With Wei Tu's stance made clear, the Right Virtuous King's estate had no grounds to pressure him into joining the Sword Trial Competition anymore.
Soon after, the Second Prince picked a female rogue cultivator named Yue Qian from the recommendation list to replace Wolfslayer and represent the estate in the competition.
Time passed swiftly.
In the blink of an eye, several years had gone by.
There were only six months left until the start of the Sacred Spring Conference.
Grand Priestess Ti Ya arrived at the Fen Shan Tribe, bringing her disciple Wei Xian'er, to invite Wei Tu to travel with them.
After the pleasantries were exchanged—
Wei Xian'er met with Wei Tu in private.
It had been fifty years. She had gone from the Qi Refinement stage to the peak of the early Foundation Establishment stage.
Given her spiritual root aptitude, this speed of advancement was relatively fast.
"Uncle Wei, after I reached the Foundation Establishment stage, I don't know how it happened, but my divine sense suddenly became able to enter this idol's body. After going through its form, my divine sense would grow a bit every time," she said nervously in the secret chamber, looking at Wei Tu.
After all, in the vast cultivation world, cultivators like her who could enhance their divine sense so easily were practically unheard of. No cultivation of secret arts was needed—just some kind of 'communication' with a divine idol, and she could greatly strengthen her divine sense.
Wei Xian'er didn't dare tell her master, Grand Priestess Ti Ya, about it. So while visiting the Fen Shan Tribe, she took the opportunity to seek help from her uncle Wei Tu.
She remembered her father Wei Fei had told her before she left Zheng Kingdom: this Uncle Wei was her only dependable kin in Kang Kingdom.
"A divine sense enhancement?" Wei Tu raised his eyebrows slightly, his expression growing more serious.
In the cultivation world, there were indeed some soul-related treasures that could subtly improve a cultivator's divine sense.
But those kinds of treasures were usually of extremely high grade—at least fourth-grade or above—and not something a Golden Core cultivator could hope to touch.
For instance, his own Jia Yuan Silver Armor was one of Venerable Master Shentu's most prized possessions, the most valuable among his collection of treasures.
But even it paled in comparison to any soul-type treasure that could enhance divine sense.
"Let me see that idol," Wei Tu said after a brief pause.
Without examining the item directly, speculation was nothing but a castle in the air.
Wei Xian'er nodded slightly and took off the wooden puppet pendant she wore around her neck, handing it to him.
It looked the same as the one Wei Tu had seen decades ago—yellowed, blackened, and carved into the shape of the Sorrowful God with three faces and six arms.
The three faces were sorrow, joy, and rage. The six arms held a longsword, vajra staff, pagoda, battle axe, bronze mirror, and ancient scripture. It looked a bit eerie.
"What does Fellow Daoist Bai think of this?" Wei Tu didn't immediately examine the pendant. Instead, he asked Bai Zhi for her opinion.
Though he had made progress over the past fifty years, when it came to experience, he still couldn't compare to Bai Zhi, a seasoned Golden Core cultivator who had lived for five or six centuries.
"I can't say for certain," Bai Zhi said slowly, "but I have two guesses."
"First, the pendant might contain a large number of soul fragments from the Sorrowful God. Wei Xian'er's divine sense might be increasing by absorbing those fragments. It's a form of parasitism."
"Something like the 'You Beast' in the Mystic Nether Spirit Offering Array, attaching itself to her."
"Second, the pendant could be an inheritance tool for the Sorrowful God's divine soul cultivation method. Each time Wei Xian'er connects her divine sense with it, it's like a special kind of soul training."
"Of course, there's a third possibility—both guesses are correct. While cultivating, it's also possessing her."
"If it's possession, that's troublesome," Wei Tu said with a frown and a soft sigh.
With his strength and his knowledge of soul arts, it wouldn't be difficult to help Wei Xian'er remove any soul fragments of the Sorrowful God from her body. But afterward, her soul would likely be affected, lowering her chances of reaching the Golden Core stage in the future.
"Do what you can and leave the rest to fate. Without the Sorrowful God idol, Wei Xian'er probably wouldn't have improved her aptitude, caught Ti Ya's attention, and advanced to the Foundation Establishment stage," Bai Zhi said casually to comfort him.
