Lady Cultivator

It wasn’t the first time they experienced a collapse of restrictions. Qin Xi acted very calmly. He pulled up the Three Yang Real Fire Sword and cast a sword formation then pulled Mo Tiange and flew forward. The flying cloud’s speed reached its max, and they flew toward the exit of Demonic Mountain.

Along the way, countless cultivators all flew in the same direction for the exit.

It was time to run for their lives. Everybody used their unique skills to escape and no one dared to hold back any tricks.

Nevertheless, there were still many cultivators who didn’t get out in time and were stuck in the collapse, instantly turning into black ashes.

Mo Tiange saw with her own eyes that Daoist Kumu and Tong Tianyun, who traveled with her in the beginning, were also drawn into the restriction and died immediately.

Not long after they entered Demonic Mountain, they were separated from these two. Later, Mo Tiange learned from Jing Xingzhi that the two of them really harbored bad intentions. They watched Madam Feng die and watched Lei Dongqing die. Then, relying on the ten-thousand-year-old spiritual plant, they made a deal with Nascent Soul cultivators and went to Immortal’s Ruins.

But now, they ended up here and died. Even though they made a deal with Nascent Soul cultivators, they didn’t get anything good out of it! But it also made sense, Mo Tiange thought. Even though she and Qin Xi had a Nascent Soul Master, they never planned on going with Lord Daoist Jinghe. Did those two really think those Nascent Soul cultivators would protect them for the sake of a ten-thousand-year-old spiritual plant? Or perhaps they understood the risks clearly, but they didn’t take that into consideration as their lifespans were going to end anyway.

The restrictions crumbled faster and faster, the rumbling continued, and countless cultivators ran toward the exit. Qin Xi was calm at first, but he also became anxious later on.

Compared to his visit more than eighty years ago, the noises were even worse. Master was right—it was more dangerous than last time!

But no matter how fast they ran, they weren’t as fast as the collapsing restrictions. Soon, the cultivators not far behind them also went down, and the screams kept coming.

“No!” Mo Tiange shouted. “We can’t run like this… ”

How could Qin Xi not know that? But where could they find safety at this hour? When restrictions on Demonic Mountain collapsed last time, he and Ye Hai had good luck and happened to hide in the cave on Tens of Thousands of Feet Peak. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to survive either.

This time, Qin Xi also had no intention of hiding any skills. He laid out the sword array quickly with dazzling lights, blocking more and more free restrictions in the air; he maintained his movements and took out several treasures from his Qiankun Bag, using them on himself as well as Mo Tiange. He said hurriedly, “At least they can protect us for a while.”

Thunder rumbled overhead, and Mo Tiange’s facial expression changed. Qin Xi said, “It’s too late. We have to give it a shot!” As he spoke, he made a hand seal and gathered spiritual aura all around himself, preparing to use a secret technique.

Mo Tiange was startled in her heart. She didn’t know what secret technique Qin Xi planned to use, but she could tell from his hand seal that it needed blood essence! Once he used such a magic art, the good thing would be that he could get some rest, but the bad thing would be a regression in cultivation level! He had reached the peak stage of the Core Formation realm, but if he regressed, it would be hard to say when he could reach the Nascent Soul realm.

“Senior Martial Brother, don’t…”

Qin Xi ignored her. A few drops of blood essence forced their way out of his body. He reached out and touched them, and a red glow immediately flashed on his sword. As he was about to use the Three Yang Real Fire Sword, the spiritual aura suddenly became unstable in the next moment, and the red glow dimmed. Qin Xi’s face darkened. He used his blood essence to look for Tiange earlier, which had cost some of his strength. Now, he couldn’t even use the secret technique.

Upon realizing this, Qin Xi really panicked! He had felt calm until now because he had the secret technique. At least he could get Tiange out of here even though he might get injured, he thought. But Qin Xi didn’t expect that he wouldn’t be able to use his secret technique because of the loss of blood essence earlier!

