As Tian Hao's words fell, the air itself seemed to grow heavy with anticipation. Su Min clearly sensed a sharp, aggressive aura erupting from the depths of the skeletal mountain range below, a pressure that felt like a blade against the skin. Evidently stimulated by the violent spiritual fluctuations of their earlier battle, the dormant White Tiger's legacy was about to emerge fully into the world. However, a cold certainty settled in her gut, those coveting this inheritance likely weren't limited to the previous, now-vanquished group. This place was a beacon, and they had just lit the signal fire.
"Then I'll leave it to you. Don't let anyone disturb me. These are the remaining pills I have, they should be enough to sustain you through prolonged combat, even against multiple waves."
Su Min's expression darkened slightly as she spoke, her mind already calculating the risks. While other newcomers might not be as formidably equipped as the previous group, this place was fundamentally different from other legacy sites she had encountered. Whether obtaining the Azure Dragon or the Black Tortoise legacies, no matter how difficult the trial process, once she was victorious, she had always gained an absolutely safe, sealed environment to consolidate her gains in peace.
But here was different. Clearly, the White Tiger, in its singular focus, hadn't prepared such comfortable conditions. As one of the Four Symbols representing pure, unadulterated slaughter, its inheritance was undoubtedly the most demanding and unforgiving.
"Understood. I will hold the line."
Seeing the several jade bottles and ceramic jars Su Min handed him, Tian Hao's lips twitched again in that familiar mix of awe and exasperation. Truly befitting the title of the continent's top alchemist, she was an absolute tycoon, a walking, talking treasury. Dozens of seventh-grade pills, scores of sixth-grade pills, she'd handed them over without a second thought, without even blinking. He also knew, from their conversations, that despite her vast personal reserves, Su Min rarely consumed pills during normal cultivation or minor battles, preferring to avoid building a tolerance and compromising her flawless foundation. Yet even with her conservative usage, the sheer wealth she carried was staggering.
Su Min also felt somewhat helpless about the situation. The environment was simply too hostile for a clean, uninterrupted inheritance process. With only Tian Hao accompanying her this time, she had no choice but to rely on him completely during the dangerous fusion process. Fortunately, this particular refinement wouldn't be a prolonged seclusion, or the task would be impossible.
The reason was simple, this place contained only a solitary legacy core with no additional energy resources or supportive formations, meaning Su Min couldn't obtain the sufficient, vast energy required for a full breakthrough to the Dao Comprehension stage here. She would have to stop at successfully integrating the treasure.
"Seems I'll need another, separate opportunity to finally reach the Dao Comprehension stage. Perhaps this is for the best, strategically. With the inter-world passages still limited and unstable, Dao Comprehension experts, being true upper-tier cultivators, likely can't traverse them easily yet. While I am still at the Divine Transformation stage, I should seize other opportunities in the wider multiverse that would be closed to me later."
Muttering to herself, Su Min began calculating the steps in her mind, turning a limitation into a potential advantage.
First, this dead world's own constraints probably prevented any single entity from exceeding its fragile limits, which worked in her favor for now.
Second, since the resonance indicated the Kirin's secret treasury wasn't in her home world, it must be in another connected realm. She needed to locate the Kirin's ancestral grounds, and for such exploratory missions, excessively high cultivation might actually attract unwanted attention or hinder entry through weaker portals.
Taking a deep breath of the metallic, blood-tinged air, Su Min dove downward towards the source of the intensifying aura. The dense, jagged skeletal terrain held numerous gaps and crevices, the sheer cliffs and precarious bone bridges that would terrify ordinary people posed no obstacle to her agile, reinforced body.
Soon, she landed in a small, naturally formed amphitheater at the mountain's heart, surrounded by towering ribs like the bars of a colossal cage.
"..."
She was speechless for a moment at the sight before her, not knowing what to say. It was… anticlimactic. A single, fist-sized piece of silvery-white metal, glowing with an inner light, hovered serenely in the air above a small, translucent white tiger cub that was less than a meter tall, seemingly formed from condensed killing intent. Clearly, this minimalist setup was the entire legacy she sought.
"This is too simplistic. The Azure Dragon had its complete stone statue space with murals and trials, and the Black Tortoise was equally impressive with its deep abyssal pool and ancient will. This is just… a rock and a ghost."
Su Min was thoroughly unimpressed, a feeling of disappointment cutting through her focus. Like the Azure Dragon, the White Tiger had left no supplemental energy packs or cultivation aids. But at least the Azure Wood's natural, life-giving properties had generated some ambient energy after fusion to assist her, while the Black Tortoise's legacy had included an entire pool of essence blood to bathe in. This? It was pathetically sparse, almost insultingly so. Su Min felt a pragmatic headache coming on, thinking of the recovery time.
"Refine it first. Deal with the aesthetic complaints later."
After a thorough spiritual and physical inspection confirmed no hidden major dangers or subtle anomalies, Su Min relaxed slightly, though her expression soon turned solemn again as she focused on the task at hand.
