Chapter 4 — Nature Dao
Dao Realm.
It is the realm where cultivators cease to merely practice and instead become — where they embody the Great Dao itself. A saying has persisted since the earliest cultivation records: 'Only one who has entered Dao Realm may truly call themselves a Cultivator of Dao.'
To embody the Great Dao is to begin Dao Cultivation. At this stage, a cultivator must pour everything into their chosen Dao — nurturing it, deepening it, living it. If their chosen Dao resonates with who they are, advancement is possible. If it does not, the road may end there entirely.
The Dao a cultivator walks is shaped long before they reach this stage — by every choice made in the earlier phases of their journey. This is why the inheritances of ancestors carry such profound weight. They are jealously guarded by great powers with deep lineage, passed down only to the most exceptional among the chosen few, or to core disciples.
The inheritance of a single Dao Realm cultivator contains enough to build a force comparable to a great sect or kingdom. For this reason, no cultivator — not even those whose lineage traces back directly to a Dao Realm ancestor — can afford to ignore the appearance of a Secret Realm. An inheritance of that caliber, placed in the hands of a true genius, could produce a cultivator capable of glimpsing the Dao Realm themselves.
And so, the moment the news reached Castorice — the Royal Capital of the Lunare Kingdom — the Royal Palace stirred instantly. Within minutes, a formation of cultivators in blue armor was already moving, trailing a gilded carriage through the sky toward Mist City.
★ — ★ — ★
Inside the gilded carriage.
A young man in a golden outfit sat with easy composure, his smile warm, his eyes the kind that made onlookers feel immediately at ease. Across from him, a petite girl in the same golden colors sat with her twin red tails over her shoulders, expression flat and indifferent.
"Mia, this Secret Realm came at exactly the right time." Ark said, leaning forward with barely contained enthusiasm. "We're both just one step away from the Golden Core, but we've been holding off — waiting to form a higher-grade core. This is the push we need. We might even manage to condense a 1st Grade Core."
They shared the same father but different mothers. That hadn't mattered. Among all their siblings, these two were closest — bonded in the way of people who had, at some point, genuinely needed each other.
"Don't get ahead of yourself." Mia twirled a strand of red hair around one finger without looking at him. "Everyone is after a piece of this. Stay close to me, or you'll end up getting your sorry self kicked around the moment I'm not looking."
"Understood." Ark smiled, and meant it.
She always said things harshly. She always meant them kindly. He had been alive this long partly because of it.
Mia let out a quiet internal sigh.
Her foolish, warm-hearted brother. He was a handful in the best possible way. She put up with it because he had shown up for her when no one else had — back when their mother died and the palace went cold and the maids were the only company she had. He had arrived, loud and cheerful and entirely oblivious to the atmosphere, and somehow the place had felt less suffocating after that.
Their father, the Lunare King, had not stripped her of her status after her mother's death. But he had stopped seeing her. Whether from shame or simple indifference, she didn't know. Either way, she had stopped looking for him.
Ark, being the second son of the third empress, was too naive and too harmless for the other siblings to bother with. For him, that had been a form of protection. For Mia, things had gone differently.
She had devoted herself to cultivation, and when she reached the 10th layer of Qi Refining, the other siblings had taken notice. A variable had appeared. And variables needed to be removed.
At fifteen, she had been sent to the southern battlefield — where low-grade skirmishes were as routine as sunrise. Perhaps guilt, perhaps a flicker of something else, but her father had assigned her a mentor and a guard, and barred her from engaging directly until she was ready.
They had underestimated a 10th layer Qi Refining cultivator.
Coupled with her unyielding disposition and a tactical mind that had been sharpened by necessity, she had run up a record of continuous victories and earned genuine military merit. The battlefield had not broken her. If anything, it had given her something she hadn't expected to find.
On the day she finally found her Dao — the Dao she would walk — she had been more alive than on any day she had earned a title or a victory.
And then—
"Mia! Sister! Wake up — we're almost there!"
Ark's voice, delivered at full volume and with regrettable proximity, jolted her out of the memory. A barrier materialized instinctively around her, stopping the accompanying spray of enthusiasm several inches from her face.
"Ark." She looked at him with calm exhaustion. "Try to be civilized. Occasionally."
She turned to look out the window.
"So this is Mist City..."
. . .
Inside the Secret Realm.
In an unknown location, the ruins of an ancient palace stood silent and watchful — like a predator that had learned long ago that patience was more effective than pursuit.
