While Su Min was busy refining the final batches of pills, her movements fluid and rhythmic amidst the roaring white heat of the furnace, Xie Yingying completed her own meticulous preparations.
Unlike Su Min, who had faced the cataclysmic Nine-Nine Heavenly Tribulation with only two paltry Yellow-tier treasures and a stubborn refusal to die, Xie Yingying was armed to the teeth. Her ancient sect had spared no expense in equipping their chosen heir, leaving her with a treasury of protective artifacts. On the day her tribulation finally descended, nearly every cultivator on East Mulberry Island gathered at a safe distance, their eyes fixed on the horizon as the air grew heavy and static.
The Nine-Nine Heavenly Tribulation isn't a joke. Most Golden Core cultivators only dared attempt the Triple Nine Tribulation, and even that left many as charred husks. Su Min could still feel the phantom ache in her bones when she remembered the final, world-shattering strike of her own ordeal.
But as the saying went, the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, each revealed their divine powers. The method of survival didn't matter, only the fact of it.
That day, every cultivator present witnessed an unforgettable sight. The clear, shimmering blue sky of the island plunged into an unnatural, ink-black darkness. It was illuminated only by terrifying, serpentine bolts of violet lightning that seemed to tear at the very fabric of reality. Su Min stood on a distant peak, her knuckles white as she gripped the hilt of her sword. She was a silent, tense observer, her breath hitching every time the thunder shook the earth beneath her boots.
Interfering with another's tribulation was suicide. The heavenly punishment has no upper limit and wouldn't escalate its power to obliterate any intruder without mercy. Su Min knew this, yet her spiritual sense remained locked on that small, lonely figure amidst the storm, a quiet, fierce protectiveness radiating from her.
BOOM—!!!
A deafening explosion echoed across the sea, the shockwave tossing the waves into white-capped fury as the final, concentrated lightning strike landed. In its wake, the unmistakable, soaring aura of a newly forged Golden Core expert erupted into the skies, cold and pure.
"Success," Su Min murmured. A wave of profound relief washed over her, and she finally realized she had been holding her breath. "Now, let's see what heavenly gift she receives."
A wry smile touched her lips as she watched the clouds disperse. "I had to endure ten years of continuous lightning strikes just to claim the heavenly thunder as my own. I hope her luck is more elegant."
As she mused, a radiant, snow-white figure began to descend gracefully through the dissipating sparks. The sight left everyone, Su Min included, momentarily breathless.
"An Ice Qilin?" Su Min observed, her eyes narrowing as she recognized the majestic, crystalline form swirling around Xie Yingying. "So her divine ability is related to the ancient frost beasts." She felt a flicker of satisfaction deep in her chest. "There's no conflict between our paths."
With a burst of speed, she flew to the now shattered and scorched island. At its center, Xie Yingying had encased herself in a beautiful, indestructible cocoon of solid ice that glowed with a soft, lunar light. Unlike Su Min's brutal, decade-long ordeal of directly absorbing the lightning into her marrow, Xie Yingying's method was one of perfect defense and containment, keeping her spiritually stable within the frost.
Su Min hauled the giant, person-sized ice block back to the sect's most secure underground chamber. She moved with a gentleness that bordered on the unreasonable, ensuring the ice didn't jostle. She placed the cocoon above a natural ice-attribute spiritual spring, which was connected to the deep, frigid energies of the Crystal Palace far below.
"This environment should help you refine your insights and consolidate your foundation," she said softly to the dormant figure visible through the translucent ice. Her hand lingered on the cold surface for a moment longer than necessary. "Don't sleep so long that you miss the opening of the Golden Core Avenue. I would hate to go in there without a decent guide."
With that, she left the chamber, returning to her own final preparations. Not long after, she received good news from the sect's upper echelons. Xie Yingying, before entering her deep sleep, had left behind two powerful Earth-tier defensive treasures for the sect's use. With their help, Tu Changjun, the girl who had once led a village with a rusty spear and had since become Su Min's most promising disciple, successfully overcame her own Triple Nine Heavenly Tribulation. She had become the sect's first homegrown Golden Core expert.
"Congratulations," Su Min said to the newly ascended cultivator. Tu Changjun stood before her, the air around her vibrating with new power. "You now have two choices. You may join the elder council as a Grand Elder, or you can take over the role of sect leader."
The previous sect leader, though capable and loyal, was still at peak Foundation Establishment and no longer possessed the inherent authority needed to manage both a growing sect and the millions of civilians on the island.
