Aotian, with his hundreds of minds operating simultaneously, quickly processed all the information from the minds of the two slain intruders.

From what Aotian had learned from Rihai, cultivators using Soul Search don’t scan an entire lifetime’s worth of memories; they try to extract only what they seek. Often, they may fail, as the target’s mind might break before they find the specific information.

Sifting through someone’s entire life at once is not wise, as hundreds of years of memories pouring into the mind all at once, with no time to process, can lead to personality disorders, madness, and in severe cases, death.

It’s the same principle as using a malicious jade slip overloaded with information, where a cultivator’s mind may shatter from being unable to bear the volume. Now imagine receiving the entire memory of a cultivator — filled with techniques and centuries of life and experience.

But Aotian, with 244 powerful minds—including five from a Nascent Soul cultivator—did not hesitate to accept the entirety of both Golden Core cultivators’ memories at once.

The memories had barely arrived when his minds went into overclock, filtering the essential and discarding the irrelevant.

And what he discovered about their visit’s motivation wasn’t all that surprising.

A century ago, the master of Jian Huiyin and Wu Juntian—the deceased leader of the Eternal Sovereign Sect—had fought. While the former died, the latter was gravely wounded for a long time.

The two men who came were leaders of territories bordering this region, and due to the difficulty of information flow on this continent, they only learned about the fight long afterward. And when they did, they didn’t know Wu Juntian had been severely injured; by the time they found out, he had long since recovered, and they could no longer attack.

This time, with the Infinite Dao Sect announcing the change of name and leadership across multiple cities, the news spread much faster to the borders of neighboring territories. And since these two had already instructed their subordinate cities near the borders to report any developments, the news reached them at the astonishing speed of just under two months.

And this time, they didn’t hesitate to make the journey in person, unwilling to miss the opportunity again. They believed that in a battle between Wu Juntian and another sect, the winner would surely be in no condition to fight afterward.

That’s why they arrived with such arrogance. They wanted their opponent to reveal his condition: if he was weak, they’d attack. If he was fine, they’d extort a bit before retreating.

Unfortunately, they never imagined encountering someone like Aotian, who completely shattered the continent’s power ceiling.

What they faced was not the wounded mid-stage Golden Core opponent they had expected, but a being whose true strength they couldn’t even comprehend.

And taking advantage of the visit, Aotian set his plan into motion: discreetly conquering the continent.

With his ability to disguise himself—gained after stealing and refining Bai Yan’s techniques—combined with his capability to perform Soul Search and process entire lifetimes of Golden Core cultivators’ memories with ease, he would begin infiltrating his elders into sects across the continent.

Only the emissary sects would be excluded from infiltration, as they received visits from Nascent Soul cultivators. If one of his elders, with their current strength and technique, were seen by such a cultivator, it would undoubtedly be discovered that something was wrong.

‘It’s only a matter of time before my power grows enough to fool them too. Then, the continent will be under my control without anyone even noticing,’ Aotian thought, a slight smile appearing on his lips as he sipped wine beside Rihai and a few elders at his wedding.

While the disciples were distracted by the celebrations and cheerful conversations, they didn’t even notice that four inner elders and ten outer elders had vanished from the party.

Bao Wuji slowly descended from the clouds and stopped before two inner elders—one of them being Lie Zheng, the elder from the punishment pavilion—and ten outer elders who had left the sect. The two inner elders who had left earlier were the ones sent to take over the two enemy sects, totaling 14 people who departed.

Wrapping the 12 people in his energy, Bao Wuji shot off like lightning, carrying them and vanishing into the horizon.

They were heading to the last of the four sects bordering Infinite Dao’s domain. One of them, the Bamboo Sword Sect, was an ally, and Aotian didn’t need to send elders there.

The mission was simple. Bao Wuji would go to the last sect, a low-level Golden Core organization like the Bamboo Sword Sect, but without an exceptional leader like Jian Huiyin.

Upon arrival, he would silently capture the leader of the enemy sect, conduct an interrogation with Lie Zheng’s help, and if the leader was someone who deserved to die, Bao Wuji would search his soul, and the other inner elder would assume his identity.

If the leader wasn’t a bad person, they would threaten him into silence, and the inner elder would remain in the sect to monitor him and prevent any foolishness.

