The First Elder spread his spiritual sense and discovered the state of Xiaomeng's body. He waved his hand, and Tian Yao along with Xiaomeng were both lifted in the air and floated behind him. Tian Yao carried the unconscious Xiaomeng in her arms. A transparent sphere made of pure spiritual energy formed around the group.
The First Elder took a single step toward the Jade River Sect. The sphere disappeared from its place and moved thousands of steps in an instant, carrying the three cultivators inside it. The First Elder continued to take steps and bridge the distance to the sect. While doing so, he took a small black pill out of his spiritual ring and handed it to Tian Yao. "Feed it to her. It will keep the spread of the poison in check."
Tian Yao hurriedly put the pill in Xiaomeng's mouth and, pushing on the acupoints on her neck, made her forcefully swallow it. Xiaomeng's face, which had gone white, slowly regained its rosy sheen, but by just a little.
"Tell me what happened," the First Elder inquired. Tian Yao reiterated the sequence of events as she had witnessed them. "Was it wrong of me?" she tentatively asked the First Elder.
The First Elder was silent for a moment. After gathering his thoughts, he let out a soft sigh. "Yes. You were wrong. In this world, if you have to kill someone, never give them even a single moment of respite. If you had not given that cultivator a chance to self-destruct and release this poison, then maybe the situation would not have gotten so dire."
Tian Yao lowered her head and did not talk back like always. The First Elder cursed himself in his heart. In actuality, even if the cultivator had been killed by Tian Yao quickly, nothing would have changed. From what he had observed previously, this poison was most likely an ancient poison from ages past, and the two cultivators must have just chanced upon it. As soon as Tian Yao killed them, she would have become a target of the poison regardless. But with such a good chance to make her understand the nuances of the world, how could he let it slip?
The First Elder once again spread his spiritual sense. The pill he had given was slowing down the spread of the poison. Soon, the Jade River Sect floating in the air came into his sight. The sphere easily passed through the protective barrier of the sect and entered inside. The First Elder took the two girls to his abode. The birds who were chirping happily in the garden suddenly went quiet after seeing Tian Yao appear and hid inside their nests.
The First Elder took the girls inside his cave. It was dark inside except for the spirit illumination stones embedded in the walls. There was a stone bed at the center on which Xiaomeng was laid. "I'll be back," saying these words, the First Elder disappeared from his place. Tian Yao waited for the time it takes half an incense stick to burn while holding and rubbing Xiaomeng's hands before the First Elder returned along with the Fourth Elder.
The first thing the Fourth Elder did was take hold of Xiaomeng's hand and insert his spiritual energy into her body. As soon as it came into contact with the poison, the poison tried to devour it, but to no avail. As a result, it clung tightly to Xiaomeng. The Fourth Elder took out a few pills and fed them to Xiaomeng.
Looking at Tian Yao, he said, "These pills will hold back the poison for a week. You can collect them from my disciple Lan Xue every week." Then he moved his eyes toward Xiaomeng. "Make sure that she takes a dose every week, or even her bones will not be left."
Tian Yao obediently nodded her head. But then she thought of something and asked, "Elder, you said that the pills will contain the poison. What about removing it?"
The Fourth Elder paused in his tracks while going out. He looked back at Tian Yao. "I don't think she needs it removed, from the way she is trying to devour it in reverse. Don't worry. Once she absorbs all the poison, she will wake up. How much time it takes will depend on her."
The Fourth Elder went back to his peak. The First Elder gave a reassuring look and, with a wave of his hand, sent the two girls to Tian Yao's residence. Appearing in the familiar room, Tian Yao carried Xiaomeng to her bed and, going outside closed the door behind her. She went and sat at the stone bench below the willow tree in the courtyard.
Her mind replayed the events of the day over and over. There were moments she felt she should have been ruthless and times when she missed an attack and got hit. Slowly her mind broke down the fight and carefully studied her body's reactions under the different situations. While this was happening, another visitor was visiting Xiaomeng.
Lu Wancheng looked down at the young girl. As soon as she had entered the sect, he had noticed the anomaly. But since the Elders were handling the matter, he did not directly interfere. Now he was here alone. His divine sense, which was of a higher level than the spiritual sense used by the Elders, examined Xiaomeng's body. And so, he caught the slight anomaly in the poison.
Touching Xiaomeng's forehead, Lu Wancheng inserted some of his spiritual energy into it. As soon as the poison sensed the soothing energy, it tried to devour it. When that failed, it tried to move away. However, Lu Wancheng's spiritual energy tightly held the poison and drilled into it. The poison frantically began to thrash around in Xiaomeng's body, but due to the pills fed by the Fourth Elder, its effectiveness was reduced.
Lu Wancheng's spiritual energy finally got what it was looking for and moved out of Xiaomeng's body, gathering on Lu Wancheng's hand. The spiritual energy transformed into a small sphere with a bald old man trapped inside. Lu Wancheng took out an emerald green drop from his storage ring and dropped it on Xiaomeng's forehead, where it was quickly absorbed, and the body started to mend the injuries from the recent scuffle.
