Chapter 97
Chapter 97
“How pitiful. I heard it was revenge between cultivators.”
“Exactly. A fire that large burned for days without anyone knowing. What else could it have been but an immortal’s methods?”
“Such a shame. Her two disciples had only just left with the immortals. Everyone thought she would enjoy their good fortune in the future.”
“I would call it lucky. If those two children had not left, there would have been three sets of bones inside instead of one.”
“…”
Zhu Yin stood in the crowd, listening to people discuss news of her “death.”
According to the plot, a year would pass before the news reached the two children.
She opened her mission panel.
Excellent. Nothing had gone wrong this time. The progress bar had reached one hundred percent.
Her supporting-role mission in this world was complete.
The rest belonged to the two protagonists.
They would meet many benefactors, acknowledge far more powerful ancestral cultivators as masters, and face numerous dangers and hardships.
In any case… none of it would have the slightest connection to Zhu Yin, the unremarkable Foundation Establishment cultivator from Nandu.
Barbara was still feeling melancholy when a flicker of light crossed its Host’s fingertips and a somewhat familiar dark-green spirit butterfly appeared.
“Several days have passed. They should have finished reporting everything by now.”
“Come along, Barbara.”
The system froze. “Come along? Where are we going?”
Zhu Yin smiled gently. “To find the little darlings who burned me to death, of course.”
Before leaving, she saw a tall figure in black hurrying toward the ruins.
Oh, it was the sparring partner she had picked up for her disciples.
The thought merely passed through Zhu Yin’s mind. With no intention of telling this person the truth, she drifted away.
Two days later, in the Youwu Mountain Range.
A black-clad female cultivator held a rope with more than a dozen people tied along its length.
Their expressions were vacant, their bodies as lifeless as puppets.
Two shadows emerged noiselessly from the darkness. “Master.”
Zhu Yin handed the rope to Heipao. “Their cultivation is decent. Devour them, and you should advance by at least one rank.”
“Thank you, Master!”
Barbara: ?
It said nervously, “H-Host, we are not villains.”
What sort of bizarre evil deed was this?
Zhu Yin pointed at the dozen or so cultivators. “Obviously, these cultivators who slaughter innocent people are the villains in the plot, correct?
“So what do you call it when I oppose the villains?”
Righteousness shone from Zhu Yin’s face. “I am punishing evil and protecting the weak–the very light of justice!”
She even pulled up the panel. “Look. None of your colleagues have warned me.”
Barbara: “…”
It had assumed that, as before, its Host would leave this world as soon as the mission ended. It had spent ages grieving all alone.
Yet once the mission was finished, its Host showed no hurry whatsoever.
First, she strolled leisurely around Nandu and listened to all kinds of guesses and rumors about her death.
Then she slowly followed the unorthodox cultivators and abducted them by methods even more unorthodox than their own.
When it asked why, its Host replied in an astonished tone, “Barbara, were you not the one who told me that after completing a mission, I could choose whether to leave the mission world or remain?”
Barbara: “…”
The poor system finally realized that all its grief had been for nothing!
Its Host had clearly decided long ago that she would stay, but wickedly refused to tell it and let the system grieve by itself.
Bad Host!
The kitty was angry.
But one pouch of snacks was enough to coax the kitty out of its anger.
By the time Barbara came to its senses, it was nestled comfortably in its Host’s arms as they set out for the Eastern Continent.
To conceal herself while traveling, Zhu Yin fashioned a new identity.
She would be a mysterious, powerful, and rather disreputable ghost cultivator.
More specifically–
She wore a gray cloak, and the visible half of her face was covered in eerie blood-red markings. At a glance, she looked thoroughly unsavory.
Barbara adopted a disguise as well. The fluffy pink cat became an ominous black cat with dark-green eyes.
Heipao and Heiwu had it even easier. After devouring more than a dozen high-ranking cultivators, their strength underwent a qualitative leap.
Flesh regrew over their skeletons. Apart from their pale, rigid complexions, they now resembled the people they had been while alive.
The final essential touch was Zhu Yin equipping the title “Wicked Witch.” Once the title took effect, the already sinister group became still more uncanny.
The four of them paid spirit stones to board a spirit vessel bound for the Eastern Continent. The journey took nearly four months, and not a single fellow passenger dared speak to them.
“So this is the Eastern Continent.”
The moment Zhu Yin stepped ashore, she felt the rich, invigorating spiritual energy in the air.
Achieving the same effect in Nandu would have required at least a spirit-gathering array.
No wonder cultivators throughout the cultivation world strained every nerve to reach the Eastern Continent.
The people here had clearly seen far more of the world. Though Zhu Yin’s party looked disreputable, others at least did not avoid them as universally as before.
Zhu Yin reviewed the plot.
After reaching the Eastern Continent, the newly recruited disciples would undergo another aptitude test.
This one would determine which sect they entered.
She remembered that Yun Lie joined the Dao Sect in the plot, while Yun Xi, who possessed innate sword bones, was unsurprisingly snatched up by Dingtian Sword Sect.
Their talent spoke for itself. Yun Lie became an inner disciple the moment he entered his sect. Yun Xi was even accepted as the final disciple of an ancestor at the Tribulation Transcendence stage in Dingtian Sword Sect.
Looking at the map of the Eastern Continent she had just purchased, Zhu Yin found that both the Dao Sect and Dingtian Sword Sect lay in the prosperous, spiritually abundant southeast.
They were not especially close, but neither were they so far apart that she needed to agonize over which disciple to visit first.
Half a month later, Zhu Yin arrived in Dingtian Sword Sect’s territory.
Someone with innate sword bones could never remain obscure in a sect composed entirely of sword cultivators.
She intended to find a teahouse and gather some information before deciding what to do.
Before she could even ask, however, she heard her young disciple’s name.
Her young disciple was even more famous than she had expected.
And that fame came from more than her once-in-a-millennium innate sword bones.
On that day, a sect ancestor had personally offered to accept her as a disciple.
Before the envious eyes of the entire sect–including many elders–the ignorant little girl from Nandu had refused without hesitation.
Her reason was even more absurd. She said she already had a master and would never acknowledge another for as long as she lived.
Most laughable of all, one of the cultivators who had recruited disciples in Nandu revealed that Yun Xi’s so-called master was merely an unremarkable Foundation Establishment cultivator.