Li Bufan stood at the edge of Water Marsh Forest, watching Unfixed settle on a shrub branch. The quiet satisfaction in his heart had not yet faded when an important question occurred to him.
He walked up to the shrub and looked at the jade-green cicada. "Unfixed, have you received the inheritance Daoist Heavenly Gu left behind?"
Unfixed's compound eyes shifted slightly, and dark gold light flickered deep within them. "You mean the statue surrounded by nine jade pillars in that underground chamber?"
Li Bufan paused. "You know about it?"
Unfixed's wings trembled softly. "I've been to every corner of this secret realm, including that chamber. I found it long ago and came into contact with the inheritance imprints on those pillars."
"But I had only just begun cultivating then. My cultivation was still shallow, and the techniques and mysteries within the inheritance were far too profound for me. With what little I knew and understood at the time, I couldn't fully grasp them."
"All I could do was swallow those imprints whole and commit them to memory, then wait until my cultivation improved to contemplate them properly."
Li Bufan nodded and asked, "How strong are you now? You received that inheritance and have cultivated for so many years. You must be quite powerful by now."
Unfixed fell silent for a moment, as though carefully assessing his own cultivation.
At last, he said, "I'm only one step away from the Demonic Core Realm."
Li Bufan's pupils contracted. The Demonic Core Realm.
Of all the Origin Tracing Realm demonic beasts he had encountered since entering the Ten Thousand Insects Secret Realm, the spider was the only one to have formed a Demon Core. Though its core was incomplete, it had still been enough to make the spider a king among its