Chapter 236| Chapter 237| Chapter 238
Chapter 236: Don’t Let Me Go
Practicing the ancient body-refining technique proved to be far simpler conceptually than Lu Yunxi had initially imagined, but being easy to learn and being easy to execute were two entirely different beasts. The actual training was absolute torture.
In the beginning, the regimen consisted primarily of rigorous horse stances and repetitive boxing drills. Since she had drilled those exact fundamentals relentlessly as a child, she mastered the physical forms quickly. But then the regimen progressed to medicinal baths. The volatile herbal energy invaded her pores, actively restructuring and fortifying her cellular foundation. While it wasn’t explicitly painful, the stench was absolutely foul; sitting in the tub felt exactly like soaking in an open sewer.
And then came the true agony.
To properly temper her physique, she was required to repeatedly strike herself with a solid iron hammer, manually pounding the specific muscle groups she intended to reinforce. (Author’s Note: Extremely dangerous behavior. Do not attempt in reality.)
Although the process was pure, agonizing labor, the results were incredibly profound.
Previously, if she dropped her active energy shields, a Grandmaster-level beast could easily breach her passive defenses. Now, however, attacks from Grandmaster-level beasts simply bounced off her skin without leaving a mark!
Having verified the technique’s immense value, Lu Yunxi turned to Shen San and asked if he wanted to train the forms alongside her.
Shen San enthusiastically agreed, and she spent the evening hand-copying a duplicate manuscript for him.
However—
The moment he took the bound physical training manual from her hand, he slapped his palms down flat against the cover.
A gentle breeze rustled the pages. The sound of shifting paper lingered, but the book itself remained perfectly intact.
A sharp flash of confusion crossed his eyes. He slapped his palms against the cover twice more in rapid succession, but the manuscript simply sat there in his lap, refusing to dissolve into golden light.
Huh? Thoroughly bewildered, he picked up the book and began manually flipping through the ink-stained pages.
Watching the bizarre display, Lu Yunxi’s eyes glinted with sudden realization.
It appeared that the vast majority of authentic cultivation techniques left behind by the ancient world couldn’t simply be ‘absorbed’ by the player base through system integration. Players had to sit down and meticulously study, memorize, and comprehend the texts manually, exactly as she had done.
Although her intelligent system interface had previously mentioned that a handful of minor cultivation techniques had been seamlessly integrated into the game’s core code—allowing players to instantly learn them via the ‘slap’ mechanic—those were undoubtedly low-tier, ubiquitous skills. There was absolutely no way the system possessed the processing clearance to instantly upload high-tier, legendary manuals directly into a player’s neural framework.
“Master, why won’t this…”
Lu Yunxi decisively cut him off before he could formulate the question. “Haha! Whatever are you doing? Why are you repeatedly slapping the book like that? Relax, the cover might look a bit weathered, but it’s not dusty.”
Shen San had been right on the verge of asking why the system interface wasn’t allowing him to auto-learn the skill! Hearing her casual deflection, he immediately swallowed the question. He was terrified that if he admitted the truth, his master would start interrogating him on why he expected a physical book to vanish with a single tap!
The thought alone made a heavy, irrational guilt pool in his gut, even if he couldn’t quite articulate exactly why he felt guilty.
“Ah, well… um… Master, where exactly are we heading next?” he stammered, frantically forcing a change in topic.
“For the next leg of the journey, I plan to drop in and visit my aunt,” Lu Yunxi replied, offering a bright smile. Suddenly, a memory surfaced, and she couldn’t help but let out a sharp, amused laugh. “By the way, a few days ago, when you briefly stepped away to handle an errand, a traveler actually chased down my carriage. Guess what he said to me?”
Shen San froze, a terrible, sinking premonition instantly gripping his chest.
If his master was bringing this up so casually, the punchline undoubtedly involved him—but he hadn’t done anything to draw attention!
“The man swore up and down that he watched you literally vanish into thin air! He was completely convinced you were a demon in disguise and aggressively warned me to steer clear of you!” She burst into genuine laughter, carefully concealing the deep, analytical calculation hiding in her eyes. “Isn’t that just absolutely hilarious?!”
Shen San sat completely stunned for a second before a violent, icy chill shot down his spine. When he had logged out of the system, a passing NPC had actually witnessed the displacement render!
But wasn’t it supposed to be impossible for NPCs to process player logouts? They were hardcoded to rationalize or ignore the visual anomaly! Could it be that the NPC’s AI had glitched… No, no, no! He needed to stop terrifying himself! It was probably just the trigger event for some bizarre, localized side quest!
Yet, despite his frantic internal rationalizations, his heart was hammering against his ribs. To avoid exposing his player status any further, he absolutely had to fabricate an excuse to separate from his master. Once he was clear, he would ensure he only ever logged off in completely desolate, unpopulated coordinates. Of course, all of that was a headache for later.
Lu Yunxi felt a profound sense of relief after smoothly excusing her disciple. She utilized her lightness skills to sprint all the way back to her aunt’s estate. Seeing that the older woman was in robust health and high spirits, a heavy burden lifted from her chest.
After her family visit, she spent the next several weeks meticulously scouring the Water Continent. The territory was incredibly vast, and she expended a massive amount of physical stamina combing the province, but ultimately, she failed to uncover a single artifact or clue related to the immortal cultivation world.
Reviewing her continental map, she realized she had essentially explored every primary landmass in the realm; the Desert Continent was the absolute final frontier. With her options exhausted, she paid the required silver and stepped into the grand transit array.
The exact millisecond the displacement rendered, a massive wall of airborne sand slammed directly into her mouth.
Lu Yunxi’s features instantly contorted into a mask of pure, unadulterated suffering.
She snapped her jaw shut and aggressively scrubbed the grit from her face. Waiting for the localized squall to pass, she spat violently into the dirt several times before the suffocating, gritty sensation finally faded from her tongue.
She turned around, staring at the transit point in absolute, deadpan speechlessness.
The teleportation array was situated directly in the dead center of the open desert, completely exposed and half-buried under shifting dunes. If she hadn’t just materialized on the geometric carvings, she never would have guessed a high-tier transit hub was located in such an absurd, hostile environment.
“Even the transit array in the freezing Ice Continent had a reinforced pavilion built over it. Why on earth isn’t there a structural shelter here?” she muttered, genuinely baffled by the infrastructural negligence.
“Exactly my point!” a voice suddenly snapped in furious agreement, right as a figure burst upward from beneath the sand.
Lu Yunxi was so violently startled by the sudden emergence that she nearly drew her bow and executed the man on the spot. “W—why in the heavens are you hiding beneath the sand?!”
“Ugh!” The young man let out a heavy, miserable sigh as he aggressively dusted the grit from his robes. “You have no idea! The exact second my transit displacement finished, a massive sandstorm hit the coordinates. And since this particular array is a one-way terminal, if I want to escape this continent, I have to manually locate a secondary hub… Left with no cover, I had no choice but to dive into the dunes and bury myself. By the grace of the heavens, I managed to survive.”
Having vented his frustrations, the young man’s demeanor shifted, turning surprisingly enthusiastic. “By the way, my name is Fugui. What’s yours? What brings you out to the wastes? If you don’t object, perhaps we could party up? Traversing the deep wilderness is always safer with a companion watching your back.”
Seeing that his demeanor was entirely open and devoid of malice, Lu Yunxi allowed her guard to drop slightly. “My surname is Lu. I traveled here searching for… a specific item, so it truly wouldn’t be convenient for us to travel together.”
Fugui didn’t seem the least bit offended by the rejection. He offered a cheerful farewell, picked a random direction on his compass, and marched away into the dunes.
Lu Yunxi opened her inventory, retrieved a heavy, sand-resistant cloak, and began her trek.
As the days blurred together, she successfully navigated across the vast majority of the desert wastes.
Unfortunately, her exhaustive search had yielded absolutely zero artifacts or clues relating to the immortal cultivation realm.
Staring up at the blistering, oppressive sun hovering overhead, she paused her march. Pulling a canteen of fresh mountain spring water from her spatial inventory, she drank in silent frustration.
Just as she sat down in the shade of a dune to rest her attributes, the sharp, chaotic sounds of a violent skirmish drifted over the sand from a short distance away.
Her curiosity piqued, she scaled the ridge and peered down into the adjacent valley.
Three figures, wrapped tightly in heavy desert cloaks, had completely surrounded a lone combatant who was caked in dirt and sand. The attackers were relentlessly swinging their blades, attempting to break the defender’s guard.
Despite being heavily outnumbered, the ambushed target was holding their own remarkably well, wildly swinging a massive, double-handed iron hammer to parry the incoming strikes.
Every time the heavy hammer collided with a steel sword, a sharp, deafening clang echoed across the dunes.
Lu Yunxi analyzed the tactical breakdown for a few moments before deciding to stay entirely out of it.
She had no context for the conflict, no idea which party was morally justified, and no personal connection to any of the combatants involved. Why on earth would she insert herself into a random blood feud?
Her decision made, she holstered her canteen, kept her expression entirely blank, and began silently skirting the perimeter of the valley.
However, while she possessed zero interest in meddling in their affairs, the ambushers clearly possessed zero intention of letting a witness walk away.
“Hold!”
Noticing that their target was finally showing signs of severe stamina depletion and breathing raggedly, the lead assassin abruptly halted his assault and whipped his head around, locking eyes with Lu Yunxi.