“Tiange!” Qin Xi thought many things in his heart, and finally, he gritted his teeth and pulled Mo Tiange’s hand. He said, “If we can’t get out of here, let’s die together!” As he spoke, he didn’t wait for Mo Tiange’s response but turned into a flight light again and flew toward the exit. Life could end any minute now.

Mo Tiange suddenly pulled his hand to stop.

“Tiange!” Qin Xi was anxious. “What’s wrong?”

Mo Tiange revealed a serious expression and looked up. Black clouds rolled overhead, covering the whole sky. It was clear that the initial instability of the restrictions had triggered a massive collapse of restrictions in the sky, which, if it went on for a while, would lead all the way to them. Although Qin Xi’s flying cloud was extremely fast, it was really hard to say whether they could escape or not.

Qin Xi was very anxious. “It’ll be too late to leave now!”

Mo Tiange was silent. She put her arm around his waist, gathered spiritual aura at her fingertips, and pointed between her own eyebrows. A large, round bead blossomed in the middle of her eyebrows, emitting a misty white light.

Qin Xi’s eyes widened. This was…

The sound of wind and thunder grew louder, and the restrictions broke faster than they expected. People kept getting sucked in, and there was no time for screams. They just disappeared.

Mo Tiange recited the incantation silently and struck the bead. The white light exploded suddenly, engulfing the two of them.

When the white light disappeared, Qin Xi was dumbfounded.

A bamboo house, bamboo forest, a breeze, flowing stream, and an herbal fragrance lingered on the tip of his nose.

It was a somewhat familiar but completely different scene.

After entering the Virtual Sky World, Mo Tiange breathed a sigh of relief. Feifei jumped into her arms, wagging its tail. It squeaked.

Mo Tiange smiled and petted Feifei for a while in her arms, then she patted its head and let Xiaohuo out, leaving the two to play. She looked around carefully. Things hadn’t been cleaned in a long time, and the medicinal fields had grown weeds again. She took out the two stone sculpture puppets from her Qiankun Bag and made them clean up the fields. The two puppets were powerful enough to do these chores for her.

After making these arrangements, she looked up and saw Qin Xi finally coming to himself.

There was both shock and realization in his eyes. He caught her eye and sighed with emotion. “I finally understand that this is your biggest secret.”

Mo Tiange smiled. She pulled him into the bamboo house and threw a futon at him. “So you don’t need to ask any other questions, do you?”

“No.” Gradually, Qin Xi thought through a lot of things. Her pill-concocting skills, all of her medicinal pills, the ten-thousand-year-old spiritual plants, her spiritual beast’s cultivation level, and all of the things about her that were confusing came from here: her Virtual Sky World!

He thought for a moment then asked, “Where did you get this Virtual Sky World? Did your great ancestor give it to you?”

Mo Tiange shook her head. “No.” Zhong Muling once said that there were only two known Virtual Sky Worlds, both of which were owned by Deification cultivators. So how could he have given her one? Even if he owned one, she was only a Foundation Building cultivator at that time. He wouldn’t have given it to her.

“Then how did you get this?”

Mo Tiange thought for a while and said, “It was kind of a fated chance. When I got it, I didn’t know what it was until I entered my great ancestor’s virtual sky world.”

“At that time… “Qin Xi understood and nodded his head. “It’s no wonder that since then, you’ve progressed so fast. It turns out it wasn’t only because you learned the Art of the Origin but also because you got such an astounding treasure.”

Upon seeing that Qin Xi’s eyes were full of surprise but without a trace of any greed, Mo Tiange smiled. It was a gamble to let him in on such a big secret, but luckily, he had lived up to her trust so far.

“You’re… not going to ask why I didn’t tell you?”

Upon hearing this, Qin Xi smiled. He reached out his hand and touched her face, saying, “Do I need to ask that? Even if it were me, I wouldn’t tell anyone such a big secret. Everyone is innocent, but a precious stone can land its innocent possessor in jail, and that’s especially so in the world of immortal cultivation. You know how to protect yourself. That’s most important.”

Mo Tiange looked up at him and asked again, “So you wouldn’t have blamed me if I never told you about this?”