Before it stood a young boy in golden-white robes, a golden earring on his left ear, staring with bewildered eyes at the tetrahedral locket in his hands. It was glowing — a soft, pulsing aqua-green light.
"What is this place?..." he muttered. "I was just wandering because I was bored. How did I end up here? And this locket — has it finally activated? What does this light even mean? Did it lead me here?... I don't remember walking toward it..."
He turned it over in his hands and then arrived at a practical conclusion.
"No clue. First priority: find the exit. Exploring unknown ruins is best left to protagonists."
Feng Han nodded to himself and started walking.
★ — ★ — ★
Some time later, Feng Han emerged from the forest — thoroughly exhausted and in no mood to be reasonable about it.
"This — this cursed place!! No matter which direction I go, I end up right back at these ruins. Every single time." He glared at the locket. He was very close to throwing it. His arm was already raised.
Then a premonition hit him — sharp and specific. If he threw it, the chances of finding any exit would drop to nearly zero.
"Ugh... Damn it."
He lowered his arm.
After some reluctant experimentation, he confirmed what he had already suspected: the locket glowed noticeably brighter when he moved toward the ruins.
"Absolutely not." Feng Han stared at it. "You want me to walk into a building that could collapse at any moment. I am not doing that."
The locket continued glowing with complete indifference.
"...Fine. Let's get this over with."
He walked in.
Inside, the ruins were stranger than they had looked from outside. Ancient carvings ran along every surface — inscriptions in a script he didn't recognize, from an era he couldn't place. Historical knowledge from this world was not exactly his strong suit, and whatever this was, it predated anything he'd encountered.
He moved with extreme care. Not just out of respect for whatever might still be aware here, but because the structure itself was barely holding together. He had touched a wall — it cracked. He had walked normally — the tiles shattered underfoot. Even his breathing had to be shallow, kept low and controlled, to avoid vibrating anything into collapse.
★ — ★ — ★
While Feng Han was carefully making his way through the ruins, others elsewhere in the realm were doing the opposite of being careful.
Somewhere near the outer reaches of the Secret Realm, a battle had broken out.
"Lu Ji! Hand over that White Dew Flower! It's useless to you!"
A sword slash came in fast. Lu Ji raised his left forearm and took it.
Clang.
The blade glanced off. When the sword was withdrawn, there was only a faint white mark on his arm.
"Hmph. You can't beat me. Retreat now. I took it by force — so what? I challenged you and I won."
"You—! You're a disgrace to the Crimson Cloud Lord's name!" The sword cultivator, furious at his own helplessness, resorted to words.
"I'll apologize to my father when I get back. As for you — leave before—"
A shadow dropped into the clearing. Then three more.
Four Foundation Establishment cultivators — Early and Middle Stage, all of them — but together they posed a genuine problem.
"Hahaha! Five Foundation Establishment cultivators at once — today keeps getting better. Come on then!"
Lu Ji's eyes lit up like a furnace being stoked. He tucked the delicate white flower carefully into his chest pocket and settled into his stance.
The five exchanged glances. Then nodded, as if confirming what they already suspected about him.
"The rumors were right. You really are a muscle-brained idiot." One of them chuckled.
"This recklessness will be your undoing!" The first shadow — tall, lean, and clearly the one in charge — declared.
A fire spell came in immediately.
Lu Ji absorbed it with his body.
Then came the rest — poison, elemental infusions, a technique that rattled the mind. A cascade of colorful destruction, all thrown at once.
He took all of it.
When the light cleared, his robes were shredded. His skin was entirely unbroken.
"What is he?"
"Is he even human?"
"Calm down." The tall cultivator's voice was steady. "He's Late Stage and among the strongest in that bracket — that's all. Surround the perimeter. Cut off any retreat. I'll handle this."
He released his aura and drew his sword.
Late Stage Foundation Establishment.
Lu Ji's expression shifted. He had been treating this like entertainment. Now he treated it like a fight.
"Lu Ji. Remember this face — it's the last one you'll see." A sword slash cut toward him with practiced precision, landing on his guard and leaving a clean cut mark.
The defense had been breached.
Lu Ji stopped waiting. He surged forward like a cannonball — straight at his opponent — and drove both fists into his abdomen, sending him crashing into a tree trunk.
The cultivator was up before the dust settled.
"Seven Blossoms Sword!"
Seven identical blades materialized in formation and swept in from multiple angles. Illusory, but every cut they left was real.
"Crimson Cloud Fist!"
