A New Era

"Hah—"

Su Min stepped out from the ruins of the grand hall, the hem of her robes fluttering gently in the wind, stained faintly with dust and ash. She exhaled slowly, a breath long held—like releasing something that had waited decades to be spoken.

Behind her, silence reigned.

No more curses. No more schemes. No more shadows festering in the name of empire.

She looked up. The sky, though choked earlier by demonic clouds, was slowly clearing—revealing a sliver of moonlight. The heavens always took their time. She understood that now.

"...It's over."

The words slipped from her lips—not for the corpses she left behind, nor for the land she had helped cleanse, but for someone far smaller. Far younger.

A girl who had once knelt in chains behind iron bars.

The voice she spoke with now was her own, but it echoed through time. To that girl—barely fourteen, filthy and starved. A girl dragged from the smoldering remains of her clan, sold into a brothel, only to be spared because her innate talent were 'too precious' to waste on flesh-trade. A girl who had fled into the mountains with nothing but grit and fury in her bones.

"You don't have to keep running," she whispered. "We're not prey anymore."

Her fingers curled at her side, not around a blade—but around the empty air where vengeance once lived.

Fifty years.

From a fugitive child with blood-stained hands, to a nameless healer in the borderlands. 

From hunted to hidden, building power in the cracks of the empire. Cloaking herself beneath the persona the world came to revere: Danxian.

They never saw the flames smoldering behind her eyes.

From Body Refining to Qi Refining. From Qi Refining to Foundation Establishment. From Foundation Establishment to Golden Core.

Each realm climbed with bones underfoot.

Each step soaked in silence and patience and unspent rage.

And now, it was done.

The Emperor—slain by the very women he thought he could use and discard.

The Demon Queen—devoured by her own spell while trying to steal from Su Min what could never be taken.

It hadn't been her hand that struck the final blow.But the grave was still hers to seal.

Her gaze swept across the rubble—the place where the imperial court once dictated the fate of millions. Now, not even the ghosts dared linger.

"Your vengeance is fulfilled," she said softly, to the girl who once wept in darkness. "He's gone. She's gone. The dogs they sent to hunt you, the nobles who erased your name—none of them remain."

Her voice did not tremble. She had already shed her tears, long ago—alone, in caves, in prisons.

"I didn't forget. Not one face. Not one name. Not one betrayal."

The wind shifted, and for a moment it carried the scent of something old—incense, perhaps, or blood long dried. She imagined she could hear them again: her aunt's lullabies in the darkness, her cousin's choking sobs, her father's voice as he mouthed his final word.

"Endure."

A bitter ache swelled behind her sternum.

"You can rest now." she murmured, as if speaking to the dead "All of you… our clan, our name, our blood. I carried it this far. No one will forget you now—not while I still walk this earth. Your names won't be buried beneath lies."

She stood there for a while, gaze fixed on the sky, as if waiting for a sign—or a voice.

But none came. The dead were not in the sky.

They were in her.

Still, she spoke aloud, because she always had.

"And the people of this land—"

She glanced upward again, at the silver light finally cutting through the clouds.

"—they can breathe again."

For a long time, she said nothing. The wind moved gently past her, brushing her cheek like the hand of someone she once loved. Or maybe imagined.

She stepped forward. Not as a child of a ruined house. Not as a nameless fugitive. Not even as the legendary 'Danxian' who had healed kings and slain beasts.

But as Su Min.

The girl who never forgot.

The woman who endured.

The one who, after fifty long years, finally stood alone—unchallenged, unbowed.

"The living still have work to do," she said. "And I still have bones to bury."

Then, almost absently, she turned her heel toward the inner chamber—the former lair of the Demon Queen.

"Let's see if that old hag left behind anything dangerous," she muttered. "Those damned scrolls are better turned to ash. No one else needs to suffer like we did."

And for the first time in a lifetime, the earth beneath her feet no longer felt like it would fall away.

It felt solid.

Earned.

Hers.

A moment later, a vast wave of spiritual sense surged outward from her body, sweeping through the entire imperial complex with clinical precision. Her brows furrowed.

