Meng Lin’s eyes lit up with surprise and excitement. She hadn’t expected the system to reward her for something like this — at least, not directly.

  [You have received 1 Taoist gacha wheel ticket]

  [You have received 1 immortal jade]

  [You have obtained: Hollow Silent Forest Spirit Core]

  As the panels appeared, the air shimmered, and a glowing ball of energy appeared before Meng Lin.

  The orb gave off a rge amount of Qi, and just standing near it made Meng Lin feel as though she were in Pavilion Mountain, where the energy was so dense.

  Grasping the orb in her hand, a system description quickly appeared, expining what the item was.

  [Hollow Silent Forest Spirit Core]

  A dense ball of natural Qi formed from the Hollow Silent Forest. Contains no elements or will. Can be absorbed to boost cultivation or used as a power source in formations/arrays or weapons.

  Meng Lin narrowed her eyes slightly as she read the floating text, her fingers brushing over the surface of the core.

  "I wonder how it compares with the jade pendant, but I could use this during a breakthrough… or maybe as the power source of some powerful weapon."

  The thought lingered for a moment, but she eventually stored the core in her inventory. She would think about it more ter on.

  Just then, a streak of crimson light broke the clouds above. The Crimson Tortoise Dragon descended gracefully from the sky, its massive form coiling mid-air before nding softly on the cracked earth.

  Riding atop its back was her clone—expressionless, yet still carrying a faint air of Qi around its body.

  Meng Lin’s clone stepped forward, her boots sinking slightly into the scorched ground. Though expressionless, her tone carried fatigue akin to boredom.

  “We’ve finished sweeping the forest.” Her voice echoed slightly, as if the words were filtered through a yer of spiritual haze. “It took five grueling hours… but we got most of them."

  Meng Lin blinked. “Five hours?”

  The clone nodded once and reached into her robes, pulling out the jade pendant. It shimmered with a faint blue glow.

  “I was able to collect a total of 1,243 soul remnants from the beasts we eliminated,” the clone reported. “Most of them were rank 1 and 2, but 117 were at the early to peak rank 3. No rank 4 encountered…”

  Meng Lin took the pendant in surprise. "There were that many rank 3 left?" She narrowed her eyes, slightly excited.

  She had cut off her spiritual consciousness's connection to the clone before she had begun to cultivate, thus the clone acted based on the little consciousness it had, preventing her from knowing what the clone had been doing.

  “Not bad,” she muttered, mostly to herself. “A decent haul for a remote region like this.”

  The clone nodded slightly, her form flickering.

  “With the forest cleared, there's nothing of worth remaining."

  The clone looked up at her one st time.

  “My time’s up.”

  And with that, she dissolved into strands of shimmering light, her robes quickly falling to the floor, while her energy shimmered towards Meng Lin.

  Meng Lin took a slow breath, absorbing the clone's memories of the event that had just taken pce, noting how long the clone took to disappear after separating from her main consciousness.

  "It really is boring," Meng Lin muttered as she fshed through the repetition of killing and snatching souls from the spiritual beasts.

  Picking up the items that she had given the clone, she turned her attention inward before taking out the map detailing spirit beast locations on the Luo Kingdom.

  Among the hundreds of different zones, a few regions were highlighted with six stars, signifying the deadliest zones, beyond rank 4 and even rank 5 beasts.

  Her eyes scanned over the area closest to her current position, quickly locating the nearest forest—the Yunxiao Gold Forest. A steep mountain range with jagged mountain tops.

  "The closest forest is over thirteen thousand miles away…" she muttered. "It's pretty far away; more importantly, it's five stars, meaning at least three Rank 5 beasts are there."

  Meng Lin’s fingers quickly found their way underneath her chin as she weighed her options.

  Sending her spirit seal or her clone wouldn't suffice against Rank 5 threats. She'd have to go herself. “No point getting pulled into another mess,” she murmured, folding the map and storing it away. “I’ve already spent too much time here.”

  Other than the Yunxiao Gold Forest, the closest forest would be around twenty thousand miles away, so Meng Lin quickly calmed down the little excitement she had.

  She didn't want to spend too much of her time in this pce, Thus. With a thought, she soared into the sky, flying toward the distant silhouette of Qinghe City.

  Her body left a blue trail behind as she pierced through the skies at supersonic speeds, reaching the city within the hour.

  She descended directly at the city gates, ignoring the curious eyes of passersby as she made her way toward the teleportation array at the heart of the city.

  After a few minutes of walking she arrived at the pce, noticing how crowded the pce was.

  She quickly stepped onto one of the rger formations, showing her aura as well as her sect token.

  One of the guards bowed hastily. “Senior, your destination?”

  “Any city in the Scattered Isnd Region,” she said coolly, not remembering which cities were still intact after the beast wave over the continent.

  A few symbols lit up, and Qi surged around her. With a fsh of light, she vanished—teleported to one of the high-tier cities in the Scattered Isnds Region.

  ***

  In a blink, Meng Lin reappeared in the middle of another city—this one smaller, also brimming with natural Qi.

  A gust of wind blew, carrying the salty scent of the ocean. Leaving the teleportation formation, she looked around at nearby signs before she quickly recognized which city she ended up in.

  “Yuanzhi City… another subordinate city of the Breeze Sect,” she noted to herself.

  She walked the bustling streets briefly, scanning the various stalls and shops, trying to see if she could find anything interesting; however, none drew her attention.

  Quickly, she went to a nearby alleyway and drew the Void State Tablet from her inventory.

  "You know where to go now. Don't mess it up," Meng Lin commented, her tone very serious.

  The tablet, as though offended, hummed violently before space trembled and a bck fissure opened up behind Meng Lin.

  Before she could process what happened, she felt herself yanked into the fissure, barely able to make out the process.

  ***

  On the undisclosed isnd, high above the familiar mountain ridge, a rift split open in the sky.

  Meng Lin was spat out from the crack, steadying herself with effortless grace, her robes fluttering in the wind as the space behind her stitched itself shut with a faint hum.

  Did it just...? Meng Lin blinked, stunned as she gazed at the floating tablet that also appeared with her.

  The Void-State Tablet floated beside her, innocently humming as if nothing unusual had occurred.

  Meng Lin narrowed her eyes at it, and the tablet buzzed once—before turning away, as if choosing not to make eye contact.

  A vein threatened to bulge on her temple, but Meng Lin took a calming breath and shook her head, storing away the tablet she turned her gaze to the familiar ndscape below.

  The majestic pace was still standing as she had left it, quiet and empty, its glowing ptform still bathed in soft light.

  Meng Lin descended in silence, her figure cutting a graceful arc through the sky until she touched down on the glowing ptform.

  The moment her feet met the surface, the still air shifted, and a ripple appeared before her as space parted just a few feet ahead.

  From the opened rift, the serene figure of Li Yu appeared like an image, still seated cross-legged on the same bed as st time.

  “I wondered when you’d return,” Li Yu said softly, eyes opening with a faint smile.

  Meng Lin’s expression didn’t change, but a bit of tension eased in her shoulders; for some reason, she felt more rexed around her master.

  “I didn’t come to stay long,” Meng Lin replied, stepping forward. “Just to show you something."

  Li Yu’s gaze lingered on her for a breath before a faint smile curled at her lips. “Then come. There are still things here you’ve yet to see.”

  The slit in space widened to form a small gateway, through which Meng Lin walked in, feeling a seamless transition from the outside to her master's room.

  Entering, the first thing she noticed was the bed of pale jade her master sat upon—it gleamed with an inner luster that reminded her of the identical jade bed tucked away in her own inventory.

  She hadn’t thought about it in some time, but now, seeing this bed, she wondered if all Ascension Realm cultivators only cultivate on jade beds.

  The room itself was quiet, its air still and dense with some kind of energy. It pressed lightly against her skin as though aware of her presence.

  Her master’s voice quickly drew her attention back. "Take a seat."

  Meng Lin gnced around, hesitating for only a moment before settling cross-legged on a smaller jade ptform that rose silently from the floor beside her.

  She reached into her sleeve and drew out a small crimson ring. It looked just like an unassuming deep red metal, pulsing faintly as if it were alive.

  “The jade box,” she said quietly, “has changed to this.”

  Li Yu's brows lifted in intrigue. Meng Lin levitated the ring up to her master. “It transformed after absorbing the beast essence of a rank 6 insect. Its ability is to double the strength of whoever's wearing it, no matter the cultivation realm.”

  Li Yu leaned forward, a glimmer of genuine curiosity in her eyes. She lifted the ring, examining it closely, her divine sense brushing against its surface. A faint spark flickered, and her primal qi recoiled slightly.

  “Hm. The power of an aspect,” she murmured.

  Meng Lin tilted her head. Remembering the name given to the ring “Aspect?”

  Li Yu looked at her. “An unknown power. One that didn’t exist until just a thousand years ago. These ‘Aspects’ only began appearing after certain artifacts surfaced—each bearing strange properties and the same cryptic names.”

  She studied the ring again, then continued, “Most of these items have come from one of the many mountains within the Primal Sea. It's yet to be determined whether the Aspects are fragments of a higher w or something else entirely.”

  Meng Lin’s eyes flickered. “Then… this ring might be of use to you.”

  “Yes,” Li Yu said softly. " However, I can’t wear it,” Li Yu murmured. “There’s a binding inside—linked to you. If it’s severed forcibly, the item will likely be sucked back into the Primal Sea.”

  Meng Lin's expression darkened slightly. “So only I can use it.”

  “Yes,” her master said, setting the ring back to Meng Lin. “Although an item that doubles the user's power is astonishing, it doesn't compare with the core items you would find in those ancient mountains drifting through the Primal Sea.”

  “Ancient mountains?” Meng Lin’s eyes suddenly sparkled with realization.

  She leaned forward. “Master, the st time I was in the Primal Sea… I think I may have seen a mountain like that, towering mountains made of crystals. I also saw a giant sleeping within the strands of energies."

  Li Yu’s serene expression cracked for the first time. Her fingers stilled. “A giant…?”

  She looked down, stunned. “That may have been a Void Beast,” she said, her voice low. “And the mountains—if what you’re saying is true—it could be one of the wandering Ancient Crystal Peaks. A shame I was in hibernation at the time… I would've risked my life to explore it.”

  Meng Lin hesitated, then slowly reached into her robe and retrieved a folded map etched with faint silver ink.

  “I marked it,” she said. “I have a Realm Traveler's Map."

  Li Yu stared at her disciple for a moment, then snatched the map with a speed that betrayed her excitement.

  Looking through it, her eyes gleamed. “You little monster… you actually have something like this?” Her voice rose in amazement.

  “This coordinate…” she traced the map with a glowing fingertip. “If the current hasn't shifted drastically… I could still reach it in just a few days."

  Meng Lin frowned slightly. “You want to go there? The Primal Sea is chaotic and you're injured."

  Li Yu’s smile returned, this time more dangerous. “As long as I don’t linger for hundreds of years, the Sea itself won't be an issue.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  “I’ll prepare,” Li Yu said as she looked at Meng Lin with heated eyes. “You’ve given me something I’ve yearned for centuries.”

  Meng Lin didn’t reply immediately. Her fingers brushed against the ring in her hand as she contempted how to feel about this.

  For a moment, her rexed muscles were repced with tension and worry, a bitter taste rose in her chest.