Three months later, in the conquered territory of the former Blood Puppet Sect.
Su Min sat cross-legged in a quiet chamber, her eyes fixed on the alchemical cauldron before her. Within it, a steady crimson glow pulsed like a heartbeat. Over the past month, her sect had fully consolidated control over all of the Blood Puppet Sect's former assets. This included three minor spiritual veins and four operational spiritual mines, resources that, like many secret realms, had fully manifested after the world's spiritual energy was restored.
Though the Heavenly Dao had long suppressed the Great Dao, such natural resources had remained hidden, waiting. However, unlike some secret realms, their general locations could be detected by skilled diviners, making them the most crucial, tangible foundations for any major sect's long term prosperity.
"Grand Elder," a voice called from outside the chamber. "An early stage Nascent Soul cultivator has arrived at our gates. He carries your token and has brought his entire family to seek refuge."
"A token?" Su Min pondered for a moment. "Hmm, is it him? If so, then grant his request. We have been planning to take action in the four neighboring provinces. Having a reliable Nascent Soul cultivator stationed there would be perfect."
She was slightly surprised but nodded in agreement. The memory surfaced clearly. Back when she was still in the Golden Core stage and competing in the Avenue, she had taken in a few capable followers. There were three who had survived the Three Nine Heavenly Tribulation and one particularly talented one who had endured the formidable Six Nine Heavenly Tribulation. They had all been wandering cultivators from remote, impoverished regions, often bullied and looked down upon during the Golden Core stage. But after aligning themselves with Su Min and accepting her leadership, their fortunes had changed.
Others might not have respected them for their own power, but out of deference to Su Min's fearsome reputation, no one gave them too much trouble in shared secret realms, as long as they did not compete for the supreme treasures or core legacies. When the group eventually disbanded after the Avenue closed, Su Min had given each of them a valuable fourth grade pill and a simple promise, that if they ever needed a place, they could seek her out. Now, it seemed one of them had successfully reached the Nascent Soul stage and had come to collect on that promise, bringing his entire clan with him.
For a genuine, self made Nascent Soul cultivator to seek refuge with his entire family was no small declaration of loyalty. Given their current critical shortage of high level manpower, with Xie Yingying needed to oversee the vast former Blood Puppet Sect territory, and the little Golden Crow and her two divine beast guards rarely leaving the core Eastern Mulberry Province, Su Min's imminent departure to attend the Buddhist Dharma Assembly meant they desperately lacked a Nascent Soul expert to oversee operations in the four target provinces. This newcomer would fill that gap perfectly. With the little Golden Crow's divine sense keeping a casual eye on things from afar, there was no fear of betrayal. Besides, bringing his entire family meant he had staked everything on this new alliance, making his loyalty all the more certain.
"Understood."
Tian Yinzi responded cheerfully. Their sect was severely lacking in high level experts. If not for the Eastern Mulberry Province's natural isolation and powerful formations, they would never have been able to control such a vast territory. Now, with another Nascent Soul cultivator, and several Golden Core followers from his family, joining them, their visible strength had grown significantly. No one would ever complain about having too many Golden Core cultivators.
"Sigh. Reaching the fifth grade mid tier alchemist level is proving far more difficult than I anticipated."
Su Min sighed, closing her eyes for a moment as she gazed at the quietly humming cauldron. Then, she vanished from the room in a flicker of light, reappearing in the main administrative hall where Xie Yingying was diligently handling the endless stream of affairs. The aftermath of a sect's destruction was a long and messy process. If not for the eager assistance of the Ancient Mansion Sacred City in rooting out remnants, they might have spent over a century dealing with the fallout.
"I have finished refining the bulk of the pills the sect will need for its future development," Su Min announced, getting straight to the point. "The Great Dharma Assembly in the three united Buddhist provinces is about to begin, and I plan to attend. There is a specific inheritance there, the legacy of the Medicine Master Buddha, that will be very useful to me."
She handed a simple spatial ring to Xie Yingying. It contained a massive stock of pills of various grades she had refined over the past few months, enough to supply the entire sect for a long time.
"Those monks?" Xie Yingying frowned, her expression darkening. The Buddhist sects were notoriously insular, each keeping strictly to themselves. At most, they sent low level disciples to various provinces to gather faith offerings from mortals, but otherwise, they remained detached from worldly affairs and sect politics. There was a historical reason for this. During Buddhism's peak expansion, they had occupied vast territories, their aggressive proselytizing eventually provoking a widespread, united backlash from all the major secular and Daoist sects, much like the historical "Three Disasters of Buddhism" Su Min had read about in her previous life.
In this world, all the major powers had united to crush the Buddhist expansion, not just once but multiple times. Eventually, the Buddhists learned their lesson and confined themselves to their own three core provinces, only venturing out to collect faith and never again attempting to conquer or convert on a large scale. Even in a place like Wei Wu Province, they had merely established a few quiet temples and refrained from any further expansion, not out of benevolence, but because they had been thoroughly beaten into submission. They stationed only a few Golden Core cultivators to oversee their temples, always recalling any disciples who showed the potential to reach the Nascent Soul stage back to their core territories.
As for the Dharma Assembly, it was largely an internal competition and ceremony among the three major Buddhist schools. Since Su Min had legitimately cultivated the Great Sun Tathāgata Sutra, a core scripture, she could technically be considered an external, honorary disciple, hence her invitation.
"Are you sure it is safe?" Xie Yingying's expression was full of concern. "Those monks are... dangerous in their own way."
She had personally participated in one of the later anti Buddhist campaigns and held no favorable views of them. Moreover, the Buddhists possessed a unique and unsettling secret technique, reincarnation.
