Chapter 41
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 41
The catalyst for this upheaval had been a martial artist born in the Heavenly Yang Kingdom roughly three hundred years ago.
The Divine Demon of Heavenly Yang.
Though merely a mortal devoid of spiritual roots, he had broken into the Profound Realm before turning thirty, later ascending into territories of power that no one had ever dared to name.
Then came the deed that shattered all conventional wisdom: he displayed the terrifying prowess of slaying a Golden Core cultivator from the Earth Kingdom.
A mortal martial arts grandmaster striking down a Golden Core cultivator?
The news sent violent shockwaves through the cultivation worlds of both the Earth Kingdom and the Chang Kingdom.
Even Nascent Soul experts from the Earth Kingdom’s ruling sects, the Azure Gauze Sect and the Crimson Sky Sect, stepped forward in fury, intending to raze the Heavenly Yang Kingdom to ash.
Yet before they could strike, the Myriad Insect Sect—a colossal Nascent Soul sect renowned for its mastery over spirit insects and insect sorcery in the southern Chang Kingdom—suddenly intervened.
What secret negotiations transpired among those Nascent Soul giants remained an enduring mystery. What was known was that following the incident, neither the Azure Gauze Sect nor the Crimson Sky Sect marched against the Heavenly Yang Kingdom, and the Myriad Insect Sect made no further advances northward.
Many surmised that the royal house of Heavenly Yang had forged a pact with the Myriad Insect Sect. Whispers even claimed that the Divine Demon of Heavenly Yang owed his monstrous strength to the Myriad Insect Sect’s clandestine guidance or ancestral legacy.
Whatever the truth, the Heavenly Yang Kingdom expanded at an astonishing pace.
To the south, it conquered two mortal realms subordinate to the Chang Kingdom. To the north, within the sphere of the Earth Kingdom, it swallowed the Untaek Kingdom and its neighboring states whole.
Now, the Heavenly Yang Kingdom had become a bizarre anomaly—an empire whose vast dominion straddled two Tier 4 cultivation kingdoms: the Earth Kingdom and the Chang Kingdom.
It wielded a might that could no longer be dismissed as a mere secular realm.
Cultivators across the region half-jokingly remarked that Heavenly Yang was essentially an independent Tier 3 martial kingdom wedged between two Tier 4 giants.
Still, consensus held that no matter how terrifying the Divine Demon of Heavenly Yang was, he was no match for a true Nascent Soul master. Most assessed his strength as roughly equivalent to a late Golden Core cultivator.
Yet several decades had passed since the Divine Demon of Heavenly Yang had last shown himself. Rumors swirled in equal measure: some whispered he was already dead, his demise desperately covered up by the royal court; others claimed he had slipped into deep seclusion, pursuing a realm far beyond mortal comprehension.
“Wait… the Untaek Kingdom was wiped out?”
Lee Hyun’s gaze lingered on the northern edge of the map.
The name Untaek Kingdom was gone. In its place stretched the unbroken frontier of Heavenly Yang.
“So that’s what became of it…”
Lee Hyun fell into quiet reminiscence, recalling his past life within the Untaek Kingdom.
“Well, by the time this Divine Demon was born, everyone I ever knew had already turned to dust. It hardly matters now.”
His audience with King Yu Jeong-hwi, and the lethal ambush several days later by Wi Mun-do, Paeng Ja-ryang, and Han So-baek of the Cheongun Sect, had transpired 540 years ago.
Even so, seeing the kingdom’s name erased from the map stirred an odd, hollow sensation in his chest.
Rather than the kingdom’s conquest, what truly piqued Lee Hyun’s curiosity was how the Divine Demon of Heavenly Yang and his disciples had broken through mortal flesh to achieve such terrifying power.
For several days, he slipped through bookstores, martial arts halls, and bustling taverns across Nammun Pass, quietly gathering every text and rumor concerning Heavenly Yang’s new martial path.
Books published within Heavenly Yang lauded it as the dawn of the New Martial Arts, whereas texts from the Earth Kingdom reviled it as a twisted, heterodox heresy that infested human flesh with vermin.
