“Finally!” The glowing metal lid covered in dense chthonic script shot open, and Cade’s naked, blood-slickened form slowly rose from the coffin. He clenched his fists, sensing the newfound power coursing through his body.

  It’d been five weeks since he finished working on the second death art and re-entered his coffin. Since then, he had spent all his time on bitter cultivation, without a single break.

  “I did it! Peak of early Flesh Fortification!” Cade laughed gleefully. He was now but a step away from the middle stage; the barrier was within his reach. Once he learned the Asura War Form and advanced, he’d have a lot more confidence in facing any future troubles.

  And those were most assuredly coming. With him killing Darkheart and both of the Duke’s sons, there were bound to be repercussions, and nobody would listen to his reasons or justifications. He was a peasant with an average cultivation rank. Darkheart had put it well—his life was meaningless to these people, who were used to stepping on others.

  Even if his enemies didn’t suspect that he personally was the perpetrator, he was their only connection to these events. While his sixth sense remained dormant so far, this could easily change the moment he set foot outside the monastery. And he had to do that soon, as there were things only he could get done, which required him to travel to Tower Oasis.

  Right now, his body was overflowing with newfound strength. The number of spherules in his flesh had once again increased—though he could sense they still had plenty of room to grow—but the real gains were awaiting on the other side of the barrier separating him from the middle stage. This was his next goal, and he didn’t plan on wasting another moment. A short break was all he needed.

  While more than three-quarters of his Rank 3 blood essence reserves had been used up, overall he felt extremely satisfied. He did sense the blood essence losing some of its effectiveness, so reaching the late stage would certainly be challenging and very expensive. Luckily, he had plenty of loot to sell. Hopefully, it’d be enough.

  Cade wiped himself with linen towels and, for the first time in five weeks, stepped out of his cultivation chamber. What a pleasure it was to finally open his eyes and smell the fresh air. He took a deep breath, reveling in the sensation of his lungs filling up to the brim.

  During those five weeks, Lucy had broken through into the eighth stage of Qi Saturation and was only a couple of steps away from the ninth, final stage. Since the tea was still working well for her, Cade decided to keep his monthly stipend of spiritual pills for now and distribute them evenly between his friends. These pills were concocted using peak Rank 2 beast cores and were meant for Skeletal Reinforcement and Foundation Establishment cultivators. If Lucy took one, she could quite possibly die or at best have her foundations shatter. There were numerous cases where cultivators’ pre-cores exploded violently because they were too greedy and wanted to progress too quickly by using pills far too potent for their rank.

  Cade jumped into a refreshing bath, washing off the scent of blood, though it still permeated through his skin. It’d likely be a couple of days before he stopped smelling like raw meat.

  Reinvigorated, the Asura stretched his back, his joints popping audibly. Dashing into the bedroom, he picked up a new black robe, wrapping himself in its soft, durable fabric. He then stepped into the kitchen and put on the kettle with the tiniest trickle of blood qi. For some reason, he craved tea.

  After steeping the leaves, Cade sat on the bench outside, enjoying the serenity of his modest garden while sipping from his small azure cup. Right now, the sun had yet to rise, and the inner court was covered in comfortable silence. With the sunstones releasing scarcely any light, it gave the place an aura of restful calmness.

  Most inner disciples were focused on cultivating and training; after all, they had earned their privilege of not having to work for eight hours a day. As a result, there rarely was any commotion around him, other than the occasional sounds of shutting doors in nearby residences as servants moved about, attending to their tasks.

  Cultivators can have amazing lives, Cade sighed, briefly closing his eyes and soaking in the tranquil atmosphere. And yet, instead of working together, they covet each other’s secrets, waiting for opportune moments to reap without sowing.

  There weren’t many people a cultivator could count on in their life. Every such person was precious. It was one of the reasons why he felt a sense of loss. Jade was a friend; in some ways he treated her like an unruly younger sister. They laughed together; they went through the hardships of the trial shoulder to shoulder. Maybe he couldn’t tell her everything, but he knew she’d have his back, just as he had hers.

