The Sect Conference concluded about two weeks after Su Min began her seclusion. As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end.
After the competition came the inevitable major event the division of territories. Or, more accurately, the formal delineation of each sect's protective jurisdiction. These sects were like nations in the mortal world, often clashing with one another. For now, the Fallen lacked the strength to openly challenge them all at once.
A true, unified alliance between the sects was impossible. They were riddled with mutual suspicion and old grudges. Human nature was the same, even in the world of cultivation.
So, the simplest solution was to draw lines on a map. Each sect would be responsible for a specific region. Under the noble pretense of "protecting the common people," they used this opportunity to formalize their claims and offload their problems.
Su Min saw through the farce but could not be bothered to participate in the long, tedious negotiations. She had already staked out her own domain. As for the more powerful Fallen some of whom were once Mahayana stage existences most sects scoffed at the idea that they were a real threat.
"Those who half heartedly severed their cultivation are already crippled," was the common sentiment. "Unless they cut everything like Yao Xian'er did, they are nothing but inferior remnants."
They simply did not care.
Su Min had warned them, but unless one knew the future like she did, it was easy to dismiss such concerns. The Fallen were already here, and she lacked the power to stop them all. All she could do was focus on her own preparations.
The actual negotiations over territory were handled by the Nascent Soul stage elders of each sect. A loose alliance was formed, though its only real purpose seemed to be to offer empty condolences if a sect was ever annihilated.
A month later, Tian Yinzi came to her with the results.
"Grand Elder, the negotiations are complete. The Eastern Mulberry Province and the four adjacent provinces are formally under our jurisdiction. Another seven or eight minor provinces were also nominally assigned to us though I refused to accept formal responsibility for them."
Su Min let out a cold snort. "Cowards. They are just trying to dump their problems on me under the guise of protection. A larger territory means more conflict with the Fallen. They want us to bleed while they watch from their comfortable halls. Do I look like a saint to them?"
Those minor provinces were not worth the ink used to sign them away. They had no spiritual veins, no valuable mines. Just barren land and broken borders. The other sects had clung to the rich, central territories while tossing the scraps at her, dressed up in the language of unity.
But Su Min had never been one to put faith in paper treaties. True security came only from strength. And her strength was no longer something they could dismiss.
She was an anomaly that is what they called her now. Not born of the ancient sects. Not bound by their lineages. And yet she stood above them all, backed by the remnants of the Golden Crow Clan. She was powerful enough to be feared, useful enough to be tolerated. None dared move against her openly, but their schemes lingered like incense smoke sweet, poisonous, and impossible to pin down.
At best, they tried moral blackmail. Veiled questions like, "Should not someone of your power do more for the world?"
But Su Min had long stopped pretending she owed anyone anything.
"Let us return," she said, her voice final. "From now on, everyone fends for themselves."
Tian Yinzi nodded without argument. Even he knew better than to try reasoning with her when her tone turned that cold.
She sighed, the weight of recent events pressing down on her. Divine Transformation stage cultivation was still too weak for what was coming.
Or perhaps, nothing in this world was truly invincible.
Even in her "first life," the story of this world had never reached a true conclusion. Her knowledge only extended so far beyond that, she was feeling her way forward in the dark.
But one thing was certain hiding forever was not an option.
To the Fallen, her immortal body was a walking miracle, a supreme tonic. As long as she existed, they would come for her. And so, she could not afford to rest. She could not afford deep ties. She could not afford to be known.
She would inevitably face greater dangers, so she could not afford to pause for even a moment. To walk forward eternally like this meant everyone else would be left behind.
And Su Min had already buried enough ghosts.
While the Great Luo Tian Province was relatively safe, the regions without major sects had suffered terribly. Not only were ordinary people being devoured, but even cultivators were being slaughtered en masse. Without sects to support them, or Nascent Soul experts to lead them, reaching the Golden Core stage was nearly impossible.
