What Makes for Good Fortune

The remnant souls of Punishment Yang Peak had fused their own bloodlines into the Spider Mother, both passing on their legacy and tainting her. Their lives had reached their end, but the Spider Mother's was still far from over. Demon Beasts lived far longer than human cultivators who had not reached Foundation Establishment.

But Demon Beasts advanced in cultivation far more slowly than human cultivators.

Only after swallowing the bloodlines her elders had left behind could the Spider Mother's cultivation grow rapidly, and she no longer needed to consume mortal Blood Qi.

But the taint had already taken hold. The bloodlines the remnant souls left behind had increased the Spider Mother's cultivation, but they had also destroyed her chance of reaching Foundation Establishment!

Now they had vanished like smoke, and the taint had gone with them. Just as they had planned, the Spider Mother had devoured the molt left by the Cicada Immortal and completed her metamorphosis!

But her bloodline from the ancient great shamans had not dissipated. Instead, it was condensing into Sacrificial Offering, Fortune and Descendants, the Immortal Foundation the surviving lineage of Punishment Yang Peak had dreamed of!

After the ancestral pool disappeared, there was no more Essence Blood left by the great shamans to help cultivators of the Punishment Sacrifice lineage purify their bloodlines. Naturally, they could no longer forge Sacrificial Offering, Fortune and Descendants, which required a pure bloodline as its foundation.

But they still had one chance: Radiant Wish!

After eating the Cicada Immortal's molt, the Spider Mother had indeed made contact with the wisp of Radiant Wish in the night sky above Jinping Mountain. The Radiant Wish, left behind by the incense and fire method the Cicada Immortal had cultivated, once again sensed the presence of its "master."

Radiant Wish was a rare treasure formed when the thoughts of living beings condensed over the flow of time. It could also serve as an offering with which unworthy descendants invited their ancient ancestors to partake!

Mandate of Heaven! Was this the Mandate of Heaven?

Only now, with all roads before him exhausted, did Fang Lin realize: did he truly have the Mandate of Heaven?

When that supreme existence had suddenly severed contact with him, he should have realized just how many heroes there were under heaven!

The sixth-grade Cultivation Method, Blood Sacrifice Severed Descendants Scripture, could condense the Immortal Foundation Sacrificial Offering, Fortune and Descendants. It was the fundamental method of the Punishment Sacrifice lineage. He had thought that, with the disappearance of the ancestral pool, this Immortal Foundation would never see the light of day again.

Yet the Spider Mother had swallowed the cicada molt and made the Radiant Wish mistake her for its master. That let her borrow Incense and Fire Prayer Power to connect with the ancestral sacrifices of the great shamans in her bloodline, purify that bloodline, and condense an Immortal Foundation.

Tonight on Jinping Mountain was a struggle to the death between Fang Lin and the Spider Mother!

He could only hope Brother Jiang would escape Jinping Mountain while the Spider Mother absorbed the Radiant Wish. And once she succeeded in Foundation Establishment, she would surely flee this place as well!

In the end, he had been too arrogant. He should have withdrawn without hesitation after contact with Him was suddenly severed. Brother Jiang had seen things clearly: once they had obtained the fruit, why seek perfection?

That Radiant Wish had still thrown his Dao heart into disorder!

Jiang Wangxuan, however, remained in the valley. His peach-blossom eyes watched the aberration, which could no longer be called the Spider Mother, slowly draw near the colorful Radiant Wish in the night sky.

At this moment, the starry night, wind and snow, brilliant colors, and the aberration, whose metamorphosed form had a touch of aesthetic design, created a bizarre sense of sanctity!

Big Fat Fish sent back nothing but error codes of every kind from within the Rising Yang Mansion. "I don't understand, Master. I don't understand any of it. It's all because you're too weak, Master. I can't tell what mysterious ritual this Spider Mother is performing at all!"

"Let blood be the incense, slaughter the fire, and the body the cauldron. Now I forge an Immortal Foundation and ask that fortune and descendants serve as kindling."

The Spider Mother's voice no longer had its former sawing rasp. Instead, it had become ethereal and holy. She was only one step away from forging her Immortal Foundation; she needed only wait for the Radiant Wish to enter her belly!