  Now it was all in the past. During those five weeks, she hadn't reached out once. Throughout all the time he had spent in the coffin, he had a lot of time to think, and no matter how he examined the situation, it didn’t seem like she’d be interested in getting to know him again.

  I barely survived trying to rescue Jade, and I still ended up losing this friendship. Maybe I should have never interfered in the first place… Would the outcome have been better? Did I mess everything up by involving myself?

  He didn’t know how to feel about all of this. Should he be devastated? Sad? He felt a sense of loss, but at the same time, he possessed the ability to distance himself from it. I wonder if this is the Asura part of my nature.

  Grunting, Cade stood up and walked back into the house—his joints were still a little stiff after spending so much time lying in the coffin. Right or wrong, he couldn’t reverse the choices he had made. All he could do was focus on the future and try his best. He had to break through into the middle stage.

  As he walked upstairs, he accessed the contents of his red band inside his realm of consciousness, bringing the prismatic bead into view. It was barely half of its original size and would doubtlessly get even smaller after today. Why is it that bad things seem to stretch endlessly, and good ones evaporate right in front of our eyes?

  A philosopher might know the answer, but he could only do his best to gain more power and use it to protect all that was good in his life. He returned to his cultivation room, closing the door and enabling all formations at maximum capacity. These mithril-plated chambers were not only meant for cultivation but also for protection in case the monastery found itself under attack. Their defensive formations were powered directly through the citadel’s grand formation and could sustain blows from third-tier cultivators. This was definitely the safest place for his breakthrough. He dared not go outside before entering the middle stage.

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  He swiped the coffin into his ring, clearing the space in the middle of the chamber, then pulled out a couple of cheap meditation rugs to cover the floor. The last time he broke through, there was quite a bit of foul blood leaving his body.

  Cade brought out what was left of the prismatic bead from his storage space, instantly sensing his spherules growing restless and pulling towards it. Compared to the first time when he held the bead in his hand, he felt a lot better, though its diminished size could have something to do with it. The one thing he was afraid to do previously was to reach inside it with his mind, even though he was greatly tempted more than once. He subconsciously felt there could be benefits to be gained, but he eventually listened to the inner voice of reason and restrained himself from trying.

  However, this time was different. His body was stronger, and his mind sharper thanks to his recent life-and-death encounters. Tentatively, he opened his realm of consciousness and focused on the small, reflective ball lying in the palm of his hand.

  He didn’t need to wait too long for the result.

  All of a sudden, his vision turned black, and a sense of overwhelming presence took over his mind. A powerful, detached sentience sifted through his memories, emotions, hopes, and fears—in front of it, he was an open book.

  Then he saw a world unlike anything he had ever witnessed. Its sky was purple with a touch of blue, not too bright—like on an overcast day. Its color was nearly identical to the weird spirit crystals he recovered from Darkheart’s ring, though more saturated. There were very few clouds, and no stars were visible—it was mostly one uniform heavenly blanket stretching all the way to the horizon.

  Below it was a shadowless land torn apart by war. Gigantic white palaces and pavilions topped with golden domes—the likes he’d never imagined could exist—lay in ruins. The verdant grass had been uprooted in many places, with craters and fissures covering the ground as far as the eye could see. Thousands of bodies were scattered in various stages of decomposition. Some belonged to enormous, unknown beasts, others to humanoids, though of what race Cade couldn’t tell.

  Then his perception shifted forward, as if he were flying at immense speed, and he saw a large, circular transportation formation built on a low platform in the middle of a sprawling courtyard laid with white stone. Though different in design to the ones he was familiar with, thanks to its central positioning, the formation’s purpose became immediately obvious.

  His perception shifted once again, and he felt himself travel into an enormous palace rising in the distance—the only one around which had remained whole. He followed a path through the palace’s opulent yet lifeless chambers, entering its cellars just before being pulled into a dark shaft leading deep underground. His surroundings blurred once again, and he emerged into a huge hall built of black stone, with hundreds of thick, round columns shooting into the darkness above. There was no telling how tall the ceiling was.

