Chapter 66: The Immortal’s Retribution

Fenglu City, the richest land in the southern part of the Lingyun Continent.

Inside the city lord’s mansion, music and dancing filled the air as a grand evening banquet was being held.

“Come, come, come!”

The city lord, seated at the head of the table, raised his wine glass high and toasted the guest beside him with a beaming smile.

“Thanks to the immortal’s help, our Fenglu City was spared from the demonic disaster.

On behalf of the millions of cultivators and mortal citizens of Fenglu City, I thank you for your kindness!”

The immortal being toasted sat upright and elegant, his features handsome, his aura deep and unmeasurable.

Even seated as a guest, he outshone everyone else in the entire hall.

This person was Yue Buping.

In the Lingyun Continent, breaking through the Nascent Soul stage already made one a great power recognized even by the Tianhuan Sect.

Now that Yue Buping had reached the late Nascent Soul stage, wherever he went on the Lingyun Continent, he received tremendous respect.

This made Yue Buping feel extremely pleased.

From the very beginning of his time as a transmigrator, Yue Buping had been certain that he was a son of fortune, the absolute protagonist of this world.

In his previous life, Yue Buping had thought himself extraordinary but had died young before he could fully display his talents.

In this life, having come to a cultivation world, he couldn’t wait to show what he could do.

Later, when he tested positive for a heavenly spirit root and then awakened his system, Yue Buping became even more convinced of his judgment.

With so many golden fingers, if he wasn’t the son of fortune, who could be?

Because of his cautious nature, Yue Buping had secretly investigated whether there were other transmigrators, or even regressors, since coming to this world.

But as the most beloved young disciple of a great elder of the Tianhuan Sect, he had found no traces in nearly two hundred years and could almost conclude they didn’t exist.

But even as the son of fortune, Yue Buping had found the threshold of breaking through from Golden Core to Nascent Soul quite difficult.

He had often heard people say that the journey from Golden Core to Nascent Soul was the most difficult hurdle in a cultivator’s path, and Yue Buping had dismissed it.

But when he actually reached the late Golden Core stage, he understood the deep meaning hidden behind those words.

Difficult, too difficult.

Even for him, following the usual methods—seeking heavenly treasures everywhere, fighting and killing everywhere—it would take at least a hundred years to break through.

His cheap master, Songya Zhenren, was an old monster at the Tribulation stage, and he had once told Yue Buping that even he, a recognized genius throughout the Lingyun Continent, had taken nearly four hundred years to cross this hurdle.

Yue Buping had also heard that the female sword cultivator known as “the number one below Nascent Soul” had been stuck at the peak of the late Golden Core stage for nearly two hundred years.

Countless cultivators were trapped at the Golden Core stage, unable to advance.

In comparison, Yue Buping’s hundred years was as if a difficult calculus problem had become a simple multiplication table—extremely easy.

But Yue Buping didn’t want to wait.

Thus, he remembered the forbidden technique he had found in the secret realm, and decisively set his “kill wife to attain enlightenment” plan in motion.

The plan was wonderful.

That dull, simple-minded woman, Yi Jinghong, was as easy to fool as a child.

He effortlessly completed the forbidden technique.

The moment Yue Buping thrust his sword into Yi Jinghong’s heart’s vein, he felt the bottleneck that had long plagued him instantly dissolve.

Although he later unexpectedly discovered that Yi Jinghong was not completely dead, he recalled another forbidden technique he knew and decisively imprisoned Yi Jinghong in the ice prison formation, enjoying an unexpected bonus.

Yue Buping certainly never missed any opportunity to seize heavenly treasures or gain benefits, but he knew very well that the spiritual energy continuously supplied to him by Yi Jinghong through the formation was like the finest lubricant, silently smoothing and settling any spiritual energy that might cause conflict, leaving him without any obstacles from any major or minor bottlenecks.

This plan was truly brilliant.

In a hundred years, if he had followed the conventional path of cultivation, he would have only progressed from the late Golden Core stage to the early Nascent Soul stage.

But with this full utilization of Yi Jinghong, in a hundred years he had gone from the late Golden Core stage to the late Nascent Soul stage!

A faint, almost imperceptible smile played on Yue Buping’s lips.

He raised his glass with one hand, acknowledging the toast from the city lord of Fenglu City, and then immediately set the glass down.

The entire process exuded a sense of casual indifference.