Assuming the shout was directed at his subordinates, Lu Yunxi didn’t even break her stride, continuing her steady march across the ridge.
Furious at being ignored, the assassin raised his heavy broadsword and sprinted straight toward her.
The vicious hum of displaced air whistled past her ear.
Watching a severed strand of her own hair drift lazily toward the sand, Lu Yunxi’s expression darkened instantly.
“Were you… speaking to me just now?” she asked, her voice dropping to a dangerously quiet timber.
“Don’t play the fool! Did you think I was screaming at a ghost?!” the assassin sneered, stepping closer and leveling his blade threateningly. “Speak! Exactly how much of our operation did you just witness?!”
Lu Yunxi blinked, perfectly feigning utter confusion as she ‘subconsciously’ erased the skirmish from her memory. “Witness? I haven’t seen a single thing.” According to the established tropes of practically every survival drama she had ever watched, claiming absolute ignorance was the only way to avoid triggering a lethal escalation!
Haha! I’m such an incredibly clever girl! she cheered internally.
To her utter dismay, the assassin let out a dark, booming laugh. “The fact that you immediately denied seeing anything proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that you saw everything! I cannot allow you to leave this valley alive!”
With his twisted logic cemented, he roared, hoisting his heavy broadsword and swinging it in a lethal arc straight toward her neck.
Seeing their leader engage a new target, the other two assassins immediately abandoned the hammer-wielding defender and rushed the ridge. “Hold them down! We’re coming to assist!”
Watching the men casually attempt to slaughter her as if they were butchering a stray chicken, Lu Yunxi stood completely stunned for a fraction of a second before her face twisted into a mask of pure, lethal fury.
“You won’t allow me to leave?!” she scoffed, a freezing, deadly smile curving her lips as she instantly drew her grandmaster-level longbow from her inventory.
In the blink of an eye, three spectral arrows tore through the air.
The three assassins, who had been charging her with such unbridled, arrogant bloodlust mere seconds ago, suddenly froze. Clutching the massive, arterial wounds blooming across their chests, their eyes widened in profound, absolute terror as they collapsed dead onto the sand.
Chapter 237: Finally Waited
Lu Yunxi frowned and let out a long, heavy breath. Once she had composed herself and felt less irritated, she approached the lone figure sprawled on the sand.
However, before she even reached the man, her eyes snagged on his dropped weapon.
Completely putting the unconscious defender out of her mind, her eyes lit up with immediate excitement. She stepped forward, hoisted the massive iron hammer, and turning it over in her hands, admired its fine craftsmanship for a long time.
“Heavens! This hammer is absolutely magnificent!” The forging technique was light-years ahead of anything she had ever manufactured herself.
Yet, reflecting on how the man had been wielding it moments ago, she recalled that his movements had seemed remarkably clumsy and disjointed. It was as if he couldn’t handle the physics of the weapon. Could it be that he rarely utilized it in actual combat?
Her brow furrowing with curiosity, she walked back over to the unconscious man and carefully rolled him onto his back.
His body was scored by several deep cuts, and loose sand had caked into the bloody wounds, giving him a thoroughly gruesome appearance. Fortunately, a quick inspection of his attributes revealed the injuries were mostly superficial.
She immediately cast a high-level healing spell, knitting his flesh back together, before hoisting him up by the collar with one hand and casually slapping his face with the other to clear the caked grit.
As the sand cascaded away, his hidden features were finally exposed to the sunlight.
Lu Yunxi froze in utter astonishment.
It was Fugui—the eccentric traveler she had crossed paths with at the transit array on her very first day on the continent!
Lu Yunxi lowered him gently onto the dune and poured a steady stream of fresh water down his throat. A moment later, Fugui’s eyelids fluttered open.
“Miss Lu… Miss Lu?”
Lu Yunxi watched Fugui, who was still sitting beside her and panting heavily to recover his breath, remaining silent for a brief moment before asking, “Do you require a longer rest?”
Fugui’s pale face flushed with slight embarrassment as he took another sip from her canteen. “I should be fine… But honestly, Miss Lu, your constitution is absolutely terrifying. You don’t look the least bit fatigued after traversing the dunes for so long.” Not only was she completely unfazed by the harsh climate, but she hadn’t even broken a sweat or altered her breathing pattern.
Is this the baseline of a true powerhouse? he thought, his mind overflowing with quiet, intense admiration.
Lu Yunxi had no idea what kind of epic internal monologue he was spinning, though she felt a slight weight settle in her chest.
She never could have anticipated that this seemingly ordinary traveler was actually a direct relative of a senior elder within the Desert Sect. Fugui had journeyed across the continents specifically to attempt the faction’s entry assessment.
