Holding the glowing Five Elements Crystal in her hand, Su Min could not help but sigh softly. The light pulsed with a familiar energy, yet it was tainted.
Although this was a genuine Five Elements Crystal, its essence was the energy dispersed after that guy's self severance. She had no idea what esoteric method he had used to condense his cultivation into this physical form, but one thing was certain. She had to completely purge his lingering aura and will from the crystal before she could safely absorb it.
This necessary purification meant wasting a significant portion of the crystal's inherent energy. Of course, Su Min only felt a slight, pragmatic regret. As long as the remaining portion was useful to her breakthrough, that was enough. She had never been one to cling to perfection when good enough would suffice.
"After absorbing this, I should be ready to attempt the breakthrough to the Unity stage." She murmured to the silent ocean depths. "Sigh… The further you go, the harder it gets."
She rubbed her temples, a faint weariness in her eyes, but there was no helping it. The continent was far from peaceful now. The Black Seal's Third Seat had already appeared and been dealt with, but his existence was a warning bell. The Skeletal Emperor, the organization's founder, was likely already awake and plotting.
This posed a huge, existential threat to her.
With the Skeletal Emperor's ancient knowledge and fallen emperor methods, he could likely recover to the Unity stage with terrifying speed. But advancing back to the fabled Mahayana realm would not be so easy for him. Although he probably could not compare to the legendary Yao Xian'er, Su Min was still no match for him in her current state. If they clashed now, her chances of survival would be unacceptably slim.
"At the very least, I need to reach the Unity stage. That way, I can at least escape if things go south."
With this last, resolute thought, the ocean floor fell into a profound silence. Only a few powerful sea spirit beasts, disciples of the Azure Dragon King, patrolled the perimeter, their sleek forms gliding through the dark water as they faithfully guarded Su Min's seclusion.
Time flowed like water, relentless and uncaring, and in the blink of an eye, over a decade had passed.
Meanwhile, in the Ancient Battlefield…
"Huff… huff… huff…"
Several cultivators stood with ashen faces, their chests heaving as they stared at a young girl before them. She looked no older than a teenager, but eerie, pale flames flickered around her body, casting long, dancing shadows across the scarred earth.
"Hand over that corpse." One of the men finally managed to grit out, pointing a trembling finger at a massive, bestial skeleton behind her.
"No." Lin Yao's reply was simple, flat, and utterly final.
"You—!" The man sputtered, his face turning purple with rage and impotence.
"Go ahead, take revenge on me." Lin Yao said, a faint, almost bored smile touching her lips. "You all know where my sect is."
The group exchanged helpless, fearful glances. Not a single one dared to voice the threat of retaliation. That was the Immortal Gate they were talking about—one of the undisputed top powers in the world, backed by the infamous Grandmaster Su.
Seeking revenge? It was not worth it. It was suicide.
At worst, they would lose a few ancient corpses. But if they provoked the Immortal Gate's wrath, they would lose far more than that. They would lose their lives, their clans, everything.
"Hehe, then I will be going."
With a light, mocking smirk, Lin Yao turned, effortlessly hefting the giant skeleton onto her shoulder, and fled the scene, leaving the group of cultivators seething in frustrated silence.
"What kind of 'Holy Maiden of the Immortal Gate' is this?" One of them finally exploded, kicking a pile of bones in fury. "She is more like a demoness!"
"Damn it! I went through hell to kill that spectral beast!" Another wailed, clutching a wound on his arm.
"Forget it. It is just a corpse. She did not touch the core inheritances we found anyway."
With resigned sighs, the group eventually dispersed, their spirits low. There was nothing to be done.
Lin Yao was not just borrowing the Immortal Gate's authority—she was wielding it like a sharpened blade. And her own personal strength was already terrifying enough that none of them could hope to oppose her directly.
"I have collected quite a few corpses now, though most are just ancient bones long devoid of vital energy."
As she ran, Lin Yao pondered her haul, mentally cataloging the spoils stored in her spatial ring.
After years of trials and tribulations in the Ancient Battlefield, she had not only grown vastly stronger but also obtained a powerful legacy inheritance. Now at the Half Step Dao Comprehension stage, she was virtually unmatched in this region. These corpses were something Su Min had once casually mentioned needing, so Lin Yao had no qualms about flexing her sect's influence to gather them. It felt good to be able to contribute.
Of course, she had not crossed any moral lines. She never killed living cultivators for their bodies. All the corpses she took were already long dead, mere remnants and relics of the ancient battlefield's countless conflicts. Still, her aggressive acquisition methods had infuriated many. But since the corpses themselves had little practical value after so many millennia, no one was ultimately willing to risk their lives fighting her over them.