The city lord’s eyes flickered, then, as if he hadn’t noticed anything, he cheerfully drank his own wine.

“Thank you, Immortal Yue!”

Yue Buping’s behavior could be considered quite disrespectful to him as the city lord, but the other party had genuinely saved the entire city.

What was wrong with a little arrogance?

Which proud son of heaven wasn’t arrogant?

The fact that Yue Buping was willing to offer a slight response to him, a mere early Golden Core stage city lord, was already quite good!

After finishing his cup of wine, the city lord still felt a slight bitterness in his throat.

If the Tribulation-stage real person in their city hadn’t fallen a few years ago, why would Fenglu City be unable to handle even this not-so-large-scale demonic invasion?

On the other side, Yue Buping, who had found a bit of superiority from the city lord, wasn’t actually in a good mood either.

He knew his own formation well.

The formation that had been continuously supplying him with the finest lubricant from Yi Jinghong’s body was about to fail.

The formation he had initially set up could not possibly last a hundred years, especially with Yi Jinghong, a person who was as hard to extinguish as wildfire, trapped inside.

Yue Buping would personally inspect and replenish the formation whenever its spiritual energy dropped below fifty percent.

But this time, even knowing the formation was about to completely fail, Yue Buping had no intention of going to check on it.

Because he knew very well that Yi Jinghong had exhausted her vitality.

Over this hundred years, Yue Buping had lost count of how many times he had visited the ice prison deep in the far north of the Lingyun Continent.

Not once had he found any sign of Yi Jinghong awakening.

After discovering this time that Yi Jinghong could no longer hold on, Yue Buping gave up on the idea of replenishing the formation.

The materials needed to maintain this forbidden technique formation were extremely rare.

Even Songya Zhenren would find it quite difficult to assemble a complete set.

Yue Buping was even less inclined to make a useless effort.

Yue Buping knew that this formation could at most last less than a year, and that Yi Jinghong would inevitably die within five days.

This made him somewhat irritable.

Without the “lubricant” provided by Yi Jinghong in the future, wouldn’t he have to spend more effort and skill to break through those major and minor bottlenecks?

Why couldn’t this Yi Jinghong hold on a little longer!

Yue Buping would not appreciate how rare it was for Yi Jinghong to have survived even a glimmer of life after his carefully planned full-force attack, and to have supplied him for a full hundred years.

He only thought Yi Jinghong was a waste.

His inner irritation growing, Yue Buping clicked his tongue and lost interest in continuing to attend this celebratory banquet in his honor.

He was about to leave with a flick of his sleeve.

But at that moment, besides his irritation, something suddenly collapsed within Yue Buping’s heart.

Yue Buping: “…?!”

His pupils contracted sharply.

He felt… the spiritual energy within his body seemed to be dissipating?

It was a very subtle change, but for Yue Buping, who was always cautious, it was still easy to detect.

A few strands of the spiritual energy that had been flowing smoothly and obediently through his meridians became unruly, surging in the opposite direction, and then… vanishing into thin air?!

Wait!

Yue Buping suddenly realized something.

This feeling was almost like the reverse direction of him absorbing spiritual energy from Yi Jinghong?!

***

All of this was, of course, Sang Zhiyi’s doing.

While carefully observing her surroundings in the ice prison, Sang Zhiyi had not overlooked the dark red, almost black formation patterns beneath her body.

Yi Jinghong’s body was so emaciated that Sang Zhiyi didn’t even need to use her divine sense to penetrate her body; she could easily see the full formation pattern.

It was at this moment that Sang Zhiyi suddenly realized… her divine sense was actually not weak.

No, she should say it was very strong.

When a cultivator’s spiritual energy dries up, their physical body dies; when their divine sense withers, their soul dissipates.

Where exactly Yi Jinghong’s soul had gone, others might not know, but Sang Zhiyi knew very well.

It was watching her from some closed space outside this world.

That meant that Sang Zhiyi, having transmigrated in the form of a soul, was not using Yi Jinghong’s divine sense now, but her own!

Once she realized this, Sang Zhiyi knew what to do.

She did not accept System Sir’s proactive offer of help.

Instead, she opened the system store panel and bought a basic primer on divine sense applicable to this world for 15 mission points, and then spent another 49 mission points on a beginner’s detailed explanation of formations.

Yi Jinghong was a sword cultivator specializing in the sword path, so her divine sense level was not particularly outstanding.

