Merin returns to Jinji City under the cover of dusk, his figure blending into the stream of travellers slipping through the gates.
The first place he heads is the merchant guild, where the carcass of the Nine-Colored Crystal Deer vanishes from his ring in exchange for a mountain of source stones, the clerks' eyes widening as they weigh the priceless antlers and crystalline hide.
From there, he turns down a narrow alley, ducking into the quiet den of an information dealer, the stale scent of incense and old parchment filling his nose as he trades coin for whispers.
The report he receives freezes him—the mark seared onto his wrist by the dying Dark Blood cultivator is no ordinary scar but a tracking seal, tied directly to the Dark Blood Race itself.
His thoughts tighten.
If he nears one of their kind, the mark will expose him, branding him as the killer of their kin.
Worse still, the seal is not something he can scrub away with will or law; it is a binding born of their Quasi-Supreme weapon, the Dark Blood Chakra, and cannot be removed until he himself reaches the level of Quasi-Supreme.
His face hardens, a cold urgency rising in his chest, because right now he is far from that height, and he has no strength to pit against a Quasi Supreme clan.
Leaving the dealer's den, he walks straight to the cultivator guild, spends heavily, and secures a private cultivation chamber sealed by formation.
Inside, he lowers himself to the cold stone floor, spreads out the source stones he earned, and closes his eyes.
There is only one path forward—to break through to the Great Tao Lord realm before the shadow of the Dark Blood Race closes in on him.
Inside the cultivation room, Merin doesn't rush to begin his breakthrough.
He knows the moment a devil cultivator steps into the Great Tao Lord realm, the violent fluctuation of devil energy will spread out and draw unwanted eyes.
To avoid that, he empties his space ring of rare metals, jade slips, and black crystals, and begins inscribing lines across the chamber floor, weaving them into a barrier array.
Each rune flickers with faint light, overlapping one another until the entire room is sealed in silence, no trace of energy able to escape.
Only after completing the array does he sit cross-legged on the mat in the room's centre, drawing a long breath.
He senses the richness of source energy swirling around him, dense enough that with patience, he could advance to the Great Tao Lord realm within a year just by relying on the room alone.
But patience is a luxury he cannot afford.
He takes out every source stone from his space ring and lays them around his body, forming a mountain of glowing crystals.
With a single thought, he activates his cultivation method, and streams of source energy pour into him from both the room and the stones.
The moment they enter, the energy twists and burns, transforming into devil energy that surges through his meridians, hammering his foundation higher and higher.
Days bleed into weeks, and weeks into months, as his cultivation soars.
A month later, he reaches the peak of the Tao Lord realm, his body trembling under the weight of energy.
Now comes the true trial.
His Dao has long since reached the Great Saint realm, clearing the first step required for advancement.
The next is to refine the gathered energy, fusing it with his Dao, polishing every shred of his devil energy until it resonates perfectly with his path.
He continues to absorb and refine, his essence and Dao merging together like steel being tempered.
A year later, the final bottleneck shatters.
Devil energy roars through him like an endless tide, and he steps into the Great Tao Lord realm without obstruction.
Yet he doesn't rise.
He has booked this cultivation room for five years and intends to generate an extract from every last drop of source energy from it.
Years pass in silence, the array flickering with steady light as he continues to refine.
By the time his time in the room ends, his cultivation has already advanced to the Intermediate Great Tao Lord realm.
His inner devil remains firmly suppressed, silent and bound beneath the weight of the array carved into his soul.
He knows it will not trouble him again until the Tao King realm.
Stepping out of the room at last, he inhales the city air and walks into the streets of Jinji once more, his eyes calm, but his mind already turning toward his next move.
Merin's next move is cold and simple: harvest every soul in Jinji, and as he wanders the market streets and alleys, his mind clicks through possibilities until formation—grand, silent, invisible formation—is the only tool that will let him do it.
He walks every lane, past stalls of crystal traders and feathered merchants, through the puppet-forges and along the river canals, pacing the city's heart multiple times until the pathways and power nodes lay out in his head like constellations.
Returning to his room, he sits cross-legged and lets his consciousness slip away into the illusion space, where, a little detached from the Naruto-world copy he already runs, he summons a simulated replica of Jinji to serve as his drafting table.
