Volume Four: Those Years When I Was a Master
[Rough and not set in stone: Foundation Establishment → Enlightenment → Integration → Temptation → Golden Core → Nascent Soul → Soul Division → Body Integration → Void Glimpse → Mahayana → Void Shattering → Tribulation Transcendence → Supreme Immortal]
Domination
Yu Wan Zhao felt she must have suffered a cultivation deviation1. The softness beneath her seemed to exude a fatal attraction, constantly hooking and winding around her consciousness.
The delicacy beneath her lips, the fresh fragrance at the tip of her nose—all of it was unscrupulously invading her senses.
Wen Nuan didn’t notice Yu Wan Zhao’s emotional changes at this moment. She was currently preoccupied with the System, checking the female lead’s current chaotic cultivation status.
【Upon investigation, the female lead’s cultivation is chaotic because her demonic energy and spiritual energy cannot be balanced. Two powerful forces are tearing and distorting each other within her body, sometimes strong, sometimes weak, mutually repelling yet also sometimes evenly matched. In the end, only the female lead suffers.】
Wen Nuan frowned slightly. “Then why did the female lead’s realm suddenly rise to the Mahayana Realm?”
【Simply put, when the demonic and spiritual energys in the female lead’s body fuse, her strength grows rapidly as if she’s on drugs, soaring upwards. If the demonic and spiritual energys conflict, her strength will plummet. In mild cases, her cultivation will regress; in severe cases, her Nascent Soul will be annihilated, and her original body will explode and die.】 The System sighed, looking at the data.
“How could this be? In the original plot, didn’t the female lead eventually become the Supreme Demon Emperor?”
【That’s right! The Supreme Demon Emperor!】 The System immediately pinpointed the problem. 【Wait a moment. The Supreme Demon Emperor is the highest realm cultivated by members of the Demon Race. The foundation of demon cultivation is absorbing demonic qi into the body, transforming it into demonic energy. Although the cultivation speed is much faster than humans absorbing spiritual energy, the risks involved are also very high.】
【The reason the female lead became the Supreme Demon Emperor is that in the original plot, she went to the Demon Realm and began to focus on cultivating demonic energy, no longer cultivating worldly spiritual energy. Gradually, her spiritual energy was devoured by her demonic energy, leading her to successfully undergo tribulation after less than a hundred years of cultivation, becoming the Supreme Demon Emperor.】 The System checked the original plot.
Wen Nuan pondered for a moment and said, “So, the female lead’s realm fluctuates, her Nascent Soul and Spiritual Sea are chaotic, and the fundamental reason is her dual cultivation of demonic and spiritual energy, making her unable to ensure the balance between the two forces?”
The System nodded: 【That should be it. Moreover, the female lead is already on the verge of collapse from being tormented by these two powerful forces. Her Nascent Soul and original body are gradually weakening. Right now, she must abandon one force or completely fuse the two to safeguard her life and cultivation foundation. If she continues this chaotic dual cultivation, given her current condition, she will definitely explode and die within a year!】
Wen Nuan: “…”
What a mess!
“Why is the female lead dual cultivating? Doesn’t she know she’ll die if these two forces aren’t perfectly balanced!?”
Five years.
Five years to go from Nascent Soul to the Body Integration Realm, and then desperately to reach the Mahayana cultivation level… Even a Great Overarching Golden Immortal wouldn’t dare to gamble with their life like this!?
Is the female lead chosen by the Heavenly Dao really this “hardcore”?!
The System thought for a moment: 【Perhaps she’s afraid your cultivation is getting stronger and stronger. After all, before you left, your cultivation was already at the late stage of Void Glimpse. The female lead must cultivate to the Mahayana Realm to compete with you. Hatred has driven her mad, and it has also made her progress rapidly.】
Wen Nuan: “…”
What sin have I committed!
Now, Wen Nuan was no longer sure if Yu Wan Zhao would have fallen for her early on like before. After all, the current Yu Wan Zhao wished she could kill her immediately to avenge the past.
And the reason the female lead wasn’t killing her now was probably due to the riot of her demonic and spiritual energys, causing her current cultivation to regress to the Body Integration Realm, making her fundamentally unable to kill Wen Nuan, who was already at the mid-stage Mahayana Realm.
“Hey? I’m puzzled. I wasn’t the only one who went after her back then, so why is she only seeking revenge against me?” Wen Nuan said, speechless.
Back then, so many cultivators were clamoring to beat and kill the female lead. Why is she singling me out for revenge?!
She even demanded that Qianyuan Upper Palace hand me over, and then she’d spare everyone else in the world. Isn’t that a bit too much!?