Many had already begun migrating to the major provinces. During the conference, most attendees were not sect disciples but rogue cultivators desperately seeking refuge. Unfortunately, sects were extremely selective about outsiders. Unless absolutely necessary, they would not take in many. Most of these wanderers would never find sanctuary.
But at worst, they would just live harder, more desperate lives.
"Grand Elder," Tian Yinzi interrupted her thoughts, his expression grim. "Reports indicate that a Fallen has been spotted in the Wei Wu Province. An entire city in the desert region vanished overnight. Tens of thousands of people are gone."
Su Min's expression darkened, a surge of killing intent flashing in her eyes. She could not afford to hunt the Fallen recklessly doing so would provoke their collective retaliation. But if they dared encroach on her territory, that was a different matter.
Other Fallen would simply shrug and say, "Serves them right for provoking the wrong person." The world was vast, and remote areas were easy targets.
"What did Elder Zhu say?" she asked.
"By the time he arrived, it was too late. The deaths of over one hundred thousand people will keep that monster fed for weeks. Based on its movements, it will likely strike next in the Southern Borderlands of Wei Wu Province."
Tian Yinzi glanced cautiously at Su Min. They had investigated her past after the worlds merged. The Great Yong's royal family and cultivators now held slightly higher status in their sect after all, that nation had been shaped by her hands.
And the Southern Borderlands that was where she had fled to in her early years, where she had truly begun her rise.
"The Southern Borderlands, huh "
Her past whispered through that name like an old song she had not heard in centuries. It was where she had once fled with nothing. Where she had fought tooth and nail just to survive. Where her name had meant nothing and then, suddenly, everything.
She could still remember the scent of wet bamboo and stone. The cries of hawkers in the market streets. The dusty road where she had once broken a chieftain's legs for wanting her to be his concubine.
Everyone from that time was gone. Even those who had touched cultivation had not lived long. Golden Core cultivators were rare, and few reached Nascent Soul.
Her heart should have been untouched by this.
It should have been.
But a flicker of memory curled beneath her ribs like a slow burning coal.
"Also, Grand Elder," Tian Yinzi added, "a bamboo spirit in the Southern Borderlands recently broke through to the Nascent Soul stage. It is said you planted it yourself. That Fallen's target might be it it is neither human nor spirit beast, and it is the only Nascent Soul existence in Wei Wu Province."
"They are still alive?"
Her voice was soft. Not disbelieving just distant.
She had planted dozens, maybe hundreds, back then. In her past life, she had seen trees live for centuries let alone in this world. Plants gaining sentience was rarer than beasts transforming, but once they did, their lifespans were far longer. Even ordinary bamboo could live for centuries.
It had been six or seven hundred years since she left. If any of the bamboo spirits she planted survived, reaching the Golden Core stage was expected.
But it seemed only one of them had made it this far.
More importantly, she had another, more personal reason to act.
To obtain the White Tiger's legacy, there was only one path kill.
Unlike the other three divine beasts, the White Tiger thrived on slaughter and conquest. If Su Min wanted its inheritance, she had to walk a bloody road.
But she refused to slaughter innocents. This Fallen, however, was a perfect target.
And with her Divine Transformation stage cultivation, traveling across Wei Wu Province was effortless.
"Understood."
Tian Yinzi said nothing more. Su Min's direct bloodline had been wiped out by the Emperor Wei centuries ago. By the time she revealed her identity to the world, no true relatives remained. But this was still her homeland. It was impossible not to feel something.
"Keep this quiet," she ordered. "If that Fallen knows I am coming, it will go into hiding."
She activated a soundproof barrier around herself. Only Tian Yinzi would know her plans, and he would not speak of them.
As for her safety? There was no need to worry.
Su Min had already proven that her combat power rivaled any Half Step Dao Comprehension expert. That Fallen was definitely not at the Dao Comprehension stage.
The Black Serpent had only recovered to that level because two Divine Transformation monks willingly let it devour them. Otherwise, reaching that stage so soon would have been impossible.
And even if it were at the Dao Comprehension stage?
She still had one last drop of Xie Yingying's blood essence. If pushed, she would use it without hesitation. She had originally planned to use it during the conference but found it unnecessary.
