Mei Suyao and Ye Chuyun also received their shares.
On the World Tree, the leaves Ling Feng had chosen for them were not random scenery, but carefully picked worlds.
For Mei Suyao, he guided her to a leaf where rivers of light flowed in vast circles, coiling and uncoiling like celestial serpents. Each current carried two colors—one pure as snow, one murky as swamp water. They met, swirled, and passed through one another without clashing, like opposing armies that had forgotten how to fight.
"This place suits you," Ling Feng had said then, voice light. "You're too busy trying to make everything clean. Learn how to use the dirt too."
Here, her Alaya Heavenly Fragrant Dao unfolded. Supreme runes of scent and purity emerged in the air, like countless invisible orchids opening all at once. In the past, her fragrance only washed filth away; now, under his guidance, she let those twin rivers of pure and impure light sink into her bones.
She slowly realized that "filth" was also accumulation, that karma and resentment were another form of essence. Within her Immortal Bone, her dao began to twist in a subtle way—learning not only to cleanse, but to redirect and refine, turning poison into medicine, turning defilement into fuel.
On another leaf, Ye Chuyun sat in a lotus position atop a field of lightning. The "ground" here was a vast lotus pad made of jade light, its veins glowing with thunder sigils. At every breath, thousands of tiny lotuses bloomed along those veins, each flower made from lightning, each petal inscribed with the law of destruction. They opened with a crack of thunder, closed, then bloomed again, never repeating the exact same pattern.
Ling Feng had poured a mixture of the World Tree's primordial life energy and Worldly Prime Liquid into this leaf. Under that nourishment, Ye Chuyun's Pure Lotus Dao learned a new rhythm—bloom, fall, bloom again—each cycle sinking deeper into the mysteries of life and death. The faint "lightning flavor" that clung to the lotus resonated with some hidden strand of her fate. Without fanfare, her cultivation began to climb in a way that would cause her sect's ancestors to stare in disbelief in the future.
As these two sank into enlightenment, the World Tree breathed.
Life essence rolled like a quiet tide, flooding through trunk and branch, surging into leaf-worlds where other fortunes unfolded.
On one leaf, Li Shuangyan sat cross-legged on cold jade. Her Pure Jade Physique glowed faintly, like a flawless crystal statue lit from within. New veins of jade-light threaded through her bones and meridians, weaving a lattice more intricate than any Mortal Emperor could see. The flows of energy within her body became even smoother.
On another leaf, Chen Baojiao laughed breathlessly between waves of impact. Springs of tyrannical power roared under her skin; every heartbeat sent shockwaves through her blood. The Tyrannical Valley Immortal Spring Physique within her drank greedily from the World Tree's origin.
Xu Pei's leaf was full of storm clouds and layered formations. Her inner tempest, once wild, now calmed and sharpened. Lightning and cloud obeyed her will like trained soldiers rather than unruly bandits. Her fate palaces, tempered by Ling Feng's changes, rotated in a steadier rhythm; every cycle polished their foundations further.
Farther away, Bai Jianzhen sat alone upon a leaf carved like an ancient, cracked sword scar. Her intent stretched silently along that scar, far past the leaf's edge, testing some invisible threshold. With each breath, her sword heart carved a finer line between "sword" and "self," as if she was slowly erasing that line entirely.
Bing Yuxia's Nine Palaces turned high above a frozen ocean. Each palace resonated with a different sky; under the World Tree's gaze, she began to see those skies in ways she had never imagined—changing wind, shifting stars, rearranging the flow of cold light to better align with her dao.
Elsewhere, Chi Xiaodie, and other geniuses and peers each wrestled with their own leaf-trials, their own fortunes and fears. The World Tree hummed, accepting all of them as briefly passing guests.
Mei Suyao and Ye Chuyun, Immortal Bone and pure lotus, also sank deeper into their enlightenment, each drinking from the same ancient origin yet walking diverging paths.
Ling Feng watched them for a long moment, arms folded behind his back, a faint smile hidden in his eyes.
"Good," he murmured. "You all keep eating. I'll go take care of the bill."
Chaos pooled lazily around his ankles, like an obedient beast stretching in its sleep. Space folded with the unhurried inevitability of a page being turned.
He vanished.
...
At the crown of the World Tree, there was no wind.