Initially, she had fully intended to part ways with him immediately; after all, his baseline movement speed was agonizingly slow. But learning of his connection to the Desert Sect altered her parameters. The Desert Sect and the Misty Rain Palace shared a long history of mutual alliance and structural support. Now that she had actively intervened to save his life, protocol dictated she couldn’t simply abandon him to die in the wastes. Left with no other alternative, she temporarily mothballed her personal itinerary, electing to escort him safely to the Desert Sect headquarters before resuming her hunt for the cultivation archives.
However, Fugui’s core physical attributes were significantly lower than she had estimated. While her master-level healing spells could seamlessly mend his tissue damage and restore his health bar, they possessed no capacity to permanently alter his baseline strength or stamina thresholds.
Subtly checking his pulse while checking his vitals, she noted that beneath his seemingly healthy exterior lay an incredibly brittle foundational structure. He had clearly been subjected to brutal, grueling manual labor since his early youth. It was a massive tragedy; had his childhood been stable, his natural framework would have made him an exemplary candidate for high-tier martial training. What a waste of potential.
“Once you formally clear the assessment and begin training their sect-exclusive techniques to refine your foundation, you will easily achieve my level of vitality,” she offered, providing a rare word of comfort.
The two rested until his stamina bar replenished before rising to resume their trek across the arid flats.
Before long, the sprawling stone fortresses of the Desert Sect materialized on the horizon.
The moment the gate guards verified Lu Yunxi’s credentials as a core Elder of the Misty Rain Palace, the massive iron gates swung open, and they were ushered into the grand guest halls with immense deference. As for Fugui’s supposed familial connections… his status proved entirely useless at the gate.
It turned out the specific senior elder Fugui had traveled to see had embarked on an extended, long-term training expedition across the external continents, leaving his current whereabouts entirely unmapped. Lacking official verification, the sect administration refused to acknowledge the boy, terrified that he might be a clever con artist attempting to infiltrate the lineage.
Faced with this bureaucratic gridlock, Lu Yunxi realized she couldn’t simply depart. If she abandoned him now, Fugui would be thrown out into the desert by the guards before sundown. Forced to adapt, she checked into the guest quarters, resolving to wait alongside him until the elder finally concluded his expedition.
A few days later, a sudden commotion rattled the main courtyard.
“I cannot thank you enough…”
The returning elder of the Desert Sect stood in the guest parlor, his eyes rimmed with red as he pinned Lu Yunxi with a gaze of profound, overwhelming gratitude.
Fugui quickly chimed in from the side, “Uncle, this is Miss Lu.”
“Thank you, Miss Lu,” the elder repeated earnestly, bowing his head. “If you hadn’t intervened to parry those blades, my young nephew would have been butchered by those vile desert bandits weeks ago.”
“Think nothing of it. We are all travelers navigating the same wilderness; it is only natural to offer aid… But, desert bandits?”
“Yes, a loose coalition of rogue thieves who infest the deep dunes,” the elder explained, his expression hardening into one of intense disgust. “They possess an intimate knowledge of the continent’s dead zones and make a brutal living by pillaging supply caravans. To ensure their targets’ factions never track their coordinates, they systematically slaughter every single traveler they encounter.” Too infuriated to dwell on the cutthroats, the elder forcefully cleared his expression and smoothly changed the subject. “But let us dwell on more fortunate matters! Miss Lu, your timing is absolutely immaculate. Our sect’s exclusive legacy realm is scheduled to unseal shortly. You must enter alongside our inner disciples and enjoy the bounty.”
“The legacy realm?” Lu Yunxi blurted out, momentarily caught off guard. She quickly raised her hands, waving them in polite refusal. “I am incredibly honored by the offer, Elder, but I am an outsider belonging to the Misty Rain Palace. Infiltrating your sect’s sacred grounds would be highly inappropriate…”
“Nonsense! Where is the harm?!” the elder barked, letting out a booming laugh. “As a presiding elder of this faction, I am legally allocated a private entry slot for my lineage. If you decline to utilize the token, the position will simply expire unfilled, resulting in a total waste of premium resources!”
Unable to withstand the elder’s aggressive hospitality, Lu Yunxi finally relented. Gathering her gear, she joined the elite vanguard of the Desert Sect as they marched toward the unsealing array of the legacy realm.
The exact millisecond she stepped through the shimmering energy barrier of the portal, the surrounding Desert Sect disciples vanished instantly, severed from her coordinate space.
Prior to entering the gate, the elder had explicitly warned her that the array utilized a randomized displacement matrix, scattering every participant across different sectors of the zone. He had instructed her to immediately orient her compass and sprint toward the absolute center of the realm. A colossal stone pillar marked the heart of the territory, serving as a universal landmark that could be seen from any coordinate. The legacy realm unsealed exactly once every ten years, remaining stable for a fixed duration of one month.
