"Early-stage Unity, with the Five Elements Holy Body at great completion," Jiang Xi murmured, her voice laced with a reverence that was rare for her. "Especially the Five Elements Holy Body—this is something unheard of for who knows how many years. Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? A million? Or even hundreds of millions? The records are too fragmented. You are only the second person in all of recorded history to achieve this."
Jiang Xi looked at Su Min, her expression tinged with a deep, personal envy as she sensed the vibrant, life-giving energy radiating from the younger woman, energy so potent it seemed to revitalize the very air and plants within the mountain barrier.
This was the true power of the Five Elements Holy Body, the most enigmatic and balanced of all sacred physiques. Now fully realized, even at just the Unity stage, Su Min could genuinely contend with many seasoned Mahayana cultivators and live to tell the tale.
Even in her prime as the Lunar Sovereign, Jiang Xi knew she had been far from capable of such transcendent feats.
Though the Five Elements Holy Body itself was a terrifying advantage, Jiang Xi knew that Su Min herself was no less extraordinary. The only question that lingered was, just how overwhelmingly powerful had the legendary first Five Elements Great Emperor been?
"Enough joking. This time, I have something very serious to ask." Su Min's expression turned solemn, all traces of casualness gone. "After reaching the Unity stage, and especially after fully realizing my Five Elements Holy Body, I began sensing a strange, persistent summons. A pull from the depths of space."
"Hmm?" Jiang Xi's expression immediately darkened, all hints of previous warmth vanishing. "Have you decided to answer it? To go there?"
"Not yet. But I need answers before I can make that choice. There are many things in this world, in this universe, that I don't know about. Things like the Ancient Battlefield. I want to learn more. Before, I simply lacked the strength to be entrusted with such truths. Now, it's different."
Su Min spoke calmly, but with an undeniable weight. At her current level of power, few in the entire known universe could genuinely rival her. Thus, she could finally demand to know the hidden truths, especially those that had not been revealed in the "game's" main storyline.
After all, the game had only shown the tip of the iceberg. Ominous places like the Ancient Battlefield hadn't even been mentioned. That place was a known gathering point for Unity-stage and even Mahayana-stage cultivators. It was no simple training ground. Before acting, she needed to extract the full story from Jiang Xi.
"Sigh..." Jiang Xi let out a long, weary sigh, as if carrying the weight of millennia. "Have you ever heard of the Fallen Immortals?"
"Fallen Immortals? The legends say they are beings who failed their heavenly ascension and fell from grace, their bodies and souls corrupted?" Su Min recalled the scattered mentions in ancient texts.
"Exactly. Them." Jiang Xi looked slightly surprised that Su Min knew of them, but nodded grimly.
"Have you heard of the Source of Calamity?"
"No. That term is new to me," Su Min admitted, her focus sharpening.
"Deep in the universe, in a region of absolute void and darkness, lies a wound in reality known as the Source of Calamity. Every ten thousand years, it births a horde of terrifying, formless dark creatures. It's widely believed they are the descendants, or perhaps mindless servants, of those Fallen Immortals. Each time they emerge in force, the entire universe drowns in bloodshed and despair."
"How do these dark creatures compare to the Skeleton Emperor in threat?" Su Min's expression turned grave. This sounded like content that would have been saved for a game DLC, but that was irrelevant now. She needed concrete information to prepare countermeasures.
"The Skeleton Emperor was just one powerful, singular entity. These things... they come in endless hordes. They fear neither life nor death, feel no pain, seeking only to devour and sacrifice all living beings to their dark purpose. Their true, ultimate purpose remains unknown. The only silver lining throughout history was that the Heavenly Dao's suppression during the Age of Decay had stifled their birth cycle. Now that the Heavenly Dao has recovered, they've begun emerging again in greater numbers. That's why those two, Yao Xian'er and the other, had no choice but to wage their eternal war directly against the Source of Calamity itself."
"I see. Are they in immediate danger?"
"For now, it shouldn't be too severe. Both of them once stood at the pinnacle of the Great Emperor realm. Unlike that fool Skeleton Emperor, who severed his own foundation and fell, they retained their full strength and wisdom when they left. Moreover, battling the creatures from the Source of Calamity yields special, pure energy crystals. I suspect they've both already reached the Mahayana stage again by now. If you wish to go and help, you certainly can. You would be a powerful asset."
"And that summons I feel... what is its origin?" Su Min pressed.
"You know Yao Xian'er was the last Great Emperor to ascend before the Age of Decay fully set in, right?"
"Yes."
"About 300,000 years before our current era, a catastrophic event known as the Dark Upheaval occurred. Back then, multiple Ascension-stage beings, entities on the verge of true immortality, emerged directly from the Source of Calamity, slaughtering intelligent life across the universe until only silence and death remained. We call that period the Era of Extinction, when the entire cosmos nearly fell into permanent stillness."
Hiss—
Su Min inhaled sharply, the scale of the tragedy sinking in. Then, a specific curiosity struck her. "What about the Great Emperors of that time? What was their fate?"