Laying the conflicting accounts side by side, Lee Hyun sifted through the bias to unearth the core truths shared by both.
The New Martial Arts of Heavenly Yang was split into several traditions, but its absolute cornerstone was the Symbiotic Insect Meridian.
Colloquially known as the Insect Meridian, those who walked its path were called Insect-Bonded Warriors.
At the very heart of the practice lay a symbiotic spirit insect known as the Life-Bonded Insect.
「Implant the larva of a compatible Life-Bonded Insect directly into the dantian. Harmonize the life forces of host and parasite through specialized breathing methods and medicinal baths, fusing their circulation into one.」
Unlike mortals, the Life-Bonded Insect, being a spirit beast, possessed the natural ability to absorb the spiritual qi of Heaven and Earth.
The host would then draw upon this spiritual qi—already absorbed and refined through the insect’s body—and merge it with their own blood qi. The resulting energy was known as Insect-Origin True Qi.
Because of this miraculous bridge, even mortals born without a shred of spiritual roots could wield Insect-Origin True Qi, a genuine variant of spiritual power, guiding it through their meridians and unleashing it through martial techniques.
In essence, the Life-Bonded Insect functioned as a living, artificial spiritual root and dantian.
As the insect matured, its master’s lifespan extended along with it. Though the degree varied depending on the species and rank of the insect, it was not unusual for high-ranking Insect-Bonded Warriors to live for centuries. This very fact lent credence to the rumors that the Divine Demon of Heavenly Yang still drew breath.
The traits of Insect-Origin True Qi also transformed depending on the species implanted.
Some granted martial artists impregnable defensive barriers through a specialized Body-Protecting Spirit Light. Others, born from venomous breeds, laced their host’s true qi with lethal toxicity.
Insects with acute sensory organs granted an innate sixth sense against killing intent and danger.
There were even wild accounts of warriors whose severed flesh sprouted iridescent insect silk instead of blood, instantly sewing grievous wounds closed. How much of that was truth and how much was battlefield embellishment, no one could say.
The precise number of Life-Bonded Insect varieties remained unknown, with whispers claiming the sect was continually breeding new strains.
The Divine Demon of Heavenly Yang was himself an Insect-Bonded Warrior, host to a legendary Life-Bonded Insect.
However, the origins of this method remained shrouded in myth. Some claimed the Divine Demon learned it from a mysterious hermit in his youth; others said a court physician had unearthed the lost scroll within a forgotten tomb.
The most widely accepted theory was far colder: that the Myriad Insect Sect had pioneered the Insect Meridian by treating the martial artists of Heavenly Yang as disposable test subjects. Many believed the entire Heavenly Yang Kingdom was nothing more than a giant secular buffer cultivated by the Myriad Insect Sect to test the limits of their insect transplantation and push their influence against the Earth Kingdom.
On the surface, the Life-Bonded Insect seemed like an apocalyptic art capable of shattering the hierarchy of the cultivation world, granting mortal masses the strength to butchering immortals.
Yet the reality was far more restrictive.
A Life-Bonded Insect was merely a substitute for a spiritual root; it could never produce spiritual qi out of thin air. To advance, an Insect-Bonded Warrior still required spirit veins, pills, and spirit stones, exactly like an orthodox cultivator.
And in this world, spirit veins were infinitely rarer than mortals possessing spiritual roots!
Even if tens of thousands of mortals were grafted with insects, without mountains of resources to sustain them, the vast majority would remain stranded at an equivalent to the early Qi Refining stage until the day they died.
Furthermore, surviving the implantation required a martial artist to have attained at least the Transformation Realm, ensuring their dantian, meridians, and physical constitution were forged like steel. Attempting the procedure on anyone weaker was pure suicide; the host’s body would collapse the moment the insect took root.
And how rare were Transformation Realm masters?
Cultivating a single Transformation Realm martial artist was vastly harder than stumbling upon a child with an ordinary spiritual root.