She had to ensure she breached the central pillar within thirty days; otherwise, the dimensional gates would lock down, sealing her inside the pocket dimension for the next ten years.
Recalling the strict parameters, Lu Yunxi raised her palm horizontally against her brow, squinting across the horizon to scan the terrain.
Within moments, her eyes locked onto a massive, dark outline piercing the clouds. The landmark was truly gargantuan, a monolithic column that seemed to anchor the very heavens. Its apex vanished into the upper atmosphere, entirely obscured by a dense layer of swirling white clouds.
Composing her focus, she drew her longbow from her inventory to keep her hands free, activated her master-level lightness skills, and blurred across the terrain toward the central monument. She completely ignored the patches of ultra-rare, high-tier herbs dotting the landscape.
It wasn’t that she had suddenly gone blind to valuable resources, but the elder had quietly whispered a critical secret before she crossed the threshold: the true, ultimate treasure of the entire realm was housed directly within the structure of the central pillar, which contained an inner, secondary pocket dimension.
A miniature legacy vault tucked inside a grand secret realm.
Every cultivator who successfully breached the inner sanctum encountered a completely unique, personalized trial, but those who emerged always carried an absolute bounty of attributes.
Hearing that specific description from the elder, a profound, intuitive certainty had flared within Lu Yunxi’s chest.
She knew, with absolute clarity, that whatever catalyst she required to bridge the gap into true immortal cultivation was waiting for her inside that column.
Moving with terrifying velocity, she cut through the landscape like a sudden gust of wind, materializing beside the base of the monolithic pillar in the blink of an eye.
She stood before the ancient stone for a brief, silent heartbeat before a sudden ripple of geometric light enveloped her form, and she vanished entirely from the coordinate space.
By the time the elite inner disciples of the Desert Sect finally completed their grueling overland trek and materialized at the base of the pillar, they were just in time to catch the final, fading shimmer of her displacement. Several of the younger cultivators looked thoroughly resentful.
“The Elder has truly gone too far this time!” one of them hissed, his face twisted in bitter jealousy. “Why on earth does he freely surrender our sect’s confidential mechanics to an absolute outsider? Every single time an external cultivator breaches that inner vault, the core treasures of our lineage deplete! He is actively aiding a rival faction to plunder our birthright!”
An elite, high-ranking disciple standing at the vanguard overheard the complaint and whirled around, his voice dropping to an ice-cold snap. “Hold your tongue, fool! Not only do the Desert Sect and the Misty Rain Palace share an unbreakable blood alliance, but she formally entered this realm utilizing the Elder’s legal lineage slot! By the hardcoded laws of the realm, she possesses every right to claim whatever fortune rewards her! Furthermore, the inner sanctum is not a physical storehouse of weapons or magical artifacts that can simply be pilfered and depleted!”
He turned his gaze back toward the shimmering stone column, his features smoothing into a look of profound reverence.
The ultimate asset left behind by their ancestors within that inner pocket dimension wasn’t some tangible sword or premium talisman; it was the direct, personalized guidance and legacy inheritance of the primordial masters! That wisdom was an infinite, inexhaustible treasure!
The disgruntled disciple, who had genuinely operated under the assumption that the inner vault was just a room filled with gold chests, blinked in sudden comprehension. “Ah… so that is the mechanical breakdown! The Elder truly possesses terrifying foresight!”
Lu Yunxi was entirely oblivious to the theological debate occurring outside the stone. The moment her displacement rendered, she found herself staring at an impeccably beautiful, serene landscape.
The air was alive with the melodic chirping of exotic birds, and vibrant, rare flora bloomed across rolling green hills. Crystal-clear rivers snaked through dense, lush forests, and flocks of graceful white birds circled lazily through a brilliant blue sky. Standing perfectly in the center of the valley was an exquisite, sprawling estate—a classic Jiangnan-style garden manor, its ancient, elegant architecture radiating a profound, fragrant spiritual aura.
She stood frozen for a moment, momentarily caught off guard by the sheer serenity of the zone.
Suddenly, the ethereal, crisp notes of a guqin drifted across the clearing. The melody was incredibly fluid and pure, sounding as if nature itself were composing the music, instantly inducing a state of deep, meditative calm… It was light-years ahead of the basic musical arts she had casually picked up during her early levels.
Turning her head toward the source, she noticed a delicate, open-air wooden pavilion standing just a few paces away.
Long curtains of translucent pink silk cascaded from the pavilion’s roof, fluttering gently in the breeze. The silhouette of a woman playing the guqin was faintly visible through the shifting fabric, her elegant, graceful posture unmistakable even through the screen.
Abruptly, the music ceased, and the silhouette rose, gliding smoothly through the silk curtains to walk straight toward her.
Lu Yunxi blinked, before a sudden shock bolted through her reflexes.