Though now, with three heavenly treasures, its effects were not as explosively transformative as before.
~
A few days later, she stood in Wei Wu Province.
The land of her beginning.
When Su Min arrived at the edge of the Southern Borderlands, the wind catching the edge of her sleeves, a strange, quiet ache stirred in her chest.
The mountains had changed. The borders had been carved open by violence. A direct path to Yao Xin Province now cut clean through what were once natural fortresses. Time had reshaped the terrain but not her memories.
Here was where she had lived nameless and rootless.
Here was where she had become something.
Everyone from then was gone.
She had outlived them all.
That was the irony of her body, her cultivation not a curse, but a choice she had made long ago.
Before all this, she had been a player staring at a screen. Just another person trying to escape the grind of reality with a slow paced, difficult cultivation sim. Path of Immortality had promised freedom, strategy, and a sandbox world of endless possibilities. She remembered hesitating over her build: [Immortality], a rare talent that made her immune to aging and most poisons, always maintaining her body in its prime; and [Heavenly Dao Insight], an innate divine ability that let her slowly comprehend techniques just by existing beneath the heavens.
It had been a min maxer's dream. A late bloomer, but eventually unstoppable.
She had clicked "Confirm" and never logged out again.
No tutorial. No reset.
Just this vast world, its rules binding her flesh and spirit alike. Her talents were not virtual they were etched into her very being.
And the cost? Time. Everyone else moved forward and died, while she stayed. Seasons changed, dynasties fell, sects rose and crumbled but she endured. The girl who once planned for endgame strength now found herself watching the game board rot beneath her feet.
Yes, she was eternal.
But eternity, in the end, was a kind of silence.
Not because of a curse, but because she had lived long enough to learn that sentiment was a luxury. Bonds became graves. Affection invited grief. So, she had long stopped reaching out closing herself off behind layers of cultivation, logic, and detachment.
Only one person had ever slipped past those walls.
And that was dangerous in its own right.
Su Min did not want to care about this place. She should not care.
But the moment her eyes found the familiar bamboo groves rising in the mist the faint, steady pressure of Nascent Soul cultivation radiating from them like a quiet heartbeat something in her softened.
One of her plants had survived.
Only one.
But one was enough.
"That Fallen will not pass up such an opportunity," she murmured to herself. "But I will not reveal myself. The fewer who know the plan, the better. Let us see what you are capable of."
The Southern Borderlands' Hundred Thousand Mountains were nothing like she remembered. After the worlds merged, this region became the frontline bordering Yao Xin Province. Natural barriers that once seemed insurmountable had been forcibly breached.
The people now lived peacefully under the bamboo spirit's protection. Before leaving, Su Min had entrusted her plants to them. Nurtured by centuries of worship, the bamboo spirit had become inseparable from the locals. Even the Great Yong court would not provoke them as long as they nominally submitted.
But what truly baffled Su Min was the state of her old house.
"My old house is still standing? And it has been maintained? Wait why is it a tourist attraction now?!"
Her former residence had not only been preserved but had been turned into a historical site. After the worlds merged and her identity became widely known, the locals had restored her home, built a temple beside it, and turned the whole area into a pilgrimage site.
Disguised as an ordinary Body Refining stage cultivator, her face hidden behind a simple mask, she walked up to read the plaque.
[The Former Abode of the Danxian, Su Min — Founder of the Great Yong and Living Legend of the Cultivation World. Here, she spent decades watching the tides of fate, laughing at the rise and fall of dynasties. With her pills, she saved countless heroes from despair.]
Reading the flowery words, Su Min could not help but chuckle wryly.
"Ahead lies the Danxian's pill refining chamber and the bamboo grove that birthed the Green Bamboo Immortal " a guide was saying to a group of tourists. "Huh. So this is what it feels like," Su Min muttered to herself.
Seeing her own home turned into a tourist attraction was a uniquely strange experience.
As for how she traveled between worlds—that was no longer a secret.