“Sect Leader! Sect Leader!” An anxious old man with white hair rushed into a grand, silver-ornamented hall adorned with sword engravings—but froze the moment he entered.

In the center of the hall wasn’t just his sect leader, a beautiful woman with silver hair, but also beside her, a handsome middle-aged man with black hair.

Both of them had completely indifferent expressions, which was quite strange when they were together.

Swallowing hard, the Grand Elder of the Bamboo Sword Sect was at a loss for how to proceed.

He had entered shouting because he hadn’t sensed any presence other than the sect leader in the hall, but had completely forgotten that there were now people in the sect capable of concealing their auras entirely—something that left him powerless and uncertain, questioning whether he had made the right choice in allowing them to stay.

Tian Zhu shifted his gaze from Jian Huiyin and turned to the Grand Elder who had just entered.

“You came to talk about the sixteen cities, correct? If so, no need to speculate—it was us.” Tian Zhu asked calmly and admitted, making the old man’s pupils dilate.

Jian Huiyin remained composed, though she didn’t understand, and stared at the flustered elder, waiting for a response.

“That’s… Sect Leader, reports are coming in from the sixteen major cities. Currently, three of the nearest have sent requests for aid, and we imagine there may be more from the other cities, but the distance has delayed any messages—” The elder said awkwardly, but was interrupted.

“What news?” Jian Huiyin cut in, wanting him to get straight to the point.

“They were attacked and taken over by unknown Foundation Establishment cultivators. There weren’t many casualties, and the takeover was almost peaceful, but after the defeat, these unknown cultivators detained the core members of the local powers, and then some kind of investigation began, followed shortly by direct executions of certain individuals from those families—for reasons that weren’t specified to us due to the urgency of the messenger, who came before he could find out.” The elder reported, unable to avoid glancing at Tian Zhu.

Jian Huiyin also turned her gaze to the sect leader she had joined over the past twenty-some days.

Until now, nothing unusual had occurred, and they had been calm, not mingling much with the Bamboo Sword Sect, which had reassured her a bit. But this sudden news made her very serious.

Her cold eyes stared at Tian Zhu, trying to understand his intentions.

And he met her gaze without fear.

“As I said—it was us. My sect has indeed taken over all sixteen second-level cities in the region, or ‘major cities’ as you call them. There are certain things my sect is searching for, which are not convenient to reveal, and which may be among the different powers.” Tian Zhu said calmly, with no trace of guilt in his voice, his gaze as indifferent and deep as always.

Aotian only said this to avoid making his motive too obvious.

As for the sixteen major cities, they were called that because of their power and spiritual veins, which reached second-level energy—not because of their actual size. In fact, there were mortal cities many times larger than these clans and sects, which were limited by the size of their spiritual vein.

Hearing Tian Zhu’s words, the leader of the Bamboo Sword Sect maintained her indifferent expression, but her heart was far from calm.

‘Something they’re searching for? What could it be? Did they also come to my sect looking for that? But the only thing they wanted were the techniques, spells, and inheritances… Is it possible there’s some secret among them? They might simply be after the techniques themselves, but they already possess much more powerful spells—why would they seek something as low-level as the Refining-Tier inheritances they bought from us?’ Numerous questions flashed through Jian Huiyin’s mind, seeking the most likely answer, but she had too little information to grasp the true motivations of the Infinite Dao Sect.

But one thing she was almost certain of—she was 80% sure they were after the jade slips of the various powers.

“And the executions?” She asked, her gaze calm.

She didn’t truly care about the deaths of those outside her sect—she simply didn’t want chaos in the region under her administration. More than that, she sought some clue about what the Infinite Dao Sect really intended.

“Executions? That’s just because we have time. While our sect isn’t retrieving them yet, the elders of my sect are spending their time hunting and cleaning up this world’s trash.” Tian Zhu said with a cold voice.

And it was true—the elders were currently guarding the inheritances they had collected and awaiting the sect to retrieve them. They wouldn’t cultivate in enemy territory where they could be interrupted.

So, Aotian spent his time investigating rapists, those who killed for pleasure, and the like—eliminating some of the world’s filth.

Since not all of his avatars had lie-detection abilities like Lie Zheng, he had to investigate the old-fashioned way—but some of the things he discovered were so depressing that even he couldn’t ignore them. Simply questioning someone and getting the truth was one thing, but seeing the atrocities was something else entirely.

There was a lot of evil in that world—just like in his past world—but here it was more visible, less hidden, and less feared when revealed—which made everything even worse.

Aotian knew that killing those vile individuals he found wouldn’t change the world, but it might save some people who didn’t deserve the fate of the victims he had seen. And the guilty ones for whom he found proof did not die as peacefully as the wicked he simply interrogated before.

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In any case, he had time—and seeing and fighting evil helped temper his mindset, making him feel that he wasn’t in that world just to survive and live for himself, but also that he could make a small difference by trying to stop some tragedies from happening.

He had the power to stop it—and the time to kill. So he felt it would be a disservice not to do something.

Jian Huiyin stared at Tian Zhu in surprise.

It was common for some righteous cultivators, upon encountering evil, to fight to eliminate it. But it was very rare—or at least she had never heard of—a sect whose leadership spent their time actively seeking justice without any personal motivation.

She herself was like that: if injustice appeared before her eyes, she wouldn’t hesitate to kill. But she would never enter a city and begin investigating, searching for evil hidden beneath the surface. And she especially wouldn’t make her sect and elders do such a thing.

Of course, that was assuming they were telling the truth—and she still didn’t trust them.

‘I’ll send people to investigate later. If it’s confirmed, I’ll be able to better understand some of their traits and motivations. If it’s false, I’ll have to make even more plans to ensure my sect won’t be affected.’ Jian Huiyin decided internally.

