Black Fog

Qingxi circled the house, setting up a simple Spirit Gathering Formation along the way. She had just finished when she heard footsteps. Turning around, she saw Dugu Yan.

"How did it go?"

"Of course she agreed. She gets a granddaughter for free. Don't you think so, little sister?" Dugu Yan said with a sly smile.

"Yes, yes, yes. How old are you, and you already want to be my big sister? I'm over seven hundred years old if you count both my lives." Qingxi scoffed.

"So Master, you're actually an old monster!" Dugu Yan's eyes widened. Her master rarely spoke about her past.

If she hadn't let it slip, Dugu Yan would never have known her master was this old.

"Seven hundred is very young for a cultivator, all right? Besides, I was already at the Void Realm back then. If not for... I would have become immortal and indestructible. The people of your world just have far too short a lifespan. I've never seen a cultivation system like yours."

"Life is fleeting, like an epiphyllum blooming for a single night—beautiful, but gone in a flash. So mortals began seeking the path to immortality, all for power beyond everything else. They sought eternal life..." As she spoke, Qingxi took a thick book from her Storage Bag. "I wrote this book from memory. It records the lives and deeds of the most renowned figures in the immortal sects throughout the ages. Though most of them have fallen, their stories still shine like a brilliant river of stars. Stop spending every day playing around."

"You're the one who likes playing around, Master." Though she said that, Dugu Yan still took the book. On its brown cover, the title History of the Daoist Sect was written in delicate script.

"What's this?" She opened the book, puzzled.

"Read up and learn a thing or two. I have volumes two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine, too. Make good use of the Spirit Gathering Formation and cultivate. I'm going into seclusion. Don't disturb me unless it's important." She waved and headed for her room.

Once inside, she took out the refined iron she had collected during the day. A fleck of golden flame shone brilliantly within her dantian, then appeared in her palm. Its scorching heat warped the air around it.

The flame engulfed the iron, tempering it and burning away every impurity until it melted into a black liquid. She controlled the flame's intensity, then used her spiritual power to shape the liquid into the form she needed.

She didn't know how long it took, but after using up more than half her spiritual power, a conical mechanical sphere about the length of a finger appeared before her.

It was hard to imagine that a hundred pounds of refined iron had been reduced to a tiny speck no bigger than a thumb. She took out several exceptionally fine spirit stones and refined them as well, using them as the machine's core.

Then she channeled her own power into the spirit artifact bit by bit, endowing it with an ability.

And so, a treasure capable of unleashing a peak late-stage Nascent Soul cultivator's full-strength strike came into being.

"Interesting." Qingxi toyed with the conical sphere. Its core contained seventy-two mechanisms, perfectly storing the power she had infused into it.

This was a Hidden Weapon, one of the mechanical creations of the Artificer Sect's Yanshi branch, the sect most skilled in crafting artifacts. It was renowned throughout the immortal world for selling all kinds of machinery.

Back then, Yanshi Gu had wanted to borrow her power to complete a peerless weapon capable of killing an immortal. Since completing such a mechanism usually required cultivation surpassing the immortal realm, he had sought her out.

And she had learned part of the Artificer Gate's legacy in turn.

Qingxi put away the Hidden Weapon, weariness showing on her face. The only difficulty with this forging technique was how heavily it drained her spiritual power.

In her sea of consciousness, a pale-red lotus gave off a gentle glow, replenishing the spiritual power she had expended.

She sat cross-legged on her bed, closed her eyes, and circulated the Chaos Art. The spiritual energy around her gathered toward her little by little.

All she could see was a vast expanse of white mist. She walked forward, and a mountaintop wreathed in clouds and fog came into view.

Spiritual energy filled the air. Strange flowers and exotic plants grew all around. A young girl sat obediently on a meditation cushion, listening as the old Daoist at the front taught the Dao.

"Disciple, let me ask you: as you cultivate the Dao and seek to become an immortal, what is your ideal?"

"Hmm, I want to be like Great Sage Equal to Heaven Sun Wukong and wreak havoc in Heaven!" The girl was brimming with excitement, her eyes full of longing.

"Foolishness!" The old man rebuked her and brought his ruler down on the girl's head.

That was the first time she had ever been beaten by her master.

Even so, she later chose the Universe Staff.

Afterward, she saw the cheeky monkey pinned beneath Five Elements Mountain with her own eyes. She also saw her master turn into an old man and offer him a bowl of longevity noodles.

Only then did she learn that the famous Sun Wukong was her master's disciple, too.

She kept it from her sect and traveled west with Tang Sanzang and the others, witnessing a test of human nature, the taming of wild beasts...

"So you're the anomaly who came from the East?" A clear, ethereal voice suddenly rang by her ear.