When a high level Buddhist cultivator's lifespan neared its end, they could consciously enter the cycle of reincarnation, theoretically purifying their souls in the process. Cultivators had both physical and soul based lifespans. Aging bodies could be replaced through possession or other means, but souls themselves could not be fundamentally altered or refreshed. So far, conscious reincarnation was the only known method to extend the soul's lifespan, but it came at a great and mysterious cost.
After reincarnation, the individual would eventually regain memories and insights from their past lives, but whether they remained the same person was a philosophical and spiritual debate no one could answer for sure. But the Buddhist institutions did not care. They had special artifacts and rituals to guide these reincarnated souls back to their monasteries, where they were known as "reborn ones" or "tulku."
Whether these individuals were truly the same as before did not matter to the sect. Influenced by their past life's memories and cultivation, they would naturally resume Buddhist practice, often cultivating with even greater speed and combat prowess than in their previous life. Even players who chose the reincarnation option in the game exhibited this trait, beyond the normal advantages of their chosen constitutions, their second playthrough characters were invariably stronger.
But in a game, it did not matter, it was just a mechanic for a new character. In reality, however, the implications were profound and unsettling. Xie Yingying wanted nothing to do with it, nor did she need to. But since she did not understand the specifics, she found the whole practice eerie and manipulative.
Additionally, the Buddhist inheritance system was famously the most complete and self contained in the world, almost entirely self sufficient, so much so that they did not even really need the opportunities presented by the Golden Core Avenue.
"Don't worry, I will be fine," Su Min reassured her with a soft chuckle. "I am going alone, and if anything goes wrong, I will use that drop of your blood essence to empower my escape technique. It is no big deal."
This trip was crucial, it concerned the legacy of the Medicine Buddha, something she absolutely had to obtain for her alchemical path. If she truly needed to flee, she could do so easily. No matter how powerful the Buddhists were, they were still bound by the world's current restrictions. The strongest among them now were only at the Divine Transformation stage.
Su Min had developed a unique escape skill by deeply combining the principles of the Lunar Sovereign and Solar Sovereign ancient scriptures, the Yin Yang Escape. It allowed her to tear through space and traverse multiple realms in an instant. The spiritual energy cost was minimal for the effect, but the conditions were strict. She could only activate it when she and Xie Yingying were in a specific resonant state, but once she did, no one at the Divine Transformation stage could stop her. Since that was the case, going alone was not a problem.
Moreover, the Medicine Buddha, or Bhaiṣajyaguru, held an extremely high position in the Buddhist pantheon. In the final chapter of Journey to the West, he was ranked second among all Buddhas, surpassed only by the Ancient Lamp Buddha and placed above even Tathāgata Buddha himself. In this world, he was one of the most renowned alchemists in all of recorded history. Su Min was deeply eager to obtain his legacy.
"Fine, go ahead."
Seeing the unwavering determination in her eyes, Xie Yingying finally relented. With Su Min's current abilities and that escape technique, few in the world could stop her if she truly chose to flee. If anything, her own presence might only hold Su Min back.
"Then I will leave things here to you. As outsiders who have just taken over this territory, we still need time to firmly establish our rule and win the people's trust."
With a final, reassuring smile, Su Min turned and flew out of the hall, heading straight for a stable spatial rift her sect maintained in the sky. Her destination, the united Buddhist provinces collectively known as Lingxi, was extremely far away. Rather than trying to fly directly through dangerous, unclaimed lands, it was faster and safer to return to the Eastern Mulberry Province first, cross through the familiar Wei Wu Province, and then enter Lingxi from its western border.
A full century had passed since she last visited Wei Wu. In a way, she even felt a strange sense of gratitude to that foolish emperor from so long ago. If not for his actions forcing her hand, she might not have been able to leave so freely and embark on her path. Facing the relentless cycle of life and death among mortals was something even Su Min, with all her power, could not change. Back then, if she had stayed, she might have been forced to endure the same emotional turmoil that many long lived sect disciples now faced, watching loved ones age and die.
When she left, she had been a Golden Core cultivator. Now, returning to Wei Wu as a Nascent Soul expert, she could not help but feel a deep sense of melancholy as she gazed down upon the bustling, unchanged cities from high above.
"It is a shame," she whispered to the wind. "Probably none of the people I knew back then are still alive."
With a sigh, she teleported to the grounds of an abandoned temple on the outskirts of the capital. Faint, almost eroded traces of familiar energy lingered there, the last remnants of faith power dedicated to her.
"To think even my temple has fallen into such ruin after all these years," she mused, running a hand over a crumbling wall. "If I had pursued the Path of Divine Fire and relied on this faith, this decay would have been devastating to my cultivation."
Su Min rubbed her temples. Aside from her brief return to retrieve Xie Yingying, she had been gone from this land for over four hundred years. With her long absence and the world's barriers previously cutting off her influence, the protective blessings she had left behind had long since faded. It was only natural for the temple to decay, though it still felt strange and somber to see the physical evidence of time's passage.
As for the people she once knew, the pioneers of the cultivation world in Wei Wu, they had all passed away. As pioneers in a low spiritual energy era, they had been fortunate to receive Su Min's pill assistance. Without it, their paths would have been even harder and shorter. None of them had managed to reach the Golden Core stage, and even if they had, their lifespans would now be nearing their end. The thought was sobering, a stark reminder of her own different path.
Yet, thanks to her early help and the foundations she laid, the Wei Wu Province had surprisingly become the strongest among the three human provinces, now boasting ten Golden Core cultivators. The other two provinces combined had only thirteen or fourteen.
"Time to head to Lingxi."
With that final thought, Su Min pushed the nostalgia aside and swiftly departed, a streak of light heading west towards the mysterious and insular Buddhist lands.