Here, "ground" was a colossal ring of outer bark, gently curved, its texture formed from patterns so vast that from below they looked like mountain ranges and dried riverbeds. The air was thin and bright, stripped of dust and noise. Above his head, there was no canopy, no leaves, no stars—only a white emptiness, like a blank page yet to receive any dao.
At the center of that pale page hung the Void Gate.
It was not a door in the mortal sense—no stone threshold, no carved frame. It was a vast, vertical whirl of condensed space, its edge a trembling circle inscribed with countless microscopic runes. From afar, it resembled a ring of darkness drawn in midair, its outline filled with thick light until it began to vibrate like a taut string.
In front of that gate, suspended alone within the blank expanse, floated a single rune.
It was small—no larger than Ling Feng's palm—but it pressed on his senses like a mountain laid across an ocean. Fine lines of light coiled and uncoiled within it, forming shapes that were not quite characters, not quite diagrams. Those lines repeated patterns older than this epoch's Heaven's Will, echoing laws from the Void World that lay beyond the gate.
"This is the Key Rune, huh." Ling Feng's voice was soft. "You're a bit prettier up close."
Chaos flickered behind his eyes.
Deep within his Inner Void, the Cyan Chaos Emerald—time, flow, and velocity—turned once, its rotation subtly tugging at the currents of the white emptiness. The Green Emerald of space answered with a low, satisfied hum. Together, they tasted the Key Rune's texture: how it hooked the surrounding space, how it folded distance around itself, how its faint resonance seeped into the heartwood of the World Tree.
He could have moved immediately.
He could have stretched out his hand, used Chaos Control to seize the Key Rune, or peeled open the edge of the Void Gate before anyone else arrived.
But that wasn't his style.
"Let's see who else comes to play," he murmured.
Ling Feng clasped his hands behind his back and waited.
It did not take long.
A gentle sound, like jade chimes struck in a distant temple, rang across the white expanse.
Light gathered at the far side of the crown. It coalesced into the slender figure of a woman in white. Her long hair fell like a waterfall down her back. Within her body, an Immortal Bone radiated a faint, misty brilliance that made everything around her seem farther away, more mundane, as if she alone walked on a higher, purer plane.
Mei Suyao.
Even at the top of the World Tree, where countless geniuses had struggled up leaf by leaf, she carried her own radiance. She had passed through layers of distorted time and twisted space, comprehended mysteries in the tree's inner leaves that would become legends in future generations. Yet not a strand of her hair was out of place.
Her gaze landed first on the Void Gate. She studied its silent whirl, then swept her eyes to the single floating rune.
Only then did she truly look at Ling Feng.
"You were waiting here?" she asked.
Her tone was calm, but the thin ripples in her aura betrayed her. His earlier antics—the way he had used Bing Yuxia as a key to open the path, the way he had handed out fortunes from the World Tree as if he were tossing out snacks from a street stall—had shaken even her composed dao heart.
Ling Feng walked toward her as if they were meeting by chance on some quiet mountain trail instead of upon the crown of an ancient World Tree.
"Indeed, I was," he greeted, lips curling. "Although you're still fast."
Mei Suyao's gaze swept once around the empty crown.
"You were first," she said.
"Mm." He nodded, utterly unbothered. "But between us, you're the one the crowd would have bet on. So I'll let you keep the title."
Her lips moved—almost a smile, almost a sigh.
"Is that your way of offering compensation?" she asked lightly.
"If you want compensation, I can be very sincere," he said, tone casual, almost lazy. "But let's not start with money. That's dull. How about… I let you pick first."
Her expression sharpened. "Pick what?"
He tilted his chin toward the Void Gate and the floating rune.
"Path, gate, key," he said. "You choose which one you want to try to take. I'll work with whatever's left."
Silence stretched for a breath. Then another.
"I did not expect you to be so generous," Mei Suyao said at last, a faint mockery in her voice. "Or is this your way of luring me into another trap? You have been… very fond of 'experiments' lately."
"That's because all of you are very good test subjects." He looked perfectly honest. "If I don't poke you a little, it feels like a waste."
The urge to sigh rose in her chest. She suppressed it.
"This rune—" she began.
"—is tied to the Void Gate, yes," he finished for her. "It's the key, or at least one of them. Whoever refines it in truth will have an edge when that door opens next time."
He said it casually, as if discussing the weather. But his eyes watched her closely.
She knew that he knew.
