While Wang Wei was flying to his destination, he suddenly stopped as he felt something. He then used the Karma Thread he placed on his competitors, and an image appeared in his mind.
He saw a young woman chained by her two hands. She looked ragged, her hair disheveled, she had no shoes on, and numerous bugs seemed to be munching on her skin.
The skin would instantly regenerate, and these purple Beatles would continue munching on it like it was the most delicious thing they had ever tasted.
'Huo Fenghuang? Why is she in this state?'
A lot of thoughts flashed across Wang Wei's mind. He remembered that after the Beach Party, the thread he placed on her companion shook a little as it appeared to break at any time.
'Could it be related to that?'
Wang Wei thought that Yi Bu had entered a special place that could disturb Karma. However, maybe this was not the case.
'She's not important for now. Let's focus on the task at hand."
He then flew to see his mother and had dinner. He could see that she was not in the best shape, most likely worried about his safety over the past few hundred years.
So, Wang Wei reassured her by lying and telling her he found a way to survive involving the [Future Buddha Self]. This news pleased Yu Yan and relieved a lot of her worries. She knew of her son's intelligence, so she did not doubt him.
Or, maybe, she wanted to believe this lie. That night, she slept well for the first time in a few hundred years, and Wang Tian thanked his son as he found powerless when it came to that situation.
"So, did you truly find a method?" he asked after tucking his wife in bed.
"Not exactly," gestured Wang Wei. "But I am heading in the right direction. Right now, I have much more information and some ideas on how to survive."
Wang Tian sighed deeply before taking a large sip of alcohol from his gourd. "I wished I could help you. I feel like a failure as a father."
"There is no need to blame yourself. Plus, you have done all you can."
"You don't understand. The first time I laid eyes on you, I promised to do everything I could to protect you in this cruel world. And I believe I did my job for most of your life.
"However, in the past few years, too many things have made me feel helpless. As a father, nothing is more painful than watching your child suffer, and you can do nothing about it."
Wang Wei sighed before patting his father on the shoulder. Then, he drank all night with him.
They talk all night about all kinds of things, focusing on some embarrassing stories of Wang Wei when he was a child. Then, he drank all night with him.
And Wang Wei responded by talking about his father's embarrassing childhood that he learned from his grandfather. The next day, he called Wang Ju to visit him.
"Where is Li Jun?" he asked after seeing her. "Is he still in the trials?"
"No, more than 200 years ago, Young Master Li Jun passed the trials and inherited the Battle Manic Emperor's [Battle Will]. However, not long after returning, he quickly declared that he would enter another retreat."
'That's odd,' thought Wang Wei; however, he did not focus on this. He figured that Li Jun might have a sudden epiphany. He did not suspect that he would be used for this trial. Something horrible would have to happen to corrupt Li Jun and turn against him.
Plus, he knew that the real culprit used a saber as his primary weapon. Although Li Jun can use a saber, his primary weapons are usually spears and halberds.
Nevertheless, Wang Wei kept a sliver of suspicion since Li Jun could have changed during his trial.
"What about Yan Liling?"
"She is also in retreat."
"Oh? Didn't she succeed in becoming a Tier 6 Quasi-Emperor Alchemist?"
"Yes, she succeeded not long after you entered seclusion, young master. She wanted me to give you this once you exited."
Wang Wei looked at the black cauldron in his hand, analyzing the arrays inside with a slight surprise.
'She succeeded so quickly?'
He took a few Profound Tier Spiritual Herbs and placed them inside. A few minutes later, an inferior-quality Body Tempering Pill floated inside the cauldron without Wang Wei doing anything.
'So, this thing only works for material alchemy; she has not found a way to engrave divine runes on the pills automatically.'
"This should be a prototype, correct?"
"That's right. According to Young Lady Yan Lilling, this prototype can create up to Middle Lever Earth Tier Pill only through material alchemy. However, she is working on improving."
Wang Wei nodded his head with a smile; he looked forward to her achievement as the Automated Cauldron would be very useful for his plans.
"What about Tie Gang?"
"He is training his soldiers. However, I noticed he might feel uneasy that you did not contact him in the past few years."
"Appease him since he is still useful," ordered Wang Wei. "How is Project Deep Infiltration going?"
"Things are going well–especially with the innate weapon you provided us. However, as you instructed, we are taking things slowly."
"Yes, be patient. As long as you guys succeed before the Heaven Will Battle, everything will be fine. Is there any specific news that I need to pay attention to?"
"Two of them. One is that Lin Fan seemed to be taking a vacation in the East Sea Domain. Second, you need to see this for yourself."
Wang Ju handed him a talisman with a picture.
"The sect master's Shadows acquired this picture inside the Sword Casting Villa."
Wang Wei looked at the projection in front of him with intense eyes. It was the picture of a young man sitting in a wooden wheelchair. His long hair hung loose on his back without being tied in a bun.
He had a long untrimmed beard. A terrible sense of despair and suffering displayed in his eyes as he looked into the distance in a daze.
This person was Jian Wushuang.
Compared to his suave and handsome face, he looked completely different.
'Is this the fate of Outlaws?'
