Yue Qingqian's journey back to Lesser Peak was the most heart-pounding and thrilling trip of her life.
She placed the petal of the Void Spirit Flower, which was as thin as a cicada's wing yet as heavy as a mountain, into a special jade box gifted by her senior brother that could isolate all auras. She then hugged it tightly to her chest, as if it were not a petal, but her small, fragile heart.
In her mind, the bizarre scene from the core medicine storehouse kept replaying. She had only wanted to "take a look," and they had directly "gifted" her a piece? This was even more outrageous than the stories in the storybooks!
She couldn't help but begin to suspect that besides having unfathomable strength, her senior brother also possessed some kind of incomprehensible power to make his words become reality, a power to "make wishes come true." Otherwise, how could all their plans end up being completed in an even more exaggerated and more favorable way than expected?
With this near-deification of her senior brother in her heart, and a trace of fear for the unknown future, she finally landed in the familiar courtyard of Lesser Peak.
Lin Fan was waiting for her.
He was not sitting in his rocking chair. Instead, he was standing in the center of the courtyard, a rare, solemn expression on his face. He had already raised the defensive arrays of the entire peak to the highest level, and the air was filled with a tangible tension.
Seeing Yue Qingqian return safely, his tense nerves relaxed slightly. He did not ask "how did it go," but directly asked the question that concerned him the most: "Did you leave any loose ends? Were you followed? Did that Elder Liu leave any spiritual sense imprints on you?"
This series of questions warmed Yue Qingqian's heart. She knew that what her senior brother cared about most was never the result of the mission, but her own safety.
"Don't worry, Senior Brother. Everything... everything went smoothly." She collected herself and then, with a solemnity akin to presenting a sacred offering, she handed the special jade box to Lin Fan with both hands.
"Senior Brother... I've brought back the 'goods'."
Lin Fan's pupils contracted instantly.
He slowly took the jade box. Its weight was as light as a feather in his hand, but in his heart, it was as heavy as a great mountain. He opened the jade box, and when he saw the glazed petal lying quietly inside, the space around it slightly distorted by its presence, even his calm-as-an-ancient-well Dao heart couldn't help but quicken his breathing.
However, what followed was not ecstasy, but a bone-deep, overwhelming fear!
"You... how could you... actually bring it back?!" His first reaction was not joy, but horror!
This was the Void Spirit Flower! It was a spatial treasure that would make even Nascent Soul old monsters fight to the death! How could something of this level fall into their hands so easily? This was unreasonable! This was unscientific! This did not conform to the dark forest law of the cultivation world!
"Senior Brother, it... it fell off on its own..." Yue Qingqian quickly recounted the bizarre experience of the "spiritual object choosing its master."
After hearing her story, Lin Fan was completely silent.
He stood there, stunned, the jade box in his hand feeling like a hot iron. After a long while, he let out a long, despairing breath.
"It's over..." he murmured to himself, his face even uglier than when he had heard that his junior sister had been taken as a personal disciple. "This time... it's really over..."
"Senior Brother, isn't... isn't this a good thing? We... we succeeded..." Yue Qingqian asked, confused.
"A good thing?!" Lin Fan almost jumped as if his tail had been stepped on. "Junior Sister, you are still too young! You have no idea what this thing means!"
He paced anxiously in the courtyard, his words coming out as fast as a spell.
"This is not a fortunate encounter; this is the biggest piece of bait with a time bomb attached, thrown down by the Heavenly Dao! It found that the previous small troubles couldn't handle us, so it simply switched to a more insidious strategy! It directly threw us a super treasure that we simply cannot refuse or handle!"
"Think about it, if the aura of this thing leaks out, what will it attract? It will no longer be Yao Kings of the Blackwater Profound Serpent's level! It will be the old monsters who have lived for thousands of years from the entire Southern Domain, and even other continents! At that time, let alone our little Lesser Peak, I'm afraid the entire Sky Profound Sect will be razed to the ground!"
The more Lin Fan spoke, the more afraid he became, and the more he felt he was walking on a tightrope to destruction.
"No! This thing absolutely cannot be kept on my person!" He immediately wanted to throw the jade box away.
But his hand froze in mid-air.
Throw it away? Where to? Something that contains the power of laws, even if he threw it into a spatial rift, it would probably just fly back on its own! Moreover, this was an indispensable core material for their grand "moving" plan!
He couldn't throw it away, but keeping it was like holding a sun that could explode at any moment.
For the first time, Lin Fan was caught in a true predicament, with no way to advance or retreat.
Just as he was in a state of internal conflict, on the verge of a mental breakdown.
A sudden change occurred!
Lin Fan's body stiffened abruptly. He raised his head sharply and looked towards the direction of the sect's main peak, Sky Profound Peak.
At the same time, a vast, ancient, and terrifying spiritual sense, as if it could penetrate all the illusions of the world, silently swept out from the deepest part of Sky Profound Peak like an invisible tide!
This spiritual sense was thousands of times more powerful than the Yao King's pressure of the Blackwater Profound Serpent! It had no violent aura, but it carried an indifferent majesty that overlooked all living beings. It gently swept over every inch of the sect's land, every peak, every disciple...
Finally, this spiritual sense paused for a moment over Hundred Herbs Peak, as if investigating something. Then, it faintly, "glanced" towards the most inconspicuous direction of the Ninth Peak.
Although it was just a glance, both Lin Fan and Yue Qingqian felt as if their souls had been completely seen through!
Lin Fan's face instantly turned deathly pale.
He knew that trouble had truly arrived.
The master of this spiritual sense, his strength had probably already surpassed the Nascent Soul realm, reaching a legendary realm that even he could not accurately estimate!
And the source of his investigation was, without a doubt, the petal that had just detached from the Void Spirit Flower!