Ye Wuji sat silently on the gray ground outside the sect hall, catching his breath. Dust drifted on the wind around him, but his gaze remained calm. His robe was torn in places, his face pale, and his fingers still twitched from the strain of his earlier flight.
He chuckled softly.
"That… could've gone worse."
After a short rest, he stood up and turned around toward the entrance of the sect's hall.
Upon arriving before the altar, he once again took out the jade slip that controlled the altar, and activated the mechanism that opened the dark passage back to the treasure vault below.
Without hesitation, Ye Wuji descended the steps and vanished into the depths.
|>>======|✦|======<<|
Inside the vault, he sat cross-legged once more, hands resting on his knees. Crimson light flickered in his eyes.
"It's time to fully focus on my cultivation and breakthrough to the Late Stage of Qi Refining," he muttered. "Once I do that, I'll return to my world."
He didn't waste another moment. Taking out the mountain of blood essence crystals he had accumulated over the past months, he began absorbing them. One by one, the crystals turned to dust, flooding his meridians with rich and violent energy.
Hours turned to days.
And days to months.
|>>======|✦|======<<|
One year later.
In the stillness of the treasure vault, a tremor suddenly rippled outward.
Ye Wuji's eyes snapped open.
The Qi surged from his body as the ground beneath him cracked from the force. His dantian roared, and the Corpse Pagoda within trembled in resonance.
A loud snap echoed inside his meridians as his meridians stretched. The bottleneck finally completely shattered.
Qi Refining Stage Seven.
The vortex of Qi inside his dantian condensed, thickened and deepened. He had officially entered the late stage of Qi Refining Realm.
Rising to his feet, Ye Wuji swept his gaze across the vault. A year ago, it had been completely different. Now, it was littered with the remains of shattered blood essence crystals. And not a single corner remained untouched by his cultivation efforts.
"Stage Seven," his voice was calm. "I managed to rise my cultivation by two stages in just over a year and also greatly rise my combat prowess in other aspects."
He clenched his fist.
"Now, I can even fight a true Foundation Establishment cultivator, if I'm careful enough."
Over the past year during his cultivation, he had allowed Si Wei and Xue Sha to continuously patrol the fallen sect's hall, hunting down any zombie cultivators and collecting their blood essence crystals and storage rings.
The result?
He now possessed over 25,000 small spirit crystals, 10,000 medium spirit crystals, 286 great spirit crystals, and mountains of blood essence crystals.
So many, in fact, that it would be enough and even more than enough for him to breakthrough all the way to the Peak of Qi Refining.
A smirk formed on his lips.
"As expected… with enough resources, cultivation becomes only a matter of time."
And it hadn't only been cultivation. Over the year, he had tirelessly practiced with the Wings Gu, mastering his control. And though still not entirely comfortable in the air, he had learned to move with surprising agility, that it was enough to use it in fight if needed.
"From now on, this will be my ultimate trump card," he muttered. "No one below the Golden Core Realm can fly without their flying artifact or some special means like me, but flying artifact cannot be used in fight, so this trump card of mine will be nearly undefeatable technique under Golden Core Realm."
He smiled, satisfaction gleaming in his eyes.
And with a thought, he summoned his Corpse Pagoda.
Si Wei and Xue Sha emerged silently, their eyes glowing faintly.
Over the past year, they had fed on thousands of corpses. Yet neither had managed to break through to the next level.
Ye Wuji glanced at them and gave a calm order.
"Clean everything up. We're returning to my world."
Without a word, the two corpse soldiers moved like a silent shadow, sweeping through the vault and erasing any signs of his year-long stay.
Meanwhile, Ye Wuji reached into his storage ring and pulled out a familiar item.
The black lotus-shaped artifact.
It was the very object that had brought him to this apocalyptic world.
He held it in his palm for a long moment, and reflected about his gains in this world during his stay.
He managed to acquire: The Heaven Blood Sutra, a rare Earth Grade cultivation technique for Foundation Establishment realm, the Heartburst Fist and its Foundation Establishment evolution: Soulburn Fist, the Black Dragon Furnace which is a Superior Grade alchemy cauldron, a jade slip containing Introduction to Spirit Artifact Refinement, several defensive and offensive arrays, the Wings Gu which he also managed to become proficient enough with to be able to use it in battle as his trump card.
And most importantly… the Blood Demon Heart refinement method.
Ye Wuji's gaze deepened.
That final part of the Blood Demon Heart refinement required him to pluck the heart of another living cultivator of similar cultivation, and eat it right away after that during the refinement process to survive the merging of the Blood Stone into one's own heart.
He could technically use a zombie cultivator's heart for this step, but…
"No," he muttered. "I won't risk it. For something this important, only the heart of a normal human cultivator will suffice."
That alone was reason enough to return.
But it wasn't the only one.
He needed resources he couldn't find here—especially an array disk for a Blood Essence Harvesting Array.
"If I could deploy that array inside this city," Ye Wuji thought, "I wouldn't need to lift a finger anymore and instead jut let the array harvest the blood essence crystals for me automatically."
"Also, Si Wei and Xue Sha could guard it and feed on the corpses left behind."
"No more time spend hunting. Just complete focus on cultivation, though I'm not sure what will happen with spirit fragments if I do that, but even if I had to lost them it would be still beneficial."
He took a deep breath and spoke.
"It's time."
With a wave of his hand, Si Wei and Xue Sha dissolved into streaks of light and were absorbed back into the Corpse Pagoda as their finished their cleaning.
Then, he looked once more at the black lotus in his hand and channeled his Qi into it.
The lotus pulsed once.
Then—
Everything around him shattered.
Sight, sound, and space itself vanished completely.