The Infinite Dao Sect hadn’t treated her badly and was already providing the elemental stone subsidy to her as a sect elder—but that wasn’t reason enough for her to let her guard down.

There was something else that worried her. The sixteen major cities were a force to be reckoned with, and even her sect, without her presence, would not be a match for all of them united. Of course, with her there, those cities would never dare to rebel, even if they wanted to. She alone was enough to destroy them all together.

But when compared to the Infinite Dao Sect, the difference was staggering. Even without its leader, that sect could easily subdue all the cities and still have time to hunt down evil.

She also remembered that there were still twelve powerful elders in their sect who had the strength to completely overpower her own sect, and who hadn’t even taken part in the conquest of the sixteen major cities—revealing just a glimpse of the terror hidden within that mysterious sect that had emerged out of nowhere.

And no one could say with certainty that this was the full extent of their strength. At the very least, she didn’t believe that, with the resources they had, that was all the power they possessed

Her caution had risen to a whole new level in light of the recent information.

…

At that same moment, suns away, Aotian opened his eyes and looked at his panel.

[Host: Long Aotian

Cultivation: Perfection of Qi Refinement

Physique: Mortal

Qualifications: Low-Grade Five Element Spiritual Root (Low Qualification)]

[Wúji Dào Zōng (Meaning: Infinite Dao Sect)

Rank: 7 – Golden Core]

Nine days had already passed since he and Rihai had met Bao Wuji, and they had stayed in the Red Tiger’s cave.

Adding the thirteen days the ancestral Bao took to reach them, it had been a total of twenty-two days since the attack of the Infinite Dao Sect on the sixteen cities and the Bamboo Sword Sect.

Aotian could have rushed his advancement, and perhaps within five days he would have reached Foundation Establishment. But he didn’t. At each level, supported by his synthesized techniques, high-level minds, and resources, he pushed every small realm to its absolute limit.

His dantian, at that moment, looked like a beautiful, unreal crystal orb. It was large and perfectly spherical, without a single flaw—not even to Bao Wuji’s sharp senses.

With Bao Wuji physically by his side, he was able to directly analyze his body using his spiritual sense, correcting every small imperfection during the cultivation process.

Currently, his dantian had reached the peak of what he could perceive. Perhaps cultivators at even higher realms could detect near-invisible flaws, but Aotian believed they wouldn’t significantly affect his strength, even if they existed.

He never chased after theoretical perfection blindly, but always aimed to get as close as possible before advancing.

And now, he was ready. It was time to break through to Foundation Establishment—this time for real, with his main body.

Observing his dantian, unreal and visible only through spiritual energy, Aotian made his final considerations before taking this decisive step.

‘Ordinary cultivators use breakthrough pills to go through this process, because they might not be able to do it alone without becoming crippled. According to what Rihai said, only geniuses with good techniques dare to go this path without the aid of a pill, which creates a stronger foundation. But with the quality of my pills, they could help a cultivator break through with no drawbacks and even improve the breakthrough’s quality.’

He reflected, then shook his head.

‘My pills are amazing, and I can have my sect disciples use them to reach higher levels. But for me? No. With my minds and breakthrough experiences, adding a pill would be one more uncontrollable variable in the process. That would reduce my autonomy and could even worsen the outcome compared to what I can achieve myself.’

Decided not to use pills, he ceased any hesitation and began the breakthrough process, channeling all available minds into his body.

This time, he had many more elemental and spiritual stones around him than before.

Connecting to them and drawing their energies, it didn’t take long for his spiritual roots to become flooded with various and powerful types of pure energy.

Constantly nourished by intense elemental energy, his roots seemed to cross an invisible threshold—immediately strengthening, thickening, becoming more complex—and the spiritual energy they could condense reached a new level.

The condensed energy transformed: it was no longer the weak, illusionary energy from before, but something more powerful, heavier, purer, more real—almost alive.

That powerful energy surged toward his dantian like a furious tsunami, uncontrollable. Normal dantians could rupture from such energy far beyond what they were used to containing.

This is why breakthroughs are so dangerous. The process begins with the roots surpassing a limit, condensing much stronger energy. But the dantian is usually too fragile to handle such a powerful impact.

Hence the use of breakthrough pills: they protect the dantian from the force of the energy, guiding it more gently and allowing for a safer evolution, while also healing the damaged dantian.

Thanks to the pills’ healing effects, those who take them also have the advantage that even if they fail, they rarely become crippled, usually just regressing in cultivation.

But Aotian was anything but ordinary. The fierce energy impacted his dantian directly—and it barely trembled—accepting it fully.

Under his precise control, the dantian was hammered by the energy with accuracy, as if being slowly forged.

Then, guiding the energy that had infiltrated his dantian through a complex pattern, he directed it to strike each corner with surgical precision, healing and strengthening the constantly battered dantian.

Slowly, the dantian grew, becoming less ethereal as it was nourished, forged, and transformed by that powerful energy.

In Aotian’s view, his dantian seemed to be beginning to establish the foundations to become something real.

With a final explosion of energy, Aotian’s body trembled intensely.

An extremely powerful aura, compared to what he had shown before, burst from his body and spread through the surroundings before being concealed.

Foundation Establishment. He had made it.

With that surge of energy, the other inhabitants of the cave, except Bao Wuji, also opened their eyes, looking in his direction in shock.

In just nine days, he had gone from the 7th level of Qi Refinement to the 1st level of Foundation Establishment—leaving them deeply shaken.

And that breakthrough carried another special meaning.

The moment to head to the Infinite Dao Sect…

…was just around the corner.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep