Chapter 18 - The Time is Nigh

The three troublemakers strolled through the gates of True Pine Sect, the most prestigious sect of True Pine Empire, as if they owned the place. The sect's disciples who saw them instantly felt their confidence crumble into dust. Never in the sect's long, storied history had such arrogant whippersnappers dared join, let alone with such blatant disrespect.

Whispers and stares followed them as they swaggered up the mountain path. Xin Yang ignored the attention, Ye Meng preened under it, and Bai Lihua glowered for an excuse to hex annoying gawkers. At the head elder's dwelling, they brazenly barged in. Such behavior should have been punished, yet one look at the elder's furrowed brow and their untouched cultivation bases compelled a snap decision: he promptly promoted them to inner disciples. Why bother putting on airs of fairness? Nobodies who acted like the world existed to serve them had to originate from some mythical ancient sect. They were clearly prodigies sent to gain real-world experience, unaware of how to behave properly. No point antagonizing such fish out of water and inviting unknown trouble.

"We start the operation tomorrow." Xin Yang lounged across beds shoved together, dirty boots atop pristine covers. "For now, act as normal as possible."

Ye Meng gnawed on a demonic beast leg by the room's table. "Should we case the vault and fields first?"

"No need. A 99% chance they're crawling with formations and elders on constant watch." Bai Lihua swept in and dropped onto a chair, long legs sprawling. "We'll need my Illusionism Bewitching Eyes to mesmerize them at the critical moment."

Ye Meng frowned. "Your eyes aren't fully healed from my Desolation technique yet. I'd rather not be a man down if it overwhelms you again."

Bai Lihua chucked her whittling knife at him. "Don't bring up my eyes again, you bastard! The pain hasn't faded and you nearly blinded me with your slipshod control."

Xin Yang sighed, rising to catch Bai Lihua's raised boot before it collided with Ye Meng's skull. "Enough squabbling. We've miles yet to go." He shook his head at their glowering. "Return to your rooms and await my signal."

Now that all three had reached Foundation Establishment stage nine—the peak for their age and another decade older at least—success should be assured. True Pine Sect's strongest, the sect master himself, was merely at Soul Transformation stage eight. No use worrying about the ancestor rumored to have attained Spirit Severing; ancestors never intervened in daily affairs, only arising if calamity threatened the sect's extinction. They would slip in, empty the vault and fields, and slip out, a feat never before dared and never again conceived of by any, not even a madman.

Yet for such a scheme against a sect, dangers lurked within the seeming simplicity. True Pine Sect had weathered innumerable tribulations in its centuries-long history, so flaws unseen likely riddled their plan, disaster awaiting the misstep of overconfidence. 'First, I'll appropriate any treasures from rogue geniuses gravitating here. But my background's suspiciousness compels vigilance—I'm surely being monitored for the first slip.'

Bai Lihua and Ye Meng retired to their inner disciple peak houses with their only belongings and myriad schemes under discussion. "However spartan, far comfier than that garbage heap Bliss Sect," Ye Meng remarked. The mysterious figure who wiped Bliss Sect off the map surfaced in memory, and Xin Yang shuddered, for once disquieted.

By the room's dimming embers, alone, Xin Yang perused his interspatial realm's contents, a space beyond space he had conceived and sustained through constant qi infusion until leaving it behind—whereupon it folded out of existence. With greater mastery in Realm Creation, he could have suspended its collapse even from afar. Yet no technique under Heaven allowed storage across dimensions; Realm Creation could not produce interspatial rings or chambers like the one his middle finger now bore. "Such a waste." A whisper for the realm lost and this trinket's useless extravagance for one of his skills.

He plunged his hands past an unseen barrier, rummaging in endless dark. Seizing random objects and tossing aside most as useless, dulling senses strained to skim the surface of this inner space's contents for anything of interest. Eventually, a golden glint snagged his eye—a ring, unadorned band untarnished by its unknown history. "Memento of a mortal marriage, or did an unlucky fool stray in by error?" Mortals were impossible, their fragility incompatible with the space between spaces, and only blue rings transported cultivators across dimensions. "This world differs from all I grasped."

The ring fitted his middle finger as if forged for it alone. Qi channeled within revealed a spatial ring, yet its capacity far outstripped rings of its size. Contents eluded his probes until a shift of the band unveiled a hidden compartment: shock slammed breath from his lungs. A male corpse occupied the cramped space, limbs curled tight in perpetual fetal pose, untouched by decay's ravages and so perfectly preserved he seemed merely sleeping—seventeen at death, by mortal count. "Why store a body so? Why seal it within so small a space?" Creating spatial rings, difficult and resource-intensive, their size relied upon the spirit stones consumed and blacksmiths engaged; for one so minuscule, a master group must have labored long, and this was neither low-grade with dimensions folded to diminish size nor of a known type. "A saint must have forged this." Yet even legendarily skilled blacksmiths of old worked materials at hand into vessels of predetermined size and number of compartments. "No use wondering. The past won't return to yield answers."

He pocketed the ring. Night deepened, and the plan's time had come.