A week after the Outer Sect Trial, Jun Li sat in the library of the Alchemist’s Association branch, looking down at a pile of loose papers bearing her amateurish handwriting.

  Unwilling to let a mystery sit festering, Jun Li had spent the last few days compiling knowledge from her inherited memories and the Association’s library, all in the hopes of identifying the bloody presence found within her Dantian and Elder Guo’s spell.

  Jun Li reasoned that outside of her inherited memories, she was no different from other Cultivators; thus, she decided to begin looking towards her inheritance as the potential cause of this presence.

  Jun Li hadn’t given it much thought over the years, but she did indeed remember ‘how’ her inheritance came to be.

  She felt fortunate that out of the unquantifiable years of memories the old Immortal possessed, the moment of his death was one memory that she could recall.

  Leaning back in her chair, Jun Li struggled to wrap her head around the sheer scale of the events in her vague memories. ‘So… some time before he died, he inscribed a failsafe of sorts onto his soul that would let him pass through the cycle of reincarnation with his memories intact.’

  ‘…But because of how violent his death was, his soul was fractured, with some of the fragments attaching to my soul in the cycle of reincarnation, with those memories lying dormant for over a decade after I was born…’

  Thinking of how such a grand, heaven-defying scheme failed, Jun Li couldn’t help but sigh. Even such an absurd figure couldn’t account for everything, and died a sudden, accidental death.

  ‘Then is it a matter of the soul?’ Considering her own worries, Jun Li pondered the memories of the old Immortal. In that world, they made a distinction between matters of ‘spirit’ and ‘soul,’ but no matter how many books she skimmed through in this world, that distinction was never clearly made; instead, the words were often used interchangeably depending on the context or preference. ‘If Elder Guo’s spell targeted my spirit, then that means it targeted my soul.’

  Learning that both Elder Guo’s spell and her own ‘internal world’ were supposedly some sort of ‘spiritual domains’, Jun Li wished she could somehow get a look at her own soul so she could get an idea of what was going on there. ‘Did the fragments of the old Immortal’s soul merge with mine? Or are they just stuck together somehow?’

  Realizing how many unknowns her ‘inheritance’ had, Jun Li felt almost scammed by fate. ‘So much for being able to rely on my blessings…’

  She knew that if she unlocked more of her inherited memories after each breakthrough, then perhaps the bloody presence in her inheritance might also grow.

  But even so, Jun Li couldn’t simply stop Cultivating.

  ‘Elder Guo said that as one’s Cultivation improves, their spirit also grows more powerful. That means that if I Cultivate further, I should eventually be able to figure out what’s going on with my soul, and defend myself better against it, and if it’s as dangerous as it seems…’

  Concluding that moving forward was her only option, Jun Li gathered her papers together and stuffed them into a satchel.

  ‘No reason to slow down… besides, someone’s waiting for me in the Inner Sect.’ Thinking of her promise to meet Zhao Xiaoli again, Jun Li smiled to herself and made her way to one of the branch building’s seclusion chambers.

  Although these quiet rooms were primarily made for alchemy, they served just as well for Cultivation.

  Jun Li had done more than simply gather information over the week; whenever she tired of reading and writing, Jun Li would refine the Icefeather Ivy she received from the last Outer Sect Trial into an Elixir, bit by bit.

  By now, Jun Li had filled an entire bottle with the Elixir. She had only waited a full week before drinking it to ensure her Cultivation was well prepared to attempt a breakthrough.

  Full of energy and with no injuries or maladies to speak of, Jun Li was ready to try and break through to the Crimson Palace stage, just less than three years after beginning her Cultivation, and before spending even a single year in the Glass Cloud Sect.

  She didn’t have a strong grasp of it herself, but the speed of her Cultivation was intense, even by the standards of the Zhao Kingdom’s elite. Only a rare few could match her, even with great material support.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  It was difficult to overstate how impactful the adjustments Jun Li made to the Glass Cloud Manual’s Cultivation Method were.

  Even if differences existed between the forms of Cultivation in her inherited memories and those in her current world, the myriad methods she could recall still had valuable knowledge she could use to considerably optimize any lower-grade methods she encountered.

  Closing the door of a seclusion room behind her, Jun Li lifted a bottle from her satchel and tossed the rest of her belongings to the side.