Among the Five Elements heavenly treasures, fire and metal, the pure offensive elements, were historically the hardest to refine, causing the most severe internal damage and backlash. With the Nanming Lihuo, she'd essentially received a direct, tempered inheritance from the lingering will of the Vermilion Bird itself, which had actively suppressed its own potency to ensure her successful refinement.
But now, there was no such gentle guidance. Regardless of the circumstances, Su Min had to face this sharp, untamed challenge head-on.
"Haaah..."
Taking a deep, steadying breath, Su Min reached out and grasped the pure white metal. Instantly, her palm and fingers erupted in a network of fine, bloody gashes, as if she had grabbed a handful of invisible, monomolecular blades. Mere contact had inflicted significant damage.
"Damn, that really hurts."
She inhaled sharply through clenched teeth. This was pure, unmediated physical contact without any energy protection, a necessary first step since swallowing the object whole was required for the refinement process, demanding an initial, brutal adaptation from her body.
Reality had delivered a harsh, immediate lesson, her hand was deeply lacerated from just touching it. Her current bodily strength, tempered by multiple legacies and her holy body, surpassed most refined steel, essentially an iron-clad physique, yet even that had proven instantly insufficient against the metal's innate sharpness.
"All or nothing. No turning back now."
Gritting her teeth against the stinging pain, she brought the metal to her lips and swallowed it whole in one determined gulp.
"Ugh—!"
Instantly, a sweat more cold than hot beaded on Su Min's forehead as her body convulsed violently, her legs giving way and collapsing her to the rough, bony ground. The metal felt like a living buzzsaw the moment it entered her, rampaging through her body with mindless ferocity. Her organs, blood vessels, and meridians suffered catastrophic, shredding damage in its wake.
"Cough—!"
A spray of blood, mingled with tiny fragments of damaged tissue, erupted from her mouth. This level of internal injury was rare for her, even after all her battles. Were she not already at the Divine Transformation stage, where her true core of being was her soul and a shattered body was not instantly fatal, this would have been the end. Just as the fragment of legacy information that had flowed into her warned, refining the Western Metal's Sharp Gold required at least Divine Transformation cultivation as a baseline. Otherwise, it wasn't refinement, it was suicide. This was undoubtedly the most violently destructive sacred object she'd ever encountered.
"Unlike the other three, which have aspects of growth, life, or defense, this metal embodies pure, unyielding extremity. It doesn't just resist, it attacks."
Cursing inwardly, Su Min endured the blinding pain to swallow a specially prepared pill she had ready in her mouth.
[Soulguard Pill (7th-grade, lower tier): Protects the user's soul from external corrosion and internal collapse during critical refinement processes.]
This was her specific preparation based on the intelligence she had gathered, this metal's spiritual destructive potential demanded direct countermeasures. Though the physical agony was immense, the pain itself didn't exceed her grim expectations; she had braced for worse.
"Focus your spirit. Guide the energy. Don't fight its nature, surround it."
As the pill dissolved, releasing its calming, fortifying essence, the worst of the spiritual tearing pain gradually dulled to a more manageable, if still excruciating, level. Simultaneously, the Northern Water's Profound Origin within her activated automatically, its gentle, pervasive energy working to slowly repair the damage the Western Metal was ravaging through her system. She knew that below the Divine Transformation stage, even a peak Golden Core cultivator would lose half their lifespan just from the traumatic shock of such an invasion. The physical damage would leave permanent, crippling scars even if externally healed. The pill served a similar purpose for her soul, primarily shielding its integrity from being shredded by the metal's aggressive aura.
"I have three of these pills. The effects diminish significantly after the second dose due to rapid tolerance build up. I must succeed this time, on the first major attempt."
Closing her eyes, Su Min accelerated her internal cultivation art, directing the flow of her energy. Violent surges of power clashed within her body as she sought to tame, coax, and finally harmonize with the raging metal. This was the most dangerous and delicate phase, where mere survival was the only goal, leaving her with no spare capacity whatsoever to monitor external events.
Meanwhile, high above on the bone plateau, Tian Hao narrowed his eyes, his senses stretched to their limits.
"The Western Metal's wild aura has vanished, contained within her. She's begun the refinement. I must guard her without fail during this vulnerable period. And..."
His lips curled downwards in a slight frown as he sensed an approaching presence, faint but drawing nearer. The metal's emergence and its subsequent suppression had sent out a pulse, a ripple that had likely alerted every sensitive cultivator in this dead world. But only living, thinking cultivators could respond meaningfully, the half-dead ancient entities were too trapped in their slumber to move freely, while the corrupted beasts lacked the intellect to act on the information.
Sure enough, a middle-aged man in blue robes soon arrived, skimming over the bone peaks, only to freeze in mid air upon seeing Tian Hao's radiant, golden form and the palpable Dao Comprehension pressure he emitted. After a brief, frantic hesitation, the man turned and fled without a word, the stark disparity between his own Divine Transformation late stage and a genuine, battle-ready Dao Comprehension expert was insurmountable.