After a moment of silent contemplation, Tu Changjun bowed deeply. "Grand Elder Su, I will serve in whatever capacity honors the Gate best."
"Spoken like a true leader," Su Min noted.
"Grand Elder Su," Tu Changjun began, her voice steady. "I have two questions. Since reaching Golden Core, I have felt a heavy, suffocating suppression from the world itself. My progress is completely blocked. And there's a strange call, a rhythmic pulling sensation in my soul, that I can't ignore. What's it?"
Su Min nodded, having expected the confusion. "First, the world won't fully open for another century. You can still train, study new techniques, and temper your spirit, but your cultivation base won't advance a single inch. As for the 'call,' that's the Golden Core Avenue. It's the destination where your master and I'm headed. It holds countless treasures, ancient legacies, and the only path to further power in this era."
Tu Changjun's eyes blazed with a sudden, fierce ambition.
"But a warning," Su Min's voice turned stern, her aura sharpening. "Without having achieved Heavenly Foundation Establishment and survived at least the Six-Nine Tribulation, you would be mere cannon fodder there. The ancient freaks inside would peel your skin for your robes." She paused, letting the weight of the warning sink in. "Here. Take one strike from me. If you can survive it, I'll consider bringing you along."
Without further ceremony, Su Min's aura erupted. Her hair flowed and turned a shimmering pale white, and her eyes glowed with a fierce, crimson light as she tapped into a fraction of her true, unsuppressed power.
Tu Changjun gritted her teeth, her face pale. she summoned every drop of her spiritual energy to form a massive, shimmering shield of azure light before her.
"Go."
Su Min flicked a single, glowing crimson feather from her hand. It shot forward, not with overwhelming speed, but with an undeniable, crushing weight that made the stone floor crack.
BOOM—!!!
The feather struck the shield. The sound wasn't of shattering, but of immense, concentrated force meeting an immovable object and winning effortlessly. Tu Changjun was hurled backward thousands of meters, crashing through two stone pillars before coming to a stop. She coughed up blood, her body charred and smoking from the residual heat of the Nanming Lihuo.
Before she could even hit the ground, Su Min blurred through space, appearing behind her and catching her before holding out a potent healing pill.
"Eat this."
"T-Thank you, Grand Elder..." Tu Changjun's hands trembled as she took and swallowed the pill. The message was brutally clear. A single, casual strike from Su Min had utterly crushed her defenses. It was proof that even among Golden Core experts, the gaps in power were vast, uncrossable chasms. She knew Su Min had held back significantly. A full-power strike would've killed her outright.
"I'm not ready," she finally said, her voice firm with newfound resolve. "I'm not ready for the Avenue."
With her own path to immediate growth blocked, she chose to shoulder the responsibility of leadership, freeing her senior brother to focus entirely on his own arduous preparations for a future tribulation.
Ten years passed in the blink of an eye for Su Min, spent in deep meditation and final adjustments to her equipment. Then, on a perfectly ordinary day, an explosion of pure, concentrated icy energy erupted from deep beneath the East Sea Immortal Gate. The skies above the sect turned white with spontaneously generated blizzards, and the temperature dropped fifty degrees in a heartbeat. From the epicenter, a black-robed figure emerged—Xie Yingying, finally awake and radiating the stable, powerful aura of a consolidated Golden Core expert.
"Took you long enough," Su Min said, landing beside her. She was completely unaffected by the biting cold that would have flash-frozen a lesser cultivator. She felt a strange, familiar prickle of warmth at the sight of her, a sensation she simply chalked up to having a reliable partner back in the world. "The Golden Core Avenue is about to open. We need to move."
"How many in your sect have the aptitude to cultivate my Ice Heart Jade Scripture?" Xie Yingying cut straight to the point, her businesslike tone returning now that the immediate danger of the breakthrough had passed. Yet, her eyes lingered a second too long on Su Min's profile, a quiet, ancient ache settling behind her ribs.
"Only five or six in the past decade," Su Min reported. "All are still in the Qi Refining stage. It will take them centuries to truly carry your legacy forward."
"Good enough."
To Su Min's surprise, Xie Yingying actually looked relieved.
"Quality over quantity. A few dedicated heirs are better than a host of mediocre disciples who would only dilute the intent of the scripture."
"More importantly," Su Min pressed, her expression turning serious, "our priorities inside the Golden Core Avenue. How contested is the legacy you are after?"
