Yi Wenjun 1
When Wen Qiushui opened her eyes, she still had some trouble telling whether she was dreaming or awake. After all, she had been sealed away at Kunlun Summit for so long that she had grown somewhat numb.
Wen Qiushui had been a True Disciple of the Kunlun Sect, a major cultivation sect. She was a striking, graceful beauty with a free and unrestrained temperament, renowned throughout the cultivation world for both her looks and her talent.
Besides that, though only in her early twenties, she had long since formed a Nascent Soul and become a fifth-grade Alchemist, with the highest grade being ninth. Her talent for alchemy was seen only once in ten thousand years. Even in a major sect like the Kunlun Sect, where prodigies were everywhere, she had ranked among the foremost of heaven's favored children.
She and Yu Nanjue, the sect leader's final disciple, had grown up together as childhood sweethearts. With her master and the sect leader as witnesses, they had since become engaged.
She had spent more than twenty years with the wind at her back and the current carrying her along. Yet during a mission to exterminate devils, an abnormality in her body revealed that she possessed a Devil Bone.
In an instant, the junior brothers and sisters she had once cared for and guided, her master and sect leader who had once cared for and cherished her, and her fiancé who had lavished affection on her all changed their faces.
Even though she had never done evil and had performed many good deeds, a single order had her Dantian crippled. Her shoulder blades were pierced, and she was locked in a dungeon.
In just one day, everyone had turned against her and her loved ones had abandoned her. Everywhere she looked, she saw enemies.
Wen Qiushui had begged her beloved Yu Nanjue for help, pleading with him to believe that her heart was set on the Dao. She had even been willing to risk her life to cut out the Devil Bone.
Sadly, the tender affection of their ordinary days had now taken on a hateful face. All their sweet nothings had earned her only one sentence: "Your life may be spared."
How laughable! What wrong had she, Wen Qiushui, committed that she needed those hypocrites to spare her life with such false pretenses?
During those days of ridicule, abandonment, torment, and disgust, Wen Qiushui finally lost all hope in her so-called teachers, friends, and beloved.
Expressionless, she was taken by her former lover and her master to Kunlun Peak, the Kunlun Sect's forbidden ground. Dark iron chains covered in talismans and incantations were wrapped around her, and eighty-one sealing nails were driven into the coffin. From then on, she was suppressed within Kunlun's forbidden ground, never again to see the light of day.
As for why they had not killed her or cut out her Devil Bone, Wen Qiushui did not believe it was because they pitied her or could not bear to part with her.
For the first ten years, Wen Qiushui hated them! She hated that a single Devil Bone had made the friends and family of old turn their faces against her, that everything in the past had been false affection. Thanks to her mastery of alchemy, she had once saved many people, yet not one was willing to step forward and say a word for her. All of it became a deep hatred that spurred her to endure and wait for the day she could take revenge.
For the next ten years, she wanted to die. Sealed in a coffin where she could not cultivate, where there was no Spiritual Qi and she could not move, Wen Qiushui, once a favored child of heaven, truly could not bear it. She thought that if she had simply died back then, that might have been fine too. Unfortunately, she possessed a Devil Bone, and even without cultivating, she would neither age nor die.
Later still, as time stretched on, Wen Qiushui lost all sense of it. Year after year, she studied and recalled in her mind every text she had once read in the scripture library. Though she could not cultivate, she spent those silent days mentally simulating and devising innovations in various arts.
After enough days had passed like this, even the deepest hatred was diluted by time. If she had the chance, she would still take revenge on the Kunlun Sect for heartlessly turning against her. But hatred—what was that? Were those people worth it?
She no longer loved, nor did she hate. She wanted only to grow stronger, to become the strongest person in the world, so strong that no one in the world could ever again decide whether she lived or died.
Then one day, when her heart was as still as water, she saw a thread before her, faintly glowing red. Some information suddenly appeared in her mind: the thread was a person's root of emotion. It could appear before one's eyes only after a person had been caught up in love and hate, then let them go.
If she severed the root of emotion before her, she would know no more love, hate, anger, or folly for the rest of her life, becoming heartless and without feeling. Once she had severed it, she could cultivate the Cultivation Method inherent in her Devil Bone, one that led straight to the Great Dao: the Heavenly Devil Instruction.
The Heavenly Devil Instruction focused on dual cultivation of the devil path and the Dao, but it also encompassed everything: Swordsmanship, saber techniques, Technique Methods, alchemy, body tempering, and so on.
The Heavenly Devil Instruction had nine levels, and only someone with a Devil Bone could cultivate it. Each level had to be cultivated twice: first the Devil Cultivation Method, then the Dao method. Though it was called the Heavenly Devil Instruction, it was a Cultivation Method for dual cultivation of the devil path and the Dao.
Wen Qiushui also learned why the Kunlun Sect had suppressed her with layers of arrays, talismans, and incantations instead of killing her or cutting out the Devil Bone. The Devil Bone was born and nurtured by heaven, without trace or form. If its host were killed, or if a way were actually found to cut it out, it could neither be destroyed nor sealed away. It would instead vanish at once and seek another host.
And once all nine levels of the Heavenly Devil Instruction were mastered, no one in heaven or on earth could stand against her.
Wen Qiushui gave a cold laugh. Just as she had thought: with the way they had turned on her and disowned her, they certainly had not spared her life out of pity or affection.
She looked at the root of emotion before her and, without hesitation, projected the mental power of her sea of consciousness outward to sever the useless root.
There was no earth-shaking phenomenon. The red thread before her instantly crumbled into dust and dispersed between heaven and earth. Wen Qiushui also felt much lighter, and when she recalled the past events that had changed her life, she no longer felt much resentment, shame, or anger.
Though Wen Qiushui's Dantian was now crippled and all her cultivation power gone, it made little difference as long as the Devil Bone remained. The first level of the Heavenly Devil Instruction was to shed the mortal frame and exchange the bones, refining body and soul into their optimal state.
During this refinement stage, she could either use only the power generated by circulation within her body or also absorb external Spiritual Qi to speed up the process.
Thus, the first two levels had no requirements concerning the external environment.
Putting further thoughts aside, Wen Qiushui greatly cherished the chance to cultivate again and turn her life around. Silently reciting the Heavenly Devil Instruction's mnemonic, she began cultivating its first level.
An unknown amount of time passed again. Wen Qiushui's Dantian was restored to its original state, her body was free of impurities, and her meridians were unobstructed. Even without actively circulating the Cultivation Method, her body would absorb Spiritual Qi on its own to strengthen itself.
Such aptitude was hers alone in the entire world.
Wen Qiushui then began cultivating the second level of the Heavenly Devil Instruction. Upon mastering the second level, she would also reach the pinnacle of mortal martial arts, and her entire body would be forged anew. Starting from the third level, she would enter the Dao and cultivate the devil path, which was called cultivation of the immortal path.
Yet when Wen Qiushui mastered the second level, she could not break through to the third, no matter what she did. Only after sensing carefully did she discover that the first two levels cultivated and perfected the self, requiring no absorption of external Spiritual Qi, Devil Qi, or the like. The third level, however, required the absorption of external power.
Unfortunately, Kunlun Summit was now a place devoid of spiritual power. Not only spiritual power, but even devil power and baleful Qi could not be absorbed in the slightest.
Just as Wen Qiushui was at a loss, a dull gray bead in her sea of consciousness flashed. In an instant, it drained all the True Qi Wen Qiushui had refined on her own over that time, and she instantly lost consciousness.
When she opened her eyes again, she was in a place that was clearly a woman's private chamber.