Ultimately, these brutal thresholds in both resources and talent meant that high-tier Insect-Bonded Warriors could never be mass-produced to topple the balance of the cultivation world.
Rather than an entirely new path to the heavens, the Insect Meridian was merely a ruinously expensive, lethally hazardous detour permitted only to a select few mortal geniuses.
Even so, the mortal kingdoms under the heavens spanned incomprehensible lands and populations. Among billions of souls, there were bound to be anomalous monsters blessed with heaven-defying talent, cursed only by the lack of a spiritual root.
On paper, an Insect-Bonded Warrior was not inherently superior to an orthodox cultivator.
Yet those martial prodigies who crawled through the crucible of the Transformation Realm and successfully bound a Life-Bonded Insect routinely crushed ordinary cultivators of the same tier in raw combat.
Thus, the name Insect-Bonded Warrior commanded genuine dread.
Today, the royal house of Heavenly Yang operated Insect-Rearing Courtyards across its territories to nurture and maintain these spirit bugs.
Children displaying monstrous martial aptitude were rounded up early, their bodies tempered through martial conditioning and secret medicinal baths. Only those who broke through to the Transformation Realm and displayed perfect compatibility were allowed to undergo the parasite grafting.
The elites forged from this meat grinder were immediately integrated into the kingdom’s armies, judicial bureaus, and royal strike forces.
Lee Hyun kept turning the pages, reading through the fatal flaws of the path.
「What are the weaknesses of an Insect-Bonded Warrior?
First, the danger of rejection. If the host lacks innate compatibility, their body will treat the Life-Bonded Insect as a lethal invader. At best, it results in raging fevers and shattered meridians; at worst, host and insect perish together.
Second, the insect dictates the warrior’s ceiling. Attempting to extract an inferior insect to replace it with a superior one later on almost always destroys the host’s dantian or claims their life.
Third, the ruinous cost of maintenance. Depending on the species, the insect must be fed rare spirit herbs, lethal poisons, or the fresh blood of demonic beasts. If starved, it will ruthlessly turn inward, feasting on its host’s blood essence and lifespan.
Fourth, shared destiny. A single severe injury to either host or insect cripples both. If the Life-Bonded Insect perishes, the host’s dantian shatters instantly, or their mind collapses into madness.
Above all, the Insect-Rearing Courtyards capable of cultivating superior breeds are strictly monopolized by the royal family and sovereign sects. Rare insect breeds are priceless—impossible to purchase even if one waved mountains of spirit stones before them.」
Lee Hyun closed the tome, letting out a low exhale of admiration.
“Live long enough, and you truly get to see everything.”
A sudden memory struck him—the martial artists he had seen at the inn a few days ago.
The fluffy bees inside his robes had grown unusually agitated the moment those warriors stepped inside, buzzing as if sensing exquisite prey. The martial artists had sensed something wrong and fled without understanding why.
“Wait… was one of them carrying a Life-Bonded Insect?”
Fluffy bees were apex predators specialized in hunting spirit insects and devouring their eggs.
If one of those martial artists had been carrying a spirit insect nested inside his dantian, the behavior of both the bees and the martial artists clicked seamlessly into place.
“There was an Insect-Bonded Warrior among them.”
Lee Hyun smiled faintly.
“Now that I understand the state of this world, it’s time to lay down the groundwork for Tunnel No. 3.”
He neatly rolled up his maps.
The Earth Kingdom, the Chang Kingdom, and the burgeoning Heavenly Yang Kingdom wedged between them. The geopolitical storm brewing over these lands was fascinating, but as a cultivator still hovering at the 7th layer of Qi Refining, he had no desire to throw himself into the grinders of major powers.
* * *
Half a month later.
An unnamed, desolate ravine near Pyeongneung County, Saknyeong Province, in the northwestern reaches of the Anreung Kingdom—part of the Earth Kingdom’s outer domain.
Lee Hyun sat cross-legged halfway up a sheer cliff, looking out over the rugged expanse.
Endless ridges of barren rock stretched as far as the eye could see. The nearest mortal settlement lay over three hundred li away. It was a barren void where no soul would ever wander without reason.