"The Azure Dragon's legacy is one of the most highly sought-after prizes in the entire dimension," Xie Yingying explained, her expression darkening as she looked toward the horizon. "It's the only publicly known inheritance site of the Four Symbols. Just obtaining a dragon scale, the mere entry ticket, is usually a bloodbath."
Su Min nodded, having expected as much. Conflict was the language of the Avenue. "And the place you need to go? The scripture?"
"It's even more dangerous," Xie Yingying said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "The environment itself is lethal to anyone without specific protections. Even with your Nanming Lihuo, you would need the power of the Eastern Azure Wood and at least mid-to-late Golden Core cultivation to have a chance of surviving long enough for me to retrieve the scripture."
"Where's it?" Su Min's interest sharpened. This was new information, a detail the game she remembered had never covered in its lore.
"It's the same place as your Azure Dragon legacy," Xie Yingying revealed, a flicker of deep, personal hunger visible beneath her calm exterior. "The deepest, coldest core of that domain houses the Lunar Sovereign Ancient Scripture." She met Su Min's gaze, her silver eyes shimmering. "It's a core manual that unlocks the full potential of my physique. Without it, even a Lunar Sovereign Physique is just half-forged steel, never reaching its true apex."
"So that's your true goal." Su Min studied her, pieces falling into place. "No wonder you were willing to risk this partnership with a 'modern' cultivator like me."
"With your Nanming Lihuo, and the Eastern Azure Wood to act as its perfect fuel, you can create a shield powerful enough to protect me long enough to claim it," Xie Yingying stated. "No one else can endure that frozen hellscape without either the Lunar Sovereign Physique or a divine flame of that caliber."
"Then it's settled." The plan crystallized in Su Min's mind. Their objectives were perfectly aligned. They would work together to secure the Azure Dragon legacy and the Eastern Azure Wood for Su Min, and then use that combined power to storm the frozen inner sanctum for the scripture Xie Yingying needed to complete her path.
Not long after, a profound, universal tremor passed through the world. Every Golden Core cultivator, regardless of where they were or what they were doing, looked up simultaneously. The call had come. The way was open.
"The Golden Core Avenue is a vast pocket dimension," Xie Yingying explained swiftly as they made their final preparations, checking their storage rings. "All who can sense the portal can enter, and due to the unique laws inside, everyone begins at the early Golden Core stage, regardless of their external power. One crucial rule—you exit from the same point you entered."
"Understood. Let's go." With that, Su Min focused her will. She vanished from the chamber, Xie Yingying following a heartbeat behind.
When Su Min's vision cleared, she found herself standing in a vast, alien landscape under a strange, purple sky. For the first time in centuries, the heavy, suppressive weight on her cultivation was gone. She felt unshackled, limitless, her spiritual energy flowing with a frantic, joyful vigor.
"This feels amazing," she breathed, stretching her spiritual senses luxuriously into the distance. "I can finally cultivate freely again!"
Xie Yingying materialized beside her, also taking in their new surroundings. Above each of them, three shimmering golden characters hovered, visible to all:
[Eastern Mulberry State]
It was their place of origin, a label that every entrant bore.
"This's good," Su Min said, a strategic grin spreading across her face. "We can fly under the radar. Before I arrived, Eastern Mulberry State had zero cultivators. No one will recognize us or know our capabilities, as long as we hide the full extent of our strength."
Her exploits in the Great Luo Tian State had been discreet, and no one there knew she wielded the Nanming Lihuo. As for anyone from Wei Wu Province, their cultivators simply lacked the knowledge and perception to identify a divine flame even if they saw it.
"To the Azure Dragon's legacy first," Xie Yingying agreed.
With that, the two women shot into the strange sky atop a sleek, Mystic-tier mid-grade flying sword, one of the many upgrades Su Min had crafted over the centuries. As they traveled, they passed numerous other Golden Core experts, each party giving the other a wide, cautious berth.
The Great Dao Avenue had just opened, and no one wanted to waste their energy on premature conflict. But even these fleeting encounters made Su Min keenly aware of the sheer concentration of talent gathered here. She sensed several auras that made her instincts prickle with wariness, a feeling she had rarely experienced, even when facing the leaders of the five great sects.
"Besides the legacies," Su Min mused, her mind already racing through possibilities as she watched a mountain range of floating jade pass beneath them, "this place is supposed to be crawling with ferocious, ancient spirit beasts. Their cores and materials will be perfect for upgrading my gourd and other treasures."
There's so much to do, and the clock's already ticking.