Lu Ji roared and swung both fists, red aura flaring, destroying the apparitions one by one.
They clashed again. And again. The battle grew hotter with every exchange.
. . .
Outside the Secret Realm.
The crowd had roughly tripled since the realm opened. Cultivators from nearby cities, from far-off districts, continued arriving in a steady stream — everyone wanting a share of whatever lay inside. Golden Core cultivators had taken up positions at the entrance gate, screening each person who approached for eligibility. Hidden among the onlookers, a handful of Nascent Soul cultivators had also gathered — present not to enter, but to ensure no single faction used force to seize control of the realm's entrance.
"Early Stage — age forty. Rejected. Next."
"No! My birthday was last week! You can't do this!" The rejected cultivator began to make a scene. His hand moved toward his weapon—and then froze under the combined gaze of several Golden Core cultivators. His hand retreated. "Fine... the younger generation deserves their chance..." He muttered it quietly and disappeared into the crowd, leaving a trail of silent curses behind him.
Processing continued. Occasionally, someone caused a scene. Each time, it was subdued quickly. Nobody was foolish enough to start something genuine while surrounded by Golden Core cultivators.
Then, gasps rippled through the crowd.
"That golden carriage — is that the Royal Family's insignia?"
"Of course they'd come. A Secret Realm appeared on their territory."
"But who is it? If the Lunare King himself came, the chaos would be on a different level. Which prince or princess?"
Speculation buzzed through the crowd as a petite figure stepped out of the carriage.
Fair skin. Twin red tails. The striking gold of the Lunare Royal Family. Beside her, a young man with an easy expression and an unremarkable presence.
"That's — Princess Mia Lunare and Prince Ark Lunare!"
"These two? They've been at the peak of Foundation Establishment for so long, everyone assumed they were already hiding a breakthrough... but it seems they weren't."
Mia moved through the parting crowd without pausing. She approached the group of Golden Core cultivators at the gate.
The crowd bowed. The Golden Core cultivators bowed. Mia's cultivation was below theirs — but her battle record, her 10th layer Qi Refining foundation, and her family name together formed something none of them were inclined to test.
"Give me a summary of the current situation. Be precise."
"Yes, Your Highness."
A Golden Core cultivator gave a concise account. Mia listened, nodded once.
"Good. Continue as you have. I'm entering."
She didn't wait for confirmation. The Golden Core cultivator in question could only nod fervently and think, privately, that it was fortunate she met the entry requirements. Arguing with Princess Mia Lunare over eligibility was not something he wanted on his list of experiences.
Ark followed her quietly. He knew better than to speak when she was in mission mode.
They entered the Secret Realm without incident.
. . .
Inside the Secret Realm.
Inside the ruins of the ancient palace.
Feng Han had, through painstaking caution and exceedingly shallow breathing, made his way to the interior of a great hall.
Dust hung motionless in the air, undisturbed for what might have been centuries. At the far end of the hall, a massive golden statue of a figure in meditation stood on a raised platform. Three small cushions sat before it. Through a crack in the high window, a thin beam of light fell across the statue, making it glow faintly.
The eyes of the statue were half-closed. And yet.
There was something deeply unsettling about the feeling of being watched.
Feng Han observed it from a cautious distance.
Meditation hall. Teaching cushions. Classic senior-cultivator setup. This is exactly the kind of place where an ancient master possesses a young talented visitor to revive himself...
He wrapped a strip of cloth around his nose and mouth — basic protection, given that he had no cultivation and dead air in a space like this was not something to dismiss lightly.
Then he began slowly circling the hall, inspecting the walls and the details of the space.
He was near the golden statue when the locket erupted with brilliant aqua-green light.
Everything went dark.
I was careless — that was his last coherent thought.
★ — ★ — ★
Somewhere else in the Secret Realm.
Wan was walking at an easy pace through the forest, turning a soft fruit over in one hand, occasionally taking a bite. Behind him, Xiao moved with the energetic stride of someone who had recently discovered that following this particular person was an extraordinarily profitable arrangement.
Not long after they had parted from the main group, a small band of cultivators had attempted to rob them. Among the attackers was a Late Stage Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Wan had dispatched all of them without breaking pace. Without even finishing the fruit.
After witnessing that, the idea of backstabbing Wan had quietly left Xiao's mind entirely and relocated somewhere it would not cause problems. Wan also seemed entirely uninterested in the items dropped by the defeated cultivators, which meant Xiao had walked away from the encounter considerably richer than he'd entered it.