In the frost-covered peach grove, firelight still flickered. Fang Lin had not resigned himself to death. He still wanted to make one last attempt, but the layers upon layers of peach trees had trapped him where he stood.

"Big Fat Fish, it's normal not to understand the Spider Mother. We're not like Fang Lin. He comes from a great clan, and the texts he's read since childhood are naturally beyond our reach!"

"But don't you think he knows too much?"

Jiang Wangxuan looked at the aberration in the night sky and drew the magic sword from the Cavern Spring Talismanic Words Bracelet. Smiling calmly, he said to Big Fat Fish in the Rising Yang Mansion, "Whatever the Spider Mother is doing, before she forges her Immortal Foundation, she's still at her weakest."

The magic sword, Autumn Frost!

Beneath the moon, amid flying snow, Jiang Wangxuan charged into the frost-covered peach grove like an immortal banished from heaven. Peach branches howled toward him from every direction. Silver-white light flashed from Autumn Frost, cutting down every branch that tried to reach him like an autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves.

The first realm of the sword: Sword-Ray!

Jiang Wangxuan lightly formed a Method Formula in the air, summoning the phantom of a laurel tree to the ground. Moonlight's chill burst outward from the tree in rays of frosty soul-light, freezing the frost-covered peach grove, itself of the Cold Qi lineage, into moon sculptures instead.

Windblown snow fell, and the moon sculptures shattered into ice chips scattered across the ground. Half the peach grove was wiped out in an instant!

The Grand Yin path, third-grade spell: Moon Laurel Condenses Frost Soul.

Jiang Wangxuan leaped up again and found Fang Lin at the edge of the remaining grove. This Hearth Fire cultivator at Qi Refinement Perfection, this son of the Fang clan of Jixia who stood only one formality away from Foundation Establishment, was in a particularly sorry state!

Frost covered him from head to toe. He knelt on one knee, peach blossoms blooming luridly across his body. This Spider Mother truly meant to kill him and break his spirit: she wanted to use this son of the Fang clan as fertilizer for her peach grove!

Autumn Frost traced several silver-white lunar arcs through the night sky. They shot forth like arrows loosed from a fully drawn bow. The second realm of the sword: Sword Qi.

The lunar-arc Sword Qi descended from the sky and destroyed the peach trees around Fang Lin in a single strike, saving him from mortal danger. At any other time, Jiang Wangxuan might have landed and offered a comment or two.

Back when he and Xue Renya had studied swordsmanship under Master Tan, Jiang Wangxuan had mocked young Xue plenty. That nasty disposition of his had made young Xue furious.

But this really was not the time. In just a few breaths, most of the peach grove the Spider Mother relied on for protection had been destroyed. As she condensed her foundation in the air, she could not help recalling what she had just said.

"The power of Clear Water doesn't belong to you either." That really was ridiculous. The power truly did not belong to him.

Grand Yin! How could he be of Grand Yin?!

No, he was a Grand Yin sword cultivator, and he had even reached the realm of Sword Qi. How could a scion of a sect come to Jinping Mountain alone? Were his elders not worried?

A warm, bright beam of moonlight shone on Fang Lin, whose oil was nearly spent and whose lamp was about to go out. The warm moonlight instantly cleared the peach blossoms from his body, while his shattered meridians gradually healed beneath its radiance.

His empty Qi sea was like a pool into which a gushing spring had been poured. Pure, clear true essence surged endlessly into it. May the Anemo Archon hoodwink you! Ah, no!

The Grand Yin path, third-grade spell: Moon-Worshipping Spirit-Calming Benediction!

Hearth Radiance Kindling Fire covered Fang Lin's body once more. Somewhat dazed, he watched Jiang Wangxuan fly toward the Spider Mother.

The one whose body radiated the peaceful, upright true essence of the Grand Yin path was his Brother Jiang!

Jiang Wangxuan was at Grand Yin Qi Refinement Perfection and could also condense an Immortal Foundation at any time. No, what he had just used was a Grand Yin Secret Method like Moon-Worshipping Spirit-Calming Benediction. The Immortal Foundation he intended to cultivate was Autumn Moon Osmanthus!