  Performing a single, slow Qi Circulation to clear her mind, Jun Li downed the entire bottle as fast as she could. ‘If I want to actually break through, I can’t be stingy with this second-place prize… I need as much pressure in my Dantian as possible!’

  The instant Jun Li finished the bottle, she readied herself to refine the Medicinal Essence into Qi as fast as possible.

  But before she could even set the bottle down, her hand froze, the Icefeather Elixir sending a powerful chill through her body, stiffening her joints and covering her skin and hair in a layer of frost.

  Blinking in shock from how significantly she underestimated the potency of the Elixir, Jun Li only managed to freeze her eyelashes together.

  As she quickly focused on refining the Medicinal Essence, the inner world of her Dantian was in turmoil, freezing winds battering the rainy shore with such force and cold that the waves breaking across the shore would freeze in motion, before crumbling into a hail of ice under their own weight.

  Painfully, Jun Li strained to move, feeling the chill bite into her bones as her breath froze in her lungs. ‘Damn… if I can’t hurry and refine the Medicinal Essence, it’ll start going to waste…’

  With even breathing becoming a struggle, Jun Li couldn’t focus well enough to properly Cultivate with the Icefeather Elixir, like a sickly patient who couldn’t rouse their appetite, even with a great feast laid out before them.

  As though in response to Jun Li’s stagnating progress, deep within her Dantian, that inner world began to shift.

  From the stones, warm blood slowly poured down the shore to greet the encroaching chill, pouring into the ocean like the lingering essence of a thousand dead.

  Just slightly, as though it was simply an illusion, Jun Li felt the vicious frost of the Icefeather Elixir recede, allowing her to breathe easier.

  Feeling her Cultivation suddenly become a bit easier, Jun Li felt deeply annoyed by how capricious the bloody presence seemed. “Damn it, help or harm me if you want, I’m going to take advantage of this inheritance and break through no matter what you do!”

  No longer distracted by strain, Jun Li focused her attention and continued to tear into the Medicinal Essence of the Icefeather Elixir at a feverish pace, refining and compressing everything into her Dantian with a vortex of power.

  Feeling the frost fade from her skin, Jun Li exhaled a thick cloud of vapor and felt her body begin to tense deeply, muscles deep within her body moving in a way they never had before.

  As she approached the space between two vastly different realms of Cultivation, it felt as though Jun Li’s skin was writhing, her muscles shearing, her bones itching, and her nerves tightening.

  Compressing her entire being to the utmost, Jun Li felt that small inner world inside her Dantian tremble, seemingly becoming smaller and smaller over time.

  More accurately, it felt as though Jun Li’s own Cultivation began to eclipse that small world. A growing tidal wave of power surged over the horizon, encroaching on that tiny world which seemed more and more insignificant by the second.

  Every moment that passed, Jun Li’s body felt as though it was breaking itself apart and putting itself back together.

  Light-headed from the pain, Jun Li followed her instincts and pressed that tidal wave forward, intent on destroying that inner world.

  In an instant, the towering wave dwarfed what Jun Li had once seen as an ocean, reframing it as if it were a mere puddle, and crashed down onto the blood-soaked shore, shredding the vast shelf of stone down into mere fragments, before rendering those fragments down into raw Internal Qi.

  Off the surface of her body, the air began to warp and twist under the growing pressure of her presence, until finally… all slowed to a still.

  As if opening her eyes for the first time, Jun Li looked out over a vast world, clear and transparent waters stretched out before her in all directions, gently blanketing a boundless plain of loose stone.

  All around, thin mangroves sprouted from the water, tangling together and offering shade from the gentle red light that fell from the sky above.

  Stepping forward through the knee-high waters, Jun Li looked around. It was entirely unlike her previous ‘inner world,’ that vague thing which always seemed transient and ethereal to her.

  Below, she could feel the stones. Above, she could taste the air, salty and sulfurous. This world was as real as anywhere else Jun Li had ever been.

  In the transparent waters, she could see blood seeping out from the stones, faintly flowing through the water like the wispy smoke of an extinguished flame, before it seeped into the roots of the mangroves, leaving the waters clear.

  ‘The second stage of Martial Cultivation, where the Cultivator transforms their Dantian into a solid foundation to base the future of their Cultivation on.’

  Jun Li looked out over the world, which now fully embodied her Cultivation, filled with the pride of progress. “This is my Crimson Palace!”