With a flick of her sleeve, she struck the polished stone beneath her feet. The square cracked open in a ring of force, the shattered tiles falling away to reveal what had been hidden beneath for decades.

Rows upon rows of skeletal remains. A sea of bones.

Some small and fragile—maidservants, eunuchs. Others still bore traces of qi in their marrow—palace guards, inner disciples, courtiers. But most chilling of all was the faint, unmistakable resonance in their bloodlines. The same as the late Emperor. His kin. His clan.

All sacrificed beneath gilded corridors.

Su Min stood in silence for a long time.

Then, she crouched and lifted a scroll from a jade box nestled beside one pile of bones. Demonic script writhed faintly across its surface.

"These are all the techniques I could salvage," she murmured. "I collected what the palace guards and maids carried as well. It's… better this way. Better to sever that rotted root entirely."

She straightened, holding the scrolls between two fingers. They ignited a heartbeat later, turning to ash in the breeze.

"Few of them were ever truly sane by the end," she added quietly. "Even the children were born wrong. Twisted by too many generations of greed and fear."

She didn't smile. There was no triumph in her expression—only stillness. A quiet, breathless gravity.

This was not a victory.

It was an ending.

She sighed again, then pressed her foot lightly on the ground. Her figure vanished from the imperial city and appeared outside its gates. Everyone knew she had gone in to settle a final score. Naturally, no one had dared disturb her.

"This is the Dog Emperor's head. You can use it to make an official proclamation. As for the body, his own concubines tore it apart."

She set the emperor's head down in front of Cao Yuanmu. As for why the head remained intact—Su Min had shielded it with spiritual force. She had no interest in saving the rest. His body had already been flayed by dozens of furious consorts. She hadn't bothered to piece it back together.

"Hmph, so you're finally dead."

Cao Yuanmu sneered as he looked at the terror-stricken face still frozen on the severed head. He didn't care in the slightest how the man had died.

"Take your men inside. The Dog Emperor's consorts… they're victims too. Give them a path to live. The rest, I'll leave to you."

"Understood."

Cao Yuanmu nodded and gestured. His soldiers began marching into the palace grounds.

Su Min turned to the gathered officials and cultivators.

"I will be resting for about a week. After that, I will reopen my pill furnace. I'll publicly list the herbs required for each pill I'm willing to refine. Prepare your materials if you wish to commission me."

"Yes!"

Cheers broke out among the crowd. At last, they had the chance they'd long dreamed of. Before this, each of them had been forced to face one or even two monster-hunting cultivators from the Foundation Establishment stage, all under pressure. Those agents, though mediocre in cultivation, used sinister and vile techniques. One careless move could still cost a life.

With that, Su Min summoned her flying sword. Stepping onto it, she vanished into the skies above the capital. Her talent had stirred once again, and this time, there was resonance—a powerful linkage she had to understand. She needed solitude to digest it all… and to sort through the old hag's legacy.

She soon landed on a remote mountaintop outside Weidu.

Seated cross-legged, Su Min began to meditate.

"Another resonance... this time, a third-tier cultivation method?"

Information surged into her mind.

[Fire-Wood Transformation Method – Layer Three]

"So, the third layer is meant for the Golden Core stage. Not bad. Looks like the supporting methods are keeping up. No wonder my head ached earlier—an entire technique just downloaded itself."

As she cycled her breath and circulated the method, her spiritual energy quickly recovered. Truthfully, the previous battle hadn't been difficult. The old witch's trump cards were simply too well-countered by her.

If she'd tried to brute-force her way through that blood infant, it would have been a disaster. Fortunately, one magic treasure suppressed it completely, and her final technique had torn the thing apart. In battles without a large power gap, intelligence was king.

"Come to think of it, I'm like Batman. Never lost a duel I planned for."

With the new technique integrated, Su Min turned to the old witch's spoils. She pulled out a storage ring and swept it with her divine sense. Her expression shifted. Inside was a trove of forbidden scrolls—dark arts and sinister secrets. Releasing these would cause disaster. She had no intention of using them.