Mei Suyao's Alaya Heavenly Fragrant Dao had not been created for her to sit in elegant halls preaching dao like incense burning in a quiet room. It was a supreme technique passed down from Immortal Emperor Xiu Shui, a path that should have walked straight toward the apex. And yet here she was, playing saintess, competing for titles and face in the Mortal Emperor World.
"You want it too," she said.
"Of course." He laughed. "Up here, only two things interest me: that rune, and the space behind that door. Everything else is just scenery."
She looked at him.
He looked back, relaxed, amused, entirely certain.
For a moment, a thin strand of annoyance slipped through her serenity.
"You're very honest," she said.
"I like lovely women," he replied. "Lying to them is a waste of both our time."
Her Immortal Bone fluctuated once, unbidden, its light rippling faintly beneath her skin.
Before she could respond, space stirred on the far side of the crown.
This time, there were no jade chimes, no fragrant dao.
A heavy, resonant step shook the emptiness, as if someone had placed a foot directly upon the fabric of the world and pressed down.
Lines of space dao emerged from nothingness, forming a sequence of steps hanging in midair. Each step twisted the angles of reality, folding the distance between heartbeats, making far and near swap places. At the end of that staircase, a man in imperial robes appeared, hands clasped behind his back, gaze proud and distant.
Jikong Wudi.
The descendant of Immortal Emperor Ta Kong walked forward, every footfall humming with three saint aptitudes and an Ascension Physique that allowed him to treat space like his personal road. Each step he took subtly displaced the surrounding world, as if the crown of the World Tree itself had to make way for him.
His eyes swept past Mei Suyao, paused briefly on the Void Gate, then settled on Ling Feng.
"So it is you," he said slowly. "The… guardian demon of the Heavenly Dao Academy."
"People really like giving me nicknames," Ling Feng sighed. "I prefer 'Ling Feng,' honestly. Easier to shout in bed."
Mei Suyao's composure cracked by a hair; she almost choked.
Jikong Wudi's brows knitted. He did not quite understand the last line, but he certainly understood the disrespect.
"Your tongue is sharp," he said coldly. "But that will not help you here."
Ling Feng grinned. "Who said I need help?"
His gaze moved between them.
Mei Suyao, Immortal Bone glowing beneath her saintly facade.
Jikong Wudi, three-saint aptitudes condensed into one body, the image of a pre-coronation emperor.
Both carried the aura of Heaven's Will candidates. Both had climbed the World Tree by their own means. Both were staring at the same rune, the same gate, the same far-off crown named Heaven's Will.
For them, the Heaven's Will was a small, bright crown hanging just out of reach.
For Ling Feng, beyond that crown, there was something else entirely.
"You two," he said, "are very interested in this place."
Mei Suyao did not answer. Jikong Wudi made no effort to hide it.
"This Void Gate is a path," Jikong said. "A rare one. It must not fall into the hands of someone without proper destiny."
"Right," Ling Feng nodded. "Because only the two of you are 'proper destiny'."
"You mock the aspirations of the world," Jikong Wudi replied. "But the Heaven's Will is not a toy. It chooses only those who—"
"—can see nothing but it," Ling Feng interrupted idly. "Yes, I've noticed."
They stared at him.
He smiled.
"Tell you what," he said. "I've been a little curious about something."
"About what?" Mei Suyao asked.
Light flickered in his eyes, a brightness that had nothing to do with the World Tree.
"I want to see," he said quietly, "how far the so-called Heaven's Will candidates can reach… when they hit something past the Heaven's Will's ceiling."
Mei Suyao's expression froze.
Jikong Wudi's aura flared. Space warped tens of thousands of miles around the crown, invisible ripples racing down the trunk to shake the leaves below.
"You're courting death," he said.
"That line is getting old," Ling Feng replied. "If you want to shut me up, then—"
His smile turned sharp.
"—come and do it. Together."
Silence fell.
Mei Suyao's fingers tightened inside her sleeves.
To accept was to admit that they could not handle him one on one.
To refuse was to step back in front of the very man who had "shared" World Tree fortunes like leftovers, who stood at the crown alone while every other Heaven's Will candidate had struggled and fought.
Both choices pressed on their dao hearts.
He had chosen this angle deliberately.
"You deliberately sow discord," Mei Suyao said softly.
"No," he answered. "I'm giving both of you a clean chance to hit me with everything you have. No schemes. No hidden hands. No old monsters lurking in the shadows. Just you, him, and me."
He raised his hand and wiggled his fingers lazily.
"Don't you want to know?" he asked. "How high your starting point really is? Whether the Heaven's Will can even see the height you're aiming at?"
That last question burrowed deep.
Within Mei Suyao's body, her Immortal Bone trembled faintly. Jikong Wudi's three saint aptitudes thrummed in unison, not in response to the insult, but to the challenge—this was temptation aimed at their very roots.
Cultivators like them, who had walked so far with the Heaven's Will crown in sight, could not easily refuse this kind of provocation.
"Fine." Mei Suyao exhaled slowly. For the first time in a long while, the holy mist around her dimmed by a fraction, revealing a fierce fighting intent beneath. "Since Fellow Daoist insists, I will offend."
Jikong Wudi snorted. "I do not need to join hands with anyone to suppress you."
"That's cute," Ling Feng said. "But when I said 'together,' it was for your sake, not mine."
He glanced at Mei Suyao.
"Suyao," he said lightly, "I'll leave the first move to you."
Her eyes flashed.
"Alaya Heavenly Fragrant Dao—" she whispered.
The world changed.
Fragrance descended.
It was not the cloying sweetness of mortal flowers, nor the sharp bite of medicinal herbs. It was something deeper—the far-off scent of clean rivers, the cool breath of spring wind over new grass, the lingering incense of an ancient temple where people had prayed for a thousand years.
Space around Mei Suyao brightened. Endless streams of luminous "scent" flowed out from her body, each stream carrying a different transformation of the grand dao. Some purified cause and effect; some washed away resentment; some softened killing intent; some guided confused souls toward stillness.
Her Immortal Bone burned, releasing a holy force that purified everything it touched. Runes of her supreme technique unfolded one by one, forming a domain where all impurity—karmic, emotional, or material—was gently washed away.
Within that domain, the World Tree's life force responded. Leaves that did not exist in any mortal direction hummed high above, sending down soft green rays that braided themselves into her rivers of fragrance.
Mei Suyao raised a slender hand.
Each finger traced a different current. Together, they formed a seal—elegant, flawless, every movement carrying the noble bearing of an Immortal Emperor's dao.
"Fragrant River Crosses the World," she murmured.
From her body, a river of light surged forth.
It did not explode like a tyrant's blow. It flowed.
Where it passed, space was smoothed, time slowed half a beat, all things drawn quietly into its gentle guidance. This was a dao suited to carrying living beings, to sheltering worlds and washing away their defilement.
Turned into an attack, its weight was immeasurable.
The river rushed toward Ling Feng, ready to wrap him up and draw him into an endless, fragrant samsara that would grind down all his edges and forge him into a clean, docile remnant.
Ling Feng watched it approach.
"Not bad," he said.
He lifted his right hand.
No blazing runes carved the air. No treasures manifested. He simply extended a single finger.
He did not call forth torrents of Chaos Energy. He did not rouse the full might of his Emeralds. He allowed a hair-thin strand of Chaos Energy to coil around his fingertip, like a line of ink around a brush.
The Fragrant River slammed against that finger.
A roar that only dao senses could hear echoed through the crown. The bark of the World Tree shivered; the Void Gate's surface rippled once. Mei Suyao's river compressed, wrapped, tried to drown that tiny intrusion, to dissolve it, to cleanse it.
Then, quietly, it began to fold.
Ling Feng's finger drew a small circle in the air.
The river's course bent.
What had been an overwhelming, straight torrent slowly spiraled, coiling in tighter loops, shrinking from ocean to whirlpool, from whirlpool to a narrow current, from current to a thin stream, from stream to a thread.
In the span of a breath, the river of divine fragrance—borne by Immortal Bone and supreme merit law, recognized by the World Tree—condensed into a single, glimmering droplet on his fingertip.
He flicked it.
The droplet flew back toward Mei Suyao—not as a killing strike, but as a seed. It sank into her chest, vanishing into the depths of her Immortal Bone without sound.
Her body trembled.
Inside, her Alaya Heavenly Fragrant Dao devoured that droplet, which now carried a different structure. She suddenly perceived a new pattern: instead of merely washing impurity away, the fragrance could wrap it, digest it, and refine it directly into pure strength. Her dao lines branched and expanded, gaining pathways she had never glimpsed before.
"You—" she whispered, eyes widening.
Ling Feng lowered his hand and stepped closer.