Six thousand li to the north lay Black Crow Ridge and Cheongha Valley.
This was the very ground Lee Hyun had crossed 1,050 years ago when he had abandoned Cheongha Valley and fled southward past the desolate peaks of Black Crow Ridge.
Over the past half-month, Lee Hyun had thoroughly scouted a thousand-li radius, cataloging mortal hamlets, post roads, and petty local factions onto his parchment. He had burrowed twenty-five li deep into the earth to examine the bedrock strata, the subterranean aquifers, and the subterranean earthfire currents, confirming there were no resident demonic beasts or roaming cultivators nearby.
There was zero immediate danger.
More importantly, roughly eighteen li beneath this barren valley, he had discovered a massive, stable bedrock formation housing several hollow caverns. Two narrow, pristine water veins flowing from divergent sources ran straight through it.
“This will serve as Tunnel No. 3.”
And… laying the groundwork for a second Heaven-Seizing Society won’t be difficult here, either.
Lee Hyun intended to establish another branch of his syndicate right beneath their noses.
To siphon power, one needed a spirit vein within reach.
To the north lay Cheongha Valley’s Tier 3 spirit vein, bordered by minor sects and clans holding lesser Tier 2 veins.
To the south, beyond the Anreung Kingdom, lay the Heavenly Yang Kingdom.
Having devoured several mortal realms, Heavenly Yang now held multiple Tier 2 spirit veins within its grasp. The primary Insect-Rearing Courtyards where they bred their bugs and trained their martial elites were undoubtedly built directly atop those veins.
If the Divine Demon of Heavenly Yang was truly on par with a late Golden Core cultivator, it was possible a Tier 3 spirit vein existed there as well, though none of the texts Lee Hyun had obtained mentioned one.
Well, it doesn’t matter. A Tier 2 spirit vein is more than enough for what I need…
In truth, Lee Hyun saw the Heavenly Yang Kingdom as an even riper target for the Heaven-Seizing Society.
The cultivator clans of the Namryeo Kingdom had suffered bitterly from rogue syndicates like the Heaven-Seizing Society for centuries, prompting them to develop intricate spirit-pressure wards and patrol formations to guard their spirit veins.
In contrast, the Insect-Bonded Warriors of Heavenly Yang had risen to prominence barely three centuries ago. While they had perfected the art of hunting cultivators in open battle, they had zero experience ferreting out a rat hiding eighteen li beneath the bedrock, quietly drinking their spiritual qi.
Their arrays and subterranean detection protocols were practically nonexistent.
Of course, if the Myriad Insect Sect had lent them technical aid, complications might arise. But the opportunity was far too lucrative to ignore.
As for the Insect-Bonded Warriors themselves, Lee Hyun felt not a trace of intimidation.
Mortals wielding martial arts intertwined with spiritual power.
In many ways, they were mere reflections of himself.
Lee Hyun had fused martial arts with spiritual power centuries before their founder was even born, and the breadth of martial knowledge he possessed eclipsed theirs entirely.
Many of the ancestral techniques claimed by Heavenly Yang’s warriors were styles he had fought against, mastered, or dismantled with his own hands in an era long forgotten.
Lee Hyun stood, stepping casually off the precipice.
Shhhh—
His body dissolved into the earth, sinking through the rock without disturbing a grain of dust.
Eighteen li deep, Lee Hyun manifested within the dark bedrock and drew the Mountain-Suppressing Sword.
Skrrr—
「Tunnel No. 3」
Selecting a vast, level cavern, Lee Hyun withdrew the spoils he had claimed from the two Foundation Establishment cultivators of the Azure Tide Merchant Alliance.
Six Bronze Flying Swords etched with continuous water-ripple patterns, and a Black Iron Spear forged seamlessly from head to butt.
The six Bronze Flying Swords formed a unified set, their internal restrictions designed to resonate only when wielded as one. The Black Iron Spear looked brutally plain, yet intricate restriction networks linked the spearhead to the shaft, allowing spiritual power to course through the weapon instantaneously. Both were undeniably high-grade magical artifacts.