"That's true," Wei Tu nodded, setting aside his worry for now as he began examining the wooden puppet pendant with his divine sense.
But surprisingly—
During his first inspection, he didn't detect anything unusual in the pendant. It seemed like a dead object—completely devoid of spiritual energy.
And his divine sense didn't improve in the slightest, contrary to Wei Xian'er's claim.
"Something's off," Wei Tu muttered, face darkening. He whispered, "Hidden Spirit Boat Technique."
Then his divine sense transformed into shadowy soul-scorpions, which assembled into a paper boat and squeezed into the idol.
This time, what he saw was vastly different.
As the paper boat entered the idol—
His divine sense suddenly found itself inside a spacious divine temple.
The temple was lavish and radiant with gold and jade. On the offering platform stood an enormous statue of the Sorrowful God.
That statue looked alive. The sorrowful, joyful, and angry faces rotated one by one, and its eyeballs glared directly at the paper boat formed by Wei Tu's divine sense.
Seeing this scene—
Wei Tu immediately understood that the "temple" inside the pendant was actually a manifestation of the soul fragment of the Sorrowful God sealed within the puppet pendant.
"Hidden Spirit Boat Technique? What's your relationship with the 'Paper Elder'?" the idol's lips moved slightly and asked.
Paper Elder?
Wei Tu didn't respond right away. Instead, he communicated with Bai Zhi through divine sense, asking who this cultivator called "Paper Elder," as named by the Sorrowful God, might be.
He speculated that the Extremely Yin True Scripture, the origin of the soul-path technique "Hidden Spirit Boat Technique," might well have come from the sect of this Paper Elder.
And for a cultivator to be remembered by a soul fragment of the Sorrowful God, they were most likely one of the legendary Divine Transformation Venerables.
"Paper Elder was a Divine Transformation senior in the Great Cang Cultivation Realm ten thousand years ago," Bai Zhi replied.
She then shared several well-known anecdotes about the Paper Elder recorded in ancient texts.
"I am a disciple of the Paper Elder," Wei Tu said, eyes flicking with an idea. He casually made up the lie in front of the Sorrowful God's soul fragment.
The Sorrowful God had been dead for years. This soul fragment had only basic awareness and no real ability to reason deeply.
"A disciple of the Paper Elder?"
The idol's "angry face" turned forward and glared at Wei Tu. It raised the pagoda in one of its six hands and said, "Suppress."
The pagoda expanded with the wind, glowing brilliantly with runes circling its surface. It came crashing down toward the paper boat condensed from Wei Tu's divine sense.
"So you don't know what's good for you." Wei Tu's face turned cold.
He had assumed the Sorrowful God and the Paper Elder had a decent relationship. That's why he posed as the latter's disciple—to try and extract some secrets from the soul fragment.
But he hadn't expected them to be enemies.
Still, whether enemies or not—
Since they couldn't be "friends," he would have to face off against this soul fragment eventually to remove the danger to Wei Xian'er.
It was only a matter of time.
This was merely a remnant fragment of a Divine Transformation cultivator who'd already fallen. Wei Tu wasn't afraid.
As the pagoda came crashing down, Wei Tu moved his lips and uttered, "Scatter."
The paper boat immediately broke apart into countless soul-scorpions and fled from under the pagoda's suppression.
"Form the boat!" Once clear, Wei Tu formed hand seals again. The soul-scorpions regrouped into a paper boat and rammed straight toward the Sorrowful God idol on the altar.
Aside from this one paper boat—
Outside, Wei Tu sent in more divine sense, forming three additional paper boats that squeezed their way into the temple.
The Sorrowful God idol stood up from the offering platform, brandishing its three faces and six arms as it fought the four paper boats.
At first, the soul fragment held the upper hand. But as time passed, its strength began to dwindle and it fell into a disadvantage.
Parts of the idol were gradually consumed by the "soul-scorpions" formed from Wei Tu's divine sense.
Half an hour later—
The golden, radiant temple collapsed with a loud crash.
Wei Tu extracted a golden orb the size of a walnut from the puppet pendant.