This entity had materialized and closed the distance so flawlessly that her grandmaster-level tracking senses hadn’t picked up a single vibration!
“Well, little girl… it appears you are the newest challenger to breach my borders…” The breathtaking immortal beauty approached with a serene smile, but her voice suddenly trailed off as she came to an abrupt halt.
She stared down at Lu Yunxi, her eyes swirling with an intensely complex, turbulent emotion. As the centuries had bled away, her residual soul fragment had grown increasingly fragile and spent. She had honestly resigned herself to the reality that she would fade into nothingness before ever encounters a suitable inheritor.
Lu Yunxi felt a distinct wave of unease under the sudden, burning intensity of her stare. Unable to decipher the profound weight behind the immortal’s gaze, she instinctively took several rapid steps backward.
Why on earth is she staring at me like that?! The look in the beauty’s eyes resembled a ravenous apex predator that had been starving in the dark for a week, suddenly catching sight of a plump lamb—her eyes were practically glowing a terrifying, feral green!
The immortal beauty elegantly raised a painted silk fan, concealing the faint, triumphant smile curbing her lips. Her eternal mission was finally about to commence…
Chapter 238: The Letter That Cannot Be Delivered
Lu Yunxi was drowning in work.
She had never expected her “grand opportunity” within the monolithic pillar to manifest in such an absurd, agonizing fashion!
The moment her dimensional displacement had finalized, the immortal beauty had effectively ambushed her, dragging her into the pavilion to force-feed her an entire curriculum of classical disciplines. She was subjected to a relentless, rapid-fire bombardment of structural arts, textile weaving, grand architectural theory, ancient poetry, chess tactics, calligraphy, and painting.
Yes—she was being forced to master everyday life skills.
In reality, her practical life skills were already at an exceptionally high level, more than sufficient to clear any standard system checkpoint. She had absolutely no desire to languish inside this pocket dimension, wasting her precious time agonizing over poetry meters or painting brushstrokes.
As the old proverb went, one cannot always control one’s destiny in the mortal world. This time, she truly experienced the weight of that reality.
She wanted to flee, but the glaring issue was that the beautiful immortal absolutely refused to grant her passage! Worse still, in a direct clash of attributes, Lu Yunxi couldn’t even breach her basic spiritual defenses!
It was entirely mind-boggling.
The system guidelines explicitly stated that the immortal beauty was merely a residual soul fragment—a phantom whose physical vessel had dissolved centuries ago. Lu Yunxi couldn’t fathom how a mere ghost could command such a terrifying, unshakeable tier of combat power!
Having just finished her lunch, she sat in the pavilion silently cursing the system design, when the immortal swept into the chamber carrying a massive stack of premium parchment sheets.
“Let us begin,” the beauty announced smoothly. “This afternoon shall be dedicated to mastering the art of imperial script.”
With a fluid, elegant motion, she unrolled a crisp sheet of paper across the desk and began grinding a block of solid ink against the stone.
Every action executed by an immortal was an exercise in breathtaking grace. Even while performing a mundane chore like grinding ink, the subtle glimpse of her bare arm revealed skin so incredibly soft, flawless, and pale that it seemed to actively luminesce beneath the ambient sunlight.
Thwack!
“Ouch!”
Lu Yunxi was suddenly struck by a sharp, invisible pulse of energy, forcing her to stumble back several paces.
“Why are you simply standing there idling?” the beauty chided, stepping away from the desk. “Did your eyes fail to track the exact weight of my wrist stroke just now? Come forward and replicate the form!”
Lu Yunxi felt a dull, throbbing ache ripple through her skull, her spine, and her fingers; her entire physical character model was screaming in exhaustion. She wished she could sprout a pair of wings and fly straight through the dimensional barrier. Perhaps this was the literal manifestation of emotional stress translating into physical pain? It was certainly dealing a significant blow to her mental stamina.
“Incorrect! Your wrist angle is completely flawed!”
“Atrocious! Stooping over the desk in that manner looks utterly ungraceful! Straighten your stance!”
“Vile! Test the consistency of the ink yourself. The fluid is far too thick; how could anyone hope to execute a fluid script with such sludge?!”
“…”
Despite the fact that Lu Yunxi’s lifestyle attributes were entirely maxed out—with numerous categories comfortably sitting at the Grandmaster tier—in the eyes of this demanding immortal tutor, her handiwork was utterly wretched across the board.
The days blurred together into a relentless cycle of academic torment.
As she tracked her interface timer, she noticed the outer legacy realm was fast approaching its closing deadline. Seeing that the immortal beauty still possessed zero intention of unsealing the exit, Lu Yunxi grew visibly anxious.
