Sheng Ni woke up with a start. Years of experience in treacherous environments and situations made him first scanned his surroundings. Upon seeing that it appeared to be some sort of room did not ease his concerns at all.
It hadn’t been the first time Sheng Ni had awoken in a seemingly safe environment, only to discover that said environment was far more dangerous than it appeared.
The status of a Buzhou Immortal Sect offered certain protections, but due to a combination of him being a late-bloomer and outer disciple for most of his life, he wasn’t valued much. Still, the status brought him enough respect from orthodox sects. It was the devilish forces that were the problems.
Devilish cultivators cared not one lick for order or honor. If they thought they could get away with it, the devilish cultivators would even attack the core disciples of the hegemonic sects. Sheng Ni as an unfavored and untalented disciple was their favorite type of prey.
Sheng Ni inspected his body and discovered that nothing had been taken from him, especially his spatial ring. He had happened to chance upon the ring from the tomb of a fallen nascent soul grandmaster when he left the sect to search for more resources. As an outer sect disciple, the sect did not care much for an untalented Foundation Establishment Realm disciple to leave the mountain; all he had to do was report it.
More importantly, Sheng Ni discovered that his wounds had healed, even his soul felt light and comfortable. Compared to physical wounds, soul injuries were far more difficult to recover from. Judging from this, Sheng Ni concluded that his savior did not mean him any harm, at least for now.
Thinking about it more logically, it was likely that his savior was a disciple of the vassal sects and decided to save him thanks to his connection to the Buzhou Immortal Sect. Sheng Ni was silently grateful to be part of the Buzhou Immortal Sect. Even if the sect did not nurture him much due to being untalented in his early years, the status still brought him many benefits.
Sheng Ni didn’t dismiss the thought that a native of the Demon Cage Realm might’ve saved him, unlikely as that was.
After making sure everything was alright, Sheng Ni left the room. It was time to meet his rescuer. It didn’t take long because as soon as he stepped out of his room, he saw a long hallway and the door towards the deck open by itself and a figure in purple sitting on a table waiting for him. Walking out into the sunlight, Sheng Ni’s eyes acclimated to the sudden change in light and recognized the figure in front of him.
The reason that Sheng Ni never thought that a fellow sect member rescued him occurred to him was because Tianyi was wearing purple robes, nonstandard clothing for disciples of the sect. Even those who had personalized their robes usually wore something similar to the Buzhou Immortal Sect’s uniform in some form. Of course, Sheng Ni’s injuries from fighting the demons had also contributed to the misconception.
“Thank you for saving my life, Senior Brother Xi.” Sheng Ni solemnly said as he cupped his hand together and bowed.
Tianyi waved his hand and said majestically. “No problem, as fellow disciples, we should help each other. No need to take it to heart. Come, have a seat.”
Sheng Ni hesitated for a moment before sitting down with Tianyi at the table, where Tianyi poured a cup of tea for Sheng Ni. Tianyi was crap at brewing tea, so the tea he had on hand was pre-brewed by Daoyi and stored away for occasions by Tianyi.
“Many thanks,” Sheng Ni said and sipped the tea. After allowing the tea to linger in his mouth for a bit and revealed a satisfied expression, Sheng Ni swallowed it. “Good tea.”
“Is that so?” Tianyi said humbly, but nevertheless, there was a please smile on his face.
In truth, Sheng Ni didn’t know what good or lousy tea was. Before joining the Buzhou Immortal Sect, he had been a simple villager, but he had learned a few lessons on how to pretend that he knew. If he didn’t, people might look down and think he was easy to fool.
The skill only came in more handy after his cultivation started to soar. Once he entered the Core Formation Realm, more and more people came to notice him, but his introverted personality remained the same. While he preferred to be alone, he still accepted some invites from time to time.
After a few more pleasantries, Tianyi got to the main point. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened for you to be chased by seven nascent soul grandmaster equivalent demons? Even if they aren’t as rare Unity Realm level demons, for seven of them to chase you is still out of the norm.”
Sheng Ni’s eyes became unfocused before sharpening once more. After a moment of silence, he began his tale. “It wasn’t seven demons that chased me, it was thirteen…”
When Sheng Ni had arrived at the Demon Cage Realm, he hadn’t followed Xia Yushan or grouped up with anyone else. Instead, he had gone solo. Sheng Ni had no interest in the fleshly body of demons but rather their souls. And he was picky, too, choosing those Nascent Soul Realm demons with superior strength.
A few years passed like this, with Sheng Ni diligently hunting down demons to increase his strength. Not long ago, Sheng Ni had temporarily settled down at a base created by the Leakless Sect and Monolith Sword Sect within the Jade Rabbit Clan’s territory to digest his gains.