The orb glowed brilliantly like a golden water sphere, radiating colorful light. Within it, a faint image of the three-faced, six-armed Sorrowful God idol could be seen—just like the one he had fought earlier.
"Seal!" A crimson talisman floated to Wei Tu's palm and stamped onto the golden orb.
In an instant, the golden light dimmed, and the orb shrank down to a bead the size of a fingertip.
Next, Wei Tu sat cross-legged and grasped the golden bead in his right palm to begin the soul search.
He wasn't a Kang Kingdom native and held no reverence at all toward this so-called eternal deity, the Sorrowful God.
Unlike Golden Core cultivators—
This soul fragment of the Sorrowful God had little power, but its "quality" was extremely high—beyond the Nascent Soul stage. It wasn't easy to soul-search.
If the Sorrowful God hadn't been dead for so long, this fragment's "quality" might have reached the Divine Transformation level.
If that were the case, not only would soul-searching be impossible, even defeating the fragment would've been extremely difficult.
Fortunately, Wei Tu's divine sense had surged thanks to merging with Venerable Master Shentu's "Ghost Infant," giving it partial qualities of a Nascent Soul's divine sense.
So while the soul search was tough and slow—
In the end, it bore fruit.
Half a day later—
The golden bead in Wei Tu's hand turned into gray powder. A passing breeze blew it away.
"Upper Evolution Secret Scripture?" Wei Tu opened his eyes, a thoughtful glint in his gaze.
The Upper Evolution Secret Scripture he spoke of was a soul-cultivation method he had extracted from the Sorrowful God's soul fragment.
However, due to limited time and the method's complexity, he had only obtained part of the upper scroll.
Of course, it was also possible that the fragment simply didn't contain the full scripture. After all, it was just a portion of the Sorrowful God's soul.
"There might be a full version of the Upper Evolution Secret Scripture somewhere in the Three Tribes," Wei Tu thought quietly.
The stronger one became, the more they believed in their own strength—not in some so-called deity.
Even Bai Zhi knew that the Sorrowful God had perished ten thousand years ago as a Divine Transformation cultivator. The divine masters of the Three Tribes certainly wouldn't be ignorant of that.
He suspected that those divine masters had long since collected soul fragments of the Sorrowful God and stolen the secrets of this once-mighty cultivator.
After killing the soul fragment of the Sorrowful God—
Wei Tu probed the puppet pendant again.
This time, he tried infusing his divine sense into the pendant while running the Upper Evolution Secret Scripture.
"There's a slight improvement," he noted after one full cycle of circulation. As he withdrew his divine sense from the pendant, he saw a modest increase.
Though the growth was tiny—nothing like when he devoured the Ghost Infant—it would become something truly terrifying if accumulated over time.
"This puppet is a legacy artifact of the Upper Evolution Secret Scripture. When I soul-searched the fragment earlier, I obtained part of the upper scroll of this technique..." Wei Tu explained the truth to Wei Xian'er. Then he took out a blank jade slip, imprinted the contents of the technique, and handed it to her.
"In addition, remember this: when you practice this technique in the future, don't be greedy for speed, and never again touch anything related to the Sorrowful God..." Wei Tu warned her.
Just as Bai Zhi's third theory had guessed—
In the process of strengthening her divine sense, Wei Xian'er had unknowingly cultivated part of the Upper Evolution Secret Scripture and absorbed some of the soul fragments from the Sorrowful God.
Fortunately, they had discovered it early, avoiding a catastrophe where she might have been fully possessed by those fragments.
Having survived a great calamity, fortune was bound to follow.
Just like when Wei Tu devoured the Ghost Infant, as long as Wei Xian'er slowly digested those fragments over time, it wouldn't just be harmless—it might even turn into a great blessing.
"Thank you, Uncle Wei." Wei Xian'er held the jade slip and puppet pendant in her hands, her eyes full of gratitude.
If it had been any other cultivator, they would've tried to rob her of the puppet pendant after helping her, since it was a legacy artifact of a soul-cultivation technique.
But people like Wei Tu, upright and noble, were few and far between.
Wei Tu nodded slightly. He waved his hand, telling her not to worry about it too much.