"Fell in battle, to the last. Facing the siege of multiple Ascension-stage beings, even they ultimately perished. After that cataclysm, the world entered a deep spiritual decline, the Age of Decay began in earnest then. In the 300,000 years since, amidst the withered spiritual energy, Yao Xian'er was the only new Great Emperor to emerge."
"Such a hidden history exists?" Su Min murmured, her view of the world shifting.
"Indeed. That summons you feel was a spiritual beacon left behind by Yao Xian'er herself before her reincarnation. When the dark creatures reach a certain critical threshold, it sends a warning to all high-level cultivators in the universe who are sensitive enough to perceive it. The fact that the warning hasn't intensified to a desperate plea suggests the situation isn't critically dire yet. As for the Ancient Battlefield, it's a massive, floating relic from that very Era of Extinction, a graveyard of worlds and heroes."
"But she hasn't returned in all this time, not even once," Su Min noted.
"She must be unable to leave. Facing that endless, consuming war, even she must devote all her energy and focus to it. Otherwise, that upstart Skeleton Emperor, hmph..." Jiang Xi's face twisted into a cold smirk of disdain. She had long despised those who preyed on the weak while true heroes fought in the shadows, but her current cultivation was simply too weak to intervene on such a scale.
"I understand. Thank you for the truth." Su Min's gaze was steady. "By the way, do you need anything now? Consider it payment for the information."
"A Unity Pill," Jiang Xi said without hesitation. "Yao Xian'er once promised that you'd refine pills for me when you were able. I've prepared the materials, three full sets. I only need one successful pill."
"Done."
Su Min nodded without a moment's thought, summoning her personal alchemy cauldron with a wave of her hand, ready to begin immediately.
Meanwhile, back at the Immortal Gate Sect within East Mulberry State...
"So, Master went all the way to some distant star sector and brought you back?"
Lin Yao studied the white-robed girl with open curiosity, circling her slowly.
"Yes, Senior Sister. This humble one is merely Master's—"
"Slave? Don't even think it. Nonsense. Master would never see you that way. Before she left to see Senior Jiang, she wrote in her instructions that you are to be her officially recognized second disciple. So, no more of that 'humble one' talk."
"Ah? I am... a disciple?" Yang Meng blinked in profound surprise. She was now well aware of the woman before her, Lin Yao, Su Min's first disciple, an early-stage Dao Comprehension cultivator.
Her strength, Yang Meng realized, already surpassed even the mightiest "super evolvers" of her home planet. In her entire star sector, such a being hadn't appeared for tens of thousands of years. If Lin Yao went there, she could likely subjugate the entire region single-handedly.
Though their civilization had planet-busting weapons theoretically capable of harming cultivators at her level, using them against a single, agile human would be like trying to shoot a mosquito with a cannon. She might not withstand the direct hit, but actually hitting her would be near impossible. A cultivator's spiritual perception was so sharp that the moment a targeting system locked onto her, she'd sense the killing intent and simply move.
Thus, Yang Meng finally grasped the true, staggering might of this world she now found herself in. Her gaze fell to a small, sophisticated terminal device in her hand, a trace of regret flashing in her unseeing eyes. The moment she had taken it out of her pocket, it had sparked and burned out, its circuits fried. Later, Lin Yao had explained with a sigh, the ambient spiritual energy on Heaven's Continent was simply too dense and active. Ordinary electronic devices short-circuited almost instantly here.
Lin Yao herself confessed she had burned through over a dozen custom-made "phones" before finally giving up. In this world, technology simply couldn't thrive, not when cultivators wielded such overwhelming personal power that made most technology obsolete.
"Regarding your special physique, we have specific methods here to fully awaken it. It seems your star sector's foundational knowledge of cultivation isn't the best either," Lin Yao said, not unkindly.
Lin Yao sighed sympathetically. Had she not met Su Min, her own innate physique would have remained buried and dormant. Without the right guiding techniques, she might never have even formed a Golden Core, let alone reached her current height.
The gap between Foundation Establishment and Golden Core was vast, a chasm that separated mortals from true cultivators. Even if she had somehow pieced together a crude cultivation method through sheer luck, it wouldn't have been refined enough to safely survive the Golden Core Heavenly Tribulation, not even the weakest Three-Nine Heavenly Tribulation.
Her fate would have been either a quick death under the heavenly lightning or a slow, painful withering of her meridians over two hundred years.
Having witnessed so much life and death in this brutal world, she couldn't imagine such a ignoble and wasteful end for someone with talent.
"What must I do?" Yang Meng's voice brimmed with desperate anticipation. She had been blind since birth, never truly seeing the world with her own eyes. Though her spiritual perception allowed her to navigate life normally, forming a picture of the world in her mind, it wasn't the same as true sight.
She yearned, with every fiber of her being, to see light, color, and form.
"This requires a special treasure to activate, and thanks to Master's... acquisitive habits... we happen to have one that fits perfectly."
With a flick of her wrist, Lin Yao produced a small, glowing object that resembled a crystallized pupil, floating just above her palm.
[Heavenly Eye Pupil (Heavenly Middle-Grade): When used by one who comprehends the Laws of Cause and Effect, it temporarily bestows the power of the Heavenly Eye upon the user.]