Sheng Ni had attracted a large amount of hatred from the demons due to his actions of targeting strong demons. By this time, news of him had already traveled far and wide, with numerous demons grouping together to kill him. He had taken residence within the base as a form of defense.
Unfortunately, misfortune struck not long after.
The Jade Rabbit Clan and the Leviathan Clan had sent over ten thousand Nascent Soul Realm level demons and over a hundred thousand Core Formation Realm level demons and assaulted the base. It wasn’t a frontal assault either but a siege from all sides.
The cultivators were lax in their security and allowed the demons to remain undetected until they were a few kilometers away. This distance sounded large, but the sheer number of demons presented filled any holes that the cultivators could escape from.
Upon realizing this, He Luoli gathered all the cultivators within the base and led them to break out of the encirclement by focusing all their forces at one point. It was a simple but effective plan, and it would have worked as the cultivators were almost able to pierce through the wall of demons.
Just as they were about to break out, the Unity Realm level demons attacked. They had been hiding within the hordes of demons throughout the encirclement. When they saw the cultivators attempting to break through a single point, they assembled around that point and attacked at the critical time, exterminating over eighty percent of the cultivators.
At this point, He Luoli could only issue for everyone to flee using their judgment. It was true that He Luoli could fend off a Unity Realm expert, but there were simply too many demons, and he could not protect his fellow cultivators. The condition for victory to win was to flee, so He Luoli led a few close allies of his and escaped.
Sheng Ni was among those who managed to break the encirclement, but perhaps of his infamy among the demons, a squad of demons separated just to kill him. Sheng Ni had tried to escape using several different means, but there were just thirteen he could not shake off.
Normally, Sheng Ni would not mind fighting against those thirteen demons, but he had been injured by the Unity Realm level demons earlier, and he had wasted a large portion of his qi when escaping. After that, Tianyi eventually rescued him while he was on his last legs.
“I see,” Tianyi said as he held his chin. “And you’re sure that it was the members of the Leviathan Clan?”
Sheng Ni nodded.
“How strange. According to the information we received, the three great demon clans should not have a habit of forming alliances. Is it because of us or other reasons? Furthermore, is it only the Leviathan Clan and the Jade Rabbit Clan, or are all three clans in an alliance? Judging from the battle five years ago, the Golden Crow Clan should not be in an alliance as the participants were all avian demons. However, that does not mean an alliance could not have been formed after.” Tianyi began to mutter and analyze the situation aloud. In the end, he decided that the possibility of the fortress town being attacked was extremely high.
With Sheng Ni in tow, Tianyi made his way back as fast as possible. When Tianyi and Sheng Ni arrived, the fortress town was not under attack, much to Tianyi and Sheng Ni’s relief.
Using his spiritual sense, Tianyi sent a message to all the available cultivators within the town and the Vast Heaven Islands. Due to his rising prestige among the disciples, although they were unclear for the reason of Tianyi’s summon, over ninety-five percent of them arrived at the town center. Unfortunately, Xia Yushan, who Tianyi wanted to leave the matter to, was not present.
With over a thousand pairs of eyes focusing on him full of expectations, Tianyi realized that he had never given a speech to so many people. Before, Tianyi only needed to act cool and mysterious, not speak!
Realizing this, Tianyi felt nonexistent sweat coating his back.
Shit! I’ve never given a speech before, what should I do? What if I flub it up and make a fool out of myself?
He could already imagine it. Whenever he left Jade Peak, numerous disciples would stare at him in disdain.
“Hey, hey, isn’t that Senior Brother Xi?”
“Yeah, it’s Senior Brother Xi!”
“Pff, what a loser. Can’t even talk properly, what a senior brother.”
“Disgrace of the Buzhou Immortal Sect.”
Just as Tianyi began to lose himself to his delusions, Sheng Ni stood out and spoke out. He had mistaken Tianyi’s silence as a cue for him to explain the situation. After Sheng Ni finished his tale, Tianyi had already broken out of his delusions, and the crowd of disciples was furiously whispering among themselves.
“Those damn demons, huh. What a bunch of cowards, relying on numbers!” One disciple from the Nihility Sect shouted.
“You can’t call them cowards, they are fighting for survival. Even a cornered rabbit will bite back, much less demons who can think.” A disciple from Boundless Mountain added.
“Hmpf, I say let them come. Those people were caught off guard. If we had time to prepare, can the demons even act so rampantly?” An arrogant voice of a disciple from the Jade Cauldron Sect said. As the only second-rate sect invited, he didn’t want to seem cowardly.