Back in the Academy, Wang Wei read Su Ya's Fate Line and knew how she planned to deal with Jian Wushuang. The plan was straightforward yet meticulous at the same time.
During one of her battle, she would detonate countless of her clones to injure him severely. Then, a beautiful young mortal girl would save Jian Wushuang.
And while healing him, they would fall in love.
The only problem is that Su Ya has been 'cultivating" this woman for thousands of years. She placed a secret controlling technique into her ancestors in the Supernatural Realm and had it passed down through bloodline.
That way, after so many years, no one could connect her with some random mortal in a small village.
And her plan succeeded–at least partially.
The mortal woman named Daji fell in love with Jian Wushuang, and he reciprocated her feelings. However, without her knowing, she secretly poisoned him.
Su Ya's poison was undetectable and took time to activate. And at the right moment, she started her technique and forced her to kill him directly. In the end, even if the poison did kill Jian Wushuang and only weakened him, he had two options:
One is to be killed by the love of his life, or two, kill her with his own hand, thus affecting his mind.
'By the look of it, he may have killed her and shattered his Dao Heart in the process,' thought Wang Wei with a deep look.
He understood that Su Ya did this to please her cold and ruthless master. One of the Yin Moon Palace's top disciples married into the Sword Casting Villa in the last generation and broke the sect's rules.
And the Yin Moon Saintess did not appreciate such an act of betrayal–especially since that disciple was her sister. So, in that generation, Su Ya created this plan to get her master's love and appreciation.
She hoped that she would receive real maternal love from her for the first time in her life.
All those emotional dramas aside, Wang Wei began to look at things differently. From the old beggar's information, he knew that Jian Wushuang became an Outlaw in the Divine Body Realm, while Su Ya began her scheme just after entering the Supernatural Realm.
So, how did Heavenly Dao plot against him? Did it use Time Laws to know who would be an Outlaw in advance, or did it just use Su Ya's existing scheme and ensure no problem occurred?
If it is the former, then things would be more complicated.
Wang Wei took one last look at Jian Wushuang. In his current situation, he was essentially eliminated from the battle. Unless he fixed his Dao Heart, he is now considered a waste.
After shaking his head, Wang Wei flew away to the Eastern Continent; he headed to the place where Jian Wushuang underwent his trial. As an outlaw, he should have died, but someone survived.
He wanted to know how he did it.
After a few hours of flying, Wang Wei arrived at his destination: a giant crater thousands of kilometers wide. Without wasting time, he used a new technique that he had developed.
He read the fate of the environment.
Immediately afterward, the crater disappeared, replaced by a small village. Wang Wei saw that the young girl named Daiji treated many patients with her medical knowledge and cultivation.
Meanwhile, Jian Wushuang always accompanied her with a bright smile. And she accompanied him when he practiced the sword early in the morning.
Then, things went awry.
One day, while the couple took a walk in the nearest forest, Jian Wushuang suddenly turned pale before falling to the ground. Then, with cold and indifferent eyes, Daji stabbed him in the heart.
Myriad of emotions flashed across his eyes, blood drenching his clothes as he asked her why. But he only received an indifferent look.
.Before Daji destroyed his soul, a powerful Sword Will emanated from Jian Wushuang's body, pushing her away.
He stood up with great difficulty to walk next to corpses, tears falling down his eyes. He held her body and roared to Heaven. Mighty Sword Qi came out of his body and instantly wiped out all the villagers within the thousand kilometers' diameter.
Finally, Jian Wushuang passed out, and not long afterward, someone from the Sword Casting Villag appeared from a space crack and picked them both up.
Wang Wei watched everything occur, focusing on Jian Wushuang's Sword Will that saved his life. He remembered what his father told him after the beach party.
'So, he survived because at the last minute, he changed his Dao. Instead of using the Dao of Infinity, he used the sword to control Infinity. But shouldn't that be the same thing?
'Why can using the sword to control a Dao be better than controlling the actual Dao?"
Wang Wei pondered this question dearly as he had some questions.
Why is it that people who cultivate Sword Dao to control other Daos are alright? For an example, if someone used a Sword of Creation that could create myriad things, isn't that the same thing as Di Tian using it? Why would one be an Outlaw and the other gets a pass?
'Forget this for now,' he thought. 'Why was it so easy to acquire the information about Jian Wushuang's Trial?'
So far, Heavenly Dao blocked most information regarding the trial but not this one. His technique worked perfectly fine, and nothing prevented it.
Wang Wei raised his head to the sky before sneering.
'So, you're telling me that I abandon my Dao, I can save my life?'
He would rather die than change his Dao. Fate involved his path of becoming free and unfettered, and if he gave it up to survive and change it later, he knew that his Dao Heart would forever have a deep flaw that would affect his later cultivation path.
And with such a flaw, he would never become achieve true freedom. So, this was not an option for him.
Wang Wei calculated cause and effect to see if he could find a similar method that Jian Wushuang used. He wanted to gather as much information as possible.
And he did find something in one of the Karmic Threads he secretly placed. So, he decided to visit that person before meeting the old beggar again.