Time flowed, and soon 15 days had passed. Finally, Bao Wuji and everyone else would be making their journey back home.

In the past days, Ancestor Bao had left the nine outer elders together with Lei Yun and Mu Luyin in the Mu clan, and departed.

Alongside Elder Snake, they set out separately to raid the 12 powers as quickly as possible, before the members of those factions could seize everything and flee upon sensing the threat.

Although the soul lanterns of their respective ancestors had been extinguished, normally the sects wouldn’t take everything and leave the safety of their protective barriers and rich spiritual veins. At most, they would shrink inside and stay silent, waiting for a new ancestor to be born or for the storm to pass.

But if the news spread that all the inheritances of their allies had been stolen after their ancestors were killed, then the chance would be real that they would take everything and run.

Unfortunately for them, with Bao Wuji’s and Elder Snake’s speed, they didn’t even have time to receive the news.

Although Elder Snake couldn’t silently slip through sect barriers by invading through the void like Bao Wuji—since his dragon body only had similar combat power but not the properties of a Void Refiner—it couldn’t be forgotten that, at the end of the day, Aotian was now a super master in the art of Formations, and consequently, so were his avatars.

Thus, Elder Snake invaded just as silently as the ancestor, it was only a bit more troublesome.

Another point, also regarding the realm, was that he couldn’t open the void to accelerate the journey. So, even though his flight was actually faster than Bao Wuji’s, he still lost in overall speed in the end.

Thus, of the 11 remaining powers, Bao Wuji invaded 7, while Snake invaded 4.

There was no bloodshed, after all, Aotian wasn’t cold-blooded enough yet to cause such a massacre without knowing who was good and who was evil. Everything that happened was based only on plain old robbery.

Finally, but no less important, before heading back to the sect—since they were already there to pick up the avatars and the couple—Bao Wuji and Snake took the opportunity to take a look at the Mu family’s inheritance.

‘I didn’t steal anything, I just took a look! Err… don’t worry, I won’t make any of this available for anyone to use, so it doesn’t count as theft or undermining your foundation, right?’ Aotian chuckled a little nervously at doing this with a seemingly allied family.

After all, they were affiliated with his wife’s Liu family, so it wasn’t wrong to see them as allied forces. Find the newest release on novel•fire.net

But he consoled himself in his own way, trying to set it aside.

‘I’ll read your cultivation inheritance today, and in the near future I’ll train your young lady into an immortal, I think that’s a fair deal, right?’ He could only reassure himself like that, easing his slightly heavy conscience.

Thus, 15 days passed quickly, and most of that time was actually spent reading the Mu family’s materials, since he was only studying, not stealing directly as he had done with the 12 powers.

With that done, and with Mu Luyin retrieving her soul lantern, they set off back to the sect, including the 10 avatars.

Aotian had already acquired much on the Beiyan continent, and it would take a long time to process all the gains and make use of them. Not to mention that the coming times could be a little turbulent in this continent, making it safer to bring all the avatars back.

Thus, with their pockets full, the Infinite Dao Sect withdrew back to its comfortable and safe desert continent.

And when they appeared again, on that day… the whole Lingxi world could be shaken.

…

Mounted on a dragon, as they crossed the seas, were the avatars and the couple.

Since the energy cost of taking several people through a spatial rift was too great for the current Ancestor Bao, they could only be carried by Elder Snake, who was extremely fast in flight, and also comfortable.

Of course, before that, they had been taken far from the coast, before Snake once again assumed his dragon form. From then on, Bao Wuji was responsible for using spells to render their images invisible and nullify their auras, while Snake carried them, ensuring a safe, fast, and trace-free journey.

At that moment, after enjoying the sensation of flying seated on a dragon and being a dragon flying, all at once, Aotian pondered something.

Controlling Bao Wuji, he took a small palm-sized circular piece of jade from his storage space.

There were small engravings and inscriptions on the beautiful piece of green jade, almost transparent in purity. From it, faint but powerful energy fluctuations were emitted.

‘So this is a Sound Transmission Jade…’ Aotian analyzed with interest.

That jade had been taken from the body of Ancestor Xu, one of the twelve powers, and provisional leader of that alliance.

But such a precious item wasn’t something that old man’s clan had obtained on their own, but rather something given by the envoy from the central continent. If the Silent Cadaver Orchid were found, he was to report it through this jade as quickly as possible. But aside from that, he was strictly forbidden to use it for any other kind of communication.

Of course, faced with the threat of death, Ancestor Xu surely would have used it. Unfortunately, he thought he was only dealing with an enemy at the Soul Formation realm, and when he discovered it was a Void Refiner, Bao Wuji acted too quickly for him to do anything.

Later, with his death, the Sound Transmission Jade fell into Bao Wuji’s hands.

Aotian studied the piece for a while, and then stored it away without destroying it. The Sound Transmission Jade could only be used to send messages, and it could not be intercepted or tracked, being one of the safest means of exchanging messages, so there was no need to destroy it.

It was also because of this jade, and the memories of Ancestor Xu, that Aotian had no rush to leave with his avatars, nor did he fear being caught by the central continent right after the mountain closed. All because, apparently, the central continent didn’t expect success at all from the mission they had proposed to the 12 powers, but only awaited the possibility. That’s why they gave the Sound Transmission Jade, since they wouldn’t come to check unless they received confirmation.

Regarding this jade, due to the fact that it sent messages through the void until reaching the target Sound Transmission Jade—thus ensuring total security of the message—it could only be created by cultivators in Void Refinement. Aotian hadn’t known this fact before.

