Su Min's urgency was a live wire under her skin. She knew the old turtle's token, the Black Tortoise Token, was a fickle thing. It had a habit of fading from one spot and materializing in another without warning. This usually happened every day or two. The only way to pin it down, to keep it from slipping away, was to secure it within a player's personal inventory. For her, that was the spatial ring on her finger.
She had no interest in the girl meditating on the inheritance platform deeper in the cave. Her goal was singular. If the young man blocking the entrance wouldn't step aside, then she would have to move him herself.
She sized him up quickly. His Great Desolate Sacred Body was powerful, a legendary physique like her own Five Elements Holy Body, but it was also incomplete. As for Xie Yingying's Lunar Sovereign Body, it was whole, but the power of the Lunar Sovereign was brutally domineering. Without the specific methods of the Lunar Sovereign Ancient Scripture to guide it, that power was a locked vault.
The truth was, the three of them were stuck in a stalemate. If a real fight broke out, no one could predict the winner.
"Block him for me," Su Min said, her voice low. "There is something in there I need."
She shot a cool glance at the young man. He was good, but he couldn't stop both of them at once. The moment she spoke, Xie Yingying released a wave of chilling intent. The air grew cold, and a frosty pressure settled squarely on the young man's shoulders, making him tense.
The crowd of onlookers watched, their hopes rising. They were itching for a fight. While Su Min and Xie Yingying might not care about the inheritance, everyone else certainly did. If these two powerhouses went all out, the guardian would be overwhelmed. That would be their chance to slip inside and scavenge whatever treasures were left before the secret realm closed.
After all, anyone still standing here was no weakling. If the top players took each other out, the leftovers would be a feast for the rest. But these hopefuls were about to be disappointed. Su Min didn't know when the token might vanish, so she chose the most direct path.
Heavenly lightning sparked at her feet. In the blink of an eye, she became a blur of motion. The young man was fast, too. The instant she moved, his instincts took over and he threw out a palm strike. Su Min met him just as fast, her hand morphing into an azure dragon claw that slammed into his faintly golden fist.
BOOM!
The collision shook the ground, the force of it throwing both of them back several steps.
"Such terrifying strength!" more than one spectator whispered, shocked. This was the same young man who had been casually slapping people away earlier. Now, he was trading blows evenly with Su Min, the alchemist known for her Five Elements Holy Body.
"Could that be the secret of the Five Elements Holy Body? Overwhelming force to crush all techniques?" someone wondered aloud, but they dismissed the thought just as quickly. The exchange had been a flash, a mere glimpse of azure light. They could barely make out the shape.
"Was that a dragon's claw?" The murmur rippled through the crowd, but there was no one to answer them.
"Well then, I will take my leave," Su Min said.
In that split second after the impact, their positions had reversed. The force of his own palm strike had helped propel her past him and into the cave's mouth. As the Great Desolate Sacred Body wielder tried to pivot and intercept, that icy aura from Xie Yingying clamped down harder, freezing him in place for a critical heartbeat.
It was all the time Su Min needed. She flashed into the side chamber, not even sparing a look for the girl on the main platform. The tension in the main cavern eased a fraction. At least the young man now understood Su Min's goal was not the inheritance he was guarding.
He had already looted that side room himself and found it empty, so this was an acceptable outcome. The woman still facing him, however, felt far more dangerous. The onlookers sighed in collective disappointment. They had hoped for a chaotic brawl, a chance to pick through the scraps. Unfortunately, Su Min had no intention of fighting without a cause.
That single exchange had left her entire arm numb. If not for the resilience granted by her Azure Dragon Creation Art, the bones might have shattered. Her Five Elements Holy Body was powerful, but it was not a close combat physique. To make matters worse, she still lacked the earth element, the divine material that represented supreme defense. Without it, she was like a fragile mage in a brawler's fight. The Azure Dragon Creation Art helped, but it could not fully bridge the gap between her and one of the world's premier strength based physiques.
"Was this guy a packrat?" she muttered, her eyes scanning the barren side chamber. It was picked clean. "Let us see. That strange sensation is coming from right here."
Her gaze settled on a section of the wall. The young man had been in too much of a hurry to notice, but her senses, honed by the divine materials already within her, detected a hidden space behind it. Without those materials, even she would have missed it.
BOOM!
She blasted the wall. The structures in this secret realm were made of special stone that blocked ordinary perception. A strike like that could have leveled half a city back home, but here, it only left a small, jagged hole. Inside that hole, a black token flickered unstably, its form wavering as if it were a mirage.
The Black Tortoise Token.
Su Min snatched it without a second thought and stuffed it directly into her spatial ring. The moment it entered her special storage, the flickering stopped. The token solidified, becoming stable and real. She let out a quiet sigh of relief.
"Good. I am not taking this out again until I am standing at the Black Tortoise's hidden vault. Better safe than sorry. Can you imagine arriving only for it to disappear at the last second?"
The Black Tortoise's true legacy was not here in the Golden Core Avenue. It was hidden deep within the Nether Sacrificial Sea, a place so perilous that even Nascent Soul cultivators would struggle to survive. There was no rush to go there now.
"With this, only the White Tiger remains among the Four Symbols," she whispered to herself. "And then there is the Kirin's legacy. Ugh, so troublesome."
Muttering, she left the chamber. There was another room, but it was not worth checking. The remaining three divine materials she needed could wait. Their locations were like this one, locked away until the right moment in the secret realm's cycle. Until then, the best course was to focus on her own cultivation.
"Alright, let us go," she said, rejoining Xie Yingying.
With a final glance at the crowd, she saw no reason to stay. After this round of plundering, the secret realm was likely emptied of anything major. She was more than satisfied with her gains. Xie Yingying followed without a word. The spectators could only sigh again, their hopes of sneaking in now thoroughly dashed.
Once they were outside and a good distance away, Xie Yingying finally asked the question she had been holding back. "What was in there?" Su Min had been in such a rush she had not explained.
"Something related to the Black Tortoise's legacy," Su Min answered.
"Your luck is incredible," Xie Yingying said, a note of admiration in her voice.
"Well, I would have died a long time ago if my luck were any worse," Su Min chuckled. This time, she had been exceptionally fortunate.
"Are we heading to the Black Tortoise's ruins now?"
Su Min realized her friend had misunderstood. "Uh, the Black Tortoise ruins are not in the Golden Core Avenue. They are deep in the Nether Sacrificial Sea. It is a place even Nascent Soul cultivators would struggle to survive."
"What?" Xie Yingying blinked, then let out a soft sigh. "I see."
"Let us find a quiet place first," Su Min said, shifting gears. "I need to check where this new legacy leads."
She stopped dwelling on the distant future. Since she could not proceed with the Black Tortoise now, she would focus on the most efficient path right in front of her. They soon arrived at a desolate mountain range. Before descending, Su Min glanced back. She could feel many eyes still watching them from a safe distance. She ignored them.
Inside a temporary cave they secured, five colored banners floated in the air around Su Min as she sat cross legged, absorbing the information they contained. Her expression quickly darkened.
"Damn it!" she cursed, her eyes snapping open. "The legacy requires reaching the top five of the Golden Core Heavenly Ranking while holding the Five Elements Flags."
"Hmm?" Xie Yingying tilted her head, curious.
The Golden Core Heavenly Ranking was the final, grand event of the Golden Core Avenue's decade long cycle. In its last ten years, a colossal heavenly ranking would descend, its power enveloping the entire area. Every Golden Core cultivator could participate, fighting in a brutal, one and done, single elimination tournament. The top five would have their names inscribed on the ranking for all to see, but the real prizes were the rewards.
First, a 300 year extension to their lifespan. This was priceless, even for Mahayana cultivators nearing the end of their immortal road. Second, a baptism of the Great Dao, which would safeguard their meridians during the dangerous breakthrough to the Nascent Soul realm.
After the Golden Core stage, cultivators no longer faced heavenly tribulations. But each step forward was just as perilous. To form a Nascent Soul, a cultivator had to shatter their Golden Core. It was a process fraught with risk. Ninety nine percent of Golden Core cultivators failed. Failure meant the core's destruction, regressing the cultivator all the way back to the Foundation Establishment stage with no chance of ever forming a core again. Most Golden Core cultivators were already centuries old, far beyond the natural lifespan of a Foundation Establishment cultivator. Once their cultivation dropped, time itself would erase them. It was a death sentence as final as any lightning tribulation.
But for Su Min, this was not an issue. With the Eastern Azure Wood divine material in her body, her chances of a successful breakthrough were over ninety percent, especially with the help of a Nascent Soul Pill. Divine materials had unique traits. Those with a wood attribute provided immense vitality. Even if her core shattered and her Nascent Soul did not form immediately, the profound life force of the Eastern Azure Wood would sustain her, preventing her cultivation from regressing. Some water attributed divine materials had similar effects, relying on water's natural, restorative properties.
Moreover, Su Min's innate talent was Immortality. The Golden Core Heavenly Ranking's rewards meant very little to her. She had fully planned to sit the whole thing out and slack off. But now, this legacy was forcing her to compete. The ranking's matches were utterly random. One round, win or go home. No second chances, no best of three series. If you were unlucky enough to face a powerhouse in the first round, that was just your tough luck. In the world of cultivation, luck was part of one's strength.
A new, worrying thought struck her. "What if Yingying and I get matched?"
She did not care about the baptism, but Xie Yingying would never pass up 300 years of lifespan. Any cultivator, even a Mahayana expert, would covet it.
"This is not so bad," Xie Yingying said, seemingly unfazed. "You were going to join the ranking anyway." In her eyes, someone of Su Min's caliber belonged on that list.
"Easy for you to say," Su Min retorted. "What if we face each other in the very first round?"
"We will not," Xie Yingying stated simply.
"Huh? How can you be so sure?"
"Didn't you say your luck is always good?" Xie Yingying replied. "True powerhouses never lack fortune. Or destiny."
"Uh…" Su Min was speechless. Was that survivorship bias? Those with good luck succeeded and lived to tell the tale; those without it died and were forgotten. But when she reflected on her own journey, she had to admit that luck had indeed played a huge role more than once.
"Relax," Xie Yingying continued. "The Golden Core Heavenly Ranking has its own mechanisms. Holy Bodies like yours, or my Lunar Sovereign Body, are obviously top tier. The ranking was built by ancient experts to nurture the strongest. Its goal is to make the strong stronger. It will not let us clash until the finals."
"Oh." Su Min exhaled in genuine relief. So luck mattered, but there were underlying rules to prevent the top contenders from eliminating each other too early.
"How long until your Lunar Sovereign legacy site opens?" Su Min asked, changing the subject.
"About six months."
"Alright." Su Min nodded. She would wait. Besides, she still owed people pills. Six months was not enough for any meaningful closed door cultivation anyway. She might as well set up a stall and earn some money.