"As expected of a once-powerful cultivator. Among the filth, she hoarded plenty of legitimate techniques. I'll save those for when I found my sect. More importantly... this."

She retrieved a small boat from the ring. This was the old witch's greatest treasure.

[Void-Skipping Shuttle: Can traverse world barriers.]

Simple. Crude. Unbelievably valuable.

In five hundred years, this object might be obsolete. But now, in this age, it was priceless. Consider the monk who had passed her the Great Sun Tathāgata Sutra. To enter this realm, he had paid a dreadful price and bore countless restrictions. But this shuttle could cross those same barriers unhindered.

Even the mighty Thunder Monastery lacked such a thing. Su Min couldn't imagine what kind of dumb luck had allowed the witch to get her hands on it.

"The Three Blessed Realms… unique lands once veiled by Heaven's laws. Now, with the retreat of the Great Dao, they'll soon be exposed. I must seize this chance to enter them—claim them all. In these next centuries, I'll build my sect from nothing, then walk the path to Golden Core."

She put away the items and began mentally calculating the steps ahead. The Blessed Realms were treasures, and Su Min, greedy player that she was, intended to collect every one of them. There were even game guides for it.

With her cultivation as it stood—and no major powers making a move—she could already dominate most. She could negotiate with the great sects, lead selected individuals to her claimed lands, and raise them herself. Only then could she rest easy.

"One step at a time. Cultivating without power or backing… it's just too hard."

She sighed. Wei-wu Prefecture was a remote, barren land. Its spiritual foundation was weak, its environment mediocre—hardly enough to sustain her path. Though she possessed unending life, this world was riddled with calamity. If she took her time, the next catastrophe might sweep everything away.

"The Azure Dragon legacy… and the Eastern Azure Wood… both lie on Golden Core Avenue. There will be many who covet them. And I may be gifted—but so are they."

She sighed again. Her most important innate talent didn't enhance combat. Her gift was the same—it gave no edge in direct battle. In a fight between geniuses, she was at a disadvantage.

Take Xie Yingying for example. She had dealt with that corpse fiend easily, yet she never even showed her full strength. The next few centuries would be a race to deepen her foundations. Especially with the Path of Longevity—there was immense room for growth.

Ordinary players would now begin journeying across the continents, seeking stronger bloodlines, creating offspring. Even the most powerful physique would falter with age, and without evolution, their path would end.

So they would found clans—raise children, then reincarnate and seize their own bodies. That was the threshold of this cultivation game. After reincarnation, your techniques and talents remained, but your physique changed. And if the new body didn't match your supreme techniques, your legacy was lost.

In this world, the Path of Longevity was weak early on, middling in the middle stages—but terrifying in the endgame.

"Hah… finally recovered."

Su Min opened her eyes again. This short retreat had lasted a week. Restoring her energy had been simple, but mastering the new cultivation method had taken time. By the time she returned, the once-chaotic capital of Weijing had been brought under control. But inside the main hall, the atmosphere was grim. The faces of Cao Yuanmu and the others were dark and stormy.

"What's with the faces? Who died now?"

She raised a brow at the stifling air inside the hall.

"That bastard... paved the entire palace with bones. The place is haunted—ghosts roam at night. Even Monk Hui Ming and his disciples will need years to purify it. We planned to make this our capital, but now..."

Cao Yuanmu's face twitched in frustration. Their original plan was scrapped.

"I'd suggest a new dynasty name. That man's sins are too heavy. If you inherit the 'Great Wei' title, you'll inherit his karma too."

"Guh—!"

Cao Yuanmu shivered involuntarily. That was a burden they couldn't afford.

(Su Min's claim was half-bluff—she just hated the name 'Great Wei' and didn't want to see it continue. But if a little superstitious fear helped, so be it.)

"After cleaning up, we'll return home. The lands the emperor ruled are infested with vengeful spirits. Purification will take decades. This capital... it's unlivable."

They had agonized over the decision, but Su Min's words sealed it. They would return to their roots—the Yong Province, where their power base was strongest. As for the Great Wei's revival? That would take far longer.

