Within an upside-down mountain on a relatively empty planet where no laws of physics could be seen properly functioning was a man working religiously on a puppet trying his hardest to reverse engineer a simple yet most annoying formation that he had seen yet.
The old man was nothing if not stubborn and was adamant about understanding how a young man with practically not a fraction of this master's lifetime could come up with such ingenious ways to use these inscriptions.
"Well, this is news," the attendant spoke as he went inside the shack where the old man was working.
The man jerked then spat to the side, "Damn it, don't you know how to knock?!" the old man said.
"The door was open, anyway, I think there is something that's currently happening that you might be interested in."
The old man extracted himself from the massive puppet and looked at the attendant with bored eyes, clearly telling him to hurry up because he wanted to go back to work.
"Anyway, something had happened in the Heavenly Academy…" the attendant said.
"Ah? Screw those guys, I don't want to deal with them, I refused them ten times I'll refuse them again, I'm not that bored to teach ignorant idiots my ways and techniques," he said and turned back to work.
"Well, it seems that a person of the name Shen Bao is there," the attendant said.
The old man, Master Rain, stopped working only for a moment and then returned to his work, "It's not that uncommon of a name, it could be anyone," Master Rain said.
"He just joined the heavenly academy though, like a few days ago, and he is in the middle of the Advent Tower trial," the attendant said.
"Doesn't mean that it's the same person, just let it go, he is probably dead, I'll have to figure this shit out myself," Master Rain said.
"I thought so too, but I went and did a bit of research and found something interesting," he said.
Master Rain stopped, placed his tools down, and said, "What did you find out?" he asked.
"This," the attendant said as he pulled up a steering wheel.
For any inexperienced eye who had joined the heavenly academy through the trails. They would immediately recognize this wheel as the same one that was on their pods.
But for Master Rain, it only took a moment to know a huge difference.
There were several holes that shouldn't be there, and the residue of Top Grade Spirit Stone dust could still be seen visibly on them.
There were several added circuits to the steering wheel that Master Rain was more than certain should not be there, because he was a part of this project.
This project that would have been the dream project of many other cultivators was nothing but a side project that Master Rain took one day, because he was low on money to buy his daily need of booze, it took him less than ten minutes to make, and in the process, it was so complex to steer and was deemed worthy of being used as a trial for the new recruits of the Heavenly Academy.
However, even if it took him ten minutes, he still remembers what he had made, and what's on this wheel was not the same thing he submitted to the academy.
A thought crossed Master Rain's mind, the academy could have hired someone to add on to Master Rain's work, it would not be far-fetched that this is an improved version of the one he had implemented, but something was fishy.
There was a spatial inscription in there, an inscription that was made by master Rain himself, and he knew for a fact that he only learned that technique when he went to the Celestial Realm, as for the Heavenly Academy, he gave them the diagram for the pod way before that, so how come his inscription is there.
He pressed on the inscription and it opened up revealing folds among folds of far more simple yet convolutedly complex and intertwined inscriptions.
"Damn, it's him alright, no one writes so many complex inscriptions using so many simple inscription words… god damn it, pack our stuff we're going to the Heavenly Academy," Master Rain said.
…
***
…
Far away from the Water Domain, and in the deep Northern Domain of the Wind Realm stood a woman that was holding an old pot in front of her.
The pot began crumbling and turning to ash as it had finally served its purpose.
A few drops of sweat trinketed down this woman's forehead before she finally was able to take a breath of relaxation.
In front of this woman were hundreds of bodies of cultivators that have long since passed away. And from the Pot came many, many small light sources.
These light sources had varying degrees of brightness, some were small lights and some were medium, however, one of them was the brightest.
This one, the woman took personally and slowly made sure to apply a bit of pressure as she pushed it against the body of a young woman.
The small light accepted the new corpse and fused to it without a hitch. Finding success in the first attempt she continued manually placing these lights into the bodies on the ground, one by one until she had finally finished.
"Great Dao of Life and Death, Reversal of truth!" the woman spoke, and immediately the whole room she was in shuddered and was covered in a dark palette of colors.
A massive Ying and Yang Symbol manifested above the woman.
She took another deep breath because this was the most important part of the whole attempt. Anyone would think that what she was doing was nothing but a blasphemy against the heavens themselves, for no one is allowed to bring back the dead.
However, she wasn't bringing back the dead but giving a soul another lease on life.
The Souls captured in the incense Pot were not technically dead, they were captured souls to be used as fuel for a Soul Eating Cultivator, food for the Fire King.
But only she could reverse such a vile and foul cultivation technique because she and Du Shen were the ones to have made this pot.
This woman had held some respect for the Poison God at one time, however, all of it was lost when he had made such a vile foul tool.
He had never ever shown greed over mortal souls, and it came as a great shock when she would realize that the person she trusted had betrayed her to the Fire King's scheme. Though they have never met since the day she figured out that this Incense Pot was not going to be used to clear the skies of Du Shen's dead planet it only made her hate him more for using her like this.
She shook off the old past and focused on what was in front of her.
"Reverse the Truth!" She spoke, then made a loud ear ringing clap.
The massive Ying and Yang Symbol shook and seemed to have slightly tilted.
"Reverse The World!" she called then struck both palms together causing an even louder echo.
The wheel of Ying and Yang moved once again.
"Reverse Life and Death!" she hollered this time, the final clap was so loud the palace she was on shuddered from the impact.
And thus, the Wheel of Life and Death Spun fully.
The corpses in front of her shuddered and shook, then they began shining brightly as the souls within them began to fully infuse themselves within these bodies.
What was once dead, lived.
And with this, she undid her domain, and almost keeled over due to the extravagant and copious amounts of Saint Qi she had to exude to do this spell.
Suddenly, among all the corpses, the first to move was the one that held the brightest of the souls.
It was a woman in her mid-twenties, the body she hosted looked far different than her former appearance, but as if it was magic, her facial structure began changing and soon turned to be the same as the one she used before.
The woman stood up, looked around, and realized that she was in a strange place.
She didn't worry about her current status of being completely naked. Nor did she care about her dignity or shame, she turned to look at the corpses around her and felt that they were coming to life.
"I…We…were dead? Who might you be, great benefactor?" the woman spoke.
"I'm not someone important, nor am I your benefactor, I did this for my son. Anyway, you should get dressed, there are a bunch of males here it would be a shame if they were to see you like this," the woman said.
"Yes…" she said and stood up then immediately was surprised, "Wait…the Damage from the Ice Destruction is gone…" she said.
"Well, of course, it would be, this is a new body. As for the damage to your soul, I fixed that, get dressed now, we have much to talk about…" the woman said and threw her a pouch.
Within the pouch were several robes she could choose from, and she didn't waste time donning one of them then she followed the mysterious woman with the unfathomable cultivation base.