A Tip from Her Majesty the Queen?

Purple patterns of light poured from Queen Medusa's body and spread soundlessly like ripples, silently enveloping the entire shop.

This was the Purple Snake Barrier. Even a Dou Huang expert would need time and effort to break through it.

Medusa withdrew her hand and flicked her purple tail, shattering the shop door before swaying her way inside.

The shop was dimly lit, and the smell of old parchment filled her nose.

There were many desks and bookshelves around the room, old but clean.

Medusa glanced around without stopping and headed straight through the front room to the back.

In the courtyard behind the shop, she found an underground entrance. A narrow staircase led down, clearly to a secret chamber.

Meanwhile, deep inside the secret chamber.

Hai Bodong sat cross-legged on a stone platform, his hands forming a seal as the Dou Qi in his body struck the purple seal deep within his dantian over and over.

Yet for some reason, the seal remained utterly unmoved, like a rock.

"They say dripping water can wear through stone. Why is it that I've been striking this seal day after day, yet it hasn't loosened in the slightest?"

Hai Bodong opened his eyes, deep exhaustion and unwillingness showing on his aged face. His once sharp, ice-blue eyes had grown considerably cloudier, his temples were streaked with gray, and wrinkles covered his cheeks as though carved by a knife.

He clenched his fists, feeling the cold from deep within his bloodline after his failed attempt to break the seal. Irritated, he said, "Damn it. It seems I can't do it on my own. I can only gather the medicinal ingredients and take a gamble, then find someone to refine the pill."

Hai Bodong decided to convince himself to set aside his pride. Even if he would be charged an exorbitant price and lose face, he had to ask Fa Ma or Gu He to refine the pill needed to remove the seal.

But just then, a voice suddenly came from the entrance to the secret chamber, sounding like a devil's whisper to him. "My seal is naturally not something you can undo."

"As for the pill, I'm afraid you won't have time to find one."

"Hai Bodong."

The Snake-People Tribe's Snake Seal acted upon the bloodline itself.

Truth be told, Medusa was also surprised that Hai Bodong still hadn't dealt with the seal.

The seal required energy, and the energy she had left in Hai Bodong's body would naturally run out one day.

In short, if Hai Bodong had done nothing for the past dozen or so years, the Snake Seal would already have lifted, and he would naturally have regained his strength.

Instead, he had chosen to strike the seal at his dantian day after day. This drew upon the energy of heaven and earth, circulating it through his bloodline and replenishing the Snake Seal instead.

What a laughable fellow. Who told him to be so audacious as to snatch her map fragment?

"Q-Queen M-M-Medusa!?"

A chill ran through Hai Bodong's entire body. When he raised his head and saw the red-clad figure of exceptional grace at the entrance to the chamber, he felt as though he had plunged into an ice cavern, his soul frozen solid.

He could never forget that face, so beautiful it was almost bewitching, now wearing a playful smile.

This woman was his nightmare, and now that nightmare had descended into reality.

His extreme terror left him unable to muster the slightest thought of resisting or fleeing.

Medusa stood at the chamber entrance and said coolly, "The mighty Ice Emperor, hiding so miserably in a place like this all these years. How pitiful."

"This is the price of snatching my map fragment!"

"I told you, I didn't!" Hai Bodong's voice was hoarse, his bloodshot eyes fixed on her. "Back then, I took a fancy to that map fragment at an auction, but I couldn't outbid a Dou Wang, so I tried to snatch it. Who knew he'd flee all the way into the depths of the Tagor Desert?"

"Anything that enters my territory naturally belongs to me." Coldness flickered in Medusa's narrow purple eyes. "Hand over the map fragment. It's time it returned to its rightful owner."

"I can give you the map fragment." Hai Bodong knew what would happen if he refused. He had been no match for Queen Medusa back then, let alone now.

But he still wanted to make an effort. "Please, Your Majesty, be magnanimous and let me go."

"You're in no position to bargain," Queen Medusa said, her voice turning cold. "Give me the map fragment, and if I'm in a good mood, I may spare you. Refuse, and you'll die immediately. I can find it myself."