"Then the new emperor's coronation will be next month... in Yong City."

"What about the concubines?"

"They've been relocated. Commoners, all of them. We'll find them work—textile mills, perhaps. No luxuries, but they'll survive. If they recover and remarry, we won't stop them."

"Good."

Su Min nodded.

She had no further interest in their fates—helping them was just a passing act of mercy. For the Yong faction, handling a few dozen harmless women was no trouble.

"I'll head back to Yong City. The main threats are gone. The rest is up to you."

"Understood."

Cao Yuanmu didn't argue. The Great Wei's last forces—the Demon Queen and the Demon-Slaying Division—had fallen at the capital's gates. Now, their army marched unopposed. Su Min's strength wasn't needed anymore.

News of the emperor's death and the Great Wei's fall spread like wildfire across Wei-Wu Province.

From the deserts to the southern jungles, envoys raced to Yong City to pay respects to the new regime. A decree followed: The new emperor would be crowned in Yong City, renamed Yong Capital. The dynasty would be reborn as the "Great Yong."

Su Min's warning had been heeded. The Great Wei, which had endured for centuries, was no more. And no one dared rebel during the transition—the Yong faction's foundation was unshaken, and the martial sects alone could crush any dissent. With cultivation accelerating, a single Foundation Establishment expert could sway entire regions. Peace had come at last—how long it would last, no one knew.

Su Min stared at the stacked requests before her, overwhelmed. Modern habits died hard—she had organized everything into spreadsheets. Now, she had meters-long lists of orders.

"Eighteen Foundation Establishment Pills requested... Twenty-three sets of materials provided. The rest paid with manuals or other resources. At five pills per batch, that's four batches..."

She planned to establish her own sect, so collecting techniques and skills was a priority. But Wei-Wu Province's reserves were pitiful—she'd need to visit other continents, leveraging her fourth-grade alchemist status to trade with major sects. Most powerful factions were still mostly sealed, with only one or two Golden Core experts active. The higher-tier elders wouldn't emerge unless their sects faced annihilation—the Heavenly Decay Curse made extended activity deadly.

(Any cultivation exceeding the world's limits would burn their lifespan at an accelerated rate—even for Nascent Soul or Divine Transformation experts.)

As for smaller sects?

Most had vanished over time, like Xie Yingying's Heavenly Yin Sect. Without enough hibernation crystals, they had entrusted their legacy to her alone. Now, she had to rebuild from scratch.

"Time to start refining. I'll drain this land dry before I leave."

With that, she closed her eyes, and flames erupted around her. At her level, third-grade pills were virtually guaranteed—effortless perfection.

While Su Min worked, the Great Yong's rise continued. In just half a year, the last remnants of resistance crumbled. The emperor's atrocities had long eroded loyalty, making the transition smooth. Now, the grandest event was the new emperor's coronation.

As for Su Min?

"Foundation Establishment Pills, Qi-Gathering Pills, Qi Inducing Pills—all done. The Foundation Spirit Pills... well, you didn't bring enough materials."

She clapped her hands, and maidens carried out trays laden with pills—enough to drive any cultivator mad with desire. The hall buzzed with anticipation. The single Foundation Spirit Pill she had prepared became the subject of fierce competition, with sect leaders brawling like street thugs over it.

(Since none had killed a Foundation Establishment enemy—the Demon Queen had claimed all those souls—dividing credit was impossible.)

As for the other three pill types, she had refined countless batches. But Foundation Spirit Pills required ingredients too rare for this era. Even Xie Yingying's Xuantian Mansion outer layer had only barely provided one batch.

"This should be enough. Hahaha..."

The recipients didn't dare complain—the sheer volume of pills had exhausted their stockpiles. Even if Su Min kept refining, they had no materials left. Herbs took time to regrow.

"Yawn... The coronation's in a week, right?"

Su Min stretched lazily, watching as the distribution proceeded smoothly. No one dared cause trouble under her gaze.

"Yes. Your observation seat is prepared."

"Mm."

She nodded.

As for why she wasn't participating?

Simple—no one could (or dared) make her kneel.