Comfortable. Extremely comfortable.
"Xiao."
Xiao immediately produced another fruit from the bag he was carrying and held it out with both hands.
Wan took it without breaking stride, tossed the peel of the finished one aside, and continued walking.
★ — ★ — ★
Near the outer edge of the Secret Realm.
The battle between Lu Ji and the sword cultivator had reached the kind of deadlock that looked inevitable in hindsight.
Lu Ji was stronger on paper. Better physique. Simpler mind — and in a prolonged fight, a simple mind could be an asset, because it didn't second-guess itself. He had been slowly gaining ground.
Then a boot connected with the sword cultivator's face and sent him skidding back several meters. He came up spitting blood, eyes bloodshot, a boot-print freshly pressed into his expression.
"LU JI!! YOU WILL DIE TODAY!"
"I haven't had this much fun since my breakthrough. Come on — show me more!" Lu Ji cracked his knuckles.
"Think you're invincible, do you? Surprise for you. Activate!"
Four points of light ignited in the surrounding trees simultaneously. A barrier sealed around the clearing with an audible hum.
The smile left Lu Ji's face.
"You planned this."
"Array Form — Exterminate!"
Rays of concentrated energy streaked toward him. He threw himself sideways — and the ground where he had been standing was scorched a meter deep.
"Bastard—!"
He drove his fist into the barrier wall. It held. The next volley came and he barely cleared it. His skin opened in several places, blood flowing freely — but his body was already knitting itself back together, aided by healing pills consumed on the run.
"Stop struggling, Lu Ji." The sword cultivator had taken a position at a safe distance and was calmly recovering. "This array was designed specifically for someone like you. The internal barrier is impenetrable from within. The attacks are lethal. Only power comparable to Golden Core can break it — and you are not Golden Core." A thin smile appeared. "Strength alone doesn't win battles."
He settled in to watch.
Once I'm recovered, I wait for an opening and end it.
Time passed. His expression shifted.
Why does he have this many healing pills? And why is he better at running than fighting—?
He stood up and began directing ranged attacks more actively, staying well back from the close-range threat.
Lu Ji, in no position to speak, was operating entirely on instinct and momentum — dodging, recovering, dodging, burning through pills. His clothes were gone. His skin was a map of fresh cuts and closed-over scars. He looked like something that had crawled out of the wrong end of a war.
The math was clear. He was running out of pills faster than the sword cultivator was running out of patience.
Think. Something. Anything—
Two figures materialized at the edge of the barrier, apparently having been teleported directly outside it upon entering the realm.
"You two. Identify yourselves." The sword cultivator's voice took on a harder edge.
. . .
Mia and Ark had arrived inside the Secret Realm to the sound of someone demanding their identities.
Ark stepped instinctively closer to his sister and assessed the surroundings.
"Sister — from the look of this forest, the original cultivator who built this realm may have walked a nature-aligned Dao of some kind." He studied the density of the canopy overhead, the way energy seemed to move through the undergrowth. "The theme of the realm reflects the Dao of the one who created it."
"You're right." Mia acknowledged, her own eyes moving steadily across the environment. "That said — I have a feeling this realm isn't as peaceful as it looks. Stay alert."
As heirs of the Lunare King, they had access to information not publicly known — including that a Secret Realm's internal landscape typically mirrored the nature of its creator's Dao. The forest was not a coincidence.
They heard fighting.
"Let's investigate. We can learn more from whoever entered ahead of us." Mia said.
It wasn't recklessness. She had an accurate understanding of her own strength. Short of a Golden Core cultivator, there was nothing in this realm that posed a genuine threat to her.
They moved toward the sound. It wasn't far — roughly a hundred meters — and when they arrived they found a blood-red array spanning several hundred meters, anchored at four points by Foundation Establishment cultivators. Inside it, two figures. One drenched in blood. One in tattered clothes but otherwise functional.
The demand for identification reached them again.
Ark's hand went to his weapon.
"Hmm." Mia's voice was entirely unbothered. "I'll be the one asking questions. You answer. If the answers satisfy me, I'll overlook the rudeness."
The sword cultivator opened his mouth to say something sharp — and then he registered who was standing in front of him.
This is a problem. Royal heirs.
His entire manner changed between one breath and the next. He bowed.
"My respects to Her Highness Mia and His Highness Ark. What would you like to know? I will answer to the best of my ability."
Inside the barrier, Lu Ji caught the titles.
"Your Highness! I'm Lu Ji — son of the Crimson Cloud City Lord! This man is trying to kill me!"
"Lu Ji. The muscle-headed genius." Mia said mildly. "Why are they targeting you?"
"They want my treasure!"
"That's not the full account, Your Highness." The sword cultivator interjected cleanly. "The treasure originally belonged to a friend of mine. This man took it from him by force. We asked for it back. He challenged us to a fight."
"Is that so."
Mia had heard enough about Lu Ji's habits. The version of events just given was consistent with everything she knew. Lu Ji looked like he knew it too.
"Your Highness — please—" Lu Ji tried.
"Lu Ji. Is what he said accurate?"
A pause. Then a streak of energy from the array caught his thigh. He made his decision.
"...Yes. But I challenged him openly and won fairly."
"Then it's settled. Stand down, both sides. Lu Ji — you will either return the item or compensate with something of equal value."
The sword cultivator agreed immediately and with visible relief. Only a fool argued with Mia Lunare.
"Deactivate."
The four array cultivators complied at once. The barrier dissolved.
The battle was over.
. . .
In a brightly lit space.
A vast grassland stretched in every direction, and at its center stood a tree of impossible scale — its trunk wider than a city block, its branches extending outward for thousands of meters, connecting the ground to the sky as though it had decided the two should not be apart.
A small figure appeared in the grass, unconscious.
Feng Han.
"Interesting." An ancient voice filled the space, unhurried and deep. "A thousand years since anyone found their way here — and the first to arrive is a mortal. What a strange play of fate."
The voice paused. Then, lower:
"...What is that thing doing here?"
A tall figure materialized in white robes and crouched over Feng Han, examining the locket closely. The expression that moved across his face over the next several minutes was one of layered disbelief — narrowing, then widening, then settling into something heavy.
He exhaled slowly.
"...It's real. The genuine article." A quiet laugh followed, with an undercurrent of something harder to name. "All this time... and it ends up in the mortal world. In the hands of a child, no less."
Fu — for that was his name — looked at the boy for a long moment.
"He has a great fate on him. Which means passing my inheritance to him isn't out of the question... Though that will depend entirely on him."
He gestured, and the boy's eyes opened.
★ — ★ — ★
Feng Han woke up to grass.
He stared at it for a moment, then at the sky, then at the tree that appeared to be holding the sky up.
Why am I in a grassland. I was in an auction house. Then a secret realm. Now this. This world has something against me personally.
He sat up. There was an old man nearby, watching him with quiet attention. Feng Han could feel, without being able to explain how, that this was not a person to be careless around.
"Excuse me, Senior — do you happen to know where this is? I ended up here by accident."
"Child, state your name." Fu said carefully. It had been a long time since he had spoken to another soul. He was being precise, not cold.
"Senior, I am Feng Han — second child of the Feng Family of the Lunare Kingdom. I came here accidentally. If you could help me return, I'm certain my family would reward you generously."
A careful answer. Offering something. Probing for intent.
"Feng Han. A fine name." Fu's tone was reassuring. "Don't be afraid. I won't harm you. You're the first person to reach this place in a thousand years, and the fate you carry isn't something I would interfere with lightly."
"Great fate...?"
Feng Han turned the phrase over. He thought of his system. Could this person sense it?
He was quietly stunned — no cultivator had ever reacted to anything unusual about him before.
In reality, Fu had no idea about the system. He was referring entirely to the locket. If he had known about the system, his reaction would have been considerably less composed.
"Feng Han — are you willing to accept my inheritance?"
Feng Han went still.
For nearly ten years he had tried everything he could find to cultivate. Nothing had worked. And now someone was simply offering him an inheritance, without asking for anything in return?
It seemed too easy. It felt like a trap.
He hesitated.
Fu saw it and smiled.
"You don't need to worry about being asked to do something difficult. All I ask in return is this — remain on good terms with the Tang Dynasty. And if circumstances ever make that impossible, ensure at minimum that the Tang Dynasty is not destroyed entirely."
Feng Han processed that.
From the way he spoke, refusing didn't seem like it was genuinely on the table. And honestly — he wasn't a cultivator. He had nothing to negotiate from. And an inheritance from someone who had built a Secret Realm and survived a thousand years inside it was not something he was eager to walk away from.
"I understand, Senior. I'm willing to accept your inheritance."
Fu smiled widely and raised both hands.