Lee Hyun was not yet an artifact crafting master. However, by combining the foundational knowledge from the Primer on Telekinesis and Sword Control he had stolen from Cheongha Valley with the formation inscription methods he learned at the Everlasting Spring Sect, his discernment was sharp enough to unravel the internal mechanisms of both artifacts.
He spent days dissecting the weapons with his divine sense, confirming that stubborn traces of the dead cultivators’ spiritual power still lingered within the core restrictions.
I cannot clear it overnight, but by bathing them in my divine sense and spiritual power daily, I can steadily scrub away their imprints…
Of the three iron rings that had detached from the spear, only two remained intact; the third had been sheared clean through by the Mountain-Suppressing Sword.
The materials used to forge the rings were markedly inferior to the spear itself, and they held no connection to the spear’s primary restrictions.
They were merely auxiliary projectiles meant to expand and crush targets when infused with spiritual energy. Lee Hyun tossed the rings and fragments into a wooden chest marked for future liquidation.
* * *
One year later.
Drip. Drip. Drip…
Crystalline water trickled steadily from the tip of a polished bamboo conduit.
The stream ran along shallow stone channels, soaking into the soil of Spirit Field No. 1-1. Once the rich earth was thoroughly saturated, the surrounding formation inscriptions glowed with a faint luminescence, causing the intake inscriptions to dim.
The flow through the bamboo conduit instantly ceased.
Lee Hyun turned, inspecting the next spirit field.
Tunnel No. 3’s irrigation infrastructure was leagues ahead of the crude mechanisms in Tunnel No. 2.
A tier above the terraced fields sat a massive, excavated water reservoir. Low stone bulkheads partitioned the basin into distinct chambers, ensuring that a fissure in one wall would never drain the entire supply.
Water condensed via the Spiritual Rain Spell was naturally pure. However, because the cistern was carved straight from the bedrock and Lee Hyun often had to depart for years at a time, rock dust shedding from the ceiling could easily contaminate the water. To prevent sediment from entering the conduits, Lee Hyun had raised the mouths of the bamboo pipes a full handspan above the basin floor.
Each spirit field was linked to an independent bamboo pipe and an autonomous array traced from the reservoir. When the earth parched, simple detection runes awakened the intake array, allowing water to flow; once the moisture reached ideal saturation, the runes shut off, sealing the conduit.
It was an automated marvel that Lee Hyun could never have built before mastering foundational formation inscriptions at the Everlasting Spring Sect.
Best of all, the entire mechanism required zero spirit stones—it ran entirely on the residual spiritual qi suspended within the water conjured by his Spiritual Rain Spell.
Though the inscriptions consumed a small amount of spiritual qi, directing water only where and when it was needed actually reduced overall consumption. This new irrigation system could maintain the spirit fields for three years without Lee Hyun ever needing to visit.
Enlarging the reservoir would make it last even longer, but expanding the cavern eighteen li underground is too dangerous.
When excavating tunnels, Lee Hyun utilized natural bedrock and caverns whenever possible.
Having never studied civil engineering or architecture in his past life, he had no way to calculate the structural loads and pressures that bedrock could withstand so deep beneath the earth.
It might be wise to look for relevant knowledge in this world later on…
Tunnel No. 3 was broadly structured into four levels. The uppermost level housed a cultivation chamber, storage rooms, and a resting area. Below that were the water supply level and the spirit field level. At the very bottom lay a drainage level, designed as a precaution in case water from subterranean aquifers unexpectedly flooded the fields.
He avoided excavating wide ventilation shafts that might leave telltale signs on the surface. Instead, he linked narrow, winding natural fissures to the caves, allowing air to circulate at a glacial pace. In truth, with his Clear Qi Formula, breathing underground was hardly an issue for Lee Hyun anyway.
The numbering of the spirit fields remained the same as before.
Though the location had changed, the lineage and records of the spirit plants grown within them continued uninterrupted. Reassigning names would only cause confusion when cross-referencing cultivation ledgers kept for hundreds of years.