Giving the unconscious girl one last look, Lu Wancheng returned to his cave abode. The first thing he did was shake the small sphere in his hand for the time it takes an incense stick to burn. Then, as he observed the man inside, the old man was sitting down with his face ashen and his limbs twitching. With a devilish smile, Lu Wancheng said, "If you try to play any trick or lie to me, then this will be your life until your remnant soul dissipates."
The old man's remnant soul barely nodded its head while looking at Lu Wancheng, the devil incarnate. Lu Wancheng took out and wore his lie detection glasses, then asked, "First tell me, what were you doing inside that girl's body? Normally it should not be possible for a soul to survive this long without proper sustenance."
"It was due to a great disaster that…" Not giving the soul any time to weave its false story, Lu Wancheng began to shake the small sphere once again. After an incense stick's worth of time later, he once again asked the same question.
"I was a member of the prestigious…" Once again, the remnant soul lied and got the same treatment. This continued several times before the remnant soul lost all its confidence and finally confessed.
"I was a ghost dao cultivator." This time, Lu Wancheng listened with rapt attention. He would have preferred to soul-search this evil cultivator, but his remnant soul would not be able to bear it and would instantly shatter.
The ghost dao cultivator continued. "I lived five thousand years ago. At that time, evil cultivators ran rampant in the world and used people as resources for cultivation. But one day, a single righteous cultivator rose and slaughtered my kind. It was as if he was blessed by the heavens. No tricks we used worked on him, and with his divine artifact, he fought those of higher realms and killed them."
The crocodile tears of the evil cultivator did not elicit any reaction from Lu Wancheng, who held the record for killing the highest number of evil cultivators of this era. Going by numbers, it was even more than the person the evil cultivator was talking about, who was most likely the founder of the Jade River Sect.
"Afraid for my measly life, I tried to run away and luckily encountered a secret inheritance in a hidden space. It was a refinement method to use human souls to advance in rank. And the poison was something that was present along with it. I secretly practiced the cultivation method and increased my cultivation. But after many mortals had disappeared, the heaven-blessed man started to hunt for me. Unluckily, he found me just as I was about to escape and killed me."
"He thought I was dead, but I had already separated my soul into two according to the cultivation method and merged the remaining part with the poison, which I had hidden. After all these years, a group of cultivators finally found it and tried to cultivate it. I had made a few changes to the cultivation method so that the practitioner had to consume the poison before practicing it. And at that time, my soul that was merged with the poison would gradually take over the body."
Until now, Lu Wancheng did not discover any falsehood in the words of the remnant soul. "Will you let me live? I will do anything you ask. The cultivation method also had a way to surpass Soul Transformation and reach the next realm."
Lu Wancheng just snorted at this. He wanted to kill this thing and get it over with, but considering that Xiaomeng's 'nutritious tonic' would also disappear, he decided to keep it alive for a few more years. "You can live, but first give me the cultivation method."
The remnant soul hesitated and said, "Can you swear under the heavens?"
Lu Wancheng glared at the small sphere in his hand. "If you are going to kill me either way, then I would rather die without giving you anything." The old man shouted.
Looking up at the sky, Lu Wancheng swore, "I swear to the heavens that I will not kill this remnant soul if I get anything useful out of the cultivation method he teaches me." Then, looking down at the remnant soul, he asked, "Good enough?"
The remnant soul wanted to object but held back. It did not know the cultivation level of the man before it, but it must not be higher than Soul Transformation since even in its own era there were not even a handful of people who had taken that last step. And although fierce, the man seemed quite young. If he got to see the advantages of this cultivation method, he would definitely not hold back in cultivating it.
The remnant soul transmitted the cultivation method to Lu Wancheng's mind. As soon as the knowledge entered his mind, Lu Wancheng quickly stored it inside a blank scroll floating in his sea of consciousness and sealed it with special arrays.
Since he did not die in the upcoming days, the remnant soul thought that it would live for a long time. Although it was very uncomfortable living like this, captured in a sphere, it was at least better than dying. It waited for the day when it could escape due to a mishap. Alas, such a day never came.
The next morning on the First Peak, as the early light fell on her, Tian Yao was pulled out of her reverie and went inside to check on Xiaomeng. The unconscious girl had regained her rosy cheeks and seemed like she was just peacefully asleep.
In the time that followed, Tian Yao brought the pills from the Fourth Peak every week. Though she had to deal with the angry glare of Lan Xue every time. She also washed and changed Xiaomeng's clothes at proper intervals. The roles of the two had reversed for the time being.
Finally, after three years, as the remnant soul was enjoying a nice dream while sleeping in the small sphere, it was woken up by the movement of the sphere. Looking around, it saw the large face of Lu Wancheng staring at it.
"What happened?" it nonchalantly asked, not knowing the fate that awaited.
"Nothing," Lu Wancheng said and pinched his fingers. The soul did not even know how it died before its death. "One more pain off my shoulder," Lu Wancheng muttered.
"You are the biggest liar and cheater in the world," the Will of the World chided from the side.
"Sorry, but those places have already been taken by the heavens." Lu Wancheng shrugged his shoulders.