"This batch includes three Unity stage corpses… That last one was a close call."
After reviewing her spoils, Lin Yao decided it was time to return to the sect. She was on the verge of breaking through to the Dao Comprehension stage herself. All she needed was a single Dao Comprehension Pill. Since she did not know the specific pill formula for her unique physique, she would have to settle for a generic one. Thankfully, the Immortal Gate still had a few in stock, a leftover treasure from Su Min's alchemy.
After all, not every Divine Transformation cultivator could advance with just a pill; comprehension and accumulation were key. So the sect's number of Dao Comprehension experts was still limited. But the pills Su Min had left behind were still available. With the sheer number and quality of corpses she had gathered, Lin Yao's contributions should be more than enough to claim one, even if Su Min was not around to personally approve it.
"I wonder why Lady Xie holds such a grudge against me…" Lin Yao thought with a slight shiver. "She will not deliberately block me, right?"
She still did not fully understand Xie Yingying's inexplicable hostility. It was not murderous intent, but more like… a deep, persistent annoyance, as if Lin Yao were a fly buzzing around a precious meal.
"Ah, whatever. Time to head back. This Ancient Battlefield is too dangerous to linger in for long."
Suppressing her doubts, Lin Yao sprinted away, her figure a blur against the desolate landscape. She had gathered enough. As for what Su Min needed all these ancient corpses for?
Puppets, most likely. The Puppet Emperor's legacy was no secret.
As long as she was not using living people, Lin Yao did not care. Power and techniques were neither good nor evil; it all depended on the heart and hands of the user. With that thought, she vanished into the blood red horizon.
Another ten years slipped by.
The mountain in the ocean had completely disappeared, devoured by Su Min's refining process. She sat cross legged where its peak once stood, her cultivation having reached its absolute peak limit—the late stage Dao Comprehension, the very pinnacle one could reach before the next great breakthrough.
"All that is left is the Unity Pill."
She exhaled slowly, a plume of silvery bubbles rising from her lips in the deep water.
Reaching this stage was like climbing to the top of a hundred foot pole. She could go no higher on her own. She needed one final, mighty push to reach the next level.
But this pill would not be easy to refine. The heavens would not allow it.
"The Unity Pill will attract at least two, possibly even three colored heavenly tribulation lightning." She mused, planning ahead. "To withstand that, I will need Unity stage protectors—and one will not be enough. The Little Golden Crow, Ao Xue…"
She had never refined this pill before, so she was not entirely sure how powerful the resulting tribulation would be. It was better to overprepare.
But before she could even think about refining the pill, she needed to craft her puppets. They were a crucial part of her strength and her defense.
Puppet making was a simple, almost instinctive process for her now, but it required massive amounts of rare and specific materials. And she certainly was not going to kidnap living people for it. That was a line she would never cross.
That would violate her most fundamental principles.
Some rules were not absolute, but if you abandoned too many, you would end up like the fallen cultivators—neither truly alive nor dead, eternal enemies of all living beings. With a flicker of movement and a powerful surge of spiritual energy, Su Min shot out of the ocean like a reverse meteor and returned to her sect.
Then—
"Tsk tsk, my precious disciple really went all out." Su Min remarked, a genuine smile gracing her lips as she reviewed the reports. "Over a hundred Dao Comprehension stage corpses, and even three Unity stage ones… To collect those at the Half Step Dao Comprehension stage, she must have gone through hell. Now she is in seclusion, preparing to break through. And it seems Yingying is also attempting her breakthrough."
After briefly catching up on sect affairs, Su Min was pleasantly surprised by the progress.
"Indeed." Tian Yinzi, the sect's de facto manager, nodded respectfully. Now at the Divine Transformation stage himself, he was the perfect administrator, his advancement thanks in no small part to Su Min's pills. The Immortal Gate's foundation was now truly on par with any of the world's top factions, and her unparalleled alchemy had played a huge role in that rapid rise.
"Good. Distribute one of the five Dao Comprehension Pills I left behind to Lin Yao. The rest of you senior disciples…" Su Min's gaze swept over the elders present, "need to step up your game. Do not rely on pills alone."
With a dismissive wave, Su Min vanished from the main hall, her business there concluded.
Though she could ask Unity stage experts like Ao Xue to guard her during the pill refinement, she could not expect them to wait around indefinitely. Refining the Unity Pill was not a matter of one or two attempts; it could take years of trial, error, and recovery.
These experts might have plenty of time, but she could not just waste it. Favors had limits.
"Let us see these corpses… I will use the Unity stage remains as the core."