The System pondered: 【Maybe back then, everyone else was just verbally abusing the female lead, and you were the only one who actually tried to kill her?】
“…” Wen Nuan’s anger flared up. “If I hadn’t attacked the female lead back then, given how she was tortured to near death in the Fire Cold Cave Abode, other cultivators could have ended her life with a single sword strike. If I took the initiative to attack her, at least I could control the damage done to her, right?!”
The System smiled faintly: 【So… the female lead held a grudge.】
Wen Nuan: “…”
The heavens are truly blind!
Wen Nuan was fuming inwardly. At this moment, Yu Wan Zhao, who was lying on top of her, came back to her senses.
She quickly got up, flustered and exasperated, “Yu Wen Nuan, you’re simply… simply…”
What could she say?
That she was dissolute and unrestrained? Or that she would stop at nothing to escape!?
In the end, she couldn’t say anything, only clenched her fists and turned to leave.
As soon as she turned, she saw Liu Qingsui standing aside, looking at them dumbstruck.
Yu Wan Zhao: “…”
Seeing Liu Qingsui’s expression, she knew he had misunderstood and quickly explained, “No, listen to my explanation!”
Wen Nuan reacted, seeing the male lead’s expression and Yu Wan Zhao’s anxiousness to explain, her heart skipped a beat.
“System, the male and female leads haven’t fallen in love, have they?”
Five years of being together day and night, it’s easy for the seeds of love to sprout and flourish.
The System checked the plot: 【Not yet, but there’s no guarantee they haven’t already developed feelings for each other. They’re just short of laying their cards on the table2.】
Wen Nuan: “…”
Liu Qingsui merely thought Yu Wan Zhao was shy and said with an understanding smile, “I get it, I get it. I’ll take my leave first. You two continue.”
“…” Seeing Liu Qingsui about to leave with the misunderstanding, Yu Wan Zhao was suddenly overcome with anger, and a mouthful of blood sprayed out directly.
Seeing Yu Wan Zhao vomit blood, Liu Qingsui looked flustered and helpless. He immediately picked up Yu Wan Zhao and left the Fire Cold Cave Abode.
Wen Nuan and the System looked at each other in dismay and sighed heavily.
“What was that all about?” Wen Nuan was utterly speechless. “Are the male and female leads’ feelings already this deep?”
Just now, it seemed Liu Qingsui misunderstood something about the female lead, became disheartened and wanted to leave this place of heartbreak. The female lead was anxious to explain, but seeing the male lead turn away indifferently, she became frantic with anxiety and actually coughed up blood and fainted.
Seeing this, the male lead turned pale with fright, immediately felt endless heartache and guilt, picked up the injured female lead, and they both left without even glancing at me?!
Wen Nuan couldn’t help but question, “Then what am I?”
The System mulled it over: 【A cannon fodder to advance the plot setting?】
Wen Nuan: “…”
I f#cking…!
【If this world’s female lead really falls in love with the male lead, what will you do?】 The System was worried that this world’s female lead was still “Her.”
Wen Nuan naturally knew what the System was worried about.
“If it’s ‘Her,’ ‘She’ won’t fall in love with anyone else,” Wen Nuan said with certainty.
After all, ‘She’ from the previous three worlds was like that.
【But this world’s female lead wishes she could kill you. This is something that wasn’t present in the previous three worlds.】
‘She’ from the previous three worlds, no matter how much she hated Wen Nuan, never had real killing intent towards Wen Nuan.
But Yu Wan Zhao did.
Wen Nuan took out a cigarette and started smoking, not answering the System’s question.
【Wen Nuan, if the female lead has to kill you to eliminate her blackening value, what do you plan to do?】 The System was a little worried.
“…Then let her kill me,” Wen Nuan exhaled a puff of smoke and sighed.
If she wanted to kill her with her own hands to avenge the past, then Wen Nuan would open her arms to her.
Liu Qingsui took Yu Wan Zhao to the Blood Command Pavilion in the Cang Mountain Blood Sea.
This pavilion was built at the rift between the Cang Mountain Blood Sea and the Demon Realm, and it was the only intersection between the human world and the Demon Realm.
Covered by a barrier3, no one had discovered there was a pavilion here.
This had always been Yu Wan Zhao’s cultivation place because here, Yu Wan Zhao could balance the demonic and spiritual energys within her body and cultivate them together.
The Blood Command Pavilion housed a Saint-grade spirit stone4. By setting up a Spirit Gathering Array, it helped Yu Wan Zhao stabilize the spiritual energy riot in her body, while Liu Qingsui circulated his own demonic energy to adjust the demonic energy riot in Yu Wan Zhao’s body.
The two formidable forces gradually subsided in Yu Wan Zhao’s Spiritual Sea, and only then did she slowly regain consciousness.