Although he knew of the Sound Transmission Jade thanks to the xianxias he had read, knowing about it was one thing, creating it was another. Even though he had tried to develop a few similar things before, he hadn’t had much time due to the accumulation of tasks, and the success had been small.

Fortunately now, with Lei Yun’s feedback, this was no longer a problem.

He only needed the precious Void-Tier material, Resonant Jade, which was the basis of such artifacts, and he could easily create them. And he already had some ideas on how to acquire some later.

…

It had already been a month since Bao Wuji had left, and during that month of adventure and exploration outside, things within the sect had not remained still.

The main body never interrupted his cultivation, and with the natural slowdown upon reaching the Golden Core realm, he began to use auxiliary pills—only the kind that gave a slight boost to basic cultivation, without crossing realms or possessing very high medicinal power.

Although it wasn’t good to rely too much on pills, these auxiliaries didn’t bring great problems, aside from the accumulation of impurities, something Aotian could calmly deal with. Besides, the quality of the sect’s pills was on another level, without low-grade impurities.

With weak medicinal power, there was no loss of control over energy during cultivation progress, nor did it affect the foundation. The assistance speed wasn’t too great either, accelerating cultivation by only 1.5 times the normal rate, which was already excellent.

Thus, after a month and two weeks since his breakthrough, he had reached… still the first level of Golden Core.

It wasn’t his fault for not advancing. It was simply that cultivation at this realm was much slower. If he maintained his current pace, he calculated he would reach the second level in about three and a half months.

Of course, that was only if he kept this rhythm, but with the avatars returning full of resources, there was no doubt his cultivation would soar in the near future.

…

While everything began to improve in the Infinite Dao Sect, at an extremely distant place, a continent of fairy tales stretched into dimensions beyond words.

There, the spiritual energy was so powerful that if a cultivator at the Foundation Establishment realm from the desert continents walked through the forest, they risked being knocked down and killed by some random bird cheerfully singing in the trees.

At the center of that continent, an enormous, seemingly dead tree—greater than any mountain—extended its branches to unimaginable distances, and in certain sections they simply vanished, as if piercing the void with its terrifying power.

The tree, even dead, seemed to breathe, and with each breath, a strong current of spiritual energy was dispersed into the air.

Its enormous roots didn’t seem to absorb nutrients from the soil, but rather to send a great amount of raw spiritual energy underground, bringing life and prosperity to the world.

Aotian, even though he had never seen it, had heard about it through the stories Rihai told him about the world she knew.

Even close to death, it was still known to the world as the Tree of Life, also called the Tree of Spiritual Origin.

Rihai didn’t know much about the tree. After all, she was still a child at the time and hadn’t had the chance to learn much, especially about such high-level matters, far from her reality back then.

She only knew that the tree functioned as a great spiritual vein of an extremely high level, and nothing beyond that.

And at that moment, near the roots of the immense Tree of Spiritual Origin—which made the entire Shadowfallen Burial Mountain seem small in comparison—a secret meeting was taking place in a heavily guarded hall built there.

In the room, several figures emitted no aura at all. They appeared like ordinary people—if one ignored their dazzling robes, heavy with treasures, and the countless artifacts they carried—and conversed calmly.

Though they seemed ordinary in aura, and their appearances varied—some old, others middle-aged, and even one looking like a youth of less than 20 years—there was a single trait in common among those 14 men and women: their eyes full of vicissitudes.

In them existed a chilling indifference, as if everything in the world had already been seen, experienced, and was now beneath them.

It wasn’t like the indifference of Elder Jian Huiyin of the Infinite Dao Sect, which served more as a mask to hide emotions and reflected her absolute calm.

No, their indifference wasn’t only external, but internal as well.

At the long table, one person stood up to preside over the meeting, drawing the attention of the other 13 present.

With a calm and ethereal voice, the old man in simple gray robes began to speak:

“The trials in the five seals of Shadowfallen have ended. Until now, no news of the Orchid has been found.” Despite the tranquil tone, his words weighed heavily in the room.

One of those present, apparently young, his face darkening, gripped the arm of his chair tightly, creating cracks in the extremely strong material.

“Time is running out, we can no longer hesitate. Let us break the limitations of the five burial seals, let everyone in, or even force them in. As long as we obtain the damn orchid, it doesn’t matter what price we have to pay. Remember, we have no more time.”

He spoke with a heavy tone of warning.

The others in the room hesitated upon hearing about breaking the limitations.

But an elderly woman with a small red circle on her forehead also spoke up.

“The burials are the most prosperous and likely places for the birth of a Silent Cadaver Orchid. Dark elements, high spiritual energy, and the blood of thousands staining their soils every ten years. With the Shadow Beasts draining the impurities of the herbs and protecting them, they are the most suitable places for such a rare and difficult herb to appear and grow. If we want to have hope of finding it, we can no longer hesitate.”

The old woman’s words echoed, and everyone sighed bitterly, nodding their heads.

“I agree.”

“I agree.”

“Do as you wish.”

“It seems there’s no other way…”

Several voices rang out, some firm, others hesitant, but all unanimously agreed.

The gray-clothed elder at the head of the table also nodded in the end, his gaze calm.

“It seems everyone is in agreement. Normally, this measure would never be approved, but with the Evergreen Willow drawing ever closer to death, it no longer makes sense to speak of sacrifices that will be made and of the danger we may face, after all…”

“… this world has no salvation.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep