A Quiet Victory

When Han Li quietly returned to the meditation chamber, he found the disciples still sprawled unconscious, exactly as they had been. No one had come to check on them.

This was only to be expected, he reflected. In the heat of a critical battle, who would spare attention for low-ranking disciples? However gifted they might be, they were still only junior disciples—inconsequential when greater matters were at stake.

The white fox had already taken on his appearance and was lying in his original spot, feigning unconsciousness. But the moment she sensed Han Li’s return, she reverted to her true form and leaped into his sleeve.

“Well? Did you get it?” Silvermoon’s light laugh came from within his sleeve. “No one came while you were gone. It seems you were worrying for nothing.”

“I got it,” Han Li said flatly. “But it’s better to worry for nothing than to expose myself.”

“Still, how do you plan to explain the fact that you survived? That might be a bit tricky,” Silvermoon said, shifting the topic with practiced lightness.

“Explain? I’ll tell the truth,” Han Li replied, as if the matter hardly concerned him.

“The truth?” Silvermoon’s voice registered surprise.

“I’ll say I bought an illusion talisman at a high price and used it to save my life. What’s so hard to explain about that? The art of illusion is inherently difficult to pin down. Even the most perceptive cultivator can be fooled for a moment if they aren’t paying attention.” Han Li’s tone was unhurried, his plan already settled.

“Not bad. That’s a perfectly good excuse.” The white fox paused, then chuckled softly.

What followed was straightforward.

Nearly half a day later, the yellow-robed cultivator walked into the meditation chamber with a grim expression. Seeing the disciples still unconscious, he let out a soft sigh. Forming a hand seal and flicking his fingers, several beams of white light shot out, entering each of the cultivators’ bodies.

The spell Du Dong had used to knock them out was evidently nothing too complex. Within moments, the disciples began to stir, one by one. When they saw the yellow-robed cultivator and noticed that Du Dong and his companion were gone, they understood the danger had passed. Relief flooded their faces.

Of course, when they saw that Han Li had also survived unscathed, they were startled. But Han Li simply pulled out a self-made illusion talisman, waved it casually in front of their eyes, and dismissed the matter with the excuse he had prepared.

As expected, illusion arts were a field few studied deeply. No one raised much suspicion. Even the yellow-robed cultivator, upon hearing the explanation, gave Han Li only a slightly curious second look before asking nothing further.

Sun Huo and the woman surnamed Mu, however, still wore faint expressions of doubt. The things Du Dong had said to Han Li at the start, and the ruthless way he had immediately attacked, still unsettled them.

Han Li noticed their lingering suspicion but did not worry. They had no evidence at all. They could not go around making accusations based on nothing more than a vague unease in their hearts. And besides—Du Dong had tried to kill him, not win him over.

Without the concentrated spirit liquid, and with the disheveled cultivator responsible for brewing the Clarity Cleansing Water now gone—whether dead or vanished—the plan to cleanse their spirit eyes naturally fell through.

In the end, the upper echelons of the three sects, led by Daoist Fu, hastily distributed a single magic tool to each disciple as compensation and announced the conclusion of the Sword Trial Assembly. The disciples were to return to their respective sects on their own.

The Core Formation cultivators who had led the groups, however, showed no intention of leaving with them.

The disciples could see that these Core Formation elders all wore grim, anxious expressions. The red-robed elder from the Cloud Dream Sect, in particular, looked deeply troubled. Even a fool could tell that something major had happened while they were unconscious.

The woman surnamed Mu and the other low-rank disciples, though filled with frustration and resentment, had no choice but to obediently return to their sects.

When Han Li and the others finally arrived back at the Falling Cloud Sect, they were immediately summoned by several senior sect members. They were questioned in detail about everything that had happened in the forbidden zone. Only after receiving their answers did the elders, their faces dark, dismiss them with an order to remain silent.

Later, Han Li learned the full story. The three sects’ plan to lure out the traitor among them had been a complete and utter failure.

Not only had Du Dong and his allies, under the cover of the Heavenly Fiend Sect’s Possession Art, successfully smuggled the spirit liquid back to the orthodox and demonic sects, but everyone except the white-robed scholar had escaped the Xi Kingdom. The white-robed scholar, caught off guard, had been killed on the spot by Daoist Fu and the others.

Once the Heavenly Fiend Sect Master’s Possession Art expired, the disheveled cultivator had been captured alive by the boy servant. After that, there was no further news—whether he had been killed or imprisoned remained unknown.

The Falling Cloud Sect’s two Nascent Soul elders and the gathering of Core Formation cultivators from the three sects had been ambushed by a large force from the Thousand Illusion Sect and the Heavenly Fiend Sect. Several Core Formation cultivators had been killed or wounded. Worse, one of the Nascent Soul elders—an elder surnamed Cheng—had been seriously injured while fending off an attack from several cultivators of the same rank. Though his life was not in immediate danger, he had suffered a severe loss of vitality.

The incident sent a shockwave through the three sects. They had, of course, pressured the orthodox and demonic powers through the Heavenly Dao Alliance, demanding an explanation. But both sides denied any involvement. After endless rounds of bureaucratic wrangling, the three sects were given nothing.

The upper echelons of the three sects had no choice but to accept it.

Still, the Heavenly Dao Alliance learned through its spies within the orthodox and demonic camps that, although the spirit liquid had been successfully brought back, it had proven ineffective—either because there was too little of it or because it simply did not work. After being poured onto the Verdant Heaven Vine, the ancient plant remained withered, showing no sign of revival.

This news, at least, allowed the three sects and the other Heavenly Dao Alliance members to breathe a secret sigh of relief.

In response, all three factions increased their vigilance. The peace that had held for over a century suddenly grew tense again, as if conflict could break out again at any moment.

When Han Li finished reporting to the sect’s upper echelons, he immediately returned to his cave dwelling on Little Stone Mountain.

Back in his estate, he promptly transplanted the Spirit Eye Tree sapling in a spot not far from the Nine-Bend Spirit Ginseng. Since both were celestial spiritual plants, keeping them close might allow them to nourish each other.

In the days that followed, Han Li briefly dealt with a few waves of sect brothers who came to ask about the Sword Trial Assembly, then plunged into bitter cultivation. Perhaps it was the influence of the trial, but the bottleneck that had been blocking his Great Derivative Art finally—mysteriously—broke through. The moment he began to cultivate in earnest, his progress advanced by leaps and bounds.

Han Li was overjoyed. He resumed training both the Great Derivative Art and the Azure Origin Sword Art in parallel.

He understood well that the Great Derivative Art’s smooth progress was largely due to the Soul Nourishing Bead Necklace he wore around his neck. Ever since he had put on those beads, his divine sense had grown steadily stronger—even without deliberate training. The effect was subtle but constant, like water filling a pond until all that remained was to expand the pond’s walls and let the water flow in.

Moreover, every time he cultivated the Great Derivative Art, the beads emitted a faint, pure energy that fed directly into his primordial soul, making his training effortless and doubling its effectiveness.

During this period, Han Li also used the green liquid every few days to accelerate the growth of the Spirit Eye Tree sapling. In just a few months, a new sprout had emerged from the root. It was only a matter of time before it grew as tall and grand as the tree in the forbidden zone.

Still, Han Li estimated it would take at least twenty more years of careful cultivation.

But he was in no rush. After all, reaching the False Core stage and then the Nascent Soul stage would take about as much time. And he already had a Settling Spirit Pill in hand. Even if the tree wasn’t ready in time, it would not matter.

Thinking back to the look of stunned realization on the black-clothed youth’s face when he reached into his storage pouch and found the pill missing, Han Li allowed himself a quiet, private smile.

His true purpose in obtaining the Spirit Eye Tree, after all, had always been to brew the Clarity Cleansing Water. Possessing a pair of Clear Spirit Eyes would be a tremendous advantage in battle—just as his divine sense, already far stronger than that of cultivators at the same rank, had repeatedly given him the upper hand.

At the same time, Han Li did not abandon his alchemy practice. He needed to be fully prepared for the eventual refinement of the Nine-Bend Spirit Ginseng pill.

And so, time passed—one day at a time—in a quiet rhythm of bitter cultivation and alchemical study.

During this period, unless absolutely necessary, Han Li never left his cave dwelling.

When he reached a critical stage in his cultivation that required seclusion, he would release Silvermoon and have her take on his appearance to deal with the occasional visiting sect brother, while he retreated into closed-door cultivation.

Fortunately, Silvermoon’s fox body was advancing rapidly with the steady consumption of pills, and her illusion arts grew ever more refined. She never once slipped.

As for the woman surnamed Mu, her initial suspicion of Han Li gradually faded. After the Sword Trial Assembly, Han Li had kept an extremely low profile, rarely venturing out and displaying no unusual behavior. In her eyes, he was once again nothing more than an ordinary Qi Condensation disciple. She stopped paying him any special attention.

With that, Han Li grew even more at ease in the Falling Cloud Sect.

In the blink of an eye, twenty years had passed since he joined the sect as a Qi Condensation disciple.

His day of forming a Nascent Soul had finally arrived.