At that moment, he understood again just how many heroes there truly were under heaven. Was this what the "good fortune" he had received before entering the mountain meant?

Brother Jiang, why didn't you use this form earlier and be done with it?!

"What are you standing there for?! Quickly, use your Secret Method to hold back that Radiant Wish!"

Jiang Wangxuan turned back toward Fang Lin, his cool, unquestionable voice echoing through the valley. Fang Lin, however, was about to open his mouth to warn him.

A golden-red great axe abruptly appeared in the air, while Jiang Wangxuan flew backward. He had naturally noticed the Spider Mother's rising presence suddenly plunge not far away!

She had drawn on the wondrous power of Sacrificial Offering, Fortune and Descendants, though it had yet to fully form, condensing a golden-red great axe that struck at him. Its blade locked down the surrounding space and cleaved into "Jiang Wangxuan."

But moonlight burst apart, and two moon shadows climbed along the axe blade. Their speed increased, and in an instant they escaped the golden-red axe's lock.

The Grand Yin path, fourth-grade spell: Moon Shadows Become Three People.

As the two moon shadows appeared to the left and right, several lunar-arc streams of Sword Qi struck simultaneously from both sides at the Spider Mother.

Wall after wall of ice rose in the air, only for the lunar-arc Sword Qi to slice through them like melons and vegetables. In the end, a golden-red phantom stood guard before the Spider Mother.

The phantom of a great shaman emerged from the Spider Mother's bloodline. The great shaman had no head, but used his nipples as eyes. Wielding the golden-red great axe, he used its broad side to block the deadly Sword Qi for her.

But the Spider Mother's presence fell again. She could scarcely maintain the stable state of Sacrificial Offering, Fortune and Descendants, yet faced with Jiang Wangxuan's assault, which swept all before it, she had no choice but to call upon her newly born Immortal Foundation to summon the great shaman from her bloodline!

She only needed to hold on for a few more breaths. The Radiant Wish was only a few fingers' breadth away. Once she swallowed it, she could make up for all the damage to her bloodline later!

"Let the hearth never go out, the kindling fire never cease. Let the body be the cauldron and the kindling the flame. I respectfully invite the Stove Lord!"

The Radiant Wish suddenly halted in midair, and orange-red flames flickered over its seven-colored brilliance.

When Fang Lin saw Jiang Wangxuan not only evade the great axe's attack but counter and drive the Spider Mother into a desperate plight, he used the true essence restored by Moon-Worshipping Spirit-Calming Benediction to execute Stove Inviting the Lord Instruction, forcibly holding the Radiant Wish back!

"Fang clan brat!" the Spider Mother said hatefully.

Now was the moment tonight's events would come to an end. The two moon shadows crossed through the air. The great shaman tried to raise his arm and strike, but the golden-red great axe had become a moon sculpture at some unknown point, and moon frost spread from it across his entire body.

One moon shadow then dissipated, transforming into the spell Moon Laurel Condenses Frost Soul.

Another lunar-arc stream of Sword Qi passed the great shaman's defense and reached the Spider Mother. The moon frost's chill carried by the Sword Qi had even begun to freeze her compound eyes.

A blood-red spear shot from her abdomen, and golden-red Essence Blood sprayed across the valley. The spear pierced the lunar-arc Sword Qi, and both it and the moon shadow vanished like bubbles.

But the danger had not passed. Instead, it came at her with even greater ferocity.

The headless Spider Mother turned her abdomen, and scarlet spider eyes grew from it one after another. Golden-red light aimed at Jiang Wangxuan, who had appeared behind her at some unknown point.

This was the third moon shadow of Facing the Shadow, Becoming Three People, and Jiang Wangxuan's true body.

This was the first time that night Jiang Wangxuan and the Spider Mother had looked at each other from so close. In truth, he and she had no dispute that could not be resolved!

In Jiang Wangxuan's indifferent eyes, the Spider Mother even sensed a trace of sorrow, for her and for the elders of Punishment Yang Peak who had long since departed!

This person is a little like him!