However, once Wei Xian'er had left, his expression became a bit strange.
It seemed that after Wei Fei, Wei Xian'er had become his second source of "opportunity."
Even a partial scroll of the Upper Evolution Secret Scripture was a huge stroke of fortune for him.
"Opportunities are too nebulous. If I didn't have the means to resolve the issue, this 'opportunity' would've been nothing but a burden."
Wei Tu shook his head.
These things were just coincidences in life.
Even without Wei Fei or Wei Xian'er, as long as he maintained a good reputation and solid relationships, other opportunities like today's would come knocking eventually.
Just like the way an alchemist builds their reputation.
Which famed alchemist hadn't received rare pill recipes from the outside world, passed down through unconventional means?
…
The Sacred Spring Conference was approaching.
After packing up briefly in the Fen Shan Tribe, Wei Tu traveled with Grand Priestess Ti Ya to Falling Sun City.
Falling Sun City sat between the She Ri Tribe and the Feng Wu Tribe and was jointly managed by the three major tribes.
The Sacred Spring was located within this city.
It was also known as the Falling Sun Spring.
According to the legends of the Kangju people—
Their ancestor had the body of a bird and the face of a human. A master archer, he wielded a divine cauldron bestowed by the Eternal Sky. Thus, the three tribes were named Feng Wu, She Ri, and Ying Ding.
It was said that in ancient times, there were two suns in the sky. This ancestor shot one down with his bow. The fallen sun landed on the grasslands, and its solar essence transformed into the Falling Sun Spring. The residual heat drifted into the Vast Sea Desert, turning it into a barren wasteland.
Wei Tu didn't scoff at these legends, but he didn't take them literally either. He didn't believe that Kangju's ancestor had the power to shoot down a celestial sun.
In his view, the emergence of such extraordinary spiritual lands was more likely the result of natural creation—unrelated to any cultivator.
At the very least, unrelated to those of lower realms.
Wei Tu and Grand Priestess Ti Ya arrived at Falling Sun City a month and a half early. They settled into an inn under Ying Ding Tribe's management.
That night, Wei Tu used the excuse of entering seclusion, then disguised himself and changed clothes to sneak out toward the Vast Sea Desert, not far from Falling Sun City.
He hadn't forgotten about the secret cave-dwelling that Wolfslayer had built in the desert.
The seventy thousand spirit stone's worth of spiritual materials stashed there was no small sum.
It was enough to buy three to four Vajra Fruits.
Combined with his existing accumulation, these resources would be enough to push him into the mid-Golden Core stage.
Back then, Wolfslayer had chosen to build a hidden cave to store his materials not just because of their volume, which made them hard to carry, but also because of the backup support from the Sand Bandits after the Earth Banner was destroyed.
So naturally, this secret cave was located near the Earth Banner's old base.
With the aid of Know Heaven Crossing, a top-tier sensory technique, Wei Tu detected any movement in the Vast Sea Desert with ease. Along the way, he encountered nothing truly dangerous.
A few days later—
He arrived near the cave.
"Open." With Bai Zhi, a third-rank formation master, assisting him—and armed with Wolfslayer's memories—Wei Tu easily deactivated the formation guarding the secret cave.
As soon as the formation was undone—
A burst of light erupted from within. The brilliance of various spiritual materials shot outward: black light, rosy glow, green arcs, and so on.
Wei Tu stepped inside the cave in a flash and immediately reactivated the formation, masking the radiant glow of the materials.
Inside were all sorts of spiritual materials, spiritual herbs, and a number of low-grade spirit stones. They were stored in over forty treasure chests, each about ten feet wide.
"If it were storage pouches, even high-grade ones, I'd probably need at least seven of them to fit all these treasures." Wei Tu was stunned.
Soul-searching and seeing it with his own eyes were completely different—at least in terms of visual impact, the latter was far more overwhelming.
"Good thing I erased the mana imprint from Immortal Master Shentu's storage ring more than ten years ago." Wei Tu exhaled deeply and pulled out a red jade ring from his robes.
This was the very ring worn on the finger of the Ghost Infant during possession inside the "stone cave" in Blood Slaughter Sea.
Back then, he couldn't open it because it bore the mana imprint of a Nascent Soul cultivator. It wasn't until more than a decade later that he fully refined it.
Of course, this didn't mean Wei Tu had spent decades grinding away at the imprint.
—It was only after reading Immortal Master Shentu's jade slips that he realized the ring didn't contain anything particularly valuable. So, he hadn't rushed. He erased the imprint bit by bit during his spare time.
With this storage ring, Wei Tu was confident in coming to the Vast Sea Desert to collect all the wealth that Wolfslayer had hidden here.
The internal space of the ring was about the size of two houses. Compared to a high-grade storage pouch, it was more than ten times bigger.
In an instant—
All the treasure chests stacked in the cave were stored one by one into the red jade ring.
"Someone's here?" Just as he stepped out of the cave, Wei Tu suddenly sensed a group of cultivators rushing toward his location.
"The spiritual light just now shouldn't have been visible to cultivators dozens of miles away unless... some of the materials carried a cultivator's identifying mark?"
Wei Tu grew suspicious.
He figured that was the most likely explanation.
Wolfslayer had left in a hurry back then. He probably hadn't checked the spiritual materials carefully and might have accidentally left behind one or two marked with divine sense.
The formation was designed to block detection. But the moment Wei Tu deactivated it, those hidden signals would've leaked out.
"If I were using storage pouches, that would be a real problem. But a storage ring is different."
With a flick of his sleeve, Wei Tu used the Greenwood Concealment Technique and hid within a forested oasis nearby.
Though both storage pouches and rings were for storing items, the two weren't the same. The pouch had a semi-spatial nature, while the ring had a sealed internal space.
In other words, the storage ring had the same concealment effect as the cave's formation.
So Wei Tu wasn't worried at all. The cultivators chasing him wouldn't be able to track him by sensing marked items stored in the ring.
After about the time it takes to brew a cup of tea—
Five bearded men in fur coats landed at the entrance of the secret cave.
Each of them had an aura no weaker than early Golden Core stage.
One tall and thin man's eyes lit up with excitement.
"Big brother, the place I sensed is right here. This time, we must capture Wolfslayer alive and avenge our fourth brother!"
Hiding in the shadows, Wei Tu immediately understood—these five were from the Sand Bandit Society, here specifically to take revenge on Wolfslayer.
"Wolfslayer really got lucky. If I hadn't killed him first, coming here would've been a living nightmare for him." Wei Tu thought to himself.
Wolfslayer had only humiliated him, so Wei Tu's revenge had been relatively restrained, using conventional methods without applying any cruel punishment.
But if he had fallen into the hands of the Sand Bandits, getting his limbs chopped off would probably have been the lightest outcome. After all, they had truly lost a fellow brother.
"Break this formation and drag him out." The leader of the group—wearing jade earrings—glared viciously.
As soon as he spoke—
A short, chubby man stepped forward. He took out a white jade formation plate from his robes and began dismantling the formation piece by piece.
"Why isn't anything happening?"
Halfway through breaking the formation, the five Golden Core experts from the Sand Bandit Society sensed something was off.
The divine sense marker had vanished.
They had initially guessed that Wolfslayer was hiding inside, using the formation to block detection.
But if that were the case, it didn't make sense for him to just sit there and watch as the formation got slowly broken. He would've... at least put up a struggle like a cornered beast.
"Break it open together!" the jade-eared leader ordered coldly.
With that, the five of them combined their strength and activated their magic tools and treasures, blasting them at the formation's light barrier.
Fifteen minutes later, the formation cracked apart, breaking into glimmers of light that disappeared into the air.
"Damn it! He already ran!" The five stormed in, found no trace of Wolfslayer, and erupted into curses.
They had no idea that while they were busting open the formation, Wei Tu had already used the Shadow Cloak to quietly slip away, now more than a hundred li away.
However—
Just as Wei Tu was about to dismiss the Tier-Two Seven-Colored Phantom Moth he was using to monitor the five—
He accidentally overheard a line from the Sand Bandit leader.
"We'll have to find Yuan Ping and use his identity to force Wolfslayer out of the Ying Ding Tribe. Then we'll settle the old score."