Within the fresh bedrock, Lee Hyun recreated all twelve fields: spirit fields No. 1-1 through No. 1-7, and No. 2-1 through No. 2-5. An experimental field dedicated to researching bone age manipulation was set aside separately.
Spirit field No. 1-1 held 82 stalks of Bone-Corroding Flowers, 280 tufts of Yin Soul Grass, 74 clumps of Purple Poison Orchids, and 51 stems of Earth Vein Flowers, all with an average medicinal age of 349 years.
Spirit fields No. 1-2 through No. 1-5 housed a combined 433 stalks of Bone-Corroding Flowers, 1,106 tufts of Yin Soul Grass, 291 clumps of Purple Poison Orchids, and 203 stems of Earth Vein Flowers, all boasting an average medicinal age of 315 years.
The oldest Yin Water Lotus in spirit field No. 1-6 and the three Rock Honey Peach trees in spirit field No. 1-7 had attained a medicinal age of 295 years. The Yin Water Lotuses propagated after he entered the Everlasting Spring Sect and the three grafted Rock Honey Peach trees had also surpassed five years of medicinal age, establishing themselves nicely.
Spirit fields No. 2-1 through No. 2-5 remained dedicated to Spirit-Accumulating Ginseng. Among them, 555 roots possessed a medicinal age of 180 years, while 914 roots had reached 38 years.
“In another sixty years, those 555 roots will reach two hundred years of medicinal age. There must be countless Tier 2 pill recipes across the world that call for Spirit-Accumulating Ginseng…”
Spirit-Accumulating Ginseng was a spirit plant of relatively neutral affinity. Its primary function was storing spiritual power, which made it a likely ingredient in numerous pill recipes.
Lee Hyun scooped up a handful of earth from the edge of the field. Thanks to moving the soil beds entirely intact during the relocation, virtually none of the Spirit-Accumulating Ginseng had suffered damaged roots.
Bzzzz—
A fluffy bee flew over and landed on the back of Lee Hyun’s hand. Its golden fur was smeared with the white, sticky mucus of some larva.
“You’ve been eating strange things again.”
Splat.
As if in protest, the fluffy bee dropped a pellet of dung, then hurled itself onto the newly packed, dry earth.
Roll.
As the little creature rubbed its back to wipe away the slime, three other fluffy bees nearby threw themselves onto the dirt in succession.
“Do you like your new home?”
* * *
The alchemy room of Tunnel No. 3 lay roughly twenty-five li underground.
Its design was a substantial upgrade over the alchemy room in Tunnel No. 2, featuring dedicated flues in the ceiling to vent heat and smoke. One section of the rock wall had been deliberately thinned, allowing pressure to blow out into an empty cavern should the pill cauldron ever explode.
Embedded into the floor in a wide circle were nine red formation stones. It was the Nine-Flame Fire-Accumulation Formation, salvaged from Tunnel No. 2.
However, the scale of the formation and the layout of its inscriptions differed slightly from before.
At its center sat not the pill cauldron bought from the Bureau of Heavenly Service, but a Tier 1 supreme-grade pill cauldron he had received from the steward of the Yang Fire Courtyard upon his departure from the Everlasting Spring Sect.
Lee Hyun had widened the spacing between the formation stones to match the new cauldron’s dimensions, adjusting only the parts of the Nine-Flame Fire-Accumulation Formation’s inscriptions that interfaced with the restrictions on the cauldron’s surface. While he hadn’t created an entirely new formation, after dozens of trials, he had succeeded in adapting a proven one to new specifications.
Fwoosh—
As Lee Hyun released the hand seal, the nine fire vents subsided in sequence.
Lifting the cauldron’s lid revealed an ivory powder settled evenly across the bottom. After confirming the powder’s medicinal properties and purity, Lee Hyun divided it into six equal portions and packed them into paper packets.
It was Tier 1 Bone-Tempering Powder.
Lee Hyun carried the packets to the storeroom. Arranged on a shelf were three magical artifacts for measuring bone age, alongside thick ledgers compiled over the past decade.