Liu Qingsui withdrew his hand, looked at the Saint-grade spirit stone which already had three or four cracks, and sighed softly, “This spirit stone won’t last much longer.”
A Saint-grade spirit stone was a supreme treasure rarely seen even in a hundred years. It was discovered back then in the Divine Marsh Mystic Realm.
To stabilize the balance of demonic and spiritual energy in Yu Wan Zhao’s body, Liu Qingsui had endured the lightning tribulation set by a High Immortal and forcibly retrieved it from a burial ground. He had almost been buried there to keep the immortals company.
If an ordinary human cultivator absorbed a Saint-grade spirit stone, those below the Golden Core realm could jump two levels. Those above Golden Core could advance their cultivation by a level, raise their realm, or consolidate their foundation and purify their spiritual energy. It all depended on the cultivator’s luck.
Yu Wan Zhao sat weakly in the Spirit Gathering Array, looking at the cracks on the Saint-grade spirit stone. “It’s enough.”
Liu Qingsui knew what Yu Wan Zhao meant by “it’s enough.”
For the past five years, Yu Wan Zhao had cultivated day and night, as if her life didn’t matter, all to quickly raise her cultivation realm. Moreover, she actually dared to dual cultivate demonic and spiritual energy, thereby achieving a qualitative leap in strength.
No one had ever attempted to dual cultivate spiritual and demonic energy, but Yu Wan Zhao did. She relied on a large amount of demon crystals and spirit stones to control the balance of demonic and spiritual energy in her body.
She tried to combine and fuse the two and unexpectedly discovered that the power after fusion was not to be underestimated.
However, this unprecedented cultivation method also had significant drawbacks.
If the two forces fused stably, Yu Wan Zhao’s strength would greatly increase, and her realm would rise rapidly. If the two forces repelled and conflicted with each other, her strength would plummet, her cultivation would rapidly regress, and she would be tormented by the two forces to the point where living was worse than death, suffering unbearable pain.
The slightest carelessness could destroy her foundation and turn her into a cripple, which would be fortunate compared to the truly terrifying outcome of her body being smashed to pieces and exploding.
“Doing all this… is it worth it?” Liu Qingsui couldn’t help but ask.
She clearly had excellent innate talent and superb aptitude. If she had cultivated with dedication, abandoned spiritual energy, Yu Wan Zhao could definitely have become a Supreme Demon Emperor within a hundred years.
But for the sake of…
She had forcibly raised her realm to Mahayana cultivation within five years, enduring the torment of the aftereffects and the constant risk of her body exploding.
Is it really worth it?
Yu Wan Zhao chuckled lightly, “…It’s worth it!”
The most worthwhile thing she had done in this life was to control Yu Wen Nuan in the palm of her hand.
Liu Qingsui saw that even though her breath5 was weak and unstable, as if she could turn to ash and vanish at any moment, her eyes still held satisfaction and pride.
Recalling the scene he had just witnessed, he couldn’t help but feel puzzled. “Are you really that… unable to let go of Yu Wen Nuan?”
Liu Qingsui had carefully considered his choice of words.
Yu Wan Zhao thought back to that time, when her dearest, most respected, and most trusted Shizun6 had become the person who most wanted to kill her.
The scar on her chest seemed to ache dully again, and a chill ran through her entire body in an instant.
“Even if I die, I won’t be able to let it go!” she said, clenching her teeth.
“…” Liu Qingsui’s expression was strange. “Although people of the Demon Race don’t care about worldly views and aren’t bound by human ethics and morals, I really didn’t expect you to… harbor those kinds of feelings for your Shizun.”
“…” Yu Wan Zhao didn’t understand what Liu Qingsui meant. “What?”
“I was wondering at first, even if you wanted to take revenge and clear your grievances, you could have taken your time. After all, it’s never too late for a gentleman to take revenge. Why rush? Later, I realized you actually had an ulterior motive, huh?”
Yu Wan Zhao was completely baffled. “…??”
Liu Qingsui looked awkward, a blush seeming to flash across his cheeks.
He stammered, “I didn’t expect that for these five years, you disregarded your own life and safety to strive to improve your cultivation realm just so you could thoroughly and completely possess your Shizun today?!”
Yu Wan Zhao: “…”
“No wonder storybooks7 in the human world often say, ‘the deeper the love, the keener the hatred.’ I really didn’t expect your obsession with your Shizun to be so deep!”
Yu Wan Zhao: “…”
The author has something to say:
Female lead: …
Wen Nuan: The female lead and male lead both have excellent judgment!
System: Still the same saying, just afraid the male lead’s imagination will run too wild!
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