s eyes! The giant cried in anguish as he had been blinded, he tried to bite Yun Jhin as he inclined his head to him, but Yun Jhin fell towards his neck and created another wind sword shooting it in the man''s neck creating a big hole in it and killing him instantly! Yun Jhin jumped down from the body as he started eating, while giants had harder skin bones and organs compared to any other race, Yun Jhin''s teeth were enhanced a great deal after he evolved to the peak dragon caterpillar form, even though he couldn''t bite through 4th stage or above King Realm bodies yet, he could through the 3rd stage and below, but that was only if they didn''t protect themselves with their inner ki. While Yun Jhin was feasting, a gigantic half-human half-dragon woman was flying towards the village our dragon caterpillar was raiding. She wasn''t that beautiful as she had the head of a dragon and the body of a giant, however her body was quite sensual to look at, she was 40 meters tall and she wore a red imperial armor with dragons painted on it, it looked like she was an army general from her armor. Yun Jhin frowned as he felt some power at the 4th King Realm or above approaching the village, he had his soul willpower out at all times and he could feel the unleashed ki of the 4th King Realm expert assaulting his senses. He couldn''t finish the other bodies or he would be caught red-handed! He left an item that would lead the giants to think that a human did all of this as he ran away from the village at a quick speed. The moment he left the village border was the moment the woman with a dragon head entered and saw the massacre! Some giants were still alive and only paralyzed as Yun Jhin couldn''t finish them, the dragon-headed woman quickly came and helped them up as she still felt a life force from them and expunged the poison out of their bodies. The men coughed out black blood as they looked at their comrades and tears dripped from their eyes, they looked at the woman and said: "Susu you came back... but your grandfather and the others... you see..." The men were both sad and fearful at the same time, sad for what happened and fearful of the woman that came back! The woman was the granddaughter of the grand elder that Yun Jhin killed first. She looked around as she finally spotted the item that Yun Jhin threw down, it was a coat of arms that Yun Jhin copied when he looked at the sect symbols on the map, it seemed to be from the Zither sect! The woman frowned as some gigantic tears fell from her eyes, she looked down at her downed brethren, some of them were only halves as they were eaten in a hurry by Yun Jhin. She shouted to the heavens: "I SWEAR I WILL DESTROY WHOEVER DID THIS, I SWEAR ON MY MOTHER''S AND FATHER''S BLOODLINE!" A draconic cry came from her head as a giant''s howl came from her body, blood beads were extracted from her pore that fell and incinerated all of the half-eaten dead bodies to nothing. She gritted her teeth as she looked towards the direction of the forest where Yun Jhin ran, she could feel some lingering aura but it was dispersing so quickly she couldn''t track it, but she made sure to remember it! Yun Jhin looked behind him as he sweated internally, the being he felt had a special crossed bloodline just like him and she had a way higher cultivation base than him, it would have been suicide to remain there! From what he felt it was a half-dragon and half-giant, that meant he couldn''t use formations against him/her in the future! Things would get tricky if the being back there found he was the one who massacred the giants, fortunately, he left the symbol of the Zither sect there, Yun Jhin was playing the fisherman game again! Chapter 49: The fisherman looks at them fight Yun Jhin looked behind him as he didn''t sense that King Realm expert anymore and he sighed while thinking: "If I was caught I could have been a goner there." Yun Jhin feared death to the point that it became an obsession, this was why he always made plans and fought secretly, he also had a flair for theatrics, he liked to spew nonsense to muddle his opponent''s thoughts and make them easier to kill. Yun Jhin frowned as he looked behind, he could feel a strong curse trying to approach his body and enter his soul, it seemed the King Realm expert cursed him, he easily deflected the curse and threw it away from his soul, he grasped the curse energy in his hands as he thought where he could send it. Yun Jhin remembered about that one elder who took some of his poisonous plants and made a mental note of his ki signature, then with the precision of an experienced surgeon he injected a mimicked ki signature into the curse energy and threw it away, he watched it fly away as he chuckled to himself: "Ok hook bait and switch, let''s see who will act first." The curse energy flew at high speeds as it went by cities, forests, lakes, and finally reached the Zither sect grounds, there it went inside a green colored pavilion and impacted the Grand elder''s forehead! A muffled boom escaped the man''s head as he coughed a mouthful of blood and he shrieked: "A draconic expert, no a giant expert, no both! A curse from both!" The shout of the man alarmed the voluptuous woman from before, the grand elder was the brother of the sect master and her uncle, she lived with her uncle because her father became ''gravely ill'' after he offended a draconic expert. The woman frowned as she ran towards her uncle, Suo watched as her uncle shook like he had a seizure, blood appeared to pour out of all of his seven apertures, after 20 minutes of shaking he finally stopped as he got up from the ground and said: "This damn... I''m not sure why he would send a curse to me, I haven''t offended anyone from the dragon and giant race!" He frowned as he felt the curse that took place in his soul, it was tracking his location as well! The man frowned as he left the pavilion and Suo just stood there with her mouth agape, the situation in the sect was bad enough with their sect master out of the picture but if one of their elders fell as well, things wouldn''t be that pretty, after all, they had quite a lot of competition. The giant woman dragon kowtowed to a makeshift grave, on the grave was printed the picture of the old giant that Yun Jhin killed, she kowtowed three more times before she got up from kneeling position and muttered to herself: "I swear I will find your killer and avenge you, grandfather!" She looked down at her hands that were clenched extremely hard, blood dripped down from her palms hitting the ground and the makeshift grave. The survivors that she saved from the poison stood behind her with their heads down as they sang a song that the giants usually sang during their high ranking funerals. The woman smiled as she heard the song, atleast, even though she doomed her family and closed ones to live at the border of the forest and be hated by anyone she could still mend things over as long as she became strong enough! The woman walked away as she looked back one more time to the grave, her eyes narrowed as the curse energy finally hit home and she frowned: "He made such a long-distance so fast? He must be atleast as strong as me!" She looked at the survivors and gave them orders: "Go back and inform the chieftain that I came back from the upper continent, tell him about my cultivation, and that I will give him a visit in 2 days!" The man stuttered as he was scared of her: "Mijil.. you see, we were banished to ever get near the main tribe..." The giant draconic woman known as Mijil furrowed her brows as she looked in the horizon at the location of the main tribe and said: "It seems I will have to go and visit sooner, you wait here, I will get some justice for you and my grandfather, first from the tribe and then from his killer and his sect!" The woman grew wings behind her back as she flew at high speeds further into the forest, after a short while she entered the location of the main tribe, the strongest and the most prideful tribe of giants. She didn''t do anything as her aura made the guards at the front of the village kneel, she easily entered and her aura and presence alerted the whole village, the main village, unlike the weak border one, had many King Realm experts and most of the villagers were at the 9th stage of the ki cultivating realm, however, there was no peak King realm. The woman walked forward as giants that wore heavy armor on their bodies pointed their spears and swords at her, but she easily deflected them using her wings as a shield and walked forward, until she stopped at the front of a giant pavilion. The giant pavilion opened and out of it came a giant that was a little taller than her standing at 60 meters or so. The giant man frowned as he looked at her and said: "My niece, what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" The draconic giant woman laughed as her face scrunched up and said: "You shouldn''t know as you don''t care at all about the border tribes, but some of our people were massacred by humans!" The man frowned as he didn''t feel she was lying but he countered: "How could humans kill even the weakest of our race? You know they fear us and their battle power is nothing to write about." The woman frowned as she shook her head and said: "It doesn''t matter the presence there felt human and he even dropped his sect identification, I want you to help me take revenge for grandfather''s death!" The man frowned as Mijil threw him a coat of arms that had the sect symbol on it, he shook his head as he threw it back and said: "Why should I help an exile like yourself?" The woman gave out a chilling smile as she took something out of the pocket of her inner armor, a token in the form of a draconic head that exuded intense imperial ki buffeted the man''s face, the giant''s face turned green as he looked at the token and asked: "You are mixed blood, how could you? Don''t tell me you won that tournament?" Mijil laughed and that was the only response the giant got, his thick brows furrowed as his bald head shined in the sun and he said: "Ok I will help you, send word for the fighters and hunters of the tribe to come back, we will leave some guards behind to protect the civilians, we don''t need too many people, I know this sect, their sect master is bed-ridden and their patriarch is in secluded cultivation, trying to break through and extend his lifespan." A war camp was immediately created in the village, Mijil and the chieftain talked about the plan and then headed out along with the soldiers and hunters of the tribe... Yun Jhin stopped in a nearby city as he waited for news, he went to an assassin guild and waited there for a while before a black-garbed woman came forward with a jade slip with information. Yun Jhin paid her and read the jade slip, his lips turned upwards as he crushed the jade slip into pieces and he muttered: "Already looking for? Very good." The jade slip also had the exact location of the Zither sect, even though the map he bought before showed where they were supposed to be it wasn''t accurate, after all, he bought it from a street stall and not the assassin guild. Yun Jhin left the building as he started to fly into the direction of the Zither sect, he flew there at his quickest speed, and then he hid nearby as he waited for the army of the giants to attack the sect! After one day of waiting a small army of giants could be seen running towards the sect gates, most of them were around the 1st stage of the King realm, and the only different ones were the chieftain and his niece Mijil. He was at the 6th stage and she was at the 4th stage. Yun Jhin watched as Mijil looked at the sect gates with pure anger in her eyes, a deep red aura engulfed her body as fire spewed out of her draconic head incinerating the gates, a shriek could be heard as the guards that stood near the gates were burned alive turning into dust! A shriek like alarm started to sound in the whole sect, the voluptuous woman Suo walked outside her pavilion and narrowed her eyes when she saw all of the giants attacking. Her uncle didn''t leave her father''s headquarters for a long while already and she wasn''t sure what he was doing, she needed to defend along with the Elder of medicine and Elder of martial discipline! The two elders in question appeared in front of her both bowing as they said: "Sect lady Suo, what should we do?" Suo frowned as she looked at the giants and said: "Formations won''t work on them, elemental techniques won''t work on the giant woman because of her draconic bloodline, but on the other giants they should be of great use, Elder of martial disciple I want you to handle the woman while I and the elder of medicine will take care of the chieftain of the giants, It seemed the curse that uncle was afflicted with was from that woman." Suo frowned as she looked at Mijil and said loudly: "I think there is a misunderstanding between us!" Mijil looked at Suo and shook her head as she said: "There is no misunderstanding, a member of your sect massacred my grandfather and relatives! My curse went directly to him as I used the energy he left behind to shoot it at him!" Suo brows furrowed deeply as she heard what the other woman said, this curse technique couldn''t be deflected or neutralized unless the other party had higher knowledge and mastery in curses. But her uncle was meditating in the green pavilion most of the time, she knew that because she did the same and she never felt his aura leaving it unless she told him to! Suo shouted: "There must be a misunderstanding! Please wait for my uncle to explain." Mijil shook her head as she waved her hand and shouted: "Kill to the last man woman, dog, and pig! LEAVE NONE ALIVE!" Suo frowned as she and the Elder of medicine started to tangle with Mijil, while the Elder of martial disciple jumped directly to fight with the chieftain, it looked quite funny, as seemingly two ants tried to bite a human. Yun Jhin observed the fight with calculative eyes, whenever the two parties showed weak spots he would throw around some hidden attacks, he wasn''t idle while he waited for the giants to come, he created formations using the ones the Zither sect created. Even though formations wouldn''t be useful on the giants, there was still the afterthought of the sect winning, if the sect won they would do so at quite the terrible price. And when they would celebrate and cry in happiness that everything was over, Yun Jhin would jump in and annihilate them using their own modified formations! Chapter 50: As they fight Suo, the elder of medicine and Mijil started fighting, while the Elder of martial disciple could hardly defend against the giant chieftain attacks, his height made him easy to dodge but if even one hit from him made home with the Elder of the martial disciple he would become a meat pancake. Suo and the elder of medicine tried their best to fight Mijil but they were easily overwhelmed by the hybrid, even though they were both at the King Realm their strengths were insufficient to deal with such an advanced opponent. Yun Jhin was rubbing his hands like a merchant ready to strike a huge deal as he watched them fight, he knew that they would turn desperate and put their lives on the line soon enough, injuring both sides, hopefully fatally. Mijil threw her fists around as quickly as she could but due to her big size, her fists were easily telegraphed by the duo from the Zither sect. The same could be said about the high chieftain attacks, the Zither sect focused on speed and long-range attacks so they easily dodged most of the attacks, their disciples fought it out with the hunters and troops of the giants. However the disciples weren''t as strong or lucky as the upper echelons and most of them were getting crushed and eaten by the giants, Suo''s heart bleeds as she looked at the disciples, they were basically family, in a sect like hers she would look out for all of her juniors, seeing them die like this cut her heart open. Mijil grew angered with their dodging as she engulfed herself in a deep red aura, she started to spew flames everywhere engulfing the buildings and the alive disciples that weren''t fast enough to dodge her berserk attack. Suo failed to dodge in time as her left part of the face got singed and burned disfiguring her, she clutched her face as she screamed from the extreme pain of having her face burned. A distinct blue aura appeared around her as she took out a Zither from her spatial bag and started playing, the sound from the Zither traveled along attacking the eardrums of everyone besides her allies, she was a prodigy of the Zither as she was supposed to be the next sect mistress. The Zither made the giant troops drop down like dead flies, blood coming out of their ears, eyes, and noses. Mijil used ki to protect her ears but the sound waves still made her unbalanced, the moment her balance faltered, the medicine elder jumped on her shoulder leaving behind a big cloud of dust that hid Suo''s form. The medicine elder spewed a cloud of deadly poison that he infused with his ki coagulating it and trapping Mijil''s head. However Mijil opened her mouth and blew out another wave of fire destroying the hardened cloud of poison, she grabbed the man from her shoulder and crushed him into meat paste, then she opened her mouth and swallowed! She knew that her tribemates and her grandfather were eaten as well so she just returned the favor! Suo shouted as the dust disappeared, behind her an illusory giant Zither appeared, it''s strings started to move as a deadly song engulfed the whole battlefield, 50% of the giant troops fell, most of the disciples of the Zither sect were already dead but the ones that survived felt their wounds closing up and their morale increased, Suo shouted towards the survivors: "RUN AWAY!" The disciples wanted to fight for their sect but realized there was no way they could win here so they ran away, unfortunately for them they ran inside the formation that Yun Jhin planted, they became a cloud of gore that was absorbed by Yun Jhin. Suo''s eyes widened as she saw what happened to the disciples, she looked around with critical eyes but she couldn''t see or sense who did that. Mijil frowned as she looked around as well, she realized that she might have been fooled here! No one from her people had acted to kill these running disciples, most of them couldn''t make it in time or were dead, the Elder of martial discipline was still holding her uncle down as well. Well holding down was an overstatement, he just made it so he couldn''t attack the others by annoying him incessantly. Mijil frowned as she looked at Suo, Suo''s eyes met with Mijil''s and they seemingly realized at the same time that they were fooled! Yun Jhin frowned as he saw Mijil stop her troops, she started to look around with Suo''s help trying to identify what happened, Yun Jhin chuckled as he saw them search in unison, women''s intuition was quite frightening. But he could care less about that, he took control of a body of a downed giant and made it attack Suo! Suo used her illusory Zither to destroy the giant''s body into pieces, Mijil frowned deeply at Suo''s actions, it seemed they were ready to fight again, but then Mijil smiled as she shouted: "NICE TRY, BUT WE KNOW YOU DID THAT, SHOW YOURSELF, YOU COWARD!" Yun Jhin knew he made a mistake there, but he thought they wouldn''t realize because of the intense fighting, it seemed the chieftain and the elder of martial discipline stopped fighting as well. Yun Jhin looked around at the fighting and kept himself hidden as best as he could. They could continue thinking that there was someone who made them fight, but if they couldn''t find anything they would have to go back to fighting! They put too much on the plate here, both sides had disastrous loses and when Suo''s uncle came back he would surely come to attack and not negotiate! They all started to search around, but their soul willpower, and their eyes couldn''t tell them anything, Mijil even used a special technique that turned her eyes a deep black color and looked around for Yun Jhin but she couldn''t find anything. Suddenly Suo used her Zither to create a non-lethal sound wave that traveled around the place, Yun Jhin frowned as he dodged the sound wave, this was the one weakness that his stealth technique had at his current level, he could mitigate it when he would reach the King Realm and make himself be able to slip in and out of the shadow realm. The shadow realm was a special plane of existence that those who trained in this technique could access, with the connection in the shadow realm he could also create shadow soldiers that would have 100% of his physical attributes, but depending on the ki he pumped into them they couldn''t last much time. His stealth technique also had offensive techniques in it but they would appear at the later cultivation realms. Yun Jhin continued to dodge the sound waves, the only thing his technique couldn''t currently erase was his life force, if the sound wave hit him and revealed his life force, the theory of the two women could be proven correct and they would stop fighting and attack him! Yun Jhin never thought that Mijil would be so observant, after all, she was doing her best to control her ki to protect her ears and body from Suo''s Zither, technically speaking she shouldn''t have even given a damn if the disciples of the Zither sect suddenly died. While Yun Jhin was dodging the sound waves that threatened to reveal his position, Mijil frowned deeply as she looked at Suo and thought that maybe she was wrong, Suo did look extremely relieved when she put a stop to their attack but what if it was all an act? Her hatred from before started to cloud her reasoning, she wanted to quickly kill her grandfather''s murderer and put an end to things, after all, she still had to go back to the upper regions and return to the imperial dragon clan for her training, even though she loved her family she was still selfish, all cultivators were. Suo eyed Mijil while she used the illusory Zither behind her to continuously discharge sound waves and try to find the true culprit, while the duo watched each other''s actions with a critical eye, Yun Jhin made sure to get in a blind spot where the sound waves wouldn''t get to him and observe what happened on the battlefield. He sent his soul will near Mijil''s and observed her mental state, a grin appeared on Yun Jhin''s face as he said to himself: "Feeling a little bit of hatred don''t we here?" Yun Jhin created a needle with his soul willpower that he immediately injected into her, this was a soul that would enhance the owner''s most prominent negative emotions by 100%. Mijil''s eyes turned slack for a moment before darkness started to invade her mind and eat at her reasoning: "Mijil, I know you are scared but you must do this for our tribe." Scenes from the past started to appear in her mind, her grandfather that looked healthy and stalwart patted her shoulders as he smiled at her and said: "Make sure you get to the upper continents and meet your father, even though he didn''t take you with him back then, he should be able to see that you are truly talented, after all, your head morphed into a dragon''s!" Mijil clutched her new horns and felt the huge difference in her head structure, she smiled at her grandfather as best as she could and said: "Yes grandfather, I will change the fate of our tribe!" She looked back at her grandfather''s frame that disappeared, she didn''t look back only forward... When she came back her grandfather didn''t exist anymore, not even his bones she couldn''t burry anything, she couldn''t grieve for anyone, her mother died when she gave birth to her and her brother the current chieftain dragged her and his father out of the main tribe and threw them out, he also forbid them from ever coming back and banished them to the border village... Mijil heart started to beat faster and faster as she recalled those scenes, her consciousness started to blank as her eyes turned a deep vengeful dark color, only her dark sclera remained as her pupils disappeared. She growled as her muscles started to pump up and down, her body shook, the veins across her body popped and cracked as they became visible, her canine teeth elongated, she grew 5 more meters as a deep dark aura engulfed her body, her previous red aura morphed into something evil. Yun Jhin laughed as he clapped and said: "Very good, such a huge amount of hatred, bottled up in such a tiny and fragile soul... go and rampage for your grandfather and mother''s sake little Mijil, make sure you take care of your uncle as well!" Yun Jhin saw the same images as her as he kept his soul willpower for a little more while near hers and know how she was treated and what happened back then, he even modified some of the memories a bit to increase her hatred and make sure she went berserk. Her cultivation base forcefully broke through to the 5th stage of the King Realm as her bodily changes finally finished, her dark eyes glowed with the same peculiar light as she looked at Suo and her relatively slow speed from before wasn''t found at all! She clutched Suo in her hand as the illusory Zither behind her started to waver, Suo knew that something was wrong with Mijil she used her soundwaves to try and wake her up from her trance but nothing happened! Her eyes glowered the same black as before as her muscles shook, but some words could be heard coming from her gritted teeth: "Re.. ve... n...g...e... f... o... r... t..r..u...e... f....a....m...i...l...y..." She clutched Suo in her hand, Suo couldn''t do anything besides struggle, and with an easy tight closing of her hand, Suo became a rain of gore that engulfed the ground, Yun Jhin made sure to use the formations to take her flesh and blood to him, it couldn''t be wasted! The elder of medicine and martial discipline tried to take Suo back but they failed spectacularly as they weren''t fast enough, they both tried to attack the new Mijil but both of them became prisoners in her hands. Suddenly out of the biggest pavilion that still stood up in the sect grounds came a voice: "MY NIECE, AND MY SECT YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE, YOU FREAK OF NATURE!" The grand elder and Suo''s uncle finally got rid of the curse from Mijil, but he came way too late, his sect was in ruins, and his disciples and family dead. The man had red eyes as he looked around, his muscles tightened as his gown exploded, showing his well-sculpted muscles, a deep blue aura engulfed him, the aura had streaks of electricity inside it, his cultivation broke through to the 6th stage of the King Realm as blood started to pour out of his nose and ears. He softly said: "I will defend the sect master and patriarch, I will meet you soon Suo, as long as they stay alive they can recreate the glory days of the Zither sect!" He threw himself at supersonic speeds towards Mijil, but he missed one factor! The chieftain jumped in front of his niece with a big smile on his face as he intercepted the small human, he caught him in his hands as he laughed seeing victory in the horizon, but then he looked down at his chest seeing a scaled arm sticking out of it. He looked behind him to see his niece looking at him with her hatred filled dark eyes, a soft voice entered her ears: "Y...o...u a...r...e..n..t f...a.m...i...l..y." This was how the main chieftain of the giants found himself in dangerous life and death situation, unfortunately for him, he wouldn''t be able to escape. Yun Jhin was still looming around ready to strike! Chapter 51: Drinking in victory,weeping in defeat Yun Jhin looked at Mijil as she inserted her other arm inside her uncle''s chest and with a great heave ripped him in two parts! Organs and a fountain of blood exploded on the battlefield, Mijil eyes remained dark as her face turned to the grand elder, the elder in question was clutching his chest as he got up from the ground after the chieftain exploded into a rain of gore due to her niece''s actions, the grand elder fell in the ruins of the sect combined with the flesh of the giants. Mijil found him quickly due to his inflated aura, he was using his life force to forcefully keep this state of his on, He disappeared from her senses as the electricity around his body fully engulfed him. His speed increased by a dozen more times but his veins started to pop due to the forceful increase of speed, blood started to quickly fall from his body as he zipped around Mijil''s vision trying to find an opening and attack her. He didn''t know why she would attack her allies but from the look of things she seemed to have gone berserk, if he didn''t take this chance he would die for nothing! He already went past the point of reconciliation as he used a forbidden technique to forcefully increase his cultivation, at the end of the technique he would burst like a balloon and die! The grand elder muscles squirmed like worms as he continued channeling the forbidden technique, if he couldn''t kill her in the next 5 minutes he would have died in vain. He appeared near her leg as he made a knife-hand hitting directly at the space between her leg and foot, he tried to sever a ligament and incapacitate her walking ability. Unfortunately for him, a dragon giant skin was very tough and he could only cut the surface, not even reaching the bone. Unknowingly to both of them, the flesh and blood in the surroundings started to wriggle towards a hidden location, Yun Jhin opened his mouth as all of the organs, flesh, and blood of the casualties of the battlefield appeared in front of him. It was an enormous amount to the point that Yun Jhin couldn''t count how many tons of meat there was. He opened his mouth wider as he started to suck in everything like a vacuum, it would take him quite a long while to finish everything here, but after he finished everything he would have broken through the 6th stage, stabilized his cultivation there and made way to the 7th stage, even though he couldn''t break through if he ate Mijil or the grand elder he would surely reach the 7th stage! The grand elder vomited a mouthful of blood as more veins popped, his eyes turned a deep red as they filled with blood that almost blinded him, his knife-hand was engulfed in lightning as he finally got through the skin and reached a small ligament which he severed. With his speed he easily jumped backward, evading the giant arm that almost caught him. Mijil roared to the skies as she almost fell, one of her ligaments was severed and she became unbalanced. Finding an opening The grand elder rushed along her arm, reaching her head, his knife-hand size increased as a lightning sword appeared. He drove his lightning sword towards his blackened eyes, but a sudden howl combined with sound waves made him lose his footing, the sword grazed her eyes and cut her ear off instead of impaling her in the eye. However, even though the move wasn''t fatal it still practically blinded her! But anything below fatal wasn''t something that the grand elder could afford, the man fell weakly as his body started to expand, but before he could hit the ground he was caught by two giant hands, those hands clutched his body and then the body exploded into pieces before the hands could do anything to it. Mijil howled and roared as she looked at the smear of gore in her hands, it seemed she realized that she couldn''t deal the last blow in her mind, even though she was consumed by hatred a semblance of her past self remained, she still thirsted for revenge deep inside. Yun Jhin came out of hiding as he looked at the giant half-dragon woman, he tsked as he slowly approached her and his soul injected a different type of energy inside her making her wake up. She looked around with wide eyes and then at her own hands, it seemed she remembered everything that she did. Her eyes widened as she saw Yun Jhin, she immediately realized that he was the one who was behind everything, she wanted to go and kill him but she stumbled and fell, making the ground shake because of her enormous weight. She looked down at her leg and remembered that the grand elder severed some ligaments. Yun Jhin looked at her and shook his head as he said: "Poor thing, do you want to know how your grandfather died?" Her eyes widened in pure anger as she heard those words, she tried to get up but Yun Jhin shot a bunch of pressured air in the open wound at her leg severing more ligaments and making her howl in pain, the howl was so loud that some people from the nearby city heard it. Mijil gritted her teeth as she tried to get up from the ground, however, the pain from her leg made her unable to, the adrenaline from her escapade wore off, the same could be said about her hatred induced state, she became the same as before, even her draconic head started to fade away! After a short while, the draconic head changed to a normal human head, it seemed even though she had a dragon bloodline it wasn''t that strong, to simulate it she would constantly need to use her ki, it was impressive she could fight so well and continuously use her ki to keep her appearance. She was a beautiful woman by Yun Jhin''s standards, and his standards were very high, he looked at her and shook his head, maybe if he wasn''t of a different race and in a hurry to breakthrough he may have kept her as a slave. Unfortunately for her, he needed her flesh and blood. He motioned with his hand as he took the bunch of gore from her hand and devoured it, his cultivation base broke through to the 6th stage and started to stabilize itself after he finished his meal in a few seconds. Mijil couldn''t believe what she felt, she was still partially blinded from the elder''s attacks but she could practically see with her soul willpower, she felt how Yun Jhin ate the elder''s remains and became stronger immediately, what kind of monster was he? Yun Jhin''s techniques were very peculiar because there weren''t many evil sects on the four beasts planet, Mijil couldn''t have heard about them even if she lived in the upper regions, maybe only people around the Sage realm could realize what techniques Yun Jhin was using. Yun Jhin looked at Mijil''s fearful expression, her ki reserve was empty, she was injured and without power, her leg was crippled and she was also partially blinded, her size made her just a big target. The patriarch and sect master of the Zither sect seemed to be keeping a blind eye to everything that happened currently, seemingly both of them either encountered cultivation deviation due to anger or they tried their best to solve their hidden injuries. Yun Jhin could care less about what happened to them, as long as they didn''t do anything he would make sure he razed all of the bodies on the battlefield to the ground. Some giants were still alive, but they were either injured or resting, Yun Jhin ignored them as they couldn''t see him anyway. He walked closer to Mijil, so close that her hand could catch him easily, he even walked on her palm, he was still in his humanoid form so Mijil still thought he was a human his aura was also hidden. Mijil thought he was taunting her and she was right, Yun Jhin was taunting her by giving her a chance to injure or even kill him! She tried to clench her hand and turn him into a meat patty, but Yun Jhin three points along her arm as he ran on her body towards her head. Her whole arm became paralyzed and fell to the ground creating a deep crater. Yun Jhin slowly made his way to her forehead and put his hand on it sending some images inside her soul space, they were the images of him slaughtering her cousins, grandfather, and some other family members that even she couldn''t fully recognize anymore. She started to trash on the ground creating a huge dust cloud, some of the nearby giants tried to approach her but they backed off seeing her condition, they were also scared that they would end like the chieftain so they continued to back off and observe. Mijil shouted as she clutched her forehead: "You monster, you evil being, how could you do these things! THEY WERE CHILDREN, OLD AND WEAK PEOPLE!" Deep hatred dripped off Mijil''s words, she was ready to turn Yun Jhin into a piece of gore herself, but she just couldn''t her body was over exhausted and her life force was very weak, she could barely move anymore after she struggled for some time. She gritted her teeth till the blood flowed out of her gums, she even tried to shake Yun Jhin off her forehead and swallow him alive, but Yun Jhin kept a steady footing on her forehead as seemingly nothing could throw him off. He looked at her big blank eyes and said: "Do you realize why have I shown you these images?" How could she realize? All the time she thought that he was mocking her, even though he indeed was mocking her there was another reason he did that. He opened his mouth and regurgitated a piece of flesh, the aura from that flesh was extremely familiar to Mijil, it was a piece of flesh from her grandfather! She starting thrashing again, as she seemed to have gained some new energy from an unknown source, but all her thrashing did nothing besides opening her wounds and putting her further near death. Her angry and vengeful stare was pointed at Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin ignored her gaze as he infused the piece of flesh with his ki, then he dropped it in Mijil''s mouth! Mijil wanted to immediately spit it out but Yun Jhin sealed her mouth! The small bit of flesh infused with Yun Jhin''s ki quickly reached her stomach, there the ki exploded into a supernova that destroyed her stomach and insides. She vomited a mouthful of blood as her eyes turned scarlet, she became fully crazed as she thrashed around. Yun Jhin jumped away from her body and watched as ki flames engulfed her body, they were deep purple flames with runic bodies running through them, the flesh from Miji''s grandfather combined with his ki and her state of mind created the current situation. As if her leg wasn''t wounded at all she got up from the ground, but she fell to her knees afterward, she tried to get up again but her stomach burst open as a baby dragon that stood at 1,5 meter tall came out of her, the baby dragon was fully purple with big dark horns on his head. He looked extremely cute at first sight, his deep ruby-colored eyes would make your heart melt, at first sight, he pewed like a baby chick as he looked around. Suddenly his irises turned into slits as he saw his ''mother'' he went directly back to her and opened his maw, fresh blood dripped down his body as he feasted on his mother''s body, Yun Jhin clapped as the dragon stopped and flew towards him. He stood in front of him like a loyal dog as he wagged his small tail, he pewed again and licked Yun Jhin''s hand showing that he was friendly. Yun Jhin smiled at the baby dragon and petted his head, the dragon started purring. Yun Jhin looked around the ruins of the sect and absorbed the remnants of Mijil''s body in his mouth, devouring the remaining amounts of energy and ki. The dragon ate a lot of her body very quickly, only her legs remained intact. The baby dragon wasn''t a normal dragon, Yun Jhin used her extreme hatred combined with the flesh of a relative and his ki to create him, he forcefully extracted her bloodline with the ki supernova that exploded in her stomach, he was a fully blooded artificial dragon! Because he was created using Yun Jhin''s ki he would be the only one who could fully control him, even though he looked like a cute baby on the outside, inside he was a fiendish monster that was on the same level of evilness as Yun Jhin! The dragon''s height started to lower as he became as tall as an average cat and nestled in Yun Jhin''s robe. Yun Jhin scanned the dragon''s cultivation base and nodded his head, he was born at the 9th stage of the ki cultivating realm, he couldn''t go beyond the emperor realm with his artificial body but he would be a good pet to have, Yun Jhin would need to be in two places in the future and needed someone he could trust, that''s why he created the little guy. Yun Jhin made another scan of the battlefield and found that he didn''t miss any bodies, then he used his soul willpower to scan the only standing building remaining in the Zither sect and narrowed his eyes. However, a smile quickly appeared on his face shortly after he finished scanning the building then he said: "What an interesting affliction, think you two can escape from me?" Not even the patriarch and the sect master of the Zither sect were safe from Yun Jhin''s machinations. Chapter 52: Infectious disease Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he opened his spiritual senses to feel better, he closed his eyes and used his soul willpower to scan deep into the last remaining building. The building was surrounded with formations that kept it out of dangers way, however, they were no cracked due to the intense fight, and were ready to explode. Yun Jhin disabled them easily as he walked towards the building and entered it, no one was inside, but Yun Jhin knew that he had to go deeper to find who he wanted. The baby dragon was nuzzling himself inside Yun Jhin''s clothes and from time to time his head would pop out of his cloak and look around with interested eyes. Yun Jhin let him do as he pleased as he continued to enter deeper into the building, after a while, he found the stairs that led to the underground site of the building, it was like a cellar but not quite so, it was remodeled into a cultivation chamber and a middle-aged man sat cross logged in the middle of a healing formation. The man''s life force indicated that he wasn''t that old but his face and body were full of wrinkles, his hair was also half white half black. The man opened his eyes as he looked at Yun Jhin but didn''t say anything, he was sweating black gunk intensely, suddenly he vomited a mouthful of dark blood, Yun Jhin looked as the dark blood started to sizzle and a purple gas appeared, the gas dissipated after some time and the man''s face turned paler than it already was, he also gained some new wrinkles. Yun Jhin got closer to the formation and looked it up and down, he shook his head and said: "Your formation is quite decent, unfortunately, you won''t live more than a few weeks from now, the curse inside you is etched too deeply." The man''s eyes widened but he kept his mouth shut, it seemed if he lost any concentration, the curse would relapse and kill him instantly. Yun Jhin didn''t beat around the bush as he looked the man in the eyes and he said: "Do you want to live?" "I know you can''t answer, but I will give you a chance to live, however, you will have to be my slave from now on." The man''s eyes showed that he wouldn''t ever become someones else''s slave, even though his cultivation aura was pretty weak currently, it seemed he was a powerhouse at the 8th King Realm or above, if he wasn''t weakened like he was right now, the whole giant army would have ended up defeated by him alone! Unfortunately for the Zither sect, their patriarch was afflicted with a strange curse that needed a dragon heart to cure, thus they were eliminated... The sect master knew that all of his sect''s members were dead, after all, he observed the whole fight with his soul willpower and knew that it was all Yun Jhin''s fault, but if Yun Jhin decided to attack him right now he would be dead, there was nothing he could do currently besides lying down and waiting for death. He was the reason Suo sent out the grand elder to the Long Empire to find the dragon caterpillar. Even though a dragon caterpillar was a half-dragon, there was still a 50% chance of healing him so they took it. Unfortunately, the grand elder mistook Yun Jhin as a passing dragon royalty and he didn''t go through with the plan. This led to the sect master''s current situation, on his death bed, vomiting dark blood, even if he wanted to save his sect he couldn''t, his fate was to watch his closed ones die in front of him. Yun Jhin watched as he man''s eyes changed from time to time, he was pondering Yun Jhin''s proposal very hard, seemingly he was ready to accept it! Yun Jhin inserted his soul willpower into the man''s consciousness where he was viciously attacked by him, however, he easily backed away from the soul space, even if the man had a stronger soul than what he currently had he couldn''t be able to kill Yun Jhin. The most ineffective attacks against Yun Jhin would be soul ones after he mended his soul back in the catacombs of the Corpse sect it''s recovery boosted itself, combined with all of the souls he ate along the way up till now, he could use 1% of his former soul abilities. Even though 1% seemed insignificant, at his peak Yun Jhin was a God Realm 9th stage expert, with very few equal people to him. Yun Jhin looked down as the man started to wretch and vomit even more blood, he tried to kill Yun Jhin and absorb his memories thinking he could get the cure that way, but he just hastened his death, he failed and the curse backlash hit him even harder. Yun Jhin wanted a slave at the 8th stage of the King Realm but it seemed he wouldn''t be lucky enough today. The man started to melt into a pool of meat and blood, a decaying stench immediately filled the room as the formation broke and corroded by itself, Yun Jhin watched pensively, unfortunately, he couldn''t eat the man due to his situation, he would have to first cure him and he had no more time. Due to the sect master''s actions, he wouldn''t be able to eat him or enslave him, Yun Jhin found it to be a great pity. As the man transformed into a puddle of smelly gore on the ground Yun Jhin bypassed the remnants of the formation and entered deeper. He walked further inside until he reached a dead end, there he clicked on the wall tiles in a particular way that made them open, it was the password to get to the patriarch''s cultivation room, Yun Jhin gained it after he devoured Suo''s soul, whoever died in his hands would have the fate of their soul being devoured as well. Yun Jhin entered the room and looked around, it was full of Zithers of different colors and sizes, inside in the middle of the room stood the patriarch, he looked so old that you would think he was a corpse, his body was emaciated and he had no hair left on his whole body. His eyes were closed as he stood there, his hunched back trembled from time to time indicating that he was breathing but he didn''t have much time left, his weak aura indicated that he was at the 9th stage of the King realm, and the peak of the stage as well! The man tried to break through the Sage Realm and gain some more longevity. Yun Jhin sympathized with the man, he tried the same thing in his former lives after he reached the peak, he remembered everything like it was yesterday, unfortunately, sometimes hard work didn''t give you the results you wanted or needed. Yun Jhin observed the way he circulated his life force and shook his head, the man wasn''t going to live for much either, it seemed he was just like his relative in the other room, his days were numbered and the only thing he could do was watch them go away. Yun Jhin became a bit nostalgic as he watched the mummified man, then he shook his head and his arm became a sharp weapon that he inserted into the old man''s chest, the old man coughed a mouthful of blood and died instantly, Yun Jhin opened his mouth and ate him quickly or else he would have dissipated into dust. Cultivators that live enough to die of old age transform into dust and return to nature everything that they took from it, that''s how new cultivators can be born, that was also why no one truly reached true immortality, God Realm practitioners only reached half immortality of unable to be killed, and that was those who reached the 9th stage, they still aged and died like normal commoners, they just lived longer. Yun Jhin stabilized himself fully into the 7th stage of the Ki cultivating realm and was even ready to break through into the 8th stage, but he lacked a certain factor, and no it wasn''t more energy, after some self-inspection, it seemed his caterpillar body rank wasn''t high enough! He wanted to ask the system what was his caterpillar rank but a notification appeared by itself: [Dragon Caterpillar (Mature Royalty): Rank 2500/7500, for further breakthroughs Rank 3000 is needed or above.] To increase the rank of the caterpillar body Yun Jhin needed energy, some did seep into his body but he used most of it towards his cultivation base instead of refining his body, in most of his previous lives he never encountered such a situation so he didn''t know how to act. But now that he knew he needed to find some other nutritional corpses to increase his body''s rank, he let some giants run back to the tribe, maybe they would come with reinforcements? But it wasn''t likely to happen. Their main chieftain and their most talented youngster died here, they would be dumb to try and attack again, after all, there was no one here anymore either so they would be just waiting time, they would surely think that the one who orchestrated everything would have already left by now. Yun Jhin walked by the puddle of gore again as he tried to leave the underground area, but the baby dragon inside his cloak started to sniff around, Yun Jhin looked as the dragon jumped down from his bosom and ate the whole puddle of gore in one big gulp, this was the first time Yun Jhin used such a technique so he wasn''t sure how the dragon worked, all he had was the theory he learned. Yun Jhin watched the little dragon eat the puddle of gore, his cultivation base started to fluctuate as he became very sleepy, it seemed he was ready to break through to the King realm! Yun Jhin made a mental note to look further into the artificial dragon''s behavior and body structure while he slept, he needed to make sure he knew what he had on his hands. The dragon caterpillar left the buildings then the sect grounds with his baby dragon sleeping neatly in his cloak. After he made sure the baby dragon slept soundly in the cloak, he grew wings then flew to a nearby city, where he would plan his next move, which sect he would attack or subjugate to gain enough nutrients to break through his body rank. Chapter 53: A different approach with the same results Yun Jhin was flying steadily towards the nearby city, but he stopped in a nearby mountain range and entered a naturally created cave. The cave was pretty spacious so besides putting some formations around it he didn''t dig further, he let the baby dragon out of his cloak and observed its body more closely. The baby dragon''s scales had some strange patterns on it but they were very small to the point that Yun Jhin had to enhance his eyesight with ki to see them. The patterns looked like clouds and waves at the same time, but they were a deep purple color with a sun-like proportion in the middle of them. The dragon was sleeping soundly as Yun Jhin observed it with his eyes, then he used his soul willpower to directly enter into his consciousness space, his consciousness was currently sleeping so nothing happened when he entered his mind. Yun Jhin looked around and finally identified his soul body, he looked at it for a while and shook his head he couldn''t identify anything from it like this. He left the dragon''s mind space and created a scalpel with his ki, he started operating on him cutting his chest open and looking inside him, the dragon was still sleeping soundly unless his soul was damaged Yun Jhin could patch him right back up, even though his body wasn''t immortal such a weak type of injury won''t do anything to him. He looked at his internal organs and realized that they were quite different compared to what the theories said, Yun Jhin couldn''t put it in words but he realized the dragon was special, and not in a good way. As he observed the patterns in which the organs were arranged he realized that they were arranged in a formation, a strange formation per se, he used his formation knowledge to see what it could do and his eyes widened. The formation was supposed to liberate his soul in the future, this was quite strange considering how he was created. Yun Jhin took a better look at the organs as he poked them with his scalpel which made the young dragon start to thrash around. His organs started to glow with dark energy that radiated hatred, it was the residual soul willpower of Mijil! This woman was of dragon descent and she should have known about the peculiarities of an artificial dragon, after all, Yun Jhin got this skill from killing an azure dragon from the evil faction. It seemed the evil faction was disbanded and the skill was kept by the imperial family then it was shared with every pure dragon. Since a pure dragon was Mijil''s father that meant that she got her hands on the technique one way or another. There was a formation to free the artificial dragon''s soul in the scriptures that he read, that''s why Yun Jhin recognized the formation rather quickly, it seemed with her last grasp of spiritual power she entered the body of the little dragon while her own body was eaten alive and altered his internal organs into this formation. Maybe she thought that the dragon would betray Yun Jhin in the future and be his demise, but she severely underestimated Yun Jhin due to her lack of knowledge. Yun Jhin smirked as he looked at the formation and used his scalpel to rearrange the organs on how they were supposed to be, using the knowledge of the technique he made a different formation using the organs. A self-destruction one, with one thought of his the dragon, would self destruct and even take out peak King Realm experts after he broke through to the 1st stage of said realm. He patched up the baby dragon using a ki sewing needle and then he cauterized the wounds, after a short while the wounds started healing by themselves as the ki circulation in the dragon''s body restored. Yun Jhin put the baby dragon back into his cloak, destroyed the formations that he laid around the cave, and left towards the nearby city. After he went to the city he walked into a restaurant where he ordered some food and tea, he was currently in the biggest restaurant in the city, where the latest gossip was talked about. "Have you heard? The giant tribe and the Zither sect almost killed each other!" "Well that''s half right, the giant tribe only lost their main chieftain along with most of their soldiers and hunters, I also heard the new prodigy from the dragon clan also fell at the Zither Sect!" "The one who won the bloodline tournament? Wow, I''m sure that her father won''t be happy, isn''t he an outer general in the imperial army? Isn''t he a 3rd stage Emperor realm expert?" "Yeah, I heard he killed 20 subordinates who were dumb enough to enter his tent after he heard the news." "I wonder who killed them, did the Zither sect patriarch and sect master ended their closed-door cultivation?" "Maybe, who knows? What we know is that Kong Luo is extremely angry for the death of his daughter." "Aren''t you a little too presumptuous to use his name?" The man who said the outer general''s name started sweating as he looked around, but then he shook his head and left the restaurant. Yun Jhin ate the food and drank the tea then paid, afterward he left the restaurant and the city, he knew that from what these people said, Mijil''s father would come to investigate about what happened! Fortunately, he didn''t leave anyone alive that saw his face or sensed his aura, at most they would think that the one who attacked was the sect master or patriarch of the Zither sect who exited closed-door cultivation to save the sect but was too late, so he unleashed his anger on all of the giants and the general''s daughter without thinking about the consequences. Yun Jhin decided to ignore whatever happened next, after all if he was just a bystander that did his job there was a lower chance of them thinking that he had anything to do with what happened. He needed to find a sect that specialized in body refinement and either take over it or steal some resources that could help him finish his body refinement, he wanted to get to the maximum rank of 7500 so in the future, he wouldn''t come across such cultivation bottlenecks as he did now. Yun Jhin started to think about the sect''s information that he memorized and knew there was one such sect in the middle continent that focused on body refinement, it was one of the middle-ranked sects with a patriarch at the 5th or 6th level of the King Realm, but he had a higher battle power due to his extremely tough body so he could fight 7th King Realm experts. Taking over the sect would be impossible with the patriarch not being in closed-door cultivation, and unfortunately for Yun Jhin the man was extremely active when it came to sect activities, it was also because body cultivation didn''t require much time to practice and only lot''s of resources, the stronger the body the more ki it could accumulate and of higher purity as well, the higher the purity the bigger the density of ki. The denser the ki the more output, in conclusion, if two people clashed the one with denser ki would surely win, and not by little, more like by a landslide, body refinement also increased lifespan but not as much as ki cultivation, just like cultivation beasts the human body could reach 10,000 in rank, cultivation beasts innately cultivated their body along with their ki. This was why they had way tougher bodies than human''s naturally, but that didn''t mean humans couldn''t train their bodies, it was a more expensive thing for them to do, it was also very painful. Yun Jhin left the city behind him as he flew towards the sect grounds of the Stone Body sect, the sect was named after their main body refining technique that everyone could get their hands on regardless if they joined the sect, or not, it was a free technique that anyone who was interested in body refining could get their hands on. This was how the sect was attracting youths to join it, they thought that a free technique meant that everyone could cultivate but the thing was, body cultivation was extremely painful and only those with high willpower could withstand it if their body wasn''t of a high rank nor did it have a good constitution they wouldn''t be able to go far on this cultivation path either. As long as their body was good for refinement they would also have a good talent for ki cultivation. Most of the time bodies that ranked between 5000-7000 would reach the Emperor realm, things were different for Yun Jhin as his body needed to be refined first before he could breakthrough, while the others could train ki normally and breakthrough without body refining, however, Yun Jhin''s body started as a normal caterpillar and he was a special case. The rank his body was at was where he could breakthrough with his ki cultivation if he reached the 7,500 range which was the maximum for his current species, he would be able to reach the peak of the Emperor Realm and if he was lucky, he might even break through to the Sage realm. However, for a guarantee to break through to the Sage realm, he would need a body that could reach rank 8000 at the least. There was a huge difference for bodies that could reach rank 8000 and above, those kinds of bodies had the chance to learn godly laws and achieve the God Realm, however, the higher the body rank the easier they would learn the laws, Yun Jhin''s former body in his last life reached the rank of 9,999 through multiple experimentations and forbidden techniques, however he couldn''t reach rank 10,000 which was the breakthrough to reaching a realm above the God one. He always lamented his failures, but now with the system in his hand which was easily helping him evolve, he would be able to reach the 10,000 ranks! Yun Jhin slowed his flying speed as he reached the sect grounds of the Stone body sect, he didn''t need their techniques as he already had his own, but what he needed were the special herbs and liquids they were monopolizing. There were no other body refining sects that rivaled them, so they bought all of the body refining materials in masse at cheap prices. Even if Yun Jhin wanted to buy some materials he would have to go to their sect and they would surely overcharge him making him join the sect so he could gain ''discounts'', that''s how they made rogue body refiners join them. Sects had many tactics to gain disciples, some were underhanded and some were orthodox, but most sects prided themselves in being the ''good guys'' however, 90% of them were hypocrites, in all of his lives Yun Jhin only saw like 3 sects that were truly righteous and lived to help others, most of them were destroyed immediately after Yun Jhin found them, and only 1 survived. It was unknown if that sect survived up today. After all, Yun Jhin''s organization was so strong and had numerous disciples but it faded away in the sands of time. Yun Jhin looked at the sect''s entrance, the sect itself was as big as a capital city almost 50,000 kilometers long with millions of disciples, the Zither sect was also middle-ranked but it was smaller than the Stone body sect due to their stringent requirements. Yun Jhin easily slipped around the guards that were staying at the entrance, he didn''t even need to use much of his stealth technique, he easily entered the sect grounds and made himself fully invisible. He looked around and found that the sect was very lively, disciples had stalls as they shouted at each other to buy their wares, most of them were body refining herbs of low quality some of them were of middling quality but they were useless to Yun Jhin''s current body. Most middle-ranked sects had two or three treasuries but Yun Jhin didn''t need to enter their treasuries to gain what he wanted, most of the herbs and body refining liquids were kept in special places that kept them fresh, while the treasuries kept the rarer treasures and herbs most of them were things that increased the ki cultivation base and that didn''t change for sects that focused on body refining as well. After all body refining was a practice that helped you cultivate ki easier, it was a crutch for untalented people to grow stronger and a boost to the talented people''s battle power. After searching the huge sect grounds for a long while Yun Jhin finally found a place where some high-ranking herbs could be found, it was an ice cave in the outer skirts of the sect. The naturally formed ice ki would keep the herbs nice and cool for those who needed them, this was just one of the ways to temper the body, there was also self-immolation type of body refining but this sect didn''t seem to have such a type of technique. Yun Jhin entered the cave but then he jumped on the ceiling and stuck to it like a spider, there were some fluctuations coming from the inner parts of the cave. It seemed someone else was here to get herbs... Yun Jhin kept himself tightly on the frozen ceiling and waited for the unknown person to make himself/herself visible. Out of the inner parts of the cave, a cute sneeze could be heard... Chapter 54: An unexpected but pleasant surprise Yun Jhin stuck to the ceiling like a spider as he waited for the people inside the cave to leave, but the signature inside the cave wouldn''t move at all, it was actually stationary from the moment Yun Jhin sensed it up till now, and almost 2 hours passed! Yun Jhin realized that the one inside was either cultivating or waiting for something since there was no other way the dragon caterpillar decided it was time to enter directly regardless of consequences, after all, there was an extremely low chance of him to be found out. Yun Jhin entered the spacious ice cave and looked around, seeing heaps of herbs and bottles with special body refining liquids of different colors ranging from white to black, rainbow-colored, etc. Inside an exquisitely carved cell stood a woman with an extremely pale complexion, she had two long ears and wore nothing but a see-through green dress, she was shivering and the cute sneeze from before should have come from her. The woman looked around with a strange look on her face, as Yun Jhin took a better look at her, she had deep forest green eyes and her lithe figure was something that most men would appreciate, her chest area wasn''t big but not small either, she had a special natural aura around her that kept her body from freezing as it seemed she didn''t have a high cultivation base. From what Yun Jhin could infer she was at most a peak earthly realm practitioner, as he observed her better and confirmed her characteristics he realized that she was a nature spirit! Nature spirits looked just like elves but were different, their souls and bodies were different, they weren''t good at cultivation as a race, but they were special as their blood could be used to cultivate strong bodies, most of the time these type of race would be found accompanying the tree-huggers known as elves. Nature spirits were a rather rare species as for every 10 elves born from the world tree there would be a 1% chance for a nature spirit to be born, nature spirits were kind in nature but that was because 90% of the time they were taken care of by the elves if nature spirits were handled wrongly they could transform into evil spirits that devoured souls and flesh, their body enhancing ability would increase by a lot but their reasoning would be lost, they would also get a huge boost in cultivation base to the point that the nature spirit that Yun Jhin was currently looking at could break through to the 7th stage of the king realm if she transformed. Nature spirits were darlings of the world tree that gave birth to the elves, however, due to their weakness they were exploited by the elves, and in some instances where they were almost bleed to death, they transformed into such beings razing down the elf villages. Yun Jhin continued to observe the nature spirit in the cell and realized that she wasn''t mistreated in any way, she just looked quite lonely, the nature spirit in question was sighing as she looked around and muttered to herself: "That feeling I had... that almost inexistent life force, was it just me?" Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he looked at her, Nature spirits had the best ability to detect life force, it was quite a feat to detect his life force while he used his stealth techniques by feeling alone, after all, she couldn''t use her soul force yet, she wasn''t even a heavenly realm expert. Yun Jhin thought what to do about her, he couldn''t aggravate her or she would become a mass-murdering evil spirit, the best way would be to fool her and kill her quickly to use her body, but she was a bit too weak for his tastes, she would need to atleast break through to the peak stage of the heavenly realm before she could be of use to him, in the end, the higher the cultivation of the natural spirit the better body refining it would give. Yun Jhin calculated that with the amount of blood a natural spirit at the peak stage of the heavenly had, he could refine his body to the max rank of 7500, but nurturing her to that state would be very hard, natural spirits had a very hard way of breaking through, they didn''t need normal energy as other cultivators did, they needed destiny, they needed to rob others of their destiny and due to their mostly meek nature they wouldn''t be able to do so, that''s why they were stuck at low cultivation bases. Most of the time they would leech 1% of the destiny of their most loved person due to the way they attached to them, Yun Jhin eyes started to sparkle as he thought about it, his destiny was immense, so big that it couldn''t be quantified, after all, he reincarnated for thousands of lives so the combined destiny resides in his soul after he fused his former lives memories. If he could make this natural spirit woman think that he was her most loved person, she would be able to seep some of his destiny, he didn''t care about it, destiny was a fleeting thing that he realized how to control at this point, he could even get it back in double after he slaughtered and ate her. But first, he would need to create a scenario so that the natural spirit would believe him, he slowly walked inside the cave making himself look as shifty as possible, the natural spirit''s eyes started to glow as she looked at Yun Jhin, she waved at him to get his attention. Yun Jhin''s eyes widened in surprise as he saw her and approached her slowly, making sure to dodge any traps or formations along the way, he approached her cell and looked at her in the eyes, the woman blushed as she saw under Yun Jhin''s hood, he made himself look a bit more handsome than normal using his ki technique. The woman whispered to Yun Jhin: "Stranger, I''m sure you aren''t from the Stone Body sect, I don''t feel their technique life force changes on you, you must be an outsider, how have you got here?" Yun Jhin smiled to reassure her as he approached closer and said: "I have come with one reason, but the moment I saw you I got another one." The woman blushed, most natural spirits were pretty weak when it came to romance, after all, even their closest kin, the elves, treated them quite badly and separated them, most likely this spirit was sold to the Stone Body sect. Yun Jhin hand went between the bars of the cell and held her hand as he said: "To be truthful with you, I came to steal some body-refining herbs from these people, they have a monopoly of them and they supercharge the price when it comes to outsiders, I''m a free spirit and I don''t want to join their sect, fortunately, I have a stealth technique that let me wander in here." The woman frowned as she heard his explanation but it did make sense for her, as a natural spirit she looked down upon thievery killing and other such stuff, even though she knew sometimes these types of things were needed that didn''t mean she wouldn''t look down on such people. However, she ignored that part as she was really starved of freedom, she had lived here since she was a little girl and even though the people that came around to chat with her were nice, she felt that they were pretty cold inside and that they didn''t mean what they said, Yun Jhin gave her a good vibe, something that she could trust, only if she knew Yun Jhin was only putting an act up what would she think? Yun Jhin walked towards the cell and opened it up as it was controlled by a formation, the woman started to smile as she jumped out of the cell like a bunny, she walked towards Yun Jhin and held her hand towards him as she said: "My name is Mariela of the fifth natural spirits tribe, would you give me the pleasure of knowing your name?" Yun Jhin gave her a big smile as he accepted her handshake and responded to her: "Yun Jhin, anyways, first let me get ahold of some of these herbs before I take you out, could you wait for a few minutes?" Mariela smiled to Yun Jhin and nodded at him then waited in a corner to make herself look as unsuspicious as she could, her antics were pretty cute considering she was hiding the wrong way making her whole body visible and only a part of her face was hidden. Yun Jhin shook his head as he opened his spatial bag and filled it with body refining herbs after he made sure he got enough he waved towards Mariela and said: "Come and jump on my back, my stealth technique needs you to be near me so it can cover both of us." Mariela didn''t think anything about his request as she jumped on his back quite easily, Yun Jhin and Mariela both turned transparent as they walked away from the cave, but at the entrance, they met with a couple of disciples who were chatting: "*Sigh* why do we have to entertain that natural spirit, couldn''t it have been someone else?" "Man she is quite a beauty, I don''t understand why don''t you like to chat with her." "She is quite beautiful indeed, but she is pretty bland and boring, we can''t even touch her anyway, why would I look at a doll in a cage and talk with it?" Mariela''s eyes widened as she listened in to their conversation, she realized that her feeling was right and that they didn''t truly care about her, even though she suspected that it still hurt her, she recognized the people that were walking towards the cave and knew that they were the people that she thought of as friends. Mariela''s tears started to dampen Yun Jhin''s cloak but Yun Jhin ignored it as he whispered to her: "It''s ok Mariela, I know they aren''t your true friends, but I guess I could be your friend." Mariela stopped crying after she heard Yun Jhin''s words, she didn''t know what to say as she heard what Yun Jhin told her, never in her life did someone say that he would be her friend so readily and easily, she was flustered as she kept tight on Yun Jhin''s back. Yun Jhin kept her tightly on his back as he said: "Don''t move much or there''s a chance my stealth technique would be broken, after all, I didn''t get to have much training with two people at once." This was of course a lie from Yun Jhin, if his cultivation base was high enough he could stealth atleast 20,000 people with him. Yun Jhin kept dodging and weaving away from the disciples who were either walking, talking, or selling their wares around the sect grounds. Suddenly his stealth technique broke at the entrance of the sect making the two guards look at him in suspicion and apprehension, one of them shot him with a fireball that made it''s way to Mariela on his back, but he took the brunt of it by jumping face forward it, he gritted his teeth as he ran away. The duo at the entrance didn''t recognize Mariela as they were lowly guards, they just found Yun Jhin weird and they were spooked by the way he suddenly appeared in front of them, that''s why they attacked randomly out of fright. Mariela looked at Yun Jhin''s singed clothes and realized that his arm was pretty burnt up, tears started to well up in her eyes as she realized that she saved her without another thought, even though the two people at the gate were weaklings in Yun Jhin''s eyes, the fireball would have been fatal to Mariela. She hugged his back really hard as she used her special healing talents to resolve the burn that was on Yun Jhin''s left arm. The burn started to fade away, Yun Jhin could have healed it himself but that would mean spoiling the plan. Yun Jhin sighed as they finally got away from the sect location and let Mariela down on the ground, he flexed his arm a bit and smiled towards Mariela and said: "Thanks for healing me Mariela, good job!" Mariela stopped sniffling as she cleared her eyes and said with a trembling voice: "You wouldn''t have gotten hurt in the first place if you didn''t save me, I''m sorry!" Yun Jhin patted her shoulder and said: "No problem, after all, how could I let such a beautiful woman to be kept in such a cold and lonely cell? You are free now you can go wherever you want, do you want me to get you to a nearby city or?" Mariela shook her head as her green colored eyes looked at Yun Jhin''s and she said: "Mister Yun Jhin if you wouldn''t mind, could I accompany you from now on?" Yun Jhin laughed heartily as he hugged her and said: "Of course you can, how could I refuse such a beautiful lady?" Mariela reciprocated the hug, she herself wanted to give him one but she was pretty awkward when it came to such interactions, she was glad that Yun Jhin took the lead and hugged her, it made it easier for her to hug him back. Yun Jhin looked at her in the eyes as he said: "I''m going into closed-door cultivation in a nearby cave 500 kilometers from here, that''s the plan, jump on my back again, and let''s go!" The woman nodded as she jumped on Yun Jhin''s back and Yun Jhin started to run at quick speeds towards the cave, after a while of running he finally reached the cave and entered it. He let Mariela down gently as he walked inside the cave and put down some formations, Mariela looked around herself checking out the cave and it''s surroundings then she walked towards Yun Jhin and said: "I can wait for you to cultivate, however, can I stay near you? I''m quite scared of such types of locations." Yun Jhin understood where her fear came from so he sat cross-legged on the ground and patted the spot beside him then told her: "You can stay near me then, don''t worry I don''t bite." Mariela laughed at his joke and sat near him, Yun Jhin took herbs out of his bag as he started to use them for his cultivation, he would from time to time make pills and eat them, som herbs were better eaten raw, and he would meditate and do breathing exercises to absorb the energy into his body. Then he would do physical exercises to temper his body, the cave had a waterfall inside of it, he would meditate under the waterfall whenever he felt like it, and Mariela would look at him, most of the time, however, she would snuggle near him when he meditated. She even met the sleeping baby dragon that she found extremely cute, and she couldn''t wait for him to wake up. She was a pretty hearty girl, she started to slowly fall in love with Yun Jhin and the simple lifestyle they had, whenever she was hungry Yun Jhin would go out and get her some food, Nature spirits didn''t eat meat so he had to get her some weak herbs, the ones that he had were too strong for her and her body would explode if she used them. Mariela looked at Yun Jhin as he finished the mountain worth of herbs that he stole from the Stone body sect, his body rank now reached almost 4,000 and he broke through the 8th stage of the ki cultivating realm as well. Mariela was happy for him. She gave him a quick peek on the face as she blushed, her pink lips moved into a smile as she ran away shyly further into the cave, she beckoned him with her hand to go towards their living quarters that Yun Jhin created, even though he didn''t need sleep as an advanced cultivator that could replace it with meditation, she needed sleep from time to time, so he made a bed for her. Yun Jhin slowly followed her deeper inside to the cave and reached the living quarters, the natural spirits naked body invited him to the bed, the dragon caterpillar was ready to share his destiny with the natural spirit''s. Chapter 55: Miscalculation (small smut) ***************************************************************** R-18 SCENES AHEAD ***************************************************************** Yun Jhin slowly approached Mariela, his slow gait only increased her anticipation, Yun Jhin observed her naked body, flawless jade skin, puckered pink lips, a perfect size chest, two mounds like peaches both pink and in full bloom. Her body was perfect, but Yun Jhin didn''t care much about her, even though he admired her beautiful outer exterior, what he wanted was inside her, finally getting near the bed Yun Jhin took off his clothes after he evolved into a dragon caterpillar he gained a gender of his choosing, which was of course male. His member was stiff and long, Mariela wasn''t that experienced when it came to these types of things, after all, she was just a virgin but she tentatively took her small hand and grasped Yun Jhin''s member, Yun Jhin nodded at her indicating that she was starting well. Mariela gave Yun Jhin''s member a better look then approached her pink lips towards it giving it a lick, immediately the limp member started to react growing to its full length which was a pretty impressive size, almost scaring Mariela away from it, she muttered slowly to herself: "Will that fit in?" She looked down at her hole and taking a better glance at the monster in front of her made her pretty unsure. Yun Jhin gave her a head pat as he said: "If you aren''t ready we can always postpone it." Mariela shook her head stubbornly as she grabbed Yun Jhin''s member with both hands then she used her mouth on it, her technique was sloppy and unsophisticated, she was a newbie after all, after tens of minutes of practicing Yun Jhin finally came for the first time, but once his monster awakened it would be hard to quell! Yun Jhin taught her another technique as she used her sizeable bosom and took his hard member between her mounds, she started to move up and down rhythmically as her hole started to leak, after coming a second time Yun Jhin''s member was a bit weaker than before but it was still hard! Mariela laid down on the bed as Yun Jhin got closer and closer, he pinned her to the bed as his member closed to her hole, slowly but surely his wet member entered her hole, at first Mariela had a pained expression on her face as a bit of blood leaked out of her hole indicating that she was indeed a virgin. Yun Jhin let her adjust as he started to move slowly, as he moved her mound started to jump up and down, Yun Jhin took a good grasp of both of them as he sucked on the left while he played with the right, Mariela started to moan in pleasure as she climaxed wetting the sheets under them. Yun Jhin however didn''t give her any resting time as he continued to pound her hole relentlessly, as a nature spirit even though she just came she was alright, when it came to such activities their stamina was quite strong, they were almost like dryads. Even though at first it looked like his giant member wouldn''t fit, most of it was seated in her hole, he stretched her body and hit her womb multiple times during their intercourse making her climax more than a few times. Yun Jhin himself held strong as his member finally discharged it''s shot inside her, as the shot entered her body a deep white light engulfed Mariela as her face started to glow with a special light, some of Yun Jhin''s destiny was currently being devoured by her and her cultivation was increasing by a huge degree! Heavenly Realm 1,2,3...9th stage, Ki cultivating Realm 1,2,3...9th stage, King Realm 1,2,3rd, 5th stage it stopped around the peak 6th stage as the glow disappeared from her, the first bonding was a great success, too much of a success in Yun Jhin''s opinion. Yun Jhin''s member slid out of her hole as he clothed himself, Mariela laid on the bed, sweat dripping from her body as she put a big smile on her face and embraced Yun Jhin from behind, she traced her fingers on Yun Jhin''s back in circle pattern as she said: "This was an amazing experience, Jhin, I''m looking forward to the next one." ******************************************************* END OF R-18 SCENES ******************************************************* She identified him as her most loved one and the bonding effort was a huge success, the more sex they would have the higher her cultivation would increase as she seeped Yun Jhin''s destiny, Yun Jhin didn''t get anything from the first session as she was too weak but he would benefit as well from this, however, the benefits would be insignificant compared to eating her whole. Yun Jhin went with a gentle and easy approach to not scare her away, which led to great success on his part, however, her cultivation increased a bit too much, this would be the best time to attack her, while she was exhausted both mentally and physically as she hadn''t adapted to the changes of her cultivation increase yet. Yun Jhin turned towards her as he embraced her, Mariela smiled as she returned the hug and whispered in his ear: "Are you ready for another round?" She tried to smile sexily towards him as she presented her body again to Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin stood up from the bed as he told her: "Yes, I''m ready for another round, but this one will be quite different, what do you say?" Mariela smiled as she traced her fingers on his uncovered chest and purred: "Teach me whatever you want, I will do my best to comply..." Mariela was really love-struck, one a nature spirit found her significant other only death would part them, and sometimes even in death the nature spirit would try to follow the same reincarnation path as her former lover. Yun Jhin slowly got near her and put his hands on her chest, Mariela smiled sweetly at him as she pushed her chest forward in a manner that said, ''do whatever you want, I''m ready''. The dragon caterpillar in question gave Mariela a big smile as his hand started to close in her mounds, however, his grasp was a bit too strong and it started to hurt her, Mariela''s smile turned into a small frown as she looked at Yun Jhin and asked: "What are you doing dear?" Yun Jhin gave her another smile, but it was different from the one before, she could feel a deep coldness from it, just like a 500 iceberg, the coldness of his smile made her body freeze, the once-hot body cooled down extremely fast. Yun Jhin was grasping the left side of her chest as his arm suddenly went inward, a splash of blood appeared on the bedsheets as Yun Jhin directly took her heart out! Her heart was a deep greenish color as was her blood, there was the world tree pattern on the heart which indicated Mariela''s status as a nature spirit, Mariela''s eyes were extremely wide as she looked at her own heart, life started to seep out of her body but the life of a nature spirit was very tenacious. She slumped forward as she crawled slowly to Yun Jhin who jumped backward, she tried to get her heart back, she looked at Yun Jhin with big tears in her eyes, that dripped down on the bloody bedsheets and asked: "Why? Why would you do this darling?" Yun Jhin looked at her heart then at her and said: "I will let you go to the other side happy If I told you why you wouldn''t endure it." A dark aura started to engulf the woman as the hole in her chest closed, however, because her heart was taken she was still going to die no matter, for her to survive and finish her transformation she would need to regain her heart! Devil horns grew out of her head and a tail out of her spine, her nails increased in length and sharpened as her hair turned into a deep black color, her eyes turned into a deep red demonic color, and her cultivation was breaking through at an insane rate, Emperor Realm 1,2,3 stage... Sage Realm..... God Realm... it stopped at the peak of the 9th stage of the God Realm but her body just stopped afterward, her mouth remained wide open seemingly as if she wanted to say something, but something was blocking her. Yun Jhin looked at her body as he shook his head and said: "I told you that I wouldn''t want you to transform into this, unfortunately, you didn''t listen, you wasted your body as well, what a pity!" Her body started to turn into ashes as it broke down at a subatomic level, breaking through so many cultivation stages so fast in a single span of less than a few hours while missing her most vital organ made her already unstable soul collapse, without a soul, the injured body started to disintegrate on its own. Yun Jhin found it to be a big pity that her nutritious body was transforming into dust, but even with her heart, breaking through the God Realm the way she did would have killed her regardless. Yun Jhin looked at the green heart in his hand, as the last remaining bits of her existence disappeared from the bed, Yun Jhin launched a fireball that destroyed the bed. The last semblance of the existence of the nature spirit was her heart that stood neatly in Yun Jhin''s hands. It was the heart of a middle stages King Realm nature spirit, the benefits he would get for it wouldn''t be counted normally, his constitution might even be upgraded to the point his body would be able to reach rank 8,000, however, any future consumption of nature spirits wouldn''t do anything for him anymore, the world tree will hate him too after he consumed the heart. Any time Yun Jhin would come close to the world tree, it would try to destroy his soul and absorb his body, the world tree was a natural wonder of the universe that was born at the God Realm, even though it couldn''t move from its place, its soul willpower was extremely wide-reaching. Fortunately for him, the world tree didn''t exist on the dragon planet, nature spirits, and elves spread through the whole universe as the Elves Planet Ligathleen was already overpopulated, so the higher rank planet''s would surely have elves and nature spirits on them, no matter how little there was a 100% chance for them to inhabit a high-ranked planet. Yun Jhin sharp teeth approached the frail heart in his hand, he bit deeply inside of it as a sickly crunch would be heard, some part of Mariela''s soul was hidden in her heart and when Yun Jhin bit into it, it finally broke her soul, fully. Yun Jhin absorbed her soul as the energy from the heart entered into his whole body, pops and cracks could be heard from his bones and internal organs as they were strengthened at an insane speed, his muscles would increase and decrease as well as his height, he was forcefully returned to his true form of a dragon caterpillar instead of the normal human form that he took using his technique. His looks didn''t change but an aura that despised nature started to cling on Yun Jhin''s soul, this type of aura was the way the world tree would identify the killers of his darlings. Yun Jhin could get rid of the aura but he needed to break through to the Emperor Realm first before he could initiate the technique. He finished the heart as he swallowed the rest of it inside his maw, it directly went to his stomach where it dissolved into more energy beneficial towards his body, and a notification from the system appeared! [Heart of Nature Spirit Mariela consumed, body rank is forcefully upgraded to the 8000 ranks body strength at 8000/7500, the system is helping control the host''s unnaturally strong body, the host should quickly breakthrough further in his ki cultivation to not explode!] Yun Jhin closed his eyes as his sealed ki cultivation started to move inside his newly strengthened body, he easily broke through to the 8th stage of the Ki Cultivating Realm and his power increased, his soul took better control of his new body making the system''s help useless. With the excess energy from the heart, he stabilized his 8th stage cultivation to the point that he would just need to accumulate more energy before he was ready for another breakthrough. Yun Jhin looked at the spot that Mariela''s body was destroyed and he started to laugh softly, he bowed towards the spot as he said slowly: "Your sacrifice won''t be forgotten, in the future when I achieve true immortality I will resurrect you to be my play toy once again!" Yun Jhin said those words in passing, he truly enjoyed the body of a natural spirit, it was a new experience from him as he never had sex with such common goods before, he would always go for the highest constitutions and bloodlines, to him the nature spirits were too dirty to touch, but circumstances changed views, and he took a liking to the body of the nature spirits. However now that he had no use for them anymore his views changed back, the only exemption would be Mariela, who ''gifted'' her heart to Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin left the cave behind as it collapsed into rubble, his new destination was on his mind and he was moving there at his quickest speeds, he heard that the dragon general, Mijil''s father was in town, and he needed someone to take him to the upper continent. After all, entering the borders of the upper continent by himself would make him like an illegal immigrant and a criminal, he needed someone to vouch for him to enter the upper continents. And who else would be better than the father of the random woman he killed? Yun Jhin didn''t even bother to learn her name. His flight speed had an obvious increase as he was using his body to fly and not his ki, he could boost himself with ki to fly faster but there was no need since he was already getting near the extremely strong aura that he identified to be almost 100% true dragon! A big city was in front of him, Yun Jhin descended to the ground before he walked to its entrance and then he followed the owner of the aura stealthily! But from time to time he would leak his aura, this leak alarmed the other party and Yun Jhin was met with the end of a sword that was pointed at his Adam''s apple, the face of a fuming Middle-aged man who wore imperial army decorated robes was scowling at him he didn''t even bother to look at Yun Jhin''s face as he moved his hand slowly, the sword approached Yun Jhin''s adam''s apple at a slow pace, almost cutting in his neck and taking his life... Chapter 56: Interested but cautious Yun Jhin found himself into a sticky situation this time, but that''s what he wanted, he planned this since the moment he killed the man''s daughter. Yun Jhin wanted to say something but the sword placed near his neck made him unable to, one singular movement from his throat would make the blade go deeper inside and cut an important artery, the middle-aged man was pretty bored himself and he was ready to let go of the sword. Letting go of it with the help of a little bit of gravity would immediately decapitate Yun Jhin, the middle-aged man was taller than Yun Jhin and the positioning of the sword near his throat made it so letting go of it would detach Yun Jhin head from his body. Yun Jhin wanted to gulp down a mouthful of saliva but he couldn''t even do that or else his adam apple would go in the front and his artery would be sliced by the sword. The middle-aged man was ready to let the sword go when Yun Jhin waved his hands in a way that didn''t move his neck at all, the middle-aged man looked at him and ignored his frantic actions as his hand almost left the handle of the sword, suddenly Yun Jhin let out his mixed-blood aura regarding him as one of the few mixed-blood nobilities. The dragon of the east general of the 3rd imperial army, Kong Luo, he had many sons and daughters but none of them were as talented as Mijil was, he was extremely angry and disappointed when he heard of her death, that was the sole reason his imperial body would even decide to descend on the middle regions, most of the people of the upper continent considered the humans and other races to be inferior to them, and they would only recognize people from the other 3 sacred races. Dragons were the most prideful of the 4 races and the ones that were the most strict regarding hierarchy and bloodline, meaning that even if one was talented with a lowly bloodline they could be despised due to their lowly bloodline, but this could happen very rarely as dragon bloodlines would be 90% of the time transferred fully, which meant only the very mixed bloodlines were despised. Kong Luo retracted his sword as drops of blue blood dripped from Yun Jhin''s throat, after a few seconds the wound closed and there was no injury left, Kong Luo appreciated Yun Jhin''s regeneration ability with a critical eye as he looked at him, he suddenly clenched Yun Jhin''s arm as he inserted a needle into it then he muttered to himself, but his mutter was quite loud so even his guards could hear him: "Bone age of around... 20 or so years, cultivation base 8th stage of the ki cultivating realm, hmm a very sturdy body, extremely sturdy, I could say it even broke through its normal potential to reach a special state, he surely has a dragon bloodline but what is the other one..." The imperial general drew some blood again from Yun Jhin as he observed it with energy-filled eyes, his eyes transformed into two ruby-like entities as he looked at the blood, then he tasted it and said: "This... caterpillar bloodline is unrecognizable, as for the bloodline, is it from Lord Skulpto? No, it''s very thick, it''s almost perfect, it''s at the level of her Majesty Azalea, but her Majesty couldn''t find a man worthy enough to impregnate her, very strange." Kong Luo looked at Yun Jhin with a questioning look on his face, he didn''t know from what branch of the family Yun Jhin gained the bloodline he had, his caterpillar bloodline was also unknown, it was a mix of other caterpillars, but they were so muddled and mixed that he couldn''t recognize which caterpillar races it belonged to, how could someone have such an unpure and pure bloodline at the same time in one body? Kong Luo observed Yun Jhin further as he realized that his cultivation base was rather refined, his ki was pure and strong, it was also very malleable under his grasp, it felt like the perfect type of ki that could transform into whatever techniques one desired, Kong Luo eyes widened: "No element in the ki, that''s... 99% of dragons and hybrids have elemental ki!" This truly put the imperial general on thought, Yun Jhin was a very strange and rare specimen in his eyes, someone that could fill the void of his daughter''s death, even though he didn''t have a high cultivation base, it was most likely because he lived in these trash conditions and he didn''t have enough energy to break through after all his body was extremely strong! He wasn''t sure if he got the needed enlightenment of the level but enlightenment was easily given from an expert to the other, after all, all roads led to Rome, even though not everyone had the same experiences, they could be shared and enlightenment from them could be created. Yun Jhin didn''t need enlightenment at all as he was a reincarnated being with fully acquired memories, but he could play the part if he needed to. Kong Luo grasped Yun Jhin''s hand as he took the needle out and his inspecting ki, he was a man with emperor ki which was above king ki, his ki was overwhelming and Yun Jhin couldn''t even move away if he wanted to, so he stood petrified there and waited for the man to finish. Normally speaking Yun Jhin''s aura should have been tainted from killing Mijil and Kong Luo should have recognized it, but Yun Jhin fully devoured these types of curses and soul imprints to mend his soul faster. Soul attacks were the thing he least feared, of course, if a Sage Realm expert decided to soul attack him he would be in a precarious position but he wouldn''t die from it, at most his soul would get paralyzed or he would blackout. Only God Realm souls could give him trouble. Kong Luo''s soul willpower entered Yun Jhin''s soul space and looked around, however, it didn''t find anything wrong as Yun Jhin only let him read surface memories he created, some of them were true, some were fake. Kong Luo eyes started shining as he looked at Yun Jhin''s body and he said: "You have refined the heart of a natural spirit? I see then, I see why your body is so abnormally strong, you lucky bastard, I wish I could dissect you and take that heart back to use it, *sigh* but it seems you fully devoured the energy, whatever." Kong Luo patted our dragon caterpillar on the shoulder making him almost tremble and fall to his knees due to the sudden weight that the man put on his pat, but Yun Jhin held on due to his refined body, Kong Luo made a ''tsk'' sound as he said: "Yes, indeed quite the refined body, young man, from what I saw from your soul space want to join me in going to the upper continents don''t you?" Yun Jhin nodded his head as he took an expectant look on his face: "I have heard that the great general Kong Luo has appeared in the middle regions and I wanted to try my luck after I absorbed the natural spirit''s heart I thought that my talent would even shine among the upper continents." Kong Luo nodded his head slowly as he said: "Your bodily and ki talent is top-notch, that''s true and you would be a top disciple even in the imperial family, regarding talent that it, but your cultivation base is, how could I put it nicely? Very trashy." Kong Luo shook his head as he continued: "However I know it''s not your fault, your body is lacking quite a lot of energy needed for breakthroughs, even though your foundation is stable, it''s pretty dry, it seems you haven''t consumed any special herbs in your cultivation and you only got to here with hard work." The man wasn''t wrong, after all, he ate very few pills, but the number of bodies he ate could be in the hundreds of thousands, bodies, unlike herbs, didn''t leave behind any impurities, it was just like eating, the only impurities that remained could be removed by tempering the body. You could argue that Yun Jhin''s method of cultivation was superior, but most people found it unethical, that didn''t mean people like Yun Jhin didn''t exist, there were quite a lot of people similar to him, but they were either in hiding because they were too rampant or dead, not everyone had the experience of countless lives backing them in their plans to eternal life or world domination. Kong Luo looked at his guards and whispered something to them before getting his gaze back to Yun Jhin: "I can handle for you to enter the upper regions, but there is something I need to do before that since my daughter Mijil could only enter the upper continents after she won the bloodline tournament, It would be an abuse of my rank to let you enter just because you are talented, your talent is only a little above my late daughter''s." He frowned as he recalled his daughter and then he continued: "I would have to host another tournament and you would have to win it before you are granted entry legally in the upper continents, you would also get a chance to join the imperial army or the imperial family, however, I would suggest joining the army as it has no politics and it''s simpler to live in the army compared to the imperial palace." Kong Luo was a straight forward man so after he said that he started to walk away, it was already quite some time since he looked for his daughter''s killer and there were no leads as both the Zither sect, sect master and patriarch were seemingly gone from the face of the earth. They just disappeared, he made countless attempts at getting leads at the sect grounds but he couldn''t find anything, he was also angering the upper ranked sects of the middle continents by extending his investigation, some of the sects already took the region that the Zither sect stood in to be theirs, and they were ready to move in and reconstruct. Even though the Zither sect was small it had quite the sizeable amount of natural resources around their region. The upper sects, sect masters were as strong as Kong Luo so he didn''t want to offend them, even though he was a general in the imperial army, just like all organizations there was a lot of infighting. The infighting was even stronger due to the pride of the draconic race, unless someone overwhelmingly stronger would become their ruler and stop them from acting like this, they would pretty much continue to be like this. Yun Jhin followed quickly behind Kong Luo and asked: "Might I know when the tournament will start?" Kong Luo whispered something to his entourage again and said: "One month from now, just follow me around and you won''t miss out, with my help you might even break through to the King Realm before the tournament starts, it''s a very low chance of happening but I have a friend who owes me some favours and I heard he just unearthed a good treasure that could help you." Yun Jhin nodded at his explanation and continued to follow behind, even though Kong Luo acted like he found a treasure that he wanted to nurture he was extremely puzzled inside, where did this hybrid come from? He would make sure to keep an eye on Yun Jhin and do some further investigations when he got back to the upper continents. Yun Jhin continued to ask Kong Luo about the imperial army, how will the tournament be, the rules, etc. He acted just like a young man who hasn''t seen the world, Kong Luo almost fallen for his act thinking he might have just overreacted but he was a willy old fox and his instincts told him that Yun Jhin wasn''t was what he showed. However, he wouldn''t act on his instincts without any proof. Kong Luo started to tell Yun Jhin bits and pieces that he thought were important such as that the Emperor and the Empress of the dragons were in different factions, the Empress controlled the palace while the Emperor controlled the army, however, the Empress also owned a small part of the army but it was insignificant compared to the Emperor''s control. The duo of old dragons was against each other for unknown reasons, but Kong Luo had insider information that said that the Empress was mad at the Emperor due to his erectile dysfunction, she badly wanted a child so she went around the upper continents and procreated everything that moved, and a had a decent amount of talent. However, unluckily for her, she never found a man strong enough to handle her and give her enough ''juice'' that she could become pregnant. Kong Luo knew that this was just gossip as the Emperor had multiple children but they were all mixed-bloods. The Empress was just mad due to the low fertility between True dragons, no matter how much the Emperor fought with her, she couldn''t bear a child! Thus she decided to try with someone else and this enraged the Emperor, a lot, however, just like he wanted to punish the ones that ''defiled'' his wife, he realized that they were all dead... her wife done them in herself, he wasn''t sure if they died in bliss or were scared as they died by becoming withered mummies. Kong Luo shook his head as he said those words, it was common knowledge in the upper continents and it even leaked in the middle continents, even the Emperor couldn''t punish someone if they talked about it, he just agreed to disagree and entered into a deadly squabble with his wife instead. The squabble turned to the afferent organizations that they controlled thus making the infighting in the Dynasty so big that some sects were eyeing them like prey, but the Dynasty was so strong and it also had quite a few decent allies, so they weren''t attacked yet. But Kong Luo didn''t know how much this peace would last, at most 500 years at the least 150 or 100. Mijil was his successor as she could be groomed into an Emperor realm expert in 100 years the quickest and she might even reach the peak of the Emperor Realm in 500 years, even though he looked middle-aged he was quite old and he wanted to use his remaining life span to break through to the peak of the emperor realm then try his hand at the sage realm. However, he needed someone to take over his Army general position. Since Mijil was now dead, he put his sights on Yun Jhin! Even though he had suspicious origins he was plenty talented and someone with draconic blood, so he couldn''t be a spy from an opposing planet, it was imperial blood in his veins so he couldn''t be from some sects that betrayed the Dynasty either. While Kong Luo was contemplating about Yun Jhin''s bloodline and origins, the man in question was cultivating while following him, at the pace they were travelling they would reach the borders of the upper continents in approximatively 5 days, at the border there was an arena where tournaments for mixed-bloods would be held. The one who won such tournaments would be granted entry and based on their performance they might even be able to join the army or the palace. Yun Jhin was going to win to further his plans and nothing would go in his way, he knew that Kong Luo suspected him but he would act so well that he would even fool himself into thinking that he was who he acted to be! Yun Jhin didn''t calculate the pitstop that they had to do to talk with the friendly acquaintance of the general, the man was a sect master of the upper ranked Blood Damnation sect and when the general asked him about his treasure the man started beating around the bush and invited him to leave. If the general made a scene where he would lose quite a lot of face as he came uninvited, so he gritted his teeth and left, he looked at Yun Jhin and apologized: "I''m sorry young friend Yun Jhin, but it seems this old fellow is rather wishy-washy when it comes to his treasure, I can give you something to increase your cultivation base but it won''t be as effective as that old man''s treasure." It wasn''t that Kong Luo was stingy, but the treasure of the Blood Damnation sect master could be used continuously like the dragon stone that Yun Jhin had before, however, his treasure could be only used once and it didn''t have the same effectiveness as the treasure in question. But Yun Jhin''s talent won him over so he decided to gamble and use the treasure on him, they stopped at a nearby forest and excavated into the earth to create a makeshift cultivation grotto, there Kong Luo made his entourage guard the grotto as he took out a peculiar looking treasure from his spatial bag... Yun Jhin eyed the treasure and his eyes started glowing, with the treasure''s help even though he couldn''t get to the King Realm he would still be able to reach the peak of the 9th stage and stabilize himself in it. With the rules of the tournament, he would be able to gain enough energy to break through the king realm as well... Yun Jhin looked at the treasure and sat cross-legged on the ground as he waited for Kong Luo to use it on him, Kong Luo gritted his teeth but then he shook his head, he knew that the treasure had no use for him and it wouldn''t have helped Mijil much either, there was no other talented youth that the general could think off so he bet all of his money on Yun Jhin! Kong Luo narrowed his eyes as he put the treasure on Yun Jhin''s forehead and he started to insert his ki into it as he muttered very slowly to the point that not even Yun Jhin could hear him correctly even though he was peeking and listening to him with his soul willpower: "Hopefully, you won''t die like my damn daughter, my wish to breakthrough the Sage Realm will go with you, Yun Jhin, don''t disappoint me!" Chapter 57: A bloody tournament The energy from the treasure entered Yun Jhin''s head as it traveled inside his body, his cultivation was slowly getting pushed towards the 9th stage of the ki cultivating realm, his physical body didn''t go through many changes but his soul was quickly mending itself. The treasure was special, it would first go through the soul before pouring the energy inside the body, it was a treasure that helped both and that was why it was considered weaker than the one that the sect master had, most people focused on cultivating their ki as their soul would be passively strengthened, even though they wouldn''t mind getting their soul strengthened, at some point in cultivation soul techniques would start becoming useless, soul techniques were mostly against people below your cultivation. However that didn''t mean soul cultivation was useless, some people could focus on cultivating their souls further to the point that they could easily dissect the opponent''s soul before they realized what happened, this way they would be able to kill them easily, enslaving them was another thing, those above the heavenly realm couldn''t be enslaved unless they opened the natural barrier above their soul consciousness. If someone tried to forcefully open the barrier the soul would die and the body would explode, it was a protection mechanism, this was why Kong Luo didn''t try to take over Yun Jhin''s soul and enslave him even though he was almost 2 whole cultivation realms above him. Yun Jhin enjoyed the cool feeling the treasure gave him as his soul mended further and his cultivation base slowly increased, his power was slowly stabilizing as his body broke through the 9th stage, however, the treasure started to crumble as more of its energy was used, it wouldn''t last enough to power him to the King Realm, it was an unfortunate event but atleast he got to the peak of the ki cultivating realm. Yun Jhin flexed his muscles as he got up from his cross-legged position on the ground, Kong Luo observed Yun Jhin''s reactions and cultivation base as he looked at him flex his muscles and stretch his body. Yun Jhin''s aura took a deep red color as it flared to life his height increased to at least 2,50 meters, Kong Luo observed him with an interested look on his face as he commented: "What a peculiar technique, with this you have a chance of winning the tournament, we should get close to the border soon and afterward we will just have to wait for the others to get to the arena." Yun Jhin nodded at him as his muscles made popping sounds, his height returned to 1,80 meters, this was a technique he could use to fight King Realm experts, it did hurt his muscles and ki pathways quite a bit but he would only use it when it came to fights with King Realm experts above the 2nd stage, also the rules of the tournament didn''t say he could lay down formations on the arena... Even though giants were rather strong against formations dragons only had high elemental resistance, as long as he didn''t use the formations to blast them with elemental power he would easily win. Yun Jhin left the man-made cave along with Kong Luo, the general''s entourage saluted him and collapsed the cave and filled it. Kong Luo eyed Yun Jhin''s back as they ran towards the borders of the upper continents, he was still skeptical of his intentions, in this world where not even husband and wife, brother and sister, etc. could truly trust each other, how could Kong Luo believe what Yun Jhin said? He even left out a mark on him when he blessed him with the help of the treasure, he would be able to feel his location as long as he was 100,000 kilometers away from him, he would make sure he would get missions around this range if he won the tournament and joined the army. He liked Yun Jhin''s bloodline and talent but he wasn''t sure about his battle power, while he needed to do the tournament to legally get Yun Jhin inside the upper continents, he also hosted it to see Yun Jhin''s battle ability. After another change of scenery and the passing of days, they finally reached the border of the Upper continents, there was a giant wall that was separating the upper continents from the middle ones, the wall was pitch black and constructed of Katchi Metal tempered with the soul force of thousands of Evil Lion seals. Evil Lion seals were a special aquatic creature that was gifted and traded from the Black Tortoise planet. The wall had only one relatively big gate made of hard Devil Oak Tree from hell, from time to time devil''s would trade with Upper Ranked planets, after all, Hell wasn''t that rich in resources, their most valued resources were each other. Kong Luo approached the wall along with Yun Jhin and his entourage and he was stopped at the gate by a Tall man with two scars over his eyes, both of his eyes were pupilless and had a foggy white color, showing that he was either blind or cultivating a peculiar eye technique. The man stopped Kong Luo and waved his hand while saying: "Old man Luo, it seems you couldn''t catch your daughter''s killer eh? Who''s this little guy, what a concentrated draconic bloodline, it seems like imperial blood too!" The old man gazed at Yun Jhin as if he wanted to see through all of his secrets, it seemed he wasn''t blind. The man shook his head as he saw through his cultivation base and he said: "Even if he was a King Realm expert he wouldn''t be allowed in, you hosting another tournament?" Kong Luo nodded his head as he approached the man and said: "My friend Pei Fong, I know this is quite shameless for me to ask since you helped me with the other one as well, but could you throw out the arena again?" Pei Fong scratched his bald head and then he put 2 fingers up, Kong Luo coughed then took two blood-red spirit stones out of his bag and passed them to Pei Fong. Pei Fong smiled as he put the stones into his spatial bag and then walked through the gate of the wall as if it wasn''t there at all. Suddenly the ground started to tremble as an arena was thrown from the other side of the wall, it landed neatly on it''s prepared spot creating a huge dust cloud and an earthquake as well, Kong Luo looked as nonchalant as possible as he told Yun Jhin: "Now we wait for the others to join, they were the failures that Mijil beat, this could be said to be their second chance, don''t disappoint me, as you know they would fight way harder now when they were given another chance, they might even kill you if you aren''t well prepared." Yun Jhin looked at the arena, it was a square-shaped white tiled arena, it was very simple and nothing was adorning it, but the material it was made from ensured that it was very sturdy to the point that King Realm experts fighting on it wouldn''t damage it much. Yun Jhin looked at Kong Luo who was now chatting with Pei Fong and asked him: "Could I go to inspect the arena?" Kong Luo waved his hand indicating that he could do whatever he wanted, Yun Jhin smiled inside as he saw the man''s actions and walked towards the arena, he stealthily put down a few formations that could help him in the critical situations and also a big formation that he could use if he was ever cornered. After a while one half-human half-dragon woman came and settled herself near the wall, she sat down cross-legged and ignored everyone, her lower half was that of a dragon and her upper half was human. After more time passed, a man with draconic eyes, tail, and wings flew down from the sky and took another spot near the wall and waited. More time passed and more people came, all of them had the same characteristics, they were all dragon hybrids, some of them had dragon tails, some of them had dragon eyes, the more draconic features they had the purer their bloodline was. Yun Jhin was a special existence as even though he was a hybrid he didn''t have any human DNA in him, there were also a few cultivation beasts hybrids but they were either from the Werewolf tribe, Werelion tribe and the Weretiger clan. While the dragons wouldn''t mind with who they mated, they should be atleast strong enough to handle their ''seed'' or strong enough to impregnate them, these tribes were the strongest on the Azure Dragon planet, the Azure Dragon was a master of the five elements but there were no more True Azure dragons that could control all of the five elements anymore, it was due to the race-mixing and the low fertility of the dragons, however, there was nothing they could do about this. Yun Jhin looked at his competitors and shook his head, most of them were around the 1st stage of the King Realm and only 2 or 3 were at the second, as for the third stage only the woman which came first was at this realm. Yun Jhin realized that he overestimated them, after all, they were halflings that couldn''t get in the upper regions after quite a few tournaments, most of them were middle-aged and only the other woman was rather young, she was still a little bit older than Yun Jhin, from what he could infer she was atleast 30+ years old. There were no opponents at the 4th stage or above so he wouldn''t have trouble winning, atleast that''s what he thought. Now that everyone was here Kong Luo opened his mouth and enhanced his voice with ki so everyone could hear it: "Now that everyone has gathered to this new tournament, I will have to tell you the rules, they were altered just a tiny bit compared to before: Rule number 1: Yun Jhin will stay on the arena and you will challenge him after you draw lots. Rule number 2: Yun Jhin gets 10 minutes of recovery if he wins a fight. Rule number 3: If you defeat Yun Jhin you will the one to continue fighting if you last till the end and win all of the matches you will follow me to the upper continents! Rule number 4: All weapons are allowed, all types of injuries are allowed, crippling is allowed, killing is allowed, devouring your opponents to recover ki is allowed, forbidden techniques are allowed, low-blows are allowed, when it comes to fighting it doesn''t matter what you do as long as you win, so practically everything is allowed. Rule number 5: If you are thrown out of the arena you lose, you can forfeit if you tap the arena 3 times in a row. These are all of the rules, please make a great show for me and Mr. Pei Fong here." Kong Luo smiled as he threw a box which levitated towards the fighters, they all took their lot and the first to fight Yun Jhin would be a 1st stage King Realm man who had draconic eyes, that meant his bloodline was quite poor as it only went to his eyes, compared to the young man that Yun Jhin ate in the Earth kingdom his organs didn''t achieve the fusion with his bloodline. The man jumped on the arena and directly attacked Yun Jhin, no rules were saying that he had to wait for Kong Luo to say start, or that it was a normal match, besides being thrown out of the arena it was an all-allowed gladiator''s deathmatch! Yun Jhin smiled sweetly towards the man, Yun Jhin''s sweet smile gave the half-human half-dragon opponent the shivers as he didn''t know what to make out of his smile, but he ignored it and dashed towards him ready to decapitate him with his sword-hand technique. Yun Jhin looked at him as he continued dashing and shook his head: "My first meal towards the King Realm, come!" The man frowned but he didn''t say anything as he continued his dash, he scanned his aura earlier and realized that he was at the 9th stage of the Ki cultivating realm, he knew that if he took the initiative there was no way he would lose! Yun Jhin moved his hand and the man fell down before he could get up Yun Jhin appeared in front of him and crouched near his fallen body, his hand went directly to his neck as he now held his head in his hand. Yun Jhin opened his mouth like a hungry alligator and swallowed the head whole, he did the same with the body, he licked his bloody lips as he looked towards his other ''enemies'' and hooked his finger towards his next opponent, he put his thumb over his neck and made a slashing motion indicating that he would end up as his current opponent, a meal for his empty belly. Some of the fighters got frightened while the others got angry at Yun Jhin''s provocative gesture, however, the woman at the 3rd stage of the King Realm just chuckled as she said: "He reminds me of Mijil that bitch... I will enjoy eating him." A dark peculiar light shone for a nanosecond in her eyes as she said that, her voice was very low but one of her ''colleagues'' heard what she said but he ignored it, after all, everyone would hype himself up with such words before the fight, she was in the middle-pack so there was still quite a long while before she would fight but the man didn''t think anything of it. Kong Luo waved his hand and indicated that the next person could go on the arena and said: "It seems Yun Jhin didn''t waste much energy on that fight so he doesn''t need his rest, next one go up!" So the next one jumped on the arena, and Yun Jhin was ready for him as well! Chapter 58: The fighting continues The next fighter was a woman and she was more cautious around Yun Jhin compared to the man that just died, she saw how easily Yun Jhin took him out even though his cultivation base was lacking compared to them, she knew that he was abnormal or else Kong Luo wouldn''t have hosted this tournament for him. The woman wasn''t that old at most 28 years old and she wasn''t a good looker, she looked pretty average, her cultivation was the same, Yun Jhin wondered why she would even try to fight here, after all, even if she defeated him she would die to someone else''s hand. But Yun Jhin wouldn''t question her, she was just nutrition for him, he never saw her as a person, Yun Jhin saw very few people as something other than tools that he could use. The woman stood her ground as she unleashed her aura defensively, a grey aura engulfed her and shaped into a shield that protected her, it seemed that she wanted to play defensively. The shield didn''t stay for more than a few seconds as cracks started to appear on it. Yun Jhin already shot 3 blasts of energy from his fingers into it almost cracking it open, the woman''s eyes widened in surprise and fear, this was her strongest defensive technique but he easily broke through it, she knew that there was not a high chance of her beating him unless she took him by surprise, but her taking a defensive stance just killed that opportunity. She realized that she could either forfeit or die at his hands! Almost everyone wanted to live more and the woman had the same decision, she wanted to jump backward and off the arena but Yun Jhin clenched his hand and made a motion that dragged her out of the shield. Kong Luo narrowed his eyes as he said: "That''s quite the impressive soul power there, to be able to use it to force her out of her ki shield... very few people know how to fight like this." While soul vs soul fighting wasn''t useful at the higher cultivation bases, that would be from the Emperor Realm and up, also Yun Jhin was physically using his soul power, soul power was mostly invisible unless you cultivated special eye techniques or the other parties soul power met yours. Yun Jhin''s technique was him using his soul power to grab and incapacitate whoever got near it, he could do this because of his soul mended to a point that he could use 2% of his full power, it wasn''t much but it could be useful in such situations where his enemies would want to flee. The tactical power of invisible bindings wasn''t something that could be ignored. The woman was in tears as she tried to tap the arena to escape, but before she could get her last hit in Yun Jhin started to choke her with his soul power, her hands directly went to her neck unconsciously as she tried to save herself. Kong Luo and Pei Fong watched with uninterested looks in their eyes, they didn''t care at all if the woman died. Yun Jhin clenched his hand a bit more as a sickening crunch was heard from the woman''s neck bones, she died with her eyes wide open, scared and alone, trying to get a better position in this world. Yun Jhin quickly devoured the corpse and absorbed her nutrients and ki, then he just waited for the next sheep that would come to the slaughter. The 1st stage King Realm opponents started to get flustered and some of them already left, Kong Luo didn''t stop them, he just watched disappointedly as they left. The only one who remained where the few stages 2 and the woman at stage 3. A stage 2 practitioner jumped on the arena, he was confident but he also didn''t underestimate Yun Jhin, he thought he could win as he was 1 stage above the weaklings from before, the difference in stages was pretty big and he thought that he could beat Yun Jhin if he played it well, after all, he was only at the 9th stage of the ki cultivating realm, no matter how talented and strong he was, there should be a limit on how many stages he can jump to fight right? The man started to create dozens of illusionary clones of himself as he flashed around the battlefield creating yellow points of light everywhere, he tried to confuse Yun Jhin and deal with him swiftly and efficiently. Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he made 3 hand seals, the air around the arena turned heavy as all of the illusions disappeared and the 2nd stage man stopped from flashing around, he almost fell to his knees as the gravity around Yun Jhin increased. Yun Jhin was okay as his body was tempered to a point that even his natural talent couldn''t let him to. But the other one wasn''t as lucky, as mentioned before, most people would focus on their ki cultivation and wouldn''t truly train in the arts of body refinement, this guy was unlucky fighting Yun Jhin who was a jack of all trades and a master of all, even though he couldn''t say he reached the peak of formations he wasn''t far from there. Yun Jhin watched in satisfaction as the man stopped flashing around and started to strengthen his body with ki so he could withstand the higher gravity, this way he would waste more ki and he wouldn''t be able to flash around, now it wasn''t time for a head-on confrontation, Yun Jhin saved his ki and hid his techniques for the fight with the 3rd stage woman. The man tried to approach Yun Jhin a dozen times but he failed miserably as Yun Jhin toyed with him, Kong Luo frowned as he watched the fight and he said: "I saw enough Yun Jhin, finish him already." Yun Jhin didn''t comply immediately but after a few more minutes of toying around with him, he finally sent out a stealthy blast of pure sword energy into the man''s neck creating a hole in it and ending his life. Before Yun Jhin could eat him, the 3rd stage woman jumped on the arena grounds and ate the body in one fell swoop just like a hungry deadly predator, nothing was spared, it reminded Yun Jhin of the way he ate. The woman chuckled as she licked her lips and looked deep into Yun Jhin''s eyes, her lower draconic half stood crouched on the ground as she said: "That bitch Mijil died, I wished she would be the one here so I could slash her to bits and tear her flesh apart with my fangs." Her eyes started to darken as evil energy started to engulf her, her eyes lost her pupils as she growled like a rabid animal, Kong Luo frowned as he observed her and said: "Isn''t this Momo, what happened to her? This energy, it''s demonic..." Pei Fong white eyes scanned Momo for a short while then he said: "She seems to cultivate a demonic technique now, it''s a great question where she could have got her hands on such a technique, after all, we are very far away from hell''s entrance, and demons tend to be quite dumb, they wouldn''t be able to share their techniques with anyone unless they were nobility..." Demon Nobility was on the same standing as ordinary devils, devils were quite the annoying fellows as they were slippery and greedy, however, demons were very different from them, they were simple and wrathful, they would attack at the least provocation and they liked to eat anything that moved regardless if it was beneficial to them or not, it helped that they could evolve based on what they ate and their innate talent. Demon Nobility was the peak evolution of lowly demons that transformed upon millions of years of constant fights and evolution, their standing was equal to devils and they thought of themselves as people that could even stand head-on with devil nobility, but devils were smarter in the end, they gave them some land and made them think they truly deserve it but instead they kept a tight watch on them. Yun Jhin''s lips arced up as he looked at the woman, finally another hint to hell! Even though he was tempted by the artificial celestial caterpillar evolution he would need to eat, dragon nobility/vermillion bird nobility/black tortoise nobility and white tiger nobility to get it, it wasn''t very realistic at this point, first, he would need to get his hands on the easiest and strongest evolution before he went for the hardest one. Yun Jhin observed the woman as she went insane due to cultivating the technique wrongly, it seemed the demon which gave it to her didn''t give her the important tips that needed to be known to successfully cultivate the technique, quite the pity. Yun Jhin wasn''t interested in playing with her much and activated all of the formations at once, but suddenly she started to grow in height as her human half started to morph. Her mouth elongated into a maw as wings grew out of her back, her teeth sharpened and her hands became claws her upper half started to match her lower half, she was forcefully removing the bloodline limiter that was put on her since birth. Some talented halflings would have a bloodline limiter put on them at birth or else they might explode due to bloodline instability, this bloodline limiters would help them balance their bloodline and enhance their talent for quite a big deal, however, if they were removed before they were supposed to there were two things that could happen: 1 The halfling would lose control of his body and mutate into a monstrosity that would focus on one bloodline. 2 The halfling would purify both bloodlines and reach a perfect balance between them enhancing both talents and upgrading their fleshily body to their maximum. It seemed Momo wasn''t lucky enough to reach option two, but things would become pretty dangerous from now, even though she became a monstrosity and lost control of her body, the thing was that her cultivation increased by two levels, she was at the fifth level and she wasn''t weakened or exhausted. While Yun Jhin''s formations were strong they weren''t currently in a ki rich environment so there was a limit on what they could do. Yun Jhin cursed as he watched the woman run towards him, but it seemed Kong Luo wasn''t keen on helping him. Yun Jhin didn''t want to use this technique as it would hurt his body quite heavily but it seemed he had to now, he also didn''t trust Kong Luo and Pei Fong to look over his injured body, but it was better than straight-up being murdered by this crazed woman. Chapter 59: Burning cultivation Yun Jhin did a few hand seals as he put his hand over the left part of his body and pushed his finger inside drawing a bit of blood, that blood started burning at a high speed as it evaporated into nothing, afterward his body started to burn with the same flame as the blood did. Yun Jhin''s cultivation ki started to burn as well as his power was quickly dwindling, but his already strong body started to inflate as he transformed into his true form, he grew to a length of 5 meters and his wings unfurled behind him. His whole body had a flame aura engulfing it as his cultivation practically burned away, his blood was crystalizing at a fast pace and he knew he couldn''t keep this up forever, he lounged directly at the other draconic being in front of him and went for a bite towards her neck. Momo wasn''t in the right mind anymore and she let him bite her neck but she bit on him immediately after, however, she couldn''t bite through his tough skin, his body rank stood at a proud 8,000 which put him on top even amongst the upper body refining sects. But she still drew blood from him, even though she didn''t break through his tough skin her teeth ripped a little bit drawing blood, it wasn''t a good thing for her, as she drank some of the blood it ignited inside her body and made her throw up a bunch of gas, some of her blood got vaporized. She started screeching as she used her claws to slash at his body but Yun Jhin kept a tight grip on her neck as his maw pushed further trying to take her down in one fell swoop, he didn''t have much time to waste so he went for the easiest and most accessible weak point that he could attack with his current battle power. He started to drink her blood and used it as fuel to keep his ''powered-up'' state for more time, the woman started to sway as her blood was being drained at quick speed by him, however, she wasn''t done yet with Yun Jhin. Her dark pupilless eyes glowed with energy as her claw went directly towards Yun Jhin''s chest area, he wasn''t sure how she identified his weak point so fast but if he didn''t let go now, his heart would be pierced and he would die a gruesome death! Yun Jhin gritted his teeth on her neck as he plunged one claw towards her incoming attack, in a head-on confrontation he wouldn''t be able to defeat her even though he could resist, her last resort attack met head-on with his claw and a ''bang'' was heard. His claw moved in an awkward position as it was broken, however, he defended himself from certain death, his eyes started to shine as he injected the woman with the same type of energy he was currently using and her cultivation base started to dwindle from the combustion, her body wasn''t as strong as his so her blood was crystalizing at a way faster pace, Momo started to sweat drops of crystal blood as her eyes started to regain reason. She was near death that she knew, she wasn''t sure how she ended up with another dragon-hybrid on her neck but she tried to struggle away only to realize that her body couldn''t be controlled anymore. She opened her mouth to cry only for nothing to come out, Yun Jhin looked up in her eyes and he realized that she regained her clarity but that meant she was very disoriented right now, Yun Jhin let her neck go for a second as he stopped his blood from burning, he almost fell, Momo was still burning as she didn''t know how to stop the burning energy that took over her body. Yun Jhin was using her body as support when suddenly his good claw went directly for her chest, as she was disoriented she didn''t realize what happened until she looked down at her chest and saw his claw sticking through it, Yun Jhin retracted his claw as he transformed back into his humanoid form and opened his mouth, he ate the half crystalized heart with gusto as some of his hidden injuries started to heal. Momo was slowly dying as she couldn''t say anything anymore, even though a King realm had more vitality than the normal cultivation they couldn''t live without a heart, her body was burning but Yun Jhin injected some frost energy to counteract the burning one stopping her berserk energy, her cultivation base regressed to the 1st stage of the Ki cultivating realm and 90% of her blood was crystalized. Yun Jhin looked down at her fallen body and started eating it, due to his injuries he ate her body at a slower pace but after 20 minutes he finished, his body started to shake as if he had a seizure and he almost fell to his knees, there was one more cultivator at the second stage ready to attack Yun Jhin, he was supposed to go before Momo but in her craziness, she ignored the rules and attacked. The cultivator licked his lips as he jumped onto the arena, he thought that the weakened and half-dead Yun Jhin would be an easy target, but even a cornered rat would bite, his cultivation also regressed to the 7th stage of the ki cultivating realm so he thought that Yun Jhin was almost dead. He took a few steps towards Yun Jhin but he fell to the ground before he could make a few more steps, Yun Jhin''s trembling hands were stopped in a hand seal position, he fell to the ground and used his good arm to drag himself towards the fallen man. The man''s eyes widened in terror as he saw Yun Jhin''s gleaming teeth, his clothes ripped over and his hood was destroyed, Yun Jhin already left the baby dragon inside a spatial bag before he started the fight, the baby dragon could live in a spatial bag as he wasn''t a true creature per se, he was an artificial dragon so he didn''t need much to live, and he could be upgraded with flesh and blood, he was kind of like a sentient puppet but also different. The man immediately patted the arena enough times for Kong Luo to realize that he didn''t want to fight anymore, the gravity that bound him didn''t cease though, Yun Jhin started to crawl faster towards him, he needed his flesh and blood to restore himself to a decent level! Kong Luo looked with uninterested eyes, he could care less about what happened to the 2nd stage King realm, however, his eye shone when they moved to Yun Jhin, such a ki technique to reverse the situation it was brilliant! Everyone could do it but not everyone was brave enough to do it, burning your cultivation would mean throwing away a good time of your life, it would be easier to reach the same realm that you lost but it would still take time! What did cultivators need the most? Most people would think that it would be talent or resources but what they needed the most would be time! As long as a cultivator had enough time to cultivate he would be able to find enough resources, he would be able to find treasures that would enhance his talent, but if he didn''t have time what could he do? Nothing! Kong Luo watched as Yun Jhin finally got near enough the 2nd stage King Realm opponent and watched how he ate him alive. (...) The sweet fresh blood of my enemies, the strips of flesh that I carve with my teeth, his soft skull breaking under my relentless mouth attack, his cries of pain and his shouts of mercy, they were sweet, oh so sweet, his body would be the main course and his cries the dessert. I winced as my body started to heal, eating that poor fellow increased my healing factor by a bit and gave me enough ki to get back to the 8th stage of the ki cultivating realm, I stopped all the blood crystalization and ki evaporation after I ate that woman''s body, but it wasn''t enough, she was mostly empty in nutrients and ki after I was done with her. My body was feeling weak, almost as weak as I was when I was born, I needed to regain my vigor, I lost a lot of blood and I needed something more to regain it... I got up from the ground and with a sickening squelch, I put my arm back into its socket, even though it got dislodged in my true form it would be the same situation if I did in this one or the other. I moved the arm a bit and winced, healing flesh injuries were easy but bones were a bit harder at this level. (...) Kong Luo watched Yun Jhin fix his arm and move it around before he looked at Pei Fong and whispered: "What do you think about this youth, old Pei?" The man gave a big smile as he scratched his bald head and said: "Very ruthless, both to himself and his enemies, reminds me of the Empress a bit, after all, it does seem he carries some of her bloodline, strange though, I haven''t heard any of her children to escape the imperial palace, or be exiled out of the upper continents." Even though the Empress had a hard time getting pregnant she did make a few children, not all of them were talented in cultivation but the Empress loved all of them dearly and gave them whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, they were true silk pants, young masters and mistresses, there were 2 men and 2 women, only one of them was talented enough to be considered ''decent'' and that was her youngest daughter of the Werewhale tribe. Pei Fong finished scratching his bald head and asked Kong Luo: "I should go and write his name in the imperial logs now?" Kong Luo nodded at him then said: "Go and do it, I will take him away and we should be able to get to the imperial capital quickly, do you have the teleportation formation ready?" Pei Fong shook his head and made a sign with his hand, Kong Luo smiled at him and said: "Man, you didn''t change at all Pei Fong, ok, here." He threw him a white bar which the man took and smelled, he then put it into his pocket and said while smiling: "Very good stuff, don''t forget to bring more when you visit me!" Kong Luo smiled but inside he was sneering, why would he give him more stuff from his special stash? And why would he leave the upper continents again? This was a special situation due to his daughter''s death, he hated lowering himself to the ''commoners'' level and visiting their cities, after all, he was a grand imperial army general! Kong Luo dropped down to the arena as he grabbed Yun Jhin and slung him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, he walked towards the giant gate of the black wall as it opened, in there he met with Pei Fong who activated the teleportation formation. Pei Fong made a mock salute as he said: "Good work in recruiting another great disciple, great general Kong Luo." Kong Luo chuckled as he waved to his entourage, telling them to leave for the capital, the teleportation formation was for him and Yun Jhin only, after all, Yun Jhin was injured and he needed some healing herbs that he had in his quarters. Pei Fong watched as both Yun Jhin and Kong Luo disappeared into a blue ray of light meaning that the teleportation was successful, he took out the white bar that Kong Luo gave him and used a knife to mince it into tiny dust, then he ate it with a gold spoon. He started to tremble a little bit then he coughed up a black sludge and laughed: "Very strong purification medicine!" His odd white eyes started to turn normal as they gained pupils that transformed into yellow slits, he looked at the teleportation formation again and he said: "I hope I will meet this young Yun Jhin again, those eyes of his reminded me of him..." Yun Jhin stood still as the teleportation formation took them to the capital, he didn''t want to aggravate his injuries, he was using a deep meditation stance to seal them and heal them slowly but any healing medicine or herbs would be very welcomed right now. Yun Jhin used his soul willpower to look around as his body was in the meditative trance, they were in the light ''room'' of the teleportation formation, a few words were up in the room that indicated how much time was left before they reached their destination, after a few more seconds their surroundings changed. They were now into a militaristic imperial building, 800,000 kilometers away from the wall, and in the middle of the true Imperial capital! Chapter 60: Stolen memories Yun Jhin acted as if he was still unconscious as Kong Luo gave his body to a nearby soldier and instructed him: "Go and place him inside my quarters, I have to report to the Emperor that I have found a new possible replacement for me, use 2 Dragon Pine herbs on him and leave him on the Cold Jade bed." The man saluted Kong Luo and took Yun Jhin from his arms, the man almost wobbled as Yun Jhin''s weight was pretty big, as he faked being unconscious he didn''t control his weight, right now he weighed around 1 ton due to all of the body refining he did, but he could control his body to the point that the weight didn''t affect himself or the others with his ki. The man was at the 1st stage of the King Cultivating realm and his body wasn''t very strong but after wobbling he started to quickly walk towards Kong Luo''s quarters. While Yun Jhin was being sent to be healed, Kong Luo left the militaristic building and entered in the huge crowd of the capital, after a while of flashing around the crowd he finally reached a giant blue pained palace with the character for ''Azure Dragon'' painted on gold on a jade plaque above the entrance. The man walked inside and kneeled as he approached the door of the throne room and shouted: "General Kong Luo wants to report something to his Imperial majesty!" A gruff voice could be heard coming from behind the door as it opened, an old man who wore dark imperial robes walked out, he had a big bushy beard and long eyebrows, Kong Luo kept kneeling as he said: "Eunuch Black Blood." Eunuch Black Blood nodded at him then said: "The Emperor is resting after a ''wrestling'' session with a few of his concubines." Said concubines were getting carried on stretchers as a few men opened the doors and left towards the infirmary of the palace. Kong Luo ignored what happened and said: "So can I leave my message with you Eunuch Black Blood?" The Eunuch took out a jade slip and said: "Make it fast, the Emperor wants me to recite poetry for him after his escapades." Kong Luo nodded at him then started to tell what happened up till now, how Yun Jhin confronted him and about his talent, Black Blood kept scribbling on the slip then entered the palace ignoring Kong Luo after he finished talking. Kong Luo''s back was damp as he looked at the palace doors, the intense aura coming from them almost made him pee himself in fear, The Emperor was a God Realm expert, even though he wasn''t even a middle God Realm expert he was still 2 Realms above him! The difference between a God Realm expert and a 9th stage Sage Realm expert was enormous let''s not even talk about the one between an Emperor Realm and the God Realm. Kong Luo left the palace and returned to the imperial army barracks, even though they were called barracks they were like little palaces. After all, the Emperor wanted his army to live in good conditions, there hasn''t been a war in a long time but the army was still training and recruiting every day, it was seemingly preparing for something... Yun Jhin looked around the room he was now in, his soul willpower scanned the room interior and exterior and he found out that it was heavily fortified with high-ranked formations, he wouldn''t be able to do anything inside even if he wanted to, even though he was a formation master the formations that worked here were above him, he would need a higher cultivation base to interfere with them. The soldier from before already put him in the Cold Jade bed and gave him the two herbs, he could feel them working, cleansing his blood and dissolute the remaining one slowly, they were quite strong herbs as they were of the Yin attribute, they were used for such type of situations as Yun Jhin ignition of ki was of the Yang attribute. As his body was healing he finally had time to look into the memories of that woman Momo, he wasn''t sure from where she could have gotten the demonic technique she trained in but he was ready to find out. He started looking through her memories but some of them were either fragmented or incomplete, this showed that her soul wasn''t complete from the start, Yun Jhin guessed that the price for the cultivation technique should have been a quarter of her soul. Hopefully the memory of where she got it didn''t get affected. As Yun Jhin looked further through the memories discarding the useless ones and keeping only the good information, he finally found what he was looking for. A dark scaled arm moved slowly to Momo''s forehead as a part of her soul was ripped from her and some information flowed in the remaining pieces of her soul that started to mend by themselves. Dark energy started to appear in her eyes but she ignored it as she trained in the technique, unknowing to her, the one that gave her the technique had a big toothy smile on him, the woman didn''t recognize it at the time as she was too infatuated by the technique, but Yun Jhin as a bystander could see it. The memory didn''t say much but there was peculiar energy in the air that Yun Jhin could recognize as sulfur from Dark Ebonite Trees, A dark ebonite forest was the best location a demon could live in the mortal realm. Yun Jhin soul willpower stopped looking through Momo''s memories as he started to circulate his ki to recover his cultivation and hasten his body''s healing, he wasn''t sure where the Dark Ebonite forest would be located, as the map from before that he memorized didn''t have any such place located on it. Maybe it was a forbidden region or hidden region in the middle continents, even though her memories regarding the demon were complete, the one that led her to the forest wasn''t. Yun Jhin sighed as he got up from the cold jade bed, his eyes widened as he saw Kong Luo''s face appear in front of him, the man clapped for a bit and said: "Very fast recovery, even though your cultivation dropped by 1 realm, I guess you can recover it quickly right?" Yun Jhin nodded his head, his body ki cultivation was currently at the peak of the 8th stage and he would be able to regain his former cultivation quite fast if he put his mind to it, he only got up from the cold jade bed because he sensed that Kong Luo became impatient with him. The general looked Yun Jhin up and down for a few times before he said: "It seems you are pretty much healed, I''m going to give you time to recover your cultivation later, I will need you to give me a few drops of blood and sign this contract here so you can join the army." He took out a contract from his Imperial robes and placed it in front of Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin read it for a few seconds and narrowed his eyes inside, this contract would make him become the general of his division if he reached the Emperor realm in 100 years of time, but he welcomed that! As a general he would have free reign and a lot of subordinates that he could use, however, 100 years was a bit of quick, cultivating in the King Realm took a lot of time due to the peculiarities of the realm, even if Yun Jhin ate more people to gain their nutrients and ki it wouldn''t help him much, it wasn''t about enlightenment either, it was still accumulation but of a different kind. Yun Jhin shook his head, it wasn''t time to think about the King Realm yet, he needed to recover his cultivation fully first. Yun Jhin signed the contract and sliced his thumb dripping a few drops of blood on it, the contract shined with a red light as it disappeared in a flash of light, it arrived in the Imperial Palace on the desk of the Emperor himself. However the Emperor didn''t grab it, he would only look at it the moment Yun Jhin entered the Emperor realm. Kong Luo beamed happily at Yun Jhin and told him: "Now that you signed the contract you are officially my vice-general, well on paper, the former vice-general is out hunting cultivation beasts and won''t come back for quite a while, you will be replacing him until he comes, you won''t have the same rights as he does, but you will still be above most soldiers, take it as if you are below the true vice general but above everyone else." "Now let''s see how to help you get back to your peak condition." Kong Luo didn''t care what kind of intentions he had anymore, as he signed the contract no matter what he had to honor it, or the Emperor would kill him, he got what he wanted so now he would support Yun Jhin as much as he could. Yun Jhin watched as the man opened a drawer, made a few hand seals and took out a small bottle filled with a red liquid, it looked to be scalding hot as steam gushed out of it after he opened it. Yun Jhin looked skeptical at the medicine but his eyes widened as he smelled it, it was the smell of Berserk Draconic Rhinocerous blood! Yun Jhin realized that things were different than they looked on the surface, A draconic Rhinocerous was a halfling like he was, but he became a medicine bottle in the general''s hand, it seemed the halflings weren''t only looked down upon on the upper continent but they also had very low standings in general, of course, some halflings that were born from nobility and the imperial family would still be very respected but Yun Jhin was practically an outsider as his bloodline could be contested... He sighed as he drank the blood, he would need to play it safe for the time being as his cultivation was pretty low, the searing heat of the Berserk blood started to rush into his body, cleansing his crystallized meridians further till they returned to their former look, they were even a little bit sturdier now. His blood was now clean and flowed faster than before, his cultivation base was full and returned to the 9th stage, it even made a breakthrough to the peak of the stage in one go, it seemed the owner of the blood was of a high cultivation base or else it wouldn''t have such a good effect. Yun Jhin sighed as steam came out of his mouth and nose simultaneously, Kong Luo smiled at him then patted him on the shoulder and said: "I will get you a place to breakthrough the King Realm, afterward, I will let you go outside to gain some more experience, the upper continents are different from the riff-raff and trash you find on the lower continents!" Kong Luo was talking about the people as well as the fauna and flora, Yun Jhin nodded at him and followed as he was led to a wooden chamber in the middle of the army barracks, most of the soldiers saluted as Kong Luo walked towards the chamber, some of them even started talking and asking about who Yun Jhin was. Kong Luo didn''t tell all of them yet but the soldier who helped Yun Jhin to the bed before came and explained to some of them, and word moved fast in the army, after 10 minutes everyone knew who Yun Jhin was. Some were angry, some fearful, some respectful and some were hating or discriminating against him, but with Kong Luo present everyone was all smiles and they just saluted like proper soldiers. Most of them realized why Yun Jhin was sent to the wooden chamber but they weren''t jealous of that, the chamber was meant for new recruits at the Ki cultivating realm, so they just looked with apathetic eyes at him, most of them were gloating and looking down upon his cultivation base even though they heard he defeated someone at the 5th stage of the King Realm, they didn''t believe it. Even though Kong Luo was strong, he was also known to be quite protective of those he thought to be talented and he would always give them the ''good stuff'' as it happened with his late daughter Mijil. Yun Jhin looked at the wooden chamber with strange eyes, this was one way to reach the king realm but it was quite primitive in his opinion, but he wasn''t there to argue about it, he entered as Kong Luo left to fill some paperwork to make everything official about Yun Jhin''s recruitment. Yun Jhin sat cross-legged on the wooden tiles of the chamber and started meditating, he was familiar with their way of achieving the King Realm but he wasn''t going to use it, it was quite slow to him and he had a faster route. Star energy started to slowly fall to the planet, it fell to the atmosphere as it neared the imperial capital of the upper continent, and then it fell on Yun Jhin''s head... He started accumulating star energy to breakthrough the King Realm... Chapter 61: King Realm Yun Jhin continued cultivating as the starlight from the stars that stood on the outside of the planet converged to him, in the king realm, you would create a crown of stars then fuse it with your soul, the more star jewels the crown had the higher your cultivation was, also the more realistic it was, the higher your potential. The wooden building that Yun Jhin stood in was made from Star Trees, Star Trees were special trees that absorb starlight innately, they were used by humans and other races to cultivate towards the King Realm, this was one of the most spread types of breaking through the King Realm, it wasn''t a wrong technique, but the starlight was impure as it was already used by the trees. The people were destroying the trees and carving into their innards to take the half unused starlight, it would be of smaller amount and quality because of that, but most people didn''t know how to break through otherwise, after all, you could connect to the stars only after you broke through the King Realm. But there were special places and techniques that could harness star light, what Yun Jhin was using now a special technique called, Star Chase, it wasn''t anything special but it let him cultivate star light wherever he would be, and if he stood in a special place he would absorb starlight 50% faster if he used the technique. Yun Jhin ignored the putrid starlight from the deadwood around him and used his consciousness to absorb the starlight from the sky. The 4 planets stood in a formation and they encased some of the highest quality stars in the universe, so Yun Jhin wasn''t lacking when it came to the quality of the starlight, but the accumulation was quite slow. A red-colored crown could be seen hovering above Yun Jhin''s head, it was made of skulls and bones and the red-color on it was dripping down, the crown looks would be based on the personality and talent and traits of the one who created it. Yun Jhin''s crown represented his innate need of slaughter and his cold calculative mind, if you would take a look inside the crown you could see that it was full of cold Yin energy. As Yun Jhin was working on his cultivation, the Emperor looked towards the falling starlight with a shine in his eyes, he asked the black shadow behind him: "Black Blood, which genius disciple can gather starlight like that? It seems he or she is trying to breakthrough the King realm." Eunuch Black Blood bowed deeply to the Emperor whose silhouette couldn''t be made up, even Black Blood couldn''t see him well and he was a Sage Realm expert. Black Blood opened his mouth and said: "The starlight seems to be going towards Kong Luo''s army headquarters, it should be a soldier of his, he did say that he recruited someone rather talented when he came back to report, I''m sorry I didn''t report about that yet your imperial majesty..." The Emperor shook his head as he said: "That kid is pretty talented then, observe his progress, and tell me if he is worth nurturing as Kong Luo''s descendant and replacement." Black Blood kneeled to him and then left, The Emperor stood in the same place as he observed the starlight falling to the ground and he muttered: "He knows this technique... but how?" Kong Luo was extremely surprised when he saw starlight falling down on the Star Tree building, at first he thought that the star trees revived but that was impossible, then he remembered that Yun Jhin was inside and he started smiling so hard his face might split. Yun Jhin knew that using this technique would get the attention of a lot of people, but that''s what he wanted, he needed to become a ''genius'' in the face of the Empire so he would be nurtured accordingly, he would make enemies from this as well, but he knew they would at most send people 3,4 stages above him to fight and disturb him, but he could handle those fellows. Yun Jhin''s crown started to gain one piece of jewelry, it stood at the back of the crown and it was a deep blue color, but it was also dripping signifying that it was some type of blood, Yun Jhin muttered to himself as the first jewel started to appear: "It''s very slow, at this rate, it would take me at most 2 months to solidify the jewel, whatever, only if I was in a place with a high concentration of starlight, these star trees are so garbage..." Yun Jhin deep blue jewel represented the sins and hatred of the souls that Yun Jhin devoured, if you looked into it you could see quite a few souls shrieking with eyes full of hatred if the jewel broke most of them would escape and try to eat Yun Jhin alive. Yun Jhin sat cross-legged inside the building, for 1 day, 2 days, 3 days.... 1 month, people started to talk, most people would breakthrough in the first month, but Yun Jhin took more, it was a known fact that the more someone took the less talented he would be, or that he needed more energy to break through meaning his body was extremely strong, most of the people wanted the first option to be true. Some people were jealous of those that were talented and they would want to sabotage Yun Jhin, but after the first 30 days passed, Kong Luo started camping near the Star Tree building, he knew that Yun Jhin''s body was very strong, above what his physical talent suggested because he ate the heart of a natural spirit. The general wouldn''t be able to sleep at night if something happened to Yun Jhin, after all, he was his new protege and upcoming new general, he wanted to go in seclusion as soon as he could, he was already at the half of his life, even though he looked middle-aged his age was around 25,000 years old, if he broke through the Sage Realm he would be able to gain 50,000 more years, and if he got to the God realm at the peak he would be able to gain 200,000 years of lifespan, that lifespan could be increased further with life-extending techniques, but in the end, those would lose their efficiency. He knew that the Sage Realm was the maximum he could achieve, so before he died he wanted to gain the maximum cultivation that his body could achieve. Yun Jhin opened his eyes as the crown that hovered above his head solidified, the deep-red color of it intensified to a high degree as blood started to drip from it, the skull that stood atop the crown cried with a heartbreaking shriek, the jewel at the back of the crown was slowly solidifying as another month passed. Yun Jhin''s eyes glowed with deep red color as the hovering crown started to lower itself on his head, it disappeared as his soul form appeared behind him, on his soul form''s head a red crown now stood proudly there. The skull shrieking stoped as the ghosts and spirits inside the blue jewel started to behave themselves, they were all now under Yun Jhin''s full control and he could use them to attack at his leisure, now he didn''t need to eat the bodies himself anymore, he would be able to use the blue jewel to absorb them easily and at a higher efficiency. This was just the first ability he gained because of his breakthrough, as he broke into further stages he would gain more. Yun Jhin got up from his cross-legged position on the ground and did some stretching exercises, bone popping sounds could be heard all around his body as his ki started to circulate fully through it again, his body''s height now stood around 1,85 meters and his buff form changed to a more athletic one, he sacrificed a bit of strength to gain speed, he now had had a more balanced build. Yun Jhin cracked his knuckles and neck as he left the Star Tree building and meet outside with Kong Luo, Kong Luo patted him over his body and smiled while saying: "Good job, very good job, his majesty said that he would like to meet you." Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed, meeting with a God Realm expert wasn''t in his plans, it was a bit early but if he acted well enough he would be able to gain the blessings of the Emperor, even though he was a God Realm expert he couldn''t forcefully search his memories. Suddenly a commotion was heard at the entrance of Kong Luo''s army camp, a few good looking females that wore green imperial robes entered while strutting, some of the younger soldiers wanted to whistle at them, but a veteran immediately slapped those out of their reverie and said: "Stop salivating, you pieces of trash wouldn''t be able to match these women, they are the main maids of the Empress, they are serving the Empress in more ways than the simple one, after all, she is a peculiar woman." All of the men shuddered as they were broken out of their dreams, all of the women looked pretty well but their lives were more important, they just looked at the women longingly but weren''t as disrespectful as before. The strongest maid walked forward to Kong Luo as she did a small bow and said: "General Kong Luo, her majesty the Empress saw how talented your young pupil is and she would like to invite him towards her quarters, she wants to bless him with good fortune and she also gave the invitation to your whole army squad." Kong Luo started to sweat hard, the invitation of the Empress wasn''t something good for him as he was under the Emperor! If he betrayed the Emperor his officials would do the best so he wouldn''t have good days ahead of him after he retired, the Empress didn''t care much about politics even though she controlled the palace, she was a lively spirit with a peculiar personality and she did whatever she wanted whenever she wanted. Kong Luo returned the bow and said: "Fairy Song, I and my pupil are very flattered because of the Empress invitation but we..." Suddenly Eunuch Black Blood appeared as he glared at the woman known as Fairy Song, he waved his sleeve as a wind appeared and it pushed Fairy Song away from Yun Jhin. The woman eyes became cold as an icy lake as she looked at Eunuch Black Blood and then she laughed while saying: "Oh, it''s the no-balls Black Blood, I see, the Emperor sent such a hard-ass like you to invite Yun Jhin to his party?" Black Blood decided to not comment on her crass and vulgar comments, after all, he decided to become a eunuch himself, even though her words sounded pretty evil for any other man in this situation they didn''t affect Black Blood at all. Fairy Song frowned as she looked at his countenance and then she waved her hand to Yun Jhin, a gravitational suction appeared that wanted to drag Yun Jhin towards her, her cultivation was in the Sage Realm just like Black Blood''s so Yun Jhin couldn''t do much against her. Black Blood snorted as he aimed his palm towards Fairy Song''s stomach, the gravitational energy stopped and Yun Jhin fell to the ground on his legs. Black Blood walked forward as he projected his voice with ki: "The Emperor has decreed that Yun Jhin will be the successor of Kong Luo''s army squad!" Black Blood was using this announcement to cement Yun Jhin''s position in the Emperor''s party, Fairy Song frowned as she took out a jade slip that contained new information from the Empress and she projected her voice as well: "The Empress said that if Yun Jhin gives up the position of army general she would immediately make him a prince and betroth her most talented and loved daughter to him!" Kong Luo gasped as he heard Song''s words and he whispered to Yun Jhin: "I won''t influence your decision of choice Yun Jhin, both are very good places, as the general you would be able to gain merit and get some resources not even the imperial family can touch unless we are in war times, but on the other hand being a prince... and Empress''s youngest daughter is very beautiful, she is also at the 6th stage of King Realm as she broke through again recently..." Yun Jhin could care less of how beautiful or how strong the woman was, he wasn''t sure which party to join considering he knew very little information about both parties, Yun Jhin opened his mouth as both Black Blood and Fairy Song watched him with hawk eyes. They both wanted to know which party he would join... "Both of these are great opportunities for me, they are so great that my little self can''t decide yet, could I have some time to consider both of the offers?" Black Blood nodded his head and Fairy Song did the same, both trying to outdo the other in everything, Black Blood put an amiable smile on his face as he said: "As much time as nephew needs, this uncle will wait for your decision in the nearby guest quarters, just call me if you decided." Fairy Song snorted at Black Blood''s actions and she said: "This big sister here has the same intention as that old man, just come to look for me if you want to join us, I will wait for 3 days." She winked at Yun Jhin as she and her entourage took the Building facing the one that Black Blood took. Yun Jhin followed Kong Luo to his quarters as the man wanted to explain to him how the factions worked with more detail. Yun Jhin sat on a chair as Kong Luo sat at his desk and took out some papers which he gave to Yun Jhin. On them was the public information that everyone could gather about the things that happened between the Emperor and the Empress, but there was also some little extra that Kong Luo got due to his position in the army... Yun Jhin opened the stack of papers and started to look through them. Chapter 62: Stuck between a rock and a hard place Yun Jhin looked through the papers and memorized the information, from what the papers said it seemed that the Emperor was quite a mysterious fellow, he just dropped out of nowhere, showed his cultivation base and pure bloodline, beat everyone else who was in line for the throne and became Emperor. Yun Jhin realized that something seemed fishy about him but he couldn''t put his finger on what. As for the Empress, she was born of a noble family in the capital, she was the daughter of duke Bramble Sun, her talent was viewed as high since her birth as there was a special sign appearing in the sky when she was born, then the sign dropped from the sky and entered her body and she gained a black dot on her forehead. As for their personalities, it seemed that the Emperor was laid back but he hated being betrayed quite a lot, The Empress was strange in more points than one, for starters if you offended her she would act in two ways, one, she would let you go and two she would take your head. It didn''t matter who you were or where you were from, she was seemingly doing whatever she wanted regardless of the thoughts of others, she even liked to disguise herself and search for strong men on the upper continents, she had countless affairs and she even tried to have a child with the neighboring nation leaders. It wasn''t that she was slutty but very few men gave her children and not all of them were talented, she wanted a child that could surpass her, Yun Jhin didn''t know what the Empress went through but he found her ''dream'' to be a waste of time, with the time she put on flirting and having children she could try to cultivate herself, from what he knew as long as you could reach the God Realm there was a chance to reach the peak of the realm, as for going above the realm that was for her to find. Yun Jhin gave the papers back to Kong Luo, but he simply burned them directly and then he said: "Who do you want to join Yun Jhin? Technically speaking you would betray the Emperor if you went to the Empress side and if you joined the Empress there is still the chance of her becoming mad and sending assassins for your head, it would all depend on her mood if she lets you go or not." Yun Jhin knew that if he went to the Emperor there was a chance for the Empress to attack him indirectly, but if he went to the Empress he would surely offend the Emperor and the man might even directly attack him regardless that he was considered a ''junior'' in front of him, after all, the Empress might want him for his body, it was ok for rumors to fly about as long as the Emperor didn''t meet those who cucked him face to face. But if that was to happen, even their bones wouldn''t be found anymore. The Emperor respected the Empress and he also had his concubines, after all, it wasn''t his fault both of their bloodlines were so pure there was a 1% chance of a baby being born. Back in their youths, they went at it for 200 years continuously but nothing came out of it! This was one of the hot extra tidbits that Yun Jhin found in the papers. Yun Jhin closed his eyes for a few seconds before he said: "Kong Luo, we can''t betray his imperial majesty, I can only hope the Empress will not be offended, a 50% chance of survival is better than offending his majesty, atleast I have a chance to live." Kong Luo smiled at Yun Jhin''s words and he said: "You are a smart young man Yun Jhin, I knew you would make a good decision, I would have backed you because you know, your choice will affect my life as well.." Kong Luo looked quite pitiful as he said that, he didn''t like the feeling of having his life in another''s hands but there was nothing he could do, he was the one who invited Yun Jhin in the capital and took him as his ''pupil''. Kong Luo sighed as he watched Yun Jhin leave the room, he followed him towards Black Blood''s accommodations, Yun Jhin walked closer to the door and knocked on it. Before the second knock could be heard Black Blood appeared at the door as if he seemingly teleported there, Black Blood was smiling widely as he said: "Let''s take you to his majesty young Yun Jhin." Black Blood wanted to grab Kong Luo and Yun Jhin and teleport to the imperial palace but Fairy Song appeared and she stopped him before she warned Yun Jhin: "You haven''t made the right choice Yun Jhin, I will have to report to the Empress that I have failed and she won''t be happy." She teleported away with her entourage disappearing from the place just as if she and her people were a mirage. Yun Jhin didn''t say anything as Black Blood put his hands over Yun Jhin''s and Kong Luo''s shoulders and they disappeared just like Fairy Song and her entourage. Fairy Song appeared in a beautiful garden with uncountable flowers, those flowers were in different colours as they created rainbows and a beautiful pattern if you looked at them from the air, in a gazebo the Empress sat down on a chair as she drank tea, near her stood her youngest daughter as she went through a set of sword katas. As the Empress was supervising her youngest daughter training in sword techniques, she finally looked up at Fairy Song who appeared alone, she stood in the field of flowers and didn''t say anything as she waited for the Empress''s approval to walk to her. The Empress''s eyes were slits of yellow color, her figure couldn''t be concealed even trough her big robes, her face always had a cute expression on no matter from what angle you would look at her, her pink lips were like two ripe peaches that you would like to bite into. She wore no makeup as her innate beauty needed no enhancement, her long purple hair cascaded to her shoulders and covered her endowment. Her eyebrows rose as she looked at Fairy Song and she asked in an impatient tone: "Where is that youth Yun Jhin? Why don''t I see him with you?" Fairy Song felt awkward at her question, but the Empress herself said that she couldn''t use force to coerce him so she could only leave empty-handed, also Black Blood would have surely interfered and that old man was quite scary when he went all out... The Empress read her expression like an open book then she shook her head and she said: "Quite a pity, maybe I should have offered myself to the youth?" Fairy Song started to sweat, even though the Empress liked to tease her and her other companions she never went to the last phase, but it seemed from her tone that she really would have given Yun Jhin ''whatever he wanted'' if he decided to join her faction. Fairy Song wondered why both of the Empress and Emperor looked up to him so much. The Empress responded to her confusion: "You wonder why both I and my husband look up to him so much don''t you?" Fairy Song nodded but before she could say anything else the Empress responded: "Being able to attract starlight during the breakthrough at a King Realm can be done only by one way, it''s a particular technique that only those that have God Realm patriarchs can get their hands on." "One of the ways for him to have that technique would be that he is backed by a God Realm patriarch, but it''s very unlikely from what Kong Luo reported he said that he came from the lower regions, there is no way he is backed by a God Realm powerhouse." "The second way would be.. if he was a reincarnated fellow, these type of people tend to have good fortune surrounding them and sometimes if they were lucky enough some of the memories from their previous lives would slip into their current ones, this is the most likely situation as he rose to the King Realm from being a small being in the lower continents." However, The Empress''s brows started to furrow as she said with a strange look on her face: "But Kong Luo also reported that his bloodline is similar to mine, I only remember a dragon stone escaping to the lower regions a very long time ago... how could he have used the dragon stone to the point his bloodline reached the peak of what his body could withstand? He is even above Lulu in bloodline concentration from what the report said..." Lulu was the youngest daughter of the Empress and the one who was still doing her katas while she ignored everything the Empress talked about, she was really concentrated on training as if she was in a trance. The Empress''s eyes moved towards the Emperor''s palace that stood almost 5000 kilometers away from her garden, she got up from her chair and muttered slowly: "I should give a visit to my husband, after all, I haven''t been a good wife for him in quite a long time." She disappeared as if she was never there and Fairy Song just stood there, she didn''t have the courage to follow the Empress to the Emperor''s palace, the imperial family already had quite a lot of internal troubles and she didn''t want to be a part of them. She shook her head as she looked at Lulu for a little before she left, Lulu still trained her katas seemingly as if she didn''t realize her mother left. Black Blood, Yun Jhin, and Kong Luo stood at the entrance of the throne room, suddenly a mild voice was heard coming from inside the room that said: "Black Blood you can invite our guests in right now." The trio entered the room and the first thing Yun Jhin did was to look at the Emperor. He was a man of average stature his height being around 1,75 meters, he wore a red imperial robe with dragon imprints on it''s front and on it''s back as well, his looks were quite average and he didn''t have much muscle, there was even some fat here and there, he looked just like the average uncle that lead a decently good life in the mortal families. On his head stood a Yellow crown with a jade dragon on top of it as an ornament. He had kind eyes with nothing hid in them, he had a small beard as facial hair and his hair color was a dull blue color. He stood there on the throne, in front of him was a rather small table that could house around 4 people, just enough for the current people in the throne room. The Emperor got down from the throne and sat at the table then invited the others with a wave of his hand while saying: "Black Blood, invite the two here, don''t be rude." Yun Jhin walked towards his seat but the Emperor patted the seat beside him and said: "Come sit with me Yun Jhin, I have something to ask you." Yun Jhin couldn''t refuse the Emperor as he would deny him face so he directly went and sat near the man, the emperor started to drum his fingers on the table for a little bit as they waited for the food to be served, he started with a question: "Yun Jhin, I might be a little bit presumptuous to ask of you, but could you tell me where did you learn your technique?" Yun Jhin knew what technique he talked about, so he didn''t beat around the bush and responded directly: "You see your imperial majesty when I got near the peak of the 9th stage of the ki cultivating realm, the technique appeared in my mind naturally, I''m not sure myself why, might you enlighten me?" A big smile appeared on the Emperor''s face as he answered: "This is a celebration worthy thing dear Yun Jhin, if my guess is right you should be a reincarnated God Realm cultivator, I would be the first one to congratulate you on the first road to regather your memories." Yun Jhin sneered inside, he could access all of the memories he needed, but unfortunately, he was lacking in cultivation resources, or else the emperor would have been the first thing that would be served at this table. Suddenly the Emperor''s eyes narrowed as he looked towards the entrance of the throne room, the Empress appeared directly there as she said: "You are having a party and didn''t invite me, dear husband?" The Emperor smiled at her as he said: "Well I didn''t think you would be interested in such things, after all, you left my imperial palace quite a long time ago, but I''m happy you decided to visit." Yun Jhin wasn''t sure how things would end up now that the Empress was here, the Empress walked towards the table and Kong Luo left his seat but his seat was opposite of Yun Jhin so she didn''t take it, she went towards Black Blood and smiled at him. Black Blood coughed as he said: "It seems this small eunuch doesn''t have the time to dine with the Emperor and the Empress, I should go and dust some jade slips, I will come back later." Black Blood got up from the table and left, leaving Yun Jhin to stay between the Emperor and the Empress. He was really in the same situation as that idiom ''between a rock and a hard place''. He decided to play it out by ear as he waited for the Emperor or the Empress to say something. Kong Luo just stood there and didn''t say anything as it wasn''t his place to talk here, he was there just because he was Yun Jhin''s ''guardian'' in this situation. The Emperor opened his mouth to say something but the Empress talked at the same time as they asked the same question: "So, could you tell me if you have any more memories of your previous life?" The duo then smiled at each other and then returned their gazes to Yun Jhin waiting for him to talk. Yun Jhin opened his mouth to respond... Chapter 63: God Realm fights Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed inside but he kept a neutral look on his face as he said: "There are some memories that I don''t feel like they are my own, they appeared randomly when I was younger but besides the cultivation technique for breaking through the king realm I didn''t have any more of such revelations for a long while." Both The Emperor and The Empress nodded simultaneously at Yun Jhin''s words then they looked at each other in the eyes, The Empress was smiling like a sly fox while the Emperor had a kind look on his face but who knew what they were thinking? Yun Jhin waited for them to continue the conversation while Kong Luo just stood there, he seemed uncomfortable as this wasn''t a place for him to be in the first place. Suddenly Black Blood''s came out of the kitchen as he asked the Emperor with a subservient tone in his voice: "Your majesty, should I come with the food now?" The Emperor responded gently: "Things can wait for a little more, Black Blood, don''t you think we should entertain our guests first before the meal?" Black Blood started to sweat as he retreated in the kitchen, he knew what the Emperor meant by entertainment and he felt that if he wasn''t lucky he would end up as a smear of blood on the ground. The Empress''s eyes narrowed as she heard the Emperor talking about entertainment then she pursed her lips and said: "You are quite old to entertain this youngster here, do you want to do this right here?" The Emperor smiled as always as he said: "You see I have gotten my hands on a strong protective formation it should be able to defend both Kong Luo and this young man here from the shockwaves from our ''entertainment'' session, we should also go easy on each other, after all, we are husband and wife.." The Empress smiled as the Emperor said that, she got up from her chair as she said: "Don''t blame me if I destroy your palace..." The Emperor shook his head as he heard her words and didn''t bother to explain to her, did she think she made such a huge breakthrough that she could destroy the Imperial palace? It was surrounded and reinforced by countless high-leveled God Formations, even a peak God Realm expert would need quite some time to turn it into rubble. Yun Jhin watched the duo bicker as the area they were in suddenly expanded, the throne room became very wide and long, atleast 200 kilometers long, it was almost like a free area, both the Emperor and the Empress bowed to each other as they took to the air. They both flew closely to each other as they started a ''sparring'' session, it was on the pretext for Yun Jhin''s enjoyment but the couple knew that Yun Jhin couldn''t see much from their fight, they were only keeping each other in check and also warning each other. However unknowingly to them, Yun Jhin could see their movements, even though they were blurred and quite hard to see, he could infer from their aura what cultivation base they had, after all, he was a peak God Realm expert in his previous life and he knew the classifications of the God Realm, they were also unleashing their aura fully without hiding it as they thought no one in the area could sense it, and even if they could, why would they care? As the Emperor and Empress fought back and forth Yun Jhin kept a good eye on their auras, he couldn''t use his soul willpower or it would be shredded by the shockwaves of the fight, both Kong Luo and Yun Jhin were situated in a pretty big bubble than engulfed them and the table as well, the bubble was a sophisticated formation that kept both of them safe from the shockwaves of their fight. After a little bit of observation, Yun Jhin realized what their cultivation base was, one of them was at the 4th stage and the other was at the 5th stage, respectively the Emperor at the 5th and the Empress at the 4th, the Emperor was older by a bit so he could cultivate more that didn''t mean the Empress was lacking in talent as she fought equally with him. Even though they were only blurs running and flying around his surroundings, Yun Jhin could enhance his eyesight with ki to observe their fight, he couldn''t see much but he could infer the situation. Yun Jhin looked as the duo stopped, the shockwaves from the fight stopped and the cracks that appeared around the throne room healed as space transformed to what it was before, the Empress clicked her tongue as she said: "It seems I still can''t defeat you, husband, you have grown even stronger, are you close to a breakthrough?" The Emperor avoided the question as he said: "You are too polite wife, I can only say that you let me win this one, anyways, Black Blood please come up with the food!" Black Blood came out of the kitchen as he looked around, he had trays of food in both of his hand as he came to the table and laid them out for everyone, the lid on the tray was lifted as a strong aroma came from the food, Yun Jhin looked at it and realized that it was the head of a halfling! The Emperor read Yun Jhin''s face as he said: "He was the former guard at the entrance of the capital, he let some vermin in so we had to execute him, but we do not waste resources in our Empire so we could only transform him into dinner." Black Blood bowed as they left them to eat, Yun Jhin ate normally even though Kong Luo had some problems with the food he still ate it as he didn''t want to offend the Emperor, the Empress didn''t have her mind on the food as she observed Yun Jhin''s actions. The Emperor coughed as he said: "Shouldn''t it be time to leave my dear? You see something could happen at your house if you left for too long and that wouldn''t be a good thing would it?" The Empress''s eyes widened as she glared at the Emperor afterward, she left in a huff but before she disappeared she whispered something into Yun Jhin''s ears: "You can always come to talk with me, I know you can''t join me but I would like to talk with you more." Yun Jhin nodded his head at her to not be impolite but there was no chance he would visit her as long as the Emperor was still in power, he was a long way from reaching the God Realm and even though the Empress was a beauty of high standards, Yun Jhin was not seeing any benefits of throwing his life away to get some ''lovely time'' with her. The Emperor read the mood and realized what the Empress told Yun Jhin but he ignored it as he knew that if Yun Jhin wasn''t dumb, he wouldn''t follow whatever she said. The Empress disappeared into nothing as she returned to her garden. The Empress looked at her daughter as she said: "Lulu, I have a mission for you, seduce Yun Jhin and make him your man, you should be able to give birth to a rather talented child with his bloodline, it doesn''t matter how you do it, the Emperor might be able to say something if he comes for me, but you can do whatever you want regardless of what the emperor thinks or wants." Lulu stopped her sword training as she bowed, there was some reluctance in her gaze but she approved of what her mother told her: "I will do my best mother, when should I go?" The Empress''s eyes filled up with light as she said: "He will surely be sent to temper himself in the upper continents, it doesn''t matter that he lived a rather hard life in the lower continents and the middle ones, he will be sent in a danger zone, I think he will be first sent into one in the middle levels for him to accommodate then he will be summoned into one in the upper levels, you will join him with a few others, make sure you win his heart and sleep with him!" Lulu nodded her head as the Empress waved her hand and she disappeared. Back with the Emperor after everyone finished their meal, the man got up from the table and said: "It''s time to talk about business, I don''t think you know this but as a reincarnated one the best way to draw out your former life memories is to put you into dangerous situations in special places, to be frank with you, we would love to have another God Realm expert among us as some of the other nations started to threaten us with war, even though we have 2 God Realm experts having 3 would mean we could start expanding the Empire''s borders." A strange glint appeared in his eyes as he said those words and he continued: "You see, our Dragon Empire is one of the strongest in the Upper continents, but there are other kingdoms and nations that have God Realm experts and if we don''t tread well they could ally with each other and try to attack our Empire." The Emperor continued to talk about how things would be if the Empire would fall but Yun Jhin only listened to him on the surface, he used these kinds of speeches on his subordinates in his previous lives as well, they were meant to create a sense of belonging to the organization/nation and make them sacrifice themselves or give their best during wars, it seemed the safe times of the Empire were going to end. The Emperor let them leave after he finished his speech and left them with these words: "10 days from now you will go to the Demonic forest in the middle regions, we aren''t sure what kind of trees are those in the Demonic forest but they release a type of energy that devils and demons love and benefit from, you will go there to temper yourself along with some other strong prospective youths of the Empire from both the military and the nobility, you can go now." Yun Jhin followed Kong Luo out of the palace and walked towards his barracks after they arrived at his division, Kong Luo was distracted by something so he didn''t talk with Yun Jhin anymore. Yun Jhin entered his quarters as he thought to himself: "This situation could be a good way to see where hell''s entrance could be locked, the Demonic forest must be the one that has the Dark ebonite trees, if I could find that demon and eat his soul I could find where the entrance to hell was located..." Yun Jhin would also not refuse the free meal considering of the Empire''s youths, he couldn''t eat all of them but during such expeditions, there was no way there could be no ''accidents'' Yun Jhin also knew that the others would try to target him during the training expedition, but that was the last thing they would do in their lives. Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he started meditating and strengthening his first jewel, to further go into the King Realm one had to first fully refine and strengthen their jewels before creating new ones, just like cultivation stages there were 9 stages in jewel refinement, they were called early middle and late stages, 1-4 were early, 5-7 middle and 8-9 late. Yun Jhin was currently at the second stage so he was in the early level, strengthening the jewels wouldn''t take much time for him, after all, he didn''t need enlightenment like most other cultivators but due to his modified body from the system, he would need a little bit more energy than normal. Even though the system helped him a lot the thing was that it couldn''t create a perfect bloodline, that''s why when Kong Luo scanned his bloodline he realized that his caterpillar part was very muddled as it was fused with a lot of bloodlines, this wasn''t something Yun Jhin could control, maybe once he reached the late stages of the God Realm but up till then he would have to bear the increased cost of resource consumption. There was also the fact that he would need to actively strengthen the jewels with star power which meant that eating people wouldn''t cut it anymore when it came to his cultivation, he would need to eat their crown which meant eating their souls whole, this was something Yun Jhin enjoyed so he didn''t feel burdened at all but absorbing anyone below the King Realm wouldn''t be of help to him anymore. He would also need to be quite selective when it came to his new ''food'' after all, he would only be able to use high-quality starlight to temper his jewels. But there was no lack of geniuses in the cultivation world, the only thing that to be geniuses would lack was techniques, however, he would be able to change that in the future, he would just need time. While Yun Jhin was planning and cultivating, Lulu was sharpening herself as she prepared for the training, she wasn''t sure why she would even go , after all, she was at the 6th stage of the King Realm at the moment, she wouldn''t go if she could, there were no benefits to her but her mother forced her to go due to Yun Jhin. She gritted her teeth as she continued to sharpen her sword, her eyes glinted with a dangerous light as she looked in the void seemingly waiting for her mother''s instructions. In all other corners of the Imperial capital, young geniuses were preparing for the special training in the danger zones, most of them didn''t have much experience when it came to life and death battles as they were trained in their homes up till the King Realm. In the Imperial Capital, only those that reached the King Realm could be considered adults and experts. Yun Jhin sat in meditation as he cultivated and waited for the set date to come... Chapter 64: Meeting the others Yun Jhin''s meditation time passed quickly as he was interrupted by a knock on his door, Yun Jhin frowned as he got up from the cross-legged position on the ground, his empty room made him easily walk towards the door and open it. Kong Luo was there with a big smile on his face as he said: "It''s time to go Yun Jhin, I have also got you a present." He took out an exquisite silver ring and gave it to Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin put it on his ring finger and admired it for a bit, he knew that it was a spatial ring, it was an advanced version of storage compared to the spatial bag, it was smaller than the spatial bag but more things could be stuffed into it due to the exquisite formations at work. Yun Jhin didn''t have time to craft himself a spatial ring so this was a nice present, Yun Jhin made a little bow but Kong Luo stopped him midway as he said: "There''s no need to, as your ''guardian'' I need to give you atleast something like this, after all, all of the other young geniuses would have a spatial ring with them, the Emperor said that whatever you find in the forest will be yours to take, danger zones tend to be full of strange herbs that are either beneficial or poisonous or both, I know you have some experiences with poisons from that time I scanned your memories so I don''t need you to instruct in what to do." The man patted Yun Jhin''s shoulder as and then took him to the teleportation formation, they would go back to the wall and after that Kong Luo would be the one who will escort the youths to the Demonic Forest. After a short while the duo arrived at the teleportation formation and they met with another participant there, he was a fat young man and he had a spatial ring on each of his fingers, he looked like the nouveau rich type who liked to waste money, a silver-spoon young master. The fatty didn''t say anything as he was drooling at his maid, the maid was the only one who was currently escorting him but she was an Emperor Realm expert at the least, it seemed some families sent out their own Emperor Experts to guard their prodigies until they reached the Demonic Forest. Kong Luo and Yun Jhin entered the formation along with the fatty and the maid, after a short while they arrived at the wall but they didn''t meet Pei Fong again, it seemed he was currently somewhere else but the guard that replaced him wasn''t allowed to say much. Kong Luo sighed as his party and the fatties were the first to arrive, he needed to wait for the others to arrive before he set out. After a few hours of waiting another youth appeared out of the teleportation formation, his muscles were easily visible from his gown and he was also quite tall, but his face looked average, he had no one else with him, after he saw Kong Luo he did a small bow and then took a spot near the wall where he waited for the others. Ten minutes later another light appeared from the formation, this time it was a woman, unsurprisingly it was the Empress youngest daughter Lulu, her face was devoid of emotion as she got near her wall and sat cross-legged, she didn''t say anything nor greet anyone as she went to cultivate. Afterward, more and more people started to stream in from the formation, as Yun Jhin counted he realized that in total they were 75 youths, 20 females and 55 males with him included. Kong Luo coughed a bit to gather everyone''s attention then he said: "Since everyone is here it''s time to go to the Demonic Forest, I see that some of you have your bodyguards so we will join forces to create a flying formation so we can quickly take you to the forest, don''t forget that we will wait for you at the edges of the forest to take you back to the capital after you are done with the training." Kong Luo waved his hands as he created a ship out of ki, he jumped on the ship and the fatty''s maid along with another short old man jumped on it, they started to pump their ki into the ship as it became corporeal from its illusory state and Kong Luo invited all of the young geniuses on it. Yun Jhin jumped at the front near Kong Luo while the others went to the back, the only one who was also invited in the front was the fatty and Lulu. The fatty was drooling at Lulu''s beauty, she resembled her mother quite a bit so even though she was rather young in the future she would be a great beauty, she looked to be around 17-18 years old but with cultivators, it was never known how old they actually were, but from her life aura, Yun Jhin knew that she truly was around the age she looked to be. He knew that she was eyeing him from time to time and her eyes didn''t look friendly at all in the beginning, but as she observed him more her icy look started to change, she thought that all she did was in secret but Yun Jhin knew whatever she did, after all, they were quite close only a few meters apart and Yun Jhin''s soul willpower and perception were extremely strong. The fatty himself started a conversation as he was bored: "Your highness Lulu, might I inquire why have you joined this training, aren''t you at the 6th stage of the King Realm?" The fatty was quite blunt and it seemed he didn''t care much about etiquette as his saliva dripped everywhere as he googled Lulu''s chest, Lulu was ready to butcher the man like the pig he was but the maid from his family intervened as she appeared in front of him and said: "Young Master Sumo please don''t bother her majesty." She bowed deeply to Lulu as she apologized: "My deep apologies your highness, my young master can''t control himself when he sees beautiful young women he... eeek!" The fatty known as Sumo grabbed one of her plump cheeks that''s why she squealed like that, the maid faced him but afterward another eek was heard as he grabbed her chest, the maid got away from him blushing deeply as she said: "Young master you!" Sumo nodded his head like a sage as he said: "Very firm, it seems your qualities have improved since the last time I checked them." The maid shook her head as she muttered: "You have checked them this morning..." Yun Jhin looked at the amusing scene in front of him but he didn''t laugh, his face was an icy cold mask as he thought: "This fatty should be the first target, he seems the dumbest and the weakest of the group, but I can sense that his crown jewel is full of starlight, he might have used a treasure that he still didn''t fully digest, I should be able to get my hands on it..." Lulu frowned at the Sumo''s antics but her eyes strayed to Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin ignored the situation after he glanced around once and then he looked into the horizon waiting to reach the Demonic Forest, he had 2 objectives in the forest, one meet the demon and devour his soul, 2 kill as many geniuses as he could to refine his jewel. Yun Jhin closed his eyes but he was startled as Lulu approached him and sat near him then she said: "My name''s Lulu, you should have heard of me..." Yun Jhin shook his head as he said: "I''m sorry but I didn''t you see, I''m quite new in the capital.." Lulu''s face scrunched but she decided to introduce herself fully: "Song Lulu, 4th princess and daughter of the Empire." Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes inside as he heard her, it seemed the Empress couldn''t hold long with her plans, he knew what she wanted to do, most likely she wanted her daughter to have a child with him to secure his pure draconic bloodline, Yun Jhin smiled inside, this was one way he could infiltrate the Imperial family. Yun Jhin nodded at her as he said: "I have heard of the most talented young daughter of the Empress, so it was you?" Lulu nodded, this was how most men acted when they met her, they would try to act cool on the surface but inside they would jump at a chance to prove themselves in front of her. Yun Jhin didn''t continue the conversation as he continued to look into the horizon, this threw her off, wasn''t it the time for him to fawn and try to impress her? He looked at him and she realized that he started to close his eyes, he was trying to cultivate right now! During their conversation! Lulu huffed as she got up and left him alone, she was offended by his acts but also intrigued inside, she was a princess who pretty much trained most her life, she was also courted from time to time due to her mother insistence, but all of the young geniuses in the capital seemed like trash to her. This was the first time a man acted like he didn''t care about her and she found it to be ''interesting'', Lulu decided to meditate herself as she waited for the ship to reach the Demonic Forest. The fatty from before was obscenely acting against his maid but no one gave him any more laughs or looks most of them thought that there was a problem with his head as he salivated continuously. However, Yun Jhin was observing him stealthily, there was the chance the fatty could try to fool the others, feigning to be a pig to eat the tiger. Yun Jhin put him as an easy target but that didn''t mean he wouldn''t be on his guard against him, after all, he was one stage above him being at the 2nd stage. The maid seemed very embarrassed as her chest was played with and from time to time her buttocks would be smacked, even the ship almost crashed a few times as her ki was acting up due to her mental state, finally, Kong Luo couldn''t endure anymore and he grabbed the fatty by the ear and put him to reflect on his actions, the other old man sighed as he looked at the fatty and said: "The Drop clan will end to the dogs with such a young master..." Kong Luo heard that and shook his head as he didn''t comment, they were getting nearer and nearer to the demonic forest and he needed to control the ship or the demonic energy from the trees might invade it and make them crash. Yun Jhin breathed in slowly as he could feel the smell of demonic energy, it smelled like cinnamon, he wasn''t a fan of demons and devils, in his last life even though he was ''friends'' with them, he was also trying to kill them at any point, just like they did to him, however, on the surface, he had to play nice or else they would invade his sect, both of their organizations made them unable to act against each other, that was also around the time that the demons started to be marginalized by the devils, unfortunately, Yun Jhin couldn''t intervene back then as he was too old at the time. Yun Jhin looked down as Ebony black trees appeared in his sight, it was the Demonic Forest, quite a simple name but it showed what it was, truly a demonic forest, the plants looked normal but if anything got too close to them they would eat you, Yun Jhin watched a devil fly landed on a plant and was eaten, suddenly the plant exploded into a bunch of pieces as the fly morphed into a bigger version of itself with a maw and then started to eat the plants remains. However, the mutated fly died soon after as it became purple and transformed into a pile of goo. Yun Jhin watched with interest, he knew what kind of plants they were but they seemed to have mutated even further since his times, after all, 500,000 years passed since then. Kong Luo dropped everyone on the ground at the entrance of the forest and shared a map with each genius then said: "You will all enter alone and you are allowed to make team when you meet with each other, it doesn''t matter as long as you live in the forest for 6 months and can get out by yourselves you have passed this training and you will be able to join the Imperial Army that the Emperor will create soon..." The geniuses started to talk with each other, most of them were here for the chance of applying to the special unit created by the Emperor, Yun Jhin heard about it on the way to the demonic forest but he wasn''t that interested until he heard that even the lowliest positions in the special unit would have higher political power and say in the empire even compared to the normal generals. Yun Jhin wanted to infiltrate the Empire and became a high ranked official or army commander so he would be able to start eating pure dragon''s without them realizing, and even if they realized they wouldn''t do anything to him as long as he didn''t touch anyone important, that was the power of political immunity! Yun Jhin skipped this things in the lower continents and the middle ones as he had enough strength and he could also fool them well enough, but he wouldn''t be able to do the same in an Empire that had 2 God Realm experts and maybe even some hidden reserves, there was no way the Empire would be so feared with only 2 God Realm experts, Yun Jhin guessed the other nations will try to poke around soon enough to see if their hidden reserves were still available. Kong Luo cleared his throat as he continued talking: "You can forfeit the training by coming out of the forest before 6 months, there are high chances you could die in the forest so if you want to give up now just come and stay here, you will wait with us.", He pointed towards himself the maid and the old man. Yun Jhin watched as no one forfeited their chance at joining the new Imperial unit, then Kong Luo waved his hand and said: "Ok then, since everyone is ready to go into the forest, I will make sure you guys get a head start." Kong Luo created a gigantic palm that scooped the young geniuses then threw them at random inside the forest, Kong Luo made sure that even though they were thrown randomly he wouldn''t choose the regions infested with very strong demonic beings, only those that were only deadly fatal, and not a 100% death factor. Yun Jhin was grabbed by the palm and thrown into the forest like the others, he rolled like a ball as he impacted a tree making it shake, a brown snake dropped on his head and immediately went to bite his neck but Yun Jhin opened his maw and ate the snake whole. He puked out black blood that came from the snake''s poison and cleaned his mouth then stretched out his soul willpower and frowned: "The radius of my soul willpower is a bit shortened due to the interference of all of these Dark Ebonite trees... but I can make sure I find the lair of the demon." Yun Jhin knew that the demon must use some formations around his lair so he started to walk towards the direction with more natural ki, the more natural ki the better and sturdier the formation would end up, the same could be applied to demonic formations as well. Yun Jhin''s silhouette disappeared into the forest as he walked towards the highest concentration of Demonic natural ki that he could sense... Chapter 65: Kong Luos thoughts Kong Luo sat cross-legged at the entrance of the formation, on the surface he was meditating while keeping a straight face but inside he was pretty frustrated, he thought that he could use Yun Jhin''s former memories to help him break through the limits of his talent but the Emperor saw trough him and summoned him to the palace in those 10 days that Yun Jhin had to wait. Kong Luo bowed as the Emperor said: "You should know why I have summoned you right now Kong Luo, and I will have to tell you to stop thinking about it." Kong Luo''s eyes widened in surprise, he never thought about his plans in front of the emperor so how could he know? The Emperor smiled as he said: "It''s easy to know, after all, how could your ambition stop at the Sage Realm? You think you can strong-arm his knowledge out of him when he recovers his memories?" Kong Luo didn''t say anything but his silence was also a type of approval as he didn''t shake his head, the Emperor continued to talk: "Let me tell you something, if there was a way to help you, I would have done that already, do you think that I''m withholding cultivation secrets from you because you think I would fear you reaching the God Realm?" Kong Luo shook his head frantically but The Emperor ignored his actions as he got up from his throne and walked slowly to him, in a few nanoseconds he was in front of him as he put his finger on his forehead, a bunch of information was directly transferred to Kong Luo''s soul as his whole body shuddered. He kneeled to the Emperor as he said: "Thank you for making things clear to me your majesty!" The information that the Emperor transferred to him told him whatever he needed to break through the Sage Realm in the future combined with a cultivation technique for the Sage Realm, it also told him why he wouldn''t be able to reach the God Realm. The Emperor sighed as he said: "Just act the same with Yun Jhin, it doesn''t matter how you act with him as his personality will change massively after he unlocks his former life memories, all I can say is that the only ones he will fear would be people as strong as I and my wife are, also I shouldn''t even need to tell you but you know this information should be kept confidential, right?" Kong Luo nodded his head, then he was dismissed by the Emperor, he knew that he couldn''t do anything to Yun Jhin now, and even if he got the knowledge from him it didn''t mean he would be able to use it. Kong Luo sighed as he remembered what happened then he ignored everything else as he circulated the cultivation technique that the Emperor gave him, even though it was for a Sage Realm expert, he could still use it to hasten his cultivation progress in the Emperor Realm, after all, it was a superior technique to the one he used beforehand. ******* Yun Jhin was walking around the woods of the demonic forest, he kept his eyes closed from time to time as he chose different directions, the smell in the woods was tantalizing and the aura in the air was trying to bewitch Yun Jhin to go into the directions it wanted. The demonic forest was full of predators but Yun Jhin easily avoided them, from time to time he would also kill some new specimens that he didn''t recognize and ate them to analyze their insides. Yun Jhin ignored the temptations of the woods quite easily due to his strong mentality and willpower but the others wouldn''t be able to do the same in his situation, atleast in the deep region that he was in, maybe only Lulu could resist. Yun Jhin walked deeper into the woods as he chased the higher concentrations of natural energy, after a few hours of walking he finally reached a dark clearing in the forest, there was nothing inside it, it was so empty that you would think that nothing lived in this forest. But Yun Jhin knew that it was only an illusion as he felt the clearing to be covered with formations, he wasn''t sure if the demon was home but he would need to investigate regardless if he was here or not, as long as he was stealthy he could insure his life. Yun Jhin frowned as he analyzed the formations around the clearing, they were some pretty high ranked demonic formations from hell, even though Yun Jhin was ''friends'' with demons and devils that didn''t mean they would share their formations with him, fortunately, he got his hands on all of the basic formations of hell and with his knowledge, he could reverse engineer the formation to the most basic form that he knew, however, that would take him quite a while. But the thing that he lacked now the least was time. Even if the demon left or entered the clearing, with his current cultivation base his stealth technique would make him invisible to everyone below the 5th stage of the Sage Realm. Yun Jhin continued to reverse engineer the formation while other things happened in the forest... The fatty was currently ''attacking'' one of his colleagues, she was a female that couldn''t escape the fatty''s grasp, unfortunately for her, the fatty didn''t let her go until he was satisfied, she was of a noble family and she abhorred the fatty but she couldn''t do anything besides crying and trying to push him away, it seemed the fatty''s cultivation was quite high as the female was at the 2nd stage of the King Realm. This was the scene that Lulu saw when she walked a bit deeper in the woods, she took a long sword out of her spatial ring as she lunged at the fatty ready to cut his member in half! The fatty disappeared into a bunch of mist as he retreated into the woods, his eyes were deep red, it seemed he couldn''t control himself due to the temptations of the woods and he attacked the first female he saw. Lulu frowned as she looked at his glazed red eyes and then averted her eyes away from him as he was still naked, the female colleague that was attacked got up slowly while still shaking from fear and disgust, Lulu protected her while she got herself some new clothes from her spatial ring and they looked as the fatty disappeared in the woods, Lulu sighed as she said: "It seems the fatty''s mental aptitude is quite bad, even though he is lecherous I''m not sure if he would do that by himself..." The female colleague glare at the fatty''s direction then she grabbed Lulu''s sleeve as she said: "Could I follow you from now princess Lulu? what if I''m attacked by such a type of beast again?" Lulu nodded her head at her then she patted her shoulder to comfort her, the woman wasn''t a virgin but being attacked in such a ferocious way could leave a lasting mark on her, it would have been even worse if it was her first time, atleast she looked less shaken now. Lulu found out that women weren''t the only thing the fatty fancied as he found some naked men with their butts up here and there as well, they were moaning in pain as they had been deflowered by a ''crazy red-eyed fatty''. It seemed the fatty wouldn''t be able to control himself and he would pierce everything that moved... As Lulu walked further in the forest she even saw poisonous animals such as spiders, lizards, and some huge bugs laying down in exhaustion. She was getting more and more disgusted with the fatty, most of the wood''s temptations only accentuated the sins in one''s heart, could the fatty be such a big pervert? Fortunately, as she went further inside the forest she finally started to see less and less of that perverted fatty''s rampage. She promised herself that even though the fatty was influenced by the forest, she would still cut his tool so he wouldn''t be able to hurt anyone else in the future! There was quite the crowd behind her now but it was still within her means to protect, as the princess of the Empire she thought that protecting her people was something that she needed to do. While the fatty was piercing everything under the heavens, Yun Jhin was finishing the reverse engineering of the demonic formations, he was just one step away from finishing when he heard the rough breathing of a pig-like animal behind him. As he turned his head back to see what it was he realized that it was a naked fatty! His eyes were red and glazed as he looked at Yun Jhin like he was a piece of meat, Yun Jhin frowned as he threw out his baby dragon which grew a little bit compared to before. The fatty immediately went and pinned down the dragon before he took his tool to attack the backside of the poor thing, the dragon immediately started to blew fire breaths towards the fatty, the fatty started to sweat as the fire, roasted his body turning it a deep red color. The baby dragon was currently at the second stage of the King Realm but his fire couldn''t do much to the fatty! While the fatty was preoccupied with piercing the dragon Yun Jhin appeared behind him and stabbed his hand in his back, however, before he could withdraw his hand with the prized possession he realized that he was stuck in the fatty''s layers of fat! Yun Jhin frowned as he unleashed a dark green fire inside the fatty''s chest burning all of his fat away while he took his heart out of his chest, Yun Jhin looked down at the fatty''s heart as he threw it towards the dragon who ate it happily, the stiff body of the fatty was still trying to do the ''act'' to the dragon who was now getting away from the body. Yun Jhin''s eyes glowed as he devoured the fatty''s soul and gained some success in the refining of his first jewel, reaching the 3rd stage of refining in one go and he was almost ready for the 4th one. Yun Jhin sighed as the baby dragon ate the body of the fatty leaving nothing behind, what a crazy fatty he was, he even wanted to pin down an artificial dragon, fortunately, the dragon didn''t have a gender nor did he have any bodily needs, since the fatty couldn''t find any hole at the back he then wanted to go to the front, that was the moment he started to get roasted by the dragon fire. The fatty''s memories were a blur to Yun Jhin, most of them seemed to happen when he wasn''t even conscious, it seemed the fatty was missing a part of his soul for some reason and that''s why he had such a one-sided mind. Yun Jhin ignored all of the useless memories from the fatty and finished reverse engineering the formation, then he entered it after he put the baby dragon back into his spatial ring. Yun Jhin realized that the clearing was only an illusion but he didn''t think he would enter a cave, the cave was very spacious and it was pitch black, as Yun Jhin walked further inside, strange images started to pop in his head, but they were all empty! Yun Jhin realized that this was the innate-aura of the demon nobility, this type of aura would try to bewitch the demon''s enemies to make them weaker before they attacked, it shown the deepest desire that the person envisioned, since Yun Jhin didn''t know how true eternal life looked all he got was blank images, he didn''t even imagine it and even if he did, people with such type of desires wouldn''t fall easily to the demon''s aura. The aura would be more useful against people like that fatty or greedy people. Yun Jhin walked further into the cave until he reached a deep room inside, on a steel spikes bed sat a old man in a cross-legged position. He wore a dark uniform and a cape, his white hair dropped to his shoulders, he had a curved nose that looked like the beak of a raven his eyes were closed and his arms wasn''t visible, but Yun Jhin could feel a deep demonic presence from his left one. Yun Jhin took a better look at the old man as he thought: "It seems the demon took over this old man''s body... he must be injured as only his arm remained..." Demons could live as long as their soul wasn''t destroyed, it would be even better if a part of their body remained as they could parasitize a host and use it to recreate his body. However it seemed that the old man didn''t want to give up fighting the demon, his eyes opened a dark green flame-like energy burned into them, he looked around but then he shook his head as he said: "Since this demon got to me I always think that I''m watched by someone..." It seemed his intuition wasn''t wrong this time as Yun Jhin was truly looking at him, but due to his stealth technique unless he revealed himself the old man wouldn''t be able to see him, or that''s what he thought... Suddenly under Yun Jhin a demonic eye appeared, it was of the same color as the old man''s it blinked for a few times before it exploded quicker than Yun Jhin could act, a very small piece of Yun Jhin''s soul threatened to be removed but Yun Jhin held onto it. Yun Jhin frowned deeply as the old man opened his eyes and said: "It seems I wasn''t wrong, who knew that being paranoic would help?" He made his left arm visible as an invisible attraction force threatened Yun Jhin''s location, the man chuckled as he said: "Let''s see which rat scurried in here..." Yun Jhin couldn''t dodge the force in time and he was struck by it, suddenly the man''s demonic hand was almost near his neck! Yun Jhin realized that he made a mistake in this situation, he couldn''t be familiar with each demon''s unique ability and that cost him a bit here... But he could feel that the old man didn''t have a very high cultivation base, as long as he played it well he would be able to escape. The man''s demonic hand grasped Yun Jhin''s neck as Yun Jhin''s invisibility turned off, the man frowned as he looked at Yun Jhin''s body and said: "A little halfling dared to enter my den?" The man exerted his green demonic arm as he wanted to rip Yun Jhin''s soul out of his body! Yun Jhin''s eyes glowed as this was a good time to counter-attack, while the man thought that everything was in his palm, Yun Jhin charged his own soul attack that directly went to the man''s forehead! Chapter 66: Fight Demons had special unique abilities that they were born it and evolved according to their cultivation base, even though Yun Jhin fought a multitude of demons in his past lives, it didn''t mean he would be able to remember all of the abilities they exhibited, after all, would you remember the ability of an ant you squashed under your foot? Yun Jhin''s mental attack transformed into an invisible bullet-shaped soul attack that hurled directly to the man''s forehead, it hit him directly shaking his soul and making him drop Yun Jhin from his grip, Yun Jhin became invisible as he used his stealth technique again and hid in the shadows. The man''s eyes widened as the dark green flames in them intensified, he shouted: "You don''t know what you have done you little rat!" Dark feathered wings grew out of his back as his dark aura intensified, his power increased as he shot out 5 bolts of energy out of his demonic hand, the eldritch energy rampaged around the cave, like an unleashed beast as it hit the ground randomly. Yun Jhin dodged the energy bolts by a hair width as some of them almost impaled him on the ground, he couldn''t throw out his baby dragon as it would be useless in this fight, he gritted his teeth as a lightning bolt appeared above his hand, the energy used by Yun Jhin alerted the half-demon and he shot more energy bolts at him. Yun Jhin took two bolts to the stomach as his lightning bolt skewered the now raven-looking man, it hit him directly in the chest as a cloud of blood appeared. The cloud of blood crystallized then broke into the form of the elder man, he didn''t seem injured at all but there was something different about him, a demonic voice could be heard out of his mouth: "Thanks for your help little halfling, the way you dealt him such a delicious blow, it made me able to control his body for some time..." Yun Jhin ignored the mad ravings of the demon, his lightning only temporarily disabled the man''s body, even though the demon was talking like nothing was wrong, his veins could be seen pulsing in an attempt to try and move his body. Yun Jhin charged directly to the man as he punched him while he was immobilized, the punch made him fly into the ceiling of the cave and beyond, the cave started to collapse as Yun Jhin followed the man through the gravel, both of them appeared outside the cave in the demonic forest. The ruckus startled the demonic animals and attracted predators, but the formations laid down by the old man were still active, dozens of mutated animals fell like flies as they died, their blood essence was devoured by the formation and in return gave to the old man. The old man smiled as his injuries healed but then he frowned as he clutched his face and shouted: "NO I JUST GOT OUT TO PLAY, YOU CAN''T PUT ME BACK IN THERE!" A grunt could be heard as the man''s personality changed back to what it was before, he coughed a mouthful of dark blood as he glared at his left arm, he looked at Yun Jhin''s injured body and said: "It seems I did a number on you." Yun Jhin ignored him, it seemed the man wasn''t stable at all when he attacked him in the cave, he seemed to be calmer now and less offended. The man sat down on the ground which puzzled Yun Jhin, then he opened his mouth and said: "I''m sorry if I frightened you, where are you from young man?" Yun Jhin wasn''t sure if the man was trying to fool him or if it was anything else, but Yun Jhin decided to play along as his injuries healed, it was a fight between two old foxes trying to outsmart each other at this point, Yun Jhin opened his mouth and asked: "Shouldn''t you introduce yourself first?" The man laughed as he said: "Yes, how rude of me, my name is Sardo, former general of the 1st legion of the Empire, tell me boy you are from the Empire as well aren''t you?" There were a few empires in the upper region and so Yun Jhin wasn''t sure which one he was talking about, but there was a high chance of it being the one he joined recently... Yun Jhin talked a little bit about the Empire and the man''s fiery eyes intensified, there was hatred and also disappointment in them as he said: "So you are from the Zumo Empire, that goddamn old Emperor Zumo Taicheng he even sent assassins out for me!" The man demonic hand reacted as an attraction force started to appear around Yun Jhin again, but Yun Jhin jumped out of the attraction force area and shot a few energy bullets at the old man trying to pin him down to the ground, the energy bullets were shaped in the form of sharp sticks, if the impaled him to the ground he would be able to kill him instantly by decapitation. The man''s arm created a forcefield around him that deflected all of the energy bullets, the bullets hit some trees behind him that made them groan seemingly like they were alive. Yun Jhin ignored the Dark Ebonite trees groans as he circled the old man, from what he said the man was a former general of the Empire, but his cultivation base was quite low, he should have been crippled in action and exiled by the emperor for his hatred to be this accentuated to the empire. Yun Jhin watched as the man''s arm continued to glow with an eerie dark green energy, he seemed to struggle controlling it as the demon from inside wanted to take control again, this was a good opportunity for attacking! Yun Jhin dashed and seemingly teleported behind the man''s back but he heard a chuckle coming from his front: "You thought that it could be this easy to kill me, boy?" The same wings as before unfurled on his back as a dark green aura engulfed the man, the aura started to stretch and engulf Yun Jhin as well, Yun Jhin''s vitality started to drop as his life force was forcefully drained by the man. Yun Jhin quickly jumped away from the old man''s aura area but an attractive force pulled him back inside it, after the attractive force stopped, eldritch dark green energy bolts assaulted his weak body which created a pool of blood below him. This was the hardest fight Yun Jhin went through since his reincarnation, and that was because the man was lucky enough that his demonic eye that he shot at random in the cave revealed him. Yun Jhin was quite injured and he couldn''t trigger his forbidden technique again, but suddenly a shout could be heard coming from ahead of him, Lulu jumped down from a tree as she tried to bisect the old man but she only clipped off one of his dark wings. The man howled into agony as more bolts of energy tried to engulf Lulu, but she dodged easily by jumping backward making a big space between her and the demon, Yun Jhin took this opportunity to launch three big blue fireballs at the old man, the fireballs met with their destination as the man was burned quite badly by them. Seeing an obvious opening Lulu dashed inside the man''s aura sacrificing a bit of life force to cut his chest open! Lulu appeared behind him as she grabbed Yun Jhin and tried to run away but an attraction force stopped both of them from leaving and dragged the duo into the man''s aura field, the aura started to drain the boh of them of life force as the man''s injuries started to heal, however, it seemed he was running low on ki. Even though the aura stole life force it didn''t recover the man''s ki. But it wasn''t of much help to Yun Jhin and Lulu at the moment, Lulu came alone as she left everyone behind as they would be baggage to her, so there weren''t going to be any reinforcements. Lulu gritted her teeth as she took a second sword out of her spatial ring and took a stance, her left foot was in front and her right a little back, she stood with her head down as both of her swords were held vertically in front of her body. She disappeared from where she stood as fire engulfed the old man''s body when she appeared a white aura was around her and she vomited one mouthful of blood. She looked as the man was immolated and dropped to the ground thinking that everything was done, but Yun Jhin and she were out of his aura range so he wouldn''t be able to heal any more, and the technique she used wouldn''t stop until his body would become ashes! She started to lose consciousness as Yun Jhin approached the burning man as his life draining aura stopped working, her eyes closed but in the last moment, she saw how Yun Jhin severed the man''s strange arm away from him and kept it inside his spatial ring. Yun Jhin looked down at the ashes remaining from the man''s body and shook his head, he wanted to give the body to the little dragon so he could improve his strength, but it seemed he couldn''t now. The dragon caterpillar walked slowly towards Lulu''s downed form and put her on his back, he wanted to devour her but the Empress must have put her soul under surveillance, anyone who killed her would be marked by her consciousness and hunted down, this wasn''t something he wanted. He would also need to use her to get into the imperial family, she still had her uses so he decided to let her live for now. Yun Jhin met with the others and most of them were either scared or trying to be brave, as they didn''t have much experience, even though they killed some beasts here and there with the help of Lulu, their thoughts were still very shallow. Most of them were glaring at Yun Jhin as he came back with Lulu on his back, the women didn''t care much but the men were glowering in hatred, after all, the woman on his back was a beauty! Her two mounds were pressing on Yun Jhin''s back and it made the men glare harder at Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin ignored their gazes as he walked away from their group, some wanted to stop him but seeing the injured form of the princess they stopped, Yun Jhin didn''t know much about the princess but according to her previous interactions with him, he wouldn''t make a good impression of her if he sent her to the protectors outside the forest as it would disqualify her. Yun Jhin found an empty clearing where he prepared a camp and used a healing technique on her to help her wake up faster, after a few hours of meditating the woman finally woke up to Yun Jhin''s visage that looked over her. Lulu frowned as she looked around and realized that they won the fight and sighed, then she asked Yun Jhin: "How come you found this guy in the forest and you didn''t ask for help before engaging him?" Yun Jhin chuckled awkwardly as he said: "Well he found me before I could call for reinforcements, but there was also some luck involved for him." Lulu frowned as she thought that Yun Jhin''s abilities weren''t as much as her mother made them be, but then she remembered how he slashed away the man''s demonic arm and didn''t comment, even though his cultivation base wasn''t high he was ruthless and knew when to take openings meaning he had extensive battle experience, so what he said couldn''t be a lie. Lulu got up from the ground but she grimaced as she looked at her hands, the technique she used broke her fingers and injured her cultivation base a bit, she would need quite a while to recover from her injuries. Yun Jhin got up and stopped looking at her as he said: "Since you woke up my job here is done, You saved my life and I saved yours, if I let you there you would have been food for the animals of the forest." Lulu frowned as she looked at Yun Jhin''s back, was this man so heartless that she would let such a beautiful woman as her alone and injured inside a dangerous demonic forest? Yun Jhin''s silhouette started to disappear as he walked away from her, it seemed the answer was yes. Lulu grimaced as she took out some healing herbs from her spatial ring and started chewing on them, as she thought: "Atleast the clearing he found is pretty safe..." Yun Jhin tried to find a place where he could absorb the demonic arm and gain its memories, it seemed the man''s soul also refuged into it as he could feel the arm move inside the spatial ring, it was a battle for supremacy between the demon and the old man, he didn''t care who won as the one who did would absorb the memories of the one who lost. In the end, their memories would be his along with their soul power that he could use to refine his crown jewels further. Yun Jhin started digging in the earth around a rather poor place where no animals or humans would want to go, then he covered himself in the dirt around 200 meters inside the earth. Even though the soil of the demonic forest was quite hard, Yun Jhin''s body was very sturdy and he could easily live underground like a mole, Yun Jhin took out the demonic arm and inspected it before he started to absorb its quintessence and refine the two souls inside of it. Soul screams that sounded like wraiths came out of the arm, because it had no host anymore, both of the souls were rather weak and easy to refine, but it would still take him a little while as the soul''s willpower wasn''t broken. He would grind them down, bit by bit, and then absorb both of them as no winner was made between them up till now. It was better for Yun Jhin anyways, he would be able to enjoy more starlight from their souls so he could refine his jewel further, he might even break through the middle stages. Yun Jhin continued to refine the arm with closed eyes, he wanted to know where the entrance to hell was located, even though it would be a long while before he would go for it knowing the direction he had to go would be very good, even if the entrance disappeared, he would be able to find the remaining demons or devils around the area and scour their souls for the new entrance! Chapter 67: Another batch of memories The demonic arm started to fizzle and pop as Yun Jhin refined it using his ki, the old man''s soul was slowly getting refined and absorbed by Yun Jhin''s and his first jewel was getting clearer and shinier, slowly but surely he reached the middle stages of the 1st jewel, he now sat around the 5th stage. Memories started to flicker around Yun Jhin''s face as he looked through the old man''s life for useful information: "Born as a noble, trained as a general, lived a long life but one mistake made me lose my cultivation base and position in the Empire." "Countless nations fell to their knees as I attacked them with the 1st legion, increasing the Empire''s land to the current one, reaching the peak of the Emperor realm, breaking through the Sage Realm..." "One loss against a 14-year-old girl with three swords, left alone to die on the battlefield by my subordinates. A demonic raven approached me to eat my almost dead carcass, but what I could see in its eyes was the soul of an injured demon." "The being tried to take my body but I resisted with all my will power and sealed him inside my left arm." "I went back to the Empire, only for the emperor to call me a criminal who betrayed the Empire and its people, cultivation crippled and banished to the middle regions, I lived a life of a cripple of three years before the demon started to act up and heal my broken meridians..." "Slowly but surely my body accepted the demonic ki that the thing was feeding me, transforming my quintessence into something half-dragon, half-demon." "In the end, I started to rely on him..." Images popped up one after another, since the man''s youth to the man''s death, Yun Jhin frowned as his quintessence flesh and blood would have helped kickstart his evolution to an artificial caterpillar, atleast he would have a rather pure draconic essence to work with. Most of the memories of the old man consisted of battles and wars, he was once called the grand general as he didn''t lose one battle until he met that 14-year-old girl, her image was blurred in his memories, maybe it was his way to cope with the fact he got almost killed by a teen girl, but that girl defeated a Sage Realm expert at the 3rd stage, even though the fight was rather close, the age difference was enormous. Yun Jhin frowned as he recalled that woman, it had been 200 years since that battle happened, she must have grown by an extreme amount by now, her innate talent would be on the level of top-ranked executives even in his former sect. The memories didn''t tell him much as some of them were suppressed or missing, the man''s mental power was in disarray when he died, it might have been due to the similar way of his death and near-death situation, both by swordsman women. Yun Jhin made a mental note of the woman and decided he would ask around later, he needed to know who he had to avoid and who he could confront. After he fully finished devouring the old man''s soul he moved onto the demons, the demon''s soul was shivering inside the husk of an arm as it pleaded to Yun Jhin: "Please don''t refine me, I will take you as my master!" "I will do whatever you want, please don''t kill me!" Demons embraced life and hated death, they liked to provoke pain and suffering on others but abhorred the same happening to them, they were the ultimate hypocrites, the same could be said about devils, but unlike the demons, they hid their tendencies on a front of posh etiquette and contracts. Yun Jhin knew the demon was faking this act, if he let him go or tried to enslave him, he would immediately go and try to devour his soul, he wouldn''t be able to, but Yun Jhin didn''t want to waste time with him. The demon''s soul started screeching in pain as it distorted, it was originally of green color, but now it turned a deep red one, its eyes were full of malice as it cursed at Yun Jhin: "I curse you to die a death worse than mine by one million times! I curse you, you damn piece of trash, we will meet again in hell!" Yun Jhin face couldn''t be more passive as he said: "No, we won''t." The demon''s soul quintessence and memory broke up into energy that Yun Jhin devoured using his innate jewel skill, multiple different memories started to swim in his mind, the egg chamber, the sweet embrace of the demonic egg... Escaping from the egg before dying of suffocation, devouring your siblings to survive... death, decay, a burning wasteland, cliffs... The early memories of a demon were all the same, in the context that most of them were born weak and through devouring, they became stronger and improved their talent, in the end, the demon ended up breaking through the King Realm and gained a name, a cultivation technique, and met with the devils, the devils abhorred him and threw him to the demon''s city. The city wasn''t something the demon was accustomed to so he left hell after tens of years of slaving into the city for the information of the location of Hell''s gate. He went out of hell and the location in the mortal plane was... Yun Jhin''s eyes widened as he didn''t recognize the place where Hell''s entrance was, but after he replayed the memory more times he finally started to get an inkling of where it was supposed to be. It seemed the blood throne sect perished without him! Hell''s entrance was in the former headquarters of his sect, however, they were deserted and looked like hell itself descended on them, he could only recognize that it was his former sect''s headquarters after he inspected all of the small details, such as the building placements, ruins, runes, and the destroyed formations. Yun Jhin didn''t care much about the sect as it was only a means to an end, from what he saw, it seemed hell decided to ride his sect after they heard he died, well it wasn''t the wrong thing to do from their perspective, after all, he cheated them of quite a few contracts, the devil arch lords were fuming and he also ate some demon lords... He would be more surprised if nothing happened to the blood throne sect while he was gone. The demonic arm in his grasp finally turned into ashes as nothing sustained it anymore, Yun Jhin opened his eyes as he dug out of the earth and looked around, there was no one around so he filled the ground again and left, he didn''t leave any ki behind so no one would know what he did here. Yun Jhin started to wander around the forest but didn''t go very far into it, he would from time to time, harvest some herbs or kill some mutated demonic beats and keep their hearts or their other useful organs, from his inner clock he could say that almost 24 days passed since they entered the forest, unfortunately, he couldn''t go and kill some of the geniuses as he wanted to, it seemed they were all gathered up by Lulu and she was protecting them. He could see that because there weren''t many demonic beasts anymore and only the useful herbs that they couldn''t identify remained, Yun Jhin didn''t mind much that he couldn''t eat them, he found it to be more of an annoyance, after all, they were mostly half-lings in this batch, there were very few pure dragons left and Yun Jhin needed to eat them. However, this Empire was one of the relatively weak Empires in the upper continents. From the old man''s memories, he got to know that there were other 2 Empire''s divided by a sea and a gigantic jungle, both of them had peak god realm experts, even though they only had 1 each, A peak god realm expert could kill any other God Realm expert below the 9th stage no matter what. The Empire he was currently in was the brother of the Empire from over the ocean, and also a vassal of it, the Emperor was the son of the peak God Realm expert, and the name of the main Empire was the Luo Empire, the jungle one was called the Bumi Empire and both were named after their peak god realm experts. Yun Jhin could count himself lucky that he ended up in the weaker empire as he could still eat pure dragon''s if he was crafty enough, but if he ended versus a peak god realm expert, he could kiss goodbye his only remaining chance of breaking through the shackles of the universe and reaching true eternal life! Yun Jhin frowned as he felt someone approach him and he turned his head back to look who was coming from behind him, it unsurprisingly was Lulu. Lulu walked a little bit closer to him as she said: "I have been looking all over for you, it''s almost time to leave, there are 6 days left and the others were wondering where you went, also thank you for the healing back there." The girl flicked her hair behind her as she put her hand on Yun Jhin''s shoulder and her eyes hardened: "Might I know what have you done with that demonic arm?" Yun Jhin nonchalantly responded to her as if it wasn''t a big deal: "Would you believe I refined it?" Lulu frowned as she didn''t know about Yun Jhin''s reincarnated status, so looking at his cultivation base she thought that he was lying, after all, to refine a demonic entity would require strong willpower and a cultivation base of atleast 5th stage of the King Realm, at the 5th stage you would get a jewel that would immensely increase your soul and mental capabilities, that''s why one would need to refine demonic entities at this stage, or else there was a chance they would be entranced by the sweet promises of the demon and led to the demonic path. Most organizations hated hell and anyone who dealt with them, so it was normal Lulu looked a little bit concerned after she heard that Yun Jhin refined a demonic arm by himself. Yun Jhin looked at her and then said: "If you are concerned something''s wrong with me, you can come to the Emperor with me and make him inspect me, I won''t oppose that." Lulu stopped frowning as she heard his words then took a few steps back, she looked a bit startled by something but Yun Jhin couldn''t really see what it was, did she fall for him already? But that wasn''t it, atleast yet, Lulu grasped her spatial ring as she took out a communication stone and looked in it, her eyes widened as she said: "Our colleagues got attacked by a... it doesn''t say what they got attacked by, it seems the communication stone got interfered with at the last message, we need to rush back to help them!" Yun Jhin looked at Lulu then stopped her by grasping her shoulder, Lulu looked puzzled at him and Yun Jhin opened his mouth and said: "This is a survival exercise meant to toughen up all of them, you should realize that accidents are bound to happen, you can''t save everyone nor you have to, what will you do if the demonic entity that attacked them is stronger than you are? Would you lie your life down for people that you barely know?" Lulu shook her arm from his grasp as she glared at him and said: "As one of the princesses of the Empire, I must take arms like every other talented cultivator and protect my people, regardless if they are weak or strong and regardless of the opponent even if he or she is beyond my abilities, I would rather die on the battlefield than let some of my people die when I could do something, I thought you are a pretty different guy than the others, but all I see in you is a coward!" Yun Jhin chuckled as he responded to her: "Call me a coward would you? Ok, I will go with you, there was nothing I had to do anyways since you love your people so much I will help you save them." Lulu calmed a little after she heard his response but her face was still icy, but then she remembered that Yun Jhin was an outsider as he came to the Empire with the help of general Kong Luo, of course, he wouldn''t be attached to the Empire or its people! He must have lived a hard life, Lulu''s eyes softened as she looked at Yun Jhin follow her from behind, she used her fastest speed and he could somehow keep up with her, she was interested in what other kinds of tricks he had up his sleeve besides his elemental attacks. After moving through the forest for tens of minutes they finally reached the camp where most of the ''genius'' cultivators waited for Lulu, the camp was in shambles as bloodstains were scattered here and there, there were even some limbs scattered around, but there were no heads or internal organs, from what Yun Jhin could see, some of them must have been crippled to make an example. It seemed that what attacked the camp wasn''t any normal demonic beast. Lulu looked around and came with the same conjecture as Yun Jhin and her face paled, however, her pride didn''t let her go out of the forest and ask for the people outside for help as she would technically be disqualified, she didn''t want to throw out the chance of shining in her mother''s eyes for the lives of others, even though she talked about saving the others she was also selfish in her kind of way, she would rather throw away her life than disappoint her mother. Yun Jhin looked at the conflicted expression on her face and patted her shoulder then said: "Let''s go, they left a lot of marks behind, we can easily track them, and yes I know it might be a trap, but didn''t you say half an hour ago that you needed to save them regardless of the opponent or situation?" Lulu nodded at him and wanted to go ahead but Yun Jhin stopped her and said: "Let me go ahead, stay behind me, I have a special stealth technique that will make the both of us invisible so we won''t fall into the enemies trap, Ok?" Both of them disappeared as Lulu stood near him, both of their bodies almost brushed by each other and Lulu found this to be an unknown experience to her, after all, she talked to men before but never touched one this intimately. Lulu took her mind of these things as she had to help the captured ''geniuses''. Yun Jhin slowly followed the blood marks left on the ground as he reached an indigenous camp after a few hours of tracking. There he found the captured ''geniuses'' along with some natives of the forest, and the natives were currently boiling the ''geniuses'' into a gigantic black cauldron while patting their bellies and waiting for the feast. Yun Jhin found the image to be quite funny. Lulu didn''t and she almost ran out of Yun Jhin''s stealth zone to attack directly, her youthful hot-headedness took a hold of her but Yun Jhin stopped her in the nick of time and said: "We need a plan to get in there, atleast a diversion would be needed, we can''t go there and hope to kill everyone easily, there is a high chance they might just kill the others or threaten us with their lives." Lulu nodded as she was ashamed of her act, then waited for Yun Jhin to give her the plan. Yun Jhin thought for a few moments before he opened his mouth to tell her the plan he concocted. Chapter 68: Natives Yun Jhin told his plan, it was a fairly simple one: "I will be the bait and you will go and take your colleagues out of the cauldron." Lulu nodded her head at Yun Jhin, the plan was very simple but she would lie if she didn''t think about his safety so she asked: "Are you sure about this? What if they catch you?" Yun Jhin smiled at her and waved at her indicating that it wouldn''t be a problem at all, he already scanned their cultivation bases and most of them were around the 2nd to 3rd stage, the reason the geniuses were caught was that most of them were around the 1st stage with a few over the 2nd and reaching the 3rd. It would have been better if Lulu would have been the bait but if the natives weren''t dumb they would realize her cultivation base was higher than theirs, from the looks of it even though they weren''t as dumb as animals they weren''t that far from it, however, due to living in the forest their instincts must be extra sharp so they should know they would enter a trap if they followed someone with a higher cultivation base than theirs. But if it was someone with a lower cultivation base they wouldn''t think much about it, they would just think it was someone they missed when they caught the others. Yun Jhin made himself visible as he let out a little bit of his aura leak, the natives smelled the air like animals would and they started salivating as they spoke in their language: "There should be another one we missed, I can smell his aura!" "Yes, this one seems special, like a fat piggy!" "Should we go and investigate?" "The others are tied up and boiling, they won''t be able to do much." They nodded at each other as they left in unison leaving the ''geniuses'' all alone in the cauldron, Yun Jhin slowly walked away from the camp leading the others by leaking his aura here and there, Lulu jumped towards the cauldron and cut the ropes that kept all of them tied together. Most of them started crying, as some of them were armless or legless, some of them were just a torso and after they were cut from each other fell in the cauldron and almost drowned in the soup broth, but the others caught them and dragged them out. Lulu sighed as she looked at their miserable appearance, even though only a few of them got crippled that meant their futures were over, only Sage Realm practitioners could recover their limbs after they were cut off and it would take them quite a bit of internal ki to do that. Lulu helped all of them away as she looked in the direction that Yun Jhin took the natives, she would first get the people on her side to a safe place before she followed him to help! Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked at the natives run around in circles around him, it was very easy to play with these dumb natives that worked only on instincts, they were too dumb to realize they have been led away from their ''food''. Yun Jhin finally made himself fully visible to them making them hoot and holler in happiness, they threw themselves directly at him trying to catch him, they took out a bunch of dark ropes from their grass skirts and attacked him! Yun Jhin made a few dodges as the native''s attempts at catching him were rather poor, his speed was more than double theirs and his skill was also quite above, even though their cultivation base was higher it didn''t mean much to Yun Jhin as they weren''t trained in an orthodox way, to him who trained in peak cultivation techniques they were country hicks while he was an Emperor. After waiting for enough time Yun Jhin guessed that Lulu should have saved all of them so there was no reason to play with these people anymore, Yun Jhin made a few handseals as formations surrounded the natives and started crushing them. The natives hollered and cursed in their language as they tried to get away, but the gravity formation just continued to crush them into the ground, after a short while they all became meat patties on the ground. Yun Jhin devoured their spirits, but they were very lacking in quality even though there were around 20 natives in total, all their souls did was only refine his 5th stage jewel by a quarter, this was very disappointing considering they were all above his cultivation base, but they didn''t know any techniques, Yun Jhin wondered how did the others get caught? Were these ''geniuses'' really trash? Before he left he let his little dragon out to eat the meat patties on the ground so he could get some nutrients. Yun Jhin shook his head as he walked away trying to track the others, after a short while of wondering in the woods he found some marked places, Lulu should have marked them so when he came back he would follow them to their new camp. After tracking the signs for a short while he finally found the camp, Lulu was ready to set out and come to help him but when she found out he came back alone with no injuries, she was really surprised. She came forward to him and patted him on the shoulder, looking him up and down then said: "It seems I have underestimated you again, you sure are a strong guy, did you kill all of them?" Yun Jhin nodded at her then said: "You owe me one for this, I will go now..." Lulu tried to stop him and so did the crowd of geniuses who all walked forward and bowed at the same time while saying in unison: "We wish to thank you Yun Jhin, you have put forward your life to save ours and we are grateful, please stay with us we want to give you something." Yun Jhin shook his head and said: "I have to say one thing to you all, what kind of trash geniuses are you?" The crowd immediately became sour as they heard Yun Jhin''s words, comparing to him they were indeed trash geniuses, they were so many but they got abducted by around 20 natives with their sophisticated cultivation techniques how could they have lost so bad to a bunch of mutated native trash? The others wanted to defend themselves but a tall genius around the 3rd stage of the King Realm came forward, he missed an arm and his face was still a bit bloody from the torture that he went through and he didn''t have time to clean it up till now. He bowed to Yun Jhin again and said: "I know we are all trash and we didn''t deserve your help, this is all I can say for me and my colleagues, however, due to your actions you made quite a few friends in the capital, even though most of our families don''t have pure-blooded patriarchs, we are nobility after all, and when you will need help, regarding politics or anything else, you can come to my Luo household." The others interfered as well, but some people also held grudges because Yun Jhin called them trash, however, even though they were weak they weren''t dumb, most of them lived in a politic heavy environment and they recognized Yun Jhin''s heavy martial talent, in the end, no matter how many politics were involved, in a world such as theirs, the heavier fist won, not the more eloquent mouth. Yun Jhin nodded at them but didn''t say anything else, he left them behind but Lulu followed him as she said: "You know, you don''t have to go, you can stay with us. Only 6 days are remaining until we can leave and I''m not sure if any other natives will appear, after all, we can''t be sure those twenty were the only ones who live in this gigantic demonic forest. There must be a village full of them and we need to protect each other!" Yun Jhin chuckle turned into a burst of full-blown laughter as he heard her words and then told her with a cold voice: "Protect each other? Your highness Lulu, do you understand that what you are doing is counterproductive to the actual meaning of this training?" Lulu shook her head as she said: "What do you mean I..." Yun Jhin cut her off as he continued speaking: "Let me tell you something, Lulu, most of the people here were meant to die, I and you are the only exceptions, most of them are trash, you should have looked at them, I''m pretty sure they are the dead-last talented in their families and they were sent here to become food for the natives, their families wanted to get rid of them in the form of a ''training exercise''. How can you be so blind?" Lulu''s frame shook as she heard his words and then said: "No you are wrong... you are wrong, I''m supposed to protect them, even though I have been sent here to do other things I can''t let my people die in front of me!" Yun Jhin shook his head, the Empress didn''t educate her in such matters as she only trained her rigorously and let her personality develop by herself, Yun Jhin didn''t know what kind of experiences she had in her childhood that made her such a protecting fool. Yun Jhin opened his mouth and said: "I met countless people like you on my journey from the lower continents, do you know what happened to them?" Even though her personality was like that, that didn''t mean she was dumb, she smiled self depreciatingly as she said: "They are all dead right?" Yun Jhin nodded and said: "Not even their bones remained, in such a world like ours it would be better to stop thinking about the others and think more about yourself, I''m only telling you this because you are the daughter of the Empress, if you were anyone else, I would have just let you die the moment you came to help me fight that old man, do you know why?" Lulu shook her head then looked at Yun Jhin in the eyes as she said: "I don''t care about your reasons, I know that you are rather detached from life and the well being of others due to the things you went through, I can''t force you to change nor I can but you shouldn''t force your beliefs in other''s throats." Yun Jhin laughed again as he heard her words and Lulu was suddenly on the ground as a gravity formation popped under her, Yun Jhin walked slowly in front of her as he looked at her from above and said: "My ''beliefs'' you said? These aren''t beliefs, this is what you need to survive in this world! You are strong, smart but dumb at the same time, this can only be lead from being inexperienced, I''m only a little bit older than you but what I have gone through shaped me into what I''m today, I can only tell you this, I''m different from you in more ways than one." She struggled to her knees as she got up forcefully in the gravity formation but Yun Jhin placed a palm on her shoulder which made her fall to her knees again, then he turned off the gravity formation as he walked away, with his back facing her he waved and said: "We will meet again when we leave the forest, also all I can say was that it was a dumb decision to save these people, you will see when we return to the capital, they will either die due to an accident or poisoned." Lulu shook her head, she didn''t believe in Yun Jhin''s words, after all, her mother never taught her anything about politics yet. Yun Jhin silhouette disappeared in the forest as Lulu returned to the camp, she helped patch up the others and then went hunting some mutated animals. Yun Jhin did the same as her as he went around killing animals and taking herbs, some of them would be useful for pills in the future. Time went by quickly as the 30th day passed and they were ready to leave the forest. Due to the entrance being on the same path, Yun Jhin and Lulu met each other quite early but they didn''t talk at all, only Lulu glared once at Yun Jhin then ignored him. The others tried to curry favour with Yun Jhin but he ignored them, they were dead men and women after all. After a short while of walking, they finally reached the entrance and meet with Kong Luo, the elder and the maid from the Song family. The maid was visibly happy as she didn''t see the fatty come out of the forest. Kong Luo nodded at Yun Jhin, he could see that there was something different about him but he couldn''t point what, maybe he unlocked some of his former memories? The Emperor would be extremely happy if that happened, maybe he would even get his retirement earlier so he could go into closed-door cultivation. Kong Luo created another flying boat out of ki as the maid and the old man infused it with ki, both the maid and the old man had creases on their foreheads as they counted the returning disciples, they were too many! But they didn''t say anything as they made all of them jump on the boat and return to the capital. They would take care of them back home then... Chapter 69: Back to the capital The journey back to the capital was silent, no one talked about what happened in the forest, most of them were traumatized by the events, Yun Jhin scoffed seeing their blocked visages, the more they thought about what happened the more their PTSD intensified. Lulu herself didn''t get to see what other horrors the others did when they were kidnapped so she was pretty much ok, the only thing that bothered her was Yun Jhin''s actions and words, how could her people do something like that? Since she was young she saw herself as a hero in shining armor that would protect her mother and her subordinates which led to her wanting to protect everyone in the capital. Yun Jhin looked at her troubled expression and chuckled inside, she will be hit very hard when she will see that he was right. Kong Luo maneuvered the ki ship easily as they approached the giant wall that divided the middle and upper continents, the teleportation formation was ready and Pei Fong was also here now, the man talked a little bit with Kong Luo before he told him that he wanted to talk with Yun Jhin by himself. Kong Luo didn''t know what to tell Pei Fong, after all, Yun Jhin was pretty much a national treasure at this point, anyone that could reach the god realm would be heavily invested into. The general also couldn''t tell him the true reason he couldn''t waste Yun Jhin''s time, after all, the Emperor said that no one else should know of this without his permission. Kong Luo liked his head on his shoulders. So he refused Pei Fong and left the wall using the teleportation formation along with Yun Jhin and the others. Immediately when they appeared inside the capital, some of the royal guards were led to the formation and invited Yun Jhin to the palace, the other ''geniuses'' thought that the invitation would be lent to them as well, after all, they still thought that surviving the training course would let them join a special unit that the Emperor would create. However, the first thing that happened when they returned was that some of their family members came and took them back to their families, most of them weren''t sure why they were rushed back to their families but they didn''t dare to question their relatives. The maid chuckled happily as she returned to the Song family to report her success, the old man sighed and left by himself going to his own family, and Kong Luo went back to the army brigade as he wasn''t invited along with Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin entered the palace and met with the Emperor who questioned him on his endeavor, Yun Jhin told him that he unlocked some his memories but they were very faint, he even gave him a cultivation technique to make it look true, he only gave him the first half and told him the other part was too blurred to understand. The Emperor believed him for half, and the other half doubted him thinking that he didn''t want to share the whole cultivation technique with him, even though he wasn''t lacking in techniques, it was still quite an impressive one even for his standards, even though he couldn''t cultivate it, he could give it to one of his halfling sons, however, he would need the second half for that to happen. Yun Jhin told him that he would send the other half as soon as he deciphered it. The Emperor wanted to get the other half of the technique as soon as it was possible so he gave Yun Jhin a room in the outer skirts of the palace and told him to cultivate in there before he would be assigned another training course. Yun Jhin entered his new room and chased away the half-naked maids from his bed, he wasn''t in the mood currently. He was ready to close into the 6th stage of the refinery of his jewel, his accumulation from the natives wasn''t anything great, but with it combined with a little bit of cultivation could make him reach the 6th stage. Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he sat cross-legged on the bed and attracted the starlight from the outer atmosphere of the planet, the starlight fell directly on his head as it fused with his jewel, the jewel shined with peculiar green energy, as the wraiths inside of it howled and cried in panic and pain, seemingly as if they understood that after Yun Jhin reached the 9th stage and refined his jewel fully, they would all perish and be absorbed fully by the jewel. Yun Jhin opened his eyes as he finally reached the 6th stage, he made a small progress from the training course that the Emperor gave to him, he also gained the location of hell''s entrance, but going back to the blood throne sect was an endeavor that wouldn''t be easily achievable, at the least he would need to be a Sage Realm expert. The Blood Throne sect was created around the southern hemisphere of the universe, the 4 symbols planets of the 4 sacred beasts were situated around the northern center, the dimensional portals he would have to control and use would need him to be at the Sage Realm to utilize. There was also the fact that only Sage Realm cultivators could survive outer space without any treasure''s help. He would also need the approval of the overlord of the planet to leave it, that meant gaining huge merit or currying favor. Yun Jhin sighed only if he was stronger... He would just massacre everyone and take what he wanted, only if he had this system in his previous life, he would have sacrificed everything to devour the needed amounts of races to evolve into something akin to a fortuned constitution. Even though there was only a chance a fortuned constitution could break through the limits of the universe he had to take it! After all, he already tried everything else that could be done and he failed, the only other way would be to gain a body that could reach the rank 10,000. Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as some knocks could be heard at his door, he could feel the aura of Lulu behind the door! Lulu entered before he could say anything, she looked like she cried for a bit, she approached Yun Jhin and wanted to talk but Yun Jhin interrupted her: "Did they already start executing them?" Lulu nodded she wanted to cry her grief to Yun Jhin but she was interrupted again: "Did your mother scold you because of what you did?" Lulu''s eyes widened as she looked at Yun Jhin, her tears dried a little as she looked at him and wondered how he could see through her so easily, then she remembered his words and shook her head, he already told her what would happen but she ignored him thinking that it was only his negative side speaking. Now she realized that all of his experience wasn''t for show. Lulu approached him and bit her lips, she wore very light clothing that highlighted her curves, her tender white skin, her peach-like lips, her sizeable bosom that waved up and down, it seemed her mother sent her here to seduce Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin chuckled inside as she looked at her attempts to get near to him, for others, such a cute side of a woman would trigger their innate beasts and she would have gulped up by now if it was anyone else, but Yun Jhin could control his desires and even exterminate them if needed so. That didn''t mean he didn''t enjoy the sensation, he just could decide when he wanted to do it and he couldn''t be forced to do it. Yun Jhin waved his hand at her and said: "Your mother should have told you the other reason that she wanted you to pursue me besides my pure bloodline right?" Lulu nodded her head as her body shook and she said: "Mother said that you are a reincarnated cultivator, is it true?" Yun Jhin nodded nonchalantly and said: "From what the Emperor and the Empress told me it should be this way, it''s the only reason I can explain the memories seeping through my mind, they aren''t my own but it feels like they belong to my soul. It''s truly strange you know?" Lulu shook her head and tried to approach Yun Jhin but he stopped her and said: "Even though I admire you as the opposite sex, this isn''t the way to build a relationship, Lulu it''s a bit too early to move this far, don''t you agree with me?" Lulu nodded her head as tears seeped again from her eyes, she ran towards Yun Jhin but not in the same way as before, she cried a little bit in his bosom to unload herself, this was the first time her mother was so hard on her and forced her to do something without her input on the thing at all. She just told her: "You will have his child and this isn''t something you can argue about, now go and make me a grandmother, make sure you gulp his seed till he can''t move any more!" At first, she was embarrassed then she realized how her mother was forcing her on a relative stranger that she only knew very less about, Yun Jhin wasn''t ugly he was talented and had a bright future to him, but she didn''t know much about him besides the rumors that flew about. Yun Jhin sighed as he patted her back and let her unload then he asked her: "How could you come here, this is the territory of the emperor and I''m sure he still holds a grudge for what happened at the dinner from a while ago." Lulu explained how she didn''t find any resistance as she was dropped to his courtyard then let near his room, it seemed that even the Emperor approved of the Empress youngest daughter to end up with him. It looked like they wanted to see what his child''s bloodline would look like. Yun Jhin wouldn''t mind satisfying their curiosity as long as he got benefits out of it, but it was still a bit too early for that, Lulu would also bear a grudge on him if he forced himself on her right now, and he needed her to be cooperating in the future. After Yun Jhin finished comforting her and all of her tears dried up he told her the following: "You should go back to your mother and tell her that even though I like you, it''s a bit too early for this type of relationship, I''m also more interested to unlocking my former life memories first before anything like this will happen in the future, go now, I have to meditate." Lulu nodded her head slowly as she left his room and then disappeared, she reappeared back in the Empress''s garden and she stood in front of her, the Empress looked at her with narrowed eyes as she listened to the message from Yun Jhin and she snorted: "That little bastard doesn''t know that his personality might be altered once he fully recovers his memories, would he even look at you after he regains his pride as a God Realm cultivator?" But what Yun Jhin said was also reasonable, he didn''t know Lulu for a lot of time, when it came to arranged marriages the woman could say no and nothing would happen, but if the man said no the marriage could fall and break, so even though men could force themselves on women, women couldn''t, unless they were stronger or had a bigger backing. This was just how a society based on strength worked, even the Empress forced herself on countless men due to their innate talent, some of them were unwilling but the Empress didn''t take a no from them. The Empress wanted Lulu to take the same approach, but unfortunately, her youngest daughter wasn''t overwhelmingly stronger than Yun Jhin so she couldn''t force herself on him, and even if she did, if Yun Jhin was unwilling and complained to the Emperor things could go ugly for her, she would need to cough up some resources and benefits to cool her husband''s temper. When she talked with him regarding the union of her daughter and Yun Jhin, he only agreed if Yun Jhin was willing! This was giving face to a future pillar of the Empire, since the Emperor was sure that Yun Jhin would fully unlock his memories and reach the God Realm. The Empress thought the same and that was why she wanted to secure his bloodline so she could have something over him in the future as she wanted his support as well. She looked at her daughter then said: "From now on follow him wherever he goes, make him fall in love with you regardless of what you have to do, do you understand? We need to secure his bloodline!" Lulu bit her lips but in the end, she nodded her head and didn''t disobey her mother, she just couldn''t, her whole life she thought that her mother wanted the best for her and this was the only time she thought that her mother didn''t know what she wanted. It wasn''t that she hated Yun Jhin or wasn''t interested in a relationship with him, but this was too forced for her! ... Yun Jhin left his room as he wandered the capital, he looked around and gathered information, he needed to know about the danger zones in the upper regions, even though he recognized some of them from his memories, there were also some new ones that he didn''t know about. He would be sent to a new danger zone until he would unlock all of his memories or die, that''s what the Emperor wanted from him, Yun Jhin already had all of his memories but he wouldn''t tell them or they would suspect him and his reasons for joining the Empire, after all, would a God Realm expert want to be the subordinate of anyone else even if he couldn''t help it? The answer was of course not! Even though the danger zones wouldn''t unlock him further memories he could still benefit from such expeditions, after all, danger zones were full of benefits, herbs, and animals that have been mutated by the environment that Yun Jhin could use. He already gained some herbs that he could use to concoct a pill that could jumpstart his first jewel refinery to the 9th stage in one go, but he still lacked a few ingredients that couldn''t be found in the capital, the Emperor would also not give them to him if he asked about it, in the hopes that he could get them by himself when he was sent to a danger zone and help him unlock his memories. Yun Jhin sighed as he finally finished gaining all of the information about the danger zones then went back to the outer skirts palace room, he would first go through the new information before waiting for news from Black Blood, he would come soon with the new location he would be sent to, if he guessed right, only him and Lulu would be sent there for ''tempering'' purposes. Chapter 70: Danger zones There were around 5-6 danger zones in the upper continents, 2-3 in the middle continents, and 1 in the lower continents. The danger zones in the upper continents were the most deadly and beast infested zones, most of them stood at the apex of elemental concentration, just like the Demonic Forest stood at the apex of demonic energy stored into the mortal realm. A danger zone was called a danger zone because only the top 10% of cultivators could benefit from it, those being the ones at the Sage Realm or above, while the others below could technically survive in such conditions it wouldn''t be beneficial for them at all. Take Lulu, for example, if she lived in the demonic forest for a long time she might end up like those natives if she didn''t protect her body constantly with her ki. Being infested with demonic ki wasn''t necessarily a bad thing, but when the world was filled with self-righteous people who denounced the demonic path, it could as well be deadly. Yun Jhin finished reading on the new danger zones, he knew of the first four but the last two were new, one was under the ocean that separated the Empire that Yun Jhin was with its brother the Luo Empire. The other one was in the jungle near the Bumi Empire. There wasn''t much news about these two danger zones as they newly appeared one hundred years ago, some rogue cultivators found them while they searched for treasures, All three Empires tried to send men to them but only very few came back and most of them became crazy after they returned. With Yun Jhin''s experience, he knew what these two danger zones could entail, one of them was either the birth of a new hybrid while the other must be a tomb. Most tombs had formations that would turn the intruders crazy, as for the hybrid, it must be a special mental based race that strengthened itself countless times, this types of hybrids were different as they couldn''t take human form, they were born with a body around the rank of 8,500 and they couldn''t improve it further. Their cultivation would also stagnate around the 9th stage of the Sage Realm but they would be born in the Sage Realm and they would have a very high battle power to the point that they could fight weaker God Realm experts. Yun Jhin crossed both of these zones out of being sent to, one was too dangerous for him, and the other couldn''t be reached normally, it would mean sending him to the Luo Empire then the Luo Empire would need to smuggle him in the jungle which was the territory of the Bumi Empire. The remaining four danger zones were based on the four elements, they had an excess of elemental power in them that made them extremely dangerous, the four zones consisted of the Volcanic Region, The dead Earth Region, The Violent wind Region, and the Icy Water Ocean. All of them reached the extremes of the four elements and they weren''t habitable environments, just like the demonic forest the one who enters these regions would have to continuously use their ki as a shield to protect their bodies and souls from being battered by the intense elemental ki that assaulted their senses, souls, and bodies. Yun Jhin''s soul wouldn''t have a problem to endure in such conditions but his body was weak, he would need to continuously use his ki like everyone else. He sighed as he marked the zones that had the materials that he could use, he wouldn''t be sent very far in the danger zones so he could only gather herbs from the fringes, but even those were considered rather rare and extraordinary in the eyes of those below the Sage Realm. While Yun Jhin was making his plan inside his room, Black Blood was talking with the Emperor inside the palace: "Your majesty, are you sure you want to send Yun Jhin and her highness Lulu to all of the danger zones available to us?" The Emperor nodded at Black Blood as he responded to the Eunuch: "They will stay in each zone for 10 days each I will send in them formations that would lock them into the zone once they enter it, you follow them around but don''t send them to the zones, they should go by themselves, the tempering of the four elemental zones was something I and my wife did in our youths as well." Black Blood nodded and didn''t comment as the Emperor waved his hand at him and said: "Go and summon both that girl Lulu and Yun Jhin, I will install the formation in them right now and then send them on their way, Yun Jhin needs to unlock his memories before our brother Empire gets the news of us having a reincarnated person in our ranks..." The Emperor still had ambitions to break off from his father''s empire and officially stop being a vassal. Yun Jhin and Lulu entered the throne room at the same time and the Emperor didn''t even bother to talk with them as he inserted two inscribed energy cores into the bodies, they easily fused with them and the Emperor said: "Black Blood should have explained to you how things will go through with this training exercise, good luck to both of you!" Yun Jhin nodded and before he left the throne room he used his soul willpower to give the other half of the cultivation technique he presented to the Emperor beforehand, Lulu bowed meekly then left as well. Yun Jhin had changed his outfit and applied formations on it that strengthened it''s resistance to the four elements. He now wore a black tunic, gray armored pants, and military boots, over his body he wore a green cloak with the symbols of the four elements in a circle on it''s back. Lulu wore a special red armor with small patches here and there, these patches radiated elemental energy and seemed like they could absorb and release elemental energy. She also had both of her swords on her back instead of her spatial ring for quick accessibility. Yun Jhin didn''t have a weapon as he didn''t need to use one up till now, besides using the weapons of the previous bodies that he possed, he didn''t get to use many weapons, the first thing was because he couldn''t find a good enough weapon for his main body, the second thing being was that he didn''t need to use one up till now. But the cultivation beasts and animals living in the four danger zones would need specifically enchanted weapons to be slain, they could also be slain with your bare hands but it would take more time and it would be less efficient. So Yun Jhin decided to craft his weapon before he left for the first danger zone, the Emperor didn''t truly say when he was supposed to leave, even though he sent them away he didn''t throw them out of the capital. Yun Jhin went inside his room on the outskirts of the palace, Lulu followed behind him without saying anything as he already explained to her that he needed to make a weapon that would help them during this new training session. Lulu wanted to assist and observe how he created the weapon as she thought that it would help her on her swordsmanship path. Black Blood stood in the shadows as he observed as well, he was curious about Yun Jhin''s weapon refining technique. Yun Jhin started with a bunch of handseals as he opened his spatial ring and started to throw in herbs and metals he found in the demonic forest, he already moved all of his other materials from his spatial bag into the ring so he had everything he needed with him. Beast cores, poisonous herbs, different colored metals that corresponded to the four elements, spirit stones. All of them melted inside the formation as Yun Jhin used his inner ki fire to burn them and refine them, quite a lot of slag was extracted from them as they were purified by his inner fire. He threw the slag away as when it left the formation it turned into dust then disappeared. Only a multicolored piece of metal remained inside the formation, Yun Jhin started to shape it into a katana''s shape, the body was of a normal steel color with fire wave patterns on the back, it had a red handle and an average height for a katana, on the handle appeared a black stone with four colors on it, the current part of the stone was on red but then it changed to blue, so its handle changed to the blue color as the fire wave patterns from its back changed to water wave patterns. Yun Jhin nodded at his weapon, it would be a useful weapon for the current situation and he wouldn''t have to worry even if he ran out of ki as he could use the sword to protect his body. The formation stopped as the katana hovered to Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin already had a sheath prepared for it, as the katana entered the sheath, the sheath turned into the same color as the handle but with a lighter color. Lulu didn''t stop observing until the end, she was pretty impressed by Yun Jhin''s blacksmithing technique, she didn''t have much experience with blacksmithing but she could understand that what Yun Jhin did here showed that he was a very experienced blacksmith. Yun Jhin dabbled in countless professions in his countless lives, he knew a lot of everything so he could pretty much do whatever he needed to survive in whatever situation that popped up. Black Blood realized that Yun Jhin held some information from the Emperor but it was only natural, after all, how could Yun Jhin trust the Emperor up till now, as the man didn''t do anything that would warranty the young man''s trust. Yun Jhin tied the katana to his hip and then left the capital with Lulu, Black Blood followed them from behind like a shadow to make sure they went to the destination. Lulu and Yun Jhin already memorized the location of the four danger zones so they didn''t stray from the right path at all, after a few days of walking the air started to heat up as they reached a plain. In the middle of the plain, a lava river stood, and beyond the lava river, a gigantic Volcano stood proudly there as lava flowed down from it to the river, near the river stood some animals that drank from the river. The animals looked like lava golems made from melted rocks, as some of the lava they drank dripped from their empty eyes or the cracks in their bodies. This was how the animals that lived on this plain evolved since the Volcano appeared. Yun Jhin looked around for a short while before he went into the direction of the lava river, he would need to pass the river to be considered in the danger zone as the formation core inside his body didn''t trigger yet. Lulu followed slowly behind him as Black Blood roasted some meat and watched from afar, the Emperor didn''t say he couldn''t have a few snacks while the youngsters trained. Yun Jhin finally reached the lava river but the animals there didn''t get scared and run away, instead they started to growl as lava started to fall on the ground burning it to cinders and widening the lava river by a small amount. Yun Jhin didn''t say anything as he unsheathed his katana as its handle turned a deep blue color, he slashed the animals so fast that they didn''t realize what happened before they turned into frost sculptures broke, and died, their pure fire energy cores stood where they died and Yun Jhin picked them up and put them inside his spatial ring. Lulu narrowed her eyes inside as she saw Yun Jhin''s sword skills, she realized that she couldn''t truly see through them! Yun Jhin snapped his fingers to take her attention as he waved his sword again creating an ice bridge over the lava river, as they were both King Realm experts they couldn''t truly fly yet, the river was quite wide and they wouldn''t have enough ki to support their pseudo flying capability until the end so they would instead fall in the river and burn to death. Yun Jhin took the front as he walked on the ice bridge and Lulu followed slowly behind him, Black Blood felt pretty impressed by the abilities of Yun Jhin''s katana and he thought that he should ask to make him a weapon as well after they returned from this training expedition. After around 10 minutes of walking, they finally went to the other shore of the lava river and were officially inside the danger zone, both of their formation cores started to tick inside their bodies, after they stopped ticking that meant 10 days would have passed and they would be able to leave. Yun Jhin sighed as he started walking towards the direction of the gigantic Volcano, he wouldn''t dare to approach it too much, but the good herbs and beast cores wouldn''t lay near the shores of the lava river, as the concentration of fire energy was the smallest there. Lulu didn''t say anything as she followed behind him, she was there to temper herself while trying to win Yun Jhin''s heart at the same time, she knew that talking with him wouldn''t win his heart so she was ready to launch an attack the moment a strong opponent would come. The few animals at the outer rings of the lava river didn''t count as they weren''t even in the King Realm so she didn''t bother to deal with them. Yun Jhin also ignored the weaker beasts and animals, unless they attacked him he wouldn''t deal with them. After a short while he finally found a herb that he could use for his pill, it was guarded by a 4th stage King Realm short ape that salivated lava near the herb, it was ready to eat it. But Yun Jhin and Lulu intervened, after she saw Yun Jhin lunge towards the beast, she decided to make a quick work of it to show how useful she could be! Chapter 71: Fighting the elements (1) Lulu wanted to directly slice the short ape into two and end it but the ape looked up from the fire herb on the ground and started to beat it''s chest as it showed its rock fangs to them and shouted: "OHOHOHOH AHHHH" It seemed it wasn''t an intelligent animal as it couldn''t talk, even though its cultivation was relatively high it seemed to not develop intelligence at all, it had the average IQ of a normal ape. Lulu''s sword slashes directly went to the rock animal''s neck but her sword got stuck inside its thick neck. Lulu frowned as she tried to recover her sword, but its big rock paws swiped towards her head and tried to choke her, she backed away and let go of her sword. The sword now sat in the things neck and Lulu had only one sword on her back now. Lulu didn''t understand how her premium strong sword couldn''t slash through the ape''s neck, even though it was made of rock, if she put her whole force in her slash she could slash through two or three mountains! Yun Jhin shook his head as he saw Lulu''s poor attempt at killing the beast, he gave her a try to see more of her abilities, he knew about her trump card but wasn''t acquainted with all of her other abilities, it seemed he overestimated her, she didn''t even realize that her swords weren''t going to do well in this type of environment even after he saw him forge a new sword. Yun Jhin unsheathed his katana as he slid his fingers on the blade dripping three drops of blood on it from his cut fingers, the blade started to emanate a cold wave of energy as it turned into a frost blade. The cold energy started to anger the ape as it beat it''s chest and took out the sword from its neck and started to wield it, it didn''t have a good swordsmanship form and it only took the sword to try and imitate Yun Jhin and Lulu. The ape jumped creating a small crater where it stood previously and appeared in front of Yun Jhin. But Yun Jhin wasn''t in the same spot as before, he appeared where the ape stood and quickly unearthed the fire herb that the ape eyed and stuffed it into his spatial ring after he used his ki to seal its properties. The ape became extremely angry as it saw its food being taken away, it slapped its chest aggressively as he used the sword to slash at Lulu as she was nearby, Lulu took a defensive stance but she was almost sent flying by the ape, even though it was 2 cultivation realms below her, it''s innate strength was higher. That didn''t stop Lulu, she gritted her teeth as she closed her eyes for a split second before breathing in and out, when she opened her eyes she was behind the ape and the ape now had three deep cuts on its chest that dripped lava. The ape looked at the cuts then started screeching like the mad animal it was, it threw the sword away as it rushed towards Lulu its mouth was open as it tried to bite Lulu''s head off. Lulu wasn''t scared as she flashed around the ape trying to disorient it, she picked her sword from the ground where the ape threw it and clashed both swords together, she was ready to use another attack. However, her eyes widened as she saw the slashes on the ape''s chest heal up. Yun Jhin decided he had seen enough after he saw the ape starting to heal, if Lulu would have had some appropriate weapons the ape would have been dead by now, she did well enough, Yun Jhin appeared in front of the ape and thrust his katana deep into his chest before he rotated it, an explosion of ice occurred inside the ape''s chest as it transformed into an ice sculpture starting from its fiery insides. The ice sculpture broke seconds later as a shiny beast core dropped to the ground, the beast core started to melt the ice pieces that remained from the ape, Yun Jhin used his ki to cover his hand then picked up the core. Then he used a caging technique to seal the core and he put it in his spatial ring. Lulu was breathing quite hard as the environment started to take a toll on her, she sheathed her swords as she looked at Yun Jhin and asked: "What do you think we should do now?" Yun Jhin shook his head as he took out a pill from his spatial ring and threw it to her then told her: "Eat this pill, it should quickly recover the ki that you used, we are going to search for more herbs, this is only one that I need, we still have 10 days of waiting in this region before we have to move to the next one, I''m also feeling pretty unthreatened at the fringes of the region, we will need to go in further." Lulu nodded slowly at him then she asked with a meek tone: "Could you help me enchant my swords with some frost formations... I don''t think they would be able to last long in this environment." Her premium strong swords were almost getting melted by the heat around, only her ki reshaped them into a normal form. Yun Jhin took both swords from her and did a few hand seals, some ice formations were inscribed on the blade of the swords which made them resistant to the heat. They would also do more damage to the living beings inside the danger zone. Lulu gave Yun Jhin a big smile and a peck on the cheek after she got her swords back, Yun Jhin ignored her kiss and then said: "Now that I enchanted your swords we will go further in, I''m very interested to see which kind of memories I will unlock now." Lulu kept quiet as they started to walk further into the region, one day passed this way, on the way to the volcano they met with a few beasts similar to the ape that they dealt with, they also got the other herbs that Yun Jhin needed, he only needed 1 more before he could say that he gained whatever he could from the region considering his cultivation base. Yun Jhin played on the Emperor''s hands on the surface, but the reason he truly wanted to go to the four danger zones was that the second stage of the King Realm required the four elements to be inscribed in his jewel, with the four elements in one jewel he would be able to expand on his abilities in the future and gain a perfect elemental body, while his body might change and evolve since the crown was fused with his soul, his perfect elemental body would transfer. The pill he would create with the herbs and inner beast cores from the four regions would make him able to rush to the 9th stage of the refinery of the first jewel and maybe even break through the second stage of the King Realm, the pill also helped with creating the four elements jewels, technically speaking, most other King Realm practitioners would get to have 1 jewel per element and that would take space on the crown limiting their future potential and battle power. Lulu was this way, she already embedded her crown with 4 elements and was on the 6th stage, the 1st stage was the awakening of the most important ability, the 2-5th stage would be the four elemental jewels, the 6th one would be the bodily strength enhancement, the 7th the soul one, the 8th would be another ability that would strengthen the battle power of the practitioner and the last one would be the coup de grace of the King Realm expert. The 9th stage would combine the former abilities and enhancements from all of the former jewels and strengthen them up to a factor of x3, granting an overall boost to the practitioner''s body and soul while also giving him a new combined ability, this is why King Realm experts at the 9th stage were called true kings, they were so powerful no other people in the same realm would be able to do anything to them and they could kill whole armies of people under the 9th stage. As Yun Jhin went further inside the danger zone, Lulu could observe that his clothing was special just like his sword, it protected him from the innate heat of the lava around them as well as the arid environment meaning he didn''t even sweat, her armor was different in the sense that it absorbed all of the fire elemental energy in the air and released it when she battled with the mutated beasts, however, it was detrimental for her as the elemental energy made them heal up and strengthen themselves. So Yun Jhin told her to suppress the release part of the armor in fights. Such an armor would have been quite useful in normal fights, but in such an environment it would be useless to deal with the mutated beasts born from fire and molten lava. Yun Jhin and Lulu were around 1000 kilometers away from the volcano and they couldn''t go further as the heat that bared upon the duo was making them sweat intensely even with the help of their special treasures. Yun Jhin looked around as a deep blue light appeared in his eyes, he was searching for the final herb, even though 10 days already passed he didn''t leave the danger zone as he needed to gather the herb, the Emperor also didn''t say that they specifically needed to leave the danger zone after 10 days went by. Black Blood himself was quite puzzled why the duo didn''t leave the danger zone as he observed them using his soul willpower, he saw how they gathered herbs and killed beasts here and there but the Empire already had such herbs and they could ask for them from the Emperor after the training expedition ended, why would they risk their lives for herbs? Yun Jhin looked around for a short while before he spotted the herb he needed, it was shaped like a red snake and it lived in a nearby lava puddle, it was hissing intensely as it sensed Yun Jhin''s gaze, the herb was special as it was alive and dead at the same time, once it left the lava it would become inanimate but as long as it sat in it, it would act just like a normal living snake. Yun Jhin watched as the snake dove into the puddle and made itself unseen, however with the help of his eye technique he could see that it was still in the puddle hiding, taking the snake out of the lava would be quite an annoying ordeal but he could do it. He slapped his arm a few times as countless frost formations took over it, then he took a black glove out of his spatial ring and put it on his left hand, the glove contracted on his hand with a swish sound as it turned deep blue, an icy crystal appeared in the middle of it as Yun Jhin quickly plunged his hand in the lava puddle. The snake hissed as it tried to bite Yun Jhin''s gloved hand but that was what Yun Jhin wanted, the snake hisses turned from aggressive into those one made in pain as it''s little body turned into frost, Yun Jhin took it''s body out of the lava puddle as the glove burned to ashes and his arm along with it, he grasped the icy snake with his right hand as he burned the ice layer off and then caged the snake inside a formation, even though it looked dead on the surface, it could revive in any moment in this type of environment. He put the snake inside his spatial ring and looked as Lulu''s eyes wandered to his missing arm, he chuckled as he patted his armless shoulder and said: "It will grow back." Lulu didn''t question him, after all, his current body wasn''t his true one, it was just his body being compressed into an ideal form that he wanted using ki techniques, he wasn''t at this full potential in this form but he could use quite a lot of techniques easier, even though he was lacking in raw strength in this form, he could make it up with quite a lot of techniques, this was the difference between humans and cultivation beasts it was skill vs strength. Yun Jhin and Lulu started to retreat from the danger zone and after a long while they exited it successfully without a hitch, they were stopped by some other mutated animals along the way but they made quick work off them, however, Yun Jhin''s arm still didn''t grow back. Yun Jhin knew how to restore his arm even while being under the Sage Realm, he was a God Realm expert in his former life and even though it wouldn''t grow back under normal circumstances, he had countless ways to restore it. Even though he was missing one arm, Yun Jhin didn''t seem any different, Lulu questioned him a few times on the way why his arm didn''t grow back, but Yun Jhin replied that it just wasn''t time yet. Lulu became skeptical after a few days passed and they neared the earth danger zone, would Yun Jhin''s arm truly grow back? Wasn''t that the power only those at the Sage Realm and above enjoyed? But Lulu decided to not comment further, in the end, they had two God Realm experts holding the fort, they must have a way to restore his missing arm right? Yun Jhin knew what Lulu was thinking about and it made him happy that she started to think like that about him, that meant he was slowly entering her heart without her knowing it, sooner or later he would be able to enjoy himself as the Imperial Prince in the Empire, then he would be able to move way easier in the upper continents as long as he said that he didn''t run for the throne, as long as he knew where to thread the enemies of the Empire wouldn''t be able to touch him. Lulu exclaimed as she looked down at the giant canyon in front of her and said: "What a big hole... do we have to jump down in it and live inside there for 10 days?" "Yes." The formation cores inside their bodies were already reacting, seemingly as if they tried to push them from the cliff directly inside the canyon! Yun Jhin patted Lulu''s shoulder then pushed her forward making her free fall down from the preposterous cliff then jumped himself soon after while he said: "Ladies first!" Angry shouts could be heard from below him, some were even threats but Yun Jhin ignored them as at one point he used his ki to slow his fall then he gripped a big rock slab that stuck out from the canyon wall and looked below him, Lulu was also gripping one such slab as she glared at him then freed one hand to give him the middle finger. Yun Jhin ignored her childish attempts at angering him then started to climb down using more rock slabs that appeared more and more on the way down. Slowly but surely the formation cores inside both his and Lulu''s bodies were starting to act up, meaning they would soon reach the outskirts of the earth danger zone! Chapter 72: Fighting the elements (2) The underground of the canyon was dark and wet, the earth element danger zone was one of the oldest danger zones on the upper continents as it was the first which appeared. It went like this, earth>water>wind>fire, the four elements amplified and restrained each other the earth came to create life but life couldn''t be sustained without water, then oxygen was needed so air came and with air came the wind, the fire was the least, humans found it when the wind was too harsh on them, the combination of wind and water created ice then winter, for the ancient beings to survive they needed heat so fire appeared. Since the earth element danger zone was the oldest it didn''t mean it was the most dangerous one, on the contrary, it was the meekest one due to the nature of earth being accepting towards everyone. Most of the beings that lived in the dark canyon were giant bats and yellow gigantic moles, the bats would hunger for blood from time to time, but as long as you didn''t attract the mole''s attention they wouldn''t do anything to you as they were workaholics. As long as they could create tunnels they wouldn''t bother with anything else, the earth region also regenerated by itself so the tunnels that the moles made disappeared with time, but that didn''t stop the moles, they loved to work more for some reason and they took the earth regenerating as a test of that Gaia the Earth Goddess gave them. Yun Jhin didn''t come here for the beings inside anyways, he came for the rare herbs infused with earthen energy hidden deep inside the canyon, and well the training expedition the Emperor forced him to take on. As soon as Yun Jhin and Lulu''s feet touched the ground a gravity field appeared that started to push down on them, while Yun Jhin was ok Lulu fell to her knees and started gasping for air, Yun Jhin''s body was refined to beyond even it''s maximum capability but for Lulu, only her ki cultivation was something noteworthy. Yun Jhin sighed as he watched her struggle to get up from her knees but this was sort of tempering for her as well so he didn''t help her as he started to walk further inside the canyon, Lulu gritted her teeth as she forcefully got up from the ground injuring her internal organs in the process, a little bit of blood seeped from the corner of her mouth as she followed Yun Jhin''s footsteps. Yun Jhin looked behind and he wasn''t surprised seeing her following him, but her complexion was quite pale and she didn''t bother to clean the blood seeping from her mouth as she used all of her willpower to follow him, she was trying to show him that she could endure everything that he would throw at her. Yun Jhin liked this kind of attitude in a woman, it meant that she could do everything for him and she was easy to manipulate. Yun Jhin decided to give her a helping hand as he threw her a pill from his spatial ring, she ate it without asking anything as she started to trust Yun Jhin, she didn''t think that the pill he gave her would do anything to harm her. The pill indeed healed her damaged internal organs and helped her to breathe easier in the high gravity environment. Her body strengthened a bit due to the energy of the pill in combination with the heavy gravity. Lulu smiled at Yun Jhin showing her pearly white teeth and then continued to follow behind him, she was quite disappointed as Yun Jhin ignored her smile but decided to do her best in any future confrontations. Lulu frowned as she looked around, it''s been almost 3 days and they found nothing, no herbs, and no living beings! Yun Jhin knew where the moles and bats where but he didn''t want to fight them, he didn''t need Earth cores for the pill and only the herbs but due to the pill not needing earth cores for the pill composition to be balanced meant he needed rarer herbs or a higher quantity of them and he didn''t find any herb up till now! Yun Jhin frowned as he used his soul willpower to scan around the dark canyon, he couldn''t identify any scent or spiritual energy that would resemble an earthen herb, all he could find where the moles underground them and the bats above them, however, the distance between them was very long so if he didn''t aggravate them they wouldn''t do anything to him. Yun Jhin wasn''t sure on what to do here, going in further would be the right idea but they were already quite far in, Yun Jhin wasn''t sure if Black Blood was even following them anymore at this point, the surrounding gravity and darkness made his soul willpower quite fuzzy, even though his soul was quite strong right now it still wasn''t up to par. The gravity was tearing and slowing his soul willpower so he couldn''t look in his surroundings for much time. Lulu was in the same situation but it was way harder for her, the first time she released her soul willpower she collapsed to the ground and almost choked on blood, her soul was garbage compared to Yun Jhin''s, even her body couldn''t stand in the gravity for much time without Yun Jhin''s and her armor help, how would her weaker soul fare? Maybe she would be able to handle it after she constructed her soul jewel, but right now she was unable to. Lulu wanted to sit down and rest for a bit but Yun Jhin didn''t wait for her as he walked further and further away, Lulu frowned as he watched his silhouette disappear from her eyes then she gritted her teeth and continued to walk catching up to him. Yun Jhin enjoyed ''training'' Lulu it was quite the good past time activity besides searching for herbs and not finding any, it made him a bit happier. After 7 days from the entrance, they finally found one herb that Yun Jhin could use but it was in a quite poor condition, but with some formation magic Yun Jhin restored it to its former glory and put it in his spatial ring, he could only do so because of the surroundings that were heavily infused with earth elemental energy, he also had to keep the herb grounded for the time he used his formation on it if it was removed before he finished nourishing it his efforts would be wasted. Fortunately, the herb was quite of high quality after he restored it to its original power and he would only need a second one for his pill, however, after 3 more days passed he couldn''t find any anymore! He couldn''t go further in or even his body would start to fail him and he would need to use his ki to protect it, meaning his battle power would take a hit, Yun Jhin knew that deeper inside the earth danger zones were gigantic demon toxins scorpions and he didn''t want to deal with them. He was missing an arm and his battle power would also drop the moment he went past a certain boundary, Lulu was already baggage and she wouldn''t be of much help, but he also needed one last herb... He could use his stealth to go inside but it would waste even more ki to keep it up, Yun Jhin looked at Lulu then told her: "I will have to go in further and you will wait for me here, don''t follow me as I will be unable to help you if you would encounter a deadly situation, I will use my stealth technique to go search for the last herb I need, just stay here and don''t make any movements while you wait for me, meditate to heal yourself and restore your ki and take his pill." He threw her the aforementioned pill and disappeared from her eyes as he went further inside the canyon, things started to change, from darkness, some light appeared here and there as certain fungi would lighten up the damp environment, however, the gravity also increased exponentially and even Yun Jhin''s internal organs started to cry pitifully. Yun Jhin ignored their cries and went further until he found what he needed, another earthen herb! This herb was just like the snake from before, but instead of it being shaped like a snake it was shaped like a grey frog. The frog was currently sleeping but Yun Jhin didn''t believe it was this easy to gain a sentient herb, his soul willpower searched around the herb and his eyes narrowed as he thought: "A demonic toxins scorpion is waiting underground for anyone to touch the herb, what a tricky situation, maybe if I take Lulu and throw her in as bait?" Yun Jhin thought of taking Lulu and using her as bait to gain the herb, Black Blood wasn''t seeing this so he could report to the Emperor whatever he felt like saying, the Empress also had another daughter, even though she was less talented they still wanted Yun Jhin''s bloodline and it was for two reasons, it''s purity and questionable origins plus his memories of his past life. Yun Jhin made up his mind and went back to Lulu, she did as he instructed her and she immediately opened her eyes and got up from her cross-legged position on the ground when she sensed him, she gave him a small smile as she asked cheekily: "Need my help?" Yun Jhin nodded his head as he told her: "You see I need you to take the herb, I''m not sure I could do it myself as my cultivation base is lacking, even though my body is strong there is a natural restriction there that I can''t get through, don''t worry about the gravity as I will protect you with my ki, I just need you to get near the herb so I can use a technique to seal it and take it away." Lulu smiled as he patted his shoulder and puffed her chest forward giving a clear show of her cleavage as she said: "Then let this little sister here to help you out." Lulu had a big smile inside as she thought this would be the first time he would be of help in this training expedition, she didn''t count the time back when she helped him fight the old man as she realized from her observations that he could have done in the old man by himself, it would only have taken him more effort. As Lulu followed him she realized that his expression took a turn for the worse as he was using his ki to protect her, she made a vow to make sure she would take the herb for him, she told her that it would be used towards his cultivation base and she didn''t doubt him, after all, he was a former God Realm expert, why would he need to lie to her? Yun Jhin watched as they reached the location of the herb, it was still there ''sleeping'', Yun Jhin pointed towards the frog and said: "This is the herb, we are lucky that it''s currently sleeping, go slowly near it and don''t touch it, just hover your hand over it and I will do the rest." Lulu complied with his request as she slowly got near the frog and put her hand over it, Yun Jhin used her as a conductor for his ki, the ki from his body went through hers then transformed into a formation that absorbed the frog into it, the frog immediately started shrieking like it was on its death bed and it didn''t want to go yet. But Yun Jhin easily retracted the formation as it flew towards him then into his spatial ring. Lulu smiled as she watched this happening, she felt that it was something strange as she didn''t feel any ''natural barrier'' but she thought that Yun Jhin took care of it the same way as the time he used his ki to protect her. Suddenly her vision started swimming as she looked down at her stomach and saw a giant claw inside of it, a mouthful of blood was vomited one after another, her vision started to darken as she looked a little bit upwards and saw the owner of the claw, a gigantic dark scorpion with a green stinger and countless eyes was looking at her, green saliva dripping from its toothless maw. She slowly craned her neck to look behind her and saw Yun Jhin taking his katana out, she gave out a weak smile as she tried to say: "R...u....n...." So Yun Jhin did it, the moment he heard this word he ran away so fast that she couldn''t see his silhouette anymore. She chuckled sadly as tears fell off her cheeks, the scorpion opened it''s maw and swallowed her alive! Yun Jhin looked behind and muttered: "You had to be used so early, quite a pity but I guess I will try to woo your sister." The scorpion shrieked as it saw its second prey disappearing and then it shook its stinger, but it realized that it left it''s sensing perimeters, it was quite angry it''s luring bait was taken away but there was not much he could do now, he didn''t want to leave the high gravity environment as it would make it uncomfortable. Also, it running underground would trigger the moles, and the moles were in quite a high number, even though it would be able to kill thousands of them, it would die itself soon after in a sea of naked yellow moles, he would kill even more with his poisonous body but he would die in the end, he thought that it wasn''t worth it. So he decided to digest his current prey and go hibernate. Yun Jhin sighed as he saw the scorpion not following him, that thing was a peak King Realm cultivation beast and had some intelligence, the peak King Realm scorpions were the most often met so it wasn''t surprising one would try such a tactic to catch its prey. Yun Jhin was lucky he had a partner that he could use or else he wouldn''t have been able to gain the herb he needed. Hopefully, he wouldn''t need to use anyone else in the other two locations or else he would have to think of a way to lure King Realm experts into the danger zones and make use of them. Yun Jhin didn''t do it in this zone because he already someone he could use without any repercussions, what if the one he lured was a big shot that would wage war on the Empire? Even though the Empress might be heartbroken, she wouldn''t kill him due to the two factors that made her sent her daughter in his hands, she might even ignore her death and send her second daughter to him instead, if she died as well then she might become suspicious. Yun Jhin sighed as he reached the wall from before and started scaling it, as he reached the half of it he looked down at the darkness that engulfed everything and said: "This is goodbye, Lulu." After a short while, he reached the cliff then left towards the direction of the wind danger zone. Hopefully, the next danger zone would have the herbs he needed. Black Blood eyes widened in surprise and dread as he looked at Yun Jhin leaving the earth elemental danger zone then he sent a message to the Emperor: "Your highness, there''s bad news, Yun Jhin came alone from the Earth Elemental danger zone." A sigh could be heard coming from the other part as he said: "Don''t you think I would know? I''m the one who inserted these formations core in them and Lulu''s broke, that means she is dead, I already informed my wife and she seemingly took the news quite well, it''s almost strange how well she took them, I will have to keep my eyes on her for a while from now on, just keep observing Yun Jhin and make sure he doesn''t run away, if he does that means he is guilty." Black Blood observed Yun Jhin''s expression and saw how it morphed from anger to helplessness then to sadness then he sighed as he muttered to a volume that Black Blood could hear if he concentrated enough: "These damn demonic toxic scorpions, I''m sorry Lulu..." Black Blood reported his sighting to the Emperor but the Emperor said: "He might have unlocked further memories in the danger zone, there''s a chance he is acting, but for now there is nothing we can do, these types of training can turn deadly and we can only swallow our loss, fortunately even though Lulu is talented she isn''t one of our core talents, she might have given birth to good descendants but her sister still exists, she might be missing 5 stages of cultivation base compared to Lulu but her bloodline is still the Empress''s." Black Blood finished reporting and continued to follow Yun Jhin from afar, he saw how he sighed continuously on the way until he steeled himself and stopped being emotional, to Black Blood all of it seemed pretty real, after all, he thought that Yun Jhin was hard on the outside and soft inside. That''s how he portrayed himself around Lulu and that''s the personality that Black Blood thought he had, after all, if he truly didn''t care about her he wouldn''t have given her those pills to heal herself. Black Blood sighed as he did a small prayer and bowed towards the earth elemental danger zone while saying slowly: "I hope you will find happiness in the otherworld or you will be reincarnated in a better position your highness princess Lulu..." Black Blood didn''t have any beef with Lulu and even saw her as a granddaughter, after all, the Empress and Emperor didn''t hate each other all the time, from time to time they would make some conjugal visits to each other and Black Blood was a guard, one of those times was when he met Lulu and played with her, she stuck to his heart a little bit as he couldn''t have children or grandchildren himself. Black Blood sighed as he buried those memories then made sure he knew which direction Yun Jhin took before he continued to follow him. Today the Empire lost a big talent, not a vital one, but quite a big one, she will be dearly missed by those that she knew and loved. Only Yun Jhin was smiling inside as he assessed the herbs he gained and counted how many others he would need to create the pill that would help him create the 4 elements jewel, just 2 more danger zones and he would be able to create the pill then he would reach the second stage of the King Realm! Chapter 73: Fighting the elements (3) Yun Jhin looked at the wind that took form around him, he finally reached the wind danger zone after a few days of traveling, the wind danger zone was the most special as it was always moving in a random pattern. Sometimes it would even hit villages or cities, destroying them with ease, but to combat this the Emperor created a formation that would tell everyone where the wind danger zone would hit again, after that, the place that was targeted would be warned, luckily, the danger zone only moved around the borders of the Empire so it didn''t hit the truly important regions. Yun Jhin watched the wind take a physical form, the speed and density of the wind were quite high so if Yun Jhin wanted to jump into the zone he would have to fully cloak his body with ki and then use his katana to cut through the wind to make a path. Yun Jhin''s body was engulfed into a white aura that conformed to the wind elemental energy then took out the katana, he would do a combination of trying to reach the eye of the storm and cutting through if he got near enough to enter the weak spot of the danger zone he would be able to drift away into its neutral zones where the wind wouldn''t batter him every second. Yun Jhin breathed in and out as he put his sword in front of him then slashed downwards, a void was created in front of him as all of the wind and air disappeared, then he dashed directly inside! Yun Jhin entered inside the danger zone and the wind restored itself. Afterward, the wind started to attack his body and soul trying to cut him into pieces, seemingly as if it was angry Yun Jhin created a void of air a few seconds ago. Yun Jhin endured the pain of his body being slashed by thousands of wind blades with ease, after all, his constitution was superior. After a while of flowing with the wind he finally reached the neutral zones and was dropped there, being in the danger zone was just like being into a palace made of wind, right now he was around 20,000 meters away from the ground, he sighed as he looked around and found one herb that he could use. Herbs in the wind danger zone were the hardest to gather as they were made of pure wind and were not truly ''herbs'' in a sense, they could be called crystallized wind energy. Yun Jhin started to do to some handseals as he approached the crystal flower in front of him, suddenly his eyes narrowed as he backed away and disappeared. Three men and one woman were taken by the wind to the same neutral area he stood in before minutes ago, their cultivation bases were around the 5th to 6th stage and their aura was quite bountiful, meaning that they were actual experts! They were people that were even above Lulu''s power and not because of experience they just had a higher innate talent, their talent was even above Yun Jhin''s! Yun Jhin stealthily used his soul willpower to scan them and realized all of them had a pure draconic aura, they were pure dragon experts! All of them were very young, looking to be around 15-16 years old, they were newborn infants in a pure dragons age, most dragons lived around 50,000 years when they were in the King Realm, they had more life span than humans and halflings. The draconic newcomers started to look around then they shouted with joy as they saw the crystallized flower that Yun Jhin wanted to take, Yun Jhin frowned as he backed away from the flower and kept steady breathing, he kept his aura, life force, and presence hid to not attract their attention if any of those leaked out he would be doomed! After all, who knew if they were good or bad people, the percentage of bad people in the cultivation world was higher than the good ones so he had to be on his toes around everyone that he didn''t know. The quartet approached the crystal flower then took a premade formation out of their spatial ring, the formation engulfed the crystalline flower making it look like it now sat neatly inside a yellow bottle. One of the men took the bottle and put it in their spatial ring then bowed towards the woman as he said: "We are quite lucky to get such a rare crystal flower so easily, it must be because you are with us Zula." Zula frowned as he looked at the man and said: "Don''t call me by my first name, we aren''t that familiar, if it wasn''t for my father asking to invite you to this expedition you wouldn''t be here!" The man scratched the back of his head as he said: "Ok, ok madam Lu, do you want some music to entertain yourself during this nice evening?" It was obvious the man was making fun of Zula, but she nodded her head at him with a serious expression as she said: "Play the Zither for me and I will leave you with your fingers." The man coughed and took out a zither, he made a joke now, and if he didn''t play his zither that crazy woman would cut off his fingers! Fortunately, he knew how to play the zither quite adequately. Yun Jhin ignored the man''s song as he observed the other two men talking: "Man what a bore, we have to listen to Zucco''s song, whatever, we got a crystal herb, we will just need to get a few more before we can leave, I don''t really want to stay near Zula..." Zula narrowed her eyes as she heard some of their conversations and questioned: "What was that?" The man chuckled and said it was nothing. Zula decided to ignore them as she listened to Zucco''s song. While the group talked Yun Jhin was made a strategical retreat running away as far as he could from the area, he wasn''t sure if they were from the main Luo Empire or the Bumi Empire but they were more advanced than those he met in the Zumo empire. Well, he wasn''t sure about the true geniuses that were hiding in closed-door cultivation, but the ones he saw were too trash to be called ''geniuses''. Yun Jhin sighed as he looked around and scanned the new region of the danger zone he was. Hopefully, these fellows would take a different region. Yun Jhin''s eyes sparkled as he found another crystallized herb and immediately took it, he created a similar formation to the one the others used then put the herb into his spatial ring, he became invisible again just as a precaution as he wandered around the wind danger zone, from time to time he would go further in then retreat as he saw those four didn''t leave the beginning area already. It seemed Zula heard what they said about wanting to not stay around her and she forced them to stay with her in the first region... Yun Jhin continued to take different routes around the danger zones and found some herbs here and there but he was still lacking one main herb that he needed to use for his pill, so he decided to go in further into the wind palace, he met with some wind crystal beasts but he easily avoided the stronger ones and slaughtered the weaker ones taking their beast cores. Searching high and low in the danger zone until he hit a wall, not a proverbial one but a true one, it was a wind wall, it seemed he reached a part of the wind palace that he couldn''t go through so he had to go back, but when he looked behind his sharp ears caught the trace of talking, who else could it be but those 4? The men laughed while Zula kept to herself, Yun Jhin kept himself near the wind wall as he turned transparent but he didn''t touch the wall or else it would shred him to pieces, the wind wasn''t very merciful as they were quite far in the wind palace. Suddenly Zula narrowed her eyes as she walked closer to the wall, her face was close to Yun Jhin''s and he could almost smell her breath, Yun Jhin wanted to move back but the wind wall was behind him, any wrong step and he would become slashed meat! Zula watched the wall for a few more seconds before she turned back and shook her head as she said: "This is not the secret entrance, father did say that it would be a wall but I can''t feel the energy gathering formation, let''s go search for some more time and if we can''t find it till the night we will go camp to take a rest." Zula was the ''captain'' of this unit so she was the one who gave out the orders, Yun Jhin watched as Zula left with the three men and sighed, in the end his stealth technique didn''t betray him. Yun Jhin waited for a while before he made sure they weren''t around and left the dead end, he walked around the wind palace for a long while, he didn''t admire the surroundings as he was too stressed by these four people, he needed to find the last herb and get away from the wind danger zone, there was also around 5 more days till the formation inside him would let him leave, but he didn''t think that would be a problem. He searched and searched but he didn''t find anything besides more dead ends, the winds grew harsher, stronger, faster, they tore at his cloak and clothes, at his body, his ki was running low but whenever that happened he would eat a pill from his spatial ring and continue further. Finally, after two more days, he found a wall that wasn''t like the others, it was the wall Zula was talking about, he could sense a gathering formation near the wall that would open it for the one who put his/hers ki inside it. Yun Jhin knew that his ki would be no good for the formation, so he decided to wait in stealth for the others to arrive, it would be a lie if Yun Jhin said he wasn''t interested in what was behind the wall, he also didn''t find the herb he needed, maybe there would be more herbs inside the wall and he could take some while the others would be preoccupied with the true treasure. After a short while of waiting the quartet party arrived, Zula walked forward and put her hand on the wall, unsurprisingly the sharp wind wall didn''t tear her hand apart as a dark green formation appeared on it and started to suck the ki out of her. Her complexion started to pale as her ki was forcefully sucked out of her, after three minutes she almost collapsed but the wall also opened. Zucco gave her a pill then helped her up, Zula nodded at him then entered the wall along with others, Yun Jhin followed them behind like a shadow. Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed as he looked around, the pure white wind was all around him, as he followed behind them he realized that the place was really narrow and only two people could walk shoulder to shoulder inside the wall. Yun Jhin made sure there wasn''t any physical contact with any of them as he kept himself as behind as he could from their party. After a short while of walking forward, they reached an open place as the walls widened around, the place looked to be touched by a cultivators hand as there were different things around, special crystallized herbs, treasured weapons, rugs of different colors, this room he was in gave out a homely feel. There was no one in the room Zula looked around then said: "Walk in further and press the painting on the wall, click on it 3 times right, 2 times left and 1 time down, the true treasure should be inside that hidden room." Yun Jhin watched as they disappeared behind a painting, fortunately for him, the herb he needed was growing inside the room, unfortunately, was that he couldn''t harvest it while invisible, the formation that he created would take a bit out of him ki wise, and he also needed to concentrate, unlike the others, he couldn''t create formations that could be used later as he didn''t have the ingredients needed to do that. Yun Jhin quickly started to do handseals as he tried to take the herb he needed, after a short while the herb was bottled then he put it in his spatial ring but at the same time, the quartet left the secret room and spotted him! Yun Jhin only had one thought right now: "S-H-I-T!" Yun Jhin didn''t know what to say so he only waved awkwardly before he was apprehended by two of the men. He really was in deep trouble right now, but he had a way to get himself out, the first step would be charming Zula as she was the captain. Chapter 74: Fighting the elements (4) Zula looked down at Yun Jhin and took in his appearance, so Yun Jhin did the same but he wasn''t that brazen while looking at her, or else who knew what will that woman accuse him of? Zula wore red fiery clothes with flame patterns around the hems, she had her hair done in a bun behind her back and her deep orange eyes were gazing deeply into Yun Jhin seemingly as if she was trying to see through all of his secrets. Yun Jhin ignored her insistent gaze as he watched her point at his spatial ring and said: "You have taken a crystal herb from here, boys confiscate his spatial ring." Zucco came closer to him and took his spatial ring, on the surface Yun Jhin had a very sad expression but inside he was cold as ice, he wore a decoy spatial ring for this type of situations, all of his important stuff was hidden in his spatial bag, he already transferred the other herbs in the spatial bag and he hid it on his person, unless they checked his body thoroughly they wouldn''t know, of course, he let the crystal herb inside the spatial ring to not trigger their suspicion. Yun Jhin wanted to struggle and take his spatial ring away but the two men kept a strong grip on his arm and shoulders, one of them even mocked him: "What does one-arm halfling trash like you doing in the wind danger zone?" The man spat on Yun Jhin''s head as he looked at him from above, halflings were often looked down upon by pure draconic beings due to their innate pride and thinking that the higher and purer the bloodline the better someone would be, their innate qualities made them extremely narcissistic when it came to their race. Yun Jhin didn''t say anything but he was gritting his teeth, Zula observed his expression and gave him a mocking smile as she said: "You are quite brazen to follow behind us and try to steal from my father''s secret stash, however, it''s quite strange, how did you enter? I''m sure I closed the door behind us." Yun Jhin kept his mouth shut but Zula''s eyes narrowed as she made a gesture with her hand then thrust it inside his stump, fresh yellow blood started to drip from his stump as Zula said: "Your wound is quite fresh, even though it has been cauterized, I can easily open it up with my torture technique, speak up before I will start digging in." Yun Jhin''s face morphed as he felt the pain travel through his whole body, he looked directly in Zula''s eyes and said: "I have followed behind you using my stealth technique..." Zula smiled at him as she patted his injured shoulder making even more blood splatter down from it and she said: "That wasn''t hard, was it? Now give me the stealth cultivation technique and I might bother throwing you out of here alive, what do you say?" Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes inside, this woman was quite greedy, Yun Jhin liked that at women, Yun Jhin opened his mouth to tell her the cultivation technique when suddenly he spewed some elemental aura from his mouth, burning the duo''s arms and hands away from him and disappearing. The duo was a little bit shocked after they saw their arms burning but they easily stopped the flame from extending to their bodies, Zucco looked down at his hand only to see the spatial ring that he had put on his finger disappear, along with his finger! Zucco shouted as he threw a fireball randomly in anger but he didn''t hit anything, Yun Jhin couldn''t be felt anywhere, his aura disappeared, technically speaking, Yun Jhin was a turtle in a jar in this situation, he couldn''t beat them head-on so he had to resort to trickery. Zucco looked down and saw his bloodied finger on the ground, he grasped it with his arm then reattached it to his hand, afterward he cauterized the wound using his innate flame ki. While only Sage Realm experts could recover limbs, that didn''t mean those below this rank couldn''t reattach them if they were whole. He gritted his teeth from the pain but endured it, his eyes were literally spewing flames as he tried to look around with his special eye technique and find Yun Jhin''s traces. However his eye technique wasn''t up to far, he couldn''t find Yun Jhin anywhere! Yun Jhin frowned as he sat near the painting, while the others were looking around for him, the moment all of them faced a different direction from the picture he pressed it in the same pattern that Zula said before and disappeared in the secret room! The secret room was small, that must have been one of the reasons they left it so fast, it was decorated sparsely with a meditation mat on the ground an incense burner near it, there was also an empty pedestal a few centimeters away from the mat, the pedestal was empty but from the looks of it, the thing that sat in it must have been something rotund like a ball. Yun Jhin sat on the meditation mat and waited, they would try to enter here for sure but he was already invisible, if they tried to look around he would stay still and wait until they left. Yun Jhin waited for a little time before Zula entered the hidden room and looked around, her eyes were spewing flames just like Zucco''s but her eyes were spewing blue flames instead of normal red-colored. She tried to touch the room randomly as she couldn''t see Yun Jhin, but with some incredible flexibility, Yun Jhin made it so whenever she would almost grasp him she would miss by a hair, Yun Jhin saw an opening as she turned his back and stealthily approached her before she placed his katana on her neck. Zula smiled as she turned back to Yun Jhin, now his katana laid on her jugular as she said: "Aren''t you daring to try to assassinate me?" Suddenly blue flames pushed Yun Jhin away into the pedestal breaking it and creating a vacuum where air started to gather, the air started slashing into Yun Jhin as Zula threw fire at him, the combination of fire and wind was ready to incinerate Yun Jhin to ashes when suddenly the wind started to suck everything out of the room, Yun Jhin disappeared and Zula shouted in disbelief as she was sucked out of the room as well. The room was destroyed as the formation that held it intact broke down, Zucco and the other two tried to enter the room as they didn''t hear anything from Zula for a while but they realized they couldn''t! When they tried to enter the wind currents would batter them and slash at their bodies until they turned bloody. In an unknown location inside the wind danger zone, Yun Jhin woke up as he looked around, he saw beside him Zula who was bleeding profusely then he looked down at his body, it was both burnt and slashed, however, none of his vital points were struck, his body was quite strong so he survived, due to the bodily strength he also recovered faster than her and woke up sooner. Yun Jhin placed a few restraining formations on her body, then touched her here and there, he looked a little bit more and realized she was a virgin. Just the good thing for him as he needed the vital Yin of a King Realm expert or above to restore his arm, it would be a bonus to recover from his current injuries as well. Yun Jhin looked down at her prone body and invited himself... After a long while Yun Jhin''s body was now fully recovered a new arm sprouted from his stump and he moved it here and there to make it adapt to his body, Zula was wearing clothes and she looked the same as before, even her injuries seemed to have healed, after all, Yun Jhin couldn''t stop his vital yang from helping her, his vital yang was rather potent due to his strong body and her injuries weren''t that bad so they got healed pretty quickly after she absorbed it. Her injuries were healed and she was pretty much in a perfect state right now, her eyes opened as she glared at Yun Jhin, she felt that she lacked her vital Yin she tried to get up but she couldn''t then she shouted at him with a pained look on her face: "YOU BEAST, HOW COULD YOU!" Even though she was a scheming woman she was still a woman, in the end, she would care deeply about her body and she felt that she had been wronged that she was taken advantage of. Yun Jhin didn''t bother to listen to her as he got near to her and grabbed her hair before he picked her up and made her look into his eyes: "Listen here, due to you and your little friends I''m not even sure where we are currently, also tell me one good reason why would I let you off here?" Zula gritted her teeth as she spat into Yun Jhin''s face, Yun Jhin chuckled as he dodged the spit and then punched her in the face giving her a nose bleed. Zula wanted to get up and fight him but she was powerless due to the restraining formations he put on her, as long as Yun Jhin could get near someone and had enough time to put restraining formations even an 8th stage King Realm expert would fall to him, however from the 9th and above even his formations wouldn''t work unless he was at the same cultivation base. Yun Jhin looked at her as her face became a deep red, was it from anger or embarrassment? Maybe both. Zula decided that it was time to take a compromise as she looked around, she didn''t recognize what place they were in so she told him what he wanted to know: "I''m from the Bumi Empire, I have been sent along with my cousin Zucco and the other two to gather a special treasure left behind by my grandfather, in his youth he trained in the four danger zones and he left a special place where he cultivated inside the wind one..." She explained how her family was of quite a high standing in the Bumi Empire, they stood in the top 10 rankings, even though they were the last in the tenth place her family wasn''t anyone could fight with as the families in the top 10 rankings had God Realm experts in their ranks, from the 10th to the 2nd they only had one god realm expert, but the 1st which was the imperial family had 2 high-level God Realm experts! The ranking was based on the stage the patriarchs of the families were at. So if the Bumi Empire had the 9th stage God Realm expert that meant the 10th family had a half-god expert, the half-god was a stage between the Sage realm 10th stage and the God Realm 1st stage. Yun Jhin listened with to her with his eyes closed, he couldn''t kill her as he would be surely blamed if she didn''t return from this expedition, the other three knew and god knows where they were at now. What he could do was keep the restrictions on her body and try to find a way out of the wind danger zone, he would drop her somewhere and let the formations dissipate on their own, then she could leave, he was unhappy that he couldn''t deal with this problem but as long as he didn''t kill them or take their secret object they wouldn''t be able to escalate things. After all, in all empires, there were fights between factions, and Yun Jhin had the Emperor behind him which had a cultivation base of around the 5th stage of the God Realm, the 10th ranked family, in the end, even if things escalated, the Bumi Empire wouldn''t be able to threaten the Sumo Empire as they had the Luo Empire backing them. Especially for some people of the younger generation who didn''t even die nor they had their treasures stolen, at most they would write it off as a scuffle between the younger generation, also since he took her virginity there was a chance they would send her to marry him as an alliance between the Empires. Yun Jhin sighed as he looked down at her then readjusted the formation to let her be able to move around but he gave her the ability to fight around the 9th stage of the heavenly realm, she wouldn''t be able to do anything to him she would also die if they found some elemental that she couldn''t fight and Yun Jhin didn''t protect her. Zula got up from the white ground and glared at Yun Jhin, her orange fiery eyes turned blue as she jumped at Yun Jhin and tried to kill him! But Yun Jhin easily grabbed her arm and put it behind her back as he said: "You want another round now that you are conscious?" Zula face reddened again as she tried to spit at him again but Yun Jhin pushed her down and pinned her to the ground as his face got close to hers then he said: "I let you move around so we can find a way to get out of here, don''t think that I took advantage of you because I like you or something like that, but your vital yin was very useful to me." Zula''s eyes wandered to his regenerated arm and she realized why he used her like that, but that didn''t mean she accepted it, however, the victor was king since she couldn''t do anything to him she might as well follow his lead. Yun Jhin smiled as she turned meek then got up letting her get up as well, then he looked around and asked: "Your grandfather should have given you a map of the wind danger zone, bring it up, and tell me where we are." Zula nodded and took a grey map out of her spatial ring. She realized that Yun Jhin didn''t steal anything from her ring as she saw everything in order, this gave her a better impression of Yun Jhin, but she would still backstab him if she could, the hatred between them wouldn''t be erased this easily, just because he didn''t steal her things when she was down. But it did give her a better impression of how he acted. Zula opened the map and showed it to Yun Jhin then he nodded and pointed at the middle of the map, his eyes narrowed as he saw their location and his face turned grave. They were in deep trouble if they didn''t move away from their location. Chapter 75: Fighting the elements (5) Yun Jhin looked around as Zula started to panic, she realized where they were after Yun Jhin pointed it out, she might have been able to sail through the region if she was lucky but her strength was now restricted! She slowly got closer to Yun Jhin and stood behind him as she looked around, Yun Jhin was the only one who could protect her in this situation, she didn''t imagine that Yun Jhin would let her restrictions go, he would be a fool in her eyes if he did that. Yun Jhin didn''t move a muscle, the region they were currently in was populated by wind orcas, these relatively small but deadly animals, they live under the wind palace wind walls and they hunted based on the movement of the air around them, Yun Jhin''s stealth technique would be useful here as he could erase his aura and life force to the point he would mend with the surroundings but doing that meant he would have to use the technique first. What if a wind orca would be nearby and sense him? he wouldn''t want to bet his life on it, after all, wind orcas were extremely fast and deadly, they would puncture him like a block of swiss cheese. Wind orcas were around 25 centimeters in height and had a sharp stinger as their nose, they were of transparent color so you wouldn''t be able to see them in the wind walls. Zula knew about the wind orcas as well, she looked around and kept near Yun Jhin but didn''t do any sudden movements or that would doom the both of them, Yun Jhin sent a soul strand into her mind palace as he told her: "I have a stealth technique that could get us out of here but I need to make sure there are no wind orcas nearby or we would become goners." Zula gritted her teeth as she glared at him under her eyes and responded using his soul strand: "How can I be of any help with my strength restricted, its everything on you, do you want me to become a decoy so you can run away or what?" Yun Jhin wouldn''t mind that at all, however, in this situation if she died he would be surely blamed and there was a big chance of him being handed to the Bumi Empire as a tribute if he didn''t reveal some of his secrets, then the Bumi Empire might just wage war on the Luo Empire if the Luo Empire protected him, there was a high chance the Luo Empire would poach him from their brother the Sumo Empire. Yun Jhin didn''t want that, the Luo Empire had a 9th stage God Realm expert that might be able to see through his memories and secrets forcefully, after all, his soul wasn''t recovered to its peak, God Realm experts couldn''t see through anyone souls but once they reached the 9th stage a whole new world would appear in front of them, this world gave them the capability of doing things those below the 9th stage couldn''t do. However, if anyone below the 9th stage tried to look into Yun Jhin''s soul they would be thrown out, but if they forced his soul it could also explode, but a ninth stage expert would be able to stop his soul from exploding and steal his memories forcefully while alive! They wouldn''t kill him due to his memories but if they had them what use would there be an outsider that could reach the God Realm if they couldn''t fully control him? So for a smooth future, he had to take Zula out of the wind danger zone alive or things wouldn''t end up well for him, of course, if the other three would have died along the way he would just be able to escape by himself but it was very unlikely and he wouldn''t bet his life and future on such an unstable gamble. Yun Jhin kept his soul willpower concentrated around the pure white region around him to make sure there were no wind orcas but the stealth of the wind orcas was quite good if they didn''t reveal themselves Yun Jhin wouldn''t be able to sense them with his current soul willpower. Zula didn''t do much besides staying near Yun Jhin, in her situation she could only be moral support at best. Suddenly Yun Jhin opened his eyes as he told her using the soul strand he sent in her mind palace: "I think there might be one or two wind orcas eyeing us, fortunately as long as we don''t move they will leave after a while, we aren''t deep in their nest at most at the outer fringes or else we might have already become food for them." Zula didn''t say anything as she strained her eyes to look around the white region but she couldn''t see anything, she frowned but didn''t comment she just kept a tight grip on Yun Jhin''s shoulders, she was using him as a human shield, if the wind orcas attacked she thought they would pierce through him first giving her a little time that she could use to escape. However, if Yun Jhin died she would surely die as well, she knew that but she just didn''t want to die first, she was scared of death just like all other cultivators. Yun Jhin made a short move to unleash his stealth technique but suddenly a sharp object entered his thigh and exited on the other part, a pool of blood already appeared down at his feet as the wind orcas started to smell the blood. They could see through movement and smell blood, however in rest they were practically blind deaf and couldn''t smell anything else, but in such a pure white environment any movement would be easily seen by them so in the wind danger zone they could be considered deadly predators that only peak king realm experts could escape from, and that was only from those of the middle or lower packs, the upper packs could even send an Emperor Realm expert running. Yun Jhin gritted his teeth as he used his inner flame ki to cauterize his wound, the stealth technique unveiled as it covered but him and Zula, he sighed as he started to run away with Zula on his back, the wind orcas were swimming in the air as they looked around and then attacked the pool of blood on the ground, then they started to kill each other and gnaw at their comrade''s bodies. They weren''t smart creatures, if they would be compared to the Toxic Scorpions in the earth elemental danger zone the comparison would be the Toxic Scorpions intelligence would be 5 and the orcas would be 0.5. Fortunately, Yun Jhin knew a technique to escape from this situation, or else both of them would have met their maker here. Yun Jhin gave out a small sigh as he ran away from the deadly region behind him, Zula just gripped his shoulders tightly, or else she would fall at the speed Yun Jhin was using. After a short while, they were finally out of the wind orcas territory, however, they were still quite deep inside the wind danger zone so they weren''t in a safe place yet. Suddenly a wind arrow launched itself towards Yun Jhin from an unseen place, but Yun Jhin sidestepped it then looked around with narrowed eyes, there was no second arrow but Yun Jhin knew that something or someone launched that arrow, it wouldn''t be a formation nor a naturally occurring event, because the wind arrow had elemental energy different from the one around the danger zone. The danger zone had very pure wind energy but the one that was shot was less refined and had a small degree of purity, that was why Yun Jhin could dodge it rather easily. There could also be natives living in the wind danger zone but it was unlikely, it must be someone who got stuck around this region and didn''t know how to escape, Yun Jhin didn''t wait for the other party to reveal itself as he became invisible again and ran away, a curse could be heard behind him but Yun Jhin ignored the raspy voice that he heard behind him and made away from the region at his fastest speed. Zula frowned as she was interested in the man sounding voice behind them but since Yun Jhin didn''t want to investigate she just let it go since her life was in his hands she would just follow along. After more traveling in the wind danger zone, they finally reached the outer edge of the danger zone then they started to fall. Since the air didn''t support them anymore they fell and fell but Yun Jhin used his ki to create a pseudo-flying state where they fell very slowly so they wouldn''t be hurt by the fall. In the end, they reached the ground and Yun Jhin unceremoniously dropped Zula on the ground and put a timer on the restrictions, after a certain while they would disappear, even though they were near the danger zone, the zone would leave and as long as she didn''t get near it she wouldn''t be sucked into the zone again if she wasn''t dumb she wouldn''t court death. Zula grumbled as she got up from the ground and dusted her clothes, she glared at Yun Jhin but Yun Jhin already left, leaving nothing behind as he used his stealth technique. Black Blood looked with strange eyes at what happened, who was that young lady and what did Yun Jhin do to her? Black Blood didn''t follow him inside the danger zones but made sure he entered them, the formation core inside him wouldn''t let him leave anyway, it had been almost 30 days since Yun Jhin entered the danger zone and Black Blood didn''t know what to report, after all, this was the first time Yun Jhin stayed triple the allocated time, but since he finally got out he let his old heart rest, if Yun Jhin died as well the Emperor wouldn''t be really happy, Lulu''s death already angered the Empress even though on the surface everything was sunshine and rainbows. The Empress was just grieving in silence, it was partly her fault as well as she threw her daughter at Yun Jhin as she didn''t think that the outer edges of the danger zone could be fatal to her talented 6th stage King Realm daughter. Black Blood sighed as he followed Yun Jhin, he was impressed with the lad''s stealth technique as he needed to use some of his ki to track him, it seemed if Yun Jhin broke through the Emperor realm, no even before that, if he became a 9th stage King Realm expert he wouldn''t be able to see through his stealth if he didn''t use his ocular technique! Black Blood muttered to himself as he followed Yun Jhin towards the last danger zone: "It seemed he must have unlocked more memories, who knows what he encountered in that danger zone?" Yun Jhin knew that Black Blood would think that he unlocked more memories due to his stealth technique, only two people in the Empire knew about it, the ex-soon to be wife Lulu was one of the few that knew, the other would be Kong Luo. There was only one danger zone left, considerably speaking it was the most perilous one, it was located in the ocean that separated the Luo and Sumo Empire and it was also the most visited for tempering. It was called the underwater temple and it sat on the ocean floor around 20,000 kilometers away from the shore, the ocean was so long that it couldn''t be measured as the Sumo and Luo Empire used teleportation formations to meet and trade with each other, there were very few who traveled the whole ocean and the one who did was the current Emperor of the Luo Empire, Luo Binfeng! Yun Jhin reached the shore of the ocean around after 30-40 days of traveling, due to the wind danger zone moving randomly he was quite far away from the ocean, and he would still need around 10-15 more days to walk swim 20,000 kilometers. Black Blood kept tailing him and after the 10-15 more days they both reached the underwater danger zone entrance. Black Blood sat cross-legged on the ocean floor as he looked at Yun Jhin enter the cave that led to the underwater temple and sighed: "The last danger zone that we can access currently, hopefully, he would have unlocked enough memories to let him go through what''s to come." Yun Jhin could feel the water pressure around him intensify as he entered the water danger zone, the underwater temple had 10x to 20x the normal water pressure compared to the normal ocean, the benefits were that the water elemental energy here was extremely pure but also deadly, just like the ocean, normal humans couldn''t drink salt water, so cultivators couldn''t use the elemental energy here. It needed to be purified first before it could be used. Using a little elemental energy wouldn''t kill you but your meridians could be damaged, using more could cripple you and if you were crazy enough to absorb a lot of it you would explode. Yun Jhin''s world stopped spinning as the water pressure stabilized around him, after a while of spinning, Yun Jhin finally landed into the underwater temple, his surroundings were covered with marble and when he looked behind him he could see the exit of the temple. Pillars supported an immense building, from afar Yun Jhin could see that it was infested with Yakshas and other types of evil fish-men, these type of fish-men were born into this environment and the toxic water energy didn''t affect them as much as it did the outsiders, they could cultivate with it in moderation and they had above average intelligence if they were compared with the previous toxic scorpion they would be around a 7.5 of intelligence. Yun Jhin made sure to not be seen but a shout and a quick figure that ran into him along with a bunch of fish-men made it so he wouldn''t be able to start things stealthily as he wanted. The figure ignored Yun Jhin as he stumbled and ran away leaving Yun Jhin to deal with the fish-men who now put their attention on him, fortunately, their strength was around the 9th stage of the heavenly realm, so with one palm attack he killed all of them. The figure from before looked behind him then saw Yun Jhin''s easy victory against the fish-men and his eyes started to glitter as a plan was made in his mind. He walked back to Yun Jhin and tried to introduce himself but Yun Jhin''s arm was already into his chest as he heard: "Trying to take advantage of me you damn punk? Let''s see what goods you stole, those fish-men wouldn''t have followed you for no reason." The man''s eyes started to darken as he saw his own heart being extracted from his chest, Yun Jhin opened his maw like a deadly predator and ate the heart then licked his fingers, the lifeless body dropped to the ground and Yun Jhin took his spatial ring, no one saw him doing the killing so even if the man had some important background how could they pin the blame on him? Yun Jhin hoped the man had something worth his while in the spatial ring as he opened it and looked inside... Chapter 76: Fighting the elements (6) Yun Jhin looked through the spatial ring but was disappointed by what he found inside, it was a few herbs that were meant for those around the ki cultivating realm, it made sense that the heavenly realm guy would risk his life for them but Yun Jhin found it disappointing. There weren''t many things he could use in the spatial ring but he took what he could then he crushed the ring in his hand transforming it into ashes, the heartless body on the ground transformed into ashes as Yun Jhin glared at it. There was no time to waste around the outer edges of the underwater palace, the palace had 3 parts, the outer edges, the inner palace, and the most dangerous Naga Nest, the Naga nest was full of aquatic beasts around the Sage Realm and there were even rumors of a God Realm beast hiding deep inside the palace, but it was slumbering 95% of the time. Yun Jhin left the outer edges of the underwater palace and strode further inside, he would see people here and there fight fish-men and yakshas to harvest their internal organs or cores but Yun Jhin didn''t need those, he needed two herbs: A dragon serpent lily, a toxic water lotus and lastly he would need something that wasn''t a herb, it would be the purified salt from the inner palace. Fish-men and other aquatic races create this type of purified salt with formations and store it inside the inner palace, it could be used for cultivation, body refining, and soul refining depending on its quality it could do all three at the same time. Yun Jhin didn''t need much time to find the dragon serpent lily and the toxic water lotus, he had to fight some aquatic monsters for them but he didn''t even break a sweat even though they were around his cultivation base. The further he went into the underwater palace the more cultivators he met, of course, he didn''t show himself to them, the outer edges had few visitors as there weren''t many around the heavenly realm that were courageous enough to venture into the danger zone. But the further inside the palace the higher the cultivation base, those with higher cultivation bases were bolder thus they thought they could conquer the danger zone. A lot of young men and women died this way daily, Yun Jhin already saw around 10,20 people getting mauled to death by the aquatic monsters but he couldn''t care less about them. What he wanted to do now was entered the inner palace and steal some high-quality purified salt. Getting nearer to the palace meant more monsters, the underwater palace was considered the most dangerous zone due to it being filled with monsters even at its outer edges, most of the other danger zones had monsters that didn''t have a cultivation base or wouldn''t bother you if you didn''t bother them, but the underwater palace monsters were extremely aggressive. There was also the fact that the underwater temple housed a lot of herbs that could be found easily compared to the other danger zones. The earth danger zone was starting to show signs of being fully depleted of herbs due to it having almost no difficulty if you didn''t enter the deeper zones. However, the underwater palace won''t have this problem even in 100,000 years or more at the rate it was going. Yun Jhin approached the inner palace zone and cloaked himself using his stealth technique, becoming transparent, what he needed from here couldn''t be easily taken as most of the salt urns were protected by a 5th stage King realm Yakshas. But Yun Jhin could deal with them, after all, they only had a relatively average intelligence that could be easily abused by scheming humans. Yun Jhin eyes narrowed as he saw a few others trying to steal the salt, it seemed he had competition! The group tried to distract the guard Yaksha but they were repelled in the end, then some reinforcements came and made a quick work of them, their plan wasn''t bad but they didn''t execute it properly. Yun Jhin watched with interest as another group approached then did the same thing, however, this group got a bit of salt and two of them escaped compared to the other one which was fully annihilated. While he watched he was also creating a formation that would paralyze the King Yaksha for a few minutes when he walked by him, after the formation was finished Yun Jhin slowly got near the yaksha and put the formation to action, but the Yaksha turned his fish nose into the air then stabbed directly to Yun Jhin''s direction. Yun Jhin frowned then he plastered the formation over the Yaksha making him unable to move, however, it seemed the Yaksha was angered as it tried to break from the formation, it wanted to shout for reinforcements but it couldn''t, so Yun Jhin unceremoniously went to the salt urn and put it into his spatial ring! Suddenly the Yaksha broke through the formation binding him and started to shriek like it was possessed, Yun Jhin didn''t want to wait for anything to happen to him as he continued using his stealth and retreated. The place was fully engulfed by Yakshas suddenly a fish-headed old looking man came and berated the Yaksha then he ate him in one gulp! Yun Jhin observed what happened before he started running away, he didn''t want to become the next meal for the old Fishman. Yun Jhin wasn''t sure how the Fishman knew where he was located, it might have been his innate talent that let him do that but fortunately for him, he had already had the formation ready, even though it didn''t last as much as he wanted to. Yun Jhin frowned as he looked behind him, he felt someone was following him! But it couldn''t be possible, he was in his stealth technique, up till now he didn''t find anyone capable of seeing through his stealth technique, but there were always exceptions. Yun Jhin kept swimming at high speeds but the one that was on his steps didn''t let up as he ran after him and caught up with him. It was an average looking man that looked to be around 26 years old, he had black shaggy hair and wore a martial artist outfit that consisted of a white gi and pants with a black belt that kept them on. He was barefoot, Yun Jhin took a better look at his face and he realized that the man had no eyes! Both of them were empty sockets. Yun Jhin frowned, there was one way to counter his stealth technique and that was having an extremely enhanced sense of hearing, however, this type of trait was extremely rare as you would have to be born with it, and it also couldn''t be stolen like constitutions and bloodline, it was bound to the soul and even if the soul of the one that had it was refined one wouldn''t be able to steal it. Yun Jhin only found 3 people who were born this way in his previous life, all of them died at his hands and became his puppets. The man ears moved but Yun Jhin didn''t move nor breath as he stood motionlessly, the man smiled as he said: "This friend, I have heard what happened with the Yakshas, wouldn''t you mind to share some of the salt you got with me? After all, you took the whole urn." Yun Jhin was right the man was one of those very rare with enhanced hearing, he even heard him picking up the urn, even though his stealth technique minimized sound to it being almost unintelligible if heard, even if someone truly heard something they would dismiss it as they wouldn''t be able to see it, most people thought that what they couldn''t see wasn''t real this didn''t apply to most cultivators but they could become careless as cultivators were extremely reliant on their senses as they trained them to their peak if they couldn''t hear something they would try to see it if they couldn''t either they would try to smell it, touch it and some even tasted the air to try and find opponents in stealth. Yun Jhin frowned, the man suddenly appeared near him as he grabbed him by the arm and threw him down, then he mounted Yun Jhin and put his arm behind his back as he pushed his head into the marble ground of the underwater temple and said: "Trying to be silent, are you? The thing is you can''t silence your heartbeat no matter how much you try to!" Yun Jhin tried his best to stop his heartbeat but he couldn''t, his stealth technique didn''t let him do that yet, in the end, he was restricted by his cultivation base. Yun Jhin frowned as he tried to get up from the ground but he realized that he was bound tightly by the man, it seemed his physical strength was above his! This could mean only one thing, the man had cultivated his body and was of a higher cultivation base than Yun Jhin. Cultivating the body was the art that scaled along with the ki cultivation of the user if someone strengthened their body to a certain rank then increased their ki cultivation their bodily strength would increase again along with their recovery abilities, there were no demerits to cultivating the body besides taking a long time and resources, Yun Jhin was fortunate enough to be able to get that heart of the natural spirit, but if he evolved his body again his bodily rank would reset and he would have to strengthen his body again. Yun Jhin struggled to get up from the stranger''s grip but he just couldn''t the man must be atleast at the 5th stage or above. The unknown man fondled Yun Jhin here and there seemingly looking for something before he went towards his hand and took off his spatial ring, Yun Jhin frowned but atleast there wasn''t anything important in the spatial ring beside the salt, he didn''t have time to put the salt into his secret spatial bag, but everything else was already inside. The man bowed to Yun Jhin then said: "I shall thank you in advance for getting me this salt, after all, such a blind man like myself would have a hard time to take it myself, I shall hear you later, we can be friends when we meet again!" The man started running in the wrong direction then he rotated and started to run in the exit''s direction. Yun Jhin got up from the ground and frowned while he checked his body for any tracking formations or anything else that the man could have inserted while he incapacitated him. Yun Jhin realized that there was nothing else inside his body but his mood was extremely sour due to this random eye-less man stealing his salt, he thought that he would only have to wait for a few more days before the formation core inside him dissipated so he could leave back to the Empire but it seemed he wasn''t that lucky. Yun Jhin frowned as he walked back into the inner palace but he realized that there were no more salt urns around, the one he took was the last in the inner palace! This was extremely unlucky for him! It seemed the other urns were stolen some time ago and only the cannon fodder remained to try and take the last urn which had the worst quality of salt, that was why so many dumb cultivators threw themselves to death for the urn, only the dumb ones remained as the smart ones already took whatever they could! Yun Jhin was extremely angry right now but there wasn''t much he could do besides going inside the Naga region and betting his life on taking some salt from there. Or he could just go back to the Empire and hope the Emperor had some salt inside his treasury which he would unceremoniously give him due to his successful training. Yun Jhin was a careful man, careful to the point bold ones would call him a coward, but his ''cowardly'' attitude let him live to the utmost in his last life, while he was weak he would act cowardly but if he was strong he would act like he was god, he was that type of guy who would fear the strong and bully the weak. So he didn''t want to throw away his life as there was a chance of not even getting the salt in the Naga region, he decided to wait it out then return to the Empire and ask for the salt from the Emperor. Even though it was a shameless thing to do Yun Jhin didn''t mind being shameless. Chapter 77: Back to the Empire Yun Jhin sighed as he felt the formation core inside of him starting to dissipate, after he went to the four locations and lived in them for atleast 10 days each the formation disappeared by itself just like it was supposed to, Yun Jhin was surprised by that thinking that the Emperor put up some hidden mechanic inside of the formation but it seemed he was wrong. After he got attacked by the eye-less man Yun Jhin sat cross-legged near the exit in stealth and now that the formation disappeared from his body he was ready to leave. Yun Jhin exited the underwater palace easily as the world started to flip and rotate around him, after a little while he was back into the ocean and he started to swim back to the shore. Black Blood looked as Yun Jhin exited the danger zone immediately after the allocated time passed and he was quite surprised, did he had some difficulties during his last training as he didn''t stay more, or did he get what he needed from the location faster? Black Blood decided he observed for enough, he disappeared from where he stood and appeared in front of Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin put on a startled expression on his face but then he made a small bow as he said: "Oh, it''s senior Black Blood, did the Emperor sent you to take me to the capital after I finished the elemental trials?" Black Blood nodded his head at him, he didn''t explain to him that he followed him around during the training, who knew what reaction he would have after he unlocked more of his memories? Most God Realm experts were eccentric fellows, who knew if some of his former life traits already entered his mind? Black Blood engulfed Yun Jhin with his aura as he started to fly at quick speeds, zooming directly to the capital location, even though he was a Sage Realm expert around the 2nd to 3rd stage he still needed a bit of time to get to the capital from the ocean, it took him almost 3 days to travel to the capital with Yun Jhin in tow, he could have gone faster but he thought that Yun Jhin''s body wouldn''t be able to handle the true speed of a Sage Realm cultivator. Yun Jhin meditated the whole journey and only opened his eyes after they reached the capital, if he had the purified salt he would have immediately gone into seclusion to refine his four elements pill, but now he would have to go to the Emperor to report to him and ask for some salt... Black Blood did ask him if he wanted to rest first but Yun Jhin insisted that he wanted to meet the Emperor to give a report, he also hinted that he unlocked some new memories that could be useful to the empire. Black Blood didn''t dare to disagree when he understood the fact that Yun Jhin''s new memories could help the Empire so he immediately went with him to the palace then ushered him into the throne room. The Emperor just stood there, Sumo Tiancheng looked like quite an average middle-aged man but inside he was a schemer of great proportions, The Emperor looked down at Yun Jhin and Black Blood then rose from his throne and walked to them with open arms as he said: "Ah, you have returned junior Yun Jhin might I know if your traveling went well?" The Emperor didn''t even mention Lulu and Yun Jhin didn''t find it surprising, she should have had an item that was linked to her soul, and the moment she died both the Emperor who installed the formation cored inside her and her mother would know. The Emperor was fishing for information with his question and Yun Jhin gave it to him in the form of a soul message, the Emperor''s eyes narrowed then a big smile appeared on his face, Yun Jhin sent him some beneficial information for the God Realm, even though it wasn''t enough for him to even see a breakthrough in 20,000 thousand years, it was still progress for him! This type of information made the Emperor realize that Yun Jhin''s memories didn''t come from an ordinary God Realm expert, that surely meant his cultivation was above his and he might even have been an advanced God Realm practitioner that might have even stood around the 7th to 8th stage! There was both greed and respect in the Emperor''s eyes, after all, very few reincarnated cultivators would be able to unlock their memories after their soul went through the cycle of reincarnation as Yun Jhin did, most of the time their memories would be tightly sealed by something that not even they could understand. Yun Jhin wanted to ask the Emperor for some salt but the Emperor asked him something with a strange look on his face before he could inquire about the thing he needed: "My wife would like to know how her daughter died, she should come soon so spit out whatever you want to say before she arrives." Yun Jhin went directly to the subject and asked for some salt, but the Emperor''s face turned strange again as he said: "You are in luck considering there is some salt in the Empire''s borders, but you are also unlucky at the same time considering that the salt is in my wife''s hands, I mean she would have surely given it to you if you returned with Lulu alive, but now you would have to give her something equal in exchange, and let me tell you, my wife won''t accept information, you should know what she wants." The Emperor got back to the throne and told Black Blood that he was dismissed, the Empress appeared in the throne room and her eyes immediately went to Yun Jhin, there wasn''t hatred or anger in her eyes, but they were filled mostly with disappointment, both in Yun Jhin and her late daughter. Yun Jhin bowed to the Empress and her voice reverberated in the palace: "Yun Jhin tell me how did my daughter die?" Yun Jhin didn''t lie or beat around the bush as he said: "I and your esteemed daughter ventured deep into the Earth elemental danger zone, I wanted to get a herb but due to my low cultivation base I wasn''t able to reach it, Lulu wanting to impress me decided that she would go to harvest the herb, unfortunately, a toxic scorpion was using the herb as bait and Lulu was killed... Her last words for me was to run as her life disappeared from her eyes, I knew she was done for so I ran away, most likely the poison from the scorpion already done her in before her eyes even started to lose their light. I''m sorry your highness, I couldn''t protect her." The Empress shook her head a few times as she sighed deeply and looked at Yun Jhin, again and again, to make sure he wasn''t lying, but Yun Jhin was technically speaking the truth while just omitting a few facts so the Empress could only say that he was genuinely telling the truth. She frowned as she looked at him and said: "I have heard from my husband that you want salt from the underwater temple, I''m the possession of half an urn of salt and I can trade it for some of your ''services'', my oldest daughter should be around your cultivation base and she just turned 34 this year, you can meet her near outside of my garden and I can take you to her right now, what do you say?" Yun Jhin beat around the bush with Lulu as he wanted her to have more uses, but her eldest daughter wasn''t that useful, her bloodline was inferior so was her talent and the Empress only hoped that she would give birth to a good descendant using Yun Jhin''s bloodline, there was also the fact that she wanted to rope him in her faction using marriage and the child between the two. The Emperor didn''t say anything, on the surface, the marriage between factions would create an inner peace between the factions that hasn''t been attained up till now, the marriage and child between Yun Jhin and her eldest daughter was something that the Emperor didn''t reject,atleast he wouldn''t be cuckolded by someone of the younger generation. Yun Jhin seemingly thought about it for a few minutes before he reluctantly nodded his head and took the Empress''s hand. The Empress gave him a smile then they disappeared, The Emperor looked at the spot that they sat in and sighed: "Let''s hope this thing will go better, the inner turmoil in the Empire would finally be fixed if this goes well, atleast our subordinates will see it as an auspicious thing." The Emperor and the Empress were technically from two different factions after they were unable to conceive a child together, that was what the masses thought, but it wasn''t fully true, the Emperor was just a little bit mad that the Empress went ahead and cuckolded him, in the first place, the Emperor didn''t even have any concubines, but he took a few thousand of them in after he found out she cheated on him. Yun Jhin appeared in the Empress''s garden and he was quite impressed by it, it was quite artistic and there was also a formation under the earth that protected it, Yun Jhin could tell that if the Empress controlled it she might even be able to fight it out with a 6th stage God Realm cultivator for a while. Yun Jhin was then led to the Empress''s daughter by Fairy Song, the Empress returned to her gazebo but her eyes never looked away from Yun Jhin''s figure as she muttered slowly to herself: "Let''s see if your descendants would be good, hopefully, this good for nothing daughter of mine would have her use now, if I didn''t put that formation on her stopping her from having a child up till now she would have been impregnated countless times..." Fairy Song took him to a building that was around 20 kilometers away from the flower garden and then left him alone when he entered it, but before she left, she told him the name of the Empress''s oldest daughter and some of her quirks, she also gave him a quick wink before she disappeared from his view and senses. The building wasn''t that big, it could house up to four persons and it had two bedrooms, a bath, and a kitchen. Most cultivators would forsake such things as they lived based on the ki of heaven and earth, not needing to eat sleep, take baths, or have any other needs. It seemed that the person that lived here had quite the peculiar temperament. Out of the bedroom came out a woman that could be called a half-mature beauty, her bosom wasn''t either big or small, it was around the perfect size, her legs were long and her pink cherry lips invited one in, she had deep red hair tied in a ponytail behind her back and she wore nothing but a bathrobe currently. She waved her finger in Yun Jhin''s direction and gave him a slutty smile her bathrobe was slowly falling from her sexy body as she retracted into the bedroom. Yun Jhin eyes narrowed as she disappeared into the bedroom, it seemed the Empress''s oldest daughter was quite experienced in the ways of men and women, she could even be called a vixen, unfortunately for her, those things wouldn''t work on Yun Jhin, but due to the things he needed he would have to do as she wanted. Yun Jhin slowly walked to the bedroom and put his hand on the handle of the door to the room and turned it, he would have to impregnate this woman and that meant quite a bit of sex, after all, the higher the cultivation base the harder for one to have a child, this combined with their pure bloodline made the imperial couple unable to have any children. But to Yun Jhin only meant one day and night of sex, he wasn''t at that point of purity and high cultivation base. The door slowly opened as Yun Jhin laid his eyes on the woman that sat with her legs spread open on the bed, she was readily inviting him to take action and Yun Jhin considered it to be rude to refuse her invitation. Sophia gave Yun Jhin another slutty smile as the door behind him closed as she said: "Come for me, hopefully in more ways than one." Chapter 78: The 2nd stage of the King Realm Yun Jhin got up from the bed, behind him Sophia embraced him as she purred with a sly look on her face as she said: "Aren''t you a little beast, you pleased me for such a long amount of time.." Yun Jhin ignored her remarks as he got up, not having anymore support Sophia flailed around and fell on her face on the bed, Yun Jhin put on his clothes and then left the house. Sophia huffed as she got up and looked at his form until he disappeared and said: "You will have to come when I will give birth to your child!" Yun Jhin walked away from the house as Fairy Song appeared and took him to the Empress, the Empress was still in her gazebo, gazing at her flower garden, her eyes moved only when Yun Jhin arrived, she looked him up and down then gave him a thumbs-up as she said: "Your stamina is quite impressive, I already checked on Sophia and if nothing untoward happens to her she should be expecting." The Empress smiled as she waved her hand and an urn of salt appeared in her hands, the urn floated to Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin took it in his hands weighed it then put it in his spatial ring, he bowed slowly to her then Fairy Song took him and disappeared. The Empress sighed as she looked towards the house''s direction where Sophie was still grumbling about Yun Jhi ignoring her after he did all of those things to her. The Empress''s eyes wandered as she thought: "If he unlocked some of his more important memories he won''t care about his descendant that much... atleast we secured his peculiar bloodline, in the end, there is no reason for him to become an enemy to our empire." The Empress saw how Yun Jhin didn''t care about Sophie at all, after all, there were no emotions between them, and if feelings could be cultivated, God Realm cultivators wouldn''t be swayed by their emotion at all, the higher the cultivation base the easier it was to control your emotions, even though you could still feel them you could decide if you wanted to act on them or not. Yun Jhin arrived at the Emperor''s palace and announced that he would enter into closed-door cultivation for a while, the Emperor and Empress didn''t say anything as they already knew, after the training zones, they thought that he got some more experience, coupled with the items he gained and his memories he should be able to make a breakthrough at the least. Yun Jhin sat cross-legged in his room as he started doing some handseals, all of his ingredients started to float around him, the snake, the frog, the crystalline herb, the underwater herbs, the beast cores, and lastly the salt, he first purified the salt to his maximum capacity reducing its quantity to only a handful. Then he created a formation in which he started throwing the ingredients in a certain pattern, the pattern wasn''t random as he used the theory of creation behind it, he first put the earth, then the water, then the air, and lastly the flame ingredients. After he finished combining all of the ingredients, he added the salt as a catalyst that fused all of the ingredients and purified the sludge that would soon be a pill. The sludge was at first of random colors that moved as if they were alive, but the colors started to stabilize after, the colors resembled the four elements as they took a circular shape transforming into a pill, then the salt that fused them extracted the impurities from the pill, even though it was only a handful, due to its now high quality 100% of the impurities were removed. The pill sat there, glistening and pure, Yun Jhin took it in his hand as he admired it for a split second before he broke it into dust and inhaled it, starlight started to fall from the sky at his command as the pill dust entered his body then accelerated towards his soul. The pill dust refined his first soul jewel then the starlight came to stabilize its sudden growth, slowly but surely he reached the 9th stage of refinery and his first soul jewel became pure and shining, all of its impurities and soul wraiths which were inhabiting it died, they shrieked for the last time before they transformed into a white light that the jewel absorbed, his first jewel became of a pure white color that just sat on his crown. Yun Jhin used the remainder of the dust on the empty slot on his crown, the second jewel started to appear as the dust started to crystallize in a starlit jewel, then the jewel started to be filled with the four elements gaining four different colors in each segment. The colors were barely discernible and muddled but along with more refinery to the jewel, they would start shining. The dust from the pill was finally used up as Yun Jhin started to call down even more starlight to refine his 4 elements jewel, after a long time of refining the colors were a little bit more discernible and less muddled, Yun Jhin reached the 2nd refinery in one go and stopped calling starlight from the sky. Yun Jhin opened his eyes as his body was engulfed in four different colors, this was one of the benefits of having a four elements jewel, the four elemental body! Yun Jhin''s body became transparent as his organs, bones muscles, skin, they all were strengthened simultaneously, his body''s rank started to surge up, 8,100, 8200, 8300, 8400, 8500. It forcefully stopped at 8500, it could have increased more but Yun Jhin started to bleed from 4 of the seven apertures and if he forcefully broke through further he would have self-imploded. This was the limit placed on his current bloodline, there were chains placed on his DNA helix that wouldn''t let him break through further into his body refinement, the same thing would happen to his ki cultivation when he tried to break through to the Sage Realm, however, it would be less dangerous and he had a way to safely breakthrough. Yun Jhin flexed his arms and then started to do some stretching exercises to feel all of his body and the improvements from his four elemental jewel. He could feel that if he fought the same guy that robbed him at the underwater temple he would be surely able to fight back and even win if the guy didn''t keep his guard up around him. In theory, he should be able to fight with a 6th stage King Realm cultivator after his breakthrough. Now all he needed to do was put it in practice. He didn''t meet with Kong Luo in quite a long time so he decided to give him a visit and request a sparring partner from his army division. Yun Jhin left his room and Black Blood reported to the Emperor, he also told him that he was successful in his breakthrough reaching the 2nd stage of the King Realm, as for the refinement of his jewel he didn''t know, only the owners of the crown would know. Yun Jhin quickly arrived at the general''s army division and met up with him, Kong Luo was happy to meet with Yun Jhin and hear about his training expedition, Yun Jhin only told him about the surface events and then asked him to find him someone who could he spar against. Kong Luo saw that he broke through to the 2nd stage of the King Realm and patted him on the shoulder while congratulating him. Then he sent an announcement to the whole squad division that the vice-general returned and that he wanted to spar with someone! This announcement put the whole squad on fire, but then they realized that it was Yun Jhin, Kong Luo was talking about and not their true vice-general, most of them still looked down on Yun Jhin as they didn''t get any news from the former training expedition, nor from this one, after all, only Yun Jhin and Lulu were supposed to train at the four elemental danger zones. Kong Luo led him to the sparring area of the army squad division and there were already quite a lot of people watching, most of them wanted to boo when they saw Yun Jhin but Kong Luo was with him so all they could do was grith their teeth and wait for Kong Luo to give the signal for the start of the challenges. Yun Jhin stood in the sparring area with his eyes closed as Kong Luo told that anyone could challenge him if they were under the 9th stage of the King Realm, this was Yun Jhin''s request and Kong Luo decided to abide it, after all, he was a reincarnated God Realm expert with multiple aces up his sleeve, so he wouldn''t babysit him. Yun Jhin didn''t have to wait for much time as a 3rd stage King Realm expert took to the sparring area but Yun Jhin shook his head and pushed his hand forward, the man was startled by his action but he immediately fell away from the sparring area, he was bleeding from the mouth but he wasn''t that injured, his eyes widened in surprise and horror as he didn''t go back to the area, he just left with his head down and his whole body shaking. The others thought that he was scared and some others tried, then the cultivation of the challengers started to increase, the 4th stage and the 5th stage, but for them, Yun Jhin only had to apply a little more force to his push before they started to bleed internally and they left as well. Finally, a 6th stage King Realm cultivator got up to the stage and entered a fighting stance, he didn''t dare to underestimate Yun Jhin because his previous display even made him unsure if he could win 100%, at most he would have a 40% chance. Yun Jhin finally put a serious expression on his face as he entered his fighting stance, the four elements were roaming around his body like armor. The man didn''t say anything as he launched himself at Yun Jhin, his fist ready to break through his armor and strike him directly in the chest, the man''s speed was quite high as it seemed he was specializing in the trait. But Yun Jhin could easily see through the man''s martial technique, he sidestepped his punch and hit him in the stomach knocking the wind out of him, his strike was enchanted with the four elements and the man''s internal organs started to burn as his skin was frozen, then he was stuck to the earth as the frozen skin was cut open by the wind applied by Yun Jhin''s fist technique. The man didn''t look down on Yun Jhin but he was still surprised by the intricate attack that combined all of the four elements into one, he coughed up a mouthful of blood then put his hand up as he gave up, there was no reason to fight Yun Jhin anymore if the fight continued since Yun Jhin had the first strike advantage he would surely lose as he was injured and some of his inner ki seeped away. Yun Jhin didn''t make things hard for him as he let him off the sparring area, but suddenly there was a clapping sound coming from the exit of the sparring area, a middle-aged man who wore a military uniform and had the vice-general sign on his chest near the heart area entered. The man had blonde short hair and deep green eyes, his skin was rough and his build was muscular, he wasn''t that tall standing around 1,76 centimeters being of average height even among humans. His aura was calm like a deep pond as he walked towards the sparring area and he said: "I didn''t think the new vice-general would be so talented in your fist techniques, I would like to swap some pointers with this new younger brother, I don''t think general Kong Luo would mind?" Kong Luo wanted to interfere, the vice-general was quite old compared to Yun Jhin and due to his outside training he finally broke through to the 9th stage of the King Realm, even though he wasn''t the strongest vice-general in the army currently, he could be counted in the top 15 after his breakthrough. Yun Jhin looked at the general and said: "I would like to spar with this older brother but the discrepancy between our cultivations is quite high, if you restricted your cultivation to around the 7th or even 8th stage I would fight you, also you can''t use your innate 9th stage technique." The vice-general smiled as he replied: "Seems pretty fair to me considering your lack of cultivation base, I''m older after all, and I should abate to these rules, after all, I don''t want to bully the younger generation for no reason, I''m just quite interested in your fist technique, don''t take it as an offense younger brother Yun Jhin." Since Yun Jhin agreed to it Kong Luo didn''t say anything as he let the vice-general on the sparring area, the vice-general gave a small greeting bow as he said: "My name is Lu Shen and I would like to get some guidance from younger brother''s Yun Jhin fist technique." Yun Jhin reciprocated the gesture and entered his fighting stage as Lu Shen''s cultivation base started to drop around the 6th stage of the King Realm however his momentum was extremely different compared to the former opponent at the 6th stage, there was also an experienced air around him that very few in the army had. Lu Shen entered into his fighting stance and waited for Yun Jhin to attack, it seemed he played it passively waiting to counter-attack depending on what type of attack Yun Jhin would do. Yun Jhin kept his ground as he stared at the older man, he would be a good guinea pig for his new elemental technique. Yun Jhin smiled inside as he started charging his inner ki into a certain pattern inside his body. He would unleash one of his rather commonly used attacks from his previous life. Chapter 79: The four elements jewel shines Yun Jhin started his charge while being fully covered by a transparent four colored armor, Lu Shen''s eyes narrowed as he saw Yun Jhin''s sloppy form of attacking, it looked like it came from an amateur but he didn''t counter-attack as he sat there. Suddenly when Yun Jhin was 2 meters away from him he moved his hands and pushed them forward, a left hook zoomed towards Yun Jhin''s head at an extremely quick speed, Yun Jhin smiled as the left hook hit something solid and the man backed away then looked at his fist which was burned, frozen, and lacerated then his wound was infested with earth ki poison. Lu Shen shook his hand as the laceration closed off, his frostbite disappeared along with his burnt skin, and the earth ki poison was removed into a dark green ball which he threw away, it landed on the earth of the sparring area and it created a deep hole inside it that recovered itself after a short while. While Lu Shen shook his hand Yun Jhin entered his personal space and tried to plant a kick into his stomach, when his kick reached the man''s abdomen he realized that his stomach wasn''t there! Lu Shen sucked in his stomach then he launched his kick hitting Yun Jhin''s leg and trying to break it. Yun Jhin retreated two steps by jumping on one leg then put the one that stood up down, the kick created a crater on the earth as Yun Jhin used the momentum to dash forward to Lu Shen, Lu Shen dashed forward as well as a smile appeared on his face. Yun Jhin punched him in the chest but Lu Shen blocked it with his forearm then tried to hit Yun Jhin in the head, however, the invisible ''wall'' from before appeared and stopped his attack before it could land on Yun Jhin''s forehead by around 5 centimeters. Lu Shen frowned as he backed away and shook his hand again, but he realized that it got harder to heal his hand and remove the earth ki poison, Yun Jhin was improving in real-time in his fight against him! Lu Shen didn''t know what to say, after all, he didn''t meet such geniuses even in his travels, there weren''t many people who could improve while fighting someone. Yun Jhin wasn''t improving while fighting him, he was just rusty as he didn''t use this technique in a long while, so he was just recovering his previous experience. Lu Shen disappeared as he transformed into a ray of light that shot itself at Yun Jhin, the ray of light was extremely sharp and if it hit Yun Jhin in a vital point there was a high chance of death for him, but Lu Shen wasn''t that bold to try and attack mortally with Kong Luo viewing, so he went for Yun Jhin''s right arm. Yun Jhin didn''t want to use formations in this fight, after all, it wasn''t a life or death fight and he wanted to see how much his cultivation improved, so the invisible armor that covered his body started to become visible as he turned it on at full capacity. The armor had four colors, in each color, there was the character of Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water in the respective colors, black, silver, red, and blue. Lu Shen eyes widened as he looked at the armor and questioned: "This technique... it needs the four elemental jewels to be executed, you are at the 2nd stage how can you do this?" Yun Jhin smiled but he didn''t respond, Lu Shen knew everyone had their secrets, especially in such a world where one fortuitous encounter could change a man''s/woman''s fate, no one would want to share their secrets. Yun Jhin armor made him invincible to those below the 9th stage in defense, that meant he could run away but not beat them, as he fought Lu Shen increased his cultivation base slowly but he realized that he couldn''t penetrate through Yun Jhin''s armor, it defended all of his weak spots like it was alive. The armor was partially alive considering Yun Jhin used a lot of the souls he refined from the first jewel to construct this one, even though the souls disappeared that didn''t mean they got their rest, they were recycled. Yun Jhin would never waste some good souls. Lu Shen frowned as his aura finally reached the peak of the 8th stage and he said: "If this attack still can''t break through your defenses it will be my defeat younger brother Yun Jhin, you can even have the official title of vice-general, I came back to the capital because I will soon break through the Emperor realm and I will get a division of my own." Kong Luo wasn''t surprised by his words, Lu Shen was a talented man who worked it up the ranks with grit and tenacity along with his natural talent in cultivation, Kong Luo would miss him as a subordinate but it could also be good to have an ally that would talk for him in the court later down the road. Yun Jhin braced himself for Lu Shen''s ultimate attack, he was sure that it wouldn''t be able to do much to his armor but he didn''t want to have any surprises. Lu Shen started giving out a strange aura as all of his ki started to go inward, his aura started to slowly disappear seemingly as if he turned into a mortal man without any cultivation, then he opened his mouth and a giant wave of energy came out of his mouth which traveled quickly towards Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin didn''t have enough time to dodge the wave of energy as it''s speed was very quick, maybe if he was atleast at the 5th to 6th stage he would have been able to dodge it but since he was at the 2nd there was no way he could with his current physical body, but he could tank it! The wave of energy hit him head-on, but a gigantic projection of his armor appeared in front of him and took the brunt of the energy wave, the projection started to crack after a short while and broke but the armor on his body was still intact without any scratches, the remainder of the attack struck his armored body and then it was reflected into the sky where it disappeared. Lu Shen started to breathe heavily as this technique took a lot out of him, but he recovered quickly since he didn''t use his ultimate technique at its full potential due to the self-limitations of his cultivation base. Lu Shen gave out a weak smile as he said: "This is a technique I derived from my ultimate jewel skill, it seems in the future the Empire will have another Sage Realm expert at the least, with your potential and youth you could surely reach that realm." Yun Jhin bowed slowly as he said: "You flatter me elder brother Lu Shen, thank you for the spar." Lu Shen continued to smile as he reciprocated the gesture, it was nice to find such a young person who was both talented and humble, most people his age would have their nose so up in the sky that they couldn''t see their feet if they had the same amount of talent he had, he saw countless such ''young masters'' and ''young mistresses'' in his travels outside the Empire. Lu Shen took his leave as he talked a bit with Kong Luo, most of the army was present besides those outside that went on missions, they saw Yun Jhin''s might all of them started to respect him, after all, might make right in this world, the stronger you are the more respect and fear you would garner from the people around you. Kong Luo clapped for a little bit before he congratulated Yun Jhin on his breakthrough again, Yun Jhin gave him a small smile then left, he knew where he sat with his normal battle power right now, even if he couldn''t fight a 9th stage King Realm practitioner head-on, he could survive him if he didn''t use his true ultimate skill, and even if he did use his ultimate skill he could run away using formations. Yun Jhin returned to his room only to be interrupted by Black Blood who said that the Emperor sent for him, Yun Jhin couldn''t refuse so he followed Black Blood to the throne room. The Emperor sat on his throne as he said: "You have been in closed-door cultivations for almost 5 to 6 months, the first princess Sophia is pregnant and she is going to expect your child in a few months, no this isn''t the reason why I called you here, I have some good news and bad news." The Emperor sighed as he took a letter out of his chest pocket and read it there weren''t many words but all of them were heavy: "Our firstborn daughter Zula, of the Muzan household, has been violated by someone from your Empire and we demand satisfaction!" Yun Jhin knew this was going to happen sooner or later, it seems it happened sooner, the Emperor asked him what this was about and Yun Jhin agreed that he was the one who did the deed, after all, the letter also had his portrait below the message, there was no reason to lie to the Emperor. The Emperor sighed as he burned the letter to cinders and then he said: "Well you took the opportunity when you could, you healed yourself and you even took the herb that was needed to the pill that you wanted to concoct, I can''t say that you have done is wrong as I would have done the same in your shoes, fortunately, you haven''t killed any of them and this dispute can be easily resolved." The Emperor looked straight into Yun Jhin''s eyes as he said: "You will either marry her or get strong enough to defeat the head of her house, these are the conditions that the Zipher household had put forth, let me give you a hint, the head of her house is a half-god expert." Yun Jhin shook his head as he responded: "So I guess I could only marry her then, after all, how could I defeat the head of the house as I''m right now?" The Emperor nodded at him and said: "It''s good that you understand the bigger picture, Zula is quite a beauty, and having a marriage with one of the ten top houses of the Bumi Empire isn''t a bad thing, even though the Luo and Bumi Empire don''t see face to face they aren''t irreconcilable enemies either, they said that the wedding must be done as soon as possible because you already took her vital yin." Yun Jhin didn''t mind it one bit, he didn''t care much about Zula or her opinion, having a political marriage like this would get him some benefits in the form of a dowry, he just wasn''t sure what he would get. Since Yun Jhin accepted extremely easily the Emperor immediately sent word using a communication formation and he got a response in the same moment that said: "We will come to the Sumo Empire in ten days and we will marry them in the same day of the arrival, be ready!" In such a patriarchal society like the cultivation one, marrying off a daughter wasn''t of high importance, but who she was married off too was important. Having a political alliance with the Sumo Empire would be a good thing for the least ranked family as they would get some support from the Emperor, having a backer in the form of a god realm expert would make sure that they didn''t fall from the top 10 even if their head of the house died, it seemed there was a high chance the head of the house would try to break through the God Realm and he wanted insurance that his house wouldn''t fall if he died. Yun Jhin left the throne room and returned to his room where he sat cross-legged on his bed. His were closed as he meditated, all he could do right now was continued refining his four elemental jewel while he waited for his wife, father, and mother in law to arrive. Fortunately to a cultivator time would fly by extremely fast and he was summoned to the throne room exactly ten days later as the message stated. Black Blood came to take him and helped him choose a red wedding suit then took him to the throne room. There Zula stood near the Emperor, she had a red wedding dress on her body and a red veil was covering her face. The Emperor stood up a few meters away just like a priest while a middle-aged man and woman stood near Zula, both of them were glaring at Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin found it strange that both of them weren''t the head of the house, it seemed Zula was just talented and her parents weren''t of high standing so the head of the house must have adopted her. Yun Jhin slowly walked towards Zula, he had a small smile on his face as he stood in front of her, the veil couldn''t stop the glare that was filled with both hatred and poison but there was nothing she could do as she took his hand in hers and waited for the Emperor to start talking. She was forced to marry the man that defiled her but there was nothing she could say against her adoptive father''s wishes, and if her biological parents spoke up there was a high chance of both of them being executed. All she could do was grith her teeth and curse herself for not being strong enough. Finally, after both Yun Jhin and Zula stood in front of the Emperor, he opened his mouth to start the ceremony, everything became quiet until the Empress arrived with a pregnant Sophia in tow. Chapter 80: Wedding crashers Both of Yun Jhin''s in-laws were angry seeing the Empress barge in uninvited in their daughter''s wedding, but a voice transmission from the Emperor made both of them sweat internally. The Emperor told them that she was his wife and also a god realm expert of the Empire, thus they knew that they couldn''t say anything if she wanted to observe their daughter''s wedding. But they couldn''t keep their eyes of Sophia''s pregnant form, they wondered why would the Empress barge in with a pregnant woman? Then the woman''s eyes widened as she looked at Sophia then at Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin''s mother in law was quite sharp and she realized the Empress came with someone Yun Jhin had a child with to show that their daughter wouldn''t be the main wife! After all, the main wife could change faster than anyone anticipated in such type of relationships, both parents didn''t want their only daughter to be a concubine but since it seemed that she wasn''t married off to Yun Jhin yet as she didn''t have a ring, there was still time for their daughter to become the main wife, she just needed to give birth to a boy! The Emperor smiled at his wife''s antics then started the ceremony. The ceremony didn''t last long after it was finished they worshipped the heaven and earth then they exchanged their vows and rings, Black Blood came quickly and gave Yun Jhin the case with the rings, he put a jade ring on her finger while she put a white opal ring on his. Finally, Yun Jhin kissed the wife and the ceremony was over, The Emperor gave out a hearty laugh as he said: "Isn''t it time for the esteemed guest to stop hiding?" Out of nowhere a green-haired woman who wore simple clothes appeared, she had three swords tied at her hip and two scars ran over both of her black colored eyes, her green hair was cut short and messy and she gave out a wanderer aura. Yun Jhin eyes narrowed as he saw her, she was the same girl from the dead general''s memories! It seemed she was from the Bumi Empire and she grew up to become a half-god expert, he could tell from her aura even though it was hidden, she could hide it from others but someone with his experience could tell it, the Emperor and Empress could tell as well. The woman made a small bow as she smiled at Zula and Yun Jhin while saying: "I should be the first one to congratulate this young couple, I''m going to go in closed-door cultivation for an imminent breakthrough very soon and I would like to be the first one to give the wedding gift." The woman took something out of her spatial ring, it was an exquisitely carved box with dragons imprints on it, she opened it a little and a wonderful aroma escaped it, if Yun Jhin could guess from the smell alone it was a hearty starlight pill, very useful for those in the King Realm it could speed up the jewelry refinement by 50% to 80%. The woman gave out a small smile as she said: "Since both of you are in the King Realm I decided that this would be a rather good wedding gift for the two of you." The Emperor coughed and took a small pearl out of his robes then gave it to the biological parents of Zula, this was a token of his appreciation and it would be quite awkward if he didn''t give anything as he was supposed to be Yun Jhin''s guardian in this situation. The parents didn''t know what to say and only grasped the pearl, in this type of situation only the bride''s family would gift things, they didn''t even get to the dowry yet! The green-haired swordswoman then took out another thing from her spatial ring, it was a strange half-black and half-white rock, she chucked it to Yun Jhin and said via voice transmission: "Boy this is your dowry, I won''t say much about it besides that its a Ying-Yang stone, you should know what it is, after all, you are a reincarnated God Realm expert aren''t you?" It seemed Yun Jhin''s secret wasn''t a secret anymore, after all, to create this alliance some secrets needed to spill out, but Yun Jhin was sure they made her unable to tell this to anyone else, and even if she did, she wouldn''t get benefits, she might even be killed because she made such an alliance, technically speaking she was now allying with 3 God Realm experts! Even though one still needed to mature. The Empress started clapping as she walked forward and scrutinized the green-haired woman up and down, the woman gave out a weak smile as she said: "I''m honored to meet the Empress of the Sumo Empire, my name is Surr Zara, I hope our alliance will be long and prospering." The Empress smiled as she patted Zara''s shoulder, however, this made Zara pale heavily, she didn''t know why the Empress would act like this on their first meeting. The pregnant Sophia just looked around and didn''t say anything, she knew she was only a puzzle piece for her mother so she just stood there nicely with her chest out and her big belly in front. She did her job splendidly. Zara''s eyes narrowed as she watched Sophia puff out her chest but then she continued smiling as she retreated towards the Emperor''s side. The Emperor gave out a small cough indicating that this was enough, this was something the Emperor talked with the Empress before, even though they were allies Zara should know where she stood in this alliance, they were the stronger party and she had to play to their tune, in return they would give her and her house the protection she needed. Zara bowed to the Emperor then told Zula via voice transmission: "Kid you are our only hope if I die in my closed-door cultivation, just please this Yun Jhin as best as you can and both of your parents and other relatives will be okay, do you understand?" Zula gave her affirmation using the same voice transmission channel then Zara gave out a big smile as she teleported away with her parents in tow. Zula was now alone between strangers, she didn''t know what to say, the only one that she knew here was Yun Jhin and she hated him to the bone. The Emperor gave out a wry smile as he saw Zula glare at Yun Jhin then said: "Well since the wedding is done you two love birds can go have your privacy, darling you should go as well, don''t let Sophia''s baby get influenced by the unfortunate air around my palace." The Empress humphed then left along with Sophia, Yun Jhin left with Azula towards his new room which Black Blood outfitted for his and his new wife''s needs. Yun Jhin entered the room and Zula was ready to attack him with fire but Yun Jhin easily slapped her aside and sealed her power, her eyes widened as she looked at him and said: "You have grown so strong already? HOW!?" Yun Jhin shook his head as he changed his clothes, he didn''t like the stuffy groom suit, he changed back into the clothes he used for his training expedition, they were renewed and fixed with the help of formations so they looked bright new, Yun Jhin also reinforced their defenses with the help of his four elemental jewel. Zula glared as her bindings were undone, Yun Jhin looked at her in the eyes and said: "Just be a nice wife and act properly, you don''t have to like me or anything, you don''t even have to stay in the same room as me, after all, this was just a political marriage, do what you want as long as you don''t affect the bigger picture of the Empire and your family, you should understand that right?" Zula gritted her teeth then looked down, tears started to fall down her cheeks as she hiccuped and said: "I already liked someone... but I was forced to marry you..." Yun Jhin gave her a side glance and said: "That''s rough buddy." Zula frowned but didn''t say anything as she cleared her eyes after she finished crying, she was a strong woman and this was one of the rare times that she would show her sensitive side to someone, she just felt so weak and unwanted... but it seemed she wouldn''t get anything from showing this side of hers to Yun Jhin, after all, he was a cold and calculative man and what he said was the truth, there was no feeling between them and it was only a political marriage. Zula looked at Yun Jhin but didn''t leave the room as she jumped on the bed and then changed her clothes in front of him, Yun Jhin didn''t mind as he already saw her whole body and took her vital yin so it didn''t matter to him, Zula knew that already so she didn''t hide needlessly, they were ''husband and wife'' now anyways. Yun Jhin took out a hearty starlight pill from the box that Zara gave as a wedding gift, he observed it for a short while before he concluded that they weren''t tampered with, with this whole box he would be able to fully refine his second jewel and with the ying-yang stone he would be able to create a ying-yang jewel which would lead to an easier time when learning the death and life laws at the Sage and God Realm. Yun Jhin turned one starlight pill into a liquid form which he swallowed, the liquid ran around his body for a short while before it entered into his soul and moved directly to the second jewel to refine it further. Zula didn''t disturb Yun Jhin cultivation as she started to cultivate herself, she had her box of starlight pills that Zara gave to her before the wedding. One pill two pills, six pills... Yun Jhin''s refinery stage jumped up the more pills he used the higher his stage went, after he used half the box he finally reached the peak of the 9th stage of his second jewel refinery and along with it the peak of the 2nd stage of the King Realm. Yun Jhin opened his eyes and looked around, Zula was still cultivating so he didn''t bother her as he took out the Ying-Yang stone, there was one way to assimilate the stone and it was very simple. Yun Jhin put his hand into his chest as he ripped it open, blood fell but his organs were tightly knit into his body due to their refinement, after a short while the blood also stopped and his chest was starting to slowly heal, but Yun Jhin took the Ying-Yang stone and gritted his teeth as he pushed the stone into his heart! He wanted to scream but he didn''t, he endured higher pain than this before, however, this one still hurt like a bitch! His heart started beating at extreme speeds as it was swallowing the stone, his chest was also recovering at extreme speeds as it closed. Yun Jhin''s body was full of cold sweat as the stone was fully swallowed by his heart, then his heart turned black and white as it was inscribed with some scriptures that were hidden in the stone. Yun Jhin closed his eyes as the pain receded, then he used the scriptures along with his new blood that pumped through his body to create his next jewel! His blood was now full of Ying-Yang properties meaning it was both hot and cold at the same time, both dead and alive, it was a strange state of being that not many could achieve normally, but it could be achieved artificially if one gained a Ying-Yang stone, the benefits weren''t many for this state, your ki will be a little purer and you would have better future prospects, but the biggest benefit would be creating a jewel that could contain both Ying and Yang inside of it, giving your crown slots for more jewels. A half-white half-dark jewel appeared on the next slot of Yun Jhin''s crown, this was the Ying-Yang jewel! The Ying-Yang jewel gave him strength and enlightenment of life and death, but it wasn''t that useful for him as he already knew those things, he was only missing the cultivation base to employ them. After he fully finished creating his Ying-Yang jewel he took out the rest of the hearty starlight pills and used them to refine his 3rd jewel, however, the more you used the less effective they will be so he could only reach the 4th stage of refinement of his 3rd jewel and he couldn''t go further unless he got more pure starlight, with time he could absorb it from the sky but it would take a lot of time, also Zula was shaking him right now so he had to see what she wanted. Yun Jhin woke up and looked at Zula who was shaking his shoulder, she immediately flinched as she saw the black and white color that flashed through his eyes for a brief moment before she said: "Black Blood is looking for you, he said something about visiting the Bumi Empire with the Emperor, it seems that my head of the family passed away..." 8 months passed since Yun Jhin entered into closed-door cultivation and it seemed Zara failed to break through the God Realm. He understood why The Emperor would have to go to the Empire to fulfill his promise but why did he want him to go as well? Well, all he could do now was look for him to see what he wanted, his child should have also been born by now, but he didn''t care that much about it if possible he didn''t want to meet him or her at all or else he would just become disappointed. Yun Jhin got up from his cross-legged position on the floor and opened his door as he left towards the throne room. Black Blood was waiting for him at the gigantic doors as he told Yun Jhin: "Yun Jhin, the Emperor already left to the Bumi Empire but he told me to leave you this letter." Yun Jhin took the letter and opened it only to see... Chapter 81: Useless warning Yun Jhin eyes wandered on the latter after he opened it, but his brows furrowed as he saw that the paper was blank! Black Blood coughed to take his attention then told him: "His highness told me that you should open the letter in your room away from prying eyes, I''m sorry I didn''t tell you earlier but you opened it quite fast, anyways you can go now." Yun Jhin put the letter in his cloak and left to his room, Zula was meditating when he entered but she immediately got up from her cross-legged position on the bed after she heard the door open. Yun Jhin took out the letter from his cloak and looked at it again, words started to appear on the letter, they were written hastily but still had beautiful calligraphy which showed the Emperor''s control of his powers. Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he fully read the letter then burnt it to ashes with his inner flame ki, he looked towards Zula and told her: "Your head of the house has died while she tried to break through the God Realm and the Emperor had to go and protect your house from the prying hands of the other families." Zula''s eyes widened as some tears started to bud in them but she cleared them with her hand immediately after, she needed to be strong for Zara''s sake, she wouldn'' want her to cry right now. Yun Jhin looked at her reaction with no emotion in his eyes as he thought about the other half of the letter which told him about the fact that his presence was also needed in the Bumi Empire, Yun Jhin wasn''t sure why but the Emperor told him that he shouldn''t go that''s why he left alone. Yun Jhin couldn''t do much anymore besides cultivating so unless Black Blood would need his presence again he would just continue to cultivate. Starlight fell from the sky as Yun Jhin absorbed it, 1 day passed, 2 days passed, 3 days passed, 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 1 month passed. Then he was shaken out of his cultivation by a firm but fair hand, the owner of the hand was surprisingly the Empress! She glared at Yun Jhin with coquettish eyes as she said: "Your daughter has been born a few months ago and all you do is cultivate, why don''t you come to visit her?" Yun Jhin looked at the Empress in the eyes and responded: "Your highness, I find cultivating more important than meeting with my spawn, if you would be kind could you let me go so I can continue?" The Empress gave out a small giggle as she grabbed Yun Jhin by the collar and her eyes hardened as she said: "I didn''t give you my salt for nothing boy, my husband isn''t here anymore so that means he wouldn''t know if I jumped you right now." Yun Jhin gulped as she looked at the Empress, Zula was nowhere to be found as the Empress should have taken care of her, sending her away. The Empress gave a sultry smile as she pushed Yun Jhin on the bed and immobilized him with some ki ropes. Then she licked her lips and said: "I should enjoy this..." Yun Jhin trembled as the Empress finally left after being satisfied for half a month, she glared at the spot she disappeared from, he didn''t like being taken advantage of but there wasn''t much he could do anyways. He just hoped the Emperor wouldn''t go crazy if he ever found out. The Empress was satisfied but Yun Jhin was sure she wasn''t pregnant, she only left because Yun Jhin couldn''t handle her anymore, and there was news that the Emperor was on his way back home. Yun Jhin sighed as the door of his room opened and Zula entered, she looked quite pitiful as she glared at Yun Jhin and said: "You only bring problems to me, that Empress kept me tied in the courtyard under a stealth formation up till now!" Yun Jhin ignored her as he stretched his body, he was still naked but he didn''t care about Zula, even though Zula''s body was seen by Yun Jhin, this was the first time Zula saw a man''s naked body so she was pretty embarrassed. Yun Jhin put on his clothes after he finished stretching and Zula''s face turned to its normal color. Before he was interrupted so suddenly by the Empress Yun Jhin almost got to reach the 6th stage of the refinery of his 3rd jewel. Yun Jhin sighed as he sat cross-legged on the floor again then continued to summon starlight from the sky, with a little bit more starlight he finally finished the refinery of the 6th stage. Yun Jhin sighed as he opened his eyes and looked at Zula who was in his face, she was observing him with critical eyes as she said: "What kind of monster are you?" She saw how easily and what type of quantity and quality of starlight he summoned from the sky, she didn''t know anyone in her age range that could do the same as him, older peopel that she knew were of higher cultivation base and she wasn''t sure how they compared in their youth to Yun Jhin. She was surprised because Zara didn''t tell her that he was a reincarnated God Realm cultivator, if she knew she would have tried to curry favor with him instead of only hating him, she would still hate him but she would also try to fish for benefits. Yun Jhin pushed her out of his personal space as he walked outside the room, he knew the Emperor must have come back by now so he went directly to the throne room. Black Blood didn''t say anything as he was led into the throne room. The Emperor stood on his throne as he looked down at Yun Jhin with a small smile and said: "You want to know what happened at the Bumi Empire right?" Yun Jhin nodded his head and the Emperor responded: "I have fended off the greedy hands that wanted to go for Zara''s family and assets, however, the Emperor of the Bumi Empire was alarmed by my presence and he had to interfere, in the end, we came to a consense." "I''m not sure how they know of you, but the good news is that they don''t know that you are a reincarnated God Realm cultivator, some news must have slipped from the other people that were with Zula, they must think that you are very talented and have something unique about you, or else Zula wouldn''t have been betrothed to you, that''s why they wanted to see you in person." Yun Jhin wasn''t sure who the Emperor was talking about but his next words clarified everything: "It''s one of the top ten families, the Blood Hound family at the top 7, their disciples had a scuffle with Zula''s cousin and some words about you slipped, they became interested considering our Empire never had such a young genius like you in a long time... you might not be aware but our Empire is eyed by both of the other Empire''s, they want to keep us in check." Yun Jhin found this to be pretty normal, the other two empires were already fighting with each other in the dark and they didn''t want a third competitor, as the saying went when two fought the third won. Unfortunately, the Sumo Empire was too weak to compete with the other two, it was also suppressed as back in time some of the geniuses were poached by both Empires. The Emperor frowned as he looked at the communication formation near his throne then his eyes widened as he looked at Yun Jhin: "The Luo Empire got news about you as well... this is bad for us, this hasn''t happened in a long while but I''m sure they will try to poach you from us..." Suddenly a light appeared in the throne room as two people appeared, one appeared on the left and one on the right. The one on the left was dressed in black and white clothes that had a ying-yang pattern on the front and back, he was quite old, looking to be almost as old as Black Blood. The other person that stood on the right was pretty short and had a youthful aura, but he had white hair and wore blue robes, his face was hidden behind a demonic mask that covered only his eyes. Both talked at the same time: "The Bumi/Luo Empire is sending their regards!" The masked man immediately said: "I''m the messenger from the Luo Empire and I came in regards to the new genius of the Sumo Empire called Yun Jhin, our Zhu household would like to invite this young genius into its folds so he can have a better environment where he can grow!" The old man gave out a cryptic smile as he said: "I have come from the Bumi Empire, I''m the messenger from the Blood Hound family and I came with the same intentions as the one from the Luo Empire." His eyes wandered directly to Yun Jhin as he appeared in front of him and said: "I would like to talk with this young man about a few things, Yun Jhin wasn''t it?" Yun Jhin wanted to deny but the man''s smile told him that he already knew who he was, Yun Jhin gave out a weak smile as he looked at the Emperor, but the Emperor himself didn''t know what to do, both houses had Emperor''s stronger than he was so he could only bow his head and don''t interfere, he could only watch as they fought between themselves and hoped that Yun Jhin would still remember his good intentions when he was sent to the other Empires. The masked man frowned as he appeared behind the old man and sent out of a palm in greeting. The old man turned to the masked man by jumping and meeting his palm with his own, Yun Jhin was protected by a barrier that the Emperor hastily created but Black Blood wasn''t as lucky, Black Blood coughed a mouthful of blood as he retreated from the battlefield, both of the messengers were around the 7th to 8th stage of the Sage Realm. The masked man frowned then shook his head as he said: "The Sumo Empire has some deep connections with our Luo Empire, I know that they have made an alliance with the weaker house of your Bumi Empire, but you should know that the current Emperor of the Sumo Empire is the son of your Emperor!" There wasn''t much the Bumi Empire messenger could argue about, after all, he only came here to try his luck, the old man gave out a creepy smile and glare to Yun Jhin as he disappeared, Yun Jhin knew what that meant: "If we can''t have you, then no one can!" Yun Jhin''s early happy days would end by now, considering that from now on assassins from the Bumi Empire would move for him if he left the Empire. Yun Jhin frowned as he looked at the masked man, but the masked man just smiled as he patted Yun Jhin on the shoulder and said: "Good lad, I can see you refined your body to the maximum capacity and beyond, your aura is also rich with the four elements and ying-yang, very good very good, please come with me." The man grasped Yun Jhin''s shoulder as they both disappeared into a ray of light, The Emperor gave out a big frown as he looked at the spot they have disappeared from and sighed while thinking: "I''m the first one that found this gem but unfortunately I won''t be the one who gets to enjoy looking at it, fortunately, I didn''t make him do things that he didn''t want or offended him, hopefully in the future he would look for my Empire if he survives the Luo Empire..." The Emperor called for Black Blood and sent out a ray of light which healed his internal injuries then told him: "Since Yun Jhin isn''t officially ours anymore, you can go and dispose of that Zula, also our alliance with the Bumi Empire is gone and null! Yun Jhin''s disappearance made everything collapse on paper and I don''t want to offend the Blood Hound house any further, go!" Black Blood nodded his head and soonly returned with the head of Zula, The Emperor nodded and then the head exploded into ashes that drifted into nothingness, Black Blood didn''t say anything as he bowed and left, the Emperor''s eyes glazed over as his gaze seemingly went beyond the palace''s walls and he murmured: "Good luck out there Yun Jhin, you will certainly need it, unlocked God''s memories or not." Yun Jhin was currently into a spatial tunnel that was sending him to the Zhu household of the Luo Empire, at this point he was both interested and cautious, after all, going to the Luo Empire would mean more chances to get his hands on pure-blooded dragons that he could devour! He still needed to eat dragons/phoenixes/dark tortoises and white tigers to evolve into an artificial caterpillar, up till now he had no good opportunities to get one, but from now on he would reach the middle of the upper continents where the pure draconic beings were the most numerous! Even though he couldn''t kill and devour people from the Luo Empire openly, he could do it in the dark, there was also the Bumi Empire! Since they were going to sent assassins for him, he would welcome them with open arms as long as they were pure-blooded dragons. Yun Jhin sighed as he saw the light at the end of the spatial tunnel, they were almost at their destination! Chapter 82: Curbed and humiliated Yun Jhin found himself in a hall full of people, they were eying him like someone would do an animal at the zoo. Some sneered at him, others looked interested, but most of them had disdain on their faces, that was because most of them were purebred draconic beings, and just it was mentioned before, pure draconic beings looked down heavily upon halflings. Yun Jhin ignored their gazes, but one peculiar gaze was looking at him with sympathy, and what seemed to be understanding? Yun Jhin eyes turned to that peculiar gaze he felt, it was a weak-looking young man with shaggy hair and a trashy bloodline, his cultivation base was around the 2nd stage of the King Realm and he seemed to be understanding of his feelings even though he didn''t put any on his face. The masked man that took Yun Jhin to the Zhu household gave out a big smile as he clapped his hands to take everyone''s attention: "This is Yun Jhin from the Sumo Empire, please welcome him to our Zhu Household, don''t be shy." The weak-looking young man walked forward, but suddenly one of the other spectators struck him in the back, he was a tall burly looking man of around the same age as the weak-looking young man, however, due to his big figure and manly looking face he looked older. The man sneered as he placed his knee on the young man''s neck and said: "You want to befriend the new hotshot so you won''t be bullied anymore don''t you?" The weak-looking young man wanted to shake his head vehemently but he couldn''t due to the knee that was on his neck, if he made any sudden movement his neck would snap and he would be a goner. Yun Jhin looked on coldly, but the burly man waved his hand at him and said: "If you want to be accepted here you should what we say, after all, we have seniority in the Zhu household." The man gave out a smile as the others nodded, then he pointed at Yun Jhin and then pointed at the man below him: "Humiliate this trashy brat, look at his bloodline, you are a halfling and your blood is even purer than his by around 200 times or so from the intensity of your aura." The masked man watched on with cold eyes, he couldn''t care less about the trash brat, even though his parents were both of high standing and talented, they were both dead and their savings passed around his relatives, he was at his weakest now and everyone bullied him, however, this wouldn''t have happened if he wasn''t born with such a trashy bloodline. Yun Jhin walked slowly towards the downed young man, the burly man got up from the man''s neck and Yun Jhin crouched down to be eye to eye with the young man, the young man gave out a weak smile as he saw Yun Jhin''s offered hand. The others were glaring and were almost ready to boo Yun Jhin and spit at him, but when the young man took Yun Jhin''s hand, Yun Jhin''s other arm that stood behind quickly appeared, his hand turned into a punch as his fist hit the man''s head directly making him bleed. The hit wasn''t that strong so he didn''t become unconscious, but it was made at such an angle that it made him bleed quite severely. The young man gritted his teeth as he got up from the ground and shouted: "I Zhu Ling won''t ever forgive all of you even if I become a ghost!" He glared at Yun Jhin with hate-filled eyes as he said: "EVEN YOU NEW GUY, HOW ARE ALL OF YOU THE SAME?" Yun Jhin shut him up by punching him in the mouth breaking all of his teeth, a knee in the stomach, followed by another punch in the face, the young man fell but he wasn''t dead, Yun Jhin was ready to deliver the finishing strike when the masked man coughed a bit and said: "Even though such type of events happens regularly around the Zhu household, we don''t condone the killing of other clanmates, even though he is a cripple now from what you have done to his inner ki pathways, he is still a clanmate, you cannot kill him." Yun Jhin stopped his palm that was ready to go on the man''s forehead, he looked down at him and spit on his face then looked away and left. The others left with Yun Jhin leaving the young-man downed there, the masked man shook his head as he murmured while he left: "Such brilliant parents, such a trashy son, disappointing!" Zhu Ling eyes turned misty as he started crying and crying, he coughed a mouthful of blood and almost collapsed as he tried to get back to his feet, his whole body was aching and his ki pathways were crippled, his bloodline was trashy and now even his ki cultivation was taken away from him! Zhu Ling clutched a strange silver pendant that he had under his clothes and he took his beaten form towards his room, he wasn''t sure if the burly man or Yun Jhin would come to him to end his life despite what the masked man said, as long as he wasn''t present who would care if he died? Zhu Ling got to his room and took out his clothes and other necessities then left the Zhu household and swore revenge on everyone there. Yun Jhin was taking a tour of the gigantic household as the Burly man who introduced himself as Zhu Mingo showed him around, the household was bigger than the Emperor''s palace and that said quite a bit, there were 3 main houses and 3 outer houses, each half of the size of the palace, meaning that the whole household was around 3 times bigger than the palace! Yun Jhin was then sent to his room where he meditated for a bit before he was summoned by the masked man to talk with the head of the Zhu Household. The head of the house was a middle-aged man with a buzzcut, he had an athletic build and wore a nothing but some white robes. The man''s cultivation base was around the 5th stage of the God Realm, he was equal to the Emperor. The man had a small smile on his face as he said: "I heard you had been introduced to the house by our Mingo, he is a good child but he has a heavy temper, I also heard you crippled Zhu Ling, you don''t have to worry about him, he was set to be crippled a few days from now anyway, I think I should even reward you for that!" He clapped his hands as an attendant came with a box filled with different items and said: "You can take one item from the box." Yun Jhin looked inside the box and saw a few weapons, armors herbs, and pills, he looked through the pills one by one but he couldn''t find anything that could help him at the moment, then he looked through the herbs and he found some supplementary herbs for a pill that he could use so he took them and bowed to the head of the house. The head of the house gave out some more perfunctory words before he let Yun Jhin go back to his room so he could rest, he also informed him that there would be a tournament that all of the top 10 houses would attend in a few months and that he should focus on cultivating. The masked man looked at the head of the house and asked: "Bundo, should I send some assassins for that Ling?" The head of the house was called Zhu Bundo, the man shook his head as he looked outside the window of his room and said: "There is no reason to waste assassins on that trash, as he is crippled he might go ahead and die to any wild beast, we should focus on training the young generation for the tournament, that''s why I sent you to take that Yun Jhin, this tournament is of utmost importance to us and you should know why." The masked man nodded then bowed and left. The head of the house shook his head as he looked at the sky from his window and sighed: "Such high expectations from Ling, such a failure." Zhu Ling hiccuped as he was now in the city, he didn''t know what to do so he went ahead to meet with one his friends in the Bing family, he hoped that he could house him for some time up till found what he could do with his life as a cripple. Yun Jhin opened his eyes as he felt a peculiar aura getting intertwined with his, this was very strange, this type of aura intertwining wouldn''t happen unless some type of fortuned one would take him as an enemy. Yun Jhin''s eyes widened, could that trashy brat be a fortuned one? It was highly unlikely considering his aura said otherwise, however, there were instances where one''s fortune energy would be transferred to someone else through objects. Yun Jhin frowned as he didn''t recall seeing anything of worth on the man, but he felt like he made a strong enemy so the first thing he wanted to do was find where Zhu Ling went and kill him! Fortuned ones were extremely annoying opponents as the universe itself helped them to achieve what they wanted, this type of protection would only wear off when one reached the God Realm. Yun Jhin frowned as he went to an elder of the Zhu household and asked about Zhu Ling, however, he came up empty-handed as not many people liked or knew much about Zhu Ling besides the basics, then he just went to the man that bullied him the most, Zhu Mingo! This is where he came in luck as the man himself wanted to kill him, he was ready to head out as he knew where Zhu Ling would most likely go and he became quite happy when Yun Jhin came to him and asked about his whereabouts, Mingo responded with a smile on his face: "So you want to kill him as well? I know the little twerp was annoying, but he annoyed you so hard from the first beating? Just follow me he has a fatty trash friend in the 7th ranked Bing family, since we are higher ranked the family won''t help him if they know what happened to him." Yun Jhin nodded his head and hurried the man on, the more seconds the man was left alone, the higher the chance he would get some fortune from the heavens to help him! Yun Jhin didn''t know why he got his aura intertwined only at this moment, after all, he beat the tar out of him quite a while ago, their aura should intertwine the moment he became enemies with him, this was truly strange! Yun Jhin cursed this shitty universe, it wouldn''t let him get eternal life, and now it sent him some fortuned trash that would trouble him. While Yun Jhin and Mingo were going to the Bing Family, Zhu Ling was clutching his pendant with shining eyes inside the room of his friend Bing Jung as he muttered: "Such a cultivation technique, it could even repair my broken inner ki pathways and improve my bloodline, my parents died to get this... I..." Tears started to stream down his face as he started cultivating the technique. Yun Jhin could feel the intertwining aura intensifying around him, that meant the fortuned energy of that fellow was getting stronger and that wasn''t anything good! Yun Jhin slapped Mingo and grabbed him like a sack of potatoes as he said: "Just tell me the direction and I will take us there faster." Mingo didn''t say anything as he complied with Yun Jhin, he became very scared as he was easily picked up by him like a little chick, might make right, so he could only tremble in his boots and comply with Yun Jhin. After a short while of running Yun Jhin finally reached the Bing Family, he ignored the guards that told him to stop and ran directly towards the fortuned aura that he could feel. Hopefully, he won''t be too late! Yun Jhin frowned as the aura intensified and crimson energy exploded from Zhu Ling''s friend house, this type of energy alerted everyone, Yun Jhin looked on with a hardened gaze as Zhu Ling came out of the house and gave Yun Jhin a small smile that said ''You are too late''. Chapter 83: Stopped at the beginning Yun Jhin ignored the man''s smile as he dropped Mingo unceremoniously on the ground, Mingo wanted to say something but when he felt Yun Jhin''s and Ling''s auras clashing directly in mid-air he just closed his mouth. Yun Jhin couldn''t wait for any more as he dashed directly to Ling''s face hitting him in the chest making him vomit a mouthful of blood, but he could fell his hand sinking in his chest further as he was rebound, it felt like he just hit a rubber wall, his fist rebound as he was pushed backward. Ling chuckled as he jumped backward for a little then dashed forward to throw a punch towards Yun Jhin''s chest, the punch hit home but Yun Jhin didn''t fell much from it, Ling''s eyes clouded over as some information from the pendant came back to him. His eyes widened as he wanted to escape, the pendant just told him that even though the technique he was cultivating was giving him good defense, due to his low cultivation base he couldn''t access the offensive techniques yet! Yun Jhin chuckled as he saw through the man''s plight, suddenly 4 colors started to jump across Yun Jhin''s right hand as they morphed into a gauntlet, Yun Jhin couldn''t put on the full elemental armor as his cultivation base wasn''t enough, when he fought the vice-general he could only wear a chest piece but his defense was boosted through the roof, combined with his defensive martial techniques he couldn''t be beaten normally, but now he threw away defense and focused on the attack technique of his armor! Zhu Ling grimaced as he wanted to escape from Yun Jhin''s grasp, his armored hand was clutching the man''s left arm, and after a sickening crunch was heard his arm was now hanging limply on the left side of his body, his arm was crippled! Yun Jhin frowned as he watched Zhu Ling grith his teeth, he wanted to run away as he used a technique that made his body start emitting steam, his skin turned pink due to the extreme circulation of blood in his body, his speed increased as he easily dodged Yun Jhin''s gauntleted hand but even though his speed was increased by a lot. His cultivation base only recovered to the 1st stage of the King Realm because Yun Jhin broke his internal ki pathways, thus some of his internal ki was scattered and it would take him some time to recover it. Yun Jhin''s figure disappeared as he intercepted him, Mingo gritted his teeth as he watched and he jumped after them, the guards of the Bing Family only watched helplessly, they knew one of the young masters decided to hide the trash of the Zhu family but they didn''t think trouble would come this fast. They were only at the ki cultivating realm, they got the guard job because their parents were low elders in the Bing Family''s elder assembly, being a guard wasn''t a glamorous job but it got them the resources they needed, and as long as they broke through the King Realm before they turned 30 they would be able to enjoy the position of outer elder in the family, however, now a sudden calamity struck them while they were on guard duty and they didn''t know what to do! Mingo ignored the guards as he passed by them and followed Yun Jhin and Ling, a short fatty came out of the house as he looked around just like a weasel would, he was scared but he still wanted to follow Mingo, Yun Jhin, and Ling, however, a fat middle-aged man that only taller than him by a few centimeters came out and picked him up by his collar while saying: "You have already repaid the Zhu family trash by letting him live in our household until he recovered, he is unlucky that he offended so many people." The fat middle-aged man looked towards the direction that the fight was continuing and he narrowed his eyes as he felt Ling''s and Yun Jhin''s auras intertwining, he could feel something strange from the both of them but he couldn''t put his finger on it, after all, he was only around the 3rd stage of the Emperor Realm and he didn''t know many secrets, he barely learned how to fly normally a few years ago. Yun Jhin clashed and fought with Ling in the air as they skipped around the city, they made sure to not destroy any of the buildings or hurt the passerby''s, Yun Jhin didn''t want trouble who knew if a hidden young master was out on a stroll? Technically speaking such an encounter was close to nil, but fortuned ones would steal the luck of their adversaries due to their special constitution and the help of the universe, Yun Jhin''s luck wasn''t anything special, his destiny was due to his former lives memories, his luck was average at best, the only reason Yun Jhin was avoiding crowds was that his luck turned from average to bad. Ling wanted to get some attention of the crowds but Yun Jhin would jolt his broken arm the closer he got to a crowd, he almost ripped it off when he tried to shout for help, most of the cultivators around the city didn''t look for trouble so unless they were asked for help with benefits they wouldn''t interfere in such type of situations. After a while, Yun Jhin chased Ling out of the city and they reached a nearby stream, Ling seemingly saw the light at the end of the tunnel as he was the stream, it was flowing to the south and Ling was ready to jump into it when Yun Jhin tackled him to the ground at quick speeds and mounted his face in the dirt. His gauntleted hand was over his head as a bunch of ki was gathered into it and launched into his skull. Ling''s skull was cracking at a high speed due to the ki but it wasn''t truly breaking as it was mending at the same speed. Yun Jhin frowned heavily as he could feel that behind Mingo was the aura of Ling''s friend, the short fatty, and behind the fatty was the fatty''s father. Yun Jhin knew that if Ling was still alive when they arrived his father would interfere, Yun Jhin continued to bombard his skull with ki, but the fatty''s father along with the fatty was getting closer and closer, Mingo was already nearby and watched with wide eyes what happened before him. So close to death, Ling''s life force was getting lower and lower as his ki was exhausted using his cultivation technique to recover his constantly cracking skull, if he lived from this ordeal his skull would surely get stronger. Yun Jhin could feel that the fatty''s father was almost here, his eyes turned red as he used a forbidden technique and made his gauntleted hand into a sword shape as he drilled his hand into Ling''s brain, grey matter along with his soul were starting to splash around the ground, Yun Jhin''s first jewel glowed on his crown as Ling''s soul was absorbed into it along with his fortuned aura. A deep voice was heard behind him that scolded the fatty: "You brat, do you see? He died, even if I want to do anything right now I can''t, I also cannot attack the brat from the Zhu household as I''m from the older generation, if he killed your friend there is a high chance you won''t be able to do anything, wasn''t he a 2nd stage King Realm? You are even below him!" The fatty sobbed as his scarlet eyes targeted Yun Jhin''s back but Yun Jhin ignored him as he held Ling''s pendant in his gauntleted arm, he looked it up and down before he crushed it into smithereens. The fatty''s father walked forward and cupped his fists as he said: "This young friend from the Zhu household, might you be able to spare that trash''s body? He was my son''s friend and I would like to give him a proper burial on the account that he helped my son a few years ago." Yun Jhin got up from the now cold body of Ling and looked at the fatty, he was pretty short standing around 1,63 meters, he wore a simple outfit considering of a large grey shirt and black pants, he had black sandals on his feet and he sported a small beard. Yun Jhin stopped looking at him after he analyzed him, he ignored Ling''s body that he already sucked dry of everything that could be useful then he cupped his fists to the middle-aged fatty and said: "I will let this elder do the funeral operations, unfortunately, you had to witness such a grisly sight, however, this man was a criminal from our Zhu household, I''m sure he didn''t tell you why he was expelled, but he is the highest suspect in the case of robbing a few important pills." The middle-aged fatty held his son back as he started to shout obscenities at Yun Jhin along with the words: "Brother Zhu Ling would never steal you lier!" "He was a good man of high moral upstanding!" "How dare you defile his memory after you brutally killed him!" Yun Jhin ignored the incessant insults and chatter from the small round ball that was the fatty, he looked at Mingo and said: "Mingo let''s go back to the family, we took care of our internal problems, what they do with the corpse isn''t our business anymore." But before he left Yun Jhin made one motion with his hand, the broken head was removed from the body and the fatty''s expression turned livid as he wanted to say more but Yun Jhin beat him to it: "I was just making sure he was truly dead, I wouldn''t want to have a zombie outbreak due to not being 100% sure." The fatty was ready to jump again after he saw his best friend''s corpse being done dirty like that, he was killed and he couldn''t even have a whole corpse to bury! The fat middle-aged man didn''t say anything but he only had one thought: "What a vicious fellow those from the Zhu Household found, and his bloodline aura isn''t losing to those high ranked disciples, a pitty that he is a halfling..." Yun Jhin left along with Mingo as they returned to the Zhu Household in the city, Mingo wanted to show Yun Jhin around the capital but Yun Jhin said that he had enough for today and that he might do it tomorrow. Yun Jhin returned to his room and sat cross-legged on his bed as he took in Zhu Ling''s memories and cultivation technique. Yun Jhin looked through the cultivation technique and realized that it was one that he didn''t know! It was a special body refining technique that combined both body refining and ki cultivating at the same time, it gave one''s body into a rubber-like attribute along with the ability to increase the blood flow to extreme speeds without much backlash if used properly, it gave the body extremely high defensive capabilities versus blunt damage and with constant strengthening, even blades or other sharp things would bounce away! Yun Jhin looked more through the cultivation technique, he compared it to the technique that he got from the pendant and realized that the one he stole from the pendant was wrong! If he cultivated the technique from the pendant he would surely transform into a ball of human rubber that could barely move. It seemed the pendant had a mechanism that gave out the cultivation technique only to the people that had the right bloodline, fortunately, Yun Jhin got the right technique from his memories, the sad thing is that he only got the body technique and no offensive techniques because Zhu Ling''s cultivation base was too low to reach that part of the pendant. He also destroyed the pendant but he didn''t regret it, even though it was a particularly obscure technique that he didn''t know, he still had a few techniques that could rival it, however, he couldn''t cultivate them now due to their heavy restrictions, this technique was special due to its low requirements, Yun Jhin wondered where did that guy''s parents get their hands on such a particular technique... Could have they raided the tomb of the former Azure Emperor, Ming Sheng? Yun Jhin shook his head, even if he wanted to go there right now he wouldn''t be able to, if his memories didn''t betray him the Former Azure Empire sat where the Bumi Empire is now, so his tomb would most likely be there, it might even be the new danger zone that was sparsely investigated now due to the heavy losses of those who tried to learn information about it. Yun Jhin decided to cultivate the technique, it wouldn''t hurt to transform his body in such a way, after all even though his ki was strong it wasn''t limitless, his 4 elemental armor ran on ki, so if he ever ran out of ki in a fight his defenses would be down making him vulnerable. Yun Jhin was a man with a plan within a plan, so he didn''t mind having an extra ace up his sleeve. Yun Jhin sat on the bed as he started to cultivate his ki in the same pattern that the cultivation technique showed him but he felt something wrong, it was like his ki pathways were giving him a warning! Yun Jhin frowned as he stopped cultivating the technique, he made a few calculations and his eyes narrowed as he said: "This technique... you would first need your pathways to be crippled before you could use it... it would also reshape your soul to have the same attribute along with destroying your crown and creating a new one.." This wasn''t a bad thing for a cripple like Zhu Ling, but this wasn''t something good for Yun Jhin at all! If he continued to cultivate it his ki pathways would break then restore themselves along with his soul crown, he was already on a pretty sure path to the God Realm and he wouldn''t take another one unless he would be forced to... Yun Jhin discarded the technique, he didn''t realize that it would do that to his body until he started cultivating it, there weren''t any warnings or things like that in Zhu Ling''s memories, nor the pendant. Did his parents foresee that he would be crippled? Yun Jhin sighed as he was broken out of his musings by a knock on his door. Yun Jhin frowned as he got up from his bed and opened his door. Zhu Mingo stood there with a small smile on his face as he told Yun Jhin: "The head of the house said that there is some special training for us before the tournament, he told me to come and get you because I was one of the first ones to know you..." Yun Jhin nodded his head, it seemed the head of the house was ready to throw some resources on Yun Jhin''s way, very good! Chapter 84: The geniuses of the Zhu Family Mingo and Yun Jhin walked towards the training grounds of the family, there were some formation dummies and logs made so the young geniuses of the Zhu Family could test out their destructive techniques without problems. Yun Jhin eyed the formations and realized that they were quite strong as they could handle attacks up to the 2nd stage of the Emperor realm, this also inadvertently showed that the highest cultivation of the youths of the Zhu Family was at the 2nd stage of the Emperor realm. Yun Jhin and Mingo waited on the training grounds and soon more people started to fill the place, most of them eyed Yun Jhin and Mingo with competitiveness, while very few looked at them with fear. Suddenly there was a commotion as two youths entered shoulder to shoulder, both of them were very similar in appearance and had the same cultivation base, around the 8th stage of the King Realm, they were both very close to the peak of the king realm as they needed only a small push to reach the 9th stage. Suddenly another person entered and appeared in front of the twins, he had a head full of red hair and wore a dark suit that covered his whole body, he had a small mask on his face that covered his eyes, from the looks of it he was trying to emulate the man who took Yun Jhin to the Zhu family, he could be a relative of his or he might just be openly admiring the man. The red-haired youth didn''t say anything but he walked in front of the twins then ignored them, showing them that he couldn''t bother with the duo, the twins became angry and they were ready to attack but a formation activated that paralyzed the both of them as the voice of the head of the house was heard: "No fighting before my announcement!" The twins glared at the red-haired youth and said in unison: "Just you wait Zhu Du Fei, We will make sure you will respect us after this training tournament!" Zhu Du Fei chuckled as he looked down on both of them and said: "Let''s see how will that happen!" Yun Jhin didn''t know their story nor did he care but Mingo started to tell him: "These three were good friends in their youths, but since Du Fei started to idolize our grand elder they started to become distant, I''m not sure about the inside information, but I think these twins might be..." Yun Jhin stopped him from talking, he didn''t care about them, even though they were a bit too strong for him to defeat in open combat right now, that didn''t mean he couldn''t beat them using tricks, after all, after he assimilated the ying-yang stone, he could guarantee that there was a very high chance that he could defeat a peak king realm expert in a 1v1 situation, however, more than 1 and he would have to run, 10 people would even make him unable to escape unharmed and if there were, even more, he might even lose his life... Yun Jhin sighed as he waited for more people to arrive, unlike the other three, most of the people had cultivations around the 5th to 6th stage, very few were at the 7th stage, and only those three were at the 8th stage. A lazy looking man entered the training grounds as he yawned and walked towards a tree, then he sat on the ground and immediately went to sleep. Mingo whispered to Yun Jhin: "This guy is known as Zhu Sumen, he is at the 9th stage of the King Realm and his strength isn''t something that the others would look down upon, even though he looks lazy once he enters a fight... he is still lazy even when he fights, but it''s very infuriating to fight him." Mingo continued to introduce people that entered but Yun Jhin only remembered the information of those above the 7th stage, after all, he could defeat the others quite easily unless they had special techniques or constitutions, but those were very rare and from what he could see in this crowd, there were only around 3 people who had strong constitutions and were below the 8th stage. Yun Jhin eyes narrowed as he felt a power that easily dwarfed his entering the training ground, Yun Jhin''s body wanted to instinctively bow towards the power that appeared, it was the Emperor realm expert, he was fully unleashing his aura and engulfing everyone with it, and his cultivation wasn''t at the first stage, but at the 2nd! It was the strongest youth cultivator of the Zhu Family! Finally, the youth revealed himself, he was around 25 years old with green hair and he wore normal white robes that showed his strong chest, he had baggy pants and sandals on his feet, his pupils were yellow slits and his bloodline aura was through the roof! He was 100% a purebred dragon, even though all of the others were also full descendants of the dragon race and they weren''t mixed blood that didn''t mean all their bloodlines were pure. Just like how Yun Jhin''s bloodline was stronger than Zhu Lings even though he was a halfling, the purity of bloodline meant how close you were to the origin of bloodline, Yun Jhin''s system would allow his body to reach the highest bloodline possible considering the things he ate to fuel the system''s power. Even though he ate what could only be considered trash in the upper continents, all of the bloodline chains that he extracted from their bodies were fused by the system inside his body then purified by thousands of times over and over before they fully installed themselves in his DNA helix code. The Emperor realm expert was called Zhu Cheng, his eyes scanned over the whole crowd and his eyes narrowed as he watched Yun Jhin hold fast under his bloodline and cultivation pressure, he was interested in him but unfortunately, since he was at the Emperor realm he wouldn''t be able to fight him in the upcoming tournament. He only came to see if there was a chance for those at the 9th realm of the King Realm to break through the Emperor realm but he was quite disappointed, none of them gave out the aura that they reached the peak of the 9th stage, he still had to wait for quite a while before the actual tournament hosted by the Emperor began and he would be able to fight with those around his cultivation base. Zhu Cheng sighed as he walked towards one of the training logs and he leaned on it waiting for the fights to start. Another 9th stage cultivator entered then the voice of the head of the house was heard: "You might not all know why you were all summoned because you just came back from training outside, 3 months from now the Emperor will host a tournament to decide which house will be able to enter the Imperial tombs, you should know what the Imperial tombs entail so I won''t explain." Mingo started explaining to Yun Jhin, the Imperial tombs were where the former Emperors of the Luo Empire were buried, most of the Emperors were buried with quite a lot of treasures ranging from pills and herbs to weapons and techniques. The Imperial tombs would open by themselves once every 10 years and the Emperor would host a tournament to give quotas to the top 10 houses of the capital, depending on what rank those houses would attain they could get a max or 3 quotas, and only the top 5 were awarded quotas. Top 1 was awarded 3 quotas, Top 2 was awarded 2 quotas, and from there to the 5th place, only 1 quota was awarded. The special thing about the Imperial tombs was that those who won in the tournament could allow one elder to come with them, they made the younger generation fight in a tournament because anything else would break the fragile balance between the houses and instigate an internal war between the houses of the Empire. This wasn''t a thing the Emperor wanted to see as the Bumi Empire was watching over them like a hawk would their prey, they were pretty equal in power but anything could break the balance of power at this point. Yun Jhin waited as the head of the house continued his speech: "To help all of you get a better chance at winning a spot for our house I decided to do our little tournament with prizes that could help you break through further in your cultivation, and don''t worry Zhu Cheng is forbidden from participating as he gets his rewards just for being at the Emperor realm at such a young age." No one said anything, it was Zhu Cheng''s ability to reach such a high cultivation base while being so young, him getting rewards for that alone wasn''t a thing that any of them could question. Yun Jhin looked at Zhu Cheng from the corner of his eye, he knew that he must have had a very good cultivation technique paired with his bloodline to get himself so far in cultivation so early in his life, he would have also used quite a lot of resources of the family, Yun Jhin made a mental note to be on his good side in the future, he didn''t want needless trouble inside his faction. The head of the house crisp voice was heard as he announced that the tournament would start shortly, everyone was made to draw lots and then a metal arena popped out of the ground. Yun Jhin drew the lots for fighting group F and he was paired against the lazy looking youth called Zhu Sumen. Yun Jhin looked at the man who slept under the tree and he didn''t know what to make out of him, he tried to send some of his soul willpower to investigate his opponent but his soul willpower was repelled! The man had a defensive aura around him that repelled all soul willpowers that tried to investigate him while he slept, Yun Jhin realized one thing after this endeavor, the lazy youth was quite smart. Smart people were annoying, Yun Jhin would rather fight a hot-blooded justice induced dumb person rather than a smart lazy person, but since he drew the lot he had to give his all and win, the rewards of the tournament were quite attractive to him. Some of the rewards could be used so he could maybe reach the peak refinery of his 3rd stage King Realm cultivation, others would be useful in the future. Unlike normal tournaments, this tournament awarded rewards the more people you beat, so Yun Jhin didn''t have to get to the top 10 to get rewarded. One of the reasons was because the more people the Zhu family enlisted in the tournament, the higher the chance for them to get an extra quota, so they gave their all during this training tournament. Before the matches started the head of the family''s voice appeared again and said: "Everything is permitted in matches besides killing and crippling your opponent, now we will start with group A''s fights!" Yun Jhin watched group A fight, then Group B, Group C... finally it was the time for his Group F, however, he wasn''t the first in the group, it could be either called a coincidence or being unlucky, but Yun Jhin''s group had all the 9th stage King Realm experts, the first fight was between the twins! The twins knew that the head of the house would cancel their reward if they didn''t fight so they went up to the arena. Yun Jhin watched them fight but he was disappointed, they were mostly putting up a front so the reward of the one who won wasn''t canceled, finally one of them won after a while of fighting and he was rewarded a bunch of Emperor moonlight ladybugs. Yun Jhin watched as the twin high-fived his brother and both of them left the arena and waited below for the next fight. Yun Jhin looked on as the next fight was between the red-haired masked youth Zhu Du Fei and Mingo! Mingo wasn''t strong nor important in the family he was only around the 4th stage of the King realm, he was one of those people who feared the strong and bullied the weak, he only became true friends with Yun Jhin after he saw how he took care of Zhu Ling, he was more like Yun Jhin''s underling right now. Mingo didn''t want to get beaten too badly so he gave up after Du Fei almost pushed him out of the arena with the wind created from him punching the air. Finally, it was Yun Jhin''s turn to get on the arena, he jumped directly on it as Zhu Sumen woke up and groggily got up on the arena by himself. Zhu Sumen gave out a dry cough as he took a jar of water from his spatial ring and drank it all in one gulp. The referee of the fight knew about Zhu Sumen''s quirks so he didn''t say anything as he looked at Yun Jhin then at Sumen and said: "If both parties are ready, we can fight! 1,2,3 GO!" Yun Jhin entered into a defensive stance as he waited for Sumen to start the fight, Sumen scratched the back of his head as he muttered: "So troublesome." Yun Jhin felt something wasn''t right as his eyes wandered to his feet and he saw his shadow turning into spikes and attacking him! Yun Jhin couldn''t have dodged the attacks if he didn''t get his hands on the ying-yang stone but now this was a different situation. He channeled some yang energy in his shadow and made it disappear! Sumen eyes narrowed as he saw Yun Jhin''s shadow disappear and he said: "You are an interesting opponent, but can you get rid of every shadow that exists in this area?" Yun Jhin frowned, his cultivation base was too low so he couldn''t do that yet, however, he had other aces up his sleeve. Chapter 85: Shadow battle Yun Jhin frowned as another shadow needle appeared from the opponent''s shadow and rushed at him at extremely fast speeds. The needle speed was almost at a level that he couldn''t dodge, light and darkness attribute attacks were very fast if they were executed in their respective environments, Yun Jhin knew that the man''s technique would become extremely slow if there were no shadows left around for him to use. Sumen watched on as Yun Jhin barely dodged the shadow needles, he was very impressed considering Yun Jhin was so many cultivation levels below him, among with the fact that he had a high battle power even around those with the same cultivation base due to his shadow techniques. Yun Jhin staggered as a shadow needle pinned his foot to the arena, to counter Yun Jhin''s senses, he made smaller and smaller needles, but due to this, the needles didn''t do as much damage as before. Yun Jhin armor covered his chest and his vital areas, but his feet were open to being attacked affecting his movement, countless needles attacked his vital points but they were reflected by his armor, Sumen frowned for the first time since they started the fight, he didn''t think that Yun Jhin''s elemental armor would have such a high defensive ability that his needles couldn''t pierce through it at all, that meant he had to fight a battle of attrition with Yun Jhin. Sumen opened his mouth and said: "So troublesome, however, you should have lost here, after all, I''m a stage 9 expert while you are at stage 3, the difference between our ki quantities is quite large, why don''t you give up and save me the headache of dealing with you?" Yun Jhin smiled as he responded: "Instead of talking you should look behind you." Sumen looked behind him only to see nothing, suddenly Yun Jhin appeared in front of him as his armor transferred from his body into gauntlet form, the gauntlet started to absorb energy from Yun Jhin''s body as a big ball of energy was ejected from it and hit Sumen directly in the chest almost blasting him away from the arena. Sumen dusted himself as he got up from the ground, but then he fell to his knees as blood seeped out the corner of his mouth and said: "Very tricky." It wasn''t a big trick, it was a kindergartner level trick, Yun Jhin didn''t even think that he would fall for it, but trying didn''t hurt. It seemed while the youth was smart, he wasn''t wise, he mustn''t have got many battles under his belt. Yun Jhin disappeared from the arena as he used his stealth technique, Sumen eyes widened as he couldn''t feel, see or sense Yun Jhin anywhere, he created a barricade of shadows around him as he eyed the surroundings warily. He didn''t know what to do in this situation, attacking randomly wouldn''t be that helpful as he would waste his ki, even though his shadow technique was useful it used quite a lot of ki being a Yang type ability, it was also derived from the ultimate skill of his jewel. Yun Jhin remained passive as he circled the shadow barrage, suddenly a white light appeared from his body as it circled his gauntlet, the light broke his stealth, then he launched himself in the shadow barricade breaking through it like it was made of soft tofu. Yun Jhin fist met Sumen''s face as his nose bleed and knocked him unconscious, however, there was no sound or impact when his fist hit his face, it was due to the Yin attribute that he inserted into his gauntlet, the Yin attribute was soft and flexible unlike the domineering and hard Yang attribute, it struck his soul very lightly and knocked him unconscious, there was no physical damage and the nose bleed came from his soul injury. Yun Jhin coughed a bit as his ki reserves were drained, he looked down at his palm and saw a little bit of blood that started to evaporate, the referee made sure Sumen was knocked out before he gave Yun Jhin the win. Yun Jhin left the arena with a bunch of herbs and pills. He sat cross-legged in the resting area as he took a few pills and mashed some herbs along with water to help him recover his ki and heal his mild internal injuries. The others eyed Yun Jhin warily considering he beat one of their top candidates for the main tournament. Yun Jhin ignored most of their gazes and only focused on the gaze of one of them. Zhu Cheng was eyeing him with interest, it seemed his battle made him want to recruit him. Yun Jhin wouldn''t mind being his subordinate as long as he got benefits, in the end, it wouldn''t matter. Yun Jhin fought for a few more matches with those that were under the 9th stage and he easily won, piquing the interest of the referee and making the head of the house glad that he sent the masked man to get him to the Zhu Family, he was another insurance that they could get a slot to the Imperial tombs! Yun Jhin left the tournament with a few boxes of herbs, materials for weapon and armor refinement along with one technique that he wasn''t that much interested in, but he cultivated it anyways as it took him only a few glances to master it, he needed to play the role of a country bumpkin that didn''t see too many techniques due to his origins. After the tournament ended with Yun Jhin not having to fight any other stage 9 cultivator due to a lucky drawing of lots, he ended up going back to his room. But he didn''t even get to rest or refine his pill when a knock could be heard, Yun Jhin knew who it was as he opened the room and invited the person in while saying: "Brother Cheng wasn''t it?" Zhu Cheng gave out an amiable smile as he walked inside Yun Jhin''s room and looked around, the room didn''t have much besides the things that the Zhu Clan already left inside, Zhu Cheng raised his eyebrows inwardly and praised Yun Jhin''s minimalistic personality, having an attachment to earthly possesions could halt one progress in cultivation. Yun Jhin watched on as Zhu Cheng cleared his throat and said: "As someone new to the family you might not know about the factions of the younger generation, I came to invite you to mine and I can say you won''t lose out, members of my faction are heavily rewarded for being members only and you would get heavy respect from the younger generation of the other families if you tell them you are for my faction, you will have an easier time in the city next time you go out, these are only one of the few benefits you will get from joining, what do you say?" Zhu Cheng came out himself instead of sending someone to recruit Yun Jhin, because of Yun Jhin''s capabilities of defeating someone at the 9th stage of the King Realm, even though Zhu Cheng''s faction had quite a few people inside it, it didn''t have any at the 9th stage, only because those at the 9th stage wouldn''t lower their heads to Zhu Cheng due to their pride, they knew they couldn''t beat him but they wouldn''t be his lackeys. Yun Jhin made himself look like he pondered the question for a while before he responded with a question: "Might I ask what kind of tangible benefits would I get after I joined?" Yun Jhin made a small motion with his hand that indicated what he was talking about, Zhu Cheng gave a big smile as he identified Yun Jhin as someone who cared about wealth even though he put a minimalistic look on the surface. Zhu Cheng took a bag out of his spatial ring and passed it to Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin opened the bag and his eyes widened as he opened it and saw a beating heart inside of it! Zhu Cheng gave out a small chuckle as he remembered that Yun Jhin was a country bumpkin that came from their brother empire and he told him the functions of the heart: "It''s a medium demonic heart that can be concocted using a heavy starlight herb and stone, it should be useful for those below the 6th stage of the King Realm and it should be able to boost your cultivation speed by a lot, I can give you enough hearts until you reach the 6th stage, the remaining ingredients cannot be given out for free, however, I can tell you where you can gather them." Zhu Cheng was giving Yun Jhin an offer that he couldn''t refuse if he cared about his cultivation base, Zhu Cheng knew how to manipulate cultivators quite easily as they were all interested in furthering their cultivation as long as the price they had to give wasn''t over what they could pay. Yun Jhin took the heart and put it in his spatial ring, this action made Zhu Cheng smile as he put his hand forward for a handshake, Yun Jhin gave out a small polite smile as he shook his hand and Zhu Cheng laughed as he said: "Welcome to my faction Yun Jhin, it''s called the Demonic Killers, you won''t regret joining us, you will even get a chance to spar with high stage cultivators from the other top 10 clans, we have a monthly gathering that should happen a week from now if you would like to come you are always welcome." Zhu Cheng waved as he left Yun Jhin alone in his room, Yun Jhin didn''t say anything as he took the demonic heart out of his spatial ring and he scrutinized it, then he opened his mouth and gave it a few licks, he frowned as he tasted the fresh blood coming out of the heart and muttered: "Truly a demonic heart, unfortunately not a devil one, can''t be used for my evolution, fortunately, I can do what Zhu Cheng said and use it to cultivate my ki cultivation base." Yun Jhin thought that there could be some devilish bloodline in the heart as demon and devil''s heart were similar in looks and could only be discerned by different techniques, one of the simplest ones was ingesting some blood from the heart. Yun Jhin put the heart back into his spatial ring, fortunately for him, the herbs that he needed for the concoction were won from the tournament so he didn''t need to go out and buy or search for some, however, the unfortunate part was that he could only create 3 pills with them, and he would still have half a heart left. 3 pills would make him able to reach the 7th stage of refinement of his 3rd jewel, maybe even the 8th stage, with 3 more he would be able to reach the peak. Yun Jhin slowly got to work as he created a formation and took out a cauldron from his spatial ring, he was ready to concoct some pills! A knock came from his door almost as soon as he started, it was Mingo, Yun Jhin asked him what he wanted and Mingo told him that he heard that he joined Zhu Cheng''s faction, so he wondered if Yun Jhin would be able to get him inside as well. Yun Jhin gave out a small smile to him and patted his shoulder and told him he would put in a good word for him when he talked next with Zhu Cheng, but it was up to Zhu Cheng himself if he wanted to invite him or not. Mingo didn''t say anything as he left, he knew from Yun Jhin''s word that there was a very low chance of him being invited so he left to train. Yun Jhin shook his head as he watched the poor man''s figure disappear from his vision and muttered: "Aren''t you overestimating yourself?" Yun Jhin locked the door and put a sign with do not disturb created from a formation on the door. Yun Jhin got back to concocting the pill as he regained the concentration from before, all he needed to do was put the ingredients in the right order and turn on the formation so he could create his 3 pills... So he started, he first cut a chunk of meat from the heart and afterward put the herbs in a certain order as he drew a pattern with his hands in the air. After a short while and activation of the formation, Yun Jhin now had 3 glistening crimson and black pills in his hand ready for consumption, and it only took him almost 2 days of refining. It was quite a bargain for him as he didn''t have to search for any ingredients. Yun Jhin eyed the pills for a bit before he popped up one in his mouth and started cultivating, he was ready to continue refining his 3rd jewel and further his ki cultivation. Chapter 86: Cultivation and races Yun Jhin eyes were closed as he refined the pills he made, refining a jewel was easier than crafting it and inserting it into one''s crown slot, Yun Jhin was effortlessly extracting the energy from the pills and used it to refine his jewel. Just like he guessed, he reached around the 7th stage of the refinery after he finished refining all 3 pills he had. However, he didn''t leave his room as by his calculations he still had quite some time before the gathering of the factions of the younger generation would start, so he wanted to cultivate some more as there wasn''t anything more that he could do at this point. Cultivation had its ups and downs but at its core was quite simple and meant for those that had the talent for it, one would gather ki into one''s body, and then it was up to the person if one could start cultivating using the ki or not. The King realm consisted of creating a king''s crown and filling it with jewels of different elements and aspects of the universe, Yun Jhin had already mixed quite a lot of aspects in few jewels giving him a lot of other slots that could be filled with stronger jewels that contained laws that one couldn''t touch at the King realm. From the 4th stage and above he would start comprehending again the laws of life, death, time, and space, afterward at the 8th stage he would have to gather life essence from a strong being of high bloodline and use it to create his jewel, most experts would use their bloodline to create the jewel and Yun Jhin would do the same in the future, as for the last jewel, it would be automatically created after he mixed all of his current jewels abilities into one to create an ultimate skill. The universe was fair as it was cruel, it gave other races higher life spans than humans but it took away their ability to normally reproduce, while humans lived the least even when they reached the peak of the god realm, they could extend their lives more than others and they had an easier time reproducing, they also didn''t have bloodlines and their battle power relied on their constitutions, in this situation cultivation beasts could be considered stronger than humans as well. Yun Jhin opened his eyes as he felt that it was around one week since he started cultivating so the gathering of the youth''s faction should start soon enough. He wasn''t interested in meeting the other youths from the other families but at these types of gatherings, resources could be traded quite easily along with bets and other types of activities that could make Yun Jhin able to easily gather what he needed to further his cultivation base. Yun Jhin went ahead and left his room but he quickly met with Zhu Cheng who was coming to his room, Zhu Cheng had a smile on his face as he patted Yun Jhin''s shoulder and said: "Brother Jhin, I was ready to come and invite you out but it seems you are more eager to get to the gathering than I am, let''s go together, the others are waiting for me to lead them to our usual gathering spot." Yun Jhin walked with Zhu Cheng shoulder to shoulder as they met with the other members of Zhu Cheng''s faction, most of them were around the 7th to 8th stage and there were very few around the 6th stage, there were none at the 9th stage, in total there were around 6 7th stage persons, 3 8th stage ones and around 25 6th stage. In total the Demonic Killers faction had around 36 people with Yun Jhin and Zhu Cheng included, the faction didn''t have many people in it but the quality of the members was leagues ahead of the other factions. Zhu Cheng didn''t have to introduce Yun Jhin as all of the people here participated in the tournament and some of them even lost at Yun Jhin''s hands, Zhu Cheng cleared his throat as he made an announcement: "Since brother Yun Jhin''s battle power is at the 9th stage he will be the general under me for the time being, I don''t think there would be any disapprovals of this will there?" Everyone kept mum, they were already beaten black and blue by Yun Jhin, and from what they could see, his aura was a little bit stronger than before, they wouldn''t court problems for no reason as Yun Jhin''s general position was deserved. Zhu Cheng looked around to see if anyone disagreed then nodded his head when he saw that everyone kept quiet, he waved his hand and told them: "Let''s get to the usual place, the Sikong family said that they have a great surprise for us." While they walked towards the city and their usual hanging spot, Zhu Cheng sent some information to Yun Jhin: "Since you are new and didn''t have much time to make connections in the city, I will tell you the rankings of the families of the city in the order of highest to lowest. 1st: Sikong family. 2nd: Bugo Family. 3rd: Shin Family. 4th: Our Zhu Family. 5th: Shen Family. 6th: Xero Family. 7th: Bing Family. 8th: Wutang Family. 9th: Xing Family. 10th: Rath Family." "This should help you understand where our family stands in the inner circle of nobility, we are quite high ranked with only other 3 families above us, their younger generation isn''t that strong as they each have an Emperor Realm cultivator around my age, two of them are at the 1st stage and one of them at 2nd just like me." "I''m just telling you this so you will know who you can offend and who you cannot, I will be backing you as long as you don''t pick a fight with the faction of the Sikong family, even though we are friends on the surface they are just like a poisonous viper who would like to bite all of us." "Anyways you can go wild on all of the other families as I will protect you from the Emperor realm experts, we need to show them that the Zhu family isn''t lacking in younger generation combatants, if we do well and break their morale we will have a higher chance to get more slots in the tournament hosted by the imperial family." Yun Jhin kept silent as he took in all of the information from Zhu Cheng, he finally nodded after Zhu Cheng stopped talking and continued to walk along with him. After a while they finally reached the meeting place, it was a beautiful restaurant at the edges of the city that was decorated festively, it even had a gambling place for the hedonistic silk pants young masters along with beauties who wouldn''t mind if they were taken advantage off. The restaurant was booked by the Sikong family and all the top ten families were invited to the gathering, Zhu Cheng didn''t need to flash any identity token or invitation as the guards at the entrance let him Yun Jhin and the others inside very easily, Zhu Cheng was very popular in the capital. Yun Jhin looked around and saw quite a few young masters ''playing'' with the maids of the restaurant, he shook his head, Zhu Cheng saw him shaking his head and chuckled then said: "These trashes are here only to make up numbers, the true geniuses of the capital are further in, follow me I want to introduce you to the others, we can also have a few betting and friendly spars while we are at it, some of the people around here have the herbs you need to create your pills." "I will point you to the ones that I know and you beat them, our faction gets popularity and prestige while you get resources, isn''t it a very good trade with no loses?" Zhu Cheng had a merchant smile on his face as he walked deeper into the restaurant. There he waved at the Emperor Realm experts and the other leaders of their factions, however, he was visibly colder to the leaders that were under the Emperor Realm, so that meant around 70% of the people in the room. The Emperor Realm experts at the 1st stage were quite average looking but they had a deep aura to them and a smile on their face that showed that they were quite charismatic, the other Emperor Realm expert at the 2nd stage was a beauty of considerable standards, she had long straight legs and a curvy figure, her pink lips were very enchanting as she pursed them when Zhu Cheng entered the room. The other leaders also had all of their unique qualities to them, they weren''t the leader of their clan youth factions for nothing, however, none of them were extremely good looking, it seemed Zhu Cheng was the only one that could be considered good looking in this room, Yun Jhin wasn''t good looking but he was manly looking in his humanoid form. Zhu Cheng smiled as he introduced Yun Jhin to everyone: "This is a new brother of our Zhu Family, he is called Yun Jhin and he was recruited from the Sumo Empire, you might not believe it but his battle power is so high that he can even beat people around the 9th stage of the King realm." The female from the Sikong Clan smiled lightly as she eyed Yun Jhin and she said: "Zhu Cheng, you aren''t bluffing to buff your morale are you?" Zhu Cheng gave out a small smile as he looked at the Sikong woman and said: "Sikong Cui, you will see if his strength is genuine or not, weren''t you making fun of me because I didn''t have any subordinate at the 9th stage? Why don''t you let out your general to battle mine, and to make things a little bit interesting I will bet 5000 high-grade spirit stones on Yun Jhin, your Sikong family is rich in herbs and resources, why don''t you bet some heavy starlight herb and some stones worth 5000 high-grade spirit stones." Sikong Cui knew that Zhu Cheng wanted to extort some high-quality herbs from her, but that didn''t mean she wasn''t curious about Yun Jhin''s battle power, some herbs weren''t worth much to her as she could have as many as she wanted, being the prized daughter of the matriarch of the house. Sikong Cui gave out a smile as she threw the herbs on the table that she was on and Zhu Cheng threw a spatial ring filled with 5000 spirit stones on the same table. Sikong Cui looked behind her as another female walked forward and bowed to her, she had starlight in her eyes as she looked at Sikong Cui with admiration and said: "I will teach this brat from the county how the people in the Luo capital fight my lady." Sikong Cui gave out a small smile as she patted the young woman''s head and told her: "Sun Sun, it doesn''t matter if you win or lose, just make him sweat a bit for me, I want to see what''s so special to him that Zhu Cheng would call him ''his general'', do your best understood?" "Yes my lady, I shall give out 110% of my power!" Yun Jhin let them talk, there was an arena in the restaurant that was created for them after they made this place was their usual gathering spot, the owner of the restaurant was even happy that they wanted to fight within it if they broke anything their families would pay for it! Since their families were rich they would pay more than the thing they broke was worth. Yun Jhin stretched as his bones cracked, he moved his head a bit and watched as the woman called Sikong Sun Sun walked up to the arena and glared at him with her starlight filled gaze. Yun Jhin chuckled inside, others might not know but the starlight from her eyes meant that she would soon suffer from cultivation deviation, starlight was leaking from one of her gems because of her hasty refining, Yun Jhin didn''t know nor care why would someone rush in refining their jewel but this allowed him to easily deal with her. Yun Jhin soul gave out a ripple as he sent a message to Zhu Cheng that told him of Sun Sun''s situation, Zhu Cheng was smiling deviously on the inside as he heard what Yun Jhin told him and he responded to him using the same strand of the soul: "Cripple her, make it look like an accident and I will give my all to get you enough herbs and hearts until you reach the 6th stage of the King Realm, crippling her will give us a big advantage in the coming tournament and it will show that bitch Sikong Cui who has the better subordinate now." Yun Jhin sent an affirmative response to Zhu Cheng, doing dirty work for hearty rewards was one of his favourite part-time activities when he was a small-time thug like now. Sikong Sun Sun looked at Yun Jhin and entered a stance as she prepared for the fight, Yun Jhin entered his fighting stance as well as he made up a plan to make Sun Sun''s crippling look like an accident, atleast on the surface he needed to act, who cared if they knew he did it on purpose? Accidents were prone to happen in such sparring matches. Yun Jhin launched himself directly at her while showing her an opening to make her let her guard down. Sun Sun chuckled inside as she watched him rush at her with an opening, she thought that Yun Jhin was truly a country bumpkin that didn''t have much fighting experience even though his battle power was high. This would be the last and most deadly mistake she would do as a cultivator. Chapter 87: Crippling Sun Sun thought that this will be an easy fight for her considering that Yun Jhin gave her such a big opening that she could exploit, she quickly made a motion with her hand and tried to poke one of Yun Jhin''s meridians and paralyze him to humiliate him in front of Sikong Cui to make Zhu Cheng lose face. Yun Jhin smiled inside as Sun Sun easily fell into his trap, the moment her finger touched the meridian that he exposed she immediately felt something wasn''t right as Yun Jhin still moved forward. Her eyes widened in horror as his hand went directly towards her head poking her forehead softly. Inside her soul, her last soul jewel which was around the 8th stage of the refinery, the jewel started to crack as starlight poured out of it slowly. Her starlit eyes intensified in color as she gripped her head in pain and horror, her eyes were dilated as she started screaming. Yun Jhin watched on as the chain reaction started, as soon as he touched her forehead and inserted a little bit of extra starlight inside her soul jewel in the wrong way it broke the already unbalanced situation inside her crown. Sun Sun growled and shouted like an animal as she fell to the ground and writhed like an animal, starlight fell from her body in quick succession, Sikong Cui frowned as she wanted to get up and do something but Zhu Cheng got in front of her and said: "Watch on, the fight isn''t done yet, is it? Or do you want to forfeit?" Sikong Cui gritted her teeth and jumped on the arena to check on Sun Sun, she didn''t care about the loss of the herbs as she saw from the corner of her eye Zhu Cheng taking everything on the table, she knew that she lost this one. She checked Sun Sun''s situation and she realized what happened, she was crippled and her cultivation was steadily dropping from the 9th stage of the King realm as her jewels combusted and exploded inside of her soul since the crown was on the head of the soul which was the center of the soul''s thinking, she immediately became an idiot the first jewel exploded, most races had the center of their soul around the head, but some peculiar races had it at different parts of their soul bodies, the demons and devils for examples had it in their chest area around their hearts. Yun Jhin watched on coldly as Sun Sun moved and writhed on the ground like a dying worm, Sikong Cui glared at him but he ignored her glare quite easily, she tried to create a ki weapon out of her sleeve and threw it at Yun Jhin, but Zhu Cheng was behind her with a similar type of weapon held at her neck. Sikong Cui looked behind her and Zhu Cheng gave her a sunny smile that you wouldn''t ever find on someone ready to murder you in a second. Sikong Cui looked down at Sun Sun and sighed as she put her hand on her forehead, Sun Sun''s body started to dissipate into dust as one moment of clarity passed through her murky eyes and some words fell from her mouth in the last seconds of her life: "Thank you.... young lady..." The others looked on without saying anything, those that didn''t have an Emperor realm expert in their faction couldn''t even comment on what happened or else they might offend Zhu Cheng and Sikong Cui and if they still wanted to have a table in the restaurant they would rather shut their mouths tight and watch on instead of commenting and inviting calamity. Only the duo of other Emperor realm experts was talking in hushed tones, they were respectively from the 2nd and 3rd ranked clans, they were called Bugo Shun and Shin Xuan Bugo Shun whispered to Shin Xuan slowly: "Isn''t this new general of the Zhu family quite ruthless, crippling such a beauty to the point she can''t even be used in the bed anymore, what a pity, who would like to use a writhing crazy woman?" Shin Xuan smiled and responded to him: "Speak for yourself Bugo Shun, if Sikong Cui didn''t end her I would have paid her a fair price to take her in as my slave." Sikong Cui cultivation base was above them and they didn''t hide their conversation so she could hear both of them quite well, she gritted her teeth as she left the arena and the restaurant all together with other people from her faction, she just gave Zhu Cheng one last glare before he left and mouthed something to him that looked like: "I will make sure you will get what you deserve." Zhu Cheng ignored her, he was happy as he hugged Yun Jhin and said: "Brothers its inevitable accidents will happen in sparring, unfortunately, it seems that Sikong Sun Sun suffered from cultivation deviation, she must have rushed the refinement of her jewel and my compatriot here must have struck her too hard, we must drink in respect of Sun Sun''s passing and have a moment of silence." Zhu Cheng was quite hypocritical but no one pointed out that he was the one who told Yun Jhin to cripple Sun Sun, even the other Emperor realm experts kept mum and toasted with Zhu Cheng, they didn''t fear Sikong Cui because she was a woman, even though she had a temper she wouldn''t be able to do much to them because Zhu Cheng will protect them in the face of ''righteousness'' since they talked about her now they were in cahoots with Zhu Cheng, and they didn''t mind it, Zhu Cheng''s momentum was increasing every day in the capital and people thought that the Zhu Family would replace the Sikong family as the first place soon enough as long as their ancestor succeeded in their closed-door cultivation. The Sikong family was quite older compared to the Zhu Family and it was unknown if their ancestor was still alive or not, the same could be said about the Zhu Family''s ancestor, even though she was a little younger than the Sikong Family ancestor, people were unsure if she was alive or not, but the Zhu family put on a strong front that made them think that their ancestor was still alive, they didn''t dare to see if they were bluffing or not, after all, the ancestors of the top four houses were all equals before they went into closed-door cultivation. While they were drinking, Zhu Cheng passed Yun Jhin the herbs along with a few more demonic hearts from his spatial ring, the others didn''t bat an eyelid at what Zhu Cheng was doing, they realized that it was the reward for crippling Sun Sun. They just drank and chatted merrily, suddenly while they were drinking Sikong Cui came back along with another youth, he had a mohawk haircut and wore an open robe that showed his muscular frame, he was around 2 meters tall and dwarfed Sikong Cui easily however his aura was weaker than Sikong Cui by quite a lot as he was at the 9th stage of the King Realm, but his aura had a blood quality with it which showed that he killed a lot of people. Yun Jhin looked at the youth with narrowed eyes as he channeled some ki to his eyes and saw that he was hiding a bit of his cultivation base, he was a half a step away from the Emperor realm! Sikong Cui glared at Zhu Cheng who was drinking merrily with the others and coughed to get his attention, Zhu Cheng already knew they were here but he was ignoring her on purpose just to make her madder. Zhu Cheng put a surprised look on his face as he looked at the youth near Sikong Cui and asked: "This brother is?" Sikong Cui introduced the youth to everyone: "This is Sun Sun''s fiancee, he is called Sikong Mindu and he is very heartbroken to hear what happened with his fiancee, he came to ask revenge from Yun Jhin on the sparring arena." Zhu Cheng frowned as he looked at Sikong Mindu and said: "Accidents can happen in sparring, Yun Jhin can''t be taken responsible from what happened, he didn''t even hit her very hard, she mostly collapsed on her own, everyone here can attest to that." Most of the people at the table nodded but didn''t look at Sikong Cui in the eyes, Zhu Cheng smiled as he saw everyone going with his words, it meant that he cemented his position as the head of the youth gatherings in the capital. Sikong Cui frowned but Mindu put a hand in front of her and walked directly to Yun Jhin as he glared at him from above and said in a booming voice: "I know accidents happen in sparring but I would still like to spar with this brother here, after all, my fiancee wasn''t weak and I would like to spar pointers with someone who could so easily see through her cultivation problems, might I be bold enough to ask for a spar with you?" Yun Jhin would welcome him in a fight, even though he might not be able to beat him easily, there was a very low chance of losing as well, Zhu Cheng looked at him and then at Sikong Cui as he said: "You know, my general is a busy man, he was supposed to go back and refine some pills so he could cultivate some more for the upcoming tournament, I''m not sure if he wants to fight anymore, maybe if you sweetened the deal for us, he could accept." Sikong Cui gritted her teeth, this was openly disrespecting her along with trying to extort her of her riches, Yun Jhin opened his mouth to interject: "I don''t want much, just give me enough heavy starlight herbs and stones to the point that I can reach the 6th stage of the King Realm." Sikong Cui guffawed at his shameless request, this would make her even some of her contribution points in her house along with her allowance for almost 4 months, there was no way she could accept this! Zhu Cheng saw her expression then he yawned as he put a hand on Yun Jhin''s shoulder and said: "It seems Miss Sikong doesn''t have enough money to accept this bet, brother Yun Jhin, let''s go back to the house, we have partied enough and we should go back to cultivating, after all, there isn''t much time left before the tournament, what was it again? 2 months?" Sikong Cui knew that Zhu Cheng was trying to force her to accept, but she wasn''t sure if Sikong Mindu could cripple Yun Jhin, what happened before was extremely quick and she couldn''t get a grasp of his full battle power, she gritted her teeth as she watched Zhu Cheng leave with his people, but she didn''t dare to do anything to him besides glaring and cursing him openly: "We will see what happens in the tournament Zhu Cheng, you can''t protect Yun Jhin then!" Zhu Cheng gave out a hearty laugh as he left the restaurant and his voice traveled back to her: "Your people should be wary of Yun Jhin in the future not the other way around!" Yun Jhin and Zhu Cheng went back to their family''s compound, after Zhu Cheng stocked on some more hearts that he sent to Yun Jhin personally, he congratulated him again by patting him on the back and telling him: "You did very well today, if you continue like this you might get noticed by the leader, it''s not like he doesn''t have his eye on you already, but if I recommended you to him, he might increase your monthly allowance and even let you browse our martial depository for free!" Zhu Cheng was using the carrot and the stick to stimulate Yun Jhin and make him work harder for him, however, if Yun Jhin ever failed Zhu Cheng would discard him just as Sikong Cui did to Sun Sun, Sikong Cui did it more of pitty rather than feeling that Sun Sun became useless, but Zhu Cheng wasn''t as soft as Sikong Cui, he might even delight himself in the fact that someone crippled Yun Jhin. He was a hearty and good fellow on the surface, but his words and actions had venomous underlying, he was a wolf in sheep''s clothing. Yun Jhin interacted with so many people like him that he lost count, he knew how to play to their tunes and backstab them the moment they found it the least possible, he didn''t mind being his puppet as long as he didn''t make him do something that would put him in peril. Yun Jhin entered his room and Zhu Cheng watched him for a short while as he returned to his room as well. His room was different from Yun Jhin''s as it was as big and wide as the leader of the house, he was the next leader of the house as long as he reached the god realm. His plump secretary was waiting for him with a document with information that she gave to him, Zhu Cheng bend her over and took the document, he read it while he was doing his ''job'': "Sumo empire, lower continents, hmm, he is such a country bumpkin that he came from the lower continents, but his bloodline is quite pure, it seemed he must be a pawn planted by the Sumo empire that they retrieved later and now they faked his recordings... whatever, he got recruited by the Zhu household and he would be our pawn now, that Sumo Emperor while strong he is only equal to our leader of the house and way below our ancestor." After around 20 minutes he finished his ''job'' with his secretary and went to his private room to cultivate, he already made a plan on how to use Yun Jhin fully to his advantage even in the upcoming tournament hosted by the imperial family. Yun Jhin was unaware of what Zhu Cheng had thought out for him, and he wouldn''t care much even if he knew, in the end, all of those that plotted against him ended up in two ways, killed or assimilated. Now all he cared about was finishing another cauldron of pills that he could use to reach the fourth stage of the King Realm, if he got a slot to the Imperial tomb party it would be even better, who knew what type of things could be found inside the Imperial tomb of an Empire ruled by former pure Azure Dragons? One thing was certain, the treasures inside would be of great help to the current Yun Jhin, who knows? Maybe he could even find some herbs that were created from some of the leftover essences of those previous God Realm experts that lived their last moments in the tombs, even though God Realm cultivators bodies would disappear once they died, some of them would leave some of their essences in the form of herbs or ores near the spots that they died. Yun Jhin wouldn''t mind getting his hands on some of these herbs, he could use them to further his cultivation after the pills he was currently using lost their effectivity, and they were doing it quite fast, he might not even reach the 6th stage of the King Realm as he wanted to, maybe at most the peak of the 4th stage. He could feel that his body was innately resisting their medicinal properties along with his soul who was getting used to them, this was a thing about cultivators that refined their body that Yun Jhin didn''t particularly like, they would get used to the pills effect faster, however, this also meant they had way fewer impurities left from pills in their bodies to the point that their refined bodies would innately reject this type of impurities automatically. Yun Jhin sighed as he finished another cauldron of pills, it was time to refine his third jewel to the peak of its refinery stage and break through the 4th stage of the King Realm! Chapter 88: 4th stage King Realm Yun Jhin had his eyes closed as he finished refining the last pill that he created, his 3rd jewel was shining extremely brightly on his crown as he reached the 9th stage of the refinery. He was ready to make a breakthrough to the 4th stage of the King Realm! To construct a life jewel he wouldn''t need any special ingredients what he would need would be knowledge, a lot of knowledge about life. However, this was the thing that Yun Jhin lacked the least, he lived countless lives and went through tons of adversity. He knew how life worked in the back of his palm, his yellow-colored life jewel was quickly taking form while spinning inside his soul space, it didn''t take much time for it to be fully formed, it was octagonal and it had the character of life inscribed on it automatically by Yun Jhin''s soul. Without any fanfare, the jewel was inserted into his fourth slot on the crown, his body started shining as it filled with a high amount of life force to the point his skin peeled multiple times and regrew, his body rank didn''t increase but its strength increase was of an extreme amount as it was filled with life force, with the current life force flowing through his body he was sure that he could live for at least 30,000 years, normally a King Realm expert around his cultivation base would live for around 10,000 years if he was a human. Since he was a halfling he would live around 15,000 years, but the life force coming from his life jewel double that amount! Yun Jhin clenched his fists as he could feel the pure life force coursing through his veins for a certain amount of time before it became tame and meek as his body was fully accustomed to the change. Now that he was at the 4th stage of the King Realm he was sure that he would get a slot in the upcoming imperial tournament, as long as he didn''t have to fight an Emperor realm expert, there were none in the King Realm that could defeat him currently unless they had a refined body as good as his along with a very peculiar jewel combination as his, so if there wasn''t a second Yun Jhin existing in the Empire there was no chance he wouldn''t get a slot! The Zhu family had a high chance to get 2 slots for the tournament as Zhu Cheng had a high chance of defeating the Emperor realm bracket while Yun Jhin could get a slot as well, unfortunately, only one person could get a place each, so Yun Jhin couldn''t hog all of the other slots, in total the Zhu Family could have 5 slots in total, that meant they could get in 5 young geniuses and 5 elders if they won the tournament as Yun Jhin thought. Yun Jhin breathed out a small cloud of impurities that disintegrated in the air very quickly, there wasn''t anything much to do now besides waiting for more hearts and herbs to be sent to him, while hearts would easy to get as Zhu Cheng was sending in a steady supply of them weekly, herbs were scarcer as the Zhu Family didn''t have a high monopoly of the capital''s herbs, the most profitable businesses were in the hands of the Sikong Family. Yun Jhin sighed as he left his room, since there wasn''t anything to do besides of slowly accumulating starlight he decided that he shouldn''t waste his time on such an endeavor. Unfortunately, the last pills couldn''t help him refine his new jewel and it sat at the 1st stage of the refinery currently. Yun Jhin walked around the Zhu household and observed the training youths that used the public training areas, he observed the formations that surrounded the building and tried to find any weak points if somehow in the future he would become enemies with the Zhu Family and he would need to do a quick getaway. While he walked around the place, Zhu Cheng was getting reports about his previous exploits: "Lived in the danger zones for 10 days and above? took over an empire? made the giant tribe and a local sect fight to the death? Hmm, it seems the Sumo Empire made him do quite a few things while he was undercover, I wonder what does this mean, does the Sump Empire want to expand their territory to the middle continents and below? Very unlikely they are too poor..." Zhu Cheng shook his head as he looked at the freshest report that said Yun Jhin went out of closed-door cultivation, it was around 3 weeks left before the tournament began and it seemed Yun Jhin couldn''t stay still anymore. Zhu Cheng decided to leave his chambers as well, he wanted to see how much did his ''friend'' improve during his closed-door cultivation, he coincidentally met with Yun Jhin as he made it look like he was wandering around the family compounds just like Yun Jhin was doing. Zhu Cheng greeted Yun Jhin with a smile and the following words: "Oh, brother Yun Jhin, it seems you have improved your cultivation again, it wasn''t even a long time ago since you came to the family and you already improved in 1 stage, aren''t you talented?" Yun Jhin gave out a small smile but inside he was sneering heavily, he knew that Zhu Cheng wanted to test his battle power and he might even invite him to another ''youth gathering'' like the previous one. And he did just as Yun Jhin suspected, along with promising him that he would get him some herbs if he did what he said again, Yun Jhin accepted and this reinforced Zhu Cheng''s thought that Yun Jhin could be easily manipulated using resources which made him grown into a bigger fool and country bumpkin in his eyes. Yun Jhin followed Zhu Cheng around the capital but instead of going to the same restaurant as before they now went to the compound of the Bugo family where they met with Bugo Shun. Bugo Shun invited them in the house and asked why did Zhu Cheng contact him, when he heard that he wanted Yun Jhin to spar with one of his general he just gave out a small smile and said that all of his general were in closed-door cultivation, he saw what happened to Sikong Cui''s subordinate and knew that Zhu Cheng came here to make trouble for him, even though he technically on his side in the imperial tournament no one would hold back anything unless they were from the same family. Zhu Cheng couldn''t force him to make a general spar with Yun Jhin so he just gave him a silent smile that meant he wouldn''t have a good time if he met him during the Imperial Tournament. Zhu Cheng came increasingly depressed as no one wanted to spar with Yun Jhin and they returned swiftly to the Zhu Family household, Zhu Cheng didn''t say anything as he returned to his room without even telling Yun Jhin goodbye, Yun Jhin knew that Zhu Cheng felt that his authority among the younger generation was challenged as no one did what he told them to. However, why would they? Even though they respected him on the surface everyone still hated and loathed him, even though Sikong Cui was cold and annoying at least she wasn''t a pain in the ass as Zhu Cheng was, he was petty prone to anger, and very vengeful, this could be already seen as he contacted Yun Jhin and told him to assassinate some of the low-level disciples of their families. Yun Jhin of course just said that he doesn''t have time to do that as he got some enlightenment and had to rush back to closed-door cultivation and he might not be able to exit before the tournament began. Zhu Cheng was almost frothing at the mouth as Yun Jhin didn''t accept his order as a good dog would, but on the surface, he was calm as an old well. He knew he couldn''t put all of his eggs in one basket by making Yun Jhin his only general so he decided to confront the twins as they were the more easily swayed ones in the Zhu Family. When Zhu Cheng met with the twins they were playing chess in their room, Zhu Cheng closed the room''s door behind him, the twins got up from their cross-legged positions on the ground and glared at Zhu Cheng but before they could say anything an Imperial aura enveloped the both of them and sent them to the ground. Zhu Cheng tried to forcefully recruit them into his faction but the twins held fast under the pressure and didn''t relent even though their bones cracked and their internal organs were getting squished, the sole reason Zhu Cheng wasn''t very respected in the family was that he was an outsider like Yun Jhin, he was taken in the family by the patriarch after he saw his potential in a fighting pit below the capital. Even though he was strong and young the others looked down on him due to him not being of the same blood as them, especially since he entered the family he was extremely violent and had no manners, with time he grew accustomed to the customs of nobility but inside he was the same violent brute that used to fight in the pits under the capital. Zhu Cheng gritted his teeth till they bleed as he left the twins room, he knew that the patriarch was watching what he was doing, while he didn''t interfere he wasn''t sure if he was supportive of what he was doing. Zhu Cheng sighed, he wasn''t very smart as he didn''t have a good education since young, he was street smart at best and he only started to start scheming after he got taken in to be nobility, however, he was still very prone to anger and he realized what he did was an enormous mistake, he slicked back his hair as he returned to his room and decided to cultivate for the next 3 weeks until the imperial tournament started so he could cool off his head. Yun Jhin opened his eyes as he knew it was time to go, he could feel that some attendant from the family was here to wake him up and tell him that the tournament would begin soon. Yun Jhin opened the door of his room as he frightened the attendant that was ready to knock on the door, the attendant bowed his head low as he told Yun Jhin that the tournament would be starting soon and the head of the house was ready to take them to the imperial palace where the tournament would be hosted. Yun Jhin ignored the attendant as he went to the open area inside the compound of the family, there were hundreds of cultivators at the 9th stage as every cultivator at the 9th stage at the King realm returned to the family. Yun Jhin was the only exception as his cultivation was only at the 4th stage but no one pointed at him or laughed as Zhu Cheng was behind him and coming slowly to hug him. The hug was quite forceful as Yun Jhin''s bones made cracking sounds for a bit. Yun Jhin gave a forced smile as Zhu Cheng patted him on the shoulder and said: "Let''s make sure we both do our best in this tournament alright?" His smile was as fake as it could get, it seemed his cultivation session didn''t cool off his head fully. The head of the family shook his head as he saw Zhu Cheng''s acting, he was only putting up with him because he was very talented, he knew that his personality needed fixing and he tried countless times but all he did was make him hide his personality inside, he wasn''t sure why his true personality was resurfacing but what he was sure off was that it wasn''t a good thing. Yun Jhin and the crowd were taken to the imperial palace and there they met with the others, Yun Jhin only had eyes for those at the Emperor realm as he didn''t care about those at the King Realm anymore, unfortunately, there wasn''t any surprise as Sikong Cui and the two others were the only ones at the Emperor realm along with Zhu Cheng. He wanted to see if he could defeat a newly broken through Emperor realm expert but it seemed there was no luck. Zhu Cheng gave out a hearty smile as he saw Sikong Cui and asked her: "Did Miss Cui''s cultivation base advanced in these three months?" Sikong Cui didn''t say anything as she ignored him, the other two chatted for a little bit with Zhu Cheng before the Emperor appeared. The Luo Emperor was a hearty man with a robust build and blue colored hair, his imperial robe was adorned with moons and stars and his aura was pure and peaceful, you wouldn''t think that this man was a powerhouse at the peak of the God Realm who could control the elements and all of the lives of the people in front of him. The Emperor didn''t give any speech or anything, he just waved his hand and two arenas appeared, one was for the Emperor realm of the younger generation while the other was for the King Realm. The Emperor realm experts would secure the 1st spot and the other spots would be distributed to those at the King Realm. Yun Jhin watched as his soul aura was scanned and then randomly intertwined with someone from the crowd, this was the way people would be matched up to fight. His aura was intertwined with a skinny man with a pale complexion, he was coughing constantly as he stood there and you wouldn''t think he would be of the younger generation by his complexion, but his life force said otherwise. Yun Jhin was one of the first people that had to fight so he jumped on the arena after a few fights went by, the sickly man jumped on the arena as well but he almost fell because he couldn''t control his body properly. Yun Jhin knew that this was an act as he tried to act like a pig to eat the tiger, Yun Jhin decided to play along with him as he would be a pig as well. Yun Jhin wasn''t very popular in the capital but a lot of people still heard of him and his exploits at the younger generation gathering, so the sickly man didn''t bite into Yun Jhin''s act at first and kept a defensive stance. Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at him, acting up and then not following? Quite disappointing, Yun Jhin told him directly: "I guess I will send you on your way if you don''t want to play." The man frowned as he didn''t understand what Yun Jhin meant but then his eyes widened as he looked down and realized that he was pushed off the arena before he felt what happened! Chapter 89: A interesting tournament Yun Jhin watched as the man flailed before he fell outside of the arena, the impact from the air to the ground wasn''t that hard but he still vomited a mouthful of blood and became unconscious. Most of the people that viewed the fight had a keen eye so they recognized the fact that Yun Jhin injected some wind energy into him that cut his insides after it pushed him off the arena, most of them thought that he was a vicious individual for what he had done and they didn''t want to meet him during the tournament. Yun Jhin watched from above as someone else jumped on the arena to replace the sickly man, things went on the same, Yun Jhin''s cultivation base put him ahead of any King Realm cultivator, and no matter what they did they wouldn''t be able to shake his position or even make him move half a step behind. The King Realm tournament ended up with Yun Jhin winning it and he naturally took the second prize getting 2 slots for the upcoming expedition in the imperial tombs. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th places were won by the Sikong, Shen, and Shin families. Yun Jhin left the arena and looked towards the Emperor Realm fighters, in the end, it was still the fight between Sikong Cui and Zhu Cheng, even though the other two fought valiantly against each other, Sikong Cui and Zhu Cheng only needed to slap them to take them out of the competition, so instead of making a joke out of themselves after they had to fight the duo of 2nd stage Emperor realm they forfeited. It was now the main fight that everyone looked out for, the fight between two young prodigies at the 2nd stage of the Emperor Realm. Zhu Cheng smiled lightly at Sikong Cui, but while his face was kind his whole body was exhausting fighting energy, his veins were visible as they quickly pumped blood through his body, his teeth were gritting against each other as he watched Sikong Cui, he hated people like her, people that were born into good families if he wasn''t lucky enough for the head of the Zhu Family to take him in he might have just died in the pit fights below the city, a street rat that no one would have cared bout. Even though he hated Yun Jhin for disobeying him he also understood him somewhat, even though he thought he was a pawn planted by the Sumo Empire for something, in the end, he was a country bumpkin compared to him and he didn''t find him threatening. Sikong Cui was a different story, ever since he entered the Zhu Family he tried to pursue her a few times, but all his attempts ended up with her laughing in his face, after a while he got over his crush on her and he started to hate her because he looked down on him because of his birth, he trained hard to overtake her cultivation base and succeeded! Only for her uncle to luckily find a herb that helped her breakthrough to the same realm as him! She was supposed to be at the 1st stage, not the second stage like him! Sikong Cui knew about Zhu Cheng''s hatred for her, he was quite unstable emotionally and her looking down upon him in the past didn''t help his self-esteem. She felt bad about what happened back then, but only because Zhu Cheng grew into such a strong man. The fight began soundlessly as Zhu Cheng released his imperial aura all over the arena, his breathing evened out as his hot breath went out of his mouth looking like mist descended on the arena. Sikong Cui eyes widened, such a hot breath meant his blood was boiling, how angry was he? Zhu Cheng smile turned strange as he looked at her, his teeth turned sharp as he disappeared from where he stood, when he appeared he was in front of Sikong Cui and had a longsword made of ki in his hand, the longsword color was a deep crimson and it was stabbing directly to her stomach trying to sever her ki pathways! Sikong Cui dodged hastily by jumping backward but Zhu Cheng put his leg behind hers and tripped her making her fall on her butt. Sikong Cui rolled as she narrowly dodged the sword that was ready to now impale her stomach, Zhu Cheng was aiming to cripple her but no one was saying anything about it! The Emperor looked down at the fights from his throne in the palace, he was observing from his throne room and didn''t say anything as he just looked on, sometimes his eyes would close as he would contemplate something, from time to time his eyes would wander towards Yun Jhin''s figure who was also observing the fight between Zhu Cheng and Sikong Cui, his eyes would glow every time he would look at him. Sikong Cui gritted her teeth as she finally went on the offensive, she created a purple scythe out of her ki and used it to slash diagonally trying to slash Zhu Cheng into two! Zhu Cheng easily parried with his longsword almost making her scythe break, Sikong Cui wasn''t proficient in close range combat but the arena was restricting her movements, if she was thrown out it would also be considered a loss! Sikong Cui closed her eyes and then opened them revealing that their color changed to a deep purple, her scythe was removed in favor of a bow, she started to masterfully dodge his anger-filled attacks and nocked an arrow on her ki bow. Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes seeing that arrow and watched on to see what Zhu Cheng would do to dodge it., Zhu Cheng''s fighting instincts told him that this arrow would be able to injure him quite heavily so he intended to dodge it at all costs! Zhu Cheng tried to attack her before she could let go of the arrow but the moment he tried to move he felt that her deep purple eyes locked on his head and her fingers were a few centimeters away from the string of the bow! Zhu Cheng frowned as he dissipated the longsword and created a tower shield to protect himself from the deadly arrow, however, he miscalculated as a small smile appeared on Sikong Cui''s face. Her lips curved upwards as she opened her mouth and whispered: "It''s my win..." She let go of the string of the bow and the arrow flew so fast that no one below the Emperor Realm could even see where it went, even Yun Jhin had to strain his eyes to see it''s trajectory. The arrow directly went through Zhu Cheng''s tower shield and hit his forehead! The tower shield disappeared as Zhu Cheng appeared with an arrow in his forehead, his head was hung down as blood dripped down on the arena, the referee walked slowly towards Zhu Cheng and tried to see if he was still alive. Zhu Cheng''s aura was fluctuating wildly and his lifeforce did the same, suddenly the arrow lodged in his forehead transformed into dust as it was forcefully destroyed by Zhu Cheng''s inner ki. His eyes turned a deeper crimson than before as they turned into slits and his pupils reappeared in his eyes, he regained some of his wits after he was hit in the head with the arrow, even though his soul was injured in the process it made him sober up. He breathed out again but his blood wasn''t boiling as before, it started to turn a little colder than usual, Zhu Cheng form started to morph as he transformed into a 5 meters long dragon! There was a dot scar on his forehead from the arrow but it was slowly closing, Sikong Cui''s eyes widened as he saw him using his true form and she hastily tried to transform into hers as well, she started growing in size to prepare herself for her transformation. Unfortunately for her, Zhu Cheng didn''t let her, he flew towards her at unimaginable speeds as not even after images were left behind, she looked down at her chest and saw Zhu Cheng''s claw inside of it, his claw turned to the left as he grasped her innards and wanted to rip them out, but the referee quickly appeared between them, this was a fatal injury and if he didn''t stop it he would be held responsible by the Sikong family. The referee tried to make Zhu Cheng let go of her innards but Zhu Cheng just smiled at him, the referee thought that he understood what he meant but underneath that smile was a ghastly visage that he kept hidden. Zhu Cheng did let go of her innards, only after he jumped backward and out of the arena. Sikong Cui innards were rolling all around the arena as she coughed multiple mouthfuls of blood, she wasn''t crippled, she was dying! The Emperor didn''t say anything about killing, so technically it was allowed, but it was also an unspoken rule that killing was banned, officially you could kill but only if you were ready to accept what came after. Zhu Cheng transformed into his human form as he looked at Sikong Cui''s dying frame with cold eyes, his crimson eyes turned back into a blue crystalline color as his aura turned peaceful, as Sikong Cui was dying Zhu Cheng''s cultivation base was stabilizing and growing, it seemed Sikong Cui was Zhu Cheng''s heart devil that stopped him from improving his cultivation base. Yun Jhin clicked his tongue as he saw Zhu Cheng''s cultivation increase and thought: "This brat would have made a good young master in the Blood Throne sect, fortunately, it was destroyed, if they knew of me reincarnating I don''t think they would have let me go before they dissected my soul and took all of my memories." Yun Jhin was the former leader of the Blood Throne sect but considering what kind of people he recruited into the sect it was a certain thing that if they found him while he was weak they would try to take all of his memories from him along with whatever treasures he had on him. Yun Jhin watched as Zhu Cheng approached him and gave him a genuine smile, it seemed some of his anger was burned away along with the death of Sikong Cui, Yun Jhin could see from the corner of the eye an elder from the Sikong family coming and taking the corpse away with a hardened face, he glared at the patriarch of the Zhu family and made a motion with his thumb over his neck, the patriarch just gave out a small smile in response and waved his hand. This made the elder extremely uncomfortable as he hastily left with his young mistress body to be buried. The Emperor came out of the palace to give out congratulations along with announcing the quotas and which family had them, The Zhu family had the most standing at 5 slots, that meant 10 people from the Zhu Family would enter the imperial tomb. Most of the other families started to butter them up, after all, who knew if the items from the tomb would make them soar like a carp over the dragon gate? The Emperor smiled cryptically and then disappeared after he announced everything, very few understood the Emperor''s smile and one of them was the patriarch of the Zhu Family, he had a grave expression on his face as he returned with all of the disciples back to the family and created an emergency meeting. Yun Jhin and Zhu Cheng were invited to the meeting along with the sage realm elders of the family. The Zhu patriarch took a deep breath as he said: "I''m not sure if we should enter the tomb this time." Most of the elders were puzzled along with Zhu Cheng, Yun Jhin wasn''t sure what the Emperor''s smile meant but he caught a glimpse of it and his instincts told him it wasn''t anything nice. The Zhu patriarch told them about a legend of the tomb: "There''s a random occurring in the tomb when the souls of the former Emperor''s come back as wraiths, up till now 4 of the former 20 Emperor soul wraiths were captured, however, it took the death of other 2 Emperor''s along with the extermination of their souls to capture those 4!" Everyone''s eyes widened as they heard this, did the Emperor''s smile meant that they had to deal with soul wraiths again? The patriarch continued to explain: "His smile could mean many things but every Emperor smiled this way when the Soul wraiths appeared, and it isn''t voluntary, some of the Emperors who died explained before their souls scattered that their mouths moved on their own as if they were possessed, the imperial family might be cursed I''m not sure about the specifics and I don''t dare to investigate either." This could be quite the unfortunate thing as the Zhu Family finally got so many slots after hundreds of years of only getting one or failing. The patriarch instated this meeting because he wanted to know the opinion of others, would they want to enter or not, after all, as the patriarch who needed to protect the house while others were away he wouldn''t be able to enter and he didn''t want to force anyone if he did he would lose their loyalty and the house would be in peril from external forces. Yun Jhin knew about such occurring, they weren''t random, they were man-made, the first emperor must have created the soul murking formation when he created the tomb and hid it from his descendants, this was quite the devilish Azure dragon. The soul murking formation was meant to use the souls of God Realm experts to mend and restore the destroyed soul of a dead God Realm expert. This was a way for those dead God Realm experts whose souls were destroyed to reincarnate, there was never a true death in a sense, but losing your physical body and being forced to recultivate was extremely annoying and time consuming that was why Yun Jhin was searching for true eternal life, among with other reasons that became muddled during his countless reincarnations. Yun Jhin knew that he had to get inside the tomb, he knew the outline of the soul murking formation and if he was lucky he would be able to find the main node of the formation, there he could insert his soul in the formation and refine the souls of the other God Realm experts to restore his soul capabilities to at least 50% or more! It all depended on how many soul remains were murked from the remaining 16. Yun Jhin watched as the elders voted and most of them decided that they wanted to go inside the tomb, the treasures were just too alluring. The patriarch didn''t look very happy at what was happening but he respected their decision as he said: "Zhu Cheng will have to select two other of the younger generation and Yun Jhin one, after that Yun Jhin Zhu Cheng and the other three people will select an elder each and they will go to the tomb''s entrance on the day of its opening which is around 5 days from now, make the good choices, I will have to go now." A lot of elders started to swarm Yun Jhin and Zhu Cheng as they tried to impress them with their cultivation bases so they could be chosen to accompany them in the tomb. Yun Jhin scanned each elder with his soul willpower and they didn''t complain, he wasn''t that interested in most of them but a certain peculiar elder that blocked his soul willpower took his attention. His eyes glowed as he looked at the man, his actions piqued his interest along with his looks and the aura he exuded, he knew that the elder must have done it on purpose but he did have the power that Yun Jhin needed. Yun Jhin neared the elder and asked him: "Elder, might you be able to tell me your esteemed name?" The elder gave a burst of hearty laughter as he looked at Yun Jhin, his plan worked! The elder opened his mouth to give out his name... Chapter 90: Imperial Tombs The elder puffed up his chest to make himself look bigger and pointed to his face as he said: "My name is Sun Takijo, remember it well kid, I''m the strongest elder in the Zhu Family." Chatter could be heard around after Takijo made his statement: "Strongest? Most likely not, shameless old fool." Takijo''s eyes narrowed as he looked around and said: "Oh, I''m not the strongest? Then let''s all fight right here and now to see who is!" The one who spoke averted his eyes, he spoke like that but he was weaker than Takijo, he only thought that there were others stronger than him who would speak up after he spoke first. However, no one spoke up and it became very awkward for him. Yun Jhin could feel that his cultivation base was quite refined but he looked to be quite unintelligent, however, this was the better thing for Yun Jhin, he didn''t need someone smart to accompany him as he would have to look out for betrayals, someone simple would be easier to manipulate, his cultivation base wasn''t bad standing around the 6th stage of the Sage Realm, he was an eminent elder quite above the normal elders at the emperor realm, his rank was high even amongst eminent elders, he would be in top 5, but his statement of being the strongest was also a lie. The others started muttering: "You will see what the other 4 will say when they will get out of closed-door cultivation, they should be out any minute now!" 3 male elders and one female elder appeared the moment the other elder finished his words, they were all above Takijo in strength, however, from their eyes, you could see that they were the normal old curs who schemed, lied, and backstabbed, he couldn''t see the same thing in Takijo''s eyes, he could see some greed but no scheming. The female elder was the strongest and she quickly walked towards Zhu Cheng and said: "I will be the one to accompany young master Zhu Cheng for this time, please leave." The other three looked around and saw how Takijo took Yun Jhin so they waited for the other youngsters to appear, they didn''t care much as everyone would have an equal chance of getting treasures as long as they got a spot, there were three spots left and who would fight them to get their hands on the spots? Zhu Cheng appointed the twins as the other youths to join them in the Imperial tombs while Yun Jhin appointed the lazy man that could control shadows, Zhu Sumen! The other three elders got the slots that they wanted and the other''s dispersed from the place, the elders started to talk amongst themselves with Sun Takijo talking the loudest, however, it was obvious the other elders were looking down on him, after all, his family name was Sun and not Zhu! He was an external elder that joined the head of the house so the elders that had the Zhu family name looked down on him thinking that he was an opportunist, only the head of the house knew why Sun Takijo joined the family. Even though the others looked down on him they were still polite on the surface due to his high cultivation base. Zhu Sumen sighed as he watched the elders talk with each other and said: "Why did you choose me? Do you want to bury me in the imperial tomb?" Yun Jhin shook his head, this man had quite a good imagination, he only chose him because his battle power was very high and his shadow techniques would be useful in the tomb which was mostly full of death yang energy, the younger generation would explore with the younger generation while the older generation would explore with the older generation, heads of the house wouldn''t join as there was a chance their houses would be attacked if they weren''t present, the deterrent of the head of the house was almost bigger than the whole elder assembly. Yun Jhin left for his room while Zhu Sumen was quite annoyed that he was ignored, but he sighed and accepted it, after all, he was one of the strongest in the family and Yun Jhin fought him before, so it was only logical he would be chosen, he didn''t like it but he begrudgingly accepted it and left. Zhu Cheng was the last one to leave the room along with the twins, the twins looked at him with a puzzled expression, they still vividly remembered how he forced them on the ground with his aura and tried to force them into being his subordinates, they wondered why would he allow them getting stronger when they were his enemies? Zhu Cheng gave out his famous smile as they were quite far away from the elder assembly and his aura unleashed itself on them, they fell to their knees as they started gasping for air and Zhu Cheng''s voice was heard: "You wonder why I gave you this opportunity right? Let me tell you, I heard the Imperial Tomb had quite a few formations traps installed here and there, I would need some help to unarm them and the two of you are perfect for that kind of job." They weren''t proficient in formations, Zhu Cheng just wanted to push them ahead and use the excuse of the formation killing them to get rid of them, he knew that due to their twin sibling bond the moment the both of them would break through to the Emperor realm if they fought him together there was a chance for them to win! Their battle power would double when they fought together. Since he made them into enemies he wanted to silence them before they became strong enough to threaten him, unfortunately for the duo as they still didn''t break through the Emperor realm they couldn''t do much against Zhu Cheng, even if they reported to the head of the house, the head might just ignore them in favor of Zhu Cheng! Yun Jhin watched from under his stealth technique, his eyes scanned everything that happened in front of him and he chuckled inside and shook his head then left, there was no reason to intervene here. Zhu Sumen watched from behind the corner of a house what happened, he found it extremely troublesome and ignored what happened while leaving, he needed to prepare himself for the Imperial tomb. 5 days passed by extremely fast and the elders took the younger generations to the entrance of the Imperial Tomb, the Imperial Tomb was built underground and the entrance looked like one of a normal cellar, the gates were just made of cyan dragon jade and inscribed with grandiose words along with some history of the Empire. Yun Jhin watched as the Emperor opened the gates easily by swinging his hand, there was a dark formation engulfing the entrance and it slowly dissipated, it was the formation meant to keep outsiders out while the soul murking formation worked on the souls of the deceased Emperors, it disappearing meant that it was ready to accept new souls. The Emperor disappeared in the depths of the tomb while not saying anything, the elders and youths that won the tournament entered, Sun Takijo left while waving to Yun Jhin and telling him: "If we meet inside we will team up." Yun Jhin entered along with Zhu Cheng and the others and they could feel the darkness of the formation engulfing them, Yun Jhin shuddered as he felt a cold chill spreading through his body and analyzing his whole being. Zhu Cheng and the others did the same, they felt something was wrong when they entered the tomb but they couldn''t place their fingers on what specifically. Since they entered in groups the elders ended up in the same random place while the youths did the same, the entrance to the tombs wasn''t big enough to handle all of them squeezing together, so the elders went with the elders and the youths with the youths, this way the elders could protect themselves, the youths knew this would leave them exposed to the dangers of the tomb but since their cultivation base was relatively low, the murked souls wouldn''t sense and attack them first, as for the formation traps, this was something the others already talked about and taught their young charges. Yun Jhin looked around, the darkness in the tomb wasn''t impeding his vision but it did send a chill down his spine once in a while, the walls of the tomb were inscribed with ancient dragon language that told the history of up to 500,000 years ago. Yun Jhin''s eyes widened as he looked at an inscription of the first ancestors of the dragon race. The other youths were as captivated as he was, the inscription told the story of two brothers, the Azure dragons were known as Luo Shang and Bumi Ming, they were the respective ancestors of the two empires. The story talked about how the azure dragons were free of emotions and thoughts at first, but humans hatred of their strong bodies and bloodlines made them poison the two azure dragons forcing them to fight each other in the end. Luo Shang became the darkness yang dragon and Bum Ming resisted the poison and achieved enlightenment becoming the light Yin dragon. Some of the stories were destroyed by time so Yun Jhin couldn''t know surely what happened but one thing he was sure of was that both of them died by old age by his current time, even pure Azure dragons would live at most 300,000 years or so, azure dragons, black tortoises, vermilion birds, and white tigers were the darlings of the universe, they were born from the first chaos of the universe and had the purest bloodlines, however, their descendants couldn''t handle their bloodlines fully and with time their blood diluted, even though the Emperor''s of today''s age still had the blood of the sacred beast flowing through their veins, they were at most 10% of their ancestor''s purity. Yun Jhin knew that the black dragon became insane after he was corrupted by the human''s thought severing poison, he tried to eat his brother in an attempt to break through the ultimate realm above the God Realm, he was defeated and sealed in the end, however, from what it seemed the sealing only made him create this soul murking formation and he controlled his descendants to enter the tomb to slaughter them! The formation was still at work as it used the former Emperor''s souls as fuel and it seemed it also worked on the current Emperor, even though some of the souls were taken back by the Empire, there was also a high chance it was done on purpose by the last soul fragment of the dark dragon. Yun Jhin knew that the situation in the tomb was deadly, but if he could get to the core of the formation and absorb that remaining soul fragment... Yun Jhin walked while he disarmed some of the weaker trap formations around, the others stood behind him and saw how he easily took care of the trap formations with wide eyes, Zhu Cheng was also quite interested in Yun Jhin''s trap disarming skills but also disappointed that he couldn''t send the twins into the traps to kill them. The youths from the other families were wary of those from the Zhu Family so they banded together, however, they knew that if Zhu Cheng made a move all of them would die. Zhu Cheng ignored the others as he followed behind Yun Jhin while keeping an eye on the twins. Zhu Sumen didn''t look as sleepy as before as he concentrated on his surroundings, he knew that any sudden movement would kill them! Yun Jhin was surveying the structure of the formation in his head as he was guiding all of them towards the core of the formation, he wanted to sacrifice them to get inside the core and absorb the last soul fragment of the dark dragon! While Yun Jhin was guiding them to their doom Zhu Cheng felt that something wasn''t right, he could feel that the surroundings started to get colder and colder and his keen sense of danger told him that it wouldn''t end well if he continued to follow Yun Jhin. So he appeared in front of Yun Jhin and kneed him in the stomach making him fall to the ground. Yun Jhin cursed, it seemed he underestimated Zhu Cheng''s instincts, he thought that he would follow him if he showed good skills in formations but it seemed Zhu Cheng saw through his intentions. Zhu Cheng grabbed Yun Jhin by the arm and made him get up as he said while pointing to the opposite direction: "We will go that way, disarm the formations in those parts." Zhu Cheng started to order Yun Jhin as if he was his slave and there wasn''t anything that Yun Jhin could do, the formations took a little bit of time to disarm and if he tried to run away from Zhu Cheng he would trigger them and it won''t end well, he couldn''t fight Zhu Cheng due to the realm gap, so all he could do was comply with his words with gritted teeth. Yun Jhin started to listen to Zhu Cheng''s instruction but inside he sneered, even if Zhu Cheng wanted to avoid the core of the formation, in the end, he would still end up there with his help, he just had to do it in a more roundabout manner instead of the direct manner from before. From time to time, they would find some God Herbs left from the essence of the corpses of the dead God Realm experts of the Imperial family, Zhu Cheng would immediately snatch them and not leave anything for anyone, not even those from the Zhu Family. The one time that the Sikong Family youth tried to say something Zhu Cheng stopped Yun Jhin and threw him into the formation traps transforming him into a meat patty that was absorbed by the ground, his soul could be seen being shredded and absorbed by the dark surroundings. Zhu Cheng then casually told Yun Jhin to continue, Yun Jhin was visibly upset on the outside but inside he was sneering as he could feel the will of the formation waking up, it seemed this would be the last Emperor that could restore the soul fragment of the dark dragon to what it was before. Yun Jhin knew that he had to get to the core before the Emperor was fully absorbed by the formation or else all of them would die inside the tombs, used to reconstruct the dark''s dragon body, it would be something similar to his ability to eat others to evolve, but instead, he would forcefully rip the bloodlines out of the bodies of those present to create himself a body with talent comparable to his first one, However, with the purity of the current descendant''s bloodlines, he would need to massacre the whole capital of the Luo Empire to create a body with cultivation around the God Realm, this included all of the other God Realm experts and he might not even reach the 7th stage of the God Realm. Yun Jhin sensed that Zhu Cheng was checking his surroundings every second for danger, he didn''t want Yun Jhin to trick him and put him in the same danger zone as before. After a while of disarming formations, they finally reached the death place of a former emperor, a shining golden sword sat on the ground untouched, it was an artifact of the godly quality! Zhu Cheng didn''t understand the power of the artifact but seeing how it was shiny and the powerful aura it was emanating he pulled the twins from where they stood and kicked them towards the sword while saying: "The two of you shall make yourself useful and take that sword for me!" The twins complied while cursing Zhu Cheng inside, they slowly got closer towards the sword and both of them grabbed the sword at the same time, suddenly glaring golden radiance fell from the sword and engulfed the twin''s bodies! Chapter 91: The twins level up The twin''s bodies that were engulfed with golden light started to levitate as their auras started to increase in power and intensity. Zhu Cheng eyes widened as he jumped up trying to stop what was happening, they all realized that the twins were breaking through the Emperor realm at the same time! It seemed the godly treasure was a catalyst left behind from the god realm expert, he left there some of his enlightenment along with ki so that someone would get a guaranteed breakthrough of one level, even if they were at the Sage Realm, however, it wouldn''t be useful for those at the God Realm. It seemed quite wasteful the energy was used on the twins but it was their luck to get it, Zhu Cheng teeth made sounds like they were ready to break as he tried to break the twins away from the sword but the few seconds when he jumped to the moment that his hand touched the sword was enough for both of them to assimilate the energy and breakthrough, even though they forced their breakthrough the sequelae from it could be healed with the resources of the Zhu Family. Yun Jhin watched as the twins opened their eyes at the same time and tried to unsheath the sword only for it to drop out their hands and zap both of them, it was a godly weapon, even those at the sage realm would barely be able to use it. Since they couldn''t use the sword the duo directly attacked Zhu Cheng, they were fighting as one as Zhu Cheng had to dodge their palms and fist attacks, their combined battle power was pretty similar to his! Zhu Cheng eyes became red as he took a glance at the sword, he could have broken through to the 3rd stage of the Emperor realm with that sword, the veins of his head started to become visible as they moved like earthworms, he was thoroughly angry at this point! The twins created a katana each and they wielded as if it was one person attacking and not two, Zhu Cheng started to get overwhelmed as he fought two people at once and his face got slashed a bit, blood dripped slowly from the cut on his cheek and his expression became terrifying. Zhu Cheng''s anger couldn''t be explained in words as he transformed into his true form and used his claws to slash the duo into nothing, however, the twins transformed into their true form as well, they were sky dragons with strange blue patterns running across their snake-like bodies, their wings were small and they seemed like they wouldn''t be able to support their long bodies enough to fly. Yun Jhin was already breaking away from the group as he took a safe distance away from the fight, the shockwaves would disrupt his concentration and might even trigger some traps that he didn''t disarm. Zhu Cheng knew that there were some traps left so he didn''t unleash his full strength, the twins did the same, they weren''t ready to use their lives to trade it for Zhu Chengs, they were only showing the fact that they were strong enough to keep him in check. The fight didn''t last that long as they both reverted to their humanoid forms, Zhu Cheng face was as cold as a 10,000-year-old glacier as he glared at the twins, one of them grasped the sword from where they dropped but didn''t dare to unsheath it again. Zhu Cheng fiery eyes turned to Yun Jhin, but he already disappeared! Yun Jhin was quickly disarming traps along while walking in the tomb as he made his way towards the direction of the core of the formation while being in stealth. He frowned as he could feel the coldness entering his body so he had to use his life law jewel along with his yang and 4 elemental jewel to expel the coldness from his body. He knew that he was getting closer to the core of the formation but what he found strange was that the traps started to lower in number and he could feel no auras around! This surely meant that the Emperor must have been on this path. Yun Jhin slowed down but in the end, he still arrived in the main tomb area where the core of the formation stood. The core of the formation was a sarcophagus that was shaped in the form of a dark dragon, it stood high on a platform that one had to scale to get to the sarcophagus, the platform was almost 10 meters tall and it was made from dark Yang jade of the highest quality. Yun Jhin could feel the soul fragment of the dark dragon metamorphosing inside the sarcophagus, it was slowly coming alive! Yun Jhin felt a hand grasping his neck as he looked behind him and saw the Emperor picking him up like he was a sack of potatoes! The Emperor heaved a hearty chuckle as he patted Yun Jhin on the head and said: "Youngster, don''t you think you are quite far away from the place that you are supposed to explore?" Yun Jhin knew that he was only playing with him as his eyes turned cold and he said: "You might have fooled the others but my vision is special even amongst the latest Emperors, I can see that your soul is extremely old even though fragmented, you are a reincarnated one!" Reaching the peak of the god realm would give someone abilities that others would call unfair or even world-altering, it was a simple thing for the Emperor to see through Yun Jhin''s soul. Yun Jhin wanted to struggle but his whole body was paralyzed, the Emperor looked directly into his eyes as he forcefully tried to remove some of his memories. Suddenly the sarcophagus started moving as it opened, out of it 16 murked souls came out, they all looked similar to each other as all of their individuality was destroyed by the formation, the Emperor dropped Yun Jhin as he clutched his arm and 4 other souls left the sleeve of his robes. The Emperor''s eyes widened as he clapped his hands and another 2 God Realm experts that sat at the 7th and 8th stage respectively appeared, they all ignored Yun Jhin as they had a grave expression on their face looking at the formation of the 20 murked souls. The murked souls then returned to the sarcophagus as a deep voice could be heard: "Return to me, my descendants!" The closer one was to the bloodline of the primogenitor the higher the bloodline chains would tighten in their bodies and control them, the three god realm experts'' eyes became glazed but inside they were ferociously trying to stop their bodies from walking towards the sarcophagus. The moment one of them reached the dark yang jade his body slowly started to wither and age as his life force was absorbed by it. The Emperor broke through the spell after a short while, his face was full of cold sweat and he didn''t even have time to look for Yun Jhin who now disappeared. He looked at the sarcophagus and he could feel a gaze that locked deeply on his soul, he felt the same gaze some times before when he entered the tomb but now it was so strong! Both of his attendants were no longer alive as their souls left their bodies and were dragged to the sarcophagus where they became as dark as the night then absorbed inside, the red eyes of the sarcophagus glowed deeply as the intense control on the Emperor''s body increased. The Emperor did his best to resist as he even used some of his life force to break away, but his bloodline was too closely linked to the dark dragon''s! The moment the Emperor stepped on the dark jade his life force started to leave him and he grew old at a visible rate. He bellowed as he threw away all of his life force for a chance of his soul to escape and be reincarnated, his soul tried to fly away from the formation but it was quickly engulfed by the formation and absorbed into the sarcophagus, the dark jade that glowed deeply stopped and the sarcophagus eyes did the same, everything became quiet. Yun Jhin appeared as he started scaling the steps up to the sarcophagus, his stealth technique was covering him as he got close to the sarcophagus and he opened it, the moment he opened it he could hear heavy heartbeats as the appearance of a handsome middle-aged man was starting to appear in the sarcophagus, he had deep dark violet hair along with sword-like brows and his being gave out the aura of an important person of a high standing along with the feeling that he saw through worldly needs. The dark dragon was currently absorbing the murked souls and it was at it''s weakest at this time, Yun Jhin slowly approached him but he could feel someone behind him again. Zhu Cheng and the twins appeared as they slapped Yun Jhin away from the sarcophagus, they had eyes full of greed as they looked at the soul, they knew it was special the moment they saw the imperial robe left on the steps of dark jade. They didn''t see Yun Jhin or feel him but the moment they got close they felt something in front of them and slapped it away. It was unknown if the elders perished or were thrown out of the tomb by the traps. Yun Jhin gritted his teeth as he fell to the bottom of the dark jade platform. These fools would doom them all! Zhu Cheng thrust his arm inside the soul only for his whole being to age immediately and die only his clothes remained. The twin''s eyes widened in horror as they wanted to run away but the dark dragon''s eyes opened, the gaze alone paralyzed the twins, the man''s incomplete body moved a little but he didn''t leave the sarcophagus, the twins were absorbed as well... as for the others as they weren''t here they might as well have died at the hands of Zhu Cheng and the twins. Yun Jhin''s eyes widened as the man''s gaze turned from the downed people to his form at the bottom of the platform. His body didn''t have a high purity of blood and his bloodline also wasn''t close to the dark dragons but he could feel his body slowly escaping from his control as he scaled the platform, he stood in front of the dark dragon as his hand went ahead to caress Yun Jhin''s cheek. Yun Jhin knew the moment the hand touched his cheek he would become a bunch of ash that would disappear just like the Emperor and the others! Yun Jhin''s eyes widened in horror as the hand was centimeters away from his cheek when suddenly... Chapter 92: Little dragon The dark dragon''s hand was almost upon Yun Jhin''s cheek, he could feel the same sensation that he always felt when he was near death, and he didn''t like it one bit. He gritted his teeth as his eyes started to shine, out of his spatial bag a little dragon popped out and went through the dark dragon''s incomplete body. This surprised the dark dragon and his concentration upon Yun Jhin''s body faltered, Yun Jhin took a few steps behind making some distance between them as he smiled. The little dragon looked around with curiosity on his small face when suddenly on his body a bunch of runic formations started to appear, the formations were strange to the point that the dark dragon didn''t understand what they meant, his eyes narrowed as he looked at Yun Jhin and said: "Think you can refine my soul with this failed artificial dragon?" Yun Jhin gave out a small smile as he did a few hand seals, the dark dragon''s eyes widened as he looked at the little dragon where a suction force appeared, Yun Jhin told him slowly: "I''m not intending to absorb your soul, you already went ahead to the soul composition form and if I absorbed you into my soul palace you would be able to beat my soul out of it and take control of my body, do you think I''m dumb? I have a better proposition for you." Yun Jhin''s aura changed heavily as a rain of blood appeared behind him, the dark dragon''s eyes widened as he shouted: "Yun Jhin of the Blood Throne sect? You finally reincarnated again? And onto my planet?" Yun Jhin''s cultivation technique preceded him, while the duo of dragon brothers was born Yun Jhin was on his death bed, however his reputation was extremely resounding through the whole universe and the brothers were wary of his history of capturing universal wonders so they must have investigated him by a lot. The dark dragon''s soul was slowly getting absorbed by the formation on the little dragon, the dark dragon tried to struggle out of it but he felt weak for some reason, Yun Jhin looked down on him and said: "Feeling weak aren''t we?" Instead of asking why he was feeling weak the dark dragon tried to control the soul murking formation to attack Yun Jhin but he felt that his connection was quickly slipping away from it from some unknown reason, Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked at the robe of the Emperor which was halfway from the top of the platform and did a quick bow to it then pointed at it: "You should thank your descendant for that, even though you managed to absorb him he used his last vestiges of soul power to cut the connection of your soul with the formation when he tried to escape, I gave him some of my memories when he tried to scan my soul back then along with my former identity, he bet the future of his Empire on me!" The dark dragon''s eyes widened as only his head remained as the rest of his body was getting sucked into the little dragon''s body, he suddenly realized what the formation on the little dragon''s body was for and he shouted: "No, no, no, I don''t want to be reborn this way, into such a body, such a weak body...!" Yun Jhin chuckled as the head disappeared, suddenly the little dragon''s closed eyes turned crimson as his whole body became a deep black color, his bloodline was getting enchanted multiple times to the point his body almost enlarged and exploded, he gained a gender along with the soul as he became a living being and not a weapon anymore. The little dragon gave out a small roar as he launched himself at Yun Jhin while cursing: "You damn mother*****, I didn''t want such a trashy body, Yun Jhin from the Blood Throne sect, let''s see what you got in this life you piece of ****." The dragon had quite a mouth on him, Yun Jhin couldn''t absorb or fight his soul or else there was a chance for him to hijack his body, but he could easily protect himself from his soul attacks if his soul was bound to a body, which wasn''t his, after all, his soul willpower and energy got locked to the body''s cultivation base as it became fragmented, he wasn''t even as 20% as strong as when he was just a soul! Yun Jhin watched as the little dragon launched himself at him only for him to easily grab him by the tail and smash him into the dark jade below him, the little dragon spurted a mouthful of blood as he cursed Yun Jhin with the same fervor as before while trying to escape. However the little dragon''s body was modified personally by Yun Jhin so he could easily control it, the dark dragon would need some time of adjusting and working through his internal organs before Yun Jhin''s control over his body would disappear. Yun Jhin shook his head as he grasped the little dragon by the skull and told him: "Luo Shang you should behave yourself, you got a body and revived isn''t this what you wanted?" Luo Shang immediately spits in his face which Yun Jhin easily dodged and said: "**** your mother you piece of ****" Yun Jhin was quite speechless, did the years of being into suspended animation turn this man into an idiot who could only swear? Yun Jhin shook his head as he imprinted some memories into Luo Shang''s new brain, the memories came quite fast to him but after he understood them he looked at Yun Jhin with strange eyes as he said: "True eternal life? Aren''t your goals a bit too lofty? I only wanted to revive because I wanted to continue my life as I reincarnated, I also want to get equal with that ***** Bumi Ming, *ptuui* what a brother." The little dragon spat on the ground the moment he mentioned his brother, technically speaking they were brothers only on the surface, they weren''t blood-related they were only born around the same time. Luo Shang started a tirade: "That damn trash, he thought that I was the one poisoned but he was! What justice, what benevolence, we live in a world of cultivators, those things can be eaten by the dogs and no one would miss them, I wish I would have my hands on his firm and soft neck so I could..." It seemed the years of being alone made the man quite a chatterbox, the little dragon''s body was at the 1st stage of the King Realm so Yun Jhin could easily defeat him as he had the same means of a peak God Realm expert like him, both he and Yun Jhin were at the peak when it came to battle power so one level difference meant a lot to experts such as them. Yun Jhin patted Luo Shang''s head and mocked him: "Did the big baby lose his bottle?" Luo Shang stomach growled at the same time, he looked quite embarrassed as he scratched his head, Yun Jhin never fed the baby dragon because he didn''t need it, however now that it went through so many transformations he needed to absorb some energy to fully change his body. Yun Jhin gave him a small smile as he took out some herbs from his spatial ring and waved them in front of his face, Luo Shang jumped up to take them only to be thrown back on the dark jade below him headfirst. Yun Jhin shook his head as he grabbed the golden sword that was the only thing left from the twin''s bodies and put it in his spatial ring, the little dragon got up from the ground and glared at Yun Jhin only for Yun Jhin to return the glare and say: "What can I do with you now, the Empire is Emperorless and you are useless and greedy, they also lost two high leveled God Realm experts, the Bumi Empire might attack any time now." Yun Jhin was still too weak and he couldn''t make any use of the little dragon, he could wait for him to grow but that meant if he grew too much he would be doomed as well, however, considering that he was his senior and he had quite the trouble to break through due to not having enough resources the same could be said about him as well, he was 3 stages above him and this wasn''t something that could be overcome overnight. Luo Shang wanted to curse Yun Jhin again but Yun Jhin''s face turned serious as he told him: "You had enough time to acclimatize to your new body right? Stop acting and tell me if you have anything to say for yourself." The dark dragon''s face scrunched up as he eyed Yun Jhin and told him: "We can make use of the soul murking formation to defend ourselves if we are attacked by that damn trash descendants, it innately repels anyone that has his bloodline, you don''t have to worry, also there are some special things left in the treasury of the Empire, getting them would be a huge problem though, I''m sure I left a puppet there that''s around the 9th stage of the God Realm and it wouldn''t be able to recognize me anymore as I''m you know..." Yun Jhin shook his head, even getting in the treasury would be a problem, reaching its depths would be out of the question, the Empress must have realized by now that her husband was dead and she would immediately go to take his power in her hands, the Emperor had no children as he refused to mate with someone who didn''t have a pure draconic bloodline as his. The Empress had many children but they were all puppets in her hands, the Emperor would never appoint them as a crown prince, Yun Jhin didn''t know much about the Empress, all he knew was fragmented information that he gathered by listening around the gossip of the capital. Yun Jhin sighed as Luo Shang jumped on his shoulder and glared at him: "Since you have such a lofty dream dear senior Yun Jhin, let me help you a little bit with it." There wasn''t much fanfare between trades of those at the God Realm, Luo Shang innately understood why Yun Jhin left him alive so he immediately sent his cultivation technique in Yun Jhin''s soul via a soul link. Yun Jhin eyes narrowed as he looked through the cultivation technique, even though his cultivation techniques were useful they weren''t meant for his current draconic body so he could exhibit around 70% of his usual cultivation speed, it was faster than most other cultivators but it was too slow for him. He needed a high-quality cultivation technique that rivaled his current one that also agreed with his body and Luo Shang sent him what he needed without asking for anything in return! Luo Shang fidgeted his body as his stomach growled again and asked: "Could I have that herb now?" Yun Jhin threw him the herb before he started to go towards the exit, Luo Shang sighed as he looked behind him at the sarcophagus, he knew he couldn''t fully control the formation anymore as his cultivation base was too low, he would need to be at the Emperor realm to be able to open and close the formation and he knew that there weren''t enough resources left after the continuous pillaging of his descendants, Yun Jhin was there with him too so he knew it was impossible to cultivate alone without any impediments. So he didn''t say anything as Yun Jhin left the tomb while contemplating the cultivation technique he gave him. He didn''t give him a fake or broken one, after all, those at their standing could innately see through such things, Luo Shang wanted to fully cooperate with him. Yun Jhin looked at Luo Shang from time to time and shook his head because he pulled him into the little dragon''s body he wasn''t technically pure-blooded enough for him to trigger the system, so he couldn''t use him to fuel the needed dragon part of his next evolution. He sighed as he could feel the darkness disappearing, he was outside the tomb, but all he could see in front of him was one lone old man with a hunched back who was giving out strange smile as he saw Yun Jhin and Luo Shang, he opened his mouth and said: "Your highness, it seems it''s true, your husband died indeed, however, two rats survived isn''t it interesting?" A peal of hearty laughter was heard but no one was visible, the voice then turned deeply cold as it said: "Let''s see what they have to say for themselves eunuch Simbad." The eunuch squinted his eyes as he suddenly appeared in front of Yun Jhin and grabbed him by the neck while lifting him into the air, his other hand grasped Luo Shang tightly then he bowed to the air: "Your highness, please appear and lead your judgment on these two sinners who planned the death of our dear Emperor!" Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed as he saw the figure of a woman appear suddenly, it was the Empress and it looked like both him and Luo Shang were in trouble. But this was something he expected to happen, after all, they were the only survivors, they needed some scapegoats to pacify their citizens. The Empress wasn''t ugly nor beautiful, she was simple and plain looking but her face was quite malevolent looking and it looked like she was a deep schemer, she gave the eunuch a side glance which meant that he could drop both of them. Yun Jhin grasped his neck as he took in air and his ki resumed its circulation in his body, the Empress''s foot landed on his head as she asked: "Tell me what you know you peasant..." Luo Shang wanted to laugh but the Empress''s other leg landed upon his head as well as she said: "I didn''t forget you, I know you aren''t a simple artificial dragon, I feel some fear by sensing your aura, what are you?" This time the Empress''s eyes turned scary as she watched Luo Shang she became interested into him, she wondered what would happen if she dissected him, being interesting in front of the Empress wasn''t a good thing. Luo Shang wanted to struggle and curse her but one glance from Yun Jhin shut him up, he knew he had to let Yun Jhin do the talking, as he was born at the God Realm he didn''t have much social etiquette and didn''t know what to say, he always said what came to his mind and he was vulgar and like a barbarian at the same time. Yun Jhin opened his mouth and said with a deferential tone that showed that he was trying to kiss her ass: "This dear majesty you see we didn''t do anything bad, might you let these lowly ones tell their side of the story before we are annihilated below your mighty feet?" The Empress gave out a hearty chuckled as she took her foot from Yun Jhin''s head and said: "I like this one, actually I want him to be my new toy." Yun Jhin started sweating while Luo Shang gloated inside, then the next words made him pale: "As for this other one, send him to the underground torture room and do whatever is necessary to take all of the information out of him, then throw his carcass to the mutated Icy Toxic Scorpions to feast on." It seemed that both of them wouldn''t have a good end if Yun Jhin didn''t come up with a good story that the Empress would like. Chapter 93: Trickery Yun Jhin didn''t dare to look up at the Empress so he sat there kneeling and waiting for the Empress to permit him to talk, the Empress looked at him and the little dragon for a few seconds before she said: "Come on tell me, what happened to my husband?" It seemed she wasn''t that interested, on the surface but the words that Yun Jhin would say would determine his future. The little dragon Luo Shang didn''t say anything as he thought that he might break things further if he opened his mouth, even though he didn''t have much social EQ that didn''t mean he didn''t know when to talk or not. Yun Jhin started to tell her about the events in the tomb while leaving out a few important subjects that would make him an even bigger target, the Empress''s eyes narrowed as she said: "My husband died due to the formation of the tomb? That''s what you tell me?" Yun Jhin nodded his head repeatedly while making himself look as small as possible in her eyes, the Empress didn''t feel he was lying, unfortunately for her she wasn''t a peak God Realm expert so she couldn''t go through their memories, only her husband was the sole peak God expert and now he was dead. The Empress caressed Yun Jhin''s cheek as she made him look deep into her eyes, Yun Jhin face turned slack as he gazed into her eyes and she gave out a big smile as she asked: "Have you said the truth?" Yun Jhin nodded his head while keeping the slack expression on his face, the little dragon was inwardly giving a big thumbs up at his acting ability, the Empress took her eyes off Yun Jhin only to gaze directly at the little dragon, the little dragon''s heart almost jumped out of his chest as the Empress appeared in front of him and grasped his skull while she said: "Now let''s see what you are, why do I have a feeling your bloodline suppresses mine? This shouldn''t be possible at all..." The little dragon coughed wanting to get Yun Jhin''s help, Yun Jhin seemingly broke through the Empress''s spell and meekly told her: "He is my companion that followed me since I was in the lower continents, please spare him, only with his help I have achieved what I have today." The Empress''s eyes narrowed, could this youth have such a stroke of great luck, the eunuch that now stood behind her didn''t say anything as he eyed both the little dragon and Yun Jhin then he told his empress: "Your majesty, we should pardon them, after all, with the lowly cultivation bases they have they wouldn''t have been able to save his majesty anyways, they are lucky they are alive, they must have likely scuttled around when the fight began and hid thus saving themselves, they might be cowards but least they survived and got the news back to us, you know that we must protect the news from leaking out our the Bumi Empire might attack without notice if they get wind of happened here." The Empress grip on Luo Shang''s skull softened as she dropped him to the ground, Luo Shang was cursing her inwardly so hard that even the most perverted fellows would want to take notes from his colorful vocabulary. The Empress moved a little bit backward as she said: "Even though they have got us the news, their cowardice should be punished, don''t you say Simbad?" Simbad looked at the imploring faces of the duo and said coldly: "Your majesty, you should administer the punishment, however, I recommend you to keep them alive, after all, they must have gotten somethings that they assimilated from the tomb, they are also young geniuses of the Empire and the Emperor would have surely left them alive as well if something similar happened." The Empress gritted her teeth when the Emperor was mentioned but then her face straightened as she said: "Ok then, you two will have to infiltrate the Bumi Empire and make sure to send back news whenever you would see something suspicious happening, now go immediately!" The Empress disappeared along with the Eunuch, but before she did, she left two tracing formations on their bodies to make sure they wouldn''t run away or try to trick her any other way, fortunately, the tracking formations couldn''t read their thoughts or hear their words. After going back to the Zhu Family and sending the news to the head of the house who was almost livid in anger they went back for a little rest in Yun Jhin''s room. The head of the house lost his strongest elders today and his anger was through the roof, fortunately, the other houses also lost some of their strong elders and it counterbalanced what happened, he didn''t know about the Emperor''s death but he was informed of the fact that Yun Jhin had to go to the Bumi Empire undercover and he just let it be since it was an order from the imperial family. Yun Jhin checked his equipment before making sure that everything was alright and leaving, the little dragon was lazily sitting on his bed but if you would observe closely you could see that he was cultivating even while staying around. Yun Jhin could do the same now because of the cultivation technique from Luo Shang, it was a special passive cultivation state that one could induce oneself in, only those of the four sacred beasts had such a cultivation technique and today''s descendants didn''t have it as it was lost in time. The little dragon jumped on Yun Jhin''s shoulder after Yun Jhin finished checking everything and he said: "That piece of trash Empress will be the first one I will assimilate after I break through the God Realm." Yun Jhin shook his head if they didn''t get any fortuitous encounters any soon, breaking through the god realm will be a huge endeavor, after all, they weren''t even in the late stages of the King Realm! Yun Jhin and the little dragon left the capital of the Luo Empire behind as they started their journey towards the Bumi Empire even though they didn''t want to, the Empress would realize they disobeyed once they removed the formations on their bodies and they didn''t want to be wanted fugitives of the Luo Empire. The Bumi Empire sat inside the biggest jungle on the Azure Dragon planet, it was quite far away from the Luo Empire but stood on the same piece of land, only the Sumo Empire was a huge distance away as you would need to use a teleportation formation to move between the Luo and Sumo Empires. The Bumi Empire wasn''t hard to get to as it was an open Empire just like the Luo one, as long as you were strong enough you would be welcomed to join both Empires. Yun Jhin and Luo Shang took around 2 months of traveling at their quickest speeds to reach the Bumi Empire in the jungle, around them stood tall trees that were around the height of 90 to 100 meters. The Bumi Empire was hidden deep in the jungle, Yun Jhin had to kill quite a few beasts along to get to the Bumi Empire but fortunately, they weren''t attacked by any cultivator along the way, that was until they reached the borders of the empire and met with a scout team which coincidently found them, the scout team wasn''t that strong but they let out a flare with their techniques which alerted the nearby city. Yun Jhin and Luo Shang then had to hide after they killed the scouting team and make sure they avoided any type of open areas, fortunately, they didn''t know how they looked nor how their auras were so they could change their appearance to look like natives of the Bumi Empire and make their way to the capital. It took them around one more month before they reached the capital disguised as youths who wanted to open a business in the capital with their meager savings, Luo Shang changed himself into a dark-haired youth with a big smile on his plain face, he wore clothes similar to Yun Jhin''s but instead of the five elements look which Yun Jhin had he only wore dark ones. They easily slipped into the capital with their identifies and opened up an antique identifying shop, this type of shop would be able to work with both information and they could also make some money on the side, there was also the chance they could truly find some good antiques that they could scam out of their customers. Yun Jhin was smoking a tobacco pipe as he waited at the door of his new shop, Luo Shang was inside cleaning the floor and the receiving desk. While Yun Jhin waited a dirty looking youth quickly made it''s way to Yun Jhin and asked: "This brother, is this a antiques identifying shop? Might I be able to inquire if my badge has anything of value so I could sell it?" The youth took a badge out of his dirty clothes with shaking hands, Yun Jhin took a quick closer look at it and shook his head as h said: "No value, get out of my face!" The youth left with his head down and his stomach grumbling, he was both hungry and disappointed as he disappeared in an alleyway of the capital. The capital of the Bumi Empire was as boisterous as the Luo Empire''s capital, however, Yun Jhin opened his shop on the outer edges of the capital to not attract bad attention. Yun Jhin continued to smoke his pipe as he waited for another customer, the sign on the front of the shop also said that it dealt with information and gossip, they wanted to use the poor people of the outer edges of the capital to get information in exchange of food and spirit stones, which Yun Jhin wasn''t lacking. Yun Jhin watched people move along in front of his shop as he waited for another customer... The same youth from before came quickly as he said: "I have some information for you." Yun Jhin''s eyes shined as he looked at the dirty youth and said: "What type?" The youth scratched the back of his head as he said: "Important." Yun Jhin nodded and invited him to the inside of his establishment and closed the doors behind him. Hopefully, the youth wasn''t trying to scam Yun Jhin or he wouldn''t leave the building alive. Chapter 94: Information Yun Jhin invited the youth in, the inside of the shop was quite clean and neat compared to the worn-out outside, this was the handy work of Luo Shang who was still cleaning around using his ki. The youth eyes widened as he saw Luo Shang''s application of ki to cleaning, and knew that the duo was way stronger than him. Yun Jhin motioned for the youth to stay on an empty seat as he asked: "What information do you have?" The youth knew that the man in front of him wasn''t that kind as he was looking on the surface, surviving on the outer edges of the capital toughened him and made him able to scan the feelings of those around him. Yun Jhin could naturally make him unable to know what he felt but decided to let his feelings in the open to intimidate him. The youth opened his dry lips and said: "You see I heard about this while I was out umm ''patrolling'' the middle regions of the city." "There is a chance the Bumi Empire might go to war soon!" Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed inside, this was quite blunt and fast, were there traitors in the Luo Empire? Well, it wasn''t very surprising, even if 99% of them were loyal to the Emperor, now that he was dead the traitors could instigate the others to overthrow the Empress. But how did they realize the Emperor was dead? That was a question that he couldn''t answer as he didn''t know much about the inner workings of the capital, but he guessed that a Eunuch or someone from the inside of the palace sold them out, however, there was a chance the Bumi Empire was just testing out the waters. Yun Jhin tried to probe the youth more: "War? There hasn''t been a war for tens of thousands of years from what I know, how come there will be war now?" The youth eyes started sparkling as he thought he may fill his belly with this type of information and continued to spout what he heard: "Well mister, I heard it from a guy who wore a military uniform so there is a high chance the information is true!" Yun Jhin frowned, then he grasped the youth in front of him with his left arm lifting him into the air, his eyes peered into the youth''s and they turned slack as his memories were forcefully taken out of his mind. Yun Jhin frowned as the youth''s body dropped to the ground then transformed into ashes, Luo Shang frowned as he blew the ashes away and said: "You could have done this in the back where I haven''t had time to clean yet, now I have to clean here again." Yun Jhin ignored his words and said: "There is a high chance the Bumi Empire is testing the waters against the Luo Empire, they might know about the history behind your tomb." Luo Shang frowned as he said: "The only one who knows about the tomb would be that old fool, Bumi Ming, himself, there is a chance he left some information to his descendants..." Luo Shang had an angered expression on his face when he mentioned Bumi Ming, it seemed he wasn''t that happy about the past with his brother. Yun Jhin knew that this information was vital and directly sent it back to the Empress via a communication stone. The Empress stood on the throne of the Emperor as she lazed around with closed eyes, she looked like a kitten who was relaxing after it ate to its satisfaction. The Empress opened her eyes and looked in front of her as she watched a Eunuch appear in front of her, he was short with a small beard on his face, he was almost bald with only random spots of hair on his head and he had liver spots on his face. He wore the normal Eunuch robes and he bowed deeply to the Empress as he said: "News from the spies sent to the Bumi Empire." The Empress waved her hand as the stone which appeared in the Eunuch''s hands directly appeared in her hand and the words came out of the stone: "Extremely high chance of the Bumi Empire testing the waters of our Empire very soon, they might try to instigate a war where the Emperor will have to come out, there is a chance they know of the properties of the tomb." The message wasn''t that long, it had the needed information, the Empress frowned as she tightened her grip on the communication stone but she didn''t break it as she spoke into it for a short while before she threw it at the Eunuch who disappeared quickly from the room. The Empress looked at the painting of the former Emperor which was hanged on the wall behind her and sighed: "Husband, you have left this little wife with a lot of problems after your passing." She snapped her fingers and the painting turned into dust and disappeared leaving an empty spot on the wall. She walked through the wall as if nothing was there and disappeared leaving the throne room empty. Yun Jhin ears perked up as he looked at the communication stone in his hands which started to glow a deep red, meaning there was a message being sent back: "Sabotage the troops below the Emperor realm and come back to the Luo Empire, your punishment could be said to be done, after all, you have done such a great service to our Empire while pushing yourselves and putting your lives on the line behind enemy lines." The message ended. Yun Jhin faces turned scary as he heard the first part of the message while Luo Shang who was behind him also looked pretty grim, sabotaging a camp full of King Realm experts would be very easy but if they did this in the capital they would be easily spotted and killed by the countless experts, Yun Jhin could even feel that there were peak sage realm experts in the outer ranges of the capital and this wasn''t good! They must be from the 10th ranked house in the capital, the house which Zula was from, it seemed they didn''t get annihilated, it must have been because of the temporary help of the Sumo Emperor but their wealth should have been surely plundered. Remembering the incident with Zula gave Yun Jhin some ideas, they could join the King Realm fighting force as impostors and then kill them from the inside when they were moving towards the location where they wanted to start the war. Yun Jhin transmitted the plan to Luo Shang and Luo Shang just went along with it, there wasn''t much he could do as Yun Jhin was keeping him on empty without any herbs or pills that could increase his cultivation, his strength was currently around the 4th stage of the King Realm because he couldn''t break through to the 2nd stage of the King Realm due to the lack of resources. Yun Jhin made some headway in the 4th stage nearing the 8th stage of refinement with hard work and the last remaining ingredients in his spatial ring, right now he only had spirit stones remaining in his spatial equipment which weren''t that useful to cultivation, they also weren''t many enough for him to buy other resources. Yun Jhin disappeared along with Luo Shang as the building behind them restored itself to the looks it had before they arrived. Yun Jhin and Luo Shang then went to the middle of the capital and looked around trying to find two targets that were part of the King Realm war camp so they could kill them and take over their identities. It didn''t take much time to find two fellows who were just coming out of a restaurant, they were both quite drunk after they indulged themselves in a lot of spiritual wine. The duo walked slowly as they took a corner and entered an alleyway, both Yun Jhin and Luo Shang were already waiting in the alleyway under Yun Jhin''s stealth technique. The duo started to talk: "Man, I really can''t believe we were conscripted, I was ready to have some fun with my fiancee when the recruiter entered my house and stepped on my balls!" The other man looked at the other one as if he was an idiot and didn''t try to talk with him, suddenly they both grasped their necks as they saw both Yun Jhin and Luo Shang appearing in front of them, and this was the last sight they saw. Yun Jhin and Luo Shang absorbed their ki signatures and mimicked their life force then their bodies morphed into theirs slowly. Yun Jhin was now a bald young man with thick eyebrows who wore the normal militaristic uniform of the Bumi Empire, which consisted of a brown leather armor that shined a little bit under the sun. Luo Shang was now a long-haired middle-aged man who had his hair done in a ponytail, he had streaks of white hair around his temples and he had a sage-like air around him, he wore the same outfit as Yun Jhin, both of them absorbed their memories and knew that their names were respectively, Shung Saishen and Ling Mammon. Yun Jhin cracked his neck when he heard Luo Shang complaining behind him: "Why did you give me the role of the guy who got his balls stepped on? I don''t like it!" Yun Jhin ignored him like usual and decided to follow Shung Saishen memories to walk directly to the camp of the King Realm experts and meld with the others, Luo Shang naturally followed behind him while sometimes complaining or cursing, just like Ling Mammon would. Both of them were very good actors. It didn''t take much time to get to the war camp and there they met with the recruiter which was a female Emperor Realm expert, the recruiter gave out a warm smile at both of them as he patted their back forcefully which made them almost face plant on the ground. The recruiter then said: "You two lazy bugs are quite late, it won''t be much time before we leave the capital and you still didn''t even meet your companions, you need to forge a good bond with them before heading out to war so you could use the formation the army gives you more proficiently!" Both Luo Shang and Yun Jhin got up from the grounds and saluted, the recruiter then pointed to the many barracks around as he shouted: "Everyone, let''s practice the formation again as there are two newbies who took too much time to come!" There were a lot of groans coming from the barracks but they didn''t complain as a lot of people came out of them, there were around 50,000 to 75,000 at first glance. Yun Jhin sweated as he watched everyone glare at him and Luo Shang but he gave out a weak smile as he waved his hand: "Let''s all do our best for the future of the Bumi Empire." Then he pumped his fist in the air enthusiastically, even though he looked like a hooligan those who knew him, knew that this was his usual personality, vibrant and ready to give his all for the Bumi Empire. The others got influenced by his personality so they started to pump their fists in the air and shouted: "For the Bumi Empire!!!" Yun Jhin smiled inwardly, he was already making his infiltration successful, Luo Shang gave out a small bow to the recruiter and said in a whisper: "Might you be able to step on my balls again later?" The recruiter blushed brightly for a few seconds before she punched Luo Shang into the ground again and left in a hurry. Luo Shang got himself out of the hole on the ground while bleeding from the head and his eyes, he cursed inwardly as he had to play the role of a pervert, he couldn''t help it, he had to follow the memories that he devoured as some people knew him in the crowd of practitioners. Yun Jhin and Luo Shang then went ahead to practice the formation with the others, Yun Jhin and Luo Shang both had great smiles on their faces, the crowd thought their smiles came from different reasons, one Yun Jhin being able to serve his Empire and two Luo Shang getting beaten by the cute recruiter. However, both of them smiled because they found openings in the formation that they could exploit to kill all of them during the time they would be traveling. The recruiter came back and now she looked fairly normal as she said while jabbing a finger in her chest proudly: "There are some new from the higher-ups, it was intended for all of you to go by yourselves to the war zone but I will have to follow you, for now, I''m don''t have the details but you guys will enjoy the protection of a 2nd stage Emperor Realm expert!" Yun Jhin and Luo Shang frowned inwardly, this would complicate things quite a bit... Chapter 95: Brother Both Yun Jhin and Luo Shang complied with the instructions of the female recruiter which was named Yui Yanchen. It didn''t take them much time to fully exploit the formation and learn all of its blind spots, after all, there wasn''t such a thing as a perfect formation. And both of them were old monsters who had seen countless formations in their lives, even though they weren''t people that dabbled into formations, Yun Jhin had a lot of experience under his belt due to the number of reincarnations he went through and Luo Shang just had the critical eye of a former peak God Realm expert that let him see through all the weakness of a formation below the godly level. Yun Jhin and Luo Shang were given the same room as they were the last ones to arrive at the camp, Yun Jhin silently transmitted his thoughts to Luo Shang so even if someone tried to intercept their telepathy session they wouldn''t be able to hear anything: "Luo Shang, there is one way we can kill that woman, but it will be hard considering she should be able to fly and create ki weapons, I have a formation here that we can use in tandem with theirs to absorb all of the ki in the surroundings to boost our battle power to the point we can kill her together, afterward killing the others should be a piece of cake." Luo Shang eyes widened as he felt the information coming to his brain, he then gave out a small smile as he transmitted back: "Aren''t you devious? I see why everyone in the mortal realm hated you back then to the point that they wanted to search for you even on your deathbed, ah such beautiful stories my brother used to tell me..." At the mention of his brother his muscles tightened as veins appeared over his face, his eyes turned a deep scarlet but this transformation reverted rather quickly, he looked around and took a deep breath as he said: "Sorry for the outburst, but being near his descendants combined with this horrid smell, I can feel his bloodline everywhere and I cannot control myself while we are alone." Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he meditated ignoring him, as long as he controlled himself while he was with others he didn''t care what he did or said, he was his superior in battle power and he couldn''t do anything about it. Yun Jhin left his guard open but Luo Shang knew that if he tried to even more a little bit forward to loop his head off from his shoulders he would find himself in an extremely precarious position. He couldn''t help it, he was his underling right now and he was a former peak God Realm expert, he hated himself for falling into his trap even though he was the former peak overlord of the dark faction, the lord of the Blood Throne! By the time he was born Yun Jhin was dying so he didn''t see his cruelty and power with his eyes, he heard countless stories about him but he thought that they were inflated to make him look scarier. Yun Jhin''s left eye opened as he looked at Luo Shang who was contemplating and told him in a bone-chilling tone that left shivers down his spine: "Don''t mistake my kindness for weakness Luo Shang, I only let you live because you are useful, you already gave me your cultivation technique, you might have more information that could be useful for me but I could end you right now, do you understand?" Cold sweat dripped from Luo Shang''s forehead, his life flashed past his eyes as he looked directly on Yun Jhin''s opened eye, he could feel an innate fear from his soul, this was the fear one had from a stronger creature! This didn''t have anything to do with bloodline or physical power, Yun Jhin''s experience from his thousands of lifetime condensed into an aura that could paralyze those that were below his cultivation base for a few brief seconds, experience combined with cultivation created a monster that could intimidate others just by looking at them! Luo Shang didn''t go through the usual problems of those that were born normally, he was a prized son of the heavens as he was born at the God Realm and easily advanced through levels while he grew, he was one of those people that Yun Jhin envied the most in some of his previous lives, he still hated these type of beings, he slaughtered them every time he could see them, he drank their blood and ate their flesh as if it was the best delicacy, he spat onto their dead faces as they were favored by the universe which hated him! Yun Jhin closed his left eye and went back to meditation, he needed to prepare himself for the fight that would come and he needed to be at full power to deal with someone so far ahead of him in cultivation. Yun Jhin and Luo Shang left their barracks as soon as they heard the voice of the recruiter, they were then trained for a few more days before they were going to the war zone. Along the way, they went through plains and a few cities, finally, they reached a forest where Yun Jhin felt that they could use the formation to it''s fullest potential. He stopped for a few seconds and the recruiter asked him what was the problem Yun Jhin motioned with his hand for her to get closer and she did, suddenly runic formations appeared around Yun Jhin and Luo Shang, those runic formations combined with the whole formation of the King Realm experts and took ahold of its power as the ki that was in the surroundings started to fill both Yun Jhin and Luo Shang. Luo Shang breathing went rough as he broke through the 2nd stage and almost to the 3rd stage of the King Realm, Yun Jhin ignored him, the breakthroughs would affect his foundation as they were done with inferior ki, however, he still kept an eye out if he tried to do something fishy. Yui Yanchen knew something was up with these two the moment they stopped, the other King Realm experts tried to see what was happening but their knees went numb with weakness as they could feel that their ki was sapped, their physical forms were crumbling as they fell to their knees and couldn''t move. Yui Yanchen''s eyes widened in surprise as she looked around and suddenly both Yun Jhin and Luo Shang disappeared! She watched as her whole unit of King Realm experts disappeared in her face, their bodies just ceased to exist like they were gobbled up by a gigantic beast, Yun Jhin body almost expanded as he ate so many King Realm experts along with their souls, he could feel his soul mending itself at quick speeds as it reached 10% of his former capabilities then stopped there as his cultivation was hindering it from growing further. He would need time to digest all of the bodies but if he did well he would be able to break through the 5th stage of the King Realm and refine his next jewel for quite a bit, this wasn''t taking into account that he would eat the Emperor Realm expert as well! Yui Yanchen immediately created a ki sword and went ahead to slice and kill both Yun Jhin and Luo Shang, however, their speed was tremendous even making her flinch, but she could follow them with her eyes and if her eyes faltered she had other senses! Her ki sword started to rotate at a high speed as she threw one and created another trying to pin them under it and then deal them the finishing blow. Yun Jhin could dodge the swords but Luo Shang didn''t have as much experience and he was still digesting the changes done to his new body. Sword slashed on his body and blood fell to the ground slowing him, Yun Jhin watched along and Luo Shang cursed at him: "Protect me you piece of shit!" Yun Jhin gave him a small smile and decided to give him a helping hand in this situation, he still had his uses. Yun Jhin disappeared and appeared above the woman''s head only to have his crotch grazed by the ki sword, he almost lost his little brother there! Yun Jhin''s body unconsciously started to emit cold sweat as he watched her actions with narrowed eyes, he needed to predict where she would launch her swords and then lop off her head and eat her soul! Yun Jhin fell quickly to the ground as lightning fell from his hands towards the woman, however, the woman absorbed the lightning with her ki sword which turned it into a deep purple, the sword absorbed Yun Jhin''s lightning and increased it''s speed as it narrowly grazed his cheek drawing out blood. Yun Jhin put a finger on his cheek and the wound disappeared afterward, then his went limp as his eyes glazed over. The sword from Yui Yanchen was centimeters away from decapitating him but he suddenly cocked his head to the side making it miss by a centimeter. Yui Yanchen''s eyes widened in horror as she looked down at her stomach, she could feel Yun Jhin''s hand going through it and clenching her innards, she wanted to scream, she wanted to do anything but if Yun Jhin moved even a millimeter her innards would explode and kill her instantly! She knew she failed but she wanted to live, she wanted to! All living beings had the innate instinct of living, no one wanted to die a premature death, especially cultivators who pursued the oh so elusive eternal life. She wanted to say anything to stop Yun Jhin''s actions, but before Yun Jhin could kill her Luo Shang appeared behind her and decapitated her using his hand as a sword! Yun Jhin lifeless gaze turned over her body and it slowly disappeared, just like all of the other bodies of the King Realm experts he was absorbing her using the first innate skill of his crown''s jewel, her soul shuddered and tried to escape away from him but it was fruitless, Yun Jhin''s soul was gigantic even though wounded and not fully whole it was a soul of a titan! Such a soul grabbed the small soul of Yui Yanchen and slowly took it to his transparent mouth, then a crunch could be heard as her head was eaten, then along with the rest of the body, Yui Yanchen died and lost all hopes of reincarnation. Yun Jhin''s soul body glowed and the glow remained on it, he could use the energy from her soul to mend his incomplete soul more but for that he would have to first increase his cultivation base, in the King Realm he could at most gain 15% of his former soul powers. Yun Jhin eyes turned back to Luo Shang and there was the same feeling of oppression he felt from before, suddenly his hand went directly to his cheek as he was slapped, he flew for a few meters hitting trees along the way and Yun Jhin said: "Who told you, you could give her the finishing blow?" Luo Shang vomited a mouthful of blood and teeth as he got up from the ground and jumped back to Yun Jhin''s location, his eyes were full of hatred and puzzlement, why would Yun Jhin care about who gave out the final blow? Yun Jhin saw that his eyes were questioning his actions so he decided to be nice for once and explained to him: "You mustn''t have killed many people when you had your former body right?" Luo Shang nodded his head Yun Jhin gave him a pitying look as if he was looking at a wounded animal, Luo Shang didn''t like that gaze at all, his eyes turned red as his muscles inflated, his form turned back to his normal one as he shouted: "THAT GAZE, THAT GAZE!!! WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE MY BROTHER!" Yun Jhin gave a swift kick to his head which made him faceplant into the ground, a gigantic crater 20 meters in diameter appeared as Luo Shang almost went unconscious, Yun Jhin grabbed him by the hair and made him look right into his eyes as he said: "Dealing the finishing blow on a cultivator steals their destiny, do you understand me? As a fellow former peak God Realm expert you should understand what I mean..." Destiny, the thing that one needed the most when one cultivated, luck was only secondary or even tertiary, the most important thing would be destiny, even with a weak body it could be improved to a certain extent if you had destiny on your side, Yun Jhin was cultivating a technique that could steal the destiny of those he killed and absorbed, but for him to fully absorb someone''s destiny he would have to be the one who dealt the final blow. The fortuned constitutions weren''t anything but an immense accumulation of destiny on the person, it was a blessing of the universe, the same could be said about the fortuned cultivation beats, regardless if it was man or beast, being blessed with a fortuned constitution meant the universe dotted on you as it''s darling! Technically speaking it was impossible to gain the fortuned constitution by killing those that had it, it was also impossible for one to kill billions or trillions of people and absorb their destiny to gain it, Yun Jhin tried, but he was stopped by the righteous forces, he couldn''t go on a mass killing spree as mortals and the lower cultivators were the cornerstones of future cultivators. However that didn''t stop him from creating this technique and going on a killing spree, even though in the end he was repelled and wounded in the process he gained quite a lot of destiny, that''s why everything went alright for him regardless of what he did, combined with his intellect and sharp wits nothing could go wrong for him. His immense destiny that he robbed in his countless reincarnations was currently brewing in his soul keeping him safe from harm, however, if he went directly in the harm''s way he could still die, destiny just made sure he would be able to implement his plans. Yun Jhin sighed as Luo Shang calmed himself, the man was very temperamental and the hatred for his brother ran deep, after all, it was the man which sealed him. Yun Jhin left him to drop to the ground as he looked around, he felt that something wasn''t right, the ground below them started to crack as it fell, Yun Jhin tried to grab Luo Shang and leave but he felt a suction force coming down from the ground. Luo Shang was almost unconscious from the kick to the head but his eyes widened in anger and hatred as he looked down at the cracked ground that was trying to absorb them: "YOU PIECE OF SHIT? WHAT DID YOU LEAVE HERE?" It seemed unknowingly both Yun Jhin and Luo Shang had wandered to the place of the tomb where the Yin dragon of light rested, Bumi Ming! Chapter 96: Perilous situation Falling into the ground was something that Yun Jhin had experienced quite a lot of time previously but this time it was a situation that made even him furrow his brows in worry. Yun Jhin could feel himself being absorbed by the ground as if it was quicksand and he could also feel that his connection to the surrounding ki was swiftly being cut off by a formation! Luo Shang was saying some muffled curses as they both fell to the underground and became paralyzed. Yun Jhin could feel his lungs contracting as his oxygen supply was cut off by something, he wasn''t sure what maybe it was the formation as well? Fortunately, his body was refined to a high degree so he didn''t need much oxygen, Luo Shang''s body was also created from a puppet dragon that didn''t need oxygen as well, even though the puppet gained some organs after Luo Shang inhibited it, he could discard them if he wished to and continue living. Yun Jhin gritted his teeth as he could feel the surrounding gravity pushing down on him, he didn''t know where they were supposed to be but Luo Shang shouted something about his brother leaving something behind. Yun Jhin crawled slowly towards him and slapped his chest, Luo Shang glared at Yun Jhin and sent him an explanation via his soul willpower: "I''m not sure where we are but I can feel the surroundings being infested by that fool''s aura, all I can tell you is that we are in his territory!" Luo Shang wasn''t sure if his brother took the same actions as he did to keep a piece of his soul to resurrect but it was most unlikely considering the changes he went through after he was poisoned by that human expert. Yun Jhin''s body finally acclimated to the surrounding environment and slowly got up from the ground, he and Luo Shang were now both running on their inner ki and they couldn''t recover it from their surroundings anymore. However, Yun Jhin had a huge surplus of energy after he ate those 50 to 70 thousand King Realm experts along with the Emperor realm woman and he could use it to recover, however, he didn''t know what kind of dangers were inside this underground place so he decided to break through first. He did a few hand seals and Luo Shang became limp as a noodle as he fell to the ground paralyzed, he just acclimated himself to the environment as well and he got up from the ground only to fall again due to Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin sat cross-legged on the ground as he put his attention on his soul''s crown. Muffled screams could be heard from Luo Shang as he cursed all Yun Jhin''s ancestors. Yun Jhin started to use the surplus of energy inside of him to create his next jewel, the law of death that was memorized in his soul left it and transformed into the character for death, it was brown and it flowed smoothly through Yun Jhin''s inner soul space. Yun Jhin took the death character and started hammering it with his soul willpower to the point that it liquified then he used his inner soul flame to harden it, after that he slowly but surely transformed it into a shining jewel after the jewel was finished he inscribed the character for death on it. The jewel was bedazzling to the eye but it was so cold that you would think it came from an iceberg, if anyone else besides Yun Jhin would hold it, they would surely become ice statues. Yun Jhin''s soul willpower easily picked the death jewel and slowly pushed it into the 5th empty slot on his soul crown. A dark light engulfed his soul crown as the jewel easily inserted itself in the slot after Yun Jhin pushed it near. Yun Jhin''s physical eyes suddenly opened as they glowed with a dark light, his whole body was going through transformations along with his ki, his ki was gaining a cold dark attribute that would freeze both the souls and bodies of his enemies. His body was also hardening akin to undead but his life force remained the same, he wasn''t transforming into an undead nor into a living undead but he was gaining the qualities of one, at least his outer body did. Yun Jhin decided against refining his new jewel as he needed the remaining surplus of energy to continue running through his body and replace any ki he lost. Yun Jhin got up from the ground and looked at Luo Shang who was also finishing cultivating, even though he was angry that Yun Jhin tied him up like this he also understood that Yun Jhin didn''t trust him at all, so he decided to finish his breakthroughs so they wouldn''t give him any hidden sequelae. Yun Jhin did a few more hand seals and Luo Shang could finally move again. Luo Shang didn''t comment again as he followed Yun Jhin, their surroundings were cold, damp, and dark, Yun Jhin tried to illuminate them but the formation that surrounded them immediately stopped the outside ki, Yun Jhin realized that he could only use his ki to strengthen his body in a fight and wouldn''t be able to shoot it outside of his body, however it was enough for him. Luo Shang cursed his brother viciously under his breath as he looked around, he wasn''t familiar with his brother''s formations anymore as they all changed their forms after he was poisoned. Yun Jhin also didn''t understand the intricacy of the formation, even though he was a connoisseur of the art that didn''t mean he knew every formation in existence, after all, the righteous sects out there wouldn''t let him get his hands on their formations and from what it seemed Bumi Ming''s formation was an orthodox sect formation that Yun Jhin wasn''t familiar with at all! Yun Jhin sighed as he walked in the front and Luo Shang in the back, after a certain while of walking they finally reached a wall that they couldn''t move, they were blocked and Yun Jhin could feel that his surroundings were getting smaller and smaller! They walked into a trap! Yun Jhin''s eye started glowing as he infused them with his ki and he looked around to see if there was any weak spot in the formation so they could escape from their predicament. Luo Shang didn''t know much about formations so he would only attack the spot Yun Jhin would attack to help him. Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he looked around and then shook his head while saying: "I can''t believe I say this but this is a flawless formation, I''m not sure if we can escape from here." Luo Shang gritted his teeth, he just revived and he was going to die again? This wasn''t what he wanted! At least he would be able to reincarnate now. Luo Shang sighed as he accepted his fate but Yun Jhin couldn''t, if he died now he would die forever! Yun Jhin looked at Luo Shang and an idea came to mind, maybe the formation would react to Luo Shang''s blood? Yun Jhin easily got in front of him as he slashed his arm open making blood to drop freely from it, Luo Shang glared at Yun Jhin but then his eyes widened in surprise as he could feel that their surroundings weren''t closing in anymore, actually he could see light coming from the ceiling! Yun Jhin looked around and saw that they were in a similar place to the tomb of Luo Shang, however, there were no inscriptions to the walls nor any treasures around, it was eerily empty. Suddenly they were teleported away from the corridor that they were in into an open room, there wasn''t anything in the room beside a light wisp that sat on a small throne, the wisp stood there as an aged voice could be heard coming from it: "Brother, it seems your plan has gone well..." Luo Shang''s eyes widened both in anger and surprise as he shouted: "YOU, YOU, HOW DID YOU SURVIVE!" The voice could be heard chuckling as it said sadly: "I only survived to this day so I could stop you from reviving, after all, you are pure evil!" Then the voice changed, it didn''t have hatred in it, nor any other emotion besides being cold, hard, and judging. Yun Jhin could understand something from their conversation and chuckle inside, it seemed that Luo Shang was right, the poison didn''t affect him much but it affected Bumi Ming a lot, such type of judging attitude couldn''t be born in a dragon, dragon''s were pure and emotional creatures, there was no way a dragon could lose his emotions by normal means, even in their death beds they would sigh with emotions and think about their past. Luo Shang shouted to him: "YOU DON''T SEE THAT YOU WERE THE ONE MOST AFFECTED BY THE POISON, WAKE UP BROTHER!" Yun Jhin clobbered him on the head making him shut up, the light wisp moved a bit as the aged voice stated, still emotionless: "And who is this, Luo Shang?" Luo Shang hated Yun Jhin but he hated Bumi Ming even more so he kept his mouth shut and didn''t say anything. Yun Jhin looked at the light wisp and a small smile appeared on his face as he said: "My name is Yun Jhin, your highness might have heard of my exploits, even though I would have been dead by the time you heard of me." The light wisp started to turn a blue color as it said: "You are... you are even worse than the devils and demons! So many lives lost, so much hatred, Yun Jhin!" Yun Jhin''s reputation preceded him again, in this situation it put him tightly on the spot, he could feel his surroundings tightening again as his body was crushed under the invisible pressure, the voice stated in an emotionless voice: "Your crimes are way worse than my little brother''s, I shall execute you first!" Yun Jhin''s eyes widened in fear as he took two steps backward but his back hit an invisible barrier to separated him from Luo Shang, Luo Shang tried to break the barrier but his fist remained bloodied as he hit it a few times. Yun Jhin clutched his throat as he could feel someone grabbing it, an image of an old man appeared, he was like a twig, his complexion was dry as the dessert and his beard hit the ground, he wore nothing but white robes that had the character for judgment on them inscribed countless times over, seemingly as if someone possessed him to write these characters on the robes. Yun Jhin clawed at the hand that was grabbing his throat but he could feel his consciousness slipping away, he could see the man''s other hand making a chopping motion as he was ready to decapitate Yun Jhin! Yun Jhin''s eyes glowed for a brief moment before his head flew into the air and a pool of blood started to gather onto the ground. Luo Shang fell onto the ground as he looked at the grisly sight in front of him, he wasn''t scared because of what happened to Yun Jhin, but what will happen to him! Luo Shang back was full of sweat as he said: "Brother let''s not be hasty, after all, we are brothers, I didn''t even do that many evil things, could you please pardon me?" The old man shook his head slowly as he took a few more steps forward, however, something changed, his transparent face scrunched up as he looked down at the ground. Yun Jhin''s blood pool dropped through the formation that surrounded him and transformed into a hexagonal formation on the ground which trapped him inside just like he did to the two of them! A voice could be heard into Luo Shang''s head that forced him to move: "Throw your heart blood into the formation!" As if he was possessed Luo Shang split his chest open and made a small opening on his heart, then he threw the blood through the formation that was surrounding him and it went unobstructed! The drops of blood flew down onto the hexagonal formation and it started to glow with an ominous light. Bumi Ming''s face started to morph from terror as he looked down at the formation and finally deciphered its use! Bumi Ming tried his best to struggle out of the formation but the heart blood from Luo Shang activated itself as it entered his body, weakening him making him unable to escape for a few seconds. And that was all Yun Jhin needed. Chapter 97: Fall Bumi Ming wanted to scream but he couldn''t, he could feel his strength being sapped by the formation, Yun Jhin''s headless body moved as he took his head back and fixed it on his body, his eyes glowed with a dark green color as he could feel his leaving soul returning to his body. Luo Shang just sat there with his chest open, flabbergasted at what was currently happening around him, after a short while his chest started to recover itself slowly as it mended to close. Yun Jhin put his hand over his neck and the deep cut on it slowly healed, Bumi Mings figure was starting to slowly disappear as his quintessence was used to heal Yun Jhin''s injuries, the formation below him was created the moment Yun Jhin realized that he wanted to cut his head, when his eyes glowed he was creating a formation in his body using his blood cells. Once his headless body would fall down his blood cells would activate the formation that has been inscribed into them and automatically create the hexagonal shape onto the ground to trap Bumi Ming inside it. However he needed a catalyst to bind Bumi Ming to the formation as he could easily leave it if he wanted to, so he used the leftover formations in Luo Shang''s body to make him throw away some of his heart blood into the formation, his peculiarly strong bloodline that invaded the little dragon''s bloodline once his soul entered in it was extremely helpful against Bumi Ming. They were brothers but also opposites so they could counter each other. Yun Jhin''s neck made strange cracking sounds as it moved around as if it didn''t have bones anymore, Bumi Ming eyes trembled as darkness started to cloud his vision and he asked slowly: "How?" Yun Jhin looked him up and down and said: "Aren''t you a pitiful thing, accusing your brother of something you have already gone through, absolute justice is the worst thing that could have poisoned your soul you fool!" Bumi Ming didn''t understand anything that Yun Jhin said, after all, he was a believer of absolute justice after his soul was altered with so he was just thinking that Yun Jhin was talking jibberish to him so he would die unknowingly. The fact stood here, the only reason Yun Jhin was even able to fool the soul was that the fragment of Bumi Ming''s soul was even smaller than what Luo Shang had, unlike Luo Shang who used his descendants to fuel his soul recovery, Bumi Ming used an even more exquisite formation to freeze his soul piece inside of it. However, that meant the soul piece couldn''t recover even though it would deteriorate slower with time, Bumi Ming''s soul piece was slowly deteriorating and if it was left alone it would crumble along with the formation 10,000 years later. Yun Jhin bathed inside Bumi Ming''s remaining energy as the formation around them started to crumble, his neck injury finally sealed itself as Bumi MIng''s soul shadow started to turn dim and almost disappear, he took one last look at Luo Shang and said with his last breath as revelation appeared on his face: "Maybe I was wrong, you were always a pure child, was I the one influenced?" The soul shadow slowly started to disappear and Luo Shang watched it go with indifferent eyes, his hatred for him wouldn''t be abated because his last vestige of life died in front of him, after all, he almost went insane while he was sealed into the tomb for so many years, all alone, only meeting someone when his descendants entered the tomb, and those people he had to absorb to boot! Yun Jhin started to inspect the room they were in as he took control of the last remaining vestiges of the formation''s energy using his soul willpower. Luo Shang sat there as his chest was slowly closing and his wounds healing, however, his loss of heart blood would put him back from cultivating for quite a while unless he found something that could replace the heart blood he lost. Yun Jhin took a look at the throne that Bumi Ming sat on and slowly walked towards it, he winced as he felt phantom pain from his neck, even though his body didn''t die immediately after he was decapitated if he was later even a few seconds in putting his head back he would be now visiting buddha again. Yun Jhin trailed his fingers on the surface of the throne as he muttered something under his breath, the throne split itself in two as a shining cultivation manual could be found under it, Yun Jhin wanted to laugh but his neck couldn''t let him right now, he grabbed the cultivation manual from the ground and took a better look at it. The cultivation manual was hastily written and the handwriting could be even considered ugly but Yun Jhin was savoring its contents with gusto, it was the Yin half of Luo Shang''s cultivation technique, Bumi Ming and Luo Shang weren''t blood brothers but they were born around the same time by the universe, even though they didn''t share blood, in their younger days they shared everything else, even the cultivation technique. After the duo split up so did their cultivation technique, since they weren''t harmonious with each other anymore, their cultivation started to fail so they had to cut the part that was basically ''poison'' to them and leave only the things they could use. However Yun Jhin didn''t have the same problem as them and he could cultivate both, his ideologies could change however he wanted, his countless experiences made him able to change what he thought or felt like he was a robot who could install different emotion apps on his interface. Yun Jhin started to cultivate both of the techniques as he used the last remaining energy from the formation as a catalyst. Yun Jhin''s main body started to change as his humanoid form reverted itself to his dragon caterpillar form. His horns grew longer and changed color into one white and one black, his form shrunk to around 2 meters in length and 2 meters in height, his weight reduced to 300 kilograms. His eyes also become heterochromatic just like his dragon horns. The same happened to his wings, he looked just like a Ying Yang pin now, Yun Jhin''s eyes pinned themselves to Luo Shang as he said: "Tell me what else you can do for me before I annihilate you right now." Luo Shang tried to scramble away from Yun Jhin but his chest injury opened as blood started to quickly drip from it, if he moved further his chest could open again and his organs would slip from his body if his soul was left into the open Yun Jhin could capture it and seal it into something else now. The cultivation techniques from the brothers were changing his whole being, soul included, even though he wasn''t supposed to be able to mend his soul further due to the lack of his cultivation base, due to the balanced state his cultivation base achieved from training in both of the Yin and Yang techniques, he reached a state where his soul had recovered almost 20% of its former might. Now if he tortured then stabilized Luo Shang''s soul for a while, he would be able to absorb it whole without a problem! Luo Shang opened his mouth and vomited dark blood as he fell to his knees, his head hitting the cold stone floor below them while he said: "Please don''t kill me, I have information on the other planets that you could use, I know that your base was quite far away from the four symbols galaxy, you don''t have all of the information needed and I could also be your henchman, I can even swear onto my bloodline!" Luo Shang knew that if Yun Jhin got a hold of his soul after he absorbed his brother''s he would be a goner, he wouldn''t be able to escape and reincarnate, even though he didn''t want to die, he would kill himself if he would be able to reincarnate, however, that wasn''t possible with Yun Jhin monitoring himself 24/7, and if he swore onto his bloodline he wouldn''t be able to do much besides serving Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin looked at Luo Shang and reverted to his human form, his human form became a young man looking to be around 24 years old with the same features as his caterpillar form, which meant his hair was both white and black along with his eyes, however, he didn''t have horns and his physique remained the same, standing almost at 2 meters tall with a build that maximized both speed and strength, not too bulky nor too skinny. His clothes were the same, the ones he forged for the 4 danger zones training, he looked down at them and realized that he should change them as his cultivation base kind of exhausted their use, he needed to get some crafting ingredients to create some better clothes, as for his katana he would be able to reforge it using his laws to increase its treasure grade. Yun Jhin hand motioned to Luo Shang''s downed body as it suddenly floated towards him, Luo Shang kept himself in the kneeling position as he swore: "I swear under my bloodline to never disobey an order from my master Yun Jhin!" Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked at him and patted his head, inserting some Ying-Yang energy into his body which accelerated his healing process, even though he was an evil overlord in his previous life, he knew when to reward his henchmen or else they might riot against him, of course, he didn''t have to reward his death guards as they would all do what he wanted regardless if he rewarded them or not, but he was in a good mood right now. Yun Jhin looked at Luo Shang as he got up from the floor and patted his head, he already had some thoughts on how he could use him. Swearing onto one''s bloodline was a thing that cultivation beasts wouldn''t do unless they had no other alternative, some of them would also rather die than swear onto their bloodline, however that also depended if they fought someone who could absorb souls like Yun Jhin. If one went ahead and broke the swear made upon their bloodline, their bloodline would activate itself and swallow their soul-making them unable to reincarnate forever! Yun Jhin realized that there wasn''t anything else left in Bumi Ming''s tomb so it was time to leave, however, there was only one exit and he wasn''t sure where it leads and after he used it the tomb would implode thus alerting the Bumi Empire''s people. Yun Jhin sighed as he disappeared from the room along with Luo Shang. He just hoped the exit would be in the same place they entered, or at least not in the vicinity of the Bumi Empire. Yun Jhin and Luo Shang both found themselves in an unknown plain, they have never been here before but they could hear shouts going around them along with the thick smell of blood, the dying cries of the unlucky soldiers who fell due to friendly fire, or the fact that they walked to centimeters to the right and their heads were exposed to the firepower of the enemies ki attacks. They were both on a battlefield! Yun Jhin quickly dived towards the ground and looked towards both sides while using his stealth technique, fortunately, two more people appearing in the midst of the fight didn''t alarm anyone as their appearance didn''t come with any flashes of light or any peculiar sounds. Yun Jhin then realized that most of the fighters were at the Emperor Realm or above, with very few being under the Emperor realm and standing at the King Realm. He looked towards his left and realized that this was a fight between the Bumi and Luo Empire as he recognized the military badges of both sides. It seemed his luck was quite good as the tomb''s formation gave him an exit directly to the intended war zone. The unlucky thing was the fact that a giant fiery ki hammer was thrown his way to kill the people that were jumping and shouting around him. He was in the midst of the Bumi Empire forces so that meant that if he was hit by the ki hammer he would die due to friendly fire. Yun Jhin grabbed Luo Shang and narrowly dodged the ki hammer while he ran towards the camp of the Luo Empire, he was sure they would recognize him even though his facial features changed a bit, at least he could call the Empress and avoid a misunderstanding. Yun Jhin sighed as he dodged the attacks from both sides masterfully, from time to time some attacks would narrowly touch his vitals and Luo Shang almost lost his limbs one time, but Yun Jhin''s movement techniques improved by a huge deal after he cultivated the combined techniques of the dragon brothers. For now, he would even be able to fight an Emperor realm expert head-on and make him run, even though his cultivation base didn''t increase by much as he was still a 5th stage King Realm with only 1 stage of the refinery, he could use the battlefield to gain enough ki to increase his refinery stage, however, he would first need to identify himself with one of the upper echelons or else there was the chance he might be mistaken for a spy. Finally, after narrowly dodging death blows from both sides he finally reached the camp of the Luo Empire, he could already feel some auras that sat at the Sage Realm patrolling around the camp, they were the back up meant to take action if the enemies came with their own Sage Realm experts. Yun Jhin slowly made his way towards the camp and dropped his stealth, it was time to join another war so he could consolidate his cultivation base and increase it! Chapter 98: Rejected Yun Jhin and Luo Shang were easily spotted by the patroling Sage Realm expert and they were almost annihilated on the spot since they were looking quite suspicious, however, Yun Jhin dropped his guard and shouted: "We are agents of her majesty and we just came back from an important mission." The elderly sage realm expert stopped his finger attack that almost penetrated Yun Jhin''s forehead, he attacked him first because his aura was stronger. The sage realm expert opened his mouth and said: "Then call the Empress and verify your claims." Yun Jhin took a communication stone out of his spatial equipment and then talked a little bit into it, afterward, the Empress''s voice came out it: "Suichi let them be, they have done a great job in their assassination mission, they are the reason we are winning the current war so easily." The elder Suichi bowed towards the communication stone and then eyed both Yun Jhin and Luo Shang for a bit before he said: "What are your orders, your majesty?" The voice of the Empress came again out of the stone and told the elder: "Let them rest at the camp for some time before sending them back to the Empire, they already have done their jobs and the upcoming battlefields aren''t for youths like them." Suichi bowed again as the communication stone turned silent and Yun Jhin put it back into his storage equipment. Suichi invited them to the biggest tent in the camp and let them rest there, afterward he left the tent to continue his patrol duty while also keeping an eye on the battlefield for any Sage Realm enemies. Yun Jhin sighed as he sat on the bed and Luo Shang looked at him with a questioning gaze, even though he was his death sworn now that didn''t mean he lost his reasoning. Yun Jhin decided to enlighten him on the problem: "The Empress immediately declined my request to participate in the war, I''m not sure why but it seems she knows something..." Yun Jhin eyes widened in understanding as he looked inwards in his organs he could see the small formation that the Empress implanted in them to make sure they would do their jobs, at first glance the formation only looked to be monitoring their position and it was cut off when they were in the tomb, however, this was only one of the reasons the Empress wanted Yun Jhin back in the Empire. Yun Jhin''s spiritual eyes started to glow with their heterochromatic color, one white one black as he looked further into the formation, at first glance he still found nothing but if he focused hard enough to the point his soul started to heat up he could see very small runes inside the compound runes that formed the formation. This was a special type of formation into a formation! After he saw the runes his heart started beating faster as he realized what their use was, it was meant to view his body changes, if he would ever make a breakthrough or anything else would have changed his body the Empress would know! That meant she knew that he gained something from this mission that she gave him, along with the fact that they disappeared from her senses for a few hours meant she must have guessed what happened to them, the fact that they were alive made her hungry for whatever good fortune they acquired. Yun Jhin grabbed Luo Shang and hit 4 of his chest acupoints three times each, in a strange rhythm, after he finished Luo Shang spurted a mouthful of blood as the formation was forcefully extracted from his body, Yun Jhin clenched the formation orb into his hand as it broke and did the same thing on his body. Soonly afterward the Sage Realm expert came back to see what they were doing and seeing that they were still resting he narrowed his eyes and left the building, after he was a good distance away from it he responded to the Empress''s call on his communication stone: "Yes your majesty they didn''t run away, might I inquire what offense they did?" The Empress''s silky voice came out of the communication stone responding to his question: "No, if they are still there let them rest for a few days before sending them away, make sure to send one early Sage Realm person from the camp to escort them to the capital, they are very important youths of our empire and their safety is the second most important priority besides the war!" The sage realm expert Suichi nodded then closed the communication stone when all the sounds ceased to appear from it. Yun Jhin grimaced as he looked at Luo Shang and said: "We will have to play along with the Empress now, we will need to at least give her something that would look like it came from your brother, I gained some of his memories after I absorbed that part of his soul but they are incomplete due to the heavy corrupted and broken state his soul shard was in, I need some of your memories to make it up for it!" Luo Shang immediately kneeled in front of Yun Jhin and left himself defenseless as Yun Jhin inserted his hand directly through his skull! It seemed like Luo Shang was a phantasm as Yun Jhin phased his hand through his skull as if nothing was there, suddenly blue wisps of energy started to leave Luo Shang''s head before they traveled along Yun Jhin''s arms to his head, then the wisps returned to Luo Shang, however, before they were jumping around while looking full of vitality, now they were weaker and almost withered. Even though Luo Shang easily gave up his memories for Yun Jhin, because of the lack of their cultivation base the party that gave up their memories will have to suffer some injuries to their soul''s quintessence, fortunately for Luo Shang, his soul was quite strong even though he was missing in cultivation base so he would be able to heal from the damage quite easy as long as he got enough souls to feed on. Yun Jhin nodded his head as he fully gained Luo Shang''s memories and sorted through them, he gained quite a few cultivation techniques that he discarded, the main cultivation technique was already in his hands and he didn''t have anything else that he needed, but they would be useful to fool the Empress. Yun Jhin then made a small compilation of the fragmented memories of Bumi Ming and inserted some of the parts from Luo Shang''s memories inside to fill the gaps along with the cultivation techniques and then he fragmented the technique that he learned from the manual and put some hints in the memories here and there. Yun Jhin sighed as he opened his eyes and looked at Suichi who was staying in front of him with an unkind gaze on his face that said ''You have to go.'', it seemed the time for rest passed quite quickly while he created those fake memories. Suichi immediately threw them out of the camp along with a relatively younger Sage Realm expert, younger didn''t mean he was that young, he just wasn''t an old fart like Suichi, he was still middle-aged looking and his true age couldn''t be discerned by his looks. The middle-aged Sage Realm expert didn''t say anything as he took the lead and strung the two behind him while he quickly flew towards the Empire. With the speed of a Sage Realm expert, they arrived at the Empire in half a month and they were thrown beside the Empress''s feet in ten seconds after they reached the capital. The Empress sat high on her throne as she looked down at the duo which was apprehended and thrown to her by one of her weaker Sage Realm experts. She waved her hand indicating for the eunuchs as well as the middle-aged sage realm expert to leave the room. She slowly got down from the throne as she swayed her hips while walking towards the downed Yun Jhin and Luo Shang. Her fair hand moved slowly towards Yun Jhin as she grasped his hand and picked him up while looking at him. Yun Jhin''s body was paralyzed the moment he entered the throne room and he couldn''t do anything, he could only look into her eyes which were smiling at him. Her hand inched closer to his cheek as she touched it, her face got closer and closer to his as she whispered into his ear: "It seems your gains weren''t small." She licked her lips as her hand traveled from his cheek to his head and she pressed her finger into his forehead forcefully, a small hole opened there as her finger continued to travel into his skull piercing his brain. The moment his brain was pierced the fake memory compilation he created burst forward as they entered into the Empress''s finger and traveled to her own brain. The Empress started to breathe roughly as the information entered her brain and soul, her quick hot breaths turned into mist as her expression changed and the smile on her face turned into a crazed expression. She started laughing as Yun Jhin fell the ground with a hole in his forehead, she clutched her head as dark and white energy started to circulate her before she coughed a mouthful of blood and almost collapsed to the ground, her eyes turned bloodshot as she looked down at Yun Jhin and frowned while muttering: "I took his memories so they aren''t wrong, it really seems he only got a fragmented technique from Bumi Ming''s soul fragment!" She sighed as her temperament changed back to normal and the blood she coughed disappeared into red mist, she looked down at Yun Jhin''s body and her eyes narrowed as she still felt life force coming from it, wasn''t he a tenacious little bastard? However, since he came back and didn''t try to run away she decided to let him live, she waved her sleeves and returned to her throne as she said to the air: "Get him to the jade dragon pool and throw him in there, as for the other, let him wait outside the room for his friend since I didn''t injure him he doesn''t need to use the jade dragon pool." The eunuch which was waiting outside the throne room for instructions immediately appeared inside with his head kept down as to not sully the Empress''s appearance with his eyes, he grabbed both Yun Jhin and Luo Shang like they were little chicks and disappeared from the room. The Empress almost collapsed on her throne as she grabbed her chest and took out a small pill from her spatial ring that she immediately ate. She stopped clutching her heart as she looked down at her shaking hands and said: "Forcefully cultivating the broken technique did a number on my body, I will need to retreat the warriors from war and barricade the whole capital with its ancestral formation... it seems we will have to give up a lot of territories, damn you husband!" Even though it was her fault for forcefully cultivating the technique she was still mad at her late husband for dying inside the tombs, even though she didn''t love him very much, he was still the pillar that kept the Empire from imploding, once the news of his death spread a bit more widely the Bumi Empire won''t even need to lift a hand before the top house''s ancestors would try to dethrone and kill her. All she could do now was hope that they would die in closed-door cultivation and not break through to the peak of the God Realm. She could also try to assassinate them but their cultivation abodes would surely be protected by some strong formations, coupled with the fact that she was injured internally now all she could do was pray and wait... The Empress''s body disappeared from the throne while the throne room turned silent and empty once more. Yun Jhin''s naked body got up as he felt the pure jade-colored energy infiltrating his soul and body, the injury on his forehead was faked and it closed already without any scar left behind, however, he decided to make a fake scar appeared to deceive the Empress the next time she saw him, after all, it would be strange if the forceful removal of memories from a God Realm expert wouldn''t even leave an unhealing scar behind. Yun Jhin dived down in the pool of energy as he made way towards the bottom where he sat cross-legged and started to do some breathing exercises, he was conscious during the whole time the Empress talked so he knew that this pool of energy was quite important to the imperial family, he didn''t need to know anything else as he started to greedily absorb the energy of the pool. Giving her fake memories while injuring her as well for some special and rare energy that would make him breakthrough one or maybe more times was quite the bargain! Chapter 99: Forging The jade dragon pool was a special recuperative item of the Empire, Yun Jhin was sure that both Empires had this type of jade dragon pool and their quality must vary on their location, but from what he theorized and saw, The jade dragon pool of the Luo Empire was a little bit better! Yun Jhin''s naked body was fully absorbing the surrounding energy from the jade dragon pool which was clear to the point that if one looked from above they would be able to see Yun Jhin''s figure neatly seated cross-legged at the bottom of the pool. It was so clear that it was fully transparent, Yun Jhin''s breathing pattern changed from time to time as his chest expanded and returned to its initial size a few times. The 5th gem inside of him was quickly taking high-quality energy from the pool and was getting refined by Yun Jhin''s deployed cultivation methods. The jade dragon pool was around 5 meters tall and it was full when Yun Jhin entered it but now the quantity of the pool was getting lower by the minute. Yun Jhin''s body was like a sponge that could absorb endless energy. As the energy in the pool was getting absorbed Yun Jhin''s jewel refinery stage started increasing, 3rd stage, 5th stage it jumped directly to the 9th and peak stage of refinery! Yun Jhin breathed out a bunch of impurities as he looked down at his hands while he sat cross-legged in the pool, he could feel that his strength increased by a high deal but there was still a lot of energy in the pool left that he could use. It was time for another breakthrough! Yun Jhin could now choose between space and time laws to insert them into one of his jewels, space was easier to grasp at right now, as the time law would require him to be a little bit stronger, so that meant it was reserved for the 7th stage of the King Realm. Yun Jhin''s soul slowly unveiled beside his body as a small hole appeared in it and out of the hole came an arrow, the arrow was translucent with the same color as his soul, on it there were inscriptions of spatial language along with a few sparkling wisps of space energy. Yun Jhin took the arrow and melded it the same way he did with the character for death, only this time it was a little bit easier compared to the death character, death was above space but since he had the Ying-Yang jewel he could learn death earlier, combined with the fact that he had the laws memorized from his previous lives made him able to get the death jewel first. While he was transforming the arrow into a jewel, his body started to flicker in, and out of view seems as if there was an intense battle in it, conquering the space law wasn''t easy but with his experience, he could easily negate all of the negative effects. His body stabilized shortly without even the need of using energy from the jade dragon pool. However, while stabilizing his body didn''t take energy, creating the new jewel took energy, and the jade dragon pool energy was slowly getting exhausted by Yun Jhin, the higher the level of cultivation the more energy was needed, it was the law of equivalent exchange that not even God Realm experts would be able to ignore, they could learn and master it to gain a higher rate of energy conversion but they still couldn''t do something without using energy no matter how little the energy is given back. The arrow was finally melded into a jewel and inserted into his crown, it made a whooshing sound as it entered the empty slot and Yun Jhin could feel his body adapting extremely quickly to the surrounding space around him, he cleaved his hand forward for a little bit and a small pocket space appeared in front of him, with this new ability he could now throw away the need of spatial rings or any type of spatial equipment. This was only one of the abilities of the space jewel and it was also a secondary effect without much impact overall the main law. The jade dragon pool energy started to get lower and lower as Yun Jhin started to refine his 6th jewel, after he refined it to the 9th stage he realized that he was not submerged in the water-like energy anymore, his head was above the water and there was a small amount of water below his waist. He could also feel that his body adapted too much to the energy and it couldn''t be of much use to him anymore, he might be able to use it to heal any future injuries but for cultivation, the effects would be null, however, the amount of water energy wouldn''t be able to help him create his next jewel, he would need an enormous amount of energy to gather the time law and meld it into a jewel, after all, the time law was absolute and Yun Jhin could only learn a fragment of it, however even that fragment would make him able to fight Emperor Realm experts around the 2nd to 3rd stage easily, right now he might be able to fight the first Stage Emperor Realm experts and kill them if he used a forbidden technique. However, even though he wouldn''t be able to kill them he would still be able to escape and fight it out with them evenly. Yun Jhin looked at the remaining energy inside the pool and felt pity to leave it here for the uses of others, there was still quite a bit of energy inside the remaining water that he could use for something else. He stretched his whole body as he made some exercises and jumped out of the pool, he then clenched his arms as he used his ki to take all of the water from the pool. The water was now levitating one meter above Yun Jhin as he started to do some hand seals and his inner ki flame appeared, even though all he had with him were spirit stones he could use them for what he wanted to do next. The inner ki flame rushed below the water as it started burning brightly, more hand seals from Yun Jhin created a formation between the fire and the water that started to engulf the water only leaving a small opening at the top, the formation took the form of a bright red cauldron that was becoming even redder from the inner ki flame heating it. Yun Jhin breathed in and out as he took all of the remaining spirit stones from his spatial zone and threw all of them into the cauldron. He waved his hands left and right as a lid made out of formation characters appeared and sealed the cauldron. The cauldron slowly started rotating as there were sloshing sounds coming out of it from time to time. Yun Jhin''s face took an expression of total concentration as he closed his eyes and continued to do hand seals to control the spins of the cauldron. After a few hours, the cauldron''s lid opened as Yun Jhin poured out a bunch of hardened energy that had the texture and hardness of cold dragon iron but was also flexible to not hinder movement. Yun Jhin sighed as he cleared the sweat from his forehead and dismantled the cauldron to transform the formation into an anvil, he was ready to create some new clothes and a weapon for himself! With his left-hand hammering using a formation hammer, with his right hand controlling his inner flame ki, breathing in and out simultaneously, the iron-like substance on the anvil started to take form! In a short time of 5 days, Yun Jhin created a whole outfit, a dark yellow jacket with white pants along with black combat boots, there was also a black sash that he would tie around his waist. He sighed as he donned on his new clothes and looked at the remaining iron-like substance, it could be used to create one weapon, the quantity already shrank when he tempered it and fused it in the cauldron so he didn''t have much of it left. Yun Jhin sighed as he rested for a bit as he needed to use his full concentration to create these clothes, they were quite special as they would be able to fend off one attack from a God Realm expert below the 9th stage, they could also regenerate themselves as long as they weren''t destroyed fully and the effect of fending off one attack from a God Realm expert could repeat itself after 500 hours passed since the last attack, it was a life-saving treasure that even God Realm experts would have coveted, the clothes could also change their looks based on what the wearer wanted but Yun Jhin liked the current outfit and there wasn''t a chance he would change it any time soon. Yun Jhin started to change his forging technique as it was time to forge a weapon, however before he started he took a thoughtful expression as he started to ponder which type of weapon could bring out his full potential. The katana was a good weapon but it wasn''t his favorite type of weapon, all types of swords were good for him but he didn''t feel like they were unleashing their full potential in his hands. Yun Jhin started to search in his memories to see if he ever encountered a weapon that he connected with and after a short while of searching his eyes lighted up, it was an unusual weapon even among God Realm experts as most would use the sword, very few the cudgel and only one or two would delve into obscure weapons. A halberd! This type of weapon was almost extinct even during Yun Jhin''s former reincarnations lives, people always loved swords and sword fighting to the point that other weapons were getting shadowed and forgotten, very few weapons fighting techniques survived and only the sword remained supreme, however, Yun Jhin was a master of all weapons due to his former reincarnations always trying something different. Yun Jhin sighed as he went to work using the remaining water to create the halberd, it didn''t take him much time to create the body of the weapon which was around 1.6 meters with an ax blade topped with a spike mounted at the top of the body, with a hook at the back of the ax blade. The halberd was a deep red color and it glowed after Yun Jhin finished it, Yun Jhin slashed his finger open and dripped a few drops of blood onto it before it started to cool down at a fast rate. Yun Jhin picked up the halberd which was a little bit smaller than he was in height and did a few practice frontal slashes with it, he could feel as if the halberd was one with his body, the shape, the weight, they all felt natural in his hands. Yun Jhin stored the halberd in his new spacial zone and decided it was time to leave the room he was in. He could easily spot a door a few meters away from the pool and even though it was closed Yun Jhin knew that it wasn''t locked. Yun Jhin made his way to the door but before he could open it, it opened itself! An old man slowly made his way into the pool room and looked around before he spotted Yun Jhin''s now conscious and the empty jade dragon pool behind him. The old man was the same person which threw Yun Jhin into the pool, he looked between Yun Jhin and the pool a few times before he sighed and said: "It seems your soul injury was quite deep if you exhausted the whole jade dragon pool, but it matters not as the Empress didn''t say anything if you emptied the pool or not." "The Empress didn''t give any more instructions about you and your friend so you are free to go for now." The old man shook his head as he left the room leaving the door open, Yun Jhin followed him outside the room and found himself to be in a long and wide corridor, Luo Shang was meditating near the door and immediately woke up from his meditation after he stepped out of the room since the old man disappeared he went onto one knee and said: "You are back master." Yun Jhin waved his hand and made him get up this wasn''t the time for bootlicking. Since they were technically free Yun Jhin decided it was time to get the hell out of the capital for the time being, who knew when the Empress decided she wanted to take a bath in the jade dragon pool to heal her injuries and found out it was empty and that she had to wait for a few years before it refilled itself? It took Yun Jhin almost 4 months of closed-door cultivation to finish the whole pool and a lot of things changed at that time. For one he could see the whole capital being engulfed by a giant formation and also the fact that quite a lot of people of the Bumi Empire were banging on the formation wanting to storm in. It seemed he wouldn''t be able to get out of the capital even if he wanted to in this situation. Chapter 100: Betrayal Yun Jhin had a headache due to his current situation, with things going on like this the Luo empire would surely fall sooner than later. In this situation Yun Jhin most likely wanted to jump boat and defect to the Bumi Empire, however, there was a high chance they would get rid of him after he helped them to get inside the capital. There was also the fact that he couldn''t get through the formation barrier that was protecting the capital, no one got in nor anyone got out. To break through the barrier he would need someone around the former Emperor''s power, which meant the Emperor from the Bumi Empire would surely come, all he could do now was take advantage of the mass panic to gorge on the pure-blooded dragons in the capital! That was the main reason he came so far on the draconic planet anyways, he needed draconic blood for the system so he could evolve into an artificial celestial caterpillar, around 10,000 maybe 100,000 bodies of pure-blooded beings. With the current situation where everything was in pandemonium due to the attack from the Bumi Empire every requirement for Yun Jhin to start his rampage was fulfilled. He didn''t know how much time was left before the Emperor of the Bumi Empire emerged but he only hoped he had enough time. Yun Jhin took in a deep breath as he started stretching his body, the people around him were looking at him weirdly, what was he stretching for? There was no way the barrier would collapse and they had to fight right? While most of the civilians ran away in fright some brave ones remained around the outer edges of the barrier observing the army of the Bumi Empire from a closer place. Those were the first victims that fell to Yun Jhin''s hands, Yun Jhin white and dark eyes looked down at the clump of bodies downed in front of him, his hands were so red that it looked like they were bathed in blood for hundreds of years, the first jewel in his crown activated itself as the whole clump of bodies below him whithered into nothing but ashes and a system notification appeared in front of him after a long time: [99,950 pure draconic beings are needed before the azure dragon bloodline can be stimulated.] Yun Jhin had a feral grin on his face that even scared Luo Shang who stood near him, he never saw Yun Jhin looking like that in the time he lived with him. Yun Jhin''s body disappeared as Luo Shang followed him, countless people fell at his hands as he started to run through the civilians that didn''t escape, anyone that fell under his hand would soon wither into nothing but ashes as his life energy, cultivation, and bloodline would be absorbed by the jewel of Yun Jhin''s crown. Yun Jhin wanted to quickly get the needed amount of draconic blood so he had to find the highest concentration of life in the empire, regardless if they were civilians or cultivators, of course, cultivators counted for more points in the system, but killing them was a different thing considering even the weakest cultivators in the capital were at the King Realm, killing civilians was an effortless task for him but for cultivators he would need to use a little bit of energy, even if its a very little bit the more cultivators he killed the bigger the energy exhaustion would be, and that meant there was a lower chance to escape from the army of the Bumi Empire. Yun Jhin''s senses stretched out as he tried to find the highest gathering of life force that wasn''t considered to be made from cultivators and his eyes narrowed immediately that he found them. They were all underground! They must have been sent underground by the cultivators who were preparing to fight the Bumi Empire army, even though the streets in the capital were empty voices were being heard from the 10 biggest houses of the Luo Empire. Yun Jhin grinned as he dove into the earth like a mole, he quickly made a hole in the earth and went deeper and deeper inside until he found a barrier, the barrier was quite strong and only those with the blood of the Luo Emperor were granted access in it so Yun Jhin immediately grasped Luo Shang who was beside him making a saber hand and inserted it into his body, he extracted some blood and dripped it slowly on the barrier which created a hole in it, both Yun Jhin and the mostly weakened Luo Shang dropped in amidst a huge crowd of people. The people all looked at Yun Jhin as a middle-aged man came quickly towards him and said with worry in his tone: "Are you ok, it seems you have been thrown in here by those cultivators, but it''s all for our own good! Let me help you and your friend up, it seems he is injured as he is quite pale." Yun Jhin ignored the outstretched hand as he muttered: "10, 20, 30, 100, 200, 500, 1000, 10,000 100,000 just enough." The middle-aged man was puzzled by Yun Jhin''s mutterings as he couldn''t hear him properly but he only gave out a comforting smile thinking the weird-looking young man in front of him became terrified due to the gigantic army that was on the surface. He kept his arm outstretched so Yun Jhin could grab it, it seemed he was a good man. Suddenly the man''s eyes widened as he looked down at his arm which was starting to age and wither, his wide eyes then looked around him as he saw people collapsing left and right regardless of age or gender, they were all dropping down like flies and withering just like him. Yun Jhin got up from the ground as his heterochromatic eyes were glowing with their respective colors, one white and one black. The middle-aged man realized that Yun Jhin was the one behind the senseless slaughter around him and he made an attempt to ask him with his last amount of energy: "Why?" Yun Jhin put a hand over his eyes as he started laughing, this was a question he heard countless times during his lifetimes and he already got tired of it responding to it but considering he already responded to it countless times before why wouldn''t he respond it one more time for this middle-aged man? "You ask me why? I will tell you because you are my prey, my food, you are weak, and because of that, I can do whatever I want to you. Do you understand me? If you were strong I would bow and scrape beneath your feet, but because you are weak I can do whatever I want to you, and now I need your blood, your flesh, and your whole being to complete my plan, I thank you for the generous donation." Yun Jhin bowed with one hand put towards his heart area as the people around him continued to collapse like flies, he looked like majordomo of death as the people around him collapsed into ashes while crying and begging for their lives. A young boy around 6 years old was crawling towards his mother who was quickly becoming skin and bones, he cried out as he pounded the ground below him which was stained with a dark powder that came from the countless dead people''s ashes which mixed with the earth below creating a dark mud substance. The boy cried out towards the heavens as he said: "WHY AM I SO WEAK!" Yun Jhin appeared in front of him as he held out his hand and put a finger towards his mouth while telling him: "Shush child, you will become something far greater in the future, you will become part of me!" The child tears started to disappear, not because he wasn''t sad anymore but because the moisture in his body quickly evaporated along with the rest of his body. All around Yun Jhin were death cries, they were stumbling and falling, dying and withering, their bones disappeared into ashes as they fell into the ground below creating the dark mud-like substance that remained there. Yun Jhin felt like their death cries were a symphony as the system was beeping countless times in his head: [Blood acquired, Blood acquired, Blood acquired, 99,900 remaining, 98,000 remaining, 95,000 remaining..." "Ah the sweet symphony of death, I have missed it so much, ever since I reincarnated I could only play it low key since I was born on this high-end planet, fortunately, this war let me unleash a bit of my former ambitious side a bit, don''t you think Luo Shang?" Luo Shang was frozen as he grasped his head, he looked around and he could feel countless descendants stretching their hands towards him asking for help, it was the torture of seeing one''s kin and being unable to do anything, he didn''t know why but his whole body was crying towards him to do something, his mind told him no but his body was trying to move him to help his descendants, it was the bond of blood! Just like Yun Jhin thought previously, Luo Shang was ''pure'' he wasn''t influenced much by the power of the human''s poison so he cared deeply about his descendants, at first he was muddled because of his intense desire to avenge himself because of Bumi Ming''s betrayal but now his real side came out during this crisis. Yun Jhin watched as he struggled to move and fell to the ground into a fetal position, the blood promise that he made also made him unable to help his subordinates, there were two conflicting sides inside of him that tore him apart from both body and soul! Yun Jhin shook his head as he approached him slowly and said: "I thought you being the yang dragon means you would have communicated more with the dark side of thing, even your cultivation technique was made that way but you are quite a disappointment, should I erase your ego right here?" Yun Jhin''s hand was getting closer to Luo Shang''s head and Luo Shang could feel that his memories and ego would be erased the moment Yun Jhin touched him, his eyes opened wide as he got up from the ground and kowtowed continuously while saying: "I''m sorry milord, I''m sorry milord please don''t take away my individuality, continue, my body just acted weird due to the lack of blood, continue!" He kowtowed so hard the skin on his forehead started breaking and blood flowed freely from it, Yun Jhin gave out a kind smile to him as his hand approached his forehead ever so slowly but it stopped itself centimeters away from touching it, he retracted his hand and looked down at Luo Shang while saying: "Such a good henchman, keep up the work from now on, I might give you some more cultivation resources." He waved his hand as he turned his back to Luo Shang and walked around, the ground below him turned fully dark! That meant that one hundred percent of the civilians that stood below the capital was now dead! However this was just one pocket of the formation, there were a few more which contained civilians but Yun Jhin wasn''t interested in them as a notification appeared in front of his eyes: [The azure dragon bloodline has been simulated and stored, remaining bloodlines needed to transform into an artificial celestial caterpillar are: -100,000 Vermilion Birds. -100,000 White Tigers. -100,000 Black Turtles.] Yun Jhin gave out a sigh as he looked at the notification screen and said: "Luo Shang, I think it''s finally time to leave this wretched planet behind, don''t you say?" Luo Shang remained there with wide eyes as he looked at Yun Jhin, he could feel his soul somehow increasing in quality and huge pressure was put on his body, he kept his head down on the ground and didn''t dare to look into his heterochromatic eyes. Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked up towards the hole in the barrier, it was time to find the launching pad formation and go towards one of the other planets, he didn''t want to be here when the full-on war between the Luo and Bumi Empire started. Chapter 101: Escape attempt Yun Jhin didn''t linger in the underground for too much time, he grabbed Luo Shang by the collar and jumped towards the hole that they made into the ceiling then he got back to the surface. The streets of the capital were empty as the houses of the top 10 families were the only ones that were still populated, Yun Jhin looked around and found that the army of the Bumi Empire increased again. Yun Jhin frowned, he knew the former location of the launch pad formation and hoped that it would be in the same place as in his previous life, even though he rarely visited the 4 sacred beasts planets that didn''t mean he was never here. But first, he had to leave the capital... To do that he had to either break the barrier and leave while things were chaotic or hope the army of the Bumi Empire broke it and do the same thing. Yun Jhin knew that he couldn''t wait for the Bumi Empire army to crack the barrier formation so he had to try himself. Yun Jhin used his stealth technique and approached the barrier as he used his eye technique to analyzed the composition of the barrier and he frowned, he thought that he might be able to use Luo Shang''s blood here but unfortunately, the deceased Emperor tweaked the formation to his likes and almost broke through from the bloodline shackles of the barrier, there were some vestiges of bloodline here and there but even if Yun Jhin drained Luo Shang of all his blood he wouldn''t be able to trigger the vestiges of bloodline in the formation and control it. There were just too few origin bloodline vestiges left so all he could do was try to use his pure technical skill to inflict damage on the formation to help the army to destroy it faster and he needed time for that, now he just hoped that the families would argue some more so that he could help the Bumi Empire break the barrier. Yun Jhin''s hands moved quickly as he touched the barrier and saw it''s microscopic particles that made up the formation after he concentrated for a high amount of time, he would need to slowly grind away at the microscopic particles to lower the defense of the formation until the other side broke down. Yun Jhin sighed as he went to work using his inner ki flame combined with his soul willpower to create a grinding formation that influenced the barrier formation slowly breaking it''s defense away. While Yun Jhin worked over the formation Luo Shang was recovering and protecting Yun Jhin at the same time, he kept one eye open while he sat in half-meditation while using some of the herbs he stashed that Yun Jhin gave him previously. In the Zhu Family, the patriarch was both angry and scared, their younger generation deaths didn''t affect him much, the elders'' death affected him a lot and combined with the incoming stress from the war made him quite irascible, he also heard that Yun Jhin came back from the Bumi Empire and he didn''t even come back to the Zhu Family to talk with him, he knew that the imperial family might have poached him but this was too much! He sighed as he looked at his remaining elders and said: "I''m not sure if we can survive this war, fleeing to other planets would be impossible considering the treaty between the four sacred beasts, since it''s an internal war we would be shunned back to our planet." The patriarch shook his head as his eyes started to glow with fiery energy, his gaze attracted all of the remaining elders'' attention as the patriarch opened his mouth and told all of them: "Since we can''t escape we will fight till the end and hope the Bumi Empire will be generous enough to spare the younger generation, let''s go and give our best for the glory of the Luo Empire!" Similar situations were happening all around the other top 10 families, a bunch of elders from the top 10 families along with the patriarchs and even ancestors that came out of closed-door cultivation ran out near the barrier and prepared themselves for war, unfortunately, it seemed most ancestors failed to break through the peak of the god realm and returned to the embrace of the universe, only 2 or 3 ancestors remained and they were around the peak of the 8th stage of the God Realm, even though they were strong a peak God Realm expert could kill all of them in the blink of an eye. Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed as he looked at the upcoming armies from the top ten families, he wondered why the imperial army wasn''t here yet along with the Empress, maybe the injury from forcefully cultivating the fake technique worsened? Suddenly as if on cue, the Empress appeared along with a bunch of eunuchs and golden armored sturdy men and women from the army. Suddenly the Bumi Empire army stopped clamoring and attacking the barrier as a gorgeous woman appeared staying at the same altitude as the Empress, she had golden eyes and red hair that reached her buttocks. She wore a deep crimson suit that matched well with her hair, she had long ears and sharp canines that jutted out of her mouth, her face was angular and she had a small nose her skin was as white as it could be as she was almost pale, a pure aura was engulfing her and from what Yun Jhin could sense she was at the peak of the god realm, she must be the descendant of Bumi Ming''s lineage! Luo Shang eyed the woman with hostility but didn''t do anything as he kept guard for Yun Jhin, fortunately, Yun Jhin was keeping both of them invisible with his stealth technique, and due to the heavy aura around combined with the tense situation no one decided to investigate the corner in which Yun Jhin was grinding at the barrier. The golden-eyed woman came near the barrier and knocked it a few times as a playful smile appeared on her face, her smile showed her elongated and sharp canines even better and it gave her an intimidating aura even though she was quite a beauty. She opened her mouth and said: "Big sis, it seems your husband is gone, why don''t you deactivate this barrier and let me in? After all, I sent you to the Luo Empire to take over it." The Empress shook her head as a serious expression finally appeared on her face and she responded to her sister: "Sister, I promised that man that I wouldn''t let the Empire fall into outsider''s hands if he was to ever die, please don''t make things hard for me." The Empress of the Bumi Empire shook her head as she put both her hands on her forehead and started laughing, then she pointed at her sister and said: "Aren''t you quite delusional? I don''t care you are my sister, give up and I will let you and all of your civilians, subordinates, and people to live, if you decide to waste my time that I could use to break through above the God Realm I will destroy everyone along with the capital!" The Luo Empress face paled, the aura of a peak god realm expert subtly breached through the barrier and attacked her, however, the impact of the aura was nullified by around 95% due to the barrier. However that 5% attack made the Empress''s face pale and she almost vomited a mouthful of blood. The Bumi Empress continued to smile as she pointed at the Luo Empress head then said: "It seems you have injured yourself by cultivating incomplete techniques, am I wrong dear sister?" The Luo Empress remained silent as she closed her eyes to stop her internal injury from rampaging further damaging her insides. Yun Jhin felt glad inside as he watched the two women bicker, he had ground quite a bit of the defensive ability of the barrier while they tried to intimidate each other, and soon if the army from the Bumi Empire would attack the barrier would crumble and he would be able to run away! The Bumi Empress golden eyes narrowed as she glanced in Yun Jhin''s direction so subtly that even Yun Jhin couldn''t realize what she did, a small smile appeared on her lips as she turned her head back to her sister and put her hand forward as she pointed at the barrier and shouted: "ALL TROOPS CHARGE, WHOEVER GETS THE HEAD OF MY SISTER WILL BECOME MY ''BATTERY'' FOR A FEW MONTHS!" All the males became so energized that they almost burst with the power of an extra stage of cultivation, the females were less energized but they also burst forward with a power of half a stage further as their eyes sparkled while they looked at their Empress. The Luo Empress glanced at the army and shook her head, it should be impossible to break the barrier without attacking it fora few days. Suddenly the transparent barrier started to make crunching sounds as a crack appeared on the barrier as soon as the army focused all of its ki attacks on it. The Luo Empress''s eyes started to widen becoming bigger than saucers as her mouth almost fell to the ground. The Luo Empress backed away in fear as she looked between the barrier and her sister while she said while trembling: "hey, sis why don''t you uh... forgive me?" The golden-eyed beauty looked at her sister and gave her another smile as she responded: "Didn''t you want to swallow the whole empire and continue to be Empress dear sister? The Bumi Empress immediately saw through her sister''s plans, the Luo Empress was sweating heavily as more cracks appeared in the barrier and she was ready to flee, but a sudden crack in the middle of the whole barrier let the golden-eyed beauty to step directly in the capital and appear in front of her sister. The Bumi Empress grabbed the Luo Empress by the neck as her hands went down her body and said: "It seems your cultivation didn''t increase since I sent you here as a gift, it seemed you couldn''t even please that old man Luo properly, tsk tsk, but it also seems you have enjoyed quite a few men yourself, why don''t you let your sister see what you have been up to." The Bumi Empress''s free hand quickly made its way into the Luo Empress''s head as it started to move through her brain and soul. The Luo Empress started to wail in pain and anguish as she vomited multiple mouthfuls of blood, her internal injuries surfaced while her sister was attacking her soul, the Bumi Empress knew that she wouldn''t be able to get her sisters memories due to the proximity of their cultivation bases combined with the fact that the Luo Empress wasn''t willing at all to give her memories to her sister. The Bumi Empress shook her head as she let the Luo Empress fall to the ground, she licked the hand that went into the Empress''s head and suddenly appeared in front of Yun Jhin who was just ready to run away with Luo Shang. He grabbed him by the arm as she quickly approached his neck at an extreme speed, her long red tongue came out of her mouth and licked his neck up to his face as she said in a seductive tone: "Are you the little guy who helped me break into the capital, aren''t you a good boy, let me give you a reward." Yun Jhin tried to move but he was paralyzed, the Empress''s lips quickly made their way to his mouth as she kissed him, the Empress giggled as she waved her hand and the whole army ran into the capital ki flaring and techniques thrown at the top 10 families of the Luo Empire which had almost no morale left after their Empress remained a twitching mess on the ground. Yun Jhin wanted to talk but all he could do was move his eyes, The Bumi Empress moved slowly and looked down at Luo Shang who was in the same situation as Yun Jhin, she gave out a strange smile as she patted Luo Shang head and said: "Why does my bloodline give out such a disgusting feeling when it senses yours?" The Bumi Empress smiled excitedly as she looked at Luo Shang and Yun Jhin and stated: "From now you two shall become my personal attendants!" Yun Jhin didn''t know what to do in this situation, it seemed the Bumi Empress could even see through his stealth even through the barrier effects, maybe it was because he weakened the barrier too much, while he tried to escape he didn''t think that the Bumi Empress would give notice to such a small character like him but it seemed he shot himself in the foot now! It was good that he was in the Empress''s favor but he didn''t want to remain on the azure dragon planet any further as he wanted to continue his journey to achieving the form of an artificial celestial caterpillar, and who knew how he would be treated by the Bumi Empress as her attendant? But all he could do now was curse inside and smile outside as the Empress unfroze him, she looked at him precisely like how a hawk would stalk a hare if he moved a muscle in the wrong direction he was sure that he would be decapitated and unlike the situation with Bumi Ming, he would surely die here! Chapter 102: Bowing ones head under low eves Yun Jhin opened his mouth to concede to her but the Bumi Empress just gave out an understanding smile and dropped him to the ground unceremoniously. She disappeared and appeared later as she assigned her underlings to take care of the capital and the other stuff regarding the territory issues. She grabbed both Yun Jhin and Luo Shang and appeared with them in the imperial palace, her sister was currently seated on the throne but she seemed rather unwell as her complexion was pale and she also looked rather weak. The Bumi Empress left the duo alone as she walked slowly towards her sister and patted her on the shoulder as she whispered in her ear: "I know there is something good inside your treasury, your ancestor should have left behind something that I could use." The Luo Empress shuddered as her eyes betrayed her emotions, she was especially scared of her sister, even since young her sister always towered over her strength-wise so she tried to scheme against her, unfortunately, she failed and this lead the sisters drifting apart even further than they were at first. The Bumi Empress pressed on the Luo Empress forehead and told her: "Qiqi it seems your cultivation really didn''t improve at all, I hoped that I was wrong but it seems you really are talentless, tsk tsk, are we even related at all?" Luo Qiqi gritted her teeth as she shouted: "YOU ARE A BITCH LUXANDRA, YOU ALWAYS LOOKED DOWN ON ME EVER SINCE YOUR TALENT GOT REVEALED, EVEN THOUGH I''M YOUR OLDER SISTER YOU ALWAYS TRIED TO SUPPRESS ME!" A quick slap from Luxandra almost shattered Qiqi''s jaw, teeth and blood flew out of her mouth while Yun Jhin watched everything happen with an impassive face, he wasn''t interested in their familial drama. Ruxandra shook her head as her eyes moved from her sister to the duo and told them: "I let you see some unsightly things, now the question is what can I do with the two of you? From one I feel total repulsion and from one I feel both attraction and repulsion at the same time, aren''t you two very strange?" She said everything with a smile on her face as her red hair fluttered while she flew slowly from the throne towards them. Her hand went under Yun Jhin''s chin as he made him look directly in her eyes and she asked: "If you don''t want your soul to auto-destruct I would recommend you telling me whatever I want to know, now talk!" Unlike her sister who needed both of them for her schemes, Luxandra did not need both of them and she only kept them alive because she found them interesting, Yun Jhin knew that his destiny might not hold against a peak God Realm expert so he could only tell the truth here: "Luo Shang is the ancestor of the Luo Empire and he reincarnated using the formation he left behind in the tombs, I got some of his inheritance and I also gained the inheritance of the Bumi Ming." Ruxandra eyes glittered as she looked at Yun Jhin and said: "Aren''t you a good seedling then? If I use your sperm we could have some really strong children, but the question would be if your tool would withstand my strength." Her eyes turned to Yun Jhin''s lower body, Yun Jhin''s face remained impassive but inside he was sweating, even in his previous lives he only had sex with few women that were around his own level, mostly because siring descendants with people at the same realm was really hard for peak god realm experts and it was easier to do with those below, there was also the fact that he didn''t want to bother with the nagging of someone he wouldn''t be able to obliterate whenever he wanted to, of course, most of his lower-ranked women were pretty smart to not do that. Yun Jhin knew that there was a high chance he would be used as a breeding machine until he turned into a withered husk so he had to give her another reason to let him live. Luo Shang dropped in front of Ruxandra as he said: "I have heard milady talk about the treasury, I can lead you inside and give you everything you want as long as you let Yun Jhin go." Ruxandra narrowed her eyes as she looked at Luo Shang then a mocking smile appeared on her face as she said: "Do you think I need your help to get what I want from the treasury?" Luo Shang kept his head down but he still replied to her even though his body was currently going through intense pressure from Ruxandra''s aura: "Milady, you might not know but not even peak God Realm experts would have an easy time to reach the end of the treasury, especially those that have Bumi Ming''s bloodline." Ruxandra frowned as she let Yun Jhin go and grabbed Luo Shang by the collar as she threw him into the wall behind the Qiqi. The wall broke under Luo Shang''s speeding body and there was nothing behind it, however after Ruxandra walked near the hole in the wall the formation that kept the treasury hidden activated itself in defense, only for Ruxandra to stab her sister in the chest and throw her inside the defensive formation effectively disabling it, it seemed that even though Qiqi also had Bumi Ming''s blood flowing through her veins the former Emperor must have given her a little bit of control over the formation by some means. The formation opened as the treasury of the Luo Empire revealed itself to everyone currently in the throne room, it was full of artifacts and spirit stones ranging from high grade to perfect grade, the ki inside the treasury was extremely highly concentrated but for people at their cultivation base it wasn''t that useful, ki from spirit stones was rather impure even in their perfect grade so most cultivators didn''t use them after they reached the King Realm and above, instead, they search for star ki or ki of above quality. Yun Jhin flew towards Ruxandra as his body was getting sucked into her hands, then along with Luo Shang who was grabbed again and Qiqi they all went directly into the treasury, the hole in the wall along with the opening in the formation closed themselves automatically after they entered. Ruxandra threw Luo Shang to the ground and looked at him with an intense gaze: "Now let''s see if what you said is the truth." Her eyes pierced through the mountains of wealth to go deeper into the treasury only for them to immediately start bleeding after a short while, she could feel a piercing pain in her head as her forehead scrunched up and she almost fell to the ground on her knees from the pain, her eyes then moved to Luo Shang as she grabbed him up and pushed him forward: "You go forward and disarm everything!" Luo Shang nodded his head and started to walk forward while Ruxandra kept Yun Jhin and Qiqi near her body. Luo Shang used this familiar environment combined with the power of the formation that surrounded them to stealthily contact Yun Jhin: "My lord, the formation is currently recognizing me as its master, if I use my life in exchange with the whole power of the formation I can stale Ruxandra for a while so you can escape, I can directly transport you to the launching pad formation that will throw you out into space, since you are a reincarnated cultivator I don''t have to explain to you everything else." Yun Jhin told him that he could use the plan, he did want to see what Luo Shang left behind in the deeper parts of the treasury but considering that Ruxandra existed he was happy just to ask Luo Shang: "What I left behind? Hmm, I don''t think it would be useful for you master as your cultivation base is too low, but it would help a peak god realm expert consolidate their realm, even though it wouldn''t help them to get closer to the next cultivation realm, considering how far you were into your current realm it could be used to gain perfect combat power in the god realm, I kept it in there in hopes that I could restore my soul with it, but you interfered and you know the rest..." Yun Jhin knew what item he was talking about, it was an extremely rare special flower that Yun Jhin''s last life was lucky enough to encounter, it seemed after he died the flower must have left his body and Luo Shang being lucky got it, technically speaking it was still his flower but there were no more connections with his soul so it wouldn''t recognize him as it''s master, so it would just be better to forget about it. After a while, they reached the deeper parts of the treasury and Luo Shang started to power up as his ki started to cover him like a flame armor, he controlled the formation around him using hand seals which he strengthened by bathing his hands in his own blood! He cut his wrists and let the blood flow slowly onto his hands where it coagulated into a crimson armor. Seeing his actions Ruxandra narrowed her eyes, she kept her grip on both Qiqi and Yun Jhin only for the latter to disappear from her hands! Ruxandra laughed as she looked at Luo Shang, she tried to move towards him and end his life but one step from her and his left arm disappeared. Ruxandra looked at his eyes and realized that he was sacrificing himself for Yun Jhin''s escape: "You think that he will escape that easily?" Ruxandra unleashed her Godly avatar and inserted it into her sister, her sister twitched for a few moments before she disappeared. Ruxandra shook her hand as she took another step and his right arm disappeared: "You will die in three more steps, why don''t you give up and just open the way ahead? I promise I won''t kill you." Luo Shang gave out a ferocious smile as he kept his eyes on her, Ruxandra frowned, she couldn''t move outside of the treasury due to the formation but she could send her avatar while possessing Qiqi, however, she wasn''t sure where Yun Jhin was sent! Yun Jhin was currently outside of the capital by around 500 kilometers, he didn''t even look behind as he started to run towards the location of the launching pad formation, even Luo Shang wasn''t sure of its current location but since both of them knew of the same location there was a rather chance that it was moved from there. Yun Jhin could feel someone''s soul willpower try to encroach into his and track him down, unfortunately, he couldn''t mask his soul willpower fluctuations quick enough so the owner of the soul willpower got a grasp of his latest location! Yun Jhin frowned deeply as he continued to run, he knew those fluctuations reminded him of the Luo Empress but she was unconscious when he last saw her, did her sister throw her at him so she could catch him? Yun Jhin didn''t think anymore as his skin started to bleed and fire came out of his nostrils, he was using a forbidden technique to increase his speed to the point that even a 4th stage Emperor Realm expert would have trouble following him, he was getting closer and closer to the launching pad formation, it was in the middle between the Bumi and Luo Empire and he could feel the soul willpower of the Luo Empress getting closer and closer to him, even though he had a headstart the other person was a God Realm cultivator, even though injured both in soul and body she was way faster than him, even if she could only use 1% of her current power! Chapter 103: Final Escape Luo Shang bloodied body sat straight as he clenched his teeth and looked down at his stumps where his legs were supposed to be, Ruxandra was 2 meters away from him and he couldn''t hold the formation for more before his head would explode. Ruxandra frowned as she felt that the connection to her avatar was thinning the further it went away from her, her avatar wasn''t even able to use half it''s strength even while combining itself with the unconscious body of her sister. Luo Shang chuckled as his eyes started to bleed, Ruxandra was slowly getting closer and closer to him and his head was inflating slowly ready to burst like a watermelon hit by a hammer. Ruxandra looked at the ceiling of the treasury and frowned as she could feel the connection with her avatar almost breaking meaning that it could get very weak to the point that someone around the 7th stage of the God Realm and below could kill it, she also couldn''t communicate with it anymore, she waved her hand in the air and the whole treasury started to crack and shake however it stopped after a short time. She looked at Luo Shang who was coughing blood and bleeding from all of his apertures and said: "It seems your formation is quite strong when you fuel it with your own life, you can even sever the connection between me and my avatar, but what makes you think that little guy can escape from the avatar even if it''s a connection with me was severed? After all, it''s still a Godly avatar." Luo Shang chuckled as his face paled to the point that he almost looked dead, his bloodshot eyes that were slowly turning white as his head expanded in size looked directly in her eyes and he told her using his last breath: "You wouldn''t understand." His head exploded into a shower of gore as his armless, legless, and headless stump fell to the ground in a pool of its own blood. Ruxandra frowned as she could feel that the treasury was self-destructing! Even though the explosion from the self-destruction sequence wouldn''t hurt her much, it would destroy every treasure that stood in the treasury, if she wanted to blow through the formation and get what she wanted she couldn''t go after Yun Jhin! While she frowned continuously she forgot to absorb Luo Shang''s soul that was slowly dissipating in the air, he had a big smile on his face as he looked towards the direction of the launching pad formation and muttered: "It seems I have done my job, fortunately, the bloodline bind only works for one life, if we see each other in the next life you will be my enemy!" His soul was almost absorbed by the universe as it was ready to go through the reincarnation process when suddenly Ruxandra waved her hand and his soul transformed into a small wisp which she grasped, she had a huge smile on her face that showed her fangs and gave her a scary expression. The wisp of the soul was half of Luo Shang''s memories, the other half already dissipated in heaven and earth and it would reincarnate, unfortunately for him he would lose half of his memories due to Ruxandra''s actions. Ruxandra grasped the-wisp in her hand as she opened her mouth and inhaled it whole, her eyes brightened as she started to rush in the direction of the special flower, she knew that she would make it in time due to the memories she gained from the soul wisp. Yun Jhin''s body was slowly crumbling under its own weight as he continuously used the forbidden technique to ignite his ki and bloodline to reach the launching pad formation, his eyes were bloodshot as crystalline flames came out of his nose, the crystalline flames were the burnt blood which was making it''s way out of his body through his nose. Yun Jhin''s face was pale as he could feel death closing into him but if he stopped for even one second his life would truly end! He could feel his skin pringling as the body of the Luo Empress which was controlled by Ruxandra''s avatar was closing into him, he was also closing to the launching pad formation at a quick speed, he could feel that the launching pad formation was still intact, however, he didn''t feel any energy fluctuations coming from it! The launching pad formation was created atop a giant plateau and a few hundred kilometers away started the jungle in which the Bumi Empire could be found, it was exactly in the middle between the Luo and Bumi Empire. Yun Jhin jumped onto the plateau and slashed both of his wrists open as fiery blood dropped into the formation trying to activate it, however, the crystallized blood was flowing through the form very slowly so he had to wait a while before he would be able to escape! Yun Jhin''s situation was critical due to his blood loss, combined with the continuous use of the forbidden techniques meant that if he continued he could die due to over-exhaustion. However he ignored everything as he slashed into his body and made even more blood flow from his body to activate the formation, his blood was high with energy after it was ignited and the energy would dissipate itself with time so it was the perfect fuel for the formation, he kept the forbidden technique on as he slowly bled on the plateau trying to fuel the whole formation for at least one jump! Suddenly above him appeared the thing that he feared the most! The avatar of Ruxandra! She slowly made her way down to the formation as she looked around, she had a wide mocking smile on her face as she crossed her arms and looked down at Yun Jhin: "It seems you wanted to flee the planet, how unfortunate, for one so young and talented, combined with your luck you could have made a great mating bull, why don''t you accept your fate and I will heal you immediately?" Yun Jhin frowned as he kept bleeding on the platform, he wasn''t sure why but the avatar was keeping its distance from the core of the formation, it seemed she didn''t try to destroy it to stop him from escaping, this was rather strange... Yun Jhin looked down to see the formation starting to power up as his blood finally powered it enough for one jump, he wanted to activate it immediately but he found himself embraced by the Luo Empress''s body which was above him. He slowly looked up only to see two mounds pressing on his head along with the combination of the open fluttering robes showing the Luo Empress''s full vivacious body, even though her face was plain her body was still pretty decent. However, Yun Jhin wasn''t interested in her body at all as he used his whole remaining strength to activate the formation below his feet as he stamped on it with all of his remaining strength. The avatar frowned as she tried to keep Yun Jhin from leaving but some type of restriction threw her away from the launching pad formation as she cursed: "DAMN THIS CONTRACT, MY PERFECT MATING BULL!" Yun Jhin''s consciousness was slowly leaving his body as he was launched into space while being protected by the launching pad formation, he looked down at the azure dragon planet that was growing smaller in his vision then used his last wisp of consciousness to choose his landing direction which was the Vermillion Bird planet! Ruxandra frowned as she felt her avatar coming back, her hair was singed and her body was dark as night as the treasury exploded in her face and she could only save half of the special flower from being destroyed. She frowned as the avatar left her sister''s body and returned to her body along with the memories. She looked at the special flower in her hands as it dissipated into dust and assimilated into her body. She looked towards the sky and muttered: "Only if the contract didn''t bind my avatar it could have followed that twerp to space, where else would I find such a good mating bull who cultivated both of the ancestors'' techniques and lived without exploding?" She sighed as she used her supreme authority to fuse the Bumi and Luo Empire creating the supreme overlord of the Azure Dragon planet. Yun Jhin''s unconscious body was crashing into the atmosphere of a red planet that seemed to be burning if looked from outer space. His body was wrecked and his life force was slowly exhausting itself as his injuries were too deep to be healed conventionally. After a while his body crashed into the launch pad formation of the Vermillion bird planet which was abandoned just like the Azure dragon planet one, there was no one around besides some animals that have evolved according to the fiery surroundings. Everything around Yun Jhin was blood crimson as his body was getting cooked by the natural fire around him, his wounds were closing at high speeds but it seemed that his blood wasn''t recovering as his face remained pale, while he wouldn''t lose any more blood his body couldn''t recover blood normally anymore due to his internal injuries which were still plaguing him, while his external injuries were getting healed at a quick speed his internal situation remained the same. Yun Jhin''s soul was conscious as he looked at his body slowly dying on the ground, he knew what to do in this situation as he had a reason for choosing the Vermillion bird planet. The wild animals that were scattered around the launching pad formation were called by Yun Jhin''s soul bewitchment to try and attack his dying body, when they got too close to his body a black tendril would extend from his body and absorb all of the nutrients of the fiery animals giving his body some help at healing. This was the externalized ability of his first jewel, he hadn''t used it up till now because he didn''t have to, it was the most direct way to absorb other''s life force but it was too obvious and Yun Jhin didn''t like to show his trump cards. Yun Jhin''s shriveled and pale body was getting a ruddier complexion as more animals were absorbed and his heart started to pump blood again, his internal injuries remained but his body would regain consciousness soon enough at this rate. Yun Jhin''s big soul frowned as he could feel some people approaching the launching pad formation, fortunately, his body was slowly awakening at the same time, his soul returned to his body as his body''s eyes moved briefly before opening. Yun Jhin cursed inside as he felt his organs hurting to the point that he might vomit blood again, he used his stealth technique while his whole body was shaking as he hid, as long as the person wasn''t at the Sage Realm or above he should be able to keep himself hidden. A few proud-looking women along with a meek man appeared and inspected the launching pad formation as the women talked amongst themselves while they ignored the man who was twiddling his thumbs and looking at the ground. Yun Jhin kept himself hidden as he spied on their conversation, from what he could sense they were around the 7th stage of the Emperor realm and as long as he didn''t reveal himself they wouldn''t be able to sense him: "It seems we came here for nothing, and we had to come with this failure here as well, *sigh* what are the elders thinking giving us a male teammate? All males are failures who can only be used for mating!" Yun Jhin snorted inside, it seemed the Vermillion birds were acting the same regardless of time, they were a pure matriarchal society that looked down on male''s regardless of race, they looked down on the males of their race even harder than those of foreign races as they saw them as failures who couldn''t accomplish as much as they did, they could lay eggs and have children and technically speaking female vermillion birds were slightly more talented than male vermillion birds. However male vermillion birds had also slightly higher battle power, but this would be overshadowed by the cultivation difference between the sexes and most of the females would look on the males due to this, so even if the male won in a battle with a female they would still rub it in his face that they could just break through quicker and beat him later until he wouldn''t find his beak anymore. Yun Jhin kept his body low to the point that he almost fused with the ground while fully employing all of his regenerated ki to keep his stealth up, he just hoped these people would leave soon so he could continue with his recovery. Chapter 104: New planet and new customs The women sat at three in number, they were looking around with their proud eyes as they surveyed the whole formation, their eyes moved on the spot that Yun Jhin stood in but they didn''t suspect a thing as Yun Jhin''s stealth technique was quite advanced. The women immediately started to get bored as they investigated the scene, they realized that there was nothing here and that the culprit who came already left a while ago, their formation had no traces of use as the person who came from outer space wouldn''t have triggered any use of the launching pad formation, the only reason why Yun Jhin even landed here was that the locations of the launching pad formations were linked, so if one used the launching pad of the azure dragon planet that person would land at the respective launching pads of the other planets and vice versa. Yun Jhin heaved a sigh of relief inside as he finally thought these people would leave, after this, he would have enough time to rest and maybe get to a city to gain some information and see how he could infiltrate the upper continents where he could get to the civilians with the highest concentration of blood purity, he did want to get his hands on cultivators but killing 100,000 of them would enrage and awaken the peak God Realm expert presiding over the planet, he already became an enemy with the azure dragon planet sovereign, making more enemies at the peak wasn''t a good thing. Yun Jhin''s ears twitched as he heard the women talk about something that interested him a bit, it was the reason why Ruxandra couldn''t follow him inside the formation: "Even if it''s someone from the other planets they shouldn''t be at the God Realm so they should be pretty weak, however, it seems they came with bad intentions as they didn''t introduce themselves, who knows they might not even be from the four-planet alliance!" Another woman nodded at her comrades'' words as they made sense and chipped in with a few words as well: "It seems the contract from 50,000 years ago is still holding fast, there haven''t been any internal wars for such a long time and everyone is prospering." The last woman who was seemingly the leader of the small squad bonked the both of them on the head with her fists as she said: "That''s enough history lessons, we have looked around for enough time and there is no life force aura or residual ki auras left so even if we want to trace the person who came here it''s quite impossible at the moment, we can only wait for any suspicious individuals to appear so we can apprehend them, let''s go!" The male of the group stood there for a bit of time before he made enough courage to say to the others who were ready to leave: "Why don''t we stay for a little bit more? We haven''t really searched everywhere and we only did a perfunctory scan of the surroundings, who knows maybe the person is injured and he is hiding underground? Or maybe he is hiding in the waters below?" The squad leader snorted as she put her finger on the male phoenix'' chest and told him: "Aren''t you a bit too presumptuous to question my orders, you useless male?" The male gulped the saliva that was stuck in his throat and took two steps back as he was quite scared of the squad leader, it would be with a reason as he was the only one in the group below the Emperor realm, he was at the peak of the 9th stage of the King Realm, he was also very close to breaking through. The squad leaders eyes moved from his chest to his lower legs as she said with a big smile: "Girls, why don''t we teach this man how to act in front of goddesses like us?" A scared expression appeared on the man''s face as he started to run away, the plateau with the formation was above an ocean so the man wanted to dive into the ocean to escape only for his hands to be grasped by the duo, the squad leader pushed him down as she stripped herself and ripped the male''s clothes as well. The other two females waited their turn... Yun Jhin ignored what was happening in front of him, he was just annoyed that they decided to do this right here, he wanted to heal himself and leave already but now he couldn''t because these people decided to do their bullying activity here... Yun Jhin sighed as he watched the squad leader go at it for almost 6 days! The man below her looked weakened and almost without any strength left but that''s when the other two women jumped on him at the same time, one at his head and one at the lower body. Yun Jhin felt pity for the man after 3 more days he collapsed, even though he wasn''t dead his Yang energy was exhausted to the point that he wasn''t sure if it would recover for any time soon. The women however looked to be full of energy as they grabbed the collapsed man and hummed a small song as one of them carried him over the shoulder like a sack of potatoes, the squad leader looked at the horizon and told both of her subordinates: "Well I guess it''s time to return, we have ''investigated'' enough around here, now the matriarch can''t say anything even if we come back empty-handed as we left for so many days, we might even be rewarded for our hard work!" The other women chuckled as they followed their squad leader of the plateau and they started to quickly fly and disappear into the horizon. Yun Jhin sighed as he left his stealth mode as soon as he couldn''t sense their energy anymore, his lungs were burning and his ki pathways were twisted because of being overused while he was injured but those were injuries he could heal with his expertise, all he needed was energy. Yun Jhin decided to use the ocean below him to his advantage before he used his soul to catch small aquatic animals and fish to use them for his healing process but now he wanted to go deeper to get some stronger animals, after all, the surface ones were weaker than middle stages King Realm experts. Yun Jhin jumped down into the ocean from the plateau and sank for a few kilometers before he felt the auras around him being at a level he could handle without straining himself too much, tons of needle-like protrusions appeared out of his body as they snaked around in the dark waters around him. Every time a needle returned to him it would come with the corpse of a strange fiery fish or an aquatic animal with the same aura, the ocean on the Vermillion bird planet was way hotter compared to the Azure dragon one, it was almost boiling in temperature! However, Yun Jhin''s body was tempered and strengthened and he could easily use the surrounding waters to help him heal instead of damaging his body. After a few days of staying in the waters combined with his energy-sapping from the marine creatures made him heal around 20% of his injuries, thus he went further down into the ocean so he could sap stronger creatures. As he went further into the ocean he reached the ocean floor where he met with creatures around the first stage of the Emperor realm, however by that time Yun Jhin''s injuries were healed around 80% and around 3 months passed since he came to the Vermillion Bird planet. 1 more month passed and he was back to full health and he was also ready to break through to the 7th stage of the King Realm using the time laws! During his healing session, his cultivation base got stronger as some of the remaining energy from the fishes seeped into his 6th jewel helping it reach the last stage of refinery slowly, even though he gained some impurities in it this way he used a fiery technique that conformed to the surroundings of the planet to purge them all out of the jewel. Considering all of his experience combined with the abundant energy on the seafloor he could technically breakthrough in the 7th stage right now! Yun Jhin sat cross-legged at the bottom of the ocean as he looked at his soul''s crown then decided it was time to attach one more jewel to it. The same thing as before happened, a clepsydra came out of his soul and Yun Jhin used his techniques to transform it into a jewel which he slowly inserted into the 7th slot of his crown. After a short while he smoothly broke through to the 7th stage of the King Realm, however, he couldn''t refine his jewel at all as all the surrounding energy was used up while he broke through, he also didn''t want to change locations as the launching pad formation above him was scaring the stronger underwater predators and he didn''t believe that the only marine creatures that existed in the ocean were at the 1st stage of the Emperor realm, there must be something embedded in the formation that scared away the stronger beings that could destroy it. Yun Jhin looked around and since he already broke through and healed all of his injuries there were no more reasons for him to remain here. It was time to see the civilization of the Vermillion Bird planet and integrate himself into it little by little... Chapter 105: Imitating and replacing Yun Jhin wasn''t sure about the terrain of the Vermillion Bird planet, he only visited it very few times in all of his lifetimes, and combined with the constant changes in the universe he was sure that a lot of his map knowledge wouldn''t help him anymore and this would apply to a lot of places. Yun Jhin sighed, he could only do things the old primitive way, he would have to unleash his soul willpower and use it to find the highest amount of life energy around to find cities or villages, where he would be able to gather more information since he was in the upper continents he also had to hide his draconic bloodline. It was unknown what the locals would do once he was found, they already knew about an intruder, and considering he didn''t have a phoenix bloodline in his body that made him a prime suspect. After making sure his body was in the prime and proper condition he started to swim using his quickest speeds, flying was still quite far away from him as he still had to break through to the Emperor realm, he could technically fly with his current ki but his cultivation base capacity wouldn''t be able to handle it for a long time. While swimming was dangerous, he could also use the surrounding marine fauna to his advantage, as he swam he even found some herbs that he might make use of in the future that he sent into his space zone. As he broke through and created his time jewel he learned a new skill that applied to time, but due to his low cultivation base he wasn''t truly able to employ, he was supposed to be able to stop time but with his current limitations he would only be able to briefly skip it and see in the future for a few nanoseconds, as he grew stronger this ability would become stronger to the point he would be able to freeze time in a certain area of the universe, however, this wouldn''t apply to people with the same cultivation base as him, he would only be able to do it those that were weaker than him. Also, his time-freezing ability would only freeze their bodies, not their consciousness meaning that they would be able to feel whatever happened to their bodies in real-time but wouldn''t be able to move them, all of the things that would happen to them would multiply by tenfold after the time freeze ability would stop. As Yun Jhin swam in the ocean his stamina would replenish itself by the use of ki, combined with the fiery auras around coming deep from the water he could easily replenish his ki basically he had unlimited stamina at the moment, but this was only because he wasn''t fighting or using his ki for anything else or else the consumption would be too high for him to do this. After a few weeks passed Yun Jhin finally felt a clump of life forces that were thousands of kilometers away from him, it seemed he was reaching the shore of the ocean, he felt that this ocean was way smaller compared with the one on the azure dragon planet. Before he got to the shore he made sure to hide all of his bloodline fluctuations and made himself look like a normal male phoenix, even though he was lacking the bloodline to make it up for it, he only had to acquire some to copy the effect to the point only a peak God Realm expert would be able to see through his disguise, and this time around he didn''t want to have any interactions with such beings. His appearance changed majorly as he now had red hair and yellow colored eyes, his face was handsome and chiseled and his muscles were bulging all over his body, he stood at a height of 1,93 meters and he changed his clothes to resemble those he saw on the unfortunate male phoenix he saw months ago, but he changed them somewhat as he didn''t want them to look exactly like theirs, after all, who knew from which sect they were? But on second thought he decided against making his own clothes based on theirs. He knew that males were very looked down upon on the Vermillion Bird or more shortly Phoenix planet, it was to the point some of them were ignored most of their lives and almost no one knew about their existence, sometimes not even their male compatriots, maybe he could infiltrate their sect this way. It didn''t take him much time to find the docks and the border city, it seemed to be a fishing city that was the hub of trading on the Phoenix planet. Yun Jhin quickly made himself disappear into the crowds of the city which were quite big as it was the middle of the day, no one gave him a second glance as the female to male ratio in the crowd was 80%-20%. Since he was a male the females thought that he must be owned by someone so they didn''t make trouble for him in fear of his owner, after all, female phoenixes were quite possessive of their belongings and would fight each other a lot to own the healthiest and strongest males around. Yun Jhin didn''t ask around for anyone as he tried to decipher the location of the sect by himself, if he asked around he would look suspicious and out of place, he walked along just like any other male did, with their heads down and monotonously. Yun Jhin currently wore a red robe with the characters for Phoenix Palace on them, they were neat and clean and they made his handsome appearance stand out even more, but the majority of phoenix males were quite handsome so he still wasn''t accosted by anyone. With a little bit of luck and insistent searching, Yun Jhin finally reached the Phoenix Palace sect, it was the biggest and strongest sect in the city, it was the guardian sect of the jumping pad formation and they had a few Sage Realm experts in it. The moment Yun Jhin entered the gates of the sect he thought he would be questioned but there was no one around, he decided to find the living quarters of the males and install himself there and then find more information subtly. This time around he had to play it smarter than before. While the phoenix women were proud and strong, Yun Jhin had his way around women and he could do what he needed to please them if he could get some information out of them that way. He got to the living quarters of the male''s quite easily, they were pretty neat and clean but they were empty save for a few males that were in closed-door cultivation. Yun Jhin entered an empty and abandoned building and decided to cultivate a bit, if he was lucky he might get what he needed soon enough. And soon it came, a fat phoenix woman started banging on his door immediately, she wasn''t ugly but she was quite heavy set to the point that Yun Jhin was quite disgusted with the amount of fat on her. However, he kept a big smile on his face as he bowed to her and said: "What is this beautiful fairy doing visiting such a lowly male like myself?" The woman sat on the ground in front of Yun Jhin as she slapped it and said: "I want to talk with you, it seems you must be new as I haven''t ever seen you before, or I just ignored you? Anyways come here and put your head on my lap, you are quite a looker yourself and I''m annoyed because of something and I want to unleash my emotions." Yun Jhin complied, her lap was big and his head didn''t even take half the space on it, she started to talk about herself to make herself comfortable: "The other girls always talk mean stuff about me just because I''m a little fat... they even said that even if I force myself on a male he would rather kill himself than have babies with me, how can they say such things? Aren''t your existence meant only for making babies? Why would you deny your own existence like that?" Yun Jhin listened but her words went in one wear and out of the other, he only made himself look interested and listening, his hand suddenly went to hers and grasped it as he said: "It''s not true, you are beautiful, even though you might be a little heavy set that doesn''t mean you are ugly, you are just unique and special, those girls might just be jealous of you!" Bullshitting his way through was something that Yun Jhin did once he was at his lowest, he had a sweet tongue and an expression that made him look as honest as the boy next door who didn''t know how to lie. The fatty gave out a huge smile as her cheeks moved up and down due to her fat, she took the hand he offered and said: "Most of the males that knew how to talk sweetly were already taken by the other disciples, there are only the ugly ones remaining in the quarters... who knew you would be overlooked? I''m lucky!" Yun Jhin shuddered inside as he felt the woman''s eyes wandering from the top of his head to the soles of his feet, her lips quickly moved to his face and gave him a big smooch on his cheek. She blushed a bit as she motioned for him to get up, it seemed she was unlike those strong disciples as her cultivation base was around the 8th stage of the King Realm and even though her age wasn''t that discernible due to her fat, her life force didn''t lie, she was around 16-17 years old or so. Yun Jhin felt quite lucky that he found such a young and impressionable woman, even though she was fat he could make use of her regardless, he would just have to put up with it. The woman immediately took him to her quarters which were way more decorated and beautiful compared to the male ones, she was ready to initiate him, just like the gossip she heard from the other females during the weekly meetings they had. Yun Jhin had to go through the initiation now, even if he wanted to or not... Chapter 106: Initiation plus integration The initiation was something rather simple, the female phoenix had to take in some Yang energy from the male phoenix and then use her yin energy to mark him as her ''property''. While it was a naturally very demeaning thing to happen, males all around the planet were already pretty used to it. Yun Jhin sat straight in the young woman''s bed as she slowly made her way to him, she had a faint smile on her fat face and from her movements, you could see her fat sloshing up and down like ocean waves, Yun Jhin gulped inside but he didn''t want to make any trouble on the planet yet, if he controlled her soul those that knew her even briefly would see that she wasn''t herself, there was also the chance of her fighting back and self-destructing her soul and he didn''t want that. If a male fought back against a female there was a high chance he would be branded as a criminal and chased around by the whole female population of the planet, he wouldn''t have any day where he could rest himself and he would be hunted for the rest of the life unless he left the planet. Most criminals of the phoenix planet would leave the planet if they could, but considering their living conditions they wouldn''t have the knowledge nor resources to activate the jumping pad formation. Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he felt the woman getting near him, he just hopes things would end fast, just as a precaution he turned off his physical senses for a while and let her do her thing. After a few days, a very happy woman was tracing her fingers on Yun Jhin''s broad chest as she said: "Aren''t you very energetic even after 5 days, I heard other sisters saying that their men can''t even last for 2 and a half day!" Yun Jhin shuddered inside, even though she was fat and heavy, for a cultivator like him it didn''t matter, he gave her a sunny smile as he patted her head affectionately and told her: "Haha, even though I''m looking energetic I''m quite exhausted, I''m just putting up a strong front..." The woman laughed as she looked in his eyes: "I took you too fast since you are such a sweet talker, my name is Zhao Qinghe, what''s yours?" Yun Jhin responded with the same smile on his face: "Jhin Yun." Qinghe nodded her head at him, only females would gain the Zhao name since birth, but males had to earn it through either military service or get to a good mistress that would let them have it. The Zhao name meant being as proud as a phoenix and it symbolized both luck and prosperity on their planet, males wouldn''t be allowed to have the name Zhao as their family name so even if a man was born into a Zhao household his name would have to be changed to something random, so Qinghe didn''t doubt Yun Jhin''s name. There wasn''t a high chance for the azure dragon planet to leak information about him, but he still changed his name by reversing it just in case, it was an easy trick that could be seen through if people knew about him, but he didn''t tell his real name to many people on the azure dragon planet and they must have been lucky if they remained alive after Ruxandra looked into his background and found them, she must have been quite mad she lost such a good ''seed''. Qinghe finally got up from the bed and decided it was time to brag to her friends about him becoming her trophy husband. To make sure her friends wouldn''t think she made it all up she decided to bring Yun Jhin along, Yun Jhin of course complied, women had relatively looser mouths than men when they were with each other, they would gossip about all kind of things and this would be an easy way to get information without looking suspicious. Qinghe took him to the middle of the sect where the biggest pavilion was located, there they met with a few more women who each had a male near them who were fawning over them with both words and gifts of fine jade pendants, special flowers, etc. Some of them were kissing their hands and even reciting poets. However most of the women looked at them with scorn in their eyes, they were looking at them like they were some type of animals and their actions were only normal and proper, they thought that they deserved their gifts and be worshipped like goddesses. Yun Jhin looked on and didn''t say anything, it wasn''t his job to do to interfere in their culture, what looked normal here would look different someone else, but since the males didn''t riot or do anything else it seemed they were content with the things as they were, even if they were brainwashed this way since birth, there was still a chance for them to break through it as their cultivation grew, however, they remained the same. As they saw Qinghe approach Yun Jhin who was very handsome compared to their own men, the other women started to whisper to each other: "How did this fat bitch get to select such a fine specimen?" "Shhh, quieter, what if she hears you and tells her big sister?" "Yeah we don''t want problems, I guess this man knows of her connections and decided to use them, since he is so handsome he might even attract the attention of her sister and be like the carp that jumped over the dragon gate!" "She is really coming over, look natural!" Qinghe had a victorious smile on her face as her hand was intertwined with Yun Jhin''s she looked at the women in front of her and sneered inside but she talked to them with a sweet smile on her face: "Hello there girls, do you see something new about me?" None of the women responded, they were seething inside, most of their men were average looking, it was just like comparing purses and since Qinghe had the more beautiful one she won in this contest. Qinghe continued to smile as she started to gossip with the women, Yun Jhin kept his ears open as they stopped giving each other the stink eye and actually started to trade information: "You heard that elder sister went to jumping pad formation and came back empty-handed? Who could have come to our planet uninvited and unannounced?" "Ah who knows and who cares? As long as they hide like they did when Elder sister arrived it doesn''t matter, they must be a weakling anyways!" "Ah even the Queen was alerted by this person''s intrusion but after finding that he escaped she said that it isn''t anything of importance and if he is found it''s ok and if not its also ok, after all, if he was strong enough or important enough he wouldn''t have to hide." "Whatever girls, have you heard about the new auction house that''s opening this weekend? We should totally go and buy some new males, it seems these have already grown quite ugly and boring." The males that were keeping quiet while the women talked immediately started heavily sweating when they heard their words, they immediately bowed and scraped, begged for them to not be thrown out, but the women just glared at them and waved their hands, the males immediately glared at Yun Jhin. Because Yun Jhin was so handsome it made the women feel that they weren''t handsome enough for them and that lowered their prestige as their ''goods'' weren''t that good, so they wanted to buy new and more beautiful ones! Qinghe looked at the men glaring at Yun Jhin then she said: "What are you piece of trash glaring at my man for? He is mine and if you do anything to him you will have to answer me and my Elder sister! See what she will do with you when she hears about what you have done!" All of the men almost started to cry as they heard Qinghe talk, her elder sister was the woman that Yun Jhin first saw when he arrived on the planet, the captain who exhausted that poor male to near death. Qinghe snorted as she watched the males leave defeated with their heads down. The women looked at Qinghe and shook their heads inside, they knew that she was only doing this to stab their pride further but there was nothing they could do about it, after chatting for more time Qinghe decided to take Yun Jhin inside the pavilion, inside stood the strongest of the younger generation and deeper inside lived the sect mistress and their ancestors. In the first meeting hall Qinghe met with her sister who was currently doing the same male as before, it seemed he regained some energy and she wanted to exhaust him more. Seeing Qinghe enter made the captain give out a small smile as she got up from the man giving him a break, the man thanked his lucky stars and wanted to leave only for Qinghe''s sister to push him down and say with a little smile on her face: "After I''m done talking with my sister you still have a few thousand rounds left in you, don''t you? Do I really have to throw you away?" The man then decided to keep himself here without saying anything. Qinghe gave the naked woman a big hug as she asked: "You are still at it sister Nattaha?" "Haha you know it, sometimes men need to be disciplined like this, anyway, what do we have here? My little sis finally got her second man?" She looked Yun Jhin up and down and whistled as she appeared in front of him and felt around his body using her hands, her mouth was getting closer to his neck as she almost gave him a lick but Qinghe grabbed her and said: "Sis he is mine, please back off!" Nattaha chuckled as she backed off away from Yun Jhin and asked: "You came here to show me this hunk and make me jealous?" Qinghe coughed to change the subject and responded: "Not really, I came here in to register him as my property, even though he went to the initiation, you know how the rules are." Nattaha nodded gave Yun Jhin another look and took something out of her spatial ring, it was a special parchment made of jade bison skin, she bit her lip and some blood dripped on the parchment before she asked: "What''s his name?" "Jhin Yun." "Do you want to give him the Zhao name?" "I''m not sure sis, this is too sudden, even though we are the daughters of the sect mistress... I can shield him from the other males of the lower disciples but he will be targeted by the males of the elders." Nattaha chuckled as she looked at her sister and asked: "Do you know his cultivation base?" Qinghe stuttered a bit, she only looked for a handsome man and she didn''t use her soul willpower to assess his cultivation base, she really went quickly with her emotions on this one so she shook her head. "You really were charmed by his looks huh? Ok, let me take a look." Nattaha soul willpower enveloped Yun Jhin: "7th stage King Realm...hmm... seems to be recently broke through." "It would be a problem considering all of the elder''s males are at the Emperor Realm and above, however, we can just make sure they don''t trash his face, you know a male needs to go through hardships to become strong right? Listen to your elder sister for this one, you know how your first male ended because you overprotected him." Remembering her first male made Qinghe eyes water a bit before she nodded at her sister and said: "Ok give him the Zhao name." Nattaha wrote on the parchment: "Zhao Yun." "Now kids, go along and play some more, word will spread fast of this handsome boy, I wonder where had he been up till now? Don''t answer I must have overlooked him or he must have just got his charm a few years later, he does seem a bit familiar though but his face must have changed a lot." Yun Jhin sighed inside, he got a bit of information for following Qinghe around, at least he knew that he could hide pretty well in the sect, now he just needed to get his hands on some phoenix corpses. This is where gender discrimination would be useful, who would care if 100,000 ugly males disappeared? Chapter 107: Hatred from fellow men Yun Jhin was sent outside by Qinghe as she had to talk about some important stuff with her sister, Nattaha took a better look at her little sister and asked: "I''m pretty sure I never saw that male in my life in our sect, where did you get him from?" Qinghe started to fidget under her big sister''s stare which was boring into her soul and she immediately relented telling her: "I found him in the male''s quarters, it seemed he was just finishing his cultivation session, I''m not sure..." Nattaha narrowed her eyes as she asked: "Male''s quarters? Didn''t only the ugly ones remain? Where did this hunk come from? And his cultivation base is rather decent too, well it doesn''t matter much since he is a male even if he is an outsider since he came to us let''s make him stay!" "Did you make sure he wasn''t marked by anyone else though?" Qinghe nodded her head making her fat cheeks roll around, Nattaha patted her head while giving her a warning: "Just make sure you continue your cultivation, even though you look like this due to it, sooner or later all the ki will flow back into your body!" Qinghe nodded again at her words and Natahha waved her hand indicating that she should leave. Nattaha returned to her male which was still standing there waiting, his face was pale but he seemed to have recovered some stamina. Nattaha jumped directly on him without giving him any more time to rest. Yun Jhin looked as Qinghe came out of the pavilion and smiled at him as she intertwined her hand with his while saying: "I cannot be with you always as I have to cultivate as well, and considering the technique, I''m cultivating I would be in closed-door cultivation for quite a while in my next session." "You see I''m telling you this because the other males might go and attack you, after all, you are rather unknown and since you have become my man they would be very jealous, they have worked rather hard to get to their current positions and you know... I said what I had to say." She continued smiling at him as she kept her hand in his, they walked around the sect grounds while Qinghe showed him here and there, they were on a little date that Qinghe decided spontaneously, she wanted to enjoy herself before she went back to cultivating. Not all cultivators were like Yun Jhin, some of them wanted to enjoy the finer things in life before they died and if they reached a high cultivation base it was good for them, if they couldn''t that just meant they weren''t talented enough and decided to live lavishly above commoners who couldn''t cultivate at all. Some pursued romance that would last through their whole lifetimes, some pursued strong people to fight against until their death. Cultivators each had their dreams, Yun Jhin was actually a minority, his obsession with eternal life was high even among cultivators with the same goal, this obsession combined with his strong will let him reincarnate so many times, normally very few people have the ability or luck to reincarnate and regain their memories, but Yun Jhin reincarnated for such a high amount of times and then gained all of his former life memories as well! Qinghe watched as Yun Jhin laughed and played along with her, her fat face had a sweet smile on it as she chatted with him from time to time while they looked at some flowers, Yun Jhin laughed from time to time and even took the initiative to steal a few kisses from her here and there. Qinghe thought she was on cloud nine as she did this with Yun Jhin for a few hours, they just traveled around the sect and then in the city, they even bought a few fishes and Qinghe made Yun Jhin cook them as the stay-home husband. After one or two days of acting like this Qinghe finally entered closed-door cultivation according to her sister''s instructions, before she entered into closed-door cultivation she gave Yun Jhin a passionate kiss and winked at him whispering that she could barely wait for the next time they met each other. Yun Jhin waved to her as he stood motionlessly on the spot, he then left the female quarters as he wasn''t allowed there without Qinghe anymore, however, he didn''t go to the same male quarters as before, considering he was owned by a female now he could go to the higher male quarters, even though they weren''t as luxurious as the female ones, they were still way better compared to the ones from before. He appeared at the quarters rather quickly, the buildings were red in color and still considerably smaller compared to the female ones, but they had a hint of luxury in it, Yun Jhin had his own building now, there were around 800 buildings in total at the most upper rankings of the quarters where Yun Jhin''s building was located. Yun Jhin was assigned building 58 among the upper ranked buildings which were a bit more luxurious compared to the others. Males from the other buildings were already out talking and chatting, they already recognized him and they were either glaring or having a fake smile on their faces, but not many approached him, among the 800 buildings the lowest-ranked male had a cultivation base around the 2nd stage of the King Realm. The highest-ranked male that sat in building 1 had the cultivation base of the 3rd to 4th stage of the Emperor Realm and he was owned by a grand elder that cultivated all day long in the pavilion that Yun Jhin was previously. Yun Jhin wanted to get to his building but his entrance was barred by two male''s at the cultivation base of the 1st stage of the Emperor realm and one at the 2nd stage, they were all proud-looking and wore the same garments as Yun Jhin, they were respectively from the 30th, 29th, and 26th buildings. The two males at the 1st stage could be considered rather handsome with chiseled jaws and athletic builds, however, their faces still didn''t match Yun Jhin''s. The one at the 2nd stage was buff but had an exquisite face with a good temperament that made him look like a scholar, he also wore glasses, and the combination of a scholar body and a bodybuilder''s made an interesting look. "My name is Zhao Changeng and these are my associates, Zhao Bumgu and Zhao Zindu, we heard from some reliable sources that you have become the partner of miss Zhao Qinghe and we would like to welcome you to our clique." Changeng had a big smile on his face as he said those words but his actions were different, his hand immediately disappeared as it shot towards Yun Jhin''s abdomen in the form of a punch. It seemed they wanted to beat the newbie and show him his place around, they wanted to show that even though he was favored by a high-ranked female in the sect that he would still be below them because of his cultivation base weakness! Most males were insecure due to the way they were treated on the planet, they would bow and scrape against the females but they would show their talons and teeth at their compatriots as long as they were weaker than they were. They were all people like Yun Jhin but just not as bold nor as scheming. Yun Jhin easily caught the man''s fist and pushed him back telling him: "Zhao Changeng was it? I thank you for the invitation to your clique and I will make sure to come to all party invitations from now on, please accept my greetings!" Yun Jhin''s aura unleashed at full strength as it pushed against the trio, suddenly time seemed to move a little bit faster around Yun Jhin as he disappeared and appeared behind them, this wasn''t speed! It was like he teleported there! All three of them looked down at their stomach and put a hand over it, they could feel a bruise quickly appearing on it and they had a sweet aftertaste in their throat meaning that they took a little bit of internal damage. While males were allowed to fight they wouldn''t be allowed to hit each other''s faces or else that would anger the females and they might be even discarded! Even though they were envious of Yun Jhin they didn''t attack his face as they knew how hard it would be for him if he was discarded by such a high-ranking female. While they were envious and wanted to teach him a lesson they weren''t that bad intentioned if you would look at it from their point of view. They were just petty and narrow-minded. The trio immediately backed a bit from Yun Jhin, they realized that he was an expert with strong battle power, after all, most male phoenixes had high battle power and there were some geniuses out there that could fight between realms and from what they realized, Yun Jhin was one of them! Strength was respected everywhere regardless of customs or if the society was matriarchal or patriarchal, as long as you were strong enough you could break customs and do whatever the hell you wanted! Zhao Changeng lip was trembling a bit from the pain but he endured and gave a bow then said: "I welcome Zhao Yun to the male''s quarters!" The other two said the same thing in unison as they decided to quickly run away, Yun Jhin looked at their backs disappearing as they went to their buildings and decided to enter his own. Back at the pavilion, Nattaha was getting a massage from the same man as before, he was extremely pale compared to before and his eyes were dropping due to exhaustion, his stamina was truly exhausted and if he was forced more his life force would be expanded instead of his stamina, so Nattaha gave him some rest. She was looking at Yun Jhin through a formation, observing his actions and how he behaved in the new building he got, from what she saw after he left her sister to enter closed-door cultivation he seemed to want to cultivate himself. Nattaha yawned as she watched him cultivate, it was the normal cultivation technique that all-male phoenixes employed so her doubts about him started to lessen after he employed it, he just thought that he was a male that found his way into the sect and hoped he would be taken in, this was fairly normal and tens of thousands of men were either slaughtered or thrown out due to this as not many were as good looking or as strong as Yun Jhin, however, they still tried their luck. They all thought that they were good looking enough to impress a disciple of the sect and make her take him in, hoping that they could change their life. Nattaha stopped employing the formation after a while, she closed her eyes and took in the massage from her man while cultivating at the same time. Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed as he felt that the formation surrounding him stopped, so he stopped faking cultivating. While he was currently at the most upper buildings in the male''s quarters he got a good look of those below, they lived almost in the same conditions as the other quarters, from what he glanced about when he got up he realized that they had some furniture and bare cultivation resources so they were better than the others. However, those people below were mostly looking average or just could be barely called handsome. Yun Jhin put his target on them, while the most handsome men in the sect counted for 800, those below counted in the tens of thousands, if Yun Jhin made an approximation they were around 30,000. While he wouldn''t be able to eat too many of them or else the females would realize something was fishy, this was a good place where he could start harvesting! Yun Jhin licked his lips for a little bit as he looked out his window at the quarters that were below him, his eyes were glinting with evil intentions. Chapter 108: First victims As Yun Jhin looked through the window towards those below him, he decided to wait until nightfall before he would act. After all, in the night those women would want to act up and there would surely be those like him who had their woman in closed-door cultivation, he could just give them a little visit. Nightfall came quickly as Yun Jhin just cultivated for a while before night set, he decided to go for a stroll in the poor moonlight outside, most cultivators would either be cultivating or doing something else at these hours as they didn''t need sleep, there were also nocturnal ones who liked to travel or do different such things, but considering how things worked on the Phoenix planet, most male cultivators would be just cultivating right now as they weren''t allowed to leave too far from their women. Yun Jhin already reached the lower buildings after a very short while, others weren''t that interested to offend him after he used his strength on the three fellows yesterday so he was left alone for the night, he also didn''t feel Qinghe''s sister spying on him so he would be able to do whatever he wanted right now. He entered the first house that he felt was populated and immediately decapitated the meditating male, he wasn''t handsome but not ugly either and his cultivation base was very close to the king realm. A small black thread left Yun Jhin''s palm as the remains of the male were sucked into his body and the system finally appeared again: [Phoenix DNA acquired, to continue with the simulation of the artificial celestial caterpillar you need to acquire 99,999 more similar samples.] Yun Jhin ignored the system, he already knew that, he left the building behind him as the door closed by itself and found another victim, unfortunately, this one woke up as soon as Yun Jhin appeared and wanted to shout and ask what the hell would he be doing in his home. But Yun Jhin easily slipped in front of him and put a finger on his lips making him unable to say anything, his eyes widened becoming as big as saucers as he saw Yun Jhin''s hand going towards his chest, then he felt only darkness as he collapsed to the floor but there was no blood gushing from his wound. Yun Jhin had his heart in his hand as he used the same method as before to absorb it along with his body. He decided to not go overboard for the day as he only went and killed 8 more, he still had a lot of time left and if he killed too many he would be suspected, after all, he just appeared and some males started to disappear? It would be pretty suspicious, and the suspicions would increase even more if he killed too many, he needed to play it smart for some time, unfortunately unlike the azure dragon planet where he could kill civilians most of the people on the phoenix planet weren''t as open as the dragon planet. That meant there weren''t many if any hybrids at all and most males and females would be able to cultivate meaning the civilians were almost inexistent, from what Yun Jhin saw there were lots of organizations in the city and while the one he was in might be the strongest on the surface that must be because they had connections with the Phoenix Empress or Queen or President, he wasn''t sure what type of governing they had. Yun Jhin found himself back in his room as he looked through the same window, he wanted to leave and tour the city maybe find some more victims that he could absorb but he would first need to cement his identity in the sect so even if more people disappeared he wouldn''t be suspected, he wanted to play it as low profile as possible so when it was time to leave he wouldn''t have to do it the same way as the azure dragon planet. Dawn appeared as the light of the day came, it was soon enough found out that 10 males from the lower districts disappeared, and talking started to spread: "Could they have run away?" "Most unlikely, you know what happens to those who run away right? And we aren''t even treated that badly, it''s not like we are the man of the head-mistress older daughter..." "Shhh, you want to go and experience how is it to be her man? Don''t talk about it!" Yun Jhin moved through the male district unimpeded due to his strength show, the others were quite strong and the strongest person in the male district wouldn''t attack Yun Jhin for no reason due to pride and there was also the fact that he would be scolded by his female. While Nattaha wouldn''t interfere in fights that were around the 2nd stage of the Emperor realm those that were around the 5th to 6th stage wouldn''t be able to touch Yun Jhin, after all, she needed to look after her little sister''s man. She didn''t want such a handsome man to get his face or well-toned body trashed, it would be a big waste in her opinion. So while Yun Jhin could be threatened, due to his quick wits and use of strength he minimalized any damages that could be done to him. After making sure he heard all of the rumors he decided against hunting again on the second day, it would be too soon and he might attract attention, so he decided to cultivate as he needed to refine his 7th jewel as it was at the 1st stage of the refinery. Due to the lower population and higher bloodline purity and density on the phoenix planet, the ki circulating in the air was of a higher quality and quantity compared to the Azure dragon planet, while the azure dragon planet was strong, due to the innate characteristics of dragons (high libido) they have mated with quite a lot of beings and their bloodline got quite mixed, there was also the fact that they had tons of children and the population of the planet was higher than that of the phoenix planet. While phoenixes could be said to have more sexual escapades they only made one or two eggs in their lives so they kept their population at a good amount meaning their atmospheric ki wasn''t polluted nor were they lacking any. Yun Jhin found the ki to be to his liking as he absorbed it into his jewel trying to slowly refine it, little time passed and all of the talking disappeared, there were only a few men of the lowlier female disciples, while the female disciples were quite angry as they thought their men ran away, they quickly found more to fill the empty spots that the others left, there were quite a few males inside the city that wanted to join the sect. As the pure fire ki entered his body then his soul he could feel his jewel being purified and refined at a rapid pace, it was way quicker compared to the normal speed on the azure dragon planet. He could feel that he could reach the 2nd stage in around 1 or 2 months, so by the time he reached a small breakthrough, Qinghe would come out of closed-door cultivation, and he needed her to further his plans, after all, she had quite the connections in the sect as she was the supposed daughter of the matriarch, as long as he made a continuously good impression on her he wouldn''t be suspected of any crimes even if he continuously does them. The time jewel was pretty important to Yun Jhin so he decided to fully focus on it, it could increase his battle power to the point that those at the 3rd to 4th stage of the Emperor realm wouldn''t be much of a match to him, of course, if they were geniuses like him they would be able to fight back, but those type of geniuses wouldn''t exist in such relatively small city, so he could run rampant where he wanted if he didn''t get the attention of the older generation. As he continued to cultivate time passed outside, it was currently summer and autumn was quickly coming, but due to the hot climate of the planet there were no signs of actual autumn, it looked just like a normal summer day and this was what the phoenixes enjoyed. In Yun Jhin''s building, light could be seen traveling along his body to his head as he finally refined his 7th jewel to the 2nd stage. Before he could open his eyes properly he could hear a knock on his door, he got up and opened it only to see Qinghe who was different from before, her hair turned a deep crimson the same color as her eyes, she wore a tight fit dress and her fat seemingly melted from her body, she looked as hot and sexy as her older sister did. Yun Jhin looked Qinghe up and down, and Qinghe started to blush as she waved her hand to him and said: "Oh come on, you are literally making me blush, so embarrassing looking at me like that." She coughed a bit before she entered the house and said: "You might ask why I have lost so many weights right?" Before Yun Jhin could ask Qinghe reverted to her usual heavy set form, but now she was just a little bit slimmer, Yun Jhin realized this because he had been close to her many times and knew how fat she was, but if it was anyone else they would think she would look the same. As Yun Jhin examined her further he realized that she used a rather peculiar Buddhist school technique that he heard rumors about in his previous lives, considering the Buddhist school was pretty much out there to annihilate him he didn''t know many things about the technique, when he died the Buddhist school was still flourishing. While they tried to kill him many times, they failed in the end but he still died due to old age, however, their school still prospered because Yun Jhin was too scared to attack their headquarters, they had a special formation that would be able to injure him. Seeing this technique made him recount some things of his past, seeing that he spaced out Qinghe grasped him by the shoulder and said: "It''s ok, this was the same reaction my first man had when he saw me, but after I reach grand completion in the Fat Sumo Buddha expansion technique I should be able to return to my normal form and break through the Emperor Realm, unfortunately, I haven''t been able to stabilize the technique and I failed... Nattaha will be pretty mad about this." She gave out a big smile as her cheeks moved up and down and she said: "You could also be the reason for my failure, I just couldn''t get you out of my head, your words so sweat and your body so... hot!" She immediately jumped on him and they went at it for a few days before Qinghe was satisfied. Yun Jhin sighed inside and then left his house with Qinghe in tow, she said she had some news from her sister about something that would come up these days and that she had to attend it, Yun Jhin didn''t have to but considering how sticky Qinghe was to him he had to go as well. It didn''t take them much time to appear at the same pavilion as before, entering the first room they met with Qinghe who was now wearing some clothes, seeing how her sister didn''t break through she admonished her for a few minutes before she looked at me and shook her head as she said: "It''s ok if you want to take him with you but mother insisted for you to go alone, after all, you are supposed to get your main husband tomorrow, you can still fool around with him for some time but he would just become your Concubinator, from what I saw his bloodline is decent, but her highness wants to have his first son given to you!" Qinghe knew this would be a great matter, this was also the reason her first man disappeared suddenly as she grew too attached to him. Qinghe gave Yun Jhin a side-eye and seeing how he wasn''t panicking or anything decided to say: "But I love Zhao Yun.." Nattaha shook her head and told her: "You can still love him as much as you want, but he won''t be your main husband!" Nattaha said with finality as she crossed her arms and waited for a bit, Yun Jhin could feel the aura of a Sage Realm expert quickly approaching, it seemed he was going to meet Qinghe''s and Nattaha''s mother already. Chapter 109: Shallow connections As the aura approached, Yun Jhin finally saw Qinghe''s mother, she was a middle-aged woman that had her blonde hair made in two buns behind her back, she had wrinkles around her eyes and her forehead, showing that she was indeed quite old, if Yun Jhin estimated she should be more than 200,000 years old considering the average life span of the phoenix race. The woman gave out a gentle smile towards her daughters but then she narrowed her eyes as she looked at him and asked Qinghe: "So this is your second man? While he might be a little better than your previous one from what I heard, he still isn''t someone who you can put before Prince Hanzen." Qinghe pouted making her fat cheeks roll a few times, her mother knew that she tried to get herself out of this arranged marriage but she wouldn''t have any of it! The middle-aged woman grabbed Qinghe by her big and flabby arms and decided to leave with her ignoring Yun Jhin in the process, after all, why would she care what would a male say in this situation? Qinghe almost started crying as tears dripped slowly to her cheeks as she shouted: "NO I DON''T WANT TO MARRY PRINCE HANZEN, WHY CAN HE HAVE MULTIPLE WIVES AS A MALE! I DON''T WANT TO BE A CONCUBINE!" Yun Jhin found the thing pretty ironic and also hypocritical coming from their society but he watched on as the middle-aged woman eyes softened a bit and she said: "You might not know but males can mate an unlimited amount of times during their lives and the prince''s bloodline is very thick, thus her highness announced that she would let the prince become a breeding stallion for her closest friends so our progenitors can have the imperial blood flowing through them, do you understand? This is for the good of the planet and our family, we would become imperials!" Qinghe frowned as she watched her mother and asked: "Why can''t elder sister go?" This was a good question that was answered by Nattaha: "While the prince is indeed a breeding stallion, he was quite pampered by the Empress during his youth due to his highly concentrated bloodline, he fancies young women and as you know I''m around 4 thousand years old you are also more talented than me, even though I''m considered young by normal standards, I''m not young enough." She sighed as she remembered one other bit of information and she said: "Also the prince likes women that haven''t been with a lot of mates, considering you only had two and the relationship between our mother and her highness you must have realized why you have been chosen by mother. You should also know that I don''t really remember the number of mates I had up till now. The prince might be a breeding stallion per se, but the Empress won''t force him to mate with women he doesn''t like or there is a chance he might withhold his seed from being passed on." Qinghe knew what they meant, while she was young she wasn''t dumb and her mother taught her a little bit of politics here and there just in case something like this would happen. But Qinghe didn''t like that one little bit even though she understood the situation, even since she was born she had been taught that males are inferior to females and that she could play with them however she liked. This made her a little bit conceited until she had her first man and realized that males are the same as females, she became a little bit more caring and thought about what the opposite sex would want or not. Unfortunately for her, her mother already sealed the deal with the Empress, and considering how she was growing attached to her first male, her mother decided to dispose of him quietly. Qinghe started to struggle out of her mother''s arms but it was quite futile considering her mother was an expert at the sage realm, her mother frowned as he looked at Yun Jhin and her eyes hardened, it seemed that she thought that Yun Jhin must have said some things to her daughter which made him a disposable target! Yun Jhin recognized the look in her eyes, he had it countless times when he was in a position of power of any kind. He fell to his knees as he kowtowed to her mother and said: "Grand elder, please spare this little one, I will make sure to keep my distance from Qinghe, I just hope that she will end up alright and I don''t want to drag her down from becoming the consort of the high first prince!" Qinghe became disappointed in Yun Jhin''s lack of spine, but she also understood him, her mother would certainly kill him if he fought for her and he only became her male due to the benefits that came with it. Qinghe looked at her mother in the eyes and didn''t know what to say she shook her head and decided to follow her mother to the capital, there was nothing she could do in this situation and all she could do was give birth to one or two children if she was unlucky before she was free to do whatever she wanted. However, she still had some lingering feelings for Yun Jhin as she waved her hand at him sadly, both her mother and Qinghe then disappeared. Nattaha looked Yun Jhin up and down as she licked her lips sensually and approached him at a speed that he could barely recognize, her hands were moving around his body as she undressed him. If Qinghe was here she would feel quite betrayed, she didn''t even reach the capital yet and her sister was making a move on her ex-man already? Seeing that Yun Jhin wasn''t struggling or saying anything made Nattaha lose interest in him as he pushed him away and said: "You truly lack a spine, why don''t you struggle? You already don''t see yourself as my sister''s man anymore?" Yun Jhin got up from the ground and said while shaking his head: "If you want to take me what can I do? You are a female and I''m a male since your sister was taken away by her highness the grand elder I won''t be her man anymore even if I shouted to the skies or did anything else, considering that I''m free I don''t mind becoming your man." Nattaha laughed as she looked at Yun Jhin and made him look in her eyes as she told him: "Aren''t you an opportunistic fellow? I like males like you but would your stamina endure?" Nattha took his clothes off and hers as well as she jumped him. 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, 5 months, 6 months. After half a year of nonstop dual cultivation, even Yun Jhin could feel that his yang essence was getting exhausted, fortunately for him he had enough techniques to make himself last longer and because Nattaha wasn''t in the god realm, she couldn''t exhaust his yang essence before he could recover it. So he hanged on for 6 months before Nattaha got bored of him and decided to throw him out of the pavilion saying that he would be her man from now on and that he should come when she invites him in the future. Yun Jhin looked to be gaunt and skinny on the surface after dual-cultivating for such a long while, but on the inside, he was almost the same as before, there was also the fact he reached the 3rd stage of refinement on the 7th jewel with the constant dual-cultivation. Yun Jhin gave out a breath that contained some extra yin energy and his gaunt form returned to his normal self as he decided to take a stroll in the lower male''s quarters. After he took the stroll the male''s quarters were 50 men short and Yun Jhin was 60 bodies closer to finishing his quest. Yun Jhin found himself back in his building as he looked to the window, he sighed, this was too slow for him, he wanted to get rid of his current identity and maybe go on a rampage to finish the requirements of the phoenix planet but he still needed to lay low, this was quite the annoying thing for him. And it all stemmed from his low cultivation base, while the resources he got from becoming Nattaha''s man were better than when he was Qinghe''s he still felt that they were lacking, and he was sure they weren''t giving him the best things because he was a male, the truly good stuff would be reserved for the female disciples. Yun Jhin knew a few things about the phoenix planet but he wasn''t sure if they were still up to date, he needed to get some information and buy a map to make sure things were as he knew, fortunately as he now had the identity of the head disciple''s man he could easily get those. He used his connections with the few males he knew in the upper quarters and got what he needed without having to pay a spirit stone, after all, they were fearing him and now that he got higher in rank they wanted to curry favor with him to increase their standing. Even the top 1 male would have to give him some face considering he was the man of the head disciple who could become the sect mistress in the future. Grand Elders were only a little bit weaker than the sect mistress and they were the pillars of the sect, so it wasn''t wrong to say that any child of the grand elders could achieve the sect mistress position if they were talented enough, and Nattaha was. As Yun Jhin looked over the map of the phoenix planet and the information the others gathered it seemed some of the things he knew changed by quite a lot, but some places didn''t change. He had a small smile on his face when he closed the map and burned it into cinders, he knew where he had to go to increase his cultivation base, it was a location with something akin to the jade dragon pool energy from the azure dragon planet. The location was monopolized by the imperial family but considering his connections with Qinghe he could do something about it and maybe get to the Fiery Phoenix Pool to further his cultivation, by his calculations with it he should be able to increase his cultivation by 5 if not 6 levels and even upgrade his clothes and Halberd, up till now he didn''t find an opponent who had to make him use it, but considering the location he was in, it only made sense he didn''t have to use it. He was a man that would rather make his way out with words instead of violence. Violence was a last resort strategy for him, but that didn''t mean he was bad at it. Yun Jhin waited for a few more months to let thing settle down after he killed 50 more males, he thought that he might have been able to clear all of them but it seemed that while the females looked down on males quite a lot, they also treasured them in their own strange way just like a possession that they couldn''t live without, but could also somewhat replace at the same time, it was strange for others but Yun Jhin kind of understood them. Empathy was a thing one needed to infiltrate and Yun Jhin mastered this emotion, he just controlled it to his advantage and didn''t act on it. To leave the sect he had to apply to Nattaha but considering their current close relationship, Nattaha only narrowed her eyes at him and asked him some questions before she let him leave. Yun Jhin hopped that after his current plan completed he wouldn''t have to come back here, maybe after this he could even move on to the next planet if things went well! Chapter 110: You should turn back After making sure everything was alright Yun Jhin left the sect and started to travel towards the location of the Fiery Phoenix pool. It was in the capital and unlike the Jade Dragon pool, it was open to the public, public as in females only. They also had to use quite a few spirit stones to be let in and it was akin to hot springs for the females of the phoenix race, it would reinvigorate them and heal them, however, they weren''t allowed to absorb too much of the energy, they would be allowed to absorb energy based on the rank of spirit stones they gave, the highest-ranked spirit stones would let them absorb as much as their body could let them. However finding these type of stones was easier said than done, Yun Jhin only had none of those on the azure dragon planet, right now he was pretty much penniless, he had a few marine herbs that he could use to create pills but they weren''t worth that much... Remembering about pills gave Yun Jhin a simple idea, he could use his pill making abilities to get enough money then use his connections with Qinghe to get into the Fiery Phoenix pool to absorb its whole contents. This way he would be able to do it legitimately and get very close to breaking through to the Emperor realm, after he broke through he would be able to kill and absorb the remaining people quite easily as his stealth skill would improve quite a lot, even sage realm experts wouldn''t be able to detect him properly and if he played his cards well he wouldn''t even have to meet God Realm practitioners. The capital was quite far away from the ocean city that Yun Jhin ended up at, at full speed traveling took him almost 2 months, fortunately, the phoenix planet had a different layout compared to the azure dragon one. The capital was two to three times bigger than the city he left behind, it was full of red buildings as phoenix women loved the color red, pavilions, pagodas, even some western and modern type of buildings could be seen here and there, the architecture evolved a small bit since Yun Jhin last saw it, it seemed that the azure dragon planet was also lagging in this regard as they had the same type of buildings as 500,000 years prior. It didn''t take him much time to find a shop that specialized in selling medicinal pills, the thing was that the moment he entered it he was thrown outside even after he showed his skills, the woman who ran the shop gave him the stink eye and said: "A male like yourself, trying to make money without your female knowing? Don''t you think that we had enough of you running around trying to make themselves look important? Your skills may be genuine but since you came without your female you might as well give up on trying this type of stuff in the capital!" Yun Jhin frowned as he looked around seeing women looking at him and giggling under their breath, the men which stood behind the women were giving him sympathizing looks as they shook their head. It seemed he miscalculated something here, the sexism in the capital was considerably stronger than the one in the ocean city he came from, he wasn''t sure how this worked, but he realized it might be due to them being more prideful as the capital had the Empress in it, they thought that as females who were near the Empress they were better even compared to other females. Yun Jhin sighed as he got up from the ground, it seemed he needed to use his connections with Qinghe already, if he needed to use them for such a small matter how was he able to get inside the Fiery Phoenix Pool? What did he need to do? Finding Qinghe didn''t take him much time considering the location of the imperial visits was publicized, even though Qinghe was supposed to meet the main prince she wasn''t let in the huge palace that stood before the rather small visiting building. Yun Jhin found her playing a flute and sobbing, when she found Yun Jhin''s intentionally leaked aura she immediately ushered him into her room at a light speed. She hugged him forcefully almost squeezing the lungs out of him as she cried while whispering: "The young prince said that I was fatter than a Uxidrow and that he didn''t really want to touch me at all... only after the Empress persuaded him did he relent but he said that he would only touch me after I finished completing my cultivation technique, and then he won''t touch me again after I became pregnant." She hiccuped from time to time as hot tears dripped down from her cheeks on Yun Jhin''s clothes, Yun Jhin decided to comfort her, it seemed her mother was still in the palace doing god knows what and she let her daughter out first. After discharging all of the emotions out of her she finally asked: "What are you doing in the capital Zhao Yun?" Yun Jhin coughed a bit as he said: "I was missing you, your sister already made me her man but I didn''t feel the same as with you, I just feel bad that we can''t continue our relationship so I wanted to see you one last time." Qinghe smiled sadly as she continued to hug Yun Jhin, it seemed that they shared the same sentiments. Yun Jhin faked a few tears as he reciprocated the hug and told her: "I''m sorry that we can''t be together but in our type of society we can''t do much about it..." Qinghe nodded, she felt quite sad as well, but then her eyes started to lighten as she said: "Then why don''t we run away?" Yun Jhin frowned, he didn''t think she would be that bold, this was a peak God Realm expert she wanted to run away from! After all, her mother already gave the word that she would give birth to at least 1 child! Yun Jhin opened his mouth to dissuade her: "While we might be able to run away, think about it a little, your mother already gave her word and the Empress is a God Realm expert, what do you think will happen to us the moment she senses you leaving?" Seeing Yun Jhin''s hard logic made Qinghe start to think, she wasn''t dumb and understood what she meant, dying at this stage meant that they wouldn''t be together and she truly liked him, not because of his sweet words but because he seemed truthful and empathetic to her, this was something that even her sister and mother weren''t with her, while they were truthful they never empathized with her, trying to understand how she felt, but Yun Jhin words and actions gave her that feeling. Yun Jhin smiled inside, it seemed his plan worked, he patted her fat shoulders as he tilted his head to the side and said: "Your plan might work, I have mastered a technique that would let me become completely invisible to those around the sage realm, but I need to break through to the Emperor Realm for that.. you see.." Yun Jhin told him about the things he found out and how he needed to make money to be able to enter the Fiery Phoenix Pool, he also wondered if she could help him in both regards, if his plan worked they would be able to run away! At least that''s what Qinghe was thinking right now, her eyes light up as she looked at Yun Jhin and a small smile blossomed on her face, while her mother would surely run after them, the Empress looked quite indifferent when she pursued her son to mate with her, maybe there was a chance for them! Seeing how easily Qinghe got manipulated, Yun Jhin gave her a genuine smiled that made her think that he was really thinking about them with the contents of the conversation still flashing through her mind at quick speeds. Qinghe decided to accompany Yun Jhin to a pill selling shop and give her approval of him working there, they chose a different shop to make things go easier. After he got employed Yun Jhin was made to work like a pack mule as he got the hardest jobs because he was a male, however, he easily did them and got promoted quite quickly, 4 months passed since he was in the capital and he already was a senior pill refiner, even the females who were coming and going through the shop would take a peek at his public work, the boss of the shop even praised him and wanted to take him out for a few sessions, but Yun Jhin declined her saying that he was loyal to Qinghe. This made the boss of the shop even more impressed with him and gave him a salary raise. Due to his high position and the way he was quickly making money for the shop, his salary was quite big and it contained a few highest-ranked spirit stones, the way he was making business boom made the boss give him the highest salary in the shop regardless of his gender, he was that good! It also helped he used sweet words and sometimes would sigh and act like he missed Qinghe, women loved these type of tragic stories the most and they felt like they should do something when they saw such type of lovebirds, something to help them. Thus his salary was increased above normal measures, especially when some of his plans leaked, it was nothing serious to tell her some rumors that made her think what she wanted. After 4 months Qinghe still didn''t break through, she was now intentionally failing her breakthrough and waiting for Yun Jhin to make the money so they could escape together. Her mother suspected something going on after she visited her the last time, but Qinghe faked her failed breakthroughs too well, after all the technique she was cultivating came from a Buddhist school and they were one of the harder techniques to master out there, also this was a type of technique that needed accumulation and not enlightenment, so her mother couldn''t truly rush her in this regard. More time passed, a year went by at lightning speed as Yun Jhin found himself with enough money to empty the Fiery Phoenix pool, but for now, he had to wait till the pool was at full capacity before he would enter as he needed its max capacity to unleash his potential to his best capability, while he said that his cultivation base might increase by 4-6 levels this was only an estimation, who truly knew how much energy he would need to break through to the Emperor realm? He wasn''t sure about that himself because of the high quality of his jewels it might take more energy for him to breakthrough, but one thing was guaranteed, with the energy of this pool he would be able to reach the Emperor realm! First, he told Qinghe that he finished gathering money and that he would soon need her help to get inside the Fiery Phoenix pool, after all, as a male it was a very low chance he would be able to enter it by himself. Qinghe found a way to enter, sometimes couples would be able to enter and dual cultivate into the pool and with Qinghe''s special position she was let to enter with Yun Jhin, her mother was still inside the palace at the time so nothing happened, Qinghe wasn''t sure what her mother was doing inside the palace as she didn''t tell her anything when she came to visit, it was actually quite strange. Yun Jhin''s eyes laid on the fiery pool that was full of crimson lava-like energy, he told Qinghe who was behind him: "You just keep a lookout while I cultivate, I will need all of the energy inside the pool to make my breakthrough, after I breakthrough we can leave, we can use the jumping pad formation and leave this planet behind us!" Qinghe had a faint smile on her face, her eyes were red and it seemed she had been crying more lately, most likely because her mother was berating her on her breakthrough failures, even though her mother understood her, she was still frustrated at her daughter''s incompetence. Yun Jhin started to slowly get into the pool as he swam down to the bottom, he closed his eyes as he sat cross-legged and started to do his breathing exercises, he was ready to use the energy from the pool to refine himself and breakthrough even further in his cultivation! Qinghe just looked at him with a big smile on her face as she fantasized about what was to come, she hoped that her children would be with Yun Jhin and not with that prince, at least Yun Jhin loved her even though she was fat... Yun Jhin closed all of his senses as he focused on cultivation, he only left a opening for Qinghe to awaken him if anything happened, for now, he would do his best to cultivate. Chapter 111: Cultivation jump Yun Jhin''s eyes remained closed as he used his breathing technique to absorb the fiery energy that was surrounding his whole body, Qinghe made sure there wouldn''t be any interruptions as she kept watch. As the energy in the pool started to revolve around Yun Jhin, he could feel that the energy was cleansing his body and soul, it was of a higher quality compared to the jade dragon pool of the azure dragon planet, that was for sure. Atop of Yun Jhin''s soul, his ki crown was reacting to the energy that it was given, and it started to devour it at a quick speed as the 7th jewel was currently going through a rapid refinement. 