Currently, after ingesting Bone-Tempering Powder, Lee Hyun could manipulate the bone age readings of all three types of artifacts to fall anywhere between thirty-five and eighty-five. The discrepancy between the three artifacts never exceeded two years.
He sorted the finished Bone-Tempering Powder by its target bone age and optimal inspection window.
Bone Age: 35. Inspect between 10 and 20 days post-ingestion.
Bone Age: 85. Inspect between 8 and 17 days post-ingestion.
Lee Hyun placed each paper packet into a small jade box, sealing it with a Tier 1 Spirit-Sealing Talisman. The identically sized jade boxes stacked neatly into a corner of his storage pouch.
After finishing Tunnel No. 3, Lee Hyun assumed various disguises and toured several markets in the Anreung Kingdom and the Heavenly Yang Kingdom to sell off the items from the storage pouches of the two Foundation Establishment cultivators.
He kept only the six Bronze Flying Swords, the Black Iron Spear, two storage pouches, some healing pills, and a selection of versatile talismans.
The iron rings, along with the remaining pills, talismans, and spirit materials, he divided and sold across several markets.
The proceeds amounted to the equivalent of 38 mid-grade spirit stones. After combining this with his existing spirit stones and those retrieved from the cultivators’ storage pouches, he exchanged most of his low-grade spirit stones for mid-grade ones to reduce their bulk. When all was settled, he was left with 145 mid-grade spirit stones and 100 low-grade spirit stones.
“That takes care of the immediate tasks. All that remains is finding an environment with spiritual pressure intense enough to break through my spiritual power ceiling, even in the late Qi Refining stage…”
He gazed at the new map pinned to the wall, which marked the spirit veins of both the Earth Kingdom and the Heavenly Yang Kingdom.
“Is it time to establish the Heaven-Seizing Society?”
* * *
Two hundred and eighty years later.
The Anreung Kingdom, a mortal realm in the northwestern reaches of the Earth Kingdom.
In the most secluded alley of Hoeam Market stood a shabby shop called the Hundred Wares Shop.
Its worn shelves were cluttered with poor-quality spirit materials, empty jade bottles, and fragments of ancient magical artifacts of unknown use. Most days passed without a single customer crossing the threshold.
Late one night, a “closed” sign was hung on the door. The rogue cultivator minding the shop pushed aside a chest on the floor and pressed his identity token against the formation inscriptions hidden beneath it.
Rumble—
A flight of stairs descending underground revealed itself.
The rogue cultivator drew a Black Crow mask from his robes, slipped it over his face, and walked down the stairs.
Waiting inside the subterranean stone chamber were five other masked cultivators who had arrived before him: a Gray Mountain Goat, a Yellow Field Mouse, a Blue Snake, a White Owl, and a Mole.
The rogue cultivator in the Black Crow mask took the last empty seat.
Just then.
Clack.
A small pebble bounced across the stone floor in a corner of the chamber.
The solid ground rippled like water, and a cultivator clad in a purple long robe rose from the earth like a phantom. Over his face was a Badger mask.
Anyone witnessing this for the first time harbored the same thought:
What formidable spellcraft! Is there truly an Earth Escape Technique in this world that can phase through solid granite? The Society Leader must surely be at Foundation Establishment—no, perhaps even a great Golden Core master!
All six rose to their feet in unison and cupped their hands in salute.
“Greetings, Society Leader.”
“Very well. Begin the report.”
None of the members knew the true history of the Twin Heavens Society. Not even the exact date of its founding was known.
The fact that the origin of its name remained a mystery only made the Twin Heavens Society seem all the more profound. The less they understood, the more theories multiplied.
One member interpreted it as gathering the spiritual qi of two heavens—the Earth Kingdom and the Heavenly Yang Kingdom.
Another claimed it signified the two heavens of the world above and the world below, while yet another speculated that the society took its name from Chief Badger’s true name.
Which interpretation was correct hardly mattered. The mere fact of belonging to this mysterious secret organization filled the members with pride, a sense of belonging, and an air of superiority.