Something was wrong!

A chill flashed through Qingxi's eyes. The Universe Staff appeared in her hand, and she swung it, shattering the memories before her like a mirror. What remained was only endless darkness and nothingness.

In the void, a mass of black mist drifted in midair.

Better to strike first!

Qingxi thrust her staff at the black mist.

The mist instantly scattered, only to gather together again.

"Universe in Palm?" The voice within the black mist sounded surprised.

"What are you?" Qingxi furrowed her brows. The Universe Staff's Evil Breaker power could suppress all evil, yet it had no effect whatsoever on the black mist before her.

"Take a guess."

She didn't answer. Instead, she raised her hand, and a fleck of golden flame appeared in her palm. She tossed it into the black mist. The mist instantly caught fire and vanished, leaving only the little golden flame, which Qingxi drew back into her body.

"Chaos Fire Seed? And Universe in Palm... Are you Mingxin of the Daoist Sect?" The next second, a formation appeared and vanished. The whole thing took barely a second, and the black mist appeared again.

"You know me?! Are you from Blue Star, too?" Qingxi stared at the black mist as it reappeared, surprise flashing in her eyes.

If she hadn't mistaken it, the formation just now had used the laws of time.

And Mingxin was her Daoist name, given in the hope that her heart would always remain clear and bright. She had never told anyone in this world.

Unless this person had known her all along.

She activated her Spirit Eye and focused on the black mist, but there was nothing within it—not even a trace of life. It was merely a wisp of lingering consciousness.

"Hahahahaha... The great and famous immortal bones and spirit marrow, a mighty expert of the immortal realm, reduced to this! Heaven itself must have decided I wasn't meant to die!" The black mist rang with arrogant laughter.

"Mingxin, I know you want to reach the immortal realm through cultivation, shatter the void, and return to your homeland. I want the same thing. But I can tell you for certain: you won't make it. You won't even have the chance to face the tribulation of Spirit Division."

"Absurd!" Qingxi pointed her staff at the black mist, her eyes icy.

"Don't believe me, then. The cultivation system of our world won't be acknowledged by Heaven in this one. Look at this world. It's been around for tens of thousands of years, yet do its people know anything beyond Soul Power?" The black mist circled her once, then let out a derisive laugh, as if mocking the foolishness of all its people.

"In just ten thousand years, the mortal world saw a hundred schools of thought flourish. The immortal world has existed for millions of years, with countless sects and millions upon millions of Daoist arts. But this world... it's stubbornly set in its ways. I've been here for a million years, and my cultivation has stalled at the Tribulation Transcendence Realm. To cross the immortal tribulation, I even prepared a Flying Immortal Pill..." The black mist's voice was heavy with dejection and despair.

"I failed, and the enforcers of this world cut me in two. My life ended, and my Dao perished..."

"How did you fail?" Qingxi looked at him. Anyone who had made it that far couldn't be a nobody.

"Heaven wants me dead, and it'll want you dead, too! I tried to teach the Dao and take on disciples, but in the end... they all died. Not one of them made it through the Spirit Division Tribulation..."

Heaven...

Qingxi furrowed her brows. Mortals cultivating immortality was already defying Heaven, but Heaven would never interfere in the affairs of the mortal world.

"You sought me out. You can't have done it just to tell me all this, right?"

"..." The black mist fell silent for a long time, then slowly spoke. "I want to go home."

"I spent a long time searching for answers among mortals. The only disciple of mine to pass the Spirit Division stage came from this continent. His Soul Power was level 99, and he nearly made it through the Spirit Division Tribulation. Unfortunately, he was a Soul Beast."

"I suspect the difficulty of the immortal tribulation may be tied to Soul Power. Of course, a Primordial-grade divine artifact would also be enough to stand against Heaven."

"Are you trying to fool me?" Qingxi's face darkened. She didn't actually want to cultivate a Martial Soul. After all, Soul Master cultivation was utterly incomparable to immortal cultivation.

"Tsk, tsk. Such a fine Primordial-grade divine artifact has fallen into this state. Have you ever wondered why its divinity is sealed? I watched your Nascent Soul lightning tribulation. You nearly got struck to death. Imagine what the Spirit Division Tribulation will be like... Tsk, tsk, you'll get blasted into a flower!"

Her face black as thunder, she swung her staff at the black mist, leaving behind a trail of afterimages.

"Reach level 100 Soul Power and unseal all of Universe in Palm. Become a god at level 100, and use the Primordial-grade divine artifact to fight the tribulation. It's the only chance either of us has."

"Hah! You're just clinging to a wisp of consciousness that you repaired with the laws of time. Lying through your teeth!"