Spiritual energy converged from every direction and poured toward Feng Han in a torrent. For a moment, it genuinely seemed as though he might break through several realms at once — the energy was that dense, that overwhelming.
Then Fu stopped.
He looked at Feng Han with an expression of careful puzzlement.
"Strange... I've infused your body with spiritual energy equivalent to a Golden Core cultivator's full reserve. And yet your body has not broken through even the First Layer of Qi Refining. It's as though you're a bottomless vessel with no outlet. Do you know why?"
"Senior — since birth, I have been unable to cultivate. It seems I was born with a constitution that doesn't accept it."
That was as much as he could honestly say. He suspected the Heavenly Curse on his system panel was the cause, but he didn't understand it well enough to say more — and there was value in seeing what the other person knew.
"Hmm. That does appear to be the case." Fu was quiet for a moment. "But it may be that your constitution simply requires a specific trigger to activate. I would like to spend more time helping you understand it — but I don't have time. I'll transfer what else I can to you now. As for your cultivation — I believe you will unravel it yourself, in time."
He said it with the calm certainty of someone who had watched enough of the world to know the difference between a dead end and an unopened door.
★ — ★ — ★
Outside the ruins of the ancient palace.
Two figures arrived at the edge of the tree line.
Wan stopped the moment the ruins came into view. His pace doubled.
"Master Wan — please wait—" Xiao called out, already struggling to keep up with Wan's normal speed. The doubled pace left him behind entirely within seconds.
Wan moved through the ruins without hesitation, sidestepping array formations as though he already knew where each one was. His eyes moved over the inscriptions on the pillars and grew bright.
"This is Lord Fu's Secret Realm. It's real." The excitement in his voice was genuine and barely contained. "This trip was worth it."
He moved quickly toward the main hall.
Outside, others had also arrived at the ruins — a crowd of cultivators who had, at some point during their exploration, converged on what was clearly the center of the Secret Realm.
Mia and Ark had changed their appearances before approaching. Drawing attention as Royal heirs in an uncontrolled environment with motivated strangers was not a risk worth taking. Even cultivators who would ordinarily show restraint could become unpredictable when the right prize was nearby.
They assessed from a distance.
"This has to be the core of the realm."
"Agreed. Do we go in?"
"Wait. Not yet."
As if to prove her point, a group of cultivators decided not to wait and charged directly into the ruins.
An array activated.
Several of them died instantly. Others staggered back with severe injuries.
The cautious group said nothing. They didn't need to.
After that, everyone's approach became considerably more measured.
★ — ★ — ★
Inside the brightly lit space.
Fu had finished.
He looked at the boy who had absorbed everything he had to offer without his cultivation moving a single inch, and felt something between melancholy and admiration.
"Alas. With a physique like yours capable of receiving all of this, and if only it could actually cultivate..." He didn't finish the thought.
Feng Han smiled with the resigned expression of someone who had already made peace with the irony.
"Thank you, Senior. Truly. I am eternally grateful."
He knelt.
"Get up. You've received my teachings. By that measure — you're my disciple."
Feng Han's head came back up. He hadn't expected that.
"Master." He said it deliberately, and meant it. "I vow to uphold the promise I made to you. The Tang Dynasty will not be destroyed by my hand or my inaction."
Fu laughed — openly, warmly, the first real laugh he had produced in a very long time.
"Good disciple. I didn't misjudge you. Go on — the exit is there."
A gate appeared at the base of the great tree, set into the roots.
Feng Han knelt once more, rose, and walked toward it.
Behind him, Fu watched him go.
"This era will be a lot more interesting with that kid in it... Pity I won't be around to see it."
His figure faded.
The bright space began to crack.
★ — ★ — ★
In the main hall of the ruins.
A crack split the golden statue from crown to base and the glow left it instantly. From the base of the platform, Feng Han emerged. He turned back toward the statue, and bowed.
Wan appeared in the hall entrance.
He stopped when he saw the cracked statue — and then, a moment later, the small figure standing before it.
Their eyes met.
Neither spoke immediately. But each had, within the space of a moment, placed the other.
"Are you from the Tang Dynasty?" Feng Han asked first.
"I am." Wan's gaze moved over him carefully. "And you — second child of Imperial General Feng Huan. Feng Han."
"Correct."
A brief silence.
"What happened here?"
There wasn't much point in being indirect.
"I received Master Fu's inheritance." Feng Han said plainly.
