Yunxi knew very well that the reason she had been able to light the Yaoguang Star on the Seven Stars Soul-Shattering Staff back then was because she had forced her Golden Core breakthrough, borrowed the Nine Heavens Mystic Thunder to destroy a corpse-breeding ground in the mortal realm, and the staff had shouldered the punitive lightning, absorbing the thunder. Since she herself possessed a thunder spiritual root, a star lit.
After she bowed under Yu Ling Zūnzhě at Lingxue Peak and cultivated to the present, she had only managed to make the Kaiyang Star flicker. She had not fully lit that star with ice spiritual power. Likely her ice power was not yet abundant. Yet a single gem had lit the Yuheng Star. It seemed her haul from the Baohua Mountain secret realm was richer than she thought.
Yunxi spun the staff through a neat flourish and returned it to her dantian, then sat to cultivate the Mingyue Frost Condensation Art. She intended to light the Kaiyang Star as soon as possible.
From the three stars now lit, she had also felt out several hidden properties of the Seven Stars Soul-Shattering Staff, and roughly understood why such a formidable treasure had ultimately ended up sold off like surplus.
First, lighting the seven stars was the process of stacking buffs onto the staff, and also the process by which the master thoroughly refined it.
Second, lighting the stars required the purest attribute spiritual power. Her three spiritual roots were all heavenly grade, so the power she refined in her body was the purest ice, thunder, and wind. Once absorbed by the staff, those could light the seven stars in turn.
Those who had purchased the staff before her likely failed to light the stars because they were not heavenly roots, or not mutated roots, and so could not meet the requirement.
Finally, when the golden gem was absorbed and lit the Yuheng Star, she deduced that if there were sufficiently pure attribute treasures for the staff to refine, they too could light the stars and grant the master attributes she did not originally possess.
For example, she lacked a metal spiritual root, but once the staff absorbed the golden gem, that gap was filled. In battle, she could now unleash metal-attribute strikes.
In ancient times, fewer roots did not mean faster cultivation. On the contrary, the fuller the set of roots, the surer the path. Today's scarcity of spiritual qi had made single-system heavenly roots the pinnacle of talent. It had to be said, the cultivation world was already on the decline.
To further verify her guess, she needed to use ice and wind spiritual power to light two more stars. So she had markedly increased her meditation time of late, in an unbroken good mood.
That good mood lasted until Wei Yunqing returned to the sect.
Thrown into the Qianling Mountain Range to temper her combat strength, Wei Yunqing had been chased and beaten by a fourth-rank Wolf King for over two months. She finally shook off the pursuit and dragged her battered body into Qianling City.
Once in the city, she did not dare linger. Fearing yet another accident, she gritted her teeth, paid a pile of spirit stones, and took a teleportation array back to Haoran City.
Back in Haoran City, Wei Yunqing swaggered again. Though hounded by that Wolf King, she had filched several nice things from the range. Now that she was a Yuányīng Zhēnjūn, she naturally wanted to show off before the clan, lest they keep comparing her to Wei Yunxi.
Wei Yunqing did not know Yunxi had already awakened and advanced to mid Nascent Soul. Her reputation was simply too poor. None of the Wei disciples bothered to inform her of Yunxi's recovery and emergence.
Nor did she know that Wei Chenyin had also advanced to Nascent Soul and returned to sit in town for the Wei clan. Thus, the moment she stepped into the Wei estate and released her pressure, she was violently bounced back.
Qi and blood surged in Wei Yunqing's chest. She clutched her sternum on instinct. Whoever had countered her was stronger. Before she understood what had happened, Wei Lingtáo appeared with people in tow.
"Wei Yunqing, are you returning to your clan or coming to turn against it?"
Wei Lingtáo's voice could have frozen stone.
Wei Yunqing's gaze flickered. She argued, "I only just advanced and failed to restrain my pressure, that is all."
"You need not say that to me. Say it to Ancestor Chenyin. Please."
The last word scraped out from between Wei Lingtáo's teeth.
To have such a muddleheaded one in the clan was enough to turn his hair white. Worse, this fool's cultivation advanced at a decent pace. What he feared most now was Wei Yunqing making trouble outside and dragging the clan into disaster. That would wrong the Wei for nothing.
Hearing the four words "Ancestor Chenyin," Wei Yunqing knew things were bad. If the elder had gone out of seclusion, then she had advanced to Nascent Soul. Wei Yunqing could only withdraw her pressure and follow the family head to meet Wei Chenyin.
Wei Chenyin had sensed Wei Yunqing's return the moment she crossed the threshold. If the girl had not flared her pressure, there was little Chenyin would have done. But since Wei Yunqing had come home eager to show off and suppress kin, she had presented a neat pretext. Thus, when they met, Chenyin's tone was cool:
"Wei Yunqing, congratulations on advancing. But this is the Wei clan, your own house, not your enemy's. Was there any need to wound people with your pressure?"
Though both of them were at early Nascent Soul on paper, Wei Yunqing knew full well that the clash of pressure just now had decided the pecking order. She was the one with a guilty conscience.
She sidestepped the question. "Yunqing greets Ancestor Chenyin. Congratulations on your advancement."
Setting down the jade shears she had used to trim a spirit plant, Wei Chenyin glanced at her. "Sit."
She waved, and a tea set appeared on the jade table. As she brewed, she asked after Wei Yunqing's years of experience.
Wei Yunqing forced herself to answer what she could. As for inviting a master of Yunmen Temple to expel an evil soul, she did not mention a word.
Wei Chenyin briefly outlined what had happened with the Wei branch in Kunyucheng, telling Wei Yunqing there was no need to return there and that she should be wary of evil cultivators.
Wei Yunqing frowned and said tartly, "This must be retaliation from evil cultivators. All because Yunxi…"
Under Wei Chenyin's sharp gaze, the rest of her words died.
Wei Chenyin's voice turned cold. "Wei Yunqing, you are at least a Yuányīng Zhēnjūn now. You should know what can be said and what cannot. How do you think others will see you if you slander your own younger sister?
If a cultivator cannot even honor sibling ties, who would wish to associate with her?"
Wei Yunqing pressed her lips together. She seethed inside, but she also knew Chenyin was not wrong. Only because she was at home had she let her tongue run. Still, she muttered, "Even if Yunxi was not wrong, the evil cultivators' revenge fell on our clansmen. If the clan holds resentment toward her, what then? Besides, she still has not—"
"Wei Yunqing, who told you Yunxi has not awakened?"
"I left the sect at the time…"
She could not finish. It had been a long while since she left.
Wei Chenyin said evenly, "Yunxi woke long ago, and turned misfortune into fortune, advancing to mid Nascent Soul. Before you came back, she had already completed several sect missions. Did you not receive a message from your mother?"
At the words "mid Nascent Soul," Wei Yunqing once again felt her qi and blood churn. She had worked so hard, and still she had been outdone.