Qin Xi shook his head. “Why would I blame you? Even if you never mentioned it, I’d have nothing to blame you for. In fact, I think you’ve taken quite a risk by bringing me here today. Are you that certain I won’t harbor bad intentions upon seeing this Virtual Sky World?”

Mo Tiange hesitated for a moment and answered, “I didn’t have time to think about anything else; I just thought that we couldn’t die there… Moreover, this Virtual Sky World has recognized me as its master, so you can’t hurt me here.”

“If I really thought carefully, I wouldn’t hurt you here,” Qin Xi said. “If I acted normally here after I found out your secret, but I imprisoned and questioned you when we got out, what would you do then?”

His tone was harsh, even accusatory.

Mo Tiange was stunned and asked, “Isn’t it good that I believe in you?”

Qin Xi sighed, saying, “I know you believe in me, but cats hide their claws… Trust sometimes comes at a price. The price you may pay is too high. If you aren’t careful, you’ll be crushed!”

Upon seeing that Mo Tiange lowered her head after his scolding, Qin Xi smiled again. “Of course, I can be an exception, but never do it again, okay?”

“En.” Mo Tiange also smiled. “Of course there won’t be a next time. If it wasn’t you, I wouldn’t have brought you in!”

She had thought about this question many times. If it weren’t for their lives being in danger today and having no time to think, she wouldn’t have brought Qin Xi in. In fact, after bringing him in, she also felt uneasy, but Qin Xi’s reaction made her feel that her trust in him was worth it.

Thinking back to the danger today, Mo Tiange then asked anxiously, “Master is still in Immortal’s Ruins. Could he be in any danger?”

This question made Qin Xi silent for a while. He was also worried, but now that huge restrictions had collapsed on Demonic Mountain, they couldn’t go out.

“Master won’t fall so easily,” he said. “Let’s take care of ourselves first. We’ll wait for a while until the restriction is stable, then we’ll go find Master.”

“En.” Mo Tiange didn’t have any good solutions either, so she agreed.

Upon sensing that the atmosphere between them was a little heavy, Mo Tiange smiled. “Since we’re here now, let me show you the medicinal fields. I’m not as good as you in pill-concocting yet, so you could give me some suggestions on how to deal with these spirit herbs.” As she spoke, she pulled him to the medicinal fields and told him about the Virtual Sky World.

Qin Xi looked at the thick herbs in the medicinal fields and was shocked for a long time. He sighed. “These herbs are enough for a big sect to use for hundreds of years. If not picked excessively, they might even be enough to support a sect to dominate the Celestial Pole forever.”

“You’re just saying that. I wouldn’t dare take them out. A ten-thousand-year-old spiritual plant is enough to make Nascent Soul cultivators fight each other fiercely, and having so many here… They could cause huge waves.”

“En, you’re right.” Qin Xi agreed. “Even if they were rotted here, you couldn’t easily take them out. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be just you, but the entire Celestial Pole would also go through chaos.”

He lowered his head to look at the medicinal fields around him. There were many spirit herbs he only heard about in legends but had never seen. These spirit herbs had been trimmed and had grown here for a long time, from old to young, including ones that were hundreds of years old and ones whose buds had just come out.

“You said the Virtual Sky World has existed for hundreds of thousands of years, but why are the oldest of these spirit herbs only tens of thousands of years old?”

Mo Tiange learned the answer to this question from the Virtual Sky World. “Spirit herbs also have a lifespan. Generally speaking, they live around ten thousand years to tens of thousands of years, so the best time to pick them and refine them into medicinal pills is when they reach ten thousand years old because at that time, they’ve reached the peak of their medicinal effect and if they’re allowed to continue to grow, they will only die.”

“So that explains it.” This was the first time Qin Xi had heard about this. Among today’s cultivators, ten-thousand-year-old spiritual plants were rare, and it was true that not many people knew about this.

Mo Tiange stood in the middle of the medicinal fields. She looked at the numerous ten-thousand-year-old spiritual plants then looked at the two stone sculpture puppets that were busy working. She smiled. “Since we can’t get out now, why don’t you help me sort out the medicinal fields?”