Hai Bodong despaired, but he also knew he could not resist.

"Fine!"

Hai Bodong could only obediently hand over the map fragment, which he had cut into two pieces.

During the day, he would place one piece on the dilapidated bookshelf outside as bait, to see whether anyone else had the same map.

"So this is the map fragment from back then." Queen Medusa held the two pieces, a thoughtful look flashing in her eyes.

Just then, the pages of the diary copy in her mind suddenly began to turn.

[Copy owner Queen Medusa has changed a fate node. Fortune reward granted.]

Before Queen Medusa could react, she felt a terrifying surge of energy well up without warning from deep within her bloodline, as though an ancient power dormant at its very end were awakening.

She felt her bloodline boiling, an unknown power igniting every drop of blood in her body.

Wherever that energy passed, her meridians expanded, her sinews and bones were tempered, her skin tightened and relaxed, and every part of her body underwent sublimation.

Not only that, the power also surged into her sea of consciousness and toward her companion snake soul, the Purple Nether Flame Snake, causing it to begin transforming as well. Its purple scales peeled away one by one in the light, shedding its old body like a snake shedding its skin and revealing brand-new scales shimmering in seven colors beneath.

The Purple Nether Flame Snake soon completed its transformation, becoming a Seven-Colored Giant Python even more resplendent than before. Within Medusa's sea of consciousness, it radiated a pressure that would make even the ancient heavens and earth tremble.

"Seven-Colored Heaven Swallowing Python!"

Queen Medusa looked incredulous.

The Snake-People Tribe was very unusual. Its members were born in human form, but the soul of a serpentine magical beast would be implanted in them as a companion snake soul. This was an application of a secret art from the Beast-People Tribe of the Northern Academy.

As time passed, their fusion with the serpentine magical beast would deepen, and its rank would affect a snake-person's cultivation talent and upper limit.

The serpentine magical beast Queen Medusa's tribe had implanted in her back then was a sixth-rank Purple Nether Flame Snake. It possessed a trace of the ancient magical beast, the Seven-Colored Heaven Swallowing Python's bloodline. If the opportunity was sufficient and it successfully transformed, she would have a chance at the potential of a Dou Zun.

Having been trapped at Peak Dou Emperor for far too many years, Queen Medusa had recently succeeded in finding a Heavenly Flame. She had been planning to use it to perform a secret art, stimulating the Purple Nether Flame Snake's soul to transform into a Seven-Colored Heaven Swallowing Python. If she succeeded, she would use the opportunity to break through to Dou Zong.

At that point, her potential, talent, bloodline, and strength would all undergo a qualitative leap.

But for an ordinary member of the Snake-People Tribe, using this secret art meant ten deaths and no life. Even for her, it meant nine deaths and one life.

She had never expected that today, merely by obtaining a map fragment through a coincidence, she would complete the transformation through the diary copy.

"Boom!"

After the Seven-Colored Heaven Swallowing Python's soul took shape, that power actually blasted it apart, then turned into a strange energy that fused into every inch of her flesh and blood.

Understanding dawned on Queen Medusa. With the diary's alterations, her body now possessed the Seven-Colored Heaven Swallowing Python's bloodline.

Whenever she wished, she could find a place to break through to Dou Zong and take human form.

"What a terrifying diary copy!"

Queen Medusa was not the only one who had that thought.

In the Ye Clan of Ye City, in the Central Plains, the pages of the diary in the mind of Ye Qingzhou, who was cultivating, also began to turn.

[Random diary reward obtained: one fifth-rank Seven-Colored Heaven Swallowing Python, Low Earth Tier Dou Technique Profound Flame Dragon Soaring (improved from the High-grade Profound Tier Dou Technique Profound Ice Dragon Soaring)]

Ye Qingzhou's eyes flew open, and he swore. "Holy crap!"

Where had this reward come from?

The rewards included not only a Seven-Colored Heaven Swallowing Python, but also an enhanced Dou Technique with a different attribute, improved from Profound Ice Dragon Soaring.

"Why did a reward suddenly show up?"

"Someone who didn't know better might think Queen Medusa sent me a tip."