4th stage of refinement, 6th stage, 9th stage, full refinement! The 7th jewel that contained the time law was now resplendent and glittery on the crown. Since the 7th jewel was fully refined it was time to go and create the 8th jewel! The 8th jewel could be filled with a multitude of things that would affect the ultimate 9th jewel which would give Yun Jhin a special killing technique only that he could use. Yun Jhin already knew what he wanted to infuse his jewel with, he could use his own bloodline to fill it and create a bloodline jewel that would accordingly change when his body evolved or changed in any way, this was something that couldn''t happen normally, but since Yun Jhin had the system he would be the only one who could do it. Yun Jhin''s blood started to slowly boil into the fiery pool as he extracted it from his body and refined it using the energy of the pool turning it crystalline and without any impurities, it didn''t have many, to begin with so it didn''t take him much time at all to finish that. After the blood was fully refined he used his soul willpower to absorb it into his soul space then started to carve the crystalline blood into a red jewel, the character for bloodline slowly appeared on it as he carved it. The jewel would have given an intense bloody smell in the open, but considering the jewel was already in Yun Jhin''s soul space it didn''t attract any attention. He slowly slid the jewel into the 8th slot and it made a small clinking sound as it entered the slot perfectly, Yun Jhin''s body started to change as his drained blood returned at a quick speed, his pale face returned to a normal healthy rosy color. As his bloodline purified itself at quick speeds due to the jewel''s properties Yun Jhin could feel that his stagnant body refining started to increase, but this was only for his internal organs and blood, they were getting strengthened at quick speeds until they stopped suddenly. Yun Jhin opened his eyes as he examined his insides and nodded to himself, it was time to continue the breakthrough as he didn''t even use 10% of the total energy in the pool, at most he used around 7% in total. Considering how much energy he had left, he decided to go directly to the next breakthrough, unlike before with the current body refining state he didn''t need to wait for his body to acclimatize to the breakthrough. Now the last thing he had to do was fuse all of the jewels into a big multicolored jewel and remodel the crown into it having only a big slot. This would take him more time than all of the previous breakthroughs so he decided to tell Qinghe to keep her eyes open for anything suspicious, if he was interrupted during this breakthrough there was a chance his crown may break, and repairing it would take a few years. As he kept his eyes closed his soul willpower was rampaging in his soul space as it transformed into hands that started to meld the crown and fuse the jewels at the same time. Time passed slowly as Yun Jhin made the crown into a smaller one which only had one big slot, after he finished remodeling the crown he turned all of the jewels into a liquid-like state and started to mix all of them. After mixing them for a few months, Yun Jhin created a ''soup'' of multicolored liquids that he started to harden using his soul flame at an immensely high temperature, but not that high as to not crack them or destroy them by accident. After the jewels fused into one shiny jewel with different colors on all its sides, Yun Jhin made a hand using his soul willpower to insert it into the big slot that remained on the crown, his body started to shake as if he had a seizure as information from the jewel was inserted into his soul forcefully: "I see, life and death, time and space, bloodline, the 4 elements, Ying and Yang just like my previous lives, this is the best combination!" He had a big smile on his face as the unique technique revealed itself, with it Yun Jhin could create a supernova combined with all of the previously stated things to destroy his opponent both inside and outside, the supernova could also be contained into a very small and destructive form like a ball, or create a dangerously big one that could even hit the core of a planet and make it explode. It was akin to a nuclear bomb but stronger, however, for the big one it would take time to charge and the small one was a little bit too destructive on the living things, so it could only be used when Yun Jhin wanted to truly destroy an opponent without absorbing him or enslaving him, it was a perfect killing technique with no counter! Well, the only counter would be dodging it, but that was easier said than done. Yun Jhin''s body stopped trembling as he puffed out a small cloud of impurities that burned into the pool and disappeared. Now he used around 25% of the energy of the pool and the energy started to decrease in height, the pool was full before but now a quarter was gone and if Yun Jhin stood up his head might be visible through the pool. As things stood, Yun Jhin knew that he might be able to break through the Emperor Realm but he wasn''t sure if he could reach the 2nd stage. Yun Jhin continued his breakthroughs as he concentrated on absorbing the energy from the pool. 50%, 60%, 75% he stopped around at 78% as his body started to glow with both a fiery gold and a clear azure, the energy that he absorbed from the jade dragon pool was now resonating with the one from the Fiery Phoenix pool. Yun Jhin''s eyes formed a smile as he used both of the energies to break through into the Emperor Realm. The Emperor Realm was very different compared to the King Realm, in this realm, one could actually start flying without getting exhausted and one could also create ki weapons that they could superimpose with their actual weapons to create a mass destructive ability that even though while not comparable with the innate technique they awakened at the 9th stage of the King Realm, it would still be equal to around 25-35% of its destructive power, however, this was also dependent on the user''s ability with the weapon of their choosing. Yun Jhin''s weapon of choosing was the halberd, so he used the combination of jade energy and fiery energy to create half white and half red halberd that he grasped with his hand, the halberd solidified as Yun Jhin started to swing it and slash with it at high speeds, sometimes he would also poke around the pool with it, as the pool started to lose more energy Yun Jhin was solidifying his breakthrough in his realm. In the first stage, one can fly freely and condense his spiritual ki weapon. In the second stage, one is needed to strengthen the spiritual ki weapon. In the third stage, one is acquiring a spiritual imperial armor that''s similar to the ki weapon. In the fourth stage, one is acquiring a spiritual imperial steed that would increase one''s speed, the steed can also fly and increases one''s flying capabilities by 100%. In the fifth stage, one acquired the cape of an Emperor which furtherly increases the defensive capabilities of the spiritual imperial armor. In the sixth stage, one acquired the ability to create ki troops that they could command as a true emperor. in the seventh stage, one acquired the ability to summon a war banner that would explosively increase the might of their ki troops. in the eight-stage, one acquired the ability to fuse with their troops and become a gigantic weapon of mass destruction, a punch from such a gigantic entity that was tens of thousands of meters tall would be able to destroy mountains with a single hit or even throw away small heavenly bodies to fight, such as moons or meteors. In the ninth stage, one finally finished their cultivation in the Emperor realm and acquired an evolved version of their bloodline to increase their lifespan and physical battle power to the peak. Yun Jhin was currently in the first stage and his ki halberd was slowly getting refined into the weapon he wanted to have. After more time passed he finally finished refining the ki halberd and if he wanted to reach the 2nd stage of the Emperor Realm he had to refine the halberd using the energy in the pool and his innate ki flame. Fortunately, there was still enough energy for that to happen, after he exhausted almost all of the energy inside the pool he barely reached the 2nd stage of the Emperor Realm, unlike the King Realm there was no stage of refinery like the jewels, once one attained the perfect stage of the weapon you could be considered to have broken through to the 2nd stage. And for Yun Jhin it didn''t take much time but a lot of energy! There was still some amount of energy left on the bottom so Yun Jhin took it and infused his physical halberd and the special clothes he created using the jade dragon pool energy, he thus strengthened them even further and gave them another energy of the four sacred beasts. He had some plans to get the energy pools from the black tortoise and white tiger planets as well, like this he would be able to create an outfit and weapon that could follow him even when he reached the peak of the god realm, from what he saw both the weapon and his clothes were at the Overwhelming grade, and from his calculations he could see that they might evolve to the Godly grade if he finished fusing them with the energy of the two other pools. Yun Jhin jumped from the pool and almost startled Qinghe who was still keeping her eyes on the door. Almost 6 more months passed since they entered the fiery phoenix pool and Qinghe''s nerves were stretched taut for waiting and keeping watch for such a long time. Qinghe was now a little bit slimmer than before as she couldn''t stop her cultivation from breaking through anymore, and because she was so near the fiery dragon pool she unconsciously used some of the energy while she breathed in and out, Yun Jhin embraced her from behind as she told her: "You can break through now, use this environment, and after that we can run away!" She started to smile as she stopped blocking her breakthrough and decided to reach the Emperor Realm just like her beloved! Yun Jhin watched as she formed her own ki weapon which was a sword, it wasn''t that surprising, the sword was the most beloved weapon of the cultivators and one of the relatively easier to use, so it was normal she would choose it as her ki weapon. Yun Jhin started to use his stealth technique as they both disappeared and left the capital behind them, a shout full of rage could be heard as her mother finally left the palace and went to visit her again: "WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? YOU UNFILIAL DAUGHTER!" Yun Jhin chuckled as he grasped Qinghe''s now slim hand, she was quite the beauty after she lost all of her weight and she could be used and manipulated for him to absorb all of those remaining phoenix-kin. Seeing how she was so madly in love with him due to reasons know only to her, Yun Jhin decided to spare her, she could be very useful and also pleasing to the eye, keeping her alive and besides him wouldn''t trouble him that much now that he reached the Emperor Realm, he might only discard her if she became useless or if his life was in danger. But for now, he would let her follow him. Chapter 112: The truth Qinghe was holding Yun Jhin''s hand very tightly as they ran under his stealth technique, she could feel that something strange was going on and realized it was because she was practically invisible. They ran through the full streets of the capital and no one could even see them! She was rather impressed by her beloved technique, she had a big smile on her face during the whole ordeal as they ran away from the capital, but her mother''s scream could be heard even after they ran away 50 kilometers. Qinghe was rather scared when she heard it but Yun Jhin put a hand on her shoulder and comforted her with some words that she needed to hear right now: "It''s ok, she can''t find us, and even if she ever will I will make sure that you won''t get back there!" Qinghe''s tears started to slowly drip from her eyes as she heard his words, these were the words she wanted to hear from her beloved and he didn''t disappoint, he was the man that she ever envisioned in her dreams, the man that would protect her. Being born in a matriarchal society took a toll on Qinghe''s mind, even though she was supposed to be loved and protected only the reverse happened to her, with all of the bad things she heard about men, and as she compared the way she was treated by her fellow women, she felt that men were more trustworthy! As they were always nice to her and they always told her what she wanted to hear, but not all of them were sincere, her last man which was also her first was one of the few sincere ones that she took in, but his end made her extremely sad and almost depressed, only after Yun Jhin came along she became happier, but then her mother made a move and this almost crushed her soul. But now that Yun Jhin saved her and took her away from her mother, she became as happy as she could be. After a while, they finally couldn''t see the capital walls anymore and they reached an uninhabited forest where they decided to take a rest. Qinghe was rather attached to Yun Jhin as she rested her head on his shoulder while he slowly meditated to recover his ki, it wouldn''t take him much time to recover it, however, the consumption of the stealth technique was quite big considering he was using the advanced form to make sure the sage realm experts wouldn''t be able to locate him, so that meant he still had to rest from time to time. Qinghe eyed his resting form for a bit as she giggled under her breath, she truly felt quite happy running away with him. Seeing that they were alone and free for now Qinghe moved a little bit closer and gave him a peck on the cheek as she said: "Thanks for everything you are doing Zhao Yun." Yun Jhin shook his head and said: "My name is not Zhao Yun, please call me by my real name." Qinghe cocked her head to the side and asked: "Your real name?" Yun Jhin nodded and told her his real name: "My name is Yun Jhin and you see I''m not actually from the phoenix race." His disguise unveiled in front of her as he returned to his ying-yang look, Qinghe gasped as she moved a few feet back from him, she was both puzzled and scared at what happened, Yun Jhin shook his head seeing her reaction before he quickly embraced her and said: "It''s ok, I''m still the same person, you see I have run away from the azure dragon planet as it was currently in a civil war and I have landed on this planet, I wasn''t sure what to do at first so I hid." "At first I have tried to hid in plain sight as I saw that males were treated differently on this planet so I guessed hiding in the strongest sect in the city was a good way to not attract attention by being plain." "However, you found me quite fast and took me in as your man, I haven''t had many interactions with many females before and you could be said to have been rather unique even amongst those that I interacted with." He coughed a bit after he said those words, he felt rather awkward to call her ''unique''. "My feelings for you are still true, regardless of race and how males are saw on your planet." He kneeled in front of her as he took her fair hand into his and landed a gentle kiss on it, Qinghe started to blush like mad, even though his former looks were handsome, this part of Yun Jhin was both handsome and unique looking, his ying-yang looks gave him an exotic look that Qinghe found rather attractive. Seeing how he easily calmed her, Yun Jhin smiled inside before he continued: "I''m sorry to have frightened you with my sudden reveal, after all, I didn''t know how to break it to you that I''m not from the phoenix race, if you don''t like me anymore because of that I should help you get to a safe location before I shall excuse myself." He gave her a small bow to show how sorry he was, this made Qinghe quickly grab him by the arm and hold him as she said with trembling eyes: "Don''t say that! I don''t care about your race and why you have escaped from the azure dragon planet, I know who you are, I heard my big sister talk about an intruder but I couldn''t care more about that, I love you because of who you are! A nice person who sees through the outer appearance of someone and loves them for who they are under their skin!" What Qinghe said wasn''t wrong, but Yun Jhin had more than one meaning for what she said. Seeing that she was still so in love with him made Yun Jhin cut the thought of getting rid of her, her current looks would be rather useful for his plan. He motioned for her to jump on his back as his ki returned to full capacity, Qinghe jumped on his broad back and felt his muscles, he blushed a bit, she was still like a schoolgirl that found her first love even though they already had intercourse for more than a few times. Afterward, Yun Jhin used his stealth technique and started to run at high speeds leaving the forest behind them, now that he placated her Yun Jhin needed a plan on how to use her to lure some males to him, he needed to absorb them and the amount he required wasn''t that small. He looked to the front as he asked Qinghe who was embracing his back: "Do you know any remote villages that we could run to? Considering your mother she might know we will run away and she must have put some guards towards the jumping pad formation, we need to lay low for a while, maybe in a location where there are more males, I could use a technique to hide your female features so we can hide." Qinghe put a finger on her chin as she thought about it, she was rather knowledgeable of the phoenix planet layout, even though Yun Jhin got a map, he wanted a location that wasn''t on the map. As they passed a cave Qinghe finally opened her mouth to say: "I think I know a location, most males that are abandoned are thrown there and there is a low chance for anyone to find us there if you have that technique to hide me." Yun Jhin got the location from her and decided to follow her directions as he ran towards the village at even quicker speeds than what he was usually using. He reached the village after 5 days of running without any stops, he was rather exhausted when he reached the village but he quickly got rid of the exhaustion as he looked around. The village was rather rustic and could even be called primitive as they had huts made from clay and other materials that weren''t that sturdy, most of the males were seen wearing rather poor clothes and some of them even wore nothing but some cloth that covered their private parts, most of them were emaciated and crippled considering cultivation base. Qinghe felt rather sorry for them and Yun Jhin looked at them with narrowed eyes as he told Qinghe: "I think this is no way for someone to live, Qinghe what you say we purify this village and let all of these poor people go free?" Qinghe was rather surprised by what Yun Jhin said. He didn''t think he was that type of person, but seeing how hard it was living for the males around she felt that his words weren''t that wrong. Naturally, Qinghe would disagree with such a thing but Yun Jhin was currently messing with her thoughts using his superior soul willpower, making her see things from his perspective. At first, he would need to do this to her so later she would accept his plans when she would have to become bait. The village wasn''t that big and there were at most 200 males in it. Yun Jhin razed it to the ground rather easily and absorbed all of them while Qinghe didn''t watch, she was a rather soft person and didn''t like fighting or killing, when she looked again if she didn''t know there was a village where she might have thought that it was just a normal plain. Yun Jhin shook his head as he patted her head and told her: "It''s ok, it wasn''t right for them to live like this, unfortunately, your society doesn''t allow all males to have equal opportunities, I''m quite sad about that..." Hearing about her society made Qinghe quite mad, both at herself and other females, this rage was induced by Yun Jhin''s soul willpower which was still messing with her thoughts and emotions at a very small level. He didn''t have to do much as she was still madly in love with him which meant his manipulation would work by 200% effectivity. After seeing her eyes cloud over Yun Jhin chuckled and put her on his back again as he asked her: "Any more villages like these exist darling? We should liberate all of them as they are in more suffering living like this, don''t you agree?" Qinghe started to mutter the names and locations of the villages as Yun Jhin''s eyes gained an evil glint in them, he successfully manipulated her with ease, and it didn''t take him much time either! He was currently laughing inside as he made his way towards the next villages, all he had to do now was absorb all of them, but from what he could see there weren''t that many in existence, all males knew how to make themselves useful and there were very few that were discarded in such away. From his calculations, he realized that he at most would gain around 5-8 thousand and he would still need to absorb 95-92 thousand to finish his phoenix bloodline acquisition, thus after he finished raiding the villages he still needed to use Qinghe to her full potential. After being mentally manipulated for a while without her even knowing her consciousness started to grow fuzzy as she started to sleep on Yun Jhin''s back, she had a content smile on her face as she thought she was doing the right thing informing Yun Jhin about the locations of the villages, she thought that she was actually saving these people, only if she knew she was damning them to an eternity without even being able to reincarnate, what would her expression be? Yun Jhin knew about it, he chuckled again as he turned his head a bit and looked at her sleeping form and told her with a loving tone: "You are going to be quite the hero from now on darling, hope you will enjoy your reputation..." Chapter 113: Revelation While Yun Jhin and his new girlfriend were torching villages and massacring poor males who already had it hard out there. Qinghe''s mother was rampaging inside the capital trying to find her daughter with no results whatsoever. Qinghe''s mother was sweating intensely as she returned to the palace and met up with the Empress, she fell to her knees as she started to tremble so much that you might think she was having a seizure. The Empress knew that something was wrong and knew what it was as well, it could be easily seen by the expression on Qinghe''s mother face: "Martata, it seems your daughter had run away." Martata didn''t say anything as she kept her head held down and started to kowtow to the Empress while saying: "Please forgive me!" The Empress shook her head as she waved her hand and a handsome young man appeared he was half-naked and flustered but seeing it was his mother who summoned him his face returned to normal shortly while he was surprised it also seemed that he was used to such things as well. She asked him: "Did you instruct the guards to not look after Qinghe?" Prince Hanzen nodded and told his mother: "Mother you saw her yourself, even if she lost all her fat she wouldn''t have been that beautiful, I already have hundreds of women more beautiful than her, why would it matter if she became my concubine or not?" The Empress sighed, it didn''t matter much, she was only doing a favor to one of her former generals, and seeing that her son didn''t want Qinghe she couldn''t do much about it either. However, since she gave her word to Martata she would still need to show at least a little bit of concern on this matter or she might lose her support, one general didn''t matter much for her but what if she rallied more? She also didn''t do anything wrong as her son was the one who intervened in this so basically she couldn''t be punished or executed. The Empress was a rather smart woman, she was the one who created this matriarchal society and made it work, she was also the one who stopped the war plaguing the planet since the humans attacked a long time ago, she was quite old herself even though she looked middle-aged at best, her son was conceived at a later age so he was still quite young and full of vigor, that''s why he wanted to use him as a breeding horse to continue the imperial line, a male could mate multiple times but a female couldn''t give birth to more than two children, innately phoenixes had the weakest bodies compared to the other 3 beasts, however, they had a special ability to revive themselves if a big piece of their DNA remained intact, but the process was quite lengthy and it didn''t work if they died of old age. The Empress let out a long sigh, she couldn''t make a sage realm expert go after the princess and her lover, after all, they would be quite mad to be interrupted from cultivating, they were all trying to improve and maybe even reach the God Realm and the Empress understood their struggle, he could make Martata go after her own daughter but the reason she stayed in the palace for such long whiles was the same as the others. The phoenix palace was special as it could be used to hasten the cultivation speed of those at the Sage Realm and above, anyone would want to stay continuously in it and not leave it after they tasted the benefits, it was created with a special fire magma stone that would increase the circulation of the phoenix bloodline of those who lived in it. Martata thought that she could casually cultivate inside and wait for her daughter to breakthrough, after all, her daughter never disobeyed her once in her whole life, how could she know that she would do it now, for a man to boot! The Empress waved her hand indicating that Martata could get up from her kneeling position, her eyes shifted to her son and she asked: "Do you still have that battle regiment of Emperors I gave you?" Hanzen nodded at her question and said: "Should I let them out to play, for now, mother?" The Empress nodded and said: "Go and tell them to find Qinghe and her lover, what was his name? Zhao Yun?" Her gaze moved to Martata for confirmation and Martata nodded continuously at the question. After that, she made sure to emphasize how Yun Jhin looked but considering his stealth skills and the way he changed himself there was a very low chance for him to be found by a battalion of Emperors even if they were high ranked ones. Hanzen gave out an order through a communication stone and afterward bowed to his mother and asked: "Can I go back to what I was doing, mother?" The Empress nodded and waved her hand as the prince disappeared from the spot only to end up in his room back with his hundreds of concubines. Martata left the Empress alone as she went to a cultivation room, for now, all she wanted to do was wait for her daughter to come back and accept her fate, all she had to do was give birth to one or two children, was it that hard? Yun Jhin was now finishing all of the poor male villages and ended up with almost 7,000 kills in total. He sighed as he needed 93,000 more, he now needed to go with phase two of his plan, he needed to go towards a populated city and use Qinghe as bait to make some males think they have hit the jackpot and that they are going to be owned by a beautiful woman who would improve their lives, only for her to bait them to him so he could absorb them! He changed both his and her looks to look handsome but not very as to not attract too much attention, however, their face structure and their height and weight were different from before, combined with the masked life force they wouldn''t be recognized by anyone, if Martata would look at Qinghe now she would think she was a stranger she never met in her life. Manipulating Qinghe was rather easy as the seed of doubt was the place in her mind already, who was she supposed to believe in? Her mother''s teachings for almost 18 years or Yun Jhin the love of her life for one year or so? It could be said that love made fools out of people and in Qinghe''s case it was totally true, she decided to go with what Yun Jhin told her, and that was he needed to liberate as many males as possible from this dictatorship of sexes, they were all brainwashed and they needed to be freed! If Qinghe''s mind was right she would have countered with the fact that he could help them by actually teaching them his ideologies and helping them get stronger, but now she was so far in love with him that she would take anything he said as the truth, and love wasn''t the only factor that made her so foolish, Yun Jhin messed with her soul and brain a bit so she was more receptive to his thoughts and personality which was slowly influencing her''s as well. This was what she got for fully opening her heart to him. Yun Jhin gave her a small peck on the lips as he pushed her from behind, they were now in a random city Yun Jhin chose, they were in a big crowd and he made her seem as if she looked for males to add to her reverse harem, most female phoenixes had at least 5 males in their harems, and only the most impressive ones were allowed to impregnate them, the others were used as toys. Having a kid with them would increase their social standing and it could even explode if it was a daughter. The man could hold his head up and say, I have a daughter! It didn''t take much time for Qinghe to come back to Yun Jhin who was now in an alleyway waiting for her, the few men that followed her were puzzled as to why they were led here but before they could say anything at all their mouths opened in horror as they saw Yun Jhin moving towards them. He already killed a few batches by now and his hands were bloody, combined with the strange look in his eyes made the meek males behind her so scared that they almost fainted. Yun Jhin looked down at his hands and saw three heads in them, the corpses behind Qinghe fell soundlessly as they dissipated and the heads in his hands did the same along with the blood on his hands. In total Yun Jhin reached around 8,000 of them now. Things were a bit too slow for him but considering how scattered they were this was the best he could do, if he killed females the authorities of the planet would actually start to move, as long as he kept the killing of males balanced enough and at random places among the planet it wouldn''t trigger any response. Qinghe felt like she had a pit in her stomach seeing her beloved actions, but when he looked into her eyes that pit disappeared as if it was filled with the boundless love she had for him, Yun Jhin slowly approached her as he grabbed her now thin waist and her lips inched closer to her ear as he gave her praise: "You did very well my darling, we shall continue with two thousand more, right?" Qinghe''s eyes glossed over as Yun Jhin''s mind control intensified, she just nodded her head as the information of a new alleyway appeared, doing the crime too many times in one spot could be risky, so Yun Jhin marked abandoned alleyways that they could use and decided to swap between them after they killed a certain number of males. Yun Jhin licked his lips as he saw Qinghe coming with another batch, this was supposed to be the last one in this city as if he killed any more he would gather attention, with them he would reach 10,000 and that would mean he fulfilled 10% of the requirements of the system! Yun Jhin gave out a gentle smile to Qinghe, the puzzled males behind her were still wondering why were they led to an abandoned alleyway, was her house around these parts? Yun Jhin was looking prim and proper in their eyes as he didn''t brutalize the others like he did the first time, after a few tens of brutalized kills he got bored of it and decided to go ahead and do it quickly and cleanly. Their heads flew into the air and no drops of blood splattered anywhere as the corpses and heads disappeared at the same time. Yun Jhin patted his back and Qinghe jumped on it as he disappeared from the city using his speed and stealth technique. He decided to recover his ki at a preplanned place and decided to continue her brainwashing as he talked with her: "You have done a great job there darling, we are done with 10% of our goal, don''t you think that''s great?" Qinghe had a cute smile on her face as she grasped Yun Jhin''s hand and told him with a meek tone: "Whatever I can do for you, darling..." Yun Jhin patted her head and gave her a small peck on the lips as he said: "You want us to do anything now darling?" Qinghe shook her head as she told him with an earnest expression: "No, first we have to liberate more males from their oppression, just like you told me to, we can do this type of stuff later when we have finished!" Yun Jhin''s eyes flickered for half a second as he patted her head again and muttered: "Good girl, a very good girl, keep it up like this, and I might not even have to discard you..." Qinghe was too happy being called a good girl to hear the later parts of Yun Jhin''s sentence, it seemed she was thoroughly brainwashed... Chapter 114: Puzzled Battle Regiment A battle regiment of 50 female Emperors was currently running around in circles trying to find where Yun Jhin was, they were frustrated considering Yun Jhin left some ways for him to be tracked so he could mess with them before he suddenly cut them making them walk into circles or having to search randomly afterward. The battle regiment was made of mostly elites at the middle stages of the Emperor Realm and but that didn''t mean they were adepts at tracking, their battle power was strong that was all, it seemed Prince Hanzen really didn''t want Qinghe back as he assigned them a tracking mission without a proper tracking unit. The captain of the battle regiment was fully covered in armor that made her face unseeable, however, her body structure and voice made it sure that she was female. She was currently in a city trying to interrogate the citizens to find out if anyone saw Yun Jhin or Qinghe, but it seemed there was no luck for them as no one saw them at all, the captain grumbled under her breath, they couldn''t leave the planet as the launching pad formation was blocked, how could they hide so well? She tried more than a few cities and even tried some remote villages but she couldn''t find anything, then suddenly she got an idea: "Maybe they are going to hide into these godforsaken male-only villages..." The captain took her unit as she quickly flew out of the current city they were in towards the villages, however, when she came there and saw how no villages were remaining in all of the locations she knew she immediately became both puzzled and vigilant as she reported to the prince: "Your highness, something strange is going on, all of the banished male villages have been razed to the ground and nothing remained!" The lazy voice of the prince came out of the communication stone: "Whatever, if you don''t find them in a few days just come back and entertain me some more, I''m quite bored without you, the others are quite good at their jobs, but you lot are especially good at what you are doing." The captain blushed under her helmet but continued with a strict tone: "Sir, should I report this to the Empress?" The lazy voice said before closing the connection: "Sure do whatever you want, I don''t care." It seemed Prince Hanzen was the ultimate form of a hedonistic silk pants young master. The captain of the unit then contacted the Empress, she waited a bit before the communication stone turned a deep red fiery color and the majestic voice of the Empress could be heard coming from it: "Why have you contacted me? Shouldn''t have you contacted Prince Hanzen, you came with any important news that my ears have to hear?" Even though she wasn''t present the Empress was giving out a certain pressure with her voice alone, The captain immediately told her about what she saw and the Empress frowned as she thought: "Killing the banished males? Who would do that and why?" "This has never happened before, I think I will need them to investigate this." "You go ahead and investigate what happened at the banished male villages, then you can go back and track Zhao Yun and Zhao Qinghe, do you understand?" The captain gave out a respectful yes and then the Empress closed the connection, now having orders the captain immediately went to investigate what happened but considering Yun Jhin''s capabilities of destroying all evidence it seemed that the Emperor unit didn''t have much luck in finding anything incriminatory or a hint or where the criminal must have gone to next. This gave the captain a massive headache, she was the one responsible if she failed this investigation, things wouldn''t have been bad if she didn''t report to the Empress but considering things were already done all she could do was grith her teeth and do whatever she could do find the culprit. For starters, she needed to learn what would the culprit get out of this, why would he kill males and raze their villages, what was his reasoning, this was the first thing she needed to do, but think as she may she never got any ideas of why someone would do this, there were no benefits to get from here! Almost all cultivators were running for benefits and very few would do something that wouldn''t benefit them, thus the captain''s brain almost fried tried to think what kind of benefits would one get from razing a few villages of abandoned males, the males were totally useless! Considering the current cultivation techniques that were employed on the phoenix planet she would never think that someone would use living beings as cultivation resources so she never got at that point of thinking only running circles in her thinking as well. While the captain was frying her brains trying to understand Yun Jhin''s motives, Yun Jhin was in another city trying to gather more phoenix males to absorb, considering news didn''t move from city to city Yun Jhin easily gained another 1,000 lives before he moved cities again. However, something happened that made the males in the next city quite vigilant to the point that he could only get around 200 lives, Yun Jhin frowned as he looked at Qinghe, her appeal was the same as always but men started to flock less to her, what happened? Yun Jhin sent Qinghe out to gather some fresh information and waited in a restaurant for her to come back, he enjoyed some delicacies that were regular on the phoenix planet and waited for Qinghe''s news. It didn''t take much at all for Qinghe to return with news, it seemed an Emperor battle regiment had sent out news that males were targeted and that a few banished males villages have been exterminated thus males all over the world should prioritize their safety, as well as that they shouldn''t interact with any suspicious persons that they don''t know, regardless if they were male or female. Yun Jhin frowned but expected this to happen sooner or later, he knew that they must have been chasing after him and they found the villages after they thought that he would hide there with Qinghe, after a lot of thinking it was normal to guess that they would go to a place that no one would want to go. But considering the state of the villages, this gave the brigade another mission that they had to complete before they could catch Yun Jhin. This was a bump into Yun Jhin''s plans, he knew that there must be a formation connecting all of the populated cities on the planet meaning they all got the news, this wasn''t a good thing for him at all, if he didn''t go on a rampage and killed indiscriminately it might take him years to fulfill this quota and he didn''t want to wait for more! Any minute wasted was a minute he could be on the other planets and getting other jobs done! This frustrated Yun Jhin, but he only ate his food calmly while also feeding Qinghe from time to time, they both looked like a lovey-dovey couple and some of the female patrons in the restaurant would nudge their males to get them to feed them as well just like Yun Jhin was doing. Qinghe took a small piece of special warthog meat and put it in her mouth as she said: "Let me feed you as well darling." She slowly inched towards Yun Jhin and he accepted the meat as he gave her a passionate kiss at the same time. Qinghe giggled as she broke the kiss up and blushed. She was acting like an innocent school girl experiencing new things. The other females realized that she must be at her first man and sighed, they used to act like that at first too but it started to get stale after a while, their feelings dried up and they moved to another man to feel the same, they were actually quite jealous of her. One of them even got up and tried to woo Yun Jhin out of Qinghe''s grasp, she was just petty like that wanting Qinghe to not feel the love she deserved. However, Qinghe almost bashed her head in immediately and if she wasn''t stopped by Yun Jhin at an opportune time that woman who tried to poach her man would be dead with a broken head. The boss of the restaurant immediately kicked them out for violence and he also forgot to take payment for them due to that. Yun Jhin decided to leave the city with Qinghe as there was no need for him to continue staying in it... The Emperor Battle regiment slowly started to find that there were missing men in the cities that they went after, they found it to be strange as they continued their investigations, who would do this? Why? The members of the regiment were even more puzzled compared to their captain as they looked at males as tools to be used, why should they even care if a few males died? They should just go and do their main job to find that Zhao Yun and that dumb Zhao Qinghe who couldn''t accept their prince''s love. The captain of the regiment had finally found some clues after the second city where they found out that there are missing males, it seemed a female has seen that another female had talked with multiple males which some of them were ones that we''re missing, that female then gave out the description of Qinghe to the captain and was let to go. Finally having a clue the captain went rabid as she went ahead and decided to question everyone that she saw trying to find any leads towards this female that had connections with the disappearance of the males. She finally reached the same restaurant that Yun Jhin ate at and questioned the boss, the boss immediately told her whatever she wanted to know seeing her outfit and realizing her special identity as being someone from the imperial side. Afterward, the captain finally found out Yun Jhin''s footsteps and decided to follow him thinking that he and Qinghe who were currently in disguises would have to do something with the disappeared males. In a plain Yun Jhin was taking a rest as he was drinking some wine, Qinghe was currently resting her head on his shoulder, Yun Jhin looked to the side and sighed as he said: "Come on out, I know you are hiding out there, might I ask why you have been following me and my fiancee?" The captain frowned, her cultivation base was around the 5th stage of the Emperor realm and she was praised as one of the best concubines of the Prince so her strength wasn''t low, how could the 2nd stage realm male see through her concealing abilities? This made her realize that he wasn''t normal and she put her guard up. She slowly approached Yun Jhin while she made some hand signs to her unit, they were already encircling him, Qinghe was seemingly sleeping in Yun Jhin''s grasp as she didn''t hear anything that was happening around them. Yun Jhin looked at the captain of the brigade and asked her: "Do you want something from me, miss?" She slowly walked a little bit closer to Yun Jhin and asked: "Yes, I want to know if you have any connections with the disappearances of almost fifteen thousand males and the destroying of a few villages where exiled males were supposed to be." Yun Jhin looked at her in the eyes and said with a smile: "I am." The captain''s eyes widened in surprise and puzzlement, why would he be so truthful with her, was he messing with her? A criminal would never tell the truth in this type of situation, he would try to either escape or attack, was he truly trying to mess with her? Was he right in the head? "What would you get from killing so many males?" Yun Jhin responded casually: "I absorbed them to better my cultivation base and practice a certain technique." The captain''s eyes widened in surprise under her helmet, Yun Jhin just stood there with Qinghe sleeping on his shoulder like the sleeping beauty, nothing seemed to faze her. The captain kept being on guard as she took out a sword from her spatial ring, she was ready to attack Yun Jhin, after all, he confessed to his crimes and his head would have to be presented to the Empress! Yun Jhin smiled as she saw her approaching him and felt the encirclement of the other females getting tighter as he thought: "Get as close as you want, I like how you didn''t realize why I let you follow me here, it seems I have overestimated your intelligence." The captain was ready to sever Yun Jhin''s head when her eyes widened in horror and she looked down at the ground. She had fallen into his trap! Chapter 115: Battle regiment disapperance The captain eyes that were widened in horror moved around for a little bit before she shouted: "RUN AWAY!" But before she could say anything else Yun Jhin appeared in front of her and grabbed her by the neck, she was paralyzed as she had walked into Yun Jhin''s formation, as he broke through the Emperor Realm his ability to create formation increased exponentially. He shook his head as his fingers traced along her armored body up to her helmet which he forcefully removed showing her visage to him, she was quite the beauty and she had auburn colored hair tied into two buns. Qinghe was currently sleeping on the ground as Yun Jhin told her to rest before they would move on to the next city. The other women of the battle regiment tried to run away seeing their captain had been captured so easily but their feet were stuck to the ground! They were all weaker than the captain so how could they resist the formation? Yun Jhin looked in the eyes of the captain and asked: "Do you even realize why have you found me?" The captain gritted her teeth as she looked into his eyes and she became meek seeing the darkness that was raging inside them, it was like looking into the abyss! She immediately realized that all of the clues she found was because Yun Jhin let them find them, he was preparing a trap for them the moment he started massacring the banished males, at first he made it look like he was a professional that didn''t want to be found then he left small clues here and there to the point that they thought he was slipping and that he was running away from something. They thought that he wasn''t that strong as all he did was kill weak males but in the end, it was all a trap to catch them! Yun Jhin knew that killing this regiment would anger the prince, he could smell from them the scent of debauchery, they have been used continuously by the prince and this indicated that they were his favorite women. Yun Jhin shook his head as a little suction force came from the hand that was holding the captain by the neck and she started to shrivel like a dried prune, in the end, she transformed into a bunch of dust that disappeared into the wind. The same slowly happened with the other women of the regiment, after a short while Yun Jhin finished all of them, he didn''t want to antagonize the prince very much but considering the current situation he didn''t care much anymore, from what he understood from the memories he absorbed from the women the prince was rather proud and he wouldn''t want help from his mother unless he was face to face with death, he was also quite lazy and that meant he wouldn''t take the field himself, this way the prince would send him what he needed! Yun Jhin gently woke up Qinghe as he patted his back indicating she could jump on it, Qinghe knew that Yun Jhin was way faster than her and she would slow him down if she tried to follow him so she gently jumped on his back and smiled at him while she kept her hands close to his chest hoping to hear his gently beating heart. Yun Jhin grasped her left hand softly as he started to run towards a new city, from now on he wouldn''t leave any more hints for them to find, he was interested in how they would be able to find him next time. Prince Hanzen hastily opened his eyes, he moved the woman who lay next to him in bed a little to the point that she fell from the bed and woke up with a groan, the groan woke up the other 50 women in the giant bed, Prince Hanzen felt something was wrong like something just went missing from his life. He looked at all of the women in his bed and the one on the floor that was rubbing her arm and found that none were missing, then what was wrong? He looked around the palace for answers then decided that it wasn''t good to walk around naked so he wore his imperial robes to cover his naked body, however, he felt something vibrating in his robes and he quickly took a red jade out of the robes, seeing the red jade his eyes immediately became bloodshot as he cried out: "NO NO NO NO!" He crushed the jade with his right hand as he started raging and shouting towards the ceiling of the palace he was currently in: "NOT MY MOST BEAUTIFUL AND DELICATE FLOWERS, DAMN IT ALL!" The red jade signified the death of the Emperor brigade, they were both the strongest and most beautiful women that the prince had, even though there were stronger women out there at the Sage Realm that could serve the prince they wouldn''t degrade themselves to mate with someone with lower cultivation base than theirs, and considering they were basically generals to the Empress, the Empress couldn''t persuade them either, after all, in the end, the prince was still a man. His teeth almost started to make cracking sounds at how hard he was gritting them, he wanted to run to his mother to complain to then his pride kicked in, he had been pampered his whole life and he thought of himself to be the first male under the sun in the phoenix empire, he was even looking down on the normal women that came from outside the capital, that was why he didn''t like Qinghe at all, that and her physical outer appearance disgusted him, he was used to delicate flowers not to fat hippos. Even though he couldn''t control Sage Realm experts he had access to higher leveled Emperor Realm experts, he would have to bribe them a bit but they would still be used, there were also male slaves that he could employ, he didn''t want to use any bribery yet considering his mother would get ahold of such information rather quickly so he wanted to send out his male slaves first. A few tens of burly figures with disfigured faces could be seen kneeling towards the prince, they all had something around their neck, it wasn''t a necklace but it looked like a big ring which was constricting their neck, it was a slave collar! The slave collar was imbued with highly explosive ki and if the slave tried to take it off his head would explode. While males were rather docile when they would be used by females, they would get rather angry and violent when the same happened with other males, actually, quite a lot of males hated the first prince Hanzen, they all thought what made him more special, his bloodline while thick couldn''t be truly disseminated everywhere most of his children ended up being average and up till now there weren''t any that ended up as prodigies, most of the males from the capital thought of the prince as a failure. Coincidentally all of these male slaves were caught in the capital and they hated the prince quite a lot. If they didn''t have the slave collars on they would surely go and disfigure and torture him before they would decapitate him and feast on his flesh and blood like rabid animals. They were all tortured to a point their sanity disappeared and they were there only to take orders, but their hatred hadn''t been diminished at all. They were his death squad and they were all around the middle stages of the Emperor realm, meaning the weakest was as strong as the captain of the female Brigade and considering that their battle power was way higher compared to a female at the same cultivation stage they were quite a ferocious fighting force. The prince gave them the latest location that his female brigade sent a message from before he instructed them the following: "You shall go and bring me the head of whoever killed my darling flowers, I want his head to be as disfigured as possible and it should have the expression of terror and immense pain on its face! MAKE IT LAST FOREVER!" Prince Hanzen''s red and bloodshot eyes were looking directly at the sturdiest and most muscular men who was kneeling at the front, he was the strongest slave and former headmaster of the male teaching academy, the academy was more of a brainwashing program to indoctrinate males to be meek and weak in front of females, this was also one of the ways the females controlled the male population to their advantage, they had these types of academies in all cities big or small and the male children from the villages would have to be sent to this academy starting the age of 5 years old. They would be taught basic etiquette that they should use with females and a little bit of cultivation, and it was all for free! It wasn''t that bad considering the heavy indoctrination as everyone got an equal chance at learning, however, it was up to the individual if he could break the indoctrination and revolt. The headmaster finally broke through the indoctrination when he reached the peak of the Emperor realm and tried to revolt and create a male revolution trying to fight for equal rights, he was easily caught by a Sage Realm general under the Empress, beaten and tortured to half death before he was given as a gift to the foolish first prince. The first prince patted the headmaster''s shoulder and told him: "With you out there I''m sure the culprit will be caught quite easily, isn''t that right Zhao Ghin?" Of course, he gained the Zhao name as he became the headmaster of quite an important location. But no the moment he heard himself called be Zhao, all of his bodies veins started to throb continuously as his face turned into a scary smile as he looked in the eyes of the first prince and told him: "First prince, didn''t we discuss the fact that my name isn''t Zhao anymore? Just call me Ghin." The first prince got the chills seeing that smile so he nodded at him and waved his hand, the moment he waved his hand the whole squadron of death slaves immediately scattered and started to travel to the latest location the report of his female battle brigade came from, which was the city where Yun Jhin ate at that restaurant. It took them around 1 day to arrive at the restaurant and then raze it to the ground, the death slaves were quite violent and very easily prone to anger due to their unstable souls, so the female owner couldn''t say anything before she was torn apart and shared between the weaker death slaves, they all hated women with passion, after all, women were the reason they were in their current situation. Their instincts had been polished to the maximum under the high stress of torture and their sensitivity as well, they could find some hints here and there where Yun Jhin would have moved next but they were almost non-existent even with their heightened senses, they were good at tracking, but if there was nothing to track what could they do in that situation? The leader looked around and decided to go from city to city before asking, he was scratching at his disfigured face with long nails as he felt the pain seared in his soul continuously flare-up, technically speaking their wounds would be able to heal normally as they were quite advanced in cultivation, but the slave collar around their neck was preventing them from doing it, not because they didn''t let them heal themselves, but because Prince Hanzen had ordered so. The burly leader looked down at his hands as he ran towards the next city and muttered: "If the culprit is a female we kill her, but if it''s a male we should let him go, what do you say brothers?" All of the others nodded in unison, they could sympathize with a male and they all thought that the female brigade that died deserved what they got, if a male was the one who did it they would cheer to the skies and let him go if it was a female they would decapitate and torture her before sending the prince her head. They wanted to look out for each other as males, the world they lived in was a pure matriarchal one and it was something the current death slaves hated with a passion, maybe they could help the male who did this to share their visions with other males and create a revolution! The leader looked forward as he saw another city that they approached quickly, he prayed in his heart that they would meet a male culprit and not a female one, he really needed someone to share his ideologies with, even at the price of his life! Chapter 116: Do you want to start a revolution? While the male death slaves were trying to find Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin was using the same tactic as before to gain more males, however, this time to not leave any problems behind he would conceal Qinghe under a special formation that made her visible only to the targeted persons. Yun Jhin chuckled as more heads spun in the air then disappeared into dust, he knew that the prince must have sent another squad that was stronger than the previous female brigade after him, he wondered what kind of specialties they had and if they could find him while he didn''t give them any hints. He knew that their strength must be quite above the female brigade but he wasn''t afraid, at most he would have to escape if they were too strong for him to handle and he was confident in the ability of his stealth technique. The leader of the death squad was circling the cities that Yun Jhin visited trying to get his scent or something that could lead him to Yun Jhin, the leader was frustrated as he couldn''t find anything that he could use to target Yun Jhin and catch him, were his tracking skills bad or were Yun Jhin''s concealing skills exceptional? The leader used the tracking ability of the whole team and combined they could only find a few clues to where Yun Jhin could go next, but they didn''t find any more clues when they went to interrogate people, they tried different approaches but considering how ugly they were they only scared the people away, only the other rather courageous men would confront them and tell them they didn''t know anything, and considering the ability of the death squad they could realize if someone was telling the truth or not. They realized that Yun Jhin was now hiding so well that they couldn''t find him unless he would reveal himself to them. Maybe if they could send a message to him that they wouldn''t do anything to him if he was a male maybe he could reveal himself? It was worth a shot considering there wasn''t anything they could do, but how could they send him a message without getting the attention of the capital and Prince Hanzen? For that, they would need to first find someone that thought like them, a male that wanted revolution! Someone they could share their ideals with. It didn''t take them much to find such people, some of them broke through the brainwashing at lower cultivation bases and they hid themselves acting like they loved to act the way they are supposed to around females, but they hated it deep in their bones and wanted equality. Using their telepathic abilities the death squad created a revolution society soon enough, up till now they weren''t let out of the dungeons or let to be done anything at all as the planet was peaceful and no one offended Prince Hanzen to the point he had to rely on his death squad, but now that Yun Jhin came to muddy the waters, the death squad people finally got a way to awaken the fire of revolution in the hearts of the males! The prince never thought that if he didn''t look after them 24/7 he would be betrayed, he thought he had them under his thumb due to the fear of death, but they actually didn''t fear death at all, they feared the fact that their death would be insignificant! They came to the point that they didn''t care if they lived or died because of the intense torture and hatred they had for females and the prince, they only wanted the other males to get to enjoy equality and never have to go through what they have gone through, they wanted to become martyrs to share their ideologies and push them forward! Yun Jhin caught ahold of the news quite fast, it was especially easy for him considering he was a male, the other males would trust him and give him the information because he was looking reliable and trustable on the outside, Yun Jhin smirked to himself as he heard about the death squad that was supposed to be going after him doing such a thing and thought: "So convenient, I should add fuel to the flames of revolution and while the others focus on this, I can fully go on a rampage and eat to my heart''s content!" Yun Jhin decided to reveal himself to the death squad, they met in a random city, Yun Jhin left Qinghe to wait for him in a nearby inn before he went ahead and talked with the leader of the death squad, the only thing that was relatively unharmed to the man was his eyes, the ruby-colored eyes looked into Yun Jhin''s as he asked with a gruff voice: "I admire you for what you have done, your name is Yun, right? I guess like all of the others you don''t want to follow the naming sense of these women." Yun Jhin chuckled and nodded to him he then asked: "I heard about your revolution and I would certainly like to join in, you can even use me as an example to bolster the morale of the males, I will also make some showcases that would help our case, what do you think?" The leader nodded at him, he scratched around his chest as he felt the collar around his neck getting hot, he chuckled sadly, maybe the prince got ahold of the news and his head would finally blow up and his body would get disintegrated, he wanted to jump backward and save Yun Jhin from this fate when suddenly he could feel the collar around his neck crack and disappear into pieces, Yun Jhin''s outstretched arm was pointing towards the collar which was no longer existing. The leader put his hands around his neck and immediately started to regenerate his face turning into a handsome middleaged man that gave out a regal aura. He bowed his head to Yun Jhin and almost cried as he said: "Thank you. thank you." He suddenly realized that the others might be already dead and he hit the ground in frustration, Yun Jhin could have saved the others too but considering that the leader left the other so he and Yun Jhin could talk alone so he wouldn''t be intimidated, there was nothing much he could do anymore at this point. Yun Jhin comforted the man by putting a hand on his shoulder and helping him up while telling him: "By your looks, I guess your teammates must be gone by now, they have done their best by sharing the news around all the planet, they will be known as martyrs who started this revolution for equality between genders!" The man finally started to get ahold of himself as he nodded with a somber expression towards Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin decided that he needed some inside information about the palace so he made Ghin tell him whatever he knew. Ghin was rather knowledgeable about the palace and the capital so he gave Yun Jhin the information he needed along with the coordinates of all of the formations. Yun Jhin smiled inwardly, he wanted to use the anger of the males to cover the capital and make them unable to send out anyone when he could rampage around the planet and eat as much as he could. After he gained all of the information he realized that the formation that was surrounding the capital could be breached but the one that surrounded the palace would be almost impossible to destroy because it was powered by the Empress. Yun Jhin told him about the plan and how to break the formation and Ghin didn''t know what to say, was Yun Jhin''s plan reliable, what about his formation breaking ability? He didn''t know Yun Jhin well so he wasn''t sure if he was sending their newly formed troops to death or not. Capturing the capital would give them a sure win over most of the planet considering the strongest people were currently living in the capital. However, they only had few male Sage Realm experts but the upside on this was that even though they weren''t far in the sage realm they could take on female experts a few cultivation stages above theirs and more than one at a time to boot, males were considerably stronger than females even though they advanced slower. Yun Jhin decided to showcase his ability in formations for a bit to convince him that he knew what he was talking about, seeing how he could easily control formations as if they were an extension of his body made Ghin think twice about what Yun Jhin said and decided that he was worth listening to, after all, he was the one who inspired this whole thing to happen, also if he didn''t act at first they would still be in the dungeons chained and awaiting orders from that despicable prince. Prince Hanzen was fuming, he realized that most of the death squad died beside Ghin! He didn''t know how that fool destroyed the formation that constricted his life but he was extremely furious! He got the news that they were the ones who started this revolution and he knew that his mother wasn''t able to interfere even if she wanted to if they didn''t break through to the palace! While his mother was a Peak God Realm expert, due to the injuries she got while she killed the last peak God Realm male expert with the other God Realm female experts who were now all dead she was confined to the palace and she couldn''t leave it or exert any strength outside of it. He was the only one who knew this and the Sage Realm generals and those below thought that the males were currently courting death! If they attacked the capital and realized that his mother couldn''t attack and also couldn''t leave the palace they could technically take over the planet and do whatever they wanted as long as they didn''t touch the palace, this was a huge problem! Prince Hanzen didn''t know what to do when he was suddenly summoned by his mother. He immediately fell to his knees and started to sweat extremely hard, inside the palace no one could afford to offend her but she couldn''t even leave it or make it move, this could already be considered a pretty good outcome considering the strength of the peak god male phoenix who couldn''t have fallen if he wasn''t ganged upon by many female peak god realm experts. The Empress suddenly shuddered and coughed a mouthful of blood, her beautiful countenance turned pale and a hidden injury appeared on her face as both of her pupils turned pure white and a burn scar appeared around her eyes, then they returned to normal, Hanzen started to shake deeply, this was the unhealable injury she had gotten from the dead phoenix male. A cold voice could be heard coming from her: "It seems your death squad wasn''t that disciplined Hanzen, what should I do with you?" Hanzen started kowtowing to the ground until his forehead bleed and his eyes almost fell out of their sockets as he kept them wide open in fear, he didn''t want to close his eyes and then have the feeling that his head is separated from his body! Seeing his pitiful actions the Empress shook her head, he was her son, after all, she couldn''t truly kill him but it was his fault that everything happened if they found about her weakness the planet would fall back into the male''s hands, and considering how they have been treated they wouldn''t actually act with equality as they said, at least that''s what she thought. Prince Hanzen ket kowtowing until his mother stopped him and told him: "You shall be the one that will defend the capital along with the rest of my generals, you have the number advantage and since you are also a male your battle power isn''t that small, I shall bless you and ignite your pure bloodline to make you have a forceful breakthrough so you can help everyone." Before he could say anything the Empress pressed her hand into his chest and it seemingly went through him as if he was a ghost, the hand grasped his heart as she infused it with her core energy that was compatible with his blood, after all, they were mother and son. His heart started to beat so quickly it might have leaped out of his chest if it wasn''t tightly held by his mother''s hand. His cultivation base started to forcefully increase from the Emperor Realm around the 5th stage to the Sage Realm at the same stage and it stopped around the 7th stage, his body was cracking and his bones made crunching sounds as they were changed at a speed they couldn''t adapt to. His mother was doing some hand seals with her free arm as green and red energy started to course through his whole body stabilizing the forceful breakthrough, his life span had been cut to 100 years and he couldn''t make any further breakthroughs from now on, his bloodline was also burned up to the maximum and his current blood that was flowing through his veins was almost crystal, his blood vessels were almost bursting apart from the crystalline blood flowing slowly through them The veins around his body started to pop as crystal blood started to be pumped out of him as he coughed up a hefty amount of crystals to the ground, his face started to turn paler and paler when his mother started to infuse her godly blood inside of him, forcefully healing him and cutting his current life span to 50 years while also healing him making him ready for battle. She shook her head as he was still shivering, she threw him a special pill: "Eat it and wait for the invasion outside the city walls, take all of the generals with you and power the formation that surrounds the city using your ki and blood *sigh* all of my efforts will be wasted if you fail." Hanzen bowed and left while shaking like an epileptic. Yun Jhin looked around all of the rebels and revolutionaries that have gathered due to him, Qinghe was now hidden in a safe place until he could finish his business with all of the female hating rebels around him, if they saw him with a woman they might not trust him thinking that he was a spy, fortunately, Ghin didn''t know that he was traveling with Qinghe so they had no idea. Yun Jhin eyes sparkled as he looked around and opened his mouth, it was time for a big speech before he would flare up the fire of rebellion on this planet, he was looking forward to it! Chapter 117: Defend the capital! Yun Jhin stood in front of the hundreds of thousands of elites that gathered after his speech, compared to the whole planet there weren''t too many people, but they were all at the Emperor Realm and above and there were quite a few sage realm experts, there were even two that sat at the peak of the sage realm! Unfortunately, there weren''t any other God Realm experts on the planet from both the male and female sides, the only God Realm expert was the Empress but there wasn''t a need for more considering the Empress was a peak one. Unfortunately due to the schemes of the Empress males were now seen as commodities and goods that could be bought and used however the females wanted, this made the males that woke up to be both angered and depressed as they couldn''t do much. That was until Yun Jhin came along and killed the Female Brigade of the prince, the news easily made the others gain some confidence in their ability after it was shared among the males of the planet. Yun Jhin used a technique to make his voice heard everywhere among these people that stood in front of him: "Brothers, we have finally gathered here together to put an end to the tyranny of the females, we shall strive for true equality and show them that we are better than them morally! Even though we will have to shower the capital in blood, we shouldn''t touch the innocents regardless of gender!" This made some of the males to be angered by his words, they wanted to unleash their pent up frustration on the females just like the females did to them countless times! Yun Jhin shook his head looking at the ones that were visibly angry and said: "We need to create a society of equals based on strength, everyone should get equal opportunities regardless of gender but strength will still be the thing that would get the most respect, in the end, we only ended up in this situation because the females created a system that abused our mental facilities even though we had the necessary strength to fight back!" Yun Jhin''s words made sense to almost all of them so they all nodded, waiting for him to get his point across: "What I''m trying to say is that if we do the same as they did, who knows when there will be another revolution just like ours? It would be better to advocate equality to give them a feeling that they won''t have any reason to revolt, what are they doing is too extreme and it leads to repercussions, so we mustn''t follow their example." Ghin came forward and bowed to Yun Jhin showing that he was sharing the same opinion as him as he looked over the whole crowd and said: "Our brothers, what our leader Yun Jhin said is true, I have been in the capital almost since the moment I was born, I was the headmaster of those academies where we are supposed to brainwash our youngins, I have been on the inside and I know what he is talking about, we should follow his words, he is also the one who made the plan to storm the capital and he is very reliable, he also said that he doesn''t care who will control the capital as long as they will push forward to equality for all!" The two peak sage realm experts came forward, they were both impressed with Yun Jhin''s plan and went ahead to support it along with his speech, seeing that he had two strong people behind him made the crowd immediately agree with his words even though there were a few people here and there who were still skeptical, however, considering that everyone went with his words them being out of place would put a mark on them, and they didn''t want that. Yun Jhin waved his hand towards the crowd as he publicized the plan and then made them all travel towards the capital at quick speeds. They reached the capital twenty hours later and found that the formation was at full power as Prince Hanzens towering and buff form could be said hulking on the city walls, around him were male slaves and all of the female Sage Realm experts that counted almost around 200 in total. There was around 20 peak sage realm in those 200 and the others were around the middle and early stages. The males had 2 peak sages and around 95 sage experts but they were all exhausting a bloodthirsty aura that indicated that their battle powers weren''t anything to scoff at. In total, the males were fewer than the females and considering they also had a few male slaves that they could use as cannon fodder Yun Jhin''s side was at a disadvantage. Prince Hanzen burning eyes looked around the crowd and he spotted Ghin, he still remembered how he looked initially so he recognized him, he glowered at him as he moved his hand and indicated that they should start this war! Yun Jhin gave a smile as the tens of thousands of male slaves started to attack but before they could move and launch their attacks properly at his army, his army started to do hand signs that he taught them immediately breaking the slave collars on the males! Seeing their collars drop to the ground and disappearing made the males immediately join up with the rebel army and glare at the females and Prince Hanzen. Prince Hanzen''s eyes almost fell out of their sockets as he saw tens of thousands of useful cannon fodder being taken by the enemy army, he wanted to shout to the skies and go on a rampage but he knew that if he dropped into the enemy army he would just die in few seconds at best, considering that the peak sage realm experts were watching over him and the other sage experts like hawks. There were still female fighters on the walls of the capital but they were looking down at the army that was now around their size and the bloodthirsty aura that was starting to reach them and they started to tremble, most males had it hard and would fight very often between themselves to get strong females to notice them so they could improve their life, so they had extensive battle experience and combined with the innate constitutions that put them above females, in general, gave them an aura that was starting to suppress the females before the battle even started! Prince Hanzen looked back at his army and when he started seeing them cower before they could even open the curtains of the battle made him see red in front of his eyes as he thought: "Were women always this unreliable in these situations?" Prince Hanzen looked at the sage realm experts beside him and finally started to relax a bit considering they were all looking to be ok, if they were scared as well that would mean the battle would have been half lost already! Prince Hanzen started the battle as he waved his hand in an indication that they should start shooting their ranged attacks as they were behind the formation and it could defend them from the attacks of the enemy army. Yun Jhin pointed towards one part of the barrier and the sage realm experts immediately blew it open with a gigantic beam of blue ki! The formation then started to crack slowly as it broke into a thousand pieces! Prince Hanzen dropped from the wall as he started to attack, coming with speeds that couldn''t be seen properly by most of the males as he went ahead to kill Ghin the traitor who made all of this happen! He let the females fight with the males as he went ahead and attacked the traitor who should die at his hands! Yun Jhin already hid inside the crowd while he fought with the female army, this was a great time to harvest lives! Every life that perished near him he would absorb but not really obviously as he let the corpses fall on the ground without absorbing them fully, this only gave him half a point but there were so many people dying around him that it didn''t matter! 20,000, 21,000, 25,000 he immediately reached 25,000 and above! The numbers were slowly increasing as he danced around the battlefield killing by either strength or opportunity. He was like a mad dancing joker creating a beautiful blood parade for himself. The Empress watched everything happen from her throne, even though she couldn''t move out of the palace she could see everything that happened around 500 kilometers from the capital. She shook her head seeing her son shooting himself at Ghin and muttered: "A failure in everything, couldn''t get a proper child, can''t protect the capital, *sigh* I wish I had a daughter similar to me instead." Hanzen reached Ghin in an instant and tore him in two as his cultivation base was so high compared to his former subordinate that it didn''t matter at all, Ghin died with a smile on his face as his body exploded into bits, the explosion engulfed Hanzen but he walked out of it easily as he coughed a bit of ash. He looked down at his arms that were shaking and willed for them to stop, the explosion didn''t damage him much but it made his ki stop working for a few seconds there. He looked down at his chest only to see a green knife sticking out of it, his blood which recovered a bit after his mother shared hers with him immediately started to crystallize again, but now it wasn''t red anymore, it was green! He looked behind him only to see a male phoenix smile and explode as well! Ghin was a pretty impressive person in the army by himself so he got a death squad set to deal with Prince Hanzen, he knew a little bit about the Empress and since the prince was male he knew that she would use him to the fullest to stop this invasion, it was obvious that his cultivation was forcefully increased when Ghin laid down his eyes on him after they arrived at the capital. That meant his precautionary plan needed to be put into practice! Since they had few sage realm experts, to begin with, and the prince was also a male with a stronger constitution they needed to get rid of him using kamikaze attacks! This was so they could create a better situation for their sage realm experts, if they could get rid of prince Hanzen there was a very high chance for them to capture the capital then expand on the whole planet! As long as they had results other males will wake up and want to join their cause creating a chain reaction that would change the structure of the whole planet. Yun Jhin''s kill and absorption streak finally started to slow down as the killing slowed, he stopped around 53,000 absorptions done. The females started to run with their tails between their legs as they got too scared to fight anymore. Prince Hanzen''s vision was blurring as he looked at his chest which was cut open and crystallized green blood started to pop out of it. He chuckled as he grasped his robes and tore them open, his body immediately enlarged as his muscles burst with a sudden increase in strength, he gave out a burst of crazed laughter as he looked around, Yun Jhin''s eyes widened as he drilled into the earth at quick speeds to the point people would think he was an actually from the mole bloodline. Seeing his actions made the other males puzzled but when they saw the light that was gathering around Prince Hanzen and that his form was currently getting uglier and stranger by the minute they realized that the man was going to self-destruct to take a lot of the army out! Considering the females already ran out Prince Hanzen''s actions could be called appropriate as he was going to die from the poison soon anyway, his life wasn''t long either so self-destructing would be the best course of action here. Some of the others who were near Yun Jhin tried to follow him underground but before they could the ground around them stabilized as the remaining energy from the formation entered the ground, this was the Empress''s actions! The Empress looked below the ground and frowned: "One of them escaped... the Sage Realm experts also got a great distance between them and him... at least he can get rid of the army, GO AND EXPLODE FOR ME!" Prince Hanzen looked towards the capital and the palace and then he smiled as he remembered his life from the moment he was born to his current situation, he lived a great life and he was pampered a lot by his mother, but she was always looking at him with hidden disgust as he was seemingly making her recall something she didn''t want to. The prince died with a smile on his face as his body detonated creating a mushroom cloud of berserk ki energy that went up to 1000 kilometers into the air, even blasting the atmospheric layer of the planet. The self-destruction of a Sage Realm expert was quite strong, but considering he was a forced breakthrough and he couldn''t fuel his explosion with life span the explosion could be considered rather small as it didn''t even reach the capital, it was just very long but not wide, if a true Sage Realm expert around his stage exploded they might have been able to take down half the planet with them, and considering the phoenix planet was a rather big planet even among premium planets this showed the prowess of a sage realm expert. Yun Jhin coughed multiple mouthfuls of blood as the earth shook so many times that his internal organs almost came out of his mouth, the contamination of death ki was getting closer to him but he easily warded it off, he felt like shit as he got back to the surface and looked around. The Sage Realm experts were still alive and unfortunately, due to the explosion, there was nothing to absorb around anymore. The females that ran escaped but not all of them, around a quarter weren''t fast enough and they got mortally injured even though they didn''t die instantly. But they were dragged into the capital so Yun Jhin couldn''t follow them by himself or he would be surrounded, considering his current injuries he didn''t want to go there by himself. Retreating in this situation would put his plan on the back for a few tens of years so he told the Sage Realm experts while he coughed out blood multiple times: "GET RID OF THE FEMALE SAGE REALM EXPERTS AND PUSH INTO THE CAPITAL TO TAKE OVER IT!" His eyes opened wide as his pupils burned with white and black color, he immediately transmitted some of the weaknesses he saw with his ocular technique by a soul link and some of the female sages started to die and drop to the ground like flies. However the battle between the two peak male sages and the peak twenty female sages was the hardest to interfere with as Yun Jhin couldn''t look through their defenses, they were almost Gods so he wasn''t able to do anything here, all he could do was give instructions that could help the peak male sages to improve mid-fight and hope the others would be able to finish the middle and lower stages females first and increase the pressure on the peak females. Suddenly he fell into the ground again as he could feel someone''s fingers brushing his back and going towards his heart location, he didn''t want to wait and see who it was as he dug tunnels through the earth like a professional mole, fuck the plan, as long as he was alive he could make a new one! The avatar of a peak female sage frowned as she watched Yun Jhin slip through her fingers like a loach she wondered why the hell was he so fast underground. However, the avatar then vomited a mouthful of blood as she rushed back to her owner but the connection between them suddenly broke as the owner died and so did she. Her attempt at assassinating Yun Jhin ended up with her death, keeping one''s avatar into the body would enhance the user''s strength up to 1.4x times, so when the female who was already having a hard time to keep up with the males even in a 20v2 situation lost the strength boost of the avatar, one of them immediately died! Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed as he felt the energy that was currently trying to invade his body disappear, that meant the owner of it who tried to assassinate him died, he got out of the ground as he was around 200 kilometers away now he could still see the fight between the sages properly, Yun Jhin smiled as he saw what was happening, now that one of them died their formation broke up and they couldn''t withstand the strength of the two males anymore, also the other male sages had finished the fight against the female sages and were going to team up versus the peak ones! They couldn''t kill all of them as some of them escaped but they still won! If things continued like this Yun Jhin''s plan would be successful! That was when a voice from the palace could be heard: "And I wanted to continue living for some more... what a bother..." Yun Jhin''s eyes finally widened so hard he looked like Prince Hanzen at the start of the fight, he looked around to see time being reversed and things returning to their previous state, they were back to the start of the fight and he could feel that everyone he absorbed somehow left his body and the system to return to their same positions as before! He was back into the crowd and Ghin was patting his back with a smile on his face as he whispered: "I will make sure to use the kamikaze plan properly, Yun, you should escape if things get too rough." These were the same words that Ghin told him when the war started, Yun Jhin frowned deeply as he looked towards the capital and the palace, this was the special ability of the peak god realm, time-reversal! As long as the one involved were below the God Realm time could be reversed for them, it didn''t work on dying by old age though. Prince Hanzen was looking down at his hands with wonder as he was alive, but then his face hardened as he got a message from his mother and he looked directly at Yun Jhin! This wasn''t good! Chapter 118: Time reversal is a bitch Yun Jhin''s brain almost slowed down due to the events that unfolded in front of him as he swore under his breath and looked directly in the eyes of Prince Hanzen: "I didn''t think that damn bitch would use time reversal in her condition... it seems she puts the social standing of the whole female gender above her life... very strange." Prince Hanzen didn''t rush at from the top of the wall again, he knew there was a chance he would still fall if he attacked as he did before. The Sage Realm females looked around while all of the other females looked at each other with wonder trying to think about what happened, but they were also extremely scared and ready to bolt out of the battlefield. Suddenly the voice of the Empress could be heard being projected over the whole battlefield as she took control of the minds of all of the females: "THERE IS NO RUNNING AWAY FROM THIS, YOU WILL FIGHT UNTIL DEATH!" Prince Hanzen shook his head looking down at the army who was now taking a fighting formation, all of the female''s eyes were slack and half-closed showing that they didn''t have control over their mental facilities anymore, it seemed his mother was going all out with this, even though she couldn''t fight herself she could take control of others and do other things that could help the war. But because she couldn''t fight herself this gave the males hope to win the war! Prince Hanzen knew that Yun Jhin was the mastermind of the war after his mother told him how he survived everything and the fact that she had to use her time-reversal ability to return things to how they were previously. However, some things couldn''t be changed such as the breaking of the formation and the escape of the male slaves. Prince Hanzen watched coldly, he needed to change his target and fight with the female Sage Realm experts while making sure that Yun Jhin was suppressed and he couldn''t move. Hanzen shook his head as a pure white version of himself came out of his body and launched itself at Yun Jhin at extreme speeds. His original body accompanied the other female sage experts to attack the male ones while the armies clashed once again! Yun Jhin frowned deeply seeing the avatar of Hanzen attack him, his physique could help him be equal to the males of his side as he had the number advantage so he could retreat and fight well at the same time thus keeping his side in an impasse and dragging things out! And now that the females were putting their life on the line and trying their best to fight due to the mind control from the Empress meant that they couldn''t win without heavy casualties! Yun Jhin frowned as the avatar of Prince Hanzen appeared in front of him and punched towards his spine trying to break it and incapacitate him directly! Ghin jumped in front of Yun Jhin and took the punch directly to the stomach, even though it didn''t perforate his body he was still pushed back for a few tens of meters before he coughed a big ball of blood mixed with internal organs, he shouted with all of his strength towards Yun Jhin: "RUN AWAY! I WILL KEEP HIM OCCUPIED!" Yun Jhin wanted to dig into the ground and escape but the remaining energy from the broken formation was used by the Empress in the same manner as before making the ground hard enough so Yun Jhin couldn''t escape by diving into the ground. Yun Jhin then started to turn invisible as he tried to use his stealth technique to escape but the avatar caught him by the arm before he could fully turn invisible and punched him in the jaw dislocating it and breaking his technique before it could complete. Yun Jhin was almost livid with anger now that his plan was broken by the Empress, he thought to himself as he cut his arm and jumped backward a few times to escape from Hanzens'' avatar'' grasp. Now that he had severed his arm his battle power dived, he could recover the arm with his techniques but he needed time and energy, he frowned as he looked at the avatar who was trying to find him down and break him. The avatar wasn''t considerably strong due to the forceful breakthrough that Hanzen wen through, if you would look at it properly it barely resembled the prince and there were countless cracks in its substructure meaning that it was unstable and it could break anytime. The first thing a sage would have to do was create his avatar, and that would take time and plenty of resources, this rushed avatar which was around the middle to late stages of the sage realm couldn''t even deal properly with Yun Jhin who was only at the 2nd stage of the Emperor Realm! The Empress coughed multiple clots of blood as they dripped through her fingers, her scar on her forehead and eyes appeared again as she shook her head and said: "10,000? No 8,500 years or so are left before I will wither and die, this injury coupled with the use of time reversal, whatever, now that I control the army I will make sure these obstinate males will be buried near the capital!" Her fingers moved as if she was controlling puppets as the females on the battlefield used their whole bodies to self-destruct and takedown males with them, they would just jump on them hug them with their bodies, and explode! The males started to run around the battlefield and try their best to avoid the bodies of the females that would explode even after they were decapitated or had their hearts taken out. Things weren''t going well for the whole army and Ghin finally got up from his position on the ground to attack the avatar of prince Hanzen. Because Ghin was rather strong and the avatar wasn''t even in a good state let''s not even talk about perfect, Ghin could fight it out with him even if he used a forbidden technique. Blood started to engulf Ghin''s body as a flame aura started to rise out of his body, it fused with the blood to create a flame bloody aura that increase his battle power to the point that he started to push back Hanzen''s avatar. Yun Jhin was trying to run away but he had to dodge the suicidal attack of the mind-controlled females and even though his injury didn''t affect his speed, it quite bothered his concentration a bit. Yun Jhin cursed under his breath again as his eyes wandered towards the palace, then he gave the direction towards the palace the middle finger. Prince Hanzen''s eyes turned dark as he watched Yun Jhin disrespect the palace and his mother but he didn''t budge from the fight between the other sage realm experts, he knew that if he did that there was a chance Ghin could catch him and explode along with his avatar creating an even bigger explosion than previously! The fight between the sage realm experts was equal at best even though the females had more people, things kept looking bad for Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin gritted his teeth as he couldn''t even absorb anyone anymore, he was back to around 20,000 absorptions due to the time-reversal ability, and now that the females were self-destructing while taking the males down with them into death with no corpse left made Yun Jhin want to escape from here at the first notice! Yun Jhin was truly flustered considering this was the first time his plan failed in this life! Up till now, everything went well for him and he thought that he couldn''t find someone who could make problems for him, even though the phoenix planet was a premium planet the Empress was handicapped and there were not any other Gods left. He could have never guessed the Empress would care more about the social standing of the females compared to her life, he thought she was a fool and a dumb woman for this! Why couldn''t she just keep herself in the palace and die out slowly like the old crone she was? Enjoy the rest of your life don''t shorten it! Yun Jhin started to run away from the battlefield and when the male sage realm experts saw his retreating decided to retreat as well, they had no experience regarding war but they could see that things weren''t going that well for them to the point that even their commander was running away. Prince Hanzen made his avatar return to his body as he glared at the males around him who were trying to run away, but he didn''t follow them he just kept his guard up and fought along with the females trying to push all of them back. All of the surviving males backed away and started to run and hide, Ghin survived the encounter but became rather weakened as he followed after Yun Jhin, he stopped his forbidden technique and almost fallen to the ground due to exhaustion but Yun Jhin caught him and resumed running away. Ghin kept his head down as he sighed and told Yun Jhin: "We have failed, our morale is at an all-time low, and from my calculations we have only around 80,000 men left, fortunately, none of the sage realm experts died but they seem to want to leave..." Yun Jhin''s eyes started to glow at the mention of 80,000 people, those were the remaining ones he needed to complete his collection... He looked at Ghin and nodded his head understandingly as he comforted him: "It''s ok Ghin, if we haven''t been able to do this today, we may be tomorrow and if not tomorrow then the day after, as long as we are alive our hope isn''t lost! We will have a better tomorrow, we will have a better life, we will achieve equality!" Ghin smiled as the remaining army started to converge together, they were supposed to move to another base as their previous one could be found, the sage realm experts decided that they won''t come along anymore as they needed to find a place where they could rest properly and not be interrupted by the huge amount of people. Most Sage Realm experts needed quiet places filled with good amounts of spiritual ki to restore their bodies and souls. In only very rare instances could Sage Realm experts be found cultivating with each other like the Empress''s palace. Yun Jhin''s eyes continued to glint with a devilish light, because Ghin was being supported and kept his head down he couldn''t see the light in his eyes cause if he did he would have questioned him about it, Yun Jhin was at the forefront of the retreating army so no one could see his eyes properly. Yun Jhin shook his head as the light disappeared, this always happened when he was excited or concocted a new plan that would help him, most of the time people who saw the light would ignore it thinking he had cultivated a peculiar ocular technique, but if the others saw it during this tense situation they might start talking. Fortunately, no one saw it. Ghin looked at Yun Jhin''s face as his head got up, was he hallucinating from being too tired when he saw that red malevolent light appear for a little bit around Yun Jhin''s face? Ghin shook his head and continued to rest, maybe he was just seeing things, after all, his forbidden technique was also putting a high strain on the brain to increase the reaction time, if not even though his body would have been strong enough to withstand the avatar his reaction time would have lagged behind. After a while, they finally found a place where they could rest, it was around 800,000 kilometers away from the capital and they thought that they should have abandoned chasing them after such a long travel. They decided to rest their weary bodies and minds as they created a big camp, Yun Jhin sat at the forefront of the camp as he meditated while sitting cross-legged, Ghin was standing near him while attending to his needs. It was time for the male army to reorganize itself and take its deserved rest. Chapter 119: Hard to control urges Yun Jhin continued to meditate as Ghin stood near him and from time to time he would come and serve him some pills. The pills helped him recover slowly but his missing arm was a problem that pills couldn''t solve. Yun Jhin looked down at his stump, he was now missing his left arm up to his elbow, the cut was clean, and the injury got sealed. He couldn''t help gritting his teeth as he looked at his stump, he cursed that dumb bitch again under his breath before he went back to meditating. If he wanted to absorb the remainder of the male army he would need some time to create a unique formation to absorb all of them. However, he couldn''t do that now, if he did he would remain alone and if he guessed right the jumping pad formation was still blocked. He would first need to grasp the jumping pad formation so he could escape after his plan was completed. But now that the army was down in morale and that the sage realm experts were scattered so they could recover, he now has to wait for a while before he could take any actions. Yun Jhin kept his calm as he kept taking the pills that Ghin was giving him after he made sure they were beneficial towards his recovering body, he looked in the direction of the capital and frowned, he wondered what was that bitch doing right now... The Empress was coughing out multiple clots of black blood as Hanzen stood near her but kept his head down, there was a strange expression on his face as he looked at the ground not daring to make any eye contact with his mother. After finishing coughing up the blood the Empress''s visage started to age, from a middle-aged woman she now looked to be in her early to middle seventies. As a God Realm expert got closer to his death he would age rapidly, but they kept their prime form up to around 10,000 years left of lifespan, after they dip below 10,000 years they start to age and grow weaker. Hanzen bowed to his mother as he fell to his knees and asked: "What should I do now mother?" The Empress''s shaking finger touched Hanzen''s forehead as she transferred all of the information he needed to him. Hanzen nodded at her and then disappeared from the palace, he didn''t have much time left either so he wanted to finish the mission she gave him before he would live his last years in a quiet place, even though his body was self-destructing slowly, his mother promised him that he would reincarnate so he wasn''t that depressed. The Empress looked out one of the big windows of the palace as she muttered to herself: "Who are you, Zhao Yun?" Yun Jhin sneezed as he could feel that someone was talking about him, Yun Jhin knew that he would only sneeze if someone of certain importance would talk or think about him, he kept his face straight as he realized that the Empress''s crosshairs were now on him. "She is weak and she can''t use time-reversal again, her capital formation is broken and it would take time to restore it, she must have sent the sage realm experts that weren''t injured to the jumping pad formation so I won''t be able to leave the planet, fortunately, it isn''t time to leave now or I would have been in trouble..." Yun Jhin waved for Ghin to stop giving him pills and told him: "Contact me immediately after the peak sage realm experts restore their prowess to 100%, we will have to do some other stuff before we will attack the capital again, the Empress doesn''t have much to live for either, but it would still be a lot of time for us, fortunately, she won''t be able to pull the same technique again, from what you told me she was already pretty injured and reversing time isn''t something we can even think about, the consequences of using such a technique while being that injured should be colossal." Ghin nodded at him and went ahead to inform the sage realm experts of what Yun Jhin wanted him to, most of them were contacted and responded, but one peak sage couldn''t respond, it seemed he was too concentrated on cultivating. Yun Jhin shook his head it was good as long as one peak sage realm expert accompanied him at the time. Yun Jhin finished healing his body but he couldn''t recover his lost arm currently, he decided to go back and spend some time with Qinghe while undercover, there will be some time needed for the Sages to recover their prowess and there wasn''t anything he could do, cultivation would also take him too much time normally without any special resources. Yun Jhin met up with Qinghe in the same place that he left her, in a concealed house around 2 million kilometers away from the capital, Qinghe immediately jumped into his arms the moment she saw him landing, her eyes were wet as she got a good look at his missing arm and she cried out: "I know you want to save every male and get equality, but you should put your safety as a top priority, look at you, you even lost your left arm!" Yun Jhin shook his head as he gave her a one-arm hug while she cried into his clothes for a few tens of minutes before she recovered her wits and gave him a deep kiss on the lips. Yun Jhin returned the kiss and chuckled at her as he entered the house with her. Almost 2 years passed since the failed attack on the capital, the males were influenced by Yun Jhin''s propaganda and they started to revolt against their female companions everywhere on the planet, they started to regain their fangs and claws, at least on the surface, they didn''t let themselves be trampled over anymore. Yun Jhin was in a rocking chair with a 1-year-old boy on his lap, the child had smart and glittering blue eyes, he was half red-haired and half black-haired and wore a loose cotton robe. Yun Jhin was currently playing with him as he kept rocking the chair back and forth, from time to time the child would laugh with glee as Yun Jhin would do some tricks. From Yun Jhin''s aura, it could be seen that he almost reached the 3rd stage of the Emperor realm. From his stump, a new arm was slowly growing but Yun Jhin kept it hidden under black bandages. Qinghe who was heavily pregnant came from inside the house and gave Yun Jhin a smile and a peck on the cheek as she said: "Honey, the dinner is ready, get inside with Yun Lao, and let''s eat!" Yun Jhin gave out a peal of hearty laughter as he entered the house and then sat at the dining table, Yun Lao was around 1,35 meters tall and he couldn''t reach the average-sized dining table properly, so Yun Jhin made him a special long chair. Yun Jhin ate his food as Qinghe fed Yun Lao some minced meat from a rare fowl that Yun Jhin caught. Yun Jhin finished his food and excused himself from the dining table as he left the house, a communication stone was vibrating inside his spatial zone, he kept his spatial zone open towards communication lines so communication stones could get messages even inside. Yun Jhin took the communication stone and narrowed his eyes as he listened to the message inside, the peak sage realm expert finally recovered fully and he was ready to follow him to the jumping pad formation! Yun Jhin entered the house and told Yun Lao to go play with his toys while he talked with his mother, seeing his eyes, Qinghe knew what was going to come, she gave him a big hug as she said: "It seems you have to go for the male''s rights again, please don''t get injured again, I hope you can come back again, and this time uninjured!" Qinghe frowned as she grasped her stomach, then she gave out a smile as she looked into Yun Jhin''s eyes and said: "This one is more feisty compared to Yun Lao, I think its a girl, what do you want to name her?" Yun Jhin put a thoughtful expression on his face as he said after a little time: "What about Yun Qinghe?" "Oh dear, you want to give our daughter my name?" "That''s because she will be the next most important woman in my life, she also deserves a beautiful name, in the future when she will hear her own name she will also remember you, I will have to be truthful with you here dear..." "It''s unknown if I will be able to come back after this war, however, I want you to keep an ear open for the good news about the revolution!" Tears started to drip slowly from Qinghe''s eyes as she looked at Yun Jhin''s sturdy back that was getting far from her and she shouted: "WHY DO YOU HAVE TO DO THIS?" Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked back and said: "Why? You will understand in the future, anyways I''m going to talk with Yun Lao and leave afterward, he will be the male of the house while I''m gone, and I want you to take good care of him now so he can take care of you later..." Yun Jhin waved at her as he left the house and went towards Yun Lao''s usual playground that wasn''t far from the house. There he met with his child, he didn''t have many toys or any at all as Yun Jhin only sculpted him some and infused them with ki making them a little bit ''special'' for him. Seeing how his father was approaching him Yun Lao quickly got up from the ground and ran towards him for a hug. Yun Jhin hugged Yun Lao as he looked into his eyes and said: "Things are done on my part, you should know about this right?" Yun Lao nodded, his expression was rather mature for a one-year-old as he said: "Of course, it''s all for the good of your greatness, I hope you can achieve eternal life!" Yun Jhin tussled his son''s hair for a few seconds before he looked towards the skies and then flew away! Yun Lao looked into the skies for a few brief seconds before he went back to playing, seemingly as if he didn''t care at all that his father was leaving him, maybe even forever! Qinghe quickly left the house and gave Yun Lao who was still playing a gentle hug, her tears were still staining her cheeks as she kept her eyes to the skies, wanting to see Yun Jhin but failing. Yun Lao gave his mother a hug as he told her: "It''s ok mom, dad will come back!" Qinghe cried as he continued hugging Yun Lao, those were his first words! His first words! Yun Jhin looked towards the ground as he disappeared through the clouds, it was nice having a family for some time, acting like a normal human made him a bit less tense, he cracked his neck and knuckles as he started flying towards the location that he talked about with the others. For now, he had to conquer the jumping pad formation before making a new plan to take the capital by force! It didn''t take him much time to meet with the peak sage realm expert and a few other sage experts that were around the middle stages. They weren''t that respectful towards him but they believed in his abilities and plans even though they failed the first attack, it was only because a peak God Realm expert interfered, they still remembered the events before the time-reversal ability took place so they knew Yun Jhin''s abilities were genuine. The peak sage realm expert asked Yun Jhin: "So what''s the plan for this operation?" He had a certain fire in his eyes, it seemed that his time spent in closed-door cultivation didn''t douse his ambition of gaining equal rights and saving the men of the world. Yun Jhin smiled at him politely and decided to unveil the plan to everyone here, it was quite a simple and direct one, but also extremely effective! Chapter 120: 2 years of preparation Yun Jhin decided to open up the conversation with the plan: "I have created a technique that should be able to help us go near the jumping pad formation unseen." He explained a little about his stealth technique and lied that he just created it in these 2 years so they wouldn''t question him why didn''t he used it back when the war started. The peak sage realm expert nodded, in total, they were around 45 sage realm experts, and with the peak one, they were 46. Yun Jhin could use his stealth technique to cloak all of them and go towards the jumping pad formation and take it quickly. The peak sage realm expert looked at Yun Jhin, he still wasn''t that sure why would they take the jumping pad formation, were they supposed to run away if they failed again? So he asked him: "Don''t mind my question but why are we even capturing the jumping pad formation?" Yun Jhin snorted inside but responded to the man with a gentle smile on his face: "You might think that it''s for us to escape if we fail right? You are not wrong, but since they have scattered manpower to protect the formation we might as well divide and conquer, get rid of those female sages and we will have an easier time to conquer the capital later, also we will increase morale if we publicize that we got rid of some sage females." Yun Jhin''s words made sense to the sage realm expert, and considering there was a chance they might have to skip planet if they needed to it didn''t hurt for them to control the formation. They all nodded in unison as The peak sage realm expert used a technique to make all of them stick to him, he was the quickest due to his peak cultivation base and if he was the one who leads them to the location of the formation they could reach the place faster. Yun Jhin kept close to the peak sage realm expert as they flew in the skies at extreme speeds, it didn''t take them much to reach the jumping pad formation, the waters below seemed to be moving gently on the surface but Yun Jhin could feel countless eyes looking at them from below. He frowned, it seemed that the females must have deactivated the formation that was supposed to scare away the stronger unintelligent marine life. Yun Jhin used his stealth technique to cloak all of them as they got closer to the formation, it was still assembled and unactive, but now there were defensive structures around it and the peak sage realm expert could feel live life force being concentrated around those structures. They were lucky Yun Jhin was with them or else they would have already been attacked by the marine life below them, The sage realm expert could even see some fins sticking out of the water from time to time. The energy they exuded made them almost equal to their whole squad. Yun Jhin got them closer and closer as he kept the stealth technique on, it didn''t take them much time to go over the structures successfully, there were a few females here and there, numbering around 20 and they were at the lower stages of the sage realm, however, from what Yun Jhin could see the structures there were supposed to help them defend even against those with higher cultivation base. Unfortunately, they weren''t stealth proof, so Yun Jhin could just waltz around them. The females were currently abusing a few weaker males, taking their turns with them, even humiliating them by doing some things that they shouldn''t normally do even without consent. The peak sage realm expert frowned seeing all of this, his anger quickly ignited as he whispered to Yun Jhin: "Get us closer and I shall decapitate all of these vile wenches in one fell swoop!" Yun Jhin controlled his technique as he moved towards the gathering of females, some were going at it while some were waiting for their turns. It could be seen that one of the males below them was getting weaker and weaker with every female who went to ride him, his Yang energy was quickly getting exhausted, and if this continued it would run dry and he would die. The peak sage realm expert gritted his teeth as his reddened eyes targeted the females, immediately he created a ki blade unleashing it on those women, decapitating 17 of them in one fell swoop, the three that were still riding the males immediately shouted as they tried to run away, they could feel death really close to their back, and the showering hot blood that reached their backs from the bodies of their comrades just made them double their efforts at fleeing. Unfortunately, they couldn''t do anything as the other males immediately caught them, there were a few males around the middle stages and they could easily catch those lower stages of females. The men that were abused were then helped with a few pills so they could regain their strength then sent away to a safer place. Yun Jhin used some spirit stones that the sage realm experts took with them to power the formation and then took control of it, turning it off for the time being. The peak sage realm expert looked at the three captives they had and decided to ask Yun Jhin what should they do with them: "We already have enough heads, you can have your fun with them I guess, they have been the ones to have fun with us for long times, you can just do whatever you want with them, but don''t kill them, they deserve to be abused for a while." A big smile appeared on the peak sage realm expert face, he had the same idea as him, they already had enough heads for intimidation and he didn''t want to waste these females, it was time for them to return the favor! Even though they couldn''t truly be abused to death as the males could, that could only happen if they were gentle with them! The peak sage realm expert gave Yun Jhin a small salute and flew away with the females and the heads. Yun Jhin was left alone as he absorbed the bodies of those 20 sage realm experts, he could feel his blood boiling slowly as he finished the absorption, 2 whole years of staying idle and cultivating made him enjoy the sensation more than he should have. Yun Jhin then left the formation, the Empress should get the news of what happened here soon enough, they wouldn''t have enough personnel to send to the formation and if they did, he could continue with divide and conquer, slowly chipping at the Empress''s subordinates and then storming the capital! If she was smart she should have centralized all of her strong subordinates in the capital and she was waiting for him for the showdown! The news spread after a while, 17 dead female sages and 3 captured to be abused by the increasing rebel army, the males started to riot in their cities and villages joining the rebellion, slowly but surely things started to move in Yun Jhin''s favor again. The Empress crushed the throne that she stood on as she tried to get up from it as she shouted: "HANZEN, HANZEN COME OVER HERE!" Hanzen appeared in front of his mother as he kneeled to her: "What is it, dear mother?" "Don''t patronize me, you should have heard the news as well right?" Hanzen nodded, he wasn''t surprised that much, considering the numeric advantage that the males got and the higher innate strength he thought that it was normal for them to lose the jumping pad formation, but why was his mother so angry? Seeing his half understanding and half puzzled face made the Empress even angrier as she told him: "You damn oaf, you haven''t got the whole news, have you? They killed all of them without any problems or casualties on their side! We lost 20 sages for nothing!" This made prince Hanzen widen his eyes, how could they have not lost any sages? It was pretty much impossible considering the defensive structures they installed at the formation, what could they have done to take the females by surprise? Even if they were doing their usual activities, they still had a formation meant to alarm them when someone got too close, there were also those marine creatures that would attack the males to weaken them. The Empress shook her head seeing him not understanding how they could have won the formation''s location without any struggle, he decided to use her soul willpower to divination what happened at that time using a little bit of her life, around 2 to 3 years, she didn''t have many left anyway so she didn''t want to be surprised when they attacked the capital: "I see, I see, however, this technique can be disturbed if I do that, Hanzen!" Hanzen immediately stood straight as his mother told him: "Put down a formation according to these instructions, it should meld with the current defensive formation and create something that will trouble the rebels with doing the same tactic as before, we might even be able to surprise them!" Hanzen nodded and went ahead to do as his mother told him. Yun Jhin frowned as he felt his destiny being peaked into for a few minutes, he looked towards the direction of the capital, he was currently in a different camp created by the rebels and met up with Ghin and the others, the other peak sage realm expert was also there and waiting for instructions. Yun Jhin decided to scrap the plan that made use of his stealth as he announced: "That old crone, the Empress got news of my stealth technique through some divination, fortunately, she is getting considerably weaker so I could identify her will spying on me, so we will have to change the plan a bit, I''m also sure they have changed the defensive formation meaning that we will be at a disadvantage even though our numbers have increased by quite a lot." "Here is what we will do for now." Yun Jhin told them the new plan that he devised quite easily, there will be multiple teams at work during this war, Yun Jhin Ghin and the first peak sage realm expert would be the first and most important team, while the other teams would be used to divide and conquer, the war would start for real and the first team will only act officially after they have conquered a good part of the planet. Yun Jhin decided to get with guerilla warfare tactics, he couldn''t do the same thing as before, the Empress knew that he wanted to absorb people so she would surely control her army again and make them self-destruct, he wanted to attack all of the weaker cities and conquer them, they were already weakened pretty hard considering the males revolted everywhere, even though a lot of them had been caught or killed, some escaped and joined the rebellion. Yun Jhin looked at the map of the planet as he pointed at the most important cities. "We shall attack those first, I''m not sure if the Empress will try to do the same thing as she did before, so I will only contact you if I feel something isn''t right, but you should contact me first before you attack the cities, Ok?" The second sage realm expert nodded before he flew away with his team. The first sage realm expert remained with Yun Jhin and waited for news before they would then go together to the capital later. It took around 1 day before he got a confirmation that the teams reached the important cities, since he felt that no one was peeking into his destiny anymore that meant that while this could be guessed they shouldn''t be sure about it, combined with the fact that they needed to protect the capital Yun Jhin gave the order: "You are free to attack the cities, do not kill the females, capture them, understood?" A few understood came from the multiple communication stones that were around Yun Jhin, the real and final war would start now! Chapter 121: Simple war but complicated schemes Guerilla warfare was especially effective in this current situation, the Empress had gathered her strongest followers in the capital and left the weaker ones to protect the cities, thus Yun Jhin could attack the more important cities and conquer them. While this wouldn''t trigger a chain reaction as good as conquering the capital, it would still break morale for quite a lot of female supremacists. After all, the females had grown weaker with time, their battle power got lower due to the peace they had to go through, they had almost perfect lives the moment they were born, so they didn''t go through adversities and they became weak. In contrast, males were pitied against each other so they could get better lives, they would always try to be stronger, better looking, and have a better vocabulary compared to their competitors, they tried their best to become stronger in all aspects to please the females, thus they had a stronger aura around them that intimidated the females when they were releasing it consciously. Most males were wanting the revolution but there were quite a lot of men who also were too brainwashed to break through the problem, they didn''t make more than 20% of the whole male population but that was still a considerably large amount. It couldn''t be helped, they lived like this for too much time. Yun Jhin was giving orders through the communication stones that were laying in front of him, the second and third teams were slowly encroaching on the cities that they have been given to capture. "Team two here, we are slowly capturing Baylon city, we have captured around half and I can say that the resistance is very weak, they have some brainwashed males that they are using as cannon fodder.. we tried to weak them up, however..." Yun Jhin''s eyes lit up as he asked: "How many of them are there? Have you tried everything you could?" "There are around, 2,000 left, unfortunately, we had to kill some to scare them, we did try most of the things you taught us but it didn''t work, what should we do with the remaining captives?" Yun Jhin told him in a gentle tone: "Come back with them to the camp, I will try my best to break the brainwashing, however, If I cannot do anything regarding that I shall send them on their way properly, We cannot let them die as long as I haven''t tried everything I could on them!" The captain of the second team gave an affirmative answer as they continued to kill the females and capture the city, after a while a notification came from the captain as he told Yun Jhin that the city had been captured and they left some males behind to control it before they moved on the next one. The third team also came with similar questions to Yun Jhin regarding the brainwashed males and Yun Jhin gave them the same answer, to send them back by escorting them with a few Emperors, the brainwashed males were only the weaker ones that remained, the stronger ones had to be unfortunately killed. The third team then captured the Skiddolo city, leaving only 4 more important cities to conquer. After a few days, almost 10,000 brainwashed males were sent to Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin made some experiments on them while showing everyone how good he was with the brainwashed males even though some of them spit on him or even attacked him rabidly while he tried to heal their affections. In the end, Yun Jhin absorbed all 10,000 of them reaching 30,000 absorptions as he told everyone that they couldn''t be saved, he tried everything he could and this made the males of the camp look upon him with even better light, they looked at him just like someone would look at a saint who tried to save the world from poverty and sin. Ghin came forward and bowed to Yun Jhin who was currently meditating while keeping an ear open for the communication stones: "Yun, we have all prepared for the capital mission, we are waiting for your signal." Yun Jhin nodded at him and waited, it was slow but they were almost reaching the end of the divide and conquer strategy, they couldn''t use all of their personnel on this but capturing the most important city hubs would give the capital a strong blow, they wouldn''t be able to trade anymore and the citizens would start to grow restless as they would be boxed in the capital. Maybe they would even start to pin the blame on the Empress and her army. People were fickle with emotions and phoenix females and males were even more so, due to their fiery attributes they were easier to sway and manipulate using their emotions. Yun Jhin waited for a little bit more before he got some news: "We have caught Szayeren city..." "We have captured Dirron city..." "We have captured Balton city..." "We have captured Tangolo city..." Finally, all of the important cities had been captured and the capital was now boxed in its bounds, their trade routes had been cut and now they had to use their resources to survive, while the cultivators would have it better, some citizens couldn''t cultivate, they weren''t in high numbers but they did exist and they were also rather important, they did the work that cultivators wouldn''t normally do and if they rioted the well-oiled machine that was the capital could jam and break. Yun Jhin was using such tactics to destroy the capital from inside, after all, he was at a numerical disadvantage and he wanted to play things as safe as possible, he looked down at his chopped arm that was still slowly recovering and frowned, after he absorbed these 10,000 brainwashed males the recovery of his arm increased by only a very little bit as the majority of the energy was absorbed by the system. He disliked having such an obvious injury that could be abused by his future opponents, however, he knew that it could heal before he left the planet, but it could still trouble him in the final battle. The Empress was livid as she got up from her throne, her shaking body was almost ready to fall due to her immense anger, her son Hanzen was supporting her as she gave him the order to let her on the outer edges of the palace, even though she couldn''t live the grounds of the palace she could go to the edges of it. Her life was tied to the palace and the formation that covered it kept her alive, the combination of the location and the formation kept her alive and her injuries suppressed, but if she moved the palace the formation would break and the auspicious location would vanish killing her instantly. The god male phoenix would be laughing gleefully in his reincarnation if he knew how hard the Empress was living right now. The Empress''s body steadied itself as she reached the outer edges of the palace, she was now on one of the corners of the palace where the view of the capital could be seen at the best angle. She sighed as she looked down at everything she worked hard for, she looked at the scared civilians and the tense weaker cultivators, she blinked her eyes as she moved her gaze towards Hanzen who immediately looked down at his feet as her eyes moved to his. He put her fingers on his chin as he made him look in her eyes and asked him: "Was I wrong Hanzen? Have I done the wrong thing making males our subordinates?" Asking male such questions was quite ironic in Hanzen''s opinion, especially one you had in your palm and had been manipulating your whole life to do whatever you wanted him to. Hanzen wasn''t dumb, he was just prideful, he actually realized that the male slaves he sent after Yun Jhin could potentially die, he didn''t know that there was someone so proficient in formations that he could break the slave collars. After all, formation masters were rare... his mother was one but she couldn''t work on them anymore due to her weakened body, so she only gave him instructions on how to do it. He shook his head as he told her truthfully, he didn''t care much about life and death at this junction: "I think equality based on strength would have been better, it shouldn''t matter if one is male or female, but how hard one''s fist is! You have suppressed the males too hard... this is why they rebel now, to be honest if I wasn''t in your control I might have actually joined them." The Empress shook her head as she laughed like the old crone she was, she patted Hanzen''s shoulder as she told him: "Maybe I should have just let your explosion remain the same, reverting time was a mistake back then, but I got such a bad gut feeling when I looked at their commander Zhao Yun, I''m not sure why It was like I was looking at something that I can''t understand." Is a peak God Realm expert unable to understand something? That was pretty much impossible at one point, but the old crone couldn''t fully see-through Yun Jhin! Their cultivation difference was immense so this made the crone quite uncomfortable to the point she used time reversal, especially his glittering eyes, they were making her feel like he had thousand of schemes behind them. She returned by herself to her throne as Hanzen stood there and watched the changes in the capital and shook his head while muttering: "We have gathered everyone here, every sage realm and Emperor Realm expert, our army is mighty but... can we defeat them? They might have a number disadvantage but they are all males... should I just give up and let them in.. they already captured the nearby cities and boxed us in, mother should have realized the same thing, that should be why she left her throne, to see her self-made empire for the last time..." "Whatever... we will see..." He entered the palace as his silhouette disappeared, he needed to do a bit more thinking. Yun Jhin laughed triumphantly as he met up with all of the sage realm experts near the capital, he was now supposed to go through with the first team to destroy the formation and then contact everyone else to jump in and trash the capital. But there were problems with this plan now, Yun Jhin could feel that the formation would expose him if he went through in stealth, to break the formation he had to get near it and find the weak point, last time Ghin had been familiar with the formation as he lived in the capital and had to run one errand in the capital for the prince before. That made him get in contact with the formation. But now things were different, the formation was systematically changed to the point that Yun Jhin had to be in contact with it for some time before he could decipher how to break it like before, attacking before the formation broke would get too many casualties and if Yun Jhin made them do that he would lose a bit of their trust and lower their morale. Yun Jhin sighed, the first team wasn''t that big, they were twenty in number and they had a few middle stage sage experts, 1 peak expert, and Ghin with him. They had to create both a distraction and get in contact with the formation at the same time, Yun Jhin was the one who had to touch the formation so the others had to be the distraction. Yun Jhin''s plan was thus put to work, he disguised himself as a female and got near the capital while the others immediately started to make a ruckus and attack the formation trying to break it, this made the females stationed on the wall inform the higher-ups and make them run here in full force. The team waited for a little bit before they ran away leaving the coming females puzzled. A red-haired female with an average build with a ditzy look on her almost fell from the wall as she was grasped from the back by a strongly built female then patted her back while saying: "Peuh, you almost fell there, I guess these males scared you good huh?" The red-haired female nodded multiple times while the woman asked: "Hmm.. seems you are around the 3rd stage of the Emperor realm, you will have to fight later, so don''t make such mistakes again!" The red-haired girl nodded multiple times while keeping an awkward smile on her face. When the strongly built female turned around, the red-haired female''s eyes turned cold and dark without any emotions as she walked along the walls, she was moving closer towards the first small formation core. Chapter 122: Breaking the formation and the morale The red-haired ditzy girl ran along the walls as she approached the formation core which was guarded by 5 strong females at the peak of the Emperor Realm. The red-haired girl frowned as she looked at the women that were protecting the formation, she wasn''t sure if she was able to break through them and destroy the formation. While this unknown woman was going through an internal struggle, Yun Jhin finally reached the walls of the capital, he had to dig through the hard reinforced ground to not get spotted and avoid formation links everywhere to reach the wall undetected, it took him almost 6 hours and he exhausted quite a bit of his ki. Yun Jhin got out of the ground as he looked around, he had marked a blind spot on the wall and revealed himself there, he was now a young woman around 20 years old with black hair done into braids, he wore a black battle dress and military boots. His body also changed to resemble a female more but his chest was flat. He easily got through the formation as he changed his ki aura to resemble a female, easily getting him access to the inside of the formation, he climbed the wall at a point that there were no patrols then blended in. He slowly made his way around the walls, making it look like he was patrolling and making sure no males were attacking, from time to time he would look towards the important guarded locations trying to identify which one had the most important formation core which he had to destroy. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a ditzy red-haired girl patrolling around, from time to time her eyes would also wander towards a peculiar place, Yun Jhin realized that she was also scouting that specific formation core. Yun Jhin found it strange but also interesting at the same time, he easily made it so he got to meet her at an opportune moment by bumping into her by accident when he did his usual patrols. The red-haired girl almost fell from the wall because of the bump and Yun Jhin easily caught her and placed her right back on the wall, the red-haired girl shook her head as she scratched her hair awkwardly, this was the second time she was saved from falling to the ground. Yun Jhin eyes moved to her crimson eyes as a telepathic message was sent: "Who are you?" The red-haired girls'' eyes narrowed, she could feel that Yun Jhin was rather strange, suddenly she felt her head hurting, she glared at Yun Jhin and told him: "Aren''t you interesting? Being able to injure my soul so cleanly with one stroke, who am I? who are you?" Yun Jhin chuckled as he inserted some of his original phoenix aurae into her senses, she immediately looked at Yun Jhin''s eyes, she realized he was a male and possible rebel, Yun Jhin then asked her: "You are also eyeing the formation cores, right? Do you want to join the rebellion?" The woman snorted but she didn''t deny it, it seemed there was something different about this woman, Yun Jhin couldn''t actually properly see through her, there was something strange at her that reminded him of himself, maybe she was a reincarnated one! The woman had the same feeling coming from Yun Jhin, generally, reincarnated ones could see through one another better, but due to Yun Jhin''s huge amount of reincarnations the red-haired woman could barely see through Yun Jhin, he was still mostly covered in a layer of mystery to her. The woman decided to not beat around the bush as she told Yun Jhin: "Yes, I indeed wish to join the rebellion, I was always an advocate for gender equality but most of my friends laughed at me when I was spewing such things, now that the males finally grew a backbone I decided to join the resistance, I might even be the first female who did this." Yun Jhin knew that she was spewing both truths and lies at the same time, he decided to believe her for some time, he needed her help to break through the guards and destroy the formation core, he alone could do it but there would be some complications. Yun Jhin decided to let her into the plan and the woman immediately acted upon it after she heard it, it was a plan superior to hers. Yun Jhin face turned to a neutral stare as he looked at the woman slowly made her way towards the guards of the particular formation core. It seemed his instincts told him the truth, he gave her only half the plan and omitted some important things here and there, who knew if she was a spy planted by the Empress? Fortunately, she was going according to the plan. The woman made her way towards the guards and fell on her face in front of them, the female guards immediately went to her to see what happened, Yun Jhin slowly made his patrol towards the guards as well, seeing him approaching made the guards tense up for no reason. Suddenly the guards felt something as they looked at the downed body of the red-haired woman, they felt that their breathing had been cut. Yun Jhin made his way along with the guards as they fell to the ground like flies, they were all dead and quickly being absorbed by Yun Jhin''s body. The red-haired woman''s eyes widened in both surprise and puzzlement as she looked at Yun Jhin''s actions, she didn''t understand what cultivation technique he was using, but then some memories hit her and she understood a bit, it was a demonic technique! Yun Jhin ignored her as he entered the formation core and destroyed it swiftly, the formation started to weaken as Yun Jhin made some analyzes and then sent the information towards the attack teams, they were ready to break through the formation! The formation started to slowly crack and break as the males approached the capital and attacked with all of their strongest attacks. The red-haired woman followed Yun Jhin off the wall as they met with the peak sage realm experts, Ghin and the others. The males were pretty surprised and also suspicious after they saw Yun Jhin come back with a woman, Yun Jhin then told them that she was trustable as she was the one who helped him to break the formation, he also sent them some telepathic messages saying that she was different and she wasn''t what she looked to be on the surface. The red-haired woman decided to introduce herself: "My name is Bai Yun." All of the males found it strange, Bai Yun was a male''s name, was the woman not really a woman? But from her vital energy which she wasn''t hiding it was obvious she was a female, she also didn''t seem to be packing any hidden weapons either, in this type of society there was no chance a parent would give a woman the name of a man as it would demean her, this was very strange. Yun Jhin looked at Bai Yun if he was right she should have been a male in her previous life and wanted to keep her initial name, he usually did the same most of the time unless he really had to change his name for certain actions or plans, his name didn''t have any meaning to him but he felt familiar with it and didn''t want to change it for no reason. The war started again as the Emperor realm experts from both sides started to fight, prince Hanzen immediately appeared the moment the barrier broke and saw Yun Jhin and Bai Yun disappearing in the horde of males. He shook his head, he made an appearance too late, but who would guess they had a mole and an infiltrator at the same time? The Empress decided to take action as she took control of all of the females on the battlefield, this included the red-haired woman, but suddenly dark and fiery energy exploded from her as the Empress''s shouts could be heard from the palace: "DAMN YOU BAI YUN, I WAS SURE I DESTROYED YOUR SOUL!!" Yun Jhin saw how Bai Yun destroyed the control technique that was cast upon him, from his understanding this woman should be the former top god realm expert of the males. The other males were looking at Bai Yun with strange gazes but considering she didn''t do anything to them and she still seemed friendly they decided to trust her for this once as she broke through the control of the Empress. Yun Jhin looked at the battlefield, the males had learned their lesson and avoided the women who were self-destructing, however, it was not truly possible to avoid all of them, while the destruction ensued on the battlefield Prince Hanzen made his way towards the leaders of the rebellion, he looked at the peak sage realm experts and Yun Jhin before he fell to his knees and said: "I surrender!" Yun Jhin motioned for the peak sage realm expert to go closer to him, when he did Prince Hanzen eyes glazed over as he looked down at his body, his chest was pierced by a sharp pike from the peak sage realm expert, his life force was slowly disintegrating as he opened his mouth to say something only for his head to fall to the side and his eyes to remain wide open, however, before all of the energy in his body dissipated his lips turned upward in a small smile. Yun Jhin approached his body as he shook his head and said: "We couldn''t make the mistake of believing him, what if he decided to self-destruct?" All of the people with Yun Jhin nodded, seeing the child of the Empress surrendering then being executed destroyed the morale of the army, even brainwashed and controlled some of them started to fight back, the males that were too brainwashed also felt something was wrong with this here, why would the prince surrender? As time passed the war continued but self-destructions started to disappear as the females broke through the control of the Empress and started to run away in all directions, fleeing for their lives! Yun Jhin watched everything happen with an impassive expression on his face, he wasn''t sure why but the peak sage realm experts women weren''t attacking, they seemed to be pondering something atop the walls as they watched the fight go on, all of the sage experts were free so they started to massacre the Emperor women and brainwashed men. The sage realm women finally made their way towards the battlefield and decided to surrender. Yun Jhin frowned deeply seeing everything happen like this, this felt wrong, it was way too easy, what had the Empress done in 2 years of preparation for the final war? Yun Jhin looked at Bai Yun from the corner of his eyes, she seemed to be as surprised as he was, what was wrong here? A cough started to echo across the battlefield as a decrepit woman appeared in the skies, her face was starting to melt at high speeds as her skull became visible, the skull had a small crack across the forehead and her body was slowly becoming skeletal as well. She looked in the direction of Yun Jhin and Bai Yun, her empty eye sockets were boring in their souls as she wanted to see through their secrets, Yun Jhin grunted as he coughed a mouthful of blood, and Bai Yun did the same. It seemed the old crone was going to use her life for the final attack! Yun Jhin frowned as he unraveled his strengthened defensive clothes, after he upgraded them with the fiery phoenix pool energy they could protect him from the dying peak god realm woman, her cultivation was actually regressing quickly after she left the palace and capital, it was around the 7th stage of the God Realm right now! A sigh could be heard echoing in everyone''s ears: "It seemed I made a mistake back then and allowed this wretched person to come back... unfortunate, if that Zhao Yun was alone I might have been able to do something about him, but the combined destiny of the two working towards the same objective is too much for me to bear..." Yun Jhin frowned as he activated the defensive power of his clothes while he activated the Emperor ki armor to surround his whole body. Bai Yun activated her own defensive treasures as countless auras engulfed her as she activated her ki armor as well. The Empress was only a clothed skeleton right now, her cultivation base dropped to the 2nd stage of the God Realm and the skeleton was slowly transforming into ashes. The pressure on both of them was increasing continuously to the point that their bones started to crunch and crack, Yun Jhin fell to his knees as a breath filled with death and decay came from the Empress''s skeleton while it slowly transformed into ashes. The breath was going directly for Yun Jhin and Bai Yun! Chapter 123: Brushing shoulders with death The breath that contained death and decay was very slow in the eyes of those who saw it coming towards Yun Jhin and Bai Yun, but only the two of them knew that no matter how slow it was, it was supposed to hit them both head-on! Their bodies were too heavy to move due to the suppressive might that the skeleton put on them, even though the skeleton turned into ashes, the suppressive might was still there and holding on strong! Blood started to drip from Yun Jhin''s eyes as he gritted his teeth and tried to get up and dodge, the ki armor on his body was slowly cracking along with the remaining good bones in his body. Bai Yun looked at Yun Jhin''s actions from the corner of her eyes, she knew that things would end up bad for the both of them if the attack hit them, she knew there were almost no ways for them to escape, the difference in cultivation was too big even though the moment the Empress died her cultivation regressed to the 1st stage of the God Realm. Bai Yun eyes started to drip blood as well as she thought: "I didn''t reincarnate to die here, at the hands of the same person no less! If I work with him... maybe..." She sent Yun Jhin a telepathic message: "The death breath is almost on us, use all of your strength to get near me, if we share our Yin and Yang energies we should be able to break through this weakening suppressive might and dodge the attack!" Yun Jhin was a paranoid person who didn''t trust others easily and he always had back-up plans for those he trusted, but in this situation, there was nothing he could do besides trust Bai Yun! He frowned as he couldn''t control the situation, he hated this type of occurs, rare they were, but in this life, they happened a bit too many times for his taste. Yun Jhin''s body cracked as he slowly moved, step by step towards Bai Yun, his hand was slowly reaching for hers as flowing Yang energy was being exhausted by his right arm. Bai Yun''s body started to crack as well as she started to move closer to Yun Jhin, they were both Emperors and they shouldn''t be able to move under the suppressive might, but it was slowly dissipating, however, the death breath was almost touching them as well! "Closer, closer almost there!" "Just one more centimeter!" Yun Jhin''s and Bai Yun''s hands finally interlocked as a fiendish aura engulfed the both of them as they exchanged their Ying and Yang energies, their cracked bones slowly started to heal as they used each other strengths to throw themselves out of the way of the death breath. Yun Jhin finally heaved a sigh and so did Bai Yun, until the death breath slowly moved and hit both of them by the corners of their bodies! Yun Jhin''s right arm got hit as it started to dissipate fortunately the breath didn''t hit his whole body or he would have been ashes right now. Bai Yun lost her left leg but they both survived, Yun Jhin now was practically armless as one of them was slowly healing and one of them disappeared, the death energy also infested the wound and it wouldn''t heal normally anymore, he needed to break through to the sage realm first for that to happen. Yun Jhin coughed a few times as the death energy entered the earth and lava started to spurt out of the ground like a volcano! Yun Jhin dodged the lava and Bai Yun jumped on one leg to avoid the eruption. The death breath moved way faster in the earth and it reached the core of the planet quite quickly creating an eruption of lava. Yun Jhin watched the battlefield, everything was slowly finishing, the females were giving up, their Empress was dead and their prince was the same, things were settling down slowly. Yun Jhin approached Bai Yun and sent her a voice transmission: "Your Yin energy is very strong, do you want to share it a little bit more?" Yun Jhin could feel that the fusion of their Yin and Yang energy could help his left arm to recover fully, his right arm was gone for now and he still needed one arm to regain up to 85% of his battle power. Bai Yun is a former male who didn''t know what to say in this situation, but considering they could remove some of the death energy from their wounds this way to help them recover faster when they broke through the sage realm she decided to go along with it later. Yun Jhin helped her up as they looked around the battlefield, Ghin came limping towards them, his right leg was injured but he had a big smile on his face as he bowed to both of them: "We have won!" Yun Jhin nodded, it seemed that they have won, he gave out a small smile towards him as the sage realm experts gathered with the captured female sages and asked: "What should we do with them?" Yun Jhin looked over the females and said shortly: "Do the same thing they did to us, enslave them, but don''t do the same thing to the weaker females, after all, we are advocating equality." The males nodded to each other, they wanted to show the females that they were better than them, but if the upper-echelons walked scot-free away from this would make them look weak. So they enslaved the females at the sage realm and let everyone else below free. Yun Jhin walked around the battlefield as countless corpses started to disappear, even though the Empress used to self-destruct the females, the ones who broke through the mind control and were too late to escape still died, there were also quite a lot of male corpses here and there. Their disappearance puzzled the survivors but they decided against commenting, they were all too weak and exhausted to do anything about it anyways. Yun Jhin''s eyes were concentrated on the system page that appeared in front of him: "25,000,26,000..... 30,000.....45,000...." Only 45,000 Yun Jhin sighed, it couldn''t be helped, there was too much self-destruction and after the females surrendered the casualties dropped by quite a lot. Yun Jhin still needed 55,000 corpses to absorb and he knew where to go, he just needed to wait for the others to start celebrating and he could move to a random city and unleash a massacre on both the females and males, the strongest people were the peak sages and he could easily avoid them if he played smart. Yun Jhin walked into the capital along with Bai Yun and a few other sage realm experts that weren''t currently concentrating on enslaving the female sages. Yun Jhin''s voice moved through the whole capital: "The revolution has ended, the males had won and now we will create an equal Empire where talent and opportunities will be shared with everyone regardless of gender!" The males cheered while the females kept quiet, they knew they lost this war and they couldn''t do anything anymore, any revolution from them will be quickly stomped out and they would all be killed, they heard and saw what happened, both at the capital and the nearby cities. Bai Yun looked at Yun Jhin through the corner of her eyes as she asked: "Now that everything is done you want to exchange Ying-Yang now?" Yun Jhin nodded, they both found a private area and exchanged their Ying and Yang with each other, Yun Jhin''s left arm finally healed as he flexed it while the death aura that was inhabiting his right side of the body was a little bit tamer compared to before. Bai Yun had a wondering expression on her face as they both left the building behind. Yun Jhin waved at Bai Yun indicating that he would leave, Bai Yun had her own devices she had to get to so she waved back and left as well, there were no reasons for them to continue interacting anymore so they went on their way. Yun Jhin met with the peak sage realm experts and saw how they enslaved all of the female sages and nodded, he looked over the whole army that finally rested enough and took over the capital as he transmitted to them: "This day should be known as the Male Revolutionary day and it shall be a new holiday, from now on, on this day of the year we shall celebrate this day!" Shouts of agreement and cheers of happiness could be heard from every male in the capital and a gigantic party ensued! Yun Jhin partied for a few hours before he disappeared in the dark of night, the party continued for ten days and ten nights continuously as they ate and drank, while the sage experts were training their slaves Yun Jhin was free to do as he wanted. The news came after that 55,000 disapparitions around the planet appeared, the investigations led to a dead-end and since there weren''t any new disapparitions after a while they decided to close the investigations. Yun Jhin looked at the system notification in front of him, he finally had gained enough bloodlines to create a pure Phoenix bloodline that he could fuse with the other ones to become an artificial celestial caterpillar! [100,000/100,000 Phoenix bodies consumed, Pure Phoenix Bloodline had been created and added to the stock, for the host to continue on the way of the artificial celestial caterpillar host needs bloodlines from the white tiger and the black tortoise!] Yun Jhin sighed, it seemed his life on the Phoenix planet was slowly coming to an end, he decided to meet with Qinghe one last time before he left. Yun Jhin arrived at the house in the woods and Qinghe with his son came quickly to welcome him back. Yun Jhin smiled as he gave a one-armed hug to the both of them, Qinghe tears started to flow as she watched him recover his left arm and lose his right one, she clutched the back of his clothes tightly as she said: "At least you are alive, at least you are alive!" Yun Lao''s eyes were shining as he looked at his ''father'' he had his little sister in his hands as he gave her to his father while saying: "This is Yun Qinghe father, you should introduce yourself to her properly." His eyes were still shining as he said that. Yun Jhin gave out a good-natured chuckle as he took the little bundle into his arm, Yun Qinghe immediately started crying the moment she felt herself to be in Yun Jhin''s arm, however, she slowly started to get used to Yun Jhin''s grasp, but that was only because Yun Jhin was removing a part of her soul and inserting some of his soul will inside her to control her, this was the same reason Yun Lao was so smart, he had some of Yun Jhin''s memories and his soul was also in his control. Qinghe didn''t know what was happening as she smiled at her husband: "It seems she only needed a little bit of time to get used to her father." She cocked her head to the side as she said that and the family was now fully complete. They all entered the house to have a good talk as laughs could be heard coming from inside the house from time to time. Yun Jhin let Yun Qinghe rest in her new baby bed before he walked towards Qinghe and decided to talk with her about the future: "Darling... I will have to leave the planet soon." Qinghe''s eyes started to tremble as she looked at Yun Jhin and said with sorrow: "Why... why do you have to leave us? Your daughter, your son, and me?" Yun Jhin shook his head as he transferred some information in her brain instead of using words, she would understand better this way. "You want to leave us for cultivation? I don''t understand!" Yun Jhin shook his head, of course, she wouldn''t, she was that type of cultivator who was content with her life and didn''t want to increase her cultivation further, however, Yun Jhin was obsessed with cultivating and could never settle for such a life. Yun Jhin slowly made his way towards the door of the house as he told her: "You have both Yun Lao and Yun Qinghe to keep you company, you are not alone, just think of me when you look at them." Qinghe grabbed Yun Jhin from behind as she hugged his chest, but Yun Jhin already disappeared, she only grasped the air as she fell to the ground and started to cry. Yun Lao approached her and comforted her as he said: "It''s ok mom, you still have us." Qinghe sniffed as she hugged Yun Lao, it was true, at least she had her children. Yun Jhin was already flying towards the jumping pad formation when he stopped and said: "Ok you can come out, you want to leave the planet too, I guess?" Chapter 124: White tigers are infighting Bai Yun slowly manifested 10 meters away from Yun Jhin, her eyes were analyzing Yun Jhin''s form, she had seen how he left his family behind, this strengthened her guess of him being a reincarnated one, reincarnated ones usually didn''t care about the people around them as they should have transcended the concept of relationships as they continued to live through different lives. All that remained for these people were profits and schemes to reach their dreams. "Indeed, I decided to leave the planet, that damn bitch had already wasted all the potential this planet had to create another peak god realm expert... I need to find another planet where I can relearn the laws in the future." Yun Jhin could feel that she said the truth, the laws of the planet were very thin even though the ki in the air was thick with energy, it seemed the Empress didn''t release the laws for the future generations to learn when she died, only her ki returned to the earth. It would take a lot of time for the laws of the planet to restore themselves because of her actions, this was a way for the Empress to take revenge on Bai Yun after her death, she decided to make things harder for her when she tried to achieve her breakthrough in the God Realm. But it didn''t make sense for her to leave yet, she wasn''t even a sage realm expert yet, Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed as he questioned her: "You are still quite weak... why would you want to leave around the same time as I am?" Bai Yun chuckled as she launched herself at Yun Jhin, her body fully equipped with her ki weapon and ki armor, Yun Jhin retaliated as he activated his weapon and armor. His armor was different from hers as it was filled with the 4 elements. Yun Jhin easily slipped behind her as he gave her a punch towards the chest, her armor absorbed the impact but she retaliated with her ki weapon which was a bo staff, the staff hit Yun Jhin squarely in the jaw disorientating him. Yun Jhin jumped backward to make some space between them as he created his own ki weapon, he thrust his halberd forward at full strength breaking through her bo staff at full strength. However, the halberd lost strength after he broke her bo staff and so she could dodge and recreate her weapon, but she also wasted some ki in this situation. "So you attack me without any explanation? You want to test my strength?" Bai Yun smiled but didn''t say anything, her eyes indicated that what Yun Jhin said was the truth. Yun Jhin didn''t like being tested but Bai Yun''s battle strength was quite high, even though not similar to his he would still have to exert a bit of strength to defeat her here. Yun Jhin''s aura changed as darkness and light enveloped him, he used both the Ying-Yang abilities fused with the darkness and light abilities to create an aura that enchanted his stealth ability making him disappear from Bai Yun''s senses. Bai Yun frowned as she looked around, suddenly she looked down at her chest as she could feel a heavy strike landing there. The heavy strike made her armor crack and she crashed down falling from the sky. Yun Jhin appeared as he flew to the ground, he looked at Bai Yun''s downed form on the ground then jumped up as another Bai Yun appeared from the ground trying to hit him between the legs with her bo staff. "Weren''t you a male previously? Why are you attacking so viciously?" Bai Yun decided against commenting as she continued to attack, Yun Jhin finally got bored of playing with her as he disappeared, his halberd was held in front of him as he sped up, suddenly the halberd entered through Bai Yun''s front and left her back, breaking her armor and injuring her a high deal, but Bai Yun''s body dissipated into dust as another Bai Yun appeared, however, she was visibly exhausted. Yun Jhin looked down at her as he asked: "Got enough?" Her lips trembled as she asked: "Who are you? There are very few reincarnated persons who can equal my power let''s not even talk about defeating me..." "Guess." Bai Yun didn''t know what to say, in her last life she was born after Yun Jhin died and it''s been quite a long time since then, she also didn''t listen much to rumors so she couldn''t know who Yun Jhin was. "Are you the ice Emperor of the humans?" Yun Jhin shook his head as he left her there, she couldn''t be of much use to him anymore, absorbing people besides for their bloodlines couldn''t be of much use anymore to him, at this level only energy from heaven and earth could be used to enhance himself, the Emperor Realm needed the acknowledgment of the heaven and earth before they could do anything else. Bai Yun got up from the ground as she pitifully followed Yun Jhin, she felt wrong, this was the first time she had been defeated in this life and so thoroughly to boot as well, she didn''t know what to do, when she was at the peak god realm she wouldn''t have seen herself feeling the need to follow someone in her life, but now she felt vulnerable. Then some more of her memories got unlocked as she shook her head, her eyes hardened, it seemed she was an incomplete reincarnated as she didn''t get her full memories. Yun Jhin looked behind him and said: "Got some more of your memories now? Don''t follow me, reincarnated people shouldn''t act with each other, you should understand why we already defied heaven and earth by forcefully reincarnating against the wishes of the universe, thus we can move towards the same destination but we shouldn''t go on the same path." Bai Yun narrowed her eyes as she looked at Yun Jhin''s back, she knew that if she followed him she could have a big chance to return to her full strength, he seemed to have unlocked his full memories and he could be helpful for her to unlock hers. Yun Jhin looked at the formation ahead of him, they already flew above the ocean and were rapidly approaching the formation, the males had already reinstalled the formation to deter the stronger fishes in the ocean so Yun Jhin didn''t have to his stealth technique, but that also meant Bai Yun could easily follow him, Yun Jhin also didn''t have any reason to kill her, she might have some treasures on her but they were useless to him, he filled his quota for phoenixes as well. Yun Jhin sighed as he arrived at the formation and looked at Bai Yun who was waiting for the formation to activate, he did a few hand seals to activate the formation as the energy in the surroundings started to enter the formation and power it up. The formation started to whirl to life as the energy from the surroundings combined with the spirit stone Yun Jhin inserted in the formation previously activated the formation fully! Yun Jhin looked at the surrounding formation as he was sent directly into space! Bai Yun was also sent into space behind him, he ignored her as he looked towards the other two planets, he decided to choose the white tiger planet next, from what he knew about black tortoises they will be tricky to get and he decided to leave them for last. Yun Jhin''s body started to drop quickly to the location of the white tiger planet, it was fully white, that meant the planet was a glacial one and that it was winter in it 24/7, the planet environment was very harsh but the population of tigers was living quite well, this showed that their bodies were special and strong since they were born. Yun Jhin looked behind him and noticed that Bai Yun didn''t follow him, this was good, he didn''t want to deal with a reincarnated one, her battle strength was high enough and she could awaken more memories the closer she was to die, she might even self-destruct if he fought her to death, there was no reason to fight with such an opponent, she didn''t have anything he wanted or needed. He would only work with her if she had things that he could use, also two reincarnated ones being near each other could bring trouble, the universe rather hated reincarnated ones. Yun Jhin''s destiny was already immense enough if two people with high destiny lived around each other for a long enough time the universe would decide to mess up with them, the universe wasn''t conscious but it would react instinctively when some types of energies clashed or mixed around. Yun Jhin''s body fell through the atmosphere of the white tiger planet, the harsh winds and ice assailed his body continuously to the point that blood was falling from his body and being frozen immediately at the same time. His teeth started to chatter innately as he felt the cold seeping into his body, then he used his life and Yang abilities to slowly heat his body so he could adapt to the environment, as he fell through the upper layers of the planet the temperature started to slowly increase, the higher in the clouds the lower the temperature. Yun Jhin''s body was slowly adapting to the coldness as his body refinement was at the peak, combined with his abilities that he could heat his body to the point that the coldness wasn''t affecting him. He fell to the snowy ground leaving a small hole in it, he got up from the hole and looked around only to hear shouts and battles going all around him: "YOU ARE COURTING DEATH!" "YOU ARE COURTING DEATH FOR TELLING ME THAT I COURT DEATH!" "NO, YOU!" Multiple voices were shouting at each other as battles were going around, Yun Jhin entered back into the hole then he looked around, the white tiger''s innate camouflaging ability in the snow was quite perfect but Yun Jhin could still see them, there were tens of youths around the Emperor Realm fighting here and there, some of them had different stripe patterns and Yun Jhin could infer from this that they were from different tribes. It seemed there was an inter-tribal war ongoing! Yun Jhin frowned, how come 3/4 planets of the four guardian beasts were rife with inner trouble? The females and males on the phoenix planet were at each other''s throats after he was done with the planet, even though the situation was better than before it would take a long while for things to settle down. The dragon planet also got settled down but things weren''t going well there anyway. And now the white tigers were also infighting? There was the smell of a conspiracy going down here, could the same person who had poisoned the dragon brothers have done something to the other planets inhabitants as well? Could they have taken the same poison as the brothers? It could be most likely, after all, the four guardian beasts were a very strong race if they combined forces, they could have even become the strongest in the universe if they fused their efforts to conquer the universe. However, they were proud and didn''t have good relationships with each other, but they weren''t infighting, they were actually closely tied when it came to people of their own race. Yun Jhin thought a little about it as he easily maneuvered through the snow to dodge stray attacks that could have hit him. This type of scheming reminded him of those old righteous fools who put up the mask of righteousness on their face while they were almost as bad as him, truly hypocrites. Yun Jhin found their actions strange, why act good when you are bad? Even though he could be considered the scummiest person alive at least he was honest with who he was. Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at the ongoing fight, he decided to not interfere with them, he needed to get information, he looked around and tried to find some weaker white tiger he could ambush and kill to absorb his soul. Chapter 125: Fishy situation Yun Jhin slowly looked around for a white tiger that was further away from the others so he could assassinate him. He found the current situation of the four sacred beasts planet to be quite fishy, it did look like the hand of those old fogies from the Radiance and Light sect, however, that meant they should have reincarnated as well and that meant things would turn ugly if they found and recognized him. From the memories of that hell creature he absorbed years ago, he saw that hells entrance was currently in the headquarters of the former blood throne sect, if the Radiance and Light sect found him he would become the most wanted person in the world and he would have no backing as well! Yun Jhin slowly walked through the heavy snow while concealing his presence as he finally saw a younger white tiger looking at the fights from a distance, his eyes were curious as he observed the fights between his kin, it seemed like he wanted to join in the fights as well. Yun Jhin suddenly appeared behind him as his hands slowly made their way towards his neck, the tiger felt something was wrong as he suddenly turned backward with a spin only to see only snow behind him, he frowned as he felt something was still wrong but he couldn''t put his finger on it. His head fell to the side with a sickening crunch as he thought about it, his body and soul were silently absorbed as Yun Jhin gained the information he needed and he frowned. There were two strong tiger tribes on the planet and they were infighting for reasons unknown to those of the lower echelons, this tiger he absorbed was from a smaller tribe that wasn''t under the two tribes. The tribes were rather paranoid and they wouldn''t accept outsiders from the smaller tribes thinking they could be spies. Yun Jhin also found out that there were 2 peak God Realm experts on this planet, they were the leaders of the tribes and they would fight from time to time to see who was stronger. The tribes were stuck in a perpetual fight against each other but they didn''t seem to be ill-intended, they were fighting to improve themselves but deaths could still be occasionally seen here and there. Yun Jhin found it strange... it was like they just didn''t want to leave their planet, or maybe they weren''t allowed to? The young tiger he absorbed didn''t have much knowledge, he only know the most basic things, he didn''t even know the whole planet! Yun Jhin looked at the older tigers who were still fighting, a death had been spotted as one of the tiger''s throat was slashed open and he bled to death on the ground, the winning tiger didn''t care to look at his dying face as he continued to fight with the other tigers, from the tiger stripe patterns on their bodies it could be seen the two fighting parties were from the stronger tribes. The tigers were rather simple, Yun Jhin thought. They only pursued strength and from what he gathered their civilization was quite backward, they didn''t evolve at all in that aspect, they were all savages and lived like prehistoric humans. Yun Jhin wasn''t sure what they were wearing because they were all fighting in their tiger forms right now but he was sure it was something along the lines of Uxi-Mammoth skin or something similar. Yun Jhin then decided to wait for the winners to be decided, he would strike afterward and absorb the bodies and the souls of the winners, maybe they could have more information that he could use, after all, they were quite a bit stronger compared to the youth he absorbed. A slash here, and a bite there, the snow didn''t do much to cover the fighting aura of the tigers, Yun Jhin watched as they fought bloodily, in the end, the tigers from the Hao tribe won, the name of the tribes were Hao and Mao and their strengths were currently unknown to Yun Jhin, but if he guessed by the current situation, the Hao tribe should be a little bit stronger. Yun Jhin watched as the winning 3 tigers looked at the corpse of their comrades and decided to leave them there to be buried in the snow, Yun Jhin appeared in front of them in the snow, the leader of the tiger''s eyes widened as he didn''t feel Yun Jhin approach at all, looking at the stranger who had weird clothes on his body made the 3 tigers fall back a bit, his aura was equal to theirs and he was an unknown factor. The moment they fell back one of the tiger''s head flew in the air as blood sprayed to the ground. The other two didn''t cry in anguish, they got angered as Yun Jhin fought dirty, he didn''t even issue a challenge! Yun Jhin knew from the memories of the youngster that issuing challenges was a normal event in those types of fights, thus the tigers let their guard down in front of Yun Jhin because he didn''t issue a challenge immediately after appearing. It seemed the Tigers were both honest and dumb folk. Yun Jhin''s image started to flicker as the snow-covered him, the second head flew into the air and the strongest tiger remained alive, he returned to his human form as he tried to reason with Yun Jhin: "You shameless person stop!" Yun Jhin looked at the man up and down and nodded, he was wearing an Uxi-Mammoth skin, the man''s head flew into the air as their bodies dissipated along with the dead ones that were laying in the snow. Yun Jhin face remained impassive as the information entered his soul and he muttered: "It won''t be good to join one of the stronger tribes, they are too paranoid, even if I infiltrate as someone I killed there is a chance they would know..." Tigers had a very keen sense of smell and it was enhanced even more around those of the same blood as theirs, while Yun Jhin could fake the smell of a white tiger if a relative smelled him and found his smell funny he could be found out, each beast had their special attributes and trick under their sleeves that Yun Jhin was somewhat familiar with. Azure dragons had very high compatibility to mate everything and create hybrids, however, due to this pure breeds would be harder to create, Phoenixes could revive if any part of their bodies was kept safe for a rather long time, however, this didn''t work if the phoenix was dying of old age. White tigers had very keen senses, their strongest was their sense of smell so stealth and infiltration didn''t work properly against them, Yun Jhin stealth worked here because the tigers didn''t keep their guards up and they were rather exhausted, combined with the fact that Yun Jhin''s killing experience was unrivaled in this universe it made them be easy targets. The black tortoises were rather unknown, they were hermits and Yun Jhin knew very little about them, all he knew is that they had the longest longevity in the universe nearing 600,000 years and that during their older years they would go and hibernate to conserve energy. Yun Jhin shook his head, he also gained the map of the planet, the surface was a battlefield and the inside of the planet was where Tigers would rest, the inside of the planet was hot and the energy nearing the core helped tigers recover faster, while the outside was meant to temper the body, the inside was used for recovery. There was also the fact that no civilians existed on this planet, every person was a cultivator! Those that had no potential were already dead and mummified in the ice of the planet, young tiger cubs would be thrown outside and made to survive the harsh environment of the ice planet. Most people who could survive this would become cultivators, due to this the white tiger population wasn''t that big, they had the lowest population of the 4 sacred beasts but also the highest battle power. Yun Jhin looked around for a while before he left, he disguised himself as a tiger from a small tribe as he walked towards one of the small tribes. The person which led this tribe was at most a sage realm expert around the 4th stage, they were barely allowed to get a den inside the planet and they weren''t allowed near the hotter areas. Yun Jhin decided to go to this tribe because they were welcoming of outsiders, they needed manpower for hunting and farming, they were one of the few lucky lower tribes who got their hands on a plot of land inside the planet that could be used for farming, and if they made a successful planting they would be able to eat for a long while without having to put their warriors lives in peril on the outside. While hunting wasn''t that hard if you got the right target. However, there was a high chance to meet other tribes, and if you met the strongest tribes during hunting all you could do was fight valiantly until you bled to death or your head fell to the ground. Yun Jhin entered the bounders of the tribe and one of the guards immediately looked him up and down before asking: "This brother is unfamiliar, might I inquire from where are you from?" As long as a tiger didn''t have the patterns of a stronger tribe and their cultivation wasn''t too high or too low while they also looked for work, the smaller tribes would accept them. Yun Jhin fit the criteria perfectly so the guard didn''t shoo him away nor did he trigger any type of alarm. Yun Jhin told him that he came from a tribe that got annihilated recently when he came back from hunting he saw all his brethren slain, he put on an angry expression and sorrowful expression on his face as he told his story to the guard. The guard understood this could happen everyday, smaller tribes were numerous and they could be annihilated overnight, however, new tribes would spring up and take over their locations this way. Unlike dragons and phoenixes, tigers could easily mate multiple times and have pure bloodlines, but their blood didn''t mix that easily with others so hybrids couldn''t normally exist. After Yun Jhin told his story he was let into the tribe and given a hut, he wasn''t given any food as he was told he would have to go hunting tomorrow to get any food, or he could help with farming but up till now, there wasn''t any success in that regard, he would also be punished if he failed to make any breakthroughs in farming, after all, they didn''t have many seeds left and getting more would be more perilous than hunting. Yun Jhin decided to go and see what kind of farming the tigers were doing, he almost wanted to laugh out loud when he saw how the tigers farmed, they were obviously muscle brains who only knew how to cultivate, even farming was hard for them! He watched one tiger hit the ground many times with a hoe and another one using a pickaxe to split open seeds, later he was taken away by the guards, and roars of anger could be heard: "No, they should grow now that I split them open! Let me go so I can watch them grow!" Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at the remaining intact seeds, he made small holes into the fertile ground below him before putting them inside the ground, then he created spiritual ki water using his own ki and watered the seeds. It didn''t take much time for the seeds to start growing quickly, small leaves popped out of the ground and the other tigers immediately looked at Yun Jhin as if he was a genius of unparalleled intelligence. He was immediately summoned to the chief of the tribe that asked him: "Oh, who are you, one so intelligent and wise in the ways of farming?" Yun Jhin told him a fake name that was normally used for tigers from small tribes: "My name is Gao Yating." Most tigers from the small tribes were named Gao, this were the rules of the two stronger tribes, they wouldn''t be allowed to have names similar to theirs as this would go against the pride of the strong! Yun Jhin waited for a response from the chief as he kept his head down in respect, but inside he was sneering and waiting, he was creating new plans that could help him take over the tribe since the tigers were dumb all he had to do was play smart and create his own tribe, creating the third strongest tribe on the planet! Chapter 126: How to strengthen a faction 101 The leader of the tribe looked Yun Jhin up and down as he asked: "So your name is Gao Yating? From your looks it seems you have fought for a long while, you even lost an arm! You must be a strong warrior then. How come you know about farming?" The question didn''t seem to have any tricks in it, the leader was genuinely surprised by Yun Jhin''s ability and knowledge of farming. Yun Jhin decided to make himself look just a little bit more intelligent than normal, this way he would be considered a genius in the white tiger tribe and there was a high chance he could become the advisor of the tribe leader, thus he would be able to control the leader indirectly through his advice. Yun Jhin decided to explain it shortly: "I saw the other ways of planting and decided to do differently." The leader scratched his stubbled chin, he was a man of tall height standing around 2,20 meters, he taller and stronger than Yun Jhin, he wore the normal Uxi-Mammoth skin around his body but his was bigger and had more skins sewn around showing that he killed way more mammoths than the average white tiger. "You are quite smart... It''s been a long while since I have met someone as smart as you, only those in the two top tribes usually have people as smart as you." "The leaders of the tribes make them something called advesors? I think." "Would you like to be my advesor? I think with your help our tribe could flourish!" Yun Jhin seemed to be undecided as he looked at the leader, the leader then came forward and patted him on the back forcefully almost making him fall to the ground: "You have fought enough, you are also missing your right arm, you can''t fight well in this situation, just tell us what to do and if you do well you won''t be executed!" Yun Jhin nodded, finally deciding to take the role of advisor in the tribe, the leader smiled, he thought that he could use Yun Jhin''s genius to make his tribe better! Yun Jhin then decided to tell him how he should act from now on, he should focus on growing the crops according to his instructions, the spiritual food that he planted would bear more seeds and after they could plant all of the seeds into the fertile earth they had, they could continuously grow stronger without any danger, so he could conquer the other tribes after they strengthened their tribe for a longer while, continuously increasing the tribe''s size, taking more fertile earth and getting spots where they could farm. The leader didn''t understand the plan that well, after all, his brain wasn''t that developed, he only knew how to smash, his brain couldn''t handle such type of planning, but he decided to go along with it, while he didn''t know how to plan but he knew how to execute. He made the whole tribe enter closed-door cultivation and with Yun Jhin''s help they planet all of the seeds in the earth creating a gigantic garden for special ki food. It took them almost 2 years before the garden born fruits and vegetables, then with Yun Jhin''s distribution they strengthened the people that needed the fruits and vegetables, they used the food they had in reserve to feed the weaker people while the others used the ki in the heaven and earth to survive. At first, some tribesmen didn''t like how Yun Jhin distributed the food and fought him thinking that if they defeated him they could become the new advisors, but they got their ass handed to them by Yun Jhin, and afterward, they shut up. As Yun Jhin continued with the planting their crops increased in number, there were so many crops that they didn''t have any more patches of fertile earth to plant seeds in them. As the amount of food increased so did the average cultivation of the tribe, the leader even increase his cultivation to the 6th stage of the sage realm with the bountiful amount of food they had. Yun Jhin also increased his cultivation to the 4th stage of the Emperor realm and he was nearing the 5th stage of the Emperor realm, but his body started to gain resistance to the food they currently had, if he wanted to increase his cultivation further he either had to get a different type of food or find the Icy White Tiger pool. Yun Jhin became the most trusted person in the tribe as he strengthened it whole just by planting and farming. Then it was time for them to increase their tribe''s resources and personnel. They went to war with other tribes that were inside the planet! Due to the increase in cultivation, the tribe became so strong that they could be ranked in the top 100, thus they got deeper and deeper into the earth as they gained more fertile earth and increase their population by capturing the people they defeated. Yun Jhin started to different kinds of seeds that he used to plant and farm, years passed as Yun Jhin increased the size of the tribe considerably to the point that the two tribes took notice of the things happening! Yun Jhin was now around the 6th stage of the Emperor realm and his cultivation couldn''t increase anymore from foodstuffs, he now needed the Icy White Tiger pool to increase his cultivation further. As he fought against different tribesmen and killed them he absorbed almost 45,000 of them in total. As stated previously the number of white tigers was smaller compared to the other two planets due to their traditions. So even though Yun Jhin captured and killed quite a bit of tribesman from the other tribes, he was only around halfway to the completion of absorptions. Yun Jhin now wore the best Uxi-mammoth skin and he was the most respected person in the tribe which now had around 100,000 plus members, the other two tribes had around 500,000 tribesmen in total. The planet was very big but the population was concentrated in one spot due to the low numbers, in total there would be around 2,500,000 people living on the planet, but there were no people below the Emperor realm! Only the newborn youngsters would be that weak and they would quickly grow strong as time passed if they were talented, if not they would die due to the harsh environment. At first, Yun Jhin''s tribe only had around 500 people in it, from this it could be seen that Yun Jhin worked very hard to create the current tribe, calculating by how many people he absorbed, he had fought up to 200 plus or so wars up till now. Yun Jhin was currently massaged by the finest women in the tribe, he sat on his big mammoth pet as the other tribe leaders asked him for advice. Suddenly every shut up as a person entered the building that the tribes and Yun Jhin were in, he was a peak sage realm expert from the two strongest tribes! Most of the other leaders weren''t intimidated by him, with Yun Jhin''s help they were all around the peak of the sage realm and some of them even started to feel the laws of the planet approaching them, however, compared to the tribes that each had a peak god realm expert they were still considerably weak. Yun Jhin just sat on his mammoth pet as he looked down at the envoy from the two strongest tribes and asked: "Have the two strongest tribes of the planet came to acknowledge our existence?" The peak sage realm expert started to sweat bullets as all of the other peak sage realm experts used their cultivation to pressure him, he could feel that he was at a big disadvantage here and he would surely die if he offended Yun Jhin here, he bowed and asked: "My master wanted to confirm one thing, are you the one who helped them to this position Gao Yating?" Yun Jhin nodded, the peak sage realm had an amiable smile on his face as he asked that question, seeing Yun Jhin nod expanded his smile as he asked: "My master said that you are welcomed in our tribe, with your strategic mind and high intelligence you could surely help us to defeat the other tribe!" Yun Jhin shook his head as he continued to look down at the envoy, then he said: "Tell your master that I have no want to join any of the two tribes!" This put the envoy in a tight situation as he looked around, he could see the leaders that were now pretty much Yun Jhin''s subordinates glare at him. At this point, he knew that if he decided to push the invitation he would be attacked. He bowed again as he left, he continued to go deeper into the core of the planet reaching temperatures over thousand of degrees, other white tigers could be seen lazing around and recovering their bodies riddled with multiple types of injuries. After he walked for a rather long while, he finally arrived at a gigantic stone door, he kneeled before it before shouting: "This subordinate is incompetent and I couldn''t recruit Gao Yanting!" A deep voice could be heard coming from behind the door: "It doesn''t matter if he refused you that meant he would refuse the envoy from that old fellow as well, as long as he doesn''t join the other party its ok, what do you think about his troops?" The kneeling man reported: "His troop strength isn''t of a big number but their quality is rather high, they actually have as many peak sage realm experts as we have!" The voice didn''t appear for a short while before a response came: "I''m still fighting with that old fellow right now and this is only a strand of willpower I left behind, you cannot mess with them while I''m fighting, after I finish the fight with him I will come back and see this Gao Yanting in person!" The voice didn''t appear again as something happened that cut the connection between the strand of willpower and the owner. The man remained kneeling there for a few hours before he got up and left. Yun Jhin looked outside the window of his building as he thought: "The fight between those top god tigers won''t end any time soon, but the winner will surely come to me if I don''t comply he would take my head, this is good, soon I will complete the absorption of this planet and I can finally move away from this planet as well, from my knowledge the black tortoise planet should also be the easiest..." Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he sat cross-legged on his mammoth pet, his cultivation base was stuck at the 6th stage of the Emperor realm and it couldn''t go any higher, he needed the Icy White Tiger pool for that to happen, he already knew what to do when the winner of the fight would come for him, he could increase his cultivation and make them go to war as well, hitting two birds with one stone! He wasn''t sure when the fight would end but he knew that it could be rather soon, after all, he could feel the envoy from the other tribe slowly approaching his building undetected. It seemed the other tribe did things differently... Chapter 127: Defying expectations Yun Jhin sat on his pet mammoth, seemingly cultivating without any worries, the unseen assailant entered the building. As he made his way inside Yun Jhin could easily feel his gaze stopping onto him and analyzing his weak spots. Yun Jhin chuckled, he would like to see what he would do. Was he here as an assassin? Yun Jhin waited briefly before the man revealed himself to him, he was a young man with a ferocious gaze, he wore similar clothes to Yun Jhin which showed he had a very high standing in the upper tribe. His ferocious gaze moved to Yun Jhin as he shouted: "Envoy from the Mao tribe has come to ask some questions from the great sage Gao Yating." The two strongest tribes were respectively named Mao and Hao, the Hao tribesmen already came before and Yun Jhin refused their invitation. Yun Jhin opened his eyes as he looked down at the Mao envoy and told him: "I will tell you what I have told the Hao envoy as well, I have no wish to join your tribes!" The young man chuckled as he looked into Yun Jhin''s eyes and told him: "You see, my master doesn''t like refusals!" Suddenly he disappeared from the spot he was previously as Yun Jhin saw him appear near his mammoth pet, however, he couldn''t go any further. A formation was blocking his path, he collided with the barrier and was repelled, falling backward for a few meters before he got up with a weird look on his face. He didn''t understand what he hit as there was nothing there. White tigers were one of the relatively dumber races so they didn''t grasp the art of formations at all. He tried to attack, again and again, hoping to break the barrier and capture Yun Jhin so he could show him to his master, he wanted to use his intelligence and tactical mind to defeat the other tribes'' army while the God Realm experts were fighting. However, he hit a steel plate at this moment, the formation was repelling his attacks while also alerting the peak sage realm experts of Yun Jhin''s tribe which immediately arrived to help their tactician. The young man now sat on the ground bruised and beaten, his nose was bleeding and scars could be seen on his face, one of his arms was unnaturally bent to the side showing that it was broken if you looked closely you could also see one sharp bone popping out of it. The man howled at Yun Jhin: "You won''t get away with this, my master will surely win and come to capture you himself, you won''t be able to do a thing then!" Yun Jhin shook his head as he said: "It''s ok, it doesn''t matter if someone as strong as your master will truly come to capture me there is nothing I will be able to do, but I have my own pride, how could I let you walk over my head with only being a peak sage realm expert? Go back and tell your master that I will welcome him with open arms when he comes himself." Yun Jhin''s peak sage realm subordinates threw the man outside the building and their village, the man scoffed as he looked at the entrance of the village before he frowned and continued to enter deeper into the planet''s core. He arrived at a different place, there was a small garden where he arrived, it was full of flowers and green trees, you wouldn''t even think that beyond the garden existed a fiery location that would burn you to cinders. The young man kneeled in the garden and waited... 1 day... 2 days... 4 days... 1 month... A shaky voice could be heard coming from the garden as it said: "I have won... the price I have paid is enough, we shall now combine the tribes!" An old man with a big red nose and tattoos all over his body appeared, he wore nothing but a red mammoth skin that dripped with blood, his white hair was disheveled and his eyes showed that he had seen better days. He looked down at the kneeling young man then he unleashed his soul willpower while saying: "I guess you have failed to recruit that Gao Yanting?" The young man nodded before he explained what happened during his assault, the old man eyes narrowed as he heard about what happened as he thought: "Such abilities... since that old fool has got his ass beaten this time around that means if I play my cards well I should be able to engulf his tribe and make it mine, finally creating the strongest tribe on the planet! Unfortunately, my men are incompetent and I cannot attack those people of lower cultivation..." It wasn''t that he couldn''t attack them, but his pride was getting in his way of attacking someone of lower cultivation base than him, there was also the chance the Hao patriarch would go crazy and go out of his healing seclusion to fight the death with him, while he could accept the loss against the old man in a 1v1 fight, he wouldn''t sit still if his tribesmen would be attacked by him, that would be very dishonorable! The old man tamed his disheveled hair making it slick and clean before he looked towards the kneeling young man and told him: "He says he will welcome me with open arms? Then let''s see how good he will welcome me then!" They both disappeared from the verdant garden to appear near the entrance of Yun Jhin''s village. Yun Jhin got up from his pet mammoth, he could feel that the soul willpower of the old ancestor from the Mao tribe was targeting him directly. He got out of his building and immediately sent word that the patriarch of the Mao tribe was coming! This sent a stir through the whole tribe, all 100,000 people started to cook and create a gigantic banquet for the man while Yun Jhin went ahead and invited the old man from the entrance to the village. Yun Jhin was as humble as he could be as he kept his head bowed while he gave the old man the best seat at the banquet table that was hastily erected. The old man sat at the banquet table while he waited for the food to be served, the young man stood by his right while Yun Jhin stood by his left while being rather servile, the old man looked into Yun Jhin''s eyes as he chuckled: "It seems you know how to greet your elders, boy! It''s good that you aren''t prideful or else I would have had to snub such a talent!" He patted Yun Jhin''s right shoulder as Yun Jhin could feel something being removed from his body, the death energy that was plaguing his right part of the body was immediately removed, slowly but surely a new arm grew out of his stump, Yun Jhin got up from his seat only to bow to the old man as he said: "I thank the patriarch for this favor!" The old man chuckled as he patted Yun Jhin''s new arm before saying: "Interesting injury you had there youngling, I could even say that it was an injury that you should have died from, mind sharing your experience?" Yun Jhin shook his head as he told the old man: "I don''t remember the fight that well, excuse me, patriarch, I don''t think I can recall anything." The patriarch sighed: "Well I guess it can''t be helped, anyway, I want you to help me with one thing, think you are up for it?" Yun Jhin started to tap the table for a few seconds before he asked cautiously: "What type of thing would this patriarch want help with? Aren''t you one of the strongest persons on the planet?" The man shook his head as he told Yun Jhin: "I may be one of the strongest on the planet but there are some things that I''m not supposed to do because of that, I want to employ your military genius to capture the Hao tribe, I''m going to tell you a little secret right now." He leaned in to whisper into Yun Jhin''s ear: "I have defeated the Hao patriarch and it''s time for the tribes to unite, if you help me with this little problem I will make sure your tribe will become the second most important tribe in our society, you will have whatever you want when this thing is done!" Yun Jhin decided to be frank with the old man and told him: "Anything I want? Patriarch, I''m currently lacking in resources to increase my cultivation base... do you have any recommendations for later?" The old man laughed thinking that Yun Jhin accepted his offer by asking him such questions, he patted his back and told him: "There is the Icy White Tiger pool but the Hao clan is currently controlling it, immediately that we finish our unification war you will be the first one to empty its contents!" The food finally arrived after they finished their conversation, considering Yun Jhin''s extensive work with farming there were quite a lot of different ki vegetables and fruits, combined with some meat from mammoths and other different beings that lived on the surface, it even made the patriarch a little bit impressed. Even though he didn''t need to eat food, he still ate. After everything went relatively well, considering how well Yun Jhin behaved in front of the patriarch, it was soon time for the unification plan to start! Yun Jhin found himself at a table with a lot of peak sage realm experts, they basically had more than double the numbers of the Hao tribe considering the intelligence he just got. With the help of so many experts, there wasn''t even the need for an ingenious plan to be created, they could just run them down! But Yun Jhin still created a strong battle plan to make sure everything went well. Yun Jhin''s people immediately understood that he wanted to quickly get rid of the opponents by the plan he showed everyone, the plan was also very easy to understand for the people that haven''t worked with Yun Jhin previously. The young man that tried to assassinate Yun Jhin before came closer and looked at the plan, he nodded his head, it seemed that Yun Jhin''s fame wasn''t fake! The war was going to start tomorrow after their troops would be fully prepared, the other party also knew about the war as their God Realm expert had told them what would happen after he lost contact with them. One day soon passed and Yun Jhin was at the back of the army coordinating everything, as the intelligence general who would have to control the army, he had to stay behind or else there was a high chance he would be killed, while the old man wouldn''t interfere in the fight he was still there observing, waiting to see if the Hao God Realm expert would make his move if things went too dire for his tribe. They were both restraining each other at the same time with their presence! Yun Jhin looked at the troops that were prepared, they were around 250,000 plus quite a few Peak sage realm experts and sage realm experts, the total of people at the sage realm totaled around over 900. They also left some people back at their headquarters as not everyone was in the army even though they were cultivators, however, they could be summoned at any time if things became too dire and they were needed. This would be an easy battle in Yun Jhin''s mind, he would be able to absorb the dead bodies while he slowly made his way through the troops, the old God would have to keep his senses open towards any sudden attacks from The Hao good so he wouldn''t care what Yun Jhin did on the battlefield. Yun Jhin could feel the sweet taste of victory that he was used to easily washing over him, that was until he saw the defensive buildings of the Hao tribe, he cursed under his breath as he summoned the young man that tried to assassinate him and asked him: "I haven''t got any intelligence about those buildings, what is this?" The young man didn''t know what to tell Yun Jhin, those buildings weren''t there the last time their spies sent intelligence back! Things became a little troublesome at this point. Yun Jhin shook his head, it was time to improvise, he didn''t really care about the casualties of the Mao tribe, all he needed to do was take over the headquarters of the Hao tribe, actually, more casualties would be a better thing for him, he would lower the time needed to finish his absorptions! Yun Jhin changed the plan on the spot and told the young man to share it with everyone else, the change of plan was sudden but considering Yun Jhin''s previous battles and how he won all of them, they decided to follow it blindly. Chapter 128: Sometimes plans change Yun Jhin analyzed the defensive buildings of the headquarters of the Hao clan, he could see that they were made of a special material that he identified as Matrathite. Matrathite was an artificial metal created by cultivators above the sage realm, only gods could create it, and depending on the stage the God was, the quality could differ, but from what Yun Jhin saw, they were defensive buildings created out of top-notch quality Matrathite! These type of defensive buildings had to be worn down by constant attacks, even though the metal was very durable, if a God Realm expert wasn''t behind it, it wasn''t invincible but it was considerably annoying to destroy it. With his current troops, it would take him 3 weeks of attacking non-stop to break the buildings down so he could attack properly, that wasn''t counting the fact that there would be a heavy retaliation from the people defending the headquarters. If the sage realm experts were counted, the time could be cut to around 1 week, but half of the sage realm experts had to fight it with the enemy''s sages, so the time would be lengthened to around 1.5 weeks. Due to their increased number of sages, Yun Jhin''s army was in an advantageous position, but because the enemies got these defensive buildings, they were now on equal grounds considering battle power, in a war, the terrain was the most important factor, and Yun Jhin''s army was sorely lacking in that aspect, while they had the better fighters, it wouldn''t matter if the terrain was against them. Yun Jhin did some hand signals, making calling all of the generals to him for a meeting, this type of war would be unlike those that he fought previously, now he actually had to intervene and give out orders to win! All of the generals were peak sage realm experts, they were all stalwart men, that at most were around the middle of their lives, they were full of life force and their muscles were bulging with strength under their mammoth skin clothes. They were all looking at Yun Jhin with respect and expectations, after all, Yun Jhin''s reputation as a strategist was quite unbeatable. Yun Jhin gave them a simple instruction: "Half you will fight against the other parties sages along with your direct subordinates, the other half will do their best to break through the defenses of the building, give me reports through soul links when you hit different parts of the defensive buildings, that way I might be able to find a weak link so we could break through faster!" They all nodded, they wouldn''t question him at this point, the patriarch of their tribe was looking down upon them and if he found his orders to be strange he would interfere, they were all trusting Yun Jhin with their lives! Yun Jhin''s expression was as serious as it could be as he waved his hands indicating the war could finally start! The defensive structures were packed to the brim with defenders, both Emperors, and Sages the Sages immediately started to throw out long-range attacks such as spears of lightning, swords of fire, or even axes of ice. But their attacks were easily thwarted by the sages of the army, the defensive buildings were good for defending but they wouldn''t enhance the attacker''s power. Yun Jhin started to give out orders, the Emperors started to move out attacking the building while defending from the attacks of the Emperors inside the structures. The sages fought it out with the sages. The building didn''t take any scratches from the first round of attacks, it could be seen that Matrathite was a very sturdy material from this, being attacked by so many sages and emperors at the same time while taking no damage was something that only Gods around the 2nd stage would be able to achieve. And unlike the Malatrhite, God Realm experts at the second stage had to exhaust their ki to achieve such defenses. While God Realm experts couldn''t be killed by the human wave tactic, they could have trouble with it if they didn''t have absorption techniques like Yun Jhin, however, they couldn''t be trapped by such tactics as well, if they found it to be troublesome they would just run away. Time passed and people died, the ones that fell out of the buildings were craftily absorbed by Yun Jhin as the patriarch of the Mao clan had to keep his senses on the Patriarch of the Hao clan, from time to time he would also stealthily absorb his own people that died or were close to death, some of them were even happy thinking that they could be saved from their condition, only for Yun Jhin to put a finger on their lips and absorb their bodies and souls. 5 days passed like this, Yun Jhin watched on as people died and the defensive structures started to creak and break, he even took a big Matrathite and stuffed it into his spatial dimension for later, he could use it to upgrade his clothes and Halberd later when he would use the remaining energy from the Icy White Tiger pool. The generals were starting to overpower the sage experts of the Hao clan as the defensive buildings were breaking, but their stamina was also getting exhausted with time and they started to get sloppy. One of them even almost their life, it was the young man that tried to assassinate Yun Jhin, his head was almost severed from its neck by the enemy after a short moment of pause he took to gain some breath. Fortunately for him, some other peak sage realm expert grabbed him by the back of his neck and the slash was dodged very narrowly, his adam''s apple was still cut and he had to use some special herbs to stop the bleeding. Yun Jhin didn''t stay idle during all of this, on the surface he was there, controlling the whole battlefield while making sure things went well, but underneath that he was also moving around the battlefield while making absorptions, He was getting nearer to his quota of absorptions, he was around 65,000 now! Yun Jhin smiled as he returned to his original spot and continued to control the battlefield, suddenly he felt some killing intent appearing behind him, he hastily dodged by jumping into the army crowd, a sudden red sword slash appeared on the spot he was in previously cutting deep into the earth to the point that lava started to spurt out of the ground! They were already underground so lava was easily going to appear if they dug deep enough. Yun Jhin frowned, that sudden attack was from someone at the sage realm, but who was it? he couldn''t actually sense anyone, he didn''t know that there would be someone more adept at stealth than him, this couldn''t actually be possible! The innate stealth technique of the white tiger would be only useful on the surface, he could easily see through other stealth techniques, but this person made his way behind him and almost cut him into two! Yun Jhin''s wariness increased as he dodged another attack, while the person was at the sage realm, he wasn''t that high up there, after all, if he was at the later stages Yun Jhin wouldn''t be able to dodge his attacks so easily. Yun Jhin''s current battle power was extremely high as he was at the 6th stage of the Emperor realm, he could fight off early sages up to the 2nd realm. Yun Jhin could feel a disgusting smell in the air, it was the smell of luck and destiny intertwined between each other, a fortuned one! Yun Jhin found it strange, technically speaking one such person would be born once 500 years, but Yun Jhin already devoured two in the span of 50 or so years, this was the third fortuned person he came across, even though he found 2 on the dragon planet and 1 on the white tiger planet, he still found it extremely strange. Changes were finally going to happen to the stagnant universe he lived in? The spawning of so many fortuned people could mean more than one thing, even though Yun Jhin needed to eat 9,998 more fortuned people to become a fortuned caterpillar, he didn''t like being around these types of people, they were innately disgusting to him who had to work hard and reincarnate countless times to reach the peak, even though some reincarnation he was born with special physiques or high backgrounds, that didn''t mean he didn''t have to work hard scheming and fighting his way up to the top. But fortuned people always got things on a platter for them, you needed to breakthrough? A convenient tournament appeared you lacked techniques? An old eccentric of the dao of righteousness appeared in your pendant/stone/etc inheritance left behind by your missing/dead parents, he had interacted with a lot of fortuned people and killed the same amount, his hatred for them was something that he couldn''t explain in words, it was like an innate disgust someone had of things they didn''t like. Just like when a person likes carrots, but a different person finds them disgusting. It was a thing you were born with and you couldn''t change to like or dislike. Yun Jhin continued to dodge the attacks, he couldn''t ask for help during this tight situation and he felt that the situation wasn''t that dire for him, he was here to absorb more people, and going along with the plan would let him do that. Suddenly a slash came too close for comfort as it sliced his cheek open, blood started to drip from his face to the ground and a boorish laugh could be heard from behind him, Yun Jhin jumped only to see a relatively thin white tiger appear, he had a crafty look on his face as he finally stopped using his stealth technique and Yun Jhin could see his appearance. He was around 1,60 meters, he was basically a dwarf compared to the other tigers who were all tall imposing, and full of bulging muscles, he wasn''t ugly nor handsome, he was pretty plain looking, he was someone that you would look at once and forget his appearance. Maybe this was a factor in his enchanted stealth technique? He wore different clothes compared to the other white tigers, he wore a dark robe with silver linings on his body and he had a medium-sized dagger in his hand, he kept shifting it from hand to hand like he was playing juggle with it, his silver-colored eyes shifted from side to side as seemingly no one saw him, he was sandwiched between the Emperors of the Mao tribe but they couldn''t see him at all! Yun Jhin frowned, it seemed this was going to be a one on one fight for him, it had been a rather long while since he could stretch his muscles and have an exciting fight against someone, there was a high chance this person could be the child or inheritor of the Hao tribe''s God Realm expert. Yun Jhin cracked his knuckles and neck, the thin tiger disappeared again as Yun Jhin found a slash coming right towards his waist trying to cut him in two pieces. Yun Jhin chuckled as he took out his Halberd from his spatial dimension and blocked the slash with the pommel of the sword, he was pushed backward a hundred meters as the Emperor Realm experts around him were finally alerted by the shockwave. However, Yun Jhin shouted: "I''M OK, CONTINUE TO BATTER THE MATRATHITE STRUCTURES, THAT''S THE WAY FOR US TO WIN THE BATTLE! IGNORE ME, I CAN LIVE THROUGH THIS!" Seeing his courage and willpower, made the army immediately increase in morale, they could feel that he was fighting a sage realm expert, others couldn''t break away from their targets as even one small mistake could break their formation and they would start losing their lives, there was a very delicate balance the warriors of both tribes, things were going well for the Mao tribe but if a mistake was made things would shift towards the Hao tribe immediately! Yun Jhin knew that so to continue his plan he had to put up a strong front, it didn''t matter to him, he knew the white tiger fortuned person wouldn''t be able to kill him. That was until he found a knife in his gut after he stopped his descent to the ground. He coughed a mouthful of blood as he slowly looked behind him, he saw the same thin white tiger giving him a cheeky smile that told him: "I got you good didn''t I?" Yun Jhin then reciprocated the smile. Chapter 129: Adapting on the spot Yun Jhin''s smile immediately made the thin tiger try and jump backward, but it was too late! Yun Jhin''s halberd came from below him to slash at the thin tiger, trying to cut him into two pieces horizontally. The tiger frowned, this situation was something he never calculated, he thought that the weakening poison that he laced his dagger with would have knocked Yun Jhin out so he could capture him and send him to his father, but it seemed poison didn''t work on him. Yun Jhin watched as the halberd made its way towards his opponent''s crotch only for him to shift his body to the side only getting his right leg hacked to the point that it was almost severed. Yun Jhin wanted to press on for the advantage but the thin tiger tried to use his stealth technique to disappear and run away, however, his injured leg made him stagger for a bit so Yun Jhin could let in one more attack! He thrust his halberd towards his opponent''s body trying to impale him in the chest, directly taking his heart out! The thin white tiger''s eyes widened as he fell to the ground to avoid the deadly thrust, his leg crumbled under his weight as it was finally severed from the bone, it laid there as he jumped on one leg and disappeared using stealth. Yun Jhin picked the leg as it dissipated into dust, he absorbed it and started to analyze the cells and blood that made it up to see what made the fortuned tiger special, he still couldn''t believe there was someone out there better than him at stealth. He had fought quite a lot of fortuned ones but none of them specialized in stealth, they thought that it was a cowardly way to fight and they would rather fight with the sword or the spear or whatever weapon they chose. As he analyzed the contents of the leg he found that his fortuned energy was concentrated in his bloodline power, which meant his stealth was an innate technique that only he could use, this was interesting considering most tigers would unlock techniques that would improve their physique or were considered extremely violent and direct. His ability should have even been looked down upon by the other tigers when he awakened it. Unfortunately, he didn''t have time to use all of his abilities, or else the tiger wouldn''t have been able to escape as easily as he had, the sudden attack flustered him quite a bit. He looked across the battlefield as he was now free, things weren''t looking well for his army, while the Matrathite buildings were slowly turning into a bunch of scraps the same could be said about his soldiers, the other parties soldiers were also dying but in lower numbers, the only good thing was the fact that there were no sage realm experts casualties. Yun Jhin made his way through the battlefield as he absorbed the downed members of both parties slowly increasing his absorption count. Finally reaching 70,000 in total. Things started to transform into a stalemate between who''s resources would end first, would the buildings collapse or would Yun Jhin''s army die? If the buildings collapsed, the sage realm experts could storm the headquarters and pretty much kill and capture everyone, it could be seen from the fact that the other parties Sage Realm experts were slowly being pushed back and some of them even died. 8 more days passed in this manner, Yun Jhin found it strange that the thin tiger didn''t attack him again during this time, what could he be possibly doing right now? The thin young tiger was gritting his teeth as a new leg grew out of his stump, he was currently in a pure white pool that was full of frigid energy, he was using the Icy White tiger pool to recover from his injuries. A snort could be heard from deeper into the cave he was currently in: "You have failed to kill that man with your fortuned constitution? I accepted you because of your deadly assassination abilities, even though your ways of fighting are rather shameful for us white tigers, at least you were doing good jobs before!" The thin white tiger kept his head down, he didn''t know what to say to this admonishment, it was true that he failed, but he felt that man Gao Yanting had some secrets surrounding him. Also, his weapon of choice was strange as he never saw someone using a halberd! The voice could be heard again: "It doesn''t matter, at this point, I will have to intervene, even though my injuries aren''t fully healed, that old fool will still have to give me face, you go back and make sure you kill that Gao Yanting if you can''t capture him! Use deadly force and your best techniques now!" The thin young tiger nodded a red light started to flicker into his eyes as he asked: "Should I even use that technique?" "Of course, why are you even asking? I told you to use your best techniques! Go now Hao Tian, don''t anger me!" Hao Tian bowed before leaving the cave, a light streak also left the cave soon enough after Hao Tian disappeared. He approached the outer edges of the Hao settlement in what could only be described as an instant, but he soon hit a barrier as the voice of the Mao Patriarch was heard: "Aren''t you a bit too rushed my friend? I see that your last injury didn''t heal yet, why don''t you go back and let the younglings fight it out?" The light streak transformed into an old man who wore brown robes made of the same mammoth skin as the Mao Patriarchs, he glared at him as he coughed a bit into his palm, sparkling golden blood could be seen being absorbed back into his body through his palm. "You think that this little injury will keep me still old fool Mao Ya?" Suddenly he threw something out of the sleeves of his robe that made its way towards Mao Ya''s chest in an instant, however, the thing was crushed between Mao Ya''s fingers as he shook his head and said: "Always with the sneak attacks at first, whatever, I will keep you occupied, by how things look your Matrathite structures will be soon broken, enjoy the sight of your descendants and tribesmen being captured and taken over by mine!" Yun Jhin could feel the fluctuations of laws being broken above him, it seemed the fight between the peak God Realm experts finally started! Yun Jhin knew that in this situation the best thing to do was push through and use everything to capture the settlement of the Hao tribe, now that the God Realm expert of the enemy wasn''t hiding anymore there wasn''t anything else he had to be wary of! Yun Jhin gave out the command: "CHARGE, FORGET ABOUT THE DEFENSIVE, OUR PATRIARCH IS FIGHTING IT OUT, CHARGE AND THE SAGES WILL CLEAN EVERYTHING AFTER WE BREAKTHROUGH!" This made the injured soldiers give out roars as they attacked the Matrathite buildings with the remaining of their ki! The shaking Matrathite buildings slowly started to collapse as Yun Jhin felt cold steel approaching his back, he knew that this moment would be the best to assassinate him when he was giving out instructions. He left his back wide open and had no defensive measures around his body besides his ordinary-looking mammoth skin clothes. The dagger dug deep into his body but it got stopped at his bones, his body was way too refined for a dagger below the Godly quality to cut fully through it, even if he didn''t use any defensive measures. The thin tiger Hao Tian had a big malicious smile on his face as he twisted the dagger inside Yun Jhin''s body, he released the poison into his body fully as he said: "It seems you have to fall down here Gao Yanting." Yun Jhin coughed out black blood as he slowly slid to the ground while keeping his hand up trying to grasp Hao Tian''s arm. His arm shook a few times before it became limp and fell to the ground. Yun Jhin''s pulse became slower and slower as his breathing almost stopped. Hao Tian ripped the dagger out of his opponent''s body as he gave him a few kicks to make sure he was dead, he slowly got closer to Yun Jhin''s head as he wanted to make sure he was dead, his dagger made its way towards his neck to decapitate him! Yun Jhin''s closed eyes suddenly opened, his eyes turned into dark and white slits that bored directly into Hao Tian''s eyes making him feel dizzy, his grasp on his dagger loosened only for Yun Jhin''s stiff-arm to grab his knife-wielding arm and make him stab himself! The poison from the knife entered his system slowing him down considerably as the same things that happened to Yun Jhin started to happen to him, his pulse slowed down and his breathing was an inch away from stopping. The poison was very strong and if Yun Jhin visibly resisted it, Hao Tian would have used his special technique to make sure he would die, but Yun Jhin faked his death and made him think that he won, the moment he went in to make sure he was truly dead he acted! Hao Tian''s body started to shake like he had a seizure as he coughed multiple blocks of black color. Yun Jhin put his feet on his chest as he took the halberd out of his spatial dimension before he thrust it down towards his neck! Suddenly Hao Tian''s body exploded into smoke as Yun Jhin frowned, he felt that there was nothing below his feet now! A bloodied and weakened Hao Tian appeared twenty meters away as his silhouette started to disappear, his body swayed from side to side but his stealth didn''t break again. Yun Jhin''s body disappeared as well, Hao Tian was trying to run away from the battlefield only to find Yun Jhin appear in front of him! Yun Jhin used his time-skipping ability to cut through space and appear in front of his opponent! Hao Tian chuckled as he stabbed himself multiple times with the dagger he had before his body exploded into smoke again. Yun Jhin frowned, how many times could he do that? He saw his silhouette disappearing again nearby, Yun Jhin used time-skip again only to find the man stabbing himself again and disappearing in smoke. A thick vein appeared on Yun Jhin''s forehead as his anger visibly increased, he gritted his teeth as he looked at Hao Tian waving at him while disappearing while muttering: "Let''s see how many times can you disappear into smoke!" Yun Jhin continuously used time-skip only for the other man to disappear again and again until Yun Jhin couldn''t actually find him anymore! The smoke didn''t dissipate but actually remained there and due to how the man positioned himself every time he disappeared, it created a dense smoke screen that made even Yun Jhin unable to see through it! Yun Jhin gritted his teeth as he said: "Very good!" He flew into the air as he looked down from a bird views point on the battlefield, the Matrathite buildings fell and the sage realm experts now had free time to hunt whoever they wanted without any issues, the Emperor Realm experts had almost died by 60% from his side and there were around 120,000 left or so. Yun Jhin couldn''t see Hao Tian''s face anywhere no matter how much he concentrated, fighting a fortuned one was like trying to catch a slippery loach, he was lucky that the other two he killed weren''t even at their middle stages of cultivation or else he would have had a hard time with them as well, to properly get rid of a fortuned one was to kill them before they grew at all! This could be problematic for him, he knew the location of the jumping pad formation and that it wasn''t protected by anyone at this point, but he couldn''t leave the battlefield before he absorbed the last 30,000 bodies, later it would be a bit too suspicious to do it so he immediately dived among the dead and absorbed the last bodies while the others were either celebrating or fighting he remaining people from the Hao tribe. The Hao patriarch was currently coughing gold blood everywhere as he glared at the Mao Ya with intense hatred in his eyes, Mao Ya also had a rather ugly scar spanning across his face now, his red nose was also almost cut off from his face and some white energy could be seen running inside his wounds: "I won, go away now Hao Qin Yan!" Mao Ya told him with a superior tone of voice, Hao Qin Yan gritted his teeth to the point that blood flowed freely from his gums he flicked the sleeves of his robes as he disappeared, it was unknown where he went to. Yun Jhin finally absorbed the last tiger as a notification appeared in front of him: [Pure White Tiger blood has been created through the absorption of 100,000 bodies, to unlock the evolution path of the artificial celestial caterpillar host needs to absorb 100,000 black turtles!] It seemed he was almost done with the white tiger planet now. Chapter 130: Small incovenience Yun Jhin shook his head after he saw the notification, he needed to catch up with Hao Tian! Things wouldn''t end well for him if he escaped, making an enemy with a fortuned person was the worst thing you could do! They would hold grudges really badly and they would hunt you down, in the end, no matter what if they felt that they grew strong enough, all you could do was either grow faster than them or kill them while they tried to mature. In most situations, fortuned ones who escaped from their attackers would either find a quick way to heal themselves while increasing their cultivation at the same time. Yun Jhin frowned, would he escape or would he use the Icy White Tiger pool to heal himself? He wasn''t sure in which direction he went but if he used the pool he would absorb the energy that he needed! He could feel the pool energy inside the settlement of the Hao tribe, the energy was currently resonating with the other energies in his body, from the jade dragon pool and the fiery phoenix pool. However, he couldn''t know how much energy was left unless he was there to assess it. Yun Jhin left the battlefield behind, the Mao patriarch didn''t stop to question him as he entered the remains of the Mao settlement, the sage realm experts did a good job of destroying most of the buildings while capturing the people that they could, executing the ones that they couldn''t. As he made his way through the rubble he found the entrance of a deep cave, he entered the depths and followed the scent of the Icy Tiger pool, technically speaking being so deep inside the earth the pool should be full of a lava-like substance just like the fiery phoenix pool. However, the core of the planet was the thing that influenced the seasons of the planet, the core was actually a dark icy circular object that would exude the ki that changed the outside surroundings, the Icy White Tiger pool was connected to the core of the planet and that was why it had so many beneficial effects. Yun Jhin looked around and saw that there were murals engraved on the walls of the cave but he ignored them, he didn''t care about the history of the planet that much, he pretty much understood the circumstances that surrounded the 4 sacred beast planets by now. He finally reached the Icy White Tiger pool after 2 more minutes of walking, the cave was rather long and the pool was located at the end of it. Yun Jhin looked around and frowned, there was enough energy in the pool for him but there was no one around.. did he make a mistake? He was pretty sure the injury he gained from using that smoke technique so many times would prohibit him from leaving the planet. If he tried to he was sure there was a very high chance of dying in the adverse environment of space, but considering the man was a fortuned one, there was a chance he would also be able to escape. Yun Jhin gritted his teeth as he looked down at the energy pool below his feet, if he was here that meant Hao Tian should have already left. He sighed, there was nothing he could do here anyway, he jumped down in the pool and started to absorb its contents, it was his reward. The energy of the Icy White Tiger pool started to converge into his chest and ki pathways as it ran quickly through his body, it was just like a galloping stallion and Yun Jhin had to tame it to increase his cultivation base. Yun Jhin''s cultivation base that was at the 6th stage of the Emperor realm finally saw some improvements, it was slow but it was obvious that his cultivation was increasing, but from the energy in the pool, he realized that at most he would reach the 8th stage of the Emperor realm before his body would get used to the energy. Due to how many times he refined his body, while he could accept most energies better than 90% of cultivators, his body would also get used to them faster. Yun Jhin inhaled and exhaled on the bottom of the pool as the energy inside it entered his body to temper it along with his ki, the body tempering wouldn''t do much more as his body reached the pinnacle of what it was allowed to, but the ki tempering would refine his ki quality to the peak of what an Emperor practice could achieve, this was just one of the other benefits of cultivating in a pool that leaked from the planet core. These pools weren''t unique to the 4 sacred beasts'' planets, but only planets above the medium quality would be able to spawn them. As Yun Jhin was absorbing the contents of the pool on his own, the Mao patriarch was talking with his sage realm experts: "Where is Gao Yanting?" The man who tried to assassinate Yun Jhin immediately came and bowed to the patriarch as he responded with a respectful look on his face: "He has entered the ruins of the Hao settlement, should I go and search for him, patriarch?" Mao Ya shook his head as he looked through the settlement to see Yun Jhin down in the cave cultivating to his heart''s content, Mao Ya smiled as he looked at him then said: "Just finish capturing everyone and get them back to our settlement, Gao Yanting is currently cultivating and he shouldn''t be disturbed, Mao Shun, you wait here and invite him back to the tribe when he finishes cultivating, go further in the settlement and you will see a cave, wait for him there, and if he doesn''t appear after he finishes cultivating you come back and report to me, understood?" While Mao Ya coveted Yun Jhin''s abilities to lead armies, he didn''t trust him at all, he only was using him for his benefit, after all, when he healed his arm he could see that the death energy came from a God Realm expert and he knew that it was extremely strange for an Emperor Realm cub to survive in the face of a God Realm expert, even if it was a dying one, he or she should be able to easily kill an Emperor Realm person. Yun Jhin knew that the Mao patriarch was suspecting him but there wasn''t much he could do in this situation besides bet on the fact that the Mao patriarch would be too greedy for the title of the strongest on the planet, he had to take a risk that wasn''t associated with his planning and cunning nature, and the risk was still there! Who knew what the man would do after he was done cultivating? It seemed that he was a man of honor at least, considering he let Yun Jhin cultivate without any hitches. Yun Jhin continued to cultivate inside the pool as time passed slowly outside, the ruins of the settlement slowly disappeared as they were picked up by the Mao people, and the place became deserted as the tribes united into one, at first the people from the Hao tribe were resisting the fusion, but there wasn''t much they could do as their patriarch had abandoned them, he went even further inside the core of the planet to heal his injuries, and considering he had opened them up further by fighting Mao Ya, there would be a long time before he appeared again. Yun Jhin''s body was glowing deep inside the pool as the energy around him was absorbed at a quicker pace than before, his cultivation was at the peak of the 7th stage as it slowly neared the 8th stage. A crack could be heard coming from his body and ki pathways as they enlarged and his cultivation finally reached the 8th stage! Yun Jhin''s eyes fluttered open as he looked around, the remaining energy from the pool stood at his ankles, but it was still enough to refine his clothes and weapon. He got up from his cross-legged position at the bottom of the pool and started using his innate ki flame and took a cauldron from his spatial dimension before he threw his clothes into it along with some liquid energy from the pool, using half of it to refine the clothes and half to refine the halberd. It took him almost 2 years to finish everything. He blew a cloud of energy out of his mouth as he finished cultivating. He sighed as he jumped out of the pool and flexed his muscles, then did some stretching exercises to feel the new currents of ki that were running around in his body. He felt quite nice, it was always a good feeling to increase your cultivation base, it was a feeling of fulfillment and enjoyment that Yun Jhin couldn''t get tired of even after so many reincarnations, the taste of improvement. Now that he finished cultivating he now had to get back to the Mao settlement and talk things out with the patriarch, he knew that if he tried to escape at this point he would just anger him and he would appear in front of him and tear him to pieces, talking things through with him would be better, he wouldn''t make things hard for him as long as he didn''t realize he was a reincarnated one. Yun Jhin left the cave to be met with Mao Shun, the man was bored of waiting but at least he had time to work on his cultivation base, the moment he felt Yun Jhin leaving the cave he immediately got up from the ground and said: "The patriarch invites you back to the Mao settlement, he would love to see you now." Yun Jhin nodded as he followed Mao Shun back to the settlement where he went to Mao Ya''s garden. The old man had healed his surface injuries at this point, he was resting under the shade of a tree when Yun Jhin and Mao Shun arrived in the garden, Mao Ya waved his hand indicating that Mao Shun could leave them alone. Then he patted the spot beside him making Yun Jhin appear on it, a smile appeared on the old man''s face as he said: "Sit down and let''s talk, you aren''t from my race and your knowledge is quite interesting, you must have come from the other planets after you offended a God, it''s a small matter for me as that god should be dead by now." "What I''m interested in was how could you survive such an attack while only losing an arm? I guess your knowledge must also be pretty good compared to the others of your kind, let me see who you really are though." Yun Jhin''s appearance changed back to his original one as the old man waved his hand, his draconic horns along with his Ying-Yang appearance made the old man pause shortly before he snorted: "You are a lucky brat, if you were a pure-blooded dragon I might have turned you into a meat patty right now!" "Considering you are only a halfling I''m not going to make things hard for you, give me all your knowledge on formations and war and you can leave." Yun Jhin didn''t beat around the bush as he sent him some of the more important knowledge of formations and battle tactics, but he didn''t send him everything, he only sent him the things that he used on the surface and a little bit more to make him think that was all he knew. The old man nodded after making sure everything looked genuine, he looked Yun Jhin up and down then said: "You are quite good but you still didn''t explain to me how you survived that attack." The old man''s easy-going expression took a turn as he glared at Yun Jhin, it seemed the old fossil thought that Yun Jhin had some special means or treasures that he now coveted! Yun Jhin frowned as he activated his clothes making them shine brightly, the old man looked at them for a short while before he laughed: "Oh so this is what you rely on, it seems you have been to those old chickens planet as well, is Bai Yun doing well?" Yun Jhin just nodded, Bai Yun could be considered that she was doing well at this point, the planet had equality and she left for greener pastures to improve her cultivation base. "Whatever, this old man is still a bit injured considered how ruthless that fool fought me back then, you can leave now!" Yun Jhin bowed his head as he left the garden, he frowned as he got to the surface and looked in the direction of the jumping pad formation of this planet after he absorbed so many people he was ready to leave and end his journey in the surrounding 4 planets. The flight to the jumping pad formation took him little time as his feet touched the snowy ground below him, he frowned as he felt something wasn''t right, he dodged to the side to find a familiar dagger ready to skewer through his guts, Hao Tian didn''t leave? Chapter 131: Want an alliance? Yun Jhin easily dodged Hao Tian''s dagger as he shifted to the side and then unleashed his new cultivation base powers, creating a gigantic soldier of ki that he fused with transforming himself into a titan of over 500 meters. Hao Tian cursed as he kept himself invisible, he couldn''t leave the planet even if he wanted to, the tigers were rather poor and only the patriarch had spirit stones, he stood at the jumping pad formation for years waiting for the patriarch to come to help him but he never came! While Hao Tian was rather strong and had his unique fortuned energy he couldn''t create spirit stones out of anything, the outside of the planet was deserted and spirit stones couldn''t be found, while the inside was now controlled by the Mao Tribe, what could he do in this situation? So he decided to live his life normally and keep lookouts at the jumping pad formation to see if anyone would leave the planet, since the patriarch abandoned him and he wouldn''t let himself be enslaved by the Mao tribe, he bet it all on leaving the planet and searching the wide universe for a way to become stronger faster! With his cultivation base at the sage realm, he would be able to drift through the stellar space outside the planet with some difficulty, after all, only sages or above were able to travel in space without any impediments, also without the fear of running out of ki and dying in space. What Yun Jhin did couldn''t be called space-traveling as he was sent from one planet to another using the jumping pad formation, if he fell from the jurisdiction of the formation he would drift in space and run out of ki sooner or later. Yun Jhin understood why he didn''t leave the planet the moment he saw his frustrated face, it seemed Hao Tian couldn''t control his emotions anymore as he glared at Yun Jhin and said: "You got any way to leave this planet?" Yun Jhin laughed as he looked at him and asked: "Even if I did, why should I help you in this situation?" Hao Tian jumped a few meters back as he looked into Yun Jhin''s eyes and responded: "There is no reason for us to be enemies anymore, I have failed to kill you 2 times and you failed to kill me two times, the war is over and I''m not going to resist the ruling of the Mao tribe, I just want to leave the planet, why don''t we help each other out in this situation? If you want to leave please take me with you." Yun Jhin eyed Hao Tian''s expression as he kept a passive look on his face making it hard for Hao Tian to understand his thoughts: "What could I get from helping you? Do you have anything useful that you wouldn''t mind giving away, or maybe you would employ your own services?" Hao Tian nodded: "Could I propose an alliance?" Yun Jhin approached Hao Tian as his aura increased in intensity, his gigantic body made Hao Tian feel inferior, but he immediately grew to a size bigger than Yun Jhin as he activated the same ability as he did, a white bloodline aura engulfed him as his power increased, he was competing with Yun Jhin to make himself look worthy enough for an alliance! He realized that Yun Jhin was special, after all, with his cultivation base which was up to 4 stages higher he got his ass handed to him, even though Yun Jhin did it through being sneaky, if Hao Tian was strong enough, Yun Jhin''s plans wouldn''t have mattered much. Yun Jhin shot a haymaker at his opponents face as Hao Tian caught the punch in his grasp, he was taller than Yun Jhin because of his higher cultivation base so it looked like a young teen fighting an adult. Suddenly out of Yun Jhin''s haymaker a wave of energy exploded to the point that it almost blasted Hao Tian apart! But Hao Tian''s injured energy body healed up quickly as he threw out a left-right combo trying to push Yun Jhin to the ground where he would mount him and try to knock him out. But Yun Jhin easily saw through his attack and dodged his combo then counterattack with a corkscrew punch that approached Hao Tian''s right temple at extreme speeds! This was the simplest way of fighting one took when they used the behemoth technique, due to their immense sizes every other type of fighting couldn''t be used properly or they could damage the planet, most of the time, this type of fighting would happen in space where there were fewer things to break. The Mao patriarch could feel the currents of energy running around the planet from Yun Jhin''s fight, but considering they didn''t attack with such strength that they would break places around the planet, he decided to not interfere in this situation. Yun Jhin''s attacks were quick and targeted Hao Tian''s weak places, but Hao Tian''s defense was also pretty good considering he was an assassin type. However, Yun Jhin''s fighting experience was way broader compared to this person, after he made a feint that Hao Tian couldn''t see through. Yun Jhin''s colossal arm entered through his opponent''s chest and took out Hao Tian''s true body from the energy construct. The energy being started to slowly break into a multi-colored light that dissipated, Yun Jhin looked down in his palm only to see that Hao Tian transformed into smoke and disappeared, that technique again... Yun Jhin found the escaping ability of fortuned ones to be one of the most annoying parts of their being, they were both annoyingly strong at times, or too slippery! If they were weak they could still run away because they had these self-harming techniques that somehow still didn''t destroy their future achievements at all! Yun Jhin knew some of these techniques as well, but he wasn''t lucky enough to find the ones that didn''t rip through your potential. Up till now he only used forbidden techniques that you could heal from with time and fresh blood. But from what he saw Hao Tian''s technique was something that should cut his potential! But it was unlikely to happen, if it did, how would he use it so many times? By now his talent should have been so bad that his cultivation should have regressed. Hao Tian appeared a few hundreds of meters below Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin shook his head as he reverted from his behemoth form to look at Hao Tian, he didn''t run away but it was obvious that his face didn''t look well, he thought that he might make a draw with Yun Jhin, but now that he was beaten he couldn''t ask for an alliance. An alliance was made between two people of similar standings or strengths, and Yun Jhin was above him in both regards right now. He didn''t want to compromise with Yun Jhin but there wasn''t anything else he could do right now! He wanted to leave the planet or else his growth may be stunted or he would be enslaved because he was from the Hao Tribe, his patriarch was injured and who knew when he would come out of secluded cultivation? Hao Tian gritted his teeth as he took something out of a small spatial ring that he had tied around his neck, Yun Jhin didn''t see it before as it was kept below his clothes, a colorful rock appeared out of the spatial ring and Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he took a better look at it while thinking: "What is this? Rainbow Metal? Unlikely considering it should have come from this planet, a strange cultivation resources then? Who knew what this guy''s luck made him stumble upon if I can''t recognize it with all of my experiences..." Yun Jhin slowly got near Hao Tian and took the stone from his hand, Hao Tian gritted his teeth but he didn''t say anything else, he tried to power the formation with the stone beforehand but there were no reactions, however, he realized that it was special the moment he touched it, he didn''t know what it could do but it was special to him, he felt connected to it through his bloodline and soul. Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he felt the texture of the colorful rock-like thing under his fingers, it didn''t feel like metal or rock at all, it was actually soft like flesh, could it be a living being? Yun Jhin hardened his pointer finger and tried to penetrate the rock to see what it was made from but his finger broke the moment it made forcefully made contact with the thing! Yun Jhin looked at the rock thing in wonder... what could it be? He decided to send some ki into it only for the ki to be refused, he tried to drip some blood on the surface of the rock, only for his blood to be thrown back to him by the rock-like thing! At least he now realized that the thing was alive. He looked at Hao Tian and decided to ask him about it, only to get the same responses as what his actions told him, this was strange, Hao Tian confessed that he felt connected to the rock thing but it was also refusing to show its specialness to him. Yun Jhin took out his halberd from the spatial dimension and tried to slash the rock into two, only for his halberd to bounce back and almost crack due to the rebound coming from the rock thing. Yun Jhin frowned, with his current strength and the grade of his weapon he could easily cut through half of a middle-ranked planet and if he put his mind to it he could destroy a planet with a little bit of time. However, destroying planets wasn''t something useful, it would reduce the available laws that the universe could uphold and reduce the amount of God Realm experts that could be created while also weakening the existing ones, a planet destroyer would quickly find himself surrounded by all of the available Gods, normally speaking, planet-destroying battles were forbidden in the mortal realm. Yun Jhin decided to keep the stone-like being into his spatial dimension, it didn''t seem to reject the spatial dimension as it fell in it. Yun Jhin looked at Hao Tian and asked: "You think this is enough for me to let you leave?" "Even you the owner, don''t know what that thing is supposed to do, how am I supposed to find out what it is?" Hao Tian gritted his teeth, he was pretty poor for the standards of a fortuned one, that was the only thing he had and he now lost his only treasure, he doubted that his dagger would fancy Yun Jhin''s attention, after all, he saw his halberd and realized that his weapon was way better than his. At this point, Yun Jhin wanted to kill Hao Tian but he knew he wouldn''t be able to stop his escape technique unless he was in the same realm as he was, after he became a Sage his power and battle power would increase a lot, but he wasn''t sure if he would be able to create his avatar even after he emptied the Death Black Tortoise pool. He had great requirements for his avatar and the energy he could absorb into it would be only of the highest quality he could find, the pools of upper ranked planets or above would be his targets, however, due to that his avatar would take a longer time to condense. He also needed to break through to the 9th stage of the Emperor realm. Yun Jhin looked Hao Tian up and down once more, would he let his pride down and sign a contract with him? Yun Jhin created a contract made out of blood-red ki from the empty air and threw it at Hao Tian, Hao Tian read it for a short while before his face morphed into a dissatisfied look as he glared at Yun Jhin: "You want me to become your errand boy and follow you around for 3 years? You basically want to make me your slave?" Yun Jhin laughed as he said: "That''s up to you, all I wrote in the contract is that you have to follow me and you can''t attack or scheme against me, nor can you do anything that would be against my benefits, we would be basically make an alliance that would only benefit me, as the weaker party shouldn''t you be in ecstasy that I gave you such a good contract?" Yun Jhin''s contract was very good for Hao Tian considering his current situation, but fortuned ones were rather prideful beings for no reason regardless of how and where they grew up, they would always keep their heads up and say that they would only kneel towards their parents and master, Yun Jhin found them to be quite dumb this was how they would mostly find themselves in conflict with one of those silk-pants young masters. But in this situation, Hao Tian wasn''t against your average silk-pants, he either had to sign the contract or remain on the planet, Yun Jhin could easily throw him out of the formation if he tried to follow him through when he left. Hao Tian was in a dilemma as sweat started to pour from his face even though the surrounding temperature was below 0 degrees. What will he choose? Chapter 132: Accepting conditions with gritted teeth Hao Tian bit his lower lip as he looked through the contract once again, then he looked at the ground as he thought for a little longer before he bit his thumb and let out a few drops of blood on the contract, the contract then transformed into two rays of light, one of black and one of red color, the black one entered in Yun Jhin''s body and the red one into Hao Tian''s. Yun Jhin clapped a few times before he said: "A good decision you have made my friend, now we can leave this planet behind, our next destination is the Black Tortoise planet, afterward you can leave wherever you want as the time passed on the planet might or might not exceed the contract limit." Hao Tian narrowed his eyes: "Wait doesn''t that mean that I will have to employ your work again on the Black Tortoise planet?" Yun Jhin smiled but he decided against commenting as he took out some resources from his spatial dimension that he inserted in the ground below him to power the formation. The ground started to slowly shake as the snow around the formation was melted by the increasing heat coming from the activation of the formation. Hao Tian approached Yun Jhin without as many concerns as before after he signed the contract, it said that Yun Jhin couldn''t hurt him or scheme against him in the contract, if things didn''t look good on his side as well he wouldn''t have signed it. He needed some type of consolation for the fact that he was now basically Yun Jhin''s henchman. The formation whirred to live around them as Yun Jhin used his knowledge to control it to make them be ejected from the planet. The formation suddenly ejected both of them as they found themselves floating in space, the 4 planets could be seen in their vision, they were all placed in square shape near each other. The Azure dragon one was blue and brown, the phoenix one was red and blue, while the white tiger one was completely white. Yun Jhin''s eyes turned to the dark and brown, black turtle planet, he could see that there was a huge difference between the other planets as the black turtle planet was lacking vitality! For a planet to continue existing it had to have a certain amount of ki in its atmosphere, there was also the need for the balance between the ki and the population, while the population on the Azure dragon planet was higher, it only polluted and lowered the ki concentration while not putting the planet in danger. But there was something strange about the Black Tortoise planet that Yun Jhin couldn''t put his finger on. Hao Tian looked around in wonder, this was the first time he left his planet and he felt the surrounding stars to be pretty, he didn''t want to go towards the other planets, he wanted to leave Yun Jhin and search through the starry river to begin a new adventure! But Yun Jhin broke his reverie as he told him: "Let''s go, our destination is down below!" Hao Tian sighed as he started to fall along with Yun Jhin, the dark brown, Black Tortoise planet increased in their vision as they fell towards it, it didn''t take them much to break through the atmosphere of the planet and finally reach the surface. Yun Jhin fell to the ground slowly as he slowed his fall using his ki, he and Hao Tian finally reached the planet, Yun Jhin looked around and frowned, all he could see around him were swamps and dead trees, there were no water sources anywhere and from the looks, there were also no food sources fro almost hundreds of thousands of kilometers around. This was strange, while the Black Tortoise planet should have a small death aura around it, it shouldn''t be this bad, what could have happened to make the planet look like this? There was also the fact that Yun Jhin couldn''t feel any life force on the planet, was the planet abandoned? Were all of the black tortoises dead? Yun Jhin decided to search around the planet, he gave Hao Tian a communication stone and he went to the south while Hao Tian went to the north, the swamps were dirty and full of sewage that looked very old. As Yun Jhin investigated the surface of the planet he realized that there was no life force left on the planet, there was literally nothing left, from Black Tortoises to any other animals or humans, the planet was dying slowly but surely and Yun Jhin could feel that it didn''t have much time left now that he was so near it. That meant there was a high chance the Black Tortoise pool should be drained and unrecoverable at this point, Yun Jhin frowned, was this the work of the people who poisoned and tricked the other three planets? That meant if there were any remaining black tortoises alive they must be in their hands! Yun Jhin felt quite angry, getting his plans delayed by these unknown people made him quite disappointed with the ability of the four sacred beasts, how could they let themselves be fooled like this? Yun Jhin decided to call Hao Tian back, there was nothing of use on this planet to him so it was time to leave the four planets behind him and reach a neutral star where he could maybe find some information about the whereabouts of the last remaining black tortoises alive. Hao Tian and Yun Jhin meet each other at the jumping pad formation of the planet, fortunately even though the planet was dying the jumping pad formation had one or two more uses on it before it would disintegrate. Yun Jhin stood on the formation as Hao Tian kept close to him, after he did the same thing as, on the other jumping pad formations, he was sent back into space! The stars were shining brightly around the duo as Yun Jhin took one more look at the four planets below him before he looked towards the empty cosmos. Hao Tian was rather happy that they didn''t have to do much on the planet and that they could go on ahead and adventure through the universe! Yun Jhin flew at a moderate pace while Hao Tian followed him through the cold and empty space of the universe, Yun Jhin knew the universe like the back of his palm, while planets would change, most of the time the universe wouldn''t change at all beside spawning new planets, while planets could be moved by God Realm experts, they wouldn''t do such things unless they had offended the wrong people and they had to hide their headquarters. While the four sacred beast planets were rather remotely placed in the universe, that didn''t mean they were living alone, it took Yun Jhin almost 2 months to find a neutral star where he could buy information. Yun Jhin and Hao Tian were walking around the bustling place of the neutral star, Hao Tian was looking around just like a country bumpkin while Yun Jhin tried to find a place that sold information. He didn''t have many spirit stones left but he was sure the information about the black tortoises wouldn''t be expensive, such a high profile abduction should have been public, so it should be rather common knowledge. Yun Jhin found a place that sold information after a short while of looking around, the place was run by a sleazy looking human male who immediately said the moment he saw Yun Jhin and Hao Tian entering: "What would these two young people like to order?" Yun Jhin walked forward while exuding a rather experienced aura making the sleazy-looking man recalculate if he wanted to rip him off or not. Yun Jhin put two middle graded spirit stones on the counter of the information selling place before he said: "I have lived on the Azure dragon planet for quite a long while and I visited the other planets only to see that the black tortoise planet is deserted, I wonder why?" The man chuckled as he swiped both of the middle-grade spirit stones before saying: "Well it has been quite a long while since the black tortoise planet has been deserted, you see, the righteous forces of the Brilliance Light and Radiance sect had made a righteous crusade against these despicable animals that can use death power." "The fight had been long and the righteous sect fought bravely for a time to the point that they almost had lost, fortunately, the sect master used a strong poison on the black tortoises that unfortunately seeped towards the other planets, they were also affected by the poison but considering they didn''t use such despicable arts like the black tortoises, the Brilliance Light and Radiance sect decided against making a move." Yun Jhin snorted, the only reason these people didn''t make a move was most likely because the top combatants of the other planets weren''t affected much by their poison physically, there was also the fact that the combatants of the sect must have been heavily injured in the fight with the black tortoises. "After they won, the BRAL for short decided against eliminating these despicable beings, they could be considered saints of righteousness, these beings who could use such an evil power were spared and enslaved by the sect! They are now mostly used as either battle pets or slaves, a lot of them even seeped into the slave market, however, they are rather expensive, we even have some specimens right here on our Blight Druct star for sale, are these young sirs interested in buying?" While Yun Jhin and Hao Tian were also from the 4 sacred beasts races, they weren''t discriminated against as badly as the black tortoises because their innate talents weren''t considered evil. These hypocritical sects needed a good reason to justify their actions in the eyes of the crowds so they wouldn''t attack at random even when lightly offended. But they would bide their times and try to pin some blames on those that offended them. Yun Jhin left the information selling place. Then he went to look around at the slave selling part of the star, there he found a few black tortoises, there were around 5 in number and they were sold at the price of 420 high-grade spirit stones each. Yun Jhin found the price to be very high, he was very lacking in spirit stones currently and he couldn''t buy even 1 black tortoise, he also didn''t want to offend the Brilliance Radiance and Light sect at all considering his identity and current power, he needed to get ahold of his former treasuries to buy the needed black tortoises. His treasuries were hidden along with the former headquarters of the Blood Throne sect, it was unknown if they were found and pillaged but Yun Jhin couldn''t do anything else, it would take a bit too much time to pillage middle-ranked planets, and he would also get the wrong kind of attention from righteous sects, he didn''t want to have a bounty on his head yet, he wasn''t even a sage expert! Yun Jhin left the neutral star as he started to fly towards the location of the former headquarters of the Blood Throne sect, he knew that there were only ruins left there but he needed to see if his hidden spots were dug up or not, even the poorest treasury he hidden would be enough for him to buy all 100,000 black tortoises that he needed, after all, his blood throne sect was one of the richest sects there were, he pillaged a lot of treasuries after he destroyed the sects of the competition or those that annoyed him. To reach the location of the former headquarters he would have to travel for a rather long time, but he also planted some teleportation formations that could cut through the duration of the traveling by more than 80%, all he had to do was see if the formations were still active, but to reach them he still had to travel for around 5 more months in space. Hao Tian got bored as they only landed on planets to rest or buy some supplies, he wanted adventure, he was still rather young considered the average lifespan of a cultivator and he was bored of traveling 24/7 but he couldn''t say anything as there was still quite a bit of time before the contract between them expired. All he could do now was follow Yun Jhin along his journey even if he wanted to or not. Chapter 133: You want my treasures? Flying in the dark and vast universe was an endeavor that put pressure on one''s psyche, how much time could you fly without any interactions, the soundless fluctuations of the stars pressing upon your mind and attacking your senses. Hao Tian thought that flying in outer space would be more interesting but as time passed he realized that it was one of the most boring endeavors he had been on since he had been born! The thing was that only poor people like Yun Jhin and him would use their own bodies to fly through space, ships that could sail the outer space existed but they were expensive and Yun Jhin couldn''t buy one if he wanted to also buy the 100,000 black tortoises, and who knew if his treasuries were still intact after 500,000 years. Hao Tian couldn''t take the silence anymore and started to ask Yun Jhin: "How far are we from our destination?" "Technically speaking we are around 20 years away or so, but we can cut the time a lot by using this teleportation formation I know of." "How much is a lot?" "About 18 years." "That''s still two years of traveling like this, I can''t take this much, we can''t even cultivate because we travel and expend ki!" Yun Jhin didn''t comment, while he couldn''t cultivate that didn''t mean Yun Jhin couldn''t, it was way slower than normal but his cultivation didn''t stale, he could absorb the energies of the stars around him passively because he was so close to them without any problem, this would have been harder to do on planets because of the distance between them, but in space, he could do it easily. Hao Tian didn''t stop grumbling on the way, he acted just like a child and Yun Jhin found it strange, a cold-blooded white tiger was acting like a child? But there was also the fact white tigers weren''t that advanced mentally, maybe because he wasn''t in a high-stress environment anymore he could act like his true self now. The journey towards the hidden formation that would get them closer to the personal treasuries of Yun Jhin, took them around 5 more months, Yun Jhin entered the formation along with Hao Tian and activated it with his last spirit stone, the formation powered up to life and absorbed the two of them inside it. Then they were launched through space at a high velocity creating a tunnel between the destination and the place they used the formation, then both of them glided through the tunnel at immense speeds cutting the traveling time between the location they wanted to arrive by 18 years or so. Yun Jhin could feel his surroundings shake and move like he was drunk, these were the aftereffects on those below the sage realm that used the formation, Yun Jhin easily got rid of them after a short while and Hao Tian only felt a little bit dizzy before he recovered. Now they had to travel again towards the treasury location, Hao Tian almost went mad with the traveling, his only respite was they could go and rest on some plants from time to time as Yun Jhin''s ki was getting drained quicker than his due to his cultivation base being lower. After 2 more years passed they finally reached the location of the treasury, ruins of blood-red materials were strewn around, Yun Jhin finally reached the territory of his sect! And he could be said to be very disappointed, everything was destroyed, the ruins weren''t even whole anymore at this point and they started to turn into dust! He frowned, could his personal treasuries be whole anymore? The inorganic defensive systems would be very weakened by now and the organic ones should be dead. This was a problem if someone else found the location first. He went north towards the former palace where he usually enjoyed himself, this was the location of one of the poorer treasuries. He navigated through the ruins slowly trying to find the entrance by moving some of the boulders, but the moment he pushed them a little bit harder they transformed into small pieces of rocks that drifted in the spatial wind. Yun Jhin found the hidden entrance after a while but it was opened, however, he could feel that the opening was done a little time ago so the person who entered should be trapped by the formations that he set, even though they were weakened, his formations were top-notch in defense and attack, even if they were weakened only those at the God Realm or above would be able to break through them. Yun Jhin made Hao Tian use his stealth technique to envelop the two of them as they entered the treasury and found themselves transported into a big room that was full of luxuries most of them were only visuals as they didn''t have any value. Some of them were destroyed or broken due to time, but some of them were also picked up to be inspected, they went further inside the treasury only to find a doddering old man shivering in a corner, he was trapped by a formation and it could be seen that he would die soon if he wasn''t helped, his cultivation base was around the 3rd stage of the sage realm. Yun Jhin ignored the man as he made Hao Tian walk further into the treasury, the old man being trapped there meant that he shouldn''t have touched the spirit stones or the other treasures. However, Yun Jhin found out that the old man wasn''t the only one who entered the formation as he found a young man taking all of his treasures in a spatial ring! It seemed from this situation that the old man was fooled by the young man into walking into the formation so he could take the treasures all for himself! Yun Jhin made some hand signals telling Hao Tian that he should get rid of this young man immediately! The young man was at the peak of the Emperor realm and he didn''t know that he was currently looked at by two strong predators ready to tear into him. He was just happily filling his spatial ring while humming a little tone. Hao Tian nodded as he appeared behind the young man and ran his dagger through his gut while driving his special poison through his whole body. The young man coughed a mouthful of blood as he fell paralyzed to the ground, Yun Jhin took off his spatial ring and transferred everything from it to his spatial dimension before he threw the remaining spirit stones that the young man couldn''t pick up in time into his spatial dimension. The young man was slowly dying but he still got some words out as he looked into Yun Jhin''s eyes: "My sect will avenge me, it doesn''t matter what your identity is!" A ray of light escaped the young man''s body that tried to bore itself into Yun Jhin''s and Hao Tian''s bodies. Yun Jhin snorted as he destroyed the ray of light easily, he knew these types of tracking techniques like the back of his hand, he could break them but he couldn''t sever the connection between this young man''s souls and the soul lamp at his sect, even though they knew he died, they wouldn''t know who killed him which made the soul lamp practically useless at this point. Yun Jhin didn''t leave the old man there, who knew if he got lucky, escaped and he ratted him out to the sect of theirs? He slowly approached the formation and the old man''s eyes lighted up thinking that reinforcements were coming to save him, or that the young man had a change of heart and he wanted to help him out of his predicament, only for him to see Yun Jhin and Hao Tian two strangers. He still tried to appeal to their heart as he said with a trembling voice: "Young heroes, please help me out here, my grandson left me in this formation and went ahead without me, I plead to you for your help and I will also promise that I will give you 60% of the treasures if you help me out." Yun Jhin shook his head as he activated the formation fully, ki spikes appeared in the air as they slowly started to converge on the old man''s location, the old man shouted at him: "HOW CAN YOU DO THIS, PLEASE HELP ME! DON''T LET ME DIE!" The spikes converging speed increased as he shouted, then they all transformed the old man into a skewered chicken, his blood was absorbed by the formation as his body dissipated into heaven and earth. Yun Jhin shook his head, there was no reason to let loose ends exist. He left the treasury and then the surroundings, he knew that the entrance to hell was around here but it would be very deep in the blood throne sect''s inner palace where he was practicing his cultivation before. It wasn''t the time nor there was a need to arrive in hell yet. Yun Jhin then used the formation from before and found another neutral star where he got more confidential information about the number of black tortoises for sale. Unfortunately, Yun Jhin lost the first auction that would be held every ten years where they would sell a huge amount of black tortoises and the only remaining ones for sale were the old or weak ones at the headquarters of the Radiance Brilliance and Light sect, they were considered cheap goods that no one would buy even if they got for free and they would soon be killed or used for mating until they died of exhaustion. Yun Jhin frowned, he needed to get to the sect fast so he could buy those discount black tortoises, from the informant he also learned that around 150,000 remained, fortunately, they were enough! However, the Radiance Brilliance and Light sect were quite far away from his current location so he needed to employ the use of their personal transportation formations which were quite expensive, but considering the amount of money he currently had on his hands he didn''t care about the costs! Yun Jhin entered the formation along with Hao Tian who decided to stick with him for a little bit longer even though the contract was almost done. It didn''t take him much time to arrive at the Brilliance Radiance and Light sect with their formations, he was stopped at the gate of the sect by the guards and asked why he was here when he said that he came to buy black tortoises the guards laughed and said: "Brother, you came a bit too late, only the retarded and useless ones remain, do you want to use them for some pill making?" Yun Jhin nodded and told them: "Yes my master needs 100,000 black tortoises to create a death and life ying-yang dual eternity pill and needs the death essence from the black tortoises regardless of how strong or old they are, they just need to have their bloodline whole!" The guards looked at each other than one of them left to inform the disciple that was supposed to sell the black tortoises. The guard came back with a disciple with a crooked nose and blond hair, his skin was fair but his face was ugly and crooked, his teeth were chipped and he wore dirty clothes. The man looked Yun Jhin and Hao Tian up and down and asked in a hoarse voice: "You came here for useless goods? Even though they are considered useless they are still rather expensive due to their origins, the price mounts up to 50 Top grade spirit stones in total!" For Yun Jhin this was very cheap considering he had almost 1000 Top grade spirit stones and that wasn''t counting the smaller grades and the herbs and special things that he got from the treasury. Yun Jhin took out the money and waved it in front of the ugly disciple as he said: "Money isn''t a problem, I hope the goods aren''t damaged even though they are weak, if they are damaged I won''t buy them!" The ugly disciple gulped down a bit of saliva seeing the money and then he laughed as he invited Yun Jhin into the sect while asking: "So who is this brother''s master?" Yun Jhin smiled as he said: "He is an old eccentric that doesn''t come out of seclusion anymore, but he dotes on me very much, he wants to create the pill for me to break through successfully in the sage realm in the future, as you can see I''m almost at the 9th stage." Yun Jhin leaked a bit of his aura and the ugly disciple nodded as he invited them to the place where they could see and inspect the goods. After all, Yun Jhin needed to see for himself if their bloodlines were whole or not, if they weren''t they would only make up for 0.5 or less in the system when he absorbed them. Yun Jhin looked around the stables that he entered and nodded at the ugly disciple, he now just had to scan them and see if their bloodlines were wounded or not. Chapter 134: A bargain sale Yun Jhin let his willpower flow freely through the crowds of black tortoises which were in their ancestral form, they were all sleeping and Yun Jhin''s willpower didn''t wake them up as he moved it expertly through them to scan their bloodlines for injuries. A bloodline injury was easy to see as the person which had their bloodline injured would exude a very weak aura and their skin would be very pale with no vitality. There were some of them which had their vitality injured but there were very few of them, it seemed that the majority was handled with care. Yun Jhin selected 100,000 of them before he threw his money towards the ugly disciple who caught the spirit stones with gusto as he gave a nod to Yun Jhin and Hao Tian before saying: "Pleasure to do business with you young masters, to finish the transaction all you have to do is sign some papers, I have them right here." He took out some black papers from his robes and sent them flying to Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin looked over the papers and nodded before signing them with a fake name, the transaction between them was now done! The ugly disciple gave him a special container for living beings that had the 100,000 black tortoises stored in it. Seeing that Yun Jhin was ready to leave made the ugly disciple rather hesitant as he asked: "Would you like to buy anything else? Our Brilliance Radiance and Light sect has got quite a few treasures and resources for sale that might attract your master''s attention." Yun Jhin stopped and looked at the ugly disciple for a second before he asked: "What kind of treasures are we talking about?" The ugly disciple gave a toothy smile which showed his sharp teeth that made him look like a dirty animal, he took out a booklet from his clothes and threw it at Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin easily caught the booklet before he opened it and looked through: "Nine Ying light grass, Nine Yang darkness grass... Death Grass... it seems they use the old and weak black turtles for the Death Grass... There are quite a few things here... Maybe I should buy some." Yun Jhin sent the booklet back before ordering: "A 100,000 years old fire Ginseng, Roots of the Black Burplot, Dragon Grass of at least 20,000 years old, The bones of a small Gioxiu, Light water and 30 grams of starlight powder of the highest quality." The ugly disciple continued to smile affectionately as if Yun Jhin was his lover as he said: "That would be 250 top-grade spirit stones. Anything else this young master fancies?" Yun Jhin shook his head, the ugly man invited him to the waiting area as he went to procure everything that Yun Jhin listed. While Yun Jhin waited with Hao Tian the ugly man went to get the ingredients, it didn''t take him much time to come back with them considering his identity as a seller of the sect. Yun Jhin looked through the ingredients one by one, looking for any defects, the Brilliance Radiance and Light sect could be considered one of the bigger con-men out there under the righteous sects banner. Fortunately, all the ingredients that the ugly disciple came with were genuine, Yun Jhin paid the spirit stones and then signed the other paper to finish the transactions. The ugly disciple bowed before he leads them to the exit. After they reached the exit and Yun Jhin and Hao Tian left the ugly disciple laughed as he looked at the profit he made, even though most of the money would go to the sect he would be able to get 15% of the money and top-grade spirit stones could get him a lot of things that would be beneficial to him. Yun Jhin left the territory of the Brilliance Radiance and Light sect before he went traveling again, the contract between Hao Tian and Yun Jhin expired during the travels and Hao Tian wanted to go his own ways, only to find himself being confronted by Yun Jhin: "You think you can leave now after you saw so many things?" They were currently in space and there was a lot of free space between them, but Hao Tian felt something strange encroaching on his body as he couldn''t move! Hao Tian shouted: "YOU BROKE THE AGREEMENT!" Yun Jhin laughed as he looked at Hao Tian as if he was a fool: "When did I break the agreement? Did I scheme against you? Did I do something against you during the agreement?" It was true if Yun Jhin actually broke the contract his cultivation base would have took a big hit, it seemed he either left a small passage in the contract that Hao Tian couldn''t see through or this energy that was stopping Hao Tian from moving was applied to him after the contract ended. Hao Tian gritted his teeth as he tried to use his escaping technique only to find out that he couldn''t transform his body into smoke anymore! Yun Jhin shook his head as he said: "You fortuned ones are so obvious, I knew you wouldn''t have learned any other technique as you followed me around, there had been no tournaments nor any tombs for you to exploit, you think that I didn''t analyze your escaping technique day and night after my fight with you?" Hao Tian''s face turned pale as he glared at Yun Jhin, but he couldn''t do anything here, he was at his mercy and his only fate would be death or enslavement, and he didn''t want to die at all here! Hao Tian opened his mouth trying to self-destruct, but the thing that was clenching his body immediately stopped the energy that was gathering into his body while cutting the supply of his ki in his veins and pathways. "You think that I would let you self-destruct?" Hao Tian kept his head down, it seemed he wouldn''t be able to die as he wanted to... Yun Jhin slowly approached him as he placed his hand on his chest, Hao Tian could feel something very important leaving him, something that he couldn''t live without as Yun Jhin kept his hand on his chest. Yun Jhin smiled as a notification appeared in front of him: [Destiny of the fortuned constitution attained, 9,997 left for the evolution path of the fortuned caterpillar to be unlocked] Yun Jhin didn''t have to eat his prey anymore to absorb them at this point, all he had to do was devour their destiny with his self-created patented technique. Hao Tian sagged like a deflated balloon as he felt his destiny leaving him, he didn''t know that it was his destiny but he felt that he became somewhat unlucky after it left him. Hao Tian wanted to break through his confining and take back what was his only to find out that his consciousness was getting blurry, he could feel his life force slowly leaving him, he knew that Yun Jhin wasn''t someone he could trust but he couldn''t believe that he would be betrayed the moment the contract ended, he couldn''t even run away properly before his body was paralyzed! Yun Jhin looked into Hao Tian''s eyes which were slowly losing light as his body was getting disintegrated slowly from the feet up: "You are number 3, could I be able to gain the fortuned constitution in this life? But it''s most unlikely, that would mean I would have to recreate the blood throne sect and to reach the God Realm I would need to evolve first, who knows how much time will this evolution take?" With his current dragon caterpillar bloodline, Yun Jhin could reach the peak of the sage realm at most, even though his body had been tempered a lot of times due to his effort, the God Realm was a little bit different and while it needed a strong body, it also needed a pure and strong bloodline for it to be achieved, let''s not even talk about the ability to learn laws, fortunately, Yun Jhin only needed to change his bloodline to get the potential to reach the God Realm. Yun Jhin decided to find a secluded location where he could do his evolution into an artificial celestial caterpillar. Where would be a good and secluded location where he could evolve? Yun Jhin thought for a short time before he decided, it was of course at the headquarters of the blood throne sect inside his private chambers, even though the outside might be destroyed that didn''t mean the inside was, just like the treasuries. Yun Jhin used the teleportation formations to get back to the neutral star before he flew to his own formation that took him near the blood throne sect ruins, then he went further into the ruins. It took him almost 2 years to reach the depths of the sect where he entered the ruins of the biggest and most imposing palace, he looked around and sighed, he was back home finally! He could feel that further down the gate of hell was open but he ignored it as he went to the throne of bones that were still standing in the depths of the palace. The blood that was running like a river around it dried and became as dark as coal, all of the bones on the throne were cracked and ready to transform into dust. Yun Jhin slowly approached the throne as he ran his finger on the arms of the throne, he remembered staying in it just like it was yesterday, Yun Jhin opened his mouth and started an incantation in a language that couldn''t be described or understood: "**** **** **** **** ***" The throne exploded into dust after 500,000 + years of existence as Yun Jhin disappeared from where he previously was, he appeared in a dungeon with dim light and walked deep inside it. He reached a door that had a giant skull that dripped blood from it, the blood was still flowing even after 500,000 Yun Jhin knocked on the door 5 times in a certain pattern before the skulls'' eye sockets started to light up its mouth opened and ate Yun Jhin! Yun Jhin sat inside the skull, it was a different dimension that he created in a situation of emergency if he was too injured and he needed a secluded location where he could restore his body to its peak state, and now it would be used to aid his evolution! In a different location inside the ruins of the blood throne sect a decrepit mummified person appeared, his appearance indicated that he had lived for a very long time, one of his arms even fell so he had to bend to take it from the ground and reattach it. His blood-colored eyes looked into the direction of the biggest palace as a hoarse voice was heard coming from the being''s almost destroyed vocal cords: "Father... you have finally come back!" The mummy then showed a disturbing smile that showed his empty mouth all of his teeth decayed and fell, it was unknown how old the mummy was but by its words it should be at least 500,000 years old. The mummy then started to slowly trudge towards the direction of the palace, it was very slow, oh so slow that you would think that it wouldn''t ever reach the palace before it would fall to the ground and transform into dust, he would even have to reattach his body parts from time to time as they would fall from his body. Yun Jhin took out all 100,000 black tortoises from the container that the ugly disciple gave him, the tortoises finally woke up only to find themselves in a different environment than before, they didn''t know what to say as they looked at each other before they looked at Yun Jhin, they realized that he was their new master as they kept their heads lowered. Yun Jhin took a good look at the hundred thousand black tortoises before he chuckled and smacked his lips a few times, it was time for a feast, unknowingly to him, somehow the very slow mummy already reached the palace and was getting closer to the former location of the bone throne. Chapter 135: Father and son reunite after 500,000 years While Yun Jhin was cultivating inside the giant skull down in the dungeon the mummified person appeared at the entrance of the palace and muttered something under his breath: "Back again... here is where I first met him..." The mummy would have gritted his teeth if he had any left at this point it seemed his hatred for Yun Jhin wasn''t small. Some of his memories were triggered after he appeared at the entrance of the palace and he shuddered, but afterward, he smiled as he glanced inside the palace and started to walk forward. Trudge... trudge... slowly but surely he reached the former location of the bone throne, he looked at the empty location and frowned then he started to use the same words that Yun Jhin did previously: "**** ***** *****" He disappeared from the spot as he found himself in the same dungeon and he continued to trudge forward towards the location of the giant skull, he slowly approached the deeper parts of the dungeon as the giant skull that spewed blood appeared in front of his pupilless eyes. He could see that Yun Jhin was currently cultivating inside the skull and his face took a malevolent expression as he looked at Yun Jhin: "Finally, it''s you, It can''t be anyone else besides you, even if your exterior shell changes it''s the same person underneath!" The mummy launched itself as the gigantic skull his atrophied hands starting to bang on it while shouting like he was possessed, he wanted to break Yun Jhin out of his concentration and make him suffer ki deviation! Yun Jhin''s eyes fluttered open as he looked at the outside of the skull where he saw the mummy banging on the skull''s teeth outside. He frowned, he just finished absorbing the 100,000 black tortoises and was ready to enter into a deep evolutionary process but this person had awakened him before he could fully start. He analyzed the mummy but he couldn''t recognize the person really well, his aura was almost evaporated due to the erosion of time and his physical appearance was unrecognizable due to how his corpse was. Yun Jhin took a better look at him and the mummy immediately started to shout when he saw that Yun Jhin opened his eyes: "YOU TRASHY PIECE OF SHIT, YOU FINALLY CAME BACK HERE HUH? GET OUT OF THERE!" Yun Jhin didn''t know to laugh or cry, there have been so many people that wanted his head, and this guy seemed to think that he knew him? Seeing his puzzled expression made the mummy rage so hard that he almost exploded, as he banged his arms on the skull it could be seen that they fell from time to time and the mummy had to reattach them, Yun Jhin found this to be pretty funny. As the mummy watched Yun Jhin almost laugh at him he became even angrier as his body started to thin, even more, a thin red drop of blood escaped his body that entered the skull and absorbed the mummy directly inside the skull making him appear near Yun Jhin! Yun Jhin frowned deeply as he jumped backward a few times to make some distance between him and the mummy, only those with his blood could enter the skull, he could reconstruct his blood to match those of his former lives but only his progeny of his former life could enter this dimension. It should be literally impossible for a person to live over 500,000 even with the many ways of life-extending techniques and resources, how could have one of his sons or daughters lived up till now? Yun Jhin saw the mummy slowly trudging towards him, it seemed that he shouldn''t be scared of him, he should be so old that his body would fall by itself and transform into dust, but Yun Jhin felt uneasy as the mummy approached him, it was like he had something that could threaten or he knew something about his weaknesses. If Yun Jhin was honest with himself, he did have weaknesses, he wasn''t perfect, but those that knew about them were either dead or absorbed by him, so he felt strange seeing a person that might know his weakness, which one of his sons could he be? As the mummy slowly approached him Yun Jhin ran around circles around him, the mummy was very slow due to the time he spent existing and he didn''t have much time left, the mummy suddenly smiled as he saw Yun Jhin running away from him as he said: "Just like always, you think that no one can see through you and that you always have the high ground." "But this time... things will be different..." The mummy suddenly disappeared as he decked Yun Jhin in the face throwing him around the dimension like a ragdoll, Yun Jhin coughed a bit and felt blood starting to drip from his nose. While the mummy was atrophied and weak his body was very hard! And it seemed he was only keeping himself at lower speeds to not destroy his already withered body that was kept stitched together by god knows what. Yun Jhin''s body started shaking as he tried to get up, it seemed that punch affected the coordination between his soul brain, and body! Yun Jhin knew of this type of technique as he fought it before, it was the technique of his arch-nemesis, the only guy who could be considered righteous, the combination of a reincarnated and fortuned one. Yuan Fang. Yun Jhin gritted his teeth as he regained his balance and glared at the mummy coming towards him again, he was so close and it seemed the mummy was looking down on him as he didn''t blitz at him again, Yun Jhin couldn''t even identify the speed of his opponent when he did that. He got shakily from the ground as he took in a deep breath and activated the behemoth mode transforming into a gigantic being as his fist crashed down directly on the top of the mummy''s head, the mummy shook his head as he put his fist forward and pushed the gigantic ki construction back! Yun Jhin felt his body shaking along with the gigantic warrior created from his ki troops, he could feel that the mummy wasn''t using any ki in his attacks and that meant he was using only bodily strength! Yun Jhin started to search through his memories for the technique that would allow someone to reach such a form but he realized that he didn''t know of any such techniques! Considering the mummy was using Yuan Fang techniques that meant it should be a technique that only he knew! Yuan Fang was a person that was a pain in Yun Jhin''s sides, he was someone who hated the hypocritical ''righteous sects'' as well as the evil sects, he was a person born with innate justice running through his veins and it didn''t help that he was a fortuned one as well. Yun Jhin found him troublesome at first as he fought him back and forth trying to protect his fellow fortuned people, then he offended a righteous sect and considering the people that lived in such sects they strike a deal with Yun Jhin to kill him, in the end, they couldn''t secure his soul and he escaped, who knew he realized how to reincarnate himself and awakened his memories along with his fortuned constitution to wreak havoc across Yun Jhin''s organization and the ''righteous organizations''. It seemed the man successfully reincarnated again and created an assassin for Yun Jhin so he wouldn''t be able to grow again. Yun Jhin frowned as the ki construct broke after another punch and his ki started to run sluggish, he looked at the mummies pupilless eyes and asked: "Who are you?" The mummy laughed as he shook with anger and said: "You wouldn''t recognize me even if I was whole but I shall indulge you before you die, I''m your son Yun Guancheng!" Yun Jhin searched for the name in his memories and he remembered him, Yun Guancheng was his 169,420th son and his talents were very bad, it was at a point that he wanted to decapitate him and absorb his body as he was a waste of his seeds, but his mother pleaded for him and Yun Jhin decided to spare him considering he was so talentless that he couldn''t break through the King realm. Yun Jhin couldn''t know how Yuan Fang transformed his trashiest son into something that could push someone around with a battle power of the 3rd stage of the sage realm easily, but he knew that it must have taken a huge price out of both of them. Yun Jhin''s eyes started to glow as he looked at the top of his son''s forehead and saw that his soul was rapidly burning as his body decayed, the way his soul burned indicated that he wouldn''t be able to reach the afterlife after he died, he would become nothing! It was just as if Yun Jhin absorbed someone''s soul and they ceased to be, also the pain inflicted upon someone every second their soul burned wasn''t something one could endure, even Yun Jhin would found it hard to endure. The mummy chuckled as he disappeared then drove his fist through Yun Jhin''s chest making him cough a big amount of blood then said: "You wouldn''t think that I should be able to endure all of this pain right? You would think that your trashiest son that you wanted to absorb wouldn''t be able to reach such heights right?" "You are wrong, master saw through my potential where you couldn''t and left me a technique that I cultivated while he sealed my body in Four celestial ambers so I can take my revenge on you for what you did to me and my mother!" Yun Jhin chuckled as he looked into the mummies eyes and said: "What I have done to you and your mother?" The mummy got angrier as he twisted his fist inside Yun Jhin''s chest making him frown and cough out another mouthful of blood, his face also started to turn pale as his pulse started to weaken. "I''m going to absorb you and show you what my mother felt when you found her to be no longer useful!" His sickly arm started to inflate as wisps of ki entered Yun Jhin''s body starting to absorb his ki, flesh, and blood Yun Jhin felt his power starting to leave him as darkness started to approach the corners of his vision, but things didn''t end here as he grasped his son''s arm that was sticking through his chest and said: "Think you can outdo me at these types of techniques? Eh Yuan Fang?" The mummy was using a technique that he wasn''t familiar with, but that didn''t mean it was a technique that was better than his! The mummy frowned as he felt something wrong, the energies that he absorbed from Yun Jhin were slowly returning to his body as his arm fell from his body and Yun Jhin took it out of his chest and threw it away. While he was surprised by his son''s abilities, speed, and bodily strength that didn''t mean he was going to lose here, after all, he was on his home turf! Yun Guancheng looked around and felt the blood that was running outside the skull converge into the dimension that they were now both in, he looked around and saw as the blood ran inside Yun Jhin''s body healing him of all of his injuries and recovering the wasted ki. Yun Jhin cracked his neck and knuckles as he looked at his son and stated: "Your body might have grown stronger but your soul is almost burnt and you have no ki inside you, the decay of your body also reached a very high degree, let me guess, your body actually reached the later stage of the God Realm with the help of Yuan Fang right?" The mummy''s eyes widened as Yun Jhin''s guess was spot on! Yun Jhin shook his head as he easily unveiled the weakness of Yuan Fang''s technique, he didn''t know how he did it but he knew it''s weaknesses. His body disappeared as he disappeared from the mummy''s senses, the mummy looked around but he couldn''t feel Yun Jhin at all, it was like he didn''t exist at all! Yun Jhin''s stealth technique improved marginally after he absorbed Hao Tian, even though it wasn''t as good as Hao Tian''s at his peak, it was way better compared to his previous one, after all, Hao Tian''s technique was unique to him and tied to his bloodline, all Yun Jhin did was take references from his bloodline to improve his technique to what it was considered to be the peak of ki infused stealth. The mummy chuckled as he said: "It seems that your stealth technique had improved father, my teacher wasn''t the only one considered lucky... but you were always thinking that you planed 4 or 5 steps ahead of your enemy, that was only because you have reincarnated more times than my teacher, but now that he has experience under his belt..." A wave of ki exploded from the mummy''s body as the bandages that were surrounding him exploded and the body beneath it revealed itself fully. Yun Jhin frowned as his body appeared as well, that ki wave disrupted his stealth technique even though he improved it a lot... it was personal ki coming from Yuan Fang. Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed as he watched his son''s sickly and desiccated body start to return to it''s prime as his soul was continuously burning quicker, the transformation between his body and soul was rather unstable as the body returned to his desiccated form after trying to reach it''s prime form rather quickly while his soul continued to burn. Yun Guanchen laughed as he shook his head: "It seems I will have to do with this body, whatever, at least you can''t turn invisible anymore." Yun Jhin tried to do it only to have his ki blocked inside his body by some tiny chains that tied his ki to his ki pathways roughly. "It seems you have learned quite a few new tricks, Yuan Fang..." Chapter 136: Yuan Fangs tricks While his ki was tied to his pathways, he couldn''t use it outside his body, which meant he couldn''t summon his ki troops, ki armor, or weapon nor could he use his stealth technique at all! He could only use his ki to improve his body strength, but the mummy was obviously way better in this regard than him! The only thing that helped him in this situation was that he was playing in his home field and that the blood from the giant skull could quickly heal him and replenish his ki while his ''son'' would continuously burn his soul to continue existing and try to kill him. Yun Jhin found it strange that Yun Guancheng''s soul didn''t burn atleast half by now, he didn''t know how Yuan Fang did it, but this technique was very strong to create death sworn soldiers! Yun Guancheng appeared in front of Yun Jhin as he started to pummel him with his fist, Yun Jhin couldn''t do anything about it besides reinforcing his body with his ki to take the hits better, the difference between their bodily strength was a bit too big even though his son''s body was so old. Fighting something he didn''t fully understand made him quite annoyed as he started to retaliate against his weak spots trying to cut off more of his limbs, he already missed an arm but that didn''t decrease his battle power much. Yun Jhin could feel his surroundings started to shake and move as his brain shook in his head, he frowned as he fell backward while hitting Yun Guancheng''s chest with both of his feet. His eyes continued to analyze his son''s burning soul and realized that it stopped burning around 50% of its original size. This was bullshit! He could feel Yuan Fang''s aura converging on Guancheng''s body as it slowly stabilized it, him being able to send his ki through the connection to his son meant that he was at least at the sage realm currently, but from his aura, he could also infer that there was no chance he reached the God Realm yet. Yuan Fang''s voice came out of his son''s mouth that said: "You really are like cancer upon this universe, aren''t you Yun Jhin?" Yun Jhin chuckled as the blood from the skull entered his body to replenish his used ki and recover his injuries from the beatdown that he got from Guancheng: "I don''t think there is anything we have to talk about Yuan Fang, we are just two different people with different ideas and ways to achieve what we want." "That''s true, no matter what I will say you will remain the same, and no matter what you will say I will hunt you down. Quite sad, but people cannot change after they have gone through so many times doing the same thing over and over again, to be honest, I quite like your talent but considering our differing opinions all we can do is fight each other to the death." "Unfortunately you should go ahead and reincarnate again at this point, I have changed your son''s body to this point and mutated his soul while giving him the ability to burn through it to keep him alive for those 500,000 years since your death." Yun Jhin knew the reason Yuan Fang started monologuing was that he was certain he was going to die here! Yun Jhin frowned, how could he be so certain? Suddenly the mummies body enlarged as his desiccated body started to become full of muscles, his skin remained pale and dead but his body transformed from a match stick into a bodybuilder! Yun Jhin frowned as he couldn''t see anything anymore, one of his eyeballs burst from the impact of his son''s fist with his head, and his other eye was closed due to the shock and pain he was currently going through, he coughed out a mouthful of blood and a few teeth as he tried to get up from the ground only to find that he couldn''t anymore! "It seems this is the end for you this time, unfortunately, I''m not there personally and I''m not sure if your son can absorb your soul, but considering the moment you will be reincarnated again I will be in the god realm, you will have to hide for the rest of your life, meaning you won''t be able to do any evil anymore!" Yun Jhin''s body was slowly getting battered and broken as Guancheng regained his consciousness and laughed while he pummeled him: "This is for me, this is for my mother and this is for all of the other brothers and sisters you deemed unworthy and absorbed before me, you never thought that your trashiest son would be able to do this to you right, right?" Yun Jhin couldn''t talk anymore as his jaw was broken and his body was slowly getting destroyed by his son''s ruthless attacks after his body true potential got unlocked by Yuan Fang his soul started to burn again at a quick speed but Yun Jhin''s life was also only a thin line away from being severed. Guancheng''s meaty hand was holding onto Yun Jhin''s neck as his battered and broken form was dangling in the air seemingly ready to break into two from the waist down. "It seems I have done quite the number of you, right father?" His meaty arm entered into Yun Jhin''s chest as he used his absorption technique again slowly absorbing Yun Jhin''s power making it into his own, he even touched upon Yun Jhin''s soul and started to absorb it to reform his and escape from his certain death! Yun Jhin''s form didn''t make any more movements as he seemingly let himself be absorbed by his son, at this point his body was too broken for him to do anything anymore with it. Yun Guancheng laughed as he kept absorbing his father''s body and lifeforce until there was only a thin line remaining for Yun Jhin before he died. He took a good look at Yun Jhin''s face before he used his meaty hand to decapitate his body and destroy his head! Afterward, he burned his body to cinders and used his absorption technique to absorb the last remaining vestiges of his soul. He sat cross-legged into the formation as he felt Yun Jhin''s memories running into his soul along with all of his cultivation base, his meaty body started to shake with excitement as he said: "This is it, this is what I have been waiting for my whole life, the pain I endured, the things I have done up till point are all worth it, I have taken revenge for the both of us mother!" As the immense amounts of memories rushed into his soul Guancheng frowned, something wasn''t truly right, he could feel that his body and soul were obviously getting fixed at a high speed as his soul didn''t burn anymore but there was something strange in his soul, he felt it was some memories that he shouldn''t know about. But at this point he didn''t care anymore, Yun Jhin was already dead and he really wanted to see what was in Yun Jhin''s head as he tried to attain immortality at this point, all the things he had done, all of the people he destroyed, why would he do all of this? He decided to look through his memories voluntarily as he found himself to be sitting on a throne of bones surrounded by a sea of blood, he looked down only to find his old self kneeling along with his mother in front of him. "This memory is from back then when Yun Jhin let me live..." A voice came out of his body that said: "Since you want your son to live you have to pay the price for that, do you understand Ryuko?" Ryuko nodded her head as she accepted her fate, she jumped into the sea of blood below Yun Jhin''s body, and her body and bones quickly dissipated into it, her soul was also corroded by the blood sea and it disappeared as well! As Guancheng looked for any trace of emotions in this memory he realized that there were none! Yun Jhin grasped the air in front of his older self and his body appeared on Yun Jhin''s lap as his big palm appeared on his forehead: "While you might never be able to become strong enough to threaten me, I should at least put this fail-safe in here..." Guancheng muttered: "I don''t remember anything about any fail-safe, what is this, wait why do I feel that I''m missing some important memories right now?" Yun Jhin''s voice could be heard echoing through the soul memory space as the space shattered around Guancheng as if he was never there: "That''s because I always install a fail-safe in my sons and daughters who present huge potential or massive hatred towards me, I knew you would hate me and I wanted to see if the hatred would have made you improve your cultivation base, but even before my death bed you haven''t broken through the King Realm..." "Who knew I would have the occasion to use the fail-safe after I reincarnated?" "No, no, no YOU ARE LYING, IT CAN''T BE, I DEFEATED YOU, YOU AREN''T ALIVE ANYMORE!" "Am I not? I have studied the soul and its workings way before you existed or before my previous life, that''s how I was able to reincarnate countless times my dear boy." "By absorbing my whole soul you have invited the wolf into the sheep''s den and gave me the best location to trigger the fail-safe I have inserted into your soul." Guancheng''s soul body started to shake as it started to burn slowly, the fail-safe was removing all he gained from Yun Jhin and Yun Jhin''s soul body was quickly getting reconstructed in front of him he could also feel all of his memories and experiences being infused into Yun Jhin. A sad expression overtook Guancheng''s face as he looked into Yun Jhin''s deep black and white eyes and asked: "I was always dancing upon your palm wasn''t I?" "It''s a dumb question, if you know the answer to it why ask?" Guancheng shook his head as from the waist and below his body was already disappearing. "You might be able to do this to me because I have been near you when you were at your peak, but my teacher will surely get rid of your evil once and for all!" Yun Jhin looked directly into his son''s eyes as a light pierced deeply into them and he answered: "Who knows? Maybe he will or he won''t, to be honest with you he is the only one that I''m currently fearing in all of the worlds, from hell to the mortal and celestial realm, he is the only one who deserves my respect and wariness." "I see.. then I hope he ends you so you won''t be able to ever reincarnate again, I hope you end up in the same situation as I am, doomed to become unexistent, your will destroyed and your memories absorbed, I CURSE YOU YUN JHIN, I CURSE YOU WITH MY DEATH THROES!" Guancheng''s head was slowly getting engulfed in flames as well as his last words were said, then nothing remained in the soul space beside Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin closed his eyes as a new body exploded from Guancheng''s behemoth chest, it was a relatively younger Yun Jhin as he now looked to be around 9 years old, due to the body not having enough nutrients Yun Jhin couldn''t create a proper body and his cultivation base also regressed to the 5th stage of the Emperor realm, he also used all of the remaining blood from the giant skull to create this body properly, after all, the weak and old body of Gauncheng wouldn''t ever be enough for him to resurrect his body properly. Yun Jhin frowned, he lost quite a lot but he would recover everything after his evolution, his body refinement was also pretty much reset because he created a new body, Yun Jhin sighed, he needed to escape from the blood throne sect''s territory as he knew that Yuan Fang would have realized that his plan failed when he would see that his connection with Guancheng broke sooner than intended. Guancheng''s power and speed made it so he couldn''t even use his defensive clothes properly as he used Yuan Fang''s mind and soul disorienting fist technique making him unable to use the defensive capabilities properly, combined with the fact that they needed to be powered with a little bit of ki for them to work made it impossible for him to use them, he donned the clothes that remained on the ground below his son''s corpse on his new body and they shortened and applied to his body accordingly. Finally, after making sure everything was alright he immediately darted out of the giant skull and out of the dungeon at top speeds as he used his stealth technique to envelop himself and try to run away from the blood throne''s sect territory, due to his new body he also escaped from his ki restriction and everything was okay for him now. Yun Jhin finally left the main palace only to find that people suddenly appeared and were looking for something! It seemed Yuan Fang really planned for everything he frowned as he looked at their party and decided to not approach them at all costs, he was already in big trouble due to his lowered cultivation base and he still had to fuse all of the bloodlines of the four celestial beasts to unlock the advancement path towards the artificial celestial caterpillar, he could never die at this point! Chapter 137: My dream is unbroken Yun Jhin didn''t make it so far, reincarnated so many times and fought with his life on the line billions of times in total just to fail at this point because that righteous prick didn''t find him pleasing to the eye, cruel as they are, his methods were what gave him the edge on everyone else, and while Yuan Fang hated Yun Jhin''s methods, that didn''t mean he wouldn''t employ them, look at what he had done to his son, albeit it was with his approval, Yun Jhin would have forced his guinea ping into such a strange if he had to, unlike Yuan Fang who coerced him. Yun Jhin frowned as he kept himself hidden from Yuan Fang''s men, this wasn''t good at all, they might have that stealth breaking technique with them, and thinking of it made the few men and one woman start to throw the technique around to see if they could find Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin did his best to dodge every attempt of the technique touching him as he went underground, normally, this wouldn''t be normally possible due to the formations in the blood throne sect territory, but after so much time passed the formation waned away into being unable to obstruct Yun Jhin. While Yun Jhin was the master of the blood throne sect and had control over all of the formations, he now had to insert his bloodline and soul willpower in them again to take control of them, after all, they had been inactive and also half-broken for a long time and they were almost done for but that didn''t mean they were useless, Yun Jhin could use them to distract and impede the search party from finding him. Yun Jhin inserted his soul willpower with a little bit of his manufactured bloodline inside the formation inside the ground as it roared to life and started to attack the 5 men and 1 woman. As they defended themselves Yun Jhin realized that their cultivation base was around the 5th stage of the sage realm each while the woman was very close to the 5th stage meaning she was the weakest, but appearances can be deceiving so it wasn''t a good thing to attack her first, he needed to continuously use the formation while advancing through the ground and get out of the sect''s territory. The 5 men shouted in unison as they started to charge their energy pooling it together into the formation and destroying it for good now! The woman frowned as she scanned the formation and the remains before looking at the ground and said: "Our stealth breaking technique didn''t work, he must have gone below the ground or flew above us, 2 people go into the sky and 2 come with me below the ground!" Yun Jhin knew that he couldn''t have an easy escape at this point so he triggered the formation for a chance they would split up, 6 people at the 5th stage of the sage realm were a bit too much for him to deal with his current cultivation base, fortunately, they split-up according to the plan so there was a higher chance for him to escape. Yun Jhin was drilling through the ground like an expert mole as he had a big headstart compared to the three people that were now following him, they easily found the tunnel Yun Jhin dug as he didn''t have time to collapse or conceal it. Yun Jhin''s speed was way higher through the ground compared to the surface and the air, his speed at this point broke through any normal conventions as he made his way through the territory of the blood throne sect, but his ki was also used accordingly. When his ki would run out he would occasionally take a herb or pill out of his spatial dimension that came from his treasury. However, his pursuer''s speed wasn''t anything to laugh about as they were slowly closing onto him, and they also somehow had good a good amount of resources combined with the fact that their cultivation base was higher meant that they could never run out of ki like this! Even with a big headstart, Yun Jhin''s tail was slowly getting stepped on. Yun Jhin knew that if he didn''t something fast he might be caught up to and if he was caught there was a big chance he wouldn''t be able to escape without doing some compromises that would push back the day he fused his bloodlines even further, and Yun Jhin certainly didn''t want that! "It seems I have to bring out the big weapons." Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he maneuvered himself through the ground before he started to ascend going up and above the ground, then he started to fly as pure black wings grew out of his back and increased his flying speed by 200%, a circular light could be seen growing around his arms as he thrust them forward breaking through space! This was the first time he had to employ this technique and it took a lot of ki out of him, right now he had no more ki left in his body as he squeezed himself through space, this was the use of the space jewel that he had gained in the king realm that grew accordingly with his strength. The pursuing fellows met each other at the place that Yun Jhin broke through space and all of them frowned at the same time as they started talking to each other: "Goddamit, it seems teacher was right, we didn''t catch up to him and he broke through space to evade... do any of you have a spatial awareness or a spatial technique?" The men didn''t say anything but the woman stepped forward and started to analyze the space as her eyes glowed with a silver light that enhanced her beauty, she had blonde hair and green eyes, her ears were a bit elongated and her skin was pale and fair, she wore a skintight green suit that covered her whole mesmerizing body, from her looks it could be seen that she was from the elf tribe! Elfs had the most diverse talent ranging from being able to summon beings from both hell and the celestial realms to being good alchemy, formations, or blacksmithing, they also had their proficiency in elemental ki and could also be born with spatial or time abilities, but those were rarer instances, they were also prideful and righteous beings that held their nose so far in the air that they wouldn''t even socialize with normal people and offending an elf in its territory was pretty much a death sentence. The ability the woman had was called spatial sight and she could use it to track where Yun Jhin would land with his technique, but suddenly her eyes started to bleed as she closed them quickly and almost fell to the ground due to the pain that assaulted her head at the same time. Two men came to support her and asked what happened: "Are you ok?" The woman sighed as she opened her eyes, instead of being the normal green as before they were now a deep red and one of them turned blurry as she lost some sight in it: "This person that master wants... he is very dangerous, his cultivation base is at the 5th stage of the Emperor realm, there is a whole realm difference between us but he can employ such a technique... a reincarnated one''s abilities are truly fearsome." The men didn''t care about that as they asked: "Have you seen the spatial coordinates on where he would land? We need to go there right now using the scrolls that the master gave us, we need to catch up to him or we would have let the trust that master has in us down!" The woman shook her head and said: "The moment I used spatial sight I was hit with a flashbang of different colors, I don''t think I can fix my sight in my left eye anymore as everything is very blurry to me, I would need special resources or the help of the master, what an insidious escape technique..." Yun Jhin sighed as he found himself out of the territory of the blood throne sect, he stumbled and almost fell into space, he caught himself at the last second, if he fell in space with no ki it was certain death! Yun Jhin changed his appearance before he consumed some red herbs that restored his ki to the brim before he went ahead and started to fly towards a neutral secluded star where he could continue the fusion of the bloodlines. Finding neutral stars was fairly easy as the blood throne sect was located near a large star cluster of neutral stars, where villains gathered, profiteers came. It could be certainly said that evil people were good at ''the business'' so the neutral merchants and people who wanted to make a profit by hook or by crook installed themselves near the sect a long time ago and they flourished as they worked with the blood throne sect to make money, this led to a big alliance between the neutral stars and the blood throne sect. Yun Jhin landed on a nearby neutral star and found himself a secluded inn where he got a room, he changed his whole look as well as his cultivation base and aura, his life force also had a different tint to it compared to before, he knew that Yuan Feng only saw his appearance through the dying eyes of his son as he cut through the connection before his aura could be sent, but he still was as wary as ever against his biggest and smartest enemy. Yun Jhin finally gave a content sigh as he sat cross-legged in the bed of the inn, even if he was found by the search party he could play it by the ear and make them unable to see through his disguise, and if they wanted to get violent there was always the guards on the neutral star that he could rely on, either with some bribery or cultivation tips, and if worse came to worse, he could just empty his ki tank again and escape, but this wasn''t really doable as that would push his cultivation time away, again and again, he had to either get rid of them or enter secluded cultivation somewhere that Yuan Feng wouldn''t think of finding him. Yun Jhin looked at the screen that appeared in front of him as 4 images of the sacred beasts were reflected into his eyes: "Phoenix, Azure Dragon, White Tiger, and Black Tortoise.. finally I have gathered all of your blood." The four being''s images started to mix as a helix DNA sequence appeared in front of him, that helix was currently dark but as the mix of bloodlines entered the helix it suddenly came to life as it started to show a radiant celestial light of righteousness and all that was good. The celestial caterpillar came from the celestial realm and it was one of the most beautiful and strong bugs of the realm, it became a ruler of bugs when it evolved into the celestial butterfly which even the Celestial Emperor would love to have such a specimen as a pet due to its high combat power and potential, but most of the time celestial butterflies were hard to meet let''s not even talk about catching them. Yun Jhin looked through most of the information about celestial caterpillars into his mind and nodded, unfortunately, he would have to revert to his caterpillar form until he broke through the sage realm as the celestial caterpillar would gain its human form at that point. Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he felt the system start injecting the four types of blood into his body activating the hidden helix DNA that it created into his body at the same time. It was finally time to achieve the evolution he had desired his whole life, however, he didn''t know if the evolution would be the same considering he was an artificial celestial caterpillar and not a true one. All he could do now was go through with the evolution, after all, he didn''t waste his blood time, and sweat to dilly dally at this time! Yun Jhin''s breath came in and out as he could feel the inner changes happening in his body, his human form slowly transformed into his thick dragon caterpillar form that was starting to shrink to a smaller and smaller size he finally reached the size of 15 centimeters in height and 4 centimeters in width. The true changes coming to his body were starting just now! Chapter 138: Another evolution after a long time Yun Jhin''s body was going through different changes as it restored itself to his normal caterpillar form, a celestial caterpillar was one of the most blessed beings in the celestial realm, every being that had celestial in its name was someone that had the good fortune of heaven and earth in their bodies. The 4 sacred beasts were once inhabitants of the celestial realm but they were banished to the mortal realm due to the actions of their ancestors, they rebelled against the will of the celestial Emperor so they were killed and their descendants were thrown away from the most peaceful and prosperous celestial realm. Their downfall to the mortal realm was like minced meat being thrown to the sharks, at first they were able to defend themselves as they had strong bloodlines and high talents but as time passed the insidious humans made their way inside their planets and started to corrupt them. It didn''t help them that they were split into two factions, the azure dragons and the phoenixes were one faction where the other was the tigers and tortoises. Without being a whole they were slowly disbanded until they started to fight amongst themselves. Yun Jhin realized that their bloodlines still retained the celestial energy from the realm above and he could feel it being strongly infused into his body with the help of the system, it altered his whole perception of the world and enhanced it for him to see through everything clearer! The celestial realm could be called the strongest realm in the universe and it was also the closest to the edges of the universe. Unlike hell which everyone could visit, the celestial realm was only open to those with a pure and righteous heart and the entrance to the realm was deeply hidden and protected by guardians at the middle stages of the God Realm or above. Hell''s entrance was randomly spawned but not protected, anyone could enter or leave if they wanted to, but surviving hell''s adverse environment and the violent population was another thing. Celestial energy was what made celestial caterpillar''s so strong and talented, they were the beings that were the closest to the natural energy of the celestial realm, and due to that their power and bodies could be considered treasures that everyone would lust over. Yun Jhin''s small caterpillar form started to slowly turn a deep azure as a cocoon enveloped him and started to change his whole outer body, his soul was currently looking through the changes with rapt attention. "The evolution is vastly different compared to the other times, so this is how a celestial caterpillar looks like in person..." While Yun Jhin had access to an uncountable amount of information there were still things that he didn''t know about, the celestial realm was closed so he had never been to it in person, he only knew of it from people that descended from the realm and he had been lucky to absorb, but that knowledge didn''t contain much if any information about the celestial caterpillar, or he might have just forgotten about it due to the leak of information when he just came to the world and had to heal his soul. As he looked through the transformations more knowledge about the celestial caterpillar imprinted itself in Yun Jhin''s brain, but he also realized that some parts of the knowledge were missing: "I''m not a genuine celestial caterpillar... I guess this is why this evolution path is called artificial." What Yun Jhin did was use the system to forcefully squeeze all of the remaining celestial energy from the bloodlines of 100,000 clansmen of the 4 celestial beasts, this way even though the beasts were lacking celestial energy in their bodies naturally, the number made up for the quantity, a celestial caterpillar was created by the universe in the most secret places of the celestial realm with the purest and highest amounts of every type of celestial energy. It had talents in basically everything, elemental energy, space, time, life, and death, it was a perfect being just like most of the talented special beasts of the celestial realm, before being the 4 sacred beasts, they were also called the 4 celestial beasts but now that they were thrown to the mortal realm their status degraded and their power wasn''t what it once was. This was also one of the reasons Yun Jhin needed 100,000 bodies. The small being inside the cocoon started to breathe in and out like a heartbeat. His heart could be heard beating 4 times, one time for the azure dragon, one time for the immortal phoenix, one time for the white tiger, and lastly one time for the black tortoise. The 4 heartbeats started to accelerate as Yun Jhin''s bloodline was getting purified and ascended to a higher realm, from a measly normal caterpillar he was slowly going to become the highest rank of caterpillar that existed! Albeit he wouldn''t be a true one as he was an artificial man-made being instead of one being created by the universe itself. Yun Jhin could feel the fortunes of the universe slowly trying to approach him, but the moment they smelled his scent they immediately ran away realizing that he was one of the people that the universe hated the most! Yun Jhin''s soul was marked by the universe, after all, he killed a lot of its dear children as well as mocking it whenever he could. While the universe wasn''t conscious of these things, Yun Jhin still got marked by the autonomous system that governed the universe and protected its balance. Yun Jhin frowned as he watched the fortuned energy leaving him, he tried to grasp at least one strand of the golden energy but it left his body through his fingers, he gritted his teeth as he glared towards the ceiling of the inn and frowned, if he could have gathered the fortuned energy he might have been able to mutate the evolution and become a fortuned-celestial caterpillar combination! He sighed as he continued to watch his body evolving, at this point he didn''t have to do anything else besides watching as the process of evolution became autonomous and all he had to do was wait. The evolution of the body was the slowest as the mind and soul were already strong enough, his small caterpillar body started to grow up to 1 meter in height and 50 centimeters in width and stopped around there. A though azure carapace grew over his back and he also got some silky white wings that could hide inside some small invisible holes in his carapace. He grew thousands of small legs for his body to support itself as two small beady eyes appeared where his head was supposed to be, the eyes were white in color and they looked rather cute. A small smiling mouth also appeared around his eyes, his eyes were unblinking and always open as he had no eyelids even though they looked cute at first they would look creepy if you stared into them long enough. As his evolution continued his whole body took on an azure color which signified his status as a celestial caterpillar, most celestial beings had azure blood flowing through their veins which showed itself through the color of their skin or hair, they were the darlings of the universe and the closest beings to fortuned ones in talent and luck, they were basically a race of super-soldiers with no untalented beings, well untalented compared to the mortal and hell realms. As Yun Jhin''s breathing stopped for half a second the changes in his body were finally finishing, his heart was now a deep azure color as his whole blood concentration and quality changed accordingly, he could feel his heart beating in his chest very rapidly until it accepted the full changes that happened to it. The evolutionary process was a success! Yun Jhin''s consciousness woke itself up into the new body as he broke through the cocoon that was surrounding him and ate it afterward, then he opened up his spatial dimension and realized that the speed that he could open the dimension increased by around 60% faster! He could also feel his cultivation base slowly starting to inch towards a breakthrough as his evolution finished, it seemed that if he concentrated good enough he could absorb energy from the celestial realm! And as his cultivation base grew the energy from the celestial realm could passively enter his body to increase his cultivation base! The celestial caterpillar had it''s own bloodline techniques but Yun Jhin could only find a few in his new inherited memories, there were just around 2 of them that pertained to cultivation, they were rather helpful as they had new insights that Yun Jhin didn''t know of before, he only gained medium ranked cultivation techniques from the people that came from the celestial realm and these inherited memories were top-ranked cultivation techniques! Yun Jhin then decided to train in them later as he felt the change of time surrounding him, in total it had been around 5 years since his evolution started! He was surprised that his body wasn''t found nor did anyone at the inn come to spy on him, he did say that he would enter a long cultivation state and that he didn''t want to be disturbed to the owner of the inn, but that didn''t mean the owner would surely accede to his request of not being disturbed, after all, the people on the neutral stars could be easily swayed by money. ******************************* Far away from where Yun Jhin currently was, a person with azure hair and deep green eyes was sitting cross-legged as he was reading from a jade bamboo slip, his hair was done in a ponytail and he wore a loose robe that showed his whole muscular and fit body, he had a small sword tied to his waist and his pure face was concentrated on the jade slip in front of him. His surroundings were quiet and the only sound that could be heard was the sound of a running waterfall. After a while of reading he looked towards the sky and muttered: "Oh, Yun Jhin, how could you ever escape my divination techniques... how have you done it? Were you lucky enough to come in contact with a cultivation technique or bloodline from the celestial realm?" He shook his head as he looked to the side and saw the people that pursued Yun Jhin, the men kneeled in the back while the woman was kneeling closer to him: "I''m sorry master, after a while, this Yun Jhin''s aura just disappeared seemingly as if he didn''t exist anymore! His escape with his spatial technique threw me off and after I found his trail again his aura fully disappeared as if he changed bodies or something!" The young man shook his head as he put his hand over both of her eyes and azure energy entered them healing both of them: "You have suffered, I should have told you about this technique as well but I forgot about it, It can''t be helped, unlike him, I don''t have much experience with reincarnation, I''m still waiting to unlock some of my older memories..." The woman kept kneeling but the young man helped her up as he started to walk, as the area changed as he walked the surroundings could be now fully seen, they were in a well-illuminated cave and behind them was a golden waterfall, the illumination of the cave was seemingly controlled by the young man''s gait as he walked the lights in the cave would flicker. The men didn''t dare to get up as they knew there was a special relationship between their master and the elf-woman. Yuan Fang smiled at her as he asked: "Are you ok now Xing''er?" The woman nodded as an affectionate look appeared on her face when she looked into Yuan Fang''s eyes, Yuan Fang kept smiling as he grasped the elf''s hand gently then asked her with a neutral tone: "Have you talked with your father about the nature spirits that he should give you as dowry?" The woman nodded meekly as she blushed, they were supposed to marry soon and the dowry from her family would be a bunch of nature spirits, they were the best type of dowry that the elves could give, and somehow Yuan Fang didn''t refuse them. As they walked through the cave they left it while ignoring the men in the back as they remained kneeling. They arrived at a beautiful place full of lush vegetation and exotic animals, in the back a colossal lush verdant tree could be seen, the tree had big green eyes and a small mouth that was curved downward as he looked at Yuan Fang and Xing''er. Yuan Fang looked at the colossal tree and smiled at it which infuriated the tree even further, the ground started to shake as the anger of the tree affected the whole planet but suddenly its eyelids grew heavy as it slowly started to sleep, Xing''er looked to be quite scared of the colossal tree as she asked: "Is it okay to anger the father tree for this?" Yuan Fang gave her a reassuring smile and patted her head as he said: "The nature spirits will be a big boost for our bodies and we need both body refinement and ki refinement simultaneously to reach the highest battle power available to us." Yun Jhin would be extremely surprised if he saw what Yuan Fang was doing, this was something that he usually did when he pursued someone to get what he wanted. Yuan Fang''s smile turned a little bit strange as he kept glancing back towards the colossal tree, out of the corner of his eye he seemed to be glaring at it. Chapter 139: Recovering some cultivation Yun Jhin looked around for any signs of his room being tampered with but he surprisingly found nothing, finding a person that wasn''t swayed by money in the neutral stars was something that could be celebrated, but there was also the chance that the pursuers couldn''t have found him at all. He checked his aura and found it to be a little bit different compared to before, it had a different quality to it and he couldn''t certainly put his finger on what was different, but he was sure this could be one of the reasons why he wasn''t found. Now that he was a caterpillar he would have to focus on cultivation as he couldn''t leave the star in his current look, he won''t be able to change himself to his human form until he reached the sage realm. Celestial caterpillar were peculiar beings, as Yun Jhin looked through the basic information that his bloodline gave him, while he didn''t get many if any techniques, he did get basic information on the celestial caterpillar which he needed right now. He unfolded his wings a little bit as he looked at them and nodded, they were his innate wings that would evolve when he reached the butterfly state and they would increase his speed to the point that he wouldn''t have needed to use his spatial technique to escape from the pursuers if things were to happen again. Yun Jhin rolled into a comfortable position as he inserted some spirit stones into the slot of his room''s door increasing the time that he would be able to stay inside. His eyes remained open as he couldn''t really close them physically, but he used his awareness to concentrate on cultivating as he felt the celestial energy pouring from above into his body. The celestial energy was very pure and it couldn''t be compared to anything else that he ever devoured before, it''s quality was way too high. He could feel his regressed cultivation jumping as his body absorbed the energy greedily, from the former 5th stage he jumped to the 6th stage almost immediately that he started cultivating! But after he reached the 6th stage the speed that he increased his cultivation with was lowered by a lot even though the quality of the energy remained the same. Yun Jhin started to properly fuse the energy with his body baptizing it as his body refining stages were all reset at this point! Since he evolved into a new being and shredded his previous body for this one all of his effort in body refining went to waste, that meant he had to cultivate again, fortunately, he had enough resource from the treasury that he could use to refine his body along with increasing his cultivation to its former heights and even go further. He took out some herbs from his spatial dimension before he burned them and started to smoke them, this would increase his mental activity and make his blood flow quickly and easily so he could concentrate properly on dual tasking, cultivating both his body and ki at the same time. As Yun Jhin breathed in and out the celestial ki coming from above rapid changes could be seen on his body, his carapace started to grow tougher and shinier as his relatively thick body and meat started to form pure muscles. His body rank could technically reach the 10,000 as an artificial caterpillar according to the system, to break through the realm above the God Realm one would need a few things and one of them was the 10,000 rank body. As his cultivation increased so did his body refinement rank, he would also pop some herbs or pills from his spatial dimension from time to time to increase the speed of his cultivation. As he cultivated time slowly passed inside the inn, it was normal for people to enter closed-door cultivation for long times in such neutral star''s inns, however, some times they would be attacked during their cultivation and enter ki deviation due to the plots and schemes of the owners, fortunately, Yun Jhin was pretty strong and there were very few people who wanted to offend people at the Emperor realm 8th stage and above, while Yun Jhin cultivation had been lowered, that didn''t mean he had shown that to strangers voluntarily. After all, it would be pretty hard for rogue cultivators without backing to reach such a high cultivation stage and still not find a sect that they could join. Cultivating was dull but also exciting for those like Yun Jhin, they would just stay still and absorb the energies of heaven and earth while supplementing them with either pills or herbs of special qualities that couldn''t be transformed into pills. Yun Jhin''s cultivation base slowly started to inch towards the 7th stage after half a year of absorbing celestial ki and his body reached the 6,500th rank of refinement and it was still going up strong, he might not be able to reach the 10,000th rank before he reached the peak of the Emperor realm, but he would be pretty close. As Yun Jhin cultivated the owner of the inn started to get anxious, even though he knew Yun Jhin''s cultivation was a bit high and he could have backing, the more he stayed in closed-door cultivation the more it showed that he had resources that could let him cultivate and they would be of high quality as well or he wouldn''t have stayed in there for such a long time! The man frowned, he was considered to be rather young and chubby, he wore a formal attire consisting of black pants and a vest that hugged his chubby belly while also showcasing its size properly, his slicked-back hair and greasy complexion showed that he wasn''t an honest man at all. He wanted to try and sound out Yun Jhin and see if he could extort some money from him, neutral stars so close to the blood throne sect''s territory got pretty influenced by their actions and they were all leading towards the chaotic neutral side rather than the lawful one, they would want to get money by hook or by crook. Yun Jhin knew that those types of people would have it out for him so he surrounded the room with a formation that would wake him up the moment someone would approach it. After some more time passed the fatty walked towards the room and said: "This sir, you have used the room for such a long time and even though you have paid for it with the room slot, you now have to pay additional fees to use it anymore as there are people who want to get a room and you have been using this one for a rather long while." Yun Jhin laughed as he told him: "Of course, come inside and I will pay you the money." The fatty''s face started to form into a glowing smile as he hastily entered the room, the fatty''s cultivation was around the sage realm and he wasn''t a weakling, but his combat power wouldn''t be anything big considering he was from a neutral power without much fighting present, he and the inn were from a merchant company. The fatty slowly inched towards Yun Jhin and frowned as he looked at his body that increased in size, he was almost 1,5 meters tall now and his body was rock hard with muscles, the owner thought that was his true form as he felt Yun Jhin wasn''t human the moment he entered the inn and requested a room, but he couldn''t recognize his form at all, what type of caterpillar was he anyway? Yun Jhin spewed a few spirit stones towards him and he caught them, they were all middle-ranked ones and they were the payment for the room, the fatty smiled as he looked at the spirit stones, he confirmed that Yun Jhin had some wealth on him, he wanted to leave and hire a mercenary squad for them to make some trouble for him so he could extort more money, but before he could leave the door of the room closed itself. Yun Jhin''s new celestial aura started to engulf the whole room forcefully and it made the fatty start sweating profusely as he almost kneeled due to the intense pressure coming from it, he could feel that Yun Jhin''s cultivation didn''t increase at all from the moment he entered closed-door cultivation as it was at the same realm, but that didn''t matter as he a sage realm expert was getting pressured by an Emperor Realm one! He frowned as he felt that if he fought with him he would surely lose, the matter got quite tricky as he felt that Yun Jhin saw through his plans of extorting him, the fatty gave out a sheepish smile as he bowed and said: "I can see that this customer is quite strong and special at the same time, this fee should be given back as it will be paid for by the inn, I didn''t know the guest had such a high cultivation base and I made an error, sorry sorry!" Yun Jhin snorted as he said: "Take the money and don''t let me see you again if I don''t leave the room by my own accord, also take this." Out of Yun Jhin''s form, a stinger exploded as it entered the fatty''s chest and inserted itself properly in his heart, the fatty couldn''t dodge or feel anything as he realized that his life was now in Yun Jhin''s non existing hands. The fatty bowed again and left the room hastily as he felt that he kicked a steel plate, at least he still had those spirit stones that he embezzled but that didn''t mean much now that his life was in the hands of a stranger if he reported to anyone what he saw the spike would explode his heart and kill him instantly, this also applied if he tried to talk with anyone or try to attack Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin sighed as he felt his cultivation stabilizing at the 8th stage of the Emperor realm and his body reaching the 9,000 ranks, he couldn''t improve any further as he used all of his resources, now he would have to buy more or find them, he already created pills from the resources that he bought from the Brilliance Radiance and Light sect and he consumed them to recover his cultivation base to its former state. Maybe if he didn''t lose his cultivation he would have already been half-way done with his sage avatar but man proposes and Heaven disposes. Yun Jhin finally left the inn after a long time, the fatty walked him to the exit with a fawning smile on his face but the moment Yun Jhin left his face turned frosty, the merchant association that the inn belonged to had a God Realm expert presiding over it and he didn''t believe the God Realm expert wouldn''t be able to get rid of the spike and then track down the damned caterpillar who did this! However, the moment those thoughts blossomed in his head he could feel his heart stop beating, black blood started to seep from the corner of his mouth as his eyes widened, blood vessels could be seen popping on his head as he fell to the reception desk head over and stopped moving, the poison from the spike inserted itself in his heart and he died even though he didn''t do anything, the spike was supposed to trigger if he did anything physically as Yun Jhin couldn''t see through his thoughts. Yun Jhin shook his head as he didn''t even look backward, he didn''t leave loose ends like that! Some people were eyeing his form as he could be considered quite beautiful for him being a caterpillar and most beast cultivators would use their human form when they would be on neutral stars, only those who found themselves to be rather proud of their form would strut around like this, but it couldn''t be helped, Yun Jhin couldn''t transform into a human even if he wanted to yet. It didn''t take Yun Jhin much time to find the herb selling shop only for him to be very disappointed at the lack of assortments of herbs that he could find in the shop, at most he could only buy one or two herbs that caught his eye but not more as they wouldn''t be helpful for his new body anymore, both in ki and body refinement. He searched the whole planet but he only found a few supplementary herbs that could be useful for him and nothing on the main range, he could also use the inner pool of the planet to increase his cultivation base but this neutral star was only of middle-ranking and its pool would be useless to him, the only pools useful for him would be upper and top-ranked ones! Yun Jhin left the planet and started to look through the other planets inside his memories that could be considered top and upper ranked that was also nearby in the sea of neutral stars around him. He remembered quite a few but unluckily their planetary pools were already dry after so much time passed, he couldn''t find what he needed in their shops either, only some more complimentary herbs, he couldn''t find the main ingredients he needed to further his cultivation! Unfortunately unlike the 4 sacred beasts planets, not all planets could recover their energy pools. He also stuck as a sore thumb due to his looks so he couldn''t act much on one planet''s surface, after all, beasts could also be considered cultivation resources by humans and the way he looked induced some thoughts in those greedy human cultivators. However, as long as he had his stealth technique no one could catch him, especially now that he had his special celestial wings. Yun Jhin sighed as he left another planet without anything else but some duplicate herbs or some new complementary ones, he was already on his hundredth planet and he couldn''t find what he needed, should he go to the popular planets.. but with his current form he would attract unwanted attention. Yun Jhin thought shortly before he decided to go on a hunt for herbs instead of going to buy them, with his current form he could get into trouble and he liked laying low if he didn''t have plans or possibilities to do what he wanted or how he wanted. Going back to get some more treasures from the Blood Throne sect territory was a no go due to Yuan Fang''s existence, he would have surely put some more guards or formations around to detect his arrival, so for now he would have to search through his memories for some other places. Chapter 140: Changing realms As Yun Jhin searched through his memories for any treasuries that he could rob, he realized that most of the ones he knew should have ransacked by the others by now, this was something that certainly happened considering the time gap between his knowledge and the actual times. So he needed to find a different treasury of recently passed masters, but that meant they would either have very strong defenses on them, or there would be a strong competition around them. Yun Jhin didn''t like to bother with people in his current form, he was also interested to see what kind of bloodline ability would he get at the 9th stage of the Emperor realm, as the 9th stage strengthened the bloodline for quite a bit, and there was also a big chance for him to unlock an ability that he couldn''t get through his missing ancestral memories. He could try to buy spots on the popular planets'' pools but his current form was quite eye-catching, there was also a high chance the owners of the planets would rather try to catch him than give him the energy he needed to breakthrough. He could change his outer appearance a bit, but he was still a peculiar caterpillar. Beings like him would forever stand out as most beasts used their human form in human''s society, he could go to a beast planet but their pools were rather poor and overused, beasts usually went ahead for immediate breakthroughs and strengthening so they didn''t care about others, so they didn''t let the pools regenerate their energies and they usually used immediately, nor would they sell the contents to outsiders. He could continue using the passive celestial energy that came from above the stars but his body was starting to get used to this level of quality and he was sure that higher quality celestial energy would be found in the celestial realm, but entering it with his current capabilities was almost impossible! Even when he was a peak God Realm expert he had to threat carefully around that realm, what could he do to it with his measly abilities right now? Yun Jhin sighed as he thought about his current capabilities, while he could be considered a very strong prodigy and he could even fight people around the 5th stage of the sage realm with his current prowess there were still a lot of people out there who could squeeze him to death. Yun Jhin looked at the starry river that was surrounding him, he was taking a break on a static meteorite while thinking about what he should do, he was using his stealth technique to conceal himself while keeping a vigilant look for any outsiders. "What should I do... I have achieved the evolution that I always wanted but now there are no resources for me to quickly breakthrough!" This was a problem most rogue cultivators went through, the lack of resources for their cultivation! Yun Jhin could try to join a sect but with his current appearance he would surely be diced and made into a pill or special corpse, most human sects in the mortal realm were two-faced even if they preached righteousness, the evil sects would do the same but they were just open about it, while the best organizations would look at him as if he was special food regardless of his actual strength, his body was like a tonic right now and whoever consumed him would gain a little bit of celestial bloodline which was something everyone from the mortal realm wanted to get their hands on. Unfortunately, Yun Jhin didn''t know he couldn''t transform into a human form until he was in the sage realm or he would have postponed the evolution. He was now stuck between a rock and a hard place and he also didn''t know what to do. He needed to find a backer! But where he could find a backer in this big world where everyone looked out for themselves? As Yun Jhin thought about it, he remembered about something or rather someplace that he always glossed over when he was uninterested in it, Hell! Hell was the best place where he could gain cultivation resources and the hard environment in hell would also do well for his body refinement, the archdevils and demons didn''t have proper organizations even though they were controlling all of the demons below them, they all lived in the 9th circle of hell and would never usually go down in the lower circles. The best resources he could get were the demons and devils! They were highly nutritious and full of ki as they would eat each other and gain high amounts of destiny that would converge onto them and transform them from the inside, Hell was a special place just like the celestial realm, each was at a different axis plane compared to the other, they were two opposites that rejected each other naturally. While The celestial realm was protected and hard to get into, Hell was free to roam if you were strong enough! Well, there was also the fact that only devils were smart and insidious while demons were dumb but fierce, they each had a strange symbiosis between them that made Hell what it was, he wasn''t sure if Hell changed at all since he last visited it but he knew the current location of the entrance! As long as there weren''t any strange changes like the archdevils and demons changing their locations from the 9th layer to the 1st layer he would be able to easily roam Hell and grow stronger with time, there were also lava pools that he could use to increase his cultivation base, unlike the mortal realm that was separated by the galaxy and there were numerous planets around that each had their own planetary pool, Hell was different, there were 9 layers of Hell that could be considered as big as a quarter of the universe each. Hell''s denizens lived like animals on the lower layers as they didn''t have any intelligence, the more they ate each other the stronger they became and the more intelligence they acquired, however, that only applied to demons, devils were born with high intelligence and they were all about crafts and plots, they would occasionally make contacts with people from the mortal realm and devour their souls to grow stronger. Yun Jhin decided to go to Hell to continue increasing his strength, unlike the mortal realm beings that looked strange would be easily overlooked in Hell where every demon had their relatively unique looks. However, for that, he would need to go through whatever defenses Yuan Fang had left at the blood throne''s sect territory, the entrance to hell was very deep inside the territory and he would need to be quick. Yun Jhin started traveling towards the blood throne sect and arrived there a kit quicker compared to before due to his new body and special wings. The moment he arrived Yuan Fang got notified of it, of course considering how paranoid he was at this point he could care less who entered the territory even if it was a big caterpillar or not, he actually found the caterpillar to be strange and suspicious so he immediately sent the team of males after it! Yun Jhin could feel space around him slowly breaking as he entered stealth and started running towards the deeper territory of the sect''s ruins. The males couldn''t see or feel Yun Jhin but they immediately started to run around trying to identify the last location of the strange caterpillar, since their master gave them this mission they couldn''t fail it like the last one, who knew maybe the caterpillar was Yun Jhin''s pet and they could use it to track him back to his hideout! Yun Jhin could feel that they were randomly using their stealth breaking technique while looking for him but he wasn''t scared of them anymore, at most they could be considered annoying at this point, he was able to run away from them when he was at the 5th stage of the Emperor realm and now that he was at the 8th stage combined with his new wings they were already eating his dirt. The only reason he didn''t want to search for treasuries in his territory was that it would take time for him to break formations and then gather the treasure, time in which the location he was in could be found and encircled which would give him some unnecessary trouble, Yun Jhin wasn''t sure how Yuan Fang knew about who entered the territory or not unless he connected his soul with the main formation, which meant that he was now the lord of the sect''s ruins. As the lord of the ruins, he could see through anyone that entered the territory in which the ruins existed and he could send himself or someone he wished through a spatial tunnel that would connect to the owner when one becomes the lord of the formation, this way the owner could teleport to the headquarters whenever he wanted, most big shots had this type of ability tied to the formations that protected their headquarters so when the enemies would attack he would always be able to come back even if he left. Yun Jhin frowned as he looked back at the people who were searching for him, the distance between them was getting so great that they started to become little dots in Yun Jhin''s senses. They really couldn''t see him? Yun Jhin didn''t know it but due to his carapace his stealth technique had increased by quite a lot, the way it reflected light with its azure complexion made his stealth technique evolve once again, combined with the things he stole from Hao Tian his stealth technique could be considered perfect at this point and it''s only weakness would be the technique that Yuan Fang created. As Yun Jhin went deeper into the territory he could see more and more buildings that were still up, some of them even looked only rather old but they weren''t broken, he went even further than the main palace as he went to the edges of the territory. While Yuan Fang could detect who entered and left the territory, due to the state the ruins were in and how old the formation was he couldn''t detect Yun Jhin''s actual location and he had to send people to search for him blindly, thus with his current stealth capabilities, there wasn''t any need for him to fear them unless he stopped in a place for a rather long time. Yun Jhin could feel the demonic energy of Hell start to seep out of the entrance as he got closer and closer to it, demonic energy was very corrupting to normal people who couldn''t cultivate and it could transform them into demonic slaves, they weren''t useful or anything, they could be considered residual infected trash that couldn''t even be eaten. Yun Jhin looked at the entrance to Hell, it was a dark door made out of wood, it was inscribed with runes and the runes made an image of two skulls clashing against each other, one of the skulls had two horns protruding from his head and the other had three eyes but they were both human-looking. Yun Jhin analyzed the skulls for a little as he thought: "Demons and devils are fighting each other now? It seems the ole demons finally got tired of being fooled by the devils after so much time. Whatever, this will be rather good for me." Yun Jhin got closer to the entrance and he could feel the demonic energy trying to invade his body, he let it in as his constitution absorbed it without any problems as it strengthened him! At this point as long as the energy was high quality enough, it didn''t matter what kind of peculiarities it had in it, Yun Jhin could absorb it! The door slowly opened wide as Yun Jhin got closer to it, it was seemingly inviting him to step into Hell. Yun Jhin took another look behind him and seeing that the male team still couldn''t find him he jumped into the entrance without a care in the world, while beasts and strange-looking creatures could hide in hell as long as they acted well enough, humans would be attacked on sight! As long as a human would enter or someone who had a human-looking form that wasn''t bathed in demonic or devilish energy, they would be attacked by everything that existed in Hell! Yun Jhin could simulate both energies and he looked strange enough as he was, he could just change his outer color to red and no one would bat an eyelid at his looks. The entrance behind him slowly started to close as he started to fall to Hell, this was just the start of a new journey for him, his journey started since his first reincarnation and this would be his last attempt because if he failed he would die forever! This was his last journey to Godhood, and he would do it as a caterpillar! Chapter 141: Hells layout Yun Jhin could feel his whole body as he fell through the entrance towards Hell, he had been multiple times in Hell and he knew what to do in this situation as he braced his body and started to slowly float. However, as he got closer to the actual surface of Hell he could feel his body growing heavier at a quick speed as he fell faster, Hell''s gravity was considerably high compared to the normal environment outside, combined with the immense heat and the random meteorological events that could happen the environment was really adverse for normal people and cultivators who didn''t do any kind of body refining. The gravity in the upper levels of hell wasn''t that high, the lower you went the more it increased to the point that those who didn''t have a body refining rank of at least 8,000 wouldn''t be able to move at all and they would be crushed into a meat paste on the ground if they ever laid their foot in that layer. Yun Jhin took in a deep breath as he felt the sulfurous air in hell, even though he just reached the 1st layer at the moment and there wasn''t much sulfur in the air and there weren''t any lava pools at this level, the air still changed. Yun Jhin could feel that hell had the same layout as before, however, he didn''t know how the factions in Hell had changed, all he knew was that the demons and devils could be considered butting heads now due to the skulls he saw on the entrance. He changed the color of his carapace to a deep red as it would blend better in hell. The first layer was mostly populated by newly born devils and demons, demons evolved from demonic beasts and insects while devils were born as small imps with exceeding intelligence, however, their physical prowess could be considered lacking if you compared it even to normal humans, but their souls were exceedingly strong even though they didn''t know how to use them properly. Yun Jhin saw hundreds of thousands of demons fighting and eating each other below him, they were all fighting to the death with crazed looks in their eyes, these were normal events at the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd layers. In the first layer demons and devils would be born at the 1st stage of the earthly realm and while they couldn''t'' cultivate, devouring their own kind would rapidly evolve their beings to the point that they could cultivate if they wished to, but it was still faster to devour each other. The 2nd Hell layer was where things got a little bit more interesting as the devils there got their souls enhanced by cultivating to the 2nd stage, also demons started to gain basic intelligence which meant they could now be fooled by the devils properly. 3rd layer was where they made contact with ki properly, 4th and 5th were the lower bases of society as they were made from high staged ki cultivating devils and demons and very few King Realm experts. 6,7th layers were where things started to get a little more interesting as blood and lava pools would spawn deep inside those layers and they were especially useful at upgrading one''s bloodline and cultivation base while refining the body at the same time, they were rare resources that everyone would want. 8,9th layers were where sages and Gods of hell resided, in the 8th layer there were only sages and above and a few lower Gods while the 9th layer had the late stages Gods and the peak Gods of Hell, the most insidious minds and the strongest muscles of Hell lived in the 9th layer plotting or scheming for the time they would invade the mortal realm again, it seemed that the last invasion could be traced shortly after Yun Jhin died. As he didn''t find any more information about Hell''s invasion in these 500,000 years of history that he pieced together from absorbing so many memories, he realized that they must have invaded shortly after his death, after all, he could be considered one of the stronger supporters of the mortal realm despite his evil alignment, while he would do what was considered evil he didn''t want to share his piece of the pie with anyone else so he would defend the mortal realm when in need while also trying to make some profit on the side. Yun Jhin wasn''t that evil technically speaking from the view of the cultivation world, he was just really honest because most cultivators would the same things as him but plaster righteous faces the moment they did so. Take for example the fortuned ones, if someone absorbed a person they would say he was evil, but if he killed and absorbed the person who did that it would be justice from the heavens while all they did was continue the cycle of killing, in the end, they weren''t much different from the first person. Yun Jhin didn''t need to loiter in the first hells as absorbing these lowly demons and devils wouldn''t help him at all, he started to quickly fly away going deeper into the layer, the first layer was basically a wasteland and there wasn''t much lava or anything around as it was very close to the surface, the demons and devils were spawned from the surrounding demonic ki that came from the lower layers. As Yun Jhin went further into the layer he finally found the entrance to the second hell which wasn''t much different to the one of the actual hell, he quickly entered it and started falling deeper into Hell as he went to the 2nd layer. Similar things happened in the second layer, demons fought demons, and devils now started to bewitch and try to fool the dumb demons to absorb their souls or eat their flesh. As Yun Jhin flew through the place his eyes started to shine as he looked at a small imp that was crouching on the ground while putting both of his hands over his head, the imp was rather short being only 1,35 meters he had a moderate-sized belly and wore no clothes, he had a short spiky tail growing from his tailbone, he had two small horns protruding from his head and two white slitted eyes, around his eyes were two dark circles and he seemed to be scared of what was going around him. The moment one demon approached him he immediately cowered and started to dig seemingly afraid and ready to run away but the moment the demon jumped on him to eat him a dagger appeared from his rather portly stomach and he stabbed it into the head of the demon before he quickly started to feast. Yun Jhin found this imp to be quite peculiar, imps were the starting form of the devils and he could feel that his intelligence was very high, considering he was in the 2nd layer the devil should have been in the heavenly realm but surprisingly he was in the lower stages of the earthly realm, and due to his wits he was quickly increasing his cultivation right now! "Could he be a reincarnated one? Or is he special? I need to get closer to him... maybe he could be useful." Yun Jhin didn''t have a disciple that he could call his own in a very long time, all of his disciples and offsprings disappointed him sorely and unfortunately for him, they also learned from his paranoia and they would look out for him backstabbing them, thus they weren''t always on good terms with each other. Yun Jhin''s body disappeared as he used his stealth technique and followed the little imp around trying to see what he would do next, he was interested in the imp''s intelligence and craftiness, it reminded him of his first lives. As Yun Jhin watched the imp going at his business killing and eating he could see his belly getting bigger and bigger, the imp started laughing showing his sharp saw-like teeth, after he filled his belly well enough he dug a deep hole and entered it before he covered it into a layer of dirt, he was closer to the battlefield but no one seemed to see his hiding! "Hmm? a rudimentary stealth formation?" "This really got interesting." Yun Jhin flew down to the hole and caught the imp by the shoulders like a hawk would do to a rabbit before flying away at speeds so fast no one even saw what happened. The imp cried out in surprise and fear as he felt his shoulders being caught by something strong, when he looked up and saw Yun Jhin''s form he blacked out with foam at his mouth due to fear. Yun Jhin chuckled seeing his reaction, it seemed he wasn''t a reincarnated one but was very talented, this was better for him as reincarnated ones were harder to control due to their former lives memories unlocking themselves as time passed and they could scheme against you if you didn''t control them properly. Yun Jhin landed near the entrance to the third layer and woke up the imp, when the imp saw Yun Jhin''s form again he fell to the ground and started to back away in fear as he fell to his knees and started to speak in Hell''s language: "Oh please great devil spare me! I''m just a lower imp, I''m just trying to survive!" Yun Jhin chuckled as he approached the Imp and put one of his small feet on his forehead imparting to him a cultivation technique he could use later in life while also giving him some more experience in scheming. The imp started to kowtow to Yun Jhin as if he was his father while tears dripped from his big eyes, Yun Jhin knew they were all fake but with the knowledge, he also inserted a soul controlling symbol into his soul, because he was so low in his cultivation the symbol will evolve along with his soul and he would always be in Yun Jhin''s control. Yun Jhin nodded as he looked at his protruding belly and said: "You should evolve soon, at the time you would have broken through the heavenly realm 2nd or 3rd stage and I think you should be able to fight in the 3rd layer, that''s why I helped you here, I will be waiting for you further down in hell, I hope you will be able to find me, also here take this." Yun Jhin gave him a bit of his energy that he could use to summon him later when he entered deeper into the layers. Yun Jhin flew into the next entry as the gravity around him increased in intensity. Yun Jhin could see the imp smiling and doing a small dance as he watched him go down in the third layer, Yun Jhin chuckled maybe he would be one of the next paragons of Hell? Yun Jhin flew deeper and deeper inside Hell as he went through the 4th, 5th, and 6th layers in one go. As he went deeper into hell he actually had to start fighting as each Demon and devil had unique abilities that made them sensitive to stealth, not everyone got them but especially stronger ones did. However, considering in which layer he was he easily dispatched them, his target was the 7th layer where the strongest people would be sages around the 2nd or 3rd stage! Yun Jhin reached the 7th layer after a long while of traveling through hell, unfortunately, he didn''t find any pools in the former layers as they were all mostly used and he couldn''t go through the whole layer for a pool of low quantity, only from the 7th layer and above one could find the truly good stuff, especially since his cultivation agreed with the environment in hell, actually, the celestial energy that was slowly unfolding in his body was like Yang and the demonic energy in hell was like Yin, if he could combine them properly he could strengthen his body without the need of the pools. After he reached the 7th layer he decided to find a secluded place where he could cultivate as the demonic energy reached a higher concentration. As the intelligence of demons and devils increased they started to create societies and sects just like normal people, the 7th layer was full of such places but Yun Jhin didn''t want to go towards the populated places yet if his identity was revealed or his blood was seen through he would be attacked by the whole layer, not because he was someone that they would hate, but due to how nutritious and treasure-like his body was! If they ate him they would skip an evolution and reach the peak of the Sage Realm as long as they were in the Emperor Realm or above, they would also gain a Ying-Yang Celestial-Demonic Physique. Yun Jhin entered Hell to escape from such a situation of being eaten, and it would be easier to do so in here because the cultivation base of the higher echelons was restricted per layer, but he still needed to not attract much attention if words got to the top dogs of the 9th layer things won''t end up for him. Chapter 142: 7th layer of Hell The 7th layer of Hell was the third most expansive place in Hell, as Yun Jhin went down into Hell the layers became bigger and bigger, in total it took him around 10 months to reach the 7th layer and that was because he knew the location of the entrances to the layers if it was someone else it would have taken them years to travel between layers alone! Yun Jhin could feel that the 7th layer was pretty different than what he remembered it when he last visited Hell, everywhere was an aura of conflict more than usual, as the number of the layers increased the open aggression decreased because of the demons and devils increasing intelligence. However, the aggression was pretty open around here as Yun Jhin could see some of the demons fighting it out in the open with some devils, even though demons weren''t good at plans or schemes they wouldn''t be as easily provoked as when they were dumbed around here. Yun Jhin frowned as he watched from above and kept himself hidden, he hoped to get some information from them to see what changed in Hell while he was reincarnating: "OFF WITH THE HEADS OF THE DEVILS IN THE NAME OF THE TRI-HORNED MASTER Bujkil Rampel!" The devils scoffed seeing the charging demons who were attacking the orders of a tall demon with a dark face and blue body, he was muscular and naked but no genitals could be seen around his body. He had a mane full of dirty blood and his face was as ugly as it could get, full of scars, his nose was cut off and he had piercings on his remaining uncut skin. The devils could be considered pretty beings as the succubuses also evolved from the normal imps, the devil who instigated this fight between them was a pale man with blonde hair and pale pupilless eyes, he had big claws on both hands and wore a red velvet suit that made his whole body unseeable. They were both at the 1st stage of the sage realm. The leaders glared at each other while the underlings fought it down below as they shouted: "GLORY TO LORD RAMPEL!" The devils finally had enough of the demons'' noisiness and decided to chant a curse technique that they aimed at their heads immediately lowering their already below-average intelligence even further. However, that didn''t affect the demons pretty much, they only attacked with more fervor as their eyes turned a deep red color! The devils easily swayed through their attacks even though they attacked quicker and with more strength, their power might have increased but their minds were clouded and they couldn''t fight properly unlike the smart devils. That didn''t mean there weren''t any devils that didn''t get cut down during the attack, however, compared to the casualties of the demons they were unnoticeable. Yun Jhin could feel that the hatred that came from both parties was because of their leaders, Yun Jhin didn''t recognize the name of Bujkil Rampel and that meant he wasn''t an oldie from Yun Jhin''s era, nor was he a reincarnated ones, normally when a reincarnated one reaches the peak of his cultivation he likes to use his first name. Yun Jhin frowned as he concentrated on what the devils muttered: "This damn trashes, Lord Vanzuel really put us in this much trouble because he found that item in the 9th layer at the same time with Lord Rampel..." It seemed devils understood more of the story, unlike the demons who listened 3 times and forgot what they heard 2.5 times. Yun Jhin cloaked form slowly made its way towards the back of the devil''s formation as he absorbed 4 or 5 of them as he gained the knowledge of the happenings in the 7th hell and above. It seemed Lord Vanzuel and Lord Rampel found an item with a high amount of demonic energy concentrated in it and fought for ownership since they found it however, the other archdevils and demons found out about it as well but because these two lords were relative newbies in the 9th layer the others didn''t covet their item as it would be useless to them, thus their factions in the below layers were made to fight and the faction who won would get 10% of the item and the rest will go to the lord who won. Yun Jhin felt that this was the doing of Hell''s will, Hell didn''t like God Realm experts to fight inside it so it restricted them with rules and regulations, those rules and regulations didn''t affect those below the God Realm but those above the God Realm had to stick to them or they would be punished, Hell unlike the mortal realm had a separate consciousness. The consciousness wouldn''t interfere much in anything as it was an amalgamation of pieces of souls of the former God Realm experts who either died or reincarnated and they didn''t want Hell to get attacked while they were infighting, it was strange considering Hell was always the one doing invasions but they were always panicky about one. Yun Jhin already disappeared from the small battlefield as he only took a look because he was nearby, that he knew what the conflict was about he was interested why would the heads of these two faction leaders who were not very high in ranking compared to the other Gods on the entrances to the layers and the one to hell. Yun Jhin had one speculation about why their faces were on the entrances., they might be the young masters who needed to be groomed in the next lords of demons and devils, that was the most likely explanation, as the door would be inscribed with the faces of the lords, or the strongest persons in hell. Yun Jhin finally found a secluded corner where there weren''t any visible demon or devils that could attack him or disturb his cultivation, he needed to cultivate to the 9th stage and see what type of bloodline ability he would get, as a celestial caterpillar, albeit even a fake one he still needed to keep his mind open to the possibility of a very strong ability! Yun Jhin started to dig into the ground as he made a small cave for him to work in and then went to work. Hell''s demonic energy started to converge around his body entering it and cleansing his ki pathways, his body was resisting the increased gravity with all it''s got, and combined with the energy that was slowly coursing through his whole body, he was slowly getting stronger again! Yun Jhin could feel the celestial energy in his body rejecting the demonic energy as if it was it''s biggest enemy as it started to attack it with ferocity, he frowned as he felt a sweet aftertaste coming to his throat and ready to leave his ''mouth'' but he continued cultivating as he tamed his celestial energy and tried to intertwine the celestial and demonic energy together. Celestial energy was just like a proud woman who wouldn''t let herself be conquered by any common man while the demonic energy was like a bum who wanted to eat swan meat, they didn''t match at all. However, Yun Jhin knew that the appearance of the bum was only a disguise as beneath it was a rich CEO! As Yun Jhin ground through the demonic energy he purified it even further allowing it to be accepted by the celestial energy, Yun Jhin''s body started to grow slowly as his cultivation inched towards the 9th stage of the Emperor realm and his body refining rate reaching the early 9,500s. Yun Jhin breathed in and out as his body expanded and his cultivation increased accordingly, he could feel that the benefits coming from this type of cultivation would be able to lead him to enter the sage realm without the need of any special pools, but making advances would need the energy of the pools or him entering further down in Hell, where there was more high-quality demonic energy. Yun Jhin could feel the newly created energy seeping into his blood and awakening the innate runes that laid in there! Those runes were black and unresponsive and they should naturally have grown and cultivated some energy in them by now but due to Yun Jhin not being a true celestial caterpillar, it was unlikely he would get to activate any of them until the God Realm, fortunately, the 9th stage of the Emperor realm was specialized in bloodline awakening. His azure blood started to boil as the energy entered it and started to fill the runes, they started to light up with crepuscular blue energy that made Yun Jhin''s body compress to a stage of being around 1,75 meters but his physical strength increased even further as his body refining reached the 9,700th rank. He could slowly feel that he was ready to awaken his bloodline ability and reach the 9th stage of the Emperor realm! Chapter 143: Overpowered bloodline ability Yun Jhin''s body started squirming as his blood heated up constantly due to the continuous increase of demonic ki that went into the bloodline runes. He could feel the heat traveling through his whole body quickly assimilating something that he didn''t fully understand. His body started to shed one layer, two layers, three layers of skin! His body was getting enhanced at the same time as his bloodline ability was appearing! He could feel his body''s rank shooting up reaching 9,900 in one shot after he shed those layers of skin. Also, his ki cultivation was slowly inching towards the 9th stage and the awakening of his bloodline ability was almost there! Finally, after a while his bloodline runes were filled up with energy and his hot blood stopped rushing through his body at high speeds, it returned to its normal circulation pattern as Yun Jhin''s head cooled down and he felt some foreign language and a technique was inserted in his soul from his blood. "This technique... it''s certainly worthy for the celestial bloodline!" Yun Jhin got out of the ground as he used the technique for the first time, his body sprang up as his thick muscles started to multiply over his body, his bloodline aura intensified slowly overtime as everything around him started to get crushed and absorbed towards him at the same time! Whatever was getting near him, either it being the surrounding demonic ki or the earth was being absorbed and crushed in his body at the same time. This was an advanced predatory technique of the celestial caterpillars, while they were omnivores and didn''t enjoy eating meat when they had to evolve into the butterfly form they would need to unleash a massacre to gain enough energy to evolve, or they could find a very rare herb but from the knowledge, he gained from the technique most celestial caterpillars would hunt instead of going to search for flowers. Yun Jhin''s technique was basically the gravity of a planet combined with an absorption technique that would make all the energy from the one he crushed and absorbed be fully his! It was a technique with no weaknesses as it couldn''t be disrupted unless he was killed, even if his head was severed and there was still a bit of life force in him, he could use the technique to recover! Any energy that he didn''t need could be used to heal his body continuously and that would consist of any energy he absorbed! The technique worked up his blue cells so that they could increase his healing factor by 500%, this would exhaust his energy quite fast if he got any type of energy but as long as there were people around he could absorb there wouldn''t be any problems. This was a technique best used when he was besieged or when he ran wild in a crowd, at least the healing part, or it could also be used for extending a fight, if Yun Jhin fought someone that injured him he could rampage on his subordinates recover and wear the person down. Considering the situation in hell this was a very good technique to have. Yun Jhin frowned as he remembered about the situation in Hell, everything seemed rather similar to all of the places he had been up to now, they were all in conflict! If you excluded the Brilliance Radiance and Light sect who were living like gangsters and didn''t have any problems, the universe was currently in turmoil! The universe was never a peaceful place but there were too many coincidences, how come those two arch lords have found the treasure around the same time he wanted to enter hell? As for the other situations they have been slowly unveiled by Yun Jhin but he still felt something was fishy in those regards as well, were the people from the Brilliance Radiance and Light such pussies that they were content only with the black tortoises? From what Yun Jhin knew their greed knew no bounds, were they that injured? Doubtful. Then why would they let the other three planets alone when they were still infighting before Yun Jhin came around? Yun Jhin wasn''t sure about many things even though he reincarnated so many times, he didn''t know where the system came from but he accepted it because it was useful to him, but now he started to doubt the origins of the system, could a powerhouse above the God Realm look out for him? He didn''t know how the powerhouses above the God Realm worked or what they were supposed to do after they rose above that boundary but he was sure that there wasn''t just one person who achieved this, maybe they controlled and restrained each other and the person which gave him the system didn''t like that anymore? Maybe he wanted to break the balance? Yun Jhin knew that he was being used but there wasn''t much he could do in this situation either, he was solely depending on the system to evolve, evolution was a thing that needed time and work, it couldn''t be done so quickly just by devouring other people, Yun Jhin knew because he had tried many times in his former lives to achieve evolution but he failed every time until he gave up, he tried with experiments both on the living and dead, on souls and his own families, but every time he made a result, that result would be found to be untrue or temporary. Yun Jhin felt that the system was a boon to him but unfortunately he couldn''t learn anything from it no matter how many times he evolved! He did recognize some patterns on evolution as he scanned his insides changing with his soul but they were so quick that he couldn''t truly grasp them properly. Could the person who gave him the system made it so he wouldn''t be able to grasp evolution himself so he wouldn''t ditch the system? Yun Jhin realized that things went a little bit further down the rabbit hole than he knew but he had ignored everything up till now due to his concern of achieving a form that could evolve above the God Realm, now that he had it he could think about things a little bit more clearly than before, and what he realized didn''t make him happy at all. Yun Jhin''s muscled body started to fly as it unconsciously absorbed both demonic and celestial ki at the same time, now that he was at the 9th stage of the Emperor realm, his body needed an immense amount of ki of high quality to create an avatar to enter the sage realm. Yun Jhin looked around, he didn''t need any ki pools for the time being as with a little bit of time he would get enough ki to create his avatar, but he could also rush the process to the point that it wouldn''t take him more than a few months to breakthrough. But at this point his cultivation and age didn''t match at all, he was barely around 100 years by now and the average Emperor at the 9th stage was around 25 to 50 thousand years old. Only really talented ones could reach such heights at 10,000 years, but Yun Jhin rushed his cultivation a lot, combined with the fact that his body was continuously evolving at the same time made him special in more than one point. Surprisingly Yun Jhin found that his cultivation base didn''t have any problems even though he rushed through his cultivation by quite a bit. Could these be the effects of the celestial caterpillar body or the system''s working on his evolutions? Yun Jhin sighed as he tried to find some forms of society, he needed to infiltrate it and gain some more intel, the devils he absorbed back then only knew the surface information that every soldier in the devil army knew, he needed to absorb some higher-ups! Now that he was at the 9th stage, combined with his new bloodline ability he should be able to easily fight a common 5th stage sage realm expert. The society in hell was based on strength, this type of hierarchy was pretty normal as everyone thought that the one with harder fists would rule, but in hell, this applied even further, you wouldn''t be allowed to exist if you were weak! In other situations, righteous people would say that the weak should be spared but being weak in hell was sin! Regardless if you had treasures on you or not, just your existence would be a sin! Yun Jhin was currently in the 7th layer and his cultivation base was strong even among upper echelons as the strongest person in this layer was at the 2nd or 3rd stage, the moment devils or demons saw him they would keep their heads down unless they were provoked, they couldn''t truly recognize if he was a demon or devil nor which faction he belonged to so instead of provoking him randomly they would keep their heads down and report to their superiors about him. Yun Jhin knew that if he made himself visible to these people the higher-ups would surely flock to him, but at this point he could pick a faction and say he belonged to it, then help the other faction, helping the demons would mean no ties as the demons were dumb and they would believe him. However, helping the devils meant he had to deal with people such as him, there was a chance he could make a bigger payout if he played his cards well but there was also a high chance he would be betrayed after the job was done. Yun Jhin could feel that he was followed by a demon and devil and found it to be pretty weird, people from opposite factions were following him? Demons and devils were easy to identify if you were being tailed, the demon''s aura was wild and they couldn''t hide it properly, while the devil''s aura was oily and it felt like you were being watched by a snake if a devil targeted you. His body disappeared as he used his stealth technique which made the party of two fluster as they appeared and looked around seemingly searching for him. Yun Jhin appeared above them as he used his aura to crush both of them in the 7th layer''s ground, he looked at them both and analyzed their auras, they were both at the 1st stage of the sage realm and it seemed they broke through recently, the demon''s muscles were currently bulging as he tried to resist the aura, the devil was a ravishing succubus that gave Yun Jhin some watery eyes trying to seduce him. Yun Jhin snorted as he said: "Why are the two of you following me? And what''s up with the two of you being together?" The succubus tried to move her body to accentuate her big cleavage but Yun Jhin''s aura pressed her to the ground so hard she couldn''t move at all. So she took a big gulp making her chest bounce up and down as she said: "I only arrived at the same time as that big lug over there, our soldiers saw you and my master told me to bring you to the city, he said that you would make a great general, and seeing that you are recently ascended from the lower layers means that you don''t know much about the whole situation in Hell." Yun Jhin waited for the big blue demon that was currently being crushed into the ground say his two-bits as well: "Urugual thinks you look strong!" It seemed this demon didn''t improve his intelligence much even though he had been through so many cultivation realms, but it was normal for most demons, only the more talented ones would be able to improve their intelligence and strength at the same time. "Urugual''s master said that if I see strong newcomer, Me should bring him over for a clobbering introduction!" Since Yun Jhin''s appearance was strange as if he wasn''t a demon nor a devil at the first glance both parties tried to scout him out, this was the perfect opportunity to get more intelligence without alerting the other layers, he could infiltrate their outposts and gain the intelligence he needed... Yun Jhin frowned, this was a little bit too familiar, something strange was going on as if he was led by the nose directly to a trap, his intuition told him something was wrong with this but he didn''t know what, could Yuan Fang''s arm reach into Hell at this point, or who else would give him such a dangerous feeling? Chapter 144: Uncovered danger Yun Jhin could feel something was fishy the moment a demon and devil were spying on him without attacking each other, they almost looked to be familiar with each other! Yun Jhin was almost certain these two people worked for the same person. The succubus and the demon didn''t feel well under Yun Jhin''s gravity force field, as they were already under higher gravity in the 7th layer, Yun Jhin''s field didn''t do simple addition to the gravity that surrounded them, but a multiplication! It was a miracle they weren''t squashed into meat paste, up till now but they both had high body refinery rank. Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he looked at them resisting the gravity, he wondered how much could they endure? x20, x50, x100! Their bones started to crack is they were made from dry branches and Yun Jhin realized that he went a little bit overboard, he still needed to question them. Yun Jhin didn''t say anything as he suddenly increased the gravity which made the duo scream in pain and questions him: "Why are you doing this!" They were both scared as they realized that Yun Jhin wasn''t a fool! Yun Jhin would have given them a smile at this question if he had lips but he just snorted and said: "You should understand why I did it." Yun Jhin''s words could be interpreted in many ways thus the duo didn''t know what to respond, what if they said something wrong and revealed their intentions? Thus they kept their mouths quiet and kept enduring, however, their blood vessels could be seen being crushed under their skin, the succubus big mounds started to sag as the increased gravity put a lot of stress on them. The succubus cried out in both physical and mental pain, her boobs were the source of her food and while her body was certainly sexy she would lose a lot of charm if her boobs became saggy like an old grandma''s. The demon looked weirdly at the succubus, why was she caring about her boobs in this situation? They were both being crushed to death! The blue demon knew that if spilled the beans he would live so he opened his mouth to talk: "Ok, ok, Me tell you, stop stop!" Yun Jhin lifted some of the gravity letting the man breathe properly and then he spilled everything he knew. "Lord Garvolo Sandro is the leader of demons in this layer, he is at the 3rd stage of the sage realm, he told I should go and trap any strong newbies coming from the 6th layer so they would be conscripted in the army." Yun Jhin looked towards the succubus and she nodded fervently thinking that his gaze meant if she had the same story as him. Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he looked at them, the demon wasn''t lying, he would have known, but he still felt that this wasn''t the whole story, there was also the fact that Yuan Fang knew he went into hell but not his current aura or appearance, were these two really Yuan Fang''s people or was he just getting really paranoid at this point due to his senses going haywire? Yun Jhin activated his new bloodline ability attracting the duo into his body, they screamed as they were devoured by Yun Jhin didn''t care as he went through his memories, suddenly a splitting head-ache came from his skull as he started to roll on the ground, a message came into his mind: "I knew you couldn''t stop yourself from devouring would you Yun Jhin?" It was Yuan Fang''s voice and Yun Jhin could feel as his soul willpower tried to pierce through his defenses and injure his memory core to steal some of his memories, Yun Jhin laughed as he started contesting with the strand of willpower easily overpowering it and crushing it out of existence. He could feel that a small trace was left inside the soul space that he needed to get rid of, he frowned, it seemed from the memories of the duo they were both marked by Yuan Fang in the 1st layer where they were given cultivation techniques and helped by him, they were just like the little imp he helped back then, people with potential. And just like he did, Yuan Fang inserted a mind-controlling seed into the core of their souls while giving them instructions on what they should do telepathically, they got some orders sometime before he entered hell which gave them his former appearance and aura and also told them to be vigilant of any weird looking demon or devil that entered the 7th layer that was around the peak of the Emperor realm. Yun Jhin didn''t think that Yuan Fang would do such things as he always preached about justice and righteousness even at the moment his head and soul were severed from his body, it seems he changed to the point that Yun Jhin found his plans and techniques to be as exquisite as his! Yun Jhin didn''t fear anyone in this universe, he was cautious against some people but Yuan Fang started to inspire some fear into him! He frowned, if a person like Yuan Fang gained his ruthlessness he would be basically unstoppable! Yun Jhin was pretty envious of his gifts, if Yun Jhin''s talents were 95 then Yuan Fang''s were 100! The thing was that a quality difference would be between 95-100 range, every increase from 95 would be so big that the difference would be enormous, Yun Jhin could only close the gap with his enormous experience but if Yuan Fang gained the same amount of experience as him, he could only dance on his palm in a front on confrontation! He knew some of Yuan Fang''s weaknesses but they should have been mended after his first reincarnation, he also had connections everywhere in this life and Yun Jhin didn''t know much about his current situation to see if he had any more weaknesses. Things weren''t good for Yun Jhin as he started to roam the 7th layer randomly while expunging the mark that was left in his soul space, he knew the mark was supposed to be used to track his location and Yun Jhin didn''t know how many servants Yuan Fang had in hell, but he didn''t want to find out this way! Yun Jhin could feel the eyes following him disappear as soon as the last remaining energy of the mark was destroyed, he sighed as he felt that he made a mistake allowing himself to be seen, he would need to be under stealth during his whole duration in hell! For now, he would have to search for a pool to quicken his cultivation, he realized that he had to act quick even in hell after the things that happened. Now that he had to hasten his search for the pool he would have to go deeper into the 7th layer, every layer had an entrance that went below or above, but the layer itself was very big and it could spawn a lot of treasures. Yun Jhin knew the characteristics of a demonic pool of energy but finding them was a different thing, most of the known ones were monopolized by the strong families of the layer and while none of them would pose a problem to the current Yun Jhin, he was a little bit cautious due to Yuan Fang''s doing, it was ok if he had people in the 7th layer, but what if his actions triggered his people of the 8th layer? Most of the time demons and devils wouldn''t interfere with the conflicts in different layers but if they were Yuan Fang''s people they would surely report back to him and even come to investigate themselves, he could deal with those at the 5th stage but what those above? All he could do was endure and flee but he couldn''t defeat them which annoyed him a great deal, he would have just went on a rampage in the 7th layer if Yuan Fang didn''t have many people in hell. It seemed he would have to search for his own energy for now... *************************** Yuan Fang was currently wiping his hands and mouth with a clean napkin, there were some green splatters on his hands and at the corners of his mouth, Xing''er stood before him horrified as she looked at him with a strange look on her face, she didn''t know he was going to use the nature spirits for this reason! Behind him a few of his people were doing the same things as him, they were all tall and had an imposing aura around them, they weren''t the same males from before, they were all very strong around the 5th stage of the sage realm and above, some of them even had a stronger aura than Yuan Fang! Xing''er eyes were shaking as he got closer to Yuan Fang and she asked: "This... this..." Yuan Fang smiled as he patted her head and ruffled her hair as he told her: "It''s ok, I actually love you, I didn''t tell you what we would do with the nature spirits because your father wouldn''t have given them to us if he knew, you know that you can''t keep your mouth shut around your family, anyways we have to go now." Xing''er murmured: "So this is why the father three looked at you like that every time you were in his presence, he had seen through your intentions..." Yuan Fang shook his head as he told her: "The nature spirits have a bad life with your people, all I did was liberate them from their suffering while they helped us achieve the body refining rank that we needed, in the future, you will thank me for this, what if I and my people ate their hearts?" While elves didn''t really care about the lives of nature spirits, in general, the father and mother trees would have big control over elves and they loved nature spirits as they were their darlings, now that Yuan Fang and his men were marked by the death of the nature spirits they could feel that the father tree which was sent to sleep multiple times was now waking up again! Yuan Fang shook his head as he looked towards the back and talked with a tall man who had his hair done in a wild ponytail, he wore a strange blue battle armor inscribed with runes of different colors, he also had a bone necklace around his neck and a monkey tail was hanging around his back showing that he wasn''t human. The man nodded without saying anything as he made everyone approach him and then put two fingers on his forehead, he was ready to launch them away from the planet! Yuan Fang looked towards Xing''er who was slowly backing away from them before asking: "Want to come with us?" Xing''er eyes started to change as they turned a deep green, her pupils disappearing as an ancient voice came out of her mouth: "Killing so many children, twisting the minds of others and now you want this one to go with you?" "QUIT DREAMING!" Xing''er''s body exploded into a blast of gore that hit Yuan Fang head-on, his robe was now dirtied with green blood and his eyes glazed over as he looked at his ''love'' dying. He shook his head as another memory appeared in front of his mind when he saw her dying and he disappeared along with the others as he muttered: "Just like back then with Yun Jhin... unfortunately, I cannot go to Hell due to this body.." ******************************* Yun Jhin knew someone was talking about him, did Yuan Fang get news about his location? He shook his head, it didn''t matter anymore at this point, he looked around as he felt the energy of a demonic pool quickly growing nearer to him, he avoided the public ones and tried to find one that wasn''t claimed by anyone but that was easier said than done, finally, after 3 years of searching, he found a lead and was getting near it. In these three years, his cultivation didn''t stagnate but he was only around 65% there to the condensation of the avatar. The demonic energy pool would let him quickly condense his avatar and break through the sage realm while also strengthening it a big deal! Yun Jhin frowned as he got closer to the location of the demonic pool, in his senses he could already feel other people near it! Chapter 145: Paranoia Yun Jhin could feel something wasn''t right in this situation, the further one went into hell the higher the gravity and the more adverse the environment was. Yun Jhin was pretty deep in the 7th layer at the moment and very few people could travel this far, and those few people were the ones in leadership positions who couldn''t travel due to the ongoing war between factions! So how could these people be here? Yun Jhin used his stealth technique as he glided towards the location of the demonic pool to hear if the two people talked or not. He could hear rough breathing coming from the pool as he guessed what the duo was doing, he got closer to observe and saw a succubus and a devil going at it without any restraints. Yun Jhin frowned as he watched them go at it for 6 days straight before the devil got bored and stopped their ''interaction''. Yun Jhin could care less about what he saw, he was very annoyed cause he had to wait for them to talk after they finished their marathon, he was pretty paranoid right now, what if they were Yuan Fang''s people? He frowned as he waited for them to say anything but all they did was gaze at each other seemingly reminiscing of the time they had before, Yun Jhin was already getting annoyed but he stood there without moving, he already learned his lesson, what would happen if he killed them, absorbed their souls and had his location found out again? That was the last thing he wanted right now. The male devil finally got closer to the woman and whispered something in her ear: "It seems we aren''t alone darling." The succubus giggled as he put her hand near her mouth, Yun Jhin frowned, he could hear them and he understood that they must have felt that they were being watched! But that was impossible... with his current stealth attainments only someone way stronger than him would be able to look through his technique, and those people should be impossible to find in the 7th layer! Was his stealth technique failing him at this point or were these people just really impressive? Suddenly the devil appeared near Yun Jhin''s location and sniffed the air but he frowned as he felt that Yun Jhin wasn''t actually there, the devil looked around and tried to find his actual location but he failed, it seemed he knew that someone was here but he didn''t know who Yun Jhin was or his exact location. Yun Jhin frowned seeing him getting close to him only for him to fail to locate him, could the male devil have a special ability that broke through stealth? It was possible, each demon and devil had one special technique they were born with and it evolved accordingly as they ate and evolved. Only Yun Jhin was lucky enough to find this duo in the demonic pool he hardly found and one of them had a stealth breaking technique, fortunately, unlike Yuan Fang''s technique which made him reveal himself, this technique seemed innate and couldn''t be taught, however, if this guy''s innate talents were combined with the stealth breaking technique of Yuan Fang he wouldn''t be able to use stealth properly at all anymore! The ability to locate the general direction of the person in stealth combined with the ability to break stealth was a thing that would destroy Yun Jhin''s current escaping abilities, he had his secret techniques but he didn''t want to rely on them for escaping from small fries. Yun Jhin suddenly revealed himself as an immense gravity field made the male devil flop to the floor like a fish out of water, he could barely move his hands even though his aura identified him as a powerhouse at the 3rd stage of the sage realm, the man tried to activate his avatar but it didn''t budge away from his body as it was sealed there tightly by Yun Jhin''s gravity. The succubus tried to run away, only for Yun Jhin to flicker near her with the male devil in tow putting her face in the ground as well. Yun Jhin looked at the duo and asked: "Who are you working for?" The male devil laughed as he tried to spit at Yun Jhin only for the spit to deviate and hit himself in the head due to the gravity field, the male''s face looked as red as it could be even though his skin was purple. The succubus swallowed a laugh as she looked at the male devil''s situation and tried to use her seduction skill on Yun Jhin, even though Yun Jhin wasn''t humanoid devils and demons all still retained their base instincts even when they had no intelligent capability, so she thought she could charm him. Yun Jhin ignored the succubus shamelessly trying to put her breasts up as he looked at the male devil and started to apply more gravitational pressure on him. The devil frowned as he felt his bones crack and his blood vessels strain due to the increased gravity, if things went like this his body would explode soon! The male devil immediately looked into Yun Jhin''s eyes and said: "Ok, ok, I''m going to tell, stop the gravity!" Most devils were cowards when it came to torture and Yun Jhin''s methods could even break the sturdy demonic form. The devil immediately started to explain how he was banished from the 8th layer from his sect so he took his slave girl away with him and descended to the 7th layer, here he luckily found this demonic pool, and with the use of dual cultivation he broke through to the 3rd stage of the sage realm, it seemed the devil was born in the 8th layer and his cultivation talent was sub-par in his sect thus after he reached a certain age and didn''t have any good results in cultivation he was banished to the lower layer, it was normal, most demonic creatures in the 8th layer were at the middle sage realm or above, some of them even reached the God Realm. While the man didn''t seem to be lying to Yun Jhin, that didn''t mean he was telling the whole story either, so Yun Jhin asked him a question: "Yuan Fang, does this name mean anything to you?" The male looked puzzled for a good while before he shook his head indicating that he didn''t know anything about a man known as Yuan Fang. Yun Jhin sighed, it seemed his paranoia was getting a hold of him more than he wanted it to, but if he didn''t have his paranoia who knew when he would be hit in the back of the head by Yuan Fang? Yun Jhin decided to give the duo a chance to live as he told them they could live if they both swore to become his loyal servants, the succubus was shameless and immediately swore first while also getting near Yun Jhin and putting her butt up to the sky waiting for his big form to claim her. Yun Jhin shook his head as he slapped her away, making the relatively big surface jiggle as he fell to the male devil, the male devil gritted his teeth for some time before he used his blood to swear as well. Then Yun Jhin let them go and instructed them to infiltrate the biggest organization in the 7th layer as they were strong enough to assassinate the leaders and replace them, then use their strength to end the war, winning for the devil''s side! Devils were smart and hated people like Yuan Fang the most, at least that would be if he kept his original righteous airs, who knew how was he now? Was he a hypocrite like most of the other sects in the mortal realm? But Yun Jhin knew that devils only liked profit and schemes, so if he could come with bigger profit compared to Yuan Fang he would be able to sway them, Demons were dumb and once they learned something they would tread on that path until the end, so if they were controlled by Yuan Fang, Yun Jhin couldn''t do anything about them. He sighed as he let the duo go then decided to enter the demonic pool, he could feel that the pool''s energy was around 60% emptied due to the male devil''s absorption, but with it, he could break through the sage realm even though he wouldn''t be able to strengthen his avatar at all. However, for Yun Jhin it was still good enough considering how much time he searched for the pool. He dived directly into it as he started to absorb it''s contents while meditating upon the upcoming matters. **************************** Yuan Fang was meditating under a big yellowing tree that was seemingly dying from the core, the tree had a big mouth and eyes that were seemingly crying, it''s face was stuck in a horror motion as it looked at Yuan Fang''s body below him. The male with a monkey''s tail approached Yuan Fang as he kneeled in front of him and asked: "Now that we have finished our revenge for Xing''er should we head to hell master?" Yuan Fang looked up at the dying tree and shook his head as he thought for a little time before saying: "Paranoia is a strong double-edged weapon for us cultivators, you should already know about this right Yang Qi?" Yang Qi nodded at Yuan Fang but he didn''t know where he was going with this. Seeing that he didn''t understand Yuan Fang ripped a piece of bark from the dying tree behind him and started to scratch it: "Let''s say this bark is a person and I''m paranoia, while I scratch the bark slowly nothing happens to it, you see?" The bark was quite thick and Yuan Fang''s delicate fingers couldn''t leave a dent in it even if he didn''t use some power. "I''m not affecting the bark any way right now, but what would happen if the paranoia increased by let''s say.. 100x?" The bark turned into powder in his hands as he said 100x and looked into Yang Qi''s eyes: "Paranoia is good for a cultivator to have as it keeps them weary, but too much of it and it would give them inner demons, you should know why you are supposed to head to Hell anyway, but you don''t have to anymore, Yun Jhin''s strength is certainly increasing at the moment and if I sent you there you would just become his food, his soul was also pretty much recovered the last time my soul willpower marked him." "While his soul wouldn''t increase his battle power much, you wouldn''t be able to kill him anyway, what if he escaped with his soul and he went to reincarnate again? We would lose all of our leads on him up till now." It seemed that while Yuan Fang knew about Yun Jhin''s situation, he didn''t know that if he died now he wouldn''t reincarnate again. "If his soul wasn''t as strong as it currently was, he might not have been able to escape, but even if I went into hell there was a chance he could still escape, he is a rather slippery fellow, you can attribute it to his immense experience." Yang Qi still didn''t understand why did they have this conversation, what could they do to give Yun Jhin so much paranoia that he would self-destruct? Seeing that he was puzzled made Yuan Fang chuckled as he said: "I have already installed the seed into his psyche, all it has to do is bloom now, you don''t have to beat your head with these things, I just tried to teach you but it seems you don''t understand, you are our wheels anyways, all you have to do is keep yourself at full ki so we can escape or travel when we want to." The man nodded as he left, Yuan Fang looked at the dying tree and told it: "How do you like dying you old fart? Do you regret killing Xing''er now?" The frozen face on the tree started to move as it coughed green phlegm which tried to attach itself to Yuan Fang only for it to freeze in the air then dissipate: "Oh? Trying to poison me on the verge of death? Quite cliched don''t you think?" The gigantic tree didn''t say anything seeing that he failed to injure Yuan Fang, it closed its eyes as it turned deathly gray and all of its leaves disappeared into ashes. The trunk of the tree also turned gray as it fell to the ground ready to smash Yuan Fang into meat paste, the tree was gigantic and Yuan Fang wasn''t even as big as an ant compared to it, but the moment the tree trunk reached him it easily floated to the side seemingly scared of injuring him. "So my job here is done... as long as I will break through to the God Realm in the following 150,000 years there should be no problems to follow the road of the True Awakening, I only need to get rid of the competition..." His eyes glowed as he thought about the competition, and mainly about one person that left a big mark on his mind and former body, Yun Jhin! Yuan Fang grasped his chest as he looked to the horizon, the setting red sun indicating that a tragedy had happened on the elves planet, he muttered to himself: "Only if you could self-destruct... but all I''m doing is impeding the inevitable... our meeting will still happen sooner or later..." Chapter 146: The Sage Realm The sage realm was where one''s battle potential achieved the biggest boost, while the God Realm was the peak of both life and power. A sage could create an avatar which was like an out of body incarnation that could fuse with the owner''s body to increase their battle power from 1.3x up to 1.9x depending on the quality of the avatar and the talent of the person who made it. Yun Jhin''s avatar quality was the highest it could be as he fused celestial energy and demonic energy into it to create a being that was neither celestial nor demon. In Yun Jhin''s body, there was a light that was continuously growing, it was currently in an infant form as it resembled Yun Jhin''s caterpillar body but at the microscopic size. The body started to slowly expand as the energy from the pool was entering inside of it. The expansion wasn''t fast, it could be considered rather slow if you would compare it to Yun Jhin''s former breakthroughs, but Yun Jhin wanted to have one of the strongest avatars because in the future when he would reach the God Realm, the avatar would be vital to his battle power! The avatar had a different look compared to Yun Jhin, it was both demonic and celestial at the same time while it had a strange aura surrounding it, its resemblance to Yun Jhin was uncanny, but the difference between them was that the avatar was an energy construct while Yun Jhin was a being made from flesh and blood. Yun Jhin bathed in the demonic energy pool as the energy that remained in it slowly started to disappear as the avatar in his body was condensing. In the sage realm, there were 9 stages just like all of the previous realms, the first 4 realms were meant to strengthen the avatar to the point that it was as strong as the main body, making it exert the power of the main body even though it wasn''t near it. At the 5th stage would create a link between their avatar and themselves thus if the main body died they could resurrect themselves through the avatar at the cost of getting their cultivation weakened. At the 6th stage, one''s avatar would start to show signs of evolution, the evolution of the avatar would set in stone the power upgrade one would get at the God Realm so it was important to focus properly on the evolution when one reached the 6th stage if any problems arose at the breakthrough there would even be problems when one reached the God Realm and their future path could be cut. At the 7th stage, the avatar evolution would be finished and the end product would appear. At the 8th stage, the avatar would gain sentience. At the 9th stage, the cultivator should start fusing with his avatar for the future breakthrough to the God Realm. The power of the sage realm was unique as it used the foundation in the King Realm and the Emperor realm, so if you had a good foundation in those realms, the battle power that you could be able to exhibit in the sage realm could be either extremely strong or extremely weak. Most people had weak foundations as they rushed through them or didn''t have good quality resources to create their jewels. However, Yun Jhin jewels were of the highest quality and now their power could be exhibited properly at the sage realm! He could shuttle through space with less ki, his battle power was higher than almost every normal sage realm expert and even most geniuses would have to bow their heads to his arsenal of techniques and jewel powers. As the energy surged through his body Yun Jhin could feel that the avatar inside of him grew to kid-size. The avatar left his main body as it entered the pool and started to absorb the energy by himself, Yun Jhin was also infusing energy from his ki pathways directly into the avatar, he could see the avatar''s inner organs and ki pathways slowly getting constructed and strengthened, he was practically creating a new life right now! Yun Jhin''s body started to levitate as the avatar stood in front of him and did the same, the energy inside the pool was almost exhausted as the avatar size grew more and more, from kid to teen and finally to adult. Yun Jhin could feel that the preparations for the breakthrough were 99% done, so he took in a deep breath and started to concentrate on the avatar! All he had to do now was breathe life inside the avatar and then put it back inside of his body to achieve the breakthrough to the sage realm! Yun Jhin spat out a bunch of azure-colored blood that clashed with the avatar chests making a metallic sound. The avatar''s eyes started to glow as his body started to turn corporeal from transparent, even though he was an energy being, the energy was solid. Yun Jhin could feel the completion of the avatar was almost there! Suddenly the avatar stopped levitating as it started to approach Yun Jhin seemingly as if Yun Jhin was a magnet and the avatar was a metal. Yun Jhin breakthrough was imminent! The avatar finally entered his body after a short moment and Yun Jhin started to shake as crimson and azure energy started to engulf his whole body! His caterpillar form grew to 2,50 meters and his body refinement finally reached the 10,000 ranks! The moment his body refinement reached the 10,000 ranks a notification appeared in front of him: [Host has reached the maximum body refinement for the artificial celestial caterpillar and can finally evolve into the Artificial Celestial Butterfly, or host can try to find another evolution path.] Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he felt the internal changes going through his body, and he realized that his avatar could strengthen his battle power by 1.6x times! The battle power increase was reaching the later stages of what was possible and he didn''t even reach the evolution stage of the avatar yet! Yun Jhin chuckled as his body started to compress and his height lowered, it was time to achieve his human form! Yun Jhin''s bipedal form reached around 1,95 meters in height and he had waist-length wild azure-colored hair, his body was ripped with lean muscles and his azure colored eyes would bore through anyone''s soul the moment they pierced into their eyes. Yun Jhin''s naked body was trapped with his Ying-Yang 4 elemental celestial beasts clothes as he felt his cultivation settle down. He took in a sigh as he looked at the remaining energy in the pool, only a bucket worth remained and he took it and used it to temper his clothes and his halberd. His body wasn''t used to the energy inside the pool but the remaining energy wouldn''t be able to help him further his cultivation anymore so he used it to strengthen his equipment. Yun Jhin started to teleport away from the pool, now that he was at the sage realm he could teleport through space and due to his spatial jewel the consumption of ki for this activity was reduced by 80%, he could also teleport faster and he could rip through space more easily compared to others. In hell, it was considerably harder to rip through space due to the adverse environment and the gravity that applied itself even to space, but Yun Jhin could still teleport better than the inhabitants of hell due to his spatial proficiency. This way he would be able to travel through hell way easier than before and find demonic energy pools quicker cutting through time, at this point he could live for almost 250,000 or more, and even though he wasn''t even in his thousands yet, time would pass by in a blink of the eye when cultivating! For his sage realm breakthrough, it took him around 25 years! And it was still considered pretty fast as normally it would take 100 to 250 years for the average person to break through the sage realm. As Yun Jhin teleported through hell, Yun Jhin''s new subordinates, the male devil, and the succubus were currently finishing the long civil war between devil and demons. The devil side won and the God realm lord from the 9th layer was very pleased, thus he sent one fragment of the treasure he found to the 7th layer for them to enjoy. Yun Jhin returned to the public city where the devils dwelled after he searched for more demonic pools but failed to find them after 2 more years, his cultivation increased by a bit but he was quite far away from reaching the 2nd stage of the sage realm. The moment he entered the city, he was escorted to the biggest tribal building where he met the male devil and the succubus who both kneeled to him the moment they saw him. Yun Jhin waved his hand indicating they could get up and asked: "Where is the treasure?" The male devil came forward and took something out of his clothes, it was a piece of multicolored rock-like thing, it was only a small piece of it but Yun Jhin found it to be familiar. He frowned as he took a bigger piece of that rock from his spatial dimension and compared them, suddenly on the bigger piece a mouth appeared that devoured the small piece in one big gulp! If Yun Jhin''s ears weren''t fooling him the smaller piece also let out a cry of pain and fear as it was eaten! Yun Jhin looked at the multicolored rock as the mouth disappeared from it and frowned, he knew that it was sentient and alive but what was it used for? It seemed it was something of a hell specialty as Yun Jhin didn''t know what you were supposed to do with it. Even though Yun Jhin had dealings with hell he didn''t dare to walk in the 9th layer by himself, so he didn''t know much about the special treasures there, the devils or demons wouldn''t trade their special treasures either so Yun Jhin was in the dark about this piece of rock-like thing. The male devil looked at the multicolored rock and said: "The Lord said that the rock would help you to have faster breakthroughs if you won its approval, but he didn''t say how that should happen, he only said that it would only approve those that were worthy of it!" Yun Jhin frowned as he realized what the demon lord meant by those who were worthy of it, that meant those with fortuned constitutions! Yun Jhin knew that the rock was useless for him so he threw it back into the spatial dimension, Yun Jhin didn''t know why Hao Tian couldn''t use the rock to quicken his cultivation, maybe even fortuned people needed to get acknowledged by it before it would help them? Yun Jhin wasn''t sure why such a thing existed in hell in the first place, technically speaking Hell had the worst ratio of fortuned ones spawning in the realm! The mortal realm had a fixed rate of every 500 years which seemed to have broke during his current reincarnation as he found 3 fortuned persons in a span of 100 or so years. The celestial realm was supposed to be full of fortuned people but Yun Jhin wasn''t sure if this information was reliable, even though he had celestial blood running through his veins as a celestial caterpillar, he wasn''t actually a fortuned person, even as a celestial caterpillar somehow the universe still hated him, it seemed even the system couldn''t fool the universe perception of him. Yun Jhin shook his head, if he couldn''t use the rock he would just let it stay in his spatial dimension, or maybe enslave a fortuned one and then nurture him into his death combat slave. The building he was currently in had multiple balconies as Yun Jhin chose one and looked at the whole city, everything seemed calm on the surface but things were still boiling under, Yun Jhin could feel hell wasn''t as peaceful as it seemed to be in the upper layers, soon something will happen, something monumental! Chapter 147: Advent of Hells inheritance Yun Jhin decided to settle in the city for some time, now that he had the devil organization under him he could use the natural pool under their jurisdiction which was also recoverable. Yun Jhin''s new human body didn''t attract much attention as he was exuding a devilish charm that showed that he was an inhabitant of Hell, from absorbing so much demonic energy he was basically just like the average devil in regards to presence. The location of the other demonic pool was nearby the city, after all, they constructed the city around the pool''s location to make sure no one would use it besides the people they wanted to. Unfortunately, the pool had been used a few times due to the former war so it was quite depleted, also recovering it took a lot of time so Yun Jhin could only use around 50% of its energy, it wouldn''t be enough for him to reach the second stage of the sage realm as it wouldn''t strengthen his avatar enough. Yun Jhin sighed as he watched the half-full pool and jumped into it before starting to absorb the energy inside, it took him around half a year now to finish absorbing, after his cultivation increased so did his absorption speed. He also sent word to his people so they could search for more pools, but finding them would take a lot of time considering there weren''t many people as strong or as stubborn as him in finding pools, he couldn''t really force them too much in finding the pools or they would defect, killing too many people would be also useless, he didn''t need to absorb devils and his power wouldn''t increase much at all as his underlings were all considerably weak compared to him at the moment. Yun Jhin left the pool behind him as it dried up, what could he do now? Since he was a sage he could basically go to the 8th layer but he would be the weakest there, cultivation speaking, in case of battle power he would be around the middle-pack and he could get a rather good position in the army of the 8th layer, there were also a lot more resources in the 8th layer. But going any further into his sage cultivation would take more and more time now, the avatar could be strengthened with the pools but even though he currently didn''t build up any resistance to the demonic energy yet, it could happen with time due to his peak body refinement cultivation. He sighed as he looked at the succubus and male demon who were kneeling to him, he did want to stay more in the 7th layer but there wasn''t much he could do in it anymore, he sighed as he told them some things and left them some orders before he got up and tried to leave. But suddenly the whole 7th layer started to shake like an extreme earthquake was going on, even Yun Jhin with his cultivation fell to the ground let''s not even talk about the other two who were weaker, the earthquake also increased the gravity in the 7th layer turning a lot of the weaker people into meat paste. Yun Jhin frowned as his muscles'' veins started to appear around his body, he got up from the ground but even his peak refined body was getting pressured by the new gravity and the shaking earth below his feet. The other two were currently starting to become pancake-like, blood was also coming out of their 7 apertures and it looked like they couldn''t handle much more, suddenly the earthquake stopped but the duo across Yun Jhin was also half-dead. Seeing that they couldn''t live for much longer Yun Jhin shook his head and waved his hand at them making them both disappear as they were absorbed, Yun Jhin could have healed them but he didn''t bother with it, he was already known by the majority of his underlings as the boss above those two so he didn''t fear any mutiny, and if there was a rebellion he would just quell it easily with his strength. Now, what was that earthquake about? Yun Jhin went to one of the balconies of the building and looked outside trying to identify the problem. He looked around and didn''t find anything for a short while before his eyes darted towards the distant horizon, he could see a dark spot there that didn''t exist in that location before. Yun Jhin squinted his eyes as he enhanced their capabilities with ki, if that spot was so small that Yun Jhin had to enhance his already advanced vision it could be considered extremely far away! Even farther away compared to the pool that Yun Jhin found, as he calculated the distance Yun Jhin realized that he would need 3-4 years with teleportation to reach it! And the thing was also enormous, so big that Yun Jhin didn''t know how to explain its size with numbers, after all, it was so far away but it was still visible! Yun Jhin frowned, what could this thing be? All of the information he got from absorbing the duo that served him didn''t mention anything about this, they were both rather young devils and the male devil was also abandoned by the sect so he couldn''t have much secret information. Yun Jhin had been to the 7th and 8th layers before in his former lives but he couldn''t access much information or make a big ruckus back then so he still didn''t know what that black spot was. Could it be a tomb, a tower, or something else that linked it to Hell? Yun Jhin wasn''t a stranger to the inheriting system as he left some inheritances of the blood throne sect himself in the mortal realm, some of them were meant to revive the sect while others were meant for him to have some resources when he reincarnated, unfortunately, he wouldn''t be able to go to them as they were in the location of the blood throne sect''s territory and Yuan Fang was a pain in his side that he couldn''t get rid of. He could be considered quite lucky if the tower had a special inheritance he could take advantage of so he decided to set off to the location by himself. Yun Jhin''s teleportation speed was unrivaled in the 7th layer but the constant use of it also meant he had quite the big consumption of ki even though his teleportation took less ki than the average sage''s. Every 3 months he would have to rest and recover his ki for 10 days even through the use of ki recovering pills, the higher one cultivation was the more ki could they have in their bodies and the more ki would burst through their pathways increasing their explosive strength, the way Yun Jhin teleported made use of his immense amount of ki and the explosiveness of the ki pathways circulation to achieve an immense teleportation speed, however, the 7th layer could be considered boundless and only experts at the peak god realm could travel through the whole 9 layers of hell easily. As Yun Jhin teleported there was a commotion in the 8th and 9th hells. The peak god realm experts in the 9th layer couldn''t care less about the commotion as they cultivated in seclusion but those below the 9th stage were frantic! Lu Yi, Shang Qui, Bing Baboboey, and Vanzuel were the weakest lords in the 9th layer they were around the 1st 2nd and 3rd stags of the God Realm, Vanzuel got his hands on the piece of special stone but he couldn''t use it for cultivation so he was pretty bummed out, he also didn''t want to use it on his subordinates or relatives as they would backstab him if they grew stronger than him. The other God experts were all devils besides Bing Baboboey, he was a demon but he was more refined than the average demon, he could also be considered rather smart as he had the intelligence of the average devil, he couldn''t come close to the scheming of the other people around him but he was still quite smart himself. They just met with each other due to the shockwave and earthquakes they could feel from the 7th layer below them, they knew what this meant as they had awakened their core inheritance memories when they reached the God Realm. Vanzuel was the strongest lord in their small community so he was the one who started to talk first: "You should all know why we met here, Hell''s inheritance Pagoda must have resurfaced after billions of years!" The others nodded as Lu Yi interjected: "We all know why we are here brother Vanzuel, you don''t have to tell us, you aren''t the one who initiated the meeting even though you are the leader!" Vanzuel frowned as he felt that Lu Yi''s tone was rather disrespectful but he couldn''t do much about him, after all the man was only one cultivation stage below him and his battle power wasn''t anything to laugh about. Lu Yi decided to take advantage of him shutting up and said: "You should all know that to enter the pagoda we need something that brother Vanzuel got his hands on recently, we don''t need a big piece of it, and I also heard you have given a small piece of it to your subordinates in the 7th layer?" Vanzuel nodded, he couldn''t hide this from them, the inheritance would be useful for people up to their level but those at the 4th stage and above wouldn''t bother with it, after all, it was only the inheritance of the 7th layer, not the one on the 8th or 9th, if the inheritance of the 9th layer appeared, even those sleeping peak God Realm monsters would wake up to get a piece of the pie. Vanzuel knew they were trying to exhort the piece of multicolored rock from him but he unleashed his aura and started to negotiate with them, even though they were all quite strong and they could beat him if they teamed up, devils rarely worked with each other due to their backstabbing nature. Also, devils would never sign contracts with other devils there were too many ways to slip tricks into a contract. Vanzuel didn''t walk empty-handed from the trade as he got some territory and some pools in the 9th layer while the others each got a piece of the multicolored rock. While people at the 8th and 9th layers were currently doing their best to find more multicolored rocks Yun Jhin was getting closer and closer to the inheritance pagoda. As time passed Yun Jhin was already half-way there! Chapter 148: Entering the pagoda As Yun Jhin got closer and closer to the black spot he could start to recognize what it truly was! It was a dark pagoda made out of hellish iron of the highest quality! Even though he was far away he could recognize the iron from a glance, he still remembered how he almost lost his life to a rival of his from hell who wore an armor made from this iron! The power of this iron was that the more of it existed the stronger the defensive capabilities of it would be, so technically that gigantic pagoda should be impenetrable! Also, the pagoda shouldn''t even exist, the iron was very rare and even those in the 9th layer wouldn''t squander it on anything besides heavy armors. Yun Jhin frowned as he got closer to the pagoda, he could feel other ki signatures appearing in the 7th layer that he was rather apprehensive of, they were all at the later stages of the sage realm and above! Yun Jhin could feel their presence because they were making sure to expose it and the distance between them wasn''t that big, it seemed the inhabitants of the 7th layer weren''t the only ones who wanted to get a piece of this inheritance. Yun Jhin didn''t mind the competition, these types of inheritances were extremely hard to get and they grew accordingly harder to the cultivation and battle power of the person who entered. So if a God realm expert entered he would have tasks that only a God Realm expert could do, the same could be said for the realms below. As Yun Jhin got closer and closer to the pagoda he felt that the same could be said about the people that came after him, and he wasn''t talking about the sage realm experts! He could feel that his hair was rising due to danger and that only meant one thing, God Realm experts were making their move! While he didn''t mind them entering the pagoda for the inheritance he didn''t want to be seen by them or there would be trouble! He immediately used his stealth technique as he stopped teleporting, teleportation would attract attention due to the energy fluctuations that would pierce through space, fortunately, he wasn''t that far from the pagoda anymore and he could fly there. Yun Jhin looked up and saw spatial cracks appearing in the air, he was currently laying on the hot ground of hell which was almost akin to lava, the lava-like heat didn''t really affect Yun Jhin at this point, after all, his body refinement rank was at the maximum possible. The 5 Gods from the 9th layer appeared and looked around, they felt the fluctuations of space breaking at high speeds that were comparable to themselves and they thought there was another companion from the 9th layer but there was no one here. They realized that the person who was teleporting didn''t want to meet them so they snorted and left with a flick of their sleeves, it wasn''t that they didn''t want to search for the culprit but they wanted to rush to the inheritance and the first ones to enter so they would have a higher chance of getting to the inheritance first. Yun Jhin flew at a low altitude at his quickest speed while making sure he didn''t emit any ki, he knew that if he let out any fluctuations of ki those three could come back and attack him. While they wanted to rush to the pagoda and be first, they wouldn''t mind taking care of the competition on the way. Yun Jhin''s control over his own ki was as exquisite and perfect as it could be so there was no chance for them to find him if he didn''t want them to. After another while of flying, Yun Jhin arrived at the base of the pagoda, it was stretching endlessly into the red skies of the 7th layer and it was quite imposing, Yun Jhin admired it for 1 second before he started to search for the entrance. He could see that some sages tried to barge into the Pagoda from time to time but there was no luck on their side There were no Gods around and that meant they should have entered the pagoda by now. Yun Jhin looked around the gigantic pagoda and couldn''t find any entrance, there were no doors, windows, or any openings that he could exploit to enter it, not even the tiniest one! It was just a giant pagoda made of dark hellish iron and he really didn''t know how the others entered, the inheritance of hell was something foreign to him and all he could do now was try and see how he could enter it. He tried multiple ways, infusing his ki into the pagoda, trying to hit it with his fists, attacking it with his techniques, but all he did was fail spectacularly, his attempts also riled up the other sages around as they tried to do the same thing as him. Yun Jhin frowned, if these types of interactions didn''t work that meant there would be a need for a key or some sort of sacrifice, considering all of the sages were still around and living that meant there was no need for a living sacrifice. Yun Jhin thought for a short while before he realized that the multicolored rock might be the key to enter the Pagoda, it was too much of a coincidence for the Pagoda to appear a little bit later after the first multicolored rock was found. But how the hell did Hao Tian get his hands on such a thing? The mysteries of being a fortuned one... Yun Jhin took the multicolored rock out of his spatial dimension and the Pagoda immediately reacted as a door opened in front of him, Yun Jhin couldn''t even do anything before the door absorbed him along with the rock! The surroundings were all dark, just like the emptiness one felt right after death or before one was born. Yun Jhin didn''t like this type of environment at all, it reminded him of all of his failures at achieving true eternal life. He also felt something wasn''t right, he tried to look around only to feel that he couldn''t move his head nor his body anymore, it was just like back then when he was newly born as a caterpillar. This wasn''t right... what type of test was this? Yun Jhin tried his best to move or even make a sound but all he did was a small movement with his left foot. He couldn''t hear anything, he couldn''t see anything, he couldn''t smell anything! This was a type of torture in itself, however, Yun Jhin started to adapt to this after a short while, he had been in more precarious situations before and this situation could also be used to temper his soul so he could restore them to their former peak. As time passed Yun Jhin could feel that his body was getting stronger and stronger, with his meditation he could even get some silvers of ki from the void and infuse them into his body to strengthen it. He could feel that he wasn''t connected to the celestial realm anymore as he couldn''t cultivate using celestial ki anymore. However, this could be considered normal as the inside of the pagoda could have technically cut his connection to the celestial realm due to the spatial interference, if he guessed correctly he was just a baby right now! Yun Jhin wasn''t sure what the test consisted of but he was currently unborn with the mind of an adult, this didn''t happen in all of his previous lives as normally a soul would enter the baby''s body when they would make their first cry. Time trickled by slowly as Yun Jhin''s body increased in size and strength, finally, after what felt like an eternity Yun Jhin could feel the wind tickling his small naked body! He looked up to see a roughed shaved face of a man who wore a wolf''s head like a cap, he gazed into Yun Jhin''s eyes as he put his finger on his belly and inserted a fringe of ice-cold ki into it. Yun Jhin could feel that his vitality was quickly being severed by the finger and that his new life was quickly coming to an end. The man shook his head seeing Yun Jhin''s cooling body as he snorted: "Another failure, what a bother, when will I get an offspring who can endure the Ice Transformation of Heaven and Earth technique?" Yun Jhin''s eyes were slowly closing as his body went numb, the man also dropped Yun Jhin as he was holding him by the left foot like he was a grape, Yun Jhin could feel time slow down as he was falling to the ground below him, he could identify it as granite meaning his tender brains would sprain on it immediately! Suddenly a sickly cough could be heard as two arms held him and brought his cooling body to her chest, tears started to pour out of his new mother''s eyes as she looked at her dying son. She looked into the eyes of the male ahead of her and she couldn''t do anything as the man glared at her. Yun Jhin didn''t feel anything as he died... things just stopped, reality cracked apart around him only to find himself in the same situation as back then, darkness, no smell nor sense of touch, he was practically a fetus again! "This is so troublesome... what am I even supposed to do in this situation?" Yun Jhin was currently stumped by the trial he was given by the pagoda, he thought that he might have to kill something or solve some puzzles just like normal inheritances but it seemed this was rather different to what he thought about... It was definitely annoying, when he was born would his new-new father kill him too? There was only one way to find out... and that was to wait. Chapter 149: This treasure isnt for you (1) Yun Jhin got used to the darkness and the feeling of being unable to move his body since the first birth, so he just closed his eyes and started to meditate not trying to think about his surroundings and he just let time pass... Slowly but surely Yun Jhin could fill the wind hit his buttocks as he was born again! This time he was directly in the arms of his mother who was coddling him and looking at him with tender love, a roughed male who wore a yellow robe was looking down at him and his mother while having a nervous expression on his face. Yun Jhin looked around as he thought: "Strange.. last time I was killed instantly but now this looks like a normal family? What is this test supposed to be?" Yun Jhin then had to drink some milk from his mother as his tummy grumbled, after he had his fill Yun Jhin still didn''t know what to do in this situation: "Should I just live like this? This is such a bother, the pagoda didn''t even give me any information regarding what I should do, I''m even wasting time this way, what would the other trials be?" Each trial was handmade for each person that entered the pagoda and it would be equal regardless of their cultivation base, Yun Jhin wasn''t sure what the others got but considering his innate talent and his special body it meant that his trial could be considered harder and easier at the same time. Yun Jhin slept in his mother''s arms as he waited for something to happen, it surely wouldn''t be just a normal life right? He felt that something was wrong but in the end, as time passed Yun Jhin realized that his feelings weren''t as accurate anymore, he grew up to be 2 years old or so and there were still no problems! His father and mother loved him dearly and they also gave him whatever he asked for, they weren''t rich but things worked out just fine, his father was a carpenter and his mother was a cook in the small village they lived in. This looked like the start of something, Yun Jhin knew because a lot of his reincarnations started in such small villages, they would either get pillaged or attacked by bandits and sometimes he would be able to join their efforts to jump-start his cultivation. But as time passed Yun Jhin reached 6 years old and no bandits were coming at all! He acted just like a normal child as he hid his budding cultivation, it seemed that even though his senses were getting messed with, he could still use his cultivation knowledge to strengthen himself, right now he was barely at the 3rd stage of the earthly realm. It couldn''t be helped, the surrounding ki was very poor and that meant they lived in an inauspicious location. Yun Jhin hated this, he didn''t know what would happen if he went on a rampage and absorbed these people to further his cultivation, all of them were normal people without any bit of cultivation, some of them had rather strong bodies due to their manual work and agriculture but that was all, Yun Jhin could easily snap these strong people necks like they were chickens with his current cultivation. But if he did that there was also a chance that he could fail again, who knew what would happen if he failed too many times? Would his life be in peril or would he just be ejected out? Things were quite annoying in this regard, inheritances like these who didn''t inform you of anything were the trickiest and hardest to do because they made the challenger use 100% of their knowledge and ability at the same time. Life was a bit too peaceful for Yun Jhin''s liking, he wasn''t a warmonger but his cultivation base was increasing at a snail''s pace, he only felt exhilarated when his cultivation increased at high speeds! Yun Jhin sighed as he entered his home then sat at the dinner table, his mother was cooking a big fat juicy pig, roasting it then glazing it into honey, while Yun Jhin didn''t need to eat when his cultivation was higher, now that he was just an earthly realm practitioner again, food was always welcome! While ki was faint in his location he could use nutrients from food to increase his cultivation speed. His father entered the house with a smile as he dropped a pouch of coins on the table with a burst of laughter: "We are going to the city!" Yun Jhin''s mother cried out in happiness as she watched the silver coins drop on the table, she gave her husband a big kiss and a hug as she waited for Yun Jhin to join them. Yun Jhin laughed too as he gave both of them a hug while he asked: "How is the city?" His father immediately started to give him a vivid description of the city, which thought to be very beautiful and magnificent, for a person like his father the city would be magnificent, but as Yun Jhin heard the description he realized that it was a dump, it just relatively better compared to their small village. Yun Jhin didn''t say anything as his father finished the description of the city, he smiled as he watched his parents making their bags so they could move. Yun Jhin nor his mother asked him how he made the money, they both believed in his honest nature and how he carried himself around them since they knew him. They arrived in the city three months later then they bought a small house at the outskirts, the house was made of hay and clay, it wasn''t anything special, it was almost worse compared to their former house, but Yun Jhin''s father had a big smile on his face as he left the house and went to find work in the city. As time passed the night fell but his father didn''t come back, his mother started to mutter to herself as she called Yun Jhin over and asked if his father ever came back while she was out grocery shopping, or if he sent word through someone. Unfortunately, there had been no such things! Suddenly there was a knock at the door as a well-built man entered without waiting for a response, the man wore a police uniform that consisted of black armor, military boots, and a cap. He bowed towards Yun Jhin''s mom as he revealed something inside a piece of cloth, it was his father''s severed head! His mother paled as she put a hand towards her mouth, she started to retch as she couldn''t stop herself and vomited on the spot. The policeman frowned then said: "We found his severed head near the merchant district, it seemed he had borrowed some money and he couldn''t give them back in the allocated time." Yun Jhin knew this was most likely a lie, his father would never borrow money, they might have thought of him to be new blood that they could take advantage of and he was unfortunately killed in the scuffle, even though his father was a simple man who would do honest work, he didn''t like to be ripped off. The police officer shook his head as he continued: "His body wasn''t found, it''s unknown who the killer is but we have some suspects, as his last remaining family you will need to come to the police office for us to protect you." His mother nodded as she couldn''t look towards the piece of cloth anymore, she was trembling so hard that it looked she would fall any time, and if Yun Jhin wasn''t currently supporting her she would have fallen to the ground by now. She slowly made her way towards the policeman as they followed him to the police station. There they talked for a bit while the policeman comforted both of them, Yun Jhin was currently cleaning his small face with his trembling hands, he was truly a very good actor! A little bit of time passed and the killer wasn''t found, as more time passed the police station couldn''t keep Yun Jhin and his mother there anymore, so they had to go back to their house, due to the earner of the family dying, Yun Jhin and his mother also had to go and get jobs now. For Yun Jhin it wasn''t hard to scam people and he always came back with some money, this way his mother didn''t really have to work as he was supporting her and himself easily, the city location had a little bit more ki so Yun Jhin''s cultivation also increased to the 4th stage of the earthly realm. As time passed Yun Jhin became 11 years old... He was at an average height for his age and he was around 43 kilograms, under his baggy grey shirt there were muscles packed that would make you think if he was either a midget or dwarf in disguise as a child. Yun Jhin''s scamming was hard to track to and he could disguise himself using regular appliances found around the normal house of a civilian so no one really found him, he didn''t have to deal with cultivators either so he could easily make money without any problems. Yun Jhin still didn''t know what he was supposed to do in this situation, were his father''s killers going to come after them sooner or later? Would he have to protect his mother? When will this trial really end? As Yun Jhin put these questions in his mind, he came home to his mother who was currently cooking a feast for him, they had already bought a bigger and better house and they could eat whatever they wanted, his mother knew what he was doing but she wasn''t sure how he got such knowledge, however, as a normal person as long as she got what she needed she wouldn''t question such things, they lived well and there weren''t any problems at all since Yun Jhin started his ''job''. Actually, there were a few problems at first but Yun Jhin swiftly dealt with them by killing the people that wanted to trouble him, he realized that killing didn''t really pose a problem in the trial but he felt that if he killed his parents then there would be problems, it was just like a hunch he had, he needed to protect his mother! His father was predestined to die but his mother needed to be alive for him to complete the trial. So while he went scamming he would also ask out for information of any special things, such as glowing flowers or grasses or any types of plants like these, he wanted to increase his cultivation to make sure whatever was going to come to him, he would be ready! He really wanted that inheritance from Hell it could help his main body''s cultivation shoot up by a lot! He found the trial to be quite strange, hell a location that everyone thought as evil would give out such trials that were meant for righteous scions of the universe? Was he wrong with his regards to protecting his mother? But his instincts told him that if he protected her he would be able to get the inheritance... so until he got any more information he would trust his instincts. Chapter 150: This treasure isnt for you (2) Yun Jhin realized his mission through his instinct, he wasn''t truly sure if this was the right thing to do to get the inheritance but he had no other leads! There were no pieces of information, no guides, nothing! All he had was his brain and instincts, this inheritance trial was harder than it looked on the surface, Yun Jhin was currently going through another life and if it was anyone else they wouldn''t have been able to do this. Yun Jhin''s eyes sparkled as he looked at his mother and realized why he was given this trial, it was because he was a reincarnator! He was given a mission according to his former experiences and memories, if he thought a little harder about it, this situation seemed pretty familiar to him, he needed to go through one of his older memories to remember everything though... While his mother went to sleep, Yun Jhin feigned going to sleep as well, they lived really well currently and things were going so well that his mother started to lose the fear she had gained from seeing Yun Jhin''s father''s death those years ago. He still would think about him and sob from time to time but it seemed she was slowly moving on from him. Yun Jhin sat on his bed and meditated, even though he had access to an immense pool of memories, they were so many that some of the older ones needed to be accessed manually for him to know about them, he knew they were in his subconscious and things that he knew would seem familiar to him, thus now that he was in a familiar situation he needed to access his older memories. Yun Jhin''s back arched as an influx of memories from one of his older previous lives entered his mind, these were... these were the memories of the previous man that killed his newly born body, that man was him! It seemed he was forced to relive what he had done to his previous progeny or something among those lines if things were as he suspected. He thought for a little more time and accessed memories regarding the current trial. his eyes widened as he looked towards the location of his mother''s room, so that''s how it was, he truly understood now! He wanted to leave the house and escape but suddenly he felt a gigantic pressure put on his body, he couldn''t move at all anymore! His body which was refined and at the earthly realm couldn''t move at all, which meant a cultivator with a higher cultivation base was around! The door of his mother''s room started to crack slowly, his mother came out with a sweet smile on her face as she looked into Yun Jhin''s petrified eyes. He couldn''t move any part of his body, not even his eyes! His mother slowly got near him as she looked into his eyes for a few seconds before saying: "I knew you are a weird one... being able to cultivate since being in my belly, think I couldn''t sense you gather ki inside?" Yun Jhin''s fears were true, his mother was actually himself from a few hundreds of reincarnations ago! While Yun Jhin enjoyed being a male, he couldn''t be one every time, so he had experienced being both genders along with other types of beings. He knew that his old reincarnation wanted to use him as a sacrifice when he became 15 years old to achieve what was called, a family blood pact. It was used to further one''s cultivation in poor locations such as this one, Yun Jhin remembered how he easily succeeded in killing his progeny and drinking his blood for the pact. And if things went the same way as they did in his previous life that would mean he was going to die here! His senses were wrong, it seemed his mother was actually manipulating him into thinking that he was supposed to protect her, the reason his father died was that his mother killed him! His mother frowned as she looked into his brown eyes and told him: "You are a bit too uncooked right now... I cannot use you." Yun Jhin didn''t have to say these words in his former reincarnation, his child wasn''t a reincarnated one and he successfully drank his blood on his 15th birthday. Yun Jhin remembered the face of pain and betrayal his son had at him the moment he killed him and extracted his blood... And his fate was going to be similar! Yun Jhin could feel his chest being pressed on as his mother''s dainty hands were currently moving around on it: "You thought that I wouldn''t see through you right? You are so obvious, the way you act, how many reincarnations have you been through up till now, 2? 3? Hahahaha what an amateur." Yun Jhin didn''t keep his guard up thinking this was only a simple test where there wouldn''t be any cultivators around due to his location, but it seemed he had made a fatal mistake in this situation! His body fell to the floor of the house as he was paralyzed, suddenly he could move his head and mouth but he couldn''t move anything else, it seemed his mother was ready to torture him, or rather he was ready to torture himself! Yun Jhin tried to tell her that this was a test and he was herself, but no sound came from his mouth, those words were blocked by the inheritance trial! His mother''s hands entered his chest as it started to slowly make their way towards his heart, the woman sighed as she looked longingly at his face and said: "Only if you could mature some more... you aren''t ripe yet, couldn''t you have been clueless for some more time?" Yun Jhin gritted his teeth as he looked into her eyes and decided to self-destruct! However, his ki pathways were suddenly closed by a forceful increase in ki output from the woman and she laughed coquettishly as she put her other hand near her mouth and told him: "Self-Destruction? Want to go and reincarnate again don''t you? TOO BAD!" Yun Jhin felt his air supply being taken as his face started to change into different colors, she didn''t want to kill him fast, she wanted him to suffer for delaying her plans! Yun Jhin moved his hand left and right trying to do anything to escape from her iron grip, but he couldn''t do anything, his body was paralyzed! Yun Jhin suddenly chuckled, so this was the true test, wasn''t it? He would make sure he would pass it the next time he reincarnated! Seeing his look that turned peaceful and his chuckle made the woman shook her head as she gripped his heart, she gave it a small tight squeeze as Yun Jhin''s life was severed from him. Yun Jhin''s last vision was of her mother slowly eating his heart with a begrudging look on her face, seemingly she was dissatisfied with the taste! Yun Jhin found himself in the same darkness as before, but now he knew what he was supposed to do! The moment he felt the familiar sensation he would directly search through his memories to see in which reincarnation he was being placed by the trial and as who he was being placed into! Time passed again, he was born again, and this time as he looked around he realized that he was in a tundra, his body was slowly freezing to death and there were even some wolves who were eyeing him as prey! He looked up to see his father''s visage only to realize that his father was his former reincarnation, he was going to become wolf food! The wolves growled as they smelled the Yun Jhin''s fresh body, he was just born and practically a delicacy for the wolves, his tender meat would taste oh so sweet for them! His father was keeping him tightly to his chest, but he knew he was contemplating if to throw him at the wolves or not! Yun Jhin immediately connected to his memory core to see which life was this and he realized that in this one he was the progeny of a princess that he wooed and impregnated while he was younger, due to his birth origin the princess''s father and mother shunned him and his sweetheart away, they ended up in the tundra to escape the pursuit of the king''s men. In many lives Yun Jhin ended up dying one way or another, there were very few lives where he ended up really successful, but all the failures built him up to become a more deadly person. However, what could he do in this situation? He was a baby in the hands of his former reincarnation, fortunately, this was one of the earlier reincarnations and he could try to fool himself! Yun Jhin sent a soul message towards the wolves, they were simple animals and his current body was quite weak, this was one of those situations that he tried to use the princess to gain cultivation resources but he failed. Yun Jhin''s soul was very strong and even though he was currently in a new born''s body he could somewhat influence their thoughts, the wolves turned their tail down as they whimpered and left Yun Jhin, his father, and his dead mother alone. The birth took too much out of Yun Jhin''s mother and she died. His father which was his former reincarnation looked at the body for a few seconds before glancing at the infant in his hands and sighing: "My ticket to resources is gone.. all I have is this useless son of mine... should I just abandon him here? But why did the wolves leave?" He frowned as he felt the wolves leaving and whimpering like that wasn''t normal, what could have scared them away like that? Yun Jhin''s baby form didn''t move at all as he kept himself as still as possible, things didn''t go like this in this previous reincarnation so he wasn''t truly sure what his former consciousness would do in this situation, after all, they were fundamentally two different persons due to the experiences that molded him into what he was today, at first he had a little bit of humanity on him and that was what the current Yun Jhin was betting on to escape from this situation, he still wasn''t sure what the trial wanted him to do, but he knew that he was pitied against his former reincarnations! Fight thyself to conquer thyself per se. Chapter 151: This treasure isnt for you (3) Yun Jhin realized that he was pitied against his former reincarnations if he guessed correctly, the trial was somehow making him live the lives of those he wronged in the past, no matter if they were his offsprings, women that he used, or men that he used. He wasn''t sure what he was supposed to do in this situation, kill his former reincarnation to finish the trial? Escape from it? As he was currently in baby form all he could do was rely on his former reincarnation, fortunately, he was an earlier reincarnation and he still had some humanity left in him, he was in the 10 or 20 first reincarnations. Yun Jhin''s baby form looked at his former reincarnation''s face with an innocent look, this made him melt up a little bit, he was in a tundra but he still keeping the baby to his chest trying to keep him warm. Yun Jhin''s current situation was quite pitiful, his body was literally freezing to death and there wasn''t much he could do in this situation if his father didn''t help him, while his soul could influence normal beings it couldn''t be useful on cultivators at the heavenly realm or above and his ''father'' was currently around the 5th or 6th heavenly realm from what he inferred by his soul scan. It wasn''t a problem with the strength of his soul but his body, technically speaking Yun Jhin''s current soul shouldn''t be contained in the body of a newborn or it would explode, somehow the trial made it so his soul wouldn''t deteriorate the body nor destroy it but if he used even 2% or 3% of his true strength, the body would surely explode! His father''s figure was shaking as the cold was getting to him as well, his cultivation wasn''t that high and the tundras cold was surely seeping in his body as well, it was actually a miracle Yun Jhin''s current baby body resisted up till now, he should have died by hypothermia tens of minutes after birth but he somehow was still alive. Yun Jhin could feel some heat in his stomach that was keeping him alive, it was the remaining energy from his mother that she gave him when she died during childbirth, the energy was keeping him alive at this point but the energy would run out sooner or later, and his father was eyeing him with a rather greedy gaze, he wanted to rip his stomach open to get the energy from his small body so he wouldn''t die! Yun Jhin knew that he shooed the wolfs away only to be in the teeth of a tiger, there wasn''t much he could do to him, all he could do was try to make himself look as innocent as possible and fool him into taking care of him, hoping to appease to his remaining humanity, the earlier reincarnations killed a lot when it came to adults but they were a little harder to convince on killing children. This was why Yun Jhin was still alive at this point even though he had something his ''father'' needed. But Yun Jhin knew that his thoughts wandered to the energy that his mother left into his body, the energy that he wanted to absorb for himself so he could live a little bit longer thinking that he might escape! In the end, he did escape from the pursuit of the king, the nation they lived in was rather small and as they got farther and farther away from it the king realized that his troops being away from the nation for too much of a time would let them be ambushed by the rival nations, in the end, Yun Jhin was saved by the dog-eat-dog world characteristic of the cultivation world in this reincarnation. But would they survive to get out of the tundra at this rate? Yun Jhin''s baby body was starting to shake even though he still had energy inside his stomach, there was a high chance they would both die at this point! His father''s eyes started to wander over his small body as his hands closed into his stomach, he was ready to split it open and take away the remaining energy that was slowly diminishing with time! Yun Jhin started crying as he felt the cold hand on his belly, seeing him acting this way made the reincarnation reconsider for a few seconds, after all, Yun Jhin was just an innocent baby, could he really kill him to save himself? As they got further and further into the tundra somehow the cold air started to turn a little bit hotter... his former reincarnation started to run quicker as he could feel his arms and legs again, slowly but surely the surrounding temperature was increasing! They were reaching ''the eye of the storm'' which shouldn''t technically exist in a tundra, but this was the same way Yun Jhin survived when he was in this reincarnation. Actually it took Yun Jhin all his strength to reach this ''eyes of the storm'' in his previous life, but now he could influence his former reincarnation using his stronger soul, while he couldn''t control or scare him into submission, he could give him small hints with his soul that wouldn''t trigger his suspicion. The heat finally was good enough for them to start resting, Yun Jhin was put to rest in a small haystack that his former reincarnation took out of his spatial bag, Yun Jhin remembered that this hay would have been used to lit up a fire for a diversion to escape from the pursuit who caught up to him when he reached the eye of the storm, now that he was at the eye of the storm faster than in his previous life there was a lower chance they could catch up to him. Yun Jhin felt his belly rumble, he was finally starting to get hungry! He needed milk but where could his former reincarnation take milk from? There were no animals that he could milk in the eye of the storm, but there were some fruits here and there. His former reincarnation went and picked up a few of them and mashed them into a gel-like substance that he inserted his ki into it then fed to Yun Jhin, it was better than motherly milk in nutrients, this was a technique Yun Jhin used in his former lives when he was poorer and had to live in the wilderness. Yun Jhin''s small body started to cough as the energy that his mother left dissipated, it had been around 15 hours since his mother''s death and it was impressive the energy she last gave him could be sustained up till now. Seeing Yun Jhin''s rapidly cooling body made his former reincarnation understand that while his body was protected by the energy, the rebound coming to him was quite big, how could a baby not even a few days old resist the power of a cultivator? Not even strong and healthy adults could resist a sudden influx of energy from a cultivator, they could explode from the inside if they weren''t talented nor had any unawakened constitutions. Fortunately for Yun Jhin the energy that was inside his body was very weak and even though it lasted long it wasn''t of a high amount, thus if he was treated he could be saved. But his current reincarnation didn''t know any healing techniques! He was rather poor in knowledge considering the first 100 reincarnations, but as he reincarnated more and more he became a jack of all trades who mastered all of them! Yun Jhin knew that he would die if he was left like this so all he could do was send some information into his former reincarnations soul that would give him the proper healing technique so he could be helped, he would die anyway, this would certainly be a gamble at this point but there was nothing else to lose and everything to gain. Yun Jhin looked directly into his ''father''s'' eyes as he started to send the information through a hastily made soul link, his father''s eyes narrowed as he looked directly towards Yun Jhin and said: "Someone like me? No, he was way stronger in his former life, this is my first time meeting another person who can reincarnate, is this fate? A reincarnated one having a baby who is another reincarnated one?" Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation slowly got near the haystack that he left down while his hands started to burn with red energy, then he used that energy to attack Yun Jhin''s body! Yun Jhin''s paling complexion immediately started to turn a little bit rosier as the cold energy in his body that came from the tundra was expelled by his former reincarnation technique. Yun Jhin sent him some more information creating a fake identity that he used, he also promised him more techniques and ways to grow stronger if he kept him safe. Yun Jhin''s ''father'' started to ponder Yun Jhin''s proposition, he only had to keep him alive and he could be like a walking library that could teach him whatever he needed! After a short moment, Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation nodded at him and there was a change in the universe, a thunderstorm appeared above them but it disappeared as quickly as it came, Yun Jhin could also feel a strange connection from the universe on his former reincarnation... Did he just become a fortuned one right now? Fortuned ones could be created like this? Yun Jhin gained an interesting piece of knowledge right now, but could it be used outside the pagoda''s territory? Chapter 152: This treasure isnt for you (4) Yun Jhin gauged his former reincarnation aura and narrowed his eyes as he felt that he truly got the qualities of a fortuned one! The old master trapped in a bottle teaching the main character his overpowered techniques? Yun Jhin chuckled inside, so this was one way a fortuned one could gain his constitution, up till now he only met with fortuned ones that already gained their constitutions, most ones we''re born with the constitution that attracted innate luck from others, but it seemed you could also create fortuned ones in this way... Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation got closer to him as he looked into his eyes and told him: "I guess you could be helpful, you must have reincarnated more times than me and you have more experience, I guess I could you call you senior but your current body situation makes it rather awkward for me." Imagine calling your son that was only a day or so old senior... that was quite strange indeed. Yun Jhin shook his head as he sent more soul messages explaining to him some things that he should look out for to shake off the pursuit, as Yun Jhin used his memories to remember which route the pursuit of the king''s men came from, his former reincarnation was slowly digesting the information he had been given. After a few seconds Yun Jhin sent him more information regarding the location where the troops could come, he also sent a detailed explanation telling him how he inferred that he was being pursued, things that started from the way he looked to the state of his clothes, Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation and his current ''father'' was wearing very ragged clothes and this was one of the reasons he almost died due to the cold of the tundra. Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation bought the explanation, after all, he could be considered still wet behind the ears regarding the reincarnation business at this point, he only had 10 or 20 reincarnations finished and none of them were truly successful! Yun Jhin''s early days of reincarnation were the hardest but every failure tempered him and his willpower, fortunately, he only died to opponents around the same strength as his early on when he was a newbie or his soul could have been obliterated and taken out of the circle of reincarnation. Yun Jhin''s father picked him up as he started to walk through the eye of the storm towards the exit that Yun Jhin pointed out after a while of contemplating, Yun Jhin made it look like he needed some thinking time because if he gave responses too fast he would alert his former reincarnation, after all, while he was still behind the ears he was still quite jumpy considered the current situation, he would start to doubt Yun Jhin a little bit if he knew too much information, after all, what was the chance for a reincarnated person to reincarnate on the same continent on the same planet in the same region? It was almost null! In Yun Jhin''s countless reincarnations there had never been such an instance! They easily exited the tundra region as time passed one month went by, Yun Jhin baby body finally could talk and he didn''t need to send his soul willpower to his former reincarnation anymore, after all, every time he used his soul in his current body there was a high chance his body would collapse, even for those relatively smaller things, the chance was just very low but it was still there! Yun Jhin and his ''father'' were currently talking about cultivation near a campfire, they already had left the pursuit of the Yatul king behind them and they also left the Yatul Kingdom well behind them. They were currently on a human-dominated planet and it was full of kingdoms and people that were practically coming from the middle-ages, their cultivation knowledge was quite backward but there were a lot of untapped resources on the planet that could be used and Yun Jhin knew the location of some of the more important ones! Yun Jhin looked into his ''father''s'' eyes as he told him: "You already broke through to the 7th stage of the heavenly realm? It seems something changed about you." His father chuckled as he said and shook his head with a sly smile on his face: "It just that senior''s guidance is a bit too good, you only taught me 3 things and I have been enlightened to such a stage!" Yun Jhin knew his former reincarnation was trying to butter him up for more knowledge but if he gave him too much knowledge there was a chance he would be backstabbed, even though he was currently in baby form, now that the man ahead of him knew that there wasn''t a newborn soul into this shell, he could easily strengthen himself to kill Yun Jhin! While he would take pity on newborn souls who had no memories, Yun Jhin was practically an adult, even though he had a baby''s body he had an adult mind and his former reincarnation could justify his action that way. So he had to keep him on a tight leash regarding cultivation knowledge, Yun Jhin himself started to slowly cultivate but cultivation couldn''t be rushed at the moment, the earthly realm placed emphasis on the body refining aspect by a bit, and his baby body wouldn''t be able to withstand the energy from their current surroundings, he would either have to grow older or find a location with pure and gentle ki that could he absorb for cultivation. Yun Jhin looked towards his ''father''s'' eyes again as he told him: "I need to cultivate so I don''t have to rely on you, do you know any locations with gentle ki that I can use?" Yun Jhin knew of a few locations on the planet they were currently on but this was both a test to see if his former reincarnation wanted to help him genuinely and a way to mask his knowledge to let his former reincarnation guard go down a bit. His former reincarnation thought for a little time and shook his head but then seemingly a lightbulb appeared above his head and he said: "Actually at first I couldn''t think of anything but now that I remember properly there was such a place with gentle ki, it isn''t of much use for me as I''m already at the Heavenly realm but for you, with your current body it would be useful for cultivation, unluckily it was quite far away from where we are and it''s also controlled by a local sect, it''s also quite near the Yatul kingdom so if we are found by a patrol there is a chance a new pursuit team could be assembled to take us in and execute us." Yun Jhin pondered for a short while before he told his ''father'': "There is no problem, I have a technique that could let us enter the sect without being found as well as easily escape from any patrols of the kingdom, here let me send it to your soul." Yun Jhin let out a small soul willpower wave come from his head as it inserted itself into his former reincarnation''s, then his ''father''s'' eyes started to shine as he bowed to Yun Jhin and told him: "Even though I don''t like calling you senior you really are something else!" Yun Jhin gave him the first part of his patented stealth technique, he didn''t give him the version which he improved using Hao Tian''s bloodline experiences as he couldn''t use it anyways, also if he showed too much of a high knowledge there was a chance his former reincarnations greed would get triggered and he would try to absorb his soul thinking that his soul was still at the recovering stage, if he tried to assimilate his soul at this point, his vessel would die but he would be able to annihilate his former reincarnation''s soul as well, but that meant the failure of the test. Yun Jhin knew that he would fail if his vessel was destroyed, just like last time when his ''mother'' severed his heart and ate it, his vessel was destroyed and he was sent back to retake the test in another form. Yun Jhin had his ''father'' to practice the stealth technique and with his current fortuned constitution which was boosting his natural talent by quite a lot, he learned it under 2 days, after that they started to walk back the same way they went through. Food was still a problem but not very much, they already made some supplies when they left the tundra as animals and multiple types of wild fruits could be found after one exited the tundra, so going back through it was easier. Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation was also stronger so he could keep Yun Jhin''s baby body-safe enough through the cold, after all, even a speck of his dead mother''s ki was able to keep him alive through the tundra, fortunately, they didn''t encounter any blizzards during their first travel. But now they weren''t as lucky anymore, as they left the eye of the storm, they realized that compared to before temperature was way lower than before. Sharp winds were howling in the tundra as a strong blizzard was created, howls of cultivation beasts could be heard coming from the once silent tundra. Yun Jhin could feel that the blizzard had awakened the animals that liked this type of environment and frowned, they took a bad time to come back, unfortunately, Yun Jhin didn''t know about this, after all, he never came back to the Yatul kingdom after he left in his former life, he only went forward and he didn''t even have time to come for revenge, at some point he died on the planet trying to get one of the special resources and had to reincarnate. So he wasn''t aware of the events that were unfolding in this tundra after he left it behind. Yun Jhin cursed his hastiness as he told his former reincarnation back away into the eye of the storm where they would be safe, the location''s heat was something that the beasts in this location who awoke due to the cold wouldn''t like at all. Suddenly the earth started shaking as a furry paw grabbed onto his former reincarnations right leg and dragged him down into the ground along with Yun Jhin who was strapped to his back using a baby basket made from bamboo and flexible wood. Chapter 153: This treasure isnt for you (5) Yun Jhin''s eyes were closed as they were covered by snow, his breathing was shallow and he could feel his chest hurting like it was rammed by a bull, he tried to move his small hands to clear his eyes so he could regain his vision, in his current situation he couldn''t use his soul as he would injure his body even further, his soul was putting pressure on his body even while it was healthy, using it in this situation was suicide. Yun Jhin could hardly move his small chubby hands towards his eyes as he cleared the snow on them, then he looked around, he realized that he was in an underground cave made by the being that dragged them underground, it was pretty spacious and Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation couldn''t be found anywhere. He tried to move but his chest hurt too much, it wasn''t known where his former reincarnation was dragged by the beast but it seemed he was left behind because he wasn''t nutritious enough for the beast to eat, the basket that was tied to his former reincarnations back snapped the moment they were dragged through the snow into the cave so here he was. Yun Jhin tried to drag his body out of the pile of snow he was currently in but considering he wasn''t even a month old yet meant that it was easier said than done... he also took a chest hit when he hit the ground even though he was snuggled in the basket pretty well. Yun Jhin frowned, what could he do in this situation? Three yips were coming from nearby and Yun Jhin froze, the being that just dragged them both underground had kids! Three furry white balls made their way towards Yun Jhin as they sniffed the air, they were pretty cute as they rolled around in the snowy underground cave. Yun Jhin couldn''t move properly so they three balls got near him and started to sniff him, because Yun Jhin was so close to his former reincarnation when he was attacked some of the attackers smell rubbed off on him and his former reincarnation as well. Suddenly one of the white balls started to yip at him while getting closer, he licked Yun Jhin across the face and then started to growl! Yun Jhin could feel that the lick made his chest feel better, Yun Jhin realized that they were peculiar beasts the moment they appeared but their healing saliva made him realize that they were special Snow Garguans, only Snow Garguans could use their saliva to heal and they could be considered a rare beast that anyone below the God Realm would want as a pet. Adult snow Garguans could heal one from the brink of death if they had enough saliva stored in their cheeks. Yun Jhin knew the one who licked him started to growl because he realized he wasn''t one of their brethren, they were fooled because of that rubbed off smell, but the moment the small fluff ball tasted him he realized that he was a fake. There wasn''t much he could do here, even though the three things were just babies they were way stronger than him and all he could do was wait for his life to be claimed. Yun Jhin felt his heart stop beating as the three things were slowly inching towards him while growling and baring their small teeth, suddenly they started to make yip sounds as they shook, it seemed they were scared by something! Yun Jhin watched as his former reincarnation returned, one of his arms were broken and his right eye was closed as a big scar could be seen coming from his temple to his mouth, there was a peculiar aura going around him as he looked at the small fluff balls on the ground. He put his hand up as he was ready to blast them into smithereens with his ki when Yun Jhin suddenly sent him a soul transmission which told him: "Don''t kill them, you are lucky that you survived against an adult Garguan should have killed you, it seems you have encountered a teen so we could be considered quite lucky, let me tell you the capabilities of Garguans." Yun Jhin told him all of the abilities of the beasts and this made his former reincarnation ponder for a few seconds before he grabbed one of the fluff balls and dragged his tongue out of his mouth as he used it to bath himself with it. The little thing was frightened as it yipped for his mother or father but all it got was his tongue stretched out until he had no more saliva left. His injuries couldn''t heal with only one infant''s limited saliva reserve so his former reincarnation went ahead and drained the other two of their saliva. He got his broken arm healed and his scar sealed up leaving only the sequelae behind. His former reincarnation sighed as he looked at the little fluff balls and didn''t know how he could store them, while they were only almost as big as Yun Jhin, he only had one basket, and that one was broken as well, while he could technically make one big basket that he could put on his back, that meant putting Yun Jhin and the little beasts together. Yun Jhin saw his former reincarnations conundrum and told him he was ok with it and that he had a way to calm the beasts while they were with him, Yun Jhin''s way of calming them was using his soul to influence them, he couldn''t have used it right now or he would have surely died due to his semi-serious injury on his chest, but if his body was fully healed he could exert himself a bit. The cave they were in wasn''t that big so his former reincarnation could scale the walls and take all 4 of them out as well, it just took a little bit of time, after 6 hours of climbing up and down they were finally out of the cave. The three fluff balls were too exhausted to resist and even if they resisted what could they do? Their brother or sister was already killed by Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation, what could their little bodies do against him? Yun Jhin looked his former reincarnation up and down as he muttered to himself: "Making a fortune out of danger? This fortuned constitution is already showing its edge this early?" Yun Jhin was obviously very envious but considering they were only inside a test he could only hope he could make use of his former reincarnation properly to get through it. They returned towards the eye of the storm and left it to get some more bamboo and flexible wood to create a bigger basket in which they could put all of the youngsters of the crew. Yun Jhin was now sitting amongst the three fluffy beasts in a bigger basket which was tied on his former reincarnations back, they were back inside the tundra and fortunately for them, the blizzard was done as they waited before they re-entered. They went back to the Yatul Kingdom and with the use of Yun Jhin''s stealth technique they easily slipped through any patrols eyes and reached the location where the pure ki was located, Yun Jhin smelled the air as he was let down in the clearing where the ki was along with the 3 snowy beasts. After using his soul to influence them they were thinking of him as the weaker brother of theirs that they had to protect, they were all around him playing and yipping. Yun Jhin shook his head as he let them play, he sat on the ground as he started to use his breathing technique to start cultivating, his former reincarnation was watching them from above, he was standing in a tree some distance away as he kept watch for the sect''s men, this location was good for newbies and the recruiting time of the sect wasn''t around yet, but who knew if any patrols made their way here? Yun Jhin''s body was rumbling as the pure ki was running through it, his baby body was suddenly starting to increase in height as he broke through the 1st stage of the earthly realm in one go! He was forcefully advancing his age with cultivation using the pure ki in his surroundings! The three small fluffy beasts yipped as they watched Yun Jhin grow almost as tall as them! As time passed Yun Jhin''s cultivation increased more and more, he was galloping through the cultivation realm using the rich and pure ki in their surroundings. 2nd stage, 3rd stage, 4th stage, He only stopped at the 6th stage because he absorbed all of the ki in his surroundings, if he had this type of ki in his former trial he would have been a heavenly realm cultivator or above by his 11 years old age and he could have withstood his ''mother''s'' attack. Yun Jhin opened his eyes as he felt his ki running through his body, he let out a breath as he got up on his feet and started walking by himself, he now looked to be 6 years old even though only 3 months passed since he started cultivating, he was basically around 4 months old now but his cultivation growth facilitated him to look way above his age. Yun Jhin looked towards his former reincarnation, he kept watching for those 3 months and he appreciated his hard work, he sent him some more cultivation information that could help him later while also leaving some hidden intent here and there to make sure he wouldn''t be betrayed, and if he was he would have some backup plan. The three little beasts around him had grown a little bit in those 3 months as well, they weren''t as big as him anymore but as long as they kept growing well they would get bigger than him in no time. Yun Jhin sent three soul imprints into their souls stealthily, he wanted to have them under his control in the future and while his former reincarnation was contemplating the knowledge he gave him, he put the three beasts under his control! He waited for a little bit before his former reincarnation finished contemplating then they left the location behind them, Yun Jhin could cultivate normally now and he could take any types of ki into his body without having to fear that his body would explode so now they could travel towards one of the treasures that he remembered about! There he would have to put himself in action to see if his conjecture of the test was true or not. Chapter 154: This treasure isnt for you (6) The location of the treasure that Yun Jhin wanted to get his hands on was quite far away from their current location, they could have easily got there if their cultivation bases were a little bit higher but with their current power, all they could do was run there. Yun Jhin could keep up with his former reincarnation speed and he was currently having the three little beasts in the basket tied to his back instead of his former reincarnation, he said that he wanted to use the weight of the basket to continue his training, while the earthly realm consisted of absorbing ki to temper the body, doing normal exercises could also contribute to the increase in the realm, as long as they were intense enough. As time passed the weight of the three fluffy balls weight started to increase so they could be useful for Yun Jhin''s ''training''. He was just finishing his touches on the mind control of the three beasts this way. His former reincarnation was still a little bit doubtful of him so he kept a close watch on him, but Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation was at a very low level both in knowledge and experience so he could easily slip through his attempts on spying on him, after all, even though cultivation knowledge could be given, the experience couldn''t. The location of the treasure was 1 million kilometers away from their current location and with their current speed it would take them years to arrive! It didn''t help that the location was underwater in the ocean, technically speaking they shouldn''t even be able to reach that location with their cultivation base, they would need to be at least at the ki cultivating stage to be able to breathe underwater. But considering Yun Jhin''s knowledge he could easily boost their cultivation to that point and make them arrive faster, even though there weren''t many teleportation formations on such a low rung planet like the one they were currently on, Yun Jhin still knew of a few that could cut short their journey. Yun Jhin found the teleportation formation in a hidden location around a mountainous region where he and his former reincarnation ''coincidentally'' arrived. At first, his former reincarnation was quite suspicious of the teleportation formation, after all, he was a country bumpkin and he wasn''t sure what the formation would do, he was immediately convinced after Yun Jhin sent him some more information through the soul link. After they entered the formation and used it they cut around 60% of the distance that they had to go through. It took them half a year more to reach the ocean, and their cultivation bases have also increased with the time they used while traveling, Yun Jhin was at the 6th stage of the Heavenly realm while his former reincarnation was at the 2nd stage of the ki cultivating realm, due to having no resources it became harder and harder for his former reincarnation to improve, but his fortuned constitution still gave him an edge that other people on this planet couldn''t have. The ocean was sparkling blue as summer came around, the heat was beating down on the weathered faces of Yun Jhin and his former reincarnation, 3 big buff fluff balls were encircling Yun Jhin like was a VIP and they were the bodyguards. The little fluff balls had grown in size becoming 2,50 meters tall and dwarfing Yun Jhin who was now 1,65 meters tall. Their cultivation bases were also in the heavenly realm but they were lower, around the 1st stage. Yun Jhin did his best to increase their cultivation but he had no resources to work with during their travels, and the resources that he found he could only use for himself, he wasn''t overflowing with ki to the point that he would waste anything on the three beasts. The water was moving slowly in the ocean as Yun Jhin looked over it, his former reincarnation was waiting for any information, he knew that his ''old master'' made him walk here because he knew of a treasure that he heard about through some information channels during his former life. Of course, all of that was a lie. Yun Jhin eyes were closed as he was seemingly meditating on the location of the treasure, his former reincarnation just kept waiting, as time passed he became a little impatient, the prospect of a treasure that could increase his cultivation made his emotion go a bit haywire, after all, in all of his former reincarnations he was always poor or died around the king realm, he never got his hands on a special treasure that he could call his own. Yun Jhin opened his eyes as he pointed towards the general direction of the ocean as he said: "We will need to dive into the ocean and swim towards that direction, you will need to use your ki cultivating, cultivation base to construct an air bubble around our heads so we could breathe underwater, then I shall be able to guide us towards the location of the treasure, fortunately, it seems that no one has been around and the treasure location isn''t known at the moment." His former reincarnation nodded as he blew out some bubbles using his ki, those bubbles stuck to their heads along with the beast''s and then they dived into the ocean! The oceanic beings looked at them with fear as they scattered, at the surface of the water small fish with no cultivation bases lived, even normal people could fish it for a living. But the deeper one went the dangerous things became... Yun Jhin started to dive along with the beasts and his former reincarnation while also going forward... The light in their surroundings started to darken as they got closer to the ocean floor and the pressure of the water increased accordingly. All of their bodies were sturdy enough to withstand the water pressure but the darkness started to become a problem, Yun Jhin used his cultivation base to light up a small light ball on his finger that he used to navigate the waters around them... Suddenly he could feel some eyes watching him from below... they were deep whites with no pupils, sharp fangs could be seen jutting below those eyes... the darkness unveiled itself as a gigantic fish with the face of a man appeared. There were no screeches, no sounds underwater, the fish with the face of the man opened his fanged mouth and let out a soundless cry that pierced directly into all of Yun Jhin''s party souls. Yun Jhin knew this was the guardian of the treasure, the treasure was quite special as it attracted hte local marine form to protect it from outsiders, during his former life he didn''t get to encounter this thing as it was already slain when he arrived at this point. The things cultivation base was in the ki cultivating stage as light could be seen swimming around his body. Yun Jhin sent some information on how to kill the fish along with instruction on where to hit it to his former reincarnation then the little ball that gave light to them increased in size and launched itself at the fish'' pupilless eyes exploding into a gigantic flash that made him start trashing around! Even though his eyes were pupilless he still needed them to see in the environment, he could see well in the darkness and any increase in the light around him would attract his attention, such a high intensity of light left the fish blind for sure! Seeing that Yun Jhin did his job properly, his former reincarnation heaved a mighty shout as a purple ki aura engulfed his body, his left hand was put forward as he charged a gigantic ki ball that he threw towards the big fish trying to fry it to death! The fish''s tail was bony and had one hole going through the center, sensing danger he used his tail and put it forward to absorb the ki attack from Yun Jhin''s ''father'' and send it back through the hole in the middle! Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation gave out a mighty roar as he used his hand to deflect the ball of ki to above where it exploded into a mini mushroom cloud. Yun Jhin sent more instructions as he charged his soul willpower into a circular motion to attack the fish''s directional ability so the next attack would surely hit and kill him. The fish started screeching as he felt the male human head start to hurt, he trashed into his surroundings randomly as he roared. Suddenly another ki ball struck it in its center creating a big hole through its body making it start floating up to the surface, it was dead! Yun Jhin ignored the dead fish, it couldn''t be as useful as the treasure, and surely their battle would have attracted the attention of the other marine beings by now, they had to rush into the underwater cave to get their prize! Chapter 155: This treasure isnt for you (final part) Yun Jhin and his former reincarnation along with the three big fluff balls were currently swimming at their fastest speed towards the location of the underwater cave. The cave was just below the fish that they killed, with a little bit of swimming they reached it and entered. The natural lights of the cave were pretty bright considering their current location, there were mosses on the walls of the cave that lighted up the surroundings with a fluorescent green light. Yun Jhin ignored the light as he started to walk forward along with the three little beasts, his former reincarnation knew that he wouldn''t act like this unless the treasure that they were going to find would be as good as he said. So he immediately followed behind as he didn''t want Yun Jhin to hog all of the treasure for himself. The cave wasn''t deep nor big, it was actually quite stifling, the walls were near each other and Yun Jhin had to hug the wall and walk sideways to go through, he could feel cold breathing come from the other side of the small corridor he was going through. The three beasts were in front of him, squeezing as best as they could, but due to their big stature, they could barely move through the thin openings. Behind him moved his former reincarnation who was thinking of attacking him at this point, they were both so close to each other and since he could get the treasure by moving a few more meters in front of him, why would he need Yun Jhin''s help anymore? The thirst and greed of a cultivator was something that everyone got a hold of after they got their first cultivation resource, no matter how small, it would infiltrate the cultivator''s brain and soul and transform them into betrayers and backstabbers, cultivation was like a drug, you couldn''t stop from doing it unless you got such a high resistance to it that you couldn''t get high on it anymore. His former reincarnation closed his palm into a fist as he looked at Yun Jhin''s back but then he thought for a little more as they walked slowly towards the exit of the corridor... what if there was something he couldn''t deal with after they exited this narrow place? Thus he decided against killing him for now, after a while they finally left the narrow corridor to arrive in a big empty chamber, Yun Jhin walked to the end of the chamber as he struck the rock pattern there, 3 times in 3 different ways, then he inserted his ki inside it to open the treasure chamber. The cold breathing that impacted the both of them when they were traversing the narrow corridor appeared again, now it was so obvious that it was from a living being that Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation was glad that he didn''t kill Yun Jhin when he could. The guardian fish from before wasn''t put there by the one who left this treasure here, it was just attracted by the treasure''s innate aura and made his home near the cave. The true guardian of the treasure was a gigantic ice golem who was exuding icy breathing from his body. Yun Jhin body started to burn as his inner ki flames started to appear around his body, at his cultivation base that was the only ki that he could use, he couldn''t do anything else besides activating some flames around his body. Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation started to throw flames at the icy golem who was slowly activating to attack the intruders. The three beasts started to take in deep breaths as they absorbed the icy breathing that the golem was exuding, their muscles started to expand as they launched themselves at the golem''s big body trying to tackle it down so Yun Jhin and his former reincarnation could transform it into a puddle! Yun Jhin looked on as the beasts successfully tackled the golem to the ground, he jumped towards the golems circular head and struck it three times with his fire engulfed fists. The head became deformed as Yun Jhin struck it three times in a row and his central control core started to break thus making the golem go on a rampage! He started to thrash his arms around throwing away the beasts from his body and he launched all of his icy power from his body into his surroundings creating an ice ring that transformed Yun Jhin into an ice sculpture! The beasts started to roar as their master was transformed into an ice sculpture, the more icy energy entered their bodies the stronger they became as their muscles inflated to the maximum capabilities of their bodies. Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation was still charging his ball of fire ki, it became so big that it was slowly reaching the ceiling of the cave, suddenly his eyes started to glitter as he threw the gigantic ball at the icy golem who was on a rampage. The golem couldn''t dodge the gigantic attack in time and half of his body turned into a puddle of water as he fell on one side and practically ''died''. Yun Jhin remained frozen as the heatwave was absorbed fully by the body of the golem, if he wasn''t thawed out of the ice sooner he would die of hypothermia The three beasts didn''t have any fire-based attacks so they couldn''t heat the ice, and if they broke the ice with Yun Jhin''s current situation there was a chance his body would break as well! They needed to heat the ice good enough before trying to break it. They looked towards Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation but he already left them behind as he got closer to the treasure that appeared after they defeated the guardian. It was an urn inscribed with runes that indicated it''s usage, it could be used to create pills without the need of fire nor skill, all you had to do was put in the herbs in according to the order of the recipe and it would create the pill! This was a very good treasure that anyone would kill for, pill masters were very rare and high and mighty, they would have their nose so up into the air that you would need to pay an arm and a leg along with the herbs for them to concoct you the pill you needed. Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation was so happy as he looked at the urn that he couldn''t help but cheer and punch the air. He easily took the urn into his spatial bag then put his attention on Yun Jhin''s frozen form, he didn''t know if he should help him in this situation or not... after all, he already got the treasure and a lot of help from him, he was pondering if to help him or just get rid of him at this point. Suddenly the three muscled fluff balls were angrily glaring at Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation as they started to growl and howl at him. His former reincarnation frowned as he looked at the three beings, did they understand that he was thinking of killing him? But how close did these three became while he wasn''t aware? He frowned as he put his hand forward wanting to destroy these three beasts first, if they were so loyal to Yun Jhin that meant they would be useless to him. Suddenly the beasts disappeared from his senses, as some mist appeared in the whole cave things started to become dangerous for Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation. He couldn''t see nor hear anything, almost all of his senses were sealed at this point and he didn''t know how did these three beasts do this while he took the urn. Suddenly he felt two furry paws clutching his legs and two more clutching his arms, and another two caught him by the waist, it was as if he was tied to a cross! A disappointed sigh could be heard from the mist as Yun Jhin appeared in front of his former reincarnation, the mist came from the puddle of water from the icy golem combined with the innate talent of the three beasts. As for how Yun Jhin got out of the ice? He just overheated his body using his cultivation technique to the point that he injured himself as well. He had no hair or eyebrows left and there were third-degree burns on his body along with frostbite, but he ignored everything as he looked into his former reincarnation eyes and said: "I don''t think this treasure is meant for you, my friend." His former reincarnation tried to get out of his holding but suddenly he felt a deep pain inside his head and the beast''s hold strengthened as well. Yun Jhin tsked as he continued to look into his eyes and he activated the seals that he put inside the information he gave him attacking his soul and inflicting a huge amount of damage on his measly soul space. Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation started to shout as a ki barrier of dark green color appeared around him and forced the three beasts away while severing their limbs. Yun Jhin looked at the bleeding beasts that continued to stay near his former reincarnation regardless of their situation and shook his head as he said: "Detonate." All three beasts exploded at the same time destroying the barrier created by his former reincarnation and engulfing both of them in the explosion. Yun Jhin coughed as he got up, since he was a little bit farther away and he used all of his ki until his body turned dry he escaped with his life, but one of his arms was crippled and the other was severed from the elbow. He was surely going to die in this situation but he didn''t care, he dragged his body towards his former reincarnation using his chin and got a good look at him, he was still breathing but he was looking as poorly as he was, he would also die pretty soon from the looks of things but Yun Jhin wanted to end him by himself! He conjectured that he must kill his own former reincarnation as the people that he wronged for him to pass the test, now was the time to see if it was true or not! His mouth quickly went towards his former reincarnation neck as he took a huge chunk out of it and then spit it out on his face. His former reincarnation couldn''t breathe anymore and due to the blood loss and the explosion from the self-destruction of three beasts meant that he was dead now! Yun Jhin felt a pang of pain in his head the moment he killed his former reincarnation but also a liberation of some sorts.. it was like he was freer than before... like some things that he didn''t need were forgotten. But then those memories rushed back at him and integrated into his memory palace along with some helpful information about the test. Yun Jhin smiled as he realized that he was right, and there were also more benefits to the test itself compared to the inheritance! Chapter 156: Drag you down with me! Yun Jhin felt his surroundings starting to shake just as if he was swimming underwater and he remained out of oxygen, it felt just like he was on a boat under a big storm. That meant he was going on to the next test! Yun Jhin felt his lungs burning as he looked down at his chest and saw a hand going through it, he felt his head explode as he looked up and saw a familiar face! It was the face of his reincarnation, number 69! A woman with a jade-like countenance was currently keeping her hand inside Yun Jhin''s chest storming his inner ki pathways with her own ki and destroying his meridians. Yun Jhin coughed a mouthful of blood as he remembered the situation, in this current reincarnation he had been put in the position of one of the concubines he had to kill to take their position and curry favor with a king for cultivation resources. Yun Jhin was quite shameless as a female, regarding his body, he had used it to gain whatever favors he could along with cultivation resources, when he had no more uses for the male in question he would annihilate him and absorb his vital yang energy dry. Yun Jhin was currently in the body of the head concubine of the king in question, he had been ambushed on the way back to the capital by his former reincarnation and fought her way towards a cliff where she finally lost the battle and had her chest pierced into defeat. Yun Jhin''s current cultivation was around the Emperor''s realm but it was slowly going down at a visible pace, his former reincarnation was laughing gleefully as her eyes light up seeing the blood flowing down from Yun Jhin''s chest like a waterfall. It was obvious she was a poisonous snake ready to end the job. Yun Jhin could feel his life slipping through his fingers as he grasped the arm that was stuck in his chest and his eyes turned a deep shade of red, he died previously but that part of the test could still be considered to be done, that meant that as long as he killed his former reincarnation, even in a suicidal fashion, he would have completed the test! Seeing the crazed look on Yun Jhin''s face made his former reincarnation immediately try to retract her arm from Yun Jhin''s chest, seeing that he was going to do something rather crazy in this situation, after all, he was one step away from death and his former reincarnation knew that cultivators would take extreme actions at this point if they could see no point of breakthrough or escape. Yun Jhin''s body started to glow a deep red as blood flowed from his red eyes, his former reincarnation tried to move backward but her arm was stuck inside Yun Jhin''s body! Yun Jhin contracted his muscles and inner organs trapping his former reincarnation arm inside his body, even though doing this injured him to the brink of death he could still do something here! Yun Jhin took a few steps backward as he free-fell down the cliff along with his former reincarnation who he forced to follow him! His former reincarnation used her ability to levitate as she was below the Emperor''s realm and she couldn''t fly. Technically Yun Jhin shouldn''t have been able to kill the main concubine this easily in his former life, but he poisoned her beforehand and still had an epic fight with her before she was pushed to the cliff where she was afterward thrown off. In the former situation, there was no way for the concubine to purge the poison and escape her fate, even now Yun Jhin could only purge the poison but not reverse the inner injuries that the body got, but he could force the body beyond its limits and take down his former reincarnation with him! Yun Jhin''s body was already unstable, the faster he fell the more he felt his muscles starting to unclench, and if that happened his former reincarnation''s arm would be free and she could glide away and free! Yun Jhin looked directly at his former reincarnation''s eyes as he mouthed: "Detonate..." Yun Jhin''s body exploded into a bunch of gore that disappeared into ashes as the aftermath energy from the explosion reached it, the explosion severed his former reincarnations arm and blinded both of her eyes as she started to fall down the cliff at a high speed. Yun Jhin''s soul was absorbed into the pocket space where darkness prevailed as his head started to hurt again, his former reincarnation didn''t die instantly the moment the body he inhabited exploded, after all, the explosion was rather weak because the body wasn''t at its full strength and cultivation. However, the proximity and Yun Jhin''s special self-destructing technique meant that she would have surely died anyway! Especially because she couldn''t glide anymore and the moment she hit the ground below the cliff she would have broken every bone in her body... Yun Jhin could understand what this test was doing right now, it seemed that he was supposed to destroy the wills of his former reincarnations that remained in his memories. He had control of the memory core as the latest reincarnation, and the strongest to boot, but that didn''t mean the former wills accepted that, they were only biding their time until Yun Jhin''s soul was weakened enough so they could take over it, this was a major problem with most reincarnated ones, but this problem didn''t really appear because most reincarnated persons wouldn''t reach the staggering amount of reincarnations that Yun Jhin achieved. Yun Jhin had so many different personalities and wills inside of him that he couldn''t count them anymore, all of them were sealed in the memories of his former lives and his current will was the strongest, they were all basically peasants while the current will was the Emperor. It would be a lie to say if Yun Jhin wasn''t bothered by the fact that he had so many different wills inside him, but the problem was that he couldn''t absorb them by himself, his main soul would get polluted by their emotions and inner schemes, but it seemed this trial was helping him with this problem! When his head hurt as if it felt like it was splitting and his brain was gushing hotly through his ears, it meant that one of the memory cores of his former lives was being separated then purged from the will before being reinserted into his soul. Yun Jhin wasn''t sure how this was done, he didn''t have such a high understanding of souls, this was a realm that Yun Jhin thought that he could reach after he broke through the limits of the God Realm. It seems Hell''s will was really special considering this inheritance trial was held by it. Suddenly a boundless genderless voice exploded into his head: "Aren''t you a smart outsider?" Yun Jhin knew that after he finished two trials successfully, Hell''s will had finally decided to descend upon him. Yun Jhin could feel an immense pressure upon his soul, which meant even at his peak he wouldn''t be able to do anything to this willpower fragment that entered him! Hell''s will was surely above the God Realm! A snort could be heard coming from inside his head indicating that the willpower was getting tired of his monologuing: "Oh great Hellish willpower, why have you graced me with your presence?" A burst of laughter could be heard in his head as the voice told him: "Enough bootlicking Yun Jhin, I know you since you have first put your foot in hell in your 627th reincarnation, you don''t have to sugarcoat your words around me boy!" "I just descended upon you because you have finally understood what are you supposed to do within this test, to be honest with you I would like you to be the one that inherited my power, after all, you would be the perfect host, both physically and mentally." Yun Jhin understood what Hell''s willpower meant, he was both decisive and could be considered an evil son of a bitch from most of the people''s existence, even those that were on his side. So he could be considered the perfect host for hell''s inheritance huh? Yun Jhin''s eyes started to flicker as he thought about something but then the voice boomed in his head again: "Thinking of sabotaging your competition? I like it but I can''t help you!" "But I can do you a favor and tell you the results of the other participants... you are in the last place currently, the others had found way quicker how to deal with their former reincarnations, you were the slowest because you are too paranoid and too careful." Yun Jhin sighed, this wasn''t something that could be helped... after all, this is the paranoia that he had cultivated over thousands of reincarnations, it couldn''t just go and leave him right now, even if he wanted to abandon it for the test. It was something that was now stuck in his soul. It wasn''t that he didn''t want to be a bit more daring but he feared failure too much, after all, he failed so many times already! It did build his character but it also made him disgusted with failure, it made him feel that he could do better and that he could easily get over those problems if he could.. thus he dwelled in paranoia. "I''m actually quite disappointed in you, you have no faults and you are an evil being of high potential... a perfect host, but you aren''t chaotic enough, hell is the establishment that puts chaos and survival in the first place, maybe this inheritance isn''t for you..." The voice faded away as Yun Jhin remained alone in the dark again... he could see the light at the end of the tunnel which meant he was being sent head-first into another test! Chapter 157: I had many lives Yun Jhin had so many lives that he had to actively search for the memory cores of his earlier ones or the memories from those lives wouldn''t pop into his consciousness, it couldn''t be helped, he had access to the memories but he couldn''t stuff all of them in his soul, after all, even a peak God Realm expert''s soul couldn''t handle so many memories by themselves, they could create memory cores and separate them as if they were all different hard drives in a computer. Yun Jhin could feel his consciousness transfer into another person... as he looked around he realized that he was in a dungeon filled with dead people, all of them were already started to rot, most of the visible meat and skin was dark and filled with maggots, all the blood was dry and there were brittle dry old bones strewn around him. His hands were tied to a wall with steel manacles and there was nothing around him besides the putrid corpses. Yun Jhin sealed his sense of smell as he looked around and felt that his whole body was numb which meant his blood circulation was blocked beforehand... did the owner of the previous body died? Yun Jhin started to search for memories of this particular situation but none came into his head... that meant this person who died here was hurt unintentionally by Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin''s actions were far-reaching and this person could have been a son daughter, or relative of someone he killed or enslaved, thus his cronies decided to deal with him to curry favor even though Yun Jhin didn''t set out any orders for him to be killed or kidnapped. Yun Jhin sighed as he started to sense his inner situation, it seemed that his cultivation was half-crippled before the owner of the body died previously, his meridians were shattered but his ki pathways were still strong enough, meridians could be healed with time even for a mortal but if the pathways were severed only those at the sage realm or above could mend them by themselves and that was with the use of precious materials. Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he felt the drained ki in his body starting to enliven at his attempts to cultivate, the broken meridians sent sharp bouts of pain through his whole body but he ignored it, it wasn''t his main body and this wasn''t a test so he could abuse those bodies as much as he wanted as long as he got the results that he needed. The dungeon Yun Jhin was currently in wasn''t that big, the rotting bodies were in a big mound near him and if he moved wrongly they could pile up on him and drown him, there was a small iron door at the end of the dungeon that suddenly opened as Yun Jhin tried to cultivate. A bald ugly old man came forward, his back was bent from old age and he had liver spots all over his face, he had a dirty goatee that was full of grease and he wore a red effeminate armor, his eyes darted from side to side and saliva was dripping from his mouth which showed that he wasn''t fully in his mental capabilities, his face was also flushed which indicated that he was also drunk. He came closer to Yun Jhin''s body as he looked down at it, Yun Jhin closed his eyes and faked death while waiting for the man to get closer to him so he could kill him! The old man got closer to the mound of bodies but a leg that stuck out from the mound seemingly tripped him, he tried to support himself on the unsteady mount which made the mound collapse on both Yun Jhin and him! Yun Jhin closed his sense of smell but he couldn''t make himself unable to feel the slithery feelings of those putrid bodies, it was quite disgusting but he endured as he waited for the old drunken man to something. Yun Jhin frowned as he heard snoring, the old man was knocked out by the booze and he felt that the putrid corpses were a great alternative to a quilt. Yun Jhin became a bit angry at this setback, his ki revolved inside of him as he ripped the steel manacles of his hands with sheer arm strength alone, the dungeon was full of death ki and Yun Jhin had ways to harvest it to return his cultivation to normal which wasn''t weak, he was currently at the peak of the ki cultivating realm and he was close to the King Realm. He searched a bit for the old man who was buried in the mound of corpses and took him out before slashing his neck and absorbing his soul for information. Sorting through the useless information Yun Jhin realized which reincarnation he was in right now. The owner of the body was previously a prince of the nation that Yun Jhin had taken care of, Yun Jhin killed the king and stole the wife because she was a great incubator for his devilish techniques and decided to take over the kingdom as well in passing, the prince tried to protect his mother with his life but he easily got captured by his former reincarnation''s cronies and beaten to a half-crippled state before being thrown in the dungeon with the reminder of dead people or dying people. Yun Jhin frowned as he remembered the cultivation his former reincarnation would have at this time... it was around the early stage of the Emperor realm which meant that with his current strength even a suicidal attack wouldn''t do anything... this would take him a lot of time unless he burnt his potential and used a forbidden formation... but considering the current situation he could do both. Unfortunately, Yun Jhin''s reincarnation could be considered rather experienced by now, if he remembered correctly, this was his 627 reincarnation and he went through a lot of hardships to reach this number, he wasn''t a pup like the former one where he let him live until he got greedy enough for the urn treasure. To create the formation he already had the ingredients, which were human bodies and lives.. the forbidden technique also needed time to prepare which meant he couldn''t act immediately and he knew that his former reincarnation would leave the kingdom the moment he finished cultivating using the King''s wife as an incubator, absorbing her whole Yin energy dry and thus killing her in the process. That meant he would have to get to work already! Yun Jhin started to move the bodies in the dungeon according to the formation''s diagram that he drew in his head, he also heated the dry blood until it became crystallized as he used it to create runes. At the same time he was creating the formation in the dungeon he was also punishing his body using the forbidden technique, expending his life span and talent for a sudden increase in strength at the moment he needed it. His blonde hair was currently turning silver at a quick pace. Up above him in the king''s bedroom, the queen''s cries could be heard through the whole upper part of the castle. The maids were deep red as they heard the queen''s moans and they made sure to not get near, they heard her moan like this for hours and it seemed like it wouldn''t stop soon! Suddenly after 5 more hours, the moan''s stopped as a gloomy man with dark hair and eyes came out of the bedroom, he slicked back his long hair and tied it in a ponytail as he put on a dark robe made from an unknown metallic material. He had a dark aura around him that was full of blood, death, and decay, there was even a skull image appearing behind him from time to time as the aura condensed. Behind him the open doors showed the beautiful queen with blonde hair barely moving, her legs were shaking due to the intense actions that had happened previously in the bedroom and her face was as white as a paper sheet, at this rate he would die in a day or two due to exhaustion. While her face was white Yun Jhin''s complexion was as rudy as possible as he stood there and closed his eyes to concentrate on refining the Yin energy that he stole from the king''s wife. Suddenly a rumbling came from the dungeons which made Yun Jhin''s eyes open and flicker as he looked down there.. he frowned as he didn''t remember imprisoning anyone strong there... were his cronies that useless that they would let someone that he didn''t even bother to learn about escape? Suddenly a dark palm made of rotten flesh came out of the floorboards and grabbed at Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation foot, dragging him through the floors breaking them, and making him arrive forcefully in the dungeon where Yun Jhin was currently, at the same time a barrier surrounded the both of them making them unable to escape, death ki started to rise out of all of the corpses that Yun Jhin put in some peculiar positions around the dungeon. The death ki then infused itself forcefully into Yun Jhin''s body as the bodies around him started to dry like prunes until they transformed into nothing but dust, everything that made from blood to stains to anything that remained from humans disappeared from the dungeon as Yun Jhin absorbed it all to strengthen himself in accord to the forbidden technique. The formation''s use wasn''t to trap his former reincarnation, that was only part one of the formation''s use, it''s main use was to supply Yun Jhin''s forbidden technique to give him enough strength to deal the death blow! His former reincarnation shook his head as he cleared his mind from the dizziness of being dragged through 13 floors by a decayed piece of rotten flesh only to find himself in a dungeon with a crazy old man that looked to be ready to explode at any moment, Yun Jhin''s current form was of a hulking abomination with an open stomach where his intestines and organs could be seen, he had crazed red eyes and his skin turned a sickly green, and he was ready to kill his former reincarnation to advance even further into the test! But a snort came out of his former reincarnation''s mouth as he looked into Yun Jhin''s eyes and his aura solidified... the skull pattern behind him became fully visible as a sudden pressure appeared to start pressing Yun Jhin''s abominable body down trying to transform it into a meat pancake... Chapter 158: Most of them were like this Yun Jhin''s eyes started to come out of their sockets due to the intense pressure coming from his former reincarnations skull apparition, it was a technique that made use of the Yin energy stole from multiple incubators, it used the coldness of Yin energy to create gravity through friction with the air, the pressure aura that it was created along with the fusion of ki created an improvised artificial gravitational field that was quite small. If Yun Jhin''s body wasn''t currently so hulking and big he could easily dodge this weaker version of his bloodline ability, but considering his current cultivation base discrepancy and his gigantic body all he could do was endure the pressure. His former reincarnation snorted as he looked at his bulging green form and decided to devour his soul to see what was his identity and why he was so noisy. He put his hand forward inching it closer to Yun Jhin''s monstrous green face before saying: "Rip!" He was trying to rip Yun Jhin''s soul from his body then devour it through a weaker technique than Yun Jhin would use previously in his former lives, Yun Jhin had already improved onto that technique to perfection and he could see many flaws in this old one that his former reincarnation was using, his eyes glittered as he activated his soul unique frequency to disrupt the soul ripping attempt then used the improved technique on his attacker to disrupt his balance! His former reincarnation felt dizzy as the technique he attempted to use on Yun Jhin backfired and made his head swim, thus his control over the artificial gravitational field was thus canceled and Yun Jhin''s hideous green body could get up and give him a big hug! Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation got angered as he fell for this trick and immediately started to shout as he powered up using his ki trying to pry Yun Jhin''s meaty hands away from his body, he could feel Yun Jhin was currently full of fluids from different body parts of humans as he sat in the dungeon for quite a long time and he felt disgusted by him! "GET THE HELL OFF ME!" With a mighty shout, a purple aura engulfed Yun Jhin as he was bombarded by the aura attack of his former reincarnation, however, he just stood there without caring that his skin was flayed and burned nor that his head was almost pierced by a tentacle-like whip that just appeared from the purple aura. Yun Jhin just kept hugging his former reincarnation which made it even angrier as he could feel the slimy caked blood sweat and bodily liquids starting to seep into his robe regardless of its metallic properties, at this point he knew that Yun Jhin was doing it on purpose! Yun Jhin wasn''t doing it on purpose but his energy was very low and when he wanted to explode himself the pressure from the gravity had impacted his ki pathways to the point that they almost got sealed, he was currently clenching onto his former reincarnation body trying to buy time so he could unseal them and then explode! But at some point, he could feel that he couldn''t hold on anymore as his monstrous arms were finally cut from the elbow leaving him disarmed. He fell on his butt, not due to the shock but due to the weakness of his body, if he couldn''t use his arm to clench on his former reincarnation his weak body couldn''t stay up by itself anymore, the forbidden technique was still taking a toll on his body at the moment and his body was very old, he looked pretty much like a disgusting double mutated grampa hulk now. "You disgusting thing... using your last amount of life force to sully me! I shall eradicate you right now, your identity is damned along with you!" Yun Jhin''s eyes glittered as his former reincarnation monologued, he used to do that... and he still did it from time to time but only when his enemy was close to death or had no power to defend himself from the death blow. Yun Jhin just realized how dumb his former actions were! Suddenly Yun Jhin got up from the ground and his mouth bit on his former reincarnation''s shoulder holding tight as his ki pathways were unsealed and he could explode now! Suddenly he looked down at his chest with the corner of his eyes seeing his former reincarnations palm being placed there and a big hole appearing where his heart was supposed to be... he just chuckled as a mushroom-shaped explosion took over the both of them destroying the palace along with anyone that was currently inside it!" Yun Jhin''s soul was ejected from the trial plane as he was back in the darkness, the familiar feeling of pain and his recovering memories that inserted themselves in his main memory core washed over him... fortunately he had succeeded because of his former reincarnation tendency of being dumb in the face having an immense advantage. Now that he realized that monologuing was dumb unless you had already decapitated your opponent, destroyed their souls, burned their bodies to ashes, and feasted on their decapitated heads to finish the absorption of their flesh and the destruction of their souls... up till now he was rather lucky as no one got his hands on such explosion techniques as he had, or else he would have been a smoking body and a destroyed soul long ago. A peal of laughter could be heard coming over him as Hell''s will descended again... this guy sure was free Yun Jhih thought: "It seems you sure have a love for explosions, don''t you? But I cannot complain, a wise man once said that art is an explosion!" Yun Jhin could doubt the veracity of that statement, he only resorted to such tactics because of the cultivation of the bodies he ended up into, he didn''t really like using such kamikaze attacks. Seeing that Yun Jhin remained mute after his comment Hell''s will made a coughing sound as it continued: "You are getting closer to the end of the first type of trial... even though I would want you to fully get rid of all of the wills inside of your memory cores it isn''t possible within the current pagoda, and I''m not sure you will live enough to reach the appearance of the trial on the 9th layer so you have to live with being able to get rid only of a few willpowers, don''t give me that look you are the one who reincarnated so many times." The voice disappeared as Yun Jhin was thrust once again in a different location of the trial. He found himself underwater, a cloth sack was put over his head and cement was tied on both of his feet with a steel manacle, he didn''t have any cultivation... "What the hell am I supposed to do in this situation???" Yun Jhin tried to struggle out of his bindings but his arms were tied to his back using a strong rope, he couldn''t do anything as the water was filling his lungs and his oxygen supply was ending... again what was he supposed to do in this situation? Was Hell''s will choosing at random when he sent him inside the trials after analyzing his memories or did it just want to torture him from time to time? Yun Jhin thought for a few seconds before he realized that this current body was the one of a villager he killed in his 3rd reincarnation, this villager always abused him verbally when he was stealing bread, in the 3rd reincarnation he was a troublesome orphan in a small city on an upper ranked planet, this was one of the most miserable lives he had but he remembered it vividly as he made sure to imprint it in his memory core so he wouldn''t forget where he got up from. Unlike the fortuned ones he didn''t have any manors hidden in his pants nor any grandpas hidden in his ears, his soul was also free from any experience besides his former two reincarnations which were actually sealed at the time, as he reincarnated more and more he learned to how to unlock his memories earlier and earlier to the point that the moment he reincarnated he had his memories with him. However, the early reincarnations had to work hard for that to happen. This was the first kill that triggered some of his memories from his former two lives to flooding Yun Jhin''s third reincarnation head. It could be seen that Yun Jhin was a psychopath even without his former reincarnation memories, but he only applied to adults.. he just hated them with passion after his first reincarnation went through a rather rough experience. Now that he knew where he was... he remembered that there was a fishing boat nearby that could help him out, when he left this body to sink to the bottom of the ocean in his third reincarnation there was a fishing boat navigating in his surroundings that he ignored. He sent out a soul call to influence the fishermen who were going to throw their nets to catch fish to catch him. The fishermen above him were in a sizeable boat and they suddenly felt that there could be a large haul around them... they could say that it was their instinct after fishing so many times in these treacherous waters, yeah that was it. They threw the net down and Yun Jhin was immediately caught in it, seeing that they caught something rather heavy (cement block) they immediately tried to fish it out only to fish out Yun Jhin''s shivering and cold body who was almost out of oxygen to their boat... Yun Jhin''s face was blue as the sack covering his face was took away and then a brawny scared man came forward and started to give him CPR. It was stormy weather so no light was shining on the brawny man''s bald head... Yun Jhin woke up immediately as he coughed up water making the bald man unable to give him mouth to mouth. Yun Jhin looked around confused then faked fainting... The brawny man inched closer thinking that it was time for kissing but Yun Jhin was breathing correctly which made him disappointed... it seemed sailing for so much time made the brawny man be built differently. Yun Jhin felt his body being carried inside the living quarters of the medium-sized ship, he looked around after he was left alone and sighed only to feel as if shivers were going down his spine as the brawny man appeared from behind a wooden beam of the ship... he was looking at Yun Jhin with eyes of passion as he said: "Now that I saved you... you should repay me a bit don''t you think!" He went a little bit closer to Yun Jhin and whispered in his ear: "It costs you..." "30 silver pieces!" He put his hand forward near Yun Jhin''s eyes as he told him: "Now pay up!" Yun Jhin sweatdropped... if he remembered correctly his current body was the head of the orphanage and he did have some money but he also remembered how he first stole everything from his pockets after he knocked him out with a big wooden club during that former reincarnation... what would the man do if he had no money to pay him? Chapter 159: Children leave the nest to stir trouble The burly man tried to exhort some money from Yun Jhin because he saved him, but Yun Jhin was currently penniless... Seeing Yun Jhin''s awkward look made the man understand that he was broke, thus he looked into Yun Jhin''s eyes and told him: "Then you have to work on the ship!" Yun Jhin didn''t have time for this bullshit, with his current adult body he could somewhat unleash his soul and this person in front of him was as ordinary as he could be. A soul tentacle latched onto this person''s forehead without him feeling anything as he said afterward: "Maybe I was a little bit too harsh on you... after all, you almost drowned and your situation was a little bit suspicious... I guess we can give you a ride to the nearest city free of charge!" Yun Jhin sat on the bed as the burly man left him alone, if he remembered correctly his former reincarnation would leave the city soon, he had got all of the saved money of his current body and he could finally go to a sect so he could cultivate... all orphaned children dreamed of cultivation as it was the only way they could break free of their destiny and become someone important. There were also the imperial exams but the location where the exams were held was so far away that becoming a pugilistic warrior was easier and not as costly, as long as you could become an earthly practitioner around these parts you would pretty much become a magnate even if you were a measly bandit. Yun Jhin took in a deep breath as his somewhat injured body returned to its peak state before reaching the 4th stage of the earthly realm in one go, his potential was thus done and some of his life-span was reduced due to the immediate consecutive and forceful breakthroughs but this was to ensure he could get a hold of his former reincarnation and snap his neck. As long as he could find his location he would be able to easily kill him as his former reincarnation was just a child with no cultivation, even with his normal adult physique he could easily break his neck like a twig, let''s not even talk now that he was a cultivator. If he remembered correctly after he threw his current body in the ocean he had returned to get his stack of stolen money from under the floorboards, under his bed at the orphanage... but there he was ambushed by three of his ''friends'' who realized what he had hidden there, orphans were innately survivors so they would do anything to get a better life which meant they had a worse moral compass compared to normal people. Yun Jhin''s ship landed on the docks as he disembarked and started running towards the orphanage, he was at the surface when he was thrown so not much time must have passed before his former reincarnation had returned to the city and the orphanage... if he calculated correctly right now he must have been duking it out with his ''friends''! Suddenly the window of the orphanage building in front of him broke as a skinny kid with a pale complexion was thrown through it, he was holding his neck where there was a small cut when he saw Yun Jhin running towards the orphanage his eyes glowed as he shouted: "That nameless bastard has hidden money under the floorboards, Head instructor please do something!" Yun Jhin ignored the bleeding child as he opened the door of the orphanage and entered to see two workers holding back Yun Jhin and two other children, they were bloody and had some fresh scars around their small bodies, their ragged clothes turned into full rags that couldn''t be distinguished as clothes anymore due to the fight. Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation eyes widened as he saw Yun Jhin arriving and opening the door before entering the orphanage... he had made sure he was thrown off into the ocean by that burly fellow he hired using some of the money that he stole from him... his feet were tied with cinderblocks and his head was covered with a cloth sack... his arms were tied to his back and he still swam back to the shore and came to the orphanage? At this point, Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation thought that Yun Jhin was a hidden cultivator! And he wasn''t wrong about that. Yun Jhin didn''t care about his image as he quickly went to his former reincarnation and looked down at him... suddenly both of his hands latched on his neck as he tried to break it like a twig! His former reincarnation tried to fight back so did the two female workers at the orphanage but all they could do was watch on as the life was ripped out of Yun Jhin''s body and he died like a dog with a broken neck. Yun Jhin let the body of the boy go and then waited for himself to be taken out of the trial but he realized that he remained there! The two female workers were looking at Yun Jhin with fear, they knew about the relationship between the two but they didn''t think that the Head instructor would snap one day and kill him in front of everyone! Yun Jhin snorted as he unleashed his cultivation base making everyone panic and then realize that he was a cultivator! All the people here were normal but they had met cultivators on many occasions and they knew what type of aura they had so they didn''t bother with Yun Jhin anymore... the female workers took the body of his former reincarnation and wanted to bury it but Yun Jhin stopped them and told them that he would do it himself... then they left him alone while taking the two other horrified children away from the entrance of the orphanage. Yun Jhin took the body to the back of the orphanage then glared at it, he knew he was trying to fake his death at this point, it seemed the near-death situation he put him through had made him unlock his memories! If it was any other normal cultivator they would have buried him by now but Yun Jhin knew he was faking it! Yun Jhin went towards his body as he put one of his hands on his neck and his other hand on the top of his head, then with a mighty pull he ripped his head off with spine and all! Blood splattered the ground as the body of Yun Jhin''s former reincarnation started to move around like a headless chicken which indicated there was still vitality left in it. But it soon stopped and dropped to the ground again, now he was fully dead! Yun Jhin has been finally ejected out of the trial once again and the familiar pain and memories rushed back into his main memory core. He could feel that this was the last trial just as Hell''s willpower said, there was no more darkness around him which meant he cleared it and that he was going through to the next trial. A voice appeared in his head that made a ''tsk'' sound before saying: "You finally finished the first trial... you are still pretty behind though, I''m quite disappointed that you won''t be the one who will inherit my treasures... but you aren''t a local anyways, just disappointed though, sometimes you are even wilder than the locals and that''s what I like about you." "Anyway back to the main discussion, the next trial won''t be as hard as this former one, all you will have to do is climb a mountain of blades, run through a sea of fire without any type of protective gear on and in the end, you will have to fight it out with the God Realm experts who had done the same trials as you... easy isn''t it?" The voice disappeared without saying anything else as Yun Jhin was left there to prepare for a little bit before he would be thrown to climb a mountain of blades and run through a sea of fire. These things would be impossible for a normal human but they would be rather simple for someone''s of Yun Jhin''s capability let''s not even talk about those God Realm experts... Hell''s willpower didn''t explain everything. Suddenly all of his cultivation was ripped out of his body as he was thrown near a mountain made from blades, he could feel his body turning cold as he looked at the gigantic mountain that he had to scale and after the mountain, a sea of fire appeared out of nowhere... At this point, Yun Jhin realized more than ever that Hell''s willpower was a sadist. He gritted his teeth as he looked at the mountain of blades and then decided to climb it, when he looked down he realized that he was also buck naked! Well... this was a willpower test, right? Chapter 160: Scaling a mountain of blades and a sea of fire Yun Jhin felt quite awkward as he was fully naked and he had to scale a mountain of blades with no cultivation... but the most important thing here was that he was naked! Hell''s willpower was quite perverted in this regard... Yun Jhin sighed as he looked at the first blade on the mountain, he had to climb onto it and move on from there if he wanted to scale the mountain, but how would a normal mortal body be able to withstand a blade? Yun Jhin frowned as he put his leg on the tip of the blade and it entered his flesh, blood started to drop fast out of his leg as he tried to jump from blade to blade using his footwork technique to minimize the impact on the blade, trying to make it feel like he was soaring above them. Unfortunately, the tips of the blades were quite sharp and all he could do was touch only the tips and not the whole blade to get up the mountain. He could feel himself getting dizzy as he lost blood and after two more minutes of climbing he fell with his neck being pierced by a blade... the pain was excruciating as he was doing this ordeal with a normal human''s body, he couldn''t use any techniques to seal the pain or ignore it. All he could do was endure and try to go on further.. because it was a test of willpower Yun Jhin didn''t die even though his neck was pierced by the blade, after all, if he died what would happen? would he spawn at the bottom of the mountain? would he fail the test? While Hell''s willpower was perverted it gave a trial that tested one''s heart and ability to endure so it made the test extremely hard but not impossible, after all, it still wanted an inheritor. Yun Jhin used his palms to balance himself back to his feet as he continued to run, as he lost all of his blood from his body he turned deeply pale and he couldn''t manage his body very well, it would take him almost 20 to 30 seconds for him to jump from one blade to the other and he was around half of the mountain range when this happened. At his current speed, it would take him around 2 to 5 years to fully scale the mountain and this was unacceptable... the mountain wasn''t extremely big as a normal human wouldn''t be able to scale a normal mountain under his current situation, let''s not even talk about one made of blades. However Yun Jhin wanted to minimize the pain by entering a mental state using a semi-meditation technique that even a normal human being could use, this would minimize the pain and restore some of his balance... unfortunately this would slow him down very much, and that would mean that others would get to the inheritance before him... Hell''s willpower did say there would be a tournament at the end of this but maybe he wouldn''t even be able to reach it if he was too slow! He could maximize his speed by fully ignoring the consequences but that meant he would arrive at the other bottom of the mountain in pieces. His left arm was already quite cut and the soles of his feet were sliced, there were holes in both of his feet and arms and it was getting increasingly harder for him to move forward but he gritted his teeth and then decided to throw caution to the wind as he started to quickly run on the blades without caring about the pain that came from it. His feet were starting to be diced as only his legs remained... then as time slowly passed only his legs from the knee up remained... then he was just a torso with diced arms and hands... He finally reached the top of the mountain at that part... he was breathing roughly and he was as bloody as he could be, there was no more skin on his body and his bones were also visible, his bones were also full of cuts and they seemed ready to drop from the meat that was keeping them together. The pain Yun Jhin was currently experiencing was unexplainable. Yun Jhin''s breathing was rough and quick, one of his lungs fell out of his chest and he then clutched it as the pain increased, while he couldn''t die his soul was attacked by immense bouts of pain for every extra injury he had on his body. He couldn''t keep himself straight anymore as he fell to the other part of the mountain of blades he started to roll like a barrel down the hill until he was impaled on a blade near the bottom... he had no more blood in his body so he couldn''t vomit anything... he didn''t have any stomach left anyways. All of his remaining flesh and blood was strewn around the middle and upper parts of the other side of the mountain, he remained just a skeleton as immense and continuous pain was assaulting his soul trying to rip it away from the carcass he was currently still tied to... Since he was all bones the blade couldn''t keep him on itself anymore as he used his brittle bones to lift himself a little then throw himself at the bottom of the mountain where his bones cracked and broke into powder! The powder then reformed itself into a skeleton before meat flesh and blood returned Yun Jhin to his former appearance, his face was still pale and he looked rather weak even though he had his blood back into his body... "Now for round 2... jump into the sea of fire and transverse it with the same condition as the previous challenge!" Yun Jhin walked forward unstably as he fell to his knees, there was no more pain on his soul but the immense amount that constantly attacked him since he got his first injury made his soul quite unstable at the moment, his ears were ringing as his surroundings shook, the sea of fire was just in front of him and if he moved a few more centimeters in front he could fall into it! Yun Jhin caught himself before he could fall... if he lost consciousness in the sea of fire he would surely fail the trial as that would mean that his willpower wasn''t up to par for Hell''s willpower standards. This was the first time in all of his reincarnations he took such a huge risk by doing a trial like this one... while he did other trials in his previous lives none of them put so much accent on the will nor were they this hard... Yun Jhin''s naked form took one more step as he entered the sea of fire and his meat started to be baked like a turkey! He was turning a light brown color as all of his bodily hair was burnt into ashes, the sea of fire was getting constantly hotter the more he walked into it and he was just at the fringes now so even a normal human body could endure it somewhat as the heat started from 37 degrees celsius. Yun Jhin took a few more steps forward but the pain of being burned couldn''t be in the same tier as the one from being cut, burning pain was the highest pain that could be experienced even among cultivators. Yun Jhin''s soul was already quite weakened after the mountain endeavor but he knew taking rests wouldn''t give him any advantages over his adversaries... he started to walk quicker as his flesh started to turn from brown to a dark color, he was just like a human-made of coal now as he covered around 30% of the fire sea distance. As he got closer to the middle he saw his competitors... there were 4 of them in total and they were all barely moving forward as they were no more than skeletons... but from the eye sockets, he could tell that they were trying to meditate to endure the pain while taking one step forward at a time. Yun Jhin finally reached them as he wobbled unsteadily while all of his flesh from his body became charred, fell, and transformed into dust that disappeared as well. He was just bones like the others now! He could feel his soul starting to actually burn as he reached the middle of the sea of fire... it seemed that he would now take soul injuries after so much pain was inflicted on his soul, while pain wouldn''t injure his soul it would weaken it for quite a long time but injuries meant that his psychic power could decrease and he would be open for others to take advantage of him at soul level! The others didn''t realize that Yun Jhin arrived near them as they steadily took one step, meditated, and then took another. Yun Jhin knew that he would end up with them in a tournament anyways but then a voice started to rumble into his burning soul transferring him and the others around him some information: "Since you are all near each other anyway, let''s start the tournament right here! The first to leave the sea of fire wins the inheritance and something extra from me!" The eye sockets of the other four skeletons moved seemingly as if they opened their eyes and looked at each other before turning their gaze to their new addition... Chapter 161: Skeleton battle royale The eye-less gazes on Yun Jhin''s skeletal frame made him frown inside, it seemed that as a newbie he would be the first one to be targeted, especially because they didn''t know who he was or where he was from. An outsider would be an unknown factor in the minds of these 4 people so they immediately launched themselves at him, but due to the higher amount of time that they sat in the fire they were more weakened than him, also Yun Jhin''s soul was way stronger than theirs at this point, after all, it was the soul of a previous peak God Realm expert, while they were only early Gods. Yun Jhin could endure way better than them even though his soul was certainly weakened by a huge extent at this point. Yun Jhin hardly dodged the charge from their attack when one of them used his flaming bones to try and crack Yun Jhin''s skull. Yun Jhin wasn''t entirely sure what would happen when his body turned into dust, after all, that part only happened when he finished the first trial and he got resurrected near the entrance to the sea of fire... would he be thrown back at the entrance of the sea or would he be ejected from the trial? He didn''t want to find out! Yun Jhin dodged the flaming bone by rolling his bones on the magma seafloor which melted most of his chest bones and backbones making his bones almost fail to cling to each other anymore, in this type of situation his skeleton wasn''t really normal as a normal person''s skeleton wouldn''t have been able to endure such a high amount of heat without melting and transforming into dust. While he had no cultivation Hell''s willpower found it boring for them to die fast so he enhanced their skeletons to endure all of the fire while most of the damage went to their souls. Yun Jhin''s burning soul pain was making him almost go mad as flames started to appear in his empty eye sockets. The other four people couldn''t move properly due to the immense pain their souls were in and that meant their movement speed was quite low, Yun Jhin''s speed was a little bit faster as he tried to get away from them, fighting in the middle of the sea didn''t mean they would complete the trial, Hell''s willpower indicated that the first who left the sea would have completed the trial so they didn''t have to fight to the death... but the others knew from Yun Jhin''s speed of arrival that he would be the first one to leave if they didn''t interfere with his progress. Even though Yun Jhin arrived last, he did complete the other trials faster than them, and it wasn''t because he was more talented, his will was just more tempered because he had lived through more hardships than anyone in existence in the mortal and hell realms at this point... excluding Hell''s will which was older than him, but technically speaking he did have more hardships than it too! Yun Jhin''s bones creaked and cracked as he took one hit from the other skeletons, it couldn''t be helped. In this type of fight, Yun Jhin was alone versus four opponents and he was exhausted as well, while the others were also pretty weakened they were more in number thus more confident in their abilities to take Yun Jhin down. Yun Jhin didn''t have any techniques to rely on, no abilities, no bloodline, and no cultivation explosion, he was a normal person''s skeleton only enhanced to endure the fire around him... all he could do was either try to run away or fight it out with them using his higher amount of experience in fighting. But no matter how much experience he had he couldn''t fight a 1v4 situation while he had the same body strength as the others. He tried to run away and he staggered as his left foot bone was burnt to cinders, as they fought they also moved further in the sea towards the location of the exit and the fire around them increased in temperature and intensity. Yun Jhin could feel that the others couldn''t withstand the heat much anymore, their eye sockets were moving as they analyzed him, they needed to use their zen-state to endure the pain from the fire and the increasing injury on their souls... it wasn''t that Yun Jhin could endure more at this point, his soul was literally in flames and since he was this far he would go through it till the end... he just hoped that Hell''s willpower would heal his soul after he finished the trial. The others didn''t know what to do in this situation, they could barely move anymore and they couldn''t touch Yun Jhin anymore as the distance between them got bigger and bigger, the more steps they took the more pain they endured and their flaming souls made them reluctant to continue. However, Yun Jhin''s soul was a little bit more damaged compared to theirs and he was still going strong regardless of the injuries amounting to his soul. This showed that his willpower was superior to theirs! Yun Jhin''s silhouette started to disappear in the sea of flames around them and they cursed under their breath as they realized that they had lost the chance of getting their hands on the inheritance of the 7th layer! Their bones were cracking under the flame''s heat around them, they couldn''t endure any more! Their bones turned into the dust which disappeared into the sea of fire and their bodies were ejected from the dark pagoda back into the wilderness of the 7th layer... which was pretty much a wasteland. The sage realm experts that came from the 7th layer and the 8th layer to try their luck but couldn''t get their hands on a piece of multicolored rock were still standing around waiting for any news about the inheritance when they saw 4 pale God realm experts being thrown out of the pagoda made them rather panicky, if Gods couldn''t pass the trail then who could? But considering they couldn''t even enter they actually felt quite glad that those 4 didn''t get the inheritance as well. Vanzuel frowned as he felt his soul quickly recover after he was thrown outside, it seemed that the damage to the soul wasn''t permanent and Hell''s willpower wasn''t shameless enough for it to not heal their souls after the trial ended. The other three just looked on with a bitter gaze as they said in unison without waiting for Vanzuel''s opinion: "We shall wait here for that unknown person to leave the pagoda... and snatch the inheritance from his filthy paws!" Vanzuel couldn''t see what kind of cultivation that person who one-upped them had so he was quite reluctant, the other 2 devils were rather mad so they didn''t think about the consequences if the person who beat them had higher cultivation than them but Vanzuel did, as a devil who was both smart and cunning he didn''t want to offend someone who he shouldn''t so he tried to persuade the others: "Guys... hear me out on this one, but what if the person who went ahead of us had higher cultivation? Due to the test, we don''t know what type of cultivation he had but only those in the 9th layer can get multicolored rocks... I doubt those two people would have had the guts coming here knowing I would be on my way here." What Vanzuel said made sense but the trio was still rather angry due to the situation... they wanted to fight it out with each other in the tournament and see who would get the inheritance that way, after all, while they were backstabbing fiends of hell, in this situation when they wanted to play nice but then one person made them unable to! This left a bitter after taste in their mouths but they considered Vanzuel''s words and decided to add their two cents: "If he is stronger we will just leave him alone while we hide here, but if he is weaker we should gang up on him and steal the inheritance!" Vanzuel knew that they were right as well... he was quite scared of the prospect of being devoured by a senior devil in this situation, he had cultivated for a long time to reach his current power and he didn''t want to die for the inheritance, the others had lower cultivation bases than him so they were a little bit more desperate to close the gap between them as they hadn''t realized the cruel truths of the 9th layer yet, they were basically newbies as they didn''t go very far in the 9th layer due to their fear of their ''seniors''. Vanzuel did go when he was younger and those experiences remained imprinted in his soul which made him more apprehensive and fearful than others. But they were also four and he was one so he decided to wait and see just like the others said. Inside the Pagoda Yun Jhin''s skeleton returned to its normal form... his azure long hair, his perfect body, and his robe appeared again. Yun Jhin sighed, it sure did feel well to be back into his own body! What Hell''s willpower did when he went through the trials was create a cultivation-less clone that he stuffed his soul into but now he was back into his original body which made him feel as comfortable as ever, his soul was also restored to its normal parameters, which made his gamble worth it! Yun Jhin waited for a short while before Hell''s voice entered into his consciousness again, it was time for the reward he so hardly sought! Chapter 162: 7th layer inheritance Yun Jhin''s eyes sparkled as he thought about the possibilities of the inheritance, but all he wanted right now was ''cold'' cultivation resources so he could break through further into his cultivation so he wouldn''t be under so much pressure from Yuan Fang! He still felt something wasn''t right even though he was in hell, but he ignored this feeling, at this point he couldn''t do anything to Yuan Fang schemes, it couldn''t be helped, after all, he was reincarnated earlier than Yun Jhin so he had an advantage that couldn''t be stopped or interfered with. Hell''s willpower voice entered his consciousness and told him: "Your reward is quite simple... something that you have desired the moment you stepped into the pagoda." Yun Jhin waited for the response, his breathing stopped as he became too excited, he was just like a child on a Christmas morning waiting to open the gifts under the Christmas tree. "Your reward is... the body of hell! version 7 of the 7th layer! Along with the armor of hell that fuses with your body of hell the moment you get it! Also, last but not least the most concentrated pool of energy which can be found on the 7th layer!" Yun Jhin eyes glittered as he listened to the rewards, one was better than the least, he didn''t have much knowledge about the body of hell he still felt very excited about the prospect of gaining an ability opposed to his current celestial body, while he didn''t know much about the body of hell, he knew hell and the celestial realm could mix like water and oil! "Normally speaking such a body would make you explode as you have a celestial bloodline and body... but considering your former knowledge of bloodlines and how many experiments you had done, well you should know what to do when I give you the body." Yun Jhin could feel the purest Hellish energy invading his body the moment the voice stopped booming in his head... the energy was at first gentle like the caress of a lover but the moment he let his guard down the celestial energy in his body went on a rampage! It was a normal reaction, how could hell be accepted by heaven? It was impossible. But Yun Jhin had done the impossible multiple times, actually, his experience in mixing things that shouldn''t be mixed was extremely high, all his experiments on his descendants and all those bloodline stealing events paid off right now. The body of hell was like an exoskeleton that wanted to burrow into Yun Jhin''s ''pure'' body made from the highest celestial energy that he could absorb, of course, the body would reject the foreign skeleton trying to replace his current ''jade'' one. However, Yun Jhin could trick the blood inside his body using a combination of his mixed ki and his knowledge of bloodlines and special constitution... However, there were complications. It wasn''t that Yun Jhin''s knowledge was incomplete, he just wasn''t familiar enough with the celestial physique and had no prior knowledge of the Hell''s body so problems arose. Fortunately, he had someone with immense knowledge in Hell, he cried out: "Give me all the knowledge of Hell''s body if you don''t want your inheritor to die!" "Oh blackmailing little old me already? Aren''t you daring? But you are right I do need you alive." An immense amount of knowledge found itself running towards Yun Jhin''s soul then it fused with it like a ripple on a lake, the knowledge diffused itself as quickly as possible as it reached Yun Jhin''s main memory core, and then his eyes glowed as he started the transformation of his celestial physique. To accommodate the new Hell''s body he had to destroy his current one and create one on the frame of the exoskeleton using the pure hellish energy he was given. Yun Jhin''s current body transformed into dust that disappeared into nothing, the exoskeleton of Hell appeared, it was as dark as night and inscribed with the runes of 7 sins: gluttony, pride, wrath, lust, greed, envy, and sloth. All of the runes were in the order that Yun Jhin lived his lives up till now.. gluttony was self explicit, his pride was immense even though he curbed it into the ground due to his current circumstances. He had a bad temper during most of his early lives which led him to reincarnate again, his lust was also transformed into something different as he lived longer but it was still there. His greed... well he could control it somewhat, he wasn''t envious and he was never lazy, a lazy person couldn''t achieve eternal life! According to the 7 deadly sins, he created a new body combining the celestial energy coming from the void above him and the current pure hellish energy running from Hell''s willpower. A new body was currently appearing over the skeleton... the bones were covered with flesh and soon skin appeared as well... His azure hair started to change as it grew back on his head... from a pure azure color, it became half azure and half dark red, his eyes now suffered from heterochromia as one turned azure and one dark red, it was just like back then when he achieved his Ying-Yang form... but now it was more pronounced. Suddenly over his naked body, a crimson armor appeared which inserted itself painfully into his body, it was assimilated and the pain that came with it wasn''t small... Yun Jhin grunted, even with the pain tolerance he had, he still wanted to scream out his lungs! The armor finally fused with his new flesh and connected itself to his new exoskeleton thus finishing the transformation of the inheritance. He knew that he shouldn''t have just done everything according to Hell''s willpower but at this point, he wouldn''t be able to leave even if he wanted to... he tried to pierce through space the moment he finished the trial to see if he could leave if he wanted to... but he realized moments later that he couldn''t. Hell''s willpower was currently sealing the whole space he was currently in, even though he practically left the Pagoda after he finished the trial and was transported to a different space he was still under the jurisdiction of Hell. After the transformation finished Yun Jhin fell to his knees as he breathed in and out to stop the immense pain flooding through his new body and soul. Hell''s willpower boomed into his mind: "Very good... the combination of Hell and Celestial realm made you... different." Yun Jhin could feel that his cultivation also broke through to the 2nd stage of the sage realm after he finished the reconstruction of his body, somehow his avatar benefited from the change, maybe it was because he used so much energy to reforge it, some of it may have leaked into his avatar. "Now that you are done with the body... let''s dip you into the pool." Yun Jhin looked down only for him to fall into a boundless pool of demonic energy, the energy was so viscous and pure that the moment he fell into it he realized that the energy started to transform into a type solid matter like jelly and trap him inside! Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he felt his skin absorbing the jelly substance by itself, now that his body was so attuned to hell his cultivation speed had increased by 200%. His surroundings were made of jelly, everything was jelly... all he could do was absorb it. His cultivation was quickly increasing the more he stood in the jelly, the quantity of the jelly decreased as time passed... 1 month.... 2 months.... 3 months... 10 months... Yun Jhin could finally breathe again as he felt that there was no more jelly around him, due to his new body he absorbed all of that ''boundless'' jelly substance in those 10 months of cultivation! His body stood there motionlessly as he checked his internal situation... his cultivation broke through from the 2nd stage to the 7th stage of the sage realm! He knew that this was only possible because he absorbed the ''core'' of the 7th layer, he realized after some time passed that he was thrown into the core that sustained the 7th layer, and now that he absorbed it, he became the layer''s lord! Hell''s willpower appeared out of nowhere... it was a dark green light body that had the shape of a circle, it stood there motionlessly for a long while before the sex-less voice he was familiar with appeared: "Very good... not excellent nor perfect, but considering how tough your new body is, I can say that it broke through the normal conventions of the so-called body rank and your cultivation isn''t that bad either." "You should know what comes next right?" How couldn''t Yun Jhin know? Why would you fatten a sheep beside for slaughter? A chuckle could be heard coming from the body of light... then it launched itself directly at Yun Jhin. Chapter 163: Sealing Hells devouring Heavens (1) The body of light was so fast Yun Jhin couldn''t have dodged it even in normal circumstances... he could feel his skeleton weighing down on his fleshly body and practically locking him on the spot. Hell''s willpower was really dishonest, it even tampered with his reward but it wasn''t something that Yun Jhin wouldn''t do either so he couldn''t really complain. The body of light entered his corpse as his connection to it was suddenly severed! However, he was the main owner of the body and he forced the connection regaining control of his body moments later, forceful possession of the body might have been possible if those normal God Realm experts passed the inheritance test but Yun Jhin wouldn''t let his main body be taken over so easily! At this point in his cultivation, his main body could be reforged if he had enough energy, only his soul needed to be whole he would only ''die'' if his connection to the mortal plane would be severed by someone with great expertise in souls or if his soul was destroyed by someone way stronger than him. In this situation, Hell''s willpower was trying to take over his body but it ignored his soul, after all, even though it had gone through his memories, he was sure that it had only read the surface ones that he let out as bait. Yun Jhin struggled to lift his left arm only for Hell''s voice to penetrate his sea of consciousness with a snort: "Still struggling? Your body is now mine, FUCK OFF!" A wave of mental energy assaulted the insides of his consciousness trying to push his soul away from his body, Yun Jhin gritted his teeth as he endured the mental energy... somehow it felt that it wasn''t that strong, was Hell''s willpower bluffing when it was outside his body? Or was its connection to the boundless energy of hell cut right now? It felt like it was above the God Realm in strength but now it was bearable for Yun Jhin to endure the attacks. Yun Jhin tried to counterattack with his own mental energy but it missed by a mile... he couldn''t actually find the body of light that entered his body, it seemingly disappeared but he could hear its voice taunting him right now: "You fool, thought you can defeat me because I don''t have the support of Hell''s essence anymore? As soon as I get control of your body I will leave hell and go to the celestial realm!" Yun Jhin frowned... hell wanted to go to the celestial realm? Seemingly sensing Yun Jhin''s puzzlement Hell''s willpower decided to say: "I''m in a good mood right now so I will make you understand my wish." Yun Jhin knew that at this point Hell''s willpower was either confident in taking over his body... or it was trying to drag the conversation so it could concentrate on an ultimate technique that needed time. Yun Jhin realized that it was most likely the latter. So he ignored the words that assaulted his consciousness and decided to attack randomly in his body trying to lure out Hell''s body of light. Yun Jhin''s frantic attacks somehow didn''t injure his new body at all... it was a bit too sturdy to the point that not even he could injure himself if he wanted to. Hell couldn''t hide in a place that Yun Jhin didn''t know about as there were no such places in his own body, even though it had been remolded many times, the moment his consciousness placed itself in the vessel he learned every possible nook and cranny from the body, as he scanned his whole body and attacked randomly he finally attacked a spot that made Hell''s body to jump out! Even though Yun Jhin''s attacking capability wouldn''t injure the body of light very much, it could drain it of its energy is needed to use to take over his body, there was a limit to how much energy one of those light bodies could accept and if it was drained the body would dissipate and Hell''s willpower would be stuck inside Yun Jhin''s body! Yun Jhin knew about that and he was really tempted in ''taming'' Hell''s willpower, who knew what kind of benefits he would get for taking over and sealing such a behemoth? However sealing him inside his body was easier said than done, even though Yun Jhin could drain him of his energy and there was a limited amount the body could have at a time, that didn''t mean the amount was small! Yun Jhin could feel his sea of consciousness shaking as Hell''s willpower infiltrated it with some tentacle-like transparent mental waves. Yun Jhin''s soul techniques could be considered above average so he could defend himself against the tentacles that were currently whipping around his memory cores trying to destroy them and make him lose his memories. Yun Jhin''s main memory core was hidden deep inside his consciousness so the whips were only attacking the useless cores at the moment, but the more it attacked the more cracks appeared in them and suddenly his 16th reincarnation memory core broke! The memories inside disappeared. As soon as that happened the will imprint that remained in the memory core was absorbed by the tentacles akin to someone drinking a smoothie through a straw! Yun Jhin''s soul shook as immense pain was inflicted on his spiritual body and it started to bleed blue soul essence, memory cores were embedded inside his sea of consciousness which was located in the head of his soul body, now he was bleeding soul essence from his mouth and eyes and he looked quite terrifying as his soul form was gigantic and shown his true colors which were purple and sickly green. Green flames flickered around his head as the soul essence he bled returned to his soul and fixed the injuries he had taken from the destruction of the memory core as he unleashed a mighty sound-based attack using his throat to drive away from the tentacles from inside his sea of consciousness. The tentacles were shoved away from his soul and returned to the body of light that was hiding in his physical body as he shoved his soul''s arm directly in his physical body heart trying to take out Hell''s body of light which was hiding inside it. Yun Jhin felt his soul''s arm tremble as it hit the center of his chest and then gripped his heart, it was his own body so it was a tremendous process to extract something from it while not fusing with it. To explain it more simply, his body was a vacuum and he was trying to remove something from it while it was on and at the highest setting. Hell''s body of light tried to run away from his heart but he felt Yun Jhin''s soul fingers grasping on his small ball-like shape and drag him out of his heart before he forcefully shoved him into his body''s left arm! Yun Jhin''s soul then fused with his body as he coughed a mouthful of blue blood and then struck his left arm multiple times in three of his meridian points with his finger, his left arm thus became limp and disconnected from his main body, the pathways from it were clogged and the body of light was thus blocked in his left arm and at this point, it also became unusable it just remained there standing straight and looking really stiff, it also turned deeply pale like it was the arm of an undead. Yun Jhin could feel the screeches of Hell''s willpower coming from it, it said something among the lines of junior do you dare? And how he would annihilate him the moment he got out of his bindings, and that he made a big enemy that he couldn''t escape from. Yun Jhin had heard these phrases so many times that his ears bled any time he heard them again, unfortunately, he couldn''t shut it up, but he could weaken it! Yun Jhin started to do some one-handed hand-seals as the energy that fluctuated around him started to fly around him like he was a blender then they transformed into a whirlpool of energies that rushed towards his left arm creating a tattoo like formation that etched itself deeply from his hand towards his elbow if Yun Jhin could have felt anything form that arm he might have even shaken a little bit. Hell''s shouts could be continuously heard: "HOW DARE YOU SEAL ME IN YOUR BODY, I DON''T WANT ONLY YOUR ARM, GIVE ME YOUR WHOLE BODY YOU DAMN ****" It was obvious Hell was going to have a dirty mouth so Yun Jhin wasn''t surprised as tons of insults were hurled his way after those attempts at scaring him didn''t work... actually he wondered why it was still trying? It did read his surface memories so it should understand what kind of person he was. Suddenly Hell''s willpower stopped shouting... his surroundings turned eerie silent for a few brief seconds before Hell''s voice was heard again: "Let''s come to a consensus shall we friend Jhin?" An old fogie like Hell''s willpower would always be two backed and duplicitous so it wasn''t a surprise it came to this. But Yun Jhin wouldn''t let it go now... he wanted to exploit it, trying to take over my body, and then you want to leave without bleeding at least 99% of your life and fortunes? Dream on! Chapter 164: Sealing Hells devouring Heavens (2) The first step in sealing Hell''s willpower in his left arm was to first weaken it enough, which meant draining its remaining energy to the point only its consciousness remained. For him to do that meant he had to attack his left arm and shake the energy that remained in the body of light. Yun Jhin took a look at his left arm apathetically before he used his right fist to punch it over and over again... it was a pretty simple way, just shake the arm good enough so Hell''s willpower could ''barf'' up all of the energy it had. "Hey hey... Yun Jhin, come on? Aren''t we birds of the same feather? Please let me out! I can promise you I will never bother with you again and I will also give you some more benefits!" Yun Jhin snorted, now that this thing was sealed into his left arm it became as docile as a lamb, but that was only because it couldn''t go towards the brain of his body so it could vie for supremacy with him again. To control the whole body Hell''s willpower needed to reach Yun Jhin''s brain and insert itself there properly while making sure that his soul''s connection to his current body was cut off. Then it would be all normal body-snatching shenanigans from thereon. It was a good thing that it couldn''t achieve its full power while it was disconnected from the environment of Hell. Yun Jhin took in a deep breath as he continuously assaulted his left arm to the point that it was almost severed from his body... which was an accomplishment considering he couldn''t even damage it much previously, that stemmed from the fact that Yun Jhin didn''t acclimatize himself properly to the strength of his newly crafted body but as he pummeled his own arm he realized how to control his newfound strength. Bits of white-colored light were randomly appearing on Yun Jhin''s arm blood vessels as he attacked it with a mad fervor which showed that Yun Jhin''s simple and brutal way of solving things was pretty effective. However, the amount that remained in the body of light could still be considered a lot so he had to beat his own arm for almost 3 weeks before he could hear the feeble voice of Hell''s willpower in his consciousness again: "Ok... Ok, you win please tell me what you want, you drained me off all my energy with all of that arm beating you have done, please have some mercy!" Yun Jhin and mercy were two words that wouldn''t find themselves in the same sentence. With one last mighty hit on his arm which made it so red and inflated that it looked like it would explode soon the last remaining energy that existed in Hell''s body of light dissipated and left through the air! "AGH!" This was the only sound that Hell''s willpower had done after all of its energy was exhausted. Yun Jhin sighed as he felt quite exhausted himself, while he could damage his new body, it was quite energy-consuming due to the immense defensive capabilities he got... and he couldn''t sever his arm because his new exoskeleton was too though to the point that he could only bruise and batter his arm like it was a schnitzel! Yun Jhin''s consciousness made a quick scan over his left arm and saw a grey and lifeless body of light rummaging around his inflated arm''s blood vessels they looked like they could pop any moment but as soon as he stopped bruising his arm he could feel it heal at immense speeds as it automatically attracted Hellish energy from the surroundings. Yun Jhin didn''t have much time to analyze his surroundings but now that he was free he decided to look around... And he found out that he was still in the pagoda may be in a secret dimension separated from the other ones, however, now that no one controlled the surrounding space he could pierce through it and leave. But first, he needed to finish the sealing. To fully seal Hell''s willpower into his left arm''s flesh he needed to fuse it properly by assimilating it, while it couldn''t kill it this way because while not having enough offensive abilities due to the lack of energy... as long as Hell existed, Hell''s willpower wouldn''t dissipate. So while he could fuse with it, even though how unwilling it was for that to happen, he couldn''t destroy nor assimilate it completely which was something that Yun Jhin found quite well annoying. It didn''t take much for Hell''s willpower to wake up and barrage him with shouts and personal attacks, even saying that he had xxxxxx his mom a few times which wasn''t very nice, Yun Jhin had eaten his mom before Hell''s willpower could touch her in this life, as for the other lives... it was even more unlikely. Yun Jhin''s bruised and battered arm returned to its normal silky and lean muscle form soon then he started doing another batch of hand-seals with his free and still working right hand, those hand-seals transformed into living runes that started to etch themselves deeply into his left arm before they entered his flesh and blood and attacked the listless and energy-less Hell''s willpower gray body of light. It immediately screeched acting as if it was a cat that touched water. Yun Jhin ignored its increasing screeching that was trying to disturb his concentration and continued to create runes with one hand as he inserted them forcefully inside the grey body of light trying to take over it and fuse it with his left arm. It wasn''t as easy as it looked to be, even though Yun Jhin was successfully branding the body of light with his fusion runes that didn''t mean the thing wasn''t doing its best to refuse them which increased the difficulty Yun Jhin had to go through before forcefully inserting the runes into its small body. The resistance increased with the number of runes that he inserted in its body as it realized what the runes were supposed to do the moment the first one touched its body and slithered inside. How could an old fogie like Hell''s willpower want to be fused with someone else? Someone like it would want to have full control of their surroundings and situations at all times and they would feel ''sick'' to have someone else control their fate. But no matter how much it tried to resist it couldn''t... that was until a shout like a baby''s scream came from it and demonic energy from the surroundings started to attack Yun Jhin instead of letting itself be absorbed anymore... Hell''s willpower broke through its body''s limits and started to control the surrounding Hellish energy to attack Yun Jhin, Yun Jhin was half demonic and half celestial thus if Hell''s willpower could control the energy to attack its celestial part to break the balance between the energies in his body, it could stop his attempts at forcefully fusing themselves! Yun Jhin frowned as he felt a stabbing pain going through one-half of his ki pathways, the celestial energy inside was going berserk as it felt itself be challenged by the ''putrid and lowly'' demonic energy from the outside, it wanted to leave Yun Jhin''s body and attack at any point while the demonic energy inside his body stood there like a docile lamb. He could feel his right arm turning numb as the celestial energy inside it went on a rampage, while the demonic energy in his body was tamed, the celestial energy was as wild as a horse! This was a problem, he couldn''t concentrate on fusing Hell''s body with his left arm this way, and as more time passed Yun Jhin could feel that the energy that dissipated from its body was returning, if enough energy returned to its body it could break the seal he placed on its body and try to take over his body again. It seemed that at first, it couldn''t connect itself properly to the outside and so Yun Jhin could ''bully'' it but as more time passed it started to adapt itself to Yun Jhin''s body and the connection between hell and itself was strengthened so it could recover its energy and control a limited amount of the surrounding Hellish energy! This was a piece of bad news for Yun Jhin! He gritted his teeth as his eyes locked on the rampaging demonic energy outside his body and he shouted as forcefully tried to suppress the celestial energy inside his body while stimulating his demonic energy to absorb all of the surrounding Hellish energy. The celestial energy needed to be tamed regardless of how wild he was... and if he couldn''t tame it he would devour it! What if you were from heaven? You would become my slave even if I''m the worst demon of hell! Yun Jhin''s attempts at enslaving the celestial energy in his body were fruitful after a short while, now that the surrounding Hellish energy couldn''t find a proper target anymore it was easily absorbed by his demonic side boosting his energy reserves to their full capacity! His gaze wandered right back to his stiff left arm as he forcefully continued to insert the runes inside it. While the energy that the body of light recovered was small it still helped it a bit to endure the barrage of runic energy that entered it... but that was only for a short while as it''s defenses crumbled and shortly after it started to shout again as it started to dissipate inside Yun Jhin''s left arm flesh and blood! "You will regret doing this Yun Jhin!" Yun Jhin snorted... he might regret it in the future but right now there was nothing else he could do to escape from this situation! Chapter 165: Successful fusion The tug of war between the two ''old fogies'' Yun Jhin and Hell''s willpower ended up with the win of the former, Yun Jhin had successfully taken the body of light apart and fused it with his left arm while keeping the consciousness tightly sealed in the same place. Now there was no way for Hell''s willpower to leave his body unless he let it. However he couldn''t shut it up, the consciousness of Hell had fused with his flesh and its voice could be heard reverberating in his head no matter how he tried to silence it. "Well it''s not so bad but I feel rather stifled in here... why don''t you let me out for a walk?" "Come on great master, I just want to stretch my legs, I feel like I have been incarcerated here for a millennium already!" The shamelessness of Hell''s willpower was off the charts, it even compared itself to a dog for a chance to get out and maybe absorb energy to break their connection, Yun Jhin knew that it felt so bad that it wanted to shut itself down forever for being humiliated in such a way by someone like Yun Jhin. Even though he was a former peak God Realm expert, Hell''s willpower used to toy with those type of people when it wished to, that''s why it ended up alone and hushed in the 9th layer, it way too overbearing! Plus it tried to take over some of their bodies as well. Yun Jhin could access some of Hell''s information and memories through the body of light he fused with so he gained quite some important bits of information that he didn''t know previously. The information was about the treasures of the 8th and 9th layers along with the important locations that Hell''s willpower would usually protect, now those places were empty and with no protection from anyone... and Yun Jhin was the only one who knew that! His eyes glittered but the annoying voice of Hell''s willpower continued to jar into his ears trying to plead and beg for its freedom, this annoyed Yun Jhin to no end but he couldn''t cut the connection between them as the fusion was pretty rushed and Hell''s willpower was also pretty strong so he couldn''t cut off the connection without injuring each other. At this point he either had to lose some flesh or have some voices in his head annoy him... and he didn''t really like losing flesh for something that he could endure. "You want to go to my treasure locations, don''t you? Even though I''m not there anymore there are quite a lot of traps and you had only got some of my surface memories just liked I did to you, why don''t you sign a contract with me and we will each go on our merry way? You free me and I will help you get whatever you want from there?" "Can you shut up your incessant yapping you goddamn thing, you are already sealed and your destiny is to be my possession from now on, just keep your muff shut and maybe I will let you go wag your tail outside from time to time." "You... YOU! Thank you!" Yun Jhin could picture Hell''s willpower kowtowing to him so hard for his ''gracious offer'' but now that he finished discipline the thing, he had to get out of the pagoda and go to the 8th layer where he would get his paws on some new resources that might help him get to the peak of the sage realm. To get out of the pagoda Yun Jhin had to break through space and make a ''cut'' through the solid parts to leave. Yun Jhin silhouette disappeared as he used his spatial talents to enter the ''spatial'' domain of the pagoda, there he created a purple scythe with his ki weapon technique then with a mighty heave he struck a big hole into the space of the pagoda leaving an opening big enough for him to leave through. Yun Jhin''s body disappeared into the portal he created as the 4 God Realm experts outside were discussing how much time will Yun Jhin stay inside. Suddenly Yun Jhin was ejected from the Pagoda which made their eyes light up as they encircled him the moment he got ahold of his surroundings. Yun Jhin frowned as he looked at the god realm experts surrounding him, but he just shook his head as he put both of his hands near his waist before his aura ballooned up and pushed the 4 of the aggressors away from him. Now that Yun Jhin was at the 7th stage of the sage realm his power had increased by quite a lot, it was to the point that these 4 wouldn''t be able to beat him even if they teamed upon him with a formation. Yun Jhin wasn''t in a good mood as the chattering of the voice returned to his head so some veins popped visible on his forehead as he looked at the 4 people blocking his way, he didn''t have time for these clowns! Now that he had the knowledge of these locations with treasures he had to rush to get them, who knew if the fogies up in the 8th and 9th layer would wake up and see that their angry landlord is missing? When the cat is missing the mice dance on the table. Yun Jhin had to rush ahead and leave these people here if he didn''t want his ''loot'' to be taken by someone else. Yun Jhin eyed them as they eyed him warily, even though he was only a sage realm at the 7th stage his aura pushed them back which showed he wasn''t a normal opponent at all. How could the aura of a measly sage push back 4 God Realm experts at the same time? It wasn''t possible in the heads of the 4 people... Yun Jhin stopped being passive as he attacked the weakest of them trying to cripple him directly, he took his halberd out of spatial dimension, and with a mighty heave, he slashed vertically trying to sever the man from the waist. The sudden attack on him made the God Realm expert quite vexed, just cause I have a lower cultivation base you target me? I will show you! He shot a crystal out of his fingers trying to parry Yun Jhin''s slash only for his fingers to be cut along with the crystal however he blocked the slash that tried to bisect him. He started to bleed profusely as three of his fingers were severed but the wound closed up with the same crystal encasing his wounds, but he couldn''t regenerate his fingers at the moment. Yun Jhin knew that it was easier said than done to kill a god realm expert but this wasn''t the end of his attacks. He returned his halberd to his spatial dimension as he disappeared from their encirclement employing his stealth technique making them start panicking they couldn''t see, smell nor hear him anymore! They also couldn''t sense his life aura or anything that could identify him as living, his soul trace was also gone! Suddenly the strongest of them Vanzuel dropped to the ground as his eyeballs were ripped from his head and thrown away into the wasteland behind them. He didn''t die but he screamed because of the intense and sudden pain that he had to go through. Yun Jhin didn''t ignore his downed form as he created a gigantic purple ki saber that he used to decapitate him! The head coughed a mouthful of blood as it rolled towards the feet of the other three before it jumped by itself up and a new body regenerated from it, he had a pale complexion now but it turned for better a few seconds later as the head connected properly with the newly regenerated body. Yun Jhin didn''t appear again but the others were still wary as they looked left and right as if the bogeyman was there ready to jump on them... Yun Jhin already left them behind as he was rushing directly to the 8th layers entrance which wasn''t that far from his current location. To reach the entrance to the 8th layer and above Yun Jhin had to do something different according to the memories he gained from Hell''s willpower. To go directly to the hidden location he could use a spatial pocket in the entrance, this was a similar situation to the one back in the pagoda but now he had to actively search for the hidden spot instead of slashing space randomly. Yun Jhin appearance at the entrance took him around 65 days. He looked at the gate in front of him and shook his head, now that Hell wasn''t active anymore there were no more inscriptions on the gate but it was still functional, this type of situation happened before and the netizens of hell were wary of Hell''s antics so Yun Jhin hoped no one went to investigate where he wanted to go. Chapter 166: Treasures frought in danger To find the hidden pocket of space that would be his shortcut to the location of the treasures Yun Jhin had to search for a while. Even though he knew of its existence he didn''t know the proper location of it, as Hell said, he only had access to Hell''s surface memories and not the exact ones that he wanted either. It couldn''t be helped if he forcefully tried to extract memories from Hell there would be a backlash, while they were fused properly now that didn''t mean they were one being. They were like parasitic twins with bot having their individual will, if one wanted to go left and one wanted to go right they would feel a pain like they would be splitting in the middle... so they had to coexist peacefully if they didn''t want to feel any pain or maybe even injure themselves to the point that they would be close to death. Now that he was trying to find the entrance it made Hell''s voice to appear in his mind again, now it was trying to goad him with its information and manipulate him into letting him free... "I guess you still can''t understand your position can you?" Yun Jhin was getting increasingly annoyed with this thing going on... maybe he could find some useful treasures that could shut it up for some time in the special place that it formerly guarded. Yun Jhin found a white light that resembled an entrance after a while of searching, it was very small and it was integrated into the entrance to the 8th layer at a scale that was almost microscopic. He had to search for a while to find it, he also had to strain his eyes using his ki enhancing technique so he could see the entrance... now that he found it he needed to enlarge it for enough time so his body could slip through it unharmed. To increase the microscopic white entrance he had to use his ki as a bridge between the location that it led to and his current location which was the entrance to the 8th layer... he also had to hurry considering that the God Realm experts of the 9th layer would surely come back this way so they could return to their layer after eating this loss. While he could defeat them if he wanted to, it would take time as the regenerative capabilities of a God Realm expert were a little bit too though to exhaust using his current Sage Realm capabilities he could defeat and kill them but it would take too much time. He frowned as he kept his hands steady, the connection between the location he wanted to get to, and this one was firmly created with Yun Jhin''s proper spatial skills and knowledge. Now all he had to do was feed this connection with ki for a while before the entrance would enlarge and he could enter it... fortunately as soon as he cut the connection the entrance would disappear so no one else would be able to follow him inside. It took him around 6 hours of pumping his ki into the ''tunnel'' to enlarge the entrance enough for him to enter it without problems... after he entered the entrance quickly snapped shut behind him. The entrance returned to its microscopic size and disappeared altogether for some reason, now no one would be able to use this entrance to get to where Yun Jhin currently was. Yun Jhin found himself in a dark abyss... red eyes were looking at him from everywhere, it was like the earth and the skies were full of red eyes, dark mouths were laughing at him showing their pearly white teeth and sharp canines. Yun Jhin didn''t know if this was an illusion or if he was surrounded by creatures of hell... maybe this was one of the formations and trials hell put forward to deter those who wanted to take its important treasures. "What do you think about my babies Yun Jhin?" "Hmm...?" Babies? So they weren''t illusions, Yun Jhin couldn''t recognize what type of creatures they were but there was also a chance Hell was trying to fool him into thinking they were real. Even with his judgement as a former peak God Realm expert, it was quite hard to see through this, was it illusion or reality? There was one way to find out. Yun Jhin put his hand forward before launching a small ki ball out of his hand which travelled into the darkness illuminating it and showing... nothing, there was nothing there, all the mouths and red eyes disappeared as if they were never there. But all he could see around was still nothing as if he wasn''t anywhere, it was as if he was abandoned by everyone and nothing remained around him the brightness of his surroundings was actually started to blind him. After darkness came light! Yun Jhin could see that the principles of Ying and Yang were used in here so he circulated the Ying-Yang talent he had gained in the king realm stabilizing the surroundings around him... then the five elements started to burn, freeze, batter, strike and slash him! Yun Jhin''s body was quickly becoming bloody but he ignored his injuries as he activated his five elemental talent absorbing all of the energies that were assaulting him in his body... with the new toughness and regenerative capabilities of his body, he immediately recovered to his peak bodily performance after he finished absorbing the energies. Yun Jhin didn''t know what other traps were supposed to be ahead so he stood there silently as he mulled upon what he should do to not find himself in a situation that he couldn''t escape from: "Hmmm? Aren''t you quite multitalented? Ying-Yang, 5 elemental abilities along with such intricate way of using them?" "But what else could I expect from a freak like you who had reincarnated for thousands of times?" Hell''s voice turned silent after it mocked/praised Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin turned a deaf ear to what hell said, it was either meant to intimidate him or make him doubt himself at this point. Doubting himself in this situation could lead to him falling into a deadly trap and losing his life here... in return, Hell''s willpower will either die with him or be set free Yun Jhin wasn''t sure.. while their fusion was successful it wasn''t 100% done, even at this point while their beings were intertwining together, he could feel a deep resistance coming from the body of light that was seeping deep into the cells of his left arm. But he had done everything he could regarding the fusion... all he could do was leave it to the Heaven''s will per se. To find the treasures Yun Jhin had to through a few more trials so he stopped waiting and started to trudge ahead in the ''nothingness'' that surrounded him. As he moved time seemingly passed at quick speeds... the four seasons passed by him, spring... summer... autumn... winter... Those four seasons appeared from nothing and surrounded him, spring was gentle and clean, summer was scorchingly hot, autumn was cold and wet and winter was like frostbite was ready to dig into his flesh and rip it from the bone. He accordingly used cultivation techniques opposed to the elements that discomforted him, besides spring where nothing happened Yun Jhin used cold Yin energy to keep his wits, in the autumn he used some hot Yang energy to keep his body warm and dry... and in the winter he used his inner flames to burn off the ice that was clinging to his shivering form until it melted and he went back to spring. The second time spring came... it wasn''t as gentle and clean as the first time, now winds battered him like they were ready to cut his flesh and drink his blood... but this wasn''t'' the only thing that happened... the seasons changed faster and faster and the intensity of the damage done to his body was increasing accordingly... Unfortunately for the formation that was surrounding Yun Jhin, no matter how damaged his body was getting he could walk forward while ignoring the damage... Yun Jhin realized that to get out of this formation properly he had to endure every injury to his body from the changes of the 4 seasons, get in the middle and destroy the formation core! Hell liked to torture people and surely there would be a guardian at the middle of the formation that would stop him from destroying the core... he would have to battle while being scorched, battered by wind, and wetted by rain, then frozen into a popsicle. Yun Jhin''s body endured everything as it regenerated at a speed that even his eye couldn''t see... one moment he was frostbitten, the next one he returned to his normal temperature and the ice fell off his limbs and body... this cycle continued until he reached the middle of the formation and felt the cycle turning even more vicious than before! In front of him stood a peculiar avatar of a horned man with a long red tail... and closed eyes his horns were dark and engraved with strange words, he wore an outfit that revealed his stomach, only a simple yellow and orange jacket was on his body and the jacket was quite short... he wore blue gi pants with a green sash tied at his waist. He also wore green and blue boots. Yun Jhin couldn''t identify his cultivation at a first glance but the more he looked at him the more he understood that he was going to be a ferocious adversary. He took two steps forward as he entered a stance and took out his halberd from his spatial dimension, keeping it in front of him with a vice grip, his aura lingered around his skin as an armour manifested on his body appearing above his special defensive clothes increasing their capability of enduring damage. He didn''t use his gigantic form as there was not enough space where he was... he also felt somewhat restricted due to the elements battering his body constantly without rest. Yun Jhin waited for a few seconds but the avatar didn''t open his eyes... Yun Jhin looked at it for a few seconds before he got close to the visible formation core and slashed it into pieces with his halberd! The four seasons formation broke and the avatar remained in front of him, he took a closer look to it and saw that it had no soul... then he looked at his left arm and chuckled, he will continue then. Muffled screams of anger from his left arm were currently attacking Yun Jhin''s inner ears... but he continued ignoring them and went on. Chapter 167: Fool me once shame on me Yun Jhin continued further into the wasteland he was currently in... step by step he went through deadly situations until he reached a gigantic altar that was the supposed location of the treasure. The air was putrid and damp and Yun Jhin could almost gag due to the smell that was in his surroundings. Here were the supposed treasures? Yun Jhin was quite familiar with this type of setup, it was a sacrificial altar meant to boost one''s cultivation. Yun Jhin couldn''t'' use this altar even if he wanted to because there were no sacrifices to be made! There were no bodies to be used nor any treasures that he could use to boost his cultivation here... did Hell fool him by feeding him fake information? Maybe he shouldn''t have rushed headlong at the first smell of treasures... "Feeling cold feet now?" The voice came from his left arm, it was seemingly mocking him for rushing in without any more information besides what he gleaned from Hell''s surface memories. "Since you are here why don''t you remain here?" Yun Jhin''s left arm started to move by itself as somehow it glowed with a red light that was similar to the altar''s color. Yun Jhin tried to back away but before he could an intense pain came from his shoulder as his flesh and blood were basically all taken away from him only his new exoskeleton remaining on the left part of his body. He breathed roughly as he clutched his left part of his body while applying ki to heal it and restore its former looks. The pain that was inflicted on him continued to sting his whole left part as he recovered. "Thought you fused with me right?" A mouth appeared on his former left arm which smiled wickedly at him, the mouth was full of pink teeth that were sucking on the bone-less flesh and visible muscles. Yun Jhin looked at the arm as it mocked him: "You really thought you captured me, didn''t you? As you said multiple times in your mind, I''m an old fogie and that has countless tricks while you fused with my body of light you forgot something, if you were smart you would understand what it was!" Yun Jhin frowned, he overlooked something? He thought he made it so they were like parasitic twins but it seems he was wrong... "Thinking how wrong you were right? Hmph, previsible even for one who had reincarnated so many times... you lived so many lives but you still act the same in all of them, only using your increased experience to reduce your former mistakes bit by bit... I can see why you have failed to break above the God Realm up till now with all your immense pool of information and techniques." Yun Jhin took a few steps back, his new arm started to hurt again and the pain was so stabbing that he couldn''t control his footing... for someone like him who endured a sea of flames and a mountain of blades, for this pain to make him stagger it showed that it was an immense amount. "Feel the consequences of the fusion now boy?" Yun Jhin felt as if his soul and body were both being forcefully separated from each other by some giant pliers, his soul which was properly inserted in his body was getting smaller and smaller from its huge proportion. Froth started to appear at his mouth as he couldn''t endure the pain and started to shout while clutching his head. On the altar a change was happening to his left arm, it started to grow more flesh from it and a skeleton... slowly but surely it became a second Yun Jhin and the only difference in his looks was that his hair was fully red and his eyes were black with the red sclera. He wore nothing but out of the void, a black and red robe enveloped his body. He looked down on Yun Jhin as if he was an ant that got in his way it seemed that all that happened up till now was previewed in Hell''s plans! "You know I realize that monologuing would be dumb at this point so I''m just going to end you, Ok?" Hell placed his pointing finger towards Yun Jhin''s head as a small line of purple energy appeared and pierced directly through it. The line pierced Yun Jhin''s brain scattering all of its contents on the ground... out of his lifeless body his soul came out and now that the connection between the two was severed he was practically ''dead'' however if he didn''t want to he wouldn''t be taken to the spirit realm, he still had lifespan in this universe and he could live as a soul and even restore his body with enough energy unless his connection to the mortal plane would be severed ahead of time he would be sent back... After all the higher the cultivation the higher was someone to get killed by anything else besides time. Yun Jhin''s sou looked confused as the skeleton that remained in his body suddenly left it and hovered towards the new body of hell, the skeleton inserted itself in his body as his old one was discarded through his skin. "Ah finally to be whole again... having a fleshly body feels so good!" "As for what to do with you... I would like a backstabbing piece of crap like you as my slave but you know... when I look at your mug I don''t feel really good." It seemed Hell still felt humiliated from having his first plan foiled, the reason he even got here was that it wasn''t omniscient yet, it might have power above the God Realm but it hadn''t touched that realm yet and it wasn''t known if it truly could or not.... after all, Hell was a being that was created by the universe, would the universe let it leave it and search for the truth outside? Hell cracked his knuckles and neck as it approached the paralyzed form of Yun Jhin''s soul... it patted its cheeks as he looked at it directly in its transparent eyes and said: "Tell Buddha that I said hi!" Yun Jhin couldn''t believe that he had fallen for such a low-level trick... he had been the one to do this stuff on people up till now and it seems karma was finally catching up to him, no matter how fast or strong he was he couldn''t be able to do anything in this situation... Hell had gained a body and it connected itself to its former quintessence thus now having the abilities of someone above the God Realm! It seemed this was the end for Yun Jhin. "Any last words?" Yun Jhin soul form started to tremble as he laughed and laughed he even started holding his stomach as tears came out of his eyes. "Finally lost your mind in the end, haven''t you? It''s ok as a courtesy I won''t eliminate your soul and let you meet buddha for another reincarnation. Aren''t I magnanimous enough?" "You wouldn''t get it." "Excuse me?" "You wouldn''t get why I''m laughing." "Oh please enlighten me I want to have a good laugh as well... I haven''t laughed for 500,000 years." "What do you get from crossing an unstable new body with a source of power too big for it to handle?" "Hmm... you!!!" Hell started to clutch his body he could feel it inflating at high speeds due to the energy current that was going through it, even with the exoskeleton he specifically crafted for this situation he didn''t take into the calculation that his flesh wouldn''t be able to handle the influx of energy from his energy source. "I... how did you know about this?" "It seems I''m not the only one who hasn''t done his homework am I?" Hell clutched his inflating body but he shook his head as he laughed as well while looking at Yun Jhin: "Think you can escape now? Even if my body explodes, my normal light form can still take care of you easily now that I don''t need your body anymore!" "That''s true, but do you know about this?" Yun Jhin''s soul started to grow smaller and smaller up to the point that Hell couldn''t see it anymore... did he self destruct? Hell frowned as he tried to sense his soul only to find that nothing remained around... even Yun Jhin''s remaining flesh and blood on the ground dissipated into dust that the ground ''ate''. Hell discarded its new body as it left the shell fall to the ground, the skeleton remained on its feet while the flesh transformed into ashes after it imploded from the immense energy that was transferred into it... He didn''t take into the calculation that as a new body is reconstructed one body refinement would be reset thus his body wouldn''t be able to endure the forceful increase in cultivation, this led to Yun Jhin escaping barely... if Hell didn''t bother to ask him for that joke he would be dead and he wouldn''t come back! ********************** Chapter 168: Hard to recover In the 3rd layer near the 4th layer entrance, a small imp was camping in a self-dug hole, waiting to attack any unsuspecting passersby. His eyes were glittering with intelligence and some primitive wisdom. It was the small imp that Yun Jhin blessed and left to his own devices, he was left near the entrance to the 4th layer and he remained there while waiting to ambush anyone who tried to go to the 4th layer, he realized that the stronger prey who wanted to ascend would have to go by here, the moment someone would pass by he would slash their guts open and feast on them! This imp lived the great life and ate quite a bit of high-quality meals up till now, he had even reached the 6th stage of the heavenly realm right now and he was still going quite strong! The imp looked to be absent-minded for a while as he didn''t do anything, after all, there was no one around him nor did he sense anyone coming from the wasteland in front of him... so all he could do was stay like that and conserve his energy for any further attacks. Suddenly the imp could feel a pain appear in his head, he clutched his forehead as he growled in pain and anger before his eyes became blank. Yun Jhin''s soul appeared behind the imp as it fused with his small body and he continued clutching his forehead as he frowned deeply. "Having left this beacon here was a good idea, even though it was unknown that this type of thing would happen being prepared saved me." Yun Jhin had scattered his soul and replaced it with his avatar, the moment his avatar exploded at the time his soul was sent away from the location and attracted by the beacon he left in the Imp''s soul, the beacon was there for him to control him and find his location. With a reverse summoning technique, he arrived in the body of the imp and took it over easily! The injuries to his soul were quite big and unfortunately, he wouldn''t be able to use any techniques regarding the soul right now... all he could do was inhibit the body of another as he couldn''t reconstruct his anymore, he was lacking in an extreme amount of energy and it felt like he had been starved for hundreds of years at this point. His new body''s stomach started to growl as his soul''s hunger transferred to the body, he needed energy for the body to withstand his injured soul, even though the current state of his soul was rather bad, it was still the soul of a peak God Realm expert. Yun Jhin crawled out of the hole that the imp dug and kept the knife the imp had hidden, he was truly weak at this point and he needed to feast on some flesh to recover some of his energy. Yun Jhin frowned as he felt that he returned to the times when he first reincarnated... well it was still a little bit better here but not by much. Yun Jhin''s steps were slow as he trudged towards a closer battlefield, the lower hells were full of such skirmishes and they were relatively easy to find. It didn''t take Yun Jhin much time to find the battlefield before making himself as conspicuous as possible, the moment they smelled Yun Jhin''s weak aura the demons pounced on him as if he was free KFC meal. Yun Jhin fell dodging the demons'' attempts at biting his neck and destroying his new body... his left hand moved quickly slashing the necks of 3 demon wolves and his mouth opened wide taking big bites out of all three of them... a little of his energy returned but it was a drop in the ocean for his current situation. He knew that he needed to leave hell as soon as possible but he wasn''t sure that he would survive the transportation between layers so he needed to heal himself first. He already hid his aura and his body couldn''t be ever compared to his previous one so technically Hell shouldn''t be able to find him at this point. Yun Jhin needed to reach the mortal realm and hide there to recuperate, Yuan Fang was still out there but now that he had a new identity and his aura was changing as he continued to inhabit his body, as long as he played his cards right he might not have problems with Yuan Fang. Yun Jhin continued focusing as he finished the bodies of the wolves, his ferocity and quick attacks scared the remaining demons and imps, the smarter imps even started to back away with wary looks in their eyes, they could feel that their ''comrade'' was quite different compared to them. Yun Jhin ignored the devils, devils had comparatively weaker bodies and they could hold less energy compared to demons so he didn''t need to devour them if they didn''t attack him, he couldn''t split his attention into two sides at this moment due to his soul injury so he had to focus on the demons. Yun Jhin gave a side glance to the imps side and snorted as his eyes told them that this was his prey! The remaining imps looked at each other before they started to run with their tails between their legs not daring to fight anymore, in this situation a starved camel was still bigger than a horse. The demons were wary of Yun Jhin''s strange attacking patterns and even though they were still quite dumb they had achieved the heavenly realm so they weren''t completely mindless. They tried to back away and follow the example of the devils who already ran away, their silhouettes could still be found scattering into the horizon and jumping through some holes in the ground, they all acted as if they were moles. 4 demons were remaining on the battlefield and they all started to take a few steps backward as they growled at Yun Jhin and showed their fangs. Before they could even let out a howl Yun Jhin appeared in front of them and ripped their throats open using his weapon after Yun Jhin finished feasting on them he felt a little bit better as his soul accommodated the new body. Since he was a foreign existence to this body at first it tried to expel him but considering the difference of strength between them, he subdued it after a short while. He could feel that his health was a bit better compared to before and he started to trudge towards the location of the exit of this layer... he needed to get out of hell asap even if he felt that Hell''s willpower couldn''t find him right now. ******************************* Hell''s willpower reconstructed the body using the DNA he harvested from Yun Jhin''s arm but he frowned, even though he absorbed quite a bit of DNA in his attempts at constructing a body using Yun Jhin''s left arm he felt that he couldn''t succeed, it was if the universe itself was going against him! He realized that even if he inhibited Yun Jhin''s body, at one point or another it would expel him or it would explode regardless of how sturdy it was or what combination of energies it was made from. Hell''s exoskeleton stood there straight and unmoving as Hell was rampaging cracking the ground around him with his anger: "This damn piece of shit... you gave me this much strength but you tied me to one location? I WANT OUT, LET ME THE **** OUT!" "WHY DO YOU LET THAT DAMN CELESTIAL EMPEROR MOVE IN HIS REALM?, WHY?" It seemed Hell was going through a crisis of its own right now and couldn''t have time to look for Yun Jhin. As for Yun Jhin, he had already reached the exit of the 1st layer and he was ready to leave Hell... but before he needed to change his body a bit so he wouldn''t attract attention in the mortal realm, after all, hellish creatures were quite hated up there but the ''righteous'' sects would also make deals with them if they were strong enough, it wasn''t that Yun Jhin was a devil but that he was too weak to reveal himself right now. He could also have recovered in Hell but his paranoia was so high that he couldn''t control it anymore at this point, he needed to find a safe place where Hell couldn''t find him, he knew that it could move only in special locations but Yun Jhin didn''t want to try and find out which locations were available to him. He entered the door that leads to leaving Hell and his surroundings shook as he was thrown outside and into the ruins of the Blood Throne sect. He was using his stealth technique before he entered so he wasn''t sure if Yuan Fang realized that he entered or not... especially that he didn''t enter from the same location. A warm voice could be heard coming from in front of Yun Jhin: "What do we have here? A fugitive of some sorts?" Chapter 169: Yuan Fangs forces The voice was male and it sounded close to Yun Jhin''s location but it wasn''t intended for him. A blonde-haired man with a good complexion, high nose, and pronounced cheekbones his hair was wild and long, reaching his waist it was also very spiky, he wore nothing but a brown armor that covered his chest area and a green gi underneath he also wore sandals on his feet. He was watching the portal that led to hell. He said those words but they weren''t targeted at Yun Jhin... it almost seemed as if he was preparing for an act and he was rehearsing. Yun Jhin felt the man was quite strange so he stood still to not be found and waited for him to continue: "Ah... the tonality isn''t good enough, I need to make sure the dumb imps who leave through here get intimidated and run back in! That would give me a good reason to visit hell but alas..." He sighed as he shook his head and continued to say the same phrase as before but he changed his tones making the meaning differ from trying to try. Yun Jhin realized that the man had a few screws loose, most cultivators had their own ticks and craziness in their personality, very few could be considered ''normal''. The man would most likely be one of Yuan Fang''s stronger companions and Yun Jhin could feel his strength even though his senses were a bit impeded due to his injuries. He was infinitely close to the God Realm as a peak sage, Yun Jhin found him to be rather strange as the aura he was exuding would be fluctuating from time to time his cultivation becoming higher and lower. He didn''t have time for Yuan Fang''s man as he tried to step to the side and leave him alone, in this situation he didn''t want to get anyone''s attention. Even though he couldn''t be identified as Yun Jhin anymore, he wasn''t sure what Yuan Fang was doing with the escapees and tourists from Hell. He might start creating his own forces into hell instead of manipulating the current ones... things were really going well for him in comparison to Yun Jhin. He left the man behind to continue monologuing it seemed he would stop only when someone would actually walk out of the portal. Yun Jhin took a few steps towards the center of the ruins so he could leave when the portal started to flicker with a red radiance... this didn''t happen normally unless a high ranking creature of hell would go through for the first time. This wasn''t right, Yun Jhin would have realized if someone was entering the portal behind him which meant the person who was entering didn''t follow him, was it really a coincidence, or was it something else? The man with a monkey tail appeared, the same person that worked previously with Yuan Fang on the elves'' planet. The man was totally unknown to Yun Jhin but he saw that the blonde man didn''t do anything to him which indicated that he was one of Yuan Fang''s men. Suddenly his voice stopped him in his tracks: "Yo Borgos, I have come with some hot news from Hell connect me to the boss." His voice was child-like and his face showed that he felt that the news was going to be pretty important to Yuan Fang. Yun Jhin didn''t wait to find out what the news was, it was most likely the fact that he lost his body and was heavily injured by Hell''s will, Yun Jhin knew that he was somewhat tailed in Hell, at least he couldn''t keep his tracks fully hidden unless he continued to stay in hell, now that he was gone and most likely hell had boasted about his defeat everyone must have known thus his prestige and influence in hell was most likely gone. In this situation, he couldn''t do much so he started to run away so he wouldn''t be found out by Yuan Fang. He was always a mysterious person so there was a chance he could be found out through the transmission, unlike his cronies he was actually skilled to the point that Yun Jhin would be pressured in a 1v1 fight, that was why he teamed up with those ''righteous'' fools to kill him in his last life. He left the duo behind to call on their boss and started to fly away slowly while keeping himself invisible so he couldn''t trigger any of the formations that were planted around the ruins, while most of them were almost destroyed they could be triggered if he wasn''t careful enough. It didn''t take him a lot of time to leave the ruins as he gave out a content sigh then started to move towards the neutral galaxies, his best bet at recovering was finding an unknown little place and meditate in seclusion. But to find that place would be a little easier said than done, most of the galaxy was pretty much known by now regardless if it was populated by neutral, righteous, or evil forces to find an unknown place and where he wouldn''t be harassed by any of the forces was a little impossible at this point. He needed both time and a location that was pretty packed with high-quality ki so that meant a place with little to no population but with an advanced ki concentration as well, he couldn''t go to any random deserted place with average ki concentration. Even in his past lives, he didn''t know of such a place and it wasn''t known if such a place popped up in the galaxy. He changed the imp body through his ki techniques making himself look like an unassuming middle-aged man but he still left out some of his devil-ish features to make himself look a little bit more convincing as a newbie from hell, he had red shaggy hair and if someone moved it a little two little protruding horns could be seen growing from it, his ears were a little more elongated than normal and his eyes were deep red. His mouth was full of sharp fangs and some characteristic runic tattoos of hell were engraved on his ''human'' body. He needed to cement this new identity of his so he could lay low for a while. He still had the new racial technique of the celestial caterpillar that he could try out but he was a little bit too paranoid to use it in Hell as it could trigger some events that were easily foreseen by him, he could mask the ability as a demonic one and do the same in the mortal realm as well but that was only after he rested enough to make himself a new body, he didn''t really like the current borrowed one. Yun Jhin flew towards a neutral asteroid as he didn''t want to land on a planet yet, there he procured some information using the special talents that he cultivated during his numerous lives. It seemed that there was no such planet that he wanted to find so he had to settle for something else. The elves were small in population compared to the other races in the universe and he could play his act like a demon who was attracted to ''elvish beauties'' very well, the pure energy that the world mother and father three could exude would also replenish his injured soul quintessence. After making sure the elvish planets were in the same location he decided to travel using the local travel and smuggling agency on the asteroid this way he could continue his act as a weak newcomer from hell with low cultivation. As time passed this new body of his could adapt to his soul cultivation and the blood of the celestial caterpillar that was overflowing inside it with the system''s help. Technically speaking such blood should be like poison to the body of the lowly imp but with Yun Jhin''s new experience in bloodline mixing, he easily made the body endure. He embarked on a spatial flying ship after giving out some hell-specific treasures as bribes, currently, he didn''t have much capital with him. The journey to the elvish planet was long and arduous for the broken and run-down ship that Yun Jhin was let on. It took them almost 3 months in total to reach the planet but Yun Jhin used this time to fully adapt to his new body and push it to the 3rd stage of the sage realm, the reconstruction of his avatar was done using recycled energy, while he self-destructed his avatar and made it disappear in shards, he had kept some of the shards into his soul which he could use to reconstruct it at a lower cultivation base... after all his former avatar made him reach the 7th stage. The elves'' planet was fully green and full of forests, the small inconspicuous ship landed in one of the smaller cities on the planet and Yun Jhin left it going with the crowd of other people that he shared the journey with. Yun Jhin looked around and identified this planet had the mother tree on it and nodded... the father tree was harder to deal with but the mother tree could be easily swayed to give him what he needed as long as he played his cards right. His eyes glittered as he looked at the supple bodies of the elves around him regardless of gender. Chapter 170: Back to the basics All the elves mostly walked around in groups of twos and they were extremely beautiful... they were a little bit paling compared to the superior natural spirits but they were all beauties in their own regards, the only thing that could be held against their beauty was that they were all pretty skinny so it could be a turn-off for some people with different tastes. But Yun Jhin wasn''t admiring their beauty, his eyes were glittering due to their souls that were infused with healing energy and their bodies full of natural energy, he was looking at them like a farmer would look at cattle before they slaughtered it and barbecued it with chili sauce for the Christmas dinner. Even though Yun Jhin had nefarious intentions he hid them very well, he had done this countless times and there were no old fogies to trouble him now, the mother world tree was deeply sleeping for some reason that he couldn''t identify right now as he would need to get closer to it. The tree had its gigantic eyes closed as its aged face didn''t move, the gigantic being was so big that it took 20% of the planet''s surface and it was visible from wherever you would be standing. The gigantic being was as old as the universe itself, the universe created it along with the father tree as the patriarchs of vegetative beings and conferred them a will of their own, they were wonders of the universe and they were practically immortal and unkillable as long as the two were together. However, as time passed just like a married couple that got bored of each other they had their hassles and disagreements so they split up while creating a new race, the elves, to protect their darlings the nature spirits. Due to the special constitution and temperament of the nature spirits, they were hunted for their capability to help body refiners quickly rise through the ranks and upgrade the body''s constitution. Elves were somewhat similar to nature spirits in the regard of their flesh and blood being quite helpful towards other beings as they were created by the same consciousness. If the nature spirits were the legitimate children of the father and mother world trees then the elves were the illegitimate sons and daughters. Those illegitimate sons and daughters got quite angry with the official ones as they could be considered ''talented'' while the official sons were trash young masters who couldn''t even tussle with a chicken. Thus the nature spirits were being treated with contempt and belittled under the noses of the mother and father tree, unfortunately for them, the duo of trees was mostly sleeping these days. Yun Jhin really needed a new nature spirit as well, his new body which he will have to recreate would start again from scratch regarding body refinement and a nature spirit''s heart would boost his recovery by more than 500%. Yun Jhin walked through the crowd of elves easily avoiding body contact with all of them, but his eyes were marking all of his future victims, this ''city'' which they landed in was in the gray areas of the planet which meant the security was lax and most of the people here were battle-hardened people full of ki and spirit, snakes and dragons would be hiding around this place. Yun Jhin disappeared into an alleyway as his figure turned transparent as he activated his stealth technique. His first victim was a couple that was slowly walking towards their home to the district of homes that wasn''t far away from the ship receiving pad. The homes were created up into the trees and they were all quite big for two people and from what Yun Jhin knew elves liked to live in couples of no more than two. Yun Jhin slipped through the shadows as if he was a slippery serpent, its tongue forking out of his mouth to find its way towards its prey. The couple was unknowing, they were both chatting and laughing happily as if they were the only people in the world. Yun Jhin liked his victims being unknowing, they could struggle less this way so he wouldn''t have to make a mess out of them. Yun Jhin appearance behind them was instant and they couldn''t even process what happened before two palms were put over their mouths as Yun Jhin forcefully dragged them into a nearby alleyway. No screams were coming from the alleyway, no blood running down the greenery below, nothing was heard as they disappeared in the middle of the day, somehow no one batted an eyelid at what happened as if it was something that happened often, Yun Jhin had already laid down a concealing formation the moment he dragged the duo out of the way to their homes so no one saw what happened. Yun Jhin walked out of the alleyway with his hands in his pockets, his gait seemed a little bit more stable than before and his face gained a glint of red in it but it wasn''t visible unless one was clearly near him. "These elves are so rich in ki and spirit... it was as if they were fattened up beforehand for this to happen, this is actually rather strange." Yun Jhin muttered to himself as he looked to his left and right before disappearing again, in Yun Jhin''s memories elves were extremely inferior compared to the nature spirits in regards to how much ki and healing properties they could hold into their flesh and blood but these two were quite different. They tasted strange as if they were fed something that forcefully increased their ability to heal. Could Yuan Fang have a hand in this? He didn''t think the other righteous fools would put their hands in this place, fighting with the elves was like trying to hold a hot potato, you could burn yourself quite easily if you didn''t handle it with care or had gloves. And these righteous sects didn''t know how to use their gloves properly. Yun Jhin frowned as Yuan Fang was the only one which came to his mind as he realized his claws had stretched to the elves territory already, he was as busy as he was in hell but it seemed he didn''t get into complications as he did. Another couple disappeared into an alleyway as their muffled screams couldn''t be heard due to the formation blocking them. In another four hours, tens of couples disappeared and afterward, Yun Jhin left the city flying towards the east where the mother tree was located. He needed to investigate what happened or he wouldn''t feel well, his healing also went on pretty nice due to the immense surplus the otherwise normal elves had in their healing capability. He was almost 60% healed and he would be able to reconstruct his body quite soon as long as he continued eating elves. Yun Jhin arrived at the base of the mother tree where the biggest city on the planet was in 60 hours there he hid in the crowd and listened to someone who was preaching near the tree quite loudly: "Don''t you see that the outsiders had poisoned our mother? She had never slept for such a long time up till now and they said that they would heal her! What happened is preposterous and these outsiders deserve the death penalty for what they had done!" This person wasn''t weak as he was at the peak of the sage realm and he wore a green loose robe that showed his muscular body and intimidating form. He was the chieftain of the city and a big supporter of the mother tree, he believed that if anything happened to her they would all be doomed which wasn''t technically true, the connection between them would hurt them a little but it wouldn''t be anything major the connection between a race''s creator and the race itself wouldn''t affect the race if the creator died unless the creator was the universe itself. As the man talked Yun Jhin waited and listened, at one point the man described the features of those who arrived to help the mother tree and Yun Jhin recognized one of them, it was the person with the monkey tail! He came out of hell no long ago but he arrived here before Yun Jhin, of course, Yun Jhin took the long away around but it was still nevertheless impressive as he must have done some more errands for Yuan Fang before he was sent here after all the news needed to be confirmed some way and Yun Jhin was sure that Yuan Fang had the same kind of paranoia as him. The man flew towards the tree as he put his hand on its bark and started to weep silently, tears started to slide down his cheeks as Yun Jhin watched on unaffected, would Yuan Fang''s forces come out of the tree and beat this strange elf to death? Yun Jhin watched on and waited. Chapter 171: Infiltration The strange elf''s form was both shaking and crying at the same time, it could be seen that he was genuinely pained by the things that were going through with the mother tree right now, his connection to her wellbeing was true as he said, but not all elves were like him. Most of them were ignoring what he was saying after they understood his intentions, he wanted to pity them against those strong outsiders that took over the mother tree and killed the father tree, it was most likely impossible, elves while snobbish and proud they were also mostly cowards. The man tried to convince people using his words of genuine concern for their race but it didn''t work, it just made them look at him with weird eyes as if he was an alien that they didn''t know at all, nor did they want to associate with him. Yun Jhin watched silently as he kept himself concealed in the crowd, he wanted to see what would happen to this person, how was Yuan Fang going to strike him down? Would he go through the easy way or the hard way in dealing with this pest? Watching what was unfolding in front of him would help him realize a bit more about the changes that Yuan Fang''s personality went through, did he truly become a monster like him or was he a righteous person who was ugly on the inside? The person with the monkey tail came as Yun Jhin guessed, but he didn''t do any of the things that Yun Jhin thought about, he didn''t beat him up nor did he act arrogant before saying something in a condescending tone which indicated that he was the boss of the planet. He just gave out a small bow with a sheepish smile on his face and told him loud enough for everyone to hear: "I''m sorry you guys think about it that way but you will see in the future that your mother tree will become better, as we are speaking our leader is currently administrating a special serum that would help its natural healing speed and in a few years the tree will wake up again!" Yun Jhin snorted inside: "Playing the good samaritan while his brother thieves the house." In this situation, Yun Jhin was sure that after getting a taste from the core of the father tree Yuan Fang realized how important those are and he wanted to get the complete set, it seems he was going in the roundabout way of ''I''m evil but you don''t have to know that''. In this situation there wasn''t much he could do about him, maybe he could try to infiltrate his gang but who knew if he was going to be seen through if he met directly with Yuan Fang? He always found him to be quite unfathomable back then and now his powers should have increased even further. Yun Jhin ignored the man as he entered into the body of the tree saying that he wanted to see for himself, it was most likely he would either never return from the tree any more or come out as a soulless puppet that could be precisely controlled or in the best situation, he would become his slave with a little bit of free will. He continued to devour random people in the capital but he didn''t make any pattern or anything similar so he wouldn''t be found out, he only targeted those far away from other people that either had no immediate relatives or were rather old, Yun Jhin surprisingly found out that even the old people had a lot of life force flowing through their veins. Could have Yuan Fang planted the core of the feather tree on the planet of the mother tree? This was the only way the current elves could have such a highly boosted vitality, when the duo of trees meet they would certainly boost their creations vitality by quite a lot, this was only the beginning of the golden era for the elves. They would first start with increased vitality before their talents would be boosted and lifespan as well. Yun Jhin calculated that an elf would live for almost 350,000 years at peak cultivation with their current life force, and he felt that this wasn''t their peak! What would Yuan Fang get from doing this? Could he even keep these people under his thumb after he boosts them like this? What was he doing to the mother tree? Yun Jhin head started to hurt as he had these questions, it was a type of foresight that showed him that meddling in these affairs would end up with him on the wrong side which would let him either die or get fatally injured. Even his paranoia was hinting to him that it wasn''t the time for him to get involved in this shit. But he also knew that Yuan Fang''s hatred for him wasn''t small, which also showed that the moment he was found he would surely die. The grievance between them was so high that it couldn''t be resolved through any normal means. "I guess I will continue devouring until I can reconstruct my body, but getting my hands on the nature spirits will be easier said than done..." Yun Jhin couldn''t leave the planet empty-handed, he really needed some natural spirits to recover his body refining at a high speed he didn''t have any sense of security if his body was too weak and it could be pierced through easily, also even though he acclimatized to his current body it didn''t mean he was feeling good in it, after all, it wasn''t molded for his own use his soul didn''t nestle itself properly in the mind palace of the body and he could feel it cracking if he exerted too much of his recovering soul powers. Yun Jhin sighed as he slit the throat of the 600th elf then used a technique to absorb him into his body, the nutrients and healing power were contained into his body then the healing power inserted itself in his soul finally recovering it fully. He also had stored enough nutrients to create a new body. His eyes glittered as he left the capital digging through the ground to reach an underground area where he would hide until he could recreate his body, while his new body could relatively handle his cultivation it wasn''t really possible to fully unleash it due to the incompatibility. There was only dark soil around him and the underground area was dimly lit, suddenly green flames started to burn on Yun Jhin''s devil body as it dissipated into nothing, his soul appeared in its splendor as the energy that he stored was used to create a new body. The exoskeleton appeared, half-golden and half-dark then the flesh blood organs skin, and finally the body was created in no more than 20 minutes. As long as Yun Jhin had enough energy he could recreate his body even faster but he had to make sure the body was perfectly made to fit his soul. Unlike the one that he was born in, which had gathered quite a lot of impurities from the ever-continuing evolutions. This new body was a little bit purer, however, it was very weak and it would need time to be nurtured before he could inhibit it, it also didn''t have any features as it was faceless and genderless. Yun Jhin had to insert his soul into it to get its features. Yun Jhin looked the body up and down before he put his hands together as if he was praying, then out of his hands a continuous high amount of soul energy leaked into the body to create its ki pathways and give it a foundation for the cultivation, he had broken through from the system''s limits as his body was destroyed and now he could use the system DNA sequencing power to create a new and more perfect power than before! Because he had reached the sage realm and his soul wasn''t cut off from the mortal plane he had learned a lot of new things about bodies through his soul form usage, all of his former reincarnations ended up with him reaching the spirit realm after getting his body destroyed, after all, no one in his right mind would let the soul of the enemy escape, Yun Jhin was only lucky that some strands escaped that he could use to reincarnate in most of the dangerous situations, or those that killed him didn''t have any soul extinguishing techniques. Now the body he was creating wasn''t of a celestial beast nor a demonic one... it was human just like he was in his previous life, he always liked the human body the best, even though it had characteristics from quite a bit of race he absorbed it was ultimately a human body. He always felt that the human form was the one that handled his soul the best. [Hidden conditions met, caterpillar system had been made useless by the host''s ability, the caterpillar system had finished its functions and now it shall cease working immediately!] A minuscule body of light left Yun Jhin''s soul body at a speed that he couldn''t glimpse. He felt that his soul was missing something the moment the light left him but he also felt like some invisible shackles on his soul were also released as if the omnipotent one that was looking at him day and day night couldn''t look at him as easily as before. Chapter 172: Body reconstruction and soul restoration "This feeling... maybe something really did happen when I was reincarnating, normally I wouldn''t have ended up in such sore straits." Yun Jhin thought. "Did I encounter a powerhouse above the God Realm in my soul form?" Yun Jhin couldn''t really fathom the thoughts of those that ascended beyond the God Realm. After they reached true immortality what were they doing? What were their thoughts when they did what they did to him? Were there factions even up there? It seemed that way. This system ability of his must have been given to him by the guy who opposed the one that reincarnated him as a caterpillar, now that its job had been done it was retracted back to the one who gifted it to him. Yun Jhin was unconscious back then and he couldn''t know who it was but he knew that things weren''t as good as they looked on the surface... only those ruthless and very scheming persons would be able to ascend above the God Realm, so he had been schemed against successfully, back then he didn''t really care where the system was from due to obvious reasons, even if he did he couldn''t do anything about it, even at this point even if he became paranoid of who gave him the system it still wouldn''t help him by much. Yun Jhin sighed, it seemed no matter what he would do he wouldn''t be able to escape conflict when it came to reaching the realm above the God one. If he asked himself he was a man who wanted peace for himself but considering the living conditions in the cultivation martial world all he could do to ensure his peacefulness was murder, thieve, and burn down whoever stood in his path of reaching true godhood. He looked at his new carcass and gave it a few more finishing touches before just letting the energy he stored to enter it. Now came the tricky parts, fusing the bloodlines to not let them attack each other just as he did back in hell, due to the body being inactive at this moment the bloodlines laid dormant, one in the left and one in the right part of the bodies, now that the system left him the storage of blood also disappeared, he couldn''t draw it out from thin air anymore just as he did before. So if he failed the creation of his body he wouldn''t be able to create another. So he would have to be extra careful in this situation! His soul was back at 100% capacity, it healed nicely with the devouring of the elves natural soul powers, he almost wanted to create a herd of elves that he would slaughter for medicinal efforts now that he found out how good their flesh blood, and souls at healing. Wait a minute... Could Yuan Fang be doing the same thing? But what would he need so many elves for? Only a large scale war would make him afford such a huge expenditure but a war for what? Could he have found the way to reach the stage above the God Realm? Would he go to war with the celestial realm or hell? Yun Jhin could feel his head hurt again in premonition meaning that his guesses were mostly right, as cultivators gained higher and higher cultivation bases they would gain a type of foresight which was activated automatically when they thought about certain things, but this could be blocked if the target they thought about didn''t want to leak those things... Yun Jhin frowned, did that mean Yuan Fang needed his help? Or why would he let him know? ************************** While Yun Jhin was contemplating whether Yuan Fang was laying down a trap for him or not, the person in question was inside the heart of the mother tree, there below him kneeled an old woman with her back bent so hard that it looked like it would break, her skin was green and it had the texture of wood, cracks were coming along her skin and her hair which was blonde with beautiful flowers in it was quickly turning yellow then brown at a quick speed as she coughed some green substance from her mouth. Her beautiful blue eyes were currently turning red as her pupils disappeared, it seemed she was really angered as she glared at Yuan Fang''s form. "What is it, you old crone? You didn''t want to reunite with your husband so I just helped you!" "Don''t you like the taste of the poison I concocted from researching his core?" "You damned junior, you don''t know what you are doing, if both I and the father tree die at the same time there would be a catastrophic change coming to the universe!" "Oh, you think I don''t know?" Yuan Fang put his palm over his face as he started laughing, suddenly the monkey tailed man and the blonde-haired man with long spiky hair appeared near him as they kneeled in unison, if a chuuni fan would see him right now they would mutter under their breath ''so cool''. "Of course I know, don''t you think I have done my research before I have done this? This catastrophic change is what I''m after!" "Don''t tell me, you really are thinking to ascend that way!" Her eyes widened as she coughed another mouthful of green blood which fell to the ground in front of her which was the core of her main body, the poison started to sizzle which hurt her double the amount. "Ok that was enough talking, I know you are trying to recover so you could skewer me with those wood thorns below us, boys dispatch of her immediately but let her core be whole as I need it." The duo nodded at him before they got up from the ground, spikes appeared where Yuan Fang previously stood as his figure flickered and disappeared as if he was never there, the duo looked at each other before they dashed at the old crone''s unmoving body in unison, with a mighty have they punched her in the gut at the same time! ****************************** Yun Jhin could feel the whole planet shake as he almost lost his footing in the underground cave, even his soul was shaken by the earthquake that was going right now, and this showed that it wasn''t any normal earthquake! "They are already making their move?" Yun Jhin was almost done with the fusion between bloodlines and he could inhibit the body. His soul quickly entered the shell as it gained his features, he donned on the special clothes that he kept in his personal spatial dimension as a spare as he felt that this new body of his was quickly fusing with his soul. It fit him like a glove, since he made the body personally it was even better than the one that he was born in, it was literally molded for his soul! The fusion was almost instant as his cultivation appeared in his body circulating into it slowly filling it until it reached the 3rd stage of the sage realm and stopped there, his avatar was reconstructed accordingly as it left his body to appear then Yun Jhin breathed some energy into it before refusing with it. Even though he lost the progress he made in hell due to Hell''s willpower, at least he didn''t lose his life. That''s how he was consoling himself, if he could he would go back in Hell and show it who is boss, but now that he was so weak all he could do was keep his tail tugged between his legs and bark nicely if someone stronger than him decided he was an eyesore. It seemed he was rather wrong with his assumption, while Yuan Fang did come with the father''s core to the planet it seemed it wasn''t used for the elves to increase their healing capabilities, maybe he wasn''t completely wrong but he guessed this wasn''t the main reason, mostly just a side one. "Now that I''m healed I can get the hell out of here, even though my appearance differs and I changed the living aura of this body to not match what they knew about me who knows if Yuan Fang can see through me or not?" Yun Jhin''s paranoia was in full-blown effect, unless he was at the God Realm he didn''t want to meet Yuan Fang face to face. But sometimes things wouldn''t go as you wanted no matter how you prayed or what you did... Yuan Fang materialized in front of him, his azure hair billowing as his aura was in full-blown power, he looked directly at Yun Jhin as he chuckled and said: "Thought you could escape my senses didn''t you? I have been searching for you for a long while Yun Jhin." He disappeared as he appeared in front of Yun Jhin and looked into his eyes, Yun Jhin found it strange but he didn''t find any hatred nor anger in his gaze as he looked at him... it looked more as if he was reminiscing about something as his gaze moved across his whole body scanning it. "Do you remember when you cut my head off back then?" His tone didn''t make it look like Yun Jhin was the one who dealt him the death blow in his previous life, it was just like they were two friends talking about their past jokes and dumb actions. Yun Jhin scanned Yuan Fang back but he couldn''t really tell what his cultivation was... Yuan Fang chuckled as he revealed his cultivation fully, he was a little bit stronger than Yun Jhin standing at the peak of the sage realm and moving towards the God Realm, he was basically a half-god at the moment. "So was I right? You need my help?" Yuan Fang chuckled as he shook his head, he patted Yun Jhin''s chest he put his finger on his chin with his other hand, and said: "No but I found you quite interesting, normally speaking a soul wouldn''t be able to endure so many reincarnations or it would become crazy and explode due to the extreme amount of different wills from previous lives trying to take control of the main control core, how did you not suffer from this? Even I have a hard time controlling the other part of me." Chapter 173: You wash my back I wash yours Yuan Fang wanted Yun Jhin''s knowledge on how to stomp the willpower of his first life and he would get it from him one way or another, the man seemed to be rather unstable with how he acted, after all, Yun Jhin would surely not act like this with the person who personally lopped his head off his shoulders. "Thinking that I''m a little bit too gentle right now don''t you? Well, the reincarnation process washed a lot of this current life''s hatred towards you... but let''s say the previous life willpower does want to do to you what you think I want to do." "Anyways we can concede in this regard, you wash my back I wash your''s type of deal, what do you think?" Yun Jhin knew that working a deal with Yuan Fang was like asking a tiger for its skin but it could be said to be the same about him as well, what if he gave the wrong technique to him and made him implode as the battle of wills ensued and his ki went out of control inside his body? It seemed that Yuan Fang was scared that the will from his previous life will interfere with his breakthroughs from now on, at the God Realm and above if any interruptions were made during the breakthrough time one could certainly be crippled! Yun Jhin didn''t have this problem as all his former lives wills were tightly sealed in the memory cores he created but Yuan Fang didn''t have his technique so he could only fumble in the dark regarding this. Yun Jhin never left this technique to anyone so there was no way for him to get it even if he destroyed and searched through the whole blood throne sect''s ruins. It seemed he had already tried that and he must have searched through his son''s brain as well as he was desperate enough to work a deal with him. It seemed Yun Jhin had the high ground in this as Yuan Fang had something that he desperately needed... but Yun Jhin could also be killed easily if the other two came back... as for Yuan Fang while he was indeed stronger than Yun Jhin at this moment there was a difference between experience between them, also while Yun Jhin''s cultivation did regress his overall combat power stood at the same place, the only thing that was weaker at him right now was his new body because he didn''t have time to refine it properly so his healing capability was a bit lower compared to Yuan Fang''s. Yun Jhin could see that Yuan Fang''s body had been refined to its maximum capability. It was actually quite normal considering he had taken over the father tree planet and the mother one... he should have quite a big stash of natural spirits in his hands. Seeing that Yun Jhin was contemplating his offer made Yuan Fang face remain impassive as he said while getting closer to Yun Jhin: "I see that your new body is quite weak... why don''t I help you out with something that you need? An equal exchange, what do you say?" A frown appeared on Yun Jhin''s face... he still didn''t trust him as he couldn''t gather anything from his expressions or body actions, it was like he was looking at a still frozen lake. "Want to read my mind don''t you? I will tell you truthfully that I don''t have any ill will for you Yun Jhin, actually, I quite admire you, being able to defeat my former will so easily with the help of those old fogies that are neither devils nor normal people, from their narrow mindedness I thought they would have made things a little harder for you but it seems I was wrong, you hid yourself a little bit too well." "I want to ask you something, since you wanted to work with me so sincerely why did you send your goon troops to me and pitted my son against me? Hmm?" Yuan Fang''s expression remained the same as he answered: "Well as I increased my cultivation I found out the problem with my willpower and earlier it had a bigger influence on me than I thought, I will say it again, we can have this equal trade and we could go each on our ways." "Two tigers can''t live on the same mountain you know that right?" Yuan Fang chuckled coldly as he put his hand over his face and shook his head as he said: "We both know that we want to ascend and the universe can only hold one ascendant at a time both you didn''t have to make it so obvious right? Now I cannot really say that you will walk away without anything happening to you." If Yun Jhin remained ignorant of this fact Yuan Fang would have let him alone thinking that his ambition wouldn''t be enough for him to reach the ascendence and if he didn''t talk about it there would still be problems in the future, but at least they would postpone the current fight. "I don''t really want to fight during my current situation... that''s why I had those two guarding me and the others are currently on their own mission, but I guess I shall fight you for now..." Yuan Fang threw away his robe only leaving his pants and shoes on, his muscles rippled with strength as they increased in size along with his height, he reached 2,10 meters as his azure hair started to change color to a deep purple. A devil tail grew out of his spine as it moved around menacingly two antlers grew out of his head and his power spiked up by quite a lot as his visible aura turned a crimson color. "Interesting, so this is why you had your people go in Hell besides scouting information about me." "Great minds think alike don''t you think? I can see that you have gone towards the same conclusion. Ying and Yang united, Hell and Heaven combined, reach Godhood in one step accumulation towards the spirit realm!" "Indeed..." Yun Jhin''s eyes clouded over as the irises disappeared and one of them turned black and the other azure... devil wings grew out of his back and sharp horns protruded from his head differently shaped compared to Yuan Fang''s, his tail that spurted out of his spine was also sharper and it was of white color. His hair transformed from its black and azure colors into a deep yellow color as his pupils returned reaching a teal color. His muscles bulged up but his clothes didn''t break nor did he remove them as they could still give him some defensive abilities in this situation. He put one leg back and one in front as he hooked his left hand''s fingers and put his arm near his forehead while keeping the other back out, he gave out a mighty shout as his aura became visible as well, it was a greenish-purple one which resembled the color of his soul... flames started to randomly appear around his body as his power reached its apex. They both transformed at the same time reaching their true form and their peak power, while Yuan Fang was a half-god his complexion didn''t look as good as it was normal as he started to sweat green blood from his pores, his head veins also started pulsating as he clenched his arms, it seemed that his second older willpower was already attacking his main soul palace trying to drive out the new willpower out of it. "You still have a chance to back out and give me the technique Yun Jhin, I will make sure it will be worthwhile your time." He gestured with his fingers as an image of multiple natural spirits appeared in front of him. Yun Jhin became reluctant as he saw the number and he could feel that their qualities were pretty high, especially the female one''s auras were basically inflated... they were especially taken care of for some reason that Yun Jhin didn''t really care about. "See I''m not lying, thought that we ran out of them right?" Suddenly he coughed a mouthful of blood as he looked down only to see a punch sinking into his gut. "If I kill you I will have all of them and I will be able to cultivate properly without worrying about my back being stabbed..." Air pressure came out of Yuan Fang''s back as the strength of the strike became evident... behind him the underground cave started to crack as the air pressure hit the walls and they started to get buried! "Quite presumptuous of you to think that with your lower cultivation don''t you think?" Yun Jhin looked behind him to see that the one he attacked disappeared, the hit mark was still visible on his bare chest but it was quickly reverting to normal, Yuan Fang cracked his neck as he glared at Yun Jhin and said: "Since you don''t want to come along with the easy way.. we shall do it with the hard way then!" Chapter 174: Battle on a dying planet "There is still a chance for you to give up at this point Yun Jhin, we can make it so we didn''t hear anything and we can go each on our own ways." Yun Jhin''s body disappeared as he did a roundhouse kick towards Yuan Fang''s temple hitting him squarely there as his body flew through the ground and landed outside the underground cave. "Trying to calibrate your soul with talking? Quite old fashioned." Yun Jhin appeared on the surface as he looked around but he couldn''t see Yuan Fang anymore, he disappeared as he was sent to the surface. He frowned as he activated his stealth technique only for a wave of ki to disturb his stealth state and a punch to hit him in the head burying him back into the ground. "You are not the only one who knows how to hide." A voice came from behind him: "But I do it better." "Indeed you do, but you are also previsible." A black sword went through Yuan Fang''s back directly trying to pierce the owner of the voice that was behind him... only for him to pierce an illusion! The illusory figure of Yun Jhin dissipated as Yuan Fang frowned... he could feel something strange appearing in his bloodstream as he broke the illusion and he chuckled: "Poison? Our bloodlines are so strong that any type of poison is useless against us and you should know that." There were no more responses from Yun Jhin. Yuan Fang easily purged the poison in his body and continued to scan around him, he knew that Yun Jhin wouldn''t run at this point he gave him too much of an enticement for him to run! Because of his current situation of his soul, he was at his weakest and Yun Jhin had the best opportunity to claim his life. His underlings were also trying to take down the mother tree''s soul and his other ones were on different missions in the universe, he was truly alone and weakened to the point that even Yun Jhin who was 6 stages below him could fight him equally and even win! "Trying more assassin stuff Yun Jhin? You know this isn''t your forte... your blood must be boiling right now, right?" Suddenly a gigantic wave of energy exploded from Yuan Fang''s body disrupting the surrounding ki and revealing Yun Jhin above him coming directly towards him with his halberd ready to split him into two pieces! "HA!" Yuan Fang shouted as his arms turned dark and shiny with big scales, he infused his ki into them to the point that he gained an exoskeleton armor as his bloodline talent activated by itself. The halberd made a shallow cut on his arms letting some dark blood drip from his wound before it closed itself milliseconds later. Yun Jhin tried to push the halberd further but he knew that if he pushed too much the weapon might become stuck in his forearm and this wasn''t something he needed, he retrieved his weapon as he created a ki saber and threw it at Yuan Fang''s neck accurately. The ki weapon dissipated into sparks of ki that Yuan Fang absorbed as his eyes glowed with azure energy, his celestial bloodline started to revolve as runes appeared on his skin and his aura increased one step further. "You are pushing me too far Yun Jhin!" "That''s what I want!" Suddenly Yuan Fang clutched his forehead as a migraine assaulted his soul, his power started to wane increasing and decreasing at intervals that he would resemble a mortal or even go beyond his current cultivation and reach the God Realm! "STAY BACK THERE YOU RELIC! YOUR TIME IS DONE, YOUR ACTIONS ARE OUTDATED, BEING SO RIGHTEOUS LED YOU TO BE DECAPITATED, SURRENDER YOURSELF TO YOUR NEW WILL!" Yun Jhin appeared in front of Yuan Fang his hand transformed into a ki blade that went through his chest piercing through his heart and skewering it leaving Yuan Fang''s body through his back. But he didn''t die, Yuan Fang had more than one heart and so did Yun Jhin, now that one of them was taken care of Yuan Fang''s body weakened by quite a bit and his migraine increased, he had to split off his attention in two directions as he had to take care of both of soul willpower of his former life inside of him and Yun Jhin''s relentless attacks on his physical body. "FUCK OFF!" A green barrier appeared around Yuan Fang''s body as it pushed Yun Jhin away to the point that he couldn''t balance his body. Suddenly two ki balls of medium size appeared in front of Yun Jhin body as the second ball was absorbed by the first one creating a gigantic behemoth of energy that threatened to engulf Yun Jhin and vaporize his new body into nothing! Yun Jhin knew that he couldn''t dodge it by going up or backward so he dug into the earth like a mole and disappeared he barely avoided the ki attack as his head turned bald due to his hair being all burnt off by the ki behemoth. He returned to the surface to see Yuan Fang clutching his chest as the hole he pierced into him closed and from the one glance, he took he could see a new heart slowly growing back into his chest. "His body refinement is strong to the point that I cannot defeat him unless I vaporize every one of his cells or destroy the connection of his soul to his body just like Hell did to me." Yuan Fang started to show signs of destabilizing as his eyes turned white without any pupils as his hair spiked up, his bloodline started to run out of control in his body as the demonic and celestial parts of it clashed against each other, but unlike with Yun Jhin when his body was getting destroyed from the outside something different happened. The bloodlines fused properly as Yuan Fang''s muscled body started to slim down and his hair turned a deep blood red color, his pupils returned and they became the same color as his hair and there was a relatively more peaceful look on his face as he looked into Yun Jhin''s eyes: "Thanks for helping me stabilize my cultivation base, now I shall give you a gift!" He put one of his hands forward as a small blue ki ball that he held in his hand was thrown forward at a slow speed towards Yun Jhin. The speed was very slow so Yun Jhin tried to get out of the way but with one glance from Yuan Fang''s eyes he became immobilized in a crucifix position and no matter how hard he tried to move he couldn''t! The blue ball of ki struck Yun Jhin''s body and was absorbed by it... Yun Jhin could feel his inner organs liquefying as the ball entered his body and the pain was so intense he couldn''t help but cry in pain! "AHHH!" "A nice welcoming gift right?" Yun Jhin''s face was down as he clenched his teeth but then he suddenly smiled as he looked at Yuan Fang''s face... Yuan Fang didn''t like that smile. Yun Jhin body which was crucified in the air suddenly disappeared as if he was never there, the connection between them was cut and Yuan Fang couldn''t see anything, he tried using another wave of ki to reveal him but it seemed like he wasn''t there at all! Suddenly the air in front of him cracked as space was broken and Yun Jhin appeared, Yuan Fang chuckled as he looked at him but suddenly he found a fist in his gut and a roundhouse kick to the neck that pushed him back a few meters while breaking his bones. "Time law!!!" Yun Jhin used his time-skip ability for the first time in a long time, this was one of the only abilities that he could employ in this battle that would be rather useful because this was an ability exclusive to him! Very few God Realm experts learned the time laws but since Yun Jhin reincarnated so many times he had grasped way more laws than the other experts. The time around them froze, at least that''s what happened for Yuan Fang, for him time was still going moving but Yun Jhin disappeared! The next moment he tried to locate him he could feel a deep pain in his chest as Yun Jhin appeared clutching two hearts in his hands. The earthquakes on the planet started to increase in velocity as Yun Jhin stumbled and dropped the hearts to the ground where they were both absorbed by it. Yun Jhin frowned as he looked towards the mother tree which was wilting at a visible speed: "This planet doesn''t have much time left..." It seemed that the mother tree wanted to take everyone here down with her if she died! While most people above the King Realm could live in space for varying amounts of time, only God Realm experts could barely survive an explosion of a planet! If the planet exploded while they were all on it they would be doomed! Chapter 175: Battle on a dying planet (2) After having two of his hearts ripped out Yuan Fang''s regeneration speed had lowered as the gaps on his chest didn''t close as fast as they used to... with one hand he clutched his head and with the other his chest as he vomited a mouthful of dark blood then fell to the ground due to the new earthquake... But he quickly got up and restored his balance in time to see Yun Jhin get up as well, both of his hearts had been crushed in his hands and not even the paste remained as it was vaporized using his ki. Then he launched himself again at Yuan Fang while he was trying to seal his injuries... suddenly Yuan Fang grew one more pair of arms that quickly grabbed Yun Jhin by the neck and started choking him! Yun Jhin''s face didn''t change as he didn''t need air to survive anymore but his neck bones were certainly getting crushed under his grip if his body refinement was high enough he wouldn''t have bothered with this attack but his bones were considered rather brittle with his new body. Yun Jhin''s head moved to the side as his neck bones broke but that didn''t kill him, at this point, his vitality was so high that only if his connection to his body was severed would his soul be ejected from it... as for him truly dying? That was only possible if his soul was destroyed or his connection to the mortal realm was cut. Yun Jhin used a blade of ki to cut off both of the hands that broke his neck as he adjusted his head using his arms before making sure it was properly put together, a influx of ki entered his neck area and regenerated the broken bones to the normal standard. Yuan Fang started to back away as he couldn''t control himself anymore, it was a dumb idea to fight in his conditions and he had said multiple times that he wanted to do this peacefully... but it seems Yun Jhin just wanted to bully him, he should know that there was no way he could kill him in his current condition no matter how bad it was because his own condition wasn''t that good either cultivation wise. At most, they would injure each other and waste each other''s time. Yun Jhin still thought that there was a chance for him to kill Yuan Fang... after all, unlike Yuan Fang, he knew how hard it was to deal with the split-will trying to take over your main memory core as he had done it more than a few times. Suddenly Yuan Fang''s body trembled as he tried to leave the battle and stopped, he couldn''t move his body as his eyes looked around in fear and puzzlement, did his other will really cut control of his body under this situation? But how desperate it was? Yun Jhin nodded inside as he saw his situation before he used his time skip ability again, the next moment he appeared in front of him he held both of his arms in his hands which he vaporized into dust before he thrust his hand forward into his chest trying to rip off his remaining 2 hearts! Yuan Fang could feel Yun Jhin''s hands entering quickly into his chest area trying to locate his 2 remaining hearts, while he wouldn''t die immediately if he ripped them away his regeneration would halt, and if he wasn''t treated in a few days he would die. Yun Jhin knew that if he escaped he would certainly get treated by one of his many subordinates so he had to deal with him here and now! He found his two remaining hearts as he ripped them open letting a fountain of blood erupt from his chest that widened due to the continuous ripping that Yun Jhin did, unlike before his healing reduced to a snail''s pace as the closure of his chest was so slow that the healing wasn''t visible anymore, it might even take him a week or two to heal his chest at this rate, without healing herbs or treasures. "Gugh!" Yuan Fang was ready to fall when he suddenly spit something out that collided with his open chest, it was a brown ball that had the texture of wood at first glance, the moment it collided with his chest it turned a deep golden color that exploded into the red as his chest mended itself so fast that Yun Jhin''s eyes couldn''t see... new arms grew but his face was still pale due to the blood loss and the ki loss. Instead of a heart, the core of the father tree started to beat inside Yuan Fang''s chest, so hard that it resonated with the incoming earthquakes! The ki of the planet started to converge on Yuan Fang''s body as it restored the blood he lost and somewhat his ki, but due to the ki attribute difference, he couldn''t absorb the ki fully until he was accustomed to his new heart, so only his injuries healed. Yun Jhin was extremely annoyed, the cockroach-like ability of a fortuned one of Yuan Fang''s caliber was giving Yun Jhin an immense headache, no matter how you severed their heads, destroyed their bodies, or took their hearts they would never die unless their soul was destroyed as well, unfortunately, Yuan Fang''s soul was as strong as his and unless he took care of the body first he wouldn''t be able to attack it properly unless he exposed a weakness which wasn''t most likely because even though the other willpower that was fighting for control would discard the body it wouldn''t endanger the soul. Yun Jhin power was still increasing as he started to clash anew with Yuan Fang''s body which started to fight autonomously because he couldn''t control it anymore as he fought with his other willpower, thus his battle power decreased by quite a lot to the point that Yun Jhin could easily tear his flesh and ground his bones as the body was only fighting instinctively without any strategy or battle tactics at all. Finally, one last earthquake arrived so strong to the point that both of their bodies fell to the ground and couldn''t move for a while as the gravity of the planet increased at the same time, Yun Jhin adapted extremely quickly as he created an elongated blade of ki that went through Yuan Fang''s forehead and destroyed his brain thus somewhat severing the connection between his soul and body. However his soul connected to the body again as he used the natural ki from the planet to restore his brain, unfortunately, he couldn''t fully evaporate his brain unless he got close enough and released an immense blast of ki. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" He started to trash on the ground as his power increased further and further until it created an enormous explosion around him that eradicated 50 kilometers of the ground around him. Yun Jhin appeared out of a spatial tear as he looked around only to frown as he didn''t feel Yuan Fang''s ki anymore... did he self destruct? Or did he just leave? Yun Jhin took a few looks around but he couldn''t find him anywhere and he decided that it was time to leave this planet! He knew that Yuan Fang didn''t use any stealth technique as he could recognize the traces of one being used and all of his live signatures disappeared which either mean he disappeared using his soul or he perished which the later one was most unlikely... maybe even one of his cronies escaped with him after he used that gigantic wave of destructive ki. Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at the sky before an aura engulfed him, his speed increased monstrously as he broke through the atmosphere of the planet leaving it behind him, he took one last look as it transformed into a smoldering pile of space dust as it exploded creating a gigantic shockwave that even pushed Yun Jhin quite far away even though he wasn''t near the planet anymore. "I guess it''s time to expand my network for now... I need to reconstruct the blood throne sect." Yun Jhin realized that the importance of goons was immense in this situation as most likely Yuan Fang was saved by his... he needed to get some unique talents under his wings and fast at that! ****************************** Yuan Fang frowned as he continued clutching his head, the man with the spiky hair and the one with the monkey tail were looking at him with both fear and apprehension. "Are you okay boss? When you sent the signal for me to come and pick you up you were pretty battered up." The man with the monkey tail said as he scratched the back of his head and laughed awkwardly. Yuan Fang didn''t say anything as he put his hand forward and waited... the man with the spiky hair came with a deep red ball that resembled the brown one that he used to heal himself, Yuan Fang took the ball and forcefully inserted it into his chest as his aura took a spike upward but he still didn''t break through the god realm as he muttered: "Why do you make things so hard for me... we are the same person." Chapter 176: A need for talents Yun Jhin flew in the starry sky as he navigated towards the ruins of the Blood Throne sect, now that Yuan Fang was critically injured and his soul was in disarray he could go back and get his hands on the formation core rebranding it with his own soul mark. Even though the ruins were pretty destroyed, they were still rather useful as the formations were still active and all he had to do was reconstruct on them to get them back to 100% capability, it was cheaper to have a foundation already laid compared to just making a new one. He was also very familiar with the layout of the territory so he knew how to fix it properly. Thus this was his prime target to reconstruct his organization, at first, he would lay low while reconstructing so he wouldn''t attract the ire of the righteous factions but first things first he needed talents... Rome couldn''t be built in a day and certainly not alone, so Yun Jhin needed certain talents to help him with the organization building and the other miscellaneous stuff, he didn''t need strong people but people that could be used for that stuff. Yun Jhin flight speed increased as he got closer to the ruins and he continued thinking where could he even find these types of talents, could he hold something akin to the imperial exams in the mortal''s world? It would certainly be interesting but he needed the carrot and stick for it to work properly... the problem was that he was currently broke and the fate of the treasuries he left behind was unknown... there was a high chance Yuan Fang cleared out all of them already. After a time of flying at high speeds through the starry sky, he finally reached the territory of the blood throne sect and saw the ruined buildings and other locations... if he remembered correctly the core of the formation that controlled the whole ruins was around the outer skirts in an unassuming building. He slowly made his way towards the buildings and analyzed them with a critical eye to make sure that we''re the ones that he wanted to enter. There were quite many unassuming patches of rubble that were once buildings where he was so he had to identify the looks of the building by the material that was on the ground in front of him. The blood throne sect was situated on a large-scale unmoveable meteorite that had been tempered with starlight and sunlight to last for an infinite amount of years and all of the buildings on it were made of especially though alloys and rocks but while the meteorite was practically indestructible the buildings on it were not. Yun Jhin moved a little bit closer to a building he thought it was the one that he needed to enter only for it to almost fall on his head and bury him in the rubble... he got annoyed as the building that he needed to find was made of the same material as the meteorite he was on so while he hid it by making it unassuming it was very though and it wouldn''t have been destroyed... he could have easily found it if he had control of the formation but due to the formation hiding it very thoroughly he was having a harder time. "This is quite bothersome... I wonder how did Yuan Fang find it in the first place." On top of it being hard to find due to its looks, it also warped itself around so it wouldn''t be easily found so Yun Jhin had quite a big problem trying to identify it. "Ok so... it must be around here as I made it warp itself around the outer outskirts of the territory." Suddenly Yun Jhin caught the building in his eyes, he recognized it and immediately teleported near its entrance and barged through, when he looked behind him he realized that the building already warped towards a different location... He continued inside the building as he got to the lower floors and reached the location of the formation core. The formation core was the head of a strange bird with no beak and no eyes, its feathers were of a deep purple color and it had sharp horns that resembled those of an elk. Yun Jhin got closer to it but when he reached a certain boundary the empty eye sockets of the thing started to flash a glaring light that attacked Yun Jhin! Yun Jhin snorted as he easily deflected the light and destroyed it before getting closer to the head, its power was thoroughly exhausted after not being fed for such a long time so its attacks were pathetically weak. Yun Jhin inserted two fingers inside the eye holes as he rebranded his soul willpower into the head using his ki and one strand of his soul while also removing Yuan Fang''s soul willpower... the moment he made contact with it he realized that it was extremely weak and it couldn''t give him any problems at this time. After rebranding the formation core Yun Jhin could feel the ruins cheer as the true owner appeared once again. Yun Jhin gave the formation some sentience so while it was forcefully being controlled by Yuan Fang it wasn''t using its 100% power no matter how weakened it was, the last attack some time ago was Yuan Fang''s last attempt at trying to defend the formation. Yun Jhin disappeared from the location of the formation core as he teleported into the biggest palace where he had stashed some treasures, in the basement where the treasury was located Yun Jhin inserted his ki into a seal that he left behind in his former life only to find nothing besides a piece of paper which said: "Explosion!!" And the paper did explode while taking half of Yun Jhin''s body with it... Yun Jhin''s flesh and blood slowly reattached themselves to him as he regenerated while frowning, he didn''t really like Yuan Fang''s prank, the explosion wasn''t very strong so it didn''t injure him critically, it was only a ''surface'' injury. Did all of his treasuries have these notes in them? Yun Jhin was really annoyed by this, he knew how it felt to be poor but that didn''t mean he wanted to endure this, he really needed to make some money to ''hire'' people to reconstruct his organization, and for him to get these people he needed capital. If he had enough capital and made a good name in the universe talented people would naturally flock to him and he wouldn''t have to do anything besides taking them in. He tried to see if the other treasuries had the same booby traps in them and found out that it was indeed the same... which angered him quite a bit... But then he sighed as he started to think of some ways to make money while also being low-key. In this situation, he couldn''t reveal himself yet as Yun Jhin so he had to make business under the name of an alias and he also needed some capital first to start his new business... as for how he would get it? By plundering, of course, there was no way for Yun Jhin to waste his time by starting a trading company and get connections quickly so he needed to use his iron fist to make that happen. He could first start by harassing lower businesses with his high cultivation base and then take over other such ''protection'' businesses. Of course, he would first have to make a highly detailed analysis of the businesses he had to bully, or else who knows what type of backer they would send after him? The cultivation environment always had people who wanted to hug the stronger people''s thighs for plenty of benefits. Now Yun Jhin had to become that backer but the benefits they would receive would be their own but just cut as he would take away from them to satisfy his needs. Yun Jhin wanted to take the soup the meat and half of the bones in this situation. Now that he had a location where he could create his base of operations he just needed to find his first victim... Since the blood throne sect''s territory was near the grey market it was the best location for him to start. He would also be able to get an information network this way along with a better way to gain cultivation resources. It was certainly a smarter way of gaining wealth than normal plundering. But at its base, it was the same thing. One needed an indisputable strength to have them! If you were too weak to hold onto your business someone like Yun Jhin would come along and strip it away from you. After making sure everything was ok with the formation Yun Jhin decided to visit the grey markets around the blood throne sect''s territory. Chapter 177: Stealing businesses The grey areas near the Blood throne sect''s territory had been holding strong due to their massive size and the fact that the ''righteous'' factions needed a place where they could dump their ill-gotten gains or else the Bazar they created wouldn''t have lasted up till now. Yun Jhin appeared at the corner of a gigantic market where various races were trading or bartering the prices down to what they found to be acceptable to their pockets. This was one of the many markets planted around the blood throne sect, even though the sect wasn''t there anymore which was the biggest profit channel they had... they still made quite a lot of money considering they were a pure ''grey'' area. In this location, you couldn''t do actually what you wanted unless you were obviously way stronger compared to the people who protected the establishments as well as their backers from various universal organizations. Yun Jhin didn''t target any of the big businesses that had obviously strong backings that he couldn''t offend yet. "Let''s see the smaller businesses first." Even though the smaller businesses were generally backed by the bigger ones this wasn''t a universal rule... sometimes their profits wouldn''t be good enough for them to be ''taken in'' by the bigger businesses so they were left alone as they were too unprofitable for them to give them ''protection''. He would first take over the smaller businesses and make his way up from there. Yun Jhin looked around and identified a good target where he could start. It was a small shop that specialized in herbs and miscellaneous items, it was akin to a pawn shop where you could buy whatever you needed and sell items as well but its size was rather small and it was obvious from the state of the building that it didn''t have any backer. The building size was quite small and it was pretty run-down as cracks were around the foundation and the paint on it was quite old and worn down. Yun Jhin wanted to enter it when suddenly an old man threw out a tattooed muscled middle-aged man who wore gangster clothes, the old man clapped his hands to get rid of the inexistent dust on them before snorting and returning to his shop. Yun Jhin looked on and entered the shop after the gangster muttered something under his breath and left with a limp in his right leg. The inside of the shop was as good-looking as the outside, it wasn''t anything special, the herbs were displayed in square-shaped glass pieces that were inscribed with rudimentary formations that were meant to keep them well preserved. The old man just got back to the counter when he saw Yun Jhin entering and smiled as he thought he was a customer. The old man got up from the counter and gave out a ''merchant smile'' to Yun Jhin as he asked him: "What is this young master interested in? Could it be our miscellaneous items or would you want some herbs to concoct a pill?" Yun Jhin took a look around the shop before saying something that made the old man quite angry: "Actually I''m here for your shop... and you!" "So you are in cahoots with those gangsters from before aren''t you youngster? Let me show you that this old man isn''t a piece of easy prey!" He directly attacked Yun Jhin''s chest with a punch that rippled with shockwaves of ki but Yun Jhin casually put his hand forward and grabbed it while dispelling all of the energy in it. Yun Jhin shook his hand as he let the man go free and chuckled as he said: "Aren''t you quite strong for an old man at the death bed?" "What are you insinuating?" Yun Jhin suddenly appeared behind him as he ripped off his face revealing a charming young woman underneath the face of the old man. The woman clutched her face as she bled from it for some time before she angrily looked into Yun Jhin''s eyes and cursed him. Yun Jhin laughed as he got a better look at her, her face was round and pudgy with freckles but this added a certain charm to her that made you want to tease her, her long blonde hair was revealed after the face-mask was ripped from her face and her figure also changed... her biggest assets could only be described as humongous and her behind wasn''t bad either. As Yun Jhin appreciated her body it made her feel like she was a monkey at the zoo and this angered her quite a bit... she unleashed her aura trying to cut Yun Jhin into pieces with it but Yun Jhin only easily dodged all of the attacks before hitting the pressure point in her neck and knocking her out cold. Yun Jhin looked around for a short time before he found the body of the true owner... he was faceless and skinless as those were the ingredients needed to create the face mask, this was actually Yun Jhin''s techniques, some of his blood throne sect higher disciples used to practice it for recon purposes. Yun Jhin looked at the downed woman at his feet and wondered where could she have gotten the technique from? He became a little interested in her, she was rather cruel as she had the same purpose as him, taking over the small businesses in the area and becoming their backer, her cultivation base wasn''t bad, it was actually higher than his as she was as strong as Yuan Fang cultivation wise, the thing was that her battle power was lacking due to her constitution being quite weak. She didn''t do an ounce of body refinement! Nor was her experience good enough she easily got manhandled by Yun Jhin. It seemed she was one of those greenhouse flowers who didn''t go through life and death battles. However she was quite insidious, Yun Jhin tutted as he burned the corpse of the old man into cinders, it seemed she didn''t have time to do this herself as she must have been solicited by that gangster from before. Yun Jhin was now the owner of the place as he woke up the woman with two slaps to the face in certain nodes so the paralysis from having her neck would be undone. She shrieked as she tried to run away from Yun Jhin but her face was smacked by Yun Jhin''s forcefield ability making her gasp for air as she was almost turned into a meat pancake on the dirty floor of the building. "Missy I have a few questions for you, why don''t you sit down and answer them for me?" "Like hell, I will you freak... how are you so strong while you are only at the 3rd stage of the Sage Realm?" "Hmm, you said something?" "DAMN YOU!" She tried to get up only for her bones to start cracking as she went against the force of the gravity and her mouth started frothing due to the immense pressure put on her body: "I wouldn''t recommend that dear, you know your body is quite fragile for your cultivation base." "Anyways you better talk fast as I''m a man that''s rather impatient." "Make me!" While the woman wasn''t strong her pain endurance threshold was extremely high for some reason, most of the time women would relent faster than men in these situations but this depended from person to person and it wasn''t surprising for some men to relent faster too. "Well since you insist..." After a few minutes, she opened her mouth and started spouting everything she knew... Yun Jhin learned that the technique was scavenged from the dumpster of an auction house that couldn''t seal the technique due to it''s ''evil properties'' and the fact that it was once the staple technique of the blood throne sect'' scouts. This woman lived all her life in the grey areas so she used her charms to fool men and women alike to gain her current strength, unfortunately, she didn''t go through deadly situations as she used her innate charm to get where she was so she wasn''t that strong. Most people were slaves to beauty and Yun Jhin had abused this fact in his previous lives as well. However, at a certain cultivation base, people will not care about earthly beauty anymore. Yun Jhin transcended all physical attractions so he didn''t care about her beauty that much, but what he liked about her were her ruthlessness and resourcefulness, she could be one of those talents that he needed so badly. "I have a proposition for you, you will keep your life as well as the job you currently got." "All you have to do is give me 90% of the profits and I will also be good for you giving you ''protection''" The woman''s eyes bulged out as he looked at him, but what else could she say besides yes in this situation? Chapter 178: Starting small Now that Yun Jhin had the first little employee he had to instruct him properly to gain 100% efficiency in his new business. "What''s your name?" "Mia." "Ok Mia, take this." Yun Jhin forcefully inserted his hand into her chest leaving a piece of the formation power from the ruins in her so she could contact him that way no matter the distance and also use some of its powers when she was in a pinch. And considering Yun Jhin was the owner of the formation he also got complete control over her as well now. "What have you done to me?" Mia asked with a tremble of her lips, she felt weird as if she was connected to something akin to a hive mind where she could get strength from and also communicate with it. "Something to enhance your efficiency, my dear." "Now that you are done with this let''s go back to what you were supposed to do." Yun Jhin slapped the face skin mask back onto her and applied a copious amount of ki to meld it back onto her face, her body changed back to the old man''s decrepit one and her long blonde hair faded for the grey balding peak. "You don''t have to advertise or anything... sooner or later people will come to buy and sell, we have enough spirit stones to buy what we need right?" The disguised woman nodded as she thought for a little bit of time before coming back with a spatial bag full of spirit stones that she showed to Yun Jhin... Yun Jhin rummaged through the bag for a few minutes before nodding and letting her keep it, for the time being, this was the investment he had to make into this shop to make it work. "Whenever you see an item that you don''t recognize send me an image through the neural link that I gave you, if you identify something good buy it at a very low price so we can later sell it to make a fortune..." She grumbled under her breath: "As if I didn''t know that." "I just reminded you, dear." Her body shook a bit before saluting and saying: "Ok boss leave everything to me here!" Yun Jhin left the shop and waited in the vicinity, now that he had gotten his hands on the shop he wanted to see what kind of black business did that gangster who came for trouble belonged to... he didn''t mind getting his hands in the black market as well, after all, he was in a grey area already and the black market was going to be a pretty big and profitable business and considering that there were no morals involved made it even better for Yun Jhin''s money-making tactics. Since they would expect these things and they would play the game as he would do he knew how to counter them properly. This is the situation that would make Yun Jhin''s experience from his previous lives shine the best! Since the gangster left after being beaten by the old man he would surely come with more of his accomplices to teach the old man a lesson and try to take over his shop again. So Yun Jhin would wait around and when they came he would introduce himself to them so he could get them to show him the location of their base and boss. It took them 3 hours to come. They were in a group of 20 and they were all exuding an aura that intimidated the surrounding people who tried to trade buy or sell things. There were even people who whispered to each other about what was happening: "The Crimson Snake gang? What are they doing here? Hmm? They are here for Old Ma''s shop! That though old bone old Ma already refused them too many times huh..." "Poor fellow it seems he will get his legs broken and his intestines made into a pair of gloves and scarf." "They really do that?" "Of course I saw it with my own eyes, it was a rather grisly sight, to be honest." Yun Jhin listened for a bit before shaking his head, the moment they entered the shop he appeared inside it as well, Mia was quite scared because they were quite a lot of people and they weren''t that weak either, the strongest was at the 9th stage of the sage realm and the weakest was at the 5th stage the man who Mia beat and threw out. "Are you scared now you old piece of shit!" The weakest gangster said as he showed his differently colored teeth in a cruel smile: "Boys hold him down as an I cut open his gut." He took out a small engraved knife from his pockets as he waited for the others to make their move. Suddenly they all fell to the ground as a gravity field made them lose their balance and crushed them to the floor as if they were hit by a road roller. "Tsk tsk, it seems you guys have been running wild before I took over this establishment." The strongest gangster at the 9th stage tried to struggle from the ground before shouting: "WHO ARE YOU, SHOW YOURSELF! Our boss is almost at the God Realm and he will surely avenge us if anything were to happen!" His voice turned a little bit more mellow at the end as his strength left his body due to the ever-increasing gravity. "Yeah let us go!" The others chorused but Yun Jhin shook his head as he appeared in their faces, he squatted near one of them before grabbing him by the hair and giving him two punches in the jaw dislocating it and making him spit a few teeth. "I was wondering what kind of businesses are you guys into?" "What do you even mean by that?" Asked the strongest of them "Eh, you will see..." Yun Jhin used his fingers as scalpels as he started to dissect them in the order from the weakest to the strongest while keeping them conscious and alive, he also fed them some pain amplification herbs from the shop which made them scream so hard that their throats turned sore and blood started to gurgle from them. "YOU DEVIL, LEAVE US ALONE LEAVE US ALONE!" Yun Jhin was playing with the entrails of one of the middle-ranked gangsters as he was making a scarf with them, he was almost done with it when the strongest one started to shout at him again. "Are you done yet?" Yun Jhin''s eyes were as cold as glacial ice as he looked at the strongest gangster, these eyes made the man almost pee himself if he could as his liver was taken out by Yun Jhin and then fed to him a little time ago. The man was rather enduring as he only gagged and vomited it out while shouting for a little more before shutting up but it seemed he couldn''t handle seeing his subordinates being destroyed like this anymore. "So ready to speak?" "No, I''d rather you kill me!" Yun Jhin frowned, were these people really this enduring? Yun Jhin looked into the strongest gangster''s eyes and narrowed his as he realized that the man wasn''t conscious, his body was actually controlled by someone else at this moment! "Are you so rich that you could discard someone at the peak of the sage realm, Ring leader?" Most gang leaders were called Ring Leaders and since Yun Jhin didn''t know his name he decided to go with the title. "Oho? You can see through this little possession trick of mine?" The strongest man chuckled as he started to struggle out of the gravity field only for his bones to crack and for his skin to sizzle as his flesh became visible and he frowned: "Hmmm? I infused him with so much ki but he still can''t get up from this force field?" The man realized that Yun Jhin wasn''t easy to deal with as he cut the connection and decided to abandon them while running away with the wealth he made, gangsters were rather pragmatic persons. Can you bully that person? Yes? Then go and take his house, fuck his wife and enslave him. That guy is rather strong and a distance away from you? Run the hell away! Yun Jhin shook his head as he took a look at the mindscape of each of the gangsters in front of him and they were all turned into idiots by the Ring Leader, it seemed he was using methods akin to his which was something of a surprise, how could a man that was almost as strong as the other guy here infect them with ki seeds that could control their thoughts or attack their memory cores? It seemed the man was a true schemer and Yun Jhin needed someone like him in his team as well, regardless of how scheming he was he would turn into a sheep that would be at his beck and call as long as he would use the same technique he used on these people! Chapter 179: Kindred spirits Yun Jhin knew that the man would surely try to escape in this situation so he quickly identified and collected the aura that remained after the man''s slaves died so he could track him. He did a few hand seals and the aura that remained from their psyche rose and appeared visibly in Yun Jhin''s hands, he flicked his finger towards the corpses incinerating them into dust that disappeared quickly after. Now that he was connected to him he could feel his location and it was quite nearby but he was quickly getting farther and farther away. Yun Jhin left Mia behind so she could continue her role as the shopkeeper before disappearing into a swirl of mist. "This guy..." Mia murmured under her breath as her eyes were still looking towards the location of the remains of those gangsters that Yun Jhin destroyed which was now empty. She shuddered as she thought of his abilities and ruthlessness before making sure she continued her job properly as a shopkeeper and information node for Yun Jhin''s organization. Yun Jhin appeared outside of the Bazar as he felt the aura of the person trying to rush towards the jumping pad formation of the planet. Yun Jhin frowned as he felt that was wrong... he was a person in the sage realm and he could fly in space by himself, he didn''t need the help of the formation. Did he get fooled? He flew at break-neck speeds at the formation and waited for a few seconds to see a King Realm cronie trying to jump into it. Yun Jhin caught him by the neck and threw him away from the formation under the gaze of the people who were currently walking going to and from the planet. However, due to the nature of the planet, no one batted an eyelid at what was happening as it wasn''t related to them at all. Yun Jhin dragged the man towards an alleyway before he put his hand over his neck as he sharpened it using ki before asking: "Where is your boss little piggy?" The man was quite fat and he immediately started sweating the moment he saw the blade hand on his neck, he started stuttering as a foul smell started to appear from his crotch. Yun Jhin blocked his sense of smell as he continued to push the blade hand deeper into his neck. "I... I..." The man didn''t know what to say as his life was on the line and Yun Jhin shook his head as he peered into his consciousness trying to see through his memories instead of trying to extract information from him normally, he had no more time left! "Hmmm?" "You are actually the boss?" Yun Jhin found it very strange that this small fat guy was the supposed boss, he thought that he was someone in the Half-God realm just like Yuan Fang as the head gangster said. Did this man really mess with their heads that bad? Yun Jhin took a better look at him but didn''t found anything special at him, suddenly from the sniveling form of his a dark green blade appeared which he thrust towards Yun Jhin''s heart trying to skewer it and kill him instantly. Yun Jhin snorted as he slapped the blade out of his hands as he easily dodged the assassination attempt, it seemed the man was only playing the pig to eat the tiger and he was pretty good at it too, he even peed himself to make it more realistic! Yun Jhin was both impressed and disgusted at his ways of playing the character, he would even lower himself to this point to make sure he would run away! The man eyes turned to normal as he didn''t shake anymore, he sighed as he looked at Yun Jhin and said: "You are strong big bro, why don''t we make a deal?" "Oho? You think you are in the position that you can make a deal with me?" The man shook his head making his fat move like the water waves in the ocean as he said: "Of course not big bro, actually I just want to continue having my own will after you enslave me." This man was rather direct after taking the loss and he also knew what would happen to him after he lost! He must have realized that Yun Jhin was similar to him in his ways so technically they were kindred spirits! But these types of kindred spirits like Yun Jhin and this fatty wouldn''t ever be friends due to their personalities. Yun Jhin put a slave seal into his consciousness and surprisingly the fatty didn''t resist at all as he embraced the seal as if it was his own mother hugging him. He found the man to be rather strange but as he looked through the memories he nodded, it seemed he grew up with the others and he had mediocre cultivation talents, due to that the others took care of him up till now, he was an insidious little man on the inside so he hypnotized then took control of his friend''s souls. He had gotten a devilish technique at an auction as they got a little money that he stole from them when they were out on a mission, the moment they came back he used the technique on them as he fooled them into thinking that they were apprehending the thief that stole their savings. He was the lowest level of scum that existed almost on Yun Jhin''s level! It seemed the man was ambitious and envious of his friend''s cultivation talents, his own low talent made him conscious of his friends and thought that at one point they would abandon him so he did this to keep them together until he got a little bit taste of power and he became a power-hungry little man. Yun Jhin shook him and his spatial bags dropped out of his tight clothes. The man smiled as he kowtowed and waited for orders. Yun Jhin looked in the spatial bag and smiled as he saw mountainous piles of spirit stones and various ingredients for concocting pills, the man had been running a lot of businesses beforehand and 99% of the profit was going to him while the 1% was used to keep the businesses running and the employees paid. From this, it could be shown that the income was gigantic as 1% could do all of that. Even his spatial bag was rather special in the sense that its size was enormous, it could hold way more than even the highest quality spatial rings which were an advanced version of the spatial bags. Yun Jhin was practically as rich as a young tycoon right now! Now that he had enough money he could do what he wanted to... And he could use the man who was kneeling in front of him as the figurehead so the money could still be raked in continuously, he could even expand further as he gained more and more employees and his cultivation recovered and increased! Right now his cultivation was perfect for this organization''s size but he couldn''t expand anymore or he would get the attention of the higher-ups in the sects, around the 5 strongest sects were acting in the mortal realm. 3 of them were righteous ones and 2 of them were devilish ones, in the past the number was equal with Yun Jhin''s blood throne sect but now only 2 of them remained, if Yun Jhin was right they should have also contributed to the sect''s downfall indirectly. It couldn''t be helped, the righteous sects would do the same thing if that happened to one of theirs, this was truly a dog eat dog world no matter what type of morals they preached. Yun Jhin let him go back to his office but kept the bag saying that he should send him the profits back monthly, he also gave him back some of the money so he could invest according to Yun Jhin''s instructions, also he needed to buy a multitude of materials so he could repair the formation and construct the new blood throne sect. While the men he had killed were the main bruisers of the gang Yun Jhin could always hire more and then take control of them. He easily did that afterward by saying he was hiring some bodyguards at the sage realm and above and people started flocking towards him, in the bazaar people were either looking for work or working. Yun Jhin hired them then ''slipped'' some of the mind-controlling seals into their consciousness but unless they tried to betray him they wouldn''t activate. Afterward making sure that everything was okay he included the small shop where Mia was into the gang''s fold while also notifying her. The materials for the reconstruction were quickly found as they weren''t that rare while the ones for the formation would need some time to be gathered but Yun Jhin could wait as he could reconstruct the sect while recovering his cultivation at the same time. The formation while not at 100% could protect him from most assassination attempts as long as he was in the sect''s territory, unless a late-stage God Realm expert appeared there wouldn''t be problems. And the appearance of such a personage was null as they had to stay in their headquarters to deter their enemies. Yun Jhin looked at the gigantic caravan of materials as he walked in front of it and started to guide it towards the nearby territory of the sect. Chapter 180: Construction worker Yun Jhin Yun Jhin directed the caravan of materials towards the territory of the blood throne sect which made some of the drivers a bit scared considering the territory was forbidden ground for those in the neutral areas like them. After all, while there could be riches in the ruins they were also full of traps and opportunists like them didn''t like to take such big gambles. But they were paid handsomely and they couldn''t go back on their word right now or they would lose credibility on the market, thus a lower amount of customers would come to them for business. So they gritted their teeth and followed Yun Jhin into the territory, as they got inside deeper and deeper they held their breaths as they thought at any moment they would trigger a restriction that would wipe out the whole convoy. Yun Jhin found their fear-filled faces to be quite funny as he chuckled to himself while keeping they convoy straight, he gave out instructions to help them reach the location where he wanted to start the repairs and after they reached it he gave them a small tip before letting them leave through the same path. However, they were scared and they wanted Yun Jhin to guide them again but Yun Jhin refused and slipped some control seals into their consciousness while they were begging him on their knees, considering their mediocre strength in the king realm and weak mentalities Yun Jhin easily took control of them before sending them back on their way. Yun Jhin looked at the piles of materials that he had gotten and then at the mountains of rubble nearby before starting the reconstruction efforts. Even though he would need some help to reconstruct all of the buildings of the sect, he could take this building effort as training... somewhat, well he could build and train at the same time but the ''building'' wouldn''t help him much in his cultivation efforts. Yun Jhin crossed his arms as he glared at some rubble nearby which then transformed into dust. The rubble was so old that a casual ki infused glance would destroy it as long as it was aimed properly. Yun Jhin continued to glance at every patch of rubble in his surroundings to get rid of it as he needed space to remake those buildings he remembered. "So here goes the outer disciples living quarters..." Since he was at the outskirts of the territory he would first start with the living quarters of the weaker disciples. Every organization needed its cannon fodder and possible geniuses hidden in the rough. Yun Jhin took some of the dark beams and started constructing houses with them. It didn''t take him much time to make quite a lot of houses but they were all plain dark looking medium-size buildings with nothing special about them. Yun Jhin nodded as he looked at them, he left them like this so the future disciples would be able to customize their houses how they wanted, as for the ones that will come after them? Yun Jhin didn''t really care about them. Yun Jhin continued to build the outer skirts buildings until there were no more spots on the outskirts afterward he continued to destroy rubble and go further into the territory, it took him around 6 months to use all of the bought materials and he had filled 30% of the total space on the meteorite. His cultivation also recovered to a small extent as he reached the 4th stage of the sage realm. With the constant absorption of energy and his knowledge of the realms he easily broke through... as for his body refinement, there was a little bit of a problem as he only reached the 3,000 ranks and that was his estimation as the system wasn''t there anymore but considering how he compared the feeling of his body and the system numerological counting he could somewhat guess his body rank. Body refining was rather slow cultivation and Yun Jhin could only quicken it by buying expensive resources... and the best were the hearts of the nature spirits which Yuan Fang had a monopoly of, anyways even if he had the money Yun Jhin wouldn''t have been able to buy them which made him a little bit more at peace. Some information was sent to him by Mia along with the money every month from the fatty who was named Zhu Man but he didn''t have time to look through it as he was too concentrated on construction. It seemed that they attracted the attention of one of the big shots with their actions no matter how low-key they acted, they started to invest smartly according to Yun Jhin''s instruction and no matter how slowly they did it, the market owners could still see where the money was from as long as they did a little bit of searching around. Fatty Zhu Man wasn''t considered to be a smart person among the grey organization''s bosses even though he was an insidious and street smart person that didn''t mean he knew how to invest the capital he gained. He was basically a frog at the bottom of the well, but now that he jumped out of his well and started to throw around his money in ways that he could gain even more money than what he gained at his peak made the bosses of the black market rather suspicious of him, who had taught the dumb fatty how to invest in what''s good? This wasn''t something one could learn without having experience which meant that some old fogie decided to give some pointers to him? The other old fogies gave that Fatty a visit and a beating after their invitation to the ''mysterious old man'' was refused by the fatty. His legs were broken and his arms removed, some of his organs were destroyed and fed to the Weredogs that were shaking their tails outside the bazaar waiting for people to feed them some human flesh that would be sometimes thrown out in the garbage or directly fed to them. Yun Jhin didn''t really care about the fatty so he ignored most of the things that happened to him and concentrated on what he should do in this situation... it seemed he was wrong as the fatty couldn''t hide his footsteps and things got traced back to him thus leading to the current situation. While they were kindred spirits it was obvious that the man while insidious and crafty wasn''t that intelligent. Yun Jhin frowned as he looked at the empty caravans and decided to return to the bazaar so he could ''talk'' with the old fogies that wanted to see him, as far as he knew they shouldn''t be that strong and he could also go and heal the fatty as long as he didn''t have any irreversible damage done to his soul, he needed a whole pawn, not a shattered one. ***************************************** While Yun Jhin was gathering a new force and doing his business, Yuan Fang was currently recovering from his soul damage. Yuan Fang''s body trembled as he kneeled on a yellow praying mat of unknown material. Red fumes left his head and were absorbed by the praying mat as his downed face suddenly straightened and his eyes burned with a red color, he gritted his teeth as he looked behind him and said: "We shall hasten the plan to reach Godhood!" Two thumps were heard as the duo who was with him on the elve''s planet fell to their knees and trembled as they said with a shaky voice: "Understood!" Yuan Fang trembled as dark blood dripped from his ears and a craze expression appeared on his face... but then the expression froze as he returned to his normal cold and stoic self as he got up from the mat and shook his head as he burned it into cinders and then said: "Forget about the plan we must perfect it first before we execute it, I will go in closed-door cultivation to break through... these 6 months of enduring finally born fruit!" ************************ Yun Jhin arrived at the bazaar before he went directly to the office of the fatty where he found him bandaged like he was a mummy, two arms missing and his legs were bent at an awkward angle as the people who did this to him didn''t let the healing personnel put them back how they were supposed to be. Yun Jhin easily fixed his legs before feeding him a pill he created from pure ki to regenerate his arms. He took a better look at him and found that while his soul was a bit injured it was still healable so he realized that the others were still respecting/fearing the backer behind Zhu Man. This would make things a little bit easier for him. The man immediately started to tell Yun Jhin about the characteristics of those that attacked him. Yun Jhin listened for a short time before he got the information he wanted, he was invited to a ''tea party'' 3 months ago that he failed to show up to but considering he was busy and ignored most of the messages that he got... he could also show up now. From what the fatty said the strongest who attacked him was at the same strength as his former peak crony. Yun Jhin left the man alone as he walked towards the main building of the bazaar that wasn''t a tent or a rundown antique. He prepared himself a little bit before he even entered the bazaar as he changed his aura and looks, he looked like a bona fide ''old master'' as he entered the building while swishing his long sleeves, if any junior blocked his path all he could say at that point would be: "Junior do you dare!" Chapter 181: Old foggies trying to outdo each other Yun Jhin entered the building with a gait that could only be explained as arrogant! His nose was high into the air and he had a sneer on his face as he opened the door of the building and stridden in like he owned the place. He gave out a small glance to the guards at the forefront before giving out a snort and not saying anything. The guards were used to this type of acting as they had served 5 old fogies that acted all the same. Then they looked at each other before transmitting some information towards each other: "Who is this old fool?" "Someone the other 5 knows maybe?" "A lot of old folk walk through here every day how should I remember all of their wrinkle-filled faces." "Should we just let him in?" "Eh, what if he is a con artist who wants to get closer to the 5 heads? We were put here to filter in the trash so we still have to ask him." One of the guards got a little bit closer to Yun Jhin and opened his mouth to ask who he was but suddenly Yun Jhin started to make a scene: "They beat my man to such an extent and they invite me for tea but they don''t even bother to show up themselves, who are these shameless people?" "Ptui, what kind of retards are these heads of the black market? I swear I''m going to bury all of them in money the next transaction I will do!" The guards started sweating as the one who approached slowly backed away before quickly running to report the identity of the old man. When the 5 heads who were enjoying their ''dinner'' with 5 young ladies were interrupted by the guard they almost lopped his head off his shoulder but when they heard what kind of insults the old man who they thought would be their new lackey said their faces turned as red as a boiled lobster. "This damn fool, who does he think he is? He even used that fatty as an in-between, he must be a weakling with experience! We shall show him what the true bigshots do in this situation!" "Yeah!" The other four chorussed to the old man who said that. All 5 old men were looking pretty normal at first glance, 2 of them wore glasses and had a clean shaved face while the other three had beards that reached their waists and were bald, their faces were all so wrinkled you could see patterns of certain words on them but their bodies were still looking to be pretty strong for their ages. Yun Jhin observation told him that they were half a foot in the grave at this point since they were all humans with lower lifespans and their cultivations were only at the lower stages of the God realm so their battle power might have ever receded due to their old age and inactivity in combat. From their loose attires, Yun Jhin could see that they have been ''enjoying'' themselves before he came so they must have been doing this quite often as they wanted to have their last days alive to be enjoyable. Yun Jhin glance over them was reciprocated as one of the old men with glasses glared at him before saying: "You are damn shameless don''t you think? Using that fatty to intercept our shares in the black market? You were doing it so stealthy as well, if it wasn''t for our accountant telling us your movements in the last second you might have become the owner of quite a few important businesses that were our lifeblood!" Yun Jhin snorted as he told them with a cold voice: "And? In this type of work there are no friends but only benefits, what type of benefits would I get if I left you alone? And would they beat the benefits of taking over your businesses?" "You have even beaten him to such a state that you even injured his soul and you invited me to a tea party then you didn''t even bother to show up the moment I arrived? Aren''t you the shameless ones? You didn''t even let that boy heal properly!" The old men had thick faces so they said: "As your middle-man, he deserves what he got!" "Ok since he deserves what he got then why have you invited me here then? Want to do the same thing to me?" The 5 old men chuckled as they said: "No, no of course not, we aren''t coarse men who would attack someone of your caliber, from your moves we can all see that you are an experienced fellow that would be a great addition to our team. Why don''t you join us as the 6th head of the black market?" Yun Jhin seemed to ponder the invitation for a few seconds before he shook his head and said: "To be honest it''s quite tempting, to say the least, but..." "But?" The 5 old men couldn''t understand why Yun Jhin would have doubts about their invitation, well they could but they didn''t think that he would refuse them, after all, he was currently surrounded. "But I don''t think you guys will be able to handle me!" Suddenly Yun Jhin''s figure disappeared as he appeared behind them with one head that carried glasses on its face the head started to shout in fear as he didn''t feel his body anymore and it struggled to get out of Yun Jhin''s grasp. Yun Jhin chuckled as he clenched his hand and destroyed the head breaking it into pieces that he absorbed along with the fallen body. Everything happened extremely quickly but the moment the 4 felt their compatriot die they immediately entered a formation as they activated the one that surrounded the building creating an energy chain reaction that exploded the place where Yun Jhin stood. In Yun Jhin''s place remained an afterimage as he disappeared using his stealth technique, unlike Yuan Fang, there was no one else who could disrupt this state of his in the mortal realm, the others started to think that Yun Jhin had run away after the semi-successful assassination attempt only for the other man with glasses to disappear right in their faces! It was as if the earth ate him as he just disappeared leaving only empty air! The other 3 huddled against each other back to back so they would be able to defend each other properly in a triangle formation. Yun Jhin couldn''t have killed the other two so easily if they didn''t let their guards down and they were also quite ''exhausted'' from their ''activities'' they were also taken directly out of their enjoyment which made them irascible, a mind full of emotions couldn''t see the mountain in front of it, combined with their old age and receding power made them easy to kill. So while they were both distracted and angered Yun Jhin took two of them out in one move! But in this situation, their minds were sobered up in one go and their auras flared to life as they opened their eyes wide, their God realm cultivation bases flared to life as they glared at the air around them, they gritted their teeth but they didn''t let emotions control them anymore. Now they were back at full power and ready to attack and get rid of Yun Jhin! Their backs were filled with sweat as they couldn''t hear feel or sense anything from Yun Jhin... it was as if he disappeared the same way as their compatriot as if he didn''t even exist in the first place! Yun Jhin''s eyes narrowed as he looked at the triangle formation and their strengthened aura, it could get harder and harder to kill them as their potential would recover, anyone who didn''t fight for long times and decided to ''enjoy'' themselves in debauchery wine and parties would end up rusty but cultivators had a great memory so with enough time and the right situation they could recover their peak battle power quite easily unless their bodies wouldn''t be able to handle their peak battle power these old folks would become as strong as the early God Realm stages. While Yun Jhin could fight on par with the early God Realm experts weaklings such as these folks there was still a cultivation difference so he wouldn''t be able to kill them as easily as he did before. While he did kill two birds with one stone he startled the others near them so it couldn''t be said to have been a perfect hunt and if he ever left and tried to come back their defenses would be even better and their cautiousness would be off the chart. So in this situation, he needed to get rid of the remaining three of them if he wanted to take over the black market properly... while he could control those at the sage realm and below as long as he tortured them enough time this strategy wouldn''t work on God Realm experts! Chapter 182: Taking over the whole bazaar The three fogies had an air-tight defense as they stood back to back in the formation and Yun Jhin had to think for some time on how to break their defenses, the three were so wary and scared that if they didn''t care about their face so much they would have started shaking. After all, an assassin who could kill God Realm experts so silently and quickly meant that his cultivation was way above theirs! Yun Jhin''s eyes were like a hawk''s watching a hare, ready to swoop in and destroy his target with no mercy. He started to charge some ki into his palm but he only charged it inwardly so they couldn''t sense it. The ki started to swell inside his arm as he continuously charged it from his body to the targeted body part. After a short while, his arm swelled up to the point that it became as wide as him and it glowed with an unworldly green color. Yun Jhin took a deep breath as he aimed the attack in the middle of them directly in the small gap they had when they stood back to back. A small green ball of energy left Yun Jhin hand as his arm deflated returning to normal proportions, however, it was still a little bit swollen and red due to the intense pressure the ki had put on his body, normally this wouldn''t have happened but Yun Jhin''s body still wasn''t up to par for the use of his stronger techniques. The ball was quite small but the trio still saw it, the moment it landed between them a big explosion shook their bodies as blood spurted from their mouths as their bodies absorbed the shockwave coming from the explosion injuring their internal organs in the process. Their skin was also mutilated as bloody patches appeared on their backs which were then singed and cooked by the unholy fire coming from the explosion. Yun Jhin took a better look at their situation and shook his head, the explosion was strong but the defensive capabilities of their formation reduced it to 40% of its total strength so they only got light injuries. Yun Jhin saw as their skin healed back to normal while they all frowned and shook their heads to stop the ringing in their ears. Suddenly one of them lost his balance and almost fell to his knees due to the injury he got to his inner ear from the explosion. Yun Jhin didn''t attack as he waited for a few seconds and it seemed he was right, the old fogie was acting up making him think that he got injured only for him to fall into a trap. He could feel the formation gaining strength in the spot before the old man showing that they were preparing for their coup de grace attack. The full-on attack from the fully powered formation would destroy Yun Jhin''s body and injure his soul if it hit him head-on but hitting him was easier said than done, only Hell''s willpower could immobilize him and that was when it was in its home territory and at its full power! He threw a destabilizing wave of ki towards the spot where the energy was concentrated making it explode into a shower of rainbow fireworks which melted the old man who was kneeling there waiting for Yun Jhin to take the bait. The other two paled seeing their plan being foiled in such an easy way, they were the ones who were connected to the formation and they could feel all of the changes in it so how could Yun Jhin feel them as well? While Yun Jhin wasn''t connected to the formation, the proficiency he had in the arts of formations made him easily understand the functions of the formation even though it was a newer model than what he was used to. While formation models could change the nodes and their uses would forever remain the same unless someone invited a new way to create formations. The other two realized that they wouldn''t end up well if they remained in the building... but if they left they would also lose the protection of the formation and their chances of death would be even higher, they didn''t believe they would have enough time to reach their space ship and run away with it. Their eyes were as small as coins as they felt despair inundating their minds, were they really going to die in this situation? After all the money they made? They only had a short time to live any way but dying by someone''s hands and dying by old age was entirely different! While they could take dying by old age as it wasn''t something they could control they wouldn''t want to die by someone''s hands if they could help it! The duo turned off the formation as they fell to their knees while they also started kowtowing smashing their bald heads on the floor of the building while shouting: "Please let us live, we shall become your subordinates and give you all of our wealth!" Yun Jhin suddenly appeared in front of both of them as he grasped their necks while sealing their whole cultivation base, it seemed they were really sincere as they let their guards down fully and Yun Jhin easily took care of their cultivation bases. While Yun Jhin wanted to kill them, in this situation having 2 lackeys at the God Realm would be really good for the organization, even as reserve power that couldn''t be used willy nilly. However, making them obedient was another thing. A God''s realm soul couldn''t be controlled unless the person was branded before he became a God and there was also the fact that God''s could break contracts quite easily... only Devil Gods would get huge repercussions for breaking contracts but that was their race inherent penalty due to the many benefits the race got in their early life if they survived it. While he couldn''t control their lives he could do something similar, he could plant a ki bomb in their souls that he could easily trigger as soon as he found them unpleasing to the eye, this wasn''t an airtight method as they could remove the bomb with time or wear off the ki in the bomb simply making it unusable. There was also the fact that if they got too far from Yun Jhin he couldn''t detonate it anymore... It wasn''t as good as control over their souls but he could also make them come with him everywhere as his bodyguards just like Yuan Fang had that monkey tailed man and the blonde man with long spiky hair. Yun Jhin put his hands over their faces as he forcefully inserted a huge amount of ki into them reaching their souls and creating sphere-shaped bombs that would detonate themselves whenever he wanted to as long as they were in range, the range was almost 2 to 3 planets long and most likely they would never get that far away from him. Yun Jhin patted the duo on their shoulders as he said: "Get up now and let''s be friends from now on." The duo smiled awkwardly as they felt their cultivation base being unsealed... they both let out a big sigh as they left and returned with all of the ownership certificates for their businesses and all of their riches. Yun Jhin took a look through the certificate and riches and he could feel that they were enough for him to fully reconstruct the sect and repair the formation almost to 40% of its full power! He would need 2 or more Bazaars like this one to fully repair the formation but its defensive ability under Yun Jhin''s command would let him defend against 4 to 5 God Realm experts at the same time, but that was only if Yun Jhin used it personally anyone else and they would have problems with even 1 peak God Realm expert. Yun Jhin looked through the certificates and found that they controlled over 60% of the actual businesses in the Bazaar be they medium-size or higher, from what he could see they controlled the slave market, mystical arms dealers, drugs dealers along with the normal pill shops, herb shops, and the other usual businesses, even dipping into the food and entertainment sections. The other 40% or so were the shares of the other sects be they righteous or evil, they all had a share in the grey market and this was one of the biggest Bazaars in the neutral territory. It was actually quite impressive these 2 old men and the 3 deceased ones could hold over 60% of shares against the 5 strongest sects in the existence of the mortal realm. "Ok so for now send these materials to the blood throne sect territory along with some men that are proficient in construction, only use trustful connections alright? You are also coming with me so after you are done pack your bags!" The duo bowed while on the inside they were dying while thinking: "You already enslaved us, can''t you let us play a while longer? You are already going to put our old bones to work?" Yun Jhin knew what they were thinking but he didn''t care as he clapped which indicated that they should hurry as he wanted to finish reconstructing the sect so he could focus on his cultivation afterward, as long as he could create a proper organization the resources would be flowing in by themselves with the combination of the Bazaar workers beings his underlings, all he would do then would be cultivating! Chapter 183: Reopening the sect Yun Jhin watched as the duo left him alone as he pondered about the reconstruction of the sect, with his current influence he might be able to pull some strings to jump-start his sect''s reputation along with the recruiting promotion. A sect needed disciples for it to work properly, the disciples were the lifeblood of the sect which would get him profits and other different things such as slaves or thralls that he could use for cultivation purposes. At this point, he could get these things by himself but it could cost him time and a headache, if he had others to do it for him he could cut the time he used to gather these things and he could also continue cultivating at his safe headquarters where there would be no chances of random ambushes due to the enemies he made recognizing him. While there was a very low chance for him to be recognized if he didn''t reopen his sect, the chance was still there. After all his reputation was as resounding as thunder in one''s ears and even if he changed his looks and acted differently his inherent aura and majesty could still be seen through by people that were familiar enough with him. While he wasn''t entirely sure, he knew that there must be other reincarnated ones besides him and Yuan Fang, the other ones always liked to play low-key and see the others beat each other before they swooped in and took everything at the expanse of the two fighting parties, they were the ultimate fishermen. That''s how most righteous organizations acted, they made it look like they were neutral in these types of conflicts on the surface but underneath they couldn''t bear to wait to pierce their teeth in the meat of the two parties. The cultivation world was both cruel and profit-oriented. Yun Jhin didn''t need to wait for long as the duo''s influence in the black market was pretty much the best, so the materials that he needed were immediately gathered and Yun Jhin flew with the new caravan towards the sect''s location. The two old fogies walked behind Yun Jhin with their heads low which made the people who derived the caravans have bulged out eyes considering everyone knew the identity of these two old men, and the question was where were the other 3 elders? Yun Jhin ignored the glances he was given as he indicated to the two old men that they should increase the pace so they could arrive faster at the meteorite. The two old men finally glanced up at the drivers and glared at them as they motioned with their hands to increase the speed up! The drivers didn''t say anything as they increased the throttle of the formation controlled caravans. In around 3 days they arrived at the outer skirts of the territory and saw the newly constructed houses for the outer skirts disciples. They then left Yun Jhin alone with the caravans and materials as they were instructed to return to their posts and deliver the same amounts of materials monthly for 7 months, also they were told to find more special materials so Yun Jhin could repair his formation properly. Now that he had enough materials for construction Yun Jhin went ahead and started as he continued to destroy rubble and create houses accordingly, the houses then turned into palaces and other imposing buildings as he got further into the territory, as time passed, more and more houses and palaces and other types of buildings had risen in the territory as it gotten filled up, even the formation got repaired around to 20% of its original strength as Yun Jhin multitasked. The sect was getting more and more imposing as the way Yun Jhin placed the buildings created a natural formation and with the formation that was put around the meteorite it created a formation within a formation! The formation made by buildings was way weaker but it accentuated the strength of the outer formation by 15% when it would be fully done. Finally, Yun Jhin reached the biggest palace that was whole and demolished it with his hands before constructing a new similar one. As he got to the furthest into the territory he arrived back at the entrance to hell which was still wide open as the demonic energy seeped slowly through it but not invading the mortal plane by much, only those who would be near it would get influenced. "You will have to move out of my territory... I don''t need you anymore." The door started to move as if it seemingly understood Yun Jhin but Yun Jhin grabbed it by its frame and started to exert strength against it, the door started to move up and down quickly as it wanted to escape his grip. The door wasn''t sentient but it could move on its own when it perceived danger as it would need a long time to respawn if it was destroyed. Yun Jhin ignored its struggling as he put more strength into his arms infusing them both with an immense amount of ki which swelled them to the same size as they were when he fought the old fogies in their formation. The door started to struggle even harder as it tried to pry itself out of Yun Jhin''s grasp with all of its strength, demonic ki started to overflow out of the entrance which tried to invade Yun Jhin''s new body, corrupt it and devour it! However the demonic energy was just like a tonic to Yun Jhin as his body started to strengthen at a quick pace breaking through the 4,000 ranks but stopping there as the low quality of the energy didn''t help him any further, he also didn''t use the energy for his cultivation base as it wasn''t pure enough for his likes. "Ok, that''s enough from you!" Yun Jhin crumbled the door like it was made of paper as he transformed it into a small ball of dark metal that he crushed in his palm until it transformed into nothing! The connection between the mortal realm and hell was thus thoroughly severed and any mortal who entered hell would be stuck there until the next door opened randomly. "Now that I have resolved this problem it''s time to finish the reconstruction of the sect... only the biggest palaces for the elders and myself are left along with the formation repairing." Yun Jhin finished the sect in about 3 years, finally remaking the whole sect as it was before, tall buildings of various colors rose on the surface of the meteorite and while some of them looked similar there were also a lot of them which were very different, the similar ones were living quarters while the different ones were palaces and treasuries along with the mission quarters and the other important buildings of the sect. At first glance, you wouldn''t find this sect to be a demonic one but Yun Jhin already started the sacrifices to awaken the river of blood underground, under the buildings Yun Jhin had opened an underground area where a river of blood was flowing in his previous life and the blood river dried up due to not having any fresh sacrifices, the blood river was inherently connected to the formation and it activating would increase the offensive and defensive capabilities of the formation by 50%, it was also the reason Yun Jhin could defend and maybe even beat 5 peak God Realm experts at the same time. He was the only one who could control it! The blood river was connected with his soul and it only recognized it alone! The new sacrifices that he made weren''t enough to awaken the blood river but it did start to stir up a little bit, he would need millions of people to be sacrificed for it to wake up and their cultivation bases should only be at the King Realm or above. Yun Jhin''s body was floating above the dried up dark red river of blood as he opened his eyes showing two green pupils that were concentrating on the river below him, in his left hand there was a knife and in his right one a heart that was still beating, the beating heart started to quickly squirm out of his hands but Yun Jhin''s grip on it was too strong as he thrust the knife into it letting hot blood flow from it. The blood river below him started to slowly move as the dark red color started to liven up into a bright one but seconds later it turned back to its original state. Yun Jhin shook his head as his pupils turned to their normal colors and he flew through an opening in the underground area to appear in a lavish palace made from a dark material that reflected the light coming from outside leaving it in utter darkness. Yun Jhin moved through the darkness as if the palace was fully illuminated and reached the center of it where the two old fogies from the Bazaar were kneeling on praying mats and meditating. Yun Jhin''s appearance made the duo wake up and they both bowed to him at the same time. Yun Jhin slowly walked towards the middle of the room where a new throne made of pale white bones was erected, he sat on it while he put his hand over his face and leaned to the left while saying: "I guess it''s time to open the sect, what do you two think?" Chapter 184: Recruiting disciples to enliven the sect A sects lifeblood would first be their defensive capabilities to keep the headquarters alive but secondly would be their disciples! A sect with no disciples couldn''t call itself a proper organization as it would be only an empty shell. Yun Jhin needed a few things to make the sect attractive to those who wanted to join. The first and the most important thing would be the carrot and the stick, aka benefits. There wouldn''t be problems to those below the middle stages of the God Realm as he had one whole planetary Bazaar under his thumb which he could use to siphon resources to his sect, he couldn''t really drain them as it would be bad for business but there were many businesses that he could take at least 1 or 2 percent out of them which in turn would get him quite a lot of resources. He could even gain resources for average God experts, at least those below the 4th stage could be accommodated in the sect. Another thing that a sect needed would be a good reputation or in Yun Jhin''s case, a devilish one as his sect could be considered a plague. Every man and woman in his previous life that joined the sect were all notorious rogue cultivators who offended people due to their crimes, they joined him for shelter and the benefits that came with being a sect member. However a sect wasn''t all benefits and no work and those who joined understood that there was no free lunch in the world, they would also have to do missions to get said resources or contribute with some other resources that they didn''t need or the like, this was the notorious points system that most sects used but considering it worked properly since the construction of sects no one needed to change it. One of the most attractive things to those that didn''t come from cultivators families would be a multitude of cultivation techniques that could adapt even to their rather untalented bodies... and Yun Jhin had a lot of those techniques body refining ones included. With Yun Jhin expertise in bloodlines and cultivation techniques, he could even make untalented people reach the sage realm at least if he experimented on them, normally it wouldn''t be possible but Yun Jhin could trade lifespan for cultivation strength if he needed to so he could do the same to others through special rituals or surgeries. As long as he advertised these things properly he would get so many people that wanted to join the sect that he wouldn''t have enough space on the meteorite to hold all of them. But Yun Jhin still had a basic requirement for those that joined. As he wouldn''t take in every riff-raff that he saw, as the less talented they were the more resources would be needed to help them in cultivation, and even though he had a steady way to gain those resources they weren''t infinite! Yun Jhin took a look at the two old men below him who were nodding at him with great speed before he shook his head as he told them to send a universal advertisement about the opening of the sect, it didn''t matter if the other sects knew that he was back because at this point the formation would be able to defend him, he also made sure that no one knew the connection between the Baazar and his sect thus if the others tried to cut off his supply they would have a hard time to pinpoint where did his resources come from. The Baazar was basically a whole planet and a lot of the businesses were ''free'' on paper and they weren''t under the old men jurisdiction even though they were controlled and those righteous fools were tied by their ''morals'' so unless they got a serious reason they wouldn''t be able to attack those businesses. While Yun Jhin would become the top tier enemy of the universe after he officially opened his sect some so many people would flock to his sect that it wouldn''t matter, he would create a strong army that he could use to defend himself and the sect with while he would give them the resources they wanted. Yun Jhin waited for a short while before the duo came back saying that they have sent the message to the whole universe using their connections. Yun Jhin didn''t have to wait even for 10 days before a line of people appeared at the meteorite waiting for the opening of the sect entrance exam. Yun Jhin exam was quite easy, he would personally assess the people who approached the formation and see through their talents, if their talents were below his requirements they wouldn''t even be able to enter the sect''s outer skirts. Yun Jhin''s projection appeared outside the sect, he cut an extraordinary figure as he stood there with his hands behind his back as he said: "The entrance exam is easy, approach the visible barrier and touch it, if you can go through you are allowed in the sect and you become an outer, inner, core or personal disciple based on your cultivation, all above the 6th sage realm could be considered elders of the sect and God realm experts are Grand Elders that can be appointed to the treasury, martial hall and punishment hall." Yun Jhin''s hands which were before his back came forward as he clapped and the barrier started to glow with an intense black color which indicated that the start of the test had begun! The people started to quickly rush through touching the barrier as 30% of them were stopped and they couldn''t enter no matter what they did while the other 70% entered as they melded with the barrier and arrived on the meteorite''s ground. Yun Jhin had already identified most of their cultivation the moment they went through the formation and they were around 300,000 cultivators at the heavenly realm, 200,000 at the earthly realm, 100,000 at the ki cultivating realm, 50,000 at the King Realm, and 25,000 at the sage realm in total they were 675,000 people approximatively as Yun Jhin counted them, the earthly and heavenly realm cultivators will be outer sect disciples ki cultivating realm and King realm ones will be inner disciples while the sage realm experts below the 6th stage would be core disciples. There weren''t actually many above the 6th stage, they were only 10 and they met with Yun Jhin directly in the biggest palace of darkness. The moment they saw him and realized that his cultivation was below them they felt that they had made a mistake joining the sect, but then they saw two God Realm experts kneeling to him and they immediately knelt as well before shouting: "We greet the patriarch and the ancestors!" They thought that Yun Jhin was the patriarch and the puppet of those two old fogies who could be considered ancestor level figures. Yun Jhin didn''t correct them as he got up from the bone throne and looked down at them, he put his hand on the forehead of each one of them while they kneeled ''blessing them'' with some knowledge as a reward for their elder statuses. They were each given the special cultivation technique of the blood throne sect and considering they joined his sect despite all of the rumours that were known about it they weren''t saints at all, their eyes glowed with devilish light and sin as they digested the cultivation technique that Yun Jhin imparted them while he also slipped some controlling seals inside their souls which would fester inside until he would want or need to activate them, he would also be able to see what they would be doing through them. The ten were then given a palace each as they were elders and they needed imposing homes to assert their dominance over the common disciples. Yun Jhin watched as they fought over who gets each house at the outer skirts and the inner skirts, it was quite fun to watch them bicker but Yun Jhin only waited for them to settle down before he sent down the rules along with the missions and available resources that could be bought if you gathered enough points. He also added a currency exchange as they could use spirit stones for points or buy directly from the resources pavilion, but using points would end up being cheaper. Yun Jhin made in such a way that they would rather donate to the sect for points so they would get closer to it and feel like they belonged to it as only disciples could get the discount and point exchange. Yun Jhin looked over the whole sect as the disciples settled in before immediately rushing back out to do missions, most of these people were rogue cultivators who needed a roof over their heads to shield them from the ''wind and rain'' of the universe, they were also wanted people as 95% of them had a bounty on their head and if they joined a sect they would get a backer that would make them shout out something among those lines when they were caught: "Hey, you should let me go if you don''t want to offend the blood throne sect! I''m an xxx disciple!" They would become arrogant and display their backing offending anyone they wanted and attracting the wrong attention to the sect, but Yun Jhin didn''t really care as those dumb disciples will be discarded leaving only the smart ones, while there wasn''t any big test or anything like that the true purging will be made by their own hands! Yun Jhin would actually never back up his disciples unless they were extreme talents similar to him or one tier below. Chapter 185: Disciples offend powers Yun Jhin was meditating on his bone throne as he had his eyes closed, on the surface he was cultivating but underneath he was observing the newly appointed elders. Yun Jhin could split up his attention into 10 parts and watch over all of them due to the seals he had put in their minds. But he soon came to find that most of them were just trying to cultivate at the moment unlike the others who went to do missions they were a little bit more ''relaxed'', after all, they did have an allowance because of their elder statuses so they would either be lazy or think that the allowance would be enough for them. Yun Jhin couldn''t blame them, they must have lived day by day scared that they would be caught by those they offended and their heads lopped off, he guessed that they were quite happy that they didn''t have to cultivate with one eye open from now on. Yun Jhin observed them for a short while before stopping, there was no reason to continue as they were all slowly cultivating the technique he gave them. The meteorite could hold around 10 million people and the 750,000 he currently got wasn''t near the limit at all, all he needed now was to continue recruiting disciples, while 90% of the disciple population could be considered cannon fodder due to their humble origins, Yun Jhin could use them for menial tasks and as long as they did them properly he could strengthen them as a reward which in turn will make the sect stronger as a whole. He decided to start cultivating as well as he had quite a lot of cultivation materials that he had stocked for himself that he could go through, they were all premium quality the best of the best from the Bazaar but it didn''t mean much in his hands as most of them were scavenged by mercenaries and the good stuff was in the hands of the top sects. Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he sat cross-legged in the air. As he hovered above the blood river he consumed cultivation resources like a whale would drink water, his cultivation slowly increased as time passed and the dried up blood river below him was starting to glow with a deep red color the more Yun Jhin cultivated above it. The river had the passive ability to increase the cultivation speed of those around them by 50% and its energy could also be siphoned for cultivation purposes but both abilities were currently sealed due to its dried state, however, Yun Jhin''s cultivation increasing also lead to the river getting more lively as they were connected. The river glow was getting increasingly brighter as Yun Jhin cultivation grew towards a breakthrough, as for the sect he left the two old fogies to work over it and he could still feel their connection while he was cultivating so he wasn''t bothered if they would try to escape both of their souls would explode and they knew that as well. While Yun Jhin was cultivating under the Darkness palace the two old men were continuing the recruitment of people as Yun Jhin gave them control of a part of the formation to let them see the talents of the recruits. As time passed and Yun Jhin didn''t exit his closed-door cultivation the duo started to get thoughts of escaping but the moment those thoughts appeared in their mind the seal in their mind palaces started to prickle their souls, it was the feeling of drinking something carbonated after eating mentos but this slightly uncomfortable feeling made them realize that even though Yun Jhin was cultivating he still had his eyes on them! All thoughts of escaping left their minds as they fully became involved in the activities that Yun Jhin let them do. All of the people who joined the sect were notorious small or medium criminals and very few ''clean'' people joined the sect, most of them were given the basic cultivation technique of the sect so they would be able to increase their cultivation faster than what garbage technique they had got from going through the trash of auction houses with unsold pergaments and jade slips. The technique Yun Jhin distributed for them was a rather simple but effective one which used the surrounding bloody ki to strengthen the body and ki pathways thus increasing the cultivation base along with body refining at the same time, it was a jack of all trades technique but it was very good for the cannon fodder to cultivate as they wouldn''t have any weakness but not any strengths either. This way he would be able to make flawless formations with them in the outer parts where they would be able to take all of the damage while dishing it back out. While the recruits were getting familiar with the technique, the earlier ones from the first batch of 750,000 were returning with successful missions, well not all of them as some of them died and some of them were captured so they would spill out the secrets of the newly created sect. But the ones who came back had come with the things they needed to give to complete the mission or well the heads of those they had to kill, etc. Yun Jhin''s treasury was filling up with rarer materials that the disciples came back with as they did missions or traded them for points that they could use to buy things that they needed immediately. Those materials ended up in Yun Jhin''s belly or his cauldron as he created pills with them, two of the elders finally made a move 7 months in Yun Jhin''s closed-door cultivation. They left the sect and went to a different Bazaar than the one Yun Jhin had under him to trade, Yun Jhin had already connected his consciousness to the seals in their minds when they left the sect so he could see whatever they saw and hear whatever they heard. When they arrived at the Bazaar they swaggered in like they owned the place and went to the most important auction house to buy and trade some things that they didn''t find in the sect trade list, and as they knew that the closest Baazar to them was under the patriarch''s thumbs, it meant that if they went there to shop they wouldn''t be able to find what they wanted either. So logically they went to the other biggest Baazar they could find. The grey area was heavily business influenced and 5 Bazaars were equal to the one Yun Jhin had conquered, each had different specialties based on their locations, and 3 of them were mostly controlled by the righteous sects while two of them were controlled by the evil sects, Yun Jhin''s was a hodgepodge of both righteous and evil while most of it was controlled by the old fogies he took care of. The moment the duo came and said what their backing was the owner of the auction house immediately came to invite them in, it seemed the Baazar they chose was controlled by one of the evil sects which was an ''ally'' of Yun Jhin in his previous life. Considering the blood throne sect had resurfaced meant Yun Jhin had reincarnated successfully and his cultivation must have been above the God Realm if he was so upfront with his actions, Yun Jhin was an old monster that the evil faction respected and hated at the same time and considering he was back in power they needed to give him the due respect first. However the duo was a little bit too ''conspicuous'' after they found out how big their backing is and they started to become a little bit too arrogant with the boss of the auction house which had the Dead Bones sect behind him, thus the duo offended them, it wasn''t actually hard to offend someone in the cultivation world but these two did it even though their backing was rather huge. It was actually impressive, Yun Jhin was impressed with their idiocy as they were beaten and whipped to half-death before they were sent back to the sect with a message from the owner of the auction house. Yun Jhin personally got the message as he read it shaking his head, the man wanted compensation for the actions of the two but he wouldn''t get jack from Yun Jhin! He decapitated the duo and sent their heads back to the man with those words: "If they are talented I will protect them even if they shit over your head, if they are mediocre their heads are yours but that doesn''t mean you can trample over the sect!" Seeing his hard stance over the matter made the boss forgive the transgression considering the offenders were both dead. With this situation, Yun Jhin showed his stance to the universe about his sect, if they offend you as long as they aren''t talented enough you can kill them. However, if they don''t offend you and you still decide to take a fight with them the whole sect will be against you! This way he also scared the disciples who tried to abuse their backing while also advertising the sect rules to the whole universe at the same time! This also put the other 8 elders in their place as they realized that they couldn''t offend people if they didn''t have enough strength, but people also couldn''t offend them for no reason either! These were the benefits of a balanced sect. Chapter 186: The thoughts of the other sects Yun Jhin''s hard stance on the elders'' matter made the other organizations who were eyeing the blood throne sect, like hungry piranhas reconsider their intentions. Normally the other sects were quite wary of the blood throne sects former reputation and they knew that its revival was only a matter of time unless news of Yun Jhin''s permanent death appeared. So they had prepared somewhat for his resurrection but considering that he recreated the sect too fast and too sudden made them unable to act properly after all the grey areas were rather far away from the righteous sects and nearer the evil sects, the evil sects also didn''t have much time to check up on the grey area as they were always butting heads with the righteous sects for resources. The grey area resources were scarce and they were more like an in-between place for the righteous and evil sects to trade normally however most of the time the resources each sect used were opposed to those they needed so their trades were very rare, at least the personal ones could happen once every hundred of years, they would mostly use the old men who controlled the Bazaar to get what they needed instead of going by themselves. As Yun Jhin only went to one Bazaar which he immediately took over sealing all the news that came from it at the same time, made the sects unable to blitz him and stop him before he created his sect. The blood throne sects'' formation reputation was quite resounding in the universe and no one wanted to test it first, as for war? That was more unlikely as they would need late stage God Realm experts to breach the formation which would leave their headquarters empty and ready to be attacked. While the sects had alliances with each other those alliances could be easily forgotten in the face of profits, betrayal was an easy thing to happen in the cultivation world and it didn''t need much thought to happen. This was why Yun Jhin always put some form of control on his immediate subordinates, no matter how close one could be considered to another there was still a chance of betrayal happening, even childhood friends or relatives would forget about each other as time passed and they would only become acquaintances at best if money and resources were involved. What Yun Jhin did by executing those elders showed that he was going to take a neutral stance in the current world and that he wouldn''t involve himself with the current events at the moment which gave the others a sense of inner peace, while Yun Jhin was currently a ticking time bomb that others wanted to defuse, they would first have to go through a field of thistles a sea of blades and a mountain of fire before they could defuse the bomb, and making one mistake could make the bomb explode earlier as well. So they didn''t want to mess with him... yet. ***************************** At the Radiance Brilliance and Light headquarters stood a gigantic pavilion made from Sky Blue Bricks of light, it was very imposing and majestic with a tint of imperial aura, a gigantic dragon statue was atop of it in a pose of roaring towards the heavens. Inside the biggest room where nothing but a prayer mat stood was a middle-aged man with long pierced ears and a big stomach, he had an aura of righteousness around him which made him seem like a sage that would save the masses from hunger by offering his own body if nothing else was to eat. He had a strange attractive aura to his cerulean blue eyes and he wore nothing but a kasaya robe which covered his rather rotund body, he was looking at the ceiling of the room seemed as if he had nothing on his mind and he was just being bored. A knock could be heard coming from the oversized doors of the room, they were considerably bigger than the middle-aged man''s frame which was only over 1,83 meters tall. The doors opened and a midget around 1,35 meters tall came in, he had a red nose a long flowing red braided beard and he was bald, he had grey lifeless eyes like those of a dead fish and he wore red armor made from tempered lava iron. The dwarf male came closer to the daydreaming man and kneeled before saying: "The calamity has descended on our universe once again Ancestor Biu Wuan, what should we do?" Biu Wuan closed his eyes as his head moved towards the dwarf''s location and he shook it as he said: "Nothing." The dwarf continued kneeling before he kowtowed and left the room hurriedly to tell everyone in the sect the information. The ugly man who sold Yun Jhin those resources had currently made it big becoming a steward of the sect and he was quite scared of the news about Yun Jhin, he didn''t even know that the one he sold materials to was the person that currently scared him to the bone! The moment the news came saying that they weren''t supposed to do anything to Yun Jhin he became a little bit disturbed, their Radiance Brilliance and Light sect couldn''t do anything to the new sect? Even though the reputation was quite scary it was just newly reconstructed and there was no way it recruited any important personnel! But considering the order came from high above the ugly man didn''t say anything as he continued his job as a steward. The Brilliance Radiance and Light was the strongest righteous sect so the other righteous sects took after their example and called off any attempts at attacking Yun Jhin, but that didn''t mean they didn''t send some spies to see what Yun Jhin was currently doing. ***************************** In the strongest devilish evil sect of the mortal realm, the Dead Bones sect stood a gigantic tower made of pale white bones that contained fragments of bones from every race that could be found both in the mortal realm and hell, they were a sect focused on the control of bones and all of their techniques had the need of bones to be cast. The gigantic tower made of bones was simple and crude, it looked like it would fall off the next moment a small breeze would pass by but it also had an unquestionable stench of decay and death that also gave it a stable look somehow, it was a rather unnerving feeling. Inside the top room of the tower stood a gaunt old man who was only bones, there was only a patch of skin over his bones that made him look human but everything else about him made him look like a corpse that crawled up from the coffin. "You are back old friend? Hmph, I wanted to give you a present for our last encounter but it seems you are rather busy." The old man talked with himself as if he was crazy as there was literally no one with him in the empty room, the room was full of bones of different sizes and origins but all of them had the same aura around them which indicated they were all under the control of the old man. The old man shook his head as his vision pierced through the tower but the distance between his sect and Yun Jhin was extremely long, Yun Jhin''s meteorite was quite far to the northern part of the universe almost to the border of known chaos, this was also one of the reasons he only gained 750,000 disciples despite the resounding reputation of the Blood Throne sect. "Ah I would like to give you a visit but If I do those other old fogies would attack my tower..." **************************** Yun Jhin opened his eyes a shiver went through his whole body and down his spine, it felt like someone rather important was talking about him right now... and this sensation happened more than one time, it actually happened 5 times in a row! Did the other sects finally put his crosshairs on him? Yun Jhin wasn''t scared of conflict at the moment as they wouldn''t be able to send many troops to his sect but he still needed some time to consolidate his position in the universe along with his cultivation, once he reached the God Realm the battle power of his last life would come back quickly even though he couldn''t tussle with the peak experts he could still fight it out with the late-stage ones. For now, his cultivation had stabilized at the 5th stage of the sage realm after continuous use of the resources he gained from the Bazaar but he needed to awaken the blood river so he could get the passive increase in cultivation speed. However, he couldn''t let the others know that the blood river was dried or they would have thoughts of attacking, after all the blood river was the main reason they were wary of coming to his base. And the fastest way of awakening the river was feeding it the pure blood of the innocent! Chapter 187: Getting blood Yun Jhin needed quite a lot of blood to awaken the river fully, the question was where he could get it? Even though the blood of the innocent would awaken the river faster, any type of blood would work but he would need higher quantities of it. He couldn''t sacrifice his disciples yet as they were too few and if word got out no one would come to join the sect anymore as no one wanted to walk into a death trap. He could give the current disciples the mission of gathering the necessary "ingredients" but people knew about the characteristics of the blood river so they would realize what he wanted to do when his disciples went around to gather people. So the question was how could he gather an immense amount of people to squeeze them dry and throw them in the river? And do all of that stealthily. Yun Jhin hovered over the blood river while sitting cross-legged, his eyes were closed and his hands were moving rhythmically in front of him as the river underneath him started to glow with a crimson color from time to time, the river was dried up and dark red but Yun Jhin''s hand movements were enlivening it somewhat. Yun Jhin shook his head as he stopped his actions: "This would take too much time, only if there was a way to funnel blood from somewhere... actually there is a way." Yun Jhin''s eyes sparkled as he thought about a way on how to funnel blood towards the river. He only needed to find a location where many deaths would happen daily and install a siphoning formation there, combined with a spatial formation he could connect the river with that location so whenever someone died there, their blood would be absorbed into the formation and delivered to the river. But Yun Jhin wasn''t up to date with the current universe locations yet, after all, a lot of time passed since he had reincarnated and he only had a small understanding of the overall universe and the new planets that had popped up with time. He left the blood river and ascended to the castle as he asked the old men duo about dangerous places where people would die daily. They started to rummage through their minds to think about any such places, they were rather lazy and they didn''t care much about such places and only the profits that came from them, sometimes they wouldn''t even bother to learn the names of the people who brought out the treasures they sold after they ripped off the actual seller. "Uh... Um... Actually, I think one of those locations could be the Dead Bones valley? It''s under the jurisdiction of the Dead Bones sect and people are sacrificed there daily their bones are extracted while they are alive and then their bodies are boiled in the gigantic cauldron before being fed to their bone beasts." Yun Jhin shook his head as he said: "I need neutral locations." "Neutral ones?" "Master we are not sure about any neutral places, most of these locations are controlled by evil sects of higher status, also they are eyed by the righteous sects as they want to destroy these places, there are no such neutral grounds where people die daily, even though there are some ''dangerous sites'' people die there but not as often as you would want." Yun Jhin frowned then asked them about the latest news and a universal map. It seemed that the righteous sects had reined themselves in as there had been no attacks whatsoever, Yun Jhin''s reputation and former actions had made it so their fear and cautiousness acted against them in this situation. "Atleast I will have a few hundred years at this rate... but the blood river won''t awaken so soon if it doesn''t have sacrifices." "What should I do?" Yun Jhin had a dilemma, what could he do to awaken the river without getting the wrong attention from the other sects? He could hold a death tournament with bountiful rewards... that could work? Yun Jhin knew that he would attract the disciples of his own sect in such a free tournament but you couldn''t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs first. Yun Jhin''s eyes shined as he looked at the two old men kneeling in front of him as he decreed: "We shall host a tournament for future and current disciples and even those from the other sects or rogue cultivators are allowed to attend, this shall be the first big event my sect will host in the universe besides the recruiting efforts. It shall be something that everyone shall enjoy!" The duo didn''t know what to say as they kneeled, they knew that this was mostly a scheme or something similar, how could Yun Jhin be so good to give out free rewards? "The rules will be as following: there are no rules besides the winning conditions which are killing your opponent or making him surrender." The duo nodded as they left the palace and sent the invitation to the whole universe using the communication formation that was tied both to the sect and the Bazaar. Yun Jhin started the construction of the arena personally as he created a gladiator-style arena in 10 days quite easily, it was plenty sturdy and even God Realm experts wouldn''t be able to break it easily if they were below the middle stages. Yun Jhin invitation stirred quite a lot of people awake, most of them knew that Yun Jhin was plotting something but considering they didn''t know that the blood river was dormant they still bit the bait. Most of them were rogue cultivators who didn''t want to join sects but they were too tempted by the rewards that Yun Jhin put out, pills, techniques, and the like, the top winner would also be awarded whatever he wanted, well if Yun Jhin had what he wanted, if not he would be given something similar in value that Yun Jhin had in stock. This put the whole jianghu (martial world) on fire, they all flocked to Yun Jhin''s sect as they signed up at the new gladiator arena, they didn''t find it weird that there were no rules involved and the signs were mostly hinting that a massive killing was going to happen. Yun Jhin watched from the underground through the defensive formation which he already repaired to around 40% which was the current maximum with the current resource channels. "Hmm.. no old fogies are present and very few disciples from the other sects, it''s pretty much perfect!" Yun Jhin''s eyes glowed as he looked at the rogue cultivators who joined the tournament up and down, he was analyzing their quintessence and looking through their bloodlines trying to see if there were any good ones worth poaching into his sect. Most rogue cultivators had mixed bloodlines, no physiques worthy of mention nor any pedigree that the sects wanted but there would always be diamonds in the rough where their mixed bloodlines mutated into something even better than the original bloodlines! Yun Jhin could even incite such mutations with a low chance of them being successful due to his knowledge of bloodlines. "Very disappointing, it seems all of them will go into the mouth of the blood river." The way the tournament was made only the top 1,000 would actually survive if the others didn''t surrender and they were killed on the spot, and currently there were around 15,000,000 participants! While Yun Jhin''s sect only got 750,000 disciples the moment they learned that they would be able to participate in a tournament where they wouldn''t have to join the sect a lot more people came regardless of the distance. A lot of rogue cultivators enjoyed their freedom and hated the sect''s type of abusing their disciples through the points system. They all thought themselves to be free birds that couldn''t be chained down to the sects, but the moment some free benefits came they would flock to the sects like sharks would do when they smelled blood. They were all opportunists at heart and also not very smart. Most rogue cultivators could be considered quite dumb as they didn''t go through proper education in cultivation and they could only cultivate instinctively with the help of their mixed bloodline inheritance or the things they scavenged, thus gaps in knowledge appeared. Even though they were rather sly when it came to street smarts they wouldn''t be as smart as to understand what the rules of the tournament actually meant, but that didn''t mean there weren''t exceptions! A blonde-haired man with a dirty beard and bags under his eyes who wore a dirty robe started shouting outside near the arena: "GUYS DON''T YOU SEE THAT THE TOURNAMENT IS FISHY?" "DON''T YOU SEE THAT THEY ARE MEANT FOR US TO SLAUGHTER EACH OTHER?" "DON''T YOU KNOW THE EVIL REPUTATION OF THE BLOOD THRONE SECT? WHY WOULD YOU EVEN CONSIDER COMING HERE?" The man was trying to play the hero as he warned everyone here about the nefarious plans of Yun Jhin but everyone looked at him with either anger or annoyance: "Bro if the patriarch of the blood throne sect wanted us dead we would have already been dead, why are you muddying the water?" "Yeah what if we have to kill each other for the rewards of the tournament? It''s only natural such things happen, after all, even though this is a hosted event it doesn''t mean death won''t happen in our day to day lives, considering the sect''s disciples participate too it must be a tempering trial for them as well!" "Yeah! You go away if you don''t want to participate!" The dirty blonde-haired man started to curse under his breath as he took out a bottle of alcohol from under his robe and took a swig of it as he hiccuped and left. Yun Jhin narrowed his eyes as he watched the man leave, that man wasn''t a rogue cultivator for sure! Yun Jhin''s body disappeared from above the blood river as he activated his stealth technique and teleported to the outside area of the meteorite, his eyes targeted the dirty blonde-haired man who was at the 8th stage of the sage realm under his disguise that Yun Jhin easily saw through. "Let''s see which sect''s disciple is this..." Yun Jhin appeared behind him as he put his hand over his mouth and a 1,3 meters blue ki sword went through the man''s back and exiting his chest, the man looked puzzledly at the ki sword sticking out from his chest before life faded away from his eyes. Yun Jhin started to absorb his soul as he thought: "Let''s hope it isn''t a disciple from any of the stronger sects..." Chapter 188: Unraveling talents in a bloody tournament Yun Jhin body along with the corpse of the blonde-haired man that he killed disappeared as he returned to the blood river underneath the Darkness palace. The tournament didn''t start yet so he could rummage through the guy''s memories and feed his body to the blood river first. Images and memories from the soul he absorbed ran through Yun Jhin''s main memory core as he looked through the information he needed, he was a disciple from the Unicron Blue Academy one of the higher-ranked sects in the world but they weren''t in the top 10 sects. Of course, those disciples from the top 10 sects wouldn''t use such dumb and obvious ways of disbanding the tournament and he was sure they didn''t want the tournament to be canceled either considering they surely wanted to see what type of plan he wanted to unfold. Yun Jhin dropped the body into the murky dark red river as it disappeared into nothing the moment it touched the surface. "Ok, if my calculations are correct after this tournament the blood river should awaken with 100% capabilities!" Yun Jhin looked through the formation at the gladiator arena and waited while cultivating. As time passed the start of the tournament arrived and the participants were all put onto the arena for a battle royale! The first part of the tournament would start with this fight as having them fight one by one would be too boring for him and the faster they spilled blood the faster his river would awaken. Such a big crowd of people launching ki-infused attacks at each other made the whole arena start to crack and the damage it had received almost made it unusable anymore. However the damage was repaired almost instantly with the use of the formation as the blood and bodies that remained on the arena somehow disappeared, this made the participants a little bit suspicious but considering the corpses would cluster their space they were actually happy they disappeared. These people were dead anyway so most of the participants didn''t really care, but the spies from the sects had pale faces as they looked at the corpses disappearing around them, they wanted to report that the guess of the higher-ups was true but the moment they took out a jade slip to transmit what was happening they found out that all communications were cut off! They frowned as they tried everything they could to reconnect to their headquarters but the moment their guards were let down the others swarmed them like a horde of hungry zombies and their lives were forfeit, after all, the spies were all mediocre disciples from the top sects and not their potentate experts so they were easily killed due to the teaming up and dirty tactics the rogue cultivators used. Yun Jhin watched as they slaughtered each other like animals and chuckled as he remembered the early days when he used to be as dumb as them. He didn''t miss those days. As the slaughters ensued Yun Jhin started to identify the stronger and smarter contestants, he had his eyes on 4 males and 3 females. The 4 males were all average-looking on the surface but Yun Jhin knew that they were hiding themselves using their techniques, as for the females they were all celestial beauties but Yun Jhin could see through their disguises, and from what he saw they were all average or ugly. Living in bad conditions could lead to your outer appearance becoming less desirable and all rogue cultivators lived in those conditions, however, outer appearance could be changed depending on the expertise of the cultivators so it didn''t really matter unless one had ways to see through their disguises as Yun Jhin did. Yun Jhin didn''t care much about outer appearance as he focused more on their killing techniques and cultivation bases, they all had a cultivation base above the 5th stage of the sage realm and their techniques were refined with the expertise of those that had been through thousands of battles. This showed that they were veterans that had fought for long times and people that Yun Jhin needed in his sect as elders, their battle powers were above their cultivation base and their talents were special! Slaughter continued as the number of participants dropped to 5 million and the corpses continued to disappear as Yun Jhin looked down at the river below his feet. It started to glow crimson as the dark red color faded and its murkiness turned into a clear state. Most of the people who tried to send out news had been already killed and only the spectators remained who only got news of what happened around now. There were spies among the spectators as well so they immediately sent word to the sects. ************************* The fat man with long ears meditated as he got the news from the dwarf and shook his head: "It seems he played us really well focusing on our fear and paranoia making us think that he had already activated the blood river... he didn''t change one bit." The dwarf didn''t know what to say as he kneeled and left, leaving the fat man alone. "Ah... Yun Jhin and Yuan Fang, these two people are really a pain in the sides of the universe... but they are too annoying to deal with... what shall I do?" ******************************* The old man from the Dead Bones sect smiled as he got the news from a raven with red eyes, he chuckled with his sinister voice and looked through the bone tower towards the direction of the blood throne sect as he muttered: "Ah, Yun Jhin.... you truly are devious, hopefully, I can visit now." ******************************* Yun Jhin ignored the shivers going through his body as he knew they would talk again about him, after all, he fooled all of them! It was a mixture of psychological warfare combined with the habits of those old fogies who couldn''t keep their hands in their own territories if the big bosses left their headquarters. Due to the selfishness and nature of the cultivators, Yun Jhin could fully come back as the patriarch of the blood throne sect and expand his sect without any problems now! He didn''t particularly care if they were going to target his disciples as they wouldn''t send elders after them, actually, this was a good thing as it would temper his disciples! Yun Jhin returned his gaze to the tournament as he felt the blood river underneath him starting to bubble with excitement as the crimson color returned to it quickly. Only 1 million participants were left in the tournament as their bodies disappeared along with all of the blood and organs on the arena. The 4 men and 3 women had already done their best and now they were using some techniques to hide from the crowd as they were still killing each other with ferocity. Yun Jhin liked the style of these fellows and decided he would recruit them in the sect even if they wanted to or not, he could see that they were unaffiliated with anyone due to their techniques and actions which screamed rogue cultivators. Even if there was a chance they were spies specifically trained as rogue cultivators from the other sects he didn''t really care as he could kill them any time he wanted with the use of the reawakened blood river. The blood river underneath him continued bubbling as he looked at the continously descreasing number of participants... in the end they all ended up at 1,000 in number and the blood river started to roar as it awakened fully! Yun Jhin submerged himself under the river as he felt the purified blood rushing into his body, the river itself cheered as the connection between them was fully awakened and it was like the embrace between a father and son, short but full of emotion. Yun Jhin got out of the blood river as his eyes burned with a crimson color and his cultivation base started to rush towards the 6th stage where it stopped there. Now it was time for the 2nd stage of the tournament which was also the last one, the 1v1 fights! The 1,000 surviving participants looked at each other with both anticipation and a gaze that analyzed each other. Yun Jhin''s appearance projected itself on the biggest wall of the gladiator arena as he looked down at the survivors and the losers who surrendered before they could die, he waved his hand and all of the losers disappeared leaving only the 1,000 winners on the arena. Seeing his shocking crimson gaze and his analyzing eyes made the participants rather intimidated by him but they all knew he was the patriarch of the sect and he would surely come and give out a speech at the end of the first stage. Yun Jhin finished looking all of them over and nodded as he identified which ones were spies and which ones were truly rogue cultivators. He opened his mouth and decided to start with the speech before starting the second stage of the tournament. Chapter 189: Ending the tournament with no fanfare Every survivor from the tournament was watching Yun Jhin''s projection with wide eyes as he opened his mouth and started his speech: "You have fought very hard to reach your current position in the tournament and I''m very happy to see that the blood throne sect still has the reputation that would attract so many talented people to it, regardless if it''s for the rewards or not." "As you all have guessed I shall give out an invitation to all of the top 1,000 survivors of the tournament to join the sect." The 1,000 people started thinking about the invitation that Yun Jhin gave them, most of them didn''t want to be tied to a sect so one of them came forward gave a short bow to show his respect for Yun Jhin then asked: "Patriarch Jhin, might I ask how your sect works?" Yun Jhin smiled showing his sharp teeth as he said: "How it works? It works as all sects work but there''s a difference in mine and you should know it by now if you listened to universal gossip or news!" The man shrank back as he knew what he meant, he wouldn''t give protection to those that offended the other sects recklessly which meant his sect was going to have a lower appeal in the face of those second generations of young masters who liked to slap faces relentlessly for no reason rather than they were bored. Yun Jhin knew these types of people got an enjoyment of slapping faces so he pretty much made them disinterested in his sect due to this rule. However, this rule didn''t apply to these rogue cultivators in front of him. They were all low-key people who knew when to advance and when to back down. Most of these rogue cultivators didn''t really want to join the sect and only joined the tournament because of the resources reward which they couldn''t get in other circumstances even if they had the money! Yun Jhin watched as most of them struggled on what words to use to refuse him, Yun Jhin shook his head as he chuckled and told them: "I know rogue cultivators like you don''t want to be tied to the rules of the sect and you don''t have to worry if you don''t want to join the sect, I just treasure talent and I hoped that you would be able to join the sect, unlike those untalented folk that has big heads but small brains even if you offended someone outside you could take shelter in the sect with no problems due to your high talent." Yun Jhin''s words made them reconsider considering that they would be protected if anything ever happened to them during missions or if they somehow offended anyone even though the chance was low there were people out there that would feel offended after you looked at them for more than a few seconds. 300 of them became undecided, 300 wanted to join and 400 refused regardless of Yun Jhin''s good intentions. 2 of the women were in the undecided ones and 1 of the men, also one of them decided to join while the others refused but it was already a pretty good haul to have someone on the fence and one join. Yun Jhin nodded as he waved his hand and said: "Then let''s continue the finishing stage so the winners can get their rewards!" Yun Jhin''s projection disappeared from the wall of the arena as some disciples from the sect came with lots to pick so they could have their random fights decided. The fights were quickly decided and the stronger individuals easily made themselves appear as the fights went on, those that Yun Jhin identified easily won all of their matches thus ending up in the top 10. The top 100 and top 10 had special rewards that Yun Jhin would give personally but only the top 10 took Yun Jhin''s attention! Those 4 men and 3 women all ended up in the top 10! The 3 other spots were taken up by 1 middle-aged man, 1 man-beast cultivator, and 1 devil cultivator. The man who wanted to join was actually faceless under his disguise on his skin filled face there were two long scars in the form of an x and his ears were long and red, his clothes consisted of a simple brown robe that concealed most of his body underneath it only showing his feet. As rogue cultivators were mostly poor everyone there wore dirty clothes and they had no extra treasures on them besides their weapons. Yun Jhin appeared in person as he hovered above them and slowly descended on the arena looking at the top 100 and top 10. He handed them the promised resources directly as he gave each a spatial bag that contained the rewards they sought. Then Yun Jhin invited the faceless fellow to follow him towards the sect not waiting for the fence-sitter''s decision. His actions made them a little bit flustered as they weren''t even taken into consideration and thus some of them decided that they wanted to join the sect. Yun Jhin smiled as he patted the ones who joined on their shoulders and took them in the sect, the others left with no problems and no fanfare as the tournament ended. Yun Jhin gave the new disciples the elder statuses and imparted them better cultivation techniques based on their physiques and likes. Afterward, he talked with them for a while to get closer to them before sending them to do what they wanted. In total he had recruited almost 500 out of the 1,000 survivors, the survivors knew when to forfeit and most of the time in the 1v1 fights it didn''t come to any deaths, only 1 or 2 were killed. Yun Jhin appeared below the palace as he looked at the bubbling blood river and started chuckling, the whole formation started to seethe as the river fused with it properly and Yun Jhin chuckling turned into a burst of full blown laughter! "Now that everything is done I can start meddling in the universe again... ah you old fogies I must thank you properly for being as paranoid as me!" Most of the old fogies that were currently alive were the same as the ones who lived in Yun Jhin''s previous life, they have reincarnated earlier than him as when he died most of them were in their reincarnation phase so they were considered old at this stage, around half their life span or more if he calculated right. Yun Jhin''s plans for the universe were big as he realized the way on how to achieve the realm above the God one after he got his ass handed to Hell''s willpower which had strength above the God Realm and combined with the secrets of the system that remained in his mind even after it left him, he realized that he always did things wrongly in his previous lives when he tried to ascend! While a perfect body was certainly a way to achieve the new realm it didn''t guarantee that you could ascend, the fortuned constitution would also help but it wasn''t a surefire way of breaking through the shackles of the god realm. Yun Jhin realized that the best way to breach the shackles of the universe and free him from the fetters of mortality was... fighting the universe itself! He needed to steal all of the universal fortunes from the core of the universe and fuse with them to tame the universe and break free of its control! While the universe wasn''t conscious it''s core shifted at immense speeds through a special space that only those that reached the 10th stage of the God Realm could feel, the 10th stage was also considered to be half a step into the realm above and Yun Jhin hadn''t reached it in any of his lives due to his body not being able to withstand the forceful breaking of cultivation before it being reforged. He reached the peak of the God Realm which was the 9th stage but he couldn''t reach the half a step stage and that was why he was so obsessed with getting a new perfect body. As for the fortuned constitution that the system was hinting at? It would certainly make it easier to tame and absorb the universal core but Yun Jhin knew that he might die of old age before he would be able to gather all of the fortuned ones and also find the core, fight it and absorb it. It just wasn''t feasible. Even though he was still rather young right now the breakthroughs in the God Realm would take him a rather long while even though he had his previous experiences. He sighed as he looked down at the blood river as a red mist started to appear above it, Yun Jhin slowly descended into the mist leaving only the gleam of his eyes visible as he suddenly closed them leaving the underground area silent and creepy, it was time for some intense cultivation so he could finally reach the God Realm! Chapter 190: Dead bones sect comes bearing gifts Yun Jhin was cultivating in the blood river while the patriarch of the Dead Bones sect just got the news that the tournament had ended. The old hunchbacked man who looked to be only bones and skin chuckled as he suddenly disappeared from his bone tower and started to fly at uncalculable speeds towards the location of the Blood Throne sect. He had a gleeful smile on his face as he flew towards the sect, it wasn''t known if the smile was a good or bad thing for Yun Jhin but considering his current defensive measures it wouldn''t matter if the old man wanted to attack or not. Yun Jhin''s eyes opened up in the blood mist as he got out of it and felt shivers going through his whole body, this meant that a God Realm expert was going to arrive at the sect! Yun Jhin''s intuition was never wrong when it came to those old fogies actions but he was rather surprised one of them would actually leave their sect behind to come and visit him, it must be one of the ones that he had a better relationship with during his past life. It didn''t take him much time for the duo he enslaved to send him a message that a hunchbacked old man wanted to see him, the duo were scared out of their wits as they shivered while waiting for Yun Jhin to arrive. The gaze of the skeleton-like person in front of them was really unnerving and the cold and yin evil aura he exuded made him even more intimidating than Yun Jhin when he was angry! The man was very creepy and even though those two were early Gods they still felt a pressure coming from his aura that indicated his cultivation base was above theirs! Yun Jhin knew that the man would arrive but his arrival speed was so fast that he didn''t even identify him when he entered the territory of the sect! As he arrived outside the cave where the blood river was he looked at the old man that stood a few meters away from him. As he analyzed him he realized who he was... the patriarch of the Dead Bones sect! He came personally! The man chuckled showing his sharp beast-like teeth, he came closer to Yun Jhin as he took a few steps and said: "It seems you haven''t broken through the God Realm yet old friend." Yun Jhin frowned as the man easily saw through his cultivation base even though he was on his home territory and if he analyzed him properly he realized why he hadn''t been able to feel him enter the territory of the sect! He was here just as a projection and not his main body, while he looked terrifying on the surface he didn''t even have the strength of a peak sage realm expert! It wasn''t his avatar but an aura projection coming from his main body and from what Yun Jhin knew about him he usually kept this projection in his tower of bones as a lookout, it was actually quite strange that he would use his projection as a messager. The man didn''t say anything as he stood there while letting Yun Jhin analyze him to his heart content, he chuckled as he looked into Yun Jhin''s eyes and said: "You haven''t changed at all, still the same brooding and thinking type with a touch of perfect scheming, anyways I didn''t come here today to stir up trouble, I actually have a proposal for you since you are back." Yun Jhin eyebrows rose as he looked at him and asked with a tinge of curiosity: "Proposal? Even though our sects were quite friendly back then we didn''t have such a close relationship." "Aiyah, don''t be so quick to think that I''m going to fool you Yun Jhin, you know that I''m not like those other old fogies who like to scheme, I''m a little bit more simple-minded and I think a head-on fight is a better way to solve conflicts." Yun Jhin found his words to be quite untrue as in his last life even though they could be considered allies he surely let his sect go to waste after he died. Seeing Yun Jhin''s disapproving expression made the man chuckle a bit as he said: "If I died would you take care of my sect in my stead until I reincarnated and came back to reclaim it without any problems?" "Atleast you could have kept the legacy alive you know? You sure are a backstabbing prick just like the others Gu Manshu." "You should know best about backstabbing so don''t go and be the pot calling the kettle black." "Yeah yeah, why have you come here anyway? What do you need?" "I need your help." The old man''s eyes seemed pretty truthful to Yun Jhin but trying to identify the truth from the old fogies was harder than scaling a mountain of blades and going through a sea of fire naked, and Yun Jhin had done both. "I know you don''t trust me but it will be a beneficial cooperation to the both of us just like the good old days, I can also wait for you to break through the God Realm first so you can get your proper powers first but I really need your help." Yun Jhin really couldn''t see through him so he asked directly what he needed help with. The man directly went to the core of the problem and said: "It''s just that we need to be alone for this kind of conversation." The slave duo immediately disappeared as if they were never there as they felt the pressure from the higher-ups increasing more and more on their bodies as they talked. "Ok now that we are alone please do tell me what do you want?" The man coughed as if he had a bone stuck in his neck and said: "You should know about my condition better than anyone right?" Yun Jhin nodded, Gu Manshu could reincarnate earlier than Yun Jhin and more often than him but his lifespan was also shorter standing around 100,000 years maximum regardless of his cultivation. There were both advantages and disadvantages to this technique of his that he employed, the earlier he reincarnated the bigger the advantage he had over his enemies but his lesser lifespan meant that he had to go first, he came first, and went away first. In this way, he would have advantages early but in the late game he would still end up being worse than everyone else, Yun Jhin guessed that at this point he realized that his technique was actually pretty trashy and he must have wanted his help to either fix him or create a new technique so he would fix himself rather as he reincarnated. But it seemed his guess was wrong as he didn''t want that. "I need your help as an ally, the Brilliance Radiance and Light sect has eyed my sect for quite a long time now and they would surely want to attack it sooner or later, I need a war ally!" Yun Jhin shook his head as he said: "A war ally? With my current disciple count and the extreme lack of talents?" "While you are lacking talents and disciples that''s for now, in the future, you will surely grow to an impressive size maybe even bigger than your former life!" Gu Manshu decided to do a bit of brown-nosing to convince Yun Jhin but empty words would never work on him and the old man knew that as well. He took out a small exquisite spatial ring and threw it at Yun Jhin while saying: "Just a small gift for our happy future alliance." Yun Jhin knew from the smile of the old man in front of him that there was something rather precious in the ring and he decided to look into it. His eyes widened as he started to shake, this was something imperative for his breakthrough in the god realm in the spatial ring! His chances of reaching the God Realm would be at least 70 to 80% if he used the item that Gu Manshu gave him! Inside the space of the ring stood a mountain of blood-colored circular fruits that had tons of warts on them, those warts had the faces of despairing humans, beasts, elves, and a lot of other races. These were fruits infused with the blood and souls of millions of beings and cultivated with their bones and bone marrow. They were the perfect items for Yun Jhin''s current needs! Seeing this gift perfectly prepared for him made Yun Jhin unable to say anything for a short while. Then he looked towards Gu Manshu and asked: "In how much time do you think you will be attacked?" Gu Manshu''s sharp fangs showed themselves as he smiled and thought that he had captured Yun Jhin''s attention with the fruits. Chapter 191: Taking gifts while giving shallow promises Yun Jhin smiled as he took the spatial ring and stashed it safely before his eyes met Gu Manshu''s. The old man had made quite the big investment in Yun Jhin even knowing about his personality, he even mentioned earlier how backstabbing he was but he still easily gave out the fruits. Yun Jhin didn''t know if the man really gambled on this one or was did he do something to the fruits? Yun Jhin wasn''t dumb he wouldn''t use them until he analyzed all of them properly and if he did do something to them Yun Jhin was pretty knowledgeable about these fruits as he could make them himself, but it would take him a long while combined with the fact that he didn''t have the seeds to plant the tree that could bear the fruits nor the ingredients to make them grow. The growing of such fruits was very tedious even for devilish cultivators who could even kill in their sleep, it wasn''t that there was a lack of ingredients but the fact that the number of kills that needed to be done was above what the righteous sects could accept. Take Yun Jhin''s blood river, for example, the number of people he massacred was within the limits of the sect''s acceptance but the number of people that have to be killed for the trees to bear fruit was way above what they could endure as it was around 1 billion people or so, it was basically destroying a whole planet. And from what Yun Jhin understood Yuan Fang was already wanted in the universe for what he did so it was obvious what would happen if Yun Jhin who had an unmovable headquarters would do the same thing as Yuan Fang. Seeing that Yun Jhin took his gift made the old man a little bit happier, considering that in such situations if one took a gift they would have to reciprocate with favor or a gift of equal importance, and considering how precious the fruits were there was no way the current Yun Jhin could give a gift of the same quality. Yun Jhin was in an awkward place by accepting the fruits at least that''s how the old man saw him. Yun Jhin coughed as he said: "I can promise you that I will help you but if things get a little bit too hairy for me I can only retreat as I cannot fight the patriarch or the ancestors of the Brilliance Radiance and Light sect, however for those below the peak of the God Realm you can count on me to fight them, anything else you need help with or can I return to my cultivation?" The old man put his sharp finger on his chin as he thought about it for a short while before he said: "Actually I need some help with something else, you are a potentate of reincarnation and your techniques are top-notch, I would like your help to fix my problem with the other willpower in my soul." It seemed the old man was suffering from the same things as Yuan Fang but unlike him, the old man should have already made peace with his other willpower as he already reached the peak of the God Realm and all he wanted to do was get rid of the extra willpowers that were still trying to take over his body, but with his current power they were only annoyances or flies that would buzz above his head. Yun Jhin had the perfect technique to give him and if he did help him with this he would have an excuse when it came to the time he would have to come and reinforce him. Seeing that Yun Jhin was ready to accept made the old man quite happy but also wary at the same time, he knew that if he asked too many favors from him he would rescind on some other ones. He didn''t actually think that Yun Jhin would come to him with reinforcements but he first asked for a bigger favor while giving him something that he would need so the next favor he asked of him could be pretty much secured. Yun Jhin knew that he had been fooled into giving him the technique but it was a better trade-off than him going to reinforce him whenever he will get assaulted by the Brilliance Radiance and Light sect. Yun Jhin started to give him the soul circulation technique along with the mantra that he had to recite to create memory cores in which he could seal the other willpowers along with a lengthy explanation on how the technique worked, afterward he even asked him to swear on his soul to not give the technique to anyone else! The old man didn''t really like swearing and contracts just like all of the old fogies, they felt like those who asked this of them were looking down on their moral conduct but considering that he was someone from the dao of evil it was a little bit easier to swallow. And the more he learned from Yun Jhin the more he realized why he wanted to keep the technique a secret from the other people''s ears. If all of the reincarnated ones got their hands on this technique they could resolve all of their problems and their cultivation speed in their early stages would skyrocket to Yun Jhin''s level! Most of the time the willpowers from the earlier lives would mess with you while you were weak and your soul wasn''t at 100% but the stronger you got the easier it was to tame them, but they would always mess with you when you would breakthrough into a new cultivation realm which in turn could make you enter cultivation deviation and either lose your mind or perish, the first option being perfect for the willpowers who were fighting each other to take control of the body. Thus after a short while, the man swore on his soul using the Godly laws that he learned that he wouldn''t ever share the technique with anyone else as long as he lived. Yun Jhin found a problem immediately in the man''s vow, once he died the vow would break, and after he reincarnated he would surely be able to break the vow and share the information! However, Yun Jhin didn''t say anything, this was his last attempt at reaching Godhood as once he died in this life he wouldn''t be able to reincarnate again so he didn''t really care what the man would do anymore after his death. He waved his hand indicating that Gu Manshu could leave now, the man laughed wickedly and disappeared flying away just like a hunchbacked angel of darkness. Yun Jhin shook his head seeing him disappearing and informed the duo that they could return to the palace as he disappeared below into the cave. He dropped into the mist emanating from the blood river as he took in a deep breath then took out the spatial ring that he had stashed into his clothes before looking through it once again. He now analyzed the mountains of fruits with critical eyes as he unleashed his soul willpower to see if Gu Manshu did anything to them so he could hurt Yun Jhin but after tens of hours of analyzation he found out nothing of worth. He then dissected one fruit and looked at its insides better as he fully focused his soul willpower as if it was a magnifier to look through the DNA chains of the fruit. After he didn''t find anything that could make the fruits bad for him he heaved a sigh, even though he couldn''t look through all of them this way he knew how hard it would be to insert something poisonous into the DNA sequence of the fruits after they were done and it was impossible for Gu Manshu to waste his time on doing this. He still had to cultivate and ponder the rules of the universe as the man wanted to break through the peak of the God Realm into the next just like every other peak God realm expert. Yun Jhin body sunk under the river as he opened his mouth and a few fruits were bitten clean, the juices and soul fragments of those that were used to nourish the growth of the fruits immediately entered Yun Jhin''s system as his ki pathways started to roar to life. Yun Jhin''s eyes opened up as the crimson energy from the river fused with the energy from the fruits and his cultivation started moving quickly, he was going to break through to the 7th stage of the sage realm in one go! The energy from the fruits was very volatile as they were meant to be used by those that wanted to break through to the God Realm but Yun Jhin could nullify its volatility and use them at the sage realm to basically speedrun it! Chapter 192: Cultivation time Cultivating towards the God Realm was an arduous task that very few have accomplished in the universe, however, most big sects had at least 10 or so God Realm experts or various stages ranging from early to late holding the first with at least 1 peak God Realm expert. Currently, Yun Jhin''s sect could be considered to be in the middle grades as he had 2 early God Realm experts around the 3rd stage of the God Realm or so. The only reason his sect wasn''t attacked by the righteous ones was that he had successfully activated the formation and the blood river which would make him a ferocious figure to fight against, the only problem was that the blood river was stationary and Yun Jhin couldn''t take it with him so he was pretty much on house arrest. Yun Jhin''s figure couldn''t be seen in the blood mist as he breathed in and out, from time to time he would pop in one of the fruits that Gu Manshu gave him his cultivation had slowly reached the peak of the sage realm after eating thousands of these fruits and the combination of the blood river passive ability to increase cultivation speed. It had been around 2 years since Gu Manshu came and left with Yun Jhin''s memory core technique and he was finally nearing the entrance to the God Realm! While he cultivated the sect''s businesses had been handed to the old man duo and considering they could handle a Bazaar they could also handle the medium-sized sect, the number of disciples had also increased to a total of 5,000,000 halfway to the maximum capacity of the meteorite. Yun Jhin had way more territory before besides this meteorite but it had been claimed by the other sects and unless he had filled this territory to the brim there was no reason to go ahead and antagonize those sects yet. Cultivating in the God Realm meant one thing. One had to learn the laws of the universe and apply them onto the mortal body to make it pretty much immortal on one side, as God Realm experts were extremely hard to kill. They were akin to cockroaches on their ability to survive as even if one cell of their bodies survived they could regenerate from that part to full power! Which meant their body refining cultivation wouldn''t reset! Early Gods would take a few months to regenerate while middle gods would take around days but late Gods would take minutes to seconds and that was without any resources used! The devil that Yun Jhin decapitated back at the dark pagoda had used some herbs that he fused with his body to reconstruct his body along with half of the ki in his body but he could have waited naturally for his body to regenerate in one month to 2 weeks or so at most as he was around the middle stages. The reason for the God Realm expert''s extreme vitality was the laws they grasped! Every law they learned would fuse with their body and elevate its vitality and lifespan to a new level! Yun Jhin had already prepared with all of the laws he was previously proficient in by the time he was at the King Realm, all those gems that he had remolded into his new crown which fused with his soul would be useful as they were the foundation for the God Realm entrance! Yun Jhin''s body started to glow as he threw all of the fruits from the spatial ring into the air around him as they started to slowly fuse with the blood mist then he opened his mouth and started to suck in the mist from the air into his mouth just like a whale drinking water! His eyes turned bloodshot as he opened them and started to mutter something under his breath, his soul appeared in full view as green and purple giant behind him, the crown with one gigantic gem in it appeared as the crown started to disappear leaving only the shining gem, Yun Jhin removed the gem from his soul as it started to bleed blue transparent blood and he threw the gem directly into his body! He already had learned a lot of laws in his previous lives and he only needed a catalyst to activate them, the catalyst being the gem that he had created and evolved during the King and Sage realms. The gem entered his body as it started to dissolve releasing all of the laws from the items and the laws that he had inserted in the gem from his soul. The injury from his soul quickly closed up as his body started spasming down in the blood river and the laws from the gem started to dissolve into his body. The laws would naturally be a burden for a normal body to withstand and Yun Jhin''s body cultivation was currently lacking due to him reconstructing his body. However, this was where the fruits that Gu Manshu gave him would do their magic! The fruits that he had fused with the blood mist and assimilated into his body finally started to react to the laws that were slowly being absorbed by Yun Jhin''s body and destroying it from within, they were like hungry sharks smelling blood and attacking! The fruit essence took a hold of the laws and started to fuse with them taming them and making them easier to absorb for Yun Jhin''s body along with strengthening them. Every fruit had the fragmented lives and memories of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people in it, every life had an understanding of the laws no matter how small it was. Technically the universe was governed by those laws but God Realm experts went against the universe and took ahold of the laws so they could govern the universe! God experts could be considered rebels of the universe if you could count the universe as the Emperor and every living being in it being its vassals. Yun Jhin''s twitching body started to stabilize as his soul oversaw the whole process from above, now that his body was stable he could send his knowledge of laws into his body to remold it into a God body, at this point Gods would have a very hard time to breakthrough as their souls needed to be tempered by the laws they learned as well but Yun Jhin''s soul was already recovered and he knew a lot of laws. The steady stream of a complete law started to descend upon Yun Jhin''s body who was now seated at the bottom of the river of blood doing breathing exercises instinctively as glowing runes were inscribed all over his body, even his insides! Yun Jhin''s soul was giddy as he smiled and continued the infusion, if things went well at the end of the session he would have achieved the God Realm! To increase one''s cultivation in the God Realm one had to subdue more laws and have a correspondingly strong body to house those laws, at the 1st stage one had 1 law mastered fully. As Yun Jhin had already mastered a lot of laws he only needed a strong body to achieve a breakthrough as he could infuse his body with the next law with his accordingly strong soul. 2nd stage - 2 laws 3rd stage - 4 laws 4th stage - 8 laws 5th stage - 16 laws 6th stage - 32 laws 8th stage - 64 laws 9th stage - 128 laws Yun Jhin had reached the last stage in his previous life and became a huge potentate of the universe learning and mastering 128 laws, unfortunately for the 10th stage to be reached and become half a step into the next realm one needed 256 laws to be learned. It took Yun Jhin approximately 20,000 years per 10 laws and he could live for around 350,000 years. Considering he was one of the youngest God Realm cultivators only at around 1,500 years old his progress was pretty impressive. But compared to his previous progress his current one was even better, but it was only enough for him to reach those 256 laws and not more, after all, if Yun Jhin speculations were true he needed to learn and master 512 laws to reach the realm above the God one and this was the only speculation it wasn''t known if he would even reach that realm if he mastered 512 laws, as he wasn''t even sure how many laws governed the universe! Yun Jhin sighed as he looked down at his body as the metamorphosis started to happen, he would enter the God Realm! The runes inscribed in his body started to glow as the word ''elements'' appeared in all of the runes, fire, water, earth, wind the four elements started to rampage around Yun Jhin and inside his body, his eyes glowed with the light of the godly fire, seemingly as if a flaming meteorite was reflected in them, his body glittered as if it was made from the water of celestials on the surface it looked to be gentle but on the underneath a tsunami was ready to explode! Strong winds as if a typhoon was ready to descend started to run around his surroundings and the earth below his feet started to shake as if an earthquake was happening. The law governing the five elements was currently inscribing itself into Yun Jhin''s body making it impervious to them and giving him perfect control over them as well! It was at the level of natural disasters! Chapter 193: The most awaited break through The breakthrough towards the God Realm was closer and closer as Yun Jhin''s body fused with the natural laws that his soul comprehended, it wouldn''t take much time for him to break open the door that would lead him to the next cultivation realm! He had used up all of the mountains of fruits inside the spatial ring that Gu Manshu gave him and his ki pathways were getting wider as his internal ki was evolving! The aura of the four elements around him was intensifying as his cultivation growth continued, it was just a matter of time until he would breakthrough! Yun Jhin''s soul sighed above him as he looked at the ongoing transformation of his body, he remembered how he had broken through the first time into the God Realm, it hadn''t been easy at all! *************************** An old man with a hunchback stood cross-legged in an old shack full of dust, the shack was in a forgotten little village where almost no one lived beside the old man. He had a face full of wrinkles that showed the vicissitudes of time, he had a long beard that reached his chest and it was dirty. He wore a wrinkled gown of skin color and he had nothing on his feet, his head was moving from the left to right seemingly as if he was listening to a good song. Every time he moved his head a sound would be heard coming from his cranium as if his brain was so small that the movements of his cranium would rattle it around like a maraca. He seemed to be a normal crazy old man at first glance but there was something to him more than meets the eye. Suddenly the old man opened his eyes which were of deep blue color, then the color shifted to green and finally to a crimson red. A purple and green figure appeared behind him as he sighed and looked down at the body: "This is my 19,732 attempt at reaching the God Realm... this time it will happen for sure!" The body of the old man started to go through changes as the figure breathed inside him, worm-like bodies started to enter the old man''s body as it went through a metamorphosis... *************************** "Ah, that was the first successful attempt at reaching the God Realm..." Yun Jhin stopped reminiscing as he looked down at this body which was started to twitch again, this meant that the body had reached the most important point in the breakthrough to the God Realm which was linking with the universal laws that one mastered and fused with! Linking with the laws of the universe was the only way one could subjugate them and make them their own. Yun Jhin had to link with the 4 elements law which was one of the easier laws to link with for cultivators, most of them started with elemental cultivation techniques and they were the most familiar with these things, even though Yun Jhin had mastered the laws that didn''t mean the universal laws would accept him, however, he had already got their acceptance in the previous lives and once they understood who he was he would surely link with them again. Yun Jhin''s body started to light up with 4 different colors as they flew into the air and outside of the palace lighting up the universal sky! The 4 elementals law started to appear in the sky linking with the surrounding stars to create images of the four elements, a fire, a rock, a gust of wind, and a tidal wave. The four elements started to sense the lights that Yun Jhin had sent up and after a short while the four images started to light up as they entered the 4 elemental lights that Yun Jhin had sent up! This meant that the elemental laws had accepted Yun Jhin! To Yun Jhin''s soul, this wasn''t anything new, his soul aura was inside the beams of light that he had sent up, and considering how familiar the universe was with him the laws that acknowledged him would accept him again with no problems. As for future breakthroughs in the God Realm? He could just wrestle the control from the obstinate laws that didn''t want to acknowledge him, he could just make them submit through sheer force! He only needed their acknowledgment when he entered the God Realm, after he broke through he didn''t need their help anymore! It was easy to let someone in your home but it was harder to make them leave! Yun Jhin''s soul looked at the returning beams of light and laughed as he fused back with his body and opened his eyes, a different aura started to appear around him, it was tangible but it wasn''t the one from the 4 elements law he used to break through to the God Realm. His aura was infinitely bloody as the air around him turned viscous and ultimately hard just like blood would do when it would coagulate, his body grew in height to 2 meters and stopped there, along with the breakthrough in cultivation his body refinement cultivation had also progressed due to the fruits and blood river passive help, he now reached the 6,500 ranks! Yun Jhin analyzed his body after he broke through and he found everything as he expected, he smiled wickedly before leaving the blood river dripping his body with a new outfit consisting of a spiked black and red armor with a cape and a helmet with short horns that hid his face. This armor was the former special clothes that he had crafted with the energy from the 4 beasts planets, it was shattered against Hell''s willpower but he had saved all of the broken pieces and reforged them during his breakthrough, his soul multitasked it while he observed the transformations his body went through. And with the help of the blood river unless he met Hell''s willpower personally again no one in the universe would be able to fully destroy the armor! Of course, he wouldn''t be able to say that it had a perfect defense but it would neutralize more than 20% of an attacker''s power and that was for those that were the same cultivation base as his! For those below him, the armor might even neutralize their attacks fully! He appeared in the dark palace and looked at the elder duo who were currently talking about the sect''s businesses and how it was booming, when they saw Yun Jhin appearing soundlessly near them their hearts almost leaped from their chests to their necks. Yun Jhin asked about the news of the universe and the sect since he entered closed-door cultivation and he was surprised pleasantly to hear that the sect had fulfilled all 10 million slots of disciples, they also had around 100,000 elders out of the 10 million disciples and even 2 Grand elders appeared with cultivation bases below the duo in front of him. One of them was assigned to the martial hall and the other was assigned to the medicinal hall due to their proficiency, now that Yun Jhin was awoken he wanted to see those two personally! The two grand elders were called to the dark palace and immediately came the moment they heard the patriarch of the sect exited closed-door cultivation and wanted to meet them. The moment they entered the palace and saw Yun Jhin''s body on the throne they immediately felt an unknown pressure landing on their bodies and souls, it was as if a deadly predator had put its eyes on them and they realized that Yun Jhin''s power was even higher than the two old men that recruited them into the sect! They both kneeled in front of Yun Jhin as he disappeared from the throne and appeared in front of them just like a soundless assassin, this made the grand elder duo start to sweat intensely as they didn''t dare to say anything without Yun Jhin''s permission or questioning. "I have a few questions for you, all grand elders of the sect should answer those when I''m around here..." The duo nodded and waited for Yun Jhin''s questions. "Why did you join the sect?" The duo immediately said: "There were not enough resources for us as rogue cultivators so we decided to join a sect... your sect was the closest and your reputation resounded in our ears so we decided to join the sect." "Hmm, I see... but did you know that all elders and above should pledge allegiance to me?" "We um..." "It''s not anything monumental all you have to do is this..." Suddenly Yun Jhin put his hand in front of their faces as he released a burst of energy that infiltrated their souls before they could do anything, it was different from the remotely detonated bomb in the brains of the other two elders, as his cultivation increased so did his means that were previously locked behind a cultivation wall. "We are uh...." The duo started to shake like they had seizures as they fell on the floor of the palace, the elders he subdued at the Bazaar were looking at the grand elders with pity but they were also gloating, they had been in a similar situation before and it was good to see others in the same situation for them. They shook for a while before they got up, they left a puddle of sweat on the floor but it seemed as if nothing actually happened to them on the surface. They both bowed and left as if the events that unfolded never happened. Yun Jhin''s eyes turned back to the elder duo who remained in the palace and he appeared in front of them with a smile: "Shall you two go with the same procedure or you want something different?" The faces of those two turned pale as their beards started shaking from fear, they really didn''t want to experience whatever those two had! Chapter 194: Turning sect into cult The screams of the elder duo died rather quickly around the same time as the other two had, it didn''t take much time for Yun Jhin to enter their souls and make them subservient to him, it wasn''t mind-control but more of a mind washing technique, Yun Jhin couldn''t control God Realm experts or above but he could change their thinking somewhat which wasn''t as sure-proof as complete control, they still had their own thoughts and they could control their actions but they would mostly do things that were beneficial to him. It was something akin to a cult or hive-mind mentality, however that meant that if they found Yun Jhin to be a bad leader or weak leader there was a high chance they would revolt. Yun Jhin left the two elders alone to continue their job and returned to sit on his bone throne as he thought a little bit about the current situation of the sect. "Now that the meteorite is full it''s time for expansion... but I''m not sure about the current unity of the sect." The sect hastily rose to its current position and it must have some moles or people that shouldn''t be here, now that he had finally finished cultivating to the God realm he could fish out every spy and person that didn''t have the good of the sect at heart. At the same time, he could also indoctrinate all of the disciples using his special technique that he just performed on the elders. Yun Jhin''s eyes moved towards the elders and he told them in a cold voice: "All disciples shall gather at the inner skirts of the sect near the medicinal hall for an inspection and banquet!" The elders complied and sent the message through the whole sect through the formation. All the disciples were either happy or suspicious, a banquet? For what reason? Then the message continued as the reason being the patriarch leaving closed-door cultivation successfully, and the fact that he would participate in the banquet to look for a personal disciple who was talented enough to inherit some of his techniques. This led to a mass gathering with all 10 million people squeezing in a small space trying to attend the banquet! Even those disciples that were out of the sect immediately rushed back as they got information from their compatriots. Yun Jhin didn''t start the ''banquet'' immediately as he meditated on the bone throne and waited for every disciple to enter the sect and arrive at the medicinal hall and its surroundings, he already knew which disciples were traitors or not, the technique he gave everyone to cultivate was linked to the blood river and the formation and he could detect which disciple cultivated it or not. In this situation, those that didn''t cultivate his technique were suspicious, after all, with how poor the rogue cultivators were why wouldn''t they cultivate a better technique with no strings attached? Besides the detection when they entered the sect or left it there were truly no disadvantages to the cultivation technique, it was just a small observation and identification for disciples who joined the sect, basically like a badge. Those that didn''t want to cultivate it either had a better cultivation technique or had to hide something from Yun Jhin. Thus it was very easy for him to fish out the moles. This was the reason he didn''t really care for the spies that the other sects sent, maybe it was time to remind them that spies didn''t really work on him! Yun Jhin appeared above the medicinal hall as an extremely long table materialized down below parting the sea of disciples like Moses parted the red sea. Yun Jhin''s eyes were targeting all of the people that didn''t have the aura of the technique, his soul willpower moved around the whole crowd as if it was the tentacles of an insidious monster ready to grab its prey and play with it however it wanted, now that he was at the God Realm all of those people that stood before him were only prey in his cold eyes. He gave out a sunny smile uncharacteristic to him and started with a small speech: "Now that I have broken through to the God Realm I think it''s finally time to get a personal disciple which I can teach him all of my techniques so they could be passed down for the next generations of patriarchs." "But don''t think that my requirements for a disciple are small! I only want the best of the best from all 10,000,000 of you! My intention by hosting this banquet is to find the perfect person that I could take on as my disciple! But this doesn''t mean the other disciples don''t get to enjoy themselves!" On the long table delicacies with different cultivation boosting effects appeared from thin air by the use of spatial techniques, all of the disciples who were lucky enough to get near the table and sit at it started salivating unconsciously due to the aroma of the food. Yun Jhin chuckled seeing their expressions as he waved his hand indicating that they should start eating, his eyes never strayed from the people that were at the table as most of them were the spies! It seemed these spies were pretty strong as they took quite a lot of seats, from what he could see there were around 3,000 spies in total and every spy was from a different sect! That meant 3,000 different sects had infiltrated his if their different auras meant anything. Yun Jhin saw through their disguises with ease while not even alerting them, he looked at how they stuffed their faces with the mind-washing food that he had created and chuckled inside, he didn''t really need to kill them making a spy a double agent was better! Yun Jhin started to spread the food around as he made, even more, appear even for those that didn''t get a seat at the table, he made food for everyone present near the medicinal hall and beyond! All the disciples smelled the delicious food that would help their cultivation speed and immediately started eating not thinking about any type of consequences of the like, why would the patriarch of the sect hurt them? In the end, all of the disciples didn''t know about Yun Jhin''s true character as the rumors about how he treated his disciples were always fake due to him employing the same treatment as he did now. In principle, all the disciples would say how good he was to them and that the blood throne sect only treated outsiders like they were cattle ready to be harvested. Now that he had successfully given out the altered food he only had to wait for a short while before all of the disciples started to drop down like flies. The other disciples who only took one or two bites out of the food were immediately alerted as they saw their friends or teammates fall to the ground with foam coming out of their mouths, they looked towards Yun Jhin who was just floating above the medicinal hall with a nonchalant expression and they didn''t know what to say as they clutched their throats, they felt something entering their heads through their throats and then infiltrating their souls, it was like a parasite of some sort that was changing how they were thinking on a fundamental level! Yun Jhin watched everything happening with crossed arms as he waited for a few hours while meditating until some of the disciples started to get up from the ground and looked around as if they were robots who just got a maintenance update. After they shook their heads they finally saw the floating Yun Jhin and they kneeled to him before starting kowtowing while muttering under their breaths: "Patriarch! Patriarch!" They looked at Yun Jhin as if he was the one true God who will bring them enlightenment to the path of immortality, he looked like a benevolent buddha who was ready to sacrifice himself for them in their eyes. As more and more people woke up the sound of heads hitting concrete was heard more often as they all started to kowtow to Yun Jhin. In the end, all 10,000,000 disciples were kowtowing to Yun Jhin as the one true ruler of the blood throne sect! The Elders and Grand Elders appeared and started kowtowing to him as well, now that he had finished getting the sect disciples under his feet he had only a few more things to do now! Expand the territory of the sect and send all of the spies back when they were supposed to go back... and a get a few more new more important information channels through them! Yun Jhin looked towards the stars that were the nearest to the meteorite and his eyes glittered with a red light, as he needed to cultivate further into the God Realm he only needed resources to be able to link with further laws, an immense amount of energy was needed to attract the laws and make them submit and Yun Jhin''s current businesses weren''t enough for him to further his cultivation thus he had to plunder! Chapter 195: Expanding territory Now that he had full control of his sect he was ready to expand his territory! He looked down at all of the disciples that were pretty much idolizing him at this point due to the mind-washing he had done to them. It was time to give out the orders of expansion! Yun Jhin opened his mouth and started: "This is the time our sect is the most prosperous, disciples are everywhere in the headquarters but it seems that our place is a little bit too small to handle any future recruitments... and you all should understand what I mean by this." The vast crowd stopped kowtowing as they kneeled to Yun Jhin and they said in unison: "We shall do as the patriarch commands! For the glory of the patriarch and the blood throne sect!" All of these people became Yun Jhin''s little minions that he could control however he wanted. Yun Jhin nodded as he smiled at them and waved his hand indicating that they should all scatter and go for the time, he would gather them again when it was time to act. He would first need to assess the surrounding organizations to see which he could first target and conquer to add more territory, slaves, and prisoners to his sect. Yun Jhin disappeared along with the elders and grand elders as they went to do their jobs while he arrived below the dark palace with a map and some intel that the ''ancestors'' had prepared for him. The map was filled with small pictures that were the icons of the sects or organizations, there were skulls of different animals or human skulls, birds, swords, or other things like that. The skull pictures were from the evil sects, the swords or weapons meant that they were either merchants or Bazaars, animals or birds meant that they were miscellaneous sects that could be either righteous or evil. As he looked over the map he realized that not many good people lived around him which was what he wanted, if he attacked righteous sects they would think he would start a war with them but fighting other evil sects could be considered as infighting and the righteous sects loved seeing infighting. Yun Jhin shook the map as it disappeared and he appeared above the dark palace, his eyes wandered over the sect grounds as his voice was projected to every disciple in the sect: "Our first target will be the Baazar that''s under the control of the Deer Antlers sect." All of the disciple''s eyes started to glow as they got the information and Yun Jhin started to wave his hands into the air, his ki spurted out of his body like a fountain as he created a gigantic purple ship that could house all 10 million disciples, but he only took around half of them inside as he didn''t need that many disciples to take over the Baazar under the Deer Antlers sect control, from what he gathered the Baazar was of a smaller scale than the one he got. He then absorbed all of the disciples into the ship as it started to fly at immense speeds towards the direction of the Baazar, with taking down the Baazar he would then attack the Deer Antlers sect as well hitting two birds with one stone! The other disciples got their own jobs to do while the 3,000 spies were all sent back to report both truth and lies to their original masters. Yun Jhin stood at the prow of the ship overlooking the stars that were disappearing in his vision, he took in a deep breath as the ki of the universe entered the ship passively, after he created the ship he didn''t need to continue using his ki to let it exist. The ship was rather fast but it had no defensive capabilities as it was a pure ki construct and it was only meant for quick transportation and ambushes. As time passed Yun Jhin could finally hear the hubbub of the Baazar, this was his new target and it was called the Auspicious Cauldron Deer Baazar. It wasn''t much different compared to the one he conquered beforehand but it was only of a smaller scale as it was on a medium to the lower-ranked planet and thus it had worse customers and worse products, Yun Jhin decided to start small and make his way up considering that he needed to temper the disciples as well he wouldn''t send them on a deadly conquest from the first time or there would be quite a lot of deaths and he didn''t want to waste his cannon fodder yet, as he gained more and more resources and conquered more locations his disciple count would increase and he would have an easier time sending them to their deaths for ''tempering''. Yun Jhin''s body started to glow for a short second before the whole ship disappeared as if it was never there, he used his superior stealth technique that had evolved after reaching the God Realm and hid the ship along with him, the ship arrived above the Bazaar as all of his disciples disembarked instantly. Yun Jhin remained hidden above the planet as he closed his eyes and let the disciples unleash themselves on those below him. *************************** Fires scattered everywhere as the scent of decay and death appeared in the Baazar, the crazy cultists of the blood throne sect attacked indiscriminately no matter if they were women, children, or elderly. They killed those obstinate enough to stand in their paths and captured those who submitted just like Yun Jhin''s instructed them during the travel time. It didn''t take much time for the guards and people that the Deer Antlers sect had installed at the Baazar to arrive and fight it out with Yun Jhin''s people. Unfortunately, Yun Jhin sect had arrived at the medium ranks even though it was newly created and the Deer Antlers sect could be only considered to be of a lower rank meaning that it only had this Baazar because the other sects didn''t find it profitable enough. But Yun Jhin didn''t have a problem with the lack of resources on the planet, he could use his techniques and experience to make the place profitable, even though those people who were now in power were not smart enough nor ruthless enough to use those options that didn''t mean Yun Jhin wouldn''t do it! The attack of the guards left by the Deer Antlers sect was like an ant trying to stop an elephant, the disciples of Yun Jhin''s sect were extremely ruthless after getting their minds washed. A few sturdy men from the Deer Antlers sect got ripped in two the moment they tried to stop the rampaging disciples who were either capturing or killing people, the others started to turn green at the grisly sight but they didn''t back down as they fought with whatever they could trying to take the attackers down in a kamikaze attack. Suddenly some of Yun Jhin''s people started to die as the boss that overlooked the whole Bazaar appeared! He was an old man with a sturdy back who looked to be middle-aged at the first glance of his body but his facial features showed that he was truly old along with the fact that both his short beard and crew-cut hair were white. He wore a green robe and he had deer antlers at the top of his head which showed that he was a hybrid between a heavenly deer and a human. Yun Jhin analyzed him for a few seconds before shaking his head, his cultivation was only around the 5th stage of the sage realm but his strength was way above Yun Jhin''s disciples, after all, only his elders and grand elders were stronger than this person which meant that Yun Jhin had to interfere. The old man glanced at the attacking offenders who didn''t stop even though their comrades were obliterated, it was like they didn''t know what fear was! While Yun Jhin''s mind washing was strong it wasn''t at the level that these people could forget what fear was but their faith in Yun Jhin was extreme to the level of fanaticism and knowing that he was overlooking them from above made them not fear anything! The old man opened his mouth to say something as he waved his hand at the same time trying to eradicate more disciples only for his words to be stuck in his throat. His words tried to come out as he looked in front of him, all he could see was an armored person with a horned helmet, all he could see were his dark red eyes which glowed with a hellish light that inspired so much fear in him that he almost pissed himself on the spot! Yun Jhin only needed one look to take the man''s soul away before his body crumpled to the ground where it was dismembered to pieces by the ravenous disciples of the blood throne sect, all of the brainwashed disciples got the advanced techniques of the sect which required the fresh blood of strong cultivators or blood of special constitutions to be cultivated. Yun Jhin overlooked the whole thing happening, he had a big smile under his helmet as he glanced down at the continuous death that was happening below him, it seemed that while the Deer Antlers sect was of the lower rung their people were rather hardy and obstinate. Yun Jhin shook his head as he saw them getting killed, while he didn''t mind the disciples getting some power-ups through the cultivation technique he taught them it was better to get slaves and prisoners but some people were harder to mind wash, they also had to eat what Yun Jhin gave them without knowing what would happen to them, considering all of his disciples thought it was just a banquet they all became easily brainwashed. Yun Jhin waved his hand stopping all of the fires in the surrounding buildings and projected his voice to the whole planet: "This place is now under the ownership of the blood throne sect! All profits beyond 60% of the annual income of your shops will be handed to the appointed person, every owner of their shops will remain the same but they will have to pay double the taxes they paid to the previous owners!" While Yun Jhin could take all of the profit from the owners of the shops and kill them while replacing them with his own people it was better for him to leave some spots open or else this would attract unneeded attention at this point. If he was too extremist in his way of doing things it wouldn''t matter if the sects he attacked were evil or righteous as he would incur the wrath of everyone. Yun Jhin''s ship appeared again as the suction force took all of the disciples back onto it leaving only one of the stronger ones on the planet as the assigned person. Yun Jhin looked towards the south as the stars there glittered brighter than normal and he didn''t move an eyelid as the ship started flying towards the stars, now that he had taken over the Bazaar it was time to take over the Deer Antlers sect as well! Chapter 196: Jumpstarting the sects growth Yun Jhin watched as the glowing stars grew bigger in his eyes, the Deer Antlers sect was getting closer and closer and he knew that he would have to act a little bit more here. All known sects had at least one or two God Realm experts regardless if they were low ranked or not. While he wouldn''t have problems with containing him killing him would be harder, God Realm experts were rather hard to kill when they knew what was coming for them, now that he had attacked the Bazaar first news should have surely arrived at the sect headquarters. But Yun Jhin didn''t really care bout him much, even if he ran away it would only be a loss of a God Realm expert but if he remained he only has to exert himself a bit to capture him. Yun Jhin didn''t do anything as he arrived at the sect headquarters of the Deer Antlers sect, he closed his eyes which made his armored body look like an empty shell as he hovered there and let the disciples go on a rampage. Just like the Baazar things quickly got out of hand for the disciples of the Deer Antlers sect, they were all of lower cultivation bases as the patriarch of the sect didn''t have the same resounding reputation as Yun Jhin, there were also fewer disciples even compared to the attacking ones! In total Yun Jhin sensed almost 3,500,000 disciples counting their elders, grand elders, and the patriarch himself. Yun Jhin watched everything unfolding in front of him, everything happened in a pretty similar manner to the previous attack, but in this situation, none of his disciples ran away as there hadn''t been any attack from a sage realm expert, Yun Jhin had already taken care of them by exerting his cultivation base on their psyche paralyzing them even from above. Yun Jhin picked out the brain of one of the sage realm experts from the deer antlers sect before inserting his armored hand into it transforming it into mush that flew over the rampaging disciples below him showering them in bits of grey matter that they slowly absorbed. The other sage realm experts that Yun Jhin had teleported over to him had their paralysis turned off by him and were watching how Yun Jhin attacked and annihilated one of their people because he started to talk off to him. Yun Jhin shook his head opening his eyes and turning them towards the remaining sage realm experts that accounted for around 90 people in total. The sect was rather poor as it couldn''t attract more than 90 sages while Yun Jhin had gained quite a lot of them, most of them were around the early stages with only 3 people being above the 4th stage, they could all be considered elders of the Deer Antlers sect. Yun Jhin wanted to poach them to him or at least intimidate them first so his mind washing technique could work, he needed to instill a feeling of some type of worship or fear into his targets for the technique to work and make him the target of worship or else it would trigger the effect towards the person feared or worshipped the most at that time. Yun Jhin had already taken into account this when he brainwashed everyone in the sect and used a more potent technique with the food but right now he didn''t have the materials needed to create more to feed these people so he had to use the weaker version until he got more materials for future brainwashing attempts. The 90 people felt chills down their backs as they shouted towards the dark skies: "PATRIARCH WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" However no sound came, no help came, no one came, everything around them was lit on flames, the darkness of the night accentuated the shadows of the blood throne sect''s disciples who were currently laughing like little devils as they dusted their hands of blood and bones, all of the important bits were already absorbed by them. Yun Jhin looked towards the skies and shook his head, it seemed the patriarch of the sect must have used a one-time teleportation formation to run away, it didn''t matter much to him, the loss of one God Realm slave wouldn''t hurt much as there were a lot more sects that he had to raid which had God Realm experts. Yun Jhin looked down at the sage realm experts who were in full despair as they gazed at his armored body. They started to fall to their knees as they gave their allegiance to him, Yun Jhin laughed as he put his palm forward facing them and unleashed a beam of light that engulfed all of them, they started to cry out while clutching their heads but soon enough they stopped and became the same as everyone else, slaves of Yun Jhin''s will! Yun Jhin looted the whole sect before he created a formation to tag it as the territory of the blood throne sect, any future disciples will be sent here to cultivate as the headquarters were full and he would only invite the most talented people or people who had reached a high cultivation base in the headquarters! Yun Jhin took a look over at the 5 million disciples that were like locusts razing down every building and resources they could find and he decided to leave them here to rebuild this sect in the image of the blood throne sect becoming the branch location of the sect. Yun Jhin gave out the announcement and let those elders of the Deer Antlers sect here as normal disciples. He then started to travel back to the Blood throne sect. On the way back he didn''t encounter any troubles as he used his teleportation technique to quickly arrive at the sect without any hitches. At the sect everything was orderly as he returned to the blood river below the dark palace, he now waited for news from his new spies as he had to see what were the responses from the other sects before he could continue his conquering plans. ********************** The fat middle-aged man with long ears was sleeping in his room at the top of the building without any troubles as if nothing ever happened. **************************** The old hunchbacked man narrowed his eyes as he looked towards the direction of the blood throne sect before shaking his head saying something that sounded like: ''it was so Yun Jhin-like to start conquering already''. ***************************** In a gigantic pond in the universe, an appropriately sized lotus existed, there was situated a gigantic pink palace, 3 meters big swans were flying around in groups above the palace making a lovely view. A dirty female who wore all black appeared near the pond as she gasped for air and flopped into it to clear herself of the dirt sticking to her and other different goey substances. After she got all cleaned up her features could be seen more prominently as she was a bird-woman of average looks, her wings unfurled behind her as she started flying with the swans before entering the palace. An immense pressure appeared on the woman as she entered the gigantic palace that could house tens of millions of people, her breathing turned quicker before she stabilized her condition ignoring all of the looks that were given to her by the women inside. She went in further and further as she reached the depths of the palace where she met an androgynous-looking person who seemed to be a man and woman at the same time but also not. A grating voice that sounded the fusion of both the peak of masculinity and feminity came from the mouth of the being as it said in what sounded to be a sweet tone: "Oh my... dear Laila it seems you have come back with news from that darling Yun Jhin?" "Indeed my master... there is quite a lot of news." Laila was one of the spies that Yun Jhin had brainwashed and now she came back to tell half-truths to her ''master''. The androgynous fellows breathing started to quicken as it hugged itself and shuddered while making a strange face: "Ah... Yun Jhin you always ran away from my love but you would never think that I would install a spy under your nose right? Oh, who am I kidding, of course, you would..." Laila felt threatened a bit by her ''masters'' words but she didn''t say or do anything that would break her identity as a double agent. "My lady Andonara the news are as following." Andonara stopped talking to herself as she listened and muttered under her breath: "Already expanding? Hmmm, it seems he has the same thirst for power as in his previous life." This Andonara was the leader of one of the top 10 sects, The Beautiful Crane sect! ********************* Yuan Fang chuckled as he looked at the downed person in front of him, he grabbed him by the neck as he lifted him and looked into his eyes as he said: "Yun Jhin takes me for a fool? Oh how obvious it is that you have been brainwashed!" Chapter 197: Small loses for heavy gains Yuan Fang clutched the neck of the spy that he had inserted into Yun Jhin''s sect with disgust as he muttered to himself: "What type of technique did he use to turn this fool against me?" He looked into the eyes of his former subordinate as he clenched his hand harder breaking his neck then he opened his mouth absorbing the soul of the recently deceased pawn. His eyes glowed for a few seconds before he retched almost vomiting to the ground as he said: "Mindwashing? This old trick is so despicable but effective... why didn''t I think of it first?" He easily got rid of the downed body below him as he sighed before calling down his two most important cronies which were the man with the monkey tail and the blonde long-haired man. They both kneeled to him as they waited for instructions: "It seems our spy was found quite fast, what do you two think of this?" The monkey tailed man bowed and decided to say: "It''s his own fault master Fang, it must be because his skills were insufficient." Yuan Fang snorted as he glanced at the monkey tailed man: "Ukog it seems that you thought a little bit too little of our deceased friend." Ukog bowed again but didn''t say anything else. The rather talkative blonde-haired man didn''t say anything as he looked at the spot where the body of the spy previously laid now not even ashes remained there. He suddenly said without being asked by Yuan Fang to speak: "I think Yun Jhin is quite the peculiar fellow, master..." Yuan Fang nodded as he glanced at him and said: "It seems Duritz is still smarter than you Ukog." Ukog shrugged as he didn''t really care. "Yun Jhin''s techniques are peculiar and because our spy didn''t train in the blood throne sects technique beforehand his identity had been seen through, it can''t be helped we don''t know how would he control the people with his technique once they cultivated it, no matter how many times he says that there are no strings attached to the technique." Yuan Fang didn''t know much about Yun Jhin besides the surface information that everyone knew, after all, when he was at his peak in his previous life he didn''t investigate Yun Jhin much as he had other targets, he only started to investigate him in this life after he reincarnated and he couldn''t find much if anything at all about him. It wasn''t that there was no information about him but Yuan Fang didn''t have the proper connections to get his hands on it! He was currently a wanted man for the extermination of the elf race along with the destroying of two planets. He had to live in hiding until he created his own intimidating sect but up till now he hadn''t been able to do so, unlike Yun Jhin he didn''t have a proper location where he could erect buildings, he wanted to use the former headquarters of the blood throne sect but his control over the core formation was wrestled over by Yun Jhin... Yuan Fang sighed as he dismissed the two and looked towards the dark skies: "You broke through only a little bit later to me but you already behind in the race..." *************************** Yun Jhin sat cross-legged on the surface of the blood river as he looked into it, images of various disciples from the sect could be seen in the river, even though his technique didn''t do anything to those who cultivated it he could easily monitor everyone who did. He was currently looking at the spies'' locations using the blood river as a conduit, he could also do it by himself but there were chances those God Realm experts near the double agents could sense him as his cultivation base was way lower than theirs at the moment, but with the powers of the river he could easily hide and still spy on them. "Hmm, Andonara is still as crazy as ever, Yuan Fang found out about the spy and the other sects could care less about what happened, it seems that they are still the same as ever, only running after benefits, not wanting to make enemies if there is nothing to get out of it. Ah, the nature of cultivators is truly wretched at the core, but who am I talk about that?" He waved his hand making the river clear again. He had lost quite a few spies even though he made sure they didn''t leak anything when they went to report, it couldn''t be helped considering the leaders who sent them to spy on him were one hundred percent familiar with them so they could see even the tiniest changes in them, Yun Jhin''s mind washing technique wasn''t perfect and he knew that it would never be so he couldn''t create perfect double agents. "For now let''s continue conquering the small sects around before we will move onto the medium ones, afterward things won''t be as easy as they are now but I should get enough resources to facilitate another breakthrough." As Yun Jhin would get closer to his former peak he would be able to do things more ''explosively''. Right now he could be considered as low-key as he could get or else he would have started an inner-sect war between all the top sects already, he needed the others to be preoccupied with something when he will reach the peak of God Realm and reach the core of the universe. But first things first he had to find the core. He wasn''t sure if the others knew about the way to break through above the God Realm but if they did that meant the way to locate the core of the universe was harder than it seemed to him. He shook his head as it wasn''t time for him to think about these things, he still had quite a lot of things to do before he could go for that search. For now, he had to focus on absorbing as many sects and other organizations as he could into his. He memorized the whole map that he had been given previously so he didn''t need to open up once again, he looked through his memory for the next target and decided to go for the nearest sect that had the same standing as the Deer Antlers sect. However for now he would wait until he had enough disciples, he couldn''t have empty lots, and absorbing the weak disciples from them wasn''t really that good at the moment, he didn''t need the cannon fodder yet, there was still a little bit more time until he would have a find for them, but he was preparing something big. Yun Jhin sat cross-legged over the surface of the blood river as he meditated only moving from there from time to time to get the news that the elder duo gave him with both hands. Even though he didn''t make any moves any more tons of rogue cultivators started to join his sect again as he gained more territory and the sect filled up again with 10,000,000 people, seeing what happened Yun Jhin got another banquet going before he created another ship and loaded 5 million of the relatively less talented disciples for another assault! His armored body appeared above as he created another ship which loaded all 5 million disciples on it then it disappeared in the universal skies along with him. His next target was called the Egret Pavillion it was a dual-cultivation based sect which Yun Jhin decided to take over on a whim, his information about them wasn''t exactly complete but from what he found about them was that they had quite the fertile lands that produced resources that might even be useful to him, so he would be able to use them for his cultivation and sell them as well making a profit which he could further turn into other resources for cultivation. The Egret pavilion was located on a middle-ranked blue planet, it was full of water as 94% of it made up the surface of the planet and the land-dwelling people lived on the other 6%. There were also many aquatic races living in the oceans that Yun Jhin also wanted to subjugate, while the pavilion existed on the land he wanted to take over the whole planet. Some specialities that he needed were underwater. Since there was a lack of information Yun Jhin had also made up his mind for any surprising things happening but as long as things didn''t go wrong he would end up with another planet added to his territory. It took him 3 days of travelling to reach the planet as it wasn''t that far from the Deer Antlers sect, Yun Jhin looked down at the blue planet below him and took in a deep breath as he unleashed his 5 million disciples on that 6% piece of land letting them run havoc when suddenly he felt something was wrong... The space that he was in was suddenly locked making him unable to teleport if he wanted to! Chapter 198: Ambush Yun Jhin frowned as he used his finger to poke the air around him trying to break the space with his God-like powers but he couldn''t! This meant two things, either someone stronger than him had sealed the surrounding space or they used a treasure of some sort to do it. If the first happened there would be major problems but if it was the second it would be easier for him to resolve this business. Yun Jhin wondered who was so bold to attack him after he broke through the God realm. He put his guard up as he looked around, besides the blue planet below him there was nothing else in the vast universe surrounding him. "We meet again." Out of nowhere the Ukog the man with the monkey tail and Duritz the blonde long-haired man appeared! Ukog had his fingers on his forehead and Duritz had his hand on his shoulder. Ukog took a few steps backward as he left Duritz alone to face Yun Jhin, it seemed they might have used a treasure as Yun Jhin didn''t feel any threatening auras from them, but he could feel that Ukog was rather interesting considering he teleported in without the use of any formations, and it was also exactly to his coordinates to boot! Yun Jhin eyes turned towards Ukog but the man sheepishly scratched the back of his head before he said: "You don''t want to take your eyes of Duritz or he might get angry, also you won''t fight me I''m not good at fights, I''m only a support role." "Hmm? Yun Jhin didn''t find Duritz too interesting as he didn''t feel literally anything from him, last time he saw him he was at the peak of the sage realm, how far could he have gone in his cultivation when Yun Jhin barely reached the God Realm? Duritz cracked his neck and knuckles as he gave a glance to Yun Jhin''s armored body and he snickered: "It seems you really took a big liking to this ''Grand Emperor of Evil'' thing you got on huh?" Yun Jhin didn''t find his taunting amusing as he glanced at him releasing waves of sharp air from his eyes that were meant to slice through him, however, it didn''t go as planned as the waves of air were stopped near him only slashing some of his long blonde hair. Duritz chuckled as he looked at the floating hair around him as it returned to his head and the tufts which were cut turned a light shade of green. "I guess it''s time to start right?" Yun Jhin knew that even if he asked them how they got here all he would get was some more sarcastic remarks, while Ukog didn''t look smart he didn''t seem to be dumb to the degree he would chat with the enemy about his special technique. Yun Jhin really wanted that technique as while his teleportation speed was fast he couldn''t teleport to people if someone was in the vicinity while he teleported it didn''t mean anything, he was sure they somehow located him and used this monkey-tailed person talent to get to him. Duritz didn''t say anything as his whole blonde hair started to turn to light green, his pupils disappeared as his aura became visible, it was of a light lime color and its size and potency increased every second! Yun Jhin frowned as he felt something was wrong with this person, how could his power be so immense? At this point Ukog couldn''t help but point out Duritz''s power: "It seems you have grown way stronger after the master had lifted your seals..." Duritz snorted and didn''t bother to look at Ukog. "Seals? How did Yuan Fang surround himself with such overpowered freaks? Goddamned fortuned one constitution..." Yun Jhin could feel Duritz''s aura turn solid as it increased to a point that he felt extremely threatened by it, he only came here to enslave a planet and not fight to the death with Yuan Fang''s cronies, why the hell did he even send them here? *********************************** Yuan Fang''s eyes were closed as he meditated under a dark waterfall, suddenly his eyelids lifted as he looked up letting the dark water hit him in the face, his azure eyes turned into a deep shade of green as he laughed and said: "This is what you get for mind washing my spies, even though I cannot send me that doesn''t mean I cannot annoy you! Let''s see how much you like your plans being fucked with!" ************************ Yun Jhin could never know what was going through that fool head, he was a wanted man of even higher degree than him at the moment and he let his subordinates out? These two were also wanted and high rated rogue criminals and if Yun Jhin could catch them he would be able to get a fat bounty for them, of course, he wasn''t anything better than them but considering his sect status he had some type of ''political protection'' which rogue cultivators didn''t have. For example, rogue cultivators would be punished heavier compared to sect cultivators for the same crime. This was mostly because rogue cultivators didn''t have anyone to complain to nor did they have any power in the world, at best they would follow the crowd and join a sect to have any semblance of protection but mostly they were the bottom feeders of the world. There was a saying that living as a rogue cultivator was worse than being a pig or dog in a sect. This wasn''t that true as quite a lot of rogue cultivators liked being free, however, they were also playing with their lives and the lives of those who were close to them in that way, who knew when an arrogant young master thought you were looking at the woman he fancied and decided to assassinate you? In this society, things like this were pretty common. Yun Jhin moved his head to the side as he felt something graze his helmet, he could see a small fine slash hole in the helmet as he looked a little to the right, there was something so sharp that it could damage his new armor? Yun Jhin knew that whatever item or ability this guy had, he was threatening! Not to the point that he could kill Yun Jhin but to the point that he might be able to capture him. God Realm experts could be hardly killed unless every part of them was destroyed down to their very cells but they could be captured, at the God level deaths were scarce but being taken prisoner was what happened often to the loser in the conflicts at this level. Yun Jhin started to get serious. His muscles swelled and his armor spikes started to lengthen trying to pierce through Duritz''s body. The spikes were easily dodged by Duritz as he waved his body through them like a light ballerina, his current form and his agile moves made a strange contrast. Yun Jhin''s aura became visible as well as it swelled to immense amounts lighting up the starry sky of the universe with a purple-green light. His helmet dropped from his head as his half azure half red hair started to spike up however there were no more bodily changes happening to him after that, the stronger he became the less would his body change after he powered up. He wasn''t really up to par as his hair still spiked up and his muscles swelled in size. Duritz suddenly appeared behind him as he thrust his arm through his back, Yun Jhin looked down at the arm sticking out of his chest and chuckled as drops of blood flow down from his mouth into the abyss of the starry river. "Are you familiar with this attack Yun Jhin?" Duritz snickered from behind him as he twisted his arm in Yun Jhin''s chest trying to inflict some pain on him. Yun Jhin snickered as he dashed forward while keeping a tight grip onto Duritz''s hand which remained stuck in his chest: "You think that I don''t have a counter for a technique that I have used so many times?" Duritz screamed as he felt dizzy, his soul was attacked by the ki enhanced dashes that Yun Jhin was doing along with the fact that his arm was somehow getting dissolved in Yun Jhin''s body! "You...!" Even though Duritz was quite strong to the point that Yun Jhin had some trouble reacting to his attacks now that he had trapped him it was easy to inflict damage on him. After all, Yun Jhin could see that while this person was talented his experience was minimal! He wasn''t a reincarnated one nor a fortuned one but he was strong! Which meant he was a talent of this generation! Generational talents were rather rare as most of the higher-ups in the big organizations were reincarnated ones, it seemed Yuan Fang''s luck was through the roof as he got his hands on such a person! Yun Jhin was truly envious. Chapter 199: A small failure leads to great anger Putting his envy to the side Yun Jhin eyes hardened as he analyzed the powers of Duritz, he seemed to excel at everything in melee combat as he fought with him head-on, his regenerative powers were at the God Realm and his stage seemed to be higher than his for some reason, he wondered what kind of seals were inhibiting him beforehand. As he fought him back and forth he realized that his stamina also seemed boundless as he didn''t get tired at all no matter how many hits he took or how much he fought, he resembled a war god ready to capture nations through rains of blood and fire. At the middle point in the fight things finally started to heat up! Duritz''s powers reached a plateau and it couldn''t increase anymore but his battle power increased constantly as he fought with Yun Jhin back and forth trying to leech his fighting experience and become a better warrior. Yun Jhin knew this could happen but he hadn''t met a genius who could improve in a fight in his countless lives, they mostly improved after the fight and not during it. Yun Jhin elbowed Duritz in the stomach and then back slapped him into a passing meteorite, he cupped his hands together as he put them in front of his body and launched a transparent sword of energy from them skewering him right through the neck. Duritz put his hand on the blade of the sword as he forcefully ripped it out of his neck leaving the gaping wound to close slowly due to the intense damage he suffered. Duritz started to gasp for air as he felt something was wrong, his energy was going down! He looked down at his chest only to see an arm sticking through his chest, blue pale energy being seeped off from his body, it was his ki! Yun Jhin was smirking under his helmet as he absorbed Duritz''s ki recovering his and weakening the opponent at the same time. "How do you like being on the opposing side fool?" Duritz started to shake, his whole body spasmed but Yun Jhin felt something wasn''t right as the sound of laughter hit his ears: "Think you got me, old man?" Yun Jhin looked down at this arm as it started to blister-like it had been infected by something, his ki was actually poisonous! Yun Jhin frowned as he took a few steps backward and expelled all of the foreign ki from his body in a gigantic wave of energy that tried to slice Duritz into two pieces. However, Duritz absorbed the ki back into his body like it was nothing negating the attack ability that Yun Jhin had bestowed upon it when he expelled it from his body. This Duritz was full of surprises and Yun Jhin didn''t really like them as he already unleashed his disciples upon the planet below them and if the God Realm expert of the Egret Pavilion could run through his disciples like a hot knife through butter! Even though he didn''t really care about their well-being to him, he pretty much owned them and he didn''t like his ''precious items'' to be damaged or destroyed as he still had plenty of uses for them. Yun Jhin unleashed a sonic wave as he opened his mouth screeching like a bat from hell as the waves that came from his mouth hit the eardrums of Duritz and Ukog who was observing from a relatively safe distance because he wasn''t near the center of the damage done to Ukog easily healed but he became a little bit stunned, and at that moment Yun Jhin tried to flash away and capture him! However, Duritz ignored the spatial restrictions and somehow teleported in front of him putting both of his arms in an x position blocking his attempt at capturing Ukog with his whole body! Yun Jhin frowned as he flicked his finger towards Duritz''s forehead as he stopped himself a few millimeters before hitting him with the charge meant for Ukog. This fight couldn''t last more as Yun Jhin tried to go to the planet and save his disciples, there was no reason to fight with Duritz at this point as Yun Jhin wasn''t strong enough to kill or capture him, they were at most equal with the fight going in a stalemate, they were here just to waste his time! Ukog knew that they made him quite mad, but at this point, he also realized that the disciples that Yun Jhin had sent down must have mostly died so he appeared right behind Duritz as he put his hand on his shoulder and then used his free hand to put two fingers on his forehead and he disappeared along with Duritz! Yun Jhin felt the surrounding restrictions on space loosen as they disappeared but it didn''t gladden him at all as he teleported down to the surface of the planet and what he saw made his blood boil with immense anger! All of his disciples had been slaughtered and put into mountains of corpses that they used to feed their monstrous Egrets, he took off the helmet from his head as he crushed it into his palm like it was made from paper as he shouted, his aura engulfed the whole planet like it was a deadly smog. This alerted all of the living beings on the planet and the God Realm expert from the Egret Pavillion appeared in front of him with a scared look on her face. The expert from the Egret Pavillion was a woman that looked to be in her mid-thirties, she had a big bosom and egret wings growing out of her back, she had a certain beauty about her that made you want to protect her and talk sweet things to her, her jade-like countenance added to her beauty and her long back-length blonde hair made her look like a goddess. But Yun Jhin easily ignored her looks as he glared at her and didn''t say anything as he pointed his finger to her stomach immediately launching a small beam of purple energy that pierced her stomach and injured her insides making her bleed internally. She coughed out a mouthful of blood as he felt that her insides weren''t regenerating as fast as they should be, Yun Jhin snorted seeing the look of surprise and dread on her face as he appeared in front of her and punched her in the head making her skid along the water like she was a pebble. He then appeared above her as he grabbed her by the neck and looked deeply into her eyes as he used his other arm to insert his hands into her head messing with her brian and brainwashing her to the highest degree he had done up to till this point! She fell to her knees mid-air as she clutched her head and screamed for her parents and a lot of other stuff that won''t be mentioned. Then Yun Jhin made her get up as he planted his feet on her head humiliating her while she still struggled against the brainwashing he inflicted upon her. In the end, she succumbed to it and became his puppet! Now that he had taken over the Egret Pavillion it did minimize his losses a bit but if he wasn''t stopped by Duritz and Ukog he wouldn''t have incurred any losses! He would be only profiting but at this point, it couldn''t be said there was any profit, he still had a few losses! He was so angry that he wanted to kill this woman that kneeled in front of him immediately but his reasoning wasn''t lost due to anger, he shook his head as he scanned her memories and learned everything that could be learned about the Egret Pavillion. The sect had a population of around 8 million disciples all around the Emperor Realm and above, their cultivation bases weren''t that impressive and in total, they had around 2 million sage realm experts, and the only God Realm expert was this woman in front of him which was named Divinity Angela. In the end, he was at a loss as most of the disciples which came with him right now were elites at the sage realm and there were very few Emperors, his recruitment requirements were quite strict, and very few Emperor Realm experts or below could join his sect. He was quite annoyed but he didn''t unleash his anger on anyone as he made it dissipate with a wave of his hand leaving only cold and calculating thoughts in his head, he made Angela his slave so he pretty much owed the Pavillion now so he let her go and leave things as they were, he didn''t have many uses for the disciples of the Pavillion yet but in the future, he would employ them as he wanted. He sighed as he looked towards the gigantic ocean that spanned for around 94% of the planet and dipped into it, he could feel that she wasn''t the only God Realm expert on the planet and he found it strange that the other one didn''t attack him when he unleashed his aura around the planet, could he be a scaredy-cat? Yun Jhin found himself underwater where there was no light to be seen for hundreds of thousands of kilometers, he enhanced his eyes with ki letting him have a type of nocturnal vision that made him able to see through the darkness. "Ok now let''s subjugate this aquatic folk as well... hopefully they would make up for the losses and I can end up with a profit for this conquering attempt... I will also have to see how the hell those two teleported to me and block their ability somehow." Chapter 200: Underwater capture As the darkness dissipated in Yun Jhin''s vision he could finally see the underwater civilization and how advanced it was. As Yun Jhin''s gaze traveled through the water he could see houses of different sizes which were made from though corals which were held together by dead marine life bones and different materials that he couldn''t identify immediately. While he took a better look he realized that the buildings were glued together by some green paste that he recognized as draconic plankton. The draconic plankton was very useful to temper the laws in the body of the God Realm experts at the lower stages but it was rather expensive and hard to find, Yun Jhin had some stashes of draconic plankton back at the sect and when he came back from this conquering expedition he wanted to use them, as in the God Realm there were levels for the stages, Yun Jhin was currently in the middle to later stages of the 1st stair of the God Realm. Stages could be defined as stairs at the God Realm and normally a normal person at the God Realm would need a long time to transverse those stairs but Yun Jhin could skip that as long as he used the right ingredients because he had enough understanding of laws. With enough of this plankton, he could surely skip the first stair and go directly to the 2nd or even 3rd! And these maritime fools were using the ingredient as goddamn construction glue! Yun Jhin shook his head at the waste of it, while the plankton was certainly very good at gluing things together if turned into a paste this was the crudest way of using it. As he appeared above the buildings that used the plankton to keep them together he glanced at the people who lived inside through the hardened coral. They looked like normal humans, they didn''t have gills or anything like that, they were practically normal humans who could live underwater through a special cultivation technique. Yun Jhin knew about such techniques so he wasn''t surprised to see them being employed here, he took one or two glances before he stopped and decided to find the God Realm expert of this underwater civilization, the cities and villages spanned 94% of the planet and it was harder to find him because he was hiding around... if he didn''t want to be found Yun Jhin couldn''t really find him. However, having an organization could also be an Achilles heel for God Realm experts as they would have to protect it, of course, selfish people like Yun Jhin existed so if their life was in peril they wouldn''t care much about their organization, a prime example was the leader of the Deer Antlers sect who left the sect to Yun Jhin''s mercy. So to get him out of his hiding place Yun Jhin decided to go on a rampage in the most populated area that he could find. His senses stretched covering the whole underwater place of the planet as he found the place populated with the most living beings. He easily teleported there as he glanced down at his feet seeing pedestrians going to their jobs, there were quite a lot of civilians in this underwater society and not all of them were cultivators, while they had a cultivation base it was quite low as he could see earthly and heavenly realm people made the majority of the people walking below him. With his stealth abilities and his current cultivation ability no one could see him even though he floated in what was considered bright daylight for these people here, everything was illuminated in this place by phosphorescent moss. Yun Jhin''s silhouette appeared in the ''sky'' and it started to attract attention rather quickly as even though these people could be considered weaklings in the cultivation world they were still stronger than normal humans. Yun Jhin ignored their words as he gave a glance towards the biggest palace that he could see in this metropolitan city and waved his hand, tens of thousands of people below him became pools of blood that dyed the whole waters red attracting the vicious marine life that lived nearby, the guards at the city gates were immediately overwhelmed by the massive amounts of maritime life that turned berserk at the immense amount of blood that dispersed into the water. Yun Jhin watched as everything became a pandemonium below him and waited for the God Realm expert to present himself to stop what was happening and confront him. Yun Jhin waited as the time passed seconds turned into minutes and minutes into tens of minutes, his face morphed into a disappointed expression as he looked around, the maritime life that he triggered to attack was almost finishing exterminating the normal people and the army of the palace was only reacting now, it seemed that their leadership left... He sighed as he realized that the current generation was rather cowardly, or maybe his reputation was too resounding? Suddenly he felt the water around him starting to turn cold as he became an ice sculpture, he just wanted to go down and make everyone submit when he was attacked! Attacking when he let his guard down, this made Yun Jhin''s sculpture shake as he broke the ice entrapping his body, his eyes were currently glittering as his face turned to the side seeing a humanoid seal, it immediately started to sweat the moment Yun Jhin''s eyes met his. From what Yun Jhin saw in this person his cultivation was around the 2nd stage of the God Realm but his nature seemed rather cowardly, the man averted his eyes the moment he met Yun Jhin''s and he looked down, it even seemed as if he was ready to prostrate himself in front of Yun Jhin and give up. Yun Jhin didn''t let his guard down again which made the seal''s eyes narrow as it tried to swim away only for its body to start freezing quickly, he was getting a taste of his own medicine! Yun Jhin recognized the technique that was used on him because it was one of his own! This planet was under Yun Jhin''s feet in his previous life along with a wider area, every top 10 sects owned around 3,4% of the universe besides the dead bones sect, while the rest were either under grey areas or they were too bare in resources for the sects to care, here random sects would be established by rogue cultivators who wanted more rights or banished disciples from other sects. Somehow it seemed that Yun Jhin''s influence didn''t disappear from this planet as the seal was using a technique he passed down to one of his personal disciples in his previous life if he remembered correctly his name was Guan Ming Duhan and he was also from the same race as the seal in front of him. The moment he recognized the technique he remembered everything. He peered at the seal''s consciousness and decided to ask him directly: "What''s your name?" The seal cowered as its body was getting frozen up to its waist before the freezing stopped, such fine control was something that the seal couldn''t do without a high amount of concentration and he realized that his technique came from the man in front of him: "My name is Guan Hang Muan... your highness please let this little one of this time for offending you, I didn''t know you are from the sect that my ancestors served!" Yun Jhin chuckled as he told him: "I''m not only from that sect, I''m the patriarch of the sect!" Guan Hang eye''s bulged out as he looked at Yun Jhin up and down, he even wanted to bow and kowtow but his current bodily situation didn''t let him. Yun Jhin didn''t remember that direct disciple of his being so cowardly, why was his descendant like this? Seeing Yun Jhin''s expression which was starting to turn into a mocking one made Guan Hang quite embarrassed, it wasn''t his fault he was like this! Yun Jhin didn''t care about his life story as he put his hand forward to the immobilized Guan Hang which made his whole body tremble again, he wasn''t sure what Yun Jhin was up to! Yun Jhin smiled at him as he raised his hand until it was near his relatively cute seal face before he placed his palm over his face making him start howling in pain like thousands of ants were crawling inside his brain. Yun Jhin''s eyes turned cold as he looked at him, he took off his hand as the ice that immobilized him broke and he started to trash in the air as if he was getting possessed by something. "I don''t really care you are the descendant of my personal disciple, you attacked me so you have to suffer a bit don''t you think?" The seal-man just howled in pain as he couldn''t hear what Yun Jhin said at all, the current brainwashing process was making sure he would forever be Yun Jhin''s slave just like everyone else that went through it, albeit while there were some holes in the brainwashing they were so small that they couldn''t be exploited easily. Chapter 201: Draconic plankton and total control Yun Jhin watched as Guan Hang''s soul finally stabilized and he stopped shouting in pain, his resistance ended up futile as his eyes glazed over for a few seconds before they regained focus. He immediately kneeled in front of Yun Jhin to show his respects but Yun Jhin ignored him, he already got access to his memories after the brainwashing success so he knew where to go to get what he wanted. As for the people they were practically all under him already so he didn''t care much about them, most of them were weaklings and the army of the nation wasn''t anything special so he didn''t need them yet, he only instructed Guan Hang to distribute the blood throne''s technique through the population. Then he left him to do whatever he was doing beforehand as he didn''t need him anymore. The draconic plankton was harvested a few kilometers away in the fields by lowly cultivators who became farmers. For them, the plankton wasn''t that useful besides being a construction material and it could also be used as food if you were desperate enough. Yun Jhin looked down as he teleported to the field full of draconic plankton, there was so much his eyes started to glitter as he waved his hand making all of it disappear into his spatial dimension, he counted almost 600 kilograms of it and combined it with some complimentary materials that he already had he could chew them to break through to the 2nd stage of the God Realm! No harvests were happening right now because the farmers were resting so he easily looted everything he needed and left. The planet became needle-sized in his vision as he disappeared by teleportation, he now owned one more planet and his territory expanded once again. However he didn''t feel a sense of safety at all, who knew when would Duritz teleport near him, and what if he came with Yuan Fang to tag-team him? Yun Jhin didn''t really like feeling hunted so he needed to quickly return to the blood throne sect where he had his formation and think out how did they teleport to him. He started a fast return to the sect using his teleportation technique multiple times in high succession to arrive successfully to the sect. Fortunately, they didn''t decide to attack him again on the way back or he might be in trouble: "Just you wait after I break through further Yuan Fang... I will show you that this continuous offense of yours will be paid with your blood!" He was angered multiple times by his transgressions and this one was the one that topped all of the other ones together! They were enemies but Yun Jhin didn''t go out of his way to make trouble for him this was just a dick move at this point, they were both in the growth stage so they should focus on their plans not fight each other, he was just wasting Yun Jhin''s time, and time was the most important thing to a cultivator! Yun Jhin arrived in the sect with no fanfare as he returned to his dark palace before asking for the recent news from his advisors then he returned to the depths of the blood river for meditation. In this session he wanted both to break through to the 2nd stage of the God Realm as well as find out how could Ukog and Duritz teleport to him without any formation''s help. He decided to first focus on the more important things, which was his breakthrough! If Duritz and Ukog were dumb enough to teleport to his current location he would welcome them all with open arms! He took out all of the draconic plankton from his spatial dimension and sent word for the other complementary materials to be sent to him which were: ''Three-eyed star leaves'', ''Destructive lava moss'', ''The core of a dead tree'', ''mandibles of the tricorn'', ''heart of the 3 man-killer'' and lastly a bit of tender human flesh, the younger the better, it should also be fresh to increase the effects of the combination of the resources. It didn''t take much for everything to be sent to him, slaughtering an infant was done rather quickly by his disciples and he was sent the freshest meat that could be found around. He gathered all of the things together as he took a good look at them and squeezed some of them while tasting some of them preemptively to see how good their effects would be, afterward he washed his internal palace with ki to get rid of the effects of the herbs and other resources before he sat cross-legged above the blood river and started the ritual. "Let''s start with the tender flesh first..." The already carved red flesh started to sizzle and quickly darken under Yun Jhin''s fiery gaze he cut into it with his sharp fingers as he opened it up, then he used the herbs to spice it up along with the plankton and the other stuff. In front of Yun Jhin his personal creation appeared, it was a steak specifically made by him, with enough of these he would be able to rise through to the 2nd stage of the God Realm or also said the 2nd stair. Yun Jhin continued to create these steaks en masse as he used multiple ki hands to speed up the creation process, in the end, he got around 630 steaks in total. He started to slowly devour them as terrifying evil energy started to converge in his body, the wailing of infants could be heard coming from Yun Jhin''s stomach as if the infants that were killed were ready to burst through his stomach due to their intense hatred. Yun Jhin easily ignored the cries as he continued to consume the ''evil steaks'' that he had created, his eyes reddened as he continued to eat and his aura thickened continuously. After he finished all of the steaks his body started to shake as he opened his mouth and let out a big satisfying burp before he cleaned his mouth using a napkin. He closed his eyes as the energy inside his ki pathways rampaged around before he easily tamed it with his soul willpower and sent it towards the skies of the sect! He was calling forth more laws so he could link with them! He didn''t gather enough energy for more than 2 laws but he would be able to reach the 2nd stair of the God Realm and close into the 3rd as he would have 3 laws! Now he wanted to fuse with the laws of Yin and Yang, he unleashed a dark and white beam out of his body in the starry skies of the universe. The light naturally attracted the associated laws as they tried to identify who was summoning them, when they felt it was Yun Jhin they easily entered the light as if they were guided there by a loving hand. As the laws returned to his body they fused into it and elevated his status even further, his body started to slim down the excess muscle as it became more compact, the body refinement stage started to break through the 7,500 stage and beyond and stopped around the 7,800 stages. His ki cultivation steadily rose as it broke through the shackles of its previous stage, his soul started to ascend upwards as if it was moving up some ''heavenly stairs''. The higher he went those stairs the harder would it be to go further, in his previous life he reached the 9th step of the stairs and stopped there, but in this life, he wanted to go even further beyond! His cultivation finally stabilized at the later stages of the 2nd stair as his eyes opened, he let out a long laugh as he got up from his cross-legged position above the blood river and projected his voice through the whole sect: "I had another breakthrough and it''s time for another banquet!" This time Yun Jhin wanted to hold a banquet for real, he already had mind washed almost every disciple and the new ones were given food with the same effects, he had taught the elders and grand elders how to prepare the food and considering it was his recipe they would worship him. Yun Jhin laid out the table just like last time and decided to actually look out for disciples that he could accept and teach, now that there was no chance for them to backstab him he decided to be an actual teacher to them as it would strengthen his sect as whole if he trained them. His soul willpower engulfed the whole gathering of disciples and he looked through to see if there were any that could catch his eye, among the 10 million people present he actually couldn''t see anyone that was up to his talent target! It was quite disappointing but suddenly his eyes lit up with eagerness and curiosity as an emaciated boy entered the crowd wanting to get closer to the table, he could feel a unique aura coming from his body! Chapter 202: Returning family and getting disciple The emaciated boy''s aura was glaring in Yun Jhin''s perception, which meant that he had a unique constitution or bloodline of some sort! This young boy''s appearance also made him think about his ''family'' that he had on the vermillion bird planet, he still felt the connection between his son and daughter that he had created, they were pretty much ''clones'' of his with a unique will that was subservient to his, while they didn''t have any of his experience nor memories they would mostly act like him. Quite a bit of time passed so they must be in their teenage years by human standards, while they were conceived when he had the weaker bloodline of a dragon caterpillar they were talents that could reach the God Realm if groomed properly as most of the time the offspring would end up more talented than the parent. Of course, this was something in reverse for Yun Jhin''s bloodline but he could feel when he analyzed their bloodline was equal in purity to his, at the time. Now that they have grown up their cultivation must have reached at least the heavenly realm by now, with his resources and help he would be able to get two generals under his guidance, they both would have superior IQ as long as he taught them properly, after all, they were his ''clones''. He got up from his throne as he waved his hand making the emaciated boy appear in front of him, he was rather sickly and he wore the robe of the sect which was dark and had the symbol of a blood river and a bone throne floating above it. He was rather short and his face was dark and gloomy, he also had freckles. Under the black hood of the robe, there was a head full of shaggy green hair his purple eyes were confused as he took a look around but then they widened in both fear and respect as he started to kowtow the moment he saw Yun Jhin: "I greet great patriarch Yun Jhin!" Yun Jhin waved his hand making him stand up as he made him float near him while announcing towards the whole sect via voice transmission: "This person will now be my disciple his name is..." Yun Jhin looked towards the boy and he said with a clear voice: "Marthon!" Marthon''s voice was heard everywhere in the sect, the brainwashed crowd looked at him with a respectful gaze as he now was the personal disciple of the patriarch that they ''respected and revered so much''. Yun Jhin''s gaze was reaching through all of the secrets of Marthon''s body and he couldn''t wait to teach him some techniques and analyze him more closely, he could make a great successor! But it would be better he would teach him at the same time with his son and daughter. He disappeared leaving the elders and the disciples to the banquet as Marthon appeared with him above the blood river. Teaching was a very simple thing for Yun Jhin as he inserted all of the information into the youth''s brain then threw him into the blood river for him to cultivate what he taught him, as for the other types of training it would come later when he came back with his children and wife. Yun Jhin closed his eyes as he split into two, the distance between the four planets and his sect was too big and it would take him too much time to return so he had to make a clone that could go to fetch them while he would control the formation back at the headquarters. He only had left personally because the other locations were quite close so there was a very low chance his headquarters would be attacked as they would need quite the big army that would take time for it to be transported, but if he missed too much time from the headquarters people will get ideas. After all, they only feared him because of the formation and the blood river. So while he controlled the formation he could also teach his disciples whenever he would be stuck somewhere in his cultivation while his clone would go to the planet and retrieve his wife and children. ******************** Yun Jhin''s clone appeared outside of the sect as it started teleporting immediately towards the direction of the 4 beasts'' planets. A shadow started moving the moment Yun Jhin left his headquarters, then afterward even more shadows started to move across the universe! They were all other spies that were installed around the sect instead of being inside, while Yun Jhin''s method scared the other powers a bit that didn''t mean it made them give up completely on monitoring his situation. They needed to keep an eye open for his actions, who knew he would suddenly start targeting them? Yun Jhin knew about these people attempts at spying on him but he wasn''t omnipotent, he couldn''t catch every single rat that stood near him, he had his ''cats'' for that if they could catch them it was ok but he wouldn''t go out of his way to run to catch them. He had better things to do than hunt for them. Yun Jhin''s clone shuttled through space at immense speeds as he tried to arrive at the vermillion bird planet at his quickest speed. The quartet planets were situated at the southern place of the galaxy while Yun Jhin''s sect was located in the north, the distance between them was quite big and Yun Jhin had to teleport for almost 1 month straight to reach the planets without any stops. The moment he saw the surface of the planet the clone immediately darted towards it and tried to locate his main body''s children through the bloodline connection he had with them, even though his body had been changed and molded several times he could still identify his children through the blood they inherited from him. It didn''t take him much time to find their location as he flew there at speeds unseeable to the eye, there he saw Qinghe and his children, they both had grown up, his son resembling him a great deal for more reasons than one. His daughter was a spitting image of Qinghe and both of their cultivations weren''t bad, Qinghe wasn''t a good teacher but they still got to the 6th stage of the Heavenly realm with no resources to boot, after all, they were currently living in the middle of nowhere and they could only secure food around these parts. Yun Jhin selected this patch of land because it was very safe and remote so no one could find them and it was true, more than 10 years had passed and no one found them up till now. Yun Jhin wasn''t interested in the changes happening on the planet as he descended towards them, they were all startled as they saw the current Yun Jhin approach them, he was vastly different physically speaking than the last time they saw him but his face remained the same. They immediately recognized him after looking at him for a few seconds! Atleast Qinghe and Yun Lao had recognized him. His daughter was really small and even though she had his personality she didn''t have any memories of him, she looked warily at him for a few seconds but seeing her brother and mother quickly running towards him to embrace him made her feel rather strange. Suddenly her body started to shake as she felt a bloodline resonance coming from him, her eyes widened as she muttered under her breath: "Father?" Yun Jhin''s clone smiled as he waved his hand towards her indicating that she should come forward to hug him. She ran towards him with tears dripping down her face as she gave him a big hug along with her brother and mother. Yun Jhin chuckled good-naturedly seeing their attitudes and told them all: "It''s time to get away from this planet, I have grown a lot through my travels in the universe and I can afford to take you all with me now!" Yun Lao didn''t say anything but his eyes were full of curiosity while Qinghe and his daughter were both interested to see what was further away from this planet, they had lived quite savagely up till now but they didn''t miss much, Qinghe actually loved to take care of her children. She gave Yun Jhin a quick peck on the mouth while asking: "Where are we going husband?" Yun Jhin chuckled as he created a medium-sized ship and made them all board it before it immediately started flying away from the planet, Yun Jhin didn''t really care how the political climate of the planet had changed after the revolution nor did he want to find out as he disappeared away with his family. Now all he had to do was return with them, put Qinghe somewhere safe, and start teaching his children some serious cultivation! Chapter 203: On the way back there were complications Yun Jhin''s speedy ship was sailing through the starry sky of the universe while he talked and brought up things that he had done to his family, of course, they were a little bit more simplified so he wouldn''t scare them much. While they were somewhat brainwashed towards liking him Qinghe was still a pretty normal woman, well normal in the regards of cultivators, while she could endure killing and things like that what Yun Jhin was doing was over the top and he didn''t think she would be interested in these details. As for his children, he would go into more detail with them later when they arrived at the sect and their training started. The ship''s flight path was steady as it moved quickly through the universe, however, things weren''t as good as they looked on the surface. Yun Jhin''s clone frowned as he felt a disturbance in their surroundings, something wasn''t right! He made sure to change the life force of this clone and its energy signature before he sent it out, he thought that Duritz and Ukog could teleport to him like that but he got the same sensation as before! That meant the space around him was getting sealed and afterward the duo would surely teleport to him! Yun Jhin was starting to get annoyed by these guys antics, he growled as he activated his spatial dimension and threw his family in there, his clone had a subsidiary dimension cut off from Yun Jhin''s but in his dimension living beings could exist as long as they had enough resources. He had already filled that dimension with some food as his children would need to eat during the journey. Yun Jhin glared at the shattering space in front of him as the ship was destabilized and disappeared, Yuan Fang, Duritz, and Ukog appeared! Yuan Fang smiled as he started clapping showing his pearly sharp white teeth. He looked at Yun Jhin directly in the eyes and asked: "So what are you out here for, clone? Got a package you needed to directly pick up?" Yun Jhin''s clone didn''t say anything as it glared at Yuan Fang, as a clone there wasn''t much he could do versus Duritz alone, now that Yuan Fang was with him as well he might as well forget about his family and just give them up. ******************** In the blood river at the sect, Yun Jhin''s main body opened its eyes as it glared towards a distant direction, he frowned as he decided to ask for a favor... ********************* Out in the middle of nowhere in the universe, Yun Jhin''s clone was having a staring contest with Yuan Fang that stopped after 3 seconds when Yuan Fang signaled with his hand to Duritz, the blonde man immediately transformed into his battle mode. Yuan Fang also started to change but his physical changes were not as accentuated as before as he advanced to the God Realm and learned his own laws, just like Yun Jhin his body wouldn''t change much anymore as he got stronger. "Any words before we deprive you of your package?" Yun Jhin smiled at them and said: "Just a few." "I have reinforcements." Yuan Fang''s eyes narrowed as he heard those words when suddenly all of the space around them started to shake as the imposed restrictions broke like a dropped vase, cracks appeared on the surrounding space as a hunchbacked old man coughed and appeared out of the cracks. He gave Yun Jhin a small wave then looked at Yuan Fang and the others: "I guess it would be a big understatement that I would like you gentlemen to vacate the area as quickly as you could." Yuan Fang gritted his teeth as he glared at Yun Jhin but Gu Manshu coughed making Yuan Fang start to cough blood. He dominated Yuan Fang only by coughing in his presence! This was the power of a top God Realm expert, any action that he had done if targeted at someone else the damage that it would do was beyond their ability to resist! Yuan Fang knew that he couldn''t do anything to Yun Jhin as long as he got such an overpowered protector with him. He glared at Yun Jhin before another crack in space opened near him, it started to slowly absorb him and his cronies as he said: "I hope the price you listed to old Gu Manshu was worth making me leave!" Yun Jhin''s clone decided to not comment as he didn''t look at him disappearing before his eyes targeted Gu Manshu. The old man smiled showing his mouth full of sharp teeth and said: "This favor shall cost you a bit Yun Jhin, we could say to be equal after you gave me that technique of yours but now... let''s say that you will send me some troops when the time comes and a little bit of assistance from you directly, what do you say?" While Yun Jhin didn''t want to offend the powers that would attack Gu Manshu the same could be said about offending the old man in front of him, now that he got his help he needed to pay one way or another and considering none of the items that he had in his possession would be of interest to the old man all he could do was help him when the time came, he also gave him what technique he needed and as a fellow old monster, he didn''t need any other technique from Yun Jhin as he was a walking library. Yun Jhin sighed as he needed to accentuate the research on what let them teleport to him so easily, he was getting extremely annoyed at their insistence to the point that he wanted to find their hideout and go all-out fighting with them! But finding their hideout was easier said than done and who knew what kind of defenses Yuan Fang put there? If Yuan Fang decided to attack his sect he would surely fail and considering how Yuan Fang acted he would surely have some similar defensive mechanisms to his. Gu Manshu disappeared as he left Yun Jhin alone then Yun Jhin took out his family from the spatial dimension and continued to fly, while Gu Manshu ''disappeared'' he was actually escorting Yun Jhin to his sect and increasing the speed of his ship at the same time, this was included in the favor or Yun Jhin wouldn''t have needed to go personally when the Radiance Brilliance and Light sect would attack. Yun Jhin''s clone sighed as it was escorted back to the entrance of the blood throne sect then the old man truly disappeared, if he only fended off them and they came back to him the favor would be annulated for sure. Yun Jhin''s clone took them under the dark palace to the blood river as he dissipated into particles of light that the main body absorbed. Qinghe, Yun Lao, and Yun Qinghe looked at everything that happened with curious eyes, Yun Jhin''s main body floated above the blood river then descended to them with a smile on his face. Qinghe gave him another hug along with his children that Yun Jhin reciprocated before he sent her to a different location, he gave her a big palace and some maids to take care of her along with some disciples as ''friends'' while he would train Yun Lao and Yun Qinghe. He wanted to make two battle-hardened generals out of the two of them that would serve under Marthon. While their talents were great they were actually under Marthon talent-wise while disappointing there was nothing he could do for them as they didn''t have systems as he did. And if they did they would have told him by now. Yun Jhin called Marthon from the bottom of the blood river, he quickly scampered up as he flew to the surface and looked at Yun Lao and Yun Qinghe with curious eyes, whoever could get close to Yun Jhin was a great person of high standing in Marthon''s mind regardless of their cultivation base. Yun Jhin then introduced them to each other before he started to teach them directly just like Marthon, he inserted his knowledge into their souls forcefully. They trashed on the ground for a few minutes before they got up then dropped into the river to cultivate. Yun Jhin nodded seeing their actions as he hovered above the river while getting cross-legged and closing his eyes, any resources he needed would be sent to him at any notification from him Marthon, or his children. If they found something they didn''t understand during cultivation Yun Jhin would come along and give them some enlightenment by explaining whatever they didn''t understand. Time passed fast in this situation and all Yun Jhin did was either cultivate or explain things to his disciples, from time to time when he found that he was in a bottleneck and cultivating wouldn''t help anymore he would visit Qinghe or go on a conquest to increase his territory, his cultivation slowly increased and he was almost ready to break through to the 3rd stair of the God Realm through the accumulation of resources and the constant conquering of other sects and organizations. Chapter 204: Transforming children into killing machines Since Yun Jhin needed to stay at the sect to protect it he needed some strong people to take over his expansion missions and while he had gained quite a lot of elders and grand elders as time passed they needed to be kept at the sect for defensive measures, he needed to create another army, a special unit that would be meant only for expansion! While his children had his ''style'' they weren''t molded well enough as they haven''t gone through life and death battles up till now, they only lived peacefully with their mother while she would usually go out and hunt for food. They were green flowers without any experience in fighting but first Yun Jhin had to make them strong enough that the moment they stepped out of the sect they wouldn''t perish immediately. With the power of the blood river and the resources that Yun Jhin fed them, along with his personal teaching they were skyrocketing through their cultivation bottlenecks. In this situation, they would have got unsteady foundations but with Yun Jhin''s expertise how could their foundations be unsteady? He was pretty much a magnate and his children now had golden spoons, they could get what they wanted when it came to cultivation resources or help. But there was no such thing as a free lunch in this world, the moment they broke through to the Emperor Realm they were sent away from the sect to a secluded wild planet to train further! It took them around 100 years and Yun Jhin wasn''t idle during that time, while they cultivated he also cultivated and he inched near the 3rd stair of the God Realm and he was almost there! The higher you went the harder it would be to break through, the next breakthrough to the 4th stair might take him more than 100 years of accumulation and he only got here this fast because of his continuous expansionist ideas, he got a lot of resources this way. Yun Lao looked at her sister as he sighed, even though he had cultivated accordingly to his father''s instructions but he still felt that he was slower in cultivation compared to her, he wasn''t sure why but she would always excel at things from the first try while he would have to attempt more than 2 or 3 times, his sister even called him slow! His sister wasn''t like that when they lived on the vermillion bird planet but she started to get arrogant the moment their father started to praise her, she started to look down on him. He never thought of his sister as such a person, she was gentle and loving just like their mother, what was going on? While both of them respected their father dearly he wouldn''t come with such an excuse to talk down to his sister or else he would look both jealous and petty. He also knew his father was encouraging Yun Qinghe because of her talent while he was slowly let to the part... he was giving him less and less advice and when he was sent away with his sister to this damned planet he was currently on he saw from the corner of his eye that he gave her a protective talisman! He didn''t get any such thing! His envy towards his sister increased quite a lot as there was a chance he would die on this planet if he didn''t act with caution while his sister would get away scot-free using the talisman! His blood was boiling inside but not with hatred for his father, but to his sister! Due to the changes that Yun Jhin did to their souls they would never get angry nor blame him for whatever happened to them, they would only think that what he was doing was for their own good. On the planet they were separated and put through a survival test to temper their temperament and gain loads of life and death experience, Yun Jhin even said that he would let them die but it seemed that sentence was a lie as he gave his sister a talisman! Yun Lao laid down in the thick grass around him as he tried to catch his breath, reminiscing about all of these things made him rather angry and in the situation, he was currently in, anger was the last thing that he needed. His body was full of lacerations and bite marks and he had a small hole in his arm which was constantly bleeding. He felt lightheaded due to the loss of blood and his face was pale, he didn''t know how much time he could last as he was being chased by some beasts that he had unluckily run into. He was both hungry and thirsty as he couldn''t find any food or clean water sources up till now, his surroundings were blurry and he could only lay down in the tall grass area to take a rest. He didn''t know what to do, his father didn''t give him any instructions before plunging him onto this planet full of wilds beasts. He started to cough slowly so he wouldn''t attract the attention of any beasts, he couldn''t stop himself as some phlegm mixed with blood was spat out onto the grass in front of him. "I need to go on... my father thought that I could withstand this... I also need to meet with Qinghe again... I cannot let her thoughts become true!" He wanted to go on further as he took a few steps unsteadily only for him to fall to his knees. Suddenly the tall grass started to shake and Yun Lao''s body started to shake, he was scared! "No... no!" He started to scamper dragging his body through the tall grass as hard as he could, he needed to escape! He couldn''t die here! Suddenly out of the tall grass Yun Qinghe''s dainty form appeared, her eyes were analyzing the surroundings and she saw her scampering brother with a scared expression on her face which made her scoff in disgust. He got closer to him as she squatted near him and said: "It seems father really overestimated you huh?" A beast appeared out of nowhere as it tried to take a swipe at Qinghe''s head only for the attack to be blocked by a blue barrier. Yun Lao''s eyes hardened seeing her talisman at work, the attacking beast was rebound by the barrier and Yun Qinghe did quick work on it. Yun Lao already got up and glared at Yun Qinghe as he said through gritted teeth: "Your talisman throws the whole objective of this training out of the window!" Yun Qinghe sneered as she said: "Father gave me this talisman and he said that I could use it whenever I wanted to because I have superior talent, he actually expressed how he was disappointed your talent wasn''t good enough or he would have given you one as well! He said because your talent is insufficient that you would have to fight harder trials to unleash your full potential!" Yun Lao understood what his father wanted but his jealousy regarding his sister remained, it wasn''t that he didn''t understand why she was better than him, he just hated her for it! Seeing his hate-filled eyes made Qinghe chuckle as she took her talisman out of her pockets and waved it around his face: "What are you gonna do about this?" Yun Lao''s eyes turned scarlet as he saw the talisman being waved in front of his face, he almost went berserk as he glared at her! Yun Qinghe knew that her brother wouldn''t do anything to his darling sister no matter how many times he taunted him so she continued to wave the talisman in front of him, now that she didn''t have it in her pocket anymore her barrier was disabled so what she was doing was very dumb, who knew when another beast would attack? Yun Lao wanted to point this out as he actually learned something from all the running he did around. But then he shook his head as he tried to get up and leave. There was no reason to mind her antics. If she got hurt because of it it would show to his father that he put the wrong faith in her and he would get his graces regardless of his lower talent or not! Seeing that Yun Lao wanted to leave made Yun Qinghe frown, he couldn''t get a rise out of him anymore with only words? She appeared in front of him as she put her foot on his chest and pushed him down on the grass making his injuries worsen, Yun Lao eyes widened both in surprise and pain as he said: "Why are you doing this?" Yun Qinghe licked her lips as she said: "I can feel something... the more I look at you the more I get this feeling, if I devour you I will become even more talented and my bloodline will be purified, and considering you aren''t in father''s graces at all I could get rid of you and increase my cultivation at the same time." Her eyes started to glow with a red light, her actions truly showed that she was Yun Jhin''s daughter while Yun Lao had also inherited Yun Jhin''s ''clone'' qualities he wasn''t as ruthless as her towards the family, after all, he saw her grow up into the young lady she was today and he couldn''t make himself attack her no matter how hard he hated her talent. But now things have gone too far! Chapter 205: Pitting them against each other for tempering Yun Lao felt his blood boil seeing his sister''s actions, it was one thing to mock him, but physically assault him? This was over the line! He tried to squirm out from her foot pressing on his chest but his bones started cracking due to the pressure she put on it combined with his previous injuries not being healed. He wanted to shout for her to stop as their father wouldn''t want this to happen, after all, while he didn''t explicitly said that they weren''t allowed to kill each other his eyes told him that it was forbidden. He just got that feeling of protection and love from him that he couldn''t understand. Yun Jhin was observing everything that was happening from above the planet, while he didn''t want them to kill each other, hating each other was needed. For starters, they would be able to push each other to the maximum when it came to his love and attention, and secondly, they would never ally with each other thus splitting them into factions. He needed the secondary army organization to be split as brainwashing wasn''t perfect, in the future there was a chance they might start idolizing Yun Lao and Yun Qinghe if he stepped out of the game for too much time considering closed-door cultivation took long times for God Realm experts. Them hating each other would make them fight bitterly so that they would never think of touching upon his foundation, as his children were partial clones of his being and it was unknown if they were able to break through his control or not, while he believed in his abilities, who knew when they would be on a mission outside the sect and they would get captured and ''helped'' to regain their mind? Yun Jhin had many enemies and while they couldn''t deal with him they would try to deal with his family, they knew that he didn''t care about them at all so they would try to turn them against him to weaken him from the inside cutting through his army at the same time. However, with infighting, there was a lower chance they would try to attack the third party (Yun Jhin) as they would be too preoccupied with tearing each other''s eyes out. Of course, Yun Jhin wouldn''t let them kill each other as this would jeopardize his whole plan, seeing that Yun Qinghe was ready to deal the death blow to her brother made Yun Jhin send his willpower down to them in the form of a bodily projection. Yun Qinghe''s eyes widened both in fear and respect as she took her foot off her brother and kneeled, Yun Jhin tsked as he shook his head and waved his hand immediately destroying the talisman that he gave her while saying: "I''m extremely disappointed in you Qinghe, you have shown that you have no familial love for your brother which is rather disheartening for me, while I can endure you beating him black and blue and insulting him, that''s only for his own tempering, you cannot kill and absorb him! What kind of little sister are you?" Qinghe kept her head down as she was berated then said: "But father I..." "No buts!" "You shall continue your trial but without the talisman, and your brother will be healed and continue as well, however you are disallowed to interact with him during the whole trial now! If you do you will be punished, did I make myself understood?" Yun Qinghe kept her head down as she gritted her teeth and responded respectfully: "Yes sir..." She glared at Yun Lao from the corner of her eye as Yun Jhin''s projection disappeared and she made a cutthroat gesture with her thumb as she left by running away from the tall grass, Yun Lao felt his chest bones regenerating as his blood flow recovered to a normal state, all the blood he lost had recovered miraculously without Yun Jhin even touching him! Yun Lao checked his internal situation and found that he wasn''t fully healed, only the life-threatening stuff was taken care of and mostly the injuries that had been worsened and inflicted by Yun Qinghe, it seemed that Yun Jhin was serious about his tempering trial. Yun Lao sighed as he decided to leave the tall grass area, the beast that was chasing him was killed by Yun Qinghe and he could move freely again. He started to slowly walk away, now that he had experienced that crazy chase by the best he was more careful with his footsteps, who knew if there was a nearby beast and it could hear him with its sharp hearing? Yun Jhin watched everything happening with a smile on his face, half of this training was for tempering and the other was to make sure they hated each other and it seemed that both were successful! Now that he had finished the preparations for their ''mental training'' and they would gain experience from this adventure, he would be able to make them start the expansion missions again! As time passed the duo had finished the trial as 3 months of survival on the planet by themselves went past by. The trial was rather simple but hard to finish due to their inexperience and the fact that Yun Jhin had filled the planet with one of the most annoying species of beasts that he could get his hands on. Afterward, he made sure that they couldn''t cheat by planting observing formations on them, but considering how ''good'' they were for him they wouldn''t ever cheat nor attack each other after he already warned them once. Now that they were battle-hardened, while they couldn''t be considered veterans they now needed to experience war with intelligent beings to grow further. Thus the expansion missions appeared again! Yun Jhin created a gigantic army as he employed a special formation that would increase their battle power the more people were in it, combined with the surrounding ki being absorbed by them as long as they acted properly, Yun Jhin sent his children to war for him so he could further increase his cultivation base while also protecting his headquarters. The first target was quite far away from the sect so Yun Jhin couldn''t leave it anymore as he wouldn''t be able to return in time, only if he could have gained the ability to teleport himself just like Ukog, from what he understood the ability seemed to let him transport himself to the energy that he had memorized, it was like tracking down someone''s DNA sequence to see their ancestry, it couldn''t be stopped unless someone changed their DNA. However, for Yun Jhin this was as easy as breathing, the moment he realized what the problem was he immediately changed his energy signature and hid it, even if they met him again they wouldn''t be able to memorize it again so he wouldn''t have to go through the trouble of changing it. While he could change his energy signature it took time and resources which annoyed him, this was the consumption of resources that wouldn''t happen if these people would see to their business. Unfortunately, Yuan Fang liked to meddle in his business but now that he had blocked his harassing options he would make sure he would silence him forever rather soon, as long as he reached the middle stages of the God Realm which started from the 4th stair and above he would be able to get rid of him as he would unlock the harder laws. Yun Jhin meditated over the blood river as he looked at its surface which showed the situation on the battlefield of a distant planet that he had sent his children to conquer. Death was happening everywhere, blue-skinned lizard people were being mercilessly slaughter by Yun Jhin''s robed disciples. The most prominent figures of the battlefield were his children of course. Yun Lao small body had grown up after a while of wilderness training and his feeble muscles started to harden and grow, he looked way more manly now and he even started to don a small beard trying to differentiate himself from his father physically. Yun Qinghe had grown in all assets and her beauty had intensified as they were both dragon and phoenix hybrids with a little bit of caterpillar in between they were rather charming, however, that charming aura was almost nonexistent on them as they slaughtered without abandon. They were like two killing machines as they glared at each other through the mountains of corpses and ignored all of the sticky blue blood that they were currently being literally bathing in. Their competitiveness had hit insane charts after they were unable to deal with each other due to Yun Jhin''s instructions and their cultivation base had skyrocketed as they both broke through in the sage realm 10 years after the wilderness training, with Yun Jhin''s resources, their new experiences and his wisdom he could easily make them into sage experts in ten years. While their talent was rather mediocre with Yun Jhin as a teacher and backer they could reach the God Realm but the early stairs would be their limit, they might not even reach the 3rd stair and they would have exhausted all of their potential. Yun Lao decapitated one lizard person with a swift slash of his ax as he shouted towards the sky, it was the last warrior on the battlefield and they have won with an extreme advantage almost none of their troops being even injured, there were a total of 0 deaths. Yun Jhin smiled profoundly as he saw another planet being taken down by his children. His disciple descended from the dark palace in the cave where the blood river stood and said with a respectful tone: "Master there has been news regarding that Yuan Fang you wanted to deal with..." Chapter 206: You fool! Yun Jhin''s attention was immediately taken by the words Marthon had uttered, he had been monitoring Yuan Fang''s possible hideout locations 24/7 out of 24/7 as he wanted revenge against all of his plots, he also wanted to get rid of him so he could ''sleep'' properly in the future. Marthon had grown quite a bit from a boy into a man while his power wasn''t impressive as his cultivation base was only around the 2nd stage of the sage realm, he was only there as an administrator for the sect. His talent was great but Yun Jhin wouldn''t make him his successor willy-nilly. Only in a life and death situation would he choose a successor and even then he wasn''t sure if he would continue the sect line properly, after all, the sect was destroyed after his death in his previous life. "So where is his location?" Marthon respectfully replied to Yun Jhin''s question: "Master, he had been sighted around the Third nebula sector of the Ban galaxy." Yun Jhin made a hmm sound as he thought about the Ban Galaxy: "This territory is owned by the Gold Loving pirates and its a trench full of evil, killing, looting, and pillaging, it''s just at home for the new Yuan Fang but it makes no sense for him to go there unless there is something special happening or he found something he needed." For God Realm experts, moving from one''s territory meant that a supreme resource had been born or they were having a mission that needed their direct action... "Marthon you are going to be responsible for the sect while I''m leaving." Yun Jhin started to concentrate as a transparent being similar to him started to leave his forehead and appear into the world, this wasn''t a clone but his Godly avatar! The moment the avatar separated itself from Yun Jhin''s body it started to turn solid. With his current cultivation, he would be able to use the avatar to control the formation remotely but its power would be cut down a bit this way, the Ban galaxy wasn''t very far from Yun Jhin''s headquarters but that didn''t mean he would be able to travel quickly, fortunately, he had already laid down some teleportation formation for the nearby galaxies and it would take him around one hour or so to arrive and return. That would be enough time so his place wouldn''t be attacked and his avatar could keep the fort up if anything happened. Yun Jhin left the underground cave as he appeared above the meteorite and disappeared as he used a teleportation formation he had installed. Then he started warping from formation to formation to immediately arrive at the Ban Galaxy. His surroundings were full of spacial ash along with dark and dirty bloody fog, the Ban Galaxy pirates were as worse as Yun Jhin, they did what they wanted when they wanted and no one could truly stop them, the righteous sects tried at first but they gave up just like they gave up on apprehending and executing Yun Jhin. Because just like Yun Jhin their leader was a reincarnated one with a notorious reputation, his was only a little bit lower than Yun Jhin''s but the atrocities he did were pretty similar, Yun Jhin was actually his friend back in the past but they grew apart as they had different philosophies. Yun Jhin didn''t want to meet him directly so he used his stealth technique as he walked directly into the bloody fog and disappeared only to enter the heart of the true galaxy, the ban galaxy was the nightlife of the universe! Casinos, strip clubs, brothels, and the like could be found on the nearby planets. But Yun Jhin wasn''t there for a normal visit. The intel he got indicated that Yuan Fang wanted to get something from an auction! It wasn''t said which item he needed but there was only one auction house in the whole Ban Galaxy so it didn''t matter, as long as he got to the auction house and caught Yuan Fang by surprise there was going to be profit. Yun Jhin arrived stealthily at the auction house and saw that they were already starting, so he entered without triggering any of the surrounding formations and looked around to identify Yuan Fang''s gang, there were a lot of people in the auction hall, almost around 50,000 and Yuan Fang would have surely come disguised. But Yun Jhin had something to detect him by so he only waited until the auction was done and then left it following a trio who were ready to leave the galaxy through a public teleportation formation, after they paid their tax they disappeared in the formation unknowingly bringing Yun Jhin with them. After so much time being in closed-door cultivation made Yun Jhin''s top-notch skills even better to the point that even the disguised Yuan Fang couldn''t be able to recognize his stealth technique, even though he might still be able to break it open by disrupting the ki, that would only happen if he knew that Yun Jhin was there! Yun Jhin followed them as he waited for the right time to strike, suddenly the person in the middle took something out of his bosom, it was a dark cloth bag that had the item they needed. Yun Jhin took a few silent steps forward as he took a glance at the bag and tried to identify what was inside. "Like what you see Yun Jhin?" Yun Jhin chuckled as he appeared then suddenly morphed into ten people, Yuan Fang narrowed his eyes as their appearance changed to normal. Yun Jhin''s clones exploded into a star formation creating a gigantic destroying wave of energy that engulfed the trio leaving them no space to dodge, Yuan Fang staggered out of the explosion with an empty hand as he glared at the starry sky around him and cursed: "Damn you Yun Jhin!" But as he said that there was a smile on his face, he clicked his open palm trying to detonate something only for him to frown, he looked down at his chest and saw the back being stuck to it! Yun Jhin''s voice transmission appeared in his mind: "You are a fool if you thought I''m going to fall for your obvious plan, this was an ambush in an ambush!" Yuan Fang howled as the dark cloth bag exploded shredding his body to pieces, Ukog and Duritz were both appalled at what happened as they gathered the remaining pieces of his body sticking them together while infusing them with ki to revive him. "Watch out Ukog!" Duritz cried out as he took a yellow beam of energy to the chest piercing directly through his heart and destroying it thoroughly. "Stop dilly-dallying and take us out of here!" Ukog started sweating seeing the current situation, Yuan Fang was just a pile of flesh that tried to regenerate after being blasted by his own trap, this was something that never happened before! Was this their retribution for fucking with Yun Jhin so many times? They thought that they hid the trap well but it seemed they were wrong! Ukog felt something arriving at his neck as he grasped it only for his head to fly into the air as a fountain of blood exploded from his body! Ukog broke through the God Realm as well so his vitality wasn''t something to be looked down upon, his head tried to reattach itself to its body, but Yun Jhin appeared like a specter and grabbed his head with one hand: "Gotcha." The pile of meat started to shake as it saw its comrades head being taken away as it slowly started to reform into Yuan Fang''s body, Yun Jhin stuck his tongue out at him as he pulled his eye making a face at him then disappeared while leaving those words behind: "You should hide properly in the future because when I will unlock the secrets of this guy''s teleportation you won''t have another easy day ahead of you!" The pile of flesh reconstructed itself in a naked Yuan Fang, then he growled towards the space in front of him as he grabbed Duritz by his long hair and berated him: "Why didn''t you do anything?" "You should have the answer for that yourself, master Yuan Fang." Yuan Fang grumbled under his breath as he understood why he didn''t protect Ukog, it was either him or Ukog, and of course, Duritz would choose him the master. If he saved Ukog Yun Jhin would surely destroy the pile of meat and absorb Yuan Fang''s soul in a blitz attack, he wasn''t sure how he did it but Yun Jhin strength had increased to the point that he was getting scared, he remembered the sensation of his head being cut off as he put his hand near his neck and shivered. Yun Jhin appeared thousand of kilometers away as he broke through space and teleported along with Ukog''s head which he sealed in time using the time law that he had comprehended, while he couldn''t use it to its full potential as it wasn''t linked with his body, as he was in the God realm it was still better than the casual time skips he used in his previous fight with Yuan Fang. The sole reason he had been able to do that blitz attack without them being able to do anything was that he had overexerted his time law! He coughed a mouthful of blood as he glanced at the frozen head in his head and laughed, if he extracted the teleportation knowledge from his head he would become practically invincible being able to teleport everywhere regardless of the distance as long as he got the energy code of the person he wanted to teleport to! He would be able to massively expand his conquering efforts as he would be able to go personally without a fear of his headquarters being raided while he was away! Chapter 207: Learning a special technique (1) Yun Jhin gazed at the severed hand he kept in time stasis he was almost back at the headquarters of the sect and he would unseal the head then! As he teleported with the use of the formations he was still contemplating why would Duritz and Ukog become Yuan Fang''s subordinates, they were both talented people that could each make their own sect and raise to prominence. Yun Jhin felt there was something that he could gain by learning about Yuan Fang''s past. He felt quite disappointed he wasn''t able to kill him back there but Duritz would have surely unleashed his full power to stall him thus leaving Ukog to regenerate and in the end, he would have lost the opportunity to gain anything besides injuring Yuan Fang. Yun Jhin''s body materialized outside the meteorite''s range as he flew and appeared directly inside the underground cave. Marthon bowed as he waited for him up till now and Yun Jhin told him: "Kill all the spies that were observing Yuan Fang''s whereabouts, not one of them shall escape or you will be punished accordingly, do you understand?" Marthon bowed and immediately left to do his master''s bidding, while he respected him enormously, he also had lived with him a long time now and he understood when he would be angry or not, he also lived through enough small torture sessions to understand that he didn''t want to anger him at all. Marthon sighed as he appeared in the dark palace and instructed the elder duo to send out the words to the assassin squad of the sect to annihilate the traitors. While Yun Jhin brainwashed a lot of people he also hired people from the outside to do his bidding, he didn''t expect much from them and he knew that he would be betrayed but in this situation, he had been able to plan a double ambush because of their betrayal, basically using their own greedy thoughts against them. Since he was usually known for brainwashing his subordinates Yuan Fang must have surely done something to those spies so he thought he was going to take him by surprise but in the end the one surprised was him! Yun Jhin unsealed Ukog''s head as it started to struggle out of his iron grip, it tried to jump out of his hand and teleport! Space started to crack around the head as it tried to forcefully break the restrictions Yun Jhin had laid around the blood river and the sect but unfortunately no matter how broken his teleportation technique was it wouldn''t be able to break through so many layers of spatial restrictions stacked on top of each other! Ukog felt the world around him turn grey as he glanced at Yun Jhin''s face, his head and soul were tied together and he couldn''t even leave it if he wanted to! That meant he would surely get tortured until he spilled everything he knew! Ukog was usually a goofy person who liked to laugh but now all he could do was look serious and endure as he didn''t want to betray Yuan Fang. But Yun Jhin didn''t care about the wants or needs of the body-less head in front of him. He looked at him and asked with a smile on his face which made him look like one of the ugliest demons of hell regardless of how handsome he actually was, considering a person''s smile showed their true soul. Ukog almost felt like fainting in this situation but he couldn''t as Yun Jhin was pumping his head full with ki that kept him awake. Since Ukog didn''t say anything Yun Jhin decided to start the conversation: "You should know what I want, spill it out and I will give you a quick and painless death as a reward." Ukog gritted his teeth as he tried to self-destruct only for him to cough up a mouthful of blood as Yun Jhin jabbed him in the eye with his thumbs almost poking his eyeballs out. Ukog however didn''t say anything as he easily endured the physical abuse. Yun Jhin smiled as he saw how brave he was and then decided to go with more advanced torture techniques, his eyes glowed as a field of energy engulfed the head and practically cut him off from his cultivation base transforming him into a living headless normal human. Then he put a piece of black cloth over his head and started to pour corroding blood from the river over it. Ukog''s skin started to blister and boil as his head was melting and recovering at visible speeds, Ukog could feel his soul crying out in pain as some of the blood started to infest it, Yun Jhin''s blood river was helpful for those that cultivated his techniques but poisonous to everything else. Ukog couldn''t resist anymore as he felt his face continuing to melt and heal at the same time. He started shouting in pain and anger at the same time, he was angry at himself and Yun Jhin at the same time, he felt his weakness was the sole reason that he was captured by Yun Jhin and he blamed himself because he wasn''t strong enough to endure even one attack from Yun Jhin! Yun Jhin ignored his cries of pain and continued to pour blood over his head, he couldn''t forcefully brainwash him as he was guarded and he couldn''t sort through his memories either, the fact was that he could only try to get the technique out of him through torture. As Ukog stepped into the God Realm, Yun Jhin was unable to tap into his memories forcefully unless he was a Peak God realm expert. So while he found the torture to be bothersome and a time-waster, it was the only way for him to extract the information he needed from Ukog''s severed head. "Ready to talk yet?" Ukog still kept his mouth shut as if it was sewed. Yun Jhin shook his head as he conjured a purple blade of ki and started to skewer his head like he was a roll of kebab meat. At this point even if he wanted to shout he couldn''t as his vocal cords were impaled by Yun Jhin''s blade ki. "Let''s roast you a bit." Yun Jhin slowly flew down to the blood river as he submerged the skewered head into the river completely. The place where he submerged the head started to bubble intensely as Yun Jhin removed a pale white skull that had soul fire burning deeply in its eyes. The skull opened its jaw as a howl coming from its soul tried to attack Yun Jhin only for it to be easily deflected by him, an image of a brown ape appeared behind the skull which indicated the original form of the skull owner''s soul. Yun Jhin chuckled seeing the brown ape and waved his hand cutting into the ape making it start bleeding blue blood. The ape howled as it started beating its chest but it was obviously massively weakened after that injury. "Ready to spill the beans yet?" The ape continued to beat his chest as it seemed to be defying till the end! "Ok, then I guess I will have to up the level by quite a bit then." Yun Jhin''s eyes turned full crimson as his arm impaled the ape''s chest directly taking something out that resembled a yellow sphere and crushing it! The ape immediately deflated like a balloon, all of its resistance faded away as its head started to shrink. A small voice came out of the shrank head that said: "Give it back..." Yun Jhin chuckled as he created another yellow sphere out of the air and waved it in front of the shrunk head of the ape while saying: "So what do you say? Your origin core for some measly information? Then you can lay down for eternal rest." "Give it back...." "Hmm?" Yun Jhin didn''t think he snatched his thinking core when he inserted his hand into his soul, why was he only repeating those words? "Give it back, give it back!" The ape started to turn furious as its deflated head started to return to normal proportions, his brown fur started to slowly change color from brown to a dull crimson as his aura intensified while he glared at Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin looked at what was happening with an interested look on his face as he said: "Oho? What''s this?" Ukog''s soul fused with the white skull as it started to morph from a human one into an ape one, his body suddenly started to reconstruct immediately on the spot but instead of a human body, it was a red-haired ape body! The ape snarled at him as its muscles flexed and its cultivation skyrocketed to the 3rd stair of the God Realm, it started to beat its chest as it wanted to go on a rampage! Yun Jhin took another look at the ape''s body then clapped as he said: "I don''t think I want to see what you are capable of so I will have to stop you here." Yun Jhin waved his hand as the blood river beneath him started to bubble. Chapter 208: Learning a special technique (2) The bubbling blood river beneath Yun Jhin and the red-haired ape started to morph, out of the river two gigantic blood hands rose and tried to clamp on the body of the ape who was trying to go on a rampage. Yun Jhin chuckled as the hands clamped on the ape''s body making it as mobile as it could get, while it was indeed struggling in the grasp of the bloody hands but no matter what it did it couldn''t get free. He closed into the ape''s face as he put his hand on its neck and started to crush it slowly making it let out whimpers of pain. No matter how hard it struggled to try to escape from the gigantic hands which were keeping it bound there nothing worked! It even tried to bite at Yun Jhin''s hand which was continuously increasing its grip strength trying to cut Ukog''s oxygen supply, while his cultivation returned Yun Jhin only needed to short-circuit again for him to become a ''normal person'' again. His transformation gave him a huge strength boost but in front of Yun Jhin''s already impressive strength combined with his home advantage that made him able to make a peak God Realm expert run away, there was no chance for Ukog to even kill himself! "I''m getting bored of this, while it''s a little bit enjoyable to see your pained face it already got old after the first few hours, JUST SPILL IT OUT ALREADY!" Yun Jhin created a mind shockwave that he inserted into the ape''s head expanding it at multiple degrees trying to shake his soul open so he could search through his memories, he was very obstinate to the point that Yun Jhin already got annoyed with him! "TELL ME WHAT I WANT TO KNOW!" Yun Jhin words inserted themselves in the primate''s brain like they were hot knives as it started to cry out, wanting to clutch his head in pain but couldn''t due to the bloody hands keeping him straight as a lamp post. "This is enough..." Yun Jhin finally started to crack onto his psyche as the torture reached another level, the ape started to mutter in human language and Yun Jhin remembered everything that it said, all of its memories being transferred to Yun Jhin. "Hm... I see I see!" The teleportation technique was a very unique ancient technique that the ape found when he was a child, he found it with Yuan Fang''s help and due to that he became one of his cronies, Yuan Fang was an insidious reincarnate one so he easily tricked Ukog into signing a permanent contract with him. The technique itself wasn''t complicated but hard to use, one had to concentrate on the energy codes of the person that they wanted to teleport to, and that meant their energy code had to be perfectly memorized, or else they wouldn''t be able to teleport to that person, it also wouldn''t work with places and only with people, so if Yun Jhin wanted to teleport from Galaxy to Galaxy and the Galaxy had no living beings that he knew he wouldn''t be able to teleport there. However, the energy consumption of the technique didn''t go accordingly with the distance traveled which meant that no matter the distance traveled it would consume the same amount of ki! But that was depending on the sensing capabilities of the user, Yun Jhin could currently sense around 3 Galaxies distance away which was around a few trillion kilometers in total but that didn''t mean he could pick out a certain energy code from the massive amount of living people in these galaxies, while he could focus on one he wouldn''t be able to pick it out if they were at the sage realm and below so he could teleport randomly to people if he wanted to as long as he memorized their energy code properly. Yun Jhin''s eyes were sparkling as he looked at the ape in front of him, it seemed that he truly destroyed his psyche as he continued to mutter without stop, he practically became crazy after Yun Jhin was done with him but that didn''t mean his psyche was unhealable, for God Realm experts there wasn''t such as thing as unhealable! However he still wanted to know how Duritz had been captured by Yuan Fang''s claws, he was a strong monster that was more talented than Yuan Fang himself, his battle power was even a tad higher than his! He continued to listen to his muttering and when it came to Duritz he immediately listened more closely to understand everything. "Oh, so that''s how it happened?" Unlike Ukog''s situation, Duritz was a very prideful person, he was the prince of a certain newly born race in the celestial realm, Yuan Fang had put a lot of time and work into making Duritz his, he first infiltrated the race and worked his way up the ranks until he became Duritz''s trusted advisor, then he poisoned him during a war meeting before asking for his services in exchange for the antidote. The finer details were omitted as Yuan Fang didn''t tell Ukog everything, Ukog was also there at the time and he heard bits and pieces of what happened while he was hiding around the race''s auxiliary tribes. The race''s experts were extremely mad at Yuan Fang''s treachery so he was chased away into the lower mortal realm, that was the sole reason Yuan Fang wasn''t in the celestial realm anymore, after all, from Yun Jhin''s knowledge the celestial realm had the best environment for ascension beyond the God Realm. **************************** Yuan Fang gritted his teeth as he felt his connection to Ukog''s soul blurring out, that meant his soul was either extremely damaged or he died! Duritz didn''t say anything as he stood there in their hideout, everything was dark around them and the only two visible people were the two of them. "Did Ukog spill everything out, Boss?" Yuan Fang sighed: "Of course he did, no matter how high his willpower is Yun Jhin''s methods are too good, I didn''t experience them personally but I heard a lot of things about them, our wheels are officially gone and Yun Jhin had gained a strong chasing ability now amongst with some info that might help him or not..." Duritz frowned as he asked: "Do you think he would want to report us to the Sai tribe in the celestial realm?" Yuan Fang didn''t know what to say, Yun Jhin didn''t know how to get to the celestial realm previously but he would surely get the way in with Ukog''s memories, and you knew the saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, while he left to the lower realms to escape the pursuit of the Sai tribe for ''kidnapping and brainwashing'' their prince, they only left him alone because he changed his identity and energy code after he arrived in the lower realms. "Will I have to run in Hell now?" Yuan Fang frowned as he didn''t know that Yun Jhin destroyed the entrance to hell, Duritz interjected: "Most likely we can''t run there boss, you should know that Yun Jhin has the monopoly over the entrance, and going to his headquarters means certain death!" "We can''t even wait it out for the entrance to change coordinates... as I know Yun Jhin he must already raring to go to the celestial realm! But that means he would have to leave his headquarters open, he doesn''t know that the connection between avatar and the main body is cut when one arrives in the celestial realm so this could be to our advantage!" A cut connection between the avatar and body of the God realm expert would reduce the power of the avatar to around 20% of its original. ************************ Yun Jhin waited until there was no more information than he could squeeze out of the poor Ukog before he cracked his neck and absorbed his soul power, now that he had no more uses he could absorb his soul properly as he couldn''t get anything more out of him considering that at the God Realm memory extraction through soul absorption wouldn''t work at enemies of similar cultivation, the moment someone attempted that their memories would implode and disappear as a self-defense mechanism. Yun Jhin looked at the ceiling of the cave as he pondered something intensely, he had a hand on his chin as he thought: "The celestial realm... the realm closest to leaving this wretched mortal life behind... the power of true immortality lies in there... this is most likely the reason Yuan Fang knew about the uses of the two world trees, unfortunately for him, he already used one seed too early and he needs to wait now." "I guess there''s no beating around the bush anymore... if I leave my avatar here everything should be ok, but just to be sure I will teach the defensive mechanism control to Marthon." Yun Jhin was making preparations to leave the sect behind safely as he had other thoughts after getting his hands on the condition to open the celestial realm gates along with their location! Chapter 209: The entrance to the celestial realm (1) Yun Jhin was finishing the preparations to leave the sect when Marthon came to him with some inquiries about the expansion expeditions that they had sent out already: "Master, should we cancel all of the expeditions considering you will leave for an unknown period of time?" Yun Jhin shook his head as he told him: "No, they will know something is wrong if they see my expansion efforts suddenly stop and they will inquire about my situation one way or another, continue the efforts until we cannot physically ''swallow'' any more territory, this way they wouldn''t think anything when we retreat our troops and stabilize our situation, even though I have thought you cultivation it seems I need to teach you more on how to think strategically or else this sect will go to ruin when I will leave." Marthon kneeled in front of Yun Jhin as he heard his words, he would never want to disappoint him as he started kowtowing while saying that he would surely learn everything that he needed to keep the sect flourishing. Yun Jhin told him to get up then left him to do what he was told. "Things are progressing along nicely... there''s only a little bit of time left and I should be able to leave." As Yun Jhin was finishing his business around the sect Yuan Fang was antsy to run away from the mortal realm. ************************ Yuan Fang felt like thousands of fire ants were drilling in his brain as he waited for news of Yun Jhin''s departure, he would occasionally glare at the nothingness in front of him as he waited, and finally after a long while of waiting some news were sent back. "He is continuing his expansion attempts? Hmph, this is just a front so he could fool the other old-timers, if I wasn''t a wanted man I would have gone straight to the Brilliance Radiance and Light sect to denounce him." Yuan Fang thought that the time to make his move would come soon enough as he was finishing his preparations. ***************** Yun Jhin was ready to leaves as he took another look at the meteorite under his feet and then disappeared as if he was never there, he wasn''t particularly fond of the sect, he found it just another means to an end as it made it easier for him to gain resources and standing in society with the help of the sect. Yun Jhin started to locate the entrance to the celestial realm with the technique from Ukog''s memories. The entrance to the celestial realm was unlike the one to Hell in the sense that it was always stationary but this led to the question of how no one was able to find it up till now. From what Yun Jhin understood the gate was made from a special material that only those who visited the celestial realm could sense, the gate could also hide so well to the point that even if you stood in front of it you would never be able to see it if you didn''t qualify. The actual location of the gate was in a desolate galaxy that no one lived in, that was also one of the reasons that no one had found it up till now. Yun Jhin arrival in the galaxy didn''t trigger any attention as he travelled stealthily along with the fact that he didn''t tell anyone about the fact that he would leave besides Marthon meant that there was no chance for anyone to know about his absence, he already left his avatar at the sect so even if they attacked they would be reduced to a state where they couldn''t penetrate the outer layer of the sect. As Yun Jhin searched through the empty galaxy for the gate to the celestial realm Yuan Fang finally was going to make his move! Yuan Fang and Duritz''s disguised bodies appeared at the entrance of the blood throne sect as they wanted to infiltrate as rogue cultivators who wanted to join the sect. The guarding disciple at the outer layer of the sect who was just doing his job regularly looked at the two of them and said in a monotone voice: "The sect is currently full and takes no more applicants, you can go to a branch sect and join there." He had to deal with this type of stuff so much time that he had no more emotion in his voice when he said it. Yuan Fang came forward and said with a smile on his face: "Ah but you see we are the people that your sect master would look for, our talent is through the roof!" The guarding disciple sighed, there were tons of people who said the same thing to him and when they took the talent test they ended up being either average or just a little bit above which wasn''t anything that Yun Jhin was looking for. But it was his job and he couldn''t deny those two hopeful disciples their right of being tested. They walked into the formation and the formation immediately started to shine with a glaring red light that resembled viscous blood, the moment they entered the formation bounds Yun Jhin''s avatar opened its eyes as he felt rather puzzled: "They are here? Did their brains short-circuit?" Yun Jhin''s avatar couldn''t find any of Yuan Fang''s current actions to look sane, even though he might have gotten wind of his main body leaving that didn''t mean he couldn''t return... it was true that he couldn''t use his new technique as the distance between the empty galaxy and where the blood throne sect laid was beyond three galaxies and too far away for Yun Jhin''s current capabilities to teleport it wouldn''t take him much time to cross that distance and teleport back. What did they think they could do in such a short time, they might not even be able to enter the sect if he disallowed them too! But he wanted to see what they were up to so he decided to let them inside as new special ''recruits''. He didn''t care if they went on a rampage and killed people or destroyed buildings as long as he could capture them it would be worth it. Their research value was off the chars both of them being from the celestial realm! Yun Jhin watched as they were outfitted with the sect''s colours and how they melded in with the crowd that were either out to trade or just relax, as time passed they both disappeared as they appeared in the deeper parts of the sect where they revealed themselves. Yuan Fang looked around puzzled as he sent a mental message to Duritz: "This was the location of the portal to hell right? Why is it missing?" Duritz moved his shoulders indicating that he didn''t know, his memory wasn''t failing him so the portal must have disappeared! Yun Jhin realized what they wanted to do the moment they arrived at that peculiar location, he had a smile on his face that he couldn''t conceal as he sent them a direct message: "Looking for the entrance to hell?" Yuan Fang started to shake as he heard Yun Jhin''s voice coming from everywhere around him, he thought that he would be able to jump into the portal and leave before Yun Jhin could identify him and Duritz but the portal disappeared! His eyes reddened as he glanced at Duritz and sent him another message: "Do it!" In Duritz''s eyes a hint of reluctance flashed before his form started to morph, he grew to ten meters tall as his muscles inflated to gigantic proportions according to his size, his hair turned white as his body started whitening but his aura increased to the point that Yun Jhin''s avatar felt extremely threatened by it! Yuan Fang shook his head seeing Duritz''s situation and started to run away! Duritz went on a rampage destroying palaces with abandon and killing whoever he could get his hands on, he would chop them up with his hands then open his mouth and absorb their quintessence in himself recovering his albeit crippled form. Yun Jhin''s avatar eyes narrowed as he appeared above the sect, Yuan Fang couldn''t be caught if he wanted to take care of Duritz, the man already disappeared going god knows where and Yun Jhin''s avatar couldn''t split its attention into two fronts at the moment. "Coming looking for wool and going home shorn." Yun Jhin shook his head, they wanted to escape using Hell''s entrance knowing that he wouldn''t want to follow them in due to Hell''s willpower being antagonistic against him but they didn''t know that he was able to destroy the portal, normally an average God Realm cultivator couldn''t destroy or even seal the entrance but Yun Jhin had the methods that he had kept hidden from the eyes of others for such a long time that they didn''t even know that some of those methods even existed. Looking at the rampaging giant in front of him made Yun Jhin frown, his strength was both faltering and increasing at the same time as he ate Yun Jhin''s people but Yun Jhin didn''t stop him immediately as he closed his eyes and started to move his hands from down to up just like a flowing river. Out of the cracks in the meteorite, blood started to seep out continuously as the underground river burst forth! Yun Jhin''s avatar had summoned the blood river from the cave so he could fight with it, in this situation he knew that he wouldn''t be able to fight this behemoth in front of him with his normal capabilities, not even his main body would be able to do that! He sacrificed his lifespan to the point that he might fall over and die any moment for this burst of strength, and he wanted to continue keeping Yun Jhin occupied by recovering his life span with bloody sacrifices. Yun Jhin''s avatar eyes hardened as it looked over at Duritz''s gigantic form and he engulfed himself in the bloody river as a transformation started to occur as a cocoon appeared! Duritz felt immense danger as he glanced towards the blood-red cocoon that was hovering in mid-air, his eyes flashed as he lunged towards it ready to crack it open and kill Yun Jhin''s avatar which was transforming inside! Chapter 210: The entrance to the celestial realm (2) Duritz could feel the cocoon start to shake the closer he got to it when suddenly a spiked hand-inserted itself in his stomach coming out his back and still going for around 20 more meters before it stopped elongating. Duritz didn''t say anything nor did he react as he took a hold of the spiked hand and tried to take it out of his stomach forcefully. The cocoon broke open, a bloody gigantic monster that was full of spikes came out, it had a shell that made it look like a hedgehog but inside it was Yun Jhin''s avatar which was controlling the whole thing. The monster roared as its spikes started to shoot from its body and inserted themselves directly into the vital parts of Duritz''s body. As the spikes entered the gigantic body they started to dissolve as they softened and entered his body as a liquid through the newly generated gaps. Duritz could feel his body starting to move by itself as Yun Jhin''s avatar moved his hands accordingly making him feel like a puppet on strings! It wasn''t a good feeling for him, he already hated being under contract for Yuan Fang and that he had to sacrifice himself because of his master''s foolishness, who would know that Yun Jhin was able to destroy the entrance to hell? The fact was that Yun Jhin could only destroy it because he was so familiar with hell considering he had its willpower inside him for some time combined with his wealth of experience and techniques was the sole reason he could destroy the entrance. While Yuan Fang knew that Yun Jhin became antagonistic with the denizens of hell he didn''t have all of the details, he didn''t have a perfect information network even though it was considerably wide. Duritz''s aura intensified as he howled to the sky trying to destroy the bindings that were currently installing themselves in his blood. Yun Jhin''s blood technique was very toxic and it could infiltrate the bloodstream of those that it infected very quickly if it reached his heart he would become Yun Jhin''s puppet permanently! Yun Jhin''s monster started to sag as if it''s lost most of its energy, while the attack was rather deadly the toll on the blood river''s energy reserves was rather huge, however, the monster started to become revitalized immediately as the disciples below started to throw herbs, vials and other things into the monster. The monster''s revitalization was slow but its strength increase was obvious as it wasn''t sagging anymore, it started to move closer to Duritz''s immobilized body slowly trying to take over it with the help of the seeds that he already planted inside him. Duritz''s body started to shake as he tried to expunge the blood that infiltrated his body but he was already at his wit''s end, his already short lifespan was running on fumes every second he wasn''t devouring any life force. Duritz could feel his eyes getting heavier as his body was slowly starting to shrink to normal proportions, he shook his head one last time, he had finished his contract with Yuan Fang and saved his life... he was done here. Yun Jhin dissipated the monster of blood as it seeped through the cracks in the earth back into the underground cave leaving it there to regain its used energy. The avatar hovered over Duritz''s body which was slowly transforming into ashes as the overdraft life force was destroying him at a cellular level. His arm directly went into his chest and extracted his heart before pumping it full of ki resuscitating it slowly, the severed heart started beating as blood dribbled down on it stopping its decay and transformation into ashes. Yun Jhin smiled seeing the heart and then burst into laughter as he disappeared back into the cave below, he had some things to do... The deaths of the disciples didn''t affect Yun Jhin much, around 500,000 died by consumption while quite a lot of them got just injured, it was a pretty good outcome considering he had gained the heart of Duritz who was originally from the celestial realm and he had high research potential. It was unknown if Yun Jhin could actually reach the celestial realm so it was better to have something else to rely on. ******************** Yun Jhin''s main body had been informed about the actions of the duo but it couldn''t care less as it was looking for the entrance around the abandoned galaxy. His senses were tingling the further he flew into the galaxy but he still couldn''t find the entrance! It was as if something was making him unable to reach the place, something was blocking him and he didn''t like it! He concentrated with as much power as he could but he couldn''t see anything regardless if he arrived at the location in Ukog''s memory or tried to search somewhere else, there was nothing in this galaxy! He had been running through the whole galaxy at extreme speeds looking through every nook and cranny to find nothing! But Ukog''s memories wouldn''t lie, he frowned as he suddenly got some information from his avatar, Duritz had been taken care of and the only one that remained was Yuan Fang and his other cronies that he didn''t get to meet, but he guessed that they would be way weaker than Duritz and Ukog if he didn''t care to bring them with him when he tried to escape to hell. Yun Jhin creased brows started to relax as he heard that his avatar got the heart of Duritz... Duritz''s tribe could be considered somewhat of royalty in the celestial realm, while it wasn''t any high-type of royalty like a ruler of big land, they were still of noble blood, maybe he could use his heart to find the entrance and open it? Yun Jhin sent a message for his avatar to teleport to him using Ukog''s technique which he didn''t bother to name. It took around 5 days for the avatar to arrive with the heart, it looked a healthy red as it was passed to Yun Jhin''s main body within a glass container, the heart was beating strongly as it started to react to its surroundings. Suddenly light started to shine in front of Yun Jhin, the light was of bright blue color and it shined so strongly that it stung Yun Jhin''s eyes, which was rather impressive considering Yun Jhin could place his eyeballs in a small sun and they still wouldn''t sting at all at his current level. Yun Jhin protected his sight as he looked away and when the light disappeared he could see a bright blue gate made of unknown materials to Yun Jhin, it was half-opened and the closer Yun Jhin put the heart the more the gate opened, but the moment Yun Jhin tried to step through the door it almost closed with him in it! Yun Jhin frowned as he took a few steps backward, if he didn''t retreat at an opportune time he would have been crushed in the door and who knew what would have happened? Was his bloodline seen through by the gate? Was it only reacting to Duritz''s heart? Yun Jhin''s face scrunched up as he realized that he might not be able to visit the celestial realm as there was no way for him to transplant Duritz''s bloodline in his body only with his heart alone, while the heart was good for research it wouldn''t be useful for experiments. It had a good amount of DNA but not good enough for Yun Jhin to work his magic with, even though he had evolved accordingly to a different type of human, one that was both devilish and celestial at the same time with the help of the knowledge that he had gotten from observing the system at work, that didn''t mean that his bloodline was recognized by the door in front of him. From what he could see the moment the door scanned his bloodline and it didn''t find it in its database it would close itself immediately, so while it scanned both Duritz''s bloodline and his at the same time meant that he couldn''t go even if he held Duritz''s heart. If he transplanted it to his body it wouldn''t bring him Duritz''s bloodline nor would it change his to something that would resemble anything in the door''s database. Yun Jhin glared at the door before sighing and shaking his head left and right, his avatar slowly returned to his body fusing with it, he put the glass container which stored Duritz''s heart back into his spatial dimension before taking one more glance at the disappearing celestial entrance before gritting his teeth and leaving. He put two fingers on his forehead as he started to concentrate on the nearest energy code that he knew before disappearing... it seemed the celestial realm was still out of Yun Jhin''s grasp for now... but he would come back as he only gave up on it temporarily. Chapter 211: Experiments Yun Jhin had already set some ''beacons'' that could help him teleport through the galaxies, strong individuals from the sect that he left around on certain planets so he could easily teleport from one to another and shorten the time he needed to travel through the universe. He hadn''t been able to install such people on many planets but he already had quite a few of them here and there, there were around 100 planets that had people that Yun Jhin planted and he could move quickly around 6 to 7 galaxies in a matter of minutes, however, if he wanted to spread even further he needed stronger people as sage realm experts wouldn''t really do the trick only if they were at the peak and Yun Jhin memorized their energy code perfectly. After some continuous teleportations Yun Jhin finally returned to the sect, he felt defeated inside, almost depressed. He really wanted to see how the celestial realm looked with his own eyes and also absorb its pure energy directly, while he could still cultivate with it, as he could still summon celestial energy, he was sure that what he was summoning couldn''t be considered even a drop in a bucket, in both quality and quantity. Yun Jhin sighed as he appeared in the underground cave and laid down in the blood river closing his eyes he started to meditate while lying face up floating in the river. "What could I do to register my bloodline in the database of the door?" Yun Jhin''s thoughts started to whirl in his mind, was there any chance he would be able to insert his bloodline in that door? There were very low chances if he analyzed everything directly, the celestial realm formation techniques and teleportation techniques should be very advanced if he compared them to the ones of the mortal realm, for example, the teleportation technique that Yun Jhin took from Ukog was from the celestial realm and in the mortal realm, Yun Jhin would have never been able to get such a technique. As he laid down in the blood river a lightbulb suddenly appeared over his head as he got an idea: "Duritz''s heart... maybe I could?" While he couldn''t transfer the heart to his body to gain the bloodline he could create another body from it! Yun Jhin eyes started to light up as he got out of the blood river none of the sticky blood being on his body, he took in a deep breath as he took the heart out of his spatial dimension then took it out of its container. The heartbeat was at normal speeds and he could feel that there was a chance for his plan to succeed. Yun Jhin started to wave his hands into the air as a blood pillar rose from the river and started to morph into the form of Duritz, slowly but surely Yun Jhin was sculpting a new body in Duritz''s image made entirely from the blood of the river. The face, the attitude, the long blonde hair in his normal form, Yun Jhin captured everything as he modeled it exactly after Duritz, afterward he gently took the heart from his hands and inserted it directly into the chest of the blood sculpture which suddenly hardened. The hardening was instant the moment that Yun Jhin retrieved his hand from the sculpture, then its bloody design started to change as the color started to change to a pale white, Yun Jhin started to smile as the body started to shake then suddenly stopped moving. A blank expression appeared on the new bodies'' face, it lacked a soul so it was pretty much a puppet to Yun Jhin. But from its body, bloody colored energy could be felt and it was the bloodline aura of Duritz! However Yun Jhin wasn''t done yet, he wanted to enter personally in the celestial realm and not use a clone, his face suddenly started to scrunch up as a piece of purple and green colored light ripped away from Yun Jhin''s main soul and slowly entered into the shell that stood in front of him. The shell started to shake and move then it looked into Yun Jhin''s eyes and smiled as it saluted properly. Yun Jhin had split a part of his soul and inserted it into the new shell to create an out of body incarnation so he would be able to visit the celestial realm while his main body would expand in the mortal realm and keep cultivating. The out of body incarnation was basically Duritz but with Yun Jhin''s mind and a subservient attitude to the main body. "Ok, I shall call you Yun Duritz from now on, you should already know what you are supposed to do but first let''s help you with your cultivation." Considering the body was brand new it had no cultivation and even though it had a rank of around 4,000 due to it being constructed from the blood river it wasn''t considered strong if it was pitted against a cultivator at the ki cultivating realm and above. Yun Jhin knowledge of cultivation was really vast so he immediately created a formation above Yuan Duritz then started to pump cultivation resources into him, Duritz having all of the cultivation knowledge from Yun Jhin''s soul fragment made it rather easily as he cultivated accordingly to the memories as the resources poured into his body and he quickly started to jump in cultivation... Time passed slowly but surely... as months passed the cultivation of the out of body incarnation increased daily, the earthly realm... the heavenly realm, the ki cultivating realm, the king realm, the emperor realm, and it stopped only after it reached around the 3rd stage of the sage realm. While Yun Jhin had an immense amount of cultivation resources he still didn''t have enough to make a God Realm person immediately, it took around 5 years of cultivation for his out of body incarnation to reach the 3rd stage of the sage realm and that was only because he fed it resources continuously like a farmer would feed a pig and he also had the passive boost coming from the blood river. Yun Jhin ended up out of materials that could be useful for those at the sage realm and above as he continuously fed Yun Duritz so even if he wanted to make him cultivate more it was impossible currently, however, the sage realm was enough for the celestial realm, after all, Duritz, Ukog and Yuan Fang were around the same level when he met them the first time. Even though they left the celestial realm because they were chased, it was mostly because of Yuan Fang, so if Yun Jhin returned as Duritz in disguise he would be able to take control of a strong noble power directly as the direct descendant and prince of the tribe. Yun Jhin laughed as he slapped Yun Duritz''s shoulder and told him to leave. Yun Duritz nodded as he put two fingers on his forehead and disappeared with a ''pop'' sound just like a bubble being broken. **************** Yun Duritz appeared at the same location where Yun Jhin found the door to the celestial realm, as he got closer and closer to the certain location he could feel his body heat up and his blood rushing through his body, his heart started beating faster and faster and the same azure light started to appear ahead of him. He shielded his eyes for a few moments until the light died down before he could see the door being fully opened in front of him! It was seemingly inviting him, the one of noble blood back to the celestial realm, it was as Yun Jhin guessed, as long as he had the needed bloodline the door would open easily for him. Yun Duritz laughed as he propelled his body directly into the door then the door closed abruptly as his silhouette disappeared into it, the galaxy returned to its blank and gritty look as meteor fragments would from time to time pass by and hit each other transforming into dust... Yun Duritz felt his head spin as if 100 hammers were hitting him directly on the brain and 100 bells were ringing in his ears, he started to get nauseous as he suddenly vomited on the ground in front of him without warning. He got up as he looked around and found himself in a beautiful forest the trees had azure leaves the animals around were gorgeous, a bear with a line pattern with red fur, he was looking at Yun Duritz weirdly as he saw his vomit on the ground. Yun Duritz cleaned his mouth with the sleeves of his robe and took another look around, besides the bear that was looking weirdly at him some blue cute parrots were chattering with one another and pointing their wings at him from time to time. "So this was the celestial realm?" Chapter 212: The celestial realm Yun Jhin''s main body woke up suddenly, he looked around and then clenched his chest as he felt something being cut off from him, he frowned as he realized that he couldn''t communicate with his out of body incarnation anymore. He could still perceive its existence which meant it didn''t die however he couldn''t exert any more influence over it, he couldn''t give it ki nor talk with it, if it got into a perilous situation he wouldn''t be able to save it. He sighed, it seemed that the celestial realm was either a higher dimension or a sealed one, or maybe even both. Right now he didn''t know what would happen to his out-of-body incarnation but considering it had the looks, aura, and bloodline of Duritz, as long as he made his way to his ancestral home he should be able to end up well... ******************** Yun Duritz felt light-headed as he saw the bear that was looking at him, it seemed that it was an intelligent beast and it seemed to be amused? He got up from the ground as he ignored the bear that was looking at him as if he was a clown, he didn''t have time to entertain the local wildlife and from his cultivation fluctuations, he was just a weakling at the ki cultivating realm, he didn''t care about such weak beings at this moment, considering it was smart and it didn''t get in his way he would let it live. The bear knew that laughing at someone like this was risky but most of the celestial realm people could be considered peaceful, at least the bear never met someone who would attack him because he laughed at him, he might get a scolding or even a beating but he wouldn''t be attacked with the intent to kill, it just couldn''t help itself. Yun Duritz started to move through the forest and found himself quickly lost, as he walked in the well-lit forest he found himself to be in a type of tree maze, the further he walked in the more he found himself unable to differentiate left from right. He found what happened to be very strange as he had a great sense of direction, could his body not be adapted to the laws of the celestial realm yet? Naturally, the body shouldn''t have been rejected by the laws as it had the full bloodline of Duritz flowing inside of it, it didn''t matter that the body was made from the blood river as Yun Jhin only created a heartless shell, if the shell had a different heart and Yun Jhin transplanted Duritz''s into it, it could have been a problem. Yun Duritz clutched his head as he felt an intense pain in it, it came directly from the soul fragment that acted as the controller of the body, it felt like his connection to the main body was slowly being removed by the laws of this world and he could feel somewhat strange, however, his thoughts didn''t change much besides that he wasn''t able to communicate with his counterpart anymore. Yun Duritz ignored the changes that were happening to his psyche as there was nothing he could do in this situation. For now, he wanted to get out of this forest and find some civilization as he wanted to return to Duritz''s clan and take over it slowly, sooner or later he would be able to open the gate directly and invite his main body in the celestial realm! He decided to stop wandering through the forest as there was nothing he could do until his sense of direction turned back to normal, for now, he decided to cultivate as he sensed the plentiful and pure energy around him. Yun Duritz took in deep breaths as he felt his senses clearing up the more he cultivated, his stagnant cultivation started to stir again as the pure azure energy went through his body and circulated through his ki pathways at quick speeds accordingly to the cultivation technique he practiced. Yun Duritz felt his head clearing up, the energy here compared to the mortal realm was like the difference between heaven and earth, but considering this place had the word ''celestial'' in it, it would be quite disappointing if it didn''t have high-quality ki filled environment. As he stabilized his situation he could feel that his cultivation also broke through rather quickly to the 4th stage and if he continued cultivating he might even reach the 5th stage before he left the forest! As his body acclimatized to the environment of the realm he felt just like a fish back in the water, his power was also increasing every moment he cultivated, his internal substructure was changing every moment to adapt to the bloodline in his body, while his body gained the bloodline of Duritz, it didn''t fully assimilate it yet but with the help of the celestial energy, his body was changing to reach the same level that Duritz reached when he was alive! Yun Duritz''s breath stopped for a few seconds then he got back to his feet as he stopped cultivating, his eyes changed to a deep azure color as his blonde hair reached waist length, it was spiky and though, even though his face and body resembled Duritz''s his hair and eyes weren''t the same up till now. He stretched his whole body as his bones started to crack making sounds that scared some of the natural fauna around. Yun Duritz could feel that his body refining improvement was huge due to the changes the bloodline was doing to his body, it was even stronger than the normal body refiners level, if a normal body refiner at the 7,000 ranks had the power level of 1,000 then Yun Duritz''s power level would be 2,000 at the same level. He was 2x stronger body-wise due to his bloodline alone! He felt like there was more potential to this out of body incarnation than things let on, it might even be able to help him with his ascendance! He shook his head after this thought went through his mind, it was too early to think about that, now that his sense of direction returned he started to make sense of this forest as he navigated through it and tried to leave. The forest wasn''t extremely big but it was still the same size as the blood throne sect and considering he wasn''t at the God Realm anymore it would take him a little bit more time to leave the place. ******************* In the northern direction 150,000 kilometers away from the forest a big city existed, it was full of nicely decorated streets and tall yellow buildings that glowed in the afterglow of the sun in the afternoon. In the biggest and most decorated building in the city, a man was kneeling to a tall blonde haired woman, her assets were so big that anyone who looked at them wouldn''t be able to tear their eyes away, she was more on the heavy side and she wore a tight-fitting outfit that didn''t look to be a good match on her. The man told her in a serious tone: "It seems someone has returned from the mortal realm, it''s strange considering almost no one had gone through the gate in the last 50 years unless we count that traitor who kidnapped the young master." The tall woman hummed as she thought about it, it couldn''t be the traitor as he was too smart and insidious to return to the celestial realm so soon, as things haven''t settled down yet. Then her eyes started to shine as she thought of something else: "Could it be our little Duritz? Could have he escaped from that insidious man''s control?" The man continued kneeling as he didn''t say anything, he didn''t want to give his lady false hope. ***************** Yun Duritz finally left the forest after a few hours of navigating through it and then he met head to head with a troop of people that were patrolling around, Yun Duritz used his stealth technique as he sensed people ahead and waited nearby one of the trees for them to leave: "Let''s get this going stop lazing around you dogs!" "Oy captain why are you so tense? No one ever uses the door from the mortal realm, there is literally no chance for anyone to come, this is a leisure job." "While it''s true you know that if we don''t at least put up a little work we might be changed from our position, how many top-grade spirit stones have you used to get this easy post?" "Sheesh man just relax a little, what could happen?" Suddenly a ringing sound was heard as the captain of the patrol took out an inscribed bamboo piece from his clothes and started talking into it, after a short while he started to give orders: "There is a chance our young prince is back, encircle the forest but don''t attract the attention of the person who used the portal as it might not be our prince, we first need to identify the person before we take further actions." The man who was talking about taking it easy finally found out that this job wasn''t all easy as he was made to encircle the gigantic forest with their troops which wasn''t possible at all! "I know about your doubts but there are only a few exits that you can take from this maze-like forest, actually we are near one right now." Yun Duritz knew that with his current identity he wouldn''t find trouble if he revealed himself to the troops so he slowly made himself look like he just exited the forest. The captain immediately recognized his face and wild hairstyle, his face sprang up as if he saw a relative and quickly came towards him to give Yun Duritz a big hug. Chapter 213: Playing it off as amnesia Seeing the burly captain of the patrol approaching him made Yun Duritz feel quite unsettled visibly, seeing how he didn''t feel well with the captain approaching him, the man took two steps backward and asked surprised: "Duritz, you still remember me, don''t you? We were friends in our childhood." Yun Duritz moved his head from side to side as he clutched it while he looked at the man. This made the patrol captain feel something wasn''t right as he tried to approach him again and said: "It''s me, Lin Lang, you really can''t remember me?" "Not really... I just know that I had to enter the door that was calling me, I don''t know you, I actually don''t know where I am..." Lin Lang looked at Duritz and analyzed him but there was no mistake, he looked exactly like the young prince he used to hang out with back when he didn''t have so many things to do, his father was a strong general under the former leader of the city so he was quite close with Duritz, they could almost be counted as cousins. Seeing that he was forgotten made him quite sad as he tried to pat Duritz on the shoulder but the man took two steps backward with a strange look on his face as he looked into Lin Lang''s eyes. "It''s true... it seems you can''t remember me but it makes sense if you consider the circumstances you have been through, your cultivation didn''t even increase much since you left and it been such a long time, you should have reached at least the God Realm up till now no matter how poor the resources of the mortal realm were..." Yun Duritz took a step towards Lin Lang and asked with a curious tone: "You know who I am?" Lin Lang smiled, it seemed that while Duritz lost his memories he was still the same curious man that he ever was Lin Lang guessed that since Duritz couldn''t sense any malice from the troops he decided to trust them considering they talked as if they knew him. "It seems you haven''t changed much old friend, let''s get you back to the city so you can talk with our older sister as she might be able to retrieve some of your lost memories." Yun Duritz took a few steps forward and decided to follow them reluctantly on the surface but inside he was gloating at how easy it was, when he got back to the city he would be able to get his hands on the resources specific to the celestial realm and jump his cultivation speed and in the end, he would take over the whole city creating a base in the celestial realm that he might be able to use in the future to send in his main body. Time passed pretty slowly as the captain took Yun Duritz and traveled with him to the city of their Lin clan, so to not get bored he decided to try and make him remember some things. He pointed at a nearby waterfall and whispered to Duritz: "Remember when we went there to peek at the most beautiful gem in our city, Sun Min?" Yun Duritz shook his head as he took a closer look at the waterfall and said: "Was I really a guy that would peek at girls when they bath?" Lin Lang laughed awkwardly as he continued the journey, it seemed that trying to awaken his memories with his boy memories wouldn''t work. Then he looked towards the nearby prairie that they were passing and said: "Remember when you hunted your first animal in the prairie with your dad and my dad?" Duritz made an expression that looked as if he was remembering something, as he looked at one peculiar rabbit that went by he pointed at it and asked: "Was it this type of animal?" Lin Lang face changed as he became disappointed and shook his head as he said: "No, it was a Three-headed celestial lion, your deceased father was very happy to see that you inherited the strongest bloodline in the family and he declared you a man that day, you really can''t remember? When we talked after we returned to the city you said that you would never forget that day because it was the day you were given the title of man by your father directly, you were also appointed as the direct prince and descendant of the Lin guarding family of the east." "That truly sounds important... but I cannot remember it, maybe something really strange happened to me while I was in the mortal realm?" "You wouldn''t know the first half of it brother Duritz... if I could get my hands on that traitorous snake Yuan Fang I would surely torture him for 10,000 years!" Yun Duritz knew what was going through Lin Lang''s mind at the moment, it was obvious as he glared at nothing while spacing out for a few seconds on their journey. After a few hours of traveling, they finally reached the city where they were immediately ushered into the biggest house after the guards at the entrance of the city saw Yun Duritz''s appearance. As Yun Duritz entered the big house along with Lin Lang he could feel eyes hidden everywhere in the house targeting him, most of them were surprised, and there were very few who were glad and there were also some that gave off the impression that resembled hatred and disappointment. Yun Duritz walked further into the house until he reached a special place where the tall blonde haired heavy-set woman was, she was sitting on a chair made specifically for her big frame, when she saw Duritz her eyes started to water up as she quickly ran towards him and gave him a bone-crushing hug as she cried out: "Lil broooooo, I missed you so much, you even made me take over as the descendant of the family because you have been kidnapped by that insidious fellow! Don''t ever leave your big sis again!" Yun Duritz felt his strong bones actually cracking the moment this woman put her full strength in the hug, her body refining rate was capped at the 10,000 ranks and her cultivation base was at the middle stages of the God Realm! Yun Duritz face started to turn blue as his oxygen supply was cut off by the strong hug and seeing that this was happening made the woman give up on her hug as she said: "It seems you haven''t grown strong at all under the lead of that guy, but it''s obvious he must have sealed your cultivation so you wouldn''t have overtaken his cultivation base, our Lin clan had prided itself over our cultivation base and strong bodies since our creation, how could that common-born Yuan Fang control you forever?" Lin Lang coughed a bit as he approached her and told her what happened and how Duritz didn''t have his memories anymore. The woman frowned as she looked at Duritz and pondered for a few seconds before saying: "It seems you have injured your soul quite a bit if you lost all of your memories to escape from the grasp of Yuan Fang''s technique, even though he couldn''t get the whole inheritance of the Heavenly Celestial God he did get one core doctrine from it... along with the most important technique of his quickest subordinate." Yun Duritz''s ears started to move as he heard the mention of a title, the strong expert''s technique must have been the reason that Yuan Fang had improved so much both in personality and world view, this Heavenly Celestial guy must have surely been an evil cultivator to influence the good-loving Yuan Fang to become as evil as Yun Jhin. "Anyways since you are back with us it doesn''t matter anymore, your big sis Lin Luan Leng will help you get your memories back, and if the damage is too big to be repaired we shall just make some new ones." She started to laugh boisterously as she slapped Yun Duritz''s shoulder and continued: "First let''s try our favorite game since childhood, maybe it will trigger your repressed memories." Yun Jhin felt that something was fishy when she was talking about repressed memories, a person wouldn''t repress their memories unless they were too traumatic for the psyche to handle... what did this woman do to the original Duritz? A second later he found out as he was face planted on the ground and her whole body was put on his back, his left arm was put behind his back as she took a hold of it and pushed it to the right side: "Say, uncle!" Yun Duritz wanted to say uncle but her weight wasn''t anything easy to endure as his air was practically flattened out of his lungs, he tried to take in a deep breath only for piercing pain to appear in his chest, some of his ribs were broken due to her weight! Lin Luan laughed as she said with a reminiscing tone: "It seems you are as enduring as in your childhood even though I''m going easy on you, let''s continue until you say, uncle!" In this situation, Yun Duritz didn''t know if to laugh or to cry. Chapter 214: A celestial princes life (1) It would be a lie to say that Yun Duritz didn''t experience pain from the arm hold his ''older sister'' had put on him but what could he do when the difference in strength between them was so huge? He could either endure until the end or say uncle but considering that their clan seemed to be based on a barbaric power-based hierarchy so if he acted though he would be accepted more easily, and from what he understood Duritz himself was rather though so retaining his personality would be for the best if he wanted to continue fooling them. "You can continue how much you want big sis but I will never yield!" That''s what he wanted to say but considering his bones were cracking and that his mouth was blocked by the floor all that came out of his mouth was: "Ugh, con ho bi si ne yiel!" "Oh, you don''t want to yield! Hahaha you are still my Lil bro even without memories aren''t you?" "You really retained that stubborn trait that father had as well and it''s ingrained even in your bones!" Yun Duritz wanted to laugh but his chest would fill up with blood if he did as his chest bones started to poke into his organs. Sensing his brother''s situation made Lin Luan''s eyes soften a bit as she took her heavy body off him and said: "Well I guess it won''t really work this way... maybe your memories are lost forever but we can always create new ones!" Yun Duritz sighed as he tried to get up from the floor only for his sister to help him up and continuing: "It seems that your body hasn''t been sealed any way but it''s quite weak... you haven''t even reached the final stage of your bloodline yet and your cultivation base while budding is rather weak for your age..." "You should have at least been a little bit weaker than me or at least as strong as me cultivation wise but you are so pitifully weak..." Yun Duritz understood already he made a face which indicated that he wasn''t happy with her bringing up her cultivation and she understood as she laughed: "It seems that your pride is still there as well, very good since you came back let''s help you cultivate to where you are supposed to be, the prince of the Lin clan can''t be weak, after all, you are supposed to replace me! Since you are a male and the one that was supposed to inherit the position you will have to become the clan leader when you reach the adequate cultivation base." Yun Duritz found that everything was going a little fast but it was all in his benefit so he also felt rather good, he smiled at his ''sister'' then asked: "So about cultivating... how am I supposed to do that?" Lin Luan almost faceplanted as she said: "Ok, it seems that you don''t even know about cultivation anymore? I understand losing your personal memories but those other ones... the damage is bigger than expected." To cultivators cultivating became like eating and sleeping, even if they forgot some of their core memories they would always know how to cultivate! After all, they had done the same thing for years and years consecutively so how could they forget how to do it? "It seems I will have to teach you our cultivation technique..." "Let''s see if this Duritz is genuine or not, if he is he should be able to cultivate our clan''s technique, if he is fake his head shall be severed and hanged at the gates of the city!" Yun Duritz couldn''t read minds but he could read the mood, he felt that something wasn''t right as his ''sister'' looked at him with a strange glint in her eyes but it was pretty normal to doubt him, even though the return was sudden his alibi was almost perfect but all the doubts couldn''t be erased perfectly. "Sure sis I''m waiting." "Let''s not do it here as the technique is confidential." She glanced at Lin Lang and the man coughed as he left, even though he was the son of the general under Duritz''s father that didn''t mean he had access to any direct cultivation techniques, but he did get the second-best ones. Lin Luan started to walk forward exiting the house through the backdoor and Yun Duritz followed her quickly from behind, they arrived in a beautiful garden with a small pool in the back of it. There were a few flowers planted here and there and as Yun Duritz took in breaths he could feel that his cultivation speed was getting faster and faster! His discerning eye saw that the flowers were actually arranged in a formation! Lin Luan chuckled as he saw him eyeing the flowers and breathed in and out: "While you know the bare basics of cultivation you are still lacking the most important things, it seems that while your memory was affected your cultivation lobe was only destroyed around to 90%." "Ok now to the teaching." She waved her hands as a blue barrier blocked everything from outside and inside from coming in or out. Yun Duritz gave the barrier a few knocks and realized that there was no way he would be able to break it if he needed to escape. He looked directly at Lin Luan and asked: "So what do you want to teach me?" Lin Luan smiled as she got closer to him and pointed at his head, electricity ran out of her pointing finger immediately rushing to Duritz''s brain and entering it before stimulating it for a few seconds, new memories started to rush into Yun Duritz''s soul as he saw a younger version of Duritz and Luan talking with each other and laughing when suddenly a big burly man with a hairstyle similar to Duritz appeared, besides the hair there wasn''t much resemblance between the current Duritz and the burly man but Yun Duritz understood that he was ''his father''. The cultivation technique started to be unveiled to him by his father as he sat cross-legged in front of Luan and started to make hand seals according to the instructions that Luan sent to his soul. The hand seals started to move the bloodline in his body as his skin turned red, his hair changed to a pale green color and his eyes opened only for them to reveal only white pupils, Yun Duritz was using the same rampage form that the dead Duritz used in their first fight! However, he easily controlled his form as he got up and did a few punches, the space around the places he hit started to crack and distort and this was the power of his body alone, he hadn''t used any ki to enhance his attacks. Luan nodded as she saw him successfully and easily cultivating their most important technique, she knew it was impossible to fake a bloodline so his bloodline was genuine, Duritz was a person who wouldn''t let his body end up in anyone''s possession so if he was going to die he would have surely self-destructed, that meant there was no chance for the person in front of her to be an