The regional gate outside unlocked exactly once every ten years. If she allowed herself to be permanently trapped inside this inner sanctuary, then regardless of whether her physical stats hit the absolute pinnacle of a mortal grandmaster, she would never possess the mechanical clearance to transition into a true immortal cultivator!
“I believe my current forms have shown monumental progress,” she argued, actively taking the initiative to confront her tutor. “Would it not be more practical to permit me to return to the mortal world and refine these disciplines at my own pace?”
The immortal elegant lifted a delicate porcelain cup, taking a slow, casual sip of her spiritual tea. “Absolutely not. Your foundation remains incomplete; you are legally barred from exiting these borders.”
Lu Yunxi felt a violent spike of irritation lock up her chest, leaving her thoroughly aggrieved.
Gritting her teeth, she began channeling her maximum combat attributes, preparing to force a violent breakthrough. But the exact millisecond her energy fluctuated, the beauty—who had been resting with her eyelids sealed—instantly opened her eyes, locking her in an absolute, suffocating pressure wave.
Lu Yunxi’s internal guilt flared, and she was slammed by a violent, systemic cough, hacking uncontrollably for several minutes before she could steady her lungs.
Lowering her gaze to hide her frustration, she used her peripheral vision to monitor the immortal’s movements while shifting half of her consciousness into her spatial inventory slots. She had to locate a high-tier sedative potent enough to knock an immortal entity out cold.
“Are you truly so desperate to escape my tutelage simply to resolve the systemic fractures plaguing the broader cultivation world?” Noting her detached, plotting expression, the beauty suddenly spoke up.
“Yeah… wait, what?!” Lu Yunxi blurted out perfunctorily, before the actual gravity of the sentence registered in her brain, leaving her thoroughly stunned. She never expected this isolated phantom to be completely aware of the server’s overarching meta-plot! Was this ghost a leftover warden from the primordial immortal era?
“If your ultimate objective is to mend the broken laws of this realm as swiftly as possible, you cannot afford to be impatient,” the beauty explained, picking up her painted silk fan and waving it with seamless elegance. “After all, if your comprehension of these foundational disciplines fails to reach perfection, your vessel will never possess the capacity to cultivate immortality.”
Lu Yunxi’s mind instantly filled with a cascade of bewildered questions.
Excuse me?!
How convoluted could the underlying code of immortal ascension possibly be? Claiming that a player had to master music, chess, classical literature, painting, singing, and dancing just to unlock a cultivation tree was entirely baffling!
However, her core intuition told her that the immortal beauty had no logical reason to fabricate such a rule.
Although they had only coexisted within the pavilion for a few dozen days, Lu Yunxi had tracked a terrifying shift in the entity’s attributes: the beauty’s spiritual frame was becoming increasingly translucent with each passing dusk… Before long, the residual soul fragment would completely dissolve into nothingness.
Yet even while hovering on the literal precipice of permanent erasure, the immortal made absolutely no effort to harvest external energy to stabilize her soul. Instead, she channeled every scrap of her remaining vitality into meticulously drilling Lu Yunxi in these ancient arts.
Reflecting on her sacrifice, a sudden wave of genuine sorrow softened Lu Yunxi’s heart. “Senior… your spiritual form is fading. Is there truly no high-tier remedy or restoration matrix within my inventory that can stabilize your condition?”
The beauty leaned lazily against the wooden railing of the pavilion. Hearing the concern, she froze for a fraction of a second before bursting into a rich, mocking laugh. “This vessel was merely a transient phantom I cast down to anchor a legacy manifest. It was always hardcoded to dissolve… My true, sovereign body does not exist within the parameters of this mortal world at all!”
Lu Yunxi felt a brief wave of embarrassment at her own naivety, though a profound sense of relief quickly followed.
“Elder… do we continue to maintain our position?” An elite disciple of the Desert Sect bowed respectfully, his eyes fixed on the massive vortex of shifting energy runes floating before them.
The presiding elder and the young Fugui were practically vibrating with pure anxiety. The dimensional gateway was in its final closing sequence; if they attempted to breach the boundary to launch a rescue now, the vortex would collapse mid-transit, trapping them inside the spatial folds forever.
“Why hasn’t Miss Lu cleared the perimeter yet?” Fugui groaned, tracking the rapidly shrinking portal with mounting dread. His personal combat attributes were far too low to withstand the dimensional pressure, leaving him entirely powerless to intervene.
The elder drew a sharp breath, nearly tearing a fistful of hairs from his beard as he whirled on the exiting disciples. “Did any of your squads verify Miss Lu’s coordinates before the countdown?!”
“Replying to the Elder, I crossed paths with her near the monument,” a senior disciple offered, stepping forward with a tense salute. “Miss Lu successfully breached the inner sanctum of the monolithic pillar. I fear she has yet to exit the pocket dimension!”