Yet the tantalizing scent of a heavenly treasure, once released, was too potent to abandon completely. The man's retreat was strategic, not surrender.
Owned treasures, once bonded, could only be envied, as killing the holder wouldn't release them for capture. But unclaimed ones, or ones in the process of being claimed, were considered fair game by the ruthless logic of the cultivation world. Su Min herself had once competed for the Azure Wood against several rivals, including one fool who sought revenge later and was subsequently torn apart by her allies without her even needing to lift a finger.
"Damn that Dao Comprehension expert! Don't think you can protect her forever. Over a hundred cultivators entered this world through various rifts, someone will find a way to seize that treasure."
The man flew off, already planning to gather allies, to form a temporary alliance of desperation.
"A problem. A significant one."
Tian Hao frowned deeply, the lines on his forehead creasing. He clearly recognized the ill intent and the strategy brewing. But he couldn't pursue the man, doing so would leave Su Min completely unprotected during her critical refinement of the notoriously volatile Western Metal, a treasure known to kill its would-be masters if disturbed.
"Hope she doesn't take too long. The vultures are already circling."
He sighed, a low sound swallowed by the vast silence, already anticipating the inevitable, exhausting battles that lay ahead.
Time flowed with a thick, syrupy slowness within the bone amphitheater as Su Min's refinement progressed methodically, a brutal war of attrition fought within the confines of her own body.
Four-colored light now enveloped her in a shimmering, unstable cocoon, white, azure, crimson, and black representing the Four Symbols and their integrated sacred objects. The azure, crimson, and black lights swirled in a coordinated dance, working in concert to besiege, surround, and slowly assimilate the fiercely resistant white core.
Beads of cold sweat covered Su Min's forehead and soaked her hair, her robes thoroughly drenched as if she had been pulled from a river, a extreme rarity for a cultivator whose body had long transcended mundane temperature fluctuations and physical exertions.
"Hurts... so much..."
This deep, grinding agony had persisted relentlessly for what felt like an eternity, a constant companion. This was the most perilous and painful refinement she'd ever attempted, demanding every shred of her willpower and absolute, unbroken concentration.
"I wonder how Tian Hao is faring out there. Just a few more months, I think. I just need a few more months to fully subdue this thing."
Currently focused solely on the internal battle with the metal, Su Min hadn't even begun to touch the actual White Tiger's combat legacy imprinted within it. The Four Symbols' legacies were immensely powerful but heavily restricted, bound inextricably to their specific sacred objects. Without first refining the object, the legacies were worthless, locked away. Once she fully refined the Western Metal's Sharp Gold, no one could steal the legacy from her even if they killed her. Her only concern now was Tian Hao's situation outside her perception.
And reality matched her grim expectations. Outside, on the bone plateau...
"Daoyou, we mean no personal offense. Please step aside. Such heaven-sent treasures belong to the capable, to those with the strength and destiny to claim them."
A sage-looking elder with a long white beard smiled placatingly at Tian Hao, though anyone with keen eyes would spot the naked greed burning like a fever in his eyes. Cultivators might appear refined and detached under normal circumstances, but when supreme legacies and heavenly treasures were at stake, they'd fight like starving wolves, tooth and nail, discarding all pretenses of civility.
Nor was he alone, over a dozen other figures now surrounded the area, having arrived silently from different directions. Each wielded at least a Heaven-grade low-tier artifact and radiated the unstable, pressurized aura of their own half-comprehended Dao principles. All were half-step Dao Comprehension experts, those who had reached the absolute limit of the Divine Transformation stage and needed desperate, heaven-defying measures to advance that final, crucial step.
"Leave. Now. This is your only warning. Or die where you stand."
Tian Hao's disgust was palpable, his voice cold and flat. Unlike Su Min's relatively smooth, resource-backed ascent, his own path had been brutally carved through bloodshed and relentless struggle. Having offended countless powers and young masters during his time on the Golden Core Avenue, he'd faced relentless, vicious retaliation for years afterward. He'd seen far too many of these so-called virtuous elders and righteous patriarchs, spouting noble rhetoric one moment and striking to kill with poisoned techniques the next.
Su Min was different in that regard, he mused. She rarely preached morality or destiny, but when she acted, it was with a clear, pragmatic purpose, and she never pretended it was for anything other than her own or her sect's benefit.
"Young man, though your cultivation level genuinely surpasses ours, do you truly believe you can stop us all, alone? None who come to this graveyard world lack desperation in their hearts. We are all prepared to either reach Dao Comprehension here or die trying. The price of failure is already death. We have nothing left to lose."
The elder's face twisted from its false smile into a mask of grim, fanatical determination. With true Dao Comprehension experts largely unable to enter the unstable world and the journey here being perilous in the extreme, only the truly desperate, those backed into a corner by their failing lifespans or shattered ambitions, undertook it. They were the most dangerous kind of opponent.