The world remained bright and silent, the Void Gate still hung above them, but at that moment it felt as if they were standing alone on a mountain path after rain.
"You're strong," he said, his voice much softer. "Your starting point is outrageous. Immortal Bone, peerless law, great backing. If you only walked straight, never looking left or right, you would definitely reach the Heaven's Will."
He smiled slightly.
"But the Heaven's Will is not the peak."
Her lips parted, but no words emerged.
"You're still acting like a saintess," he continued, his tone somewhere between teasing and teaching. "Carrying other people's expectations, worrying about appearances, standing on lotus platforms all day. Walk that way and you can still go very far—but it isn't the path your dao truly wants."
He tapped his own chest lightly.
"The heavens don't care whether you look holy," he said. "They care whether your dao can stand when everything else is gone."
He leaned forward just a little, close enough for his next words to be for her ears alone.
"And between us," he added in a low murmur, "you'd look better as a tyrant than as a saintess. Don't waste what your senior left you."
Something in her dao heart quivered.
He straightened again, gaze flicking aside.
"Anyway," he said, tone returning to its usual lazy drawl. "Today's lesson is free. Next time, I'm charging interest."
Mei Suyao finally found her voice.
"…You are insufferable," she said quietly.
But her cheeks carried a faint trace of color that had not been there before. The holy mist around her lost a little of its distant chill; within her Immortal Bone, that thin thread of Chaos he had left behind continued to hum quietly, like a thorn she could not ignore—and like a key that would pry open doors in her cultivation for years to come.
It would haunt her future.
In a good way.
"Enough." Jikong Wudi's voice cut through the air, cold as distant starlight. "Do you think you can ignore me?"
Ling Feng turned.
Space around Jikong Wudi had already congealed into a private world.
Countless spatial gates opened and closed behind him, each leading to a different compressed layer of reality. Lines of the grand dao of space gathered over his head, twisting into the faint silhouette of an ancient portal. His three saint aptitudes burned as one—Saint Fate Palace, Saint Life Wheel, Saint Physique—melding with the Ascension Physique's ability to move between dimensions with a step.
If Mei Suyao's attack had been a holy river, then Jikong Wudi's was a collapsing firmament.
"Ascension—" his voice echoed across visible and invisible realms.
He raised his foot.
"—Emperor Step."
He stomped down.
The crown of the World Tree groaned.
Below Ling Feng's feet, space inverted. The simple bark surface suddenly turned into a churning abyss, layers upon layers of space folding in on him, trying to tear him apart from every direction. Above, a mountain of invisible weight descended, formed from stacked spatial layers compressed until they became a single, terrifying weapon.
This was not simply an attack. It was a declaration.
Under Jikong Wudi's foot, all things should be forced to bow.
Ling Feng tilted his head. "So you do have some tricks," he said. "But let me show you what a real stomp looks like."
He lifted his leg.
He did not gather energy in a grand display.
He did not brandish a treasure.
He simply stepped.
Chaos coiled lazily around his ankle, a slow swirl that made the surrounding space howl silently. The Green Chaos Emerald flared; the spatial principles that Ta Kong's lineage worshipped found themselves dragged before an older, deeper law.
His heel descended.
"Sit," Ling Feng said.
The invisible mountain of compressed space shattered before his foot fully landed. The stacked layers dissolved into harmless ripples, scattering over the crown without even disturbing the hem of Mei Suyao's robe.
His foot continued its path.
Jikong Wudi had just enough time for his pupils to contract.
Then Ling Feng's foot landed squarely on his chest.
Bones cracked like strings of fireworks.
It was not a deliberate killing blow; Ling Feng allowed Chaos to soften the impact enough that Jikong Wudi's True Fate and three saint aptitudes would not be extinguished outright. But ribs shattered, sternum fractured, meridians tore, and a large portion of his spatial dao collapsed in an instant.
The proud Heaven's Will candidate flew backward like a broken arrow, blood spraying from his lips. His body bounced once along the crown, twice, then rolled right off the edge of the bark ring.
He disappeared from sight, swallowed by the white emptiness below.
The bark still echoed with the sound of that single step.
For a few heartbeats, there was only silence.
Far below, on countless leaves, cultivators looked up, sensing a tremor that had nothing to do with wind or fruit falling. High above, at the crown, the Void Gate's quiet swirl continued, and the Key Rune still hung in place—but in that silence, it felt as if the entire World Tree were listening.