In that mirror-city, the hidden skeleton quickly reveals itself: the municipal formation drinks at a deep source node under the city, its ley-lines feeding the Dao-puppets, routing source energy to cultivation rooms, and locking the surplus into the city's veins.
He understands then what must be done—nothing less than a seizure of the formation itself, a hijacking that will let him seal the city, seize control of the puppets, and turn their blades inward to harvest the living.
But to commandeer what he cannot see is suicide, so he begins the slow work of building a sighting array: a lattice of miniature mirror-runes tuned to the city's signature that will let him peer through stone and rune and watch the formation's true geometry.
He lays the first pattern within the illusion copy, small and precise, and watches it bloom until the lattice hums with sympathetic resonance and the faint filaments of the city's hidden net begin to glow on his mental map.
Each new node he threads into the lattice sharpens the picture—crossed channels, damped junctions, an emergency overflow vent under the southern quarter—and the copy-city resolves from fog into a map of living law.
Satisfied, Merin slips back to his body with the lattice anchored in both worlds, the sighting formation folded into his illusion core and ready to project the formation's blueprint onto the real streets at a single command.
Now, with the city's secret bones laid bare in his mind, he lets a smile touch his lips and begins to plan the next, darker step.
Now, with the city's secret bones laid bare in his mind, he lets a smile touch his lips and begins to plan the next, darker step.
Sensing deeper, he realises one fatal flaw—if he touches the city's grand formation prematurely, the defence triggers will flare and he will be caught instantly.
That avenue is sealed. Yet failure does not exist for him; the mother formation may be unreachable, but its children are scattered everywhere.
The inn itself is one such child, bound by a thread to the greater whole.
So he shifts his focus, sinking his senses into the inn's array.
Layer by layer, he strips it open, memorising every channel, every junction, every function.
Within days, he holds its veins in his palm—able to direct the flow of source energy to each room, lock doors, alter heating vents, even eavesdrop through the resonant strands.
And from that small nest of threads, he feels the distant tug of the mother's weave, faint but undeniable.
Through that tether, he begins to comprehend the greater network, piecing together hints of the city's grand design.
But after days of steady progress, he slams into a wall—the architect had accounted for intruders like him.
The city's grand array is not a single unbroken body but a swarm of smaller formations interlocked like scales.
He can grasp one, dissect it, command it—but to push further requires a key, a bridge into the chain linking them together.
A thought sharpens into a strategy.
If the inn is one child, then the others scattered across the city—inns, guildhalls, posts—are the same.
He can devour them one by one, comprehending each, and with enough fragments, he may forge his own key.
He leaves the inn the next morning and books a room at another.
Again, he sits, dissects, and memorises. The second child yields its secrets more quickly.
Then another.
Then another. Days pass into weeks, and with each conquered inn, a new shard of the mother's skeleton forms in his grasp.
At last, with every inn's array broken down and their link-formations traced, he feels it—the lock.
Subtle, ancient, hidden in plain sight, it clings to the small formations like a shackle. Using the fragments he has consumed, he forges his key in silence.
The lock yields, and the network opens.
Control trickles in like water through a broken dam. First, the lamplights in the streets, flickering at his whim.
Then the faint threads in public buildings.
Even the cultivation rooms hum at the edge of his reach, their energy channels trembling, almost ready to bend.
If he can comprehend this segment fully, the mother formation itself will fall into his hands.
But just as he sharpens his focus, a noise shatters the calm—uproar rolling through Jinji's streets, voices clashing, excitement rising like wildfire.
He catches the words carried on the wind: a trial land is about to open.
At once, he abandons the array, his body rising into the air as he follows the flood of cultivators pouring out of the city.
His direction is set—the Thousand Lakes region.
Trial lands are no ordinary chance.
They are fragments of secret worlds left behind by Supremes who, at the peak of enlightenment, carved their Daos into reality itself.
Each one holds the essence of a path walked by a Fifth Stage cultivator, and for those below, they are nothing less than heavens of insight.
Merin cannot allow such an opportunity to slip past. His soul yearns for it, his path demands it.
With a sharp breath, he pushes his speed to the limit, cutting through clouds like a spear of shadow.
Before the gates of the trial land open, he must be there.