  The hall was soaked in a faint red glow coming from tall braziers positioned around the columns, which gave off just enough light for someone not to stumble in the darkness. His presence shot through the hall, stopping in front of an enormous monument at least a couple hundred feet tall, its upper part mostly hidden in the gloom. His night vision didn’t seem to work as usual, but then again, he wasn’t traveling physically, if he was traveling at all.

  Once up close, the monument’s shape finally resolved itself into a giant sculpture of a man seated in a lotus position, with his hands folded in his lap. What immediately struck Cade was the longcoat the sculpture was wearing, nearly identical to his own; even the faint serpentine figures were carved into it with great precision and care. Not a single detail of its flowing fabric had been omitted. As he got even closer, he saw a noble face with a gaze fixed ahead, as if staring into the distance, yet it somehow carried the weight of ages long passed.

  Then he heard distant chanting, too vague to recognize the language. His point of view rose up, and he met the statue’s gaze, instantly feeling himself judged. All his transgressions and good deeds were brought into the open, as if the scales of his life were being balanced, before the sensation diminished. Then a brief flash of light sent shadows dancing through its fingers and around the hall, before gradually dimming into a soft, golden glow. Gazing at those huge hands, Cade was struck by a sudden sensation that the object within the sitting man’s grasp was of profound importance.

  Then the chanting abruptly ended, and so did the vision. His own sight returned, just before the wall separating him from the middle stage of Flesh Fortification crumbled under the power of the bead. A terrifying force flew out from the small prismatic globe, reaching his voracious heart and spreading throughout all its channels, seeping into every part of his body. The spherules nested in his flesh and bones instantly awakened, spinning joyfully, growing and multiplying without hesitation.

  500…

  700…

  1,000!

  While the spherules in his blood remained mostly unchanged, their number in the rest of his body had doubled! Cade watched in fascination as his muscles contracted, filled with mysterious power that seemed to threaten existence itself.

  He struggled to gauge how much his strength and speed had grown. While the jump wasn’t as extreme as when he broke through into Flesh Fortification, he was still convinced a strike with a sword made from ordinary steel stood no chance of penetrating his skin. The 500 new tiny prismatic orbs spread throughout his muscles and bones, greatly elevating his physicality.

  Even his voracious heart became denser under the bead’s unstoppable might, and he felt his blood qi reservoir increasing by about a third. Curious, he released his life sense and found its range had nearly doubled, now approaching 10 miles.

  If I fought Darkheart now, things would go very, very differently.

  However, not all news was good. Bloodstones would now take even longer to refill his heart. He already had to drain qi from two of those red crystals at once to recover a modest portion of his blood qi. With more powerful arts, there would be an even greater need for energy, and bloodstones would eventually stop being useful. Not to mention, he had to manually charge them first.

  The second problem was the bead—it was greatly shrunk, now barely a tenth of an inch. This tiny globule wouldn’t be sufficient to break the barrier into the late stage, not on its own. Without its help, he’d require a ridiculous amount of potent blood, and his ability to grow his spherules would substantially diminish. His first breakthrough—when he stepped into Flesh Fortification—created a huge number of new spherules but also consumed a lot of the bead’s energy. Now, it was basically spent.

  The Asura sighed, sending the tiny silver ball into his ring. I’ll worry about it when the time comes. For now, I need to find a way to access the blood hidden inside Darkheart’s scale. Hopefully, the Sun Trading Company would be able to help with that.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about the vision. Whatever that underground hall was—and it felt like a place of worship—he felt a powerful sense of belonging, maybe for the first time in his life. It still lingered at the edges of his consciousness. He had to locate that statue and take whatever it held in its hands. However, this was easier said than done. His only hope was that the vision presented the Life and Death Divine Realm—as the purple sky matched its description—and not some faraway alien planet.

  In the meantime, his next step required him to travel to Tower Oasis. As he stood up, he sensed his monastery token’s soft buzz spread throughout his realm of consciousness. It was a message from King Dong.

  “Boss, I’ve just learned that Jade has not only advanced to the middle stage of Foundation Establishment, it seems she fought a duel with a high-ranked inner court disciple last night—and won decisively.”