The elder’s jaw dropped in absolute bewilderment. That’s impossible! For centuries, the inner vault had operated as a perfectly stable, non-lethal inheritance matrix. How could a grandmaster-level powerhouse be pinned inside?
Could her luck truly be so atrocious that she had triggered a catastrophic glitch or an unmapped hazard the exact moment she crossed the threshold?!
Although he lacked explicit details regarding her true standing within the alliance, he had witnessed the supreme lords of the Misty Rain Palace treat her with immense deference during his seasonal diplomatic summits. If a high-ranking core asset of their closest ally were to be permanently lost inside a Desert Sect legacy zone… The sheer political anxiety made his head roll with smoke.
A heartbeat later, the geometric vortex vanished completely. Every single inner disciple who had entered the zone was safely accounted for on the stone dais—leaving Lu Yunxi as the solitary combatant abandoned inside the sealed realm.
Wasting no time on debriefing the disciples, the elder grabbed Fugui, bolted toward the sect leader’s sanctuary, and delivered a breathless, frantic report of the catastrophe.
Before twenty-four hours had passed, the Leader of the Desert Sect personally escorted a delegation of grand elders through a premium transit array, flying straight toward the Misty Rain Palace. Within days, a massive, coordinated vanguard of high-level formation masters from both factions swarmed the coordinates of the pillar, launching an exhaustive, long-term research initiative to see if they could manually force the dimensional gates back open.
Lu Yunxi remained completely oblivious to the massive political panic occurring outside the stone, her focus entirely consumed by her academic training.
Previously, when she had been held inside the pavilion by sheer force, her psychological resistance had severely bottlenecked her attribute acquisition. But now that she understood the mechanical link between these lifestyle disciplines and her ultimate ascension path, her learning velocity exploded.
In the blink of an eye, another full month slipped away.
Far across the continents, Shen San had spent the last few weeks exploring several newly opened territories, farming an absolute bounty of exotic materials and rare items. Intending to surprise his master, he opened his interface to dispatch a premium carrier pigeon containing the loot—only to watch the digital bird circle the sky before returning straight to his shoulder a moment later.
He blinked in utter confusion.
Turning the anomaly over in his mind, he drafted a secondary letter, this time targeting his junior sister, Qiu Yan, to verify if she had maintained contact with their master.
Qiu Yan had recently concluded her long-term culinary master trials, officially securing her grandmaster chef certification. By his calculations, she should have completed her transit back to the capital planet within the past few days.
Bizarrely, this second carrier pigeon executed the exact same pattern: launching into the upper atmosphere before immediately routing back to his position, indicating that the system was utterly incapable of establishing a data link with the recipient.
Shen San’s brow knit tightly together, though he didn’t immediately suspect a system error, rationalizing that Qiu Yan simply hadn’t logged into the neural matrix since her spaceship landed.
However, as the week dragged on, a heavy sense of dread finally settled into his gut. Throughout those days, he had repeatedly attempted to push messages through to both his master and his junior sister, but every single digital transmission had systematically failed to clear the buffer.
It was common knowledge that passengers traveling aboard long-haul interstellar cruise vessels had very little to do during transit, meaning the vast majority of citizens spent their hours logged directly into the holographic cabins. Given Qiu Yan’s borderline obsessive devotion to their master, the very first thing she should have done upon clearing orbital customs was log into the server to report her status.
Why the silence…
His heart rate accelerating, he quickly opened a fresh text prompt, routing a high-priority transmission to Luo Mingyi to demand a status update.
This time, the system processed the data cleanly, and the carrier pigeon dissolved into the network layout without returning.
He let out a massive, ragged breath of relief. Just as he stepped out of the local inn to restore his stamina attributes, a sharp, insistent audio alert chimed in his ear.
Shen San froze. Locating a secluded, secure alleyway, he quickly initiated a forced logout sequence.
The exact second his consciousness cleared the holographic pod, the large main monitor of his terminal flashed with an incoming priority link bearing three bold words: [Luo Mingyi].
His brow raising in mild surprise, he tapped the console to patch the audio channel through.
“Status report,” Shen San demanded, his voice tight. “Why are you establishing an external comms link so abruptly?”
“Fu San, regarding the urgent network inquiry you just pinged to my avatar…” Luo Mingyi’s face materialized on the screen, his features pale and a profound, exhausted shadow bruising the skin beneath his eyes. “I have processed zero tracking data regarding your master’s current coordinate space. But as for Qiu Yan… a few standard cycles ago during an off-world foraging expedition, her team encountered an orbital anomaly. She suffered a catastrophic fall down a mountain ridge.”
“What did you just say?!”
Although Shen San had always found his junior sister’s codependent behavior highly irritating, the sudden gravity of the news hit him like a physical blow.
If their master ever caught wind of a real-world catastrophe of this magnitude, her mental state would completely shatter!