Wan was quiet for a moment. Then:
"...I understand. Lord Fu would have had his reasons. I won't challenge them." He paused. "But now that you've accepted his teachings, you'll need to come with me — to help us, when the time arrives."
Feng Han had been prepared for something more difficult than this. He had even mentally rehearsed handing over the inheritance if it came to that — he wasn't going to win a fight against someone who had dismantled a Late Stage Foundation Establishment cultivator without breaking a sweat.
But this was fine. Better than fine.
"Agreed. But I need to inform my family first. They must be worried."
"Of course. I'll come to find you in a few days."
Their first meeting ended simply, without hostility.
. . .
The crowd outside the ruins had been battering the array formations for over an hour with everything they had — spells, secret techniques, treasures — and achieved what could generously be described as minor surface damage.
"We're going to run out of time before we break through this. We need an array master, or something specifically designed to bypass it." Someone voiced what everyone was already thinking.
Then, without warning, the array shattered.
No gradual weakening. No visible buildup of pressure. It simply cracked — multiple fractures spreading outward simultaneously — and came apart like glass.
Nobody understood what had caused it.
Nobody waited to find out.
Whoosh.
The first person sprinted for the entrance. Everyone else followed immediately after. Understanding could wait. The ruins were open.
Battles broke out throughout the palace in short order.
Wan and Feng Han had already left by the time anyone reached the main hall. What they found was a cracked golden statue — which, after a brief pause, they also fought over, because the statue itself was cast from Sun Fire Metal and that was worth something regardless.
The ruins were excavated completely. Not a stone was left unexamined.
Mia and Ark had done well — they emerged with a satisfying collection of resources from the earlier sections of the ruins.
"Sister — with all of this, we can definitely form a high-grade core." Ark said happily, keeping pace beside her. "Once you break through, those people at the palace won't be able to touch you anymore."
He was foolish in many ways, but he understood the stakes. A Foundation Establishment cultivator was powerful by the standards of ordinary people — and counted for almost nothing in the world of real cultivation. Only at Golden Core did a cultivator first touch the Dao. Only then did they gain the tools to genuinely protect themselves.
The Crown Prince was already Nascent Soul.
"True." Mia said. "We're still careful."
Ark kept smiling. He nodded.
Then, from several directions at once, they were surrounded.
"You two — drop everything and walk away. Otherwise you don't walk away at all." One of the cultivators said, dragging a thumb along his blade.
They had been watching this pair since the ruins. Always avoiding confrontation. Always just slightly behind the main action. An easy pair of targets with resources they hadn't had to bleed for.
Ark went very still — not from fear, but from the very specific exhaustion of someone watching an entirely preventable disaster unfold in slow motion.
He glanced at Mia.
Her expression had gone calm. The kind of calm that had nothing to do with patience.
He reached quietly for every defensive talisman he was carrying.
★ — ★ — ★
Mia had been in a good mood.
Good resources. Clean exit. A straightforward trip, by her standards. She had been talking with Ark on the way out when the cultivators surrounded them.
She looked at the one who had spoken.
"Oh? You'll kill us if we don't comply?"
There was a smile on her face. It was not a reassuring smile.
"That's right. We've seen you avoiding fights. We're not asking for much — just hand it over and leave."
Another cultivator leaned forward with a grin.
"Actually — the boy can go. But the girl stays."
Ark looked at his sister.
There it is.
"Ark." Mia's tone was perfectly even. "I'll be entertaining our guests. Take care of yourself."
Ark nodded once, activated every talisman and defensive treasure he had, and moved quietly to a safe distance.
"Ha — smart boy. Don't worry, girl, we'll make sure you have a good time—"
He stopped talking.
He couldn't understand, for a moment, why the world seemed to be rotating.
He tried to call out to the others. Then he saw something that made that impossible.
Isn't that my body? Why doesn't it have a head?
Those were his last thoughts.
Silence fell over the group.
They had seen it. Every one of them. The girl had extended her left hand, drawn a small cut across her wrist, and the blood that flowed had condensed — instantly, without hesitation — into a sword. She had thrown it in the same motion. Their companion's head had separated from his body before anyone registered what they were seeing.
The whole thing had taken less than a breath.
"All right then." Mia rolled her shoulders lightly. "Come on. I haven't tasted a proper fight in a while. Don't make it disappointing."
A red gleam moved through her eyes.
"Don't falter!" One of the Peak Stage cultivators in the group stepped up, voice raised to steady the others. "She's one person — Middle Stage Foundation Establishment at best! We caught her off guard once, that's all. Surround her!"