This was something Su Min had looted from the vaults of Future Maitreya Mountain. Due to its very specific usage conditions, requiring a deep mastery over causality, no other Buddhist sects had wanted it when she offered it for trade.
After all, the Laws of Cause and Effect were notoriously fickle and dangerous. One never knew what they might see, or what karmic price they might pay for glimpsing forbidden truths.
Thus, the treasure had remained unused in a storage ring. Now, it was perfectly suited to help awaken Yang Meng's latent Heavenly Eye. As for subsequent cultivation techniques, the sect's scripture pavilion held plenty procured from the same source. Not a single other disciple had been able to touch those profound manuals, as they all required a foundation in causal laws.
"This is...?" The moment Yang Meng's spiritual sense touched the pupil, she felt an inexplicable, deep kinship, as if it were a part of her that had been missing. A strange, warm sensation surged within her dantian. Her world had no concept of such personalized, spiritually resonant magical treasures.
"Tsk tsk..." Lin Yao marveled at her reaction. She already knew Yang Meng's background, a civilization technologically more advanced than her own Earth, yet with a much weaker foundation in profound Daoist principles. Thanks to that Mahayana-stage fallen cultivator sleeping under the Earth, her people had been forced to develop cultivation techniques, but they knew nothing of artifact crafting or soul-bound treasures.
"Sigh... If only I were at the Unity stage like Master. I'd love to visit her star sector myself. Heh, they must have so many interesting gadgets and concepts." As a modern girl at heart, Lin Yao couldn't help her curiosity about other advanced civilizations. Su Min, on the other hand, wasn't as fixated, mainly because she'd spent decades fully immersed in this world.
Back on Earth, Su Min had been a twenty-something programmer fresh out of college. After transmigrating, she'd struggled just to survive in a brutal, unfamiliar world. Any lingering Earthly desires or nostalgia had long been suppressed by necessity, though not entirely erased. Now that she'd reached the peak of power with the Unity stage, she found herself reverting to some of her old, more playful self. But with so many responsibilities and a universe of secrets to uncover, she had little time for idle nostalgia.
Lin Yao was different. She had lived all the way to the Divine Transformation stage on Earth before coming here. Many of her modern habits and curiosities remained intact.
The only regret? Only Unity-stage cultivators could perform the spatial folding needed for practical interstellar travel. Without it, traversing the cosmos with its vast distances would take decades or even centuries of flight, a prospect too daunting for most.
As Lin Yao lost herself in thought, the Heavenly Eye Pupil floated up from her hand and drifted towards Yang Meng, as if drawn by a magnet. It gently touched the center of Yang Meng's forehead and began to sink into her skin.
Sssk—
A thin, vertical line of blood trickled down as the flesh parted and a vertical slit slowly formed, pulsing with a faint light. As the saying went in the ancient texts, vertical pupils for gods, horizontal for demons.
"It's awakening. The process has begun," Lin Yao nodded, feeling a mix of anticipation and relief. She turned, preparing to leave Yang Meng to the process in private, only to freeze solid when she spotted a familiar, elegant figure standing silently behind her. No wonder she'd felt a sudden chill down her spine earlier when she had almost called Su Min an "old fossil" out loud!
"W-What are you doing here?" Lin Yao stammered, breaking into a cold sweat. Xie Yingying was the only person in the world she genuinely feared.
Su Min herself didn't mind such playful jokes, Lin Yao had called her "old fossil" to her face before without any repercussions beyond an eye-roll.
But Xie Yingying? She had zero tolerance for any perceived disrespect towards Su Min, no matter how minor or joking.
Of course, Lin Yao could only grumble inwardly. "Does Master have no dignity as a teacher?! She lets us get away with everything!"
As the two women waited in silence, the time seemed to crawl by. The air grew heavy with latent power emanating from Yang Meng. Then—
"GREAT EYE—OPEN!!!"
A deep, thunderous, and entirely unexpected voice boomed through the courtyard, seemingly from nowhere, as the newly formed third eye on Yang Meng's forehead snapped wide open, its jet-black pupil gleaming with an ominous, ancient light.
Both Lin Yao and Xie Yingying visibly stiffened, staring in disbelief.
"Does... does this thing have built-in sound effects?" Lin Yao expressed her utter incomprehension, looking from the now eye-opened Yang Meng to the utterly silent Xie Yingying.
Xie Yingying quickly rubbed her forehead, a long-suffering expression on her face. "I remember her modifying this treasure in her alchemy room before she left. She must have added some... personal touches. For dramatic effect, apparently."
She suddenly thought of something. She had been with Su Min for so long. The woman always had some weird, inexplicable habits that made it hard for her to complain. She could already picture Su Min's smug, triumphant grin after pulling off such a prank.
The woman had a notorious habit of embedding ridiculous sound effects and activation sequences into artifacts. Like the sect's standard-issue defensive armor, all of them now activated via a belt buckle, complete with shame-inducing activation chants the disciples had to shout.
It seemed some things about her, no matter how powerful she became, would never, ever change.
===
Yingying, you really traumatize her. LOL
Just what did you do to her? Making her scared shit like that.