impostor! This time as she got close she gave him a genuine hug as tears started to pour out of her eyes while saying: "It''s good to have you back Lil bro!" Yun Duritz smiled as he reciprocated the hug, his form returned to normal as he said: "Likewise sis." She laughed awkwardly as she gave him a punch on the shoulder breaking it: "Hahaha, you and your emotions." Yun Duritz didn''t laugh as he was in pain, he just gave her a shaky smile as he thought: "The first one to die will be you, you damn annoying woman." "Ok then let''s get you to your room so you can continue cultivating, and don''t come out until you are in the God Realm you understand? I don''t want you to shame the name of your clan with your lousy cultivation!" She immediately became stern as she gave him a glare changing her personality 180* degrees. Yun Duritz followed her and came to a room specifically made for the inheritors of the clan to focus on their cultivations. Since Yun Duritz was the sole inheritor the room was made rather small enough to accommodate him, it was simple decorated with a moderately sized bed, a couch, and a table where he could eat if he wanted to, there was a cauldron in the corner of the room for pill refining and a window that let the light of the sun in. Lin Luan pushed him into the room and then closed it as she said: "I will send you a man with herbs and resources along with pill recipes so you can improve your alchemy and cultivation at the same time, don''t worry we will send you only the highest quality herbs and it doesn''t matter if you fail a lot, our family is rich!" Yun Duritz didn''t mind being in-home arrest as he would be fed pills and resources, this meant he wouldn''t have to venture into the unknown celestial realm with low strength and possibly die because of his lack of knowledge, he would get both information and resources as the young prince of the Lin Clan. He looked through the window at the receding back of his ''sister'' and smiled as he waited for the first batch of resources to be sent to his room. Chapter 215: A celestial princes life (2) Yun Duritz sat cross-legged on his new bed as he started to cultivate using the surrounding ki in the air, the ki in his residence was richer than the one he used to cultivate in the forest and its quality was also higher by a few notches. As he breathed in and out accordingly to the technique that Lin Luan taught him. Inside the house, Lin Luan got back on the throne meant for the head of the family and rang a bell that was installed on the throne five times in a row with a delay of 2 seconds between the rings. All of the important elders and guards of the family that were either hiding or either in closed-door cultivation immediately appeared in the room of the house, some of them bowed some of them kneeled in front of her, but they were all showing respect to her as there was no one above the middle stages of the God Realm along with them, the true reserve powers wouldn''t bother themselves with such meetings. She sat on the throne as she looked at everyone from above and said: "Our Lin family has finally regained its true successor!" "Our little Duritz is finally back!" "From now on you shall deliver ten hibiscus tears, ten black-bodied beetles along with water from the pond of longevity at the successor training house behind our clan home, he is confined there until he will break through to the 1st stage of the God Realm." "Yes, House lady!" The guards said in unison while continuing to kneel, the elders started to caress their beards as they muttered: "The young master is back? That''s great news! However, it''s quite unfortunate he hadn''t been able to break through to the God Realm up till now... I wonder what happened to him?" "Well, who knows what he went through while he was under that slime balls control, what was his name again? Yuan something? He is lucky we cannot leave the celestial realm as its guardians or we would have given him a good walloping and then decapitated him!" "Anyways we should go meet the young master as well right? We haven''t seen him since he had completed his last trial to become a man... I wonder if he still doesn''t resemble his father at all?" Lin Luan knocked on the chair''s armrests as she said: "You can only go there and send him the things that I told you to, you cannot waste his time with questions or trying to see him, you can only see him after he breaks through! Do you understand?" The bunch of elders shut up as they bowed again and disappeared, since they couldn''t see the prince they might as well leave as the job of deliverance was left for the guards and weaker members of the family. Yun Duritz could feel something change to the substructure of the space around him, it felt like his whole destiny was getting a huge and qualitative change! "What is this... have I been accepted by the Celestial realm so easily?" Getting accepted by a realm was when the destiny governing it would flow through your body and embrace it, this would naturally happen when a person was born in the realm and they would gradually realize the destiny is flowing through their body the higher their cultivation was, having a high amount of destiny meant more luck and more luck meant that there was a chance you could become a fortuned one! Yun Duritz had memories from Yun Jhin''s main body so he knew that fortuned ones weren''t always born with their constitution and they could also be created but the requirements were either random or they had to be exact so Yun Jhin couldn''t create a fortuned one if he wanted to, it was up to luck even if he knew the steps to create one. "With this amount of destiny flowing into my whole body, I should be able to go to that Soul Emperor''s tomb and get out of it unscathed with his whole inheritance!" His body was so full that it was almost overflowing, being accepted by the celestial realm which was the purest and highest realm in existence meant that the destiny that he had gathered was almost higher than the one accumulated by his main body over thousands of reincarnations! "Just one action and I''m like the carp that jumped over the dragon gate!" He could feel that his meridians were getting cleared up as his ki pathways enlarged, his body started to shake as the changes brought by the almost liquid amount of destiny that was currently being infused into his whole body. "Hahaahahah!" His muscles started to round up firmly achieving a perfect balance between strength and speed, even though he could be considered rather bulky before just as an apprentice bodybuilder, now he was lean just like a professional swimmer. His body cultivation was currently jumping up like crazy as he made use of the destiny flowing through his body, unlike his main body who had to steal destiny in small amounts and make sparing use of it because he would get a backlash from the universe if he used too much. All the destiny his main body got was through plunder and of course, the universe wasn''t glad its darlings were killed and looted so Yun Jhin could only use the destiny to temper himself rather rarely and he would rather use other resources instead of incurring some ''tribulations'' that shouldn''t even exist. As Yun Duritz made use of the destiny he could feel that his body reached a plateau and it couldn''t grow strong anymore, it reached the peak of the peak meaning the rank of 10,000! His bloodline was roiling in his body as red veins appeared around his whole body and engulfed him into a cocoon that filled the whole room. The first batch of ingredients was sent at the same time he entered the cocoon and when the others looked through the window and saw the red cocoon they started to clear their eyes before asking each other: "Is our young master a caterpillar? What''s with that cocoon?" "Should we alert the young lady?" "Uh... I guess we should, who knows how will the young lady react? But first, let''s just deliver the items so she won''t say we skipped our work." The door had a moderate-sized hole in it that was covered by a dark green metal, the duo removed the metal and looked through the hole to see tentacles growing out of the cocoon and reaching out for their eyes! They almost got scared to death as they fall backward and threw the ingredients in the hole before quickly sealing it up with the green metal. "We need to go now!" The duo rushed back into the house and immediately alerted Lin Luan. Lin Luan eyes widened as she heard what happened with her little brother and immediately left the house to arrive directly at the building in the back, looking through the window she started to analyze the cocoon as she muttered: "This is? Peak body refinement? That was extremely fast! How did he do that?" She finally looked at the noon sky and saw the currents of air moving weirdly. "Destiny? What is with this ludicrous amount of destiny! What''s wrong with the realm?" "Could it be? My little bro was chosen?" "But this didn''t happen to our family since the first ancestor''s generation... are we really this lucky?" Lin Luan felt something wasn''t right but she couldn''t put her finger on it, however, there was nothing she could do in this situation besides looking over her little brother''s transformation, she wondered how will he look after the momentous transformation the immense amount of destiny will bring him. "Let''s just wait and see..." Yun Duritz knew that he was being observed not only by his sister but by some strong ancestors that woke up because of the commotion he caused, but that was what he wanted to do! If he could rack in huge attention the transition between his ascension as the clan lord and his sister abdicating would be as smooth as butter! If he showed enough strength and talent the ancestors would surely accept him as the clan lord and afterward, he would be able to do what he wanted as long as he didn''t put the clan or its interests at risk! Yun Duritz had quite a lot of ideas that he wanted to employ after he became the clan lord, from what he understood the Lin clan were the guardians of the eastern gate of ascendance which meant there must be 3 other gates in the celestial realm! The environment in the celestial realm was too good compared to the mortal realm and he always thought about how much his main body could benefit from entering this realm and he could feel that his main''s body strength was continuously increasing even though he couldn''t communicate with it or get any help from it anymore. Yun Duritz''s body was continuously changing in the cocoon as his thoughts went elsewhere, he was thinking about the future and there was one word that was always surfacing in his mind: "INVASION!" Chapter 216: Evolution of life After he stopped thinking about the invasion plan, he started to concentrate on the changes that were currently going through his body after he entered the incubation state he was currently in. "Hmm... this body was initially made with the blood of the mortal realm but the bloodline from Duritz''s heart was slowly modeling it to the ideal body of the celestial realm, but this is an evolution even beyond that!" He felt that his whole life was flashing in front of his eyes, the memories from Yun Jhin''s memory core were flowing in the front of his mind as he realized that there were a lot of instances where he did things wrongly regarding body refinement. As his body evolved he understood things from a different perspective which was of a higher realm compared to his previous one. "This shall be really beneficial to the main body..." If the main body could fix all of the problems that unknowingly arose in his body refining he could perfect his cultivation tree and increase his cultivation speed by up to 300%. A bright smile appeared on Yun Duritz''s face as he realized that, his body started to move in the cocoon as his evolution continued, his organs started to turn more compact to withstand more strain and along with that his heart and blood were purified to an extreme to the point that they both became golden, a natural formation array also appeared on his heart which had the words of ''celestial'' imprinted on it. Now that he was one of the young masters of the celestial realm, the realm branded itself on him to show others who was his backer, if he wanted to he could let out bright golden light from his heart showing that he was a golden son of the celestial realm. "The evolution is almost done..." Even though the benefits from the evolution brought him a major bodily change that made him reach the peak of body refinement along with major changes to his organs his ki cultivation didn''t benefit as much as he only broke through to the 6th stage of the sage realm in one go, while destiny was useful for body refinement it was less useful for ki refinement, however it could still be used for ki refinement at a lower conversion rate, but Yun Duritz had already used a majority of it on body refinement and evolution while the leftovers were used on his ki cultivation. But it didn''t matter, as his body refinement reached the peak of possibility he broke through the cocoon and absorbed the destroyed leftovers back into his body, his eyes glowed with an azure-golden color as he put some new clothes over his naked body, they were prepared by his sister in cases there would be any explosive accidents with the cauldron and his old clothes would be burned to cinders. He now wore an azure robe inscribed with the words of Lin Clan on his back, a green sash was keeping his pants tied while a golden one was keeping his robe tied around his waist, he had brown sandals on his feet and his long blonde hair was now tied in a ponytail, while Duritz preferred wild hair, Yun Jhin was now in control of this body and he was annoyed by the wild hair so he straightened it out and tied it into a ponytail. He looked at the herbs and other ingredients that had been sent, they have been thrown over because the guards were scared of him but they weren''t damaged, he went over to the door and grabbed the ingredients from the floor before getting near the cauldron and starting a fire using his inner ki. While destiny wasn''t useful for ki cultivation the herbs and ingredients that Lin Luan had sent over were surely going to help him speedrun through the sage realm just like his main body did. Actually, if he thought about it, this secondary body might breakthrough even faster! A pill formula was inscribed on the tray that the ingredients came with, it was a special pill meant to nurture the body and heighten one''s bloodline, it was the specialty of the Lin family and it would boost both the body and bloodline at the same time, however, Yun Duritz did not need this pill anymore considering he had reached the peak in both with the use of destiny. While he was unfamiliar with the ingredients from the celestial realm he could infer their uses after a few scans with his soul willpower and a few tastes, after he identified each use of the herbs in front of him he started to do some hand seals as he threw them into the cauldron in a certain order. He had a handful of pills that he could create with the current herbs and he knew that the effects would be different considering he was swapping the pill ingredients but all he could think was that the effects would be greatly boosted! He closed his eyes as he put his hands near his stomach and his hand seals intensified in speed, the ki from his body left in a plume of smoke and entered the cauldron starting to melt the ingredients in there while coalescing into a ball form, the pill was already being created! After 2 days of continuous refinement under Yun Duritz''s inner fire, the ball hardened and transformed into a shiny golden pill. The pill was called Heaven Returning Dragon Dynasty Pill but considering its name was rather long Yun Jhin only abbreviated it to HRDDP and considering he used celestial items to create this pill, it could now be called the CHRDDP. Yun Jhin popped the pill in his mouth as it entered his neck and flew directly to his stomach, an explosion appeared in his body as the pill melted and torrents of wild ki flushed his whole body, however with his current body strength the currents didn''t do anything besides tickling him, the wide ki pathways accepted the ki into his body as the avatar of his second body grew in strength, his body shot past directly to the 9th stage of the sage realm and stopped thereafter only one pill but he knew that he wouldn''t be able to use the same pill for any further progress. Now that his body had reached the peak of body refinement it could squeeze out every potential bit of medicinal power from pills and herbs but his resistance to them was also extremely high to the point he was immune only after one use. It was both a good and bad thing, he could use less to achieve more but he would only be able to use those resources for only one time. He was trading the long road of breakthroughs for bursts, it was better if you had tons of unique resources but if you lacked those resources you would have a hard time breaking further without accumulation. But luckily for Yun Jhin all he had to do was ask and his ''allowance'' would be changed to the things he needed. His sister came at the moment he finished cultivating as a knock was heard on his door and the worried voice of his sister came through: "Are you alright bro Duritz?" Yun Duritz laughed as he flexed his biceps at the window while shouting for her attention: "I''m actually rather great, I don''t know what happened but I suddenly feel like my body is as though as the Dark Martial Iron." "Hahaha, you are bluffing bro, how could your body be so tough? Even I who reached the peak of body refinement wouldn''t be able to make such a claim." "Then what about a spar? I''m already quite near the God Realm." "Wait what? But it hasn''t even been more than one month, how could you have broken through so fast?" "Destiny doesn''t work on ki cultivation that well and I only gave him the body and bloodline refining pill formula, it would have taken him at least a few days to weeks to learn and master it and even if he ate thousands of those pills his cultivation wouldn''t have reached the 9th stage of the sage realm because of the properties of the pill... does my little brother harbor some secrets?" Yun Duritz waved his hand at Luan and said: "Celestial realm to Luan, what are you thinking about big sis? Are you just surprised by how awesome I am?" "You were always a boaster even before you lost your memories but it seems you also kept this part of your personality." "Ok, I''m going to let you out for a spar but don''t cry when I''m going to beat the tar out of you!" The door of the building opened as Yun Duritz left it with a noble gait, he waved at his ''sister'' as he activated his battle mode, his lean muscles bulked up very slightly to the point that there wasn''t a big difference, his blonde ponytail turned a pale green as his eyes lost their pupils for a few seconds before they regained them, the color changed from azure-golden to a deep green one. His aura intensified as the space around him started to crack from his bloodline power alone, his body had advanced so much that he would be able to fight with God Realm experts with it alone! Normally that shouldn''t have been possible and even his main body was unable to do this. but the superior celestial bloodline was full of surprises! Yun Duritz waved his hand at her provocatively telling her to come at him. "Well, aren''t you a bit too daring? I will still go easy on you considering you just broke through and only use a very small portion of my ki, let''s see who''s body is tougher!" Her eyes turned eyes as she transformed into the same form as Yun Duritz, but hers was different, her fat body started to lose layers of fat as it turned athletic and fit, her long blonde hair started to shorten until it was shoulder length and it became fully azure, she threw down the overly large clothes that didn''t fit on her new toned body anymore leaving herself only in a bra and black training pants, she cracked her neck and knuckles as she pointed at Yun Duritz. "Here I come Lil bro, let''s see if you will endure just like you had done in that silly kid game!" With one step forward a small crater appeared in the though earth below them, her body strength was easily shown as she appeared in front of Yun Duritz and a wide punch could be seen coming towards him, the punch was full of flaws but it was so fast and strong that the space around Yun Duritz finally broke like glass as he felt his hair stand on end! Chapter 217: The sucession ceremony The punch was rather slow and it came from a straight angle, Yun Duritz should have been able to easily dodge the punch but its slowness was only an illusion! When things became too fast the body would enter a time slowed event where you could see everything that was in front of you very clearly due to the extreme amount of adrenaline that was going through the body. In this situation, Yun Duritz''s body understood the danger that it went through and slowed everything for Yun Duritz''s convenience, however, Yun Jhin''s soul fragment knew that the power of this new body was something that wouldn''t fall short of the power shown by his ''sister''. Yun Duritz immediately counterattacked as he punched as well, their punches met in the middle as a blue shockwave appeared between them, a energy ball surrounded the two of them as their ki started to react instinctively to protect them against the destructive power coming from the shockwaves. They were now in a stalemate as they tried to outdo each other, trying to push with their whole body strength, the shield that covered them both disappeared as Luan gritted her teeth while her muscles started to move on her body. Her veins looked just like earthworms as blood pumped through her whole body trying to overpower Yun Duritz. Yun Duritz shouted as his power increased once more, his destiny tempering gave him an immense power up as he tapped into the refined bloodline for a second time! He reached tier 2 of his transformation as his muscles gained more mass and his height increased by 40 centimeters, this gave him an immense amount of strength for the trade-off a small amount of his speed and stamina. Luan was being pushed back slowly but surely, she gritted her teeth as a literal fire started to spill from her eyes, her lean body started to bulk up the same way that Yun Duritz''s did and she grew even taller than him! "Think you are the only one who learned this technique and progressed to this stage? While you may have gotten the destiny of the realm you shouldn''t look down on your big sis!" "I wasn''t looking down on you ''big sis'' but you fell right into my trap!" "What?" Suddenly Yun Duritz''s body deflated back to its initial state as he let go of the power struggle, due to the inertia Lin Luan couldn''t stop her massive body from pushing forward and Yun Duritz could firmly jump on her back and start bombarding her with his fists, his body bulked up again as his weight increased making it harder for her to get up. His punches were aimed at her vital parts then suddenly he took hold of her right arm and started pushing it doing the same thing she had done to him on their first meeting. "Say uncle big sis!" "Eh? You are trying this with your big sis? It seems your training made your guts quite big!" "Oh, guts aren''t the only thing that my training increased!" He started to push her arm so much that her tough bones that had been refined over and over again started to creak and crack. The sounds of bones cracking were so loud that even the guards that watched the battle winced. "Ready to say uncle big sis?" "Never!" "That''s what I wanted to hear..." Suddenly his arm inflated three times its initial size as he ripped her arm from her socket and threw it a few meters away. Luan shouted in pain as her transformation reverted she clutched her stump as blood flowed freely for there for a few seconds before a new arm grew there. She grimaced as she looked at Yun Duritz who was above her, his form deflated as he returned to his original form, he scratched the back of his head as he chuckled awkwardly before offering her a hand: "I don''t know what went through me at that time big sis but you just didn''t want to give up and considering how strong you were I don''t think a ripped arm would matter much right?" She sighed as she got up from the ground and then slapped him on the face: "The arm doesn''t matter but you have done this so sudden without any warning! We are family not enemies it doesn''t matter if you want to take revenge but at least give me a warning, the sudden pain wasn''t nice at all!" Yun Duritz put his hand on the place he had been slapped and laughed inside, this was only a little bit of payback. "Ok big sis I will make sure to announce you next time." She sighed as she said: "I guess you don''t really need to get to the God Realm to succeed me as the head of the family... you are already strong enough, it seems the destiny really helped you a lot to the point that you can beat me, even though I didn''t use my ki wholly you still beat me in body refinement which shows that you can fight on your own with those at the God Realm." "But why did I need to be at the God Realm anyway?" "Ah... we didn''t even give you the whole information, we were just too happy that you came back that we forgot to even tell you about the family!" She shook her head as they got out of the crater they created during the battle, as Yun Duritz looked backward at the crater he could see that it was slowly healing itself returning to normal ground levels after 10 seconds. "Interesting." They entered the house leaving the guards there who were still slack-jawed at the fight that happened. "You see our family had been guarding the eastern exit to the mortal realm for... well for since we existed? It''s been such a long time that not even our oldest elder knows truly when we were created, since you are going to inherit the patriarch position you just need to know that we need to have a good image for the public and that''s pretty much all, we have one of the easiest jobs in the celestial world!" "Hmm? Why is that?" "Why? Because no one can come from the mortal realm to the celestial realm and who would want to leave the celestial realm? Even Yuan Fang only left grudgingly after he realized that there was no more place for him on the continent after what he did to you..." "Only if you still had your memories we could have sent a squad to his location in the mortal realm and annihilated him once and for all!" Yun Duritz shook his head inside, there was no way to find him even if he had Duritz''s memories, would he be dumb enough to remain in the same place after the stunt he pulled? "Anyways let''s get you ready for the ceremony." ******************** Yun Duritz was firmly sitting on the throne meant for the patriarch as he looked down at the kneeling elder''s guards and his sister. The ceremony had been short and uninteresting, he had to get the blessing of the ancestors and some other dumb stuff that he didn''t even care about anymore as it was only a formality, he didn''t get to communicate with the souls of the ancestors nor get any ''reward'' for becoming the head of the house. Yun Duritz stood on the throne as he contemplated something before suddenly asking: "So what do I have to do now?" Everyone almost faceplanted at his question then looked at Luan with a face that asked "Haven''t you taught him anything?" Luan laughed awkwardly as she got up from her kneeling position and said: "Patriarch Duritz, now that you have ascended to this position you have quite a lot of responsibilities such as..." "???" Luan didn''t say anything as she scrunched her eyebrows then looked at the elders and other people in the room and bowed while saying: "What was the patriarch supposed to do again?" "We uh..." Yun Duritz felt a headache coming, up till now he hadn''t been able to analyze them due to the sudden actions they took against him, making him cultivate and having to fight his ''sister'' but it seems he had been given a house of fools! None of them even knew what the patriarch of the house was supposed to do! He had to act this way to ensure his identity but they were genuine fools! "This is better than expected, I can get all of the power as a patriarch and no responsibility! I should just make an expedition to the Soul Emperor Tomb and get those inheritances!" "So I don''t have to do anything?" Luan put a finger to her chin and thought for a few seconds: "Well while I was Matriarch I didn''t do anything so I guess you don''t have to do anything either?" "To be honest all I had to do was have a cultivation base at the God Realm and considering that I was the daughter of the former patriarch I became the Matriarch since you weren''t here." Yun Duritz got up from the throne and said: "Well since I don''t have to do anything I actually have a proposal!" "You mentioned the Soul Emperor a few times and how Yuan Fang got some of his techniques, maybe if I go there with some people I will regain my memories? And with my new destiny, I might even be able to get the inheritance!" "Oh no no, you understood wrongly, Yuan Fang had gone there but before he even met you! There is no way you can trigger any of your memories that way." Yun Duritz frowned inside but continued: "What about the inheritance of the soul emperor? Maybe it could help me regain my memories." "Hmm that sounds plausible but the tomb hadn''t been solved by no one even though it stood there even before our family was created officially, we had sent experts there quite a lot of times but they either got lost or came back empty-handed, we were actually extremely surprised to hear Yuan Fang and his friend got the inheritance of the Emperor and one of his stronger subordinates." "But since you want to get your memories back so badly how could we say no to our Patriarch? We don''t have anything to do anyways!" Yun Duritz could say cultivate but these people looked way more relaxed compared to the people of the mortal realm. They had a different attitude towards cultivation compared to the people in the mortal realm, if such a known tomb was public as they said it would have been raided or destroyed up till now in the mortal realm on the basis that if I can''t have it then no one will, or at least it would have been sealed if the materials it was made from were too durable. "Ok, then we shall create a team of guards for me and go there immediately!" "Of course, immediately after the congratulatory feast for you!" "Do we really have to?" The crowd immediately started to move as they said in unison: "But of course! A feast is a must for such a happy occasion!" Yun Duritz shook his head inside, these people''s strength was quite high but their personalities were just like those of a normal person''s, well albeit a little more extreme due to their immense strength but they didn''t have any type of malice in them, it was actually quite interesting in Yun Duritz''s opinion... they were also easier to manipulate. Chapter 218: The easy way to rob a tomb (1) Yun Duritz decided to indulge them in their wish for a feast, it wasn''t like the tomb would grow legs and leave the location and he wouldn''t lose the inheritance either, from their words he knew that for most of the people who knew about the existence of the tomb, it was akin to a dead end as no one came out with the inheritance or just didn''t come out at all, the only exception being Yuan Fang and Ukog. He had some of Ukog''s memories so he knew a little bit about the tomb but it was all rather blurry and fragmented so they wouldn''t be of much help or any help at all. The feast lasted exactly for one day and one night, the foods were excellent even for Yun Duritz''s standards and the ingredients they were made from were quite rare and precious meaning that Yun Duritz could stabilize his cultivation at the 9th stage of the sage realm and get his way paved to the God Realm to boot! However, as he got closer to the God Realm he realized that the laws he learned in the mortal realm didn''t match the ones in the celestial realm, they were off by a few percentages which meant problems, there was a chance he would be ignored when he tried to summon the laws with the knowledge he got from the mortal realm. Or the laws would get out of control and destroy his physical body and majorly injure his soul fragment to the point that it might get destroyed. Or there would be problems when the laws would fuse with his body and he would get crippled. There were many variants on how things could go wrong and if he didn''t fully master the laws of the celestial realm before he attempted the God Realm they could all happen. From his analysis, during his meditation, he understood that the differences between the laws of the celestial and mortal realms were only minuscule but as mentioned before the differences would be fatal. The only way to fix this would be to fill the gaps in his knowledge by learning the laws of the celestial realm but even at his best speed, he would be able to learn one law every 100 years. And that was way too slow for his liking. "I can''t go on a massacre with this identity and making enemies of God Realm experts at this stage isn''t good... the only way for me to speed up is getting the inheritance of the Soul Emperor, fortunately, no one could get their hands on it up till now." Yun Duritz sat on his throne as he contemplated, he already gave the order for their strongest team to come up for the expedition and as he thought about how to break the tomb open and get everything he wanted from it a voice broke his reverie: "Celestial Realm to Lin Duritz, everyone has been gathered just as you ordered!" Lin Lang came over as he saluted with a goofy smile on his face, he didn''t kneel or bow but Yun Duritz didn''t say anything, since they were supposed to be ''friends''. "Ok, then we shall go!" Yun Duritz got up from his throne as he disappeared along with Lin Lang, appearing outside the house to see a team made up of peak sage realm experts, they were the strongest guards that the family could afford, and most of them were made up of rather experienced hunters since wars were scarce to nonexistent on the eastern parts of the celestial realm they didn''t have any war veterans but Yun Duritz would work with what he got. "Since we are all here which one of you is the most familiar with the way to the tomb?" Lin Lang immediately interjected: "That would be Simon, he has the most knowledge of our surroundings as he is the one who hunts the most." Simon walked forward and took a small bow, he was a man of average height with two scars running in an X on his chin, he had a blade stalk in his mouth and he talked with a rather thick accent showing that he came from humble origins. "As ya heard da boss mah name is Simon, a pleasure to meet ya, as for ya question I can say that the quickest route is to cross the river so we can get to the mountain the tomb is on, boss." "River? Mountain?" "Oh yeah forgot yar noggin isn''t working as it supposed to, let''s just go I will take the lead." The man started to fly quickly and Yun Duritz and the others followed him, they were around 50 people in total and all of them were at the peak of the sage realm. They could be considered a rather unimpressive force but Yun Jhin didn''t start with such a strong force when he created his sect! This was only a backwater place and they already had quite a lot of experts not even counting the hidden ones nor its resource powers! This showed that the celestial realm was truly way more impressive compared to the mortal realm. Yun Duritz arrived at the river in question along with his whole team, as he looked over it he admired its golden color and length, it was quite long but not very wide so they could cross it rather easily by flying. Simon put his hand forward as he smelled the air for a few seconds before saying: "The Admiral Crocodiles are hibernating, it''s good we can cross the river." As Yun Duritz and the others got closer to the river he realized something, gravity increased exponentially the closer they got to the river and they had to swim through it if they wanted to cross. The golden color meant that the river was metal attributed. Actually, the river could be considered a rather insidious living creature as it could hide its metal fluctuations unless you were too close to it, it had a symbiotic relationship with the Admiral Crocodiles. Simon described everything he knew about the river as he crossed it while Yun Duritz took everything in like a sponge. The more he knew about the flora and fauna of the celestial realm the easier it would be for him to travel it after he ripped himself away from the Lin family. After they crossed the river they arrived in a forest that they traversed using Simon''s experience Yun Duritz continued to ask him for whatever knowledge he had. After they traveled through the forest they finally reached a mountain which they scaled normally unlike the two previous obstacles there wasn''t anything that Yun Duritz didn''t know about scaling mountains. As they reached the peak of the mountain they finally saw it, the tomb of the soul emperor! Naming it a tomb was rather incorrect as it looked more like a Buddhist temple, painted in yellow and red it stood there majestically, the doors of the temple were both wide open and nothing could be heard from inside it, it was actually quite eerie. But Yun Duritz had a team of courageous people with him so they all entered the temple without saying a peep. Duritz looked around but he was disappointed as there was truly nothing in the temple! Even the prayer mats were missing! He closed his eyes as he concentrated on the destiny accumulation that fused with his whole body. The destiny swirled around his body as a snake would then started to travel through the whole temple, the destiny was just like water trying to burst a dam down, the illusion that covered the whole temple started to break as Yun Duritz concentrated with all of his strength, the people around him started to disappear as if he was entering a higher dimension. He opened his eyes and as he looked around he realized that he wasn''t in the same place as before, none of the people that he had been with were around him anymore, it seemed he was right, only the fated ones would be able to enter the true ''tomb''. The difference between the layout of the temple wasn''t changed at all, the only difference was that there was no one around him now. "Hmmm..." Where could the inheritance be? Yun Duritz looked through the whole temple again and this time he did find a few items here and there. He found a few bells that could shake the souls of those who heard them and some pills that were meant to cleanse the soul, some soul poison, or other things that had to do with souls. He was actually quite disappointed with the number of items he found but this was only the first layer of the tomb, there would surely be more things to be found. As he finished the first layer he decided to go to the storage rooms and cellar of the temple there he found some specially brewed wine that was meant to confound the soul... and it was useless, everything in the first layer was useless to Yun Duritz! He sighed as he decided to advance into the second layer, maybe he could get things he could use in this one. Duritz closed his eyes again as he started to do the same thing as he had done the first time he entered the true ''tomb'' his surroundings changed again but this time he wasn''t in the temple anymore... He was at a waterfall in a beautiful valley, a clear river was near him and as he got closer to it he could see something glittering inside... Chapter 219: The easy way to rob a tomb (2) The intense light from the river immediately attracted Yun Duritz towards it, it was almost like his soul had been bewitched by whatever was in the water. The shining glow on the river bed was immediately identified as Yun Duritz placed his hand in the water and scooped up a small blue pearl. The blue pearl was inscribed with runes and Yun Duritz could feel it heat up in his hand, it was getting so hot that it was almost ready to immolate his skin. However, with an easy application of ki to the hand that was holding the pearl, he easily insulated it making it fire-proof. The pearl color started to turn red from the normal blue from before, Yun Duritz wasn''t really familiar with the pearl as it was something he had never seen before as a specialty of the celestial realm. He inserted his ki into the pearl but there were no reactions which left him with only one other option, he inserted a strand of his soul willpower in the pill and he could feel it getting burned, but it wasn''t painful, it was just like taking a hot bath, actually, his soul was getting tempered by the heat. The pearl then turned to blue again as a deep coldness attacked his soul, it seemed the pearl could be used to temper the soul using the dualities of Yin and Yang. As Yun Duritz looked around he could see a lot of those glitters in the water meaning that there were approximately around 5000 pearls. He popped the pearl into his mouth as he crushed it with his teeth, the hot and cold energies inside it were then rushed towards his mind palace where his soul resided, it was quickly tempered by the assault of dual energies. His eyes widened as he felt his soul become more ''whole'', the soul that controlled this body was only a fragment of Yun Jhin''s main soul but the pearl he used made the fragment increase in size, he was basically 1/10th of a soul but now he was 1.5/10th of a whole soul. The pearls could make this sub-body of his a whole clone! This would come with so many benefits that Yun Duritz couldn''t list them all at this moment. His eyes became fiery as he opened his mouth and absorbed all of the pearls into his mouth where he disintegrated them into a river of energy that he sent to his mind palace. His soul felt like a lone boat on a stormy ocean night, his soul was growing at a visible speed as it grew from 1.5 to 2, 3, 4, 6, and it stopped around at 8.5/10th parts. Yun Duritz could feel the size of his soul and how his connection to his body was way more secure than before, it was almost as if this body was truly his! As his soul grew into the shell he created that meant there was no disagreement between the body and soul, if a strong soul entered a weak body it would either need to ''dumb'' itself down to the level of the body to not destroy it, this applied in the reverse for a weak soul in a strong body, up till now Yun Duritz couldn''t use 100% of his bodily strength due to his soul not being accepted properly by the body. But now as he clenched his fist he could feel the space around him tremble and cracks appearing in the space-time around him, he stopped clenching his fist as he didn''t want to trigger any traps from the tomb and he continued to look around after he consumed all of the pearls there was nothing of worth remaining in the river. The valley didn''t have any herbs or something of worth besides the river and the waterfall so he decided to approach the waterfall and see if there was anything of note near it. The waterfall was falling at high speeds and Yun Duritz decided to go under it, the waterfall battering his body didn''t affect his speed at all as he went through it only to find that there was no cave behind it... in most situations, a cave would be situated behind a waterfall but here he was sorely disappointed to find otherwise. He found a good rock that he sat on enduring the falling water from above... maybe the waterfall itself was special? As he endured the pressurized water attacking his whole body with its weight he didn''t actually feel anything, his body was tempered to the limit and it couldn''t get stronger anymore and the water didn''t help his soul strengthen itself nor complete it as it remained at 8.5/10 parts. Were the pearls the whole thing or was his body too strong to get the benefits from the waterfall? He shook his head, well it was time to arrive at the last part of the tomb. The destiny around him reached the peak as he disappeared from where he was and arriving in a dark room full of sarcophaguses. Each sarcophagus had a vivid human face on it that showed how the dead person looked when he was alive, there were also inscriptions of the history of the person along with a couplet left behind. Yun Duritz looked at each sarcophagus and read the couplets: "What life in death but a fleeting moment, cultivation is meant to lengthen the moment but why are we running after eternal life?" "Eternal life is like the sands of time, always existing but still ongoing, will I be happy if I achieve it?" "Death doesn''t scare but what scares me is the unknown after death, what is the afterlife like?" "I slew until I couldn''t move but in the end, I still fell." All of the couplets told the last happenings or musings of these people before they died, and Yun Duritz found them to be rather cliched, he had already thought about those questions for a lot of time, and his obsession with eternal life never faltered, he was sure these people didn''t even reincarnate once and they were already faltering, they didn''t have any backbone! But he did get something from reading their couplets, he had got some inheritances in the form of cultivation techniques that he didn''t really need, these people must have been the underlings of the soul emperor and they were buried with him. Yun Duritz ignored most of the sarcophagus as he walked further into the darkroom that was only being illuminated by a small light coming from the end of it. As he arrived at the end of the room he could feel the room''s temperature lowering, his teeth started to chatter even though his body couldn''t feel the cold due to how strong it was, it was a cold that infiltrated his soul! "Finally... someone with destiny." A disembodied voice was heard coming from the light and a vile sarcophagus appeared in front of Yun Duritz''s face, the sarcophagus face and his were so close that they were almost kissing, and considering how ugly and disgusting the face was, Yun Duritz would have vomited if he was of a weaker will... The light was embedded on the forehead of the face, it''s closed eyes suddenly opened as the sarcophagus opened and tried to suck Yun Duritz in. Yun Duritz let himself be sucked in as he was embraced by a mummy, the mummy tried to bite his head only for its rotten teeth to break, Yun Duritz chuckled as he looked at the mummy: "Only leaving a soul strand behind and trying to take over my fleshly body with such a weak and decrepit reserve body?" The soul Emperor existence had weakened all of his attempts at reviving himself this way, actually, it wasn''t even the soul emperor anymore as the main soul should have either arrived in the afterlife and reincarnated by now, it was just a stubborn piece of soul willpower that didn''t want to leave. Yun Duritz easily broke the mummies body and took out something from its chest, it was an azure tome inscribed with the words of soul emperor doctrines on it. The soul light tried to possess Yun Duritz''s body but it wouldn''t have been able to even when he was at 1.5/10 parts. The light was assimilated into his soul as he easily got the whole inheritance of the soul emperor... well not whole because it was only a part of the soul and it was already very old, but did he get what he wanted, the knowledge of the laws that he needed so much, actually for someone of the celestial realm this would have been a useless endeavor as they would have been born in the realm and by now they would have learned some of the laws in preparation for their advancement to the God Realm. The soul emperor''s treasure stash could be considered rather poor but this was also considering that Yuan Fang must have gone through the same stash once and the things he had left behind were because he either felt they were useless or he was too encumbered by the number of treasures he had on him. Regardless of everything Yun Duritz got what he needed so it was time to leave, he flexed his body as the sarcophagus broke down and he left it only to see mummies starting to crawl out of all of the other sarcophaguses. He shook his head as his aura started to materialize: "I guess I will take all of the inheritances from you, you just have to force my hands don''t you? Well, I guess I will take your gifts then!" Chapter 220: Returning triumphantly with loot The mummies stood in groups of 2 and 3 and they were around 300 in total, however, their numbers didn''t intimidate Yun Duritz at all. He had a smile on his face as he walked in their midst like a wolf in a flock of sheep, they were all so old and brittle that all he needed to do was create some strong airwaves with his ki to destroy them when their bodies would dissipate into dust he would casually take whatever was stored in their chests. This way he got quite a lot of useless inheritances, most of these people were just cannon fodder in the Soul Emperor''s eyes but they were still buried with him because they were loyal, most of them actually died before the Soul Emperor. His direct subordinates couldn''t be found among the mummies that Yun Duritz was killing which meant that Yuan Fang should have got their inheritances, Ukog got the teleportation technique that still ended up in Yun Jhin''s hands but what did Yuan Fang get? At first, he thought that he might have gotten something from the Soul Emperor but it was obvious the old fogie sarcophagus hasn''t been touched. So what did Yuan Fang get from this tomb? He was sure he had entered it as he had a fortuned constitution and his destiny must be massive even higher than what he had absorbed in the mortal realm. As he finished killing the mummies the question continued to plague him, there was no way Yuan Fang would have exited this place empty-handed and he wasn''t such a good person to go personally to help Ukog. He shook his head, at this point he had gone through every nook and cranny of the place and he didn''t find any other spot that could have held a treasure or inheritance. Since he couldn''t find anything he shouldn''t beat his head with the details, he had already beaten Yuan Fang a few times and took care of his two most important underlings, he also got the true inheritance of the soul emperor so he shouldn''t care about what Yuan Fang got. He slowly exited each layer of the tomb and appeared in front of Lin Lang, Simon, and the others. Seeing how he reappeared made the others glad as they sighed in unison, what could they tell Luan when they would say that they lost the head of the house? Yun Duritz took a look around his troops and nodded as he said: "I have found the inheritance and got quite a lot of good stuff, we shall share it with everyone back at the city." The troops cheered as they took their way back using the same path with no problems, the admiral crocodiles were still hibernating as it didn''t take much time for Yun Duritz to clear the tomb. They reached the city and entered it before going straight to the house of the clan. There Yun Duritz took his seat on the patriarch''s throne before he initiated a meeting. All of the people that came beforehand appeared again, they didn''t seem bothered at all Yun Duritz invited them here again even though normally they should have been angry that they were being disrupted from their cultivation time, it seemed the celestial realm netizens truly had different views on cultivation compared to the mortal realm ones. "I have been to the Soul Emperor''s tomb and I have come back with results!" The elders and his big sister had wide eyes as they heard what he said, no one had ever come with anything from the tomb up till now and they really wanted to see what Yun Duritz brought. Yun Duritz took a small pile of jade slips and bamboo parchments out of his spatial dimension as he threw them on the ground in front of him, he waved his hand and said: "These are all from the tomb." An old man with braided hair and a small beard came forward and took a bamboo parchment from the pile and started reading it, the moment he read the first few lines on the parchment he immediately became entranced and couldn''t stop himself from reading until he had finished the whole thing in one sitting. "Such exquisite calligraphy, such important insights about the power of the ki energy core... this is a scripture!" The old man even wanted to kiss the parchment but stopped himself as the others looked at him strangely. He made a ''humph'' sound as he disappeared with the parchment in tow. The others immediately went ahead to see what the hubbub was about: "Old Ma looked like he saw his late wife, what the hell was on that parchment? Could it have been an old romance novel?" "Hey Old Ma isn''t such a huge pervert, right? Who knows where that parchment had been after all the young master had taken it from a tomb..." "Eh, that''s for Old Ma to worry about... I will surely not get intimate with mine." "Why do I feel like your eyes were flickering when you said that?" "Ahem." Yun Duritz felt really awkward seeing them talk, it was like he was looking at children, as the saying went, war makes strong men while peace made weak men, this didn''t actually apply to their bodily strength but to their mentality. He sighed then decided to leave them alone with the scrolls, parchments, and slips. Yun Duritz went to the back of the house and decided to look through the Soul Emperor''s technique. Yun Duritz took the azure tome out of his spatial dimension and inspected it with his soul willpower for a few seconds to make sure it was safe, while the trap would be quite of poor quality due to the immense amount of time it had gone through it should still exist, it was way too easy to acquire the tome so there should be some other fail-safes the emperor had put in case too much time had passed and his original plans became unusable. The tome opened up as Yun Duritz flipped through the pages but as he looked at them he started laughing: "The first three pages are empty... so this is how Yuan Fang got some of the inheritance." "Well let''s see what''s left." The tome wasn''t very big, it had a total of 30 pages and only its cover was rather thick. The first three pages recorded one technique so in total there were 10 techniques. The next 3 pages recorded a technique meant to temper the soul into a weapon form creating weapon willpower instead of the normal soul willpower, Yun Duritz could create weapons with his soul willpower but this technique was meant to temper this aspect of soul usage so he memorized it, the moment he did it disappeared from the tome. "Hmm, interesting writing technique.. once the technique is memorized it disappears completely from the tome." The other techniques in the tome were all rather useful so Yun Duritz learned all of them before burning the tome into cinders. Actually one of the techniques took his attention, it was the last one, and it what he needed in this situation... A technique specifically made to forcefully control God Realm experts! He immediately became entranced the moment he saw this technique, this was something he had always wanted the moment he found out that God Realm experts had complete protection from full mind control and they could only be brainwashed or restrained in other ways. Yun Jhin always had control problems as he wanted everything to be done exactly as he said, and he was actually quite mad he couldn''t forcefully control the minds of the others completely otherwise they would explode. But now he had one way to do what he wanted and he was going to experiment immediately! He summoned Lin Lang to him under the guise that he wanted to try and regain his memories by chatting with him as the visit to the tomb had triggered something in him saying that he started to remember a few things and reminiscing them with a close friend would quicken the process. Lin Luan immediately came over with two jugs of wine and laughed as he saw Yun Duritz sitting cross-legged in the garden behind the house, he threw one jug over which Yun Duritz caught easily and downed in a few gulps. Lin Luan downed his own jug and came closer before sitting cross-legged near him and starting to talk about their past. However Yun Duritz just stayed there looking at him, directly in the eyes without blinking at all, this unnerved Lin Luan since he knew that Duritz would never act like this normally so he asked: "Are you ok man? You seem to act weird." "Me? Oh, there is nothing just something that I have picked up at the tomb, tell me how are the others doing?" "Hmmm? Your sister and the other elders are still engrossed in the things you have brought back from the tomb, why are you asking?" "Oh for no reason..." Suddenly Yun Duritz''s hand sneaked upon Lin Lang''s chest where a concentrated blast of crimson energy entered him and left through his back leaving a gaping hole through his chest. The man coughed a mouthful of blood as he fell in surprise and dread as he looked at Yun Duritz and asked with a trembling voice: "Why??" "Oh for no particular reason, now go to sleep!" Yun Duritz''s soul willpower entered Lin Lang''s soul palace as it crushed the man''s soul making it go immobile thus his body went unconscious. Then he went to work... small blue tentacles left Yun Duritz''s soul as they infiltrated Lin Lang''s whole body then entered his heart where they left a seed that grew immediately into a blue skull that started screeching then exploded turning Lin Lang''s heart blue. Then the tentacles entered Lin Lang''s soul palace where they infiltrated his soul core but they didn''t touch any of his important thinking parts nor did they attempt to forcefully take control... they went ahead to the memory part of the core and inserted themselves deeply at the beginning parts of Lin Lang''s memories where they left another seed, this time it wasn''t a skull that sprouted but a small owl that took flight into Lin Lang''s memory core and disappeared as if it was never there. Yun Duritz then revitalized Lin Lang and let him wake up, when Lin Lang saw Yun Duritz he didn''t say anything as if he was never attacked a few seconds ago, he just got up bowed and left according to the mental orders that Yun Duritz gave. Yes, mental orders... Yun Duritz had applied the technique and now he had full control over Lin Lang even though the man was a 2nd stage God Realm expert, and to boot, he could control him using his soul willpower alone! Yun Duritz smiled as he looked towards the house... he would make sure he had more time to enslave everyone else so there would be no hubbub when he would open the gate to invite his main body in. Chapter 221: Yun Jhin is coming Yun Duritz knew that the technique wasn''t perfected yet, he had used a lot of energy and concentration to enslave Lin Lang so that meant he couldn''t do the process with more than one person so he had to enslave them one by one. Lin Lang transmitted him that they were still looking through the loot he had brought back which meant it wasn''t the time to enslave them yet, only when they left to study more deeply by themselves would he make his move. It didn''t take him much waiting time before Lin Lang reported to him that his sister had taken a jade slip and left to her room to study it further so she could gain some enlightenment from it. "Payback time... I will show you who will say uncle in the end..." As a rather prideful being who was once at the peak of the God Realm Yun Duritz''s soul fragment was quite vengeful even for the smallest things that would be done to him, he was actually quite childish in this regard but he knew when to stop himself, however, he would strike quickly and mercilessly if the opportunity arrived. And the opportunity was sweetly within his grasp, all he had to do was put his hand over it and grasp it firmly, at this point all of the elders and guards were either rummaging through the pile of antiques or either leaving quickly for their residences to absorb the knowledge. This was the best time to strike! Lin Luan''s room was near the end of the house just as you left to the garden so he got there rather quickly as he just saw the door of her room closing itself. Yun Duritz took a few steps towards the door then knocked while saying: "Big sis, your Lil bro has come for some chatting, I think Lin Lang had informed you already about the things I want to talk to you about." Some shuffling could be heard from behind the door as it opened shortly, Luan''s head sticking out of the door as she said: "Oh sure Lil bro, come in come in, this was supposed to be your room anyways." Yun Duritz entered and looked around, it was a scarcely decorated room with a bed a dining table, and a cauldron, it wasn''t much different from the room behind the house. The only difference would be that this room had two windows while the one behind the house only had one. "Lin Lang told me you talked with him that you recovered some of your memories and you want me to help you recover some more?" "Yeah that''s true big sis, some of them came back with the help of the inheritance from the tomb, I haven''t been actually that truthful with all of you, besides that pile of manuscripts, jade slips, and other knowledge filled papers I have also got the direct inheritance from the Soul Emperor himself!" "The direct inheritance? Wow, that''s great Lil bro? Mind if you shared it with your big sister?" "Ah, the thing about that is..." "Hmm? You don''t want to share Lil bro? Do you want to try and say uncle again?" "It''s not that I want but I can''t, all of the inheritance had disappeared from the tome that I learned it from then it self-destructed." "You for real?" "Yeah but I can try to teach it to you, however, I''m not sure if it would work considering that I learned it very quickly from the tome which showed that there would either be great difficulties teaching it to someone directly or that it''s almost impossible unless you... you know absorb my soul with my agreement. "Then forget it Lil bro, it''s good enough you got to learn the techniques yourself, we shouldn''t be too greedy, it''s unfortunate that you aren''t able to teach the techniques to others in the family." Yun Duritz laughed awkwardly as he got closer to her and said: "Then shall we talk about our past?" "Yeah sure let''s get going, getting back your memories is a benefit for everyone, you might even break through to the God Realm!" Then she started to narrate some events that happened to the two of them when they were young, Yun Duritz listened to everything and memorized it as his hand started to sneak towards her chest. While she was entranced in her storytelling she didn''t realize until she felt a little touch on her breasts: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING LIL BRO? WE ARE BLOOD-RELATED!" "Oh it''s a misunderstanding, I''m not touching you there for that." "Eh? Then why would you even?" Suddenly she looked down as blood started to gush from her mouth and a moderately sized hole appeared in her chest: "You... you aren''t Lin Duritz!" "Too late to realize that you fool!" The same thing as with Lin Lang happened with Luan, her eyes turned vacant as she became unconscious while Yun Duritz slowly started to take over her soul, this time it took even longer considering she was two stages above Lin Lang''s cultivation. Her eyes opened as a light flickered therein and she bowed towards Yun Duritz while saying: "Master." "Another one has been added to my collection, splendid!" "Tell me the living locations of all of the God Realm elders and guards." The information was swiftly sent towards his soul as he got what he needed thus leaving her behind with the guise of still learning from the jade slip. Yun Duritz started to disappear and appear around the house slowly taking control of the whole Lin household, elders, grand elders, and guards that were at the God Realm but below the late stage. All of the late-stage cultivators were either meditating inside the deepest layers of the house that Yun Duritz couldn''t get without attracting their attention, and he wasn''t at the God Realm yet with his ki cultivation so it would be a stretch to fight those people yet, either way, he had enslaved all of the surface forces of the family and he was now truly in control of the Lin family, they were also way more serious and Yun Duritz even imparted them some of his cultivation experiences coming from Yun Jhin''s memories thus their cultivation bases and battle power had improved by a bit, they only had to digest the experiences and they might even breakthrough in a thousand years or so. Now that he had whole control of the family he had gone to the library and read every book that could be found in it, then he got his hands on the most important information book that the patriarch could only get with the acceptance of the council of elders but considering Yun Duritz controlled everyone he just shuffled through it and absorbed all of the information without the need of any approval. "So this is how the bloodlines are inserted into the database of the gate... It seems that those that do not have any connection to the celestial realm can''t enter even if they have their bloodline in the records... that''s interesting." Fortunately for Yun Jhin he had a celestial bloodline and his efforts weren''t in vain, all Yun Duritz had to do was insert the bloodline into the database of the gate and Yun Jhin would be able to ascend to the celestial realm where he could finally wreak havoc and get continuous breakthroughs due to the especially good environment. Yun Duritz left the city to return to the gate''s location back into the forest where he summoned it according to the instructions he read in the book, he used his blood as a catalyst along with a chant and the door appeared, but it was different compared to the time he saw it in the mortal realm. It wasn''t as shining anymore and a small compartment opened up on the side that had quite a lot of samples of blood in it, each labeled with the names of the families that lived under the control of the Lin house. "Hmmm all I have to do is insert Yun Jhin''s blood here and he would be able to arrive at the celestial realm but the question is... how shall I even tell him he can come?" "Well, whatever let''s finish the job here first." He still had Yun Jhin''s bloodline in his body as he kept it there in case of emergency or if he ever needed the blood for something. He took it out as he stabbed himself in the chest and let the blood flow into a small container that he got for this occasion, he then inscribed Yun Jhin''s name on the container and put it in the opening. He then closed it and did some more hand seals letting the portal disappear and return to its normal place and activity. ******************** In the mortal realm at the blood throne sect under the dark palace, Yun Jhin opened his eyes as he felt his bloodline resonating with the location of the celestial realm''s portal... "Ah I didn''t even have to wait for much time... but what can I expect from myself besides extreme efficiency?" Chapter 222: Yun Jhin has arrived "It seems creating that out-of-body incarnation was the right decision... such a quick and excellent work, I''m impressed with myself!" Yun Jhin got up from his cross-legged position above the blood river as he called upon Marthon, Marthon arrived immediately as he got the call from Yun Jhin and kneeled in front of him. "From now on you will be the patriarch of the sect... I have some business to take care of... from now on you will not be Marthon anymore." "Your highness I? What do you mean by that." "Oh, just one thing..." Yun Jhin''s arm inserted itself into Marthon''s skull as life started to slip away from his eyes, he couldn''t leave behind any weaklings to control the sect no matter how brainwashed he was, he was going to create another out of body incarnation to control the blood river! Not much time had passed since Yun Duritz had arrived in the celestial realm, it was below 1 year and Marthon hadn''t grown much, he was around the 8th stage of the sage realm now, even though the resources of the sect had been used on Yun Duritz, Yun Jhin could increase the cultivation of his closer confidantes using blood sacrifices, as the sect population increased there were even more benefits to be reaped, in Yun Jhin''s eyes they were all sheep waiting for their wool to be harvested or slaughtered for their meat. Unlike the previous situation, Yun Jhin could create an out-of-body incarnation with the cultivation at the 8th stage of the sage realm as he wasn''t using a newly created body. Marthon opened his eyes and did another bow before he left not announcing anything, now that he was an out of body incarnation he could control the blood river as well as the original, albeit it would be weaker due to the lack of cultivation base but he would be able to defend the headquarters from the predatory eyes of all of those interested. Now that he had finished the preparations for leaving Yun Jhin immediately disappeared from the cave and started to teleport to the location of the gate to the celestial realm. He appeared in the empty galaxy as he took in a deep breath the gate to the celestial realm appeared by itself and started to light up just as before, but unlike before he successfully passed through it! Yun Jhin opened his eyes to find himself in a beautiful forest, the same bear that first met Yun Duritz was in the same position as before but unlike the laughing expression that he had when he met Duritz he felt as if he was ready to pee himself as Yun Jhin got up from the ground and his aura was unleashed at full power. "Hahahaha." All of Yun Duritz''s memories and current actions were reflected in his mind as his connection with him was restored, he didn''t think he would get so much helpful information combined with the techniques from the Soul Emperor this was literally the best day of his current life! All of the things that happened with Yun Duritz poured into his mind as he got a hold of the laws of the celestial realm, he had the same problem as Duritz regarding breakthroughs and with the laws taken from the soul emperor''s tomb, he wouldn''t have problems with breaking through until the 8th stage of the God Realm! The inheritance contained only 64 laws because it wasn''t complete. Yun Jhin disappeared after he put two fingers on his forehead and appeared directly in the house near Yun Duritz. Yun Duritz bowed to him and Yun Jhin laughed as he put his hand forward for a handshake. Duritz''s eyes shined as he shook Yun Jhin''s hand, his body started to transform into little light particles that Yun Jhin''s body started to absorb, his body refining rank immediately jumped to the 10,000th ranks and catalyzed itself as Yun Duritz''s bloodline was absorbed into Yun Jhin''s body, as he was an out of body incarnation so whatever he had was Yun Jhin''s when Yun Jhin decided it was time to go back to him he would be absorbed and all of his cultivation would be catalyzed into Yun Jhin''s body along with his bodily strength. Yun Jhin let out a breath that contained all of his frustrations from not being able to get into the celestial realm, his body reached the peak once again, he enjoyed the feeling of having the ultimate body strength as the Lin family''s bloodline started to run rampant into his body, his muscles grew a little bit as his hair grew in length and changed to a pale green color before these changes reverted. "Ah this is certainly a good transformation bloodline technique... the power increase is substantial." Yun Jhin took a liking to the bloodline technique as his aura and face changed to Yun Duritz''s. Even though the absorption was instant and he still needed to play the part in case any of the old folks woke up and wanted to see him. Now that he was here with his main body it was easier for him to act how he wanted considering his current cultivation was at the 4th stage and with the absorption of Yun Duritz he had recovered his soul power to its maximum and even improved it by more than 50%, he even felt that he was near a breakthrough! "The 5th stage... yes I should breakthrough soon the oldbies will be alerted that way but that''s what I want as they don''t know my cultivation and everyone else who did is already mind-controlled, they would surely come to congratulate me and that''s when I will strike... taking full control of the Lin family will make me the overlord of these eastern parts and I will be able to move wherever I want..." Yun Jhin directly went to work as he started to channel the laws that he got from the Soul Emperor... his eyes clouded over as beams of energy left his body towards the skies where the laws were invited. Because Yun Jhin current body was filled with an immense amount of destiny that he absorbed from Duritz the laws acted as if they were sharks that smelled blood as they rushed directly into his body and fused with it. 8 laws became 16 laws as Yun Jhin''s body was enshrouded in a myriad of colors his cultivation finally increased once again! He opened his eyes as he clenched his hand and punched the space in front of him destroying it thoroughly. Under the house, 3 old men and 1 old woman suddenly woke up as they looked above and said: "This is...? Lin Duritz? Wasn''t he kidnapped by that Yuan Fang? When did he get back?" "Hmm... it seems he is back and in his whole minds if no one attacks him and he is on the patriarch''s seat, and his cultivation base isn''t bad at all, it seems he just broke through and surpassed his big sister!" "Should we go and grace him with our presence? It''s customary for the patriarch to kneel before the ancestors for him to be truly accepted by the family, we didn''t have to do this with Luan as she was only there to fill the role but considering Duritz is back we should go." "Indeed, let''s throw a banquet as well, we had been cultivating for such a long time but we still couldn''t reach the peak of the God Realm... its unfortunate but we won''t be able to join the ranks of the upper families until our deaths... well at least we will be able to hold onto our middle rank." The 4 people flew through the ground as if they were ghosts and appeared in the throne room directly in front of Yun Jhin as they unleashed their auras. Yun Jhin looked at them and bowed while saying: "The ancestors I presume?" "Indeed Lin Duritz, your act of breaking through had woke us up and we came to... install you properly as the patriarch as well as to party!" "Oh, there are more things to be done before I''m truly the patriarch? I thought that was everything according to my sister." "That was everything for her but not for you, you are the rightful successor so you are supposed to do a few more things compared to her who was just filling the status, now come here and kneel to us so we can give you your blessing!" Yun Jhin took a few steps forward as he kneeled in front of the 4 oldbies before chuckling darkly, the chuckle didn''t escape the big ears of the elders in front of him as they asked: "Mind telling us what''s so funny young man?" "Oh, you wouldn''t understand even if I told you... but let''s say that we will have a change of pace around here from now on." "I don''t understand what do you mean... you?" Suddenly a pentagram formation appeared below the feet of Yun Jhin and the elders as Lin Lang, Lin Luan, and a few other elders appeared from nowhere, they were powering up the formation with their own blood as they bleed slowly in the formation nodes to keep the formation going, Yun Jhin got up from his kneeling position as his body muscle mass increased and his transformation commenced. The 4 elders couldn''t move for a few seconds before they broke through the pentagram formation restrictions only for them to realize that while they were not paralyzed anymore they were still weakened by around 20%! "Junior you dare!" The 4 old people said in unison as they started to power up making their flaky and weak-looking bodies become just like those of bodybuilders the old woman included, this was the extreme form of the transformation which traded speed for strength fully, considering they were trapped together this was the best form for this occasion. However, Yun Jhin was using the balanced form instead. Yun Jhin easily moved amongst them as if he was a ghost, he was basically dancing and weaving through their fist, palm, and leg attacks as he finally returned one attack, a leg sweep that made the 4 of them fall to the floor so hard that they left 4 indents on it. The female elder grunted as she said: "Occasional gravity outbursts?" "Ding Ding Ding, you are correct, do you know what''s your prize?" Yun Jhin immediately appeared above her as he drove his leg on her neck cutting her oxygen supply and immobilizing her as he hit three parts of her meridians with his fingers on her chest and arms making her unable to move. The three old men got up as they glared at Yun Jhin seeing their companion being immobilized on the floor being unable to even talk! "You made a mistake to rebel, you all don''t know that we are needed for the continuation of this family! Why are you doing this? We aren''t even interested in secular affairs!" Everyone kept mum as Yun Jhin didn''t tell them to talk. Yun Jhin appeared near them as his aura intensified and theirs started to diminish: "Oh, you will see... you will join them in their collective thinking very soon." The three elders glanced at each other as they suddenly started dancing confusing Yun Jhin as his aura faltered for a second... Were celestial realm folks really clowns in disguise??? Chapter 223: Total control of the Lin family The dance made Yun Jhin stumbled for half a second, they were in a serious life and death situation and now they were doing a comedic dance? However, Yun Jhin''s eyes widened as he realized that the dance didn''t mean to have a comedic effect, a curtain of light enveloped the 3 elders as they transformed into motes of light that fused! Yun Jhin could almost not believe his eyes such a special technique existed, he could only fuse with out-of-body incarnations, clones, or avatars but there was no fusion technique meant to fuse two different individuals into one body, at least he didn''t know of any. But the impossible just happened in front of his eyes! Yun Jhin was both happy and apprehensive as the fusion process finished almost instantly, out of the light came a rather young androgynous person, when the three of them looked like they had half a step into the grave the person that came out looked middle-aged at best. It seemed the fusion was successful as the combined voices of three people came out of the middle-aged androgynous person''s mouth: "We shall take you down in the name of the Lin family you impostor!" Yun Jhin''s features turned back to normal as he cracked his neck and knuckles his form started to morph as his muscle mass increased but not to a high amount, it was basically graded 2 on the transformation tier list. His hair grew in length as it turned pale green and a devilish tail grew out of his tailbone as it started to move menacingly behind him, he put his hand through space as he reached into his personal spatial dimension to take out a long halberd that was red as blood, after many tempering in the blood river his halberd became a Godly tiered weapon! He could feel a strong pressure coming from the fused being in front of him, it was to the point that he actually needed to get serious for the second time in this life, up till now the only other occasion when he got serious was when he was injured fighting Yuan Fang on that dying planet... this could be considered the second time. Yun Jhin''s spat out a white cloud as his figure was enshrouded in the cloud and disappeared from the view of the fused being. The fused being looked around trying to identify where Yun Jhin could have gone but a puzzled expression appeared on its face as it realized that Yun Jhin was nowhere in the closed space they were in! That was impossible considering the pentagram formation cut off the outside and Yun Jhin couldn''t exit it until the formation was broken, up till now there was no opportunity for Yun Jhin to leave. Thus the fused being took a defensive stance as it kept its guard up and continued to look around, it didn''t know when or where Yun Jhin would strike from but it was ready for any sneak attacks. A halberd suddenly appeared from nowhere ready to cleave the fused being in two pieces vertically but the being blocked it by putting its arms in an X only leaving a small gash on its forearms. That gash suddenly started to flow with green blood as the fused being staggered and its face started to pale: "You even use poison? But how insidious can you get..." "You have fused and you have the gall to talk about fairness?" Yun Jhin couldn''t help but retort, fusion was a rather strong technique and if they wouldn''t have been trapped in the formation combined with the fact that they were rather reluctant to destroy their surroundings Yun Jhin would have had huge troubles dealing with them. The halberd didn''t stop as it struck from left-right, low and high trying to get the upper hand against the fused being, while the being didn''t use any weapon its hands alone were deadly enough to be considered high graded weapons. The clashes between their hands and Yun Jhin''s halberd created sparkles of highly condensed light that started to burn the pentagram formation below them. However, Lin Luan, Lin Lang, and the others started to dig deeper into their wrists as more blood flowed into the formation keeping it going at any price regardless of how weakened they would become because of blood-loss. Yun Jhin''s clashes with the fused elders increased in intensity as shockwaves started to spread in the formation making it start cracking due to the intense strain it was exposed, it couldn''t be helped as the formation had been raised quite suddenly and while it did have many rare materials used for its construction it was battle between near-peak entities no matter how rare the materials were they couldn''t handle this much strain without being tempered for a long time. Yun Jhin coughed a glob of blood as he got hit in the stomach and his internal organs were shaken by the impact but the fused elders took two steps back as they tried to remove the halberd that was impaled in their chest, their strength started to be sapped away by halberd as it glowed with an ethereal bloody light. Yun Jhin appeared in front of them as he put his hands on the handle of the halberd starting to absorb the bloody light into his body, his rather pale complexion started to return to normal before it became a healthy red color. The halberd ''blood-sucking'' ability had been bestowed by the blood river after being soaked in it for a certain period of time. "HAAAAAAAAA!" The fused elders let out a scream as they pushed the halberd out of their chest while inflating their muscles and hardening them afterward to stop more blood from gushing out. Yun Jhin suddenly disappeared and appeared in front of them without them being able to move a muscle... it was the time skip technique! The three-in-one person felt their vision swimming as its chest was impaled again with the halberd but this time the halberd came into its chest then out of its back, Yun Jhin closed his eyes as his hands started to vibrate the handle of the halberd immediately messing up the insides of the fused elders. The androgynous face started to split up and age as their fusion started to run out of juice, their fused body was too damaged to be held together anymore so they split into three people again and the injuries that the fused body withstood were inflicted on their bodies as well but two times as intense! They fell to the ground with frothing at the mouth as the poison infiltrated their nervous system. It was a poison meant to deal with God Realm experts so it couldn''t be flushed out so easily, all of Yun Jhin''s attacks were enhanced with laws so while they could heal the damage dealt by him rather easily it would take time, something that they did not have right now, a fight between God Realm experts was one of endurance but Yun Jhin flipped logic around with his shameless tactics and immense knowledge of various poisons. The four elders were all immobilized and it was time for them to meet their new master... Yun Jhin''s mind control technique was successfully used on the three of them without any hitch as they were both immobilized and weakened by a lot, even though their cultivation base was 3 stages higher than Yun Jhin''s his battle power and strong body made up the gap between them rather inconsequential, while they were old their battle power wasn''t anything great nor did they seem experienced. They were actually quite weak if they would be compared with those from the mortal realm but they could be considered country hicks in the celestial realm so if you thought of it a little bit more deeply it wasn''t surprising they were rather weak. As he connected with the minds of the four God Realm experts an immense amount of information assaulted his soul as he smiled in understanding: "Eastern, western, northern, southern and central... these were all of the parts of the celestial realm and each had a gate that leads to the mortal realm, the families that protected them were all quite similar to the Lin Family only the northern and southern ones being a rank higher them both having peak God Realm experts. The only difference being the central area where the actual Empire and the actual Emperor of the celestial realm was..." From all of the memories of the four, he learned that the Emperor of the Celestial Realm could be considered the strongest being in existence as he was also a half-a-step into the realm above the God one, he was exactly just like Hell''s willpower! But unlike Hell''s willpower, he could move around the whole realm if he wanted to and he didn''t need a vessel to carry him around. Now all the ramblings of Hell''s willpower made sense, it was rather jealous and envious of the celestial Emperor''s ability to walk around. As he took control of the eastern Lin family he controlled around 10% of the celestial realm, the other directions also controlled around 10% while the central realm controlled a whopping 60%. Naturally, from now on he would have continued to expand firstly getting his hands on the other weaker family before moving on to the southern and northern families but it was quite early for that... he still needed to break through once more and his attack should also be a blitz type attack if he didn''t want the central region to realize what was happening, he needed to leave no witnesses or else there was a chance word would leak out. Yun Jhin took in a deep breath as he sat on the throne and waved his hand: "Everything should go on as normal from now on, report to me whatever news you find to be more important but that''s all I don''t want to be disturbed while I cultivate, have I made myself understood?" This message was sent telepathically to everyone who was connected to him when suddenly a shout could be heard coming from outside the house. "Missive, a missive from the central region for the new patriarch Lin Duritz!" Yun Jhin frowned as his face, aura and body changed to Lin Duritz''s and he let the messenger enter the house and arrive at the throne room. Chapter 224: Invitation for blessing The messenger bowed towards Yun Jhin before taking out a sealed envelope from his clothes, the ink seal was of bright azure color and it had the insignia of the imperial household of it which meant the letter came from someone from the household but below the Emperor. It seemed Yun Jhin''s assumptions were incorrect, at first he thought that he would be summoned by the Emperor, but how could the Emperor bother with a small family from the country? The central area could be considered the place full of cities and the eastern, northern, southern, and western sides were all ''villages'' in the eyes of those from the central area. However the messenger surprisingly didn''t look down on Yun Jhin or anything like that, he actually looked at him with a respect filled gaze which showed that even though they were considered villagers they were respected for their guarding jobs. Yun Jhin cracked the seal open before he opened the letter and started to read: "Estimated lord Lin Duritz, for the occasion of being appointed as the house lord of the Lin family the imperial family had decided to hold a blessing ceremony for you so you can protect the celestial realm''s borders even better than before, please sign your current cultivation base on the letter as it would help us prepare for your blessing with the right ingredients and resources." Signed the imperial household''s butler Li Shiki "Hmm, interesting..." The messenger got up from his bowing position as he said: "Lord Lin Duritz, if you want to accept the invitation you can travel with me back to the capital as I can guide you the best on the road, you can also take 2 or 3 aides with you, what do you say?" Yun Jhin made a ''hmmm'' sound as he thought about it seriously then asked: "Will I get to meet the Emperor?" The messenger shook his head as he said seriously: "While you are doing a great job ensuring the safety of the celestial realm''s borders the Emperor is a very busy man who doesn''t have time to see even his closest kin, unfortunately, you wouldn''t be able to meet with his highness but you can meet with his highness children and grandchildren if you want to." Yun Jhin nodded, it was the best situation, refusing the invitation meant slapping the face of the imperial family or going among the lines of "I do not need your kindness." This could either offend them or in the best situation just make them resent him and cut off support from the eastern guardian family. Both were things that wouldn''t end up well for the current Yun Jhin until he took over at least one other family the monthly support coming from the central region was imperative to keep his army fully functional, most of the rarer resources in the treasury came from the support of the empire, they were the pay for the family''s hard work. Actually, the 5 families had the easiest jobs in the whole empire as no one could enter the celestial realm... of course, this changed the moment Yun Jhin put his foot on the land of the celestial realm. "Get your aides and let''s leave immediately Lord Lin Duritz, the faster we get to the capital the faster you can get your blessing." Yun Jhin nodded as he decided to get his ''sister'' and Lin Lang with him, they were the most ''familiar'' with him and they were both quite obvious choices. So Yun Jhin and his ''friends'' started to travel towards the capital. It would be a lie to say that Yun Jhin didn''t enjoy the scenery of the celestial realm, unlike the cold and rather dead mortal realm, the celestial realm wasn''t separated by huge empty patches of the galaxy. The celestial realm was filled with picturesque images consisting of beautiful green mountain ranges, long winding rivers filled with carps and other multitudes of colorful fishes, forests filled with gorgeous and cute animals. On the way to the capital, they had gone through quite a lot of these sceneries and Yun Jhin admired them, he liked the flora and fauna of the celestial realm, not only because it was beautiful, but because it was all beneficial towards cultivation! From all of the things, he had seen up till now 90% of them would be useful for a God Realm expert or below, even though it wouldn''t be useful for him, they would be useful for those in the early stages which meant he would be able to nurture a death squad of God experts! Even though the cultivators in the celestial realm were more numerous when it came to God Realm experts it was obvious that they didn''t have the same experience and battle power as the ones from the mortal realm, so if he used the resources of the celestial realm on his people in the mortal realm he would create an army that would slowly but surely take over the celestial realm! Owning a realm meant owning its destiny and the celestial realm was the closest to breaking through the ties of the universe... if he could control this realm, he would surely be able to break through above the God Realm even if he didn''t get his hands on the core of the universe! If he realized how the breakthrough could happen in the mortal realm it meant that other peak God Realm experts must have as well, so it was unknown which path was better to take, fight the more numerous but relatively weaker celestial population or the lower in amount but stronger mortal population? There was the obvious choice... the Celestial Emperor was a pain in his sides at the moment but he must have a weakness of some sort just like Hell''s willpower, he was a creation of the universe as well since he was as old as Hell''s willpower. The arrival at the capital didn''t trigger any waves as Yun Jhin and his aides were given a few rooms in the outer courts of the imperial palace, then they were told to wait there for a few short minutes as the messenger had to report their arrival. After a few minutes of waiting the messenger came back and invited Yun Jhin alone in the throne room. While the Celestial Emperor was in seclusion the throne room would be occupied by his oldest son, Markus Oldio Castrono The 3rd. Yun Jhin entered the throne room of the palace which spanned 5 meters in height and 20 meters in width, the palace itself was around 60 meters tall and it was painted a beautiful baby blue color with inscribing and paintings of different battles being depicted on its inner walls. Yun Jhin kneeled in front of the prince who was casually sitting on the throne, however, the prince immediately got up with a puzzled expression on his face as he helped Yun Jhin up and said: "You don''t have to kneel in front of me I''m not my father and I''m not sure if I will ever become emperor in my life, I invited you here as a friend and not as a superior as changes in the familial hierarchy happen very rarely, I also heard from your people that you have been kidnapped to the mortal realm for quite a long time before you came back and I thought that it would be helpful for you and your family if you got blessed by the imperial destiny." The man smiled as he slapped Yun Jhin''s shoulder and laughed boisterously: "After all, you must protect the borders from any invasions that could happen! It''s unlikely that the mortal realm netizens would be able to break through the formation of the gate entrance in their whole existence but it''s better to have defenders and be prepared! At least that''s what my father says, anyways the blessing ceremony will be prepared in a few hours so why don''t we take a tour of the capital and the palace?" Yun Jhin smiled and nodded as he said: "Sure why not, Even though I have just regained my memories I remember never visiting the capital nor the palace so I guess it would be a novel experience." "Oh, you have lost your memories before? That''s sad to hear but I''m glad you got them back, anyways let''s go, I shall be your tour guide! Who else would know the capital and the palace better than the highest echelons?" As Yun Jhin interacted and visited both the capital and some of the palace''s interior rooms he realized what type of person this prince was, it wouldn''t have mattered if he refused his invitation as he was one of those very very good people, he was the embodiment of naivety and pureness and he got the look on him as well, he had a baby face and blue eyes, blonde curly hair and he wore an azure robe that wrapped his dainty body, he looked both feminine and the peak of handsome masculinity at the same time. Yun Jhin actually got sick of how the man acted, he wasn''t even faking it, he was a genuinely good guy! Yun Jhin hated good guys the most, they were the most sheltered people, the people that had gone through no bits of pain nor challenges, it was obvious from his gaze that the man didn''t know what pain or loss was, the man didn''t know about the struggle of the weak and poor, he was a good noble that would act well regardless of those that were in front of him... but he didn''t think much about those below him, while he would act if he would see something going wrong, he would never proactively do something to make things better. He was good but only on the surface... but he was genuine. Yun Jhin saw countless people like him but they were very insidious inside, at least he was only half-full as the other part of him felt empty like he wasn''t complete. He found it to be rather strange... was something wrong with this guy? He started to get second thoughts about the blessing but in the end decided to go with it anyway, at this point unless the Emperor himself came, he would have no problems to deal with or escape from 9th stair God Realm cultivators, especially the ones from the celestial realm. The prince nodded to himself as he looked towards Yun Jhin and said: "The preparations are finally complete and we can go to do the ceremony, do you need to do anything before we start, or are you ready to go?" "Well, could you inform the aides that traveled with me about what is going to happen?" "Yeah no problem, we don''t want to worry them now do we?" The man clapped and a previously invisible black dove appeared and took the message telepathically from Yun Jhin then flew away to send it to Lin Lang and Lin Luan. "Let''s go then." "We shall." Prince Markus took the lead as he slowly went through a few layers of the palace going further and further down until they reached the underground area, where he opened up a hatch and they both went down it, there was darkness everywhere but there was one light to guide them towards the ceremonial table.... There Yun Jhin found out what this ceremonial fuss was all about... Chapter 225: The power of imperial destiny Yun Jhin looked at the ritual that was supposed to bless him with some of the nation''s destiny, it didn''t look like anything special, a circle had been drawn on the dark ground in front of him and it was the thing that made the eerie glow that guided him and the prince here. Prince Markus smiled as he said: "This is the formation that will instill the destiny into you." He clapped twice in quick succession and out of the darkness that surrounded them two beautiful maids came. "To absorb the destiny perfectly you will have to discard your clothes and soak into the formation as if it was a hot spring, so you need to take off your clothes, I shall leave you alone for now." The prince disappeared as if he was never there... Actually, Yun Jhin got surprised by his sudden disappearance... it seemed that the Celestial Emperor wasn''t the only person that he had to look out for. The maids giggled under their hands as they got near Yun Jhin and said: "Master Duritz please take off your clothes so we can start the bestowal ceremony." Yun Jhin wasn''t sure what they were playing here but he took off his clothes and entered the circle formation, there he started to feel an immense amount of heat starting to gush out of the ground below him just like a geyser. It was pure, raw destiny! It seemed they didn''t lie! It wasn''t as much destiny as Yun Duritz had gotten when he was accepted by the celestial realm but it was purer and denser, it was refined in a certain way... Yun Jhin knew a lot about destiny so he understood that the destiny they were giving him was rather special in a sense. This was destiny that had to deal with the rise and fall of the imperial dynasty, it came directly from the Emperor''s hands! However, it didn''t have any connections with the Emperor which meant it was given rather willingly and with no attachments! Were these people really foolish or did they truly believe he was Lin Duritz? As destiny started to flush into his body he could feel it connecting directly with his other pool of destiny and then they started merging. "This power is... excellent!" His ki cultivation was getting fueled by the immense amount of destiny and with his knowledge of laws, he was getting ready for another breakthrough! His ki was boiling inside his body as destiny fused with it and enhanced his power once more! "Hahaa this is the stuff!" Yun Jhin couldn''t get enough of the destiny that was pouring into his body but good things all had an end. After twenty minutes of being ''baptized'' by destiny, the connection was firmly cut and the gushing destiny disappeared as if it was never there. He took two steps out of the formation and the maids helped him wear his clothes. Yun Jhin took another glance at the formation and shook his head inside he was very close to a breakthrough but he didn''t want to get any unwanted attention by messing with the formation, he didn''t have the courage to do it even if he was alone, and currently, he was being flanked by two busty maids. "Patriarch Duritz... would you want us to relieve you of your pent-up after-cultivation stress?" Yun Jhin wasn''t in the mood as he waved his hand, he was so close to a breakthrough but it was pretty much removed from his sight forcefully at the end, he needed just 1 more step... It was almost as if they did this deliberately! He followed the maids out of the underground area of the palace and met up with Prince Markus again who was still all smiles. The man patted his shoulder and said: "Enjoyed the baptism of imperial destiny brother Duritz?" "Hahaha, I can''t say that I have ever experienced such a great deal of pure destiny before." "Oho? It seems you know your stuff brother Duritz." "I have been in contact with some destiny once I have taken the position as patriarch of the family but it wasn''t anything as pure and strong as the destiny I have gotten here." "Well, of course, I don''t think I will have to explain to you the difference between the eastern parts and the central ones right?" "Of course sir I know about the differences but living and seeing them directly is something else..." "Indeed..." "Now that you are done with your baptism is there anything else you would want from me?" This was a strange question to Yun Jhin and this made him put his guard up, it seemed that what he thought was true, he only got the destiny stopped at that point because they realized he was at a breakthrough. What did they want from his identity as Lin Duritz? What could be of use from a guardian and an average family? Seeing that Yun Jhin''s guard went up after that question made the prince drop his act as he put his hand on Yun Jhin''s shoulder and said: "Ok since you know that we didn''t invite you here for the blessing alone I will be frank with you..." "We need you to destroy the gate restrictions of every cardinal direction..." "???" It would be an understatement to say that Yun Jhin was as lost as he could be the moment the prince opened his mouth and told him that, he wasn''t sure how much time the celestial realm existed for but it was forever hidden from the eyes of the mortal realm and hell, and now it wanted to reveal itself? At this point he knew that the realm was lacking in true battle-hardened experts so it was would be easy pickings for the bloodthirsty monsters that lived below, Hell was especially mad at the celestial realm and its inhabitants so Hell''s willpower might exert a lot of strength and open up a new gate earlier than intended. "Your highness if you don''t mind... why would you ever think about doing that?" "Oh I understand your concerns, you are actually the first person I went to because of your special circumstances..." It seems that Prince Markus thought that because he lost his memories he wouldn''t have any deep connections to the celestial realm and as long as he got enough benefits he would surely give up on protecting it, after all, he lived amongst those profit-oriented mortal realm commoners for such a long time so some things should have rubbed on him right? If it was the actual Duritz, Yun Jhin didn''t know if he would have let the invasion of the mortal realm and hell commence for some destiny... but Yun Jhin would surely do it, but he still needed to look reluctant on the surface so he could squeeze more things out of the prince. "Your majesty I don''t know... what about the lives of the commoners? What do you think will happen when the restrictions on the gates will be broken?" "Do I look like I care?" After he had shown his true colors his face had become as glacial as the top of the mountains. "If I might enquire..." "No, you can''t enquire about the details about why I need you to destroy the restrictions, all you need to know that if you accept you will be heavily rewarded... and if you decline you won''t be able to leave the palace alive." An immense amount of pressure assaulted Yun Jhin''s body to the point that he almost kneeled, however that''s when his aura unleashed itself as well countering the pressure and not kneeling in front of Prince Markus: "Your majesty I might understand the etiquette of kneeling to one''s superiors but I don''t want it to be forced." Markus laughed as he said: "I like you kid, it seems that the destiny you got from your family wasn''t in small amounts! I know about your Lin family special physique but yours is even more terrifying than the one of your ancestor''s" After Yun Jhin fused with Yun Duritz his physique evolution wasn''t a normal 1+1 but more rather of a 2x5 + the combination of their body refining ranks. So if Yun Jhin''s body was a 2 then Duritz''s was a 5 and they multiplied each other then they combined their body ranks to reach a perfect and flawless body. Yun Jhin''s current bodily strength was so high that it even made Markus reluctant in fighting him by himself while they were in his own territory! The aura that came from Yun Jhin''s body dissipated as he said: "I can listen to your plan, I just hope those rewards won''t be withheld due to various reasons." Markus laughed as he came a little bit closer to Yun Jhin and said: "While I do not care what happens to those weaklings, how could I treat my strong generals and guards badly? As long as you do your job you will be rewarded accordingly... now for the plan, listen well cause I will be able to tell you only once!" Chapter 226: A plan made to dethrone the Emperor Markus got his mouth a little bit closer to Yun Jhin''s ear as he started to whisper his plan, however, nothing came out of his mouth as he used a transmission technique to send all of the information directly to Yun Jhin''s brain. "What''s with the posturing if you were going to use a transmission technique anyways..." "Here''s how things will go, I will withhold all help from the central region when you attack the other guarding regions, all you have to do is destroy the portal restrictions so you can let those from the mortal realm and hell flood into the celestial realm, very easy right? Even if your cultivation base is rather low your body should be enough to defeat them." "But prince Markus... why?" "Again with the why''s, can''t you be a good minion and do what you are ordered to?" "I just want to know prince Markus." "Ok I will tell you but you will have to sign a contract so you won''t be able to disclose anything that you have learned now." A puff of smoke appeared as Markus clapped his hands and a contract made from red paper appeared. Yun Jhin took a look at the contract and realized that it was made from a special skin conglomeration and that was why the ''paper'' was red. If Yun Jhin broke the contract he would be cursed and all of the destiny in his body would be siphoned into the dynasty. He made sure he had read it correctly a few times before making sure there are no hidden penalties in the contract before signing it. The contract disappeared in a plume of red clouds as Markus put his hands together put on a fake smile and decided to explain to him why he was doing this, after all, he didn''t want a confused minion who would doubt his words, at this point he wouldn''t be able to force him to do anything and when he said that he wouldn''t be able to leave the palace alive he didn''t realize how strong Yun Jhin actually was. "The reason is very simple... I want to be emperor!" It was such a cliche reason and Yun Jhin couldn''t even think why the man would want to dethrone the actual Emperor as he was the determining factor that kept the whole celestial realm up and running properly. Seeing that Yun Jhin was both puzzled and flabbergasted at the prospect of dethroning the actual Emperor made Markus shook his head as he said: "I''m one of the older children of the emperor and there is a chance that I won''t be able to inherit the throne before the Emperor dies, its unknown how much time he still has left in him but his body is currently weakening." "However it doesn''t matter as his soul willpower will continue living on which means that I will never be able to become Emperor during my natural lifespan." "Does it really matter if you are Emperor or not as long as the dynasty is prosperous?" "Of course it does! My dream since I was little was to sit on the seat of the Emperor''s throne but realizing that it was an impossible dream made me boil with anger and resent my immortal father, the dynasty continued to flourish but my happiness was nowhere, I always thought about, why am I unhappy when the citizens are happy? Why am I hating every moment that I live as a prince... even though I have power and authority that rival the Emperor? Am I crazy that I want a title that wouldn''t help anyone much, even me?" "The answer was no... I only craved something because I didn''t have it, even though I''m near the peak I''m not at it, I just want more because there is more to have, its only human nature that I''m following and I found that I''m not wrong..." Yun Jhin nodded, this man was similar to him, both wanted more because there was more, he wanted to be Emperor while Yun Jhin wanted eternal life, the goals weren''t similar but the ways they wanted to achieve them were practically the same, without any care about anyone! "I guess I could help your majesty to achieve your dream, to be frank with you I''m an avid follower of the martial path, and cultivation breakthroughs are what I want the most If I could get more destiny after I have done my missions I would be the most grateful." "Hahahaha, very good Lin Duritz, very good." "Since you have accepted let me give you a more in detail explanation." Markus started to explain how the peak god realm experts would surely be tempted the moment the gates would appear and they will go in regardless of the consequences. So the moment a bunch of foreign peak God Realm experts made themselves visible the Emperor would surely awaken and quicken his body''s decay, even though he was half a step into the other realm once his body was lost his power would surely decline, and while he might be able to take care of a Peak God Realm expert in a 1v1 situation what if a dozen ganged upon him? A soul without a body was certainly weaker by about 20-30% and if you considered the fact that The Soul Emperor was extremely old meant that his power should be ebbing around now, as a universal wonder he didn''t reincarnate since the universe had been created so his age couldn''t really be known nor calculated. So just like all old things he would start to expire, Hell''s willpower didn''t have that problem as it didn''t have a body but it was also weaker than when the universe was created. "Ok now that you know everything ready up your army and invade the western family and capture it first, make it as quickly as possible so they wouldn''t be able to send any news to the other families." Yun Jhin saluted and left the palace then met up with Luan and Lang before leaving the capital and central area altogether. They got back to the eastern area where they went back to their city, there Yun Jhin rallied up a moderately sized army that he trained personally, as he was connected with their souls he could give them mental training and teach them techniques pretty quickly. Since they were under his complete control he taught them his patented stealth technique and created a perfect assassination death squad corps! He had already got a map of the whole celestial realm after he took over the Lin family so he knew where the western family was. The western family was called the Kun family and they were proficient in medical techniques, this was the reason they were one of the weaker families while the Lin family was weaker because they were a battle maniac family that was battle starved. The Kun family headquarters were a little bit different compared to the Lin family''s, the Lin family wasn''t that proficient in anything if it wasn''t battle-related so Yun Jhin easily snuck in and took care of the whole family. However, he could see that the Kun family was proficient in formations from the huge pulsating energy that surrounded their place, being proficient in both medicine and formations showed that the Kun family was worthy of the guardian title. Yun Jhin didn''t want to scare nor alert the family so he was currently waiting at the entrance of the family with his troops all in stealth, waiting for any disciple to leave the family so he could interrogate them and see if there was any way to break through the formation. Unfortunately, even with all of his knowledge in formations he didn''t really know what type of defensive formation the one in front of him was, it was mostly due to it being from a different branch of formation compared to the ones in the Lin family and the mortal realm, Yun Jhin was actually quite impressed with the quality of the formation and he wanted to study the blueprints of the formation and whatever knowledge on formations the Kun family got. It actually took a lot more waiting than Yun Jhin wanted, they stood there in stealth for around 30 days before one disciple left the barrier and started to quickly run towards the direction of the capital. Yun Jhin easily intercepted him as he jumped down from the tree he was hiding in soundlessly, grabbed him by the neck, and jumped up back in the three with him in tow. The disciple was scared, he wore a white robe with a red cross on the front of it with the Kun family name''s inscribed on the back. "Let me go right to business, how do we disable the formation?" The man trembled as he kept his mouth shut not wanting to betray his family. Yun Jhin shook his head, he was just a sage realm expert, he didn''t want to waste his time with soul scourging but since he didn''t want to say anything Yun Jhin clamped his hands on the man''s skull and forcefully removed all of his memories. Yun Jhin frowned as he got the knowledge on how to turn off the formation, but he needed to be inside the formation for that to happen and anyone without the bloodline of the Kun family would make the formation react sending an alert to the patriarch of the family. The patriarch''s strength wasn''t that high, ki cultivation wise he was at the same level as Yun Jhin which meant that Yun Jhin would wipe the floor with him even if he fought against 10-20 or even 50 of them at the same time. However the formation was too wide and too strong so if he didn''t turn it off there was a high chance he would be entrapped by it, while he wouldn''t die his troops wouldn''t have an easy time and they would be annihilated. If no reinforcements came from the capital to capture him it would trigger a series of events where the 3 other families would rebel making the Emperor awaken and the whole plan would be destroyed. Yun Jhin had his own plan based on prince Markus''s plan so he needed to go along with his for some time until he could put his to work. For now, he had to make up a way to break through the formation surrounding the Kun family''s headquarters. Chapter 227: Kun family is down Yun Jhin was currently overlooking the whole formation from the high ground trying to find a way that he could breach the formation and storm the headquarters, if he could get in he would make sure he captured every family member down to the babies. He couldn''t let anyone leave after he broke the barrier and he had a plan, it was fairly simple and it involved another mind-controlled victim since the first person was dead he needed to wait for another Kun family person to get out, it was unfortunate that he had passed away so suddenly, as he still had some uses but Yun Jhin already messed up his soul by forcefully snatching his memories... Well, he could feel that the place was full of life force which meant it had a pretty good population so he could wait for another person to leave the formation bounds so he could capture them. He already left someone back at the eastern portal to destroy the restrictions on it on his command, he wanted to destroy all of the restrictions at the same time to create an invasion coming from all directions. Yun Jhin''s waiting proved fruitful as another disciple from the family left the bounds of the formation, but this time he didn''t rush anywhere as he warily looked around, it seemed the Kun family had something that notified them of the first disciple''s death and this next one was meant to scout out for the danger and confirm that they were getting attacked by humans or by beasts. The disciple was rather flustered as he looked around, it was obvious he was a low-level grunt in the organization and he was only sent out because if he died nothing of value would be lost. This complicated things for Yun Jhin a bit as useless cannon fodder like the person here wouldn''t really be allowed around the core of the formation, which needed to be accessed to be turned off. But he could work around this with his skills, he could even impart him some of his cultivation techniques just like he did to the others and sneak into the core, all he needed was the formation to not react to him, and considering he came out of it with no problems he should be able to get right back in with no problems. Yun Jhin''s silhouette disappeared as he jumped down from the tree and melded with his surroundings, appearing behind the unsuspecting scout and striking a blow to the back of his head making him fall unconscious to the ground where he scooped him up and disappeared together. He arrived a few hundreds of meters away from the formation where he immediately subjugated the weak mind of the scout before sending him down from the tree they were currently in. The scout went down the tree and walked back to the headquarters as if nothing happened. The scout''s name was Kun Kong and his cultivation base was at the 1st stage of the sage realm. He wasn''t actually a scout but a small apprentice at the apothecary shop in the city that was the Kun family''s headquarters. Considering they were a family made up of mostly medical practitioners the business at the apothecary shop was booming, the sole reason Kun Kong was let to be the scout was that the apothecary shop was near the exit of the city and that as was mentioned before he was only a small apprentice and thus disposable. It was a surprise when he came back and reported that there were actually no beasts nor attackers outside but this made the people inside the city more vigilant, they didn''t think that Kun Kong was a traitor or anything like that but that their enemies were smarter than they let on. They still weren''t sure if they were humans or intelligent beasts but their guards were as up as they could get. Yun Jhin could see through Kun Kong''s eyes and he scoffed at them no matter how guarded they were they would be slaughtered like sheep. At first, Kun Kong did his job as he was instructed until the night fell and he left for home so he could go and cultivate... but unlike the usual where Kun Kong would go home this time he just disappeared as he used Yun Jhin''s stealth technique and started to move towards the formation core. The location of the formation core wasn''t a secret for the higher ranked and middle-ranked inhabitants of the Kong family, fortunately, the person that Yun Jhin got his information from could be considered an apprentice to a rather known doctor in the family so he had some knowledge about the formation even though it couldn''t be said that he knew much about it. But even the small amount of information that he knew was pretty much golden to Yun Jhin! Kun Kong sneaked towards a heavily guarded palace where he simply just slipped in through the guards and disappeared inside. A winding maze appeared in front of Kun Kong''s eyes which Yun Jhin analyzed and sent a command to Kun Kong''s soul on how to solve, Kun Kong then walked directly through the maze walls according to another one of Yun Jhin''s techniques. In the end, he reached the last room where the formation core was, all formation cores were either bound up to an item, person or location and in this case, the core was bound to an item. Kun Kong saw the core of the formation which was a small white bell made from white painted ceramic. There was no one around the bell, at least on the surface because the moment Kun Kong put a foot in the room where the bell was located his stealth was naturally turned off by unknown methods. Kun Kong''s grasp on the technique wasn''t as good as Yun Jhin''s even though Yun Jhin imparted the technique directly his talent affected his comprehension and combined with his low cultivation base made him a failure. Yun Jhin frowned as he saw his technique be undone and felt a presence approaching him through their soul connection. "Huh? Who are you and what are you doing here?" It was a special guard that was stationed here to protect the formation core, up till now it didn''t see or sense Kun Kong but the moment his stealth turned off he was easily identified, the guard came up in front of Kun Kong and narrowed his eyes as he said: "This isn''t a place for civilians, I''m not even sure how you got here, what are the guys outside doing letting you enter?" Kun Kong kept his head down and shook seemingly frightened, the guard came a little bit closer to him and analyzed his body language before sighing: "You got here by accident? It''s ok you won''t be punished, let''s get you out of here." Suddenly the shaking body of Kun Kong started to expand so fast that the guard couldn''t react in time, the body exploded into a shower of rays of light and blood as the chunks of meat and organs exploded as well after a few seconds, just like timed bombs. The white ceramic bell cracked in half and broke while the guard survived with only some third-degree burns that were already starting to heal. His eyes were wide as two saucer plates as he looked at the broken bell, he knew that he fucked up and his post would surely be taken away from him! Yun Jhin smiled as he saw the barrier protecting the city starting to disperse by itself and did some hand seals as his assassination squad jumped directly into the city and went to work! Fires started to appear as the squad incinerated houses and people to create pandemonium, making it easier to kill and enslave. Yun Jhin was taking in all of the sights of suffering and killings happening all around him as he slowly walked towards the highest building in the city, he waited a few seconds as a middle-aged man and an old man flew out of the building with both anger and fear on their faces. The moment they saw Yun Jhin they knew that he was the main culprit, he was already flaring his aura and his body was in battle mode. Yun Jhin didn''t have any time to talk with these people so he immediately appeared between them and backhanded each of them directly into the ground below, the moment they touched the ground two green small balls of energy touched their bodies then expanded into two supernovas that exploded on contact almost destroying their physical bodies directly! Two gigantic holes were created due to the attack, smoke and debris were still in the air as Yun Jhin peered into the two big holes and tried to sense if there was still any life in them. Seeing that there were still two weak sparks of life coming from the holes made him accelerate down like an eagle trying to sweep up some food as he wanted to capture them and enslave them, while he easily defeated them, it was mostly because they weren''t fighters, while Yun Jhin didn''t need their medical expertise it couldn''t be said the same about those under him. Chapter 228: Moving from one family to another Yun Jhin fished the duo of men from the holes and put his hands on each of their foreheads before he subjugated them into his slaves. Any type of resistance was futile in front of the Soul Emperor techniques and combined with the fact that they were quite close to death made the subjugation fast and successful. The duo kneeled in front of Yun Jhin as they called him master and he waved his hand taking away the ki he inserted in his body to reduce their healing factor, thus after a few seconds while they were still a bit exhausted their injuries had been fully healed. Seeing the patriarch and ancestor of the family kneeling to the invaders made the defenders immediately deflate like a balloon, their morale hit an all-time low as they started to surrender or tried to escape, only for Yun Jhin to raise one hand to the sky and unleash a gigantic barrier that enveloped the whole city making it impossible for anyone to escape. He started to float into the air as he looked down at each and ever defending person before unleashing a storm of mental willpower, the storm engulfed everyone regardless of gender, cultivation base, or age, their eyes started to turn slack as they all fell to their knees and started to chant Yun Jhin''s name. Finally after a few touches here and there he had properly captured the Kun family city and by extent, the whole western location, all he had to do now was leave the family to continue as they were doing beforehand, on paper nothing would have happened to the family and things would go on as they were supposed to, but after he finished capturing all of the families things would start to run rampant. No news leaked about the capture of the Kun family as Yun Jhin made sure there were no escapes. After he repaired the formation and inserted some of his soul willpower into it to take full control, he decided to leave with his squad, which now had a few more members, they were Kun family experts and they would be able to heal his troops in the future conflicts, the southern and northern family were way stronger than both the eastern and western family, even if the eastern and western families joined hands there was still a chance the northern or southern families would be able to take care of them without the help of one another. Yun Jhin had already gotten some intelligence from the Lin family and combined it with the one from the Kun family and he also got some intelligence from the prince thus he had a complete view of both families. The northern family was called Han and they were the strongest guardian family, not because of their nature or talents, it was mostly because they were the richest family around, they had connections in the central realm and they were originally a merchant family that rose to power due to their political connections, however, this leads to them being good at business and average at everything else, while they had strong people in the family their battle power was average or below because they were spoon-fed cultivation resources until they reached their talent peak. So while their strength was high, Yun Jhin could dismantle them like a precise surgeon as long as he fought them alone, if the southern and northern families joined hands things would be a little harder but that meant he had to blitz one family first making sure that they wouldn''t send any reinforcements. As for the southern family, they were called Chen and they were only a little bit weaker than the northern family, they were a family of generals and fighters quite similar to the Lin family but a few degrees lower, they came from a military background from before the celestial realm was united. They were the original fighting force that worked under the Emperor but due to the Emperor''s descendants looking at them with a wariness that they might expand their power in the central area thus creating a new noble family so they were ''assigned'' a job to protect the celestial realm at its southern borders, this leads to them being ostracized and depressed, as they had fought with all they had for the Emperor and their descendants had done such a cruel thing to them, leading to their decline in power, however, they didn''t decline by much as they got over their depression rather quickly, their average battle power was higher than the northern family but they had a smaller amount of experts and they were only proficient in battle thus they were rather poor as the current era that they lived in didn''t need their proficiency. Yun Jhin actually looked down upon every netizen of the celestial realm, they grew weak and mushy due to their lifestyle and peace, they were squandering their cultivation resources, if he was honest with himself with the current resources he would be able to create thousands of peak God realm experts if he used them on the people of the mortal realm and hell. As he analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of the Chen and Han families he finally decided on the next target, the Han family had more experts thus it would be harder for him to ''blitz'' them and their cultivation bases were higher even though their battle power was lower their stamina was better so they would fight longer, long enough for them to actually be able to slip through his troops and send out for reinforcements, while Yun Jhin defeated the Kun family patriarch and ancestor rather fast, it was because they were not battle experts and their cultivation base was pretty low, only one or two levels above Yun Jhin which meant they were akin to punching bags in Yun Jhin''s face. So Yun Jhin decided to attack the relatively poorer, and weaker Chen family, since they were poor they would also have no such thing as a strong formation like the Kun family so it was even easier to infiltrate amongst their midst and assassinate, subjugate and conquer them. The south was a rather arid place, as Yun Jhin traveled with his squad the heat around them started to increase by big amounts, their surroundings started to turn from picturesque images to a desert place, cacti plants appeared in their view and vulture-like birds started to circle their party, only for Yun Jhin to glare at them which resulted in fried vultures dropping from the sky into the hands of his squad which they ate. The further they went into the desert the hotter it became until they reached an oasis, the oasis was quite heavily guarded which indicated they reached the Chen family headquarters, unlike the Kun, Lin, and Han families the Chen family didn''t govern any people, they were the only family that had no subordinates as living in the desert was quite hard for the pampered netizens of the celestial realm, the realm was so big and there were so many good locations, why would they choose the dry southern lands that had only one main oasis? The Chen family only lived here because they were ordered by the imperial family or else they wouldn''t endure such harsh living conditions, even though the oasis had some food and water the heat was still there and it sapped the stamina of the guards even though they were under the shade of some palm trees, it wasn''t really enough. Yun Jhin didn''t approach the settlement of the Chen family as he did some hand signals indicating for his squad to disappear, he first analyzed the whole place to see what type of defenses they had and if there was surely no formation at hand, their houses looked to be pretty well constructed from the red ground that could be found around the oasis, which was cool in the day and hot in the night. After Yun Jhin was done with scouting he realized that there was no formation to say, but the troops were aligned in such a way that they created no blind spots that someone could move through, his subordinates stealth still needed some work so it wasn''t perfect like his yet, so, for now, he had to go by himself to create some pandemonium, attracting the guards from protecting the entrance to the settlement, before letting his squad enter and start the fight properly! Now that he had a proper plan he disappeared, even though his surroundings made it harder for him to use his stealth he still did it pretty easily, he reached such a high proficiency in stealth that it didn''t matter where he was, he would be able to disappear. He easily made his way through the guards and entered the settlement, looking around he saw that most of the people wore turbans and wide clothes to keep themselves cool in the day, they were all tanned from living in these conditions for a rather long time but their features were still the same as those of the celestial realm, high noses small jaws and lithe bodies not really packed with muscle. Of course, the Lin family was an exception because of the bloodline that ran through their veins they were all packed with muscle but it didn''t weigh them down much as their bloodline evolved so did their battle form, in this situation as Yun Jhin analyzed the physiques of the Chen family members he realized that they also had some type of battle mode but he wasn''t sure what it was, after all, they were coming from a waring lineage, while they didn''t have a special bloodline they must have a special technique that everyone could train in. Yun Jhin wanted both the technique and control over the family... and he was ready to get both at a moment''s notice, right now he was just preparing to bleed dry some of the nearby people to start the pandemonium. Chapter 229: Chen family falls Yun Jhin thoughts ran quickly as he formulated the best plan to create the most efficient way to create a distraction big enough to make the whole place collapse like a card house. He just needed to push the right places for the people around him to run like headless chickens. His thoughts made him look towards the oasis''s water if the waters were to be poisoned or something happened to them, these people would surely go crazy, at this point the water was the only thing keeping the Chen clansmen sane, the heat was really intense and Yun Jhin only resisted it because of his impressive physique. The heat of the desert was so intense that ki cultivation didn''t really protect you from it as it would go directly through any ki shields you would create. As he looked at the waters he saw that they were guarded but not as much as the entrance, it was more of guarding so everyone could get their quota of water or to make sure no one got extra or stole any. The Chen family lived rather hard lives but they didn''t seem to be really sad about it, they were boisterous as they walked around talked, and even laughed. Yun Jhin walked around for a short time before he approached the oasis water, the water amount didn''t look to be much at first glance but as Yun Jhin enhanced his eyes with ki he saw directly through the bottom of the lake, there he saw a crack in the ground where the water was slowly seeping from to recover the lost amount. While poisoning could work in this situation Yun Jhin didn''t want to waste so many good slaves, increasing the number of agents he had in the celestial realm was imperative for the future battle when the mortal realm and hell would invade. So for now he decided to cast a very strong illusion technique to make it like the lake was drying up, this would surely take the attention of everyone in the tribe regardless of what other jobs they had. Yun Jhin looked at the water for a few seconds and it started to disappear seemingly as if his eyes absorbed it all, however, Yun Jhin just put on an illusory formation over the water. The guards were keeping serious faces as they waited for people to get their water quota but when they looked behind to check on the water their faces turned pale to the point that you might not think they were tanned. "Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!" "THE WATER HAS DRIED UP!" The scream of the guards alerted the whole settlement as they all rushed towards the lake, the guards at the entrance immediately rushed in without any regards for any invasions, they had guarded the place since they entered adulthood but there had never been any invasion of some kind, they could go and check their livelihood right? Yun Jhin''s squad did some hand signals as they immediately rushed behind the guards, now that their formation was broken up it was easy to take care of them. Hidden blades appeared out of the wrists of the assassination squad as they impaled them in the backs of the guards, some of them directly slashed their necks open and infused their ki into the wound making it grow and fester before exploding into a shower of blood and pus. The sudden deaths of the rushing guards made the remaining ones put their guard up as they were torn between running away to see what happened to the water and defending their people. Suddenly a child that looked to be around 8 to 9 years old fell to the ground as he tried to run away, his mother cried out in pain and fear as she tried to quickly get him up from the ground and run away with him only for a dagger to insert itself directly through the child skull pinning him to the ground. The mother''s tears started to rush out like a waterfall as her eyes turned fully white, she clutched her chest and died of heartbreak. Cultivators could get heart demons that had different effects depending on the intensity of the demon if they didn''t sever their emotional attachments. In this case, the woman died from her heart demons as her child was killed right in front of her. After so many deaths pandemonium struck the Chen family as well, deaths continued to appear while the red buildings were burning to the ground. This naturally attracted the attention of the higher-ups, they thought that the guards would be able to stop everything but by the time they realized how serious things were the casualties already reached a pretty high number, of course, the deaths were only the weaklings as Yun Jhin''s squad picked up only the useless people. Two strong-looking females with tattoos over their faces who wore tribal clothes appeared in the air the lake of the settlement, they looked around and identified the assailants who wore black robes, they were Yun Jhin''s squad, and the moment they saw the female duo they immediately turned their stealth on and scampered, they had done their jobs and now it was Yun Jhin''s turn. "Sister these despicable people... look at what they have done! They must be behind the water disappearance as well!" The one who said that was a 2,10 meters tall woman, her body was rippling with muscles and she wore a short skirt, and her chest was wrapped in bandages to keep her breasts from getting in her way, she was the definition of an Amazonian woman. "I don''t know sister... this might be a trap, we should be more careful." The one who replied was a rather short woman standing at 1,56 meters, unlike her sister she wore more conservative clothes that kept her whole body cloaked underneath, her amber-colored eyes looked everywhere down below trying to search for Yun Jhin''s squad, only for her to return empty-handed. She frowned as she felt something above her, she looked up only to be met with Yun Jhin''s elbow drop, the elbow hit her directly in the face pilling her into the ground below and angering the tall woman. "HOW DARE YOU HIT MY BIG SISTER!" She grabbed Yun Jhin by the face before throwing him directly to the ground creating a gigantic crater not caring about the consequences nor wellbeing of her tribe. The short woman got out of the ground coughed a mouthful of blood and looked at the crater near her as she shouted at the tall woman: "SISTER, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" This made the tall woman stop her attempt at pursuing Yun Jhin as she realized that her attack had actually killed a few of their tribesman due to the impact shockwave. Yun Jhin dusted himself as he got out of the crater, he cracked his neck as he looked across the crater to the short sister who got out of the hole that was shaped just like her body. Yun Jhin pointed at her from afar as a small purple beam of ki pierced directly towards her chest. The short sister felt imminent danger from the thin and small purple beam of ki that was ready to impale her chest, she tried to dodge the attack only for her tall sister to appear in front of her and tank the attack with her beefy chest. The tall sister laughed as she pointed at Yun Jhin and said: "Was that supposed to be an attack? Desert mosquitos bite harder than that!" Yun Jhin shook his head... this wasn''t an attack meant to injure, the short sister immediately got near her sister and put her hand on the small hole that the beam created, they were both at the 8th stage of the God Realm but the wound that opened up didn''t close! Such an insignificant hole would immediately close up the moment it was made but more than a few seconds passed and it was still there! "Don''t bother trying to heal it, your little sister is done for." The tall woman tried to laugh again only for her to clutch her face, veins started to inflate on her face as she started to shout in pain, she immediately punched the nearest thing which was her sister, the punch made her fly for a few kilometers before she stabilized her body and returned via small teleportation. Suddenly she felt the space around her tighten as it was sealed thoroughly, from the corner of her eye she saw Yun Jhin finishing his hand seals as the tall woman kneeled in front of him, she was already his slave, Yun Jhin wasn''t called the blood throne master for no reason, the moment the purple beam of ki entered the tall sister''s bloodstream she basically became his puppet in body, and now when the short sister came back, the tall one was his slave in mind as well. The short sister knew that something was wrong with her hot blooded family member, she knew that her sister would never kneel even to their parents, Yun Jhin looked at the short sister and flashed her a smile as he whispered something to the tall one, she got up from her kneeling position as she speeds past, blitzing her short sister and grabbing her by the neck. Tears could be seen streaming down from the tall woman''s eyes as she looked at her big sister''s face, could be seen that her inner memories were still struggling against Yun Jhin''s mind control but unfortunately for her, Yun Jhin snapped his fingers and all of her memories became sealed up, her face morphed into a cold expression as she dragged her big sister behind her like one would do a sack of garbage. The short sister was then thrown down in front of Yun Jhin, the tall one was making her kneel in front of Yun Jhin as she put her foot on her head and pushed making her even kowtow to him. The short sister gritted her teeth as she tasted the red dirt, her eyes clouded over as Yun Jhin''s hands were inching towards her skull... Unfortunately for her, her little sister was dumb enough to take an attack from Yun Jhin making her immediately turn against her and losing the advantage, the tall one was proficient in body refining and very physically strong while the short one was ki focused, the moment the tall one was captured was the moment the short one lost her shield and Yun Jhin gained a spear. The conquering process was finally over as Yun Jhin took over both of the sister''s minds, and the only thing left was to take over the minds of the remaining clansmen who were all looking at him from the cracks of their opened doors, hatches, or wherever they hid. Yun Jhin flashed all of them a smile as he put his hand up, ready to unleash another mind enslaving field just like he did at the Kun family. Chapter 230: The Han family is troublesome As Yun Jhin raised his hand to the sky a mental field arose that engulfed the whole settlement of the Chen family. Anyone who still lived in the surroundings was immediately subjugated by Yun Jhin''s mental field becoming his slaves. He shook his head as he started to walk towards the building where the two sisters popped out from. There he took a small scroll out of the ground as he used a particular technique that he had gained from the memories of the sisters. He opened the scroll and took a look over the technique there, it was useable by everyone and it was the original which meant Yun Jhin could teach it to everyone properly while teaching through the soul link was fast things wouldn''t always end up good, this way with the original technique he would be able to impart them his enlightenment and the original parts coming from the scroll would help them better, everyone had their own dao and understanding of the technique if they used Yun Jhin''s understanding problems could arise. Yun Jhin didn''t have this problem as he could dissect the technique from the memories of the sister duo and then get his own understanding of the technique but his weaker subordinates needed that. Yun Jhin decided to stay at the Chen family until all of his subordinates got the technique under their control then they would attack the Han family, any improvements for their battle power would be helpful in the final subjugation attempt. From what he realized by comparing the families between them the Han family would have stronger people than the Chen family and a formation equal to the one of the Kun family, all they would lack would be a good bloodline. However, the bloodline wasn''t really needed in their situation. Yun Jhin mediated on mulled on the body technique as well for some time before he called everyone and left after they had made sure everyone learned the technique properly. The northern region was quite far away from the southern region as they were opposites, they had to fly and teleport for around 2 months before they reached the northern frontier. The north was freezing cold, snow and ice could be seen everywhere, the coldness seeped into one''s bones to the point that they would get crystalized if they were too weak to withstand it, however, unlike the heats in the south the ki barrier would be able to defend against the coldness here. Thus it was an easier post to mane compared to the south. Not everyone had the time nor the resources to cultivate their body, also they needed an appropriate technique to do so. Yun Jhin''s vision through the snow was perfect but it couldn''t be said the same about his followers so he had to waste some time to guide them but in the end, they finally reached the depths of the northern frontier where they found the bastion that held the Han family members. It was a gigantic fortress made from dark true ice, Yun Jhin and the others could have seen their reflections in it if they weren''t already in stealth. Yun Jhin analyzed the fortress to see where the formation was positioned but after a while, he realized that the formation was the fortress! It was a combination of a structural form as the core and the expensive ingredient which was the dark true ice creating a gigantic physical formation, Yun Jhin frowned as he put his hand on the ice only for frostbite to immediately appear on the hand and start to travel towards his body, Yun Jhin immediately took away the hand and used his ki to purge the dark ice that was still clinging to his hand and body. "This is rather troublesome..." Yun Jhin knew of the way to disable the formation... which was destroying the fortress, that was literally the only way to destroy the formation. He did a few more experiments with the formation and realized that while it would generate frostbite and intense pain when it was touched the dark true ice would still melt at the same time as he concentrated his ki properly, thus he could scale the walls of the fortress if he endured the pain and sharp winds that were protecting the tall walls. Of course, while he would come rather unscathed from this experience his troops wouldn''t be able to withstand it, the fortress''s gates were closed which meant he would have to do the same thing again, enter by himself, create a mass panic then open the gates. Yun Jhin decided to scale the walls but as he tried to clutch on the ice walls he realized that they were so slippery that he couldn''t actually grab anything from them, they were too smooth as well so there was no chance for him to scale the wall. This became a problem as he looked at the gates he realized that they wouldn''t open any time soon, or at all, if they had a teleportation portal in their fortress they didn''t even need to send out people, they could just teleport long-range that way. Things were rather annoying now, Yun Jhin frowned, how could he make them open the gates? As he thought about it he got an idea, he could either make some racket at the door making them open it to see what''s happening then slip through. He really needed to get inside the fortress, fighting outside would mean being in the range of the attacking ability of the fortress and they would also have a perfect defense meaning that things would be very annoying. Yun Jhin was a prompt and efficient person, he didn''t want to extend a fight that could be won with other means, fighting head-on was never his favorite type of fight, he would only resort to it when there was no other choice. Then Yun Jhin facepalmed, the Han family was a merchant one so normally they would invite other merchants to trade their goods inside the fortress if he could get to one of their teleportation portals and use it to infiltrate the place in the guise of a merchant it would be easier and more indirect compared to making a ruckus in the front of their place, who knew if they were going to launch some type of attack from the tall walls instead of opening the gates? Yun Jhin took out a paper bird from his clothes as he whispered something into it, he waited for a few seconds before the paper bird became very lifelike as a voice came out of it, it was prince Markus! "Lin Duritz, how much I have waited to hear your response and you haven''t disappointed me, you are already at the Han family?" "Yes milord, I have reached the Han family but there''s a problem, unlike the other two families this one''s geographical location gives it too much of an advantage and I cannot get inside to get the deed done, I need some information about the location of their teleportation formations along with an identity as a merchant." "Both easy things to do for me, the nearest teleportation formation they use for trading is still in their territory, while the cold is rather fearsome there are some people out there who like the cold because it helps to hasten their cultivation, the city''s name is called Karagee and it''s 6,000 kilometers away from their fortress, as for the merchant identity things should be already done by the time you get there." Yun Jhin crumpled the bird into a ball before setting it on fire and throwing it away. He ordered his squad to follow him as they started to retreat from the fortress. They arrived at the city around 2 hours later, they already changed their outfits and his subordinates were dragging some carts behind them, they were full of resources scarcely found in the northern parts along with some special weapons and armors. The moment they arrived in the city they immediately went to those that were responsible for the teleportation portal of the Han family. When the people that guarded the portal saw the quality goods that Yun Jhin and his squad brought their eyes lit up like a Christmas tree, they eyed the carts for a while before they walked towards Yun Jhin who was dressed rather exquisitely to show his status as the boss of the caravan. "Yo boss, I know that you want to send all of this to the Han family but you first need to pay some taxes, 10% of everything you got to let you use the portal." Yun Jhin smiled at the man who told him that before the man''s eyes started to slack and he closed his mouth, he activated the portal and let Yun Jhin and his squad through without any hitches. Yun Jhin found himself in a plaza, in front of him a few men and two women were coming to inspect his goods. Yun Jhin smiled to himself as they approached and started to crack his knuckles. Chapter 231: A fight that lead to completion Yun Jhin''s actions went undetected as the men and women who came forward to welcome him were ogling the products that he had brought. They were mostly premium products for the icy northern frontier and they would make a sweet profit if they bought it then resold it at a higher price using their connections and a little bit of ''persuasion''. As the guardian family of the north, they were able to push the right buttons to get what they wanted and when they wanted. The oldest male in the group approached Yun Jhin with a sly smile on his face, it was the smile that every merchant would cultivate at some point, they were so sleazy that even Yun Jhin was impressed somewhat. "Sir, you are the leader of this caravan?" Yun Jhin nodded as he asked: "What do you think the price could be for these goods?" The man started to rub his hands together under his sleeves as he said: "Well if we calculate the taxes with the selling bar of premium goods I could say that they were around 20,000 heart grade spirit stones." Yun Jhin looked indignant at the price as he said: "20,000 heart grade? I have paid around 25,000 or so spirit stones for this batch of goods and you will buy under the market value??" "Ehe mister Zhao Yun, I know that you are an up-and-coming new merchant but I don''t think you can mess with the prices set by our Han family." "I recommend for mister Zhao to reconsider our offer unless you don''t want things to turn out... a little bit more than you could handle." The men and women behind the older gentleman took out some weapons from their clothes as they pointed them at Yun Jhin and his men. Yun Jhin laughed as his body started to morph recovering his original appearance, the moment this happened all of the men who pointed their weapons at him along with the older man who threatened him fell to the ground foaming at the mouth, their eyes rolled to the back of their head while they twitched down on the ground like epileptics. Yun Jhin shook his head as he put his foot on the head of the older man before a sickly splurge could be heard from below his foot, a curtain of red showered the icy ground below as the man''s head exploded like a watermelon, the others head were popped along as well by Yun Jhin''s subordinates as they started to disappear when they entered stealth. Yun Jhin smiled as he looked around while saying: "Let the panic begin!" Yun Jhin disappeared as well as he turned on his stealth and looked at everything that was happening from a good spot. His troops were already unleashing hell on all of the weaker people in the fortress, thus getting the attention of the squads that were installed at the top of the walls of the fortress and the guards that were patrolling around the place. The moment they saw their people being slaughtered by sheep by invisible invaders made them as mad as they could be. However unlike the other times where the guards would rush to save their precious people, these guards of the Han family looked for a few seconds before they started to retreat, they realized that they would be overwhelmed by the attackers and thus they didn''t interfere, just watching coldly from the sidelines while letting one of them go and report to the higher-ups. Yun Jhin looked at the guard''s apathetic attitude and nodded, they were truly a merchant family. Yun Jhin didn''t let the guard who left to report alone, of course, he wanted to lengthen this as much he could be angering the higher-ups even further that way. The moment one of the guards moved to report they would sink into the ground as if it was quicksand and Yun Jhin would appear to taking over his appearance and returning in the group of guards who were still looking at everything that was happening while keeping their guard up for any sudden attacks. Yun Jhin''s approach made most of them frown as the captain of the guards asked: "What are you doing Daryl, haven''t I told you to go and report to the elders? Why are you back so soon?" Yun Jhin approached a little bit closer thus making them put their guards up even further the guard captain narrowed his eyes as he said: "You... you are acting strange Daryl, why don''t you respond to my question?" "Oh you see captain... that''s because I''m not Daryl." The moment Yun Jhin said those words bone spikes grew out of his arms and impaled the captain through the stomach, the captain vomited a mouthful of blood as his blood started to be extracted from his body and entered the bones making them multiply creating a small bone forest which engulfed the other guards killing them instantly. Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked at the guard''s remains which were being absorbed by the bone forest, he waved his hand and the bone forest disappeared as if it was never there, the same happened to his actual body as he disappeared as well. Yun Jhin''s actions scared the living daylights out of the hiding people that he ignored as he deemed them too lowly for him to take care of. The moment they sighed thinking that they escaped one of Yun Jhin''s lackeys came by and annihilated all of them letting the snow on the ground becoming fully red. Yun Jhin orchestrated the whole thing as he waited for the big bad bosses to appear, even if they were enjoying themselves at this moment it wouldn''t take much time for them to realize that things weren''t normal. As if on cue an immense amount of pressure descended on the plaza as an angered voice overwhelmed Yun Jhin''s hidden pawns: "WHO DARES TO DO THIS TO MY GLORIOUS HAN FAMILY? I SHALL ANNIHILATE YOUR CLANS AND DRINK FROM THE SKULLS OF YOUR ANCESTORS WHILE I DINE ON THEIR FLESH AND BONES." Yun Jhin knew that the one who said that was one of the higher-ups of the family, but he could only feel the aura of one person which showed that the other person was hiding in the dark trying to tag-team Yun Jhin when he fought one of them trying to take him by surprise. Yun Jhin smiled, he decided to play along with them. The moment that the voice stopped shouting was the moment a heavyset man appeared in the air above the plaza, his eyes were amber colored and he wore blue chain mail armor, he had a helmet on his head that sported two long horns made from gold. His eyes scanned the plaza below like two lanterns as he tried to identify where Yun Jhin''s pawns were along with him. Yun Jhin speed blitzed behind him as he tried to bifurcate him at the waist only to find his arm stuck inside the chain-mail armor, the heavy-set man laughed as he looked behind as if his neck didn''t have bones and said: "Very good armor don''t you think?" Yun Jhin nodded, it was a very annoying armor but it wasn''t that troublesome for him, he clenched his stuck hand, and the chains that grabbed the hand started to crack and break. The moment the Viking-like person saw what was happening his eyes bulged out to the point that they almost left their sockets, he tried to give Yun Jhin a big bear hug while he was still stuck and succeeded however when he tried to break his bones he found out that it was like hugging a mountain, no matter how hard he tried all he could do was continue hugging the mountain without even being able to move it. He frowned as he shouted: "FATHER COME OUT!" The moment he shouted a man similar to him appeared, he was a little bit shorter with a hunched back and also not as fat as the one who was hugging Yun Jhin but they resembled each other quite a bit. Yun Jhin laughed inside as he saw the man appearing earlier than they intended, he already made a hole in their plan, the hunched Viking immediately teleported towards his son who was still holding onto Yun Jhin only to frown as he felt something wasn''t right. He then jumped backward away from Yun Jhin as the bone forest from before unleashed itself directly upon the man''s son along with his surroundings, the bone forest had increased to around 10 meters in height and 70 centimeters in width, the moment it appeared it impaled everything around beside Yun Jhin, the bones were practically alive as they moved around him like they were made from gum. The older one was frightened by the sudden attack while the younger one was impaled and his blood was getting drained by the bones as if they were ravenous maggots. It didn''t take much time for the shriveled form of the younger formerly heavy-set man to appear in the midst of the bone forest, he looked as if he didn''t eat for weeks and his face was extremely pale just like a dead person''s but he was still alive and kicking. He tried to remove himself from the bone forest so he could regenerate his blood back but the bones were sticking right through him making it hard for him to break them, even though they were very pliable in Yun Jhin''s hands they were harder than meteorite metal when it came to someone else interacting with them. The moment the father saw his son''s current situation he started to move away to retreat. However, Yun Jhin appeared behind him ready to skewer him through the chest only for the old man to smile and mutter: "Got you!" Chapter 232: A plan that bears fruit Yun Jhin could felt something was wrong as he got his hand stuck again, he tried to remove his hand only for him to find out that it was getting frozen, the old man laughed inside as he looked at Yun Jhin then he sent a ki wave to sever the bonds that were holding his son captive, however, the wave only cut a little bit into the bones before it dissipated by itself. Yun Jhin severed his hand that was stuck inside the man''s back before regenerating a new one, his eyes wandered towards his frozen hand which was slowly getting absorbed into the old man''s back, he could feel that after he absorbed his hand that he regained some of his energy. This was one of the rarer times that Yun Jhin didn''t think things through, he would have never thought that the celestial realm would host such techniques of absorption but it seems he was underestimating the evil that these people were capable of. After all the Soul Emperor originated from the celestial realm and by his techniques he wasn''t any kind soul. It seemed that merchants would always be insidious no matter what kind of peak they reached. Yun Jhin could feel some type of connection being created to the old creep in front of him but he immediately severed it with his soul willpower. The old man frowned as he felt his attempt on connecting to Yun Jhin''s soul fail, he looked towards his back only to find out that Yun Jhin was missing. "Over here you fossil." Yun Jhin appeared in front of him as he hit him with a haymaker over the head making his body fall to the ground but before he could hit the ground Yun Jhin appeared below him since he was falling face-up Yun Jhin put his hand up piercing directly into his abdomen combining the force of him being thrown down with a sharp attachment to his hand thus penetrating the man''s stomach and putting his hand through his back. Yun Jhin chuckled as he chucked the man towards the bone forest where the bones started to move as if they were alive, the old man''s eyes were wide as he tried to move but his spine was severed when Yun Jhin pierced through his abdomen and he didn''t have enough time to regenerate it. The bones pierced through his whole body as they multiplied while his body started to become shriveled like a dried prune. Yun Jhin then appeared in front of the father and son as he put his hands on their foreheads creating two more trusty slaves. The moment he finished enslaving so many families another batch of destiny struck him like an avalanche as his cultivation base was ready for another breakthrough! He closed his eyes as he raised his hand to the sky unleashing his mental field and conquering every mind of the weaker citizens, the stronger God Realm experts couldn''t be controlled this way but his squad already made short work of them, only the patriarch and ancestor were considered to be problems and he took care of both now. His eyes wandered down towards the plaza as he saw more God Realm experts being brought to the open by his goons, he appeared down as he put his hands on each of their foreheads enslaving them as well... Now he had full control of all the 4 guardian families! Now that he had a better overview of the whole history of these families by sharing the memories of the slaves he finally understood why the 4 sacred beasts were thrown down from the celestial realm! It was mostly because the humans revolted against them, after a while, they were overpowered and thrown out being replaced with the current guardian families, they were the actual guardian beasts of the celestial realm, and back then the gates that lead to the mortal realm weren''t as tightly sealed as they were now, everyone could come and go and this leads to the current pitiable situation of the sacred beasts. Yun Jhin felt there was more to this than these people knew, while the guardians knew a little bit the imperial family had the most knowledge about this event. However, it wasn''t time for him to snoop around for such information, while he was rather curious about the details he already had finished his deals with the sacred beasts and he didn''t have much use for them anymore... and if he wanted them on his payroll he would just enslave them just like he did everyone else. It didn''t take much time for Yun Jhin to finish sorting his new troop''s combination along with getting whatever resources he found useful from the merchant family, now that he had finished the main plan could go on, but first, since he already gained the destiny of the four families he would be able to break through already, Yun Jhin was sure that the prince didn''t think he would be able to get complete genuine control of the families thus getting access to their destiny or else he might have been cursing right now. Since he still had time to contact the prince he first got himself the best place to have a breakthrough in the ice fortress before he entered closed-door cultivation. The 6th stage of the God Realm 32 laws that needed to be learned and then fused with the body, however, Yun Jhin already had complete mastery of those laws due to the inheritance of the Soul Emperor, his body started to glow with a multicolored light as he looked towards the ceiling of the cave he was currently in, it was extremely cold and there was darkness all around him, he was the only source of light in the cave. He was in the cultivation place of the ancestor it had the best feng-shui in the fortress and a huge accumulation of ki. The ki in his surroundings entered his body as the multicolored light left it being propelled by the ki into the skies to create a beam of energy that attracted the laws of the celestial realm! The moment this happened everyone would have been alarmed but considering they were all Yun Jhin''s slaves and the fortress was rather remote there was no problem. Yun Jhin could feel the laws of the celestial realm quickly converging above the fortress in the dark cloud-filled skies. A storm appeared at the top of the fortress as different shapes started to transform into the sky, the laws took the image that they were most associated with before they ''smelled'' around Yun Jhin''s beam of light. At first, things went well then the laws started to reject Yun Jhin, he was an outsider and this was also his second breakthrough in the God Realm, the first breakthrough came from the fusion between his main body and Yun Duritz and it was more of natural evolution but now Yun Jhin accumulated destiny and ki while he comprehended the laws of the realm to reach his current breakthrough. Thus he lived more in the realm than before and Yun Duritz''s aura didn''t fool the laws anymore, those were also laws that he wasn''t really familiar with as he never interacted with them, so they were rather wild. In conclusion, he either had to tame them or forcefully fuse them with his body to breakthrough at this point, or else he would lose all of his accumulation. The things and beings made of laws above the fortress were sniffing around Yun Jhin''s beam then one of them opened its ''mouth'' wide trying to take a bite from it. Yun Jhin snorted as he teleported near it and coated his hand in purple-colored ki before grabbing the law by its mouth and inserting his coated fist into its opened mouth. The law started to struggle but Yun Jhin was already absorbing the law into his body using the ki coated hand, he was connecting with its quintessence as he unleashed his understanding of the law forcefully taming it while absorbing it with his body, his actions startled the other 15 laws as they tried to run away only for Yun Jhin to snort. A tall barrier appeared blocking all of the laws from escaping, they rammed themselves in the barrier trying to break it but Yun Jhin''s battle power was already nearing the peak of the God Realm so their efforts were pretty much futile at this point. Yun Jhin''s eyes were glowing as he absorbed one of the laws then moved to the others, 2 laws, 3 laws, 4 laws. 7 laws, 15 laws, 16 laws fully assimilated into his body. Yun Jhin clenched his hands as he lifted both of his arms towards the sky expelling an immense amount of ki dispersing all of the clouds around the fortress letting the sun finally shine on the ice-covered fortress. Bone popping sounds could be heard from his whole body as he broke through reaching the 6th stage of the God Realm, he expelled a breath that created a storm dispersing the clouds 600 kilometers around the fortress and its surroundings. "Finally, 3 more stages until I reach the peak of the God Realm... I''m getting close and closer to my former peak." 3 unlit stairs appeared behind Yun Jhin, his avatar was 6 stairs above, just 3 more stairs... and he would be able to enforce his plan to reach the realm above and break through the stairs that were limiting him to this mortal shell, no matter how godly or strong he was he still felt time pass, he still felt his body aging, no matter how slow it aged it still happened. This was something he truly hated and despised, he despised his own mortality, so to quicken things he took another paper bird out of his clothes as it was time to finally contact Prince Markus again, it was time for Hell and the mortal realm to invade the celestial realm! Chapter 233: Let the mending of worlds begin! Yun Jhin took in a deep breath as the paper bird in his hand started to look life-like and prince Markus''s voice could be heard coming from it asking: "Is it done?" Yun Jhin had mirth in his voice that he quickly hid: "Yes your majesty, your plan is ready to begin, should I do the honors?" "Lin Duritz you have done a great job and I will reward you accordingly, you have left contacts in the tribes after you conquered them right?" "Of course your majesty, the portals are one word away from being open for everyone." "Then let''s invite them here, send the word now!" Yun Jhin smiled as he sent the order through his neural network link, regardless of the distance as long as they were in the same realm they would be able to take orders from him. In the Lin family, the restrictions of the portal started to fizzle and pop as one of the ancestors fiddled with it, shortly the portal came to life creating a connection to the mortal realm but unlike before all of the bloodlines that were in the portal were fully removed! The portal''s color changed from deep azure to a normal white and after making sure everything was ok the ancestor disappeared from there not wanting to be present when the first wave of people would arrive. The same moment that the ancestor of the Lin family was messing with the portal, some of the guards of the Han, Chen, and Kun family were doing the same thing. The portals sizzled and popped as they all lost their azure color, the next moment the guards disappeared as if they were never there. Yun Jhin floated atop the dark ice fortress as he kept his eyes closed, his hands were crossed around his chest as he waited there, suddenly his eyes opened as he said: "Things are done, your majesty." "Yes I can feel it... the portals had been messed with." "A very good job indeed... now we only have to wait..." And wait they did, but they didn''t have to for much time. The moment the portals were opened for everyone a wave of energy appeared near all of the portals attracting the attention of every power in the mortal realm, especially the top ones, these were portals that they have never seen or heard before and they randomly popped up in the four cardinal directions in galaxies that were abandoned. Thus everyone''s attention gathered to them, the spies from hell that infiltrated the organizations of the mortal realm even sacrificed themselves to send the message about the appearance of the gates back to hell. The ancestor of the brilliance radiance and light sect was the first one to get to his feet, the moment he heard about the appearance of these gates his sleepy looks transformed as he looked as serious as he could ever be, his drooping big ears moved up and down as he floated out of his room and teleported directly to the location of the northern portal. The northern portal was the closest to his sect so he decided to investigate that one... The western portal was annexed by the Dead Bones sect Gu Manshu while the eastern one was annexed by the blood throne sect. The southern one was taken by Andonara the woman that ''loved'' Yun Jhin. The moment they saw the portals they didn''t jump straightly into them, who knew where they led? The aura they exuded looked quite neutral at first glance as it was only white. All of these willy old foxes wouldn''t rush headfirst if they were to saw resources pop out of the air, they weren''t dumb. They knew there must be some reason for these gates to appear so at first they looked at them and analyzed the reason before sending in some ''guinea pigs'' to see what they would report. The moment these guinea pigs entered the celestial realm they couldn''t believe their eyes at first, then they couldn''t believe their senses, the pure and perfect ki energy in the air was cleansing their bodies and elevating them to a higher level. They were almost so tempted to destroy the portal behind them so no one else would be able to enter so they could enjoy all of the resources there for themselves. Regardless if it was the northern cold, the southern heat, and arid location, it was still a richer environment compared to the mortal realm. However, no matter how much they wanted to remain in the celestial realm and go cultivate it wasn''t possible, their bodies started to move back towards the portal while their brains were unwilling. They didn''t want to share the information about the celestial realm with the people that enslaved them. The moment they stepped back into the mortal realm and saw the faces of each person that enslaved them they opened their mouths trying to lie their way through but the eyes of each ancestor pierced through their beings like they were made of tofu and they spilled everything they saw. Ancestor Biu Wuan of the Radiance Brilliance and Light sect looked directly into the eyes of his Guinea Pig as he smiled at him like an understanding Buddha as he said: "It''s ok to covet the things that you are not supposed to have, it''s human nature to want better things, you have done your job and I understand what you have seen... it''s time to go on your way." The man did a monk salute while he said: "Amitabha! Please guide this sinful soul to the afterlife!" The person in front of him slowly started to turn into ashes that drifted into the universal wind as they disappeared. Biu Wuan''s smile disappeared as he looked at the entrance to the celestial realm as he sent word to his sect for all of the able-bodied people to rush and enter after him! He took one step inside the portal and disappeared and the same thing happened all over the universe. The celestial realm was getting populated with the people from the mortal realm! The moment the people from the blood throne sect entered the celestial realm under the guidance of Marthon, Yun Jhin connected with his out-of-body incarnation and gave out the order to protect the Lin family creating their new headquarters there. Yun Jhin continued to float above the ice fortress as he waited for a short while... suddenly in front of him the tall middle-aged man with drooping ears and a rudy body appeared. "Ancestor Biu Wuan, it seems you have enjoyed your arrival in the celestial realm." The ancestor''s face was as plain as it could be, he was calm looking at Yun Jhin but on the inside, he was wondering how the hell did he beat him to the punch, how did he arrive first in the celestial realm? He couldn''t be in the northern region if he entered from his eastern region unless all of the portals lead to the same place. Which was most unlikely, why would these portals spawn in different parts of the universe if they were all leading to the same place? "Cat got your tongue Biu Wuan?" "Hahaha, no, no I''m just surprised you arrived here before me, brother Yun Jhin, it seems you have grown quite strong, already reaching the 6th stage of the God Realm, you must have enjoyed some of the goods from the celestial realm didn''t you?" "If I did, I did, what is it to you?" "It''s nothing, I was just wondering how did you arrive before me?" "Ah you don''t need to know that, but you do you want to learn something interesting?" "Hmm?" Biu Wuan looked rather interested as he looked at Yun Jhin, he knew that he was a master of lies and deceit but at this time he didn''t find any lying intent in his gaze nor voice, Biu Wuan was a person who has cultivated the truth sutra so he would know when someone lied or not, Of course, this aspect of the technique wasn''t really useful in battles but in such situations, it was a rather good skill to have. "I don''t think I have to beat around the bush, do you want to know the way to transcend the God Realm?" "Amitabha, this old monk has always wanted to transcend and meet Budha himself so I could get some guidance from him directly, unfortunately, the universe is rather cruel, but would brother Yun Jhin be so nice that you would tell me the way without any difficulties?" "Oho there would be difficulties, but not only for you." "Hmm?" At this point Biu Wuan was getting interested, if there was something Yun Jhin needed his help with meant that it was something rather huge, he knew how Yun Jhin worked as he fought against him for more than a few times in his early days, of course, if he was around the 1st stage of the God Realm he would have struck him here and now but considering he felt a rather small threat coming from Yun Jhin''s current cultivation base he would rather work with him. There was no enmity big enough in the face of enormous benefits! Yun Jhin started to rub his hands just like a merchant would do as he said: "Do you know about the Celestial Emperor?" Chapter 234: The celestial emperor is a big piece of meat! "The celestial Emperor?" Recognition came to Biu Wuan''s face, he knew about the celestial emperor but up till now he thought that he was only a myth, a legend, just like the celestial realm that he was currently in, but considering he already reached the celestial realm, the emperor of the realm in question should be real as well. "What about him?" Biu Wuan asked with a questioning tone, he didn''t really know much about him besides that he was a superior expert with great technique and skill, he was a dragon among men and the strongest being in existence besides Hell''s willpower. "Well I already gave you a hint beforehand, you see the celestial emperor is our only ticket towards ascendance." "Hmm? You really mean that, I guess you need my help to subdue him if you are ready to tell me this precious information." "Actually only the two of us would be small beans that the celestial emperor could casually crush in his hands, we need the help of everyone." "Are you really sure about that?" "Of course I am, I''m going to tell you all of the details after everyone has gathered up." After their discussion cut off an awkward silence descended upon them. Because they were generally enemies there wasn''t much they could talk about after they have finished their discussion about benefits, and since Yun Jhin didn''t want to divulge any more information yet Biu Wuan closed his eyes and decided to meditate until everyone came here, he knew that Yun Jhin would call them here somehow. Since Yun Jhin already had connections to every place, he knew that those peak God Realm experts would first come for the most populated or most important areas in the place they were teleported. And Yun Jhin already had people there to leave the message, it didn''t take much time for a laugh that sounded to be coming from a ghost came, it was the hunchbacked angel of darkness that Yun Jhin still owed him, Gu Manshu! He appeared in front of Yun Jhin and Biu Wuan as he looked between them a few times to make sure he was seeing right, then he laughed once again as he said: "It seems you guys have found something of big importance if you put down your hundreds of thousands of years vendetta." Yun Jhin didn''t say anything besides: "We will wait until everyone is here before I will tell you what''s of such big importance." "Ok then, keep your secrets." Gu Manshu didn''t really look to be caring as he closed his eyes and mimicked Biu Wuan''s meditating, most likely mocking him. As time passed a shrill voice could be heard coming from the void: "OH MY GOD, IT''S REALLY YOU, YUN JHIN!" Yun Jhin shuddered as he heard her voice, Andonara was one of the people that he wanted to see the least, but her strength was also needed. The moment she appeared she stuck onto Yun Jhin like glue, she had a strange expression on her androgynous face as she chuckled like a fool while drooling over Yun Jhin''s body. From what he knew about her she was a very big fan of his, she started to walk him around his 800 reincarnations as he became infamous due to his actions. At first, she was a sweet little thing until she found out about Yun Jhin''s harem and she massacred it quickly and efficiently before sending the heads to Yun Jhin''s throne room. At that point, he understood that he couldn''t keep this crazy woman in his life. He liked his women subdued just like he liked his subordinates and everyone else that was working under him. At this point, he didn''t really care about having children anymore so he only had those two that came from Qinghe. But the expression on Andonara''s face told him that she wanted some children. She always tried to harvest his DNA to get his children one way or another, he wasn''t even sure why she was so obsessed with him, but one thing he was sure of was that her soul was either incomplete or somehow messed up. Biu Wuan opened his eyes as he looked around and said: "We are all here, ready to tell us what you know Yun Jhin?" Yun Jhin nodded as he started to tell them what he knew: "The celestial emperor''s body is weakening due to his immense age, sooner or later his shell will expire and he will remain only as soul willpower, this is our only chance of ascending, we can use the destiny gained from the celestial realm to ascend! The emperor''s destiny should be so concentrated that it would be liquid by now, if we would be able to strip it away from him we would surely have a chance at ascension." "Of course I will help my hubby wubby, Yun Jhin," Andonara said while clutching his arm trying to press her chest into it. Gu Manshu and Biu Wuan looked at each other for a few seconds, they both saw the greed in the eyes of each other but they also knew that Yun Jhin would have never disclosed this information if it was easy to take care of the celestial emperor, this would be the first time the 4 of them would work together! "You guys should get all of your armies in here, the central region is full of strong cultivators and we need to strike a huge hubbub to awaken the celestial emperor from his nap, if he wakes up now his body will deteriorate even faster." "My army is already here and they are moving towards the central region." Yun Jhin waved his hand as Marthon appeared near him then fused with his body disappearing into motes of light. "Hmm, an out-of-body incarnation?" "Yes, it was needed for the plan to work, the out-of-body incarnation was the first that entered the celestial realm and I followed soon after." Yun Jhin was telling a half-truth here but they wouldn''t be able to do anything at this point anyway. "Ok then go and get your armies inside, my army will wait at the border of the central area, they will meet there and we will unleash despair upon the people of the celestial realm, while they have higher cultivation bases their battle power is lacking." They all nodded and left besides Andonara who was still clutching Yun Jhin''s arm, Yun Jhin just glanced at her without saying anything as she saluted him and disappeared as well, she knew she had a job to do and she didn''t want to disappoint her hubby. Yun Jhin called prince Markus once again: "Your highness, the place is filled with outsiders from the mortal realm, the plan succeeded and they already entering the realm in droves, it seems they are going directly to the central region!" "I see, I see, you should come back to the capital so I can reward you properly for all the hard work you have done." "As for the attackers? We should let them wreak some havoc first so my imperial father can finally wake up from his sleep, HAHAHA!" Yun Jhin nodded and told him that he will come soon. He destroyed another paper bird before disappearing from the top of the fortress, it was time to go back to the capital. While his allies will attack the central region from the outside he will do some things inside. But first things first, he immediately teleported back to the capital as he was welcomed by prince Markus. He really wanted his destiny reward. They again went down to the basement of the palace where Yun Jhin soaked into the destiny pool. He could feel his body fusing with the destiny that was gushing like a geyser from the ground... it was different from the first time, this destiny was way more aggressive and he could feel a hint of willpower in it... he frowned as he immediately jumped out of the pool and saw the two maids that helped him last time look at him with a creepy gaze. However Yun Jhin ignored them as they both fell to the ground without any life left in them, then they started to slowly transform into dust and disappear. He looked behind him to see prince Markus clapping while saying: "It seems you have quite the acute senses but I wouldn''t have expected anything else from the man who enslaved the 4 families in the span of 3 months." Yun Jhin shook his head as he said: "Quite the unclassy trap isn''t it, your highness?" "While it may unclassy to backstab you, you already know too much, I guess you even predicted this would happen right?" "Yeah, I kinda did, but have you predicted this?" Yun Jhin''s body and face started to morph as his aura changed as well, he returned to his original appearance, after he talked with his comrades he changed back to the visage of Lin Duritz and now he went back to looking as he originally was. The moment his appearance changed his aura started to increase and intensify as it fully attacked prince Markus with its whole weight. Prince Markus felt the increase of gravity around him as he slowly but surely kneeled in front of Yun Jhin, his face was crazed as he looked directly into Yun Jhin''s eyes and said: "You played me like a fiddle didn''t you, you are an outsider!" "Of course I am, what kind of proud celestial citizen would betray his own realm for the grandeur dreams of a power-hungry prince?" "You... you!!!" "Ok now you will have to go to sleep... forever, but don''t worry your father, mother, and relatives will come and meet you soon so you won''t be alone in the underworld!" Chapter 235: Awakening the celestial emperor! Prince Markus felt his life flash in front of his face as Yun Jhin''s hand was getting closer and closer to his neck, ready to snap it like he was a chicken grown for slaughter. He gulped down heavily as he tried to move his body only to find out that the gravity pinned him down so thoroughly that he couldn''t move at all. Sweat trickled down from his forehead as if it was a waterfall, he couldn''t help but shout at the last second before Yun Jhin''s demonic hand latched on his neck: "FATHER HELP ME!" Being put against the wall, in a life and death situation, Markus couldn''t think about anything else besides shouting for his daddy! It was mostly because in his youth his father was a little bit more active and he would act to protect him no matter what he did, he was a young master with both silk pants and a golden spoon in his mouth, but as time passed his father couldn''t come out to help him anymore, he couldn''t play with him anymore as his body started to weaken, he needed to hibernate. However, this leads to the prince getting abandonment issues and hating his father, forgetting about the good times that they had together which led to hatred and the obsession of wanting to become emperor, but he didn''t actually want to become emperor, he wanted to meet his father again which was the emperor. The moment the shout traveled through the whole palace, it started to shake as if the biggest earthquake was going on, actually, the palace wasn''t the only thing that was shaking, if Yun Jhin concentrated a little bit better he could feel that the whole celestial realm was shaking! At this point, Yun Jhin actually started to have second thoughts about going against the Emperor, he knew that he was currently awakening and this wasn''t even his full power! This was just the remnant of his aura flaring for one second due to his awakening! Yun Jhin looked down at the trembling prince and sighed, since he already went this far there was no going back now, his hand clenched prince Markus''s neck, breaking it and killing him, his soul tried to escape from his dead body but before it could Yun Jhin opened his mouth and inhaled absorbing the soul directly into his body and assimilating it. Yun Jhin could feel some scattered memories surfacing on his soul but he discarded all of them, they were mostly useless to him and because he forcefully absorbed the soul he didn''t get anything important from him. The moment he died the shaking of the realm increased in intensity as the celestial emperor hastened his awakening, rage could be felt traveling through the whole realm as it shook, dormant volcanoes woke up as they started to spurt lava inundating villages and killing countless innocents. As the saying went, if the Emperor is angered the heavens shake! And the sky was literally shaking and turning red after the death of Markus, things started to change on a cataclysmic level to the point that even Biu Wuan, Andonara, and Gu Manshu realized that things didn''t look that well for them, they even wanted to retreat! However, retreating at this point was impossible, the 4 gates that lead to the mortal realm suddenly stopped at the same time! The 3 peak god realm experts had left a piece of their soul willpower on the gates to make sure no one else followed them in but now they saw how the gates were being turned off! Their countenances turned ghastly white as they realized they were stuck here along with whatever Yun Jhin had done to piss the celestial emperor this quickly. Yun Jhin broke through space creating a hole as he appeared near them, their armies were all converged and ready to attack the central area. However there was no need for that anymore, the celestial emperor awoke already and the 3 of them looked at Yun Jhin with an expression that seemingly asked: ''What the hell have you done?'' Yun Jhin didn''t say anything besides: "You need to prepare, with this amount of anger his body will decay very quickly, we need to delay until his body disintegrates and he remains only as a soul willpower before we can enter in our attacking stance, for now, we will have to defend!" "What the hell have you done anyways to piss him this much?" Yun Jhin looked at Gu Manshu who asked and answered: "I killed one of his sons." Gu Manshu nodded as he looked towards the horizon, he saw the red sky intensifying in color as lightning bolts started to strike the earth around them, he sighed as he said: "Well, here he comes..." The celestial emperor descended from the sky with a lightning bolt, a crater appeared where it struck as he landed in a super-hero pose, the moment he got up and started to float, his appearance was seen by everyone around. He was a tall man standing around 2 meters, he wore blue and white clothes that covered his whole body not showing any skin besides his face, he was rather handsome with a short beard and short cut hair, he had an angered look on his face as he glared at every strong person which was Yun Jhin, Andonara, Biu Wuan, and Gu Manshu, he pretty much ignored the gigantic army below as if they didn''t even exist. The moment their gazes crossed in mid-air lightning struck from their eyes, the 4 of them versus the celestial emperor. The lightning met in the middle and it started to push into each other, however, the four''s lightning didn''t get to last much before it was pushed back and annihilated, but the lightning beam that came from the celestial emperor was still going strong as it wanted to strike all of them at once! But their lightning had delayed the celestial emperor''s attack for enough time so they could dodge out the way, the lightning struck downwards and killed hundreds of thousands of troops who were already retreating from the central area border, they knew that the fight between these titans wasn''t something they could join nor look at. Yun Jhin skidded a few tens of meters backward to dodge the lightning beam while the others either teleported or used their own special evasion techniques. The celestial emperor looked at them expecting them to dodge when suddenly he appeared directly in front of Yun Jhin! "I know you are the one that killed my son, that poor deluded boy, I''m sorry that I couldn''t be with him more but he should have understood that I put the celestial realm above my familial ties... but seeing him die, feeling his connection to me be severed by now, made me understand that I have made a mistake, the celestial realm can be damned!" His arm went directly through Yun Jhin''s stomach coming out of his back while clutching his spine. Yun Jhin then fell to the ground powerlessly as he felt his surroundings darken, however, he gritted his teeth as he vomited countless globules of blood which transformed into clones similar to his visage, they were small beings around being a finger length and width, but the moment they appeared Yun Jhin''s countenance which was as pale as paper turned back to normal. The small people that resembled Yun Jhin carried the corrosive ki that the celestial emperor left in Yun Jhin''s body so he couldn''t heal. The moment the corrosive ki was expelled a new spine grew as the gaping hole in his chest closed up, the small Yun Jhin''s were then burned into cinders by his inner flame as his body bulked up and he entered his battle mode, initiating Lin''s family bloodline. The celestial emperor glared at Yun Jhin as he saw how he had devoured Lin Duritz and the others through the transformation, being connected with the celestial realm on a higher level meant that he could turn back time and see what happened, he knew that Lin Duritz was a clone as well. He glared at Yun Jhin as he lifted his hand to the sky summoning a gigantic orb of energy that he wanted to throw towards Yun Jhin but Gu Manshu and Andonara appeared in front of him and behind him as they grabbed him by the arms, Biu Wuan appeared above extinguishing the ball of energy before it could culminate into its most destroying form. Then he dropped towards the celestial Emperor''s head ready to pierce it with a golden needle that shined brightly. However, the celestial emperor flexed his arms as he threw both Gu Manshu and Andonara far away to the point that they both became shooting stars, then he glared at Biu Wuan as he let out a shout creating a sonic wave that resonated with his golden needle making it shake as if it was a church bell being struck severely, the immensely fast shaking made the needle spin out of Biu Wuan''s hand and impale him in the chest before his body transformed into a pool of blood and flesh that dropped to the ground. Yun Jhin appeared in front of the pile of flesh as he guarded it, he knew that Biu Wuan needed some time to recover, and absorbing him in this situation wouldn''t help him at all, he needed the help of all 3 of them if he wanted to take care of the celestial emperor! The celestial emperor didn''t say anything else as he lifted both hands into the air this time, an azure-colored gigantic ball of energy started to converge onto his hands, it expanded at quick speeds as it absorbed the surrounding ki from the whole celestial realm! Yun Jhin frowned as he looked at the incoming ball of death and cursed: "Damn it!" Chapter 236: Destroy the body, release the soul! Yun Jhin couldn''t stop the ball from being completed, it was way too big and unstable, staying near it meant certain death! The radius of the incoming explosion wasn''t going to be small so he needed to get the hell out of here! Fortunately, the other two had been thrown away quite far and he had already learned their energy codes, he put one hand on the pile of flesh below him and put two fingers on his forehead as he disappeared moments before the celestial emperor could throw his ball at him. The moment he disappeared was the same moment that the celestial emperor threw the ball down however he knew that his target had escaped. The ball drilled into the ground creating a gigantic crater, golden lava spurted out of the ground and burning everything in sight, the celestial emperor looked around and saw how no one was around anymore, the army had already retreated and run away while Yun Jhin and the others were hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from him. Gu Manshu and Andonara were both surprised Yun Jhin appearing near them with a ''pop'' sound. Gu Manshu even started to laugh heartily as he looked at the pile of flesh that came with Yun Jhin and said: "It seems that not even your golden needle of the far east can do anything eh Biu Wuan?" The pile of flesh started to move and squirm as it reconstructed itself in the form of Biu Wuan then he started to crack his neck and knuckles as he stretched. "It''s been a while since my fleshly body had been put through such intense pressure." Biu Wuan ignored Gu Manshu''s insult as he looked towards Yun Jhin and asked: "What do you think we should do to break his fleshly body?" "It''s easier said than done, even if we make a plan it''s hard to say if it will work or not considering his power." "Wait so you don''t actually know how to break his body open?" Yun Jhin shook his head as he said: "It will crack open with time, I already said that he was pretty close to bursting and him being awake quickens the process." "So we only have to wait around?" "Pretty much, but if he won''t be able to find us he would surely go back to sleep, and fighting him on his home territory won''t end up well at all, we need to keep him on the surface of the celestial realm until his body breaks down." "And this is where the hard part comes in..." Yun Jhin looked towards the sky as he felt the celestial emperor approaching again, it was practically impossible to hide from him for a long amount of time as he was connected with the realm itself, all they could do was hide for a certain amount of time before they were found out and it was quite a lucky event that they had been able to hide for enough time to discuss the plan. Yun Jhin jumped into the air as he started hovering, he closed his eyes as he unleashed his full power, his purple and green aura embraced him like a suit of armor while Gu Manshu started to transform as well, his originally skinny body started to decay, all of his skin started to disappear as only bones remained behind, in his eye sockets a dark green soul fire burned as he looked towards the incoming celestial emperor. Biu Wuan closed his eyes as he started to chant a Buddhist mantra, golden light engulfing the whole team as they got buffed. Andonara smiled as she showed her shiny pearly teeth and her face started to morph, getting elongated, her body then lost its hands and legs as she turned into a snake! Her fangs gleamed in the light of the sun as she hissed towards the celestial emperor who had arrived and immediately appeared behind them! They knew he was going to do something like this so they all turned towards him and unleashed a bunch of Mouth acid/ Buddhist incantations/ Bone spears/ Blood spears. The celestial emperor snorted deflecting all of the attacks with a wave of his arm, the attacks flew into the sky and exploded there harmlessly. Yun Jhin launched himself at the celestial emperor, he had the strongest body and he would be able to tank the most hits among his party. Even though the others had higher cultivation bases it didn''t matter much in this situation as the celestial emperor could break through their ki barriers quite easily. Yun Jhin shouted as he let out two gigantic beams of green energy from his arms, they traveled directly towards the celestial emperor as if they were two circular plates of energy ready to bisect him. However, the celestial emperor snorted as he grabbed each beam with his hands and returned them to Yun Jhin at double the speed! Yun Jhin dodged the returned attack by a millimeter as he felt the attacks cutting into his side and cheek. Andonara slithered her way towards the emperor as she tried to capture him by constricting her body around his. However, before she could even approach him a little better he grabbed her by the neck telepathically then transformed her into a pretzel. She was thrown to the ground where she left a small crater as Biu Wuan appeared behind the celestial emperor and tried another attack with his golden needle. However, this was a futile attempt as the emperor grabbed the needle ignoring his bleeding hand, and forcefully took it out of Biu Wuan''s hand before stabbing it into his head until it came out from the other side. Biu Wuan fell to the ground just like Andonara as he tried to take the needle out of his head. Only Gu Manshu and Yun Jhin remained in the fight at this point. Gu Manshu gave Yun Jhin an eye signal using the green ghost fire that lit up his eye sockets as they both attacked at the same time. Gu Manshu transformed his whole body into a spear as he entered the emperor''s midsection and left through his back then he exploded! The explosion made the Emperor''s body expand as he tried to control it and recover his original form, however, Yun Jhin entered the unhealed hole in his midsection and he started to expand in size as he let out a barrier of ki that started to shoot out small ki blasts by the hundreds of thousands! The shell blaster attack exploded the emperor''s body into smithereens as it tried to reconnect together just like Biu Wuan''s did, however Biu Wuan and Andonara finally healed themselves as they started to hunt down the pieces of meat destroying them quickly until nothing remained. However, they left out a small part of his eye as it rolled under the ground only for the celestial emperor to heal himself back to his full body. But things weren''t that good for the Emperor as he clutched his chest and his skin started to crack, he could feel that his regeneration would be the last this time, if his body broke again his soul wouldn''t be able to create another. He gasped as he exploded out of the ground not taking the 4 by surprise, they knew that it was impossible to destroy every piece of the flesh unless they took care of the body in total, destroying the body while it was whole was easier than trying to find all his pieces of scattered flesh. However, getting him in a position where all of his body would be evaporated was currently impossible for the quartet. Yun Jhin gasped for breath as that attack took a huge amount of his ki reserves, Biu Wuan and Gu Manshu weren''t looking that great either, only Andonara was still ok because she didn''t use any ki in the fight. Yun Jhin glanced at Andonara and sent her a message: "You will have to delay him until we can recover some of our battle power." Andonara had hearts in her eyes as she got Yun Jhin''s message, she nodded and then went ahead to fight the celestial emperor 1 on 1. As Yun Jhin was recovering his ki and battle power along with the other two, Andonara was getting the snot beaten out of her by the weakened emperor. The moment she tried to 1v1 him she got kicked in the face and thrown into the ground before the Emperor started to rain blow after blow on her snake tummy making her vomit out some green acid which he dodged by moving his head to the side. But this wasn''t all, the emperor knew that they were using Andonara as fodder to recover but they didn''t know that while he beat the ever-living shit out of her he was also charging an ability to eradicate all of them at once! Chapter 237: After the soul is out, capture it! It didn''t take much time for Yun Jhin to realize that something wasn''t right, only a few minutes in after he saw how the emperor was focusing too hard on Andonara made him realize that he was making a trap for them! He knew that the emperor realized that they were using the time Andonara got for them to rest and recuperate so there was surely no way he would let them restore their battle power unless he had an ace up his sleeve! And Yun Jhin didn''t really want to see what that ace was going to do, in this situation if he let the emperor charge his energy they would all die without a shadow of a doubt! Yun Jhin ignored the throbbing pain that was coursing through his body as he gave an eye signal to his compatriots. Since they were enemies for such a long time they had learned quite a lot of things about each other so they knew what Yun Jhin''s eye signal meant, know yourself, and know thy enemy was a saying that most cultivators at the higher stages followed religiously. Yun Jhin eye signal meant that they were going to sacrifice Andonara to deal a critical hit to the emperor''s body. Even though the man was hiding it, Yun Jhin could see through him rather well, he knew that he was on his last legs and if his body broke again he wouldn''t be able to create another one. In that situation, his soul willpower would be around 50% of his original strength or even lower, thus the 3 of them would be able to work together and subdue it. Yun Jhin took in a deep breath as he looked at Andonara''s pitiful form and shouted: "Stop that celestial emperor, I was the one who killed your son, you want me right?" Yun Jhin''s words struck a chord in the celestial emperor''s heart. He saw some of the times he had with his son and he burst into a rage as he rushed towards Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin smiled inside as he saw how easily the fool fell for his trap, his hands wavered for a few seconds seemingly as if he was taking a hard decision before Andonara''s snake body appeared in his hands. Andonara didn''t know what was happening, she was almost half unconscious from the beating she took but she was rather glad to be in Yun Jhin''s arms, only to cry out in surprise as she was thrown directly at the celestial emperor like a Lasoo Andonara grabbed him up as he was momentarily tied by her body, but as he flexed his arms Andonara cried out: "Untie me from him, my body will burst!" Andonara could feel her body scales started o crack and rip away from her and it was immensely painful. She cried out for Yun Jhin''s help: "Hubby, don''t let me die, please help me! You still need my help to take him down don''t you?" Yun Jhin''s face was as cold as glacial ice as he said: "Yes and no." Andonara started to panic as she knew what Yun Jhin would do in this situation. Yun Jhin let go of her tail as the celestial emperor fully broke her into two pieces that fell to the ground in a circle. However, the celestial emperor knew that something wasn''t right the moment Andonara''s body fell to the ground as he tried to jump out of the circle. "TOO LATE!" The trio shouted in unison as they powered up, their auras engulfed their bodies, their powers reached their peak as Andonara''s body started to glow below the emperor''s feet, as a peak, God realm expert''s body and an intelligent beast, Andonara''s body was certainly a treasure that many cultivators would long after. As the glow intensified in power purple smoke started to rise from Andonara''s body which was slowly paralyzing the celestial emperor''s body. Andonara''s poison was very strong but not strong enough to do much to the celestial emperor, but with the help of the trio who was powering up the body of the deceased Andonara the poison could paralyze the emperor before they couldn''t attempt this as Andonara''s body wouldn''t have been able to handle all of their power alive. Even when dead the body couldn''t really resist, as it was expunging all of that poison it was also slowly disintegrating into ashes which drifted in the wind. The celestial emperor''s skin started to turn purple as he was coughing up globules of purple blood trying to extract all of the poison from himself. But he was still a step too late as Yun Jhin, Gu Manshu, and Biu Wuan caught him in a triangle formation, they shouted as a triangle of energy engulfed the celestial emperor''s whole body, every one of them poured up to every tiny scrap of ki remaining in their bodies into the attack. A gigantic yellow pillar rose into the skies as the emperor''s cries could be heard coming from it. The pillar extended up into the stars as it only disappeared after a few minutes of it burning brightly. The celestial emperor was on his last legs as his burnt body kneeled to the trio who were gasping for air and clutching their chests as they took in big mouthfuls of ki from their surroundings trying to replenish their reserves. All of the ki in the surrounding 300 kilometers was emptied as the 3 experts did their breathing techniques to recover their ki. The celestial emperor''s legs wobbled as he tried to get right back up from his kneeling position only to fall again, he felt his body starting to crack as he couldn''t stop the process of his body decaying anymore. Parts of his body started to fall off and disappear as his pure azure celestial soul started to appear in the front of the three greedy sharks that got him in this situation. Yun Jhin couldn''t help but laugh as he saw the emperor''s shell break down and transform into ashes just like Andonara''s body did, he took a few steps forward but Gu Manshu and Biu Wuan glared at him from behind. Yun Jhin knew that all 3 of them couldn''t absorb the soul and cutting it up would surely massively reduce the effects that they wanted to see so at this point they were enemies! Even Gu Manshu who had a good relationship with Yun Jhin immediately decided to attack him from behind trying to impale him using his bone spears. Biu Wuan didn''t watch from the side as he took out his needle and launched an assault towards Yun Jhin''s forehead trying to kill him so there would be one less contestant. Both Gu Manshu and Biu Wuan knew how insidious Yun Jhin was so they wouldn''t want to team up with him in this situation, however, the two didn''t know that while the celestial emperor lost his body that didn''t mean the fight with him was over! Yun Jhin had even stated beforehand that they still needed to defeat his soul before they could absorb it, right now he was taking a few steps forward to use the soul techniques he learned from the soul emperor to weaken the celestial emperor''s soul so they would be able to take him down easily. However the two had different thoughts than him, they thought that because they destroy his body he would be easy pickings. But the celestial emperor wasn''t, he looked towards the trio who were attacking each other as he let out a wail making them clutch their heads, they weren''t fully healed at this point and their ki wasn''t at its full capacity so they couldn''t defend themselves from the sound attack let out by the celestial emperor. Yun Jhin took a few steps backward as he drilled into the ground and disappeared leaving Gu Manshu and Biu Wuan to deal with the celestial emperor''s soul, but they weren''t dumb and they didn''t want to let Yun Jhin be the fisherman so they both flew into the skies and tried to escape. It was a good attempt but the celestial emperor''s enraged soul didn''t really want to let them escape, it let out another shriek as it increased in size and started to shot out globules of green plasma from his mouth which hit both Gu Manshu and Biu Wuan before they could fully leave the area, the globules were sticky and heavy so they fell to the ground and remained there as they got stuck. The emperor chuckled darkly as he used his phantasm hands inserting them in the craniums of both of them, Gu Manshu''s soul fire started to slowly deplete as any living signs on the skeletons started to stop, while Biu Wuan struggled mightily as he chanted Buddhist incantation after Buddhist incarnation, while it didn''t look like much without Yun Jhin''s support they were both easily picked out by the celestial emperor as if they were sheep for the slaughter. Yun Jhin looked at everything from the underground as he sat there cross-legged, the ki from the earth itself was slowly fusing with his body as an azure aura started to flare around him, flame-like patterns appeared on his face as if they were tattoos and destiny from the celestial realm was slowly converging on his body, but at the last second when the destiny was ready to merge with his body he declined it! Chapter 238: A fisherman with a broken net Yun Jhin''s rejection of destiny created a chain reaction as the ground started to shake and the clouds above in the sky started to rumble. Since the celestial emperor''s body was destroyed his connection towards the celestial realm was halved, so the realm wanted a replacement. Yun Jhin was the best candidate and considering how weak he currently was the realm helped him to heal up before investing the destiny that was stripped from the emperor into him, however, Yun Jhin declined it! In a situation where destiny was given to him Yun Jhin would have gobbled it up without question but the destiny the realm was giving him had some major problems that he couldn''t solve. The first and most major problem was the fact that he would be tied to the realm if he accepted destiny, this was a problem the celestial emperor also had and he couldn''t solve it up till now, and he lived for a very long time. What could Yun Jhin do if the celestial emperor was powerless to cut off his connection to the realm by himself? He didn''t want to become stuck as a guardian of the realm just like he did so he immediately cut off the connection between himself and the realm after he healed up. He knew that he angered the realm this way but he could care less about that, the realm itself couldn''t do anything to him as natural disasters had no effects on him at this point. He sprang out of the ground like a drill as he looked coldly at Biu Wuan and Gu Manshu''s situation. He had no love for traitors and people who rushed things and these two were both, he looked on coldly as their souls were extracted from their bodies by the celestial emperor but the moment he tried to absorb them he interfered! Now that he was at full power and the emperor''s soul was distracted he struck it from behind using ki enveloped halberd. It was the same halberd he had created back in his early days but now it evolved to a Godly treasure as Yun Jhin tempered it and fused diverse materials into it. The moment the blood-red halberd stuck the celestial emperor''s back it started to suck energy making the azure glow from the soul start to disappear slowly, the blood-sucking effect worked even on soul bodies! The celestial emperor shook his body trying to escape from the halberd but that meant he had to let loose the two souls which were in his grasp! With them, he would be able to increase his battle power and crush Yun Jhin as he was alone. But now his soul power was getting absorbed into Yun Jhin from the halberd and he could feel how Yun Jhin was getting increasingly stronger the more soul power he absorbed from him, he was almost near a breakthrough! The soul power came with an understanding of the celestial realm and its laws so Yun Jhin could immediately breakthrough if he wanted to at this point, the soul energy was also very potent as it came from a half-a-step expert that was almost above the God realm, actually as he got the information he even learned about the name of the realm above the God one, it was called the true realm! There were no specifics but even a name was good for him, most of the information that came from this way of absorption was gibberish but he could translate some things with difficulty. The only thing that he could translate was the true realm, everything else was blurry or not understandable. But he already gained what he needed, information-wise, for anything further he would be able to find out by himself. What he needed now was to fully absorb the celestial emperor''s soul so he could pave his way towards the peak of the God Realm then even the half-a-step true realm! He could feel that he might break through continuously if he absorbed the soul, fully. But of course, the celestial emperor wouldn''t stay still and let himself be absorbed as he threw away the souls of both Gu Manshu and Biu Wuan and tried to escape from this situation, the halberd started to slip out of his body as it turned transparent and he tried to run away. Yun Jhin ignored the traitorous duo as he flew away trying to catch up with the fleeing celestial emperor. However, it seemed he had forgotten something, a burst of deep laughter could be heard coming from the surroundings: "Hahahahahaha, thank you Yun Jhin it seems you have worked hard!" Yun Jhin could recognize that voice any day... it was Hell''s willpower! That damn thing that almost killed him! The celestial emperor''s eyes widened as he took a few steps backward from the way the voice was heard but considering Yun Jhin was behind him he was stuck between a rock and a hard place here. Yun Jhin frowned as he looked forward and saw someone that looked exactly like him but with inversed colors smiling at him, he was a few meters away from the celestial emperor just like him. It seemed that in the end, Hell''s willpower had somehow made use of his experience with his body to create a new one from scratch and still escape from Hell, unlike the celestial emperor who was stuck due to his connection with the realm, Hell''s willpower was only stuck in Hell because it had no physical body. Hell''s willpower got a little bit closer to the celestial emperor as his smile showed his sharp dark fangs then he said: "We meet again old friend, thought you would never see me in your lifetime again did you?" The celestial emperor gritted his teeth as he said: "Of course I didn''t think, after all, we are opposed to each other and never supposed to be meeting, but it seems your thirst of power had brought you here just like the fellow behind me." "Oh him... ignore him, we have a little bit of history together, why don''t you just close your eyes and jump into my embrace? We can be one whole again." The celestial emperor made a face as if he was disgusted before he shook his head and said: "I''d rather let him have me instead of going back to you, the universal laws separated us for a reason!" "Oh don''t be like that, if we fuse back together even the laws won''t be able to do anything to us, we will break through to the true realm and hop on the throne we deserve, this universe won''t be able to restrain us any further, come here brother!" The celestial emperor faltered as he felt himself getting weaker, the gravity around him started to increase as he was being pushed towards Hell''s willpower, but that''s when Yun Jhin appeared behind him and put his hand on his shoulder dispelling the gravity somewhat then dragged him backward. "It seems you haven''t fully accustomed yourself to the body yet, you were actually stronger back when you were just a strand of willpower." Hell''s willpower snorted as he glared at Yun Jhin and directly attacked, there was nothing that he wanted to talk about with Yun Jhin! Yun Jhin put two fingers to his forehead as he disappeared from the spot making Hell''s willpower rage! A gigantic mushroom cloud appeared where Yun Jhin previously was as the surroundings for hundreds of thousands of kilometers were obliterated creating an environment similar to hell. Yun Jhin appeared at the Lin family along with the celestial emperor''s ghostly body which tried to escape again only for Yun Jhin''s steel grip to grab him by the neck and lift him in the air: "You have said that you would rather give yourself to me than fuse back with Hell''s willpower, now why don''t we make that happen?" "You don''t understand... now that you have angered him his awakening will happen and he will fuse properly with the body that he created, you might not be his match even if you reach my cultivation realm." Yun Jhin snorted as his grip tightened on the man''s windpipe while he said: "You are not the one to say such things at this time, I have defeated you while you were in a better position and you think that I won''t be able to kill him when I''m in the same position as him?" "You don''t understand Yun Jhin... you never saw his true power, I know it because we had one body before and he was in charge of it, we didn''t reach the true realm before but we were around the same power that we were now, but he was around 10 to 20 times stronger than I am!" "Yeah and if he is 10 to 20 then I will be 100 to 1000 stronger, you don''t know what I have been through, what I have endured, what I had done to get to this point, you have been born with this cultivation base after you were separated by the universal laws, you didn''t have to work your way up the ladder as I did, that''s why you are weaker and the reason he is stronger is just that he is mad!" "NOW SHUT UP AND LET YOURSELF BE ABSORBED!" Yun Jhin tight grip increased once more as energy from the celestial emperor''s soul was quickly sapped from his soul body into Yun Jhin''s body then into his soul, the laws of the realm quickly started to converge above him as he was ready for another breakthrough, and this time he didn''t stop it, he didn''t care if Hell''s willpower would know his location before it could come here he would fully absorb the emperor and breakthrough to the end! Chapter 239: Fight for ascendance Yun Jhin''s face started to turn a shady red as he continued to absorb the soul force of the celestial emperor. In contrast, the celestial emperor''s soul was slowly shrinking and looking more and more emaciated like it was transforming into a mummy. Yun Jhin didn''t have time to waste so the moment he got near his breakthrough he created a beam of energy that flew into the sky to attract the laws of the celestial realm, now that he was practically the celestial emperor of the realm all he had to do was call them and they would fuse with his body naturally without having to do anything else. He knew that the moment he started the breakthrough sequence he couldn''t do anything else because Hell''s willpower would surely come to attack him, he needed to breakthrough fast, very fast. In this situation where he had to fight against time, he had to rush his breakthroughs and absorption attempt. The quicker he absorbed the more the soul in his grasp shrank until it became as small as a puppy but Yun Jhin didn''t stop as the beam that he had sent into the air finally attracted the laws of the celestial realm which started to dive to him directly entering into his body making his blood boil as they fused with it. He could feel the laws sublimating his life level as he reached higher heights... the 7th level of the God Realm... the 8th level, Peak level! The celestial emperor''s soul turned blurry as it slowly disappeared as if he was never there, Yun Jhin''s body started to float by itself, now that he had the destiny of the celestial realm that he stole from the emperor he didn''t need to connect with the realm itself to reach the half-a-step true level. His eyes started to glow with an azure color but then he closed them as his cultivation base consolidated at the peak of the God Realm, however, he couldn''t go any further he couldn''t reach the same heights as the celestial emperor as he hypothesized, he could only reach his former peak which was the limits of the God Realm. He shouted to the sky as his aura engulfed 600,000 kilometers around him attracting the attention of everyone in the realm, his shout was extremely loud combined with his flaring aura made everyone realize where he was. However, everyone who felt his cold maleficent aura immediately discarded any thoughts of picking a fight with him, it was obvious he wasn''t a good guy. However, Hell''s willpower was just like a shark that smelled blood as he teleported multiple times until he reached the Lin family''s territory, there he saw Yun Jhin''s aura engulfing the skies as he broke through it with his body and meet with him in the middle of the territory. Yun Jhin had his eyes closed but the moment Hell''s willpower approached he opened them as he looked directly into his eyes, his soul willpower flowed out of him like an open faucet, the moment his soul willpower met Hell''s willpower it started to drill into his body to reach his soul and assimilate it. Hell''s willpower snorted as he cut all of the soul willpower tentacles that were going through his body only for him to frown as he realized that the cut tentacles didn''t disappear but started to proliferate into his body transforming into small soul bodies of Yun Jhin who were like parasites that were slowly absorbing Hell''s willpower flesh and blood. "You damn... it seems you have reached your previous heights by absorbing my brother, but it won''t be enough!" Hell''s willpower face morphed as he looked towards the sky while he shouted, his aura started to push Yun Jhin''s aura backward while his power continued to increase, the whole realm started to shake even harder than when the celestial emperor descended, actually the earthquakes were so strong that the ground below them started to crack and rip into pieces. Lava spurted out of the ground like a geyser as it reached its height however the moment it touched the two God''s bodies it dissipated like it was tap water. Yun Jhin cracked his whole body as his bones popped into their sockets after his continuous breakthroughs his body finally acclimatized to the sudden increase in ki power, he appeared in front of Hell''s willpower as he told him: "Absorbing you will get me one step closer to ascension... but it won''t be enough... I can feel it right now, but you are the last obstacle in my way, the others had already been taken care of." "Don''t think this will be an easy fight." Hell''s willpower aura finally stabilized as he unleashed thousands of small ki needles aiming directly at Yun Jhin''s vital points however Yun Jhin created a green ki barrier which absorbed all of the ki needles. Then he put two fingers to his forehead as he appeared in front of hell''s willpower instantly before letting an explosive wave out of his mouth which took out the whole upper part of Hell''s willpower body leaving only the legs which fell to the ground only for his upper body to regenerate immediately and appear under Yun Jhin''s stomach to pierce him in the stomach.... but the attack remained stuck in Yun Jhin''s stomach as he hardened his muscles. Yun Jhin''s feral smile told Hell''s willpower that he wouldn''t like what was coming next as Yun Jhin grabbed him directly by the head, afterward his whole body started to inflate as he became as buff like a bodybuilder. His buff body increased his whole system''s muscles and strength, this was the peak of the combination of Duritz''s bloodline and the technique he had stolen from the Chen family, Hell''s willpower head which was in his hand popped like a ripe watermelon as it tried to regenerate again. But now that Hell''s willpower''s body was in his hands it wouldn''t be able to leave! The moment it regenerated it popped again as Yun Jhin inserted his ki and blood into Hell''s willpower body, the moment his ki and blood fused with Hell''s willpower body it exploded into thousands of fragments that Yun Jhin ate as if they were sweets. His mouth opened as razor-sharp teeth broke into the pieces of meat from the body''s explosion, a guttural bass-boosted voice was heard from Yun Jhin''s mouth: "You cannot escape!" Hell''s willpower had already abandoned his newly created body as he transformed into a piece of soul willpower, since he was the brother of the celestial emperor he could connect with the celestial realm and become its owner just like the ex-emperor was, and he was doing it right now! He would rather be captive again than be devoured by Yun Jhin. Yun Jhin looked around as he realized that the whole realm started to morph, he felt all of the living beings on the realm losing their life-force as it entered the ground below him, he could feel that regardless of cultivation base everyone was losing their life force quickly. Yun Jhin shook his head as he started to drill into the ground at immense speeds reaching the core of the realm. There he found Hell''s willpower which was fusing with the heart of the realm while absorbing the life force of its inhabitants to create a new more perfect body so he could combat him once more, but he wasn''t fast enough as Yun Jhin already had arrived where he was. Hell''s willpower''s expression morphed into fear as he shouted: "Don''t come closer, DON''T YOU ARE WORSE THAN ME AND I''M THE LITERAL EMBODIMENT OF HELL!" Yun Jhin laughed as he took that as a compliment, he was never someone to care about looks so his current monstrous looks didn''t bother him at all, he actually liked it! Hell''s willpower wanted to back away but he was fusing with the core of the realm and if he stopped the process the backlash would be something that he wouldn''t be able to endure, he thought that the process would be rather quick but Yun Jhin realized what was happening faster than he thought, he was one step away from fusing with the realm but one step not taken was one step remained! Yun Jhin approached him as he grabbed his face yanking him from the core and weakening him severely as blue blood started to drip from his whole spectral body which cracked in a lot places, the backlash destroyed some of his memory nodes as he looked at Yun Jhin seemingly as if he didn''t know him. Yun Jhin ignored the looks as he said: "Finally after such a long time... I''m one step away from reaching the true realm, from breaking into true immortality and reaching the throne that I deserve, you are my ticket there and you are in my hands!" Yun Jhin opened his big mouth as he let the spectral being drop into it, his teeth crunched the bits of soul that remained from Hell''s willpower until it fused with his body and soul... His eyes became wide open as the second evolution started... he was slowly reaching the half-a-step true realm barrier! His vision started to change as it started to zoom out, he could see billions, trillions, quadrillions of galaxies appearing in his vision, then it zoomed up further, he saw these galaxies were nothing but specks of dust in the eyes of those that were truly important, he saw some silhouettes that were beckoning towards him, one silhouette was especially happy, he wore a dark robe and he had flames in his pupils and for hair, his dark beard was flowing majestically as he laughed with wicked intent, he mouthed something to Yun Jhin: "Come quick my apprentice... you have done very well, one step away, one step away, come come!" Then everything returned to normal as he woke up back into the center of the celestial realm... Chapter 240: Half-a-step True Realm expert Yun Jhin felt immense power coursing through his body as it was currently transforming reaching an in-between stance, he was getting closer to the true realm but he couldn''t truly get there by himself. Even though he had absorbed both the celestial emperor and Hell''s willpower it still wasn''t enough. The duo would have reached the true realm if they fused because they were both natural wonders that were born out of the universe, unlike Yun Jhin who was both despised by the universe and a normal mortal. Both of their essences weren''t enough for him to take the last step and arrive at the spot he needed to. He felt rather incomplete as he checked up on the laws that fused with his body, they were half-way crystallized. From what he could infer the moment the laws that he had fused with his body were fully crystallized he would be able to ascend and leave the universe. This was his dream since he first died, he hated his mortal body which couldn''t withstand his ambitions, and always strived to improve himself to the limits only to realize that he lacked talent... In the end, he went towards the accumulation path with his reincarnations until he reached this step... this was the farthest he has ever gone. This was the epicenter of his journey, his dream, his goal to reach immortality was one step away from him... It seemed he still had to reach the middle of the universe. He already knew of one way to reach the true realm without the absorption of these two entities but it was considerably harder and way more dangerous than what he went through, if he failed this time it was also his last life... but he couldn''t wait anymore! His last try... his last try, he wanted to gamble it on this, he needed to succeed, he had to! The whole celestial realm shook as Yun Jhin thought about his future, this broke his train of thought as he looked at the core of the realm, breaking Hell''s willpower from fusing with the realm destabilized it and it didn''t have much time until it would explode. However at his cultivation base, the explosion of the realm wouldn''t affect him, however, it would fatally injure him and put him in chronostasis effect until he would be all healed up. He had no wish to become like that as he teleported out of the ground and arrived at the Lin family''s teleportation portal. All of the living beings in the realm had died due to Hell''s willpower shenanigans so there was nothing he needed to do in the realm any more, the vitality of the realm was also slowly being ripped away from the realm and disappearing all the beneficial effects it had before were nowhere to be found. Yun Jhin sighed as he infused the portal with his ki and left through it, as he took one look behind he could see the realm being engulfed by lava that shot out of the ground, it seemed the celestial realm was truly done for... Yun Jhin opened his eyes as he was back in the mortal realm. He directly teleported to the blood throne sect headquarters as he looked around, most of the troops had been sent to the celestial realm and the headquarters were now empty. He continued to look around for some time and sighed, all of his hard work gone in a few hours, while his branches were mostly unaffected his strongest people were in the army batch that first entered, but the same could be said about the other sects people as well, and unlike them, he also came back alive. He didn''t find any belonging to the sect anymore, actually, he didn''t feel anything at this point, he didn''t care about his secular connections anymore, he was sure he had included his son and daughter in the expedition roster so they were certainly dead as well. As for Qinghe, he decided to leave her alone, she didn''t need him anymore, she still had some loyal maids and what happened next to her wasn''t of his concern. He teleported from sect to sect and saw how they were still waiting for their patriarchs/ancestors and troops to come back victoriously with loot. However no one came, time passed, days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years, the sects started to degrade as they lost their leadership and the stronger sects that didn''t take the bait and entered the portals immediately came to conquer the remainders of the top sects... These things happened continuously and they repeated themselves, at this point Yun Jhin had seen through the feelings and psyche of the humans/beasts and most intelligent beings, as long as someone became intelligent they would all pursue the same thing. Wellness of life, everyone wanted a better life, a longer life so they could enjoy the better life, they all wanted the same things, everything that stemmed from this was the construct of society, even in the cultivation one where one''s fist told how things would go, instead of wealth they would run after power, no matter what way or the means they had to employ to get the power they would do it, some people liked to cling to beliefs but they remained at the bottom of the barrel while those that did everything they could walk their way up on the stairs of society. Everything came from power and ended at power, all that Yun Jhin had done up till now didn''t make him any different from the people he was currently observing, he was just like them, a person that ran after his dreams, all of he did tend to reach the extreme but that was what he became after he lived for so many lives. Life tended to repeat itself no matter how you wanted to do things differently, there would even be days that you would think that you have gone through this thing before, Yun Jhin hated this feeling, he hated the monotone life of cultivation, he always hated doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, if he was honest with himself he was truly insane. Everything he had done up till now was so he could change his pace so that he could step away from the oppressive place that was this universe that he was stuck in, he wanted to change his lifestyle, he got bored of killing, destroying, and schemes. It had been such a long time and he wanted to rest, however, it wasn''t the time to do it yet, it wasn''t time to rest, he hadn''t finished the last thing he needed to leave the universe. He looked around him, only stars surrounded him as he left all of the populated universe behind him, there was no one to challenge him, and even if there was he wouldn''t accept because there was no point to, he only had one thing he wanted and that was getting the core of the universe and ascending! He slowly trotted through the starry sky as if he was an old man who was supporting himself on his walking stick, the more he walked in the universe the brighter the stars started to light around him, however, he didn''t feel good, the light was trying to incinerate him, destroy him, which showed that he was on the right way to the center of the universe. As he got closer and closer to the end of his journey he could feel sweat trickling down his temples as the light increased so much that even his tempered true body was slowly being roasted like he was a piece of lamb in a cooking pan. But he ignored all of the bodily sensations as he trotted forward, he didn''t say anything as there was nothing to say but his eyes shook a little bit as he looked in front of him, he saw a person, a person that he thought that he would never see again... Yuan Fang. Yuan Fang''s body was slowly disintegrating as he tried to walk forward, he wanted to reach the center of the universe but he was weaker than Yun Jhin, he barely reached the peak of the god realm in his own way, from his aura Yun Jhin could identify that he had taken over hell, how much time had he stayed in the celestial realm contemplating the life of intelligent beings? Yuan Fang fell to his knees then to his stomach as he tried to crawl forward, the pressure and light from the stars attacked him so much that the life in his eyes was slowly being extracted and destroyed by the light. Yun Jhin took a few steps towards him which took his attention, he looked up from his downed position as he chuckled sadly: "It seems you won the race Yun Jhin... you were more prepared than me." "Was I really?" Yuan Fang chuckled, it seemed Yun Jhin didn''t want to let him have the last word even when he won, his body started to slowly disintegrate as his soul tried to escape only for the stars that surrounded them to grab Yuan Fang''s soul and incinerate it along with the remainder of his body. He was now dead both in body and soul! The path to the center of the universe wouldn''t forgive anyone, if anyone walked the path they had the intention to hurt the universe and that wasn''t forgivable! Yun Jhin ignored the ashes that drifted around him, he continued to walk forward. Yuan Fang wasn''t in his head even when he started to walk this road, he even forgot him and only remembered him after he saw his downed form... all he had on this mind now was reaching the center of the universe and absorbing its core! Chapter 241: Step by step, I shall reach Godhood! Yun Jhin''s steps were steady and his gait strong as he walked through the empty universe, the only thing that was lightning up his path were the starlight beams that were trying to disintegrate him into ashes just like Yuan Fang had been. But Yun Jhin''s body and cultivation were way higher, no matter how hard the pressure was attacking him he endured it as he walked further and further, with every step an incalculable distance was traveled. The more he walked towards the center of the universe the more starlight approached him to destroy his body and soul. However nothing changed, Yun Jhin continued to walk forward with a serious expression on his face as if his body wasn''t his, it was like he couldn''t feel anything, as if the torturous attacks of the body and soul burning starlight weren''t even mosquito bites to him, he didn''t even flinch as he walked forward while he muttered: "One more step... just one more step." It was as if he was possessed, the more he walked the quicker he became, the starlight even started to deviate as his speed increased to the point that the starlight couldn''t touch him anymore. "One more step, one more step!" Step by step he walked forward and finally he reached his destination. In front of him stood the center of the universe, the place where the universe originally started from, the place that let all the living beings in existence appear. Yun Jhin wasn''t mesmerized by the sight nor was he interested in anything else as he continued to walk forward, the surroundings were rather dreamy with blue-colored nebulae surrounding him but he ignored everything. The closer he walked to the core of the universe the more he could feel that his surroundings were shaking, it wasn''t him nor his vision that was acting up, the surroundings were truly shaking. The universe felt threatened by Yun Jhin''s presence, it was the first time a mortal had arrived near its core and it knew that it didn''t come with any good intentions, while it didn''t have human-like intelligence it had beast instincts that told it when it was in danger. However, no matter how hard his surroundings shook Yun Jhin''s gaze or footing didn''t change, he walked slowly towards a nebula that looked the same compared to all of the others and put his hand inside of it. A crunching sound could be heard the moment his hand was inserted into the nebulae, it was almost as if his hand entered the mouth of an apex predator, his pain sensors flared up as he felt his hand being disintegrated quickly. But he ignored the feeling as he started to insert his whole arm through the nebula, then his whole body! The pain was excruciating to the point that he almost blanked out even with his current pain endurance threshold and immense cultivation, however, he held onto his consciousness and entered the nebula with his whole body. After he entered the nebula he couldn''t see anything anymore, he couldn''t feel anything, everything around him was as dark as the start of the universe. But his memories were still there, his life was still there, he didn''t die but he felt as if he was dead at the same time. However this feeling quickly disappeared as in the darkness a white globe appeared. Yun Jhin took a few steps through the darkness and reached it, the globe had countless images going through it, from the birth of a baby to the death of an old man, from the creation of a sect and the destruction of the said sect, life, and death, a continuous cycle that would never stop in the universe regardless in which realm you lived. Be it either Hell or the former celestial realm, everyone experienced death! The difference was only that some people lived well during their lives, they had fulfilling lives, they did what they wanted when they wanted, their lives were something that they enjoyed and they left the world content. However Yun Jhin was never content, he never knew when to stop, he wanted better, every time he wanted better he failed and fell on his back to realize that he had overexerted himself in a situation that he could have lived very well with what he got. He knew that his behavior was self-destructive, at one point he thought that he wouldn''t be able to live through the reincarnation process again, he wanted to see what the otherworld was like but he was scared of what type of tortures he would go through for all of his sins. In the end, no matter how much he controlled his emotions in the face of absolute strength he couldn''t do anything else besides begging. However, Yun Jhin''s claw-like hands grasped the white globe, it was melded into the surrounding darkness but with Yun Jhin''s strength, he removed it after a long time of trying to drag it towards him. Time passed by so quickly that Yun Jhin didn''t realize when his hair turned white, his shaking hands were holding onto the globe and as he saw his reflection in it he realized he had grown old, a chuckle came out of his mouth: "So you are still trying to get the upper hand even in this situation? Playing the same cards, again and again, you thought that if you held out to the point that I would have died of old age you would win?" Yun Jhin''s body was slowly transforming into dust as his old age caught him, it took a very long time to remove the globe from where it was situated but Yun Jhin succeeded in the end, however the moment he succeeded he realized that he was also on the death bed! "Thinking that old age would do me in again?" Yun Jhin chuckled as his legs disappeared leaving only his torso, arms, and head, his arms also slowly started to disintegrate as the globe floated in front of him, his torso was next and only his head remained. However, the last second before his head disappeared forever, he opened his mouth and an immense suction force took the globe into his mouth. The globe shattered inside Yun Jhin''s mouth as immense energy that he had never experienced before entered his head, he closed his eyes as his age slowly started to revert to his prime, a new torso arms, and legs grew out of his head. He opened his eyes and they were black with silver pupils, his body was unlike before, it was scrawny and looked extremely weak it was just like a person''s who would die of malnutrition. However, the moment he clenched his weak skinny arms his whole surroundings started to crack and break, the space that was confining him exploded like fireworks. He could feel some presence behind him as he moved his whole body to look who was behind him he saw the silhouettes that he saw in his vision when he was comprehending his breakthrough in the celestial realm. The moment his eyes met with those dark ones he realized that it was the person that helped him and gave him the system. Hades took a few steps forward as he bowed from the waist down and said: "Welcome to the True Realm, or better known amongst our people, The True God Realm!" Yun Jhin took a few steps forward and looked directly into Hades''s eyes as he asked: "So this is what true godhood feels like?" Hades laughed, his eyes filled with hellfire and his flowing beard moving alongside his laughter as he said: "Not what you expected right? You have just destroyed the universe that you came from, go on take a look behind you." Yun Jhin moved his head to look backward and saw a small granule-sized speck of dust disappearing from his sight, there were an infinite amount of such granules as he looked down and he realized that none of them were breaking like his, all of them were steady and strong looking and as he took a second look that focused on one of the granules he saw countless cosmoses and galaxies roaming around full of living creatures of different races. His sight returned from the focused state as he looked at Hades and asked again: "These are all your creations?" "Mine? No." Hades shook his head as he waved his hand behind him: "They are our creations." Countless characters appeared behind Hades as he said that, one of the most important ones that he recognized was the fat jolly man with a unique light aura, Buddha! Yun Jhin shook his head, as he ascended he realized that fighting with Buddha for his reincarnation wouldn''t bring him anything, at this point he reached the ultimate enlightenment and realized there is no more to do. Hades looked at Yun Jhin with a grim look as he said: "Hey don''t go to sleep the moment you arrived, you have reached the peak and you are already bored of it? Atleast leave behind a universe before you go." Yun Jhin looked around, the spirit realm, the realm that all practitioners would reach when they achieved the ultimate enlightenment and broke through to the True God Realm... it was blank, besides the granules of dust that were covering an infinite amount of space below him there was nothing else. Most of the characters behind Hades had their eyes closed as they didn''t say anything, only Buddha gave him one glance before he closed his eyes as well. Hades was the only active person. Yun Jhin turned towards Hades, he had many questions that he wanted to be answered. Chapter 242: Creating something for the future (finale) "I know you want to ask things, just ask away, we are all friends here, even that guy." He pointed towards Buddha who made a ''hmm'' sound as he looked at the two of them but didn''t say anything, he didn''t like to associate with Hades and considering what he had done with Yun Jhin he didn''t want to talk with him either. "Why do I feel so sleepy... do Gods need sleep?" "Not really, look at me and Buddha, do we look like we need to sleep?" "It''s just that you are a new God and you need time to adapt, the other guys got bored of watching over their worlds and let us do it instead, you will adapt quickly, by now you shouldn''t feel sleepy anymore right?" Yun Jhin cocked his head to the side and he felt better, now it was as if he was full of energy. He didn''t really understand how the surroundings worked yet but as he analyzed them better information started to pour into his brain. Even though he reached the true god realm there was no information for him about the realm beforehand but now the place itself was feeding him information after he acclimatized to it. "What''s this?" Hades chuckled: "Self-enlightenment, you might think that the place we are in gives you the information but you just learn it by yourself after you fully accommodate with your cultivation base." "Anyways let me tell you more about the benefits of being a true god." "Well besides eternal life we can also create universes and watch whatever is happening in there, we also control the cycle of reincarnation and we can decide which of the more important souls reincarnate and in what they will reincarnate." "Most of our job consists of observing the universes, well we aren''t obliged to but this is the most entertaining thing we can do around here." "And yes we can create whatever we want but after experiencing everything there was to experience you get bored of those types of things." "You should understand what we are talking about, you ascended because you wanted immortality and nothing else." What Hades said was true, Yun Jhin''s obsession with immortality was immense to the point that he ignored every other aspect of his life but he was having second thoughts on his current situation? "I have a question for you Yun Jhin, why have you chased immortality for such a long time, for what reason have you been so obsessed with it?" "It wasn''t for you to live a long life in luxury, it wasn''t for you to enjoy your life with someone you loved, it wasn''t for you to amass infinite wealth with your ageless body, it wasn''t for you to become the king of the universes, all you wanted was eternal life but why?" Yun Jhin started to shake as he heard these questions that he never asked himself, why did he work so hard for immortality? Why did he chase it so obsessively? It never made sense to him why he was so obsessed with it but he always pushed forward regardless of some of his stray thoughts. But he was also himself at the same time, he understood that he wanted immortality but he was confused on why he wanted it. Why did he want it? Yun Jhin started to think and Hades left him alone, he would achieve the highest enlightenment only when he understood why did he want to achieve what he achieved. Yun Jhin eyes were closed as he started to look through his memories... ***************** A small child was cradling his mother''s cold corpse as he cried out: "Mother mother!" Near him a few older males were looking at the mother with pity as they said: "It seems she couldn''t withstand all of us at once hahaha." The kid was doing his best to wake up his mother which he succeeded in after a while, the mother looked at her child with a dotting gaze as she said: "Please live... live little Jhin." The moment these words left the woman''s mouth the child''s face started to turn slack and passive which scared the woman out of her wits, she could feel her weak vitality leaving her and she knew she would die, was her child going through a panic attack after he realized what was going to happen? Only for the child to get up glare at the grown-ups around him and unleash a wave of energy that killed all of them. He looked down at his terrified mother before he shook his head and slit her throat with a nearby sharp rock. Yun Jhin shook his head as he looked through the memory, the only thing that he found peculiar was that the moment she told him to live his memories from his past lives awakened. He went to the next memory that he found peculiar and as he continued he realized something. He was really goddamn unlucky, every time his memories awakened one of his parents/partners or friends would die. No matter what he did they would always say something among the lines of, go live, escape, or something like that, and his memories would awaken. This leads him to realize that he didn''t want to live forever for himself. Even though he had sealed all of the memory cores of the former reincarnations they still seeped into his personality as he would have to browse them once in a while to get the information he needed. He thought that the technique he employed was perfect but it seems there were flaws... But there was no reason to think about it anymore... he had already achieved the dream of all of the collective people that died near him or because of him, or in his hands. They all wanted him to live and he lived to their expectations and wish, he had achieved true godhood. Yun Jhin actually chuckled as he opened his eyes and Hades knew that he found the reason why he wanted eternal life as the surroundings started to change from white to purple and green this showed that Yun Jhin had achieved inner peace. For one to create a universe they needed to first have inner peace. Destruction came before creation and this was something that Yun Jhin had already comprehended, all he was missing was inner peace. Yun Jhin looked at Hades and smiled as the surroundings turned back to white as he waved his hand. Down where the motes of dust were another one appeared, this one was a little bit strange compared to the other ones. Hades interested in the creation of the new true God he decided to look at it, as he focused he finally saw the universe, unlike the other ones this one was already created, and all of the planets in it were populated, there was no evolution to speak of, people existed the moment the universe appeared and they all had average intelligence. However, Hades could see something wasn''t right with them a man with a unibrow started to get violent as he looked around him and went on a killing spree inciting even more violence around. However, the unibrow man was put down by another man with a buff physique and things continued so on. As time passed societies were created and cultivation was invented, Yun Jhin didn''t do anything as he observed along with Hades... he just looked on. Time passed and the people started to ascend to their own realms, they were different compared to the ones Yun Jhin was used to but it was normal for things to be different, after all, it was a brand new universe. Time passed further and the first peak expert appeared, he ruled with an iron fist creating a dictatorship that engulfed the whole universe. Time passed again and so did the dictator, he died of old age and his children were now fighting on who to inherit the throne... Yun Jhin watched everything that happened in the universe he created, from time to time he would either sigh or even laugh as he looked at his creation, were these the same emotions that he had sealed for such a long time? It felt nice to feel something and act upon it as well. When he was mad he would create a destructive earthquake that shook the whole universe, when he felt glad he would create a new universal treasure for his people. But as more time passed he started to get bored, things started to repeat themselves even though he had created the universe with a unique thought in his mind. Things tended to repeat no matter how unique you wanted things to be... So he waved his hand and the granule of sand disappeared... he wanted something better, something that he would enjoy watching so he created another universe putting even more work into its conception. But it failed again, and again, and again and again. No matter how many times he did it he was never happy with what he got. So he continued to create and create for one day hoping that he would have the perfect universe that he could enjoy watching, thus transitioning from one obsession to another. FIN.