“That’s hard to say. After all, we lack any unity venerables.” This time a Buzhou Immortal Sect disciple analyzed calmly.
“We cannot lose sight of our weakness in our arrogance. The Nascent Soul Realm and Core Formation Realm level demons aren’t a big threat individually. With careful planning, we can easily kill and hold them back even if they number over a hundred thousand. Even if we have to waste some spiritual stones or resources, it would be worth it with the corpses of those demons. However, their Unity Realm experts are an issue we cannot ignore.” A fellow Buzhou Immortal Sect disciple said, contributing to the former’s analysis.
“Senior Brother Xia, Daoist Moneybag, and others could combat against the Unity Realm experts, but defeating them is a bit… not to mention that Daoist Sheng counted more than nine Unity Realm level experts. Who’s to say there aren’t more in hiding?” A third one Buzhou Immortal Sect disciple said.
As elite disciples of their sect, after their bout of arrogance, they began to carefully analyze the situation, judging the strengths and weaknesses between them and the demons. If there was one person who could not only defeat Unity Realm level demons and even grievously injure them…
As time passed, more and more eyes began to focus on Tianyi once more. Noticing this, Tianyi felt his apprehension rise until someone finally committed the deed.
“Senior Brother Xi, what are your plans?” A Buzhou Immortal Sect disciple said, with complete confidence in her voice.
“Urk!” Tianyi grunted at the unexpected question. He coughed into his fist and spoke. “I plan on remaining Vast Heaven Islands whether or not the demons appear.”
“As expected of Senior Brother Xi, so unflappable under the face of hundreds of thousands of demons!” Another disciple from the Buzhou Immortal Sect said.
“Since Daoist Xi is so confident, I’ll follow to battle and defeat the demons!” This time it was a disciple of Boundless Mountain.
“Senior Brother Xi, I’ll follow your orders and teach those damn demons a lesson!” One disciple who had participated in the Heavenly Connection Gathering and saw Tianyi’s strength and subsequently became a fan, said.
Although not as fervent, many more voices of approval could be heard for Tianyi. Tianyi was caught off guard by such clamor to follow him, but under the expectant gazes of the cultivators, he could not say no.
The Vast Heaven Islands were immobile, and Tianyi simply wanted to defend the Vast Heaven Islands until he could carry it with him. He wasn’t unafraid of the demon’s assault, the sheer numbered scared him, and he didn’t want to think about how many Nascent Soul Realm level demons were present!
If push came to shove, he would decisively flee! Rather, he was hoping that the disciples would flee first. If they did, he wouldn’t have to be responsible for them!
Staring despondently into the sky, Tianyi proclaimed his first order as leader of the disciples present. A leadership forced upon him without his consent.
Tianyi’s first order was to relocate everyone from the fortress town to Vast Heaven Islands. Although this might incur some unhappiness of the people present as the more people on each island, the fewer benefits they received, Tianyi was the master of the domain, so screw their complaints.
He wasn’t even getting any remuneration from their occupancy, okay?
After that was done, Tianyi simply told everyone to prepare. With Vast Heaven Island’s natural properties, allowing others to set formations up would interfere instead of aiding them. Instead, Tianyi manipulated the rings of rocks into certain patterns and created a “natural” formation.
During this process, Tianyi began to worry about Daoyi and Xi Ri. He couldn’t help but wonder why he didn’t give the two any communication artifacts. At this thought, Tianyi palmed his face.
Using his will, he added the feature of a radio tower to the Vast Heaven Islands.
“Tianyi?” Daoyi’s surprised voice could be heard from the Xiyi talisman in Tianyi’s hand.
“Yeah,” Tianyi said. He quickly explained the situation and told her to return. After repeating the action for Xi Ri, only then did Tianyi feel his heart calm down.
After giving the Vast Heaven Islands the property of a radio tower, Tianyi began to have an idea.
“It could work, if it does…I’d be a genius…” Tianyi muttered to himself as he began to plan. He didn’t have much confidence in turning Vast Heaven Island into a realm-type artifact, so he wanted to fortify the defenses. After all, he had quite a lot of ‘volunteers.’
“Hmm?” Tianyi stopped his thought process as he reached into his robes and pulled out a black sphere that was the size of his palm.
It was the immortal pill. During the past five years, it had been slowly getting bigger. And now, Tianyi could feel it began rocking back and forth within his palm.
Clack
Clack
Clack
Crack!
A crack appeared on the outer shell, much to Tianyi’s amazement. Don’t tell me the immortal pill became an egg? Doesn’t that mean that my dream of having a dragon mount can be fulfilled?