Things recorded in books like these, knowing they were of little use to her, Yi Jinghong, who always spent money only where it was needed, would never have studied them.

Thus, Sang Zhiyi had no way to access such knowledge.

However, Sang Zhiyi knew from Yi Jinghong’s memories that such basic knowledge was basically obtainable in the Tianhuan Sect with a few disciple contribution points, and was not valuable.

So Sang Zhiyi was confident that her remaining 58 mission points could buy what she needed from the system store.

With a pang of heartache looking at her account balance, now down to just 4 mission points, Sang Zhiyi wasted no time and immediately began reading these two books.

Learning new knowledge inevitably requires drawing from existing knowledge.

As Sang Zhiyi browsed through these two books in her mind, she mapped the various terms in the books to fields she was familiar with.

Having transmigrated into Yi Jinghong’s body, Sang Zhiyi had an instinctive understanding of the concepts of divine sense and spiritual energy.

Now she was even more certain that the level of divine sense in this world roughly corresponded to the strength of one’s soul and spirit.

Sang Zhiyi’s own soul and spirit strength was certainly much higher than Yi Jinghong’s, a severely injured person on the verge of death.

Added to that, she had already completed two worlds, about ten years of missions, which had greatly tempered her soul and spirit.

Reflected in her divine sense in this world, this meant that Sang Zhiyi absorbed the contents of these two books extremely quickly, and her understanding of formations grew like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.

Without any reference or comparison, Sang Zhiyi was one hundred percent certain that she had terrifying talent in the field of formations, which relied almost entirely on divine sense.

After finishing those two books, Sang Zhiyi examined the formation pattern beneath her again, no longer needing to rely on her physical eyes.

She could proficiently extend her divine sense outward, seeing the full formation pattern more clearly and specifically.

Soon, she discovered that this formation was on the verge of failure, about to become inactive.

It wasn’t hard to figure out.

Yi Jinghong hadn’t been conscious at all for this hundred years, and Yue Buping, with his many cautious thoughts, had probably also relaxed his guard toward her.

At the very least, Sang Zhiyi had finished reading two books after transmigrating, and there was still no movement from Yue Buping, sufficiently indicating that his control over her was not so meticulous.

With Sang Zhiyi’s discernment, it wasn’t hard to see how many patches this formation had undergone.

Because Yue Buping’s cultivation and resources had advanced step by step, the materials added later to the formation were better than those before.

And with Yi Jinghong’s experience, she could also see the rarity and value of these materials.

The formation could last at most ten more months, but in the original plot, Yi Jinghong would die in three days, which was more than enough for Yue Buping, not worth the significant effort to replenish.

This, in turn, gave Sang Zhiyi an opportunity.

Fortunately, Yue Buping’s talent as the male lead was not so exceptional in every aspect.

In the field of formations, Yue Buping could easily control Yi Jinghong, but he could not trap Sang Zhiyi.

Yue Buping was actually quite proficient in formations, but compared to Sang Zhiyi, he was far, far lesser.

After a hundred years of Yue Buping’s many patches, this formation already had many flaws and cracks.

Now that it was about to fail, the energy within it was also quite weak.

In Sang Zhiyi’s eyes, this was just a building block toy she could manipulate at will with a little effort.

However, besides her divine sense, Sang Zhiyi truly had nothing else to rely on now.

For example, this ice prison.

Even though she could dismantle the formation beneath her in a few seconds and escape its confinement, she still lacked the spiritual energy to break the ice prison itself.

If she couldn’t chisel her way out, she would call a henchman.

Using her divine sense, Sang Zhiyi tampered with the formation.

Soon, the formation’s extraction and squeezing of her own spiritual energy stopped, instead… starting to deliver spiritual energy to Sang Zhiyi.

The source of the delivered spiritual energy was, of course, Yue Buping’s body.

Sang Zhiyi had reversed the entire formation.

While summoning a henchman to help her open the door, she could also recover a bit of spiritual energy—killing two birds with one stone.

Sang Zhiyi felt quite pleased.

“Yi!

Jing!

Hong—!!!”

A furious roar suddenly exploded outside the ice prison.

The next instant, the thick crystalline blue ice before Sang Zhiyi was completely shattered, and Yue Buping’s enraged face appeared in Sang Zhiyi’s view.

Oh my.

Sang Zhiyi looked at Yue Buping’s expression and saw that the other party was truly furious.

You’re not happy?

Then I am happy.

Sang Zhiyi felt even better.