Mia looked at him.
Then she laughed.
It was a beautiful sound. It should have been the laugh of someone entirely at ease, light and musical. In this context, it landed differently.
"Middle Stage." She repeated it with faint amusement. "I apologize — I've been concealing my realm. I assumed someone here might have seen through it. I overestimated you."
She spread her arms.
The blood from the corpse at her feet rose. It moved like something alive — fluid, precise — and condensed into a ring of swords that orbited her slowly. Her disguise dissolved. Her actual aura unfurled outward like a pressure front, reaching across the entire area and beyond.
Every battle in the vicinity stopped.
"Peak Foundation Establishment—"
"No. That's not normal Peak Stage. That aura reads like Golden Core."
"Who is she?"
"Blood swords. That arrogance. That face—" One voice went very quiet. "That's Slayer Queen Mia. Her Highness Mia Lunare."
The group fractured.
"We challenged her?!"
"We're dead—"
"Hold together!" The Peak Stage cultivator's voice cut through the panic. "Running guarantees nothing! She's one person — we still have numbers! We fight for a chance, or we die running. Those are the only options!"
He was right, and everyone present knew it. The moment they had openly moved against Mia Lunare, the outcome of running was already decided. They either found a way through her, or they didn't find a way out at all.
Grim faces. Steady stances.
"Wise." Mia said. "Now come. Try not to end too quickly."
She threw the blood swords.
Most of the group dodged. The attacks that landed didn't seem lethal — shallow cuts, manageable damage. Confidence rippled through the survivors.
"Is that all she—"
The cultivators who had been struck by the swords exploded.
"Don't drop your guard." Mia observed.
★ — ★ — ★
Some time later.
The ground was wet. Corpses lay in a rough ring around a space that had been, not long ago, a confrontation between several cultivators and one.
Mia stood at the center, blood moving around her like water — none of it hers. She was pristine underneath it.
"You—!" The last one standing coughed up blood, barely upright, eyes wide and full of the particular horror of someone who had just understood something too late. "You've already touched your Dao?!"
"You were simply too weak." Mia shook her head. "Knowing your own heart isn't complicated, once you stop lying to yourself."
She had already decided to return to the frontlines after breaking through to Golden Core. Her Dao had always been heading here — sharpened at the battlefield at fifteen, distilled in every fight since. It had a name now.
Blood Martial Dao.
"Your arrogance will catch up to you—!" he started.
A blood sword entered his throat.
Mia withdrew it and regarded him briefly.
Hypocrite. You weren't short of arrogance yourself.
She returned the blood around her to the ground in a smooth, controlled motion. She turned away from the battlefield spotless — not a trace of the fight on her clothes.
"Ark. Let's go."
Ark emerged from behind his wall of defensive talismans.
"You were incredible, Sister."
Mia smiled at that. Small and genuine.
They left without hurrying.
Behind them, the other cultivators who had been fighting nearby stood in the aftermath and looked at what remained. Several of them made a quiet, private vow to remember the name Mia Lunare and the specific shape of what making an enemy of her looked like.
★ — ★ — ★
Eventually, the Secret Realm reached the end of its cycle.
Everyone was ejected.
. . .
"Feng Han! My son — where did you disappear to?" Feng Qian asked, pulling him into an embrace before he could answer.
"Mom — I'm back! I was just wandering inside the Auction House and then a gate appeared and pulled me in. I didn't have a choice."
It was roughly accurate. He had a slightly fuller picture of what had happened, following his conversation with Wan — but the broad strokes were genuine.
He looked down at his system panel.
[ WELCOME TO IMMORTAL CULTIVATION SYSTEM!
Version: TAI – 23.13
Name: Feng Han
Age: 9
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Status: Normal
Special Status: Heavenly Curse – Unable to Cultivate | Saint's Mark – Unparalleled Cultivator
Talent: Awakened (Active)
Dao(s): Nature Dao
]
Talent: Awakened — Active.
And a new line entirely.
Dao(s): Nature Dao.
He stared at it for a moment. Then a slow, genuine smile spread across his face.
Can't wait.
"Mom — let's go home." Feng Han said.
Feng Qian smiled, warm and relieved, and held his hand a little tighter.
Hong Jun approached and bowed.
"Young Master. You're safe. Are you well?"
"I'm well." Feng Han said, and meant it.
"We're going home, Jun'er."
"As you wish."
And with that, the Secret Realm event drew to a close.