In either case, Lie Zheng would be the only one to return to the sect.

Aotian’s goal with this was to isolate the news of his sect’s conquest of the territory—something that would naturally spread very slowly due to the distance and lack of long-range communication methods on the continent.

With the memories he received from the two neighboring territory leaders, and realizing how slowly information circulated, Aotian wasn’t concerned about some powerful being showing up at his doorstep anytime soon. Now, with the discreet conquest of the three neighboring territories, which he could use to further block the news, he was even more at ease.

With that, he no longer hesitated to proceed with his plans. Bao Wuji, after handling the neighboring territory, would immediately depart for one of the mid-continents, taking ten of the sect’s fifty outer elders, one from each pavilion.

Aotian had decided to take more risks, after a long period of consideration.

Outer elders were not assigned fixed abilities—instead, it was he who decided which pavilion each would serve under. Upon assignment, they would automatically receive a standard set of abilities based on their designated pavilion.

So, although losing outer elders was unfortunate, the impact wasn’t nearly as great as losing an inner elder. Of course, if all of them were killed, Aotian would definitely want to cry.

But there was a reason why he was sending one outer elder from each pavilion. It was because each of them had a specialty, and the profit and safety they could achieve by working together would be much greater than sending just one.

The elder from the Sword Pavilion could copy sword intents he witnessed; the one from the Treasure Pavilion could locate powerful treasures nearby and understand how to use them at their peak; the one from the Formation Pavilion could gain insights into formations more easily, which would be rapidly broken down by all of Aotian’s minds. The Punishment Pavilion elder could easily track enemy traces… and all the others had specific skill sets, from identifying materials to handling spiritual herbs, among other things.

Thinking about these things, a mischievous smile appeared on Aotian’s face.

‘Mid-Continents, prepare yourselves. The Infinite Dao Sect is coming.’

…

Aotian, who was multitasking with his other minds, realized it was time to leave. He had already drunk plenty, celebrated more than enough, and received more congratulations than he could count.

It was time to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

Turning the rest of the wine in his bowl, he set it on the table.

‘I can invent wine glasses later. I’m not a big fan of drinking wine from bowls,’ Aotian joked in his thoughts as he turned to Rihai, whose cheeks were flushed from the wine she hadn’t dissipated.

He kissed her soft cheek and pulled her into his chest.

Kissing the tip of her ear, he gently whispered:

“Shall we head back?” he asked, lightly biting her soft ear.

Rihai grew flustered and lowered her head slightly.

“Uhmm…” she murmured, giving a small, shy nod as her cheeks flushed deeper.

Aotian looked at her in a daze. He had never seen her so well-behaved and only grew more excited.

To her surprise, he bent slightly, picked her up in his arms, and left without even looking back.

Even the disciples who witnessed the scene were a bit stunned by it—it was unusual to see someone carrying the bride in their arms after the banquet—but they quickly brushed it off, assuming it was just young people having fun.

Rihai wrapped her arms around Aotian’s neck and gazed at him, entranced, her face glowing red.

She rested her head on his chest and calmly inhaled his scent as he stepped onto a flying sword and soared toward their cave.

The last thing the guests saw were Aotian’s back in his red groom’s robes, fluttering in the wind, and Rihai’s beautiful blonde hair blowing behind her.

Soon they arrived at their cave, and Aotian controlled his spiritual energy to retrieve the token from his pouch and open the cave while flying straight inside the moment it opened.

It didn’t take long for him to reach the bedroom, step off the sword, store it away, and gently sat Rihai down on the bed.

He then walked over to the nightstand, where there was a small table with wine and prepared cups.

Taking the two small, handleless cups, he poured wine into them and handed one to Rihai as he sat beside her.

Rihai took the cup with a small smile, pleased that Aotian had remembered this little tradition and hadn’t rushed into other things, leaving it aside.

“…Thank you, husband, for everything,” Rihai said softly, scooting a bit closer to him.

“Do we need thanks between the two of us?” He smiled gently and gave her a quick peck on the lips.

She only responded with a loving smile and linked her arm holding the cup with his, and the two drank their wine in one go.

It was just a small gesture to symbolize their union.

Aotian took her cup and placed it back on the table before sitting once more beside her with an intense gaze—and in return, he received an equally intense and shy look.

What was about to happen was clear to both of them.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep