"This old hag," the Governor fumed inwardly, his face a practiced mask of calm while his mind seethed with a quiet, building rage. "It looks like I will have to report this mess to His Majesty." There was no other path forward now.
He said nothing aloud, but the madam's plan to set the mountains on fire filled him with a deep, superstitious dread. Such an act was sure to bring the wrath of the mountain gods down upon them all. The ancient tales his grandmother had told him were clear, burning the sacred mountains always led to disaster. Plagues of mice would swarm the fields, and the crops would fail, turning the land barren and the people hungry. The common folk would see it as divine punishment, and when the heavens looked for someone to blame, he, the Governor, would be the first to suffer their fury.
If he was honest with himself, he felt a touch of pity for the Su family. The father had been a good official in the Ministry of Revenue, competent and fair, a man who actually cared for his duties. And now his entire line was exterminated, his only daughter hunted like a beast. With that grim thought, he lost all interest in staying a moment longer in this cursed place. He turned his horse around without a word of farewell and rode back toward the city, leaving the brothel madam standing alone in the dust. She watched him go, her eyes filled with a venom that could poison a well, her plans momentarily thwarted.
Her master had not punished her for the failure yet, and that small mercy meant she still had a chance to make things right. Otherwise, the consequences were too terrible to even consider. Just thinking about the master's displeasure made her shudder uncontrollably, a cold, visceral fear gripping her heart.
A few days later, inside the opulent, echoing halls of the imperial palace.
"Escaped? You useless fools!" Emperor Wei of Great Wei's voice thundered through the hall, bouncing off the lacquered pillars. "You cannot even keep track of one little girl, and now you expect me to send more troops? Summon ten thousand soldiers from three neighboring provinces to hunt a single person? That is absurd!"
He narrowed his eyes as he stared at the memorial in his hand, his fingers absentmindedly stroking a smooth, pale jade ruyi scepter, a symbol of power and good fortune.
"I even gifted you the daughter of the Su family as a personal favor. You let her slip away, and now you want me to move the entire army? Do you have any idea how much a mobilization of that scale would cost the treasury?" The sheer waste of it offended his practical nature.
"Your Majesty," a voice whispered, sharp and rasping, seeming to emanate from the cool jade scepter itself. It was the same eerie, dry voice the madam had heard days before. "Do you desire immortality?"
At those words, Emperor Wei's breathing grew a little heavier, a greedy, hungry light flickering in his eyes. But the voice continued, pressing its advantage, knowing his deepest weakness.
"That girl is a natural vessel for cultivation. In her desperation, she has already managed to release minor spells. But without proper methods to guide her, she cannot refine or absorb spiritual energy properly. Right now, if we send a few fearless men, she can still be captured easily. However..." the voice trailed off, a deliberate pause.
"Speak!" the emperor urged, his voice tight with impatience. He was a man tinged with envy, for he knew he lacked the girl's innate gift and was far too old to ever acquire it himself.
"You must realize that the heavens have reopened and the world has awakened. Beings like me are no longer unique. If she happens to encounter another fateful opportunity, do not forget, Your Majesty, you wiped out her entire family. She will surely seek revenge." The words were a cold, sharp needle pressed against his throat.
The voice grew colder, more insistent, filling the space around him. "Therefore, Emperor, stop hesitating. I am only one step away from full restoration, and she is that final step. This cannot be solved later by simply sending more troops. We must act now, while she is still weak and isolated."
"I understand," Emperor Wei said, his mind made up, the last of his reservations crumbling before the twin lures of immortality and security. "Summon General Mu. I have a task for him."
After hearing all this, he no longer hesitated. A being like that girl, one who bore such deep, personal hatred for him, could not be allowed to exist. No matter the cost, no matter the drain on his treasury, he would see her captured. No one was permitted to threaten his reign, not even the smallest, most remote chance.
Deep in the mountains, a small, carefully controlled fire crackled, its flames a tiny defiance against the vast, dark wilderness.
"Huff... so hot... but it should be done now." Su Min carefully scattered the embers before her, stamping them out and dousing them with water from her canteen, ensuring not a single spark remained to betray her. She picked up a freshly refined pill from a small, crude clay pot, its surface still warm from the process. She sniffed it lightly, and a tired but genuine smile touched her lips. She had successfully made a bigu dan. It was a small victory, but it was hers.
At the same time, she noticed something strange and wonderful about her new body. It really did feel like a standard player's physique from a game, responsive and adaptable in a way that defied the normal rules of this world.
In real cultivation, most practitioners faced stubborn bottlenecks that could halt their progress for years, even decades. But player characters, the heroes in games, did not. They could even deliberately delay their own advancement to gather better resources and build a more perfect foundation. For instance, at the crucial Foundation Establishment stage, there were three possible paths, Heavenly, Earthly, and Human, each with vastly different potentials.
Most dedicated players would hold back their progress for years just to walk the legendary Heavenly Dao, gathering rare and powerful items to ensure a perfect breakthrough. It was not that they could not advance, but that they chose not to, aiming for a perfection that was normally impossible. There were also secondary professions like alchemy, forging, and array crafting that players could freely master without the lifelong, single minded dedication a true native would need.
So when a main character appeared in a cultivation world, they would naturally be an unrivaled genius, breaking all the conventional limits. Su Min's situation was exactly the same. Otherwise, how could she have entered the Body Refining stage in a single night with only a damaged and incomplete cultivation method to guide her? The logic of her old life was imprinted on this new one.
Now that she had refined the bigu dan, she no longer had to worry about food, about the gnawing hunger that could distract her from her true purpose. The next step was to focus entirely on cultivation, to push her boundaries. Only by growing stronger could she hope to survive the net closing around her. With that thought, she pulled out her spirit weapon. It hummed faintly in her hand, a cool, comforting promise of future power. Unfortunately, she would not be able to refine it further or unlock its true abilities until she reached the Qi Refining stage. It was a goal, a milestone to strive for.
The Body Refining stage was merely about preparing one's body, making it strong and resilient enough to handle the violent, swirling influx of spiritual energy that defined true cultivation. Her current method, the Changchun Gong, was a gentle Qi gathering art. Even while she was resting, it slowly, patiently drew in thin streams of spiritual energy from the air to temper her muscles and bones, a constant, subtle improvement.
That was what she had been doing for the past few days. Since being hunted by the authorities, she had not dared to sleep deeply, to let her guard down completely. Instead, she maintained a semi meditative state, using the act of cultivation to keep her senses alert and her mind sharp. In the deep mountains, wolves, tigers, and leopards roamed freely, and sleeping too soundly was an invitation to die in your sleep.
However, she had not been cultivating for long when a series of heavy, careful footsteps reached her ears, crunching on twigs and disturbing the forest floor. They were not the light, padding steps of an animal, but the deliberate, weighted tread of men. Su Min's eyes flew open, her senses snapping to high alert as she scanned her surroundings, her heart beginning to pound. Her sword was already in her hand, its cool, familiar weight a small comfort.
Swoosh!
A piercing sound split the air, the whistle of an arrow in flight. Su Min reacted instantly, her body moving on pure, honed instinct. She slashed her sword forward in a clean, precise arc, deflecting the incoming projectile with a sharp clang. It clattered to the ground, harmless.
"An arrow?"
Seeing what she had struck down, Su Min's heart tightened into a cold knot. Only then did she realize she was completely surrounded. Soldiers carrying thick, wooden shields and heavy, broad machetes had closed in from all directions, their formation tight and professional, cutting off every obvious escape route. The arrow had been just a probe, fired by a single archer hidden in the ranks. After seeing her easily deflect it, the archer abandoned his bow, raised his own shield, and moved forward with the others, becoming just another soldier in the circle.
"A hunter among them," she muttered, the pieces clicking into place. "That explains how they found me." He had read the signs she left without realizing.
Even surrounded, her back against a large rock, Su Min forced herself to stay calm, to push the panic down. Her eyes quickly scanned the group, assessing their stances and gear, and landed on a rugged man dressed in furs, his face weathered and his eyes sharp. Although she had been cautious, she was not professionally trained in covering her tracks. No doubt she had left subtle traces behind, a bent branch, a scuff in the dirt, signs that would be invisible to ordinary soldiers but as clear as a marked trail to a skilled hunter of game, or of people.
"Daughter of the criminal Su clan, surrender your weapon immediately!" a soldier shouted from behind his shield, his voice loud and commanding, trying to intimidate her.
Su Min just rolled her eyes, a gesture of pure, modern annoyance that seemed utterly out of place. The pointless outburst caused a brief, unexpected distraction among the other soldiers, who all paused for a moment to see how she would react to the order.
"Now is my chance."
Seizing the fleeting opportunity, Su Min lunged forward. She moved like a shadow, stepping onto the shoulders of two nearby soldiers who were slow to raise their shields, putting all her weight and newfound strength into the move. The sickening crunch of their collar bones breaking echoed faintly in the clearing, and she used the platform their buckling bodies provided to vault cleanly over the ring of shields and out of the encirclement. In a single, fluid instant, she appeared right before the hunter. The man's eyes widened in shock and disbelief, but before he could even raise his arms in a futile defense, she slit his throat in one clean, silent motion, eliminating the tracker.
Then she darted into the thick, welcoming forest and vanished, swallowed by the shadows and undergrowth, leaving behind two soldiers screaming and clutching their shattered shoulders, and a fresh corpse bleeding on the ground. The rest of the troops could only stand frozen in shock, staring at the empty space where she had been, the hunt suddenly feeling much more dangerous.
Such speed.
Her movements were impossibly swift, a blur of motion, and with the mountains so high and the forests so dense, she was gone in the blink of an eye. Though the soldiers were well trained, they were still only human, and they had no hope of stopping something like that, something that moved with the grace and lethality of a spirit.