After a moment's thought in the sect's treasure vault, Su Min collected all the high grade corpses Lin Yao had gathered and disappeared once more, this time into the deepest, most remote parts of the continent. After the last incident with the Five Elements Mountain, she refused to refine anything of importance within the sect itself. The moment she succeeded with the Unity Pill, the resulting heavenly phenomenon would announce it to the entire world, and the Black Seal would undoubtedly come for her.
Having killed their Third Seat, she had made a mortal enemy of them. They would not let this slide. Though the Immortal Gate itself was safe behind its formations, the Black Seal could easily plant spies in the Eastern Mulberry Continent and find a way to sabotage her breakthrough from a distance.
At best, she would fail her ascension attempt. At worst—it would be instant death.
So she chose the heart of the spirit beast territories, a remote no man's land far from all human civilization. Anyone who dared approach would stick out like a sore thumb, their human aura a beacon in the wild, eliminating any chance of a stealthy ambush. As expected, the moment she left her oceanic seclusion, someone noticed and reported her movement.
But then—there was only silence and confusion.
Everyone waited with bated breath, expecting colossal tribulation clouds to gather over the Immortal Gate. After all, Su Min's Unity Pill would undoubtedly summon multi colored heavenly lightning—the perfect opportunity for their enemies to sabotage her.
But they had no idea she had already entered the forbidden depths of the continent, the Golden Crow's ancestral land, a place strictly off limits to humans. The coastal regions were already ceded to human powers, so the spirit beasts did not complain about her using this utterly remote location.
"These corpses are such a headache." Su Min muttered, standing in a secluded valley. "They have been dead for so long that most of their essence has dissipated. Out of all these, I only managed to refine one usable skeleton."
Su Min examined the floating, jade like skeleton before her with a spark of satisfaction. For a human form puppet, this frame was excellent, its bones still infused with a trace of Unity level toughness. The rest of the hundreds of corpses had been melted down in her flames, their decayed bones too brittle and energy void to be of any use for crafting. But the Puppet Emperor's legacy had a solution for this, a method of transplanting and fusing the best parts from multiple corpses.
So, like a master artisan assembling building blocks, Su Min had pieced together this single, perfect puppet skeleton from the bones of a hundred different experts.
"Besides the skeleton, crafting this puppet requires vast amounts of specific metal materials. The sect has already gathered them—three full batches, in fact."
Glancing at the complex blueprint in her hand, Su Min allowed herself a small, triumphant smirk.
The Medicine Cauldron could only cultivate herbs; it was useless for metals and minerals. So before she had left for the Five Elements Mountain all those years ago, she had ordered a global procurement. After thirty years of effort and immense expenditure, they had finally gathered three complete sets of the required materials.
"These materials are ridiculously hard to obtain." She grumbled to herself. "Thirty years, and only three batches… If I had to wait around for them myself, I would go insane."
But three was enough. She only needed one success.
Refining puppets was far easier for her than refining world shaking pills. With her current immense soul power and flawless flame control, it would be child's play. With a thought, piles of gleaming ores, rare earths, and metallic ingots levitated into the air around her, orbiting the central skeleton.
Then—flames erupted.
Under the controlled fury of the Nanming Lihuo, the ores quickly melted and began to fuse, their impurities burning away into nothingness.
This step was crucial, the very foundation of the puppet's strength.
In the modern world she vaguely remembered, there was a field called materials science. The processes for creating the strongest alloys were highly complex and closely guarded secrets. Even if you knew the final composition, without the exact procedures, the temperatures, the timings, you could never replicate them. A difference of a few degrees could produce entirely different, inferior results. And now, Su Min faced the same esoteric challenge.
Only with perfect execution could she proceed to the next step. As expected, with her transcendent control, she succeeded on the very first try. The molten, glowing metal swirled in the air like liquid light before flowing onto the waiting skeleton, coating it layer by perfect layer. In the blink of an eye, a sleek, fully formed metallic humanoid puppet stood silently in the mountain chamber, awaiting its creator's command.
===
Lin Yao and Xie Yingying both carry torches for Su Min—they just don't know they're sharing the same flame.
Xie Yingying has no idea Lin Yao sees Su Min as more than just a master
Lin Yao remains oblivious that Su Min and Xie Yingying are already partners (even if the entire sect low-key knows)
Here's the kicker: While the entire sect politely avoids mentioning Su Min's love life around her disciple, Xie Yingying picks up on Lin Yao's particularly tender way of calling Su Min "Master." That clingy devotion? It rubs Xie Yingying the wrong way—not with murderous rage, but with the prickly annoyance of someone who really wants to wedge herself between them.
The result? An awkward one-sided cold war:
→ Xie Yingying exudes passive-aggressive vibes (think: strategically placing herself between them)
→ Lin Yao just senses unexplained hostility from Xie Yingying
→ And Su Min? Probably blissfully unaware in the middle of it all